Arts DEVOté

I <3 freshman composition and Van Halen
How is it possible that in all of Arts DEVOté’s years of sitting in classrooms, before and during college, he never once actually witnessed anyone carving those ubiquitous deep-rutted engravings into the top of the student desks? Carving “WEED RULES!” into a tabletop would have to be loud work, unless the artist were some kind of Escape From Alcatraz genius, cutting away imperceptible bits over the course of several years.

Thanks to two of A.D.’s favorite humans in the history of humans, you will soon have a chance to take a closer look and discuss the possibilities for yourself. Chico State graphic design major (and that dude from the Pageant Theatre) Jeremy Golden has teamed up with Instructional Media Center designer Chris Ficken to curate Lecture Notes: Drawings, Doodles, and Engraved Desktops at the Humanities Center Gallery (opening March 4, with a reception March 5, 5-7 p.m.).

The exhibit includes a bunch of old desktops recovered during a remodel in Ayres Hall that “exhibit a strata of random comments—made by fraternity members, musicians and other persons sidetracked by life.”

“I’m gonna itch me where it scratches”
Remember Dr. Hook? They sang about being “on the cover of the Rolling Stone” in the ’70s. Remember Shel Silverstein? He wrote Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree. Remember Dr. Hook’s creepy song with disturbing lyrics by Silverstein called “Freakin’ at the Freakers Ball”? (“White ones, black ones, yellow ones, red ones / Necrophiliacs looking for dead ones / The greatest of the sadist and the masochists too / Screaming ‘Please hit me, and I’ll hit you’” Remember that?)

Starting today (Feb. 21) the Blue Room pays homage to this renaissance weirdo with Shel’s Shorts, a series of Silverstein’s witty and twisted scenes featuring “canine husbands, killer ducks, finger-eating creatures and living garbage.”

Artist Guy
Thank you, Guy B. Morey, for being the only artist to respond to A.D.’s call to send him free art (the rest of you are on notice). It’s not the first free art with which Morey has blessed the CN&R. Arts Editor Mark Lore has a desk full of past drawings/political cartoons and caricatures of local newsmakers, and today’s featured piece appears to be part of Morey’s long-running series paying tribute to Chico’s home-grown starlet Amanda Detmer.

Bi-weekly devotions
• Public Art Policy Committee: Meets Thursdays, Feb. 21 and 28, 5 p.m. in City Council Building, 421 Main St.

• Holy Modal Rounders: Born to Lose : Tues., Feb. 26, 7:30 p.m., part of University Film Series in Ayres 106 on the Chico State campus.

• Funding for Arts Organizations: Deadline for applications for city funding is Fri., Feb. 29. Visit www.chico.ca.us for forms, or call 896-7205 for info.

• Greendance Film Fest (formerly Ch-Eco Film Fest) is still accepting artwork for its Art Event at Urban Roost (showing throughout fest, Feb. 28-March 2). Contact info@greendancefilmfest.org.