Press Coverage

By Don Wilcock
Joe Abbey is a white, self-proclaimed agnostic who also happens to be the lead guitarist in an otherwise all African American regional gospel group, The Heavenly Echoes.

Far from being the infidel in a field of holy men, Abbey fits right in with his band of proselytizers who struggle like all of us to keep their act together in a world gone mad. Joe also is a middle-aged RPI graduate who loves the Rolling Stones and fronts a blues band called JV and The Cutters.

It is Joe’s blues band that will share the stage with Thomasina Winslow and Mother Judge on Friday as part of Troy’s Sanctuary for Independent Media’s Live From Lock One concert series.

One of the reasons Joe never rose to the top in the music business is his own attitude. "If everybody else is a great cook, at least let me bring the plates," he says, explaining that he lacks the technical expertise — and the patience — to learn other people’s songs to perform in a jam situation. Instead, while others would try to trace the Allman Brothers’ guitar prints through "Whipping Post" endlessly week after week, Joe kept coming up with originals. "It was easier for me to make something up than it was to copy or learn something," he says.

World War Three Illustrated is so much more than a comic book. It's an anthology of left-wing visual thought on the politics of our day. Since 1980, it has attempted to "shine a little reality on the fantasy world of the American kleptocracy."
    
This weekend, it will be taking over the Sanctuary for Independent Media, with covers from 30 years filling the walls, live music, multimedia presentations, puppetry and workshops (on Sunday).

The gala celebrates the magazine, which includes the work of Peter Kuper, Rebecca Midgal, Sandy Jimenez, Mac McGill and Seth Tobocman, who will project his comics with live spoken word and music by Eric Blitz, Andy Laties and Zef Noise.

On Sunday, the World War Three events continue with a panel discussion and workshop called "Be The Media! Visual Journalism: Comics and Graphic Novels."

The discussion on zines and comix, and collaborative workshop to make a digital mini-comic, will be led by Midgal, Jimenez and Tobocman. Registration available online.

-- Staff reports

By Elizabeth Floyd Mair

In the feature film "My Suicide: A Self-Inflicted Comedy," a teenage boy announces in media class that he plans to kill himself on camera as his final project. Some classmates cheer him on and encourage him to end it all, while others try to talk him out of it, and still others seek him out as a kindred spirit. His parents send him to one counselor after another, but most of the advice he receives from adults feels like cliched catchphrases and has little impact.  Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, the film finds its comedy -- dark comedy, to be sure -- in the story of the boy's inner journey as he grapples with the kinds of existential questions teenagers deal with as part of growing up.

Director David Lee Miller said recently by phone from his studio in California that the film isn't really about suicide. "Hitchcock always talked about the McGuffin. It's not necessarily the subject of the picture; it's what the picture revolves around. I do not consider our movie to be a suicide movie. Our film's a narrative story about the teen condition."

By TOM KEYSER, Staff writer

When administrators at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute expelled an exhibition two years ago because of concerns it was connected to terrorists, the exhibition quickly found a home. The Sanctuary for Independent Media opened its arms.

Situated in an old church in Troy, the sanctuary found itself on the news pages, an unusual happenstance for an arts-and-media center that presents work that the traditional media usually won't touch. It allowed the Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal to display "Virtual Jihadi," in which he cast himself as a suicide bomber on a mission to assassinate President Bush.

Protestors, supporters and reporters showed up. But then, the sanctuary slipped back out of the public eye. For many, that's all they know about the place. We sat down with Steve Pierce, executive director, and Branda Miller, arts and education coordinator (and professor of media arts at RPI), to find out more.

The sanctuary is a project of the nonprofit New York Media Alliance. It has operated for five years, relies heavily on volunteers and presents music, films, exhibits, workshops, talks and plays. Its spring season has just started.

Q: How do you decide your season?