Trumansburger Laura Nelkin denies “that my life’s goal is to be a happy hooker”, but she’s been thinking about ways to tie crochet work into her design business, which focuses on knitting patterns, and more generally deals with textiles and apparel. Nelkin graduated with a degree in apparel in 1995, and has settled in Trumansburg, but I only ran across her work today because of a link from Connie Chang Chinchio Designs down in New York City.

It appears that designers in NYC have some appreciation for the fabric of our community, as well as the little houses we have down by the creek.

The protesters complained because, in Keil’s statue, the body of the Virgin of Guadelupe was fashioned out of a Coca Cola bottle. In addition to marching outside the library carrying a crucifix and a statue of the Virgin Mary, the protesters sent a petition, signed by 78 people, demanding that the statue be censored, removed from public display. The petition claimed that the statue, “is a grave dishonor to the image of our Lady because it depicts her as being devoured by a Coke bottle.”

Here you can see a photograph of the statue for yourself. It’s as plain as day that the Coca Cola bottle is not devouring the Virgin of Guadelupe at all. The woman seems quite tranquil, not at all worried about being eaten up by anything. It seems that the protesters didn’t actually bother to look at the piece of art they were protesting.

Anyway, why would it matter if the statue did depict the Virgin of Guadelupe being devoured by a bottle of Coca Cola? Public libraries don’t exist to cater to the religious beliefs of particular groups. Libraries are places where many points of view are on display, so that citizens can consider them, and come to their own conclusions, in freedom. Perhaps a statue of a religious icon being consumed by a commercial icon would represent a message worth contemplating. Such contemplations don’t harm us. On the contrary, they enrich our culture.

The Marcellus Free Library met to consider the petition, and then decided to ignore it. As a free library, that was the proper path. Thanks to the board of the Marcellus library, and thanks to Geri Keil as well, for her creation of a work that encouraged people to critically examine the cultural meaning of religious icons, rather than accepting them without question.

The Alash Ensemble, demonstrating the traditional Tuvan art of throat singing:

(Tuva is a republic within the Russian Federation, just to the north of Mongolia.)

I had never, until tonight, heard of Seegers & Fein Glass, though the couple that make up the business live right here in our town. Their work creating glass paperweights was described in an article in the Lockport Union-Sun and Journal today. The couple showed their work at the Keenan Center 100 American Craftsmen show in Western New York.

I can’t find any website through which Donna Fein and Richard Seegers sell their work themselves, but there are many other merchants who do, and who have web sites where you can view and order the works of Seegers and Fein. For example:

- Greene’s Glass Shop in Florida

- Forward Edge in Nevada

- NJM Gallery in New Hampshire

That makes it the perfect time for the music video I Don’t See Why by Trumansburg’s Radio The Ape – good for Tburg location spotting.

I guess that’s how some people like their music.

It’s maybe a good bit of marketing, then, for the Trumansburg Fair’s Music Night, on August 21, to be described as a post-Festival event. That’s fine, really, given that a lot of the same people who run Grassroots also organize the Music Night at the fair.

Here’s just some of the lineup: “Jeb Puryear, Tara Nevins, Sim Redmond, Hank Roberts, Crow Greenspun, Richie Stearns, Johnny Dowd, Kevin Kinsella, Mary Lorson, J-San, Trevor MacDonald, Rising Sun and E-Rich…”

Those of you who don’t need to put kids to bed before dark let me know how it goes.

My children’s decision to dance isn’t a reflection of a deep understanding of music theory, but it is nonetheless a good sign of music that’s constructed well. They won’t dance to the wandering classical music that plays most of the time on WSKG, and even the hypersurrealist immature electronica of Yo Gabba Gabba fails to inspire them.

Toivo, on the other hand, combines solid folk traditions that have withstood the cultural selection of audiences for hundreds of years. It’s not trendy. It just works. The Laughing Shoe also celebrates our local landscape, with songs like Swamp College Schottische, the Podunk Two-Step and Waterburg Swing.

Tomorrow evening, at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge, there will be a CD Release Party for Laughing Shoe. Another CD release will be held on the 21st at the Pourhouse at 7:00 PM.

I particular, I suggest that you take a look over at her avian flu gallery, which is filled with stark images in Cassetti’s distinctive style, each one combining the concepts of death and fertility, as when a skull emerges from a cracked egg, or when death itself seems to be on the nest.

Beautiful is not the word I’d choose for this particular collection, though it is certainly of worth to behold.

As a small caveat, however, I wonder what Q would do with the concept of an ornithological angel of death delayed, never arriving. What with all the hype about H5N1 plague being only a matter of time, the bird flu has turned out to be a health crisis without much actual sickness.