FREE EXPOSURE: Say cheeeese. It’s kitsch week on cable. IX TV is hauling north next week to do a story on collector Mark Waskow, whose weird assortment of ad icons are currently under glass at the Fleming Museum. Bad taste maker Ed Owre is also expecting a televised visit —- the art professor doubles as curator of the on-campus kitsch museum. Hopefully the camera will also find Fleming curator Janie Cohen, the 39-year-old wonder woman who sees art in Picasso prints and scrubbing bubbles. If anyone deserves credit for new-found Fleming fame, she does. Her contemporary sensibilities are putting Vermont on the map. They also landed her in the current issue of Art News, in a photo with Fleming director Ann Porter and German art collector Peter Ludwig. The Fleming fares just fine in the article noting its special “alliance” with the Picasso-loving chocolatier. It’s distinguished as “the only United States museum to have attracted his attentions.” Sweet deal.
BOOK ENDS: The volunteer-run Brautigan Library was always an anomaly — a cult repository for unpublished manuscripts as imagined by the author of The Abortion and the better-known Trout Fishing in America. Burlington entrepreneur Todd Lockwood brought the whacky concept to life way before its time. Now his book-lined brainchild on College Street is short on trustees. Says Lockwood, “We haven’t been able to find people who are like we were five years ago.” Earlier this month, the board made an existential decision to move the books, mayonnaise jars and Brautigan paraphernalia to a place where people get paid to watch the stacks. “We approached three libraries about it, says Lockwood, “and they were all intrigued” by the idea of taking on the collection as a permanent exhibit. By the end of the year, the Brautigan will be accepting-Submissions over the Internet. “It’s the best of all possible endings to this story,” Lockwood says. The lucky new location will be announced later this week.
HOME BASE: Vermonters were all over the New Yorker “home” issue last week. Author Jamaica Kincaid contributed an article about her hilltop house that reads more like a love story than a real estate saga. In it Kincaid gives major credit to its builder, Robert Woodworth, and the view of Mount Anthony. Charlotte-based landscape architect Dan Kiley also made the mag for what could be his “most important private commission” to date. The octogenarian garden artist is hard at work on a 375-acre estate in Dutchess County, New York, The writer compares it to “Vaux-le-Vicomte.” Nice gig.
HOT LICKS: A lot of ice cream has gone down since the New Republic trashed Ben and Jerry in a conspiracy-theory cover-story entitled “The Evil Empire.” Last week Ben Cohen responded with a “poem to the editor,” which makes light of the allegations in six rhyming stanzas. The penultimate couplet is the best: ‘Doing good’s just a con, you say in your canto. Leave the real work to GM, Mobil and Monsanto. Guess the ice cream man still knows a thing or two about marketing. …One hundred eighty-two is not exactly the top of the charts. Especially in the College Music Journal ratings. But it’s good news for Burlington cartoonist- musician James Kochalka. His new album, The True Story of James Kochalka Superstar, is getting pretty good play on college stations around the country. Nationwide feedback? “He is whacky, but not stupid whacky,” “Oh, that was funny but unairable,” and the more typically collegiate, “I love that fucking album.” Kochalka is thrilled. “A few deejays have gotten sort of fanatical about it,” he says.
This article appears in October 18 • 1995.
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