I expend a lot of energy here in the Public Programs division of ECP waiting for potential speakers to write or call me back. I send out a lot of invitations to artists, writers, critics, etc, asking them to come give a talk at the dear old Walker, and a number of these invitations are met by total silence. No response. Of course, there are always looming deadlines so I follow up with bothersome second and third phonecalls and email messages, some of which also fall into the ether of lost communication. Some days I sit here and am truly baffled, thinking, What is the problem?! Is it not common courtesy to return a kind invitation from a world-class art institution?
Because of this struggle, I would like to make mention of two notable individuals who receive the Public Programs Rapid Responder Award for the 2005 Fall Season. In first place is Rick Levine, of StarIQ.com who responded to my email invitation in 10 mintues. Read it again! 10 minutes!! This is absolutely unheard of in this line of work and his speedy action truly made my day. (I was working with an already well past-due copy deadline) Rick and his friend/colleague Paul O’Brien of Tarot.com will be here in January talking about the meeting of new media technologies and the ancient arts of divination (read: internet astrology, computerized I-Ching, etc) as the final public program for the Huang Yong Ping exhibition. More on them later.
Second prize goes to Howard French, who gets an additional award for being available to speak despite highly unlikely circumstances. (He lives in Shanghai where he reports on China to the New York Times. In other words, a prohibitively expensive plane ticket away.) Again, working under tight deadlines, I fired off an invite to Mr. French a few months ago to see if their might be any chance he would be interested in giving a talk on China, also for the Huang Yong Ping show. He responded in 24 hours, FROM CHINA (okay, maybe the time difference helped) and said, “Well, I happened to be traveling to the U.S. right around the date you offered, to give a talk at the University of Wisconsin. They have already purchased by trans-atlantic flight, perhaps I could travel to Minneapolis sometime during my stay for a lecture.” My jaw dropped. What are the chances? How often do you get Howard French all the way from China for the price of a direct flight to Madison? We are lucky, I tell you.
And good for you, my fortune is your fortune: Mr. French speaks this Thursday, November 3 at 7 pm in the Walker Cinema. Free tickets available starting at 6 pm.