Let's get this Arty Started

Did I just really write that headline?

Sorry!

Art Around the Park in progress... by Bobby Williams...

A lot of Howling...

A few photos form the Howl! Festival today via Barbara L. Hanson...

Canvassing Tompkins Square Park

Workers started hanging the canvas for Art Around the Park a little after 8 this morning...

...and workers were still at it around 10...

Seems as if there's more canvas up this year too. Anyway, all par of the Howl! Festival.

Countdown to Howl!

Gets under way at 4:30 today.... Here's the schedule.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

Here are some Howl! Festival highlights

[Photo via ~ Joan]

From the EV Grieve inbox yesterday...

I am delighted to send you the updated Schedule of Events for HOWL! Festival 2012 (June 1–3) in Tompkins Square Park. The spirit of Allen Ginsberg comes alive as more than 350 artists, poets, and performers, including youthful new talent, light up the Main and Kid’s Stages and transform the Park into giant artwork infused with the creative energy, flamboyance, and countercultural panache that’s the hallmark of the East Village.

Named the Village Voice’s Best Outdoor Festival 2011, The HOWL! Festival, the quintessential East Village event, features:

· Opening Celebration: A Group Reading of Allen Ginsberg’s HOWL, led by poet Bob Holman, the Festival opens with a “Greek chorus” of poetic voices from Beat to Slam reading their work and culminating with the signature reading of Ginsberg’s Howl.

· The Great HOWL! OUT LOUD Kid’s Carnival offering games, miniature golf, clowns, and fairway attractions; tons of arts and crafts activities including the Kids Around the Park, mask-making, origami, face painting, and more; and continuous entertainment by and for kids including teen heartthrob and straight up rocker Jack Skuller (http://jackskuller.com), Tap City Youth Ensemble, Rosie’s Theater Kids, and the forty piece band, TriBattery Pops.

· CBGB favorites like Deans of Discipline, Bowerty Tones and Sic F*cs .

· Renowned Butoh company Vangeline Theater presenting The Raft of the Medusa, inspired by Gericault’s painting.

· Riki Colon hosts House of HOWL! extravaganza with legendary Voguers and theatrical drag.

· The Hot HOWL! Tea Dance, the Festival's poppin' Disco with DJ Johnny Dynell, and Hip Hop HOWL!

· BANDERA FEVER! "La Reina" Rhina Valentin hosts two days of live music, poetry, art, educational workshops and displays focused on Puerto Rican culture.

· Art Around the Park, a live-action, weekend-long event with more than 140 artists transforming a 900 foot long blank "canvas" in an explosion of color and artistic styles.

· LOW LIFE 6: EAST VILLAGE OTHERS: Jackie Factory’s, Chi Chi Valenti and Johnny Dynell stage a be-in of love and glitter. The Sunday evening climax to HOWL! celebrates the world-changing explosion of East Village culture from 1966-1972 and pays homage to movements and supernovas of the time like The Exploding Plastic Inevitable; Jack Smith; The Fugs; the Yippies; and the Bowery-raised Warhol Superstar, Jackie Curtis.

Find the Howl site with more specifics here.

Open call for Art Around the Park

As we noted yesterday, the Howl! Festival is June 1-3 in Tompkins Square Park. ~ Joan sent along the photo of the poster for Art Around the Park on June 2-3. Check the Howl! website here for more details.

Howl! Festival set for June 1-3

Several readers pointed us to the Howl! Festival's Facebook page... where we found the following announcement posted this morning:

HOWL! Festival 2012 arrives June 1, 2, and 3 in Tompkins Square Park. Non-stop fun and nonsense for kids of all ages~

Check the Howl! website here for more details.

Our previous coverage is here.

Tonight at Theatre 80: Transgendered Jesus, Juggernut and more

[Transgendered Jesus via]

The Howl! Arts month-long benefit supporting HOWL H.E.L.P. is winding down... (H.E.L.P. = Howl Emergency Life Project. Read more about them here.)

And an evening of music and what not tonight: Transgendered Jesus, Juggernut, The Love Butchers & The Blowdryers

8-11 p.m. $10.00 Theatre 80 St Marks, 80 St Marks Place

Find the whole schedule through Monday here.

Tonight at Theatre 80: Jennifer Blowdryer, Richard Kern and 'Story of a Junkie'

We're nearly a week into the Howl! Arts month-long benefit supporting HOWL H.E.L.P.'s (Howl Emergency Life Project. Read more about them here.)

Lots of interesting performances every night at Theatre 80 at 80 St. Mark's Place. Tonight at 8, Jennifer Blowdryer presents 86'd, "rejection stories from a colorful collection of downtown's finest."

Later, director Lech Kowalski will be on hand to introduce his 1980s heroin classic "Story of a Junkie," filmed in the East Village...



Also on the bill — Richard Kern presents his short "Zombie Hype."

The admission is $10. (If you can't make it early, then you can see the films starting at 10:30.) For more info on HOWL! Arts, go here.

A climax to Howl!

East Village-based photographer Stacie Joy shares these photos from Low Life 5: Flaming Queens, the two-hour grand finale to the Howl! Festival last evening...

Revisiting Art Around the Park on a Sunday

Crazy Eddie sends along photos from Art Around the Park today...

And one shot from inside the Howl! Festival...

Melanie also has some photos at East Village Corner... and you can find some photos at One Folded Sunset too...

Madonna, Kate Middleton J. Lo and Lady Gaga in Art Around the Park

If anything, Chico knows SEO!