I was apparently on WEMU this morning, talking about the Shadow Art Fair. I still haven’t heard it, but, having talked with the guy producing the piece, it sounds like it should be interesting. For the most part, from what I understand, it’s going to focus on the legacy of the now 50 year old Ann Arbor Art Fair. We probably could have made it a better piece, if we’d said that the Shadow wouldn’t have existed without the Ann Arbor Art Fair, but I don’t think we said that… At any rate, I imagine they’ll air it again, if it’s not already somewhere online… And, right now, at this very moment, on the University of Michigan student-run radio station, WCBN, you can can hear my collaborator Tim Furstnau and me being interviewed by the venerable newsman Mike Perini, who happens, by they way, to emit delightfully intoxicating pheromones. Here, for those of you would would like to listen, are links to that interview.
update: I don’t have time to listen now, but I’m told that you can hear the WEMU piece by clicking here. I’m also told that they will be issuing a more SAF-centric piece on Friday.
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I caught the whole WEMU piece this morning. You sounded good, Mark. Confident, thoughtful, persuasive – good stuff. Made me want to come to the Shadow Art Fair – nice job!
Thank you for that, Rodneyn. As someone who has a pretty acute fear of public speaking, it’s good to hear that I come across well.
As for the WEMU, I guess they used some of my audio for this piece on the 50th anniversary of the Ann Arbor Art Fair, but, from what I’m told, there’s another piece coming out on Friday that’s more focused on the SAF. That one includes audio of my friends Melissa and Jennifer, who plan the Shadow with me.
It’s pretty cool the amount of coverage you get from counter-programming against the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. It makes me wonder if maybe there are other opportunities from “anti-arbor” events. Maybe instead of Top of the Park, we could have Bottom of the Something. Other ideas?
Carie, I think maybe you’re looking for “Bottom of the wretched hive of scum and villainy, party”.
I listened in a bit last night and think the press and attention SAF is getting is fantastic and will definitely create more awareness and bring more people out to Ypsi…
But I’m a little confused because I thought the SAF was the anti-A2 Art Fair(s)? No hype, no promotion, no advertising (other than those rad posters and mm.com) no corporate, no A2. I’m not insinuating an on air interview at WCBN or WEMU is the demise of the SAF, and for all I know you may have done on air promotions before, but I just thought it was interesting.
When I first heard of the SAF I was delivering pie over at Aubree’s a few years back, got a delivery and walked into an absolute nightmare sorting through hundreds of people to try and find the owner of a large BBQ Chicken. I hung out for a bit and bought a couple stickers while I was in there. Can’t wait til Saturday, I’ll be volunteering apparently at the door telling people they can’t come in early. You know, the muscle.
Thanks for the note, Tim… And sorry to hear that you got confused… We don’t pay for advertising. That’s true. We do, however, take advantage of whatever free promotion comes our way. And we’ve done that from the start. The first Shadow Art Fair was sponsored by WCBN. They ran little ads for it that my friend Tim (a different Tim than you) made. And we’ve appeared on the WCBN show Pandora’s Lunch Box before every one, talking about what we’ve got in store for folks. So, that’s nothing new. Maybe you just didn’t notice it, though… But, with all of that said, I do think that it works best when people just fall into it, like you did. That’s the best way.
The Ann Arbor News also has something on the Shadow today.