PAPER PUNK'D Talk about artistic license! Days after WW visual arts critic Richard Speer interviewed local comics artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner for a story on his Sequential Gallery show The Prisoner (see "Life Drawing," WW, July 5, 2006) the artist divulged that he'd lied about the show's central conceit. Alexander-Tanner had touted The Prisoner as a chronicle of his correspondence with an inmate in the Oregon Corrections system, whose identity was being kept secret to protect confidentiality. But at the show's First Thursday opening, and later by email, Alexander-Tanner admitted to Speer and Scoop that he had totally made up his incarcerated pen pal. What?!? He wrote that he was aiming to create "a satire about the self-imposed limitations of the comics medium." (Whatever the hell that means.) Upon learning he'd been punk'd, Speer responded: "I guess this is payback for the excesses of Jayson Blair and Dan Rather.... Certainly there are local artists who have the credentials to perpetrate aesthetic fraud (Brad Adkins and Harrell Fletcher come to mind), but Ryan Alexander-Tanner is not among them.... As noted in my review, the show's eponymous Prisoner is the personification of banality. Now we learn that this banality issues not from an actual inmate, but from between the artist's own ears. Note to Alexander-Tanner: In the unlikely event you get the chance to lie to the press again, at least make your lies more interesting."
PACKAGE DEAL When local filmmaker James Westby (Film Geek) began shooting his new film, The Auteur, this week, his crew was graced with the presence of an unexpected guest on set. It seems legendary porn star Ron Jeremy was doing an in-store appearance at Fantasy for Adults Only's new outlet in Clackamas last weekend. At Jeremy's Fantasy meet-and-greet, Westby approached the hedgehog about making a cameo in his film, which coincidentally also takes place in the world of porn. The XXX-rated thespian accepted the last-minute offer. And yes, Jeremy reportedly keeps it in his pants for this role.
IN MEMORIAM Tom Stormont, age 52, died of a heart attack on June 28. Stormont was a local photographer best remembered as one of the sassy, longtime servers at Rose-Marie Quinn's beloved Vat & Tonsure, the erudite, downtown watering hole that for years was the quintessential hangout for Portland's most cultured classes. He and the Vat are part of a passing generation of Portland that knows what it means to enjoy good conversation and a good glass of wine at the same time. They both are missed.
Ryan Alexander-Tanners' pathetic and cowardly admission of his deceit is a further setback for people, myself included, who have committed so much time to raise public awareness about the virtues of lying. At bars, churches, check-out lines, soft jazz concerts, cutting edge art openings, pretty much anywhere in the city where there is an opportunity for strangers to "communicate" we are always out-numbered and must endure the approbation of the majority (our Chapter rejects the recent trend of "group lying" as a degradation of our core values). We hold that the highest imperative and responsibilty in a conversion is for a speaker to be interesting. In practising our art we are constantly confronted with condescending demands to conform to repressive norms of self-expression. No one ever appreciates, in their smug righteousness, that we are polite enough not to utter to a dull speaker something like "stop boring us with your moronic veracity and get an imagination!".
In our estimation Alexander-Tanners' disgusting betrayal demands a Lie of some magnitude to atone for his crime. I would suggest committing to one of the most demanding for this "un-liar' to redeem himself. It is taken from the 'Extreme Lying' chapter of the De Mendacio text issued by the Governing Mendicants in the 'Don't Ask Me to be Myself Society' (DAMMS). It translates roughly into the 'Safety Deposit Box Lie' named so because the subterfuge must only be revealed after the death of the liar. The details of the Lie are left to the practitioner (lies must express a singular imaginination to be worthy). It is only stipulated that the Lie (or more formally Manifold Perjury) must pervade every aspect of the practitioners life. One of the more significant rules is that no lie, no matter how small, can lie against the Lie. Along with their risk of allowing detection, they are considered crass and diminish the beauty of the detailed construction of the Lie. Not to go on too long but there are sects of adherents who focus almost exclusively on the Aesthetics of the Lie.
If it is revealed that Alexander-Tanner was, in fact, lying about his lie then I salute him. But if he is that brilliant he already knows that I am lying.