Fifty-seven years old and a fit, striking presence, Tim O’Kane appears much younger than his age despite his grey hair, pulled back into a short ponytail that hangs taut above the collar of a blue rugby shirt. O’Kane offers Curtain Calls a quick tour around his home studio. A few additional items around the room evoke youth: a photo of a man resembling O’Kane but years younger (his son, Morgan O’Kane, of Casa de Chihuahua, who, Tim tells CC, is recording an album at Monkeyclaus) and a 1962 Ludwig Silver Sparkle drum kit. "A great workout, if you play hard and fast enough," O’Kane says.Then O’Kane upends the hourglass and shows CC "The Lemon Orchard," a cracked, piecemeal painting of a man presenting his back to the painter, his face to a pasture of lemon trees. A quick glimpse around the room and now more signs of age loom—more paintings in various states of natural decay, time almost visibly fleeing their surfaces.
"The thing that you’ll notice about this is that it looks like an old fresco," O’Kane says, guiding Curt back to "The Lemon Orchard." Curt, reasonably sure that a Fresco is the grapefruit-flavored soda he consumed with his lunch, nods. O’Kane explains himself further.
"But it’s all faux."
Curt nods again.
"There are no cracks in that picture."
One more nod, but now we’re getting somewhere.
O’Kane’s latest exhibit, "Time Enough," opens on Thursday, December 6, at the C&O gallery space. Unlike O’Kane’s hyper-realist depictions of, say, Italy, where he has travelled frequently during the last 15 years, his paintings for "Time Enough" work in two styles, realism and blatant foolery. These "faux frescos," actually quite sturdy, seem anywhere from years to moments away from falling apart, much like the namesake Italian paintings composed on plaster surfaces.
What’s more, O’Kane’s exhibit is a smaller component of a larger goal—the publishing of a novel, also titled Time Enough, for which a selection of these frescos has been created for inclusion. O’Kane took a break from exhibitions two years ago to complete a novel, the story of an artist reaching his later years, travelling to Italy and finding a salvation of sorts. O’Kane shows CC more paintings, details of pieces by Botticelli (In brief: he painted that picture of a naked woman standing on a clam), Duccio and Caravaggio‘s painting of Saint Matthew that look as if they’ll flake off their canvases.
Audiences may get their first glimpse at O’Kane’s book through his art, that fresco combo of "fresh" and mortal, at C&O starting Thursday.
Really old
When 90-year-old author and screenwriter Millard Kaufman talks about episodes of his life, he gives pure anecdotal gold—he connects his involvement with the Writer’s Guild of America to the current TV writer’s strike by noting that writers get "the shitty end of the stick," and once ingested cobra venom at the request of a drug company. Additionally, Kaufman was a co-creator of the cartoon character "Mr. Magoo" and wrote numerous screenplays, including Bad Day at Black Rock, a World War II film that starred Spencer Tracy.
 From Charlottesville to Iraq, though he’s been neither: Ninety-year-old author Millard Kaufman explains why the protagonist of his debut novel is from our neck of the woods. Kind of. |
So when Kaufman published his debut novel at the age of 90 (the inventively crude and enjoyable Bowl of Cherries) and wrote that his protagonist (precocious ex-grad student Judd Breslau) was born in Charlottesville before finding himself, by way of pornography and love, in a prison in Iraq, Curt imagined a story of epic proportions that perhaps placed Kaufman in Charlottesville.
Über-hip publishing house McSweeney’s passed the nonagenarian’s number along to CC and quelled Curt’s concerns about calling Kaufman at his home, writing via e-mail that his wife was good about getting the writer his messages. A few numbers later and CC went live with Kaufman in Los Angeles, California, to find that…
"Actually, I’m not familiar with any area in that part of the country," says Kaufman. "With the exception of Baltimore, which I got the hell out of as soon as I could."
Curt asks Kaufman why he would put the birthplace of a brilliant (if a bit petulant and/or sexually voracious) character such as Breslau in Charlottesville. "That’s one of those questions I wish to hell I could answer," says Kaufman. But then the lively author continues.
"I wanted him to come from an area that was neither North nor South. I wanted him to be kind of deviant in every which way, including the fact that he wasn’t from New York, he wasn’t from Miami, he wasn’t from Chicago or L.A. And I thought Charlottesville sounded nice."
A McSweeney’s video interview with Millard Kaufman. |
And the stories keep on: Kaufman shares that his father was born in Gordonsville, Virginia, where he lived until age 14, at which point he ran away to become a cowboy. Deviant as Kaufman’s Charlottesville character may be, he’s got nothing on his creator’s story.
Paramountains and mole hills
A few months after Curt’s exultant announcement of Ed Rucker as president of The Paramount Theater and we’ve seen too many familiar faces among the fall performance offerings. CC called an emergency meeting with Rucker (all right, he called Curt. Sheesh.) to discuss programming plans for the spring.
As it turns out, Rucker had just finished printing figures for the Paramount’s first three years of business. A total of 450 events drew 197,000 patrons (122,000 from the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County combined) into the venue in three years.
"This is a great time to find out what worked, what [we] shape up better, when do [we] go up against the Pavilion?" says Rucker.
Although only one act in recent memory (Ryan Adams, drug-free but still recovering from life, to Curt’s knowledge) has played both venues, it occurs to your narrator that there might not be much competition between Crowd A (Likes: Sugar-free soda, hard candies, classical music) and Crowd B (Likes: "Freebird," hard rock, VH1 Classic). CC will leave you to guess which crowd is which.
Taking Rucker’s lead, here are a few acts recently announced for 2008, with tickets going on sale to the general public on January 8 (and Paramount members buying up seats starting December 10):
What will work…again: Doc Watson, Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, The Temptations.
Rockin’ choices: Blues virtuoso Taj Mahal; "One Night of Queen," featuring Gary Mullen and the Works covering "Somebody to Love" an, ohgodyesplease, "Bicycle Race."
Question marks?: A musical based on Katie Couric‘s children’s book, The Brand New Kid; Martin "Still Around, Apparently" Short.
Satisfied? Furious? Better ideas? E-mail curtain@c-ville.com.
