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    Something (rather than nothing)

    Why is there something rather than nothing? This podcast is a philosophical and psychological exploration into the act of creation (poets, musicians, writers, painters, thinkers, all of us) by: Ken Volante
    enSomething (rather than nothing)256 Episodes

    Episodes (256)

    Philip Barasch

    Philip Barasch

    Philip Barasch has maintained a lifelong interest in sequential art. He is the creator of HandHewn, a magazine designed to explore the Graphic Short Story art form. His years in Portland, Oregon included involvement with The Stumptown Comic Book Convention, Sequential Art Gallery and Talisman Gallery. Philip and his wife, Charis, relocated to Astoria, Oregon in 2018. Charis departed this world in 2022, radically altering Philip's art form. He is now creatively consumed by this forced, revolutionary reinvention.

    SRTN Podcast

    Nicholas Tamagna

    Nicholas Tamagna

    Guest host Kinneret Ely interviews opera star Nicholas Tamagna

    Nicholas Tamagna’s meteoric rise in recent years has made him one of the world’s most fascinating alto voices. Highlights of the last few seasons were undoubtedly his interpretation of Ermano in the award-winning CD recording of Gismondo, re di Polonia (Leonardo Vinci) on the Parnassus label and its extensive concert tour, his MET debut in March 2020 in Sir David’s McVicar’s re-visited production of Händel’s Agrippina as Narciso, at the side of Joyce DiDonato, Harry Bicket, Kate Lindsey and Brenda Rae as well as the worldwide cinema broadcast of the performance and his spectacular interpretation of the Händel roles Ruggiero in Alcina and Silvio in Il Pastor Fido at the Händel Festival in Halle, Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Göttingen Händel Festival, and most recently his debut at Bayreuth Baroque 2022 as Timagene in the highly-acclaimed production of Vinci’s Alessandro nell’Indie from Max Emanuel Cenčić, at the side of Bruno de Sà, Franco Fagioli, and Jake Arditti. In future seasons, he will be heard at such prestigious houses as San Francisco Opera, Israeli National Opera in Tel Aviv, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria, Pinchgut Opera in Sydney, Australia, and Bayreuth Baroque.

    SRTN Podcast

    Chimen Georgette Kouri

    Chimen Georgette Kouri

    Chimen Kouri is a writer based in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey. Her work has been featured in Goat’s Milk Magazine, Blood Moon Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and more. She fell in love with storytelling one Christmas morning during a power outage when she and her parents laid in bed while her father told stories about his life in Lebanon. She is currently writing two full-length poetry and prose collections, What Haunts Me the Most and The Old Dutchburn House, and her first novel, Miss America Is Burning. When she isn’t writing, you can find her cuddling her dogs and cats and rewatching The Last Kingdom on Netflix. For more of her work, check her out on Instagram 

    SRTN 

    TJ McGowan

    TJ McGowan

    TJ McGowan aka The Everyday Bite is a Bronx based writer, poet, and spoken word artist who has performed all over the Tri-State. His written work has been published in Flash Fiction Mag, Collective Unrest, 35MM, Mojave Heart, Vamp Cat, United: Red, BX Writers, to name a few. His body-autonomy poem, I Am Not Her Bones, and its incendiary performance was recipient of the 2019 Poem of the Year at the Word Masters Poetry Gala. The written version can be found in Wide Eyes Publishing's anthology, War Crimes Against the Uterus.

    He has one full-length poetry collection, We Are Not One Thing, currently available for purchase. In addition to that, he is one half of the the trip-rock poetry and meditative metal duo, Subtle Bodies, most recently writing/directing the short poetic film for their debut EP, Apocalyptic Hearts.

    When not slinging poetry or music, he spends his days as an Associate Producer for a Film & TV company based in NYC, contributing to script and creative copy on most of the productions that pass through the doors. He is also way more interesting than this bio, so come out to one of his shows and chop it up with him. Contrary to the stage name, he does not bite...unless provoked.

    SRTN Podcast

    Olivia Britz-Wheat

    Olivia Britz-Wheat

    Mortal Emblem owner Olivia Britz-Wheat is a multimedia artist who has been tattooing for over 15 years in Portland. She hails originally from Colorado, attended college in Missoula, Montana until learning how to tattoo under Phil Roberson and Jed Dillon.

    Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation and regale in thoughts about art, Depeche Mode, Portland, The Lloyd Center mystique and VHS love.

    SRTN Website

    Cheeky Fun with Riccelle and Chelsea of Baroque B*tches Podcast

    Cheeky Fun with Riccelle and Chelsea of Baroque B*tches Podcast

    ART FUN w/ Riccelle and Chelsea - hosts of the Baroque B**ches Podcast!

    How much fun can you have on a podcast? I dunno but this was hella fun. Join this wildly ranging art, life, and raunch conversation to discover what you did not want to know but, really, c'mon, you actually really did want to know.

    Art Scholarship for the People!!!

    BB Website up in here

    SRTN Website


    Elizabeth Coplan

    Elizabeth Coplan

    Death is the high cost of living. The weight of that knowledge can feel crippling but is it there we find the deepest and most important knowledge of how to live?

    After tragedy struck in 2013, Elizabeth Coplan turned to writing to express her personal grief. She wrote many published essays, and later, after experiencing three losses in less than a year, she turned to writing plays focused on this global experience known as death. In 2016, Elizabeth developed the groundbreaking play, Grief Dialogues, and built the nonprofit Grief Dialogues, a theatrical movement creating new conversations about dying, death, and grief.

    Elizabeth is the script consultant, director, and producer for Juntos Nos Ayudamos/Better Together, a film about a Hispanic family surviving suicide. She is also the creator and the co-host of the podcast, Out of Grief Comes Art, and the Executive Producer of 8 AM, an award-winning short film on traumatic loss.

    ’Til Death, Elizabeth’s full-length play about one mother’s choice that unveils a family’s long-buried secrets, opens Off-Broadway in November 2023 under the direction of Chad Austin, Producing Director of the Abingdon Theatre. The play stars Two-Time Tony Award Winner Judy Kaye, Tony Award Nominee Robert Cuccioli, with Whitney Morse, Dominick LaRuffa Jr., Michael Lee Brown, TV and film star Amy Hargreaves.

    In addition to an updated production of Grief Dialogues scheduled to open in New York City 2024, Elizabeth is currently working on The Book Club, a new play highlighting the lives of five senior women. She is collaborating with Ina Chadwick on The a Chronicles, a theatrical series of stories that spark conversations about women’s reproductive rights, and on a TV sitcom pilot Act Three, a coming-of-age story about a late-in-life emerging playwright. All before she turns 70 in June 2024.

    Elizabeth Coplan 

    SRTN Website

    Katherine Yeske Taylor

    Katherine Yeske Taylor

    Katherine Yeske Taylor began her career as a rock critic in Atlanta in the 1990s, interviewing Georgia musical royalty such as the Indigo Girls, R.E.M., and the Black Crowes while still a teenager. Since then, she has conducted several hundred interviews and contributes regularly to Billboard, Flood, Spin, and American Songwriter, among others. She is a longtime New York City resident and is extremely active in the downtown rock scene.

    SRTN Website

    Kola Shippentower

    Kola Shippentower

    Shippentower signs with the Oregon Ravens

    Kola Shippentower is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She has co-founded and is the Director of The Wisáwca Project - Enough Iz Enough, a non-profit organization working together for change, for better communication and involvement.

    Kola has developed a Safety Plan to be utilized by anyone in identifying safety methods, contacts, and procedures to keep one safe whether in an abusive relationship or a plan to track a missing person. She is a professional fighter and brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. 

    Welcome back to the show Kola!!!

    Waymakers Ravens Video

    Oregon Ravens

    SRTN Website

    Katy Tessman

    Katy Tessman

    Minnesota musician, Katy Tessman is an optimistic and approachable singer-songwriter with a voice full of the wisdom she’s gained through cancer survival, heartbreak, and motherhood. Her powerful vocals and rhythmic approach to guitar (or mandolin) express a straight-from-the-heart songwriting style that moves passionately over diverse emotional and musical terrain.

    SRTN Podcast

    Meghan Lamb

    Meghan Lamb

    Meghan Lamb is the author of COWARD (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022), Failure to Thrive (Apocalypse Party, 2021), All of Your Most Private Places (Spork Press, 2020), and Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace, 2017). She served as the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, and teaches creative writing through the University of Chicago, Story Studio, and GrubStreet. Her work has appeared in Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and Passages North, among other publications. She runs the shadow text reading series Significant Others, a project dedicated to elevating new books and the “behind-the scenes” texts that inspired them. She is the fiction editor for Bridge (a Chicago-based arts publication) and the nonfiction editor for Nat. Brut, a Whiting Award-winning journal of art and literature dedicated to advancing inclusivity in all creative fields. She is also the frontwoman of Kill Scenes, an 80s cinema-inspired band described as "a beguiling combination of The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Tangerine Dream fronted by an unholy conflation of Siouxsie Sioux, Kate Bush, and Diamanda Galás."

    Something Rather Than Nothing 

    GLÜME

    GLÜME

    GLÜME is an art phenomenon. Whether she was plucked from the astral planes or the near-dream world she occupies a unique space in the heart.

    Her album MAIN CHARACTER is a subtle and attractive dark-pop trance. HEAVEN makes you bounce as you slightly weep and pray your rosary. 

    Dream of your car floating in the clouds as you listen to THE QUEEN OF L.A.

    Philosophy, artist-blue-balls, Marilyn Monroe, goddesses, dream-worlds, OnlyFans and the redirection of music revenue as a radical body-act are included in this Christmas present to you!

    Playgirl Records

    Spotify

    SRTN Website

    Stephen Pellnat

    Stephen Pellnat

    Stephen Pellnat "I have been making comics for as long as I can remember understanding the written language. I received my formal education at the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 2005 to 2009, graduating with a Bachelor’s of the Fine Arts. I have self published comics for years, including Kitty of the Dead, Ma, Heaven and now, Upstate. I have been featured in a number of promotional campaigns in the northeast, including the tours of Klezwoods and Cocek Brass Band. I provided album artwork for Klezwoods’ Album Toy Monkey and Cocek Brass Band’s album Here Comes Shlomo. Upstate is my latest work, and the work I’m proudest of to date.

    I was born in Albany, New York in 1987. I grew up in the town of Stuyvesant New York, a location which may have partially inspired the fictional town of Heinrichville. I currently live in Portland, Oregon, which is not, at the time of this writing, aflame. I have a wife and a cat. I dislike parties and desperately want to be liked. I am not good about updating my website bio."

    SRTN WEBSITE


    Zora von Pavonine

    Zora von Pavonine

    Surrounded by animals, held most dear was the peacock family that allowed her to follow them around, telling stories, inventing all kinds of life. 

    Zora von Pavonine spent her teenage chapter foreshadowing her eventual participation in burlesque with another solo activity crafted beautifully from the mind and body, performing as a decorated cross country and track athlete, breaking records and holding others to this day.  Her deep appreciation for this output, mental tenacity, just the self and the body, stuck with her long after she left the track and immersed herself fully in hip hop dance.  She found grounding and heaven in hip hop and had been teaching the format for years when she found burlesque and she knew: she knew she had mined the gem, a dynamite composition of effort, passion, expression and self.

    A published poet, holder of a handful of intellectual property patents and a few degrees in the creative arts, Zora needles on towards creating smart, impassioned acts wrapped in costumes that speak to her tremendous love of fashion and design, reflective of her hip hop roots and the unmistakable dedication of a distance runner… It has been said that her sparkle can be seen from outer space; it has been rumored that one night in Zora’s audience will have you discovering confetti in all your places for a month on… with pasties so small, even the most veteran of show-goers blush, they come to see the tease and leave with an eyeful of feathers… she is the Girl With The Peacock Tattoo.

    Zora was initially featured on SRTN Episode 10

    Zora's Aura

    SRTN Website

    Salo Panto

    Salo Panto

    Salo Panto is: Joe Garwig, Max Doyle, Ed Beach, and David Kudelka  

    Since 2015, Salo Panto has been exploring and bending every corner of the rock genre. Rooted in psychedelia with a stage presence that will blow your hair back, commonly being described as “a sight to behold”. Their technical skill and original hooks play homage to the legends of rock while transforming the genre into something new entirely. These chameleons can be found anywhere from the alternative radio waves to a doom show lineup, specially curating their sound for every performance, creating an atmosphere that is infectious and inclusive, all for the love of music.  

    The band has frequented many premier venues in Portland such as Rontoms, Doug Fir and Dante’s. In 2023 they’ve added notable notches to their belt by performing four dates at the Rose Festival, Lose Yr Mind Fest and releasing their debut full-length album, “Parallel Narratives” on Literal Gold Records.

    Salo Panto Bandcamp

    SRTN Wesbite

    Salisha Old Bull

    Salisha Old Bull

    Salisha Old Bull (Salish/Crow) is an Indigenous artist based in Montana. She creates a diverse array of art genres but has an affinity to beadwork.

    "I am motivated by the Salish history and Indigenous place-based knowledge. I have learned that place gives a sense of self and allows a person to grow intellectually and continue to explore their possibilities in life. I feel that cultural preservation is a strong influence in my life, and I enjoy combining imagery that reflects cultural values. I use beadwork as an expression of the nature that reflects my tribal heritage. My craftsmanship cannot be possible without the upbringing and teaching of my grandmother, Rachel Arlee Bowers.

    I adore beadworking but, also enjoy integrating other genres such as photography, painting, and hint of digital art.

    Artistry has been something of a culmination of my academic studies over the years combined with my love for my Bitterroot Salish cultural values and practices. In my time in higher education one of the best moments was learning about place-based education and its interesting relevance to Indigenous ways of knowing.

    The basic idea of place-based education and its connection to traditional ecological knowledge is uncanny. Many Indigenous people once depended solely on their environment in reciprocal manner and this was how people were educated. Each person acquired a strength and skill set and most people had an educated connection to the land. This land is what gives a person a strong sense of self-identity. Being grounded allows a person to go forward in life and continue to grow intellectually and explore beyond their basic needs. By evoking this motivation to solidify personal, tribal self-identity, I feel that artistry can empower individuals and empower and motivate them to seek more land knowledge—traditional ecological knowledge.

    My overall vision is to create contemporary art, combining traditional, flat-stitch, two-needle, beadwork, with current photography and photo editing techniques. I want to capture the past, the present, and the significance of places that hold deep-seeded history for the Bitterroot Salish. I think by capturing past images and present images with traditional beadwork I can evoke this emotional response and help people to think of their roots and how they can continue to learn the historical context of our land and its ties to our existence. I hope to motivate people to recapture knowledge that is almost gone and revive it by passing it onto younger generations."

    Salisha Old Bull website

    SRTN Website

    Suziey Block is a Scream Queen

    Suziey Block is a Scream Queen

    Welcome back Suziey!

    Recorded in a Russian cemetery in Portland, Oregon.

    Suziey Block kills it in the found footage insta-classic Horror in the High Desert

    Her performance in ‘Entrance’ is a haunting tour-de-force

    Suziey was last featured on SRTN Episode 194!

    And you heard it here - Suziey Block is the official SRTN podcast SCREAM QUEEN (statue in development) . . . 

    And we had some good ol' fashioned horror talk and we mutually developed a LABOR screed.

    SRTN Website