outsiderart

Taylor tells Josie about June and Jennifer Gibbons, the infamous "silent twins." Plus: why the number 13 is so unlucky.

I sat with Valérie to better know her curating process. Objects can speak when they resonate. When she curates an exhibition, she tries to make them resonate with the larger audience. 

Today’s story is about a family business that sells nothing. Alan Zorthian and his daughter, Caroline, are the owners and operators of Zorthian Ranch. It’s hard to say what their jobs actually are – other than being Zorthians.

Alan’s father, the artist Jirayr Zorthian, built the ranch more than seventy years ago. It resembles a sprawling village built of out of driftwood and washing machines, perched on the northeastern edge of L.A., beyond Pasadena and Altadena, over a wobbly bridge and up a dirt path.

Jirayr Zorthian’s most famous work of art was this ranch – the homemade buildings and sculptures as much as the legendary parties he threw there: parties where Charlie Parker performed to an increasingly naked audience; parties where Andy Warhol and Richard Feynman rubbed shoulders with Buckminster Fuller, and they all wandered around amid the goats and the bees and the artful piles of junk.

The ranch’s future is uncertain, and so The Organist sent a radio producer, Jen Rice, to find out what remains of Zorthian’s weird legacy.

Photos of Zorthian Ranch by Jen Rice and Amanda Siegel.

The story of Chris Stroffolino, who describes his journey from academia — writing Cliffs Notes to Shakespeare, teaching Creative Writing at NYU — to the downtown poetry scene of the 90s, to playing in the Silver Jews on their great 1998 album American Water, to a bicycle accident and eventual self-enforced homelessness – where he currently lives in a 1983 Ford Econoline van retrofitted with a piano in the back, performing for pedestrians. CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES. 

Produced by David Weinberg.

 

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of David Weinberg

A day on the streets of New York with the singular Alabama musician and artist Lonnie Holley. Holley always sang while making his junkyard assemblages out of objects including pick-axes and buckets, but it wasn't until the age of sixty-two that he began releasing records and performing live, both of which caught the attention of a younger generation of musicians (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Black Keys) who have since become his collaborators.

This episode also features a world-premiere of Apologies, a very short radio play written by Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag) and Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live), who together make the sketch-comedy show Portlandia on IFC. The play was performed by Tig Notaro (This American Life, The Sarah Silverman Program) and Kevin Corrigan (The Departed, Pineapple Express, Buffalo 66).

This episode of the Organist was produced by Ross Simonini. The Organist is produced by Simonini along with Jenna Weiss-Berman and Andrew Leland.

Banner Image Credit: Matt Arnett