bumbershoot... is... over...

it was a wild three days - or rather 8 months - of planning, sweating, cooking, filming, damn - i am still too exhausted to write much more than that - it left me very fulfilled and completely spent.

we are working on post production - and should soon have remarkable sound and video of:
matthew caws of nada surf
enchanting musical rants by the nick jaina band
genius award winner rebecca brown singing paul revere
wunderkind photographer chase jarvis
tilson of the saturday knights
the maldives getting sentimental
a brilliant sly contribution by a hero of mine chip kidd

and dozens of others ranging from age 8 to age 88 (how old is deedee rainbow?) drawing attention at the table and contributing some damn moving shit about 1968.

and since i don't have anything finished to show yet - here is link to some initial photos from drew and a new video from the first songs for eating and drinking dinner - featuring ritchie of loch lomond singing his pretty heart out.



videos of stone gossard, arthur and yu, the saturday knights, head like a kite, fences, plus insanely beautiful pics, recipes, at songsforeatinganddrinking.com

and to close the bshoot post... a huge shout out to:

the bumbershoot production crew who ended up being remarkably supportive - matt stegner who spent a multitude of hours capturing some brilliant audio recordings - michael and wendy on cameras, holly, stephanie, theo, johnathan, alicia, rachel, emily, matt, erin, juniper, amy, drew, dustin, the ice cream man.. i am missing someone - all put it in hours upon hours, and whitney and sam made the thing happen.

and a huge thank you to adobe, nw film forum, frank's produce, , urban hardwoods, macrina bakery, pedersen rentals, and big mario for making this project possible.

THE TOAST.

if you can't make dinner - here is the kind of toast that will fill the room to get things rolling - it will be less cardboardy and pretentious when i shout it out to the room - i would love to have your digital submissions as well - creating a kind of digital bumbershoot table - add them as comments - or email them to hebberoy@gmail.com - we will add them to the site.

The kind of toast i might make on saturday, sunday, monday night:

greetings - you are here at one pot at bumbershoot so that i can feed you - but also so that i can get something from you - the basic request is one of reciprocation – I cook you dinner and you bring me something – it seems to be that this basic exchange is the root of most culture. money is an unfortunate substitution for basic reciprocity – it is silent, and generally rather dirty, "it don't sing and dance
and it don't walk" - many cultures have (had) great ritual in the matters of the table and the guest/host relationship – the greeks in the classical era were famous for long treatises on the importance of proper exchange – the table was central to this – the collapses of this code often resulted in calamity. take for instance when paris decided to take more than food from the the table of menelaus (he slipped helen of troy into his pocket) the result was the most mythologized war if all time. so don’t steel my woman – I will burn down your village.

restaurant tables do not offer this kind of currency. this table was built as a kind of modern agora for an exchange about a very important time – 68 changed our world – I don’t profess to be of high knowledge about this era – this year – in fact I wasn’t even born – but I launched this project to learn about how it came to pass that all the way around the globe thought and ideas turned into action – the world is filled with ideas – and yet the world has arguably never seen as much action as it did in 1968. why?


so you are here – I offer you a simple stew – and bread – a proletariat meal if you will – hopefully you drank heavily prior to arriving. clink your glass and tell me something about ’68, or civil disobedience, or social uprising, or the basic magic of thought turning into action… be it a song – a piece of writing, a reading from one of the texts that clutter our table, an artifact, a story, a sound. or just leave here and tell of the experience – in a manner that will be just as powerful.

(the sound of glasses clinking - and bowls filling with stew)

I WILL COOK YOU DINNER

One Pot will be "in residency" this year at the Bumbershoot Festival. We are taking one of the massive Northwest Rooms hostage for the entire weekend. The idea is rather simple - I will be cooking some very lovely, very simple dinners - you will be coming and bringing some very thoughtful words, songs, artifacts... you bring something - i cook food - you bring something. simple.

And something a little more specific than anything.

We are taking advantage of this amazing space - building a long gorgeous table from a tree that recently fell down in Marysville, WA - constructing a kitchen - and sharing food - in the honor of an odd but important anniversary - 1968 - a year that saw more riotous uprising than any other year in the history of man - or so they say. They also say 68 reshaped the world, they also say 68 will never happen again. 68 is the topic - but your contribution to the dinner could also have something to do with radicalism, uprising, rebellion, etc etc in any form. I wasn't even born when the trouble started in Prague in the springtime of '68 - so don't be discouraged.

So to recap - you come with something - literally - some piece of writing - some piece of music you want to perform - some piece of literature you found - some kind of artifact - to be shared at the table. dinner is free. bumbershoot is not.

email me if you would like to pre-reserve a spot. hebberoy@gmail.com

Dinner:

6pm Saturday August 30th
6pm Sunday August 31st
6pm Monday September 1st.

call for entries.

one pot + bumbershoot = 1968.
40 years. a 40 foot table. and a pile of film.

bumbershoot is the largest art and music festival in the northwest. 400 bands, many writers, many artists, and four curators.

one pot is a multidisciplinary study of the common table. we have traveled to ethiopia, guatemala, brazil, gore vidal's living room, under bridges, in condemned warehouses, dark rock clubs, farms, streams, islands to "table-make" and reinvigorate an endangered cultural phenomenon: the common table.

bumbershoot asked one pot to be one of the four curators at this years festival - we said yes - and decided that we should call it a residency. we also decided that we should focus our table-making on the legacy of '68 - the fateful year that witnessed the largest global uprising known to man.

we are building a forty foot table from one tree that fell recently in this city. we will invite the artists, musicians, writers, and the public of bumbershoot to join our table, share food from a single pot and engage in a spirited conversation about civil disobedience, radicalism, political action, revolution, and the current state of bemused disinterest we seem to have lapsed into. why did the world erupt 40 years ago? what is different now? what is the same?

we are also asking several dozen individuals and organizations around the globe to join us in considering this legacy. people in rome, prague, mexico city, shanghai, london, chicago, rio, buenos aires, nyc (the list continues) will find some sliver of a day sometime this summer to gather a group (small or large) and find a table (small or large) and in some way underline the anniversary that is upon us. dinners, picnics, a table at a bar, eating while driving, and a couple events that wont have anything to do with a table. all we need is 10-40 minutes of raw film of the proceedings. it can be visual, it can be surreal, it can be comprehensive, it can be intellectual, it can be mute, it can be entirely dull. we have a large editing team that will turn this footage into loops of video that will fill the walls of our dining hall/gallery at bumbershoot. twenty thousand people will walk through this gallery - it will in some way move people.

the footage will also be broadcast from a multilayered website and blog. we will ask our global event hosts and participants to submit a little bit of writing and take part in the blog. our only goal is to broaden the conversation and share a table, food, drink, ideas.

if you want in - want to host a dinner - want to gather people - want - shoot us a line at onepotorg@gmail.com

deadline for footage is august 25th.

a hint.

The revolutionary transformation of the world, of all aspects of the world, will confirm all the dreams of abundance.

— Guy Debord, 1955

and well, then later he shot himself in the face. let us hope he found abundance on the flipside.

join the crew.

regardless of the specifics of this project we are going to need some talented folks to join us in the nw rooms.

we definitely need some handy cooks.
a few farmers that are willing to part with some vegetables.
some tech talented computer intelligentsia.
people that love to capture things on film - and those that love to help edit.
a couple sound savvy engineers.
and a general crew of helpful individuals - some who want to help serve food - etc.

if you have interest - shoot me an email at hebberoy@gmail.com.

residency?

every year bumbershoot asks four artists/institutions to inhabit the nw rooms or galleries as they are sometimes called. this year the folks at the festival asked one pot to do something with food, and thought, and the festival. what has emerged is a one month treatment - a residency - what that means precisely is still being determined. but this blog will be the first place information is posted. what it also means is a grand big ball of delightful fun - and the remarkable opportunity and daunting responsibility of introducing about 20,000 festival goers to the work that one pot has undertaken.

needless to say we are excited, a bit terrified, and wide eyed considering the possibilities.