SML Pro Blog: Inner Beauty Parlor

Inner Beauty Parlor is a free series curated and hosted by Josphe Keckler. This fun event, which features artists, musicians and performance artists, is held monthly at the Envoy Gallery at 131 Chrystie St in the Lower East Side.

It was Gerry Visco who told me about the event. I met her just the day before on Flickr. I saw this rather crazy photo titled money money money money on her stream and I was determined to seek out this fashionista.

Gerry told me that she will be performing the very next day (awesome!) -- the same day that the VizThink NYC Pictionary Showdown was happening (ugh!). Because of my scheduling conflict, I only got to see the last bit of the show.. but it was *totally* worth it. The show was awesome and the people were super talented. Next time I'll be going on time!

Here are some photographs taken at the show and intelligence data snipped by SML Bio Bot:

The Venn Diagrams: Jeffrey Marsh + Rick Sorkins

Jeffrey Marsh and Rick Sorkin (Twitter) having been working together since 2001. They blend classic cabaret, modern composition / performance and audience interaction. Basically, if they ike it, it makes it into the show. That can be a joke about The Golden Girls or a 1930's German war song.

The duo cut their teeth playing the night club circuit in the early aughts, touring the act around NE America. Highlights have included a project with an 11 piece rock orchestra and SRO shows in various venues.

The Venn Diagrams
Modern Day Cabaret
www.ModernDayCabaret.com
www.youtube.com/VennPost

Gerry Visco as Nurse Gerry

Nurse Gerry aka Gerry Visco gave the audience a complete physical with disco yoga. She also presented a scientific lecture on Physiognomy, Phrenology, and the Ancient Chinese art of Reading Faces.

Gerry Visco (Flickr / Twitter) is a freelance writer, photographer, and radio host who has published in New York Press, The Village Voice, The New York Sun, New York Magazine, Fit Yoga, Beyond Race, Our Town, West Side Spirit, the Chelsea Clinton News, New York Blade Gay City News, Spread Magazine, The Villager, Columbia Review, the Adobe Anthology, and other publications in print and online. She hosts a show on WKCR FM entitled “Arts and Answers.”

Originally from Boston, Mass., she's lived in New York City since 1974. Her subjects have included personalities such as Sufjan Stevens, Todd Haynes, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Penny Arcade, Clayton Patterson, Buck Angel, Crispin Glover, the Cockettes, David Del Tredici, the Cockettes, writer Daniel Mendelsohn, and other artists, musicians, and performers. She's written restaurant reviews, pieces covering NYC neighborhoods, features about yoga and martial arts, humorous essays, and profiles of people who aren't afraid to be on the edge. She's writing a memoir about her descent into the gritty exhilarating inferno of New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.

Visco has an MS from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism in 2005, an MFA from Columbia's School of the Arts in 1990, a BA from Columbia's School of General Studies in 1987, and an AAS from Fashion Institute of Technology in 1980. She taught a fiction workshop for Gotham Writers' Workshop for seven years and has also worked as an editor, actor, secretary, model, teacher, coat check girl, census taker, and muse but is currently employed as an indentured servant at Columbia University.

gerryvisco.com

Joseph Keckler

Joseph Keckler (Twitter) gave a fabulous vocal performance with his unique mixture of blues, classical opera, and psychedelics. I haven't got a chance to talk to him much, but this is what the press has been saying about him lately which I agree completely:

The New York Press says that he "commands the stage with erotic bravo."

Backstage says that he "can flip styles as though responding to a switch, take on myriad voices, and draw on an extensive musical repertoire, his vocal skills are just one aspect of this gifted storyteller."

Village Voice calls him "Studly". And Timeout New York says that he is "The Divine".

myspace.com/josephkeckler