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Great, Ahem, Art! | Owlfest

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published April 14, 2015

Great, Ahem, Art! | Owlfest

The three-week February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago's West Loop gallery -- with the artist present only in the sense that he was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall with only a single sign alerting patrons ("I am here, but you will not see me"). Diaz-Perera's "In the Absence of a Body" was designed, he said, to explore the boundary between presence and absence. [Huffington Post, 2-18-2015]

(1) A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 a.m. on Feb. 25 in Tukwila, Washington, because, he explained, he was "chasing an owl." (Police somehow found him to be sober and did not charge him.)

(2) Officials in Salem, Oregon, posted signs in February to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl or owls, after four people were aggressively pecked at by dive-bombers. (One design for the sign came from cable TV personality Rachel Maddow.)

(3) A bar called Annie the Owl was scheduled for a special one-week event in London in March, for patrons to sip drinks while domesticated owls perch on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for tickets. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 2-25-2015] [KGW-TV (Portland), 2-12-2015] [CNBC.com, 2-24-2015]

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