S1: It's time for Midday Edition on KPBS for today's arts and Culture show. We are profiling black trailblazers in San Diego , plus a retelling of an American classic. Then your weekend preview. I'm Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and engaged. His love of black art and culture helped re-establish San Diego's African American Museum of Fine Art.
S2: This is my mission in life , and so and I have lived it , and I still continue to live it , to bring art to the people.
S1: Hear more from Katie Finney. Then a retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Plus your weekend preview. That's ahead on Midday Edition. So all month we are profiling black trailblazers across our community and highlighting their contributions to San Diego life and culture. That brought us to one person. His name is J.D. Feeney. He is the executive director of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art and J.D. Joins me now. Welcome back to Midday Edition.
S2: Thank you for having me.
S1: So glad to have you here. So happy belated birthday. Uh , first of all , uh , you actually just got back from Ghana celebrating. Tell me about your trip and the exhibit you brought there.
S2: Well , the funny thing is , there was a there's a poster of of slave sales from January 10th , 1855 , and I kept it and I kept looking at it and I said , you know what ? I'm going to go over there because I was born in 1955 , right ? And so I want to go over there and celebrate my birthday. So I did I went over there and asked a bunch of people to come , and it was wonderful. Also while there , because I've been a few times , I went to the Chim Chim museum , which is part of the ancestor project where we installed Say Their Names exhibit , which is an AR exhibit , and we put it there. And so it's really just we're starting relationships around the world , actually. And that's just one of the things that we're doing is doing an AR exhibit at the museum. And it's really an amazing place , a place that you want to go in your lifetime to see. It's a wonderful place. So it was a great time and I'm back ready to do more stuff.
S1: Oh wow , that sounds great in AR.
S2: Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Well , so tell me about that. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So when we first did say the names , we did it outside the Children's Museum here in San Diego right at the end of Covid , so to speak. And it was very hard to find a place that would even exhibit anything. But they let us put it in a park , the actual physical exhibit. But while there , we experimented with something called photogrammetry. And photogrammetry is a way of taking pictures like a hundred pictures of one thing and using software to create a model. Well , we did that and it came out to be this wonderful full exhibit , just like the one that was accepted at the Children's Museum. But you only can see it through your phone and augmented reality. Well , that was important because at the end of that exhibit , I got all kinds of calls to wanted to have this exhibit , especially the ones in New York. They wanted it , but it's , you know , it was 50 wooden pedestals we built. We had the photographs done in aluminum so they could be outside , and it was just too heavy to get to New York , with the cost being hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we used the AR exhibit and stuck it in Central Park. So since then we've done a lot more work with AR. In fact , we're probably one of the leaders in the world , in the arts in terms of black people in arts and using AR. In fact , we are working now with the Schomburg Institute in Harlem as part of their 100 year anniversary. So we'll be there doing that and augmented reality working with Langston Hughes and Harry Belafonte and all the famous people there that they represent. So we're doing a lot of things not only here , but around the world as well.
S1: Yeah , it sounds really immersive and making art more accessible. Um , tell me about that. And and the story behind this exhibit.
S2: The making it accessible. Everybody in the world have cell phones. I don't care where you go. They all have cell phones , and you're able to see this exhibit through your cell phone , so we it's not elitist. If I was going to put it on the Vision Pro or the meta vision thing , you wouldn't be able to have access to 1 or 2 people to have around the world right now. Let's say the names exhibit , if you recall , was a exhibit that talked about people who got killed by racism and police brutality , and the list goes on and on. But we stopped at 200. And so when you look at your phone , you're looking just as you would in an art museum , and you're seeing the faces and the stories and all that , and you can walk around it just as you would at an art museum. So it's a very interesting way of bringing art to the people , that it's not so expensive to bring it there. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. You know , Katie , you've been involved in the arts for pretty much your whole life. Tell me about how you first got into art.
S2: And that's when I started this quest to bring art to the world. Now , and it comes from , um , the Nusa Saba , the the it's a doctrine of , of black nationalism , and , um , Kwanzaa is based on it. And one of the , one of the elements of Kwanzaa is kumba , which means creativity. And when we studied that back then , when I was 17 , it says to leave the world in a better place than you inherited it. Really ? And that's that's their definition of creativity. And I've kept that as my mantra my whole career. And I have been the director of the Museum of Photographic Arts. I was managing director of the North Coast Repertory Theatre. I was when I was with Bayview Baptist Church , we we revived the museum and became an important part of San Diego's art community. So my whole career has been based on this. In 17 , just working to bring arts to the people , to leave the world better than we inherited it.
S1: And now you are the executive director of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art.
S2: Um , I joined the board , and that was when Shirley De Williams was the at the helm. She was the executive director , but she passed , I think , in 1999. And this my , my again , my career , my , my self is all about bringing art to the people. I decided in 2014 to revive the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Arts , and I did that with a board who I cannot say enough about , who are wonderful people who make this happen.
S1:
S2: People will go to LA to look at art because they think it's better there. And I thought , you know what ? Let me I'm going to show what we could do right here in San Diego. That was really one of the first things because it always happens. Let's go up to LA to this. Let's go up to L.A. to see this art and go work. You know , I want to bring it here for us. So that was one of my callings , if you will , to start with. So it's very important to have access to our community. This community here in San Diego , to have access to the finest art that there is in the world. And so what happened was when we revived the museum , I was working at Bayview Baptist Church. Of course , I mentioned that , but it didn't have the necessary Security elements. You know , for instance , if you have a museum , you don't have sprinklers in your museum because water will destroy the art. You have to have gas , for instance. You have to have , you know , security guards that guard the art. So in order to bring the finest art in the world , whether it be Picasso or , you know , Bearden , you have to have these protections. And so that's what we started to collaborate with all the museums in San Diego area. In fact , we've collaborated with all of them. We just finished with Kehinde Wiley at the Temkin Museum. We worked with the um San Diego Museum of Art , uh , the Contemporary Museum , the Veterans Museum. All of them have done art projects with us that have been fascinating , and we've brought people that usually don't go to those places , sometimes to them. And so we've always been welcomed back because we always sell out wherever we go , because we're we are good at what we do. This board that we have are fantastic people and we make it make it work.
S1: All right.
S2: I mean , as you know , a couple of years ago , the city of San Diego has designated the museum the San Diego Museum of Fine Art , to be the developers , if you will , of the San Diego Black Culture District , the black arts and Culture district. And we have a board there that advises the museum of great people who work with us to shape and develop this. And so we're in the beginning of this. But this is a long term project. It's actually an economic development projects that's being led by art. That's different. Normally you get that 1% of that after the things are done , you get 1% of the money spent on the building , the art. No , we are leading with art. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. Like I imagine you've seen so many exhibits and collections over the years.
S2: We do like 2 or 3 a year for the last ten years. And I think one of the ones that stuck out for me in San Diego was to call legacy in black. and legacy in black was the artist who lived in San Diego that became worldwide famous. That would mean , like Kadir Nelson , Faith Ringgold , Ernie Barnes , just to name a few. And those are all part of the the exhibit. Um , and so , um , that was a really one of the one of the ones that I remember as being one of the top ones , but we've done so many. I when we did the question bridge. Oh my God , that was an amazing. When you talk about black men just talking and and TV screens and just talking about how , how we relate to each other. There was um , oh my God , there's just so many. But I just picked that one out. But all of them have been fantastic , and the ones coming will be fantastic too.
S1: Um , and I , you know , I want to circle back to the black arts and culture district. Um , because it's been just over a year since floods destroyed so many businesses in that area. Yeah. Um , from where you sit.
S2: And in fact , you know , one of the things we have , one of the main areas is called Marie Widmann Park. And that was really devastated by by the storms. And we even have an exhibit that's waiting for us to be able to go to that park to put up. It's called Stand on Their Shoulders , which is an augmented reality exhibit of those African American people in San Diego who have made a change in the artist in art. And so that's that's ready to go. And as soon as they give us the green light to go in the park again. It has been tough. Many of the things that we had planned as part of the Black Arts and Culture district also had to be moved to other areas because we couldn't because of what happened in the area. So it's been slow , it's coming back , and we hope to have full access to the park by summer. And when that happens , please be aware of the exhibit that we're going to put there. Stand on Your Shoulders is a wonderful exhibit that we put there. And the same thing. You'll be able to see it through your phone and it'll have all your , your , your important if you will stand on your shoulder. Black people. Um , it'll be part of the exhibit. I think they're 15 that we're starting with , but it'll grow.
S1: I we can't wait to see that one and all the other things that are coming our way. Um , you know , the annual keepers of the culture event is later this month , and it celebrates prominent black leaders in the community. What's in store this year ? Who's being honored ? Yes.
S2: So. So I just mentioned , uh , stand on their shoulder. These are people who passed away. Um , now , keepers of the culture are for those people who are alive. And we try to get them while they're alive. This year , we are celebrating , um , the California secretary of state , uh , Shirley Weber. Um , the Cooper Family Foundation , if you remember them. They are the ones who started , uh , Juneteenth some 30 years ago. Yes.
S1: Yes.
S2: Uh , Rhonda nephew , who was a DJ on , um , a jazz DJ. And finally , Martha Logan , who is , um. Um. Historically , black sororities and fraternities have been at the forefront of racial strife and uplifting. So she's also being honored Martha Logan. And that's February 22nd in Balboa Park at the San Diego Cultural Center. I think it's from 5 to 8.
S1: All right. Well , uh , you know , that leads me into my next question , because I want to talk more about the power of art as a way to celebrate culture and honor history.
S2: Who I am is I. It's all I am is really trying to. This is my mission in life. And so and I have lived it and I still continue to live it , to bring art to the people. The best art , working with the finest artists around the world that are African American or part of the African American or African diaspora. It has meant everything to me. And to be able to able to bring this for a whole career to do this. And I have to say , I am proud of my darn self. Sorry , but that that I was able to maintain that at the highest level so I could reach the people here and show them what the best art is , and they have access to it from the kids in North County who get very little. Now that we're getting rid of it in schools , it becomes very important that we mean that somebody , somebody or somebody maintain this for the people because they're trying to it looks like it's trying to be swept under the rug , and I will refuse to let that happen. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. I mean , because what keeps you going and gives you hope , despite current efforts to really silence black history and and black culture.
S2: I'll tell you a story. When I went to Ghana the first time , I went to the slave dungeon castle , and there was a sign right above the male slave dungeon and it said , and I'll repeat it. It says , we are the children of those who refused to die. And some days later , that brought tears to my eyes and made me say , no , they're talking about me and us. And what we did from that captured African was we built countries around the world , Jamaica and Trinidad and Antigua and Colombia and Brazil. We built those. We weren't from there. And now they're they're great places to visit. They're wonderful places. But it all came from that same little dungeon. And so I believe that that ancestral statement brought me to a new level of understanding of of who we are and how resilient we are.
S1: Well , thank you for always spreading that word. I've been speaking with Gary Finney. He is the executive director of the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art. Katie , thank you so much for being here.
S2: You're very welcome. Always good to see you and say hi. That little girl.
S1: You know I will.
S2: All right. Take care now. Thank you again.
S1: Coming up , David F Walker created a graphic novel version of Huckleberry Finn , but with a twist.
S3: If I want this book to really stand apart and not just be a cover song , you know , a cover version of a classic song , I'm going to need to recompose it. I'm going to need to take the , you know , the idea of of what Mark Twain started and build from that.
S1: We'll discuss how he retells what's considered a classic yet problematic story when KPBS Midday Edition returns. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. Mark Twain's 1885 book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a beloved American classic with a controversial legacy. So fast forward to this century , the graphic novel Big Jim and the White Boy reinterprets the story , telling it from the perspective of Jim. KPBS Arts reporter Beth Accomando sat down with author David F Walker to talk about reimagining this story. Take a listen.
S4:
S3: I remember the first time I saw a film version of it , which was in the 70s.
S5: Paul Winfield , as good old Jim.
S6: Find anything ? Nothing.
S7: Ain't nothing in there but a dead man. Ain't nothin but a house of death. Let's get out of here.
S3: But as with a lot of things , the way my brain was wired , even as a kid , if there was a whether it was a book or a comic or a film TV show , if there was a black character in it , I would be drawn to that character. And then I would start asking a lot of questions. And usually the questions were like why ? Why is , why is this happening like this ? And so with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , most of the film versions ease back on the vernacular and the way Jim is portrayed. He's always portrayed in a sort of pseudo minstrel like way. But in the book , Mark Twain's original book , that vernacular that he uses , which at the time seemed very revolutionary and groundbreaking , was also firmly rooted in the tradition of the minstrel show. Right. And I just remember reading it and thinking , okay , come on , really like and and but I the two big questions and I've said this in other interviews that I asked was one is why is he going south. Right. If you're a runaway slave , the only thing they taught us about slavery in the Underground Railroad was you run north and you follow the North Star , right ? And then the other question that I had was , why is he so loyal to Huck ? The question just kept coming back , because at the end of the day , when we look at American literature. Jim and Uncle Tom are the two most famous black characters in American literature from that era. You know , from the 1800s. One is pre-Civil War , one is post-Civil War. And both of those characters , I think , have merit. I also think that most people don't even understand the historical significance of those characters , what they were really all about. Most people don't know about Harriet Beecher Stowe and her background. They don't know about Mark Twain and his background. They also don't know about , you know , Margaret Mitchell and her background and why she wrote Gone with the wind and the fact that she was a horrifically racist human being who would fit in very well in today's society. We'll just leave it at that.
S4: So to answer some of your questions of why you've reimagined this Mark Twain book , and so describe a little bit about the approach you take to that source material and how you wanted to kind of reimagine it for your graphic novel. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. You know , the first thing I did was I sat down and I reread the book , I highlighted all the passages with Jim , and then from there , I immediately was like , okay , I had a choice. One was , do I retell the book ? Sort of scene by scene. With that the scenes of Jim is in. I made the decision really early on to not do that. And the reason why was Mark Twain , there's two things he didn't deal with in the book. One is he didn't really deal with the subject of slavery in a larger context , and then he didn't deal with the Civil War. The novel was written pretty much after the failure of reconstruction , and I want to be careful not to condemn him for how he wrote it , why he wrote it , whatever. But there's a lot of interesting stuff that was left on the table. And I was like , if I want this book to really stand apart and not just be a cover song , you know , a cover version of a classic song , I'm going to need to recompose it. I'm going to need to take the , you know , the idea of of what Mark Twain started and build from that. And so then that led to like , okay , I need to understand Missouri. I need to understand what slavery was like in Missouri. I need to understand the world that Mark Twain came from , did a ton of research and just started discovering all these things. And I was like , this would really fit in well with an adventure , you know , an adventure story and , and sort of the goal with , with Jim and the story itself was , I want to take the idea of , of the American folk hero , be that folk hero , uh , someone based in reality , Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone and all those guys were the fictional folk heroes , the Johnny Appleseed and the Paul Bunyan's. And I wanted to , like , create the only African American folk hero there is that people remember , it's not the only one , but the only one that people remember is John Henry , the steel driving man. Right. And I was like , okay , let's let's think about how would we turn Jim into a folk hero. And then it was like , but once he's a folk hero , how do we unpack who he is behind the scenes ? Right. And this is , you know , sort of how the the brain of David Walker operates , which is not a , a fun place to be in. Sometimes it can be kind of scary. But , you know , we at the end it gets the job done.
S4: Now the book starts with a number of pages that feel lifted from the original book. So you have like three pages of this and then you interrupt that. So kind of talk about your decision to do it that way , because it does. Like when you start looking at it the way the images are , the language that's used does strike you , you know , as however you want to put it dated , problematic , whatever. So discuss why you wanted to do it that way and what what impact you hoped it had.
S3: You know , I so I'm a fan of Little Big Man , the book and the film and the idea of Both a semi unreliable narrator , but also that person that you meet who has all these crazy stories to tell and you're like , did this ? Is this person telling the truth ? Or is this like just a load of garbage ? But I was like , well , what if Jim lived to be a really old man ? You know , he's that old man who's always upset. That's like , this is my story. And they stole my story from me. And then I thought of The Muppet Show of all things , and I thought of Statler and Waldorf , and I thought of how there's nothing funnier than it doesn't even have to be two old people. It can just be two people telling the same story , but disagreeing on the details. And I was like , okay , let's have Huck be alive to let's have have these two really old men. And if the reader doesn't know if they're being honest or not , that's fine.
S4: So talk a little bit more about the structure , because in addition to your characters kind of interrupting a narrative , you also jump back and forth in time to have characters from the 30s and then the 80s , and I think the 2000 all kind of adding layers to your story.
S3: And I just was thinking about all the different ways information can be transmitted and how one generation can affect all the generations that come after. Even though we don't talk about it , Marcus Kwami Anderson , my artist , is an amazing collaborator , and I would talk to him and I would say , how do you feel about it ? Like , he hadn't started drawing it certain things yet and I was always looking for how do I make this more compelling ? What is it that I always wish I had from a story that I'm not putting into this story ? These these are the sort of questions I was asking. And then at one point , I hit this moment where I was like , there's no good female characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And it's like , how do I work a good female character in , you know ? So then I created the created the college professor , but she was she was kind of dry and lifeless , and I was like , she doesn't work. I know , but but I need her. How do I make her more compelling , more interesting ? Oh , wait a minute. What if she is the descendant of Jim ? And suddenly then the story new layers begin to develop.
S4: Now you've mentioned the artist Marcus Kwame Anderson a couple times because this is for radio. Yeah. Describe his visual style. Describe kind of how he brings these characters to life through his illustration.
S3: He has a style that I think is often used in a sort of negative way. People would say it's cartoony , right ? The stuff he does isn't super photorealistic , but one of the things he's able to do is convey emotion with a minimal amount of lines. And that's what comics are supposed to be. Right. The great Alex Toth always talked about use the least amount of lines possible and then use less than that. And Marcus and I talked a lot about artists like Alex Toth , Will Eisner , folks like that who who really define this medium that him and I love so much. What we want to convey in this story is both emotion and clarity of action. And Marcus and I are always talking about how do we make it easier for the reader to look at a page , to look at a panel , know what to read first , know where the eye is supposed to move. And in that regard , he's as classically trained in artists as they can be. And you forget that it's cartoonish , right ? You forget that it looks almost like animation cells , and that Jim's eyes are just a line and a , you know , semi-circle , right eye. You can't even really see the pupils or anything. But it's like , that doesn't matter , because the way his brow line is , the way his eyebrows are speak emotion. And that understanding of how to create complexity through something that seems to look simple is not an easy task , but Marcus knows how to do it.
S4: You mentioned research earlier , and there's a lot of real history in the book and real historical characters.
S3: But there was a lot of it was just about Missouri and Kansas specifically. And what a lot of people don't know historically is that what would become the American Civil War , when the southern states seceded from the nation ? The precursor to that was what was known as the border wars in Missouri and Kansas going back into the 1850s. And I knew a little bit about that , but I really did like a deep dive into the research of that particular era and what was going on , what slavery was like in the state of Missouri. And then what was going on in some of the surrounding states. So while Illinois was technically a free state , it was a state where a lot of unscrupulous business people would , quote unquote , rent enslaved individuals to work as slaves in Illinois. Right. And there was a thing that now is known as the Reverse Underground Railroad. So the Underground Railroad was what the enslaved used to to escape to freedom. The reverse was these people that were running around kidnapping free blacks , kidnapping or capturing those who'd run away and then selling them back into slavery. And so there was a lot of little things like that that , that I stumbled across. I think the biggest thing and it's in the book. There was a town in Illinois called , uh , New Philadelphia. And when I'd read about that in my research , the existence of New Philadelphia and the man who founded it as a guy named free , Frank McWhirter. He had already died by the time The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was set. Right. But I had to have him in the book. I had to have the town in the book. I was like , it was one of those things. Like , how come more people don't know about him ? They don't know about this town. And so there was always , always these little things that I would stumble across. I feel like if you're if you're doing research , whether it's for a fictional book or a nonfiction work , if you're not finding stuff you didn't know , and if you're not surprised and sort of looking around going , how come I didn't know this ? How come more people don't know this ? Then you're doing something really , really wrong.
S4: So the Black Panther graphic novel you did was very much based , in fact , in history and with Huck Finn. You're a big Jim. You're kind of taking a more fictional approach but weaving history into it. And both of these were graphic novels. So what is it about the graphic novel or the comic book form that attracts you and that makes you feel like this is the way I want to tell these stories and mix all these elements in.
S3: Oh , you would have to ask me the hard question , right ? I loved comics as a kid. Right. I was that kid. I'm not exaggerating. I literally learned how to read with comics. I've always loved the juxtaposition of visuals , imagery , and text. And there's something about what Will Eisner called sequential art. Sequential storytelling. There's a way to take all these things that I love visual elements , written word , sequential storytelling , history , mixing history with fiction , all these things that I just love. And just going , okay , here's a medium that allows me to do this in a way that , you know , film can allow me to do it in some ways , but there's so many more hoops to film , it's so much more expensive to do and prose. While I love writing prose. It feels almost like a lost art form to me. Or maybe I should say. Reading straight prose feels like it's becoming an increasingly lost art form. Like people want something else. And so now it's about trying to find that balance between all of that.
S1: That was KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando , speaking with author David F Walker about his graphic novel Big Jim and the White Boy. You can listen to the full interview at KPBS. Coming up , your weekend preview , plus the latest from playwright Keiko Green.
S8: I really got to talk to the people there , and they were just so delighted that anybody was telling the story about their town outside of Ishinomaki.
S1: The story of an artist returning home to Japan after devastation when KPBS Midday Edition returns. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition , I'm Jade Hindman. Playwright Keiko Green is not based in San Diego , but she's likely familiar to local audiences. Known for her plays exotic , Deadly or The MSG Play and Sharon , she also graced the stage in the theater's production of The Little Fellow All Tonight. Her new play , Empty Ride , will have its world premiere at the Old Globe. The play is set in Ishinomaki , a small town in Japan hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. We follow Kisa , who returns home to care for her ailing father and take over his taxi route.
S8: My abortion. She passed away last year. She was 99 years old. Lived a really long life. But she lived in Sendai. Which is right ? Right. By Ishinomaki. And so , when the tsunami hit , my brother and I were both. We happened to be living in Brooklyn , and we met at this diner. And I just remember , you know , having a cup of coffee and refresh , refresh , refresh , hitting that button , trying to learn any information about how she might be doing. And , you know , when I went later , I was really impressed by how quickly they had rebuilt. There was still like , oh yeah , you can physically rebuild , but there's like a heart that's a little bit missing. And so when my my grandma was kind of on her deathbed last year , I made a trip back to Japan. And this was after we had done the reading at the Old Globe. But I was able to go to Ishinomaki specifically with my mom , and I was kind of torn about whether writing a play about this , this area actually felt like exploitation , or whether I was bringing light to something that people had forgotten about or not even known about. And I really got to talk to the people there , and they were just so delighted that anybody was telling the story about their town outside of Ishinomaki.
S9: I mean , it blew my mind to revisit the just like the facts of it when I was reading about your play. Tens of thousands of people. It seems really devastating. One of the things that struck me about this play is Kaisa , the main character. She had left home to pursue art in Paris. So what do we need to know about Kisa ? Yes.
S8: So when I watch or , you know , theater or TV or films about Japanese people , I usually don't recognize the Japan that I know in those pieces of media. I always find them to be so just , quote , honorable. And , um , the people that I know are just a little bit more , I don't know , darker and funnier and and sillier and and so Kaisa has a real darkness to her. And I think that she. Yes , she missed it. She missed the tsunami. She wasn't there. There's an immense amount of survivor's guilt. And also she thinks that , you know , she's not defined by this hometown of hers. And so she comes home to , you know , she her dad's ill , and she goes home to take up her dad's taxi.
S9:
S8: You know , they have their white gloves , their taxis are immaculate and , um , they're covered with lace. And so. But I do think that cases from the small fishing town. Um , and she is , you know , she just thinks that there's more to the world. I think there's actually two characters in the play and one that's mentioned who are just feeling like they are being stifled. And there's more in the world. And , you know , Japan still does suffer in terms of misogyny and in terms of opportunity for women. And I think they're actually a really exciting place right now where they can kind of decide which direction they're going to go in. And for Kaisa , there was something that the world was beckoning to her. And so and so she left. And she learns that other characters kind of did the same thing and felt the same thing. But with that , she loses a part of herself. And and a huge part of this untethered international identity is is something that I'm really interested in. Um , you know , I'm. I'm half Japanese. I grew up in Georgia. I went to a Japanese school , you know , when I was in Georgia. So I it's I've always felt kind of stuck between two worlds where all of the kids I knew were Japanese , but I was living in this , you know , normal suburban block of houses. And my mom , she. She's a Japanese woman who , you know , left Japan and she , she is here in the US and she's been here for decades. And she feels so American to me and her in terms of her personality and I and I wonder sometimes about whether she has adopted that because she moved here or whether she kind of had to leave because she was a little bit too much. And so I think that the play is really exploring these people that feel like they're a little bit too much.
S9: I love that. So the play's title borrows from this Japanese word Q10 , and that's used , I understand , for when a taxi meter is running , but nobody's writing for whatever reason. Um. Can you talk about that and how that manifests in a supernatural way ? Yes.
S8: Absolutely. Yeah. Q10 literally means empty ride. And it's not like a famous word or anything. It was it was a it's really just vocabulary in the , in the taxi jargon , um , which I think is really great. And one interesting thing that I had had found with just by doing research was that 100% of the taxi drivers in Ishinomaki had reported that they had had a ghost passenger. Wow. At some point. And there's even like a Unsolved Mysteries episode about this. So it's it's it's , you know , they've interviewed all these people and it's kind of a bit of a that they talk about it pretty matter of factly. I think for a long time no one spoke of it at all , which I think is actually also very Japanese. But once people started sharing , they were like , oh , yes. And so every single taxi driver in the town has , has said that they've , they've had like a spirit passenger. And there's also , I think when they when they speak about it , something that I find just so incredibly culturally specific and beautiful , which is this responsibility to try to take these people to their homes that were washed away or gone. That that is just like an image and a want that is so tragic and beautiful and a huge part of our play.
S9:
S8: It was part of the festival last year. Based on that , they picked it up for the season and they gave us another workshop in the fall. And so that means that it's been slightly insular , which also means that it's just keeps changing. Um , so we have been incorporating new pages every day. We will have a new page , I'm sure on opening , um , it just kind of never stop. We've been saying that up until 4 p.m. on opening. We will be using that time. But in terms of where it's going , you know , the first draft of this play , it was 72 pages long. It had no ending and it was a mess. And there are characters that don't even exist now that were main characters then. It's changed a lot. I think it's , you know , every playwright has a different process for me. I , I just like to put everything out there , do a horrible draft and just see what sticks. So this one has been on its own little journey because it's also thematically a little different from some of my other work. It's a little it's a little more intimate. It's a little slower. It's a it's a little bit more of a slow. It's a slow burn. Um , and so yeah , I'm also feeling very vulnerable about the play , so I'm very excited.
S1: That was Keiko Green , playwright of Empty Ride , speaking with KPBS arts reporter Julia Dixon Dickson Evans , who joins me now. Julia , it's been a minute. Yes.
S9: Yes. Hi , Jane. Thanks for having me.
S1: Always glad to have you in studio. Good to be back. Okay , so how can we see Greens new play ? Right.
S9: So it opens at the globe tonight. And they'll have shows every Tuesday through Sunday through March 2nd. And yeah , I have read the script and it's really a wonderful play. There's just so much humor and so much heart in her writing. It's a great story. And one fun fact with this play is that each actor takes on multiple roles. Keiko is telling me that one actor in particular has like 11 costume changes through the whole thing. I love little things like that in theater.
S1: Wow , that's that's talent right there. All right. Well , let's talk about what else is going on in the arts this weekend. We're actually staying with theater for this one. Moxie theater is starting their own new playwrights series. Tell us about that. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. So this is called the Moise New Works Festival , and it's in line with Moxie's mission. It's going to focus on works by women and non-binary playwrights. And , you know , many of the big theatres like the Old Globe , they have a new work series. So it's really great to see a theater like moxie start their own as well. And the selected playwrights in this one , they take part in this intensive workshop period. And then it culminates this weekend with a two day event. They'll do staged readings , and for this one , they're doing like two double headers. The first reading , which is noon on Saturday , is a block of four short plays. So that's good for the attention span. And then there's going to be three full length plays. So Saturday afternoon and then two more on Sunday. Everything is free to attend. And if you stick around between the readings they're going to serve you a light lunch. So that's nice. Very nice. And this is at Moxi Theater in Rolando. And it seems like every year a theatre puts on a full production of a play that had been developed during one of these new works , festivals. So you never know , you might get to witness a playwright taking notes on an early reading , and then in a year or two , you can see it with a full cast.
S1: All right , the San Diego Ballet , they're revisiting their production of Carnival of the animals with a with a twist , though it involves jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. So Carnival of the animals is this ballet that's traditionally set to music by Sun Songs , and it's a work that San Diego Ballet does often. But yeah , this year they've tapped Gilbert Castellanos , local jazz musician and all around local music icon , and he's composed a brand new jazz score to liven it up. And alongside that , they're also going to be performing a tango and ballet piece. It's set to music by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. It's called tangata and it's this really nice piece. It's originally written for a bandoneon , a type of concertina or accordion that's often used in South American music. And this is Saturday at the Conrad Performing Arts Center in La Jolla. There's two shows at 2:00 matinee and then the 7 p.m. evening show.
S1: All right. Well , finally , in visual art , there's a new painting on view in Oceanside that's about aliens. Okay. Right.
S9: Right. This is Robert Xavier Burton's the alien painting. It's a work that he painted on site live during his 2023 exhibit at Oceanside Museum of Art , and somebody bought it. And before it goes to a private collection , the museum is going to unveil it and put it on view in like a pop up exhibition for just over a week. And this painting is inspired by his his childhood toys and action figures , and you'll recognize familiar aliens and space lore details. But he also includes these sort of like home textile flourishes. They kind of make me think of the borders that you see on rugs or curtains or wallpaper , and the whole thing is super intricate and really captivating. Like you can stare at it for a while and see so many details. There's going to be a reception on Friday from 5 to 7 , and then it'll be on view through the 23rd at OMA.
S1: You know , I'm kind of excited about that one. Aliens will eat you on their. Will we see.
S9: E.T. ? Yeah. I'm wondering if we can say that , like copyright reasons , but ET is right there. It's E.T.. Yes.
S1: Okay , I like it. You can find more arts events or sign up for Julia's weekly newsletter at KPBS. I've been speaking with KPBS arts reporter Julia Dixon Evans. Julia. Thanks.
S9: Thank you. Jade. This is fun.
S1: Thanks for joining us today. If you missed anything , you can download KPBS Midday Edition on all podcast apps. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth reporting on San Diego issues. The roundtable is here tomorrow at noon. Before we go , though , I'd like to thank our Midday Edition team producers Ashley Rush , Giuliana Domingo and Andrew Bracken , senior producer Brooke Ruth , supervising audio producer Quinn Owen , art segment contributors Julia Dixon Evans and Beth Accomando. And our technical producer Brandon Truitt for the Midday Edition theme music. You hear Each and every day is from San Diego's own surefire soul ensemble. I'm Jade Hindman. We'll chat again Monday. Have a great weekend , everyone.
