Taurus 16°

Working out some language to would-be Cambridge (and Boston) folks who might donate to my new non-profit festival there this summer. Let’s just say Quinn’s Epistle Letter to the Cantabrigians.

Dear Friend,

Thanks for passing this along to TK, who, we imagine, would be the ultimate decider on this. I’ve attached a release and a link to Boston Globe piece on our doings from 2015. And here, our story in a nutshell:

My professional name is Quinn Cox and my wife Stella Starsky and I are big fans and regular customers of TK your establishment.

Known as authors and astrologers, Stella and I are also founders, with John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and The Angry Inch) of the not-for-profit annual live performance Afterglow Festival in Provincetown, now entering its seventh year, where, over a week each September, we produce and present alternative, progressive, some very well and other little-known live musical, comedic, dramatic and interpretive performers.

Having produced this brand of artists in Cambridge at Oberon/American Repertory Theater over the years, Afterglow teamed with Ob/ART on a fall-winter series there, called Glowberon, which is newly expanding for the coming 2017-18 season. Stella and I typically TK at your establishment.

Cutting to the chase—drum roll, please—we are collaborating with Ob/ART on what has long been our biggest dream: to create a Cambridge non-profit live-performance festival in summer, one that might one day grow to Edinburgh fringe-like proportion. And so we shall present the first annual Glow Festival, based at Ob/ART, July 27-30 2017. We’re starting small year one, just five acts in four days, still we are seeking to raise a modest amount of seed money from among a mix of private and business sponsorships, to cover a range of costs not least of which is the venue rental, promotion, staff and technical fees.

Our hope is to enlist support from among the coterie of superior creative businesses whose quality, taste and vision we ourselves already celebrate. As it is, we already send customers your way but we will be specificually ushering festivalgoers your way. We keep close connection with our audience and will pride ourselves on directing attendees to our own favorite establishments via our website, programs, e-blasts and social media.

The Boston Globe and WGBH and other press outlets are planning feature stories on our “works” as a non-profit purveyor of progressive theater and performance that has taken up Provincetown’s baton as the birth place of modern American theater so to stage a city festival, based in Cambridge, with hopes to grow that festival, year on year.

Descriptions of the various levels of sponsorship may be found on our (under construction) website www.glowfest.org/sponsorships. I hope TK your establishment will give at the Emissary level or above.

The Glow Festival is a 501(c)(3) charitable arts organization based in Massachusetts. That is to say that nobody gets paid. It’s all for love of talent, progress and performance!

The attached release and link to Boston Globe article will illuminate a bit more.

Here’s hoping we can count on TK your establishment for some incentive. We aim to return your kindness directly!

All best

Quinn

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Taurus 15 °

Something to chew on:

The Creators of the Afterglow Festival in Provincetown and a Newly Expanded Glowberon Series at Oberon Announce Those Seasons’ Rosters…Plus…The Launch of the First Annual Glow Festival for Cambridge, MA Takes Place at Oberon/American Repertory Theater, July 27-30, 2017

Fueled by the success of Provincetown’s acclaimed non-profit performing-arts Afterglow Festival, and the growing collaborative Glowberon series at Oberon/American Repertory Theater, comes the first annual Glow Festival in Cambridge, MA, which aims to to secure this creative New England city a shining star on the international festival map along with Edinburgh and other fringe theater and performance capitals around the world.

Best known as one half of the author (Sextrology, Cosmic Coupling) and performing duo Starsky + Cox, with wife Stella Starsky, Quinn Cox founded the Afterglow Festival in Provincetown in 2011 with John Cameron Mitchell, Tony-award-winning creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. With an advisory board that includes Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham and native Cambridge poet Eileen Myles, who received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her forthcoming Afterglow (a memoir), inspired by the festival name, Cox’s non-profit Afterglow has produced, premiered and developed over sixty, mostly solo plays and performance pieces, which have won major awards and grants and moved Off-Broadway and to top theatrical venues around the globe.

While preserving and championing Provincetown’s birthright as the birth place of modern American theater and as an active incubator for new stage works, Cox turned to Cambridge in 2015 to curate and launch the celebrated Glowberon series collaboration with Oberon/A.R.T.. After two years of packed houses, A.R.T. commissioned an expanded third season of the series for this coming year and agreed to play host to Cox’s newest not-for-profit enterprise, the Glow Festival, taglined: Cambridge Live Performance Arts Festival.

With a rich theatrical history, supported by Boston’s own cultural heritage, Cambridge is known for its legitimate theatre (most notably A.R.T.) as well as its progressive spirit, being a bohemian bastion that has birthed innovative performance, much like Provincetown—from punk to neo-cabaret, alternative comedy to spoken word, burlesque to cirque, art to folk rock, interpretive dance to dramatic plays—with ties to NYC’s downtown performance scene.

The Glow Festival mission is multifold: It aims to create a home for innovative international performers who have heretofore not had a base in our New England capitol. It seeks to establish Cambridge as a global festival city, growing year on year in scope to rival that of other cities synonymous with their fringes. Glow aims to connect eager audiences with exciting, emerging and established artists endeavoring to expand and evolve the forms (and our notions) of theater and performance. It is also the Glow Festival’s intent to invigorate the community, culturally and commercially, in cultivating audiences who will stay, eat, drink, shop, visit, and otherwise be served, locally.

Hosted by Starsky + Cox, the first annual Glow Festival takes stage at Oberon at the American Repertory Theater, July 27-30, 2017, presenting the important, progressive talents of Justin Vivan Bond, Penny Arcade, Marga Gomez, Tammy Faye Starlite, Brian King & What Time Is It Mr. Fox?.

The Afterglow Festival invades the Art House in Provincetown, September 12-16, fearturing innovative artists Phoebe Legere, Dynasty Handbag, Debs Gatenby, Lady Rizo, Joseph Keckler, Champagne Jerry, Mary Birdsong, Dane Terry, Paul Iacono, Martha Graham Cracker. And, autumn to spring, the Glowberon series delivers wow evening performances by John Kelly (September 21), Bridget Barkan (November 16), Paul Iacono (December 14), Lady Bunny (January 25, 2018), Joseph Keckler (April 5, 2018), and Fauxnique (May 17, 2018).

It all happens non-profit! The Glow Festival and the Afterglow Festival are a 501(c)(3) charitable arts organization to which donations are tax-exempt to the full extent of the law. Sponsors can visit www.glowfest.org/sponsorships or www.afterglowfestival.org/sponsorships contribute to either festival at P.O. Box 129 Provincetown, MA, 02657.

#

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Taurus 14°

The word nemisis is literally from the goddess Nem-Isis, who was the shadow twin of Isis. An archeytpal Debby Downer if you will.

In my life, I believe, that I have had one nemisis, which is different from an enemy. A nemesis might be closer to a frenemy but one of the two people in the equation might be bordering on restraining order. My nemesis has actually tried to kill me, oh so subtly, but I don’t take it personally as he tries to kill everyone he “loves”, oh so subtly, because he has this weird worship/destroy attitude toward people he suspects are smarter, more fortunate or talented than s/he. This nemesis is no longer a nemesis in that I am in no way any longer emotionally involved with this character. Someone close to me probably warned me by saying something like: Anyone that wants to get that close to you so fast is probably not someone you want to know (or probably will know in the longr un because they are going to assert some narcissistic agenda). True dat. Funny thing about narcissists: They stage things like farewell tours and then they don’t go away.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Taurus 13°

I was talking about being a journalist. I started at Passion magazine in Paris in 1986 than moved to New York in 1987 where I worked at an Avenue magazine offshoot called On The Avenue; at the same time I became managing editor then editor of DV8* which was a downtown music, fashion and art magazine that club kids like James St. James and Michael Alig would circulate for us at clubs like the Tunnel, Limelight, Palladium and The World. I then became managing editor of The New York Social Calendar which was a hip rag that was put in the new breed of luxury hotels like the Royalton and the Paramount where Where magazine wouldn’t fit. I freelanced for a number of magazines and newspapers including Paper, The New York Observer, Stop, In-Style, where I was a party reporter and Detour, where I wrote big celebrity features, The New York Times and the Boston Globe. I also was a field producer of a television show called Ooh La La made in Canada by the people who produced Fashion Television with Jeannie Becker. I did fashion pieces for youthy magazines like YM, Mademoiselle and Teen People. Soon, though, people got wind of Starsky + Cox and we/they began writing horoscope columns and features for seemingly every publication from Paris Vogue, Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle and Teen People, Star, Glamour and ultimately the Daily Beast (if you can believe we had a short-lived column there which ultimately became our own brand of Haute Astrology). Meanwhile under my real name and also under Stella’s real name I wrote for Neimann Marcus “The Book” which was pretty prestigious and allowed for more creativity than journalistic outlets, even though it was considered advertorial.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Taurus 12°

Why do I do what it is I do in regard to the half of each year, I spend, putting together performing arts festivals and series. Well, the simple answer is that Ed Sullivan and I share more than a birthday. Like Ed, I was a journalist from the age of 22 to about 40. IN fact the main reason I thought to adopt the pseudonym of Quinn Cox was because I wanted to keep my journalistic world—editors and publishers and the subjects I wrote about—separate from what might or not be a success as an astrological duo which has affectionately come to be known as Starsky + Cox. But you see paradoxes began to spring up. Like my Libran brother Oscar Wilde said, and I paraphrase because I’m too lazy to look this shit up: Give a man a mask and he’ll reveal his truths to you. Okay I’m going to look it up and see how close I got. What he actually said was: “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.” Which is much simpler and better but I was close.

People do not know me and that’s been okay. I think I’m getting ready to reveal myself in teaspoonfuls. The fact is that back around 2005 I thought Stella and I needed to take to a stage, something we had only done together, rarely, in acting classes where, at HB Studios, we were labelled “the Lunts” which, I won’t lie, I loved. I had a sort of rock-bottom epiphany where I thought, hang on, our book Sextrology came out last year and it has been a success, so we should take to the stage and somehow combine comedy and astrology with some music thrown in. At a place called (under) Elmo in Chelsea, which one tried to convince oneself was a boutique version of Fez under Time Cafe which had recently closed down, we launched our first “Cosmic Cabaret” to a full house of wonderful people we knew personally and periferally. Lots of fashion people—Zaldy and Ruben and Isabel Toledo and John Bartlett—as opposed to performer folks. And, I have to say, after another decade or so “being” with performer folk, I much prefer the people in the fashion and design world, despite the fact I was so utterly convinced, in 2005, that I wanted to stop hanging around with fashion folks whom I did at the time find fatuous and enter the “real” world of performing artists who were down, dirty, honest and true.

Performing artists, who had been down, dirty, honesty and true for the whole time I dipped in and out of their circles, for the past 20 years since I made my way to NYC, but when, in 2006, I began to seek their company, they were on their last gasp of genuine experience. Now, first, let me say, there is no downtown. And I say this as both a journalist and a downtown denizen who more dabbles in performance. I have said this for a decade now: Round about 2007, “downtown artists” began emulating some hybrid breed of Upper East Side Socialite and opera, indie-movie and/or rock star. Quite a leap, I know; but one felt, downtown, that one should speak in a mid-Atlantic accent previously reserved for Rosiland Russell and garb oneself from head to toe in outfits that were spontaneously ready to pass, if pressured, at a Met or Whitney Event.

Suddenly the creme de la creme of the downtown scene used words like creme de la creme. Though they might still live in apartments where the bath tub was recently or still, in the kitchen, they thought they should no longer have to pay for meals or makeup or plastic surgery because they were iconic, and they were. Some still are although that particular brand of enchantment is wearing off and, dare I say, thin.

And I started to miss my friends that worked at magazines that no longer existed. I started to miss the art directors and fellow writers, like myself, who live such solitary lives that it takes a proper poking or, at the very least, a more gregarious partner to stap you into interaction. But what I missed most about living life as a more anonymous character was the ability to move on a dime, to travel, undetected, without needing to be any one place on any certain date….

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2017 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 11°

In the widening gyroscope of our non-profit endeavorship, we proudly announce we have the pleasure of presenting twenty-one (and counting!) new shows in the coming year comprised of three separate rosters of signature stellar artists who continue to evolve the world of theater and live performance as we know it. First, this summer, we shall introduce the inauguaral GLOW FESTIVAL, over just four days, with the outsized talents of Justin Vivian Bond, Brian King and What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, Marga Gomez, Tammy Faye Starlite and Penny Arcade, at OBERON at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, July 27-30. Next, come September 11, we celebrate the opening of the seventh annual AFTERGLOW FESTIVAL at the Art House, in Provincetown, MA, where we will present the gifted artistry of Phoebe Legere, Dynasty Handbag, Debs Gatenby, Lady Rizo, Joseph Keckler, Champagne Jerry, Mary Birdsong, Dane Terry, Paul Iacono and Martha Graham Cracker with musical director Drew Wutke. Then, starting September 21, we will kick off an expanded third annual GLOWBERON series at Oberon in Cambridge, packed with the talents of John Kelly, Bridget Barkan, Lady Bunny, Fauxnique/ Monique Jenkinson, Iacono and Keckler. At the core of our enterprise is the Afterglow Festival at the Art House and its dedication to championing Provincetown’s heritage as an incubator for new works by innovative stage artists, many of whose works we can continue to champion in our partnership with the great Oberon/American Repertory Theater, in festival and in series, and beyond! www.afterglowfestival.org   www.glowfest.org

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2017 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 10°

In case you haven’t noticed I’m in full on festival mode with 3 big projects coming up this year; so I’m currently writing a lot about that, as I have much to communicate and little time for Blaguing these days, thus combining the two. Here’s a little info about our doings this year:

The first Afterglow Festival was presented at the community theater in Provincetown in 2011 with a variety show of festival artists that inaugural year at the Crown & Anchor where we went on to present festivals two through six, 2012-2016. We had a great run at the C&A presenting many artists in both its theaters. And we shall be forever grateful to Rick Murray, Rick Reynolds, Chris Racine and Steve Marsden and the entire staff of the C&A, past and present, for providing Afterglow stages and support, and for the many fantastic memories we shall retain of those early formative years of the festival. As we move to a new venue this year and expand our mission to champion Provincetown’s birthright as the birth place of the modern american stage, and honor its legacy as an incubator for new works of theater and live performance, something for which Afterglow has distinguished itself these past six years, premiering and developing works that have moved Off-Broadway and to great theater and performance venues and festivals around the world, particularly expanding our scope in New England and New York, we do so in a spirit of appreciation and we wish our former collaborators a successful season and bright future. Afterglow is proud of its ability to bring people together and to present great artists and their works for diverse audiences that span a wide spectrum of tastes and beliefs. And in our tireless work to bring artists to Provincetown, through our non-profit endeavors, to cultivate these audiences for them, transport, lodge and promote them, in a cultural landscape where the veritable unknown would otherwise have no opportunity to perform. It is with immense pleasure that we continue this work, having provided Provincetown a bright and shiny star on the international festival map, as we entire a new chapter and era of our soulful artistic mission to preserve Provincetown’s legacy as a spiritual home for performing aritsts and as a source of enrichment for our cultural heritage, saving and preserving its heritage, as we continue to champion myriad forms of performing arts Made-in-Provincetown! Onwards and Upwards!

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Taurus 9°

As we often are, we were approached by an event planner to do readings for guest at a private party. But there was something mysterious about this whole affair as the planner didn’t seem to be someone who threw a lot of parties, and we came to learn she worked for just a few clients helping them with their private and corporate events which kept her busy. This event was to be at a private home in Rhode Island and we took it as an opportunity to see a new part of New England. Only was there did we realize the island was where much of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom was filmed. So we drove around to visit location spots, most notably, the “cove” of the place that serves as the film’s title.

The party itself only had about forty people in attendance but it was pretty elaborate and the grounds on which it was held, a private home on the water with multiple acres and buildings, was something the likes of which I’ve never seen; and I’ve spent a lot of time around rich people. We were set up in a sort of tower structure from which we could look down on the partygoers whom one couldn’t help imagine lived very privileged lives. One never knows exactly on which side of the political equation people might be in this position but, we were in short order led to assume that these people here assembled were on the right side of politics and history. How did we know this? Because they were all incredibly nice and unassuming people. In a world where the biblical adage that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven often rings so true, this party of people was to prove twrong that saying.

We had no idea the name of the hosts all the while we were at the party. Only by doing a bit of Google detective work the next day were our assumtions corrobarated. The host of the party was indeed a well-known, celebrated, very wealthy man of the Warren Buffet school of philanthropy where he was determined to give a great deal of his wealth away and to put it in service of others. We’ve always said that when it comes to private clients the best people in the world seem to find us and to be genuintely interested in raising their consciousness, making it a joy to help them in that aim. What we realize is that the same holds true for those who come to hire us for events. In either case we have never solicited interest but allow word of mouth and, I’d like to say, some good karma, make the referrals for us.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2017  Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 8°

I love Julia Child. Who doesn’t, I know, but she has always held a special fascination for me. When I was a waiter in 1986 at the Harvest in Harvard Square, she and her husband Paul would come in for lunch. You would here “Bonjour Roger” in that booming unmistakeable tenor as she greeted the tiny alcoholic nicotine sodden maitre d’ whose name she properly prounced in French, ro-jay. Paul, a curled shrimp of a man who had already suffered his series of small strokes, followed hist towering wife into the dining room where she would always order the same thing: a burger, rare, no bun. She is a Leo and I’ve often remarked on the similarity between her choice of lunch and the bloody meat one would throw into a lion cage.

Before the book and movies about her during the last decades, I always thought she would make a great subject for a work of art. I won’t go any further into that thought lest I actually end up pursuing this instinct myself. At the very least I think she and her husband would make great costumes for Stella and me, come Halloween. But, obviously, there’s more to it. Here was a couple who worked together (even though you didn’t know he was behind the scenes), who had no kids and were rather late bloomers. They were also obsessed with France and had an affinity for Cambridge, Massachusetts and Maine. All of this I can relate to.

She described herself “as the cat looking at the king” when she was a student of Le Cordon Bleu—what can be more Leo an expression than that. And what person from any other sign could turn what was for her a personal passion into an entire movement, changing the way Americans cooked, forever. What other sign could see a chef superstar embodied in the form of a fifties something woman. I’m happy I had the few opportunities I did to wait on Mrs. Child whose name couldn’t be more fitting for someone who lived life with a childlike exuberance and who gave so much to the world.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*

Copyright 2017 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2017 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox