I printed some photos from the dinner tour, showed the video, the catalog, my phone bills, and media articles as part of a group show at Analix Forever Gallery in Geneva Switzerland.

[tags]dinner tour geneva switzerland marc horowitz analix forever gallery[/tags]

Get yourself a load of salami, get a plate, spiral the meat from the center out, then take the rest and build a meat tower in the middle. Cut an arrow out of cheese so people know to take meat from the top of the tower and work their way down and out. It’s like eating the tower of babble, only it’s salami and not quite as epic.

Freak out and notate certain things using other edible items. For example, if you are serving a three course meal, for course one, lay out the salad in a one or float little pieces of meat cut in the shape of ones in the soup; for the second course, serve up a mean jalapeno cornbread baked in the shape of a two; and for the third, serve a big three cake! Eating then feels more like a championship bout with Mike Tyson.

Another quick suggestion – using some of the scraps from the meal, make a centerpiece. I made this one in particular for Irvin Kershner using the top of a pineapple, a cutout from the newspaper, and some flowers, leaves, and sticks from his garden. When you’re done, set fire to it for a satisfactory feeling (not pictured and not entirely recommended).

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Click here to listen to the APM piece about the Dinner Tour.

If you’d like to listen to the whole second hour, please visit Weekend America’s Podcast page by clicking here.

enjoy.

Note: A very kind San Franciscan has corrected me – “Weekend America” is NOT an NPR show it is associated, produced, and distributed by American Public Media who shares the public air waves with NPR and the like. My apologies for this. I’m embarrassed, please don’t look at me right now.

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Tune In. For air times in your area, please check out the http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/about/stations.php

The National Dinner Tour lives on. I’m in the Southern California region still, so if you’re around please give a call, 510.872.7326. I’m going to try and have a group dinner on the beach.

I’m not sure where I’ll be heading next; the project is a bit tied up at the moment as I’m seeking funding and creative sources to make this continue.

Thanks for your support and a big round of applause to Tania Ketenjian for making the APM piece happen – check out her site, http://radiotania.org/

enjoy your weekend.

Note: For those who don’t get APM’s Weekend America in their area, I’m going to post an mp3 of the interview by tomorrow. Tis a shame the program doesn’t air in my hometown of SF, which I miss very dearly. I love you San Francisco!!!

For the slightly hi-tek, there is a podcast of the program – if you browse or search in your podcast software, the program airs on “APM’s Weekend America” (apm = american public media), or if you can insert a link it is http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/rss/podcast/podcast.xml (copy and paste).

Thanks for tuning in.

more coming soon…

a big thanks to Kelly Parker (to my right) for filming the evening’s events and suggesting hand-making a centerpiece. Thanks to Rebecca Steele (to Kersh’s right), Kershner’s assistant, for lining this whole thing up! And of course Hak (who took the above picture) saves the day with his incredible cooking abilities – he prepared a beautiful Cambodian four-course meal for the occasion.

I’m absolutely thrilled out of my mind. A dream come true!

Irvin directed the absolute best Star Wars “Empire Strikes Back.” I saw it on opening day in 1980, I was 4 years old and went with my father to the theatre, a small one outside Bexley, Ohio. We had a great time and really bonded over this film, and it is one of the very few memories I have of my father, and it’s a damn fine one to have.

He’s done a gang of other stuff and probably can spit so many stories it’ll make my head spin off. I can’t wait!

As a token of my appreciation and to get to know him a little better, I’m going to help him with some of his errands and chores; help him fix his intercom system, do a goodwill run for him, coil phone cords, sweep, whatever comes up.

Although Kersh is a stellar cook, we’ll, actually Hak (I’ll just chop garlic and pretend I know what I’m doing), will be cooking for him and some of his guests – on a measly $ 50 – wish us luck!

It’ll be filmed, so tune in for some snippets next week.

Other (un)related business:

I’m really tired today and feeling sort-of uncreative; however, I embraced these fine moments and held the First Annual Junk Food Conference in downtown Beverly Hills. It wasn’t the smash hit I expected and only a few people took interest, but I think next time we need numbers and more props.

The whole Texas style BBQ experience prompted a stylish exit, the three-bean catapult.

If it’s getting late and you really want to break up a party, this is the perfect solution. You don’t even need to use it, just setting up is more than enough. The beans can be replaced with just about anything – soup, peas, small pieces of meat, mashed potatoes, unwanted leftovers. And to make it more exciting and challenging, make your self a target.

I love birthdays – Happy Birthday Jonathan!

Still in LA and I’ll be here for the next few weeks. I have a few dinners slated while I’m here, but I’d like to open it up. If you’re in or will be around the LA area in the next few weeks please give a call, 510-872-7326, or shoot me an e-mail.

I’d like to have dinner then tag along with you the next day. Come to your office and help make copies, do research for you, meet your friends and family, check out your stamp collections, collaborate on a project, the sky is the limit.

Here’s few things off the top of my head that I’d like to do with some dinner guests while in LA:

1) Hitchhike to an unknown destination
2) Paintball – never done this before, but LA seems like a reasonable place for it
3) Go to a parking lot and try to convince some drivers to perform in an experiment that would basically entail them posting a sign in their side and rear car windows that would read, “Please call me at (xxx)xxx-xxxx if you are bored in this horrid traffic. Let’s talk!” I’d love to have these folks tell me about their experiences after doing this for a few days.
4) Attend an imporv group/ class
5) Visit L. Ron Hubbard’s complex, maybe have a meal at the cafeteria??
6) Use this weird chicken costume I picked up
7) Take a topiary gardening lesson
8) Go surfing
9) Take a really long walk
10) Take the Hollywood Stars Tour
and finally, 11) Meet Kurt Russell

I’d much rather follow your lead though.

It’d be nice to get a few different strangers together at one dinner – Pot luck!!! I ‘m very much looking forward to hearing from you!!!!!

p.s. I’ll give you an amazing tour of the RV, and in return if you could be so kind as to show me a good place to park it – streetside or driveway, I’m used to it all.

Just got the RV fixed – problems with the hydraulic clutch – fun stuff. Recently had dinner in South Central LA, a very good experience. Lining up a few more dinners in the LA area and trying to drum up some cash for this project. Thought of selling advertising space on the RV? That would be really weird though – imagine a huge picture of a piece of beef jerky on the Sunrader?

I’ll get this worked out somehow.

Moving on… I recently received an e-mail from John asking about my intentions with the Dinner Tour. Below is our correspondence, outlining exactly where the tour is:

The e-mail from John:

Marc,

When I invited you to dinner, I was under the impression your goal was to promote conversation between strangers and perhaps write about it. I thought it artful and a promotion of the need for human interaction. It seems you are turning this into a commercial enterprise. Which is it?
John

My response:

Hi John,

That’s a good question.

The Dinner Tour project is indeed about the importance of conversation between strangers and connecting with one another; that will never change. Before the Dinner Tour I was working on many different projects that dealt with finding the absurdity and humor in banal activities at the same time encompassing community building, conversation, and a “free economy.” The “skits” that I’ve been working on recently are an extension of my earlier work and I’d like to start incorporating them more into the dinner tour. It’s these good-natured jinks, my personality, and non sequitur nature that are the building blocks of all of my work and part of the force behind the tour. I never intend nor desire to use malicious humor directed at any of my dinner hosts, collaborators, or audience – I’m really only making fun of myself and some of the things we do as a collective.

Currently, I’m in LA trying to find some creative ways to fund this project without sacrificing its integrity and genuineness. It definitely has become a much larger project than I had expected and in turn a longer more expensive project to complete; but I am prepared to devout all of my time and energy to make it GO.

The dinner tour is still funded through the sale of my possessions, credit debt, donations, and the sale of merchandise, which is not nearly enough to take on this massive project. I have no grants, no trust fund, and no benefactors. It is a DIY project and that will always be the spirit and drive. If I am to do a TV show or book, that would be to support the project financially and provide a better living for myself and my family.

There really is no glamour living out of an RV. It’s the love of this project and the people involved that keep me going; it’s people’s life stories and communities that will forever be the backbone of the Dinner Tour. Once that is lost, you’re right, it will become a commercial enterprise that mimes every other bit of consumerism that surrounds us and attempts to take advantage of us.

Thanks for your question!

All the best,
Marc