Those Fingers Through My Hair

Those fingers through my hair
That sly come hither stare
that strips my conscience bare
it's witchcraft

I would have to confess,
but only under torture, of course,
to a fascination with witchcraft
subsequent to the above Sinatra song
and this movie that I saw when I was about twelve.

How cool was that!
Only witches can turn off streetlights
by snapping their fingers.

Though my enthusiasm waned
when my only remaining friend from high school
disappeared after an unfortunate involvement
with the occult.

His story was dramatized by the Unsolved Mysteries television program.

(Here's the video filmed at my art club nearly 20 years ago
and featuring yours truly as one of the talking heads)

So now I think that witches should probably be avoided,
( unless, of course, they look as good as Kim Novak )
and art made by witches does not especially appeal to me.


Except that Elijah Burgher
a recent graduate from the S.A.I.C.
is so darn good.

I saw his work last weekend at the Iceburg Projects booth at the MDW Fair in a re-purposed factory
on the south side of Chicago.

Lured there by this post from a local art maven,
visiting this fair was almost a total loss for me.
(but then, so is the Museum of Contemporary Art
which has a much larger budget)

But Mr. Burgher is one of the best figurative artists
working in the city today,
and even if he died (or disappeared) tomorrow,
I suspect that one of his pieces would appear
in a survey of early 21st C. Chicago art
done in a hundred years.