Abby's Random Collage

This collage is one Ms. Heller-Burnham never emphasized that much. Nevertheless, I thought it would be useful to feature here, because, as you can see, we see in it Mary Evelyn Harju in profile in a Puritan head-wrap, juxtaposed over someone, y'know, playing an electric guitar. Any audience here are free to read in whatever meanings you choose. I will say, that if Mary disapproved of the rock-ism I shared with Abby, she chose not to express it to me. What she said to Abs is anyone's guess.

dear gr

When Mary Evelyn Harju was angry with or frustrated by Abby Heller-Burnham, she often hurled this epithet at her: the little rat. Among other epithet-hurlers who dwelt among us was Gretchen Stump. Gretchen Stump, when I met her, was Jennifer Strawser's best friend. When Jennifer and I began to go out, in early '96, Gretchen was jealous, for a number of reasons, and none too pleased. Remember: Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum then has lines running to, and minions in, State College, from Villanova/Manayunk. A goomba he was. When he bothered to write dear gr, which appeared in print in Columbia Poetry Review in 1999 and online in P.F.S. Post much later, he was wryly commenting on Gretchen's travails, watching a shotgun marriage unfold. Not incidentally, when Gretchen later appeared in late-Aughts Philly, I wrote After Andrew Marvell for her. 

Early Books

 A locale where Abby's work has been used to good effect: the Early Books pdf, featuring Chimes '23.

PICC: Addendum 3: ArtOdyssey1

 Some choice pronunciamentos, both from Abby and on Abby's behalf, circa 2011. 

PICC: Addendum 2: Artists' House (Olde City Philly)

 Artists' House in Olde City Philly is where Abby debuted The Lost Twins in '08.

More from PICC

 More from PICC: #34 on P.F.S. Post.

PICC: Addendum 1

Something else important to say about Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum, who appears as Christopher Severin in PICC. Jeremy, as should now be known, made several movies. What I neglected to mention in the book is that his own movie tastes were European art-house tastes; he was not that keen on Hollywood and Hollywood productions. I have not yet seen myself the films he produced at Villanova in the 90s, but from his own descriptions, which I do recall, they were experimental, dream-like, and surreal. They made few concessions to commerciality and the demands of the marketplace. So that, at any given time you might accost Jeremy or he might accost you in the Aughts, what he'd want to talk about, film-wise, were discoveries around what was fresh, new, and exciting in art-house cinema. Directors like Scorsese, Tarantino, and David Lynch were not all that interesting to him. Bunuel, for instance, here shown, was. So that, wherever Jeremy roamed during the P.F.S. years, it was with a head filled with visual imagery, as well as with the frustrations of films not yet released. Stay tuned.