Sander Roscoe Wolff

For more than a decade, Larry Bott has been a driving force behind the East Village Arts District. Through investments in artist live/work spaces, and the creation of the first cooperative gallery in the district, he helped shape the concept and the reality.

Larry recently announced his resignation as Director of Gallery 117. His departure creates a void that, hopefully, will be filled before the gallery closes it’s doors permenantly.

I met with him at his home in the East Village, and we had a wide-ranging conversation about the history of the Arts District, the gallery, the unique challenges associated with supporting the arts in Long Beach, his own work with wood, and his ideas about what the future holds.

So Far Apart
by Sander R. Wolff
06-13-98

I’ll be looking at the moon,
its pale face reflecting the sun,
reminding me of all the tomorrows
still unbegun.

I’ll be gazing at the stars
whose flames, consumed in eons past,
still light our rocky path
into the vast, unbridled dawn.

I’ll glimpse the vague galactic plane
whose misty edge we circumscribe;
Where love and life spring forth and die
without completing a single turn.

I’ll be looking at the moon,
its cool caress can touch us both
though time and space may intercede;
But for one moment reason fails
and distance fails, time stands still.

We’re not so far apart after all.

Just By Inches
by Sander R. Wolff
(inspired by P.K. Dick’s Valis)

Whispered in the passage of time:
Secrets of the ancients.
No dust has settled still.

The stone that could have saved me
rolled away in days.
So far we could have risen
had not we been so low,
but I was there to witness
what now are faded memories:
The lance that could have healed me
missed us just by inches.

I say to you this is no dream,
that things are not the way they seem,
that though in agony you scream,
the waiting now has ended.

The satellite is out tonight.
It moves so very quickly.
It sends a light that talks to me:
I’m blinded.

The coding of the matrices
unwinding through the sea of time
makes clear its meaning, shows to me:
Vision comes and visions rise.
That which I had sought to know
brings joyless crushing weight bear down.
I run in dread and wish I fled
the agony of knowing.

Its knowledge now or madness.

Road-Apple
by Sander Roscoe Wolff

its so silly to think what you’re doing when you’re just spinning your wheels and life whizzes by and you feel like a road-apple on the hiway of life but you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and carry on and on ’till your back is crunching like snow under foot and a searing red heat runs like lava down both legs and you stop to rest just for a moment and life whizzes by and you feel like a road-apple on the hiway of life but you rise up with strong will and sprint for a while until you realize there ain’t no end to the pavement so you could run and sprint ’till the cows come home and you’d be no closer to the end of it all so you stop and take stock to re-evaluate your goals and life whizzes by and you feel like a road-apple on the hiway of life and you laugh and laugh ’cause you’ve seen it all before and you don’t care if you’re a road-apple or a sprinter or a wise man or a fool ’cause there’s nothing funnier in the whole universe than a man who thinks he knows what the hell is really going on and then all of a sudden life stops right where you’re standing and offers you a ride to the next town so you hop in and lean back and you’re speeding toward your destination and riding in the lap of luxury ’till you realize the road is gone and the driver is missing and you’re moving so fast that

Artists, cultural leaders, musicians, business owners, and others talk with me about arts and culture in Long Beach.

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While waiting for an appointment at the County Animal Shelter on Friday, Feb 20 2009, I decided to use the time for some exercise. I walked on the sidewalk, North on Pangborn, then East on Washburn, then North again on Regentview. I then turned East on Downey Norwalk Road. About half way down the street I stepped on a fiberglass cover to an inset hole. The fiberglass cover had, from environmental forces, degraded to the point where my foot went straight through it and down into the hole. My leg was torn up, both in the front and back.

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I volunteered to do some sound design work for a fledgling theater group’s 2nd annual 6 play festival. One of the plays took place in Heaven, Earth, and Hell. I created a soundscape for Heaven using trombone and voice, and one for

using audio from a live performance by sound artists SMGSAP. The director decided not to use the tracks I produced, but I rather liked the piece I created, so I thought I’d share it here:

I’ve received quite a few mixed reactions from folks who have listened to it. Most find it pleasing, but decidedly unheavenly. That’s ok. It feels reverential, peaceful, and heavenly to me.

Please feel free to leave comments.

I was unhappy with the photos I took a while back of the completed Sandblaster guitar, so I gave it another go:

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