INTERLOCUTOR Interviews

Live, Laugh, Lube is an ongoing art project by artist and former art dealer Mieke Marple, probing in the superficial depths of social media with fellow clowns, comedians, and fools. A kind of "exquisite corpse” project in which comedians provide language that Mieke creates a painting with, then both create a video together for IG explaining the collaboration. Mieke then gifts the painting to the participant, who must recommend two other comedians as the next participants (one with more visibility and one with less), and the cycle repeats ad infinitum. She’s so far worked with the likes of actress and comedian Melinda Hill, The Simpsons writers Dan Greaney and Broti Gupta, head writer and executive producer of The Office and King of the Hill, Brent Forrester, writer, actor, and comedian Obehi Janice, and others. 

Joseph Keckler is a singer, writer, and multifaceted creator. Keckler has performed everywhere from dive bars and DIY venues to NPR Tiny Desk, Centre Pompidou, and Lincoln Center. His story and essay collection Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World was published by Turtle Point Press.His new performance piece, A Good Night in the Trauma Garden, was commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Live Arts and co-commissioned by ArtYard and Coffey Street Studios. He will be performing the latest version of it on Saturday, November 22, at ArtYard in Frenchtown, NJ. This piece weaves together original new songs with a vivid narrative portrait of a wild and unforgettable friend, meditating on what it means to be a classic.

Educator, activist, and organizer Amirtha Kidambi discusses her newly launched podcast, "Outernational,” her new album with her ensemble Elder Ones, New Monuments Live in Vilnius, out on November 14, and her upcoming performances with Elder Ones at the Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht on Friday, November 7. She also talks about her guest curation event at the festival on November 8, featuring performances by Dirar Kalash; Ghadr غدر (Jad Atoui, Sandy Chamoun, Anthony Sahyoun); One Leg One Eye (ft. Ian Lynch from Lankum); Saint Abdullah & Jason Nazary; Elder Ones; and various collaborative combinations of the above, plus an "Outernational" panel discussion moderated by Kidambi and improv performance with Saul Williams, Dirar Kalash, and Masello Motana  

Logan Royce Beitmen interviews Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel, who works intersectionally with scent, performance, video, sound, and installation. His work is currently in the group show Winter Nights (Vetrnætr) at The Association of Visual Artists in Oslo, Norway, on display until November 2, 2025.

Brooklyn-based filmmaker Peter Pavlakis discusses his debut feature, APOSTASY BLUES. The film focuses on two cult members who expect to be raptured at an appointed time. However, their leader appears to have raptured without them, taking their donation money with him, so the two members head out to look for him while they deal with their personal issues as they readapt to the secular world. The film will be shown at the Soho International Film Festival in NYC on Friday, October 10, and the Buffalo International Film Festival on Sunday, October 12.

Author and journalist Charlie Wells discusses his new book, What Happened to Millennials: In Defense of a Generation. At the birth of America’s largest living generation, the outlook was strong: unparalleled economic growth, the emerging Internet, the rise of the cell phone, and a geopolitics that had allegedly reached “the end of history” all set expectations exceedingly high for a cohort entering adulthood at the dawn of the new millennium.That adulthood—a work in progress for more than a quarter century—has been disrupted by war, recession, pandemic, and a sharp turn toward cultural and economic polarization. It has also been endlessly critiqued by others as immature, lazy, weak, incomplete, selfish, and supposedly riddled with failure.Now, 25 years after the first millennials began turning 18, Bloomberg News reporter Charlie Wells comes to the generation’s defense with a cultural history of an adulthood disrupted. Drawing on hundreds of hours of intimate interviews with five millennials from across the country, he explores how the biggest events, ideas, and transformations of the century played out in private lives.