Sometimes, it pays to know a newspaper editor.
My good friend and former staff writer at my “real” job, Rich Howells, is editor of the Weekender, an arts and entertainment magazine based in Wilkes-Barre that covers the regional arts scene. His writer, Bill Thomas, put out this piece in the paper’s June 5 edition about “As Seen on TV,” which opens tomorrow.
Thomas writes:
Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
The sound of a few bars hummed from a fondly remembered tune or the sight of a beloved cartoon character from the sugar cereal-sweetened Saturday mornings of youth can time warp a person right back to childhood…
That’s the effect Christopher J. Hughes is going for with the pieces he’s preparing for “As Seen on T.V.,” a special art exhibit paying tribute to ‘90s television and pop culture, which will be on display at New Visions Studio & Gallery from June 7 through June 27…
“It’s really fun to look back at the television that we grew up with and see it in a completely different way,” Hughes said.
“For me, ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete’ has really stuck with me. There are going to be people who come to the show and have no idea the spoofs I’m pulling with my ‘Pete & Pete’ stuff. But for the people who remember all those oddball episodes, when those people come through the door, they’re going to smile.”
Hughes, whose pop culture-inspired art can also be found online at peterparkerpa.com, will be joined by 10 other area artists for the exhibit, which is expected to feature around 50 different pieces.
“I put a post on my Facebook wall and tagged a few friends who I thought would be interested, and then, just like that scene from ‘Wayne’s World,’ they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so on,” Hughes, former interim editor for The Weekender, said.
“This thing really took on a life of its own.”
Full disclosure: For about three months in 2012, I was the editor of this fine publication.
Read the full article at http://theweekender.com/news/WK_Stage/568610/90s-nostalgia-powers-pop-culture-exhibit or check out selected PDFs of the pages.