Kevin Balktick is educated on the 'War of Northern Aggression'

Name: Kevin Balktick
Age: 26
Hometown: New York City; Suffolk County, LI; Atlanta, GA
Job description: Event producer
Upcoming projects: Stranded III: The Forbidden City (Sept. 4th), Fourth Annual Horizon Conference (Sept. 24-26), Lost Horizons Night Market (October)
Select links: "Alex Vadukul spends the night at Sunset Park's most exciting warehouse party" (NY Press), "Truckloads of Freaks, Strippers, Art and Noodles Drive NYC's Lost Horizon Night Market" (Wired.com), "Decorating the Night in Brooklyn" (NY Times), "Burning Man festival raises up from the underground" (NY Daily News), Official site

Describe your current state of mind.

I secretly took a nap for an hour and a half in between when I got home from work, running errands today, and coming here. So, at the moment, I'm still a little fuzzy. But it should only take a minute.

You're leaving town tomorrow. Where are you going?

The Philadelphia Experiment Summer Festival in Maryland. It's a huge outdoor, 4th of July party; and it's about 1,300 people. I'm running a box truck there. I'm doing a tea lounge inside, [with velvet walls], and these gorgeous picture frames. I just printed a bunch of engravings from the Library of Congress. The archive has Harper's and all of these old magazines; it's like old photographs, illustrations, [and] engravings, scanned at super high resolutions.

 
It’s going to be a single table going all the way through the center, wooden folding chairs, candlelight, [and] tea service. Everything is in glass and ceramics. No plastics. Nothing packaged. I got all the loose tea in Chinatown at Ten Ren; it's all really nice stuff. The goal is, instead of having these projects that come off as being really rough around the edges, to do something that actually feels polished, quiet, and very conversational. Especially at a festival, where everything is really Burning Man-y, rave-y, and pulled together with duck tape all the time.

Theodore Bouloukos defies the pecking order

Name: Theodore Bouloukos

Age: 48

Hometown: New York, NY

Job description: Actor, writer

Upcoming projects: Journey, directed by Malachi Roth; The Evangelist, dir. Nate Chapman; Public Hearing, dir. James N. Kienitz Wilkins; Days Gone By, dir. John Zao; Belief, dir. Stephen Stifano; Projections: The Marcus Garland Story, dir. Joshua Paul Johnson; and exploratory rehearsals for Ronald Bronstein's next feature film.
Select links: "A Slew of Characters From Various Neighborhoods" (NY Mag), Aestheticism column (YourItList), Hiding My Candy: The Autobiography of the Grand Empress of Savannah, Portrait by Jon Wasserman, Portrait by Joon-Hyun Hwang, YouTube, IMDb, MySpace

Describe your current state of mind.

Hopeful. Anticipatory. Harried. And probably exhausted.

What is your idea of happiness?

I think happiness is a state of mind far too multitudinous to locate to one moment or within a single experience. Happiness is: security; love; victory; triumph; resourcefulness; friendship; family.

What's your greatest fear?

Fear of not succeeding. And the fear of not living up to the exceptionally high standards set by me, by my family and by the culture within which I was raised. One must live according to the precepts of his integrity, his character, [and] the cut of his cloth. So falling short of any of it is tantamount to failure.

Todd Chandler recommends sitting next to strangers

 

Name: Todd Chandler
Age: 36
Hometown: Wellesley, MA
Job description: Director, musician, artist, educator
Upcoming projects: Premiering Flood Tide this fall for Empire Drive-In with Jeff Stark as part of the 2010 SJ Biennial, Dark Dark Dark releases Wild Go on Oct. 5, finished recording Fall Harbor's second album (Meet Me At The Water) with Ryder Cooley
Select links: Official site, Kyle McDonald's photos of DDD scoring Flood Tide (flickr), "Sailing Down the Hudson River on Junk Sculptures: The Movie" (L Magazine), Flood Tide Kickstarter, "'Swimming Cities' Docks in Manhattan" (NY Mag)

Describe your current state of mind.

Soft focus.

What were you like as a child?

I didn't walk until I was almost 18 months old. Before I was able to walk I could speak in complete sentences...crawling around asking, "When do we eat?".

What's your fondest childhood memory?

A 1982 early August evening in Massachusetts. It's about 85 degrees outside and just beginning to cool down. My skin smells like chlorine and I'm lighting sticks on fire in the woods. It's almost time for dinner. My father is barbecuing chicken in the backyard and the television is on, at the head of the dinner table.

Jean Barberis knows how to spot a well-dressed man

Name: Jean Barberis
Age: 32
Hometown: South of France
Job description: Curator of Flux Factory, freelance carpenter, artist
Upcoming projects: Going Places (Doing Stuff) III, working on a film for a show in Athens
Select links: "New Yorkers, looking for a little adventure? Sign up for The Flux Factory's art adventures" (NY Daily News), "The Corduroy Appreciation Club's Grand Meeting" (T Magazine Blog), "Making It: Jean Barberis" (Time Out NY)

Describe your current state of mind.

Summer frazzled, fun days.

What is your idea of happiness?

Happiness is mostly achieved through little things here and there everyday: watching birds; cloud gazing; adventures; making things with your hands or with your brain; community.

What was it like growing up in France?

Boring. Just like every small town. I don't think it would be any different than growing up in, say, Wichita.

Oh, that's interesting that you knew that I grew up in Wichita.

Well, I did my research, too.

What are the cultural differences between life in France and life in New York?

I feel like people are more proactive in the cultural arts scene in New York. You have to really get out and make things happen.