From Juneau with laughs, a satirical journal

The cover story follows a team that cleans dust and debris from Mendenhall Glacier using vacuum cleaners, whisk brooms and even dental floss. Other articles showcase fish farming -- in dirt, like potato farming; a look behind the doors of the National Weather Service -- revealing chanting people in hoods and "surrounded by numerous dice, Taro [sic] cards, crystal balls"; and a review of "Furry Like Me" -- in which reporter Todd Wadd employs "state-of-the-art technique used to cure baldness ... so that he grew a four-inch coat that covered his whole body" before being "dropped into the Alaskan wilderness to live among the bears as one of them."

PhotoShopped gag pictures include "Wi-Fi capable Internet Trees" installed by the U.S. Forest Service along hiking trails, a digital clock on the steeple of the Russian Orthodox church in Sitka and African lions prowling the southeast coast. There are ridiculous letters from readers, reminiscences by old-timers and faux obituaries ("Last Call for the Last Frontier"; "Minnie Kuspuk, 140, of Bethel, died while arm wrestling her great-great-great-grandson," leaving behind a family so large that services had to be held in the Sullivan Arena.)

Contributors have names like Douglass Island, Dee Nalley and Homer Spitt.

Some of the best bits are the ads, many of which are made-up, like the Fairbanks restaurant called Gutz, "ALL intestines ALL the time! $1 per foot on Tuesdays"; the Feed the Wild Alaska Garbage Bears Foundation and the Beautiful Alaska Anti-Visitor Bureau, which reminds potential visitors, "We love it here by ourselves, so just stay away!"

But most ads are for real businesses with a sense of humor. "Ask us about switching over to genuine Alaska fish oil," says one from an auto parts store. A veterinarian poses with a doctored shot showing a team of turtles at the start of the Iditarod sled dog race. A seafood company plugs "Quality wholesale fish heads, tails, fins and more!" A kitchen supply store hawks electric ulus.

Copies of Real Alaskan Magazine are $10 and available in Anchorage at Metro Music and Books, Cyrano's and ShuzyQ shoe store as well as smaller bookstores around Alaska. They can also be ordered by contacting editor Jeff Brown at jbrown@alaska.net.

First Friday rambles

The Rambler was checking out Fairbanks galleries on July 2 (full report on adn.com/artsnob) and so missed the Anchorage hoopla. On Tuesday, however, I nosed around downtown shops where the most excitement -- as is often the case -- could be found at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, 427 D St.

The main space this month is displaying "Pop Tops & Messages on Bottles: A New Look at Flotsam & Jetsam." Gretchen Patterson of Kodiak has collected debris from Alaska beaches, transforming some into found-art assemblages, using some to inform paintings, ceramics and prints -- including an array of mixed media platters titled "Circles" -- and leaving still other objects as they were when she picked them up, asking viewers to consider their origin and the story they tell.

Among collected cans is a huge grape beverage container and another cylinder that once contained Double Happiness king size filtered cigarettes. Patterson has online video that shows some of her process at www.gapatterson.us.

Elsewhere in the galleries, paintings by Elizabeth Eero Irving and Sandra Klevin seemed unremarkable to me. But "The Food Project" installation by "KEL and Feral D" (presumed to be Keren Lowell and Dawnell Smith) grabbed my attention.

A curtain of snack bags lets you get behind a wall of cereal and other food packages. The inside is lined with ingredient listings and USB codes. Wax, clay and plaster models of food items -- and a few real food items, like egg shells (OK, former food items) -- stock the interior of the pantry.

The wall images pertain to processed food products; the interior images suggest natural foods, fruits, vegetables, milk.

Modern life is also the theme of new raku clay work by Marilyn Miller in her collection titled "Crowded Living" at Aurora Fine Arts, further down Fifth Avenue. Packed houses and jammed salmon contrast with a piece titled "Empty Nest," suggesting that you should be careful what you wish for.

The Alaska Native Arts Foundation gallery, 500 W. Sixth Ave., continues its main gallery show of paintings by a mother-daughter pair this month. Ruth Biden, of Fairbanks, has a number of folk-style scenes of Inupiat life, full of color and action. But the one I liked best was a portrait of a young mother wearing a flour sack for a scarf. While the style was still folky and outsider, the pose had a certain classical dignity.

Biden's dauaghter, Andrea Amato, now living in Long Beach, Calif., has a series of photo-realism paintings, mostly of children, drawn from family photos. They too have a certain resonance with images from the grand age of painting. "The Girl in the Blue Atigluk" calls to mind configurations favored by the Dutch masters and 19th century portraitists.

The "commercial" side of the shop, which sells top-grade traditional Native work, has undergone some remodeling. The big drum by Sivalauq -- aka Jerry Lieb -- remains on the shelf, though his drum at the Anchorage Museum gift shop may have sold; at least it's not in the case. (Lieb has been a featured artist at Denali Park over the past month.) There was a fine hunting visor/hat adorned with ivory, baleen and feathers. And Percy Avugiak's "Barack Obama" dance mask.

Fans of Executive Branch memorabilia may also want to check out the presidential nesting dolls at Style of Russia, next to Rum Runners Old Towne Bar on Fourth Avenue.

Artists needed

Speaking of the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, they're looking for artists to take part in upcoming shows and projects. Details are at the gallery.

Also, the Kenai River Council on the Arts is extending a call for artists to participate in the Fifth Annual Experimental Show in October at the Kenai Fine Arts Center. Cake will be the medium for the show, according to a press release.

If you want to take part, you must attend the organizational meeting at 6 p.m. Friday at the center in (truly) Old Towne Kenai, across from the Oilers Bingo Hall. Parameters will be provided at that time, "cake" will be defined, and a theme will be chosen. Call 1-907-283-7040 with your questions.

Limerick update

Thanks to everyone who shared geographical limericks in the wake of last week's main article, those who came up with clever ripostes, including needling me, and those who came up with amazing rhymes for places like Revillagigedo Island.

A lot more people seemed ready to compose a limerick than the double dactyls proposed in a previous article. Read the contributions and add to them at "A geography of Alaska in really bad limericks," posted at adn.com/arts.

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Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.