photo by james petz
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Octavia Ruth Benedetto was born to a large bourgeois Italian-American family in 1987. As a girl, Octavia was known for expertly riding other people's horses, and for brazenly house-sitting on the grand estates of the Potomac without permission of the proprietors. To confuse Fairfax County Virginia authorities she assumed the identity of her long-missing (and presumed dead) sister, "Charlotte Benedetto."
In 2000, at the tender age of fourteen, Charlotte moved to Baltimore, to become Maryland's most prolific and popular artist's model. Renowned for her stillness, symmetry and youthful plumpness; her iconic image has been featured in ArtNews, Art in America and ArtForum. She is reportedly Raoul Middleman's favorite model.
Charlotte Benedetto was elected Mayor of the Copycat Building, and served as official police ombudsman for that community of artists from 2001 through 2007. In 2005 she was forcibly incorporated into the Wham City group as an indentured servant and documentarian.
Charlotte Benedetto studied art and art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Johns Hopkins University. Her current artwork is in the photographic, print and portrait tradition of Diane Arbus, Benjamin Franklin and John Singer Sargent. She concentrates on feminist and absurdist themes, especially self-portraits.
Charlotte Benedetto is also well-known for her literary ability. She has written three books of poetry and has nearly completed her first novel. Charlotte has contributed to Catatac Magazine, and currently writes regular arts and culture reviews for the Baltimore City Paper.In 2007 she joined Baltimore's Seton Hill community with her partner, underground feminist filmmaker Josephine Quinn. They have twin sons, Phineas Petz Quinn and Adam Stevenson Benedetto.
Although she is a popular local celebrity, Charlotte Benedetto, like all iconoclasts, has a notable chorus of detractors. In 2006, these parties set up a hate website at charlottebenedetto.com. Shortly after learning of this huge online community united against her, in 2007, Charlotte Benedetto became a recluse, and no longer gives interviews or allows the press into her studio.
To contact Charlotte Benedetto you may email her charlotte@whamcity.com. You may send all gifts of tribute, legal aid donations, mail art projects, or hate mail to: 5th Story Studios, 405 W. Franklin St, Baltimore Maryland 21201. Donations for her legal defense fund are also accepted via paypal.
Charlotte Benedetto's: photos
photo by Taylor Fimbrez
Mark Brown is a Video Artist, DJ, Trance Jammer, and Wham City Promotions / Booking Dork.
For more info, catch Mark Brown on the web
at these fine locations:
http://www.mcbrown.info
http://www.blogisdead.com
http://www.myspace.com/markbrown
http://www.vimeo.com/markbrown
photo by mr. camlin
I am a self-taught clothing designer, hairstylist, saw player, actress, and ventriloquist in Baltimore, which is the city I have always lived in. My whole life. I have also djed once. You can come get your hair cut by me if you want. I have a big week of fashion shows coming up in and I'm really stressed out about it.
I also perform in a vaudevillian slapstick duo called Pitifur and Cornelius with my good friend Adam Endres. Of course, HE thinks our name is Cornelius and Pitifur, but he is sad and deluded.
April Camlin's: photos
photo by Zardoz
Dan Deacon Myspace
Butt Stomach Myspace
Hi. I'm Dan Deacon. Before moving to Baltimore I went to college and grad school at the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase. For the past four years I have been touring a collection of pieces for voice, electronics and audience. In my spare time I enjoying booking shows at various weird places in Baltimore. I'm looking forward to touring less and finishing up a series of pieces for large ensemble. The future surrounds us. Let us begin.
Dan Deacon's: audio, photos, video, art
photo by charlotte benedetto
Adam Endres was born on November 2nd, 1979 at 11:04pm in Albany, NY.
He tries to camp as frequently as possible. He loves swimming and hiking and being in the wilderness. The last mountain he hiked to the top of was Giant Mountain on August 13, 2007. The last body of water he swam in was the Boquet River on August 26, 2007. He loves the ocean, but never made it this summer. He likes rides, the sport of football, and playing games. Sometimes he is not sure what the hell he is doing.
He has been and currently participates in several bands, most notably Blood Baby, The Boo Boos, Sports Ghosts, Awesome Music, and fresh coming The Creepers.
He performs in the vaudevillian comedy duo, Cornelius and Pitifur, with April Camlin. Of course she would have you believe the name of the act is Pitifur and Cornelius, but that is most definitely wrong.
Completed in May 2004, he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the short film, Medicine, a musical comedy about the zany world of psychiatry.
Performed in January and February and 2005, he was director and key player in the Wham City musical revue of Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. The other performers in this were Josh Kelberman, Connor Kizer, Dan Deacon, Abra Aducci, and Peter O’Connell.
Performed in June 2006, he wrote, directed, and starred in the musical for the stage, Sad Little Pony: a Horse Play about a small horse who is picked on and vengefully leaves his comrades to die on his way to becoming a god. This was a collaboration with, among others, the Santa Dads, Lexie Mountain Boys, and Honne Wells who all wrote their own music for the play.
Performed in February 2007, he wrote and directed the play, A New Play, starring Mason Ross and Sean Blue, a satire about the success of oppression, greed, and selfishness in the world.
He is one of the key producers in many Wham productions including Theatre Night and The Ed Schrader Show.
He wishes for all people, including him, to be happy and more accepting of others and themselves.
November 30, 1979, 11:30pm, Annapolis, MD
I went to Purchase College. I am a founding member of Wham City. I have shown work in lots of places and publications, and toured the east coast with my friends. I have known one member of Wham City for 10 years and one member for 25 years. I hereby make this website.
I am an illustrator comics and website and sometimes
costumes.
I enjoy blue, red, yellow and green when used correctly.
Please email me at dina@whamcity.com immediately.
photo by uli loskot
Lizz King (Elizabeth Katherine Heather King) was born in Baltimore Maryland on August 6th 1980. She shuffled around the rural parts of Maryland for most of her youth and adolescence and eventually ended up in Shepherdstown, West Virginia as a college freshman. Her parents wouldn't let her stray very far, so they followed her there, where they bought a restaurant and enslaved her as a dishwasher/ waitress/ prepcook/ linecook for six arduous years. She escaped and fled back to Baltimore in the fall of 2004, where she took up nude modeling to earn some skratch. In the middle of all that shifting, waxing, and waning she began composing little ditties to decorate her undulating emotional states. She usually sings about boys, culture, and theology. Her most recent ambitions are in agriculture, pop booty tunes, monogamy, and preparing for any and all possible beautiful/catastrophic natural or unnatural shifts in our collective conscious. She does most of her own booking and can be reached at lizz@whamcity.com or www.myspace.com/llizzking if you want her to sing you some songs in person. Also at P.O. Box 135 Shepherdstown WV 25443 if you like sending valentines and curios. She collects dirt from all over the world if you feel inclined to mail her some earth from a faraway place.
photo by christine sajecki
Santa
Dads
Project: Psychopomp
Connor Kizer was born in ROCHESTER NY in 1981 to Cynthia and Smokey Kizer. He was raised by them in Phoenix NY where he performed in a comedic folk band called Touched By An Uncle with his childhood friend Joshua Grosvent, and participated in many theatrical performances. He started attending Purchase College in 1999, where he met many other Whamites and with them came up with much of the direction his art would later take. After college he started working in offices, which has been a huge influence on him. He moved to Baltimore with the rest of the crew in 2004. Since arriving in Baltimore, he has participated in Wham Theater, and helped run the Wham Lecture series (hopefully to be restarted soon.) He also plays in the intermittent bands Santa Dads and Ram Ones. He is working on Project: Psychopomp, which is an attempt to become an Infomorph (being of pure information) without electronic means. He also has published two pamphlets of essays about his thoughts on this project called Infomorph Issues 1 and 2. His collection of short stories, Office Magic, is forthcoming.
I keep it real.
Kate Levitt's: photos
photo by santa claus
Videohippos
Blood Baby
Butt Stomach
I was born in Washington DC and grew up just over her
border, on the Maryland side of course. My father and Animal took turns
teaching me how to play drums when my head was still bigger than the
rest of my body. Despite the efforts of many nuns and Jesuits to steer
me in a more academic direction, I am still spending most of my time
playing drums. I picked up a few other instruments and skills along
the way: electric bass, tree-climbing, vibraphone, seed-spitting, outdoor
guitar, deathwish-biking, kalimba, smile-faking, guiro, copyright-infringing,
etc. Most recently I acquired the ability to tame wild bears by telepathy.
Between 1997 and 2007, three aborted attempts at institutions
of hire learning landed me in various social milieus and resulting collaborative
projects. Now here I am in Baltimore with just as many stupid bands
as ever. I love everyone who hates money. I will continue to have these
stupid bands until I am crucified by the rest of wham city on my 33rd
birthday, Dec 25 2012. After that, I will transform into a wolf and
usher in a new age, where humans are always naked and running in fear.
Get in shape.
MegadeathMoore.com
Ooey-Gooey
Blog
A righteous babe.
photo by dina kelberman
Robby Rackleff (aka Blue Leader)
I write comics about video games.
photo by jimmy joe roche
Jimmy Joe Roche is a Baltimore based Filmmaker, Video Artist, and member of WHAMCITY. He is a long time collaborator of Dan Deacon, including their recent piece Ultimate Reality which has been performed at Whartscape 2006 (MD), Corcoran Gallery (DC), Walters Art Museum (MD), New York Underground Film Festival (NYC), Anthology Film Archives(NY), and at the Silent Barn with Thurston Moore(NY).
His films Ghost Zane and Mozek have toured underground venues all over the East Coast, and Canada. His visual art was recently shown in the two man show Glittering Ruin, Featuring artists Jimmy Joe Roche and Ben Furgal, at the Current Gallery in Baltimore, (MD), and his Baltimore Shopping Network, were recently featured in the Antagonism Hacks and Hoax's, show at Maryland Art place, and screened along with other films at Whartscape 2007. His music video for Dan Deacon's Crystal Cat will be featured in the San Francisco international Animation festival 2007. Ultimate Reality will be released on Car Park records 2007, and will touring nationally January 2008.
http://www.myspace.com/rayroy
http://www.youtube.com/rayroy3
http://www.rayroy.tv
Ray officially became part of Wham City when he moved in for the summer
of '06, coinciding with Wham's 2nd incarnation in the Copy Cat, though
Ray had enjoyed previous trips in earlier years to help out Whammers
wherever he could, recording early shows (like Beauty and the Beast!)
and aiding the first convoy to deliver the original founders to the
Copycat, Baltimore's womb.
Ray is a multimedia artist currently living in New York in the West
Village, who often collaborates with radical performing artists.
Ray is responsible for the following things:
SCOPOPHYLACTIC, a live show presenting orgasmic combinations of video&performance,
curated by ray, hosted by "Randy"
BLUE LEADER / OCDJ music video, as seen here on youtube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ak_txfs1rWo)
DREAM TEAM, an environment intensive sleepover event which facilitates
a SHARED DREAM EXPERIENCE, with Charlotte Gibbons and K.J. Holmes
RED LIGHT SPECIAL, video/dance piece with Noopur Singha, Charlotte Gibbons,
Ray Roy, and Stephen Cooper, various videos documenting wham city things
with wham city friends, the CREEPERS videos, the BEAUTY & THE BEAST
video. Whenever YouTube's current editorial staff approves all the videos
Ray has selected, Ray will be a guest editor of the front page of YouTube
Ray had a truly retarded video he made for the internet, called "hamster
dance" featured on the front page, it has been seen over 2.5 million
times.
Ray currently lives and works in New York as an artist, he does video
design and technical direction for dance and experimental theater companies,
has worked at La MaMa, Joyce SoHo, SoHo Rep, Dance Theater Workshop,
The Kitchen
Ray's favorite new york performance place is Space Space (so named by
Ray), which is lived in and run by great friends
Ray Roy's: videos
photo by uli loskot
I am Ed Schrader:
I Live and work in Baltimore Maryland
as a book&music critic/comedian/talk show host
(i.e. The Ed Schrader Show)
and a sandwich maker.
and musician.
I wasBorn in Utica NY in 1979. Have had 37 jobs.
I graduated with a bachelors from Suny Brockport --
I am unhealthily obsessed with David Bowie,
I am not being ironic, I actually have a problem.
I like Big Black, Current 93, and REM
If Warner BROS is reading this, I will take a 3 million advance with 50% of all sales on non album merch.
Donna Sellinger won second place in the Baltimore City Paper's annual Short Fiction Contest. What an accomplishment! She is currently (February 2008) directing the Wham City Players in a theatrical adaptation of the movie Jurassic Park. She is a founding member of The Missoula Oblongata, an experimental theatre company with whom she tours several months a year. For unknown reasons, she is working toward her MFA at Towson University. Her beautiful poetry can be found on the "writings" section of this page. She is deeply committed to the inefficiency and necessity of live art. As such, she will soon produce/perform a solo play only to be performed for one person at a time. This play will be called "When Good Things Happen to Good People."
Donna Sellinger's: writings