DIRT CITY ARCHIVES: Kosmopolitan

 Innerview with The Kosmos Girl

conducted in October 2010 

Sometimes the right person for the job has to be imported. When the late Felix Wurman needed someone to manage The Kosmos performance space, he summoned Austin expatriate Maggie R. In a year’s time Maggie has made the place a versatile tool for the community, a virtual Swiss Army Knife with live rock and roll, chamber music, yoga classes, movies, poetry readings and a full coffee bar. I managed to catch up with the industrious Miss R. (no easy task) for some Q&A.

Aside from the Carl Sagan type answers, where is the Kosmos?

1715 Fifth Street NW in the Factory on Fifth, a collection of artists' work spaces.

When was the Kosmos established?

My friend Felix wanted to expand the community that had been established through a Sunday morning concert series. He leased this grand space with a vaulted, trussed ceiling in a beautiful red-brick warehouse. I was living in Greece and he e-mailed me about coming back and running it. I thought it was something that Albuquerque was very much in need of. It's been an excruciating journey with meager funds, a lot of blood sweat and tears but I feel I've managed to pull off a bit of the vision that Felix had in mind. We lost him to complications of bladder cancer in December.  

tea & sympathy

Who is the Kosmos?

The Kosmos is everyone who's ever braved the strange and unknown world that is the industrial warehouse district north of downtown! Essentially, The Kosmos is me and business partner Jerry Miller a co-owner of the compound. David Cudney of 5G Gallery is usually around, hanging chandeliers, providing the charming sculpture installations, building a nifty, mobile console for our projector, everything!  Josh Hasko helps with sound  and booking top-notch shows. The beautiful Violet Rush is second-in-command on the coffee bar and there’s a handful of friends who I occasionally call on.

and your little dog too...

Because I’ve only seen bands here like The Scrams or The Filthmongers, I think of The Kosmos as a rock space but what other events take place?

The Church of Beethoven (ensemble music and poetry)  is held every Sunday morning at 10:30. There’s free Kundalini Yoga class every Friday at 9:30 am and old skool cartoons on the big screen Saturday from 10 am to noon, complete with sugary bowls of cereal for a buck-fifty!  Our events calendar is at www.thekosmosnm.blogspot.com .  We also rent the space for weddings, fundraisers, private parties, whatever. Coming up: a lecturer from South Africa on a monolithic structure older than the Stonehenge, a performance for the  Django Festival, Albuquerque Experimental a new two-day music event and our second annual alternative holiday arts/crafts fair Bizarre Bazaar -- the events truly run the gamut!

the scrams

Ok so we have where, when, who and what but most vital, why is the Kosmos? 

Albuquerque needs more alternative venues. Since leaving Austin six years ago, I was missing the satisfaction of listening to an excellent show, seeing who was out that night, catching up with friends and what they're workin’ on, what the ladies were wearin’, who was kissing who, all of it!  I wanted to create an environment that was more than just about getting fucked up on a Friday night. Albuquerque has a wealth of talented bands coming through. We need to offer the appropriate listening spaces for them.

At its essence, The Kosmos is a reality of my own creation, because goddamn, if the one on hand ain't ever-terrifying! I want people to come here and remember that humans can relate on a level that does not involve authority, paperwork, the 9-5 grind, reckless consumption, over-sterilization, over-criminalization, judgment, vanity, and all those other things that make the constructed reality so fucking dismal. New Mexico has a lot of people on that level. Those are the kinds of attitudes that will ensure the very survival of The Kosmos.  

the filthmongers

How does the Kosmos support itself?

My madness and masochism. I've spent the last six years kinda fucking-off/squatting/rambling around the planet, in this terrible conflict with the excess of the the way we live. I have no problem living in poverty while laboring to keep this place afloat. Hell, it's better than shoveling french fries at McDonalds, right? I am so grateful for the physical space, the opportunity to provide an alternative venue for Albuquerque and that I have been able to feed and shelter myself along the way -that's more luxury than the majority of the planet can afford. And it's worth it to be my own boss and to live as subversively as I want!

A typical day in the life of the Kosmos?   

Sometimes I feel the most fitting job description would be "furniture-mover". The space transforms at least three times a week, every week.  We've hosted yoga, tango, documentary screenings, bazaars, bands from American roots to European innovators of the 'noise' genre. There was even a live human sacrifice once, complete with sheep mask and splattering blood! Considering my life-long aversion to routine, I feel satisfied. 

What’s your favorite color, Maggie?

Fire.

trixie

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originally presented in weekly alibi