It's difficult to think of anybody less wired than the Reverend Howard Finster. Considered perhaps America's best-known folk artist, Finster earned his reputation painting funky, flattened-perspective pictures of Elvis and George Washington on rough-edged plywood, dashing off commissions for fan David Byrne, and officiating at hipster weddings. He's a work-with-your-hands type more likely to chase a mouse out of his clapboard chapel than to noodle on a computer with one. But here's old Howard starring in - of all places - a CD-ROM tribute called Finsteractive.
Actually, there's something that makes sense about this merger of multimedia technology and low-rent, countrified aesthetics. You may not have known that Finster, besides being an artist and a preacher, also busies himself as a gardener and musician. These little digital peeks into his world are accompanied by the sounds of a plucking banjo and the words of the Bible thumper himself. You'll see him, via QuickTime video, creating a landscape-painting background; you'll get a trippy, computer-morphed glimpse of his Paradise Garden - a living, outdoor art installation of cast-off objects, homemade religious icons, and wildflowers that are truly wild. There are even snapshots of the many roadside churches at which he's pastored.
What you won't find in this impressionistic patchwork of digital Finstervision, however, is a real sense of the man. His Christian ideals, kooky Southern stories, and convoluted family saga must lurk somewhere. But perhaps this disc's leisurely, haphazard demeanor is the most appropriate route to the heart of its endearingly shifty subject. Finster is, after all, American folk at its most classic, and just hearing him ramble about being a "li'l tack" and seeing his unique form of recycling bottles into a magic grotto are pleasures enough for one CD-ROM.
Finsteractive: US$29.95. FLDM: +1 (419) 472 3935, on the Web at www.fldm.com/.
STREET CRED
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Inside the Microsoft File
Sharper By Far
Plug-in Pickup
World of Risks
Finstervision
Geekspeak for the Masses
Fit for Your Ears
Brandon's World
Classic at Heart
Jargon Watch
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The Mix Is in the Stick
Commercial Focus
ReadMe
When Your Computer Gets a Brain
Automanipulation
Generation X: Ready to Rule
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