Best medicine Jon Brumit sets up at SPACE BY MAGGIE KNOWLES
	Vendetta Retreat By Jon Brumit | SPACE, in Portland | 207.828.5600 | through Aug 14 | artist talk Aug 4 | 7 pm

Revenge: one of the powerful driving forces of human nature. We consider it daily — the parking division attendant who slaps the boot on your 1982 Rabbit (again), the waitress who continues to put ham on your pizza despite your desperate motions to the contrary, that psycho ex-girlfriend who just won’t go far, far away. Though we dream of dropping anvils on these people who are out to ruin our day, few of us take it to the edge of bringing fantasy to fruition. Enter Jon Brumit, a "revolutionary social art service entrepreneur who takes one for the team and still doesn’t turn a profit." A revenge connoisseur, if you will.

Brumit is fascinated by the creative energy behind this lusty force; he’s an optimist who regards vendetta as a glass half full (and also as a weapon). He invites you to visit his Vendetta Retreat, which holes up at SPACE through August 14. Friday August 4 he will give a talk/performance at 7 pm (assuming the death threats he’s received are just talk).

The question you are all waiting to pose: How the hell does someone come up with a vendetta retreat? As with most great discoveries, our friend serendipity is to thank/blame. While driving south on 101 in his native California, Brumit whizzed by a sign reading "Vedanta Retreat." A murder camp? He thought so until his brain caught up with the rest of him. But it got him thinking about revenge — screw the formalities, just think of the creative energy that goes into it.

The exhibit at SPACE is made of two parts: a collage and binder of his nationwide revenge survey and a soundtrack that he composed and produced. The pieces twist into each other, becoming a storyboard of the desire for revenge and the cleansing process involved with drawing/writing your ultimate vendetta fantasy.

Flipping through each page is a no-holds-barred tour through the minds of random people. The survey starts simply enough: a getting-to-know-you section asks your favorite color, food, car, where you would go by blimp, and the name of your street. Then it goes a little deeper: your most painful memory, extracurricular activities, thoughts on rage, history of blackouts, and psychological composition. The collected handwriting, all scribed in red ink per request of Brumit, gets messier with emotion as it nears the end of each page.

So who do people want revenge on? "Her mother for not teaching her fellatio," "George Bush for being George Bush," "A bird who crapped on me," "a dumb blonde who tousled my boyfriend’s hair . . ." The list is endless. It’s mostly made up of wanting to kill/maim/run over cheating, lying, scumbag (ex-) partners; we see the common thread of what pisses us off.

And what have people done about being wronged in a bar, or the bedroom, or in Washington? Lots of kicking ass in Detroit, sleeping with the former-best friend’s husband in Chicago, and dreaming of W being ripped to shreds in all cities. The pictures that accompany these are hysterical — bits of the doomed soul are strewn in red chunks in any empty space the page allows.

As I flip further into the binder, the music strutting into my head, as peaceful as it is annoying, I consider my own revenge tactics. Like my attempts at getting a tattoo, I had always chickened out at the moment of truth, so I couldn’t fill in the "past vendetta" section. But "future vendetta"? Unlike the ignorant girl from Michigan who wrote, "I have no plans because I (heart) everybody!!!!," I could certainly fill in this blank. And so the red sharpie went to work creating the doom and destruction of "Molly," a girl who has nothing better to do than bad mouth me around town.

How will she end? Nothing too ordinary for this special lady; she becomes the late-day snack of a land shark who treats her like cud, regurgitating and digesting her all night long. Ah! The freedom and clarity that comes with seeing the enemy perish at one’s own hand. I tack it on the wall with the others, smile, and look to Brumit, who has just guided me through the equivalent of $5000 in therapy.

So go. Fill in the blanks. Create your vendetta. Heal in the process. And leave with the greatest advice of all, that living well is indeed the best revenge.

Maggie Knowles can be reached at margaretknowles@yahoo.com