Culture & Main Video Ep 68, Esworthy, Brabham, Nispel & Flynn

Carla (The Priestess) Christopher, host of Culture & Main: "Time to enjoy the behind-the-scenes raw poetic genius of the godfather of the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel and Iris G Press Fame-- Marty Esworthy!" Poetry Cartel flyer, 2004

Also check out the musical stylings of Kiko Brabham AND Dustin Nispel & Jessica Flynn take on First Friday."

Culture and Main Ep 68 White Rose Community TV

http://youtu.be/Sdw21jchz24?list=UU-1o28ZQVfsUWSqjd3lrVoQ

Dan Vera is featured poet November 6 at Harrisburg's Midtown Scholar

“The poetry of Dan Vera is clear, strong, honest and funny. He’s the sharp-eyed observer in the corner who doesn't say much but makes every word count.” --Martín Espada

Dan Vera is the featured poet November 6 at Harrisburg's Midtown Scholar Bookstore. The Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel hosts this community reading series, held every Thursday from 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Dan Vera's a writer, editor and author of Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press). He's the inaugural winner of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books). His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. He's the co-creator of the literary history site, DC Writers' Homes, and on the board of Split This Rock Poetry.

“To read Dan Vera is to believe the world is actually a good place after all – a place where the reputation of poetry is redeemed with humor and kindness. In the deepest part of the heart where we truly reside, there is always a wish that poetry will rinse off artifice. This is it.” --Grace Cavalieri

Poetry Thursdays is hosted by the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel, at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, 1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg, PA 17102. Every Thursday! Phone: 717.236.1680

https://twitter.com/gadZookia/status/529165250827157505/photo/1

Painting in July; Raining on May....

So, I painted today. :) Turns [turned] out to be a slate-y bluish green thang. Yeah, called verdigris.

In ancient times it was called existentialism.

Then I invented this complex form which encourages italics. It’s Mai,
it’s soggy-- Il pleut, no? Maybe. (I’m remembering a cat called Gris-gris.)

Mei-Mei Berrsenbrugge? Agh! without spell-check, it’s always a toss-up.
Shimmering silver-foil disintegrating as it arcs over a fence.
Her name? Agh!

Mai, y’know, Sammy’s wife? The rat-pack an’ all that.

And...yeah, May West, mais oui!

Poetry Book Sale/Summer Readings at Midtown Scholar

Now's the time to pick up some great poetry bargins at the Midtown Scholar. Get early Holiday gifts. There's a sale in the upstairs Poetry Nook: 20% off all poetry books! The sale runs from June 17 until June 30. And there are special upcoming poetry listening opportunities, beginning with Alyse Bensel on June 20. Her poetry has appeared in Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, MAYDAY Magazine, and Word Riot. She is a regular contributor to Newpages and the Los Angeles Review, and additional work has appeared in CALYX, Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, and Rain Taxi. In the fall of 2013, she will begin doctoral studies in creative writing. Internet Cafe at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, 1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg, PA 17102 Phone: 717.236.1680 Upcoming events at Midtown Scholar Poetry Thursdays: All Events are from 7-9 pm with an Open Reading from 7-8 pm followed by an 8-9 pm Feature, or continued Open. June 27 -- Feature Jack Veasey July 4 -- Holiday : No Reading July 11 -- Feature Yolanda Wisher July 18 -- Feature J. Love 'SoulCry' Kearse July 25 -- Open Reading August 1 -- Feature Gary Miller August 8 -- Feature Kenneth Walker August 15 -- Open Reading August 22 -- TBA August 29 -- Open Reading September 5 -- TBA September 12 -- Open Reading September 19 -- Feature J. C. Todd September 26 -- Feature Tony Oliveri

Ionesco's "Man With Bags", Harrisburg Gig, 90-ish

. . . Little bit o' web search and a search of my own pic/documentations turned up this: Original poster from Harrisburg RR Station production, early 90s . . . --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . Man with Bags by Eugene Ionesco, Translated by Marie-France Ionesco, Adapted by Israel Horovitz What happens when you do go home again? When the Man of the title heads back to the land of this childhood, the notions of time, space, and memories merge to create a dreamscape of great insight, passion, and humor. Like great works of visual art, Ionesco weaves commonplace ideas, images, and observations in order to unmask complex truths, and profound ambiguities. "For the playwright, a dream can be considered as an essentially dramatic event. The dream is pure drama. In a dream, one is always in mid-situation. To be more concise, I think that the dream is a lucid thought, more lucid than anyone has when awake, a thought expressed in images, and that at the same time its form is always dramatic." --Eugene Ionesco . . . --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- . . . . <>Alive - Entertainment Section issuu.com/thesentinel00/docs/alivebinderdecember8Share "Dec 8, 2011 – 11, at Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg. ...... [Clark]Nicholson had appeared earlier in another Ionesco work, the play "Man with Bags" -- given a multimedia production at the Train Station in the early 1990s ..." . . . --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- .

JFK’s Predator, Shaggy Tibetan, Verdi’s Slave Girl

To right-- that famous 1993 logodaedalus:

Sorting Things Out. Sort of.

It’s summer, heat wave’s over, and I can either catch my breath or do the laundry. I decide instead to go through a pile of letters and papers near a chair I hardly sit in any more. I generally sit at a computer, my back facing the to-do piles, and try to block out the chaotic real world. It works, I’m very good at avoidance. Olympic-class good.

First thing to do is clear debris from that chair I hardly sit in anymore. That’s not so hard, takes about 30 minutes, though for every action there is an equally unpleasant reaction. I don’t throw away the debris, I move it to another place. And that’s not good.

But now, at least there's a big chair to sit in, to sort nearby things in order to reward myself, to earn a shot at looking through some 10 or fifteen books I recently brung [sic] home and piled up in my hallway. I’ve found that if you don’t look soon at 'em soon enough, they lose their pizazz, so I‘m eager to look. Plus, my landlord doesn't much like books cluttering the hallway.

So, I start sorting whatever's closest and I find & go through a 1993 logodaedalus with some art and poetry by Paul Collier & I’m reading it, as if for the first time & it’s really fun.

Then I find a program, with notes, not mine, from an Alger Hiss lecture at Hopkins, May 3, 1974. I used to live across the street from Hopkins and caught some good stuff there, John Barth, for one, missed Derrida, probably moved to Kentucky Avenue across/past the stadium by May of 74. “TIME SHALL NOT DIM THE GLORY OF THEIR DEEDS”. Memorial stadium said that. “I had to go to Lewisburg to meet communists!” said Hiss, according to those notes which add: “(big laugh)”!

2011 papers never even clipped or saved

Next up in the pile-- some old NY times music reviews. I skip Stephen Holden’s take on Olivia Newton-John (“queen of toy music”[jan 82]) and Robert Palmer’s “Chic Discovers Life After Disco” [dec 81] but linger over John Rockwell’s riff on Kim Carnes, “Bette Davis Eyes” (“pop-single phenomenon of the year” [jul 81]). He compares her vocal style to Rod Stewart’s “frayed tenor” and also to Bonnie Tyler. Says Rockwell “That kind of voice, raspy, soulful and uncontrolled, triggers powerful emotions in people.”

Almost seven years later, June 1987, Jon Pareles, in a Times article, “Of Rasps, Yowls and Din (just guessing "Din" is last word, last word is cut off, just a "Di" showing)” says irritants are essential esthetics “extending the vocabulary of brass snorts and saxophone squeals... courting anarchy with increasingly open structures and far-reaching improvisations.” Cool take. And, asserts Pareles, an irritant could have commercial value by making a product more distinctive. Y'know-- the squeaky wheel gets the juice!? In early rock, “the ability to irritate became an asset, those who considered it raucous might as well keep on listening to Bing Crosby.”

Okay, enough of the Times, next in the pile, a San Francisco Chronicle, Datebook and/or Pink Section from March, 2004. Not sure at all why this is in a save-pile.

Here’s a question: what do JFK’s predator, Shaggy Tibetan, and Verdi’s slave girl, have in common? Answer. They’re part of a crossword puzzle compiled by Donna J. Stone on p. 73, of the Frisco Datebook. They are, in fact, 24, 28 and 29 Across.

And, y'know, after thinkin' about it-- pretty sure that I musta caught the Hiss gig and that the notes were made by my second wife. Nice lady.

I slip the program into the save pile.

--30.--

Vedono la Foresta, Vedono la Foresta

Large urns arrive at the instance of shoreline, reminiscent of mean-mr-mustard on black culottes A world without end. Sandifiably dandified, Scalettature è una parte della moderna Vedono la foresta . . reminiscent of the lines of yellow mustardy black culottes and sky and hills. Lines. World without lead. Parroted comic sounds. Bounding through borders of liquidation, the forest intermittently above. In lines of the sun/ fluttering rouge. Large urns arrive. Up and down.... Through them the liquidation order, searing the forest intermittently. Over. In sunlight fluttering red leaves. the wind, the car, the flashing of the forest again. Jaggedness is so a part of modern that they sense the forest, but can't take it with them. You, all of you, are driving toooo fast. Too fast to catch & reflect on yr shiny but wan impressions. Large urns. Feelin' groooovy/ si! Si, Scarlatti. . . Scalettature è una parte della moderna/ Vedono la foresta, vedono la foresta, vedono la foresta/ Vedono la foresta, Vedono la foresta! Vedono la foresta! The lone telepone pole, the forest, the lines are singing, blinging, replicating by/past (whoosh!) much too, much too quickly for human consumption, they have resonance, rsounding, re-sound, more sound caroms, rebound at the heavens expense, with pageantry. . . In the land of frescoes the half-tone is King. Trumpets trumpeting. Blaring. Battered shattered, blitzed. Sandifiably dandified. Airflow like an old Chrysler, like a new river. Rising and sinking lines of blue and black and green, and sheen. . . You can hear it through the whine. And, and… Listen up! if life’s not worth living, grRRRrRRr: know I’m sayin’?