From: Bill Luoma
Subject: Ear Inn Reading Report Nov 9
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Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 08:56:07 From: Bill Luoma Subject: Ear Inn Reading Report Nov 9 |
Drew Gardner band was fast and furious fri night at knitting factory downstairs get ready it's called the Alterknit. Dug is mad at the knitting factory because they charge seven dollars to some even late into the set. Trio of boys bass drum high sax they're all on brain pep i think. A good round of poets in the audience too: Julie Patton, Andy Levy, Leonard Schwatz, Heather Ramsdell, Garrett Kalleberg, Dan Farrell come to sophies bar with us, Prageeta Sharma, Daria, Lee Ann Brown, Daria tells about channeling energy up & down spine chi gong joon bong shows Lee Ann top of head spot, Marlene Hennesey, Marcy, Shari, EleniS & Laird Hunt. Steve Dalchinsky whom dug says he sees EVERY time he is at a jazz or new music event slips in & out. At end of set we ask for more and knitting factory man says a short one. The Drew Gardner band does a short one. we go back to sophies in car and talk about sex. i recite basting my lover poem and marlene is grossed out by basting. couldn't you make that a little more poetic? dug says it doesn't get any more poetic.dug & marlene and i sit on ledge in front window of sophies. dug distraught about love & psychoanalysis. puts cigarette in mouth so points straight down talks like his dad. Douglas, the best thing I ever did was marry your mother. dug then goes on & on about mom, never anything good enough for her. he was ignored and reprimanded for sweeping the porch wrong. claims now he wants to fail and but he's even a failure at failing. we talk about juliana spahr's new book response. reading response is like watching ophra on ecstasy with the shrink you've always wanted. i tell story of how recognizing boy in car of myself. went for a drive to the beach with my black doggie but stop at gary's first to smoke some pot. leave black doggie in car. black doggie very unhappy left alone in car. o i left in car by dad going to bar. i have car dreams driving backward very fast while i in back. i cry & go to beach with black doggie. i say from reading juliana's book i learn why i obsessed with cars.
This is good I think because I have to go into Rob Fitterman's class on Wed to talk about poetry. I'll read Creeley i know a man, my trip to nyc & stress dug's car poem & and talk about cars and family early on in peoples' lives. then leaving family and getting new family of poets. car carries over cause we journey.
Next day is saturday, ear day, and I have placed two tapes inside jacket so I don't forget. Dug calls and wants me to pick him up on the service road just before Brooklyn Bridge. I not ready and always have to wait for dug so Dug buzz me. He buzzes, I hop out of shower and he comes up. He opens windows because he's hot. It's freezing I say.
Drive to ear over Brooklyn Bridge and down FDR around the horn of lower manhattan, best way to west side. On way up West Street I tell dug last week during the construction I see a diamond sign that says People Working. He thinks that's weird. People are still working but People Working sign is not.
At ear folks are there. I setup tape recorder and mic and James Sherry is having a discussion with George about speakers in the bar room. They haven't been working in bar room or George doesn't want them to be working in bar room. I tell James it's not an issue. I like only having speakers on in back room then people who don't want to hear poetry can sit in bar room and won't have to talk loud over speakers if they working. James writes Call Martin in orange crayon on his paper table cloth. James wants to know what happens if big crowd comes. I say that not an issue for my series.
Sitting in the back room are Jordan Davis, Stephen Malmude, Ange Mlinko, Edwin Torres, Larry Fagin, Lee Ann Brown, Dan Luft, Mary Ann Vitale, Drew Gardner, David Cameron, Douglass Rothschild, Joe Elliot, Brenda Coultas, Dan & Elizabeth the couple who come to every reading but no one knows who they are he has big mustache she writes poems. i ask her if she likes her poems and she says some of them make her happy. Chris Stroffolino comes in tells me how to introduce Ange (with Mick Jagger song) and talks about the trials of getting his review essay of Moxley's new book published too long for a review too short for an essay. Others sit too. Jordan shows me 100 NZ poems and opens to Wynstan Curnow. A good poem in there and Jordan says Wynstan is 60. Laura Ranger tho is the best selling poet in NZ and she 8.
James is eager to start and I give Ange the 5 sign. She is introduced, I have taken Chris' advice and Lairball is agitated. She reads with passion and good poems take us over. We hear words from Immediate Orgy & Audit her Lift chapbook and Mass Ave Dan Bouchard's mag. She reads Lush Life and I can't remember where that's been published. I want to see it in print so I don't have to transcribe and screw up the line breaks.
David Rothschild and Ange Mlinko.
Photo Credit: Jordan Davis.James again gives the signal to start and I give Edwin the 2 sign. At the mic I give announcements and then yell at John Byrum. John Byrum I say give me a potato! John Byrum I want a potato! Edwin reads very well with a lot of performatives. I've forgotten how sexy he is. His fingers are very long and they move like octopus tentacles as he rustles thru pages between poems. He reads A Fairy Tale for IE.
Wherein O wants to be IE be come popular like sticky skinny letters are thingy letters be all the rage now O the rage now wishes it weren't so round so large if O bees unconnected could straighten out to better letter possible popular better letter I or E O we out to active oplecticism O O intowoctaveklokdoctism I O E O oc dockokokclockdoc kloke oke si si si O O O O O O Who needs I or E to be with O so pretty so O become fat in its Oness swelling ump in pumpularito thick in its O fame beliefing in its own empty space O become oral oppears overywhere or getting its original order to Oself to unO to be more Ilike less Olike shows to go you Be happy where you O lest you I yourself to EEdwin likes it that we like his poems. He reads the one about the comet whose name he has trouble saying and I spelling.Kahoutek Kahoutek, I can barely pronounce you I love you. What are you but some comet streaking the sky every 80 years driving us crazy with apprehension. Gonna see you gonna miss you too dark wrong position. I love you and all your confusion more confusing than any lover maybe not. What are you but some crazy streak flashing in and out of my heart. You never call me you never see me you big beautiful ball of fire. You drive me crazy coming then going. I wish we were together so I could break up with you. I wish we were but I can't wait that long. There are so many good ones from Edwin because he can speak and command an audience like Jackson. The Begin of Maybe Where does maybe is my M ism I had I had time maybe I been had been handed hadisms been through wicked wickeds been time to to have a a time to maybe mine maybe sick sick this was body had me a time this body had me in time I had seen and I am is my ism had kept on I had kept this body at bay a bad badness I had I was wicked sick with bad when will sick wicked withave me will time have what i have when had time had me and maybe let me body body was was had was I her body was I her bodyAfter the reading I say come next week for Drew Gardner & Chuck Stein. James says nice combo. I shut down the system and give the poets their cab fares. Edwin sells all his Lung Poetry & I hear things people haven't really said chapbooks. We go to brothers. Jordan comes in and tells Larry to behave himself. Douglass comes in and says he's been talking to John Byrum about post modernism for two hours. Ange plays with her wedding ring and it falls off. She goes under the table to get it.We go to Puffys and talk about blow job poems. Lee Ann tells us about snow cones. I bet the ice melts pretty fast.
