Cut Cut Cut Cut Cut....
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Teh Muncie
Thursday, October 5
Blue Bottle (206 S. Walnut St., Muncie, IN)
The reading went much better this time, except I was on the verge of an illness that I barely shook in time for Halloween. bleargh. Plus, I took a wee bit too much Benadryl and so was a bit loopier than usual. Still love the Blue Bottle Cafe, though. We were not the "focus" of an event but rather one of several acts on the bill, which was a gallery walk, so there were several venues spread out all along Walnut Street. A few acts took place outside as well.
Lemme say it for the record: if you put poets on opposite belly dancers, it's really no ocontest. Belly dancers gonna win every time. I also was hoping the Tuba Ensemble didn't kick in mid-poem or anything. Yes, it was an eclectic mix of entertainment, which also included live street improv theatre and some decidedly Yannic deedle-di.
We ended up with a nice, fluid crowd: probably five or so people who stayed for the whole 40 minutes, plus another 10-15 or so who flowed in and out of the cafe. My voice was raw and ragged but I made it through our tag-team set largely unscathed. The set list has been lost in the annals of time ... time ... time ... but we essentially did a "greatest hits" package, knowing we would not have a terribly patient crowd. It worked!
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Indy
Thursday, October 26
Corner Coffee Shop (251 E. 11th St., Indianapolis, IN)
Corner Coffee did us right. Jason Ammerman is still getting the scene together there -- and they are running on Poet Time -- but it was a good crowd despite the pissing, late-October rain. I did have the single most annoying cellphone-at-a-reading experience EVAR! The brother had one of those li'l ear bud thingies telemarketers wear, and when his phone went off he just starts taking the call. Then he stands up, moves about 5 feet deeper into the back of the room, sits down again, and keeps talking at normal volume as if he has entered some hermetically sealed soundproof chamber!!! A lovely young lady asked him to take it outside, which he did, all the while continuing the conversation ... which I had to bust in on.
ANNOYING CELLPHONE GUY: What up, dawg?
TB [still on mic]: Oh, not much. I'm giving a reading. You should come to it. I'm awesome.
Fortunately, this all happened between poems, and the crowd stayed with me. I mean, dang!
Anyway, the pre- and post-reading open mic was quite good. Quality stuff going on in Indy these days! Also, merch was sold and free chapbooks were handed out. All in all, a good night.
Set list:
Sound Check
Spark
A Little Wine After Bukowski
Photogenic
Under My Wheels
Sparrow
The Worst Poet I Ever Recorded
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NaPoWriMo
I tried this back in April and was quite pleased with the results, so I'm giving it another whack for November. I was going to try October but I'm glad I didn't. Just too much going on last month, and I would have ended up trying to write 27 poems last night.
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BBRRRAAAAANNNNEEESSSSSS......
violi attended Zombie Prom Monday night (but missed the damn Zombie Walk. Why were these two seemingly complementary events not in communication with each other? Oh yeah. Zombies. Duh.)
Anyway, we won Best Zombie Performance. Cool! My "performance" consisted of shambling after violi pretty much everywhere she went, while she remained more or less oblivious, unless we were slow-dancing. Then she just laughed.
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MATRIX open mic TONIGHT
WHAT: MATRIX OPEN MIC
WHEN: Tonight! (Wednesday, Nov. 1)
WHERE: BOXCAR BOOKS (310 S. Washington)
TIME: 7PM ( sharp!)
WHO: You! Bring a few poems (new, old, not-your-own poems)
PRICE: Free!
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Acceptance!
I found out yesterday that my poem "Old Poets of New China" was picked up by Red River Review! It will be in the November issue.
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NaPoWriMo: poem 1
Daylight saving
isn't easy.
First you take
morning and you
give it to the night.
Then you steal darkness
back from the snow.
All the while
your moments
run way
to the horizon
screaming
like a panicked
mob of victims.