Thursday, October 16, 2008

Update & upcoming events!

A not-entirely short update and some upcoming events hosted by the NJ Post-NeoAbsurdist cell at 131 Bayard St.:

The first event of the Autumn here at The Oromancer (yes, this is the official, actual, final name of the venuehouse. we may or may not get around to posting the whole story) went smashingly! Thanks to everybody who came, it was great to see so many of you together again. Rick, Krista, and Snoops were a joy to have in town, the 3-D pieces made that night are crazy, and the event even got started fairly on-schedule and finished at a decent hour so we could talk afterward.

And on Wednesday, Presidential Debate Bingo was great fun as well. The heavy economic emphasis and the constantly-changing nature of the smokescreen of emotional trigger-phrases made it harder than expected; Evan won the most squares award, Kelly won the doodle contest, Shawna won the least-squares award, and Jamie won for closest to an actual bingo.

One more event in October: a Right-Geist celebration of Goonieween (Oct. 25) to help fight off Johnson & Johnson's ghastly attempt to takeover this independant, mom & pop paranormal ghost-for-hire company--a joint venture of New Jersey Post-Neo and the Meme-Rider Media Team. More on this soon!

THEN:

November 8 at 7:00 PM--the biggest event we've held here since the Anti-Festival (we're even renting folding-chairs):

FIRST, this is the opening of Cathy Mehrl-Bennett's KIMONO SHOW in the Anti-Gallery (or Room of Traps). Cathy's Kimonos--each one dedicated to a collaborator and friend--are beautiful pieces which speak directly to the role of art as interpersonal gestures: using source material from the piece's addressee, she manipulating it digitally, inhabiting the constraint of the kimono's physical shape in a way analogous to closed form in literature. The generosity of these gestures, in which frank friendliness is the guiding idea, make us delighted to welcome them, and hopefully you, into our home. The kimonos can be viewed at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmehrlbennett/sets/72157594534258236/

And the beautiful full-colour book (or free .pdf book), with notes by Cathy on each person to whom they are dedicated and internet links to all, is available at:

http://www.lulu.com/content/2794266

AND, to celebrate: THE BE BLANK CONSORT!
If you know Be Blank, I need say no more; if not, DO NOT MISS this! First, here's a brief bio:

THE BE BLANK CONSORT

The Be Blank Consort was born in June 2001 at The Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, Florida) when all of its members were part of a literary residency convened by Richard Kostelanetz. We are all writers, but we all use language in greatly expanded and often completely new ways and contexts. The Consort was formed to perform various kinds of texts, many of them created collaboratively, in ways that would reveal new resonances and possibilities in them. Some of the pieces are poems written by one of us and scored for multiple voices by another. A few are entirely written and scored by one person. Many more were written in collaboration between two or more of the performers and others. Scott Helmes, in January 2002, initiated the first poems specifically designed for performance by The Consort. Core members include K. S. Ernst, John M. Bennett, Scott Helmes, Michael Peters, and Sheila E. Murphy. The group has performed in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Columbus, Albuquerque, Prescott (AZ), Miami, and many other venues. They have released a CD, SOUND MESS.

As a note to those of you in the are unfamiliar with Be Blank, I should mention that the Be Blank Consort has influenced Post-Neo performance poetry more than any living or recent group, so if you enjoy the simultaneous poems that we've done and want to see our roots: here they are. At the same time, their approach would seem contrapuntally different from most of ours. So it ought to be twice, or thrice as fun. Here's Warren's review of Be Blank when they performed in NY awhile back:

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2007/12/artseen/be-blank-consort

From the core group, we will have John Bennett, Scott Helmes (all the way from the West Coast!), Kathy Ernst, and Michael Peters. Performing with them will be friends from around the area--SO to prepare you for Be Blank, when they will become so many tongues of the group, there will be short individual readings by all of them and everybody who is coming out to perform with them: Geoff Huth, Marilyn R. Rosenberg, Edward Lense, and probably us hosts.

AND there will be intersections with groups of friends and collaborators in two other cities: there will be a live video-feed with the HCON Festival in Baltimore, organised by Rick Weaver, and phone-poms with Jim Leftwich, Ralph Eaton, and hopefully some others down in Roanoke, VA.

A lot of great shit--hope to see everyone there--VIM VOM VIM!

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