saturday @ artifact

This Saturday saw the August Artifact. The series, hosted by Melissa Benham and Chana ("Connie") Morgenstern, is nearing its first anniversary mark. And, already, its been noted as part of the growing (thank gawd) movement of alternative venues for readings. Each Artifact is a house party-cum-reading, where the flow of wine and conversation and music complements - indeed makes possible - the reception of read work. Experimental poetry and prose often proves a difficult experience for even seasoned vets to tango with, so the intimacy and warmth of a house reading - the chance to observe the place of literary work in a real, functioning social scene outside of an institutional setting, at the very edge even of any distinction between peers and some more distant sense of "audience" - is one merrily appreciated by the 30 or so folk who pack each reading.

And, for the organizers, doing the work of booking, prepping, and hosting a reading is an invaluable instance of helping ease the text off the page, into a packed room ("of occurence" Leslie Scalapino might add). It brings the creativity of the writing scene to a whole other level - making social - even permeable - what is often otherwise remote or unapproachable or just plain different/difficult work. The final of Brandon's E PODES, on the page, might be daunting - how does one read this? Yet, in person, twirling a fake villain's mustache, offering a hint of context beforehand, and launching into the vibrant, dense, even brutal word beds, well, fuck, after 4 or 5 minutes it works, its wonderful, I'm in.

The connectivity of these events is lively and refreshing, and, for me at least, an affirmation of real living substance in our varied projects. When these events really begin to mix it up - when the audience is multi-generational, when graphic designers and philsophers attend alongside the poets and novelists, an even more powerful friction rises, conversation gets so deliriously varied and unpredictable, even the mojitos taste better. And the fruit punch, with bruised mint, and there - there's Brent Cunningham in a shirt that earned him some grief, slicing a mango.

So yes, we're alive. And this is our work. In our space. On our terms. And you are very much invited.

Plus you get to see what shoes everyone has chosen to wear. Platforms, vans, or beatle boots? Lime green mod dress or all-purpose urban black? BYOB.

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The readers - Brandon Brown, Lauren Shufran, and Alli Warren, devised a novel mode of performing: each read for 10 or 12 minutes, and then handed the mic off to the next. Then, after the third reader, Artifact has its intermission, which quickly turns into a mini-party of its own. After 15, we return to the reading, and, in different order, each of the three readers read once more, in different order. A sort of ABC-BCA affair, which both voided the normal heirarchy of who read's when, and, even more importantly, gave us two further practical advantages

-the first reader isn't thrown to the dogs as a warm-up act while the rest of us adjust our ears to the subtle modulation of an unmic-ed voice (an element of drone - and its unique harmonics - lies in all but the most ennunciative and rhythmically forceful deliveries).
-rather than getting completely lost in a 20 minute reading, which the audience considers as a unit, there are two distinct shorter performances for each reader. For me, those two readings allowed a wealth of freshness and diversity of response. Both Alli (hearts for the free chap) and Brandon read from disticnt material in each of their turns, and this was striking. Its as affecting for me to see the range of a writer's ouvre as it is to be exposed to one projects depths. And this format seemed designed for such ends. Yet even Lauren, who read twice from a longer manuscript, and whose work pushed more towards prose in its sense of line, benefitted - to my ear - from the interval between. Much like one puts a book down when filled with it only to return later and be hungry again. I am always a sucker for delay, silence, and interruption in a performance - for the relief of spaciousness, the polysemy of vergent perspectives, and for the jolt of adrenalin when we return, move on. With more breaks, the mix is thicker - the shit happens. It might just be my chronic ADD, but there is some real meat in this format.

Today i have tried on a more formal style - how do I look in it? It raises the question of how i intend this blog. How I write it translates into who will read it, and how. I say enough with predictability. I'm aiming low, and watching the winds.