The Virgin Formica ... out at last!

Please come to the Hanging Loose book party, celebrating The Virgin Formica and the other recently released and fucking brilliant titles:

Indran Amirthanayagam's The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems
Marie Carter's The Trapeze Diaries
Michael Cirelli's Lobster with Ol' Dirty Bastard
William Corbett's Opening Day
R. Zamora Linmark's The Evolution of a Sigh
Tony Towle's Winter Journey

Friday, May 2 from 6-8pm at Teachers & Writers Collaborative
520 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2020 (between 36th and 37th Street)
New York, New York

FREE!!! LIQUOR!!! ILLUMINATING CONVERSATIONS WITH DRUNKEN POETS!!!

Flarf Is Life — Flarf Festival '08

FLARF IS LIFE
2008 Holistic Expo & Peace Conference

THURSDAY, APR 24, 8 PM, DIXON PLACE, 258 BOWERY, $8
Film, neo-benshi, and theater by:

Brandon Downing: Two new short films
Rob Fitterman: Film: Bisquick / Bismarck
Nada Gordon: Neo-benshi: "Uzumaki"
Mitch Highfill: Play: "The Secret History of the '60s"
Rodney Koeneke: Neo-benshi: "Mary Poppins"
Michael Magee: Play: "William Logan: A Sedentary Life"
K. Silem Mohammad & Gary Sullivan: Play: "Chain: A Dialog"
Kim Rosenfield: Neo-benshi: "Meglio Stasera / The Libido Theory"


FRIDAY, APR 25, 7 PM, 300 Bowery, buzz "Sherry/Thomas"
Publication party for new books and DVDs by:

Brandon Downing: Dark Brandon (DVD)
Mitch Highfill: Moth Light
Sharon Mesmer: Annoying Diabetic Bitch
K. Silem Mohammad: Breathalyzer
Mel Nichols: Bicycle Day
Rod Smith: Deed
Gary Sullivan: PPL in a Depot


SATURDAY, APR 26, 6 PM, BOWERY POETRY CLUB, 308 BOWERY, $8
A Segue reading to benefit Bowery Arts and Sciences, featuring:

Shanna Compton
Katie Degentesh
Benjamin Friedlander
Drew Gardner
Nada Gordon
Mitch Highfill
Rodney Koeneke
Michael Magee
Sharon Mesmer
K. Silem Mohammad
Mel Nichols
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
James Sherry
Rod Smith
Christina Strong

With music by the Drew Gardner Orchestra and The Saw Lady.
Hosted by Brandon Downing and Gary Sullivan.

This benefit reading will help keep Segue readings at an affordable $6.

Bettye LaVette in the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center, February 8, 2008

There’s a strange magic about the years of toil, heartbreak, and humiliation—but only when you can look back on it all from higher ground. For Bettye LaVette, with her backstory of unreleased albums and singles, cancelled tours, and a log-jammed career, her appearance at Lincoln Center last month came as a much-deserved Cinderella finish.

Her comeback began in 2000, with the release of her mysteriously shelved 1972 Atlantic album, Child of the Seventies, continued through 2005’s magnificent I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, and has finally reached its perfectly pitched crescendo with her Grammy-nominated The Scene of the Crime, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Blues chart. Just writing these details gives me a chill, as did seeing her sing in the Allen Room in front of floor-to-ceiling windows with a glittering length of Broadway at her feet, as part of Lincoln Center’s “American Songbook” series. And, judging by the response she got, every single person in that audience must’ve felt the same. But at the same time there was a feeling of everyone — LaVette included — holding their breath.

The last time I saw LaVette perform was in Paris in 2006, at the venerable Montmartre music hall Le Cigale. At that show, she wore the years of toil, heartbreak, and humiliation on her sleeve—with attitude: She introduced her 1962 song “You’ll Never Change” by saying, “This was my second recording, and it did not sell one copy. Not one. Don’t know why you all didn’t buy it.” At her New York show, standing in that elegant room before that incredible vista, she said, “You could never make me believe forty years ago when I was living on the streets of New York that someday I would be here.” But here she was, demonstrating from the very first song perhaps why her career had stalled, but likewise its uncompromising greatness, as she kicked the band into Free’s “The Stealer.” Her material has always been eclectic: Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” Ron Davies’ “It Ain’t Easy” — covered by Three Dog Night and Long John Baldry, but maybe best known for sitting weirdly at the end of Ziggy Stardust — and Kenny Rogers’ “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was in).” And on The Scene of the Crime she retools Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Talking Old Soldiers” in a way that makes the song utterly her own story. That night, her interpretation of “The Stealer” showed off her genius: by turns funky and rockin’, while all the time referencing gospel and blues. She reached back into the bad old days a magical three times, first for 1965’s “Let Me Down Easy,” her signature song, and then even further for “My Man—He’s a Lovin’ Man,” the single she cut at age sixteen, and then to “Right in the Middle (of Falling In Love)” from her only Motown album, 1982’s Tell Me a Lie. “Close as I’ll Get to Heaven,” from her 2003 W. C. Handy Award–winning CD A Woman Like Me took on new coloration. When she performed it at Le Cigale it was bittersweet — perhaps this was as close to heaven as she was gonna get — but here, with the city at her feet, it was as sweet as a triumphant homecoming, especially when she sang the line “This time for sure I know I’ve broken through the right door,” with everyone at the tables in front smiling and nodding.

She followed that up with “Before the Money Came (the Battle of Bettye LaVette)” from The Scene of the Crime. As the title announces, the song, written by LaVette with Patterson Hood (of the Drive-By Truckers, her backup band on the CD), chronicles the bad old days and celebrates success—with reservations:

There was a time when I would call it luck

If I got me a gig for fifty bucks

Now I got all these big decisions to make

Never thought success would be hard to take

When something appears, something else disappears, and at this stage of the game some artists have suffered some sort of loss. Often it’s their talent. But that’s not the case with LaVette: Her voice is more powerful than ever, her interpretations of material more revelatory. As at Le Cigale, she sang her final song — Sinéad O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got” — alone on the stage, a capella, with special emphasis on that last word, “got.” In 2006 she was almost there. Now, here, what will success’s strange magic impart and at the same time take away? It’s an interesting moment for Bettye LaVette, and for all those who’ve been with her this far.

Annoying Diabetic Bitch and Sonnetailia -- the Book Party!

Sharon Mesmer and Marc Nasdor cordially invite all of yous
to fête with them on the occasion of the release of their books

Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books)
Sonnetailia (Roof Books)

Thursday, January 24
8pm
Mehanata Bulgarian Bar
113 Ludlow Street
NYC

F/J/M/Z trains to Delancey/Essex
Free admission until 10:30
Cash bar
Eugene Hütz of Gogol Bordello DJ-ing at 10:30


Drinkin’!
Dancin’!
Rockin’!
Aww yeah!

More info:
http://www.myspace.com/mehanata
http://virginformica.blogspot.com/

Our Celebrities, Our Celebrity Cheese™

The more corrupt our country gets
the more we love Our Celebrities —
their jobs, their haircuts,
their money.
One year is as another,
and it becomes hard to remember
even the death of one’s own mother
when Nicole Kidman’s Botox issues
stand firmly in the way.

Let's face it: we hate our fat people,
but we love Our Celebrities.
Posh Spice's love life
is more on our daughters' minds than dolls are,
and every damn day
Brangelina dies a little for our sins.
Yea, though I be surrounded by despair,
I shall not let it engulf me,
for you shall take my sufferings from me,
George Clooney.
The darkest and harshest of life’s events
are simply mysteries of gentle benevolence.
Hasn’t Christina Aguilera ministered to this?

When Our Celebrities heard that England
was at the bottom of the European Tree League
they sprung into action with five thousand pounds
of nutrient-rich goo sealed in lard
and swirling with bacteria.
That’s how Celebrity Cheese™ was created.
Celebrity Cheese™ has become the most important
of all celebrity cheeses
in the post-Diana celebrity cheese-making genre.
Celebrity Cheese™ is milk's leap towards immortality.
And somewhere in the world today
lives a Celebrity Cheese Child™
who will change everything.

Our Celebrities are regularly asked,
"Do you make and eat your own cheese?"
Whitney Houston, for example,
packages and finishes her own cheese logs.
And Robin Gibb wants Bulgarian sheep milk cheese
in his dressing room on the day of his concert.

What cheeses would you like to see
in Celebrity Cheese™?
What cheeses would you like to see
in Celebrity Cheese Deathmatch™?

Today I got calls from David Bowie,
Melanie Griffith
and Celebrity Cheese™.
Whose do you think I answered first?

With their basic human themes,
Our Celebrities are one of our most powerful
and personal ways of working out
what we feel about celebrity.
And cheese.

So let's cozy up in celebrity style,
in love with every living being in the universe.
Let's take a good look at Alec Baldwin's chart
to better understand why he would mouth off at his kid.
Yes, there is a lot wrong with this picture.
But I think you'll understand that if I suddenly slip into
my dirty ballerina flats and stained sweater
it's only because I love Jennifer Garner.
I love her and Victor Garber.
I love her and Ben Affleck together.

What is my message?
That we are living in The Great Celebrity Days,
and let’s hold ourselves to that power which gathers
on the celebrity side of transcendence.
Let's drink our fill of love ‘til morning.
Let's gorge ourselves on terrible perfect apples.
And let's accessorize!
Because the ability to accessorize
is what separates us from non-celebrities.
And cheese.

Annoying Diabetic Bitch -- Imminent!

From Combo Books, in the next few weeks . . .



(The cover came out blue here, for some reason. But it's really sort of champagne colored. Thanks to Christian Palino for a totally rockin' graphic.)

Dream of a Crow/Raven

Last night I dreamt a crow or raven landed on my shoulder. I say crow or raven because it was as big as a raven but looked more like a crow. I was in some suburban house with other people, it was cloudy outside, maybe early evening, and the bird landed with its claws on my shoulders and its head above mine, sort of like ...



(That's a falcon. Horus, to be exact, resting upon Khafre. But you get the idea.)

Its claws were light and delicate, like a chickadee's. I said, "This bird is trying to tell me something," and I went into a meditative state, listening. Sadly, I received no message. Then the bird flew, manically, all around the room.

Interpretations . . . ?