Document 183 CD bash at Stella Blues Bar

Document 183, a four piece folk rock band had their first ever CD release party at the Stella Blues Bar in New Haven a few weeks back.  What a great night this was!  And I am not talking about the free pizza, the friendly bartender, or the Stella Blues Bar ambiance, though all of that was great.   It was the music that was most memorable.

The band's lead singer and ace songwriter is  poet Alice-Anne Harwood. AA has a gorgeous, lush voice that can be alternately: saucy or loaded with soft intimate nuance or suddenly big as brass - always loaded with emotion.. This is a voice you will remember. Dana's integral harmonies and keyboard work plays against it so well, as with John on guitar or percussion, and Tiff's bass -  it makes an intricate and involving sound.  Their new release is a five song CD called Italicized which was produced by Pierce Campbell - so you know the balance and  sound are perfect.  It will cost you just five bucks -  the same as an iTunes download -- and it is so worth it...  To hear a few of their incredible original songs - visit  myspace.com/document183

Bent Pin: Christina Hoag, Jim Harrington - murder & mayhem!

OLD POST about my dead ezine:

I've put a new page up on my E-zine Bent Pin, called "death's messengers" Both works on the page highlight damaged human beings caught in undertow of  their own narratives.  The Target by Jim Harrington is a short fiction on the death-for-hire theme.  The other is an experiment by a news writer from AP. about "your average run-of-the-mill drug murder in Los Angeles." The work is called LA Doggs by Christina Hoag. The style is something she calls "Minific" which she says is short for Minimalist fiction. She defines that as a story told in words - nouns and verbs, as opposed to sentences.
   Read their work on Bent Pin
The photo in the background (above) --  I took that in a drug store. It's an inexpensive Halloween decoration.  With a little cropping and digital tweaking it looks pretty spooky. I have another more editorial picture  featuring the same item hanging in front of boxes of junk food....

-- MM Walker

A Poem & Digital drawing regarding the "Heaven's Gate" cult suicides

Heaven's Gate was a religious cult a bit sci-fi in nature.  The believed a UFO hiding behind the comet Hail-Bop would "beam"  their purefied beings into another, better realm. First of course, they would have to shed their mortal bodies by putting plastic bags over their heads after eating poison tapioca pudding.

Religious delusions haven't changed much since I wrote the poem below. Since the early 1990s we have seen countless religiously motivated killings in the form of suicide bombers, the 9/11 attack, abortion clinic bombers and doctor shooters.  Cult suicide is a tremendous waste of human life and potential. Of course it can't occur without blind faith. Heaven's Gate followers believed these things because their LEADER told them so.  Just one more little reason to never subscribe to a religion of any sort.

.One-Way Portal -

As Earth’s mechanical eyes scan

this not-so-empty darkness, her restless

children ache to dance down galaxies,

chase cosmic winds on callused primate feet.

Unsatisfied as voyeurs, 39 webheads queued

at Heaven's Gate, backpacks at the ready,

humming at the window, eating tapioca.

They clutched plastic, vacuous and opaque,

waited for data retrieval, personal uploads

facing unrecoverable error, depression

deferred in bunk-bed suburban stillness, escape

velocity for the purple-shrouded dead.

They hardly knew their Mother.
Bury them in her darkest loam,
rich compost of stars.

April 6, 1997
©1997 M. M. Walker

-from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

  I was thinking about the ever expanding galactic structures of space and the even more convoluted eddies of the human mind when I drew this. As with all my digital drawings, it has been manipulated electronically in a host of programs over the years.

Freight St Gallery Poetry Salon: Eccentric, Entertaining

I have never spent a better $5.  What did I get?  A wonderful poetry open mic hosted by Victoria Munoz, and Terri Klein with eccentrically costumed poets: The classic Beatnik Poet, Archy the CockRoach (of Archy and Mihttabell fame), Gengas Kahn in a pointy hat, Dirty Bob, Sylvia Plath, etc etc etc


The night began with Fabulous Fiddlin' Dan Gardella's sureal act, where in an eccentric, spontaneously choreographed performance, partially done from a 55 gallon steel trash can, he displayed his creative showmanship outfitted in a Mad Hatter type mask. (He looked like an animated musical Jack-In-The-Box in the trashcan.) You simply could not stop tapping or stomping to his infectious rhythms.

At intermission, there was another concert - a half hour of Daniel Stevens, a truly incredible classical guitarist who played, among other things, Usher Waltz by Nikita Koshkin,  based on Poe's story the Fall of the House of Usher. Then Victoria joined him for a few flute and guitar duets.  (She also has some oil pastels up at the gallery.)  Subsequently Edgar Allen Poe had a new funeral. Poe's corpse was played by Dustin Byrne  one of the Gallery founders.

There were also Halloween cookies, cider,  a tasty homemade-like apple spice cake brought at the  Flour Garden Bakery in Woodbury. Merlot, coffee, fruit and cheese....  a raffle, a costume contest won by Dirty Bob (the photo didn't come out....)

One of my favorite costumes of the night was Terri's costume as Archy the Cockroach, based on the Archy and Mihttabell stories.  She had extra arms sewn into her all-brown costume.  (On the left you can see her shaking hands with her other arms...)  Victoria wore an authentic Day of the Dead shirt featuring skulls labeled as famous poets.   Gengas Kahn, owner of A store called Shock n Awe, had a pointy leather hat and a huge fleece-lined suede coat. Jack Beasly gamely performed some Hip Hop song lyrics even without his musical computer setup.  Joan Pavlinsky came as Sylvia Plathe in a "Death is an Art" Apron and pearls, Robin Sampson as the beatnik poet-in-black with angled black beret,  Dirty Bob, better known as Alon,  from the Duo XponX,  had hideous stringy hair and WWII pants tied with a coarse rope. There was someone from Goshen dressed  in period Victorian? garb, though I don't know who her character was.  For my costume I used the classic white sheet with a few holes.   I read my ecology horror poem, Ecotechnicon in as erie and energetic voice as I could muster, as I waved my ghost costume around. Sorry no photos of this part.

So next time you hear about a poetry salon at the Freight St. Gallery GO!!!!  It is an event not to be missed.   Check out http://freightstreetgallery.com.

Two videos below give you and idea of Dan and Daniel's talents:
http://www.youtube.com/v/QTWpXs1pKec&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0    http://www.youtube.com/v/BdD9tPROkV8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0

Ambiguity: a sculpture and a manipulated photo

Moved from the Metaphoratorium Gallery, then from the archives of this blog....

Here's a very low-res digitally altered photo of a sculpture of mine that now lives in Dedham, MA. You can judge the size against the objects in the background, on the left a printer, and on the right, a file sorter tray. I think I did the alterations in Neopaint, an old DOS program. Below is the black and white of the original photo. I like the mystery, first in the confusion of gesture -- is the figure straining to hear or covering ears to block unwanted words? Secondly, is the face masculine or feminine? ---- Mar Walker

A Pencil & Gesso Drawing: The Activist with a powerful female figure

Moved from the Metaphoratorium Gallery and from the deep archives of this blog

This is a somewhat unsucsessful photo of a drawing of mine in pencil and gesso. The smooth, heavy pencil mark in upper left portion reflected the flash. It's called The Activist and it incorporates some language on the far right. I have a different camera now and I am going to try to take another picture of this work, but with a little digital fiddling to reduce the glare on this photo, I kind of like the effect.

Polly Brody Reads in Southbury

One of my favorite poets - Polly Brody has a new book out! She will give a first reading from her new book, "Stirring Shadows," on November 18, at 7 p.m.  Hosted by the Southbury Public Library (100 Poverty Rd.)  Author signing and refreshments after reading. Registration requested:  call 203-262-0626 Ext. 130.  (See the directions tab on the library's web site...)   I should also mention that this is a gorgeous library with tons of parking onsite.

• You can read her poem Ephemera on the Wed Night Poetry web site, at this link: http://wedpoetry.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/2409-polly-brody/
• Or a set of her nature poems with bird photos on Bent Pin

Catholic Church backs Anti-gay Episcopal Congregations - with a new 'Pseudo Catholic" status

Well well - the Diocese of Bridgeport's unofficial homophobia gets a backhanded endorsement from Rome....  Now  they can go right on denigrating and campaigning against gay rights and marriage in Connecticut with the Pope's blessing ....   Oh wait, I think they already had that.....

The Episcopal Church in the U.S - half of which is somewhat gay friendly, is STILL at war with itself over the installation of gay bishops. I guess Rome is hoping to lure some of the homophobes and the breakaway congregations over to the Catholic camp by blessing certain parts of the Anglican liturgy to ease the transition and encourage conversions.

According to the New York Times, Cardinal William Levanda, who they cite as the Vatican's "chief doctrinal official" presented the plan at a news conference earlier today.

Of course I offer a remedy: Give up this anachronistic paternalistic god, along with all these man-made doctrines and leave the life and love commitments of the populace alone.

Here's a link to the New York Times article by Rachel Donadio
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/europe/21pope.html?hp

Disingenuous insurance industry threatens consumers to keep status quo

OOOOH if you regulate us --- ooh we will just have to charge more and it will be your fault. You SEE HOW WE HELD THE LINE ON COST IN THE LAST TEN YEARS! HAHAHAHA. NOT.

No surprise here. Insurers don't want reform - they are making enormous ENRORMOUS profits!!! At the last minute before a vote - they have released this report that THEY BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.... hmmm, nothing slanted here oh no.. no ulterior motive....

Why should they want to change?  Their anti-reform ads talk about a mysterious THEY who will choose what we can have or pay after reform.  BUT WHAT THEY DON'T SAY IS THAT --- right now it's profit-seeking executives making huge salaries who choose! And they choose to terminate people with diseases or risk factors. After a lifetime of payments they can shuttle you off into NO COVERAGE LAND.

And the countries where universal insurance works are the same countries where the GOVERNMENT tells them what they can charge.....    So either we need a public option or we need to tightly regulate glutenous insuranse companies who pay cadres of examiners to find ways to CUT your coverage any way they can.....

They have shown they can raise prices to astronomical levels all on their own - so lets try a little government intervention!

Bent Pin: D. Jason Cooper & Karl Miller, post mortem on divinity - newlink

NOTE THIS PAGE IS NOT YET IN THE NEW ARCHIVE. MAYBE LATER.

A new page is up on Bent Pin featuring a very funny bit of writing called God's Will by D. Jason Cooper as well as two poetic shorts by Karl Miller, called Communion Obsolescence and Once Last Insult.  The combination twists the meaning of the works just a bit. Take a peek.  <--this link has been repaired for the second time!!!!


UPDATE: Bent Pin closed in November of 2009. The Bent Pin Archive and Index are moving, albeit slowly.... to:

http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com   Note: the author index now at http://bentpinquarterly.blogspot.com/p/author-index.html is part of the archive

Gearing up for performance: testing the songs and the pipes

This past week at Wednesday Poetry both the open mic and the feature (Poet Will Nixon from Woodstock, NY), brought forth some novel and interesting material - and that always makes me happy.  Nixon is a very funny guy which was a nice change from the heavy and the heart-rending - though those can be powerful.  It was a great night.   For me, I brought my guitar and tested out a song of mine that I had rescued from my forgotten tunes pile...   It's called I Bet It All On You -You can listen to it over on my Youtube page. First I read it as a slam-syle poem, then I played it. The audience was very kind and appreciative.

I am getting ready for the four forty-minute sets deal again, and trying to bring the songs I used to play back into working memory. I am  right at the stage of prep, where my voice sounds good, and words come, but sometimes right in the  middle of something, I draw a blank on the next chord.  I know this means I need to get out there to open mics as much as I can to harden up the muscle memory again.  Over the years, I have learned that muscle memory really helps in performing and the only way to seal the memory is to heat it up repeatedly (sort of like the hardening process for metals) - that is, to play under fire in front of an audience over and over.

So, I thought I would re-enforce my Wed, Night experience with a little Friday trip. So Friday I rolled down the hill to a nearby open mic - one that's not advertised much - at the  East Coast Music Mall. Customers and students are invited at checkout or during their lessons.  It's really open mic/jam every other Friday night from six to nine, right in the store. (Sometimes it's weekly call the store for details) There are lots of under-age players with their parents. It's a nice supportive environment for young players to get used to an audience.

Nonetheless, this old bat (me) waded on in there and signed the list. There were other gray heads as well as a metal head or two, and styles ranging from folk to jazz with a lot of rock sandwiched in the middle. When my time came, I asked for advice on the settings of my Cort's builtin equalizer and pickup, then I said hello and gave my name, and launched into the first tune. I played "I Bet It All On You" and "Love Makes You Free" and then tried to quit -- but the audiences requested one more (you get a full 15 minutes), I turned to the sound guy. "I know you have at least one more tune in there..." he said so I played "Smooth As A Wishing Stone"(Long pond is cold) too.

Folks there were so very kind... Both the parents and the young players were very complimentary and encouraging.  A couple suggested I should go on the coffee house circuit. Another said he was glad I played the extra tune and that he would have been happy with a half hour more or so....   Of all the things I do and have done - my own songs with my own voice yield the most positive responses....

Like the little polish priest Father Olbrys told me "Choose to do that which only you can do......"  Though I am a firm atheist, I'm running with his advice.....