We had Dan McCloskey's short story about "Sky Sharks", read as spoken word, honest-to-god excellent piece of poetry. I managed to snag the printout he read off so I'll put up an excerpt or two later (I don't have internet at my house, where the printout is). ***edit: not going to put anything up 'cause dan's submitting it... look out!
Paula Jean and Ben Grubb did a duo reading of a poem-like play that revolved around sexuality. In one vignette Paula Jean adopted an accent for a character talking about a dream in which her cat sat in her lap, the cat having a water weenie coming out of its crotch, this spoken over the phone to Ben who gets off to reaching in a drawer overstuffed with condoms.
The event was part of Josh Simmon's book tour. He's a graphic artist, and he showed us some of his films, coming out of Connecticut- a Utz Potato Chips commercial featuring only a grease-smeared man holding and crinkling an empty Utz bag, "Queens of the Court" (not that title, exactly) a short film about women in heels etc. playing basketball, and a dialogue-less story about some kind of cult. The guy who is Sunshine Ears starred in at least two of these films, and oh my god I loved Sunshine Ear's performance. "Performance Art" like I've never seen it, the guy doing a variety of musical acts, one wherein he made a melody by picking up, tossing, and striking aluminum poles of various sizes, another one sort of similar using dog toys. Also some legitimate piano music, a lot of singing with non-word vowel sounds. There was also a punk band but I didn't successfully record their name or any of the participant's names but they were pretty good.
This whole event exhilarated me and made me feel sad and stuff. Honestly I feel there has to be a place in the world where this kind of lyricism etc. is on display more frequently-- it's not the kind of thing I've seen around Pittsburgh often. House shows w/ artists, art for artists. Maybe possibly that this stuff is the purview of a certain group of in-crowds, communities you have to know about... But then again so much of the night seemed singular and ephemeral. I talked to all of the artists: Paula Jean doesn't usually do stuff like this, she's more into music, Sunshine Ears doesn't know of any other artists like him, and he's from Connecticut besides; the punk show people usually don't get together as a band. But then again Dan's having another reading next week at The New Yinzer Presents @ Modern Formations. And there's the Gender Swap at Cyberpunk this Tuesday. And I grabbed some fliers for some other punk show/ performance artist-like events. These all overlapping with each other so I can't possibly attend all of them :( .
I think I knew people doing this kind of thing in high school... And I've been to truly excellent house shows before: one of my favorite all-time performances was by Turbosleaze in someone's basement with the audience composed of exactly four people, myself included. At one point some beautiful drummer from NY was balancing on a length of rebar and drumming on it and it was electric! Honest-to-god beautiful music, nothing schlocky about it... I stood in the corner, holding myself, bobbing my head with the punk-show methodology I've picked up over the years, totally inadequate for where I was and what I was witnessing. Afterwards I picked apart some conversation with the band upstairs in the living room and, you know, they're way better read than me and older besides and I'm wearing flip flops and sinking into the dilapidated couch.
It's just that disconnect between someone else's world and my own, all the wasted years where I felt like I was waiting for that kind of ephemeral totally absorbing and mind-blowing art that I saw last night and got to have in snippets over the years... Those people and their communities which I've been turning away from over and over again over my the course of my life. It's a rough position to be in because vulnerability is such a strange thing to bring in to a group of strangers and "hipsters" besides. I have to think Dan for being welcoming though, and making me feel welcome; I'm not sure I would have been able to be a part of this if he wasn't.
Last year at my Meeting's Fall Gathering we talked, broke up into small groups asking "how can we be more welcoming?" as a Quaker Meeting. Main conclusion I could draw and my group drew was that hospitality/welcoming counts most from the people you don't know. The people you remember giving you comfort and making sure that you feel included are the people who are strangers, the people who've for whatever reason made it a practice of their lives to be good and loving to those they don't know. It's a goddamn beautiful quality and I have to thank Dan and the others at Cyberpunk for exhibiting it, and I like to think that if there's a way we can spread the ephemeral beauty that I saw last night, keep it going in Pittsburgh, it can be along the lines of that welcoming spirit. To share that chance to live that kind of life, to me and to anyone who wants it. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
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