| Goodbye Thax |
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| 04:02pm 17/07/2009 |
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Just heard Thax Douglas passed away today at 10am. Does anyone in Chicago know what happened? Was he sick? It just breaks my heart. He was a sweet old soul and very positive guy. He also read poems before every major indie rock band in the world! He was a good friend and former room mate. I will miss him.
UPDATE:There are reports coming in that this might be an internet hoax! Let's hope it is! |
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| Shaptowicz Page Meets Stage duet |
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| 10:49am 13/07/2009 |
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Joining "presidential trivia" and "giraffe that are trained to rape" as themes of my poetry for 2009 comes a new theme: "drunk boyfriends saying funny things"!
Here's a video of Shap and I performing "Drunk Boyfriend at the Poetry Reading" at last May's Page Meets Stage:
Another poem with this theme was published in the first issue of kill author and has the lengthy-yet-honest title "In Lieu of His Writing Any New Poetry, The Author Critiques The Four Line Song She Hear Her Boyfriend Spontaneously Create While Drunkenly Walking Up Their Apartment Building's Stairwell":
http://killauthor.com/issueone/cristin-okeefe-aptowicz.shtml
Fingers cross that the video of Shap and I performing this at Sarah Kay's 21st Birthday will surface soon. Shap performed the piece whilst holding an egg & cheese sandwich, and then devoured it lovingly in the final stanza. That's what I call committment to a role! |
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| This is why every police force needs a on-call dachshund! |
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| 12:54pm 08/07/2009 |
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Drunk badger disrupts traffic in Germany
Animal staggered into the middle of road and refused to budge, police say
BERLIN - A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge, police said Wednesday.
A motorist called police near the central town of Goslar to report a dead badger on a road — only for officers to turn up and discover the animal alive and well, but drunk.
Police discovered the nocturnal beast had eaten cherries from a nearby tree which had turned to alcohol and given the badger diarrhea.
Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31800290/ns/world_news-weird_news/ |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| This makes storming out of a room because of a bad score seem demure! |
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| 12:48pm 02/07/2009 |
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Alain de Botton tells New York Times reviewer: 'I will hate you until I die'
Alain de Botton, the philosopher and author, has launched an extraordinary internet attack on a book reviewer, telling him: "I will hate you until the day I die".
By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent
Published: 8:17PM BST 01 Jul 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5712899/Alain-de-Botton-tells-New-York-Times-reviewer-I-will-hate-you-until-I-die.html
(with my fave part bolded!)
The outburst followed a poor review of de Botton's book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, by Caleb Crain in The New York Times.
The author, whose books include Essays in Love and The Consolations of Philosophy, lost his temper during a posting on Crain's blog, Steamboats Are Ruining Everything.
"In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value," he wrote. "The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary."
He went on: "I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon – so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review."
The author, who has written widely about the pursuit of happiness, concluded: "I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude."
( MORE TO READ... behind the cut! ) |
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| More Poetry Slam in the Press (Kinda) |
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| 12:05pm 02/07/2009 |
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Poetry Slam got a nice little write-up extolling its virtues in the most recent issue of the nuttily influential "School Library Journal".
Before it's lists its (five) recommended books on the topic, it offered this brief preface (with links to the PSI site; nice!):
Poetry slam "is the competitive art of performance poetry. It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they're saying and how they're saying it" (Poetry Slam, Inc.) And it’s not just for urban kids. As part of their promise to bring more music and art to the White House, the Obamas recently hosted an event that featured James Earl Jones, poet Mayda Del Valle, novelist Michael Chabon, and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. A poetry slam is the perfect summer activity for your teens, and the titles below will help get you started.
For the full article, click here:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6667505.html?industryid=47057 |
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| Nerdy Copyright Moment |
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| 09:42am 27/06/2009 |
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My day job is working with visual artists / their estates, managing copyrights and permissions interests for them. And in the copyright field, there are some really notorious cases of artist or estates who are just unyieldingly difficult to get around.
The Estate of James Joyce, for instance, is managed by a Joyce's grandson who believes his granddad has a bad rap for being a really dense, hard-to-read author... so he refuses to grant permission for the use of his grandfather's work in any work -- scholarly, commerical, editorial, anything -- that doesn't portray his granddad as being an enjoyable, easy author to read... which you can imagine just about drives people up a wall!
Anyway, one of the absolutely toughest copyright permissions to get was Michael Jackson's original "moonwalking" video from the Motown 25th anniversary show. Like, you pretty much have never seen in it in the past 15 years or so. You may think you have, because when people talked about it, they showed still photos of the event, or maybe Michael Jackson moonwalking a concert years later or something.
But the actual original Moonwalk from the Motown 25th Anniversary Show was under really strict lock and key (for whatever reason), and no one was allowed to show the footage.
Well, in the wake of Michael's death it seems like a lot of news agencies are using the "time news reporting" allowance of copyright, and are now showing this footage. Everybody in the copyright world is pretty excited to finally be seeing that footage, because it really is rare (is it on YouTube now? Because I guarantee, that footage will be stripped too within the week).
Anyway, if you are watching in programs which feature this footage this weekend, soak it in. Because it will probably disappear again soon.
Just thought I'd share... cuz I'm a nerd. |
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| Proud Girlfriend Alert!! |
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| 11:03am 12/06/2009 |
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I'm sure I've earned a terrible reputation for bugging people in our community about submitting to lit mags & anthologies more... so can you imagine how much worse it is for Shappy? Oh, the literary-based nags he gets!
But hey -- my nags work!
I offer as proof TWO poems by Shappy which were just published in this month's online issue of PANK, which is an awesome print & online lit journal more slammers should submit to! <-- nagnag! ;)
Clink the link below to read ZOMBIE STAND-UP and WHALE SONG FOR MY BASTARD SON in all their text-based glory:
http://www.pankmagazine.com/read/seasholtz.html
Congrats, SNOO! |
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| Random Thoughts on Slam, after the ongoing dialogues of the last couple of weeks |
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| 12:54pm 11/06/2009 |
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Def Poetry
Why do people still complain that some poets on the scene are slamming “just to get on Def Poetry” (and not to write “real poetry”) when “Def Poetry” has been off the air for years? All the new poets on the scene that I talk to want to tour and publish – getting “Def Poetry” is not in the field of vision at all, just like getting on the already defunct “MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged” wasn’t in my field of vision when I started in 1998 (but people still complained that all us young poets were slamming “just to get on MTV”). If you are going to complain that poets are in it for the wrong reasons, make sure you are correct about what these “wrong reasons” are.
Youth Poetry
Do people think the point of the Youth Poetry Slams should be to make every youth who participates in them a Great Poet? I certainly don’t consider a high school basketball team a failure if all their players don’t go on to play in the NBA. The Youth Poetry movement – to me at least – is more about developing critical thinking skills, public speaking skills and art appreciation among the students it serves. If a handful of them want to be a poets when they grow up, fantastic. But I don’t expect that from all of them, and that’s not a condemnation of their talent, poetry or drive. Some of the most talented musicians I knew in high school (first chair in the orchestra, etc…) really wanted to be doctors and scientists. I’m sure their music teachers mourned the loss of their talent when they gave up the violin (or cello, etc…), but people need to follow their true passions – even if that’s not art. It should be noted that all those people still really love music though, an appreciation which certainly deepened through their studies.
One Thing to Rule Us All
When reading an article on slam (or a book, or watching a documentary on slam), I’ve noticed that the first thing people usually point out is what’s missing. They focus their discussion on what the author or director didn’t include, instead of reflecting on what is actually being presented.
Paul Devlin told me that after “SlamNation” came out, he got a lot of angry flack from poets who thought the film did a real disservice to the slam community for dozens of reasons: it didn’t show whole poems (note: even some of the poems that seem like “whole poems” in the film were actually edited down), it focused on specific teams, it didn’t show side events, it didn’t show the indie finals, it didn’t show this person, it didn’t show that poem, it focused on all the wrong things and didn’t show any of the things that were REALLY important, etc…
All these critiques may be valid, but I think they point to a larger frustration within our community: we seem to want one thing that we can all point to and say, “That is what the poetry slam is” – whether it is a book, or an article, or a documentary, or even an event. Every year, the National Poetry Slam is never good enough to satisfy people – the wrong team won, the wrong poet was lauded, the best team was fucked over, etc…
As community, I think we are large enough (and have lasted long enough) to stop worrying about having a “one thing” to define us (or, conversely, thinking one thing will kill us).
Instead of complaining that Finals night was overrun by political poetry (or funny poetry, or group pieces, etc…) , why not just think “Hey, that’s interesting – [poetry X] is what is resonating this year… I wonder why that is considering [poetry Y] is what was resonating last year…”
I.e. : In the 1998 NPS Finals, there was a lot of complaining that there were too many group pieces -- a point that was perhaps proved when the team that performed NO group pieces (Nuyo) was the team that won. Fastforward to the following year, and at the 1999 NPS Finals, there were NO group pieces... and then everyone complained about that! There will never be a perfect balance of all the voices, styles and performances we want, so instead of framing our discussions about what SHOULD have been, we should try to focus on how what was presented reflects both what we as a community wanted to present that year and what the public (audience / judges) wanted to hear.
What’s Currently Being Rewarded WITHIN Slam from Entities OUTSIDE of the Slam
Since Def Poetry ended (and excluding HBO’s Brave New Voices, since that’s clearly youth poets only), it seems like the highest profile projects utilizing slammers which are happening right now are ensemble tours (Junkyard Ghost Revival, Spilljoy Ensemble, Salt Lines, etc...) and books (“Blood Dazzler,” “Cultural Politics of Slam,” the cult of Write Bloody, etc...).
To me, this is an incredible change and one I thought the community as a whole would be celebrating. For years, we’ve complained that poets were in the slam only for their own fame and interests, and not for “real poetry.”
Well, now, established and emerging poets are performing and touring together – doing solo AND group work – and even better, real honest to goodness publishing houses are interested in our POETRY (and our SCHOLARLY thoughts on slam poetry), instead of trying to capitalize on what they think is a “flash in pan” pop culture moment. And those books are getting nominated for awards (“Blood Dazzler”) and getting on Oprah (Staceyann Chin’s “The Other Side of Paradise” – out now!).
You think we would all be celebrating! I mean, isn’t this proof that we are finally developing in all the directions we had hoped we would? |
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| Geez... |
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| 10:51pm 08/06/2009 |
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There is something about the Australian spoken word scene that awes me. Their approach is just so different from what I'm used to hearing, and yet it is so smooth and pure and innovative. It's like it wakes up synapses I didn't know I had.
The fantastic Australian literary journal, Going Down Swinging, has put together a week of podcasts on Indiefeed, hosted by the sly, cool Lisa Greenaway.
Listen to the first podcast and tell me it doesn't just transport you:
http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=487089
My heavens... |
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| The Drums Inside Your Chest |
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| 10:56am 04/06/2009 |
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Last night Shap and I went to the New York premiere of the concert film, The Drums Inside Your Chest, a really neat concert film showcasing killer performances by Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown, Beau Sia, Mindy Netifee, Bucky Sinister, Amber Tamblyn and Jeff McDaniel. It's beautifully shot, with a taunt running time of 61 minutes (the actual show was over 3 hours), and you get to see whole poems! Nice. I think it is available for a free download somewhere on the internets, so I strongly suggest checking it out!
We thought more slammers would show up -- especially as Jeff McDaniel and Amber were both performing live! -- but it was just Shap, me, Carlos Andres Gomez and a svelte Paul Devlin (whose own documentary BLAST! will be coming out this month too!).
But there was a face who did look kind of familiar in the audience. It took me a minute to realize that it was foxy NYC poet and current BAP blogger Matt Yeager:
I've been wanting to meet him for some time, Shap was still at the open bar and it was still a couple of minutes before the movie was going to start showing, so I just walked over and said, "Hey, are you Matt Yeager the poet?"
And the guy goes, "No... I'm Gideon."
And I was like, "Oh, that's right. Sorry! I think I know you from the Bowery Poetry Club?"
And he kind of gave me a generous but confused look, and I realized, he was NOT the Gideon who used to intern at the Bowery Poetry Club either. Though they looked kinda similiar, Gideon was way goofier in personality (he's now a NYC tour guide) and also he doesn't wear glasses:
And then I realized it. It was Gideon YAGO from MTV news. Who does look a lot like Matt Yeager, right?
So I was like, "Oh, no... you aren't the guy from the Bowery Poetry Club. You are the guy from on top of all the taxis."
Because his ads for his new show, "The IFC Media Project" are truly on like a ton of cabs!
So I said, "Sorry about that. But you do look a lot like Matt Yeager from the Best American Poetry Blog, so you may want to prepare yourself for being mistaken for all night!"
He laughed, and asked me my name, and I told him, but really wanted to skedaddle the heck out there. I'm so grateful that Shap and Carlos came in, so I could head off and not look like a total loon.
I feel like this incident is revenge for all the people I make fun of who mistake Shappy for Elvis Costello, pretty much only because of the glasses! I am one of them now too! For shame! |
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| I know I may be stating the obvious... |
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| 09:35pm 19/05/2009 |
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but sugar cookies are vastly underrated!
I look at a sugar cookie, and I'm like, Ho hum... BOORING
But holy crap, I just ate a fresh sugar cookie out of the oven and GOOD GOD! They taste like COOKIES made of SUGAR!!
I've about two dozen dachshund shaped sugar cookies for the Page Meets Stage show tomorrow (I'm performing with a fellow dachshund fan, Aimee Nezhukumatathil!), but Shap's bartending tonight, so we'll see how many are left over when he gets home from his shift!
Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FANBOYS DVD!! |
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