This is a collaboration from Detroit’s Zeitgeist Gallery.  I think it’s from Visual Jam Sessions Number 6 (in 2007).  We’d started an annual interactive art-making festival in 2002.  No solo work was allowed.  It had to be at least two people.  Some paintings had five or more artists working on the same painting.  This is rarely done in a gallery setting.  Collaborative work is more common in doing street art, and in doing music and cinema, of course.

There were paintings and works on paper.  Most of the work was done “on site.”    Some was done “away” (at various homes and studios) and brought in later.  I think some of these are still visible “up high” on the face of the former gallery.  Now it’s the “5E Gallery.”

The piece was started by Jack Johnson.  He brought in a series of smaller canvases, which were fitted together to make one big canvas.  I believe that Robert Hyde also worked on it some.  Most of the work was done by Diana Alva and I.  The thin lined black outlinings are mine.

We thought that it was a successful interactive piece.  It’s now in the hands of a collector, who’d been a friend and supporter of the Zeitgeist.

May 16, 1999: the magical forces of primary substances…(air, water, vegetation, earth) and flesh/spirit-heart or soul…(then too) cloth/canvas, the repository, the blank, exalted canvas (a sweet target for paint)…wood/paper (to carve, paint or draw on)…glass, a fascination with glass, all freshly blown and intact, or in shards…then too plastic, odd bits or fragments of plastic, also “plastic sense” via paint (either oils or acrylics or watercolors)…metal, tied to the earth, whether twisted, fresh or rusted.  I don’t take these for granted!

Also from May 1999 “Death: When they lock you up and throw away the key?”

I’ve been re-reading Malcolm de Chazal’s Plastic Sense, an amazing book.  It’s my first time reading it aloud though, speaking it.  He’s an inspiration and I sense a kindred spirit as well.  De Chazal is also loved by Surrealists and other seekers after true poetic language (or leaps of thought).  Here’s a few of the better things I found around the internet:

http://www.malcolmdechazal.info/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_de_Chazal

http://www.maurinet.com/about_mauritius/literature

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/malcolm_de_chazal.html

I didn’t know that Plastic Sense is back in Print again, cool.

http://www.greeninteger.com/book.cfm?-Malcolm-de-Chazal-Sens-Plastique-&BookID=216

Sheer visual inventiveness (passe) Developement of a detailed wild vision, which may be surreal (outmoded) Glorying in the “over-active imagination” (archaic) Art which is full of the most amazing surprises (historic) Art full of subtle things, making the viewer, the audience work, making them think and feel (bizarre) Emotional, intense work, warm, even hot (how uncool) Art to change life, change the world, wake people up (how very modern!)

the critic/ July 9, 2001 (written in the inside front cover of a sketchbook)

Culprits

The following is a statement I put out in 2007.  It was in collaboration with Detroit’s Zeitgeist Gallery/Performance Venue.

To the Varied Venues and Audiences of the Detroit Area:

This is a rallying cry for the cultural life of Detroit!

There have long been signs of extreme life both in and around this city.  It is time for those parts to get together and really start to shake things up, to wake things up.

Despite the stumbling blocks, the balls and chains, the dust involved in being underground, the prevailing apathy and ho-hums, the lack of clues for the clueless and so on:

Things could well happen here, which would be of vital interest well beyond our borders.  Detroit could end up a true Renaissance City, in the cultural sense.  Music, poetry, the visual arts, dance, cinema and theatre should work together to sing out a call for magic, for truth, for revitalizations.

We at the ZEITGEIST GALLERY/PERFORMANCE VENUE offer a challenge to both our fellow area venues and to the public at large.

If you agree that the time for change, for growth & true life is now, then sign this paper and get it back to us.  If you’re affiliated with a relevant group or venue, please note this with your signature.  Besides signing, please contact us with your ideas, hopes and plans for really getting something strong and positive going in this city of ours!

Now, in July 2011, I’m still trying to get something going in this city.  I’m not alone in this.  Great art needs great audiences.  Artists may yet come together in solidarity.  Detroit has plenty of wild grassroots.

P.S. The old Zeitgeist website is down.  I started to recreate some of that material here, in another of my blogs.  The first three pieces to appear are about the late Jacques Karamanoukian:

http://maugre22.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/the-surrealist-spirit-of-jacques-karamanoukian/

Mystery Sketch

This is a text that I wrote in the back of a sketchbook in late 1999.  It appears here slightly revised and adapted:

The environment/nature can’t really fight for itself or act on its own behalf. 

The only way that it may do this is through drought, floods, earthquakes and other “natural disasters.”  Some of these occur through sheer chance and happenstance.  Others may occur due to pollution.

Since 1999, this has accelerated, become more deadly, with the links to climate change aka global warming.  Even if you don’t “believe in it” all I can say is: Watch out!

When there are Earth-disasters caused by pollution, the people hurt usually aren’t the most guilty ones.  They’re often those with the least power and clout.

Poor people rarely find time to protest.  They can’t fight against their poverty because they’re too busy being poor.

“Indigenous groups” such as the Native Americans, also have a long way to go.  Their troubles aren’t always spoken of or brought to the fore.

Children have trouble fighting for their rights too.  They’re too small, powerless and still growing into their strength.

Other groups also have trouble standing up, standing together and fighting for their rights.

This is often true of community and local groups, who are struggling for rights, at the grassroots.  There are many stories of strong victories and amazing gains.  Yet other areas and people have a hard time of it.  Persevere!

Such others (such as women) have made progress but still have plenty of room for improvement.

Last, but not least, all true artists should come together and fight for our rights.  That is what this blog is all about.  Why do we feel so divided at times?  What is quality?  What does it mean to be an artist in today’s world?  What is art capable of?  What could it be?  What should it be?

There’s plenty of fodder for debate and discussion, but yes, come together and communicate.  Take to the streets or go door to door.  The new Renaissance is just around the corner.

Artists struggle to create good to great work.  They struggle to remain artists and “not give up the ship.”

Many find time to work in favor of their communities, the Earth, poor people and children etc.

It’s time to shake things up and wake things up.  On your marks, get set and go!

Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe were supreme pranksters.  They perpetrated great “terrorizations” upon the unsuspecting.

I’ve been an admirer of their work for years.  It’s beautiful, oddball, hilarious stuff, and is often truly poetic and magical.

They sung the praises of a cult of mole men, who enjoy nothing more than digging through the earth, like moles.  They pitched a wonderful new job opportunity for a position as manager of a macabre, carnival-esque living hell.  They proposed a private war within the confines of an American city. 

It was usually street theatre.  They’d corner people and propose the most amazing things, in a straight-faced, dead pan matter.  Sometimes you could sense their tongues in their cheeks though. 

They once proposed that a shopkeeper rent a Zeb-Eel as a “watch animal” (this being a mutated cross between a zebra and an eel).

Their humor is amazing.  I laugh out loud, again and again.  Coyle and Sharpe seem to be kindred spirits with such greats as Ernie Kovacs and the Firesign Theatre.

Both video and audio of the duo seem to be available.  Mal Sharpe is still with us and active and with it.  Jim Coyle seems to be gone, alas.  He is missed.

http://www.coyleandsharpe.com/

http://laughingsquid.com/coyle-sharpe-legendary-early-60s-street-pranksters/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/10/PKG0SJ71C91.DTL

http://wfmu.org/~kennyg/coylesharpe/mal.html

to listen to:

http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/coyle-and-sharpe

to watch:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/831c5a72ad/coyle-sharpe-the-warbler-from-coyleandsharpe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDBXFbZfCc

“For the Encouragement and Strengthening of the Arts……”  from Maurice Greenia, Jr.  Autumn 2005

 Two Dreams:

1.Detroit (this city, this area) could be the “launching site” for a newly energized and exciting approach to art.  I take our old name seriously: the “Renaissance City” (or “Renaissance Center).”  Could the spark of revival and “rebirth” of the arts emerge and flower?

Can something very special happen here, in Detroit?  Can works and doings in this city attract attention and “turn the nation’s eyes toward us?”  The talent and the perseverance (never say die) seem to be here.  How can we “connect the dots” and spark a real surge in quality? I don’t think I’m the only one who believes that this is possible (in this place, in this time).

On the other hand…..

2.  For a long time, I’ve had this strong sense that if only the artist were allowed to play their true and proper part in this world—universally—then things would be very different. 

I’ve taken this idea to another “extreme.”  Are the artists to blame?  Is it partly our fault that things are going from bad to worse?  If we did what we should be doing, would life change?  Would the world change?  How can we struggle to play this “ideal part” when it’s made so difficult to do so?  What does playing this part entail?  What do we need to do?

In 1992, I wrote a manifesto (in my Dreamers Versus Dangers series) called “The Failures of Art.”  Around the same time, I did a flyer (encouraging Detroit artists) called RENAISSANCE NOW!  In this statement, the two will meet and mingle, get specific and “talk it out.”

The idea that art can enliven and awaken us is not new.  It can even be taken further than this.  Art can change things by giving people off-center, surprising and expansive insights into what it really means to be a human being in this world.

Maybe, if more people were exposed to authentic art, they would behave differently and look at life differently.  Even “people in power” could find themselves changed by art’s mysterious forces. 

Art isn’t always a “cure-all.”  But it’s been ages (if ever) that it was truly given a fair chance.  We ask “Faith in art?” and answer “Yes.  Every faith!”

Some of us do still believe.  Art can heal.  Art can be a force for truly positive change.

If one is absolutely committed to the artist’s life, one can become part of the medicine.

Yet, in ways, the more one believes, the easier it is to get hurt or get in trouble.  The “ill-treatment” (even discrimination) that the artist can suffer is a milder form.  Others get hit far harder.  It does add to the total burden though (more obstacles, more weight).

Some artists never even feel these blues (or if they do, they don’t recognize them for what they are).  To be an authentic artist (prepared to follow your path through to the very end) is often a haunted, painful thing. 

Yet if we do so, soon we’re spinning these blues into gold.  Not merely the “fool’s gold” of financial success but the gold of pure art (solid yet fluid, magical yet rooted in the deepest sort of reality). 

The Environment

The Sky: Look up.  To rise above (literally, our “better natures” realized, at least in part) that is “the path.” In other words (clouds) dreams, imagination, love and thought (simmer or stew).  Then, through hands or body’s sweat, various art arrives.  Creativity is enacted.  Art is made concrete. Life is lived creatively.  From the sky we get sunlight yet also rain, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, rainbows, fog, mist….

The Earth: Grounded, sometimes with roots (or at least in love with earth, soil, rock, muck and all their relations).  For humans, some lead simple lives.  Some are simple and joyous.  Others “simple” yet full of poverty, hunger, pain and sorrow.  For many of us things get more complex, stretched too thin.

Some are swamped by work alone.  Yet many of us also find ourselves swamped by work (and by combinations of) love, all life, dreams, adventure, suffering, mediocrity.   This is a saturation point.

The Ocean:  A wet watery wash (a splash) whereby the lakes, rivers and seas connect with the water that is us or in us.  Though tied to water and to humanity, we’re all separate and alone (some more than others).  This gives way to the ruse and unavoidable ego.  We go on both alone and in conflict.  Sometimes this gives way to interactive works, collaborative.  “Me, me, me” and “mine, mine, mine” are both good and bad.  As unavoidable as moisture, ego will not be denied.  Sometimes it is forgotten or transcended.

Portrait of the Saturation Point: distractions from being young, distractions from being old or growing older (i.e. surviving awhile).  Then there’s the circle (family, friends, peers, colleagues, relationships and so on).  Then housework—dishes, laundry, sweeping, mopping, shopping (essential and non-essential).  Then transportation—our daily travels, either on foot or by bus or car.  Then work, the “full time job” (for some, our daily travails). Besides transports and fatigue, work can overflow in other ways.  You take more of your work home with you then you really want to.  Then things like raising a family (and/or being a serious artist) can be like a second full-time job.  The effort in trying to be aware can take up time.  We study the “news” in search of truth.

Some of us try to help out through “charity.”  Some try to help through political-social involvement and action.  Some work at ignoring or forgetting.  The list goes on and on. 

One can find oneself living in a whirl (dizzy), on thin ice or caught in an endless impossible balancing act.  There’s this idea of just so much stuff (things, events, jobs, duties) and then too people.  Even the recluse and the hermit have to deal with others. 

I’ve told myself that if I’m worried I’m “stretching myself too thin” well then just “stretch myself thinner.”  I’m a pretty typical case.  I work full-time and bus and walk to work.  I’m a serious visual artist and writer.  I play and sing in two musical groups.  Then, for the straw that broke the camel’s back, I help run a grassroots-artist run art gallery.  Quiet spaces and “quality time” are always found—yet at a price.

I’m sure other artists, arts writers-critics and members of the audience all find themselves in a similar space (sometimes or all the time).  You push too hard, yet the effort is often invisible to others.  They only see some of its fruit.  Life overflows.

If artists are solely to blame for the failures of art, well so be it.  What can art do but that which artists can do?  Yet some would share the blame for these failures with the public, our “audience” and with our chroniclers, the arts writers and critics.  Then too, some galleries and art spaces are more supportive and encouraging than others.

Our audience includes our peers, our fellows.  Our fellow artists and art gallery staffs are generally supportive.  Yet some stick to their own gallery and circle and rarely get out to see what the others are doing. 

Too often, the basic audience attends only the opening (with free entertainment, a lively social scene and/or refreshments).  For the rest of the exhibit’s stand, few to zero attend.  It ends up somehow deserted. 

As for the “press” it would seem that you usually have to be doing something extraordinary (and/or persevere for years) in order to get noticed.  I’m reminded of the Daffy Duck cartoon where he does this elaborate routine and finishes by blowing himself up!  He’s a huge hit but at the requests for an encore he says “It’s a great trick but I can only do it once!”

Or as Franz Kafka said “People beg to give themselves away.  But who can give one’s self away in a world that no longer knows how to receive?”

Then there’s the syndrome wherein one gets a big “article” and in the days that follow—no one comes—or very few.  You can see where this points back to.  If you have a great show and it’s not neglected by the media and few attend: the problem is not with the artwork, the gallery or the “media.”  The problem is often with the audience.

They too have their “saturation points.”  The distractions of “entertainment” and unfamiliarity with painting, drawing, sculpture etc. play a big part.

You can go full circle and put all the “blame” onto the artist.  Yet there’s the old saw that great art needs a great audience (and great art criticism).  Then too, great art (and enough truly good art) should help encourage better audiences and better criticism.  Can we all play our parts better than we have been?  Can art help set loose a spirit of contagious health? 

Art can be a distraction or a mere “pain killer.”  It can be relief from real suffering.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.

It can retain elements of this effect yet go beyond them.  Art can be a window or door opening to more awareness.  There’s a connection between be aware and beware.  It can also be a healing path.  It can be a strong force toward a better world (a less bitter world).

Here’s a preliminary prescription (specific). 

Artists, keep working.  Try to do the best work you can.  Whether schooled or self-taught, never stop learning and working.  Read and go to museums and galleries.  Talk to other artists and the “public” about art.  Try to keep growing.  If you draw enough and keep your eyes open, things may happen.

Galleries and museums, try to support the artists around you.  It’s fine to show art from other cities or countries.  Yet you also need to encourage the local scene. Search out new and unknown artists as well as the “tried and true.”  It’s good to have standards, have a vision.  If you have faith in the work, then the audience should respond to it.  Keep your space neat, organized and clean.  Hang your exhibits well. 

The galleries need to come together and support each other.  If we don’t, it just ends up hurting everybody.  It’s good to have special events where many galleries are open at the same time and encourage the public to visit.  On the other hand, it’s better to avoid having ten openings the same night (and nothing the next week).  The special character of the opening or closing events versus “regular hours” should be considered.

Critics and arts writers, try to get out and see as many shows as you can.

Time and time again, I’ve seen an art exhibit that blew me away, that I loved.  Then this same show meets with total silence from allDetroit’s media and press.  These include shows that I had nothing to do with myself (except being there to see them).

It’s very difficult to cover every show.  Yet even brief capsule reviews (a paragraph or two) would be better than nothing.  All most artists (and galleries) want is some “fair attention.”  Then, whether you pan the show, praise it, or give it a middling review—we’re glad you took the time to see it and put forth a response.  We appreciate your efforts in these regards. 

Most artists are also interested in: opinions on what art is and is not, the national and international scene, art-historical remembrances and so on.

If critics and galleries seem to let us down sometimes, do we let them down too?  How strong, amazing, solid, moving, ugly or beautiful does our artwork need to be?  Who won’t let us down?  We try not to let ourselves down.  The world seems to let us down yet we struggle to “rise above it.”

Audience, we thank you.  We know that the “public” is the most important piece of the puzzle.

I found this quotation from the estimable T-Bone Slim:  “A man is only great as a writer if his readers are great.  Never was, is, or will be a writer greater than his readers.”  If the relationship with the artist and their audience improves, so will that with galleries, museums and critics.

We hope for the audience, the “people at large” to come see our work.

It’s good to give us some feedback (talk to us, your true responses).  If you like what you see, please support it.  Give us some encouragement.  Tell others about our exhibits and/or come back yourself.  Understand that it’s discouraging for the artists to use their precious time “gallery sitting” only to have no one show up.  Then yes, despite my “disclaimer,” if galleries rarely or never sell art, they will end up closing (gone for good).

Word of mouth does wonders.  Art isn’t really that difficult.  It’s natural, as easy as water or air.  If more people would take the visual arts seriously and give artists real support, the strength of the artwork should increase.  The percentage of good work (as compared to bad, mediocre or indifferent work) should rise.  Renaissance Now!

This is For the Encouragement and Strengthening of the Arts:

October 20 started/ November 12 finished (finis) 2005

From Maurice Greenia, Jr. (Maugre)  Thank you for reading this.

Aftermath:

How can we transcend the general trend toward the “marginalization” of the plastic arts?  Despite all my “positive statements” above, I know that (in many ways) the truth is very ugly, pretty rough.

To me, it seems obvious that in “the arts,” the visual artist is something of an “outcast.”

We’re the “lowest of the low” (all downtrodden and beset upon).  Our compatriots get it just as bad.  These include people in any art form who try to “push the envelope” or try something new (certain poets, experimental film, theatre, music or “literature” etc.)

Yet in those arts which we see (hang on a wall or place on a pedestal) it seems nearly everyone gets a raw deal.   The exceptions (stars??) are doing well not always due to the quality of their work.  As for the rest of us, the good, the great and the largely mediocre all get swept up by the same wave.

Some artists spend thousands of hours reading, studying, sketching and painting.  The training period can be nearly as intense as a doctor or lawyer—yet without the “better times ahead.”  Yet many of us continue on both determined and full of life.

Then there’s the “double edged sword.”   The money behind the “popular arts” makes them much more powerful.   T.V., pop music and movies take away much of our potential audience.  When the work is of quality, it’s pretty easy to take.  We check it out ourselves.  Yet much of it is just so horrible (new ways to waste your life, the “time killers.”)  A steady diet of sugar candy steers one away from a better balanced “diet.”

On the other hand, the current system of galleries, museums and mass media seems to hurt us as well as help us.  Most of the problems have already been mentioned.  We hope to make changes here, to improve things.  Yet it might not be as easy as it should be.

There’s a sense of “elitism” partially tied in with $$$$.  There’s a tradition where if you can’t get “real money” out to look at your work, no one takes you seriously.  The work isn’t looked at for the quality of the work.  The attempt is made to transform all art into “product” yet this is disguised and veiled.

Real change in this world often arrives from unexpected sources.  It starts at a “low point” and spreads.  We can transcend the special problems inherent in the visual arts and in this city, Detroit.  There could be a sort of partnership between artists, the media, the venues and the audience.  This would be to the benefit of us all.  It would be a start.

on the Woodward side

Back in the mid-1990′s, I ended up taking over  Detroit’s Hudson’s Building.  For a few years, it was my “outdoor art studio.”  I’d just go down there to work.

It was a different time then.  I never got any permission and I never got arrested.

It started when a group project, the “Detroit Heroes Murals” was painted over with no warning.  I don’t even have a photo of my completed (painted) murals for Detroit musicians Tommy Flanagan and Little Willie John.  I thought that this was an insult to the artists who worked hard, for no pay.

So I started drawing on it in chalk, in protest.  I ended up spending much of my time there.  It was a lot of hard work. 

I ended up interacting with the homeless people who were living in the building.  It was constant “street theatre” and a real adventure.

I got involved with the people who were trying to save the building (and met many of those who wanted it to go).

I was inspired by Tyree Guyton, Sam Mackey and the Heidelberg Project.  Also, I’d seen Keith Haring’s subway chalk drawings.  That was similar, in that it was line drawings on a black background, like a chalk board.

Then, I was used to using chalk as I’d done a large series of sidewalk drawings, most of which I’d photographed.

In late 2008, it was destroyed aka “imploded.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Hudson_Department_Store_and_Addition

http://michpics.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/the-demolition-of-the-jl-hudson-building-in-detroit/

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/jl-hudson-department-store

Since its destruction, there’ve been several “tribute exhibits” including photos of my work.  I was included in a short documentary film on the building.  I also did a radio essay for our local NPR station WDET on what it was like drawing on the building.  I wrote a poem about the experience which was included in the anthology Abandon Automobile.

A lot of people had taken photos of my drawings on the Hudsons.  If you have any, I’d like to see them sometime.

Within the next few months, I’ll have a section on this at my University of Detroit Mercy site.  When it appears, I’ll post a link to it here.

Duo (from 1981)

“To dream and altogether not to dream. The synthesis is the operation of genius….” Novalis

“I am aware of these ‘fancies’ only when I am on the brink of sleep, with the consciousness that I am so….In these fancies-let me now term them psychal impressions-there is really nothing even approximate in character to impressions ordinarily received. It is as if the five senses were supplanted by five myriad others alien to mortality.” Poe

I recently read the 1987 book HYPNOGOGIA The unique state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep by Andreas Mavromatis. This provoked some further study on hypnogogia and ‘dream states.”

The quotes above are from a page of quotes early in this book. There are original illustrations (by six artists). It deals primarily with “hallucinatory and quasi-hallucinatory events taking place in the state between wakefulness and sleep.” These include various phenomena, not only sights or “visions” but also sounds, smells, tastes and more.

Everyday “hallucinations” abound: a piece of trash in the wind that looks like an animal, signs that read the wrong way and so on. Things mimic other things and creatures/beings.

Film-makers such as Marie Menken and Stan Brakhage are steeped in hypnogogia. Natural “slurps and drivel” chorus into mockups. Moth wings and dewdrops (off of a leaf) create little cinema songs.

Then there’s Luis Bunuel, who finds his way into waking dreams in another way. Surrealism often tries to capture the “hallucinations” of everyday life.  Andre Breton, Robert Desnos (and others) would often find poetry while they were in a half awake/half asleep trance state.

Dreams become as real as waking life (or more so). The half awake/half asleep state can be a vivid example of what it’s like to live in two worlds at once.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/227/hypnagogia.html

the world of lucid dreaming:

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/consciousness-and-hypnagogia-part-i.html

waking dreaming in the wiki world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHypnagogia

a blog post on hypnogogia. I always loved the Thomas Edison story that he cites:

http://www.davidcharles.info/2010/11/hypnagogia-how-to-dream-like-thomas.html

Nurturing the Will

I did a rare poetry reading/performance at the Scarab Club, Wed Jan 19, at 7 PM.  The other poets who read included Julie Patton and Scott Farrow.  The Woodward-Line poetry series is curated by Kim Hunter and James Hart III.

This was last week as I write this.  I don’t read my poetry “live” every year.  Sometimes years go by before I do a “straight poetry reading.”  That is, I usually perform my poetics with my puppet shows and the Spaceband. 

It was tricky getting there by bus, I just barely got there on time.

I’ve seen Scott read before.  He was quite good, doing his poetry then taking “musical breaks.”  He’d play the flute and the moog, then do more poetry.

I brought my 3-headed toy monster and my red cassette recorder up to the podium.  I’d carefully chose a lot of poems.  Some were recent while others went back to the 1980′s.  They were all from my “zine” The Poetic Express.

I read them, roughly in chronological order.  There were a lot of tall tales involving animals and monsters, a disclaimer, a surrealist recipe and more.  I had the audience responding and laughing, good.  There were poems dedicated to St. John Perse, Kay Sage, Captain Beefheart and more.

I finished with a poem for blues man Blind Willie McTell, which I sang ending “a young boy dreams of endless snow” a duly Wintry image.  It rhymed as did several others.  I read quite a few poems, for just fifteen minutes.

Julie Patton was excellent.  I hadn’t been familiar with her work.  She  said something like “Manhattan isn’t the same since it became one big shopping mall.”

Much of her poetry played with language.  One consisted of the letters of the alphabet especially set up and spoken.  A guitarist backed her up.  She sang some, even bring to mind the late, great Jeanne Lee a bit.

She finished one poem, going around “shooting” at the audience with at toy  (cork and string) pop-gun.

For her last piece, she passed out little instruments and noise toys to the audience to jam around her words. The guitarist was still playing too.   Toward the end, she invited Scott and I back up to join the jam where I joined in with words, whistling, singing, kazooing and more.

The Poetic Express:

http://artremedy20.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/the-poetic-express-at-25/

Information on poet Julie Patton:

http://yoyolabs.com/patton.html

http://home.jps.net/~nada/patton.htm