Hello executives of my heart,
Our reading at Mars Gallery in Chicago with Nick Demske, Michael Robbins, and Alisa
Heinzman (accompanied by Jake Gillespie on the visual front) was totally "not lame"
(-Michael Robbins) after all. Alisa's collaboration with Jake's vids created some quite surreal moments, Michael read gut-busting poems from his smart phone, and Nick took advantage of his pure power of presence to captivate. Our "soundtrack for x film" experiment used similar text sources, but with the sci/low-fi film Acension of the Demonoids by George Kuchar. Surprisingly, the results were pretty much the opposite of the previous round, but I won't give away what they were. Chicago was a big fat fun time. Deep dish pizza is real, the place is littered with enormous public art structures, and the architecture is stunning at every angle. Next to The Art Institute is a quaint and well-manicured garden where we held a Q&A with John Beer. That's not a euphemism, that's just what actually happened and what his actual name is (as far as I know). It was the hottest, sweatiest interview ever. That's not a euphemism either, the climate was oppressive. Locals frolicked about in a public square where high-rise multiculturally-friendly faces spat streams of water out from their video mouths. Seriously: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYu41OeUYn0&feature=related.
From Chi-town we pursued the heat wave (as we have on this entire trip) to Ann Arbor
where we're currently staying with Mikey, the most considerate person in the universe.
(He's in his kitchenette making me coffee right now. I might never leave.). Two nights
ago we hosted a reading at Work Gallery here in AA, MI. Susan Holbrook and Rebecca Porte owned the stage. Since the collective doesn't have a whole lot of connections in
Michigan, we took to the streets, flagging people down for the show. The reading began
with our experiment using the same texts but pairing them with Michael Nyman's
"Abandonment" instead of a visual accompaniment. Rebecca's piece was written with Megan Levad. Their piece is an experiment in combined texts exploring American-ness, which means these ladies and us ladies are definitely involved in a hive-mind experience. Hive-mind not only made Rebecca and Megan's project absurdly relevant to ours, but also easily justified Kelsa's filling in for Megan's part in her absence. Susan Holbrook cracked up the audience and us as well. Before the reading a sudden rainstorm arrived. Since we all have some technical equipment to look after and absolutely no rain gear to speak of (way to think ahead, Californians) we settled with plastic bags over everything, including our heads. Tomorrow we're off to Niagara and The Big Apple. Wish us luck!
big-city-dreams jill.
