Liu, Yvonne (yl28172@imcnam.sbi.com)
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 10:29:57 -0400
I bit the bullet and decided to plunge into the reading
at the Poetry Project in St. Mark's Church yesterday
in the stead of Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily?" @ vOID.
I figured that the movie could always be rented out,
whereas the poet could always disappear the next day.
So, Jim Carroll (of the "Basketball Diaries" fame)
and Darius James ("That's Blaxploitation!" and "Negrophobia")
read in the main chamber of the time-rusted chapel
on East 10th and 2nd Ave in the Bowery.
Darius James read first, hilarious excerpts from "Negrophobia"
of a white woman's worst racist fantasies becoming a reality.
All African Americans were dispelled of from the earth
( I think in James' cosmology, ethnic minorities will rocket
themselves to outer space in the distant future,
pursuing a colorblind existence in an extraterrestrial reality. ),
and Walt Disney was revived ( like Dr. Evil ) after a century of
being frozen on ice, served to the world as the perennial
President of the United States for Life
( James made an aside at this point,
"At the time I was writing this, little did I know..." )
Afterwards, Jim Carroll read from his works, including
"Fear of Dreaming" and his newest "Void of Course."
I noticed that there were many alterna-rock-chick-groupies
with their tongue piercings and low-slung welfare jeans
in the audience making dove eyes at Jim Carroll.
Funny.
Carroll first read a work-in-progress, a novel with a
narrative of a depressive, young man wandering
the streets of midtown Manhattan.
Chastised by his friends for wearing bulky pocket change
and other debris in his jeans ( "you're not fluid" ),
the young man goes atop the Empire State Bldg.
to put a quarter in those time-slotted telescopes.
Through the lenses, he watches a small drama unfold:
A John Garfield-lookalike and a Jayne Mansfield-lookalike
share an intimate moment with a bird on the window sill
and an exchanged gift in a high rise penthouse apartment
within a small green box.
The young man is lost in the present reality of this vision.
However the dream is shattered as the quarter runs out,
no other change in the ( now ) "fluid" jeans,
so he slumps home,
returning to depression.
Jim Carroll then read "8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain,"
"I Am Not Kurt Schwitters," and a few others including
"What Burroughs Told Me," "The Ocean of Life,"
"Train Surfing," "Sick Bird," and
"Msg Left on a Phone Machine."
Afterwards, I decided to schmooze with the authors.
With two new books freshly purchased in my fists,
I pushed my way to Jim Carroll's seat
with poetry groupies encircling him, fawning on him.
I opened "Void Of Course" to the page where the
"Msg Left on a Phone Machine" was, I asked:
" Can you please write 'I am not the flaming monk of Buddha.' ?"
Instead, he wrote the title of the poem,
"I Am Not Kurt Schwitters,"
and he signed his name with a florid hand.
I protested, " No !
Can you write something about the fjords ?
Or about the reindeer meat ? "
He wrote on the page of "I Am Not Kurt Schwitters"
in "Fear of Dreaming: Selected Poems,"
" The fjords were nice
( or something to that effect,
I didn't tote the other book to work with me )
Reindeer meat should not be eaten. "
Now satisfied, I pursued another line of questioning,
" Did you really leave that poem on an answering machine ?
What happened ? Did it work ? "
He gave me a *big* grin,
" Oh yeah ! "
I thrust an excerpt from "The Myth of Sisyphus"
by Albert Camus into his hands
( " Here, this is for you. Sorry, I didn't write it. " )
and left our absurd hero to his NY stories
and the little circle of worshipping eyes around him.
__________________________________________
THURSDAY, OCT. 8th
Job Expo
Hotel Pennsylvania
401 Seventh Ave at 33rd St.
655-4505
Subway: A, C, E, 1, 2, 3, 9 to 34th St.
10 am to 5 pm
$5, students $3
Suit up, bring your resume and get ready
to kowtow to the Man at this career fair.
An Evening of Evidence, Illusion,
Wonder and Imagination
International Center of Photography Midtown
1133 Sixth Ave at 43rd St.
860-1776 ext. 156
Subway: B, D, F, Q to 42nd St.
7 pm
$10, members $8
Pegged to the current Vik Muniz
"Seeing Is Believing" exhibition,
ICP hosts a discussion with Muniz,
artist David Wilson and author-poet
Lewis Hyde about the
"path linking evidence to knowledge."
David Byrne and Band meet
the Balanescu Quartet
Knitting Factory
8 pm
$20
Cirrus + Keoki + Omar Santana +
DJ Dan + AK1200 + Freshmaka
TWILO
( See http://www.twiloclub.com/ for details. )
The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black
+ Clay Ppl + Golden Showers
Coney Island High
8 pm
advance $10, $12 day of show.
Famed dominatrix Kembra Pfahler's shock-rock
troupe Karen Black is still the last word in messy,
theatrical downtown noise.
Clay Ppl purvey drum 'n' bass-propelled metal,
and Golden Showers offer perv rock (?).
__________________________________________
FRIDAY, OCT. 9th
FREED SPEECH:
Andrea Dworkin & Catherine MacKinnon
New School for Social Research
66 W 12th St. at Sixth Ave
Tishman Auditorium
229-5488
Subway: F to 14th St.
7 pm
$5
Women's rights activists Dworkin and MacKinnon
lead a staged reading of anti-pornography testimony
given before the Minneapolis City Council in 1983.
The reading commemorates last year's publication of
"In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings,"
edited by Dworkin and MacKinnon.
City Comptroller Alan Hevesi
Bell Atlantic
1095 Sixth Ave at 42nd St.
664-0954
Subway: B, D, F, Q to 42nd St.
Buffet Lunch at noon, Program 1 to 2 pm.
Lunch $30, Program is free.
Hevesi talks about recently released report
that claims the city would need to spend
almost $92 billion to get its buildings,
roads, transit and water system back into shape.
David Byrne and Band meet
the Balanescu Quartet
Knitting Factory
8 pm, 10:30 pm
$25, $20
Lubricated Goat + New United Monster Show +
Dum Dum + Last Year's Man + Tete a Gifle
CBGB
8 pm
$9
__________________________________________
SATURDAY, OCT. 10th
David Byrne & Band meet
the Balanescu Quartet
Knitting Factory
8 pm, 10:30 pm
$25, $20
Jim Allen, Dave's True Story, Uncle Carl
The Living Room
8:30 pm
Free
The folkie tunes sprinkled with literary
references of Dave's True Story will
likely pack this room with sensitive
postcollegiates.
Mary Lou Lord + Alejandro Escovedo
+ Peter Case
Bowery Ballroom
8:30 pm
advance $12, $14 day of show.
__________________________________________
SUNDAY, OCT. 11th
Hispanic Parade
Fifth Ave from 44th to 72nd St.
Noon to 4 pm.
Tibetan Festival
Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art
338 Lighthouse Ave, Staten Island
718 987 3478
Noon to 5 pm.
$5
Kalmuk monks perform chants and answer
audience questions about Buddhism at this
annual show. Outdoor Tibetan bazaar has
crafts on display, Tibetan food, and
demonstration of Thangka painting.
Manhattan Treasure Hunt
Meet at Playwright Tavern
202 W 49th St. between 7th and Broadway
613 6313
Subway: 1, 9 to 50th St.
2 pm
$15
Teams of players search for treasure
in the West Village. Everyone gets a
free (!) Heineken (bleh) beer after the hunt.
Run-D.M.C. + Large Professor
+ Non-Phixion
Tramps
9 pm
$20
__________________________________________
Can you believe that I have to work on Monday?
As long as the Stock Market is open,
I have to trudge into work.
Bleh.
Yvonne.
___________________________________________
WHAT BURROUGHS TOLD ME
by Jim Carroll
Have you ever seen fjords?
You want to see fjords before you die.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 08 1998 - 16:35:27 MET DST