Fort Point Channel Theatre, "On The Road," and On "The Murph"

The Fort Point Theatre Channel’s event last night, “Exclamation Point!” was a great success. The Studio Soto space was an especially great venue for a steamy July evening and the writing— poetry, plays, and fiction— was excellent.

The turn out was much bigger than I expected and the place was packed— I think everyone was pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of all the work presented.

Kudos to Silvia Graziano for her great production of the event— it was really an honor to be included.

Being an attention hog, I squeezed in all the time I could and read three poems— “Counting,” “This Guernica,” and the longer work, “Another Train.”

I read “Another Train” one other time (an earlier version)— at the Cantab Lounge’s Slam and Open Mic in Cambridge. It was my first time there and I didn’t know about the strict time limit on the open mic. The emcee, Michael Brown almost gave me the hook as “Another Train” runs more than twice that.

So, if nothing else, it seemed like a warm reception to not almost get thrown off stage.

The videos posted below are of me reading “Counting” and “This Guernica” last night. I will try and get "Another Train" up here shortly.

For more information on the Fort Point Theatre Channel see their website at www.fortpointtheatrechannel.org

I like the connection between me bringing up Rosenquist in the blog recently, and his influence on how I see Picasso and Guernica, and my poem “This Guernica” being read last night. Also, the images from “This Guernica” are from a collage of mine titled “100 Airplane Rides.”

Truly, the entire event was a great success and a lot of fun.

Over the past few days I have been working on some poetry revisions. Wanted to put together a submission for an upcoming anthology being put out by the Cultural Organization of Lowell titled “Where the Road Begins” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s “One the Road.” I sent them in 2 poems— “Parking Lot Destinations,” and “The Things Maps Can’t Measure.” We will see.

Also spent some time working on prepping for the “Exclamation Point!” reading— reading the poems out loud, finding their music and rhythms again, etc.

In addition, over the past few days I have been working on some initial sketches and compositional layouts of works for the upcoming Model Consumer series. In fact, I have even been doing some color layouts on some 18” x 24” paper with acrylic scrap booking paint watered down like a mix between watercolors and acrylic. I envision doing a few of these on paper and having them ready for either the show at the Gulu-Gulu café in October or Open Studios here in Fort Point. I have also spent some time with the sketchbook just sharpening up some of my rendering skills— all this influence of Hopper on Boston, and his diligence with his sketchbook, has me inspired.

I got an email from my friend Brian today, he said:

“I'm not sure if you saw the show, but reading your blog about the photo contest reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine gets mad because she buys a dress that looked great on her in the dressing room mirror, but when she gets home it looks awful. It's decided that the store has 'skinny' mirrors to trick people. The next dress she buys she tries wearing out of the store to look at herself in a different mirror to confirm if it looks good or not. When she comes back to the store they can tell the dress had been worn outside and make her buy it. Hilarity ensues.”

Thought this was pretty amazing for a few reasons. The first is Brian using the old “Hilarity ensues.” As I said above, “Another Train” is one that I haven’t had a chance to read publicly very often due to its length— but I did last night and it also uses the tried and true “hilarity ensues” (although I used ‘ensued’ as the past tense).

The other bizarre connection is that every time my friend Murph comes into 617 Midway he again offers his modeling services, likening his abilities to the of Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld and “The Kramer" fame (pic above from http://www.tvacres.com/art_paintings_kramer.htm).

He always says I could title it “The Murph.”

Maybe it’s true, maybe everything does relate back to an episode of Seinfeld. Or, maybe some of my friends watch too much TV— you decide. Either way, it is really interesting how many connections people are finding between this mirror idea and all kinds of things. The response to the project is inspiring.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the opening of “Image for Sale” tomorrow (Friday) night… see you there.