Friday, June 20, 2008

Watchword Press's shindig

Wow, the art at Watchword Press's thing last night was pretty amazing. And the performance pieces were really quite moving: some funny, some disturbing in a good way (whatever that means). I had a chance to chat with the author whose work the installations and dramatics were based upon--Britta J. Astin. Each day for a year she typed little "stories" or as she said, not wanting to call them anything, on little notecards with an old-style typewriter. One act interpreting her work used typewriters as a main prop and when they brought out the tan suitcases it brought back fond memories for me of my parents' old typewriter I used to play with growing up. I am old enough to have had to learn how to type on a typewriter, how to erase with a whiteout reel or tape, and how to retype a whole page when you really screw up. I was the second fastest typer in my high school...Laurie Schlueter being the fastest. She was an adopted Asian girl, the only Asian girl in our all-white high school back in Iowa. You see the floodgates that typewriter image opened up for me. Speaking of floods--my parents farm is not underwater, it's on the other side of the state, but their bottom is, as always, flooded. I don't feel so bad about it--dad sold the bottom and kept the fishing rights to the river, which just means that, for now, they can't go fishing. And no, they can't just fish in the field.

Watchword's exhibition is still going on at Intersection for the Arts at 426 Valencia and the work is really worth seeing. They're having an encore presentation of the performances on the 26th of June, I believe. Susanne Dyckman's poems on iconic religious cards are worth reading, looking at. Love the holiness of putting poems on the back of what was a staple in my grandmother's household growing up. Pictures of Jesus and the lamb. Mary, Joseph, and the baby--all with halos around their heads. There is one particular picture of the baby Jesus that looks just like my youngest sister when she was a baby--pure white skin, rosy cheeks, rosebud lips. Hilarious and yet so sweet. See how we get our religions.

Picked up the new Watchword X and have only had time to thumb through it, so stay tuned on that lit mag. I'm also reading Lydia Davis's book Variety of Disturbance Stories. It caught my eye because of a story called "The Fellowship," which is hilarious. It's about how when you apply for a fellowship your work isn't good enough or that you have to forget about applying for the fellowship or else you won't win. This cracks me up. I was reading the Tao of something in my sister's bathroom in Malibu and it was suggesting the same thing--that if you want something too badly, you won't get it. That you have to send it out to the universe and forget it about it and the you will be rewarded. What a nut-job way of thinking of god, that if you pray for something, but pretend you don't want it, god will suddenly reward you with it. Yeah, that's why I send my work out everywhere, all the time, so that I can pretend that I don't really want to be published.

I'll be attending FC2's summer writing conference called the Writer's Edge, in late July, so I guess in preparation, I'll be reading a lot of out-there kind of stuff. Hoping it gets my creative bug juices flowing. I also picked up a copy of Miranda July's book that's out in paperback, No One Belongs Here More Than You, which I know I've already read a couple of stories from. I heard her read last year at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco and she was great, very charming and quirky, just like her movie and her writing.

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