First Ever Baltimore Litscape - Saturday, December 13

I'm really excited about this event. It's loaded with some of my favorite Baltimore poets and performers and The Mole Suit Choir gets a sweet slot at 8:15 right after the sparkling weird magic of Theresa Columbus.

Here's the day's events lineup:

2pm - Doors open
230 - Carabella Sands
240 - Dylan Kinnett
250 - Boatwater

330 - CarlaJean Valluzzi
340 - Dave K

415 - Megan McShea
425 - Barrett Warner
435 - Kathy Fahey

515 - Tim Paggi
525 - Linda Franklin
535 - Bobbie Donnie

605 - CnD Anthology Intro
610 - Condoland
615 - Community Panel Discussion w/ Baltimore locals

730 - Klein/Prince
800 - Theresa Columbus
815 - The Mole Suit Choir
845 - DP The Emcee 910 - Community Center

Now Let Us Praise Genius Guy A Month In His Rearview Mirror, Part 2

A few more goodbyes to Adam Robinson from his writer friends in Baltimore.

ADIEU TO ADAM, BON JOUR TO ANOTHER BALTIMORE SUMMER (a rip-off of Frank O’Hara’s “Adieu to Normal, Bon jour to Joan and Jean-Paul”)

It is 8:50 in Baltimore and I am wondering
if I will finish this in time for the party for Adam who is leaving
ah parties! I think I am going crazy
what with my terrible commute and the weekend coming up
and Joan’s Swedish dance party for Bonnie who is coming back finally
I wish I were coming back from somewhere but I’m glad I’m here
I wish I could get some new writing to come out
for a new book by some new press somewhere
which they will probably not print
but it is good to be up in the study at night
wondering whether you are any good or not
and the only decision you can make is that Frank O’Hara did it so you’ll always have that

yesterday I looked up Oakhurst on a map
and was happy to find it like a bird
flying over Atlanta and its environs
which unfortunately did not include Decatur which I don’t know
as well as a number of other things
and Ian is back bitching about Baltimore a lot
and Bonnie is coming back and might be sad about it
and not everyone can come to Adam’s party
although everyone knows he is leaving
I suspect they are avoiding this fact
well, who isn’t

I wish I were reeling around Atlanta
instead of reeling around Baltimore
I wish I weren’t reeling at all
it is Spring the ice has melted the Yeungling is being poured
we are all happy and aging and counting our teeth
it is the same as old age
the only thing to do is simply continue
is that simple
yes, it is simple because it is the only thing to do
can you do it
yes, you can because it is the only thing to do
blue light over Lake Montebello it continues
Greenmount continues
Club Charles stays open it hardly closes at all
Hampden continues to be aspirational
Stephanie Rawlings Blake continues to attempt to be inspirational as does Obama
and S. Barber continues to be Stephanie
and Mark Cugini continues to be Michael Kimball’s love child
and Jamie Gaughran-Perez continues to be Jamie Perez (I think!)
and Rupert Wondolowski continues to be the king of Baltimore
and so do we (sometimes I think I’m “in love” with Baltimore)
and surely the Harbor continues to have water in it
and Normals continues to have shelves of books and bins of records and people poring over them
and surely we shall not continue to be unhappy
we shall be happy
but we shall continue to be ourselves everything continues to be possible
Lauren Bender, Joe Young, Adam Robinson it is possible isn’t it
I love Adam for saying yes, though I don’t believe it

--Megan McShea

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ohnoidonotthinkicanwritesomethinghereinthiswaywitheveryonegonnareadanditbeingthoughtitlikeapoemandnotaheartbrokendeclarationofmytrueloveforyoumybestfriend

--Stephanie Barber

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Dear Adam Robinson,
Do you remember that night we played pool at Frazier’s while they broadcast a replay of the Orioles/Tigers game up on the big screen TV? We both knew the Orioles had lost to the Tigers 7-5 earlier that afternoon, but we couldn’t help rooting for the O’s anyway. In the bottom of the eighth inning, your favorite player JJ Hardy had a one-out single to left field and then the backup catcher Clevenger singled to left too. Schoop struck out swinging, but Lough drew a walk. So the bases were loaded and there were two outs when Markakis stepped into the batter’s box and we wanted to feel hopeful. It seemed like anything could happen even though we knew exactly what would happen. A single probably would have tied the game and an extra base hit probably would have put the O’s up, but Markakis ended the inning again by flying out to centerfield, just as he had earlier that afternoon. The Orioles didn’t even threaten in the ninth and the game was over for the second time for us. You can replay the baseball game as many times as you want, but the final score never changes. What I’m trying to say is exactly the opposite of that: Nothing will be the same after this and I’m hopeful for what that might be.
- - Michael Kimball

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Easter Robinson

Can you take me to the bus station? Yes. Put your bags down. I’m afraid I’ll be late. You will. Everyone is boarding group A.
- - Joseph Young

Megan McShea Rekindles The Fire of The Ancient Party

Long ago, when hairs gathered around heads, when more than five Baltimore poets would be home from touring or the madhouse at the same time, when Chris Toll and Blaster Al Ackerman still trod the earth like parallel universe Lenin and Marx respectively, when young Adam Robinson and Stephanie Barber still held partiers rapt with their wide-eyed tales of the fur trade in Milwaukee in the 1800's, when Amy Peterson still graced Normal's Books & Records on occasion before her step up into the rarefied world of modern New York and its tony celebrity filled co-ops, oxygen bars and petitions against mopery, before Ric Royer The Theater Lad, was thrown into the pee-stained trunk of a Dodge sedan by seedy barstool bard Gene Grigoritis, his fingers removed one by one over the course of nine days (Ric had already lost one as a child in Disneyland, bitten off by the Alexander Hamilton robot), each digit shearing videoed and posted to Youtube then sent to gadfly Tao Lin, with the thoughtful message "I bet this bitch's finger is bigger than your Johnson you poser" - before the writing scene spun out like the final crunchy tableau of "Fast & Furious XX" and toppled from its glorious peak, many disparate souls united by their weirdness and love of morphological word formation, jarring metaphors/contrasts and sometimes plain old oddball oddness scat goof met up every few weeks to become One Big Mind and Write As One With Many.

Usually within the comfort of Megan McShea's afghan-filled cottage where plump Sugar the cat would brush your ankles, yard sale Latin record finds would spin and Megan and Amy and Bonnie would quietly contend for "Most Raven Haired". Sometimes we would sit out on my ragged third floor balcony back when I lived in the Pego Mansion of St. Paul Street across from the Catholic High School.

(Ancient Party editor Megan McShea with author, artist and legend Al Ackerman in Austin in his post-Baltimore years)

Wherever we met, Blaster Al could be counted on to be there with beer and an anarchic spirit to keep the proceedings moving and not too academic and Megan would stir up the poetry machine gadgets to keep rust from forming.

Many nights after hours of scribbling, cutting up and jabbering the circle would fall briefly silent and someone would say "Hey, where's Lauren Bender? Did she take all the Hazelnut Breadstick Pop Tarts?" And there Lauren would be, stuck up in a ceiling corner, wide possum-eyed like a dollar store mylar valentines balloon temporarily forgotten as the young lovers moved into the love room to drop the needle on some Barry White.

(above - Lauren Bender mooshing Sugar the Cat)

But all things (almost all?) end. Or erode/evolve/mutate. Even though they feel natural as breath and just as rejuvenating as they are going on. Such be our writerly coven meetings. Oh they will still happen somewhere with some of us, but Blaster and Chris Toll are huffing ether and playing prepared harp with John Cage on the astral plane, Adam Robinson independent publishing pinup boy is off to Atlanta, Amy is in New York comforting Laurie Anderson and so on and so on, time marches on.

Luckily, though, Megan hung on to our sheaves of scribbles and pored over them, jiggling the ink until gold nuggets rose to the surface. Not only that, she assembled the best into an actual beautiful book and is throwing a Now Party for The Ancient Party at the Windup Space Sunday April 13, 3pm to 5. Come hear some reading from it, gaze upon it, pry greenbacks from your moneysock to buy for your very own. Here's the Your Face link:

The Ancient Party

Here are a few lines from "The Goofball Oracle" to whet your appetite. The Goofball Oracle exercise was everyone would write random questions and place them in one hat and random answers placed in a second hat. Questions would then be pulled from one hat and random answers from the other.

"Hey, what do you guys think of Pammy's new Bummer?" - "The sound of the louvre covered in mallo-mars."

"Was Lincoln a happy drunk?" - "A neon rose garden at the end of the world."

"How many of you are in there anyway?" - "Love is naturally pungent".

Or perhaps a "One Minute Story", s story written within 60 seconds, will win you over:

SKELETON
The way his skin sat on his frame, his skeleton, the whisper of ribs like an automatic round. I still see this sometimes and feel the recoil. Memory does that, transforming the banal into the fantastic.
- John Eaton

(John "Lucky Charms" Eaton, who has been trapped inside the Zoltar Fortune Teller booth on Coney Island since the last writers group gathering.)

SKELETON
The skeleton dancing across the lawn. The skeleton peeping out from behind the shower curtain. The skeleton in the bread box, smaller than the others, so obviously it was the baby.
- Blaster Al Ackerman

Here is one of the "Biographies". Each writer would write a false biography and then mouth the words to the other writers. Then each person would write down what they were lip reading.

"Mortimer Hadley" - by Megan McShea.

I am Mortimer Hadley. I was born in Challenger, Mississippi, along the shore of the Missouri River where seventeen dogs had recently died of exposure to second-hand smoke. No one really understood this at the time, but it would prove to be a fateful pre-episode to my life as an epidemiologist. I attended the Milton Military Pentecostal School for wayward boys until the 9th grade, when I ran off with my guardian angel and began practicing medicine on unsuspecting rural families. Some of my favorite and locally renowned diagnoses are Pale Ghost Disease, discovered in Fallow Holler in the Ozarks, Hollow Stem Fever, which overwhelmed a colony of rabbits in eastern Kansas, and Haddock Mouth, which infested a flock of tiny angels in my hometown of Challenger.

(Lip reading version by Bonnie Jones of "Mortimer Hadley"):
I am Putpott Riding. I was born in South Beach along the coast of whenever. It was heavenly and moldy. Although it was really strenuous for me in the formative years in Ecology I did my. It was wild but right after I was wasted in my family. Memory of an envelope water. Was a rabbit. Fine, back alley. Jaguar.

Well, to paraphrase Blaster, you don't want to sample too many of these deadly treats at one time. But I will leave you with a ritual, the rules of which were worked out in collaboration. This one was written by myself, Ric Royer, Bonnie Jones and Megan McShea.

How to March Into Jerusalem With Your Battle Dress On, Go On Girl!
1. Receive only the absence, not the presence.
2. Wave and pat pouch cloth. Form leg trumpet.
3. Make it ouchie in the Humvee.
4. Make sure that Kirk notices you by wearing so much makeup you look like a clown and appearing at his big gig at the MTV Music Awards with the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and tell him you're pregnant.
5. Buy a custom fitted mouth guard, the kind for teeth grinding not hockey. Put your head down, groan a little, channel Cormac McCarthy, bend at the knees, wipe that tiny bit of spittle. Rush.

Come join in on the festivities April 13th at the Windup and hoist a glass of something for friendship, collaborations and a Spring much deserved.

Mole Suit Choir's "Campfire Spacesuit" Hits The Streets and Ehse Airwaves!

Anyone who has stood within hearing distance of me the last year (yikes, it's been close to a year!), knows how excited I am about this project, The Mole Suit Choir, with the supernaturally talented and inspiring Liz Downing, who once stared down the horror of The Pig Boy of Booger Holler in Alabama. How is it that Alabama people have come to have such powerful influence on my life? Very weird.

This collaboration was first talked about at a wonderful Shakemore Festival and was given extra urgency by the passing of three close comrades. Singing again really gave me solace as some of the people who loomed largest in my personal vortex moved on to the next stage of this cosmic riddle. If not for Liz I might have become glued to the couch and just watched Breaking Bad over and over in a loop, the seasons spinning around me faster and faster.

Through a strange twist of Fate, Dr. Shugg Stew Mostofsky caught our second show at the Windup Space. From a languid sprawl on the leather couch he said he wanted to put an album out by us. The next thing we knew, Wee Ginger Lad Greg Hatem of Heart of Hearts and Mr. Mocassin was hopping about my living room with microphones and a portable recording deck. It was all very blissful and is now captured on glorious cds and cassettes.

Here is the link to Ehse headquarters where you can get a free download or order a cd or cassette:
www.ehserecords.com/ss009/

Or you can use your human legs to cruise on over to Normal's in Waverly, True Vine in Hampden or Soundgarden in Fells Point:

We've gotten some really nice words about the record already. Here is some beauty from scribe China Martens:
"Glen Burnie, Poland meets Extraterrestrial, Alabama in Outer Baltimore from Inner Space: somehow they found each other, on their porches (I think it was Liz that knocked on Rupert's door, incredulous he answered, and without fear bundled up all his fears. Together they struck the matches and watched them burn, aglow, like bread crumbs soaked in firecracker rock worms); and picked up old instruments to continue digging their way out of the spinning yarn and into the fire. Come sit and warm yourself".

And here are some kind words from David Beaudouin:
Think George Jones & Tammy Wynette just back from an unexpected interdimensional jaunt, bringing with them sweet melodies, brilliant songwriting and the secrets of the spaces behind the stars. That's Mole Suit Choir, currently the leading lights in Baltimore's burgeoning neo-folk scene. Created by poet Rupert Wondolowski and painter Elizabeth Downing (both as well accomplished musicians), Mole Suit Choir gets to the heart of things as the best music does, with two voices entwined in high, lonesome harmonies accompanied by guitar or banjo. And like the best music, their oddly familiar songs will echo in your thoughts long after the lights go out. Highly recommended.

Come check us out Sunday, November 3rd at the kindly Metro Gallery on Charles Street, 7:30, for the official release party. Joining us will be Nathan Bell and Liz Durrette, plus readings by Stephanie Barber and Megan McShea.

themetrogallery.net/events/

The Blasterthon, Night Two

(Above - Lauren Ross portraying The Ling Master. Photos throughout, except the one of Francis Poole at bottom, are by Catherine Bennett)

There has been a well-oiled revolving door to the Beyond in Baltimore this year and the most recent to exit was slugger Blaster Al Ackerman. Every moment spent with him was a revelatory gift - other than when he was busting on some of my favorite grooves like Curtis Mayfield and Brigitte Fontaine, of course. I could leave Normal's for only ten minutes to make a bank deposit and sure enough I'd get back to ELO on the turntable.

But so many of my favorite books (including most everything by him), obscure movies and strange folklore I found out about through him. And his daily example of each day no matter what creating something new and " messing with the concept of time", pranking to create reality shifts, deflating the pompous or vampiric, will inspire me until I forget how to slip my hairy legs into trousers.

(Above - Blaster's most beloved and long running collaborator, editor of Lost and Found Times, John M. Bennett blowing Batworth's mind before the show).

Now that Blaster's gone I kick my gluey third eye for not running a tape recorder on at least a few of the days we worked together at Normal's, often hungover from an epic four hour Wig Night at Madame Drogoul's legendary 14 Karat Cabaret where Blaster would entrance the wild-eyed crowd with incredible output of new stories and poems. And Blaster was generally a pretty happy, fun loving guy - especially, of course, before the health woes that kicked in near the beginning of the new Millenium, but he was never happier than when he emerged from the back computer room of the store with a finished draft of a new story. Sweat, glowing skin, golden aura, the whole new poppa bit.

(Above - the set of Lauren and Gerald Ross' Ling Master playlet)

With Blaster dying when he did, though, right after two other close, beloved friends and the memorials and tribute nights that followed, my miserablist heart began to sag and I momentarily thought "Is another show a way to grieve? Shouldn't I just construct a large Shirker's Nest in Blaster's honor and eat only snackcakes and lose the resolve to defecate in receptacles?"

(Above - Eric Franklin performing with The Dirty Dozen)

Luckily, the thoughts and plans of a Miserablist are quickly scattered by the movement of life itself and with John Berndt doing most of the heavy lifting the Blasterthon was formed. In fact night two was my tiny contribution, organizationally speaking, JB did the rest.

(Above - The Dirty Dozen: Neil Feather, Bob Wagner, Eric Franklin and Dan Breen)

And through the acts of the great folks channeling Blaster and his work, once again it was made clear how fantastic, clear and distinctive his voice was, because it rang out chillingly and unmistakably like the creepy intro to the old Shadow radio show through John Eaton, Batworth, Megan McShea reading the gut busting recommendation Blaster had written for her to gain entry into a writer's retreat ("I wouldn't want to go anywhere where they didn't get Blaster," said Megan), Francis Poole, ex-Baltimorean and former Normal's star Courtney McCullough, who was the one who found Blaster post-stroke and convinced doctor hating Blaster to go to the hospital, singing George Jones' "The King is Gone"Catherine Bennett, John M. Bennett, Lauren and Gerald Ross' Ling Master play (wherein Gerald nailed the Ling Master's deranged nerdy secret master voice so well that I still belly laugh just thinking of it), The Dirty Dozen's new Orleans' style funeral march by way of Martian Harry Partch textured sound glory that built in exhilarating manic daffiness and then closed with a quiet spinning wheel of an energy that had to come to a halt and by Laure Drogoul's enchanting olfactory Blaster seance. Who that knew him doesn't have strong smell associations? Newly cracked beer can foam, tin of slightly impertinent tuna, musk of scalp oil basted bop cap. -

Blaster never went anywhere of course, other than to be everywhere still in the rich unforgettable voice of his large body of work. The Blasterthon brought him right up to the thin membrane of now for us to gaze once more with love on all he did for us and left us.

I will sign off with a beautiful email I received from Francis Poole, another beloved collaborator of Blaster's - in fact, I think their book Break Up My Water was Blaster's last printed book of his lifetime - after the soul salving Blasterthon.

"Every reading and performance flowed together seamlessly into one great celebration of Blaster Al's creative genius. While much of his work was playfully subversive it also had the power to reveal the sense of absurdity that lurks beneath the surface of much of what passes for reality and normalcy. The love and regard for Al and his works by those who read him or knew him is proof that his life and gifted imagination made a positive contribution to this crazy world. And ironically in sharing his vision he was able to show others that it's ok to give in to the undertow of one's own wacky universe. Blaster Al was an artist, a therapist, and a great guy. And like a mischievous ringmaster his spirit was there at the Blasterthon to keep the groove going. And it worked beautifully." - Francis Poole

(Below - Francis Poole)

Okay, actually I will wrap this with the lyrics to the Fitting George Jones tune that Courtney belted out for Blaster:

Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter
That looks like Elvis
I soaked the label off a Flintstone Jelly Bean jar
I cleared us off a place on that
One little table that you left us
And pulled me up a big ole piece of floor


I pulled the head off Elvis
Filled Fred up to his pelvis
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


'Round about ten we all got to talking
'Bout Graceland, Bedrock and such
The conversation finally turned to women
But they said they didn't get around too much
Elvis said, "Find 'em young"
And Fred said "Old Fashioned girls are fun"
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


Later on it finally hit me
That you wouldn't be 'a comin' home no more
'Cause this time I know you won't forgive me
Like all of them other times before
Then I broke Elvis's nose
Pouring the last drop from his toes
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter
That looks like Elvis
I soaked the label off a Flintstone Jelly Bean jar

A Megan McShea Snowglobe Afternoon of March Splendor

In a year of choking back tears praising golden fallen comrades at memorials, it felt comforting and promising that on this day we were gathered to toast a living friend and author who had a fresh book out "approaching greatness sideways like ants without eyes". This wondrous book is called A Mountain City of Toad Splendor and was published by Publishing Genius Press.



Being a lover of collaboration and experiment in the creative process - she was/is after all the headmistress of Miss McShea's Writing Workshop 3000 which was actually just a front for Blaster Al Ackerman to keep Megan's cat Sugar knee-deep in catnip - Megan had five of her writer comrades (this writer being one of the honored) on hand at the book release celebration to read one of their favorite pieces from the book and then write and read a response to it.



Above is Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius Press who with his exquisite taste in manuscripts to work with and ingenious innovative ways to present poetry as being as vital and necessary as your favorite music and as rewarding as spirituality brings the excitement of a pop cultural moment like the forming of Factory Records in the '70s to modern poetry of the 21st Century.

Adam in his introduction kicking off the day's festivities said that to him Megan's book is about pleasure. And indeed it's in the title of the collection's first piece "The Brain Is A Pleasure Organ" and it pops back up two pages later in the delightfully titled poem "11 Irritations That Morning". I am experiencing pleasure right now reading the simple zen-like burst of "Table Saw" that is sandwiched between those two. It goes:
Table
Table saw
Table saw bird
Table saw bird fly
Table saw bird fly out
Table saw bird fly out singing

And no one knows pleasure better than Adam R. That day he had just flown in from Florida where he had been swimming hours before and here he was back in Baltimore on a cold dark afternoon that would have been so gloomy without his publication of Megan's book and the party that that publication necessitated that Baltimore would have easily lost two or three more poets. In fact, Ryan Walker, who is actually from DC, said he had briefly considered closing his Volvo door on his nuts to remove them that morning before he remembered the McShea show. "Man, that's a rough way to go unless you're making a gender statement," I said. "Give me a running car in a closed garage." "No," said Walker, irritated, "not to off myself. To sing like my hero Neil Young. I have not been able to master his high notes."

Adam returned to us carrying Florida swimming water in his ears, though, and it caused him to have a kind of listing MC delivery like some pitchers throw a sidearm curveball. He also really had no idea what anyone was saying to him all day and just kept mumbling "yeh, doogle". Critics for decades will debate the impact of the earwater on his performance and even break into two camps - those who thought it was pool water and those who surmised ocean swimming was more likely Robinson's m.o.



It was extremely kind of Daniel Day Lewis, above, an old high school acquaintance of Megan's to make an appearance, but he completely ignored the rules of the reading and just re-read his recent Oscar acceptance speech.



Above is poet and performance artist/musician Bonnie Jones. I love this picture because it seems she is singing an incredibly lovely version of a ballad or something.



Worms avatar Bob O'Brien always hungrily and masterfully launches into a mic like an HBO sex scene.



This was The Mole Suit Choir's second gig and our first with mics and psychedelic threads from Ruth Turner's fantastic shop Caravanserai. We had two new songs in addition to our set opening for Daniel Higgs. One was Chris Toll's poem "Why Is If in Life" musicized by Liz and the other was a Liz treatment of my poem "The Heart Is a Rage of Afflictions".



After Mole Suit had their say, Megan took the stage to enthusiastic applause and cheering from the packed Windup Space crowd - damned impressive, especially for a Sunday afternoon. "Right now the introvert me is battling the narcissist part of me," Megan modestly said. "Narcissist part, narcissist part," someone (I think Lauren Bender) in the crowd answered.



After Megan finished with an encore the raw fiery Electric Junk Band dropped some fine meat into the day's savory gumbo.



Here Madame Liz relaxes after Mole duties. Have I mentioned yet that singing with her is like having champagne pumped through your soul?



"I like Megan, she is a good poet. it's sort of the deepest kind of poetry. Not about anything in particular, just about life and how we don't understand it and also how we do understand it." Were these wise words spoken by the gent seen below sprawled on the couch like he has just put a call in for Brandy of Patapsco Ave. and a wand of blow? No, they were spoken by Megan's young second cousin Max, a wee lad of 9, after attending the Day of Toad Splendor. A lad so precocious that when his parents asked him a few years back what they should call his upcoming little brother, he answered "Highwalls".

It is the magic linguistic mystery of how a five or six year old would summon a name like that makes life interesting and it abounds in Megan's book, "a toffee, a tart, a perfect bedlam".

"A bit swollen in the pretend-area" by Megan McShea

As we wait for the beauteous A Mountain City of Toad Splendor by Megan to come out on Publishing Genius Press in December 2012, she continues on a roll with even more new great writing.

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A bit swollen in the pretend area

He woke, bloated in his somber corner, hoarding the dark inside like a devil in his moat. A fish tuned in. It was just waking up, too. A style of sitting there as the day breaks. A made morning, like god would.

Drawers of tangents waiting in the next room, an embarrassment of socks. Somnolent arguers gathered at the edges, bleating like horses protesting. One sought after a close horse. One went broke clutching soggy testimonies. One went all out, made hay socks for nesting. One made it say how it felt again, and every day said it to no end. One was a stock mason, a supporting role. These strange innoculatiions.

A still broke out. Hard, waking possibility, independent of all temperatures, his, theirs, the day, the room.

More margin blast. A sash ceremony. A tempest.

It blocks this portion of time from the vacuum of unbecoming.

A Preview of An Upcoming New Book By Megan McShea

Dear cultural warriors, the forthcoming existence of a new meaty book of Megan McShea on Publishing Genius Press jolts me with the volts of Beyond. It's like there suddenly being an unearthed "new" Lungfish record, finally "discovering" Chicken Rico for the first time, inhaling ocean air on a windy night, walking down a city street and taking pleasure in how your legs feel and there are actually smiling people nearby.

Here is a little preview to whet your brain whistle.

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The Appointment

The place was flatter than we had imagined it. We thought it would be a squat tower. But we knew it was the right building from all the friendly notes we'd received on how to make-believe, how to drop things dramatically, how to check our pulses. We rang the bell. The intercom, responding, confused us. It sounded like the ocean, but in a very high resolution, with cries of birds and shouts tossed by waves and even sand under our feet. A young, alert woman finally answered the door, holding it open for us and peering around in the street behind us, gesturing for us to enter the warm foyer.

By the time she shut the door, we had already removed most of our clothing. A pack of dogs startled us and then changed into a flock of soldiers, chasing us into the next room, where a plate of lemon bars and a tea service awaited, only, it was made of wax. "This is nothing like I expected," said my mother, who had persuaded me to join her in coming here. "Well, what did you expect?" I asked. "I thought it would be rosy, like a womb," she said. She sounded sad.

"Change your rabbits!" came a shout from up the stairs, ad then again, descending closer, "change your rabbits immediately!" A man in coveralls appeared with wide black eyes. "Oh, pardon me," he said when he saw us there. "You're not the people I thought you were."

But it was too late, for mother and I had already changed our rabbits.

- Megan McShea

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Megan McShea is a frequent contributor to the legendary Shattered Wig Review, and has work in the i.e. reader, Topograph: New Writings from the Carolinas and Beyond, and the forthcoming WORMSBOOK. A collection of her writings entitled "A Mountain City of Toad Splendor" is coming out in late 2012 from Publishing Genius Press. She is also editor and contributor for a book of collaborative writings due out soon-ish from Thingy Press called "Ancient Party". She resides as peacefully as possible in Baltimore.

Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty - Books - Baltimore City Paper

Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty - Books - Baltimore City Paper

Literary Emissaries Take The Love to Blaster Al

It seems like only yesterday that Blaster stepped off the bus and we were getting mugged together in the alley between North Ave. and the Charles Theater after re-upping on beer for the Shattered Wig Night at The Astro Chimp Impact Crater. He's now been in Austin for a year and skull shaking hallucinations just haven't been the same, not to mention life behind the counter at Normal's or up on the Shattered Wig Night stage.

But he's getting daily fresh enchiladas and basking in the Texas sun, regenerating his formidable writing machine once again. Delaware poet and Blades editor Francis Poole and Baltimore poet and archivist Megan McShea happened to both be visiting Blaster this week and Francis was kind enough to send some jpegs.

"We Are Different Here In The Present" - Stephanie Barber & Megan McShea at The Benevolent Armchair

It was a glorious sunny, breezy Spring day after a Saturday of Biblical proportion flooding and howling winds. I had been to the Benevolent Armchair readings, hosted by Chris Toll in Baltimore and Barbara DeCesare in Pennsylvana, many times when it was called The Upward Spiral and was held at the El Rancho Grande coffeehouse on Falls Road, but I hadn't made it to their spot at the Bromo Seltzer Building. Mostly because Sunday afternoons are my time to haunt the dog parks with Max. And today being so beautiful it was tough to cut our jaunt short, but it was well worth it for the refreshing word craft provided by Megan McShea and Stephanie Barber and for perusing the various "dirt soaps" down in the first floor gift shop. Love the smell of dirt and the ironic thought of cleaning with it, but if I am paying a whole $15 for something to feverishly rub against my unclean body it must be something over the age of 18 and wearing either a nun's habit or a sailor's cap. Sadly, I crept in a little late, having to stop for a cold caffeine fix on the way and being overwhelmed by the old grandeur of the Bromo Seltzer building and the refurbished Hippodrome. I missed the open mic portion of the reading and the very beginning of Megan's reading, but luckily she did one of the longest most generous readings I've seen her do. Usually she pulls a Kool Keith and whips through one or two of her evocative micro-tales and then beats it to her trailer to feast on all the riders in her contract. There was a funny moment when she was flipping through pages, obviously reading a portion to herself and deciding to edit it from the afternoon, when an audience member encouraged her: "Why don't you read them out loud."

(Above is audience member and publishing mogul Adam Robinson sporting a handsome Normal's Books & Records 20th Anniversary t-shirt). Megan's reading was followed by a brief question and answer period and then Stephanie Barber joined Megan for a reading of some great collaborations they had done. Hopefully at the bottom of this post is a working video of this portion of the reading. (It has now been about an hour and the video hasn't loaded so I'll try a separate post for it tomorrow).

Stephanie read about twenty short pieces which were all descriptions of photographs. This was a great concept that Stephanie really brought a lot of life to - the evocative, mysterious nature of life being frozen for that split second. During her Q&A, Adam asked if the photographs were real (I like a chucklehead laughed at first, thinking he'd jokingly asked if the poems were real). "Some of them," Stephanie answered. The oldest piece had been written four years ago, the most recent was written yesterday when she was compiling what she was going to read for today and she received a photograph of her nephew.

Below is host Chris Toll engaged with the sweet Lynchian retro microphone. Co-host Barbara DeCesare was occupied peering in the window of a wedding reception in Red Lion, PA that the Elvis impersonator she is stalking was performing at. The day was somewhat bittersweet because now that I'd finally caught a reading at the nice new space it turned out to be the last one of the season until September or October.

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #10 - An untitled piece by Megan McShea

Spends the whole future drying the dampness made from years of humid suitors. An old way of talking or of being. Sneaks around the shadowy halls while we blank the blank blank house at the what what road, but we had to admit, over our dead bodies might take too long. Inching towards catharsis, brainy moods overtook our lazy hearts ambling up a narrow path towards our goals: a tree, from the past, still there, no matter what. Then: a dirigible. However unlikely. Stomach contents revealed a nurtured life. And then, look here, say it's blue, say it's worn out, beautiful, say it's new today and noisy, say mighty things. Make fly, leave waste. Sound it out: di-ri-gi-ble. Stony glares from the media gallery. But our spirits were buttressed by the hair and makeup treatment and our new fruit. No native poise too great that it cannot be improved by a mango. Another day, a beach date: walk walk walk walk splash splash flop down quiet then hot and lean in, smooth around the ankle area. Then: hot dogs.



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Megan McShea lives in Baltimore. She has two chapbooks, Recipes for Greatness and Yarn! (Thingy Press). Her writing has appeared in the i.e. reader (Narrow House Press), the forthcoming Topograph (Novello Press), the Shattered Wig Review (Shattered Wig Press), and online at Everyday Genius blog, Baltimore Is Reads (Publishing Genius), and Rock Heals blog.