[pank] invasion night

[courtesy elizabeth taylor]

Actually, I'm misspelling it above. It's [PANK], all caps. I love that I read for a series and for a publication that is spelled with brackets. [PANK] is a great lit mag - both online and in print [beautifully produced, thick magazine full of small, lovely and often experimental poetry and prose]. With so much going on this week and a half, I haven't had a chance to write this up until now, so the Invasion is a bit of a blur to me now, as they are when I don't already know the pieces I'm going to hear, when I don't know all the faces to connect with the names. So, I know I won't do the evening justice. So, why am I doing it, then? Because it was a terrific night. A great mix of readers, of styles, of voices.

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

Hobie Anthony started the evening out, reading a few flash pieces and a portion of a novella. Lovely poetic language - but the only downside to the evening was that during this first reading, some sort of ruckus was happening behind EAT Chapel's curtain - maybe they were bowling back there. I missed some of Hobie's words. What he read was poetry and prose mashed into one beautiful [and sometimes disturbing] thing. You can check the flash pieces out here on [PANK].

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

Ryan Bradley read some of his own work and finished up with a reading of someone's popular song lyrics so that I could remind myself that I'm completely out of touch with the modern world. I had no idea what the song was. Didn't matter - it was still really funny, especially after hearing him read his own work. He writes smart, edgy poetry and prose. [PANK] has him here and here.

Third up, Monica Drake, fourth up, me. You do the math. This is the universe getting me back for feeling smug about arranging the rundown of SongStory so I didn't have to follow anyone. Man, Monica was good. It was an essay about forks. Forks! And it was funny and heart-breaking and insightful and blew everyone away.

[courtesy kathy mcferrin]

I read a piece I've been tinkering around with called "Rocket," about obsession, loneliness and plastic toys. I'm disappointed not to have a picture of Monica reading, but above is a shot of one corner of the audience, including Monica in white, watching the proceedings. Below is me - and that's Domi's cool seat, which she sat in to read later.

[courtesy elizabeth taylor]

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

I introduced Rebecca Olson, who read some lovely poetry with very particular detail, brevity, sumptuous metaphor. You can read three poems up on [PANK] here. Notice the way she not only plays with language but with voice in these different pieces.

Riley Michael Parker read part of a western story (novel?) called All Things End in Blood - totally cool and particular. At least I think that's what he read from - I don't remember whether he mentioned the title before he started, but he mentions it in this interview up on [PANK]. Among other things, I really like his sense of rhythm. His prose is musical even when it's hard-edged. Not surprising, his [PANK] story "Silver Dagger" was written after one listening to the Dolly Parton song of the same name.

Sadly, I haven't come across a picture of Riley to include. Nor a picture of Domi Shoemaker reading, but here's a shot, taken at the event, of Domi with mentor [and all-around wonderful guy] Tom Spanbauer.

[not sure who took this one...]

Domi's piece "Green Man" is about a nightmare - well, it's about more, but its setting is nightmare - and I thought her reading style perfectly fit. Smooth and sort of liquid, like the tone of the story itself. She uses language in such wonderful, particular ways. Incidentally, one of the cool things about [PANK] is that they have their writers record an audio version of the story / poem as well. What a cool feature, giving you an even more personal connection with the writer and the work.

[courtesy elizabeth taylor]

Over to the right is M. Bartley Seigel, poet and editor at [PANK]. He read poetry that was multi-multi-layered and fluid, image upon image morphing into insight. Check out, in particular, This is What They Say, They Say, up on Monkeybicycle here. And Five Poems, up on Bluestem here.

Hoping I'm still getting the order right after all this time, I'll say Kevin and Chloe closed the show. They were a surprise - like the special guest stars. Chloe Caldwell reading a lovely, smart piece from her new book Legs Get Led Astray called "Girlfriend," which plays on the phrase "You have a girlfriend now" - and Kevin Sampsell, her editor at Future Tense Books - tag-teaming with his own addition "You have a boyfriend now," which I learned he'd written just that day, which made me terribly, terribly jealous. Terribly. The original is a wonderful piece, and this special double-header was terrific.

Here below is a quick shot Monica Drake took with her iPhone, I believe: Chloe and Kevin.

[courtesy monica drake]

Actually, I wonder if that's the back of my head that's in the way. If so, sorry, Kevin.

Great mix of readers and styles, great evening. This [PANK] Invasion was put together in conjunction with Burnside Review and Housefire.

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

Here, to finish things off, are a couple more pictures of the evening. First a couple audience shots - which don't do the crowd justice as they were only taken of the front of the house. And down below, one of my favorite shots: M. Bartley  Seigel, [PANK] editor and poet and our guru for the evening, enjoying watching the fruits of his labors. I think he should be very proud and satisfied with what he pulled together. From all of us Invaders, thanks, Matt.

[courtesy domi shoemaker]

an interview with domi shoemaker

Friend and fellow writer Domi Shoemaker will be making her fiction reading debut this Friday at [PANK]'s Portland Invasion at EAT Chapel at Crow Arts Manor [850 NE 81st Ave.], and I thought it would be fun to ask her some questions about her story, her publication and the reading. I first got to know Domi through Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writing fiction workshop. When she speaks of the DW Army, she's speaking of this group...

What was your inspiration for the story "Green Man"?

domi receiving scholarship

My inspiration for "Green Man" came when I was taking a class at the Attic Institute with David Ciminello (thanks to a scholarship from fellow Dangerous Writers, the DW Army). We were supposed to write about something peculiar or queer in the class. I had a completely different story started about my coming out process, but this other piece kept scratching at the back of my brain. At that time, I was in Tom Spanbauer’s Dangerous Writers class and was working on this nightmare scene that the narrator in my larger piece (novel…) was trying to describe. The nightmare that was in the story was complete fiction and it just fell flat. Tom asked me if I ever had a real recurring dream or nightmare, and I said yes. So he asked me to do a free-write on it. I simultaneously had the assignment in Ciminello’s class, so I holed myself up at the computer with a pair of headphones on, volume off, and started writing.  The first draft of "Green Man" came out as two pages, in first person, with Gumdrop as the narrator. I made it a stand-alone piece that is now seven pages.

Your first publication came about from your first time trying your hand at submitting to literary magazines. How does that feel? 

domi & lidia yuknavich

Yes, "Green Man" was my first published piece, and it was my first time submitting a piece. I was fortunate that I was given a bit of direction by Lidia Yuknavich. I had met Lidia a few weeks earlier, after emailing and chatting back and forth, trying to connect up to have her sign a couple of copies of [her book] The Chronology of Water for me. I finally caught up with her by (consensually) waiting outside a class she was teaching at Crow Arts Manor. When she came out, I rolled up beside her in my car, and she hopped in and said it was her first ever drive-by signing. We talked for a few minutes and have a really cool connection ever since. A couple of weeks after that first meeting, I asked her to take a look at "Green Man," and she did and said I should submit it to [PANK], so I did. A few weeks after that, I got an email that they were going to publish it online. "Green Man" came out in the January 2012 edition!

[pank]-happy face

I am attaching a pic of my face when I opened the email. That’s how I felt. Totally surprised and eternally grateful to everyone who has guided me and supported me along the way. Then I instantly got in an argument with myself and told me that I was making too big a deal about it. I told me to fuck off and enjoy the experience. I still have to do that every now and then.

Your writing voice is very particular. Can you speak a little about how you constructed this narrative language?

First came the character. Harley is a character in my larger piece, my novel. He is the fictionalized result of me accessing the part of me that holds on to anger. Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies after an ugly divorce and with a single mom, I gravitated to the cultural icons of ass-kicking justice. John Wayne, Billy Jack and the lone biker, like in Easy Rider, were archetypal figures that made sense to me. Always conflicted and struggling with moral ambiguity but ultimately coming out the protector/hero. Of course, I didn’t know why I was so drawn to them when I was a kid, but it makes sense now. Harley’s name is fictional, but his existence, his appearance, his moral character and his actual voice in my head is familiar and pretty easy to access. He’s a mixture of all three of those archetypes, the cowboy, the martial arts expert and the biker. Who knows who the narrator would have been if Buffy the Vampire Slayer was big when I was a kid? 

Fine-tuning the piece was a matter of shutting everything in my external world off and going as deep as I could internally to access the experience of terror and disorientation that happens in an actual nightmare. I used things I have learned with Tom about screwing up language to say things in new and interesting ways.  I tried to put enough description in the piece to bring the reader in, but not so much that it takes away from the tension. I tried to use minimal, stark description and intense bursts of language with a rise and fall of cadence to intensify and build tension that really elicits a visceral response from the reader.  Of course, the story itself is pretty intense, but there is so much to learn about how to tell a story!

Who have been some of your greatest literary inspirations?

Early on, I’d say Dr. Seuss. Because the pictures were funny, and he used language every which way. I read constantly when I was a kid, and over a couple of years, I read the entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica that was given to us. I read through the dictionary all the time just to learn words my older brothers didn’t know. The first grown up book I fell in love with was Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities when I was twelve. I am not sure I understood everything, but I was enthralled. Then I read Great Expectations, and at about that time, my brothers both moved away, and I escaped into Tolkein. Then Edgar Allan Poe. I fancied myself a poet as a teenager and read Sylvia Plath and eventually picked up Erica Jong. Is this too much? I always go on like this. Honestly, Tom, lovely Tom Spanbauer, is one of my greatest inspirations. His work resonates with me. And we are both from Idaho. See? There is hope!

When Green Man was published on [PANK], you were also given the opportunity to produce an audio edition of the story. What was that process like?

Yes, as part of the acceptance letter, I was informed that they liked to archive recordings of their contributors reading their stories. It was interesting. They asked for a simple mp3 of our story. I downloaded their suggested shareware and recorded it myself at my desk. The first time I recorded "Green Man," I listened to it and it had the accent of the character Harley that I didn’t even realize had come out. It sounded strange to me, and was afraid someone would think it was contrived or that I was trying too hard, so I recorded a different one. It took me quite a few times to get it anywhere near okay, and what you can hear on the website is the result of that. It sounds strange to me, and I am accustomed to hearing my voice recorded. I think Harley just comes through no matter what.

This Friday will be your first public reading of fiction. Have you rehearsed the piece? Will you be winging it?

I have rehearsed the piece quite a bit and am still rehearsing it. I am not going to wing it, because I want to be as prepared as I can be. It’s scary enough going up in front a bunch of artsy literary types who probably know what things ought to sound like without going up knowing you are going to sound like a damn fool. (okay, that was Harley).

What do you think this experience will be like?

I think it will be fun. It won’t be fun like being drunk and going up in front of a bunch of people lip-syncing or emceeing a drag show. And it won’t be reading erotic poetry in front of a bunch of Dirty Queers (google Dirty Queer PDX) kind of fun, but it will be a different kind of fun. It will be serious I am going to read you a gripping heartbreaking story kind of fun. There is always a place for that. Right?

What else are you working on now?

I am working on my n-n-n-n-novel in Dangerous Writers, and I am working on a couple different short stories, one of which might be adapted for the novel.

*

Domi will be reading with Hobie Anthony, Ryan Bradley, Monica Drake, Rebecca Olson, M. Bartley Seigel and yours truly at EAT Chapel on Friday. The reading starts at 7pm.

Facebook event page is here.

You can check out [PANK] and "Green Man" here.

*

Domi. An Idaho born, gender fucker whose early writing career climaxed at age 15, writing epitaphs in hometown papers after a string of teenage drunk driving accidents. 32 years later, Domi spends Thursday nights under the tutelage of Tom Spanbauer in Dangerous Writers, mucking through shit to get to the gold.

*

[note: i've been told we'll be making each other's intros for friday's readings. i'd been disappointed to know that i wouldn't have the honor of introducing domi [we're going in alphabetical order] but now that i see the bio she sent me, me being the public weiner that i am, i'm kind of glad i don't have to bring along two bits for the swear jar...]

an ode to a lady

I met her - at least the idea of her- when I was, I think, thirteen, and my aunt Sally thought somehow that I was mature, because I was creative, and told me I should read Great Expectations. And she told me all about Pip standing in the graveyard looking over his parents' graves. And she told me all about Miss. Havisham and the rats running across the wedding cake.

I so wanted to read and love this story, and I so couldn't wait to meet Miss Havisham. But I was the kind of thirteen that was really probably nine, and I wasn't ready. I didn't get past the graveyard. My attention was pulled to Stephen King, to the Three Investigators, to easier stories with easier language. Growing up, I was always ashamed of this, but I always held Miss Havisham somewhere inside me.

Later I met her in the movies, Anne Bancroft playing the part in 1998, and I knew then, even though I hadn't even read the book, that you couldn't do Miss Havisham in the movies.

But tonight, at forty [what is it?] two years old, I finally really met her in all her glorious words. Listening to the audio book in the kitchen as I licked the beaters clean of mashed potatoes, making colcannon, with an almost patient dog staring from the floor, waiting for me to drop him another shred of cabbage.

songstory night

SongStory was the first lit event I've ever produced.  Such an interesting, different experience from being in a reading without coordinating it. One of the things I noticed as I sat watching the show unfold Wednesday night was a sense of... can I say ownership? How about wishful ownership - like it was my right to pretend I owned each one of those performances, those readings, those tremendous stories.

[photo courtesy colin farstad]

I couldn't have asked for a better night - a big crowd and no last minute crises. Someday Lounge is an excellent venue. They can pack a lot of people in there but it's really intimate with low lighting and little candles on the tables and a balcony for more seating. Here's the red curtain waiting for the show to start, before all the readers had made it to their seats down front.

 Emcee Stephen O'Donnell.

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

How lucky am I to have a husband who would offer to take care of all the intros for me so I could keep my mind on my own reading and on the rest of the coordination of the event? I wrote up the initial intros but Stephen did a lot of work expanding on them and making them his own. He makes a great master of ceremonies with his lovely speaking voice and charm - plus, note the sexy sweater vest.

First up was Bradley K. Rosen, reading an excerpt from his novel The Bunkie Spills. It was fun to listen to the slow build of laughter as people realized his narrator was talking about making music with one's urine stream. Bunkie speaks surprisingly beautifully and music-savvy about pee...

First off, you got to be open to it. You got to open your ears up real wide and you have to open up your imagination so it can hear all them notes coming into your ear canals and you can imagine a fanfare of clarinets and violins and bells and whistles and drums and trombones and tambourines and trumpets. All them tonal essentialities of a symphony. You can get all them different tones out of your urinactic stream by concentrating real hard and moving it from the middle of the toilet water and out to the edges of the bowl and around and back again. You can use your hips if you want. A gyration of sorts. A slow groove. Like you was fucking a butterfly.

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

 I liked going from the mangled poetry of Brad's narrator to the sumptuous poetry of Lidia Yuknavitch. She read from The Chronology of Water. I didn't know what she was going to read until she started reading, but I'd been hoping she'd choose this piece. It's beautifully layered and intensely sexy.

One night he put a blanket on the floor and told me to wait and when he came back he was a big 10 years younger than me beautiful man carrying a cello.

"Jesus," I said. "You play cello?"

He played Bach. The sixth suite.

I cried. Possibly the puniest sentence I've ever written.

I cried for the force and strength of his body brought to the brink of tender in his fingers straddling the strings. I cried for the violence of hitting as it fell away into the tremor of holding a note. I cried for the man of him - the size and shape of my father - the brutality of muscle and artistic drive - brought to the cusp of such beauty. Bach. But mostly I cried because I could feel something. All over my body. Like my skin suddenly had nerve endings and synaptic firings and ... pulse.

[Oh my dear lord.]

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

When Courtenay Hameister got up on stage, she pointed to me in the audience and said, thanks a lot for making me follow Lidia Yuknavitch. I thought to myself, yeah, I sure as hell wasn't going to follow her. [Producer gets to arrange the program so that she opens the second half so she doesn't have to directly follow any of her fabulous readers. Producer is smart that way.] Then Courtenay launched into her essay "My Sister's Husky Too" and killed.

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

Courtenay always kills, with whatever she does. I read her essay in full before the event, and it was so great just in my little head - but combined with Courtenay's impeccable timing and delivery on stage it was even better.

I was glad we’d agreed to play New Year’s Eve, as it gave me something to do. I’ve never dated much because as a rule, I hate people, so my New Year’s Eves are generally not the grown-up proms they are for some. My favorite New Year’s EVER was playing dirty scrabble with five drunken word nerds who almost came to fisticuffs over whether the word “poon” was acceptable. (Side note: it IS.)

Additionally, I’d been dumped a few months prior by a really attractive, sweet sociopath and the breakup had lead me to eat some things. So as I was putting on my holiday bustier before the show, I noticed that the fancy silver hook-and-eye closures were straining a little harder than they used to do their job. It didn’t help that the other backup singer was a size two, and we often dressed alike. Her bustier made her look like Kiera Knightley in Pride and Prejudice. Mine made me look like an 18th century barmaid trying to smuggle a passel of puppies home to her kids. 

So as we stood in the echoey gym bathroom in front of the mirrors, I felt a lot like my awkward 16 year-old self, but now I didn’t have that whole “You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you” thing going for me.

During intermission, Cymbalman arrived at the entrance to Someday. I wish I had a picture or two of the audience playing him as he wandered through the place. I know people were taking pictures, but none have come my way yet. I love to stand back and just watch people. Some are totally shy about it, afraid to take the mallets from his hands, afraid to give more than a soft ching-ching or two to the cymbals all over his body. Others really let him have it.

Stephen was not only emcee for the evening but Cymbalman-rangler too, escorting him up the stairs since those tiny eye holes in his eye cymbals don't leave him much room for peripheral vision - and then Cymbalman did a bit of percussive performance on stage.


Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!




Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!

Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!



[cymbalman photos courtesy leann o'rourke. psychedelic colors courtesy me having fun with paint shop pro. except for the first shot. that purple is just the lights.]

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

I was the first reader after Cymbalman had his bow. I think it's fitting that I followed him because I think of Cymbalman as a clown - in the best sense of the word - and the essay I read was all about my decision to become a circus clown - and the overblown childhood strivings that led me there. My strivings were always grand and timid at the same time, and when I discovered the anonymity of clownhood, I'd found my calling. I see this in Cymbalman too - not only his anonymity but his combination of cacophony and quiet.

[photo courtesy lidia yuknavitch]

Alone in the house, my bedroom door locked, I sat on the edge of the bed in an endless rhythm of strum, each chord a smash of sound with the click of the plastic pick hitting the strings. My cockatiel, Punkin, sitting and sharpening his beak on the wood of my antique washstand, started a quick-paced chirp, low in his throat, along with my music. Of course he wasn’t in tune and he wasn’t in rhythm, but as long as I kept strumming, he kept chirping. I decided this could be some exotic, foreign instrument, like when George Harrison introduced the Beatles to the sitar.

I like this picture Lidia took of me. The combination of lights and iPhone make me look like a faceless yellow phantom, some character from an old movie about the future, complete with some sort of beam of light shooting down onto my head from the mother ship.


Next up was Vanessa Veselka, reading a funny, edgy, very moving piece called "Flora in Pregnancy," which had a landing that left me a little breathless. Listening from my seat, I was glad I hadn't followed her either.

My midwife says I should look at my pregnancy as an opportunity to get closer to my women friends. But I figure they’ve had their chance. Ten years of punk shows, basement parties, and having sex with all the same people should have been enough to break the ice.

                         

“Don’t you have any female friends?” asked my midwife.

            

 “None I’d let near a child.”

[both photos courtesy leann o'rourke]

 Vanessa has a delicious rock 'n roll way of reading, all casual with the mic in one hand and pages in the other. I wish I could put these two pictures of her together and make a flip book.

[photo courtesy leann o'rourke]

Kevin Sampsell closed the show, reading from A Common Pornography. I was kind of delighted to hear him read about his own youthful strivings for musical grandeur - so similar to mine. Both of us read about recording our own music - in the bathroom where the echo was better. Although between the two of us, only Kevin was innovative enough to add percussion to his recordings by banging on the toilet seat.

Our first "album" of punk rock songs was recorded on a cassette player in his bedroom and bathroom. Just Terry and me. We decided to call ourselves Neon Vomit. He was good at creating some heavy riffs based on my smallest suggestions (usually just me saying, Can you do something like this - and then imitating a guitar part with my clenched mouth) and then I would yell the lyrics in my best Rollins imitation. There were no drums but sometimes we would bang on the toilet seat for percussion.

The grand finale of the evening was Kevin using our old relic of a boom box and his own relic cassettes to play some actual Neon Vomit recordings - not only that, but he gave the best lip synch performance ever, rocking out all over the stage as his teenager self. It was hilarious and awesome.

[photo courtesy b. frayn masters]

I want to say thanks again to all the readers, to Someday Lounge, to Bob Priest and March Music Moderne. To Stephen for being emcee and helping coordinate. Thanks, too, to Leann O'Rourke for taking some great pictures of the event.

March Music  Moderne is going on all through March with an outrageous lineup of musical events. Check out their calendar here.

[photo courtesy me]

[one more picture for good measure. emcee stephen contemplating the boutonniere he made from the lost cymbalman feathers he found lying in the someday lounge green room after the night was over...]

spotlight on songstory: courtenay hameister

The always hilarious Courtenay Hameister will be appearing at SongStory, coming up this Wednesday. Here's a sneak peek at what she'll be reading. The essay is called "My Sister's Husky Too," and in this excerpted moment, the author is performing with a band on New Year's Eve...

*

We were playing in the gym at The Kennedy School – a 1915 elementary school that had been turned into a hotel. The gym was decked out with tables and a bar, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think you’d accidentally walked into a prom where all the students were alcoholics and had to repeat their senior year 15 times.

I was glad we’d agreed to play New Year’s Eve, as it gave me something to do. I’ve never dated much because as a rule, I hate people, so my New Year’s Eves are generally not the grown-up proms they are for some. My favorite New Year’s EVER was playing dirty scrabble with five drunken word nerds who almost came to fisticuffs over whether the word “poon” was acceptable. (Side note: it IS.)

Additionally, I’d been dumped a few months prior by a really attractive, sweet sociopath and the breakup had lead me to eat some things. So as I was putting on my holiday bustier before the show, I noticed that the fancy silver hook-and-eye closures were straining a little harder than they used to do their job. It didn’t help that the other backup singer was a size two, and we often dressed alike. Her bustier made her look like Kiera Knightley in Pride and Prejudice. Mine made me look like an 18th century barmaid trying to smuggle a passel of puppies home to her kids.

*

Courtenay will be reading with Kevin Sampsell, Lidia Yuknavitch, Brad Rosen, Vanessa Veselka and me on March 7th at Someday Lounge as part of the March Music Moderne music festival.

Facebook event is here. And info on the other great events that are part of March Music Moderne is here.

*
Courtenay Hameister is at home on stage, on radio and on the page. She’s the dynamic head writer / host of LiveWire Radio, the self-spoken “only person with boobs” on the Cort and Fatboy show, and the writer/director of the short film Stella’s Flight. Stella's Flight will be premiering at the Hollywood Theater on March 8th. Facebook event page for that is here.

spotlight on songstory: brad rosen

On Wednesday, Brad Rosen is going to be reading from his novel, The Bunkie Spills, which is in its finishing touches stage right now. I've had the privilege of witnessing much of the creation of this book, and I think you should be jealous of that, because I'm head over heels in love with it. Here's Bunkie demonstrating how to be a true musician.

*

First off, you got to be open to it. You got to open your ears up real wide and you have to open up your imagination so it can hear all them notes coming into your ear canals and you can imagine a fanfare of clarinets and violins and bells and whistles and drums and trombones and tambourines and trumpets. All them tonal essentialities of a symphony. You can get all them different tones out of your urinactic stream by concentrating real hard and moving it from the middle of the toilet water and out to the edges of the bowl and around and back again. You can use your hips if you want. A gyration of sorts. A slow groove. Like you was fucking a butterfly.

*

[brad and me in our writing group, me censored, brad curious. those are some weird glasses i'm playing with.]

Brad will be reading with Kevin Sampsell, Lidia Yuknavitch, Courtenay Hameister, Vanessa Veselka and me on March 7th at Someday Lounge as part of the March Music Moderne music festival.

Facebook invite is here. And info on the other great events that are part of March Music Moderne is here.

*

Bradley K. Rosen started playing drums when he was nine. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Music from the University of Oregon. He has travelled around the world playing music professionally, mostly with the singer/songwriter Jerry Joseph and the band Little Women and Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons. He has numerous recording credits. He currently plays in three local bands, Humbleweed, Burn the Field, and Ramblin’ Rose and plays timpani in three local orchestras, including the Mt Hood Pops.

His short story, An Ancient Air, was recently published in the anthology The Frozen Moment. His first novel, The Bunkie Spills, is in its final draft.

josé night

Last night we celebrated José Day with dinner and a movie. And champagne. We each made a toast for the evening once we opened the Veuve Clicquot. Stephen's was something like:

"To all good cats - I mean dogs! To all good dogs and cats."

Mine was something like, "To giving a dog a good life." Which was for what I hoped I did for José and what I knew we'd do for Nicholas.

To wit: Nicholas' treat for the evening. Most of the pot roast was Stephen's treat for the evening, but a little was chopped up in a bowl to be put down for Nicholas to enjoy before we retired to the bedroom for our dog movie. Videorama didn't have Lassie Come Home, so we ended up with the very wonderful Best In Show.

Of course, I took pictures. Of course, Stephen art directed those pictures.

  

[a bit of nice pot roast and an ornamental glass of champagne, which nicholas didn't even glance at.]

[oh, yes. he liked it.]

[he wasn't anywhere near as impressed with the tiny taste of veuve clicquot stephen dribbled into the bottom of the bowl.]