PVC Lit Crawl

I got a late start today thanks to last night's Poetry Vs. Comedy/Lit Crawl show at The Lucky Cat in Williamsburg and the after-partying at Metropolitan where I drank my first Red Bull in a while. I stayed up way past my bedtime which was a good thing.

Here's a photo of last night's PVC winner and amazing poet Bakar Wilson with judges Abbi Crutchfield and Shawn Hollenbach:

Carl & Shelly Best Friends Forever

Carly and Shelly are the fabulous creations of Poetry Vs. Comedy favorites Allen Warnock and Andrea Alton. These two brilliant performers have had me guffawing until I cried at PVC and they're bringing their act to the NY Fringe Festival.

And look, they're on Myspace: www.myspace.com/carlandshellybff.

Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever at the NY Fringe Festival!

Written & performed by Andrea Alton & Allen Warnock.

www.fringenyc.org

Friday 8/8 @ 7:15
Tuesday 8/12 @ 3:00
Friday 8/15 @ 5:45
Sunday 8/17 @ 9:30
Thursday 8/21 @ 7:30

VENUE #14: Theatres at 45 Bleecker Street - The Lafayette Street Theatre

ADDRESS: 45 Bleecker Street (at Lafayette) Tickets $15

Fervor Chapbook Party - May 21

Next Wednesday, I'm reading at this party for Zaedryn Meade's fabulous new chapbook, Fervor.


Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press and The Bowery Poetry Club present:
A book release party for
Fervor: Poems from the East Village By Zaedryn Meade

"Fervor is powerful, beautiful, resonant."

"Reading it is moving and sometimes troubling, a deep look
at love's joys and tragedies, at the ways that love can both enthrall and disturb."

Featuring Zaedryn Meade, Jeanette Anderson, Cheryl B., Ariel Federow, and Emily Haines

Wednesday, 21 May 2008, 8pm
Bowery Poetry Club at 308 Bowery in New York City
no cover

About the performers:

Zaedryn Meade (www.zaedryn.com) is a queer butch activist, classically trained poet, spoken word performer, and smut writer. She has self-published two chapbooks, Covet (2001) and Valence: Fool's Gold in the Shape of Poems (2004), and one spoken word CD, For the Record (2004). The third in her chapbook trilogy, Fervor: Poems from the East Village, was published in 2008 by Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press. Her poetry has been included in various collections including The Seattle Review and NPR's "This I Believe" project. Zaedryn holds degrees in both social change and creative writing from the University of Washington, and she studied and taught performance poetry at the Bent Writing Institute for queers. Born and raised in the rainforest of Southeast Alaska, she now lives in New York City.

Jeanette Anderson, poet and photographer, has received national recognition for her writing from the Scholastic awards in 2006 and 2007. Her work has been published in literary magazines such as Xelas and Magma. Scholastic Alliance for Young Artists & Writers published her first solo chapbook, and her second chapbook was a collaboration with poet and mentor Zaedryn Meade. She has also studied with poet Regie Cabico, and participated in creative writing workshops with PEN American Center, Columbia, Random House and Girls Write Now. She currently attends Eugene Lang College, and lives in Brooklyn.

Cheryl B. is a Brooklyn-based writer and performance poet. Her work appears in several print and online publications, most recently; Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007) and Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure (Harper Perennial, 2008). She is the creator and producer of PVC: The Poetry vs. Comedy Variety Show, a monthly competition between comedians and performance poets. Her website is www.cherylb.com and she blogs at theblist.blogspot.com.

Ariel Federow spends her days administering non-profit and her nights and weekends sweating glitter and shitting sequins. She has been seen in various incarnations: Switch'n'Play's Open Drag Nights; Miss Jew-S-A 5767 (crowned by the 14th St Y); the director of Big Moves New York; part of the creative team for the JFREJ/Workmen's Circle Purimshpiel; a variety of other radical Jewish spectacle art. She is currently working on running away with the circus and invites you to visit http://www.queeryenta.com to find whatever it is your queer heart desires.

Emily Haines was born in the Bronx and was politicized by the racial injustices she witnessed in elementary school. Her heroes include her grandmothers, Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, and her students. Her writing influences include KRS-One, Chuck D, Eminem, dead prez, Mos Def, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Pablo Neruda, June Jordan and the seven fabulous women of FYI who shake her brain and move her soul twice a month.

Meat and Potatoes

Look! Some of my favorite PVC-ers are doing this show on Novemeber 26th. Check it out.


Monday, November 26 at 8 pm
Meat and Potatoes
The Green Room
45 Bleecker

A show about growing up in "middle class" 'Merica, featuring stand-up and stories that examine a blue collar youth from the other side.

With:

Paul Case (Here TV)
Pat Candaras (Nick-at-Nite)
Kambri Crews (Comix)
Shawn Hollenbach (The Back Room)
Elon James White (Shades of Black)

Hosted by Carolyn Castiglia (VH1) and Baron Vaughn (Aspen Comedy Festival).

$12, with 50% off using discount code 8T2FOR1. Admission includes passes to see ukelele rapper Jon Braman! BYOB!

Performer bios can be found at our website: http://meatandpotatoesshow.blogspot.com

Urban Home on the Free Range

Check out my friend Laura's new website, Urban Home on the Free Range, "Your hip urban guide to sustainable living, cooking & entertaining..." Laura is one of my oldest friends and a true master of all things domestic and crafty. If I correctly recall a phone conversation from years ago, Laura was both churning butter and sewing curtains in her tiny LES apartment while speaking with me. This woman knows what she's talking about.

Suspect Thoughts Press Literary Salons

Throughout August, Suspect Thoughts Press will host some Bay Area fundraising literary salons. The spectacular lineups include some of my favorite writers - Michelle Tea, Thea Hillman, Justin Chin and more... I wish I could go!

Dude, I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by the brilliant and prolific Anne Elliott.

Rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

If you read my blog, you probably know enough crap about me already but here we go...

1. I'm allergic to Penicillin.
2. I hate sleeping in tents, but I don't mind sleeping on couches.
3. I'm most comfortable wearing either sneakers or platforms. Any other shoes are really hard for me to walk in.
4. I'm a klutz (see post below)
5. Despite that fact that I have never smoked an entire cigarette, except for a handful of drags in my pre-adolescent days, people I've known for years think I'm a smoker.
6. I eat a lot of carbs and have no guilt about it.
7. Sometimes Red Bull gives me a hangover.
8. I am often caught with lipstick on my teeth.

I Tag (If they feel like it):
Christine Hamm
Nichelle
Felicia Sullivan
Curly McDimple
Chris Hampton
Mary Phillips-Sandy
Zeebah
Alice

At Your Cervix

Sex educator, performing artist and an old friend of mine from my WOW Cafe days in the mid-90's, Amy Jo Goddard is directing the film At Your Cervix, a documentary on Pelvic Exams.

For any woman out there who, like me, dreads her annual gynecological exam, check this out from the film's website:

The documentary, At Your Cervix, answers these questions after entering medical and nursing institutions and uncovering the troubling and unethical ways students learn to perform breast and pelvic exams. These methods include nursing students “playing the patient” for their colleagues, and medical students “practicing” on unconscious patients. It also illuminates the history and importance of the Gynecological Teaching Associate Program, a revolutionary approach to teaching respectful, pain-free exams in which the “patient” herself is the teacher.

This important film on women's health is in need of finishing funds. Click here for donation options.

Commitment Ceremony

My friend Erin made this hilarious music video starring comedian Julie Goldman.

Post 'Wyg

Me and Uffish embrace after the show on Wednesday night.

Writers Revealed Website Now Live!

My favorite new Sunday night entertainment, Felicia Sullivan's literary radio show, Writers Revealed, has a shiny new website! Tonight's show features Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End and Michelle Goodman, the author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube.

I Know Cool People

The B List Highly Recommends:

Great writer and Atomic Reading Series Alum Tony O'Neill is interviwed on Gothamist.

Poet Christine Hamm has a new chapbook, Children Having Trouble With Meat, out from MiPoesias. Not only do the poems rock, the cover is pretty damn cool too.

And tomorrow night, don't miss Felicia Sullvan's Writer's Revelead Radio Show. Felicia will be chatting with Leslie Bennetts, author of the Feminine Mistake.

PVC/Chicks & Giggles Recap

It's official: the ladies rule PVC. Tonight's all girl PVC/C&G show was FANTASTIC! The dining room at Mo Pitkins was packed from wall to wall with a fun-loving audience. The poets were the breathtaking Tamiko Beyer, Mad Hatter and excellent scribe Carol Novack and Mindy Raf as everyone's favorite lesbian separatist folksinger and tofu enthusiast, Leibya Rogers. The comedians were the lovable Katina Corrao, Brandy Barber was joined by her comedy partner, Sara Jo Allocco in a truly dysfunctional mother/daughter sketch and the always awesome Desiree Burch had me in tears. Brilliant and dirty singer Jessica Delfino enchanted us with a rape whistle. And fittingly, the lady named Leibya won the all girl show. Phew! What a night!

I guess I should do an all boy show sometime, just for balance's sake...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - I totally forgot to bring prizes tonight! Duh!

(Cross-posted with the PVC Myspace blog)

Writers Revealed

Great friend, awe-inspring writer and all around excellent individual Felicia Sullivan will launch her new radio program Between the Sheets: Writers Revealed this Sunday, May 20 at 7PM. This week's lineup includes three incredible women writers, Maggie Nelson, author of Jane: A Murder, Danielle Trussoni, author of Falling Through the Earth and another great friend and author of Girlbomb, Janice Erlbaum.

Marry Me Gay

Check out my friend Nancy's fabulous new business Marry Me Gay, which recently got a mention in the NY Times. Marry Me Gay, as the name suggests, is a company specializing in gay wedding videos.

Photography Groupie

I attended the NYC Photobloggers event at the Soho Apple Store last night to catch Mr. Powell's entertaining and well-done presentation about his work. In total, nine bloggers gave presentations and it was great to see so many fantastic photos. I was particularly impressed with the portraits from Mexican Pictures and the members of the Brooklyn Decay Crew, who are chronicling the condo-ification of the Brooklyn waterfront.

Videos

Two of my girls have fabulous new videos up on their MySpace pages. Carolyn Castiglia raps up a storm in her inimitable style for her music video I Can't Stop (CHIPS). And Janice Erlbaum narrates the book trailer for her memoir Girlbomb.