Ustream Team

Living their Lives.

                Cupcakes introduced the poetry reading. If you ever want to attract people to a reading, free food is usually a solid choice. Art exhibits are made better, freer, and more enjoyable with food offered. Unfortunately, I was online and unable to eat any of their food. Those there got some delicious baked goods. For those online, we had to make our own dinner and drink our own beers.

                “Dead Poets Society” got a shout-out. It makes sense for the Internet Poetry Society (aka BoyKittens) to read this out online. Steve Roggenbuck had part of it posted in real life as a form of inspiration. Robin Williams is an inspirational figure. His hairy arms make me feel better about myself. Unlike Robin Williams, I don’t need to shave my arms on a daily basis. 

                A few new faces were introduced. Cassandra Nguyen read Blake West on his tumblr. In fact, this was the second time this weekend I saw Cassandra, the first was the night prior at Ms. Troyan’s lovely abode. Since I had once encouraged her to meet Steve Roggenbuck, I feel that I helped push along this great meeting of the minds. 

                “Eat when you feel Sad” by Zachary German got some attention. Balloons got a lot of attention as well. As Brett Gallagher’s reading progressed of Richard Chiem’s work, they constantly tried to derail the proceeding. Richard Chiem was even there in the chat room, showing off his IPOD music skills.  It felt avant-garde. Constantly the reader tried to focus on the poetry but broke down into laughter. For other readings, Brett appeared to be treated as the “straight man” as they played volley ball with the balloons.

                The performance between Stephen Tully Dierks and Cassandra Nguyen went fantastic. Each one read a line. Slowly the action became hotter and hotter. A twist completely changed it up. Obviously energy drinks were put to good use for this performance. Perhaps it wasn’t the inappropriate amount of caffeine they consumed. Instead, it might have been the rowdy celebration of their cat’s birthday. Sunday, May 2^nd marked the celebration of their cat’s birth. 

                Poncho Peligroso (better known as the 2011 Poet Laureate) had one of his poems read during the broadcast. House plants were viciously tormented and abused during this time. I cried a little inside. Gardening happens to be a hobby of mine. So hearing about emotionally abused plants proved to be rather heavy for a Sunday evening. Thankfully, the ending of the poem made it worth everything. 

                Beach Sloth got read on ustream which was infinitely excellent. Cassandra Nguyen read my Lookbook post which felt great. Never before has anyone read one of my posts online before. In fact, I rarely even read them aloud in person. Hearing it read tempted me to do a potential PodCast at some indefinite point in the future. Right now, it is merely a thought. I’m curious to see how my delivery and inflection would change the reader’s perception of what I write. 

                After much coaxing, we got a reading of Brett Gallagher’s work Vessel. Vessel is something Brett has been working on for a while. It takes place in a Fjord in Scandinavia. Two main characters (whose names I can’t begin to spell) interact. Somehow I enjoy it; I like the delivery and the rhythm of it. Saturday night I heard a bit of it but I still wanted more. Brett’s stated it will be published at some point. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later, and I’ll definitely have my eye out for it. 

                Jackson Nieuwland had a great poem. The word ‘fuck’ got used more than I’ve heard from everyone in the entire week. Due to the strong language, it ended up being pretty funny. I try not to curse but fail most of the time. To err is to be human so the celebration of the exclamation point of words always is a bit relieving.  

                Finally the moment everyone was waiting for arrived. Cassandra Nguyen re-activated Facebook. A flood of friends came forth, after several added the incorrect Cassandra Nguyen (myself included, in my defense I only followed other people). Now she’s re-integrated into Facebook life. Things will be better for her, as countless online poets are there to ease her transition. As the UK went to sleep and New Zealand (UK-lite) woke up, one last poem remained.

                Stacey Teague got her poem “New Zealand Dinosaur” read by the collective group of four. The reading got passed off among each other. With each new line read by some with the prefix ‘popcorn’ they read it with as much gusto as you can muster on a Sunday night. 

                When they left, I remembered a New York Times article I read earlier on Sunday. It explained the allure of Soho in the late 70s/early 80s. Art movements are the most passionate in the beginning. They form tight-knit communities. Obviously the Boykittens have no geographic locale, but I feel closer to them, thousands of miles away, than I do with my coworkers. Boykittens have staked claim to their own friendly neighborhood on the internet. I guess it is the welcoming environment which has made itself a favorite bookmark on my browser.

                Have the Boykittens created the late 70s Soho of the internet? What do you think? I know my answer.

Should a “Blog Tour” be an actual thing?

I’ve been kind of pondering this idea for the entire week. As I work. As I went and saw “The Death of a Supermarket” which included phrases that would’ve made Orwell proud. My favorite had to be “The more you spend, the more you save.” That one sort of stuck itself in my mind, how little sense it made.

Bloggers need to make up those sorts of phrases, like a cute little tag they can use for themselves. How characters in your favorite TV shows have a certain line that make them not only lovable, but relatable. Bender uses “Bite my shiny metal ass”, Oprah uses “Everyone wins a free , etc.  I use “Rock On” because I want you to and because it is somewhat playful. 

Most people who write these things want to write, but don’t know how to go about it and blogging seems the easiest way of reaching a hyper specific audience. I feel like bloggers ought to tour this great land, the great US of A. Authors do it, so why not internet writers. Internet trolls could be some of their plants in the audience, deliberately placed to increase excitement amongst the otherwise tame audience. Besides, the more bloggers I meet, the more I realize that the dedicated ones should make some cash on the prospect. 

Plus, it might bring some much needed money to bookstores; maybe allow them to attract more buyers of coffee and stale pastry. Too often I see so many people writing these things and give up. Slowly the posts decrease and eventually go down to a trickle. I’m of course talking about myself; I’ve had some blogs for years. I remember putting literally several reviews of every album I heard in a day up on the internet. Since then, I’ve grown wiser. Music requires a great deal of time to fully appreciate it, what doesn’t click the first time may click the second or third. Or you could just be in the wrong mood for it.

How about a Podcast, you might ask. Podcasts are used by those with a microphone and I have my issues with them. When I hosted a radio show long ago I deliberately honed a “radio voice”. Later when I listened to my show I watched in the spectrometer how different it felt from my real voice. No matter how much I tried to speak in a normal voice, I kept on doing it. So a real, face to face meeting with people works much better with many. Without the filter of how they sound, they’d be more real.

I feel the other benefit would be the tone in which these words are said. Tone is a causality of the internet; it takes a particularly good writer to get the point across. Even great writers considered “masters” at their art gave live readings, like David Foster Wallace for example. What may have missed a reader becomes more apparent once you hear the writer’s intension. Kafka’s work suffered from a similar problem. When one of his friends was asked about the tone of his readings (yes, I know, life expectancy is a wonderful thing) he stated that the humor of the stories was more heavily emphasized than the hopelessness most associated with his work.

Did I mention bloggers work for dirt cheap? Because I’m assuming most would probably give readings for like a cheese Danish and stale coffee. In fact, they might feel they are “getting a bargain” for just being accepted in public forum. 

Part of me would be curious if this would or could even be a thing. Bloggers could help out each other, for each place they stop; they crash on another blogger’s couch/floor/collection of blankets. That way, they achieve an intellectual variation on “couch surfing”. 

Please let this be a thing.