Monday, May 06, 2013

Star Trek at Cherry Hill, Philadelphia, New Jersey


On Thursday 26 April I came to Philadelphia's Cherry Hill Crowne Hotel for a single reason, to take part in its Star Trek Convention. On the Sunday evening of 29 April as I walked into the Hotel's atrium to see all the chairs and tables being stacked and packed, rows of shrink wrapped merchandise waiting to be hauled off, and not one Star Trek outfit, I felt a bit empty.

When I decided to come to Cherry Hill I expected participants in costume, collectible items in excess, and people with detailed knowledge of Star Trek Canon. I got that and more; Essie, the waiter in the Hotel's restaurant, told me this had been the busiest Cherry Hill Star Trek yet. 

Where revelation and interest converged for me was with the actors during their stage sessions. Some weaved around questions from fans who saw the actors as characters in Star Trek, some gave snap-shots of lives since Trek, and others sledge-hammered through questions fans ask each other or could direct at the Trek writers. And one actor jazz riffed.

Watching Avery Brooks was watching an improvised musical performance. Brooks, who portrayed Captain Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), flowed through certain questions, others got a no or yes with frankness that was abrupt and unapologetic. I heard people say Brooks gives you something, not the answer, and is clearly not with us. But that's not true. I think he was too literal for many. Asked what he thinks about something Brooks actually says what he thinks. Which leads to confusion. Because his answers are not always neat and tick box-able against the question. This could be one reason he is Professor of Theatre Arts at Rutgers University. Brooks speaks and moves in such a way that you get absorbed. Even the people saying they did not understand stated they were entranced.

I've never been to a religious sermon in America, but I expect what Brooks does is something some preachers achieve to raise congregations. “You can't write love! You can spell it, but you can't write it.” That quote from Brooks is for a poet friend of mine who really doesn't like people using the word love in poems. And it often leaves me cold. Like saying God, the word doesn't make it so. Which was a central theme of Brooks' discussion on how he portrayed Sisko. Brooks looked at the character as a brown man in charge four hundred years into the future, and that this was something he wanted.

Brooks punctuated his stage-time with “I see you!” directed at the many rows of people seated toward the back and standing in the farthest reaches of the auditorium. “I see you back there!” Directed at those behind the VIP, Gold, and Preferred classes. This statement was enunciation of thoughts encapsulated by his words, “A chorus of existence in the multitude of voices is where I live.” But it's also a device for interacting with the entire audience. I've been to parties and festivals with people declaring their souls filled with love, to such events where they combine this with appeals to the audience. But it never felt as sincere as Avery Brooks yelling again, “I still see you!”

During the convention other actors likened working on the set of DS9 as entering a monastery, and that their best work was done there. Brooks' personality and motivations likely were factors toward this, and his appearance in every DS9 episode would have contributed a consistent driver, something cemented by the nine DS9 episodes he directed. “I still see you!” He cries pointing to the back, before saying, “Exceptional people will impact you every day and you’ll never see them on the screen.” And, “Success is not bound by the relationship between commerce and art.” Which led me to think of poets declaring being a performance poet a viable lifestyle choice. That performing poetry is an optional path for them. But then he declares, “I don't know any other way to talk about the world than through music.” I want to say that means the point is that art is integral to life, not for him a monetary decision. But it is more complex than that. Because they paid Brooks to make people believe him, and he obviously takes pride in having achieved that. The question I wanted to ask Brooks was how the role on DS9 impacts his teaching, but he had already answered that for me over the course of discussions. That creation is every day if lived, and doesn't need a stage, but the stage provides opportunity to embody something, don't tell it; be it; at least that is what I took from his words.

When I very briefly had the opportunity to speak with Avery Brooks he stated that, "If nothing else, it was entertaining.” Which is true, but leaves out how engaging and informative he was. And misses that among all the confused audience I could hear people state agreement and respond in understanding. No doubt there were more who kept quiet.

That emptiness I opened with was in part the result of encountering so many passionate people who then moved on with their lives while I remained another night in the Cherry Hill Crowne Hotel. But it was also the result of listening to one passionate actor speak.

Vaughn Armstrong (Admiral Forrest), Casey Biggs (Legate Dumar),
Max Grodenchik (Rom), Me, Armin Shimerman (Quark),
Jeffery Combs (Brunt, Weyoun, and Commander Shran),
and the guy who played the organ

Saturday, April 27, 2013

An idea for a zine from America


I caught a train from Worcester to Boston, then another from Boston to Philadelphia that went via New York. I am thinking of putting together a zine called Photos from trains across America. I am catching trains to Richmond, to Washington, then Chicago and finally to New York City. I’ll see if I remember to do it when I get back to Australia. For now here are some of the images I have taken and really liked.


This looks a very lonely house, I wonder if anyone uses this house, this area looks like it would flood.


Empty train stations that appear to be in the middle of nowhere. Who uses this one? Do they go to work or school? What do they like to eat and do they eat it on the train? Did the person who rode the bike parked in this photo get on the train alone with something they like to eat?


On most of the train crossings I have seen there are no barricades. That worries me. In Philadelphia I saw a footpath to a train line. The footpath just started in an empty lot and led straight to an open train line. There was no path on the other side of the train line. Nor anything at the train line that would indicate the utility of the path.


Industrial landscapes are my favourite. I was discussing with a stranger that I would be walking across the north of Spain. The person said go to the coast and walk because there are beaches and water, and it is nicer than the run-down industry of Spain. I am looking forward to run-down industry and landscapes that people have built over generations of work and ideas, even failed or completed ideas. The above photo was taken while entering New York City.


This photo makes me wish people hadn’t parked their cars in it.


I like all the boxes you see around train yards. I imagine each is integral to the functioning of the yard.


Beside the door is written Staten Island, and some words I could not read. I figure this may be the train to Staten Island.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Boston, MA, 19 April


I’m sitting in a diner having eaten ham and eggs where an abusive teddy bear was filmed with Marky Mark. 

On the fast walk here a phalanx of twelve cops on motorbikes had glided down the one-way street, the area was otherwise empty of people, just bags of uncollected garbage everywhere and me paranoid about wearing a backpack, but I figure it’s a New Zealand backpack so I’m safe. My phone hasn't worked properly since late last night. 

The diner is full of people seated at a long counter and five small tables. As I’d walked in the Bostonian cook joked Kim Jong-un must be upset because North Korea is no longer on the front pages. I really wanted to find the internet here. 

Yesterday I saw the occasional duo of black vehicles, each pair was an SUV followed by a short black truck with discrete three-pronged antenna on the roof— the last pair I’d seen had the driver of the SUV so pissed with traffic that he drove up the gutter and followed by the truck went along the sidewalk of Colombus Avenue (it was like watching a movie). A Bostonian heading outside says “I’m not gunnah find ah bus, am I?” he’s hopping on crutches “I don’t wannah waste money on ah cab.” 

The diner isn't playing any news. I’d read a headline this morning of one dead police officer and one dead suspect. At my table is a guy who has just finished eating. He tells me with his English accent that a cop was ambushed and killed, three other cops have died. That a guy is on the run, they’d like to take him alive, “but you don’t kill children or cops and it’s hard to hit people in the leg.” I think about the people posting conspiracy theories and passing on photos from sites claiming to “think”, some people’ll believe anything the internet tells them. 

A French couple at the counter ask the cook if he thinks the Freedom Trail tours will be on, he says he doesn't think so. I remember yesterday as I turned a corner in the Central Business District of Boston that I’d run into a SWAT team of ten standing at the back of their armoured car, of single officers with suppressor equipped assault weapons standing on all the street corners, of the unarmed Marines walking everywhere, and of possies of transit cops armed with handguns and staring at commuters. 

And despite all this it really is beautiful outside in Boston today, hopefully this will be over soon.

Friday, April 19, 2013

The view from Boston, MA


I’ve been in the United States for over a week now and have managed to visit a number of museums and galleries in Fort Worth, Texas— including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth where I saw this work. 



I walked all around Fort Worth, despite being told you can't walk all around Fort Worth. 

And camped for four days at the Texas Motor Speedway where I watched two NASCAR races and a number of qualifying and practice circuits by both Sprint Cup and Nationwide cars. There I had pork and beans cooked for me on a camp-fire by a Texan oil-man (like we were cowboys) while his construction-worker nephew gave me crap for having been to University not jail.



But before I get too far into this trip covering the United States, United Kingdom and Spain, I want to cover off on two things I was involved in prior to flying out.

First, a while back Canberra's Pilcrow Press put out a call for submissions to their new journal Prowlings, with the requirement that submissions be short. I sent two pieces, the first is in their inaugural issue that you can download free here.

 

I am pretty happy about being in this journal, my favourite piece in there is by M. Quinn. And don't confuse this Pilcrow Press with the one publishing literature justifying violence.

Second, while taking part in the YouAreHere 2013 festival I spoke with Luke McGrath regarding an idea for recording my first video poem. It involved fusing a performance of Bruce Schneier cracks lamb leg with the band Fuzzsucker in the back seat of the car where Canberra’s Slimer Sessions have been recorded. The Slimer Sessions are recorded for Canberra’s LocalnLive music organisation. Luke and Fuzzsucker agreed and this piece is the result.


This is my first effort at filming a poem, and with Luke’s skills and the charisma of Fuzzsucker I think we pulled off something worthwhile.

Well I am now in Boston, I have tickets to Fenway Park for a baseball game to get my yank on, to the Boston Comicon to get my geek on, and to Kevin Smith’s Groovy Movie because I am a member of Gen X and when he makes Clerks III I am going to watch it and you will not understand.

Monday, March 25, 2013

This was going to be a short post about my experience of YouAreHere 14-24 March 2013.


YouAreHere versus the Australian Public Service

YouAreHere 2013 has ended, and for me closes with leaving the Australian Public Service. This presents simultaneous emotions, tensions, and options.
Me at Woodford Folk Festival in 2008/09 by Asher Floyd
The Public Service has been at once liberator, providing steady income; and safety net, providing a reason to not push in certain directions. It has also given some unbelievable highs, interesting situations, invaluable experiences and personal interactions, but the law of diminishing returns has kicked in.
Joel Barcham and me
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
And while I have left the office and will not be back it is still providing a limited lifeline allowing me to traverse tracts of the United States via train, explore parts of the United Kingdom, and hike across the north of Spain, perform poetry, and then finally resign.
Me, Joel and Bela Farkas
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere

Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! versus YouAreHere

Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! feels like it has ended for me, and ended on the most massive high; one that I could not have planned or imagined.

Things started strong in the Phoenix with Kabo performing The Night They Set Canberra on Fire to an audience that was intensely honest and vocal in appreciation of a poem first performed at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! in 2011.
Raphael Kabo
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
Hadley returned to take us through a beautifully comforting set of poems. 
Hadley returns to Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!
on 20 March 2013 #1
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
That had all three of my favourite Hadley poems, including rickety planes and flying-goggles, cabbage wings, orbiting love, and free range. And Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! yawped in approval.
Hadley returns to Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!
on 20 March 2013 #2
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
Amelia performed feature poems combining writing and performance that Catullus would have explained using salt but cannot be satisfactorily translated by me into English, particularly Parentheses.    
Amelia Filmer-Sankey
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
The crowd went everywhere they wanted to go. Including with mystery act Fuzzsucker who clearly split the audience for or against (and what is the point if a poetry slam if it isn’t forcing a decision from someone). The audience demonstrated this division in the most frankly loving way, with an unplugging of Fuzzsucker leading to a feature set dance party with the band.
Fuzzsucker at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
And because nothing is perfect there was the absence of one of those people who made BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! what it is, Amanda Coghlan, but to me that BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! can continue first with Hadley absent, and with Amanda absent, well then I expect Joel and Adam will know next month what they need to do and everyone will remind them of what they forget – POETRY SLAM! – and it will continue without me.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission and Joel
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere

YouAreHere versus The Tragic Troubadours

The Tragic Troubadours held a workshop for everyone in the middle food court of the Canberra Centre, a place that has produced many of our poems. Some people turned up.
The Tragic Troubadours at the middle food court
of the Canberra Centre on 14 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
I am particularly stoked that Adam Thomas’ photo of this event ended up as the cover photo to YouAreHere’s facebook page during the festival

The Troubadours then went into the bus interchange for a full week to perform poems, with veterans Skip and Bela beside new recruits Florny and Arrin. And I think the variety and the passion of the performers meant we met the warmest of receptions and reactions that exceeded anything I could have hoped for from people waiting for buses, especially on the rainy days.
Interchange poetry - Tragic Troubadours
from YouAreHere On Vimeo

Page versus Stage versus YouAreHere

I ran Page vs Stage with Paul Magee and Tim Kent, and was invaluably helped by Joel Barcham. Page vs Stage was an experiment and became, despite my best efforts, a sincere exploration of the creativity of both the Sydney-based Tim Kent who was exceptional and honest, and Paul Magee whose enthusiasm and joy for poetry and performing and listening to it totally contradicts the cliché that someone in a university may try to own poetry in some white tower somewhere.
Page vs Stage: The You Are Here Combat Edition
from You Are Here On Vimeo.

YouAreHere versus the writer-in-residence

Thanks to David Finnigan I got to be the YouAreHere writer-in-residence and write about the creativity of people, including a script-writer, a punk rock cook in two parts – I and II, an experimental musician, two zine makers who are zine fair organisers, a CSIRO scientist, and a few musicians over breakfast — but with so many options missed I still feel chances went wasted.
Doubting Thomas
at Australia 2050 on 17 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere
And really, Festival Breakfast, you should have tried to make at least one of those. They were the best opportunities the festival offers for anyone to daily access all levels of YouAreHere, from the art it creates, to the artists making it, to the festival curators and producers putting it all together.

YouAreHere versus The End

Throughout all that I have made connections, missed others, was quite often confused, fell in and out of love, broke hearts, had mine broken, changed sex to rent submarines (green ones) and managed to yell and be a dinosaur gangster on the streets of the Canberra. I am pretty sure all that happened.

Toward finally; one thing I learned from listening to Tim Kent and Paul Magee was that the multiplicity of voice in art, the making of sense from voices in other peoples’ art, the presenting of art to others, in whatever form, and being ecstatic when someone else finds something there, whatever voice it is they find, is the driver for some other people and one I share.

And finally, whoever you are reading this; if you have got this far I would probably fall for you if we hung out. Or I already have.
Me, Arrin Chapman, Bela Farkas
and a person waiting for a bus
with The Tragic Troubadours
at Civic Bus Interchange on 21 March 2013
by Sarah Walker for YouAreHere
Andrew Galan — YouAreHere 2013 writer-in-residence

All photos by the YouAreHere 2013 Festival Photographers Sarah Walker or Adam Thomas; check out all the photos at YouAreHere Canberra’s Photostream. All videos by YouAreHere 2013 Festival Film-maker’s Erica Hull and Shane Parsons; check out all the videos at the YouAreHere Canberra Vimeo page.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Franked excogitate


Paul Summerfield and I have been working for months and months on our new joint zine.

The extended period of production has been the result of a combination of him becoming a father and running his own business, and my day-job plus other writing and performing projects, including BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, YouAreHere, and The Tragic Troubadours.

This is the cover of the zine. All art is by Paul Summerfield, all words are by me.
Cover art for Franked excogitate

We are taking it to the Canberra Zine Emporium on Saturday 23 March in Rabaul Lane, Canberra.

Our last zine was called Franked; we will have copies of that too.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Mall Stories 2013


Julian Fleetwood has put together Mall Stories as part of YouAreHere for two years.

Mall Stories is a walking tour composed of words by writers from around the world and centres on the Mall experience. The first tour, Mall Stories 2012, took place within the Canberra Centre.

This year the collection has extended into a tour around Canberra’s civic centre, mostly outdoors, while continuing the exploration of the growing mall named the Canberra Centre.

I am stoked to be alongside writers and artists such as Monica Caroll, Pascalle Burton, Daniel Ferri, Art Rush and Marcus Westbury, as well as a bunch of others from Canberra and the wider world.

You can download Mall Stories 2013 and Mall Stories 2012.