Rupert Wondolowski's Blog, page 22

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #7 - "Conductivity" by Stephanie Barber

CONDUCTIVITY

one conducts electricity or symphonies, big bands or
trains or themselves with restraint.
some imagine the molecules of their body dissolving,
feet first and half greek,
into beams of light and being sucked up into
the myriad wires that criss cross cities.

they find solace in the sensation of their electro
magnetic ray feet lifting them
up off the earth and scattering flugel horn like through the city.

some find solace in the winning of bingo--
i heard that a woman named mary won at bingo last night.
i heard larry took her out for breakfast this
morning and sheila bought her a piece
of cake for her birthday which isn't until wednesday
but from what i gather sheila won't see her on wednesday.

that goddamned mary has all the luck in the world.
what do you bet me she'll wake up on wednesday
morning and at the foot of her glorious four post bed
with the delicate floral duvet
will be lying a white, baby tiger
who is house broken and will never grow up.

he will always be a 30 pound white baby tiger!

and probably he can talk too.
and listen--oh what a great and empathic listener that
eternally adorable talking baby tiger is.

women like mary have no time for imagined dissolvings.
that sort of nonsense is simply banal to a woman like mary.

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Stephanie Barber has had screenings of her film and video work at MoMA, NY, Anthology Film Archives, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center, Chicago Filmmakers and The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Her performances have been featured at the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Milwaukee Museum of Art, The Haggerty Museum of Art and galleries and artspaces around the world.


Her book these here separated to see how they standing alone or the soundtracks of six films by stephanie barber was first printed in 2008 by Publishing Genius Press and a second, revised edition of it was just issued.
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Fundraiser Party For New Chris Mason Book!

This event is so momentous I had to post four pictures of the flyer! Okay, it's mainly because I couldn't figure out how to break up the pdf Master Justin Sirois sent me.....

This saintly wise old gent Chris Mason is blowing up, as well he should. In a figurative way. This new book on Narrow House collects a huge amount of Chris's work over the last few years. Of late he's become known more as a rock star, but his primary work has always been in language. In fact, he was even in the LANGUAGE anthology. If you come to this event you not only get great entertainment from Old Songs, Sweatpants, Lurch and Holler and Lauren Bender and a reading from the man himself, but your ticket assures you a free copy of the book when it comes out.

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #5 - "TWWDATOETOAA" by Justin Sirois

Narrow House week continues here at Shattered Wig World Empire.


TWWDATOETOAA


this was written during a time of extreme turbulence

on an airplane. If these synapses are firing poorly

blame the air pressure inside the composition

not my craftsmanship. There will be a time

when we won't need devices & there will

be a time when I will grab your ankle

as firm as milk


*


a hotel can only be remodeled so many times

until it creates a vacuum inside the atrium

& the happy hours crack the aquariums

& you can...

Shattered Wig 28 Sneak Preview #4 - "Deca" by Jamie Gaughan-Perez

Deca



Would a salve for the weight on your shoulders just leave you a wetter weight?


This is against that and that, too.


Some treatments call for repeated application. Some problems ask for continuous pressure.


Some states are contiguous.


Some continents are lazier (than others), like rivers and dogs familiar with foxes.


And some foxes fly, and they are bats, too.


Spiders are good for houses.


Landscape paintings are good for houses, less so for landscapes.


And landscape printing is your best bet for sp...

Delicious First Worms of Season & Making Wicked Cash off Celebrity Poems

I am so very glad I fought my inner nature and nasty allergies or chest cold or Nazgul bite to leave my nest shortly after a hard lone day of laboring in the bittersweet fields of cultural retail to catch the first WORMS reading of the new fall season.

How I love that phrase "new fall season". As a kid it meant the sharp crisp terror of a new year of school, but that terror also brought exciting adrenaline, new faces, transformations of old faces and maybe a couple of cool shirts (except fo...

I'm Thinking of My Mother

the struggle of the flesh

how she asked if there was something she
had to do about the trees outside

the hospital

the twin towers hadn't fallen yet
Bush hadn't destroyed the world
but there was a huge brownish-red
pool of blood just sitting unattended
in the middle of a hallway that
ran through
what was supposed to be a reputable place

our questiions to the doctors were
met with the disdain of video store clerks

of all the things she'd forgotten
my name our names, the names of all
the flowers she'd tended...

Reading Saturday September 18th At The Corner of Poetry and Main

I have the happy honor and privilege to be reading with professor Shelley Puhak Saturday, September 18th in Westminster. The last time I was in Westminster it was for the Shakemore Festival and that day turned out pretty good. This is one of the many poetry series that Cliff Lynn curates. He must talk in his sleep at night waving his arms like a traffic cop trying to keep them all straight.


Shelley was a frequent reader at Shattered Wig Nights all the way back in the early '90s when she was...

You Never Know When Or Where An Elvis Impersonator Will Show Up

Back in my callow youth, when I believed myself immortal and a quart of Colt 45 put wings beneath my soul - or at least fooled me into thinking those rusted hooks were wings - my friends and I used to laugh, partially with empathetic horror, at a strange little documentary called something like "Rock N Roll Legends". Like a lot of footage you watch in your youth I have no idea where it came from, other than some cable show, and it was fairly blurry, but it left long lasting impressions.


It fo...

City Sages Reading at Normal's, Wed. August 25th

On Wednesday, August 25th, Normal's took its turn celebrating CityLit's first publication - City Sages: Baltimore. The book came out a few months ago, but we wanted to wait until the new improved Red Room was done being spiffied up.


On hand to read were Michael Kimball, Susan McCallum-Smith, Joseph Young and myself. Plus Goodloe Byron to sing a few graveyard tunes and to ruminate on Poe's "The Black Cat" which appears in the anthology of legendary dead Baltimore writers, living ascending ...

Shattered Wig Review 28 Sneak Preview #3

Hotdog





With the end of the day ahead of us, the city streets have finally burned off the stale urine smell from the night before. This time of a day is a good time of day for New Yorkers. They browse the parks and storefronts. Families share milkshakes, dogs strain at the end of their leashes to get to the dog run, and the denizens of Tompkins Square let their hair down. One of the more famous of them, a short, fat black gal everyone calls Hotdog, is running down the path in a lavender prom dr...