I'm not sure you would call what I did with Andy Sturdevant recently a "lecture"—it was more of hilariously weird loose-improv-with-Power-Point. This was for the "Games" show of Salon Saloon—an arts-forward talk show sampler produced by Works Progress and hosted by my longtime pal Mr. Sturdevant, bon vivant and man-about-town.
Andy asked me to talk about games I played with my family, and I led him and the audience through various games my children have invented, including Pop Goes the Weasel, Kick in the Crotch, and something really wonderful called "Baby Ewok".
Let's just say Andy and I are not afraid to pretend we are dinosaurs with each other. Or play Stuffed Animal Olympics with on-the-spot Howard Cosell commentary. Or pretend to be Ewoks and crawl under a blanket together and then "birth" ourselves (oh, now you know how to play Baby Ewok!). And all to an audience of about 80 people, most of whom are strangers.
Andy is amazing. He is more than my friend. He is my brother.
Photo by Sean Smuda.
Chris Koza and Rogue Valley asked Geoff Herbach and I to pick up our narrative where we left off last spring. Chris and Rogue Valley have been writing and recording four albums in one year, based on the cycle of seasons. We helped launch the first album at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul with love letters from a set of star-crossed lovers that wrapped into the music, and we helped them come full circle again with the winter album at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis.
Koza is a wonderfully true artist—and by that I mean that he has great personal and great creative integrity; you can believe in what he does because he believes in it. It is a joy to be around him and the band, doing what people like us love to do—make beautiful things.
It's also a joy when Pamela Diedrich from How Was the Show takes my photo while I am wearing a Muppet coat.
I did a reading a few weeks ago for Talking Image Connection—a reading series (run by wonder-woman Alison Morse) that pairs writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction with visual art installations in galleries around the Twin Cities.
What Alison asks writers to do is visit a visual arts installation and then let it work its magic on any new work they're writing. I visited this amazing video installation by Rosemary Williams, and then wrote a short story called Eight Things Happy People Do, According to Martial Artist Today. I also brought along along singer/songwriter Lee Henke, who is also a Mankato State University student. He followed my story with an amazing performance of a new song he wrote for Tales from the Poor House (where I am also a short story contributor).
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I just got back from a four-hour bar fight. Not kidding.
My friend Phil Harder is shooting a movie about my friend Karl Raschke's dad. Karl's pop is none other than Baron Von Raschke, the professional wrestler villain whose signature move was "The Claw." The film is one-third documentary, one-third vintage footage, and one-third narrative. To my delight, Phil asked myself and my partner Geoff Herbach to participate in a scene in which a waiter at Mancini's (a well-known professional wrestler hangout) angers a wrestler named Mad Dog Vachon, inciting a massive bar fight.
Geoff was the obnoxious waiter. I came in at "bar fight." (Ha! Don't I always?) Actually, it was the perfect place for me. At six feet tall and an unmentionable weight we can graciously call "Rubenesque," I was big enough to hold my own against Minnesota Independent Wrestlers Mitch Paradise and DOS, and The Crusher (played by Mark Har of the Bill Patten Trio).
Judging by the tales the wrestlers both new and legendary told (the Mancini's bar fight is a legendary true story), and the bruises all over my body, I can say this to you with certainty: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING IS REAL.
Geoff—with Phil Harder, Mitch Paradise, and other bar fighters—as an obnoxious German waiter at a classy Italian restaurant in St. Paul. Photo by Patrick Pierson. Amazing ambience provided by Mancini's Char House and Lounge, at which we only broke one lone glass Christmas ornament, and which was also the venue for a party Molly Priesmeyer of Good Work Group once held in honor of Geoff and myself.
I've been teaching fiction workshop at St. Cloud State University this semester (as well as a section of Freshman Comp). Though I initially resisted it, the students talked me into a lesson on Science Fiction (which many of them love and write). We did this last week, toward the end of the semester, and we spent a fabulous two hours hashing out what Science Fiction is (thank you, Philip K. Dick, for your edifying words on the subject), and how it differs from literary fiction (it leads with an intellectual idea), and even fantasy (that one is very subtle, it depends on your faith that the story COULD happen).
Here's who they've loved the best throughout the semester: Stuart Dybek, Ursula LeGuin, and local writers John Jodzio and Ethan Rutherford. (I am committed to using locally produced art by living, breathing writers you just might see on the street in your neighborhood. Ethan ACTUALLY CAME TO CLASS and gave a guest talk to these eager, intelligent students.)
When we asked him why he prefers to write short stories over novels he leaned back in his chair, but his hands behind his head, and said, "Hey. It's the tenderloin."
Swoon.
John Akre from Sloppy Films animated a sketch we did based on a character I invented for PowderKeg Live!. She's called Urban Agrarian Woman and she's a farm girl in an urban setting with amazing agricultural and building superpowers. And you can watch the trailer here. (It debuted this fall at the Riverview Theater, and will be shown again on December 3rd at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as part of the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival.
Mr. Akre also made a video from a song from the original musical I co-wrote called Don't Crush Our Heart!—it's called "I Feel Tight".
Oh, it is lovely to be collaborative artist and share your work with people who can do things you could never do. Bliss!
Andi McDaniel wrote about PowderKeg Live! for The Line (a new online pub in the Mpls.St.Paul area).
Great story, with help from great photos by Bill Kelley. Geoff Herbach, Dave Salmela, and myself talk shop and try to act hipster by wearing 70s clothing and glasses.
PowderKeg Live! is on summer hiatus as Dave and fellow PowderKegger Jenny Adams are about to have a baby, and Geoff Herbach and I have been busy setting up a satellite shop in Mankato (Herbach begins teaching creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato, in the fall.)
But don't turn your radios off just yet, friends.
Writer/photographer Ralph Pennel has a great blog up for writers/photographers. It's called A Picture's Worth, and here's the deal: Your own photograph + your own story of exactly 1000 words. It's harder than it sounds. But still, I contributed a piece of short fiction this week. I think it's a great idea for a highly readable big coffee table book.
I'm gonna shout out about a New York Times mention. A travel story about Northeast Minneapolis? Believe it: It's right here, with our own PowderKeg Live! and Modern Café mentioned. Hey Big City—come on over and see us sometime. We'll fix you up a free brat, and make a nice show for you, too.
Just delighted to be a part of such a wonderfully executed evening. Chris Koza and Rogue Valley were stellar, and (as this review points out) so was Larissa Anderson's production at the Fitzgerald Theater for 89.3 The Current.
Geoff Herbach and I wrote and performed a linked set of fictitious love letters detailing how our wanderlust has torn our charters' love apart. You can see us in the far corner, between the gorgeous Joanna James and the talented Sam Totten, keeping company with the hottest smarties in our city.
Photo by Ben Clark for the City Pages.
