Accept no substitutes

Category: Alumni and other friends (Page 28 of 38)

The New Faces of Poetry

I have seen the mad new poets who are drunk on language, aware of critical approaches, ready for fun and sly about their gravitas. The Carrboro International Poetry Festival had a great helping of smart new edgy poetry. Poetry informed by performance, by l*a*n*g*u*a*g*e, poetry that rejects quietude, defies therapy, recognizes displacement, questions syntax, poetry that can be sarcastic and deep at the same time, poetry full of noise and full of fun.
The audio will be online at the Festival site soon.

Poetry and NAACP

Spent most of the afternoon at the Carrboro International Poetry Festival hearing about 10 of the 40 poets scheduled to read there. Organizer Patrick Herron and I will both be reading tomorrow. I had to leave just after Tonya Olson’s wonderful set which included a piece in which Joyce’s The Dead is rewritten to be about the breakup of an affair between the author and Lisa Marie Presley over the author’s refusal to become a Scientologist. I cannot explain any further except to say I recommend this piece be it poem or short story or performance piece.
Later Sally and I went to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP banquet. There among the entertainers was a terrific a capella group called “the Sons of Bethel.” The Sons have been part of the Music on the Terrace program at UNC’s Johnston Center in the past year or so. Tonight they were playing to a home crowd.

Old Time Music from/in NC

Not all of the nearly 60 folk recordings on the Folktunes.org wiki-powered site (hosted on ibiblio) are from NC but a number of them are especially those by Clarance Ashley and Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers.
These are some of the best rerecordings of the old 78s that I’ve ever heard. If you know more about them you can add to the wiki knowledge base or if you know nothing, you can listen and learn.
Charlie Poole
The weekend in Eden, NC is the 10th Annual Charlie Poole Music Festival. Go only if you can stand to miss the Carrboro International Poetry Festival.

Confessing poet; poetic wax

Carrboro Poetry Fest Logo
The Chapel Hill News finally put Carrboro Poet Laureate Patrick Herron’s “My View” piece that was published last Sunday online so I can refer to it here. Patrick confesses that he manufactured the poem that won him his Poet Laureateship by looking about some poetic tropes and cliches then incorporating them into his submission. But the joke was on him. He had wanted to use the office of Poet Laureate to create a community of poets and to put together a Festival of very diverse poets and poetics. Now he had to actually do it. No excuses.
And he did. Last year, 40+ poets read in the course of two days to good crowds and good responses. And we had a blast.
This weekend will be the Second Annual Carrboro International Poetry Festival. Many different poets. Some old favorites. And some surprises (I’ve been assured).
Here’s how the Chapel Hill News promotes it in today’s edition.

Carrboro Poetry: Schedule Released

Folks kept asking “When are you reading at the Carrboro Poetry Festival?” Now I know. Between noon and 1:30 on Sunday May 22. But there are many others reading at other times. Poet’s bios [here] are in alphabetical order by first name. Here’s what we have of the still unofficial schedule so far:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Saturday May 21 12 PM – 9 PM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

11:00 SETUP/FOOD

Session A 12 PM – 1:30 PM
A 12:00 OPENING
12:15 Amy King
12:30 Julian Semilian
12:45 Sue Soltis
1:00 Todd Sandvik
1:15 Mel Nichols

1:30 15 MIN BREAK

Session B 1:45 PM – 3:05 PM
B 1:45 INTRO
1:50 Ken Rumble
2:05 Tanya Olson
2:20 Dale Smith
2:35 Mary Margaret Sloan
2:50 Joseph Donahue

3:05 30 MIN BREAK

Session C 3:35 PM – 4:40 PM
C 3:35 INTRO
3:40 Standard Schaefer
3:55 Rod Smith
4:10 Evie Shockley
4:25 Linh Dinh

4:40 15 MIN BREAK
Session D 4:55 PM – 6:00 PM
D 4:55 INTRO
5:00 Heriberto Yepez
5:15 Allyssa Alexandra Wolf
5:30 Gerald Barrax
5:45 Tony Tost

6:00 DINNER BREAK

Session E 7:30 – 9 PM
E 7:30 INTRO
7:45 Carl Martin
8:00 Lee Ann Brown
8:15 Philip Nikolayev
8:30 Harryette Mullen
8:45 Christian Bok

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sunday May 22 12 PM – 6 PM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

11:00 SETUP/FOOD

Session F 12 PM – 1:30 PM
F 12:00 Introduction
12:15 Mack Ivey
12:30 Joanna Catherine Scott
12:45 Paul Jones
1:00 Chris Vitiello
1:15 TBD

1:30 15 MIN BREAK

Session G 1:45 PM – 2:50 PM
G 1:45 INTRO

1:50 Gabriel Gudding
2:05 Hoa Nguyen
2:20 Murat Nemet-Nejat
2:35 Patrick Herron

2:50 30 MIN BREAK

Session H 3:20 PM – 4:25 PM
H 3:20 INTRO
3:25 Reb Livingston
3:40 Hristo Ivanovski
3:55 Andrea Selch
4:10 Randall Williams

4:25 15 MIN BREAK

Session I 4:40 PM – 6 PM
4:45 Heidi Lynn Staples
5:00 Daniel J. Wideman
5:15 Marcus Slease
5:30 Tessa Joseph
5:45 CLOSING

Carrboro Poetry: One Week Warning!

Next weekend, Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, is the Carrboro International Poetry Festival. Carrboro Poet Laureate and alterego to Lester, Patrick Herron sends this alert:

The second annual Carrboro International Poetry Festival, to be held at the Century Center in downtown Carrboro, NC, starts in exactly one week on Saturday May 21. Admission is free.

This year’s festival, like last year’s, will feature 40 poets from the US, Canada, and Mexico. The mix of poets includes renowned poets from outside of North Carolina along with some of North Carolina’s finest poets, including a large contingent from the Triangle. [including moi – pj]

In the coming days the schedule of readers will be posted to the website. (http://carrboropoetryfestival.org/) All of the poets’ biographies are up on the site already. The festival website also contains all the travel information you’ll need, from a comprehensive listing of local accomodations to directions and parking maps. We even have mp3s of readings from last year’s event. [already on the website – pj]

If you are in North Carolina, please keep an eye out for articles about the event in The Chapel Hill News (tomorrow), The Independent (Wednesday), and the Raleigh News & Observer (Friday).

Please come to the festival. The hundreds that turned out to last year’s free event displayed an enthusiasm about poetry in a way I’ve frankly never seen before. I’ve tried my best to make it entertaining, fresh, and surprising. I expect to see more of that same energy and excitement, as I have worked to make the festival better–not bigger–but better.

I hope to see you next Saturday.
Patrick Herron

What: Carrboro International Poetry Festival
Where: Carrboro Century Center, 100 N. Greensboro St, Carrboro, NC
When: Saturday May 21, 12 Noon – 9 PM and Sunday May 22, 12 Noon – 6 PM
URL: http://carrboropoetryfestival.org/

Google Accelerator: put on the brakes, stay out of clutches

WebAccelerator logo
The long, heated and open debate about the Google Web Accelerator seems to have slowed down. The Register, in their lovely snippy and witty way, covers the story as “Google puts the brake on Web Accelerator.” The lead: “Google has disabled downloads of its Web Accelerator software less than a week after introducing the service. The suspension follows reports that the software was caching sensitive content, such as user control panels to online forums.”
However Google says:
“Thank you for your interest in Google Web Accelerator. We have currently reached our maximum capacity of users and are actively working to increase the number of users we can support.”
More from the Google side of things at their FAQ. And from the blogosphere via Technorati. Dan Gillmor covered the problems a bit a week or so ago.

Yes Men Update / DowEthics /etc

I’m in a faculty retreat all day today. Whilst I’m out, here are some selections from the latest news letter from the Yes Men with updates on activities around their DowEthics site, how Dow VP for Acceptable Riskâ„¢, Erastus Hamm, explained the value of human life and acceptable risk to the International Payments 2005 Conference in London (includes video), how the State Department uses DowEthics, the Yes Men visit the Dow Shareholders Conference and more.

Beyond Heroes! (part 2)

Computerworld Honors image
In case we are selected as the top winner out of the five Finalists for the Computerworld 21st Century Achievement Awards on June 6th, we’re supposed to have sent the Computerworld folks some elements (images and video) that represent what ibiblio does (and did as sunsite and metalab). Then they will make a little video montage out of it.
Last year’s winner, the MIT Open Courseware Project, ended up looking like this.

What would you say represents at least part of what we’ve been doing in the past dozen years? Send me links or post here pleeeeeze! Pointers for screen grabs, pictures of folks who’ve been involved, primo collections, other things?
Sunsite folks in 1994

Wicked offer of space

The owners of our town eyesore, the long abandoned Wicked Burrito, have made the Town and offer: Find a suitable not-for-profit tennant that is willing to vacate on 30 days notice and we’ll let them use the space. This in a letter to Town Manager Cal Horton dated April 26, 2005.

Lonestar Steakhouse CEO Jamie Coulter challenges Cal in the letter:
“Put on your thinking cap and let me have your best ideas for a temporary occupant for the Wicked Burrito building. ” [full PDF of the letter]

Who/what would you suggest? Art gallery, rehearsal space, poetry readings?

Wicked wicked wicked

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