319 N. 11th St., 2nd floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107

215-385-4818

http://hidingplaceplace.com/

Andrea Brady is lecturer in early modern literature at Queen Mary, University of London. She runs the Archive of the Now, a print and audio archive of contemporary innovative poetry. Her book Vacation of a Lifetime was published by Salt in 2001. In 2004 Barque published Cold Calling, described in the summer issue of Poetry Review as a ‘desperately important book’. Embrace was published by Object Permanence in September 2005. Wildfire: A Verse Essay on Obscurity and Illumination was published by Kruspkaya in early 2010. She has given public readings in venues in the UK, US and Canada. Her criticism has been published in a variety of books and magazines; English Funerary Elegy in the Seventeenth Century: Laws in Mourning was published by Palgrave in 2006.

from Krupskaya’s website:

Wildfire is a verse essay. It is trying to persuade us, to recognize that certain catastrophes and felicities are not inevitable. It concerns the history of incendiary devices, of the evolution of Greek fire from a divine secret which could sustain or destroy empires, into white phosphorus and napalm; the elliptical fires of the pre-Socratics, Aristotle’s service to Alexander in the fashioning of pyrotechnics, the burning/blooming/mating bodies of G. H. Schubert and the self-feeding crowds of Elias Canetti; mechanisms to project fire, to make it burn on water and stick to wood and skin, to keep it off the walls of the besieged towns, and what those mechanisms (projection and defence) have done to geometry; the courts of fire, the legal chamber and the hortus conclusus, and the margins of ambiguity where it is lobbed with impunity; embedded nuggets and embedded reporters, the discovery of the chemical element, industrial tragedy, the resistance of the matchgirls at Bryant & May, the corruption of Quaker capitalists, washing powder and toothpaste. It is an etiology of metaphors, ‘shake-n-bake’ and whisky pete and phantom fury. It is also an argument about obscurity and illumination: WP does both, smokes the bright air and singes the night with trajectories. And so an interrogation of writing practices which fume as much as they enlighten.

——

Amy De’Ath studied American Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her poems have appeared in Onedit, QUID, Signals, and others. Crater Press recently published her broadside, Andromeda, The World Works for Me. She has two short books forthcoming in 2010. Her first collection will be published by Salt, and a chapbook will be coming out from Oystercatcher later in the year. Her poetry blog can be found at www.amydeath.wordpress.com.

LIKE THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN #2:
A Film Series Presented by Hiding Place and Marginal Utility

GERTRUDE VS. MABUSE
AMJ Crawford and Danny Snelson (ex libris)
playing in
Gertrude Stein Video Organ vs. The Dark Cloud of Dr. Mabuse

A call-and-response performance fresh out of the boxed-in world of yr average poetry reading or video projection, AMJC &Danny Snelson re-stage a historical spectacle frm within the gaming networks of contemporary culture.Tender Buttons meets German Expressionist cinema with more than a dash of Super Smash Bros Melee.

See Crawford’s MILK, a midi video organ (AMJ’s signature vonome) rocking a database of selected YouTube clips derived from Stein’s 1914 Tender Buttons face off against Snelson’s THE DARK CLOUD OF DR. MABUSE, an investigation into the nefarious webs of contemporary criminal activity embedded in Fritz Lang’s 1922 film, Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler.

: :
Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford is an artist, performer, and writer currently studying at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). He is a former Fulbright Scholar to Portugal, the author of Morpheu (BlazeVOX 2009). He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Danny Snelson’s work as a writer, editor, and archivist can be found on UbuWeb, PennSound, Eclipse, free103point9, Aphasic Letters, Primary Information, No Input Books, and </no-body>. His new press—Edit Publications—releases a dozen books expanding Tan Lin’s Seven Controlled Vocabularies at Printed Matter on July 29, 2010.

: :

Ululations Blogspot Comment Review:

1 COMMENTS:

Josef Horacek said…

I saw Crawford perform with Danny Snelson at post_moot (Miami U, Oxford, OH) a few weeks ago and had a similar impression. There is nothing gratuitous or half-baked about the way they use technology; it was, to borrow your own words, composed, impassioned, and motivated. Their performance was almost like a punk concert: loud, fast, with a lot of political force. It seemed to elicit a different kind of response from the audience, too: a sort of spontaneous immersion rather than willed concentration, if that makes any sense. Some of it has to do with the nature of their writing – lists, catalogs, language lifted from popular culture – but the manner of presentation played a big role as well. A poetry reading can be many things and liked that one a lot.

Jimmy Bishop on Stage Live at the Nixon Theatre (Meka)

Billy Stewart’s hit 1966 recording of “Summertime” is one of the very best. However, this virtually unknown live version from 1967, recorded here in Philadelphia, is even better, and remains one of the greatest live performances I’ve heard on record. Wait until he starts playing with the echo… Unreal!

billystewart1

Clarence Taylor & the Estate Singers: Sinner Man (Su-Ann)

One amazing thing about black gospel is how often, and how unself-consciously, it tinkers with and stretches song-form. It’s a generous, not a loose approach. I love how easily this tune repeats itself.

sinnerman

Hayne Davis: She’ll Come Around (Mother Cleo)

Peculiarly wasted early 70s artifact on Mother Cleo, an obscure South Carolina label. Check out the phased guitar and syrupy tempo and the guy’s epic lack of ‘tude. You should listen to this on a loop while reading Charles Portis and let me know what happens.

haynedavis

The Challengers: Honey, Honey, Honey (Tri-Phi)

Beautiful early record from underrated singer Ann Bogan, who later joined The Marvelettes and, in the 70s, New Birth.

challengers

Susie Klee: Mr. Zero (Polydor)

Baroque, teenage ice-queen cover of the Bob Lind song. On UK Polydor, but Susie Klee was Swiss.

Why are cheap scanners allergic to red?

klee

Head Cheese: Jungle Jam/ Teenage Idol/ Non-Melodic (Burn Potential)

Very cool, primitive Philly post-punk/synth ep from 1981. “Jungle Jam” features an ultra-basic groove and rather disturbing lyrics. For me the prize here is the brief “Non-Melodic”, whose strange, inept shimmer simultaneously charms and haunts.

head1

head2

head3

Nora Guthrie: Emily’s Illness (Mercury)

Woody’s daughter. 1967. She was 17. Beyond that, I’ll let the song sing for itself…

guthrie

Errol Dunkley: Please Stop Your Lying

Old-school Jamaican dj’s often personalized their records in ways that -at least for me- somehow evade defacement. The record is signed because it is loved. I like that.

Dunkley, who would go on to become one of the greats, was fourteen years old when he recorded this beautiful tune.

Especially moving, perhaps because so unexpected -such an unexpected formulation- are these lines directed at the fickle woman:

“Every night you’re on the beach with another guy/ And the poor guy works so hard to make you big and strong.”

Works so hard to make you big and strong… Dunkley’s vocal innocence fits perfectly the real sweetness of those words, which are peculiar, if you think about it, only in evading stock romantic tropes.

errol