It’s always great to be recognized, and I’m proud to say that three blogs wrote about me this month! Jo Diaz from Juicy Tales mentioned my Wine Predator blog in a list of 10 wine blogs worth celebrating, Julia Smith of A Piece of My Mind spotlighted me in a list of 13 blogs, and Ana from Anais mentioned this blog also. But Jo was the only one who also did a you-tube video! Yes she did, using photos of me from the trip to Portugal that I won on her blog last October.
via Wine Predator
HOW TO JOIN IN and PLAY THE 3:15 EXPERIMENT POETRY GAME!
- Begin at 3:15 AM on August 1st so set your alarms THIS SATURDAY JULY 31) and WRITE SOMETHING! Continue waking and writing each day until August 31!
- You may write any length, style, form, content, voice, rhythm, etc.
- DO NOT EDIT your work. As Danika Dinsmore puts it, “This is raw stuff, baby.” That’s the experiment part of the experiment! Edit, collage, break apart the poems later for whatever purpose you choose LATER, but please SHARE THE RAW STUFF on the 3:15 experiment website once the experiment is over.
- I recommend you follow Danika’s suggestion not to read what you have written until the month is over. You’ll be surprised!
- TIP: do not use a felt tip pen unless you don’t care about ink stains on your bed. Many a poet has fallen asleep in the middle of writing.
- If you can, stay in bed! As Danika puts it, “Ride that dream state, that precarious point between sleeping and waking and sleeping.
Which reminds me–I’ve typed up my 2009 poems and published several of them here, but never did get around to posting them on the 3:15 Experiment website for all to see!
In 1993, Danika Dinsmore aka The Accidental Novelist was working with Bernadette Meyer at Naropa and they decided to do a poetry experiment writi
ng at 3:15am to see what the writing would be like when you’re in a hynopompic/hypnogogic state. A few other students were invited and the 3:15 Experiment was born. It’s now 17 years old and I am inviting you to participate in this year’s experiment! If you’re on facebook, you can fan the page and sign up for the event or sign up on the 3:15 website.
Above is a video of the 3:15am poem posted below and here’s a link to another 3:15 poem about writing at 3:15. There’s lots of 3:15 Experiment poems on this blog as well as a thorough collection at the 3:15 Experiment site. If you like to read and own books, and not just read poetry online, Danika and I edited a 3:15 Experiment book, between sleeps with poems from 24 poets from around the world who wrote from 1993-2005.
3:15am Weds Aug 10, 2005
this writing practice
in the middle of the
night
at 315
is a lesson in
impulse
this is not a time to
think so hard but of
first thoughts not
thoughts on thoughts
at 315 in the morning
you’re too sleepy to
bother to do anything
else–and if you
do think too hard
casting about your mind
searching for something
to write about
rejecting this idea and that
you will be up for
too long
you will never get
any sleep
you will never
catch any poems
either
For more poetry, most written when awake, jump on the Poetry Train!
In June I, Art Predator aka Wine Predator, attended the 2010 Wine Bloggers conference in Walla Walla Washington where I was interviewed for a documentary. Here’s a “teaser” video that features my slightly controversial insights on writing and blogging.
via Wine Predator
“Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable.”—-James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Just Kids is Patti Smith’s portrait of the artist as a young woman. It is written with style and grace, but most of all, it is written with love.Love for Robert Mapplethorpe, and a love of life that digs deeply into the flame that lights her soul as an artist and a human being.
The book is a celebration, and an eulogy, for a time and place in which she and Robert transcended their surroundings to fly into the golden sphere of art. A time and place that seems centuries old and never to return. A time and place where trinkets and polaroid snapshots were as important as Van Gogh’s paints. Read more…
Events + Rides Build a Better Bike Culture
Around the country, cyclists are growing rides that are just for fun. This video showcases some of the events of May 2010’s CycloMAYnia and shows some of the ways that Santa Barbara, California is building a better bike culture.
Here in Ventura, we ride every First Friday. Join us next month for “Western Nights & Carnival Lights”! We’ll be holding at least one “Paint Yr Pony” Party beforehand so you can pimp out your ride with a personalized pony and light up your bike for the ArtRide Friday August 6 and the Fair Parade ArtRide down Main Street Saturday August 7.
The Ventura Book Festival 2010 Edition takes place TOMORROW Saturday July 17, 2010 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, located on the Ventura Beach.
This year the festival has expanded to add more educational seminars with many award-winning authors, literary experts and even a couple of Hollywood agents. These sessions are $10.
The Book Expo is FREE to all attendees and they will validate parking at the beach parking garage.
The weather has been simply gorgeous this week and I expect tomorrow to have more of the same making it a great day to feed your head and catch some rays and waves! I have a pile of student midterms and papers to read but I plan to take a break and ride my bikergo over there for a quick look see.
How about more SHAKESPEARE? Ojai’s Theater 150 Presents…
It seems like there’s Shakespeare production around every corner and under every rock this summer and Ojai certainly isn’t left out.
In fact, Theater 150 is producing two of Shakespeare’s plays this summer, The Winter’s Tale and –although I am not sure whether he would recognize the second…
Theater 150’s 2010 Summer Shakespeare Festival is being held under the stars in a newly constructed outdoor amphitheater at Chaparral High school which offers both tiered and lawn seating. All chairs for the lawn must be very low to the ground and have low backs. While Ojai is warm in the summer, the evenings cool off so come prepared with bringing jackets and blankets.
The Winter’s Tale, directed by Jessica Kubzansky, asks: “Is destiny doomed to repeat itself? Is it possible a pair of low-born clowns have the means of salvation for two kingdoms in their hot little hands? What happens to a queen when her entire family has been destroyed? Can there ever be redemption and reparation of grave misdeeds? Or should what’s past help also be past grief… ?”
“It is required that you do awake your faith,” suggests Theater 150, and join them “for this perilous, passionate, hilarious, heartbreaking, breathtaking tale of love and loss and laughter and sorrow and consequence. You will laugh and suffer with these beautifully flawed human beings every step of their treacherous way, and on the journey will discover new tenderness, joy, pain, and wonder. “
While the Bard would likely recognize the above production, he probably wouldn’t have a clue that this production of Love’s Labour’s LOST had much in common with his play of the same name as this is a campy MUSICAL mash-up of Shakespeare and the hit TV show, LOST!
Written by Niki Blumberg and directed by Bari Newport, Theater 150 describes it:
Follow Jack Shepherd and all your favorite LOST characters as they battle time travel, daddy issues, and the trials of love on an island where nothing is as it seems and so many questions are never answered. Written by Niki Blumberg. Directed by Bari Newport.
Ventura’s Rubicon Theater Does Macbeth This Weekend
This summer, a group of teens explored a classic play and the results will hit the boards this weekend. 
Veteran actor Joseph Fuqua directs this year’s Rubicon Acting Intensive class of 17 young actors in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth and they promise to illuminate this classic tragedy in a modern context. The show runs this weekend Thursday July 15- Saturday July 17 at 8pm plus Sunday, July 18 at 2:00pm. 
Pre-sale Tickets are $10 and it’s $15 at the door. If you can afford to give more, they would sure appreciate it as they are going through some difficulties financially.
For more information about the Rubicon, this program, and its upcoming shows, go to http://www.rubicontheatre.org You can also reserve your tickets there or call The Rubicon Box Office: the phone number is 805-667-2900.
Photos of Director Joseph Fuqua and his crew by Jeanne Tanner.
A Review of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: In Verse!
Since I’ve been writing about outdoor Shakespeare performances and since a friend of mine in Ireland posted on Facebook that he was attending a Shakespeare by the Sea performance of Julius Caesar, I asked him if he wanted to write about it for publication here. He agreed and what follows is his account. (Please excuse any formatting difficulties!) For more poetry, catch a ride on the Poetry Train!
What Tidings
Of Emperors and Games
By Greg Patrick
Bardspell:
“He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass”.
-William Shakespeare
As I waited for the cordon to open I pondered the book
I brought and shook my head at the headlines by comparison.
Some things do not change but that is why I am here
Why others are drawn.
There was a moment of beautiful solitude, a bard’s moment under the whispering canopies of trees
While others reluctantly began to leave their televisions
and search for their keys.
When I stood overlooking the azure gleam
of sea at the beginnings of dusk and sunlight’s crimson dwindling.
Newly metamorphosised dragonflies swarmed
around me as if proud of their new wings
in an aerial revel. Swarming unhindered, oblivious to my presence.
It was a special moment as I anticipated a fine play.
Midsummer’s had past and with it many dreams..
Night falls, darkness lengthens ..there will be more dreams..new dreams.
..Right..?
Too lingering the question mark. That why is we
gather.
II
What Tidings
Shakespeare by the Sea 2010
“But, for my own part, it was Greek to me”.
– William Shakespeare
“Julius Caesar” (Act I, Scene II).
“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings”.
–- William Shakespeare
“Julius Caesar” (Act I, Scene II).
“Lend me your ears..” Read more…
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