[EclecticSeizure] Newspoetry Eclectic Seizure

[William Gillespie]

We had a great show last night: the year in Newspoetry. In attendance
were Anne Bargar, Joe Futrelle, Anne Geraci, William Gillespie, Mike
Lehman, Frank Lombaer, and Sam Patterson. Sam and Andy were visiting
their families in different parts of Illinois for Xmas, and each made a
special trip to East Central Champaign County in dangerous icy weather
just for the show. Sam and Andy and Frank had prepared an
elaborately-structured (I never did find out what the structure actually
was) pre-produced cut-up remix of their poetry on a CD, still warm from
Frank's CD burner. Scott called in his Pinsky conspiracy poem long
distance from Chicago (apparently WEFT doesn't stream for Mac users:
bummer, bummer), and Bill Wendling phoned in a request for "Time Warner
and AOL Shove Each Other Up Each Other's Assholes." We debated with
station manager Mick Woolf about the propriety of that, and, although he
was mellow, we changed it to "buttholes." A couple of innovations helped
channel Newspoetry into the miniscule funnel of a two-hour performance:
1. Joe brought a laptop with the whole site on it, allowing for much
spontaneity. For example, I brought "Liberal Olympics,"  a Newspoetry
reject penned back in Janaury, and hurreidly cast it. It turned out
that, on the laptop, Joe had an ad for Rainforest Beer he had written
specifically for that poem. He read it while we played "Becalmed" by
Eno, God it was lovely. And 2. We all just took turns reading over and
over until everyone had fainted from exhaustion - never mind segues,
background music, or rehearsal. I think we got a lot of good audio for
the Newspoetry site, and I'm pretty sure everyone had fun and got a
chance to perform.