This WHYY radio interview with Karl “King” Wenclas of the Underground Literary Alliance and Carla Spataro of Philadelphia Stories in really good:
[Click for Real Media file] (via Timmy Waldron, via Philadelphia Stories)
(Judging by the commercials, it sounds like it’s from a month ago.)
King is in top form in the interview, so it’s well worth a listen. I don’t know Carla Spataro but she held up well against Wenclas and made some excellent points.
I like the ULA. I don’t agree with them all the time, but I like them. I did a ULA reading a couple years ago in this anarchist bar in Philly and it was probably the best lit event I’ve ever been to. All the readers varied in their writing and performance styles and that’s not something you see at most readings. Like, there were slam poets mixed in with short story writers, guys who were so sucked into their words that they spat and shouted their lines and guys who read in a straight monotone. There were just all different types of people. It felt very spontaneous, a little bit lunatic asylum. It was great.
This post was written by Jackie Corley on September 7, 2007
Guess I was one of the spittin’ screamin’ guys. Hope you didn’t get any on ya.
spitting and screaming is the best. i hope i write something someday that inspires me to spit and scream.
You can relive it!
http://www.literaryrevolution.com/files/TV1_philly05.mp4
This video contains a lot of greatest hits from that show! It was my first reading in Philadelphia (and I think I’ve only done like three or four in all). Good times!
Good to see that people still read my blog, though it’s kind of on hiatus until I get back from Motown. (Managed to get on at the public library today, though I’m not able to get a library card or local driver’s license; I was a literary fugitive in Philly, sleeping on someone’s sofa toward the end, and I’m one here also– without bus fare to get back!)
I guess I shouldn’t ask you about your post’s heading, Jackie, but I appreciate your generous remarks. May we do a reading together again someday. . . .
I’m hanging out in Grand Circus Park a lot here, reciting poetry to the homeless and the pigeons. (Working part-time, but this town is in the middle of an economic depression. Thousands more laid-off yesterday. Philly is boom town in comparison.
What Detroit has in spades is great SOUL. Invigorating for a writer.
There was no logic to the post’s heading (there rarely is). I just put what pops into my head.
I’ve never been to Detroit. I need to go there one day.
I need to head back into Philly. Haven’t been in awhile. It has an authenticity that NYC lacks most of the time.
And yes, a reading together again someday would be mighty swell.