Things You Might Think

BUT SHOULD NEVER SAY OUT LOUD!:

christa! it looks like you're getting FAT!, flow, "just keepin' it real" mentalz, my second favorite jersey poet (sexy ass BIG MIC is still my hands down favorite) last night at the nuyorican. so as a special guest, i read a new piece called, "she takes up space" that was inspired by a poet friend who saw me reading the memoir, "fat girl" by judith moore (a ferocious read) and who groaned, oh my god, you're not about to write a fat girl poem are you? please don't. you're too good for that. and the world doesn't need another fat girl poem...whatever. will post later...cbell

ps-in my honor, using only her eyes, rachel mckibbens threw a hood over flow's head, dragged him into the woods, tied him to a tree, poured honey all over his body and left him for the bears...

The Moth Slam, NY, NY

went to a fantastic storytelling slam last night with a super-secret-famous-in-his-world friend who's name i will not mention because he's regularly and intensely stalked by crazy female fans of his love poems. as a matter of fact, i've been stalking him myself for months under the pretense of just "getting to know" him because his work is "so charming, so natural, so utterly without pretense..." a little flattery goes a long way with the famous-in-their-own-world types...but i'm a little nervous that somehow i'll slip and he'll recognize me for the crazed fan that i am. but hopefully by then it'll be too late and he'll already have eaten his daughters boiled bunny.

but back to the slam: i came in dead last, booed the hell out of the judges and was a very sore loser in general but had the best time! i'm not nervous anymore when i'm reading or otherwise performing on stage but last night was about unpracticed storytelling. no notes, no memorization and no one knew me. there were a total of ten contenders, pulled out of a hat and everyone told a first person story. for some reason i couldn't think of a first person story that wasn't already a poem and so i retold a fairy tale.

the theme was, "busted" and so i told the story of rumplestiltskin. remember the little elf (i made him a dred elf with a trinidadian accent which would've been hilarious if i hadn't been so nervous), who spun all the straw into gold so the farmers daughter wouldn't be killed by the king? well she eventually promised him her first born son but didn't want to give up her child when it came time to pay the piper. the dred elf decides to let her keep her child if she can guess his name, which she does by catching him in the forest singing (and i made this shit up on the spot!):

(to the tune of no woman no cry)
no woman no win
no woman no win
lil darlin gon shed much tear
my name is rumplestiltskin

BUSTED!

i went WAY over time (the story slam has a five minute time limit as opposed to the three minute/ten second slam time limit), i probably went on for ten minutes (there's this freaky little whistle thing that they blow when you've used your time and it totally made me lose my concentration). all the story tellers were fantastic! there were first person stories about going on an internet date and ending up in jail because the date lunged at a police officer, accidentally mooning parents through a van window, not defending a senile relative who swore she heard the story teller sneaking out of the house to smoke a cigarette, and getting caught shoplifting in the store of a client and then being rescued by the store manager!

the host, who's name i'm very sorry i don't remember, was absolutely hilarious once he got warmed up, but i think he'd be even better if the crowd gave him more energy to work with. for the most part they laughed and clapped politely, but my secret friend and i were the only ones in the audience crackin' jokes (when i booed the judges for my low scores, secret squirrel was like, "i'll cut you! do you know who I AM?") and generally being silly. and jennifer, the vannah white/ed mcmahon-ish co-host was a great sidekick, very sweet and wrote me an email asking me to come again.

good times and a round of drinks for everyone! more later...cbell

RATS!

somebody stop me. yesterday i bought rat traps at the dollar store to set in the subways here and am hoping to start a movement. i don't know if we just don't have rats and roaches on the west coast (i saw my first roach in california when i was 12 years old and i have NEVER EVER EVER seen a west coast rat!), or if they are simply well mannered enough to hide themselves when a lady approaches! the other day, a rat stared me down on the stairs leading to the union square f train. i was like, Shoo! Shoo! i stamped my foot and tried to scare it away then i walked up on it all big and bold, thinking that it would back down and let me pass, but the little MF just cocked it's head and stared at me as if i were trespassing! if he had a rifle, he would've shot at me! so i was like, fine, you can have your ol' fonky stairway, i didn't want to go home anyways, but then this man comes up behind me and he's laughing at me like, BWAHAA! don't you know that here, we share space with the animals? and then he walked right past the rat as if it weren't even there! so i scurried behind him (like a rat) and the whole time the lil bugger is just like, yeah, that's what i thought!

but i will have my revenge. and i know that's not very buddhist, killing rodents and all, so thank the lord i'm not a buddhist!!!...more later...cbell

Procrastination For Dummies

this is how you stall a creative project:

1) go to the movies to see the devel wears prada and stay through superman, the break-up and the lake house.

2) decide that writing is dumb and poetry is even dumber and besides, how is a grown-ass woman supposed to make a living doing either? then research debt consolodation programs and, since you just saw superman, crystal technology. then look at mathematics programs at seattle central community college because you've always wanted to be a physicist and all the people you date are so maybe this is a sign that you need to stop sleeping with science nerds and become one. decide that you need to learn html so you can design your own damn website, look for certificate programs and html for dummies type books online. google an ex-sort-of-kind-of-i don't know what we were-boyfriend from 10 years ago who you heard joined some kind of spiritual cult in arkansaw that wears purple all the time and worships jesus (i know. cult and jesus don't normally appear in the same sentence, but you'd have to know my ex.) take a few moments to be bitter about that relationship. wonder about ex's in general, slowly and one at a time.

3) eat chocolate and drink coffee after doing neither for six weeks. this way you can achieve an extreme chemical high and then have a crash so depressing that you sleep 14 hours at a time.

4) call your little sister in california and talk about family members. patiently discuss all the ways in which the two of you are superior to everyone else related to you by blood.

5) blog

and if none of the above works, put on something sparkly and fabulous, run on strappy platform wedges to the subway and meet your girls in the city to see KURTIS BLOW!!

see ya!!

Black Girlz Rule NYC Arts Scene

...at least, from my perspective. late last night, after watching the brazillians beat the hell out of the tamborine at a free concert in central park, i went to the danny simmons corridor gallery (344 grand avenue in brooklyn) to see the "I Witness" installation by rwandan-born artist, Duhirwe Rushemeza, the 2006 artist-in-residence at the harlem school of the arts. the installation, a "reflection and commemoration of the lives lost during the 1994 rwandan genocide," was one in which Rushemeza, "...remain(ed)silent for a 24-hour period carving out a pair of eyes every twelve seconds to investigate the breakdown of the statistics for (the) 1994 rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000 people. these killings occured over a 100 day period at a rate of 8000 people per day, 333 people per hour, five people per minute, and one person every 12 seconds..."

she carved with a teensy little exacto type knife filling in the outlines of large abstract shapes set against a sky-blue background with hundreds of sets of tiny little eye's. it was absolutely silent in the gallery space, out of respect for the act of commemoration, and she was facinating to watch: a graceful and thin wristed, burnt brown-skinned woman with a cascade of copper dredlocs wrapped into a bun on the top of her head. her carving was meticulous and methodical. she glanced up only once per group of visitors and she carefully looked each of one of us in the eyes before bowing her head to return to her work. every few minutes or so she would glance at her watch as if to make sure that her carvings kept time with the literal act of one murder per twelve second period.

the impact was powerful in a contemplative kind of way. since she maintained her pace for 24 hours (she'd been at it about 10 hours by the time my friends and i got there)you had to wonder at the dedication of the the murderer's and also the sheer stamina it would take (physical and psychic)to both commit and endure such terror.

also of note this summer: kara walker at the MET using her silhouettes to dialogue with the masters about the meaning of black folk, water and the katrina disaster, imani uzuri's ground breaking musical theatre debut, "her holy water: a black girls rock opera" @ joes pub and other venues throughout the city, the collage art of kenyan artist wangechi mutu at the sikkema jenkins & company gallery as well as the organic, hand-dyed, paper and house paint abstract paintings of sienna horton at the DUMBA arts collective in brooklyn, which you can see by appointment or homegirl hook-up only.

hoping to see sara jone's bridge and tunnel on broadway and, of course, the color purple musical as well before i go back home late july.