Editorial: LEVEL UP! Gratitude, Growth and Other Goings On in the Exit Strata-sphere
There is a poem I wrote in the early spring that describes the moment of meeting, and attraction, as... cellular intelligence, as when my electrons got all jumpy-like from first you walked in the room recognized yours like an overdue reunion refugees from the counties of each other and I bring that up now because, metaphorically, our Exit Strata electrons have been getting all jumpy-like a hell of a lot recently. Far beyond a one-to-one connection, this piece posits a theory of interpersonal co-evolution that I've been tossing around lately -- one that suggests that we instinctively recognize our creationary comrades: those who will make our world and life a better place, who will inspire us, challenge us, and help us evolve. This electromagnetic impulse, lets say - the biological inclination to draw this person or these people into your self or your environment - becomes/grows into "love" with WORK: because even chemical reactions require catalysts, and require the appropriate conditions for full realization. We come to love those people who bring this original impulse into being -- through the ultimately selfless act of commitment to another person or group of people. We appreciate and feel in our very bodies how awesome it is that these people stay with us, and give of themselves and their energy again and again. So we're going to start out with a big hearty THANK YOU. Oh man. We love you people. We love our contributors, the people who come to our events, the people who write us email, the people who chat with us at our tables -- and we get all jumpy for you. You know why? Because you make us believe in what we're doing, and you show us that YOU believe in what we're doing. You let us know that it supports and inspires you. That it is encouraging and enabling and growing your work and your connections and your community. And because altogether, we're feeling like we've, well, LEVELLED UP. To a new Strata. Let's hear it for 2012! Did you know it's the United Nations' Year of Cooperatives? I think that "country of eachother" those lines channel an understanding of is, in fact, the collaborative, cooperative future we are building here together.
POETRY MONTH 30/30/30 : Inspiration, Community, Tradition : DAY 5 :: Caits Meissner on Adam Falkner
Poetry Month 30/30/30: Inspiration, Community, Tradition: DAY 3 :: Bill Considine on Elinor Nauen
POETRY MONTH 30/30/30: Inspiration, Community, Tradition :: DAY 2: Pete Reilly on Mary Oliver
Today we begin the community portion of our Poetry Month: Inspiration, Community, Tradition series with Peter Reilly writing on Mary Oliver's poetry and its influence on his work. PR: Mary Oliver's gift is to describe the natural world simply, in a way that reveals the deepest secrets of our human heart. She is grounded in the reality of survival - life and death - predator and prey; yet never loses her eye for the eternal, for amazement, and for the magic of transformation. From "Wild Geese" You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. [caption id="attachment_434" align="alignright" width="300" caption="photo: Brian Reilly"][/caption] But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do - determined to save the only life you could save.
Necessarily Sō : A Sō Percussion John Cage Celebration | American Mavericks Festival, 3.26.12
[caption id="attachment_389" align="alignleft" width="594" caption="Sō Percussion"][/caption] Sō Percussion Pop-Out Media Player :: For your full multimedia pleasure, please click on this link to listen to selections from the Sō Percussion catalogue as you read! (oooooooooh, fancy!) Who is Sō Percussion? And what are they doing with that cactus? Well... what *aren't* they doing. No, seriously. These Brooklyn-based percussive polymaths come to Carnegie Hall tonight as part of the outstanding, genre bending, boundary pushing "American Mavericks" series put on by Carnegie Hall (and a range of neighborhood partners). I love these guys SO much (the puns are impossible to avoid here!), and they are a perfect example of the type of collaborative, expectation defying, community fostering, teaching, sharing, mentoring, hard working creatives that Exit Strata strives to emulate, encourage, and promote!
CoCo Online POETRY MONTH PROJECT: 30 posts, 30 poets, 30 days: call for participants!
Community CoCo: GOWANUS: Poetry, Audio Production: Bill Considine, Cosmo D, Ambrose Bye
Gowanus (Yellow Shoes): Bill Considine, Poetry - Cosmo D, Music - Produced/Mixed by Ambrose Bye from New Festivals of Rhizomes and Wraiths
Big Bang Theory / Open Call for Multimedia and hybrid/digital/cross genre work
Below you can see the visual I created for my piece, Big Bang Theory. If you create hybrid pieces like this, or have ever been inspired to, we would love to showcase these inter-media-ry explorations either here or in our
Internet Treasure Hunting: FLAME – Waldman/Bye
Waldman/Bye word/sound/video collaboration, FLAME, based on Aristophenes' Speech on Love, from Plato's Symposium
Resources + Lifehacks: do your own damn letterpress
Shared open letterpress studio time at The Arm at 3rd Ward, here in Brooklyn. I already used letterpress back in undergrad but I’m going to take the refresher intro so that I can join the collective and start using the