We set up our literary salon on the third floor and took breaks in between readings to absorb great music. It worked more perfectly than I'd imagined and for a while I was skeptical - not just because of the literature/music mash-up, but because of the fact that the series had left its usual cozy house. But the Khyber show ended up being something more - it added a new element to the series and I feel that it's now grown and expanded into something that will reach a lot more people. The musicians were all (for the most part) good friends of mine, so it felt really wonderful to bring them into this kind of environment. Matt Robinson and Danny Jacobs both gave brilliant readings, and Alison Lang and Laura Dawe were both hilarious and thoroughly entertaining. This reading session/show was a massive thing for me - Three hours long. Kristen, Willie, and Nick ended their set at precisely eleven o'clock and their uplifting music was the perfect ending for the night. I was all of these things after I said goodnight and thanked the audience:
proud - elated - relieved - excited - amazed
I'm looking forward to May because we'll be back @ Yukon St. and it will be not be nearly as stressful to organize. However, I will be organizing another bigger show at the Khyber sometime over the summer (June or July) For the next one I'm going to try and bring full bands in to play...this will much more difficult to organize and what I have planned might be too crazy and expensive to pull off, but hey - us reading series hosts are like karmic magicians. I know that sounds pretentious but if you were there last night you would have felt the love all around the room. The encouragement, the praise, the appreciation, the raw art that flung from the mouths and minds of all of these wonderfully talented people:
Danny Jacobs
Matt Packman (Catholic Gaydar)
Alison Lang
Panos Giannoulis
Laura Dawe
Alex Meade and Marc-Antoine Robertson (Soho Ghetto)
Matt Robinson
Kristen Wells, Willie Stratton
Take a bow, everyone - even those who sat in the audience. We all created something beautiful together.
p.s. - Daniel Joyce rocks.
He's like the art Jesus of Halifax.
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