Monday, November 22, 2010

December Reading the 2nd--Three Years!

Join us to celebrate three years of terrific experimental writing. This show features five great writers, film, music, and general high spirits!


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1,000 WORDS READING: PERMANENCE
7PM sharp-9PM, Thursday, December 2 AT THE WAYPOST, 3120 N. WILLIAMS AVE., PORTLAND (503-367-3182)
FREE
ALL-AGES VENUE; FOOD, BEER, AND WINE AVAILABLE
CONTACT: MEL FAVARA, 971-506-3340, mel.favara@gmail.com

We’ll present the newest chapter in a Oulipean experiment, and our 3RD ANNIVERSARY SHOW (mysterious and random door prizes provided)! Five exemplary local writers, one musician, and a filmmaker responded to the theme PERMANENCE, penning 250 words per week (or making 250 seconds of film) for four weeks, totaling 1,000 words each, in response to the theme and prompts created/found/stolen by series curator Mel Favara. The results, as per usual, have been wildly divergent, smart, and fresh: want to see how six participants employed the phrase, “tattooed the word "tiny" across her knuckles” and the words tattered,
sale, spin, pool, and foil in one 250 word piece? Join us Thursday the 2nd at the Waypost to hear the writer’s innovative writing and also witness the 1,000 Words house band, Reid Trevarthen, playing songs based on the prompts at the intermission.

Performers:
Joe Pitkin can make few claims to specialness besides the fact that he is a perennial reader for 1,000 Words: he’s kind of like the Randy Newman of 1,000 Words. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere; he started writing speculative fiction a couple of years ago and has had pieces in M-Brane and Expanded Horizons. He teaches—if you can call what he does teaching—at Clark College.

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of the micropress, Future Tense Books, and a writer whose work has appeared widely in places like Nerve, Night Train, Opium, McSweeney's, Quick Fiction, Yeti, and Smith Magazine. He is the editor of Portland Noir and the author of Creamy Bullets and A Common Pornography.

Laura Moulton earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University. She has taught writing workshops in high schools, universities, and the women’s prison in Wilsonville. Her art piece “Object Permanence” was commissioned by Portland State University in 2009. Her stories and essays have been featured in Hip Mama, Portland Tribune, and Brain, Child. Her essay about visiting slums in Brazil appeared in Street Roots in June. She is a contributing artist to Disappearing, a book project by artist Melody Owen. Moulton is currently at work on a novel.

Amy Temple Harper is adopted from Korea and lives in Portland. Her poetry and
fiction have been published in the Oregon Literary Review and The Portland Review.

Kirby Light is a peripheral visionary! He can see way into the future but only off to the left and right. He is a firm believer that punctuation is not sexy and that the state of a man's kitchen is no indication of how well that man can take care of a woman. When not being the hero and villain of his own story you can find Kirby laying in the gutter looking up at the stars, or you can find him writing, but the writing is just the residue and far from what he does best.

Musician Reid Trevarthen lived in Italy at one point in time. At other points in time he played “Weather Watchers” with his grade school friends, learned how to speak some German and alternated between wearing and not wearing glasses. Now he is playing music and starting to learn to do the things that grown-ups do.

Karl Lind is a filmmaker, cameraman, director, editor, and video artist living in Portland, Oregon. He has been contemplating adopting a cat for quite awhile. See his work at www.inthecanllc.com.

Curator/Host Mel Favara has helmed 1,000 Words for three years, wrote the zine teen sleuth through the 90’s and 00s, teaches writing and literature at Clark College, and makes a mean marinara from scratch.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Great Story

http://www.mybaycity.com/scripts/p3_v2/P3V2-0200.cfm?P3_NewspaperID=1007&P3_articleID=05046

The above address has a new story and the writer mentions Daddy quite a bit.

Bay City, Michigan 48706 Front Page Search Subscribe Log in About Us Issue 1007 July 11, 2010
Article 05046

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The Leona was one of the first summer homes built along the lakeshore and is a fine example of the Arts and Crafts style popularized around the turn-of-the-century by Gustave Stickley. It was built in 1911.
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Linwood Icehouse Museum Awaits Placement in Park Next Week
Nostalgia for Days Gone By Envelop the Beach Area on Hot Midsummer Days
July 7, 2010
By: Dave Rogers

How can I forget Frank Walsh, the Leona, and the icehouse?

Answer: I can't.

I drove up and down Linwood Beach today looking for the icehouse museum.

Nobody seemed to know where it was.

"I'm not from around here," said one woman, taking a break from shepherding a child on a swing set.

"I'm from around here, but I never heard of it," said a construction worker looking guy fiddling with tools in a truck.

"Nope, never heard of it," proclaimed another man sweating in nearly 90 degree sun, adding with a pant: "Sounds great though; wonder if they have beer?

At the Linwood Beach Marina, a guy who looked like he was in charge, said: "Check the Linwood Party Store," they know what's going on there.

Sure enough, the guy at the Linwood Party Store knew, and gave me a name and phone number for a Larry Chambers.

It seems Mr. Chambers is the stem-winder of this project that is due to be erected at the Linwood Bicentennial Park (bicentennial means it was installed in 1976, just in case you weren't around then.)

Sadly, the Leona is gone, replaced by a new "cottage." However, next week the old, historic icehouse will be erected on a slab all ready to go at the park.

The project is funded by donations from private parties and the Bay Area Community Foundation. It will be a restored piece of history and the showplace of Linwood, being located very near the sign: "Welcome to Linwood."

At the ground breaking on May 22 memories were recalled of earlier halcyon days at the beach, of lazy summers when folks from the city had time to spend away from the hot city and their desks.

They came by Model T and train to rude cottages crowding the shores of Saginaw Bay, replaced now by fancy pricey brick palaces, many suited for all year living.

I recalled having a place at Linwood Beach in the 1960s and attending the beach festival; some of the folks I knew then are still around, and some are not.

Like the unforgettable Frank Walsh, a librarian and bookstore owner in Saginaw, who died in 2008. I can never forget the inscrutable Frank because he and I were kindred spirits of the book, of literature, of history.

At a memorable party at the Leona, the picturesque, venerable cottage of his family, he gave me a copy of the biography of James G. Birney called "Slaveholder to Abolitionist."

That started me on a nearly 20 year odyssey to write a successor volume to that book by Betty Fladeland. Her book started during her research at the University of Michigan into Mr. Birney after her professor, Dwight Lowell Dumond, had rescued Mr. Birney's papers from the basement of his grandson, George Birney Jennison, in Bay City. Someone had to decipher those scratchings, and Ms. Fladeland was selected. Her book, published by Cornell University Press, and two volumes of the letters resulted, published in 1966.

But I digress. Back to Linwood, and the heat.

It seems that nostalgia has been breaking out all over Linwood as a result of the project to save the almost lamented icehouse.

The icehouse, situated near the old Leona cottage, was nearly lost to history until it was rescued by Mr. Chambers and like-minded folks from the area. It was a stroke of wisdom and no doubt will provide inspiration to many devoted to historic preservation.

Frank Starkweather, a beach resident as a youth, recalled how the ice was loaded into the icehouse:

"They also brought lots of saw dust, which was plentiful and cheap. They would put several inches of saw dust on the floor, and then put the ice cubes down (big ones, heavy enough that a full sized man had a hard time lifting one). Saw dust would be shoveled between the cracks of the base level blocks, so they would not melt together into an impossible big, and solid chunk. Lots of saw dust would go around the outside of the base level, between the ice and the inside of the wall boards, That is where the saw dust was called on to do its most work: keeping the summer sun from melting the ice as it beat upon the walls."

At the groundbreaking for the museum, Broadway playwright Ken Gaertner read three of his poems and Rob Clark of The Bay City Times, as is his wont, composed and played an original ditty about the icehouse most appropriate for the occasion. Here is is, as found on the icehouse museum website:

The Icebox, by Rob Clark

Some people say it's nothing but a house for frozen water

Some people believe these walls cannot talk

Many know it as a place like no other

Where ghosts and legends still walk

These boards have lived for more than a century

They're filled with old paint and memories

They've seen generations blow through on the wind

They are the script of our history

So we gather here today to remember

We plant new seeds so we never will forget

CHORUS

They're carving out a puzzle out on Saginaw Bay

The boys are hauling in the blocks

Well it ain't easy work

Lord knows what it took

Day after day after day

To fill the icebox

They say these men work like thundering horses

They say these men set all fear aside

Some have conquered Mother Nature's forces

Some have slipped below the ice

So we gather here today to remember

We dig up dirt so we never will forget

CHORUS

Time has a way of skewing the truth

Time has a way of stealing our youth

Time is a mystery, to you and me

But time is on our side

A sunny day ... late May

A celebration pulled from the stacks

We move forward and build this place again

So those who come next can look back

CHORUS

Mr. Clark has a way of waxing musically poetic; and that he did, to his great credit.

So the icehouse has had its proper tribute and now awaits the final placement and the plaudits of the crowds who will no doubt be captivated by the idea of an old-time icehouse by the bay.

You can find our information about the Linwood Icehouse Museum, and donating to the project, at www.linwoodicehousemuseum.blogspot.com. ###

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"The BUZZ" - Feedback From Readers
jbedell Says: On July 12, 2010 at 10:02 AM
Great story, but I believe that there is another "stem-winder for this project" - Rachael Walsh (Frank's daughter). Rachael worked tirelessly to save both the historic cottage and the icehouse. Sadly she wasn't able to save the cottage but was able to save the icehouse. I was fortunate to have been given a tour of both structures last year and am saddened that progress has robbed us of a fine old cottage with a living room that Gustave Stickley would have envied. Thankfully the icehouse was spared and will be restored and enjoyed by the public and by future generations.
andersona Says: On July 12, 2010 at 01:08 PM
Great Article! It's so nice to know that people still care about our local history and saving what we can. What a shame that the Leona didn't survive for future generations to enjoy. Thanks for reporting these kinds of stories!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

CHEERS!

A Happy Birthday toast to F, wherever he may be.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Suzie's Book


My childhood friend Suzie Wilson Ward made a beautiful book to remember Frank and The Leona. I scanned a good portion of her work; hope you enjoy. They look really great if you click on them and blow them up big on your screen.
Love,
Rachael










Wednesday, February 10, 2010

February 2008, Wedding Events


Frank, Cheri, Greg, Craig, Jane, Amy and Aaron made it all the way to Bay City during a winter storm to attend the grand wedding.

Snowed In

Mike and Rachael were snowed in and almost didn't make the rehearsal.

The snow plow even got stuck and Mike broke his car.

Rehearsal Dinner



Wedding of Seth and Christine


After the Wedding




Bride and Groom Dance