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Thursday, June 15, 2006

Never Mind The Poetry

I meant to post this Tuesday night, but I just don't know where to start. As you may or may not know, or care, I occasionally attend Alberta Street Pub's Broken Word poety reading on Tuesdays. Sometimes I read, sometimes I just sit and suffer. This last week's revue was particulary awful--except for the main event, which was the release of a collaborative work called Dipshit Love.

You'll never guess who sidled up to me at my table. Yup. The crazy bag lady who has it in for David Lerner. She set her Screwdriver down on the table, asked nicely if she could sit with me, I obliged, and she started through her bag of poems, looking for the perfect selections to read for the evening. I couldn't believe it. Alice Olds-Ellingson was sitting at my table. The heckled and the heckler, rubbing elbows, breaking bread, making nice. OK, we never did any of those things. We never spoke to one another except for "Can I sit here?" and "Of course. Please..."

That doesn't mean she didn't talk. The whole night.

There was the assorted commentary, usually supportive and congratulatory of the other readers. And of course, there was the crazy banter, those things that only meant something to Alice.

Particularly, when one woman gave some background to the poem she was about to read, she said something that sounded like " eat Demerol.." A fellow in the audience shouted, "Eat Demerol?" The reader responded with the correct phrase, which I can't remember--because of the commentary soon to follow...

"Yeah, Eat Demerol," joked the poet on stage, and Alice immediately added, "At Dennys."

I don't remember anything else. I laughed to myself the rest of the evening.

You gottt love crazy people. Unarmed crazies, anyway.


At Denny's...ha ha .

Cindy

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The power and thoughts from the minds of crazy people drives all true innovation and art in the world. And of course, eating Demerol at Denny’s is how we nourish our best ideas.

Keep up the good fight Alice.

7:22 AM  
Blogger Hannah M. said...

hilarious, as always.

keep it up, Cindy:P

2:18 PM  

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