First Person Arts

Find out what exactly happens in Tallman’s room when he is in his tidy whities, at his captain’s desk, at 3:00 in the morning.

Next Story Slam:
Tuesday, August 26th
Time: Doors at 7:30 and the Slam begins at 8:30. Get there early if you want a seat!
Theme: Worst Ever
Host: Beth Nixon
Cost: $5-$10 sliding scale

We are surrounded by unique people that care for us, inspire us, and even perplex us.
Think about the people in your life…
First Person Arts is giving you the chance to celebrate someone special or important to you by creating a video tribute in our new class “Celebration of Life” this fall!

The class, focusing on creativity and content, will give you a chance to explore your senses, feelings, memories, fantasies and other perceptions about this person when making your video tribute. You will also participate in creating a sculpture tribute from found objects that will create instant curiosity. The final gala will conclude with a sculpture welcome area and a video screening. This is a chance to meet others, learn about others and to break out of the documentary rut.

The class will be held on Wednesdays, 6 -9 PM, from Sept. 10th through Nov. 19th at the Painted Bride Arts Center. The cost is $350. Participants should have access to and understanding of video and editing equipment. Sign up and fulfill your artistic potential this fall!

Leading the course will be Leslie Birch and Richard Gretzinger of Human+Nature.
Human +Nature is a production company geared to the non-profit, arts and education communities. Leslie has spent many years as a producer for public television and she has an interest in technology art and virtual worlds. Richard is a Director of Photography with many film and commercial credits. His downtime is spent experimenting with photography.

Who ever knew a group of hungry Altar boys could cause so much trouble? And the story started out so innocently, with a funeral team and pre-blessed wafers…

Next Story Slam:
Tuesday, August 26th
Time: Doors at 7:30 and the Slam begins at 8:30. Get there early if you want a seat!
Theme: Worst Ever
Host: Beth Nixon
Cost: $5-$10 sliding scale

See you there!

Look for our ad in this week’s City Paper, cut it out, and tape it to the front of your iPhone.  It’s all you need to know:

Tuesday August 26th
Time: Doors at 7:30 and the Slam begins at 8:30.  Get there early if you want a seat!
Theme: Worst Ever
Host: Beth Nixon
Cost: $5-$10 sliding scale

Here’s a charming anecdote from Julie Cohen’s blog $650 apartment for $650:

This morning I had to tell a police offer, “SHE STOLE MY SWIPE!”

Want the story?

Ok.

I was late for work. The subway station I enter doesn’t have a booth with a metro worker (i..e no one to help you) or a regular turn-style. It has one of this scary cheese-grater type entrances like this:

So the person in front of me was having trouble swiping her card. I didn’t wait long enough for her to swipe again (late for work) so when I swiped mine, it let her through and barred me from entering. I have a monthly card so I’d have had to wait 15 more minutes for my card to clear before I could use it again and actually get onto the subway.

Luckily, there was a police man walking away. This is one of those few occasions I was happy to see a cop.

I ran up to the grate and realized that I didn’t quite no what to say. She hadn’t stolen my card, per say, so in my saddest voice I tried to get the cop to turn around and help, “That lady accidentally stole my swipe and now I can’t get on the subway!” He gave me a look that was something like I-Never-Thought-These-Would-Be-The-Sort-of-Favors-I-Would-
Spend-My-Days-Granting,

and then he let me through.

***

Ok, there is a reason I don’t write memoir.

Oops, too late!

Cohen titles every post on her blog with a different almost-plausible name of a small press:

On the Lam and Eating Pie Press

When I Try and Turn Off My Phone It Calls My Dad’s Doctor Press

My Press Will Increase Your Adoring Fans Press

You get the idea.  If you live in New York City, $650 Apartment for $650 is pretty much the best place to get daily information on poetry readings and other nifty arts&culture stuff.

Anyone who’s been in a Best Buy can attest that it’s a stressful environment.  And when you think you’ve been wronged?  Well, that could drive a man to do just about anything:

Next StorySlam:

Tuesday August 26th
Time: Doors at 7:30 and the Slam begins at 8:30.  Get there early if you want a seat!
Theme: Worst Ever
Host: Beth Nixon
Cost: $5-$10 sliding scale

The subject of memoir is not experience but the revelation of consciousness:  In the middle of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.

Dante

First Person Arts is offering an excellent new writing class this fall on memoir-writing! The class will involve reading various memoirists and essayists, in-class writing exercises, and participant workshops on a personal essay or chapter from a memoir. The class will tackle the questions of how consciousness is constructed and the role of memory, as well as the legitimacy of self-life-writing: what are the fundamental tenets of constructing an authentic self on the page? How can we be authorized to tell the truth?

The class will be held on Mondays, 6 - 9 PM, from Sept. 8th through Nov. 10th at the Painted Bride Arts Center. The cost is $350. Sign up here to grab your spot and find your voice in this class before spaces run out!

Instructor: August Tarrier

August Tarrier is a writer, editor and publisher. She is the Editor in Chief of New City Press and Professional Writer in Residence at the University of Baltimore. She has recently completed a short story collection and a memoir.

If you have some time, an imagination, and an empty suitcase… sign up for Beth Nixon’s, puppeteer extraordinaire, Suitcase Puppet Theater workshop coming this fall!

Suitcases contain vast possibilities for metaphor and imagination, not to mention making snazzy self-contained theater spaces. Whether unpacking personal history, sharing tales of adventure, homecoming or escape, or illustrating what we carry- this old school theatrical device is rife with story-telling potential.

In this workshop, you’ll learn everything you need to put on a show-stopping performance in your suitcase-turned-puppet stage! You might even get the chance to present your work at the First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art on Nov. 13th.

Sound fun? Classes are Thursdays 7 - 9pm at the Painted Bride Arts Center this fall, Sept. 11th - Nov. 20th. The cost is $360, and sign up here ASAP, since there are only 12 spots available!

Before you start the workshop, take a few minutes to watch Beth Nixon’s video about the work she does and see her “teach people how to make real what they imagine.”

Beth is also hosting our monthly Story Slam next Tuesday, August 26th at L’Etage. Audience members will tell their best ever “worst ever” stories!

The world’s a-frenzy as the pool gives way to the track at the Beijing Olympics. Maybe that’s what drew my attention to the Telegraph’s review of novelist Haruki Murakami’s new memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running has a satisfyingly elliptical structure. Its central strand concerns Murakami’s preparations for the 2005 New York City Marathon. Around this he weaves accounts of earlier races - marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons - as well as the story of his beginnings as a novelist and runner.

From his epiphany at a baseball game on April Fool’s Day 1978 - ‘the crack of bat meeting ball right on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium… And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel’ - there is a movement between everyday, prosaic detail and more philosophical possibilities.

By turns, running is presented as simply a means of combating the newly sedentary novelist’s tendency to put on weight, and as a kind of healthful yang to the decadent yin of the writerly imagination.

Ultimately, he suggests, it provides the physical and mental stamina necessary to sustain life as a creative artist over the span of a lengthy career. Running becomes both a metaphor for the focus and endurance needed by the writer and a means by which they can be achieved.

Read the rest here.  What are you doing to “sustain life as a creative artist”?

Sincerest apologies if your Impressions entry was bounced back. We’re having a little technical difficulty with our e-mail here and since it’s taking a little longer than we anticipated to sort it out, we’ll accept submissions through midnight on Monday August 18th. Give us a call if you have any questions: 267-402-2057