Things that should not be picked up in the first place

posted in: distance learning | 0

Do you like going out on a Monday Night? Do you want to see a great performance? Huh? Huh?

Why don’t you come visit us at the Meekling Press headquarters, AKA Jura$$ic Park, tomorrow (MONDAY NOVEMBER 16) for a performance of Becky Grajeda’s

Things that should not be picked up in the first place: part 4

November 16, at 7:30pm, 2059 N. Racine Chicago IL

Here’s a clip from a previous performance in this series:

In Becky’s words:

Existing somewhere between sound and comedic art, Becky Grajeda’s “Things that should not be picked up in the first place” is a series of performances in which a panel of Chicago-based artists and non-artists improvise a conversation, while embedded in a live mix of sound art and/or music. Grajeda and fellow panelists will discuss topics ranging from the banal to the socially relevant, together devising, deconstructing, and perfecting absurd concepts and contexts. The live mixed sound art will disrupt and inform the panelists’ conversation, each taking turns at the periphery of the soundscape.

Panelists:
Becky Grajeda
Nicholas Davis, sound and performance artist, member of Meekling Press
Neal Markowski, musician, sound artist, founder of the Single Action Rider label
Jacob Layne Miller, writer/actor/director, producing partner at Gratuity Not Included Productions

Tickets: $10

“Things that should not be picked up in the first place” is being developed during Grajeda’s Artist Sponsorship at High Concept Labs, Chicago.
highconceptlaboratories.org/becky-grajeda/

 

 

Back to School with Meekling Dept. of Cont. Ed.

posted in: distance learning | 0

The information presented by these distinguished lecturers may be fabricated, but that makes it no less useless. Please join us for the first evening in our 2015 fall lecture series: Meekling TALKS: Confabulations.

at

Tritriangle
1550 N. Milwaukee, 3rd Floor, Chicago
8pm, October 8, 2015
$5 suggested donation

Facebook Event

The Clairaudient at Work

Nicholas Davis describes and demonstrates his practice of CLAIRAUDIENCE, receiving audio signals from creatures & objects that have passed beyond the grave, from aliens in the farthest reaches of space, and from the deepest depths of the human psyche. Supernatural or just super? You be the judge.

 

Understanding Molecular Typography by H.F. Henderson.
Understanding Molecular Typography by H.F. Henderson.

 

Woody Leslie explores H.F. Henderson’s UNDERSTANDING MOLECULAR TYPOGRAPHY, and the system explained therein of deconstructing letters into their constituent molecules. Will this change the way you interact with words, language, communication with your peers? Will you soon see the letters on the page start to dissolve into vibrating strings right before your eyes? Yes, probably!

Objects & Fragments & Magic

In this session Greg Howard leads workshop on Writing-as-Collection, which will include reading from his work and strategies for writing-as-collection, with bonus exercises to complete before and during.

Gregory Howard teaches creative writing, contemporary literature, and film studies at the University of Maine. His first novel Hospice has just been released by FC2. He lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife and cats.

(& be sure to check out Dennis Cooper’s tribute to Hospice here: http://goo.gl/G5zFTe)

 

WRITING-AS-COLLECTION EXERCISES

~to complete before~

Part 1
Spend a part of your day or week collecting objects. For our purposes here, let’s define objects broadly–not just literal objects like things you find on the street, in your room, in a friends room, but also perceptions, memories, ideas, sentences or lines from work. Basically collect anything that fascinates you are captures your fancy.

Now make a list. Be specific in your list. The fabric of your language is important here. Don’t just write “the photograph.” Write instead: “the photograph of the vacation in which the girl, who wearing a green one-piece swimsuit with golden fish on it, looks bored while being entertained by a street magician who looks malevolent and possibly drunk.” In other words, describe your objects well.

Write a short narrative based around your list (250 words). Use the actual language of your list.

 

~to be done during~

Part 2
While I’m talking make a new list. What words or ideas strike you while I’m talking? What suddenly looks new or strange in the place that you are in? Look at your new list of objects. Why are they interesting? Why are they important? Who might find them fascinating? Write this story by connecting it to your previous narrative, the one you thought you had finished (surprise!), thus creating a newer longer narrative. How can you connect these two? How might they be “read together”? Try to keep the surprising and fragmentary nature of the pieced going. Don’t smooth things over. (another 100-200 words)