#erlichman

[emilieideas]

Odes to Lithium, Shira Erlichman (2019)

Rose

“suddenly I am / undiagnosed / another girl / a cloud / made rabbit / by a child // surely / you know how this ends // a rose / by any other name / is still a flock / of blades”

//

Postscript to Mania

“So much was taken. I’m / done. I’m here. A fish thrown back / to the river can’t help but swallow fistfuls / of self.”

[lethe-the-shoggoth]

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

— Dan Baum, Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs, Harper's Magazine (April 2016)

[savings-club]

[pretendsuperman]

[thatdairain]

[thebookthatnooneread]

Elephant Engine Highdive Revival (slam poetry)

Performance Poetry! Can be a lot of fun, and can be a whole lot of not fun. Elephant Engine High Dive Revival very accurately hits the former. I'm glad I went there instead of Vinotok at Crested Butte (suckers). They have a lot of fun on stage, and it is obvious. They are comfortable and experienced on stage, as is also obvious. They are great poets, which is the whole point. The Elephant Engine High Dive Revival are Buddy Wakefield, Anis Mojgani, Derrick Brown, & Shira Erlichman (Joined when I saw them September 19th at Western State by Robbie Q. Telfer). The Elephant Engine is poignant. They speak about personal issues that apply to pretty much everyone. They awaken the emotion. They are serious poets! But what makes it good, is that they are also entertaining. They don't overload with hard-pressing, rather depressing issues. They make it funny, too. Which is very important, I think. My favorite poet of the night was the temp: Robbie Q. Telfer. In the words of Wakefield (from stage) "[he's] so fuckin' weird, man." I bought his book sale flower (first book sold! Wooo!) His style had more diversity than the other four who were on stage and he was the funniest. That's important to me. He also had the same ability as the others to get serious. Wakefield is the most known to me. He has an incredible energy on stage. At one point during that performance, he said "excuse me" and shook out away from the mic because he got so excited. He's a funny guy. Derrick Brown was the least interesting to me that night, though he always worked with music. His poems stayed the most similar to each other. Anis Mojgani told one poem to the most perfect possible background music. Which made the piece very moving. But my second-favorite performer had to have been Shira Erlichman. Again, because she succeeded in being very funny while being more. Like most poets, they make a lot out of a lot of things. Some of which are just like: "The wind! It moves a hair" (paraphrased from one of my own poems) and some which are more like: "Suicide sucks" (Questionable Content theme, comics 500 to ~600). And others which are more like: "The Foam! If it were a movie, it'd be written in big bleedy letters!" (Robbie Telfer, also paraphrased). If you ever have the chance to see any of the performers, or the entire Elephant Engine, I recommend seeing it. They are "Wonderful".

[ohshititssteph]

Rebloged 192379328739845203974 or something pictures of Aron. No regrets.