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February 01, 2009
Idiots'Books Tour, 2009
Yes, friends, the time has come. In five short days, we depart for the first annual Idiots'Books east coast tour. I call it a tour because we are leaving town and will be performing in two separate venues in two separate states. Just as two points make a line, two venues make a tour. If I sound defensive it is because I fully realize that the upcoming itinerary is the bare minimum of public performances that could feasibly constitute a "tour". Yet I am not above stretching a bit for the sake of glory.
Here is what lies ahead.
This coming Saturday, February 7, at 8:00pm, Robbi and I, along with Brian Slattery (novelist and musician), Drew Bunting (punk rocking preacher), Rich Flynn (bass playing bacon enthusiast), and Brian Wecht (string theorist and musician) will be performing at the Raconteur, an independent bookstore in Metuchen, NJ.
The aforementioned gentlemen:
Go to this link and scroll down to see the posting on the Raconteur schedule of events, or just read this blurb (written by Brian Slattery) to get the gist of what we'll be up to:
A couple of years ago, a husband & wife named Matthew Swanson & Robbi Behr decided to live in a barn in Maryland and make books. He wrote the text; she did the illustrations. What are these books you're making? the townspeople said. They weren't children's books. They weren't comics, either. The duo shrugged and said they did not know. They just kept making them. Thus was Idiots'Books born. Around the same time, a public policy editor living in New Haven, CT published a novel. What is this book you wrote? the towns- people said. It wasn't exactly literary fiction. It wasn't exactly science fiction, either. He shrugged and said he did not know, but he wrote another one, and that was published, too. Thus did Brian Francis Slattery change from the name of that kid you knew who went to Catholic school (though he did not go to Catholic school) to weird science-fiction author. Swanson, Behr, & Slattery all happened to know each other. They also happened to be pretty good musicians and know a bunch of musicians who were even better--bass player Rich Flynn and clarinet/saxophone/keyboard player Brian Wecht, among others. All of them shared a flair for the dramatic. So they decided to join forces and do readings from their books, accompanied by projections and a backup band. Like the Beats in their heyday might have done, except with more rock and a projector. The results are unrehearsed, unpredictable, and, according to those that have seen them, thoroughly entertaining.
The second part of the "tour" takes place two days later (February 9) in Williamstown, Massachusetts, home of the alma mater of all of those mentioned above, the small, understated college known as Williams.
The Williams event was the impetus for the tour, and so it called for professional marketing materials. Here is the poster/postcard Robbi designed to advertise the happening:
And here is the back of the postcard, which goes into greater detail regarding the lineup (click image to enlarge).
Basically, we're going to have a panel in which we will describe for current students our various routes to lives in the arts, explaining that being an artist sometimes means finding a way to pay the bills by non-artistic means as a way of subsidizing the creative habit. We will then eat dinner with any of them who might enjoy the proposition before returning to the stage for a performance that will include music, literature (variously defined), and images. It will be a boiled-down version of the lineup at last February's Idiots'Fest (though sadly without a National Book Award finalist in the lineup).
We will once again be joined by teen drumming sensation Aidan Shepard.
Iggy will be coming on tour as well, though her role in the act is yet to be defined. It might involve some sort of dramatic reading while wearing her blue polka-dotted bathrobe, but then again, it might not.
She'd like to preserve a bit of mystery, if you don't mind.
So if you find yourself near Metuchen or Williamstown on the appropriate evenings, we'd love to see you. And if we aren't coming to your city this time around, know that we will try to make next year's Idiots'Books tour even longer and action-packed than this year's thrill ride.
Stay tuned.
Posted by bogenamp at February 1, 2009 11:48 PM