Condensary: Brazil/Boldt

It was a very long and very busy and very satisfying weekend, and while I hope to report on the density of the busyness in the near future (especially on the Halpern/Wolach reading Saturday night and Wolach's talk earlier this afternoon for Nonsite), I'm still basking in the afterglow of tonight's Condensary reading featuring

Lindsey Boldt

&

David Brazil

The Condensary is mostly badass due to hosts Jackqueline Frost and Zack Tuck being super nice and welcoming, and there's something about the collective-living-situation-cum-reading-venue that especially thrives on the energy of tons of people crammed in an intimate, shared space: as if the house feeds on the energy of humans to be a house for humans.

Boldt read from her Goldie Hawn project, which I somehow remembered appearing in a past issue of War and Peace (which seems weirdly appropriate because in Boldt's hands Goldie becomes a haywire allegory for all kinds of things including, of course, her own desire), but when I got home and searched around for it, I realized I read it in Try! Here's my favorite bit from the magazine:

Kurt Russell: What are you doing? and I looked at him. I looked at Kurt Russell in the eye and said,
Goldie Hawn: My name is Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell laughed and moved his body away.
Kurt Russell: That's very funny, he said, and all I could do was thrum, thrum, thrum.
Kurt Russell: Okay, I get it, Goldie. Very nice, and I made one of those weird half cat-half Marge Simpson noises and said,
Goldie Hawn: My name is Goldie Hawn and your name is Kurt Russell and my teeth gritted.
Goldie Hawn: Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt because I was beginning to course and shudder.

In this particular section, the thrumming and Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrting leads to a "zing" of pure energy that feels particularly appropriate for tonight's zinging in a house thriving on thrum. Boldt read from the third part in which Goldie becomes an amalgamation of Daryl Hannah's characters in Splash and Attack of the 50 ft Woman and then mounts the city's phallic architecture...

Brazil read a "clutch" of shorter pieces before launching into his new chapbook "meet me beneath the war angels," which, besides sporting 2010's great title, perfectly captures his thrum und Rrrrrrrrrrrrt. Here the notebook is fully redeemed as a lyric site: "redeemed" in Benjamin's sense in that the neglected moments of the past find articulation in a past-annihilating present. Brazil deftly weaves together his interest in the critical, classical, linguistic, messianic, and it seems to have hit a perfect chord with those in attendance tonight. If you didn't get a copy of the chapbook from David directly, you might drop a note to OMG publisher Brandon Brown...

And here are some pics...I tried to take some diptychs by flashing photos from Alli's camera and my camera simultaneously, but I sadly neglected to think through the problem that, to present said photos as diptychs, I'd have to download pictures from Alli's camera too...Here are mine...