Unfortunately I missed the multitude of events this weekend. Fortunately the wings of rumor have been fluttering around the office ever since. Community Talk, which my colleague, Dolores, will highlight in greater detail, proved a success. Thanks to the collaboration of Gemini Ink and Magik Theatre, R.L. Stine made his San Antonio debut with a workshop, dinner and a Saturday morning event for the kids. From what I have heard, the workshop was fantastic. Stine proved to be both a teacher and an entertainer, sharing stories about his children and fans, while at the same time passing on excellent advice. Write for an hour at the same time every day. Lucinda bought his new book about to come out Beware, which Stein admits to being his favorite.
When asked about the Friday reading, Erika was all aglow as she explained how awesome the evening went. After the kick-start from our community writer, Roland Huff, Salma Abdelnour inspired all, reading from her book, Jasmine and Fire, to be published in 2012. Not even published yet!! How cool is that?!! It was based off her imagined life if she had stayed in Lebanon during the civil war. Then, moving the audience from tears to laughter with her stories, Jenny Browne, followed by her Trinity entourage, read from her latest work in progress, Lucky Women, inspired by a favorite aunt and mentor who past away in flight Swiss-air 111. To seal the deal on the night, apparently Browne and Abdelnour became fast friends, or at least new mutual acquaintances. Rumor has informed me that Saturday’s classes have been equally successful.
-Paul Hoeg, Gemini Intern
Gold: the color that highlighted the foyer of the Historic Pearl Stable, and the mood of the evening. Everyone was dressed in their glittering finest and underneath the golden chandelier sparkled the conversation of old and new friends deep into the night.
Waiting for dinner, people placed their bids on the many Fotoseptembre photographs. The pictures ranged from black and white, depictions of Texas landscape and to the abstract. Later I would help a winner pack Joan Frederick’s lamp with photographic Koi. Browsing through the pictures, I recognized Arturo Almeida’s Staircase. I had the pleasure of meeting him on one of my intern errands. A hearty thanks to George Prado, a major contributor to the golden atmosphere of the night.
Master of Ceremonies, Dr. Grissom warmly started the evening, followed by the many thanks and welcome presented by Rosemary Catacalos. Bryce Milligan accepted the award presented by his long time friend Robert Bonazzi, Wings Press editor. Milligan gave a warm, brief acceptance speech, before introducing and reading two of his poems. The splendid images and sounds made me contemplate pulling out my poetic ink jar again.
Robert Voght wonderfully full-filled the auctioneer image complete with the constant stream of dialogue and the final note of “Sold!” I was tempted to stick my hand up for the Rooftop Tour and Ice Cream social, but my pending rent told otherwise. There was a fierce battle over the “Old Aspen” ski Days at Goldstein “Cabin.” It was a joy to see how eager people were to bid on the charity item, Eye of the Child, Eye of the Dog, but I think the coolest item award went to the Bowtie Master Class. I wish I knew how to tie a bowtie and how awesome would it be to learn from a master like Maestro Bill Sinkin!
The night ended with dancing and casual chatter underneath the golden chandelier, while Milligan stood at his table talking with fans, and people slowly picked up their items, trickling out. On behalf of Gemini Ink, from the honorary chairs, sponsors, hosts and item contributors to the caterers, thank you to everyone involved in making this golden event possible. What an incredible night.
-Paul Hoeg, Gemini Intern
As testified by the untouched cheese and crackers, tonight was laid back when compared to the Berkeley concert. Every faculty reading someone from our community gets the opportunity to read. This week our fellow volunteer, Robert Allen, stepped up to the plate. Later, after the reading, I would have the opportunity to talk to Allen about how he used Microsoft word’s word count to create his own poetry forms using an exact number of words, 1369, lines 222, and paragraphs 5.
It felt as though there should be elevator music, the way the few of us trickled in to the room. Someone with a bushy beard, and fatherly smile walked past me. Soon we were deeply engaged in a conversation about magic. We talked about writing, word-play, about the definition of the infinite, the battle of the sexes and a variety of other topics.
Then the reading began: first Allen, then the SA Current columnist, Lyle Rosdahl. I was really looking forward to this reading and the class on Flash Fiction. Never having heard about the genre before, the description of Flash Fiction on the Gemini Ink website—“Creation and destruction on a page. Or less dramatically the quiet absorption of a moment.”—sounded very close to my own writing. Expecting Rosdahl to read a piece about a singular moment, I was pleasantly surprised when he stood at the podium, and read two obituaries highlighting two entire lives. It puts things in perspective to think that one’s life is a singular moment in the grand scheme of time. Later, I would talk to him individually about the genre. I got to talk to a writer about writing! How cool is that!?
To polish off the relaxing evening, the man with the bushy beard handed me a beautiful hand-made booklet of his own work. We bid adieu and I went back inside where I met Erika.
“He’s an interesting guy, isn’t he?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“That’s Moises Sandoval. He’s going to be reading with us at the Faculty Reading on October 14th.”
Here at Gemini Ink, we truly are surrounded by those who value the craft of writing.
-Paul Hoeg, Gemini Intern
Notes, chords, and tunes sound like astrophysics to me and my concert experience consisted of a Pink Floyd cover band and the Fray. So, when I entered the Gemini Ink teal, green building Monday evening to help out with the David Berkeley concert I had no idea what to expect.
The cling of the front door bells announced the arrival of the “Musical Poet,” as coined by the San Francisco Chronicle. Tall, lean, with Harry Potter’s hair and a Bob Dylan look, David Berkeley entered the room as prince for the evening: all eyes were on him.
First came The Song and The Story class. David sat in the middle of the classroom with his Ipad in his lap. After briefly discussing the pros and cons to prose and songwriting, and the relationship between both, David pulled out his guitar. He told us how he had recently developed a friendship with the author Harlan Coben, and together the two decided to write a song based off Coben’ s upcoming young adult novel, Shelter. It was interesting to hear about all the decisions involved in transferring the two mediums, song and prose. Then David sang the finished song, also called Shelter. From the moment he struck his tune he had transported us into another world. What a treat. When we came back down to earth, we did a quick writing exercise. First we listened to Suzanne by Leonard Cohen and wrote a prose excerpt inspired by that. This, I think was the highlight of my evening: having the opportunity to not only share my writing with an artist, but having an artist share his writing with us. Then we reversed it. He read a New York Times op-ed piece and we wrote a song. The poem was about 9/11. He said we could use any tune. You can imagine how hard it was to write about 9/11 to the only tune I knew—Jingle Bells. Let’s just say, I’m glad it was a comfortable environment.
After class, we hung about while people trickled in for the concert until everyone was lost in conversation, crackers and iced tea. For the opening act, Bett and Joël Dilley’s smooth Jazz left us with that Christmas morning feeling of joy. The act ended with a note of an encore.
Then it was his turn. David, sporting his Wimberly, Texas sponsored boots and shirt, with his partner in crime Jordan Katz, stepped onto the stage. David’s commentary and Jordan’s speechlessness would have been enough to entertain us for the night, but when they sang we left this world…
After a while, David read an excerpt from his book, 140 Goats and a Guitar, about his life on Corsica. One could see his fascination with words and story come alive. After the reading, they went back to singing. When they sang Shelter again it had a very different feel. We talked about this phenomenon in class: one of the pros of song is that it invokes different feelings every time. It was cool to see this in action.
Nine times out of ten, you can tell something is great when the ones putting it on have a smile on their face. Butler and Dilley always had a smile, and Jordan and David were doing nothing but enjoying their first time in San Antonio. The night ended with an encore followed up by three more songs. While this wasn’t a concert by the Fray with colored lights and fog machines, it certainly was a night to remember.
-Paul Hoeg, Gemini Intern
