THE WORDS AMIDST THE MUSIC: LOST CIVILIZATIONS + DUO EXCHANGE RENEW THE RUCKUS.

Lost Civilizations, from left to right: Leah Gage, 

Mike Sebastian, Patrick Whitehead, and Ted Zook

I hope that listeners will pardon my loud “Oi! Oi!” at the beginning of the first set, but I borrowed that riff from the Sleaford Mods song, “Middlemen”, in order to quieten our garrulous audience at the Black Squirrel, November 15, 2015. A fabulous renewal of the Lost Civilizations + Duo Exchange collaboration ensued. For each gathering, Rod Smith and I provide the words (the “Duo Exchange”) amidst the music, and we always label the most recent outing “the best”, this one without hesitation. Connoisseurs of our collaboration may recall that we script nothing in advance. The music as well as the poems find their own order as the event flows forward.

For a free listen of the first set (39 minutes) click [HERE]

For a free listen of the second set (33 minutes) click [HERE]

Ted Zook (basscello) and Mike Sebastian (saxophones) form the core of the Lost Civilizations Experimental Music Project, to which they invite guest musicians. On this night, Leah Gage sat-in on drums, and Patrick Whitehead joined on trumpet and flugelhorn, making us a six-member outfit. Rod and I attempt to build a city—many voices and humors—every time Duo Exchange sets out, and yet, no matter how much we may anticipate the evening’s trajectory, the music inspires us not only for its abiding quality, but also for the many surprising ways in which the musicians might push, embolden, and shape our performance. 

At times, we might’ve noted the manipulation of silence and the occupation of part-spaces. At other times, we might’ve caught the discordant caucusing in advance of one instrument prevailing. The Big Sound might’ve staggered us, the declarations of agreement that fronted and trailed synthesis. Did Lost Civilizations swing? Oh yeah, I think so. The musicians answered questions—with brassy, reedy, thumping, sawing language—in need of responses, only we had no knowledge of these questions before the performance began. We broke the surface of the evening, vastly replenished.

Rod Smith (left) and the blogger as Duo Exchange

Lost Civilizations reminds us, aptly, that counter-culture hasn’t yet suffered permanent misplacement, and that art, if untethered, represents our best avenue for salvation. Two writers had to fit together, and four musicians had to fit together, and six people had to fit together, in music and verse, and we did, fit. If you attended the show, if you listened to one or both sets, if you read this little review, thanks, and on behalf of Lost Civilizations and Duo Exchange, in the spirit of Duke Ellington, we love you M-a-a-a-dly!

THE IDEA OF A PUBLIC OFFICE HOURS.

The famous “Fake Attack” @ Drink & Walk, circa 2006.

In the late 90s and early oughts, my good friend MarkWallace and I co-hosted a “public alighting” that we termed “Office Hours.” We established ourselves at the Post Pub dive bar in D.C., on an appointed night (memory tells me Wednesday), at an appointed time (8:00 p.m.), and people knew where they could join us for conversation and merriment, every week at the very same moments. Mark and I both adjuncted in those days; our students frequented Office Hours to speak about their classwork. The gathering, in addition, featured a writing theme, and many colleagues from the DC Poetry crowd joined us; poetry students from the George Mason MFA Program joined us; the friends of these many good people joined the gathering as well. Some nights, Mark and I might have ministered to a single visitor, when other nights attendance swelled beyond fifteen or twenty people. Mark came up with the idea for the gathering, and if memory serves me properly, he had devised Office Hours in the image of another similar gathering that he had learned of in his travels. The Russian Poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (1946-2012) once told Mark to meet him at his office hours, but Mark couldn’t find him on campus. A friend later told Mark that by office hours, the poet meant a bar he frequented.

When Mark left Washington, D.C. for California, my good friend Rod Smith and I sought to replace Office Hours with an updated happy hours for students and writers. We hunted around town for a replacement location, and as the “hunting-around-town” often involved several watering holes on a given evening, we decided that we enjoyed the multi-site aspect of this field research, and in the end, conceived of a two-site happy hours. Dubbed “Drink & Walk”, the gathering commenced at a pub in Adams Morgan, on Thursdays, around 6:00 p.m., and at 7:45, we listed out into the evening and walked to the Red Room Bar at the Black Cat, where Drink & Walk continued until 10:00. People knew they could meet us at Angles, the first pub, or along the walk, or at the Black Cat, or they could participate in all three phases. Students attended, friends attended, visiting writers attended, Everywhere Man attended, and Everywhere Moped sat nearby, chained to a parking meter and tormented by street toughs. Whatever happened to Everywhere Pomeranian, I wonder, locked up in that ATM machine at the falafel place? Some nights, we attracted a fine crowd of six to eight people but some nights were all-out parties of forty or more. Together with third co-host, Mel Nichols, I created a blog of the same name, which lives on in a server someplace on earth. Drink & Walk persevered for about two years until a variety of circumstances (new jobs, etc.) forced changes in routines.

The packed bar at The Black Squirrel for StoutParty.
The DC Poetry crowd inspired and attended the event.

These public gatherings, moreover, served to create (1) buzz (2) community (3) offshoot events such as house (and apartment) parties; (4) enduring friendships (5) extreme storytelling where none existed before (6) energy for the various poetry reading series about town (7) happenstance (8) recipe sharing (9) wine woogie; and (10) there is no 10. I can’t emphasize enough the need for a gathering, as such, to be dependable, week-in, week-out. The weather might’ve been crappy; the co-host might’ve been ill; there might’ve been a keen event someplace else—but Office Hours and Drink & Walk always had to go through! We also brought with us: commerce. Some locales treated us better than others, but in the end, we brought regular business where nobody else brought regular business. The current version of DC Poetry Happy Hours, a legend in its own right, takes place at our partner pub, The Black Squirrel, where a number of us have hosted readings, given readings and participated in special events, such as DuoExchange and StoutParty. We can be found there every Thursday night, starting around 8:00 p.m., but owing to The Idea of a Public Office Hours, as well as A Need for a Public Office Hours, I have a special announcement to make:

I shall be holding my Spring 2014 Public Office Hours—for the remainder of the winter and through the middle of May—at The Black Squirrel, upstairs, at the bar, from 8:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. You will find me there every week, on Monday evenings, at those times. Come along if you’d like to discuss coursework or craft stout or poetry or fiction or Swansea City Football Club or jazz or jump or anything else. I shall be very grateful for your company.