We Had the Best Time!

Thank you to our readers/performers– Ashley Byler & Laurel Atwell, Jacqueline Jones LaMon, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Phillip Lopate– for an incredible night of art and some FPP-style togetherness.  The night began with a tour through some of Stacy Parker Le Melle’s photographs of Harlem, full of rich color and striking angles.  Ashley Byler then presented her dance composition, “Accumulation: Variation No. 1 (a re-imagining of Trisha Brown’s 1971 work with Beyoncé Knowles as prescriber of pedestrian movement),” a deadpan mash-up of modernist repetition, sequined hot pants, and “Run the World (Girls).”  Jacqueline Jones LaMon read a series of poems, some from her collection, Last Seen, a haunting portrayal of long-term missing African-American children in the US.  We were particularly moved by her poems written this summer about the Rockaways and Coney Island, places now missing or wounded themselves.  Marie Myung-Ok Lee read a comic excerpt from her forthcoming novel, Firstborn Son, which details the vociferous protests a Korean-American doctor receives from his friends when he announces his plans to return to North Korea with Doctors Without Borders.  And Phillip Lopate treated us to razor-sharp political poems leading to a wry personal essay about his youthful ventures into politics and one particularly hilarious, (unintentionally) all-white Black Panthers Rally.  We also collected $238.27  in our Occupy Sandy collection box and donated here: http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/.  Thanks for your generosity!  And thanks to performers and audience, alike, for giving us a memorable night!

This Monday Night: Raising $ for Occupy Sandy

At Monday night’s reading, we will solicit donations for Occupy Sandy.  As many of you know, Occupy Sandy volunteers were on the ground early, walking door to door checking on residents including those in high-rise housing projects without power or hot water.  They continue to help survivors get food and medicine and supplies. (Here is a recent story on their efforts in the NYT, and here is a Tumblr blog on Rockaway post-Sandy). We want to support our neighbors as they recover and rebuild.  If you come out on Monday, please consider giving a cash donation—any amount will help.  If you can’t make it, consider going to Occupy Sandy’s Amazon registry page to place an order for supplies (ex. batteries, diapers) that will go directly to the volunteers for distribution.  Or, you may send a check to:

Occupy Sandy/AfGJ
Alliance for Global Justice
1247 E. St, SE
Washington, DC 20003

Thank you.  See you Monday.