Kevin Jerome Everson, "Something Else," film still, 2007. Courtesy the Artist.
While I love living in New York City, there are nights when I long for the simplicity of only one truly art-worthy thing to do in town. Tonight is one of those nights. Two of my favorite venues have competing events and I’m wishing for a clone so I can do both.
Kevin Jerome Everson, "Second and Lee," film still, 2008. Courtesy the Artist.
Light Industry of Sunset Park, Brooklyn (a nearby candy factory always has me sniffing the air in joy) is showing several of Kevin Jerome Everson‘s short films and the filmmaker is in attendance. Based in Charlottesville, VA, Everson often explores African-American working class life and joy in his experimental works. He mixes documentary style and scripted elements to high poetic effect. Even though he’s a Creative Capital grantee, I’ve only ever seen Cinnamon, a 2006 feature length film that peeked into the world of African-American drag racing down south through the experiences of a black woman who serves as a bank teller by day. I want more!
Fence Winter 2008-09 issue
Or, I could go to the Kitchen to checkout the Fence Books reading. Since 1998, both in a biannual journal and through a book publishing arm, Fence has published some of the best experimental poetry, fiction, art, and criticism out there. Without them and other similar presses (oh, so few!), many writers who create on the edges of convention wouldn’t have a space. Tonight will feature readings from their two newest poetry collections: Elizabeth Marie Young’s Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize and Laura Sims’s collection Stranger. Oh, did I mention they’ll have a circus? Yep, Circus Razz will perform between readings!
L: Elizabeth Marie Young, Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize, Fence Books, 2009. R: Laura Sims, Stranger, Fence Books, 2009.
I told a friend of this dilemma and she called it my Sophie’s Choice, while I immediately thought of Solomon’s crafty decision to split the baby into two… Yes, I’m taking votes.