New Poetry

John M. Bennett, poet and curator at the OSU Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, sent along some of his latest poems to share. On his website you can see his own pieces of audio and visual poetry, which are the topic of this month's book club.

Watch It

the brick sneeze:::::: bolster your ,ash
lapper,,,,, [hogs] an ::: dice your pill
ow lock the [[]] gosh test an Name yr
fiddling........unit compaction or a ““line””
of g nats ..... fold my suit an dry. t
he flag lopper,,, holster ,,,cash,,, m
ice rust le in my,,,,sock what tIMe it
is¿¿¿¿

Coat

fumble an,,,,scout stop jot ,,,nooser
friendly;;;;muscle flagger - - - sp
read in wind - - - - - the tunnel O f
ulla fl ame spout twist the cashless
glue:::bottled heave ......the runny g
ame,,, down my leg,,,, was fireants,,,,, t
hey left me ay : c left my eye in
side a listed sleeve - - - - -

John M. Bennett
http://johnmbennettpoetry.blogspot.com/
www.johnmbennett.net

December and January Book Club

Given the end of the year busyness, I thought it would be nice to have a change in pace for the Book Club.

As OSU Urban Arts Space will be closing on December 19th and reopening on January 5th, the next meeting will be Wednesday January 27th, 2010 from noon to 1pm. With that in mind, I am announcing the December and January selections.

December – Audio and Visual Poetry

When I was in elementary school, it was customary during the month of December for my principal to read inspirational and entertaining stories during the morning announcements. Something about the cold weather made being read to very inviting. The reading assignment for December then is to let someone else read to you, or to try a different reading experience.

Poets.org, from the Academy of American Poets, offers free audio clips of poetry read by the poets. Most of the audio clips are from contemporary poems such as Mark Halliday’s “Google Me Soon”, but a few classics such as Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” are available as well. There is also a section of poets reading other poets' works, so you can hear familiar pieces by Emily Dickinson, for example, read by Poet Laureate Consultant Kay Ryan.

I realize that audio poetry might not speak to everyone, so feel free to try visual poetry. In visual poetry, the placement, shape, and look of the words on paper reinforce or convey additional meaning. Did you know that The Ohio State University has an Avant Garde Writing Collection? Follow this link to download a free sample of the works available in the Avant Garde Poetry Collection.

January – Pontoon by Garrison Keillor

“In Lake Wobegon lives a good Lutheran lady who is quite prepared to die and wishes to be cremated and her ashes placed inside a bowling ball and dropped into the lake, no prayers, no hymns, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the Detmer girl returns from California where she has made a killing in veterinary aromatherapy to marry her boyfriend Brent aboard Wally's pontoon boat, presided over by her minister, Misty Naylor of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Spirit. Brent arrives on Thursday. On Saturday, a delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark come to town on their tour of America, their punishment for having denied the divinity of Jesus. And Barbara Peterson, whose mother, Evelyn, left the startling note about cremation and the bowling ball, is in love with a lovely fat man who slips around town in the dim light and reconnoiters with her at the Romeo Motel…. It is Lake Wobegon as you've imagined it--good loving people who drive each other slightly crazy.” (Product Review from Amazon.com)

Garrison Keillor’s variety radio show called “A Prairie Home Companion” has been capturing listeners for 35 years. Included with each broadcast is Keillor’s news report about Lake Wobegon, his fictitious hometown where "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average". Pontoon is the fifth installation of a novel series about the town. But don't worry if you haven't read the previous books, you won't miss a beat.

Please, join me on this literary adventure during our winter season.

Thank you, and keep reading.


What: OSU Urban Arts Space Book Club
Where: Online during the month of December. Join us at 50 West Town Street, Downtown Columbus for our January meeting.
When: January 27th, 2010 from noon to 1:00pm

-Nicole Eggert, Operations Student Assistant

NerdPow '09

In a world where The Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, and The Black Eyed Peas rule the airwaves, groups like Dual Core, MC Router and The Protomen are barely a blip on the public soundscape. And if you think these groups like things you could hook up to your computer, then you’re probably right.

The genre is Nerdcore, The show is NerdPow. The venue was in a middle-of-the-road Holiday Inn in downtown Cincinnati, OH, sandwiched between the Weight Watchers banquet and a loading dock. Gamers, punk rockers and hip-hoppers joined together to celebrate their love of the internet, technology and overall nerdiness.

Take an unassuming music genre, like punk rock, add in a few Star Wars references, don a foam Pac Man head, talk of a robot invasion…add some hackerspeak to taste, sprinkle with a few twenty-sided dice and there you have it! Nerdcore….sort of. Nerdcore topics range from computer games to cartoons, but one thing holds true in all cases: if you know what they’re talking about, then you are a nerd.

I arrived in Cincinnati ready for the show. NerdPow ’09 was slated to be the biggest Nerdcore show in Ohio, including bands like MC Cool Whip, The Super 8-bit Brothers and a new group called Oxymoronatron. This twelve-hour geekfest was attended by the standard motley crew of gamers, hackers, and anime fans. Between rounds of Rock Band and Call of Duty, these Dukes of Dork took the stage and offered their best, backwards-compatible, under-modulated, over-synthesized musical mayhem.
It was great! Being a nerd myself I really appreciated Oxy’s re-engineered motorized fish plaques, who managed to flip their tails to the beat of each song. Their pneumatic drummer-bot was amazing, and only slightly off-beat when the compressor had to repressurize.

Dual Core, a two-man hip-hop crew was by far the best rap group present. One DJ and one rapper managed to cover Dungeons & Dragons, Gears of War and Daft Punk all in one show. The highlight of the set was when they asked the audience to hold up random objects, and Int 80, the rapper, made up a freestyle about each item on the spot.

MC Router, a young lady from Texas also made a strong showing. She said, “I’m a bit out of practice, I’ve been programming Beatles Rock Band for the last few months,” which garnered a roar of enthusiasm from the tech-obsessed crowd.

The Protomen stole the show with their rock opera styling. Their whole show was based off of Protoman and MegaMan, the main characters of the MegaMan video games series. They capped off the show with a mosh pit and a round of crowd surfing. It was something to behold.

NerdPow ’10 is already in the works and, If you are truly 133t, then I’ll see you there.

Image 1: (left to right) Int 80 of Dual Core, MC Cool Whip, and Jerry Branco of My Parents Favorite Music (Justina Roberts Photography)
Image 2: Oxymoronatron stuns the crowd with their robot punk power (courtesy of Rachel Isaacs)

-Cameron Wiliamson, Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space

One Shot

Here are two examples of single take videos by two of our staff at the OSU Urban Arts Space. A "single take" is where everything that happens in the camera happens in real time, with no cuts or do-overs. This constraint can be a great exercise or launch pad for working with video, to develop an idea for the camera. Sometimes it takes seeing single take videos to appreciate the ease of modern editing in movies and television.

This first video, directed by Zach Glueck, the Media Assistant here at the OSU Urban Arts Space, won Best Drama in the Ohio State Campus Movie Fest.



This second video is a short piece I created for my midterm project in my Issues in Videodance class in the OSU Dance Department.



Thanks for watching!

-Leigh Lotocki, Social Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space