The Travelers by Mark Terrill

Faultlines-XVI copyright by Devin McCawley

Having made one of their rare collective decisions, the travelers opted to stop for a brief respite at a rest stop along the autobahn. They parked between two large trucks, adjacent to a weathered cement picnic table. From the back of the Volvo station wagon, Francine produced a wicker basket and placed it squarely in the middle of the cement table, on which could be seen various stains and residues from previous roadside picnickers. From the basket Francine took out a block of Dutch cheese, a half-loaf of dark German bread, and a dusty, cobwebbed, vintage bottle of Coca Cola. The others looked on in various states of road-weary ambiguity and ambivalence.

From the autobahn came the sudden sound of screeching rubber, metal impacting against metal, and breaking glass. In the spirit of the prevailing ambiguity and ambivalence, Ralf stood up and half-heartedly began to slice the cheese. Nearby in the grass lay the usual empty beer cans, crumpled cigarette packs, and used condoms, all waiting for someone to include them in some redundantly mundane and boring poem.

Urban Graffiti Mix #5

Transgressive, discursive, tracks concerned with the struggles of hard edged urban living, alternative lifestyles, deviant culture – presented in their most raw and unpretentious form: music, fiction, poetry, monologues. We are the stories we tell. Yet another avenue for risky, dangerous writing: off the page. For far too long, and far too often literary recitals have been a literary crap shoot, depending on the preparedness and the oratory skills of the reader. At last, the technology has reached the level where individual authors, poets, and fiction writers can produce their own audio works to promote their printed counterparts. As editor, I welcome any and all such audio works for inclusion in the ongoing series of Urban Graffiti Mixes.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Urban Graffiti Mix #5 Cloudcast by Mark McCawley, posted with vodpod

The editor generously thanks bart plantenga for his contribution of several rare, hard to find tracks in this mix.

AnAmontAnA Xtreem Performance

Amsterdam performance artist, Diva AnAmontAnA, performs as part of the Mighty Aphrodite Variety Show at The Comedy Theater Nes as vaudeville burlesque comes to Amsterdam. What makes Diva AnAmontAnA’s performance so intriguing is how she combines vaudeville burlesque with traditional elements of Japanese Noh theatre. The result is purely delicious!

Mary by Eddie Woods

Eddie Woods writes poetry the way he lives life, intensely. Experience informs his art, and vice versa. Passion, raw edges, nothing left out. Sex, love, politics…coupled with an unrelenting drive towards awareness, the need to understand what universal reality is all about. The Irish poet Ewart Milne said of the poem “Mary,” following its publication in Peter Mortimer‘s Iron magazine [Issue 43, Tyne & Wear, England]: “It’s very powerful, strong and fearless, and it troubles the hell out of me!…It reminds me somehow of the brothel scene in Ulysses.” “My words are like bullets…Plus I have enough ammunition to wipe out as much opposition as will ever come up against me. And every bullet will hit the mark, because I am a good shot.” From the telephone prose-poem “Bloody Mary.” If, indeed, Eddie Woods’ words are bullets, then his poem “Mary” enters the listener’s ears like a wordbomb, exploding inside the mind, and reverberates down the spine like electroshocks from the brain’s pleasure centre. Introduced by the Amsterdam performance artist AnAmontAnA at Salon dAdA on May 1st, 2011 (in the above video), Eddie Woods describes AnA’s Salon “as pure Dada. Usually laced with clear sexual overtones and occasional nudity. You’ll find acts calling themselves The Sugar Sluts, et cetera.”