Mommy, Mommy!

OCTOBER 2 - Mommy!Mommy! at PIETER in Los Angeles

2010-09-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

Mommy!Mommy! Presents “Mommy, I'm Sorry” With Cara Benson, Sean Griffin, Jennifer Karmin, and Kate Zambreno.

Forgiven, forgiven.

OCTOBER 2, 2010 At PIETER (Performance Art Space DANCE).
420 West Avenue 33, Unit 10, Lincolon Heights, LA 90031
http://pieterpasd.com

Door at 7:30. Show at 8. Event is Free. Please bring non-monetary contribution like liquor or something for them to provide guests at shows or like clothing to put in their clothing exchange shop.

Cara Benson is author of a book of interconnected pre-elegaic prose poems for humans animals plants and earth called (made). Her book length poetic meditation on historical, biological, and cosmological evolution, Protean Parade, is due out from Black Radish Books early 2011. Benson teaches poetry in a NY State Prison and edits the online text and art journal Sous Rature.

Composer and interdisciplinary artist Sean Griffin lives and works in Los Angeles. He has developed compositional and interdisciplinary methodologies positioned at the intersection of sound and performance, creating large and small-scale concert works, collaborative sound and video installations, and film scores. His works have been presented by Los Angeles' REDCAT, the Armand Hammer Museum, June in Buffalo, Berlin's Volksbühne, Secession Vienna, London's Royal Academy and the Tate Modern, Festival d'Avignon, Taipei City Arts Festival, Walker Art Center, and Centre Pompidou. His current work addresses scripting rhythmic regimentation and conflicting behaviors in performances by instrumentalists, vocalists, and actors in a large-scale event called Cold Spring at EMPAC this year. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego.

Jennifer Karmin’s text-sound epic, Aaaaaaaaaaalice, was published by Flim Forum Press in 2010. She curates the Red Rover Series and is co-founder of the public art group Anti Gravity Surprise. Her multidisciplinary projects have been presented at festivals, artist-run spaces, community centers, and on city streets across the U.S., Japan, and Kenya. A proud member of the Dusie Kollektiv, she is the author of the Dusie chapbook Evacuated: Disembodying Katrina. Walking Poem, a collaborative street project, is featured online at How2. In Chicago, Jennifer teaches creative writing to immigrants at Truman College and works as a Poet-in-Residence for the public schools.

Kate Zambreno's first published novel, O Fallen Angel, won Chiasmus Press' "Undoing the Novel - First Book Contest" and was published in April. She writes the literary blog Frances Farmer Is My Sister , which will inspire a collection of essays to be published by Semiotext(e)'s Active Agents series in Fall 2011. She is the prose editor of Nightboat Books, and recently curated July for Everyday Genius .

Mommy, Mommy! - Oct 2nd.

2010-08-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Save the date!!
7:30 pm Saturday, October 2.

Pieter (Performance Art Space DANCE).
420 W Ave 33, #10, Los Angeles, CA 90031 (Lincoln Heights)
http://www.pieterpasd.com/

Featuring:
Kate Zambreno
Jennifer Karmin
Cara Benson
Sean Griffin

Mommy!Mommy! 8/7/10! With Teresa Carmody, Jack Halberstam, Stephen van Dyck, and Laura Vena!

2010-08-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

Mommy!Mommy! Presents: “If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mommy!”

With Teresa Carmody, Jack Halberstam, Stephen van Dyck,

and Laura Vena

AUGUST 7, 2010, Door at 7:30, Performances at 8PM

New location – Pieter (Performance Art Space DANCE).

420 W Ave 33, #10, Los Angeles, CA 90031 (Lincoln Heights) www.pieterpasd.com

Event is $Free$ BUT Pieter asks that you please bring non-monetary contribution like liquor or snacks or something for them to provide guests at shows or like clothing to put in their clothing exchange shop. We will pass the hat for the artists so they can get some psychoanalysis

Teresa Carmody is the author of Requiem (Les Figues Press, 2005), and two chapbooks: Eye Hole Adore (PS Books, 2008), and Your Spiritual Suit of Armor by Katherine Anne (Woodland Editions, 2009). Other work has appeared in various publications, including Bombay Gin, Fold Appropriate Text, Luvina, American Book Review, emohippus greeting cards 1-3 and more. She was one of the organizers of the original Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington, and co-organizer (with Matias Viegener and Christine Wertheim) of Feminaissance. She is cofounder and co-director (with Vanessa Place) of Les Figues Press, hailed by critic Terry Castle as “an elegant vessel for experimental writing of an extraordinarily assured and ingenious sort.”

When Jack Halberstam is not watching animated films for children or playing scrabble, he writes books on gothic horror, female

masculinity, failure and bats. Halberstam teaches at USC, gives guest lectures in a variety of venues and contexts and plans on ways to live outside of the USA. Halberstam's favorite films are Finding Nemo, Dude, Where's My Car? and, this week, Fantastic Mr. Fox; favorite books of the moment include Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantle and the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson. Halberstam wants to write a popular book on heterosexual pathos.

Stephen van Dyck is a recent MFA graduate of Critical Studies, Experimental Sound Practices and Integrated Media at CalArts. Last year he curated The San Fernando Road Concert, an all-day arts event where 21 creative people were invited to re-imagine unused urban space along all 23 miles of San Fernando Road with experimental music performances, art installations, readings, discussions and car pool happenings. A similar event is in the works for Washington Boulevard in August 2009. He's currently amidst completion of his first book, People I've Met from the Internet, a conceptual writing project, coming out story and field study in the form of a very long annotated list. He's been Home Depot's unrequited artist-in-residence since 2007.

Laura Vena is a writer and translator whose work has appeared in In Posse Review, Chronometry, and [out of nothing]. Laura holds an MFA in Creative Writing / Critical Studies from CalArts and she is the Production Editor of Black Clock literary journal. Laura is Co-Founder of STROPHE, an interdisciplinary arts organization that creates liaisons between artists and disciplines through fostering conversations and collaborations. Her current book project, x/she: stardraped, is a multilingual graphic epic poem that explores collisions of culture and identity.

Save the Dates!

2010-07-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

Save the date for Mommy, Mommy! numero ocho...
Saturday, August 7.
@Pieter in Lincoln Heights.
To feature: Laura Vena, Stephen Van Dyck, Jack Halberstam, and Teresa Carmody!

.....

Plus,
Mommy, Mommy! numero nueve...
Saturday, October 2.
To feature: Kate Zambreno, Jennifer Karmin, Cara Benson, and TBA.

Mommy, Mommy #8: I Met a Mommy!

2010-04-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

Mommy, Mommy!: Bring your Mommy out for a night on the town. Meet other Mommies. Hear Mommies read. Shake hands with a Mommy. Experience the brilliance of Mommy, Mommy.

Mommy, Mommy! #8
Saturday, June 5, 2010
7:30 p.m.

Matias Viegener / Veronica Gonzalez / Amra Brooks / Laida Lertxundi

compactspace (next to Pussy n' Pooch) / 105 E. 6th Street / Los Angeles, 90014

Matias Viegener is a writer and artist who teaches at CalArts. He’s a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, an art collaboration focusing on fruit, urban ecology and public space, currently in a year long residency at LACMA. He writes regularly on art for X-tra and has recently been published in Cabinet, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, the Radical History Review, and Black Clock. He’s co-edited two books, Séance in Experimental Writing and The Noulipian Analects, is writing a book on Kathy Acker and has a book of experimental fiction forthcoming from Les Figues.

Veronica Gonzalez's fiction has been published or is forthcoming in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Clock, The Massachusetts Review, Life as We Show It, and Juncture: 25 Very Good Stories and 12 Excellent Drawings, an innovative cross-genre anthology she co-edited for Soft Skull Press. She has written on art for magazines and exhibition catalogues, and in 2004 began rockypoint press, a small limited-editions press which produces silk-screened books of artist-writer collaborations. Twin Time: or, how death befell me, her first novel, received the 2008 Premio Aztlán Literary Award for fiction and was voted best novel of 2007 by Eileen Myles in The Believer book awards.

Amra Brooks was born and raised in California. Her novella California was published by Teenage Teardrops in December 2008. Currently she is working on a book of fiction titled The Scariest Movie Ever Made, a collection of poems called The Pinking Sky, and a collaborative book project with painter Maureen Gallace. In addition, Amra writes critical essays and reviews about contemporary art, music, film, and literature. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Spin Magazine, index, Zingmagazine, the LA Weekly, and many other publications. She has taught at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Diego, and Naropa University. Currently she lives in Pennsylvania where she is the visiting writer at Muhlenberg College.

Laida Lertxundi (Bilbao, 1981) works on film making non-stories with non-actors that play with diegetic space and a particular sound and image syntax to create moments of downtime, of a time between events. Her work has been shown at MoMa, Lacma, Viennale and the New York Film Festival views of the Avant Garde among other places. She is a film curator for Xcentric programming series at Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona since 2002 and has also curated for ZineBi at the Guggenheim Bilbao, CalArts and UCSD. Her writing has been published in Xcentric: 45 Películas Contra Dirección 2006 ,CCCB and La risa oblicua. Tangentes, paralelismos e intersecciones entre documental y humor, Madrid, Ocho y Medio Libros de Cine, 2009. She currently teaches at University of California, San Diego and lives in Los Angeles.

Mommy, Mommy #7: One Thousand and One Mommies!

2010-03-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Mommy, Mommy! keeps chugging forward.
Come join us for another fabulous night of fate, destiny, and literary madness.

One Thousand and One Mommies!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
(Easter Sunday! Rumors are flying that the Easter Bunny may make an appearance...)
7:30 p.m.

compactspace (next to Pussy n' Pooch) / 105 E. 6th Street / Los Angeles, 90014

michaela walsh completed her mfa in creative nonfiction and her ma in theology, ethics in culture from the university of iowa in 2003. she is currently pursuing a phd in communication studies at the university of california, san diego. walsh's work explores the physical space of the US/Mexico border as a biopolitical zone of classification, a site of inclusion and exclusion, entrance and exit, as a prolonged threshold that marks a place of entering or beginning, but also a point where physiological and psychological effect begins to be produced. her work has been published in the iowa journal of cultural studies and the human communication review. when she isn't doing research, you can find her on the soccer field or at the water trying to skip stones.

Mathew Timmons is a writer, curator and critic in Los Angeles. He is the General Director of General Projects at various locations including Outpost for Contemporary Art and The Ups & Downs, an installation series, at workspace. He also is the editor of Insert Press and co-curator of Late Night Snack (w/ Harold Abramowitz). His works include CREDIT (Blanc Press) and LIP SERVICE, a chapbook published by Slack Buddha Press. Forthcoming works include: The New Poetics (Les Figues Press), his micro-book collaboration with Marcus Civin, a particular vocabulary (P S Books), and a chapbook, Lip Music (By the Skin of Me Teeth). His work may be found in various journals, including: P-Queue, Holy Beep!, Flim Forum, The Physical Poets, NōD, PRECIPICe, Or, Moonlit, aslongasittakes, eohippus labs, Area Sneaks, Artweek and The Encyclopedia Project.

Catherine Lamb is a music composer and violist, working from the traditions of American Experimentalism, Just Intonation, and Indian Dhrupad. She is interested in delicate attention to layers of sound and their shadows, intimacy, and the condition of the being. She intuitively works through mathematical forms, typically involving an opening from a central tone into a spectrum of tones and shades. At times she works with words and has been exploring the voice. Her most influential teachers have been James Tenney, Michael Pisaro, and Mani Kaul. She is currently living in Los Angeles, CA.

Glenna Jennings’ work relates directly and tangentially to cheerleaders, guns, bearded men, working class spas, the subtle intricacies of identity and the shifting definitions of Space and Place. As a photographer, writer, curator and educator, she keeps the rules to a minimum and the possibilities at an overflow. Jennings completed her first novella, Granite, and the accompanying photo series, Raskolnikov last year with a grant from the UCSD Division of Arts and Humanities. She is currently finishing her first book, Sanitas Per Aquam (and other likely stories). Her artwork is represented by Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects in Los Angeles and will be included in an upcoming show at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. She is completing her MFA in Visual Arts at UCSD in a few very long weeks and will continue running the compactspace Art Collective in LA for as long as the universe allows.

Mommy, Mommy! is a project of Les Figues Press: a nonprofit, literary press dedicated to creating conversations between readers, writers and artists.

Mommy's Back

2010-02-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

After our winter hiatus, Mommy, Mommy! is back with a special night:

WE HEART BIRDS OF LACE

Featuring:
christine v. nguyen
Niina Pollari
Rhani Lee Remedes
Anna Joy Springer

Saturday, March 6, 2010
7:30 p.m.

compactspace (next to Pussy n' Pooch) / 105 E. 6th Street / Los Angeles, 90014

christine v. nguyen loves small houses painted different colors sat on crooked streets in the early morning, and the quiet calm of childhood rooms. she’s been writing since her mother sat with her at tables, molding the shape of her letters. born and raised in the bay area, she lives on the west coast, where she can see the water.

Niina Pollari is a writer, translator, and pony of some few other tricks living in Brooklyn, NY. She recently completed a collaboration with the Finnish search-engine poet Tytti Heikkinen, and has work found or forthcoming in Bitch, Post Road, Bateau, Finery, and other publications.

Rhani Lee Remedes is a sparkly rascal who was raised on psychic televangelists and riot grrrl rants. Her writing has appeared in That's Revolting; Queers Strategies For Resisting Assimilation, LTTR, BTFA, MGMT, ETC, She is the author of the S.C.U.B. Manifesto and was the front woman the band Veronica Lipgloss & the Evil Eyes. She currently makes posters and plays with the band Bangs of Hunger in Sandy Francisco.

Anna Joy Springer has toured the U.S. and Europe as a singer for punk bands and with the legendary Sister Spit. Her first novel is The Vicious Red Relic, Love. Birds of Lace has just published her novella, The Birdwisher.

Birds of Lace is a feminist press born in 2005 and currently based in San Francisco. Recent publications include Anna Joy Springer's The Birdwisher, Niina Pollari's Fabulous Essential, and Christine Vi-Van Nguyen's Blood and Jasmine When I Dreamed Her, as well as the literary and arts journal Finery. Birds of Lace loves glittering, love-ridden words with sick and saucy centers.

Thank You, and Upcoming

2009-08-06T10:53:00.001-07:00

A big thank you for another great Mommy, Mommy! Wow — Hot potato.

We won't be having a Mommy, Mommy! in September. Instead, join Anna Joy Springer, Janice Lee and I at the Les Figues Benefit auction, "Give A Fig," at LACE, with performances by Bhanu Kapil, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum and Christine Wertheim (amazing!)

Tickets are ON SALE NOW!

DADDY, DADDY! – Where Have All The Daddies Gone?

2009-06-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

Don’t miss the best masculine-feminist literary event of the decade!
Mommy, Mommy! (#5) in affiliation with Les Figues Press presents:
DADDY, DADDY! – Where Have All The Daddies Gone?

Saturday, July 11, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles
www.compactspace.com
(right next to Pussy & Pooch)

4 Artists!

HAROLD ABRAMOWITZ! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SILAS HOWARD!

BRIAN KIM STEFANS! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRIDGET IRISH!

For July’s Mommy, Mommy! the Mommies take a backseat and let the Daddies drive the bus. Outrageous performance, film, digital poetry, storytelling, and fiction send you into the strong strong arms of your own inner pops, AND, could it be any more perfect that Daddy, Daddy! is happening on FREE SLURPEE DAY at 7/11? Bring your empty Slurpee cup for prize drawing.

Mommy, Mommy! is a literary art event where feminists and their friends enjoy stimulating word-centered performances. The writing is beautiful, intelligent, and strange, and so are the performers. Mommy Mommy! features writers and other artists whose work, like the great fantastical and fabricated mommy, scolds, abandons, soothes, and triggers. Mommy, Mommy! fills the hole in your soul with the milk of the shamefully sexy unknown.

Harold Abramowitz is a writer, teacher, and editor. His first book, Dear Dearly Departed, was published by Palm Press in 2008. Harold has two books forthcoming in 2009: Sin is to Celebration, a collaboration with Amanda Ackerman, from House Press, and Not Blessed from Les Figues Press. He is also the author of a chapbook, Three Column Table (Insert Press, 2007), a mirco-book, Sunday, or A Summer’s Day (PS Books, 2008), and an e-book, Technique of Bandaging and Splinting (Little Red Leaves, 2009). He has contributed to various literary publications, co-edits the short-form literary press eohippus labs (www.eohippuslabs.com ), and co-curates the experimental cabaret event series, Late Night Snack.

Silas Howard is a filmmaker, musician (Tribe 8) and tall-tale teller whose work has screened at Sundance, SXSW and Disneyland. Howard's writing is also featured in the anthologies, Without a Net: Growing Up Working Class and Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, as well as the feminist/queer artists' journal, LTTR: Positively Nasty. Howard received his MFA in directing at UCLA and was nominated for a Rockefeller award in 2004 and 2008.

Brian Kim Stefans’ recent books include Kluge: A Meditation, and other works (Roof, 2007), What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers (Factory School, 2006), and Before Starting Over: Essays and Interviews (Salt Publishing, 2007). His digital works such as ³The Dreamlife of Letters² and ³Star Wars, One Letter at a Time² have been shown in gallery settings worldwide; many of these can be found at his website, www.arras.net. He is an Assistant Professor of English at UCLA, specializing in poetry and electronic writing.

Bridget Irish, born on St Patrick’s Day, is an interdisciplinary artist and occasional film/video curator. In addition to making her own shorts, Ms. Irish also works with photography, installation, music, performance, and combinations thereof. Bridget uses her body as a medium in tandem with pop-culture referents, parody and game-rule strategies while stimulating relationships between artist, props, and audience. Irish performs and exhibits nationally, solo and collaboratively – in 2001, she toured with Dr. Frockrocket's Vivifying (Re-Animatronic) Menagerie and Medicine Show, and performed with the Sex Workers Art Show National Tour in 2006 and 2007. For more tidbits & details, please visit www.bridgetirish.com / www.filmanddestroy.org.

Mommy Mommy #4: Night of the Living Mommies!

2009-04-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Mommy, Mommy! I don't like fishing.
Shut up and stop squirming.

Please join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#4)

Christine Wertheim!
Janice Lee!
Claire Phillips!

Saturday, May 9, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com

Christine Wertheim is a former painter with a PhD in literature and semiotics from Middlesex University, (UK). She teaches at the California Institute for the Arts for whom she co-organizes an annual conference: Séance (2004), Noulipo (2005), Impunities (2006), Feminaissance (2007), Untitled (2008). With Matias Viegener she has co-edited two anthologies of contemporary experimental writing: Séance, Make Now Press, 2006, and The noulipian Analects, Les Figues Press, 2007. A third, Feminaissance is forthcoming in Fall 2009. The book of her own poetics +|'me'S-pace is published by Les Figues Press, 2007. Christine also co-directs The Institute For Figuring, which organizes presentations and exhibitions on the intersections of art and science.

Janice Lee is interested in metaphors of consciousness, theoretical neuroscience, and models of hybridity. She has presented papers in Mexico, Canada, New Mexico, and if she can find someone to fund her, in Hong Kong this summer. Her work can be found in Big Toe Review, Zafusy, antennae, and Black Warrior Review. Her first book is KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, Dec 2009), a multidisciplinary exploration of the stakes of consciousness. Holding an MFA from CalArts, she lives in Los Angeles where she is a co-curator of the reading series Mommy, Mommy!, co-editor of [out of nothing], Associate Editor of Les Figues Press, and co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts collective Strophe.

Claire Phillips studied poetry at San Francisco State University, where she received an Academy of American Poets, First Prize. After receiving an M.A. in creative writing at N.Y.U., she promoted her first novella, Black Market Babies, as a featured author at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. She has also read at the Nuyorican, City Lights in San Francisco, and Skylight Books and Machine Project in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been anthologized in Juncture (Soft Skull), and can be heard on the KQED podcast reading series, The Writer’s Block. Her latest project is co-editing an arts publication, Look At Me, to be published by the Netherlands Architecture Institute and distributed by DAP, Spring 2010. Presently she teaches writing at CalArts, SCI-Arc and UC Irvine.

Photo credit: Monica Nouwens

Save the date!

2009-03-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

Mommy Mommy #4!

8pm Saturday May 9th
at compact space

To feature:

Janice Lee!
Claire Philips!
Christine Wertheim!

2009-03-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

MOMMY, MOMMY! #3: ALL THE MOMMIES

2009-02-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

Word-Based Performances—WoWWy

Please join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#3)

Lynn Breedlove
Jen Hofer
Douglas Kearney

Saturday, March 7, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com 626 676 0627

Douglas Kearney’s work as a poet, performer and librettist has been featured in many fine publications and venues in print, in-the-flesh and in digital code. His first book, Fear, Some, was published in 2006 (Red Hen Press). His second manuscript, The Black Automaton, was chosen by Catherine Wagner for the National Poetry Series and will be published by Fence Books in 2009. In 2008, he was honored with a Whiting Writers Award. He lives in the Valley with his wife and teaches at California Institute of the Arts. For more info, visit www.douglaskearney.com.
(photo by Los Jackson)

Jen Hofer’s recent publications include The Route, an epistolary and poetic collaboration with Patrick Durgin (Atelos, 2008), a translation of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes (Counterpath and Kenning Editions, 2008), lip wolf, a translation of Laura Solórzano’s lobo de labio (Action Books, 2007), Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women (University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre, 2003), and slide rule (subpress, 2002). Her forthcoming books are from the valley of death (Ponzipo), Laws (Dusie Books), a book-length series of anti-war-manifesto poems titled one (Palm Press), a translation of Guatemalan poet Alan Mills’ Síncope (Demónio Negro) and Aerial 10, a critical volume on the work of Lyn Hejinian, co-edited with Rod Smith (Edge Books). She has published poems and translations in numerous small-press publications, including 1913, Aufgabe, Black Clock, Bomb, DISASTER, The Brooklyn Rail, eough, Jacket, Mar con Soroche, Primary Writing, Tampa Review and War and Peace. Jen lives in Los Angeles, where she is currently the Moseley Chair in Poetry at Pomona College; she also teaches in the BFA Writing Program at Goddard College and in the MFA Writing Program at CalArts, and works as a Spanish-language interpreter with numerous local non-profit organizations and with the Los Angeles County Superior Courts.

A vanguard of the queer/trans community, Lynn Breedlove is a visionary who has long been shaping revolutionary art. S/he has over 3,790 hits on Google.com. The founder and frontperson of the first American out dyke punk band Tribe 8, which has always stood for queer, transgender, multiracial, and working class visibility, Breedlove has toured Europe and North America with Tribe 8 as well as Rise Above: The Tribe8 Documentary. S/he is the acclaimed author of Godspeed, an autobiographical novel which s/he has toured as a multi-media solo show highlighted by the music and photos of women, queers, dykes, and transfolk.

Mommy Mommy #3!!!

2009-02-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

Save the date...

7:30 pm Saturday March 7
at compactspace

With The All-Star Line-Up:

Lynn Breedlove / Jen Hofer / Douglas Kearney

Mommies Love To Be Thanked

2009-01-13T15:08:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Jenny Donovan, Gaby Torres, Kim Rosenfield and Rob Fitterman for such an excellent Mommy Mommy #2. And thank you to everyone who came out for the readers. We love it when people come out!

Here's something Jenny and Gaby made, to express their gratitude.

Mommy Mommy #2 [Jan 2, 2009] :::

2009-01-04T18:08:00.001-08:00

Mommy, Mommy! #2: Torres, Rosenfield, Fitterman, Donovan

2008-12-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

Mommy, Mommy! I don't like tomato soup! Shut up, kid, we only have it once a month.

Join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#2), with Jenny Donovan, Robert Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield, and Gaby Torres.

Friday, January 2, 2008
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com 626 676 0627

JENNY DONOVAN is an artist, writer and translator, whose work has appeared in numerous journals, including Revista Espiral, Papeles de la Mancuspia, Encyclopedia Volume 2 F-K, Abrazo, and Bulbo Press. She has presented work in various independent spaces and museums in the US and Mexico, including: La Casa de la Cultura (Monterrey, México), The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Voz Alta (San Diego), el ISBC (Tijuana) y El Centro Cultural de Tijuana. With Gaby Torres, Donovan co-directs La Derramadora Press, a binational and bilingual independent press that produces small editions of hand crafted books from recycled materials.

ROBERT FITTERMAN is the author of nine books of poetry, including three installments of his ongoing poem Metropolis: Metropolis 1-15 (Sun & Moon Press, 2000), Metropolis 16-29 (Coach House Books, 2002), and Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edge Books, 2004). Earlier titles include Leases (Periphery Press), among the cynics (Singing Horse Press) and Ameresque (Buck Downs Books). His most recent title, War, the musical, is a collaboration with artist Dirk Rowntree. He teaches at New York University in both the General Studies Program and the Department of English, and also the writing faculty at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College.

KIM ROSENFIELD is a poet and psychotherapist. She is the author of three books of genre blurring language; Good Morning--Midnight-- (Roof Books 2001), which won Small Press Traffic’s Book of the Year award in 2002, Tràma (Krupskaya 2004), and re: evolution (Les Figues Press 2008). She lives in NYC.

GABRIELA TORRES OLIVARES is the author of three collections of short stories, including Regiomonteses (enfermario) (ediciones La Derramadora press, 2008), Están Muertos, (Harakiri Plaquettes, 2004), and Incompletario (Ediciones Intempestivas, 2007). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including: Caja de Viento (Ediciones El Árbol) and La Difícil Brevedad (2006), as well as in periodicals, including: Diálogos Posmodernos de Campeche (Quintana Roo), El Norte (Monterrey), La Rocka (Monterrey), Postdata (Argentina), Tierra Adentro (Mexico City), Indie- Rocks! (Mexico City), El Universal Parisino (Paris), Armas y Letras (UANL), Homines (Spain), Alta Noche (Hermosillo), Balbuceo (Guanajuato), and Pic-Nic (Mexico City). Torres currently lives in Rosarito, B.C., where she is the co-director, and chief editor of La Derramadora Press, as well as the co-director of Aprimotapiado, an artists’ books workshop that was developed as part of Proyecto Cívico Diálogos e Interrogantes.

Mommy Mommy! Sneak Preview...

2008-11-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Mommy Mommy! is next planned for Friday January 2nd, so mark your calendar!

To feature a spectacular line-up:
Kim Rosenfield / Rob Fitterman / Jenny Donovan / Gaby Torres

More information coming soon!

Mommy Mommy! [Oct 31, 2008] :::

2008-11-02T11:27:00.001-08:00

2008-10-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

IT'S HALLOWEEN 2008. UNCERTAINTY REIGNS. THE VEIL BETWEEN THE LIVING AND DEAD IS THIN. LEAVES FALL, PALMS SWAY, APPLES ROLL, EXPERIMENTAL FEMINISTS CHUCKLE & FUNDAMENTALIST LITERARY ARTIST SUCKS. TERRIFYING TIMES! AGAIN!!! WILL YOU CONTINUE TO HIDE?

BABY BABY BABY, DON'T BE SCARED OF: MOMMY, MOMMY!

a weird literary performance series for feminists and literature lovers who like weird feminists

MOMMY, MOMMY! Launches Halloween Night!

2008-10-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

MOMMY, MOMMY!

Featuring writers: Robin Coste Lewis (San Francisco), Vincent Dachy (London), Alex Forman (Los Angeles), and Vanessa Place (Los Angeles)

Friday, October 31, 2008

(Come dressed as your favorite mommy.)

$5 - $20 sliding scale. Donate a folding chair for free entry.

Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm

compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Mommy, Mommy! is a literary art event where feminists and their friends enjoy stimulating word-centered performances. The writing is beautiful, intelligent, and strange, and so are the performers. Mommy Mommy! features writers and other artists whose work, like the great fantastical and fabricated mommy, scolds, abandons, soothes, and triggers. Mommy, Mommy! fills the hole in your soul with the milk of the shamefully sexy unknown.

ROBIN COSTE LEWIS is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, where she received a Master of Theological Studies degree in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature. She was the Samuel Valentine Cole Professor of Creative Writing at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Hampshire College’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts. In 2004, she was a finalist for the National Rita Dove Prize. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review; Callaloo; The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review; Gay Community News; volumes 3 and 4 of The Pocket Myth Series (v.3, Orpheus and v.4, The Odyssey); and anthologized in the collections Black Silk and The Encyclopedia Project, f-k. She has been awarded writing residencies at the Caldera Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Can Serrat International Art Centre in Barcelona. Born in Compton, California, her family is from New Orleans, Louisiana.

VINCENT DACHY was born in Belgium and lives in London where he practices Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has authored several scholarly papers, including “A few rudimentary remarks about ‘The little logic of need’” (CFAR Journal); “Can one invent the infinite?” (CFAR Journal); and “Do not Confuse the Real(s)” (Psychoanalytical Notebooks of the London Circle). Tribulations of a Westerner in the Western World (Les Figues Press) is Dachy’s first book of literary prose, a spectacular linguistic show of humor and pathos, puns and rants, of irritations, musings and moodiness. Of Dachy’s first book, Doug Nufer writes: “Tribulations of a Westerner in the Western World is a grand tour of a bland realm, framed by a slideshow and narrated by a cranky viewer in a running-off-at-the-mind commentary that veers from cynical to silly to wise to sick. Vincent Dachy presents the new Western Everyman as an engaging if solipsistic armchair tour guide, whose complex musings perform a strangely political indictment of a society in such an advanced state of decay, all one can do is sit and watch.”

ALEX FORMAN is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Tall, Slim & Erect, a text and photo project sponsored by Fractured Atlas, and was a founding editor of the international poetry journal, Jubilat. Forman¹s visual art has been exhibited at David Krut Gallery, Streit's Matzo and Derek Eller Gallery in New York. Reviews and interviews have appeared in Art in America, Archipelago, and Jubilat. Sponsorship and fellowships have come from Blue Mountain Center, Djerassi, Ucross Foundations and Fractured Atlas. She holds an MFA in photography from the Yale School of Art in New Haven and a BA in literature from Brown University, Rhode Island.

VANESSA PLACE is a writer and lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. She is the author of Dies: A Sentence (Les Figues Press), a 50,000-word, one-sentence novella; the post-conceptual novel; La Medusa (Fiction Collective 2); and the forthcoming Conceptualisms: An Ill-Conceived Guide to Kinda Conceptual, Post-Conceptual, Extant and Taxonomical Writings, etc. (Ugly Duckling Presse) in collaboration with appropriation poet Robert Fitterman; and a forthcoming nonfiction book, The Guilt Project: Rape and Morality (Other Press). Other work has appeared in appeared in other publications, including Western Humanities Review, Northwest Review, Insert Fold Magazine/, Greetings #10, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Bookforum, and theextraroom . Her collaboration with artist/performer Lamya Regragui will debut at Cent Quatre in Paris/Los Angeles in 2009, and she is collaborating with conceptual artist Stephanie Taylor on the film ³Murderous Square Dance at the Spiral Jetty.² Place is a co-founder of Les Figures Press, described by critic Terry Castle as an elegant vessel for experimental American writing of an extraordinarily assured and ingenious sort.

Mommy, Mommy is curated by Teresa Carmody, Janice Lee, and Anna Joy Springer.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.

Mommy, Mommy!

2008-09-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

Mommy, Mommy! What happened to all that dog food Fido wouldn't eat?
Shut up and eat your meat loaf.

Mommy, Mommy! Are you sure this is the way to make ginger bread men?
Shut up and get back in the oven.

Mommy, Mommy! I don't wanna visit grandma!
Shut up and keep digging.

Mommy, Mommy! Daddy's too tough!
Shut up and keep chewing!

Mommy, Mommy! I don't like fishing.
Shut up and stop squirming.