clip show of our first 2 years + nominations for the 2012 pushcart prize

Hi everyone!

In anticipation of our Neighborhood Heroes/2-yr anniversary show this Monday at BeatBox, we did some looking back over the first 23 shows and put together the above video. Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together; what an extreme pleasure it was to remember all of the stellar performances, ze moments of wow, that person is my friend!, to see where we’ve been (16 venues, art houses, nightclubs, the COF). In fact, we could make 1000 more of these (and might), but for now we’ll leave that to the archivists, to the Litseens of the world.

Enjoy. We hope to see you at the show tomorrow. Doors are at 7 and the show will start promptly at 7:30. We’ll be screening this video on the wall; Evan’s already watched it a dozen times but he “can’t wait to watch it with everyone in the same room.” That guy (right?).

This week, we added another to our many sources of pride with our first batch of nominations for the Pushcart Prize. In first compiling this list we had 27 nominations! Allowed only 6, and after hours of much after-hour consideration, we have nominated the following for the 2012 Best of the Small Presses:

• Jesús Castillo: from “Remains” | 2.0 | Watch
• Graham Gremore: “Happy Birthday (Sorry You Missed It)” | 2.0 | Watch
• James Warner: from All Her Father’s Guns | 2.2 | Watch
• Siamak Vossoughi: “Don’t Ask Me” | 2.3 | Watch
• Meg Day: “Say Yes” | 2.5 | Watch (3rd poem)
• Joseph Lease: “Lost Highway” | 2.8 | Watch

DEAR EVERYONE: Thank you for making this selection so difficult. Thank you for participating, for throwing your names in the proverb cap, for listening. Thanks to all of the artists, to the managers and owners of all of the venues, to Julie Michelle and Timothy Faust and everyone else who has contributed photos, who has volunteered at our shows, who has been bold enough to open mouth and say to new friends and strangers: There’s this thing I know about that you might enjoy. THANK YOU.

7pm. 314 11th St (near Folsom). We’ve got the place for a couple of hours after the show, so this party stays where it starts. Love you guys. Hug tomorrow.