an hour (?) with the goddess

it's official: i can die now.

spent what felt like an hour ahem mucking around with cynthia alexander (!!!) and her musician friends last monday evening preparing for tomorrow night's event with brit peformance poet francesca beard. my good friend and guru V invited me to this british council-sponsored workshop. the point of the whole exercise was to prepare a set of performance poetry with music by cynthia and her band. francesca liked my poem so she asked cynthia to help me create atmosphere. there was a mention of noseflutes and a gong somewhere. all a could do was stand there and goggle at her and read my poem over and over again so they could figure out how best to build on the existing tension of the piece. or something like that.

towards the end, malu, the chick who does the percs and bells, suddenly comments on the whole sad mood of my poem & kinda relates it to cynthia's recent album. and of course, idiot me had to butt in and say that i did like rippingyarns better. more listener friendly, blah blah blah. and the whole time i was mentally kicking myself because *of course* she knows what her album sounds like because she *wrote* the darned thing. but i just couldn't shut up.

thankfully, cynthia very kindly said that she did mean the third album to sound that way because her *life* during the writing of the album felt that way. the sad stories in rippingyarns were *nothing* daw compared to what she had to go through in recent years. and she said that it's my choice what i like best. and of course i know that but i'm still glad she said it. because by this time i had my foot in my mouth, bakya and all, and it's best to forget just how stupid i was.

we perform tomorrow night at conspiracy cafe, visayas ave., 7pm.

i'm terrified as it is but i expect the panic to set in around noon tomorrow. i pity the students who get in my way tomorrow morning.