The following interview was conducted via Facebook messages between the organizers of Press > Play – Christophe Casamassima and Andrew Sargus Klein – and myself. The event is the third stop on Furniture Press Books 10th Anniversary American Poetry Tour, hitting a dozen cities between Baltimore and Iowa City. It all goes down Sunday, September 29th at Peabody Heights Brewery. Here is a link to the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1386179668264193/
Timmy Reed: Okay. I’ll start. You guy’s answer whenever. I will probably just edit the heck out of this to make myself look like a better interviewer anyway. So, what is the event and what is it all about? Why is it happening? Gimme a lede graph here, fellas.
Christophe Casamassima: This event goes by the title, “PRESS > PLAY”, which is a play on representing the best literary presses in the region (and their editors and writers), and, of course, play, which Andrew and I think is a necessary part of literature, esp. in the ideation stages. And what better way to represent the play of imaginations by hosting an event in which readers are paired with musicians, dancers, comedians and actors? Oh, and beer! The decision to host an event, free and open to the public, at a space that could encompass the breadth of creative energies that are far from lacking in our charmed city was an easy one: the Peabody Heights Brewery is a massive space holding a tasting room and a large courtyard, perfect for spreading out performance possibilities. And, of course, the actual brewery, replete with fermentation tanks, bright tanks, mash and lauter tuns, where we will actually have the readers and performers “play” their words and bodies. We developed an “intermedia” approach to our “press fair” because we believe all the arts have equal weight. And we also believe that relegating creative energies to outwardly visible functions (writing, painting, dancing, etc.) instead of seeing them for what they truly are, manifestations of the inherent spring of creative energies that is formless and nameless, is a taming down of the potential of creative literacies. All the arts are entwined, somehow, even though they appear to be radically contentious. Our hope with this event, ultimately, is to regain the spirit of play and experimentation “through” the arts, hence intermedia, hence “PRESS > PLAY”.
Timmy Reed: Awesome. Very thorough response, good sir. I like all this cross-polination talk. And breweries. So who all is going to be there (in terms of performers, presses, stone cold players, etc.)? And what kind of multimedia performances should an attendee (such as myself) expect to see there?
Andrew Sargus Klein: We love pollen, except Lynne Price our co-curator/idea-generator/multidisciplinary guru, who has terrible allergies year round. I’ll let Christophe handle the horn of literary plenty that will be present at the affair. What Lynne and I did was look to bring in a diverse group of people that will engage the space and the audience and rock the joint as needed. We both felt strongly that the space needed some real comedy, so we reached out to Ben O’Brien from Wham City and Mickey Free to bring the funny. Musically, we’ve got the horn group Barrage Band to kick things off, and we’re bringing in a ringer from Brooklyn, the band Adios Ghost, to end the night. Lynne will be choreographing a dance piece inside the brewery space with live accompaniment from a few of Adios Ghost’s members. This will all be interspersed with literary bellowing. Poetry and beer, comedy and music, dancing and bellowing. We’re thoroughly pumped.
Christophe Casamassima: In a nutshell, to summarize Andrew and to add on the presses/lit orgs (bottom) that will appear (note: readers have not yet been chosen; that will be something forthcoming, possibly even unveiled the night of): PERFORMANCE Lynne Price : Dance/Choreography (Baltimore) Mickey Free : Comedy (Baltimore) Ben O’Brien : Comedy (Baltimore) MUSIC Adios Ghost (NYC) Barrage Band (Baltimore) pi hole (VA/DC) LITERARY PRESSES AND ORGANIZATIONS Argos Books (NYC) Furniture Press Books (Baltimore) Gazing Grain (VA/DC) Hidden Clearing Books (Baltimore) Ink Press (Baltimore) JMWW (Baltimore) Cottey House Press (Baltimore) Publishing Genius (Baltimore) Infinity’s Kitchen (Baltimore) Brick House Books (Baltimore) LitMore (Baltimore) Singing Saw Press (NYC) Worms (Baltimore) Abecedarian, Inc. (Baltimore) Seltzer (Baltimore) Fact-Simile (Philadelphia) Gigantic Sequins (Philadelphia) Plork Press/University of Baltimore (Baltimore) Baltimore Review (Baltimore) In regards to promotion, some key members of this curatorial team will be hitting the Baltimore Book Festival with members of the Barrage Band to ring loud the upcoming party, probably day of, on Sunday, or Saturday. Not specified yet. And I think Lynne will be bringing the dance troupe with her as well to get between the body of the crowds. Is that right, Andrew?
Andrew Sargus Klein: We are slow-cooking several ideas just like that! There may be some raucous guerrilla marketing popping up all over the Book Festival.
Christophe Casamassima: By the way, did someone say that this is the unofficial Baltimore book festival afterparty?
Timmy Reed: I think you just did.
Andrew Sargus Klein: Because we’re thinking of branding this as the unofficial Baltimore book festival afterparty.
Christophe Casamassima: Oh did we? Or did you imply that? (TM) (C) But ’tis, truly. We want to brand it
Andrew Sargus Klein: We will lawyer up if need be; some guerrilla litigation.
Christophe Casamassima: Oh, one thing we didn’t mention, which is very important: the idea of bringing this event to the brewery is to generate community collaboration, that is between the local businesses and the arts community. The arts brings awesome programming to businesses that support our mission, thus increasing patronage and fiscal feasibility and new audiences are created because we put art in places not traditionally associated with arts curation.
Andrew Sargus Klein: Wut he sed.
Christophe Casamassima: Hence: intermedia, which extends outside of the art to promote intercommunity support systems, both economic and cultural.
Timmy Reed: I think we have pretty much decided on the shape of the table here. Is there anything else the fine readers of What Weekly need to know? Any bits of wisdom or information regarding a cover price, for instance? Can you tell me why we, say, “rewind” a YouTube video that was never “wound” in the first place?
Christophe Casamassima: Videos are wounds that never heal. To rewind them is to relive the tragedy.
Timmy Reed: So, no cover?
Christophe Casamassima: The event is free. Books will be sold by the presses. Beer will be sold by the brewery. No cover whatsoever. Free to all.
