over the next 72 hours
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Appearances, Dan McTaggart, Family, Journal, Muses, Video contest, West Virginia, contests, peacat
According to various sources, including myself, my web hosting company (web.com), my publisher, my friend Dan McTaggart, the remaining judges for the TVC2008 who have not yet gotten their votes in to me (harrumph), Barnes & Noble, my parents, my sibs, the media, my sons, one of my ex wives and two or three inspirationally-gifted friends, the next three days of my life should unfold with some of the following milestones.
Tomorrow we will announce the winner of the TVC2008. Mass hysteria will abound as we announce the TVC2009.
peacat.com will vanish, by midnight tonight. If no one with greater claim to the name asks for it before the registration runs out next year, it will go back on the open market.
I will give three two-hour readings at Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, WV, Sunday (10-12, 1-3, 4-6) with the assistance of the amazing Dan McTaggart, who co-authored Psalms of the Monster River Cult with me. I don’t think they could handle the intensity of the Long Beach reads, so I am trying to strike a balance.
Michael Phelps will win two more Olympic Gold Medals.
I will add ten more pieces to williamfdevault.com. Someone will blast me for the lovely nudity that is interspersed with the other artwork on the site. I will feel bad that I am being criticized, but will soldier on.
I will hear from someone out of an unexpected quarter.
I will write something inexplicably charming.
I will announce sometime today…oops, already did, that some of the Fields of Arbol pieces appearing on Amomancer will find their way onto williamfdevault.com.
Some doucebag will leave a stupid (definition: willfully ignorant), presumptive and irrelevant comment on one of my blogs.
I will drive over 500 miles in the next three days. I will still be alive Monday morning.
I will have dinner with my family on Saturday, and visit with my Grandmother, who is 96…bearing down on 97 next month.
I will discover a fantastic new muse.
t-minus 77 days and counting
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under As such, Dan McTaggart, Evangelist, Evangelist Tour, Events, West Virginia
My good friend and sometime collaborator, "Mountain Poet" Daniel S. McTaggart, has accepted my invite to be part of the festivities for the kickoff of the Evangelist Tour, on August 17, 2008. I would encourage (en couer rage) any and all within driving distance of the Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, West Virginia, to attend. You are in for some surprises.
I am soliciting some local musical talent. Whether this means some local bands will perform and/or there will be an Amomancer performance, I leave it to the fates. But in a perfect world, if I had my druthers, you’ll get both. All the hours I have been spending in the studio of late are paying off…I no longer think I sound like a dying, diseased bullfrog with a hernia. And I am learning how to work a microphone! (It is tougher than you might think!)
I am also tracking down other local authors to take part in the readings. Books and CDs galore (all of them, including Dan’s) will be on sale (if you guys sell me out of them on day one of the tour…ah well…), with the Evangelist CD and As such being the official CD and book for the tour.
77 days. Sheesh. Gotta get back on the treadmill.
credits for yesterday’s reading/signing
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Appearances, Dan McTaggart
As the music rises, we get the end credits from yesterday’s signing and reading at Barnes and Noble…
Written and Directed by William F. DeVault
Produced by Chanda Willard of Barnes & Noble
Mr. DeVault’s Hair by Rob Sanzi of Expressions in Hair
Mr. DeVault’s Wardrobe by whatever was clean that morning
Special thanks to Lulu.com and iUniverse for timely logistical support
Moral Support: Alan MacDonald
Immoral Support: Deb McDonald
Moral Support in absentia: Daniel S. McTaggart
Membership Services courtesy of Kate
Signing Pens: Pilot Precise Grip Extra Fine
Webmaster E.J. Trelawny
Eternal, immortal thanks to Melissa, Jan, Peri, Elric, Dante, Nancy, Teri, Tonya, Tanya, Ann, Alisha, Brigit, Lauri and Kristina for the inspirations. You are whom you meet.
And, in the end…
Busy evening, to say the least
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
Okay, follow along as best you can and watch yourself on the chord changes…
Busy evening…
#1: This week’s show is UP. Check it out on Apple’s iTunes Music Store -or- visit The City of Legends Radio page.
#2: Visited B&N to see about the open microphone event. Tag unveiled his book and I got to meet Cheryl Denise, the completely charming poet/author of "I Saw God Dancing". I am going to book her into my podcast in the coming weeks…count on it. I read "Damascus III", "The Darker Angels" and "Cithara Song, strummed lightly as the sun leaps the horizon"…hey, Alisha, everyone loves that poem, you should be proud that you inspired it.
#3: Wrote some more works, but I won’t post any right now…busy getting wound up for the signing on Saturday, getting psychotic. No, really…don’t get in my face.
Five Memorable Public Appearances
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Appearances, Memoir, Psyche, The Panther, the Leopard
Well, on April 22nd, I have to put up or shut up. Not the first time, not the last, I am sure.
It’s just a reading, actually a book signing, not my most important, but it is likely to get attention on several fronts.
Commercially, Barnes and Noble will be taking my temperature to see how well the small stack of books they provide sells. Best result, they sell out during my first hour. Worst result, nothing moves, nothing sells, and I bite a passer-by.
Okay, the latter is unlikely. But I think back to some of my more notable fulcrumed appearances. Here’s my five most memorable, in no particular order.
The Southern Poets Reading Tour (I), The Fairhope Arts Center, Fairhope, Alabama, Summer of 1997. Loki was right, I’d been flat all weekend, and I was supposed to be the big dog. So, I drop my reading list, put on my shades and did a set only of poems I could recite from the heart. As they were almost all about my relationship with Psyche, I cried through the read, then left the building. Ann followed and had to bring me back into the room, where poet after poet who followed me was changing reading lists and doing their most intimate works. It became a massive, public, catharsis session. I wrote my poem "Breathe" in one of the Leopard Cycles, about the incident.
The AOL Writers Club Party, The Algonquin Hotel, New York City, September of 1995. Having helped plan and execute this intimate gathering of poets and authors, when I was called upon to read to a room of peers, I chose works from the first six "Panther Cycles" (that’s all there were back then). It’s the only public reading I ever did with the Panther herself in the room, and the stress of being conscious of her presence in a room where, theoretically, no one knew about "us" yet, was intense.
A Catholic Girls’ High School in California, April, 2003. Just months before abandoning my beloved Golden State, I was invited to speak at this school. I called the place Kevin Smith’s Greatest Nightmare (or his wet dream). Several hundred well-groomed, upper middle class Catholic high school girls, all in their uniforms, most with attitude. I was actually intimidated. Yeah, I know, that’s funny. I recall particularly, not so much darkly, the one girl in the front row whose blouse was probably unbuttoned one more button than permitted, who seemed to be trying to channel Sharon Stone in ‘Basic Instinct’ with a smirk as she slouched in her seat, her knees apart, through most of the read. If I was but twenty years younger and willing to do jail time, I might have thought more about her. As it was, I had a good audience, and I got to see how well my material played to a young, estrogen-laced audience, which has always supposed to be a key demographic for the "Romantic Poet of the Internet".
The coffeehouse at Drummond Chapel United Methodist Church, Morgantown, West Virginia, sometime in 1974. I don’t recall the exact date, but it was my first "real" reading. After enduring a couple of rounds of polite applause from an audience that obviously was not listening to what I was reading, I gave them a tongue lashing for their hypocrisy. Thus was a reputation born.
The sports bar reading, Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, late 1978. My friend Dave Demeter, whose band was playing that night, set me up to be the act between musical sets. It takes a certain amount of confidence to be reading my poetry between musical sets in a place where most of the people are half into their third beer, watching a hockey game. It toughened me. I got applause, sold a few books, and fulfilled my quest to stop reading in poetry venues. Plus, it was the first place I ever performed "TRIUMPH". I don’t recall the exact name of the bar, alas.
So, aside from a few "private" readings, these are the ones that really stand out to me. If I had to pick a sixth, it would be the reading at The Blue Moose in Morgantown, during my 2002 tour. I sold a ton of books that night and met some guy named Dan McTaggart, plus it was the first time in decades that I had done a public reading in West Virginia.
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