You're Allowed :: March 6

C.L. Bledsoe, Tracy Dimond & music by The Mole Suit Choir 

You're Allowed :: Nov 6

Heather Rounds & Rachel Carstens

You're Allowed :: June 6th

Scott McClanahan, Mira Gonzalez & Megan Boyle

Lit, Carnival Games & Music. What More is There?

There is a really long story about how this event came to be. But I won't bother with it because ... well, because its long and who really cares. What is important is that this event is going to be so smacktabulous that we had to get a whole bunch of other people to help us contain the crazy. We teamed up with 5ive:Ten, Shattered Wig, Publishing Genius, and Ink Press to put on a night of great readings, excellent music and carnival-type madness that you will find nowhere else.

Sat., April 20th @ 8PM
Metro Gallery

Readings by:

Matthew Savoca ("I Don’t Know,” I Said, to be released this month by Publishing Genius Press)
Michael Kimball (Us, Big Ray, and the newly released Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (On a Postcard)
Sarah Jean Alexander (I Imagine You in Your House, Cleaning Your Chest)
Tracy Dimond (Sorry I wrote So Many Sad Poems Today)
Amanda McCormick (Ink Press)
Batworth (featured in Shattered Wig)

Music by: 

Drunk Monk

Suggested $5 at the door

You're Allowed :: April 4th

Thus begins our new season of readings. And there's a lot new about this one. A new venue. A new magazine. And all that in addition to two featured readers that we are thrilled to host. But that's not even all there is. As we always do, we will be hosting contributors to AH Vol. 5 (yeah, I know... I'm surprised too ... we made it through five issues!) So, in addition to Jordan Castro (link link link) and Laura van den Berg (link link link) you can also hear short works by:

Tracy Dimond 

Mark Cugini
Timmy Reed 

Fitz Fitzgerald
Brooke Carlton
Andrew Sargus Klein
CarlaJean Valluzzi
Peter Schireson

Around Town :: Readings in March

this

So if you're not completely wasted from AWP, and can stand the sight of another bunch of half-drunk literary types, here's our monthly list of readings in Baltimore that are certainly worth a bit of your time and (in some cases) your liver:

March 8th @ 7pm: Atomic Fiction Series presents both Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins, and Jen Michalski, author of Could You Be With Her Now.
Atomic Books, Hampden.

March 9th and 10, 12pm-17pm: Fourth Annual Publications and Multiples Fair.
D Center Baltimore.

March 10th @ 4pm: Essential Sunday featuring Tree Turtle, Dina Marie Varsalone & Matt Muirhead.
Minas, Hampden.

March 15th @ 7:30pm: Furniture Press Books Affair featuring Toby Altman, Martine Bellen, Alyse Knorr, Magus Magnus, Chris Mason, Alicia Puglionesi & Joshua Ware.
The Black Squirl, DC.

March 16th @ 5pm: 5ive: Ten featuring Elliott Holt, Marie-Helene Bertino, Meghan Kenny, and Scott McClanahan.
Minas, Hampden. 

March 24th @ 4:30pm: An Afternoon Toad Splendor, featuring Megan McShea's new book, A MOUNTAIN CITY OF TOAD SPLENDOR (as read by Lauren Bender, R.M. O'Brien, Bonnie Jones, Rupert Wondolowski, John Eaton and, of course, Megan McShea). Music by The Mole Suit Choir and Electric Junk Band
The Windup Space.

March 28th @ 7pm: Atomic Fiction Series presents both Micheal Kimball, author of Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (On A Postcard), and Leigh Newman, author of Still Points North.
Atomic Books, Hampden

March 29th @ 8pm: Shattered Wig featuring Michael Kimball, Josh Fruhlinger, and Mr. Moccasin.
14 Karat Cabaret at 218 W. Saratoga St.

Recently added:

March 24th @ 2pm: Benevolent Armchair featuring Steve Matanle and Kendra Kopelke.
York Arts, PA.

March 14th @ 8pm: Chris Toll Memorial Reading.
WindUp Space.

Go-go Dancers Strategically Placed in Literature

The Metamorphisizing

One day when Gregor Samza awoke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a go-go dancer. He lay in his sparkly silver booty-shorts, and when he lifted the covers he saw pink boots rising above the bend of his knees. The bedding was hardly able to cover the sprawling display of hair atop his head and the pillow seemed water-logged with glitter. His arms and legs, pitiful thin things they were, waved helplessly in involuntary gyrations.

“TEAR THE CLUB UP,” he thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper non-go-go room, unadorned with suspended dance cages or even the barest of laser lighting, remained peacefully between its four walls. He tried sleeping a bit longer in hopes of forgetting his consuming need to dance, imbibe sweetened alcohol concoctions, pop mollys, and sweat, while hip thrusting in assorted places, but that was something he was unable to do because his room was dreadfully absent of the pounding wub of repetitive electronic beats.

Anna Karenina-na-na-n-na-na-na-n-na

Honorable dancers are all alike. Every dishonorable dancer is dishonorable in their own way.

Everything was in confusion in Club Rain. Bailey had discovered that the bartender Trevor was carrying on an intrigue with a new girl whose specialty it was to work hula-hoops into her routine, and who had been once a trainee of Bailey’s at a previous club, and Bailey had announced to Trevor and all their mutual besties that she could not go on working in the same club as him, but each of them refused to seek a new job elsewhere, or even change shifts. This position of affairs had now lasted two weekends, and not only Trevor and Bailey themselves, but all the stage girls and night managers, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the club felt that there was no sense in their working around each other, and that the stray club-goers brought together by nothing more than the basic need to gyrate under the influence of high grade E, held more in common than they, the employees of the club.

Three days after the quarrel, Tyler Collins—TC, as he was called in the DJ world—woke up at his usual hour, that is two o’clock in the afternoon, not in his gf’s apartment, but on the understuffed cushions of the sofa in his best boy Steve’s place. He shifted his lean, well-cared-for person on the sparse sofa, as though the weed he had smoked the night before still beckoned him into a long sleep; he vigorously embraced the balled up hoodie he had used a pillow on either side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.

“Fuck dude?” he thought, going over his dream.

-By Justin Sanders

Arround Town :: Baltimore Readings in Feb.

Our favorite new arrival to Baltimore is not The Vince Lombardi trophy (though we're really happy to have that, too) but the sudden influx of great writers, including Laura van den Berg, who seems to be just about everywhere (no less than Tracy Diamond--see below), and who recently highlighted Baltimore in a great review for Ploughshares. If you haven't read it yet, read it here. It'll give you a pretty comprehensive picture of the goings-on of this strange city of ours.

But to know when what's going on are going on, here's a list of things happening this month:

Tomorrow: Gin & Ink are holding a workshop at Liam Flynn's Ale House. Bring some poems and drink some beers with  two lovely, young ladies just featured on The Signal.

February 10: Essential Sundays Reading featuring e. megg magee, Melanie McCabe & Jennifer Dove at Minas. Doors at 4pm.

February 12: Poetry & Conversation, featuring Adam Robinson and Chris Mason. Enoch Pratt Central Library. Doors at 6:30pm.

February 13: Barrellhouse Issue 11 Launch Party. Before I tell you who's reading, I'll first mention that this is in Philly, not Baltimore. But it deserves a mention because everything we've ever seen Barrellhouse touch turns wonderful. So make the trip (consider yourself implored). Featuring: Sam Allingham, Joshua Isard, and Courtney Mauk. At (oddly enough) Raven Lounge. Happy hour from 5-7pm. Event will be held upstairs.

February 15: Stephanie Barber reads from her new book "Night Moves" at Atomic Books. Doors at 7pm 


February 15: A Dark Valentine, featuring two of our favorites, Mark Cugini and Tracy Dimond (see above). E.M.P. Collective. Doors at 8:30pm.

February 16: 5ive: Ten, featuring, Roy Kesey, Jen Michalski, Justin Sirois, and Tara Laskowski. Minas. Doors at 5pm.

February 19: Worms, featuring: Tracy Diamond (see above, again), Christopher Stackhouse, Jeremy Hoevenaar, and Brian Nicholson. Metro Gallery. Doors at 8pm.

February 21: Library Basement Reading Series, featuring MFA students from UB. Langsdale Library. Doors at 8:15pm.

February 24: Three Tents, featuring Laura van den Burg (some people just get around), Dan Gutstein, Matthew Salesses, and Sara Burnett. This is another one that's not in Baltimore that i just had to mention. I do it only with good reason. The Big Hut. Doors at 6pm. 

Just added:

February 21: MFA Reading Series @ UB, featuring Jehanne Dubrow. UB Student Center, Hilda and Michael Bogomolny Room. Doors at 7 p.m.

Around Town :: Baltimore Readings in January

Now for something like this...

"You're Allowed" is currently on break (though, we'll be back soon with some exciting news). But not to worry, there are many other excellent readings happening around Baltimore. And if you need something to take your mind off the New Year's resolution that, if you're like me, is driving you mad – e.g. to eat less/more, sleep less/more, have sex less/more, masturbate less/more, quit smoking, quit picking your nose, etc. – then take your mind off it by joining in a burgeoning, robust and, if I might say so myself, sexy literary community by checking out to one of the following:

TODAY: Read With a Crowd @ Bohemian Coffee House w/ Nancy Murray, Tim Paggi, Laura van den Berg. Doors at 7pm

January 12 : Say it with Writing w/ Adrian Van Young, Adam Prince, Laura van den Berg, and Charlotte Pence. Door at 7pm

January 13: Essential Sundays @ Minas w/ Steven Leyva & Nathan Leslie. Doors at 4pm

January 20: A Quietly Cosmic Afternoon @ Normals w/ Daniel Higgs, The Mole Suit Choir ("a duo of Liz Downing of Old Songs & Lurch & Holler with Rupert Wondolowski"), and some other crazyness that you'll just have to go to see. Doors at 3pm

January 22: Worms @ Metro Gallery w/ David Beaudouin, Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, Kate Greenstreet, and Timmy Reed. Doors at 8pm

You're Allowed :: Dec. 6th

Justin Sirois & Lauren Bender

New Magazine Available (For Sale) Online

Artichoke Haircut Vol Four :: Fall 2012

This took a while. We know and we're sorry. But here it is. You can now, after many trials and tribulations, hellfire and gale-force winds, much yelling and tearing hair out because "what the hell, what mad bastard came up with HTML, I don't know that shit, who knows that shit, oh... hold on, did that work, that worked, why did that work, who gives a shit as long as it did, well that's stupid, I though I... I'm sure I tried that already, oh well" and anyway, now it works. And you can buy a copy of our latest magazine online.

Look to your left. That little grey rectangle with the tiny pics that look like magazine covers. That's our store. And you can get all of our available magazines there. It uses PayPal so its safe and works and I cannot begin to tell you how happy we are that it finally works.

Read all of your favorite, super-great writers in the shiny new volume of AH:

C.L. Bledsoe
Cliffton Price
Justin Sirois
Lily Herman
Rupert Wondolowski
Larry O. Dean
Brooke Carlton
Conner McNamara Stratton
Barrett Warner
Sid Gold
Kristi Carter
Joel Dailey
Ivan de Monbrinson
John J. Trause
Tonny Leuzzi
Elena Botts
Casey Lynn Roland
Richard Martin
Carabella Sands
Lindsay Daigle
Jeremy Dae Paden  

Philosophy of 'Father' & a Small Review of "Big Ray"

When I was younger, my dad got angry when I called him father. I guess there wasn’t enough devotion in that word. Yet, when he got angry with me for other things, he would call himself ‘father’ with a red face and the veins purpling in his forehead.

John Locke said, “Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind that uses them” (the crazy punctuation is not mine). Now there are multiple ways to interpret this and there are scholars who have spent a majority of their lives trying to determine exactly (which is ironic despite his vagueness) what Locke meant. And to fully understand the point that I’m going to make, bare with me over the next four paragraphs…

We may collectively understand a word’s meaning but that act alone doesn’t prove that the word is a pure representation of an idea. There is still the speaker’s bias to consider. Anyone who has been around me would know that I choose any word in order to represent something that I’m trying to say. We all do it. Think to that scene in “The Princess Bride” where Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Therefore if words rely on The Mind That Uses Them, then they are not static. And even if they are static for The Mind That Uses Them, there is still the audience to take into consideration. Even if The Mind That Uses Them has a static understanding of the word – lets say the general consensus, a dictionary definition ­– then the person receiving the communication may be biased and the probability of a miscommunication is great.

So why should a writer give a shit?

You're Allowed :: Oct. 4th

Michael Kimball reading from his new novel "Big Ray," followed by gypsy folk band Orchester Praceviza

Readings in September

To go with the fall weather that is (hopefully) right around the corner, September is bringing you (people-of-Baltimore-and-surrounding-area) a harvest of readings to pick and choose from.

Of course, to start out with, Artichoke Haircut’s release party is tonight. (I hear it is a real blast, you should probably come). Readers include, but are not limited to:
Lily Herman, Barrett Warner, Rupert Wondolowski, Carabella Sands, CL Bledsoe, Brooke Carlton, Justin Sirois, & Sid Gold

Reading at Gallery 788, Saturday 8th at 8 pm.
Readers: Steve Roggenbuck, Timmy Reed, Sarah Jean Alexander, Buttercup McGillicuddy, Matthew Falk, Earl Crown, & Carabella Sands

Nikki Pattin feature @ Essential Sunday September 9 at 4pm 

Sundays Reading at Minás
featruing Sandy Pattin
$3

Stories on Stage, Wednesday 12th at 7:30 pm.
D.C., (this is you, "people-of-Baltimore's-surrounding-area).

5ive:ten Reading, Saturday15th at 5pm.
Readers: Noy Holland, Laura van den Berg, Sam Michel, and the Lauren Bender

Conversations and Connections Conference, Saturday 22nd at 8:30am.
Philadelphia. Come say 'hi' to us while you're there! There will also be a lot a lot of great panels and oppurtunities to get your work looked at by editors from around the east coast.

Smartish Pace Reading & Music at the Baltimore BookFestival, Saturday 29th at 5 pm.
Who will be reading? Glad you asked!:
Madeleine Mysko & Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III)

Book Festival, September 28th-30th starting at noon.
A B-more staple.

You're Allowed :: Sept. 6th

Magazine Release Party

To celebrate the release of our fourth magazine we're doing something special... the same thing we always do: having ourselves a litty shindig.

As always, we are featuring some great talent from our brand new magazine:

Lily Herman
Barrett Warner
Carabella Sands
CL Bledsoe
Brooke Carlton
Justin Sirois
Sid Gold
Rupert Wondolowski

and more to be announced.

Doors open at 8:15pm, readings start at around 9.

The Death of a Mouse

So I killed this mouse. It was cute. It jumped and ran in circles. It stopped and sniffed the air. It was bug-eyed and tiny. It was a mouse. It was a fool. Now it’s dead.

I knew the mouse only for a very short period of time, but in that time I could tell all those things. Not that I paid it much mind myself. I got most of that from the brief period of indecision, the lull so that my girlfriend could ooh and ahh and say baby words to it before it died. And even then, while my girlfriend babbled non-words to a shitlessly scared mouse, I spent in thought of how it might die.

Once I decided… it was brutal – really, it was just bad– but it was also (if I might say so myself) humane (more on this later). But before I get into the details and series of events that resulted in this mouse’s demise, I first want to relate a story. This is the origin story of this essay.

So as I just said, I killed the mouse. It happened as we were on our way to bed. It popped its little mouse head out from behind some toilet paper rolls. My girlfriend screamed, panicked, pushed me in the room with the mouse, closed the door behind us, and there we all were, trapped. My girlfriend and I standing on tall things so as to protect our feet, I guess – I don’t really understand this reaction – and the mouse searching frantically, from corner to corner, side to side, for a hole that didn’t exist. Then I killed it (again, details to come), brushed my teeth, locked the front door and went to bed.

You're Allowed :: July 5th

Carrie Murphy & Kate Wyer

You're Allowed :: June 7th

Adam Robinson & Davey Vacek

Attn :: Men of Baltimore

To the men who feel obligated to stop me on the sidewalk to make comments about my legs,

Look. I know my socks are super awesome because I wouldn’t wear them if they weren’t. In fact, they’re so awesome, when my neighbor gave them to me she said, “I think you might like these, I’ve had them since the 70’s and never wore them because they’re ridiculous.” I can only imagine that she meant to say awesome, that she never wore them because they are awesome. So yes, I like them too.

But please, PLEASE do not tell me how awesome my tattoos are. They’re not tattoos. They are awesome socks. And anyone who decides to get tattoos from their feet to their knees is stupid because that’s a stupid tattoo. Sleeves are fine, but not kneehighsocktoos – I don’t even know what to call them because no one does that because it’s stupid.

I’m not mad that you think my socks are awesome. I not mad that you think my “tattoos” are awesome, but do not stop me to ask if you can take a picture of my legs. And do not stop in the middle of the road in your white stalker van, blocking traffic, cars backing up, whizzing by, horns blaring, JUST so you can yell out “I like your tattoos!” Because… what do you think will happen? That your comment will make my panties drop? That your comment will make me realize that we were destined to be, and while you sit there idling, awaiting my response, I’ll come running over and jump into your van and we’ll ride off in the three o’clock sunlight – because it isn’t sundown yet, oh but we’ll drive until it is.

And to the mister with the white button up and Pest Control embroidered over the left breast, did you think I’d go all sexy-up-in-the-air-leg-pose because I’m a young college girl and damn if Girls Gone Wild hasn’t taught us that these are moments when a girl’s low self esteem just SHINES. What would you have done with it? Would you have shown your friends? Maybe uploaded it to facebook. You would say, “Hey, lookit this girl’s tattoos, they look like socks!” And someone would reply, “Man, that girl has low self esteem.”

While I think that these socks do deserve the attention that you are throwing at them, anyone who has tattoos that looks like socks is dumb and therefore your attention is dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I like tattoos, even have a few. But don’t get mad when I laugh at the look on your stupid face as I roll down my socks and say “THEY’RE JUST SOCKS.” Awesome socks.


Thanks,
Melissa

You're Allowed :: May 3rd

Jen Michalski & Stephanie Barber