Wondermentalist

This is my review of the night.

The performers did us proud. They were all so very, very good.

Jerri Hart couldn’t be there. He’d lost his voice. Really lost it. We missed him, and the audience chanted his name. Then, at my request ‘just the women’ – I felt it’s what he’d have wanted. A warm and generous audience, as Dean and I were to prove (in the sense of ‘test’) at the end.

Leonie and Asha from Rae were wonderful, I hope we’ll have them back before too long. They reminded me of why I love Radio 3’s Late Junction. They’ll now be lending Traydio that warm, eclectic, exotic Late Junction feel. Next up was Liv Torc, brilliant winner of the Vibraphonic Slam in Exeter, with her personal superhero, Anxiety Girl, and she was followed by what I think was the best Dead Poets’ Slam so far, won by Dean Parkin reading Kenneth Koch’s To Kidding Around.

The audience poem was fantastic, again, and you must read it. They chose the theme of eggs. Eggs – what are you like?  [Read it here.] And Empath Man, without the promised theme tune (get well soon, Jerri) managed to get very cross with a crowd of people before being lured up the ladder and into the basket of Scorpio Rising’s hot air balloon.

Nomad Shuffle, still expanding, with percussionist Dan adding texture and zest, did a beautiful moving self-penned number dedicated to a friend. Then Beryl the Feral, who’d put together the Eggs poem in the interval, stepped up to deliver an utterly delightful short set that removed any possible traces of cynicism that may have been lurking in the room.

Dean Parkin delivered a delightful set, including the best audience participation cheek popping I’ve ever heard – then stepped into the breach, the unfillable Jerri Hart-shaped space, performing Shingles of your Mind with me, Matt, at the end, on a blue guitar purchased that afternoon. He played the Bobby Shaftoe version and, as debacles go, it was one of the most enjoyable and best received I’ve ever been part of.

But this is all just my opinion, and I’m about as biased as you can be. Where you there? Tell us what you think. How was it for you…?

This is the other other warm-up intro poem I promised to put up here. The Company of Leeks

Down through the generations
We’ve been generating leeks
We’ve not won all the prizes
But we’ve had our winning streaks
Won enough to furnish houses –
We’ve had fewer troughs than peaks
In the company of leeks

Rosettes, I’ve had a few
And then some honourable mentions
To see a leek you, yourself, grew
Receiving plaudits and attentions…
When that leek in peak condition
Wins a Best Leek Competition
You feel so cock-a-hoop
It calls for cock-a-leekie soup
Although it isn’t Mum’s leek pudding
…It’ll do

For what is a leek – what is it like?
Let’s sneak a peek – let’s take a look…
A cylinder of bundled sheafs
Tortilla wrap of Welsh motifs
A spring onion on steroids
Upside down Olympic flame
Close relation of the onion
They are Garlic’s kissing cousin
They’re en eco-party-popper in freeze-frame
Or pagan Barbie
A little bit ineffable
A heavy metal daffodil
It makes me feels so affable
The company of leeks

So you can keep your Spanish beach
I’ll stay where leeks are within reach
The tasty part of vichyssoise…
And while the world around me sleeps
Beneath the undemanding stars
I’ll keep the company of leeks

I read three poems for my warm-up intro on the 23rd. I’m going to put them all up, starting with the second…

The Amazing Memory Man’s Magical Memories

– an unforgetful love poem –

I remember the dress that you wore when we met
The dress with the dots – how could I forget
Two hundred and four – none exactly the same
I counted them all as you came through the door
…gave each one a name

We walked out together, beneath a lumpy grey sky
I see it so clearly now in my mind’s eye,
The pavement, the drizzle, the cars grumbling by…
Ford Mondeo, blue, N76 RBT
Toyota Corolla, white, C213 XPL
Citroen Picasso, red S79 YAE

You kissed me. I missed one. But I didn’t mind.
We were young. We had time.

The restaurant. We held hands. Once more we kissed.
And whispered sweet nothings - well, you did,
I whispered the whole set menu and wine list…
(And what’s really nice is:
I can still recite it, including the prices)

And then back to your place, your face stuck to my face
While my eyes memorised your cd’s
I noticed a book there beside the computer
The abridged Kama Sutra ‘for the hurried lover’
In two minutes, I’d read it – from cover to cover

You said, Hey do you seriously think that kind of thing can impress me?
And I closed the book, and my eyes, and said, Test me…