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Literary lites
A new wave of wannabes is packing Prague's open-mic nights
For The Prague Post (March 12, 2003) A red spotlight shines in the cafe window, casting a phantasmagoric glow over the cobblestone street, enticing curious passers-by. But anyone lured into Shakespeare and Sons bookstore on a recent Monday night would feel as if he or she had stepped onto a crowded tram, upping the body count to one too many. People fill every bit of the floorboards, all the barstools and wooden folding chairs and every bit of leaning space along the walls. A couple perched on top of the piano whisper conspiratorially, their metal face jewelry glittering in the shadows. What form of public spectacle or pop-culture phenomenon has brought all these bodies into one big group huddle?
The short answer is Alchemy, a 6-month-old open-mic event that offers writers and musicians a chance to share their work. Poetry in the Twilight, a similar event at Jazz Club Zelezna, has been drawing capacity crowds for about the same amount of time. No one will mistake these for heavyweight talent shows. The poetry can be painfully amateurish, and the music spotty at best. Because organizers plan the events for different nights to avoid direct competition, regulars in the audience may find themselves sitting through the same guitar-playing gal's off-key Jewel impersonation four times in a month. Still, something is brewing. Zelezna's 100-person space gets packed so tightly that leaving the room to buy a drink or use the bathroom is nearly impossible. And Shakespeare and Sons is considering installing a new sound system that will allow the overflow crowd to listen in from the back room. "There's kind of a cyclical thing, where the open-mic scene becomes very popular, then dwindles away," says Alchemy founder and organizer Ken Nash. "Right now, there's a big boom going on." Every last thrust Jazz Club Zelezna is a cross between a speakeasy piano bar and the black, windowless pit featured in Silence of the Lambs. Smoke rises toward the stone ceiling, curling into thick clouds with no chance of escape. Tonight, a George Costanza look-alike clambers onto the stage and addresses all the women in the audience as "ladies." Disregarding the five-minute time limit, he paces the stage for nine minutes, repeating the mantra, "It's raining inside my soul."
Next, a brunette with a purple notebook saunters to the stage in black high-heeled boots. All the male audience members snap to attention. She recites a play-by-play account of her last sexual encounter, down to every last thrust, delivered in a half-tease, half-whine. Some audience members appear shocked, some amused, some titillated. Others remember the same poem from one week earlier -- those are the people who, regardless of their "nonsmoking" status, lean over to tap a friend's shoulder and beg for another cigarette. "That girl has a style that's very cliche, reading with that particular rhythm that's been overdone," Kristen Weight, a poet who has lived in Prague for seven years, says after the show. "That doesn't do it for me, because everyone does it." With all the arguably bad poetry perpetrated at open mics, what is it that keeps the crowds coming back? For some, the events are creative outlets, part of the larger yearning for an American expat cultural scene. Others are there for the social network, an alternative to the bass-thumping techno clubs. "I come to meet interesting people, " says 21-year old Dennison Bertram. "It's either this or the Irish bar." Alegria, a petite 27-year-old woman who describes herself as a spoken- word poet/mixed-media performer, muses, "Though artists tend to be solitary on some level, they seek other artists. ... There's something about the creative spirit that's enchanting and inspiring." Ian Asher Chrystal, a 25-year-old performer sporting a blue bandanna on his head, describes his own poetry style as "the notion of a child punching out of a wet paper sack." As for open mics, he characterizes them as "a chance to attempt to express our separate little universes. ... The more we relate, share, express ... the more compassionate we become to each other's situation." Although a handful of participants appear older and wiser, the open-mic crowd is predominantly twenty-somethings, people the American media would dub "young hopefuls." There is also a core group of artists who have been attending such events since the early '90s. Longtime American expat and Prague Post contributor Vincent Farnsworth used to run the Literarni Kavarna open mic at the G + G bookstore. He admits to taking the stage "over the years when my poetry jones overwhelmed the open-mike aversion that all sane people have." Nash has a less-jaded view. A 38-year-old cartoonist/illustrator with the crooked smile and faraway eyes of a little boy who just woke up, Nash has been involved in the open-mic scene since he first came to Prague 10 years ago. "Even if expats do huddle together at these events as a way of feeling less culturally isolated or as a way to hook up, I would hope the additional outcome would be ... a community where influences are shared and new voices get the time, space, and encouragement to develop," he says. Poetry food chain The grandaddy of open-mic nights in Prague was Beefstew, which started in 1992 and ended in 2002. "It was held in the basement of Radost nightclub on Sunday nights," recalls Thomas Ward, a 36-year-old musician and writer. "I read at it almost every Sunday for most of those 10 years." With Alchemy, Nash is attempting to pick up where Beefstew left off, providing an outlet for new voices constantly appearing on the scene. Along with aspiring expats, he is booking established talent such as Myla Goldberg, the American author of Bee Season, slated to read Monday, March 17.
Twilight nights at Zelezna are organized by Ryan Merger, 27, a former computer programmer who "short-circuited when I encountered performance poetry four years ago." Clean-cut and baby-faced, Merger won the U.S. National Poetry Slam Champion title for his native San Jose, California, in 2001 with his quick, sharp-witted performance style. He's tapped into a similar performance-poetry network in Europe. "Zelezna is on a circuit, a loose Web-based network of affiliations," he says. "Performers get recommended by their slam-masters. Peter Hunter, a British slam poet, is coming to Zelezna March 24. By summer I expect to have a good-quality feature at every show." Having feature performers may be one good way to keep audiences engaged. Another, more-basic idea comes from open-mic veteran Ward, who suggests that organizers enforce the time limits. Although both events have a five- to seven-minute time limit for each performer, neither Nash nor Merger actively enforces it. The result is a poet-eat-poet food chain, with the greediest rising to the top and the humblest losing their turn in the spotlight. Merger shrugs off time limits like a politician addressing an old drug habit. "I've experimented with them in the past," he says.
Nash is more direct. "We are struggling to enforce it," he admits. "We're hoping people will pay attention and monitor themselves." At Alchemy readings, co-host Laura Conway, with her New York accent and tough-woman swagger, has the appointed role of bouncer. She attempts to verbally throw her weight around, repeating the time limit like an empty threat between readings, but she rarely cuts anyone off. Nash says he'd like to avoid resorting to violence. "It would be nice if we had a piano player to do a little musical cue: 'C'mon, time to wrap things up!'" he chuckles. As it happens, the piano at Shakespeare and Sons is out of tune. Moment of truth Despite the blatant disregard for time limits and an overabundance of angst, smoke and egos, open-mic events seem to contain an addictive ingredient. As Farnsworth points out, "If you can look past the exhibitionism, solipsism, narcissism, indulgence of loudly proclaiming one's passing whims and a general tendency for people to write without reading," there is one reason to keep on coming: "At every open mic there is a moment of truth." Witness the man in the untucked flannel shirt taking the stage at a recent Alchemy night. He pulls up a folding chair, rests his guitar on his knee, props his notebook and squints past the spotlight. "I hate sitting up here," he chuckles nervously. Reluctantly, he begins to strum his guitar, closing his eyes as though trying to lose himself. When he begins singing, his voice is slightly off-key, a mumble so very unrockstarlike that it instantly makes you smile. "You can keep my Dylan, my Cure and Ramones, Keep my stereo speakers and the new cordless phone, Keep the food in the fridge if it hasn't turned black ... I just want my fish tank back!" By the time he's reached the end of the chorus, the angry-looking lady in the front row is laughing. Someone starts clapping, and soon the entire room has joined in. He's just some guy picking at a guitar who may as well be sitting at his kitchen table. But tonight he's got it; the "moment of truth" is his. And strangely, he doesn't even seem to notice.
Kristin D'Agostino can be reached at
features@praguepost.com
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