...A NEW VIDEO FROM VENICE!!
Hello beasties!
This week there are really two things on my mind... Okay, maybe three!!
The first of these is a relatively quick thing - our latest
SHY YETI ON LOCATION video... Here we go - this is what it's about, it's one of my favourite episodes as it was filmed in what is probably my favourite city in the world. At least of all the cities that I've visited...
A YETI IN VENICE - PART 1 is the first of a two-part
SHY YETI ON LOCATION series set in... well, believe it or not it's set in Venice! This isn't the first time the series has been there - but it's the first time that I've managed to film there and not accidentally delete most of my footage! (Which is exactly what I did back in 2010!) This first episode was filmed back in November 2012 and includes two poems - one called
A FORTNIGHT TO ACHIEVE, the other entitled
THE MAN-EATER OF SURREY GREEN, a prose piece called
THE BUTTERFLY COLLECTORS and a daft Venice-themed limerick. There is also a yeti dance and the return of the ghost hunter as he shows you around the city with his peculiar and ghostly tales. The film features Paul Chandler and guest stars Dominic McCauley. Music is by Luca and Spooky Yeti. All content of this film is Copyright Paul Chandler 2013. Part 2 of this series will be posted soon...
Youtube: http://youtu.be/XWSDRYkQb6g
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/64535607
Part 2 is already edited, but I'll save it for a couple more weeks and am now beginning work on
SHY YETI'S SEARCH FOR SPRING, which I recorded over the Easter break and which should, hopefully, be quite an easy one to complete. With a bit of luck I'll post that in mid-May. After that I'll be moving onto an episode set in Salisbury
AND Paris - and then it'll probably be time for a trip to the Lake District. I will be doing a video from the
ARE WE THERE, YETI? show - but not immediately; probably closer to our next show in July.
So, without further ado I should tell you how the gig went, shouldn't I? Well, it was a certainly a good night - we enjoyed ourselves even though we didn't get as big a crowd as usual and sadly didn't make a great deal for the charity. Never mind, there's always next time! The weather rather worked against us with Friday night being lovely and sunny too; quite a change after recent poor weather. Still, let's not grumble and instead investigate a little closer what exactly we got up to during the evening. I've not yet checked the footage, but I think most of what was read was recorded. Here goes...
ARE WE THERE, YETI? - THE SHOW
FRIDAY 19TH APRIL 2013, POETRY CAFE, LONDON
FIRST HALF
A HAPPY YETI HOWL
A HARMLESS PRANK
YOUR NIGHTMARES
YOU CAN'T TRUST A MAN WITH A BEARD
THAT JOKE JUST WASN'T FUNNY
CALL OF THE MILD
A ROSY-TINTED LIFE
THERE ARE NO DISCOTEQUES IN THE STARS
KILLING TIME
JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS
ARE WE THERE, YETI?
GLUE TO MEND A BROKEN HEART
PHOTO FALLEN
THEY CAME FROM OUTER HEBRIDES
WE HAVE MICE
AUGUSTUS THE TRUSTY GUIDANCE PIG
SECOND HALF
A YETI WAY OF THINKING
BORN WITHOUT A FUNNYBONE
ALL THE RAGE
MEANWHILE ELSEWHERE
MY LAST LOVE (UNTIL THE NEXT ONE)
HE WAS JUST AN EVERYDAY WEREWOLF
THE DUST OF AGES
NEVER TRUST A SKINNY FISH AND CHIP MAN
YOU'RE NO FRIEND (LET'S BE ENEMIES)
MICE TAP-DANCING
BECOMING MORE CAT-LIKE
A LITTLE MOUSE
IN MORE DETAIL
FIRST HALF
A HAPPY YETI HOWL
A HARMLESS PRANK
YOUR NIGHTMARES
YOU CAN'T TRUST A MAN WITH A BEARD
The first four pieces of the evening were extremely new ones - not even from the next collection
NOT AS SHY AS I WAS, but from the book that follows it, which is unlikely to be published until 2014 and is tentatively entitled either
GRANNY ATE MY AFTERBIRTH, A YETI WAY OF THINKING or
BORN WITHOUT A FUNNYBONE. The first piece, is a new yeti poem, of course - and I always have to begin the night with one of those. The next piece was a short story that I wrote over Easter, the third a recent poem and the 4th a prose piece inspired by something that my dad once said to me about what interview panels often (apparently) think about men with beards!
THAT JOKE JUST WASN'T FUNNY
CALL OF THE MILD
A ROSY-TINTED LIFE
THERE ARE NO DISCOTEQUES IN THE STARS
The second of these 4 poems was from my
THE AUTUMNAL E.P. collection, whilst the remaining three were from
GO 4TH AND DIVIDE. It's no real surprise as I've been working on the 10th anniversary collections of both books, as they're both due out this year. I'm not sure whether they'll be revisited in July (the
4TH... show) or November (the
AUTUMNAL show), but then I'm not going to have time to read the whole books - so it's nice to get a few of them in early, just in case I don't get to return to them later.
After this John Smallshaw came up to the stage and read for a while and after about ten minutes I returned with a few more poems before the intermission...
KILLING TIME
JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS
These two are also both from
GO 4TH AND DIVIDE - I'm not sure I've ever performed either, although
KILLING TIME I recorded for a recent
SHY YETI ON LOCATION video during the Easter holidays.
ARE WE THERE, YETI?
GLUE TO MEND A BROKEN HEART
PHOTO FALLEN
These three are all from the new collection,
ARE WE THERE, YETI? and I've performed the first two before at my November 2011 Poetry Cafe show (and again at my September 2012 show in the case of
GLUE TO MEND A BROKEN HEART), with
PHOTO FALLEN receiving its live debut on Friday. Here's a link to the text version which I posted on this blog last month:
http://www.thedaffypoet.blogspot.co.uk/2013_03_10_archive.html
THEY CAME FROM OUTER HEBRIDES
WE HAVE MICE
AUGUSTUS THE TRUSTY GUIDANCE PIG
These three are a mixture of old and new - the first two are from
GO 4TH AND DIVIDE from almost 10 years ago, whilst
AUGUSTUS is a piece inspired by a drawing on a wall that I encountered during my November 2012 trip to Venice. I worked on that poem for a while after the trip, finally completing it back in February. I also posted it on this site at around the same time, as part of our 250th post... In fact here's the link:
http://www.thedaffypoet.blogspot.co.uk/2013_02_24_archive.html
SECOND HALF
A YETI WAY OF THINKING
BORN WITHOUT A FUNNYBONE
The first two poems of the second half are from the collection that I am currently writing - whatever it ends up being called! Both poems made their debuts on friday night, but are unlikely to see the light of day in print until early 2014... As it happens they're both poems whose titles could well end up as the overall title of a forthcoming collection too! I may well take a vote on it on amongst my Twitter and Facebook followers, nearer the time.
ALL THE RAGE
MEANWHILE ELSEWHERE
MY LAST LOVE (UNTIL THE NEXT ONE)
The first of these three were from
THE AUTUMNAL E.P., whilst the other two are from
GO 4TH AND DIVIDE, the two 10th anniversary collections that I've been working on lately. As far as I can remember I have never previously performed any of these live...
After this Fatima (a friend of John's) and John himself returned to the stage. Fatima read a poem that she'd written that night and John performed a number of pieces, old and new. After this I returned to read one or two final poems...
HE WAS JUST AN EVERYDAY WEREWOLF
THE DUST OF AGES
NEVER TRUST A SKINNY FISH AND CHIP MAN
YOU'RE NO FRIEND (LET'S BE ENEMIES)
The first piece is another from
GO 4TH AND DIVIDE that I've also recently recorded for one of my yeti videos, whilst the final three are from
ARE WE THERE, YETI? I last performed
NEVER TRUST A SKINNY FISH AND CHIP MAN at my September 2012 Poetry Cafe show and it's one of my recent favourites. I also recorded a version of it in the Lake District, last summer - and hope to edit this series very soon.
MICE TAP-DANCING
BECOMING MORE CAT-LIKE
A LITTLE MOUSE
I finished the evening with three animal poems from 2012's
SHY YETI GOES WILD compilation, although they were originally from separate collections,
MICE TAP-DANCING from
IF POEMS WERE PIES (2009), BECOMING MORE CAT-LIKE from
YETI HUGS AND OTHER HORRORS (2011) and
A LITTLE MOUSE from
THE VAMPIRE COWS OF SCUNTHORPE (2011)
It may not have our most busy night - but I'm glad we went on and completed a full show... I pretty much read all that I'd intended to as I had deliberately chosen a few poems less than usual as I'd hoped that we'd have a few more open-mike readers... I had intended to read a song lyric as a poem; but I'll save that one until next time! Although it was
ARE WE THERE, YETI?'s evening - there are a lot of short stories in that collection - which is why I only read six pieces from that collection book. In fact I only decided to read the three from
SHY YETI GOES WILD after John mentioned that he was going to finish by reading some of his own favourite pieces and so I decided to do the same; those three being one's that I am especially fond of.
Before we move on I have a few people that I'd like to thank, my special guest, John Smallshaw for one - not to mention Dominic McCauley for filming events and Fatima for coming up to read at short notice; also to her friend Mary for accompanying her. Special notice should also go to Calum Williamson for choosing to come to watch us rather than spending it out boozing with his work mates. All attendees were most appreciated!
Before I go I'd also like to mention a few recent posts by my friend Adam M Botsford who has been working with me on a number of illustrations for my
NOT AS SHY AS I WAS collection, which is due out later this year. Adam has been writing on his blog about working on a drawing for my poem
WE'RE ALL JUST BRAINS and has said some very kind things.
Here are some of his recent posts, including the finished design for the illustration:
http://adammbotsford.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/brain-commission.html
http://adammbotsford.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/updates-and-brain.html
For those of you too lazy to click on the link Adam made a very kind comment in one of his posts, as follows:
"In other news, I've had a chance to work with Paul Chandler again. But some grace of artistic good fortune he has opted to hire me again for a series of poem illustration, such as the one above. The greatest part of working with him is the freedom he allows. It's rare to work with a creator or client who gives you primary control. On most of the work he gives suggestions and guidance, and tons of patience but lets me have the liberty of most of the design and layout. Seriously. One of the best customers ever. In all honesty, I've had tons of success working with people. Either through my Etsy page, my direct page, or even through Tumblr nearly everyone has been amazing."
I'm flattered! I must say that it's been terrific fun working with Adam too. When working with illustrators I really like just giving over the poem and seeing what they come up with. Sure, sometimes they want a little guidance - but usually not until after a first draft has been completed. With the "BRAINS" piece I had asked Adam to come up with something sort of Frankenstein-y - a brain in a bottle and it was when he sent the first drawing that I had the idea for the
BEFORE and
AFTER design. I'm really not sure what it all means, but I was very pleased with what Adam came up with from my rambling email and by the end of the day we had the finished piece! Adam did all the hard work, of course! Watch this space - there is more to come and I'm hoping to post another piece of Adam's work for
NOT AS SHY AS I WAS in the next week or so. The finished book is going to look just great - hopefully the poems and stories are going to be good too! :)
There are also a number of other posts by Adam on the matter - which I completely failed to notice at the time, what with being so busy on my return to work last week. Here are just three of them where you can see the development of the illustration.
http://adambotsford.com/post/48130808704
http://adambotsford.com/post/48128642850/almost-done
http://adambotsford.com/post/48124462682/wip-commission-part-2-of-the-brain
Next week, we'll be back with our final post of April - that's the first third of the year over and done with; what exactly do we have in store for what it technically the middle of the year!? Well, we'll discuss all that when we get there - don't go away, will you!?! Well, you can for a while - but do come back next week... Okay! Okay! I'm going!!
More soon!
Yeti hugs,
Paul xxx
This post and all contents are Copyright Paul Chandler 2013.
...BUT THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT I WROTE WHILST STILL IN THERE...
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