[Mark Blaeuer]

I'll be the featured reader there on Wednesday, November 12. Open mic starts around 7 p.m., and my 20-25 minute set should start anywhere between 7:30 and 8:15. This venue is a restaurant/bar at 700 Central in Hot Springs, Arkansas. If any members (or non-members, for that matter, who might be reading this) happen to be in the vicinity and can attend, by all means come up and introduce yourself afterward. The range of performers over the course of a typical Wednesday night there is fairly wide.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Hope you get a good audience!!

[Mark Blaeuer]

Thanks so much, Janice. I'll post an update afterward, tonight or tomorrow.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm looking forward to it, Mark.

[Mark Blaeuer]

For what it’s worth, I thought the reading went really well. There were only 25-30 folks on hand, but they seemed very appreciative. So I didn’t feel bad that the attendance right afterward for the Trivia Contest may have been heftier than for me. By the way, here’s a bit of trivia: the contest categories last night included “Beatles vs. Rolling Stones,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “Porn.”

I was probably the only Spherian on the premises, and no one there indicated they saw this announcement, but…hey, it didn’t hurt to try.

Images of the venue: http://search.aol.com/aol/image?s_it...hot+springs%22

Maxine’s (which is named for Maxine Jones, who ran a brothel in this building many decades back) has its own website, the reading series emcee has a Facebook page on the weekly event, and YouTube has videos from the series.

[Julie Steiner]

I see that Maxine's also has strip karaoke. Interesting concept. I assume that the losers strip, and not the winners? If adapted to poetry readings, this could be a way to guarantee enthusiastic applause for people of my generation. I like it.

[Mark Blaeuer]

Nah, the strip karaoke is at a "gentleman's club" a few blocks away. That image made it onto page 1 of my search because a band called Verona Red played at Maxine's, then went to investigate the club, as documented on some website that Google found. I noticed, too, that one of the bands playing at Maxine's this year was the reconstituted Black Flag.

Your generation must be a lot younger than my generation, Julie. The only applause I'd get for such behavior would be from the masochists in the audience!

[Julie Steiner]

Actually, in my case, gentlemen prefer blinds. Heh.

My thinking was that if having to strip is the penalty for bad singing and/or bad poetry (as determined by lack of applause), then the comparative youth and beauty of other contestants would make the audience hypercritical of them, and correspondingly in awe of my unparalleled poetic talent. Nay, genius.

But I'm confident that no such measures would ever be needed for your poetic brilliance to be recognized, Mark. I can see it all the way from here.