Firebird Festivities – PART I “The Lead Up”

by Washington Washington

Well, it’s here again… And there’s a ton of stuff going on this year! Below you’ll find a schedule of events leading up to and including the burning of the bird. Part II will focus on the after parties.

As always, for more info on the festival check out www.firebirdfestival.com

SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES AND EVENTS

2 – 3:30pm – John Cassidy and David Smith (Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge Street) – Magic, mayhem, juggling, and balloon sculptures will prevail as these two take over the theatre. A laugh-a-minute show of juggling, sideshow, and comedy, $7 per person.

3 – 7pm – Local Author Vincent Martino, Jr. will be on hand to sign copies of his recently published book “Around Phoenixville” (Wolfgang Books, 237 Bridge Street)

4pm – Theater of the Stars, holiday marionette show – Fumblefingers the Elf (301 Bridge Street, Creperie building)

4 – 5pm – Local community story teller Dagmar Hoell tells the Lenni Lenape story of transformation “Rainbow Crow”  (Wolfgang Books, 237 Bridge Street)

4 – 5pm – Marina Gresham and friends – bluegrass (Phoenix Village Art Center, 207 Bridge Street)

4 – 10pm – Firebird Arts Bazaar (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street)  – A diverse selection of our region’s fine artists and artisans. Shop for holiday gifts. Get inspired. Support regional small business

5 – 6pm – Rock & Roll After School performance (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street). Students (ages 8 – 18) in this innovative music school in Phoenixville learn guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals and Djing. They explore their musical pursuits and learn to write and play their own music! Come check them out!

5 – 6pm – Michael “Cougar” Reddy, long-time singer-songwriter and twelve-string guitarist. (Earth Mart, 235 Bridge Street). His original songs are rooted in folk .He creates intense lyrics, and tells it like it is. Sing-alongs and classic folk covers make him an engaging performer.

5 – 7pm – Paul Wentworth band – folk/fusion guitar (Phoenix Village Art Center, 207 Bridge Street)

6pm - Firebird Improv Orchestra and The Phoenix Myth (Colonial Theatre) – What is this Phoenix story all about? Come here the myth told by Storytelling Irma, known for her interactive storytelling style. She will be accompanied by the Firebird Improv Orchestra – a group of eclectic musicians and instruments from didgeridoos to violins. This show is interactive, spontaneous and fun for all ages.

6pm – The Marionette Theatre of the Stars (301 Bridge Street, Creperie building). Founded in 1997 by Peter and Tina Bruckner, the outfits seeks to bring a magical experience of puppetry, storytelling, and live music to a wide audience of all ages and cultures. $ 5 per person.

6 – 7pm – The Sun Stone Project (Phoenix Karate Center , 224 Bridge Street) – Ecclectic music, with Don on Guitar and keyboard, Dave on Drums and Jim on Harmonica.

6:30 – 7:30pm – Spirit Wing performance, one of the most popular Native American groups in the region (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street). They has been together for ten years, performing at the Philadelphia FolkFestival, Bethlehem Music Fest, New Jersey Folk Festival and many other venues in the tri state area, including performing at the Firebird Festival in Phoenixville since it’sinception. They have been nominated for a Native American Music Award in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Their background is a strong Americana/Folk/Blues sound. Barry Lee of Spirit Wing is the master of Ceremonies

7 – 7:30pm – Firedancers for the Firebird Festival are provided by The Playing Mantis (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street) They’re very excited to be attending this unique and exciting community event, and are looking forward to a great burn! Based out of Wilmington, DE, The Playing Mantis travels the east coast providing fire performance, instruction, and supply. Their featured performers will be: SnapDragon, Mantis, Omni, and Smokey.

7:15pm – The Children’s Procession of Light – Starting from the Colonial at 7:15 pm Children will join the drum parade with handmade paper mache lanterns, lit with battery operated votives, and move into a spiral shape in the parking lot, near the Artisans, for a luminous finale!

7:30pm - Peace Birds – Giant puppets parade and Drumming for Sanity Percussion Ensemble (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street)

7:45pm -Great Quintini  – a performance artist and a sculptor. Making costumes and musical sculptures out of found materiels. In his shows he wear costumes, play musical sculptures, and tell humorous stories; acting out the parts that defy words. These stories are often from his life experience.

7:50pm – Raffle draw (find out if you’re the one to light the Firebird) and invocation by Mia Bosna (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street)

7:55pm – Didgeridoo ensemble (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street)

8pm – LIGHTING OF THE FIREBIRD (Firebird Site, 347 Bridge Street) On stage as the Firebird burns – Music by Mystic Song with Lynn Miller’s phenomenal voice and Eric Miller’s fast moving fingers on Guitar and Mandolin, Ramesh Vaghela on harmonium & voice and Ron Kravitz on percussion.

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Firebird Festivities – PART II “The After Parties” coming later this week…

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admin, December 7th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Book Signings At Wolfgang Books This Weekend

By Washington Washington

Author Showcase: Thrilling Tales Edition with A.M. Boyle, Bernie Mojzes & Michael Vantrella Saturday, October 24th, 11 am – 4 pm

Three area authors will visit Wolfgang Books this Saturday for a meet and greet to discuss and sign copies of their work. It’s no secret that independent and small presses are publishing the most notable (and edgy) science fiction and fantasy, as you will see with the work of these writers.

From Wild Wolf Publishing, a new independent publisher out of the UK comes Turn of the Sentry by A.M. Boyle… Jack Gardner’s life is a mystery even to himself. A victim of an inexplicable memory loss, he leads a pitiful life in the slums of South Florida, haunted by frightening glimpses of his past. Now the dreams have started, and something disturbing has awakened inside him… Ms. Boyle will be on hand for the afternoon to discuss and sign copies of her book. Wild Wolf Publishing specializes in dark, brutal fiction — just what you need for the last week before Halloween.

Bernie Mojzes has most recently had a story published in the anthology Dead Souls, and it’s a good one. He will also be signing copies of a stunning limited, handbound edition of The Evil Gazebo, which will come out in paperback this November from Dark Quest Books. A Jack of all trades, Bernie has dabbled. In what? you ask. Well, let’s see. He’s fiddled with UNIX, he’s framed pictures, he’s taught college courses and karate classes, he’s designed and built networks and generated propaganda for the technical elite masses. He has studied the Great Philosophers and mocked them all. He plays bass and occasionally warbles a bit off-key.

Michael Vantrella has most recently published Arch Enemies with Double Dragon Books. Mike is a regular fixture at science fiction conventions on the east coast, where he appears on panels to discuss fiction, animation, and gaming.

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admin, October 23rd 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Previews

Two Supernatural Author Events At Wolfgang Books This Saturday (10/17)

by Washington Washington

This Saturday, October 17th, Wolfgang Books will be hosting two awesome author events… 

First, a book signing and discussion with David Walton will take place at 3pm. The local author will be on hand to discuss and sign copies of his Philip K. Dick Award winning novel Terminal Mind. You can’t really do any better with your first science fiction novel than win the Philip K. Dick award, and we hope you will stop by to speak with David about his work. In this futuristic novel, the U.S. is a splintered country. The city-state of Philadelphia is ripe for revolution…

Then, at 7pm, there will be a Ghosthunting Pennsylvania book signing and discussion. Rosemary Guiley, an expert on paranormal, visionary, and spiritual topics, will be on hand to discuss her visits to more than 30 legendary haunted places in Pennsylvania, all of which are open to the public. She will also be signing copies of her recently published Ghosthunting Pennsylvania, which includes a map and travel guide to these ghostly sites. Proceed with caution…

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admin, October 13th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Beatles Book Signing with Jude Southerland Kessler at Wolfgang Books This Sunday (9/27 – 2 pm)

by Washington Washington

Jude Southerland Kessler, author of her self-published novel Shoulda Been There: A Novel on the Life of John Winston Lennon, will be at Wolfgang Books this Sunday, September 27th @ 2 pm to discuss and sign copies of her book. Jude is an award-winning speaker, and you don’t want to miss her Beatles presentation.

About the Book: Literally hundreds of non-fiction books have been written about The Beatles and about the man who formed The Beatles, John Lennon. And quite a few fictional books about Lennon have been created to amuse fans. But Jude Southerland Kessler’s Shoulda been there is the first book ever to tell the Lennon saga with carefully researched footnotes and detailed, informational endnotes, while using a fiction format to keep the reader turning the page. Researched for over 20 years with 7 trips to Liverpool and countless interviews with John Lennon’s friends, early band members, first manager, and club d.j.’s, Shoulda been there traces Lennon’s life from 1940 to December 1961 (when The Beatles signed with Brian Epstein). But it is not just a story about the birth of a band. It is the tale of a lost child whose parents, for one reason or another, pushed him aside for other pursuits. It is the story of all children for whom someone “shoulda been there.”

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admin, September 25th 2009 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Previews

An Interview With Stevenallenmay of Plan B Press (Poetry Reading at Wolfgang Books this Saturday – 7:30)

by Washington Washington

stevenallenmayPlan B Press returns to Wolfgang Books for another edition of their group poetry reading series. This time around it will feature 2009 chapbook contest winner Chris Bullard, along with C L Bledsoe, Daniel Collins, Elizabeth Bodien, stevenallenmay and Andrew Bradley.

I recently caught up with stevenallenmay (founder of Plan B Press) via the Facebook chat interface. It went a little something like this…

Plan B Press is back in town for another event. What should we know about this lineup of poets?

- The reading is one to support our 2009 poetry chapbook contest winner, Chris Bullard, whose mss. “You Must Not Know Much” won this year. It’s a very good collection, with a bit of a Walt Whitman theme running through the work the title comes from something that Whitman wrote. C L Bledsoe is a poet, editor of Ghoti magazine, and educator who lives in northern Maryland. He’s read at Wolfgang before. We published his book “(want/need)” in 2008. Daniel Collins is a multitalented person; poet/musician/filmmaker. His music has been taking off, he’s performed up and down the east coast. I think he will only be reading poetry on the 19th but I’m not completely sure of that. Elizabeth Bodien has recently won a literary award from the Lehigh Valley writers organization for her book “Plumb Lines” that we published. And then there is this shadowy figure, stevenallenmay, who will be there to host and read. He has done a few things, here and there. Like created Bardfest and founded the Berks Bards. And co-founded Plan B Press in 1999. You might mention the possibility of Andrew Bradley appearing but I am not certain that he will make it. He’s even more shadowy than the stevenallenmay guy.

Wow. Sounds like a pretty talented group.

- Well, Jason (from Wolfgang) is calling this our “A-team” but really, no one wants to be Mr. T so that analogy isn’t accurate.

Ahh, accuracy is overatted. Anyway, how/why did you come up with the idea to start Plan B Press?

Ahh….that’s a good question. The idea for Plan B Press came from the idea for the 30 day poetry festival that I created called Bardfest as it was originally conceived in 1998. As a month long poetry festival celebrating National Poetry Month with a month of poetry in Berks County, PA beginning April 1, 1999. The idea was that we ought to publish some of the poets who would be reading at the festival. And that idea took the name “Plan B Press” during conversations between the poet Dianne Miller and myself during the autumn of 1998. The Fall of 1998 is when the Press and the festival began to take shape. The first book by Plan B Press was an anthology of poems by people who read during Bardfest99. It was a bit of the punk/DIY aesthetic as well. “Why NOT start a publishing company?” was kind of the thought process.

Yea, exactly. Seems to me like you were filling a cultural void in Berks County.

- Thanks. Part of my point was that ‘culture’ existed everywhere, not just in NY city or LA or SF, but anywhere…..everywhere.

And Phoenixville? Your thoughts on our town and it’s blossoming culture?

- I remember Phoenixville from the early ’70s, drab old steel town. It’s amazing what has happened there since the mid ’90s. Reminds me of South Street in Philly or New Hope.

Well, they call it “The New Manayunk” but I’m not really a fan of the label. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to chat. Any closing thoughts?

- I am glad to be part of the Phoenix rising in Phoenixville, glad to be able to present talented poets at a great bookstore (Wolfgang). Glad to be part of it all!

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admin, September 14th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Interviews, Previews