Really enjoying this article by Chris Zeischegg (who’s appearing at A Rrose in a Prose Sunday! 4 p.m.! Stories Books! SHAMELESS PLUG!) about his friendship with Luka Fisher, seen here stapling some shit to Chris’s chest. Because that’s how they roll.
I say “enjoying” in the present tense, because I’m still reading Chris’ article: this thing is loooooong. And of course it is. Luka Fisher is, like Zeischegg says in the article, “difficult to define.”
There was an issue I often had in discussing Luka with other people. It was my inability to lock down ‘who they were.’ I usually described my friends by the title of their preferred form of expression (i.e. Maggie is a photographer or Royce is a chef). Though, in the several years that I’d known them, Luka had taken on the role of painter, photographer, performance artist, musician, curator, film producer, and one-person-indie-record-label-A&R-department.
“I basically work on projects,” said Luka. “At any given time, I’m producing a movie, or a zine, or an art show, or something like that. But I think that, as a creative, if I only do the huge, high-concept project that takes two-to-five years to produce, I’ll just lose hope and give up. So while that’s going on, I produce two dimensional work, mostly in the form of drawings, paintings, and collages. Or I produce soundscape, ambient music. And I do that every day.”
I admire Luka’s multi-discipline approach in part because it reminds me of my own story–or rather, how I’d like my own story to be told. In the past decade or so I’ve been a music journalist, a relationship columnist, an art gallery owner and curator, an orgy host, a bisexual activist, a performance artist poet in an avant garde classical music trio, a garage rock Farfisa player, a YouTube host for a record label, a folk musician, and soon to be the founder of a church! I don’t know if I’ve handled it with the kind of pizazz that Luka has, but it’s definitely great to have peers that you can admire for being great versions of the type of person you want to be yourself.
This kind of “always on, always art” approach is something I want for A Rrose in a Prose, too–not to be just a poetry reading, but a place where fiction writers, essayists, bloggers, zinesters, rappers, critics, thinkers, comedians, and people outside the typical world of words can all get together and do our thing. Outcasts who shine brighter than the normies shouldn’t have “readings,” we should have happenings, where people can connect to the words by living them rather than merely hearing them recited by the author (though of course, we like that too! Everything in excess, including moderation!).
Christopher Zeischegg definitely fits the bill as the kind of artist I think needs more venues! He spent eight years working in the adult film industry as performer Danny Wylde, and he’s also been a contributor to The Feminist Porn Book, Best Sex Writing of the Year, Coming Out Like a Porn Star, and a variety of online publications such as Somesuch and Nerve. I particularly enjoyed his second novel, The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space, and I’m overjoyed that his next book, Body to Job, is coming out later this month!
Anyway, I’m going to get back to reading Chris’s article.
But come see Christopher read excerpts from the new book this Sunday, February 11, at Stories Books!
We’re very proud to have him, along with a slew of other authors, poets, and performers such as Cynthia A. Briano, Sharif Dumani, Charlyne Yi, Corey Saucier, Eli Wright, Kyra Rogers, and Tammy Sanchez!
As always, the cats will be herded, and hosted, by D. M. Collins. Things start at 4 p.m. at Stories Books (in the back).
Love Is the Drug: A Rrose in a Prose REVIVAL!
Sunday, February 11, at 4 p.m.
STORIES BOOKS
1716 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026-3225
Price: FREE