Book Burn

Clarion Café, SF, 9.25.83

When I was starting to build my resume back in the ur-murk of the early 80's, I adopted a less-than-stringent definition of "performance," so much of this early work might be more accurately described as theater or, in a few cases, poetry readings. Not to say that a high percentage of the readings I've done are listed here; no, for several years I used to do a public reading about once a month, and only a couple of these are listed here, and only if there was some extra extra-literary component or incident or context.

This was actually just a short reading at a publication party for a volume of Dave Bedell's Violent Milk magazine, the one that documented several years of Clifford Hunt'S & Tim Badger's live Just Press Forum events. What got this listed here is that I read from a copy of Violent Milk that I had set on fire. I read until I was in danger of burning my fingers.

Hey as far as I'm concerned if there's fire it's a performance.