In the premiere release from Little Episodes, an international collaborative art project:
(Click Image Above To Order)
:: information about ::
“Depression, addiction and mental illness are common problems in the modern world, with one in four people likely to experience a mental health problem every year. Established in 2009, Little Episodes is a not-for-profit organization consisting of professional writers, artists, musicians and actors with two prongs to its mission statement. The first, to destigmatize depression, addiction and mental illness, whilst raising awareness and providing empathy. The second is to provide a platform for talented, emerging and established writers/artists to find community and recognition. We combine the two by giving our participating writers and artists the first statement as their theme.”
Founded in the U.K., Little Episodes also curates ‘Late Night Episodes,’ a recurring event featuring spoken word, performance, music and visual art. Late Night Episodes is held at the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre (London) on the last Saturday of every month.
Clint Catalyst is a guest speaker/performer for the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language series. This year’s theme is “Word and Image.”
04/06/10
“The Writer as Image: Words, Personae, and the Media Between”
Hendrix College
Reeves Recital Hall
Conway, AR
7:30 p.m. Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Campus Events
All Ages
FREE and Open to the Public
“Clint Catalyst, a Hendrix alumnus, further examines this year’s theme with a presentation of the idea of personal image as relating to the writer.”
It was during that moment when my chest turns into an open space, an interminable length of time when it seems like a panel of chain-link fence gets peeled back, lies in wait for a surge of emotions to slip inside.
Then. Just as my mouth rearranged itself around the poem’s final words— “A wad/of cold sheets/on my bed”—it was then, when I no longer recognized my voice but rather the blink of silence following. That’s when I noticed him.
I’m sure I stood frozen in some exaggerated pose, arms akimbo or even more likely, right hand extended with a copy of Cottonmouth Kisses still perched in the air, armor to shield me from what would or wouldn’t happen next. Applause. The immediacy of approval every performer yearns for, even and especially those who claim they don’t.
Then came the clamor of acclamation, the sounds of hands clapping, of slurred hurrahs and a high-pitched whistle. My cue to step from the stage not really a stage in this home not exactly a “home” as I knew it, but a geodesic dome.
For a hot second, our eyes met. His: dark, with a sparkle that followed when I looked away. Not as in “tracers,” the stuff of flash-backs, symptoms from drugs with consonants for names.
More like: as I navigated my way to Pedro, Wash and Richard—the few people I knew at this hormone-charged salon with “Boys” as its motif—the text of my body was besieged with active verbs and question marks.
Would I dare to venture upstairs with him?
Despite its cred as the white-hot center of Where Art Lives, I recognized this dome from another context. Recently I’d seen The Hole, a skin flick in which the final scene culminates in a luscious free-for-all on the top floor.
I’d heard whispers of a similar scenario happening in medias res, and as much as I tried to listen to the performer who followed me, it was. I was. Hard. With that beautiful boy, little more than an arm’s reach away.
My imagination is active; though my physique at the time? Puffy, post-speed flab that rendered me uncomfortable in the flesh I inhabited.
And my skin? Remained clothed, not “ho”ed out, as I wish it would’ve been.
I didn’t even introduce myself to that spiky-haired little number, let alone coax him into my own take on the Triple-X.
Thin and long-limbed: same as the memory I have of him, stretched-out. Three? Four? Has it been five years since then?
All this time, and I still see his caramel-hued complexion screened in my mind. A story of me, a beautiful boy, and what might have been. Really not so much a story, as it is.
the JARED GOLD/CLINT CATALYST CO-BRANDED MERCHANDISE…
hedonist! |ˈhidnəst| |ˈhidənəst| noun
a derivative of: hedonism |ˈhēdnˌizəm|
the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence. † the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good †
Leave the scarlet letter for Miss Hester Prynne. THIS is a title to profess…
