POMS: POM Story to go along with it, because I'll never recommend anyone or anything I don't know about firsthand. Unlike Patriot Radio, I do not run stories with prefaces like, "There's this terrible book, it's undermining all we believe in. Now I haven't read it, mind you, but here's why you shouldn't either."
Today I'm placing an all-family Amazon order, a midsummer treat. My son will get the last Harry Potter, my daughter wants the soundtrack from Once, and my husband is sorting through his wish list. I'm ordering the new CD from local Ben Weaver, Paper Sky.
I took a circuitous route to this artist. I had first read about him in The Rake (www.rakemag.com) and how he invited local poet Éireann Lorsung to open for him at 7th Street Entry. From "The Green Room: Words Before Music":
"The applause bore on, however. And a few poems later, Lorsung acknowledged, “Oh, the clapping does fill the empty space. I go to all these readings and we don’t clap.” Earnestly, she posed a question of her audience: “Do you clap between songs?” Realizing she had revealed a certain uncoolness about herself, she added, “I go to a lot of concerts, you can tell.” The unlikely chain of events that led Lorsung to read her delicate works in this dungeon-like venue began earlier this year when St. Paul-based singer and songwriter Ben Weaver discovered her book, before it was even released, while considering printshops for his own just-published collection of poetry, Hand-Me-Downs Can Be Haunted. Lorsung’s book was given as a work sample. “I don’t know; I just read stuff and know whether I like it,” said Weaver, an avid reader and writer who favors the late Mississippi author Larry Brown as well as contemporary performing artist-filmmaker-writer Miranda July. Music for Landing Planes By is rather a playful, optimistic book, rich with appreciative passages about babies, birds, and ex-boyfriends. The book has a way of nudging forth a reader’s sense of wonder at the natural world. These themes struck a chord with Weaver.
"And so the celebrated twenty-seven-year-old troubadour, who vaguely resembles an unshaven teddy bear, began sending Lorsung compliments and other encouraging missives. While she was teaching in France last year, he suggested, via email, that she stop by the Rex, a Parisian dance club. He mailed her a copy of his fifth and latest CD, Paper Sky. In the end, Weaver invited Lorsung to be an opening act at his CD release concert at the Entry on May 11."
Later that month we met Weaver--and his charming toddler--at our neighborhood friend's high school graduation party. And soon thereafter we stopped by the Glockenspiel to catch up with instrumentalist Dave Boquist, who bartends there Sunday and Monday nights. He told us he had just toured in Europe with Weaver. Well, that clinched it.
I'll be watching the mail closely this week and hope you have a chance to check out Weaver, too.
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