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Home of Michael Perry – Author, Humorist, Singer/Songwriter, Amateur Pig Farmer

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Archive for July, 2011

Another Show Tonight

For information on tonight’s show time and tickets, please click here. For tomorrow, click here.

Last night’s premiere was a lively one, with an unexpected comedic moment when I opened the show by failing to light about four matches in a row whilst quoting Homer. Favorite part of the show for me? Sitting backstage mid-show, listening to a gung-ho crowd react to my fellow players. After watching how hard they worked all week to bring this together, it was nice to hear them rewarded by the folks in the seats.

Upshot of this show? I can now give you a nice little five-minute mini-history of the Fresnel lens.

New Song “Golden in the Morning”

I’m working hard on the next book (due out in Spring 2012, fingers would be crossed but I can’t type that way), and another soon-to-be-released project also in the works (more on that in a week or two) but the other day while I was in the studio with my friend Jaime I sat down with the guitar and did a simple recording of a song I wrote a while back called “Golden in the Morning.”

For more about why I wrote the song, a look at the lyrics, and to have a listen, please visit this link.

Big Top Show Tonight, and Tomorrow, and…

Between stints working on the new book, I’ve been rehearsing with the cast and crew up on Mount Ashwabay. For the next three nights we’ll be performing Keeper of the Light, a tribute to the men and women who kept the lights burning in the sometimes treacherous waters of Lake Superior. It is a story of fierce storms, shipwrecks, and long haunted evenings for the families living out among the Apostle Islands – all taken from the old journals of the lighthouse keepers. This show was first produced at Big Top Chautauqua in 1989. Created by Betty Ferris and Warren Nelson, Nelson-Ferris Concert Company.

Keeper is historical, happy and humorous…but it also evokes the tragic fury of Lake Superior with an eery verisimilitude that will have you reaching for a life vest or offering a prayer for those who have perished trying to light or land upon her treacherous shores.

Times and ticket info here.

As always, it’s a privilege to be welcomed beneath the canvas by the BTC folks old and new. Thanks to all of you.

Wine, Cheese, Prose

Just off I-94 (the Fall Creek/Foster Exit) there’s a joint called Foster Cheese Haus that serves home-grown vittles and art. I see on Saturday, July 23 (not this weekend, but next) they’re going to be hosting a wine-tasting featuring four writers, including my friends and mentors Patti See and Bruce Taylor. My favorite thing about this event? You can enjoy high art, fine wine, premium cheese…and all within spittin’ distance of the Foster feed mill. More info here (at bottom of page, or click on most recent newsletter).

P.S. I see you also get to keep your wine glass…

Holed Up and Hunkered Down

A recent email from my editor encouraged me to finish my next book so it can be out in time for next spring. Portions of this encouragement were delivered in ALL CAPS. So I’m holed up and hunkered down (in between rehearsals for this, this, and this), typing like sixty. This is the stretch of time I try to remember when I’m out there rambling around and rambling on about my Art, how when I am finally forced to get with the program and FINISH my Art, it is my wife and family and friends (this summer in particular a big extra help from long-time pal Mills) who keep the rest of my life together.

This is a thank you to them. And now I will get back to TYPING.

Family Reunion

Good weekend…got work done but also snuck off to a family reunion…many well-worn tales, a few new ones, many lawn chair circles, many passes through the chow line, amazement that our children are now the children we were, and a giganto thanks to the family  members who worked so long in advance and are even now picking up the last of the paper plates…

Encore Tent Show Radio Tonight – Joan Baez

 

If you’re within range of one of these stations, we hope you’ll join Mike as he hosts another edition of Tent Show Radio from Big Top Chautauqua.  Information on streaming the show here.

Tonight’s musical guest is Joan Baez, and in this episode’s monologue – delivered from the backstage dressing room with the one lonely little lightbulb burnin’ – Mike explains why if he were the type of guy to hire a life coach, he’d need six, and they’d have to work in shifts.  There is also some discussion of high culture and low culture, including a reference to Varmint Hunter Magazine.

You can join the Tent Show Radio Facebook page here.

SET LIST:

Blue Canvas Orchestra: Angel From Montgomer

Joan Baez: God Is God, Blessed, Farewell Angelina, Lily Of The West, House Of The Rising Sun

Michael Perry Monologue

Joan Baez: Prisoner Number Nine, It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, Seven Curses, Long Black Veil, Diamonds and Rust, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Blue Canvas Orchestra: Hobo Blues