Allison Schuette-Hoffman

April 21, 2008

cabaret 08–in praise of flight

The cabaret grew out of a desire on my part to promote writing culture at my university, to put that culture within the larger context of the arts, and to bridge the faculty/student communities. In my experience, there’s nothing quite like good performance to get people excited and “glue” them together.

Evan Scott Bryson, student editor of the undergraduate literary journal, and I collaborated to bring Cab ‘08 (the second of its kind) into being, but we couldn’t have done it without the help of Ellen Orner, Dena Hein, Marcus Lohrmann, and the grrrl crew (Em, Val, and Hannah).

It’s a wing thing… (mine broke four days before the event)

Our announcement:

cab~a~ret (kabəˈrā)

2b. A restaurant or night-club in which entertainment is provided as
an accompaniment to a meal; also, the entertainment so provided, a
floor-show.

As in, “He spends most of his extra money at pool parlors, Austrian
villages and cabaret shows,” or “Those melancholy places, the night
clubs and cabarets.” (Thanks, OED!)

Or better yet, as in, “The Lighter and Wordfest proudly present their
second annual Cabaret, at which no money will be collected and no
melancholy will be found (or that which is found will be tidily swept up
and packaged into art).”

Date: Saturday (this! Saturday!), April 12th

Time: 6:30-9:00 p.m.

Place: Lumina Room in Huegli Hall

Fare: Dinner provided free!

Program: a variety of musical, spoken word and visual media acts by
students, graduate students and faculty

Rumors: a banjo in the hands of Prof. Owens; the vocal stylings of
Prof. Buinicki, Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Andrews; a narrative chiasma between
Prof. Schuette-Hoffman and Master Evan Scott Bryson–oh, yes, the rumors
are FLYING now…

He stands at the beginning of time, a witness to the not-yet-world. Clouds scour the soon-to-be-sky and scourge what will one day be the sun. Planets cue up, marbles to be flicked into orbit; tides seduce gravity to no effect. The earth is without form, and void; darkness is upon the face of the deep. Or so it will be written. Possibility waits in the wings. In his wings.

She first appeared to young Orville in a dream.

She wore yards of checkered cloth so immediately he trusted her, thinking her a harbinger of picnic spreads—apple pies, tart grapes, sandwiches with cheese and ham slick under the summer sun.

She shone like the summer sun, too. She was winged, radiant, but above all comforting.

She touched Orville’s nose with all the delicacy of a dandelion’s tuft, and the boy was helpless to disassociate her from his mother.