Health & Fitness
You'd Never Know We Were There - In Gratitude for Garbanzofest The First
An exclamation of gratitude for those who celebrated words and music at Garbanzofest The First!
If, right now, you walked over to Molten Java and looked in the window, you'd see tables set up seemingly as normal, the coffee mugs sleeping off the days's caffeine buzz, the cookies playing hide and seek with each other no cookie jar in sight.
Walk in tomorrow day, and it would look like any other day. The early morning regular crowd in for their usual brew, a breakfast crowd with laptops sitting safely on table tops, luncheonette in full effect come burrito time, and the event du jour come nightfall.
Does one ever think back on what happened here, the day before, one week before, one year earlier, two years ago?
If one were to walk in tomorrow and look on the bulletin board, the poster for Garbanzofest The First would still be there. Take it home as a collectible. But if you want a souvenir (and sadly weren't there for the live performance) here's how you download the entire event so as to at least catch a glimpse of the adventures and the stories one tells about events such as these.
Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Walk in to Molten Java tomorrow (or any day - such things don't fade but the frequency and channel does get crowded over time) and instead of hands in pockets, destination counter already programmed into the GPS, take a borrow instead of our Garbanzofest Prescience System and try the following:
Touch your fingernail (any will do although the thumb tends to be a bit of the incorrect curvature) to the wall at three-point-three feet above the floor and tilt it at a twelve-point-six degree angle. Run that finger along the wall at three-feet-per-ten-seconds and listen...
Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Listen and you will hear the voices of poets and storytellers standing before a room packed wall to wall with revelers, hanging on each word as if their own connection to gravity and this earth depended on holding on. Thank you our five readers - Greg Miraglia, Michelle Bruhn, Danielle Kral, Shawna Rencher and Steven Nova!
Tap twice just off the knothole on the wall that faces east and close the eyes for in the knock-knock revelation the audio selections of Zahie el Kouri and Shawnte Orion will materialize their own visions for you. Thank you radio responders!
Slide that finger along the ridged molding of a door frame and hear the hum and buzz of the projector that brought us more tales from parts far and farther - Steven Ray Smith, Monica Richards, Alana Eisenbarth (Germany!), Suanna Davis, J.C. Vickery, Melissa Crory, Isaac Simonelli (Thailand!), Malcolm Tent. Thank you for beaming yourselves in, via studio, via webcam, via smartphone, via wires and cables and switches so as to be with us in pixelspirit.
Turn the corner and ride the bannister up to the second floor and Byrd's Books and reverberate with the support of an independent bookstore who champions their independent publishers! Thank you Alice!
Return to the lower level and touch tip to floor, where the wood vibrates and varies and feel the foot-stompin' jug-hoppin' paw-clappin' jaw-singin' Americana-Johnny-Folk-Hills-Of-Kentucky-Cash-Lightning-Banjo-Guitar-Harmonica-Drums-Vocals of The Shoutbacks and engulf in the hooting and hollering that overtook the crowd aged eighteen months to eighty years and brought people streaming in the doors and bobbing and stretching over corners to see what mystical magical force was making them dance on a Sunday afternoon! Thank you oh amazing musicians!
Thank you Molten Java for letting us be too loud and then even louder each time a song ended and the cheers lifted up the art even higher and sought out more. Coffee flowed and cookies rolled and burritoes were exalted from the stage as never before.
And certainly not least (although thanked last as certain literary device) thank you, beautiful folks of Bethel and surrounds who took a chance on visiting A Celebration of Words and we hope left said fest with new stories of their own to speak of down the line. Without you, without every inch of stair, seat, standing covered with revelers, the day would have been for naught.
We hope you'll join us for the next one of these come nine months or so once the next Garbanzo (lookout now, here comes volume two!) makes its way into this glorious world.
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Garbanzo Literary Journal (volume one) is available at Byrd's Books in Bethel or via Seraphemera Books
