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| Winners: (l.to r.)Tim Neunzig, Ben Vixx & Justin Werfel. |
On October 17th,
massmouth opened in a new venue and "wheels" was the theme for the first event of the 2011-12 Cambridge story slam season at ClubPassim. Special guest, Richard Fries offered energetic anecdotes from his 35 years as a cyclist, journalist, race announcer and organizer. Host Norah Dooley told about her days as a bike courier in Cambridge but Fries was the main act as he shared just a fraction of thousands of stories about his two-wheeled adventures from free wheeling through his neighbor's yards as a nine year old to fabulous spills and races all over Europe. As a side note the event had a small carbon footprint since Richard and his wife rode into Cambridge, from Lexington, on their bikes. Coincidently, all the winners and the host, Norah came to the event on human powered wheels as well.
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| Winner, Ben Vixx, rocked the house |
From the contestants we heard various car stories and near death
experiences in car accidents, Big Wheels memories, the trials and tribulations of
bicyclists in the city, and at Burning Man. A story
about pedicab drivers, a first mototcycle and the wheels of industry,
which kept turning, even with workers jammed in between rounded out the
evening. Ben Vixx won with a story about drunken frat boys in a car chasing him on what was
really the wrong day. See a selection of videos
here. After each slam
massmouth will post the winners and one or two massmouth's choice stories. Unicyclist, Justin Werfel, came in
second with his commuting unicycle crash saga and newcomer Tim Neunzig won Audience Choice
with his tale of biking through Burning Man. We posted Brogan Graham's pedicab story as
massmouth choice.
Bambi Good led a crackerjack judging team that included a librarian, a storyteller, and two performance artists. Bambi was our first judge and a chief justice/volunteer at
massmouth from the first season, in October 2009, until now. Bambi has been an amazing force in the slam scene, spreading the word about storytelling far and wide. Thanks to Laura Cannon for her excellent photos.
The staff and all the folks at Passim, a nonprofit arts organization, were great to work with and the room filled up nicely. The food and drink from Veggie Planet was excellent. Passim creates an interactive and inspiring music experience for all, building a vibrant community for artists, students and audience members through its legendary listening venue and school of music. We are really fortunate to have such a great venue. Next month, Karen Given hosts with Bill Litttlefield of "Only A Game" as special guest and the theme is "idols". Click
here for more information. The show will be webcast through ConcertWindow and tickets are available through the
ClubPassim website.
