We gathered under sullen skies with breaks of sunshine and a slight chill in the air. Finding The Deep End Club is not a straightforward proposition now that it's moved from Echo Park, but it's within sight of the 110 Fwy. The sign was not yet put up. It's a gorgeous space, only three blocks from the massive local yoga studio and a few blocks offset from a place we once performed in concert. Before hipsters crowded in, there were kids. Tennessee, the owner had a newborn at her bosom, and one in a Rancid vegan-pleather jacket was monkeying around, all in good fun. The reading began with Mandy Kahn, who alternated with Current Pathways on a mix board and mic, making trippy sounds with Indian
raja aspects. Then before Seven was brought up to the mic to read humorous pieces, which involved Sanskrit and Pali incantations, Gaelic, and more rapid-fire verse than most minds could comfortably accommodate -- it happened. A massive snowstorm struck.
Snow in sunny Southern California? There was discussion if it was actually graupel, hail, loamy winter's breath, frozen rain...or ice the size of dimes and quarters. (But as we are not Inuit Alaskans with 100 words for what it might have been, it was snow. The news says hail. Some meteorologists say graupel,
toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe. The 1960s accents and massive mural of an
Amanita muscaria made that seem improbable, but the nightly news confirmed it within a few hours. The show went overtime and ended with hugs and handshakes and repeated trips to the refreshment table. The club is three stories, and from the loft, fans looked down and marveled at the spiritual discussion as Kahn quizzed her fellow performers on their daily spiritual practice (yoga, meditation, and mindfulness).
Sadhana is vital not only to daily life and sanity in the city but also to the production of art. The next show is on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at 7:30 pm at
prs.org:
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The Deep End Club💚is so excited to be hosting a very special event at our new space in Highland Park, Los Angeles. Our very favorite local poet and peacemaker Mandy Kahn (
@mandykahn) will be reading to us from her exquisite new book
Holy Doors! Plus special guest poet Seven (
Wisdom Quarterly) and
musician Current Pathways. Sunday, March 24, 2024, 2:00-4:00 pm.
Holy Doors is Mandy Kahn’s newest collection of poems (March 2024).
It is a lyrical, luminous, and highly spiritual journey exploring meditation, prayer, the afterlife, the poet’s love of peace, and ever-accessible grace.
It is also a record of what life is like as our spiritual nature begins to live more fully in the body. Each of Kahn’s poems begins with earnest inquiry and ends with an ecstatic moment of communion with the part of the self that is connected to all things.
A poet working within the traditions of the form, Kahn calls upon formal devices, such as iambic pentameter, slant rhyme, and end rhyme.
But it is done in so soft and deft a manner that one almost doesn’t notice the musicality prevalent in the work.
Kahn’s technical skill makes tradition feel suddenly fresh, soft, casual, and alive. With Holy Doors, we’re watching a poet both seeking — and finding — the holy in the everyday.
The poems in the collection suggest then that the holy need not be pursued. It need only be noticed. For doors to ecstatic experience, as Kahn reminds us, are everywhere.
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