The Brautigan Book Club goes to Wales

Event
Llandeilo, United Kingdom
FUNDED

A Brautigan Book Club Trilogy

We’re thrilled to have been invited by Literature Wales to curate a trilogy of events for the very first Dinefwr Literature Festival in West Wales. We've specially created each of the three events to commemorate the occasion: 

  1. Replicating the Please Plant This Book project which has our guests participate in the planting of 'books' and creating a Brautigan garden then taking home poetry and seeds to grow

  2. Taking the audience on a night-time journey filled with poetry and music along the Tokyo-Montana Express. Gruff Rhys (of the Super Furry Animals), Martin Carr (you may know him from the Boo Radleys) and H.Hawkline are contributing new songs inspired by Brautigan, and we'll catch a sneak peek of the UK premiere of an exciting modern opera, Tonseisha - The Man Who Abandoned the World by LA-screenwriter Erik Patterson, with music by award-winning composer Kim Ashton.

  3. A chaired conversation with Ianthe Brautigan reading from You Can't Catch Death and her sharing some new work with us.

“The time is right to mix sentences
sentences with dirt and the sun
with punctuation and the rain with
verbs, and for worms to pass
through question marks, and the
stars to shine down on budding
nouns, and the dew to form on
paragraphs.”

– from Please Plant This Book, Brautigan

Proceeds collected will go directly towards: Transport for Ianthe Brautigan from San Francisco to Wales - we had a kind donation of flights fall through at the very last minute; a week's rehearsal space for the actors and musicians, petrol money for the three cars driving from London to Wales, warm beds for those who physically not able to camp during the festival.

Did you know: Richard Brautigan self-published and distributed for free 6000 copies of Please Plant This Book in the Spring of 1968. It consisted of eight packets of garden seeds, each printed with a poem. Four were flowers and four were vegetables

 

People whose work you'll be enabling: 

  1. Fuchsia Voremberg - writer & illustrator, recreating the Please Plant This Book project with performer Adrian Gillott
  2. Actors Jamie Wood, Sean Patterson, Vera Chok, director Gary Merry, co-producer Tilly Brooke, and production manager Jack Robson. We're transforming Erik Patterson's play into an opera and showing an excerpt.
  3. Soprano Philippa Boyle who divides her time between Italy and the UK, having trained in Rome with Renata Scotto.
  4. Solo flautist Ilze Ikse, Royal Academy prize-winner, mentored by BBC Symphony Orchestra principal flautist Michael Cox
  5. Kim Ashton, prize-winning composer who's written and conducted world over. Listen to examples here.
  6. International pop stars and musicians Gruff Rhys, Martin Carr and H.Hawkline who have kindly donated their time to write and perform new songs together through their shared love of Brautigan's writings - I want to give them petrol money and bake them a cake to say a thank you for their support!
  7. Ianthe Brautigan, daughter of Richard Brautigan and a gorgeous writer, reading from her work and sharing her new writing plans with us.

Did you know: Brautigan’s book, The Tokyo-Montana Express, is a collection of one hundred and thirty-one sections inspired by memories of travelling between Japan and Montana. Each section represents a separate stop along a journey, a station along a metaphorical rail line joining the two disparate worlds. He defended the format of this collection as “another way of looking at things.”

 

Sponsorship in kind we're gratefully receiving:

  1. Everyone's using their own cars in a car pool, bringing their own tents and camping if they can
  2. Discounted use of rehearsal space
  3. Donated development, rehearsal and performance time from the entire team of professional performers
  4. Voluntary involvement in the project
  5. Printing of copies of Please Plant This Book at cost, to be distributed for free at the festival
  6. Waiver of rights from Ianthe Brautigan, Erik Patterson and Kim Ashton to perform material they control at this festival
  7. Online blog space, support and publicity from reading charity, The Reading Agency

Did you know: Ianthe \i(a)-nthe, ian-the\ is pronounced eye-AN-thee. It is of Greek origin, and means “violet flower“. Mythology: a sea nymph, daughter of Oceanus.

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Exciting Seeds

£2.00 or more : We'll make this go a long way! We're so pleased you'll be part of this series of some very special beginnings. We'll send you an email direct to your inbox with a thank you & acknowledgment of your kind support, update you the outcome of this crowd-funding campaign & report back after the festival. "SWEET ALYSSUM ROYAL CARPET I've decided to live in a world where books are changed into thousands of gardens with children playing in the gardens and learning the gen- tle ways of green growing things." - from Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan

 

Daisies in a field

£5.00 or more : Your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites to acknowledge your kind support. We'll update you with the outcome of this crowd-funding campaign & report back after the festival. "CALIFORNIA NATIVE FLOWERS In this spring of 1968 with the last third of the Twentieth Century travelling like a dream toward its end, it is time to plant books, to pass them into the ground, so that flowers and vegetables may grow from these pages." - from Please Plant This Book by Brautigan

 

A posy of Fragrant Bluebells

£10.00 or more : Your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites with a mini video message made specially by Vera for this group of donors to giggle and wonder at. "PARSLEY I thank the energy, the gods and the theater of history that brought us here to this very moment with this book in our hands, calling like a future down a green and starry hall." - from Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan

 

An Organic Veg Patch

£15.00 or more : Your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites with a personalised mini video message made specially by Vera for EACH donor to giggle, gawp and wonder at. Warning, this might well include anything from interpretive dance, cheesy dancing to pop music, to a heartfelt reading or musing! "SQUASH The time is right to mix sentences sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and the rain with verbs, and for worms to pass through question marks, and the stars to shine down on budding nouns, and the dew to form on paragraphs." - from Please Plant This Book, by Richard Brautigan

 

A Picnic in a Park on an English Summer's Day

£25.00 or more : A handwritten thank you note from Vera, personalised with a pressed English wildflower from her East London garden, posted to you. Your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites to acknowledge your kind support. "CALENDULA My friends worry and they tell me about it. They talk of the world ending, of darkness and disaster. I always listen gently, and then say: No, it's not going to end. This is only a beginning, as this book is only a beginning." - from Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan

 

An Open Air Concert in a Woodland

£50.00 or more : A limited edition illustration of Richard Brautigan by Fuchsia Voremberg, painted using the magical, luminous material, Kool-Aid and posted to you. See pictures of her Kool-Aid pictures online here: http://bit.ly/J897TZ. And of course, your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites to acknowledge your kind support. "CARROTS I think the spring of 1968 is a good time to look into our blood and see where our hearts are flowing as these flowers and vegetables will look into their hearts evrey day and see the sun reflecting like a great mirror their desire to live and be beautiful." - from Please Plant This Book by Brautigan

 

A Mysterious Fir Forest by a Moonlit Beach

£80.00 or more : A 30 minute Art Date with Vera, in person, in London. This includes a cup of tea and a mini solo performance for you of her work in progress, "You Can Keep Your Hat On" inspired by Sombrero Fallout. This piece is at its early stages and you'll be influencing her work directly. Recently performed at the Lands of Kings Festival as part of Stoke Newington International Airport's Live Art Speed Date. Non-Londoners receive a recorded version of a solo improvised performance based on information you send in and a written response to how your input has informed the development of the piece. And of course, your name and our thanks posted online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites to acknowledge your kind support. "LETTUCE The only hope we have is our children and the seeds we give them and the gardens we plant together." - from Please Plant This Book by Brautigan

 

A Tropical Rainforest Filled with Music

£150.00 or more : Each month, one of the Brautigan-inspired responses - a prose-poem, picture, performance, reading, cake or ditty - presented live at the Brautigan Book Club, will be dedicated to you. You'll be invited to witness this live but if you're not in the vicinity, evidence of this will be filmed and uploaded on our website. If a version of it is transportable, we'll send you a version/copy, with the artist's 'hello'. Plus, a huge thanks to you online on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club sites to acknowledge your kind support. "SHASTA DAISY I pray that in thirty-two years passing that flowers and vegetables will water the Twenty-First Cen- tury with their voices telling that they were once a book turned by loving hands into life." - from Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan

 

A new Species of Book

£250.00 or more : In London, a 45 minute walking Art Date with Vera, journeying through a mixture of urban and green spaces. This includes a cup of tea and a mini solo improvised performance for you of her work in progress, "You Can Keep Your Hat On" inspired by Sombrero Fallout. This piece is at its early stages and you'll be influencing her work directly. Recently performed at the Lands of Kings Festival as part of Stoke Newington International Airport's Live Art Speed Date programme. You'll be given a little something to take away with you. Non-Londoners receive an online digital audio recorded bundle of thoughts and readings put together specially for you. Everyone will be thanked and acknowledged online too.

 

An entire, healthy Ecosystem of Beauty and Art

£500.00 or more : Become the very first Patrons of The Brautigan Book Club. Your name (and/or company name) and weblinks will be displayed on our marketing and on the saltpeter and Brautigan Book Club websites. You'll get free, VIP access to all our Extraordinary (i.e. non-free) Brautigan Book Club events, a free drink at each event attended, a limited edition, handmade Kool-Aid illustration of Richard Brautigan by artist Fuchsia Voremberg (see her work online here http://bit.ly/J897TZ), a handmade thank you card with a pressed English flower from Vera's garden, and, if you're in London and fancy it, a charming home-cooked (by Vera) meal with key Brautigan Book Club members.