Open mic at the Dietrich Theater, Tunkhannock

After another day of watching Brett Kavanaugh's angry, whiny, entitled fratbro ass slide closer to an appointment for life on the Supreme Court - a consequence of the election of Donald Trump that some of us tried to warn everyone else about - it felt good to head up to Tunkhannock for a good old-fashioned open mic.

No camera with me, so no photos, though I honestly wish I had taken some. I just felt uncomfortable showing up at an open mic I had never been to before and saying "HELLO FELLOW OPEN MIC ENTHUSIASTS I AM GOING TO TAKE PICTURES OF ALL THE PERFORMERS." But I wish I had. Here, as best I can recall, are the people who performed:

- A teen guitarist who played two cover songs and one original. It was his first time performing.

- A singer who covered Taylor Swift's "Love Story," which is an extended Romeo and Juliet allegory. She ended with a from-memory recitation of part of one of Juliet's soliloquies.

- A long-haired, bearded 15-year-old who performed the Tom Jones murder ballad "Delilah" on a ukulele. (He later did an encore of "Human" by Rag'n'Bone Man, also on the ukulele.)

- Me. I read "Double Dig" from the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of Word Fountain. I also did my first mic drop, when the microphone popped out of the mic stand while I was trying trying to adjust it before reading. I am frightened and confused by these bright lights and newfangled amplification devices.

- Another singer, also performing for the first time.

- An 88-year-old ventriloquist with a 71-year-old vent dummy. While the ventriloquists's natural voice - I spoke with him for a while during intermission - was somewhat muffled and hollow, his dummy spoke in a strong, clear voice.

- The feature, Laurel Radzieski, a poet I have known since our time together in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective. She read selections from her new book, Red Mother, a collection of poems written from a parasite to its host, with between-poem discussions of the things she had learned while researching parasites and parasitology. She also read selections from her contribution to "Down the Dog Hole," a collection of poems about coal mining in Northeastern Pennsylvania written by eleven local poets. Laurel ended with some other poems, including some from her "Letters" series, poems that give insights into the daily lives and concerns of letters of the alphabet.

The next open mic at the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock will be October 26, 2018. It will be the last one for the season. Sign-ups begin at 6:30, and readings start at 7:00.