Cantab Recap for Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Cambridge started off this past Wednesday with an unseasonably warm morning, which became an unreasonable snowstorm later that night (it’s New England spring, aren’t we just supposed to be drowning in mud right now?)… But in between, the excellent and hard-working Zeke Russell put his own stamp on the March day. Despite missing our collegiate friends at CUPSI, the house was packed to hear the introspective tales of Zeke’s life journey so far, taking on the challenges of icy Central Maine, the self-reflection of life in the Mill City, and the secret societies of Chicago and beyond. Zeke has three great books that you can only get from him directly: and the best place to do that is next Thursday, March 20, at the New Sh!t Show, a celebration of all-new poetry! Zeke will be hosting the event at Fazenda in JP (same location and times as our monthly Moonlighting show).

And, as if having Zeke do a full set for us wasn’t enough to satisfy, the night was capped off by an all-star packed speed slam. This one marks the halfway point in the current 8×8 series and it leaves just five slams left to get in on the World Qualifier… Interested parties for future slams may have to slam off against a rising Andrew Campana, who made the finals in his first appearance in the competition but ultimately lost the crown to Mill City veteran Princess Chan. Yowza!

There’s a ton of good work happening next week, folks, so spend your weekend getting pumped: we’ll be starting out on Monday in Davis Square at the Encyclopedia Show: Explorers, with poems by Tom Slavin, Nora Meiners, Katharine S-H, Claudia Wilson, and visiting DC poet Judson Lewis. Then we’ll get learned on Wednesday at the Cantab by We Over Here Now author Scott Woods from Columbus. See you there!