Blog from Rachel on Inky’s October Open Mic. And it was our first anniversary too.

Inky is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

Following the mania that was the August Mini-Fest, Inky Fingers took some much needed zzz’s in September. We had discussed using our massive salary bonuses to fly our tired selves to Cuba for the next planning meeting, but it turns out Doctor’s works just as well.  Maybe next year.

So – new start. New venue. Following the – unhappy but watchthisspace temporary – closure of our beloved Forest Cafe, Inky is currently holding its monthly Open Mic from The Third Door (formerly Medina’s). And it felt good to be up and running again.

As the title quote from the luminous Anita Govan says, Inky is all about making words free: both in the fact that we don’t charge one bad penny for you to come and say them, to enjoy them, to roll around in them and in the ethos that keeps Inky’s backbone straight. That it’s about providing a stage for anyone, everyone to get up,  stand up and speak out, whether you’ve been proclaiming all your life or you’ve never spoken in front of more than 2 people and your cat before.

The mood was frisky, with politics, revolution, love, Zippos, sex and call centres all cropping up. Electric glamour brought by feature performer Paula Varjak, Berlin resident, currently on tour round the UK. Doomed to keep dating artists, being a commodity as the ‘hot black chick’, the difference between ex pats and migrants, lost for a last word in a raver oceans, and the danger of hedonism destruct spiral when you went out for just one coffee…it was rich, funny, sexy, consummate.

And a wealth of Open Mic-ers, some old faces with properly haunting new material – Alec Beattie with two crows and a fedora, that means you – and many  new; aces to see againg StAnza finalist Stewart Hogg, spitting out about the mental tsunami of ADHD; David Greaves, with an intensely beautiful, dizzying piece featuring plane times, instructions, quizzes and a labyrinth of galleons; Robbie Shippan with rebellion, if not quite revolution, in call centres in Leith; Stewart Learmouth all tender with colour; new literary night Soapbox’s Rosie Brown with when it all goes right; and the wonderful ‘physiqueofamalnourishedfairy’ (he said it first and he’s beautiful to boot) Jamie Livingstone warm with the blether and the ism-less boys.

And a massive huzzah to Amber Kennedy for standing on a stage for the FIRST TIME EVER and making me cry about stories of lost loves.

And more. It’s good to be back.

See you soon,

xx

PS: We also got the headsup on a brilliant new writing project for anyone who wants the monthly challenge of seeing if a picture really does paint 1000 words. Check out the ‘Pictonaut Challenge’ at http://rogueverbumancer.com for more details.