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AMERICAN LANGUAGE
An Online Book of Live Performances by Alan Reade
1991-1999
© Alan Reade, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1999
"American Language" is a five-part series of performances about Language, Television, Sex, Travel, and Death, respectively, that I have written and performed over an eight-year period, from 1991-99. When I was 21 or 22, I got tired of performing only in taverns and at open mikes in Seattle. I had a bunch of poems that I wanted to put in some kind of framework for performances because I didn't have much of a theme. (Now, in looking over the original concept notebook, only about 1/4 of those poems actually made it in!) I couldn't think of a title for the whole series immediately.
A lot of the pieces dealt with language--misunderstandings, translations, thoughts that were hard to express in words. So "American Language" seemed accurate, to take a page out of H.L. Mencken's series--and also because American
Language is what many colleges teach to ESL students here, not "English." To wit, from San Diego State: "Since 1974 the American Language Institute has helped international students and professionals improve their ability to communicate in English."
Many thanks to Christian Essner, who let me use his computer and video card to capture all the video images! And huge, bear-style thanks to my "beta testers" for this project, Alicia O'Neill, Bob Sheldon, Dana Schmeller, Jeff Mitchell, Jim Tushinski, Julia Lathrop, Justin Chin, Mara Hancock, Nick Barrett, Nina Hollenberg, and Susan McKenna. You all really helped me get this together!
Click here to start the first page of the 17-page online book.
Click here to go to an interview with me about the performance series.
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