Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Girlbomb Birthday Party

Me and Janice!!
Ever since I read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, I've been a fan of the memoir.  The ability of a person to chronicle and express their experiences never fails to touch me - and perhaps is the reason why I find myself sharing my own life as freely as I do here on DelSo.  A number of years ago, I read a review for a newly published autobiography, Girlbomb (A Halfway Homeless Memoir), written by  NYC native, Janice Erlbaum.  Based upon the review, I purchased the title for the high school library where I worked and when it arrived, I immediately devoured it.  Although Janice is a couple of years younger than I am, I completely identified with her experiences as a smart-beyond-her-years teen growing up with limited parental involvement during the early '80's.  Our situations certainly weren't identical, but I very much shared her experience of being "underprivileged, underage and underdressed."  When I finished the book, I visited her website, girlbomb.com and sent her an email:

             "...So much of your book described my own self-medicated adolescence in the 80's.
              I also had a life with limited stability and your memoir brought so much of the     
              confusion  and contradiction right back to me in a breath-taking way."
Janice and Rachel!!
She graciously responded and through the years we've exchanged an occasional email and are, of course, requisite Facebook friends.  A couple of months ago she posted an event to celebrate the 5th birthday of Girlbomb to be held at the Bowery Poetry Club and I just knew I had to go.  Despite having lived in Albany for 20+ years, I was still somehow able to resurrect that hip, East Village, undergraduate, English major vibe, a result I'm sure of my company (my former Chelsea roomie, writer Rachel Aydt) and my attire (primarily black).  I can't describe, without gushing in a way that would completely dissolve my street creed, how excited I was to finally meet Janice and hear the words which had leaped from the page, actually fall from her lips - it was fantastic!  The club was everything you ever imagine a poetry club to be - dark, curtained off and with an appropriately creative graffiti-filled bathroom.  In addition to Janice, a number of other fabulously talented women read their work and performed for the crowd of appreciative fans.  Here's the official event notice:

          Girlbomb’s fifth birthday party! Celebrating five years since the publication
           of GIRLBOMB: A  Halfway Homeless Memoir. Readings and performances
           by author Koren Zailckas, GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd, and biffles Dana
           Piccoli and Melissa Saunders; dancing and schmoozing also on the agenda.

It was a great event and I thoroughly enjoyed feeling as if I was a part of a "scene" in NYC, if only for one night.  Thanks, Janice for an inspirational evening - and especially for writing.


1 comment:

  1. Silvia, thanks so much for coming, and for posting this lovely review. Thanks also for sharing so much of yourself with your writing. Additionally, thank you for being you! And Rachel for being Rachel. Thanks. :)

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