First, let me offer kudos to Amelie Frank, Richard Modiano and Beyond Baroque for the excellent memorial to L.A.'s Erica Erdman yesterday at Beyond Baroque. There was a fine line-up of people (including poets, Erica's father and former co-employees from FedEx) that communicated their love of Erica, her life and her poetry in words and song.
And I'll offer a sort-of-thanks to Tom Ianniello--a man who I have ambivalent personal feelings towards--for offering a stage to Erica and other talented poets/performers (first with the Iguana Cafe and later with Exile Books and Music) to develop and deepen their artistic craft.
I started reading my poems in public in 1998, so I missed out on the Iguana Cafe era--but was lucky to read at Exile (which later became Mysteries, Murder and Mayhem bookstore--run by mystery author Terrill Lee Lankford) when Amelie and Richard hosted a reading there. But it was inspiring to see and hear its alumni get together again.
Making a safe guess that Erica's spirit--which could be felt inside the Beyond Baroque theater--enjoyed and was gratified by the afternoon's tribute.
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