It will be way better than the WWF, and without the testosterone.

Thursday March 13, 8pm

FREE Reading/Performance – Alistair McCartney and Tim Miller

Book launch for Alistair McCartney's debut novel, The End of the World Book.

"If I've read a more deeply impressive, beautiful, sweeping, mindful, and innovative first novel than Alistair McCartney's The End of the World Book, I have no memory of it. McCartney is a writer of peerless, brilliant originality and pure, giant talent."
~ Dennis Cooper, author of The Sluts and God Jr.

McCartney will be joined by his partner, the exuberant performance artist Tim Miller.

quote:

l

loved the "we take euros" sign on the door, it may be smile!
kitty

Certainly better than the increasingly worthless paper we carry 'round in our wallets these days, doll.


The euro isn't the only thing increasing in value, however.

Glenn Marla's HEAVY continues to shine! From the three-ring circus maestro himself:

HEAVY
really heavy. the all star edition

Friday March 14th (Show starts at 9!)
@
Rapture
200 Ave A (btwn 12th and 13th)

DJ Astrid !!!

Performers that give and give:
Adrienne Anemone
Joseph Keckler
Heather Acs
Nathan Carrera
BREEDLOVE!
Zhenesse
Mr. Joe
Plus Special Guests


performance! art! music! drink! chat! lounge!

heavy is for:
Passionate artists, curious audiences, fancy people, trashy people, love makers, heart breakers, risk takers, deal breakers, strong hands covered in paint, strong painters covered in hands, rough corners, head turners, derelicts, debutantes, do gooders, and ne'er do wells.

Mention MOTHERBOARDS and get 2-4-1 well drinks all night!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mr.joe,

Saturday March 15th, 9PM
The Gender Fluids
Free Admission


The Gender Fluids are a Portland, OR-based performance group utilizing movement, multi-media and language to create a raw and unexpectewd demonstration of gender. Think: the (grand)children of The Cockettes/Angels Of Light, Alla Nazimova, Blacklips Perfomance Cult, Hugo Ball, Doris Fish, Edgard Varese and Throbbing Gristle!

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Monday March 17th, 8:30-11PM
St. Patty's Nite Bingo
with Linda McSimpson & Mr. Murray O'Hill
Free Admission

Who knew Bingo could be so kooky... And so Irish, too? Since debuting at Rapture this fall, the weekly game night hosted by wisecracking (and bickering) duo Linda Simpson and Murray Hill has become quite the fun-filled event. There are plenty of prizes to be won"”some silly, some superb"”as well as added attractions like ridiculous dares (many involving a triple-D bra), "friendship rounds," a brightly-colored mystery bag (no, not Linda-- it's no mystery that she's a bag) and fab spokesmodels. Stay until the end of the night for the climatic cash round (often over $100) or just pop in for a few games. You're sure to have a riot at this very unique affair!

Plus... 2-4-1 Well Drinks from 7:30-8:30PM, so you can stake out the perfect bingo table in style!

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Wednesday March 19th, 8PM
Rapture Café Presents
Dean Johnson's Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Look At Queer Sex
Free Admission

Tonight: Walter Cessna, Marlynn Snyder, Tim Doodie, Carlo Quispe's imagery & more!

-----


Thursday March 20th, 9PM
Amber Martin in... WigShop!
$10. Admission

With Guest, Sexy Soul-Funk Singer-Songwriter Cyrus Baty...

"Amber has turned that Big Apple into a quivering pool of applesauce. Listening to her sing is like aural saline." -- Dina Martina

"Like watching Ruth Draper after she's come back from an acid trip during which she thought she was Janis Joplin... Fight for a ticket." -- Willamette Week

In the footsteps of comic character monologists such as Lily Tomlin, John Leguizamo, and Whoopi Goldberg, acclaimed solo artist Amber Martin brings her award winning chops to Rapture Café & Books (2003 Portland Drammy Award for Best Solo Performance). Created and performed by Martin, WigShop is an intimately mind-altering hour of meticulously chosen musical and comedic vignettes from Amber's strange and fascinating repertoire (including all new work).

Blending music, video, monologues, movement, and acid-capped comedy with a pristine, multi-octave range singing voice, WigShop is Amber Martin's own serio-comic multiple-personality trip. The tale, a melodramatic skewering of pop & music culture (and many wig changes), occurs in a small town WigShop during business hours. But it's what happens after closing time that crawls under your skin like a renegade scabie in the night. Throughout the performance, Amber seamlessly morphs from character to character introducing us to a bevy of personalities on a journey towards salvation. Some are on the outside, lookin for quarters and maybe a job behind the wig counter, while others are trying for some way to cover the bald spots without resorting to hairplugs.

Noted as a performer of many faces and voices with boundless energy to burn, performer Amber Martin has left such celebrity audience members as Joyce Dewitt, Chuck Palanhuik, Todd Haynes, Dina Martina, John Cameron Mitchell, and Justin Bond howling in ecstasy. So put on your thinking caps for an old school downtown-style late-evening cocktail performance by one of the next sensations of thought-provoking musical comedy... Miss Amber Martin.

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Friday March 21st, 8PM
Lissa Moira & Richard West's Anti-Depression Party
Free Admission

Lissa & Richard are at it again-- and on the first day of spring no less! So take your Zoloft, Paxil, and Prozac and come on by. Spirits guaranteed to be lifted!

-----

Saturday March 22nd, 9PM
Amber Martin in... WigShop!
$10. Admission

Back by popular demand! Ms. Martin has added one more show due to an avalanche of reservations (See above)!

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Sunday March 23rd, 8PM
Closing Party For Kestutis Nakas' "Railroad Backward"
Free Admission

Pyramid-emeritus Kestutis Nakas is back in town with a brand new show at LaMama ETC (See below), and after tonight's closing performance, we'll be hosting a little get-together at Rapture for cast, crew, friends and fans.

-----

La MaMa E.T.C. presents the World Premiere of
'Railroad Backward'
March 21 - 23, 2008
Friday & Saturday at 10:00pm
Sunday at 5:30pm
The Club At LaMama

Railroad Backward, written and directed by Kestutis Nakas traces a Chicago
man's bizarre journey through frontier Illinois. He meets Abraham Lincoln, discovers the secret of the "reverse underground-railroad", becomes a pirate and joins desperadoes spreading terror throughout the frontier. Finally, he bears witness to a shocking crime that changes history. It is an American Heart of Darkness, but funnier. Original songs evoke the sounds of our country's past.

Nicky Paraiso and Edgar Oliver join Kestutis Nakas and a cast of six Chicago actors: Chris Amos, Kent Brown, Kevin Crowley, Samantha Grisafe, John David Hall and Frederick Harris.

Kestutis Nakas is a writer, performer, director, and teacher whose work has been presented at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Yale Rep, La Mama, Dixon Place, P.S. 122, St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, 8BC, The Kitchen, Highways, Prop Theatre and numerous other national venues. Performance works and plays include My Heart, My President, Hunger and Lightning, The Andrew Carnegie Story, and the critically acclaimed tragi-farce cycle: When Lithuania Ruled The World, Parts I, II, III. & IV. In the 1980's, he was active in New York's East Village performance scene and was Artistic Director of Gates of Dawn, which showcased cutting edge performers. Currently he is Associate Professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

LaMama Box Office (212) 475-7710

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Monday March 24th, 8:30-11PM
Monday Nite Bingo
with Linda Simpson & Mr. Murray Hill
Free Admission

"B-1... B-1... when will this game be won?" Since the rather sudden closing of that East Village entertainment mainstay Mo Pitkin's House Of Satisfaction, Murray Hill (Mr. Showbiz himself), and Linda Simpson (truly a New York legend,) have brought their wildly popular bingo-fest here to Rapture every Monday night. Expect things to be exactly the same as they were a Mo's, with a cash jackpot, scads of great prizes, and plenty of caffeine available so you can work 10 bingo cards at once!

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Tuesday March 25th, 8PM
An Evening With Author, Poet & Activist Janice Erlbaum
Free admission

Please join us to celebrate the publication of former BUST Magazine columnist Janice Erlbaum's latest book, Have You Found Her (Villard, February 2008). Have You Found Her is a profound examination of mentorship and friendship; love and deception; and the bonds between women. More than anything, Janice's journey raises the question: how far does one go to save a soul? Erlbaum's debut , Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, was deemed "both tragic and uplifting" by Elle Magazine and named one of the New York Public Library's 25 Books to Remember.

-----

Wednesday March 26th, 8PM
Rapture Café Presents
Dean Johnson's Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Look At Queer Sex
Free Admission

Tonight The Gay Poets ...with Hapi Phace the legendary haiku-ist, Jimmy Camicia from the Hot Peaches, Ned Steusen-Reuter, Edgar Oliver... and more!

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Friday March 28th, 7PM
Art On Our Walls: Ande Whyland, Photographs, opening party: 7PM
(Through 4/20)
Free Admission

Photographer Ande Whyland has been documenting Downtown Nightlife and the East Village for over a generation. This retrospective exhibition features many of the Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Cultural Icons that changed the face of of Art and Culture in Manhattan.

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Saturday March 29th, 2PM-5PM
The PsyChic Affair and Mini - Crafts Show
To Benefit Sylvia's Place
Free Admission

Join the infamous NYC (dis)Order of Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for a PsyChic Affair at Rapture with proceeds to benefit Sylvia's Place: GLBT Homeless Youth Shelter. All readings are $20 each for 15 to 20 minutes time and 100% goes to Sylvia's Place.

Dedicated to the Expiation of Stigmatic Guilt and the Promulgation of Universal Joy, "The Sisters" invite the community to cleanse auras, fluff souls and purify pallets at our Fagtastic PsyChic Affair. On hand will be tarot readers & advisors; hand made crafts; a vintage porn bazaar; boudoir confessionals; face painting; hugging, touching and much, much more.

"Please allow us this opportunity to bring joy to your heart and liberation to your spirit through a righteous injection of habitual gaiety (with a side of the psychic divine).
Come celebrate in our collective, selfless sister service for Sylvia's Place. See what the future might hold, who might hold you in the future, and when, in the future, to hold your own. The Possibilities are endless with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence."

We'll vouch for that!


-----

Monday March 31st, 8:30-11PM
Monday Nite Bingo
with Linda Simpson & Mr. Murray Hill
Free Admission

This ain't your grandma's Bingo! Rapture Café is delighted to be the new home of Monday Night Bingo, the rollicking game show hosted by high-profile drag queen Linda Simpson and downtown It boy Murray Hill.

For the past year-and-a-half, the wisecracking celebrity duo has enjoyed a smash run at Mo Pitkin's. Now it's time for Rapture to be filled with joyous cries of "Bingo!" as ecstatic players win prizes galore"”some silly, some superb"”including theatre tickets, booze, all sorts of whatchamacallits and good ol' American cash. Adding to the fun is a dazzling array of downtown-celebrity guest spokesmodels and surprise performances.

Your heart will race! Your palms will sweat! But all in a good way, as you vie to be the triumphant winner of everyone's favorite game of chance!

-----

Rapture Also Recommends...

The Photography Of Alice O'Malley:
Community Of Elsewheres
Curated by Antony
March 20th-May 4th
Opening Reception Thursday March 20th, 7-9PM
Participant Inc.
253 East Houston Street
212-254-4334

For Pickles...

For our most technically advanced show to date, we are thrilled to present:


Amber Martin in...
WigShop
Saturday March 22nd
@ 9pm
Rapture Café & Books

With Guest, Sexy Soul-Funk Singer-Songwriter Cyrus Baty.

"Amber has turned that Big Apple into a quivering pool of applesauce. Listening to her sing is like aural saline." -- Dina Martina

"Like watching Ruth Draper after she's come back from an acid trip during which she thought she was Janis Joplin... Fight for a ticket." -- Willamette Week

In the footsteps of comic character monologists such as Lily Tomlin, John Leguizamo, and Whoopi Goldberg, acclaimed solo artist Amber Martin brings her award winning chops to Rapture Café & Books (2003 Portland Drammy Award for Best Solo Performance). Created and performed by Martin, WigShop is an intimately mind-altering hour of meticulously chosen musical and comedic vignettes from Amber's strange and fascinating repertoire (including all new work).

Blending music, video, monologues, movement, and acid-capped comedy with a pristine, multi-octave range singing voice, WigShop is Amber Martin's own serio-comic multiple-personality trip. The tale, a melodramatic skewering of pop & music culture (and many wig changes), occurs in a small town WigShop during business hours. But it's what happens after closing time that crawls under your skin like a renegade scabie in the night. Throughout the performance, Amber seamlessly morphs from character to character introducing us to a bevy of personalities on a journey towards salvation. Some are on the outside, lookin for quarters and maybe a job behind the wig counter, while others are trying for some way to cover the bald spots without resorting to hairplugs.

Noted as a performer of many faces and voices with boundless energy to burn, performer Amber Martin has left such celebrity audience members as Joyce Dewitt, Chuck Palanhuik, Todd Haynes, Dina Martina, John Cameron Mitchell, and Justin Bond howling in ecstasy. So put on your thinking caps for an old school downtown-style late-evening cocktail performance by one of the next sensations of thought-provoking musical comedy... Miss Amber Martin.

Where: Rapture Café & Books, 200 Avenue A (between 12th & 13th Sts), NYC

When: Saturday, March 22nd @ 9pm **

Directions: L train to 1st Ave.

$10 at door

For more info visit:
www.blog.myspace.com/houseofcunt
www.myspace.com/houseofcunt
www.ambermartin.net
www.rapturecafe.com

Contact: 212.228.1177

Just a reminder...

And tonight...

(Attachment removed due to size...)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chi Chi,

Rapture is transitioning!

In December 2006, artists, authors, performers and poets of every medium co-created a space located at 200 Avenue A; an oasis of the imagination, Rapture Café & Books housed a motley crew who live and thrive on the margins of social convention, and carried the historic torch passed on by East Village visionaries who stretch and push and pull at the boundaries of politics, music, art, sexuality, gender, economy and family.

Inevitably, endeavors of ambitious truths and brutal beautification of the spirit must evolve in order to thrive. Rapture's time here at 200 Avenue A is drawing to a close, only to emerge in other forms and in other spaces. Rising costs of doing business using this model have nudged us forward to conceive new ways of producing and presenting some of the best words and performance here in the East Village and beyond.

In the space of a very short 15 months, the costs of the raw materials we must use in the operation of our café/bookstore have increased; books, coffee, milk, honey, even limes have jumped in price. Commercial rates of utilities have as much as trebled. Each of you can see this yourselves when your weekly paycheck doesn't go quite as far as it did the week before. Frankly, even if we were unscrupulous enough to pass more of these costs off to you, our patrons, there is a limit to how much you might be willing to pay for, say a cup of coffee or tea. And unlike some of our bigger competitors, we don't feel you should have to pay more than two bucks for a large cup of excellent fair trade coffee!

So, except for a few special events, we will be closing our doors to general, day-to-day business on Thursday April 24th, 2008. However, we will continue to host many of the events you have come to appreciate at Rapture at other locations. Look for "Dean Johnson's Reading For Filth", "Readings At Rapture," and "Glenn Marla's Heavy" to continue gloriously at other venues. In addition, Rapture will be expanding our web presence, so please do bookmark our site at:

http://www.rapturecafe.com

We'll also be sending out occasional updates, news and notifications regarding events of interest via our E-list and, of course, here on the Motherboards...keep your eyes peeled!

We are proud of what we have accomplished here with your help, and look brightly to the future.

And please do look for our upcoming announcements regarding both our "Transition Party" celebration on April 18th and our big blowout to "welcome" the pope on April 19th!

~~Joe Birdsong, Hattie Hathaway, and the Staff Of Rapture Café & Books

It makes me sad, but all I can say is THANK YOU! Rapture gave so much at such a desperate time. But like Mother, Rapture has spawned some important off-shoots , it will live on in other forms and that's what its about in the end. Cheers Joe, Hattie and all!

*It's funny because today I was told my rent is increasing and I've now officially starting thinking about moving out of NYC. Its a very strange thought process as I was born here and have such a bond that I'm not sure how to break.

Alas all good things come to an end or at least a transition. I now have even less reason to come to NYC, except to see my friends. Good luck to Hattie, Joe and the great fun staff at Rapture.

Rob, Don't be afraid, there is great life outside of New York City. And because you make so much of your work on the web you can do that from anywhere. The possibilities are endless.

A beautiful farewell announcement, really..

Thank you for providing such an extraordinary clubhouse for the past fifteen months, and we look forward to Rapture 2.0

I think JD and I probably understand this decision more than anyone else could (who hasn't owned a venue). Life after MOTHER has proved to be an adventure we couldn't have predicted then.

The secret is to build the clubhouse within yourself, ourselves, so it is movable wherever we go. Bohemia always relied on face-to-face gatherings before, it is an old history of cafes and bars and clubs that is coming fast to the end here.. Who is to pay these rents, these costs? What will happen?

To everyone at Rapture - thank you for even trying to do what you did, for so long.

Thank you so much Joe and Hattie and all the support crew.

You put on more in each and every single week than all the other venues combined do in one month -no exaggeration at all.

The Rapture you gave to us all was the most out, self-determining daily joyblast that has existed for the last several years.

I will miss the sure bet of being able to walk a few blocks to enter a really welcoming place I could truly relax in with totally accepting companions.

I look forward with everyone else here to the evolving energies you set up and brought to focus. With good and bad consequences, I think Chi Chi points it out and Rob hints at it, real estate is the past -for the time being- and although its obsolescence may be provisional it is without a doubt too much of a drag in the immediate future. So I want to contribute to embracing your self resepect and your generosity and your putting one foot in front of the other. May that pleasurevision of yours just keep on increasing, for all our sakes.

Thank you for the jo(e), the memories, and the blackouts!

I read the email today with some sadness, but I completely understand and second all the sentiments above. It's not about one space, it's about the roving party! And the family.
Cheers to Joe and Hattie,
L.

One of our gorgeous Filthy readers, blogger and activist Eric Leven (knucklecrack.blogspot.com), hopped on his skateboard and whooshed over here today after reading our announcement. He spent the afternoon writing, drinking,and laughing with all the other customers and staff. Just one of the numerous bright jewels in our crown. Anyway, he asked me for a quote about how I was feeling today, so I wrote something up that I'll share here.

"Opening and overseeing Rapture has been the most electrifying, mobilizing, ecstatic, terrifying and enriching experience of my life (so far). The past two+ years have taught me that we can follow a vision and see it through, and that none of us are ever truly alone. During our time here, I've broadened my own sense of family and community; watched friends get married in this space; buried friends; discovered breathtakingly talented artists and writers; fallen in love with my very own magic man; met every living writer (with one exception) I've ever wanted to meet; immersed myself in the tides of art, politics, performance, community, gender and spirituality. I am humbled by the sheer brilliance of the staff - my family - here (Hattie Hathaway, Linda James, ErickaToure Aviance, Jonny Tingle, Mark Bailey, Clint Asay, Texxx, Walt Cessna). And there...you've gone and made me cry. We truly have co-created a fabulous, fierce, first incarnation of Rapture. I now know what hope feels like."

Viva Rapture!