Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano poeticizes at Prospero’s, 8/23
Every fourth Sunday of the month at Prospero’s Books on 39th Street, local poets gather in the store lobby to drink beer, spout poems and alternately encourage and heckle each other. Twenty-five-year-old Iris Applequist, of star tattoos and voluminous, rust-colored hair, welcomed me into the circle last night. That is, she invited me to take a seat and a PBR. I wasn’t there to read verses from the Buckle Bunny Chronicles. I was there to see the night’s featured poet Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano.
In recent weeks, Nick Spacek has talked up Fasano and the Fast Geek Reader, which includes some poems by musicians. Fasano’s own poems frequently reference musicians and the music scene. A Chicago resident for about a year, Fasano’s originally from Denver, where he worked the door at many a rock club, collecting fodder for pieces like “Doorman Math” and another poem about how awkward it can be to watch retro fashion get recycled in the bars.
In his poems, Fasano tends to come off as a sarcastic observer, wryly sizing up the characters of the world. Examples: a bum pissing in public near the L train; neighborhood yuppies with “smiles that go ding”; legions of douchebags, aka “Chads,” at a Memphis concert where Fasano was the opening act; a vain, unnamed Kansas City musician who wears misty contact lenses. Not all of Fasano’s poems concerned the music scene. He read a pissed-off letter to Dick Cheney and reflected on the role a porn store Coke machine played in the failure of a romance.
Unlike some of the other poets who read last night, Fasano avoided the theatrical and kept his delivery minimalist and conversational. Listening to him is like listening to one of your smartest, most interesting friends tell stories about the weird shit they’ve done (like a punk rock bowling fest in Vegas). Except Fasano doesn’t hem and haw. By nature of being poems, his stories focus on all the right details and wrap up before you’re ready.
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