My Dinner With Tina

Why is this man making a hand-rabbit? Scroll down to find out.

If you missed my interview last night with the masterful Tina Brock of the IRC and would like to hear more about my mis/adventures in India, my work as a Fulbright Scholar and the nonfiction book I’m currently finishing, along with Tesla, ghosts, paan, religion, David Ives, and a few other surprises, you can catch it here on the IRC’s youtube channel:

 

 

Boneyards EVP Session – 6/27/15

The Saturday 6/27 show concluded with yet another simultaneous Ouija board-EVP session that gave us all plenty to talk about. Audience volunteers JOY and JOE (not the same Joe who sat at the board in the previous show) personed the board while the audience and I gathered round to watch. Joy and Joe contacted someone named V I V (short for Vivian, or perhaps it’s 3 initials) who was 7 8 years old and standing to my R I G H T.

 
Those who live, live off the dead. Likewise death, too, has to live.
The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything —
gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness –
rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind
requires a language to express its manifestations. To break
through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate
the theatre.
– Antonin Artaud

suitcaseThe Saturday 6/27 show concluded with yet another simultaneous Ouija board-EVP session that gave us all plenty to talk about. Audience volunteers JOY and JOE (not the same Joe who sat at the board in the previous show) personed the board while the audience and I gathered round to watch. Joy and Joe contacted someone named V I V (short for Vivian, or perhaps it’s 3 initials) who was 7 8 years old and standing to my R I G H T.  What did she think of the show?  S U B T L E.  (That was a first, and a particularly eloquent response that made me blush underneath my sadhu ocher, ash and dirt).  Did she know anyone in the audience? YES.  J O E.  How did she know Joe?  H O M E. Joe and I didn’t like where this was headed so I quickly changed the subject:  would Viv like to speak with us electrically?  YES.

I took a few steps away and fired up my trusty P-SB7 “spirit box” and connected it to a loudspeaker as usual.  Somewhere between the hiss of the spirit box and my ad libbed one-liners Viv’s seemingly jovial mood changed and she suddenly got annoyed with us.  When I asked if she could say my name, a voice Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Session – 6/27/15”

Boneyards EVP Session – 6/19/15

We had an enthusiastic crowd Friday night for my first show and first concluding seance at the Art Church of West Philadelphia. The Ouija board was personed by audience volunteers JOE and JOHN and the planchette was zooming about urgently.

jeff boneyards
“American sadhu.”

We had an enthusiastic crowd Friday night for my first show and first concluding seance at the Art Church of West Philadelphia. The Ouija board was personed by audience volunteers JOE and JOHN and the planchette was zooming about urgently. We spoke to a M A N who was 5 0 and A R M E N I A N who told us he did not speak or write English well.  His name was L A M E K (Lamech? A Hebrew surname; were we talking to an Armenian Jew?).

IMG_0393
This photo of a gangplank leading down to the Armenian Ghat is a key part of the show.

Kolkata’s Armenian Ghat, a former loading dock along the banks of the Hooghly built long ago by Armenian merchants, is mentioned in the show, and after the Ouija board spelled the word Armenian an audience member, someone who was not touching the board, spoke up and self-identified as Armenian).

I asked Mr. Lamek if he knew anyone in the audience and he spelled J O E. When asked if he had a message for Joe it spelled out L A L A L A L A over and over. This oblique response has happened to me twice before (in 2011 during my previous show Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead and in 2012 during a midnight seance on the stage of  Philadelphia’s historic Plays & Players Theatre) and my belief is that it means the spirit doesn’t want to answer the question, or Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Session – 6/19/15”

Voices From the Art Church

ll 2015 SoLow Fest shows are pay-what-you-can but $10 is the suggested donation for this particular show and advance tickets are required. BOOK NOW.

I’m also thrilled that Boneyards has been paired with Joy Cutler’s Anatomy Lesson and Joseph Ahmed’s I Just Want Joseph To Be Well as part of the Body Horror Mini-Fest produced by Cara Blouin.

20150605_135028
The Art Church of West Philadelphia. 5219 Webster Street.

As is always the case for me with a new Boneyards venue, I’ve done a little pre-show ghost reconnaissance. Amazing otherworldly video and transcript below. They’re there and they’re waiting for us.

“Hi folks, Jeff Stanley here … 3 shows coming up on the 19th, 27th and 28th of June.  5219 Webster Street in Philadelphia.

And of course one thing I need to do is see if there’s anyone here with us. And you know what I’m talking about. I have here as usual a P-SB7 Investigational TransCommunication Research Device for listening in on voices of the dead.

I understand this place was built in 1925 and was originally a private residence. It has now been made into a performance space.

250 milliseconds, I’m doing FM, scanning reverse …

Is there anyone out there who’d like to talk to us today?

You might want to go on foot.  (I’m taking this as a hostile spirit telling me to get the hell out but as usual there are multiple competing voices vying to be heard.)

If there’s anyone here who would like to audition and be in the show with me …

No clue.  (presumably no clue what the I’m talking about regarding a show, auditions, and this weird device in my hand).

…you gotta really belt it out.

Not me. (a shy one but three hams are coming up) Continue reading “Voices From the Art Church”

Murders. Suicides. Embalmings. Divorces. Hauntings. Hilarity ensues.

Don’t miss my autobiographical stand-up tragedy Jeffrey Stanley’s BONEYARDS while it’s at the Art Church of West Philadelphia as part of the 2015 SoLow Fest.

Friday 6/19 @9pm
Saturday 6/27 @9pm
Sunday 6/28 @7pm

Book now.