February 17th, 2009 / 2:12 pm
Behind the Scenes

AWP through the eyes of Gena Mohwish

hello. i guess i am gena mohwish. both sam and jereme wanted me to write about my experience and post my pictures on htmlgiant, so here i am. it feels a little frightening to be writing here. my body just shook a little. okay.

**Pictures after the jump!**


wednesday

arrivali began my trip wednesday morning at rdu airport. i was extremely nervous. i looked around and saw signs that i did not understand. my flight was delayed about an hour and a half. i walked around and used the bathroom about three times and bought a small pizza for $8 at the airport and watched planes leave. my chest felt immense several times. i got on my flight. i arrived at o’hare airport around 3 pm. it was very rainy in chicago and i felt afraid to leave the airport.
christy callchristy call picked me up from the airport around 6 pm. christy is the most adorable woman i have ever seen. we bonded while circling the airport waiting for ryan to get there. christy beeped at a hispanic guy that she thought was ryan. we talked about panic attacks, being creepy, and life. we call each other “c” and “g” now. we are that fucking badass.
ryan callryan call is quite lovely. he helped me book my hotel since i could not book it myself. when he got into christy’s car, he turned around and gave me a smile. he is kind of tiny. not in a bad way, though. i feel like i wanted to pet him like a small animal. he is a very genuine person.

blurrywhen i got to my hotel, i went for a walk outside in the cold. the sky looked grey at 9:30 pm. i was afraid i was going to trip and bleed and die. but i didn’t. i meandered through the city watching life through my blurred camera lens.

thursday

jereme deanjereme dean has been a close friend of mine for a very long time. he has taught me a lot about life and people. i was very happy to meet him. he has several freckles that make his face interesting. he stole my sunglasses, but that is okay. they look much better on him anyway. jereme is also a ladies man. he was trying to sell blake’s book to random women walking by at awp. i laughed several times at this. it made me wish i had not bought blake’s book so he could have persuaded me to buy it.
peter cavanaughi did not get to awp until the afternoon of thursday. i could not get in due to my lack of an id. i met peter cavanaugh and daniel bailey simultaneously. peter cavanaugh is a very quiet person. i felt a sadness surge through me whenever i looked at him. he is a good person to take unsuspecting pictures of.
daniel baileydaniel bailey has been my friend for a little while. i was scared to talk to him when we began talking a few months ago. i enjoy daniel’s poetry. daniel was nice and featured me on here explodes my giant face. in person, daniel is very tall and kind of quiet, but not as quiet as peter. i felt bad when i was sitting at the noo journal table and accidentally spilled wine beneath his feet. he didn’t respond to it much, which i thought was strange.
sam pinksam pink is such an elusive person. i was walking outside with jereme and peter at awp and i heard a voice behind me asking jereme for some money. it took me a few seconds to recognize the voice. jereme did not recognize who it was. jereme almost gave him a dollar, and i said, “do you know who that is?!?” jereme didn’t. it was sam fucking pink. i kept telling sam before i met him that i would get his real name out of him. i did. sam is also very famous, apparently. a russian man named dimitri asked him for his book on the street.
mechanical crabjereme, sam, and i walked around the city for a little while and then went to the shedd aquarium. it was dark and calm in there. i touched the glass of some of the aquariums. i kissed some of them. a lot of the sea creatures looked very lonely. i saw a tank that looked like an abandoned prison. i wanted to crawl into it and sleep there. the japanese spine crab moved very robotically and made life feel surreal.

friday

flighton friday, i got my id and entered awp. ryan somehow got jereme an id for free with the name “adam robinson” on it. everyone kept stealing adam’s name. there was a small helicopter at awp. initially, people were talking about how people were getting thrown out for flying the helicopter. i thought they were talking about a real helicopter and i felt scared. i threw the helicopter as someone was trying to make it fly. it hit adam robinson. i didn’t really know him very well. i am sorry it hit you, adam. i make bad first impressions. i tried to fly the helicopter later. i think i broke it. did i break it?
shane jones
i met shane jones, but did not get to talk to him very much. i bought his book. my grandma saw this picture of him and said he was “an attractive fellow”. it made me giggle.

i do not realize i am being stalked by gena

i do not realize i am being stalked by gena

blake butler did not know who i was initially. he looked at me sitting at the noo journal table, sat down, and observed things. i took a picture of him without him realizing it. a few minutes later someone introduced me to blake, and he didn’t believe it was me even though it was.

what the fuck? poetry? are you fucking kidding me?

what the fuck? poetry? are you fucking kidding me?

adam and i decided to draw gene morgan. gene is very tall and funny. i don’t know why i thought he was bald. he helped me out a lot during my last night in chicago. he has a wife and children, which made me feel good for some reason.
molly gaudry and jereme deanmolly gaudry is a striking woman. her demeanor is very sexy or something. she has a good fashion sense. i captured a beautiful moment between her and jereme. this makes me feel that life is not shit and that we all will not die unhappy.

not colin bassett

not colin bassett

i looked for colin bassett at awp a couple of times. i could not find him. on the way to the reading on the train, i saw a man who had hair like colin’s and i looked straight at him and he looked straight at me. i said to myself, “is that colin? nah, that’s not him.” it was him. on saturday i met him at awp. i thought i got a picture of him, but i didn’t. i’m sorry colin. you can be this turtle.

after awp, everyone went to dinner at a pizza place. it was a nice experience. the waitress was very clumsy and jereme heckled her a lot. no one else commented on her clumsiness i don’t think. it made me happy to see everyone together.
dinnerdinnerdinner

later that night, blake, gene, jereme, and i went back to gene’s hotel and drank. blake got drunk on vodka and some lambic, but mostly vodka. i got a little tipsy drinking lambic. later, i went with blake to go get ice and we stole a ton of sheets from a supply room. blake gives a lot of compliments when he is drunk. he also shouts a lot while walking in the city. i felt somewhat normal after i got tipsy, but the picture below makes me believe the alcohol was deceiving me.

gathereddrunk
walkingfriday night, there was an amazing reading on the train. i did not get any pictures of this because i ran out of film. i felt very discouraged. several people read on the train including shane jones, daniel bailey, blake butler, sam pink, and mike young. i was standing in a seat behind a lady that was uninterested in the reading. she looked at me and glared a little. after all the readings, a lot of people went to molly’s hotel room. her room was much nicer than gene’s even though it was in the same hotel. i sat on the bed and drank harbor mist and craved tortilla chips. i sang a lot.
saturday

adam robinson, christy call, ryan callsaturday was my last full day there. i spent most of the day walking around chicago. later, i went to awp. i brought arbor mist. i needed cups so i went into some supply room and stole several. i have a bad habit of doing that. i began to drink a little wine at the table. i knocked almost the entire bottle and shattered it. i picked up shattered pieces of glass. i wanted to throw them above me and celebrate life, but that would have resulted in my death so i refrained from doing so.
mike youngbefore i met mike young, i thought he hated me. i do not remember why i thought this. he probably had no idea who i was before we met. i was debating on whether or not i should have went and introduced myself to him. i decided to do it. i drew a picture of a walrus-mermaid-80’s guy hybrid and i think mike folded it up and put it in his pocket. i am sure my picture has the inevitable fate of ending up in the washer and being shredded to pieces.
barry grahambarry graham is cool. i bought his book from him. i have never read his work before, which made me feel kind of guilty. he gave out free condoms. i opened one and jereme blew it up and threw it at barry. there are mischievous people at awp.

rarrrhrhghgmd

rarrrhrhghgmd

after awp, everyone kind of split up. later, we went to a reading at some college, i think. it was okay. it was too formal. there was free food and i took a picture of peter eating a muffin. this picture makes me laugh a lot. this was the last time i saw almost everyone together. i got very sad and almost began crying for several different reasons. i felt alone.

i feel extremely sad after saying all of that. i will not describe sunday, the day i left, because i am afraid i may begin to cry. i do not want to cry. so i will stop here and spare you all the beauty of tragedy. please, everyone be nice to one another for the rest of the world’s existence. there is so much beauty everywhere.

beauty

Tags: ,

47 Comments

  1. ryan

      this makes me feel like i was very wrong to not go to awp.

  2. ryan

      this makes me feel like i was very wrong to not go to awp.

  3. Jereme Dean

      ryan, you should have come. it was of moderate fun.

      i enjoy how ryan and christy call have perfected the wide eyed smile pose. like they practiced it when they were kids or something.

      sam looks like travis bickel.

  4. Jereme Dean

      ryan, you should have come. it was of moderate fun.

      i enjoy how ryan and christy call have perfected the wide eyed smile pose. like they practiced it when they were kids or something.

      sam looks like travis bickel.

  5. pr

      This was great. love seeing all the pictures…

  6. pr

      This was great. love seeing all the pictures…

  7. mike

      this is an excellent post and your pictures are very much the real everybody

      there are more pictures on facebook so you should all be friends with gena to see those pictures

      i try not to hate anyone because it’s so draining. hating people is like having to go to the post office but all over your body.

      i fished all of the papers out of my pocket ,including your drawing, so it won’t be laundered

      alcohol has so many different names. i just realized i don’t know hardly any of them. jack daniels. sierra nevada. chardonnay. that’s it.

      dear chicago, what a wind

      it’s interesting that everyone is real. it’s good.

  8. mike

      this is an excellent post and your pictures are very much the real everybody

      there are more pictures on facebook so you should all be friends with gena to see those pictures

      i try not to hate anyone because it’s so draining. hating people is like having to go to the post office but all over your body.

      i fished all of the papers out of my pocket ,including your drawing, so it won’t be laundered

      alcohol has so many different names. i just realized i don’t know hardly any of them. jack daniels. sierra nevada. chardonnay. that’s it.

      dear chicago, what a wind

      it’s interesting that everyone is real. it’s good.

  9. Shane Jones

      it was nice meeting you gena, and thank you for putting so much time into this post. it was great.

  10. Shane Jones

      it was nice meeting you gena, and thank you for putting so much time into this post. it was great.

  11. colin

      yes, very nice post gena

      i’ll be the turtle, that’s good

  12. colin

      yes, very nice post gena

      i’ll be the turtle, that’s good

  13. KevinS

      All those photos are really cool. Especially the B&W ones. Fun post!

  14. KevinS

      All those photos are really cool. Especially the B&W ones. Fun post!

  15. ryan

      i’ve always thought moderate fun was the best kind

  16. ryan

      i’ve always thought moderate fun was the best kind

  17. Matt

      These are great pictures, and a great post. Thanks for posting, Gena!

  18. Matt

      These are great pictures, and a great post. Thanks for posting, Gena!

  19. ryan

      i am jealous of jereme’s for his beard growing capabilities

  20. ryan

      i am jealous of jereme’s for his beard growing capabilities

  21. Jereme Dean

      it looks much better in color.

      you can’t see the vibrant red in these b&w pics.

  22. Jereme Dean

      it looks much better in color.

      you can’t see the vibrant red in these b&w pics.

  23. Molly Gaudry

      Gena,

      What a great post. I feel sad, too. Your photographs are amazing. Amazing amazing. I love the first one of Peter here. That is also really funny about the turle and Colin. I’m glad Colin left this response here. Mostly, I am sorry you ran out of film before the train reading. If I could do anything, I would make film appear that night so you could take pictures of that event. Maybe it’s better this way? Maybe it’s one of those things that just has to be remembered.

      It was great to meet you.

      XO,
      M.

  24. Molly Gaudry

      Gena,

      What a great post. I feel sad, too. Your photographs are amazing. Amazing amazing. I love the first one of Peter here. That is also really funny about the turle and Colin. I’m glad Colin left this response here. Mostly, I am sorry you ran out of film before the train reading. If I could do anything, I would make film appear that night so you could take pictures of that event. Maybe it’s better this way? Maybe it’s one of those things that just has to be remembered.

      It was great to meet you.

      XO,
      M.

  25. Molly Gaudry

      turtle

  26. Molly Gaudry

      turtle

  27. Ryan Call

      author photo

  28. Ryan Call

      author photo

  29. Matthew Simmons

      Beautiful photos. Really, really beautiful.

  30. Matthew Simmons

      Beautiful photos. Really, really beautiful.

  31. ryan

      well, i’m completely colorblind so i’d be seeing it in b&w anyway

  32. ryan

      well, i’m completely colorblind so i’d be seeing it in b&w anyway

  33. daniel bailey

      this is a really great post, gena. it was good meeting you. i really missed everyone i met this weekend as soon as i got on the interstate to leave chicago.

  34. daniel bailey

      this is a really great post, gena. it was good meeting you. i really missed everyone i met this weekend as soon as i got on the interstate to leave chicago.

  35. Gene Morgan

      Gena is cool. People on the internet are really cool.

  36. Gene Morgan

      Gena is cool. People on the internet are really cool.

  37. sam pink

      i feel good.

  38. sam pink

      i feel good.

  39. Alicia

      this feels very “after-school special”

  40. Alicia

      this feels very “after-school special”

  41. Jonny Darko

      Shane Jones should play the young Philip K. Dick in the upcoming biopic.

  42. Jonny Darko

      Shane Jones should play the young Philip K. Dick in the upcoming biopic.

  43. gena

      thank you everyone, everyone is so lovely

      i want to hide in a blanket now

  44. gena

      thank you everyone, everyone is so lovely

      i want to hide in a blanket now

  45. barry

      how did i not see this before now. cool pics gena. very cool to meet you.

  46. barry

      how did i not see this before now. cool pics gena. very cool to meet you.

  47. Zane chan!

      Beautiful sis can you write about me? And CALL ME PLEASE i love you Gena san ^_^