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HISTORY OF THE SIX YEAR MONTHLY HOUSE CONCERTS
........Ric blesses me with the honor of being one of the first to hear his new poems. One winter day when I was lying in bed with some passing malady, he came for a visit, leaned against our antique bureau, and recited his latest creation.
........ It was, of course, about his cancer. To hear him talk about it as if it were the ninth inning of a ball game was an amazing feeling, especially in light of how he’d been feeling the week before. I lay in bed laughing and crying as he read to me and I applauded like a little child when he finished.
........When he was gone, I lay there with a hundred thoughts running through my head, knowing that a momentous idea was taking form. It came forth out of pure necessity, knowing how vital it is to honor this living legend, our weaver of words, our genius of expression, our beloved Ric. His courage and humor in facing his own mortality are an example to us all.
........So, since March of 2000, our community gathers monthly to hear Ric and Billie recite their stories in verse, through chapters of their lives, as my husband Bill disappears behind his video camera to capture these treasured times. Each month a different family opens their home to groups of from ten to two hundred people.
........In the forty-seven years they’ve been on this beautiful mountain, they’ve gathered an ever-widening circle of friends around them. And now we come, a diverse family of humanity, to encircle them with our love and friendship, support and applause, laughter and appreciation.
........How often can we pay homage to a living legend? The honor of celebrating Ric and Billie is a monthly cycle for us now, our own little lunar luminary event.
........ What you are about to see in this DVD is a chronicle of a few of these gatherings. Ric thinks we are keeping him alive with them, but in fact he is keeping us alive.
....................Catherine Elber Wenner
........Only now have I discovered that the Genie got out of the bottle and that his name is Bill. To date we have done 51 gatherings of the "Palo Colorado Monthly Neighborhood Poetry Reading To Keep Ric Masten Alive Society" and Bill Wenner has been to all of them pinning a microphone on me and telling me to say something and then giving me the thumbs up. He then disappears behind his digital video gadget and I soon forget he is there in the corner keeping me in focus. Then last week Catherine invited Billie Barbara and me to their house, about a five minute walk from ours — for a surprise she squealed. But Catherine, with Bill's permission let the cat out of the bag telling us that Bill had made an hour DVD out of six of the monthly house concert readings.
........Now, I hate to listen or look at myself in performance and had planned to tell Bill that "I loved it!" even though I hated it. But when I saw the incredible sensitive job he had done, and considered the immense amount of time he had put in to this project — catching the magic of these special events I now have to admit that Cecil B. De Mill married a woman named Catherine and lives a stones throw from our house. Thanks Bill!
......................Ric Masten
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