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12/26/2015

Noah Mickens: Best of Coffeeshop Conversations

By TOM D'ANTONI //

What You've always wanted to know about the Impresario of the Wanderlust Circus...including all about his suspension days. From our first year of Coffeeshop Conversations.

Just over a year ago, I thought it would be a good idea to beef up our podcast by talking to interesting people for around an hour in a coffeeshop. One of the first was Noah Mickens, first appearing in OMN on December 11, 2014.

If you’ve ever seen  Noah Mickens, the larger-than-life Impressario of Wanderlust Circus and many other avant-garde musical/theatrical performances over the years, you might have asked yourself, “Who the hell IS this guy? What is he like?”

You’ve read his stories on OMN over the years, too. We feel lucky when he can find the time to write for us, and his stories are always wonderful, in the truest sense of the word. But again….what is this man all about? I’m not sure we answer that question in the hour I talked with him in the Cupping Room of the World Cup Coffee and Tea shop at NW 18th and Glisan. That’s where all of our Coffeeshop Conversations take place.

He is unfailingly brilliant and clever and…let’s face it…weird. I’ve known him since 1997 and I’m not sure I know all the facets. Perhaps that ‘s a good thing. For instance, I had never talked to him about the period of time when he was into “suspensions,” that is being hung by the skin on hooks, something he did at the Crystal Ballroom and other places. I finally got the answers to that.

Ladies and gentlemen, Noah Mickens

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