wayward armadillo blog

Ladyfest Toronto

2008-09-12T21:46:00.005-04:00

I'll be reading from works-n-progress at this year's Ladyfest. Hope to see you there!

It's $5, this Tuesday September 16 at 7pm at Beaver Hall on McCaul Street. I'm not sure how the combination of literary readings, spoken word and dance is going to go, but it's sure to be diverse and varied.

Check out the other events at Ladyfest, especially the workshops - some of them sound pretty cool!

Cheers.

Miscellaneous

2008-09-09T16:44:00.002-04:00

Summer is almost over. I'm not upset though; usually I hate summer. Toronto is hot and smoggy and I get headaches and the headaches make me angry and resentful and sad. But since I got my wisdom teeth plucked out a year or so ago, I don't get the barometric pressure headaches (worst in summer) anymore, so I'm just glad to have had such a great time this season. I went away a lot, so that certainly helped.

Highlights:

Wolfe Island Literary Festival - a great time! If you ever get the opportunity to read there, do it. Otherwise, go be an audience member. It's fun, the readings are stellar, there's music, food, beer, and wonderful surroundings across the water from Kingston.

Camping - Depot Lake, Long Point, Algonquin. I didn't get eaten by a bear! I'm born-again outdoorsy!

Westport/Montreal - a birthday roadtrip that bookended Wolfe Island.

Tottenham Bluegrass Festival - next year, we're going for the whole thing, and bringing a gang of friends.

Chimeras - playing on the Chimeras in the women's hockey league at Rinx. We kicked ass til the playoffs...

Lake Huron - a week at a cottage on the lake. Reading and eating and drinking.

License - finally getting my G1 so I become a fully licensed driver (sigh, again).

Watch How We Walk - getting another chunk of the novel written. I'll kick it into readable shape soon!

Low Lights:

Getting pink eye.
Pink eye coming back.
Not getting into the Exclaim summer hockey league.
Crappy turnout at the Death Vessel show.
Poorly behaved grown-ups at a family gathering.
Torrential rains while camping at Conestogo.

I'm optimistic about the fall. I'm nearly done a first draft of the novel, and I like rewriting, so hopefully I'll get a workable draft done soon. I'm playing in three different hockey leagues this season: the Bill Bolton womens' league, the Chimeras again, and the Screamin' Unyons. Hopefully the tendon issues won't return on my ankles... I also have some good guests coming up on "In Other Words" on CKLN 88.1FM: Jonathan Bennett in September, tba October, and Kyle Buckley in November. That and a lot of craft shows should keep me busy til xmas.

Oh and I'm reading at Ladyfest this year... more details soon.

Cheers.

I'm reading at The Central

2008-08-13T16:45:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday, August 19 at 8pm I'm reading in the Plasticine Reading Series. Come on out!

I'll be reading from my novel-in-progress Watch How We Walk, and informally launching my new chapbook, which is an excerpt from the manuscript.

Also reading are Jenny Sampirisi, Valentino Assenza, and Mike Lipsius. It's hosted by Michael Fraser, and there will be an open mic.

Tuesday, August 19th at 8pm

The Central - 603 Markham St.

I'm not sure if there is a cover charge, but I don't think so.

I hope to see you there!

One down, two to go

2008-07-08T16:43:00.002-04:00

I got the written portion of the driving tests done, so I now have the G1. Hurray! It was easy; the tricky part was getting there. The now-privatized testing is done by a company called DriveTest, and they don't have any centres in downtown Toronto, so I spent two hours on TTC this morning getting to Vic Park to write the bloody thing. I have nothing to say about Victoria and Park and Lawrence.

But I'm excited about getting behind the wheel again; it's been about fifteen years! Pathetic, yes, but I'm rectifying this fuck-up. Next week I'll be at a cottage where I can practise on some country roads, but maybe I'll even get a chance to drive a bit tomorrow before hockey. Look out! Stay inside!

The best part of today's ordeal was starting to read Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden on the bus. I'd heard good things about it, and met him at the Wolfe Island Festival where he read from works-in-progress, a sequel to Three Day Road. I'm only a couple chapters in, but it's good so far - vivid, well-paced, tense, and I like the varying points of view structure. It's working for me so far.

I reckon I'll finish it at the cottage next week and then read Orhan Pamuk's Other Colors. I'm looking forward to that. And some trashy magazines, of the decorating and craft variety - that's my porn. Oh glossy pictures of light fixtures! Oh DIY projects I'll never complete! Oh tasty recipes I'll clip and make someday!

Okay, enough ignoring the open file of the novel chapter in need of revision.

Driving

2008-07-06T22:44:00.002-04:00

I hate not being able to (legally) drive. I hate relying on others for a ride to hockey. I hate accidentally bashing someone in the head with my hockey stick on a crowded TTC bus (also unacceptable during a game, but then it's more fun). I hate not sharing the driving duties on a roadtrip, although I am a good navigator.

I really need to get my license.

Today I spent the afternoon and evening rereading the drivers' handbook, and quizzing myself, and doing online practise tests. I'm ready. I'm going to do the damn written test this week so I can get my license back.

Yes, back. Long long ago, when I lived in a small town with no 400-highways and only two stoplights, I could legally operate a motor vehicle. But then I moved to Toronto, and kind of forgot to renew it. For years. And years. And now I have to start again, with this laborious graduated licensing system.

Yeah, I suck. It's my most significant adult mistake. I've spent years berating myself for fucking that up, and now it's time to stop putting "Get License Back" on new years' resolution lists, and just deal with it.

I was a nervous, inexperienced driver for the brief year or two that I did drive, so I am literally starting from the beginning. Bring on the College Street traffic! Give me the DVP in rush hour! And um, some driving lessons.

This is a start though - next week I'll be in the country, and what better place to practise the basics than quiet country roads around Wingham. Look out, Alice Munro! Stay inside!

Maybe I'll go write the damn test tomorrow morning.

'Night.

Chimeras

2008-07-02T23:44:00.003-04:00

I'm on a new hockey team this summer, called the Chimeras. We have a pretty cool logo and a very skilled and fun team. It's a women's team in the True North league at Rinx, which is a significantly higher level than at Bill Bolton arena, the only other women's league I've been in. That means that our passes don't meander off into nowhere, people play positions properly, and it's way more competitive and challenging. The Chimeras are in the middle of three divisions, and I love it. We're kicking ass too - lots of shutouts and only a couple of losses so far.

Except... I've developed the dreaded "skate bite," for the second time in my four short years of hockey playing. It's so painful! Basically, it's an infammation of the tendon at the front of my ankle, and there's a big angry lump of bruise that reddens and curses me every time I skate. So I've had to skip my two-hour Friday game for a couple weeks, and pad and wrap my ankle for the short Wednesday games. I know that skating on it is probably making it worse, but c'mon, once a week is as infrequent as I can get.

(I just heard a great line from a bluegrass song on the radio: "I don't drink as much as I want too...") Had to share that with you. Mmm this beer is good.

Other than Angry Ankle, playing with the Chimeras this summer has been great. I've had tonnes of assists and even a goal, and the gals on the team are great fun, going for pints afterward and even, I've heard, sneakin' in some j's. Nice moves! There's a certain amount of camaraderie on this team that I haven't always experienced elsewhere...

Other things that rock lately:

The Tottenham Bluegrass Festival
the moose in Algonquin
getting out of Toronto so often
seeing the novel's end in sight
The Wolfe Island Literary Festival
Alexandra moving back to Toronto

Of course, there are a lot of things that suck, but I won't subject you to that today. That list would be too long.

Cheers.

New from wayward armadillo press

2008-06-25T23:44:00.005-04:00

First off, sorry I've neglected the blog! Facebook ate my blog, but I'm resurrecting it. I miss it.

Next, I made a new little chapbook type thing. It was published specifically for the Wolfe Island Literary Festival - a rockin' time if ever there was one - and there are copies still to be had.

It's an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, called Watch How We Walk. The novel is about a family of Jehovah's Witnesses, and the chapter I've excerpted is about Ouija boards. And some other stuff. It's a limited edition, handmade, numbered series of thirty copies. I've sewn the contents into covers of Watchtower and Awake! magazines, which, for those of you who don't know (lucky bastards), are the JW propaganda rags. I'm pleased with how they turned out, and they went over well on Wolfe Island, though I had to make it clear that I was not proselytizing, but that the Watchtowers had been appropriately and thoroughly subverted.

Let me know if you'd like to procure one; they're a mere $5!

dig.#12 gets a mention

2007-10-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

Check out this funky site lipstikindie.com - they reviewed the latest issue of my litmag, dig.

It's great to see these kinds of sites and publications review small press materical. Way to go, folks at shebytches!

(it was also a reminder that I needed to update my website, because the mailing address was out of date, so check here before sending me work for the next issue)

Word on the Street

2007-09-30T19:23:00.000-04:00

Word on the Street is big. It's really big, and really big things overwhelm me, and then I resent them for overwhelming me. It's a stupid cycle, and it means that I didn't check out any booths at WOTS today. I just wandered around, not even on the paved paths, but on the grassy bits, wondering why there were so many booths that seemed quite unrelated to publishing or books. Like solar panels. Dianetics. Television. Music. Charities (which I'm sure do important work, but I thought this festival was about books and magazines and publishing).

I was reading in the Canadian Magazines Tent. Even now I'm not sure what the organizing principle for our time slot was exactly... after our reading was a panel discussion with litmag editors about how to get your fiction published, presumably in their magazines. I didn't listen to the panel, figuring it best not to know. If I'd been on the panel, I would have just said "Bribery." I guess we were supposed to read from fiction that had been published in magazines, which I didn't do. Were we the "success stories" or something? I don't know. I didn't fully understand what was going on, but that didn't seem to matter.

I didn't feel like a success story, that's for sure. In fact, I didn't even want to go. I was having one of those days (many consecutive days) of thinking that everything I've ever written sucks ass, and can't I just stay in bed instead? But I didn't, I went, I was responsible (and happy to be doing a paid reading, don't get me wrong). I read an old scene from my novel-in-perpetual-unending-progress, and I hope that people liked it. I thought it was sort of funny in a creepy Armageddon-paradise-dogma kind of way, but I didn't hear anyone laugh. One person said they liked it though, so I felt a little better.

Halfway through my reading I saw someone in the back row, someone I really didn't want to see, and I got a surge of adrenaline, and I think that improved my reading. Turned out to be someone else entirely, but hey, I guess it all worked out.

Then I wandered around for a while with Joey Comeau, who had read in our tent too. He read a funny story about exes and megaphones and tourists. We roamed Queen's Park awile, and gossipped, and laughed, and that was fun, and I felt a lot better. He just moved here to Toronto, and seems like a really nice guy, so be nice to him if you see him around.

I'm listening to Zeppelin on Q107. What's up with that? Am I going all classic rock? Am I going to start drinkin' Labatt 50?!

I unpacked my books this weekend. I haven't seen them in their entirety, all together like this, in over a year. I love them all. I want to reread all my favourites immediately. That's going to be tough, since there are so many, but I've started with Miss Pamela's Mercy. Then I thought, should I start a game of Facebook Scrabble with Lynn Crosbie? She'd probably kick my ass.

At WOTS today I overheard people discussing Facebook Scrabble: "Those two-letter words are the key to Scrabble!" and "I hate those two-letter words!"

I'm so overtired I feel like I'm on another planet. That explains my rambly post.

Also, I'm really bad at making decisions. Just so you know.

Soap Scum in CAMH Fundraiser Show

2007-09-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

SOAP SCUM will be participating in Pop With Brains #11, a multi-disciplinary show at the Rivoli this Thursday, September 20 at 9pm.

Bands:
Eden Ants
Stirling
The Outfit
Trophy
The Pariahs

Artists/Designers:
Louise Ferguson
Susie Love
Hayley By Design
Soap Scum

$5 at the door, in support of CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health)

Come on out - good cause, good times.

For more info:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=43108575

Bike Pricks

2007-09-11T17:19:00.000-04:00

I don't usually use my blog to vent about bullshit, but I'm going to do some venting about some bullshit today.

I need to get my bike tuned up, as it has languished unridden for a year and is rusty and clangy and generally less than cooperative. So I am out walking today and stop into two bike shops that are not far from my new place. One is Cyclemania on Bloor at Ossington. I walk up to the doorway and the tall Russian dude with the earring is attentive and friendly. I ask him how much for a tune-up, and how long will it take. $25 and same day or next day, depending on the time. Great.

I pass another place on the north side of College, between Ossington and Dovercourt, and I wish I could remember the name of it so I could tell you not to go there in no uncertain terms, but I don't remember. The bike dude working there is explaining to another guy about some custom bike he could build him, in painstaking detail, black rims or silver, what type of spokes, the blahblahblah parts in a wholly unfamiliar lexicon. He's seen me standing there, but apparently thinks I'd like to watch while he builds this bike over the course of the next several weeks...

He finally manages to toss a condescending "Hi" over his shoulder and continues to blather with his obviously-more-bike-savvy (male) customer. At that point I figure I should just leave, but I have a bad habit in life of sticking around situations longer than I ought to, just to see what happens next, usually at my own detriment. I'm calling it Narrative Addiction Syndrome (think it'll catch on?).

So I stay. Then another customer comes in and similarly hovers behind me. Ha. Finally Shaven Legged Bike Twerp has to acknowledge me.

"Do you have a question?" he asks wearily, since I'm obviously intruding on what he'd rather be doing. In life.

"Yeah. Do you do regular tune-ups here too?" I ask, as clearly the joint is an I-Have-A-Small-Cock custom shop.

"Yeah, sure we do," he says impatiently, as such gigs are clearly deeply beneath him.

"How much and how long does it generally take?"

Insert Existential Body-Heaving Sigh here.

"I can't answer that." He all but rolls his beady eyes. Clearly, I've asked an idiotic question. "It depends."

I laugh. Of course it does. Is he going to elaborate on this cryptic response?

"It depends on how busy I am, and on the weather."

The weather. I almost ask what sort of stars and pressure systems need to align in order for the rust to come off my bike chain, but I don't. He doesn't deserve it.

"Okay," I smile and leave.

Now I know how the story ends - with me taking my bike to the shop a little further away, with the handsome Russian man who can answer simple questions.

Alex, you were absolutely right - they DO give the gals attitude in that place!

Cheers.

Song for this post? HIGHWAY STAR - Deep Purple.

I'm Back

2007-09-08T20:46:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I've posted on this blog that I forgot my login information. If you're still reading, sorry about being awol. Facebook has usurped blogging. They just make it so easy...

So I moved last week. I'm at College and Dovercourt, where I can walk everywhere I want to be. Tonight I'm perched amid a roomful of boxes, but the internet and espresso machine are operational, and I've unpacked the corkscrew - the important things. For those of who know me, email me if you want the new address. I'm too lazy or exhausted to send out a mass hey-I've-moved notification. I'm just using the cell phone, no land line, at least for a few months, then I'll reassess. I like text messaging.

I'm disappointed that Twang, CBC radio's new country show, is done. Okay, I only heard it once but I liked it, and was looking forward to it tonight, but apparently it was only on for the summer. Apparently it's no longer summer.

I haven't done much writing this summer. I made some real structural and plot progress on the novel in June, but then life got all in my face and ... well ... I'm looking forward to getting back on track with it this week. A couple different pals said they'd just finished their novels lately, and I felt like an asshole for not working harder. I'm thrilled for them though, congratulations! What an accomplishment! Right now, I can't even imagine a completed draft. Shit.

Gonna be a good hockey season though. I'm pretty excited about that. Right now I'm committed to hockey on Friday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday nights, and Monday nights from September to April. I might be over-extending myself. I might need the epsom salts. I might need a social life (wait, that's hockey). But it's great. I'm thrilled that Lynn coordinated a team for the Exclaim league and I'm on it, with some lovely people. That'll rock.

My best pal Jacqui and I are planning a trip to Portugal and Spain for a couple of weeks at the end of October. It's going to be gorgeous and amazing! Anyone reading this been there? Advice? Recommendations?

Otherwise, I've been listening to a lot of Amy Winehouse (don't listen to her in-laws or whatever, buy it!); it's a brilliant album. I also picked up the new MIA, which is cool but I think I like her debut better. We'll see.

Cheers.

Things I Love

2007-07-26T00:30:00.001-04:00

This is what I love right now:

Doing a radio show

Playing hockey

Sandra's blog

Playing hockey

Beer

Playing hockey

Reading poems again

Playing hockey

Going to concerts: They Might Be Giants (yesterday, awesome), Ice-T (tomorrow, awesome) Malajube (fall, awesome)

Did I mention skating (specifically edgework while carrying the puck, finally!)?

Did I mention Sandra and Megan?

Did I mention beer?

Did I mention not wanting to blog under the influence?

Did I mention everything feeling different in the summer?

Cheers.

In Other Words - Stuart Ross - this Tuesday!

2007-07-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

In Other Words
CKLN 88.1 FM
http://www.ckln.fm/#Scene_1 (click listen live)

This Tuesday, July 24 from 2-3pm I will be interviewing writer/editor/poet/writing instructor/small press publisher extraordinaire Stuart Ross.

We will discuss his latest book of poems I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press, 2007), writing, editing, and many, many writerly things. Poems will be read, songs will be played, questions will be asked. There might even be a giveaway!

Tune in! Take notes!

Cheers.

In Other Words excerpt

2007-07-03T21:17:00.000-04:00

On my first day hosting "In Other Words" on CKLN 88.1 FM, I interviewed Kate Sutherland.

Things went okay, not bad for a first show. I made a couple of mistakes, including not recording the show. I thought I was recording it on my little mp3 player, but I was wrong. I had an hour of sssssssssssssss. Alas.

But Kate's beau Eric recorded successfully (being a professional sound guy and all) and Kate has an excerpt posted on her website.

Kate was very articulate and read well on air. We even played some songs by artists referenced in her book All In Together Girls, including Joan Jett and Pat Benatar.

My next show is the fourth Tuesday in July, which is July 24th from 2-3pm.

Cheers.

Radio and a Weird Dream

2007-06-25T23:50:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, June 26 from 2pm to 3pm, I will be hosting IN OTHER WORDS for the first time solo.

Tune in! CKLN 88.1 FM or listen live online.

It's going to be a good first show! I'll be conducting an in-depth interview with Kate Sutherland, author of the new short story collection All In Together Girls, and she'll be reading some scenes from the book.

I'm nervous, and last night I had a dream that everything went wrong: dead air, technical panic, unexpected interruptions, and uncoorperativeness. Emily Schultz appeared with a new novel, insisting on reading it all on-air, and Kate was oddly surly and refused to respond. Totally unrealistic events! I mean, I only know Emily a little bit, and she in no way seems like the type who'd barge into an on-air studio, insisting upon reading her new manuscript on my show! For the record, in the dream, I didn't let her. And Kate would definitely not sabotage her own interview by crossing her arms and saying "No!"

I guess it was just a weird anxiety dream. It's a relief really, because it means that nothing will go wrong tomorrow. My apologies to Emily and Kate, for dreaming them in the antagonists' roles!

Anyway, I'm excited to be doing the show, and I hope you all can tune in. Again, the show is called "In Other Words" and is on CKLN 88.1 or ckln.fm at 2pm. I'm the host on the fourth Tuesday of the month.

Cheers.

Craft Shows this weekend

2007-06-20T14:36:00.000-04:00

Apologies for neglecting this blog lately... it's a combination of mad busy-ness and using Facebook a lot instead.

I've been selling my soap at the Artisan Market at Yonge-Dundas Square on select weekends, and that is... um... interesting. And hot. Lots of characters! Not lots of sales. My favourite line to date, from a young male admirer of the soaps:

"So, do you party on the weekend?"

He didn't buy any soap. I didn't answer the question.

Meanwhile, here's my "party on the weekend":

The Sassy Little Craft Show
Victory Cafe (581 Markham, south of Bloor W., upstairs)
Friday, June 22
7pm-midnight
free admission, affordable stuff

Lots of indie designers and fun loot. Check out what The Torontoist had to say about the show and about Soap Scum!

Mini Crafternoon Tea
Nathalie-Roze & Co. (1015 Queen St. E., side patio and back garden)
11am-5pm
$$ from raffles and tea treats go to Woodgreen Community Centre

Plenty of funky vendors and tasty treats and prizes, too!

Hopefully I will see you out at one or both of these fun shows... and hopefully Soap Scum will get out of the hole soon...!

Cheers.

Toronto Small Press Book Fair on Saturday!

2007-05-24T12:08:00.001-04:00

This Saturday, May 26th from 11am-5pm is the twice-yearly Small Press Book Fair at Trinity St. Paul's Centre (427 Bloor St. W., just west of Spadina). Come out and see what local small press publishers, editors, writers and book-makers are up to!

I'll be launching the twelfth issue of my literary zine dig., featuring poetry, fiction, interviews, and unique handmade covers.

There will be readings throughout the day, an Instant Anthology, and probably door prizes.

Free admission, affordable ephemera.

See you there!

Evangelical Transit?

2007-05-17T12:10:00.000-04:00

What's up with the bible quotations in the subway?!

I did a little poking around the "Bus Stop Bible Studies" website, and it seems they are a Canadian (Scarborough) registered charity, not directly affiliated with any particular religious group other than "Christian." The transit ads quote biblical verses and list information on how to register for a bible study, how to find god, how to become a Christian, and how to donate money to this organization (presumably so they can post more dogma in the subway...).

They must have anticipated some backlash against the public promotion of their beliefs and recruitment, because they've included on their website a pdf of the TTC's advertising standards.

I for one found it jarring to see a scripture where I would normally see an ad for some product I don't need. I've never noticed advertisements promoting a non-Christian religion on the TTC before; has anyone else? I'm usually reading so I may have missed it if this is common practise, but somehow I don't think it is.

My god. What is going on? Is Toronto going all Evangelical like so many areas of the U.S.?

David Byrne & Daniel Levitin on music and neuroscience

2007-05-04T15:30:00.000-04:00

Brilliant musician and artist David Byrne and neuroscientist and author of This is Your Brain on Music Daniel Levitin discuss music, language, memory and the brain. Pretty cool stuff, check it out:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/04/david_byrne_daniel_levitin.php?page=all&p=y

Kate Sutherland and Stuart Ross' book launch

2007-04-29T13:23:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, April 22 Kate and Stuart launched their new books together at Clinton's Tavern. Kate's is a new short story collection called All In Together Girls (Thistledown Press) and Stuart's is a collection of poems called I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press). Both writers gave great readings from their books, really engaging, they sold lots of copies. After the reading, Eric Bridenbaker played an acoustic set of his songs, and then much carousing ensued.

The launch was packed, and it was great to see so many familiar faces. I enjoyed hosting the event, but the only drawback is that when I host a reading, I find it harder to listen attentively to the readings, so I'm really looking forward to reading their two new books.

Here are some photos from the night. I can't seem to get the captions to appear beneath the photos, but there are shots of Kate, Stuart and Eric performing on stage, as well as me hosting (holding up copies of the books), social shots of Kate, Stuart, Alexandra Leggat, Bryan Muraki, Sandra Alland, and Jon Paul Fiorentino.

Simon Armitage reading

2007-04-26T13:07:00.000-04:00

I'm behind on posting about a lot of different events and books at the moment, but I'll start catching up chronologically.

On Wednesday, April 18 I went to hear Simon Armitage read at Harbourfront Centre. I didn't think he read for long enough, only about 4-6 poems, but it was a great opportunity to hear his poems in his very own fantastic voice. He read mostly from his newest book Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid, and started off with "I Am a Sperm Whale" and ended with the incantation-like "You're Beautiful."

I didn't stay for the q&a afterward but if I had, I would have liked to ask about the work he did writing lyrics for the wonderful film "Songbirds," and how his process for writing lyrics differs (if it does) from that of poetry.

I was surprised to see so few local poets to see him (Ken Babstock being the only other one I recognized); I mean, it's not like you get a chance to hear or meet Simon Armitage in Toronto very often.

Radio, Radio

2007-04-15T19:27:00.000-04:00

Starting this summer, I will be hosting a radio show on CKLN 88.1. The program is called "In Other Words" and as you might suspect, it's a literary show. I will be hosting once a month, on the last Tuesday afternoon of the month at 2pm.

I'm really excited about this opportunity, as I love radio and have always wanted to produce and/or host a show. The sad part of it is that I'm replacing the amazing Sandra Alland, who is leaving the country for a while.

It will be tough to fill in for her but I'm hoping I'll bring something unique to the show. I intend to do lots of author-interviews and live readings and discussions and play some recordings too.

Before flying solo on the airwaves, I'll be on the show with Sandra on April 24 at 2pm.

RADIO RADIO by Elvis Costello

Exclaim! Hockey Summit - Crazy Pictures

2007-04-08T17:58:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos from yesterday's fun, both on the ice and at Lee's Palace. Our victorious team is The Golden Girls, and the band shots are of the team Chart Attack Hack's performance. Participating teams are required to contribute "artistic expression" to the Hootenanny at Lee's... but ours was an exhibition game, so no stage hijinx for us. Maybe next year!

We Won!

2007-04-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

Well, we won the women's game of the Exclaim! Hockey Summit of the Arts, 1-0. What an amazingly fun time. Holy crap, that was some crazy fun times. Video and photos forthcoming. Just home to change and have anothter beer, and off soon to the band-fest Hootenanny at Lee's. Hurray!

I've gotten to do a lot of my two favourite things lately: editing, and playing hockey.

Yay!

Hockey Rock!

2007-04-05T19:01:00.000-04:00

I'm really excited to be playing in The 9th Annual Exclaim! Hockey Summit of the Arts this weekend.

Our team is The Golden Girls (no we are not seniors!) and we're playing against the awesomely-named Blackhearts. There is live music - "rink rock" - during the games, and most of the teams have bands which will perform each night at Lee's Palace in the Hootenanny cabaret (tonight, Friday night, and Saturday night).

It's going to rock!

If you want to come out and cheer us on, we're playing at 6pm on Saturday at York University's Canlan Ice Sports arena on Rink A. Maps and such are here. There are also a magic shuttle bus running from Bathurst Subway station up to York.

I hope we kick ass, of course, but regardless, I think it's going to be a wicked fun time.

So there!

THE HOCKEY SONG - Stompin' Tom Connors, of course

Simon Armitage

2007-04-03T16:49:00.000-04:00

Simon Armitage is reading in Toronto! That's pretty exciting. I just bought my ticket for his reading at Harbourfront on April 18.

Who's with me?

Johnny America

2007-03-26T14:17:00.000-04:00

Check out this online litmag Johnny America. I just heard about it, as my friend and fellow writer Alexandra Leggat has a great short story published there.

Enjoy!

dig.#12 needs you!

2007-03-13T18:24:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know me, I edit and publish an annual arts and literary zine called dig. It's been around for ten years now - ten years! - and I'm in the midst of putting together the twelfth issue.

I publish a range of poetry and fiction, visual art and interviews, and things in between.

Send me your stuff. I still need some more for this issue. Come on - don't be scared!

Details are available here. You can even email your submissions.

Cheers.

PS. Send me your most thrilling writing. Right now! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies!

Jonestown

2007-03-09T16:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, that was a very disturbing documentary. Well done, but pretty damn scary.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple combined interviews with survivors of Jim Jones' cult with Peoples Temple archival footage from the 1960s and 70s, as well as outlining the history of the movement and its subsequent changes.

In its early days, the movement's intentions seemed innocent enough (doesn't it always?), with its emphasis on racial equality and diversity, and its socialist-style agenda, but Jim Jones' sinister control of congregation members got more and more ruthless and evil. Rumours of his sexual assaults on women in the movement surfaced, while he claimed that everyone was actually homosexual, with him being the only heterosexual in the group (!). While preaching that sexual desire and sexual relationships were a selfish waste of energy, he was raping whomever he chose in the back of Bus #7 ("Jim's bus").

Using what are now known as typical deprivation control tactics, Jones cut members off from their friends and family as well as from sleep, keeping them so busy that they lost the will to think for themselves. One survivor said that the longest she was awake for was six days straight! Eventually Jones' paranoia took over completely, though not before he acheived a high-ranking official position with the San Francisco housing authority. Full of status and charisma, he met top politicians and celebrities, which helped to lend credibility to his "religion."

When an article threatened to expose some truths about the Peoples Temple, Jones immediately - overnight - moved his group to the compound he'd had built in Guyana. Touted as a paradise on earth, the group was now totally isolated and cut off from the world.

One of the most unsettling facts about life in Jonestown was that Jim Jones recorded his dictates and sermons and played this endless recording on a loud speaker that played constantly, night and day, at full volume throughout the compound. There was no escaping Jim Jones and his decrees, awake or asleep.

The climax and horrific tragedy of this almost-unbelieveable situation ocurred when a US senator (I forget his name now) came to Jonestown, along with the media, to investigate the group. I won't tell you what happens, but most of you already how that day ends. The Kool-Aid, the dead babies, the rows and rows of bodies of all ages in the jungle.

It wasn't as though the people in this group knew they were in a cult and committed overnight to Jones' crazed commands. It was all very gradual. He started off seeming "normal" enough. People found a sense of community and justice amid turbulent and disheartening times in the US. It offered hope, and ultimately gave them death.

My only criticism of Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple as a film is that as an audience, we never really got to find out how the survivors actually made their escape. There was an unsatisfying text-only postscript before the closing credits that said some escaped into the jungle. Since so much of the film emphasized the cult's isolation, and the elaborate lengths to which Jones went to confine and control his followers (prisoners), it was disappointing not to have this highly-anticipated information imparted.

Overall though, I recommend this documentary for its honest and humane exploration of this now-mythologized cult leader.

Very, very creepy.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, and The Overcoat

2007-03-07T16:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm going to see the documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple at the Bloor. It's about Jim Jones' cult and the mass suicide he led in 1978, and I suspect that watching it will be both riveting and disturbing. Most of the documentaries that Hot Docs presents are great, aside from an ocassional "miss." I'll let you know how it goes.

I hope that I don't cough through it all, like I did yesterday with The Overcoat. Despite a solid ten days of nightmare-inducing Biaxin, I'm still coughing... But The Overcoat is a beautiful play, with no dialogue, just music and movement, based on the Nikolai Gogol short story, set to a Shostakovich score. I missed it back when I worked at CanStage, and managed to catch it this time, thanks to a friend's pair of comps.

Cheers.

I know I've been negligent in assigning a song for each post lately, so this time it's
WAITING ROOM by Fugazi

Grrl Pirate Reading

2007-02-18T18:44:00.000-05:00

This Thursday, February 22nd I will be reading as part of the launch festivities for Kiss Machine's latest installment of the comic Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate.

I'll be reading some of my female pirate poems from my first book, The Dagger Between Her Teeth, and the band Pirate Honeymoon will also perform. Rumour has it that free grog and tattoos will abound, as well as prizes for the best-dressed pirates...

The festivities will take place at Babel Books and Music at 123 Ossington (just north of Queen West), Toronto 7 - 9 pm. Free.

This promises to be a rockin' fun time, and I'm looking forward to reading some of my old poems again. So come and check out the new issue of Violet Miranda, and celebrate grrl pirates, real and fictional!

Novel Writing

2007-02-10T03:14:00.000-05:00

Tyranny!

Tyranny!

Tyranny!

Thank you, wee short story. Wee short stories are so much kinder. Your haircut, also, is better.

Decisions

2007-02-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

I was complaining the other day to Impostor J that I am terrible at making decisions. Not just big ones, which are hard for everyone, but even banal and inconsequential little ones: what to wear, what to eat, should I go to the library before work or after. My waffling seems to be getting worse. I hate it.

Then Impostor J said that she had recently had a conversation about Writers' Indecisiveness with Impostor A! Impostor A's take on it was that as writers, we are always having to make decisons: about our characters, about lines, about images, about which words to use, which to cut, what order to put them in, and not just words - whole stanzas, entire paragraphs sometimes! - and infinitely so on. Writers make enough decisions. Decisions, decisions, decisions - that is writing.

It's no wonder we are burnt out of decision-making! In Our Real Lives, we can hardly muster up another decision. We cannot control Real Life. We didn't make it.

Well, I don't know if that was Impostors A & J's conversation exactly, but that is what I think it meant. Writers aren't indecisive people; there are just only so many decisions we want to make in a day!

I don't agonize over writing decisions. They are not as difficult; sometimes I know instinctively, sometimes intuitively, what needs to be done and I do it. Move this, cut this, don't say this, say this. Done! Next!

It's Real Life - what to do with that - that is tough.

Thanks, Impostors J & A.

Live With Culture Ads

2007-01-29T11:40:00.000-05:00

I have to weigh in on this local debate around the new "Live With Culture" ads that are supposed to be "edgy" and encourage Americans to come to Toronto. Over the past few days, there has been a lot written in articles and blogs about how these ads - by comparing Toronto to places like New York, London, and Paris - perpetuate the idea that Toronto has no identity of its own. I agree that the ads promote that stereotype, but that's not what stood out the most to me.

And wasn't just that they're not edgy, funny, or remotely cool. They're embarrassing.

But worse, each ad features only straight, white couples! Is that representative of this city?! Or do the Live With Culture folks think we should only encourage straight, white couples to visit Toronto?

Is this what happens when the Harper government cuts the funding for promoting Canadian arts and culture outside of Canada?

To any American readers of this blog - we're not as goofy and generic as these ads in your "alternative weeklies" make us out to be! Don't let this ad campaign keep you away from Toronto...

argh.

Contraversial Book Marketing Plan

2007-01-15T12:44:00.000-05:00

Another potential stab in the heart of indie booksellers?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070111.wxbooks11/BNStory/Entertainment/home

Then there's this update:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070113.BOOK13/EmailTPStory/

Percocet Really Works!

2007-01-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I thought that I would get a lot of reading done after getting my severely-impacted wisdom teeth out. That has not been the case...

First of all, I did not get them out on Jan. 2, which was my second appointment (first was Dec. 27); moments before my scheduled anaesthesia, the nurse was rushed to the hospital with what may have been a heart attack. I've since learned that she is okay now, and selfishly I suppose it was preferable that she collapsed before my procedure rather than during... So I was rescheduled to a third appointment, which was last Friday.

Yes, my holidays have consisted of eating big pre-surgery meals and then fasting twelve hours ... three times! Probably not great for my digestion.

I have learned that you can dream while under general anaesthesia. While they were tugging out my offending teeth, I dreamed that myself and the four staff memebers were discussing music, and discovered our shared affinity for banjos, and mutual love of John Hiatt. When I came to, I was trying to explain this too them, through my mouth full of bloody gauze, and they smiled agreeably as though they knew just what I was talking about. Which I'm sure they did.

The staff were all really nice, which was important since I was terrified and had procrastinated this procedure for ten years. I don't recommend that strategy - just deal with it - the fear is worse than the reality, and the drugs are good.

Anyway, the point of this post is that Percocet works to dull the throbbing pain in my face, but I can't concentrate very well to read, so I'm behind on the Stacks challenge.

Wow, it has actually been really difficult to type this post. I hope it makes sense. I also hope my face deflates soon, because I look ridiculous. Plus, my jaws hurt and I am getting sick of eating pureed lentils and mashed bananas. I miss solid food! And I miss red wine!

I have enough focus to read blogs though, so thanks to those of you with recent posts (Kate, Stu, JPF, Noisy).

One Percocet is good, two is better.

Cheers.

From the Stacks Update

2006-12-31T13:37:00.000-05:00

Back in November, I decided to participate in the From the Stacks Challenge, which consists of reading 5 books from my shelves of previously-purchased, unread books. The deadline is the end of January, and I'm behind.

To recap, these were my picks:

Looking for the Possible Dance - A.L. Kennedy
Mary - Vladimir Nabokov
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
Spelling Mississippi - Marnie Woodrow

So far, I've read Looking for the Possible Dance, which was quite good. I found the start slow, but it gradually built to an unexpected, even violent, crescendo. By the end of the novel, I liked it so much that I felt guilty for having initially doubted it.

Now I'm reading Mary, and I'm about halfway through this first Nabokov novel. His prose is brilliant, with descriptive lines like this one, of a nighttime walk in Berlin:

"Occasionally, braying like a stag, a motorcar would dash by or something would happen which no one walking in a city ever notices: a star, faster than thought and with less sound than a tear, would fall."

But the main character's obsession with a young woman he was in love with in his youth and who has since married his ex-pat fellow Russian neighbour, is getting on my nerves. Nabokov's imagery is often stunning but I'm not exactly captivated by the subject matter.

Three and a half books to go!

I get my wisdom teeth out on Jan. 2nd (already once rescheduled because of a cold), and I'm hoping I can spend the recovery time sitting around reading the rest of the books in the Stacks Challenge.

What has prompted me to catch up on this is that Kate has posted a new book meme, based on Calvino's wonderful If on a winter's night a traveler. Check it out. I'm tempted to take up the challenge of responding to the "Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them" category... thought "pretended to have read" is not exactly accurate for me; more like "Books People Assume You've Read, of Which You Know the Basics, But Have Not Actually Read or Finished Reading, and Really Should Really Read Instead of Just Nodding Politely."

I do have a few New Years' Resolutions of sorts - more goals than resolutions - and one is to read more.

Happy new year, everyone. Read more, write more, eat better.

Cheers.

The Last Minute Craft Fair

2006-12-14T23:20:00.000-05:00

Come on out to this new, funky craft show! It's really affordable and admission is free. Even if you don't want to shop, just come by and say hi. I made a lot of new really crazy soaps with ridiculous combinations of animals in them.

And check out the femme cats.

Great Impostors party the other night, too. I'm working on getting the video together... our twisted holiday!

Libby Scheier Commemorative Reading

2006-12-06T22:51:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night, Thursday December 7th, there will be a reading commemorating the life and writing of poet Libby Scheier.

It's at 9pm at the Free Times Cafe on College St., just west of Spadina.

Her writing has had a significant impact on me and I am honoured to have been invited by her son Jacob (also a poet!) to participate in this tribute reading.

Other writers who will read from her work, and their own, include Di Brandt, bill bissett, Robert Priest, Ashley Lieberman, and Jacob Scheier.

I hope you can make it out to listen and pay respects to Libby Scheier's writing - the funny poems, the feminist poems, the neo-surrealist poems, the heartbreaking poems, the all-of-the-above poems.

Cheers.

Pedal to the Metal - This Saturday

2006-11-30T14:56:00.000-05:00

This Saturday, December 2, from noon til 5pm Soap Scum will be participating in another craft show - this one with bands, like Picastro and Aidan Baker, and more.

Pedal to the Metal is at Sneaky Dee's on College at Bathurst, from noon - 5pm

Admission is PWYC or non perishable food item

Come by and check out all the unique wares, have a beer, hear some music.

Cheers.

The Binet-Simon Test

2006-11-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

Miranda July:

Medical Wonder

I Can-Japan

Fuckin' brilliant. I love these. Creepy, well-constructed auditory narratives.

Anyone with me?

Reading from my novel-in-progress

2006-11-24T13:48:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, November 26, I'll be reading from my novel at the illustrious Fictitious Reading Series. I'm reading with John Degen, author of two books of poetry, and a novel called The Uninvited Guest.

I'm really nervous about this gig. I even had a nightmare about it last night - one of those unprepared stress dreams. The equivalent of being onstage naked, but that wasn't the dream. I was lost (in a desert, no less), late, and brought the wrong notes, couldn't read my own writing, and panicked - that sort of thing. Pretty banal, ultimately, but I woke up feeling a bit freaked.

But in my experience, the more nervous I am, the better the energy onstage, and the better the reading goes overall. So this is good, really!

Why am I so freaked about this reading? I'm not sure exactly, but probably because the work is relatively new, the audience there is generally full of people whose literary opinions I respect, it's a small intimate space, and there is a live interview component...

So come out to my reading and delight in my squirming!

My novel, for those of you who don't know, is about Jehovah's Witnesses, tightropewalking, and new wave music. And some other stuff.

Details:
Fictitious Reading Series
at This Ain't the Rosedale Library (upstairs in the gallery)
483 Church St. (just south of Wellesley)
7:30 pm
Pay-what-you-can

And there are doorprizes!

There is more information about John Degen and me on Kate's Book Blog or at Bloggamooga or on the Fictitious website.

Cheers.

CT3 This Saturday November 26th!

2006-11-23T13:18:00.000-05:00

Come on out to another hip, indie craftaganza! Okay, I just made that word up and it's not very good. But this show will be, I promise! It's Crafternoon Tea #3, a craft and fashion market, DIY den, and charity bake sale all in one. The merch is priced affordably, with lots of items under $30, and proceeds from the sweets go to Woodgreen Community Centre.

It's this Saturday, November 25, from 10am til 6pm, out in Leslieville in the bowels of the Presbyterian Church at 947 Queen St. East (southeast corner of Queen and Carlaw) . Admission is by donation of art supplies or canned goods, or $2.

A good cause, and good gifts! You know I'll be selling my dirty soaps, and hopefully no church ladies will be offended this year!

Here's a sample of my aforementioned new bear soap. Did they ever decide on Grolar or Pizzly or whatever embarrassingly bad names were being bandied about for the hybrid offspring?

Hope to see you there!

Discoveries at the Victory

2006-11-19T15:51:00.000-05:00

Last night's "Sassy Little Craft Show" went really well. There was a steady flow of visitors, sales were good, and people really seemed to enjoy the soap.

I ended up sitting next to Willow Dawson, who illustrates the Violet Miranda comics about female pirates (published by Kiss Machine) . When I first heard about this project, I was a bit alarmed, since my first book was also, in part, a reinterpretation of the illustrious female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. But it sounds like they've written the story from the point of view of the next generation of pirates, which is an interesting perspective, and besides, I guess I don't have any sort of ultimate jurisdiction over the pirates I so enjoyed reinventing. Anyway, we had a really cool chat about different takes on the story, and what drew us to the subject matter in the first place. So I bought the first two issues of the series, and she gave me a female pirate print of one of her illustrations, which is very cool.

The other high point of the show for me was checking out banjo puppets. This guy makes amazing, beautifully expressive creatures, and after a coupla pints I had some in-depth conversations with the monsters, and then took home wee Maurice here with me.

Hopefully my other pal won't be too jealous. His name is 52.

Well, that's one craft show down, three to go!

Today I'm working on a new soap that is a reference to a news story I heard CBC cover last spring - that discovery of the hybrid grizzly-polar bear. You can probably guess what the soap will feature... I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier!

There was some debate around what to call the hybrid bear, but I don't know what the outcome was. I don't remember what shows even talked about the unfortunately-dead bear; maybe The Hour? Is interspecies bear breeding something George Stroumboulopoulos would sort out?

"Sassy Little Craft Show" - tomorrow night!

2006-11-17T13:07:00.000-05:00

Hey all you holiday hipsters - come on out to the Sassy Little Craft Show, tomorrow night (7pm-midnight) at the Victory Cafe! (581 Markham, behind Honest Ed's). Admission is free, but please bring a non-perishable food item.

I've been frantically making soap these days, and concocted some new pornographic plastic delights for you.

There's even CanCon: polar bears and same-sex moose!

Below are some pictures of my latest wares. I hope to see you there tomorrow night. It will be fun, you can buy dirty soap, beer, and other delights!

Couple of reviews of dig.

2006-11-16T19:29:00.000-05:00

For you readers of wayward armadillo's literary zine dig., there are a couple of reviews of the latest issue, #11, out there right now. One is a mixed review in Broken Pencil (not online yet), which loves Kevin Connolly's poems, but then says that some of the rest of the issue is "rubbish." Unfortunately, the reviewer doesn't back up this antagonistic statement whatsoever, so I've no idea what he or she found so offensive. Oh well. There's no accounting for people's taste.

The other is on Amanda Earl's blog, amidst her post about her purchases and impressions of the recent Small Press Book Fair. Thanks, Sandra, for forwarding me that link.

I had a really good time at the Sunday of the Press Fair at the Victory. Yes, it was much smaller, with fewer presses represented, and the traffic was minimal, since we'd lost the walk-by element of being right on Bloor, and that was unfortunate. But it more comfortable overall, and felt more relaxed and intimate. I had a nice time chatting with Beth Follett, one of the organizers, and getting caught up with Conan Tobias and the Taddle Creek guys, Stuart Ross of course, and I had a fun chat with a guy who was writing a novel which featured a female hockey playing protagonist. Novels and hockey, I think about both on a daily basis...

Cheers.

I'm a loser, baby...

2006-11-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

Caveat: It's totally gauche to bitch about grant results. Truly truly truly (a la Morrissey).

So I've resisted, for a while. I guess until tonight. But seriously! My novel-in-progress has been rejected for almost every grant imagineable, and more than once. I'm thick-skinned, for the most part, but this now officially stings. I'm beginning to resent my cigar-smoking, too-friendly mail carrier! I'm sure it's entirely his fault.

I'm pretty confident that my fictional skills have improved significantly the past couple of years of focussing exclusively on the novel form, and well, I think that so far, it's pretty good. Workshop feedback has been tremendously supportive, and whenever I've done readings from it, the audience has dug the shit. So what's the problem?

Maybe it really, really sucks. Maybe. But deep down, I just hear someone yelling "It doesn't suck! It's good shit!" But my flaw is that I'm preoccupied with what is measurable - grants, awards, all that non-objective crap that takes us out of our solitude and either elates or slays us.

I guess I got over-confident, and the juries just didn't agree with me. I hate that I worry about this shit. I guess we all do. Right?

But come on - little Jehovah's Witness kid, punk rock sister, Uncle Bowie-wannabe, death, shunning, demon rituals, and Joy Division? What's not to dig here? Tell me you don't want to know what those evangelical types knocking on your door REALLY thought!

I'm feeling vindictive and rebellious already (despite the retirement of my former piercings) - my reading on Nov. 26 will kick ass!! And screw all arts councils! Except, of course, for my last application still pending. I'm sure they're cool. Really.

Cheers.

TWIST OF CAIN - Danzig (that's what I was listening to on the swings at midnight last night. Til the fuzz parked nearby like I was doing someting weird, belting Danzing and Public Enemy lyrics, swinging on the swings. Totally took the solitude and fun out of it. Toto, we ain't in Parkdale anymore...)

DIY for the Young 'Uns

2006-11-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow Sandra Alland and I are teaching a workshop in a high school. It's part of Going to Press, a publishing festival at Marc Garneau Collegiate, and part of the youth initiative of The Scream. Students and teachers and librarians from various area schools come in for this event, and there are small press exhibitors, like Stuart, and various workshops. We did this last year too, and it went pretty well but still, we're nervous.

Our workshop is about making your own zine or chapbook, and we bring in a lot of materials for them to use and design their own covers. We've tried the same structure and activities with adults, but they don't seem to get into the hands-on fun-with-glue-sticks element like the teenagers do. I'm not entirely sure why; we love making stuff! Maybe I'm just a victim of arrested development... But still, adults seem more hesitant to play around with stuff than the seventeen year olds. Any theories on why that is? We develop more self-consciousness as we age?

Anyway, tomorrow we'll be trying to convince a bunch of teenagers that long-arm staplers are really, very cool. You heard it here first.

Cheers

TEENLAND by Northern Pikes.

Well it wasn't a tie...

2006-11-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

I said I didn't want our team to keep tying... Last night we broke our string of ties; we got killed. 5-1. What's that they say, "Be careful what you wish for"? At one point, our goalie (who made some great saves last night) dropped her stick and I'm pretty sure the centre on the other team KICKED it a little further away. I wasn't the only one who saw this. Now I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's dirty. But the guys don't call too many penalties in the women's league. 'Cause, you know, girls are all nice all the time...

A rather amusing moment of the evening, I'd say, was one gal's anecdote of her recent game at McCormick, waiting for her designated changeroom to free up from a previous game. Her husband said that there was still one guy in there, and when he named him as a certain media personality, she busted on in anyway...! And recounted that he seemed to be recovering from his game, alone, after his teammates had since dressed and gone home...

Yeah, back when I practically lived at the Rhino, and after a former roommate played on the Parkdale Pocupines, I used to try to insinuate myself into the Exclaim hockey league, at times drunkenly, and thus no, no one ever called me as a sub or anything. They did put me on the email list though. But it's just not the same! Then again, I certainly have more than enough ice time these days.

I wonder if Andrew and his pals still play with the Porcupines.

Ok, more obsessing about writing, less about hockey. Damn addictive personality...

Cheers.

Small Press Book Fair

2006-11-11T16:30:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, Sunday November 12th, is Day Two of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair!

I'm not sure what to expect from this year; it's the first time (that I'm aware of) that it's been split into two separate days. Half the presses are there today, and the other half is on tomorrow. I guess that means we're effectively splitting our potential total attendence in half too - unless people want to come by on both days, which would surprise me.

It's also in a different location this time - upstairs at the Victory Cafe.

I don't have anything new for wayward armadillo press, but will have copies of dig.#11, and back issues available. I'm looking forward to seeing what new works other presses have on offer.

I'm feeling pretty stressed about how much is going on in the next few weeks: the press fair, four craft shows, a workshop Sandra and I are teaching, a stab at a grad school application, my own writing, hockey four nights a week, a job, and that holiday season stuff... but I'm sure it will all work out. It always does. I'm tired though!

But come out and visit the press fair tomorrow!

11am-5pm
Victory Cafe
581 Markham St. (south of Bloor, behind Honest Ed's)
Toronto

Cheers.

Team of Ties

2006-11-06T22:15:00.000-05:00

Our hockey team tied AGAIN tonight! It was 1-1. I have lost count of how many ties in a row we've had. We were playing better together though. Next week - next week we'll win, I can feel it!

From the Stacks

2006-11-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'm taking up the From the Stacks Winter Challenge, which is to read five books from your pile or shelf of unread books between now and the end of January. No new books, no library books - the idea is to tackle the ones that you've been meaning to get to...

So here are my choices from my shelves:

Looking for the Possible Dance - A.L. Kennedy
Mary - Vladimir Nabokov
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
Spelling Mississippi - Marnie Woodrow

First I have to read Stolen by Annette Lapointe, because it's aleady out from the library. THEN I'll start the challenge.

I just finished Halfway House by Katherine Noel - a very moving and realistic novel about a young woman diagnosed as bipolar, and the impact on herself and those around her. Each chapter was told from a different character's point of view, which is difficult to pull off successfully, but for the most part, it worked. It was an emotionally draining book at times, but worth it.

Beautiful South set list

2006-11-04T19:05:00.000-05:00

Between memory and internet searches, my pal Lanie and I have compiled a set list from the other night's amazing Beautiful South show at the Phoenix.

Rose of My Cologne
Ol' Red Eyes
Pretenders to the Throne
Song for Whoever
Prettiest Eyes
Never Lost a Chicken to a Fox
Dumb
A Little Time
Rotterdam
One Last Lovesong
When Romance is Dead
Manchester
36D
Perfect 10
Don't Marry Her
You Keep It All In
Father and I
FIRST ENCORE
Love Is
Good as Gold
SECOND ENCORE
Woman in the Wall

Highlights for me were: Ol' Red Eyes, Don't Marry Her, 36D, and Good as Gold.

What a great show.

Crafternoon Tea 3

2006-11-03T14:11:00.000-05:00

Another craft show this season for Soap Scum! I'll be participating in Crafternoon Tea 3, a great indie craft show and fundraiser in The Beaches. The Beach. Whichever.

It's another really fun and affordable craft show, organized by Nathalie-Roze Fischer, whose funky new shop, nathalie-rose & co., recently opened up in Leslieville (Queen E.).

It's on November 25.

More details later!

A Reading Challenge

2006-11-03T14:04:00.000-05:00

I saw this reading challenge via Kate's Book Blog and I think it's a great idea. Basically, it's to read five books from that stack or shelf of books you've picked up and set aside, but have not yet read. I have lots of those - from used book shops, yard sales, giveaways, etc. The timeframe for the challenge is from now until the end of January. No library books, no new books, only ones you already own but haven't read.

When I make my picks, I'll let you know. Some neglected Virginia Woolf I'm sure, but I'm not sure what else.

Cheers.

Last Minute Craft Show

2006-11-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

Soap Scum has also been accepted into The Last Minute Craft Show, in the Annex on December 16th.

It's from 11am-4pm at the Trinity St. Paul Centre at Bloor and Spadina (same place as the Small Press Fair usually is).

Free admission, afforadably-priced, unique, handmade goods!

There is a great page on the show's website of all the vendors, so you can get an idea in advance of what will be available.

Chippy - is it a metaphor, or does it mean your teeth?

2006-11-01T01:47:00.000-05:00

I have to sneak a hockey post in here every once in a while. For the last three of my league games, I've been playing defense. Due to my intense dislike of responsibility in life, I've always been intimidated by playing defense - what if the other team scores? Then it's my fault?! But we never have enough people to play d., so I volunteered, and ended up doing pretty well at it, overall. Three games, and no goals scored during my shifts. My intensely competetive nature, combined with my aforementioned aversion to culpability, makes me a rather aggressive defensive player. Now I'm starting to like it! There's a powerful, fierce feeling that takes over, that makes me swear like crazy and think "there's no fucking way you're taking this puck in"... and no, I don't get it away every single time, but most of them, and lately it's been more satisfying than playing forward.

But I sure get knocked down more, and bruise easily. One gal this week even got a tripping penalty! I was okay though.

The ref was sympathetic on Monday when we had only one sub on defense - one person, not one more line! He offered, chuckling, to get me the difibulator.

Having said all that, I'd like to play up next Monday - with my new stick I can raise the puck a lot more easily.

Beautiful South - tomorrow!

2006-11-01T01:46:00.000-05:00

The Beautiful South gig is tomorrow - I'm so excited!

I've never seen them live and have wanted to for about ten years. I think it will be awesome.

The Caretaker for Hallowe'en

2006-11-01T01:15:00.000-05:00

I saw a performance of Pinter's The Caretaker tonight - fitting, isn't it, to do something chilling and absurdist on Hallowe'en?

The acting was great, and though I own a copy, I'd not yet read it. I really liked the stark, wrenching script - set and lighting to match - which produced a chilling and deeply affecting impact. The evasion and omission in the language, and the power dynamics between the characters resulted in an overwhelming sense of futility, but in a darkly humourous and cathartic way. I think absurdism like this is so intensely relevant right now, in this crazy fucked up time we live in.

The play's program quoted the English critic T. C. Worsley as saying "we are in the Beckett climate, but without the Beckett fog." I suppose that implies that Pinter is more accessible than Beckett, and I'm no expert on either, but it was definitely not an impenetrable play. It's not meant to be. Two brothers, one house, a homeless guy who settles in, and the disjointed dialogue ensues. Quite straight forward, really. Nor do I find Beckett opaque - you just have let go of any preconceptions you have about linear reality!

Reminds me of a funny conversation last time I was back home, in Dunnville. My 18-year-old step-bro had just read Waiting for Godot, and Hamlet, and was struggling to compare them in an essay (don't you miss high school sometimes?). He didn't seem to have any trouble with the Shakespeare, but was incensed over the Beckett! It frustrated him, the futility of it all, the inactivity, the perceived passivity, and while he was horrified that I could recite the play's ending (I tried to tell my tipsy self he was impressed), I did manage to convey some parallels around Hamlet's inaction and absurdist "waiting" and themes of futility. He did dash off to take some notes, which was really cool - for me, anyway! Maybe not so much for an 18 year old on a Sat. night.

I need more good theatre in my life. And though I liked tonight's production, Soulpepper is definitely not the answer. Just something staid about it. And male. And white. Still.

I'd rather see more like She's Gone Away, which I saw in the spring. That was impossible to categorize, higly technically skilled, and emotionally virtuosic. We need more like that to inspire us, and bust up our boundaries.

Soap Scum

2006-10-29T18:54:00.000-05:00

Today I received confirmation that Soap Scum has been accepted in one of the six holiday craft shows it has applied to! (one, at the Gladstone, rejected Soap Scum; five more are pending).

It's called The Sassy Little Craft Show, and it's an evening event on November 18th, at the Victory Cafe. There will be live jazz ("and good jazz, not shit jazz," in the organizer's own words), funky indie designers, booze, dancing (dancing?!), and of course, lots of local DIY vendors. The motto is "This ain't your granny's church basement!" You get the idea. I'm looking forward to it (though I enjoy church basement shows too). I've never participated in a nighttime craft show before, and I think it's a great idea.

Hopefully you can all come out and shop and have some fun with me. And support local indie talent!

More Moore

2006-10-24T22:13:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Jeffrey Moore's Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain. I didn't like it nearly as much as The Memory Artists. Was it well-written? Sure. I just didn't fall for the characters, or swoon in the depth of insight, or revel in the plot like I did with his second novel. I also found that certain characters in the first novel read like watered-down versions of characters I loved in his second novel: Jacques was a less-interesting Norval, Victor a weaker JJ, Milena a similar Samira (what's with the "Dark Lady" love object?) - you get the idea. Does he have a stock cast?

And I totally didn't buy the ending! (I won't elaborate to avoid spoiling.)

Jeremy's childhood, as well as Milena's, comprised the more fascinating elements. I would have been happier if he'd focussed on those time periods, with a motif of risk, loss, portents, and gambling instead of Jeremy's relentless pursual of Milena.

But I should just finish my own damn novel and stop trying to rewrite those of others!

I feel compelled though to reiterate that I adored The Memory Artists. One criticism of it was that it didn't need its postmodern trappings of various media to tell its story (articles, diaries, etc.) but I enjoyed that and thought it enhanced the narrative and didn't at all detract from the emotional development of the characters or driving force of the story. But hey, people get squeamish about that sort of thing. Too bad for them.

How about A. M. Homes' This Book Will Save Your Life? I had to take it back to the library without starting it, but I will get it again. I didn't really care for her Music For Torching, though again, I can't dispute its well-done-ness. I just didn't need well-written confirmation of how insensitive and selfish people are. And with no postmodern jazzing about!

Cheers.

Point of View

2006-10-19T21:17:00.000-04:00

If ever I am mad enough to attempt another novel, IT WILL NOT BE WRITTEN IN A LIMITED SUBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW!

I thought that moving from first person to third (subjective) would be an improvement, that it would expand my language options, which it did, but it can get frustrating. Frustrating for me. I have to keep coming up with varying ways of conveying relevant information and action while doing so only from the scope of one character.

Once I enjoyed writing within constraints. Today, I don't. God, I'm lazy.

I seem to remember reading an interview with Camilla Gibb in which she discussed the differences between the writing of her first and second novels. Mouthing the Words was highly subjective, while The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life was, if I recall correctly, omniscient (yeah, my books are still in boxes, so I can't check. But I bought on craigslist an old custom-made-for-someone-else massive oak bookcase! It's over 7 feet all! And wider than I am tall! It's uncertain whether or not it's going to fit through the front door, but it was such a deal! So, yeah, then I'll be able to unpack the rest of the books. If we can get it inside at all). Anyway, I believe she discussed those constraints in point of view, and said that she didn't want to write another first person novel, and deliberately chose omniscience for the second book. I think I'll do the same, if ever I reach such a point. I'm not sure what pov her third novel is in because I haven't read it yet.

Any readers have thoughts on limited vs. scoping points of view? As both writers and as readers.

Cheers.

Giller en Francais

2006-10-16T00:06:00.000-04:00

I found this op. ed. piece by Andre Alexis in yesterday's Globe and Mail to be very interesting. It's about language and fiction and translation; specifically, about books translated into English then getting nominated for big English language book prizes.

I tend to agree with what he has to say about it. I'm curious how others respond to his contentions.

Read the article here.

Leafs Season Opener!

2006-10-04T00:27:00.000-04:00

Miraculously, I got a ticket to the Leafs' season opener game against the Ottawa Senators tomorrow! Thanks, Shawna! Very exciting. I don't know how things will fare, and as far as Toronto Maple Leafs' recent history goes, regular season and playoffs season are two distinctly different animals... but it's always a thrill to be in the audience at an NHL game, and it's been at least two years for me, so I'm excited.

For the handful of regular readers here, I apologize for my lack of posts lately, and lack of bookish content. I've been recently blown away by a brilliant novel, and have struggled with how to articulate my praise... maybe I should just say 'read Jeffrey Moore's The Memory Artists' and I'll tell you why later. God, it's so good. It's beyond writer-envy this time, and I recommend it to almost everyone I talk with. I just got his earlier novel today, and I'm looking forward to it. But right now, I just can't see how much would top The Memory Artists and I want to re-read it before anything else these days. More later on how it expanded my parameters of structural preoccupations...

Cheers.

Literary Sunday

2006-09-23T19:07:00.000-04:00

Two things happening tomorrow:

Word on the Street - I'd like to check out the poetry readings by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Nick Thran, a discussion of "Tips on Starting Your Own Magazine" with the Maisonneuve folks, and maybe even the seminar with Denise Bukowski on getting an agent. I've never really thought seriously about whether or not I'd like to someday have one, but this could at least give me some worthwhile insights when I do think about agents.

Fictitious Reading Series - Marnie Woodrow and John Lavery are reading this Sunday at this intimate series, in which the writers are interviewed after their readings. Upstairs at This Ain't the Rosedale Library at 7:30pm. I'm planning on being there.

Film Fest Part 2

2006-09-23T18:17:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much time lately to write in here, but I wanted to finish off the list of what I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was fun (mostly) to work at one of the film fest venues this year, and I hope to have the time to do it again next September. It was a very high-energy, high-pressure, fast-paced environment, for a very short time peroid.

Severance - a midnight madness quirky comedy action-gore thing... I wish I could tell you more but Lindsay and I (okay, I) had imbibed a little too voluminously beforehand for me to give you anything other than fuzzy recollections... But while it was at times amusing, it wasn't really my thing. The crowd was into it, though, which must have been nice for the UK director in attendance.

Jindabyne - an Australian film starring Gabriel Byrne, and based on Raymond Carver's story "So Much Water So Close to Home." The film powerfully depicts the emotional complexities of the various ways in which we deal with death, both on a personal and on a community level. But more than that, the pivotal discovery of the body acts as a catalyst for change in various characters and their relationships with themselves, their spouses, their friends, and their communities. Definitely worth seeing. I'm going to read this Carver short story and see how they differ.

A Grave-Keeper's Tale - an Indian mythic film, about a woman who tends the graves of children for a living, and is eventually cast out of her village as a "ghoul." Afterward, I learned it was also based on a short story, called "Baayen" by Mahasweta Devi. It was an interesting and vivid film, and I appreciated it's underlying message of how fear and ignorance can irrationally excise individuals or groups from their communities. Ultimately though, the film was just a little too melodramatic for me.

Khadak - a Belgium/German/Dutch film set in Mongolia, about a boy who is able to sense the suffering of animals over great distances, and convulses in seizures. Whether it's a mysterious power or epilepsy is unclear, but not entirely relevant to enjoy this highly imagistic and poetic film. The family is forced from their farm in the steppes to a mining town by a military convoy, and the allegorical and gorgeous film explores how this effects their pysche and community. Gradually the film becomes less linear and purely imagistic, which seemed to confuse and even annoy some viewers sitting near me, but I quite enjoyed it. Must be the poet parts of me. I did agree with one overheard conversation afterward, in which one viewer was saying that she wouldn't have minded the change in tone and style if it had been more consistent, rather than two thirds story and suddenly one third metaphoric images. That last third though was stunningly beautiful and evocative and I would see it all again.

Cheers.

Film Fest Flicks

2006-09-14T18:55:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick list with comments of what I've watched so far. I won't bother with official descriptions; you can click on the link for those.

Bamako - This is a compelling film from Mali that challenges the concept and effects of globalization and puts on trial the World Bank and the IMF. I was a bit confused as to whether this was a mock trial, a what-if fiction, or a real tribunal. Apparently they were real lawyers, judges and witnesses speaking out, with passion and detailed evidence regarding Africa's subjugation. Then suddenly there was a strange Western film-within-a-film... Overall though this Danny Glover-produced film was compelling and well worthwhile.

Kinshasa Palace - A very personal narrative, almost a video diary that the filmmaker uses to explore the disappearance of his brother Max, which blurs the boundaries between fiction and memory. His search takes him from Paris to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), to Lisbon and to Cambodia. But more interesting is his family history and the documentary elements about the colonization of Congo. His family is part Portugese, part Congolese and now living in Kinshasa, Lisbon, Paris and in Belgium. An informative and intriguing film but ultimately unsatisfying from a plotting perspective, which is a pitfall for not-fiction but not-fact filmmaking I suppose.

Palimpsest - A Polish cop murder mystery, which is the sort of thing I usually dig (police dramas, Law & Order, Oz, etc). The title reflects the structure and plotting of the movie, but the ending was almost "and it was all a dream..." Not quite that, but as frustrating. If you're not David Lynch, don't try to be David Lynch!

Ten Canoes - An Australian Aborigine myth retold in the classic storytelling tradition. Beautiful cinematography and a simple story. The subtitles weren't working, which I didn't know until the next day; I thought the fact that we didn't know what the Aboriginal characters were saying was a stylistic decision, and I rather like that. I relied on body language and facial expression and the narrator's voice-over, which I felt was sufficient. I couldn't attend the rescreening with subtitles, and now I am curious what I may have missed.

That was Thursday of last week. Last night I saw another film.

Grbavica - I had a good feeling about this one, and did some juggling to make this work in the schedule. Deeply moving, heartbreaking, beautiful, stunning - quite a feature debut for this young director. I absolutely loved this film. Really original and affecting and gorgeous and subtly horrific. Set in post-war Sarajevo, it examines life in Sarajevo after the 90s' war in Bosnia, through a story that focuses on a single mother and her relationship with her daughter. The film's plot and characterization is that of a well-written and gripping novel with the subtle and mature emotional resonance of a great poem. I analyze other creative works in the context of literary genres, because that is what I'm most comfortable and familiar with. To find a film that is as a good as a good book... well that's pretty damn good! Grbavica is also well-acted and politically relevant. Jasmila Zbanic, the writer and director, was there afterward to answer questions, and she was charming and self-effacing and smart, and discussed the casting process, as well as work she has done using the film to advocate for women affected by the war. I can't say much more without giving away too much of the film, but I hope it is released here. Write down the title now, Grbavica, and go see it when it gets to the Carlton or Cumberland. Actually, she said distributors want to change the title...

Next I'm off to Severance, a goofy-sounding Midnight Madness affair that I hope is funny. They say The Office meets Deliverance... I hope that is accurate!

Cheers.

Damn I am tired...

Borat - Make Glorious Red Carpet in Toronto

2006-09-08T23:20:00.000-04:00

Despite not having a ticket for the Borat movie, Teresa and I went down to the Ryerson Theatre to observe the shenanigans that accompanied Sacha Baron Cohen's Toronto screening of his Borat feature.

Hilarious!

Yes, he came down the red carpet in a donkey cart, with one real (trembling) donkey, hauled by four grim-looking "peasant women." Yes, he was fully in character. I'm not sure which was more amusing, Borat, or the Borat fans.

My prints turned out really well, but I haven't mastered Photoshop well enough to have great jpgs, but here's what I have for you.

I also have some digital video, in which you can hear one fan yelling "I am #4 prostitute!" (for non-Ali-G-afficianados, it's an episode reference/joke.)

My only disappointment is that I didn't see anyone dressed up as Borat. I saw a few Khazakstan flag-wavers, one Ali-G lookalike, but no one in a big fake moustache or horrible "mankini." If I were a guy, and a rabid fan desparate for a ticket, I would've dressed up. Instead, I just took pictures and laughed my head off.

Working for TIFF has been, so far, pretty fun.

I have three short digital video clips too, but I haven't sorted out how to upload those on Blogger.com. Any experts reading with some tips for me?

Cheers.

THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH

2006-09-07T10:54:00.000-04:00

Oh my god I am as giddy as a child on Christmas eve - one of my favourite bands of all time, The Beautiful South, are finally playing Toronto, and I just bought tickets!

Now I just have to see New Zealand's The Tall Dwarfs live and my concert shortlist will be complete. That, unless I'm in Auckland or something, is not likely to happen soon.

But The Beautiful South! Oh! Thrilling!

Now I'm off to see if I can get into some film fest industry screenings today, my day off.

Getting Beautiful South tix makes up for my not getting staff tickets to the Borat midnight screening tonight. That is very disappointing, but I think I'll hang around the Ryerson tonight to see if I can watch Sacha Baron Cohen sail in on his donkey or whatever mock Kazak shenanigans ensue...

Cheers.

GOOD AS GOLD by The Beautiful South

I Got a Job

2006-08-28T20:39:00.000-04:00

Actually, I got two.

No, I haven't abandoned the novel, and I've crossed the 100-page mark, which gives me the confidence that I WILL finish the bastard. But I have found that I'm not writing enough to be alone all day every day, and I think that six months was enough to come to an accurate conclusion. Plus the guilt and solitude was making me crazy. I've never not worked fulltime since university, and when I don't write for many hours each day, I feel awful. I'm also the kind of person who gets more done the busier I am, so I've been trying to find a job out that is a good balance with the writing - something parttime. And not crappy. And I think I found it!

But first, I took a temporary job with the Toronto International Film Festival, so for the next couple of weeks, I'll be organizing film buffs' tickets and hoping not get to yelled at when something is sold out. Because everything at the film fest gets sold out. That's why I haven't gone in ages, except for last year when some producer bribed me with gala tickets when I worked at the AGO and allowed him into Turner, Whistler, Monet at the last minute on the last day. The movie, Arsene Lupin, sucked, and I don't think it even got released here.

Anyway, I'm hoping it's fun, and I get some free tickets, so I'm aiming to see the Borat feature. The hours are crazily long, but the money is okay for a temp parttime gig. I may not even get to see many flicks, but that's okay. I don't really care about seeing celebrities either, but if anything really crazy happens, like Ice Cube says "Yo, LoveGrove, I read your books and I dig your poetry" then I'll post it here. Please don't hold your breath on that one...

But more importantly, today I got what I think will be a good permanent parttime job. It's at the University of Toronto with Hart House Theatre. The managing director of the theatre, whom I've been talking with, seems pretty nice, as does the manager I'd be assisting. I like that one of my interview questions was something like "What is a recent theatre production that you've been particularly moved by?" and I got to talk about absurdist theatre, Ionesco, and parallels between the post-war mood when The Chairs was produced and our current political climate. And they seemed to not only get it but appreciate it. I thought, hmm, this seems to be going well. And the building is of course beautiful there, and I enjoy the theatre environment, and the pay is good for parttime, and there are benefits, and access to the Hart House gym and pool. And I will still have time to write. So I am optimistic about this change.

Cheers.

Team Green Kicks Ass!

2006-08-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

Well maybe "kicks ass" is a tad hyperbolic. But we won our final game 6-1 which was our best game all summer! We had a lot of fun, skated hard and enjoyed the free beer afterward.

The regular season at Bill Bolton Arena begins in a couple of weeks. Rumour has it that the administration is looking into adding two more teams, if goalies can be procured. Apparently, the waiting list is massive this year; women's hockey just keeps growing exponentially.

Here's a shot of our team after the game, and at the bar afterward.

Cheers.

Parkdale Arts & Crafts Festival

2006-08-22T18:24:00.000-04:00

I'll have a table for Soap Scum this Saturday, August 26th at the Parkdale Arts & Crafts Festival.

There will be Toronto artists and crafters, music, food, entertainment, a sidewalk sale, fun for the kiddies, and all sorts of good stuff.

Come out and enjoy locally made indie goods, and hopefully some sun!

Here is a sample of the soap I'll be selling:

See you there!

Cheers.

Writing Tip

2006-08-17T23:09:00.000-04:00

Try writing to "Dominion" by The Sisters of Mercy. Oh yeah!

Despite years of resistance to writing while listening to music, I've just discovered that it may not be such a bad thing after all.

Lots of writers I know have no such hang-ups, and on the contrary thrive by writing wearing headphones. I've always been really paranoid of "diluting" stuff or unduly influencing what I'm attempting, or other such crap, and am just discovering, albeit goofily late, the joys and energy of writing to music one loves. I mean, that I love.

The Eagles of Death Metal's song "Flames Go Higher" is pretty good writing music too. Anyone reading this dig this band? I saw them open for Peaches last month, and I'm hooked. Pretty rockin'!

Cheers.

Writing Exercises

2006-08-17T12:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all of you who wrote in with suggestions for writing exercises! I've accumulated a very diverse and interesting batch from online research and from your comments. I'm going to try them out. I've put together a list of what I think are ten promising exercises, some of which are adaptable to both poetry and fiction.

1. Choose a story or poem you wrote in the past and rewrite it from a different character or persona’s point of view.

2. Were you ever rushed to the hospital? Write about that, whether it be narrative or imagistic - it's a context rife with tension. Then write about it from the person who accompanied you and/or describe the waiting room experience.

3. Take one of your characters (or yourself) and write a scene of that person getting ready for their own 80th birthday. What are they thinking about? How do they feel about the situation? How do they feel physically? What age do they feel inside? (Thanks to Marnie for this one, it's worked well for me)

4. Pick an object, a found object, anything around you, and write about it for 20 minutes without stopping. (Thanks Todd)

5. Write about the most embarrassing thing that happened to you (or to a friend if you can't think of anything) in high school. Try it in first person, then third.

6. Write about everything you knew about sex and death at age 14. (Thanks Hugh! that sounds like a fun one)

7. Generate a list of 5 words (randomly from the dictionary if you want to be objective), then pick an emotional theme and write a scene or poem using the combination. I find this one inevitably effective.

8. Slow motion writing – pick an action (drowning, falling asleep, sweeping floor, catching a ball, etc.), slow down the description of it, write each moment by moment – good to get you focussed on sensory details. (credit to bloglily for this one)

9. Describe one of your character’s bedroom (or your own) – messy, neat, what does it say about them, activities, furniture, colours, fabrics, objects, etc. A good way to get to know a character.

10. Take the first and last line of a poem or story by someone else and write your own in between. When you're done, you can either keep or abandon the initial first and last line; I recommend omitting the recycled opening and closing lines. This is a popular exercise with poets, and thanks to Brenda for suggesting it.

Okay folks, I want everyone to try one of these every day! If only I could take my own advice...

Cheers.

West Coast Book Buying

2006-08-15T18:24:00.000-04:00

I've just returned from a trip to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. It was primarily social (lots of restaurants), but we managed to hit a few used bookstores, like Albion and MacLeod's in Vancouver, and Sorensen Books, Dark Horse Books, Russell Books, Books on View, Fairfield Book Shop and Snowden's Bookstore in Victoria.

Here's what I picked up:

Why Don't You Stop Talking by Jackie Kay (short stories)
Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment by W. S. Merwin (poems)
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (novel)
Looking for the Possible Dance by A. L. Kennedy (novel)
Now That You're Back A. L. Kennedy (stories)
Everything You Need by A. L. Kennedy (novel)
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (novel)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (novel)
Robinson by Muriel Spark (novel)
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (novel)
The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark (novel)
Theory of the Loser Class by Jon Paul Fiorentino (poems)

Sure it made for a pretty heavy bag in lengthy airport queues, but it was a good haul and well worthwhile.

Cheers

ABC by The Jackson Five

Exercises

2006-07-31T21:18:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have a lot of trouble getting down to writing. There are too many distractions in this world and I'm a procrastinator and The High Priestess of Excuses.

That's why I really like writing exercises - there's less pressure, and you can assign yourself a starting point and see what happens. I work well in these sorts of constraints. So tonight - instead of writing - I'm collecting some useful (I wouldn't go so far as to call them favourite) writing exercises, and compiling them so I can waste less time worrying about NOT writing, and just write.

Sometimes exercises seem goofy or trite, but you make them what they are. In my experience, inevitably, something good and useable generally results. It's just a question of trusting yourself to get started.

So this is the challenge I put out to you - you being all ten or so of my readers - send me your favourite writing exercise. I might even try them. But I will eventually post a list of good ones that we can all use and twist and manipulate to our needs, and none of us will ever stare blankly at the screen or page only to mope off instead to do the dishes (or rearrange your collection of antique clothespins, or stare aghast at CNN, or take up a new substance, etc).

Together, we will become prolific.

Cheers.

NOTHING TO SAY by Pony da Look

One Book List

2006-07-29T18:44:00.000-04:00

Kate has tagged me to participate in an online One Book Meme, so of course I won't resist an opportunity to mention or expound on books that have affected me in some way or another.

The caveat is that all of my already-read books are still in boxes, and only the unread and recently-read books are out, and without being able to survey the entirety of my tomes, I'm restricting my responses solely to books I've read or reread lately. So here goes.

1. One book that changed your life - Second Nature by Libby Scheier. I lived in a small town until I was finished high school, and in the days before internet, I didn't have much access to contemporary poetry. So when I found her book in the local library (in which I worked), full of poems about gender and sex and politics and other current concerns, with a range of humour, passion, and neo-surrealism, I promptly stole the book. When she later become one of my workshop profs at York U., I confessed to her my moment of pilfer, to which she responded something like, "You actually lived there? Thank god you got out! What a terrible town. And good thing you stole my book, they probably would have burned it! I don't think they'd ever seen a feminist, let alone a Jew before!"

Another author I want to mention, and trangress against the One Book theme, is Gordon Korman's Bugs Potter series of YA books. I loved those! And when I found out that he wrote them when he was just about thirteen years old, it blew my mind and gave me faith that I could keep on writing too.

2. One book you've read more than once - Oyster by Janette Turner Hospital. I don't know how many times I've read this novel; it's one of my favourites, and I gain something new from it each time.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island - Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. My reason isn't terribly inspired, but I love his work, and it's a huge book. I don't how LONG I'm to be on this island, but that collection would keep me busy and engaged for some time...

4. One book that made you laugh - The Comfortors by Muriel Spark. Thanks Kate for the recommendation. I loved the weird characters, and wished that I had a Baron to hang out with too!

5. One book that made you cry - Liar by Lynn Crosbie. It really did. Some of the stanzas just rip your heart out, and while it's written in a confessional and personal style, the theme of betrayal is universal.

6. One book that you wish had been written - this question I can't answer. There is just so much out there that I want to read that sometimes I worry I'll die before I get to it all. Actually, I probably will.

7. One book that you wish had never been written - I can't answer this with a simple response either. I don't wish any book hadn't been written, I believe censorship is evil, and I'm not going to list books I think are just crap. But one book in recent memory did make me wonder why I read it, or why I read it at a particular time in my life, though I couldn't deny its literary brilliance and significant evidence of talent and insight: The End of Alice by A. M. Homes. It's a great book, but it's deeply disturbing - just read it when you're feeling emotionally strong and not prone to nightmares. I subsequently bought online a copy of Appendix A: which is billed as an "elaboration" on the novel. It is an "art book" that contains some text (can't quite figure out if it's fiction or non or both or neither...), collage, and photographs of evidence from the case that book was apparently based on. I haven't read it or gone through it much yet but it does look fascinating. The back copy reads as follows:
"In an ongoing exploration, highly-acclaimed novelist and art critic A. M. Homes exposes the breadth of her creative process and unleashes her imagination.... a unique investigation of the troubled boundary between truth and fiction, art and evidence. This odd assemblage of the author's clues to the narrator's mind is liquid proof as to the fluidity and fragmentation of identity."

8. One book you're currently reading - Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino.

9. One book you've been meaning to read - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Not to be confused, initially, with Middlemarch. Not that I would ever do such a thing.

Feels a bit odd for me to be discussing mostly fiction rather than poetry, but that's where my head's at these days.

Okay five people to tag... hmmm that's tough. I don't know enough folks with blogs yet, but how about any interested parties post a link to their own list in the comments or add a list as a comment? I'd like to hear what Lindsay says about this, and Stu for sure, Mary Tyler Morphine, and any member of The Impostors... Bring it on!

Fact-check

2006-07-25T17:40:00.000-04:00

Is Ian Curtis a baritone? I'm referring to ATMOSPHERE by Joy Divsion.

A character I'm writing about is singing it, and since I am - despite a massive love of a wide variety of music - illiterate about such technical terminology and definitions, I don't want to screw up.

Could someone reading this confirm or deny, please?

Cheers.

Grrrrrrrrrr

2006-07-20T20:44:00.000-04:00

It seems that my blog has been mercilessly spammed with lame comments... Has anyone else reading this had this problem? I just enabled the word-verification-for-comments option, so hopefully that will help. I don't want to have to moderate and approve comments submitted... any advice?

Spam-a-lot is a new musical, not something to experience on one's blog!

Technical Difficulties

2006-07-20T15:36:00.001-04:00

Apologies for being incommunicado lately. Between vacation and frustrating internet problems, I haven't posted on here in a while.

If anyone sent me emails through my sympatico account during the past week or so, I probably didn't get them. I'm not ignoring you. Just resend to my Hotmail account for now, while I try to sort this crap out.

Grrr.

Meanwhile, the Peaches concert on Tuesday night was great!

IMPEACH MY BUSH by Peaches.

Technical Difficulties

2006-07-20T15:36:00.000-04:00

Reading Lists

2006-07-07T13:52:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Madame Bovary for the first time. I didn't expect to enjoy it as deeply as I did, but I devoured it, particularly the incisive psychology of characters' motivations and actions and reactions. There's also a lot of emotional resonance (and angst) applicable to today's monogamous relationships, not just in 1850s France. It's doomed and powerful and I feel drained. I'd be curious to hear others' gut reactions and analyses of the book.

I've been reading a lot the past few weeks (the upside of all those subway rides to and from downtown), and here's a list of what I've been excited about lately:

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Net of Jewels by Ellen Gilchrist
Go Ask Ogre by Jolene Siana (I may have recommended this in a previous post)
Tear Down by Ali Riley

Next I'll take on some Virginia Woolf, a couple of Italo Calvino books I haven't read yet, and more Jerzy Kosinski.

I'd love some recommendations from others, especially for something current that fits this demanding description: energetic mind-blowing hybrid narrative imagistic defying categorization like if you genetically spliced Janette Turner Hospital with John Ashbery with Beckett with Lorrie Moore with Kathy Acker with George Saunders. Something like that. Does that exist? That's what I'm craving. Please advise.

________________________________

I've been back into doing the Globe's cryptic crosswords. Anyone else do these? I love them, but I never get all of the answers, though each clue that I puzzle out is deeply satisfying. I found a great way to get one finished: collaborate. Between my efforts, Bryan's, and emails with his brother Dave, together we completed June 17th's and June 24's. Last week's, July 1st's, is driving me nuts. Not the big Canada Day one, but the regular book section one. Anyone reading this get that one done?

_________________________________

On a more serious note, here are some articles that recently affected me. Sometimes I just want to move to another planet. Didn't Stephen Hawking recently recommend that?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13887.htm

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,104102,00.html

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13885.htm

___________________________________

One other tidbit for you: the chemist character in Madame Bovary says to someone "Goodness! As if I hadn't enough on my plate already!... No, I can't help it, you must come back later."

Published first in 1857, this is a 1950 translation. I thought "a lot on my plate" was merely a recent corporate mangling of language, but no, apparently we've been having a lot on our plates for well over a century. Well, I'll liase with the stakeholders and touch base about taking ownership of our key messages and core initiatives in a value-add paradigm... and get back to you. Keep on the critical path, paved with action items!

Cheers.

SPOOF THE SPOOF by John Southworth

Armageddon is Here!

2006-06-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

Today I was writing a scene in which my main character imagines God killing her enemies, specifically the schoolyard bully Tammy who frequently torments her. Young Emily is a Jehovah's Witness and thus believes that all non-JWs will soon perish in a perpetually-imminent Armageddon. One scenario she vengefully pictured was Tammy being stoned to death by massive hailstones.

Moments later, it started to rain really hard (in real life, that is), and I was concerned about the garden I started putting in yesterday, especially the row of potted flowers lined up obediently on the sidewalk next to the house. As I contemplated ushering them inside until it stopped blowing and pouring, I heard some weird rattling sounds around the outside of the house. I rushed to the window in my office to see what the hell was going on... and it was hailing!

I haven't seen hail in years.

Maybe if I write something about being a better hockey player, that will come true too.

Freaky.

We tied 2-2 last night, and no points for me. Rumour has it though, that #13 on our team inadvertently broke some woman's wrist last week...

Cheers.

(I was trying to think of a song for this post with the word HAIL in the title, but no luck)

Bill Bolton Hockey Night, Take Two

2006-06-21T23:07:00.000-04:00

Well, we lost. But barely! It was 4-3, and the other team had twice as many players... But damn, it was fantastic to play league hockey again! I had a great time, and I was definitely pleased with my effort and how I've developed. Those 8 million skills lessons I've taken are beginning to pay off... I wasn't perfect, not remotely, and I fucked up one ideal shot at the net, I hesitated and the goalie poked it away, but other than that, I was definitely not playing as crappily as when I started the league one year ago. One assist, a couple of breakaways and blocked shots, not bad for an uncoordinated poet.

One pint of Stella at the pub after, good chats with the wide array of other hockey gals, and home to finish up that damn grant application...

If only I felt as good about the novel as I do right now about hockey. I guess it's a question of pressure. Doing "not horrible" at hockey is fabulous; anything less than what I perceive as brilliant in writing is heartbreaking.

I've paused in the actual narrative of the novel in order to deepen some of the characters, particularly the adult characters, so I've been working primarily on backstories and character sketches. I feel like I'm procrastinating because these are not pages that will see the light of proverbial day, but I keep trying to remind myself that this work is an essential, though non-gratifying, part of the process.

God, I hate that expression, "part of the process."

Anyway, novel-writing, or I suppose any long writing project, seems fraught with and intrinsically tied to psychological pressure, massive swings of emotion, guilt, and self-loathing. I feel like maybe I'm dating my novel, and it's a horribly unhealthy and abusive relationship.

Geez, that's a dark analogy. I think I'll just stop here. Though I bet I'm not even close to the first writer who has made such a comparison!

Cheers.

JUST WHAT I NEEDED by The Cars (a great song I heard earlier today!)

Hockey Night in the Annex

2006-06-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the first night of the Women's Summer Hockey League at Bill Bolton Arena. Being on the ice is a great way to celebrate the first day of summer!

This time, Jhann, Nicole, Megan & I are all on the same team, which should be a blast, and result in a higher likelihood of after-game pints on Bathurst St.

I hope we win. And if we do, I hope I have something to do with it!

Cheers.

Chapbook Workshop

2006-06-21T12:24:00.000-04:00

On Monday morning, Sandra Alland and I taught a Chapbook Workshop to a group of about fifteen 18-20 year old "at-risk youth" (whatever that label means) at the City Adult Learning Centre. We were the guest "experts" in Chris Kubsch's Writers' Craft English class, and the students' final assignment was to produce a chapbook of their writing from the term.

We discussed a bit about the history of chapbooks, current chapbook publishers, and a great deal of technical tips about layout and printing. I managed to find the very first poetry chapbook I'd ever made, in the mid-90s in Bob Casto's poetry workshop at York. It was called "Climbing Parentheses" and contained lots of sex and swearing, as well as Tristan Tzara quotations, and poems comprised solely of punctuation. It was an ugly little book, coil-bound and full of errors, and I utilized it as an example of what not to do: blank pages everywhere, words cut off by binding, bad margins, and a bland aesthetic. I wouldn't let Sandra read any of the poems either, too embarrassing.

We brought in a wide array of sample chapbooks, both of our own projects, and works by Proper Tales Press, Pas de Chance, Black Bile Press, 2x4 to the forehead, Puddle Press, housepress, among many others. The goal was to illustrate to the students that the possibilities of form were almost limitless, and certainly not restricted to black and white photocopied and stapled booklets.

In the latter half of the workshop, it was hands-on time, and the students used the materials we brought in to create the covers and binding for their chapbooks. Some students got more involved in the process than others, which is to be expected, but some of their covers were amazing! There were a few elaborate collages, as well as lots of questions about layout and what they should put in their author bios.

Chris is going to try to send us pictures of their finished projects.

I love doing these workshops, especially with teens. The adults are not always as willing to play with the materials and get their hands dirty, but the teenagers can get really into it, which is very cool and inspiring.

Cheers.

TEENLAND by Northern Pikes

Willowdale Park

2006-06-16T18:13:00.000-04:00

Today I went for a run up here in North York, and saw some images that made me feel a little more at home. I'm not in Parkdale anymore, but I finally saw some rather Parkdalian activities:

Guy with bright green mohawk playing guitar in the park for his merry band of tattooed pals
Group of teenaged girls doing b.t.'s, in another area of the park. They must have been on spare, I'm sure they weren't cutting class to do drugs...

Not that these are activities strictly limited to Parkdale, certainly not. But those were the first encounters I've had in this neighbourhood of anything remotely rambunctious or rebellious. I almost cheered them on, but they would have probably thought I was just some weird old person, nearly double their age, gosh, how horrible.

I didn't know people still did b.t.'s. Sasha, are you reading this? Yes, I remember. Ahem.

Cheers.

FIGHT THE POWER by Public Enemy

Canadian Poetry Night

2006-06-12T16:18:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, June 13th I will be reading at the Art Bar (Victory Cafe, upstairs; Bloor West and Markham, behind Honest Ed's). The reading starts at 8pm and is free, though a hat is passed for donations.

It's Canadian Poetry Night, where various Canadian poets will cover other Canadian poets. I will be reading work by the late Libby Scheier, whose poetry was a significant influence on me when I was a teenager in a small town. Discovering her work was a major turning point in my writing - our local library contained few poetry books, and most by Keats, Donne, Yeats, and Dickinson, so I was thrilled to find something contemporary.

So I stole the book.

Tomorrow night, I will read from that copy of Second Nature, formerly belonging to the Dunnville Public Library.

Cheers.

Unabashed Self-Indulgent Gemini

2006-06-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

It's my birthday and I'll self-indulge if I want to... !

Jhann inspired me with a list of highlights from the past year and I'm going to build on that today. Here are my favourite moments or events since this time last year:

starting the novel for real
playing in my first hockey league
Perpetual Motion Roadshow trip with Ryan and Tim
Flaming Lips show
learning to ski a bit
selling my soap not just to friends but strangers at craft shows
new issue of dig.
leaving a fulltime job to write more
moving in with beau Bryan
best books read: From Sarajevo With Sorrow by Goran Simic; The Sleep of Four Cities by Jen Currin; Go Ask Ogre by Jolene Siana
best films I saw: You and Me and Everyone We Know; Wordplay; Brokeback Mountain

Today I'm going to basically just read and eat and maybe download some more of Da Ali G Show clips. I'm reading Case Histories by Kate Atkinson - Kate gave me this book a couple of birthdays ago and I've finally gotten to it! So far it's pretty good, and dark in an A. M. Holmes sort of way. It's too soon to say more than that about it. Then out for tempura and Sapporo tonight, a field trip to Chris B's boat tomorrow, followed by bbq and imbibing. I have a few other Gemini pals, so it looks like the excuses to celebrate will extend at least until Canada Day.

Cheers.

I CAN JAPAN by Miranda July. (she put out a few experimental narrative audio cds before her feature film last year, and they're disturbingly brilliant. I first encountered them about five years ago on Brave New Waves, when I had a really high fever...perfect way to question your perceptions!)

Signs to Consider

2006-06-06T21:11:00.000-04:00

On Monday nights I have a co-ed hockey skills class. We do skating, passing, stick-handling and shooting drills for an hour. The gender ratio in the class is fairly balanced; there are more males than females, but not by all that much.

There is a board near the entrance of the arena that outlines who uses which change room. Before league games, for example, it will say something like "Red team #3, Blue #5" etc. For co-ed classes, it divides the groups by gender.

This week the sign said:

7pm Class
Men - Change room #6
Girls - Change room #3

I was tempted to ask the rink guys where the women were supposed to change, but I assumed they wouldn't get it.

Imagine the confusion if it had said "Women and Boys" instead of "Men and Girls."

Cheers.

GIRLS AND BOYS by Blur.

Feminist Read-In

2006-06-05T15:31:00.000-04:00

This event tomorrow sounds like an important and worthwhile endeavor. See you there!

Cheers.

GET OFF THE INTERNET by Le Tigre.

Small Press Book Fair this Saturday

2006-06-01T15:05:00.000-04:00

The Spring Small Press Book Fair is this Saturday, June 3 from 11am-5pm. I will have numerous copies of the eleventh issue of dig. available for the deal of $6 each. Response so far to the issue has been positive, so get your limited edition unique copy while you can! At the launch on Monday, many were having trouble choosing which cover they liked best - some then bought two copies. This issue features an in-depth interview with Jen Currin, as well as poetry by Kevin Connolly, Hugh Thomas, Sandra Alland, Gary Barwin, Jon Paul Fiorentino, David McGimpsey, among others, and a story by Salvatore Difalco.

If you are a contributor to this issue and have not yet collected your copies from me, visit the wayward armadillo press table on Saturday and I'll hook you up. If you are out of town and have not yet received your copies via post, be patient, I'm in the midst of moving, and I'll mail them as soon as I can find where I packed the envelopes and stamps.

Cheers.

dig./Anvil Press launch tonight!

2006-05-29T10:38:00.000-04:00

Tonight is the launch of dig.#11 and Anvil Press' Toronto launch of Jen Currin's wonderful poetry collection The Sleep of Four Cities.

Please join us for an evening of readings and celebration tonight at the Cameron House (back space) at 8pm.

I'm worried about the TTC wildcat strike and how that will affect attendance tonight, but hopefully buses and subways will be rolling again by this afternoon... If not, hop on your bikes, lace up your running shoes, don't let this work stoppage keep you at home!

(scroll down to previous posts for more details on the launch)

Cheers.

A Farewell to Parkdale

2006-05-25T19:33:00.000-04:00

I'm moving this weekend. After nearly ten years in the wilds of Parkdale, I'll be moving into Bryan's house, up in antiseptic North York. Don't panic, it's near the subway. I'm okay with it.

The packing process leads to all sorts of nostalgia and forgotten items and events and ephemera. I'm amazed to see how many boxes of small press material I've collected to over the years - so many chapbooks and zines and broadsides and magazines and pieces tough to categorize. Lots of mclennan's POEMs kept popping up, seemingly endless, everywhere, in all colours.

After sending out my change of address email the other day, I received some really interesting responses. Who knew such a short street would have so many connections to people I know?! Some grew up on that block, Stu's old high school was on the same street, and when b. ran away from her small town at age 17... you guess it, she was on that street too. I wonder if it was the same house. She's currently researching the house number. That would be amazing, to live fifteen years later, in the same house she escaped to. Gemini serendipity! Amazing.
With Crafternoon Tea 2 on Saturday, the dig./Anvil launch on Monday, and the Press Fair the following Saturday, amidst boxes, I don't have much time to reminisce. But Terri and Kimberly, and b., if you're reading this, say a goodbye to our old homestead. We're better friends for being here.

Things I will miss after moving:

my fireplace
being able to bike to most destinations
Oskar, my allergy-inducing hairy Himalayan-Siamese freak cat, gone to live with my mom in Dunnville

Things about moving I look forward to:

living a house, not an apartment, and being able to play loud music without fear of irate neighbours
planting a garden
not having to lug my hockey gear on the TTC
no bullying asshole Parkdale landlords

Lots more I could say, like obvious differences in neighbourhood culture, and about a new relationship phase, but I'm tired and still have a lot of soap-making and packing ahead of me tonight. The copies of dig.#11 are all ready for the launch and the press fair, so that's done, and they look really good.

Cheers.

CHANGES by Sugar.

dig. launch news

2006-05-25T19:29:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to announce that Hugh Thomas will also be reading at the launch for dig.#11 on Monday May 29th.

See the post below this one for more information.

See you there!

Cheers.

Reading and Launch for dig.#11

2006-05-19T11:07:00.000-04:00

Good news for fans of dig. and for poetry in Toronto! I will be having a launch for the eleventh issue of dig. after all, in conjunction with Anvil Press. Here are the details:

Anvil Press & wayward armadillo press invite you to the Toronto launch of The Sleep of Four Cities by Jen Currin in conjunction with the launch of literary zine dig.#11

Powered by lush imagery and lyricism, the poems in The Sleep of Four Cities use the city as a metaphor for the complexity of self.

“...an air of menace suffuses these brilliantly erotic and dangerous poems. Currin is a startling new talent who bears watching.” - John Ashbery

The eleventh issue of dig. features an in-depth interview with Jen Currin.

Join us for an evening of neo-surrealist poetics, realist fiction, and other adventures in between!

Monday, May 29, 2006 at 8pm
The Cameron Public House (Queen & Spadina)

Featuring readings by dig. contributors:
Salvatore Difalco
Gary Barwin
Kevin Connolly
Jen Currin

and hosted by Jennifer LoveGrove

(no cover charge, but copies of The Sleep of Four Cities and dig. will be available for sale)

Definitely not to be missed!

Global sexism, local sexism...

2006-05-10T19:04:00.000-04:00

Here are the rest of my mini-reviews of the other films I saw at Hot Docs:

Songbirds (dir. Brian Hill) - The premise of this documentary sounds highly unlikely: women in a UK prison tell their stories - but wait! let's make it into a musical! Fortunately it works, and amazingly well. I mean, other than Urinetown, I hate musicals! The crimes of the women profiled range from drug smuggling to manslaughter, but what many of them have in common is male violence. After this and other documentaries I've seen in the festival and on television, I'm beginning to wonder if there is a woman anywhere that hasn't been beaten up by her father/grandfather/husband/boyfriend/brother at some point in her life. Some of the women in Songbirds said in their interviews that they'd grown up with that kind of violence in their families, and so by the time they were adults, it was so normalized they thought that was how everyone lived. Don't get the idea that this film is depressing; it's not. There is redemption and hope, and hey, there are powerful songs, too. The film is structured with segments of spoken interviews with the inmates, interspersed with verses from the songs about their situations and their histories. At first I thought they had each created their own songs - what a prison full of talent! but that was not exactly the case. In fact, it was the UK's much-loved poet Simon Armitage who wrote the lyrics for the songs. Some are rap songs, some ballads, some lullabies, depending on the woman's style and her particular story, but all the songs are really good. The director was present after the screening for a Q&A, and someone asked about the process of creating the songs. The answer was that Armitage wrote the songs based on audio transcripts of the interviews with the inmates, and all the singing was real, including the odd bit sung by a staff member. This was an excellent film with compelling people portrayed in a unique way. If it gets a wider release here, please go and see it!

A Different Language (dir. Eliya Reis) - This is an intensely personal exploration of one young woman's relationship with her mother. Eliya, director and main character of this short, returns to her mother's home as an adult, and one with a camera, to confront her regarding their relationship and past problems. She discovers that they still cannot seem to communicate or understand each other. Eliya is accused of coldness and vindictiveness, and as a child was smacked about and told she "hugs like a man." Though both women are frustrating at times, Eliya is engaging and as the viewer, I really wanted her to prevail, to acheive whatever sense of "closure" she was seeking. She didn't, and I really didn't know what the hell to make of the unpleasant New Age mother, but it was an oddly interesting film.

Let's Talk About It (dir. Deepa Mehta) - Deepa Mehta told the audience that this is the first documentary she's made in twenty years, and based on the strength of this one, I hope she makes more. This is a powerful film about domestic violence, in which the children interview their mothers about their various abusive situations and the impact on their family. Raw, candid and honest, Let's Talk About It explores how violence against women permeates all economic levels and exists across many cultures, not specific to any particular demographic. Or put it this way - violence against women can be anywhere, even everywhere. The device of children interviewing their mothers sounds initially unsettling, and could even be exploitative, but this is not how it comes across in the film. The interviews offer rare insight into the strength of these women and children, and the psychological and sociological factors that impacted their decisions and coping strategies. During the Q&A afterward, one older white man nervously asked about the decision to focus on no white women, and wasn't it important to convey that violence happened in "regular" Canadian families too... He said something like "normal" or "regular", struggling to sound liberal or politically correct, but not succeeding...! It was, however, an interesting question, and Mehta was not trying to suggest that abuse didn't happen in white families, we all know it does, but that she was investigating how immigrant women's experiences and problems were different, such as how some of women would never consider calling 911, that it didn't occur to them, that 911 wasn't a service available to them. In fact, the seven year old daughter in an affluent black family said, unprompted, "the police only listen to men." The film is a powerful testament to these women, and one of deepening awareness and understanding. Another interesting question was about how the women featured were chosen, basically how did they find them? The director and producer posted information about the project in shelters and community centres. Those interested in conveying their stories came forward.

Total Denial (dir. Milena Kaneva) - An excellent film by a Bulgarian about human rights struggles in Burma, focussing on the efforts of exiled activist Ka Hsaw Wa to document the horrific human rights violations of the military against the Karen people, as the military "provide security" for TOTAL and UNOCAL's oil pipeline through their homeland. This "security" comes in the form of forced labour, burned villages, savage beatings, rapes, and murders. While many of the stories were deeply disturbing, Ka Hsaw Wa and others did succeed in bringing a major lawsuit against the multinational oil companies, and winning, setting a precedent for corporate accountability. While this was an excellent film that will hopefully raise awareness about these issues and incite action, there was one element that I was left wondering about afterward. What about individual accountability? What about those soldiers who chose to burn babies, rape girls, shoot workers at will? What happens when a different cause or company uses this militia for something else? More of the same? I can see this type of documentary being on Newsworld in the future, so check it out. What questions will you have?

The Dark Side of the White Lady (dir. Patricio Henriquez) - The "Esmerelda" is an iconic schooner in the Chilean navy, beautiful and celebrated, but with a disturbing past. The ship was used as a facility for torture during the coup that put Pinochet in power, ousting Allende in the 1970s. This film chronicles the efforts of several Chileans, tortured thirty years ago on the Esmerelda, as they continue to fight for justice and governmental accountability. This is an emotionally relentless film, but at the same time, beautiful in its current depiction and historical footage of the city of Velparaiso and surrounding area. The film was gripping and fascinating, and the only elements that didn't work for me were the cheesey dramatic re-enactments that tried to depict the moments leading up to torture aboard the ship. They were melodramatic and cheapened an otherwise powerful moment, though they didn't diminish the film's overall impact.

Well, those were the ones I saw. Emotionally draining, yes. Do I feel pretty fuckin' lucky to be where I am, when I am? Yes. Has my desire to do something tangible about male violence against women and children been solidified? Yes. I just don't quite know what the most effective thing to do is yet. Suggestions are welcome.

Meanwhile , it seems there is dissent and fragmentation in Toronto's small press literary community. I don't know too much about what's gone on, but from fourth-hand references, what I can glean is that a male poet publicly insulted a female poet, in a derogatory and allegedly sexist manner, possibly utilizing phrases like "sucked dick." Well, I'm not even going to get into who apparently said what to whom, not only because I don't know 100%, but because who was involved doesn't really affect my opinion - which is that sexist bullshit vitriolic hateful crap exists in all sorts of nooks and crannies, not just where we expect it to be unfortunately found; we just seem much more shocked and outraged when it's within the typically "leftist" and "politically correct" context of non-mainstream art. No, it exists here too. Just better at hiding it.

Maggie Helwig sent out an "OPEN LETTER" denouncing hate and supporting the insulted writer, ending in a long list of electronic "signatures" of many writers I like and respect. I wasn't asked to sign it, presumably because I am not close to the insulted party. I'm not sure how I feel about the "OPEN LETTER". Certainly I agree with the sentiments expressed therein, and encourage acknowledgement of and debate about sexism and nastiness within the literary community, and all communities. But something about the act bothers me. I'm not sure what it is. The preaching-to-the-converted element? Well, it's better than keeping silent. Is it self-congratulatory? Well, better that than being in denial about negative aspects of a "community." Maybe what bothers me is that this entire situation is happening at all; aren't you supposed to feel "safe" in your "community"? Something beyond the obvious is bothering me about this. That I need to use so many " " when I discuss sexism? I haven't put my finger on it yet, and I may never do so, but I'm thinking about it.

I wonder what I would do if someone insulted me and my writing and made a sexist slur... Crosscheck 'im in the jaw and Bertuzzi their eyeball? Not that I advocate violence... Sure would like to sometimes though.

Now that I've thoroughly depressed myself...

LOVE IS ALL AROUND - the Joan Jett version, please.

Cheers.

Crosswords, Turtles, Prison - more Hot Docs

2006-05-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

Here's a handful of comments on a few more films I saw at Hot Docs:

Wordplay (dir. Patrick Creadon) - this is a fantastic film about American crossword puzzle fanatics, focussing on an annual crossword tournament. A few key participants are profiled, discussing their attraction to the puzzles, their strategies, their fears about the competition, and their lives in general. There is a lot of footage of Will Shortz, crossword editor of New York Times, who created the tournament at age twenty-five, and still hosts it, twenty-eight years later. There are also entertaining interviews with high-profile puzzle afficianados, like Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton. This is a slick and well-done film, witty and uplifting, capturing the fanatacism and camaraderie prevalent in groups with a shared geeky obsession. Actually, the crossword tournament reminded me a bit of the Small Press Book Fair...

The Chances of the World Changing (dir. Eric Daniel Metzgar) - this is a solemn film about a man who risks everything to save endangered turtles. At the film's beginning, its subject Richard Ogust is housing and caring for over 1500 turtles in his New York City penthouse apartment. As the narrative progresses, the viewer follows him after his eviction, as he is forced to move his turtles and as he endeavors to realize his dream of creating a large turtle conservation institute in the country. I won't tell you what happens, but I would argue that this film is about the price of obsession, and compromise, and isolation and about what happens when your own mission is more than what one individual can manage.

Life Inside Out (dir. Sarah Zammit) - This film profiles the daily lives of four over-50 women in a federal Canadian prison for women. Their backgrounds and personalities were widely varied, though they seemed to share a frustration at the lack of programs within the institution. There was a lot of potential here, but ultimately I felt a bit let down by it. I wanted to know so much more about T.A., Judy, Pearl, and Kim, and how they coped on the inside, but the film was barely over an hour, and took a specifically hands-off non-investigative approach. I don't think I like this trend or style of documentary filmmaking; "let's just follow them around with a camera, and whatever we get, that's the film." I'm all for objectivity, but a film is a film, and I still maintain that depth and narrative are important.

I have about half a dozen more to see, and I'll keep you posted. If you've seen any of these, please feel free to post comments!

FOLSOM PRISON BLUES by Johnny Cash

Cheers.

Boring Babooska

2006-04-29T23:32:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm seeing some films in the Hot Docs documentary film festival here in Toronto and today was my first film. What a disappointment! It was called Babooska and according to the description, was about the lives of members of a touring circus family. Since I'm working on a fictional character who performs some circus-like stunts, this was a definite pick for me. It wasn't a historical film or anything, it was a contmeporary Italian family doing this now, or recently. Unfortunately while rich in dramatic potential and power, it failed to deliver anything remotely interesting. The film's description said that the family's daily life is "far from the excitement and adventure that we, as children, imagined circus life to be. But it is these qualities that make Babooska so fascinating and profound. There is a quiet drama at play." Well it was far too quiet for me, and frustrating to see several potential dramatic angles completely ignored, and in favour of what? Yes, yet another scene of Babooska or her fire-eating mother setting out or putting away their trailer's shelves full of tacky knick-knacks. Riveting. Setting out the cacaphony of trinkets, putting away the cacaphony of trinkets. Over and over.

I'm all for behind-the-scenes investigative film-making, but watching them eat pasta and set up the tents offered very little insight into anything. The film promised to explore the family's feelings of isolation and alienation, but it really did not whatsoever. The most interesting moment for potential story was when, during a performance in some Italian village, Babooska's boyfriend Michele said "The skunk has escaped!" Now that has potential for dramatic action! How did the skunk escape? Where did it go? Did it spray an audience member? Did they get the skunk back? Sadly, none of this was followed up nor mentioned again.

Not only was the film flat and lazy, Babooska was not even the most interesting family member to focus on. We learned that she loves small dogs, and her little sister, and that she performs what looked to be a pretty pedestrian "hula hop" (sic) routine, but that's it. What about the quiet tattooed fire-eating mom? How did she injure her arm? What's the deal with the blustery loud clown father? Or the sexy younger pierced shaved-head sister? Or Babby's beligerent fight-picking boyfriend? They would have made better subjects, but Babooska was considered the pretty one, so they went for her. Yawn.

There were no insights into how the troupe perceived themselves or their lifestyle, and almost no footage of any of their onstage performances. One of the two directors was there to answer questions afterward, but I split. I was certainly not the only one.

Hopefully tomorrow's film, Wordplay, about competitive crossword puzzle fanatics, will be better. It probably won't be as good as the awesome Spellbound but I hope it tries.

Cheers.

BEING BORING by The Pet Shop Boys