who cares if i yell and spit in the faces of poets? at least i'm not a drunk!
fuck, i gotta go now, it's time for my anger management therapy!
fuck, i gotta go now, it's time for my anger management therapy!
posted by drosspriddle at 7:27 PM
15 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I'll repost my comment to Alixandra's blog here:
The beginnings of some thoughts in response:
First, to be completely forthright: my weariness is coming more or less directly from my shock at, and subsequent disillusionment about, the lack of sophistication in the way in which a particular recent event was shaped through electronic communication. I saw a quick reaction that seemed to draw relatively innocent parties in with little discrimination, and I saw a hermeneutically rich (if disturbing) event--an event that might have proved an opportunity for better understanding of real problems--unintentionally reduced to an opportunity for declarations of allegiance and blacklisting. The effects are of this shaping are ongoing. Recently, I saw one of the (admittedly often offensive) actors banned from the comments field of a U.S. poet's blog with the words "I know who you are." Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but I find the "know" in that sentence chilling in its presumption and judgment. Someone else just "outed" a listserv and explicitly made accusations of guilt by association.
I fully appreciate the fact that events are always shaped and filtered. But blogs, we must realize, are powerful institutions and they're kept and read by people with varying degrees of clout in the literary community. (Blogs also frequently serve a PR function in their projection of personas and their filtering of information, and in their forging and maintenance of relationships and allegiances.) In practice, they tend to encourage the quick processing of current events before newer ones are attended to. Few readers have the time to engage the finer points. People do read blogs to find out "what happened," and, again practically speaking, they usually have few accounts to choose from. Comments fields and lists seem to replicate the dynamics of community (both its support and richness and its regulation and coercion) in accelerated form.
Also, I think it's worthwhile wondering whether we're losing the possibility of ephemeral interaction. A friend recently told me that she's very much aware that anything she says at a literary event could be blogged about and that she's found herself holding back in conversation as a result.
don't mean to sound anti-blog or anti-documentation. Some thoughts though:
Crippling self-censure: I guess self-censure can mean many things, but I wonder whether discomfort before writing or speaking is always a bad thing. Such feelings are likely a symptom of working within the social sphere (and here I'd like to tentatively point to a distinction between community and society). Crippling self-censure? Yes, probably bad. Hesitation and nervousness about writing or speaking publicly? It seems to me that this implies awareness of the possibility of disagreement, criticism, or ill-effect, which, whether we like it or not, is real. (And I think this possibility is a good thing.) It might also suggest that the speaker or writer is saying something as opposed to repeating cliches to the already-converted.
Photos: I think photos have markedly different aspirations toward comprehensiveness than an account of an event or a review of it (not to suggest that the latter aspire toward absolute comprehensiveness). We often use the term "snapshot" to suggest incompleteness. (As a sidenote, I've been really interested lately in the difference between how I understand photos of people I already know and those of people I don't know and subsequently meet. The before- and after-meeting understandings are usually pretty different.) Also, a lot of people tend to be nervous about or even shy away from having their photos taken at events.
Publicness: While these events certainly are public, I think people often like to reserve a little privacy within them.
Yes, please, don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting that people should stop blogging about literary happenings. I just think it's a good idea to keep aware of the possibly negative aspects.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fidgeting with the scene of the crime
Category: Writing and Poetry
This paper examines the representation of bodies and the representation of the scene - the "crime scene" - as a space of prior action, and with the documentation of this prior action. The ramifications of these actions on the body and on the construction of history fall outside the frame of the narrative, the presentation of an absent body. The "formed holes" in narrative of action echo the crime scene as being spaces of question; where "[t]he body is envisioned neither as an innocent repository of nature nor as an existential symbol of isolation, but as an artifact that leaves traces and in turn is a surface for recording them" (Rugoff "More than meets the eye" 104).
Eyelids open. Tongue runs across upper lip moving from left side of mouth to right following arc of lip. Swallow. Jaws clench. Grind. Stretch. Swallow. Head lifts. (Goldsmith 8)
The crime scene is more than simply the scene of the crime. Ralph Rugoff uses the field of criminalistics - what he defines as the "analysis of traces" - to examine conceptual art. Unlike the crime scene investigator, however, the viewer of conceptual art is not asked "to reach a definitive finding or conclusion: instead our search for meaning engages us in a goalless activity of speculation and interpretation" ("Introduction" 18). Art and writing practice can be read through the "aesthetic of aftermath, as a place where the action has already occurred" (Rugoff "Introduction" 19). As in crime-scene photography, in Fidget Kenny Goldsmith "functions [...] much like a camera or a recording device, often dwelling obsessively on peripheral detail" (Wollen 27).
In Goldsmith's case he has applied a transcription process to the movements of his own body aiming for the "observation of a body in space, not [his] body in space. There was to no editorializing, no psychology, no emotion - just a body detached from a mind" (Goldsmith as quoted in Perloff 91). Goldsmith's process was seemingly simple. On June 16 (Bloomsday) 1997 Goldsmith woke up and immediately began obsessively narrating the movements his body made over the course of the entire day, but without ever using the first-person pronoun - there is no speaking "I," no narration of self-awareness. Goldsmith spoke the movements of his body in a voice-activated tape recorder, returned to the tape to transcribe his recording and edit out all mentions of the first-person pronoun as well as any unnecessary words. It was Goldsmith's intention that the transcription and editing would "divorce the action from the surrounding, narrative, and attendant morality" (Goldsmith quoted in Perloff 93). The body of the poem is without anchor, without intention, it "addresses the body as a dispersed territory of clues and traces" (Rugoff "More than meets the eye" 88). The crime-scene as an artistic site is dependant on "the actions of a missing body or [...] complete scenes that must be reconstituted from shreds of evidence" (Rugoff "More than meets the eye" 101). The absence of a body - or in Goldsmith's case the presence of nothing but body: the absence of context and intention - leads "not toward analysis but toward a new mode of aesthetic contemplation precisely because there is no moral reason [...] but simply a documentary impulse to record" (Wollen 29). What is being recorded in Fidget is not solely the actions of an unanchored body, or a non-narrativizing narrative, but rather the "impulse to record." This impulse overrides meaning as is traditionally constructed, in favour of absence and melancholy; "meaning seems overwhelming in its presence yet strangely insubstantial ... [s]omething happened here that we cannot quite grasp or understand" (Wollen 25). Fidget leaves the reader / viewer reflecting Goldsmith's own movements:
Grasp. Reach. Grab. Hold. Saw. Pull. Hold. Grab. Push. Itch. Push. Push. Turn. Walk. [...] Turn. Chew. Massage. Gather. [...] Reach. Open. (Goldsmith 62).
Unlike the literary trope of the retrospectively narrated detective novel where the scene of the crime is of utmost importance and where " the crucial dramatic action - the crime - always takes place before the story has begun" (Ernst Bloch as quoted in Wollen 33), Fidget occurs simultaneously. To Goldsmith, the crime and the investigation occur simultaneously. Classically crime scenes are "traces of prior mayhem" (Rugoff "More than meets the eye" 84). For Goldsmith the mayhem is continuous and continuously present.
§
Lips part. Hand tilts. Swallow. Repeat. Eyes dart left to right. Ears twitch. Eyes look straight ahead. Focus. Double Vision [....] Eyes dart left. Light forces eyes to move to right. Eyes focus closely. Glace afar. Register motion. (Goldsmith 35)
Goldsmith has "leach[ed] away the significance of narrative point of view and subjectivity" (Wollen 26) by removing agency from his body's movements. Peter Wollen describes crime-scene photography and crime-scene investigation as having "an acute sensitivity to the trite, the futile, the banal, and the insignificant" (32). "[T]he banal and the insignificant" are meticulously documented by Goldsmith in an anti-space, a space of absence or negativity created by the "displaced signifiers of the crime" (Wollen 24) - we are not asked to read for the evidence of presence, but rather for the residue of absence. Goldsmith's Fidget articulates the absences of narrative. Walter Benjamin stated that "to live means to leave traces" (Benjamin quoted in Rugoff 75), and Goldsmith dwells exclusively in those traces, creating a narrative solely of traces, without effects. But like any investigation, what is not documented in Fidget is just as important as what is documented. Goldsmith's documentation gives in to "the temptation to make things fit, to squeeze clues into a coherent picture by highlighting some facts and excluding others" (Rugoff "More than meets the eye" 62). Only once does Goldsmith document the act of documenting: "Mouth forms round o of swallow" (10). This is the only time in the entire text where the act of speaking is documented. At this point, early in Fidget, the line between the document and the act of documentation becomes blurred.
§
The cool distance of Fidget's isolated crime scene soon degrades and is contaminated as Goldsmith's consciousness begins to infect the scene. As the task of narrating and transcribing his movements begins to tire and wear out Goldsmith, he actively intercedes into the isolation. Barry Le Va argues that the rise of installation art in the 1960's meant that "the stuff laying around the object ... grew more important that the object itself" (as quoted in Rugoff 71). As the hours of Fidget ticked by Goldsmith intercedes and introduces something "laying around the object" which began to grow "more important than the object itself": a fifth of Jack Daniels.
The narration of the factual in Fidget becomes increasingly idiosyncratic as Goldsmith becomes increasingly drunk. Later transcription of the original tapes exposed that his speech was becoming slurred and difficult to transcribe, although Goldsmith did not cease describing his actions. Investigation into the crime scene became less dependant on fact and increasingly dependant on clues, suspicions of what the actions may have been. Transcription begins to be based not on movement, but rather on an approximation of the sounds produced by Goldsmith while transcribing:
Greens projectile. On ah squint. Elen crows on tongue. With muriss. Kush jimmyhands. Cinder hung moistened, Soldiers stable. Midgets in palm. The latter affair. Lowerslime. Your pinch yearning. (Goldsmith 73)
The shift from exact transcription to approximation suggests a homolinguistic translation where the resultant text gives clues about both the originary speaking, but also to the act of transcription itself; a "latter affair" of Goldsmith's transcription.
The clue of action - the deposit of possibility - "may derive from the absence of a relevant object as well as from the presence of an irrelevant one" (William O'Green as quoted in Rugoff 90). Goldsmith's transcription begins to border on language-based writing, allowing a shift of priority from communication of fact to communication of suggestion. Certainly, crime scenes present us with "both a surplus and a dearth of meaning" (Wollen 25), a co-mingling of presence and absence and Fidget is no exception.
0 May 2006
In response to recent events in which Angela Rawlings has been publicly slagged, we the undersigned wish to vehemently express our love and respect and admiration, both personal and professional, for Angela and our opposition to personal attacks against members of our literary community.For all of us, the lexiconjury reading series and the lex list have been vital elements of our Toronto writing community. The labour, vision, connectivity, and generosity donated by Angela over the past many years have touched all of us personally and contributed greatly to our practice as individual writers.Angela, we love and respect you, your community-building impulse and pro-activism, and your brilliant, brave, truly inspired writing project. You inspire and teach us how to build positive community and to lead an integrated artistic life.Angela deserves our thanks and protection when some among us engage in misguided bitter shallow sarcastic and often sexist behaviour which seems aimed only at finding negative attention and inflicting cruelty.
We also wish to commend Jay Millar, who has found himself in a difficult position as publisher and blog host, for navigating what has been a confusing week.
We realize this letter may provoke general curiosity and concern from those in our community whose backs instantly go up at injustice. We would like to confirm that recent defamation against Angela by specific individuals in the experimental writing community is the tip of an iceberg that we've all observed melting down for some time, and that there have been other targets of abuse as well.This defamation has taken the following forms, among others: Colleague writers have mocked and/or attacked other writers maliciously and ongoingly in public spaces -- including at readings, and on blogs and websites; and, Colleague writers have colluded in the sexist parodying of the body and private person of female members of the literary community, including at a public reading and on blogs and websites.Let's ask that we all pay attention to how we treat each other, and if there are future occasions on which we see our colleagues being slagged, that we stand up to it and challenge it directly and openly and quickly. The lex list can be a space of discussion and social justice, which does not mean that we reduce our critical polylogue. Perhaps it means we take ourselves more seriously as writers and humans, read each other's artistic production and, instead of lampooning the generalized idea and quality of our artistic projects, we give it the substantive consideration it deserves.The below list of signatories is not intended to be exclusive. We believe and know that our concerns are shared by many others in the community. We welcome responses and further dialogue, and we invite you to post this Open Letter on your blog and website to publicly support Angela and others who have recently experienced harassment and to promote equity and collegiality in our community.
Signed,
Sandra Alland
Gary Barwin
derek beaulieu
Gregory Betts
Christian Bok
Brea Burton
Stephen Cain
Margaret Christakos
Jason Christie
T.L. Cowan
James Dangerous
Beverley Daurio
Carmen Derkson
Kate Eichorn
Chris Ewart
ryan fitzpatrick
Jay Gamble
Jocelyn Grosse
Nadia Halim
Sharon Harris
Jill Hartman
Kevin Hehir
Maggie Helwig
Neil Hennessy
Bill Kennedy
Jani Krulc
Sandy Lam
Camille Martin
Colin Martin
danielle maveal
Lynn McClory
Jordan Nail
Katherine Parrish
Andrea Ryer
Jordan Scott
Natalie Simpson
Natalie Zina Walschots
Alana Wilcox
Rachel Zolf
rob mclennan
Assistant Professor
640 Atkinson College
School of Arts and Letters
Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, ON
M3J 1P3
(416) 736-2100 x. 44017
sjcain@yorku.ca
EDUCATION
Ph.D. (1995-2002):
York University
Dissertation: "Imprinting Identities: An Examination of the Emergence and Developing Identities of Coach House Press and House of Anansi Press (1967-1982)"
Supervising Committee: Professors Ray Ellenwood, Steve McCaffery, & Len Early
External Examiner: Professor Douglas Barbour (U of Alberta)
M.A. (1994-5):
York University, English Literature
M.A. Research Paper: "'The Absolute Precision of Fluid Definition': bpNichol's Innovations and Deviations in the Novelistic Genre."
B.A. (Hon.) (1989-93): Queen's University, English Literature.
RECENT AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve for Literary Commentary (2004)
York English Teaching Assistant Award (2000)
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (1999-2000)
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (1996-97)
York University Admission Scholarship (1995-96)
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Co-author (with Tim Conley): Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages. New York: Greenwood. Publication Date: Spring 2006.
In Progress: Co-editor (with Steve McCaffery): The Zebras Progress: The Dick Higgins/ Steve McCaffery Correspondence (1976-1998). Toronto: Coach House.
Editions
"The Literary Serial in Canada, 1980-2000" Special Issue of Open Letter (11.6, 2002). 140 pages.
Chapters in Books (Refereed)
"Mapping Raymond Souster’s Toronto." The Canadian Modernists Meet. Ed. Dean Irvine. Ottawa: U of Ottawa P, 2005: 59-75.
"The Poetics of R. Murray Schafer." Sound as Sense: Contemporary US Poetry &/in Music. Eds. Michel Delville and Christine Pagnoulle. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2003: 155-173.
Forthcoming:
"Faber and Faber." In the Ezra Pound Encyclopedia. (Eds. Stephen J. Adams and Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos. New York: Greenwood Publishing).
"Kroetsch, Robert (1927-)", "Goldsmith, Kenneth (1961-)", and "Mac Cormack, Karen (1956-)" in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry. (Eds. Jeffrey Grey, et al. New York: Greenwood Publishing).
Refereed Articles
"Tracing the Web: House of Anansi's Spiderline Editions." Studies in Canadian Literature 25.1 (2000): 111-130.
Submitted Articles
"Introduction: Filthy Lucre or Subversive Community." Open Letter 11.6 (2002): 5-23.
"Play's the Thing: The Visual Poetry of Robert Zend." Open Letter 10.6 (1999): 50-61.>/P>
"Questions for Peter and Scott." Open Letter 10.5 (1999): 90-94.
Commentary/ Notes:
"Introduction." Pencil of Rays and Spike Mace: The Selected Poems of Niels Lyngso. Trans. from Danish by Gregory Pardlo. Toronto: BookThug, 2004.
"Introduction." Groundswell: The Best of above/ground Press (1993-2003). Fredericton: Broken Jaw, 2003: 7-9.
"Fragment of a Letter to Jay. RE: Academic Poetry." endNOTE 2 (2000): 15-17
Reviews:
Rev. of Karen Mac Cormack’s Implexures. In 1913: A Journal of Forms (U.S.) 1.1 (2004): 140-1.
Rev. of bill bissett’s Peter Among th Towring Boxes/ text bites. In paperplates 5.3 (2003): 36-37.
Rev. of Stan Rogal's Geometry of the Odd; Stuart Ross' Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid; and John Barlow's ASHINEoVSUN. In filling station 21 (2001): 67-71.
Rev. of Mary Cameron's Clouds Without Heaven. In Quarry 46.2 (2001): 47-48.
Rev. of R.M. Vaughan's Invisible to Predators. In Quarry 46.1 (2000): 61-62.
Rev. of Lisa Robertson's XEcologue. In paperplates 4.2 (2000): 33-34.
Rev. of James Wallen's Her Smoke Rose Up. In Paragraph 20.2/3 (1998/99): 57-8.
Rev. of Cliff Burns' The Reality Machine. In Paragraph 20.1 (1998): 30-31.
Interviews:
Interview with Karen Mac Cormack. Queen Street Quarterly 3.4 (2000): 53-61.
Interview with Frank Davey. Queen Street Quarterly 3.2 (1999): 40-46 & 3.3 (1999): 57- 63.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
"Modes of the Micropress." Poetics and Public Culture in Canada: A Conference in Honour of Frank Davey. University of Western Ontario, 2005 (refereed).
"Mapping Souster’s Toronto." The Canadian Modernists Meet. University of Ottawa, May 9-11, 2003 (refereed).
"The Poetics of R. Murray Schafer." Poetry and Music. University of Liege, Belgium. April 1-4, 2001 (refereed).
"Two in T.O.: The Canadian Publications of Allen Ginsberg and Charles Wright." The Opening of the Field: A Conference on North American Poetry in the 1960s. The National Poetry Foundation. University of Maine (Orono, ME). June 28-July 2, 2000 (refereed).
"Beyond Labels: The Visual Poetry of Robert Zend from Dittos and Drops to Oab." Eye-Rhymes: A Multidisciplinary International Conference on Visual Poetry. University of Alberta, June 12-16, 1997 (invited).
"Genre-Bending: bpNichol and the Haiku Novel." LEXIS Conference. University of Montreal. March 14, 1996 (refereed).
:Sound Poetry and the Possibilities of Adamic Language for Universal Expression (1913-1932)." EGSA Colloquium, York University. Feb. 17, 1995 (refereed).
MEDIA
CBC Radio One Interview: Interviewed on "Here and Now" regarding Toronto literary figures and the Annex area. Broadcast June 30, 2005.
TEACHING
Assistant Professor (Wilfrid Laurier University at Brantford)
2005:
EN119: Reading Fiction
EN267: Canadian Fiction
EN119: Reading Fiction (Spring Session)
Contract Professor (Wilfrid Laurier University)
2004-present:
EN324: Canadian Women’s Writing
CA101: Introduction to Canadian Studies (with C. Verduyn)
2003-04:
EN267B: Canadian Fiction
EN267: Canadian Fiction (Brantford Campus)
CA101B: Introduction to Canadian Studies (with Prof. C. Verduyn)
2003:
EN267A: Canadian Fiction
EN200: The Experience of Poetry
CA101: Introduction to Canadian Studies (with Prof. C. Verduyn)
Professor (Seneca College)
2003: EAC 150: College English
2003: CAN 118: Introduction to Canadian Studies
2002-03: EAC 149: Developmental English (2 courses)
2001-02: CAN 149: Current Issues in Canada (2 courses)
Teaching Assistant (Wilfrid Laurier University)
2002-03: CA 100: Canadian Society and Culture (4 tutorials)
Guest Lecturer on: Canadian Music
Teaching Assistant (York University)
2001-02
EN 1200: Introduction to Literary Genres (Prof. L. Higgins)
2000-01 EN 2130: Introduction to Poetics (Prof. S. McCaffery)
Guest Lecturer on: Wordsworth; Horace; Olson
1999-00 EN 2130: Introduction to Poetics (Prof. S. McCaffery)
Guest Lecturer on: Imagism; Poetics of Constraint
1998-99: EN 2110: Introduction to Poetry (Prof. H. Campbell)
Guest Lecturer on: Pattern and Visual Poetry
1997-98: EN 2450: Canadian Literature (Prof. E. Hopkins)
Guest Lecturer on: Intertextuality and Michael Ondaatje
1996-97: EN 2450: Canadian Literature (Prof. D. Latham)
Guest Lecturer on: Earle Birney and bpNichol
1995-96: EN 2480: Satire (Prof. D. Ewen)
Guest Lecturer on: Thematics in Peter Carey
SERVICE
2005: Designed and guided a literary walking tour of the Annex area of Toronto (July 1, 2005).
2003: Peer Reviewer: Journal of Canadian Studies.
2003: Curator: “Eye Scream: A Night of Visual Poetry.” The Virus Gallery and Objectorium (624 Richmond St. W., Toronto) July 13, 2003.
2000: Graduate Student Representative on Hiring Committee (Poetry Hiring).
1998: Graduate Student Representative on English Department Curriculum Committee.
1997: Co-coordinator of LEXIS (Graduate Student Exchange Program).
1996: Co-coordinator of LEXIS (Graduate Student Exchange Program).
1995: English Department Representative on Graduate Student Association Council.
ORGANIZATIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English
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well, my favourite part was angela's group sound performance: it was tight, beautiful, thoughtful, and absolutely astonishing. one of the finest performances i've seen of anything in a long while. it brought an already lively text to life.
my second favourite part was when bill invited the entire audience to Whelan's! also astonishing.
and the moon!!
i do think people write better on snail, more real and complete,
and, oddly enough, as there's no doubt as individuals there's
alienation aplenty in our makeups, nonetheless, less
alienated, write less alienatedly, do we do
magician that she is, rose really hit it on the nail
this one a a few times.
ive been mixing ginger beer and kilkenny it's positive effect.
fresh.
and listening to beatles, and catching up.
i thought of harold's admonition against newspapers
as i addictedly ground out the tiny grey beads from
newspapers through the day,
i love the newspapers and the knowledge
of details and likelihoods and so on,
but agreed with much of the rest,
and kevin thurston's had a cattle rustlin day as well
but the migraine of poetry issues and jockeying
if it were a job one would quit!
give me variety or give me death!
i prefer snail and cannot waste my evening
on that other stuff. just a glance at the inbox and hope they mean
well.
mailsnail is less alienated, hurrah!
vive la difference!!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!
Preserve the difference.
by the way rob, i've not (accessed? loaded? found? seen?) the
heiroglyphs thing
Oh wow what a wonderful concept – ‘love between the poets.’ I hadn’t
> even thought of it. You mean hanging out together, wanting to be
around
> each other, maybe even supporting each others poetry and their
working
> towards their poems? That sort of love? Kingston is a strange sort of
> town. Really only about 150,000. The nine federal prisons cast a long
> shadow but those with gold fixtures on their bidets, who own the town
> and seem to feel they could order you to leave it whenever they
choose,
> weigh heaviest on the mind. It is NOT warm due to the suspicion, I
> think. Judith Thompson wrote Crackwalker here and it fits. There is
a
> lot of jockeying careerism amongst writers There is also a provincial
> mental hospital. So there is a lot of suspicion around that you might
be
> here because your nearest & dearest are incarcerated which therefore
> must mean that you hang around on welfare, burgling & smoking crack
till
> they get out, or that you are a recent release from the pysc
hospital.
> Then there’s the army base who suspects us all of being civilians who
> hate them and THEN there are the two universities, Queens & RMC, only
> one of which holds poetry readings, (very badly). Most of the poets
work
> at the library or the goat, our worker-owned café. The goat poets do
> indeed hang out together and provide real support. They are also very
> young and extremely poor, another plus. There aren’t very many of
them.
> The ones who own the readings are tenured. There are others hidden in
> glass jars in suburbia. The remainder are usually found with ten foot
> poles in their pockets, so as not to rub up against another poet
> accidentally. When I want a poet, I go down to the library and dig
one
> out. They can be resistant, deep rooted but with perseverance you can
> dislodge one long enough to have a discussion. Last time I looked at
the
> poetry section by the way, it was half a shelf. HALF A SHELF. In a
> building more than half a block long. I DO understand about feeling
> timid about going to readings but I haven’t been for the last several
> years since I began to understand the politics of local poetry. Now I
> think just being there stirs them up. We usually only have readings
if
> someone has published a book, almost always at least a twenty buck
book.
> One of my friends, a suburban poet who has published 7 books, has
begun
> a series of downtown readings just to see how things might be
different.
> 8 people came last Thursday night. 6 of them read. She limited it to
one
> poem each. She has a lot of courage. Afterwards the tenured professor
> who owns all of the readings in town,(i.e. you must consult with her
> before you dast put one on and if she can’t come, you cancel) the
> professor held court in the center of the room with the favoured
sitting
> about her, backs to the rest of us as we left. But probably someone
> always has to own the readings or they don’t happen. If it wasn’t
her,
> it would’ve been my friend, probably, who is more democractic. But it
> was chilly, after the reading, and I wish people had gotten up and
> smiled and even faked it. I wish the professor had especially. But
she
> doesn’t.. Don’t mean to paint such a bleak picture. It is okay with
me
> if someone owns the readings as long as they are good for poetry,
> letting in newbies, being kind, trying to include rather than keep
out,
> sitting firmly on the mean girls who don’t seem to have finished
> highschool, even after all these years… If you came down here to one
of
> our readings, even if I didn’t know it was you, I’d smile and tell
you a
> blonde joke and read something from one of the snail poets in Toronto
> about how things go there and it wouldn’t matter that the professor
> never has room to schedule anyone who isn’t one of her posse. Rose
>
Fabulous tonight. Tired and exhausted now and gearing up for a drive in just a few hours, but so pleased with the evening that I wanted to post something. Actually, I was kind of tired all evening, not really in a particularly chatty or social mood -- happy to sit back with a glass of wine with my friend Guillaume. Happier still when the rain stopped and a giant moon rose up over us.
Some stellar readings: Kevin Connelly was excellent and sharp, Darren O'Donnell told his lovely story of lullabies and the streetcar, Afua Cooper sang some songs of Africa, Erin Moure evoked the presence of the entire world, and Ryan Knighton made it real. The highlight was a.rawlings in her triumvirate of lepidopterists. I know we've had this discussion before, but the subtly choreographed, precisely conceived sound poetry seems to me a real step forward from the affectionately dubbed (at least I presume the affection) "howling hippies." Sprightly and sonorous the blustered wings wheezed and roamed and whiffled through the tulgey wood. Like O'Donnell's set, some of this material has been seen onstage before -- but not this tightly and exuberantly delivered. The new sections weren't divided from the old, but shifted the tenor and tone -- less harsh and mathematical than, say, the click shifts in the Ursonate, but clearly delineated movements still.
Bill seemed exhausted saying goodnight, waving his galvanized invitation to all to the bar with the thrill of respite. Congrats to all those who organized on a great festival, and thanks to all those who read.
When the small presses get together, amazing things can happen. And sometimes … odd things. The collective forces of Coach House Books, ECW Press, and Mercury Press result have resulted in a perfect pre-High Park evening, called The Small Press Dating Game. Making one’s trade by the pen, it’s easy to become isolated, so this evening will give a few choice writers the chance to talk to each other about writing—style, theory, and tactics for overcoming that dreaded syndrome, writer’s block. Who will choose whom for the perfect literary date? Join host Nathaniel G. Moore, sitting in for Jim Lange, as he asks the tough questions.
Artists/ Performers:
* Bill Kennedy (ECW)
* James Grainger (ECW)
* Michael Knox (ECW)
* Judy Macdonald (Mercury)
* Mark Truscott (Mercury/CH)
* Gary Barwin (Mercury)
* Jon Paul Fiorentino (CH)
* Karen Hines (CH)
* Chris Eaton (Insomniac)
* Dani Couture (Pedlar)
Hosted by Nathaniel G. Moore (Conundrum Press)
Feelin' glitchy. I'm writing this post on an iMac classic.
There are some amazing things coming up:
Please join McNally-Robinson & Talonbooks as we celebrate the launch of
Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry
Edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch
Saturday, OCT 22 6:00pm
McNally-Robinson Booksellers
120 8th Ave SW
Calgary
featuring readings by Calgarian poets:
derek beaulieu
Louis Cabri
Jason Christie
ryan fitzpatrick
Jill Hartman
Natalie Simpson
and hosted by editor Jon Paul Fiorentino.
(These poets are amazing and I am honoured to present them!)
Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry, edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch, will be launching at the Wild Words Conference at the University of Calgary on Sunday, October 23 at 9:00 am.
Contributors derek beaulieu, Louis Cabri, Jason Christie, ryan
fitzpatrick, Jill Hartman, Nicole Markotic, Suzette Mayr and Natalie
Simpson will be reading.
(I've never been awake at 9:00 am before so this should be interesting.)
Then there's the
Coach House Book Fall Launch
Montreal Edition
starring
Adrian Michael Kelly
Howard Akler
Brian Joseph Davis
Sherwin Tjia
Jon Paul Fiorentino
with special guests
Larissa Andrusyshyn
Wanda O' Connor
Anastasia Jones
Ian Goodman
and music by the electric ant
live at the green room - 5390 st - Laurent
8 pm - sunday october 30
(This will be a very special night. Scandalous things will happen. careers will be ruined; careers will be made; everything will be inappropriate!)
Recently, Ottawa writer Melanie Little wrote a neat little piece about the Poetics.ca website that Stephen Brockwell and I edit (www.poetics.ca), for a local newspaper, The Centretown Buzz (www.centretown.net). Absolutely lovely, Melanie published her first collection of stories last year with Thomas Allan, the highly-praised Confidence (http://www.thomas-allen.com/ThomasAllenPublishers/catalogue/0-88762-119-8R.htm) that everyone in the world should read, or at least own (it helps increase her royalties).
As she writes in the online version, "Some pieces focus on the work of other poets, like Jon Paul Fiorentino’s provocative essay on the work of George Elliott Clarke in Issue No. 2 (June 2003), or are more general, like Peter van Toorn’s brilliant meditation on the sonnet, "A Goose in the Caboose," in No. 3 (Fall 2003). There’s also a healthy handful of interviews, more like full-fledged conversations than the clippy, predictable Q&As favoured by most publications. There is an obvious desire here to encourage actual exchange between and among writers in lieu of plain old pontification. Writers can get on their soapboxes if they want to, but they have to share the park.
You’d think, given the quality of the result, poets and writers would be banging on Poetics.ca’s virtual doors to join its ranks, but, according to Steven Brockwell, not so. "It’s like pulling teeth," he says. Though the journal has already attracted a multitude of readers from around the world, contributors are harder to come by. He and mclennan speculate that part of the problem might be a dearth of contemporary models. Writers just don’t seem to know how to talk about their work anymore, at least not intelligently or usefully."
Unfortunately, we in Ottawa lose Melanie and her husband, the writer Peter Norman, for at least a year to Calgary, where she is the writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary starting fall 2005. They also recently edited the third issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club, our own little writers group magazine. To order a copy ($5 CDN, or outside, $5 US), send me an email (rob@track0.com). To read her article in full, go to http://www.centretown.net/news/detail.php?story_id=274&cat=Arts%20and%20Recreation
Another nice moment was by Nathaniel G. Moore, gadabout, now living in Toronto (he was previously in Montreal and New York), who wrote this in the most recent issue of Broken Pencil (www.brokenpencil.com) about the anthology Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press) (http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg82.htm):
"If you only buy one Canadian poetry anthology culled from broadsides andchapbooks, created by the most dangerous (in a good way) and hardest workingpoet in Canada, let it be Groundswell. An eclectic buffet of Canadian poetry with too many stars to list, Groundswell also includes a lengthy bibliography that fascinates, plus a superlative introduction by Stephen Cain."
Nathaniel G. Moore, Broken Pencil, issue 26 (Nov 2004)
Superlative? Hmmmm. Anyway, everyone is waiting for Moore to have a first book published, whether poetry or fiction, both of which he is trying to find homes for, including his novel on the poet Catallus (strange). But enough about me, what are you doing?
// posted by rob mclennan @ 3:37 PM
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
McLennan, Alberta
I’ve been working over ten years on a genealogy of McLennan, MacLennan and MacLellan lines throughout Stormont and Glengarry counties, eastern Ontario (Canada). I’ve been working toward point of arrival from Scotland (even if that might take me to, say, New York State or northern Ontario or Quebec first). I’ve found a number of really interesting directions, which force me to do further research in Montreal (the McLennan library at McGill is named for a feller from Glengarry county), Boston (where his family eventually moved), California, Vancouver and plenty of other places.
A few months ago, I found these references to the origins of McLennan, Alberta, a little spot on the map invented for the sake of the rail line. The book The Story Behind Alberta Names, How Cities, Towns, Villages and Hamlets Got their Names by Harry M. Sanders (2003, Red Deer Press) writes:
Town on Highway 2, approximately 135 kilometres northeast of Grande Prairie
... The town was named for Dr. John K. McLennan, an executive (and future vice-president) of this railway.
In 1915, as its rails approached the Peace River country, the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway (EC&BC) reached the shore of Round Lake (now Lake Kimiwan). Bypassing the existing settlements of Grouard and Round Lake, the ED&BC established the new divisional point of McLennan. Round Lake residents quickly packed up and resettled in McLennan. Despite its Scottish name, many of McLennan’s residents were French Canadian. The townsite was named for Dr. John K. McLennan, the railway company’s secretary-treasurer, purchasing agent and future vice-president. After earning a medical degree in Winnipeg, McLennan moved to California where he practiced until J.D. McArthur recruited him for the administration of the EC&BC. When the Canadian Pacific Railway took over the line in 1920, McLennan and his family returned to California. McLennan was incorporated as a village in 1944 and as a town in 1948.
(p 211-212)
Another reference I found in the book Back Roads of Northern Alberta by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey (1992, Lone Pine Publishing), that writes:
Continue west on Highway #679 to Highway #49 then turn north to McLennan, home of Hollandia Bakery, the largest, privately owned bakery in northern Alberta. Besides supplying baked goods in Alberta, they also cover the North West Territories and the Yukon. Tours can be arranged by phoning 342-3582.
Kimiwan Lake is the intersection of three major bird flyways: the Mississippi, Pacific, and Central. 27,000 shorebirds rest here on their yearly migrations. Many beautiful waterfowl nest on its shores and the lake is a protected wildlife breeding area. Visit the interpretive centre or wander along the boardwalk and see how many species you can recognize of the more than 200 that frequent the area. Especially watch for snowy owls, bald eagles, and whistling swans. Kimiwan is shallow, but has good fishing for perch, walleye, and pike.
The Cost of Ingenuity
McLennan owes its existence to the "ingenuity" of an Edmonton, Dunvegan, and British Columbia (ED&BC) Railway employee, Hughie Hunter. the railroad was searching for a source of pure water for their steam locomotives and Hunter was sent from Grouard to Winagami Lake and Round Lake (Lake Kimiwan) to collect water for testing in Edmonton. When he arrived back at Lesser Slave Lake, the water container was empty and rather than retrace his steps for another sample, he dipped the vessel into these waters. The water received high marks from the chemist in Edmonton. Thanks to his resourcefulness, the railway spent years hauling water from Lesser Slave Lake to McLennan, because the actual water from Winagami and Round Lakes ultimately proved unsuitable.
(p 67)
What I’m interested in is, who is this doctor fella, Dr. John K. McLennan, and where did he not only come from, but where did he go? So far, I’ve not been able to find anything.
// posted by rob mclennan @ 3:52 PM
Monday, November 15, 2004
-- blatant advertisements --
above/ground press chapbook subscriptions -
starting January 1st, $30 percalendar year for STANZAS, chapbooks, asides + broadsheets. (in Canada,$30 Can, outside, $30 US)
Current & forthcoming publications by Julia Williams (Calgary), rob mclennan (Ottawa), donato mancini (Vancouver), Andy Weaver (Edmonton), Barry McKinnon (Prince George), Michael Holmes (Toronto), Jan Allen (Kingston),Rachel Zolf (Toronto), Matthew Holmes (Sackville), Jason Dewinetz (Victoria),William Hawkins (Ottawa), Lori Emerson (Buffalo), Gregory Betts (Hamilton), Karen Clavelle (Winnipeg), Alessandro Porco (Montreal), Stan Rogal (Toronto), derek beaulieu (Calgary), Max Middle (Ottawa), Peter Norman (Ottawa), Anita Dolman (Ottawa), Patrick Lane (Victoria), George Bowering (Vancouver) + others.
send all your money
payable to rob mclennan,c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7
for more information on above/ground press & STANZAS magazine (for longpoems/sequences) (since 1993)
check out www.track0.com/rob_mclennan
for information on my own most recent titles, check out my own website or (for what's left) www.talonbooks.com, or (for stone, book one) www.palimpsestpress.ca
// posted by rob mclennan @ 1:48 PM
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
the duke of somerset
an elegy
edward seymour, the duke of somerset,
for a secret marriage
over edward vi
the corner of bank,
where the banks were
the duke of somerset pub,
sixty-eight years
in the same family
not a tavern licence new in this city
for decades
now one less more
where less
is exactly that
where will our old men go,
to smoke treason
of cigarettes
or warden
the scottish marches
one more disappointment
headless
at tower hill
http://www.dukeofsomerset.com/TheDuke.htm
// posted by rob mclennan @ 4:04 PM
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Eckhart Cars, Peter Jaegar
2004, Salt Publishing, 132 pages
isbn 1-844710-37-8, $15.95 US
http://www.saltpublishing.com/
Anyone
can place their eyes
against the pieces
p 1, Eckhart Cars
The most recent collection by Canadian poet Peter Jaegar, now living and teaching in London, England, is Eckhart Cars, after the collections Sub-Twang Mustard (poetry, chapbook, housepress, Calgary, 2000), ABC of Reading TRG [on the Toronto Research Group] (criticism, Talonbooks, Vancouver, 1999) and Power Lawn (poetry, Coach House Books, 1999).
A diverse collection of pieces under the banner of Eckhart Cars, the collection is filled with jagged lyric: "all ear / but never long without the heart / all her twinkling stars." (p 87, A Black Tooth In Front). The strongest section has to be the first, the multi-part title poem, as he writes:
Faced with a careful selection
of chemical stews, commonly found
plastered to walls or pouring
over heaths, dunes, and stony places,
we should buck up, for perfection
equals normalcy, and we assume
a human power to exceed
the less heroic traits most valued
in our culture...
p 2, Eckhart Cars
Each section, each piece follows its own constructional path and stretch, from the fugue of couplets that make up "Sitting" (p 67-71), the back and forth of lyric and choice in "Bibliodoppler" (p 72-77), to the ongoing length of the final piece, "A Black Tooth In Front" (p 87-129). The second piece, "Pollen," reads like a series of slogans or maxims, writing "As long as we stay with specifics we can only accumulate" (p 3) or "All theory constantly aspires toward the condition of example." (p 14). The piece "Buoyant" wipes all across the page, reading as a scatter: "ballast spreads // in tunes / waves // in the diner takes // a bath birth // twists // the water breaks –" (p 61).
Or, as in the jagged breaks of the poem "Midwest" (p 22-8), the text reads as a string of electrical starts, and breaks that read as both ends and expectations, taking the next instead to a different place, the poem existing there within the collisions:
strings of animal families
are at last. Slaking a penny
on my banking, as the
clanly faces seed
asleep–I grow
a back-up blameless: I
bark, the place a
bleached-out driver
p 23, Midwest
It’s as though the words are building up the text and at the same time destroying it.
the author of a dream, awake
to basic pretence–
p 33, A Book I Am Dreaming
The collection reads as though Jaegar worked through as many "baffles" as he could find (as Bowering has called individual constraints) and collected them into a book. Even on the back cover, the book describs itself as "not unlike a collage which samples and modifies other pieces of writing." And with Jaegar’s background, working on the Toronto Research Group (made up of bpNichol and Steve McCaffery), as well as both references in the book and on the back cover, he certainly knows his way around various kinds of non-linear writings (anyone who reads the collection can find plenty of references and games in the material), managing to take that ball and go so much further. I mean, should we be reading John Newlove into "So They Say" or bpNichol into the prose piece "Martyrologies," that begins:
He admitted that this was so, and after a short imprisonment he
was beheaded. He was broken limb by limb. She was burned to
death on an islet in the river. Whereupon they were buried alive.
But eventually she died from her sufferings. For the insubordina-
tion they were twice decimated. She was executed by being stabbed
in the throat (a common Roman form of execution). He was
himself arrested and put to death amongst supernatural happen-
ings. In a drunken fury they set on him, pelting him with bones,
and although one of them tried to save him, he was killed by a
blow on the head with an axe.
– p 52, Martyrologies
With the small size of his previous trade collection, Power Lawn, I’ve heard suggestions that Eckhart Cars is Jaegar’s first full-length poetry collection. Either way, Coach House Books should certainly put Power Lawn back in print; or someone should. Eckhart Cars is an impressive collection of pieces by a writer who knows the difference between reference and repetition, and knows how to write it close to the bone. It’s only unfortunate that, as a Canadian writer, Salt Publishing doesn’t have Canadian distribution (they distribute, I believe, in the US, UK and Australia). It would be good for more Canadians to be able to read one of their own.
What I like best is the smell. I don’t know what kinds of ink you folk use over there in England, but I could spend my whole day smelling this. Do you remember that part of Fast Times at Ridgemont High where the whole class smelled the gestetner copies?
// posted by rob mclennan @ 4:01 PM
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
ongoing notes, November 2004
Buffalo NY: During a reading I did recently in Buffalo, I was given a small chapbook by SUNY Buffalo student Jessica Smith, a collection of six short pieces published in early summer, 2004, titled blueberries. As she writes at the back of the collection, blueberries was published as "an invitation to my work. These poems are an experiment to record the vast and shifting visual architecture of memory in the space of very small pages. The spatiality of memory is further explored on larger sites in my recently completed manuscript, Organic Furniture Cellar: Works on Paper 2002-2004."
The poems in blueberries work from associations and disassocations, with patches of words, phrases and parts of words scattered across each page. Part of the point of each piece is working through the difficulties of following the lines, working through "e / b / dewy patches / grow blue" (p 2, Wolf Lake), as well as working through multiple kinds of readings of each piece, depending on which thread the eye decides to follow.
As she writes, "These blueberries are for tasting, not for selling. Please share them with your friends." These blueberries never hold to the same flavour, and the brief taste certainly makes me crave another helping. I would like to have some more.
Information on how to get a copy, or for anything else about Jessica Smith, contact 547 Franklin St., #1, Buffalo NY 14202 or email her at jss13@buffalo.edu
Mount Pleasant / Paris ON: Any new publication by Paris, Ontario resident Nelson Ball is an event, and the chapbook WITH HELD is no exception. Published in an edition of fifty copies by Kemeny Babineau’s relatively new chapbook press, Laurel Reed Books. As the acknowledgments tell us at the back of the small chapbook, "The title of this collection is in part a reference to their history as they were withheld from the following books: With Issa, Bird Tracks on Hard Snow, Concrete Air, Almost Spring, At the Edge of the Frog Pond."
CAUTION
Spoken
words
cling
to
walls
in
rooms
we
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Test new space
test1234567
posted by Aviv Greenberg @ 4:44 PM 0 comments
Sunday, May 21, 2006
test123
test123
posted by Aviv Greenberg @ 1:31 PM 0 comm
====================================
ross,
why don't you cease being a foolish fibbertigibbet and remove this extravagant garbage from off the internet? as far as "moths" go, you were never invited aboard -- sorry you got the boot, but you WERE being an asshole. furthermore, i am not "2nd in command" as you so gleefully (yet inaccurately) put it. ALL of this infantile psychodrama was tired and rank 90 days ago, now it just incites venom; and really, honestly, i'm trying very hard not to bite...
.//.
====================================
====================================
re: do you want to fuck with me ?
"hah, gus, you dumb fuck!"
that's nice ross. always a pleasure. (that must've been then though cos this is certainly now...)
"i got enuf shit on you to keep you dodging mud for the rest of your days! so don't fuck with me!"
i find this entirely curious: what, may i ask, is it that you think you have on me that would be so ruinous to my already tarnished reputation? seems to me i'm already fairly untouchable as far as insights into my character flaws and thaws could or would go. also seems to me i've only ever been nothing short of generous (to an obvious fault) with the multitude of items i've sent you over the past 7 years. lots of original art, writing, letters, publications, et cetera. one hand indeed washes the other. so instead of threatening me with this dour mudslinging, why don't you show your cards? let's see what it is you think you have. i'm not ashamed of ANYTHING i've done over the course of my life, you might note. NOT ONE THING. since i have nothing, i have nothing to hide. all i've ever been and all i ever will be is an artist. and in some parts of the world far more enlightened than ours, this is actually a noble profession and not just a hobbyhorse for people who delight in whipping rocks at the dogs who would elect to thanklessly dog it for our very thin and unaccommodating culture...
"okay, let me say straight out: i'm fucking pissed! (as in drunk)! as i will be every friday at this time till the day i die! (& the sooner the better!)"
i'm sorry you're so obviously unhappy. but i'm not sure what your unhappiness has to do with me?
"so, if you want some kung fu: bring it on!"
perhaps in your overarching and misguided zeal to smear, you have, along the way, failed to detect the part in these various discussions where i went on at length about not wanting to hurt anyone? that said, what if i told you this was so because i felt pretty confident that i could take your head clean off your shoulders with a sneeze, but wished not to engage in such unpleasant conducts altogether unbecoming of a gentleman. yes, a gentleman, no matter how tormented i may be, no matter what this torment might do to me, a gentleman will i be through it all. you stupid fuck!
"no, but, seriously pal, what's this bullshit i hear from barlow (the blabbermouth that started it all): i'm separated from my wife? and living in a different house? what?! tell me more!"
i don't know ross. what's going on?
"hah, no, but, as to the whole "fhoole" thing: there's hardly nothing there except what daniel put there! i.e. 20 comments! (minus a few! which i was too much of a prude to leave)) hah, plus, he seemed to quite like my collage, even linked to it from his own blog!"
ok. so you and daniel have worked all your differences out ? (what about your own disavowal of erased tracks? here you admit to censoring...)
this is the part i take particular exception to, and i'm offended because these awesome people are among the very rarified few who persist in championing my efforts -- not unlike yourself from not too long ago. daniel, rob, frances, leeshia, kevin and jay, with jay seemingly sitting on the fence, tired of these muckamucks. i've never been big on audience, but i'm wary of talking too loudly to myself also... so in my books, the folk you slight are my people, whatever their real or imaginary faults.
you say:
"by a strange coincidence i found myself a member of the [moths] group, which is sort of [thebile] reconstituted"
no its not. you're wrong. different list altogether.
"it's sort of the last 7 people who can stomache what's his face..."
wrong again: moths isn't about daniel any more than mailsnail was about you.
"anyway, it took me almost a whole weekend to get my self "voted off the island" "
the question here is "what exactly were you doing on that island"? you were a stowaway, and you made it your business to dredge up a whole lot of ill-feeling in a very short time about a topic everyone but you had exhausted months before. and rather than foolishly suffer your gratuitous provocations, you were cast out as undesirable by the moderator.
"but i thought y'all might be interested in who's still in that sad game"
this is in incredibly poor taste. an email listserve is a sad game? you may be right, but wouldn't that apply just as equally to lexiconjury and mailsnail as it would bile or moths -- or any other human forum where somewhat sentient beings might commune as a way of collectively insulating themselves against the frost of our cold cold planet?
"so here's the run-down: 1) (second in command) gustave morin"
moths is an ongoing dialogue, not a military campaign. and i'm here afforded far more importance than has ever been bestowed upon me for simply sharing my thoughts with the not disinterested.
"2) (once bitten, twice dumb) rob read"
rob read is one of the most overlooked young writers in this country, and i assure you he's anything but dumb.
"3) (too far away to know what's going on #1) frances kruk"
again, another really bright light you have no right to attempt to snuff. this is so frighteningly stupid. how is frances any further away by being in england than you are in medicine hat? too far away from what, pray tell? the town hall in medicine hat, where it all goes down? well i've been there and it ain't the centre, ross. sorry to be the one to have to break it to you. (and is that not what email most essays: the utter lack of a centre?) what is it you are trying to say?
"4) (too far away to know what's going on #2) leeshia barwick"
again, how do you happen to think you're more in the know in medicine hat than leeshia might be in japan? leeshia is a complex and mysterious figure on this 'scene'. very quiet on the narrow margin she occupies -- i don't yet know what she's on about, though recently we've started to talk and i like her. (am told she could take your head off in a blink too.)
"5) (racist, homophobic, sexist white trash has to stick together) kevin thurston (from america, no less!)"
doesn't it take one to know one, ross? this boggles the mind. i know of few terms more racist than the term 'white trash', not to speak to the breed of intolerance couched in liberalism (preaching an idiotically politically unsound canadian anti-americanism), which is what you here are barking. angela rawings and mark truscott are both american. i must wonder what you think of them? really, apart from their current government, what's wrong with the average american citizen? don't they want for their children the same you would for yours? you should travel more. as to homosexuality and or women's issues, these are topics we do engage in on the moths, sometimes irreverently (and sometimes enough to make anyone cringe -- yet, the topic's the thing, and at least we're talking about these issues and not just thinking them privately like everyone else on the planet) but more often i think these items surface in pure discussions, ie. recently 'gays in the arts', etc. kevin t. is another of those who i think has a lot to contribute. full of ideas, opinions, insights, jokes and keen to lust after the real life, etcetera. not unlike the rest of us on the list...
"6) (i got a press, but i don't know what the fuck to do with it) jay millAr"
gee, no wonder jay has distanced himself from this babygrand quagmire of infantilism.
"7) some guy from the uk who don't know what he fell into"
good enough to slight but not good enough to be bothered to learn the name thereof ? (furthermore, he's a fly on the wall that hasn't said a peep. you might learn his name too, he's a writer you just might enjoy?)
"7.5 (i've tolerated that motherfucker for long enough!) yours truly"
sorry ross, you were never a moth. you have to be invited aboard first if you want to be kicked off. otherwise you're just a sneakthief in flagrante delicto...
"speech act therapy, inc."
betts that felt good, eh?
"as to deleting it all: i'm more of a builder than a destroyer (haha) so unless you can convince me what is built is unsound: let 'er stand!"
careful, lots of things that are sound are also incredibly stupid and or irrelevant. -- that's the risk all architects run whether they realize it or not. (most don't -- look to our cities for these clues!)
"watched deeper matter's "WATER" tonight: you think you got troubles! BOO!"
o don't worry. i've got troubles aplenty. what i find gross and unnecessary is when my so called friends contribute to my troubles as a means of showboating their drunken kicks. i don't really feel up to giving you the satisfaction of knowing that your outburst felt like an excessive betrayal, but it came pretty close. its too bad.
and anyway, mr. cultural senstivity, the director's name is Deepa Mehta.
==
re: why am i being such an asshole?
"i don't know, but it might have something to do with the fact that i actually finally broke down and got a fucking job!"
well, you've got kids getting older, and universities are only very interested in your cold hard cash, not your child's education. so that makes sense.
"i've been working since mid-june as a "Mosquito Monitoring Technician" which means i have the privelege of driving around in the baking heat in a non-air conditioned car & running up and down hills to "dip my dipper" into every grubby ditch in the whole town & five miles around!"
that sounds alright. you're at least using your biology backround?
"not much of an excuse i guess, but my temper has gone to shit & i seem to be taking it out on the internet crowd, too bad..."
well, since i don't own a computer, count me out of the 'internet crowd' you would use for a whipping post. how about that?
"anyway, if you want to tell what in particular is bothering you, i'll see what i can do about "erasing" it"
see above.
"(though i do think dfb's continual erasing of tracks (and other people's cooperation in same) is part of the problem, not part of the solution)"
i'm all for the proper management and disposal of the disposable. that we happen to live in a culture where misinformation is allowed to fester, lies to go unchecked and the waste that ignorance breeds lionized as the opposite of garbage is a telling testament to precisely why i'm so out of step with the tenor of our times. i'm on the other side. it may be colder over here, but it sure is better to be cold in your own igloo than it is to be warmed by another's toy hell.
see ya later aligator, see ya in a while crocodile.
.//.
====================================
whose not a drunk?
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