some trees & c. from the wonderful Golden Age Paintings--

"Risks, threats and dangers dominate Stephen Harper's campaign rhetoric. His Canada is a country whose citizens worry about teenage killers; oil-hungry foreigners prowling their Arctic waters; terrorists lurking in their cities; and economic shock waves rolling toward them.

There is a grain of truth in these images. Canadians are bracing for a recession. A Russian mini-submarine did launch a mission to claim the North Pole this summer. The rate of violent youth crime went up slightly in 2006. And no country is immune to terrorism.

But there is also a great deal of exaggeration.

Very few Canadians will ever come in contact with a homicidal minor; 85 young people were accused of murder in 2006 (the latest year for which statistics are available). Homicide constitutes 0.05 per cent of youth crime. Overall youth crime has been declining steadily for two decades.

Most of the "terrorist conspiracies" detected in Canada have looked pretty amateurish. The first suspect convicted under Canada's anti-terrorism law in a Brampton court yesterday was too inept to pose much of a threat. This is not to say a suicide bombing, hijacking or anthrax attack couldn't happen here. But cowering has never been the Canadian way.

Undersea military activity isn't what scares most northerners. Their biggest concern is the rapid melting of the polar ice cap. Their homes, roads and communities, built on permafrost, are buckling and sagging. The entire Arctic ecosystem, and the life it supports, is in danger.

There is also a huge blind spot in the Conservative leader's vision.

Harper fails to see Canadians as a people who pull together in hard times. He is oblivious to the work millions of public-spirited citizens are doing in their communities to solve problems and create opportunities.

This is reflected in his approach to everything from crime to economic policy.

Those unregenerate 14-year-old criminals he proposes to lock up for a decade were troubled kids when he came to power. Their teachers had spotted the danger signals. So had welfare caseworkers, community activists and beat cops. They had tried to help, but were hampered by too few resources and too little political support.

Harper acknowledged this week that broken families and deprived neighbourhoods can contribute to "delinquent behaviour." But he insisted that coddling young offenders doesn't work. Harsh discipline does.

That might make anxious voters feel better. But it won't divert preteens from heading down the same path. And it won't provide much real protection; today's 14-year-old prison inmates will be out on parole at 24.

The "economic certainty" Harper offers voters is merely a leaner version of what exists now.

He is not calling on Canadians to respond to be creative and caring. He is telling them to hunker down.

He is not tackling the structural problems that constrain Canada's growth; its aging infrastructure, overreliance on fossil fuels and shrinking manufacturing base. He says this is no time for "risky experiments."

He is not willing to use the power of the state as a buffer against market forces. All he is pledging to do is keep the budget balanced, taxes low and spending in check.

Some might describe that as "a steady hand on the wheel." Others would call it a damper on the Canadian spirit.

In a tactical sense, Harper's strategy is shrewd. Fear is a powerful motivator. It fits the mood of the times. It is much easier to elicit than hope.

It also lets an incumbent campaign with no virtually no platform. All Harper has to do is shoot down every idea his opponents put forward, a task he clearly relishes.

More than half of the 55 "news releases" on his campaign website denigrate the Liberals ("not worth the risk"), the Bloc Québécois ("never delivers concrete results") and the New Democrats ("out of touch with the concerns of working families").

It is a shame none of the other national party leaders has succeeded in tapping into the nation's better instincts.

It is a double shame Canadians are allowing Harper to set the bar so low..."

Paul Newman

congrats to Mark Soo:

"The Vancouver Art Gallery is intensifying its longstanding commitment to emerging British Columbia artists as it continues to build its collection for a new expanded Gallery. At a September 25th press conference, the Gallery announced the Audain Emerging Artists Acquisition Fund, a $2 million endowment that will allow the Gallery to purchase work by British Columbia’s up-and-coming young artists in perpetuity—the largest fund of its kind in the country. The Gallery also announced the first work selected for purchase: Vancouver artist Mark Soo’s photo-based artwork, That’s That’s Alright Alright Mama Mama, 2008.

“British Columbia’s young artists produce some of the most exciting work in the world,” said Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels. “Acquiring work by emerging artists is a major element of our collections mandate and with this generous gift from the Audain Foundation we will be able to pursue it more aggressively than ever. Mark Soo is among the most talented visual artists living in the region and we are pleased to announce his work as the first to be selected for purchase with the fund...”

I was privileged to work with Mark on the soon to be released

To the Dogs

which will be, despite my involvement, the best dog photo book ever published...

A reminder about two upcoming readings by George Stanley, author of Vancouver: A Poem.

1. George is reading at Simon Fraser University Library this THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, at 12:30 pm, along with Indran Amirthanayagam.

2. On THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, George will be at the Squamish Public Library, 37907 2nd Avenue in Squamish (natch), at 7 PM...

WHAT: SUBTEXT READING - Donato Mancini & Shin Yu Pai
WHERE: CHAPEL PERFORMANCE SPACE - 4th Floor of GOOD SHEPHERD CENTER, located at 4649 Sunnyside N, just south of 50th St in Wallingford SEATTLE
WHEN: 7:30 PM, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 1, 2008
TICKETS: Donations accepted at the door

Subtext continues its monthly reading series with readings by DONATO MANCINI & SHIN YU PAI at Chapel Performance Space as part of the Wayward Music Series on the 1st of October 2008. Donations for admission will be taken at the door on the evening of the performance. The reading starts at 7:30pm.

DONATO MANCINI is author of two books of poetry Ligatures (2005; shortlisted for a ReLit award) and Æthel (2007), both from New Star Books.

Long after his first published poem "Empty Page" appeared in the second-last issue of The Canadian Forum (1920 - 2000), Donato started his real writing life as a full-time contributor to the classical music division of allmusic.com (then called allclassical.com). Over the course of 2.6 years, he sold allclassical.com at least 685 entries about pre-Baroque and 20th century music, at 5 to 10 cents per word.

In the time since, Mancini has published numerous chapbooks, including Tribute to a Remarkable Cat/Two Hearts Beat as One (Access 2002), 9-11/7-Eleven (Open Space 2004), Floating World (Burning Cradle 2004), Causal Talk: Interviews with 4 Canadian Poets (above/ground press 2004), and no.22 in the "Hell Passport" series published by Perro Verlag (2007).

His own artworks have appeared variously in almost all of the artist-run centres around Vancouver, most notably Surveillance Sketch at Artspeak in August 2003, first of the gallery's now-annual windowfront exhibitions. A member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective since June 2003, he has created and edited an archival website to house audio recordings and documents from the KSW stretching back to 1985. He is now also editor of the Canadian section of the Electronic Poetry Center, with Meredith Quartermain.

In a previous life, Donato studied art history and music composition with Christopher Butterfield and Michael Longton at the University of Victoria, where Butterfield often enough gave live performances of Kurt Schwitters' Ursonate as his lessons. An English Literature MA student as Simon Fraser University, Donato is at work on a study of the ideolect of poetry reviews in Canada since 1961.

SHIN YU PAI is the author of Haiku Not Bombs (Brooklyn Artists Alliance), Works on Paper (Convivio Bookworks), Sightings: Selected Works [2000 - 2005] (1913 Press, 2007), The Love Hotel Poems (Press Lorentz, 2006), Unnecessary Roughness (xPress(ed), 2005), Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003), and Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers (Third Ear Books, 1998). In addition to her work as a poet, Shin Yu has exhibited her visual work at The Paterson Museum, The Dallas Museum of Art, The MAC, and The Three Arts Club of Chicago. She has collaborated with individual artists and groups as diverse as Hedwig Dances and the Hudson Exploited Theater Company. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with additional graduate level studies conducted at The Naropa Institute where she received the Hiro Yamagata and Zora Neale Hurston Scholarships. Currently, she lives and works in Seattle.

The future Subtext schedule is:

December 3, 2008 Brenda Iijima (NY) & Brian Carpenter (Philadelphia)
January 7, 2009 Kristen Loree & Jack Ox (both New Mexico) performance of Kurt Schwitters Ursonata (co-presented by nonsequitur)
February 4, 2009 Laynie Browne (Tucson AZ) & Michael Cross
March 4, 2009 Laura Moriarty (Bay Area) & John Marshall
April 1, 2009 TBD
May 6, 2009 Beverly Dahlen (Bay Area) & Ezra Mark

For info on these & other Subtext events, see our website at http://subtextreadingseries.blogspot.com

More info at Wayward Music Series web site: http://www.waywardmusic.blogspot.com
Details on the Chapel at http://gschapel.blogspot.com

THANKS to the WAYWARD MUSIC SERIES, NONSEQUITUR, and POETS & WRITERS for co-sponsoring this event.

ROCKSBOX is proud to present:

Friendlier Fire
New work by Bruce Conkle
Saturday, September 27, 2008 – Sunday, October 26, 2008
*Opening reception for the artist: Saturay, September 27, 2008 | 7-11 p.m.

Bruce Conkle- stalwart of the revolution! Bruce Conkle- de facto king of the Pacific NW eco-art-geeks! ROCKSBOX is pleased to announce 'Friendlier Fire' an exhibition of the prime-evil, using the primordial poop of the earth and the detritus of our caffeine fueled society hell bent on self-destruction. Bruce Conkle has had numerous exhibitions in such places as New York, Philadelphia, the Living Art Museum in Iceland, A Gentil Carioca in Rio de Janeiro, and is currently showing 'Eco Tankers' at the State University of New York at SUNY Oswego.

ROCKSBOX is located at 6540 N. Interstate Ave. @ Portland Blvd. | Rosa Parks Way
Directly across from the Northbound Yellow Line MAX stop.
All exhibitions are free and open to the public.
ROCKSBOX gallery hours are: Saturday-Sunday 12-6 p.m. or by appointment.
Further information is available from Patrick Rock @ email: rocksbox@comcast.net
Or Bruce Conkle @ email: bruce@bruceconkle.com & ph: 503.544.5121

Local trees

old essay on The Simpsons from hermenaut, the first great thing I ever read on the web--

"Two friends are relating an episode (in the sense of event, not television episode, but the overlap is fortuitous, watch) from the other night. This episode could well be described as "suburban surreal" or simply "weird," but one friend declares it to have been "just like The Simpsons." "Yeah," says the other friend. "It was just like that."

But what does this mean? The Simpsons moves largely from allusion to allusion; it therefore contains multitudes. So unless these friends meant to underscore the cartoonish or allusive aspects of the scene they described, their statement made no sense, referred to nothing—because everything is like The Simpsons.

This loss of a referenceable reality will, in all likelihood, eventually destroy our civilization; and when the Northern peoples picking through the rubble of our cities want to know when it all went wrong, I—my face singed and deformed by the radiation, my limbs charred, missing, askew, my voice hoarse, mad, and haunted—I will tell them: 1995. That is when the overlords at Fox decided to put The Simpsons into twice-a-day syndication..."

(you have to search)

via (sort of)

farewell to unsung hero Earl Palmer

"An ever-adaptable, jazz-rooted drummer esteemed by Shelly Manne and Charlie Watts, Palmer made a distinctive contribution to innumerable records, among them Nat Cole's Ramblin' Rose, Little Richard's Tutti Frutti, Elvis Costello's King of America, the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' and Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High...."

the Peter Culley Home Page is now up at the Electronic Poetry Centre, part of the Canadian Portal that Donato Mancini has put together...

Turner Classic Movie reminder--two Anthony Mann films unseen by me, earlier Jacques Tourneur's "Stars in My Crown" & William Dieterle's "Portrait of Jennie" (w/ Jennifer Jones)...

Ted’s Head, by Rod Smith

"So there’s this episode of Mary Tyler Moore where Ted’s trying to get a raise & after finagling and shenaniganizing he puts one over on Lou & gets his contract changed to non-exclusive sos he can do commercials which is not cool w/ Lou & the gang because Ted’s just a brainless gimp & it hurts the image of the news to have the anchorman selling tomato slicers & dogfood so Lou gets despondent because the contract can’t be rescinded but then he gets mad & calls Ted into his office & says, “You’re going to stop doing commercials, Ted” & Ted says “why would I do that Lou?” & Lou says “Because if you don’t I’ll punch your face out” & Ted says “I’ll have you arrested” & Lou says “It’ll be too late, your face will be broken, you’re not gonna get too many commercials with a broken face now are you Ted?” & Ted buckles under to force & everybody’s happy, except Ted but he’s so dumb nobody cares & everybody loves it that Lou’s not despondent anymore he’s back to his brustling chubby loud loveable whiskey-drinking football-loving ways. Now imagine if Ted were Lou, if Ted were the boss. You know how incredibly fucking brainless Ted is, but let’s imagine he understands & is willing to use force. That’s the situation we’re now in as Americans."

To Autumn - John Keats

"And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours..."

(tho I always read that as "book")

in further moose-related news: Louis Prima: The Call Of The Wildest (1958)

Local trees

YouTube - Jo Stafford and Rosemary Clooney - Autumn Songs

including my very favorite, Henry Nemo's "'Tis Autumn"...

Meryl Truett at Barbara Archer Gallery

thanks

must read--The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

"What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't..."

as fall approaches---YouTube - Billy Stewart - Summertime

Local trees

Benson News

"Here's a picture of Benson after we got home at 7pm this evening. He's comfortable and not in any pain but he hates the cone around his head :( His eyes will be red for a couple of weeks but the surgeon assures me that he is not feeling any pain, he just looks a little sore.

We go for another check up tomorrow!

Ana-Maria"

get down with the Thai Elephant Orchestra

Anthony Mann devotees will want to watch out for his The Tall Target this month on TCM...

Lipstick Traces

"I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink,
because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.

That is just how I am.

Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?

A dog collar.

Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?

Not a damn thing.

We are essentially wired identical.

So,
when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess
what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now?
Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

A lose-lose for the pig.

There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Who does that pig represent, and that collar, and that Hockey Mom, and that pit bull?

You figure it out. Then give me a call.

Seriously, give me a call..."

Huge petrified log unearthed in the Harewood Mall

"A huge petrified log unearthed in the Harewood Mall parking lot will become a showpiece in the mall's redesign.

The mall's owners will include the three-metre-long log, believed to be the 75-million-year-old remains of a palm tree, in a plaza for the rebuilt mall.

Although the plans haven't yet been finalized, the mall's owners, Bosa Ventures of Vancouver, plan to incorporate the log into the redesign.

"I talked to the planning department and Dale Bosa and our landscape architect and we have a plaza area and we were planning to bury this on end, sort of set it up as a bit of a sculpture, angle it over," said Rick Jones, a principal of the Urban Design Group, the architectural firm working on the mall redevelopment.

Bosa is doing a major makeover on the shopping centre, to be known as University Village Nanaimo. The work called for having to tear up the parking lot and Knappett Industries discovered the fossil buried in front of Value Village..."

from The Brooklyn Rail

For the Nation

by Lisa Jarnot

David Foster Wallace

Local trees

Charlie sez: hang on tight & swing into fall with my grampy's mildly vertiginous new book of poems The Age of Briggs & Stratton...

Paul Theroux on Republicans & Hunting

"I have no strong views on hunting, only the usual disgust when I see a creature senselessly slaughtered at no risk to the hunter - "a fabulous animal", as Thoreau called the moose, serving as no more than a target and an excuse for a stew. In a book Sarah Palin probably has not read (someone as philistine and driven as she is doesn't seem to have much time for reading, as her quest to ban books in the Wasilla public library probably indicates), Thoreau remarked on how moose sometimes weigh a thousand pounds, and how they "can step over a five-foot gate in their ordinary walk".

While people cheered, Palin was lauded for knowing how to "field-dress" a moose. Thoreau, who watched such an operation take place, wrote: "Joe [his Penobscot guide] now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket knife, while I looked on, and a tragical business it was; to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe." I read that and somehow am not provoked to cheer..."

SEGUE READING SERIES
@ BOWERY POETRY CLUB

These events are made possible, in part,
with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Saturdays: 4:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.

308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
****$6 admission goes to support the readers****
Fall / Winter 2008–2009

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit www.segue.org, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators: Oct.–Nov., Christina Strong & Alan Davies, Dec.–Jan., Evelyn Reilly & Thom Donovan.

OCTOBER

OCTOBER 4 E. TRACY GRINELL & HEATHER FULLER
E. Tracy Grinnell is the author of Some Clear Souvenir and Music or Forgetting, as well as the limited edition chapbooks Leukadia (forthcoming), Quadriga, a collaboration with Paul Foster Johnson, Of the Frame, and Harmonics. She lives in Brooklyn where she teaches writing and edits Litmus Press and Aufgabe, an annual journal of poetry and translations. Heather Fuller’s works include perhaps this is a rescue fantasy, Dovecote, and Startle Response. She is one of five poets featured on the narrow house recordings CD Women in the Avant Garde. She lives in Baltimore.

OCTOBER 11 MICHAEL GOTTLIEB & MITCH HIGHFILL
Michael Gottlieb is the author of thirteen books of poetry, most recently: The Likes Of Us. His essays on Jackson Mac Low and Proust are available at www.chax.com/eoagh.com. His long essay, “Jobs Of The Poets,” is available at jacketmagazine.com. Later this year Faux/Other will publish his memoir, excerpts of which are now available at the online magazine mark(s). Mitch Highfill is the author of Moth Light and Rebis. He recently performed parts of Moth Light accompanied by Natalia Paruz, also known as The Saw Lady. Recent work has appeared in OCHO and Critiphoria.

OCTOBER 18 TED PEARSON & DREW GARDNER
Ted Pearson is the author of sixteen books of poetry, including Evidence: 1975–1989, Planetary Gear, Songs Aside: 1992–2002, and Encryptions. He also co-edits markszine.com and is a co-author of The Grand Piano. He lives in Redlands, California. Drew Gardner’s books are Petroleum Hat and Sugar Pill. He lives in Harlem. He does musical collaborations with poets and conducts the Poetics Orchestra.

OCTOBER 25 PETER CULLEY & CARLA HARRYMAN
Peter Culley lives in South Wellington, British Columbia. His books include The Climax Forest, Hammertown, and The Age of Briggs & Stratton. Carla Harryman’s Adorno’s Noise will be released from Essay Press this fall. Recent publications include the book length poem Open Box, the novel Gardener of Stars, Baby, and the special edition Toujours l’épine es sous la rose. Harryman is co-editor of Lust for Life: On the Writings of Kathy Acker and a co-author of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975–1980.
THE SEGUE FOUNDATION

300 Bowery
New York, NY 10012

NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER 1 tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & DARREN WERSHLER
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE is sitting next to you right now. Depending. (He’s sitting) upon “how you define ‘next’”. When he does that, he’s doing ‘this’ too. Darren Wershler lives in Toronto and teaches new media and media history at Wilfrid Laurier University. His most recent books are The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History Of Typewriting, and Apostrophe (with Bill Kennedy).

NOVEMBER 8 KATHLEEN FRAZER & ALLISON COBB
Kathleen Fraser teaches at CCA/SF and annually migrates to Rome where she and NYC painter Hermine Ford recently showed wall texts from their on-going collaboration ii ss at Pratt Architecture Institute. (Pieces from this show currently up at Melville House, Dumbo/Brooklyn). Recent books: 20th Century, hi dde violeth i dde violet, Discrete Categories Forced Into Coupling, and W I T N E S S (artist book with Nancy Tokar Miller.) Allison Cobb is the author of Born2 and is at work on a long piece about the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. She was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and now lives in Brooklyn.

NOVEMBER 15 STEVE MCCAFFREY & KAREN MAC CORMAC
Steve McCaffery is the author of more than 21 volumes of poetry and four books of theory and criticism. His most recent title is Slightly Left of Thinking: Poems, Texts and Postcognitions. He lives in Buffalo where he is the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at the University at Buffalo. Karen Mac Cormack is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry. Her most recent publication *Implexures* (the Complete Edition) was published in 2008 by Chax Press/West House Books.

NOVEMBER 22 KIT ROBINSON & BERNADETTE MAYER
Kit Robinson is a co-author of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975–1980. His books include The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems (forthcoming), 9:45, The Crave, and Democracy Boulevard. Kit lives in Berkeley. Bernadette Mayer is the author of Memory, Studying Hunger, A Bernadette Mayer Reader, Midwinter Day, and many other works. Forthcoming in 2008: Poetry State Forest, The Cave with Clark Coolidge, and Ethics Of Sleep.

NOVEMBER 29 NO READINGS—Happy holiday!

DECEMBER

DECEMBER 6 LESLIE SCALAPINO & ARNOLD J. KEMP
Leslie Scalapino is the author of thirty books of poetry, inter-genre fiction, and criticism. Among recent works are Day Ocean State of Stars’ Night and It’s go in horizontal/Selected Poems 1974–2006. Arnold J. Kemp is a visual artist and writer. His writing has appeared in Callaloo, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, Agni Review, Mirage #4 Period(ical), River Styx, Nocturnes, and Art Journal. In 2005 and 2007, Small Press Traffic commissioned two of his plays/performances for the San Francisco Poets Theater.

DECEMBER 13 STACY DORIS & DAWN LUNDY MARTIN
Stacy Doris’ books include Cheerleader’s Guide to the World: Council Book, Knot, Conference, Paramour, and Kildare. She also writes books in French and co-edited collections of new French poetry in translation. With Lisa Robertson, she is currently in the process of making audio recordings of 18th-century perfumes. Dawn Lundy Martin was awarded the 2006 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering. She is also the author of The Morning Hour, selected in 2003 for the Poetry Society of America’s National Chapbook Fellowship.

DECEMBER 20 LARRY FAGIN & KYLE SCHLESINGER
Larry Fagin’s most recent publication is Dig & Delve, a collaboration with the artist Trevor Winkfield. He is the co-publisher of Adventures in Poetry books and the founder of Danspace, the dance program at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery. Kyle Schlesinger’s books include The Pink, Hello Helicopter and Schablone Berlin with Caroline Koebel. With Thom Donovan and Michael Cross, he edits ON, a poetics journal that focuses on contemporaries.

DECEMBER 27 & JANUARY 3 NO READINGS—Happy holidays!

JANUARY

JANUARY 10 TONY CONRAD & CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
Tony Conrad was a participant in the founding of minimal music and structural film. Recently his Yellow Movies (1972–73) have been exhibited at the Greene-Naftali and Daniel Buchholz galleries. His installation Beholden to Victory (1980–2007) opened in May at Overduin and Kite in L.A. Carolee Schneemann’s video, film, painting, photography, performance art and installation works have been shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, and Europe. Correspondence Course, edited by Kristine Stiles, is forthcoming from Duke University Press. Previous published books include Imaging Her Erotics—Essays, Interviews, Projects and More Than Meat Joy: Complete Performance Work and Selected Writings.

JANUARY 17 MARCELLA DURAND & ERICA HUNT
Marcella Durand is the author of AREA, Traffic & Weather, The Anatomy of Oil, Western Capital Rhapsodies, City of Ports, and Lapsus Linguae. For the past several years she has been translating Michèle Métail’s book-length work, Les horizons du sol/Earth’s Horizons. Erica Hunt is the author of Local History, Arcade, and Piece Logic. She is the president of the 21st Century Foundation.

JANUARY 24 TINA DARRAGH & LINH DINH
Tina Darragh’s essay “Blame Global Warming on Thoreau?” is included in the )((eco)(lang)(uage (reader)), forthcoming from Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs. A section of “Deep eco pre,” her collaboration with Marcella Durand, has been posted on How2. Darragh is happy to confirm the rumors that her opposable dumbs project is being plagiarized. Linh Dinh is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House and Blood and Soap; four books of poems, All Around What Empties Out, American Tatts, Borderless Bodies and Jam Alerts; and a novel, Love Like Hate, scheduled to be released in 2009 by Seven Stories Press.

JANUARY 31 WRITING ACROSS POETICS & VISUAL ART
Readings and presentations by poets and visual artists that speak across disciplinary boundaries.
Participants to be announced.

Shakespeare's Words--excellent online searchable glossary...

Looks like that slick patch of puffin puke Palin share's Cheney's love for Brutal, sadistic & unsporting hunting methods. My vocabulary fails me with these "people"--I wish I knew how to curse in Wolf...

Interesting too to see this newly empowered hatred of the natural world alongside the ongoing criminalization of bears in the local media--I'd be "aggressive" too if they built hideous suburbs on my mountain...

terrific story about Lil' Wayne & teaching in post-Katrina New Orleans--

"On one of his best songs, the super-catchy “I Feel Like Dying,” Lil Wayne barely exists. He always sounds high, but on this song he sounds as though he has already passed
out.

A lot of the alarmism about pop music sending the wrong message to impressionable youth seems mostly overwrought to me, but I’ll cop to feeling taken aback at ten-year-olds singing, “Only once the drugs are
done, do I feel like dying, I feel like dying.”

First time I heard a fifth grader singing this in falsetto, I said: “What did you say?”

He said: “Mr. Ramsey, you know you be listening to that song. Why you tripping?”

My students always ask me why I’m tripping at precisely the moments when the answer seems incredibly obvious to me..."

new & welcome blogger D odie Bellamy has lots of nice pictures & report on the recent "Positions" conference...

check out the great Stan Getz soundtrack for Arthur Penn's beloved 1965 oddity "Mickey One"...

Sylvie and Bruno

Hush! Caution! Echoland! has two wonderful mixes to accompany Lewis Carrol's little-known classic--

"Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith--the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!"

"Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"

from: "Sylvie and Bruno" by Lewis Carroll, Chapter 25 (conclusion)

REBECCA BELMORE
MAKING ALWAYS WAR

Curated by Steven Tong

11 September - 11 October, 2008
Opening reception Thursday, 11 September, 2008, 6 - 9pm

CSA Space
#5 - 2414 Main Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5T 3E2
info@csaspace.ca

See Pulpfiction Books, 2422 Main Street, for keys and directions.

In The Street

"The Monte Clark Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition entitled In the Street from Vancouver-based painter Alison Yip.

For her second solo exhibition at the Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver, Yip exhibits paintings of her observations of street life in Vancouver, Hong Kong and Macau.

The new paintings are intimate in scale and continue Yip’s developing personal language of colour and light. The motives derive from the artist’s photographs
and sketches made in the street. Many of the figures are isolated, caught in a moment of reflection or an everyday action such as waiting for a bus or pausing to clean one’s glasses...

Like Fairfield Porter, Yip generalizes light and omits fine detail. Spatial relationships are constructed with carefully tuned colours and both figure and ground command equal presence. Observational rather than voyeuristic, her paintings depict the everyday but their primary subject is perception itself..."

YouTube - the voice of Samuel Beckett, Paris, 1987

via languagehat.com

Isola di Rifiuti reviews Kevin Davies' new book "The Golden Age of Paraphernalia"--

"It is the humor—self-deprecating, alert, winsomely falling into hints
of pathos unobstruct’d, vulnerable to humor’s obverse (which is
death)—that makes the book truly radiant. A glimpse of it here, in a
line or two I read as address’d (at least partially) to Ed Dorn: “The world / to come has come and gone, Ed. Do you have any idea how cheap memory / is now?”"

farewell singer/guitarist/actor Jerry Reed

YouTube - JERRY REED / GUITAR MAN

Uncle Gil's Rockin' Archives: Résultats de recherche pour jerry reed

read the story of Benson, a Boston Terrier rescued from a puppy mill with untreated cataracts, and my remarkable young friend Sam Cummings of Tsawassen, who raised $500 towards the cost of a sight-restoring operation...

an all-time classic from a great blog--Bascom Lamar Lunsford - Smoky Mountain Ballads

South Okanagan trees

YouTube - Dionne Warwick A House Is Not A Home 1964 Rare Photos

Riitta Immonen, a Founder of the Marimekko Textile Company, Dies at 90

"When the Lutheran Church began admitting women to theological studies in 1965, she came up with the uniform: a black matte wool dress with a matching jacket trimmed in red velvet..."