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"...