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Jan - July 2007

June 28, 2007
Nice to See Someone Has More Balls Than Larry King

MSNBC news anchor Mika Brzezinksi refuses to read the Paris Hilton story as the lead, shredding it after trying to set it on fire. Afterwards, she decides to lead the newscast with something about the little-known country of Iraq.

Celebrity, the new opiate of the masses:




Hacks--take note. Miss Hilton may get her second act now, but let's make it a short one.



June 19, 2007
That Mocking Little Bastard

If you've ever tried to write a novel, or know someone who's been at it for several years, you must watch this: That Novel You've Been Working On.

"Everybody learns the hero's journey isn't always a happy one..."



June 11, 2007
One

The fellah who directed Postcards from Hell last year has a new play out. My publisher was doing some work on the video or something. Looks hot. So says the E-Ville Journal.

In unrelated news: they waxed McVeigh six years ago, today.



May 30, 2007
Renaldo

Your life is split into two pieces: the bleak heart-rending time before you heard this song, and the blessed time after. Remember that you heard about this brilliant piece of musical history right here. When it is a worldwide phenomenon. And, that Mingus Tourette was the first person on the planet to hear it, besides Sweaty Charles. If nothing else in this, there is that. And, Sweaty Charles is almost available for parole.

C'est Renaldo. Turn it up. Loud. He will be fucking you now.



May 17, 2007
Deconstructing The Fear of Writing



C'est Derrida.



May 14, 2007
reviews done baked

Lots of buzz in the American bookworld about the death of the book section. The LA Times just folded its Book section into a combined package with opinion. Obviously: heartening news for those of us still dreaming of publishing novels and reading starred reviews. Somewhere.

Whereas 10 years ago, there were 10 to 12 stand-alone book sections in the country, today there are only five: The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The San Diego Union-Tribune and The New York Times. Other large papers, such as the Los Angeles Times, have folded book pages into other sections of the paper.

Ironically, book publishers are partly to blame for the disappearing book sections, as they've cut advertising in print media. Instead, they prefer to spend on front-table book placement in stores that costs as much as $1 per volume and reportedly delivers more bang for the buck.

But where there are no ads, there are no book sections. Where there are no book sections, there are no reviews to send readers to the bookstore where, curiously, there are more books than ever -- 50,000 published annually. Something doesn't quite compute.- From Orlando Sentinel


See also: Huffington Post | LA TIMES



May 10, 2007
Infest Wisely

and out of the southern wilderness, they came carrying sixteen sticks of dynamite, teeth taped together, eyes sewn shut and then, the horror began....

Jim Munroe, inventor of the late Perpetual Motion Roadshow, has a supercool new low-fi feature film coming out, entitled Infest Wisely, about a chewable nanotechnology that lets people take pictures with their eyes and cure cancer. But early adopters find out it's hard to uninstall something after it's spread through their bloodstream... Horror, action and sci-fi social commentary ensues.

The refreshing aspect of the feature is the collaborative approach and execution. Munroe wrote seven 12 minute episodes, which were directed by seven different directors. Each episode is to stand on its own, but an ongoing narrative and interconnecting characters will allow it to combine to form a feature length movie. Munroe calls it "Voltron-inspired".

Infest Wisely is screening in Toronto at the U of T on May 18th, and afterwards, will be releasing an episode a week online.

What I love about this: the deleriously low-fi indie Collective Commons spirit of making a movie and putting it out there without regard for anything except making a movie and putting it out there. Fucking cool. Looks like fun.

If you are in Toronto the advance screening (AKA the Infestor's Meeting) is happening:

Friday May 18th, 7pm
Innis Town Hall, U of T
2 Sussex Avenue, S. of St. George Stn.
Five Bucks. No one goes home empty handed.

Check the brand new site and watch the trailer here



April 21, 2007
Respite

I'm out of town for a couple weeks. In the meantime, do yourself a favour and read this Paris Review interview with Mr. Vonnegut.

So it goes.


April 15, 2007
The Next Time I'm In the Yukon

Gotta try me the Sourtoe Cocktail.

Also, if you haven't seen Grindhouse, hit it fast before it disappears from theatres. So it's three hours long. It's an experience best experienced in the place it was meant to be experienced: a bolted movie theatre with the taste of backlogged piss in your throat.

Don't miss it. Don't.



April 10, 2007
Theskza Risen

For those who like books. And like smart, fun, insightful writing about books that just gets to the guts of it: Theskza's new blog. Meditations on Palahniuk, Geek Love, Ulysses and the Magical Amis. You gotta love it.

That link again, in case you are dissmart.



April 2, 2007
Ethics and BioRoids

Interesting CBC article that just drives my hump for the rise of our new masters - the robots. You know, art for a new species and all that.

Read up - Asimov! Three laws! Ethics! Our future zookeepers!




March 20, 2007
Fun With Google Maps

This year, when I am tracking the upticking number of Edmonton homicides, I can do so with this handy map. Sweet!



March 12, 2007
The Fugitives

The Raving Poets are back on, and Brendan McLeod is guest-starring this Wednesday, with his supergroup, the Fugitives. Serious hot action:

Poetry slam champ Brendan McLeod returns to Edmonton on Wednesday, March 14, 2007. This time around he's bringing his band, The Fugitives. The show is brought to you by Edmonton's premier purveyors of spoken-word awesomeness, The Raving Poets (full event details below). An eight-reader open mic will start the show. $5.00 door charge in effect.

The Fugitives are a troupe of four high energy storytellers, multi-instrumentalist musicians, singer/songwriters, and award winning poets. They run the gamut from comedic to hard-hitting, insightful spoken word, and combine it with adventurous song structures performed on piano, accordion, guitar, banjo, melodica and harmonica. Combining four fresh, diverse voices into one eclectic sound, The Fugitives are a group of road dogs that toured Europe four times, as well as a tour of Canada.

Trust us, you don't want to miss these guys. They rock harder than twelve hurricanes.

The Raving Poets Present
The Fugitives featuring Brendan McLeod
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Yianni's Taverna, Kasbar Lounge
10444 - 82 Avenue, Edmonton.
Doors @ 7:30, show @ 8:00.
$5.00 DOOR CHARGE IN EFFECT
8 reader open mic before the show.



February 21, 2007
the great black procession

just cracking vox box
and carefully tending
treasured tufts of pubic hair

we bought each other
the same Bakshi Lord of the Rings
movie for Christmas
         years before the great disbelieving

18 different apartments
and seven wives later

i open the snowflake wrapping first
to discover
we've bought each other
the same Frank Miller graphic novel

my brother and I
we're pallbearers Saturday

we both know
her husband's casket was heavy
and this one probably too



February 14, 2007
The Valentine Question

When starting to write something new, there is always this question:

Giant squid, or insomniac photographers who break into city towers?

That is - what story to follow? The hard personal obsession, replete with pictograms, or the book that isn't intrinsic autobiographical exorcism?

Tricky stuff. At least I'm smart enough this year to know either one will take eighteen months. Lots of blood and wanton writing both ways, but different angles. Marvin would say "I don't know if there's a wrong choice". But there is.



February 9, 2007
Haiku Found In the Margin of The Travel Journals of Tento Yuriko


Seemed fitting, given the temperature in this burg.

---


The night snow graders
and coyotes - call to each other.
Gravel road.




February 7, 2007
Speaking of Arts Funding

Ole Atwood's shaking the trees. Getting on the ride about arts funding in Canada. And good on her.

But if we're handing out cakes on that issue, I'd slide a couple to Babiak, who just won't let the Alberta Arts funding issue die. For months, he's been writing columns about it. In essence, he's trying to encourage the Alberta government, rolling in dollahs, to spend a bit more on the arts. The one subheading that I liked was: Provincial government treats artists like welfare bums.

A couple of the articles here and here. What say you, great internet?

Man, that quote from Webb, "a Statistics Canada report showing more artists were leaving the province than entering" is telling. Isn't it.



January 30th, 2007
The Minister's New Bag

Minister Faust's got a new book, From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain and a launch for it this Friday. Looks like double good times.

When: Friday, February 2, at 7:30 pm
Where: Audreys Books, 10702 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton

The book is officially on-sale everywhere as of today. And, it's got some serious reviews from big fat American publications.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW): “[S]harp satire of caped crusaders hides a deeper critique of individual treatment versus social injustice.... Faust's well-aimed jabs spare no super sacred cows nor many pop idols and psychobabbling media stars. Underneath the humor, careful readers will find uncomfortable parallels to real-world urban tragedies in the novel's 'July 16 Attacks,' where Faust gives a double meaning to the 'Crisis of Infinite Dearths.'"

BOOKLIST: ”[An] excellent superhero comedy as well as an unsettling satire.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “Entertaining... saavy.”

BOOKPAGE: “[M]ight be one of the most entertaining books to cross your path this year.... Faust is an original writer with a passionate interest in people—be they crazy or “normal”—and his pulpy satire takes accurate swings at our me-first society and the pop culture idols who have floated to the top.”

SCIFI.COM: “[Minister Faust’s] insane fecundity and jazzy verbal dexterity, his sheer brio and exuberance... reminds me of Ishmael Reed or Steve Aylett... plenty of moments in this novel where I laughed out loud.”

---

Speaking of oddly hot sellers; nunt continues to leak persistently out into the world. My publisher's had orders from Ontario, Texas and the UK in the last month. How bizarre is that?



January 19th, 2007
3-Days in February

Big cakes to Brendan Mcleod for winning the International 3-Day Novel Contest. Pretty impressive for a fellow who's also an international slam poetry champ.

Speaking of which. Those lunatics at BookTelevision are putting the thing on tv. Local and national And they have the first 3 minutes on the internet. At the Youtube, or, in better quality, at the BookTelevision.com. Good time madness.



January 10th, 2007
The Great Blizzard of 2007

Djedo was cruelly underfrozen.

He had been promised
minus forties
hundred mile an hour winds
twelve foot snow drifts and
a return to the Imperial Measurement System

by three shivering, homeless Inuit
chattering ominously
about snow days and
thirty car blackice killzones.

not this
poopshute cirrus scattering
of gaslit crystals
dawning on a midnight clear

Why wash the full length longjohns at all?
he thought bitterly, his last dollars spent.
You fucking waste of a weather warning.





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