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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jan - July 2007