Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
RSS Feed
View Profile
« September 2006 »
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
You are not logged in. Log in
Entries by Topic
All topics  «
art events
craft and zine fairs
publishing
readings
reviews
slam
Writing
Contests and Submissions
Front & Centre Submission Guidelines
free range print
Sunday, 24 September 2006
The Typing Explosion Local 898 (& Poetry Buses)
Topic: art events

I wish I had been the one who came up with the line, "This out-stranges SAW." But I wasn't. That was Cathy MacDonald-Zytveld, talking about the Wave Books Poetry Bus and The Typing Explosion (Local 898), which descended on Major's Hill park this evening. 

The Poetry Bus is a project involving more than 100 poets, which arrived in Ottawa today on Day 21 of a 50-day tour starting in Seattle and heading generally eastward, apparently picking up and dropping off poets as it goes. I had to check it out. The bus was hard to miss - a full-sized coach bus with "POETRY BUS" written on the side in large red letters, parked in Major's Hill Park at the north end, next to Blink Gallery, which I didn't even know was there until today. Check it out, it's in the little stone building at the bottom of the hill just across the street from the Art Gallery. The art on display was cool, and the setting is about as unique as any gallery I've been to. I found this picture on their website.

There was already a good-sized crowd of curious poetry fans outside the gallery. The open, garage-like half of the gallery was full of people poking through the table of books and other merch, including awesome silk-screened T-shirts featuring winged buses and typewriters. There were also cookies and coffee and what looked suspiciously like wine, although I couldn't see how to get any.

After a few minutes of standing around and chatting, three women dressed in brightly coloured 60s-style secretarial wear (the hairstyles and shoes matched the era too) and carrying suitcases marched across from the bus to the enclosed end of the gallery, where they removed typewriters from the suitcases, set them up, sat down at a table, and began typing - and occasionally striking bells next to them, at which point they would whip the paper out of their typewriters and switch with another typist, and keep going. To a background of piped in lounge-like music.

It took a minute to figure out what was going on, and at first people just sort of gathered to watch. Then we started to notice the rules projected with an ancient overhead projector (you know the kind from elementary school if you're anywhere near my generation.) The process was: you drop a dollar into the coffee can near the first typist, and pick a title out of a card file (the coffee can was vintage, as was the card file cabinet. Come to think of it, so were the pulp novels sitting on the desk for when a typist had a few moments without a poem in front of her, which happened from time to time.)

You hand the card with the title on it to the first typist. She types part of a poem, strikes the bell, hands it off, another typist types a bit, strikes the bell ... and when the page is full, they all pick up squeeze-ball horns, honk them, and pass the finished poem to the third typist, who stamps it with an official stamp, gets you to initial for it, removes it from the carbon copy, and hands it over, keeping a copy. Here's my poem (title: 'Kat B.' - you can't read it from here, but then it's actually copyright The Typing Explosion, so my butt's covered that way.)

The flying bus, incidentally, is a temporary tattoo I picked up and included when I scanned my poem. So, they just mass-produced poems for a while - there was a "haiku speed round" announced via another transparency dropped on top of the "rules" transparency on the projector - and then blew the whistle three times and stuck a transparency on the projector that said "Union Break," and we all went out to the terrace to hear some poetry.

There were about seven poets reading, against the admittedly lovely backdrop of Parliament Hill and the Ottawa River (sometimes I'm just so darn proud of Ottawa for being so impressively pretty when people come to visit.) The reading included Danid O'Meara and Kevin Connolly as the Canadian representation, and a pack of other poets who had joined up with the Poetry Bus at some point along the trip. It was cold sitting out on the terrace in the September wind, and it got dark pretty fast, so for a while the poets were working with a flashlight in one hand and their poems in the other, until a light was jury-rigged to the mike partway through. But the reading was good - a lot of the poets seemed (to me, anyway, knowing nothing about it) to have been cross-pollenating on the bus. In particular, I noticed we were hearing an unusual number of villanelles. Wonder if there was a challenge somewhere along the line to write one? 

I was also struck by the humour in a lot of the poems; these poets seemed to be coming from a point of view that lets you get a laugh and still have a serious poem. The styles were remarkably similar, though, and I thought partway through that more variety of styles would have made this into an even more fruitful experiment. Although, what I was seeing was already a hell of an explosion of creativity. What I wouldn't give to hop on this bus and head off to Montreal tomorrow (the Green Room, 6:30, September 25th, if you're in Montreal and want to see something truly crazy cool.) 

I anticipate pictures on both Charles Earl's and John W. MacDonald's sites, so keep an eye out. This has to be seen to be believed, especially the setting for the Typing Explosion in that small stone building in the middle of the park...

By the way, check out the Typing Explosion's website. Seriously. Check it out.


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 9:54 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, 25 September 2006 11:15 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Friday, 15 September 2006
Capital Slam Is Back!
Topic: slam

Season three of Capital Slam kicked off last night at the Thirsty Scholar on York! And in case, like many people I've spoken to, you're saying, "Where's that?" . . . well, that's pretty much what I said. But it's a great venue, size- and shapewise. It's next to the Natural Food Pantry - walk down York a little past Dalhousie. I don't think it's been there long in this incarnation, but I could be wrong. 

The venue is much more audience-friendly, with a large stage and an empty floor in front of it: no pub-style tables and chairs, so seating can be arranged in rows. There are small floorside tables at the back and space at the bar for those who'd rather lurk (or for the scorekeepers to sit at: I was manning the stopwatch, so I got a great view) and the sight lines are generally pretty good, despite four large pillars at the corners of the audience floor. The sound system is great, and the layout works well - bar off to the side, bathrooms at the back, so no one has to walk in front of the performers. Holds about 200 people, as well, which will come in handy as the season heats up. It was more than comfortable for the 50-75 that arrived last night. I like the look of it, too - lots of dark red paint and wood, nice lighting, and bookshelves all over.

The only problem I have with CPC's new home is that the bar only had two kinds of beer on tap, and they're Blue and Canadian, and only three or four in bottles, and they cost $6 apiece. I saw martini glasses happening, so I assume the mix drink menu is okay, but with the beer prices so high, I'm wondering how much the bar will be able to make off a crowd made up entirely of, face it, poets. But then, the bar, and the bar staff, seemed new, so maybe that'll pick up. And they were friendly enough. Plus, the bar is enough out of the way that you could be sure everyone coming in was coming for the show. We weren't going to be handing an unpleasant shock to someone coming in thinking they were going to watch the game, and getting charged cover for 'some weird-ass poetry show.' Giving it a couple of points over the Gap of Dunloe, although I will miss the availability of both Guinness and food. 

And the slam... New this year the show's being hosted by Elissa Molino and Steve Sauve, who tag-team nicely. Looked like the crowd was a nice mix of Slam vets and newbies, so those of us who'd been there before could put in the energy to boo or cheer for the marks - because a certain amount of audience energy really helps the poets. There were a bunch of new and visiting poets too, and it was really good to see a couple of the new poets make it into the second round. New blood! 

The feature, Dwayne Morgan, was someone I haven't seen before - although I have the nagging feeling I might have seen him at the WordLympics two years ago. Nice stuff, funny and passionate and really well delivered - and he arrived able to take debit and visa for his books and CDs, which was, as someone else mentioned, most un-poetlike, but very smart. 

So, it looks like slam's off to a good start for the year. The next show is on Oct 19th, delayed a bit from the usual second Thursday because of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Toronto (go if you can!)

 

And while I'm here - This Saturday SAW Gallery is holding a fundraiser, paying tribute to the Le Hibou cafe! $15 to get in ($10 for gallery members), or $30 for a year's membership and free admission to the concert - which features Sneezy Waters, Vince Halfhide and a bunch of other special guests. It's at 8:00 at SAW Gallery (67 Nicholas Street). I'll be out of town, but I think a few other Dusty Owls are going to be there - Le Hibou being our spiritual parent after all.... for more info, check out www.galeriesawgallery.com.

 


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 11:06 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Wednesday, 13 September 2006
Bellissima Belina
Topic: readings

The ShapeShift reading at Collected Works yesterday was awesome. Small - I counted about 14 people attending - but a really magical space. I've already said, I think, that I'd travel some decent distances and give up more than a few other activities to see Paula Belina read. She does a lot of what I think a spoken word artist should - she shapes the language, she juxtaposes startling ideas, she loves the sound of things, she breaks with what you expect syntax to do, she free-associates from one word to another based on sound or concepts. Most importantly, I think, she operates under the idea that a poet is both actor and vocalist. A singer shapes a phrase very deliberately, considers volume and pitch and where the fullness of a vowel is, and so does Paula. She talked later about how she'd been working lately with pauses; leaving the audience waiting. Staging things. 

And to add to Paula's performance, there were the other performers, Kyra Shaughnessy and Lisa Hoffman. These three are travelling together with this tour, and they're clearly friends and co-conspirators, so having the reading in this small and intimate a space worked really well - you could feel the participation of all three even if only one was performing. I was really glad that Paula and Lisa had apparently won a bet forcing Kyra to do one particular piece at every venue on the tour - I thought it was her most powerful. It had a sung chorus that surprised me with how sweet her voice was - it sounded like a cross between Billie Holiday and a native chant. As well, her entire voice changed for the spoken sections, and became much more musical. It was quite beautiful.

Lisa Hoffman is a musician, who performed in the middle between the two poets. She also had a lovely sound (the voices of these three women, spoken and sung, all share a sort of vowel-bending, jazzy, smoky quality that really carries through all three performances - I wonder if they've ever performed together as a trio, or if they'd consider it? The results could be fascinating.)

Anyway, I was glad I could be there. I noticed Mackenzie MacBride there with a tape recorder, but didn't find out where or when she would be broadcasting if she was recording for broadcast. If I find out, I'll post it - I think she was planning on recording at least one poem per person and doing some interviews after the show.  

And last but not least - Capital Slam is back in the saddle for the season as of this Thursday! Sept. 14th, 7:00, at The Thirsty Scholar.  


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 2:15 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Sunday, 10 September 2006
Shapeshifters
Topic: readings

It's been a while since I wrote anything... I'll blame a combination of my web host being recalcitrant and two of my best friends getting married (to each other, incidentally.) The latter took up a lot of my time and the former wouldn't allow me to edit or make any new posts until now. But I did want to plug this reading. I thought I was going to be out of town for it, but it turns out I won't be! Hooray!

It's this Tuesday (the 12th) at Collected Works -  featuring three sung & spoken word artists: Kyra Shaughnessy, Paula Belina, and Lisa Hoffman. I don't know the other two that well, but Paula was one of the people involved in my Three Day Novel challenge a couple of months ago. (See my entries from June 28-30 for details.) She's based in Montreal, where she's involved in the Streeteaters collective and runs a 'walking distance' distro as well as creating great zines and poetry. I've known her for, oh, about a year now. Her poetry performances are just magic; lots of sound and participation and energy getting passed around the room. I'm really glad I'll still be in town for this! The reading is at 7:00, pay what you can. 


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 10:07 AM EDT
Updated: Sunday, 10 September 2006 10:31 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Friday, 1 September 2006
Music and chocolate and art, oh my

I'm going to try and make it to World Beats & Sweets tonight - benefitting CHUO, and the desserts sound awesome. 

In other news - it's been a learning curve week! Dusty Owl's first actual paperback is out and I've been visiting bookstores to get it on the shelves. So much to learn. But it's awfully cool to see a book you printed sitting on a real bookstore shelf. Tattoo This Madness In, by Daniel Allen Cox, is now on the shelves at After Stonewall, Collected Works, and Paragraph Books in Montreal. Whee!


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 12:34 PM EDT
Post Comment | View Comments (3) | Permalink
Wednesday, 30 August 2006
Arts & Parts This Sunday

Got this off Artengine, and I'm planning on making it at least for a while...

Artengine & Red Handed present

Arts & Parts

FREE community gathering
Sunday, September 3rd 2006
noon till 8pm
at the Artengine lab
233 Argyle Avenue, Ottawa

Artengine invites you to join us at our first ever open house/barbecue and garage sale featuring sights and sounds presented by Red Handed productions. We'll be showing off our lab and workstations, featuring demonstrations on our 8 speaker audio workstation. Meet the staff and browse through our used merchandise, or just grab a bite to eat and check out some new work by local artists and djs.

the sights...
KENJI TOYOOKA
ARAM FAGHFOURI
RIPSEY
ANCHALIE MILES
ALEXANDRE MATTAR
MELODY HOVEY
MATTHEW MACKENZIE
the sounds...
Bazso
Ben-More
Zattar
Tsunami - Mtl & Co.
JBradley - Primetime Glitch - Helsinki
Terry Bevvan - Primetime Glitch - Helsinki
Brahma Breaker - High Noon, Electric Ballroom - Zaphod Beeblebrox
Fiver - Simple Tings / High Noon, Electric Ballroom - Zaphod Beeblebrox
Chris Rockwell - Red Handed / Primetime Glitch - Helsinki

Arts & Parts marks the launch of our new membership structure. For the duration of the open house the "Unlimited Access" full-membership will be offered at 50% cost. Check out the artengine website for more details.

Brought to you with some help from:

Bar Buzz
Long & McQuade



Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 11:55 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, 31 August 2006 12:00 AM EDT
Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Art Openings and Kitchen Ceilidhs
Topic: art events

Last night I decided to hit the opening for Cristian S. Aluas's show/sale at Rasputin's Cafe. I first met Cristian through the span-o small press fair, back when he was doing a lot of handmade, self-published art books - really lovely stuff - and then later got to talk to him when we were both interviewed at CHUO about span-o. He's largely moved out of the bookmaking field now, and has been doing art full time for a few years. The pieces on display at Rasputin's are mostly small acrylics and oils, largely in very cool colours, with some pen-and-ink and spraypaint (and occasional scraps of clothing, I found out.) There's something appealingly straightforward about them: I liked the simplicity in a lot of them - although I also enjoyed the frenetic lines and detail in some of the pen-and-ink pieces. 

It was a pretty relaxed sort of night - Rasputin's lends itself to that, with its kitcheny feel. It really does feel like someone's house - the tables are spread with mismatched tablecloths, the long bench on one wall is dotted with patchwork cushions. If you want a drink you get up and go to the back and rouse Dean. Or just get it out of the fridge yourself and let him know later. The debit machine is in the kitchen. And as we were sitting around talking, a collection of fiddlers, a guitarist or two, a recorder player and a keyboardist trickled in, set down, tuned up, and started jamming on classic Celtic folk tunes. The rest of the night was set to a great backdrop of music - really felt like a kitchen ceilidh that we just got to sit in on.


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 1:05 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 29 August 2006 1:39 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Monday, 28 August 2006
Incoming, upcoming, what have you




Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 2:05 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Tuesday, 22 August 2006

I picked up Kissing the Damned, by Mark Foss, at the Dusty Owl on Sunday, and it's a quick read (plus, I have a pretty flexible schedule these days.) Finished it this morning. The question I of course failed to ask when he said, at the end of the reading, "Are there any questions?" was, why did he choose to write this book as a collection of linked stories rather than as a novel? His answer, when I asked him after the reading when I finally thought to ask it, was pretty simple: it was less overwhelming. I can relate. 

These stories flow together enough to feel like a novel, though, even with the changes from first to third person that occasionally happen - and now my question would have been, why did he choose third person for some of the stories and third for others? Having done much the same thing with short stories I've written, though, I can almost predict the answer would be, "because that's how it came out."

It's nice to see a longer story told in short stories, too. I can absolutely sympathize - that's how I write most of my fiction (when I write it) too. In this case, it also works effectively with the story. The story centers on the main character and his moments of communication and miscommunication. In following a crumbling relationship (or three,) it does something very similar to what memory does; it doesn't give you a continuous narrative, just a handful of moments where things might have gone differently or where something important was said or understood. 

I may still ask Mark, when I see him next, about the perspective changes. If he's figured out why he does it, maybe he can tell me why I do.  


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 10:07 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink
Monday, 21 August 2006
The Long Weekend of Lit

It's been a fairly busy weekend. . . Saturday I got to hit both "Fired...On Yo' Day Off!" at the Bronson Centre, and OutSpoken at Mother Tongue, and Sunday was, of course, Mark Foss at Dusty Owl. I also had Steve Curtis and a couple of his friends staying with me for the weekend - Steve came down from Peterborough to read at OutSpoken. 

"Fired...On Yo' Day Off!" was an interesting theatre experience - rattling along on its own enthusiasm for the most part. The actors were almost all novices, and a lot of the dialogue was ad libbed, occasionally directed at the audience and occasionally not. I think that the ad lib helped the actors move more naturally on the stage, since they weren't trying to remember how to move as well as what their next lines were, and the slapstick and overlapping dialogue carried the scenes along.

The show could have used a sound and light director; the house lights were up through the show, which was disconcerting, and the curtains closed between scenes, which sort of interrupted the action (and posed a problem a couple of times when the actors got caught on the wrong side of the curtains as they were drawing closed.)

Having Q come out to do some of her poetry before the show was a nice surprise, and the poems she did were really quite beautiful, slipping between speech and song.  In the show she played an entertaining ghetto mom, waif-like child in tow, and was really quite funny. I also enjoyed Pearl James' Tourette's Syndrome-afflicted character - she was so big-eyed and soft-spoken and sweet - interspersed with bouts of bizarre shouting. The audience loved her. 

After the show we had to book to get to Mother Tongue Books for OutSpoken - a great reading, intimate and really warm, hosted by the Capital Poetry Collective and Agitate. The readers ranged from prose to poetry, and from quiet and introspective to screaming out loud. Really; Steve Curtis got at least some of the audience to scream along with him in one section of his long poem "Storm." The space is small enough that no mike is really needed, and the atmosphere was wonderful. It took a while for the shop to clear out afterwards: everyone was still standing around talking. In fact, a lot of us wound up going off to the Elgin Street Diner afterwards to keep the conversation going (without keeping Michelle Desbarats from closing up shop.) 

Sunday evening I was at the Dusty Owl (of course) to see Mark Foss read from his new collection of short stories, Kissing the Damned. It was a nice reading - shortish, and I know I was curious enough about what happened next to go buy the book. The open mike afterwards featured a rocking performance by Steve Curtis of one of his poems over Jimi Hendrix's 'Red House' (provided by the Dog of Dog and Pony Sound, who does the karaoke show right after Dusty, and who does our sound.) 

Oh, right, and then there was karaoke after the show. For the sake of general poetry-community interest: rob mclennan has a lovely singing voice.  


Posted by Kathryn Hunt at 12:31 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink

Newer | Latest | Older