Red Marilyns CD Launch!
Just throwing out a quick plug for the Red Marilyns CD Launch show on May 27th at the Glue Pot Pub. If you like blues/rock, come check these guys out. Cover's $5, the CDs are $10 (!) and the music is solid!

Been a bad blog mom....
Now Playing: a million other things I should be doing....
I've been a bad blog mommy - I wanted to write about the Dusty Owl birthday party, and I wanted to write about Oni the Haitian Sensation's CD launch on Friday (and the astounding discovery of Jokko, a band I'm now forced to recommend to anyone who will listen.) But I've been overwhelmed with a million other things.

In case anyone sees this before it's all over, though, I wanted to give the heads-up that Steve and Cathy Zytveld and I will be doing a spot on "Literary Landscapes" on CKCU.fm tomorrow. (93.1 - or online at http://www.ckcufm.com/listenlive.html.) Tune in after 6:00 - that's when we're meeting at the station, so I'm guessing the interview will be after 6:15 or so. There might also be an appearance - live or Memorex? - by Christopher Levenson, who's the Dusty Owl featured reader this month (May 21, incidentally.)

Dusty Owl's Birthday
10th and 2nd anniversary for the Owl this weekend! Sunday, 5:00, Swizzles - and we've got Jim Larwill, Rob McLeod, John Lavery, Ronnie Brown, Warren Layberry, Oni the Haitian Sensation, John Akpata, and Jennifer Whiteford lined up to read! Hoot hoot!

Rocking in Peterborough. . . .
Now Playing: Super Mario question blocks on my kitchen wall.
Topic: readings
This Friday I rented a car and headed out to Peterborough - about 3 hours away for S. James Curtis (AKA Steve)'s book launch for Quarter Century Crisis. The book's a Dusty Owl release, so I thought I'd go down and represent, bring our books, hand out a few business cards, and get in on the energy that happens when an author gets his own release party put together.

So I hopped on the highway, and got there in time to help him make decorations for the reading; spraypainted Super Mario question blocks. We even spraypainted one at the head of his landlady's driveway. We grabbed dinner, and then ran over to the cafe where he was holding the launch - The Spill, an awesome place with a cool look and way cooler staff - with the decorations (a lot of spraypainted posters and a few little cubes shaped like the boxes Super Mario has to jump on in the videogame - it's a long story but it did have something to do with the book. We stuck the cubes on the tables, the posters on the walls, and I set up a merch table so we could sell the book (and a couple other Dusty Owl titles.)

The reading went really well - Steve is a really funny writer, although he tackles some tough issues as well. Makes for a really entertaining reading, and he performs well too, which is a big bonus. It's sort of half reading, half standup routine, and he got a lot of laughs and cheers. One of the things I like about Steve's writing is that while it can be deeply personal and at times harrowing, he also injects a really sharp and cutting sense of humor, and occasional word twists that really surprise me.

It wasn't a huge crowd, but it was friendly, even the people who hadn't actually come for the reading, but who stopped to talk and hand me one of their own chapbooks. And afterwards Steve and I went out to hang out in downtown Peterborough, which is actually kind of cool if you know the right people and the interesting bars. Luckily, Steve does, so we had a really good night. Got back to his place pretty late, I crashed on the couch, and then I took him to work after breakfast in the morning and headed back to Ottawa. All in all, we were both still buzzed by the middle of the next day. Possibly until much later - check Steve's Myspace to find out!

JMS on Writing
Got this article forwarded to me from a friend just about when I really needed to remember all that stuff you keep hearing about writing every day and doing it because you love it and making time and space for it. And it was a fun read.

I am concert death.
It's a curse.

I get tickets to a show, and it gets cancelled. Luckily, if the show doesn't have advance sales, it's all good. So I suppose my strategy should always be to pay cover at the door. . . I got tickets to see Nine Inch Nails this past March, and the concert was cancelled due to illness. I got tickets last Friday to a Carribbean reggae/soca/zouk/calypso show featuring three local bands. It was supposed to be tonight, but now it's cancelled due to low ticket sales.

If the Our Lady Peace show on May 16th is cancelled for whatever reason, I'll consider myself officially musically cursed.

Ah well. The good news for the day is that Dusty Owl has eight artists lined up for our birthday party on April 23rd: Jim Larwill, Rob McLeod, Ronnie R. Brown, Warren Layberry, Oni the Haitian Sensation, John Akpata, John Lavery, and Jennifer Whiteford (AKA Matilda.) More might be coming, too, and we're still talking to the Earth Tones Drum Circle for incidental music and possible djembe jamming with the poets. This is going to be fun!

Belated ruminations on Friday night. . .
Now Playing: wine, cool weather, half a moon
Last Friday was a night I really should have been telling people about - first, there was John Akpata's release party for his CD Kerheb, which is a cool CD, and was a really good time. He had gotten together a collection of musicians and poets for a launch at Mercury Lounge, and the place was more packed than I've ever seen it - you could barely move. Actually, it got a little oppressive - I found myself getting way too warm and overwhelmed. The Mercury Lounge is a really cool spot, but it might have been too small for this event - people were crammed in, and at the break I found a lot of people were having a hard time getting from one end of the bar to the other. But the event itself was cool - John's readings were great, and the musicians added a lot to the poems, and I liked the big projection screen with audiovisual stuff (courtesy Jamie Johnston, who's a hell of a photographer.)

I missed out on Dave Lauzon opening for The Sisters Euclid, but I managed to get away from John's party to get down to the Glue Pot. The management at the Glue Pot have decided to try and turn it back into a live music venue, which it was way back when, and they'd signed on The Red Marilyns to play a show there. The Red Marilyns used to be called ChainLinc Head, and under that name they played a couple of shows at Swizzles Bar & Grill last year. They're starting to really get things together, and they had a CD for sale at the show, which I picked up and thoroughly enjoyed. (You can get it at CD Warehouse, BTW.) Judging from the reaction, the show went over well, and the band's been asked back for a repeat show. Yay! I'm there. It's so nice to see a new band do a whole show of mostly original work, and I love the sense of humor that comes out in Stephanie Regan's vocals. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when they get a few more live shows under their belts.

Next... I'm headed to Peterborough for the release party for Quarter Century Crisis - latest book from Dusty Owl Press. April 14th, if you're in the area....

Ottawa Poetry Faceoff 2006
Topic: slam
Last night was the Ottawa CBC Poetry Faceoff.

I love this stuff - something about a room full of a wide range of people who are all there to have fun and hear poetry. It just gets me wired. It's a pretty big event, too, so you get to see some people who might not have heard the poets before, and that's always fun. I got to bring a friend who had never been to a poetry slam and who was clearly blown away by the evening's winner, DJ Morales. It was fun to see her reaction.

I knew three of the poets competing - I had never heard Doretta Charles or Colin Vincent, but I met Jacqueline Lawrence at the workshop with Kwame Dawes a while back, and Steve Sauve and DJ Morales are really familiar from Capital Slam (they've also both read at Dusty Owl).

I think experience with doing slams has got to be a major advantage - it gives you some practice at recovering if you slip or drop out a section. It's a theatrical skill, and one I'm pretty envious of. And I think one of the more amazing moments of the evening was the entire audience pulling for Jacqueline Lawrence when she started to stumble, had to restart the poem a few times, and still managed to fight through, stumbling but recovering, and keeping her cool, which really impressed me - I'd have been off the stage and shaking somewhere. She stayed up there and finished the poem, with a couple of shouts of "You can do it!" and "Go for it, Jackie!" from the audience. The whole room was just pulling for her to make it through. And the poem was gorgeous.

DJ, who took home the Poetry Crown and the Cup of Minutiae, is a hell of a lot of fun to watch. She might have stumbled once. Maybe. She's just tiny, and her delivery is rapid-fire and really dramatic. And she's 19. . . I also knew, as soon as Alan Neal pointed out that he couldn't use the word "fuck" on the radio, that they were going to have to bleep DJ. When she had to pull her number for the performance order, she said, "I don't want to go second," pulled her number, looked at it, and just burst out, "Fuck!" . . . and Alan and the audience all yelled back, "Eff! You have to say eff!"

Oh, and I love the fact that the CBC, the national broadcasting corporation, the Official Canadian Media, has such a weird-ass sense of humor. The Cup of Minutiae? Alan Neal's Velvet Suit Fund? CBC golf balls?

Cool Stuff to do this Weekend (way better than laundry)
Got to put in a plug for Kalmunity at the Golden Star Lounge Friday night. I heard a couple of members at the opening Capital Slam show this fall and it looked like something I'd love to get a full taste of. Collective, improv poetry/music/performance. Interesting stuff.

Oh, and of course, if you're looking for cool, unique, awesome and cheap art, crafts, and zines - Ravenswing Craft and Zine Fair is at the Jack Purcell Community Centre this Saturday, 1:30 to 5:00! Workshops, artists, writers, cool company and handmade goodies!

Cracking a bottle of champagne on a new zine. . .
Now Playing: whatever's on the hard drive
Topic: readings

Wednesday night was the launch of the first issue of The Dyke-tionnary, a new zine by Ina Julien. It was at the Lookout, in the Market, and it drew a pretty good crowd for a weeknight and a new zine. I think the Ottawa lit community has that going for it in a way the communities in other cities might not - it's a very warm place to be a newbie.

The event went pretty smoothly, despite a couple of technical glitches and the fact that it was, I think, the first event of its kind for the organizers, Ravenswing and Apt. 5 Distro. I was pretty happy to get to hear Festrell read (I know, I'd heard all but one of the pieces she read, but her performances keep getting better...) as well as Jennifer Whiteford, the author of the zine "Matilda," whose novel Grrrl is coming out this spring, which is something I anticipate running out and buying about as soon as I can.

I picked up a copy of Dyke-tionnary Issue 1 - as well as the latest issue of Slightly More Than Sound Bytes - at the reading, and enjoyed both of them. I like the idea of building a zine around coining words for things that there aren't words for but should be (my personal favorite from Dyke-tionnary was 'Fetrosexual,' the female version of 'Metrosexual'), and I liked the personal passion of Slightly More Than Sound Bytes.

Got to wonder, though - why is it when you hold events like this in bars there's always one half-in-the-bag regular sitting back by the bar who takes it upon himself to bray out lame comments about the poetry and have loud conversations with the bartender? Just a question.