Slower than Turtle

Q: Why did the turtle cross the toad?
A: Because the road was moving slower than the turtle.


Swimming above ground, out of water, in thick humid air . . . I was out for a bike ride before I became waterlogged and stuck in the accumulating sediment . . .

Turtle in the photo above was on the trail near the frog park. Moving along at its turtle pace. Still a danger to hit with a bike, one as bad as the tree trunk swerved around behind the building now housing FAPO, the one used as the set for cafe scenes for my acting role in Neverville: Population 101 (LunaSea Films, 2002). It's a surprise to see a turtle here. Haven't seen one before. So I take a few pictures and ensure that it's safely off the bike trail before I climb back on my SCA steed and head into town.

Reminds me of Talks-Too-Much's "No shit, there I was . . ." story of being on a US military base in one of the western states; a weapon testing ground: They had been driving along a road through the desert when the convoy came to a halt. TTM, ever curious, got out of his vehicle to learn the reason for the stoppage. Asked the driver and was told that a tortoise was crossing the road and they had to stop for it. [Can't you just see the headline: "Tortoise Halts US Army Advance".] This tortoise was recognized as an endangered species, the area its protected environment—yet both are inside a military base! TTM thinks wtf and returns to his vehicle shaking his head in contradictory wonderin'.

T: Guinness (Celtic knotwork)
loc: brokenLogistics
temp: 22 C (feeling like 30)
sound: Grateful Dead, Terrapin Station

APB, 27 June 2006

Last Tueday in June 2006, the 27th. On Ashes, Paper & Beans, I happened to do an all-Canadian poetry episode:
• Hugh Hazelton from antimatter: "Emergency", "The Imperial Birthday Party"
• Heather O'Neill, "Friday Night"
• Chris Bell, "Bikes"
• Helene Monette (poem) + Bob Oliver (music), "Heure de pointe"
• Swifty Lazarus, "History is Dead (Read My Lips)"
• Clive Holden from Trains of Winnipeg (Cyclops Press): "bus north to thompson with les at the wheel", "wind", "transcona" & "babette"
• Al Purdy from Necropsy of Love (Cyclops Press): "The Caribou Horses", "In the Early Cretaceous" & "Lament for the Dorsets"

---

T: yellow "Joe" polo
loc: brokenSauna
temp: 24 C (30 inside)
sount: Tom Waits nighthawks at the diner

Poetry Warehouse Blues

Oh, they'd been sitting dormant
some of them for many a year
boxes and boxes of books on shelves
in a basement, locked cage storage
in a former shoe factory building
until Public Safety wanted my space

CHORUS
I's got dem mean ol' poetry warehouse blues
friends are afraid to visit my place
they're afraid of getting trapped, entombed
if the piled boxes ever shift their weight
and exert their stacked kinetic influence
I've got the scary poetry warehouse blues

so I hauled ass and hefted boxes
from shelf to rented truck and out
up steps and into my living cave
filling as the boxes piled higher
Public Safety would be appalled
by my concentration of poetry

CHORUS

I've got three metric tonnes of haiku
in my apartment that needs to go
somewhere, good homes or bad, soon!
Boxes line the hall I walk sideways
Boxes mountain in the studio-livingroom
Boxes mountain in the bedroom and office

CHORUS

I've got poems and more for sale:
new poems and old poems; Christmas,
queer and family poems; Spanish,
French, German and English poems
Canadian art and architecture
novels and poetry, yes, poetry

CHORUS


T: bright yellow Joe brand
loc: poetry warehouse
temp: 19 C
sound: Screaming Trees Sweet Oblivion

Fried Squirrel, Anyone?

Sounds like cannon fire nearby hauled me from deep sleep Saturday morning. The electricity was off. Too early. It was 5:45 by my watch. I heard beeping from the next room. Discovered that it was the computer's backup power supply, and shut the thing down. Couldn't make coffee. Couldn't blog. Emergency lighting in the hallway beeped at the building's exits. They worked. Nice!

I went outside with my journal and camera. The traffic lights were working. Must be a very localized outage? Should have had a long-sleeve shirt; the humidity cool on my arms, cool on my smashed thumb from last night's stepladder accident in Liz's yard while I worked to add structure for the grapevine growing overtop of the kitchen door's steps.


@ 6:40 an Energie NB Power truck turned onto George and moved slow. I saw an opened laptop in the passenger seat. It stopped by the graveyard. Buddy got out and looked up. With a long, hooked, extendible pole he pulled on fuses above clustered transformers. After turning the truck around he drove closer, to the corner of George and Sunbury, only three houses from my building.

There he found the cause of the outage: young punk squirrel died running the wires. Fell beside a Coors Light bottle, or was he carrying it, drinking it while doing his final high-wire act? Tripped two fuses going down—not goin' down alone. Goliath won this time. Squirrel's tail clearly singed. Shows that drinking Coors Light can be fatal. "If you drink this, you don't get it!"—mock Alpine slogan.

Friday, too-early morning, the day's disruption was a saw cutting cement sidewalk across the street. The start for a crew drilling all day for natural gas 'cause that church wants some.


Thursday morn, just after 6 AM, it was a city road crew cutting around, digging out, and rebuilding, "raising" manhole covers on my block of George Street. Summer solstice mere days earlier, and road construction swings into gear before the school years ends, before the main tourist season starts. "CAUTION: Raised manholes" means that sometime in the next month or two they'll be back here with dumptrucks and that machine used to chew a strip of road surface ashfelt beside last summer-construction season's curb & gutter. Hopefully, they'll get it recapped, paved before the next school year starts . . .


T: Ian Dury, a Reason to be Cheerful
loc: MAPP
temp: 17 C
sound: Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill

Lara: wild alive child

 
In April I met Lara: wild, alive Lara; daughter of Jelena; friend of Vük; friend to insects and small animals (says she wants to become an animal doctor, a veterinarian); fan of twigs and sticks; sleepless creature of the night; watcher of cartoons in Polish and English; speaker of a crazy Hungarian-Serbian language jumble w/ some English thrown into the mix; storyteller; colourist; collector of flowers and petals; commander of attention . . .

Shirt: some crazy print
loc: Fredom
temp: 23 C
Sound: Portishead Dummy

APB, 20 June 2006

Another Tuesday in Fredericton. Another NB Cracks special at Victory Meat not exercised. Another Taproom Mug Club members Tuesday special (only $3.50 per mug) with bonus live World Cup football on a monstrous HDTV enjoyed before climbing the hill to CHSR for another episode of Ashes, Paper & Beans (the first with Scott Kitchen as the station's new Program Director).

A mixed show, it was:
• Monty Python with "Wide World of Novel Writing"
• "Raising Cade" story by Margaret Macpherson
• Monty Python with "The Cheeseshop"
• "At the Quinte Hotel" poem by Al Purdy
• "Homet and the Giant Sea Worm" tale by Stephen DiLauro
• Monty Python with "Bishop on the Landing"
• Maggie Estep with "Sex Goddess of the Western Hemisphere"

---

T: SFRJ
loc: ComCtr
temp: 18 C
sound: The smalls The smalls

Naïve Writers 101

WARNING: Naïve writers must not read this post. To preserve the purity of your naïvety, hit the X [exit] button in the upper right corner of your screen now!

An excerpt from a not-written textbook.

International Naïve Writer Day was created to recognize the unaware, naive writer you were before you stepped in here. On what day of the year is International Naïve Writer Day celebrated?

Do you remember the phone calls, emails and letters you sent to publishers without any research on what they did: Not who they published. Not the genre or types of books published. Not the scale of operation. Not where they were located in relation to where you were. Remember when you did nothing other than find a phone number in the Yellow Pages, or an address at the library?

Remember when you said that so-and-so recommended you to them? Remember the silence on the other end of the phone? That was the publisher questioning themselves while trying to find the good words to ask whether it really was a recommendation of hadn't you, in fact, simply received an address list that you were running down?

Remember when you said you'd written the next New York Times Best-seller? How did the publisher respond? Remember the sigh? That was them asking themselves Why, if you've written a book that big, has you contacted me—a [kitchen table, basement, bedroom office, backshed, etc.] publisher in backwater ______? Do I look like a publisher of New York Times Best-sellers? Have I/we published any up till now?

Remember the cute, scented bio notes about your cats and curling up with a cut of tea watching the ocean? The ones sent with the cookie crumbs, loose flower petals, pot seeds, or sparkles in the envelope? The hand-written notes on a sheet of loose-leaf paper from you child's school supplies? The number of time you didn't include a SASE (and, in fact, didn't know that meant Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope, or that your domestic postage will not get a reply mailed to you).

Remember when you admitted that you didn't really know what you wanted, just that you've written [something] that should be published. Remember admitting that you didn't know the difference between printers, contract publishers and trade publishers.

Remember when you said that you had not published anything anywhere—not even a poem in your church's newsletter—but that you'd written a book you knew tonnes of people were going to want to read, need to read?

Remember when you asked the publisher for referals to other publishers; or for the address for another book publisher?

Remember when you asked if you could drop by the publisher's office for instant feedback on your writing?

[ . . . }

---

T: SFRJ
loc: edOff
temp: 29 C
sound: Dylan & The Dead, "Gotta Serve Somebody"

24 June ellipse Open Mic

There will be a secret poetry reading at the Underground Café this coming Saturday evening, 24 June 2006 (La Saint-Jean) at 7 pm.

An ellipse Open Mic not supposed to be secret, of course, but with short notice publicicity . . .

An informal après Remote Control event following Remote Control: Disseminating Independent Media Art in Atlantic Canada.

Expect this open mic reading to be at least bilingual, possible multilingual, like ellipse itself. Share your poetry & flash fiction: Come one, come all! Put your best words forward. Emcee is Jo-Anne Elder. Info: tel 506.451.0408

Underground Café, Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte Street, Fredericton, NB.

---

T: SFRJ
loc: MAPPcomm
temp: 26 C
sound: Jamiroquai, Travelling Without Moving

Naphtha

The Serbian word for "naphtha" (colourless, flamable, petroleum distillate used as fuel and solvent) is "nafta".

Nafta in American English or Canadian English becomes NAFTA, the acronym for North American Free Trade Agreement, phase two of the economic (and more!?!) unification strategy for those parts of the continent adjacent to, and including, the political entity known as the United States of America [but that should have been named the United States of Central North America (USCNA)].

I made this image and card years ago, likely in PageMaker 3, with a North America outline from WordPerfect or Harvard Graphics clipart with text layered on top. I still feel that it's very relevant.

Pay attention to what your elected politicians, the bureaucrats and business leaders are doing.

shirt: yellow Denver Hayes
loc: comCtr
temp: 20 C
sound: Elvis Costello, Trust

On the LCP and poetry

An open letter to rob mclennan written in reply to an email aside from him wondering about possible reaction to his blog posting The League of Canadian Poets: Ottawa agm.

Dear rob,

If you're lucky, you'll get some real response to what I'd call your healthy wondering and criticism of changes in the League membership experience and activities.

The monster members' book launch was created by the League's council as a cash grab to augment the orgs.'s cash flow. It does indeed do some limited promotion of the books placed in the event but the League continues to operate these events as something closer to an in-house activity than as a truly for the general public and lovers of poetry celebratory event in whichever city they've schedulled the AGM. The League actively collected book launch fees from publishers to launch books by members whether or not the member poet would be there (would have additionally paid registration fees) to attend the particular annual general meeting and its book launch event, and they've even accepted fees for poetry books by non-members (though, hopefully, that was an accident and a practice that has stopped).

I was surprised but not disappointed to see your inclusion of a link to my blog post "Where am I?" as an "apology". Thank you. I can see that people have been clicking through your robmclennan.blog to mine to see and possibly read some of what I wrote.

I can understand why you named it an "apology". I so often feel like I'm a disappointment artist (especially in my saying NO to so many hundreds-thousands of author queries and/or manuscripts) incapable of doing anything near adequate to the demand or hopeful self-interest expectations of those other writers and authors. I'm not quite the apologist that I consider other not named poets to have become in recent years (at lease around me—maybe I'm the problem?) but I'm getting too close to being a constant apologist for comfort. It bothers me. Really bothers me . . .

Especially where my poetry needs more of myself than it getting. You know this. I know this. We've discussed it. My poetry also need more feedback, more critical input from elsewhere, maybe even more publications (in mags, anthologies, books?), but it can't get any of that without me being able to dedicate more of myself to my poetry. How's that going to happen anytime soon?

One of the things that I liked during my term as the elected NB & PEI Regional Rep (1996–1997) on the League's National Council were on-the-side discussions with Anne Burke (Calgary), Dennis Reid (Victoria), and Brenda Niskala (Regina) [Okay now, I have heard from Mick Burrs, since she recently suffered a brain hemorrhage in England. Out of hospital, Brenda is currently recovering at writer Kim Morrissey's house across the sea.] that led to the development and publication of our Open 24 Hours five-poet anthology: four of us on LCP National Council + you, at the time a non-member, brought in as a doer in your Ottawa poetry scene as well as in the Canadian poetry community.

The spring after the book's publication we had our crazy cross-Canada reading tour by plane, train, bus and car that took us through 11 readings in 14 days from Fredericton to Victoria. We can never forget those three days on the Prairies, hard-driving with Robert (Bert) McTavish, plucky freelance reporter in the car recording everything to make an audio piece "Drives of the Poets" that opened the season for Outfront series within the New Voices program on CBC Radio (and was picked up by Bill Richardson for rebroadcast on his program). Then there's the poetry we wrote while on the road, on that tour, resulting in two more books—your Manitoba highway map and my Open Road West. So much has happened since then . . .

Now that is what poetry and truly living the life of the poet is all about. Those things happened in no small part because of the League of Canadian Poets and it's then ability to better bring poets together from across the country.

Where do we go from here?

Sincerely,

Joe

T: Quod nos non necat . . .
loc: writinCtr
temp: 28 C
sound: Kinny Starr, Sun Again

Broken Joe Stuff

I've entered a new phase of accessibility, commitment and presence: just started a storefront brokenjoestuff at etsy.com. Only one set of items up at the moment: Broken Jaw Press cups/mugs. It already has a link built into in this blog's sidebar. You'll also find a few other stores there in the mix of blogs, portfolios and websites. I hope this works for me. Hope it does something to get my stuff out there beyond wherever I am or go. Have more stuff to add to the store, to put on your shelves and tables. Expect handmade books, poetry, unusual objet d'art, photograph note cards and more . . .


T: Quod nos non necat, etiam maximime laedit
loc: commCtr
temp: 24 C
sound: Michael Franti and Spearhead Everyone Deserves Music

A Needle in a Haystack

This Saturday, 17 June 2006, markes the grand opening of A Needle in a Haystack, a shop full of unique work by mostly emerging artists. Join Amber Friedman and Erin Hamilton in celebrating the launch of their new art venture. There's craft, art, books and (?) in the shop by Jackie Bourque, Liz Haines, Maja Padrov, Sarah Petite, Joe Blades, Broken Jaw Press and many, many more . . . At the grand opening there will also be artist demonstrations; music by Vetch in the afternoon.

A Needle in a Haystack, 44 Front St, Village of Gagetown, NB. Call (506) 488-2781 if you need directions [take exit 330 off Route 2 (the Trans-Canada Hightway); take the FREE ferry from Lower Jemseg; or, take exit 80 off Route 7 onto 102 and wander up along the beautiful St John River]. Store hours are 10-5 (Tuesday-Saturday) and 12-5 on Sunday.

Photo on the postcard by Kyle Cunjak.

APB, 13 June 2006

Another Ashes, Paper & Beans in the can (well, on CD and on the DigiCart for rebroadcast whenever)!

Richard Hell from his novel Go Now
Clive Holden with "Trains of Winnipeg" & "Eighteen Thousand Dead in Gordon Head"
Radio Free Vestibule with "Froo Froo the talking cat"
&
from The United States of Poetry (Mouth Almighty/Mercury):
• Emily XYZ & Myers Bartlett "Slot Machine"
• Matt Cook "James Joyce"
• Tracie Morris "Project Princess"
• Amiri Baraka "The X is Black (Spike Lie)"

T: CHSR Highland Radio 2005
loc: BJP [un]calmCtr
temp: 17 C
sound: a roaring fan, tires on wet streets

Charles Warren Pieroway

If my grandfather Charlie were alive, today would be his 100th birthday. Gramps loved his lobsters, his rum and cigarettes too. The photo above is from one of his birthday dinners when all of us lived in Dartmouth (I recognise the windbreak wall of the deck tucked into the corner between the garage and the house at 34 Swanton Drive above Bell Lake). The lobsters were likely caught by the boys in the fishermen's reserve in Seaforth off highway 207 on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore.

Memories of Sandy Point, St George’s Bay, Newfoundland by Phyllis Pieroway from stories told by Charles Warren Pieroway was first published in 1996. A second edition was published by Broken Jaw Press in 2004. It's an oral history: Charlie's rememberings of growing up, living and working on and out of Sandy Point, on the West Coast of Newfoundland. Recorded after he was 75, it was transcribed and written-edited, by his daughter, my mother.

“Rich in useful insights into the working life of one ordinary Canadian, this book demonstrates the need for more such accounts.”— Canadian Book Review Annual

Charlie was born the year after France ceased to control fishing and more on the south and west coasts of the island, the French Shore. Sandy Point had been home to thousands of industrious, hard-working people. For many years, it was the capital of the French shore of western Newfoundland. Sandy Point was the centre of trade from Cape Ray to Labrador until it became one of the Newfoundland provincial government's emptied outports. Charlie worked in the woods and on boats that sailed from Virginia to Labrador. Among many other jobs, he was sometimes a lobster buyer who would also sail a schooner, of the Bluenose-type, from Sandy Point to Boston with a hold filled with live lobsters.

In 1948, with his wife Freda and their daughter Phyllis, he immigrated to Canada and settled in the Cole Harbour-Dartmouth area of what is now the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. Charlie died in 1992 at age 85.

shirt: Sears buttoned brown work shirt (Was Charlie's. I've kept it because it was his shirt, not because it fits me. It doesn't. I'm larger than he ever was so it's really too small, too tight in the arms, armpits, across my chest.)
loc: BJP off
temp: 16 C
sound: Pogues Waiting for Herb

All about the glass.

Okay: is "Heiny" or Heine the short nickname? I alway thought it was Heine. Heiny with a "y" seems closer to hindy with a silent "d" (as in "Park you hiny over there, and tell me that this is all about.") where hiny is a soft form of hind and behind. If it's all about the beer, what's with the glass promotion? Sicker and the fine print in lower left corner of the table talker both state no purchase is necessary. Does that mean that anyone of "legal drinking age" (varies by province, state, country) can simply ask for a Heineken glass and be given one? They don't have to buy a beer, a Heineken? I'm confused!

T-shirt: Picaroon's Mug Club '06
loc: BJP off
temp: 14 C
Sound: System of a Down Steal this Album!

22 april saturday

© Joe Blades 2006.

sava river became foggy overnight
river fog and moaning dove’s “channel
buoy” song and sun brightness too
yellow empty bus 68 at an end
beginning of its route routine

in zemun a house door is open
and water flows out over the sill
cascades down short steps
into a behind-sandbag wall
cobblestone street puddle

serbian army here with trucks
and water pumps hoses snaked
over the top to push the danube back
while the camouflaged sit and lower
the level inside 2-litre beer bottles

if the levels drop by two or four
metres there would be relief
but if the rain continues upriver
or the thunderstorm bursts
swollen waters will swell

my feet dry but my writing hand numb
from lack of blood circulation i hear
lara and sounds of cartoon network
in the next room but her mother's fallen
back into today's sleep-in sleep

when all the floating kafe bars
the floating indoor sportska football
and all-night babylon dance disappear
from view high above the levee
normal will seem so strange

normal not conversation’s topic
ab- has taken control and occupies
thought dreams and planning:
move or make the dykes higher
cellars tighter and pumps permanent


T-shirt: nbcc volunteer
loc: BJP off
temp: 13 C
sound: The Costello Show King of America

Where am I?

A few days ago the Parliamentary Poet Laureate assumed that this weekend I'd be in Montreal for LTAC, for the translators' meetings, but I'm not a member and never had plans that way. Jo-Anne Elder will be there. Hugh Hazelton will be there. Nigel Spencer will be there—even doing a reading from his poem translations in Funambule / Tightrope (Broken Jaw Press) by Pauline Michel, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate . . .

Poeticaly, it would have made more sense for me to be in Ottawa at the itinerent PoetryFest, the The League of Canadian Poets AGM weekend. Pauline, as Parliamentary Poet Laureate, gave a talk last night. rob mclennan and so many other poets there. I haven't attended a whole LCP AGM in years. In recent years too much of my writers' org meeting attendance has conflicted with or been preempted by publishers' meetings and tradeshows.

Right now, I should be in Toronto (again). BookExpo Canada weekend after the days of AGM of the Association of Canadian Publishers. The tradeshow opens in a few hours, and runs today and tomorrow. Broken Jaw will have a limited presence there, in the collective booth of the Literary Press Group of Canada. Broken Jaw should be there. LPG is our sales group. We've no author appearances or book signing giveaways at BEC this year. Our major authors for the year Pauline and rob are both busy in Ottawa. Plus there's no Joe-publisher-in-person presence to glad hand the booksellers, other publishers, writers and authors, members of the media, and the swarms of indigo locusts let loose. rob's forthcoming book and its aubade sampler will be our display feature.

It was two years ago at BEC that I, and other publishers, met with the Serbia & Montenegro Publishers Mission accompanied by Olgica Marinkovic, the Academic and Cultural Officer from the Canadian Embassy in Beograd. That meeting began the most unexpected turn in my literary career and personal life. One that resulted in two of my poetry books being translated into Serbian and published there. Three trips to Serbia in the past year and a half. Another on the horizon . . .

Where am I? Fredericton, in rain-soaked New Brunswick. The cartonned building blocks of my pyramid, my tomb, my oubliette surround me. I need to get out for a big ride before the neighbouring god clubs congregate this morning, then I'll get back on this or another computer to continue working. It's the work that has kept me pinned here. On Friday I signed "okay to print" sheets for ellipse 77's cover and insides. Yesterday, I uploaded PDFs for a book cover and another "promote Joe Blades" postcard to my printer's FTP site. Have so much more to get done and gone!

T-shirt: nbcc volunteer
loc: BJP off
temp: 13 C
sound: Grateful Dead Europe '72

a Toronto run

I took the bus to Toronto for my Art Bar Reading Series performance at Victory Cafe on 30 May alongside Jan Conn, and Jane Munro. [I'd been at Jan's first book launch, for Red Shoes in the Rain at the Westmount Public Library in Montreal in 1983 days after I'd returned from four months of travel in Western Europe and Great Britain.] It is a long bus trip, 18-hours, from Fredericton to Toronto. Left F'ton at 8 pm. Arrived in Montreal just after dawn, just in time for a Hershel's petit dejuner while waiting for the bus to Kingston and Toronto. It really is too much travel time and bus time but the CC readings program travel allowance isn't sufficient to cover an air can return flight. But I journal write, even commit poetry, while a passenger like that. The reading was good and the honorarium works for me and mine. A little net income is a good thing.

After the reading, conversation and a publications exchange with Mick Burrs [Mick's latest chapbook is (among the discards) (Walking Image Press) a hand-sewn number in an edition of 82 printed from a master produced on an manual typewriter]. I kipped on Phlip's long, wide couch. Shared his livingroom with his now 5'6" corn snake in its cage.

The next morning, since I had the time, and as usual, wanted to see something of Toronto, I decided to walk to the bus station. Where the road circles around the provincial legislature building. I came upon this felled streetlight.

On it was a banner, written in uppercaase, advertising a tv series: TO LIVE WITH Culture. The blue "TO" a reference, oh so clever, to T.O./Toronto itself. The banner on the next streetlight pole is pictured below:

Deal with it: live with books. I don't go on pointe when I carry books (usually I have too many books in my arms) but to each their own . . .

The organizers of the Sick Kids Lottery have good intentions but seem to have lost their sensitivity. Who wants to gamble with the health of sick kids? Hopefully, not the doctors or the hospital. Most certainly not the parents of the kids/patients admitted.

No one I know goes to busy coach terminals, bus stations, or garages to feed the pigeons living inside those buildings. I suppose that what they want but do is say "For your security and safety, please don't litter. Please place your food remains and other garbage in the receptecles provided. Any unattended food will be destroyed by our trained security personnel." The province is also just starting [finally!] its "Smoke FREE Ontario" legislation.

Below is another not thinking: www.orleansexpress.com should be fine as a website address except that it has sex in the middle (and unexpected sex distorts the message, often confusing the reader). Once sex is identified the last part becomes "press" and in a publishing house so the rest become "Or Lean Sex Press"—some sort of alternate choice diet sex publications?—which seems like a different ball game that the buses of Orleans Express (or perhaps not so different (?) since it's not happening on the bus. Then there's their other bus pictured here with the slogan "The Company with the Kilts".

After a spectactular thunderstorm in Montreal, wth mega lightning and torrential rains, I made it back to Fredericton to tell the tale. A little bug splattered and gravel chipped from the endless highway [re]construction. Ready for real sleep in a stationary bed (until I'm on the road again).

T-shirt: STRUTS [artist-run centre]
loc: commCtr
temp: 17 C
sound: The Cars Greatest Hits

from Tomorrow's Wedding

Rehearsal this eve, as the sky darkens and predicted rain might be moving closer, for a tomorrow wedding across the street.

These two have something to do with it but I'm not sold, despite gestures and repeated kisses, that they are tommorow's couple. I like the matched black and pale pink. Cute, even smart looking, in its way! An older woman, likely mother of the girl-woman, was also wearing layered pale pink over black shirts, but with blue jeans.

I'll likely be busy cracking open and eating seabugs tomorrow when the ceremony happens so I'll get the jump on weddingtv.com by posting here today.

T: Storm Tech
loc: comCtr
temp: 20 C
sound: Phish (Selections from the 6CD Live Box Set) Hampton Comes Alive

APB, 06 06 06

Another Ashes, Paper & Beans episode in the can: 6 June 2006. A warm, muggy day. A day for numerologists (that was bound to happen today because of the used calendar created by earlier hunman beings and applied to the lives of many living on planet Earth). Do tonight's show contents reflect this? No, but they might loosen your hearing:

bpNichol "Pome Poem"
Christian Bök performing Hugo Ball's "Sea Horses and Flying Fish"
Steven Ross Smith "Two Kinds"
Terrance Cox from Local Scores (Cyclops Press): "The Maple Sugar Breakdown", "Subtropical Homesick Blues", "Of Glory in the Flower", "Red Sea Blues"
Biff Naked "Eine Tasse Tee (a poem)"
Luis J. Rodriguez "Palmas"
Patricia Smith "Spinning Till You Get Dizzy"
Michael War "Manchild"
Cin Salach & Sheila Donahue "I'm a Stranger Here Myself"
Christopher Stewart "Beat the Drum"
Maggie Estep "Bad Day at the Beauty Salon"

T-shirt: SFRJ
loc: commCtr
temp: 17 C
sound: Motion Ensemble ensemble

« Poems of the Week » Rides Again

PRESS RELEASE

Relaunch of the « Poems of the Week » website by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate

The Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Mrs. Pauline Michel, is proud to announce that the « Poems of the Week » website is now again online. Mrs. Michel has relaunched this website dedicated to Canadian poets and their poems on June 5th. This project has been set up by the previous Poet Laureate, Mr. George Bowering, in 2002.

From now on and until the end of Mrs. Michel's mandate on November 16th, readers will have access to poems written by 48 living Canadian poets invited to share their poetry. These poets come from all around the country, they are from several ethnic origins, they are women as well as men. Their work is already well-known or will soon be. French writers and English writers are equally represented.

Two new poems will be available each week: one in French, the other in English. Previous poems will remain online in the archive section so readers can read them until the end of the project.

Visit this out-of-the-ordinary website, which promotes Canadian poets and contributes in its way to the Canadian literature radiance.

[Joe Blades is one of the poets invited to participate in this year's, this Poet Laureate's « Poems of the Week » project.]