Found Photo de Jour

Found in the parking lot behind 334 Queen Street, Fredericton. Found in the swish trail of water flushed out the "emergency exit only" doors of Dolan's Pub off the side of The Tanney on King Street. Photo on a ID card for Shawna Christine Olive of Rothesay, NB. An ID card I won't identify but suspect she'll definitely want. An ID card I can mail to her Rothesay address while believing that she's likely now an university student in Fredericton.

T: SFRJ
loc: fredpostbrunch
temp: 13 C
sound: sirens on the streets of Fredericton

Readings Season Opens

Autumn is a furious time for author readings in Fredericton. I've attended five in the past ten days. Plus I did four Random Acts of Poetry staged readings for a photo (Daily Gleaner) and tv—read to Freddie the Nude Dude, a Siberian Husky-German shepherd mix puppy and to Charles LeBlanc the ADHD Activist blogger—for Trevor Doyle Live (Rogers TV) spots. Missed one reading last Friday. Will attend a reading+ tomorrow in Moncton. Will miss another one Monday evening because it's happening at exactly the same time as my appearance on the 8 pm Trevor Doyle Live for my official kickoff for my role in Random Acts of Poetry 2007.

< RaymondFraser.jpg removed by request />
Fredericton author Raymond Fraser demonstrating that choking feeling at the launch of his new book WHEN THE EARTH WAS FLAT: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters (Black Moss Press) @ Westminster Books, King St, Fredericton, NB o 20 Sept 2007.

Nova Scotian GG-winning poet and novelist, George Elliott Clarke on stage in Memorial Hall, UNB Arts Centre, Fredericton on Friday, 21 Sept.

A BlackTop MotorCycle Gang writers' group spontaneous reading [not to be confused with a "reading raid"]. Here, member Biff Mitchell is reading a new poem to BTMG member WhiteFeather outside Gallery Connexion, Fredericton, during the last Culture Crawl of 2007, on Thursday, 27 Sept.

At the 28 Sept, Fredericton book launch in the St Croix Room, Crowne Plaza [nee Lord Beaverbrook Hotel] by well-loved Fredericton author M. T. Dohaney for The Flannigans (St John's: Pennywell Books).

While Laurence Hutchman made the introduction, Alberta poet Yvonne Trainer stood to the side of the poetry bookself at Westminster Books, King St, Fredericton, NB. Saturday afternoon, 2 pm, 29 Sept 2007.

T: Mojo Club, Senta
loc: brokenartsdesk
temp: 17 C
sound: Led Zeppelin II

BTMG helping Raise-A-Reader Day 2007

Raise-A-Reader Day is a Canada-wide annual campaign that raises awareness, funds and resources for family literacy programs. In downtown Fredericton, it will happpen on Wednesday, 3 October from 7–9 am.

Come visit several members of the BlackTop MotorCycle Gang writers' group, joined 8:30-9 am by the Honorable Andy Scott, MP, and make your donation to help the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick's "Raise-A-Reader" project. The BlackToppers & Andy Scott will be located in front of Carleton Place, King Street.

T: plain black
loc: rainpostponedreadingraid
temp: 18 C
sound: "Hunter" by Björk

ellipse 79

The new issue of revue ellipse mag has arrived just in time for
29 Sept-3 Oct: Side by Side Festival of Literary Translation / Côte à Côte festival de traduction littéraire: Langues en danger / Indigenous and Endangered Languages starting this weekend. The trickster was messin' with me when I tried exporting the cover to PDF so I did an end-around to get past him to produce this very fine cover and issue {I'm on the Ed Board and do the production layout work]. Cover image is my photograph: "Robert Dickson au Brunch chez Rose, Moncton, 2005".

Main things in this issue are « Hommage à Robert Dickson » + Deux poèmes de Robert Dickson; Dossier 1 / Feature 1 of Sculpture sur prose / Prose Sculpture by Joe Blades, Rose Després, Dyane Léger, J. Roger Léveillée et Jo-Anne Elder; Dossier 2 / Feature 2 on The Governor General’s Literary Awards / Prix littéraire du Gouverneur général including a List of Canada Council Translation Prize winners and Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation winners / Liste des lauréat.e.s du Prix de traduction du Conseil des Arts du Canada et du Prix littéraire du Gouverneur général en traduction, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation, 2006 (Cinq poèmes de Vétiver par Joël Des Rosiers, tr. Hugh Hazelton), « Les GG, cuvée 2005 » by Michel Savard, Jean-Marc Desgent, Anne Compton, Processional

shirt: navy blue knit
loc: Fredpostculturecrawl
temp: 19 C
sound: Best of Bowie

APB, 25 Sept 2007

Live interview in the first half of the show with Jo-Anne Elder, co-ordinator of the Side by Side Festival of Literary Translation / Côte à Côte festival de traduction littéraire: Langues en danger / Indigenous and Endangered Languages. Fredericton & Moncton, NB. [For the festival schedule, please visit ellipsemaritimes.blogspot.com.]

Second half of the show started with two pieces by Meryn Cadell: "Spelling Bee" and "The Sweater". "My Backyard" by Montreal poet Fortner Anderson. "Big Sky Alberta" by Calgary poet Sheri-D Wilson w/ Russell Broom. "The Duck" by James Reaney of London, Ontario. "Bandalungwa Makelele" by Tchitala Kamba of Calgary.

T: History of Art
loc: longwalkhome
temp: 23 C
sound: House (season premiere)

Folks on the Water

Day two @ the new job and there's a Staff Appreciation afternoon, so I curtail the paperwork acquisition, its completion, and supply quests:

I biked out to Hartt Island—good PT for the day, even if I did nothing else. Corn boil and chili, juice, salad, rolls, sandwiches, apples, and water. Mine was the only camera I saw. Know that Marc André realized that he'd forgotten his, when he saw mine in hand—so I might be supplying him with some pics.

I haven't tried to sink a basket in years and I didn't try today.

Avoided the driving range too. It's been thirty years since I last swung a golf club. That time was on a poor course on PEI during the scout jamboree in Cabot Park.

Mini golf too. Marc André Chamberlain, of HD in Ed and on the organizing Wellness Committee, about to putt.

I got a ticket for a boat ride on the river.

Twelve of us out on the Saint John River in a pontoon boat with outboard motor. We wound our way between and around several of the grass and tree-covered islands, sandbars, deadheads, remnants of log-booms. Saw osprey and herons, cows and sheep on several islands. Cormorants on the water. We went downriver almost are far as the Delta Hotel before turning and heading back. Was a great first time out on that part of the river, and my first time anywhere really on the river in several years.

Desmond contemplating jumping ship and becoming an island castaway. Only 1' 9" of water and the pontoon boat was drawing 1' 4". This was no banana-boat ride with its inevitable rotation and dunking of passengers in the river.

Some of the ladies of Dept of Education at the back of the boat. They were whooping and singing and the cap'n, here eyeballing the shallow waters, was continuously joking with them.

T: History of Art
loc: endofmyworkweek
temp: 28 C
sound: Michael Franti Songs from the Front Porch

Volunteers' Harvest reprise

One week later, the Harvest Jazz & Blues Fest resurfaced last night for a special concert for the volunteers [of course we still had to buy tickes, and once there were encouraged to buy drinks, t-shirts and CDs]. Some have the $ for than, not just time to give.

The show was great: essentially a Colin James "unplugged" without the band of drums, keys, bass players on stage: He was accompanied by Craig Northey, of Odds (or, The Odds) on guitars. Craig soloed several songs including "Not a Lot Going' On" of Corner Gas theme song recognition, co-written with the Gin Blossom's Jesse Valenzuela.

Colin James even played mandolin. During the night he said that he felt a little off, and was doing neo-citron for stuffiness or a head cold, but for almost everything he was on. Many original tunes with some great covers incling "Into the Mystic". Some great solo pickin and slide guiter numbers. A crowd that really enjoyed themselve gave hi a stanging ovation and go one encore before the house lights potted up.

shirt: burgundy dress shirt
loc: Fredgothton
temp: 19 C
lound: Limp Bizkit "Rollin' (the undertaker's theme)"

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 18 Sept 2007

>Show didn't start as planned. Had to fill in until my guest arrived. He'd been up half a hour before the show started, then up just at 7 pm but had to run down to The Cellar again. While he was gone Tristis, the Station Manager, came into MCR with Board Member Doug Biersto and a potential new member orientation tour.

After reading a page of my BJP events calendar on upcoming Fredericton readings, I played a number of cuts off Kevin Matthews' Spoken Word 2005:
meat / faults / winter / no lullabies / stargazing / bush voter / until then.

Before the interview in the second half of the show with Gisto, the guitar player in Wassabi Collective, I played their song "Dune". During the interview I played "Almighty." Both from the Stories Not Forgotten CD.

Show ended with Brigit Harrison reading a prose piece in French at Frye Jam and "Shooting at a Liquor Store" by Tod Gaines.

shirt: SFRJ
loc: designstation
temp: 15 C
sound: Jack Johnson In Between Dreams

Call for Participating Poets

for
Side by Side Festival of Literary Translation
Côte à Côte festival de traduction littéraire

Lecture multilingue / Multilingual Reading
& Poem Poster Exhibition

3 October 2007, Wednesday, 7-9 pm

Charlotte Street Arts Centre Auditorium
732 Charlotte St, Fredericton, NB

Frederiton-area poets, writing in any language, are welcome to attend and read one of their poems in its original language. Translations of the poem into other languages, if available, many also be read.

For the Poem Poster Exhibition, participating poets asked to email their name, postal address, email address; and the text of the poem—max of 30 lines in length—to nelario@rogers.com. Please use Times New Roman, 12pt, in MS Word or RTF file attachments. This community reading does not pay reading/performance fees.
________________

Organized by Nela Rio for Side by Side Festival of Literary Translation / Côte à Côte festival de traduction littéraire (a project of éditions ellipse inc. with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, New Brunswick Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport–Arts Development Branch), Latin American Cultural Centre (COCUY), Broken Jaw Press, Asociación Prometeo de Poesía, New Brunswick Latino Association, Asociación Prometeo de Poesía, Capítulo Fredericton AIP, Registro Creativo (Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas).

---

shirt: SFRJ
loc: designstation
temp: 17 C
sound: Björk Homogenic

a new addition

Who telephones anyone at 8:30 AM on a Monday?
Yesterday my phone rang at that time.
I answered it with a questioning, "Hello?
It was human resources with a job offer.

A job applied for online in late June.
Did a condition report test in July.
Had an in-person interview with a committee
of three on my birthday in late August.
OK'd a fourth reference person
in the week after Labour Day weekend.

I'm the new part-time Art Bank Technician
for the Province of New Brunswick:
Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport.
Start work next Monday, 24 Sept 2007.

shirt: SFRJ
loc: designstation
temp: 12 C
sound: the wordburglar

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #8

The thrill is gone. The festival over (for another year). Homemade Jamz' closed the festival after performances by Molly Johnson and by Petunia & the Loons. Over 3,000 people in Officers' Square for the closing concert, and a beautiful afternoon for it.

Yodelling county blues by Petunia & the Loons opened the concert. Originally from Toronto, Petunia has lived in Fredericton for several years. Monday he leaves for two years of something in Vancouver.

Next on the bill was special festival headliner Molly Johnson. I didn't see her perform as I'd crossed Queen Street for the Odd Sundays at Molly's reading featuring poet Robert Hawkes (below).

Biff Mitchell and me both read in the Open Mic. Good promo for the BlackTop MotorCycle Gang reading there on 21 October.

Homemade Jamz' and their audience from under the arches of the Officers' Quarters building. They father joined them on harminica for a few songs.

t: Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival 1993
loc: Fredpostfest
temp: 16 C
sound: The Rolling Stones It's Only Rock 'N Roll

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #7

Going into it, I knew Saturday was going to hold a mad, full evening and night of music:

Who'd ever a thought that Dr. John would perform "Saturday Night" in Fredericton on a Saturday.

A victim of the weather, "The pride of Nova Scotia" deflated, fallen over, draped unceremoniously at King's Place. "A truly dead soldier," said one passerby while I was taking this photograph.

Well-loved local David Myles in the intimate Hoodoo Tent ended his set to a standing crowd—standing ovation with the song that won him the 2006 International Songwriting Competition (Folk Singer/Songwriter category).

Another Fredericton group, George Street Blues Project, in the Mojo Tent.

A strong performance by Lil' Brian and the Zydeco Travelers (of Barrett Station, Texas) galvanized the crowd. Zydeco funked up and reggaed. A treat was the cover medley of the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden" with "No Woman No Cry."

In the Barracks Tent, The Lee Boys from Miami were pumpin the music hard and the no-sittin-down crowd were pullin themselves into the air.

That was good because the scene at the Afterburn in the Blues Tent was even more intense with Montreal's Champion & His G-Strings: DJ mixin with four electric guitar players, a bass player and a vocalist making a most incredible room-tent-house of hard drivin live techno. Wow!

t-shirt: 2000 / Radio UNB / chsr fm
loc: festivalsunmorning
temp: 9 C
sound: Led Zepplin II

Raymond Fraser book launch

Rain and ink jet run well together . . . this poster is still readable if you click on it to open & enlarge on its own. If not, the giest of it is:

20 Sept, Thursday, 7 pm: reading—Ray Fraser launches WHEN THE EARTH WAS FLAT: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters (Black Moss Press) @ Westminster Books, King St, Fredericton, NB.

The book should be a good one. Over the years, I've certainly enjoyed Ray, in his rye way, tell tales of his time in Montreal, and of being a young guitar-playing musician in the days when St Thomas University was still in Chatham, NB and of Alden Nowlan writing about Ray in his Telegraph Journal column.

shirt: CHSR
loc: runbetweenconcerts
temp: 13 C
sound: Dr John singing "Saturday Night", live in my head from the show that just ended in the Mojo Tent

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #6

It was Congo Square Family Experience day in Officer's Square (moved inside the Mojo Tent because of the anticipated rain that started while I was there). The tent was solid with families: kits getting facepainted, or they were helping paint a mural, or they were painting T-shirts they could take with them once dry, or they were doing other arts & crafts. Plus there was a "musical instrument petting zoo" with a long snaking stream of kids getting hands-on with a fiddle, horn, small drum kit, and likely more that I didn't get to see.

There was also an entertainment lineup. I only saw Dr Rev Robert Jones (photo below) with his Dobro steel guitar. He's a blues educator and was in 16 Fredericton-area schools this past week. Whew! That would be intense work. Even here he opened with a song to demonstrate that one of the purposes of folk songs is "to remember" . . . and he was talking-working with all the kids in front of the stage to sing along their parts. Some success but most of the tent wasn't paying attention to him because of all the simultaneous creating that was happening.

Also part of the Congo Square day, in the Barracks Square tent there were music workshops for the kids: harmonica, hand drumming and more. Was neat to see such open encouragement.

T-shirt: CHSR
loc: Harvestlightrain
temp: 16 C
sound: Led Zepplin II

Hiking Trails of New Brunswick

Just because that the way these things happen, this morning I switched focus from HJAB to a book launch in the Saint John Room of the Crown Plaza–Lord Beaverbrook Hotel:

Marianne Eiselt & H.A. Eiselt launched Hiking Trails of New Brunswick, third edition (Goose Lane Editions) at Recreation New Brunswick (RNB) & New Brunswick Trails Council Inc. (NBTCI) fall conference: Together and Active: Strength Through Partnerships.

Expanded and updated, the new edition of Hiking Trails of New Brunswick features over 100 hiking trails organizized in sctions representing six regions of the province. The authors deliberately chose to not include regular walking, snowmobile, groomed, or ex-railbed trails such as the Trans Canada Trail. The book is complete with maps and photo, direction on where to start and descriptions of what one will experience—sometimes with informative sidebar stories—with numerous black & white photographs throughout.

I had hoped to figure out a way to record the introductory Q&A conducted by publisher Suzanne Alexander with the authors. Didn't happen. I couldn't get a line-in from the convention's rented mine-board feeding into a ceiling speaker system also into the digital Marantz. Think I would have needed cables I didn't possess (or, possibly, don't know about). Next best thing will to get one or both of the Eiselts on my show. Why not? Autumn hiking season is upon us. H.A. is especially entertaining and their talk definitely plays off each other.

I did, however get some okay photos. Ironically, Goose's publicist forgot to bring her camera so she's asked if they could use some of mine.

Hiking Trails of New Brunswick, third edition
by Marianne Eiselt & H.A. Eiselt
ISBN 978-0-86492-455-1
327 pp, illustrated + index
Sept. 2007
Goose Lane Editions

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T-shirt: CHSR
loc: Harvestlightrain
temp: 16 C
sound: Led Zepplin II

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #5

Thom Swift onstage in Officers Square, Friday afternoon.

Fredericton's Keith Hallett band on stage in Mojo Tent. Watermelon Slim watching from the backstage wings. Keith, at age 17, is this year's Galaxie Rising Star.

The incredible Homemade Jamz' Blues Band from Tupelo, MS: Ryan Perry, 15, on double-barrel Ford muffler lead guitar; brother Tyler, 12, on bass; and li'le sister Taya, age 8, on drum kit. Truly incredible!

An "official" festival street busker with Caribbean steel drum.

Jim Blewett on guitar, and someone I don't know, ["Mic McNeely, a retired hippy," said Jim to me Saturevening at the sold out "The Doctor Is In" / Dr John concert] on upright bass.

The incredible Watermelon Slim & the Workers (from Oklahoma) with special guests John Campbelljohn and Rosevelt Lee on steel pedal guitars plus Roxanne Potvin on electric guitar.

Rockin' out the Afterburn show in the early hours of today was Matt Mays and El Torpedo. The Barnetteville girls were up front as close as they could get to the stage (and I never saw them during the show. Give 'er!

shirt(s) burgandy, knit long-sleeve + CHSR 97.9 FM
loc: Harvestrainbreak
temp: 15 C
sound: Mr something Something

Odd Sundays at Molly's

Odd Sundays at Molly’s
starts off the year with
featured reader Robert Hawkes
sunday, september 16, 2007
2 pm Molly’s Coffee House
554 Queen Street, Fredericton

Featured reader, Robert Hawkes, father, editor, professor emeritus, and poet, was born in Coal Creek, New Brunswick. He has edited, written, and reared children, variously, in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Eskasoni (NS), Sydney, and Durham (NC). The Fiddlehead, The Cormorant, and The Canadian Modern Language Journal / La Revue Canadienne des langues vivantes are richer for his literary eye and heart. As well as being widely anthologized, Hawkes’ publications include prose pieces on educational topics, a history of 19th century Queens County teachers, Paradigms (Fiddlehead/Goose Lane), This Grievous Injury (Broken Jaw), Cranmer and Pole—Archbishops (Broken Jaw) and Poems for the Christmas Season (Broken Jaw). Of Cranmer and Pole, George Elliott Clarke has written: “an imaginative, first-person exploration . . . arrestingly vivid . . . hard-won and honed and impressive . . . this collection may be recommended for its almost stern, classics-minded authority.”

Open Set: Bring lyrics, drama, fiction, a recipe for mustard pickles—or just plain poetry—to present in the open set. If it is created from words, you can read it.

2 pm on September 16, at Molly’s Coffee House, for an afternoon of poetry. For information: acalvern@nbnet.nb.ca or 459-1436. Yay New Brunswick, Canada’s poetry province!

*********************

odd sundays at molly’s
lineup for 2007-2008 (so far):
Sep 16 Robert Hawkes (gentle, prophetic)
Oct 7 Raymond Fraser (a new book!)
Oct 21 Black Top Motorcycle Gang (eclectic and slightly subversive)
Nov 4 Robert Gibbs (from his novel!)
Nov 18 Wayne Curtis (short stories)
Dec 2 Gregory Cook (biographer, poet)
Dec 16 Lorna Drew (on living)
Jan 6 Logan Hawkes (music)
Jan 10 Betsy Epperly (on Anne of Green Gables)

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #4

Found in one of my desk drawers . . . a bag with an old Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival beer ticket. Not redeemable today. For years now they've used a system of embossed, colour-coded plastic tokens for drinks. What year is this from? I wonder. Would someone consider it to be a collector's item ;-)

shirt: Safety is no Accident
loc: brokenarttable
temp: 13 C
sound: David Byrne "Like Humans Do"

Harvest Jazz & Blues 2007, #3

I tucked away my media pass as I walk across the grass toward Cat Leblanc, both of us converging on the Mojo Tent. Cat's title at the New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Cooperative is Director of Membership Services. I've known her since before I moved to Fredericton in 1990. Cat is better than "good people" . . . she's great!

Inside the big tent there a sound check onstage and various of the volunteer and paid festival crew moving about. Volunteers must check-in to get the event's pass, shirt, and orientation. On tonight's NBFC volunteer roster, I replaced Cat's man, Tony Merzetti, who was in the Film Co-op offices working on the annual big kahuna Canada Council application.

When Cat and me first slipped in the tent, Matt Minglewood & band was on stage. I then saw a cameraman and Starr Dobson, co-host of Live at 5 (ATV-CTV) onstage. As we watched they all straightened up and did a life feed into the show: brief interview before Matt and the boys launched into a song for the listeners at home throughout Atlantic Canada.

During the real show the tent was packed to capacity. One of our security duties on three of the five exits was to count people leaving as that count controlled how many new people could be permitted to enter the tent. What seating there was filled quickly, and the bars started doing a brisk business. My older cousin Roy in the picture above of the bar closest to my station at an "emergency exit only".

Two of the Film Co-op strong-arms on security: Corena Walby & Cat Leblanc. Things might have gotten ugly if Cat had taken her gloves off. "EXIT" is a Fire Marshall regulation of all buildings permanent or temporary. Most people didn't see the tent to be the "building" it is so they read "EXIT" to mean a normal entryway. We needed so many ways of saying "no" both to people inside the tent wanting to step outside to smoke, or leave drink in hand as if it wasn't a licenced premises same as any bar [we were visited by the liquor inspectors and uniformed police], and to people wanting to enter the tent right there, instead of through the one controlled entrance. Good thing was that we rotated through all the exits and even had breaks with a volunteer's lounge with bbq dogs and burgers and stuff across the Square.

shirt: Safety is no Accident
loc: morningfog
temp: 3 C
sound Soundgarden Superunknown