Feast of Fools V

A Shire of Lyndhaven (New Brunswick) event

31 March 2007
@ Lindsay Valley Lodge
CFB Gagetown, Oromocto, NB

Site opens at 5 pm (possible earlier, if Rec Centre canteen not open)
and closes at 10 pm
Deadline for Onboard Reservations: March 26th, 2007

Staff:
Autocrat–Heavy Marshal: Lord Isard the Grim
Co-Autocrat: Lord Matteao Allesendro Ulisse Rugieri

Fees:
On-board fee
1 • Adults: $10
2 • Youth: (under 14) $7
3 • Family Cap: $30

Off-board fee
1 • Adults: $3
2 • Youth: (under 14) $3
3 • Family Cap: $10

Celebrate the arrival of spring and join the friendly folks of the Shire of Lyndhaven in feast and merriment. This is the fifth annual Feast of Fools. There will be food in plenty, and entertainment for the entire family during and after the feast.

If the weather permits, and there is no snow for sledding, we will have this site to ourselves the whole day, and there will be fighting outside, starting at 3pm, marshaled by Lord Isard. If it is snow there is a wonderful hill for sledding.

The evening's activities will kick off with a display of medieval arts and science projects and then a Boffer-making class for kids and parents. This will be followed by a non-contact introductory class on the historical sword fighting techniques of Joachim Meyer taught by Lord Isard. The class will be open to all ages, and no experience is required. This will be followed by Feasting Merriment, and the
crowning of the King or Queen of Fools.

Activities
Hall opens: 5 pm (possible earlier, if Rec Centre canteen not open)
A&S display: set up at 5 pm
Merchants welcome: set up at 5 pm
Workshops
1 • 5:30 pm, Boffer-making class
2 • 6 pm, Class on Introduction to Fighting with Single Sword
Feast starts 7 pm
Crowing of King or Queen of Fools, bardic entertainment and feast afterwards
Hall closes: 10 pm

Directions
Make your way to Highway 2 (Trans Canada Highway). Follow it to Exit 303 for Oromocto/CFB Gagetown. Turn onto Mirimachi Rd. Go straight through two roundabouts. Turn right on St. Lawrence at the third roundabout. Continue straight, entering CFB Gagetown Main Gate after crossing Broad Rd. St. Lawrence become Tilley Road. Continue straight, then turn left onto Gagnon just before the Gym/Rec Centre. Take the second right at the signs for Camp Argonaut and Lindsay Valley Rec Area on Nashwaak Rd. Continue to the end of this road, the lodge will be on the right hand side and parking on the left. Map: directions.pdf

For questions, or inquires about the event or crash space contact the Autocrat: Jonathon Driscoll @ 357-7027 or email isard @ ironwolf.org For reservations, contact Amy at 422-2000 ext. 4423 or by email: tompkins.alt @ forces.gc.ca. Persons with allergies or other special food concerns are asked to inform the Autocrat or Amy when they register.

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T-shirt: "OAKLEY: Guaranteed to blow your socks off"
loc: MAPPoffice
temp: -2
sound: Medium on ATV/CTV

False Start

Tonight, I had intended to resume live Ashes, Paper & Beans episodes. The program director and I had exchanged several emails yesterday and today. I had selected CDs, selected several podcasts and burned them to CD, packed my bag and climbed the hill to CHSR.

Scott, the PD, was at the end of the hall gold spray painting old 45s for this year's CHSR Barry Awards. They're to be presented Friday night. Nice! Turns out they just started the annual FunDrive last night (and that wasn't mentioned last week). I went into MCR to intoduce myself to the programmer before me. Put in a blank CD to record a copy of my show and was just starting to set it up, to check levels and if the cables were there and all, when Scott came in to say there was a hockey game starting at 7 pm. He'd totally forgotten to tell me beforehand. University hockey, UNB or STU, or both, I don't know, but university hockey is the reason CHSR first started its internet broadcasts.

What a false start to resuming live broadcasts. Oh, well. I'll go again next Tuesday. Have three Tuesdays before I fly to Calgary (have those eTickets in hand now) and miss another two live Ashes, Paper & Beans programs.

T-shirt: Surf Joe Boards
loc: Fredtown
temp: 5 C
sound: The Jeff Healy Band See the Light

March Breakout!

The Friday before March Break in NB public schools and universities I was upriver @ Nackawic Elementary School. Was in Peter Gorham's art room making an artist book to leave in the school library. Was there through the province's Writers-in-the-Schools program. Main thing I did was three intense journal writing workshops to get those 60 Grade 4 & 5 students inspired to start creative journals of their own. Then we gave each of them journal (hardboard covers, lined, from Dollarama). Kick started their use by having them put their name and phone number inside the front cover. Peter offered them the use of his date stamp. Next I suggest that they get another student to write or draw something in each other's journals. Some started with collecting phone numbers. Other students wanted other kids' signatures and/or my autograph and Peter's (as their teacher). I also gave out some postcards and MAPP business cards. I saw drawings. Saw stickers being put on pages. Saw student achievement certificates, and brochures for the library being added. The challenge left with them was to write or add thing about their March Break and outside school activities. Several were to be in a hockey tournament together. Another had a curling bonspiel in Saint John. Some were travelling to visit relatives or just to see some place, take a vacation trip.

On Saturday I was asked if I was interested in writing a 5-10 line poem for a Prose Sculpture / Sculpture sur prose project with which ellipse mag has aligned itself. Poem to be based upon a prose text first published since 1 January 2000. Poem due by St Patrick's Day. Poems to be translated and published in ellipse 79 in "early May." [Gulp! I'm still working on the layout of issue 78. Still haven't received cover art images. Insides haven't been proofread. Have to work some more on that today.] Cloud cover prevented me seeing the total lunar eclipse just after sunset.

Unexpected personal emails await me Sunday morning. I went for a goodly long walk. Bought Faxe beer. Time spent on homolinguistic poem work and on Serbia-set "testimonial" poem writing.

After the snowbot attack and sleep dep of early Monday morning, I sent a poem and 97-word bio note to Nela Rio for the upcoming 7th International Multicultural-Multilingual Poetry Reading (21 Match 2007) here in Fredericton. I was phoned by Suzanne at Goose Lane about the possibility of doing some contract preproduction coordination and print material prep work for their (Between the Covers) BTC Audiobooks Spring 2007 releases. We agreed to meet Tuesday morning. Also sent out a notice for a Feast of Fools V planning meeting on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday was a biting cold day. Wind chill of -24 when I walked to recyclables to the bis on the FREX grounds and to StuporStore for Borat. At the meeting I agreed to do the BTC Audiobooks work. Was in email correspondence with three other publishers and by phone with another after the news that Broken Jaw wasn't renewing its membership in the LPG. FoF V meeting went well.

Wednesday I revised the event bid and spreadsheet before submitting then to the Shirebof Lyndhaven's seneschal. Then I answered several questions about poetry received from two Grade 10 students in Calgary and confirmed that they had Access Copyright licencing to photocopy my poem "The Dogs" for in-class use. Photographed the CFB Gagetown MAC banner.

Thursday morning, I started cutting the first of my shield blanks with the jigsaw during live-death-guitar-from-the-apartment-above. Renewed my membership in CHSR with plans to resume live episodes of Ashes, Paper & Beans. Worked on the BTC intro scripts and emails to the actor-narrators. Met with Nela for follow-up from her trip to Argentina, and for upcoming event planning. That evening I rcvd an email from a poet in Edmonton inviting me to be on a panel with videopoem screening at the League of Canadian Poets PoetryFest 2007 in Edmonton in June. Checked online and found Air Can return fares starting at about $900. Would need a grant to cover that. Can I get one? Don't know but add it to the Friday "Do List."

So, Friday morning, I phoned artnb to ask about their Arts by Invitation program before adding that to my work list. Got asked if I'd be willing to be on a grant jury meeting in April. It pays well. I was interested! More freelance work is a good thing. I wondered if I should look into shooting news videopoem footage—make a short one—before PoetryFest in June? This has been a good week.

Saturday, after I finally blogged about a videopoem DVD and poetry/audio art/spoken word mini-CD rcvd in the mail, I drew up a work list of things needed to support the grant applications, to extract books from the warehouse in Georgetown, to prepare for the month end Year End for BJP. Then I sketched an idea for a coif I want to sew together to wear inside my fighter helm. For one not in the school or university system, it had been a very full March Break week.

Sunday morning I found a very short email from a poet friend in Calgary: "Long time no see / I have a proposition for you / Need to get in touch". Wha'sup? I wonder, before settling in to design the pattern for a MAC favour to hang off our belts. Hadn't hear anything to confirm that afternoon fighter practice would happen in Oromocto. Later I wrote emails to people scattered from Northern Michigan to Pale, Republika Srpska. Received emails from the first four actor-narrators and three sent the requested head shots and bio info. Put primer on the shield blank. Got a ph call from Liz @ Isaac's Way and went there to chat with her and Jenny. Didn't receive any further info on the "proposition". Maybe on Monday?

[Yes, I know March Break here ended Sunday (or most technically at the start of classes on Monday morning). Ending this week-long post there would leave the "proposition" a mystery. Please bear with me for one final paragraph.]

Monday morning an email arrived from Calgary. I've known Sheri-D since the early '80s when she was working at the Clochard Gallery in Vancouver and we were both members of the Vancouver Literary Storefront (even though I lived and worked in Banff). We'd last seen each other in Sept 2003 at The Word on the Street—Calgary where we read at its Poet's Corner along with Mick Burrs and poets. Her email read: "Would like to invite you to take part in / The Spoken Word Pilot Program / And SWAN (Spoken Word Arts Network) / At Banff Centre / Arrival April 08 / Departure April 19 / Unless you would like to stay / And take in the festival / Which runs until the 22". I was immediately doubtful because of the large money needed for travel, registration, accom, meals. Plus, the dates overran the artsnb jury dates, the WFNB AGM in Sackville, and the final presentation of book covers and designs by the NBCCD entrepreneurship class (but Julie, GSE Art Director, can handle that one!) I replied to the email. Suppertime I rcvd another email saying, "It's all expenses paid / All you have to do is come". That's seriously wild! Then Sheri-D phoned. We talked (interrupted by her other line). Offered me billet in Calgary for those nights. I agreed to send a photo of me and short cultural worker bio in the hope she could squeeze it into the program for the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival (design to be finalized today) and me into the festival's schedule for the days after we're in Banff. Sheri-D to buy my ticket today. Wha! Talk about fast. I respectfully bowwed out of the artnb jury duty. One way or another I'm definitely Alberta bound at least once this year. Wild and so unexpected. What a March Breakout! week for my writing and art, for Broken Joe.

T-shirt: Surf Joe Boards
loc: Fredorgspacetime
temp: -1 C
sound: Georges Bizet's Carmen

Purple Lipstick and Oilers

Purple Lipstick (DVD), 6 minutes
Heather Haley
Visible Verse Productions
Bowen Island, BC
2006

Oilers (mini-CD)
Vince Tinguely
Montreal, QC
[no date: 2006 or 2007?]

For me, timeliness is an important factor in attempting to give coverage of publications. Just before Christmas I read a newspaper review of a poetry book published one and one half years earlier. Here are two publications recently received. Both of these poetry recordings deal with sociopolitical issues through decidedly different approaches.

While I was in Serbia in the autumn, I received several emails from Heather Haley along with word that I'd receive a copy of her latest videopoem, Purple Lipstick, in the mail. Of course, that meant that I wouldn't actually receive it or have a chance to view it until after my return . . . You can watch it online through the video's page of her website: www.hshaley.com/video1.html.

Purple Lipstick addresses domestic violence through a haunting video with slow echoing guitar and voice-over by Heather Haley. The poem is from her book Sideways (Anvil Press). Purple Lipstick is a first person narrative that starts with, "I am . . . I am one of those women who wait . . . wait . . . until my husband kills me . . ."

The video has been written up elsewhere since its release and screening last year. I don't need to replicate those efforts. Suffice to say that both poem and video grabbed my attention. The video, with its effective and creative use of lighting and focus suggesting much that isn't visible, is more tightly located within the family dynamics, sometimes counterpointing images in the poem voice-over, sometimes emphasing the poem. Overall, this is a powerfull short film.

I received an envelope in the mail from Montreal poet Vince Tinguley with a copy of Oilers, his newest release, with photocopied liner notes, masking taped to a strip of corrugated cardboard. Vince is a true D-I-Y poet/artist that I've known for at least 20 years since we were both living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has self published several poetry chapbooks. One of his current blogs is confessions of a welfare artist. This mini-CD is available for purchase through Distroboto art-vending machines in Montreal.

Oilers tackles human responsibilities towards the earth and people especially in matters of politics, and war. Tinguely uses not just his own writings but appropriated media sound bites and politicians reconstructed. One of the best of the bonus tracks here is a cut'n'paste reworking of Stephen Harper talking.

The title track, or single, "Oilers" is a weighty 8m 15s poem about our unconscious dependence and consumption of oil, oil products, exploration and exploitation of oil resources in Canada and the world. It's a truly amazing barely-restrained, almost deadpan, rant/send-up, mixing personal tales and hard stats, about what Tinguely calls the world's biggest "drug." It must be amazing to hear this performed live but to do that would take serious consumption of oil.

T-shirt: Pennsic XXXII
loc: Fredcriticalcondition
temp: -2 C
sound: Talkin' Roots—Volume 1

Snowbot Panic!

The nightmare finally over, half an hour after sunrise, I could almost have a beer and hope to drift into quiet day sleep . . .

Started out a quiet Sunday evening and night. Many of the unibirds nesting in town have flown south or west for a break. After the Friday afternoon and all-night snowstorm with the usual snowplow action in predawn Saturday, the weekend was quiet and warm enough both days to cause snowmelt. We didn't get to see the total lunar eclipse at sunset Saturday because of grey overcast promising light rain or flurries.

Machines woke me. Wasn't even 3 AM. They were on York Street with their flashy gold lights, chains, and beepers to confuse. A pack of snowbots in front of the building growling and bullying snowbanks into the street in a choreographed dance. By 4 AM they'd moved away but I could here them in the distance under the waning full moon, and I didn't really fall back into sleep. In the last hour of the night they returned. It should have been quiet enough this morning, without school buses, teacher and drop-off traffic, to have slept in. The environmental cleansers were back in full force. Snarling underneath my window. Shaking the walls.

People and cars caught on both sides of this shortlived barrier. The wrong people on both sides. Sorry! You can't get it! You can't get out! Once cool drivers became frustrated even panic-stricken. Some charge the snow ridge in the hope they can breach it. This one thought they could run along slide and sneak out into the open but the end was block off. Hemmed in by snow and ice-covered curb, they had to reverse, and needed to be pushed back.
Escape made down the dawn lit sidewalk just as one of the smaller snowbots hovers threatening to harry or openly attack.

The voracious appetite of the beast's corkscrew mouth not even filled by the herded snow.

T: camouflage
loc: Fredsleepdepdesk
temp: -4 C
sound: Screaming Trees Sweet Oblivion

on the outside looking in

Night, winter, snow on the ground. One person, male, wearing bulky coat and knit tuque on head, forearms raised, holds a digital camera in front of his head to talk a photograph without flash, tight to the glass, faces the building, on the outside looking in. Building exterior—layered glass walls, interior window walls papered from inside. Other buildings, streetlights nearby.

T-shirt: Whale petroglyph
loc: broken lapdog
temp: -1 C
sound: Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium, disc 2

Unexpectedly Anthologized

Wow! I'm heart-racing stunned.

Yesterday's mail of mostly too many query letters and not-wanted manuscripts contained an envelope addressed from Carol Malyon. I immediately felt guilt for promised writing never done.

I've known Carol since 1980 when she was still owner of Beaches bookstore. Somewhere I have photo postcards of her standing in front of that great little store. Both a poet and fiction writer, her short story collection Lovers & Other Strangers (The Porcupine's Quill, 1996) is a good read, if you can find a copy. A few years ago she was in Fredericton as writer-in-residence for half the university year (the other half of the year bill bissett was here).

Back to my guilt. Leaning against the lower part of the 3 x 4' corkboard atop one of my desk/worktables is a bulldog clipped bunch of envelopes and letters from Carol about a project she was working to pull together. She'd asked me to contribute an essay. I couldn't even remember when she'd written to me. Long enough ago that several times since my latest return from Serbia I'd glanced in their direction, half hidden as they were by a bulldog clip of an ever-growing stack of lost faxes for Los Cuyos Rocking Chair Factory in Costa Rico (we share the same phone & fax number). I'd been so well-intentioned, not one to make false promises, that I'd become afraid to wonder or enquire, "What ever came of that book idea?"

And now this 9 x 12" kraft paper envelope . . .

I slice the end open in two strokes because the wooden letter opener gets stopped by a paper clip . . . After a very friendly "Hiya Joe," the letter's first words are "Good news! Mercury has agreed to publish the creativity book, & it will come out this fall." Good news for Carol but why this letter to me? Good thing I'm sitting down. Carol continues with sentences about papers and contracts to sign. "For what?" I ask myself. Next paragraph is:

This is going to be a great book! I'm so glad you're in it.

What? How am I in it? I never answered her raft of questions. Did I do something that I have no memory of doing?

The papers include two copies of a contract already signed by Carol as "Editor, Creativity (working title), for The Mercury Press" a two-page author questionnaire, a "Dear Contributor" letter, promotional plan outline, and questions from Carol about my bio and a suggested format for the article she called "I committed a chapbook" followed by "casemate poems (coda)".

Confused, I started by grabbing that clip of letters. Found my copy of a letter from me to Carol dated 7 October 2005. It describes my Serbian book projects, my artist-in-residence stint, and noted that I'd included copies of "recent media coverage." It was written before the Art Trek weekend when the "(coda)" was written. I must have sent another letter . . . so started looking through my computer files. Found a very short one-paragraph letter dated 19 October 2005—the day before I flew from Fredericton heading to the YACS conference in Nis and to the 50th Beograd Book Fair. The core of the letter was "Am enclosing some poems written this past weekend. Your questions and other things were circling around while I had my studio space open for Art Trek visitors last weekend. You might see some of that in the enclosed “coda” poems."

I'd completely forgotten about that second letter and I certainly never thought that anything I had sent to Carol was a submission. Carol thought otherwise :-)

T-shirt: whale petroglyph by Alan Syliboy/Red Crane
loc: studio lapdog
temp: -2 C
sound: Absolute Blues 2: Another Collection of Stony Plain Blues Classics

My photo on XYZ 89 cover

When Hélèn Rioux was in New Brunswick as an author-translator participate in Side by Side Festival Côte à Côte in Sept-Oct 2005, one of the projects she discussed was that she was a guest editor (with Daniel Pigeon) of a forthcoming issue of XYZ : la revue de la nouvelle on the theme of « Cimetières ».

Hélèn was interested in seeing photographs of mine for the issue: cemetery, graveyard, tombstone images. I've always taken pics of these but started taking some more with the magazine cover in mind. Last spring I email her a sample selection of pictures. Most were taken in Fredericton, NB, or in an orthodox cemetery in Zemun, Srbjia. In the end, this photo taken in the in the old cemetery between George and Brunswick streets was chosen.

Two copies of the issue and my contributor's cheque arrived from Montréal in today's post. Merci beaucoup! The issue includes stories by Bertrand Bergeron, Sylvie Massicotte, Claudine Potvin, and Lola L. Tostevin among others.

T-shirt: History of Art
loc: Fredsunfilledroom
temp: -4 C
sound: Chumbawamba "I Want More"

submissions for Collected Sex

for only a week or so more, considering submissions of poems for the anthology Collected Sex (eds. Barry McKinnon + rob mclennan), out this fall with Chaudiere Books of ottawa.

it's an anthology of poems based on the original "sex at 31" series started in the 1970s by McKinnon + others. more info here:
www.poetics.ca/poetics04/04sexat31.html

send submissions with a bio to: rob_mclennan@hotmail.com

T-shirt: Guinness
loc: Fredreplydesk
temp: -4 C
sound: robert fripp / brian eno "evening star"

XIV Encuentro Internacional de Editores Independientes

1 marzo 2007: registration deadline—XIV Encuentro Internacional de Editores Independientes, 27-30 abril, Punta Umbría, España: Email: edita.edita@hotmail.com

T-shirt: Guinness
loc: Fredbox
temp: -5 C
sound: Fiftymen After Darkfall

Three posters

Poet Karen Solie reads tomorrow night, 7 pm, at the Fredericton Public Library, 12 Carleton St, Fredericton, NB.

Call for participants for the 21 March, Wednesday, 10 am-6 pm: Multicultural Festivel . . . exhibits, food, costumes, arts & crafts, musicians, dancers, storytellers, human rights speakers and more . . . Multicultural Assoc of Fredericton @ the WW Boyce Farmers' Market, George St, Fredericton, NB.

the Why Cheap Art? manifesto of 1984. I still like it. Found this copy in a NBCCD drawing studio in the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, Fredericton, NB.

T-shirt: Joe Canada
loc: Freddesktop
temp: -13 C
sound: Rusted Dawn '06 E.P. Sampler!

50 : 50 vision (or better)

Canada’s national arts funding agency has challenged Canadians to help it celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2007 by stepping up their involvement in the arts.
       The Council is asking people to participate in 50 arts activities during the anniversary year—ranging from reading a poem to singing in a choir to attending a film festival to looking at a painting—keep a record of their experiences and let the Council know about it.
       —from a Canada Council for the Arts media release

So here I am, a creator and a consumer of the arts . . . I've been feeling like a hermit, in from the cold and living with low level burn-out. How has my participation been so far this year?

week 1
1 took photographs
2 watched A Midsummer Night's Dream movie
3 finished reading a book: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperPerennial, 1992)
4 watched Tim movie
5 poetry manuscript editing work
6 watched Anna and the King movie

week 2
7 took photographs
8 book publishing project discussion
9 renewed my Canadian Artist Representation / le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC) membership
10 wrote prose fiction
11 submitted various books to award competitions
12 literary arts events planning meeting with Nela and Jo-Anne
13 met with NBCCD instructors and another book designer publishing-type to develop entrepreneurial course student book design project w/ me being the artist/author
14 was sketched by artist Paul Hughes @ Isaac's Way (& given the sketch)
15 attended exhibition opening: Equilibrium, Emerge+ responds to the work of Rick Burns, with live turntablist PLA & F-hi-lo @ UNB Arts Centre
16 attended exhibition opening: Remembering Rick @ Gallery ConneXion
17 translated English to Irish Celtic

week 3
18 took photographs
19 donated books to Inverness County Literacy Council's "Family Literacy Day"
20 wrote poetry
21 editing work on several poetry manuscripts of mine
22 published prison song 01, a little something . . . 26 written by moi (Fredericton, NB: Broken Jaw Press)
23 saw art exhibit Profils • Profils • Profils by Herménégilde Chiasson, Galerie 12, Moncton, NB
24 saw group art exhibit le parlior public @ Delta Beausejour, Moncton, NB
25 attended and participated as author in a three-poet reading—Joe Blades, Karen Davidson, Edward Gates—@ Attic Owl Bookshop, Moncton, NB
26 attended UNB grad students' fiction reading, The Taproom

week 4
27 cooked haggis to honour poet Robbie Burns
28 took photographs
29 cut coiled wire for making chain mail stuff
30 attended Newfoundland author Lisa Moore reading @ UNB-Fredericton
31 met with textiles artist in Oromocto to examine loom for future use
32 saw art exhibit at Charlotte Street Arts Centre: can you read my... by Amber Friedman
33 saw art exhibit at Charlotte Street Arts Centre by students of Peter Gorham @ Nackawic Elementary School
34 attended author Anne Simpson talk @ Charlotte Street Arts Centre
35 wrote very short fiction for anthology submission
36 food, garb & and gear prep and participation in medieval anachronists club feast

week 5
37 wrote short prose for ongoing Groundhog Daze project
38 wrote poems
39 took photographs
40 worked with leather to craft objects
41 worked on documentation to support applications for name and device to the Society for Creative Anachronism's East Kingdom College of Heraldry

week 6
42 wrote short prose
43 caught start of Dub Antenna performance @ Phoenix Rising
44 attended exhibition opening: The Pink House by ehryn torrell, @ Gallery ConneXion
45 wrote and edited poems of mine
46 took photographs
47 signed petition, signature #352, in response to the announcement of cultural funding cuts to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) for Public Diplomacy.
48 practiced singing new-to-me song while cleaning grapes
49 installed Cree, Lakota, Navajo and Old Norse TrueType fonts on computer and started using them for poems and texts in those languages
50 watched Dune movie

week 7
51 made art
52 wrote poems
53 took photographs
54 made four hand-bound accordion-fold bookworks
55 prepped for upcoming readings and hands-on book-binding workshop in Nackawic
56 read poems and books
57 translated phrases from Serbian to English
58 started work on layout of issue no. 78 of ellipse: textes littéraires canadiens en traduction / Canadian writing in translation
59 attended art exhibition opening: Drawings @ Ingrid Muller, Art + Concepts

How's that? Know than some of these are not what everyone would can arts or culture but even heritage exploration is the arts/culture. This list doesn't include so many things done and not recorded. It simplifies others extremely . . . but, honestly! what is an arts activity or event?

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T-shirt: moose petroglyph by Alan Syliboy / Red Crane
loc: Fredstatsoffice
temp: -16 C (wind chill -28 C)
sound: Grey's Anatomy

cardboard accordion books

Just photographed some accordion fold books I'd made yesterday while writing up a project proposal for a school workshop I'm scheduled to lead on 2 March. Simple little bookwork, I believe. Seven folds to the strip of paper. Paste or glue on the covers. These ones made with strips of kraft paper and rectangles of corrugated cardboard. Low cost, non-precious materials = more fun, more play!

T-shirt: moose petroglyph by Alan Syliboy / Red Crane
loc: Fredstormday
temp: 1 C
sound: Ripoff Raskolnikov Alone and Acoustic

dreck

© Joe Blades 2007

curious juxtaposition seen elsewhere
as celebration of multiculturalism
the plurality of the peoples human
not one alone inert as argon gas
thicker than nothing but doing nothing

i am not we the people but one
with the words to more than one story
song poem telling the thought lived
life or the imagined or the lost
brought back noble or craven

bankrupt spirit has fallen so far
backwards behind the hope of last
st valentine’s day and the challenge
bardic of courtly love for lady fair
as far afar as here is from there

if only one thing ever happened
life would be impossible not story
now composed told forgotten or
remembered but altered in retelling
and the winds blow cold arctic air

cardinal so red with blue jay feeding
atop hard snow so far from its norm
can’t get there from here in storm
brewed on jet stream south and west
head held in hands with eyes closed

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T-shirt: New Brunswick Filmmakers' Co-op
loc: Frednochocolates
temp: -9 C
sound: Gamble Rogers with Will McLean, "Orange Blossom Special"

Here's the deal

T-shirt: New Brunswick Filmmakers' Co-op, 15 years of filmmaking, 1979-1994
loc: Fredsnowstorm
temp: -9 C
sound: Moon Unit & Frank Zappa, "Valley Girl"

ransack holiday

road trip fighter practice weekend
matrix loaded with armour for three
bound for some unknown monkeyton
after lowliest deputy's two sorties
successfully recover troll box
and more for shire and exchequer

lord isard and olaf vinalf
with lady muirghean hewitt—
first mate of the roisin dubh
merchant/mercenary household
—after olaf and muirghean
fought in the keep of mcasphalt

after a generous meal of ham and spuds
l'le penguin red wine and black forest cake
with genuine sour magyar cherries
we crossed the disputed border bridge
from shire to barony such that vasárnap
morning found me on the frozen windswept
shore of its canton of ynys y gwaed

one can't block quote absent text
one can't fight a active marshall
olaf inaction sitting wallflower
watching a bout with pole arm
and great sword in the great hall
before attempting to defend
a drawn circle and dying

sunset aglows waterside viring tanks
as we traverse near empty streets
from closed door to closed door
until welcomed in gahan house
a table in the darkened backroom
brewery under the floorboards

table covered with samples of the best
of the house set afore me—six on tap
from sir john a' honey wheat ale (pssst . . .
he's the shaded man on the 100 rave bill)
island amber red and iron horse dark
to sydney street stout rewarding a pint
before a milky way night road to rann

shirt: Pennsic XXXII
loc: rann
tepm: -4 C
sound: Must I Paint You A Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg CD2

Small Press Month (US Style)

[Wouldn't it be wise, smart, fun, proud, worthwhile . . . if we had one of these celebrations here in Canada. Sure would make sense, consider the smaller size of many Canadian small presses, and the number of them here    —Broken Joe]

National Small Press Month March 2007

A National Initiative to Promote Independent Publishers
Jointly Sponsored by PMA, CLMP, and the SPC.

Small Press Month Coordinator: mark.kohut@gmail.com www.smallpressmonth.org

Small Press Month, now in its 11th year, is a nationwide promotion that takes place in March, highlighting the valuable work produced by independent publishers. An annual celebration of the independent spirit of small publishers, Small Press Month is an effort to showcase the diverse, unique, and often most significant voices being published today. This year's slogan is Celebrate Great Writing.

You can promote your press or journal, and generate publicity and sales, by taking an active part in Small Press Month. To this end, we are encouraging publishers across the country to arrange special events in March. For more information on upcoming SPM initiatives, please visit www.smallpressmonth.org. You can also find 31 suggestions of different ways to promote National Small Press Month, by visiting, smallpressmonth.org/2007/thingstodo.asp.

To help publicize any events you are organizing, you can request the eye-catching SPM posters, which are free of charge, by contacting lisa@pma-online.org. Posters are available in units of five. This year, Alice Walker, who recently published her latest book with the independent publisher, The New Press, has graciously allowed her portrait to be used on the Small Press Month posters.

We encourage you to e-mail Mark Kohut, the SPM Coordinator, at mark.kohut@gmail.com to let us know about your events and publicity that you receive, and we will see if we can use this information in our national campaign. We can post your March events and readings on the Small Press Month web site, www.smallpressmonth.org, as we are made aware of them.

TO REQUEST FREE SMALL PRESS MONTH POSTERS:
Contact PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association.
Email: lisa@pma-online. Posters available in units of five.

Or mail this form to: Small Press Month Poster Coordinator / PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association / 627 Aviation Way / Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 [USA].

Name: ________________________
Publisher: ________________________
Address: ___________________________
City: _______________________ State: _____ Zip: __________
Tel: ______________________________
E-mail________________________
Number of Poster Units:______________________

Small Press Month is co-sponsored by the Small Press Center: the New York Center for Independent Publishing; PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association; and Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [CLMP]. Additional support has been provided by Book Sense; American Booksellers Association; The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen; Publishers Group West; The New Press; and Small Press Distribution. We would like to acknowledge the generous support of Ingram Publisher Services, Selfpublishing.com, Lulu.com, and BookExpo America, the largest English language book and publishing event in the world. Special thanks to Alice Walker.

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T-shirt: Belgrade City
loc: Fredericton Nb
temp: -12 C
sound Danú Think before you think

Petition against Harper government cuts to culture funding

Please visit www.petitiononline.com/DFAIT07 to sign this petition and pass it on . . . the text of the petition is below:

To:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance
The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs
The Honourable Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage

We are writing in response to the announcement of cuts to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) for Public Diplomacy. This funding currently supports the creation, dissemination and promotion of Canadian arts, Canadian cultural initiatives, and business opportunities for Canadian artists internationally. The health and expansion of existing international networks depend on DFAIT funding not only to create opportunities for artists to participate in an expanded, global economy, but also to bring professionals and key decision-makers from abroad to Canada to create and promote cultural exchange and business opportunities here at home.

The $11.9 million cut over two years represents a 100% withdrawal of the Public Diplomacy budget – funds that would normally enable Canadians to participate in international festivals, exhibitions, concert and lecture tours, dance and theatre productions, conferences, and academic exchanges. These cuts to the Public Diplomacy budget will jeopardize Canada's longstanding international reputation as a free and democratic nation with a commitment to supporting Canadian values through its arts.

We believe that fiscal responsibility involves securing our long-term investments into the arts and cultural industries in Canada, and that sustaining Canadian culture abroad is an effective and productive use of our tax dollars. The effects of the Public Diplomacy cuts are aimed at hard-working Canadians who depend on international recognition to succeed in their field. This withdrawal of support to diplomatic funding is particularly disconcerting considering that other governments are continuously increasing their Public Diplomacy funding, such as the United States, which has tripled its efforts in cultural diplomacy since 2001.

We, the undersigned, would like to see the international dissemination of Canadian culture and values maintained as a priority for Canadians. We urge you to reverse your decision to cut these funds to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

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T-shirt: Belgrade City
loc: City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
temp: -11 C
sound: Tears For Fears the hurting

Q: Does time + space = arts ceation?

To continue the train of thought from my previous post . . .

Our culture, our cultural activities, the creations of our artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, dancers, craftspeople, and storytellers are central to the records and muniments of what has made Canada the nation this it is today. Galleries, museums, literary publishers, performing venues, equipment, theatres, libraries, schools and more are necessary to the sharing of these creations.

Excellence and success in the arts and culture cannot be measured only in terms of marketplace sales or financial viability. Many or most of Canada's artists and craft's people live below the poverty line. If you turn the economic equations around it becomes a little more obvious why that is so.

For example, take a poet. Say that the poet is single and living in a Canadian city of less that 50,000 people. Say that the poet needs a $20,000 income to be at or just above the poverty line (this without calculating additional income needed to cover expenses such as accounting, travel, books, computer & printer, etc.) and the poverty line is higher in larger population centres, higher again when the poet is a single parent, and so on . . . The poet writes, does readings to audiences from their work, works to get books accepted and published by book publishers. Most poetry books in Canada are published in a "first edition" print run of 500 copies. Most poetry books, unless they win a major book award, do not see a second printing, Even some that "win" awards or author recognition do not get reprinted. If that poetry book is priced to sell sell for $20 (most are not, most are priced lower) then the poet should be positioned to earn 10% of that price, $2, in royalties on each copy of the book that has truly sold (gross sales – returns = net sales). This would mean, for the poet to earn/receive $20,000 in royalties income, that there would need to be net sales of 10,000 copies of their book. When you start with a print run of 500 copies (including marketing and promotional copies) that's rather impossible. Even more impossible is the prospect of the poet publishing 20 or more new books every year that sold 500 copies each.

How much pottery must a potter make and sell, or how much must a weaver make and sell to net $20,000 in income for living?

Creating is only part of what an artist must do to sustain themselves as an artist. They must have some level or amount of self-employed business management, no matter how professional or improv that may be, and sometimes that is impossible. Most artists in this country cannot afford to devote the best part of their energies to their arts practice. Many work other jobs, often full time simply for income, and raise families before they can squeeze out any time or space for themselves to create.

Many artists apply for grants from national provincial of municipal governments or arms-length agencies (if available) but grants are little better than a lottery. Agencies such as the Canada Council often have award ratios of 1 in 7 or 1 in 10. Better odds than 6/49 loto tickets but definitely not something to depend on. Canada Council encourages artists to make a maximum of one grant application per year. One! Doesn't matter if the artist is a cellist and filmmaker, or a potter and writer, or a painter, sculptor and electro-acoustic soundscape composer . . . they're allowed to make only one application per year, if they chose to do so at all. Some provincial grant competitions have two applications periods per year and/or no expressed restriction on the number of applications or simultaneous applications to multiple programs or arts disciplines. Grant levels, for the most part, are so small that they only provide subsistence for a few months, if that.

The more time, effort and resources (including money) spent on non-arts creation simply to survive or keep a roof overhead or food on the table the less the artist has for their art: for research and experimentation, exploration; for rehearsal practice; for creating; for pushing themselves and their art to new levels or places; for mentoring new artists or for peer support and collaborating. Time and space are essential but they not enough to enable artists to create.

shirts: blue knit longsleeve + "Ruminator Bookstore • Press • Review" T-shirt
loc: Fredsoapbox
temp: -15 (wind chill -27)
sound: Motion Ensemble

Messages from our not so distant past

Stephen Harper on Canadian Culture:

"These proposals included cries for billions of new money for . . . more business subsidies in the name of 'cultural identity' . . . I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.”
              The Bulldog, 1997

"There is a continental culture. There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders."
              Report, 2002

As Prime Minister of Canada, Mr Harper has to represent Canada, not just his own narrow mindset. Canada is supposed to be a wise nation for its years, but we have again taken two steps back instead of two steps forward. Harper might be marching to his own drummer but that means he is out of step in our Canadian culture dance set. In addition, two steps forward will usually frame/crop a better, more interesting, photograph. Two steps forward might actually put one to the fore. Might draw attention. Might mean a commitment to a position on something or action . . .

This morning I was sorting through artist books, micro-press poetry publications, photographs, art supplies and papers in the shelves above my studio worktable. One of the treasures I found is the letterpress printed sheet reproduced below:
Words to the wise from a long ago writer, newspaper publisher—Novascotian, defender of the freedom of the press, and politician (including being Premier of Nova Scotia, a member of the first Dominion Parliament in Ottawa, and Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia at the time of his death in 1873). Joseph Howe's statue is on the grounds of the provincial legislature building in Halifax.

T-shirt: "PEN is Mightier than the Sword" PEN Canada
loc: Freddowntown
temp: -15 C
sound Must I Paint You a Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg