30 June 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans: 30 June 2009

first half of 2009 gone
the eve of Canada Day
second half about to begin

Most of the show was my recording of a 7 March 1995 reading by Fredericton's Tracy Brooks and Colin Morton from Ottawa. [photo by Danielle Schaub] with Colin mainly reading from The Merbook: Kurt Schwitters Poems and from the novel Oceans Apart.

Fredericton arts news.
"Rant Against Otherness" by Klyde Brooks.
"Mandela" by Sekou Sundiata.



T:
loc: copydesk
temp: 15 C
sound: Guy Davis Sweetheart Like You

28 June 2009

Armourer for Super Geek Math Boy

From "the geek posse" drawing done by James Kirkland
a friend of Rachel Noel, Hair–Makeup–Wardrobe.
The question put to me by Art was could I make a gauntlet?

Math geek trying to be fly at a school dance.

With the very able assistance of Rebecca Flewelling
to whom I'd given the drawing, actor measurements
a calculator and my choice of compass . . .

Rebecca sewed elastic and ties on soft tan suede
then drove me to a saddle shop on Saturday morn
to buy approx. a sq foot of scrap 1/4" thick leather

Back home I measured, plotted, then cut the leather
bound the suede piece to the really stiff form
dyed the whole thing US Marine Corp black
wrapped it in paper, shoved it my my backpack
and biked to set in torrential warm rain

The finished geek gauntlet.

Super Geek Math Boy armed.

Super Geek Math Boy and the Geek Posse!

Art Thomson, Artistic Director of the Art Depart and Bunthivy Nou, Producer–Director of the film, on the cafeteria set (in Naswaaksis Middle School).

Danny Thebeau, 1st AD
Super Geek Math Boy (Mike Mallaley)
Britany Sparrow, Script Super and Continuity
on location, UNB–Fredericton campus

24 June 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans: 23 June 2009

Show started with a live interview with photographer Brian Atkinson discussing his new book Miramichi: River of Character (Goose Lane Editions & MC2 Marketing Inc) by Brian Atkinson with text by Joanne Cadogan, and their book launch in Fredericton at 5:30 pm, Thursday, 25 June 2009, at Westminster Books, 445 King Street.

Show continued with a tribute to Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert who passed away on, I believe, 19 June 2009. I have one recording of his (wth musical accompaniment by Glenda Higgins), from March 1998. Gilbert's cassette liner notesPoems broadcast were: "More Clerks than Customers", "Lake Laughter", "Spoken Dance", & "Songs of a City Imp".

Fredericton arts news.

"Do you have anything a little less totalitarian?" by Vincent Tinguely.



shirt: grey
loc: broken mapp desk
temp: 15 C
sound Rua Ao-Tea-Roa

17 June 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans: 16 June 2009

A jet-lagged show . . .

First half was from my recording of Heather Spears reading from Poems Selected and New (Wolsak & Wynn) at Gallery ConneXion, 24 April 1999. Photo of Heather from the LCP Poetry Festival & Conference, 12-14 June 2009, Vancouver, NB; by Joe Blades.

Poet Robert Priest's cassette The Mad Hand (Public Energies, 1985).

Fredericton arts news.




t: grey
loc: grey werkdesk
temp: 15 C
sound: Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium

09 June 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 9 June 2009

Feature in the first half: Ottawa writer Mary Borsky reading a short story from her book Influence of the Moon. In `Map of the Known World,' 16-year-old Irene's growing independence asserts itself most forcefully when she refuses to agree to an arranged marriage with an older Ukrainian man, jumping off the school roof to make her point.

The show's second half featured Montreal poets Steve Luxton reading four poems and Oana Avasilichioaei reading "The Tea Party" and "Love Story. Both readings were part of the Atwater [Library] Poetry Project.

loc: post-show, pregame desk
temp: 16 C
sound: Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food

Track changes

For editing purposes, one's own revising and working with outside editors at journals, newspapers and book publishers, marking and tracking suggested changes is vital. While it is the practice of many to do some form of editing and proofing of the manuscript, it's really simple to use the "track changes" function in MS Word. You need to have the "track changes" function on. I already described how to go into the [Tools] dropdown menu. "Accept or Reject changes" is the feature in "track changes" to do just what it says. Please use it or print out a hard copy of manuscript. "Replace" is a great feature. So is "delete." Both work in Word and WordPerfect, even in InDesign. I absolutely dislike not having a hard copy to work from, to compare layout to, especially when you've used not-my-computer-here to fake the poems and the pages to look somewhat like how you want the published poems to appear. Prob is that we have different computers, different default printers, likely different fonts. Whenever I open a text file here they adjust to my computer system and they do not, cannot appear exactly as what you see/saw on screen---that's what a hard copy manuscript is so vitally important when also sending a digital manuscript. Please use a dictionary not just computer-based spellcheckers. Most publishers will gladly share their prefered dictionarys and style guides. My prefered dictionary is the Oxford Canadian. I do not like seeing fake page headers instead of using that easy function within WordPerfect, auto page numbering too. I can see the where and why of the left side "garbage and tabs and hard centering problems. In WordPerfect press the [F3] key to reveal the hidden coding. Far too many lines don't have a Hard Return or Line Break at their end--just a string of spaces until the words wrap onto the next line (when all you needed to do was hit [enter] for a hard return. Page breaks are an equally simple [Ctrl][Enter]. Heaters and Footers are found in the Insert drop-down menu. Page numbers are in the Format / Page / dropdown menu.
Centering is [Ctrl][E].

08 June 2009

Two months after the fire . . .

The burnt-out building still stands. Broken glass litters the ground and sidewalks around it. Vehicles fill the parking lot daily. All the basement windows have been sealed with sheets of plywood and someone has even tried to rip those off. Pigeons roost on the burnt rafters. From the street, as I bicycle past it, I can smell the mould and the burnt-everything residue. Honestly, if for nothing but safety concerns, why hasn't the building been demolished?

Five-weeks into a new home I'm still somewhat mixed and still messed enuf to not be sleeping well every night. Many nights, but not all. Wake often, especially around 2:30 am (the time that night), and far too early (w/ the 4:30 am robins) then want to and can sleep again at 10 am. Still have over 40 movers' boxes of books (the library) and other stuff---mostly in the basement storage room. Hand scrubbing the smoke off furniture and dishes is slow and annoying. Replacing everything electric or electronic is too expensive for me to want to undertake all at once (but I've dropped several K on a new 'puter, scanner, printer, software & accessories). Haven't replaced any power tools yet. Have most of my late Gram's kitchen appliances plus her dining room set, china cabinet, loveseat (give to me in the '70s), bedding, towels, bakeware, etc. Am trying to get back on track. Have an office workspace that's good; larger rooms and more room; a recessed balcony with furniture & plants . . .

Special thanks to Cat & Tony for loaning their car several days, to Liz and her truck for hauling all the plants and more . . . especially to and from the interim hotel rooms, and to Beth for use of her car. Thanks to my parents to the furniture and dishes and for being on the lookout for more things. Thanks to Ken for the signed replacement copy of his book; to Maggie for her book, prayer and piece of spiritual palm; to Wolsak & Wynn for the set of three Jeanette Lynes poetry books including her new one, The New Blue Distance—the second of hers to have a Glen Priestly painting repro'd on the cover. Thanks to John, Ruth and Brian for an assortment of useful desks. Thanks also to Pierre and Paul; to Jackie for some dried spices and herb plants—especially the bay and lemongrass; to Cynthia for some work . . . All these things have made a great difference in getting resettled.

Cheers!

03 June 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 2 June 2009

The show started with my live interview with actor Angela Cullins---native of Hartland, NB, and lead actress in the just-finished-filming-in-Fredericton American Sunset feature film---and with Jim Lavoie---part actor, publicist, journalist (see/read his articles in the new [here] later this week).

CHSR programmer Joe Blades and actor Angela Cullins, 2 June 2009Second half of the program was from a 16 October 1998 recording of New Brunswick novelist David Adams Richards reading from The Bay of Love and Sorrow at Gallery ConneXion.

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 7-8 pm, Tuesdays, on CHSR 97.9 FM in Fredericton. Listen online at www.chsrfm.ca from elsewhere on Earth. Ashes, Paper & Beans episodes are reproadcast at other times in the station's programming schedule but are not yet available as podcasts.

loc: broken mapp desk
temp: 11 C
sound: Shooglenifty Venus in tweeds

30 May 2009

Found Photo du jour

Found on 28 September 1987, somewhere on lower Manhattan Island, New York, New York, while I was the first Canadian curatorial intern at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, on Broadway, and was living in the NSCAD loft on Walker Street.

T: Jim Beam
loc: broken mapp desk
temp: 16 C
sound: Neil Young Zuma

27 May 2009

Some lost books . . .

I was making notes during the post-fire extraction of things from the smoked apartment and have continued during the unpacking. Here are some of the books too far gone with water absorption and/or mildew to keep:

Lady Franklin's Revenge, Ken McGoogan (hard cover, autographed and dedicated to me @ a BookExpo Canada signing).
The Hollow, Richard Truhlar.
New Sufi Songs and Dances, Carol Ann Sokoloff (autographed & dedicated to me @ BookExpo 2002).
Between Families and the Sky (Goose Lane), Alan Cumyn.
Man of Bone, Alan Cumyn.
A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway (Wolsak and Wynn), Jeanette Lynes.
Left Field (Wolsak and Wynn), Jeanette Lynes.
Inside, Kenneth J. Harvey.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.
The Memory Orchard (Brick Books), Tim Bowling.
Going Down Goose Lane Toward Broken Jaw: Fredericton poems & stories (Harmonia press), Wayne Ray.
Lifedream (Guernica), Herménégilde Chiasson, translated by Jo-Anne Elder.

Ashes, Paper & Beans: 26 May 2009

Last night's Ashes, Paper & Beans featured three recordings of a decade ago:

A demo cassette by the Crossroads Cant poetry group: Shafiq, Ann Shin, Mark Seabrook, Zaffi Gousopoulos, & Mary Elizabeth Grace.

The Smell of Sage & Pine: Selected poems by Mike Puhallo (1998).

E. Russell Smith in the River Readings series, Fredericton, NB, on 21 October 1998.

16 May 2009

Found Photo du jour: 26 April 2009

Found Saturday afternoon, 16 April 2009, on the tread of a basement stairwell in the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte Street, Fredericton, NB, during a break in and Emergency First-Aid course being led by Paul Angers in the NB Filmmakers' Co-operatives workshop series. Don't know what film this snippet is was edited from but someone else likely knows . . .

15 May 2009

Word in the World III reading, Fredericton, 15 May 2009 @ 5 pm

Fredericton Poets! Bring a poem of yours to read today!
_______________

UN RECORDATORIO

III Festival Palabra en el mundo

Vorto en la mondo, Palavra no mundo, Parola nel Mondo, Worte in der Welt, Rimayninchi llapan llaqtapi, Paraulas in su Mundu, Cuvânt în Lume, Parole dans le Monde, Ordet i verden, Word in the World, Palabra no mundo, Ñe’ê arapýre
14 al 17 de mayo del 2009
La Paz, el pan y el agua de cada día

Programa General
MORE THAN 200 CITIES AROUND THE WORLD ARE PARTICIPATING

Canadá
Fredericton, capital de la provincia de New Brunswick
Ribera del Río Saint John
Viernes 15 a las 17.00 hrs.
Recital multilingue y multicultural.
Organiza: Nela Rio, Directora Grupo Fredericton de Academia Iberoamericana de Poesía; Asociación Latina de New Brunswick; Broken Jaw Press.
_________________________

Fredericton will participate in the Word in the World III reading.
Poets are asked to bring a poem of theirs to read.
We will meet on the steps of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, at 5:00pm on Friday, May 15th.

Por favor noten que Fredericton va a participar en el III Festival Palabra en el mundo. Nos encontraremos en los escalones de entrada de la Beaverbrook Art Gallery a las 5 de la tarde, viernes 15 de mayo.

Best wishes

SALUDOS CORDIALES

Nela
--------------------

Found photo du jour: 9 April 2009

Found 10:30 AM, 9 April 2009, in the parking lot of the burnt 200 York Street, Fredericton, NB, apartment building that had been my home for almost 11 years. The photo of an outhouse and other paper scraps was with some fire-charred wood on the pile of parking lot snow.

Found photo du jour: 8 April 2009

Found photo of 9:17 AM, 8 April 2009, on Regent Street, Fredericton, NB, on the hill beside the skinny parkette. It's a seriously scuffed-up studio portrait of a young boy.

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 12 May 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans on CHSR 97.9 FM, Fredericton.

Show featured an recorded interview with Sackville, NB, poet Marilyn Lerch conducted by Linda Rae Dornan (CHMA, Sackville) and my 1998 recording of Tess Fragoulis reading her short story "Some Distinguishing Mark" at Gallery ConneXion.

07 May 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans: 28 April 2009

"Land & Liberty" by Zach de la Rocha.

Live interview with artist Immony Men on his exhibition/installation Effections showing May 2 to June 13, 2009 through Gallery ConneXion (graciously hosted by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in the lower level gallery at 703 Queen Street, Fredericton NB).

"A Text for One voice" by Ottawa's Max Middle.

[no live show on 5 May]
www.chsrfm.ca

T: Dig Your Roots
loc: apartman
temp: 7 C
sound: Neil Young "peace of Mind"

22 April 2009

Ashes. Paper & Beans: 21 April 2009

National Al Purdy Day without access to my copies of him on CD.

Played the 1994 Wired on Words cassette featuring poems--spoken word performances by Lynn Suderman, Julie Bruck, Clifford Duffy, Fortner Anderson, Stacey Engels, Ian Stephens, Corey Frost and Ian Ferrier.

Second half of the show featured my recording of Hamilton poet, the Serif of Nottingham, Gary Barwin's 8 May 1999 reading in Fredericton. I supplied some Fredericton arts news. Show ended with "Land and Liberty" by Zach de la Rocha.

16 April 2009

Ashes, Paper & Beans, 14 April 2009

The feature of tonight's episode was
my recording of the NONYMOUS
with BlackTop MotorCycle gang launch of issue #3
on 4 April 2009 @ Wilser's Room, Fredericton:
Biff Mitchell reading Tarie Richards
Leanne Ripley
Vivian Unger
Sam Shey (sp?)
Joe Blades
Jo Griffith
Todd Arsenault

Ottawa Poetry Podcast:
Max Middle reading "A Text for One Voice";
Ami Mckay
Betsy Struthers

T: The High Price of Chemicals
loc: Lemont 526
temp: 10 C
sound:

14 April 2009

a week after the fire . . .

last evening i was finally able to look at my first possible new apartment. easter weekend really messed the past four days for contacting people and for doing anything fast. was hard enough getting movers through an insurer-arranged contractor. on good friday they were there about three and one half hours---packing books for the most part. left at 1 pm. the sky started to sprinkle and we all know that the fire marshal could condemn the building at anytime so I was offered use of a truck w/ norma driving and son william to help lift & pack. beth friend phoned and immediately came over. i phoned biff and he came over. with the three vehicles we grabbed and hauled out more stuff including all art off the walls, my writer publication archives, manuscript originals, clothes, the two largest filing cabinets, my bike, and more. thankfully i had the storage unit on queen street already quite stogged with books and stuff. filled it even more. can't walk in it now.

the hardest thing was having to destroy ALL electronics and electrical equipment in the apartment including computer, scanner, oki c5500 printer, lamps, digital camera, battery charger, phones, all power tools (saws, drills, dremel, glue guns), personal and kitchen appliances including lamps, extension cords, power bars, tv, cd, dvd & vhs players, 50w amp, marantz recorder, xlr cables, sure mic, blenders, coffee grinder, kettle, grills, skillet, et cetera, plus all bedding and towels plus all plastics including containers and anything using plastic handles or components. terrible mound of stuff destroyed . . . next tasks will be to price and date the acquisition of those lost/destroyed items; deal with the recovered items and their cleaning; and to negotiate the insurance claim settlement with the claim adjuster.

i also have to secure a new home: have to look at places, many or most available for 1 may not today (and am not looking at anything available later than 1 may). have to fill in landlord application forms, sort out the finances for security deposit and first month's rent. have another place to view this morn but have heard it's above an indoor half-pipe and that would likely be noisy to work above . . .

t: a carol hagan/polar graphics
loc: fred inn
temp: 0
sound: relic hunter