n: vb: the spice of imagination
Every time I do a mail-out, I get to find out exactly how painfully out-of-date my address book really is. My in-box immdiately gets multiple replies from from Mailer Daemons and Do Not Reply‘s. In order to recitfy this sorry state of affairs, I’ve put together this little poll so that !!you too!! may be invited to my Spectacular Happenings (TM).
You are most cordially invited to
Jhayne’s Fashionably Late Birthday Party
located at 2nd & Cotton, just off Commercial Drive.
Saturday, July 15th
from five:thirty onward.
Just follow the chalk arrows.
BYOB, friends, instruments, sweets, savouries, BBQ-ables, bubbles, whatever-you-like.
Re-post as appropriate.
A patient’s self-rewired brain revives him after 19 years in a vegatative coma.
Minus Kyle, Duncan, & Grant, you people missed a fantastic show. Tigers crept off the stage, dreams of lights, lakes of visionary stormy weather. The Roman Empire shuddered and fell under the waves of Atlantis. Shane brought his mother back to life as the audience cried and his grandmother told us all to rise and shine, all to a really good steel string slide. I managed to film clips of most of the first act, but not all of it, only enough to give you the barest skeleton of what actually happened. In the end, I have shaky teasers, but no real trailers. Next time, you, be there. Get out your silver kitchen knife and go culture hunting when I tell you to.
So with only about a full day’s warning, we managed to get almost thirty people to Pirates of the Caribbean. An affable man sitting behind me noticed that our group took up two full rows and asked how much organization went into it. When I told him we hadn’t bothered with very much this time around, how it was entirely arranged through our on-line journals, he mentioned oh-so-fortuitously that he has an event coming up at the Planetarium. He handed me a cleanly designed flyer, the sort of thing I would notice on a table, and smiled when I said I would give him a plug. After a bit more conversation, he asked, “Will you really mention us?” Then handed me a free ticket.
I’ve been listening to the music The Beige have on their website for hours now and I’m going to leave one on when I finally go to bed. The flyer design made me ask if it was ambient, but though their songs powerfully insinuate Brian Eno leanings, they seem to play something else, a translucent mellow jazz with a delicate twist of quiet pop. I really like it. Stylistically, they remind me charmingly of Múm. The musicians, Andrew Arida, Geoff Gilliard, Mark Haney, Rick Maddocks, and Jon Wood, manage to dance the line between chill, softly effervescent, and catchy without being fluffy, bland or relying on hooks. I’ll have to remember to bring extra money when I go, because I want to buy the album.
The show is only an hour long because they have to vacate in time for the stoned kids to watch the resident Doors/Zeppelin/Hendrix/Pink Floyd laser show, but they’ll have drinks and mingling downstairs afterward and their own visuals projected on the ceiling during their set. I’m curious to see what they’re going to do with the space. It can be awkward to set up anything meaningful around a giant robot projector ant that rises from the floor, but already I can imagine how their melodies could transform awkwardness into underwater gracefulness, sort of how a good director cuts out the sound in moments of tension.
About half my books have been spoken for and some already bought.
a list of what’s left
I received an odd e-mail today, proving that relationships may end but mailing lists never die, from Joseph, the rock angel I was with when I lived in Toronto. Zye, his band I lived with in the crazy converted storage hanger in Scarborough, is having a reunion concert July 20th at Holy Joe’s, a place at Queen and Bathurst above The Reverb that I’m almost certain I’ve never visited. Apparently it’s a double-bill with one of his newer projects, Camel Joe. If the MySpace is to believed, Camel Joe is some sort of rock-metal nostalgia band.
If there’s anyone in the Toronto area willing to go take pictures, I would deeply appreciate it.
I don’t ask that you stay for the music, though I would be thankful for a simple hello on my behalf. A connection back to my most beautiful lover would be priceless. Everything I treasure was born that golden summer. It was like my world was set spinning. Everything was perfect, even properly crying over Brenda’s death for the very first time while I crouched between the seats of his orange van as we delivered magazines in the Gay Village. Linger on, your pale blue eyes. His eyes are gold and they drowned me in fire. We never were alone long enough, not once. Now I wonder, but not very often. His hair in the shower went down to our waists.
Starting at 3pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Howe and Robson).
To combat zombie exhaustion the route will be shorter!
To combat zombie boredom the route will be different!
To combat zombie short attention spans more info will come closer to the date.
. . . although these are really the only things you need to know.
Mark your calendars!
I’m at my mother‘s right now, wondering where the paperwork that was to be waiting for me is hiding in the massive piles of stuff that occlude her kitchen. It’s an oven here, perspiringly humid, especially the top floor where I am, tucked in next to antique stereo equipment and a massive plastic castle. She’s out house-hunting the Drive today, trying to find somewhere for her and the boys to live now that her school is done and her student housing’s run out. She’s been looking into grants, too, that would let her buy a house, but even with all of the bursaries and interest free loans and special dispensations for single mothers from the government, Vancouver prices are so exceedingly high that she could only raise half a mortgage downpayment. We’ve been talking about how we could fund-raise to get the rest, but I’m not sure what we could do. I’m thinking a website not unlike the one that belonged to that ditzy girl that had the internet pay her foolish credit card bills, but with perks for donors. She’s a musician, we know creative people, I’m sure we could work something out. If anyone has any suggestions, it would be appreciated.
What: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
When: Movie starts at midnight on Thursday and it will be busy so meet at 10:30. If you’ll be late, get someone to get tickets for you.
Where: The Paramount theatre, downtown at the corner of Burrard and Smithe
Who: You & anyone else you’d like to bring!
In a similar vein, though on a much smaller scale, is there anyone interested in being press-ganged by two fascinating women? Silva, my mother.2, and I need a human or two at her house to help shift some small furniture around either Monday or Tuesday afternoon. It’s a job that would take us an entire exhausting day, but an able-bodied person could handle it with us in just a few hours. You would get the extraordinary gift of her company and possibly some traditional you’re-bodily-helping-in-the-summertime lemonade. Maybe. If you’re lucky. Otherwise, no, just tea. Tea and fantastic conversation. And neat decor. And big black cats. And, well, you’ll just have to see!
Burrow‘s laptop recently got stolen while she was in Seattle. To try and raise money to buy a new one, she’s selling prints of her artwork. If lithographs aren’t your thing, but you’d still like to help, her link for donations is here.
Me, I’m house-cleaning in prep for my trip to Europe. I’ve got a list of books I’d like to sell. I’m wanting them to go for 30% cover price OBO with probable discounts for wholesale.
The Take-Space people were at it again yesterday, this time renting a parking space just off Main st on Hastings. When I went in the morning on the bus, they had put out bright green astroturf and a few lawn chairs, though they were still struggling with a summer awning.
Photojournalist Martin Adler murdered in Somalia.
I was on my way home from Michael’s place. I’d stayed over after the delirious Cirque Du Soliex show, Verekai, not wanting to shift from such wonder to my drab apartment. We stayed up watching Harvey Birdman Cartoons on his lap-top until we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore. My sleep was full of exhausted glitter and the strong desire to find something I cared about doing. When I woke, nothing had congealed, but I felt distanced enough from the Circus to face Vancouver again. Previously I had wanted too hard to see costumes on every corner, spiraling away from me in the morning clots of commuters, I wanted to look up and see stars in the bright day-time sky, and find giant colourful birds singing in unexpected places. I wanted to wake up in a Romany camp in Italy, grungy and smoky and full of red cloth. I wanted to wake up with longer hair and a prettier smile and some strange skill I don’t have a word for.
Everyone keeps asking why I don’t try to be a writer.
Finally by S. Koyczan
Boyfriend man is so glad
your dad hates him
he’s finally the dangerous man
he always wanted to be.
Shane Koyczan will be performing a free show on Wednesday at the Western Front at 9pm, 303 East 8th, just off Kingsway, as part of the opening night of the West Coast Poetry Festival, (July 5th through 8th at The Western Front. All events are by donation.) Show up early, as seats are going to fill. Bravo TV has been following him around all week taping a documentary and this performance is going to wrap it all up. Winner of countless awards, including a few World Championships, Shane’s got a talent, a hard-worked gift, and he’s worth the hard traffic of half way across town. I’ll post as much of his performance as I’ll be able to tape, but there’s nothing like seeing it live. He thunders.
SILENT LONDON
March 2005 – 735x500mm – Blind embossed etching
by Simon Elvins
Using information the government has collected on noise levels within London, a map has been plotted of the capitals most silent spaces. The map intends to reveal a hidden landscape of quiet spaces and shows an alternate side of the city that would normally go unnoticed.
