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Though no stranger to awards, Roo Borson painlessly nabbed a whole lot of bread at last night’s Griffin Poetry Prize awards ceremony. The fun-furriers couldn’t get into the swank event, even though we could quote some Don Mckay by rote, so we biked over to Coach House Press and cleared broken glass out of bp’s poem.
As with most cool things on Brave New Waves, you seem to catch them when your attention has given up for the day: lying in bed while the show plays by virtue of the radio’s sleep function (it was 1:30am afterall). I struggled in this state to hear last night’s Out Hud interview. Their concert was great, the tracks I hear from the latest release make me wonder why I haven’t bought the album yet, but the interview was hard to listen to. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got lots of love for Phyllis and Molly, but damn, if they didn’t sound like a parody of Moon Unit Zappa. How many ‘like’s’ does a sentence need? Is it a Berkeley thing?
I was trolling through some old Torontoist mix-tapes and found this doozy (right next to Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Sussudio” [!]). It made me giggle. I found myself saying, “No! Are they really that well matched?” I swear it’s like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz. Use headphones for full effect and so that no one hears you listening to Nickelback.
There once was a paddler named Mason,
who crossed a very shallow basin.
He hit a rock
and split his cock
and now pussy he ain’t chasin’.
Today’s the last day to enter the contest.
I have this nasty habit of missing opening acts, which is annoying when the opener is Ulrich Schnauss (for some odd reason, I feel his name wants an umlaut). For this show, I also missed my pot connection, which really does enhance this type of music. In rock venues like Lee’s Palace, the subtleties in tunes by Schnauss or M83 get washed out by the bass. The weed seems to manage the bass blunting.
Ecstasy can make you feel young. Well, it can keep you going all night even if you haven’t danced well into mid-morning in seven years. With the price per pill down thirty dollars from seven years ago, you might as well keep dancing. (Of course, there is the possibility that it was just caffeine or speed.)
Our very own writer, ml, made two calls about last night’s Black Mountain show at the Legion. Of the crowd he said, “dudes with beards.” If the dudes didn’t have beards, they had budding beards or had just shaved beards or knew someone who could grow a beard. I’m glad I never threw away my plaid from the nineties. Raid your dad’s closet again. ml’s second pithy gem came just after the first few bars of Black Mountain’s opening song: “Wicked, now we don’t have to feel bad about not seeing Zeppelin.” Like the members of the Vancouver band, we were born too late, but damn, could they rock. From fist-pumping riffs to swirling wall-of-noise psych-outs, they could rock. That’s all you need with your 50.
Dust off your Robbie Burns collection, it’s good for your grey-matter. I wonder if drivel like the following works too?
There’s a yoga instructor from BC
who sports the name of Shakti Mehi.
With her bladder drained,
she never refrains
from starting her day with a cup of pee.
(On a tip from Place for Writers who don’t necessarily advocate urine therapy.)
Really, it’s my fault. There was that time at Eden Mills, I was browsing the book-table. I didn’t buy anything. $18 seemed like so much for a book and I had a real job then! Then there was the booth at Toronto’s Word on the Street last fall—same thing. I’m sure my bar tab at the end of that night easily topped the cost of a book.
Now Porcupine’s Quill is facing some tough financial troubles. Tim Inkster doesn’t think the publishing house will last past 2007, which makes me cry in my overpriced beer. With John Metcalf at the editorial helm, Porcupine’s Quill has been the veritable antenna of Canadian Lit, publishing Russell Smith and Andrew Pyper before anyone noticed them. The Quill has also kept essential Canuk writers in print such as Clark Blaise, Irving Layton and Leon Rooke. The aforelinked Globe and Mail article has even mentioned that Metcalf, everybody’s favourite literary curmudgeon, may be out of work soon.
Porcupine’s Quill focuses solely on literary fiction. There’s no textbook or cookbook arm to off-set the noble money-losing publications. I’m going to browse their site and then buy something.
I’m pleased that there is this push to get Leonard Cohen nominated for a Nobel. As with so many others, Cohen is a poet I can get behind. However, I do think that his poetic father, Irving Layton, was a better poet. Although Layton was nominated in 1981 by South Korea and Italy, he didn’t win the prize. I guess it’s tough when you are up against Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Now, I watch the papers for news of Layton’s death. Currently, he is struggling wth Alzheimer’s disease at Maimonides Hospital in Montreal. Cohen’s renown has long surpassed Layton’s. I wonder if that can translate not only into an Nobel nomination, but a win.
