Monday 31 August 2015

A Dragonfly Dances Above The Dregs Of Spadina

      




       My old phone refuses to die. The alarm goes off every day at 5:30 and the button won’t work to stop it so that it keeps on snoozing for five minutes and going off again. Even though it’s not a smart phone it’s like some stupid Frankenstein’s monster. I’ll have to be careful that it doesn’t sneak up on my new phone while it’s sleeping and murder it.

       A dragonfly danced ahead of me above the broken dregs of Spadina Road as I rode north to Eglinton.
       South of Eglinton, between the backs of the Yonge street buildings and the subway tracks is a narrow alley. I’ve been alley starved lately. I took some pictures of the trains leaving and approaching Eglinton station.
       I stopped to pee at a “gastro pub”. What an appetizing name for a restaurant. It sounds like they serve churning stomachs on a plate. The paper towel machine has an electric eye that one has to hold one’s hand up to for every piece, doing the casual bent elbow salute over and over again like an inspector of Nazi troops.
       My new, second door down the hall neighbour, Greg, came to my door to ask if I had wi-fi. I assume he wanted to work out a share deal in which he’d rent my password. I gave him the password for the Capital Espresso. This was really the first time we’d talked.

Sunday 30 August 2015

East Indian Biker Chicks

      
       
       The Saturday evening sky was a tie-dyed blanket of shades of grey that held the muggy heat down over the city as I rode up to Duplex Avenue and Eglinton.
       Because it was darker than usual at that hour, as I passed the Eglinton Grand Theatre I could see the green neon outlining it’s art deco front and I suddenly realized what a lovely cinema it is. I remember seeing “2001 A Space Odyssey” there many years ago.
       It isn’t until one gets to Duplex on the way east on Eglinton that one notices that one is hitting a concentrated part of the city. Everything looks pretty village-like before that.
       I rode down Duplex and made my way back for what will probably be my last coast down Avenue Road for a while, since I’ll be going down Yonge Street next time. Crossing St Clair, I saw Clara Blackwood. She waved and I said “hi” as I continued south. She’s one of those few people who I run into outside of poetry readings in the oddest places, once a year or so.
       I got off my bike at Spadina and Dundas to cross and a vespa pulled up carrying two young women in traditional East Indian dress. The driver was probably about eighteen and her passenger fifteen. They wore matching purple helmets.
       As I crossed Spadina on the south side of Dundas, coming the other way was a young couple walking side by side and each pushing an identical stroller with a little blonde girl in it. The two girls were happily holding hands as their carriages moved in unison.
       I watched an episode of Bonanza, guest starring Ricardo Montalban as a Bannock warrior named Mattsu, who’d been exiled from his tribe because he married a Shoshone. He saves Ben Cartwright from his brother and Ben gratefully gives the couple a piece of land on the Ponderosa. But the Bannock go on the warpath and kill Mattsu’s neighbour’s wife. The neighbour kills Mattsu’s wife in revenge and then he goes nuts with the desire for vengeance on both his neighbour and Ben, fitting Montalban’s later typecasting many times as a vengeful savage. Ben is tortured by being staked to the ground in a pose similar to Jesus on the cross but Mattsu lets Ben go when he starts spouting the “lord’s prayer”. All this religious crap kind of ruins a good show.

Saturday 29 August 2015

I Don't Even Know Who I AM: a visit to the food bank; a bike ride and a near clipping by a bus

      





       On Wednesday when I went to the food bank, it was clear that we’re getting down to the cool end of the summer. I think however that this August has been warmer than a lot of previous ones.

       I stood in line and took a better look at the building next door. It doesn’t seem to be either a business or a residence. All of the windows are boarded up but there is a no parking sign on the door, and above the door there’s a bigger sign that says the same thing even more emphatically. There is a car parked in front of it and one in the back. I suppose it’s possible that the place is being used for storage but it could also be empty and waiting for development.
       A haggard looking guy with blond hair in front of me in line was smoking self-rolled cigarettes, so the second hand smoke was even harsher than usual.
       The manager had a handful of children’s passes to the Canadian National Exhibition. There was only one person in line who had a child with her, so he gave her one. It would make more sense to leave them at the reception desk. They have the information on their computer system, which is accessed every time they are giving out the tickets and tells them whether the recipient is a single adult or if they have children.
       When I got home, called my landlord to ask him to arrange for another bedbug treatment. To my surprise I didn’t get any argument at all. He just asked if he should call Orkin or the most recent guy who came to spray. I said “Orkin” and he said “Okay”.
       When I came back to the food bank at 13:30, there were quite a few people smoking near the door. I’m not sure that even people who are willing to obey the nine meter bylaw understand the concept of nine meters. Maybe they should paint a semi-circle with a radius of nine meters around every doorway so that people will know exactly how far away to stand.
       People were asked to show their numbers after they are called.
       It felt like it might rain.
       Someone was talking about urination, “Sometimes I feel like I gotta go and can’t go, and then I feel like I can’t go but I go, all in a couple of days!”
       Snippets of another man’s sad story: “I don’t even know who I am … I don’t know when I was born … I know I was born in Detroit … My adopted mother got killed by a drunk driver … I’ve been homeless … I was found unconscious … I got brain damage from lack of oxygen …” I started to feel a few sprinkles of rain.
       The numbers being called were in the early twenties, but a guy wanted to trade his twenty-something ticket for something between fourty-five and fifty.
       The sad man continued: “I’m also on methadone … that’s why I get out of bed in the morning … $450 a week for nine hours work … I’m also an electrician … I went to Ryerson …”
       There was a Latin American group standing together. One woman is pregnant and smoking. She saw me looking at her. She knows it’s bad for the foetus but she does it anyway. She was standing beside another smoking woman who had a three-year-old girl in a stroller.
       “ … That’s why I don’t drink … I won’t drink ever again …”
       Inside, Sue gave me some milk from grass fed cows, sausages and Jamaican patties. The vegetable woman asked if I wanted some chocho. I wonder if she knows that means “vagina”. I took two.
       The milk wasn’t sour this time.
       That evening I rode up to Eastbourne and Eglinton, then down Eastbourne to Chaplin before heading back to Oriole Parkway. I had a good run down Avenue Road, and then crossed Bloor to ride down Queens Park. Suddenly a TTC bus startled me when it passed, just millimetres from my left arm. I tried to catch up to the bus to tell the driver what an asshole he was but I went on ahead. I memorized the number on the back of the vehicle and made note of the time. When I got home I went online and filed a complaint form on the TTC website.

Friday 28 August 2015

If You're Looking For Treble, You've Come To The Right Place: A review of the Tranzac open stage for Monday August 24th



       While I was riding up Brock Avenue on my way to the Tranzac open stage, a young couple passed me very quickly. Women don’t pass me very often but when they are riding with fast boyfriends they seem to develop cycling super powers out of their compulsion to do things to help maintain the relationship. The couple were quite a bit ahead of me but I picked up my pace and passed them while they were climbing the hill to Dundas. I pushed myself to stay ahead of them until College but it turned out that they weren’t even behind me by that point. I was very out of breath though and relieved to be able to slow down.
       Maybe I’m getting too old for this kind of competition. The quick breathing seemed to agitate my throat and caused me to cough every minute or so all the rest of the way to the Tranzac. Even once I was there I felt the need to cough. A glass of water though helped me wash the phlegm out of my throat.
       In the Southern Cross bar, a jazz concert had just finished featuring a band made up of ex-Humber College students. There was not a big crowd in the room, but there was at least one set of proud parents in attendance, who were talking with amusement about some of the Humber College property, such as the music stands, that have Humber College stencilled on them, and even a phone number to call if you’d like to report that you’ve found them.
       Erik Sedore arrived with a Tupperware container full of butter tarts that he’d made. I took one, but didn’t eat it right away because I didn’t want to clog up my throat before singing. I told him that I only have a few more Monday nights to come to the Tranzac before I will be occupied with my studies. He was surprised that I have difficulty with French as a second language, even though I do translations of French songs. I explained that I still have to look words and phrases up in order to interpret a song, but I argued that someone with sub conversational French skills but with an understanding of poetics could do a better translation of a song or poem than someone who is proficient in French.
       I reminded Erik of the song about the death of the dinosaurs that he sang last week. I’ve told him in the past that his songs would work very well as the soundtrack and story for animated short films, but the dinosaur song would be more conducive to that medium than any of his other compositions. The part where the one dinosaur decides to practice his pose so that he will look cool when they dig up his bones is inspired!       
       The host for the night was Abigail Lapell, who looked very tired when Sarah Greene introduced her to me. She apparently is one of the rotating Tranzac hosts on months that have five Mondays. In the Tranzac’s complicated system, in a month with five Mondays, Yawd Silvester gets the fifth Monday, and passes his usual fourth Monday to Abigail. Her next Monday of hosting will take place on November 23rd.
       Abigail told us that she has just returned from a canoe trip on the Grand River whereby her and a group of other musicians paddled from town to town and from gig to gig. Upon looking this up later, I see that this is an annual event called the “Fish Quill Canoe Tour”. Each year a group of contemporary Canadian musicians and poets canoes from town to town giving readings in cafés, arts centres, and at historic landmarks along the Grand River. She said that she lost all of her social skills on the trip.
       Abigail started us off with “O Marie” by Daniel Lanois – “ … On travail aujourd'hui, on travail sous la pluie, on travaille au tabac, hostie! Mes mains sont noires a cochon … Oui ma blonde elle attend apres mois, Je vais retourner avec beaucoup d'argent … O Marie, j'ai mal a la tete …” These parts would translate as – “We are working today, we are labouring out in the rain, we’re picking tobacco, by god! My hands are black as a pig … Yes my girl has been waiting for months, but when I return I’ll have lots of money … O Marie, I have a headache …” He has a headache because he went out drinking after work the night before. 
       Abigail picked the song well. She then went to the piano and told us that she was going to do a song by her “good friend”, Bruce Springsteen. She sang “Hungry Heart” – “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back, like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going …” So many performers, when they cover songs, boringly do it pretty much exactly like the original. Abigail’s version was quite different.
       The first open mic performer was Avesta, who said that he had a video on his laptop that he wanted to play while he improvised on the piano. He said that the video was an hour long, but he’d just show five minutes of it. He told us that it includes photos of the Don Valley Viaduct and the universe. The file was taking a long time though to load on his computer. Abigail and Sarah were planning on having dinner delivered from a sushi place. Abigail had the menu and she was planning on reading it in the style of a slam poet to fill in the waiting time but then Avesta was ready. Only some of the video came on while he played. He started improvising with very fast playing but then settled into a more conventional melody. I don’t really see why he thought that the video would serve as an enhancement to his playing.
       I think that No MSG forgot to sign his name on the list, but Erik Sedore once again generously gave him the number two spot in exchange for number eleven.
       Abigail, still perusing the menu, told us that there was no sushi during her canoe trip, just peanut butter, cheese strings and apples. She was not used to No MSG’s quirky demand that the lights be turned off. She argued that it might be a fire hazard. There were already lit candles in glass on the tables so it wasn’t nearly as dark as it sometimes in when he plays.
       No MSG made a delicate start. It was the soundtrack for an empty street at night; of sad perseverance, though he said it was a train. When he stopped playing, Abigail walked to the microphone, not realizing that he’d only finished his first piece. His second improvisation was similar in mood and speed to the first but became more cinematic until he said, “It’s the train again. It’s goin the other way this time. It’s gone away.”
       Next up was Eric Sorenson, who started with an Evan Dando and Jon Brion song called, “It Looks Like You” – “I cant for the life of me tell you what all this is really about, so I’m leaving you with a burden of proof and a strong case of reasonable doubt …” Eric’s second selection was an original with the name, “Your Grey Skies”, but as he began singing it a very loud and drunk middle-aged woman in white came into the bar with another man. Once she’d gotten a drink in her hand she began dancing and shouting at Eric, “I love you baby!” as she raised her drink to him in a toast. Then she called out, “Alanis Morissette! I love her!” Eric continued to play and when he got to the instrumental part, he said, “This part calls for harmonica!” Abigail just happened to have one and began to play. Eric sang, “Your grey skies are gonna cheer me up this time …” as the woman made her way to the performance area, began to dance provocatively, pulling up her dress, then going down into a squat. She went back to the bar before Eric was finished.
       Then it was my turn. When I started doing “The Cha Cha of the Wolf”, the woman wanted to know where the other guy, who’d been playing before, was. I guess she didn’t like me – “Well girls your age, they’re afraid of guys like me, you’re much too sage to come and sit upon my knee, but I love you dear, so do not fear, come up to my side, I promise you that I will not bite …” My second piece was my own, “Recurring Vision of a Myopic Third Eye” – “Intravenous, McDonalds, the restaurant of the future, and the fastest food of all, into the blender go the roaches and rats and the world is now a very clean ball …” I screwed my playing up quite a bit and I think I forced my voice into a shout at first compete with the drunk woman’s shouting, but the songs went over okay anyway. I didn’t hear her during my second song, or in fact see her afterwards, so I didn’t know if she’d been tossed out or not.
       I was followed by Sonja Seiler, who played the piano and sang her song, “The Wreckage” while Abigail and Sarah ate their sushi – “ … broken part of me that only love can heal …” Sonja didn’t remember the name of her second song – “ … I know that there is a mile between the words you speak and what they mean … my roots don’t grow that deep … I know that there’s a place inside where no one left and no one lied … our arms around the things we cannot hold …”
       After Sonja was Bryan, but she remained on stage to provide backup vocals for his song.
       At this point Avesta told Abigail that there is too much treble coming through the speakers. I asked him if there was too much treble when I sang. He laughed and answered, “No treble at all!”
       Bryan’s second song was in the style of New Country, as was his first. He told us that he also wrote it in collaboration with his cousin, but had never played it live until then. He warned us “We’ll be rusty!” using the royal “we”. He had the lyrics on a stand in front of him – “ … The mistakes we made, made me the man my wife knows …”
       Of the open stage, Abigail declared that it just keeps getting better and better. I said that means that if anyone wanted to be considered the best they should have signed up last.
       Seeing that the next performer, Mr Allison, had a banjo, Abigail asked us if anyone knows how long it takes to tune a banjo. The joke answer is that nobody knows because no one has ever successfully accomplished the task.
       Mr Allison was accompanied by a drummer whose name he said was Octave Chanute. He said that when they are together they are known as “The Morality Players”. His first song was entitled “No Dice”, and both his voice and his music had a Tom Waits feel to it – Pickin a Band-Aid, I’m a captain of industry …” The rhythm that the drummer was laying down sounded deliberately off beat. He told us, “As you can tell from my physique, I am predominantly inspired by the act of dancing. The foxtrot, the protein shake, the reach around. My target demographics have already left. I will be dancing internally after a word from my sponsor!” and then he took a drink from his beer bottle.
       During his second song he played blues banjo and the drummer played a simpler rhythm – “ … Cleopatra’s a Gibson Girl …”
       After Mr Allison was Brian, who had put his name on the list as “Tin Whistles”. He played “The Boys of Blue Hill”, one of the reels he’d learned on his recent trip to Ireland. His second piece was called “I Saw Ireland In His Eyes”. He said he met a Canadian military officer who has invented his own Irish language. Abigail asked Brian to introduce the next person on the list in Irish. I wouldn’t know how to spell what he said, but he introduced No MSG, which of course was really Erik Sedore.
        Erik did his song “Python” – “ … I wanna open up my jaws and swallow myself whole …” He felt it was appropriate for his second song to do a super quiet bedtime song, so he sang a cover of John Darnielle’s “Get Lonely” as played by his favourite band, The Mountain Goats – “ … I will get lonely and gasp for air and look up at the high windows and see your face up there.”
        Following Erik was Vinnie, who borrowed Abigail’s guitar to play and sing some original Blues songs with a Country voice. He’s a very good singer but he doesn’t enunciate very clearly and so it was very difficult to understand his lyrics. He said that his second song was about busking but he didn’t know the title, even though he wrote it.
       Then came Zoe Henderson, who played two of her own songs on the piano. The first was called “The Last Train Home” and it was similar in theme to some gospel songs like “Train to Glory”. Her second song had the line, “Love is a Sunday thing.”
       After Zoe was Jim Amar, who did what is sort of his signature song, “All Hands on Deck”. The lyrics don’t seem to have been written with any kind of conscious meaning – “The folks don’t find it terribly amusing but the mayor finds it horribly confusing …” It’s a well-written song though that could easily become a hit with the right promotion. His second song, “Down In the Valley” is also lyrically ambiguous – “ … Down into the cauldron, 10,000 strong … if the deal don’t hold the valley’s gonna blow …” The picking on this song was pretty hot.
       I’ve noticed that over the last few weeks, Zoe Henderson and Jim Amar have been arriving, sitting and leaving together. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the last time they came to the Tranzac, they both performed two cover songs each and this time they both did all originals. If it’s not it’s adorable.
       Abigail closed out the night with a sweet singalong of “You Are My Sunshine”, and pretty much everyone besides me joined in – “ … if you leave me to love another, you'll regret it all one day …”
       I asked Erik if the drunk woman had been kicked out. He said that it was politely suggested that she leave. It seems to have happened during my set. I hope it wasn’t because I was performing without a microphone and people felt a certain need to protect me. I found her kind of charming despite and perhaps a little because of her obnoxiousness.

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Crowd Control, Shock Therapy and Therapy: a review of the Plastiscene Reading Series for August 23rd



      
       On Sunday I looked on the Plastiscene Reading Series Facebook page just to be sure that the event was going to be taking place that night and at the same place as last month. For the past few years I’ve received notices on a monthly basis, but lately I haven’t. It turns out that it was a good thing that I checked, because it turned out that the Blackbird Bistro has closed and that Plastiscene had scrambled and gotten The Belljar at Dundas and Howard Park at the last minute.
       Plastiscene is getting closer and closer to where I live every month. This time it took me eight minutes to get there on my bike, compared to sixteen minutes to the Blackbird. I assume that next month they will move even closer to me and will be across the street from my place at the Capital Espresso.
       The Belljar is small, compared even to the Blackbird, and would not be able to handle the fourty-something turnout that Plastiscene has had occasionally in the past. There are booths in the back, but at the front are six old, round tables with metal pedestal bases that are common in a lot of taverns. The chairs are also old but solid, with plywood seats and backs on metal frames. There is a counter across the window, which is faced by three newer looking chairs with wood seats and backs and metal frames, slightly higher than the ones at the tables. At either end of the window counter sit two angled upward speakers, the kind that usually serve as monitors for performing musicians. Directly across the street is Daniel Lanois’s Sonic Temple recording studio. Also viewable from the window is the frequently changed message sign of the Master Mechanic garage that sits on the sharp corner made by the meeting of Howard Park and Dundas. This time the sign reads: “To have a dog is to know what it’s like to be unconditionally loved.” This area is considered to be part of the Roncesvalles Village community.
       The first familiar face to arrive was Buffalo spoken word artist, Josh Smith, who was there because he was one of the invited feature performers of the night. We talked about our academic careers. He’s going to Harvard, and has 20 credits under his belt so far. This year he’s taking math and creative writing. What a combination. He told me that he’s relieved that there are no essays this time, because they are not his forte. For me, my essays are sometimes the only things that save my academic ass at U of T.
       Paul Valliere arrived next, to my surprise, because I had thought that he would still be on vacation in the Maritimes. He apparently took and returned from his holiday early but had a wonderful time in New Brunswick, Cape Breton and P.E.I.
       When our host, Nicki Ward came, she got us all to rearrange the furniture. Four of the round tables were moved to the back and all the chairs were set up facing the window, where the performance area was going to be.
       Once we were sitting again, Paul and I argued politely about GMOs. He thinks they are evil and that any scientists who say they are good are liars. Genetically modifying plants is something that has been done by human beings for 14,000. The modern laboratory method can cross species boundaries and I guess that’s what scares people. There is a tremendous amount of potential to feed an over populated earth and to cure diseases with the use of GMOs, but there is also danger of upsetting ecological balances at the same time. I would say they should proceed with caution, while Paul would say that living a natural life will cure diseases and save the planet. I don’t know what his solution to the problem of feeding billions of human beings is though.
       Somehow the conversation moved from corrupt scientists to pedophile priests. I suggested that if most pedophiles turned out to be accountants we would never hear about it. I also think that there’s a fair amount of homophobia involved in the association of Catholic priests with pedophilia. If women were admitted to the priesthood and also were involved in the sexual touching of children, I doubt if many people would come forward to complain.
       I shared with Paul the John Lennon quote from his song “God”: “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” I suggested that he got that idea from Yoko.
       I asked Paul if he had any lobster while he was down east. He said he only had it sometimes in salads, but a tour guide explained how to remove lobster’s shell in two moves. Then he proceeded to tell a long story about the tour that finally came back, with my coaxing, to the lobster shell removal. She didn’t even demonstrate on an actual lobster. She just said there’s one spot where you punch it and everything else will just peel off.
       Paul said that when he was in Fredericton he stayed in a UNB residence for $28.00 a night. He told me that’s a really good deal, compared to the price of hostels. I must be old. I remember when hotels were $28.00 a night and hostels were two dollars, and sometimes nothing.
       I told him that when my sister was a student at UNB she worked as a carhop on roller skates for A & W. I was in my early teens when we used to come from the farm to visit her. Eating at an A & W was exotic enough for me, but to actually be able to sit in a car and eat a Teen burger with root beer was for me like dining at the Taj Mahal.
       It was almost 19:00 by the time things got rolling. Nicki Ward paid tribute to the organizer of Plastiscene, Susie Berg, starting by calling her an impresario and then invited us to add to this. I called out “Potato farmer!” David Clink said, “Don’t forget the leeks!” This diverted Nicki to talking about how she loves the leek but they are impossible to get clean. Then she added that they are much like the Welsh in that way. As she spoke, the Dundas streetcars were rolling loudly by and she commented about being upstaged by the TTC.
       She told us that a hat would be passed later on to make up for the fact that they are only currently receiving a grant from the Ontario Arts Council. I think that Susie added that they wouldn’t be hearing until December whether or not they will be getting anything from the Toronto Arts Council.
       Nicki introduced us to Jessica at the bar, and said she accepts limericks, tanka and tips in exchange for food that one can either eat or wear.
       Nicki asked if we were in the same time zone at Howard Park and Dundas as we were closer to downtown.
       To kick off the open stage, Nicki asked me to start. I had brought my guitar with me and sang my translation of Heloise Lettisier’s “St Claude” – “A fine attitude, that impatience, like certitude, is three strands of beads. You will be, I wish, faithful to the violence that arrives when we breathe. This city offers nothing but a breath of audacious scents, I know this town is dying but you will not give in. You would see the barriers blown while they lock themselves in. I descend two hells below as a storm is moving in …” I think that I sang and played it fairly well, but it was hard to gauge the audience’s reaction. David Clink was moving to the rhythm, so I’ll take that.
       There was a question as to whether or not we should close the door to diminish the noise from outside, but the general agreement was that cooler is better than quieter, so it stayed open for a while. The second open stage performer was Irena Niolova, who read a poem that she said was inspired by Molly Peacock, entitled “The Poetry of Math is that …” – “ … mummified in a coffin full of numbers … falling rain washes through soil … buries symmetry of beauty …” She read a second piece called “Parallel Universe” – “ … reading books, living in a parallel universe … post 9-11 … in a world encumbered by threats of destruction our … umbilical chords severed from the working of nature …”
       Next, Nicki called for Karen Shenfeld to read one of the poems from the hat. She pointed out that it was a coincidence that Nicky had mentioned the Welsh earlier and that it was an additional coincidence that she’d been selected to read a poem by Dylan Thomas, because in three weeks she will be travelling to Wales. The poem was “Twenty Four Years” – “Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.) In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor, sewing a shroud for a journey by the light of the meat-eating sun. Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun, with my red veins full of money, in the final direction of the elementary town I advance as long as forever is.” Nicki commented that Thomas is so concise in his search for the perfect word.
       Returning to the open stage, Nicki called for Susie Berg to come out from behind the scenes and read some of her poetry. Susie read from her phone, telling us that her browser crashed that day, not unexpectedly, given how the day went, with the last minute scramble for a venue. She said that she was going to read from her book, of which, now that it’s published, she hates all the poems. She shared “Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands Abdicates Her Thrown” – “ … Do you know what her friends have been doing all these years? The widowed ones take younger lovers … She has missed so many jokes … Her grandchildren grew up while she posed with shovels and bare earth … It’s been a staring contest with that Liz. For goodness sake, old woman. Something has to give … How she longs not to wear a hat.” Susie told us that her second poem came from a blog prompt on the theme of “Be” – “We are ten years old … screen doors echo in our wake …”
       Next, came Paul Valliere, who read an excerpt from the road journal of his trip to the Maritimes – “It rained a lot, so I read … August the fifth, the day I began my adventure … David Weale on P.E.I., Chasing the Shore … After Paul was Susie’s son Jacob, who read a poem from his phone entitled “Crusades of the Vegetable Crisper” – “I left a love song in the vegetable crisper … It smells a little off now … The smell is a metaphor …” He told us of his second offering that he wrote it on a train – “I see myself in the jagged edges of the cliff …”
       Then came another poem from the hat, read quite well by Russell. It was David Ury’s “Poetry Won’t Get You Laid Anymore” – “ …. They announced it yesterday, it was in all the papers, at once, thousands of men all over the country put down their pencils and went outside, because poetry won’t get you laid anymore, it was the last chance at procreation for the shy, the ugly and the manic, but it’s gone now, everyone’s stopped writing because poetry won’t get you laid anymore, it won’t, so why even bother finishing th …” At this point Russell mock angrily crumpled up the page and threw it on the floor.
       David Ury is also an actor, and any faithful follower of Breaking Bad would remember his character, “Spooge”, the drug addict who stole an ATM machine, took it home to his squat and while trying to open it, was killed when his wife tipped it over on him, crushing his head.
       Nicki talked about using Twitter to find the heart of a poem. I thought that was interesting because I do the same thing. She shared a poem called “My Emotional Toolkit” that she had worked out with tweets – “When I was young … Gave tongue to simple questions and listened hard to answers … I learned almost nothing in that season ‘cept how to sulk … and though I am a child of fools I merited the harvest of my un-society. Of all the living tools that I inherited the only social ones with which I regularly played were a pair of tweezers and a hand grenade.”
       Nicki also made a curious statement about haiku. She said that the word “haiku” simply means “short poem”. I doubt if most Japanese people would accept the etymological meaning of haiku as being sufficient to define what it meant to Basho or even what it means to most writers dedicated to the haiku genre. To accept any short poem as haiku would cheapen the genre beyond repair.
       Nicki then introduced the first feature of the night, Josh Smith. One bit of information in his bio was that he was rejected twenty times by The Buffalo News before they finally published something he’d sent to them. Josh knows most of his work by memory, and he began reciting something without a title that referred to living in “a cocoon of promises and walking dead reruns.” Josh told us that though he is from Buffalo, he considers Toronto to be his second home. There was someone looking curiously through the window as he went by and Josh coaxed him in with gestures. Josh then orated one of his more interesting pieces that I’ve heard him do once or twice before, about the social problems that come along with being half Black and half White – “ … Do you think that you’re Black? … Take half your identity and murder it … Always picked last for basketball, and hockey … Look out of place in a mosh pit … I wish I was Black, I wish I was White …”
       He told us that his next piece was inspired by a workshop in which the prompt was a painting by Berkshield.
       Josh’s voice was very much like that of a D.J. as he told us about the merchandize that he has for sale, including a “Josh Smith Poetry” t-shirt. I’ve seen Josh perform in Toronto a number of times over the past five years and even over that time it’s interesting what an over the top stage presence he’s developed.
       From his next piece – “The ocean didn’t ask my autograph but I wrote my name in the sand and it came and took it anyway … Do you read me in the raindrops?” Someone walked in as he was saying this and he called out to him, “I want to be inside you, buddy!”
       Josh next read a cover poem by his friend and fellow Buffalo writer, Florine Melnyk, entitled “Dusk In Costa Rica” – “We beat out the lost rhythm of our days …”
       Josh then told us about another of his projects, this one in which he has been rewriting the comedy of Monique Marvez as poetry. The poem he shared was “Women Are Hornier Than Men” – “It’s not dainty, it’s not feminine, but we are … women are cryptic about their sexuality …” It doesn’t really come across so much as a poeticization of Marvez’s words. That’s pretty much exactly the way she talks. The claim though that women have a stronger libido than men is just not backed up by most of the many studies that have been done on this comparison.
       Josh said that his next piece, entitled “Rock Bottom”, got its inspiration from a novel by Collette Cossini – “ … Your beauty was a weapon aimed at your own head … superpower … ugliness … consumed by the chlorophyll of rage … when you act ugly, you win ugly … bile diabolical … “ At the end of each line, Josh adds a subtle “ah” sound, expressed as half grunt and half sigh.
       When he was finished, Nicki told him that he has a future as an MC, if she ever vacates the job.
       Josh Smith is a better writer than he is a poet and he’s a better performer than he is a writer. He does sometimes achieve poetry, such as in “The ocean didn’t ask my autograph”, but often his work consists of well written statements with clever phrases, sort of like a modern day Will Rogers. His greatest power is in his performance but there he could stand to relax a bit. He comes across like a general making a speech to the troops before a battle when that kind of command is not really necessary among friends and peers. Literary audiences are rarely so out of hand that one needs to impose crowd control techniques on them.   
       Nicki declared a fifteen-minute break. I wandered outside and noticed that above the door was hanging an empty brown paper bag and wondered what comic voodoo was behind that. I pointed it out to Nicki and Russell and it turned out that Russell knew exactly what it was for. It fools the instincts of wasps that there is already a nest there and so buzz off. Nicki and I were both surprised by that one. “Get outta town!” she exclaimed.
       Russell playfully told Nicki to “Lay off the Welsh!” because it turns out that that’s his background. I mentioned how the Welsh get teased on Doctor Who, in particular, the city of Cardiff. He reminded me that Torchwood had also been set in Cardiff, with six of the main actors being Welsh.
       After the break, the featured reader was Steven Mayoff, who read from his novel, “Our Lady of Steerage”. He began with a quote from Milan Kundera: "The present moment is unlike the memory of it. Remembering is not the negative of forgetting. Remembering is a form of forgetting."
       From the novel – “Montreal, 1962 … She’s aware of empty spaces in her mind … She can remember the coolness of the jelly … electrodes were taped to her head … a fire erupted in her head … feeling her body echoing into emptiness … I seem to have trouble remembering some things … I had to have this procedure … Dora pierces the egg with the spoon … the taste spreads like liquid sunlight over her tongue … She thinks of the fourth station of the cross …”
       From what little Steven Mayoff had time to share of his novel; one could hear that he has the ability to design a multi-layered story that intriguingly juxtaposes issues of mental illness with religion, immigration and childhood trauma. If the rest of “Our Lady of Steerage” is as engaging as the section he read, it’s a very good novel indeed.
       The final featured writer of the night was, Amani, whose self-written bio described her as “the contemporary blues poet”. She started with a piece entitled; “Why I Write” – “I write because it is my cure … I write to save myself from having to see a therapist … “
       Amani set up her second piece by telling us that she is not a slam poet but she has performed at slams. She said that the first performer at a slam is the sacrificial lamb. The piece was called, “I Don’t Give a Slam” – “ … I do like to watch a poetry slam …”
       Amani told us that she’s come up with a new term to describe herself: “quirkylicious”. She said that her next poem was entitled “Fourty-five” because she wrote it when she was fourty-five. The audience gasped in disbelief that Amani is older than fourty-five. She said, “They say black don’t crack!” She told us that she makes TTC drivers lower the ramp so she can get on the vehicles and they seem incredulous. She tells them, “Young face, old knees!” From the poem – “ … I have boyfriend named gym …” The rest of the piece sounded like a long personal ad.
       Amani’s final poem was called “Ice Cream” – “ … you say to yourself, ‘I could really use the lick of an ice cream cone’. Don’t talk to me of vanilla …”
       In some moments during her set, Amani sang, and she does have a beautiful singing voice. As for her poetry, while every now and then a clever phrase or word pops up, she’s not really a great writer of poetry or any other genre of literature. She writes for therapy and to reach out, but not for the art of writing.
       In closing, Nicki chose to revisit the Dylan Thomas poem, “Twenty-four Years”. She read it quite effectively in a more Beat style.
       I told Steven Mayoff the story of how in the late 80s, while moving some furniture out of the old Lakeshore Mental Hospital, I found a manual entitled, “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”. I took the manual, turned all of the instructions inside of it into a poem and finally into a song. Steven’s story was particularly poignant for me because I have known a few victims of electro convulsive therapy. One man I shared an apartment with in Montreal had had the first twenty years of his life wiped from his mind.
       I stood outside on the sidewalk for several minutes chatting with Paul Valliere about the late German singer Nico Krista, who was one of Andy Warhol’s muses.