MY HEART IS A POLICE STATE

Peter Stevens, Artist-in-Residence

2011-12-24T09:24:00.000-08:00

"Down with intelligence, long live death!"
-Spanish proverb

I am the artistic director at theatre sainte-catherine. With my not-for-profit arts organization Le Nouveau International; we have programmed fifty percent of the annual schedule with improv, theatre, music, comedy, film and art of all kinds. It has been a heavy load, full of late nights, regrets (both artistic and social) and there is no better way to start year three than with a visit from Peter Stevens (aka Nemo Dally). Peter is a rising comic-writer from Brampton, Ontario. We met while performing together in the Vanier Improv Company at York University. I was performing with my crass, political, and hilarious troupe Stag Nation. We were cantakerous and sensational and we loved it. Then I met Peter and he said to me immediately (we were 21 years of age): I will never do any material that is homophobic, sexist, racist or just plain stupid. This inspired me. I always aspired to bridge tragedy and "serious" plays with more silly and entertaining work, and I also felt that our generation was a generation that should pride itself in being one of the first that is not homophobic, sexist, racist or stupid. Of course, the road has been fraught with disappointment. Occasional small victories, which are the only ones I dwell in these days. After a debaucherous run with Ogoki Nights 2: LIFER; and a couple Match Made in Hell's, a return to why I began 'makin' art' fueled by Peter is a gift from god. Despite the fact that I do find art to be a bit of bourgeois, white-boy affair, or so goddam pretentious it loses itself credibility, and real work is real work; I do think art is survival. Art keeps us alive at night. As eric amber said: Artists suck. But life without art would really suck. That is something Peter would appreciate. But moreover, I believe that why life would really suck without art is that we would be more homophobic, sexist and stupid and racist than ever before. Art is a moral barometer, and also representative of the times (which is why youtube is such a sad symbol), and it is up to the community to create this notion of "times". It is hard to be idealist these days, but stick to your guns, as Océanne LeBlanc said: "Sure! Racism still exists, some people never change, but the non-racist people, as few as they may be, are the ones that I am going to live with, my small mountain of good people, call it idealistic but I see it happening." What I see happening is Peter Stevens leading this charge, like he did for me ten years ago. He still produces DIY shows that aspire to a certain grade of quality and not a masturbatory spontaneity and indulgence. He is coming to theatre sainte-catherine to sweep and mop, in both senses of the expression. He begins as a guest star in Dépflies (January 12th-14th), my new play series about lonely quebeckers (I know, again); then he will show his bread and butter: stand-up, sketch and improv alongside Stefan Peterson, Lise Vigneault, Christopher Betts and other guests yet to be decided upon in GRINDERS: COMEDY WEEKEND(Jan 19-21st). Then his final weekend will a New Creation: GODS IN THE LOCKEROOM, a post-apocalyptic romance story surrounding travel and sports in the modern era.

Old excerpt from rough draft of "PARIS"

2011-12-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

S: Whatchya been workin' on these days Vlad?
V: Well, a bunch of stuff- I have this one new idea for Microwaveable Poems.
S: Microwaveable poems?
V: Yah. A poem. That you put in the mircrowave.
S: Aaand then what?
V: Haven't got that far... in the... development.
S: Oh.
V: I don't know you know? I just think it's a rad idea.

Bitterspeak

2011-09-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

The day began as it always did: Adèle singing me a song on the subway that she sings while playing the "pear ball" at school. Pear ball, is a common game in schools here in Montreal, and perhaps across Canada. It involves standing up and pounding a ball with your two hands together, the ball is attached to a pole and swings around it. Two can play at this game, and one is the queen. Adèle informs me that there are a lot of songs, an endless number of songs one can sing while playing Pear Ball.

I drop her off and then sit at Park Lafontaine, ogling a fat oak, a squirrel sucking on a puddle, and the bird sanctuary for pigeons, gulls and mallards. A notice three different colour-tipped ducks, by which I mean, three male ducks with a different coloured feather inside their wing. One is purple, one is blue and one is brown. Is this their personality? My lack of ornithological knowledge is a staggering monument to my absence from scholastic pursuits. I pick up "Songlines", an undeniable masterpiece, and watch as Chatwin takes me into a barrage of facts, all thematically linked to his story about Australian natives, but completely irrelevant to the plot. I think to myself: what is he doing? He is improvising. Polished literary improv. Fact after fact after fact hits me over the head, pounding me further into a trance. That's it! Chatwin's done it!

My friend Ric has asked me to write an essay on anti-theatre. Or my version of anti-theatre. It is funny he asks this now, because Charlie and I are still deep in our obsession with the Chilean anti-poet and father of antipoetry, Nicanor Parra. His ribald sense of humour and thrashing of conventional literature is so utterly refreshing. Yet Parra restrains any outright, all-encomnpassing, broad-based disdain for more conventional or modernist poetry, the two exist together he feels. Like antimatter and matter. And so, on that note I feel it necessary to dive into notions of antitheatre. But first, as is always the case when dealing with an exchange of time, ideas and money: economics-

Suddenly a group of middle-aged women surround me. It is frightening at first (what if they talk to me? What if they eat me?), but wild in a sort of domestic-suburban horror movie sense. They are doing aerobics in the park, with a leader who leads them in knee high kicks, wires wrap around their heads and bodies, sweat and breath, they literally mount the knoll directly in front of me and and swarm around me. "Okay ladies, to your left." It is difficult to concentrate. Though I see it even now: this is fucking theatre. Being scared by a performance, genuine fear. But moreso is the vulnerability that some of the women have, I mean I have my judgements, and aerobics disgust me for some reason, maybe it is the association I make to yuppiehood ("these women must be rich, latté swilling yuppies), but as soon as I see their faces up close, red from blood movement, I find myself empathetic to them; and those that are confident and indifferent to me equally fascinate me, even though it is in a completely different way. My fear dissipates as they leave. That was a moment of free theatre. The sun bursts through the grey clouds and drenches the fake lake of Lafontaine with a billion rays, twinkling into a thousand wavelets and bouncing off my face in a warm hug. So this anti-theatre essay begins...

Part One: What Happens When A Normal Human Being Goes to the Theatre?

The Threshold

2011-09-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

this video continues to bring me close to tears (start it at 5 minutes if you want the best part) Juan Carlos Gil has down syndrome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exDjR_t11wk

After week two of our(Le Nouveau International) run of "Les Cafés Tragiques" I have learned some valuable lessons. Most notably that improv is not viewed as "theatre". Tinkering with the art form of live performance to create a feeling of realism via improv thereby via the audience and the concept of being "live"; is usually viewed merely as just a casual neglect for the sacricity of the written word. I feel strongly about the written word, as strongly let's say as someone like Gary Snyder, a Master scholar, speaker of Japanese, Chinese and a fine poet, environmentalist and economist, one of the Black Mountain poets. Snyder obviously cares deeply about the value of research, studies, literature and the love of language. Yet he mentions in "The Etiquette of Freedom" that when he recites a poem (that he has toiled over, and has revised, and has finally decided upon) "I could recite it but I would probably change it; that doesn't matter though." The live performance has stagnated into a robotic regurgitation of lines, and no matter how much improvising within the lines can take place, a two hour play with no improvisation is always cold and filmic, distant and old, and an obvious reason why theatre cannot and has not survived without government funding. There was demand when shakespeare performed (though I am not well-learned as to the finances of the old theatres), because, I believe, he added action, violence, and a sort of burlesque to theatre that the likes of Ben Johnson were opposed to. This burlesque was merely attaching theatre to the people, making it secular, which is should be. Performance has always originated in the streets, or caves, and should not be a museum, it is a craft with no limits because at a base it is merely a conversation between two humans. Antiquated, or taxidermy theatre (as Johnstone called it) seem to think it is a dialogue between the people on stage ONLY. "sit down and shut up and watch us" as Crystle Reid, an environmental theatre artist, once put it. I do feel there is a sacricity to a great script, and these dialogues on stage, however without any connection to the audience, they fall into gibberish, detached from their audience who is indifferent. So, I do feel that all we search is a threshold, where beautiful, CALCULATED poetry spews out of performers mouths, while they also reach out, with the form, to these audience members whom are sitting there, becoming a mirror to the reality of every night, instead of a live film. This balance I feel we have attained with Cafés Tragiques, and yet a theatre critic dismissed it on the phone with me, as improv. Comedy. A lower art. Well, maybe so. But it is a lower caste I enjoy more than the higher caste. A place where the audience is forced to look at their performers equally. And still find a place for pure magic amid this void, this threshold, this place where poetry, the moment, the clown and the fleeting all collide throughout the entire night.

Share your goat (the unheralded talents of Simon Chavarie)

2011-08-29T06:33:00.001-07:00

Listening to saidthegramophone.com with those monday morning tears of old shows, i must assure the world that all is going well. In a terrible fit of longing for Glyn Jones and Jesse Henderson, the old treeplanter dregs, the denizens of swamp and poetry up in the old boreal north of Nakina. For now this life has been traded for the baudelairian madness of city life. The make-up of downtown and Theatre Ste-Catherine, where angels and devils decide whether or not they are just that: angel or devil. Lord of both, Simon Chavarie, completely unrecognized by Québec or Canada as the genius he is, once again puts up a show Les Cafés Tragiques with yours truly and breaks the heart of a million dirtbags, and not one word in the media has been spoken of this next-level performer. But credit is delusional, and out of something, nothing. You'll have to excuse the tired maxim, I've been reading too much Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison. A warren of buddhist spirituality, and just plain old good times. The artists that have arisen in the Montreal scene, which I feel may be known eventually as some kind of bastion for the sole few that tried to get rid of Harper, an enclave of radicals, freethinkers, artists and punks; god forbid the yuppies and scenesters of the mile end from ever entering this gang, but those who did shows for no one, those who clenched the still-beating dragon heart of yesterday and the million rainy nights of-oh boy. Turning into a bit of a white boy pontificator now then! I speak simply of Danny Belair, Simon Chavarie, Caroline Braun, Vinny Dow, Catherine Moreau, Camille Rose, Josée, and Little Glue, a landscape artist with more work ethic than the entire city of Westmount. We know our enemies. They live in their own deathwork they made for themselves, primarily mobile devices (aka mini-coffins). For now I shall continue to peruse Dan Beirne's blog and remember Simon jumping onto me after I fell off the stage and pretending to love me. I am married only to the fleeting baby grackles that bound about on the grass of park Georges-Etienne-Cartier. Yes, slap me like Ouellet has so many times, slap me, because I think describing a stump recently cut for Hurricane Irene, is enough to make me sad and happy: a hoof sticking up from the ground, as though a giant cow was buried upside down with that one hoof sticking out of the ground, and now with time, that hoof had rotted, taken on some hardened characteristics and hollowed out a bit, the two hooves themselves, taken individually, appeared like two bison butting heads. The lichen that raged on all around like some kind of fine garland, painted onto this mystical hoof that made me want to dig like an archeologist until this wooden cow could be shone to the Saint-Henrians and we could put up a new statue of wood, an animal, and how the morning is for bullshit like this. Yes, the morning is for bullshit like this.

The Saint Henrian: Luck and Boys

2011-04-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Walking past the old corroyeurs' habitations, the smell of the tanneries, I am reminded of how great it is to still be able to walk the streets with a coffee in your hand and not be afraid that someone is going to bludgeon you to death with a large blunt object. Such is the freedom one seeks while patiently avoiding the large funny-shaped anguish above one's shoulder, like an unmoving cloud.

Reading Ezra Pound, I cannot re-iterate the importance of this author. His ABC of Writing, despite an elementary-sounding title, is one of the best books on writing for any young writer. He basically states that all poetry is song, and must be written as such. For any writer, he explains the complex nature of rhythm and inspiration and also provides valuable lessons for teachers; warning of the dangers of resting on one's laurels and feeling they have learned enough.

I picked up Ezra Pound's Selected Poems and was almost brought to tears in light of recent events with close friends.

"Here are your bells and confetti.
Go! rejuvenate things!
Rejuvenate even 'The Spectator'.
Go! and make cat calls!
Dance and make people blush
Dance the dance of the phallus
and tell anecdotes of Cybele!
Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods!
(Tell it to Mr. Strachey)

Ruffle the skirts of prudes,
speak of their knees and ankles.
But above all, go to practical people-
go! jangle their door-bells!
Say that you do not work
and that you will live for ever."

That was taken from SALUTATION THE SECOND in LUSTRA. This man is a great poet.

A million buds, some cherry-red, others an iridescent emerald green, are beginning to sprout on the Oaks and Maples of Saint Henri. Garbage and dogshit still dominate the sidewalk. I think of the beautiful TaraLee and her cheeks, and her wonderful spark while drinking a gin and tonic and kissing me on the cheek. How easy life is when you know you are the president of your own misery. I have always loved loneliness and sex and to speak of them is never crass or depressing, but a grand release from the bloody idiocy of pretention and society.

I cannot believe these trees just wave their boughs in this fierce april wind, and the leaves do not rip off. These trees are strong, and I am giddy in anticipation of the odours they will drench me with soon. Such is the freedom I love and cherish.

The Poet-in-residence

2011-03-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Every Way of Snow

2011-03-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

Designers are the scum of the earth. Bold, contentious statement. Perhaps something I will regret saying in my older years, but now, this like Flaubert's famous aphorisms, just write them down now and put them in your pocket and wait several decades. Well, I say this with empty pockets, like a bum who was screwed over, except I wasn't screwed over, I just witnessed it, and was taught to believe it; oh man. I'll get there. It's my great grand-father.

I brought my baby Gustave to the CLSC today for his vaccinations. Vaccinations are truly a horrifying experience. You have your child straddle you in a hugging position on your lap, and they pop four consecutive needles into their thighs. Somehow Gustave did not cry during this experience, it was as though he was bitten by a mosquito, really fascinating to see considering my first two children howled in excruciating pain, writhed and clenched me in a desperate and heart-wrenching way. Gustave is my monster, his head is still 20% bigger than the average BIG head for his size. The nurse was a stunning Québecoise beauty and I observed the black and white photos on the walls of the clinic: the old train tracks and station on saint-jacques, a street parade on Notre Dame from the 1970s with a clown who appeared alcoholic, his crooked teeth, poorly applied clown make-up and his broken, shattered eyes; the photo montage of Saint-Henri was pleasant, I remembered I had to meet at the Historical Society above the fire hall to look into the archives and discover what had happened to my real great grand-father, Réal Rocque-Cartier, one of the first immigrants to arrive in Saint-Henri and work at the Tanneries (Leatherworks) which were now being turned primarily into lofts for middle-upper class yuppies (I suppose the word designer or new age capitalist also works). Réal's history was at once fascinating and disturbing: he acted as sheriff to Saint-Henri, when it was still also known as Ville Saint-Cunégonde. Now the children are crying. I do some drugs. I shovel my balcony and I love that March still creates such giant chunky flakes of snow and that winter howls for its fifth and most insulting month of variant cool; the winter makes poets of us all.

"I often wish I could cut off the heads of people on the street I don't like"
-Gustave Flaubert

The Saint Henrian part three

2011-02-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

I think most people would think me absurd for even considering whether or not to take the twitter plunge, just considering it is already a ridiculous, back-stepping idea, and furthermore: why bother talking about it? I guess twitter is the ADD generation fully evolved, the ultimate expression of that culture, our culture. And once again, I find myself on the fringes, not at all accepting of such a mediocre, sad, technological excuse for existence. An earlier mantra of mine: Embrace Everything is being pushed to its limits. My friend told me his twitter account was forth 200 bucks because he had 1,000 followers, he could sell his twitter account to someone like colgate for 200 bucks. Another twitter user had over 100,000 followers and could sell his account for something like 40,000 dollars. I may be misquoting but you get the point. A monetary value is directly associated to each follower one has, its a sort of capitalistic cultural leadership networking system. My latest friend to enter the twitting universe is obsessed with one Twitter named Fat Jew who says offensive things within his 140 character limitation and has garnered a following. Each offensive joke is read by my friend, hunched over his laptop typing his own twit, "In Toronto you have to do it, everyone does it, I can't believe you don't do it, you have to." Everything for everyone. Freedom is freedom until it interferes with other peoples' freedom, right? And twitter does not violate any freedom, use it or shut up. Facebook is the same, myspace, chatrooms... these are optional, these are optional, these are optional...Embrace everything. Breath in, breath out, watch the black kid with a joint in his mouth as he throws garbage into the back of the truck and hops onto the back, then stops again and jarringly lumbers to another bag of garbage, wearing a flashy bright orange safety jacket, puffing away at his joint, his eyes glazed, his tuque sideways on his head, and the loud truck rolls down saint-marguerite street.

Already I know Lise Did It Best

2011-01-07T23:44:00.000-08:00

Peggoedy was my first cat. She always treated me as an equal and i loved her for it. Always was attracted to cats, one day I came home and my father said that Peggoedy was at the vet. Two days later they told me she had been euthanasiad after discovering she had cancer in her stomach that was making life painful. I was sixteen or so and it was a harsh, climactic moment nearing the subject of death for me. Our second was Minette, much less friendly than Peg, but a firy devil cat, which was entertaining at least. On my own I once took in Bob Le Mush, who many claimed I nursed back to life. He dissappeared. Manon also dissappeared. The cat you see now is our newest stranger. I wanted to put a blanket out for her but my wife advised me otherwise. She has dreads in her tail. When she lies there with that layer of snow-fur. I just, well, I love cats. But fuck everything.

Saul Bellow, one of the best.

2010-12-17T23:17:00.000-08:00

p 270, Humboldt's Gift:
O! We poor souls, all of us so unstable, ignorant, perturbed, so unrested. Couldn't even get a good night's sleep. Failing in the night to make contact with the merciful, regenerative angels and archangels who were there to strengthen us with their wisdom. Ah, poor hearts that we were, how badly we were all doing and how I longed to make changes or amends or corrections. Something!

one of my favourite novels.

Only the Great fall in love though they cant

2010-12-12T23:50:00.000-08:00

Whenever I sing jazz I know that life is joyful and well. Koestler may have ruined his rep from some off hand statements. But his titles alone are worth praise, and right now in Montreal we are living in some kind of final parisian renaissance, where people are so desperate to be a part of something, they will renounce anything. But all the strange souls who made me laugh throughout those years of 2005-2015 were unbelievably hilarious: Sandi, Jeff, Eric, Mark, Simon, Rebs, Naila, Jimmers, Katie, TJ, Gus, Glyn, Heidi, Lise, Kirsten, Mariana, Josh, (both), Massimo, downing, brazao, sugar sam, nick, hakim,

the stream of the underground that birthed during that wild year or so...
Positivity just keeps things going.
314 was founded on that positivity, but it was killed.

When someone arrives and can play that instrument that is full of grapes and other fruits, and understands the politics of nothing, the rhinocerus party was something but something it was...

If you can't bring the platform, then just make sure your tilt doesn't stop you from rocking out completely and fully without remorse for what is being said.

whenever you see that it is raining DOUX DOUX DOUX
just remember that it is all
DOUX DOUX DOUX
different rhthyms and hopefully
DOUCX DOUX DOU DOUX
that 12 bars of tellement
DOUX DOUX DOUX DOUX DOUX
je suis, je suis
DOUX DOUX DOUX O

The Saint Henrian part two

2010-10-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Jesse Henderson's recent arrival in town (that is, Montreal, where the pigeons come to die) has been heralded by both Charlie Dibbles and Atlas Bajore as a major bowel movement within the literary landscape. His immediate promotion of Ezra Pound's Collected Essays, lending of G.K. Chesterton's collected essays has sparked inspiration. Meanwhile Michel Lebeauciel, a cousin of the movement, won the South Shore half marathon- wait for it- hungover. The reading list for now according to Dibbles is: DFW's "Infinite Jest"; Anne Carson's "The Beauty and the Husband"; Borges' "Dreamtigers" (his greatest work);

It was to be a great fall.

I am talking of the season. All hail the new generation.

There was a time when I was a Prince

2010-08-31T07:16:00.000-07:00

He was an older Belgian man of middle-upper class upbringing and she was a young Haitian studying in Montreal to become a Lawyer. Their marriage was in a castle along the richelieu. I was the only son-in-law of the Belgian man, it was an honour in myriad ways to hold such an honour. I was present for the release of the doves...and someone said: why are you filming this? And I said I had never seen doves being released. And they told us they would do three circles of the castle and then they would head northeast to meet up with the other doves... where is this dove conglomeration, I thought? The doves flew out and immediately disappeared behind a line of large cedar trees. What a bizarre world we live in, I thought. I pressed stop on the digital camera and looked at the 200 patrons of this wedding, and the joy got to me.

Vague Love

2010-08-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

The title of this piece, is of course, a double entendre. A bilingual double entendre. One could view it as "Lover of Waves" or as someone whom has a predisposition to ambiguity in matters of the heart. I am reaching the final days of my mullet, an experiment that has revealed the great disparity between men and women. The mullet is respected by men, and loathed by women. Certain things in life became difficult for me with a mullet: writing poems. I have not yet written a poem or anything remotely literary in the past few weeks of mullethood. Sitting in a café, itself, is extremely difficult, just the act of sitting and crossing my legs as I have done a million times before in cafés, before I open up the London Review of Books- just that simple action is akin to leaping into some kind of cultural black hole paradox. Rock songs however come easy. The past two weeks have proven to be extremely fruitful. The mullet pushes the rocker, aesthetics do matter, we are superficial creatures, or perhaps it is just me, my performer's artifice (does that make sense- i wanted to use the word artifice, it felt so right, and language sometimes should sound better than it is, all form in a callous sense, forget logic and content- pure whatever writing) moulding me to my look. Last night it was 'Hangover Tongue' and 'Novels For Nights'. Two ballads for very different aspects of life, basically dusk and dawn. Furthermore Lise and I wrote a treatment for out next show about our neighbours: Pussy Corps, danseuses exotiques. It is hard being neighbours with a brothel. I mean, the sinews of a strip club with private rooms are typically the light, chauvunistic subject of conversation for jocks and other despicable men: but one thing I find most intellectuals and pompous, high brow academics forget is that not only are brothels a regular stomping ground for the literary best, they are also a place where real women with real dreams and beautiful stories go to grind out an existence. Don't be fooled by the morass individuals who run and frequent these establishments, at their core are two very lonely and artful hearts. My mullet on its final legs, late august sweat beading up on my brow, my credit card payment is due today but I am ravaged by a dream:
A Floating Café. A Café for the ocean, a café of mermaids and sea urchins, where the terrace is a dip, the sharks steal allongés, the cruise liners are scowled at by the regulars the same way we look down on Tim Hortons or Second Cup, a crustacean band plays, Disney movies with sid vicious play the open mic night on tuesdays, the owner scuba dives and serves calamari with his espressos, jellyfish java is the number one seller and my brain rest in this café on a plate on the counter top with the shaking waves it slides down to one end of the counter-bar, then it slides back and the regulars pick at it as though it were a bowl of pretzels, and we nourish this tidal café, these currents that always intimidate us in the autumn thrash. Yes, the autumn thrash and my vague love, here they are riding a Minelli down to Espace Livre-Café to share a day of ideas with lovely Ouellet.

ode to the new yorker

2010-08-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

An Article about Articles

By Alain Mercieca

COBDEN, OTTAWA RIVER, 2010

A group of cockroaches take a digital picture of themselves, using that contemporary tourist pose—the arm of the photographer stretched out in front with the camera turned narcissistically back on oneself, essentially rendering the photographer an invisible man. It is the cover of the New Yorker, Volume LXXXVI, No. 20, July 12 & 19^th, 2010. And despite the recent critiques I have heard of the New Yorker (a family friend once described it as ‘too scenester’ when in reality he was a scenester, and another respectable poet friend seemed to think it was nothing compared to Harper’s); the legendary rag still produced an issue that was able to pull me out of the depths of a literary depression so deep I had stooped to a level in which I posed that horrifying, petulant and pathetic question: O! Poet! Why bother? No one gives a shit!

So, depressed and humid, at La Gare Centrale in sweltering Montreal, I bought a copy of the aforementioned latest issue and stepped onto a Greyhound bus whose loud vibrations and uncomfortable seats felt somehow like, well, insult to injury. There was standstill traffic on the highway as I rubbed my chin against the coarse grey upholstery trying in vain to catch a nap when suddenly, napping became a distant memory… I saw a veritable Aphrodite seated within perfect diagonal eyeshot range of me! Yes, we all long to fall in love on the Greyhound bus, but I swear this was exceptional…A tall woman, stretched over her two seats, she wore ripped jean shorts making her long legs glow in contrast with the greyness of the bus furniture. Her legs were tanned and waxed, smooth and lengthy. She immediately stared me directly in the eyes and I trembled, palpitating, recoiling silently but furiously and of course mostly adolescently. I regressed into my corner, putting my cheek against the cold window of the bus to cool off. ‘Don’t look at her! Yes look! But inconspicuously—No! Fuck it stare her right in the eyes and try in some form of desperation to love her more than she has ever been loved,’ I thought. I was of course, a married man, this were mere meddlings of the weak infidel phallus.

She averted her eyes to the window as I hid behind my New Yorker, which I wielded like a medieval knight’s shield against her impending aura. The read started rough. I skimmed the Goings On About Town, then read a laughably pretentious restaurant review (…a scrumptious lemon-infused concoction of rye, sweet vermouth, bitters and Benedictine—oh come on! did it get you shitfaced? like all others… maybe you mean a good drink); a music review of a Power Pop band that posited Matthew Sweet as a somehow legitimate band, though admittedly any reviewer who feels Power Pop is a legitimate form of music should be cudgeled (It’s like saying Very Bad instead of just saying Bad). The Talk of the Town proved much more entertaining: 1) Right Wing Conservative bastardization of soccer as a European-Socialist-Latin American Evil; 2) An analysis of the use of the term ‘act of God’; 3) James Franco’s indulgent but interesting deconstructivist art project involving a soap opera, galleries and media. The man has an interest in contemporary art? (Not bad for a guy whom I knew as star of Spiderman and a stoner movie); 4) The linguistic variations on a Québecois accent versus a Russian accent (speaking English) and how Russian spies exploit it in the U.S.; 5) Auto Dealer financial reform and how the new plan: “It’s like creating the F.D.A. and then denying it authority over pain relievers.”

I now take the time to look out from behind the magazine to see Aphrodite’s right tit jiggling, a perfect, bulbous erection-inducer shaking inside the silky minimal limitations of her thin grey dress (one of those bras with a stomach covering basically, I don’t know the name). I can only see her lips, her eyes covered by the aisle seat, they are small, moist, pout, she is falling asleep, I am questioning a lot of things now… but I remain loyal to the cause that is my perfect wife. Love, in all its Greek mythologicalness, in all it’s pathetic perversions, I am still a romantic and believe in fighting wars against monotony… but I have eyes! We get objectified all the time, we are moving objects, I like objects, I like voyeurism—it is respected by the cinema and essays are written about it, so, in some ways I am jealous of objectification and voyeurism...furthermore… literature for me, is my escape. But in reality, buses make me sick.

The Undead, the first full on article, is a masterful account of what it is to play professional sports in our current paparazzi climate. The epic aura of Big Papi David Ortiz is the focus, a Boston Red Sox legend. Whenever he steps up to bat, all poets, all Plimptons and Mailers understand what is going on: a thunderous presence, his motions, his body, his statistics—all analyzed and placed into his latest context: one of failure, suffering and bitter sweet redemption. RE: “Two shitty games and all you motherfuckers are going crazy.” Thank you Ben McGrath, sports and poetry need people like you.

Aphrodite awakes, she puts her ipod on and checks her cellphone, one of those business card laptop things that slides out like a mini-computer… funny, in a way she represents the class that read the New Yorker: sexy, tech savvy contemporary individuals, in contrast to my demographic: fat, mulleted, punk rock, cantankerous, unrefined, Québecois, underaged fathers of three, and in addition, as is being proven by this article: perverted. Not exactly who Lizzy Hughes’ hopes will shill out for 12-month subscriptions, but nevertheless, I’m sure Lizzy and I could enjoy a solid conversation about Euripides, Bolano and Chatwin’s mastery. I think about cajunas and realize I should approach Aphrodite and offer a storytime-style read-a-long of an article, then a full discussion period after as I rub her inner thigh and give her small, soft kisses and of course, … . However instead I feel a lack, a technological void that renders me incapable of competing with her youthful display of gadgets. Eye contact again, I get scared and turn to John Kenney’s hilarious one page humour piece No One Ever Said It Better, which I particular empathize with… Let me tell you something about human nature. If people are given a choice between a nice lamb sandwich with pesto mayonnaise on warm pita bread and having to define the word ‘rheostat’, the vast majority will go for the sandwich everytime.

I understand the dark nights of waiting for a writer who still believes in every night, every night that leaves tips on how to survive, constant reminders of what a great woman is and how impossible it is to describe what genuine support and love is, where they rest, give reason to the chaos inside our hearts.

The light-heartedness of the Kenney article was darkly contrasted by the heavy Nothing Left: Letter from Yanji, by Barbara Demick. This contrast in magazine articles, or “artistic directing” is very (hate to do it) ‘New York’. New is Heaven and Hell, side by side, fellating each other.

The article could be poorly summarized by saying that North Korea is fucked. I say poorly not in a dishonourable sense, merely as a way of hiliting the brevity of my statement. I scan a mediocre poem by John Ashberry while checking in on Aphrodite who is now scissor-legged, her knees pointing to the skies singing along with an unknown song. She moves her body, lunging briefly and only slightly forward, revealing the immensity of her slender frame, she flashes her eyes my way and this time I am sweating as I tear into The Mark of a Masterpiece, an epic piece from David Grann about art connoisseurs, specifically the infamous Biro, a Montreal Hungarian immigrant and a pioneer, or inventor of fingerprinting as a method for authenticating art. Grann masterfully strings me along for the ride, believing Biro is authenticating a DaVinci among other major works, until finally he thrashes me down to the shyster reality of this man… The art world is such a bizarre, massive entity, to think of its internal mechanics and politics, to think there are millionaire frauds like Biro living in Montreal just like that, petting their dogs and sustaining this industry that places art, specifically visual art, as a multi-billion dollar industry, when somehow I feel very distant from it all, my punk rock roots still cling to old anti-bourgeois leftist adages: it’s just a painting you pretentious cunts. Its meaning rests in the ideas and the beauty it is supposed to produce and it ends there. But hey, big money is big money, and the greats are the greats… Follow that up with a post-modern take on a very real and tragic escape from Somalia An Honest Exit may at times feel oddly exploitative, it remains a real, thought-provoking refugee journey memoir.

She holds her ipod gingerly now, it hovers just above her vagina, a sensual graphic match, she is sprawled out across the two seats, her feet on the edge of the aisle seat, her knees pointing to the ceiling. Life is unfair. I pray she gets off with me at butt-fuck nowhere, Cobden, Ontario; we have a brief marriage that is a fiery passion for one or two years, then it fizzles sadly but dramatically in the second year and we never see each other again but we both write about the affair with two or three novels of limited release. Ann Carson takes the final article down like a motha fucka, all of the following citations are hers except for the second last one, which is her quoting T.S. Eliot:

“The poet is someone who feasts at the same table as other people—But at a certain point he feels a lack…”

“The Lover wants what he does not have… The Greeks were clear on this.”

“My personal poetry is a failure.”

“Poetry requires an escape from personality”

“I will do anything to avoid boredom. It is a task of a lifetime.”

I look at her once before leaving; I am the only one to get off at Cobden. I look again at her in the bus through the window from the ground: she is staring at me, her eyes now so much different from the body I had taken ocular liberties with for so long. Who is she? A perfect farm girl returning home after a University summer session? An outkast, going home because she has nothing left? A perfect woman whom has fiancéd? A woman longing to see her boyfriend again? A contemporary poet, enrolled in Creative Writing at Concordia…she could be anything, regardless her eyes destroyed me at that final juncture. I rolled up the New Yorker and put it in my pocket. A horn honks and Paul Perrichon emerges yelling my name. An old Belgian poet I used to live with in the East End of Montreal. He was standing next to his white Chevy Lumina, he ran towards me and hugged me. We drove to his small cabin on the rivière Outaouais, where we were hosting a small writer’s retreat. I told him my unrequited bus ride love affair, he smiled.

“How are the kids?” he said.

Bones et Associés Maison D’Édition

2010-08-05T09:20:00.001-07:00

Complete List of Works 1982-2010

1 The Boulevards of Halifax
2 Courtoisie Au Lac
3 Heartbreak for Everyone
4 Death At The Doorstep (Vincent Ogoo)
5 17 Years of Chez Dave Menus (Lark)
6 Guillotines For Breakfast
7 Large-Headed Cries
8 Book Full Of Bullet Holes
9 Liane Balaban: National Symbol of Hope
10 Couches John Lennon Slept On (1963-65)
11 Turgenev’s Laugh
12 Wall Holes: Architectural Studies 1975-1985
13 David Layton: Worst Son Ever (Ainslie Roantree)
14 Mafia Lullabies (Vincent Ogoo)
15 Caché Dans L’arbuse (Sugar Rock St-Pierre)
16 Sicilian Stanzas (Vincent Ogoo)
17 Tolstoy’s Tax Returns 1865-1868 (Vincent Ogoo)
18 Montreal Saints (Ozias LeBeau)
19 Charlie’s Immigrants: Volume I: The Moroccan Boys
20 Volume II: Lituanians in Buenos Aires
21 Volume III: Mogadishu Blues
22 Volume IV: Quebexicans
23 Volume V: Toronto’s Malta
24 Punnin’ It: Comedy Poems (DeAnne Smith)
25 La Tragédie de Larry Welkes (Sugar Rock St. Pierre)
26 Cherry Blossoms (Wolstenberg)
27 Sandi Armstrong: Improv Diva of the New Hemisphere (Doctor Stevens)
28 The Downfall of the Katzkoff Poetry Collectives (Carole Plekanek)
29 The Secret Life of Sylvia Katzkoff (Ainslie Roantree)
30 Spider Webs On Telephone Wires (Lebeau)
31 Stop Talking About Berlin: Why Art Scenes Are Illusory (Bajore-Dibbles-Plekanek)
32 The Imaginary Writer Runs Away
33 Les Luthiers de Gaspé
34 3 O’Clock Ethiopian Coffee (Natasha Antropov)
35 Wine For Tessa
36 The Lost Art Of Shoe Tossing
37 Owen Pallet: The Unacceptable Scenester?
38 Street Winds (LeBeau)
39 The Almond Delivery Man
40 Patchouli Days (Karen Wolstencraft)
41 Une Botte Sur Le Plancher (Vincent Ogoo)
42 The ABCs of The Infrarealists
43 The ABCs of The Montreal Expos
44 A Saint Henri State Of Mind (Archie)
45 Uberplots (Katzkoff)
46 Conspiracy Theories At the Blue Metropolis
47 Les Sauvages D’Antan
48 Harsh Realities: Condominium Statistics
49 The Inability To Dream
50 Humorous Obituaries
51 Catherine’s Pints and Other Poems
52 Clean Up Parc Avenue Mayor Tremblay: A Collection Of Polemics
53 Les Mercenaires de Montréal
54 The Country of Money
55 The Griffintown Brigade
56 100 Coffees for Ouellet
57 Den’ Villes Den’ Villes
58 Mortie Rosenberg: Scultors and Sculptresses
59 The Joy and The Sword: An Outremont Corner
60 Pure Tragedy:Volume I: Death in the Stroller
61 Volume II: Ant Cadavers
62 Volume III: Genocide Sandwiches
63 Volume IV : Rabbit Cancer
64 Volume V : Burning While Shooting Things Already Dead
65 Habs Riots: Police Reports
66 Habs Riots: The Truth (witness accounts)
67 Poetry About Things We Hate, Volume I: Wrestling
68 Volume II: Daytona
69 Volume III: Theatre Grads
70 Volume IV : Cellphones
71 Déjà S’Envole Le Fleur Maigre & Other Unknown Perfect Cinema
72 Nice Jersey: An Analytical Survey of Graphic Design for Sports Logos
73 Les P’tits Buck de Hochelaga (Moreau)
74 Saul Bellow: A True Lachinian (Mercieca)
75 Nobody Really Cares About The Pigeons (Wolstenberg)
76 Radios In Heaven (Ogoo)
77 Desperation’s Love Affair With The Internet (Ainslie Roantree)
78 Isabelle Martin’s Desserts: Cookbook (Florence)
79 All Sides Of One Argument (And Other Pointless Sociology)
80 I Went To University To Be More Of A Condescending Prick
81 Use Of Homophobic Terminology: Byzantium Era Until Now
82 Mont Royal Reverie
83 Décarie Dirges: Poems from Côte St. Luc
84 Charlie Dibbles: Utterances
85 Victor Perichon’s Green Montreal
86 Mon Bike: Une Analyse Socio-Géographique des Pistes Cyclables de Montréal (Saint-Amand)
87 Les Sœurs Martins (Poulin)
88 Le Dix (Ouellet)
89 Ian McMillan’s Crows’ Feet
90 Pierre le Pigeon (Wolstenberg)
91 Portrait D’Une Mairesse: Marie Cinq-Mars
92 Rien Qu’Des Lignes (Micheline Robitaille)
93 Les Poilues: Du Vrai Rock (Ouellette)
94 Strongmen of Montreal: Simon Ratelle, Mark Louch and Guy Hébert (Plekanek)
95 Adele Gainsbourg: Chansons de Mes Cinq Ans (Saint-Amand)
96 Confessions of a Tech Guy (Luciak)
97 Magictime: How to Host a Show (Jeff Blatt)
98 The Sound of Dribbles Next to My Window (Ogoo)
99 Pourquoi Suicide C’est Triste Mais C’est Quand Même du Rock
100 Commercials For Jessica (Ogoo)
101 Humid Trains
102 Young Man and the River Paint (LeScieller)
103 Love in A Time of Little Bit Of A Cold (Vasquez)
104 Zozo the Adventurer (Quixote)
105 Rusted Brains (Vanderberg)
106 Happy and Comfortable (Ogoo)
107 Verdun Verses (Kandalaft)
108 T.J. Harris: Weird is a Word!
109 The Cat’s Out The Bag: Florence Alright’s Biography
110 Tickling the Government (Roantree)
111 Raging Heart (LeBeau)
112 The Booze at the Centre Of the Universe (LeBeau)
113 I am actually a Porn Addict (Ogoo)
114 The Mysterious Poets of the 1990s (LeBeau)
115 Pure Human: Fictional Accounts of Ian Vincent Dow
116 Humility Fare (Budman)
117 Gibbous Moon
118 Lark’s Dumpsters (Flo)
119 Freedom is the Most Useless thing (Sugar Rock St-Pierre)
120 Dump Moms (Cari)
121 The Poet and the Linguist
122 Sexism in the Mafia (Karen Wolstencraft)
123 Naked and Maltese (Bones)

How To Have A Good Nervous Breakdown

2010-07-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Well, some secrets we let fly, some secrets stay inside of us and die.
How's that for a rhyming couplet? It is relevant though: I have three children. Two progenetic, one non-progenetic, which is completely unimportant. What is funny about having three children is that looming question when I meet a stranger: When do I tell them that despite my mullet, my dirty skate shoes with a hole in them, unmatching socks, BO-infused cowboy shirt missing buttons, and mountain equipment Co-op backpack- I have three kids and am a loving father? At one point is it necessary to divulge this pertinent fact? I imagine myself not telling a friend for years, decades, especially a professional acquaintance, they will never know me as a father, simply because i never took the time to say... by the way... i have kids...
This "secret", is not even really a secret, it is an optional secret, I choose to make it a secret constantly. Sometimes I wonder if I could
Metro Beri-Uqam. I had just finished a usual night shift at the theatre, locked it up and kept the energy positive, thought about my kids, my wife, my friends, and they way in which they always lied to me when I was down, those great fireball lies that massage your ego. I get to the metro and they are closing it up. I sneak in with a few others who are sprinting, we get into the station, the last ones, the last metro. I run up to the booth and there is no one there, my opus card not charged, I decide to slip through, as I have done a million times at smaller stations, i look around and see no security, people running to get the last metro, i hear the sound of those doors...I get thru onto the metro. Phew. I feel like a Christopher Marlowe kind of guy, smug, in the train when suddenly three STM Security Officers arrive seemingly out of nowhere and pull me off the train onto the platform. I plead with them. Look at my 2.75, I had it ready but there was no one!...You were supposed to go around to the other side they tell me...214 dollars they tell me is the fine, loudly while rolling their eyes. they demand ID and i provide it. I just didnt want to miss the last metro, i always pay, i love public transit, i am not a menace to the system i plead. they seem to be ready to let me go. the doors to the subway close and i am not on it. my mood changes, these two men dont know that i have no money for a taxi, no money in my bank account, three kids to take care of, huge debts to pay, props to get for tomorrow's show, the list gets longer and longer...well thanks a lot guys i guess i can walk home now i say, taking my ID and walking away, they follow me as if to act like they are my escorts. they still threaten to give me the fine and i say, in my one act of defiance: go ahead, give me the fine, the money's not important to me. It is. but i had to play my righteous poet card, i told them to give me the fine and to leave i used my favourite quote with a variation: I am an honest man. I am a family man.
the walk home was hell, this heat wave better fucking end soon or else i will continue to try and find that positive streak hidden inside those three brains of the most insolent goateed, fat, STM security shitheads i have ever met. i suppose i love them, in the same way we love smog.

Dion and Betty: Facebook

2010-06-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

- How the fuck did you get 1,563 friends on facebook?
- I'm popular, that's how.
- Yah but 1,563 people. That's like an entire city. Do you know them all?
- Of course I do.
- You can name them all?
- Shut up.
- No, I am curious. Do you know all of your facebook friends? All 1,563?
- Sure I do.
- Like, that is ridiculous.
- Not if you are a celebrity.
- But you aren't a celebrity.
- How do you know I'm not?
- Well. You aren't.
- Maybe I am.
- But... are you secretly a celebrity?
- Yes.
- Shit...So are you rich?
- Nope. Just the other parts of celebrity.
- Actor? Glam whore? Fake?
- Yup.
- Well schnitzel. I guess that explains the facebook thing.

A new novel I am beginning

2010-06-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Chapter one

Two laptops were piled ontop of papers next to each other. A copper desk lamp leaned over the wooden desk, a pile of anarchy. Spend CDs, paper clips, a Styrofoam cup, a telephone, a few bottle caps, The Pickwick Papers turned upside down, a fresh coffee shaking from the typography of a young writer named Ozias LeBeau. A writer with tattoos all over his body, a writer with a six-pack and veins running through his muscular arms, with scars on his face from treeplanting and getting tossed into the streets by bouncers and friends, yellow lips from drinking, a true alcoholic, an egomaniac, a narcissist, but a man who knew very well the value of the word ‘poet’, that word for him sounded like a flamenco singer inside his heart, a crooked broken smile inside the heart, for him, was the word poet. He had separated his shoulder the night before playing softball with a group of women he had met in the park. Marisse, Genevieve, Sarah and others he could not remember. Diving for groundballs and tossing the softball to Sarah, his favourite of the gang. She would feel disappointed if she missed his hard throws, she was the First Baseman.

“Es-tu Acadien Ozias?” Sarah asked before going up to bat.

“Non. Je viens de Moncton.”

Sarah smiled, her frame was robust. Marisse was opulent, they were all “butchy”, but anyone who thinks of this as a negative can die upon their words. These are marvelous women, who knew how to shout from the pine. They smoked cigarettes and encouraged everyone. “Entre les boules pis’ des genous” were their directions to the pitcher. Balle-Molle. LeBeau sprinting across from shortstop to third to tag out a runner. Sarah stealing second base, and how they shouted! The shouts of these Québecois women! They have a curling team during the winter! They run, their breasts bouncing, within moments they were referring to Ozias LeBeau as Ozzy. The amount of smiles compiled equaled 13,450 for the day. Night fell and they opened beers, their fluorescent softball still illuminated in the final vestiges of Park LaFontaine. The rusted fence, the weeds overgrowing the baseball field- it was one of the only ones in Park LaFontaine that isn’t lit with massive lights and groundskeepers never came over to this park, where Ozias learned to love the summer and ceased to become a poet for a moment and became Delino Deshields, and Bill Evans sat on the stands while a few friends assembled and heckled! Genuine heckling in the Montreal June Sun And I Know Where I Belong, Ozzy thought! He was a great singer and poet and a fabulous alcoholic and culturally his value in Montreal was that of some hypothetical, preposterous ore found only when pounding and rounding the bases (a piece of newspaper with some rocks on it) with the Girls Of Quebec, the girls of summer and their cheeks and their shouts! One must emphasize the shouting of women at a baseball game and think of a whole night in slow motion. You walk through it and you can watch the recoiling laughter of these women, these specimens to whom no one else, all the sad apples who never stop and believe in what Ozias LeBeau believed in. Now he was icing his shoulder down while his girlfriend accosted him for his poor ability to complete a laundry folding task he had started days earlier. Finally the phone rang and he got a call he had been waiting for.

“Nigel what the fuck?” said Ozias.

“You are mad about my review?”

“I told the media I didn’t want any reviews of street winds. I told you! And now I gotta listen to my friends, these victims of gossip tell me about your panning!”

“Oh come on Ozias, my review is not gossip, it is criticism, I love you and I expect more from you.”

“You opened a can of worms though, that dumb broad from the Gazette chimed in alongside you, it’s a circus as usual. I requested NO REVIEW!”

“You cannot control us.”

“Us. Us? You act like you are part of a real community. Parasites don’t make communities, they suck the life out of them Nigel. Dependents. Imagine a world with just critics and no art? How fuckin’ great that would be? Just dig the grave- you know?”

“No I don’t, jesus you are off the wall right now, are you drunk?”

“No I am not drunk. I am drinking a coffee in my office and responding to emails about your review and the others you assholes gave me.”

“Come off it Ozias, get over yourself.”

“I do not want negativity. You guys are hurtlers of negativity, and street winds is good, for what it is, it is beyond reviews, because I know its flaws and I kept them in because that is the nature of the street, and wind for that matter. Wind isn’t structured.”

“Oh always with the whim, always the poet! Ozias you cannot control us.”

“Okay then, well prepare yourself for the bulldog. Call me Ozzy from now on in. No more friendly chats by the river Nigel. This is war. Literary war. And don’t run around trying to take credit for what I am, as if you knew me, or even know me, it’s over. You betrayed me. And now. Well, fuck. Fuck it. I’ll see you at the Salon. I hope you’re wearing a bullet proof vest.”

LeBeau hung up. He knew it was a death threat but he knew Nigel would be entertained by the brashness of it and there is no threat from the New Brunswickian poet he so happily tears apart everytime he publishs a book of poems.Ozias LeBeau, it can be said, is an offensive man.

realizations number one

2010-03-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

finishing the inaugural run of PARIS, I realize how ephemeral and useless the opinions of humans are, myself included obviously; but particularly the nature of critique. I wrote a play in two weeks with the discerning québecois eye of Simon Chavarie, helping me with the more than fifty percent of the script, which was written in québecois. we swapped words about what the nature of funny and comedy was, and as usual concluded it was subjective, lets roll with this story that is based on the wild amount of disdain that seperatism creates, just from being mentioned. But also, there were some "haussé" moments, however never was the brunt of everything based around an immature premise, every scene had a purpose. I lost crowds, I'll admit it, but crowds are fickle beasts that change every night based on the wheather, based on moods, based on size, based on a million details we can never mention... what i am getting at is that People I Know And Love Didnt Like That Play. Then I did PARIS and it was unanimously LOVED by many, who saw it as an entity as such, worthy of praising, but one man came the night we had the most people ever at one of our shows, with a great audience reaction to boot, and he said "I liked your last one more". And his opinion is very valid, let's called him Marvin. Marvin is a saucissier. I only want the people who know of the continuum. The collective reasoning that believes one should write something they are willing to say, otherwise regress. The following video is for the man who helped me overcome everything and is now gone.

Knee deep in assonance

2010-03-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

While watching the Habs game on an internet stream, my girlfriend across the table calls her friends to organize a flamenco night, the children watch popcorn pop in the microphone, Gustave (my newborn) has learned to crawl, and only moments earlier re-organized my desk's hapless book stacks leaving Leacock's Nonsense Novels at the top. Earlier in the year Sunshine Sketches taught me the value of fine detail, embracing the local, the idiosynchratic, the minutia that forms the substance of great literature. Garden of Folly made me realize that even in the 1910s sketch comedy had a literary value, as it should now. I opened Nonsense Novels and immediately found an instant gem:

"Meanwhile the month allotted by the Earl to Lord Ronald was passing away. It was already July 15, then within a day or two, it was July 17, and almost immediately afterwards, July 18."

Leacock, you've done it again. The day was languid and sick, but in other lights, it was full of meetings with theatre magnates, dates with oceans of laughter, cigarettes on balconies and the gibberish patois that we call: talking business. I am grey beneath my eyes but so is Yvon Attall and I like his work. After reading the first chapter of Philip Larkin's collected works, I have to be frank: I don't enjoy his work so far and was shocked to see that he was included on Best Of Lists, only confirming I suppose the uselessness of such and such lists...I will complete the collection and move on with my critique.

paris

2010-02-20T07:14:00.000-08:00

Well I am sick, and so is my girlfriend. The day is stormy, snow whips and furls and hurls itslef down and up sainte-marguerite, creating a vibrant outdoor painting in contrast to the usual stillframes and cars that our windows provide. It is February, which is truly, the cruellest month, despite what Eliot said. I am currently knee deep in 2666, Roberto Bolano's epic novel that has developped a post-humous cult following. If one looks at Bolano's The Savage Detectives and 2666, what is most striking to me is his sense for the romantic. Four critics seeking out a mysterious, mildly acclaimed, underground writer whose work they are obsessed with, is romantic(even if it is simultaneously satirical). Poets stealing books from libraries, is romantic, sex in an alleyway, is romantic, his stories are tragic and romantic, not in any harlequin sense, in a purely Parisian sense. Of course his collection of poetry Romantic Dogs clears things up, as we see the raw, romantic, mad poet lay out his soul:

Death that brought me no peace,
since after my flesh had rotted
I still went on dreaming.

My newest play can be summarized by this citation.

It's been half a year

2010-02-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

I just read my profile views: 50. Over the past three years, 50 people have checked my profile meaning roughly 17 per year, or 1.2 per month, or .04 per day. .04 people per day check this blog. Maybe I should post it to my facebook newsfeed profile status update shizer. That would help. I could also develop a twitter-sense, then get a LinkedIn account and then, perhaps I would increase that number. Instead I shall scream something poignant into this internet void, knowing so well that it will take approximately 33 days before a complete human has even read what has been said:

BOLANO IS MY NEW GOD

signed,

a romantic dog

My Old Band

2009-06-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone has an 'old band'... how sad it is to think of all the old bands, all at once getting back together for one last Woo-Hoo... or the opposite- the reason for their breaking up, politics, egos, drugs, fame, but mostly I think it is the problem people have of communicating, and also conflicting visions, in fact, it is impressive that people have been able to create as many bands they have. Another interesting fact is that most bands I know who are somewhat 'functional' and appear to have a good working relationship, are complete piles of shit (U2, Coldplay, to name a few) Tension creates good art, I remember when once I fought with my new band, Kick the Pricks, with our lead singer only minutes before a show, and that night we were on fire, nothing could stop us. Other nights of 'good pre-show energy' would flop in front of decent crowds. Thinking of all the sound checks, the rehearsals that are lost when the band breaks up, these are part of the infinitely sad pensées that strike the heart under the moniker OLD BAND. And without further or do, here, is my old band:
http://www.myspace.com/bloodytits

Apologies to the Girl Who Came to My door a Week ago

2009-01-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

I would like to apologize: someone came to my house to see a show last week that I had advertised on my website and never backed up: You see, I need to be eligible for a grant that would define me as an "emerging artist", and because all of my films, no matter how independantly made, I habitually used York University's editing systems (because I still had friends there) and would credit them, which means I am inelligible for the title "emerging artist" and immediately become student. It has been 5 years since I have been enrolled at York, I have screened short films about five times, but never in official festivals, because I get rejected. But I have also done about 100 shows, which were reviewed, etc. and I did send them that information, but it was for naught. Despite the woman reviewing my file claiming "I really want this film to get made" she could not make an exception for my case. So, I am staging a public film event for the sole purpose of being grant-elligible. Call me crazy, but I think it will work. I need no one to come, I just have to publicize the event. And I did so a bit pre-emptively because I sent the film back to the editor to do some new revisions... anyways, maybe I was stoned when I set the event up? Maybe I was drunk. Maybe I was both. Maybe I was dreaming. Either way, according to Mark, a woman named Kelly rung up to our place asking if there was a show on and was told that unfortunately it was moved. If it was the Kelly I think it was, well I am very, very sorry and hope to see you soon, its been a while since the theatre ste catherine days, i heard you moved to comedy nest, wouldnt mind checking that place out. And let me please re-iterate: I am sorry for that Kelly, if you come to Café Café or the eventual Public Screening #1 I will have you on the guest list. You can email me at alainmercieca@gmail.com to clarify any discrepencies. I realize this is a shot in the dark, but so are most of our lives... Okay, all that just to say: Take it from me: don't set dates for shows when you are stoned or drunk or dreaming. And grant prerequisites are gluttonous at times.

Who Can Solve A Problem Like Canadian Television?

2008-07-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

Anyone catch the new How To Solve A Problem Like Maria?

Probably not, because most people have BRAINS.

Or perhaps the much anticipated precursor to the aforementioned reality show that may as well have been called Spin-off of the Spin-off of the Spin-off of the most desperate network alive: "Olympians in Beijing"...an e-talk daily style Olympic preview that tries to get us all pumped up about Canadian hopefuls in China, replete with fancy cuts and great use of the depth of focus when transitioning in-studio from Scott Russel to Katrina Lemay-Doan, basically Ben Mulrooney over to the Asian girl(sorry I don't remember her name). Then of course, what Olympic preview is complete without asking our 2500 troops in Afghanistan, China's war-torn neo-colonialized neighbour, who they are rooting for? Oh really Seargant Eric Johnson is really rooting for Adam Van Koenburgorwhateverthefuck to win the gold again? Oh sorry, Lietenant Pearson is rooting for our pride and joy Simon Hefton, the fabled equestrian olympian that will bring tears to all of our Olympic-obsessed faces. Insult to injury, as George Strompolopous comes on in an ad to motivate us to help CBC find a new Hockey Night In Canada Theme song because legal-copyright and money disputes have led them to losing the rights to the song! And only months earlier I muttered to a friend- "EVerytime I hear that song I get nostalgic jitters and so gaily excited..." But now I watch George make desperate , terrible, god awful jokes to convince us that one more American reality-show style dumb-dumb plea for public participation is going to get my hopes up as to how great a new hockey night in Canada theme song is going to sound coming from some douchebag in his basement, or a fledgling Nickelback. The only sanctity which pretty much rivals the value of their entire programming, the HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA THEME SONG has now gone to the wayside so George can shlock a few more shitty jokes referencing his own pathetic connections in the industry and his retarded hand motions and his neo-liberal fluffy leftist faux-goth facade.

Let's face it, the CBC is dying.

CTV was dead years ago, don't even try to tout the ratings of reality shows and the success of Corner Gas, any network that allows Comedy, Inc to survive as long as it has deserves to be burn to the ground with all of the Thomson's empire of sad, sad liberalism.

Currently our country has no newspaper worth eating, no television network worth gangraping and a music scene that... well mabye the music scene is our saving grace......but man am I bitter.

But, to Prove that I remain an Optimist: "Half-Celebrities in North Montana (aka Canada) Band Together And Eat Ben Mulrooney"

I am so lonely

the 3rd day of the 5th week - "400 dollars"

2008-01-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

after a frightening scare with poverty, i have returned to mediocre fruitfulness.

This past weekend I was part of a show including one Mr. Peter Stevens- a veritable talent from Toronto, actually Brampton. It is hard to believe a man of his likes has yet to become a recognized talent amidst the Toronto scenester comedy lustfest and glorification of quarter-talents and popularity contest- I suppose I have answered my own question. His last full hour set was a tour-de-force. He always takes on characters, always preaches a little, always shows us some areas of his mind that are so stretched and fantastic it is hard to maintain a straight face to one's neighbour. Striking is his philosophy of "never repeat the same material twice" which prevents monotonous shlocking. His Bruce Willis vs. an extra (Peter takes on the role of the "extra") and extrapolates the incredible neglect these extras receive during a movie, and what explores "what if we got a picture of their lives?" The empathy it creates is hilarity. The absurd social awkwardness of having something stuck in one's teeth is another target of Stevens'- and immediately one is struck by the truth of it, and quickly I was left wondering: a world with people and their teeth with things stuck in them wouldn't be so fuckin' bad after all.

Kathleen Phillips and Michael Balazoo were the openers and they also did not dissapoint from Curry Cock to Asshole Baby, these three proved that the underbelly of the comedy scene in Toronto is alive and well as it always is.

interesting quotes of the moment: What do you do when you come to a fork in the road? "Pick it up" said Yogi Berra.

sublime moment of the day: Me being seen as weird by daycare staff when jokingly suggesting to all the children that I eat them.

genius of the day: Lionel Messi. Today he undressed five Villareal defenders only to be stoned by the keeper, however all was not lost, I came up with an incredible joke for a soccer commentator, if they just happen to be reading this worldwide blog...
...Messi maneouvers past a defender (let's call this defender "Hitler" to make it easier)
...Messi maneouvers past Hitler, WHAT A MOVE! OH MY! HITLER BETTER START CLEANING UP HIS ROOM BECAUSE THINGS ARE GETTING A LITTLE BIT
MESSI!!!!!!!!!
(cut to a shot of Hitler looking dejected)

random contradiciton of the day : "I hate community"

As week 5 comes to a close on my new calender based on weeks, I just wanted to give an update on the system:
Plekanek Week (1) (named after the famous Montreal Canadians Centreman)
Celine Week (2) (named after the famous writer, not singer, but if you want, sure)
Leemanian Week (3) (named after the famous writer-baseball pitcher)
Luvgroveber Week (4) (named after the famous feminist filmmaker)
4 dollar Week (5) (named after the amount of money Alain is going to live off)

I may be giving up on the Weekcentric Calender system, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna see this thing threw until I am so sick of naming weeks that I lose friends.

Gluten Tag,

The third day of the week of Plekanek, 2008

2008-01-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

I have finally decided to pursue a dream that has been lurking in the back of my mind for aeons: redesign the pagan calender's tyrannical regime of months taking precent. I have henceforth divided the entire calender into weeks- months have been completely eliminated. I know, I know, this is REALLY REVOLUTIONARY, but hey, fuckin' strap your boots on folks, week one of fifty-two is under way, 7 days in the week of Plekanek, named for a famed hockey player from the Czech republic. Each week will hence be named by different characters in this fine universe, and it will also be unilingual, or, UNTRANSLATABLE.

Otherwise, I am praying that the chaos in my life turns into a flower, or like some kind of dragon beast during 2008, however I do feel that most likely depression will be a major player in the movie of my life.

Greatest novel ever written: Journey To The End Of The Night, Céline.
citation worth noting: "Gonorrhea on a woman is providential"

Is It Just Me, Or Does Sergei Kostitsyn Have A Twitch That Makes Him Somehow A Better And More Sympathetic Player?

2007-12-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

Sports movies that should get made but won't because Hollywood and Canadian Hollywood are a bunch of pussies:

Roids! (musical about steroid use in sports)

Helen of Roids (musical about steroids being used by ballerinas)

Royed (musical about Patrick Roy)

Bertuzzi Curls (Todd Bertuzzi becoming a curling star)

The Trojan Zamboni (no need to eleborate on that one)

Croz' I said So (sitcom featuring Sydney Crosby and Malcolm Jamal Warner)

The Sean Avery Cooking Show (unrated)

The Gaza Flyers (story of a Palestinian hockey team)

The Gaza Strippers (story of a Gay Palestinian Strip Club hockey team)

I have about nine million more, just catch me at the bar with no name on Notre Dame West near Sainte Phillippe all by myself drinking rum and cokes and watching the Habs and I get trashed.

Something To Be Said

2007-09-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

There's something to be said about dropping your kid off at daycare when there is that one child who is screaming at the top of their lungs for their parents, desperately clawing at the child-gate, as you pass your child over that barrier and she turns and looks back at you as though you are giving her up for adoption, when really it is just a 3 hour timeslot at a daycare. Here now, are some thoughts on daycare:

A darwinian daycare: let the children fend for themselves. Put the food in a trof, let them fight for it, leave the toys strewn about and when the time slot is complete, kill the weakest child.

Is Quebec laughing at everyone? How can daycare only cost 35 dollars a week in Quebec? Does everyone else in the country not feel a deep envy for this? Not to mention bitterness at the knowledge that most likely the low cost of daycare stems from tax money- perhaps mostly provincial, but most likely also federal?

Daycare is a 2nd television, and public school is a laugher: daycare basically is a way out of parenting. Television is a close second and public school is heaven. Public school was probably invented by the parents of oversized families who wanted a collective way of not growing up their children.

I personally enjoy daycare but feel that it is overshadowed (personally) by the much greater and pressing need for nightcare. Babysitters for a 23 year old father are hard to come by when you're a Montreal Scenester, as cute as they are in passing, the reality that sets into one's eyes at the complete thought of a baby, is one essentially rooted in a fear wrapped in consequences divided by commitment and multiplied by 18 years to the power of diapers and selfishness.

Nightcare: for parents who still like to party.

There is only one film

2007-09-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

Superbad, does what not even Dazed and Confused could. Superbad makes American Pie look like a piece of dogshit, and there have been 6 sequels? I don't know how many exactly but I do know that they take up a lot of space on the U of T campus.
Superbad is the zeitgeist of our time. It shows the swearing the way swearing is: omnipresent, it deals with homosexuality, the female characters are so very strong and charming. Superbad has redeemed hollywood. It is essentially simple: last day of high school, good-byes, girls, drinking, weird situations... yet the dialogue and the characterizations are pinpoint picture perfect and no scene drags. I held in my tiny bladder's piss until I cried. I hate reviews but i want to grow more thumbs.

My atrium in O.T.H.S. was hiearchal. To sit a top the atrium was a three year battle with status.
some did it in days.
it took me four years.
but I did it. I sat atop the atrium.
the cafeteria scene made me think of the atrium.

thank you superbad