Holiday anthology

Here are some books I'm currently into:

The Portable Mark Twain
Portable Altamont by Brain Joseph Davis
Grab Bag by Derek McCormack (the sweet US reprint)
Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer by Stuart Ross
Curio by Elizabeth Bachinsky
Crystallography by Christian Bok
Fray by Jessica Grim
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
The Iron Whim by Darren Wershler-Henry

A drunken post for jason, dave and todd

Thorstein Veblen died of a heart disease in 1929 in Menlo, California. (Very close to Stanford!)

Although he did study at Yale and Cornell, his observances of the leisure class were probably divided between New England, New York and Chicago.

Here's one exciting part of Veblen's life:

'Veblen was offered an appointment [of] associate professor for 1906/07 [at the U of C], but his gruff manner and unconventional personal life garnered notoriety. The Chicago administration forced him out in Dec., 1906 for flagrant marital infidelities. His reputation suffered because of "landfill of lies and half-truths" depicting him as an irredeemable womanizer and lady-killer whose unconventional views on equality made him irresistible to women; unable to attain positions worthy of his brilliance because his wife Ellen blackened his name.'

Source: The Veblenite

Other than that, his biography is fairly boring but that's ok -- The Theory of the Loser Class is pretty much all about Star Wars, shoplifting, and binary code.

Holiday mix tape

I know you don't care but here are the songs I'm currently listening to:

"Let em die" Smoking Popes
"Rubella" Smoking Popes
"All these things that i have done" The Killers
"A northern soul" The Verve
"On your own" The Verve
"The death of a disco dancer" The Smiths
"Don't make fun of daddy's voice" Morrissey
"Why don't you find out for yourself?" Morrissey
"Give her a gun" Echobelly
"Hash pipe" Weezer
"Sit down" James

Word to your mother

My first column for WORD is now online and in print. I wrote about AYMS! -- a terrible affliction that certain young poets are suffering from. I would love some feedback. Either in comment form or through email [jonfiorentino at yahoo dot ca].

ONLINE: The November/December 2005 issue of Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers is available online here


IN PRINT: The inaugural issue of the Word Reader is available for subscription and purchase. Subscription ensures a shiny, new copy of Word Reader on your doorstep in Winter/Spring, Summer and Fall. Subscription is a phenomenal deal; receive Word at the obscenely low rate of $20 per year ($26 for institutions). To sign up for a year of Word, please send your name and mailing address via e-mail (word@themercurypress.ca) or snail mail (Word c/o The Mercury Press, 22 Prince Rupert Ave., Toronto, ON, M6P 2A7).

Please support this wonderful magazine!

Awesomicity

A night of literary miracles!!! See you there?

So Long, Francine & Other Songs
An Evening of Poetry
Sunday, Dec. 4, 8-10 pm
The Green Room (5386 Boul. St. Laurent)
Free

featuring:

Larissa Andrusyshyn
Tom Bauer
Makeba Cooper
Daniel Corry
Kate Hall
Ben Kalman
Sachiko Murakami
Gillian Savigny
Leanne Tonkin

&, your host, David McGimpsey

There's cake!

Ojingogo!

Expozine was a tremendous success. I would guess there were over 2000 visitors who came through the doors. And everyone seemed to be selling their zines, chapbooks, books, dvds, jam recipes, etc.

I guess I forgot there was a small press community in Montreal. But now I know better.

Every year I discover something amazing at Expozine. Jason Camlot gets the props for finding for this one: Ojingogo!

Expozine

Below is the official Expozine press release. Hope to see you there!


Expozine 2005
4th Annual Small Press, Comic and Zine Fair
Saturday, November 26th,
from 11 am to 6 pm
5035 St-Dominique (church basement),
between Laurier and St-Joseph

http://www.expozine.ca

Come to EXPOZINE, Montréal's only small press, comic and zine fair! This daylong event brings together over 160 creators of all kinds of printed matter in both English and French.

Expozine was born in 2002 to provide a place where publications outside
the mainstream can reach the reading public. It is also a place where
members of the small press community and local writers and artists can
make new connections with each other. It has been a huge success: thousands of people have discovered hundreds of publications, and more and more people take part each year.

Montréal is rich in small press activity, with an internationally renowned comics scene and a thriving small press and zine community. All of these are represented at Expozine, and each year more publishers from outside Montreal participate in the event.

We hope you make the most of this rare opportunity to see all of this
diversity showcased in one place. Browse! Shop! Meet the creators! And
most of all, have fun!


---------------------------------
EXPOZINE 2005
http://www.expozine.ca
---------------------------------

Snare books

Exciting new project -- a small literary press dedicated to experimental literature.
Click here.

New website etc...

I've redesigned and updated my website.

I think it's pretty ok, but I designed it on this weird freeware HTML program for Mac OS X. Lemme know what you think.

In other news, the new Matrix will be out very soon. It will be a very special issue, featuring the last work by Ryan Carriere. Ryan was a very talented young comic artist who tragically lost his life earlier this month. Marc Ngui was kind enough to offer up some words of remembrance for the issue.

Around a year ago, I made a promise to myself to do whatever I could to make Matrix a more community-oriented magazine, and specifically to promote micropress/chapbook/zine/diy culture. If you take a peek at our reviews section, you'll notice there are more chapbooks and small magazines being reviewed, and we are thrilled to be a sponsor of expozine.

But there's so much more work to be done...

Coach house took montreal; camlot took quebec; billy took me

Sunday was fun. The Coach House authors were very entertaining and so were the students. The very clever Brian Joseph Davis made us do his reading for him. The creepy results can be heard here.

Jason Camlot's Attention All Typewriters launch on Thursday (with Marcie Frank launching How to Be an Intellectual in the Age of Television or HTBAIITAOTV for short) was one of the most successful and fun events I have ever been to.

Montreal's literary scene is flourishing!

In other news, Billy Mavreas has a blog!

Calgary = no pants

Thanks to derek beaulieu, Jason Christie, Chris Ewart, Andre Rodrigues, Sandy Lam, Natalie Walschots, Ed Schmutz, Jonathan Ball, Jordan Scott, ryan fitzpatrick, Jill Hartman, Paul Kennett, Nicole Markotic, Louis Cabri, Suzette Mayr, Tom Wayman, Melanie Little, Peter Norman, Natalie Simpson, Julia Williams, Dennis Cooley, and of course Robert Kroetsch for making my Calgary experience such a memorable one.

We launched Post-Prairie at McNally Robinson and it was one of the best experiences of my literary life. The response to the book has been very encouraging. There is some wonderful innovative poetry being written in Calgary these days and I'm thrilled that RK and I had a chance to anthologize a taste of it.

I met so many people I've been dying to meet and I did have a few drinks...

Glitchy, glitzy

Feelin' glitchy. I'm writing this post on an iMac classic.

There are some amazing things coming up:

Please join McNally-Robinson & Talonbooks as we celebrate the launch of

Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry
Edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch

Saturday, OCT 22 6:00pm
McNally-Robinson Booksellers
120 8th Ave SW
Calgary

featuring readings by Calgarian poets:
derek beaulieu
Louis Cabri
Jason Christie
ryan fitzpatrick
Jill Hartman
Natalie Simpson
and hosted by editor Jon Paul Fiorentino.

(These poets are amazing and I am honoured to present them!)


Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry, edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch, will be launching at the Wild Words Conference at the University of Calgary on Sunday, October 23 at 9:00 am.

Contributors derek beaulieu, Louis Cabri, Jason Christie, ryan
fitzpatrick, Jill Hartman, Nicole Markotic, Suzette Mayr and Natalie
Simpson will be reading.

(I've never been awake at 9:00 am before so this should be interesting.)

Then there's the

Coach House Book Fall Launch
Montreal Edition

starring

Adrian Michael Kelly
Howard Akler
Brian Joseph Davis
Sherwin Tjia
Jon Paul Fiorentino

with special guests

Larissa Andrusyshyn
Wanda O' Connor
Anastasia Jones
Ian Goodman
and music by the electric ant

live at the green room - 5390 st - Laurent
8 pm - sunday october 30

(This will be a very special night. Scandalous things will happen. careers will be ruined; careers will be made; everything will be inappropriate!)

Post-prairie love

I'm off to Winnipeg for the Writers Fest! It's always good to get back to peg city!

Sunday September, 25 2:30pm
MAINSTAGE PANEL: PRAIRIE POETS POST
$12/PASS Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch, co-hosts
Rosanna Deerchild, Catherine Hunter, Mariianne Mays, John K Samson
Manitoba Theatre for Young People
CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre

Because i'm jung

I'm supposed to be writing a book review. I can't seem to meet the deadline. I have been writing poems though. This is the first poem of mine I've ever posted on my blog. It may or may not appear in The Theory of the Loser Class.

JUMP DRIVE HERPES

Spores like sparring
with compound stunners

A two-four of
isopropyl alcohol coolers

And the skin
for basement clubbing

All’s lost elastic
home hub comfort

Software leaks all
over, immaculate drip

Zip disks call
their patronizing agents

Robots play, get
jump drive herpes

No Yeah!

My new chapbook, Loss Leaders, is out now from No Press. It's free if you email nopress2005 [at] hotmail [dot] com

Awesome!

BookThug Yeah!

My new chapbook, Selected Losses, is available now from BookThug. Take a look at it here.

Awesome!

Not angry anymore

The new Matrix Comics Issue is back from the printer. It's very sweet. My favourites are the gag comics by Lauren R. Weinstein, creator of "morrissey and me." You can find "morrissey and me" at http://gURL.com. (Sorry- I can't seem to get the hyperlinks working on this mac browser.) The issue will not be in stores until after labour day. We don't want the Nostalgia Issue to be returned or pulped just yet.

I've been with Matrix for six years now. And Matrix is in its thirtieth year. I volunteered for the first couple of years and worked my ass off in order to become indispensible. At the time I was just thrilled to be a part of publishing poetry, fiction, art, etc. (I still am, but sometimes I get caught up in the petty stuff.) Back then, working with Rob Allen and Andy Brown helped to save my literary life. I wonder how many young people just give up because of the lack of opportunities and/or money in literary publishing...

Savaged

Bert Archer of the Toronto Star has this to say about my funnybook, Asthmatica, and David McGimpsey's funnybook, Certifiable:

"The most charitable approach to these books would, I think, be to ignore [the veteran status of the authors] and pretend that we've stumbled on the manuscripts two undergrads have constructed out of the stories they tell their buddies."

I'll spare you the rest of the review. It's mean-spirited stuff. It's the typical, "it may be funny, but that's not enough. It has to be 'grown-up' too" crap.

I hate it when people who have no authority to speak of the art of comedy decide to review comedy books. Being funny is hard work, but to Bert Archer, it's not serious work and therefore not of value. This is how snobbery works.

I know my book is juvenile -- it's about an immature kid named Jonny who gets into funny situations. It's light reading. And it's for young people. Also, I've read Dave's book and it's funny. That seems to be its mandate. And what pisses me off is that Bert "Canada's most beloved comedy scholar" Archer is judging these books for what they represent socially, not aesthetically. He is too much of a snob to judge these comedy books on how well they deliver jokes.

I'm reviewing a very good novel right now for the Gazette. It's a 'serious' novel with very heavy subject matter. One thing I will be sure not to do is to complain that the book is lacking in punchlines.

Oh! And they spelled the title of my book incorrectly! Thanks, Toronto Star!!!

Post-prairie

I'm very proud of this. I have been working on the proofs of Post-Prairie -- an anthology of new poetry edited by Robert Kroetsch and l'il ole' me. I love the work in this anthology. Here's some copy from the Talonbooks catalogue:

"Prairie poetry," as it came to be known in the 20th century, has found no more eloquent and accomplished a practitioner than Robert Kroetsch. Yet the North American prairie his work has made so recognizably visible in all of its characteristic particularities is changing profoundly in the 21st century. This change is marked by the transition of a cultural identity primarily rooted in place, to one that is rooted in a rapidly fragmenting, urbanizing, technology-based globalization. In an opening dialogue between the archetypal practitioner of this poetics of place, Robert Kroetsch, and a new practitioner, Jon Paul Fiorentino, the reader bears witness to a rare literary event-a master passing on his legacy to the students who have become his peers.

Post-Prairie will be out in Fall 2005 and includes new work from

derek beaulieu
Rob Budde
Louis Cabri
Jason Christie
Rosanna Deerchild
Adam Dickinson
Jon Paul Fiorentino
ryan fitzpatrick
Marvin Francis
Jill Hartman
Clive Holden
Catherine Hunter
Larissa Lai
Sylvia Legris
Nicole Markotic
Chandra Mayor
Suzette Mayr
Mariianne Mays
Duncan Mercredi
John K. Samson
Ian Samuels
Natalie Simpson
Karen Solie
Andy Weaver
Darren Wershler-Henry

Post-Prairie is dedicated to Marvin Francis -- a wonderful Winnipeg poet and Post-Prairie contributor who passed away last year.

School of quietude north?

Is there a School of Quietude North? (The School of Quietude is Ron Silliman's tag for lyric, conservative, traditionalist poetry.) Is Canada currently suffering from a dominance of SoQ style poetics? Which Canadian poets fit this mold?