Lift off: Happy New Year!

Best line from 2009 is...

Customs officer at Montana/Alberta Border: "So, anything to declare gentlemen?"
Man in Car (points to friend, riding shot gun, staring ahead intently): "My friend's polished off a full BMT Sub with all the fixings, smoked half a pack of Marlboroughs in the last half hour and has a belly full of gin. I do declare he's had an excellent time!"

As told by Stephen Dee, now living in London.

Bobby Orr Eruption

#10 Guy lafleur

Guy Lafleur goal vs Toronto 1978

real life script from the sales office

Pamperin’ at Studio London?

By John Stiles

TENSE BOSS:
Stick to the script n pick a voice that works, ‘Kay?

[LAZY STORK starts writing.]

THE SQUEAKY ONE
(screams!)
Yes, man, I said ‘Free’, A FREE pamperin’
session at Studio London. This is thin going man!

[LAZY STORK stops writing. LEAVES.]

TENSE BOSS:
Where’s he goin’ now?

NICE EDWARD:
Loo?

[MOMENTARY LAPSE IN CHATTER]

THE SQUEAKY ONE
Anyone speak with a Tanya?

[LAZY STORK RETURNS. Sits.]

LAZY STORK
Few days ago…

CHEESEMAN
She’s mine. Tell her I’m on the other line!

TENSE BOSS
You sure?

CHEESEMAN
May a thousand fleas infest my armpits if I am wrong.

[Knowing glance from THE SQUEAKY ONE and LAZY STORK.]

ZATHAN BIG BUM:
(heated, more intense)
Lovely. Then we’ll pop open the bubbly for you. You can
Sit n relax on leather bound sofas for a relaxing tipple…
(WINKS)
slap n tickle…

CHEESEMAN:
Maestro or Solo? The name and fourteen digits on the front of the card…

THE SQUEAKY ONE
Yes, of course we do plus size models!

TENSE BOSS
ZATHAN is on his third deal, Mr!

[LAZY STORK, mulls]

TENSE BOSS
Start reading the script. Word for word.

LAZY STORK
(Reads)
Experienced expert man sought for afternoons of Lusciousness
Central London. No pressure involved.

THE SQUEAKY ONE
I want that script…

LAZY STORK
(Stares)

TBC in ELLIOT AT BAY

Hey, Sorry but this is me at the moment.

With certain people away and no guests for the last fews days and Christmas approaching and things generally hysterical in the world I can revert to the thing that gives me the only piece of mind I have left, my continued obsession with the folk of a small parcel of land situated between the mountains of Windsor NS and Greenwood NS, the Annapolis Valley. So no Dolly Parton today, nor Police, nor Dragonforce, nor Children of Bodom, no obsessing about career, nor leaky roofs, nor money problems, no guy bumping on the ceiling cause I'm playing the music too loud just a full set by a great Halifax, NS band, called The Sorrys. Neanderthal Cell Phone iLike, but won't I pod.
I don't need to.
Hey this is the second album, mother fucker.
I won't get into it more than to say that the guitar has a continuing presence on the second album as if a rocking road ride through the 70's, 80's, 90's. Also the writing is distinctive - front man, Trevor Millet's wit and barbs are there on NCP, passed on from the first album: "The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards." Perhaps a torch has been passed from Sloan to the Superfriendz on to The Sorrys, I dunno but I do see Charles Austin on the credits.

In Achievement Races, the lead song, Millett announces:

"Christ you are something...
I want to double dare, pull your hair."

Oh, well here I go again...!

Hey it is just my opinion but there is a conversation between the singer (Millett) and the guitar player (Jim) that goes on and on. Also it sounds like there is actually a guy banging on the drums not a dink at a computer adding drum effects. The bass is solid too, listen for it on Roses.

"I will see this moon again,
It's the same old moon that its ever been..."

There is some middle-aged resignation in the music also, especially about the modern pace of the world.
A good line:

"In the end we all turn to dust
so why don't you tell me what the hell was your rush?"

I read the band met at a party, well it is like the conversation from that first intense but good-natured meeting has still continued on in the music. There is an energy there that seems like an extended jam session. It is like the boys don't wanna go home...
Sorry that how I see it..

Lonely but confident...(?)

Hair painting n so on

Some other thoughts...

"Canadians nice? How is it possible when we have the same climate as the Russians?"
Do you smoke in packs?

a note from the sales floor

Overheard (or thought) in the sales room...

Q: "How many card details this week?"
A: "Can't you see? Once the diagrams and sketches – the sack is not far off!"

Certificate 18?

Some poems and films by poets with a few poets and Q and A on Tuesday Oct 6th at 6:15 pm at Curzon Renoir Cinema in London.


Including:

More For Less – Sonal Sachdeva

Martin and Alf have been living over the past few years as Freegans, living from the excessive waste generated by people & supermarkets. In a way they have chosen to go against the societal norm of having steady, paid jobs and yet survive well by not participating in the process of earning money and adding to the burden of existing over-consumption in western society, which creates far more throwaway waste than we can handle. Taking this stand leaves them more time to interact with members of the public. They have taken this to the next level by walking around London for 7 days with the strong conviction that by helping and serving people, and not worrying about where their next meal comes from, one truly begins to live.

Director Sonal Sachdeva will be talking about Martin and Alf, her anti-capitalist heroes, after the screening.


La Sonnambula – Marco Sanges and Alberto Bona

The heroes are Hitchcock, Rachmaninov, Bunuel and Dali.
The heroine is Madame de Pompadour.
Bellini's opera is unrelated.


The Man Who Met Himself – Ben Crowe

Ben Crowe left his job, bought a Super8 camera, and made this film, which was nominated for the Palme D’Or at Cannes 2005. A mysterious call, a photograph of a man, and a private detective compelled by the one case that finally got to him. On a stark but brilliant day in London, Austin Petersen takes a job from an anonymous client, a job he knows he should refuse. What happened to Stephen Maker? Did he fake his own death, or do doppelgangers really exist?

Bound – Ben Crowe (World Premiere)

During a train journey through the English countryside a passenger is wrapped in the everyday mystery off remembering: his childhood home, a loving family and the future that awaits. The film is a eulogy of sorts and was inspired by the spaces, shapes, smells, objects, colours, patterns and sounds of “home”: all are fragments of a journey from childhood to adulthood to a vision of old age. The film is a commingling of pasts, presents and futures within a loving family and a changing world. We are always plural and social; our stories already written in part by the mistakes and failures, aspirations and sacrifices of earlier generations. Ben Crowe chose the title to suggest that to be “bound” is not to be “captured”. The film also draws on Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space and Rilke’s “The world is large, but in us it is as deep as the sea.”

Je Suis Ici – Ben Crowe & Preti Taneja

Je Suis Ici is inspired by being on holiday in the south of France and the slight mismatch between expectations and reality. Poet Sophie Mayer wrote a poem in response to the film which she will perform after the screening.

FOLLOWED BY:

Poetry performance from Sophie Mayer.

Sophie Mayer is a writer and educator. She studied and taught English literature and film studies at the universities of Cambridge and Toronto, and taken part in the poetry performance and publication scenes in both of those cities, as well as in London, where she now lives. Her Various Scalpels (Shearsman, 2009) is her first solo collection.

Poetry performance from Luke Heeley.

Luke Heeley won the Eric Gregory Award from Society of Authors in 2002, and has published in a number of magazines and e-zines, including The Wolf Obsessed with Pipework, Boomerang and The Poem (www.thepoem.co.uk). His work has also been included in Anthologies: Reactions 4 (pen&inc press) and Phoenix New Writing (Heaventree Press). His last work is London Trip-Tych, a film poem.

Poetry performance from John Stiles.

John Stiles is the author of the poetry collections, Scouts are Cancelled (Insomniac Press, 2002), and Creamsicle Stick Shivs (Insomniac Press, 2006), as well as the novels, The Insolent Boy (Insomniac Press, 2001) and Taking the Stairs, (Nightwood Editions, 2008). Featured on CBC's 'Q', Much Music, and TVO's 'Imprint', John has also written for The Globe and Mail and The Literary Review of Canada, amongst others. John and his poems are the subject of a documentary film, Scouts are Cancelled .

Q&A with the participating directors and poets.