Monday, January 19, 2009

Still here...

"Mom! you have not posted your blog for a long time!"

Okay, here goes...

Since I last posted I have:

  • hosted the Bingo Slam at Van Slam. My friend Lisa and I took on the personae of Bingo Dabber Betty and Edna Freezepot, the Bingo Ladies. Riffing on a cool idea we'd heard from our Slam Master Sean about a bingo slam in Atlanta, we crossed a poetry slam with bingo night and enjoyed a rough and tumble funny/artistic/silly alt slam evening. There's a YouTube compilation by our friend WD Fulton, but only go there if you can stand the sight/sound of Edna (that's my bingo lady character) dropping an F-bomb (swear word) in the first few seconds of the video. If you want to continue thinking that I am nice and virtuous all the time, don't look. Besides that though, there's samples of the poet's efforts to defy slam cliches and be as original and bingo-resistant as possible. Old lady hats off to my partner in bad taste, BD Betty, and the amazing poets of Team Tall, Team Short and Team Awesome.
  • recuperated from the first week back to work - I couldn't figure out why I was so tired going into week two, then I remembered, I was up at 5 each morning, and out past 9 every evening all week long. Luckily this week turned out to be more cozy-homey after Monday's excitement at the slam.
  • Saw The Wrestler with Alex. It's a very good movie. Alex was worried about me during the most brutal fight scene, but I reassured him I was okay. He is a very considerate person to see a movie with. What I loved about the movie was the theme of living it/faking it and how the line gets blurry sometimes so we aren't sure ourselves. The situation and characters swooped everyone in totally. There was a moment when I think everyone in the audience was holding his/her breath. Everything about this movie felt real. It's sad, funny, frightening and amazing.
  • Sewed on the costume some more. The fabrics are a challenge. Making someone look good in a velvet tea cozy is about the best way I can describe it. I'm making progress.
  • Put the Christmas ornament boxes away under the stairs (crawling where the spiders are born, oh, my favourite).
  • Went with Michele to see Les Yeux Noir at Capilano University on Sunday Night - frenetic, soulful, amazing gypsy fusion in French, Yiddish and Russian. I loved it. I love that Michele will go with me to see something knowing nothing about it except that it might be interesting.
  • Got into Wesley Stace's novel Misfortune after enjoying By George over the holiday. I love to read about a life so apart from my own, told by a storyteller so wonderfully gifted.
  • Took pictures of my rubber duck all over the place. I'm trying to win a trip from CityTV's BTV to Acapulco for Andy and me.
  • Felt sad about the death of Steve Sauve, an Ottawa poet and lovely man who I met when he came to Vancouver for the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in 2005. Steve had a soft spot for women who wear glasses. That's just one of the reasons I like him. Tonight we had a moment of noise for Steve at the Vancouver Slam. He will be missed, and remembered.
question: so what have you been doing all week? (not checking my blog, I hope)

mompoet - just checked again - yup, still here

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