The Dead Poets' Slam - Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas and the Other Charles Bukowski and Edgar Allan Poe

The Dead Poets' Slam - Two Emily Dickinsons and our Host, Guy Fawkes

Dead Poets' Slam - William S Burroughs, Professor ELLEN PARJEET SEAMUS HERNANDEZ O'FLANNIGAN, The other Charles Bukowski and John Keats

Ladeez PJ Party

The hoody ones gathered on Saturday night to welcome Myrna back to town. We cooked a lovely supper together in our pajamas. We tried on Halloween costumes and played with Halloween candles.

Question: Who do you know who likes to hang out in PJs?

mompoet - lucky to have such warm and fuzzy friends.

Nelson's Vacation

Nelson the rat just got his photos back from Costco. Here he is with Mr. Disney and Mickey Rat. Thank you Kirsi, Allan, Jesse and Nolan, for taking Nelson with you to Disneyland. Thanks especially for bringing him back.

question: where would you take Nelson?

mompoet - (shhhh. Don't tell Nelson about the "mouse" thing.)

frightened by tall lights

They're filming Alien vs Predator on the back street of Port Moody every night. By day it's a busy commuter route. By night it's a movie set. There are explosions, army tanks, smashed cars, dressing room trailers, police cars and orange cones and barricades everywhere. The worst part is the big giant lights on cranes. There are two big lights, as bright as soccer field lights, but horrifyingly temporary and tall and skinny. They disappear in the daytime. At night they sway in the breeze, 5 or 6 storeys above street level, not really crooked and not really straight. They remind me of the creatures in the the movie War of the Worlds. Their scale is scary. Their light is scary. I will be glad when they are gone.

question: what frightens you?

mompoet - don't walk into the light

a great big field trip

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee thinks schools should be closed for 2 weeks during the 2010 Olympics so students and their families can volunteer and attend the games.

Do they have any idea how many students that is? I sure hope there'll be enough seats and free tickets of course. Won't it be fun to take all of the kindergarteners to watch the bobsled races? Well, maybe they can all watch it on TV.

And all of those moms and dads taking vacation for 2 weeks to look after their kids who are out of school. We'll probably also have to close most of the banks and stores and even the hospitals and police station.

Let's all go to the Olympics. YAY!

question: does this sound silly to you too?

mompoet - okay, enough cynicism. I have some sewing to do

bushisms abounding

Matthew Baldwin's blog Defective Yeti is always smart and funny. Here's his riff on GWB's "the war in Iraq is a comma" comment.

question: what's your favourite punctuation mark?

mompoet - I have quite a few I might apply to His Royal Bushiness

dreamsy

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to a small local theatre near our home. Oh my, It's the James Cowan Theatre in Burnaby - about 500 seats. Michele and I get tickets. We arrive late and I brought the dog with me, so I have to figure out what to do with her, then a balcony materializes but the view is pretty good from where we're sitting, and it sounds good. But I'm distracted and the people in the audience keep getting up and switching seats and saying things like, "What show is this, anyway?" So Michele and I leave, but I don't seem to care. And later I think, "Wow. I missed that show. That's disappointing." And at the same time we hear music and cheering and then see a couple thousand people crossing the street from the theatre and running down the beach all happy and excited and I think, "I could go back there, but now it's too late."

Then I'm in a press conference/fan Q and A session with the band and there's only about 20 of us in the room and we can ask questions and all of the members of the band are just chatting away. But I brought this good novel so I'm slouched in my chair holding a book up in front of my face ignoring the whole thing. I think maybe I look kind of cool, not being impressed by the event. Then some manager person screens the band's latest rock video for us and the band members run to a limousine and drive away and I missed them again.

question: what do dreams mean?

mompoet - thinking maybe I should stop, look and listen?

nesting and sewing

I took last Friday off work to hang out with the kids who were on a pro-d day from school. Then I ended up attending a funeral instead. It was good that I could do that but I felt like my treat day was taken away.

So I booked today off. Only the kids are in school. I am going to nest with my sewing machine and put together my new Halloween costume. Construction-wise it's not that much different from all of the lime green munchkin dresses I sewed last Spring. The main difference will be that it's much more DEAD. Just wait, I'll post a picture when it's ready.

It's been raining for a few days. The furnace is kicking on in the morning. I found my wooly socks. Perfect day to be inside and not in a hurry.

question: do you ever reclaim and misplaced treat?

mompoet - self-indulgent in a positive way

thank you dr. bruce

I got that tooth fixed. Not broken after all. Just decayed. My excellent dentist knows I like to watch so he gave me the mirror whenever I wanted to look. Tooth decay is pinky/brown and yukky. Ooooohhh! such fun to look at! Now I have a beautiful white filling that looks like the day the tooth first erupted. Now I can crunch an ice cube without screaming. Yayyyy! Thank you wonderful dentist!

By the way, while I was not watching the tooth decay and the amazing white stuff and the magical filling-hardening-light I watched my favourite close-caption television. I know I could do this at home, but I save it for a treat at the dentist. The close-caption simultaneous translator must have a very difficult job. The guy on the morning show was interviewing a guest from Science World. They were making SLIME for Halloween. But the close-caption guy did not know how to spell slime, so they were making "slim" for the whole segment. I was killing myself laughing. Do not laught immediately after the dentist injects novocaine. You will feel the novocaine in your elbow. Honest. Also, don't do it while he is drilling. I think I am now in Dr. Bruce's nuisance patient book. Also, the close caption translator captioned "ameliorate" like this: AMELIE OR ATE............AMELIORATE. (I could just hear him/her saying "OH CRAP!")

I still want that job.

question: have you been to the dentist lately?

mompoet - finding sources of amusement in inappropriate places

wednesday night in suburbia

drink three glasses of (wine)
with the ladies and counting
to seventeen is


...impossible...


question: is that too much information?

mompoet - chardonnay blows haiku all to crap

The Clean House

I saw The Clean House at the Vancouver Playhouse on Saturday. Each playhouse season is like a survey of historical periods, dramatic forms and styles. This was "the new play." It is absolutely wonderful. Very funny, absurd, tinged with a bit of surreal, with a big heart. I cried. I want to learn to speak Portugese. I want to write the world's funniest joke.

question: are you a cleaner-upper or a joke-teller?

mompoet - joke-teller

bye mom!

My Mom is in India for a month, traveling with a pack of artists from Australia and Canada. They are all interested in dye-ing (not dying). Fibres and fabric coloration, that is.

I hope Mom will read my blog from India. We will also email one another. She'll be back in time for my birthday. Yay!

Dad's a home. Hey Dad, come over for supper soon, okay?

question: where would you like to go?

mompoet - exploring the infinite boundaries of the internet

when the going gets tough, eat candy

the bowl of eyeballs
on my desk has been eaten
pre-Halloween stress

question: what is it about chocolate?

mompoet - keeper of the candy dish

real beauty is on the outside

Check out this video. I know the company that runs this campaign sells beauty products, but I like how they're selling them, with real size/shape/look models looking beautifully like themselves. This video is an eye-opener in more ways than one.

It's on the outside of all of us. It's just too bad too few of us see it when we look in the mirror. Let's work on that. Together.

question: did you know that you are beautiful?

mompoet - look! I can see it! BEAUTY!

More Halloween

Andy and the girls (Fi and some friends) decorated the carport yesterday afternoon. It's kooky and spooky and lovely. We might get a giant pumpkin today. We'll wait to see if the Great Pumpkin drops one off.

I'm just thinking about the clown hat that I mentioned in an earlier post. It happened about 10 years ago. I sewed matching clown outfits for the kids and me. They were beautiful: red and black with dots, strips and rick-rack, pompoms and ruffles. Harlequin-style and elegant, if I do say so myself. The sewing pattern included dunce-style caps which I stiffened with some sturdy iron-on interfacing and secured with elastic chin-strings. When we got dressed on Halloween night to go out, Andy looked at the 3 of us and said

"Klown Klux Klan."

Now I don't really like the hats so much. He's right, you know. They do look like that.

That's the story of the clown costumes. Maybe I'll post a photo on Wednesday.

question: will you dress up for Halloween this year?

mompoet - creating faux pas and floobdobbles from time to time

procrastinating

some variations

procreastinating - getting pregnant to avoid painting the house

procrapstinating - going to the bathroom to avoid cleaning the bathroom

precrastinating - planning how one will procrastinate in the future

prochristenating - attending a baptism to avoid paying the bills

procroysternating - eating oysters to avoid washing the dishes

pyrocrastinating - burning down your house to avoid cleaning it

question: do you procrastinate?

mompoet - really should be doing something

weekends are too short

If I were the queen, we would all work two days and take 5 off. There are too many things to do for just 2 days.

question: will you join my queendom?

mompoet - freed from the tyranny of work for the sake of work (in my imagination anyway)

A New Contributor for My Generation

Local poet and writer, Megan Hyska has joined the writing team of The Now Newspaper. Here's a link to Megan's first column.

question: who are the artists in your neighbourhood

mompoet - happy too, to live in the city of the arts