Wednesday, July 26, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – The Princess of Art, Revisited

So there we were … me … Joyce … Rand … and Ionesco (dressed in drag) … crawling for culture. And we were magnificent! We were the cat’s ass. We were godlings of the night on the prowl and hungering for culture and booze.We crawled through a maze of streets and traffic signs, bellies bared to the hot night wind, thirsting for a zesty glass of Shiraz.

We came across an Oasis in the Cultural Hole, Ingrid Mueller’s Art Gallery. She had paintings. She had photographs. She had sculpture. She had wine. We crawled in and rolled across the floor, knocking over Queen Elizabeth who, as usual, wasn’t buying anything … just drinking the wine and eating the cheese and talking to everybody who didn’t have a gay cat. Of course, she ignored me, having heard of my gay cat, Pico.

Ingrid (disguised as Ingrid Mueller, the Princess of Art) saw me rolling on the floor and stuck one of her 10 inch stiletto heals into the side of my head and said, “You just knocked over the frickin’ Queen of England, you little perv.”

This is Ingrid Mueller moments after taking her 10 inch stiletto heal out of my head when she was finally convinced that I had knocked the Queen of England on her butt as an absurdist expression of performance art. She told me to drink much wine and keep my grubby fingers off the paintings.

By now I had one knee operating one leg from the middle of the hamstring, up. It made for great crawling. I crawled to the bar.

Jimmy Salinger was passing out the wine. He raised my roof beam high with a double whammy Shiraz that knocked me backwards into Joyce who was having a love-in with his belly dancing instructor, Emmy Dickenson.

This is not really Joyce, I learned later. He was just a stream of stuff from Dickenson’s unconsciousness. But he could really pack away the Shiraz for a stream.

Rand and Ionesco (dressed in drag) somehow defied all the odds of gravity and made it to their feet and approached Joey Conrad for directions to the next bar … er … gallery.

Conrad thought carefully about a route to the next bar … er … gallery leading through some godforsaken jungle of slaughter spanning entire continents that would have put all us all up shit creek without a paddle whining, “O, the oar!” Rand and Ionesco (dressed in drag) ate him on the spot. On the way out, we pounced on an unsuspecting smiling family and ate them as well. One must use the found objects of one's environment when crawling for culture.

This unsuspecting smiling family was terribly eaten in the name of culture.

Next: Joyce at Joyce and other bedtime parables.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – Part 2

So there we were, escapees from alien invasion and refugees from a blood chilling haunting. We were suffering for our art, baring our souls to the whims of whatever muse swooped in from the wellsprings of creativity to torture us on the anvil of culture.

Or something like that. Something very much like that. In fact, we crawled for culture. It was the night of the Culture Crawl, a night like most others … dark … stormy … but tonight the galleries and coffee shops and art centers in the bustling heart of downtown Fredericton threw their doors open to free entry, special exhibits and free booze.

It was a night to crawl for culture. I made my way from the Beaverbrook Residence to the first stop along with Jim Joyce, Annie Rand and Gene Ionesco (dressed in drag). We were a ragtag troupe of word mongrels. The first stop was the Charlotte Street Arts Center and the Underground Café and Bookstore (both in the same building, but in different dimensions of similar intent).

As we entered the building, we were approached by a giant bowl of punch screaming, “Drink me! Drink me!” We had no choice. We lapped like kittens while Ionesco ate the bowl and grunted animal sounds. Sated, we crawled to the second floor where we were attacked by weaver sirens with weaving stuff, wooden contraptions and wool. They promised to weave our words into stories. They promised us immortality, but we knew they would just weave us into their insidious art and we would be hung on walls, trophies of their spindle skills.

Weaver sirens tend to look like normal humans, then they load thread and ... beware all life within the reach of the siren. 'Nuff said.

I broke away from the maddened crowd as Rand insisted on red thread in some weird gesture of atonement and I went downstairs to the Underground Café and Bookstore. The route there was maze-like and seemingly unending. I met Vonnegut in the throes of some biographical hunt for himself before writing his last book for the tenth time. He mumbled something about time and circumstance. I didn’t get it. Neither should you.

In the Café and Bookstore, Warhol (dressed in drag) and Anais Nin tried to beat me senseless with the latest copy of ellipse magazine. Andy already had my leg hair from the triathlon gig to mold into a piece of hair sculpture that would freeze frame my soul forever on a wall, but he (as she) wanted to pummel my physical me to death with the printed word.

Thank God for Joyce and Ionesco (in drag). They stumbled down the stairs and spilled into the Café and Bookstore hollering, “He’s a born again virgin! We need to throw him into the river!” Somehow, this made sense to Warhol (dressed in drag) and Nin. They stopped pummeling me and turned me over to my culture crawlees. I was safe.

For now.

Next: The Crawl Continues

Sunday, July 23, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – The Making of Angry Young Poets

So, as if it wasn’t enough to have the wits and whats scared out of us … they forced us to go on a boat. On the water.

We were all happy, though somewhat nervous about reports of cities around the earth mysteriously disappearing and being replaced by cheese soup; but hell, in some cases cheese soup was probably OK.

We were all young and innocent. Each of us still had that babyish look of wonder in our eyes. We had futures, loves and laughs sparking through the axons and dendrites of our inner selves. We craved the moment just ahead of the moment we lived. We were young fools.

This is what we looked like before the horror … before the boat ride to hell. Notice the happy dendrites.

Immediately upon setting out, the boat veered toward the dreaded CNR bridge, reminder of Canada’s great symbol of unity and oneness of vision, now a metallic monstrosity fraught with pedestrians, bicyclists, and tourists. And joggers. We passed under the bridge, listening fearfully to its grinding and groaning under the weight of non-motoring humanity above. Girders threatened to crack and plunge onto the deck. Pigeons waved their asses menacingly. Those of us without hats covered out heads with our hands.

The dreaded CNR bridge, once a great symbol … now a ramp between river banks for those too cheap to put bucks into the pockets of needy oil barons and much maligned auto makers.

As in a movie about miracles, we made it to the other side of the bridge without incident. Tongues loosened. Smiles ventured forth timidly. Shoulders slouched back into bad posture. Someone laughed. A chair scraped on the deck as another adjusted to view the scenic shore. Others laughed. Conversation filled the aquatic air.

And then it happened.

Fredericton was invaded by aliens.

It was horrific! They shot death rays into the hills, killing innocent rabbits and spruce bud worms. They darted in and out of view, somersaulting and flying at weird angles never before seen on earth.

The aliens attacked the hills around Fredericton, mistaking rabbits and spruce bud worms to be the only intelligent life forms.

The attack was over within minutes. The rabbits were decimated; the bud worms, debudded. The mood on the boat forever changed. We were no longer innocent. The sight of rabbit smoke had modified our world view. We had become sullen and silent. We all fell grimly to Post Boat Floating Past Alien Invasion Syndrome.

After the invasion, our lives, our demeanor, our world view had changed. This angry young poet says it all.

Next: Culture Crawl Madness

Saturday, July 22, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers' Workshop and Literary Festival - In the Dread of the Night

So there we were, thunder and lightning crashing and flashing all around us, in the second floor hall of Memorial Hall and Hunter Thompson has just yellow-panted Tolstoy, Dunne and Bronte. Surely we were doomed.

We fled the floor and gathered downstairs, huddling in the wind driven darkness, and horror of horrors, Hayter turned into a werewolf and ate Salinger’s head.

Sparkle Hayter writes vampire fiction by day; by night, she’s a werewolf. She eats the heads of famous dead writers.

As we chattered our teeth and shivered in the awful blood fest, the ghostly apparition of a CBC radio broadcaster appeared. Here’s a slice of his interview.

CBC Broadcaster: “What the hell are you doing here!”

Us: “Chatter chatter.”

CBC Broadcaster: “We’re the glue that binds the country, you know.”

Us: “Chatter, chatter.”

CBC Broadcaster: “You see any railroads around here, eh? I don’t. The rails are trails. There’s no railroad. We’re the only symbol left of Canadian Canadian-ness.”

Us: Shiver.

CBC Broadcaster: “Remember that. We’re the glue!”

And he disappeared in a shower of peacocks and railway ties. And then we noticed that Sartre was missing. Gone. Gone to the ice house? Probably not. Plath was waiting there in ambush. We heard a scream that seemed to rip straight from the bowels of the earth. Several famous writers soiled their pants. Some tried to revise the scream out of the evening. But this was real. No delete button. No undo. No Liquid Paper.

Another scream. God, it was Sartre. His scream was hideous. It reeked of damnation and … and … the sound of steps. We listened with bated (but not fully bated, having already lost several writers to bated) breath. They were steps of the foot type. Foot steps. Slow footsteps. From below us. And to the south of us. At a 30 degree angle. In a confined space.

We ran to the theater, crashed through the chairs, the storm gathering intensity in our faces, jumped onto the stage. Ferlinghetti and Wells tore the large cement cover off an ancient stairway. We gazed in. Those of us who hadn’t filled our pants, quickly did so. It was Sartre, climbing slowly, slowly up the winding stairs.

We back up into the storm swept theater, tripping and falling over each other, screaming and hollering. As Sarte's head topped the stage, we gazed upon the horrific truth. Sartre had been transformed into Faith.

Some would say that the current Faith might be an improvement on the old Sartre. Many would be eager to argue.

Postscript: In the following two days, at almost the same time, and in exactly the same place just outside Memorial Hall on the path leading to the Beaverbrook Residence, two members of the Workshop smelled rose water perfume. There were no rose bushes. No other reported smellings. No explanation … except … perhaps …

Next: Riverboat Mayhem

Friday, July 21, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – It Was A Dark and Stormy Night in Mem Hall

Yes, it was a dark and stormy night in Mem Hall. Lightning crashed across the ceiling. Thunder roared through the halls. Rain pelted the faces of eleven idiots messing with the forces otherworldliness. We were in search of the Ghost of Memorial Hall, reputed to be the sister of a soldier killed in combat during World War 1.

In the Hall’s theater, she erected a stained glass monument to him, upon which is inscribed the word FAITH.

It was to become her name when she died, and she was destined forever to play the piano on the second floor sometime between the hours of 11 PM and 5 AM. Sometimes she would favor an unsuspecting late night worker with the haunting fragrance of her rose water perfume.

Security guards approach only when they have no choice. Staff members balk at the thought of late working hours. Mice gather their furry brood and shiver till sun break.

But we, fool writers, makers of worlds, lords of lives, and masters of metaphor (and epiphanity) ventured into the Hall in hopes of just a bar or two of piano, a fleeting wisp of rose water.

Fool Writers. From southwest to center, Jean Paul Sartre and Anais Nin.

Little did we know what horrors awaited us.

We gathered in the main hall – wind, rain and lightning slashing into our souls – and eyed each other fearfully. I looked at Jean Genet and thought, “That bastard’s trying to steal our souls.” Virginia Woolf plucked Hemmingway’s eyes out and screamed, “Everyone … to the ice house!” Just as panic threatened to devour us in our own uncertainties, we heard a noise. Was that piano music? “No,” said Dashiell Hammett. “It’s my stomach. I ate too many hard boiled eggs.” We pounced upon him and drank his blood.

We were doomed. A mood overtook us and, as a single object of dread, we walked slowly up the stairs to the second floor, wind and water pummeling our faces and causing havoc with the arrangement of our hair.

We visited the room with the piano. Nothing happened. It was chillingly calm. We waited, breathless. Webster and Shelley died from lack of oxygen. Taking their cue, the rest of us resumed breathing and made our way in dreadful oneness to the second floor hall where Thompson told of strange happenings at the Algonquin Hotel. Several nameless writers peed their pants.

Have you ever seen humanity more at the brink of unnatural disaster? The very walls breathed a strange quirkiness.

And then it happened.

(To be continued…)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

I Survived the Harvest Jazz and ... er ... the Maritime Writers' Workshop. Or did I?

This year’s Workshop went off the beaten path to explore new horizons with a workshop on Science Fiction and CyberPunk, which was quickly expanded to include discussions on fantasy and vampire fiction. This is their story. Well, part of it.

OK. This is a tiny sliver of their lives, a mote window into the their inner workings.

OK, ok. It’s really neat pics with bullshit text.

Yeah, that’s it.

This is the Science Fiction and CyberPunk workshop. From top to bottom and north to southeast, they are Frank Herbert, H.G. Wells, Doris Lessing, Ursula Le Guin, and Mary Shelley. It was an impressive line-up. We went for tours to the Regent Mall food court in search of aliens, through the jungles of UNB’s geology and biology buildings to build alternate worlds, and deep into our inner landscapes to find beer. The instructor is under the table. He found beer.

This is the instructor, reincarnated after finding too much beer. Parts of him are still out there looking for more beer. (Photo by Mike Stewart)

This is H.G. Wells attending class through astral projection. He found beer. However, he had no substance and was unable to drink it before the instructor found it and absorbed it through a process of pixellated osmosis.

This is the SF and CyberPunk class looking for beer in Mission Hill. The mission was a flop … the beer was warm as hell and full of ashes. The bartender wore earrings. In his corneas.

This is Ursula Le Guin telling Sylvia Plath from the poetry workshop to get her iambic butt out of the SF section and into the poetry section to which Plath responded with, “Yes, nice chair, but lacks epiphanity.” Le Guin grabbed e e cummings’ coke can full of laudanum and banged Plath upon her noggin until she was jarred enough to hear bells. Nobody messes with people who write about triffids and Tralfamadorians.

On the bright side, Le Guin and Plath drank the contents of cummings’ coke can and rewrote Finnegan’s Wake as a haiku set on Mars. They were canonized for bringing Joyce to the common people.

Coming next … a ghostly tale of Mem Hall horror. Or maybe bar-hopping for words.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers' Workshop and Literary Festival and Lived to Write About It - Part 1

When you prepare like hell for something you've never done before and enter it with a feeling of enthusiasm and dread, knowing that you're ready and knowing that you're going to make a monumental ass of yourself regardless, time becomes irrelevant. The moment becomes everything. Every moment expands by the force of event, and just when you're finally prepared to accept monumental ass-ness, the string of events paving the road to your bared-butt expectations lines up, salutes, winks and dissolves.

It's over. Time swings its big brass balls again and you can get on with dreading whatever else makes your life an obstacle course of fear and loathing.

So much for the bullshit beginning that's supposed to draw you in.

The 2006 Maritime Writers' Workshop and Literary Festival at the University of New Brunswick (and throughout the bars and galleries of a remarkably sunny and hot downtown Fredericton) was a seat-of-your-pants blast. Over the next few days, I'll try to capture some of the excitement through words and images, and I want you to keep in mind that every word is true.

For instance, the pre-conference workshop on e-publishing was a resounding success. It was attended by an exceptionally talented purse. The purse had written a touching (though sometimes pretentious) story about being a vessel of identity and practical things like lipstick and mace.

But nobody wanted to publish the purse's story, so the purse signed up for Biff Mitchell's pre-conference workshop and now has its story ready for release at lulu.com as soon as an appropriate cover is found.

Shown here is the only attendee at the pre-conference workshop on e-publishing, a purse with something to say and the will to say it.