FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved

Bookends by FFWD Staff Go ahead, don't read any poetry. Or so advised, sardonically, Charles Bernstein in the Globe and Mail last week. Because it's still National Poetry Month. But that's not the only month or day it is, around about now, because Wednesday, April 21 was, of course, Secretaries Day. And on Friday, April 23, to mark Canada Book Day, both the Muttart Art Gallery and the U of C will host events. At the Muttart, it's an evening of performances and readings featuring Jonathon Wilcke and tjsnow performing "50 Canadian Objects," about which they say this: "using the spoken/improvised/written word, Jonathon and Tony explore Canadian National Identity through the language of irony and objectification." Also, Vivian Hansen reads and shows slides as part of "Sounding the Medicine Map," an exploration of prairie landscape and culture, including landmarks, medicine wheels, etc. The Muttart events take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 1221-2nd Street S.W., above the Memorial Public Library. Because that's where the Muttart Gallery is. Admission is by donation: "beer and wind" (sic) will be available. The readings happen in conjunction with the exhibition "Landscape: Process and Perception," featuring artists Trent Breitkruetz and Monica Tap, showing from April 15 to June 19. At the U of C there will be displays, book sales, a Magnetic Poetry Contest, and book forums all day long in MacEwan Hall, Room 205. The forum on academic publishing happens at 9 a.m., then at 10:30 a.m. there's one on sci-fi writing. Noon sees reps from the Calgary Writers Association answering the question "why would anyone want to write?" Then at 1:30 p.m. there's a forum on kid's books, and at 3 p.m. the topic is censorship. E-mail dquainta@ucalgary.ca for more details. Without a Web site, is it a real day/month/year? The Book Day site is at www.sites.sympatico.ca/bookday. For Poetry Month, check www.swifty.com/lc/linktext/npm.htm. Now, since by their very nature most Web sites have sponsors, and since these are Web sites for time-periods, is it really going to be long before we catch up with David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, in which time-periods are themselves sponsored? So you don't say 1999 anymore, you just say the name of the year's sponsor? As in "It was half-way through the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment...?" Merilyn Simonds’s novel The Convict Lover was a word-of-mouth hit as well as a critical success. She's in town to read from her new book, The Lion in the Room Next Door, at Pages on Wednesday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m.

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