| Anyone who doubts that print can become as much of an addiction as gambling or crack cocaine need only talk to New Yorker Patrice Moore.
While you were looking forward to New Year’s Eve, the 43-year-old reader was wondering if he’d even see 2004. As the New York Post tells it (under the headline "Bookworm squished"), a sudden avalanche of books and magazines left Moore trapped in his small apartment for two days. It took firefighters half an hour to dig him out. The fire safety-minded rescuers also disposed of 50 garbage bags full of papers before they left. It seems Moore collected print material compulsively and sold it on the street.
He was only found by chance on December 29, when his landlord heard him through the door "after coming to the apartment to give Moore a small loan." So there you have it: print-related compulsions can indeed lead you down the paths of debt and destruction.
Not that this should discourage you in any way from filling up on more local writing this week, when filling Station magazine presents another reading in its flywheel series. It’s at McNally Robinson Booksellers on Thursday, January 8 at 7 p.m. Carmen Derksen, Nathan Froese, Dean Hetherington, Richard Harrison and Jeremy Leipert will all read.
Also at McNally Robinson, University of Calgary sociologist Cora Voyageur reads from Out of the Ivory Tower. The book, to which Voyageur is a contributor, attempts to reach across the chasm between feminist research in universities and women in the larger world. She appears at the bookstore on Wednesday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Gloria Sawai will be the writer-in-residence this February at the Writers Guild of Alberta’s nine-day Banff winter writing retreat. You can find all the particulars at www.writersguild.ab.ca, under Events. You can also call the WGA for info at 1-800-665-5354, or e-mail them at mail@writersguild.ab.ca.
Meanwhile, if you’re wondering about readings at the Calgary Public Library and at Pages, they will recommence on January 21 and February 11, respectively. |
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