| Calgary poet Jonathon Wilcke promises to take the expression "book launch" quite literally when he presents his first book, Pornograph, this Friday. Along with a performance, he promises "a literal launching of the book using Jonathon Wilcke’s patented book launcher" and requests that you "bring your helmet and saxophone."
The event takes place at The New Gallery (516-D Ninth Ave. S.W.) on Friday, January 16 at 7:30 p.m. It’s free, there’s a cash bar and some, if not all, of your concerns about using a launcher in confined spaces will be laid to rest. No saxophone? Try your luck at the door anyway.
If you missed Robert Finley’s inaugural reading as the current Markin-Flanagan writer-in-residence, you can hear him read and speak about his work this Wednesday, January 21 at 7 p.m. In his book The Accidental Indies, Finley re-imagines Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas. He reads at the Alexander Calhoun branch of the Calgary Public Library (3223 - 14th St., S.W.). Please register by calling 221-2010.
At McNally Robinson this week, you can hear Laurel Buck read from her poetic memoir The Spiral Road, on Tuesday, January 20. The following evening, Kathy Calvert presents her biography of her father, mountaineer Don Forest, who was the first climber to summit every 1,100-foot peak in both the Rockies and the Columbia Mountains, and is the oldest person to have climbed Mount Logan. And the next day, Thursday, January 22, Craig DiLouie discusses conspiracy theories. DiLouie, the author of a psychological thriller entitled Paranoia, will sign books as well as lead this potentially paranoia-inducing conversation. All of these events are at 7:30 p.m. For even more McNally Robinson readings, see the bookstore’s site at www.mcnallyrobinson.com.
Have you noticed more culture in your life lately? You should, if government spending on culture correlates to individual cultural experiences. According to Statistics Canada, total spending on culture by all three levels of government combined amounted to $217 per person in 2000 - 2001. That compares to about $202 per person in 1990 - 1991. "Culture" includes parks, museums, film, dance – quite a wide range of activity. But here’s a surprising thing: about 1.8 per cent of the total federal budget went to culture, while health claimed only one per cent. This is what StatsCan calls "direct spending" as opposed to "transfers" – ah, the accounting niceties raise their heads – but it still seems surprising, doesn’t it? So how much money does this really represent, anyway? Well, artists got just under $700 million, while broadcasting got $1.4 billion. Book and magazine publishers, by contrast, received $145.9 million. I wouldn’t dare make any firm conclusions about any of this data, because so much depends on definitions and categories, and also because it’s no easy thing to sort out what comes from Ottawa, the provinces and municipalities. But on the whole, what StatsCan seems to be telling us is that culture really does matter to the governments we fund. Whether they’re supporting it in the most effective ways or dividing up their support appropriately – that’s another long series of arguments. But in very simple terms, if I ask myself whether I think I got my $207 worth, I have to say: you bet. Sign me up for another year’s membership in this thing that, to be precise, you’d have to call "that part of Canadian culture which gets public funding." (Because, we mustn’t forget, the biggest subsidizers of culture are those people known as artists.) |
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