May 1, 2013
Rereading the Riot Act And On — Book Launch
Happy Workers Day to all ! I am delighted to be launching our artists book tonight 8pm at UNIT/PITT 15 E Pender from the Rereading the Riot Act project I curated with UNIT/PITT, an artist run centre based in Vancouver.
The book is part research diary/ part scrapbook /part pasteup and it collates a bunch of material related to and in response to the reading of the Riot Act to the relief camp workers at Victory Square by Mayor Gerry McGeer on April 23, 1935.
Here is a link to the launch details and information about the paste up book.
April 30, 2013
Little Star Love
Little Star editor Ann Kjellberg has written a touching blog on Malarky being award the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. It’s a mutual appreciation society as I admire the gesture and quality of Little Star and urge you all to discover it. (They have an app with a weekly edition)
Click on this extract from the blog to read the whole of it.
April 26, 2013
Amazon.ca First Novel Award citation and Malarky on Canada AM
Here is the citation for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award which I won on Wednesday for Malarky.
“Malarky is a bold first novel from an author whose prose hums with electric wit and linguistic daring,” Stuart Woods, editor of Quill & Quire and head judge for the 37th First Novel Award said in a statement. “The novel traverses darkly comic territory with intelligence and poise, relating the story of an unnamed narrator whose resilience in the face of life’s disappointments will stay with readers long after the verbal pyrotechnics have dissipated. Anakana Schofield is a true original, and her novel is a delight.”
And here is the link to my very pink looking appearance on CTV’s CANADA AM programme.
April 25, 2013
Malarky Wins Amazon.ca First Novel Award
I can report a boldly, cold wind today in Toronto and some sunny old news last night. Malarky won the 37th Amazon.ca First Novel Award to my astonishment. In my thank you speech I acknowledged the importance of the continuum of literature over single titles. I acknowledged how important the work of three Vancouver women writers has been to me: Helen Potrebenko, Renee Rodin and Judith Copithorne.
It was a lovely night, a great deal of craic was had ensemble and I am most grateful for the warmth of those around me and the jokes. The snacks were spectacular.
This morning I was on Canada AM where I got rather up close to the weather forecaster and read for host of the show. I was quite astounded by how morning telly works. The sets, the shifts, the mini episodes. I will post the video of me making a spectacular morning heap of myself when I find a plug outlet.
In the meantime, here is the National Post story including a rather unhinged looking photo.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/04/24/anakana-schofield-wins-amazon-ca-first-novel-award/
Thank you to everyone who sent me such warm messages: they were much appreciated. My mother will be getting a new back door with the winnings and my son will be going to the long-overdue orthodontist.
April 24, 2013
Benjamin birthday
Walter Benjamin is an excellent person to spend your birthday with in a luxury hotel, even if it takes you 10 minutes to find the light switch amid such luxury.
I’ve been reading his Russian diary piece and am struck by the difficulty he had obtaining tickets for the theatre. He did not have difficulty obtaining a sleigh ride.
Toronto is sunny, with a nippy wind about her I can report. Her people are hungry for spring.
April 19, 2013
Band of rain
Last Monday pour la soiree we were promised bands of rain and they arrived. It was a major weather event. I was delighted to have this confirmed by email from a friend out in it, with a headache. One would not want to be alone in the knowledge.
I noticed the arrival of one particular and specific band of rain. We were caught in its grime, more glue than fog and yet it had this slurry quality. I tweeted something to this tune and my favourite weather forecaster called it “rain poetry”. In any case it has strengthened my resolve to write a weather novel.
And beyond the same window right now, it’s lifted! A dazzle out there, blue and white and leaves between yellow and red with the sunlight zapping them. Violin solo on the e and a string happening out there. It would nearly send you outside with your spade to the garden. (or community garden in my case).
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I’ve been pondering more and more the shift from a critical or thinking culture to a prize culture or I might term it, the Pavlovian drift from a critical culture to a prize culture, specifically in the literary culture. Prizes were once a small sideshow now they appear to be the only means by which writers can sell books. It seems other art forms have held onto critical spaces or create them. Is this engineered from within disciplines, is it the artists/the practicioners who create and demand this? Are writers now merely sock puppets for the market is my next pondering? Was there ever a critical culture in literature in this country? What would you call the culture where a small press collection of short stories could travel around the country in and out of communities, to packed readings, to discussions — as one author described to me used to be the case. And how to look forwards rather than wistfully or otherwise backwards? There does seem to be a correlation in the diminishing opportunties for writers to be paid to write and think about literature (and related arts) and the massive upsweep in the emphasis on prize lists, prizes and this system of bingo by which it all operates. Also, an increasing emphasis on writers telling us (or we are chronically asking them) how they write and get published rather than inquiries about what they’ve written and how it might sit beside some of the many other works that have been written.
What prompted me to think on this was reading Woolf dissecting Joyce. Historically writers wrote a great deal more criticism or were at least able to secure critical writing as a source of income, which meant people were reading more criticism. Appetites were different or now differ which in itself isn’t surprising, however it pays to pause and contemplate what we are or have drifted to. It’s important to examine the implications and directions of market forces on shaping our reading and how and where those locus of power presently lie. I believe the effect of those forces to be a truncating one, which is actually anti literature, anti reading. But I’ve always thought that the organization or sorting of information will be the story of the next decade. How to find things amid the pile of (now) endless possibilities ? Perhaps this in turn will revitalize us in how we also seek out and uncover and desire to uncover literature. I certainly see subcultures already emerging and engaged with this, in response perhaps to the aforementioned truncating.
April 15, 2013
The decline of clothes pegs
Today I found myself contemplating the declining quality of clothes pegs I was trying to recall their quality in the 1970’s and 1980’s and whether they were sturdier? I rather drew a blank. But I think the expectation existed that your clothes pegs would endure beyond a few peg ups. Now they seem to crumble after a snap or two on a single sock.
Concurrently i noticed a sign on a Kits bar/restaurant today that stated “LOCAL since ’09”, I thought this indicative of the present state of things given that 2009 is only 3 years ago. I am used to seeing businesses in other places proclaiming on their signs they’ve been in biz since 1921, 1940, 1959. The shoe repair man around the corner Bob has been in business for I think it might be 50 years. I wonder if proclaiming being local for 3 years will eventually become the mark of vintage.
In weather news, the sun was ever so bright today. I was surprised to see people out sunbathing, there was light, but not necessarily heat. Goose pimple city ! I concluded the sunbathers must be in the menopause.
April 9, 2013
“Margaret Thatcher was an absolute catastrophe for the social well being of this country …”
Thank God for Polly Toynbee today amid the stench of hagiographic distortion of Thatcher and her legacy. Her legacy included Tony Blair and gives us the current Cameron war on the poor. Many of us who had the misfortune to live under her experience a near PTSD at the memory of it. It was brutal, relentless and shameful. Wapping, The Miners Strike, The Hunger Strikers, Brixton, Toxteth, Section 28, The Poll Tax the list is endless. That Obama could use the words champion of freedom and liberty indicate he’s either banged his head or needs to fire his speech writer. Although an American friend sent me a note today explaining “she was a hero in the US because we like fascists”
also read this piece if you are tired of the kettle banging use of words like inspiration and the ludicrous assertion she saved Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette
April 3, 2013
3=7
The Great British Class Survey has determined or found 7 social class groupings The study was carried out by the BBC and several universities.
When I read the above news stories I thought of Neil Smith, Geographer (RIP). Here’s Jeff Derksen’s (who introduced me to Smith’s work) tribute to him
I had a chat with Neil Smith, when he was here some years ago, about our Rereading the Riot Act project, which we were just embarking on and he told me stories of public actions/interventions in the Lower East Side of NY around history, public space, mapping and protest.
#Writing and protest. Protesting writing. Writing protest. Rewriting protest.
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In light of the above, it’s curious to note the current near obsessive war on the poor taking place in the UK and the demonization of people on benefits, under the guise of welfare reform. Ricky Tomlinson offers 10 lies we’re told about welfare while Polly Toynbee explains “An avalanche of benefit cuts will hit the same households over and over, with no official assessment of how far this £18bn reduction will send those who are already poor into beggary.”
April 3, 2013
Bingo language fixer
The evidence is in. It is much easier to repair a hoover than an italian expresso maker. Both items I have attempted to repair in the past 7 days, both items were recycled hand me downs from friends. I was thrilled to discover the world of online hoover/vacuum repair videos and perused a few too many given I had a very specific hoover to repair, however I had to contemplate the extent of the available documentation. I must commend and comment on the enthusiasm of some of these repair-sharing folk. In the world of hoovers, the rapid naming of the parts number is impresssive. Hoover repair parts nearly constitute their own language, a member of the bingo language group.
Gaggia expresso makers also have an online army of surgeons who detail their “mods” and repairs and thanks be to God for the one who uploaded his “mod”, which I had little interest in, except it showed it jigsaw level stages how to open the darned machine. What a revelation and what a disappointment that after taking it apart from both ends, three times and once respectively, the darn beast still made the forceful WAAAAAH noise and no water appeared when I turned it on. The surgery on the coffee maker used approx 7 different screw drivers and a good ole hardy kitchen knife.
I wonder if the people vs built in obsolescence could become an act, a protest movement of economic resistance ? I have to confess I am very tempted to chuck this hefty gaggia, yet I know I am probably three steps away from fixing it, so should return to the battlefield. Fixing stuff is always rewarding even if you destroy you hands in the process.
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Sunshine with deadlines has been the weather forecast today.