The Final Trainwreck is Tonight

Brave the last wet tatters of Katrina - come out to the Casa Del Popolo tonight for the launch of Vince Tinguely's New Novella "Final Trainwreck of a Lost-Mind Summer".

I'll be reading "Gingerly". Here's an excerpt:

That was his name for the dog in his head: Ginger Lee. He called her Ginger in public – a Golden Retriever’s name – all wrong for her black hair and blue eyes.

“What’s your dog’s name?” they’d ask him in the park.

“Ginger,” he’d say with a smile.

“Ginger eh? And what’s your name, Fred?” So everyone and their dog started calling him Fred. Wallace had never had a nickname before.

Casa Del Popolo, 4873 St-Laurent
Wednesday, August 31, 2005.
8 p.m. (show starts 9 p.m.)

With readings by:

Vince Tinguely
Dana Bath
J. R. Carpenter
Scott Duncan

Plus an exclusive musical performance by The Sally Fields.

$5 at the door (w/o book)
$10 at the door (if you buy a book)
. . . . .

Final Trainwreck of a Lost-Mind Summer

An Excerpt From Vince Tinguely's New Novella:

"Fortunately, I had a rich inner life going on at the time. Richer than most, I'd have to say; so rich that it had begun to rupture the membrane between inner and outer. What's called 'losing it'. I was going crazy, and I knew I was going crazy, but I was finding it all so interesting that I had decided to let it happen, let it all hang out, let it breathe - the most pernicious sort of craziness, this, a knowing, clever craziness that operated within its own unique paradigms, that remained aware enough of itself and its inherent difference from the rest of the world to avoid manifesting itself to the point where the rest of the world notices and then takes steps to suppress it. Thanks to this interesting state of affairs, it didn't much matter where I lived, or where I worked - it was only temporary - I'd soon enough be somewhere else. Where, exactly, wasn't important. For now, I had some serious living to do."

Launch party -
Casa Del Popolo, 4873 St-Laurent
Wednesday, August 31, 2005.
8 p.m. (show starts 9 p.m.)

With readings by:

Vince Tinguely
Dana Bath
J. R. Carpenter
Scott Duncan

Plus an exclusive musical performance by The Sally Fields.

$5 at the door (w/o book)
$10 at the door (if you buy a book)

PERFORMERS' BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Dana Bath, originally from Newfoundland, has lived and worked in various places around the world and now calls Montreal home. She's published a novel (Plenty of Harm in God) and two collections of short stories (What Might Have Been Rain and Universal Recipients.) She teaches English Literature at Vanier College, and is at work on a second novel.

J.R. Carpenter is a visual artist, poet and fiction writer originally from Nova Scotia, now living in Montreal. Her fiction has been published in Carte Blanche, Nth Position, Blood & Aphorisms, Postscript and the Knight Literary Journal. Her short story "Precipice" won the CBC/QWF Quebec Short Story Competition, 2003. Her web art projects have been exhibited internationally and can all be found at http://luckysoap.com.

Scott Duncan is a video artist, performer and writer. He's pleased as punch to be on the same slate as the Ting.

The Sally Fields is the solo effort of Scott W. Gray, an art-rock / indie-rock songwriter living in Montreal. At turns melancholy and bittersweet, The Sally Fields features hooky vocals and rich guitar work over pre-programmed sounds. www.thesallyfields.com <http://www.thesallyfields.com>

Vincent Tinguely is a Montreal writer and performance poet. He is the co-author (with Victoria Stanton) of Impure ‹ reinventing the word, a book about the Montreal spoken word scene, published by conundrum press in 2001. He writes regularly on spoken word and lit events for the free weekly Montreal Mirror. His latest work is the three chapbook set SEX, POWER, MYTH, launched in January 2005, and the mini-CD Flying Under The Radar, produced by Wired on Words in April 2005.
. . . . .

Necessary Evil

All those top secret months at Trinity
of steady hands and guess work,
touch safer than instruments -

Of course they had to test it.
Sometimes to know a thing
you have to blow it up.

Crossed fingers counted down.
Amulets clutched and names of saints
whispered in the silence before the roar.

There goes the pride of Los Alamos.
They filmed the detonation and shipped the reels,
along with the second bomb, off to the Pacific.

When they attempted to show that film to
the airmen who would drop the next one,
the projector jammed.

There were only words left to describe
the silence then the sound, the heat and
a white light brighter than the noon sun.

The Enola Gay had a shadow, flying over Japan.
A second plane carried the photographic crew.
That plane was called the Necessary Evil.
. . . . .

Saint-Urbain Street Heat

A new poem, "Saint-Urbain Street Heat", appears in the August edition of Nth Position.

Some of you who have never been to Montréal in the summer don’t believe how hot it gets here. Those you who live here, well, you know. Set on the same block as Saint-Urbain’s Horsemen but more like Balconville only shorter and poetry and contemporary and completely different really, "Saint-Urbain Street Heat" will leave you sweating in your undershirts. Here’s an excerpt:

Alters of clutter,
hanging gardens of sound –
the back balconies buckle
under the weight of
high summer
Saint-Urbain Street heat.

All the kitchen
back doors stand open –
sticky arms flung open –
imploring, a heat-rashed prayer:

Deliver us unto
the many gods
of Mile End.

Read the rest of “Saint-Urbain Street heat” on NthPostion.com

Nth Position is a free online magazine/ezine based in Europe with politics & opinion, travel writing, fiction & poetry, reviews & interviews, and some high weirdness from around the world. Read, subscribe, submit: nthposition.com
. . . . .