THE CAPE on BathHouse

My web/ art/ narrative/ project, THE CAPE, has been included in the Spring 2006 issue of BathHouse, online now.

Edited by current Creative Writing graduate students at Eastern Michigan University, BathHouse promotes interdisciplinary and hybrid arts with a special emphasis on language and innovation in art that blurs the lines of conventional form and genre.

BathHouse takes its name from the 19th-century sanatoriums, bathhouses, and mineral water wells that flourished in Ypsilanti, Michigan, until truth in labeling laws were passed. The "foul smelling" waters of the Atlantis well, in the vicinity of the current Jones-Goddard dorm on the EMU campus, were bottled and shipped nationwide as a cure for 33 disorders of the blood.

http://www.emich.edu/studentorgs/bhouse/main.html

Artists in the Spring 2006 issue of BathHouse are: Mark Amerika, J. R. Carpenter, Joe Clifford, Mark Cunningham, Christopher Garlington, Diane Greco, Mary Kasimor, Braxton Soderman, Lynn Strongin.

Warning: Cape Cod is a real place, but the events and characters of THE CAPE are fictional. The photographs have been retouched. The diagrams are not to scale.

http://Luckysoap.com/thecape
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<< Entre Ville >>

a new web/ poetry/ video project
by J. R. Carpenter



LUCKYSOAP.COM/ENTREVILLE

LAUNCH / LANCEMENT: le jeudi 27 avril à 14h30 - Thursday, April 27 at 2:30PM

Salon des amis, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
1380, rue Sherbrooke Ouest

Commissioned by/ Une commande d'oeuvre d'OBORO, Laboratoire nouveaux médias et produite dans le cadre des activités spéciales du 50e anniversaire du Conseil des arts de Montréal

"My studio window opens into a jumbled intimacy of back balconies, yards and alleyways. Daily my dog and I walk through this interior city sniffing out stories. Poetry is not hard to find between the long lines of peeling-paint fences plastered with notices, spray painted with bright abstractions and draped with trailing vines. Entre Ville is a web art poetry project presented in the vernacular of my neighbourhood, where cooking smells, noisy neighbours and laundry lines criss-cross the alleyway one sentence at a time." J. R. Carpenter, 2006.

"Mon studio donne sur un méli-mélo intime, fait de ruelles, de balcons et de cours arrières. À tous les jours, nous partons à la recherche d’histoires, mon chien et moi, reniflant chaque centimètre de l’antre de cette ville. La poésie n’est pas difficile à trouver entre les longues rangées de clôtures à la peinture craquelante, tapissées d’annonces de toutes sortes, d’abstractions vivement peintes à la bombe, drapées de vignes en cascades. Le résultat est Entre Ville, un projet sur Internet, présenté dans le cadre vernaculaire de mon quartier où la bouffe se sent, où les voisins bruyants et les cordes à linge s’entrecroisent dans la ruelle, une phrase à la fois." J. R. Carpenter, 2006.

LUCKYSOAP.COM/ENTREVILLE
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Yellow Door Reading

I'll be reading at The Yellow Door, Thursday, April 27, 2006

3625 Aylmer (between Pine and Prince Arthur) Tel: 514-398-6243

Doors open 7:00 pm Reading 7:30 pm At the door $5

Poets & Prose Writers & Musicians featured:

J. R. Carpenter Poet, fiction writer & new media artist. A two-time winner of the CBC/QWF Quebec Short Story Competition (2004 & 2006), her short fiction & poetry have been published in journals & anthologies in Canada, US, & UK. More information about her writing and web art projects can be found on Luckysoap.com

Stephen Morrissey Published seven books of poetry & chapbooks. He is a founding member of the Vehicule Poets. He is editor and publisher of www.coraclepress.com Visit the poet: www.stephenmorrissey.ca

Victoria Stanton Performance artist who has presented her work nationally, in the U.S., Europe, Australia & Japan. She is the co-author with Vincent Tinguely of Impure: Reinventing the Word (conundrum press, 2001).

Fortner Anderson Co-founder with Ian Ferrier of the Wired on Words record label. His CD, six silk purses, is forthcoming. Read at the Mondes parallè le 50//litté rature festival in Lille, France.

Talleen Hacikyan Fiction writer & visual artist. First prize winner at the 2005 Victoria School of Writing Postcard Story Competition. Selected for the 2003-2004 QWF Mentorship Program. Short story published in Ararat.

Ilona Martonfi Blue Poppy, a first book of poems TBA published by Coracle (2006.) Published chapbook, Visiting the Ridge (Coracle). Poet, editor, producer/host Yellow Door readings. Co-producer/host of Lovers & Others.

Producer/host Ilona Martonfi Tel/Fax 514-939-4173

www.yellowdoor.org/coffeehouse/spoken_word.html/
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Broken Things Closing Party

Come on out to MOCCA tonight for the closing party of the 19th Annual Images Festival. With DJ Kola. Performance by Tammy Forsythe. Outdoor projections by John Oswald. And me, and How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome.


9-12 pm, MoCCA (952 Queen Street W), FREE
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Public Reception Today at MOCCA

HOW I LOVED THE BROKEN THINGS OF ROME

a a hypertext/ poetry/ video/ installation J. R. Carpenter

Public Reception Today: Saturday April 15, 2 - 6PM

Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen Street W.,Toronto, ON, CANADA

Presented in Association With the 19th Annual imagesFestival

If you can't join us at MOCCA today, you can also visit How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome online any time at: http://luckysoap.com/brokenthings

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Broken Things Now Showing at MOCCA

The broken things of Rome are still broken, but my web/ poetry/ video/ installation How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome is now installed at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, and the show is now showing. Come by, buy a mini-book, browse the site on site, and say hi to me, J.R. Carpenter.


How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome is at MOCCA April 13 - 23, 2006
The Gallery Hours Are: Tuesday - Sunday 11 - 6
I will be at the Public Reception: Saturday April 15, 2 - 6PM
And at the Closing Party: Saturday April 22, 9:30PM

Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen Street W.,Toronto, ON, CANADA

http://luckysoap.com/brokenthings
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Broken Things in Transposing geographies

Transposing geographies: mapping on the internet is NOW ONLINE!
Curated by Christina Battle & Sara MacLean
http://www.imagesfestival.com/2006/transgeo/

Extending beyond traditional modes of mapping, artists featured in this year’s online exhibit utilize the Internet to reconsider their interactions with place. Pulling from personal memories, travels and interactions within cities, contributing artists present opportunities for viewers to move beyond the physical boundaries set by geography. Highlighting the Internet's ability to navigate users through space, Toronto-based twig design has developed an exhibition interface allowing visitors to map their journey from one site to the next.

Works include: "All About My Ho Chung" (Tsang Tsui Shan); "Folk Songs For the Five Points" (Alastair Dant, Tom Favis, Victor Gama & David Gunndate); "How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome" (J.R. Carpenter); "In The Weather" (Melinda Fries and Bonnie Fortune); "New York City Map" (Marketa Bankova); "Radical Cartography: Exploring Nice, Mapping Nice" (Kayte Young & Bill Rankin); "Shadows From Another Place" (Paula Levine).

"How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome" is also on exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA).
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Broken Head

Last night I slept more in total than I have in the past week combined. I don’t remember what I dreamed in these red white and royal blue hotel room walls, but I woke up with orange on the mind, donned my orange hoodie and hiked over to MOCCA to bask in my golden ember walls. Today I learned all about how to get things mounted on foam core. I learned, for example, that foam core comes in black. News to me.

Lunch today was a roti larger than my head. It took me three sittings to finish it, but finish it I did. It entirely reorganized my sinuses, which were discombobulated in the first place. My head cold has progressed to the weepy wacky headache phase, not conducive to eating out in hipster joints. Hipster joints abound in this neck of the west end woods. I hunted down my dinner at the Price Chopper I’ve been hearing so much about out my hotel room window. No great shakes in there, but the prices were indeed chopped. I am enjoying the reclusive living-in-a-hotel-room incommunicado persona, maybe a little too much.

Tomorrow: thirty-one two and one-eighth-inch by two and three-quarter-inch foam core mounted panels meet the laser level. Until then, level headed dreams.
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Building Broken Things

The fabulous folks at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art have put up with countless email and even a few phone calls from me over the past few months, regarding the now very imminent exhibition of How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome. Thank you Dave. Thank you Camilla, and Gina and Chloé. And Mark and José, who I actually got to talk to in person one day in February. Last night I boarded a fast train from Montréal to Toronto. Now, finally, at long last, the last leg of this great adventure is under way.

MOCCA's putting me up in the Gladstone Hotel. The Gladstone is very glam, very post-Victorian. As many of you many know, but I didn’t until MOCCA put me up here, an actual real life artist has designed each of the rooms. I’m in the Biker Room, designed by Toronto-based artist and curator Andrew Harwood. The bedside lamps are made of motorcycle helmets and there are three portraits of Peter Fonda from the film "Easy Rider". The portraits have sequins and glitter on them. The windows open out onto the Price Choppers parking lot – quite a popular hang out from the sounds of things.

This morning, over at MOCCA, I got to unpack a flat-screen monitor that had never been unpacked before. Then my new best friend Hri got out the measuring tape and the masking tape and after a while put some orange paint on the wall. Tomorrow – we tackle shelves and plinths. I learned the word plinth from Mark back in February and now I just love saying and writing it. I can’t wait to actually build one! Actually, Hri is going to build my plinth. Or maybe Marks, who isn't the same as Mark. Either way, a plinth it will be. And a big one too. Until then, sweet easy rider dreams.
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How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome

How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome
a hypertext/ poetry/ video/ installation by

J. R. Carpenter



Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen Street W.,Toronto, ON, CANADA
http://www.mocca.toronto.on.ca

Exhibition: April 13 - 23, 2006
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11 - 6
Public Reception: Saturday April 15, 2 - 6PM
imagesFestival Closing Party: Saturday April 22, 9PM

The artist will be in attendance at these events.

Presented in Association With the 19th Annual imagesFestival
http://imagesfestival.com

How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome is a Web Art Finalist in the Drunken Boat PanLiterary Awards 2006. http://luckysoap.com/brokenthings
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Earthquake Weather

My favorite paragraph of fiction on the topic of earthquake weather was written by Amy Hempel, formerly of Claifornia (see below). My favorite paragraph of non-fiction on on the tipic of earthquake weather was written by John McPhee in his book Assembling California:

"People who live in earthquake country will speak of earthquake weather, which they characterize as very balmy, no winds. With prescient animals and fluctuating water wells, the study of earthquake weather is an a category of precursor that has not attracted funds from the national Science Foundation. Some people say that well water goes down in anticipation of a temblor. Some say it goes up. An ability to sense imminent temblors has been ascribed to snakes, turtles, rats, eels, catfish, weasels, birds, hares, and centipedes. Possible clues in animal behaviour are taken more seriously in China and Japan than they are in the United States, although a scientific paper was published in California Geology in 1988 evaluating a theory that ‘when an extraordinarily large number of dogs and cats are reported in the ‘Lost and found’ section of the Sand Jose Mercury News, the probability of an earthquake striking the area increases significantly.’"

John McPhee, Assembling California, NY: FSG,1993, page 260.


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The Paragraph 101

Here is my favorite paragraph from one of my favorite stories of all time. Amy Hempel says that In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried is the first story she ever wrote. That's either very inspiring or very depressing, depending on what kind of writing day you're having.

"What seems dangerous often is not - black snakes, for example, or clear-air turbulence. While things that just lie there, like this beach, are loaded with jeopardy. A yellow dust rising from the ground, the heat that ripens melons overnight - this is earthquake weather. You can sit here braiding the fringe on your towel and the sand will all of a sudden suck down like an hourglass. The air roars. In the cheap apartments on-shore, bathtubs full themselves and gardens roll up and over like green waves. If nothing happens, the dust will drift and the heat deepen till fear turns to desire. Nerves like that are only brought off by catastrophe."

Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, Reasons to Live, NY: Harper Collins, 1985.
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