lapsus linguae

WORDS THE DOG KNOWS – Toronto Launch – Monday, November 17, 2008

We invite you to join us in celebration of the publication of Emily Holton’s latest book, Dear Canada Council/Our Starland (Montreal: Conundrum Press) and J.R. Carpenter’s first novel, Words the Dog Knows (Montreal: Conundrum Press). Animations, music, and two beautiful books – take your pick! – they’re all great excuses to come drink too much in Parkdale on a Monday night.

A This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Conundrum Press and EYE WEEKLY.

Monday, November 17, 2008, 7:00pm
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON

J. R. Carpenter’s long-awaited first novel Words the Dog Knows follows the paths of a quirky cast of characters through the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal. Theo and Simone set about training Isaac the Wonder Dog to: sit, come, stay. Meanwhile, he has fifty girlfriends to keep track of and a master plan for the rearrangement of every stick in every alleyway in Mile End. He introduces Theo and Simone to their neighbours. He trains them to see with the immediacy of a dog’s-eye-view. Words the Dog Knows isn’t a story about a dog. It’s a story because of a dog. Walking though the the jumbled intimacy of Montreal’s back alleyways day after day, Theo and Simone come to see their neighbourhood and each other in a whole new way. For more information on Words the Dog Knows please visit: http://luckysoap.com/stories/wordsthedogknows.html

Emily Holton’s novella Dear Canada Council is an illustrated plea for plane tickets, in which the narrator details her plans to “found a town”. Complete with Incas, crickets, and a small family of deaf-mutes, her written request doubles as what also might be the craziest love poem you’ve ever read. Awestruck and sleepless in Hamilton, she is haunted by visions of celebrity reporter Brian Linehan, obsessed with a young boy she saw once on the TV news, and just wants to do better, get married, and wear a sash, a red mayor’s sash. Can’t Canada Council help her out? // Emily Holton’s Our Starland is a novella broken into small, dreamy pieces. Flash by flash, its pieces ferry a cast of characters through a season as they navigate the fruit picking diaspora of the Okanagan Valley. Hitchhiking, nightwalking, these characters remember the constellations wrong, leave their daughters alone, and sleep outside, once again, but with a sleeping bag this time. For more information on Dear Canada Council / Our Starland please visit: http://www.conundrumpress.com/nt_holton2.html

J. R. Carpenter: http://luckysoap.com
Emily Holton: http://www.emilyholton.com
Conundrum Press: http://conundrumpress.com
THIS IS NOT A READING SERIES: http://www.pagesbooks.ca/events.php

So many dear friends turned out for the NYC and Montreal launches we can’t wait to take the show on the road. Here’s some of the fun we’ve had so far:

NYC launch at KGB Bar, Thursday October 23, 2008

Montreal at Sky Blue Door, Friday November 7, 2008
Maya Merrick at the he Book Table

Montreal at Sky Blue Door, Friday November 7, 2008
We love you Andy Brown.

Montreal at Sky Blue Door, Friday November 7, 2008

Montreal at Sky Blue Door, Friday November 7, 2008
It’s this much fun!
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Easter Bunny of the Apocalypse

Sun blows snow through a hole in slate grey sky.
The highway glows, a wet, white-light tunnel.
We speed toward the apocalypse –
Alexis riding shotgun, me at the wheel.

So, there’s snow during the apocalypse…
Um, I hate to break it to you, but that’s ash,
From all the bodies. Burning in Hell.
Oh. What do I know?

The answers to two of the Four Questions:
On this night we eat only unleavened bread,
and bitter herbs remind us of our slavery.
But about Easter? I know very little.

On Good Friday a Jewish friend takes me to
a dance show called The Screaming Popes.
We drive the costume designer around town,
pestering her with Christianity questions:

So what happens on Good Friday?
Jesus gets crucified.
Why do they call it Good then?
Shouldn’t it be Bad Friday, Sad Friday?

Total Bummer, That Really Sucks Friday.
What Are We Going To Do Now Friday.
Are the stores open on Friday?
And if so, what time do they close?

Saturday night at The Communist’s Daughter
a jazzy trio plays in the window.
The bartender is also the singer
and all four tables are full.

So why is this night different from all other nights?
After the last trumpet solo the place empties out.
Surely Easter and its opiates have no sway
over Communist’s Daughter patrons?

It’s the biggest game of the year,
I explain to an American friend, who’s also a writer.
He lives in Toronto now, but can’t root for the Leafs.
Not least of all for grammatical reasons.

Despite much beer drinking and yelling
Easter Monday brings no resurrection
for either the Habs or the Leaves.
Hockey fans hang their heads.

And where does the Easter Bunny fit into all this?
Surely, when giant bunnies lay chocolate eggs
and then hide them from children
the end times are near.

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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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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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