Book Thugs Disturbing the Peace

Okay, so the diplomatic corp didn't show up last night. There was no red carpet, just red wine. But Ottawa's finest did show up - at least for part of Gustave Morin's reading in the park just across the street of Richard Fitzpatrick's Books. I don't know if it was the large, assembled crowd standing together ominously in the middle of the night, the vociferously shouted poetry, or it just may have been the fireworks set off on the sidewalk. It's events like this that urge me to be a Book Thug Dead Head and follow this troupe to their Kingston show this evening, but like the responsible adult that I am, I have to do my taxes tonight. I'm just a wuss that way.

I am sure that rob mclennan and Amanda Earl will have a few comments about Jay MillAr's roving band of poets. Looking forward to reading them. Also, I will post some photos (surprise) from the event. Hope they turn out alright.

I picked up some awesome publications last night: DfB handed out the latest delicious issue of fhole number 8 which I have a couple of photos from the bill bissett reading at jwcurry's place. jwcurry, who also performed a david uu piece, sold copies of his latest Industrial Sabotage #62. Incidentally contains a piece by Krafty Karnal aka david uu. In a bit of poetic excess I also picked up three separate editions of david uu's Before the Golden Dawn: The Weed/Flower Press signed edition; Daniel f. Bradley's re-issue care of jwcurry's curvd h&z imprint, and also the hard covered, numbered and signed limited ed. A nice set.

Morin's copy of sun kissed oranges caught my eye on the book shelf, too. He produced this note pad style book with Sergio Forest back in 1995. I noticed that his 'derail' piece is in there, which also makes an appearance in Shift & Switch (poetry anthology launched last winter). Like some of the pieces that appear in the anthology, it's better reproduced in the original work. Forest's accompanying text is:

derail.
laugh track
train track
laugh
train
laugh

Finally, I received up my hand-delivered subscription package of Jay MillAr's lastest Book Thug publications. They are beautiful productions and aesthetically very pleasing to the eye.
And I now get the reference to Gustave Morin's white pins that he gave out last night... teb as in The Etcetera Barbeque which has the punctuation images of ". / / ." dot slash slash dot. It's Gus's latest publication and has Homage Volker Nix on the page following the full title page. You can view some more of Volker Nix's visual pieces on D. Ross Priddle's bentspoon weblog. According to one post found on the net, 'Volker Nix' is a pseudonym of Gus Morin...

Gregory Betts' Haikube also a Book Thug publication is particularly pleasing to the eye. It's an interesting production derived from a cubed haiku block. I particularly like:

these voices fill
poems like tongues
in open mouth

but... you really have to see the image on the printed page.

Book Thugs milling about


Gustave Morin disturbs the piece/peace.


Gustave Morin's fireworks