blog

What Comes after Pain? Gendered Embodiment and Temporality in Chronic Pain Memoirs

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:19:10 +0100

This is interesting. If I didn't have to work I would go.

Public Lecture: Professor Leigh Gilmore

86 million people worldwide have been diagnosed as

suffering from chronic pain, and the number is rising. As

chronic pain has increased, memoirs about the experience

have begun to appear. This talk examines a cluster of

chronic pain memoirs as a site for negotiating agency in the

face of irremediable pain, and the interleaving at this site of

biomedicine and narrative structure. Autobiography studies

and feminist posthumanism help to frame this inquiry into

the figuration of gendered embodiment and temporality in

chronic pain memoirs.

Fri October 14 th

1 PM

Ike Barber Learning

Center Room 355

Snacks provided

INFO: janice.stewart@ubc.ca

Human cruelty in the name of science

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:22:24 +0100

This is bullshit:

Stop UBC Animal Research’s months-long investigation of UBC has revealed disturbing details about the university's research. For instance, one UBC researcher has experimented on cats for 30 years. In his papers, the researcher described how he had cut open the backs of cats to expose their vertebrae, inserted titanium screws into the cats' spinal columns to inhibit movement, and built restraint chambers around the cats' exposed vertebra to give researchers access to the cats' spinal columns and to fix the animals in a sitting position for recording sessions.

(From Stop UBC Animal Research Press Release)

Support Stop UBC Animal Research.

This Is East Van at the the Make It! Show!

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:17:46 +0100

I have been oh so busy and totes not keeping up with this blog. But amidst various other projectories, I am please to announce that the This Is East Van photobook, which features a photo of my dearest late Baba at the old Hatch (now Rhizome Cafe) can be viewed and purchased the Make It! Vancouver fair, on now at the Croatian Cultural Centre.

Deets from TIEV website:

Join THIS IS EAST VAN April 15 - 17 at the Make It! Show.

We couldn't think of a better place than the Spring Make It! show to premier the THIS IS EAST VAN book. Join us this coming wekend, have a glass of wine, and buy a book or two!

Make It is devoted to creating positive opportunities for artists, and designers. On the flip side, Make It is a shopping event that gives enlightened shoppers the opportunity to buy unique, ethically made goods from top artisans from all over Canada...what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Check out the Make It! website for all the details:
http://makeitproductions.com/vancouver/welcome-to-make-it/

I am hoping to Make It! down there either this afternoon or tomorrow......

m. nourbeSe PHILIP: Tuesday March 8 at KSW!

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:53:49 +0100

I can't make this due to a work commitment. But you should totally go.

m. nourbeSe PHILIP

Tuesday March 8, 2011

W2 Community Meeting Space, Woodward's Heritage Building

111 W Hastings St. - Suite 250

Doors 7, Reading 7:30

M. NourbeSe Philip is a poet, writer, and lawyer who lives in the City of Toronto. She was born in Tobago and now lives in Canada. She is the author of She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks (1988), Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (1991), Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture (1992), A Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays (1997), Coups and Calypsos (2001), and many other works. Her most recent book, Zong! (2008), uses only language taken from the Gregson v. Gilbert decision, a 1783 legal case resulting from the deliberate drowning of 150 slaves. Among her many accolades, Philip is the winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize, the Tradewinds Collective Prize, the Lawrence Foundation Award, the Toronto Arts Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

presented by the Kootenay School of Writing

*+*+*+*+*+*+*

Thank you to the Canada Council of the Arts for its support of this reading.

The Capilano Review 3.13 Manifestos Now! Launch |Feb. 22, VAG

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:08:50 +0100

Announcing The Capilano Review

3.13 Manifestos Now!

This special issue of Canadian and international manifestos—including work from Christian Bök, Marie-Hélène Tessier, Sabine Bitter/Helmut Weber, Gregory Betts, Derek Beaulieu, Frank Davey, Hadley+Maxwell, and more—examines and revives the manifesto genre in a contemporary context.

Join us at the Vancouver Art Gallery

as we launch our issue with readings by Colin Browne, Margot Leigh Butler, Reg Johanson, Brenn Kapitan, Kim Minkus, Phoenix, Nikki Reimer, Sheila Ross, Edward Top, and more . . .

February 22, 2011, Readings at 8 pm

We will gather in the exhibition rooms for the Vancouver Art Gallery’s own ‘WE: Vancouver – 12 Manifestos for the City.’ Between 7 and 8 pm, VAG curators will offer a tour of their Manifestos exhibition. Between 8 and 9 pm, readers from TCR's Manifestos Now! Issue will perform. The event is open to all by donation.

and at the Teck Gallery

Opening Reception and Panel Discussion

March 3, 2011 at 7 pm

Room 7000, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings, Vancouver

Selected contributors to TCR's Manifestos Now! issue are being exhibited by SFU's Teck Gallery. On March 3 we will celebrate the exhibition at a reception and panel discussion with Brian Ganter, Lisa Robertson, Marie-Hélène Tessier, Pierre Coupey, and Reg Johanson. The panel will be followed by a walking tour of the exhibition, which runs from February 22-May 27.

Open Letter to Premier Campbell regarding the Howling Dog Tours / Outdoor Adventures Sled Dog Cull

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:15:08 +0100

A version of this letter has been sent to the Globe, the Sun, the Province, the Times Colonist.

Thanks to Kulpreet Singh's 12 Steps You Can Take post and Julia Trop's Dog Sled Cull post.

--------

February 1, 2011

Premier Gordon Campbell

RE: Howling Dog Tours / Outdoor Adventures Sled Dog Cull

I am deeply concerned about the recent execution of 100 dogs by Whistler sled dog company Howling Dog Tours. I believe that you were as distressed and horrified as I was to learn that these perfectly healthy animals were cruelly and inhumanely slaughtered when they ceased to be economically beneficial to the company.

I am an animal lover and I believe that all sentient beings should be treated with respect and should be allowed to live free of pain and unneccessary suffering. I am writing to you today to ask that you take steps to ensure that such a horrific act does not happen again.

The first thought that I had, upon recovering from my emotional distress at this news, was that these types of cruelties are perhaps inevitable whenever we use animals as an economic driver.

The second thought was that our provincial/federal animal cruelty laws are weak; therefore travesties like this will continue to occur.

Finally, I find it despicable that the individual in question obeyed the apparent command by his employer to cull the dogs, rather than seeking outside assistance. As has been noted in the media, surely rescue groups would have stepped in to help, had they known? I would like to believe that had it been me, I would have alerted the media rather than be responsible for such suffering. The fact that the public has learned of this due to the worker’s WorkSafe BC claim, rather than a whistleblower, is also disheartening.

However, in addition to trying to change hearts and minds around the subject of animal welfare, we need our government to enact strong laws to back us up.

Therefore the questions that I have to ask of you today are:

1) How soon will you be regulating this industry to ensure this doesn't happen again?

2) What are you going to do to ensure that there are high standards of animal care in this province?

3) Why has the province not reinstated public funding for the BC SPCA?

I thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Nikki Reimer
Vancouver, BC

CC: BC MLAS; Whistler Town Council; Whistler Tourism; The Globe and Mail; Times Colonist; The Vancouver Sun; The Vancouver Province

Blackout, Revisited | Enpipe Line, Enacted

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 04:38:44 +0100

Posted 1/24/11 on Lemon Hound.

The current issue of Vancouver lit magazine Subterrain has published essays by writers Elizabeth Bachinsky and Alex Leslie on their BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR project, an erasure-as-intervention experimental poetry response to the Vancouver Olympics on which I posted last February. The poems, created by visitors to the bar during the 14 day Olympic occupation, were unable to be printed in Subterrain due to "copyright concerns," however Alex has posted a sampling, of which the above is borrowed, on her blog.

January feels like a blackout.

But I'm kept upright by the political energy and activism of the poets around me, like Christine Leclerc and her Enpipeline Project, a 1,173km poem involving collaboration from poets and writers around the world. There is a thoughtful interview with Christine about the project by Daniel Zomparelli over on his Geist blog.

(Disclosure: The writers I reference in this post are all people I consider friends, as well as colleagues. And for this I consider myself fortunate.)

Screaming Weenie's Clean Sheets 2011

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:27:47 +0100

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07 December 2010

Screaming Weenie's CLEAN SHEETS 2011 Announced

VANCOUVER, BC - Screaming Weenie Productions is pleased to announce the 2011
edition of our Clean Sheets annual development series of original
Queer-themed plays. Screaming Weenie's Clean Sheets will take place in
August at the Roundhouse Performance Centre in Vancouver as part of the 2011
Queer Arts Festival.

Curated by Vancouver theatre artists Seán Cummings and C. E. Gatchalian,
Screaming Weenie's Clean Sheets features up to four plays selected from an
open, nationwide call for submissions. Each script will be workshopped with
a professional dramaturge and actors, followed by a staged reading.

The 2009 and 2010 editions included playwrights from Eastern, Western and
Northern Canada. Participating artists included Jan Derbyshire, Dean Paul
Gibson, James Fagan Tait, Lesley Ewen, Ilena Lee Cramer, Seán Cummings,
Heather Lindsay, Hamza Adam, Siobhan Barker, Marci T House, Liza Huget,
Damian Rumph, Emelia Symington Fedy, Jack Paterson, Daryl King, Christina
Schild and Adrienne Wong.

Deadline for submissions must be post-dated no later than 15 February, 2011.

Details and application guidelines posted on-line at screamingweenie.com
<http://www.screamingweenie.com/>

Screaming Weenie's mission is to produce and promote Queer and sex-positive
performance, to support a strong Queer cultural community, and to create
greater positive public awareness and acceptance of Queer individuals and
groups outside of sex and gender norms. We are committed to the development
of sexual and/or gender Queer artists, and are actively inclusive of all
gender identities, sexualities and ethnicities.

-30-

For more information, contact Seán Cummings directly at

778.840.7132 or sean@screamingweenie.com

Failure! (I did not read 95 books this year)

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:42:12 +0100

I was the desperate little caboose (with a giant caboose) trying to think his way to the top of the mountain….alas, alack. I failed. I spent too much time on the internets, likely, and not enough focused time inside a book. There’s always next year, yes?

My last three:

83. The Obituary by Gail Scott.

Like, fuck, yeah. Again. More. Again.

84. Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed by Jacob Wren

Narrative how narrative was meant to be written, and read. Brutally darkly comic indictment of the political left’s successes and failures. Starkly realistic depiction of human sexual interaction and its fallouts.

85. Poets and Killers: A Life in Advertising by Helen Hajnoczky

Perfect tonic for anyone blindly drunk on Mad Men’s gin.

-Nikki

Here is my list:

Prismatic Publics – Ed. Heather Milne & Kate Eichhorn
Mommy Must Be a Mountain of Feathers – Kim Hyesoon, Trans. Don Mee Choi
Open Letter 13^th Series, Number 9, Summer 2009. ‘Beyond Stasis: Poetics & Feminism Today.’
Home On the Range (The Night Sky with Stars in My Mouth) – Tenney Nathanson
The Dog Who Rescues Cats: The True Story of Ginny – Philip Gonzalez & Leonore Fleischer
Remember to Wave – Kaia Sand
The Value of Nothing – Raj Patel
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual – Michael Pollan
Vancouver Special – Charles Demers
Maximum Gaga – Lara Glenum
Hegemonic Love Potion – Jules Boykoff
Tove Jannson – Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 1
Tove Jannson – Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 2
Tove Jannson – Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Volume 3
Automaton Biographies – Larissa Lai
Man and his Symbols – edited with an introduction by Carl G. Jung
Radi os – Ronald Johnson
The Others Raisd in Me – Gregory Betts
God of Missed Connections – Elizabeth Bachinsky
More House – Hannah Calder
Andre Kertesz, The Early Years
Neighbour Procedure – Rachel Zolf
The Inquisition Yours – Jen Currin
The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy, Ed. Charles Bernstein
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women – Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
White Shirt – Laurie MacFayden
Adebe D.A. – Ex Nihilo
Fallacies of Motion – William Nichols
Standoff Terrain – Jocko Benoit
Attenuations of Force – Lori Cayer
Falling Blues – Jannie Edwards
Learning to Count – Douglas Burnet Smith
Children of Ararat – Keith Garebian
Confessions of an Empty Purse – S. McDonald
Women and Madness – Phyllis Chesler
Precordial Thump – Zoe Whittall
The Underachiever’s Manifesto – Ray Bennett, M.D.
Light Sweet Crude – Nancy Shaw & Catriona Strang
The Laundromat Essay – Kyle Buckley
Why Are You Laughing? Open Letter Fourteenth Series Number 2 Edited by Jonathan Ball and Ryan Fitzpatrick
The Selves – Sonja Ahlers
Plummet – Chris Nealon
The Joyous Age – Chris Nealon
How to Write – derek beaulieu
Joy is So Exhausting – Susan Holbrook
The Sorrow and the Fast of It – Nathalie Stephens
R’s Boat – Lisa Robertson
Television – Jacques Lacan
The Prescription Errors – Charles Demers
Dupe! – Jonathon Wilcke
Presocratic Blues – Joel Bettridge
Voodoo Heart – Scott Snyder
Decompositions – Ken Belford
Bardy Google – Frank Davey
The Rose Concordance – Angela Carr
feria: a poempark – Oana Avasilichioaei
The Age of Briggs & Stratton – Peter Culley
Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot – Nicole Markotic
Sweet – Dani Couture
Troubled – R.M. Vaughn
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
Body Breakdowns: Tales of Illness + Recovery Ed. Janis Harper
7 Chapbooks: What Is Venice by Louis Cabri; --that can't by Louis Cabri; The Last Narrative of Mrs. David Thompson, ed. by Robert Kroetsch; Ten Simple Questions for David Thompson, recorded by Robert Kroetsch; Abandon, ed. by Natalie Simpson; Predictions Vancouver 01.31.2010: 5th annual pooka poetry pub crawl, ed. by Warren Dean Fulton; escraches - Reg Johanson
The Certainty Dream – Kate Hall
S*PeRM**K*T – Harryette Mullen
Real Phonies: Cultures of Authenticity in Post-World War II America by Abigail Cheever
The Hayflick Limit – Matthew Tierney
Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth – Steve Pavlina
How to be Idle – Tom Hodgkinson
Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America – Barbara Ehrenreich
Curves to the Apple – Rosmarie Waldrop
declining america – Rob Budde
ex machina – Jonathan Ball
Quarter-Life Crisis: Only the Good Die Yung – Evan Munday
Unleashed – Sina Queyras
Game Show Reversed – kevin mcpherson eckhoff
Indexical Elegies – Jon Paul Fiorentino
Inventory – Marguerite Pigeon
ecologue – Ken Belford
Every Day in the Morning (Slow) – Adam Seelig
Recipes From The Red Planet – Meredith Quartermain
Clockfire – Jonathan Ball
The Obituary – Gail Scott
Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed – Jacob Wren
Poets and Killers: A Life in Advertising – Helen Hajnoczky

Jordan Scott: Flub and Utter

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:07:57 +0100

Posted to Lemon Hound on Monday, December 13

'Tis mid-December, several days till solstice, several more days till the Festival of Plastic. I've spent the day in a mild state of panic, wrapping various locally-purchased, artist/isan-made items in locally-purchased brown kraft paper to stuff in my suitcase, as if any of that can absolve my participation in the annual consumer-capitalist wet dream. This is the opposite of poetry.

Here's some actual poetry, conceived and filmed by the National Film Board of Canada: an interactive film featuring Jordan Scott's Blert. It is titled Flub and Utter, a poetic memoir of the mouth.

It, like Scott's poetry, is crunchy, tactile, delicious.