On Apples, and poetry
October 26, 2007
W hat is Apple corp. waiting for? The Canadian Dollar is $1.04 this morning. And an iBook is still $150-$200 more in Canada than in the US. I for one (of many, I hope) will not be buying Canadian! Na-ga-da! Not in this lifetime. Not until there's some sort of explanation that makes sense...Dear Apple, Suck it up and adjust your goddamned prices to reflect the state of our dollars. You wouldn’t drag your heels like this if the Canadian dollar was going the other way, would you? Want a quick fix? Let me buy my new Mac at apple.com, instead of apple.ca. But Apple is silent. They say nothing. DO nothing. Everything's fine. Canada has the population of California. We don't matter a rat's ass. Except, the next time I'm evern remotely close to the US border, that's where I'll be picking up my new Mac.
Congratulations to my friend, fellow writer, poet, lover of mountains, Paulette Dubé, on the publication of her new book of poems: "first mountain". One-hundred and eighty-three meditations on mountains -- a lovely human path through granite and pine, past moose and raven -- noticing everything. Rush out and pick this one up before it wins the Griffin.
AND, the Raving Poets have come up with yet another incredibly stupid name to launch their seventh incredible season of poetic acrobatics. “Space Monkey; the series, as a name for open-stage poetry sessions with improvised live music, rivals Pig Poetry, an earlier incarnation,” says Thomas Trofimuk, one of the founding organizers. “But the song remains the same; unpredictable, scintillating, titillating, provocative, and risky. This is still entertaining poetry, performed without a net.”
The Raving Poets movement mixes spoken word with live music in a lounge on Whyte Avenue. Every Wednesday for the six weeks, the Raving Poets Band interacts with a ragtag group of poets, writers, lovers of wine and verse, in the Kasbar Lounge under Yianni’s Taverna on Edmonton’s famous Whyte Avenue.
“I have no idea what the term space monkey means,” Trofimuk says. “Though, I think all the space monkeys died. I think the idea of sending a sock puppet into space is poetic as hell.”
the days
daylight hesitates at late-October, can’t
find her socks, or money for coffee. Is late,
late, late. But this darkness is welcome
through the window. Gentle in my eyes.
There’s a skiff of something resembling snow
on the car. Not enough to scrap, or brush, but…
On 97th Street, daughter is colouring over an
article on the state of our education system
with a yellow highlighter. She thinks it’s cool
that you can still see the words underneath – wonders
about the big “W”. “Drop cap,” I say. “A fancy way
to make a visual break.” “Cool,” she says.
Five minutes later, I’m ruminating over trees. This long line
of old elms showing their boulevard bones, ready now
for the white days and months. An awareness of seasons,
of the passage of time slices through this grey brain. These
every-days are the special ones, the ones that make a life.
This pre-coffee mind sees the importance of days.
Not the special occasions, not Thanksgiving, nor Halloween,
nor Christmas, none of these markers are as important
as the ordinary, dark-morning, bird-song days.
Days like this –
stuck near the end of October,
with a gift of dancing snow flakes,
and sunlight, only a low-angled dream.
Walking from the car to school, I hug her close,
pull her tight to my hip – pay attention to where she is,
the pull of blood on this river-stone heart,
and there is bliss in this hug.
the river was green
when I first arrived but now,
is covered with ice