on palimpsests and the inter-web

After I had the great fortune to attend five or so days of VIWF (Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival) 2008 and blog about it, I began to have serious literary blogging withdrawal.


But then I thought, I have a blog. I go to stuff. I've got a shitty Canon PowerShot A530 digi-cam. Why not write about the readings and launches I attend? Wow! I thought. Why didn't I think of that before?

Ergo:


Front Row, l to r: Betsy Warland, Peter Quartermain, Roy Miki
Second Row, l to r: Pauline Butling, Fred Wah

On October 28th at the Helen Pitt Art Gallery, Oana Avasilichioaei launched feria: a poempark, with readings by Jeff Derksen, Meredith Quartermain and Jen Currin.

feria: a poempark uses Vancouver’s Hastings Park as its palimpsest. Park and book coincide, layering landscape, history, architecture, exploring what is natural, what is language and whose voices are we listening to.

This evening was palimpsest upon palimpsest, which included the screening of a short film by Thierry Collins (view here) and a performance by the evening's host/curator Michael Turner. Turner enacted a palimpsest on Oana's last name by writing the topography of Vancouver over it, a delicious and appropriate moment.



Turner also invited the audience to win a prize by naming another landmark palimpsest in Vancouver, which seems to be his wont. The Woodwards Building is of course the most obvious, but a clever woman several rows back mentioned the Bomax sign (once the biggest neon sign in North America, now partially obscured by a Toys"R"Us sign) on Broadway.

If I'd been on the ball, I might have mentioned a further palimpsest of the Bomax sign in Vancouver band Young & Sexy's song "The City You Live in is Ugly," (lyric: They covered up the Bomax sign/With Toys R Us you didn't make a fuss/But now you're regretting it) which incidentally is the first tune I'd heard that exactly mirrored my own ambivalence towards this godforsaken port town that I'd willingly moved to.....



I digress, I digress.

Good city poems by Jeff Derksen



Jen Currin



Meredith Quartermain



and of course Ms. Oana Avasilichioaei



I really enjoyed feria, but can't speak to it more here, as I've already lent it to CBC media archivist extraordinaire / Vancouver history afficionado Colin Preston. You may be able to track him down at the Heart of the City festival to ask him what he thinks.