Jessica Grant is my new favourite

The final reader at this weekend's Calgary Blow-Out, St. John's native Jessica Grant blew me away with her witty, quick and quirky style.

"The first piece I'm going to read will take about five minutes, and then I'm going to read a second piece which will take about eight minutes.. just so you'll know exactly what is going to happen"

She began her first story, which she thinks, no, she is sure is the first chapter of a novel. We meet a woman who's pet tortoise Winnifred has died. She thinks it has died because Winnifred's head doesn't poke out. After deliberating, she wraps Winnifred in five paper bags and throws her in the garbage bin over the railing. She calls her friend to say that she doesn't have to look after Winnifred anymore, Winnifred is dead.
She arrives at the airport, and while waiting to board remembers hearing that sometimes tortoise's hearts can beat very slowly, about once and hour. Maybe Winniffred wasn't dead! But is dying now in the dumpster... should she go home?
But she can't miss her plane, she has to go see her father who is in a comma, no a coma. She made that mistake yesterday when writing an e-mail. Perhaps Winnifred is in a comma, not a coma. She is in a pause between heart-beats.....

I LOVE it. that's the basic action of the story but the details and tone were hilarious and bittersweet.

Jessica Grant's most recent publication is Making Light of Tragedy Porcupine’s Quill, 2004.

jaunt

Well I'm off for a self-invented long-weekend. It was supposed to be my reward for having figured out exactly what I'm doing with my thesis.... That didn't quite work out, but I get to go anyway. A pre-reward for the work I'll do upon my return. uh huh.

First stop: Banff. Hot springs, hiking, and most importantly, the Banff Centre. Friday is open house day for the Visual Arts, and all summer-residencies are showing their work. Synchronistically, my search for Janet Cardiff lead me here. Her collaboration with George Bures Miller "Forest Walk/House Fire" is currently mounted at the Walter Phillips. The description is unclear, but I'm hoping for another hand-held camera/tour experience.

Then Saturday I'm on to Calgary, where through another bout of synchronicity filling station is hosting the second "Calgary Blow-Out", a who's-who roster of spoken word and sound poetry performances (I know, sounds like a blast right? quite).



Performing Saturday evening:
Paul Kennett
Jane Grove
Christian Bök
Neil Scott
(break, featuring short films by emerging Canadian directors)
Jason Christie
Nikki Reimer
Jessica Grant

Sweet! I'm hoping to be so inspired be the lush beauty of Banff, the multi-disciplinary creativity of Cardiff +Miller, and the intellect of the poetry that my thesis plans will fall perfectly into place.

QUEBEC ORDERED TO PAY FOR WOMEN'S ABORTIONS

The government has been ordered to pay abortion bills for as many as 45,000 women who had abortions in the province. The Superior Court has ordered the Quebec government to repay more than $13 million billed to 45,000 women who paid $200-$300 for authorized abortions outside of the hospital system since 1999. The court said abortions are covered under the Quebec Health Insurance Act, and the women should not have been charged extra. The class-action lawsuit was launched in 2002 by the Association for Access to Abortion.

- Excerpts, Quebec ordered to pay for women's abortions, CanWes, 19 Aug 06.

Very Nice, Very Nice

Classic Canadian short, made entirely of footage that Arthur Lipsett found on the cutting room floor at the NFB.

the anti-love letter

Tired of hearing about how crappy New Brunswick is? Me too. Why are practices that seem so logical as to be automatic, entirely--systematically--overlooked by our Conservative government? (Is the answer in the statement?) Thankfully Lord finally called an election (er, well, he sort of did). I’ll be writing all candidates with a short concise list of the many ways the Conservatives have turned our province into an extremely unwelcoming place to live--for everyone.

1. Instead of legislating mandatory pay equity, they instead proposed a five-year “voluntary” plan, in which businesses can opt to pay women their fair share, if they want to (equal pay for equal labour). The government (a new one) will review the situation in five years to see if anyone actually changed their policies, once all momentum has been lost.

2. Planned Parenthood has just announced that after 34 years, it will be forced to suspend all services in September due to lack of funding, and a lack of doctors to keep the Second Story Health Clinic running. This one makes me sigh very exhaustedly and deeply. Why is women’s health so completely undervalued? no midwives, no abortions, no clinics, no free condoms, no free paps, and hell no there won’t be a free HPV vaccine...

3. Apparently, Saint John has the highest percentage of lone parents living in poverty (60%) of all Canadian cities! Most of them are single mothers, a huge percentage are teen mother’s who are unable to complete their high school education due to lack of daycare, and integrated programs in the schools to assist pregnant/parenting students. 
See Influencing Healthy Public Policy For Pregnant And Parenting Young Women and Closing the Gaps: Ensuring Pregnant Teens and Young Women Succeed

4. Stop violating the Canada Health Act: PROVIDE abortion services. FUND abortions. It’s really that straightforward.

Funny how all our problems seem to be related.

on the importance of reading: tag, I'm it!

I got this list of question off a. raw's blog:

1. one book that changed your life:
Daughters of Copperwoman “by” Anne Cameron

(I’m going to squeeze in Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Brave New World, and Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke). All read when I was 13-14, and pivotal in shaping my ideas on time, womanliness, and multiple realities. I must include them all; they’re a cocktail of my burgeoning.
Hmmm. I think I should scrap all of my theory-reading and get back to my beginnings in Sci Fi and Fantasy.

2. one book you’ve read more than once:
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion."

3. one book that has made you cry: (newly remembered question)
"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
I FINALLY read the Bell Jar this year. It's a phenomenal read, but I'm glad I didn't read it until now; I wasn't ready until now. You need to already know that you're of sound intelligence, that you're work/creativity/passions are valued (by you mostly, but also the community), and that you can do WHATEVER you want. These are things a woman must know. Plath only half-knew these things, in a time when all society told her the opposite.

The book affirms all we know about the relations of talented & brilliant woman and men, and who gets short-changed in that equation (for those who don't know, it's the one who drives herself nuts taking care of children in the remote English country-side [while hubby-poet snogs first-years] and solves the problem by sticking her head in an oven).
Multiply by Elizabeth Smart, and, well, its horrifying how mothering/creating/success was so stymied for so many women. At least Smart survived. Is it different now?

So, in answer to this question of crying: In "The Bell Jar" Plath survives her first case of suicide and institutionalization; I the reader know that after this novel was lived she entered two more time-tested institutions: Academia and Marriage.
They destroyed her. and I cried and cried.

4. one book that made you giddy:
Eunoia by Christian Bok, especially in performance, espacially Chapter U.
“Ubu cups Lulu’s dugs; Ubu rubs Lulu’s buns; thus Lulu must pull Ubu’s pud...Ubu stuffs Ruth’s bum (such fun).”

5. one book that you wish had been written:
“How to have Children and Tenure within the Next 10 Years of My Life: an Explanatory Guide and Timeline”.

6. one book you wish had never been written:
Science of Survival by L. Ron Hubbard (1951)

7. one book you’re currently reading:
Quantum Feminist Mnemotechnics by Carolyn Guertin (Ph.D Dissertation 2003). This is what I keep trying to start as research for my thesis.
I actually just finished Chris Kraus’s Aliens and Anorexia, and I Love Dick

8. one book you’ve been meaning to read:
Silence by John Cage - it’s been sitting neglected on my shelf since fall 2004.

Please listen to Cage's story about translating a Basho poem about Mushrooms. pine mushroom. ignorance. leaf of tree. adhesiveness.

9. now tag people.
Christina and Sean, Leslie, Martha, and Morgan

**All welcome to post their answers!**