Jacob Scheier, interviewed by rob mclennan

my friend Jacob is interviewed here by rob mclennan on poetry and the work of making work.

Canzine round-up

So Canzine was a rousing success today… although i got there at 11:10 and found the entire main floor booked with tablers already, so i didn’t get a coveted main-floor position. (Set-up begins at 11:00. if you know anything about the Gladstone hotel, you’ll know the ballroom / melody bar area is a pretty big space! apparently people had been lining up outside at 10:00 a.m, due to not remembering the time change.) I sold a lot of Do You Like What You See?, and think that having anything referencing Craigslist is something that sells. I was joking with my friend afterwards that I need to write poetry about other popular cultural touchstones to get my work picked up. Ah, the curse of being a poet.

I have to say, showing up to so many tablers this a.m sort of boggled me, and made me think the event has really outgrown the Gladstone in some respects. The editor of Broken Pencil walked by our table, which was in a stairwell, and made some joke about how they really should have tried to fit another table there, as well. I’ve come to expect these events to be packed, but it seemed triple-padded with tables in a lot of areas, leaving folks little room – or poorly lit room – to move around. I’m trying to think of an appealing solution, but holding something like this at an arena loses its appeal. However, the more cramped you are, the less people are actually going to browse and read and engage, so something’s got to give.

I didn’t see a lot of familiar faces this time around. I’ve been doing Canzine for probably about 7 years (I just did the math. Eep.), so I’ve seen a fair shift – a switch in locations, an entire renovation of a hotel, a massive growing of the event, but have had a bit of a community of folks I can count out to run into… but I missed Great Worm and Kim Kutner today, among other folks.

It was nice to see a whole Montreal contingent out, folks and work I’d seen at the Queer Zine Fair in Montreal this summer, like The St. Emilie Skillshare and Amber. There were also a shit-ton of media students and reporters out and our table seemed to be parked right by a press hub, so there’s probably a few photos making their way into the blogosphere of me staring off into space, slack-jawed and knitting.

CANZINE – Nov 1

come and see me at Canzine next weekend! I’ll have the usual knitted critters for sale, as well as some new zine projects. drop by and say hello!

Sunday, November 1, 2009
1pm – 7pm
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St. West (Queen just East of Dufferin)
Toronto

$5 admission

new zine: DO YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?

hot off the presses!

after a stint of time spent cruising the internet looking for romance and amusement, the desperation and desire i noticed in the ads i trawled became fixating points i wanted to play with, and riff on. so here’s ‘do you like what you see?’, a zine of found poems culled and created from toronto’s w4w section on craigslist from the past 2 months.

these are 2$, and you can order one from me at bitsofstring@yahoo.ca

Here’s a sample page.

collectorama

i’m doing a lecture / talk at the collectorama salon on Sept 19th. The exhibit focuses on collections and the compulsion to collect, and my talk examines a series of items from the house of my paternal grandmother. I’m addressing the wavering reliability of memory through doodling, and talking about the process of imbuing objects that one has no relationship to with meaning. Please come!

COLLECTORAMA
an afternoon event being held in conjunction with Other People’s Collections

Saturday, September 19 2009, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Collectorama will bring together a variety of artists, experts and enthusiasts to expose the overwhelming! modest! boring! idiosyncratic! populist! embarrassing! enviable! professional! amateur! imaginary! real! contemporary! historical! rare! huge! and ordinary! sides of collecting and collections in a mock-symposium setting.

OCAD Graduate Gallery
205 Richmond Street
Toronto, Ontario

Free

womanking

my friend lauren’s partner has built this new website, womanking, to focus on promoting art from trans communities. you should contact him and contribute! laoh’s work is beautiful. and hey, how awesome would it be to have another clearinghouse of artistic brilliance online, with an array of contributors?

(he’s also selling some pretty fantastic tshirts, too.)

polaroid postcard project

TORONTONIANS:

an acquaintance forwarded me the link to this new blog project, where you submit a postcard story, get your portrait taken and record a reading of your own story and someone else’s. the project – where your story is then posted with the portrait, and your reading of your story is synched up with someone else’s reading of your story – is pretty cool-sounding, and i can’t wait to see the results. i saw some of the other polaroids and read another story along with mine when the woman running the project met with me to record. it felt sort of strange to read someone else’s words and realize our voices were going to be layered together – very intimate. you should submit, too!

queer between the covers – aug 15!

I’m tabling at Pervers/Cité, Montreal’s alternative Pride celebrations this year, at the Queer Between the Covers book fair. It’ll be the first time I’ve been back to the city in two years – come by and say hello! The fair is from 12-5 @ 1710 beaudry, metro beaudry.

she’s shameless book launch – this tuesday!

my story ‘this is not from a place of perfect memory’ got published in a book just out by shameless magazine. this tuesday, there’s a book launch at the gladstone… the reading line-up looks great, and there’s a pseudo-90s-prom-themed party afterwards. i will be there to gawk and gape at the book that has my story in it, and i may wear something fancy. i may even drink a drink! come out and celebrate with me, if you can, please! let’s do some dancing to dance mix 1994.

s
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 8:00pm

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen St West
Toronto, ON

SHE’S SHAMELESS / SHE’S WRITING
What media event five years ago transformed the lives of teenaged girls across North America? Here’s a clue: it had nothing to do with a boy wizard or the misadventures of trust fund brats. In June of 2004, Shameless, a magazine for “girls who get it”, first appeared on newsstands. Megan Griffith-Greene and Stacey May Fowles have assembled She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back (Tightrope Books). To celebrate the launch of the inaugural Shameless collection, such contributors as Zoe Whittall and Shannon Gerard will perform short pieces. Five teenaged girls will join them on-stage and present monologues from a writing workshop conducted that afternoon by acclaimed writer Ibi Kaslik. The evening will conclude with an early ‘90s-themed, Sadie Hawkins prom, featuring a noted local DJ. – A This is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Tightrope Books, Shameless, NOW Magazine, Gladstone Hotel and Take Five On CIUT.

Sarah Does the Toronto Small Press Fair

(like ‘Debbie Does Dallas’, but with better dialogue and more social awkwardness)

I’ll be at a booth selling most of my zine wares, coupled with knitted monsters and calls for submission for an upcoming zine project.

Come by! Say hi! Maybe buy things! Watch me interact weirdly with people! It’ll be a good time, I promise. See you soon.

Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON

Saturday, June 13, 2009 – 9-5 p.m