ReallyGoodWriter | Food • Writing • Poetry Iambic Cafe

food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Have received a couple of notices now about the Google Book settlement. Anyone who owns a US copyright interest in a book that might be included in Google’s mass digitization enterprise (apparently this is any US author (or heirs) and any author (or heirs) whose country has copyright agreements with the US = so, just about every published person I’d know) is invited to read the settlement notice and get their forms in by the relevant deadline (to opt out and reserve the right to sue Google, it’s May 2009; those wanting cash settlements for digitized works have until January 2010). Members of Access Copyright can sign up for web seminars to learn more.

Thursday night’s Malahat Review reading to celebrate The Green Imagination – the environmental issue – and tribute to former editor Constance Rooke, was exceedingly well attended. Audience members were plied with cake and offered fair trade coffee and Silk Road teas; palms were crossed with chocolate to fortify us in our quest for seats in an overflowing 150-seat theatre.

The event began with a song

and then an intro by the issue’s editor, Jay Ruzesky,

followed by readings of prose and poetry. A question and answer session followed, with all available contributors

back on stage. Here, Lilburn speaks

Tim Lilburn; Malahat’s editor supremo, John Barton; Carol Matthews.

Philip Kevin Paul, Melanie Siebert, John Harley, Sonnet L’Abbé.

In the wave of optimism surrounding Obamarama, it is sad to discover that he’s not as smart about food as one might hope. His appointment of pro-GM, pro-biofuel former Iowa (the corn state) governor Tom Vilsack for secretary of agriculture doesn’t suggest a mandate that actually addresses food issues (in fact, as Michael Pollan observes, the word ‘food’ wasn’t mentioned at all when the appointment was announced). And what is agriculture but food production? This business seems to push us farther down the road of viewing agriculture as a commodity industry, like bricks or metals, instead of a means of producing our most basic need — and right.

The absence of “food” in the US agricultural discussion leaves unaddressed so many important things — including the use of food for fuel (and how corn-fed biofuel production contributes to world food prices, as well as the waste of fuel involved in producing this environmentally-unfriendly product), and the damage to food production of corn subsidies and genetically modified foods. Though we know how many thankless challenges he’ll be facing, may Obama live and learn and manage to impose some kind of positive action on the situation before he’s done.

Though I managed to be out of town when she visited, UK poet Jen Hadfield made a bit splash among Victoria’s poetry community. And there will be more dancing in our snowless streets now that she’s won the TS Eliot prize, whose manly tendencies were irreversably altered after its first eight years by our own Anne Carson, the first woman to win it since its inception. Others have written their way through the breech since then: Alice Oswald, Carol Ann Duffy, and now Hadfield.

A few idle moments lead me to start jotting in my nice clean 2009 diary… Here are a few items to pencil in.

January

Tuesday 13th
Another chance to catch one of three fundraiser screenings of Island on the Edge, a locally produced film about farmland & food security for Vancouver Island. Meet others and hear the latest news on The Farmlands Trust’s bid to acquire historic Woodwynn Farm.
Tuesday January 13; 7pm; Mary Winspear Centre (Charlie White Theatre), Sidney.

Thursday 15th
The Malahat Review offers an evening of readings and discussion by contributors to The Green Imagination issue, including Tim Lilburn, Jan Zwicky, John Barton, Arleen Pare, Nicholas Bradley, Patricia Young, Jay Ruzesky, and many others.
Thursday, January 15; 700-9.00 pm; Metro Studio (corner of Quadra and Johnson), Victoria.

Monday 19th
BC Sustainable Energy Association Victoria Chapter Meeting. Featured speakers are Guillaume Mauger, recent PhD in climate science, presenting the latest on clouds and their effect on climate, plus geoengineering projects that have been proposed for altering the climate. Trevor Williams, PhD candidate in mechanical engineering presenting research on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and investigations into flying on biofuels.
Monday January 19; 7-9pm. Burnside Gorge Community Centre, 471 Cecelia Rd. Victoria.

Saturday 30th
The Path to Eco-Conscious Living, with Ed Begley Jr. Talk and book-signing from the actor-activist who aims to turn Hollywood green.
Saturday January 30; 7.30-9.30pm. Farquar Auditorium, University Centre, UVic.

February

Thursday 5th
Screening of Island on the Edge, and fundraiser for The Farmlands Trust’s bid to acquire Woodwynn Farm.
Thursday February 5; 7pm; David Lam Auditorium, MacLaurin Bldg, UVic.

Tuesday 10th
Launch of Acumen 63, featuring Leah Fritz, Sara Boyes, India Russell. All profits to Cold Weather Shelter for Homeless.
10th February, 2009; 6.30 for 7.00pm; Lumen United Reformed Church and Community Centre, 88 Tavistock Place WC1, London

Saturday 14-Sunday 15th
3rd Annual Victoria Tea Festival. Tea tastings, exhibitions and more, to raise funds for Camosun College Child Care Service.
14th – 15th February; 12-5pm; Crystal Gardens, 713 Douglas Street, Victoria.

Saturday 21st
Seedy Saturday has become a hugely popular event in Victoria (one of many across the country) where people can buy and trade seeds and pick up tips, hear speakers (Frank Morton and Thomas Hobbs this year) and generally mill about getting fired up for spring planting. Schedule will be posted later this month at James Bay Market‘s website.
21 February 10am-4pm; Victoria Conference Centre, 720 Douglas Street Victoria.

March

Tuesday 3rd
Screening of Island on the Edge, and fundraiser for The Farmlands Trust’s bid to acquire Woodwynn Farm.
Tuesday March 3rd; 7pm; Ambrosia Centre, 638 Fisgard, Victoria.

May

Sunday 31st
A local food festival, “Defending our Backyard”; the Island Chefs Collaborative celebrates Vancouver and Gulf Islands produced foods, beverages and the people who work to defend our back yard.
Sunday May 31; 12pm-4pm; at Fort Rodd Hill, Victoria.

July

Saturday 4th – Sunday 5th
The 4th annual Organic Islands Festival and Sustainability Expo is a rallying community-based event providing a look at who’s who in the green community. Food, music, talks, exhibition in the gorgeous surroundings of Glendale Gardens.
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 – Sunday, July 5th, 2009; 10:00 am to 5:00 pm; at Glendale Gardens & Woodland, 505 Quayle Road, Saanich.

The Victoria Film Festival‘s on our horizon. Now that we can see the horizon between lashings of rain.

It has some food elements, including Mad City Chickens, a film about (what else?) Mad City Chickens, urban poultry farmers in Madison Wisconsin. There’s a wonderful link from the film’s web page, to a really helpful website: BackYardChickens.com which has some amazing examples of chicken coops and tractors for people to copy.

And Know Your Mushrooms promises to reveal “the miraculous, near-secret world of fungi”. Apparently it all started with a mycocidal conversation with Jim Jarmusch, followed by a visit to the Telluride Fungifest, and ends up like so:

Combining material filmed at the Telluride Mushroom Fest with animation and archival footage along with a neo-psychedelic soundtrack by the Flaming Lips, KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS opens the doors to perception, takes the audience on a longer, stranger trip and delivers them to a brave new world where the fungi might well guide humanity to a saner, safer place… with extra cheese…

BBC Radio 4 provides me with most of my entertainment these days (I bless the internet that brings it to me) and I was spellbound the other day by a documentary called Professor President, which explored Obama’s intellectual and teaching life. Well worth a listen while it’s available (will only be up for a week from broadcast date).

I’m also a fan, it’s been said before, of Kootenay Coop Radio‘s Deconstructing Dinner radio show; they’ve done a very special remix of the Burger King ‘Whopper Virgins’ atrocity on Youtube. The soundtrack is quite amusing: George Bush finally says what he means (all he needed was a good editor).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDLFN3nK7Go]