Cage Match!

I almost met fightclub dude Chuck Palahniuk today getting off the plane from Toronto in Calgary for Wordfest. We would have rode from the airport to the hotel together. There was someone in a white cowboy hat with a sign that said "J. Millar / C. Palahnuik" waiting for me at the airport when I got off the plane. She was awesome. But then Chuck's "handler" showed up (she was actually very nice when I was trying to get off the plane -- "after you" she said --) she basically told us thanks anyway but fuck off -- they'd arranged their own private car to the hotel. She had very stylish glasses.

So now I propose a cage match in which BookThug takes on Random House for the next Palahniuk novella.

Spoiler: we'd turn it down anyway.

Random House: call me.

My Failed 3-Day Novel

Yesterday I had thanksgiving dinner dinner with my inlaws in London. Among those present was a couple who had arrived unannounced. I learned at some point that this couple happen to live in Clinton. I asked how they felt about Alice Munro winning the Nobel prize. I wasn't able to tell if their blank and confused looks were the result of confusion or if they couldn't hear me. They told me later that they are each deaf in one ear. But they had still never heard of Alice Munro, or the Nobel Prize for that matter. "We's just here for the free meal" said the woman, whose name was "Fioner." At least that's how her sister pronounced it.

Literary Tourism

Last summer my family went on a trip to California. We landed in San Francisco and immediately started exploring. I'm not sure if I can express what an interesting city San Francisco is, a completely walkable city of connected neighbourhoods. We might have liked it as much as we did because of many features it shares with Toronto. 

One thing the city of San Francisco does not share with Toronto was literary tourism. This doesn't mean that Toronto doesnt have a literary history, but there is nothing about it  that is recognized publicly or in the sense that one might travel thousands of miles to experience a part of it. Toronto literary history does not have the cache that might attract a pilgrim -- we just aren't very good at myth-building. This might be said of every Canadian city, actually, and to be honest it is something that appeals to me quite a lot about Canada: nothing has happened here that has, in the grand scheme of literary history, made an ounce of difference. 

So in visiting San Francisco it became obvious that there are places where literature is a significant part of the cultural tourism. But what was strange were the emotions I experienced in the literary places I visited: City Lights Bookstore and the North Beach neighbourhood; the exhibition of Ginsberg's photographs at the Jewish Museum, Jack Kerouac Lane, to name a few. Each neighbourhood I visited seemed to have a literary component that was one of the reasons to visit. I confess, it was incredible to see these places and to be a voyeur-pilgrim who had made his way across the globe to come close to something that was considered by many to be important, a cultural phenomenon regarded with a sense of honour and value. But at the same time I found myself experiencing a growing sense of bewildering anger. The same feeling occurred visiting the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur -- it was great to be there but at the same time I found myself infuriated for no reason that I could reasonably explain. 

It has been two months since I visited California, and I may have reached some kind of answer, however vague or stupid. Partly it has to do with stereotypes that literary tourism offers hapless pilgrims: I can't know anything about it, really. It is like reading a translation and realizing that you're not reading the book but an approximation; partly it has to do with the sadness of realizing that the past is encased in a kind of mellification the world created; but mostly, it has to do with gazing around at the present and considering what might become the literary tourism of the future. The latter issue contains some of the saddest things I could possibly imagine, and the terror of what might be simmers deep within me alongside the hope that humanity will end rather than have any of it become a history sanctified by a collective acknowledgement of its worth. 

Lines

Sometimes standing in line gives you the opportunity to write a few lines, even if you are standing in line for no particular reason. Maybe you happen to like standing in lines. Maybe that's how you choose to spend your free time, all the precious free time that you could be using to do unproductive things, like reading a few lines of a poem, or writing a few lines that might never be read and therefor never change the course of human history. Except they have come into existence, and so human history has been altered, even if incredibly subtly. 

A New Book & Launches

TIMELY IRREVERENCE



Vancouver Launch, Saturday 13 April 2013: 7:45PM
WESTERN FRONT
305 E. 8th Avenue



Toronto Launch, Saturday 20 April 2013: 5:30PM
SUPERMARKET
268 Augusta Avenue



Hope to see you there!

aka bpNichol: a speculative biography

Last week I finished aka bpNichol, a preliminary biography by Frank Davey. I can honestly say that it was probably one of the strangest texts I've ever read on the subject of another person's life, and so I am now only thinking of it as a "biography" - just like that, in quotes. This is not to say that it was not interesting to read, but it should probably not be read as a biography of Nichol. Throughout the book, Davey discusses a number of intriguing things - the invention of the author persona by an author, for example, or the concept of a "psychotherapy poetics." Even the minimal historical context Davey provides about the rise and fall of The Coach House Press phenomenon makes the book worth reading, and given the climate of our current poetry culture, there is some worthwhile discussion about the anxiety that may or may not be produced when an author tries to produce both "honest" and "original" work under the weight of the cultural milieu in which they live. But in order to discuss these things, I don't think it was necessary to use a biographical framework of bpNichol, especially given the fact that Davey speculates so much about so many things. That and why Davey has chosen to focus in particular on embarrassing material about Nichol's early childhood is what sends the whole narrative off into questionable territory. What makes it all untrustworthy is Davey's choice to use, for the most part, Nichol's notebooks written as an adult, a recent history of Therafields, & Nichol's own poetry as evidence (Davey quotes nearly 600 lines of the Martyrology throughout the text, not one of which was asked for permission to use, I understand) to support his speculations. In fact, Davey didn't appear to talk to anyone who knew the man, and only quoted written . So, a "biography" aka bpNichol will have to be, now and forevermore. I would go so far as to call aka bpNichol a "speculative biography," which is a term that perhaps Nichol would appreciate, but maybe only the version of Nichol that Davey has presented his reader.

The question that remains is how to deal with this weird book moving forward. A biography of bpNichol was way overdue, but now that aka bpNichol exists, will anyone be able to work past it and create a more accurate picture of Nnichol's life and contribution of Canadian poetry? Probably the correct response would be a biography of bpNichol composed by a community of those who know him.

The Future of Literature

All this kaffuffle with the Globe & Mail "letting go" or "reassigning" Martin Levin and Jack Kirchhoff from the Book Section, which will still (apparently) continue their "stellar" coverage of books and literature even though they are slashing the section and folding it in with their Focus section (after already reading globe articles about the shifting plane of literary publishing -- the death of the mid-list author for instance, or the changes in the landscape that have left House of Anansi Press (who are now using musicians to decide what is good literature) as the largest Canadian owned publishing firm in the country) has me thinking that the future of literature is likely not in books, but in Television or Film, and it will be published in Hollywood.

BookThugs & TroubadourSlaves

Come out on 31 January to see me and Michael Menegon jam music and poetry together into an evening of unpredictable entertainment. There is also a lot of chocolate available!

What: BookThugs & TroubadourSlaves (Jay MillAr & Michael Menegon in concert)
When: 31 January 2013, 7-11pm
Where: COCO, 365 Jane Street, just south of Annette.
Why: Why not? Chances are you might hear me read all of ESP, some fungal poems, a few select "cover tunes" and some poems from my forthcoming collection Timely Irreverence. And Michael will be playing all sorts of things too – original songs and accompaniment.
How: Where there is a will there is a way to get to COCO.

Back

I was gone for a while again. Not that I actually went anywhere. But it is now 2013 -- and i turned 42 -- isn't that strange? It seems like a good number, even, quiet, and sure of itself. I am in the midst of dealing with various things -- anxiety mostly. Who knows where this stuff comes from or why it sticks around the way it does, but it sure is annoying and why not become happy or even content with oneself? The world isn't so bad, even if it is going to pot. In fact, the world doesn't even care -- it's like the world can't be critical because it is so particulary indifferent, so you have criticize your self all by yourself. So I'm trying to lift myself up and over all that stifling self awareness this year. Should be fun.

Oddest Industry Ever

This week I wound up thinking a lot about why I do what I do from the point of view that we are defined by what we do to earn money -- the "why bother" factor crops up again and again when I do that. Fred Wah asked me about this in an interview this week, both with regard to writing and publishing, and I found myself staring off into space unable to formulate an answer despite knowing that I hold a pure and deep belief that what I write and what I publish IS important. People who live their lives doing "normal jobs" (I don't know why I call them by this name since my life feels pretty normal most of the time, but I suppose it serves a purpose here to label them as such) constantly use the term "courageous" when they find out the details of what I do as a writer and a publisher. I have met other people in the publishing industry (usually people who have made savvy choices and work for large corporate publishers) who tell me they are so glad that publishers like BookThug exist because the companies they work for would love to publish the kind of work we publish but when such projects cross an editor's desk they are ultimately rejected by the firm's finance department. And the miniature "business guy" inside me thinks: that's pretty smart, I should get a finance department. But I'd have to pay said department more than my yearly budget to publish 15-20 books of literature to turn the things I want to publish away. And after they tell me how courageous I am these people don't buy any of the books I publish anyway, so I guess I'm stuck in the cottage industry the mass media as defined for me. So yay!

Secret Blogging

It has been ages since I wrote anything here on this blog. I have often begun to write out my thoughts on something and then suddenly hit a wall: It dawns on me that no one cares about what I think, mostly because what I think couldn't possibly be of interest to someone I don't know. So why bother with the diffraction of publicity? It's a hurdle. So in the interest of leaping over hurdles I am challenging myself to write publicly in this space while considering it an act of secret blogging.

Memory Loss

It seems I have forgotten how to write. And while that might seems like a troubling thing for a writer, at the same time, I don't seem to mind it all that much.

Long Poem Workshop

In a few days The Long Poem Workshop at the Toronto New School of Writing will kick off. Twelve students will join me for twelve weeks in an attempt to force an idea not to end.

Melville House

Great time last night at Melville House in Dumbo/Brooklyn where I read with three fantastic poets -- Matvei Yankelevitch, Cathy Eisenhower & John Coletti. The event was organized by Matvei due to a familiar affliction he suffers from -- publisher's envy. A heady evening -- Coletti's cool lyricism, Eishehower's intense meditations, Matvei's wonderous fable-like narrative. It was quite an honour to plunk myself down in the midst of it all. I'm looking forward to reading more work by these poets.

It was interesting afterward talking with Dennis of Melville House. We swapped various literary history stories about our own presses and others in our respective lands. He told me that the inception of the press involved the culmination of a few people and events, most prominently George Murray & 911.

Off now into the city with Rob & his son Oliver to check out some art and look for nik-naks for the kids.

Visual Poem

for dfb

I'm trying to think up
a good comeback for
your fucking kidding




nope.










nope.

Some boxes arrived from the printer the other day. In them were copies of ESP: accumulation sonnets: a book written by me and designed by me and Mark Goldstein and published by BookThug. So now I've gone and done it. I've published myself. Again.

It's terrible. I'll be entered into that category of writers inhabited by the likes of Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Virgina Woolf, bill bissett, bpNichol, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Victor Coleman and Stuart Ross to name a few -- poets who paid for their own work to be published or disseminated their work through publishing houses they either owned or worked for.

So why do I feel guilty?

An Essay

Meanwhile....

One must consider, from time to time, say, when the solid mass of accomplishment to which one is engaged daily, breaks open, a moment of pause revealed in which lies a brief self-reflective moment that holds up a mirror, however quickly, and one must clearly see how to deal with the onslaught of The Other. In the mirror I see a crowd of blurred faces looking over my shoulder. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by this, but recent events have made it clear that there is a tension that exists within my own frame of mind based on what I imagine are the expectations of others in relation to what I imagine are my own expectations for my self. It "affects" me, and I'm never clear how to negotiate the affectation.

For instance, it is becoming more and more clear, as my various projects begin to engage with the mechanisms of The World, that my Public perception grows more and more narrow. At least I imagine it to be so. Ben Watson, if I recall correctly, wrote in Art Class & Cleavage that we are defined by what we do to earn money, and this might be more clearly stated by saying we are defined by what others perceive one does to earn money. My trouble is that I'm not sure what it is that I do that earns money -- I count mice, for one thing. I teach workshop classes at George Brown College. I publish books. I sell books. And occasionally I publish my own work and am paid for it. Soon, I will finish the library degree I am working on and I will get a job in that field and add to my assorted definitions whatever it is that I will be doing that pulls a paycheque. And somehow in there lies me -- the me I wake up to each morning and stare at in the actual mirror sans extra faces before I run off to accomplish several things at once for the day. But what does The Other I imagine looking over my shoulder think I do to earn money? Or, if I'm not defined by earnings, what does The Other think I am?

Woods/Pages

A quick post to announce the publication of a new chapbook, Woods/Pages, published by the incomparable souls at Greenboathouse Books. Those of you who are sick & tired of the dark inane voice(s) of Lack Lyrics will enjoy my return to 21st Century nature lyricism. But don't worry, there's still loads of heavy procedural & conceptual & "experimental" work going on, (just like there is in all poetry).

I'm very pleased to be part of Greenboathouse, and lucky too, since Woods/Pages is the final publication in this project. Jason and the team are moving on to new things, but I'm sure they will be just as beautiful.

If you'd like to get a copy visit www.greenboathouse.com -- there are lots of other lovely things to pick up while you're there!

JM

Art Bar

Thanks to those who came out last night to my reading at the Art Bar. I had fun, and it was nice to go out into the world like a poet, nice to chat with Stephen and John and Sam and Becca, although Sam accused me of being a librarian and censoring the small blue. the small blue was not censored last night, insofar as it was first "censored" by my editor who insisted that I cover all that lovely blank space throughout the book with black smudges shaped like words, lest people think that we made a mistake. My readings of the text are meant to return it to a state more resembling the original, which is why I say that there is no number 63 (or whatever) when people ask me to read them.

The Art Bar is endearing. Never am I ever quite surrounded by so much seriousness when it comes to poetry. It's endearing. I love it. There is nothing like being validated for being something you hope no one will ever defined you as. Life is strange that way -- the seriousness of it all, when it is all so fleeting, so uncompromising. And yet, it happens, it has consequence. I have been thinking about classification for a long time now, at least a few months (can we classify that as a long time?) and I wonder often at what it means to "be" something. What metaphors are at our disposal to explain how things "are"? No wonder I'm so uncomfortable describing myself as something, or classifying myself in relation to everything else in the world. To define oneself is to let them ascribe. It gives them power.

Anyway, for those who weren't at the Art Bar last night, or perhaps didn't even know about it, I'm reading again on Friday at the IV Lounge. For now I must return to my paper on Foucault, discourse, truth, knowledge, identity and power. And surveillance. Watch out!