{"id":288,"date":"2010-02-23T00:25:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/onelife\/?p=288"},"modified":"2010-02-23T00:25:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:25:44","slug":"doin-the-cultural-olympiad-our-way-the-last-real-vancouver-writers-series-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=288","title":{"rendered":"The last Real Vancouver Writers Series reading\/Doin’ the Cultural Olympiad our way"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Old school. Punk rock. DIY. <\/span><\/p>\n

Still harbour a bit of a bad attitude and though I\u2019ve watched a little hockey, have largely dodged the Spring Olympics<\/em><\/span>. Oh, I\u2019m sure there is a ton of fun to be had downtown Vancouver but it\u2019s the type of fun that was vitally important to me as a teenager when the rodeo came to Cloverdale every long Victoria Day weekend. My sisters and I practically lived at the midway, chasing boys, drinking bootlegged beer behind the barns and throwing up, rides or no rides, or games<\/em> in this case. <\/span><\/p>\n

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At the invitation of the smart, discerning and affable Sean Cranbury of Books On The Radio<\/a>, I did very happily venture down to the city Feb. 17 to read at an exciting new series called Real Vancouver Writers<\/a> housed at W2<\/a>, an exciting new arts and media centre across from the refurbished Woodward\u2019s Building which happens to be a few doors up from our punk rock stomping grounds at the Smilin\u2019 Buddha Cabaret. I was ten, I joked. Very appropriately, one of the artists featured in the W2 gallery was Bev Davies<\/a> with a series of her quintessential DOA shots. <\/span><\/p>\n

What a fabulous event! I haven\u2019t felt such enthusiasm at a reading since the 90s and the Edgewise, I swear. Talented poet, lovely person Elizabeth Bachinsky graciously hosted the standing room only evening and I had the privilege of seeing all my cool FB peeps\/literati in the flesh-<\/span>Jamie Reid, Warren Dean Fulton, Shannon Rayne, Donato Mancini, Jenn Farrell, Theresa McWhirter, Nikki Reimer, and made new friends including fellow ginger and acerbic wit Rachel Eden Baumann<\/span>. I was pleasantly surprised to meet Jay Peachy of Sound Therapy Radio on SFU\u2019s radio station, CJSF<\/a> who had interviewed me the night before and my dear friend photographer Lincoln Clarkes<\/a> showed up, after<\/em> I’d read. I’m always happy to see Lincoln though, we go way<\/em> back, all the way back to our punk rock heyday and he gave us a (wild) ride to the water taxi on Granville Island. Check out video<\/a> of the night if you like. I was very honoured to be third up and relieved after my reading, nearing the end of a long, frenzied day! <\/span><\/p>\n

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After a morning ferry, I had taken a bus packed with jostling tourists from Horseshoe Bay so I could meet up with friends and associates S.R. Duncan and RC Weslowski at CFRO for an interview on Wax Poetic<\/a> at 2 pm. We had a pleasant on-air chat<\/a> and I read a few poems, talked up Three Blocks West of Wonderland<\/em> of course, and Real Vancouver Writers. Dressed for winter, but apparently not our wacky west coast weather, I was forced to drag my coat around most of the day it was so warm but was glad for it later when the temperature lowered with the sun. Steve and I reconvened at the Irish Heather to discuss book marketing over a Guinness. I\u2019m not going to obsess over reviews or send out a swack of books in the hopes of. We\u2019ll send off a few copies to some of the more promising leads and I will do as many readings as possible but I think we should think more in terms of a virtual book tour. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

After the meeting I wandered over to W2, met up with my main man Josef who was having a good time snapping pictures of all the activity in the city. He favours architecture as subject, has a good eye and composes shots extremely well. I went to London Drugs to buy band aids because my new half-price fuschia suede boots were rubbing my toes. As I sat down in the courtyard to repair my foot, we were both drawn into Abbott & Cordova<\/em><\/a><\/span>,<\/a> 7 August 1971<\/em>, the gigantic photo installation, an oddly mesmerizing depiction of the Gastown Riot by Stan Douglas. Off we went for a light dinner, pasta, salad, chamomile tea for me as I am always so nervous before a performance. We marveled at Isabelle Hayeur\u2019s flickering Fire With Fire<\/em> installation in the W2 as we entered the building for a most stellar evening of art and literature. So my 2010 Olympics experience was rather DIY, very alternative<\/em> to the official Cultural Olympiad, which is not surprising I suppose. Go see the final Real Vancouver Writers Series reading<\/strong>; this is your last chance! <\/span><\/p>\n

Wednesday, February 24th<\/strong> at the W2 Culture + Media House, 112 West Hastings Street across from the refurbished Woodwards Building. Doors open at 630. Hosted by Sean Cranbury & Hal Wake. Introducing Honoured Special Guest Michael Nichol Yahgulanaas who will showcase a video\/interactive discussion about his work; Rhonda Waterfall,Weldon Hunter, kc dyer, Steven Galloway, Leilah Nadir, Alex Leslie, Caroline Adderson, Leanne Prain & Mandy Moore aka The Yarn Bombers, McKinley M Hellenes, Timothy Taylor and Vancouver Poet Laureate Brad Cran.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old school. Punk rock. DIY. Still harbour a bit of a bad attitude and though I\u2019ve watched a little hockey, have largely dodged the Spring Olympics. Oh, I\u2019m sure there is a ton of fun to be had downtown Vancouver but it\u2019s the type of fun that was vitally important to me as a teenager […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[49,59,183,257,280,362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}