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Ruth Dato: Isolation in MotionTaralee Guild: Mechanical Abstraction

Wiesia Kujawa: Six Blocks WalkingR.I.P. Peanut Gallery

Mobilize!

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Memewar Magazine

Editorial CollectiveMissy ClarksonAJ IvingsElliott LumminCarmen PapaliaThor PolukoshkoAubyn Rader

LayoutAJ Ivings

GraphicsThor Polukoshko

Advertising ManagerAmelia Pitt-Brooke

Assistant EditorWendi Graves

Distribution ManagerWendi Graves

InternKai Pena

WebsiteCreation Graphics and Design Solution

Memewar gratefully acknowledges the financial support of those attending the release party, our fundraisers and the continued support of Arcprint

and Imaging Inc.

ISSN: 1912-3310

Copyright 2009. All rights revert to the authors and artists upon publication.

This magazine was printedon recycled paper.

memewaronline.com

Front Cover Image by Ami Sanyal and Mikey Valdes

Back Cover Image by Tim Polukoshko

Image by Tim Chartier (www.davidson.edu/math/chartier/Fortran/index.html)

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Trying to Live Like a TrooperAJ IvingsWhen I was young my father used to teach me life lessons

through means of popular culture. Wesley, from The Princess Bride, was an excellent example of someone with a positive attitude: when he enters the fiery swamp fighting Rodents of Unusual Size, avoiding lightning sand and flame spurts, he merely says, “It’s not that bad...the trees are actually quite lovely.”

Similarly, we often listened to “Raise a Little Hell” by Trooper, my Dad emphasizing the importance of memorizing the lyrics, and taking them to heart:

If you don’t like What you gotWhy don’t you change itIf your world is all screwed upRearrange it

He taught us this, perhaps because he knew we would later be living on the Sunshine Coast, under a tarp, on the side of Soams Mountain. My mother and father decided to move us four children there, not because we were poor — though we could not afford a house — but because they thought it would be a better life for us than living in the city.

The strange part about it is that we loved living there. The move to the tarp brought our family together like nothing else could. There was a need to work together to survive, yet also plenty of time and space to play in the wild outdoors. But things changed again when I was 10 and my Dad died.

My move back to the city was prompted by my need for a post-secondary education and my desire to follow a now-past love. I have created a life for myself here, and most of my siblings have moved to the city as well — but I can’t help but feel like I’m in limbo, like I don’t belong. The lights and the noise keep me awake, and the concrete keeps me feeling detached from nature. This move, out of all of the changes in

my life, has been a difficult one to get used to.

Over the next two issues of Memewar, we will be exploring two aspects of change: movement, a state of change, and adaptation, a reaction to change.

In this issue, we tackle the topic of movement, with a particular interest in distance and displacement — a timely subject with the recent renovations to Vancouver to accommodate for population growth and the 2010 Olympics. Ruth Dato and Mercedes Eng consider the city’s physical space while questioning the changes that have been made to the city, and the changes that should be made. In line with our concerns about displacement in the city, Memewar editor Carmen Papalia speaks with Cheylene Tattersall, in “R.I.P. Peanut Gallery,” about the trend of temporary illegal art spaces in Vancouver.

Focusing on movement as a journey of self-discovery, Lindsay Page and Wiesia Kujawa each find their own pace to answer questions through their works — Page with her Drive-by pilgrimage, and Kujawa with her meandering “Six Blocks Walking.”

Also included in this issue are two approaches to social movement: one is a timeline of facts that plot the trajectory of the disability movement, and another is a sample of little known facts about the quirky side of Canadian politics. Both illustrate the importance of challenging outdated ideas — sometimes with struggle, other times with humor.

While fighting for change is easy enough to sing about, it is more difficult to act upon. However, I have found that ‘raising a little hell’ is more manageable when fighting with like-minded individuals. We assemble, knowing we want change, and at some point the conversation leads to ideas, then action. And while sometimes it feels as though we are not moving forward, we are, at least, still moving.

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Features

18 Isolation In Motion: Barriers Experienced by Persons with Disabilities and the Process of Change Ruth Dato Disability rights activist Ruth Dato draws attention to the various barriers that persons with disabilities encounter when attempting to move through public space, providing a degree of insight that can inform approaches to urban development.

38 Six Blocks Walking Wiesia Kujawa This delicate long poem by Coquitlam poet Wiesia Kujawa finds a quizzical walker/author whose thoughts meander from Greek mythology and iPods, to immigration and the Lone Ranger.

48 Mechanical Abstraction Taralee Guild In this series of paintings by Vancouver-based artist Taralee Guild, the process of reproducing found film stills, such as the comedy routines of 1930s actor Buster Keaton and video documents of g-force testing, reveal how certain technologies shape perception and human experience.

54 R.I.P Peanut Gallery Carmen Papalia Memewar speaks with Cheylene Tattersall (of the now defunct Peanut Gallery) about some of Vancouver’s most progressive art spaces, and the trend of the semi-legal “pop- up” venue.

Mobilize!

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Editorials

3 Letter from the Editor24 Bringing the “Mock” Back to “Democracy” 62 Obituaries

Stories

12 360 degrees Catherine Owen with Photography by Nikki Rader Art

32 Drive-by Lindsay Page 64 Cereal Junkies: The Trouble with Tigers #12 & 13

Poetry

6 Suite of Poems Indran Amirthanayagam16 Excerpt from Most Wanted Jeff Encke28 how it is Mercedes Eng52 Where To / Rent Sonia Rivest

Reviews

60 “fifteenfamouspornstarsstimulate”: Lai and Wong Simulate in sybil unrest Cris Costa

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I cannot replywith a simple thanksto your reading,

you’ve spiritedmy tonguewhich wanders now

through the funeral parlor reciting what the brain has learned.

Poetry is necessaryamong the wreaths,this strange absence,

body puffed upfor the wake, yetthe family ordered

to leave by 10 p.m.,attendants in chargewith their own needs

to attend, the bodyleft alone, and mournersback in bed to review

films, imprintthe dead manin dreams.

There’s a routineto pass on, managementof private griefs.

ReadingIndran Amirthanayagam

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The society of undertakersbestows dignity

and offers a butlerto call the obituarycolumns, order mass cards,

work with a family member, a son, perhaps, who has stilled his tears

enough to write the epitaph—yet days shamble on,

mother and son,daughter and friends together again

to share communionand listen

to a readingby a black-robed poet,priest of the hearse—

alchemistmountebankwho will clap

his handssaying Lazarus,get up, Man.

— week following May 17, 2003

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Visit

On his final visitto a museum of fine arts—he died three mornings later—

my father gazedat a bust of Einsteinand a nude in a green wood.

The nude’s plump breastsbeckon new visitors still,and Einstein’s

electric locks stir green light continuallyinto the stone.

The museum’s heavywith shades, the endsof movements,

the collector’s eyeand microscope...My father rested

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a seasoned mindon Gauguin’sAgony in the Garden.

He printed the painter’s Tahitithroughout our house.

Now this. Whoshall release the sufferer,the son of God?

Who shall kisshis cheek and shoutto the guards?

— week of May 17, 2003

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10

LIGHT (LODHI GARDENS)

When we walkedthrough the Lodhi Gardensat evening, our sareesand kurtha pyjamaswere braided

and tasseled. We had time. The Sun hung over the monuments. It would not set

over runners flailing against stones, or wireless chats beeping about the grass, impervious

to the street hustle outside the gates;it just washed gravestones and everybody’s clothes, in gold.

— February 25, 2007

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THE NEW DEPRESSION

10 dollars used to buy the store in 1935, and there wasn’t much on the shelves then,

just grainand feed stock,some rock candy,a lot of dust.

— March 31, 2008

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360 degrees

“Please, miss, what is this, the name, miss, can you tell me the name?”

How do they know she won’t jump up screaming, offended, or even report them to the Coney Island police force for frightening her, for stealing what must surely be a rare insect from the off-season beach, a bug that might have escaped from one of the leftover freak shows at Astroland.

Fortunately for them, she likes to consider herself a kind of amateur entomologist. At home, she has several boxes of

insects, dried but unpinned, from June bugs to cockroaches. Although it is more an artistic than a scientific pursuit for her, she does keep a few facts in her head: genus, species, mating habits.

She turns her head slightly, without shifting from her cross-legged position in the sand, to look back to where Caleb is, perched on a stool on the boardwalk, sipping his Labatts.

No, he doesn’t seem concerned. More like a little bored

with her tendency to run off on him so she can “feel through

Catherine OwenPhotography by Nikki Raderr

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things without the clutter of another person in the way.” But that’s the deal. She will vacation with him on the condition that, everyday, she can wander away by herself for a while.

At the Brooklyn Bridge, it had been an impulse to zip

down to Dumbo to check out that crazy pottery barn while he waited by City Hall for her; in Chelsea, it had been the Miriam Pitt gallery whose showing of Christ figures painted with urine and feces, “you just had to see alone to fully appreciate.”

And now she is by herself again, at Coney Island, the family fun place, hunched up close to the saltless tideline, conversing with strange men.

She asks the two of them where they are from.

“Poland,” the old man replies. He wears a toque against the October cold, a blue parka and rubber boots. “But I am American citizen. He is new, visitor, maybe stay.”

She takes the other man to be his grandson, about twenty, plush-cheeked, his smile both shy and hungry. He wears similar attire to his grandfather, only he nervously and frequently drags his own toque off his head, dangling it from one bare hand while the other messes with his dark crop of hair.

“Four months,” he beams, “four months I here.”

She is afraid to tell them what the insect is. Not that she really knows with any certainty.

It’s from the genus Mantodea, no doubt about that, like a praying mantis in every way and a female one to boot: shiny green, six thoracic segments, long antennae, folded-up front legs that suggest a penitent, and those alien eyes, so precise in their hunt, capable of swivelling 360 degrees with always that flat, black speck at their centres, watching you with chilly, carnivorous indifference.

But praying mantises are usually six, at the most seven

inches, and that’s the Chinese variety.

The North American ones are smaller, not truly indigenous, having been deposited on these once-wild shores by a cargo ship in 1900.

This creature is at least ten, maybe twelve inches – a miniature dragon.

She lets it crawl up her arm, making the men nervous.

They had been carrying it about in a takeout container from Nathan’s with a plastic bag cinched around the styrofoam and she had thought it might like some air.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asks them a bit indignantly, “Do you know what it eats?”

“Eat?” the grandfather laughs at her, misunderstanding,

“O no, we don’t eat it, maybe we eat if we starving, but we in America, right? We not starving!”

She seems to have insulted them. The men exchange a few

words in Polish with each other, glancing at her all along.

Then the older man becomes more insistent, “Please girl, you just...write the name, write it down.”

He shoves an old receipt towards her and the nub of a pencil.

She sighs, letting the delicate, mutated being Morse code

its way down to her fingertips where she unsticks its gluey feet from her skin and slips it back in its sad enclosure.

Then she reaches for the writing materials and, in careful

block text, writes: PRAYING MANTIS.

The grandfather looks at the piece of paper, mouthing the syllables to himself, then passes it to the boy so he can knot the plastic bag up again, the creature flailing around in its bubble, a heart hammering within the translucent cavity.

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“Ah!” the older man exclaims, taking the paper back and

studying it, “Praying mantis!”

It is as if she has given him not only a useful but a glorious and astounding tool.

“So praying mantis, it is holy, no?”

Well yes, she thinks to herself, but not in that way.

Instead she says to them, “You two better watch out. The females like to devour their men.”

“Oho,” the grandfather slaps her on the shoulder while motioning to his grandson to rise. “You are, what do they call

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them, a ball breaker, yes, good American girl, ho ho.”

She watches the two of them teeter off down the beach, the boy’s arm slung through the old man’s, he carrying the bag between index finger and thumb, the sunlight glowing inside the plastic turning the insect to flint.

Looking around for Caleb, she notices that he had started

to walk towards her, perhaps thought better of it, then stopped partway.

Now he is staring at the metallic palm tree, its artificial solitude amid all the grubby sand.

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Tariq Aziz (8♠)from Most Wanted

You push I pushthe doors stand still

I hear the muffle of an ultimatum

through the slow flow of glass

Jeff Encke

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Tracking your path through moonlight

before abandoning the vehicle

before you cededto alien neighborhoods

beside thieved daisies

a cedar-slatted fence sitting shotgun

as the rain cloaked our view my electron

to your muon

to eat lunch, recess, rest make a sure escape

a tonsil offering

Barzan Abd Al-Ghafur Sulayman Majid Al-Tikriti (Q♥)from Most Wanted

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When someone becomes a dancer, movement is a vital part of their daily life. As the dancer dances, they feel freed from the cares of this world, if only for a moment, as they experience and live their art form; they live and understand the importance of the freedom of movement. It is only in unusual or special circumstances that the average person even ponders movement at all; rarely do they contemplate how it impacts their daily life, as this is something most take for granted.

When a person’s life is impacted by disability, particularly if they are mobility impaired, movement becomes a force to be reckoned with. One might tend to think that our modern world has corrected the barriers associated with issues such as these, especially in places like Canada; however, even though we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go. These barriers are not merely external roadblocks or physical limitations; they also come in the form of social and economic struggles, lost opportunities, personal rights not implemented, and the legal documents and processes that govern such issues. Most people who struggle with these kinds of problems become stereotyped or stigmatized by others, suffering through the discrimination they face.

The heavy snowfall in the Vancouver area during December and January (2008 – 2009) made many who endure mobility impairment, including myself, feel trapped: a harsh

reminder of just how isolating life can be to people who face such struggles. But inaccessibility goes well beyond momentary trials such as those resulting from a snowfall. It is encountered in many different places, in many different ways, and the impact varies with each individual and depends on the situations they encounter. Historically, people with disabilities have been thought of as burdens or problems, or as mere charity cases; a philanthropic opportunity, if you will. They were rarely seen simply as human beings with something to contribute to society and were often shut away, and when they weren’t, they were often unable to leave their homes due to the inaccessibility created by being physically unable.

Vancouver has been a part of the history of the process of change in the challenges faced by people with disabilities. It has been about 119 years since the first streetcar was used in Vancouver; however, it was not wheelchair accessible.1 The transit system in the Vancouver area is now fully accessible for most wheelchair users and this is great news. But some limitations still exist for the disability community as a whole. The new low floor trolleys provide more space for wheelchair users, but have fewer seats; people using stability canes or with knee pain are often left standing due to a lack of space. Ridership is very high and this creates a problem for some transit users, especially during peak times. If a wheelchair patron is trying to go to an appointment during a peak period,

Isolation In Motion: Barriers Experienced by Persons with Disabilities and the Process of Change

Ruth Dato

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the bus is often too full for passengers to make room. Senior citizens have been seen remaining at bus stops while the bus they normally take is too full. The new Canada Line will soon open and there will be more barriers to face. Only a few of the access points have down escalators, but they all have up escalators and stairs; this will be a problem for stability cane users if they reach the platform by means of escalator and find that they have to use stairs to exit the station. The disability community was not consulted during the design process; they were consulted later. To a large extent, Translink authorities listened and considered their input, but the process started too late and the disability community was told it was too late to implement the necessary changes, due to cost.2

As a power chair user, I spend a fair bit of time out and

about in the community and have noticed many barriers impeding myself and other wheelchair users. I’ve encountered problems with buildings, crowded aisles, elevators and inaccessible restrooms. My personal interests and career have been hampered by inadequate elevator access. There is an event for writers, which I am interested in attending, that is often held in a specific meeting place that I and other mobility impaired individuals are unable to attend, due to the fact that the elevator does not go to the floor it is held on. There are two-storey buildings that wheelchair users are unable to access at all, due to the fact that no elevator exists

in them. A barrier that personally affects me is a building a close friend lives in; she lives on the second floor and there is no elevator access to that floor; therefore, I will never be able to visit her as long as she lives there. My son’s dentist is also on the second floor of a building that has no elevator access; I would very much like to be able to call this dentist “our family dentist” but cannot. Where elevators exist they are often very old and inadequate, and also often inadequately maintained. The elevators in advocacy offices and other public buildings which provide services for disabled people, are prone to being out of order. Public elevators are also often not big enough for people with special needs, such as those whose wheelchairs recline, or have respirators attached. There are too few disability restrooms in public places, and those that do exist are often poorly designed, such as having doors that open the wrong way and restrict wheelchair access or having toilets that are too small and difficult to use. I was in an A&W on East Broadway that had no disability restroom at all. Even the shopping malls are guilty of such barriers. Oakridge Mall, for example, has large groups of wheelchair patrons visit on a regular basis, and they only have two disability restrooms in the mall, and these are hard to locate. The mall’s department stores each have one, but their aisles are often cluttered with display items, and getting from one end to the other is like trying to navigate your way through a labyrinth; shopping for items in the various departments is difficult for the same reason. One

Isolation In Motion: Barriers Experienced by Persons with Disabilities and the Process of Change

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would think that building codes would cover these issues, and although they have inclusions for building doorways, or openings, and disability restrooms, they fall short in terms of accessibility within the premises. As is stated on the Social Planning and Research Council of BC (SPARC BC) website, “BC lacks a broadly envisioned and well-planned approach to accessibility and inclusion: they do not demand Universal Design.” 4

I was one of those trapped inside my apartment by the heavy snowfall in December and January. I was unable to leave for an entire month; I felt caged in. The taxis could not even make it to the entrance to my building due to the snow in the streets and alleys. I don’t know how I’d have survived if not for my son’s help. I know similar situations were true for others like myself and I wonder how many had no help at all. I was unable to see a doctor during that period and needed crucial medication; I wondered how many had medical needs more serious than my own, or how many lost important opportunities or jobs because of these barriers. Our Christmas was the most dreary one in a long time; even shopping for food was difficult. Laws in this region should be changed in order to prevent this from happening in the future. People in other major Canadian cities do not usually suffer in the same way that people with disabilities did in Vancouver during the last major snowfall, because they are prepared and have measures in place to help prevent harm or hindrance from coming to their residents in such events.

Human rights laws have drastically improved over the

years but they still fall short of ensuring equitable rights for people with disabilities and meeting the special needs that certain individuals with impairment often have. In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was amended to declare Canadians with disabilities “equal benefit and protection before and under the law,” and the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities.5 Yet building code laws are determined at a municipal level.6 This presents a conflict in law because people with disabilities are denied access to specific floors in some buildings. As the municipal building codes deny services and opportunities, they violate the Canadian Charter

of Rights and Freedoms, creating what is known in the Charter as unintentional discrimination.6 Unfortunately, the process of implementing the rights of people with disabilities to such services is a complaint-driven process that is lengthy and complicated, and the complaints would need to be cited for each building owner or organization that is at fault for denying such rights. Disability cases are among the most numerous reported to the Human Rights Commission; since 2002, between 37% and 50% of cases cited disability as the grounds of discrimination.8

People with disabilities suffer in both visible and invisible

ways. Sometimes a person walking with a stability cane is seen as less disabled than a person in a power chair but the truth is that the power chair often brings relief to someone who once suffered the terrible pain associated with using a cane. Others suffer knee injuries and don’t use a cane; their pain is unseen, and they are often criticized for taking an elevator up only one floor, or asking for a seat on a bus. Likewise, a person using a mobility cane for sight impairment is not necessarily fully blind, yet still needs a cane for getting around. Another issue is that people also tend to see power chair users as completely helpless, yet many can still walk short stretches with support, with a walker or other aid; the power chair is needed for getting around the city and for performing errands.

These seen and unseen disabilities are among the factors

that cause some non-disabled people to stigmatize or stereotype disabled individuals. Poverty is another unseen barrier that many disabled individuals face, and tends to be one of the most powerful causes of stereotyping. It is estimated that people with disabilities are twice as likely as non-disabled people to live in poverty, whether working or not. As the council of Canadians with Disabilities writes: “Poverty can lead to disability and disability can lead to poverty.”9 If a person’s disablement is severe enough that they are unable to work, then they usually need to rely on government programs for daily support needs. People in this position are often scrutinized and seen as guilty until proven innocent because some think that people with disabilities might be faking their impairments in order to gain certain

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benefits, yet any financial support received is minimal and not what most would consider suitable for a desirable living; it is still a life lived in poverty.

It is difficult for an unemployed disabled individual to

find gainful employment; too many employers fear people with disabilities cannot do the job right, no matter how qualified. Conversely, if people with disabilities are working and require the employer to create accessibility in the work place, they are often viewed as asking for charity, when it is in fact their human right to receive accommodations such as these. Speaker, author, and Canadian Human Rights expert Stephen Hammond said in a recent interview, “I find that persons with disabilities often get our “charity”, meaning we […] think we’re doing this kind act by accommodating persons with disabilities to ensure they get similar opportunities persons without disabilities don’t even have to think about. But our law allows for as much “entitlement” as is reasonable. When Canadians get to see that persons with disabilities are entitled to jobs, education, access and other opportunities, then I think we will see a day that we truly believe persons with disabilities are equal. Until then, it’s the courts and tribunals that are tragically the answer to many people who want equality.”10

There have been many changes over the years in terms

of accessibility for people with disabilities and things have definitely improved, especially when it comes to resources and technology, but attitudes still need changing. People should first try and see the disabled person as simply a human being before noticing they have an illness, disease, or impairment. What are all human beings but flawed creatures, trying their best to make their way through this world? The day when a disabled individual experiences the same freedom of movement as a dancer, without a single care may seem to be an impossibility; but to experience the equal rights that all humans are entitled to should not seem so difficult.

I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to Jane Dyson from the BC

Coalition of People With Disabilities, Stephen Hammond, author, and Irit Shimrat for their efforts with assisting in the information

provided in this article; their contributions are greatly appreciated.

Endnotes

1. “About Translink.” Translink. <http://www.translink.bc.ca/About_TransLink/News_Releases/ news06020802.asp>.

2. Dyson, Jane. Telephone interview. BC Coalition for People With Disabilities. March 2009.

3. “Disability History Timeline.” Disability Social Project. <http://www.disability history.org/timeline_new.html>.

4. “Policy Spotlight on Promoting Accessibility and Inclusion.” Sparc BC. <http://www.sparc.bc.ca /index.php? option=com_rubberdoc&view=doc&id=286&format=raw>.

5. Peters, Yvonne. “Twenty Years of Litigating for Disability Equality Rights: Has it Made a Difference?” Council of Canadians with Disabilities. <http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/ humanrights/promoting/20years#IIA>.

6. Dyson, Jane. Telephone interview. BC Coalition for People With Disabilities. March 2009.

7. “A Disability Rights Analysis of Canada’s Record Regarding the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Submission by CCD to the Human Rights Council in Relation to the 2009 Periodic Review of Canada.” Council of Canadians with Disabilities. <http://www. ccdonline.ca/en/humanrights/promoting/20years#IIA>.

8. “A Disability Rights Analysis of Canada’s Record Regarding the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Submission by CCD to the Human Rights Council in Relation to the 2009 Periodic Review of Canada.” Council of Canadians with Disabilities. <http://www. ccdonline.ca/en/humanrights/promoting/20years#IIA>.

9. Peters, Yvonne. “The Canadian Human Rights Commission Strives to Design a New Business Model: What Does This Mean for Persons with Disabilities?” Council of Canadians with Disabilities. <http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/humanrights/promoting/new-business-model>.

10. Hammond, Stephen. E-mail correspondence. Feb. 26 2009.

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how it isMercedes Eng

MAIN MAIN

money mart The heart of the motherfuckin community Hotel Washington Coastal Health Authority corner store the Regent empty building closed business the Balmoral closed business pizza shop closed business porn store closed business Insite the Blue Eagle the institution that is saving motherfuckin lives the Brandiz(Insite: North America’s 1st safe injection sight) closed business

Vancouver Drug School(call the whole damn corner store neighbourhood the Vancity Drug School yo!) corner store

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COLUMBIA empty lot community bank old Smilin’ Buddha where jimi hendrix once played empty lot now a boarded up building corner store art gallery not on the corner subsidized housing project the Shaldon Hotel

COLUMBIA meth clinic

pawnshop subsidized housing project

empty building development closed business

parking lot The Only

United We Can place where homeless people subsidized housing project endeavour every motherfuckin day D.E.R.A. in this city to make money representin for the d.t.e.s. for 29 years

ginseng store empty building development

the Dodson CARRALL drop in for the street Contemporary Centre for Asian Art

meth clinic subsidized housing project art gallery closed business

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CARRALL pawnshop pawn shop BladeRunners closed business empty lot

Backpackers closed business

Army and Navy the Grand Union

closed business subsidized housing project ABBOTT closed building closed down pawn shop Funky Winkerbean’s convenience store Save-On Meats Salvation Army drop in pawnshops The Golden Crown empty building development closed business hooker store (Model Express) closed business empty lot closed business ABBOTT the Triple Crown Woodward’s development discount fabric store store selling Chinese stuff corner store not on the store money mart heritage building

CAMBIE CAMBIE

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32

Drive-by Lindsay Page

Drive-by is a series of photographs taken from Super 8 film still projections shot during a short road trip along Hastings Street in North Burnaby. The reasons for travel in Western culture have vastly changed — from collective religious pilgrimages

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and journeys, to war, to smaller, more personal movements. Travel within cities especially is an individual exploit — be it for personal entertainment or business purposes.

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In Drive-by, I wanted to focus on individual spiritual pilgrimages within the Greater Vancouver Area. Instead of traveling to a specific sacred site, the journey itself becomes a wealth of self-discovery, whether on the bus amidst strangers or in one’s own car in relative privacy. The blurred images of Drive-by hint at apparitions and blur actual physical space into relative,

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not entirely discernible, images. Through short trips through the city, reflecting on the passing landscape, we arrive at short moments of discovery individual to each passenger.

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The series is partially an homage and subversion of Jeff Wall’s Landscape Manual in which he reveals the best way to view a landscape: by car. Through viewing urban landscapes in relative bodily stillness within a personal or public vehicle, we gaze at the passing scenes through a window often without thought. Drive-by attempts to assert this daily task or occasional

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entertainment as an opportunity for spiritual moments to occur. The blurred images in Drive-by hint at collective experience but allow for personal interpretation.

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Six Blocks WalkingWiesia Kujawa

walk let me grasp your wrist bind it with gossamer rope wound twice thrice wound around your ankle impede move/ ment glide with grace or hobble reach insight fullness with me.

preface:

do not pay attention to water as it will haunt you distract you from with its sparkled dance with its lyrical chant.

use arms and back and thighs and ankle tendons use ipod wax buds to block: now to then Apollo lurking in itunes beside Eris gathering sound ear / drums songs throng, vie for place (just like it was before) randomly chosen

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Block six

partly on beach

first sight: charred seers looking at what was not what is eyes glued shut with spiked rails running off in one direction blue-black-staccato tattoos break skin gossamer disintegrates into

second sight: saffron chalice cups: a reflected colour teaming up against black soft level mud (as a soft drum sound)

third sight: reincarnated at the will of saffron robes blind dog enrobe sticks with yellowed teeth and pinkness in water by scent to beach dropped by devotions final sight: walk beside shucked gossamer this I tell you: break the ropes, leave the mast, melt the wax

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Block one

taking place, walking up the subtle trail, just behind the two-room apartment, where, ending of trail reveals a field of high grasses

Of red and wild, elusive and sweet and real strawberries; of a bull in the barbed-wound wild field, perhaps not real or at least not as real as the strawberry. Of making a capture of memory to bring it to the fore. But what to do with it when it arrives, dragged, bruised bleeding internally, reluctantly defined, always inshadow, lurching towards the north facing brewing clouds crows gathering dark for burza waiting not insilence but giving up head under wing in red cedar giving deity to grzmoty

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Block three

on concrete sidewalk

she speaks groceries, I listen poems can of soup celery eggs take a place in line up with moving cut grasses that shine / razor edges that shine moving wheels iridescent wind on butterfly sleeves that, too, shine spit bugs foam lyric of colour in sky like colour of dresses in a magazine

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Block four

at the library

that was the place I found voice. so I took all the poets I could find, opening books to find their construct in the library smelling of earth made in an after-thought taking those with shape and melody. I am esl what did I know, living in the place where no one communicated to me, their language parallel to their mouths. I, lower than that getting the odd vowel thrown my way. so I wrote in that place wrote like the poets and they would have to catch the shape of words, to listen, then.

the writing

this is what I found in the book:

All that morning we looked at the citadel from every angle. We began from the side in the shadow, where the sea, Green without brilliance, - breast of a slain peacock, Received us like time that has no break in it.

from: “The King of Asine” George Seferis

this is what I wrote:

We planned the war, put it all, from inception to victory, In the ramparts. Buried men in stone walls, Washed window sills with soldiers’ blood, Took fragment of bone, ground it to nourish soil. Heroes were flown like flags at the vantage point Where every incoming ship could view, Where all would-be enemies crawled on their bellies And shuddered at the scent of victory.

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And still heroes were displayed, shining at the place around the corner, Cold in shade, waiting for the full moon to show their own fullness.

I told them, while we waited for the moon, Of the winedark sea: For they had not been schooled in such adjectives. I told them, too, of how it began. Of Eris, a basket on her arm, Gathering apples, but putting only the golden ones in. And, after gathering, she raises her head up to the heaven, She learns how lust, how the wanting of sex, how that longing To capture and hold what is beauty, Gives dying and death a place on this brown field.

Consumed by walls, we paid no heed to colour, Making the brown field one angled plane with wall; Saw only flatness, dull matte hazed by singleness of thought. No colour but killing. No sight but to seek out that point, On the ankle. Pierce it with the beak of the peacock, Finding it dead in the sea next to Narcissus. It, head-strong, head-long into the mongrel-seeded sea. Eye fascinated by colour, tail heavy, sopped-up with green water. Floating breast-first, no arrow, no blood But slain all the same.

I saw time that day, to the right side of my vision Wavy, like those quasi-mirages made by hot sun, diaphanous. It ran on lrt rails, just ahead of Sky Train, But no one noticed. Cemented eyes on back-lit screens , Watching the goddess who asks you to choose, which one, which one. You don’t. Then all you’re left with is hubris waiting for you at the end of the ride. You got there ok, managed to touch the parapet on your way down. I charged my ipod battery on my friend’s lap top, enough time to listen again And that’s all I cared about. Timetable was met that day. And that’s all we cared about. Even with time sneaking a ride, the rail did not break.

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Block two

at first, on the church steps then, beside and inside the church finally at the communion rail, kneeling

my father always wore his suit to open house I translated every question as quickly as but it still took twice as long as those parents who spoke only English and it took me so long to find the meaning of conscientious in my grade 2 report card but it made my father proud that I was and he told me of the terror of boredom of trying to harness the time so he made bracelets from silver coins pounded and carved and braided horsehair pulled from the mattress into a length that had no particular use and wooden boxes with his initials and he told me he designed a house in his head with details to swallow the time for his hunger but

he died when there were some rooms still left unfinished it

is always a tangle for me: the house in his head and the death and the camp and which came first

grace is not given willingly [sotto voce] (it’s always my fault) grace is not given with ease mea culpa grace is not maxima culpa (it’s always my fault: I was always late) so that I could

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listen like a Protestant to that radio show that ended at 10 in the morning and run all those blocks until my lungs ached with too much oxygen. But it was still my fault.

Sundays Tantalus at the rail knee-deep in mire grace is not given easily and he drops it through the space between the rail and the lace-decorated cloth held tight, held close mea culpa

Sundays breed tangle knees blue imprint nail heads fasting hunger nausea white cheeks blue lips a handkerchief resting on her hair boredom allow me to untangle to make loose the bonds imprimatur

Here he strikes his breast thrice: mea culpa and me – I lost the word they tangle culpa culpable venia wina venial but it’s my fault that the sides holding in the creek fell powiedziec jemu did I say did I ask did I tell what was the word that was needed In the Beginning was Silence and silence birthed the Word

venial does not deprive the soul of sanctifying grace but it fell through no matter how tightly I held the altar cloth

and I couldn’t find you I was lost on the last ramp of the tower with no way back (you said you would design, for me, time a machine to harness it) so that I could find you but you didn’t and I didn’t find you but what I wanted to ask you was how can I translate the Lone Ranger?

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Block five

taking place on the northeast corner defined by creek, highway, cement sidewalk and asphalt road and, sometime later, on a bridge

This block of space belongs to angels, where, in air Just above this block of space, they are circling With wing tips touching each to each, as if they are birds of prey. They seem to me to be the colour of a piece of marble chosen by Bernini, That unmentionable colour, that colour of cream poured on snow. I can hardly tell the difference in this twilight: it melds so quickly in its tunnelling, Staying until at least mid February, then, in the thaw, making its way (again) To a winedark sea by way of the river that has no colour. You are the third one, I think, behind St. Paul. The only one that looks me in the eye. Holding nail in hand, to configure shape of crucifixion. I am breathless in your wings as they cross around my shoulders. An intake of river-air breath: then, held for what seems to be such a long time. See, there, an accidental tap of chisel: tortuous muscle, colour made from an event you tell to no one.

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We at Memewar would like to thank all who made the Spring ’09 edition

of the Short Line Reading Series

possible: our readers,

guests, donors,

volunteers, and the Railway Club for

having us.

Be sure to visit

memewaronline.com

for info on the coming Fall edition

of the

Short Line Reading Series

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LINEbooks Burnaby

LINEbooks

Lenihill acepersperum la idelia pres expellupta providendel inti du-

cideri am, con num, ipsaperunto dolorehenita corehendis apienia

nonseque consed eratur reperuntem quasini mincil min porit accus

aut litaqui ad min reium eum volor rectatem et quatum eos et faccum

faccabo reicate venditio mil eos as eiciam lautest, sitatqui consequi ut

magnatur, odis es eostemp oruntot aspellacia nim ea nus ditiatur, sunt

qui vendand isciend igent.

Loreperferum aute volorum quis esti dunti ium eum repraecum et aut

oditaque volut minto que conem reius et et rati derferitem restiur sedi

dolut ut vides etur, quist facea comni consequi cusapie nihicatur?

Aperio maion non eumet aut fugiasitas que excerferum quatur, officim

ipsaper eperione nes ipitatem et pa ius.

Mendanda ati doluptam eosant que volorerum faccuptam nonem et,

te odis eum dolupitaquae nossim fuga. Si oditatem et laut estium fa-

cea iur secatiam que

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LINEBOOKS / POETRY

Pacific Avenue by Glen Lowry

Lowry treads, retreads, leaving footprints in the wet concrete of Pacific Avenue. His is a stroll through memory and place, citing sites where others have been and where ghosts remain. With the eyes of a poet, the awareness of a cultural critic, and the sensitivity of an artist lost in an imaginary landscape, Lowry brushstrokes language into corners familiar to so many yet seen by so few. This is a Vancouver that serves not as a point of genesis or termination, but as an ouroboros, caught in transition, a midpoint on the way to and from . Sparse words, austere lines fold easily into found poetry and double back into a politics of place, defined by culinary excess, photographic fluidity, and the palimpsests of history. Pacific Avenue is all about seeing multitudes in a handful of text.

112 pages $16 isbn 978-0-9784981-8-4WESTCOASTLINE.CA

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Mechanical Abstraction is a black and white painting series based on analog film stills. Several source images are extracted from a particular film; the subsequent paintings are later displayed together as one work.

The original event is abstracted to film and light while context and detail are lost in the translation. Once painted, the blurriness and flat tone become deliberate and benefit from a history of abstract painting. But unlike the genius myth of Modernist expression, this abstraction occurred predominately by objective or automatic means.

In each piece, abstraction is juxtaposed with realism. This gives ambiguous forms a point of origin. But more importantly, it follows the entropy of a sign to the point where certainty of meaning is lost. For brief instances, the persistence of time and life in motion escapes our rationalization. The machines invented to help us understand have in fact obscured images beyond recognition.

This is where the subjectivity of painting greatly compensates. Meaning is habitually projected on the threatening unknown. In this series of translations, the last reproduction occurs in the mind of the viewer. This parallel reading is just as valid as the original intention.

Buster Keaton, 2008 (right) is a work of 5 paintings from still frames selected from a 1930s film. The images show the comedian Buster Keaton being blown away by a strong wind machine. For each canvas the image is projected slightly smaller and it shifts over as Keaton is pushed off the screen. The last frame often reminds me of the falling man image from 9/11.

G Force, 2008 (opposite page) is one of four paintings on panel from a film recording of a test of human endurance wherein the body is subjected to g-forces. The image shows the harshest moment of the session, where it is particularly difficult for the trainee to resist passing out.

Tornado, 2008 (next page) is gestural painting based on a storm chaser’s snapshot of a live tornado. The twirling form dwarfs the small house that it approaches. Nature’s monumental power is often realized in its most destructive forms.

Mechanical Abstraction Taralee Guild

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To live in a pineapple \ one musthave skin thick as pineapple rindand

To live on the moon—residein blue hue

peaches too wetbananas too long and dry

aha! a ginkgofleshybut deciduous

coconut, you’d never get incream of wheat, never out

nutty flavour of quinoa dirt couscouslittle germ to hang out on a hammocktoo many rice cookers

babaganouj : naanhumous : pitanachos : spinach dipmelba : patétaxing victuals

***

Where to \ RentSonia Rivest

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hard cover of a hidden hiding spot \ of Nautilus 90 Northof a saviour— dusty dollars

that space behind the glove box! where you always lose your shitthat space where 4 wallets have gone, never surfacedthat space where the cable that connects to the charger for your digicam wentthat space where your mattress presses to the wall so tight you can’t put your sheet on properly and it slips throughout the nightspaces where people fill a bus stop or a White Spot, a Kal Tire or a libraryspaces with gaps traps rats and asbestoswhere people are unconscious of their presence—

exhuming

what about along the crack that is a scar on your face the one Mr. Kitty gave you before he was de-clawed the one \ that drips from your eye dries on your cheek

the one \ I have traced with eyelashes

that, is a placethe \ place

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My last memory of the Peanut Gallery involves being gently ushered out the door of the local, underground music venue by a broad-shouldered Vancouver police officer. In fact, this is many people’s last memory of the Peanut — the morning after the show in question, the Peanut Gallery’s Facebook profile read, “As most of you have heard, the cops shut the party down on Saturday and the Peanut Gallery has

had to come to an end […] Thanks for supporting us over the last year and a bit.” And that’s the story of the Peanut, an ending echoed by so many other “pop-up” venues in Vancouver.

Only moments before the party was broken up by the fuzz that fateful Saturday, the B-Lines — the headliners that

R.I.P. Peanut Gallery Carmen Papalia Featuring photography by Steve Louie

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night — were told that they couldn’t take the stage, despite the fact that the crowd was restless, chanting for the erratic Vancouver punks to play “ONE MORE SONG!” Prior to my first visit to the snug basement venue, I had heard rumours that the cops often broke up shows at the Peanut, but I had luckily not witnessed any of these unfortunate events firsthand. I did however feel slightly unnerved whenever I shelled out $5 or $8 for cover, knowing that I might not get a chance to catch the bands I was hoping to see — a feeling that was reinvigorated each time the crowd got a bit too rowdy, or when I noticed that elbow room was a bit less than usual. But the idea of a closure by the VPD was never fully dismissed by the crew or the crowd at the Peanut — sadly,

the venue’s inevitable demise was almost accepted given the circumstances.

The aptly named Peanut Gallery was located at the corner of Richards and Pender. Google Maps gave an address and pointed you in the right direction, but there were barely any signs indicative of a music venue once you got there — just a few people smoking by a door and the faint sound of live music beneath the noise of street traffic. Directions might have gone something like this: cross the small parking lot at the corner, scale the three foot step, squeeze through the door, hike up a flight of stairs, stumble down the tight winding staircase, and you’ll hear the most raw and energetic live music that

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you have heard in a while — anything from avant-garde to fifties surf music. Once you paid cover and got stamped, you could reach into your pocket for a swig of whatever you had brought, or walk up to the guy with the Igloo cooler and buy yourself some shitty beer. It was sketchy, but had earned the tag “charm-ingly sketchy” before its sudden death — and it was indeed both of these things; if not for the cha-otic yet alluring ambiance, then for the fact that it (a shoebox art space) was able to exist for over a year without ever becoming legal.

A progressive, alternative space for independent music in the heart of downtown Vancouver, the Peanut Gallery was Vancity’s best kept secret, that is, until the community that it attracted exceeded the physical space itself — perhaps a sign that there is an overwhelming need in Vancouver for independently run art spaces, or rather, for licensing laws to undergo serious change. I spoke to Cheylene Tattersall, representative of the Peanut, about the trend of the “pop-up” venue and about the late, great Peanut Gallery.

Memewar: What was the Peanut Gallery, and how did it come to be?

Cheylene: The Peanut Gallery has been many things over the years; I have seen it evolve into something new a few times. The Seamrippers (www.seamrippers.org) used to have the

space, then Michael Doehle, who ran Midtown Gallery and Clothing with Sarah Graves, took it over when The Seamrip-pers got shut down by the city. Michael was using the space as his studio, but when we started hanging out I convinced

him that it would be an awesome venue (especially after having been to Seamrippers dance parties). When we start-ed the space we asked Edo Van Breemen (of The Clips and Brass-turnaut) to get involved, and he was more than happy to. Edo and I did most of the book-ing, promotions and sound stuff, while Michael did a lot of clean-ing and organ-

izing, as well as bartending. We also had a lot of regular help from friends like Julia Lecato and Mairin Deery, and of course the best door guy ever, Adrian Hughes.

M: What was the catalyst for starting the Peanut?

C: I have been a part of the Vancouver music and art scene for a long time. It started with booking shows at Seylynn Hall in North Vancouver, and working the door at Ms. T’s Cabaret when I was fourteen or fifteen (shhh). I have played in bands throughout the years and know that bands are starved for venues (which the city seems to keep taking away). The space also gave us the freedom to have art shows for people that wouldn’t necessarily have the opportunity to show at other “above-ground” galleries.

Gang Violence w/ Candles – 10.18.08

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M: What was the philosophy behind the Peanut?

C: We just really wanted to support local art and music. We didn’t have a lot of rules about who could play down there or who could show down there; really, it was “come to us with a good idea and if we think it will work we will help you make it happen.”

M: The name was quite fitting, how did it come about?

C: I actually have to credit Sarah Graves. When Michael was still using the space as his studio, she came down the stairs and asked, “what’s going on down here in the Peanut Gallery?” Michael held onto that and suggested the Peanut Gallery when we were thinking of names — it just worked.

M: The Peanut has been described as “charmingly sketchy.” How did it get such a reputation?

C: It was definitely charming in its own way — with its long, narrow concrete staircase descending below-ground in Downtown Vancouver, its leaky pipes, concrete floors, smoking room in the boiler room, toilet and taps that always ran (we would have to turn them on and off at the wall), and its trap door over the bar so that if the cops came by we could drop it down and it just looked like some art on the walls. It was a place where people of all ages could come to and party,

where they could see bands and look at art — no egos.

M: The Peanut had a strained relationship with the law, can you speak about the trouble that the venue faced?

C: There weren’t too many problems; we ran a tight ship. One night the cops came down to our Jazz & Per-ogies night — they were most-ly confused. I offered them some perogies, they declined and left. We also closed the door a couple times because the cops were dealing with something in the parking lot next to the

venue, but that’s it. The night that the cops shut the space down, we had a bouncer (that we didn’t usually use) not show up early enough and there were apparently (I was in New York at the time) a large group of underage kids drink-ing outside. That’s what did it. Most of the time we had a door guy making sure that out back was clear so the cops had no reason to even think about coming down.

M: Can you share a few fond memories of the Peanut?

C: I can’t really think of any bad times down at the Peanut Gallery, so listing off one specific event is a difficult task. One of my favorite art shows down there, though, was the Install Show: we bought two mis-tints and those were the only colours that people could paint on the walls with—you could add white to them and you could paint whatever you

Candles w/ Gang Violence – 10.18.08

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wanted.

M: It is an unfortunate trend: the short lifespan of the “pop-up” venue. The Sweatshop closed shortly before the Peanut, and new venues are emerging to fill the void, such as The Shed and Goonies. Why the shift to spaces such as these — spaces which are alternative to Vancouver’s bar/club venues?

C: I don’t really see it as a shift towards different types of spaces, but it’s definitely a reminder of the need for alternative venues, and for the freedom to do things that might not fit in a bar or club atmosphere. It also illustrates the need for cheap rent, and for more all-ages venues. There is not a lot

of support for the arts in Vancouver, and it is very difficult to start up a venue for a lot of reasons: zoning, licensing, and noise, to name a few. Then you have to consider what is happening to venues that have had shows in the past: weekly nights are happening everywhere now and bookings are a pain in the ass. You have to pay out the nose to rent a space for a show, and your band might not even be well-received by the patrons.

M: What do these alternative spaces offer that “proper” venues don’t?

C: Really, it gives the artists a lot more freedom (depending on who’s running the space of course). We had everything

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come through our doors at the Peanut, from jazz to punk to house. I think the mix of different events helped with crowd control — if we were to do the same thing all the time, I think it would have been blown out.

I think a lot of people were attracted to how “charming” the peanut gallery was as a space, but also, we pretty much gave the artists the freedom to do what they wanted — the way that the Peanut was set up made it easy to transform the space if necessary. One show for Corey Lucas transformed the space completely into the artist’s own world.

M: What is your opinion on the criticism that alternative art spaces, which often invade vacant spaces in the

Downtown Eastside, act as the first wave of gentrification in the area?

C: I think that these types of art spaces are an amazing thing, and hope that the city eventually allows for them to become legal. How would making a vacant space into something like the Peanut Gallery be damaging to a community? The Peanut Gallery and spaces such as the Emergency Room help add to a really important community of musicians and artists. I’m actually really excited about the amount of awesome bands that have been starting up lately in the city. I think that people are really working hard to keep venues going and are working even harder to start new ones — which is a relevant cause, in my opinion.

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“fifteenfamouspornstarsstimulate”:Lai and Wong Simulate in sybil unrest

Cris Costa

There are few writers out there who really understand the slipperiness of words, who not only hear how sounds coalesce and disband, but who can also create a text which speaks to this. There are even fewer writers who can do this and also write an important text — a text that not only weaves through the semiotic, exposing the weight of the words as sounds morph and move, but a text that tells us something important about the world, about its structure and our being in relation to that. Larissa Lai and Rita Wong outstandingly achieve this in sybil unrest (LINEBooks, 2009) — to call it play would be an understatement. Presented like a driver’s-gone-anarchist’s manual for ‘civil unrest,’ the contrast between the red-orange and mustard-yellow on the cover is stark, glossy, unsettling; and in its sibyl’s appropriation of these colours, coupled with an image depicting a metamorphoses of laurel trees turning into women, hand-in-hand in a fateful walk — the cover preps us for the Sybil-multiplicity of the text, drawing attention to production, gender, and life cycle — of bodies and of meaning. It’s not the prettiest cover by any traditional standards, but its conscientiousness to form,

including font, speaks to the poetics of the/this long poem.

As a mythopoetic tale of the tribe, a major thread throughout the poem is a persistent questioning of the creation of identity and identification in twenty-first century late-capitalism:

few men chewchew choose the trainwhether they built the tracksor drove the last spikeor bought the containersthat make up the trainthat goes on the tracksthat makes up the railway that cn builtthat was bought out by Amtrak and Fairmont and who

knows elsenever mind the highwaythe robbers barren buy buy birdieno point reinventing the dealthat worked so well the first timethis little piggy loves the free market economyin the guise of democracycries we we weall the way to the bank (16)

Searing and critical, this passage collects Hollywood and pop-culture, blends it to nursery rhymes, clichéd phrases of the English language, famous tales, and historical events, all the while exposing the elusive ground between/of denotation and connotation. This puts into crisis the very sounds, the stories, and the ideas that allow us to secure identification within the world — it is a new historiography which changes our relationship to history, and our relationship to the construction of ourselves.

Larissa Lai & Rita Wongsybil unrestLINEBooks, 2009, 112 pp, $16

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Lai and Wong began working on this form as a collaborative project, “in the renga spirit,” via email exchange circa the start of Iraq invasion and the outbreak of SARS in 2003, a socio-political climate for which the text is responsible. Insofar as the poem appears to identify an external enemy, it also shows how the enemy, the Other, is the substance which composes oneself, the medium through which we construct the world. In the most recent edition of Cross Cultural Poetics, Wong writes: “When I speak of English as the enemy’s language, I see the enemy as being within the individual person — within one’s own language use and how one is programmed to look at things.” The poem is therefore conscious of itself, so much in fact, that it is of the subject — that is, its self-reflexivity is a self-reflexivity of the reader, of any subject who lives through and within our culture. None of this is without an implicit hilarity, as the text is laced with irony and wry humour; language is détourned through a regurgitation which exposes the grotesqueness of the twenty-first century carnival:

weekly menue feeds babely tribe our beloved amazongushes effusivei’m loving itexplaining her beefas die caston probability of profitablilty we clock our overdraft in times new roman

loose mysteriestwist forked laughteras goddess sign in the triplicate‘the pleasures of being multiple’ (57)

The poem also seeks to draw attention to the idea of ‘multiplicity’ as a consequence of abuse, but simultaneously, a natural position of power. Titled in gesture of Sybil Dorsett (the pseudonym for Shirley Mason, a woman with multiple-personality disorder whose tragic life was exposed in the novel by Flora Rheta Schreiber, Sybil, with its subsequent films), sybil unrest suggests how women can collectively resist the violent oppression of capitalism and patriarchy using the language of the system itself through multiplicity, through more than one identity. Or as Lai writes herself, in an article also in Cross Cultural Poetics: “For the racialized writer to pome into the flow requires a complex of identifications, misidentifications, re-identifications and overflow.” sybil unrest is a truly subversive text that unveils the heart of poetry.

Works Cited

Lai, Larissa. “Cellular Archive Landed Militant: Poetic Notes on Assassinated Futures.” XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. 20 (2008): 64-66.

Wong, Rita. “XC-Poetics, or Toward 90 Addresses for a Poem.” XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. 20 (2008): 173-78.

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Contributors Indran Amirthanayagam’s latest book is The Splintered

Face: Tsunami Poems (Hanging Loose, 2008). Amirthanayagam writes in Spanish and French as well. Other books include The Elephants of Reckoning (Hanging Loose, 1993), winner of the 1994 Paterson Prize, El Hombre Que Recoge Nidos (Resistencia, Mexico City, 2005), El Infierno de los Pajaros (Resistencia, Mexico City, 2001) and Ceylon R.I.P. (International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 2001). Amirthanayagam writes on poetry at http://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com

Cris Costa is a graduate student at Simon Fraser University. A native of Toronto, she completed a B.A. in English at York U and is now studying urban CanLit and cultural theory in Vancouver. She was an event coordinator and an executive member of the Scream Literary Festival in Toronto for several years. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Ruth Dato is an essayist and poet with aspirations to write personal memoirs, short stories, and children’s literature. Ruth is keenly interested in politics and is a defender of the poor, homeless, and disabled. She is also an advocate for the benefits and use of natural medicine.

Jeff Encke has taught creative writing and literary criticism at both Columbia University in New York and Richard Hugo House in Seattle. The poems published in this issue of Memewar are part of an unpublished book-length series entitled Most Wanted, where each poem addresses a figure from the Iraq’s Most Wanted card deck published by the Department of Defense in March 2003. Excerpts of these poems are currently part of a custom-designed deck of playing cards, viewable at www.matlub.net/fulldeck

Mercedes Eng is the subject that acts on the object. And she loves that her schoolwork involves making arguments about prison tattoos and Lil’ Wayne.

Taralee Guild (1984-present) lives and works in Vancouver, BC and is originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario. She majors in painting at the Emily Carr University and graduates with a BFA of Visual Arts in 2010.

Wiesia Kujawa is an English major, SFU, sixties. Read/

wrote/photographed. Stopped to mother one poet, one non-poet. Resumed reading/writing/photography. Living in Coquitlam on the (literal) doorstep of a wilderness, having a vision of writing an autobiography in poems.

Steve Louie is a live music photographer/writer based in Vancouver, BC. He contributes his coverage of the independent Vancouver music scene to Beyond Robson, Chalkedup.com, and Discorder. His work has also appeared in Exclaim! magazine (Canada) and Three Imaginary Girls (Seattle).

Catherine Owen has four titles of poetry published: Somatic – The Life and Work of Egon Schiele (Exile Editions, 1998), nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award, The Wrecks of Eden (Wolsak and Wynn, 02), shortlisted for the BC Book Prize, and her new collections, Shall: ghazals (Wolsak and Wynn, 06) and Cusp/detritus (Anvil Press, 06), both longlisted for the Relit Prize. A short story, “Food I Ate with Frank” was nominated for the Matrix Lit Pop award in 2008.

Lindsay Page is a third year art student at the University of Emily Carr, majoring in Critical and Cultural Studies. She was born in Victoria and now lives in Vancouver.

Tim Polukoshko is not a professional photographer, but he

owns a camera that makes professional photographers jealous. He lives in Penticton, and is very, very close to being a retired man.

While fighting crimes of punctuation and the terror of plagiarism, Nikki Rader still finds time to dabble in one of her favourite hobbies: photography.

Sonia Rivest reminisces about living on Zac’s face – works as a gardener — goes to SFU at night — 2 dogs — 1 motorcycle — 14 Bukowskis — 2 careers — failed vegetarian — french — B34 — doesn’t bite her nails — smokes occasionally — quinoa — tortilla — arugula — pulled by Chopin.

Ami Sanyal is a Vancouver-based photographer specializing in creative portraiture. See his work and get in touch at amisanyal.com

All uncredited photos and art contributed by Memewar staff

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submit your worksubmissions@memewaronline.com

Issue #10: “Adaptation”

Deadline for Submission: July 15, 2009Markets are restructuring to accommodate for the global economic crisis, policies are changing to ensure future stability,

and lifestyles are in a state of constant flux due to health and environmental concerns. If the sheer frequency of our Facebook status updates is a sign of anything, it reveals our need to document how we cope with changes, even the most trivial ones.

In this second part of a two-issue series on the subject of change, we will be accepting submissions that focus on adaptation, or the reaction to change. Write an essay on the philosophy of evolution. Document a dance piece or performance that investigates a changing identity politics. Write a piece of speculative fiction that prophesizes the future of resources and trade. Report on a local or world event that illustrates a public’s changing needs. Adapt the local telephone book into a screenplay. As always, we will be accepting both on-topic and off-topic submissions.

Issue #11: “Fun & Games”

Deadline for Submission: October 1, 2009

Professional athletes sign multi-million dollar contracts. Spectators riot and beat each other to death. Cities are radically reshaped and cultures from around the globe come together. All for sports. So is it all just fun and games?

Inspired by the Winter Olympics coming to Vancouver, this issue of Memewar will investigate the nature of sport and its place within society. As always, we are looking for an eclectic mix of submissions. Tell us your early encounters with competition and fair play in a piece of creative non-fiction. Send us a series of photos which critique the visual representation of athletes. Write an essay on violence and the role of gender in sports or capture the process of the Olympics, specific local changes or global phenomenon, in a long poem. Whatever you do, be sure to give it 110%!

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