self-portrait photo

Selfie last night... if the new fashion is wide frizzy hair, why all I have to do is comb mine (though you can't quite see how wide it gets in this late night bathroom mirror pic). Ran the iPhone 4 shot through a few filters, still a bit on the yellow side.

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Split Mask

Had this prose poem public for awhile, thought I could handle it. But I've encrypted it. Sorry.

encrypted poem

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Cate Blanchett Possesses the Screen in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine

Cate Blanchett inhabits her character, Jasmine, in Woody Allen's latest movie, Blue Jasmine. It is her story, and she grasps it in her teeth like a gold dollar and does not let it go even when it dissolves into dust. She possesses the screen. Her collapsing world is revealed through a babble that Jasmine addresses to anyone who will listen. We see flashbacks along with her attempts to create an afterlife to the life she had. She plays her character with a sharp, complex, brilliant fervor that dips in and out of an acerbic snobbery and a madness that is aware of itself and yet is unable to surmount itself. Jasmine attained the status of wealthy socialite by marrying a Wall Street financier (Hal, Alec Baldwin) whose companies were a construction of empty cards and the dizzying fall into shame and poverty with a fractured hubris only Cate Blanchett could convey. Characters destroy each others’ lives through financial usury. The aftershocks of embezzlement lie at the heart of Blue Jasmine. This is the story of what happens after the swindlers have moved through people's lives and left them destitute. Woody Allen, with references to Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, weaves a story of facades covering facades with the fierce, raw emotion of a volcano of a woman boiling at the center.

Woody Allen, the aged and beloved comedian, a prolific filmmaker who... READ MORE

(My article/review on Blue Jasmine was published by KJ Mullins, the editor of newz4u.org.)
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'Ravishing Light' performed @ LyricalMyrical Festival last night

direct link:Ravishing Light @ LyricalMyrical Festival.

My second 'clip-on mic' poetry and creative movement live performance, 'Ravishing Light,' @the LyricalMyrical Festival hosted by publisher, Luciano Iacobelli, @Q Space in Toronto. The 3-day festival of LyricalMyrical authors (over 30 featured) is the last event before it closes down in a few days. We all hope Luciano resurrects Q Space at another location at some point in the future. His cafe has been a warm, welcoming, accepting, nurturing and enjoyable space for poetry in Toronto and many of us will miss it greatly. Many thanks to my brother, Allan Clews, and my friend, Jacques Albert, who took video. I edited the clips the morning after.

All photos from the video: two as is; two photoshopped.

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LyricalMyrical Festival this weekend!

Ok. 7-10 minute spot at the LyricalMyrical Festival tomorrow night, Aug 24th, slated for around 9pm, and I promised to bring people so .... ahem, yah! Check. Clip-on mic tested and working. I have a large black cloth to wear for the first short poem, and a gold prop I made this afternoon! I was glueing gold light down - well, not quite. But I am quite resourceful! you'll see (hope to convince someone or other to take video of it for you to see my antics) - and then, as requested, I'll be wearing the mask and that outfit in the photo below to perform my poem, 'A Floral Opera.' Timed at about 7.5 minutes tonight, but you think I can remember the lines. LOL. Already nervous! getting performance anxiety a good 24 hours ahead of schedule. Just joking! It'll be a fabulous evening! Tons of great readers - 33 poets with LyricalMyrical chapbooks over the whole weekend! A blast of a farewell to Q Space (382 College St, Toronto - the LyricalMyrical Festival will be the last event held there).

I did a phone in 'shout out' about it on Nik Beat's CIUT radio show, Howl, last Tuesday night from the park - the last 10-12 min of the show. The link is to the latest show, so listen before Wednesday if you have it in mind to listen.

Oh, and a link to my LyricalMyrical chapbook, 'the luminist poems,' published this year (there are only 5 copies left before we go into a 2nd print-run!). Come September I am going to try to do more promo for it, try, try, will, soon. Lol.

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Split Mask

Working on a new mask.... the photos, a take on the cell handheld self-portrait.




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Sketches of Poets and Musicians at Poetry Events in Toronto

So many things going on, I seem to have let my blog lapse a bit this Summer. Here are some of the sketches I've done at various poetry events. Below them is a slideshow with captions so you can see who's who if you wish.





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