bouboulina

We live in Madison Park, which is basically a thinly veiled version of Stepford from the movies. The women are, by and large, blonde, tanned Amazons in quilted vests and snaffly loafers cruising around in Porsche Cayennes or Rovers or else pushing their kinder about in Bugaboo strollers. When I go to the park with Gavra, I am usually covered in mud, sand and yoghourt. People think automatically I am a nanny and therefore leave me alone. Yesterday there was a clump of these MP matrons huddled under the jungle gym. Two small girls in private school uniforms (the offspring of one of the MPM's) were heaping sand onto the slide, at just about the moment I was about to descend with Gavra on my knee. There was some middle school eye rolling ,and then one of said, "When you're DONE can we actually FINISH what we're doing?" The MPM's paid no mind to this, or to me or Gavra. They were discussing some old school pal who had briefly dated one of the members of Tears For Fears. They broke into a nasal chorus of "Everybody Wants To Rule the World" and that was it, I grabbed Gavra and took him to the beach.

My old school have approached me about giving a speech on Career Day. "How To Be a Poet" or "Your Life in Satire!" --I can see it now. Maybe with slides or some kind of chart. All those parents with their caps set on Dalhousie Law School are going to love me.

Had a lovely evening with my pal, Vero, who is Corsican. She's a pharmacist and has an adorable boy, G's age. We (Vero, myself, her husband Olivier, and her parents) enjoyed a magnificent couscous while the boys ran around bonking each other with bike helmets.

Nine days ago, Tin Press and I launched my first book in Vancouver. It is no easy feat to throw a book launch, even when you are aided in crime by a parliament of helpers. I had very good ones, including my publishers Justine and Hugh and SR Duncan, quite simply THE MAN when it comes to Vancouver "subculture" PR. He is the PR man for the rest of us, a treasure if you're ever thinking of putting something on. Well, I went for broke and invited almost everyone I could think of. The turnout (over a hundred) included family members (all of them), a goodly clump of talent from the poetry and spoken word community, some press folks, an ex-boyfriend, my high school Latin teacher and an old boss who fired me, years ago. Some folks came up from Seattle also, including my pal Hanita Schwartz (an amazingly funny multimedia artist originally from Tel Aviv) and Jeremy Richards, my favorite Seattle spoken word artist of the moment, bar none. His girlfriend, Dani, is a sweetheart and a brainbox in her own right.

The space (Forufera Centre on Hamilton) turned out to be the perfect choice.  I used to go there for tango, back when I danced, and it has a marvelous romantic air with all the wood paneling and red velvet. It also has a huge wall of mirror (as one would expect in a dance studio.)


Forufera is presided over by the effortlessly elegant ballerina-turned-instructor Nadia Tavakoli, an exquisite woman with exquisite manners. She lent and extra air of delicate refinement to the proceedings. Well, I think the performances went all right...we kicked things off with RC Weslowski, a surrealist poet and performer who is very funny and has a definite knack for revving the audience up. I felt my inner eyebrow go up when he brought out a gym bag of toy musical instruments, but it all fit into place and he was great fun towatch and listen to. I think my bit went well enough, except that I read a piece called "Pioneer Square", a tribute to my eldest brother (written with the best intentions) and he seems to have taken it as some sort of insult. Get the book and read "Pioneer Square". It's tame! Bland! Benign! He must have been having a bad day. 

Anyhow, how, once we'd plowed through the work and the cava and the strawberries, we had the book signing and a bit of drunken dancing and then Rowan Lipkovits serenaded a bunch of us with his Klezmerized accordion version of my poem "Ring-A-Ding-Ding", which would have been right at home, if not at a Brighton Beach wedding, then in a 1920's Weimar-era Spoliansky revue. Boy, was I thrilled! That boy has talent (and what a beard!)

After folks had trickled out, a group of us (my husband Dragan, Vancouver conceptual artist Roy Arden, City of Pula boutique owner Will Bravar, photographer Diyah Pera and Hanita ) went out to Maurya to soak up all the cava with Indian food. Fell into bed at about three, feeling sluggish but very relieved.