January 2020 Recap

So far this year the TOpoet.ca following blog grew to 382 followers! Several as a result of my recent Secret Handshake feature & some as a result of my Sunday photo blogs. The top 3 change places often but I’m still amazed to see Bangladesh & Kenya are still in the top 10 is a surprise. Kyrgyzstan! Mexico! My Tumblr following is at 258. Twitter 218 followers.

Picture Perfect – 3,400 words blogged to far with only 183,000 words to go 🙂 Editing has been good, so far, mainly typos – except for expect sort of stuff. Also now knowing where the story is going I have been tweaking to fill things in that I didn’t know first time around – i.e. Daniel’s RCMP history. No chapter titles for this one. I am creating a fresh graphic for each section though.

Hot Damn! & Shanty Tramp both went very well. Hot had a full house as did Shanty. I enjoyed the Shanty set a lot though I did edit as I read & dropped a few of the pieces I had planned to do. Getting paid is always a good thing too. I haven’t been in Kensington Market for some time & was dismayed a the number of boarded up shops but happy to see no Starbucks has moved it, yet.

Watched an amazing movie The Hourglass Sanatorium – a 1973 Polish film directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has – similar to his earlier film The Saragossa Manuscript – Hourglass is rich with mind-bending surrealism, stunning images, a near total lack of narrative logic & a stunning soundtrack (not available on cd 😦 ). Inspired & inspiring. Not that I’m on a Slavic kick but I am rereading Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales & Graphite. This is heart-breaking gulag literature – that draws me into this world with insights & a bracing dash of black humour – highly recommended.

Coming up is – well not much until the Stratford season starts. I’m still waiting fo the Capturing Fire dates to be set. I’ll be hosting, moderating a panel there on Keeping The Fire Burning – Fire celebrates 10 years & many of the participants have been writing for decades. What keeps us creating because it certainly isn’t the $ or the hunger for slam points. I plan to be there unless US security panics & closes its borders to anyone who has ever looked at a Middle Easterner on the street or had Chinese take out.