YNAPSES, LIKE tastebuds, need to be snapped, .

shaken up and seriously challenged regularly to

function at peak. A troll through Talonbooks’ cur-
rent list is always as welcome as a sushi menu in the Beef

Belt.

If you're tired of the same old
grain- and grant-fed Canadian
poem about somebody’s girlhood
inv a small Prairie town, check out

. Adeena Karasick's The Empress
Has No Closure ($12.95), which
mixes poetry, critical commentary
and feminist theory ina
whacked-out witch’s brew whose
central ingredient is the ‘“‘Alefbet
Transfers," a very odd visual/
verba! take on the 22 symbols of
the Hebrew alphabet.

Slightly more accessible, bill
bissett’s inkorrect thots is the latest
instalment in the adventures of the
guy “‘hoo kant spel rite’’ or find
the upper-case key and doesn’t
want to.

bissett is a self-styled ‘New
Luddite’ which means he hates
machines, particularly, in his case,
those that impinge on language
and human communication.

His phonetically spelled poetry
has provic.ed three decades of
critics with clips of satirical ammo

_ From page 30

the Maiden, Riveting psychological
drama by Chilean playwright Ariel
Dorfman stars former West Van-
couver actor Brenda Robins and
Bill Dow. To April 24 at 8 p.m.,
with 2 p.m. Saturday matinees.
Tickets: 873-3311 or Ticketmaster.
Arts Club Mainstage Theatre:
Sleuth. Anthony Shaffer's classic
story of master manipulator An-
drew Wyke. To May 15. Mon.-Fri
at 8 o.m.; Sat. 5 and 8:36 p.m. 2/1
Mondays at & p.ra. and Wednes-
days at 5 p.m. Tickets: 687-1644 or
Ticketmaster.

Granville Island Revue Cabaret:
All Grown Up. An infectious
musical look at the songs and
stories of growing up in the ’60s.

’ Stars Ellen.Kennedy, Bonnie
Panych and Lori Valleau. To May
15." .

Vancouver Little Theatre: David
French’s Salt-Water Moon.
French’s tale of true love won the
1985 Canadian Authors’ Associa-

Spring Cleanin

f

John Moore
BOOK REVIEW

that have yet to leave a scratch on
his Kevlar soul-armor.

| wrote him off as a drivelling
’60s fashion statement, until |
heard him read (chant, scream,
wail, emote) and realized what he
was doing with language.

Oops. This guy is not in a time
warp; as an artist should be, he’s
always just slightly ahead of his
time ($13.95).

For a fuller, if no Jess brain-
straining, grip on the cutting edge

tion Literary Award for Drama and
the Dora Mavor Moore Award for
outstanding new play. Directed by
Gerard Plunkett, the play runs
April 14-May 1 at 8 p.m. Tickets:
$13/11. Info: 876-4165.
Waterfront Theatre: Brew: The
Comedy with a Head, Montreal's
longest-running comedy makes its
Vancouver debut. Runs to April
il. Tickets: 280-4444,

Firehall Arts Centre:

Magic Owl Theatre: Berlin to
Broadway with Kurt Weill. Cabaret
on the life and times of Kurt Weill.
To April 17 at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m.
Saturday matinees. Tickets: $16/
14, at 280-3000.

Park and Tilferd: jack and the
Bear: nightly, 7, 9:10; Cop and a
Half. 7:25, 9:20; Hear No Evil:
7:10, 9:25; Married to It: 9:15;
See more page 44

waiiaee |

of Canlit where bureaucrats fear to
tread, turn to Rational Geographic.
The Kids of the Book Machine by
Steve McCaffery and the late bp
Nichol ($18.95),

Ironically, the ‘70s, which gave
us disco, Big Wimp Rock, Bob
Seeger and tequila shooters at
midnight (“Turn up the Eagles,
the neighbors are listening’), etc.,
were a period of unprecedented
vitality for avant-garde Canadian
writing.

McCaffery and Nichol, the self-
appointed “Toronto Research
Group,” produced a series of
“papers’’ on most aspects of
writing that resembles a Canada
Council/Royal Commission report
about as much as a frog looks like
a bicycle.

If you're of a liter-
ary-archaeological bent, In The
Midst chronicles the enthusiasm
and opinions of the eminence noir
of most of the best writing to
emerge from the ’60s.

Beer in hand, Warren Tallman
godfathered most serious writing
in this country for 10 crucial years

Milieu’s Noordin Mi:

EKER ACTER!

64 Beer in hand, Warren Tellman godfathered
most serious writing in this country for
10 crucial years...99

beginning in 1962 and his subse-
quent influence has been immea-
surable.

(Most of the writers in the
Talonbooks stable would have real
jobs as taxi drivers and dishwash-
ers, but for him.)

Tallman’s eclectic, eccentric lit-
erary memeirs will run you
$17.95.

This kind of radically subversive
writing is not supposed to be an
easy read. :

What it does is give us a vastly
enhanced awareness of the real
possibilities of the language whose
conventions control what and how
we think.

The overt censorship and delib-
erate discouragement of literacy in
simple-minded dictatorships is

NEWS ADVERTISER SAYS:

“Advertising

has

blatantly obvious.

Yet in our supposedly liberated
society we communicate increas-
ingly through the media of “dan-
guage machines,” from voice mail
to word-processing software,
whose operational parameters and
programming exert a subtle but
insidious influence upon the most
highly developed and distinctively
human trait we possess, ~

Read on. If you get arrested for
shooting down your PC and an-
swering machine in cold blood at
4a.m., call Tallman, McCaffery, ~
bissett or Talonbooks. just don’t
call me, :

If ary of this seems a tad para-
noid, remember: paranoiacs see
things as they really are.

Have a nice read.

ae
Rant Karin Hoehn.

Pe i

March 16, 1993

Peter Kyamstron
SALES MANAGER
North Shore News
Dear Peter: purchas
enced
the aid of

As you are well aware, since

December
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