Blow-Out Night 2!

With drunken buffoon ryan "50" fitzpatrick at the helm you knew it was probably going to be a substandard evening, right? Well, you'd be wrong. The second night of Blow-out was a rousing success despite fitzpatrick's buffoonery.

7 readers + a HUGE audience = super literary fun.

The night continued fS' proud tradition of never starting an event on time (a tradition that goes as far back as fS' inability to put out an issue without a typo), but no one seemed to mind until Al Purdy flew in in full superhero regalia with a bottle of the finest Shiraz (no doubt nicked from Christian Bok's wine cellar) declaring "I call thee Blow-Out!" and smashed the bottle against the good ship Jordan Scott.

fitzpatrick said some things about why we were at the reading, but I ignored them mostly. He is boring. Jordan Scott however is not boring. Switching between sections of blert (from the hawt No. Press chapbook, no doubt assembled by Christian Bok) and the new material he's been posting to his blog (Bella Coola!), Jordan deftly (daftly?) maneuvered through the material with aplomp. He didn't even stutter, even though his stuff is about stuttering, but you would think that he would say something like "he stuttered" after every phrase though. I am amazed at how little Jordan stutters when he is drunk (more on that later).

I was hoping derek beaulieu would give us an interpretive dance of some of his visual poetry like he did at the Scream in High Park in 2001. How am I supposed to understand how authentic his voice is if he won't perform his poems. He started with some poems from Frogments from the Frag Pool (a book coming out from Mercury Press, or something) which fitzpatrick said was "visual poems and bad jokes". I for one didn't hear any visual poems. He then made some noises followed by some newspaper articles about sentences, and stuff from his book with wax which I don't understand because Lee Shedden told me not to. It was really good. Al Purdy is really drunk at this point. Not as drunk as Lorna Crozier was last night.

Natalie Zina Walschots read poems from some 100 page heap of something (it look pretty) about people going to the emergency room. I heard that the poems are really about what happened on the honeymoon when she married her first husband the lovely Count Edward Schmutz in his castle in Windsorvania. I heard they got wrecked. Natalie's poems are really close to the language of hurting people if they ask for it. A lot like Limp Bizkit if you ask me! Awesome!

Paul Kennett was supposed to read some story about killing but it was about some guy looking for a killer in Winnipeg it wasn't like Scott Turow or that guy who wrote those books about the nursery rhymes in the title or anything. Chuck Paluniuk was at the back talking to Christian Bok and complaining about how Paul's book didn't give a nuanced enough view of modern masculinity. Paul's story was good because the old lady in it was funny ("Leaks, what Leaks?"). I like funny.

A break. People got more drunk. Jordan went to the emergency room.

Christopher Blais sure likes Jesus. He wrote a whole book about him. Except Christopher's (CHRISTopher!) Jesus is not like other Jesuses. Christopher's Jesus is made out of styrofoam and his book is all about this girl who listens to what the Styrofoam Jesus has to say and does his bidding. So far all the Styrofoam Jesus makes Lucy (that's the girl, the girl with the banana tray hair) do is be devout and make herself feel guilty, but I'm hoping that the Styrofoam Jesus makes her go kill people. That would make Chris' book way better than Paul's because Paul's book is supposed to be about killing but it's just about some guy visiting old ladies.

If you like your Writers-In-Residence self-important and stodgy, you wouldn't like Natalee Caple. She didn't stay up at the university smoking cigars and drinking fine shirazes and going harumph at all. Natalee read some story about a woman who was looking for her mom who was actually Calamity Jane. Part of the story took place in Deadwood. Now I've seen Deadwood, and I don't think Natalee said cocksucker even once. As far as I understand (this is what the ghost of Archibald Lampman told me during a seance) Deadwood is made from actual footage shot during the old wild west and what I've gleaned from that footage is that people really liked to say the word cocksucker a lot. I mean, Natalee's story was good but could have used a lot more cocksuckers to make it a lot more authentic.

Lee Shedden and his posse left before Trevor Speller read and I don't blame them. I would have left too but I was in the back makin out with Lorna Crozier. I missed all of Trevor's reading, but a lot of people were saying his stuff was funny and intelligent dealing with important topics concerning the effects of high capital on human society. Other people were saying that he totally just ripped off Alexander Pope (I think it might have been Alex himself spreading this rumour).

After getting more drunk, we went to the Unicorn pub to get more drunk. Jordan Scott shot deer. Chris Ewart and Jeremy Leipert totally made out after Julia Williams dared them. Natalee Caple's dog bit every male nipple in the room. I don't know where fitzpatrick got that lampshade. Now, if you like rude waitresses, an who doesn't, the Unicorn is the place to be.

That's it. Hope to see you tonight.

Your Palm,

NOT ryan fitzpatrick