Well kids, it’s edited highlights only tonight cause this old body needs to rest up for #2 Big Volunteer Event tomorrow. Tonight’s The Hand that Feeds hosts appeared in proper bureaucratic outfits (are you allowed to use those two words in the same sentence? Is my computer going to blow up?) (despite 90 degree heat) to present a series of numbered professional artists who each had to answer the same canned questions before presenting their wares. The evening's sponsor, The Stoof Foundation (which may or not be real - I can't tell from the website) sent several letters of support for the Scream's events, one of which referred to Canada as '...our pliant northern concubine' (the letters were clearly art but the website? I dunno...)
But back to the stage - Karen Hines blew the lid off the Pilot with a reading from Drama, her play in progress about a ‘content provider’ writer grovelling before a TV buyer. Remind me to keep an eye out for this content when it gets off the page and onto the stage.
And Angela Szczepaniak’s history of a bureaucrat’s life as seen through the forms filled out about and by him (Memo to: self. From: self. Re: Note to Self) was hilarious food for thought as presented by a diminutive administrative assistant.
Oh yeah – and the Form Slam? The thing where you spend valuable time filling out a grant form and the sons a b’s pick somebody else’s over yours? Well, it happened again. I don’t even know why I bother.
Is it possible that it is even hotter in here tonight than it was TuesdayÈ By the way, the large E with the accent after Tuesday is my keyboardès way of saying question mark…
See you tomorrow for more Screamy fun at the book-length reading of Margaret Christakos' Excessive Love Prosthesis at 23 Prince Arthur.
Nighty night.

Church windows and a disco ball… where could we be but the Scream Premiere at the Arts and Letters Club. It’s just the sort of venerable historic landmark that tends to house this kind of affair, according to the venerable David Antin, whose philosophical wander tonight led through his adopted San Diego, a city with “no streets, only mountains and highways,” past Sigmund Freud and Hitler's uncle, pausing near a shopper who hitched two llamas to a post while picking up provisions at the local grocery store. It's a challenging feat at the best of times, to maintain one’s place in a complex improvisation, but ridiculously so when faced with an extempore erotic performance by a woman in the front row, centre. Mr. Antin pulled off his thought-provoking narrative with charm and apparent ease. I heard and enjoyed but watched the speaker only intermittently.
She preens, she beams, she whispers at the apparently oblivious object of her affection. She drives her shoulders back and holds, shakes her fluffy ponytail and runs a sinuous hand through it, widens then narrows her eyes, pokes him lightly but meaningfully with a jutting shoulder, and shines at him with such aggressive animation that I realize he must be deaf. Her man that is. She’s obviously trying to catch his attention with clever words of sign language. Occasionally, when his unresponsiveness seems too much, she feigns interest in the speaker for 30 seconds or so. Then back to business: she pokes him with her drink, brings it to his lips. Suddenly the woman next to me, previously tsk-ing and shaking her head, leans forward. “Hey!” She shouts, sotto voce, “Stop that!” But the three rows between us are too many and the vixen can’t hear. Some sixth sense has alerted her, though, and she quiets for about a minute. At intermission, she’s the talk of the town. After the break, she’s a changed woman – shoulders slumped, arms crossed and quiet, watching Steve McCaffery perform Carnival Panel III, the third installment of his series of concrete poems. I have to say I really liked Steve, but I’m missing the gene for this genre. It’s like being at a Yugoslavian wedding where you smile and nod at all the nice people who you know are charming and well-intentioned but you have no idea what they’re talking about and everyone else is laughing and after a while you just yearn for a word you can understand. Judging by the explosive reaction of the crowd when he’d finished, I was the only one who didn’t get it…
Tomorrow, The Agent Provocateur: Choose Your Own Poetic Adventure. According to the brilliant full-colour accompanying text, there are 18 possible readings to choose from over an evening’s pub crawl.
Man, it’s hot in here – it smells like wet dog and I don't have a dog. I don't think that's a good thing. I really need a drink. I hope I still feel that way tomorrow.

So, as we count down to another annual Scream, thoughts turn to previous years and the fun and book purchases therefrom. Well, book purchases and book winnings, of which there have been many. But more about that later.
I came to screamery three years ago as a volunteer, having been told by an otherwise useless career coach that it was always a good idea to get out and meet people. Casting about for the least abhorrent option, I asked a friend about that festival she’d mentioned. Showed up at the 2008 opener and fell in love, with a poet of course. Evie Christie, as read by Stuart Ross. Evie’s was my first Scream book, bought the way an alcoholic buys a drink, irresistibly and against one’s better judgment. Unemployment be damned; it was to be the thin edge of a fairly expensive wedge…