WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS: arbitrage scheme to put lake on slagheap above Marmora village

Hi Kathy,
Thanks for sending this info. All along I've considered the 'pumped storage' proposal crazy and dangerous. Building a lake on top of the old Marmora Mine slagheap, using electricity to pump water UP HILL to this lake at off-peak Ontario Hydro hours, & then letting it flow back downhill to generate electricity at peak rates, is a Rube Goldberg fantasy at best. I've never believed anyone could take this whacked-out idea seriously.

The whole concept is based on Ontario Hydro's current rate charges for different times of daily use. All Hydro has to do is change its rate structure, and the whole silly project collapses (sinks).

The monetary aspect of this is nothing less than gaming Ontario Hydro's Byzantine rate structures. In effect, it's arbitrage, the same game bigtime financial traders use to skim money from international markets. This project creates nothing, except a dangerous 'lake' perched high above a small village. Cue the soundtrack to any number of disaster movies here!!! Or that old standby classic song, WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS ...
"Tell me it ain't so, Joe."

This proposal can't really be happening, can it?

Thanks, Kathy, for being such a concerned citizen and watchdog for our little community.

best wishes,
Chris (Faiers)



On 2012-06-18, at 2:09 PM, Kathy Hamilton wrote:

You can download our local council agenda for their Tues June 19 (2pm) regular afternoon council meeting, here:
admin.marmoraandlake.ca/94/files/ByLaw/2012%20June%2019%5B1%5D%2E12%20agenda%2Edoc

There are TWO delegations of much interest that I may "speak to" during the allowed 3 minutes per person, for their "public input" before the meeting adjournment. Hopefully, others present will partake of the same opportunity to have their say as local ratepayers who pay the bills accumulated by our municipality.

I urge you and anyone you know or might wish to bring along, to attend this meeting. Please consider forwarding at least this sentiment and agenda link to everyone you know. This will be the first  and only (and could be the last?) opportunity - since the "public info meeting" of June 10, 2011 to reveal the big "project" surprise kept secret from us for several years - that any local people will have been provided, to personally address both Northland Power reps and their local council at the same time - publicly and with witnesses including the local media.

Beyond my own site, the primary public exposure related to Marmora's local "pumped storage" controversies have been provided by Toronto-area bloggers, whom I've credited and linked to in return.

If you call me or drop in at prearranged mutual convenience, I would be happy to share of the photos and recount the rewarding experiences a few of us posing objections to Northland's proposal here in Marmora enjoyed on Manitoulin Island on June 15 - with our participation in an event outlined in a June 14, 2012 posting by Toronto blogger and energy consultant Tom Adams, here:
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2012/06/14/renewable-energy-vs-responsible-aboriginal-government-part-three-mchigeeng-vs-wikwemikong-blowing-in-opposite-directions/

This provided a few of us representing the unorganized and majority publicly-invisible opposition here in Marmora with a very enjoyable "first" opportunity to personally meet and publicly present an on-principle as well as project-specific combination of inseparable "greed energy" concerns related to Northland Power projects and interests shared by others who are battling local "greed energy" projects elsewhere, that actually DO qualify as "renewable" by provincial definition - unlike the non-renewable pumped storage "greed energy" proposal from Northland Power here in Marmora.

I anticipate experiencing more of this off and online interactivity between geographically near and distant members of this fast-growing, new and self-integrated Ontario community without borders, of their indivisible opposition-on-principle members, that Northland Power and its own or partner projects representing "greed energy" have graciously inspired, helped introduce and cemented together in principled solidarity, in the near future.

You can share of June 1, 2012 background info about this MERE protest development on Manitoulin Island, here - you may also find this project "local approval" painfully familiar?:
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2012/06/01/renewable-energy-vs-responsible-aboriginal-government-part-one-manitoulin-pro-democracy-activist-julian-nowgabow/

This posting was followed by additional June 4, 2012 related background info, here:
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2012/06/04/renewable-energy-vs-responsible-aboriginal-government-part-two-evidence-oeb-declined-re-improper-governance-of-manitoulin-wind-project/

You might also want to watch for after-the-fact media sharings of related MERE protest photos and interviews. Reporters from CTV, CBC, the Manitoulin Expositor, the Sudbury Star and unidentified others were monitoring both David Suzuki's presence at the "opening ceremony" and its inspired local "opposition" peaceful public protest.
I will be updating my site asap, to publicly share our photos and comments resulting from our participation in that MERE protest near Little Current, of June 15. Few here realize the depth of knowledge that First Nations Elders, Grandmothers and band members from Manitoulin Island (and everywhere else!) have of Marmora, the Marmoraton Mine site and Northland's "interests" that have led to Marmora's similar community divisions, political intrigue and related Greed Energy AND glocalized Greed Economy-based "developments".

You may also be interested in personally learning of recent developments on another "glocal" battle front that a few of us here began local engagement in last fall, involving another project approved by local council - this time at their "planning" meeting August 2, 2011, that we felt threatened our private property rights and represented local council's required approval for the provincial "balancing" of our previously exclusive interests in our private residential property.

Front-door and comprehensive private property expropriation looks great in comparison, once you understand the "special process" and all implications of its private property interests "balancing" act - from having personally battled against its imposition upon yourself and your own private residential property for months, in predetermined futility.

I spoke about this "special process" and its local implications to all private property ownership "interests" as a delegate to the regular local council meeting of May 15, as was lightly referenced in the local EMC edition published on May 24, online here:
http://www.emcnortheast.ca/20120524/news/Resident+speaks+out
Of the 3 local ratepayers who had formally objected to this largely unknown local council approval throughout related County "public meetings" last fall and formally requested the exclusion of our residential private properties - which was denied without explanation by our local council, Hastings County and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing -  I followed up by filing a pertinent Notice of Appeal for an Ontario Municipal Board appeal before I departed for Manitoulin Island on Thursday June 14.

If my appeal is allowed and entertained on the pseudo-eligible "grounds" I've provided to the OMB through the MMAH, all proceedings should be local and open to the public. On this becoming a reality, I hope you would attend and I would welcome advice from any who may have had past experience with the OMB appeal process or input from any others who have researched the impacts within and without similarly-imposed Urban Growth Boundaries established for enforcing local "Smart Growth" policies  - particularly from any other residential private property owners here in M & L.

Most research to date is specific to larger and more densely populated "human settlement" urban cores within the comprehensive municipal geographical boundaries, but public policy analysis experts in this area that I've already spoken with suggest the widely-recognized paradoxes and impacts of such "Urban Growth Boundary" imposition - to be soon realized by the greater than average number of homeowners with lower than average incomes here (and the impacts on their private residential properties) - will likely be "felt" proportionally here in more rural Marmora and Lake.

It would appear that Ontario's policies imposing punitive land-use restrictions for protecting "Greenbelts" from "urban sprawl" are being shifted in their focus from the provincially well-publicized Greater Golden Horseshoe and Northern Plans to the lesser-known plans for all lesser-urbanized areas of Ontario. If you have not yet studied all background "Glocal" concepts and planning pertinent to our area of Eastern Ontario and dating back to 2002, I suggest you should.

Sincerely, Kathy Hamilton - 76 Cameron St, Marmora - home phone 613-472-5285
http://www.hamiltonsgarage.com/marmora_green/

See "delegations" to the June 19 meeting, as copied from the referenced meeting agenda, below. FYI, re CVCA means about our local Crowe Valley Conservation Authority

===============================

AGENDA
FOR THE COUNCIL OF
THE MUNICIPALITY OF MARMORA AND LAKE
MEETING HELD TUESDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2012 AT 2:00 P.M.
MARMORA TOWN HALL

1. DISCLOSURE OF PECUNIARY INTEREST
2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
3. REEVES REPORT
4. PUBLIC MEETING – Road Closure and Sale of Land – Page 1 - 2
To close and declare as surplus, Parts 24And 34 of Plan 21R-6145, being a road widening on Deloro Road acquired by the County of Hastings in 1986 and subsequently transferred to the Municipality of Marmora and Lake.
5. DELEGATIONS
2:10 p.m. Mr. John Wright, Northland Power
Re: Update of Pumped Storage Project

2:40 p.m. Crowe Lake Waterway Association
Re: CVCA

REAL GONE: Jim Christy's guidebook to the 60s (review)

Real Gone by Jim Christy

Real Gone turns the myth of the Sixties on its head. The protagonist may be a peripatetic young man on an intense search but he knows that the gaff is in. There are sex and drugs, of course, and politics, even a little rock and roll. There is also Rhythm and Blues, and jail and murder; some famous people have walk-on parts but they are no match for a wild assortment of obscure rounders, radicals and roustabouts. Set in 1967-1968, the novella records the very moment that an empire reached its peak and started its decline.
Like the protagonist of Real Gone, Jim Christy grew up in Philadelphia, led a knockabout life in the United States which included carnivals, hoboing, and professional boxing, was involved in radical politics and moved to Canada in 1968. As well as being a writer, he is also a widely exhibited visual artist and has recorded CDs of poetry and music and performed in various countries. Recent books include the novel The Redemption of Anna Dupree (2004) and the nonfiction book Scalawags (Anvil Press, 2008).
Jim Christy

Following is my review:



Real Gone, Jim Christy
Quattro Books, 2010
125 pages, $16.95
isbn 978-1-926802-01-5


I've been hanging out from time to time with 'my new farm neighbour' Jim Christy. I first met Jim and his partner, artist Virginia Dixon, at the Another Dam Poetry Reading at PurdyFest two summers ago. Immediately I recognized fellow travelers in this striking couple - esp. Christy with his killer grin, two front teeth glittering golden. Someone introduced us, and though our literary paths have criss-crossed, it was the first time we'd actually met. I was a bit star-struck, and mumbled, "You're THE Jim Christy, the iconic Canadian writer?" or somesuch blather. Christy responded by giving me his latest book, reviewed here, & signed it: To Chris, please forgive my anti-Americanism! your new friend, Jim Christy   

I'm always swamped with books during PurdyFests, most gifts, some purchased. REAL GONE drifted to the bottom of that summer's various piles, and in the procrastinating interim, I've had the pleasure of hearing a few of the anecdotes in this book in person. Christy is a master raconteur, and that's one of the things I like most about this slim volume. Christy doesn't overwrite his incredible anecdotes about being everywhere, doing everything, and meeting everyone. If he had, this book would be a thousand pages. Better to use the book as a guidebook to both the 1960s and to Christy's stories, and to sip a beer and listen - closely - to Christy personally fleshing out the details in his tall, but all true, tales.

My one complaint is I wish the publisher had provided an index. On his writerly dharma path through the 60s, Christy encountered just about every famous personality, and attended just about every key event. There are the earliest days of hippiedom in Haight-Ashbury,  Jim Garrison and the Warren Commission, 'on the road' escapades to Mexico al la Kerouac, Janis Joplin, the Pentagon demonstration, the Chicago Democratic convention riots, Peter Orlovsky, Valerie Solanas, Martin Luther King's funeral - quick takes on each. I'd like to be able to thumb through an index and easily revisit events and characters. And as Christy experienced such an incredible array of characters and events, an index would make this memoir far more accessible, especially for future documentarians, historians and writers on the 1960s.

That silly 60s' cliche, "If you remember them, you weren't there!" doesn't apply to writers. Memories are a writer's stock in trade, and Christy remembers very well. Even the dialogue is fresh and immediate - I'll have to ask Christy sometime if he has a photographic (phonographic??) memory. Almost two decades ago I heard a radio interview with Eric Clapton, and Mr. Clapped-Out claimed he had no idea what he was thinking in those heady times. Christy remembers.

He remembers and captures for readers what the U.S. of A. was like during the waning era of Jim Crow in the American south. As a workingclass but progressive hitchhiker in the 1960s, Christy was rousted time after time by the cops for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Christy  remembers his youthful thoughts and political awakenings, the angst and turmoil of dealing with draft boards and the ever-present horror of the imperialist War in Vietnam.

Reading REAL GONE I realized how many common experiences Christy and I share. We both consulted and worked with Quakers Friends Service Committees, hoping for conscientious objector status. Neither of us was successful in obtaining CO status, and while we negotiated and avoided our draft boards, we somehow lived day-to-day through those turbulent times.

My father and I also had a very similar and parallel confrontation to Christy and his father during the riots at the Chicago Democratic convention in the summer of 1968. For both of us, watching TV with our parents proved a seminal and deciding moment in our ultimate decisions to avoid the Vietnam War and to move to Canada. Whereas Christy and his dad came close to blows, my father and I came even closer. During one particularly vicious assault, probably on a young woman being beaten by the Chicago cop/thugs, I couldn't stop myself from yelling out at the TV, "You motherf...ers!" My father started to swing on me, I blocked his punch, and was about to return the favour, when he whimpered, "You'd hit your father!" "You'd hit your son!", I told the man who'd been a Squadron Leader for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War Two. I'd long realized my father was a rabid anti-Semite, and the contradiction of him fighting against Hitler had started to confuse me, but his reputation as some sort of brave hero dissolved that night in our screened porch on Key Biscayne. All I could think was what a coward, expecting to hit a young man appalled by police brutality. And then cowering when I had the effrontery to consider hitting him back. Since then, no one has assaulted me without  risking my immediate response.

What were we thinking? What were we feeling back then, in that heady apocalyptic and decisive decade? Christy remembers and records the internal as well as the external, all too well. No revisionist historians, no jealous younger writers will be able to change our recordings of those times. We WERE there, and we DO remember. REAL GONE is an important historical document, as well as the fascinating memoir of a major modern writer updating the experiential tradition of Jack Kerouac and George Orwell.

Chris Faiers
June 12, 2012
from my blog, Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens:
http://riffsandripplesfromzenrivergardens.blogspot.com/

notes:
My book on the 1960s is online as EEL PIE DHARMA  (find on Google) to be republished this fall by Hidden Brook Press as EEL PIE ISLAND DHARMA
Another interesting resource is THE TASTE OF METAL: A DESERTER'S STORY, by Jack Todd,
2001, Harper Collins, 253 pages  
     

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

responses:

thanks, Anna  :  )
He's a very important figure in CanLit and CanPo. When I called him an icon, he replied, "That's just 'noci' spelled backwards."

When I asked Jim how his book had been received, he said it basically fell thru the cracks. Too bad. The 1960s were a seminal & critical decade, esp. in North America, & Christy's book  (and mine) are important memoirs of that period. I hope my review & your posting will stimulate further purchases & reviews of REAL GONE!

peace & poetry power!
Chris ... and Chase ... wrfffffffffffffffffff! (we're hiding from a thunderstorm, & I'm drinking chiraz red wine)

On 2012-06-12, at 4:57 PM, anna yin wrote:

Hi Chris,

http://www.jimchristyoutsiderart.com/wordwork1.html

Jim is very interesting.

I posted your review and his website to coviews.com (english garden).

Anna

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Canada's Magazine of
Book News and Reviews

Exclude Q&Q Omni from results Search all content

BOOK REVIEW

DETAILS

Publisher: Quattro Books
Price: $16.95 paper
ISBN: 978-1-92680-201-5
Page count: 126 pp.
Size: 5 x 8
Released: May

 2

Email0 StumbleUpon0 Send feedback to Q&Q editors about this review

Real Gone

by Jim Christy

Real Gone is a meandering novella about a draft dodger in the 1960s who moves to Canada. Written by one-time American Jim Christy, who relocated to Canada in 1968, the book reads like a memoir.
The narrator, also named Jim Christy, reconstructs a year or so of his life when he was in his early twenties, driving around America with buddies and girlfriends, contemplating the cruelty of bigots and the naïveté of hippies, getting arrested and drafted, deciding to flee north, and taking part in a murder trial.
Written in Christy’s customary plainspoken prose style, Real Gone presents a portrait of an America polarized between revolutionaries and racists. The narrator fashions himself as an anarchist and has no kind words to say about the crazies on either side. If he identifies with any group, it’s the black underclass. He has a deep knowledge of old time rhythm and blues, studies at a black college, and is the only white guy to attend a lecture by Muhammad Ali on the Nation of Islam. (Ali shakes Christy’s hand and hams it up for the cheering crowd while whispering in his ear, “What you doin’ here, boy?”).
Increasingly, Christy has no answer to that question. He attempts to go to Atlanta for the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral, dodging race riots along the way, but ends up in a North Carolina jail for being out on the street after curfew.
America, he concludes, has no place for the likes of him. Before he can leave, though, he’s called as a character witness at a good friend’s trial for murder. The trial goes better than expected, but the accused man is still convicted. Christy heads for Canada, and the book comes to a sudden close.
Ultimately, this slim volume is more first act than complete story. Canada, in this fiction, is the Promised Land, or at least not the Land of Chaos. Canadian readers may find this storyline comforting, but the mythology of the 1960s as the most important decade – and Canada as the Great, Sane, Liberated Place – is more than stale. Entering Canada, Jim Christy (protagonist) leaves behind the outrageous U.S., but this doesn’t offer the reader narrative satisfaction.

Reviewed by Michael Bryson (from the July 2010 issue)

Latest Stories

• Ottawa’s Mother Tongue Books to celebrate 18 years of bookselling before closing shop
• Lynn Coady, U of Calgary Press among winners at 2012 Alberta Book Awards Gala
• Book links roundup: U.S. government to buy $16.5 million worth of Kindles, Fifty Shades of Grey film rumours, and more

Latest Reviews

• Everybody Has Everything by Katrina Onstad
• Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys: The Songs that Tell Their Story by Mark Dillon
• Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes by Kamal Al-Solaylee

Browse over 7,500 book reviews online

Latest issue: June 2012

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Defending Milton Acorn against 'Alive Mag' (1976)

Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

---

Alive magazine

Dealing with the question: Should We Retract Our Characterization of Milton Acorn

---

First Published: Alive No 55, October 16, 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.

---

In his letter in this issue, ex-CLMer Chris Faiers criticizes Alive for attacking Milton Acorn for being a drunk. He goes on to state that Acorn is not a drunk. In the September 28, 1976 issue of The Ontarion (student newspaper at the University of Guelph). Acorn is interviewed and this same subject is touched upon. He says: “But I am not a degenerate, as that magazine Alive seems to think. I had an alcohol problem in my thirties, but when I realized I had it, I managed to taper off and become quite a normal drinker... I have definitely never crawled on the floors of taverns, even in the days when I was an alcoholic. My feet were very steady. I could move around lithefully on my feet and be (to all appearances) completely normal, when I was actually totally unconscious, in a blackout. So that thing in Alive about me crawling on the floors of taverns is not true....”

What about the “CLM”?

Nowehere in that interview does Mr. Acorn mention the CLM with which he has been closely associated for several years. However, other ex-CLMers have joined, verbally, with Chris Faiers in expressing concern that Alive has attacked Mr. Acorn, and they have described him as “a hero to the Canadian people”. We have promised these ex-CLMers that we will print a qualified retraction for those who assumed that we had attacked Milton Acorn for being a drunk, crawling around on tavern floors.
The article “Degenerates Are Not Heroes” in Alive 49 pointedly referred to the fact that Milton Acorn had lost his “People’s Poet” medal in Reuben’s Tavern in Toronto, where it stayed (in the cash register) for a year and a half. If Mr. Acorn truly deserved the “People’s Poet” medal surely he would have been justified to crawl around tavern floors looking for it! Our point was not that Mr, Acorn is (or is not) a drunk but that only a degenerate poet would accept something called the “People’s Poet” medal from the likes of Zionist Irving Layton. Further, and to put it bluntly, we apologise to all those who thought that we called Milton Acorn a drunkard. We called him a degenerate, and that is not the same thing. We also called htm “a thorough-going national chauvinist” and a “gutter crawling collaborator with the likes of Zionist Irving Layton” These charges do not seem to have offended either Acorn or those others who are just emerging from the murky shadows of that national chauvinist and social-fascist organization called the “Canadian Liberation Movement”.

He’s had a problem with Alive for years

In May 1973, Milton Acorn wrote to the editor of another Canadian literary publication.
Addressing that man he said:

You dirty bastard / You son of a bitch / You piece of shit.

Sometime ago, if your memory reaches into your nefarious past for more than a week you begged me to publish a letter of mine in which I stated my politics as regards Canadian Literature and my position in it. You got that permission and published the letter. The letter was a bit personalistic as I stood alone at the time, was not yet a member of the Canadian Liberation Movement, otherwise there was nothing wrong with it.

So our paths parted for a while. I saw your poems printed in ALIVE, run by a bunch of rats fooling with politics but having no political conscience but didn’t consider that meant more than that you had sent poems into them. Two issues ago, alive, unable to forgive the vicious wrongs they had done me in the past – after the fashion of vermin of that sort – printed a review of More Poems for People which was a vicious distortion from end to end, and even claimed 1 was an armchair Socialist when they know to the stinking depths of their rotten souls that I was an activist.

What do I find you doing? No protest against the slander of a man who has not only been a fighter in peoples causes all his life, but has sided with you personally. Instead I find you engaging in friendly debate with them about just what runic letters the turds of American liberal poets and Canadian Yanksuckers make. You are obviously a rotten siinking opportunist, as indeed I did suspect when I first read your outpourings. And the Canadian People will drink your heart’s blood.

Milton Acorn

Now, in view of the unfolding story of the death of CLM, a national chauvinist, social-fascist, absolutely degenerate organisation, why is Milton Acorn not carrying on a campaign to denounce the very “Movement” to which he gave a shade of credibility? The young people who have written to Alive of the horrors of life under the Perlyite clique in CLM can be excused because: 1. they were innocents outweighed by an expert social-fascist; and 2 because they are stepping forward to denounce that organisation, its degenerate practice, its whole politics and their acceptance of its line, for a period of time. Acorn, though, has been around for decades! If he is not a degenerate then: 1. how did he get hooked up with such an outfit; and 2. why has he not raised the loudest howl since its death?
Alcoholism is a disease, degeneracy is a crime! We ask again, what kind of hero is this!

---

Back to Canadian Anti-Revisionism, First Wave, 1964-1970 index page | Back to the EROL homepage

MAGIC TRIP: KEN KESEY'S SEARCH FOR A KOOL PLACE (movie review)

"Further", the Prankster's shamanic time travel machine ...


My buddy Morley recently did some reno work on artists Jim Christy and Virginia Dixon's nearby farmhouse. Christy loaned Morley the 2011 movie MAGIC TRIP: KEN KESEY'S SEARCH FOR A KOOL PLACE. So last Saturday nite Morley and I sat in front of his astounding 46 inch, surround-sound monster TV and indulged in this 107 minute trip down memory lane.

I'm writing this review after being chased home from ZenRiver by a major thunder storm,  a glass or two of chiraz at hand, incense burning, and of course the Grateful Dead in the background. Couldn't find AMERICAN BEAUTY, so had to settle for A TOUCH OF GREY.

Loved the movie! So who should watch it? Anyone who was a hippie in the 1960s. anyone who wasn't. Any being with a brain. My first comment to Morley during the movie was, "They're so straight-looking!" A teen me wore those same surfer-striped candy-coloured teeshirts in the early 1960s. The guys all have short hair - Kesey wears a curled-brim cowboy hat (to hide his prematurely thinning hair at age 29?). One Merry Prankster sports a scruffy beard, and that's it. As Kesey says in the flick, 'We're too old to be beatniks, and too young to be hippies'.

And the Merry Pranksters? They were only a handful - can't remember the exact count on their bus tour across the US of A to the 1964 World's Fair. Most of the film is original footage shot by them ... then left forgotten for decades. The seeming daunting impossibility of making something coherent from the mis-matched film and sound recordings was one problem. And then there is the quintessential issue all explorers of the psychedelic and shamanic realms face - how to portray this inner journey and vision in an outward, comprehensible and artistic manner?

For me, the best sequence was the stop by a murky waterhole for the seminal, now psychedelic mandatory hippie-skinny-dip. We watched this in the movie Easy Rider, later in Woodstock.
But somehow the producers managed to capture the magic, the essence, of one female Prankster's merging with the primordial slime creatures in the pond. This is the shamanic and Buddhist awareness which most psychedelic trippers experience, and which is so hard to communicate. Several days later, reflecting over the movie, this scene remains one of the strongest.

By contrast, last year I finally viewed AVATAR. What a letdown  :  (   I experienced no resonance at all after the film. And no 'flashback' images or sense of the film whatsoever in the days and weeks which followed. Hollow!

Whereas MAGIC TRIP is the real thing. Pretty close to ground zero for the psychedelic sixties! It has long been my contention that it is the writers, especially poets, who initiate a new age, the major shifts in culture. Then the musicians and film makers etc. come along and flesh out the poets' visions - give it a holographic presence.

Another aspect of MT is the importance of individual documentation. In this internet age of blogs and online videos, each of us, at least each person with some artistic chops, can document and validate our personal experiences. No longer can historians and academics distort our experiences for their personal causes.

Again, highly recommended (pun intended!)    

day moon rising (book review)

day moon rising, by Terry Ann Carter
Black Moss Press, 2012
72 pages, $17
isbn 978-0-88753-499-7


day moon rising
on the bodhisattva path

As a fellow haijin, I couldn't resist turning the title of Terry Ann Carter's new collection from Black Moss Press into a haiku. The cover illustration lends credence to my intuition that Terry IS on the Buddha path, or more particularly the path of the bodhisattvas, enlightened beings who return to aid humans with our enlightenments. The black & white photo of a stone female bodhisattva is overlaid with psychedelic floral and bird patterns - bright painted red lips identify the Buddha's sex.

The content further reveals Terry's Buddhist calling to our truest inner beings. There are tens of thousands of haiku poets worldwide now - possibly haiku is the most rapidly growing literary form on the planet. At its most basic level, writing three lines of imagistic poetry just isn't that hard to do. So it's the content, and the intent of the haijin/poet, which matters most. Otherwise, it's just three clever lines, or 'haikuish', with no heart or soul or wisdom (academic poseurs, and there are many hundreds of you cluttering and ego tripping in the haiku world now, please take note!)

This slim book documents Terry's recurring visits to a land of 'the Heart of Darkness', Cambodia. As a member of The Tabitha Foundation of Canada, Terry works with teams, including Cambodians, to build houses. I hadn't heard of this incredible program until I read her book, and miraculously, more than one and a half million Cambodians have been helped out of poverty and despair by this Canadian foundation.

As mentioned, Terry is a master haijin, and current President of Haiku Canada. But most of the poetry is longer in form, and truly heart wrenching. Amid heat and sweat stench she records eight-year-old girls forced into prostitution and infection with AIDS and other horrors. As a Buddhist, Terry doesn't flinch from acknowledging these truths of suffering, and yet somehow I came away from reading this collection feeling hopeful and inspired.

I have read this book twice, both times sitting on the deck of the shaman shack at my ZenRiver Gardens retreat. In a mild state of reverie before the initial reading, I was thinking of lotus flowers, as one is in the first stages of bloom across the river. So synchronicity greeted me with a wakening slap from the first poem:


Wild Lotus
  (after Mary Oliver)

You do not have to be vigilant.
You do not have to be aware of every little sign.
You do not have to record the millions buried.
It is an insurmountable task.

You can't set down the facts.
You can't go ghost
hunting in the fields of mines.
You can't even say you have a stake
in this harvest.

Whoever you are
know that the wild lotus
that blossoms in the filth of ponds
is pure.

There are moments of humour amid the horror and sweat-dripping labours, as in the poem "For the Tuk Tuk Drivers'

who know these roads like a crab
knows sand.


but the horror is always present:

in the glass case of skulls,
a reflection
of my own face

and beauty will not be denied:

through the dragonflies' wings
the sky
bluer


At this historic juncture on planet Earth, we desperately need more poets and haijin of this calibre. Poets simultaneously able to live and lead and record the inward and outward journeys which all beings will eventually experience. Congratulations to Black Moss Press for publishing this unique book, and to Terry Ann Carter, who is showing us how to be fully and deeply human.

Namaste,
peace & poetry power!
Chris Faiers/cricket

Note: This review was published in the Haiku Canada e-Newsletter, Summer 2012 (part 2)
late June
 

a tribute to Milton Acorn: Peter Rowe

a tribute to Milton Acorn
So proud you stand
in your Tip Top suit
boasting of the honours
bestowed by fellow poets
the night at Grossman's
the thousand dollar cheque
they say you lost, the next day
at the Waverley Hotel
"Oh, it was nothing
I don't need the money"
you were heard to say
when the floor cleaner
found it the next day
no doubt you thanked him
in your kindness way
but, hell knows
whatever became of it.

Peter Rowe


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

credit: This poem was published in the July/August 2012 issue of UMBRELLA, the newsletter tabloid of the Quinte Arts Council (Vol 22 #3, p. 7)


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



note: following emails on possible Acorn poetry contest at PurdyFest #6



SLAMMIN' WITH MILT @ AcornFest

Hi Jim & All Acornites,
Yeah, I knew the Raven King would come thru with a bright idea! SLAMMIN' WITH MILT! Love it!

When I was in TO for the hobnob at Grossman's Tavern for Milt's selected last month, I dragged by The Black Swan poetry event the next nite for David Day's reading. There were a lot of interactive events -  sort of mini slams - T-shirt winners & all - altho as you say, Jim, really everyone in the audience was a winner that nite. The evening had the feel of People's Poetry - those of us lucky enuff to have heard Milt in his heyday recognized the vibe!!! 

And having a SLAMMIN' WITH MILT around the ZRG campfire exonerates me or anyone else from the onerous task of judging a poetry contest - the audience decides! not some self-appointed arbiter. The more I htink about it (well, this first beer is going down well!) the better your idea sounds  ;  )

peace & poetry power!
slammin' and slummin' cricket ... and Chase ... wrffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff! (man, dogs been doing this shit forever - pack power)

                                      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Larwill
Date: June 2, 2012
Subject: Re: contest for best Acorn poem at AcornFest?

hey guys...

It says a lot about Purdyfest if I am the 'conscience' and 'logicaian'....  (how immoral and stupid is that???)

Given that my poem "I Whisper Love" is one of my best received and known works the idea of a contest sound like it could be fun.

Now things at PF tend to be informal, and yes if it happens it should be no work for you Chris, but most organic things at PF have arrived from independent initiative, so if people want to attach a contest as part of the event, as long as it is fun and not commercial, I think it is a good idea.

One idea that came to mind is a Milton Acorn Poetry Slam as one of the Zen River events.  It seems to me Acorn's style of poetry invented Slam poetry... only 20 years before there were any poetry Slam events.  Generally from what I have seen Slam tends to be embracing the concepts of People's Poetry in someways better than formal alternative publishing.  Slam at its best is not about winning but about including the audience as feed back participants.

So there you go as an idea...  A Milton Acorn around the Zen River campfire People's Poetry Slam!!!

a few rambles from the Raven's Nest

Jim

                      .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .



From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
To: anna yin
Subject: contest for best Acorn poem at AcornFest?

Hi Anna,
Considering I'm retired, I'm feeling almost feeling overwhelmed with various projects - this might have something to do with visiting Tai & Kim Grove at their new house yesterday  :  )   ... several new projects & proposals to consider in addition to Parliament St. launch & AcornFest & reprinting of Eel Pie Island book ...

This contest sounds like a relatively lowkey & fun idea, tho - I'm forwarding this to Jim Larwill, the 'conscience' and logician (logical mind?) of PurdyFest & a couple of other key festers for input  ...

peace & poetry power!
Chris & Chase ... wrffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff!

Launch of Milton Acorn Selected to be at Parliament Street Library (July 12th)

The date and venue for the launch of Milton Acorn's new selected, IN A SPRINGTIME INSTANT, has been changed to Thursday, July 12th, at the Parliament Street Public Library.

(All poets are invited to share their favourite poem by or about Milt during the afternoon visit to Robert Burns' statue in Allan Gardens, where Milt & Joe Rosenblatt led the Free Speech Movement 50 years ago.)

Several of the organizers of this event plan to have dinner after the visit to Allan Gardens at
the Young Thailand Restaurant at 446 Parliament Street (around 5:15 - 6:15) - please join us  :  )


                                                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Allan Garden’s Free Speech Movement in July 1962, Mosaic Press and the Parliament Street Public Library are sponsoring an evening celebrating that important cultural and political event in Toronto’s history on Thursday, July 12, from 6:30 pm to 8:00pm

The library will host the launch of Mosaic Press’s new selected poems of Milton Acorn: In A Springtime Instant. Acorn, who later read with his people’s poetry colleagues at the Parliament Street Library, spearheaded the free speech struggle in Allan Gardens in the summer of 1962, when along with other Toronto poets and cultural figures, such as Joe Rosenblatt, he was able to change Toronto bylaws to allow poets to read their works in Toronto parks without penalty by courageously reading his politically and socially critical poetry to large crowds in front of Robbie Burns’ statue in the Gardens.

The program will feature a talk on Acorn’s literary contribution by long-time Acorn friend and editor of the new book James Deahl, a background to the Allan Gardens issue by Humber College teacher Terry Barker, poetry about Acorn by poet Anna Yin, music by Toronto Artist Honey Novick, and readings of Acorn's poetry.

Special guests will be include Acorn biographer Chris Gudgeon, and Acorn friend, scholar Joyce Wayne.

There will be light refreshments, and those interested are invited to join Acorn friends for an informal tour of the nearby Allan Gardens site from 4:00 to 5:00 pm.

Parliament Street public library is located at 269 Gerrard Street East at the corner of Parliament Street. Phone: 416-393-7798

The Acorn event will be held in the upstairs meeting room.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LINKS

Canadian Poets, Contemporary

Canadian Poets, 19th Century

Representative Poetry Online

Milton Acorn : Biography

Biography / Poet Home | Poems | Writing Philosophy | Publications | Criticism | Other Information

From:   James Deahl. "Introduction," The Northern Red Oak, ed. with intro. by James Deahl. Toronto: Unfinished Monument Press, 1987.

Milton James Rhode Acorn : 1923-1986
He was born in Charlottetown on March 30, 1923. He died of heart disease and diabetes on August 20, 1986 in his home town. He was, and remains, Canada's national poet.

The Northern Red Oak, poems for and about Milton Acorn, is published on the first anniversary of his death. The spirit of Milton touched every person that he met. As Gwendolyn MacEwen has written—"You could go for years without seeing him, and yet he'll always be there somehow, a great craggy presence at the back of your mind, a gnarled tree in silhouette on the horizon." Or, in the words of Al Purdy, "the Acorn-tree always walked on its roots, and always into sunlight. It lifts the heart."

Poems

• The Island
• I Shout Love
• What I Know Of God Is This
• Hummingbird
• Live With Me On Earth Under the Invisible Daylight Moon
• The Natural History of Elephants

And Milton met a lot of people, especially poets, in his journeys across Canada. Wherever he was he collected people like some sort of modern Pied Piper. Not only did he live from coast to coast, he was a tireless reader, and was always about to hop a train to some new part of the country. He forged strong literary and personal links in each area of Canada he visited.

The Montreal Years

Milton began to focus his attention on the writing of poetry in 1950. His first slim collection, In Love and Anger, was published in Montreal in 1956. It was about this time that Milton's only child was born, a son who was later given up for adoption. Having published sixteen poems, he decided to meet some other poets and he tracked down Al Purdy and Irving Layton in 1957. He was soon deeply involved in the whole Montreal literary scene that included, among others, Louis Dudek and Frank Scott.

Montreal was always an important centre for Milton. Many of the poets he most admired—Dorothy Livesay and the so-called Montreal Group of Scott, A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein, and Leo Kennedy—were associated with that city. To Milton, the heart of modern Canadian poety was New Provinces and the long list of poets who had clustered around McGill University since the 1920s. Nonetheless, no sooner had Milton established himself in the Montreal poetry scene than he decided to move to Toronto.

The Bohemian Embassy

The chief poetry reading place in Toronto was the Bohemian Embassy, run by Don Cullen and John Robert Colombo. The most important poetry publisher was Contact Press, founded in 1952 by Raymond Souster, Dudek, and Layton to publish the new Canadian poetry. Milton quickly fell in with Cullen, Colombo, and Souster.

Milton's broadsheet Against a League of Liars was issued by Colombo's Hawkshead Press in 1960, the same year that The Ryerson Press published The Brain's the Target, edited by Al Purdy. Milton set himself up at the Bohemian Embassy and soon found himself at the centre of a sort of informal workshop with a group of younger poets: Margaret Atwood, David Donnell, Dennis Lee, Gwendolyn MacEwen, George Miller, and Joe Rosenblatt. During 1962 Milton was married to MacEwen. After their marriage broke up, he moved to Vancouver.

Souster published Milton's first full-size book, Jawbreakers, through Contact Press in 1963. It remains an outstanding collection and a credit to Souster's judgement.

The West Coast

By the time Milton got established in Vancouver, the BC poetry scene was just getting underway. Milton was a founder of The Georgia Strait, an alternative newspaper still publishing today. Again, he was at the centre of a whole group of poets—Dorothy Livesay, bill bissett, Red and Pat Lane, Maxine Gadd, and Seymour Mayne.

In Vancouver he organized poetry readings at the Advanced Mattress, and was active in the movement against the war in Viet Nam. Lane, bissett, and Mayne set up Very Stone House and began to publish the new West Coast poetry. blewointment press was founded by bissett in 1967, the same year that Talonbooks started operation.

J. Michael Yates founded Sono Nis Press and Bc was in the midst of a blaze of poetry. Writers from all over North America were going to Vancouver; and, in 1969, Milton left town.

Toronto Again

I've Tasted My Blood, Milton's masterwork, was published by The Ryerson Press in 1969. It too was edited by Purdy, who would later edit his huge collection, Dig Up My Heart (McClelland and Stewart, 1983). Milton, fresh from the West Coast and a sort of local hero, soon became the centre of the Toronto poetry scene. In 1970 he was named "The Peoples' Poet" by a host of writers including Layton (who was now in Toronto), Eli Mandel, Atwood, and Rosenblatt.

He lived in the city for a dozen years, blustering around the downtown core and giving workshops, readings, and talks at every poetry venue he came across. The first press he became involved with was NC Press, which brought out More Poems For People (1972) and The Island Means Minago (1975). In 1976 Milton co-founded Steel Rail Publishing, which published Jackpine Sonnets a year later.

Once again, Milton gathered a collection of young poets. I met Milton in 1972. A few years later he joined the LINK Poetry Workshop, which Mike Zizis and I had founded in 1973. He had an immediate impact on our group and was a source of encouragement and controversy. In September, 1980, Milton, Terry Barker, and I founded the Susan Chakraverty Institute at New College, University of Toronto. Milton also taught poetry at the legendary Three Schools.

Milton and I shared an apartment for two years. His love of poetry and his constant, obsessive work astound me to this day. Among the poets associated with Milton during his second period in Toronto were Zizis, Joe Blades, Michael Dudley, Chris Faiers, Mark Gordon, Bruce Meyer, Ted Plantos, Robert Priest, Margaret Saunders, and Gerry Shikatani. By this time Toronto had become the centre of English-language poetry in Canada. Milton, in declining health, returned to Charlottetown.

The Island

Milton's final years (1981-1986) were largely spent in PEI. There were, of course, numerous trips to Toronto, where he met poets like Bev Daurio, Carol Malyon, and Wayne Ray.

In Charlottetown Milton got to know Libby Oughton and Richard Lemm of Ragweed Press, who published Captain Neal MacDougal & the Naked Goddess (1982), edited by Fred Cogswell. Here, too, he met Valerie LaPointe, who was his steadfast comnpanion during his last years.

At the time of Milton's death, Wayne Ray was about to publish Whiskey Jack (HMS Press); Chris Faiers was about to publish A Stand of Jackpine (Unfinished Monument Press); and I had agreed to edit The Uncollected Acorn for Deneau Publishers. Ted Plantos had a special Milton Acorn issue of Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly almost at the printers— it would become the Milton Acorn memorial issue.

Acorn and Canadian Poetry

Milton always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He made it to Montreal while that city was still the centre of English-language literature. He moved to Toronto just when the generation of poets who would make Toronto the new centre were starting out. He met them all. He was in Vancouver when the West Coast scene got going. Then it was Toronto again and another circle of poets.

Milton saw himself as following the tradition in Canadian poetry established in the nineteenth century by Isabella Valancy Crawford and Archibald Lampman. He learned much from Crawford and Lampman and from two poets whom he met later: Dorothy Livesay and A1 Purdy. Milton, along with Livesay and Purdy, forms a sort of bridge between Canada's past and the new poets of the 1960s, 7os, and 8os. For the record, Milton saw this tradition being carried on today by Margaret Atwood, bill bissett, James Deahl, Mary di Michele, Chris Faiers, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Robin Mathews, Robert Priest, and Tom Wayman (a list that might amaze many critics as well as some of the poets listed!).

Acorn's opinion aside, his real influence lay in his ready encouragement of younger poets. In Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, or Charlottetown, Milton was always exceptionally generous with his time. He would tirelessly read manuscripts, encourage authors, and give sound advice. He was the most accessible literary figure in Canada.

He would attend poetry readings and almost always stay for the open set. Through the Bohemian Embassy workshop and the LINK Poetry Workshop he met scores of young, mostly unpublished poets. These people learned from Milton his concern for language and sound, his doctrine of hard work, and his love of people. He also gave countless readings. His passionate delivery and personal rapport with his audience helped put the voice back into Canadian poetry. Milton was at all times pro-human or, as Lesley McAllister has written in The Toronto Star, "pro-life". He believed in the human spirit and in the celebration of life in all its forms.

Milton's taste was exceptionally catholic, as long as the poetry reflected a love for humanity and the natural world. He was supportive of Michael Dudley's haiku, Atwood's Canadianism (or, as he put it, "From the Valleyism"), Wayman's work poetry, and bissett's pure energy.

He was a nationalist, constantly recommending the poetry of Livesay, Layton, Purdy, and MacEwen. And he was an internationalist, insisting that young poets read W.B. Yeats, Robert Lowell, Pablo Neruda, Garcia Lorca, and Andrei Voznesensky. Indeed, one could not visit him at the Waverley Hotel without having a book thrust into one's hands that must be read.

Almost all the contributors to The Northern Red Oak knew Milton personally. Some are old friends like Purdy, MacEwen, and Atwood; some only met him during his final years. Some (Cogswell, Purdy, and I) edited Milton's books, and some were his publishers (Daurio, Faiers, Letore, and Ray). All have been touched in a profound way by Milton and his work.

When Milton died I decided to produce a memorial anthology—so many people seemed to need to express their love and respect for the man who ate, slept, and lived poetry. The call for submissions met with great success. Unfortunately, much publishable work had to be returned because of space limitations. This memorial anthology could have been twice as long had poetry from all of Milton's friends been included.

Many of the pieces presented here came with the words "For Milton Acorn" attached to them. These have been deleted for cleaner presentation and because, in an important sense, every poem in The Northern Red Oak is for Milton.

A few are o1d poems. Purdy's "House Guest" relates to the time he and Milton lived together at Roblin Lake. bissett's are from his Vancouver years with Milton. "The House", by Gwen MacEwen, recalls the time and mood of their year together in Toronto. Some are elegies to the finest poet ever to write in Canada. And others, like Ray's anti-abortion haiku and Shikatani's anti-war poem, touch on issues that were of great concern to Milton. Still others, such as "1838" (Lee) and "At the Tourist Centre in Boston" (Atwood), are poems that Milton particularly liked.

This collection is but a small gesture from the contributors to one whose gift to poetry and to the Canadian people can never be repaid.

To you, Milton, from your friends, with abiding love.

James Deahl
Toronto, 1987

Milton Acorn's works copyright © to the Estate of Milton Acorn.