Pinchin’ Pennies All The Livelong Day
Apologies for the appropriation, basketball nuts. Everyone else, excuse the hyperbole: this is March Madness. For those wanting a comprehensive list of March readings and lit events, I direct you to one of the many webpages that handles such things. For those looking for a few cool free ones, well, dear friends, read on. George Bowering and Dale Smith Friday, March 15th, 2013The Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm St. 6pm As if through telepathy, the organizers of this reading knew that one appearance by George Bowering in March was not enough to sate Toronto’s appetite. This time he joins Dale Smith, veteran American poet, critic, English prof at Ryerson, and longtime contributor to the litblog Bookslut. Steven Bush Tuesday, March 19th, 2013Another Story Bookshop, 315 Roncesvalles7pm Actor, author and senior lecturer in theatre at UofT, Steven Bush will read from his new book of conversations with George Luscombe, aptly called Conversations with George Luscombe (Mosaic Press). It would be difficult to overstate the influence Luscombe wielded over the development of Toronto, and by extension Canadian, theatre since the 1960’s, and easy to understate my regret at not knowing this until now. John K. Sampson (of The Weakerthans)Friday, March 22nd, 2013Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles W3pmWith the publication of Lyrics and Poems: 1997-2012 (Arbeiter Ring Publishing), John K. Sampson joins the ranks of Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and Nick Cave as a songwriter whose clever, irreverent lyrics stir pleasure off and on the page. While he’ll surely read from the selection of newly published poems, my guess is, rather than recite the lyrics to “One Great City!” (“The Guess Who sucks, the Jets were lousy anyway!”), he’ll brandish his acoustic axe. Gwenaelle AubryTueday, March 26th, 2013Alliance Francaise de Toronto, 24 Spadina Rd.7pm She’s a French intellectual with a background in ancient philosophy, a novelist on five counts, a past professor of philosophy at Paris-Sorbonne University, and she’ll be in Toronto lecturing (in French) on her work. If my enthusiasm for bilingualism didn’t entirely outweigh my capacity for it, I’d be at this talk in a nervous bird’s heartbeat.