In reply to someone’s “hot take” about how major media doesn’t give a shit about poetry (whatever)…. I replied:
Do any poets give a shit about major media?
Roll your own chap books, build your own culture, wander widely to find your audience, make *things* every day, stick poems to message boards in grocery stores & telephone poles next to lost cat flyers, mail 500 poetic postcards a year, find the renegade youth to mentor, transcribe stories from grandmothers, but every used great copy of poetry you come across for $3 and abandon them on buses with a note, go *everywhere* just to find coffee shops with a good table in the back corner and write so fast you’re inky pens run out.
Then paint poems on post boxes, make a painting of the poem on the post box and do an exhibit with other paintings of post boxes with poems (preferably at a goat farm in the country)…
Strangely, people show up, people ask questions, people want to be part of whatever it is that they’re doing even if you or them don’t understand it.
Doing these things, I find very little time for erstwhile mass media or even submissions to *highbrow* literary journals (plus rejection letters need a return address and well, I don’t always have one).
Poetry is for you to create and share with those who seek the goods. Carry on accordingly.
Hockey Lounge 4:20 24/7, immortalized at Olympic Plaza in SLC, Utah, 2002Preamble: for years, mostly living in Olympia, Washington and later Vancouver, BC I wrangled a website called HockeyNW tracking historic and contemporary hockey culture around Cascadia including teams: Tacoma SaberCats, Seattle Thunderbirds, Spokane Chiefs, flashing back to Seattle Metropolitans, bits of Portland and of course Vancouver, as well the in-line hockey teams i coached through a YMCA league in Olympia.
During this time my brother Dan and i (something) hosted the “Hockey Lounge” in Olympia, Washington – a speak / toke easy” to spread hockey culture (and provide occasional crash space for rock n roll bands – another story).
Some of the artifacts are shared in this archive, others might be eventually.
Anyhow… what I’m saying is: all of this was anticipating the arrival of another NHL franchise in the Northwest which eventually became the Seattle Kraken. Took a while and now I live far away but, recently shared a bit of an “hockey primer” with a friend who lives in Washington State who is a soccer/football supporter to share a little bit of culture and basics about the sport.
I don’t really write about hockey anymore and my “consumption experience” is generally solo, with coffee in the cottage in Japan, regardless, sharing here for posterity:
June 11, 2021 Hello [redacted],
Been meaning to tell you a few things about hockey and now it’s a really good time for you to start paying attention because it’s almost into the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, I’m currently listening to Seattle’s “expansion cousins” Vegas Golden Knights game six against the Colorado Avalanche (who used to be the Quebec Nordiques) yes it’s a little bit confusing especially when you consider the winner of the series will play the Montréal Canadiens, who are from Quebec – Canada sorta / of course but the French-centric part and who shocked the hockey world by running over their long time rival Toronto (a.k.a. the centre of the universe) Maple Leafs and then swept aside the Winnipeg Jets (who used to be the Atlanta Thrashers) it’s things like this that require a good primer.
The good thing about Seattle Kraken is now Vancouver has a natural geographical rival. In the past, the other teams would all match-up with natural dance-partners and Van was sort of stranded in their own little glorious West Coast anomaly. As we’ve seen with MLS, having teams in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver makes for good times for supporters/fans/whatever.
Oh listen… i talked about Tokyo Olympics and various conundrums with Jody Vance on CKNW AM Radio in Vancouver.
Wanted to share the feelings of deceit and frustration the the residents of Japan are feeling with IOC’s demands for “sacrifice”, more doctors, volunteers and threats of penalties if cancelled/delayed. Suggestions: delay until Oct or later and/or IOC “family” stay home. Also thoughts about athletes from countries in crisis. Is it fair for them to leave family to try to focus on competing. Sigh. Anyhow, was a treat to share as an erstwhile representative of my new home country. Get your ears on…
Listen above in browser (skip the creepy news bit at the beginning) and/or download archived audio via John B below.
Note: awarded from Jay S “Bonus points for the use of the words “bromide” and “coterie”” and happy to get in namechecks of Whalley, Lynn Valley and Ichiro Stanley as well as my home city Okayama, Japan.
UPDATE:
Just did another audio hit on theBreaker.News with Bob Mackin about Olympics conundrums and IOC hubris in Japan. Now featuring more Dick Pound (ugh) thwarting sovereignty and lack of fun times and excitement. Seems much of the world doesn’t know the low-down in Japan and other Asian locations.
If you have questions (&/or need a guest to riff), hit me up at the “studio”.
studio has character but lacks some modern conveniences
Sent to a friend who was feeling confused about how to get started archiving and documenting one’s own creative life ~ shared here for edification – sorta for business-y types i suppose
In brief: Gotta just start… choose the things which are important to you and interesting about you, but make this easy by “meta documenting” your documentation.
what may look like *too much* and clutter-y is really a delightful afternoon or 3 of discovering and contextualizing your projects and life
Ergo: Regarding personal archeology… Rather than feeling sh!tty, start by doing the *easy things* to chronicle the things you’ve pulled off this last bunch of years.
i.e.
List of all the speaking engagements you’ve done
List of all the events you planned/ wrangled/ coordinated/ hosted
List of speaking gigs you rocked
List of all the media, tv appearances/ news write-ups List of all the publications/articles you are in or wrote etc
List of all the jobs/positions you held
Then you can start to chronicle/ archive the particular artifacts from each of the above as available.
You might fall into a very nice rhythm – practical meditation in a way.
Turn off the TV, put on the music and space out with yourself and you’re fascinating history.
These kinds of things are good mental exercise but also I put forth somehow “important” and future *you* will be grateful for present day *you* for doing so.
Of course some examples at my website #NotAPlug Let me know if you require further encouragement or advice.
As an enthusiast of creative commons “alt copyright”, I publish/shared many photos under an “non-commercial/attribution/sharealike license” which resulted in my images popping up in many places, often not with the proper attribution and dubious commercialization, but hey, life’s complicated like that sometimes. Nevertheless, I do try to document these things for the permanent record. In this case, my photo of the Stanley Cup (snapped at an NHL trophy exhibit at SLC Olympics in 2002) used and shared in many places, including / here in “Real Clear Sports” (whatever that is) in a bit of “meta” documentation using a screenshot of an archived version of the page.
Kris Krug and Dave Olson discuss social coverage of 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics with Bob Mackin as in 24 Hours Vancouver, July 16, 2009Printed detail of Kris Krug and Dave Olson discuss social coverage of 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics with Bob Mackin as in 24 Hours Vancouver, July 16, 2009
Excerpt:
Social media strategist Kris Krug said talks are underway to host the True North Media House in the W2 Community Media Arts Centre.
“We’re just a bunch of kids who are doing social media and online media and we just want to cover the Olympics,” Krug said. “We’re banding together to share sources, resources, photographers, places to work, press briefings.”
Krug and Dave Olson are leading a local new media group that sought access to the Games through VANOC and the B.C. 2010 Winter Games Secretariat.
“We were shut out and frozen out at every step of the way,” Olson said.
Krug said the International Olympic Committee is reluctant to open the doors wide to new media, fearing that it will erode the value of international TV contracts.
They adopted an if you can’t join them, beat them with kindness strategy and conceived the True North Media House.
Dave Olson (me :)) holds section of Vancouver Sun newspaper with article by Gillian Shaw which he wrangled / interviewed about an erstwhile online movie promotion which community – Photo by Quinn Bender
The article ran as a full page on the Entertainment section and you can explore two versions online in both the Technology and Entertainment sections. The print edition includes a screenshot of the Behind the Scenes vidcast show with Shaun and Eric, while the online version features a video with Director of Fan Communities Dave Olson giving a tour of MovieSet.com (including Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus).
The article kicks off by asking: Care to wander onto the set of a movie shoot, chat with the actors, see the inside story on the stunts?
Well, do you?
{snip}
The article quotes the erstwhile leader of the “social media renegades,” Dave Olson, who relates the focus on fan participation as the key to traffic growth and enthusiasm for the site, using our recent Death Warrior campaign as an example (links/snippets added):
“It empowers fans to go out and evangelize and start the conversation,” said Olson, who became director of fan communities for Movieset in January, after successful stints at a number of Vancouver digital companies including Raincity Studios where he curated an award-winning blog and helped launch Phones for Fearless, a campaign to support eastside artists and residents.
“The movie business has been slow to come to this style of marketing,” said Olson. “It is bubbling up from the grass roots.”
Movieset.com is a boon for indie films and it’s attracting attention from larger studios.
For small very specialized films, such as Death Warrior, a mixed martial arts film that included livestream video among its offerings for fans, Movieset allowed it to find a core audience that shared a passion for the action film.
“We found out where fans of that genre hang out, we communicated with them in their language and we invited them to take part,” said Olson. “We even gave away the bloody sweatshirt that Georges St-Pierre was killed in to a fan at the end of it.”
Finally, Ms. Shaw’s article outlines some of the other tactics we’ve used to bring movie fans behind the scenes and a call to action for movie makers of all kinds ~ from indies to majors ~ to hop aboard the MovieSet cluetrain:
While it still goes against the grain to loosen their grip on content, traditional studios are stepping aboard.
“Studios one by one are starting to realize there is some value here,” said Olson. “They see it is a conversation that is going on and it will go on without them.
“They are saying ‘we should start to participate whether we want to or not.’”
Indeed, there are now excellent examples which demonstrate the power of MovieSet’s two-headed monster. Cast and Crew members are employing our tools to streamline their daily workflow, they deliver content directly to their movies page including still photos, videos, news, or blog posts.
Once uploaded, the rich content gives the social media conversationalists an opportunity to reach out to an engaged community of fans interested in the film. Fans then become active contributors by following, supporting and commenting throughout each phase of production. And so on, and so on …
Read the full article: Online and on the set [archived link] by Gillian Shaw (@gillianshaw on Twitter) in the Vancouver Sun, June 9, 2009 –
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