Jill Murray

So there’s this book launching on Sunday that has this essay in it that Les and I wrote, and normally I’d be a lot more excited about announcing this kind of thing, except that I’m still sick, and my persistent, dry cough won’t let me feel anything more positive than non-disapproval. This is what happens when I am forced to miss four dance classes in a row. I forget what excitement is, like those poor saps in those lotto commercials.

So whatever, the book is called State of the Arts, and it’s all about different cultural scenes in Toronto, and our essay is about indie Hip Hop, because Les really only knows one type of music but he knows it really well, and hip hop is that beastly music, and we live out our day-to-day lives in its heartbreaking, hair-raising, equilibrium-disturbing belly.

I’m sure this won’t stop anyone from telling us we don’t know what we’re talking about. Thank God books don’t have open comment threads.

And, I dunno, I guess throughout this process I’ve sort of felt like some of the people behind the book think the essay is all Les and I’m just his typist, like he can’t string a sentence together, and I’m too pasty and unknown to have relevant ideas of my own. So that could also account, in part, for my subdued mood on the subject and my lack of mentioning it so far. Or maybe I’m just bitter that my name is still not on the contributors’ list they’ve got up on their web site.

I realize I’m not presenting a very strong sell so far, but this is a blog, and therefore it is bound to be more emo than marketing 99 times out of a hundred. I can’t call where that magical 1 is going to land. Probably in a week that includes me leaving the house at least once a day.

It does occur to me now, though, that there’s going to be a party for the book on Sunday, and Les is performing at that party, and this party is about all he’s doing for his birthday, and by the time the night rolls around, my cough will probably be gone and I’ll have found my rose-coloured party glasses, and will probably want people to come to the party.

I am actually very interested to read the rest of the essays in the book. And not just becuase I’m looking for ideas to steal. I mean, look at this contributor list:

Sandra Alland, Jason Anderson, Anna Bowness, Stephen Cain, Kate Carraway, Hanna Cho, Brendan Cormier, Natalie De Vito, Liz Forsberg, Mark Fram, Mark Glassman, Katarina Gligorijevic-Collins, Brenda Goldstein, Amy Lavender Harris, Karen Hines, Sarah B. Hood, Christopher Hume, Sam Javanrouh, Dory Kornfeld, Adam Krawesky, More Or Les, John Lorinc, James MacNevin, Claudia McKoy, Brian McLachlan, Ryan McLaren, Shawn Micallef, Jill Murray, Matt O�??Sullivan, Christopher Pandolfi, Michael Redhill, Dylan Reid, Damian Rogers, Stuart Ross, Lisa Rundle, Dana Samuel, Nadja Sayej, Susan Szenes, Kevin Temple, Pablo Torres, Gayla Trail, Rannie Turingan, Jason van Eyk, Adam Vaughan, RM Vaughan, Stéphanie Verge, Lisa Whittington-Hill and Carl Wilson.

There are some interesting people on there.

So, the party details, at last:

Join us for the launch of
The State of the Arts: Living With Culture in Toronto
Volume two of the uTOpia series
edited by Alana Wilcox, Christina Palassio and Jonny Dovercourt

Sunday, November 26, 2006
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen St. W.)
$5/free with the purchase of a book

co-presented with Pages�?? This Is Not a Reading Series
3:00 p.m. �?? Panels
moderated by Misha Glouberman

Unofficial Culture: Karen Hines, Sarah B. Hood, John
Lorinc, Stuart Ross and Carl Wilson.
Official Culture: Jason Anderson, Kat Collins, Natalie
De Vito, Dylan Reid and RM Vaughan.

7:00 p.m. �?? Music
co-presented with Wavelength

The Phonemes, More Or Les and Scarborough A/V (*debut of new video/music project with Soft Copy’s Andrew McAllister and Paul Boddum!).

If you’re going to come, let me know when, and I’ll drag my butt off the couch and across the street to come cough at you over a beverage of some sort.