November 17: Are we not men?

This week’s host, Myna Wallin, described the night as an “all-male revue”, one of the Art Bar’s rare departures from mixed-gender lineups.

So what is the male condition, according to November 17’s eclectic lineup of male readers?

Apparently they pen short poems about long-distance relationships, temper intellectualism with zaniness, think bitterly of squirrels while cleaning eavestroughs, make atrocious Shakespearean puns, channel their feelings through movies and novels and hide online pornography from their wives.

Two out of three wear glasses, according to a limited statistical sampling and at least one of them is named Rocco.

And the Art Bar is happy to have them, at least when they’re as clever as these three brainy, and let’s admit it, disarmingly sensitive guys.

In the in the interest of fully disclosing every glitch in the podcast, please note mysterious signal-t0-noise effects which plague recordings of Jason and Rocco’s readings. Analog gear is apparently still stuck in the age of radio. Also it is likely that too much male energy causes strange magnetic effects. Stay tuned for official explanations.

– Stephen Humphrey

It’s kind of a personal in-joke for Jason Guriel to say he will read a “few short poems” because, he admits, pretty much all his poems are all short. Jason’s compact, clever poems were packed with references to Shakespeare, movies, hand puppets and dead novelists. Jason aimed for big ideas while undercutting himself with with self-deprecating humour.

Listen

Poet, columnist, Art Bar board member and ESL teacher Rocco de Giacomo is a prolific writer and traveler. The poems in his collection Ten Thousand Miles Between Us, convey his zeal for far-flung journeys, but also his love of nesting, or at least his acceptance of maturity. His live readings reveal a writer with an ear for the music of words and a habit of wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Listen

Torpor Vigil Industries founder Steve Venright once again titillated and amused as he deadpanned through surreal, pleasantly confounding wordplay replete with references to hallucinogens. Steve congratulated the strangely silent audience for properly commemorating the Czecheslovakia’s bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989. He also paid tribute to psychedelic thinker and 2012 forecaster Terence McKenna.

Listen