Wow – what an amazing event last night at The Central! Four incredibly talented women joined forces with their music and spoken word/poetry talents to put on a fabulous show and support Red Door Family Shelter. I was working the merch table, and up taking pics with both my and Lizzie’s camera, only sitting down now to put into words the fun, support and talent in that room last night. If you’re in Toronto, check out The Central sometime – it’s a great space (and I enjoyed my burger and beer so, so much): http://thecentralbar.ca/
Lizzie Violet and Arlene Paculan took turns MCing the evening, with Lizzie working the raffle draws between sets – lots of very cool prizes: books, jewelery, art, music. Representing Red Door was Bev Webb, who came up to talk about the organization’s work assisting families, refugees and women in their escape from abuse and homelessness…
Tonight was beyond amazing! Thank you to everyone who came out! Everyone who donated raffle prizes, The Central, Red Door Family Shelter, Cate McKim for being our awesome merch girl, Myke Mazzei for doing our sound, our features Cathy Petch, Arlene Paculan, and Kat Leonard. I was honoured to be on the same stage as these kick-ass women and so very thankful for places like The Red Door Family Shelter! Looking forward to Wonder Women V!
Hey all! I am putting out a call to Vaudeville performers who are in the Toronto area. I will be posting more details as I have them, but please contact me in the meantime.
An idea of what I’m looking for:
Silent movie shorts
Burlesque
Vaudeville music acts such as 20/30’s style jazz and rag time
Victorian Parlour Magic
Jugglers
Comedians
Literary burlesque (spoken word)
Vaudeville skits
Please contact me privately at lizzieviolet13@gmail.com
This may have been one of the most remarkable periods for spoken word and poetry slam in one local scene in the country’s history. Amazing event after amazing event, the Greater Toronto Area kept rolling them out for the people of this region, culminating in the incredibly entertaining spectacle that was The Last Poet Standing on Saturday night at The Great Hall (won by 2012 Toronto Poetry Slam Grand Champion The P.O.E. in an epic showdown with Tomy Bewick).
As one festival involving several Toronto based poets comes to an end (the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival) and another gets underway (the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam in Vancouver), we have seen a great movement of our local poets across the continent. After this week, everyone will be home and there will be great stories to share about a National Poetry Month that won’t soon be forgotten.
This is an article from 1941 found in Grandma’s old family photo albums. Grandma knew it, lived it, and passed the values down through Mom to me. It’s still hard truth.
Got out to my first poetry cabaret since I went to The Beautiful and the Damned last month. I’ve been so in the thick of The Lazarus Kiss edits I haven’t been able to focus properly on poetry edits. The last few open stages I hit I used old material, so it was time to break out some new pieces. I have to be careful not to use prose edit attitude for poetry – even though story line is important in both – in poetry I try keep the language flow a little more playful.
I’ve been using my Kindle for readings to cut down on the amount of paper I have to deal with. Is the Kindle any better for the environment? Anyway – it is certainly easier to handle than loose pages at the mic. I bump up the font size, save it as a PDF & load…
Tonight I’m going to The Local to check out The Boxcar Boys. A ragtime band, that has me intrigued. I’m actually on the outlook for all kinds of Vaudeville acts. So if you are one, message me. I’m working on a new project that involves Vaudeville. My passion for the Silent Film era and the 20’s have me realizing I need to take that knowledge and do something about it. So I am!
I’m keeping the details hushed for now. Soon it will all come to light. I’m excited about this project, excited in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Since meeting certain people in the last 2 years, returning to performing, I seem to have relit a fire under my arse that burnt out. In the process I’ve also allowed myself fall back in love with my silent movie collection, last night drooling over Harold Lloyd. I’d forgotten how much I relate to him. Along with revisiting my movie collection, I have delved into biographies, I am currently devouring Without Laying Down, a brilliant biography about Francis Marion and other women of the Silent era.
It’s funny how ones week can go from craptastic to spectacular in the blink of an eye. My week started out with me stressing about how to pay rent at the end of the month and is ending with me grinning ear to ear. I know, I know it’s only Saturday morning, the week isn’t quite over yet. There is still another day of awesomeness ahead. Yet, I feel I need to be vocal right now.
I wrote off Monday and rebooted my week with Tuesday. A night of live music and debauchery was exactly the magic ingredient to restart, recover, redo. It was also a night that reminded me, I have some pretty damn amazing people in my life, people who have inspired me to start performing again, people who inspire me to be a better person, people who inspire me that true love is having people in your life who love you back with the same amount of passion and vigor, people who push you for the good, not to put you over the edge. I went through a period of stage fright, but the gentle prodding of someone dear to my heart convinced me to get over that fear and get back on the stage. Because of him I did an open mic and am now not only doing features for my poetry, but producing and co-producing shows. It doesn’t stop there, since meeting him, there has been a snow ball that has turned into an avalanche of being introduced to amazing people. People who are inspiring me, people who are pushing me to go higher up that mountain, people I’m producing shows with. I don’t need to name names, he knows who he is.
Then along came The Beautiful and The Damned. As I said earlier, getting over my stage fright has me featuring again, Thursday night I was a feature at The Beautiful and The Damned. I was honoured to share the stage with Helen Posno and Kat Leonard, it was a magical night. The people I have met since becoming part of this amazing reading series blow me away on a daily basis and are inspiring me as a writer and performer. Though I didn’t meet Kat at the series, she too is one of those people. So much so we are producing a show with the equally wonderful Arlene Paculan.
Oh… but it doesn’t stop there. A beautiful girl named Ellie Anderson, not only wrote a song for me, but made a video. How does anyone top that? Note to anyone out there who is wanting to woo me, you’ve got a long way to go to beat Ellie! She raised the bar pretty damned high!
The week, it ain’t over yet. Last night was a girlfriend date with Cate at the Alumni Theatre. Seeing Cosi reminded me how much I love the insanity and chaos of my life. Sunday I will be heading to the Local to listen to a band I am considering for another show I’m creating. I will also be in good company that night.
This girl, she’s pretty damned lucky and has to remember to count her stars each and every day because I’m only up to 2000.
What an incredible evening of poetry, spoken word, readings, music and friends at Zelda’s The Beautiful and the Damned last night!
The evening’s festivities were hosted by the very cool (and fellow recovering Irish Catholic) poet and radio personality Nik Beat (http://www.myspace.com/nikbeatpoet), who introduced the feature and open mic performers, and shared some of his own work. Nik has a book signing/talk for his collection of poems The Tyranny of Love – coming up on Friday, April 27 @ 6:30 p.m. at Origo Books (49 Lower Jarvis St., Toronto).
Featured performers included writer/poet/editor/horror aficionado Lizzie Violet (https://lizzieviolet.wordpress.com/), who read a selection of poems, giving us a great, eerie fun mix of horror, sex and haiku with frankness, art and wryness of wit (my fave is Chlamydia is Not a Flower!, about her mum’s avoidance of the sex talk – and which her mum has stuck…
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.
Lizzie Violet 