The SCREAM Literary Festival and what it’s like to watch your prof eat a book

I’ve only been able to fit two SCREAM events (and one offshoot) into my busy schedule this week, but the fare was definitely pretty badass this year. I haven’t yet decided how exactly I feel about the whole death of the book idea, but I figure I’ll have a better idea after I mull it over with some wine this weekend/after the SCREAM in High Park.

The first event I attended was 233° Centigrade: A Screening of Fahrenheit 451 at Trash Palace on Saturday the 4th. Trash Palace is a fantastic, grungy little joint down an alley close to Bathurst and King, with old B-movie posters adorning the walls and a quaint little drive-in-esque snack bar rounding out the delightfully kitsch aesthetic. I totally love the place, and thought it was a fantastic spot for a reading – I’m glad SCREAM is down with our gritty Toronto subculture. I actually didn’t know that there was a reading goin’ on there for SCREAM (the readers weren’t listed on the SCREAM website) but I was tipped off by my prof & mentor Stephen Cain that he’d be reading along with some other cool cats, so,  with my booky friend Max in tow, I figured I’d check out what a reading by Stephen Cain was all about.

Cain was up first, and though I had taken avant-garde classes with him for two years, and had read his punchy pomo poetry before, I almost just expected him to stand up and spout out some spunky spoken word – I haven’t been to too many readings where the poet really privileges the physicality of their performance, but Cain really surprised me. Kicking around a hardcover book, jumping on it, throwing it, punching, slapping and screaming at it, reciting abstract conceptual poetry wherein the phrases morphed into one another through repetition, holding a flame up to the pages, ripping them out and throwing them at the audience, then biting pages out with his teeth, chewing, swallowing and spitting out the literature, literally – Stephen Cain stunned myself and my friend Max with the irreverent stunt of beating the shit out of a book. It was awesome! Oddly enough, it was a tad disturbing, considering he was doing this in front of a lit-lover crowd who would obviously be shocked by the destruction of literature. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic introduction to the film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut, wherein we watched Guy Montag take a flamethrower to books, and subsequently, his boss. Chris Piuma, Katherine Parrish, Jude MacDonald all read interesting pieces on the theme of the destruction of the Book, confronting issues like technological augmentation, and the death of reading in contemporary popular culture. Kathleen Brown and Darrah Teitel, the ladies running the Toronto chapter of The Vagabond Trust, also read – Darrah read a delightful piece she wrote as a teenager, comparing a boy she liked to a book. Charming. The readings were followed by a screening of Truffaut’s awesome film, and I left Trash Palace feeling great – surprised at how gritty SCREAM had gotten. I don’t know why I imagined the readings all being done realist-style, as if all can-lit-y in the ballroom of the Gladstone hotel or something, but I was glad to be surprised and intrigued – what the hell, I saw my professor eat pages out of a fucking book! Hardcore. Seriously hardcore. I even kept one that was thrown at me to put on my bulletin board. I swear, I’m not a groupie.

Anyway, that reading inspired me to hit up the Vagabond Trust reading series (Project of Darrah and Kathleen) on the 6th (not part of SCREAM) with my good ol’ Assistant Editor at SB, King Frankenstein, which was held at This Ain’t the Rosedale Library in Kensington. This apparently was just a temporary home for the reading series, which was shunted out of their previous gallery space by evil art-hating capitalists. Nevertheless, the tiny quaint indie bookstore was a great place for the fantastic readings by Stewart Cole, the fabulous Richard Rosenbaum, Stuart Berman, Rose Bianchini, Rebecca Houwer, Dean Vargas and Blair Trewartha, offering a great sense of proximity and beer at three bucks a bottle. Fantastic.

The Vagabond Trust is a pretty interesting endeavour, bringing artists and writers together to collaborate and foster a sense of community. I spoke with Kathleen after the reading and she seemed very down-to-earth and cool, so I’m considering joining ‘em – they hold meetings every two weeks-ish, where writers can share what they’re working on and support one another. I think it’s a great project, great way to collaborate and a fantastic way to explore and support the work of others in the community. Very cool.

On the 8th I hit up my second SCREAM event, the Joyland.ca Joy-A-Thon at the Stealth Lounge on Cumberland, again with Max. I hadn’t really eaten all day and had quite a bit to drink before heading to the Stealth club, where I consumed more alcohol, so, to be honest, I was totally tanked. I saw many people I probably should have spoken to, including Cain and Stacey May Fowles, but avoided any form of communication considering my state of mind, haha – the readings were great, nevertheless. The different readers were actually assigned short fiction by other authors to read, so it was interesting to see how they reinterpreted the work of whoever they were assigned. Highlights: Michael Holmes (who is totally badass and a fantastic reader) reading a story by Jon Paul Fiorentino, and Emily Holton sensually reading a story (whose author I can’t recall) titled “Hot Bitches” – about dog sex. Awesome. Rounding out the night of stories and raffles, I even saw the fantastic Margaret Christakos win a pair of tickets and auction them off…to herself. What a sweet and supportive literary community we have here in Toronto!

I’m definitely looking forward to Monday night’s SCREAM in High Park, which I’ll probably skip my Communications lecture to attend, ha. I’m sad I had to miss the Open Letter Launch, with the presentation of five new manifestos for the novel, but thankfully it’s streaming on the SCREAM website! This week of readings has been absolutely fabulous, and has reminded me why I love the great community of talented writers and artists in Toronto, who can rip pages out of books with their teeth and make dog sex sexy without a shred of posturing or shame.

That definitely deserves a BOOSH.