July 16, 2008

Scream in High Park

Our trip last night to The Scream Literary Festival’s “Scream in High Park” Mainstage was quite well-documented. Off we went, waving good-bye, with a picnic full of carbs in tow. Took the subway to High Park Station and then walked deep deep into the woods, and claimed some prime seating at the venue.

The menu consisted of pasta salad, Rosenblum bread, avocado scones, cheese, and sweet snacks ala Enright. But if you can believe it, such a delicious spread wasn’t even the main event.

First up was the magnificent Mariko Tamaki, writer of Skim, which I’ve been lusting after for a while. (See Tamaki to the right). She opened her set with a poem comprising Facebook statuses of yore, read and excerpt from Skim, and then an essay about ephemerality that was well and truly lovely.

Another delight was seeing Claudia Dey read again from Stunt. As a reader she is as compelling as Tamaki, though in a different way, and I would have run right out and bought her book if I hadn’t done so already.

I also loved Sonnet L’Abbé, Wayde Compton with Jason de Coutu, Ray Robertson and Motion. I would have loved even more too, except I had to work in the morning and so we left before the final set. And it was too dark by then to take a photo of us waving goodbye.

Such a magical evening, assembled there with friends and strangers. Inside a forest in the midst of this big city, a summer night that grew cool as the sun went down. Fireflies stealing the show, those luminous acrobats– I could hardly keep my eyes off them.

And in terms of the human performers, I’m not sure who stole the show most, though the lineups at the booksale provided a very good indication…