Eighth session

Thanks to all who attended last week's session. The "sleep" theme appears to have been a non-starter, as there were no contributions (at least, none ready to be presented).

Theo Heras, recently returned from Copenhagen and Paris, spoke about her new CD Seashell, Sing Me a Song and played us a couple of tracks from it. (More on this later.) Giovanna Riccio, recently returned from Italy, read several poems, some of which were inspired by her stay there. Celia Lottridge, recently returned from Tennessee, read a chapter from her YA novel Home is Beyond the Mountains. Courtney Fairweather, recently returned from B.C., spoke to us about her video project, which involved taping interviews with former classmates at a highschool reunion. (Mean girls, we were glad to hear, don't always have happy futures.) Diane Bracuk read from a short story concerning the fragile link between mother and daughter in the aftermath of a particularly reprehensible crime. Finally, we all did a cold reading of Bernard Kelly's short comic script Heist for Heist's Sake.

TUFF enough

Here, finally, is Gil's video itself. (Check out his other contributions to YouTube under the pseudonym "iraqiwar.")



And here, for the record, is Bernard's own (non-finalist) entry in the category "Urban Natural," with a somewhat after-the-fact manifesto:



Cela se vibre, la nature ! Comme un enfant, elle se fabrique partout les courbes, les lignes parallèles, les silhouettes carrées, les angles aigus ; elle s'envoie les X et les O ; elle s'exprime avec ce que nous lui avons abandonné ; et s'il n'y a rien que l'air avec quoi dessiner, elle en utilise sans réserve, se faisant le mouvement même.

Urban Growth online

Gil's video is accessible for viewing at the TUFF website. Take a minute to watch it and cast your vote before September 11. And if you're on a subway platform on September 10, look up: that may be "Urban Growth" playing on the monitor above you.