Film Screening Sunday Feb. 9, Sewing Tues. Feb. 18; performances, plans, fundraising Today and Thanks
Allo all, i’m launching weekly film time February 9,
hosting relaxed sewing/craft time on February 18,
performing mid-Feb., mentioning some events farther ahead,
seeking tech help, and sharing some meditations on precarity, resiliency, and gratitudes in this update.
It’s been a while since i wrote some of you i know from Cali and elsewhere! To remind: i’m a trans disabled performer, writer, curator and environmentalist based in Oakland California over sixteen years, in Montreal since June 2017. Not on social media, i seek email connections for growing projects with comrades. Since i’m out of those social media spheres, i’ve realized i need to actively try reaching out to share what’s up with me, and ask folks to also let me know about themselves.
Trying this newsletter is an experiment: i’ll likely write less than once a month; just let me know if you don’t want to receive future emails. This one will be exceptionally broad as i’m reaching far and wide for a particular project support, noted below. i’d love to get your reflections on marking time, and passion projects too!
If Mtl folks have wondered, i really hoped to begin my proposed sewing bees and film series sooner, yet December went into the holiday pressure zone and a full plate of pet caretaking, and January turned out chock full. But now:
Wed. Feb. 19, i’ll perform a few edgy flash fiction pieces in the 8pm mixed bill 'Fright Night' of Mainline's horror theatre fest: https://www.labetenoirefest.com/events …provocative and creepier; come dig it
Tuesday Feb. 18: monthly sewing/fibre/craft bee commences!
17 rue St Cuthbert, Apt. 2, H2W1L2 — between Duluth and Pins. Ground floor apartment, up two steps. The space is fragrance reduced: please no strong scented products; try http://www.hypersensibiliteenvironnementale.com/index.php/en/ for unscented info.
7:30pm - 9:30 = time for mending, needlework, knitting, carding raw wool if you have it and a tarp, quilt piecing, maybe a little dyeing…and meetup space for other non-fibre based self-contained craft projects if you like. Wood whittling and hand sanding is possible, if you fix your own tub to catch scraps. Collage making with glitter and scented markers all over, not so much. It’s room to gather and focus on our respective projects that are more handiwork than complex tool-based. i will have available a wee bit of fabric scrap for patches and stuffing, quality background music and savoury nibbles. Donations, and collaborative proposals are welcome. i sought this central apartment to be a resource; prevail over winter dreariness in taking regular chances to connect cosily with comrades!
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But first, Quest Cinema starts. In 2012 i lived in a small coop house which held public events, and folks agreed to my organizing 11 weeks of a successful themed screening series that fall. i’m hosting a smaller series here, to start.
i can provide vegan popcorn, seating for ~ 12+, and a weekly opportunity of sharing quality, sometimes obscure films together. For the first Montreal series iteration, i’ve set a theme that half are made by Canadian directors, to promote (my) learning more of CA and QC work. Anyone who joins for a screening (or just after if you’ve seen it!) is invited to then discuss impressions and questions.
Someone can help loan a projector weekly; yay! Requested donations per event will slide $5+ to zero, per investing in additional electric costs for video projection, lights and heat for guests, etc. It seems Hydro Quebec will partially draw on natural or liquefied natural gas (likely involving fracking) to contribute to supply under high winter demand, and https://www.bullfrogpower.com/products-solutions/bullfrogpowered-devices/ will attest to supplying what would be that portion alternatively, from biomass and wind sources in and outside of Quebec.
Films time: 7:30pm, Sundays. Please RSVP, ideally by 5:20pm at the latest, so i can plan. Be here by 7:20 to help move the couch, and get settled! 17 rue St Cuthbert, Apt. 2.
*Feb. 9 After Life 1998 dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
*Feb. 16 Tom at the Farm 2013 dir. Xavier Dolan
*Feb. 23 Tropical Malady 2004 dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
*Mar. 1 Octavio is Dead! 2018 dir. Sook-Yin Lee
*Mar. 8 Boundaries [Pays] 2016 dir. Chloé Robichaud
*Mar. 15 Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist 1997 dir. Kirby Dick
*Mar. 22 Deep Inside Clint Star 1999 dir. Clint Alberta
*Mar. 29 La Femme de l’Hôtel 1984 dir. Léa Pool
*Apr. 5 Variety 1983 dir. Bette Gordon, co-written by Kathy Acker
After Life is an all-time favourite, about memory, accepting and resisting roles, cinema and our devices for representing 'the real'….
This order will give a bit of time to get tech help: i don’t use netflix nor have a dvd player, and want to get into Quebec-made films, but need English subtitles and have been thwarted so far, only finding versions of Boundaries and Tom at the Farm with Russian ones….
Likewise, i can rent La femme de l’Hôtel [A Woman in Transit], but i’m hating Apple’s Music/TV consumer extraction and would love another source. i’m not technically accomplished enough to figure out execution of separate folders that have a package of subtitle files. i’m on Signal, have Riseup email, and love https://transfer.pcloud.com/ for encrypted file transfers—please holler! i have backup excellent films if needed, but am stubborn and want subtitled success.
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The next Cabaret d’Amis: bookmark it for Saturday, March 14 (i may make it annually mid-month?) Will update when i confirm the space and time!
Tuesday March 24: sewing/fibre/craft bee, 7:30pm-9:30, 17 rue St Cuthbert, Apt. 2.
Opening April 3, 7pm: my installation as part of articule’s 40th anniversary show! In exhibition April 4-12. Excited: i don’t put out non-performance or text art often, but i’m inspired for this piece that’s environmental, sensorial, and involves sand.
http://www.articule.org/en/projects/members-show-unboxed-deballe-articule-past-and-present
May 2 and 3, i’ll be part of a durational performance, site specific at Hotel 10 for https://bluemetropolis.org/ Literary Festival, with Tara McGowan-Ross and Lula Carballo; i’m psyched for details to announce later.
Saturday June 6, i’m leading the workshop https://qwf.org/activity/poetry-and-prose-writing-from-the-body-mind/. So glad for the chance; the Atwater Library is due to have an elevator installed by then, so the Quebec Writers’ Federation office can be physically accessible! Now we have to accelerate retrofitting more subway stations for accessibility! Meanwhile, i welcome ALL DISABLED WRITERS in English (shy/aspiring is fine) AND our allies to come participate; it’s an experiment for the provincial English writing association to host this opportunity, so let’s make the most of it. Pass it on!
Sunday, June 21, 5pm, i’ll perform at https://montrealfolkfest.com/ with the https://www.mondaynightchoir.com/choir. The choir keeps a waiting list and i just got in; my first time to sing ongoingly with an ensemble since…1997, my last season in upstate NY. My voice is lower since then; i’m trying tenor for the first time(!) and having big feels about being included in a mixed group that’s welcomed me so far. My Oakland Jazz Choir attempt in 2004 got derailed by cis-centrism, so we celebrate Now; we’ll have a spring concert the week before, likely June 14.
Some public service announcements:
i kitchen craft sometimes, and have available five jars of homemade sunscreen for $6 each, two tins at $5 each, and two small samplers for $2 each. Made mid-December, they are good for at least a year, with shea butter, beeswax, coconut oil, and powdered zinc oxide mixed for an estimated SPF 30. Montrealers needing UV protection, call me!
For Mtl folks seeking fair deals on herbal consultations, tinctures and balms, ask about contacting a great bilingual Western herbalist in training i know!
Anti-Carceral Group has started some prisoner support activities, including selling prints of Jonathan Burkhardt’s art to raise money for Ramsey Orta. The posters are quality, approx. 32cm tall x 48cm long. i'm selling copies for $20 each; all raised money goes to Ramsey and his support committee. He recorded the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014, that circulated world-wide. Targeted by police afterward, Orta was arrested by the NYPD in 2015 and has been in jails and prisons experiencing near-constant harassment and violence from guards ever since.
anticarceralgroup@riseup.net for more info. His Support Committee FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/pg/SupportRamseyOrta/about/?ref=page_internal
Contact me if you’re local to buy posters. Also, direct donations via Paypal to officialramseyorta@gmail.com go to commissary and communication costs.
i got accepted to the current https://www.teesriduniyatheatre.com/fireworks-playrwrights-program, truly appreciate the support to develop my disabled two-hander script further, and especially getting to practice dramaturgical analysis with excellent cohort folks. Thank you to Teesri Duniya for its projects of building political theatre and mentorship for writers!
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Big transition continues: i’ve started a p/t job after Much challenge getting employed without knowing French, have been invited to write a blog and do a bit of consulting work for a friend, will start my second try at p/t French class in March and be paid to attend by the province, have other leads and gig prospects. i’m nearly out of the woods of having no income; this is the last month i’ll be broke this way. However, the bigger project goal i’m fixing on needs more funds than i’m earning, so it’s time to ask widely.
Many of you know i'm organizing a screening event of doc and creative shorts by and about disabled people. For those who don’t know, Montreal’s architecture is often inaccessible and cultural concepts re: crips often outmoded. Yet it's known also for arts and innovation, and this event will break ground in bringing together Franco and Anglo allies and disabled people of all kinds, sharing instead of segregating our experiences. There are disability film festivals in Halifax, Toronto, and maybe periodically in Vancouver and Ottawa, but those screenings don't have all pieces subtitled in Fr and En; including that layer for this event may make it the first in Canada of such shorts to be bilingually accessible.
Videos will particularly profile people working in arts, those whom are queer or gender variant, and racialized. The curation will introduce work of disabled makers from the US and across Canada: even in cases where abled people have led in technical creation, the artistic and narrative frameworks will be at minimum equally agreed to by the disabled people featured, and as much as possible self-determined by them. i’m still collecting some: holler with your videos! Bringing focus to empowered, self-chosen narratives by disability community members that haven't gotten much public attention yet in Quebec will accelerate change here; everyone i’ve told in Mtl says it's needed, and would prompt further events. The Accessible Canada Act has no real provisions yet for enforcement: a showcase bringing together work by video makers with a mix of physical and cognitive disabilities, and mixed audiences, is a powerful occasion that can impact public opinion about social treatment.
The program will be ~1.5 hours with some Q&A following, to hopefully include participants in person and also live video links to featured artists from Vancouver, the US, etc. There will be ASL and LSQ sign language interpretation, audio description via headset for blind attendees, whisper translation for En/Fr, active listeners, support assistants, and attendance by donation. i aim to do it when college and cegep students can attend; if classrooms go we could get over 300 attendance. i’m about to confirm reservation of Concordia University’s Hall building auditorium, and need $300 for that. The dream is Sunday April 19 — if i can’t get enough funds quickly to book the space and date, and get started on costs of immediate subtitling work for shorts i’ve already confirmed, it’s ok…it just won’t schedule till fall then, as summer won’t be great timing to give the event the attention it deserves. April also has co-promotional opportunity with an allied org showing https://www.productionsspectrum.com/spectrumfest shorts by autistic (mainly Anglo) youth.
i began dreaming this in August 2018, was lucky to get passed-hat micro funding last Jan. and a vote last Feb. for some funds through https://www.quebec-elan.org/, the province’s English Language Arts Network. However, grants i will now apply for are mostly through Concordia, in connection with an excellent disabled friend who’s campus affiliated and also Francophone. $1700 last winter was so appreciated and not wasted; i got to contract with an event consultant—with navigating my own disabilities, it’s just taken a while to close in on where, when, what content, etc.—i’m much more positioned to go into event production mode now, and would Love to. There will be other funding; i’ve researched and have good prospects, this just needs a strong community-supported boost to hit the target. Reluctant to use a formal crowd-funding platform, this is my way of reaching out.
Costs include: *booking the accessible venue that fits at least 200 and projection service: $300
*Dialogue translation, then subtitling ($20-40+/hr) — hours required = tbd
*Screening fees to video makers (standard is $80/short): for +/-15 shorts, est. $1200
*Graphic and web promo design — tbd
*ASL & LSQ advertising videos: $100 each, $200 total
*Bilingual publicity campaign with press releases, arranging news coverage, postering and targeted outreach — tbd
*ASL & LSQ interpretation 2 LSQ and 2 ASL interpreters at $60/hour + for 2 hour event + 1 hour for travel, est. $500?
*Audio Description 1 describer in French and 1 in English, +equipment for 2 hours — the quote i have so far is minimum $1300
*French/English translation 1 translator, mic booth and audience headset equipment for 2 hours: $350??
*Videography of introductions and Q & A period — tbd
*Mic rentals and sound/light technician for audience questions and filmmakers’ discussion — tbd
*Adapted taxi fare, and public transit tickets for some attendees — tbd
*Salary for my work and for event co-organizer/s: $20/hr
This is obviously a limited estimate; amounts will revise once i get quotes about various requirements. It will be over $3000 to produce, perhaps closer to $6000+. i don’t expect to raise all this overnight; any help at all is welcome, and signal boosting = great!
i can get funds via PayPal to my email address, or via Interac with the statement "our power is" answered by "collective"
Making time to return to group singing in choir will help reinforce resilience and allow me to give more of what i can to comrades at hand and afar. Please don’t be shy to ask of and give me your piece of mind. A refrain of faith carries me now, from my current favourite Montreal band:
- Wherever i go, it Still Shines
seeley "jouissance" quest
*u.s. # 510 250 2521 --No text
*514 623 1998 --Calls are better, Limited response to texts
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeley-q/ --in progress