Tag: Daniel Zomparelli

2019 week twenty two

Book Read
22. It’s a Big Deal! – Dina Del Bucchia

Kilometres Ran
week twenty two – 56.9

2019 to date: 1,077

I’m a day late writing this blog post and I can’t even blame it on a long weekend, but I flew home from Paris on Wednesday morning and I’m still trying to finish my travel journal. So no big deal. But what is a big deal is this new collection of poems from Dina Del Bucchia and if you don’t believe me then just read the title of the book. How can you argue? You can’t. I especially liked the Megafauna part of this collection – 19 poems with the following criteria: 1. Must be heavier than 100 pounds, 2. Must be fauna, and 3. Must be extinct. These are great. These belong in a museum. Who needs binomial nomenclature and some dry, stuffy description along side the Smithsonian’s dioramas? Put these there instead. And since we’re on the precipice of a mass-extinction event, Del Bucchia will have lots more to write, and we’re going to need her humour to help get us through. (We’re not getting through.) It’s pretty URGENT! Speaking of which, a couple years ago I was the managing editor of The Capilano Review and we collaborated with Daniel Zomparelli of Poetry is Dead for ti-TCR #11 “Urgency and Response,” which you cannot find online anymore but if you could you’d see that I got to typeset Del Bucchia’s poem “URGENT!” which you’ll also find in It’s a Big Deal. (Actually, since it was meant to be online and it’s not anymore for some reason, here it is.) Nostalgia enough? I still have a soft spot for TCR, which makes me do stuff like, years later, still try to help them out.

The 2018 Scotiabank Half Marathon. This year I’m running in the Charity Challenge in support of The Capilano Review. I hope you will consider lending your support.

The Scotiabank Half Marathon is in three weeks and this year I’m hoping to run fast than last year but I’m also running to raise money for The Capilano Review, which this year is a registered charity, and I hope that you’ll consider giving your support. For over 45 years or something TCR has published the who’s who of Canadian and international literary and visual artists, many of whom were still who? when they first appeared in TCR‘s pages. I was a fan, and then had the privilege of being the managing editor for a couple years. (Hence, I know the state of the books….) In spite of its tenuous financial situation, it continues to publish uncompromising quality, and I’m still a huge fan who looks forward to finding it in my mailbox throughout the year. TCR gives back to the community too, hosting numerous free cultural events throughout the year. I hope that you will consider supporting my race for a new personal best, and to make a donation to The Capilano Review. As TCR is a registered charity, all donations of $25 or more receive a tax receipt. To find out more about The Capilano Review follow this link.

Use this link to Donate

Mile on the track at the Vancouver Distance Track Series hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. Photo by Charles Perrot-Minot

On Friday I got to race a mile on the track up at UBC for the Vancouver Distance Track Series hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. It was over pretty quickly, and was a ton of fun. I went into the day with a bit of jetlag and not really knowing what to expect. I’d never raced a mile. According to Strava, my fastest mile was the first 1,609 metres of the Chilly Chase 5K that I raced in January. Strava said I did that in 6:05. I wanted to run under six minutes. The gun went off and I got a good start and just tried to keep pace with Rochelle Marasa who’d taken the lead. In the second lap Paul Farrow took over the lead, Marasa second and me trying to keep Marasa’s pace in third. Going into the bell lap Marasa picked up her pace and caught and passed Farrow. On the final straight I thought he was within reach and I turned on the sprint, but just before the line he saw me coming and managed to find another gear too and held me off. I finished third just 3/10 second behind him, crossing the line at 5:52 for a pretty satisfying personal best.

Vancouver Distance Track Series Heat 1 – (L-R) me (3rd), Paul Farrow (2nd), Rochelle Marasa (1st) hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. Photo by Jan Heuninck.

I learned a few things too. The biggest one is to stay in lane one. I spent some time pacing the leaders on their right instead of from behind. Which meant my mile was a few metres long – a learning experience that I will carry into next time. There will be a next time.

forty two by forty two week three

Books Read:
11. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse — Ed. John Joseph Adams (in progress)
12. Everything is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person — Daniel Zomparelli (in progress)

Kilometres Ran:
week twelve — 71.6

To date: 646 km

So continuing on with the theme of reading collections of short stories, but breaking away ever so slightly from George Saunders, I stumble upon the apocalypse, and the gay male dating apocalypse. First impressions of course, because as you can see above both are still in the works. And that’s really the beauty of short stories. For my short attention span. Daniel launched his book last night at a fancy hipster donut shop in East Van that ran out of donuts. Before I arrived. Which makes it read as though I would have contributed to the selling out, which if you would have believed, you would be wrong. Consequently, I was under no peer pressure to consume deep fried dough. Just as well. Daniel read an entertaining story that involved a Bill Murray looking dude in a Hawaiian shirt but in the story it was a “tropical” shirt because, I assume, “Hawaiian” is trademarked or something. Probably by that old Global BC weather guy. I’m cognizant of the possibility that I wasn’t entirely fair earlier when I wrote “gay male dating apocalypse” but I’m a couple stories in and, well, maybe. It’s not quite cooking and eating dog or some near future neo-luddite theocracy.

I forced my cough to get back into running. It’s still lingering, but I don’t feel like it’s hindering. I went to Forerunners because I had a coupon and gawd knows I love a deal and it expired at the end of March and I wanted to have a conversation with someone about gels because I do not know anything about that sort of stuff and I’d rather have someone talk at me than Google. Most of the time. And I still have trouble wrapping my head around this because maybe I read too much about the apocalypse or dating or maybe having lived both in some form or another but the people at Forerunners are really nice and helpful. I learned a trick to put a gel into my Fuel Belt bottle and that worked out pretty well. Except that I have to actually wear my Fuel Belt. This week was supposed to be a milder week but I modified since I basically missed all of last week. So I did 30 kilometres today and it was awful. It was cold and it rained and by the time I hit 15 km right around the concession at Sunset Beach I had to use the washroom to thaw out my (soaking wet, gloved) hands under the hand dryer. I think it might be the most miserable run that I’ve ever done, that I can recall. But I did it. Onto the next one.