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Our website is now BACK UP! (duh) after a few online mishaps, and along with all the great back content (marvelous pictures of the fabulous attendees of superlative past events et cetera) we're starting up a new ONLINE EXHIBITION gallery of images, sounds and texts, up and running at livingcloset.com/exhibit.htm and featuring in its inauguration "walking across the granville bridge on a windy october 23, 2001" by Vancouver-area comics self-publisher Jason Turner (of Strongman Press), Tim Lander's similarly self-publishing (well, bookbinding) tips in "The Art of the Chapbook", and a recording of the opening speech on the Malkin Bowl mainstage at our event there way back August 22nd, 1998 (by, uh, some suchandsuch.)

We're hoping to keep this gallery current and dynamic with frequent influxes of new content both converted from our back archives (sound + video recordings of performances) and from the submissions / recommendations of you, our vibrant community. So if you've got some content kicking around that appeals to the eyes, ears or mind (sorry, Bob, but appealing to the nose, navel and prostate just aren't gonna cut it online) and would be interested in our hosting of or linking to a new or particularly relevant work, let us know!

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However, since I've still got the mic here, I'm going to keep letting you know about a few more things - notably, upcoming events put on by members of the local extended Living Closet community past present and future. Get out your calendars or risk looking the fool when you say that there's nothing to do in Vancouver!

* SATURDAY, AUGUST 24th - This just in: Norway's DJ TEEBEE (Metalheadz / Subtitles / Prototype) will be educating Vancouver in the international drum 'n bass idiom with the assistance of local DJs PSIDREAM, WOOD and LINK at the Green Room, 695 Cambie street (at Georgia.) Admission is $18 (and don't worry, that's more than everything else on this list combined.)
* SUNDAY, AUGUST 25th - Leonard Wong's COMIX & STORIES - From 11am to 5pm is your chance to meet + rub elbows (anything else is on your own time, buddy) with international comics stuperstar (well, underappreciated genius perhaps) Jim Woodring as well as the regular cast of local visual-pictoral small press/self-publishing wonders including Ralph Alfonso, Robin Bougie, Doretta Lau, James Lloyd and the ever-cuddly Brad Yung of Stay As You Are notoriety. Admission is $3. Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street (and 15th avenue.) Further information available at users.uniserve.com/~lswong/Comicon.html
* WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28th - Evil Boy Genius productions presents a combination "SCRAMBLED ANGST" reunion / DEREK DAWDA farewell party: Starting at 8:30 pm (doors open an hour earlier) many of Vancouver's "spankiest" stars of spoken word and performance will be waiting to hear /you/ drop some choice lines at a one-night resurrection of Vancouver's most experimental open stage. After they've picked their collective jaw up off the floor at your efforts, your $5 admission will get you an ear-assault from (takes deep breath) Barbara Adler III, Salmon Avalanche, Brotus, Vitamin F, Tone Indbryn, "The" Shane Koyczan, Irene Livingston, Al Mader (the Minimalist Jug Band), Sue McIntyre, Brian Nelson, Andrea Papineau of Tales of Ordinary Madness, Paul, T-Paul St.Marie (Mr. Thundering Word Heard), Abby Wener, Teresa Wood, and (among others, yow!) I, your humble e-mail promoter. (Do you think I should read from the March announce or maybe a little something from the July press release instead?) Your host R.C. Weslowski will bring you all this and more, as we wade through the nostalgic mire of fondness for the series Barb, Curtis and the Really Awful Poets pushed through our heads and hearts for over a year. This could also be your last chance to catch Derek Dawda, as this is a send-off party for him as he goes towards Winnipeg... so if he owes you any money, here's your final opportunity to recoup on the investment! All this will be going down at Ms. T's Cabaret (I pity da foo'!) located at 336 West Pender street (at Homer.) If you miss this one all your friends /will/ be laughing at you.
* THURSDAY, AUGUST 29th, 6:00 pm - Special Airplane and Kate Armstrong present Drift, "A Generative Psychogeographical Event." But don't let the big words scare you away:
"Netherlands-based artist collective Social Fiction describes Generative Psychogeography as 'an open source concept which describes a method to explore the urban environment. It is as simple as this: stroll through the city on directions like "first street left, second street right, first street right, repeat". The simplicity of this route can be deceptive, it turns out that the route which you will take is difficult to predict for more than 3 turns (in an asymmetrical city, that is). Add to this that by strolling like this you pass through the city in a way which is so thoroughly alien to the way you normally use the city that you find yourself confronted with the city in new light.'

Come and Drift with Special Airplane: We'll meet on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, where you'll be given a slip of paper with an algorithm that will take you in a pattern around the streets. We'll walk for one hour starting at 6 pm. You'll be asked to chart your route on a map. If your pattern takes you to a point where you are faced with the ocean and cannot progress further, you will be asked to toss an object, which you will have been given ahead of time, into the sea. After 1 hour, stop walking and come join the rest of the group to have a drink and discuss where your route took you. Everybody is welcome so spread the word."

* SATURDAY, AUGUST 31st - marks the beginning of the Labour Day Weekend, and for the literarily-inclined in these parts that means just one thing: the 25th annual 3-DAY-NOVEL contest! I could tell you more about it, but really the ordeal must be experienced to be believed. Registration is still open - check it out at the Anvil Press website at www.anvilpress.com/3daynov/
* THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5th - JACK HARLAN will be taking a break from his rigorous touring schedule to play the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir street) with Jonathan Inc. For more information on this marvelous man and his CD, investigate his website at www.jackharlan.com/
* FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th - the very next day, keep the flow going with a 9 pm set from ex-Sneeker TANYA PHILIPOVICH at Blunt Bros. Cover is around $3, and be sure to check her website at www.tanyarock.com/ to find out how the duck got its stripes!
* OR, that same night, for the more literarily inclined... the Starry Dynamo (4342 Main street) expects to be hosting readings by 3-Day-Novel contest entrants from their bleary but hopeful half-incoherent submissions.
* SEPTEMBER 7th, 12th + 13th - the Vancouver FRINGE FESTIVAL gets underway (www.vancouverfringe.com) and you should take the opportunity to hie you to the Mound on Granville Island and absorb another improbable production of THE ROCKY HORROR DINO OPERA while you can! (For those allergic to live theatre, "EXTINCTION STINKS" - the Dinos Against Fossil Fuels' video - is available at vancouver.indymedia.org/extinctionstinks/)
* SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29th - the Vancouver WORD ON THE STREET festival will be in full swing at the Central branch of the Vancouver Public Library from 11 am to 6 pm. Check out the innumerable millions (perhaps I exaggerate somewhat) of tables and information displays set up by local publishers, magazines, book vendors, artists and artisans. Performances by more people than I can presume to name will be going on all over the place all day long, and of special note will be the Word UNDER the Street section set up in the library's basement. Get your hype-on at www.thewordonthestreet.ca/