Tonight (March 31) is the annual Expozine Alternative Press Awards Gala at Le Divan Orange, 4234 St. Laurent. Copies of about 30 of the best publications from the 300 publishers who took part in Expozine 2009 will be on sale at the free event, which also features some readings by nominees, MC Alexis O’Hara and will be capped off with a performance by the unique funk philosopher/ one-man-band Tony Ezzy. A new mini-CD by Tony Ezzy will also be available in the Distroboto machine at Divan Orange.
Then, from April 9 - 16 I will be in France for a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Fanzinothèque in Poitiers. I will be presenting a bit of all the things I do: the old Fish Piss magazine (still on hiatus), the Distroboto and Expozine projects and a large selection of zines from Québec from the 60s to today, drawn from the archives of Archive Montreal.
In the meantime, March 31 marks the closing of the nearly 100 year old Montreal Poolroom hot dog restaurant, the oldest operating restaurant in Montreal (and possibly Canada?), shut down by the city for a “revitalization” of the block it sits on that has since fallen apart. I was interviewed on this matter in last Sunday’s Montreal Gazette, the article can be found here. Watch for more updates on the botched “revitalization” of this historic quarter on my blog in the months to come.
You can also find out more about this situation on the website of the Save the Main Coalition. There will also be an evening of ideas and presentations about the future of this district in May, details available here.
Just a reminder that I DJ on the first Tuesday of each month at Bar Casa del Popolo, 4873 St-Laurent (near corner St-Joseph, short walk from Laurier metro and steps from the 55 stop), from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Tuesday is Rock n’ Roll night at Casa, so you can expect an eclectic mix of music that can be considered “rock” from the 50s to today. There are also great drink specials in effect all night Tuesdays: $3 for bottles or hard stuff, $4 for all pints.
This Tuesday (Dec. 1) I will be spinning a number of rare African psychedelic rock records throughout the night, and prepared this mix online for anyone who wants a taste. It’s a 5 hour DJ set, so there will also be lots of rock/ punk/ post-punk/ new wave etc. from the 70s to today, dashes of soul and rnb, hard-rocking funk and blues, proto-punk/ metal and top-notch 60s-70s psychedelia– in short, a lot of music you’ve never ever heard of but will want to hear MORE of afterwards!!
If I don’t see you tonight, I’ll be back at it on Tuesday, January 5, 2010.
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Posted 01 December 2009
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I’ll be selling my novel, A Fine Ending, and (hopefully) a special new little zine at Expozine this weekend in Montreal, Nov. 14-15, and I’ll also be at the Expozine opening party on Nov. 13 (see www.expozine.ca for details.)
Don’t be shy to come up and introduce yourself! See you there.
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Posted 09 November 2009
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First of all, I forgot to mention last month that I made the list of the top ten “Best Living Local Authors” in the annual Montreal Mirror’s Best of Montreal readers poll. The full list is available here and also includes my old friend Heather O’Neill, who I published for the first time in 1996 in my Fish Piss Magazine and whose most recent novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, has done extremely well since its publication in the fall of 2006.
I’ve also begun posting a bit more material to this site — see new posts on the video-photos and blog sections. I’ll also be posting a couple more times to the Broken Pencil blog (see links in the previous news post) until I pass the reins of resident blogger to someone else in mid-July.
Lastly, another review of my novel A Fine Ending appeared in the May 7 issue of the Suburban newspaper in Montreal, although the review is not available online.
Hello everybody! Just so you know, I began blogging here on the Broken Pencil website, where I expect to add posts every couple weeks through to the end of July.
I also DJed on CKUT earlier this week (Tuesday May 27, 2008), and you can click here to download the one-hour show. I was filling in for the Reverend Randy on the Harvey Christ Radio Hour, a bi-weekly mix of sermons, fables, hymns and music related to the Church of Harvey Christ and also satirical jabs at some of the wackier God pushers out there. I just spun records myself, mainly gospel songs done by rockin’ funk and soul artists from the 60s and 70s.
For those who want to hear more (but in a very different style), I will be DJing next Tuesday at Casa del Popolo for their weekly rock and roll night. You can check their calendar for the dates of my DJ gigs there over the next few months. Don’t hesitate to come up and say hi or make a request.
Lastly, my novel A Fine Ending will be released in the US and UK/EU on June 1, which means people there will be able to order it in bookstores or from www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk .
A Fine Ending disappeared from amazon.ca’s rankings for a few weeks after the first printing sold out in March, but after being back in print for about a month, it has raced back up the rankings. As of May 8, it sits at number 11 on the Canadian short stories chart, and number 86 on the overall short stories chart. (Of course, it’s a novel, not a short story collection: an early book catalog published many months before its release listed A Fine Ending as a short story collection, and obviously amazon.ca is a little slow to correct such errors!) It remains to be seen whether amazon.com will repeat this error when the novel becomes available in the US and UK in June…
In the meantime, check the blog on this website next week for the author’s reflections on the novel and the feedback from readers six months after it hit bookstore shelves.
You can also check out Broken Pencil Magazine’s website where, starting next week, Louis Rastelli will be the resident blogger for the summer.
Louis Rastelli will be presenting excerpts from his novel, A Fine Ending, in person at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival on Sunday, May 4 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. The event is hosted by Marianne Ackerman and also features readings by Mary Soderstrom, Nigel Thomas, Issa J. Boullata and Sanja Domazet. Tickets are available in advance or at the festival, which takes place at the Delta Centre-Ville Hotel, 777, University Street, Square-Victoria metro.
A Fine Ending will also be available for sale at the festival, and the author will be signing copies after the Sunday reading.
In other news, A Fine Ending is back in print after a quick sellout of the first printing. It is once again available on www.amazon.ca, where it cracked the top 100 sellers shortly before it ran out. It will be available in the US and UK sometime next June.
In case anyone is having trouble finding a copy of A Fine Ending, please note that the first printing is almost sold out. It is currently listed as unavailable on most online sites (such as amazon.ca or the chapters-indigo online site), but will become available again in about a month. In the meantime, copies can still be found in some bookstores, but it’s recommended to call first to see if they have copies in stock. Most stores will gladly take orders and will let you know when the book is back in stock.
The second printing will be identical to the first, except that some typos have been corrected and “rave reviews” of the novel are quoted on the back cover. If you’re the collector type, you might want to get a copy of the first printing while it can still be found!
In other news, Louis Rastelli will be reading at Capilano College in Vancouver as part of the Open Text reading series on Tuesday, March 25. He will also be reading as part of the Short Line series at the Railway Club in Vancouver that same evening (579 Dunsmuir Street, on the corner at Seymour).
Other festival appearances are planned for the spring and will be announced shortly.
There is a review of Louis Rastelli’s novel, A Fine Ending, in the Globe and Mail, available online here. Excerpt:
“A Fine Ending reads like a middle-of-the-night yarn from a slightly stoned scribe who has set himself the task of telling everybody’s story - for a laugh or at least a smile. Yet hovering overhead is a powerful metaphysical gravitas heightened by the narrator’s innocence. Evil and death surround him, lives are ruined by drugs and drink, clouds of violence and doom are gathering. Fittingly, the story ends on the last night of the 20th century in a melancholy scene heavy with foreshadowed nostalgia: Something sweet and good is going, gone.” - Marianne Ackerman, The Globe and Mail
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Posted 09 February 2008
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Louis Rastelli’s Distroboto project is celebrating its 7th anniversary on Friday, Jan. 25, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. at Salla Rossa, 4848 St-Laurent.
It is a benefit show for the non-profit project which involves former cigarette machines selling local art, music, books, comics, short films and crafts for $2.00 in various cafés and bars around Montreal. (See www.distroboto.archivemontreal.org for more info. There are also articles about the event in the Montreal Mirror here and here.)
The show costs $10 at the door and will feature performances by Think About Life, Exhaust, Gambletron, Giselle Numba One, and Random Recipe.
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Another review of A Fine Ending just came out, this time in the Montreal Mirror. You can read it by clicking here.
“A Fine Ending is at its best when life is at its worst. When Rastelli is fully engaged in the numb nihilism of the time, and giving detailed descriptions of the consequences of that life, the novel cooks.”
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Posted 17 January 2008
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