paintings, writing, and explorations in sound
I took the book South out of my bag and immersed myself in its prose as I waited for my sushi to be prepared. The sidewalks outside were icy, but indoors everyone was jacketless. In another time, near another continent, Ernest Shackleton and his men were not so comfortable: We ate a cold meal and… Continue reading lumps of freshwater ice: shackleton in the weddell sea
(February 2010 update: Arctica is now set to launch on Friday, February 12, online and in a little studio in Whitehorse too, if you're nearby) Just before I moved to Dawson in April, a writer friend in Vancouver e-introduced me to an editor/writer in Whitehorse who was putting together an editorial team to plan an… Continue reading Arctica: circumpolar online mag seeks subs
In the process of gathering celebratory materials for IFAD (International Freezer Appreciation Day) it came to my attention that there is a whole body of freezer literature out there. Here are the examples I learned about - three deep. The closing tale is The Rules of Freezer Wars, a fiction that Toronto writer Pasha Malla… Continue reading International Freezer Appreciation Day (IFAD) #1: the freezer literatures
red pony alert a semi-fiction by yours truly Forget that I’ve been sneezing and blowing my nose all day. I’m going out for a run so I can sleep properly. If you’re not looking for gold, the roads around Dawson don’t lead to many dramas. I jog out of town at least twice a week,… Continue reading red pony alert
According to Hal Clement, our multicoloured planet Earth is a life-threatening, ice-cold zone for creatures who typically inhabit conditions where sulphur is liquid. Mottled with sinister colors, the planet gleamed in the spacecraft's viewport. Sallman Ken could not believe that such a bleak and icy globe could ever have produced life. Yet the expedition had… Continue reading Hal Clement: Iceworld, 1953
Lance Blomgren's Operation Northern Shield (ONS) is a speculative research project investigating the possibility of new settlements in the Canadian arctic. Inspired by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s well-publicized obsession with Canadian sovereignty in the far north—not to mention its wealth of resources and economic potential—ONS depicts a world where ice is both material and idea, building material… Continue reading ice in lit: Operation Northern Shield (excerpt)
I stopped because it was pretty in an ugly sort of way. I stayed because it echoed something in myself. An urban ice field, slagged in gravel, oozing salt: Pb, Cu, Cd, Zn, Al, Ca, Na, Mg, and Fe. A permeable ecological interface: traffic, trees, sewer gratings, pedestrians, and sunshine. Taps, sewers, roots, trees, mouths,… Continue reading Ice Flow, an urban video-poem
The Ice Cubicle has received its first literary contribution about ice! "Numb," a poem by John D. Lund. If you wanted to know about making hand-sewn, carefully crafted chapbooks in Victoria in the late 1990s, John was the guy with the knowledge because he usually had one on the go. We used to cross words… Continue reading ice in lit: painkiller direct
"Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs and provide food; for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred." (Frankenstein) There’s plenty of ice – and need for warm furs – in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But ever since Boris Kaldoff became the bolt-headed, ragged-necked monster in… Continue reading ice in lit: Frankenstein in the Arctic
meg walker 