Author: Rocco

Rocco is based in Toronto. He has been published in over 30 magazines and literary journals in Canada and abroad, including Descant, Queens Quarterly, Event and Canadian Literature. He has appeared on radio specials in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and New York City and has been commissioned to write poetry by the CBC. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the arts ezine, Latchkey.net, and is working on his third collection of poetry, "Everything is Still Burning: 20 Travel Poems." Another collection, published by Fooliar Press, is expected in the fall of 2005 Rocco has travelled much throughout Europe and Asia and Canada and all the places and experiences reflect in his writing. He has worked as a garbage man, a research reporter, a rickshaw driver, a hard labourer, and presently an English instructor for new Canadian immigrants. He has launched his website not only to promote his own poetry and art, but also to open an online venue for other artists like himself, struggling for an audience and a stake in a little immortality.

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 
monk

 
by guest, Domenico Capilongo

 
and they ask him. stop him on his way to the piano mumbling to himself. I didn’t believe it till I saw it. the mumbling. “thelonius,” they say, “mr. monk you often wear different hats when you play.” and you can see it. his eyes acknowledging the camera like it was some alien. see the way he sort of fidgets? he’d rather be at the piano. his body turned off to the side too big for the bench feet moving uncomfortable in his own skin. “do you think the hats have an effect on the music?” you can hear the pause between notes. his brain composing an off-beat melody minutes before twelve. he mumbles something and then you can almost hear him say, “what the fuck, man? it’s just a fucking hat. listen to me play. listen to the damn music. let it fill you up.” he shrugs his shoulders like he’s trying to let his jacket fall. says something like, “I don’t know, maybe.” his breath trailing, contemplating the nuance of every note of the question. watch it. listen. see for yourself.

 

 
As published in hold the note (Quattro Books)

 

 

Domenico Capilongo lives in Toronto with his family. He teaches high school alternative education and practices karate. He has had work published in several literary magazines including Geist, and Dreamcatcher. He was short-listed for the gritLIT Poetry Contest 2009. His first book of poetry, I thought elvis was Italian was published in 2008 with Wolsak and Wynn and was short-listed for the 2010 Bressani Literary Award. His new book of jazz-inspired poetry, hold the note, was recently published with Quattro Books. ( learn more at: http://sites.google.com/site/domcapilongo/)

November’s Image Gallery

Posted on by Rocco

by guest, Karol Orzechowski

 

Found Object

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 
The photos above are a small selection of images from an ongoing project called Behind The Chutes, which is my attempt to document Canadian rodeo culture and the human-animal relationships contained therein. In Southern Ontario alone, there are over 50 rodeos that happen between April and October every year. Over the past year, I’ve visited many of them, and seen firsthand the complicated ways that masculinity, heritage, and agri/culture intersect to form a particularly powerful rhetoric that justifies the use of animals for entertainment. Though many of the things that I’ve witnessed (and will continue to witness) at rodeos would be considered animal cruelty by most sane people, the rodeo folks are adamant that they have a more honest relationship with the animals in their stead, in a way that city-slickers who only know “cows” as “steak” couldn’t possibly relate to.

– Karol Orzechowski | decipherimages.com

October’s Top Videos

Posted on by Rocco

 
 

5. I hereby coin the phraze “going double-rainbow” as to become manically or uncomfortably happy and/or unreasonably excited. Watch and witness how this guy gets more and more extreme in his ecstasy.


 
 

You can also watch the brilliant auto-tune adaptation.


 
 

4. I’m confused, what exactly is this guy trying to say?


 
 

3. A brilliant introspective look at the the plight of the average male in a world hostile to his needs.


 
 

2. To all my kiwi friends, where have you gone?


 
 

1. Finally, if you haven’t seen this already, this is a fantastic idea started by advice columnist Dan Savage. It’s a online movement to give comfort and support to gay kids caught up the the social, cliquish hell that we call high school.


 
 

Point/Counter Point: Rob Ford, Mayor of Dark City

Posted on by Rocco

by guest, Jacob Scheier

 

 

Toronto may very well elect a guy who would make a far better frat house president than a mayor of large multi-cultural city. At this point, I fear we could just decide this election through a chugging contest – since the results would be the same. Rob Ford guzzled the most Blue, ate the most hotdogs, got the most ignorant and angry people to vote him. It might all very well be the same result in the end.

People keep saying to me I can’t believe this guy could be our mayor. Of course, by people I mean people I tend to hang out with, who for all intents and purposes draw the border of Toronto somewhere south of Bloor Street and, not further east then the Beaches and not further west then maybe Lansdowne. As it turns out though, there are actual living, breathing humans living past those borders, who not only consider themselves Torontonians but also have the voting registration to prove it.

For me, I kind of picture places like Etobicoke as equivalent to say what lies beyond Shell Beach in the movie Dark City. If you have never heard of this movie, you might be one of those Torontonians who lives north of Bloor or west of Lansdowne, who in other words resides outside of what I like to call Torontopia. Anyway, Shell Beach is the furthest end (or I suppose one of the furthest ends) of the city in Dark City. Upon getting there though (Spoiler Alert) it is actually just water and sand painted on a wall and beyond that wall is nothing but stars and space, beyond that wall is the abyss and, beyond that wall is Rexdale, as far as I’m concerned.

That is pretty much how it is for me. And for, whether they will admit it or not, for many people I know (the kind of people who are really jazzed – and I say that word ironically because we like to be ironic in Torontopia, especially when we’re hanging out in bars on Ossington – about the new Jarvis bike lane).

Of course I am aware that real people, in real communities live in these places where Rob Ford’s base seems to be. But it’s not part of the Toronto I identify with. It’s another world entirely.

And this is the problem – I am part of the problem, in a sense. Or the problem is since there are two Torontos, there ought to be two different cities with two different mayors – at least two. Those of us who love our downtown, gay pride partying, all night art exhibiting, bike and public transport-friendly-ish city can elect someone who will nourish it (like Joe Pantalone). And those who want a suburban waspy car culture “city” can elect the appropriate mayor for that. Is my characterization of places like Rexdale ‘fair’ ? Probably not. But I don’t give a shit – that’s kinda of the point. I don’t want to be able to give a ‘fair’ description of the place, since that would involve actually going there.

Of course there are people in Rexdale who don’t fit into that waspy culture and people downtown who disdain gay pride and multiculturalism. I am willingly to participate in some kind of refugee program for such people.

Ultimately the solution to avoiding the tyranny of quasi-libertarian suburban-nites is independence for urban Toronto (Torontopia), for Toronto to be a city onto itself (Actually maybe a country onto itself). In the meantime though I am going to vote for Joe, since he is, as far as I can tell, the only candidate who actually wants to protect and nourish the kind of city I want to live in – the kind of city we (though of us within the borders of Torontopia) already live in. I understand the impulse to vote for the Anyone-but-Ford, aka Smitherman. But I can not see the city Smitherman envisions. I can see he’s really wants to be mayor but that’s not something to stand for. He could be mayor of quiet beach town painted on the wall of Dark City for all he seems to care – as long as he has the title of mayor, it seems he would be happy. Might idealists like myself be responsible for Ford winning. Well, that’s one why to look it. When Ralph Nader was accused of costing Gore the election in 2000, he said, being both sincere and ironic, that Gore was the one who had cost him the election.

Ford will win, if he wins, because those living (and I mean more psychologically than geographically) in the abyss beyond Dark City’s Shell Beach – beyond the Beaches, will have voted their values and ideals, while the rest of us could not muster more moral clarity than ‘Ford is bad.’