BooksShorts VIDEO: PorkBelly Futures Cure the Blues with BookShorts & Strange Duck Media Holiday Party

The Canadian Blues.

Strange Duck Media, BookShorts and PorkBelly Futures invited a hundred of their closest friends to "to cure the holiday blues with live music, contests, free stuff and other barely disguised excuses to meet fellow rejoicers." The highlight of the evening had to be PorkBelly's rendition of the blues verses written by our guests, which we have captured for your continued enjoyment, though we do not wish the winning verse on anybody.

Best of the season!

The evening's beverage of choice sponsored by Saint Andre Lager Saint Andre brand was founded to brew authentic European style beers, to bring some of Europe's cultural brewing Heritage to Toronto. It is brewed locally at Cool Brewing in Brampton in small batches to ensure freshness, with specialty malts imported from Belgium and Czech Saaz hops. Thanks Doug!!

Goodies and prizes from our generous supporters
F.L.A.G. Accessories
BigTime Murder Productions
Dawn Aaron's Tai Chi Class
Strange Duck Media
BookShorts
PorkBelly Futures

Thanks to the generous publishers that contributed the gift of literature
Raincoast Books / IPG
ECW Press
McClelland & Stewart
Random House of Canada
Penguin Group (Canada)
Thomas Allen Publishers

Proceeds of the evening's Raffle were donated to PEN Canada.
The contributions above were used in a Raffle to support PEN Canada. PEN is an association of writers and supporters formed in 1926 to defend freedom of expression and raise awareness of that right. It is one of 144 centres of International PEN in 102 countries, and uses the power of the word to assist writers around the world persecuted or exiled for the expression of their thoughts. PEN Canada relies on the generous support of money and time from Canadians from across the country. http://www.pencanada.ca/.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Tags: porkbelly, futures, strange, duck, bookshorts, pork, in, strange, shorts;, pen, canada, paul quarrington

BookShorts VIDEO: Dave Bidini Does Sex and Hockey

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The renaissance thang ain't dead yet -- absconded to the extreme by h'wood and retail granted, yea, sure.  Still there are artist like Dave, and our Paul, and Irene and Susan that do pretty much every darn art thing and happily, wonderfully well.

This is the latest installment from Bidini, which (surprise - NOT) is also a suite of music, about-to-be-stage-play, a book and well, we'll see what else comes of it.

In the meantime, check out Bidini's site at http://www.davebidini.ca - more and more all the time.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: bookshorts, dave bidini, five hole stories, moving stories, pages, tinars