E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG BY TODD SWIFT

After a pretty good winter games, Russia faces the hangover - trouble in their backyard that threatens to turn into conflict with the West, and perhaps, even, war.  Famously, the Crimea belonged to Russia (in the former USSR) until as the stories have it in the 1950s a drunken Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine within the same system, a tactical blunder to be sure.  As we have seen in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the Balkans, and even, Quebec and Scotland, seccesionism has an ugly side.  Civil wars happen when one group claims to speak for the majority, but leaves a sizable minority out of the equation.  In this case, that Russian-speaking minority is based mainly in the Crimea, and is strategically located near the Black Sea Fleet, not a thing Russia is every likely to let go of easily (Russia has long fought to secure its access to that body of water).  The revolution in Ukraine appears to have unseated a flunky and a bit of a despot with expensive tastes, but it has also unleashed explosiv…

I think marketing poetry always has a flaw in it (the flaw of commodification is a given besides). Which is that you can't really "sell" someone a poem. You can't sell a trick or a joke. You can sell a BOOK of tricks, or jokes, though. So, marketing poetry/ poems is selling books. Not poetry. And here is the flaw - what people want from books is mostly fiction or non-fiction - they want either a) escape/ entertainment or b) information and/or advice or c) both. When you open a Book of Poems, you don't get either, exactly - you are pulled into something far deeper. A Book of Poems is like a book of deep water. Not something you might actually want on your shelf. This is why Books of Poetry need to be "sold" carefully, and for different reasons that many other kinds of books. You don't just "read" a book of poetry. You swim, or drown, in its depths.

A reminder, my (Todd's) early poetry can be found here.

Moving from mourning into morning, as the poem by Barker goes, Beck, the magpie musician who rose to fame in 1994 with the cult hit slacker classic Mellow Gold, with silly but fun songs, has become, over time, arguably the best singer-songwriter-composer of his generation, a post-modern Bob Dylan.  Oddly, he is a scientologist, but then again, Prince is a Jehovah's Witness - musicians are an odd lot.  I liked some of his albums a lot, especially the moody, dreamy ones.

Anyway, as everyone knows (the media blitz has been huge) he is back after six years with Morning Phase, an album modelled on the Wilson classic Laurel Canyon style of the moody 70s.  This is the sequel to his best album, and least zany, Sea Change, from 2002, now considered something of a classic.  Beck's albums are now prized events, because they are so well-wrought, and lovingly crafted.  Morning Phase will be on Eyewear's list of the best albums of 2014 - it may well top it.

This album is certainly the mos…

The world has many divisions - one of them is between those who love the Olympics, and their idealism, and sporting opportunities for the youth of the world - and those who detest them, seeing mostly their propaganda value and their money-wasting potential.  Obviously, anyone in the second camp was going to be particularly indisposed to a winter games (the 22nd) held at a Russian resort in a land whose, shall we say democratic experiment (to be tactful) has yet to fully succeed (to be hopeful).  Many of these bitter commentators and protesters - often supporting the hard done by gay community in Russia, where to be gay is to be potentially killed or beaten - failed to see that Putin is not Stalin, and Russia is not Nazi Germany circa 1936.  Much more needs to be done in Russia, but it is not run by a madman who has published a book calling for genocide, nor does its society practise euthanasia of the mentally ill.

Indeed, as the games reminded us, Russia, despite its many faults (and a…

This just in...

"The Literary Scene Loses an Important Ally

It is with deep sadness that we have learned of the death, on Feb. 14, of Judith Mappin, who helped put Canadian writing on the map and was a friend and loyal supporter of Blue Metropolis.

In 1974, along with Hélène Holden and Joan Blake, Judy founded the Double Hook Book Shop, which specialized in literature by Canadian writers. For many Montreal writers and readers, the Double Hook became a home away from home. The shop survived – and thrived – until 2005, when it closed its doors. That same year, Judy received a President's Award of Distinction from the Association of Canadian Publishers, and in 2008, was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2013, Blue Metropolis paid tribute to her with a special homage. Through her devotion to and passion for Canadian writing, Judy made a major contribution to Montreal’s literary scene, and more broadly, to Canadian publishing. "

If as the new comprehensive UN report claims, North Korea's regime is a criminal one, regularly committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and based partly on the Nazi model, complete with death camps, mass starvation, sadistic torture, and other sinister brutalities, what are we to do in The West?  Going by past actions, nothing, sadly.  There has long been a law for Europe, and a law for the Asian world - a double-standard, where the West either inflicts cruelties and crimes in that theatre of war it would not elsewhere, or tolerates them there when it would not elsewhere.  No atomic bomb was dropped on Germany; no Napalm used on enemies of European descent.  A subtle racism continues - people of Asia, Africa and the Middle East are treated as sub-human, or, more bluntly, sub-American.  If France, Italy, or Greece were doing what North Korea was doing, it would be defeated militarily, as to stand by would be seen as an impossible moral failing; however, the assumption is No…