The most hotly anticipated release of 2011 for me isn’t an album, it is a book. Sheila Heti has taken the verbal offerings of the indubitable Misha Glouberman and reformatted those thoughts into a stunning book called, in an utterly Glubermanesque truism, “The Chairs Are Where The People Go”, published by Faber & Faber.

The Toronto Launch Party for The Chairs Are Where The People Go is at the Garrison this Wednesday at 7, as part of Trampoline Hall, the lecture series that is technically taking a summer break. It is a book with the revolutionary premise of Sheila Heti taking everything Misha Glouberman says, everything, and writing it down, distilled into 175 pages. If you know anything at all about either gamester philosophist Misha Glouberman or Canlit best-hope Sheila Heti, that is enough to make you want to own this book. If you don't know about them, well please allow me to upsell the product.

I first met both Sheila Heti and Misha Glouberman in 2003, when I was naively but determinedly helping to renovate and ultimately program the new fangled Drake Hotel, which at the time was naively but determinedly set to become an artist friendly hotbed for new culture. The well intentioned but unfortunate creature that we unleashed upon the world, slouching towards Parkdale to be born, is another topic for another day, but those heady days leading up to the hotel’s re-opening had the whole neighbourhood drunk with optimism and possibilities, and Sheila and Misha were emblematic of that. The ideas they captured, refined, and put into real life seemed to be tremendously important to the owner, who was utterly taken by the open minded salon mentality of Trampoline Hall, and he asked me to go find them specifically, and find a way to get them involved in the Drake’s programming in a way that suited them best.

My first memory of Sheila was like talking to the Tardis, she has a still and strong intellect, it simultaneously draws you in and frightens you with the same sanguine vitality. We met at the Beaver for coffee and I wanted to talk to her about starting some sort of Dorothy Parker salon in what would become the Drake’s lounge. The whole time she carried this wide and deep stillness with her like the Pacific carrying the great barrier reef, she assimilates all knowledge around her and filters it into a mother-of-pearl fortress of reformatted knowledge. Any new knowledge that approaches her gets disassembled by the shredding sharp reef and rebuilt into something quite unexpected, usually involving silences. I realized after meeting with her that the best thing to do to encourage her participation in Toronto’s burgeoning art + culture world would be to leave her alone, and to not ask her to do something at the Drake. The last time I saw her doing something at the Drake she turned off all the lights except the Exit sign and staged a reading in a pitch black room. Hard on beer sales, but a brilliant idea.

My first memory of Misha came a little while later, Misha’s take on the world was quite different than Sheila’s. No less thoughtful, but more upward & outward, looming less aquatic. You get the sense that while Heti’s ideas would grow like a field of poppies, Misha’s ideas would burst open and fire off in any direction like jackpine cones in a wildfire. As a fellow Torontopian emcee we both appreciated the art of the sidetrack and the gift of the non sqeuitor, but while my non-sqeuitors usually regather and conclude just in time to introduce the next band, Misha wraps that talent into an overreaching framework of everything-ness that allows all things to fit in their intellectual place, allowing small groups to collectively understand something in a way that an individual cannot, and allowed him to transmit that point of view to a roomful of people in a way that they too could hitch themselves to the framework and see the same (often obtusely non-linear and blindingly relevant) point. We met, we spoke, he went away, and a few days later sent me an email detailing the importance of folding chairs and card tables. No other chair would do, I didn’t realize until a few re-reads that he was proposing a games night, but not a games night like you’d see at a lazy coffee house with a copy of Trivial Persuit and Scrabble propping up a table leg. He wanted to have a games night made up of games nobody could possibly imagine, explain, or play. The game involved charades, numbers, turns of phrase. Again, a rough bit of programming for beer sales, but, again, a brilliant idea.

Sheila has spent many hours listening to Misha, ever since the formation of Trampoline Hall a decade ago. His unrelenting curiosity towards life would come crashing against the great barrier reef of her ancient eternal wisdom, and while most people would be exasperated and exhausted keeping up with Misha’s explosive popcorn bag of intellect, Sheila let the ideas shred themselves against her brain, simmer and steep, and patiently waited for the meaning to emerge in new and unexpected forms.

And that in a nutshell is what The Chairs Are Where The People Go is all about, the emergence of Misha Glouberman's one of a kind worldview distilled through Sheila Heti's unflappable wordview. Two of the most interesting people in the city – my little universe – balanced together into 175 pages. Sheila wrote down everything Misha ever said, and after a while, returned it to the universe in a book format, it’s either going to be the most explosive piece of new writing to appear in Canada in 40 years, or it’s going to keep archaeologists puzzled and bewildered for millennia.

 - The Toronto Launch of The Chairs Are Where The People Go happens this Wednesday July 27 at the Garrison, 1197 Dundas W., at 7pm.

UPDATE: We are all sold out of camping passes! There are still single day and weekend (no camping) passes available, but you better get them quick!

The excitement continues to mount for the ALL CAPS! Island Festival, coming up August 13th & 14th and sure to be a highlight of your summer. Though this is the second Island Fest, and the sixth annual summertime event under the ALL CAPS! banner, 2011 marks a lot of firsts, including never-before seen visual art & music collabs co-curated with Whippersnapper Gallery: Jennifer Castle with Yuula Benivolski; Evening Hymns with Scott Cudmore; and DD/MM/YYYY and The Wooden Sky with Joshua Bardnt and Adrian Dilena. And of course it's the first time you can camp out overnight at a music event on Toronto Island!

We're also proud to unveil this year's festival poster, designed once again by Derek Ma — and again calling our civic attention to the Gibraltar Point lighthouse, a very short walk from our home base at the Artscape Gibraltar Point arts centre. Completed in 1808, they say it's the oldest existing lighthouse on the Great Lakes. And it may well be haunted. Aaa-oooh. 

Tickets go on sale today at Soundscapes (572 College St.) and tomorrow at Rotate This (801 Queen St. W.) only. Act fast to get your hands on a coveted camping pass - they are very limited in quantity and will be (whipper)snapped up quick!

Here are the ticket prices:
Saturday - $12 advance / $15 at the door
Sunday - $12 advance / $15 at the door
Weekend Pass (festival only, no camping) - $20 advance / $25 at the door
CAMPING PASS (access to full festival plus overnight camping from Saturday to Sunday) - $40 advance only!

Electric Eclectics, a festival of experimental music and sound art beloved by the Wavelength crew, takes place just a few weekends from now (July 29-31) on the Funny Farm, not far from bucolic Meaford, Ontario, 3 hours northwest of T.O. The Wavelog presents a guest post and EE preview by devoted festival-goer, Adam Hvisc...

Drive a few hours north of that huge Canadian city that lots of people think is really cool, you’ll encounter a bunch of cookie-cutter suburbs, scattered fields, concrete fortresses of consumerism, some pleasant windmills, and one of the best little musical surprises I’ve ever come across in this here land.

I’ve sat many nights at my electronic writing device getting sidetracked and apathetically condoning my lack of effort and execution in writing about this musical surprise. Frankly, a part of me wishes not to inform others about it; that’s a bit of the selfish and snobbish music explorer in me. But it’s like a secret mushroom picking spot in Scandinavia — if you’ve ever had one. You don’t want it compromised and over-reaped. If I tell you about this festival and you dig the hell out of it, maybe that’s one less patch of grass to pitch my tent/a bit longer wait in line for poutine (they even have a poutine dog! I think you can figure out this recipe)/less airspace to flail my arms 'n’ legs in physical confirmation of music appreciation/maybe that last L band shirt is sold and now I gotta shrink an XL/a friendly beer is intercepted before it reaches my trajectory/one less girl smilin’ my way/or a dude’s laugh preoccupied well prior to my zinger... But then again, music and especially festival life is nothing without you, me, us, him, her, and them... so check out this festival, this is Electric Eclectics!

Last summer I was wandering about the Internet and saw two intriguing words side by side, “Electric” and “Eclectics.” Quickly realizing it was an experimental electronic music festival, I knew it garnered further inspection. Having spent a bunch of recent years doing my personally tailored European music festival circuit (which included an old bit
of tarmac in Slovakia; a football pitch North of the Arctic Circle; 100,000+ people in Danish fields; a family-friendly downtown Oslo, Norway affair; and a hidden gem of a tiny festival named after “naked” in Denmark), I felt it proper to give more of a chance to my local Canadian turf.

Electric Eclectics is exactly what a music festival should be. Hidden away in some little known spot; a few hundred people who aren't forced to miss music while worshipping a beer tent or cash machine line-up; tents scattered about; dancing out in the woods; a little stage with sudden musical surprises and sounds that you question but can ultimately accept; and art and “art” strewn about in installation form or just placed on a pole, silo, or field. Oh, and also “Tous les Garçons et les Filles” by Françoise Hardy being projected on the side of an old truck trailer at 1am... something so calming about that song.

My Electric Eclectics experience last year was one of limited prior research. I didn’t spend time scouring photos of the festival or reading past band names. I just got off work early, had my bags, tent and beers packed ready to go, and to flee the commonalities of my mind and society and enjoy this festival with whatever it may entail. I only knew of a couple of bands before it, and thought I better not spend too much time doing music homework before I embark. Quite often an open-minded and cleansed eardrum is the best pathway to musical discovery. Although I did check out something called Gardenia before last summer’s festival, I only bring it up because the guy responsible for these cool sounds randomly ended up being my tent neighbour. What a great and humbling aspect to this festival: when not on a little wooden stage, the musicians are right there with you experiencing the same scenery and environment.

I drove up alone and quickly met a great group of festival friends/musicians to laugh, drink, philosophise and party with. Actually, there’s a bit more to that story. On the drive up, as soon as I got in closer proximity to the festival area, I was rushing a bit on the country farm roads to make it for one of the first few acts: Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People (they have a cover of the Littlest Hobo theme song “Maybe Tomorrow” — it’s amazing!).

In my vehicular haste, driving up and down little hilly roads, I asked myself, “Who would leave five garbage bags strewn across this road? Some forgetful, litterbug farmer?" Then I soon realized, as the “garbage bags” parted ways upon seeing my car, that a family of raccoons was now in grave danger. I slammed on my brakes and skidded a bit, as my front bumper corner struck an adolescent raccoon. I got out and watched the racoon flail and breathe one last breath. I still feel quite shitty about that. Another kilometre or so and I was entering the festival grounds. I pulled up to a random yet inviting patch of grass, saw a group of people/tents and inquired if it was cool to set up my tent there. They said yeah, and I quickly responded, “I just killed a raccoon.” Seems I really needed to get that off my chest. Long story short, this fantastic group of new friends and I had a great weekend of beers, music, dancing, jokes 'n’ laughter, swimming, greasy spoon breakfasts, and grocery/shop outings in town... all because of Electric Eclectics. Life just makes more sense and hope at a music festival, especially one of this smaller D.I.Y. size and huge avant-garde heart.

Electric Eclectics is this July 29^th to July 31^st 2011, at the Funny Farm up in Meaford. Explore more at http://c3r.ca/electriceclectics5/

— by Adam Hvisc