Thank G-d(s) almighty it's here at last!

I have been waiting, waiting, WAITING for Consensual Genocide the FIRST collection of poetry by queer Sri Lankan writer and spoken word artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

The launch of this volume, before she heads out on tour throughout the US and to Sri Lanka, will be this Thursday, April 6 at 8pm at The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West). The night will also feature Rosina Kazi and Karene Silverwoman and will have DJ Jola spinning tunes later in the evening. Admission is $3 to $7 sliding scale, at the door.

You do not want to miss Miss Leah's performance.

I attempted to attend Under the Azure Dome, the Persian/Iranian year's festival (or Noruz) at Harbourfront Centre.

To say that the place was packed would be understating the point.

Apparently both Harbourfront and the organizers of Azure were expecting 5000, not the 10,000 people who showed up. Okay, that may be an exaggeration but as it is, it was practically IMPOSSIBLE to see any of the shows or demonstrations. The line ups went from one end of the building to the other. My cousin Valizan was unable to find me in the crowd. It is a good thing that Toronto's Iranian community in have a good sense of humour or things could have gotten ugly very quickly.

Great balls of fire will be had at The Distillery this weekend as Fire Dancers Goodness Gracious take the stage. They will be joined by Femmes de Feux, DLNW, The Honeykats in this show titled Autobiography in Five Chapters.

I had the opportunity see these ladies perform at Harbourfront a few years ago. I'm glad to see that they are still in action lighting things up!

The shows are at Gibson & Jessop Gallery, 4 Distillery Lane @ The Distillery on March 10 & 11. Doors open @ 7:30pm, show @ 8pm. Advanced tickets are $15, $20/ $15 at the door for adults/students.

[Image from Goodness Gracious]

I went Spadina Branch of Toronto Public Library (which maintains the First Nations collection) last week to tease my former co-workers about the C.U.P.E. strike that did not happen.

While I was there I happened upon a brochure for the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, based in Toronto. I was totally unaware of the existance CfIT, a school have provides theatre training "that reflects the cultures, tradtions and experiences of Indigenous peoples".

This morning I finally got around to reading the campaign postcard that Peter Tabuns had slipped through my mailslot last week. Peter had even taken the trouble to personalise the card by writing "Sorry I missed you - Peter" on the front.

Too bad he had not taken the trouble to clearly state what he what running for.

Worse, when I went to his website to vertify that he was, in fact, running in the by-election for the position of M.P.P. (as Marilyn Churley had stepped down to run in the federal election) I discovered that the website wasn't even ready yet.

As much as I am an NDP supporter in principle I really wish that they were more organized.

Oh, and Peter, as much as I believe in more community policing and funding for our classrooms, it would really help if you spelled out where the money to pay for this is going to come from. Having already gone through the Harris years, as well as the employment hell that was 2004, my contemporaries and I are of the opinion that with Harper in power there is no point in relying on the feds.

So the feds have cancelled the provincial child care system and instead offer to pay families $100 per month instead. Now, I'm no mathematician but by my calculations, presuming we are looking at 20 days a month (5 days a week), that's $5 a day for child care. Taking travel time to and from work into account (I'll be generous and say that it a 1 hr there and back) and assuming an 8 hour day that's 10 hours a day.

That's 50 cents an hour.

Aren't our children worth more than that?