inkorrect thots: January 2006

inkkiresict sots

Rob Read "bathurst at tichester"

Rob Read "bissett vs canada post"

"1. First poster went up on the side of the canada post mailbox at the corner of bathurst and tichester (one street north of st. clair). This struck me as poetic justice - when i used to edit existere at york, bill was kind enough to send some of his work for us to print - when the work got to us, the envelope was ripped to shreds in one corner, and wrapped in plastic (yeah, like a corpse) with a notice saying to make sure to pack our mail better in the future - and unsigned by any postal employee in the space for signature. we scanned and published the pieces as is under the title of 'bill bissett vs. canada post.' i consider this poster posting to be round two." R.R.

Rob Read's polling place (Toronto)

"3. this site jumped out to me immediately - right in front of 31 tichester, on the front of a garbage pail (a subtle prod at the fact that paid advertisements appear on many public garbage units around toronto). the reason this site jumped out is that the lobby of 31 tichester is also my local polling place. it's a seniors apartment complex where i'll be going to vote this evening." R.R.

Alice Burdick reports from Lunenburg, N.S.

Jamie, there are now 3 posters up in the general area- 2 in Lunenburg (at the library and at Elizabeth's Books) and 1 in Mahone Bay, at a cafe/bookstore called The Biscuit Eater. So far they are still attached and hopefully folks will stop to read em. I'll try to get some photos. Decided not to put any outside because it's windy and rains a lot here and it all ends up in the ditch. I'm sending on to a friend in Wolfville too, so the other side of the province should get Bissetted.

This is a fun project.

how to participate

from rob mclennan's blog:

http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2006/01/bill-bissett-inkorrect-thots-this-is.html

Jamie Reid - "byway of explanation"

byway of explanation

It has often seemed to me
that if those who hold power wealth and influence
do so on account of their correct thinking
then somehow there must be a need
for the opposite kind of thinking: inkorrect thots
for those who do not hold
wealth power and influence
and do not wish them, thank you,
preferring at the same time
not to be the blind unthinking victims
of those who think they think correctly
and believe that power wealth and influence
come to them on that account
this sense of need was finally serviced by the surfacing
of bill bissett’s poem by that name
which remained in my consciousness
for a very long time after it was first published in 1992,
dealing as it does with issues of human thinking
as related to language and social speech,
not to speak of
social silence,
imposed in diverse ways.

It seemed important to me that the importance
of inkorrect thots should somehow be brought to wider attention
as a way of assisting some people to liberate themselves
from the tyranny of correct thoughts and from those
who hold wealth power and influence, as they think, on account
of their ability to control correct thinking.

It seemed important to me to uphold the right to be wrong
or the feeling that it is totally wrong to be always right
that so many if us seem to have and cherish
in despite of all thinking that might be called correct.

Hence, a postering campaign on this subject
seemed a good, if not entirely correct idea,
especially in the context of the present federal election,
where we hear so much useless and unfeeling language
of which people are so profoundly sick.

bill bissett’s poem seemed to be
an obvious antidote and relief to this
general feeling of sickness, as it was for me.

I imagined people coming upon the poster
by accident at some unexpected place
and stopping for a moment
in their sometimes driven
movement from place to place &
reading the poem, at first puzzled, and then by degrees
awakened to the important nature
of their own inkorrect thinking,
and thereby liberated, if only for a moment,
from the tyranny of the correct, the accurate,
the conventional, the grammatical, the mannerly,
the meticulous, the orthodox, the suitable, the well-chosen
as well as from punishment, remedies, reproofs, and revisions--
in short, liberated from everything
having to do with the correct.

My friends at mailsnail, in their casually inkorrect way
kindly agreed to join me in this project,
and now the project has been launched
with great enthusiasm and, I think,
complete success already.

Hooray!

John Barlow (with Leeshia Barwick) reports from Toronto

"we were out ourselves today with the duck and the big red
> putting up and photoing - most daring, right outside
> cibc at spadina and college, prepped the poster
> with shining red two inch tape while kneeling behind
> the giant garbage canisters of bizarre toronto,
> then did a smoothe undifferentiated stride
> along the sidewalks and had it flat and smoothe
> and prominent and we took six photos right there.
> several with cn skyneedle, couple in momently escaped sunshine,
> but my fave with a red streetcar blasting along behind
>
> another site: the big post out front of the labrynth
> and next to tranzac club, with all photos by leeshia
> on that one, including hockey classics "Cigarette chomped
> in mouth, adfixing the reinforcing duck tape where necessary"
> glorious."
>

Kemeny Babineau reports from Mt. Pleasant, Ont.

"poster one went up last night at 7:30
mt pleasant mail kiosk, on the illlusory
glass wall of a crown corporation's slipper

well lit past night

best,
kb"

inkorrect thots

WARNING each wun uv thees
pomes may contain inkorrect
thots thees pomes have not
bin kleerd by th ministree
uv korrect thots

ths book contains reel storees
that have reelee happend th
mysteree uv pain has not bin
adequatelee xplaind 2 us why
memorees can cum crashing down
on us robbing us uv our present
or why we lifting grasp hold uv
a suddn laffing idea baloons
us up n what we lern from memorees

i cum skraping across a glacier
bringing yu ths burnd flowr see
its petals bleed as it opns all
ovr our plans our mesurd safetees
see its tabula filling with such
wondrous snow

falling falling on th beautiful
wounds th uncared for moaning in
allees undr cardbord whil othrs
walk by going 2 sumwher not
stopping a tree is a tent us a
molecule longing is i think
recentlee deleetid from consciousness

ther ar an infinitee uv thots being
xpressd heer ths is langwage nd an
infinitee uv thots not being xpressd
heer ther is silens ther is yr mind
is it th ministree has not prepard
us for evreething what is not being
xpressd heer may b inkorrectlee not
being xpressd not being xpressd so
inkorrectlee as 2 hous an infinitee
uv words ther is no control ovr
what is not being xpressd

ths hous is on th moov ther have bin
apolojees bfor they have alredee bin
made for th peopul who ar not heer
we apologize agen ther ar word games

signifying much word ecstasee within
th langwage n its momenta resembla a
word of cawsyun its own music sumtimes
inkorrect thots may b byond our control
each wun uv thees pomes may contain an
inkorrect thot

thees pomes have not bin bleerd by
th ministree uv korrect thots we have
no control ovr what is not being xpressd
heer eithr

byond ths sign yr on yr own