Airport security against the coronavirus nearly a year ago. What’s changed?

 

Noteworthy

 Alex Good reviews Jaron Lanier’s argument for deleting social media accounts.

UK virus in Canada

 

Trump/ Biden transition

 

Tom Konyves: online presentation at the Zebra Videopoetry Festival, 2020

 

Trump’s “thinking”

 

Canadian Winter

 

VideoPoemSong 8: Hot and Cold....

 

VideoPoemSong 8 poster

 YouTube Link: VideoPoemSong 8
https://youtu.be/7OtER4PN3Mg

An American coup d’état — almost ninety years ago

 

Robert Stone suggesting martial law ... before the American election

 

Politics and the Epidemic

 

Coronavirus vaccine update

 

Trump’s mental state 2

 

Trump’s mental state 1

 

The Coronavirus in Korea 2

 

The Coronavirus in Korea 1

 

Paxton’s Court coup

 

Noteworthy

 Alex Good reviews The End of Tsarist Russia: https://goodreports.net/2020/11/23/the-end-of-tsarist-russia/

Fundamentalism and Coronavirus spread (from March)

 

Vaccines in Canada

 

Three Tragedies, Four Seasons - a feature-length authorial videopoem

 

Three Tragedies, Four Seasons, one of my feature-length authorial videopoems, is now online both as text and Vimeo link at Former People: https://formerpeople.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/three-tragedies-four-seasons/

Vaccines in China

 

Vaccines UK

 

Trump, the Koreas, and Math

 

South Koreans and the US election

 

Fascistii 2

 

Trump vs ... Barr?!

 

Fascistii 1

 

Gabriel Sterling

 

Trump’s Psychological Makeup, no pun intended 2

 

Trump golfing ... etc.

 

Trump’s Psychological Makeup, no pun intended 1

 

Trump, Pennsylvania

 

Trump making suggestions to Pennsylvania

 

The Trumpster 2

 

The Trumpster

 

Election, schmelection 4 (a history lesson from 1933)

 

Election, schmelection 3

 

Greenland’s ice and climate change

 

Election, schmelection 2

 

Election, schmelection 1

 

President Narcissus

 

An attempted American coup d’état during the Great Depression

 

More election friction

 

From the archives: an American coup d’état

 

Trump coup

 

Trump’s stump 2

 

Trump’s stump 1

 

The Orange Volcano

Vimeo link:  https://vimeo.com/440510112

Now’s The Time to Act — a VideoPoemSong

 

미국 선거/ Korean perspective on American election 3

 

미국 선거/ Korean perspective on American election 2

 

미국 선거/ Korean perspective on American election 1

 

Previous election

 

Election

 

The Underseen

Stills from The Underseen.

Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/123888303

This is an old project (and it shows). But I’d like to rework some of the artwork. At least one of the ideas — people glued to their smartphones — seems old hat. But the general visual ideas of people being consumed by work, being boxed in by cubicles, being cut by the criticism of bosses seem to me worth working on more ... and all this within a social matrix of screens; the Surface Visible. And then there is the theme of alienated desire, which is also exacerbated by a society dominated by screens. In all these cases, there is a tension between the Surface Visible and the Underseen.

Vieux projet. Mais en tout cas, voudrais refaire quelques de ces dessins. Leurs thèmes me parait comme quelque choses encore important d’examiner. On vie ces jours-ci dans un société plein des écrans: le Visible Superficiel. Mais on éprouve sur le plan de la physionomie un sensation on peut s’appeler le « sous-visible ».

 

The Ambient and Authorial Movie: an edited selection

 These are a series of shorts (usually between one minute and three) that began as offshoots of longer videos about South Korea. The idea running throughout most is to give a sense of how urban and natural spaces interact; a balance that’s hard to achieve in any built up region, but especially difficult in a hyper developed region like Gyonngi-do, the province Seoul is located in. Other themes are my relationship with my late brother, and tender experiences of time with my wife.

Il s'agit d'une série de courts métrages (généralement entre une minute et trois) qui ont débuté sous forme de variations de vidéos plus longues sur la Corée du Sud.  L’idée générale est de donner une idée de la façon dont les espaces urbains et naturels interagissent;  un équilibre difficile à atteindre dans une région bâtie, mais particulièrement difficile dans une région hyper développée comme Gyonngi-do, la province de Séoul est située dans la même ville  . Les autres vidéos sont au sujet de mon frère décédé, ou au sujet des moments tendres avec ma femme.

이 비디오들이 일분에서 세분까지 입니다. 서울 그리고 경기도에서 공사 일 많이 불 수 있다. 공사 와 자연 관계를 재미있어요. 그리고 다른 비디오 내 동생의 생활 도는 내 아내의 사랑하는 생활 있어요.

Questa è una serie di cortometraggi (di solito tra un minuto e tre) che sono iniziati come variazioni video più lunghe sulla Corea del Sud.  L'idea generale è di dare un'idea di come gli spazi urbani e naturali interagiscono;  un equilibrio difficile da raggiungere in un'area edificata, ma particolarmente difficile in una regione iper-sviluppata come Gyonngi-do, la provincia di Seoul si trova nella stessa città.  Gli altri video parlano di mio fratello defunto o dei teneri momenti con mia moglie.

Esta es una serie de cortometrajes (generalmente entre un minuto y tres) que comenzaron como variaciones de video más largas en Corea del Sur.  La idea general es dar una idea de cómo interactúan los espacios urbanos y naturales;  Un equilibrio difícil de alcanzar en un área urbanizada, pero particularmente difícil en una región hiperdesarrollada como Gyonngi-do, la provincia de Seúl se encuentra en la misma ciudad.  Los otros videos son sobre mi hermano fallecido, o sobre los tiernos momentos con mi esposa.

Seoulography/ World Bardo series (partial list)

YouTube links: 

World Bardo 1: https://youtu.be/yZB8GfY2_Ow

World Bardo 2: https://youtu.be/NRzisL8DnH8

World Bardo 3: https://youtu.be/SEAvI8Qn2hc

World Bardo 5: https://youtu.be/0DxkwSvpK9c

World Bardo/ LoveWind 8: https://youtu.be/yxBYCF0N-4E

World Bardo 9: https://youtu.be/c2yyF_FtHgk

World Bardo 10: https://youtu.be/MnTfFWm1Es4

World Bardo 16: https://youtu.be/_Nyx8E2P8Yc

World Bardo 64: https://youtu.be/HdA5pX9zfnQ

Instruments: https://youtu.be/HdA5pX9zfnQ

Seoulography series—

One: https://youtu.be/BnR_nepJnZM

Two: https://youtu.be/9A_KMYLHF1w

Three: https://youtu.be/2sKnQbcmLC4

Four: https://youtu.be/2bziZixeTjU

Five: https://youtu.be/JxyG07Iwam0

Six: https://youtu.be/pw4ICK7Eay

Trumpish 2

 

Trumpish 1

 

Chant For a Pandemic

 

Santiago Echeverry

 

Connect 2020 Videoart Festival now online

 Vimeo link: https://videoartes.org/

Muddernity 2

 

Recent news from North Korea

 

Upcoming: the 2020 edition of the international Pune Short Film Festival

Honoured to have some work in this festival.

 

Employment / unemployment

 

Unemployment and Covid 2

 

Unemployment and Covid 1

 

Bologna in Lettere: The Violence of Sadness

 An authorial 4MAP videopoem...

Noteworthy

 Good on Woodward on Trump enraged.

Makin’ Shelter: When Leaders Don’t Lead

 

The coronavirus as discussed by Trump just several days ago...

 

An Ometo short

 

A Russian vaccine

 

Grump Trump

 

Not!!!

 

How cheap is too cheap? / Quand est-ce qu’un camera pas cher pas de bonne qualité?

Shooting on a budget is a premium for many video artists. And there tends to be a mystification of more expensive cameras even though they do not necessarily deliver a better result than some budget cameras. But at what point is a cheap camera too cheap? 

Tourner sur un budget est une prime pour de nombreux artistes vidéo. Et il y a tendance à mystifier les caméras plus chères même si elles ne donnent pas nécessairement un meilleur résultat que certaines caméras à petit budget. Mais à quel moment un appareil photo bon marché est-il trop bon marché?

Project stills (“ Temple and City”)

Apropos of my post below on 8K video: these stills are from a project shot with considerably less sophisticated equipment (to see the video itself, go here: https://vimeo.com/286102538). Obviously, this was not shot in 8K ... or anything close. But at what point is the slight blur of an image an advantage?

Does 8K matter?

As digital filmmaking moves in the direction of increasingly detailed imagery, one has to ask: at what point does the technology become redundant? 

Noteworthy

 The Pier, a poetry film by Pat Moran, at Moving Poems

Seoul, September / 서울 구월에서

 

Mask Usage in Seoul

 

Fundamentalist churches and the coronavirus in South Korea

 

Terese Mason Pierre

 Terese Mason Pierre at the Coach House blog.

Bookstores are struggling during the coronavirus crisis...

 

한국 홍수/ Heavy rain in Korea/ Un deluge de pluie en Corée/ 2

한국 홍수/ Heavy rain in Korea/ Un deluge de pluie en Corée

A Russian vaccine by August?

Noteworthy

“Canticle” by Erica Goss

Coronavirus in Russia: Poor regions struggling

Ennio Morricone 2

Ennio Morricone

The Great Reset - will it become an actual movement?

It’s a Big Books’ World

New cut of an essay published a few years ago in the literary journal Canadian Notes & Queries, it deals with the need for ambitious social novels about Canada and its place in the modern world. There is a conspicuous shortage of these. When one compares « CanLit » (a primarily exclusionary term that ignores much of lettres québécoises and Indigenous storytelling) with American lit, one has to ask why. The answer is that this is more a reflection of the artificial limitations created by gatekeepers than the efforts of writers.

Nouvelle coupe d'un essai publié il y a quelques années dans la revue littéraire Canadian Notes & Queries, elle traite du besoin de romans sociaux ambitieux sur le Canada et sa place dans le monde moderne.  Il y en a une pénurie flagrante.  Quand on compare «CanLit» (un terme principalement d'exclusion qui ignore une grande partie des lettres québécoises et des contes autochtones) à l'éclairage américain, il faut se demander pourquoi.  La réponse est que cela reflète davantage les limitations artificielles créées par les portiers que les efforts des écrivains.

Be Sure - English version

The Fed and the Covid-19 economy

Soyez certain, version nouvelle

Bilingual  version here: https://youtu.be/ksGLTzdf3SU

Coronavirus Quebec

Coronavirus Ontario

Coronavirus in Florida

Geo-quiet

Long Distance Film Festival

This online film festival is happening this weekend. To view, use their URL: https://longdistancefilmfestival.com/

Ce festival du film en ligne se déroule ce week-end.  Pour voir, utilisez leur URL: https://longdistancefilmfestival.com/

이 온라인 영화제는 이번 주말에 진행됩니다.  보려면 URL을 사용하십시오 : https://longdistancefilmfestival.com/

The Long Distance Film Festival

Honored to have a collaborative piece in this festival “Chant for a Pandemic”, with Dee Hood and an international group of artists. More info to follow.

Honoré d'avoir une pièce collaborative dans ce festival «Chant for a Pandemic», avec Dee Hood et un groupe international d'artistes. Plus d'infos à suivre.

Italia: black lives matter

BLM in South Korea

Chinese/ Dutch dairy initiative

THAAD

Trump vs. Twitter

Bologna in Lettere - my own work

Connect 2020 - upcoming

Coronavirus Brazil

Bologna in Lettere - Sonia Laura Armanacio

New photos/ nuove foto/ nouveau photos/ 새 사진

Happy to have new photo work up at the Landscapes Photo website

City Hawk - a feature length authorial videopoem

City Hawk - original and spoken word versions

*

Statement: My first feature length authorial videopoem can be seen via the link just below. It’s almost five years old —  which, given how much my cameras have changed, feels more like twenty. 

The original project, entitled City Hawk, was based entirely on footage and stills shot in Toronto - either around the neighborhoods of St. Lawrence and Regent Park (the latter not yet gentrified) — and along the Don Valley.

The latter footage is the basis of the video.  Wanted to capture something of the tension between poor and wealthy neighborhoods, as well as the general excitement/ tension of urban life.

Urban life has its advantages: its energies are real. But it lacks meditativeness ... at least, unless you’re willing to accept the poverty that results from a “chronically peaceful mind.” Meditativeness can only be consistently found in natural spaces; have found this living in Toronto. My wife and I find it living near a nature reserve in Seoul.

And a very recent spoken word version of City Hawk is also below via YouTube. It’s much shorter - but I couldn’t have made that first project without all the footage, the music, and the sturm und drang of editing on a wheezy laptop.

 *

From my collection of ambient and authorial movies. My focus is on videopoetry; however, I work in other genres and art forms as well.

Text: 

CITY HAWK

August 21.15

Original authorial videopoem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkDpdJzjkq4

Spoken word: https://youtu.be/1z1JnoFC6q4

I

The towers are

Flat to the touch

And the clouds are cotton

In blue clay.

The towers are phat

With money

And ambition

And steel –

Monoliths, weeds

Sprouting from dirty gardens

While a squawking raptor watches.

II

Flat reaches –

It disdains its poor before,

Its dimly-remembered door.

The people here

Don't understand

All that,

And so they walk happily

Under Flat.

III

But in the hard furrows

Growth

Goes down.

Renovations

Are generally

Built on souls,

While new weeds

Raised in the pyschic garden

Of Farmer Dough

Spread wildly.

IV

But there's a temporary okay

When you know how to escape...

It's the flower road,

The trail,

That will, today,

Save you.

V

These trails

Are specific

But their origin

Is general.

And the perception of them

Is based on ears,

Eyes,

Skin.

VI

All skies fly

But humans

Must portion out their stretch;

It is the clouds

That are solid

And the machinery

That will wilt.

VII

The monoliths

Refuse to sway –

That is their way.

But the green in the city

Busts out

And is regular.

Weeds prefer to love

Messily,

But any flower part will do

Including containers of brick,

The matrix kind.

The towers rule

Like government

But they have no stem,

No voice.

They are dependent

On the smallness

Of life.

VII

Asphalt is the original Flat

But it is just a servant now,

Possibly a beggar.

The more Some Thing is ignored

The more it resembles the natural....

The plant world,

The animal

And the zone

Of anonymous humans.

Poverty is grey

But grey precedes brown

And brown precedes blue.

Even concrete

Ultimately surrenders.

Every decent pathway

Knows the importance

Of proportion;

Some grey

Is A-okay.

But the Golden Rule

(also now green)

Must be respected.

The trail

Has stages

Of commencement.

VIII

It is the length –

length –

Of the path

That makes healing whole.

Forget its jumble –

That is actually good.

Its pot-holes

And its cracks

Are part of its

Existence-deal.

IX

The path seems endless

Because it should.

It has no short version.

It – bumpingly – rolls,

Like a petite volcano's thin river.

The sky

In the afternoon

Is Canadian-deep

And clear.

Its blue does not compromise

And its clouds are shredded

And amazing and intense.

The people on the trail

Ride

Or stroll.

They, too

(River, river),

Roll.

X

The path continues

To another path.

It splits

And becomes

Two.

The greenery expands here

And passes beneath a bridge

That is like a tall gate.

The remnants of a castle,

Or some old town,

Are entered.

(Is this true? Look in the distance –

And see what remains of the great walls.)

XI

The greenery further expands

And softens.

This quality extends, it seems,

Right down to the molecular.

How can this be so?

But the green –

At this point –

Is full

In its confidence

And it takes its land

Expertly.

The mood

Becomes

Naturally religious

The mood becomes perfect,

Pure.

XII

And then at the end of today's daily,

Listen again

For the strength

Of overhead

Squeal and squawk.

There are no emergencies

That are

This high.

- Finn Harvor

Peiro Oronzo - Bologna in Lettere

Bologna in Lettere 2

Bologna in Lettere 1

광주 민주운동/ Gwangju Uprising

Portrait of C - writing of Richard Harvor, with Happyland chapbook

Portrait of C - text: Richard Harvor, video: Finn Harvor
*

Portrait of C

[Own : Every artist needs to enter the abyss; not every artist comes back out.]

Descending into junkiedom, C'd come to resemble – more and more – Boris Karloff, was a looming, angular presence, his dense, dark, viscous hair suggesting a mixture of grease with sand, with blood, skin rufous as an Apache's, an extraordinarily handsome boy, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, gigantically-chinned (like an Irishman (James Joyce(?)), his piercing eyes the opacity of black paint-chips, obsidian. Once, I”d sketched him – sitting in a chair in my apartment – shooting up: jagged, harsh, dense dynamo smashed into the page's middle, fierce network of scars. (Outside, the Brancusi-head moon.)

(Continued )

To see this chapbook as it first appeared online in early February, 2018, please check out this PDF version of it:

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/bridgetext.richard.happyland.1976.FIRST%20ELEVEN%20HAPPYLAND.PDF.driving%20at%20night.jan.5.18..pdf?token=AWxLjvx6jIuC9tsxtobcW4WtIGV0XLZBYzrc5_UgUNbeOxlws4o7KAAIr9ZebiVLrb21CgWjhrE28QlWLxPEBcHERNx427eejPKKum3cZ16K1KKst7FfmhtAsUpZbZkLckGCA_3c0bfDj8nbzqaf5Xp8TFmtSJUZvfZR5Q4bFGFoxeyXQStWkbX7q3fWq1me0U3LGVquI6DudpPvne-OVruwlGgtd_IJ-AMtkbk9Y2bOXQ

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/EEFaphZ3DPk

Covid news

5.18

Isolation Trip

Coronavirus Treatment 2

Potential Coronavirus Treatment

Russia surpasses Italy in Covid 19 deaths ((in Italian)

Noteworthy

Kim Arin on the struggle between medical and political priorities in South Korea’s pandemic response:

« Speaking about instances of the KCDC’s warnings being contradicted by the rest of the government, he said, “Politicians ought to be listening to science, now more than ever, and not brush aside expert advice if it’s inconvenient to their agenda.”

Amid the struggle to balance coronavirus and economy, conflicting messages from the disease control agency and the rest of the government spurred public confusion, according to public health risk communications expert and preventive medicine specialist Dr. Choi Jae-wook. »

Governmental inaction 1

Bologna in Lettere: VideoPoemSong 7

The coronavirus and jobs

Development and Nature in South Korea

Greening Korea: Bamboo youtu.be/9cFeEvzj5PU via @YouTube. A personal documentary about bamboo forests and some of the oddest industrial zoning I’ve ever witnessed.

Greening Korea: Bamboo youtu.be/9cFeEvzj5PU via @YouTube.  Un documentaire personnel sur les forêts de bambous et certains des zonages industriels les plus étranges que j'ai jamais vus.

Greening Korea : @YouTube를 통해 Bamboo youtu.be/9cFeEvzj5PU.  대나무 숲과 내가 본 것 중 가장 이상한 산업 구역에 관한 개인 다큐멘터리.

Industry and Disease

Politics and Disease

Sky Economics

A VideoPoemSong from my online chapbook of authorial movies The  Baram Series: https://formerpeople.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/baram-series.former-people.shorter.jul_.12.19.may_.31.may_.9.pdf

Bologna in Lettere - Literary and video festival

Happening now in Bologna. Full schedule here.

Novembre — CLS Poésie

Peacedemic 3: a videopoem

Project still

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/rilI_cxFRyE

Kim alive

Kim dead

Peacedemic 1

Coronavirus in Toronto: Nursing Home Crisis

Peacedemic: Project Stills

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/WoN8g5odOyA

Don’t Worry!!! - a pan-situational video-demic

The Coronavirus in Canada

La pureté de l’enfance/ Thé purity of childhood - Zviane

Video par BDiste Zviane

Video by the cartoonist Zviane

Soraepeul, Seoul

Au Noir de Jour - CLS Poésie

Coronavirus and Pollution

Why Coronavirus is Spreading So Fast

On coronavirus testing

Seoul

Coronavirus Chronology

Coronavirus: are Koreans becoming complacent?

Coronavirus, Italy

High Level, or - Don’t Worry!!

Coronavirus Update - March 13/20

The Gates of Paradise

On Jerzy Andrezjewsky’s one sentence novel: « a poignant novel originally written and published in Polish, consisting of 40,000 words that form two sentences (the second of which contains only five words: “And they marched all night”) that tell the story of the 1212 Children’s Crusade, involving an old monk who listens to the confessions of five seemingly holy, but in fact just horny French adolescents trudging towards Jerusalem in a dubious attempt to recapture the tomb of Jesus, all of whom—it turns out—have joined the Crusade for other than spiritual reasons, as the confessions reveal their hopeless, obsessive infatuation with the beautiful Jacques—the children’s leader and object of desire of almost everyone in the procession, males and females alike—giving an ironic insight into the world of idealism and faith, bringing out the protagonists’ destinies tied together by love, lust, folly, yearning, confusion, desperation and (false) hope, foreshadowing their tragic end, which, although left floating in the air as a dire premonition, appears to be inevitable, giving The Gates of Paradise a rather sad tone, much unlike the second one-sentence novel from this list, »

To the Beach...

A collaboration with my late brother. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/a7Ekz_Deao0

Coronavirus Update - March 9/10

Coronavirus in Italy/ Coronavirus in Italia

Coronavirus Update - March 8/20

Coronavirus Update - Medical Masks

서울의 하늘이/ Sky Seoul

Coronavirus Update - on mask usage

Coronavirus: Did Attitudes Similar to those of Anti-Vaxxers Play a Role?

Coronavirus and clean air/ Coronavirus e aria pulita

This video was shot on February 23rd, when residents of Seoul were pleasantly surprised, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, by unusually clear skies. It turned out there was a reason for that.

Questo video è stato girato il 23 febbraio, quando gli abitanti di Seoul sono stati piacevolmente sorpresi, nel mezzo della crisi del coronavirus, da cieli insolitamente chiari. Si è scoperto che c'era una ragione per questo.

Noteworthy

Submissions are open for the upcoming TransHumance show at Con-temporary Art Observatorium

Coronavirus 1

Petrarch 1

Publishing culture in Italy

Aldus on the state of publishing in Italy in 2018. Has the situation changed since then?

“The number of active publishing houses is growing– 4.902 publishing houses published at least one title during the year (+0.5% compared to 2016). Compared to 2010, 755 new publishing houses are active on the market and have to try to position their brand and publishing projects in bookshops, in distribution channels and among more or less specialised segments of readers.

Production of titles on paper is growing – In 2017, Italian publishing houses published 72.059 titles (new titles and new editions of miscellaneous adults’ and children’s books, in addition to educational titles, numbering 4.037, excluding e-books), up by 9.2% compared to 2016. DTP programmes, new digital printing and packaging systems, greater familiarity with foreign markets and new generations of authors make it much easier than in the past to access production and build catalogues. The real barriers to entry are now more to do with communicating with readers and distribution. In Italy, no more titles are published, in proportion to the population, than in the case of other major continental publishing industries.”

The Bankruptcy People

Steven Beattie reporting last December on the near-disaster which befell Galley Beggar Press. - the original publisher of Lucy Ellman’s gargantuan experiment in 21st century modernism, Ducks, Newburyport—  after it entered into a book printing deal with the online and popup British retailer The Book People:

“The announcement on Tuesday that U.K. online and pop-up retailer The Book People has been forced into receivership is having ripple effects throughout the U.K. book retail and publishing industries, including a potentially disastrous financial impact on the small independent publisher Galley Beggar Press. 

The seven-year-old press is owed £40,000 by The Book People as a result of a special run on Galley Beggar’s marquee fall title, the Booker Prize nominee Ducks, Newburyport. 

On Wednesday, the publisher launched a GoFundMe campaign in an attempt to raise some money to cover the shortfall, which co-director Eloise Millar writes poses an existential threat. In her appeal, Millar states that the publisher entered into an agreement to print 8,000 copies of a special edition of Lucy Ellmann’s 1,000-page novel when it landed on the Booker Prize shortlist.”

It is still somewhat unclear to me whether this deal was a mandatory requirement of being listed for the Booker; as people with more than passing interest in books know, the standard business model in book retailing is for bookstores to distribute books but not buy them outright. That is, unsold books remain the publisher’s problem, not the book store’s.  Is this model different in the U.K.? And if not, by what leverage could the Book People have insisted on an 8,000 copy run? Was the retailer itself acting as an agent of the Booker Prize organization?

There is, finally, a Canadian angle to this as Ducks was also published by a Biblioasis. If there was financial fallout for the latter house, it would be interesting to know. It’s worth recalling that many years ago Steven reported on Biblioasis gambling on a large print run when one of its own original titles — as I recall, Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod — was shortlisted for a Giller Prize. Did the gamble pay off in this case? Do other publishing houses take similar risks and suffer losses? These questions matter because the reality of these presumptive print runs strongly affects future choices publishers might make.

Finally, as Mark Medley once observed, anglophone CanLit is particularly fond of prizes — the rationale being that they ipso facto assist sales. Is the reality more complicated than this?