Sport Costumes!

kd Lang was great at the opening ceremony. Got a problem with that, hippy?

Some of you may know I'm working on a book of fashion writing with Sean Horlor in a sort of tag team affair of poetry. Added to the writing, we have some really beautiful sketches from Mara Gottler. Sean's much better at promoting this beast than I am, so watch the awkwardness with which I say that next week I will be reading some of these poems from my chapbook Gasmask Summer which is being launched and released by Toronto's Emergency Response Unit.

Launch and release seem to be very powerful and aggressive words for something that weighs less than a pound, but these verbs will be happening Monday, February 22 at 7:30PM at the Magpie in Toronto. (Note: the gold medal game will not be happening at this time or on this night).

Also releasing chapbooks this evening, Elisabeth de Mariaffi, Aaron Tucker, and the boyish and brash Jacob McArthur Mooney, who will soon be entering into a steel cage match of arty sport discussions on either my blog or his or both (or somewhere else - these negotiations take time).

In writing the poems for this book, I've been thinking about clothes pretty much non-stop for a year and a half. It's to the point where if we've seen each other in that time, I probably looked you up and down for ideas. But what I really want to discuss: last night's figure skating costumes. Not all of them; I'm sure there's a site for that. But this one:

Tatiana Volosozhar (she's graceful) and Stanislav Morozov (he hates the chaffing)

These two are certainly athletes. I am in no way making fun of figure skaters. Even when they fall, they are doing something that very few people could ever do, and with the exception of lugers, aerialists and VANOC organizers probably have the most Olympic balls of any of the participants (Jake, there's a possible discussion).

But even the commentators couldn't withhold their giggles at these beauties (and two of them WERE figure skaters!). Highlights were David Pelletier (gold medalist - pairs figure skating) saying that "this is sport not a carnival" and Rod Black (sports analyst, someone I got drunk with at a 2001 Winnipeg social: pictures forthcoming) claiming the skaters were "channeling their inner Avatar." I'll likely have something new written about these blue beauties for next week's Magpie launch.

I feel like Joan Rivers, excited to see what the Ukrainians will be wearing tonight.

Sidenote: I also met Joan Rivers, but didn't get drunk with her. She kept calling me Barry. I didn't correct her.

Who are you wearing, Barry?