MFG Party

(Click for juicy view of invitation)


The Montreal Film Group which I co-founded and co-direct with Val Lonergan is having a big party tonight (January 29th, 8pm) at Club Lambi on St-Laurent in Montreal. If you're in the film or TV business, drop on by.

Best to all from Montreal,

Ez

UPDATE: The party was a great success! Over 200 people attended and talked each others' ears off. Thanks to Cheskie's Bakery on Bernard and Park for the amazing deal on pastries and to the Tremblant Film Festival for sponsoring the party!

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped and to everyone who showed up. See you at the next event to be announced soon on the MFG web site. Consider joining the MFG if you are in the film/TV business in Montreal. Ez

Paths I've Crossed

("Roundabout Triangle in Rectangular Frame", Ezra Soiferman, France, 11/06)

ODE TO THOSE WHOSE PATHS I'VE CROSSED
(Ezra Soiferman, 1/27/07, Montreal)

They made me love the world
They made me love myself
For this alone I love the world
For this alone I love them too

Ode to those whose paths I've crossed
Ode to those round the next bend...

Rodney DeCroo Shows

(Click for bigger version of this pic)

Are you a fan of Springsteen, Mellencamp, Steve Earle?

If so, you'll probably love the music of Rodney DeCroo. Rodney's in Montreal for a 3 month stint playing various shows around town. I caught his show a Shaika about a week ago and was totally blown away.

On Friday Jan. 26th at 9PM he plays the legendary Yellow Door at 3625 Aylmer. Joining him for a few tunes will be banjo player and singer Maica from Co-op La Maison Verte.

Rodney will also be playing at Honey Martin's Pub (5916 Sherbrooke St. W.) each Sunday night at 9 for the next few weeks.

He'll be playing Shaika Café (5526 Sherbrooke St. W.) on Valentine's day too, and...

He'll be playing Shaika with Rae Spoon (as "Trucker's Memorial") on March 22nd. A rare treat to have the two of them in town together at once. Here's Rodney and Rae's Trucker's Memorial site.

Hope to see you out at some of these shows...


Ez

P.S. Sample a few Rodney DeCroo tunes here.

Bliss is on its way...

Friends,

My breakfast cereals and taste buds are salivating for this new "hempmilk" product.

Coming soon, says Mike Fata and friends at Manitoba Harvest in their newsletter I got just now.

You heard it here first:

"Happy & Healthy 2007! We hope that you and your family are off to a prosperous start to 2007. We have been working very hard putting together Hemp Bliss, the world's first certified organic hempmilk. It will be available soon in Original, Vanilla and Chocolate for all to enjoy. Stay Tuned!"

Ez Sez: Plants putting cows out to pasture where they belong.

Seed by seed, box by box.

I love it... (and I haven't even tried it yet.)

Ez

World's Worst Non-Existent eMail Address

One eve in 2002 it occurred to me that the world's worst and most difficult email address would have to be:

underscore_dash-at@dot.com

(Say it aloud for kicks.)

That's my post for the day. A little somethin' to ponder.

Regards from my ponderosa to yours.

Ez

Ez Sez: Woody Sez'd First (sort of...)

(Click pic for juicier view)


("Woody Series", c. 2003, NYC, Ezra Soiferman)

I've been asked where the name "Ez Sez" comes from and today I'd like to shed some light on the background of my blog's name.

Legendary American folksinger Woody Guthrie had a newspaper column called Woody Sez back in the day.

Here's a brief description of the column from the California Historical Society:

"In 1939 Guthrie penned a column entitled 'Woody Sez' for the People's Daily World, the West Coast Communist newspaper published in San Francisco. The 'Woody Sez' columns provide evidence that the time Guthrie spent in California during the late 1930s, observing first-hand the harsh conditions experienced by the migrants from the dust bowl, contributed to radicalizing the folksinger."

So you see, I'm not the first by any means to have a column or blog called so-and-so Sez. Never claimed to be. Ez Sez just has a nice ring to it and it's an honour to carry on the 'Sez' tradition that Woody - one of my very favourite writers and singers - employed.

Upon investigation - after I began my early Ez Sez writings in a notepad about a year ago - I discovered that in the early 1930s the poet Ezra Pound had a newspaper column entitled Ez Sez as well.

Plus ca change... plus ca reste pareil.

Keep sezzin' on your end too. No Ezra or Woody will ever own the sole right to speak his or her mind with a catchy column or blog name.

Ez

P.S. To learn what Woody thought about what Love is and how it works, you'll probably want to read his poem "My Secret". Don't say I didn't warn you...

Yes

(Click image for juicier view)


("Waxen", Barcelona/London/NYC, 2006, Ezra Soiferman)

Yes

All I can say in these hard times is Yes
Yes to no
Yes to maybe
Yes to yes

Ez

P.S. Happy birthday Lorraine and Fitzy too.

Luck & love...

(Click notebook for juicier view.)

A Loonie For Your Thoughts...

(click image for juicier view)


In honour of the Ville de Montréal upping the parking meters in parts of the city by 50% recently (2 hours in Old Montreal is now $6 instead of $4 and a quarter now gets you 5 long minutes in some of those fancy new digital meters), I present this new series called "A Loonie For Your Thoughts" from the EzraPix Archives.

The shots were taken in Montreal and New York City.

I can only guess the city needed to raise extra funds to pay for all those new street signs on Park Avenue...

Ez

More EzraPix series at: EzraPix.com

Holy hemp!

This morning, MSNBC features a story by The Today Show's food editor extolling the many virtues of hemp food.

Am I dreaming?!

Read it here: "Nutty hemp a hot food trend"

Enjoy!

Ez

UPDATE: There's now a clever satire about the above article online at: "Hemp: A Coming Epidemic!"

The Winter Again

("L'Icense Plate", 1/98, Montreal, Ezra Soiferman)

Montreal finally had a snowstorm today. First biggie of the season.

And we thought the days of snow in town were over...

Ez

Self-Portrait

The thought yesterday brought...

Who is Josh Ritter?

(Photo of Josh Ritter in Ireland by Doug Rice)

In case you've never heard of this smiling dude, I present here for you a hot tip:

Josh Ritter.

Twang, heart, soul and fire. All pouring from this Idaho singer's mouth and your stereo speakers. Been a fan since album 2 and now he's up to album 5.

A brand new slide show from his latest tour (in Ireland where apparently he's a household name for years already) was just put online today. One of the best rock photo series I've seen in years. Let it load up for a moment then slide away...

PLUS: Josh, who always seems to be in a great mood in concert (a real gift) is on Letterman tonight (Friday, Jan 12, 11:35PM, CBS). (Update: you can now see the performance on YouTube.)

When Josh comes through Montreal I bring him hot bagels backstage (I do this for all my favourite artists when they come to town). Last time, he dedicated a song to me and the bagels asserting that "Montreal bagels are the closest bread comes to crack."

Well, Josh, your songs are the closest music comes to hot bagels.

Rock on everyone. Enjoy the tunes and slide show pix.

Ez

Visit Josh Ritter's official site.

Or his official fansite.


("Bride's Bagel", 9/00, Montreal, Ezra Soiferman)

A Bog On The Blog

(Click image for juicy view)


I was going to call this EzraPixSeries one "Hands, Trunks & Feet" but opted for the title "A Bog In The Blog" instead.

Might it be because it's both raining big thick raindrops AND snowing soft, slow flakes at the same time outside now?

Could very well be.

God bless Mother Nature.

Enjoy the fresh EzraPix series. More pix series at EzraPix.com

Ez

73%

("Barceloner Boner", 12/06, Ezra Soiferman)

It took a humdinger of a junk mail to point out the following fact to me, and in turn, to you:

"Hi, Dude. I don't care why your one-eyed monster is so small, but 73% of women do. They are pretty sure that a bigger ramrod will make their desire stronger. You have the chance to change your life."

Here's to SPAM for bringing us the facts. And here's to that other 27% of women into smaller ramrods...

Like this lovely bubby who appears in a friend's doc about seniors and their sex habits.

As they say, oy gevalt.


Ez

"Kinky corsettes..."

The title of this post, Kinky corsettes, is actually the first two words of this outstanding song that I'd be eating with chopsticks in the left hand and a fork in the right if it were a Chinese dish.

To see Dave Sanders and his band Weeping Buffalo play live, drop in with a trail of friends to Sala Rossa on St-Laurent in Montreal on January 22. I'll be there. And about a dozen poets up on stage during the night. And a few other singers/bands Dave's invited. A night he's calling Looking For Tetro. (That dude on the flyer above.)

This may just be be hailed as the one-night festival that didn't call itself a festival and still sent you home feeling like you enjoyed something like you haven't in a while. That's my gut feeling.

You might like it so much you'll even try to sneak out the back door with a fistful of cash as Dave sez in the song.

Maybe see you there. If you go, remember to request "that Fistful song with the naked MySpace page". Well not naked... it's wearing kinky corsettes.

Here's to both chopsticks AND forks.

Ez

P.S. The official Dave Sanders site is here but it doesn't have the kinky corsettes song. There are four other great songs at the official page. Enjoy!

"That's so weird..."

I walked into a cafe today and bumped into an old friend. She looked at me kinda freaked out and said...

"That's so weird..."

I had to know...

"What's so weird?"

She was silent. Then she said...

"I was just looking at your picture on your blog a second ago and then you walked in. Whoa..."

I just replied "Cool!" at the time, but maybe the proper reply would have been:

"Sorry for interrupting, I'll leave you to be alone with my blog."

Blog etiquette... such a complicated thing.

Either way, keep enjoying the blog, folks. And if I saunter into the room, don't be freaked out... It's the very same me.

Ez

Shuffle It Up

("Smorga's Bored", 2002, Chicago, Ezra Soiferman)

Anyone who's used iTunes knows the power of the Shuffle feature. It basically randomizes all the songs on your computer.

Just wanted to thank whomever invented this function. It really adds that great 'buffet feeling' to another important part of life: musicalization.

Here's to mixing things up in the world and having a soundtrack to go along with it.

Ez

Fresh thought...

("Mass Confucian", c. 1997, NYC)

YOU BETTER HOPE
(1/11/07, MTL, Ezra Soiferman)

Encourage the down to the up
The dark to the light
The backwards to the forwards
Watch as it drives you
Towards growth, inspiration...
And hope
And you better hope
Cuz if doing all that leads to a bad place...
Something ain't right.

Thanks to all for droving by the Ez Sez Blog yesterday.

What a launch, what comments, what an experience to launch something new again.

Always an honour, friends. Keep launching and lunching there too.

Ez

Good News From Ez...

("Foamboothe", 3/06, London, Ezra Soiferman)

There's good news: You and I are connecting through this new site, The Ez Sez Blog.

I hope all's been well for you. Things have been zipping along busily on my side:

A trip to visit friends and shoot documentary photo series in NY, Paris, Montpellier and Barcelona a few weeks ago.

My new documentary "Posthumous Pickle Party" on Simcha's Grocery in Montreal will screen at the Rendez-Vous Québecois film fest in Montreal on February 22nd at 7:15pm at the NFB Cinema on St. Denis corner de Maisonneuve in Montreal. A TV broadcast for this wild film is in the works too. (This site will have more details on PPP as it happens.)

New doc films in the works.

New music projects underway.

Poetry flowing like a melting icecap.

And other surprises you'll learn about here in the coming months, years, lifetimes.

Please read on, or just call it a day and go out to play. (I leave it up to you to decide which of these to choose.)

Feel free to leave comments for me and others to see using the link below any of the blogs below. Or just yell your thoughts out the window to the world.

In short: Welcome, friend.

Ez


To contact me anytime: ezra at pressuredrop dot com.

Montreal Mirror Article

(Photo of Val and Ezra at Cinema du Parc by Rachel Granofsky)

The Montreal Film Group which I co-run with writer and filmmaker Val Lonergan was honoured by being called a "Noisemaker of 2007" on the cover of this week's issue of the Montreal Mirror.

The MFG brings together members of the Montreal film and TV community for networking events, workshops and parties. The group, started back in July 2004, had 50 members when we launched our website a year ago... we now have over 800 members.

And yes, that is indeed a Scrabble 'E' pin on my green hemp hoody in the photo there. One point for noticing. Nice goin'!

Mirror cover: Click here.

Full article: Click here.

Do you work in film or TV? Consider joining the MFG.

Hemp For The Homeless - UPDATE

All is advancing well with my Hemp For The Homeless project. Within the month I'll be distributing approximately 50 nutritious and functional 'hemp help kits' to homeless people on the streets of Montreal.

Many thanks to all those individuals and companies who have contributed to the project to date:

-Abaka Hemp - Recycled hemp clothing fabric for the hemp paper used in the help kits. This great hemp clothing co. is based in Shawinigan, Quebec, and their products are available at Co-op La Maison Verte in NDG and other stores throughout the province.
-ALPSNACK - Delicious, nutritious and organic hemp energy bars
-Bonnie Harnden + Syd Apel - Fresh-baked oatmeal, chocolate-chip, raisin and hemp cookie recipe
-Bernard Artisanal Bakery - Fresh-baked oatmeal, chocolate-chip, raisin and hemp cookies. Bernard's delicious organic sourdough breads and cookies are available at Co-op La Maison Verte in NDG and other locations in Montreal.
-Chana Goodfriend - Help in packing the kits and readying them for delivery
-Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps - 18-in-one all-purpose fair trade organic liquid soap bottles. "All-one!", as Ralph Bronner, the company's VP says.
-EcoLips - Tasty hemp-vanilla lip conditioner
-HT Naturals - Gorgeous long sleeve hemp/cotton T-shirts, Hemp/cotton tote bags
-La Ferme Communautaire Mange-Tout - Organic vegetables for the salads Rumi made (see below).
-Manitoba Harvest - Snack-packs of fresh hulled hemp seeds from the fields of Manitoba.
-The Montreal Film Group - Web site hosting by the MFG
-Papeterie St-Armand - One-of-a-kind recycled hemp/cotton paper for the custom note-pads I added to the bags.
-Penny Idol - Startup funds courtesy of this unique contest I won. The contest is part of Montreal filmmaker Raphael Levy's upcoming short film The Hermitian Penny. My lucky 2006 penny, Juan Redscent, will be starring in this film.
-Sun Dog Hemp - Organic hemp lip balm in peppermint and orange.
-Rumi Restaurant - Delicious cole slaw, potato salad and Jerusalem artichoke salads made with organic Ferme Communautaire Mange-Tout vegetables and Manitoba Harvest fresh hemp seeds


To contribute to the Hemp Help Kits as I ready them for distribution, please contact me at ezra at pressuredrop dot com. All contributions are graciously welcome. Your name will be added to the list above.

Stay tuned for more Hemp For The Homeless updates...

Read the wild backstory about the creation of thr HFTH project here.

Be well and thanks for your interest!

Ez
Chief hemp hamper handler
Hemp For The Homeless

Pot Roast Fumes

My downstairs neighbours seem to be cooking up a serious pot roast this winter's eve. I can smell it through the floorboards something fierce.

Makes me want to barge in there and take a huge bite of it.

Not sure if that makes me a worse vegetarian or neighbour.

Something to ponder as I tuck into my tofu-burger.

Ez


("Murray's Pastrami", 2/04, Chicago, Ezra Soiferman)

Ezra's Favourite Songs of 2006: "Filmmaker's Dozen"

("Rock n' Roll Over Me", 2001, L.A., Ezra Soiferman)

Here's my list of the best songs of 2006 in case you were curious about what I was feeding my ears on this past year...

Ezra’s “Filmmaker’s Dozen”
(New Classics You May Have Missed In 2006)

(in no particular order)

-"Square One" by Tom Petty www.tompetty.com
-"The Underground" by Kat Goldman www.katgoldman.com
-"Where I Live" by Leeroy Stagger and The Sinking Hearts www.leeroystagger.com/
-"Empty" by Ray Lamontagne www.raylamontagne.com
-"Ash Wednesday" by Elvis Perkins www.elvisperkins.net
-"O Mary Don’t You Weep No More" by Bruce Springsteen www.brucespringsteen.net
-"Janka" by Amadou & Mariam www.amadou-mariam.com
-"Heart Attack Feeling" by Socalled www.myspace.com/socalled
-"The Death Of Johnny Cash" by Emily Carr www.myspace.com/emilycarrmusic
-"Workingman's Blues #2" by Bob Dylan www.bobdylan.com
-"What Does It Mean Now?" by World Party www.worldparty.net
-"On The Radio" by Regina Spektor www.reginaspektor.com
-"Thin Blue Flame" by Josh Ritter www.joshritter.com
-"Don't You Be So Mean (Jellybean)" by Justin Rutledge www.justinrutledge.com

I'm jealous of your ears if they are about to hear any of these wonderful songs for the first time. Some (songs, not ears) might be available on iTunes if you're in any kind of rush whatsoever.

Ez

Ezra's 'Vintage' MySpace Blogs

For those with access to MySpace, here's the link to read any of my 2006 MySpace blog postings you may have missed (a wholly different blog than Ez Sez).

Lots of cool stuff to see there if you've got time to kill and an interest in this guy they call Ez.

www.myspace.com/ezrasoiferman

Here's a couple of samples from that there MySpace blog trove:


Friday, November 17, 2006, 5:24PM

More From my pocket pad...

Here's another culled from my last pocket pad. A bit steamy...

TEA TOGETHER
3/25/06, Ezra Soiferman, MTL,

Talk together
Walk together
Eat together
Sleep together
Dream together
Tea together

*****

Sunday, November 05, 2006, 2:20PM

Good News / Old Hat:

Good news... you are pretty much able to do anything. First step is to figure out what you want to do and then find those who can help you do it. Third step is to do it.

That's what just occurred to me.

Thought I'd share it.

If this is news to you, cool! If it's a good reminder, even better. If this sounds like old hat, wear it.

Old hats are cool.


Ez

****

More at:
www.myspace.com/ezrasoiferman