Archive
On the Wires
by Karyn Eisler
Direct link to video on YouTube
Karyn Eisler is a Vancouver-based writer, cross-disciplinary artist, sociologist, and faculty member at Langara. The College of Higher Learning. A 2011 Best of the Net nominee, her stories, poems, images, and collaborations have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals including BluePrintReview, Moving Poems, Locus Novus, qarrtsiluni, and On a Narrow Windowsill—the world’s first Twitter literature anthology (Folded Word Press). She teaches a course on ‘Animals and Society’.
Elements of Force
by Karyn Eisler
Clouds
Lightning
Wind
Rain
Karyn Eisler is a Vancouver-based writer, educator and interdisciplinary artist. She holds a PhD in sociology from UBC and teaches at Langara College. In a past life she worked as a radio and television broadcaster. Find links to her work on her page at BluePrintReview.
Dealing With Family and Friends
When she thought of economy, she thought of social exchange theory — the idea that relationships are based on give and take; our feelings about relationships rest on perceptions of the balance between what we get out of them and what we put in. Usually, she wouldn’t have put her thoughts on paper, but this time she did — as concisely as possible, using the medium of the postcard which embodies economy of words (few) and form (small).
(Click on postcard to see larger version)
The small print, barely legible, made her think of the papers she’d signed that morning — typical legalistic transaction papers that detailed who gave how much for what: 23 Euro for temporary ownership of a compact car, fully insured.
Now for a tobacco shop, to get some stamps. Driving down the bay road, she scanned for the yellow sign, partly wishing she wouldn’t find one. Yet, there it was. Exactly four minutes later it was done — the stamp bought, glued to the card, the card on the way, like her again, and her thoughts. Small print, she concluded, is invisible with family and friends, even though it’s always part of the subtext; unstated and implicit yet ever-present, like a PS suggesting an afterthought of little importance — which, in social exchange, really isn’t.
by Karyn Eisler and Dorothee Lang
Download the MP3 (reading by Karyn)
qarrtsiluni 