Nineteen Sixties: A Tribute to the Miles Davis Quintet
Derrick Gardner, Niall Bakkestad-Legare, Will Bonness, Karl Kohut and Lucas Sader

Sunday, January 15/12 8pm $10 ($5 students)

The Lucas Sader Quintet features Derrick Gardner on trumpet, Niall Bakkestad-Legare on tenor saxophone, Will Bonness on piano, Karl Kohut on bass and Lucas Sader on drums.

The Winnipeg Talking Radio Orchestra, The Maltese Falcon, 9/24/11

Jazz for Japan, 3.26.11

Indigena Bushy Tales at Aqua Books (Puppet Cabaret, 4.13.11)

The Winnipeg Jazz Fest was announced on Friday. Aqua Books will play host to a whopping 24 concerts, labs and jams.

justthegoods:

Crafty Minions 3 @ Aqua Books Pt 1

Big Sky (written and performed by Sol James, Aqua Books, 3/8/11)

Experimental music legend Keith Rowe lectures at Aqua Books (send + receive Festival of Sound, 11.27.10)

(Source: Flickr / sendandreceive)

Monty Haaviko rule number 261: Take nothing but money and memories. Leave nothing, not even footprints.

 

Michael Van Rooy, the great crime writer and gentle giant pillar of Winnipeg’s writing community, offered up this one-liner life lesson.  We like it, but in our grief at Michael’s sudden passing, and in celebration of his life, we’re switching it around.

 

Aqua Books is planning a celebration and commemoration of Michael’s life, work, and the irreplaceable footprints he left in each of our lives and communities. On Saturday, February 12 at 7pm, please help us give Michael a proper send-off: a time to share, talk, laugh, celebrate, listen, remember, and raise funds to assist his family.

 

We’re planning an evening of readings from Michael’s works, personal stories and remembrances, tributes and celebration. There will be open mic opportunities, as well as scheduled speakers and readers. If you’re interested in sharing your stories of Michael, or reading your favourite passage from his books, please contact Kelly Hughes at kelly@aquabooks.ca. (Please also contact Kelly if you have photos or images that you’d like to share).

 

EAT! bistro will provide refreshments, and the bar will be open. Poker cards will be available. We’re planning some fundraising activities so that we can all assist his family in immediate and tangible ways. We’re also planning an announcement about a long-term initiative to commemorate Michael, the ways that he has touched all of our lives, and to make sure that regardless of what Monty says, Michael’s life leaves the writing community changed, enhanced, and mindful of the immensity and gentleness of his footprints.

Last week, we lost a good friend over here. You may have read that writer Michael Van Rooy died of a heart attack in Montreal last Thursday. He was 42.

Michael Van Rooy was our second writer-in-residence at Aqua, and I almost instantly liked him. I was a little intimidated by him, because of his imposing stature (6’6”, 20+ stone), and also because of the rumour of his prison time. But although he wrote some dark and wonderful stuff, there was no secret menace he was masking. He was just truly kind and soft-spoken.

I soon realized that we had a lot in common. Like me, he was someone who almost never let an opportunity pass him by. (Most recently, he was Winnipeg’s Arts Ambassador for Lit, Thin Air Winnipeg publicist, Prairie Fire board president, and administrator for the Writers’ Collective and also for CMU’s writing program.) And he seemed tireless. Despite all the extra work he took on to support his family and advance his career goals, he never stopped honing his craft. Most of A Criminal to Remember was written in a studio right above my head. This was while he was here as writer-in-res, and while he was working all of his various jobs, teaching and being a husband and father.

When someone dies at 20, it’s a shame because of the potential that was there. When a person dies at 80, it’s sad because they’ve lived a long life and touched many people. When a friend dies halfway through their life, it’s a tragedy because they’re not finished yet. So many wonderful things done, so many to do. Michael had so many more stories in him. (I had recently pitched a piece to CBC’s The Next Chapter, promoting Michael as Canada’s Stieg Larsson. An unfortunately prescient thought.)

Michael Van Rooy truly belonged to so many of us in the writing community and beyond. Aqua Books will be hosting a Tribute to Michael Van Rooy on Saturday February 12/11 at 7pm. We will have an open mic, food, and drinks. In addition to an opportunity to publicly remember Michael, we will give people a chance to help in a practical way. A writer’s living in Canada is a tenuous one, and we’re setting up a bank account in the name of his three kids. I will also have an announcement about another way we’ll be honouring Michael, long term. So I hope to see all of his friends, students, admirers, readers and fellow writers that evening. Bring your memories, stories, favourite MVR passage, (and your chequebook). See you then.

Clint Skibitzky, Chickie Hughes, Richard Howell, JohNNy SiZZle, and Kelly Hughes perform The Lone Ranger for the Winnipeg Talking Radio Orchestra, 1.15.11