Body of writing, bawdy of work

An emaciated body and emancipated, lush bodies: themes of two writers featured at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival Sept. 20 to 27, 2009.

In the scary graphic novel Tyranny Lesley Fairfield gives the skinny on eating disorders, based on her 30-year struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Her sane, quiet bottom-line message to students and other book-lovers at Red River College: "I got well."

On the other hand, the raunchy (if not raucous) George Elliott Clarke covers corporeal excesses. Check out any of his books, particularly his latest, I & I.

Long poem? Verse novel? Whatever. Here's a taste from page 72:

The lovers laugh, get loose, snuggle.

Each sugars each sweetmeat sex.

(Betty's "hot," caramel-licorice wiggling

Summons Malcolm's molten satisfaction.)

All this, and funky footnotes, too.

Footprints on the waves

One important difference between the information tsunami and the watery one is what each leaves behind.

The sea wave destroys everything it touches, but the electronic flood does the opposite. It preserves everything.

Killer@Craigslist, a fascinating article in the October 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, lays out the evidence.

Last April a woman and a man met cute (actually, mercenary, not cute) in Boston. They hooked up through ads on Craigslist. The woman died and the man was charged with murdering her. Police made the case by following the cyber footprints of their communication.

Dear reader, you live a much more virtuous life than anyone Vanity Fair writes about, I am certain. So you don't need to worry about where your cyber footprints lead. Right?