I Can Hear Me Fine

David Lester’s FaceBook post today:

CELEBRATING: 30 years ago (1993) I formed Get To The Point Publishing (GTTP) to release Jean Smith’s exciting first novel, “I Can Hear Me Fine”. The book got great reviews and was distributed by Arsenal Pulp Press (who published her second novel, “The Ghost of Understanding”). In 1998, GTTP published “Keys To Kingdoms” by Bud Osborn, which won the City of Vancouver Book Award. GTTP went on to combine with Jean’s Smarten UP! and published a series of chapbooks. Thanks Jean, for writing a great book!

REVIEWS of I Can Hear Me Fine:

“Gritty, blunt and sensitive at once, the book rails against the banal at every turn, developing a strident and important voice.” – B.C. Library Reporter

“Smith’s talents as a painter come through in her writing as colors become codes for emotions… ” – Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA)

“A literary jigsaw puzzle, one that might have been designed by David Lynch and Sylvia Plath.” – B.C. BookWorld

“At the back of I Can Hear Me Fine, Jean Smith’s just published work of fiction, an index tells you where to find words like hibachi, cat, teeth. Turning the information age into poetry.” – Village Voice (New York)

“The narrator mixes sense experiences, so that colour, for example, often has some kind of emotional resonance.” – Books In Canada (Toronto)

“Strong but far from flowery, a wonderful read.” – College Music Journal (New York)

“An episodic series of impressionistic power chords set between melodies, image and words.” – Now Magazine (Toronto) 1993

Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay

David Lester’s new graphic novel about Benjamin Lay arrives! Official publication date is Nov 2 with the official, virtual book launch on Nov 4.

David Lester Illustration Award

David Lester (illustrator) saying a few words in acceptance.

1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike (Between the Lines Publishing) has jointly won the CAWLS ACETS (Canadian Association for Work & Labour Studies // Association) Book Prize (best book in work and labour studies). The book is a collaboration between the Graphic History Collective illustrated by David Lester.

“We Oughta Know” by Andrea Warner

An entry in an appendix of Canadian women in music, in the book “We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the ’90s and Changed Canadian Music” by Andrea Warner (Eternal Cavalier Press, 2015)

Mecca Normal, 1984 – present
Key 90s songs:
“Vacant Night Sky ” from Sitting on Snaps (Matador Records, 1995)
“Waiting for Rudy” from Flood Plain (K Records, 1993)

“Underground art-punk rock duo Jean Smith (vocalist) and David Lester (guitarist) have been crafting weird, tightly coiled but loosely structured songs about gender, feminism, politics, and social justice isues since 1984. Anybody who knows Beat Happening, Bikini Kill, and Sleater-Kinney should know Mecca Normal, almost nobody does. I’m ashamed to admit that up until last year, I barely knew them either. They’re a hometown band and I’m a feminist who writes about music and still I never came across Mecca Normal until someone alerted me to their existence after I wrote an essay about how much I missed the political fire of music from the ’90s. Mecca Normal were riot grrrl and DIY before those movements existed, and they were tireless in their commitment to their art, releasing seven records in the ’90s alone. In fact, Mecca Normal were basically doing the 90s in the 80s. Consider the still-relevant subject matter of their mid-’80s tunes like “Smile Baby,” which calls out street harassment (yes, three decades ago), “More, More, More” which addresses the privilege of white men and the American Dream, and the simple, chilling, and inspiring “I Walk Alone” which affirms a woman’s right to safety in a public space. It’s important music that still matters today.” – Andrea Warner

 

David Lester interview on CBC radio

“Comics are a form of social activism,” says graphic novelist David Lester in a GREAT interview with the CBC’s Sheryl MacKay about “The Battle of Ballantyne Pier” — David’s contribution to the anthology Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle.

David Lester’s graphic novel about Emma Goldman

Some of the first drawings we’ve seen from David Lester’s graphic novel in progress.

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman by David Lester

Emma Goldman by David Lester

Mecca Normal’s collaboration for Normal History, Magnet Magazine May 28, 2016 Vol. 375

Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle.

Part of David Lester’s contribution to a new book called Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle.

“This evocative collection of the struggles and achievements of labour organizing should inspire us to ‘dream of what might be’ and to act to bring it about.” – Noam Chomsky

Mecca Normal’s collaboration for Normal History, Magnet Magazine May 28, 2016 Vol. 375

 

I Can Hear Me Fine

“A great novel,” David Lester

Twenty years ago this month, I founded Get To The Point Editions expressly to publish Jean Smith‘s first novel I Can Hear Me Fine. I am as excited about her book today, as I was reading the manuscript back then. Crisp, expressive prose full of elegant, sensual description and insight. The text shares the same strong aesthetic sensibility as her lyrics – and many of the songs on Mecca Normal’s third album “Dovetail” appear within the story.

Smarten UP! & Get To The Point Catalogue

FaceBook

Amplitude Equals One Over Frequency Squared, David Lester interview, 2012

Page from The Listener – a graphic novel by David Lester

DAVID LESTER interview

of MECCA NORMAL, 2012

conducted via e-mail

by Dan Cohoon

Dan Cohoon: How did Mecca Normal come about? Talk about what was going on in music/art at the time that inspired you to start a band.

David Lester: I met Jean Smith while we were both doing graphic design in the production department of a weekly newspaper. So in a way, our collaboration started then, nearly 30 years ago. We were both visual artists (Jean is an excellent painter) and we shared an interest in hearing live music, which at the time included a lot of hardcore punk bands. I was also designing album covers and posters for some of these bands, most notably D.O.A. There was a very active, radical political scene in Vancouver at the time, which was reflected in the lyric content of many of the cities punk bands. Jean and I took inspiration from this convergence of music and politics by deciding to start our own band. But it would be a band without drums or bass. We wanted to challenge the very notion of what makes a band, and demonstrate that a single guitar, a voice and ideas could unleash a powerful fury against social injustice.

Continued: Amplitude Equals One Over Frequency Squared

 

David Lester Book Tour 2011

David Lester’s video at Type Book in Toronto, 2011. Featuring Canadian sensation  Robert Dayton.