Have you read Taxi! yet?

Parataxis event: Taking Taxi! back to the street for Workers Day, May 1, 2011

2011-10-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

Photos of Parataxis event Workers Day May 1, 2011

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Parataxis: the ride THIS SUNDAY!

2011-04-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

This Sunday at 12 noon departing from Pigeon Park please join us for Parataxis: the ride, a walking/reading tour of Helen Potrebenko's classic Vancouver novel Taxi!

This event is part of the Commune de Vancouver and is supported by the Department of Gender Studies at SFU.

Performance artist Lori Weidenhammer will also be in residence, a return from our first intervention at Not Sent Letters.

The weather forecast is for sunshine. Come out and celebrate Workers Day with us.

For further info please contact mrsokana@gmail.com

Hey Waitress featured in Vancouver Art Gallery exhibit.

2011-03-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

A copy of Helen Potrebenko's short story collection Hey Waitress is currently included in the WE: Vancouver exhibit installed at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

(listen up literary canon!)

Exciting Taxi! event happening for Workers Day May 1st.

2011-03-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Major news for Taxi! readers. Mark your calendar for Parataxis: The Ride.

On May 1st, 2011 we will meet at Pigeon Park at 12 noon and undertake the first walking tour where we interface the text in Taxi! with the places and spaces it refers to.

Come on out for this intervention and participate.

Bring your copy of Taxi! or buy one from our cart for $10.00.

This event is taking place as part of La Commune de Vancouver: Paris Commune celebrations.

Author Helen Potrebenko @ Taxi! Intervention

2011-01-15T14:06:00.000-08:00

Helen with new Taxi! reader at Taxi! intervention @ Not Sent Letters event Vancouver, BC (Jan. 14, 2011)

Taxi! intervention @ Not Sent Letters, Vancouver, BC

2011-01-15T14:03:00.000-08:00

Taxi! Performance Art interventions

2011-01-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

A new era and direction in the Taxi! revival has dawned.

Through a series of transactions and experiments Taxi! will be returned to her readers.

The first intervention took place last night to a great response in Vancouver, BC. Thank you so much to Lori Weidenhammer for her generous collaboration and to the readers for engaging with us at the Taxi! rank.

Here are some photos of last night's piece: keep your eye out for an intervention on your street corner soon. (To order a Taxi! transaction event contact mrsokana@gmail.com hurry there can only be 50 such events based on last night's research)

Organize your own Taxi! event

2010-05-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

All over Canada people are reading Taxi! these days. And these people are feeling Good & Strong.

You too can join this joyful bundle. Why don't you organize a Taxi! event? You don't even need a location, have one in your sitting room, all you need is a copy of Taxi! and some good readers or middling ones with spirit.

Send us pics of everyone reading and feeling Good & Strong.

Take it to the bridge! Taxi! events are affordable and fun. Hail your own.

Go to Lazarapress.ca to order Taxi! Remember there are perhaps 600-700 copies left, then that's it.

New Taxi readers we want to hear from you! Organise your own Taxi! event

2010-05-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Taxi! has gathered new readers in recent months and we want to hear from you!

Share some thoughts on the book and what reading or rereading it meant to you or anything you wish to remark on about the book and we'll try publish it here.

Also I did start a group on facebook called have you read Taxi!? We could use a wikipedia page if someone wanted to make one about Helen's work.

There also needs to be more events to celebrate the book especially in other parts of Canada. St John's, Halifax, Campbell River, Edmonton, Rio, Kashmir, Ballina, where are you? Get a bunch of people together to read Taxi! aloud, add a bit of music and voila you'll all feel Good & Strong. I'll be happy to share the successful format of our recent event at the Vancouver Public Library if you drop me a line.

Map appeal encore

2010-05-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

I still wish someone would map the locations mention in Taxi! somehow, either on google maps or some other map interface. Map them as they are described in the book, then take a wander and snap what they've become.

One day I promise to go on a wander and try to see what semblance of the city was and is now in Taxi!

Up for the task? Want to do a chapter? email the results to mrsokana@gmail.com

Taxi event at VPL astonishing success: big love from Taxi! readers

2010-05-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

The Taxi! event at the Vancouver Public Library was an astonishing night. Thank you so much to Taxi! readers old and new for coming out and showing such big love to our event. The attendance was very high, the participation was lovely and the readers: Bryant Ibbitson, Annabel Lyon, Penny Goldsmith, Clint Burnham, Julie Okot Bitek and Marina Roy were astonishing. The event's musical compositions by Cuan Isamu will be uploaded to the blog very shortly.

Helen described the night as "wonderful, a very special kind of evening".

We all agreed the prose was stronger than ever. Taxi! is a great book, give a copy to a friend, spread the word, organize your own event. I will be happy to supply our original Taxi! music composed by Cuan.

If you attended the event please send your descriptions and comments to mrsokana@gmail.com and we can upload them here.

Taxi! in National Post

2010-05-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Deserves not to be forgotten: Writers hail Helen Potrebenkos Taxi!

Deserves not to be forgotten': Writers hail Helen Potrebenko's 'Taxi!'

Posted: April 28, 2010, 12:30 PM by Brad Frenette

Events, Novels, Annabel Lyon, MIchael Turner, Helen Potrebenko, Taxi!

Alberta-born author Helen Potrebenko published her first novel, Taxi!, in 1975. The book, published shortly after her move to Vancouver from Alberta, told of the struggles of a female cab driver making her way in B.C.'s largest city.

35 years after it hit shelves, Anakana Schofield, another Vancouver writer, is organizing an event to bring some attention to the book, which has fallen off CanLit's radar.

"It's part of a "recovery project," says Schofield, "and perhaps a post-Olympian reclaim your city prod. As in - here is your long forgot city literature, take it, possess it, it's yours."

The event takes place in Vancouver tomorrow night, and will feature contributions and readings from Annabel Lyon,. Michael Turner, Clint Burnham and several others, as well as a Q&A with the author.

"Taxi! was the first work of fiction I read that was set in Vancouver and the first from the perspective of a working class woman", says Michael Turner. "Although I recognized the city I grew up in, I was (through the eyes of Potrebenko's female protagonist) taken to places in an order I was not familiar with, in ways I had not yet imagined. As a man, I could walk through walls to get what I wanted. Potrebenko reminded me that not all narrators are men, and that for a woman to negotiate her way through civic space requires many more fares than her masculine counterpart."

"I was struck by the intelligence and the humour and the sass of Taxi!." says Annabel Lyon. "And because my partner drives a cab, so much of it hit close to home. It's a sharp, edgy book, pure Vancouver, and deserves not to be forgotten."

Aside from a one night fete for the book, Schofield hopes to get it back into the CanLit canon: "Taxi! is both a vital Vancouver novel and a unique working class literary work that we hope to see taught in universities and schools again and acknowledged for it's contribution to the Canadian literary canon rather than forgotten about."

• "Taxi! @ 35" takes place on Thursday April 29, at 7:30 p.m. at Vancouver's The Central Library (350 West Georgia Street). Admission is free. For more information visit Anakana Schofield's blog.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/afterword/archive/2010/04/28/deserves-not-to-be-forgotten-writers-hail-helen-potrebenko-s-taxi.aspx#ixzz0mqFUj1oG

Good & Strong: Taxi @ 35 Vancouver Public Library event

2010-03-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

VPL Event poster below (click to enlarge)

Thursday April 29, 7:30 p.m.

Alma VanDusen and Peter Kaye Rooms, Lower Level

Central Library, 350 West Georgia St.

Admission is free. Seating is limited.

Vancouverites hail Helen Potrebenko’s classic Taxi!

35 years after Taxi! first revved up Vancouver literature, join us to celebrate this fine novel. Taxi! is a novel about a woman and a worker in a city. Our city, your city, your literature.

A diverse group of local writers will read excerpts and offer contributions:

Annabel Lyon, Clint Burnham, Julianne Okot Bitek, Penny Goldsmith, Marina Roy, Michael Turner, Anakana Schofield and Cúán Isamu.

Helen Potrebenko in SubTerrain

2010-02-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

Taxi! author Helen Potrebenko has been included in SubTerrain's double issue on Vancouver's Literary Landscape. SubTerrain is available on newstands.

Helen was also featured recently on SFU radio.

Taxi! readers rejoice at this much deserved focus on Helen Potrebenko's work.

Taxi! Event VPL : Good and Strong: Taxi! @ 35

2010-01-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

There will be an event at The Vancouver Public Library (CENTRAL BRANCH) - Thurs April 29, 2010. 7.30pm - 9pm in the downstairs Alice McKay room:

Good and Strong: Taxi! @ 35

Local writers will read extracts from the novel Taxi! and there will be a Q&A with author Helen Potrebenko.

More details to come.

Mark your calendars, please come and join us and share your experience of reading Taxi! or come and become revved up on a classic Vancouver novel.

Taxi! 2010

2009-11-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

There will be an event at VPL in 2010 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Taxi! More details to follow.

Watch this space for details.

French Taxi

2009-10-16T10:13:00.002-07:00

Due to unprecented interest from French Taxi readers, a translation of Taxi! Buried Treasure article has now been uploaded here.

http://mrsokana.wordpress.com/lecteur-la-grele-cette-voiture-taxi-par-helen-potrebenko/

Corrections and improvements welcome! Would Shannon become Simone or Sylvie?

Joe le taxi to follow.

Taxi tunes

2009-10-16T10:13:00.001-07:00

A recently submitted list of music being listened to in the taxi of Taxi! revivalism.

Billie Holiday
Billy Bragg
Bob Dylan
Dixie Chicks
Dolly Parton
Ella Fitzgerald
Hazel and Alice
Joan Baez
K.D. Lang
Leonard Cohen
Mildred Bailey
The New Seekers
Nina Simone
Odetta
Paul Robeson
Pete Seeger
Rita Coolidge
Rita McNeil
Roy Forbes
Stan Rogers

Breaking news! Taxi! Author Gets Gold!

2009-09-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Major buzz for Taxi readers! Author of Taxi Helen Potrebenko wins gold in slo-pitch softball final of womens 62 + BC Seniors Olympics. Taxi! readers proud and delighted for women with bats. Team pic to follow.

Readerly pose encore: page turning feet

2009-07-31T14:04:00.001-07:00

Even more so, this alert, post softball playing active reader feet mirror something of the turning of the page in their particular arrangement captured here.

Feet in readerly poses

2009-07-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

This is the first set of Taxi! feet captured while actively reading Taxi! There is a pensive engaged quality to these feet.

Painterly male Taxi! feet

2009-07-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

This Taxi! reader's feet scale the heights of Vancouver daily. They may be tired but they're Sistine Chapel painting looking feet.

Hands across the border Taxi! feet

2009-07-27T22:40:00.001-07:00

These feet are truly borderless feet. They trotted originally from Iraq. They have reached Taxi! from New Hampshire. Poetically inclined, not afraid of a hike to discover a book feet.

Grumpers most welcome: impossibly stubborn Taxi! feet

2009-07-27T22:15:00.001-07:00

Taxi! readers are certainly grumpy. Regularly grumpy. We celebrate grumpiness. Some are practising contrarians. We have one reader grumpy enough to refuse to provide his foot. We salute his resistance. Respect is due. Thus because literary revolutions like decent baking aren't easily achieved: we must borrow a votive set for him.

Vancouver male Taxi! reader bucket feet

2009-07-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

This Vancouver reader had his hands full when he seized the opportunity to embrace a copy of Taxi! Taxi! readers don't hang about, they rush off to get revved. They have very good jokes. Sometimes.

Vancouver male malheureusement foot

2009-07-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

This Taxi! reader found Taxi! at a time he has an opportunity, to digest it.

Vancouver mapping Taxi!

2009-07-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

Taxi! readers let's map some of the locations mentioned in Taxi! in the present day. (and past if you've snaps from 75)

Bring your camera out in the street. Snaps needed. List will be gradually compiled and uploaded. Google maps what about ya?

If you don't live in Vancouver, you too can be involved in mapping. Just find a similiar/invented/inappropriate location and or non mapping related image whereever you are and submit your snaps to haveyoureadtaxi@gmail.com

Globe and Mail embraces Taxi!

2009-07-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

What a co-incidence the good auld medja waking up to Taxi! greatness right on time, on target! Would you credit it?!

BOOKS

Buried Treasures

Reader, hail that cab!

Helen Potrebenko is a cherished Vancouver writer. Her '70s novel of a woman taxi driver in that city is funny, confrontational and brilliantly proletarian

Read the whole article here

Rare! Male stripy Taxi! foot floating above Vancouver street

2009-07-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

A rarity! The male foot is outnumbered in the gallery. Come on lads. Come on Vancouver readers. Edmonton is dwarfing us. Note the convenient air holes this Taxi! reader's shoe contains. His feet will be still and ventilated as he's immersed in Taxi!

Taxi! reader... toes bloom

2009-07-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

This reader noted the improved blooming quality to her feet as she reads Taxi!

Well designed, trustworthy Taxi! reader feet

2009-07-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

This Taxi! reader's well designed and trustworthy feet are reliable as they navigate the streets in the home of the Toonerville Trolley.

She's listening to 'my "melancholy woman"compilation of favourite laments and complaints. Perfect for a blistering Saturday', as she reads Taxi!

Working feet

2009-07-24T23:54:00.001-07:00

This Taxi! reader sent her feet with the caption "These proletariat feet are reading Taxi! on unpaid, far too short breaks."

Golden BC the evidence II leaning feet

2009-07-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Golden BC Taxi reader says "this reader leaning against a car to support her while she reads Taxi!"

Golden BC Taxi readers the evidence is in...

2009-07-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Clearly this reader's feet will grow once she's read Taxi! She's aiming for 14.5. A lovely set of languishing, balletic feet. Taxi! readers have extraordinary toes after reading, it's official.

Edmonton Taxi reader feet rose skyward

2009-07-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Edmonton reader reported her feet, and shoes raised themselves towards heaven in exhaltation as she reads Taxi!

Breaking news: 2 Taxi! readers from Golden, BC

2009-07-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

Exciting milestone. As of 5.44pm July 24th There are now 2 readers who hail from Golden, BC reading Taxi! Shoe size 14.5 pic to follow.

To discover Golden, BC visit http://www.town.golden.bc.ca/.

Note the swimming pool in Golden is now open. Amazing power of Taxi! readers.

Taxi readers with places to go

2009-07-24T16:35:00.001-07:00

This Taxi! reader reported after reading he had more places to go, with these shoes on, so he polished them.

Send us snaps of your feet or footwear and caption if you're reading Taxi! (along with a snap of your copy of Taxi!) to haveyoureadtaxi@gmail.com

Ditto we need snaps of Vancouver locations in the novel. Send 'em in.

Productive Taxi reader footwear

2009-07-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

Productive looking Taxi! footwear rumoured to be harvesting a garden in Burnaby, BC. inbetween enjoying chapters of Taxi!

Ottawa Morning Taxi reader's feet...

2009-07-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

The above glorious set sent from a reader in Ottawa with the caption

"This beach reader's Havaiana tan lines are showing... "

The feet of Taxi readers

2009-07-23T21:01:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the feet that have read or are reading Taxi! When you read Taxi! You too can submit your footwear or toes to our gallery....

How can I read Taxi

2009-07-23T20:55:00.001-07:00

You can read Taxi! by visiting lazarapress.ca and buying one of the few remaining copies. 10 bucks plus shipping. Hurry!

This is Taxi

2009-07-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Have you read it yet?