Moving target
BY Audrey Gagnon
Bodies in motion Jim Munroe likes to keep moving. A successful sci-fi novelist with four completed titles (including his most recent novel, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, the Toronto-based Munroe also finds time to run No Media Kings (www.nomediakings.org) and produce the CD-ROM/DVD zine Novel Amusements. In addition, he is the driving force behind the Perpetual Motion Roadshow—a monthly travelling circus run by a network of indie artists.
1996, Hobo Academia You can blame Munroe’s DIY restlessness on an early fascination with train-hopping. Reading up on hobo-lit essentials such as Jack London’s The Road, and envying the freight-hopping adventures described in zines like Mudflap, Munroe quickly went from voyeur to hobo-in-training. In 1996, he managed to grab on to the side of a train for a few seconds, but was quickly thrown off and forced to watch it disappear in the distance. Though the idea wouldn’t surface until four years after the botched train-hop incident, the show has proven to be an equally adventurous (though much less risky) way to travel. It doesn’t involve trains, just a few supporters of DIY culture willing to lend a hand, and maybe a couch, to Munroe and his crew. So goes the Perpetual Motion Roadshow and, like train-hopping, this mode of travel comes with its own set of rules:
Keep yourself in good company Since its beginning, the roadshow has been home to an impressive DIY bunch including: Todd Dills, Joe Meno, Willow Dawson, Mariko Tamaki, Emily Pohl-Weary and Darren O’Donnell.
No boring readings or your money back! This might seem like a bold guarantee, but the Perpetual Motion Roadshow is less a reading tour than it is a spectacle. It’s hard to be bored when the pay-what-you-can cover includes readings from the best of indie books and zines, screenings of short films, live band performances and a stage full of unclassifiable weirdness—as when mad scientist Susan Bustos took the stage to present her sinister laboratory results from the super-feminist collection Girls Who Bite Back.
Call home To hear entries from The Pay Phone Tour Diaries—where roadshow performers reveal details of their adventures—or to learn more about the Perpetual Motion Roadshow and Munroe’s other passions (including train-hopping), go to www.nomediakings.org.
