ottawa fire report:

for those who have emailed & asked, i wasnt affected by them 2 big fires last night on somerset street west. the first, around 11:15pm or so, was directly beside the window of jwcurry, & we were quite worried for a while (john the owner of the 3rd largest collection of small press in the country & bpNichol bibliographer, 20,000 items so far; john & jen running out with armloads of books & prints, slipping a few times through police lines until they were finally stopped), but it was pretty obvious after a while that the fire was contained (john now lives abt 4 buildings to the west of me, one past the first fire).

the other fire hit around 1:30am or so, & was a block to the east of me, where (apparently) a family of five died. the street was still blocked off when i left home. because of the first fire, power was cut around midnight or so, & wasnt back on until 4:40am, roughly. but curry & i are okay. the street still a mess. thanks again for those who have sent along emails.