The big muddy

I’m nearing the midway-point on my attempt to ride my bike to work right through the winter. So far, I’ve only had to give it up for two days after we got dumped on with snow, and there’s only been a couple of times where I’ve been so cold as to wish myself dead, and at least one of those was due to a poorly thought out decision to wear kid gloves on the coldest day of the year. When your fingertips are in such pain that you want to puke, it’s time to re-think strategy.

So far, it’s been shockingly easy. I find most rides actually relaxing, despite the numerous near-misses and constant four-wheel bullying. (It’s been interesting to see just how long it takes to turn a person into a wild-eyed cycling militant – about three minutes, usually.)

The greatest boon is simply not having to sit on the subway for 45 minutes at the end of the day. I don’t mind the streetcar in the morning – in fact I like it, and kind of miss it – but I find that, on the subway rush home, without a seat or even any space around you, you have to put your mind on idle just so you don’t go nuts with the thought that you’ll be standing there, desperately trying to hold onto a strap, while everybody steams and drips up against you, for the better part of an hour. It’s not plebe-fear – though the occasional vocal crackhead tests my mushy liberal nerves, and any group of teenagers ignites my inner Andy Rooney – but simple frustration at so much mental dead time. I’d happily put up with anything if I could at least sit and read. I get off the subway more exhausted than I ever am biking home.

Plus, on a bike you’re somewhat more in control of your own destiny, even if it is your destiny to be killed by a commuter in a Honda Civic happily distracted by Jack FM and coffee in a spill-proof mug.

And, you get the little bonuses. For example, this morning I ran over a dead rat. So I guess I can strike that one off my bucket list.

(That's my backpack in the photo above, by the by.)

Hitch's wagon, fixed

I was going to do something on this awful column by Christopher Hitchens, but Chet Scoville at Shakeville has already done it for me.

Roy puts it well (as usual):

I do find these early, baffled stirrings of Obama dread amusing, but if things go like they're going I expect they'll haul out the firehoses soon enough.

Must I see must-see TV?

Whenever some must-see TV series comes along, I am again reminded of the merciful genius that is the six-episode U.K. series. You can get through the complete run of Black Adder, including the Christmas special, in about three nights, but some of these shows go on for about twenty-four one-hour episodes a season – my god, who needs that much low-yield entertainment?

I don't have cable, so anything I watch has to be in gluttonous, "complete season" marathons either on DVD or acquired through.... other means. This means that the shows just keep piling up, the total running times stretching beyond the horizon and coming into conflict with all the music I haven't listened to, all the movies I haven't seen, and especially all the books I have every intention of reading.

For someone with about eight minutes of unscheduled time per day, this presents a problem.

For example, I am only now giving in to the chorus of voices assuring me that The Wire is the best show since, what, Dexter? Battlestar Gallactica? The Sopranos? Six Feet Under? (All shows I never really got around to, either.) I've got the first season all ready to go – fuck's sake, there's four more! – and I swear I will get it under my belt soon enough. (I swear to god, if it turns out to be crap...)

In the meantime, I've been introducing my son to the classicist-yet-campy pleasures of Star Trek: The New Generation. I'm only able to survive that seemingly endless journey by poking around online episode guides so as to avoid altogether those black-mark episodes where, say, Data learns about humour from Joe Piscipo.

The Star, by the stars

My joke for the way Dan Smith at the Toronto Star puts together his weekly book section is that he is guided "by the stars." Anyone who has written reviews for him knows the drill: a review submitted one week can appear in the paper the next, or not for months, and occasionally not at all.

Case in point: I picked up Eliza Clark's Writer's Gym last June and sent in the review shortly thereafter. And now here, more than six months later, is the review.*

The more significant piece in this weekend's Star book section was the farewell by Phil Marchand, who is moving over to the film beat (?) to make room for the incoming Geoff Pevere (??).

While Marchand's reviews have been showing distinct signs of reviewer-fatigue of late – a lot of plot summary to bulk up the word count, a tendency toward repetition, and an overall sense of resignation in the face of a steadfastly parochial literary culture – when his boiler was sufficiently stoked, he wrote the kind of sharp criticism he was known for, the kind that can be found especially in his book Ripostes, which I end up re-reading every year or so, both by design and by accident.

Personally, I think the guy should get a medal. (And okay, so should Dan... but have it come much later than expected.)

My hopes for Pevere are, or course, that he will be sharp and funny and perceptive and all that, but really, I just hope that he sticks with it, and that this isn't the first step in the elimination of that position altogether. After all, count the number of full-time literary critics we have in this country.


* ADDED: Awfully good idea to begin the lead up to the publication of my first novel by suggesting that ordinary people shouldn't write novels, isn't it? I sometimes adhere too closely to Klingon-style diplomacy. Oh well.

Cozy up with a book

I don't care all that much about the debate over e-readers – I will probably never own or even use one, but I don't plan to tear my hair... er, teeth out in righteous anger if my kids end up using them for textbooks and the like.

Honestly though, sickeningly cozy and simplistic sentiments like the ones in this Opus cartoon just about make me want to switch to digital. We get it: books are great. Books, yum. Does that mean every book has to be paper and ink, or just classics? Would it have made a difference if the book the penguin wanted to read was volume #46 of The Executioner? Goosebumps books are starting to multiply like Tribbles in my house; given that those books get read and discarded in a matter of hours, would it be okay with Breathed if my son just downloaded them instead of raiding the library and our local Value Village every week or so? (Though I admit he learns more by actually going to both locations. Certainly there's lots to learn at Value Village.)


And note, dear reader, that Breathed's cartoon is published... online.



(I've been waiting for an excuse to use that...)

Resolution

"I will liberate myself from deadlines, but not at once. There is no possibility of getting out of the rut into which I have fallen. I don't mind starving as I have already done, but there are others involved too. I give my leisure to writing, two or three hours a day and a little bit of the night, that is, time that is suitable only for trifling work. This summer, when I will have more leisure and will have to earn less, I will undertake something serious." - Anton Chekhov, in a letter

Holiday blessings

I spent Christmas day driving back from Pembroke to Toronto in a rented minivan full of adults, children, a newborn baby, and shoulder-high piles of luggage and presents.

And it was utterly painless. Enjoyable even.

And nobody even complained about having to listen to the Louvin Brothers so much on the way.

Hot dog.

(Not that you could ever really have too much of the brothers Louvin...)

There will be blood

I promise not to be so knee-jerk juvenile in the coming year, but for now, does anyone else see anything odd about the headline The Globe used today for its story about the horrific events in Pakistan?

Closing the vinyl café

What Roy Edroso said:

There are probably far fewer analog audiophiles now than there were once upon a time. That battle has been lost by attrition. When I first heard Raw Power on CD I thought it was crap, and maybe if I still had the LP and a really good sound system I'd still think so. But I don't, and digital is what there is. To what extent was the ass-kicking power of "The Real Me" from Quadrophenia through my college roommate's maxed-out shelftop stereo a superior experience to whatever digitally remixed version we're on now? Was it the grooves, or the time and place? I can't tell you and I don't have thousands of dollars to try and recreate the experience. Maybe we were all better off with Edison cylinders.

But the recesses of our cultural memory are an archipelago where vinyl certainly rules. Things were caught on wax that, with rare exceptions, no one will bother to digitize because there's no money in it, or because no one cares, or because they just plain suck. These artifacts have the same value as any unobserved details of life: they are either worthless or a treasure trove, depending on how much faith one has in the obvious, or patience for that which is not obvious. Like bookstall remainders, garage-sale handicrafts, photos found in the trash, or conversations overheard on the bus, or anything you might happen to attend that did not call attention to itself, they are part of a secret world that is larger, and often more interesting, than the consensus reality we half-awakenly inhabit, and to which we can only abandon ourselves at great risk to our souls.

I'm tempted to add "literary fiction" to that list of cultural marginalia, though not at all in a mean way – not this time, anyway.

Meet me in Paris

If you have any friends (or, indeed, enemies) in France, let them know they can now pre-order my book.

That's right: I'm an auteur.

"Ah bon! I love storeez about zee unhappy Canadians and zere leettle problems wiz zee sex and zee ice hockey!"

¿Que pasa, Enterprise?

Yesterday, I got this e-mail from Enterprise Rent-a-car:

Dear Nathan,

On Tuesday, we sent you an email in Spanish by mistake. To apologise, please accept 15% off your next rental at any neighbourhood location or get a free upgrade at any airport location. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Which, in practical terms, means that I'll be saving nearly a hundred clams on the minivan I'm renting over the holidays, all because Enterprise assumed I have a violent aversion to the sight of Romance languages in my Inbox.

Gracias, Enterprise!

Clichés can come true, part II

This morning I saw a man drop his knapsack while crossing Yonge St. It split open upon impact, and out came a flurry of white paper that proceeded to scatter across the street and into the air like a flock of rebellious geese. Passersby tried catching them and herding them back to their owner, who was grabbing the nearest pages and stuffing them back in his bag while wearing the silliest, shit-eatingest grin imaginable.

I like to think they are all out there chasing them still. (I was too busy being amused to actually stop and help.)

AWOT advances

The advance reading copy of the PFN* just landed on my desk, thanks to the incomparable Sarah D.

This, for those not in the know, is the version that some reviewers will lacerate review from.

Here 'tis:



Actually, that shot doesn't really do justice to my feelings about it. Second try:



That's better.

So... should I start my Giller neglect whining now or wait until next November? I'm new to all this.



* Promising First Novel. Soon to be PBUDFN (Promising But Ultimately Disappointing First Novel).

Dear Santa

I've been so very good this year...

Connie Lunchbox

Conrad Black, taking stock of his current situation, attempts the vernacular:

And even as Black admits he's vexed over why Canadians "seem so obsessed with Barbara and me," he said of his battle against the U.S. government: "It's like I'm wearing a home (hockey) sweater in an opposing arena."

More Martin

Shaun Smith on the Steve Martin memoir:

The paradox of Martin's success was that his everyman appeal was built on analytical coldness. Unfortunately, that frost carries over into this memoir.

While Martin provides a fascinating analysis of his technical development in Born Standing Up, he provides precious little direct insight into his own persona. Why was he capable of so successfully exploiting his ability to stand outside a subject (i.e.: comedy) and look at it sideways? Why could he not now bring that same faculty to bear on his own character?

I read the book in fan-boy mode and was thus happy for scraps, but I was always aware that what was provided was just scraps.

The last 30 or so pages also seemed in a mad rush to wrap everything up and get out.

Fun with cultural stereotypes

From Robert Priest's account of his trip to St. John's in Now magazine:

This just wouldn't happen in Toronto, I marvel to myself. The literati wouldn't dream of reciting aloud at a party...

And thank god for that. Literary parties are bad enough as it is.

I can't wait for Priest's reports from Vancouver:

No one back in Uptightville, Ontario, would dream of breaking off in the middle of a meeting to smoke a doobie and go kayaking...

Out of time

The clock is out of whack on Blogger – I don't actually post things at four in the morning.

I'm not that pathetic...

Kids say the darndest things (about their dead siblings)

I understand why journalists do these kinds of things, but is anyone else creeped out reading this story from The Globe and Mail?:

WINNIPEG — The little girl shuffled through the snow until her progress was halted by the line of yellow police tape flapping in the wind. Barely four feet tall, she shivered in the cold, her hands hidden inside the dangling arms of her winter coat.

She stared up at the blackened shell of the burned-out house, smoke still rising from what remained of its roof. She said her name was N'Tasha, and she was 11 years old. She wasn't supposed to be there, but she wanted to see the house where her brother, 14-year-old Nathan Starr, was killed yesterday morning.

[...]

"Was my brother trapped on the third floor?" N'Tasha asked, her voice even and her eyes wide. A few moments passed and she shuffled to the other side of the crime scene to get a better look. She said she woke up around 4 a.m. yesterday and found her father speaking to police in her living room.

"It was heartbreaking," she said. "When I watched the news they said he was in something condition."

Critical?

"Yeah, critical. But then he died."

She continued to stare at the house, where even the snow around it had turned to a black sludge. Every few minutes a new question emerged.

"How did Nathan get stuck in that room? Do you know where the fire started?" she asked.

"I wonder which window they escaped from? Not any on the third floor."

She's a grieving little girl, for fuck's sake, not Little Nell...

More Pullman

Dan Smith, the potty-mouthed books editor at the Toronto Star, wrote a short piece in the paper this weekend on the Philip Pullman fooferaw. Here's the main bit (it's not online):

In our practising Catholic household, The Golden Compass remains a treasured read. It spurs kids to think and question. Good. That’s what great books are for.