Gadzooks!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 , 4:08 AM
Apologies for being out of touch here and in my e-mail correspondence. I’m into the last crazybusy stretch of my stay in Toronto.
Thanks very much to everyone who’s expressed support for my book launch tomorrow (details below), including the good folks at the online magazine Gadzooks, who just posted an article about me.
(One small correction: I’m a writer for The Strategic Coach, not a graphic designer.)
Canadian book launch!
Thursday, June 22, 2006 , 4:55 PM
Please come along on Wednesday, 28 June to the Canadian launch of my third novel, Idea in Stone — a magical realist tale that stretches from Canada to Scotland.
You’ll hear two short readings from the book along with fun tunes played by some talented local musicians.
Where is the launch?
It’s Not a Deli
986 Queen Street West
M6J 1H1
(416) 532-4748
Click for Google map.
It’s Not a Deli is a cool gallery/restaurant on Queen West, and we’ll have the place to ourselves. It’s also air-conditioned — ahh!
When is it?
Wednesday, 28 June.
Doors open at 7:30 for an 8:30 start.
How much does it cost to get in?
Nothing! It’s free. And there will be a draw for a copy of the novel and some handmade hardcover journals.
~
You can get your copy of this independent, hand-bound novel three different ways:
— Order a copy at the event.
— Order online.
— Or you can download the free e-book (see the link below).
For more information or to download the book, visit this page.
Between two worlds.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 , 3:29 AM
I’m sitting on a GoTrain, which is part of a rail network that serves areas outlying Toronto. I’m not sure how far out it goes — and, to be honest, don’t care. It’s been a grim experience so far, waiting in the beige-tiled bowels of Union Station while people pressed around me or ran, while I waited to see which of the ill-marked platforms my train would be leaving from.
I couldn’t do this every day. I’m grateful I don’t have to.
I’m headed out to see my friend Robert at his restaurant in Milton, Ontario. (Well, I won’t be by the time I post this.)
I’m into the “work during the day and visit everyone at night” phase of my trip. Last night I had a beer with Margaux on a patio then rushed home to pick up books to deliver to Isaac and Gretel. I had a nice catch-up with them in their DIY project house, where they live with their two little ones, who are six years old and three months old.
Tristan, the six-year-old, came into the living room at one point, crying because he couldn’t find his bear, stark bollock naked. I envied him, because there’s nothing I’d like more right now than to be without my clothes. I hate this clinging heat and the way I can always smell my hot mammalness, no matter how recently I’ve showered.
There’s a woman sitting across from me. Her knees are a hair away from touching mine. In this weather, I don’t want to touch anyone. I wouldn’t even for a good reason.
But it’s not bad, despite the way I’ve made it sound. Yes, the heat sucks, but being here is proving to have a good effect on me.
One thing I hadn’t counted on, strangely, was the effect of being in The Strategic Coach’s workshops. I’d been thinking of them just in terms of work, but they also happen to be workshops. There’s a kind of thinking and work available there that just doesn’t happen out in the world at large. I’m good at thinking and planning, but I realise that lately I’ve been feeling fragmented and overwhelmed, and all the pressure I was putting on myself wasn’t helping me get any more done.
(My feet are on tiptoe, ’cause I’m balancing my messenger bag on my knees to use it as a desk, but my legs are starting to shake. But if I put my feet flat, I fear I’ll touch and meld into the woman opposite, whose outfit makes her resemble a dollop of lemon curd.
The workshops have given me an appreciation of what I’ve done since my last visit (learnt a whole new form of bookbinding, travelled to Italy, started my own micro-press, published a book), and this perspective fills me with confidence and pride. I’m also getting more and more ideas each day I’m in that environment about what I can do to simplify things for myself and advance my projects.
I guess where I’m getting to, gradually, is the feeling that it’s appropriate and right to be here. There’s no life I’m missing out on; this is my life, this tri-located existence. As Patrick suggested the other day in a comment, I suppose it’s a gift, getting to experience and live in three different places.
I know a lot of exceedingly cool and gifted people in Toronto, both within and without The Coach, and they’re giving me directional bumps and sparks of thought that make this trip a contribution to my progress, not a detriment.
In short: nothing’s wrong.
Although I spoke to a client of ours from Glasgow this morning, and we shared a pang of homesickness.
~
The meal at Robert’s restaurant, The Harrop House, was excellent, as always. Conversation with him was, as always, a reminder to play a big, heart-filled game, and to remember that it is a game.
Easy Sunday.
Monday, June 19, 2006 , 3:33 AM
Well that was an easy day.
Very little ended up happening this weekend. I needed to get some things, and wound up doing lots of walking back and forth across this big city in shoes that, while ethical in their materials and the labour used to make them, were admittedly cruel to my feet.
In my walks, I noticed another thing about Toronto: In Scotland, I’m struck by the religious role that football plays in many people’s lives. “It’s not like that in Canada, not even with its equivalent, hockey,” I say.
The World Cup and the Stanley Cup are on right now, and that statement is proving ludicrously wrong over and over.
Everyone in Canada is a hyphen-something, so the last few days all the Portuguese-Canadians and Brasilian-Canadians and whatever-Canadians have been driving around in cars, honking their horns, hanging out windows with big flags, and cheering to each other. The sheer numbers of team jerseys is staggering: just yesterday I saw a couple in their little patch of front yard, him watering the plants, her kneeling down and weeding the garden, both of them wearing red jerseys.
And last night I sat on the couch with Alvaro, drinking beer and watching the Edmonton Oilers play. (“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-baaaah” — the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme played, which, when I was a kid, always meant that TV was ruined for the evening, as Dad would be watching the game.)
Hockey is so brutal, though. Less than twenty minutes in, they replayed some of the “best plays of the evening”, which consisted mainly of body-checks into the boards, each one a bone-jarring car-wreck between two cavemen. Then there are the out-and-out fistfights, which get people a few minutes out of the game.
The red card moments in football seem so mild in comparison, and the footwork and acrobatics so elegant.
I’ll say no more than that (because it gets enough attention already), except that the landscape of Toronto is altered at the moment by football.
~
This evening, Gary and Cindy came by (Lisa knows Gary from the cater-waiter/actor world, and Cindy directed Lisa’s show for last summer’s Toronto Fringe, and it directing it again this summer). Lisa, Alvaro, them, and I all sat in the backyard under a canopy of trees and barbequed our dinner. The conversation was quick, light, and lots of fun, and time in the backyard like that — it feels now like I spent the weekend at a cottage. I expected to be busier this weekend, but delivering the books I brought didn’t happen, so I wound up actually having a weekend, which was probably necessary, given the level of presence and concentration I’ll need for the time ahead.
So it’s time for bed. It’s a schoolnight: I’m going into the office tomorrow.
Note: Apologies if I’m slow in responding to e-mails or don’t manage to this week: the internet service providers here are fascistic about allowing outgoing mail routed through any servers but theirs. So I’m able to pick up e-mail, but am having trouble sending it.
Lots of heat, a bit of light.
Saturday, June 17, 2006 , 9:24 PM
Patrick and I got up about 4:30 yesterday morning so he could drive me to the airport. With this gesture, he put all the beads on our friendship tally-board over to my side.
I had a long wait, then a long flight, but it was all straightforward, and I’m accustomed to this now. I had movies on my Pocket PC and books, and a head full of tired. My big bag even tumbled out of the luggage gumball machine promptly after I got through customs.
Lisa and Alvaro met me and we went out to their big family wagon (or, theatre wagon, since the garbage can prop from her show was in the back).
“So are you happy to be here?” asked Lisa.
“Um,” I replied. In the Glasgow airport, I’d re-read a few old e-mails from when I first arrived in Edinburgh and was discovering it, and got choked up. Homesick before even leaving!
We went to their house and sat around catching up. It was cool inside, which was thankful (though now I’m sitting in an coffeeshop/travel agent/internet hotspot and I can feel sweat running down my back). Alvaro made us his amazing patatas bravas. I brought up the idea of going to Spain with them next year, and they were into that (the hearing of which will please my mum no end, as this is what she’s got in mind for our next big trip).
Alvaro had a football game on and Lisa had a catering shift, so I left and walked into town.
People in Scotland often say, “Ach, you lived in Toronto, why would you move here?” To this, I normally reply that Toronto is like a giant mall, whereas Edinburgh is full of history, etc etc.
But on the flight over I’d been reading a report about Britain changing into a country of “clone towns”, and it was undeniably familiar. How many small towns had I been through in Scotland where the same giants had passed through dropping their shop-spoor behind them — Tesco, Boots, Iceland, mobile shops — the same shops you see everywhere else.
And here I was, walking along Queen Street in Toronto, and before I reached the huge commercial centre, I passed by block after block after block of tiny, original boutique stores and art galleries and restaurants and coffeeshops.
Things are not so simple.
It’s the one thing I miss the most in Edinburgh: the independent culture. This morning I saw a copy ofToronto Life magazine. And it’s true: Toronto has a life. Living here is a lifestyle. I tried to picture Edinburgh Life, and laughed. There’s culture there, but it’s hard-won and it often doesn’t survive for long.
And I’m not talking about the Fringe Festival or the Edinburgh Book Festival, because these are not readily open to locals, except as consumers.
I’m convinced, though, that the place is ripe for a renaissance.
~
I forgot my Toronto SIM card in Edinburgh, so I had to buy a new one to get my phone working here. If you need to get in touch with me in the next two weeks, this is the number to use:
647-285-0888
So I did that, and since Rogers is giving me a month of free text messages (don’t they realise that this is the primary mode of communication in the UK?), I sent a mass message to everyone whose mobile number I had.
I met Cosgrove, Eric, and their friends Kevin and PJ at a silly gay bar called “Mask” (with a giant flouncy Phantom/Venetian mask on the back wall). It was good to see them, though familiar and unsurprising — very comfortable.
PJ has invited me to visit him at his work in the Robarts Library — a giant concrete peacock, a horror-bird gifted to posterity by the age of Brutalism. He works in the neck, which was apparently the inspiration for the library in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, since Eco taught at the University of Toronto at the time.
There was a specific reason PJ extended the invitation: the archives are currently taking care of a first folio of Shakespeare’s work!
I will find a way to get there.
There’s something at work here thematically: I’ve been reading a wonderful book called 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Then Shakespeare in Love was on telly the other night. Now this.
You gotta follow these things when they show up.
From that bar, I went with Mark to Woody’s, that old standard, bumping into Bert along the way.
Then I bumped into Martin, a school principal who was very supportive of the play Mark and I did here, then of my first book.
We met up at the bar with Mark’s friend Joe. Then I got a response to my text message: Jordan! He came down with a visiting friend of his, and we all had a couple of pints together.
During all this, a drag show started (just to round out the feeling that I’d stepped into a gay theme park), and partway-through it stopped for a speech from the leader of the New Democratic Party, Jack Layton. It was a bit surreal.
I stepped out for a slice of pizza from my favourite place a few doors down, where they make the most wonderful cheesy cardboard. On my way back to the bar, I bumped into Sean Parker, whose past and mine are tangled together.
So all in all, the day had a reunion quality to it, like I was a guest character returning to a show. I was also reminded of what’s great about Toronto’s spirit. I know comparisons are specious, but they’re inevitable.
I waited at a junction (“intersection” here) and snapped a shot of the city with my phone. I’ll see if I can upload it here. Then I caught the streetcar home (which cost a swindling $2.75; at that price, I don’t consider it public transit anymore).
At home, I had a shower to cool down, and I had a big, deep sleep in the guest room, with a fan whirling overhead.
This morning, Lisa made us waffles and we talked more about a plan she had in mind: a book launch. She likened it to her wedding, saying that she realised after their small event here in January that other people have a right to be involved in your life. None of my Toronto community has had a chance to be involved with the launch of my book, so she started sewing together her ideas for an event, which sound great.
The trick for me is to choose to be here, since I’m here. But something like this would make this trip feel like part of the evolution of things, rather than an interruption.
The X-less Factor.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 , 9:39 PM
Here’s a conversation I had today by e-mail with my friend Margaux. She’s brilliant and demented.
It’s not safe for work, but by now your office’s cussword filter has already picked that up and reported you.
~
Margaux:
I watched X-Men last weekend (again) and I keep wondering about the shitty mutant powers that are of no use to anyone, including the person who has them.
Sure there are the laser beams shooting out the eyes, and the ability to heal instantaneously, or — ew — to expel bits of your body in the form of spikes conveniently through your median antibrachial veins (or at least, that’s where it looked like they were coming from) for immediately throwing at your enemies.
But is there a mutant gene that, say, makes a person aware of all the fauna living on the surface of their body, or gives a person the ability to know where the ISS is in orbit at all times, or to detect possum pheromones in a 3km radius? I mean completely useless mutant powers. Evolutionary theory says there must be.
I’m kinda intrigued by the useless powers.
~
Me:
I guess the boring mutants must do the admin work at Professor Xavier’s school.
Oh wait, maybe they’re not welcome. I remember several establishing shots in the movies that called it “Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted”.
===
INTERIOR, OFFICE. DAY. We see PROFESSOR XAVIER and a young STUDENT.
XAVIER: I’m sorry, Stevie, but you’re not gifted.
STUDENT: But, Professor, I don’t have anywhere to go! You were my last hope.
XAVIER: Yes, well, if I took in every child who felt a little different, or had a magical wart or bad dreams or whateverfuckingshit, I’d soon spend my fortune of unknown origin, wouldn’t I?
STUDENT: But I–
XAVIER: Don’t make me mind-blast you. Get a job. Move to Mexico. I don’t care.
PPCP Syndrome.
Monday, June 12, 2006 , 10:10 PM
Friday night, I went for drinks with Liz and Patrick. They admitted that they’d had a conversation about me. Apparently they’ve noticed something about me I hadn’t noticed about myself. They even came up with a name for it: PPCP.
Pre- and Post-Canada Preoccupation.
Just before I go to Canada, like now, I become distracted. When I come back, I’m a bit low.
Hm.
True enough: I’ve been flitting about like a moth lately, trying to catch up with friends before I leave, feeling like there’s no point starting anything new.
It’s weird, this dual life.
So I’m making books, ’cause the British Library requested archival copies, and ’cause I want to have a spare one in Canada but I keep needing just one more for something else.
E-book of the month.
Thursday, June 08, 2006 , 5:02 PM
Wahey! The Willies is one of ManyBooks.net‘s Books of the Month. It’s had around 250 downloads.
Now we’ll see if people actually get around to reading it
All my novels are available from the site, whose developer has formatted them for every sort of e-book-reading device, including iPods.
~
I dropped off ten copies of Idea in Stone at the Ottakar’s in the Cameron Toll mall today. So you can buy it there now (for anyone who’s just dying for a copy while I’m in Canada, away from my press equipment).
Then I did my day’s work in their sad wee food court.
~
I had dinner last night with Darling Anita in her new flat. We ate a lovely meal she made and geeked out on back episodes of Doctor Who. She also raised my confidence alot about the idea of moving in the autumn, pointing out the plethora of flatmate websites, and giving me a pleasant shock by telling me how very much less she pays a month in rent than I do.
So, as they used to say, “Dum spiro, spero”.
Weekending.
Sunday, June 04, 2006 , 10:56 AM
I went to the beach.
Patrick, Liz, Justin, Karen, and I went to Coldingham yesterday and went to the beach. We drove through the countryside — from Scotland to England, ’cause it’s that small here — where we set out a blanket, barbequed food, played with other people’s dogs, and built sand-castles.
It was exactly what I should have been doing yesterday afternoon, being out in the sun, in nature, with friends. Some activities are so simple and wholesome that I’m convinced they negate stress, overthinking, and bad karma.
In the evening, Patrick and I were to meet some friends of his in Glasgow, but our plans fell apart, so he and I went anyway. We had a pint in a pub, one of endless pubs in the city I never would have found on my own, then we went for a walk. We chatted as we passed by its range of buildings, from ornate old sandstone fascades to brutalist 1970s concrete slabs.
At one point, our walk took us along the Clyde River. Yes, the water had a faint smell, and even in the dark we could see things in it, but we enjoyed the views nonetheless, following the bank from the polished edge of the city centre to aging concrete paths from some time ago, where a pair of hulking rusted winches marked some aspect or another of Glasgow’s industrial past.
We looked across the water at a series of ultra-modern waterfront developments — two pyramids, two rectangular blocks, a giant Bic lighter, and a suspension bridge which was held up by a giant white arc curving impossibly from one side of the bridge to the other.
It occurred to me during the evening that I’ve known Patrick for five years now, and 23 to 28 is a significant period of development; he’s a different person in many respects to the one I met. Yet here we were, walking along the river, then through a derelict, spray-painted concrete bit of Glasgow back to his car, still having no end of things to talk about.
I’m going back to Glasgow this afternoon to meet my relatives John and Rosemary and go to our favourite restaurant there, the Ali Shan, where the owners will ply us with booze and give us plates and plates of tasty food.
Ack! Just two weeks until I go away. I feel the pressure to get my life completely in order.
Architect of Doom
Thursday, June 01, 2006 , 8:23 PM
Here’s the first scene from a short story I’m working on:
<
p>===
Reginald Thornybauk looked up at the building he’d designed. It stood tall and solid against the grey-white Scottish sky. The narrow sides featured coloured patches, like a pair of trainers or a dazzle-painted boat from the time before radar was invented. His eyes followed the patterns up to the top. There, from the roof, someone waved at him.
At least, it looked like he was waving. In fact, he was on fire.
The man pitched himself off the roof, and Reg could do nothing but watch him hurtle toward the ground.
Oh no, thought Reg, I’ve done it again.
