March 16th, 2008

Also

I have a bad habit of, when I think of a nice line of prose that I would like to use someday, I stick it into whatever I happen to be working on at the moment, even if it doesn’t fit at all. For safekeeping, as it were. I opened a file this week that I haven’t worked on in a year, and found this line floating non-sensically in the middle of some dialogue:

“I feel like a wave in the middle of the sea, that doesn’t know it’s a wave yet, that’s just water and the moon.”

So now it’s *here* for safekeeping, which is only somewhat more appropriate and less random.

In case you care, the reason I am looking at very old files is that…I have no further writing to do on *Once*. I spoke to my editor yesterday–it’s done. Story order, and what stays in, is still to come, but that isn’t typing time and I don’t know what to do with myself, so I’m working on old things, wondering what the hell I was thinking this time 2007.

Maybe *I* don’t know I’m a wave yet.

I’m feeling pretty bizarre, that’s for sure.

Pleased, yes, pleased, I forgot to mention that. Absolutely thrilled, really. But also super bizarre.

Living in the future
RR

March 15th, 2008

One way you might know you’re a grown-up

You think you look most attractive when you also feel you look most like yourself.

This, I believe, will be the author photo on the back of *Once*:

At the top of my lungs
RR

March 14th, 2008

Think about It

Thinking aloud last night with KC, I made the logical hop from feeling

ambivalence–the state of having simultaneous but conflicting feelings or attitudes, such as love and hate, toward some person or thing. ambivalent (ambi- in two ways + valere to be worth)

to

valence–the quality of an atom…that determines the number of other atoms…with which it can combine… -valent combining form having (a given number of) valent forms: monovalent, trivalent

So when you are ambivalent about an idea or an atom or a person, you don’t know whether you can bond with it or not…genius!!

Oh, English language, how much do I love you? Sometimes I feel like I should write a little tribute to my love, but since I would have to use words to write that tribute, it seems a little tacky, like borrowing someone’s credit card to buy them a present. I have so many really serious problems.

When violins aren’t so out of tune
RR

March 11th, 2008

Scene 2

Two gents walk into the grocery store. They are wearing extremely nice suits, long overcoats flapping open. One is gangly and 6’3″-ish, one is about 5’8″, but both are strikingly attractive in that so-clean-as-to-look-wet, just-shaved-in-the-parking-lot way. They are somewhere in the low end of the twenties.

A lot of time is spent selecting baskets, which they swing Mary-Had-a-Little-Lamb style every time I encounter them in the aisles. I hear them talking loudly about how much they like spareribs and which kinds are best, but they don’t seem to know what they are looking for or to be putting much in their baskets. I see the tall one bounce off a display of cakes, basket swinging, overcoat flopping.

Rarely have such ingenuously heterosexual males been spotted shopping for supplies together. They walk so far apart they block a whole aisle, which they apologize for and attempt to cluster up, but it doesn’t work. Their shoulders are too wide, they talk to loudly, where will they swing the baskets? They wind up with about four items scrupulously divided and rattling around in the bottoms.

What can have brought about this state of affairs? Outword Bound corporate training program? Brothers evicted from parental home? Some sort of double-date doomed to ptomaine poisoning?

I lose them in frozen foods and go to check out. I am at register by myself in the otherwise crowded checkout area when the tall one passes by, basket swinging, probably dinging his canned crescent rolls. He walks towards my line, stops. He sees it is the shortest line, but he doesn’t join it. He stares nervously, watching me hand over my credit card. Is he checking me out? I *am* wearing cool tights. But nevermind, he’s at the *very* low end of the twenties. Pocket creditcard and receipt, gather bags.

As I retreat from the cashier, I sense tallboy advancing. He leans over the conveyor belt and speaks quietly and urgently to the cashier. As I leave the store, I hear over the PA system: “If there is a ‘Drew’ in the store, could he please report to the customer service desk? That’s DREW, please report to…”

RR

March 10th, 2008

Scenic

Standing at the bus stop, kicking a frozen snowdrift, talking about how much everything sucks.

D: So you wanna stand here and wait or you wanna walk?
Me: Walk!
(we start walking single-file, D in the lead)
D: I wasn’t sure if you’d want to walk through all the snow…
(sidewalks unploughed since Saturday’s blitz)
Me: This will be hilarious, and end in tears.
D: As long as we get both!
(walk for some time, talk about cartoons. Arrive at massive snow mountain in middle of sidewalk, constructed by snowplough. Toronto officially hates pedestrians. D climbs mountain, begins descending other side. I climb halfway, teeter sideways, half collapse in snow, right myself, climb to top. Descent looks far steeper than ascent)
Me: This is where it ends?
D (turning to look) Ends?
Me: It’s over.
D: As in, the end of you?
Me; Yes!
D: Death?
Me: Yes.
D: The drapes go or I do?
Me: Oscar Wilde!
D: Do you want a hand?
Me: Yes!

Reading Alert

I am a quite minor part of this even–an “opener” really. But judging by the last Exile Launch that I attended, those folks throw a good party. Not everyone needs more midweek poetry, but if you do, consider coming out on March 25 to the Exile Quarterly / Exile Editions launch party, to hear some jazz, some Gwendolyn MacEwen, and some bits of story by me that will appear in Exile 31.4!

Talking to all your little pets
RR

March 6th, 2008

Peterborough Panel Post-Mortem

Though I did have to get up at 5 in order to be at the bus station by 6:15 in order to hang around for half an hour to get the 6:45 bus, the trek out was sadly without incident. I read a bit, took a nap, avoided eye contact with the guy who was talking to no one. When I arrived I was under instructions to take a taxi to Trent, for which I’d be reimbursed. I was dreading this, because I am afraid of taxis (I am not even embarrassed about this phobia. I really don’t know more people don’t have it–you spend your whole formative period being told that if you get into a stranger’s car, they will kill you in a disgusting manner, only to later be told that it’s ok if you give them money.)

But then I saw a lovely city bus that helpfully said “Trent” right on it. When I got on, there was Nine Inch Nails playing on a little stereo under the driver’s seat, and when I didn’t have the right change, the much-pierced driver said not to worry about it.

Peterborough is awfully awfully pretty. I’ve already forgotten the name of the river there, but it’s gorgeous. The campus is nice, too–a few strange fan-shaped buildings, and rather sprawling (the bus drove for a long time on-campus before we got the library) but it has a bridge *right over the river*. Between classes, the bridge crowds up like a school hallway, only more scenic.

I hung around the library for the morning, got given all the coffee and fruit I could handle (I won a bonus cup in roll-up-the-rim-to-win! This post hasn’t even reached noon or any literature yet! I am going to focus!) and a room with a view to read and write in. Then there was lunch, which was good even though I couldn’t really identify what kind of sandwich I had. It had some sort of fish in it. (Focussing=failure.)

The panel *was* intimidating*, but in a good way. The other participants had done this sort of thing before—several of them are profs and do it all the time—and they seemed able to formulate complete thesis statements on the fly. The conversation seemed to me remarkably cogent and focussed, mainly about the role of writers outside of writing fiction and poetry. Thus, we talked a lot about teaching and learning, which I felt qualified to talk about at least a little, and a lot about critics and “public intellectuals, which is something that intimidates me greatly. I always *mean* to figure out how I could usefully review and criticize (two different things, I’m pretty sure) but I really haven’t yet. The discussion gave me some ideas.

*Shut Up He Explained* is nearly 400 pages, and it’s quite wide-ranging, so a lot of the things that hit me hardest–how a writer transubstantiates fact into fiction, and how artistry operates on a sentence level–didn’t get covered. Maybe there will be another panel?

Then there was coffee and chatter, and I was most relieved that it was over and I hadn’t said anything horrid (though I felt a bit guilty for having introduced the phrase “the joy of the text” to the discussion—surely I could’ve thought of a less lame way to convey that). Some of the writers went to another writer’s house for drinks and classy snacks, including something that, though I ate a lot of it, could really have been anything. Italian antipasto, but with corn? Salsa, only sweet? Some sort of chutney? Why am I still *on* about the food?

In this more informal discussion, I was still pretty bug-eyed and silent, but I asked enough questions (“Wait, *who* did he punch?” “Is that person dead?”) to follow the flow. As illuminating as the first, really.

Then there was an early dinner, because apparently if you are in PTBO on a Tuesday, you either have leave by 7:30 or sleep there. I will restrain myself from describing that meal (curry!) Everyone refrained from rolling their eyes when I said the day had been “a wonderful experience” (worse than “the joy of the text”) and I got on the Greyhound and went home in the blizzard. When I got here, there was lightning in the snow.

It really *was* a wonderful experience, though, is the thing.

What is this love
RR

March 4th, 2008

Fair’s Fair

1. What was the last Canadian book you recall reading?

Diana: A Diary in the Second Person by Russell Smith

2. Where did you find out about it, and where do you find out about Canadian books to read in general, if in fact you do?

I found out it was available again when the This Is Not a Reading Series launch was announced, but there’s been rumours about this book for years. That’s atypical, though—in general, I read on recommendation–I don’t listen to every recommendation, but nor do I very often read without when.

3. Where did you get the book, and where do get Canadian books in general, if in fact you do?

I bought that book at the launch, as I wont to do if I go to a launch, but that’s not that often. In general, I read books from the library or receive them as gifts. If I want to make a point of buying a particular book, I often order direct from the publisher.

4. Who is your favourite Canadian author? Bonus points–Why?

This is a fairly inane question, I know, I know–depends on the day, the genre, the mood. But it does give an idea when I say Munro, Pyper, Smith, Atwood, Rooke, Lyon, Copeland, doesn’t it?

A thousand different voices,
RR

PS–I’m using these answers to try to pull together something coherent to say at a CanLit-y panel tomorrow. When in doubt, ask your friends!!

March 3rd, 2008

CanLit Queries

If you felt like answering some or all of these quicky queries about CanLit, it would really be helpful, and interesting, to me!

1. What was the last Canadian book you recall reading?
2. Where did you find out about it, and where do you find out about Canadian books to read in general, if in fact you do?
3. Where did you get the book, and where do get Canadian books in general, if in fact you do?
4. Who is your favourite Canadian author? Bonus points–Why?

Thanks!

RR

March 1st, 2008

“Naturally Unpopular”

“Auchincloss was a disaster from the start. He had no friends. He was a failure both as an athlete and a scholar, but, more than that, he was, as he later put it, ‘naturally unpopular,’ possessing that indefinable but unmistakable quality that signals to his peers that a boy is to be ostracized and tormented. He was sneered at, called Rebecca for the Jewish appearance of his nose, kicked and shoved.”
–From “East Side Story” by Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker February 25, 2008