Of course, we were let out of the basement to put in our volunteer hours. The big project these days is construction of the “Descant Wellness Centre and Retreat for Writers” up in Owen Sound. What with the government grant from the ministry of the environment we’ve had to construct the entire complex from dung. All of us novices have been running around the country collecting dung from “CanLit Heroes”. I had to head out west. Luckily Douglas Coupland has been saving his dung for decades so I had enough from my first stop.

That lucky turn of events meant I got to work on the secret project next. (All I can tell you is that you won’t have to put up with Zach Werner for much longer. Soon enough it will be safe to turn on the television. Soon enough.)

Back at the training, we were memorizing useful CanLit critical plaudits — “evocatively sparse”, “breathtakingly sparse”, “Tom Thompsonly sparse”- and putdowns — “fun,” “lively”, “entertaining.” I got to make a speech denouncing both the Americanization of Celine Dion and the Celine Dionizaton of America. But I lost to “Northrope Frye’s Influence on Michel Foucault and the Canadianization of Deconstructive Post-Colonial Post-Modernism”- because I didn’t have enough references to the Trailer Park Boys (everybody’s favourite!)

From the winning CanLit Associate’s speech: “Foucault’s Fryeishness is most blisteringly incarnated in Mike Smith’s sparsely evocative incarnation of hegemonic media-saturated phenomenology in the character of “Bubbles” whose sparsely breathtaking incarnation of phenomenologic media-saturated hegemony in the character of “the Green Bastard” deconstructs ideas of ‘fun’ and ‘liveliness’ and ‘entertainment’ while revealing the performative aspects of ‘culture’ in the same way that Tom Thompson’s pine trees tilt left.”

How could I beat that? With my sparsely evocative, “Celine Dion sucks.”

I mean really: great pipes, lousy taste.

I finally got released from the program when I was able to make Katrina Kenison admit one story by Alice Munro was boring — I’d drawn that one from the “Task Toque!” Fun! (Thank goodness I didn’t get “Spend a long weekend with Michael Winter” or “Little Mosque on the Prairie. Defend.” )

So here I am, blogging for Descant! From the shores of Ink Lake outside Owen Sound in the Douglas Coupland Computer Room. I’m just off to have a Mai Tai with Anne Carson in the Émile Nelligan Steam Room. We like to sit across from Anne Michaels and watch her hair get even frizzier in the humidity. Seriously, it’s unbelievable! If Tom Thompson painted birds’ nests! If Stephen Harper’s logic manifested itself as hairstyles! If a hundred monkeys tried to graph a Rheostatics song with soba noodles on the Centre Island Ferris wheel during a hurricane! Fun. You try: “If…!”

Next week: Gord Downie, Barbara Hamilton and John Baird: compliance, deviance and weight loss in Canadian cultural-political cataphoresis.