Author Archives: Andrew

Being an emerging-writer means you have emerging-writer-friends. No one else understands, so you need them. There’s a danger though. Their books might come out before yours. Smile. Breathe. Remind yourself it’s not a race.

Two of my emerging-writer-friends have books coming out. I do not have a book coming out. I don’t need to let the second of those facts mar my enthusiasm for the first. Smile. Breathe. Remind myself of the abundance of opportunity, the limitlessness of potential, the thirdthingishness of the thirdconceptthatwillmakethissentencework.

May I encourage you to rush out and pick up a copy of Tricia Dower’s The Silent Girl? It’s full of beautifully crafted stories inspired by female characters from Shakespeare. She takes aspects of the story of Coriolanus’s mother Volumnia into the future in her marvellous eco-sci-fi story “The Snow People”. She transplants aspects of “Taming of the Shrew” into a Eurasian village horse race adventure. The stories are lively and full of careful attention to detail, both in the sensual sights, sounds, smells and tastes of far flung places and the emotional reality of the women living there. You’ll be reminded of Alice Munro, when you are not simply caught up in these deeply satisfying tales.

Smile. Breathe. Remind yourself how good your book’s going to be.

May I encourage you to rush to your on-line bookseller to order a copy of Pasha Malla’s The Withdrawal Method? The stories manage to be innovatively quirky and full of substance, both. Two of Pasha’s stories have been selected for Journey Prize Anthologies, but you might be surprised at the range here. He’s a goof. He’s a laugh. He’s a sentimental fool. He’s a wiseass. He’s a nervous wreck. You’ll be reminded of everybody but Alice Munro, when you aren’t simply laughing or crying.

Smile. Breathe. Remind yourself how good your book’s going to be.

It’s such a pleasure to have talented friends. What’s the alternative? To be hanging out with a bunch of losers? No-talent bums? My own book still wouldn’t be out, would it?

May I encourage you, after picking up these great new collections from authors you’ll be hearing much more of, to save some space on your bookshelf for me? I’ll get there. Smile. Breathe. Remind your readers that your novella, “Dead Man’s Wedding” will be published in the summer issue of The Malahat Review.

photo of author and recent Wikipedia entry, George K. Ilsley 

I thought it might be fun to try to edit Wikipedia. (Seriously. Not just constructing prank revenge posts. Like putting pictures of the kids who beat me up in high school into articles about wombat poo.)

Looking up “Canadian Short Story Writers” you got a fairly paltry list. I noticed there were no short story writers beginning with E, I, J, O, P, Q, U, V, X, Y or Z. So I thought I’d start there.

Well Wikipedia already had articles for some very fine short story writers whose names begin with some of those letters:

J           Mark Anthony Jarman 
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Anthony_Jarman
O         Heather O’Neill                       
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_O’Neill
P          Catharine Parr Traill                 
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_Parr_Traill
Q         Andy Quan                              
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Quan
U         Jane Urquhart                          
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Urquhart
V         Guy Vanderhaeghe                  
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Vanderhaeghe
 

It was just a matter of linking to the list.

I did it in about five minutes. It was easy. And fun. And now I’m a Wikipedia Editor. So NOW, if you go to Canadian Short Story Writers, you’ll see Mark Anthony Jarman, Heather O’Neill, Catharine Parr Trail, Andy Quan, Jane Urquhart and Guy Vanderhaeghe on the list. You can thank me. Oh, you’re welcome. Stop it already! I’m blushing.

A little bit harder was the job of adding entries for writers not already recognized with their own Wikipedia page. For example, jumping out at me under the letter “I” was the absence of George K. Illsley. So I whipped up a very brief bio note for this author whom I adore (does that sound gay? Oh well, we’re all gay in this equation. Let’s sound it. Adore on!)

This activity wore me out. I found myself getting really nervous. There were a hundred worrisome thoughts for every decision and a hundred decisions for every sentence. Have I done the references correctly? Is someone going to come along and delete this because I screwed it up? Is George K. himself going to be highly offended by something I added or more likely by something I neglected to mention. It was like it was some course I was going to fail if I wasn’t careful.

But I got it done. Phew.

Now, looking at my first Wikipedia article, George K. Ilsley, I can’t believe it caused such distress and took so long because it’s miniscule. It needs the designation “Stub” (And voila, looking back a little later, that designation is there! Has someone already joined the process, some other citizen-editor, or some Wikiroyalty, or some automatic program algorithm?) I’m sure this will get easier, but for now I’m going to leave it someone else to cover E, X, and Y. How about you?

More Canadians (31%) than Americans (27%) did not read a single book for pleasure this past year, 2007, according to this sexy Ipsos Reid poll. Isn’t that surprising? It just shows the difference between who gets on TV in our countries. In Canada, the smart people are still disproportionally in the public eye, while in America the stupid have left the shadows of their book-free enclaves and have gotten their own talk shows. It’s Rex Murphy vs. Kelly Ripa. It’s George Stroumboulopoulos vs. Debbie Matenopoulos. It’s Wendy Mesley vs. that-guy-who’s-name-I-can’t-think-of-but-you-know-the-one-yeah-that-guy. And I swear, I just drew those names at random from the two hats I keep around the house containing the names of Canadian and American television personalities on little strips of paper. Dear America, what’s the use of having less dumb people if you put them in charge?

But more importantly, by region, the Canadians most likely to read a book are located on the coasts. Why is that? Is it the ocean? Does access to the ocean slow down the pace of life to allow for things like reading for pleasure? I know I always bring a book to the beach. Do coastal Canadians bring a book to their life? (I want some of that! Should I fill my bathtub with saltwater? Play beluga albums? Fling fish about the house?) Or is it that in least one direction there’s nowhere to go? I mean, here in Ontario, I can run around in circles and frequently do. Or is it (East coast) to get away from that horrible music? Men of the Deep, Rita MacNeil, Great Big Sea- um, sorry, I’m going home to read “The Secret”. (Apparently, there are no west coast musicians.) Or is it (West coast) to get away from Bruce Allen? Bruce Allen- um, sorry, I’m going home to read “Eat, Pray, Love”. (Apparently, there are no east coast Bruce Allens.)

But more importantly, why are Canadians reading “The Secret” and “Eat, Pray, Love” ? These shouldn’t even count as reading ‘a book’ I’d call up Ipsos to complain, but I don’t want to lower our scores any further. Dear Ippi, never mind.

I’d put a list of Best Canadian Books of the Year in this spot, but nobody’s made such a list yet *. Check out all the newspapers. All the newspapers in Canada. They’ll tell you whether “The Bourne Ultimatum” made their number four or number seven spot for Best Film of the year, but nobody’s writing about books these days. I guess that makes sense since nobody’s reading them. Maybe those bookwormy Americans have a list. Oh here’s one- thank goodness for The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2007. And among their 50 ‘fiction and poetry’ choices, there’s even a Canadian one- Alice Munro! Who else? If Philip Marchand is right and this was the year of the marketing of Canadian Literature , then somebody needs a spanking. Why are we marketing to ourselves? Haven’t we heard? We don’t read! Let’s get the Americans buying our books. There’s more of them. By percentage and by actual numbers. If  73% of Americans read at least one book a year, lets have it be one of ours. Tell Yann Martel to stop sending those books to Harper. Send them to Bush. Laura, I mean. She used to be a librarian. As you can see from the link, there’s a whole bunch of stuff about books on the White House website. And that’s where I’ll stop because I’m crying.

*Just prior to posting this deeply troubled screed I noticed my fellow Descant blogger Kerry Clare (a much smarter Descant blogger- according to Ipsos Reid and people that know me) had drummed up a list from the Globe and Mail. Damn! I thought. Damn! And I’d googled for minutes and hadn’t found a thing. What’s wrong with me? Did I misspell buks again? But then I clicked on her link and ta-da, it’s a you-must-pay-to-read-past-the-first-few-sentences kind of thing. Nice: that the New York Times gives out their book list for free! Sad: that in the year of marketing Canadian Literature a person can’t get help with a helpful list after googling for minutes and minute. That spanking (see above) is looking more and more essential.

Is your house like mine? Somebody always yelling ‘who wants Canadian Literature?’ and the rest jumping up and down screaming ‘I do! I do!’ until someone flings a first edition of “Roughing it in the Bush” at your head? (see photo: “Roughing it in the Bush” by Susanna Moodie, first edition. approx. $800) Given this expertise and the coming of Winter Solstice, I offer a brief and staggering guide of what to get whom. I take my ‘whoms’ from the Ohio Literacy Resource Center’s helpful webpage, “Working With Difficult People”.

First up: “Bobby the Bully”. Now this guy/gal doesn’t read much, but he/she does like to intimidate, so I suggest leather-bound versions of “Lyre of Orpheus” and “Murther and Walking Spirits” (also quite flingable at heads, see above) from KLS Books. Davies is the only Canadian they have bothered to bind in leather, which is no comment on how Mr. Davies used to spend his Saturday nights. Although in the recently released DVD version of “Cruising” I noticed someone just behind Al Pacino’s left shoulder in the second nightclub scene with a big white beard making a pun about Jung’s essay on Euripides. I’m just saying.

Second: “Know it All Izzy”. Now this guy/gal will be offended by whatever you buy because it implies he/she didn’t already know that. I suggest appealing to their desire to stock up on factoids with a subscription to a Canadian Periodical. Magazines Canada lists over ten Canadian Magazines, including “Alberta Views” which purports to being an alternative, independent commentary on social issues and also purports to be from Alberta. Who saw that coming? Also: eight magazines about horses, one about dogs, but none devoted to the moose or the beaver- which smells like an opportunity for some proud Canadian. (If I’m on your list, I’d like a subscription to “Spacing”. And I am not a know-it-all.)

Third: “Agreeable Angel”. Now this guy/gal will claim to love whatever you get them but then will throw it out, unread. So I’d go with something recycled already. Now Raincoast Books is supposedly ancient forest friendly. For example, they got the Canadian edition of the latest Harry Potter and put it out on “ancient-forest-free, chlorine-free, 100% post-consumer recyled paper.” They claim to have saved over 75,000 old trees. Purchase “Anomaly” by Anne Fleming and save another!

Fourth: “Carol the Complainer”. Now this guy/gal won’t like anything. But don’t let that stop you picking something from this year’s Canada Reads contest. Tell Carol he/she can listen along during February’s broadcast and shout down the panelists defending all the other books. I remember one year I hurled the radio out the window shouting, “damn you, Measha Brueggergosman, damn you!” Not because I was mad she championed Alice Munro, because it was such a fun thing to shout. Seriously, try it.

Fifth: “Negative Nonnie”. See above. (What’s with these categories, Ohio Literacy Resource Centre? You folks have a bee in your bonnet about melancholy or something? Perky Americans!)

Sixth: “Quinn the Quiet One”. Now this guy/gal needs encouragement to rock out! Maple Music has gift certificates that can be used to pick up all the Canadian rock you can holler along to…

Seventh: “Sam the Staller”. I would suggest a tiny little note that says, ‘you’ll get your present when you…’ and then write in the task Sam is stalling over. That’s your carrot. For the stick part of the carrot/stick treatment I suggest a stick. The lackadaisical must not be coddled.

According to the Ohio Literacy people, that’s it. There aren’t any other ways of being difficult. So for the others on your list, subscribe to Descant! Tell them I sent you. Tell them, “that Andrew Tibbetts’ blogging is making my life worth living! You really can’t pay him enough” but in your own words. Cheers!

Canada’s (adjective) literary press, House of Anansi, had its 40^th birthday party last weekend as part of the International Festival of Authors– “(adjective)?” I caught myself about to write ‘venerable’ in that first sentence! When did the radicals become the establishment? It was pretty ‘establishment’ at Harbourfront’s Premier Dance Theatre on Saturday. The sold out crowd looked a little ‘United Church of Canada’- ie, lots of grey hair and sweet smiles. Don’t young people read? I guess they do because J.K.R. is filling the Winter Garden later in the week with her wizard outings. But did we lose a generation to video games?

Host Albert Schultz gave a succinct history of Anansi from its innovative hippy origins through its glorious literary achievements. This laudatory flourish seemed to underline the evolution of Anansi’s funky homemade status to cultural iconishness by bestowing a Lincoln-Centre-Celebrates Your-Career-Now-That-Its-Over-and-Safe feel.

However, there was nothing doddering about the readings. Word for word it’s probably the best literary reading I’ve been too in which I wasn’t involved (of course, with the splendidness of me on the bill you’re in another league, but we cannot hold that deficit against them!) They opened with a bang! Margaret Atwood! She’s my favourite reader. If I’m not careful I find myself adopting her matter-of-fact nasal flatness in my own ‘reading voice’(if I’m not channeling William Burroughs, or remembering to be myself.) Her vocal hyper-ordinariness is the perfect foil to her surprising and tough observations. She read from an essay written in the seventies on ‘women’s lib.’ And women writers’ relationship to it. You wouldn’t think such an artifact would stand up today- now that woman make the same amount of money as men, have no trouble rising to the top of any organization, have no fear of any of their rights slipping (or being yanked) away, can walk down any street at any time of day or night without fear, and aren’t seven times more likely to be murdered by their intimate partner or ex-partner than a stranger. But it did. Hold up. It did. The essay. Did I lose you in that long list? Are you still with me? Nutshell: Peggy did good.

Graeme Gibson read a passage of his legendary ‘experimental’ novel “Five Legs.” Excerpted to a shaving scene, it was revealed to be a w.a.s.p.y Canuck Ulysses. I hadn’t noticed that the five other times I wasn’t able to get into it. But he’s Peggy’s hubbie and he wrote a nice bird book. Plus, he’s adorable. He could make a second career out of playing irascible professors-emeritus in CanCin.

Poet Kevin Connolly was superb. Yes, you read that right. A poet was superb at a reading! Nobody had to feign a coughing fit to escape. The poems were moving and delightful. He read them like it was important we understand something (and that something was deliciously surreal.) Not like it was important that we feel like lesser literary lights than the poet. Tell other poets of this approach, please. Spread the word. (Actually, what’s up with poets lately? The poets who read at Descant’s fashion-themed reading were also… there’s only one word for it… entertaining. Did I miss a memo?)

And Roch Carrier popped in to read “The Hockey Sweater”. Can you believe it? Didn’t see that coming! Like a bonus ‘hidden track’ on a cd. He upped Gibson’s adorable factor, too, with his comic melodramatic antics- a little Robert-Munsch-ish. Any why not? That story is our ‘Casey at the Bat’, our (fill in the blank with another sports themed much loved story that has come to define an aspect of a particular culture). He sold it like a vaudeville ham! Fun!

After a break, Elyse Friedman and A.L. Kennedy were so funny and insightful about contemporary living, if there was any worry that Anansi is resting on its laurels and doddering into graceful ‘venerable’ status they were put to rest. They are still publishing new writing that is vibrant and important.

Shani Mootoo- who is a writer I enjoy a lot- read a rather pedestrian section of her new novel. I would not have wanted to follow the one-two punch of Kennedy and Friedman! But someone had to. Albert Schultz went on and on about how much fun it was to say her name, which was kind of creepy. Yes, her name is not standard-white-anglo-saxon-fare like the other authors- can we enjoy without drooling? The weird thing was that her work, on the other hand, sounded like the most standard-white-anglo-saxon-fare of the night- shades of Dickens, Austen or, sigh, Enid Blyton. Over the length of a book that style might work like it did for He Drown She in the Sea, where the new-wine-in-old-bottles-effect had time to resonate.

The evening closed with Jason Collette, who sang a few songs that were completely overwhelmed by his wonderful anecdotal introductions to them (which was good and proper given that this was a literary event!) Do you remember Benny Hill’s hilarious impersonation of Nana Mouskouri where she takes fifteen minutes to introduce a fifteen second song? “This next piece is about a girl who goes to meet her lover by the cinnamon tree only to find that her lover is not there and so she asks the cinnamon tree, ‘cinnamon tree, where is my lover’, and the cinnamon tree does not answer so she…” No? Too bad for you!

Jason Collette was introduced by Stuart Berman, who is writing a book about Broken Social Scene. Again, the old press is not hurting for street cred. In outlining the thesis of his book, Berman manages to incarnate, within a different time and genre, the same spirit of d.i.y. that House of Anansi sprang from forty years ago. It was a wonderfully-full full-circle. (Maybe forty years from now in government subsidized upscale comfy theatre seating with a stage full of expensive leather/chrome furniture and fancy lighting sculptures another grey haired crowd will be reminisced to about early days in dingy digs. The Chartered Accountants of Ontario are happy to support…)

The one thing that would have made the night better: if Pasha Malla had been there to read, like I’d first heard he would be! Rumour has it that he had a social engagement. Isn’t that so Anansi? People before careerism! Life and friends will not be denied! The spirit of love and freedom and anarchy! (But the good and nice Canadian kind of anarchy- not the dour Russian kind, or the bomb wielding Italian kind.) His book’ll be out by Anansi soon enough- so never mind their past and present, even their future looks bright.

Re: “(adjective)”- I think we can keep House of Anansi with the ‘innovative’ and the ‘groundbreaking’ and keep that ‘venerable’ descriptor on hold for awhile (save it for Broken Social Scene’s 40^th!) Can something be an ‘icon’ of ‘iconoclasm’? Yup.

Last Saturday night, Church Street was blocked off from Wellesley to Alexander for Nuit Blanche, Toronto’s “free all-night contemporary art thing”. The gay village section of the city-wide spectacle was supposed to take off on the idea of a red light district under the title “Nightless City.” Frankly, wouldn’t it have been more interesting to put the red light district in the financial centre? Or anywhere else? And to draw any other connection to the gay community than ‘forbidden love’. Contemporary gay people bank, eat, raise children, organize pot luck dinners for their book clubs, etc… In the past, sure, all gay people were prostitutes, but the 80’s are over!

That said: who doesn’t love a red light district? Well, artists, I guess, because there was a distinct lack of sexy fun on display. There still seems to be a lot of contemporary art around Toronto with the emotional range of “Sprockets” .

The traveling acts each had the feel of a dirge. There was a bride carrying a skinned goat up and down the street and there were two men playing some kind of dice game all along the centre line of Church Street (gambling is surely a part of red light districts, but there didn’t seem to be anything at stake in their endlessly sedate marking up of church street with duct tape pluses and minuses- for gambling you need something important on the line- like your mortgage, the money for your kid’s liver transplant, your savings!)

The stationary acts were mostly peep shows in storefronts. At the corner of Church and Alexander people waited outside the window as a tantalizing sign-‘next show at 9:45’- magnetizing the crowd. At 9:48 (LATE!) the ‘show’ itself consisted of a woman from Holland pretending to be Siamese twins. It was a little ‘Rod Hull and Emu on Quaaludes’. The twins wandered around their box for about ten minutes. They couldn’t actually strip or anything because- well, one of them had her hand up the other’s head, etc… And then it was over. The crowd wandered away muttering. In another spot, people in leather were in a cage- or perhaps that was just a regular Saturday night thing. There were some dancers in different spots doing very ordinary looking contemporary dance numbers, but they were on the street, in black and red, so you could tell it was performance art! Several different writers took turns silhouetted against a window- doing some actual writing! I couldn’t wait up for Greg Kearny whose insane column in Xtra I miss very much. One writer appeared to be googling herself instead of writing- which made it more of a performance art piece, I guess. There is something scandalous about googling yourself- come on, you know you do it- and googling yourself in public is at least… revealing.

Are you as bored reading this as I am recalling it? I’m really sorry. Nothing was bad enough to get outraged about. But nothing was exhilarating either.

The three things that held my attention were 1) Greg Seale’s “The Yoshiwara Convergences” (mostly because he had a TV playing Fritz Lang’s Metropolis- which is gorgeous and thrilling in any context!), 2) Misud and Gerson’s archival stripper footage accompanied by live music (there was actually some joy and titillation in the footage, which didn’t seem to know it should adopt the flattened emotional affect of dour German 80’s scenesters, and the piano playing was stellar! But, couldn’t they have wheeled out a real piano instead of the cheesy electronic one?) and 3) Dan Bazuin’s photography and painting on display a few floors above his store “This Ain’t the Rosedale Library” (just because it was beautiful).

I’m sure I missed a lot- although I did walk back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back, until every cell in my body was disappointed. And then, after three hours, I went to a real sex club to have real non-art sex. Next year, if you must have a red light district in the gay village, put Todd Klinck in charge, or somebody whose relation to the sex trade isn’t so abstract.

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.