Matt Cahill's blog
Thanks for visiting my blog, where I talk about writing, publishing and books, with excessive swooning over music and dashes of marginalia. You can read more about me here.
I have a new novel out, called RADIOLAND and you can read more about it here, along with my previous book, THE SOCIETY OF EXPERIENCE, and other works.
So, as I mentioned last month two months ago, I had delivered Book Three to my agent. He has since added it to his fall catalogue, in time for his yearly trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. So, in light of the fact that this is now real and legit, I thought I’d (finally) reveal what Book Three is.
The real title is The Stars Align for Disco Santa.
The synopsis I wrote for the catalogue is as follows:
“Marcus is living the dream. Quite literally, it turns out. One fateful day at his tech startup, he finds a sticky note on his desk containing a cryptic message about his ex-girlfriend that draws him into a labyrinthine quest through chaotic film sets, sailing the violent waves of Lake Ontario on a virus-infected author cruise, destined to land on Monster Island . . . only to discover he’s been working in a stupor as a bookstore employee all this time, under the effects of a powerful medical prototype that has created a life-like inner world for him to experience, a world drawn from his and others’ memories, including his ex-girlfriend, Marta, and his mysterious half-sister, Jocelyn, who happens to be the architect of the experiment.
Evoking the hit Apple TV+ series Severance and reminiscent of Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Stars Align for Disco Santa is a heartfelt satire of misplaced desire and the limits of our control, a fast-paced novel that is as much about family and grief as it is an offbeat joyride through the not-so-funhouse of the psyche, asking the question: What matters?”
The cat is out of the bag now, and I no longer have to use “Book Three” to describe this! I am released!
I honestly don’t know much about this band, but I heard this track playing in a local bar and I was really taken with it. I’m an aficionado of guitar instrumentals, and I looooove what the lead guitarist does with his fills. It’s very delicate and quite beautiful, even if the track carries the markers of its era (60s).
As I’ve done previously, I thought I’d post a list of things I’ve seen in the last while. All of these can be found on major streaming services.
Plan B
Produced for CBC, (streaming locally on Gem) Plan B is a well-made drama with a sci-fi twist. The premise in each season (note: the seasons’ storylines aren’t linked so you don’t need to watch them in order) is the discovery of a phone-in service called Plan B, which — after you submit your payment information — can take you back to an earlier sequence of your life, allowing you to re-live (and re-adjust) your timeline.
The show does a lot without a big budget. It helps that the writing is solid and the premise, rather than being dreamy, often ends up only creating more domestic ethical and moral conundrums for its characters than it solves. This is gritty, grown-up speculative drama (see: Black Mirror, Twilight Zone) that will invite a lot of questions from the viewer about the ways “control” can be addictive to those who are insecure, or indulge our need for justice in ways that goes beyond the grasp of our intent. I found the just-released second season more compelling, but I would recommend the series as a whole.
Time Bandits
I was not particularly interested in watching this, despite multiple critics giving it praises. I’m skeptical of producers taking my childhood memories and rehashing them for the next generation. Discovering that Taika Waititi was behind the series budged the needle a bit. Then there was finding out from my partner, just as I was sitting down to watch it, the controversy over one actor’s on-set experiences during the production of the show. So yes, mixed feelings going in.
While the first episode contains a lot of promise and is definitely the comedically sharpest of what I watched, it’s a case of diminishing returns afterwards. There are some genuine moments of whimsy and satire, and Easter eggs for Python fetishists, but it ends up overly plot-driven with surprisingly little-to-no interest in character development or relationship building. Less surprisingly, Waititi himself is cast but feels inserted just to fill the running time by chewing the scenery. I’ll note that this was made to include a younger viewership, so it’s possible some jokes I thought were basic might land better with children. We stopped after four episodes.
The Lady in the Lake
Based on a novel by Laura Lippman, The Lady in the Lake features Natalie Portman in her first major TV role. The series revolves around two murders in Baltimore in the 60s, the first being a young girl found by the river. This draws-in two narratives from two very different parts of the city. The first is through Portman’s character, a smothered Jewish housewife who is frustrated by the oppressiveness of her social circle and coming to terms with the sacrifices she’s made. The second is by Moses Ingram (who you may recognize from The Queen’s Gambit), a Black single mother who works as a window display model when she’s not making money on the side at the local gambling house.
The lives of the two leads intertwine (albeit in different timelines) as Porter leaves her husband and resentful son, and moves into an apartment in a Black inner-city neighbourhood as she begins a journalistic pursuit of the girl’s murderer. Ingram’s thread is certainly the more propulsive of the two, as she tries to balance municipal political disappointments with supporting her stand-up comedian husband, with everything centred on a nightclub run by a powerful racketeer. There’s a writerly attempt here to draw a parallel between the shared experience of two women oppressed by their circumstances, both of whom must ultimately rely on their persistence and resourcefulness. However, this shared experience can sometimes feel a little like wishful thinking given the fact that there are significant socioeconomic differences between both characters, despite both in their own way paddling up-river in a male-dominated society. Ingram’s stakes are also much higher: she may be the Lady of the title.
There’s a lot going on in this show and certainly maintains a novel-y feel to it. I don’t know what it is about jazz clubs and films / shows that want to be a lot more than they are, because while The Lady in the Lake captures the politics and culture of its era and sports a good cast, the overall telling of the story can feel uneven, despite being a twisty and intimate glimpse of a different time.
Being in-between projects, I’ve had some time to reflect on a number of what’s next ruminations. Such ruminations aren’t always healthy. There are a lot of people out there who don’t know how to kick back, and feel the compulsion to thrust themselves into the next thing, whether or not that’s what’s best for them.
I’m a fairly compulsive writer. When I don’t have a novel in the works (in whatever stage) I have a short story kicking around. That said, it’s also mid-August (so much for weekly blog entries — sorry, folks) which is historically, in my professional world as a psychotherapist, the time of year when people take stock. Summer is fading, vacations have been taken, the world of work is growing louder after a prolonged period of sunshine and chilling. For those with children, school is beginning. For those in corporate settings, the fourth quarter looms to the degree that there might as well be a target on December…even though it’s August. And because I’m human why shouldn’t I experience some of this?
Sure enough I’ve begun to give some thought to where my priorities should be. As a shrink, I’d like to advertise my Business Therapy side project more, as it’s steadily gaining traction and promises to keep me engaged (after twelve years I needed something to mix things up in my practice). As a writer, I’m weighing applying another grant due in September (and no, my previous attempts this year haven’t borne much fruit), but also looking for markets that offer a venue for satire (so far: not many explicitly are looking for humour, which kinda sucks). Personally, I want to find the right balance between staying active (because I’m half-cattle dog, basically) without over-committing to activities that I won’t be able to fulfill to my satisfaction. I like growth, but don’t want to find myself exhausted in its pursuit.
Balance, man. <- this is a line from the beginning of my recently-delivered novel (aka Book Three), which stands in contrast to what the protagonist, Marcus, ends up experiencing. I have to say that this book feels like the most honest thing I’ve ever written (outside of my short story from 2015, Second World). It’s ultimately about figuring out “what matters,” even if the answer is something that doesn’t get 150 likes on social media. As I wrote in my notes, it’s about being okay with what might end up only being “ok.”
On this note, I hope you’re holding up okay, and taking moments for yourself to take stock, even though that can be intimidating.
I suppose this is a gratitude post, but my friend Marcos, whom I went to film school with, recently received a Canada Council grant to make an independent film, which is super-exciting. Not only because of his getting the grant but because he was able to make an hour-long project that he’s been sitting on for quite a while, which (at least I think) spoke to both his interests speaking from the perspective of someone who for a several years worked as a journalist in Peru in the volatile 80s and 90s, as well as someone who regularly can be seen around the neighbourhood we share, setting up a tripod with a Bolex, shooting whatever shorts he manages to make on his own time. In other words, it’s nice to see people who “put in the work” be rewarded.
The reason I write about this is that he recently sent me a cut of the film in question, looking for feedback. And it wasn’t until I watched it and began to think critically about it that I was transported back to my time at Rhombus Media (2002-2007). While I was there I would regularly be handed VHS tapes (and subsequently DVDs) of whatever documentaries, TV shows and feature films were being worked on at the time. I may not have been paid particularly well (we won’t go there) but I was exposed to so much and — importantly, I think — treated as someone whose opinion people there respected. This combination can in some circumstances be exploitative, but — at least about the feedback notes — I had no doubt they appreciated the perspective.
As I sat down to write my reflections and recommendations on my friend’s film, I began thinking about sound design, colour correction, and picture editing in ways — functional, aesthetic, creative — I honestly haven’t tapped into that deeply for the better part of seventeen years. It was a great exercise for me (not to mention helpful for Marcos, I hope). I say this because it’s one thing to sit and watch a random movie and Have Thoughts about it, but another altogether to have to put into words, clearly and constructively, how someone might go about making improvements: things that slow the pacing too much, cutaways that don’t necessary make visual sense, establishing shots that seem orphaned from what it is they’re attempting to establish. It’s a skill that, with surprisingly little effort, I was able to tap into, and I felt very gratified to have been offered the opportunity to do so, and to be reminded that the twenty odd years I spent in the industry, starting at the bottom of the ladder in TV commercials as an assistant editor/gofer and walking away after working on the SAW series as a post supervisor, wasn’t for nothing (or at least only collecting stories to tell at parties).
A quick dispatch while I’m away at a cottage for some long-needed R&R. Last week I delivered Book Three to my agent. In no way shape or form is it “done” (without going into the vagaries of getting published, let’s just say that — to use a picture editing term — it’s “locked” until it’s not).
I’ll be unveiling the title of Book Three once my agent incorporates it into his upcoming autumn catalog; then there’ll be no excuse.
It’s been a great ride working on it, and as much as I’m sorta sad to let it go (once you read it I’m sure you’ll get why), I’m like to clear my desk for other things. Or, for now, to enjoy a sense of accomplishment before moving on to something else.
For the last while, as I’ve carved out time to learn more guitar here and there (believe me, this is tough as it is), I’ve felt drawn to the need to learn more about theory. By theory, I mean musical theory specific to navigating guitar, which is quite concrete and not as “theoretical” as it may sound to anyone unaccustomed to the term. In other words, from a structural perspective, how might a guitarist understand the greater relationship between strings, frets, notes, chords and modes? The hope, not unlike consulting a grimoire, was that this might allow me a key to understanding music, structurally and compositionally, and that it might make my relationship with guitar easier.
The reality is that learning theory, for me at least, is a slog. My guitar teacher used to avoid getting into the weeds of teaching theory because he felt that it was too easy for the student to lose interest — and he’s not wrong! Not unlike mathematics, it’s dry, with rules that are seemingly arbitrary. And an entire lexicon (“Here’s a Lydian riff in F”) that, unless you are truly dedicated to learning, so easily leaks from your ears the minute you put your guitar down. And yet, while my teacher would say this in one breath it wouldn’t stop him from commenting on the arcane ways in which whatever song we were playing was structured. Why, I thought, are you dangling this thing in front of me while informing me that it was hard to teach? I thought “feel” was hard to teach.
And to make my frustration solidified, this year in particular I happened to have at least two people — both of them musicians and one of them a guitar instructor — upon hearing that I was studying theory, simply ask: why? They seemed sort of dumbfounded, to be honest. Why not, was the implication, just learn [song] and have a good time? Theory was useful if I was hoping to do arrangements, a friend told me, but otherwise wouldn’t have many practical applications for the average musician who simply wanted to play.
I took this to heart, and put my theory-driven interests aside. The book I’d bought and was woodsheding my way through, Lee Nichols’ Music Theory for Guitarists, was left untouched on my desk, as I sought to learn guitar from an organic perspective — that is, by figuring out songs on the fretboard and generally relying on my curiosity. But when I went back to a YouTube video spotlighting the work of blues guitarist Willie Johnson recently, specifically his work on the Howlin’ Wolf track Mr. Highway Man (which is honestly one of the best guitar solos ever), I was once again confronted with theory-talk. “If you can play the G9th chords and the G6th chords…”and I’m like SHUT UP! I DON’T KNOW WHAT THOSE EVEN ARE!
And here’s perhaps the crux of my frustration, where I feel ground down between those who casually attempt to explain/demonstrate what a musician is doing via theory (because, honestly, why not?) and those who downplay this approach in favour of, say, finding the tabs for whatever it is you’re trying to figure out and going from there. I think it’s also complicated by the fact that it’s easy (for some) to talk about a musician’s approach from a theory perspective, which ends up making it sound, from my perspective at least, as if everyone who has come before them (and me) MUST have known theory. Right? Willie Johnson OBVIOUSLY must’ve been a keen observer of music theory. As well as Link Wray. And Pat Hare. And hey, maybe they were. I don’t mean to suggest that they shouldn’t be afforded that benefit of the doubt, but I guess where I’m coming from is that it’s easy, after the fact, when someone is describing a musician’s playing through the lens of theory, to assume that the musician in question would’ve approached it the same way (theory-driven), as opposed to something more organic (“Hey, I like how this chord shape sounds when we’re playing an uptempo boogie.”).
Anyways, welcome to the way my brain works, and the crap I quietly wrestle with. I hope I’m not the only one who struggles with things like this.
I had the pleasure of spending a week as a guest (and sort of alumni) of The Pouch Cove Foundation, an artists’ retreat located in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland. While only about twenty minutes outside of St. John’s, it might as well be in the middle of nowhere, in the best possible way.
I went there to work on final changes to Book Three, and it was very productive. So much so that I’m hoping to hand off the book to my agent at the end of the month (fingers crossed). I was also happy to be sharing the retreat with a handful of visual artists who were preparing for a showing of their water-themed paintings in-progress. Writers and painters are different kinds of artists, insofar as painters come across as regular people when they’re not painting and writers tend to remain mumbly introverts when they’re not writing, not that we weren’t able to get together for the occasional beer and a chat in the evening. The good news is that we were all there to work and the setting was ideal for our tasks. And when we weren’t working, it was easy to step away and go on a hike along the East Coast Trail (in the course of one hike I spotted a pod of whales nearby and found myself tracked by a fox), or simply go down to the shore and admire the many gorgeous views.
Pouch Cove is one of the most beautiful places I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and this marks a return for me after 20 years. Back then I was still working in film/TV but trying to get my act together as a budding author. A work colleague suggested I check out the retreat at Pouch Cove which, it turned out, her father operated. I was only able to get away for a long weekend at the time (because broke), but it was my first introduction to an artists’ retreat and I was able to develop some of the ideas that made it into my first novel, The Society of Experience.
James Baird, who runs the Pouch Cove Foundation, has been a tireless supporter of the arts community in Newfoundland for decades and is an extremely generous host to artists from all corners of the world. I’m very appreciative of his support and enthusiasm, and grateful to have had the opportunity to return.
It was hard to leave.
I asked for (and received) a couple of books for last Xmas: When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, and The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton. The first is a wonderful collection (sometimes interwoven) about the weird and wonderful (but weird) world of of physicists, mathematicians and chemists as they flirt with madness trying to come to terms with things like the would-you-believe basics of quantum theory. The latter is about the intersection of three great minds — philosopher Immanuel Kant, physicist Werner Heisenberg, and author Jorge Luis Borges — and how their shared interests in the struggle to understand how it is that we can’t always comprehend certain aspects of the world — were informed. I should mention that I received a third book at Xmas, from my partner, who thought I would like a collection of short fiction and essays from…Jorge Luis Borges.
Let’s just say that it’s been an intense ride, twisting my mind not only around the paradoxical ideas that quantum theory suggests, but also some strong narration and themes that rise from well-drawn portraits, the intimate (and wonderfully weird) lives of otherwise brilliant people.
Those first two books, by Labatut and Egginton, are very well done and I highly recommend them, by the way.
Speaking of Borges, I am truly amazed sometimes at his ability to distill entire universes with such economy; some of his work left me flabbergasted and dizzy. Some of it can also be front-loaded with a lot of geographical or historical weight and so it’s not exactly “diving in” literature; it’s a little like going to the gym, to be honest. But boy, the rewards.
