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July 7, 2008

Update – July 7th

A slightly bitter-tasting but substantial smörgåsbord for you today, dear reader…

The last week and-a-bit has been a little hard on me. Found out over a week ago that a good work-friend I hadn’t been in touch with for a couple of years had passed away in his sleep. By the time I’d found out, the memorial had already happened. Everything that could be done or said had been done and said. And so, one has no choice in this situation but to simply accept the fact that, like it or not, sad or happy, the last chapter in a sub-plot has been written without my consent or input. I think the thing which upsets me most about sudden deaths is the lack of control. I’ve had relatives who have died of cancer or carried on weakly after a stroke, and it was clear to everyone that the pen nib of fate was scratching out the last bits of their narrative; as the living bereaved, we had time to digest what was happening in our own way. With Trent – my friend and workmate – I was left with nothing but the unavoidable metric truth of his death.

Foolishly, perhaps owing to my Chinese astrological tendencies (Dog), I’ve been patiently waiting for a response from a Toronto lit mag to get back to me on a short fiction submission I’d mailed to them almost a year ago. Owing to fatigue, I finally emailed the editor last week, only to find out from his response that “We would have responded to that a very long time ago, so I’m assuming it got lost in the mail/E-mail. I’m also assuming it was our response that got lost, and not your submission, as the title sounds familiar. “. So, in other words, I’d wasted a year not submitting the (admittedly solid) piece elsewhere. This upset me to no end. Nobody likes to be rejected – something I’ve accustomed myself to – but in this case I was left wondering whether they’d actually bothered to send anything out. I don’t lose incoming mail, nor is my email spam filter so prejudiced as to reject anything addressed directly to me (unless of course they put something like “rejection letter for Cialis” in the subject header). I drank a lot that night and complained bitterly to friends who consoled me, particularly those who caught my Facebook status message: “Matt wonders what could be worse than finding out a form rejection letter with your name on it got lost in the mail.”

Not willing to let “the shit” (he says, in the collective sense) get me down, I continued to revise the novel, having finished going through to the (current) ending, thus completing my first full pass on the book as a whole. I immediately went back to the beginning, which I’d barely looked at in months, and started full-revision #2. I think it’s coming together nicely, and the feedback I’ve received on excerpts given to my peers in the writing group I run have been very positive. I just wish there was someone I could bribe in order to get one of my short fiction pieces published, because it’s a bit of a hindrance approaching an editor with a novel having a big fat “0” in the previously-published department. I’m also looking at doing more story submissions to non-Canadian publishers, as I find the atmosphere in this country a little stifling. Make of that what you will.

A good tonic for these doldrums was to be had when my wife and I took a drive through the Niagara peninsula (after an absurdist trip to Niagara Falls – don’t bother asking – thankfully, we had two good friends to help us drink away the memories). We both love wine, and as firm supporters of Canadian wineries it was great to get out (only an hour’s drive from the city) and see the vinyards, the countryside, and quaff vast amounts of the best vino North America has to offer. So much so, in fact, that I’ve considered starting a new blog specifically geared towards Canadian wine. We shall see.

June 20, 2008

May (pt. 3: Revision)

I took a train to Montréal for the second-last weekend in May.

I love the city, in particular its colour, zest, and architecture. There are also some great bands coming from there. However, to be fair, taking the train was a substantial part of the reason; four hours each way with which I could exclusively devote to reading War and Peace and, most importantly, working on the novel.

So, it was a work/reflect/relax sort of trip – the sort of thing to help tie up some loose threads in my head while occasionally practising my French. I caught a couple of bands at a cool venue called Zoo Bizarre, went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, ate, slept, drank, and mostly walked around with the aimless ambition of understanding how the city is laid-out.

As I write this, the novel is in good shape. The ending is almost complete and I’m beginning to see it more clearly in my head from beginning-to-end (as opposed to visualizing it as a bunch of sorted chapters). I also managed to get through a good chunk of War and Peace – such a good book, yet so heavy on the everyday details.

I wish I could say that I entered June with revelations and wisdom, but those are two things you can’t just extract from the ether. I still have a lot of things rolling around my head that need figuring out, creatively-speaking. For me, sometimes it’s better having several balls to juggle rather than one to contemplate soley. I know, from previous experience, that (to paraphrase the witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth) doors open for those who decide to knock.

June 10, 2008

May (pt. 2: My City Was Gone)

“I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
Said, a, o, oh way to go Ohio”

– Chrissie Hynde

May was a time for me to explore: my self, my past, what has changed, what hasn’t. As all things similar, it starts with necessary rhetoric and then is up to the tenaciousness of the individual to sort out.

I rented a car and drove to Brantford.

I don’t have a hometown; our family moved much too much for me to lay claim to such a thing. Yet, if pressed, I will say Brantford, Ontario. Technically, we didn’t even live in Brantford proper, but rather on the outskirts, off a rural highway, where we had a house which stood near the bank of the Grand River, on the edge of Onondaga Township.

It was here where I spent my childhood years, which I’m only able to accurately map in terms of school rather than age or calendar time (Grades 3 through 8, to be exact). As regards my family life, this was the part which I sometimes refer to bittersweetly as The Camelot Years. We lived in a big, red brick Victorian house detached from the world, with a huge apple orchard behind us and acreage aplenty. Eventually, my father took advantage of a small barn on our property and we ended up owning hens, and subsequently more fresh eggs and Macintosh apples than we knew what to do with. I could go on, but you get the point.

School was another matter. To quickly summarize my scholastic life, I didn’t have a very good time until college. Part of this can be blamed on the cruelty of youth(s). Part of this can be blamed on me being who I was. Part of this can be blamed (if one could really use such a word) on the simple complexities of life and the logistics of time.

I went to find my old school – the last place I remember seeing my classmates who I loved and hated. I drove. I drove more (faster). Went back over my tracks, wondering if my memory had betrayed me.

It hadn’t. It was gone: Onondaga-Brant Public School was no longer there. Instead, the smaller one, the place I’d spent my introductory Grades 3 and 4 was still standing; furthermore, the town had renamed it from Brant Public School to the same moniker as the one I was searching for in vain.

In other words, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know – the one might as well have swallowed the other. I took pictures of what remained – the imposter school – and later found out from my mother that it too was slated to go. It really couldn’t be more metaphoric.

I drove by our old house, thankfully still standing, but of course everything around it has changed. The cattle barn on the property beside us had been replaced by several ugly houses, sitting there as if defying the logic of the land. The palatial (to the eyes of a child) homestead on the other side – the Bournes’ house, as we knew it then – is now a yoga retreat.

I went to capture something I didn’t quite know, me being an older version of the child who oscillated between having the best and worst times of his life there, and in the end I left it all with a handful of photographs and an emptier heart.

I drove into downtown Brantford and visited my grandmother’s grave, something I promised myself I would do on my own, without my mother’s prompting or my inability to schedule enough time on family visits. I knelt by her stone, having bought some long-stemmed roses, and spoke to her quietly.

The truth is that when we moved away long ago – to Alberta of all places – everything in Brantford went to shit. Two major manufacturing plants went bankrupt, laying off thousands. The city council then approved the replacement of the central downtown square with an Eaton’s Centre (a giant, ugly suburban mall placed in the middle of a beautiful classic town as if to clearly defy logic). It bombed and still sits there half-empty as a textbook lesson for how not to plan a city, Brantford now trying to dig itself up from “ghost town” status. There is a telemarketing centre in the mall; those people who call you from the 519 area-code during dinner are calling from Brantford.

It pained us to move away, but – similar to what happened a few years later when we abandoned Stony Plain, Alberta – it was probably a good decision no matter how difficult it was for my brother and I to swallow.

I drove home from Brantford, and on leaving felt closer to the past if not in full agreement with how it has shaped me, nor with the terms on which I am to live with it. I live in Toronto, but in some respects I think I’ll always feel rootless; grasping for something which historically has always been pulled away from me, even if for good intentions.

June 5, 2008July 25, 2011

Ankle Update

I can walk!

(slowly)

I can descend staircases!

(with the grace of an 80-year-old man)

Yes, two days of rest, ice, and bandaging has done me some good. That said, I’m falling behind on my “May” series, due to the need to scan slides in order to help tell the story. Hope to have that up by the end of the week (he says, in June).

I’d like to point out a couple of additions to the blog:

The Euro 2008 news thingy on the side is a temporary widget to provide updates on the travails of Holland’s (most likely short-lived) run for the cup. During the Euro, this will not (I repeat, not) become a football blog.

I’ve added a few new links to the “Relevant Blogs” section (down on the right). Please check out the other sites – you will not be disappointed. Actually, you could be disappointed; I don’t pretend to understand you.

As you were…

June 2, 2008

On the Injury List

Yes, I finally get to experience what my soccer-football heroes get to experience so often: injury.

There I was, near the end of my first Sunday game in three weeks, fetching the ball at a light trot. And then my left foot rolled over as it stepped into a pocket in the ground. Anguish. Shock. An audible “pop”, and there I was on the pitch, walloped by pain and fear. My thanks go out to those who helped me by purchasing ice and helping me to a taxi.

I sit here now, my leg raised on a pillow on a coffee table, my ankle wrapped with a Tensor bandage and an ice pack. The swelling has subsided in size from “squash ball” to “folded napkin”. I can walk (nay limp) and movement isn’t limited. That said, it’s only Day 2 (of what will probably be a total of 2-3 weeks of conservative mobility).

I decided not to go to a hospital or clinic, seeing as there isn’t much in the way of direct pain or dislocation. We shall see. It’s somewhere between a Grade 1 and 2 sprain (Grade 2 Lite, as I like to put it).

Oh, and it’s my first day on the new film. Thankfully they understand, and thankfully my job doesn’t necessarily require me to be present at all times.

The good news is that the summer can only get better.

May 20, 2008

Post-Vacation Entry

A quick note for visitors that I’m here, rested, and getting back into the swing. Expect some photos from Cuba, a book review of Julian Barnes’ England, England, along with thoughts, missives, and elaborations both benign and venomous.

I have the extraordinary comfort of having May off from work (not paid, but I’ll take it), so though I may be blogging less whilst traipsing ‘cross ye olde city, in the long-run it will be for the better. For both of us.

April 28, 2008

If You Were On a Deserted Island…

One of the hardest questions you could ask me is the ubiquitous “If you were on a deserted island and could only have (x) number of books and/or albums and/or films, which would you pick?”

First off, I’ve always felt the question itself (or others like it) are closer to Buddhist koans than what they really are: idle, consumerist rhetoric. A koan is intended to divert the individual’s mind from overly-rational thought – one of the most common examples being the question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”. The point is not to take it literally (i.e. provide an answer), but to allow the unexpected nature of the predicament to unearth a more creative, less predictable perspective on one’s inner and outer life.

Getting back to the “deserted island”, it’s not hard to see the comparison, particularly when electrically-powered audio/visual equipment needs to be installed on said “island”. Is there a company which specializes in such installations? How expensive is the shipping? Furthermore, I’m assuming there’s food on the island – that would be good, lest the subject, after starving for several hours and unable to drink sea water, begins to munch on their precious copy of Mann’s “Death in Venice”.

Let’s go further, exploring the impossibility of the question. If I was on a deserted island with, let’s say, only 5 books, I would probably lose my mind very quickly. The reason being that the 5 books we pick are based on what we’ve read within the comfort of more controlled circumstances. Can you imagine being stuck on an island with a stack of books written by Dickens and Shakespeare – tell me ye olde language wouldn’t grate after a while? What if you were only kidding yourself about them – pressured by peers, no doubt – then what? A stack of books you can’t stand but are forced to read? You might as well skip the island and go to university. But why only fiction? I’d sure like a moment – and a deserted island sounds perfect – to learn the basics of electricity; unfortunately, assuming all I have is a palm tree, it’s unlikely that I will be able to do much in the way of experimenting, and I’m the type who needs to get his hands dirty in order to understand things.

I come to the conclusion that, unless you are asking me the question in order to develop my non-rational consciousness, I must insist, despite whatever books, albums, movies, or magically-transported reruns of sports games I pick, that one thing be added to the stack without question: a pistol with a single bullet in the chamber.

How’s that for an answer?

March 26, 2008

Time Flies When You’re Questioning Your Existence

I suppose I’m a victim of my diet.

After finishing Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles (review forthcoming) on the tails of Eugene Zamiatin’s We, having watched eight episodes of the television series Dexter, combined with a soul-gnawing worklife, I find myself walking around feeling detached from…well, pretty much everything and everyone.

Houellebecq’s novel, while having its flaws, reminded me of some of my own “society has gone fundamentally mad” musings (albeit in a much better package). The TV show, about a serial killer who manages to fit into society, has prodded yet more questions (and I must make mention of Michael C. Hall’s fantastic portrayal of the lead character). I will admit this: I allow my diet to affect me. I want to be affected, particularly when the opposite is the case with work. The film I’m currently attached to (symbiotically) is an ambitious, loud, genre-bending goth musical which seems to spiral into chaos every twenty minutes of the day. And I’m effectively in charge of it, which means that I can’t become creatively/emotionally attached, unless of course I was a masochist, which just takes too much commitment.

Soul on. Soul off. Soul on. Soul off.

The good news is that my wife and I just booked a week’s vacation in May. And after the vacation, I will have a few weeks off before the start of the next film, so I hope to have a splendidly idle period to complete my second novel (or at least a solid second draft thereof). If anyone can suggest any semi-profound “beach books”, I would appreciate it.

February 1, 2008

Pleased to meet you…

Okay, so I made the decision that this blog shall display my real name and not the (admittedly appealing) pseudonym I’ve used since I started this blog 171 posts ago.

I’ve been playing with the idea for a while and realised that, while it’s not a question of having ‘nothing to lose’, I don’t have a shitload to gain by hiding my identity. It’s not like there’s a Bruce Wayne/Batman thing happening in my life…well, not outside my imagination.

January 2, 2008

Tidings

A warm hello from a cold part of the world (-14 C, without the windchill). Glad tidings to all those who pass by this part of the woods, whether you be regular passers-by or new readers. It looks like 2008 will be an interesting year, if only because I want it to.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been able to post more photographs lately (lest my photoblogs.org membership be contested), even though they were taken last September. I’ve been so swamped with work since then that I was only able to pick up my camera yesterday to take some shots of the new snow. I hope to have some shots up within the next month. For those who don’t know (prefaced here), I’m a traditional analog photographer – I use a Russian-made Leica rip-off manufactured in the 1960’s and shoot slide film. For all you junior rangers, that means shooting the roll, taking it to a lab, getting the slides back, scanning them, formatting/tweaking them digitally, and then uploading. You kids and your fancy-dancy digital cameras…

The new year welcomes, among many assorted developments, a new blog from the man who was my mentor at Humber College’s School for Writers, DM Thomas (author of The White Hotel). Also, as normally happens during the “holiday season”, the new year brings the beginnings of spiralling chaos somewhere in the world – this time it’s Kenya. Normally, the holiday horror is courtesy of a South Asian tsunami or some other badly-timed natural phenomena or accident (I’m looking at you Bangladesh, you and your less-than-impervious ferries). In Kenya’s case, it’s an election, the disputed results of which have inflamed tribal mistrust, culminating in the burning of a church where 50 people – women and children – were taking shelter. They all died. The Guardian has a reasonable summary of what’s going on there. Lastly, speaking of democracy, 2008 offers the possibility of an immensely entertaining spectacle south of the border as Democrats and Republicans in the US sort out their bullshit in public. I can only hope that, some day, the word “Independent” won’t be so distasteful in their political lexicon.

I’ll have more book reviews to come this year, featuring the new translation of War & Peace – but keep in mind that it’s over 1,200 pages, with the original French dialogue intact, with contextualized notes on every page…in other words, if I finish it in 2008, I’ll post a review. But I can multi-task, so there will be books read in the interim period. The previous year saw my completion of reading Solomon Volkov‘s St. Petersburg: A Cultural History – an on/off process that’s taken me a couple of years. One 500lb (226.79 kg) gorilla down, another to go.

Oh, if anyone from one of the three magazine publishers who I submitted to in the late summer of 2007 are reading this, I would appreciate something…anything from you in the mail. Even a rejection letter. It’s the waiting that is hardest.

Take care, all.