Harbour Leaves

Here I sit quietly, sipping coffee by the sunless sea.
Billowing rain clouds shaped like pillows
pout as they silently float past.
Giant arms of rock hug the harbour,
as my pen catches them trying to
embrace like long-lost lovers.
High above the town, a castle
keeps watch over the inlet waters,
as it waits for a ship to pass below.
The island's weather has
been recorded on its stones
and its tears have been
blown cold and dry
by the north Atlantic wind.
Fishing boats are docked on the opposite shore;
four or more rest out of season.
Wooden-covered island houses coloured like rainbows
are scattered amongst the rock,
while their roofs are littered with golden leaves
as they fall from autumn trees.

Ginsberg & Friends

For Those Stary-Eyed Dynamos Burning Up in the Machinery of Night

Take three deep
mind breaths

and forget everything you know -
dock the censorship
and open your eyes.

The poems read like
uncooked rants from
the bleeding heart of chaos;

Who's words appear as naked as he was on stage;
reliving his nightmares on stage.

He mocked America;
taunted America;
begged a cross-dressing America to take off her clothes;

Wrote to Gary Snyder through
a holy cloud of laughing gas;
visited Kerouac in Queens, while Hunke talked to Kinsey;

Cried for Cassidy to beat him while
he screamed crazed confessions to
the secret hero of his poems.

He read Blake; heard Blake; saw Blake in 1948.

1952 - starred as David in JC Holmes' Go -
Holmes kept going until 1988.

Howl on trial 56;
elders screaming
while he was riding around in green automobiles
shouting Europe!Europe!

He saw afternoon in Seattle,
and road the Witchita vortex
all the way to Tangier where
Burroughs went to the junk-house for a naked lunch.

O'Hara gone in 1966;
1968 - Cassidy counts railway ties until he dies.

Wrote eulogies for Kerouac, 1969;
Converted to California-Buddhism
like B. Kaufman (b.1925 -d.1986), who spent the 1950s speaking poetry
into San Fransisco cars -
sat on Carson's couch in 1970.

No Pulitzer;
No Poet Laureate;
No Lew Welch after 23 May 1971.

National Book Award in 72.

Ask him about
the Jester, Carl Solomon, Rockland,
O'Hara's ghost wandering Fire Island, Moloch, Buddhism, Natalie Jackson, Cassidy,
suicidal dreams, penetration,
Dr. Williams, Louis Ginsberg,
J. Edger Hoover, the West,
Kerouac, Kammerer,
secret police, state terror,
anger, self-loathing,
the callous stench in the capitol air,
what research shows,
partying with Kesey and the Angels,
hitchhiking with Snyder,
the virtues of Corso,
the sins of Times Square,
the cold-water flats of the East Village, the apartments on the Negro streets,
the couches and blowing smoke rings from tea,
the sage-like advice of Rexroth,
the cottage in Berkeley,
3119 Fillmore Street,
Ferlinghetti shining the City Lights on Howl,
Uncle Max, Orlovsky,

& Naomi.

Video Sites Sharing More Than Entertainment?

These days, you can see just about anything on the internet. If it has a name, you will most likely find it. From Surf the Channel, which boasts an impressive catalogue of streaming movies and popular television shows from around the world, to Knickerpicker.com, where women (and most likely a few gentlemen) can watch real models strut down the runway in order to get a visual before ordering lingerie - the internet has everything!

In recent years, the internet has grown out of its information super-highway wardrobe, and is, in ever-increasing fashion, becoming a place where individual users come to share. From online encyclopaedias, such as Wikipedia, to video sites such as Youtube, the internet is rapidly becoming a personal place in the world.

However, there is something scary about sharing – you never really know what you are looking at. In the same way that spam emails can be used to con the everyday person out of money, or other sensitive information, video sharing sites can be used to advertise illegal behaviour. Alarmist, perhaps, however, I was recently watching Youtube, and came across a person’s video file, wherein they shoot movies of fires. The video I happened to be watching depicted an electric-power transformer exploding. The shaking camera filmed the night creeping in on the flaring ball of fire, as voices of concerned citizens looked on.

Let me be clear, videos such as this, are, doubtless, produced with the intention of advertising news (if we broaden, and perhaps sensationalize what we consider to be news). However, arsonists are, not always, but in extreme cases, pyromaniacs; and in a world where bizarre crimes happen yearly, we cannot rule out the role that video sharing sites play in advertising their crimes by passing them off as entertainment.

Think I’m out to lunch? Not really. In the late 1990s, the popular crime show America’s Most Wanted ran a story involving a serial arsonist, who – wait for it – videotaped his crimes as they were happening. In similar videographical style as the Youtube post, this man set fire to expensive homes, and watched them burn. On the tapes that were released, his voice can be clearly made out, narrating the fire’s destruction.

BY NO MEANS, am I branding this Youtubeer with the same charge; I’m simply saying that with the anonymity of video sharing sites, you never really know if you are looking at something intended to be more than entertainment.

An Atheist’s Best Friend, or Light in the Dark of Night

At the end of The Dark Knight, the latest addition to the Batman canon, viewers were left with the image of the Joker – played brilliantly by the late Health Ledger – hanging upside down, staring a fatal tumble from the steel canopy of Gotham City in the face, while Batman – played by Christian Bale – looks on, and then leaves him hanging in the balance. It would have been too easy, perhaps, for Batman to unclench his fist and send the Joker his final punch-line, but Batman would never do such a thing.

The reality is something that Batman understood thoroughly when he left the Joker hanging in the balance – not the balance of law and order – however, the balance of good and evil. The movie is but one portrayal of the ongoing conflict between what is understood to be ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ The dilemma is that one cannot exist without the other. This is something that the Joker mentions while being interrogated by Gotham City police detectives, when he compares himself to a dog chasing cars, saying he ‘wouldn’t know what to do if he actually caught one.’

The Joker wouldn’t know what to do because he would be involuntary thrust into an argument for his own validity. To be the ‘evil’ counterbalance to Batmans’ ‘good.’

This reminds me of another argument, or conflict, between two other columns of society – the believer, and the atheist. While both argue from completely different angles, it is important to realize that Atheism is the second oldest idea in the history of Theology – the first being, belief, or faith itself.

Where the believer has the Holy Scriptures to backbone his favour for Christ, Allah, Thor, Buddha, et-cetera, the Atheist grounds his ‘faith’ in the wisdom of science and reason. Both are perfectly appropriate sources of validation. However, these two groups never admit the necessary existence one group represents to the lives of the other.

In this sense, Atheism needs the Believer, and vice-versa, as much as the Joker needs Batman. Because the Atheist argues for revolution, and the Believer for revelation, the Atheist would consider hoards of Believer’s abandoning their faith to be a revelation, and the Believer would consider the same feet, a revolution.

NRA Barbeques and Texas Afternoons

It’s hardly surprising that the most recognizable public figure, next to the Pope perhaps, is the President of the United States. People around the world know where he lives, what his daily schedule is, who he meets with, who he sleeps with, where he went to school, whether or not he inhaled marijuana, or exhales lies on a daily basis. It’s pretty safe to say, with all proceeds going to the United States political machine, that most people recognize the Leader of the Free World. But what happens when George W. Bush leaves the Oval?

The ceremonial thing to do is open a Presidential Library. Since Hubert Hoover, every subsequent President has built a facility meant to house his papers, books, and basically everything he has ever said out loud in his life – even the things he wished he didn’t say! Most Presidential libraries have faux-Oval Offices, with all the trappings of the White House: personal gifts they were given while in Office, perhaps a portrait standing ornate beside a silent shelf of dusty books; journals; his favourite pen; and lots of press photos. President Reagan’s Library in California even has the Air Force One that was used up until George W. Bush.

Trouble with George W. Bush is that, when you say library, your mind does work together images of him looking stately, sitting comfortably thumbing through an Allen Bloom translation, under a Stetson hat. NO. Keep in mind this is the President who is on record saying, ‘the best thing about books is some times they have interesting pictures.’ When somebody says that, my gut reaction is usually to vomit until I pass out. So you can see how I find it interesting to question just what would Bush put in his Presidential Library?

Honestly, a water-slide. Have you ever seen George W. Bush at a press event or the G8 last month for example? He doesn’t walk around like a concerned man with the weight of the world on his shoulders – as one might expect. NO, rather, he acts like a 12 year old at a father and son picnic. There he will be, grinning a silly grin, and calling world leaders by nicknames – screaming ‘YO Harper,’ with the same enthusiasm as one kid calling the neighbourhood’s attention to the ice-cream truck. So far, no books.

There might however, be a journal: Reveries of Nap Time, by George W. Bush. The President is usually a man who never gets any sleep because he stays up all night with staff and advisors from the Pentagon, participating in vigorous debates about some important and perhaps dangerous world event. Not Dubya. For the first time in a long time, there was an Executive Order regarding the President’s bedtime: 9:30pm, no exceptions; well, okay, wake only in case of national emergency. In addition to the adolescent bedtime, Dubya would also take naps during the day. This is what throws me; in between the jogging and frat boy reunions in Crawford Texas, when does he find the time to nap? Lucky for him the Oval Office comes equipped with couches, ready and waiting to carry the weight of Operation Dreaming Eagle.

Something else about former Presidents is that they are entitled to lifetime protection from the Secret Service. This decision however, was amended by Congress in such a way that the last President to receive life time protection is Bill Clinton. The current rule mandates that once a President leaves Office, he is protected by the Secret Service for ten years. In the wake of 9/11 and the mystery of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, Congress has gone back to the drawing board on this one. It’s probably a good thing, because all the ten year protection does in guarantee somebody is waiting, with full metal jacket and landmines, in the tall grass for the 11^th year. Probably not, Bush is surprisingly popular.

Former Presidents get into all different types of work once they leave Office. President Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work with Amnesty International; President Clinton went to marriage counselling, and followed the lecture circuit for $1000 a plate; Nixon became a recluse; Reagan forgot who he was; and George H.W. Bush still reads CIA briefings (every former President is entitled to them). SO, WWDD: What Would Dubya Do?

Bush The Younger is one of the few Presidents never to have penned a book before being elected. And he might as well be the first sitting President never to have read one either; what with all the napping and traveling and bruiting at G8 summits. SO, it pretty safe to say HE won’t be writing his political memoirs; but he will probably pay a ghost writer – Karl Rove might be looking for work. It is also safe to say that after eight years of Republicans waging wars based on erroneous information, setting up extra-legal prisons, and turning a budget surplus into a history breaking deficit, nobody in their right mind would pay over $2 dollars and a stroll across the street to hear Dubya spin colloquially behind a podium, with flash cards and a colouring book in case he gets bored.

Wait, I’m wrong, there might be one group that would not only sit and listen to Dubya, but actually extend him an invitation to speak: the NRA. Upon hearing the news of Dubya’s triumphant return to his ranch in Crawford, the local chapter president of the NRA might suggest a barbeque honouring George W. Bush’s time in the White House, with an afternoon of skeet-shooting, over the wide-open Texas sky.

The Sycophant and the Big Mouth

I have studied politics for several years; at Carleton University, at Mike’s Place, in the locker room, walking down the street, at the bookstore - everywhere. During these conversations, doubtless, I have traversed the political spectrum, ideologically and even emotionally, with whomever I happen to be talking. And while I have become engaged with several different types of political minds - academics, students, street-poets - I can tell you this: politics is responsible for two types of people: the sycophant, and the big mouth.

The sycophant is a political nomad, wondering the wilderness in search of ideas on which he or she can sustain themselves. They live in swing states. For these people, general elections are side-walk sales and campaign speeches have them perpetually perched on the edge of their seat. They are drunk with hope, but they are hopeless. They are also the type of voter that candidates and incumbents like the most; they can be won over with smiles, promises, town hall meetings, and poll-tested electioneering tactics.

Sycophants are not the type of person who watches political commentary shows like the Cobert Report, or The Daily Show with John Stewart, and they are certainly not the type of person who watches CTV’s Question Period with Craig Oliver on Sunday mornings. NO. The sycophant watches Oprah, and runs out to buy a copy of so-and-so’s new book. If the House of Commons where a Golden Calf, sycophants are the people living it up at the base of the mountain.

On the other hand, is the Big Mouth. Obnoxious, to be sure, the Big Mouth can be identified by a few characteristics. Firstly, they are usually the ones that are formally educated. Some of them have more acronyms behind their name than the alphabet has letters. They insist that you call them doctor, but if you went to them to fix a broken leg, all they would tell you is that they are actually a Ph.D.

The big mouth is also someone who claims to have studied politics from a breath of standpoints, but could not locate objectivity on a map. They are the ones that you can start a conversation with, and listen to as they finish it. While the sycophant resembles a political schizophrenic, the Big Mouth is a born-again. Big Mouths have ‘seen the light’ and make sure they tell everybody they lecture, that that person is entitled to the Big Mouth’s opinion. Big Mouths are also the type of person who prescribes to a certain political ideology: Marxism, Libertarianism, Anarchism, Federalism, whatever it is, they make sure you know about it. This becomes their screening process, which you can practically hear when you’re talking to them.

Houseless, not homeless.

This past week, the world surprised me. Maybe I've become jaded by Springer, or have become complacent by GST cheques, whatever the case may be, it totally shook me from my repose.

I live in Ottawa's downtown. I'm a ten minute walk to work, three blocks from a grocery store, two blocks away from my cousins, and I can see a Tim Horton's from my bedroom window. Most nights I can hear whatever is happening on the street below me, with the same clarity that I would if the events were taking place in my living room. Bus doors opening and closing, road construction, domestic disturbances, drunk Ottawa Senators fans honking their wild horns, and drunk people Russian waltzing between watering holes. The only time I can't hear anything is when it's raining. As I type, there is a large high-rise construction crane, painted yellow, staring at me through my window. Nobody's there. Every time I look at the crane, my eyes go straight to the three slabs of concrete that are bolted to the opposite end, which constitute the counter-balance. Every time I look at the crane, I think of one of two scenarios: the first is that the crane operator is watching my every move, like some undercover Big Brother; and the second, is that the three slabs of concrete will become loose and fall crashing to the earth, either killing whomever may be passing on the sidewalk below, or seriously maming them.

On my way to work, I become a part of the not-so-random acts of the city. I never understood while people call cities jungles. When you look at them from a higher vantage point, you realize the happenings and peculairities of a given city, more closely resemble a hamster on a wheel. Each day the same people walk the same streets, to work in the same parts of the city, take the same bus to walk (and why wouldn't they?), meet the same friends for coffee, at the same coffee shop, while ordering the same thing they always order, smiling the same smile, laughing their work laughs and flexing all the important work muscles: good handshake, not too firm, you don't want your boss to think you're trying to impress him/her, shit, your palms are wet with nervous sweat, but she can't see you wiping it on your pants. This isn't exciting.

Another thing about downtown, is that there are a lot of homeless people, some of whom are travelers trying to find help staying at a hostel. When I walk to work, I usually stop at the Tim Horton's I can see from my bedroom window, get a coffee and leave with my pocket ringing of change. The first person that asks me for change, or that I see sitting as dosile as Hindu cows on the side of the sidewalk, I will give them the change. I give more if I have it on me. Most people I see, pass by them without a care in the world, or even an acknowledgement of their existence. Now, I can't say that I haven't done this either. But after a while, you start to see the same people, standing, sleeping, or sitting on the same patch of sidewalk, and after a while, you start to expect to see them. On my walk to work, I usually pass a woman who asks you for a dollar for coffee - at any time of day, I've never seen her at night. She's hard to understand because she has speech impediment that disrupts her words. She also walks like she's commanding a battalion of Monte Pythons performing the Ministry of Sillywalks. I don't know anything about this woman, this isn't judgement, these are my observations. Somebody looks after her though, because when it's cold, she'll have a warm jacket.

Another man I see, sits in a wheel-chair, and has a gigantic Basset Hound that stops and smells all the roses. I passed him once and remarked that I admired his dog, whose name it turned out was Moe, and he said, 'oh he could sniff that damn wall all day if I let him.' You could tell he and Moe had been together for quite some time.

When I walk home from work, I used to see a man that looked like Walt Whitman reincarnated. He would sit beneath the awning of a government building when it rained, or a little further up the street when it was sunny. He also had a dog, a black one that looked like a Husky/Lab mix. The man would speak a foreign language I didn't understand, very quiet to himself whenever anybody walked past him on the street. He had a map of the world on his face, deep blue eyes, and an old fishing hat on his head, which covered his wirey gray hair. Tucked away in his thick gray beard (hence the Whitman comparison), his aging teeth showed when he smiled. I've worked downtown for almost a year now, and every time I walked home from work, for a span of five months, I would see him sitting at his corner, with his dog and an overturned hat.

About three weeks ago, he was gone. There was nothing left of him, except a piece of paper taped to the bricks of the building he always leaned against. I passed by not thinking anything of it. Next day, same thing, I was walking home, about to cross the street onto the block where he sat, but there was two pieces of paper and a bouquet of flowers laying on the ground underneath the papers. As well, there were two women in business suits kneeling down, looking like they were reading the paper, and talking to each other. So I stopped, and took a look at the paper. One of the pieces of paper had a name and a life span written across it, the other, advertised a picture. In the picture, was the portait of the gray-bearded Whitman twin, fishing hat and all. Over the course of the week, when I passed by, I noticed more flowers and people stopping to read the sign and look at the picture.

Most of these people I could tell worked in the area, meaning, that they would probably have seen this man during the course of their routines as well. I'm not sure who put the signs or the picture there, but I am sure of the effect it had on the neighbourhood. Everybody stopped to read the sign, or lay flowers, or reminisce with their co-workers, as I would overhear a couple of times, about the homeless man who died.

Every once in a while, we are reminded about humanity - the day I noticed people caring about the absence of this man from the sidewalk was mine. Anytime you see a homeless person, you may wonder about their situation - what got them there, does anybody know they are spending the cold nights huddled under cardboard - but then you walk away. You never notice that, while they may not have a house, the streets are their home. My mother likes to believe that maybe some are angels. Maybe she's right, I'm not really sure. But I know one thing, you still miss them when they're gone.

I Went Walking

I went walking
under newly-lit street-lamps
suggesting bed time;

past the parked cars and
garbage bins dragged to the curb;
past extinguished porch-lights
that say without saying 'do not disturb.'

I walked through intersections,
under traffic lights reflected off the
vacant pavement below.

The midnight wind my compass tonight,
as I walk in the direction it blows;
by the corners of foundations
where it whistles going past,
as the baggy underarms of my jacket
swell like sails on a mast.

Hidden Gems

Have you ever taken a minute to look at your bookshelf, I mean really look at it? If you’re like me, you wonder how you ever thought you’d have the time to read all of those books. Somewhere during metamorphosis, the feeling changes from a private relaxation technique, to obsession, before arriving at ominous.

I’ve been thinking about a couple of things, and wondered if any of you were as well. As this blog may hint, I love to read, so much so, that I can’t pick a favourite author. It has become the ‘what’s your favourite movie’ question. The answers lie in different time zones it seems. I will tell you they definitely lie in different bookstores. In keeping with this blog’s first post, I must reiterate that, while I don’t HATE bookstores like Chapters, or Coles…they just don’t have what I’m looking for. It seems to me that all shelves are filled with Prize-winners and top-ten lists. Nevermind the books-to-movie, movie-to-book cover books; No Country for Old Men was a great novel first.

Between 1950 and 1956, Jack Kerouac wrote eleven, full-length novels, and I’m willing to bet the average Canadian reader will only find On the Road on (most) bookstore shelves. If you asked a manager why this is, he or she would probably tell you, these titles sell best. Sure they will, everytime Oprah adds a new book to her list, the next day you can’t find one on the shelves of these Top-Ten bins. This is more than a pet-peeve; as I believe it points to a bigger issue. This kind of marketing, limits the public’s consumption of literature. Certainly, it reduces a given author’s entire canon to hiding in the shadows.

Think I’m kidding; I’ve already mentioned Kerouac, what about…Canadian poet Glen Downie, author of Wishbone Dance, Desire Lines, and most recently Loyalty Management. If you look in the Canadian poetry section of any Chapters under D, you won’t find Glen Downie, but Gord Downie and his collection Coke Machine Glow. Don’t get me wrong, I like Gord’s collection, but I can’t help but wonder which came first, the book of poetry or the Juno-winning rock band?

If you wander over to the Drama section, you might find Arthur Miller’s work; at least the Crucible and Death of a Salesman. What about All My Sons, or A View from the Bridge. I’m not saying this happens with every author, I’m merely noting some important omissions, and folks, the list could go on and on.

For this reason, I have become a fan of hunting for those hidden gems. The dank, stale air of a used bookstore, while a potent reciepe for nausua, is the best place to shop for books. One of the benefits of living in Ottawa, is that there are many great used bookstores to hunt in. It was in one of these used bookstores, where I came across an original copy of The Old Man and the Sea. I paid $20 for it, as it turns out, it’s worth about $2000.

This isn’t about dollar value for these old books, it’s about finding a hidden gem. How many of you have found an old book with a personal message from the 60s; or a note from son to father. It lets you know how far the book has come to get to you. Now that, I find interesting.

While I'm Young (promises)

I'll paint pictures with my fingers,
and run them through my hair;
I'll count my chickens before they hatch, and
lose sleep dreaming of tomorrows and tomorrows -
I won't rest to dwell on yesterdays.
I'll run on empty and rejuvenate my body
with toxins concocted for its destruction -
red bull and coca-cola (I'm thinking of you).
I'll walk in my sleep until I crash in road-side
roach motels that charge a quarter for air -
empty the mini bar and head for the next great rave.
I'll speak before I think,
I'll waltz the Devil's dance
before I follow faith's first step;
I'll travel the hard road, so I'll know
to appreciate the ease of those paved smooth;
I'll live my life in poetry,
before I write it down in prose;
I'll change masks and occupations
so they don't change me;
While I'm young I'll live forever,
and I'll run for just as long;
While I"m young I'll have my thoughts
and when I'm old I'll have my scars.
Today we'll walk over the smoldering ambers
of yesterday's fire losing steam;
While I'm young I'll learn to sleep,
and when I'm old I'll learn to dream.

Remember the Novel? How Future Technologies are rewriting the words of the past

After a lifetime spent teaching English literature to Yale University students, literary critic Harold Bloom was taken aback, when in 2003, the National Book Foundation – presiding over the famous National Book Award – named Stephan King the year’s recipient of its National Book Foundation Award. In an article penned for the Los Angeles Times, Bloom sited that , ‘by awarding it to King they recognize nothing but the commercial value of his books, which sell in the millions but do little for humanity than keep the publishing world afloat.’ What Bloom has shrewdly vocalized is the decline in the value of first-rate literature. Names like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, O’Connor, Mailer, Plath and other literary giants have been assigned to the dust of used bookstore shelves.

What he called the ‘dumbing down of American readers’ is but one cell in the virus attacking the tradition of the novel. While the decline in intelligently written novels is nonetheless a disturbing phenomenon, the novel itself has become lost in the milieu of electronic devises that are rapidly threatening the sanctity of the written word. This is happening for two reasons: firstly, technological advances, most notably the internet, have over time, replaced traditional mediums that contain literature, and secondly, the way humans interact with one another is changing from personal to virtual.

Recent advancements in technology are creating physical distance between the novel and the reader. While one could argue that books and films, for instance, have coexisted since the middle of the 20th Century, the popularity of the novel did not erode until technology bridged the gap between the movie theatre, and the living room couch. The technological proliferation occurring at present has broadened our capacities to travel – via car, plane, train, foot and skateboard, to hotel rooms wired with complementary hi-speed – while downloading, watching and burning movies. Amidst this whirlpool of motherboards, I am begged to ask: does anybody remember the novel?

One possible explanation for the evaporating love of the novel is that our vision of the novel has become disconnected from past nostalgias. In other words, the things we read are more and more appearing in the virtual sense, in forms we cannot touch and feel. This impersonal shift has re-established, to a degree, the physical distance between humans and novels. It is worth mentioning the antithesis: readers will always be readers, and therefore loyal to the novel. However, the novel will disappear because it fails to attract new readers, and in failing to expand this base, those left standing under tradition’s umbrella will fade away, leaving this once-sacred love unprotected from the downpour of technological innovation.

Adding to this, the nature of human contact itself is revolutionizing. Older, more traditional forms of contact, such as letter writing and telephone conversations have been reduced to condescending names like ‘snail mail,’ or have been replaced by the stranglehold computers and cellular phones have in dictating ‘instant messages.’ What is left are populations of people corresponding electronically, and not personally. This adds up to reducing material for the novel that would otherwise be available through personal contact.

It is in this shift, from personal to virtual interaction, through the advancement and convenience of technological innovation, where the substance of the novel is not being experienced to the degree it once was. Consider if you like, science fiction: 21st Century innovation and iPods are not creating newer, more exciting forms of science fiction, anymore than they are producing newer, more exciting science fiction novels – the popularity of which may still be considered a cult. What is happening is a renewal of the recluse at the extreme end, and a new population of humans whose sole interaction with the novel is through eBooks, on the other.

So, how does this affect the novel? Personal interaction creates the mouldings in which we place characters. One need not shake hands with everybody they meet; however, simply noticing different personalities becomes a challenge when being Blackberried to the point of dependence, or when listening to an iPod while walking down the street. The more our senses are canalled through technological devises, the less we are to notice the peculiarities taking place around us.

During a recent trip to Japan, a friend and I were making our way through hoards of daily commuters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district – truly a sight to see – when I took a moment to notice the happenings inside the train car. Everywhere I looked, I saw people – young, old, student, and business professional, even a child under five – staring intently at a cellular phone, a PSP, iPOD, or personal computer. This got me thinking; how many personal relationships would be spawned in this subway car, if only people would look up from their text messages long enough to meet a stranger?

Though we may never know the answer, this troubling addiction has become institutionalized and engrained in the nature of 21st Century communication. No longer is it one-on-one, face to face; it is more like face-to-interface! Created by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the World Wide Web, since going public in 1993, has grown from an innovative alternative, to life-support system. Commenting on the central role the internet plays, former US President Bill Clinton stated in his recent book, entitled Giving, that when he took office, the internet was home to ten websites. Today, he writes, there are about 50 million websites accessible to the public.

As the effectiveness and viability of the Internet to be used as a smart tool for business networking and communications became more apparent, its transformation process began, ushering in a new collaborative atmosphere to the global conversation; if two minds are better than one, how about 3 billion minds? In many ways, the Internet has facilitated the gathering forces of globalization, enabling conversations to begin in one place and end in another.

In the context of literature, the Internet has proved an effective method for self-publication. Through live journals, weblogs, and MySpace, anybody with a message can create a website, and begin contributing to the global conversation. In many ways they have created an entirely new domain for freelancers and news personal to report on the events taking place around us. What is more, Internet jobs can be conducted from home, and in the era of high energy cost, ditching the car and rush-hour commute may be the hallmark of the 21st Century job.

The idea of mass collaboration has become so popular; it is making its way to print media’s familiar haunt – the daily newspaper. An article entitled, How do you feel about this headline, appearing in The Toronto Star in July 2008, listed a new job posting: Citizen Journalist. This role, explains the article, will be facilitated by ‘a new tool launched by thestar.com that allows users to comment on stories. The goal is to make the news more interactive, more dynamic, more of an open discussion, instead of a static lecture.’

While the Toronto Star has made this collaborative effort a new addition, other publications base their entire being around global collaborative efforts. The best example of this is the photography magazine JPG. Its most recent issue, entitled Human Impact, and On the Go, advertises on the cover that ‘you can submit photos, write articles, and vote at jpgmag.com.’ The contents of the magazine – submitted by members who register for a free account on the internet - cover a breadth of humanity in photographs from across the globe. This type of effort spells out the appeal of mass collaboration: in one publication, there exists a number of different regional images from around the globe. Each contributor occupies a space on the magazine’s main website, which facilitates the high degree of sharing.

To inspire – and doubtless, expand its readership – the back of the magazine outlines the different areas of its content, and describes how new members can contribute. For example, the categories are: On the job; where you can interview and shoot someone with a cool job; WTF (you understand), where photographers can submit their weirdest photos – with descriptions; Where I’m At, which is dedicated to show and tell pieces about a contributors town, city or neighbourhood; and lastly, Nice to Meet You, where one can shoot and describe someone interesting. Each category is advertised on a cut-out card, with the intention of being stowed in a camera bag, and comes with bullet-point ideas to get you started. With over 489,179 submissions to jpgmag.com by 142, 568 members, and 11,594 submissions to issue 16 by 6,970 members, this collaborative take is quickly gaining momentum.

Just as the democratic process made us feel – at least a little more – comfortable with the political process, so to can mass collaboration make us feel comfortable with the life process. The more and more individuals feel connected to a story, event, process, or disaster as the case may be, the more and more people will choose to care. If you polled a majority of Canadians about how effective they think their vote is, I’m willing to bet all the money in my pockets and all the money in your pockets, that a majority feel their vote will not matter. Even though politicians use the internet to make themselves available for comments by their constituents, the use of the Internet in this way is, considering history, relatively new and its effectiveness in rallying politically active people has yet to be tested over a long enough period of time. This is to say nothing of how reluctant older crowds are to approach a computer, and as well, the most politically apathetic generation are young people who are coming-of-age in generation I.

So what is the point? Mass collaboration is fast becoming the medium of communications and business networking; it is also making its way into the literary world. For example, as an endnote, authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams attached to their book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, a website address where readers can involve themselves in the editing process of their work, and as well, can offer refinements to the arguments they make. Put another way; novels traditionally promote one way of looking at something, or to borrow the words of the Citizen Journalist job posting, are static lectures that offer little chance for collaborating with its creativity. In this sense, novels promote a method of learning that runs counter to the 21st Century experience.

Another standpoint, offered by Nicholas Carr in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid? written for the Atlantic, promotes that heavy internet usage is reprogramming the human brain in ways that deter our ability to read long works. He explains that ‘media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.’ The affect he says is the ‘mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.’ How does the Net affect mediums? Carr writes that ‘when the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed.’

So perhaps it goes without saying that the Internet’s centrality in the role of communications has altered the traditional image of the novel. The Internet is now pregnant with the latest weapon against the novel: the eBook. After all, why would you spend $32.99 on a hard cover novel, when you can download it for $5-10 at Project Guttenberg’s site for example?

Appearing on Rabble.ca, Wayne MacPhail’s article Living in the future with the book of books, describes the Sony Reader Digital Book. About the thickness of an iPod, and the appearance of a Moleskin notebook, MacPhail says that it ‘can store up to 160 average-length books. That means the Reader Digital Book is not really a book at all, it’s an uberbook. It can call up for display any of the thousands upon thousands of pages in its memory. You can bookmark a page, flip to a specific page and select books from your library with a simple menu.’ Its all-in-one nature will fit nicely into the modern image of convenience: maybe the Sony Digital Reader Book will be sold in the electronics department of your local grocery store!

Just as technology is moving literature away from traditional mediums, it is also popularizing new literary movements. In 1984, American poet Marc Smith created what he called Poetry Slam. He noted that ‘the very word poetry repels people. Why is that? Because of what schools have done to it. The slam gives it back to the people…we need people to talk poetry to each other. That’s how we communicate our values, our hearts, the things that we’ve learned that make us who we are.’

Smith’s Poetry Slam helped popularize the spoken word scene created by dynamic performers such as Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. In a sense, poetry slam was marinated in the early 1980s with the free-flow of jazz, and the attitude of hip-hop. As well, as dissents and political activists began to advertise their messages through these mediums, spoken word and poetry slam inspired new artists, such as Saul Williams, to pick up their pens.

However, while bringing a new level of cool to poetry, slam and spoken word carries literature further away from the archaic novel. Inasmuch as slam expressed the values that are important to communicate, it also embraced the evolution in communication’s mediums. This movement has grown and continues to grow because of how accessible and easy to procure, recording technology has become. One explanation for this is the essence of poetry slam is a freestyle quality that cannot be pinned down on a page. Instead, recorders are used to capture the evolving flow and raw emotions of slam. The trouble this leads to the novel is that recording software has long-since been made available to the everyday person. Nowadays it is easy to burn discs, or to create your own studio album with a recording devise.

While technology and science are making transitions in the name of energy efficiency, however, the influence of the Green Movement can also be seen as having negative impacts on the novel. We have seen how the Internet has turned reader’s attention from the blank page, to the web page; however changing environmental practices are also playing their part to facilitate this shift.

Since improvements were made to the technology of recycling, reduce, reuse, recycle has become a well-known slogan. Over the years, the idea of recycling has spawned new trends for the design and production of goods utilizing recycled materials. Many people can recall seeing compact disc jackets boast of being made from 100% recycled material. Using paper plates at the cottage used to be considered a crime, but has been vindicated due to the fact that most are made of recycled materials, and can be recycled themselves after usage.

Recycling has long been a function most offices partake in as well. More likely than not, one can recall seeing ‘think before you print’ signs above network printing stations, which institutionalizes the importance of reducing the amount of paper being wasted. The fact that more and more offices are placing emphasis on economical use of paper, makes the internet more important and the novel seem out of touch. Of course, one cannot ignore the fact that publishers also use recycled material for their novels, however, with the prominence the Internet has in the 21^st Century, getting rid of the novel out right may not be far off.

Love;

Front-step kisses
and drive-in back seats
and caramel-corn retreats
between two sheets-
as we laugh until we weep,
or until we sleep.

something to chew on...

not borrowed or blue, but something new...

If you could stare at something and not blink, what would it be?

What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?

If it weren't for light, would it always be night?

Free speech: the ultimate distraction

Usually this blog does not serve as my arena for rhetorical flushes of opinions that I intend anyone to adopt, but kids...that time has come.

While seated in the waiting room of the doctor's office one morning last week, I attempted to occupy myself by fixating on the television, since the View was on, I changed my mind and decided to read. While sifting through a pile of Good Housekeeping and US Weekly, and almost giving in to the fact that this particular doctor's office intended only to feed on the completely useless and mundane thus having nothing for me, I was delighted to find a Maclean's magazine with dog-eared pages staring up at me.

On the cover there was a picture of an African child, ravaged by Quashicore and wearing the tired, burdened face of a terrorized war-zone refugee. The point of the picture was to draw attention to the cover story inside about the latest element of the conflict in Darfur, in the Sudan. Of the many important topics facing the international community today, Darfur is absolutely near the top of the list.

While I feel that the resolution of this conflict is vital to the people of the Darfur region, and to the greater progression of the African Union, I'm writing for another purpose. The article begins on page thirty (or so) in the magazine, and after five pages, is interupted by...wait for it...Christmas 2006 holiday gift ideas. That's right...talking about today's important issues apparently has to come packaged with an intermission to remind us of a superficial holiday, where the 'haves' get more, and the impoverished are made to feel even worse then they already do.

After ten pages of advertisements for the color availabilty for IPods, chinos, and toy cars, the Darfur article continues. I realise that breaking up a coverstory is not a new thing, or a freak occurence, as magazines have to share column inches with other important issues, I just don't think that interupting a story on such an important issue is necessary to make way for advertisements. This is surprising to me coming from Maclean's magazine, but maybe not.

The question the editors have to ask themselves is of course, 'how best can we be the servents of two masters?' Everyone educated in the 'real world' knows that publications are paid for by advertising revenue, and editors and news directors have to hold the microphone and give ad-execs a reach-around at the same time, all the while presenting hard news that stabolizes, or increases a circulation. Circus show? Perhaps, depends on who you ask. Personally, I think this time they lost sight of the fact that the readers make the magazine not the other way around.

The people at Macleans have to realize that it is actions like this that fertilize the opinion that free speech is abused, and that advertisments are a waste of ink. Don't get me wrong, I like the Coke-a-Cola polar bears, but at least that's funny. Filling up advertising space should never come in the middle of cover stories that are trying to draw the public's attention to important issues. The editor's at Macleans need to realize the entitlement to free speach goes hand-in-hand with keeping it honest.

The article was about how rebels from waring tribes are crossing into neighboring Chad and are looting the homes of people that live there. This is the reality of a continent that needs all the support it can get, and I think North Americans are not only able to give that support, but if we consider ourselves the moral and political authorities, our news outlets should help cultivate that message, and not serve as greeting cards for the 'in-croud'.

The people are the magazine, and without us, there is no magazine!

this flight tonight...

paper airplane, please come back again.
come down through the clouds,
before my very eyes.
arrive on time to my surprise, I'll meet you at the gate.
hopes and dreams have set with
the sun, as we lie awake over the sea.
Come down through the clouds,
come back to me.

New Birth

My first face
as I glanced out
in space,
and starred at the
darkness beyond
the moon.
Orbiting the earth,
became flying
only to land;
floating only to
stand.
Late into the night
continued the flight,
over the rivers, oceans
and land.
O'Ryan's explosion
gave sight to the earth,
a distant star
untainted at birth,
a new face among
the crowd.

3 fingers pointing back

verbal abuse
is no excuse,
to scratch an itch
with a trigger.

spray-paint the face,
destored in space
staring you back
in the mirror.

every you

Every night,
I stay awake and listen
To the waves.
Invade my space and crash up against my ears.
Forgot his face,
Cause he hasn’t been around in years.
He returns again to disappear,
Before our eyes, starry night
In the clear.
Every day,
I thank the Gods that you’re okay.
Does your face hurt?
From where you landed
When you were falling down.
Is this our time and place to go,
Strike the match
And watch the glow.
Fools are we,
Who lie in the sea.
Casting stares into its depths.
We float,
But we want to sink.
Down to the bottom just to make us think.
About words we’d say,
If we came back to this day.
We found you sitting near,
The drive,
Beside the stairway to the basement.
Is this what they meant to say?
Blow kisses goodbye,
And call away the stars.
Light your lovers eyes,
With a spark from your flaming lips.
Let her feel your warmth,
you're floating away
in sinking ships...

passing time and space

Kissed by the ocean,
and swallowed by the waves,
Footprints in the sands of time.
Wanderers we all,
pass under the sun,
finding the shelter we crave.

Buildings amass, and cathedrals mundane,
locked by gate and key;
voices of the insane.
Laughter forced a smile,
showed teeth of glittering white-
Be that which destroys,
or that which creates;
of Frankensteins or doves.

Dilute the real with spirit or poison,
whichever, to pass a day.
Tired and weary,
distorted and dreary,
blots of ink that link and bleed.
Passes on stages, from one to the next,
without though of danger or speed.

Lockit...

hidden
secret
under-exposed.
darkened
hibrination
slumber
repose.
moisture
blurrs
vision
impaired.
silence
occured
hearing
dismantled.
brain
down
memory
low.
tonight
one
moon,
under
the
earth
I
go.