Drive-by love: part one

In the beginning there were butterflies in the stomachs of all the girls next door, a sense of conquest and adventure in the eyes of the boys - a curiousity, really. I remember it well, all the first times when you lay eyes on a person and something in your chemistry changes and now you don't look at her the same way anymore and thoughts of spending another day apart begin to tare you like a flag in the wind.

The moments that give you pause and take you back to a room where the sight of each other's faces seemed to part a sea people, a feeling like you're the only two people on the planet right here, this moment begins to snowball down a mountain and it gets bigger and bigger and once it roles through town nobodies lives will ever be the same. Everything thereafter becomes an I've-got-to-see-you moment, and you find yourself sprinting to her apartment through the rain to feel her place a hand on your face. The appearance of a toga and gold leaf crown not uncanny in the least.

Now, though, it was hitting the refresh page while staring at a computer screen waiting to see if there's a message, or if somebody new came to visit your profile. Sort of like drive-by love: your eyes cruise across the pages of the profile, you look at all the words in the tiny boxes and you get hooked on something. You continue to read the profile. When you finish, maybe you read it a second time, to see if there's something you missed. For some reason you choose to focus on the fact that she apparently "owns cats", which make you have asthmatic reactions requiring rapid self-medication. Easy tiger. You're just saying hello. Think of something to say. Does she have pictures of herself? She does. How many? Four, nice. Oh, she looks awesome in this one. Man, this chick is the hottest f*#king girl I've ever seen in my life!

Look at her pictures.

Think of something to say.

Look at her pictures, again.

Think of something to say.

What to say?

Everybody says that online dating cuts through the bullshit, and gets the asses of the lonely into the chairs of coffee houses and pubs all across this fair city. People are more easy going on the internet. Look, buddy, we're all here for a reason. Sure.

That may be true. People are always telling me about some friends they know who hooked up and hit it off right away. After listening to this sort of talk for a while, you naively form the opinion that people on the internet will actually be as open-minded as their search for a partner appears to be. They will want to meet.

The meeting places. It's always someplace neutral, like a coffee shop, or some casual dining affair a couples steps away from hotdog vendor. Some place mutually comfortable where the ambient noise is dialed down enough to hear the other person speak. So you can nod along, letting out a few "yeahs" in a half-hearted attempt to communicate that you're actually listening and not wondering if you can look at her tits during the time it takes her to blink. This way to the gentlemen's room.

Sometimes a month's worth of emails. She takes her time to reply, it seems. You reply right away. Doesn't that make me seem a little too...eager? Whatever, first introductions are always awkward, it's the impression they cause that sometimes sticks in a bad way.

Here's the story. She was twenty-two and he was twenty-seven. She was in school, he was in limbo. He knew this, she did not. Not yet. He'd wait and see what happens first before he lets her know just how pathetic he really is. They spent the first two days sending instant messages to each other, flirty, but not obnoxiously so.

He then asked if she had plans that night. Her disclosure that she was staying in tonight made him smile the smile of an opportunist. Suggested drinks. She lived sort of in the west end, he lived definitely downtown. Give me an hour, he said. She was down. Just a walk down the street from her place. Said she'd wait for him outside. Cool. He changed his shirt, splashed his face with cologne, and called a cab from his BlackBerry while waiting for the elevator. It's an apartment. He'll be downstairs. Five to twenty-minutes. Plenty of time. He didn't want to smell like smoke for the first meeting, but he was getting anxious and was pacing the handicap ramp, so he decided to give into the tug of self-medication. Flick. Light. Breathe deep and relax. Checked his phone, he called the taxi almost twenty minutes ago. Still not here. He'd better send her a text letting her know that he'll be a bit late, waiting for the cab. So sorry. Send. Inhales pathologically for the next several minutes. Checks the time on his phone like he's expecting a bomb to detonate somewhere nearby. Stares down the street. Empty. Looks for cars with white lights on the roofs. Walks down to the other intersection, parked cars line the street but no taxis. No taxis. This is a first date for Christ's sake. Wow this looks bad. I'd better text her again. Hey, still no taxi, I'm gonna walk up to Bank and see what happens. Be there soon. Send. She replies. Sure, sure. You're probably just ditching me. Huh? No way. Panics. Words rush to his mouth and once and stumble into each other. Comes out squished. Drops his phone. Landed on the top of his shoe, so no worries. Hey, I'm coming, I really am. Don't leave. She writes back, you've got another half-hour. Okay. Send.

Keeping the girl waiting. Not the fake-out game to play when meeting her for the first time. No. But there she was leaning against the building wrapped tightly in a winter coat as it was unseasonably cold that night. Snowing a little. There she stood. I told you I was coming. Again, really sorry about the wait. I guess my apartment is in a taxi black-hole or something. No worries. Cute smile. Ended up having a great time with her. Talked for three hours and a couple of cocktails each. Nice girl. He walked her home and they smiled at each other when they parted. That could have been really bad, he thought. Still reeling from the late taxi pickup. Oh well. The next day she texted him.

Another time there was this forty-something woman. Looked nice in her profile pick so he send her a message. Over the summer. To his surprise she writes back right away. Teacher, so, I'm off during the summer. Must be nice. Secretly unemployed. Describes it as vacation instead. They talk, they talk, they talk. She's from Montreal though. He's in Ottawa. Shitty. They get along right away and bond over a mutual love of running and hiking. She's in great shape, has the legs and ass of a woman half her age. Nice. Running, hello. Gotcha. She's going hiking the next day. For some reason asks him to come along. Yeah, he can get there by 7am. She'll pick him up at the bus station. Cool. All in one day. Sort of weird. But, whatever. She feels taken aback by her own impulse and he asks if she'd like to call him so they could actually talk. Yeah, that'd be good. Yeah. Here, that's my cell. She calls they talk. Tells him that she never does anything like this. He says, ah, it's going to be fun. Then she asks him. Are you a serial killer? He laughs. No, are you? They laugh. He tells her to relax, people say I'm disarming by natural and I've always considered myself an extremely non-violent fellow. Seriously, no worries. Good. Because I have two kids and they need me. I would think. Don't worry. We'll have fun, and you'll remain alive.

Wow. Really? A non-violent pact before a date. This was truly the first of its kind in his experience anyway. What sort of men had this girl been seeing before? What sort of dates were they going on? Yikes. Then again, maybe it wasn't all that weird. Girl tells me that her friends shamed her for deleting her profile. Tells them why, though. Too many messages. Hey baby, this and that. Pictures of...well, you know. Gawd. Tells them that she'd receive one hundred a day, easily. Friends don't believe her. No way. Not because she isn't pretty, just, no way that many messages. Oh yeah, she says. Watch this. Fakes a profile. Leaves the boxes blank, just a name. Not even a picture. Gives the girls a copy of the password so they can check it out for themselves. So they can watch the progress.

Not even three hours later. Twelve messages.

~to be continued~

Stale Bread

A loaf of stale bread under my head,

killer instinct in my eye but I don't bite,

you know why? cause it's suffocating quietly inside.

The second that it breathes, it opens its eyes, to their surprise,

a jack in the box with a fully automatic inside,

pull this car over, get the kids off of the ride,

they don't show it with their eyes, but they know a truth from a lie.

An intergenerational game of monkey see, monkey do...

do as I say my lit' homey, but not as I do,

a lot easier to say when you don't see the

three fingers pointing back at you.

I've got some of the answers, but I keep finding clues.

I used to wear this life like a costume, now it's a second skin.

Some clothes you wear start to wear you,

you're the first to hope you win, and the last to see you lose.

Go to church and you can learn about sinners and saints,

go to confession anonymous and you can lodge your complaints,

my angel in the mail came with a demon inside...

a full metal jacket against the skin of my pretty young bride.

The inside is what's real and the outside is fake,

don't' be Bart Simpson reaching for the electric cupcake.

Can't fix a broken home with a sludge hammer,

can't win the game throwing TD passes to Quintin Jammer.

It's hard to get on the right track without a ticket to ride,

it's tough to find the inner beauty when you're dying inside.

Swans

I'm looking out across a sea of placated faces,

wondering how much damage time really erases.

Can I open a window in the room to vent some of this gloom,

the built up ambient noise, a home devoid of little joys.

Your silence is more telling than anything you really say

you walked away, never come again to stay, maybe to play, but not today.

But I want my shadow back, somebody to walk beside me

somebody to help me pick up the slack.

push our toes threw the sand on a beach in the promised land.

This auditorium my last stand,

won't you sit down there and keep your eyes on me?

the last desperate act of a guilty man tryin' a be free.

A bird in cage is always aware of its clipped wings,

a picture's worth a thousand different things,

it's just some guy on a cross, three days for the loss,

angel man in the cave's the boss.

Tellin' you why the rock was rolled back,

turn around to the see their tracks.

Can catch up to 'em too, just need to count to twelve,

in the library of the soul pulling tears off the shelves.

Always on my feet, I'm quick like a cat,

but if I had nine lives, why did I use 'em like that.

I'm in the middle of my own civil war, new streets but I've been here before.

Take the fork in the road, a needle in the weather vain

there's no shame in coming clean out of the shower.

Get my back for an hour, just let me fall

asleep in your gaze,

just got up and told 'em my name,

there's no praise to give because it won't be true.

And I could die in this bed lookin' back up to see you.

There's my life and my name and I'm waring 'em out,

Somethin' deep inside's finding its way to the door,

I managed to find from the floor.

Lemme have just five minutes more.

Got me a list of names who've been good to my bad,

time to fix it by sending sorries out into the dark night.

In any light, this wasn't right,

feed me tomorrow and I won't bite.

Just want you to know that I mean it,

so you can just sit back and glean it from my smile

that I smile when I'm looking at you,

from the rays of light from my brain when I'm thinkin' bout you.

Just one more chance to make it right, just sit tight,

28 days and a couple of nights.

The past is gory, got no glory,

featured voice in a broken toy storey.

Gotta get down off this wall, walk threw the mall.

Just a clear window between you and your dreams, it seems.

I placed a bet on the high of my lowest regret,

it fell on red but my wager was security set.

Walk me out to the street, call me a cab,

the last stab,

in the guts with this shaky microphone,

Are there anybody's lights on at home?

where I return alone.

Knowledge & Expression

A question was posed to me recently, and I answered what I thought was a good answer, but the substance of it began to fester. The question was, "Which do you think is life's ultimate pursuit: knowledge, or expression?" I ignored the fact that my options were so strictly limited in this sort of black and white sense, and thought about it for a while.

I answered, both, but my answer was not a product of indecision. I couldn't decide between knowledge or expression for the simple reason that they are linked in principle. It's knowing what to say and how to say it. The who, where, when questions add personality, reason, and objective to what we say and are made significant by how we say it.

The interconnection between knowledge and expression is particularly telling in writing. A writer's quest to find their own "voice" is a combination of knowledge acquired and expression learned. To stand out in a world filled with writers takes various paths of self-exploration, experimentation, if you like, and practice to find the modes of expression that does justice to an individuals experience with the world.

In this sense, the more you find out about yourself - the thoughts you're willing to write down, the areas of society you're willing to explore - the more knowledge you acquire. Taking the time to think about them and allowing for the time to practice writing allows a writer to access their truest voice, or style of expression.

Artists Inspire Artists: A note on the Paris Review Interviews

Once upon a day a few years ago, I was walking through my local bookstore with no particular destination in mind when I stumbled past a section of anthologies. There were short story collections, books of literary criticism, essay collections by John Updike and Susan Orlean, and books about theory and why writers write. I stood in front of the shelf for several minutes judging the books by their covers. Then I saw a book with the title The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. I, written across its bright yellow cover.

Taking the book off of the shelf and turning it over, I noticed a quote from Ernest Hemingway that read, "I have all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review." There were also included, quotes from several other established literary bright lights such as Margaret Atwood, John Ashbery and Salmon Rushdie. Each praised the Review for it's famous and thorough interviews.

Flipping to the table of contents, I began reading names like Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Dorothy Parker, Joan Didion, and several others, each interviewed by the Review for their insights into the arts of fiction, non-fiction, journalism, poetry and drama.

Needless to say, I bought the book and quickly became engrossed by its content. Each interview began with a short description of the setting of the interview: sometimes an office, a living room, hotel room, or restaurant, all describing the creative environment of the artists.

Reading these interviews provides one with a look into the creative engines that drive these artists, and the idiosyncrasies that keep them on track. And their methods are as diverse as the writers themselves.

For example, while Hemingway liked to write standing up, Truman Capote liked to lie down. While Annie Proulx begins composing in long-hand, she moves to the computer midway through; and Gay Talese uses shirt cards from the dry cleaners for taking notes on his subjects.

Kurt Vonnegut recounted how film adaptations (in his case for Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night) were a welcome source of financial stability to the writer. Capote, recounted the abandonment of several short stories and even an entire novel because he didn't believe they would sell. Winner of six Oscars and recipient of the 1987 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, Billy Wilder, shared his thoughts on failure, by stating that:

"Sure, I've made blunders, for God's sake. Sometimes you lay an egg, and people will say, It was too early. Audiences weren't ready for it. Bullshit. If it's good, it's good. If it's bad, it's bad. The tragedy of the picture maker, as opposed to the playwright, is that for the playwright the play debuts in Bedford, Massachusetts, and then you take it to Pittsburgh. If it stinks you bury it. If you examine the credits of Moss Hart or George Kaufman, no one ever brings up the play that bombed in the provinces and was buried after four shows.

"With a picture that doesn't work, no matter how stupid and how bad, they're still going to try to squeeze every single penny out of it. You go home one night and turn on the TV and suddenly, there on television, staring back at you, on prime time, that lousy picture, that thing, is back! We don't bury our dead; we keep them around smelling badly."

However funny or odd the interviews (and sometimes the interviewees) seem, a common point with all is the hard work ethic needed to create, and the discipline it takes to reach the visions of their perfection. Again, I turn to Hemingway (I'll admit a bias for his interview, as he is one of my favourite writers), who admitted to writing the last page of his classic A Farewell To Arms, a staggering 39 times, before he was satisfied. With each of the interviews, there is included a page of manuscript, of one form or another, by the writer, where one gets a flavour for their editing style. (As a person who grew up typing, I also get a kick out of seeing the fine examples of remarkable penmanship.) Kurt Vonnegut's example even came from an unpublished novel of his called Spit and Image. Since the author's recent death and publication of other previously unreleased material, might fans be treated with this unknown work in the future?

Whoever you decide to highlight, reading The Paris Review Interviews gives book lovers a window into the composition of those classic works we love. The interviews are a place where a fan might also discover habits in common with their favourite author.

Inspiration takes many and all forms. But I think a great source of excitement lies in reading the thoughts and views of the people who have helped shape literary hunger in this world.

An interviewee once told me that "art inspires art". And I couldn't agree more. But I would extend this by saying also that artists inspire artists.

Reading the Dictionary

During university I had a political philosophy professor who stood before the class one day and asked, "Have you ever read the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) from cover to cover?"

It was a strange question because, as I thought anyway, aren't dictionaries something to be looked at when we forget how to spell something? Yeah, how do spell...look it up. The same with a Thesaurus. What's another word for....look it up. But then you put down the OED and never look at it again.

The professor's recommendation to us that day was simply that, "You should, it's remarkably interesting and entertaining!"

The interesting, I could see. Dictionaries, in a way, are the diary of languages, the way we track its past, present and ever-changing future. When somebody does something great (greatly evil, as you will find Hitler, Stalin and Pinochet's names; or just plain great like Tolstoy, Diana, Princess of Wales, et-cetera), their names are added to the OED.

In recent years this has been extended to consumer culture. Canadians will be pleased to know that if they are confused about what a "double-double" is, they can look it up in the Canadian OED. I'm sure in some American addition, one can find the hallmark of the original fast-food meal, the Big Mac.

When film and books began to be popularized by mass market PR strategies, making them available to global audiences, the word "blockbuster" was inserted and is defined informally as "a film or book with great commercial success." This was also extended to describe a person behind such great success, by calling them "superstars", and defining the term as "an extremely famous and successful performer or sports star." (Even animal noises are given a name and defined. Take for example, the "bleat" which is first defined as "a sheep or goat's weak or wavering cry.")

There are any number of examples where the changing nature of the English language has added to the content of the OED.

The entertaining, I can also understand, for the simple reason that some words or names are hilarious and given even funnier definitions. Take for example the "walrus moustache", a noun that describes a "long, thick, drooping moustache." (Along the lines of facial hair, maybe the term "Movember" might find its way in some day.)

How about "yippee", describing an "expression of wild excitement or delight." Canadians always love to point out the British influences on their lives, so in that spirit, consider the "yob" which is a British informal word describing a "rude or aggressive young man", or a "yobbo", which refers to a "yob".

The list goes on and on.

While the professor characterized the OED as an interesting and fascinating read, perhaps it is also a necessary read. How many times have you seen the wrong "your" or "you're", or "its" and "it's" or "they're", "their", and "there" used incorrectly? If you must, their definitions rather simply spell out their appropriate use, and they're found in the OED.

How many times have you had a conversation over Twitter or Facebook, and employed the letters "LMAO" or "LOL" to describe that you're "laughing your ass off" or that you just "laughed out loud"? How many times have you seen the aforementioned "your" simply written as "ur"?

Whether you view the OED as simply a reference tool, a vital reminder of the roots of the English language, as a source of entertaining and amusing words and definitions, or as a log meant to track the evolution of words and phrases, I would say that it is all of these things.

And definitely worth a read!

What I learned while writing a novel

This past fall, after years of kicking around mere fragments of ideas in my head, I sat down in front of an old Smith/Corona typewriter and hunted and pecked and miss-typed my way to two hundred pages of manuscript. The typewriter had been bought at the Glebe Garage sale (an immensely popular annual purging of basements and crawl-spaces in one of Ottawa's oldest neighbourhoods) for $10 dollars, and given to me as a gift.

As writers know, there are as many ways and methods to approach writing a novel as there are novelists. And if you're honest with yourself, it is a process that you don't necessarily prefect, as methods of expression can change with age, as one acquires new perspectives. In any case, I began my journey baring two rules in mind: (1) write every day, whether one paragraph, an entire chapter, story arc, character introduction; and (2) finish each day knowing where to begin the next. Let's be honest, these two principles are very basic (and I stole the second rule from Hemingway! Paris Review interview lovers may note his 1958 sit-down with George Plimpton).

I chose to focus on these rules for the simple reason that they seem easy to follow, even when writing each day seems like a serious challenge. Allowing myself to be satisfied with whatever I had written on a particular day seemed to take the pressure off of trying to perform some Kerouacian feat of marathon spontaneity. It also allowed me to completely envision the world I was trying to describe before I approached the typewriter, if only one place at a time, one character at at time.

As this project was my first attempt at composing a novel, I also learned not only how to manage a creative schedule, but I also learned to pay close attention to the stuff of novels: people, places, objects, time of day, sounds, noise, the way people walk, the way people talk, how they hold their coffee cups or pens, and probably a million other things. I have always been a social person, but writing this novel heightened my awareness as to how much personal interaction goes a long way in creating moulds of character.

For me this meant turning off the iPod, turning off the BlackBerry, and opening my senses to the things going on around me, the smells in the air, sitting on the bus and not drowning out the ambient noise with the damn rap music, et-cetera. Letting go of various digital distractions through the writing process was vital in capturing the essence of place, setting, character. These may not be the things that drive a novel, but they are the blood and muscle that layers the skeleton of plot.

In the end it is about simplicity. For myself (and I didn't write this to sound like a garden Buddha passing out fortune cookie wisdom), ignoring the complexities of the world around me and paying more attention to the "little things", allowed me to find places where my characters could exist, and allowed me to give them traits that were relatable to others.

February's Song

Only see your around at Christmas,
from the look on your face, I know you missed us.
But you look lost in the frozen faces of familiar picture frames.
Don't need to remember the dates and names,
and you can still find your fringerprints on the window panes.
Come back to me in footsteps through the snow.
Each crunch that you hear is another wall between us breaking down,
the sidewalks may look different but it's the same old town.
Take the ship out of the bottle and sail across the room,
you might find the record player's playing a new tune.

Learning how to stand

Searching through the forest of my mind -
there's something I've lost, but don't want to find.
I wanna kneel amongst the trees, witness heaven on my knees -
and say something hot to this cool breeze.
Lose my footprints in the river trying to walk across the water;
change direction like a bird;
suck sun like a flower;
walk without a shadow and crawl away praying for a new day;
fall asleep beneath a rainbow, and wake up next to a pot of gold -
just give me another life to hold,
but this story's been sold.
Put down the brush and guide your colours with both hands,
you might fall amongst the rubble,
but you're learning how to stand.

This Blog's 4

This blog's 4,

another year like the one before.

Many pass by without leaving a trace,

hard to find your footprints in this internet space.

Through travel,

through pain,

some sun,

some rain,

it's all here,

and it's not left-over.

No used tires,

or cliche clover.

In the eyes of the normal man,

his property is kingdom and he is king.

So here's my

something, nothing, everything.

a 2010

A new birth in 2010;

the annual chance to begin again.

Slopping through snow, and ice and regrets...

take another opportunity to place your bets.

Some celebrate this day like the ones before,

some stay buried beneath the old war.

Between beginning and end we find ourselves today,

hoping for change that doesn't seem far away.

Undone

Unclasp the watch to write this rhythm;

photos of another place and time ---

this reverie is both yours and mine.

Our interaction on the side-street knows,

that the cold of the winter-wind blows

your whispers past the tip of my nose,

as the sign flips from open to close;

and you stand under the shadow of your choosing,

and I crawl away a casualty of your musing.

victims of a fight where both are losing,

junk-sick from the drugs we're using.

Photos of another place and time ---

this life is both yours and mine.

Can't wash this feeling from my hand,

of being tucked away in a foreign land,

reduced to the occasional family pity- visit.

(Not our creation or is it?)

Splashes on the blank canvas,

old water in the empty vase;

footprints in the frozen grass,

tear-tracks down your tired face.

Inside the wooden crate wrapped in lace,

trinkets warn from use before,

we ignited a civil war.

You stand under the shadow of your choosing,

and I crawl away a casualty of your musing.

victims of a fight where both are losing,

junk-sick from the drugs we're using.

It was done before it was over,

fields of fire now filled with clover;

a reminder of peacefully counting sheep

under skies too beautiful to miss for sleep.

A memory for down-the-road to keep,

no battle could ever be had or won,

those days have past,

we've come undone.

Playboy Magazine: Playing nice on the coffee tables of mainstream

It's been a theory of mine for a while that the once taboo men's magazine, Playboy, has shaken off its label as the bible of moral turpitude, to dawn the cloak of a respectful, mainstream avenue for literature, social commentary and critique.

This has happened for three reasons: the Internet has moved pornography away from still pictures and transformed that label to movies; the 'playboy' pose isn't something that's akin to pornography, but rather more closely relates to fine art, even promoting an almost overarching artistic merit. And lastly, its content has seen contributions from diverse sources such as stories by Margaret Atwood, to Marge Simpson as the newest cover model.

Hardly a surprise to the Internet-savvy, but people don't go to magazines anymore for 'the really good stuff.' NO. Save that for the plethora of websites that make you pass through a disclaimer screen asking you to make sure you're old enough to view the content. Nothing that anybody could put in a magazine could be as bad. More importantly, though, is the Internet has changed the medium of porn, replacing the once sought-after pictures with movies. (Note: pornography refers to how acts of a sexual nature are depicted, not actually the substance of what's being depicted.)

Second, the "Playboy" pose. I don't think high-gloss pictures of women posing in the country-side on fur blankets with elegant jewelry constitutes porn. The pictures look like fine art pictures, which do, by their very definition promote some sort of overarching artist merit. In a sense, these types of photos aren't about the women at all, but the quality of the photos. Real pornography has a grittiness to it that photo spreads in Playboy completely lack. The centerfolds look they've been touched up with an airbrush. That's fine, I think everyone knows about airbrushing by now, but the problem is the photos LOOK like they've been airbrushed. Polished is not pornography. If Playboy magazine were a girl, she'd be the type who wears makeup to the gym.

Above all, the content of the magazine promotes a more mainstream audience than say its traditional market penetration of the mid-40s white male. Many fine writers from Margaret Atwood to James Ellroy have published a story in Playboy: hardly headline writers for Penthouse.

In the end, Playboy has made a transition from the secret-porno-stash-closets of fathers, to the coffee tables of mainstream. Think I'm wrong, here's more proof. This past Friday I was in barber shop having my hair cut when I noticed the magazine rack. The two latest editions of Playboy magazine. Just sitting right there, in public. Not tucked away, out there where the world can see them. The part of this argument that makes it art is that this barber shop, is located in the basement of a government of Canada building.

No Access?

The issue of transparency always manages to surface, in one form or another, in democratic societies. Our Access to Information Act makes it possible for ordinary citizens like you and I to request information from the Government of Canada, and receive a reply shortly thereafter.

Seems simple enough.

Really though, the Access to Information Act was not designed as a simple query and answer forum. Rather, this access to information system was put in place so that the government would have a legitimate way to say: NO.

Firstly, the Access to Information Act had to be written in the first place! If our government was concerned about how uninformed its citizens were, all information, from all ministries would be available, all the time. There would not be an Act that prescribes the procedures for filling out an access to information request form because there would not be a request form. There would not be timelines for answering requests and processes to follow because the only answer would be, yes.

Secondly, the Act itself includes a measure that ensures the public-at-large never fully understands what information is available. Section 10 (where access is refused), subsection 1, states that:

“Where the head of a government institution refuses to give access to a record requested under this Act or a part thereof, the head of the institution shall state in the notice given under paragraph 7(a): (a) that the record does not exist.”

Looks pretty straight-forward.

You make a request for access, you are denied, end of the story, right? Maybe not. Subsection 2 states that, “The head of a government institution may but is not required to indicate under subsection (1) whether a record exists.”

When your access to information request is denied – and you are supplied with the reason: the record does not exist – there is no way of knowing if that is in fact the case. This logic is the reason why the request is being denied access, but the head of the government institution is not required to provide proof.

Sounds like no access to me.

Broken

This home is broken,
cut me open.
Give me an answer,
don't leave the cancer.

Liberal Homebase?

Canada might be on the verge of conservative reign for years to come: of course only time will tell if that's true. For what it's worth, I'm starting to feel like the Progressive Conservatives after the 1993 election that returned only two Tories to Parliament Hill: gearing up for a long stay in Opposition territory.

In the face of yesterday's by-elections in British Columbia, Quebec and Nova Scotia, I am concerned for the fderal Liberals. In each of these by-elections, the Liberal candidate was not in the top two, rather, third. It's not only the finishing position that is cause for concern but that in each case, Liberals were severly trailing their competition in the number of votes. Using these numbers to project any type of outcome in a possible spring election, the results are less than desired.

One of the things I find uncanny about the Liberal party is how its own players (Parliamentarians and staffers) talk about their voters. When talking about the general public, they all seem to say the same thing: "We need to reach out to our base!"

I find this declaration interesting, and a little confusing because, there is no Grit base. For much of its ruling history, the Liberal Party of Canada has been a successful brokerage party, nothing else. It has been able to find success by pulling socially progressive voters away from the Tories, and has managed to make the argument that of the opposition parties, they'll be the ones to win power.

Not sure if that's true. If the recent elections in Canada have taught us anything, they have reminded us of the importance and necessity of a homebase. In this department, the Liberals seem out-gunned by the religous right and family values based voters of the CPC; the environmental activitist base of the Green Party; the Quebec Nationalist base of the Bloc Quebecois; and the socially progressive, workers-rights voters of the NDP.

So, when federal Liberals say, "we need to reach out to our base," who are they talking about? To be sure, the Liberal Party needs a real identity, not a stolen one, or a borrowed one. If the identity remains securely attached to being the middle of the road, then that's where they'll stay.

Thoughts on Concrete

Masquerading in the mirror by the candlelight,

reveals the darker side of you.



Walking on the water instantly reveals,

the crippling weight of your concrete shoes.



Did you choose to wear that bruise?

Why would you wage a losing war?


Meet me outside the grocery store,

I always leave wanting more.

2009 Nobel Prize in Literature

Yes, it's that time of year: the time when the secretive Swedes burst out and unmask the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. To be honest, I'm getting very tired of the European writers. When you consider that nine of the past ten winners have been from European countries, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it's time for a change.

People have been talking about the American writer, Philip Roth, but what about Thomas Pynchon? Albiet a recluse (I don't even think his publishers know his face!) Pynchon churns out a novel on an average of 9 nine years, but they are nonetheless worth the wait. If the Nobel Prize is a recognition of a lifetime's contribution to the cause of literature - and it is a cause - don't his books Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and most recently, Against the Day, put him at the top?

I ask you to consider Canada, who hasn't seen a winner (and 1976 winner Saul Bellow doesn't count. For one thing, he spent his entire writing life forcing his work on hapless undergrads at the University of Chicago; and for another, he renounced his Canadian citizenship!).

Hasn't Margaret Atwood produced a lifetime of amazing work? But don't stop there, consider Alice Munro. Sure her forte remains the short story, but the Nobel Lit prize doesn't have to be about novels. The mathematian Bertran Russell won it in 1950, and a Churchill named Winston in 1953. So it isn't just about books. Munro's stories portray characters with an array of intensions, desires, horrors, passions, and curiousities, and they are worthy. Sure she took herself out of the running for this year's Gillar Prize, but I think she'd make the trip to Sweden for a date with King Gustav!

Fine, don't consider fiction alone! Consider American historian Howard Zinn. A man of remarkable depth, vision, and clarity, a man who has seen war but advocates for peace and prosperity gives him credit. (What was that pioneering book he wrote, A People's History of the United States?)

The last North American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature was Toni Morrison, for her novel, Beloved, but that was 1993!

Who's it going to be? Take a look at North America!!

List of soldiers' names grows longer

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend a memorial service - for the 24 Canadian victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks - at Beechwood Cemetery, in Ottawa, Ontario. Earlier this year, an Act of Parliament made these grounds the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Forces. (For those of you elsewhere in the world, these grounds represent the Canadian equivalent to the United States' Arlington National Cemetery.)

As my taxi turned into the east entrance and began meandering down the small asphalt street, eventually dropping me off near the Prime Minister's security detail, I began to notice many of Ottawa's great names carved on the tombstones.

The Prime Minister greeted all those in attendance - which included politicians, family members of the victims, and those of the soldiers fighting insurgencies in Afghanistan - with a speech, a moving tribute to the legacy of Canadian soldiers fighting for our freedom. (I stood behind the rows of chairs, and every once and a while, glanced over my shoulder to the rows and rows of military tombstones behind me, and I wondered about the last thing each of them saw before they died.)

After the Prime Minister's address, two family members of the victims of 9-11 - a boy and girl - came and read aloud the names of the 24 Canadians who died in New York that day. The audience was moved to tears when the little boy came to his uncle's name, choaked back tears, and read his name aloud through the stutters of broken English. The list took 5 minutes to read, but it felt like forever.

Following this, four people were invited up to read the names of every Canadian soldier killed in Canada's mission in Afghanistan - all 129 of them (at that point, the list is now 131 names long).

As each presenter stood and somberly made their way through their list of names, the world around us seemed to become snarled up in the canopy of trees, letting no evidence of life outside the cemetery encroach on the moment. The third presenter - a blond woman - began reading the names, but was overcome with grief when she presented her husband's name. At the same time a moving and miraculously human moment, for in that brief moment, we all wore her pain.

When the ceremony concluded, I found myself wondering through the rows of military tombstones, being careful of course, not to step too close. As I walked I began to think about the close to 15 minutes it took to read all 129 names aloud.

How long before that list takes 30 minutes to read? How long before it takes 45 minutes, and then one hour after that?

How many more rows of tombstones will I see next year?

Let the blank page tell the story

Father sits at the desk,

wondering what to say to son.

The computer mimics

the blank expression on his face.

White screen.

Cursor blinks

like a light-house signaling

the fog of images

trapped in the night of his mind to safety.

Should he write in Ariel?

Would Times New Roman be too official?

Could he pull off an LOL in Bookman Old Style?

What the hell is Wing-Dings?

Shift, home-key, safe and sound.

And start again?

Or,

Alt-Control-Delete,

and let the blank page tell the story?