Near the End of a Long Month

The safer route would be to talk about the essay mix cd my students collaborated on (I piped up with my own choice, Tom Waits' "Hold On") to accompany an anthology of one-pagers about "favourite all-time song".

What's most on my mind is the way we tend to overlook the local for something else. Maybe I'm already over-emphasizing what identity people might derive from where they are.

I should try to keep a positive shape to what I'm saying: as artists our first source, first figure in view, even first responsibility (I'll say, for purposes of argument) is the local--that which gives us everything and is not to be taken for granted.

Next, if there is a next: why the local should be our first focus of critical attention.

Tonight, Freehouse, 8:00

Now that my book is out, I'm resuming my career (which never before has been) as the public voice of Stan Still's songs. The character is fictional, but, as we say at Stan Still headquarters, the songs are real. At least we hope so.

In preparation for my performance, I've been marking essays, watching Spurs-Suns basketball and Blue Jay baseball, and now the Habs-Bruins from Boston.

That and watching for rock doves (who, I've discovered, don't like bombardment by wads of frozen peas).

Today

Road trip this aft, up to Saskatoon to buy a crokinole board at Lee Valley and read at McNally-Robinson. I'm feeling a little worn out from working late at the annual "midnight breakfast" event at Luther, in which we faculty serve breakfast at night to students studying for exams. I get to run the industrial dishwasher, allowing my inner efficiency-obsessed worker to have his moments.

I may have to pull over for a sunny nap on the road. This morning I went over some details for my launch tomorrow night at Le Bistro. Mainly I want to make sure that people can get their booze without a lot of standing in line. Snacks, candles and tablecloths, low lights--if I didn't have to read every half hour or so I could sit there and have a great time as, I hope, everyone else will.

Then Saturday it's time for the songs of Stan Still at the Freehouse. Good thing I've got a guitar player who can play.

spring rain--what's it good for?

Boo-hoo, the rock doves don't like the splash when a car drives through a puddle in the alley below my kitchen windowsill. On which today's dove leaves his breakfast.

When I shoo him away, trying out my new slingshot, he gives me look like "Hey, leave me alone, fella. I'm just trying to stay out of the rain."

These verbal rock doves are the worst kind.

All of which, I hope, helps me come up with final exam tasks for my expository writing class.

the first launch of the book

I'm happy to hold a brand new My Human Comedy, beatiful design by Duncan Campbell at Coteau. Just read pages 70 to 80 or so. Doesn't seem too bad. As I was reading page 83, titled "Youngest Daughter, First Date", that youngest daughter called from Paris and I read her the poem.

Weyburn and Back

Last night I drove Robert Kroetsch to Weyburn and back for his reading. On the way home, he admitted that he'd rather write than speak. No wonder he'd deflected some his post-reading questions onto me. It's part of his generous nature--valuing the knowledge of everyone in the room. Part of his reluctance to talk, too. A quality I share with him. Nevertheless, I tried to offer some observations about what to do with history, about nonfiction and truth. I'd rather listen to Kroetsch anytime.

He says he's found that the last 6 days in Saskatchewan, including trips to St. Peter's Abbey and the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, have made him want to write again. "I've been going through a dry spell," he says. He's writing another novel.

Meanwhile, his Seed Catalogue continues to be required reading, I'd say, for anyone who wants to learn ways of butting heads with one's language and one's stories.

the day after Talking Fresh 6, for me

Say good-bye to Talking Fresh 6, now that Kroetsch has hit the road for St. Peter's. Not that the weekend was only about him.

Denise Chong said she was learning stuff the whole time. In every session, she shifted expertly between passages from her books and musings about writing and history. That voice in her writing--that voice you wouldn't mind being around--was also on hand for Talking Fresh.

Sharon Pollock replayed a history of professional theatre in Canada, pointing out that it was short-term, federal government make-work programs in the early 1970s, and not the Canada Council or other granting agency, that sparked growth of new theatre artists and companies. She bowled us over with a scene from Doc, its two voices controlling us.

Dennis Cooley brought in (at different times) some Hayden White, some poems of history by Pratt , Kroetsch, and Scott, some notes on what poets do with history. Coming the afternoon after Kroetsch's own reading from The Seed Catalogue, Cooley's commentary citing the same material was a neat reply. During the panel, he brought out his own Bloody Jack, with a poem called "The Facts" (or something like that), a poem new to the second edition.

I introduced Kroetsch by telling everyone he was the same age as hockey legend Gordie Howe. For the next two days, Kroetsch exhibited much of the same guile and brawn that Howe used to lay on defencemen in the 1950s. As always, our Mr. Hockey was generous with his attentions and damn funny half the time, tired too. The scene he read from The Words of My Roaring--Johnnie Backstrom buying contraceptives--was hilarious.

All that's left to report is that on the day after Talking Fresh, a rock dove got in. Got in but couldn't get out at first, until it finally squeezed out between the railings of my balcony. (I hope that doesn't give away too much of my perimeter rock dove defence, because that information is still classified.)