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Showing posts from August, 2010

maggie the red

Same Same Oil on canvas 60" x 30" ©2010; by Margaret Sutherland. Good news: the artist in the studio next door, Margaret Sutherland , will have her space open for the night of my book launch. I'm very glad; she has some deep, rich work (and a nice big studio to see it in ... people are always so curious ... "What's in the other rooms?" ... "Bodies", I say ... "and screams" ... that you might as well let them at it).

kümmern sommer

Yesterday we went over to visit Janet and Brian's pool. O pool. It felt like the last day of summer. The water had that briskness to it, and the sun had heat but no power. A highschool teacher named Stinky came over, suffering from a migraine. It's always like that at the end of things.

bring in the blind judge

kens iv-56, kens 111-2 , and kens 111-4 ; pen and ink on paper (pages from an old math text book), 8.25 x 6 inches. * * * * * We went to Grass Creek Park today. We wanted to go to Big Sandy Bay on Wolfe Island but everyone else cramming the ferry had exactly the same idea. So it was Grass Creek then. And then: the wind. It was something ... unexpected. The clouds were flattened tails of vapour, painted thin and pushed around. Warm water opaque with muck. Oona in her teeny bikini, watching the gulls very carefully . Grass Creek is a nice little park. They have the sheep dog trials there in early August. This confused the hell out of C, until I explained that these were a kind of qualifying competition, and had nothing to do with putting sheep dogs on trial. For murder. Or licking themselves. Besides , I said, have you ever tried to convict a sheep dog? It's nearly impossible. People love those fucking dogs.

poor chick

Poor Oona: she got stung by a bee at daycare today. Bad bee! Luckily, happy hour was almost over and mommy was able to come down and pick her up. Had to use her bicycle though! Well, as you can see, chicken was fully recovered by suppertime. And just in time for the usual meltdown before bed. Yay chick!

the red-headed league

The other day, on some godforsaken CBC morning show, they were discussing discrimination against redheads. Not only that, but they were discussing it *seriously*. Seriously: if this is fair game, then anything is. Where do I get my compensation for being tall? Oh, you might think it's a gift, but you should feel the roadway of scars on the top of my skull from all those times I just didn't clear the doorway. Or the roof of the car. Or the air ducts in the basement. Oh yes, it was most grand that year of grade seven when I grew about two feet. When everything hurt, and nothing fit, and people expected me to be nineteen. Or twenty four. I still love the double hernias I get trying to fold myself into people's cars. And being asked to carry heavy things, over long distances, just because I have the arms of an ape. And here's an open call to every old lady in every supermarket in the world: don't hesitate to point and grunt at that dusty box on the top shelf; I'm a

The Unlaunched Book Launch

No standing around, waiting. Waiting for a reading or some other kind of announcement. No awkward small talk ( Oh hi, Zelda! Whoa, I thought you said you were getting your face fixed ) or looking for a place to sit. No reading. No losing track of the story about four lines in, and then having to stand there pretending to listen while you replay an episode of Star Trek in your head (the one where all the main characters accidentally switch places with their evil twins in an alternate universe and then have to find their way back; it’s pretty cool: Mr. Spock is still logical but in a wholly selfish way). No yahoo (there’s always one) catcalling from the audience ( Speak up! We can’t hear you! I want my money’s worth! Hahahah ). No awkward applause. No preening. No looking at your watch and trying to decide how much longer you have to stand around, just to be polite. No racing to get home, trying to catch the last ten minutes of Law & Order (it’s probably a rerun anyway). Listen: the

upon further review ...

This is a recent review of my book, Punishing Ugly Children , in the St. John's Telegram (click on the image to zoom). The reviewer is very kind. As I said to Janine (the very helpful Janine, who puts out all the fires at my publisher's), it should make my mom happy, at least until she actually reads the book, and then she'll just be confused. While it's always weird to see your name in print, I don't get very excited about this kind of thing. Which of course drives C a little nuts. She would have this made into a t-shirt, or repeated in skywriting, or in fireworks. With Hawaiian dancers. But let me explain. Four months ago, just before I went off on parental leave, I made a big push to send out as much work as possible; in those last two weeks I submitted 29 stories to 28 different magazines (still leaving a pile of about 40 other stories sitting in their shoe box, dusty and wanting). I also submitted two things to contests, even though I am usually *loathe* to do

fire-breathers on the road to nowhere

You know you're in a 'mixed' or 'in transition' or 'up and coming' neighbourhood when you find yourself swerving the stroller to avoid the needle on the sidewalk. * * * * * The guy in front of the coffee place was telling the girl in the tank top and the tattoos and the stare about when he 'dropped' the other guy. He pantomimed an uppercut with his fist curled around a cigarette. I went in and got my coffee. * * * * * When I came out he was still talking. He had big gaps in his front teeth and the kind of dark rings around his eyes that I associate with people from my dad's generation. Only this guy was maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight. His complexion was rabbit grey. He wore a muscle shirt and a baseball cap on backwards. A crooked ponytail hung out the back. He weaved back and forth as he talked, like a bad Jack Sparrow impersonation (which is itself a bad Keith Richards impersonation). "... oh yeah, and you know Stinky Bill?"

the answer is energy (because I am atomic)

The elderly Chinese lady was having trouble with her lottery ticket. The East Indian clerk could not tell her what the problem was, only that the machine would not read the numbers she had selected on her little fill-in-the-dot form. His hair was a bit crazy and his glasses sat at a wild angle so that he looked like he was doing some kind of Jerry Lewis schtick, only in low key and with an East Indian accent. The elderly Chinese lady was not amused. "What is probrem? What is probrem?" she asked. "You tell me probrem." She had her loonies and toonies all over the counter. Then the clerk just shrugged at her, and turned to me and my energy drink.

the hat

the hat (2) ; mixed media on board, 24 x 24 inches, the string series continues the hat (1) ; pencil and ink on paper (page from an old math text book). the hat It must be August because by afternoon, every afternoon, my intentions are bleary and weak in the middle distance, I'm like some rabbit that's run and run and can run no more, there is heat and there is fear and which way is escape? We turn our heads on the couch as the camera circles the decision. Down here in the basement dark it is the kind of cool where nothing happens, I crawl forward with a big fur hat like something achieved. That rabbit is definitely slowing down, Devon says. Upstairs in the world there is only humidity and salted temper and some fruit fly in your field of vision. I swear to Christ I felt cold on my toes not that long ago. All my plans are abandoned now. We have our naps to look forward to. At night we'll do the city in laps. Someone told me that August is a long month. It looks the same to

Doing Time

* Story illustration from Punishing Ugly Children . Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. -- Faith Baldwin Lately, I've been thinking about time. I've been thinking about the way time moves, how it moves differently for different things. It moves especially different for art -- and for all things that are created, and can be recreated. When we immerse ourselves in works of art, time -- like disbelief -- is often suspended. When that feeling gets pulled tight (or taut), we are said to be in a state of suspense . For me that moment is when Ripley discovers that the Alien has nicely tucked itself into her escape pod, or when Bourne jumps through that window in Tangiers to stop Desh from killing lovely spoony-faced Julia Stiles. For someone like my wife, it's less of a moment and more of a running current: it goes from the point where she was merely watching Dexter to where she was racing ahead in the rented episodes, one after the other, and then, when those were

Branch (Issue 2.2, Home)

I have a story and some artwork in the new issue of Branch magazine. Amazingly, it's in the section called "Art + Words". The story is a flash fiction piece called Dark All Day . I like it because it reminds me of those Choose Your Own Adventure books. I am not shitting you; I loved those fucking books. Of course, *my* story is about a thousand times blacker. [If it was up to me, I would leave soot on the reader's fingers, just like newspapers used to do with that cheap black ink. Only my stuff wouldn't wash off.] The artwork looks rather sharpish: some recent paintings and some cigar-tin stories (covers) and some drawings in ink from Broken Hill (that novella I've started floating around). You can find it all (and *loads* of other good stuff, the whole thing is really well done) here . Be patient (I know, ohmygod): it does take a minute to load. Thanks to Gillian & Roberutsu for adding a lovely new home to the Canadian literary neighbourhood.

Three Skeleton Maries (Nous dirons que le point.)

Skeleton Marie 1, 2 and 3 ; pencil and ink on paper (pages from an old math book). I think I like three the most -- it's definitely the prettiest -- but the first is closest to the shape of her face, and two is alight with the expression in her eye, that open stare and settling drift. The original is here . I painted these in New Brunswick, early, on the one of the few rainy mornings. Painting first thing is best, when the coffee is still burbling, and the only thing to interrupt you are the humming birds in the window, when you look up to see these little helicopters attacking each other. I don't know why I made these portrait when the original is landscape. I don't know why I expect everyone to know what the hell that means, unless we've all become so hopelessly acquainted with feeding paper into printers. She has a wonderfully elastic face. That's the reason of youth, I guess. And that's really all I can tell you about her. She does put words to her photograp

How To Pass A Psycho On The Sidewalk: A Primer

And how did I know she was a psycho? Maybe it was the way she scolded the grass -- that ugly bitch gave me an ugly bitch haircut that fucking ugly bitch don't even even look at me you fucking bastard -- or the glazed, bleary look she gave passing traffic as she veered on and off the sidewalk, but somewhere in my heart of hearts I just *knew* this little girl with the dragon tattoo (and about a hundred Chinese characters, and some elves) was going to be a spring-loaded fun box of demon-hatin' hysteria. And I just wasn't in the mood for any eye-gouging. Dig? So what to do, Poindexter? 1) Make some noise (not *too* loud) as you approach. 2) Do not approach directly from behind. Go wide left, presenting your (demonic) self in their peripheral vision *and* giving yourself some room on the street side to avoid any sudden blows and/or spitting. 3) Do not quicken your step until you are almost past the psycho. 4) While keeping an eye on said psycho, do not make eye contact. 5) On