tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30867340136035842322024-03-18T21:45:44.233-07:00Blog from the BookstoreNews, views, and musings from Bookshelf booksellersBookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-22766220813253193662016-03-27T17:55:00.006-07:002016-04-07T03:06:19.399-07:00REVIEW: PREDATOR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8miaWMHmYLeUSBzu6sERfOl6g04qWPRvnly6SqsKinN_xFd9uZLJapTLRrs0LCiIxEeTicNOjzKtI3aoAU1SGNZu9V1H7OirgRC07Z-jjkE7aDH9O0c1uZuUCTpzP82kMVmNM6hVP1mE/s1600/IMG_0208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8miaWMHmYLeUSBzu6sERfOl6g04qWPRvnly6SqsKinN_xFd9uZLJapTLRrs0LCiIxEeTicNOjzKtI3aoAU1SGNZu9V1H7OirgRC07Z-jjkE7aDH9O0c1uZuUCTpzP82kMVmNM6hVP1mE/s400/IMG_0208.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Predator</i> is a bad movie. Don't get me wrong–it's also great. If <i>Predator</i> was on right now, I'd watch the hell out of it. It's cool-looking, explody, Schwarzeneggered nonsense enlivened by the stellar, inimitable creature effects of Stan Winston. All that oily definition, floating arm wrestling, action movie catchphrases, and explosions go a long way to obfuscate any semblance of story or character – the equivalent of slathering ketchup all over a finely done steak. Beneath the excess of the action movie conventions, though, there actually is a decent, salvageable story, as the contemporary novelization by respected poet, National Book Award winner, and activist Paul Monette reveals.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While they haven't completely disappeared, the movie novelization's heyday occurred between the inception of the blockbuster and the eventual ubiquity of home video. It's hard to imagine (considering you're probably in the middle of watching a movie in a browser window concurrent with reading this) but there was a great good while there where you had no or limited access to your favourite film once it left theatres. A novelization, like action figures or soundtracks or video games or whatever other attendant tchotchkes, was a way of accessing that world, in whatever small way.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the most part, these novelizations were (and still are) written by established or at least talented writers. Oftentimes, if a novelization reads poorly, it probably has more to do with turnover (deadlines of just two weeks to hand in a complete novel sometimes) or studio restrictions (authors get given an unreliable amount of reference material, ranging from just the shooting script with maybe a frame or two of the film to full consultations with the filmmakers) than with the capabilities of the writers themselves. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Monette, author of <i>Predator </i>(which is based on the screenplay by James E. Thomas and John C. Thomas), published <i>Borrowed Times: An AIDS Memoir </i>the year after this novelization came out. About the memoir, <i>Publishers Weekly</i> wrote: </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Monette applies admirable candor and control to the task of chronicling the suffering endured in the months between the diagnosis and death of the man with whom he had spent over 10 years. Monette brings to the narrative a poet's eye for the telling image or metaphor, and makes this far more than a simple compendium of medical disasters: the memoir transcends the particulars of the AIDS epidemic to stand as an eloquent testimonial to the power of love and the devastation of loss, the courage of the ill and the anger, fear and dedication of their loved ones. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three years later, he won the National Book Award for </span></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story</span></span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, a coming out memoir that "</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">details the half-life of a talented and attractive boy who is smart enough to see that his own nature is something he needs to disguise and sensitive enough to try to heed the culture's message by denying it.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">" (<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-28/books/bk-1640_1_paul-monette"><i>LA Times</i></a>)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All of which is to say that the author of the more-merchandise-than-literature <i>Predator</i> is no slouch. And while Monette's novelization is not great literature it does manage, given the hurried and limited conditions it was no doubt composed in, an enviable amount of depth with material that, up on the screen, is hard to taste for all the ketchup on it. Because, beyond circumstantial encumbrances, the basic fact working against the quality of this sort of translation is that just because something seems good on screen doesn't mean it will be effective on the page.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's <i>Predator</i>'s challenge. The actual plot and themes of the movie are camouflaged in the noisiness of the action and spectacle like the titular alien disappears itself into the foliage and babble of the jungle. What's going on looks good enough that why it's going on isn't really a concern. Here's the story: A cadre of elite, renowned commandos are summoned to Central America to liberate officials taken hostage by guerillas. The group soon discovers that they've been bamboozled by their government. Just as the double-cross is revealed, the commandos become aware that they're being stalked by a predator working with ethics and means that's wholly foreign to them. One by one, the commandos are picked off until it's just Schwarzenegger left. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stripped of the cacophonous imbroglio of gun fire, explosions, and the whip crack of musclemen shaking hands, told with an economic, sufficient amount of psychology, <i>Predator</i> actually has the makings of an interesting movie. At it's barest bone, it has the feel of a classic <i>Twilight Zone</i> scenario. Essentially, it executes a generic switcheroo akin to <i>Psycho</i>'s famous twist.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The first half is a <i>Rambo</i>-y movie, where burly boys blow stuff up. But then – as with the murder of Marion Crane halfway through <i>Psycho </i>– an alien hunter shows up in the middle of <i>Rambo</i>, derailing the direction of the set-up. It's a switch that's clunky and underexploited in the movie, but one which Monette pulls off with something like elegance in his novelization. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a meta reading of the story, these commandos operate in their lives as though they were the protagonists in their own war movie, coming out unscathed and triumphant over the seven years they'd been operating as a unit. And so the shock of reality, or the shock of another story colliding with theirs, should be a major event. However, when, in the movie, the first member of the untouchable unit dies, the world disrupting implications of it don't much register, lost as it is in the gory anonymous body count so far. But the first protagonist death in a novel which has already seen loads of ancillary death comes with a pause of intelligent realization in Monette's book, gets treated like the fundamental pivot it is: "Until this moment [the commandos] were in some real way invincible. And now there was a break in the line, and anything could happen." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
the first half of the book – in the combat narrative – the moral conflict
exists between the commandos and the government which employs them.
These men represent a group that still sees valor and honour in war, a respect both for life and the destruction of it that seems to have been abandoned by
both their opponents and their employers. "Dillon," the former commando, now pencil pusher for the government, "simply couldn't
understand why Schaefer still held to an old code that a new kind of war
had left far behind. For his part Schaefer was feeling as if he had
enemy troops coming at him from both sides – or was it two very different
kinds of enemy, one inside and one outside...?" </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the second, sci-fi
half of the book, that eschewing of war's antique mores is mirrored by the alien
predator's merciless, inhumane disposal of humans. For men who have seen all manner of carnage, what they begin to find in the jungle appears as a betrayal. "None of them had
ever seen such barbaric treatment by an enemy... Deep down they still
believed that between enemies there was an unwritten code, setting
limits to the degree of torture inflicted, at least among so-called
professional soldiers. This was so far beyond code that they didn't even
have any context for it. Why strip a man of his skin? Why bother? There
were so many easier ways to hurt. It was like some demented autopsy."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With all its awesome melee and muscle, it's difficult to say what exactly the movie <i>Predator</i>'s about. It's cool and it's fun and that's fine. But without time spent on establishing character motivation, it's essentially a movie about killing as a means of not being killed. Monette's novel, however – as rushed as it might be – manages a cogent conversation about the flexible worth of human life and the absurd systems of justifications put in place. It actually utilizes the strengths of the sci-fi genre that the movie curiously ignores beyond the presence of an alien, using an impossible character as a mirror to reflect the befuddling behavior or man. Even by giving some simple, blunt motivation the alien, Monette brings the theme of the story to life. In our thorough cruelty and seeming disharmony with nature, the intergalactic game hunter sees mankind, specifically these soldiers, as a curious and worthy opponent: </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"It could not understand yet what the purpose of these creatures was. Every other species seemed to fit in the scheme of things, and the invader had traveled throughout the universe to study that scheme... Not man. Man was other, like the alien itself. It was as if the universe had finally dared to think up a proposition equal to the alien's capacity for wonder."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reduced to its essentials, Monette's novel is about men who navigate their gritty world by a constellation of codes and morals being forced to deal with a chaotic force indifferent to the flimsy dignity of life. Indeed, aware of both Monette's other work and biography, this throwaway 200 page piece of merchandise becomes sanguine with very real and personal emotion. Consider that Monette dedicates <i>Predator </i>to Roger Horowitz, the partner he lost to AIDS just a few years earlier. "Achilles was not such a warrior," he inscribes, "nor so mourned by his comrade-in-arms." By casting his partner as such, by using the language of war to refer to a battle with and death by AIDS, Monette leaves the door open to another level of depth. Suddenly, the cheap-ish story of a tight-knit group of men who don't exist, as far their government is concerned, battling an invisible enemy which slays them with profound mercilessness and indignity becomes a parable for the horrifying, devastating, and – at first – utterly mysterious obliteration of (predominately) the gay community throughout the 80s.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Andrew </span></span></span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-41588514309750867542016-03-06T07:31:00.004-08:002016-03-06T07:31:47.274-08:00REVIEW: THE VIOLET HOUR<style>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last month my partner Brian’s best friend died. John Feld was 67 years<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>old and had had Multiple Sclerosis for 40 years. They had known each since primary school, two little boys who actually got married in the school playground surrounded by schoolmates and teachers. Early on they worked with the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist - of course) and later when they left the party wanted to form a group for recovering communists. They had many hilarious adventures together, so when Brian delivered John’s eulogy, people were laughing and crying throughout the tale telling. But when Brian described John’s last day, at home, in his bed, with those he loved chatting together and to him in his unconscious state, the stillness of the mourners was extraordinary. <br /><br />I became much more intimate with death a few years ago after my mother, my sister and I took care of my father at his home for his final two months. Oddly enough this act of just being there and helping ease any pain has been the most profound experience of my life. During that time I read some excellent books by people who know how to write and who also had suffered recent loss. Joan Didion’s <i>Year of Magical Thinking</i> and Julian Barnes’ <i>Nothing To Be Frightened Of</i> were particularly illuminating. T<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">his past year<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, Atul Gawande's <a href="http://bookshelfreaderreviews.blogspot.ca/2014/10/review-being-mortal.html"><i>Being Mortal</i></a> was one of our best sellers.</span></span> And now that I am thinking about death again there is an enriching new book called, <i>The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End</i> by Katie Roiphe. <br /><br />In the prologue Roiphe questions her own motives for writing. Was it the ghost of her own near death as a young girl when she had half of one lung removed? Was it because she felt excluded from the thoughts and feelings of her father before he died of an unanticipated heart attack? He did not consciously know that he was going to die but, in the week preceding his death, he catalogued all of his huge art collection gathered over 60 years. In the end she learned that being a death voyeur seemed to diminish her anxiety. “There is something about the compression of the final moment, the way everything comes rushing in; the intensity that is beautiful, even though death is not.” <br /><br />Although she interviewed many people for her voyage into Thanatos, Roiphe tells the story of five famous writers: Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas and Maurice Sendak. She revives the time in which they wrote with all of the cultural cacophony that fueled their obsessions. Susan Sontag, who wrote <i>Illness as Metaphor</i>, the ultimate book on illness, did not believe that she was going to die. Her dominant and directed personality reminds me of my father. They both seemed to live the mantra, ‘always take the stairs’. Freud, whose work was propelled by death, lived in ceaseless fear of it. On Updike’s bedside table before he died were <i>Death of Ivan Ilyich</i> and <i>The Book of Common Prayer</i>. Dylan Thomas, who wrote </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do not go gentle into that good night,<br /> Old age should burn and rave at close of day;<br /> Rage, rage against the dying of the light. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">certainly fueled his war against the inevitable with bottle after bottle. And Maurice Sendak, who had always been obsessed with death, exposed his fear to a few generations of youngsters. <i>Where the Wild Things Are</i> continues to be one of the most popular children’s books published. <br /><br />You may not be interested in the arcana of famous people’s lives. But for me both the extraordinariness and the ordinariness of these lives made me feel closer to a truth that is not always revealed in polite conversation. Thank you Katie Roiphe for writing this book. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Barb </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-22477598351012922882016-03-06T06:10:00.000-08:002016-03-06T06:10:35.511-08:00REVIEW: SOME RAIN MUST FALL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />OK, I might as well admit it. I am a Karl Ove Knausgaard fan. But am I a groupie? Well, I did go to Toronto to hear him talk at the Inter<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">national</span> Festival of Authors last year. And I did stay afterwards to say how much I liked his books (no book signing though). He is as dark and ruggedly handsome in person as in his photos. His eldest daughter was there, long blond hair. I feel I know the whole family. <br /><br />I have read all the English translations of <i>My Struggle</i> to date and loved each one. Volume 5 chronicles Knausgaard’s years in Bergen, Norway; arriving at nineteen, a neophyte at the Writer’s Academy, through his time at university, his friends and especially his girlfriends, various jobs, leading finally to his hard won debut as a writer. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ex-m-eEKsg">Dylanesque</a> title vividly references rain<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>slogged Bergen and also the self-inflicted gaffes and betrayals perpetrated on those for whom he cares most. <br /><br />Having plodded through a full volume of adolescent self-indulgence in <a href="http://bookshelfbookstore.blogspot.ca/2015/04/review-dancing-in-dark-my-struggle-4.html"><i>Dancing in the Dark</i></a> (Volume 4), one of my friends, a devotee of the first three books, threw that one across the room – enough of this male adolescent bullshit! No, not quite I am afraid, there is still more as Karl Ove takes his lonely and tentative steps towards adulthood. Progressing through Volume 5, the male reader cannot but be moved, remembering our own self-destructive and tormented youth, fueled by alcohol as both enabler and disruptor. How interminable that period seemed! <br /><br />Knausgaard’s unique talent is to bring the reader into the precise moment and being of his character. He is nothing if not brutally honest. No doubt this is one of the series' most beguiling aspects. And yet some novelistic discrepancies begin to appear. The powerful episode in A <i>Death in the Family</i> (Volume 1), when Karl Ove and his brother, Yngve, are obliged to clean their dead father’s rubbish filled and bottle strewn quarters, is retold here, but with Yngve strangely missing, arriving with his family only on the day of the funeral. And did Karl Ove really cut his face in a humiliated, drunken stupor twice – once over his first girlfriend, “Gunvor,” and again, as depicted in <i>A Man in Love</i> (Volume 2) after rejection by Linda, his second wife to be? These minor inconsistencies remind us that we are dealing with a work of fiction. Yet some of the most satisfying segments of this book are those when the readers’ questions about Tonje, his first wife, whose absent presence lurks throughout prior volumes, are finally answered. <br /><br />The man that emerges from this long autobiographical novel is one tortured by insecurity and self-doubt, while imbued with high ambition. Despite its provocative allusions, <i>My Struggle</i> is an apt title for Knausgaard’s journey, both literary and human. Completely self-absorbed, racked with shame and guilt, it is only through writing that the author seems able to cleanse himself from all the “shit” of his early life, so graphically portrayed in <i>Boyhood Island</i> (Volume 3). Volume 5 ends with his escape from Bergen, rejecting once again his present life, heading alone towards Sweden and the future. </span></span><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-57826766528433903472016-02-28T06:55:00.002-08:002016-03-02T14:40:51.804-08:00Q&A: YANN MARTEL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK3K1qn6hPCJvAMov9xGbvsN6k8iCMHQq-NtKgo_F_7ljLw8jFJGdP4u-tomI3xAuiZyn3xOOLvMHVsg5ZZTllkzGFi33yKSqGU94Q8GL156763a5CFGM-cKa353v3YJUWd6i5A_lF4a_U/s1600/martel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK3K1qn6hPCJvAMov9xGbvsN6k8iCMHQq-NtKgo_F_7ljLw8jFJGdP4u-tomI3xAuiZyn3xOOLvMHVsg5ZZTllkzGFi33yKSqGU94Q8GL156763a5CFGM-cKa353v3YJUWd6i5A_lF4a_U/s400/martel.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Best known for one of the best known Canadian novels ever published, Yann Martel will be in Guelph at Lakeside Hope House Tuesday, March 29th from 7pm to promote his new novel, </i><a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/242201/the-high-mountains-of-portugal-by-yann-martel/9780812997170/">The High Mountains of Portugal</a><i>. Meeting briefly on a narrow pass in the High Mountains of the Internet, we chatted about <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Portugal</span>, walking backwards, autopsies, bodies, home, animals, and Justin Trudeau. </i><br /><br />- Brad de Roo, who would walk backwards more if he didn’t look so forward to reading the next book <br /><br /><b>Unsurprisingly, Portugal is central <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to</span> <i>The High Mountains of Portugal</i>. Why Portugal? What about this place calls for these stories? </b><br /><br />Portugal was the first country I visited on my own, as a 20 year-old backpacker. I travelled from the south to the north. It made a deep impression on me, seeing a foreign country in solitude. That’s the personal connection. But the real reason I set my novel in Portugal is that curiously named region called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A1s-os-Montes_e_Alto_Douro_Province">Tr<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">á</span></span>s-os-montes</a>, beyond or behind the mountains—but there are no mountains. Upon discovering this, I realized how geography is an act of storytelling, how in naming a region we are starting to weave a story about it, and in this case, it’s the story of a preoccupation with something beyond mountains that don’t even exist. Hence the mountains in my novel that also don’t exist. The High Mountains of Portugal are imaginary mountains, magic mountains, mountains in the mind. <br /><br /><b>Walking backwards is a motif throughout the book (especially in ‘Part One: Homeless’). Characters seem to move this way out of protest and/or mourning. Is being a writer ever like being seen to be walking through the world backwards? </b><br /><br />Absolutely. I believe there is a contrarian duty to writing. The writer must write in opposition to prevailing thinking and opinions. To object is sometimes to clarify, and that is the purpose of writing, to bring clarity. <br /><br /><b>In ‘Part Two: Homeward’, Agatha Christie superfa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span> and pathologist Eusebio Lozora's performa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nce of</span> an autopsy is compared to telling a story. Is the opposite true as well, is storytelling – the cuts, the sewing up, the scars, the microscopic bent, the characteristic telos – autopsy-like? </b><br /><br />That’s a great insight. I can only agree: yes, there is an autopsy-like quality to writing. The pen is a scalpel that seeks to open up the body of life and determine its truths and falsehoods. <br /><br /><b>Animals appear continually in the imagery (not to mention as central characters) of your books. </b></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>‘Part
Three: Home’ relates the story of Canadian Senator Peter Tovy
immigrating with the ape Odo to The High Mountains of Portugal. </b></span></span> Why do animals keep becoming central to our stories? </b><br /><br />Because they share our planet. Because they are there with us in our central myths—Genesis, the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, Darwin’s theory of evolution. Because, like gods, they are in need of explanation and exegesis. Because, like gods, they are bearers of ineffable mystery. Because we’re killing them all off. <br /><br /><b>The body (animal & human) is described in great detail throughout <i>The High Mountains of Portugal</i>. Are our bodies stories that we tell ourselves? Are they allegories? If so, allegories of what? </b><br /><br />Our bodies certainly shape our lives. In my first novel, <a href="http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/108150/self#9780307375636"><i>Self</i></a>, I explored the idea that our bodies are an environment that predispose us to certain behaviors, certain ways of being, certain tendencies. In that sense, our bodies will determine some of our stories. As for the body as an allegory, the first one that comes to my mind is the body as magic carpet that flies through the air, transporting us from one wonder to another—until it flops away, inanimate, and we fall…. <br /><br /><b><i>The High Mountains of Portugal</i> is structured around a conception of home. What about home appeals as a conceit? </b><br /><br />Its centrality to our well-being, to our sense of belonging and identity. Homelessness, the literal kind, where we have no four walls to hug us, is just another expression of our mortality. <br /><b><br />You once compiled a list (<a href="http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/198724/what-stephen-harper-reading#9780307398680">and then a book</a>) of books that Stephen Harper ought to read. I am not sure he read any of them. Justin Trudeau strikes me as someone who might have reading suggestions for all of us. What 4 or 5 books should he read to avoid Harper's mistakes?</b> <br /><br />He’s probably already read those four, five books, since he’s already avoiding Harper’s mistakes by virtue of being open, gregarious, and kinder in thought and behavior. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br />Tom<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">á</span></span>s, the central character of ‘Part 1: Homeless’, takes a 1904 Renault on the road in search of metaphysical treasure. Did you (even briefly?) consider undertaking a variation (ie same car, different locales, personal treasure) of his trip for your book tour? </b><br /><br />Funny. But no. Homer didn't–I don’t suppose–dress up when he delivered the <i>Iliad </i>to his audiences. He just recited it. Same with me. I dress dully, I just stand and speak when I deliver my stories. It’s the reader who must take on a variation of Tomás’s tour. That’s where the metaphysical treasure is to be found. <br /><br /><b>What’s next?</b> <br /><br />Nothing literary for a while. I work on one project at a time, and right now I haven’t a single story idea in my head. But I want to work on my four children, who are kind of like four little Russian novels. </span></span><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-1750416061187273372016-01-31T16:31:00.004-08:002016-01-31T18:14:33.830-08:00Q&A: THERESA MULLIN & EMILY COLLEY-DIVJAK of The Guelph Night Market<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv160nkb72veDxVZSRcPzdD_xoeba0iTC190Tq9ytchFRsVGCYK7fULOmyn8hmZfhJ57H2NfEyqGvzxzigYrlblCzvyJrS4254_63vJMi-ovOB5z527PY7fZ-ENjp2JcIzrWLHxDvg6Qws/s1600/NM-70.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv160nkb72veDxVZSRcPzdD_xoeba0iTC190Tq9ytchFRsVGCYK7fULOmyn8hmZfhJ57H2NfEyqGvzxzigYrlblCzvyJrS4254_63vJMi-ovOB5z527PY7fZ-ENjp2JcIzrWLHxDvg6Qws/s400/NM-70.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Guelph Night Market brings its second pop-up market to the eBar Wednesday February 10th from 7pm to 12am ($2 admission). Vintage clothing pickers, artists, screen printers, foodies, writers, record collectors, button makers, zinesters, thrifters, letterpress enthusiasts, antique lovers, upcyclers, knickknack hoarders, book binders, embroiderers, potters, comic book creators, and more will be vending and spending with drinks in crafty hands. In advance of their Winter Night Market, I talked local shop with Market makers Theresa Mullin & Emily Colley-Divjak. </i><br /><br />- Brad de Roo, who will probably be working late in the Bookstore on the 10th to showcase some local publishers and presses among our busy shelves </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><b>How did the Night Market originate? What brought about its creation? </b><br /><br />In the past, we’ve always worked well together. Throughout our ten year friendship we’ve always schemed; collecting American coins to get us across the States in the old Tercel or drawing up business proposals for our dream cafe. <br /><br />After moving back to Guelph, the two of us were seeking the perfect project since we were reunited in the same little city. Our number one goal, besides working together, was to enable our hard working pals in their efforts to do what they love... while paying the rent. <br /><br /><b>Have you been surprised with how it has been received so far? </b><br /><br /> Holy moly...yes! When we rented the Making Box space for our first market in October, we were crossing our fingers we’d break even. Looking out the window on the night of, our hearts nearly exploded; there was a line of umbrellas all the way to Quebec Street. Our attendance was over eight hundred and we couldn’t have felt more connected to our city. <br /><br /> <b>How do you choose vendors? What are some of the stipulations, frustrations, challenges, joys of choosing? </b><br /><br /> Choosing vendors is an overwhelming and awesome task that we feel privileged with. When people enter the market space we want them to feel excited. It’s easy to become enamored with online folks who create cool stuff and we’re by no means against this method of sharing, but there is something truly special about connecting directly. We aim to bring together a collection of vendors that will ignite the same feeling that we get while reading their application. A huge challenge for us is space… it’s limited downtown. Capacity and accessibility are important to us, but it has been hard to find landlords who will take us and this puts a damper on the amount of tables we’re able to house. <br /><br /> <b>What does the Night Market offer that other shopping experiences do not?</b> <br /><br /> Shopping at the Night Market is different because it provides you with an opportunity for more than one meaningful connection with vendors. We try our best to provide a warm and inviting environment that lands between farmers' market and thrift shop; somewhere anyone can go and find something with a story. <br /><br /> <b>How will the Night Market at the eBar differ from past markets? </b><br /><br /> Our pop-up style is on purpose, being in a different space each market is exciting. Making new connections with local businesses makes us feel more grounded in our community. With the bookstore-bar-restaurant combo, the space is unconventional for an event like ours. Having the ability to “take over” for a night keeps it interesting for us, and hopefully that feeling extends to vendors and folks attending. The eBar/Bookshelf has been amazing to partner with - the space is a Guelph institution. We’re really looking forward to the event. <br /><br /> <b>What about handcrafted objects speaks to you? </b><br /><br /> Creating, collecting and curating are extremely personal acts. We think the vulnerability behind sharing those things is extremely important and beautiful. <br /><br />We’re suckers for the connection between things and stories that inspire and challenge us. <br /><br /> <b>What are your future plans for the Market? </b><br /><br /> Our main focus at the moment is to keep our momentum rolling and keep the community engaged in what we’re doing. Our future goals are to run the Night Market seasonally and hopefully in larger, more accessible venues within the downtown core. <br /><br /><b>Do you have any dream vendors? </b><br /><br /> We both have so many art crushes, it would be hard to list all of our existing dream vendors. A cool thing happened this time however, when group of U of G Studio Art students collaborated so that they could table. SADSATURDAZE became an instant dream vendor, with their weirdo assortment of buttons, prints, zines and patches that re-interpret the everyday mundane in a humorous way. We love this. <br /><b><br /> Do you have any advice or market wisdom you like to share with new event organizers?</b> <br /><br />Advice from us two goofs? Lol. Organization, curation and a clear concept of what we want to accomplish have been key to our market planning. Keeping true to our values has kept straight & narrow, and led us to amazing opportunities like our sponsorship from the Stone Store (yay local businesses!). <br /><b><br /> What would you never sell? </b><br /><br /> Drugs. <br /><br /> <b>Anything else we should know? </b><br /><br /> Ya, we’re still new to this and we’re working out the kinks. Also! Thank you Guelph for all of your support, it means a lot. Also!! We need help finding spaces in the downtown area. Please please email us if you have an available space at guelphnightmarket@gmail.com.</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span>
Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-78658953564881411742016-01-17T06:01:00.000-08:002016-01-17T06:01:24.455-08:00MOUNTAIN CITY GIRLS: ANNA AND JANE MCGARRIGLE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Hillside Inside and the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival<br />present<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Anna and Jane McGarrigle</span></b><br /><br />Authors of <i>Mountain City Girls: The McGarrigle Family Album</i><br /><br />Saturday, January 30, 3 pm (doors open at 2:30 pm)<br />St. George’s Church, Sanctuary, 99 Woolwich Street<br /><br />Reading followed by a Q&A, book-signing and fan photo opportunity<br /><br />Tickets: $12 + HST from the Bookshelf and ticketbreak.com<br /><br /><i>A Guelph Fab5 Festival co-presentation supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><i>Mountain City Girls</i>, written by Anna and Jane McGarrigle - sisters to Kate McGarrigle - is a charming and intimate family memoir. The folk music duo of Anna and Kate McGarrigle produced some of the most memorable music to come out of the North American folk scene in the past 35 years. They are fondly remembered by their devoted fans as brilliant, insightful songwriters with incredibly luminous voices. Their sister Jane managed her younger sisters’ music careers from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. During this time she co-wrote several songs with the duo and performed with them in the studio and on tours of Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia.<br /><br />Interspersed with lyrics and photos, <i>Mountain City Girls</i> captures the McGarrigles' lives, idiosyncratic upbringing, and literary and musical influences. No one can tell the story of the McGarrigles better than Anna and Jane, or in such an affectionate and captivating way.</span></span><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-31216755056105556162016-01-10T09:24:00.000-08:002016-01-10T09:35:50.455-08:00LET'S EAT!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Heraclitus told us centuries ago that there is nothing permanent except change. In that spirit we are excited to announce the next step in our ongoing collaboration with <a href="http://www.miijidaa.ca/">Miijidaa</a>, the restaurant adjacent to The Bookshelf. <br /><br />Beginning Tuesday January 12, Dinner and a Movie will prepared by the Miijidaa kitchen and made available both in our 2nd floor eBar bistro and downstairs at Miijidaa. Have a look at the Miijidaa menu <a href="http://www.miijidaa.ca/dinner-movie-menu">HERE</a>. <br /><br />Seating in the eBar bistro is available Tuesday to Saturday. To book a table in our bistro, please call (519) 821 3311 (ext 5) <br /><br />To book a table in the Miijidaa dining room, please call (519) 821 9271 (ext 2) <br /><br />We are looking forward to great movies over the next months, so… <a href="http://www.miijidaa.ca/about">Let’s Eat</a>!</span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com87tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-21582864914469949322016-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:002016-01-05T05:00:29.960-08:00PAINTED LAND: IN SEARCH OF THE GROUP OF SEVEN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br />As I am writing this there is a bright blue sunny sky and it’s cold out. But let’s face it, the last two months in Guelph have been pretty grey and gloomy. That’s why if you see <i>Painted Land</i> your spirits will be lifted and your hearts warmed. In this documentary, back by popular request, outdoor lovers Joanie and Gary McGuffin, along with art historian Michael Burtch go in search of the exact location where many Group of Seven artists painted some of their stunning landscapes. Archival footage, photographs and voice over from letters are sewn in so expertly you feel you are in history. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Such a joy to see Lawren Harris, JEH Macdonald, AY Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, Frank Carmichael and AJ Casson travel the box car to Algoma. The real scenery is so beautiful and it’s incredibly exciting when the art lovers actually find the exact spot where the scene for each painting has been been taken in and recreated on canvas. But here’s what amazed me: a full bright screen with a Tom Thomson painting is so inordinately beautiful that you will understand why art is so important! Yes, nature is spectacular but sometimes art takes every bit of its beauty and intensifies it. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><i>Painted Land</i> is back for a second run beginning Saturday January 9 at 2 p.m.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Barb </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-29911521275560074852015-12-03T06:38:00.000-08:002015-12-03T06:42:17.763-08:00The Village Podcast Vol. 3Welcome back listeners! Thanks for all your great comments on our first two episodes. We'd love it if you'd share us with the world. Please head to our i<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/village-podcast-from-bookshelf/id1055498626?mt=2">Tunes page</a> and rate and review us. It would be great if you subscribed to us, but we know not all of you use iTunes for listening, so load up our <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/village-podcast-from-bookshelf/id1055498626?mt=2">RSS feed</a> into your favourite podcatcher and never miss an episode.<br />
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It's December now and there's no getting away from the seasonal cheer and holiday shopping so we face it head on.<br />
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We share some of our December traditions, their favourite seasonal music and movies. And because we can't play it in the episode, head to YouTube and have a listen and watch of Chris de Burgh playing <a href="https://youtu.be/sVakQ5aegLY">A Spaceman Came a Travelling</a>. The Rankin and Bass animated collection of films get their annual mention, along with other classics like Die Hard, Home Alone and It's a Wonderful Life.<br />
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We also cover a few board games which would make nice gifts for groups of friends or family to play while visiting, including Angry Birds, <a href="http://www.cribwars.com/CRIBWARSRULES.htm">Crib Wars</a>, Pandemic, <a href="http://www.anomiapress.com/">Anomia</a> and Catan.<br />
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Which leads us to writing in books, whether they are meant to be written in, like The 52 Lists, or Wreck This Journal, or not, like that new hardcover book you received as a gift from your grandmother. Do you do it?<br />
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You've gotten this far in listening, or at least in reading, so now I can tell you that we have two gift certificates to give away this month. We have one $25 gift certificate to The Bookshelf and one $25 gift certificate to <a href="http://www.miijidaa.ca/">Miijida</a>. We will draw two winners from the entries.<br />
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And to enter all you need to do is head to our i<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/village-podcast-from-bookshelf/id1055498626?mt=2">Tunes page</a> and give us a rating and review! Then grab a screenshot of that baby and email us at <a href="mailto:podcast@bookshelf.ca">podcast@bookshelf.ca</a> and let us know your name and phone number.<br />
Follow the Bookshelf on <a href="https://twitter.com/Bookshelfnews">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Bookshelf-219093428119656/timeline/">Facebook</a>. Stay up to date on what's happening around the store at <a href="http://bookshelfcinema.blogspot.ca/2015/09/gmc-harrison-ford-is-robot-edition.html">http://bookshelf.ca</a> and join the weekly newsletter.<br />
Theme music from the Free Music Archive, by <a href="http://www.theunderscoreorkestra.com/">The Underscore Orkestra</a><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-58574460777740995532015-12-02T09:33:00.000-08:002015-12-06T05:44:36.880-08:00STAFF PICKS: BEST OF 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We see so many great books come into the s</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>tore throughout the year that </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>compiling a true "best of" would be near<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>qui</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>xotic</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>. And if there's anything we miss, our customers usually point them out to us<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span> Still and all, here's a queue that stood out to our booksellers over the year!</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Outline</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Rachel Cusk <br /><br />An alienated female writer comes to Greece to teach a writing class. Not only does she spin enchanting lucid prose but she also meets a cast of characters that show what fools we humans be! This philosophical novel with a very European feel made the Giller shortlist. <br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Fifteen Dogs</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Andre Alexis <br /><br />Alexis, in his writerly power as God, has given a few dogs the characteristics of humans while retaining their dog<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>like senses. This novel has been described as thin and yet epic, much like Greek myths. We engage with his characters and super-charged senses of smell and overwhelming desires for either domination or submission. You'd be surprised at how directly his characters woof their talk about the human condition. Quite a feat for Alexis! <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Sixty</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Ian Brown <br /><br />Did I really need to read a book about a sixty<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>year<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>old guy who wanted to be 40? This is what I thought when the book came in, but because Ian Brown had written such a heart opening book called the <i>Boy in the Moon</i> about his severely disabled son<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span> I decided to give it a try. Brown writes in such a conversational way that it is relaxing to read<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span> even though some of his "hang-ups" drove me crazy (like is he still attractive to women...particularly young women?), I was moved by the breadth of his knowledge. His reading life has made him the thoughtful man he is! <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Road to Little Dribbling</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Bill Bryson <br /><br /><i>The Daily Telegraph</i> describes this as splendid and claims it is the best travel book of the year. Its subtitle is <i>More Notes from a Small Island</i>, banking on the fact that <i>Notes from a Small Island</i> has been the bestselling travel book ever. But that was 20 years ago and with this latest wandering of the British psyche and geography, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bryson</span> gives us the best and worst of Britain today. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Art of Nature Coloring Book </b><br /><br />A colouring book for historians and nature enthusiasts, the plates that you are asked to colour were crafted in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of course, this is when there were no cameras, just the naked eye and pen or pencil. They are stunning and you can style them your with your own colour interpretation. Check out our great selection of colouring utensils! <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What’s Happened to Politics</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Bob Rae <br /><br />If you were disturbed <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by</span> the state of Canadian politics under Stephen Harper, this book will affirm that you had every right to be! It offers prescriptions to get Canada back on track on a community, national and international level. A very refreshing look at the future of Canadian politics. Essential reading for politicos. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Pema Chödrön <br /><br />Ah, the power of Pema. You could finish this book in the bath or savour it over the year. Fail, is actually a commencement lecture on ones best possible relationship with failure. Very readable and very relevant. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>A Brief History of Seven Killings</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by James Marlon <br /><br />You will never listen to certain Marley songs the same way again. A bumping multi-narrative ranging from gangsters, to Cuban revolutionaries and ghosts. James has recreated the time leading up to and after the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976. Winner of the Man Booker Award! A difficult read but incredibly compelling and creative. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>A Japanese Lover</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Isabel Allende <br /><br />This is a story with many threads – Japanese internment during the second World War, the impossibility of family, aging, well worn secrets and death. Allende has the knack of making something seemingly improbable a great read. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Randall Munroe <br /><br />Munroe, author of What If? enlightens us this time with a series of simple blueprints of everything from nuclear reactors to the big flat rocks that we live on. A great book for nerdy people of all ages! <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Death and Life of Zebulon Finch</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Daniel Krauss <br /><br />Zebulon Finch is a small-time hoodlum living a self-involved, violent life in turn-of-the-century Michigan. After he is murdered by an unknown assailant, it would appear that Zeb's unscrupulous existence has ended, until he finds himself mysteriously resurrected. This excellently-paced horror novel is the first of a two-part epic, following the teenaged criminal through several decades of American history as he tries to solve the puzzle of his murder, and discover the purpose of his unexpected revival. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Tony DiTerlizzi<br /><br />The Star War franchise has spawned its share of book titles over the years, but this stands as the most definitive children's book focusing on the first three films. Tony DiTerlizzi's text perfectly captures the excitement of the action sequences, and skillfully incorporates the most famous catchphrases from the movies. An excellent intro for soon-to-be fans and their already-there parents. <br /><br /><span id="goog_1873258594"></span><span id="goog_1873258595"></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Why We Live Where We Live</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Kira Vermond <br /><br />Guelph writer Kira Vermond has won the Norma Fleck award for this thought-provoking picture book exploring the historical path of human civilization. Curious kids will love the often-silly illustrations, which complement informative text on the influence of everything from cultural shifts to climate change. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Minrs</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Kevin Sylvester <br /><br />12-year-old Christopher and his young crew members are sent to the planet Perses to mine rare minerals for a resource-deficient Earth. After the crew lose contact with their home planet, they must band together for survival; frightening circumstances that are made worse when Perses suddenly comes under attack by an unknown assailant. Excellent actio12-year old Christopher and his young crew members are sent to the planet Perses to mine rare minerals for a resource-deficient Earth. After the crew lose contact with their home planet, they must band together for survival; frightening circumstances that are made worse when Perses suddenly comes under attack by an unknown assailant. Excellent action-adventure for 10-14 year-olds. n-adventure for 10-14 year-olds. <br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Good Little Book</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Kyo Maclear <br /><br />After being sent for a time-out, a small boy finds himself caught up in an unassuming, but life-changing, book. The "good little book" quickly becomes the boy's constant companion, until the day that the treasured tome goes missing. A heartwarming depiction all of the wonderful ways that reading can shape our lives. <br /><br /> </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Winter Family</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Clifford Jackman </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Though it might seem surprising to anyone taking a passing glance as it as a "genre" book, no one who's read Clifford Jackman's "The Winter Family" was surprised when it was long-listed for The Giller Prize, short-listed for the Governor General's Award, and is now starting to pop up on everyone's year's best lists. About a "family" of outlaws/mercenaries in the twilight of Manifest Destiny, Jackman's novel isn't just gory gritlit, but amounts to a studied look at how lawlessness begets law, and what happens to the agents of change once they're no longer needed.<br /> <br /> </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Debris</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Kevin Hardcastle</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The fringe grittiness of "Debris" – shotguns and fistfights and lawns strewn with debris and detritus – will likely be the dominant talking point with Kevin Hardcastle's first collection. Yet the refinement and delicacy of the seeing and telling that goes on makes for a stoic beauty that's the real success here, is what seriously sets the work apart from whatever generic comparisons it will inevitably attract. Harcastle's characters are not simply brutish dumb misfits, but men (mostly) and women driven by love and loyalty and duty in such a clear, unconflicted way that conflict is inevitable and intense. You'd be hard-pressed to find stories this loving, hurt, and alive in anything else coming out lately.<br /><br /> </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy</span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ed Joe Hill</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The most far out thing about this collection is that it's the first time the Best American series has tackled Science Fiction and Fantasy. This flagship installment, edited by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), displays the strength and merit of once-marginalized genres that are now beginning to dominate literature. As with the other Best American series, this one's a great introduction to your new favourite authors, the majority of which happen to be women here.</span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-774192454278571432015-11-24T09:28:00.001-08:002015-11-24T14:07:29.896-08:00Q&A: GREG DENTON<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><i>Ever since I can remember its existence <a href="http://gregdentonportraits.blogspot.ca/">Greg Denton</a> has been happily enframed by the renewing people and places of Guelph’s arts and culture scene. Known downtown as longtime musician, bookseller, and painter; he is also a painting instructor on campus. His practical and theoretical know-how combined with his daily commitment to the overlapping and busy fields of local artistic expression made him a natural choice as this year’s <a href="http://guelph.ca/living/arts-and-culture/special-projects/airprogram2015/">City of Guelph Artist in Residence</a>. According to the city’s description, the residency ‘is a cultural initiative that embeds artists in a variety of public spaces’. Each year </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> artists are asked to engage the community in creative experiences. Engagement may include hands-on creative activities, collaborative creation of temporary works or exploration of broader community stories. The public space selected for 2015 is the core area of Downtown Guelph.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>This year’s applicants to the position were asked to ‘draw inspiration from Lt.-Col. John McCrae’s poem, </i>In Flanders Fields<i>, and the theme of remembrance’. Correspondingly, this summer Greg submitted, then swiftly completed a ‘100 portrait paintings in oil, depicting living military personnel, cadets, and veterans from the Guelph area, in uniform and wearing a poppy on their lapel’. Entitled ‘100 Portraits/100 Poppies: Sitting in Remembrance’ Greg’s work begin its exhibition on Nov 2 at <a href="https://www.uoguelph.ca/sofam/boarding-house-gallery">Boarding House Arts</a> and shows until Monday Nov 30th. <br /><br />Having barely any knowledge of painting, and thankfully not having any direct experience of war, I was eager to get a civic understanding of how paintings inform the public remembrance of such a complex, even controversial topic. The following is an excerpt from the recording of a conversation I had with Greg at the Boarding House on Nov 1st at a solid wooden table facing his paintings. For what words are worth, it’s a single sitting portrait of a bigger picture. </i><br /><br />- Brad de Roo, who after watching Greg paint one of 100 poppies last few portraits during his final stint painting in City Hall, was surprised to learn that the uniformed gentleman Greg was painting had been part of liberation of the Netherlands in WW2, thereby helping to spare Opa & Oma de Roo any further formative hardship. <br /><br /><b>Could you describe how you paint? </b><br /><br />There is a process that I think I go through as a painter. And there is a process as representational painter. I have an interest in light and shadow and how that’s constructing the form. I have an interest in how colour works within the field of light that I’m painting. I have interest in the space of the painting. You know, I tend to work technically, so that I am usually working with a rough gestural sketch to try to get a sense of scale and placement. And then I’ll tend to start mapping in warm and cool colour relationships and tonal relationships. And then I’ll start to elaborate from there on more particular things. And I tend to work as a single session painter. I’m working wet in wet and with a fairly direct painting style, and with a fair amount of body and brushiness to the paint. I mean, it’s not the way to paint. It’s one way and it’s the way I tend to approach the construction of things. <br /><br /><b>Is this style of painting prone to any mistakes? Does it allow for surprises? </b><br /><br />Oh absolutely. One of the formative things for me in painting was thinking that they’re improvisational. Being a single session painter, there’s somebody sitting in front of me and I am trying to look at it in the here and now and make a painting. The painting is a record of those decisions. I used to love <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon_%28artist%29">Francis Bacon</a>, a British painter, and he talked about painting as a process of courting accident. And he was interested in also subverting what he called the illustrative aspect of the painting. So he would be trying to find ways of realizing the representation through the process and through the paint and in a sense have the paint itself invent the image, rather than the painting be a material through which you render the image. <br /><br /><b>So it’s almost like there’s a greater texture to it?</b> <br /><br />Yeah, well texture or surprise. Or accident, right? I tend to think that’s what’s really interesting about a painting and I often will argue that these are fictions, rather than representations of people. I’m usually pretty critical about the role of portraiture as the idea that I’ve interpreted somebody’s personality, or tried to distill it, or represent it. You know, I’m looking at somebody. I’m looking at their face. I’m aware that there’s a psychology in action and I think a psychology gets enacted any time you see something that looks like a face. You know, like the front of a car looks angry or placid. So I am looking for readable psychology in painting, but I tend to think that there is so much accident in process; the paintload, the contrast that happens – you didn’t cover something adequately or the edge of the paint rolled of the brush in a funny way and it will create a kind of mood and expression and in fact likeness and I’m really interested in that. One of my other projects was the three hundred and sixty five self-portraits and that was an attempt to track however many different likenesses of the same person that process could generate. And in a sense when I do this sort of ensemble projects they’re often narratives of that process. <br /><br />This one effected that narrative because I think there was a higher demand on it as likeness, on not giving myself permissions. I was working to a set schedule. <br /><br /><b>This would be somewhat of an emotional experience. People are coming in representation of someone or embodiment of someone etc. Did the emotional side of the project ever come to the fore while painting? </b><br /><br />Absolutely. One woman started crying when I painted the poppy. She didn’t expect that. She didn’t expect it to be such an emotional punch. The symbolism of it hit her. Some people seemed to be very proud and some people seemed to express a lot of gratitude that the culture they are apart of us is being honoured. I was painting a lot of living veterans. There was a lot of emotion. There were times when I teared up. <br /><br /><b>People were probably telling you stories too… </b><br /><br />That’s it. I’m painting some 96 year old guy who was 17 years old and on the frontlines going into Holland in the war or on Juneau beach on D-Day and you think about who you were as a 17-year-old and you realize the history of this person – the history that they embody. <br /><br /><b>Has this project changed your understanding of remembrance or memory? </b><br /><br />This project allowed me to address something that I think has been happening over the last few years. I’m getting older and meeting older people and have more friends who have passed away and mortality and the images I have of these people in sketchbooks and paintings bears a different meaning to me now than it did when it was more of just a chance to do a formal exploration. <br /><br />The likeness and recognizability of a person, and the portrait as an emblem of that became something more significant. <br /><br /><b>How do the individual portraits interact with your piece’s overall form? </b><br /><br />I was interested in meeting them as people, rather than symbols. But also this was a chance for me to take what I do in terms of a repetitive form and in terms of trying to find a motif that repeats in the painting that isn’t the portrait but ascribes a different meaning to it. <br /><br />The idea of a hundred people wearing poppies and the chance to make that a field of poppies appealed formally to me. Military I think of as a predominantly green culture, if I had to ascribe a colour to the idea of the military. So it seemed this was a real opportunity to make a green field with red poppies, which are contrasting colours and would give a chance for the poppy to be vivid. I realized if I am gridding them on a wall with spaces between them than I will want a white wall because it will make white crosses and that will extend the field as well. <br /><br />I was also looking for a certain scale. I had to decide what size to make the paintings in order for the work to be sizeable and I wanted something mural scale. <br /><br /><b>Something that you cannot necessarily take all in a field of vision?</b> <br /><br />Yeah. Something that’s going to fill a wall. It’s 15 feet long and that seemed like a reasonable expanse. And I think there is an allusion to colour field painting. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman">Barnett Newman</a>, and that sort of thing; in terms of the scale and the fact that your vision is absorbed with colour. It fills your periphery. You’re not looking at it as a picture - it really is a field that you are absorbed in. It’s a green field. It can be seen as an allusion to colour field abstraction or an allusion to landscape. <br /><br /><b>Did the political landscape around the time of painting this complicate things? </b><br /><br />It wasn’t ever an explicit part of this. There was a huge diversity of opinion in the people who were sitting. Some people very supportive of the Conservative Party. <br /><br />There’s always this debate around Remembrance Day when people complain that its celebrating war and you’re always trying to position how you feel about that – are you celebrating war or are you honouring sacrifice and remembrance and what exactly that role is and I think this project sits in that territory. I think it can generate that debate, but I don’t think there is anything about it that is politicized in terms of taking a position on that.<br /><br /><b>Your piece is illustrative of the space of remembrance, rather than divisive?</b> <br /><br />What I think is really interesting about it is that when I’ve encountered military portraits historically I’ve often thought they are paintings of the uniform, paintings of the idea of valour, of dignity. I was focusing on their faces in a public space. <br /><br />I tend to think I painted these people as people and as vulnerable people. <br /><br /><b>What would you like to be asked about your artwork that is normally overlooked? Are their every any misconceptions about it? </b><br /><br />People get engaged with what I do in terms of an individual portrait - and I am interested in these as individual portraits - but I think that my work comes at it from two angles. I feel like people aren’t adequately engaging in what I do as a format and as a form and may not see they colour-field references or the fact that this is a representation, that it’s an ensemble. <br /><br />They are interested in the figurative side of it more. I’m interested in context. <br /><br />I’m up against a tradition of figurative painting. People can look at it and understand what I am doing within a set of readymade standards, and what I think I am doing is actually trying to reframe that and shift that, so that it's put into a context and seen as a kind of contrivance that establishes it as being a portrait rather than a figure painting. People see that I am portrait artist, but they don’t see that I am an installation artist. <br /><br /><b>What books would you recommend to get a fuller view of painting? </b><br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stella">Frank Stella</a>’s <i>Working Space</i>. A phenomenal study about the idea of what space is in a painting, and what pictoriality is, and looking at it from a historical viewpoint. I think it’s a beautiful book for his lucidity and his knowledge as a practicing artist. <br /><br />Francis Bacon’s interviews with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sylvester">Sylvester</a> were huge for me as student, even more so than his paintings. <br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg">Clement Greenberg</a>, always. Even though he can be really prescriptive and problematic. <br /><br />Ross King’s book on The Group of Seven, <i>Defiant Spirits</i>. </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-14148494523224087892015-11-17T10:21:00.000-08:002015-11-19T20:54:29.615-08:00Q&A: BRAD DE ROO of "GUELPH WEEN SATAN"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's an old saying <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">where I come from: You can bring a bud to Ween, but you can't make<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> them dig it. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was a lesson that <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">took me a while to learn. </span>Between the ages of 15 and 25<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, I<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> did my damndest to b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uffalo</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">friends and partners</span> into listening to the New Hope, Pennsylvania duo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">cranking up</span> albums during parties, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">monopolizing the tape deck on</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">road trips<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, striving to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">put the perfect song in the perfect co<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ntext on a mix tape<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. After years<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">reactions ranging from the confused, to the dis<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">interested, to the offended<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, I gave up<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. To <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">retrofit a line from Bruce McCulloch<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'s "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Wxr2awac8">Doors</a>", Ween fans aren't made – they're b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">or<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n. Ween made sense to me immediately<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I was<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> on board with</span> thei<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r pitched up or down vocals, their <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sometimes-<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sacred, sometimes-profan<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e, sometimes-bo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nkers lyrics, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and</span> by their donning and doffing of any genres and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the denizen narrators of those genres</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> I didn't s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">weat whether or not they were a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">joke</span> band<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, because I got that – t</span>o boost another line, this one from Lorrie Moore<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> –</span> nothing<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>s a joke with Wee<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n. It all just <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>mes</span> out like one. </span></span></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The point people seem<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> to miss with Ween is how <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ironic they're not<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When they dally in <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">one </span>genre<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or another</span>, they're not making fun of, say, P<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rince o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r Billy Joel<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or The Beatles<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. They're <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a pair of weird dud<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">es with <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">major roots in <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">punk and DI<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Y and lo-fi and small town idle redneckness and when they fool around <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with whatever style, with whatever points of re<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ference, what comes out is both fam<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iliar and sui generis<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">catalog</span> Dean and Ge<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ne Ween<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> accrued</span> over 25</span></span> years <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is, by tu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rns,</span></span> far<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-reaching, far-flung, and far-fetched<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Ideally<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span> there's something in there for everybody<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Bookshelfer and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">citizen Brad de Roo certainly hoped so when he <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">challenged local mus<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">icians to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">try their own hands at songs of their choosing<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. The result<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">GUELPH WEEN SATAN,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is available now for download. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/418033348395163/">The casse</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/418033348395163/">t</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/418033348395163/">te release of the compilation</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> will take place Friday November 20 at 8:30pm at the ANA<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">F Club, featur<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ing a Ween open mic, followed by karaoke<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i> <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Andrew </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What about Guelph jibes with Ween? Why not a compilation of Guelphies pulling off <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWbMu4PtpE">Spin Doctors</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FjVjt78iqk">Jesus Jones</a>?</b> <br /><br />I don’t know how much Guelph is a paradigmatic Ween-town. It definitely has its share of oddly pitched voices and lyrically unsettling characters. I imagine there are maybe more Weenish places in Canada that have yet to compile their Weenishness. What Ween lurks in Stephen Harper’s backyard, I wonder? Or in some of our other post-industrial wastelands? <br /><br />But there is a long history of home recording in Guelph, and there continues to be a splattering of cool home studios and bedroom projects. Some of these sweaty setups and close-knit relationships remind me a bit of what I’ve read of Ween’s early days making tape upon tape of lo-fi music in shacks. There is also an interest in lots of different genres of music in the Guelph indie scene (for a lack of a better thing to call it). There is a jumbling spirit which associatively calls to mind Ween’s genre-shifting ways. It is not strange to find musical-minded folks I know playing in garage rock bands while making homemade hip hop beats between participating in a free jazz improve sessions and crooning standards on karaoke nights. <br /><br />Compilationally, <a href="https://tysonandhisgameboy.bandcamp.com/">Tyson Brinacombe</a> (my co-conspirator on <i>GUELPH WEEN SATAN</i>) and I had the initial plan of putting out a Spin Doctors/Jesus Jones split tribute LP, but it seems we don’t live in the right here, right now as much as KW - in some circles known as the Two Princes of Ontario – who’d already beaten us to this poppy punch. I haven’t searched for the Bandcamp yet, but I’ve heard it’s not quite heavy enough on the funk rock. <br /><br /><b>What sort of Guelph sampler does <i>GUELPH WEEN SATAN</i> amount to? </b><br /><br />I think it is an intriguingly incomplete one. This being my first kick at the release can (with the absolutely necessary/awesome technical and organizational help of veteran releaser Tyson), I underestimated a few things. I attempted Liberal-style gender parity of the recordings early on, only to be politely denied songs by almost every woman I asked, thereby underestimating how many women in Guelph that I know would want to cover Ween for free. I attempted to stay out of the way of the song selection process almost entirely, underestimating that certain representative albums would be missed. The comp features 4 songs from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pod"><i>The Pod</i></a>, 4 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Guava"><i>Pure Guava</i></a>, 2 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_and_Cheese"><i>Chocolate and Cheese</i></a>, 1 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mollusk"><i>The Mollusk</i></a> (one of the best named & designed psychedelic albums in my mind), 2 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Pepper"><i>White Pepper</i></a>, 2 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_(album)"><i>Quebec</i></a>, 1 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinola,_Vol._1"><i>Shinola</i></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinola,_Vol._1"> Vol 1</a>.</i>,</span> and 2 from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cucaracha_(album)"><i>La Cucaracha</i></a>. This unfortunately leaves both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GodWeenSatan:_The_Oneness"><i>GodWeenSatan: The Oneness</i></a> (from which this comp steals its name) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Golden_Country_Greats"><i>12 Golden Country Greats</i></a> (their Nashville country album) totally untouched (as well as some early recordings, collabs, EPs, and demos). Ween simply have too many songs that would be fun challenges to cover. Lastly, I attempted to console myself along the mishap-laden way by thinking that this was just Volume 1 and a future Volume 2 could rebalance the musical scales with an almost all-women compilation of what was here missed. I underestimated how much work it was getting this done in the first place, and how much I’d be listening to only charting early nineties funk rock by the time <i>GUELPH WEEN SATAN</i> was finished. <br /><br />Having grieved so, I got to meet some new nice people, I got to chat with some old pals, some new collaborations were born, and some cool sounds were created for a good time in a home-made fashion. <br /><br /><b>How would you describe Ween to some jerk who'd never heard them? </b><br /><br />Immediately lapsing into clichéd music hybridizing, I’d say that Ween sound like a better-voiced, worse mannered "Weird" Al teamed up with your somewhat jocky high-school buddy who can play anything on guitar, both Al & Buddy boozed up and high and backed in a fit of surreal reference by all the (usually classic rock) bands they are parodying, who are slightly misplaying, often rewriting, and consistently adding piss-taking, exaggeratory flourishes to their own songs. Ween are all these things while being willing and able to burst into sudden noise or break into genuinely beautiful love songs. Maybe they are also a slacker Zappa clone split into two mysteriously compelling, temporarily co-balancing figures – with much catchier songs than their imaginary sci-fi forebearer. Alternatively, you could say they are the weirder cousins of Prince & Beck and have spent some odd times trying to inject the alien tone of the Residents into rich melodies. They are also, at times, troublingly politically incorrect (a fact worth further study and criticism). <br /><br /><b>A lot of Ween is deceptively simple. What challenges does a musician come up against when attempting to make a Ween track their own?</b> <br /><br />I can’t speak for everyone else on this comp, but my challenges were many. From a technical side, some folks here play some pretty complicated guitar (see <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/pandy-fackler-ocean-man">"Ocean Man"</a>) and do some layering, multi-instrumental playing and singing (see<a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/matt-monoogian-falling-out"> "Falling Out"</a> by Matt Monoogian, as well as too many others to list) that is far beyond my limited musical know-how. I found it tricky to get the Weeness into the song without being weird for weirdness sake. Ween’s recordings, especially a lot of the early recordings from <i>GodWeenSatan</i>, <i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>he Pod</i>, and <i>Pure Guava</i> have very strange tones, odd pre-programmed rhythms, and manipulated vocals (whether acoustically or via pedals, tape manipulation, mic effects etc). So even if the chords and melodies are simple, the textures, tones, timbres are distinctly askew. It would be hard to mistake these recordings for another band. So the run on question becomes how to capture this unsettling quality while understanding the element of parody in their genre recreations (that you find on songs like the Thin Lizzy sounding <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/gregory-pepper-his-problems-gabrielle">"Gabrielle"</a> awesomely covered here by Gregory Pepper and his Problems) and reworkings (like <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/am-brooks-fiesta">"Fiesta"</a>’s cheesy electro mariachi, covered in fully midi glory by AM Brooks) and touching on the unseemly characters or personas that seem to come out in some of vocalizations and lyrics - all while trying not to overthink it. <br /><br />For the songs I sang, I tried to select songs (with the help of my collaborators) in a style that I could see myself attempting to vocally replicate (I could never belt out <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/glacio-de-fluvial-captain-fantasy">"Captain Fantasy"</a>), but that also had room for some of the dissonance I favour as a distorting accomplice to melodic sweetness. I also found it helpful to interpret the song like a text and to try to pick up latent themes to sonically and lyrically reframe. <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/brad-de-roo-jessy-bell-smith-lullaby">"Lullaby"</a>, for example, which is a stripped down piano and orchestra ballad in the original recording, seemed lyrically and melodically ripe for a psychedelic, cultish remake. The <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">N</span>ew <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A</span>gey lyrics about ‘floating’ and ‘life flowing’ combined with the religious images of infants and the Rapture to me called for a bit more chaos and disorientation which I naturally tried to communicate via phasing, disembodied vocals, and a swallowing noise loop followed by a sample of a Jim Jones’ recording from the final moments of Jonestown. <a href="http://jessybellsmith.bandcamp.com/releases">Jessy Bell Smith</a>, who collaborated on the song with me (and contributed an awesome version of <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/jessy-bell-smith-ryan-cassidy-brad-de-roo-tyson-sarah">"Sarah"</a>), added churchy yet distorted organ and layered spectral choir-like harmony vocals, which I felt further developed my cultish interpretation. The original song also has hard to make out (maybe intentionally ambiguous lyrics) which I maybe sacrilegiously sang as ‘friends’ and ‘utopia’ to bolster my fictional cult view. I also liked that "Lullaby" was a lesser known coda-ish song that wouldn’t have too many ideas about it from the get-go. I also liked the idea of recording lo-fi with a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">M</span>ac and some snacks in my robe. I also liked the idea not fixing the vocals parts I did not sing quite right. These things all felt Ween to me. Considering everything, I’m sure I fucked it up. <br /><br /><a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/brad-de-roo-tyson-hey-there-fancy-pants">"Hey There Fancy Pants"</a> I did with Tyson (smoothly playing most of the instruments –banjo, bass, drums, percussion – as well as recording) was mostly just fun to old timey sing. It was also fun to try to replicate an impossible Les Paul-style guitar solo on a kazoo and to rip some noise guitar for no good reason other than further shadowing "Fancy Pants"’ hoping for ‘sunny days’ (to riff off the silly lyrics and peppy tone of the tune some). It was also fun to try a song that sounded much less serious than my previous selection - to get to explore a fuller sense of the kaleidoscopic chimera that is Ween. <br /><br />I look forward to discussing how all the contributors approached the finer details of their songs over drinks. I’m seriously interested in exploring how members of a community interpret sound in very different ways over drinks. <br /><br />Anecdotally, <a href="http://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/encyclopedia-brown-freedom-of-76">"Freedom of '76"</a> by Encyclopedia included on <i>GUELPH WEEN SATAN</i> references Ween’s love of reference and randomly samples a small a part of every song on the compilation (if anyone wants to play spot the sample). It also destroys <a href="https://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/bonus-track-tyson-freedom-of-76">a perfectly good straight ahead reading</a> of the song by Tyson. For comparison sake, we’ve at this very moment added Tyson’s original version to Bandcamp for free (along with a scrapped demo recording by <a href="https://guelphweensatan.bandcamp.com/track/bonus-track-demon-sweat-im-dancing-in-the-show-tonight">"Demon Sweat"</a>) as an audio bonus to your curious readers. </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-13019044579219842632015-11-15T05:47:00.000-08:002015-11-15T05:47:33.697-08:00Q&A: JOHN STACKHOUSE<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; page-break-before: auto; }</style>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/252756/mass-disruption#9780345815835">Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of a Media Revolution</a> <i>by longtime journalist and onetime editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, John Stackhouse, offers an immersive look into how newspapers have had to adapt to the cultural, technological, and financial conditions of the digital age. Using his time at the Globe as a narrative pivot, Stackhouse moves between case studies of classic print powerhouses (like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, & The London Times), and explorations of popular digital models (from BuzzFeed to Facebook to Twitter). Run-ins & sit-downs with Harper, Bono, and Ford make fascinating interludes, while assignments in Russia, Ethiopia, India, & Afghanistan provide a global heft. Through all the sights, diversions, innovations, and inevitable editorial controversies, Stackhouse makes the survival of serious journalism his business. Only, he argues, by balancing flexible fiscal and digital models with factual, well-written, accountable (often long-form) stories will the fourth estate remain a reliable source of democratic disputation. </i><br /><br />- Brad de Roo, who would often get the urge to yell ‘Stop the Presses!’ as he passed by his local paper in production, not knowing that in his lifetime he might be better received if he texted ‘Delete the Posts!’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Was it at all strange to apply journalistic practices to a book about journalism? </b><br /><br />Any book about journalism, by a journalist, faces a few inherent challenges. First, and this is pretty obvious, there should be no pretense of objectivity. I tried to say, up front and actually in the title, that this book is a single person's perspective. I set out to write the book because I felt I had been given a ringside seat to a critical moment in journalism's history, and had both an obligation and desire to share that with current and future readers and producers of journalism. There were more nuanced challenges, though, stemming from various topics that aren't central to journalism, or at least weren't until recently. Digital reading habits, mobile advertising, technology platforms – these forces are reshaping journalism in profound ways, and I wanted to understand them, as a journalist and as a user. For some of those questions, I put on my reporter's hat and explored new fields and other companies. But again, it had to be woven into a narrative structure that was both chronological and first-person. <br /><br /><b>What are the biggest challenges ahead of newspapers?</b> <br /><br />The biggest challenge is advertising. The controlled model of advertising that dominated media when I entered the business in the 1980s has been shattered. Newspapers, magazines and broadcasters simply cannot guarantee the sort of consistent audience that they once were able to deliver to advertisers. Ironically, most media have bigger audiences than ever, in raw numbers, but most of us spend fraction of the time each day with a particular news source - and so, advertisers won't pay the big dollars that media used to charge for access to those audiences. I'm a paying subscriber to the Economist, for instance, and I love it. But instead of an isolated hour of immersive reading that I used to spend with the magazine, I now visit its mobile app and email feeds every morning for 5 minutes or so. So they still have me; they just don't have as much of my attention. <br /><br /><b>Throughout <i>Mass Disruption</i>, you note that many big newspapers almost willfully ignored the digital changes and challenges to come. Is there something inherently careful about the newspaper industry? </b><br /><br />The Harvard management guru Clayton Christensen wrote <i>The Innovators Dilemma</i> in the 1990s, and it holds true today. In any industry, established firms - the so-called legacy operators - find it very challenging, perhaps impossible, to disrupt themselves. They're usually making good money off the old model, and therefore have a strong incentive not to blow it up. That's been absolutely true for newspapers. Perhaps a few papers, entering the 21st century, might have said, 'Look, it's obvious we're moving to a purely digital media world. Let's catapult ourselves into the future. Shut down the paper. Go all digital.' But we were all making money off the newspapers, and not off our websites, at least back then. Thus, the innovator's dilemma. There's also a mindset. Newspaper operators - owners, publishers, editors - tend to have ink-stained fingers. It's harder for them to become digital pioneers than, say, for a 25-year-old with a new concept and some venture capital to play with. And then there's the question of caution, which is raised pointedly in the question. Yes, newspapers tend to be cautious. I've wrestled with that question for years, because on one level newspapers - and their journalists - take heroic risks every day. They go to war zones. They print stories that may incite lawsuits. They run columns that infuriate loyal subscribers. That all takes courage. And yet, they stick to the same format, most of them at least, year-in, year-out. Most subscribers and advertisers want that predictability. Perhaps it's because the daily newspaper is one of the last constants in a widely variable world. And as a result, a lot of newsrooms tended to stay close to home in the early days of digital disruption. <br /><br /><b>What do newspapers offer readers that new media formats like Buzz Feed, Huff-Post, and Vice do not? Do newspapers increasingly run the risk of becoming what they are trying to differentiate themselves from? How will newspapers attract the younger audiences that these outlets boast? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />The book explores a few case studies of newspaper journalism - lively ones like the Rob and Doug Ford stories - to show some of what is required to produce significant journalism. These kinds of stories take a team: reporters, of course, but also handling editors, lawyers and, most critically, sources who trust the newsroom. Purely digital outlets can do this, and a lot of them are. But most serious journalism still comes from traditional outlets, newspapers in particular. Despite their challenges, they have the newsrooms, the trained, professional reporters and legal resources to carry out and defend critical work. There's a lot that new media outlets can learn and borrow from that model. This is not all about the old adopting the new; there's a great need for the new to adopt a bit of the old, too. <br /><br /><b>You mention the growing role that social media companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have had in shaping, reporting, and disseminating stories. How would stories like the G20 protests, the Parliament Hill shooting, and the Ghomeshi affair have been covered differently had they happened when you entered journalism? </b><br /><br />What a great question! In the book, I explore our own coverage of the G20 debacle in Toronto, because it was apparent, in hindsight, that social media played a critical role in shaping the media's coverage and the political consequences of that riotous weekend. We all witnessed the beating of civilians by police - on the grounds of the legislature! - thanks to citizens with smart phones. The story also shifted from a focus on anarchists to one on police tactics in part because that's what millions of people were talking about online. Would that have happened in the 1980s? I think police tactics would have become the story but in a more measured, and perhaps slower, way. Then there's the case of the Parliament Hill shooting, which I explore in the book. Many of us were able to follow that news live via Twitter. I think, in the main, that's good. But there was also a lot of inaccuracies circulated via Twitter that morning, and that's not good. To me, it shows the need for moderating. <br /><b><br />Have any of these technological developments improved reporting? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Reporting today, generally, is better than a generation ago. Reporters have access to more information and more sources than ever. And they can work with informed audiences to develop their coverage. Journalists no longer have to work in isolation. Twitter is like having your own newsroom - a cast of many who want to help explore, build and test ideas. Social media also holds us all to account, more effectively than ever. Reporters can't hide behind the walls of a newsroom, nor can editors or publishers barricade themselves behind the printing press. Power has been diffused. For journalism, ultimately that's good. <br /><br /><b>In your career as a journalist, were there any stories that you had to shelf or couldn’t cover? If so, what about not getting these stories most bothered you? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />I always regret, as do a lot of correspondents, not being able to get closer to Osama bin Laden and his training camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. I spent a fair bit of time in Pakistan in 1997 and 1998, and developed a pretty good sense of what was in the works, in terms of a jihadist movement. Of course, I had no idea that the movement was as big as it was, or determined as it was to attack the West. I spent some time pursuing the Khadr family, following their tracks to Peshawar, after I met and interviewed the father, Ahmed, in a Pakistani hospital. But I never again found them - they had crossed the border and lived in Jalalabad - and regret that. It had just become too dangerous for journalists in Afghanistan in the late '90s. We soon learned why. <br /><br /><b>You’ve played hockey with Putin, provoked the sensationalistic ire of Doug and Rob Ford, and lived for a week as a homeless person on the frigid streets of Toronto – has your position as a journalist ever make you fear for your personal safety? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />There were times when I feared for my safety, but those were mostly when I lived and worked overseas. I was with group of journalists in Lahore, Pakistan that was attacked by an angry mob following a court decision that favoured a Christian. We had to run for our lives, down some dark alleys, and were saved and sheltered by some very decent Pakistanis. Probably my gravest concern came when the Tamil Tigers killed a friend of mine - the human rights lawyer, Neelan Tiruchelvam - in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in the summer of 1999. I wrote a critical piece about the Tigers following that assassination, and was told by one of their sympathizers to be careful. <br /><br /><b>In the book, you reflect on being central the Globe and Mail editorial board that endorsed Harper for the 2011 election. What do you make of recent controversies around such endorsements - like the Globe’s support of a Harperless Conservative party this election or Andrew Coyne’s resignation as editor at the Post after he disagreed with their political stance? Considering the results of this election, do such endorsements have much sway these days? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />It's intriguing that newspaper editorials continue to ignite so many political passions. Whatever their position, it gives me hope that people see the institutional view of newspapers as important and worthy of debate. It would seem their influence on voting decisions, however, is limited. I don't think that's bad. Editorials should not be seen as a newspaper trying to instruct readers how to vote. I see them as a position - well-argued - against which people can form their own decisions. <br /><br /><b>What did you think of this election’s coverage, in general? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />I thought the coverage was generally quite good. A diversity of professional news outlets covered all three major campaigns from tape to tape, and provided important and valuable fact checking and criticism. If there was a gap in the campaign coverage - and the blame for this rests with the Conservatives - it was in a more thorough exploration of the government's record and platform. There were important policies, from taxation to immigration, that were reduced to divisive sound bites. But I don't blame the media for that; the Conservatives didn't provide a very thoughtful or engaging explanation of their polices, and obviously paid the price. It's a healthy reminder that, whether you're a political party or corporation or citizen movement, you need to engage the mainstream media. <br /><br /><b>What personal attributes does a journalist need to thrive today? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />The most important attribute for journalists continues to be curiosity. No algorithm has yet to supplant the art of questioning. Added to that ancient skill, journalists today need to understand digital audience behaviour - how we all move around the Internet and mobile apps, and how to engage this new world of digital nomads. Social media is a major part of that. And I'd suggest that journalists who understand revenue will have leg up. That doesn't mean selling your soul. It simply means understanding how new revenue sources like events or customized publications can help pay the freight of journalism. <br /><b><br />Would you ever consider making a return to the field? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />I was incredibly lucky to be a reporter, foreign correspondent and editor during some of the most remarkable moments of our time, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11 to the Rob Ford phenomena, and to wrestle with how media approached those moments. I'm now lucky to be working for the chief executive of RBC, helping the bank, its clients and, to some extent, the country understand the big social, economic and technological forces around us. And I'm still writing for media, including the Globe, and will continue to write books. So I haven't left the arena; I've just moved seats.</span><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-4683847194696227242015-11-03T17:59:00.000-08:002015-11-11T10:08:39.984-08:00The Village Podcast From The Bookshelf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome
back to our show! We've settled it, we are going to be titled The
Village Podcast. You will be able to subscribe on iTunes very soon.</div>
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In today's episode Steph and Candice take on the topic of awards and what purpose they serve to the industry. </div>
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You can find a complete list of the <a href="http://ggbooks.ca/%7E/media/ggbooks/2015/documents/ggla-winners-and-finalists-2015.pdf">2015 Governor General's Awards</a> (pdf), and the <a href="http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/">Scotiabank Giller Prize's</a> 2015 <a href="http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/the-scotiabank-giller-prize-presents-its-2015-longlist/">long list</a> and <a href="http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/finalists/2015shortlist/">short list</a> online to choose some books to pick up for the holidays.</div>
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The winner of the <a href="http://themanbookerprize.com/man-booker-prize-2015">2015 Man Booker Prize</a>, Marlon James with A Brief History of Seven Killings , is strongly recommended by the lovely book sellers in the store.</div>
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You might remember earlier this year when the <a href="http://www.thehugoawards.org/">Hugo Awards</a> were handed out. There was <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/08/won-science-fictions-hugo-awards-matters/">some controversy</a> over it and give some thought to whether they were right to handle it how they did. </div>
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See our <a href="http://bookshelf.ca/cinema.html">cinema calendar</a> for
the full list of films playing this month, including films mentioned He
Named Me Malala, The Reflektor Tapes, Blue Velvet and Terminator 2:
Judgement Day.</div>
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<b>Some other upcoming events with The Bookshelf include:</b></div>
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Margaret Atwood reading and signing on November25th at War Memorial Hall. Tickets are $8. If you're a member or a student, tickets are $6. Save $3 on either ticket with the purchase of Atwood's new book, <i>The Heart Goes Last</i>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.emilyrichardscooks.ca/">Emily Richards </a>book launch of her cookbook Per La Famiglia on November 17th in the eBar.</div>
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Are you taking part in <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo?</a> Join other writers in The Writing Room every Monday from 9am to 12pm in the eBar.</div>
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<b>Books discussed in this episode:</b></div>
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A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James</div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5211.A_Fine_Balance">A Fine Balance</a> by Rohinton Mistry</div>
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<a href="http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/">The War of Art</a> by Steven Pressfield</div>
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<a href="http://www.moorea-seal.com/p/52-lists.html">The 52 Lists</a> by Moorea Seal</div>
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<a href="http://margaretatwood.ca/books/the-heart-goes-last/">The Heart Goes Last</a> by Margaret Atwood</div>
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<a href="http://www.emilyrichardscooks.ca/">Per La Famiglia</a> by Emily Richards</div>
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Follow the Bookshelf on <a href="https://twitter.com/Bookshelfnews">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Bookshelf-219093428119656/timeline/">Facebook</a>. Stay up to date on what's happening around the store at <a href="http://bookshelfcinema.blogspot.ca/2015/09/gmc-harrison-ford-is-robot-edition.html">http://bookshelf.ca</a>. Send us feedback at <a href="mailto:podcast@bookshelf.ca">podcast@bookshelf.ca</a><br />
Theme music from the Free Music Archive, by <a href="http://www.theunderscoreorkestra.com/">The Underscore Orkestra</a></div>
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-39815523544407935862015-11-03T09:01:00.002-08:002015-11-03T09:01:22.273-08:00REVIEW: SIXTY: THE DIARY OF MY SIXTY-FIRST YEAR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qPyGQlggZWtljc2its67kS7yiQBASMRTzywhHPjIjMEt3nXHBsnvcS3c3vRAmDFANbtxja889lb-c4oZa_dVN0nTssmSNk3cKMO09v-NfWL1xxhr_CGFIClzFkj3Zw1FbL_2Tg5iTnqY/s1600/ianbrown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qPyGQlggZWtljc2its67kS7yiQBASMRTzywhHPjIjMEt3nXHBsnvcS3c3vRAmDFANbtxja889lb-c4oZa_dVN0nTssmSNk3cKMO09v-NfWL1xxhr_CGFIClzFkj3Zw1FbL_2Tg5iTnqY/s400/ianbrown.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I had the pleasure of Ian Brown’s company on Thanksgiving weekend. I cracked open <i>Sixty: The Diary of My Sixty-First Year</i> thinking that I would only spend a few minutes with it because, after all, I already know a few sixty year old men and, as they say, enough is enough. But as with his last book, <i>The Boy in the Moon</i>, which is about his life with his very debilitated son Walker and which I was also hesitant to read, I was immediately taken prisoner. I took a break for Thanksgiving rituals but other than that my head was in the book.<br /><br />Brown wears all of his neuroses in bright pinks and lime greens. This is initially refreshing, as many men keep theirs silently in their pockets, locked in their cell phones, or played out on the squash court. He is constantly vibrating about sex and whether he is a noticed commodity anymore. And we thought that it was only women who obsessed about their body image. Of course this does get tedious, as does his other fixation – money. Is there enough to retire, redo the kitchen, keep up with his friends? He is in the media and book business which are, like him, in decline.<br /><br />These are the mildly irritating and yet funny parts of his year long diary. The exhilarating parts shine brightly because he is and always has been a reader. He can't scramble over rocks in cottage country anymore but his mind brushes with greatness throughout. He integrates Pliny, Shakespeare, Hocking, Larkin, Vanier, Boswell, Olds, Atwood, Winnicot, Woolf and many more as if they are friends on Facebook. What they are saying resounds with him and it will with you also. I had to get out my notebook to write these well considered thoughts down. How about this one by Jean Vanier? "Purgatory is the stretch before death when you regret all of the chances you missed to be human."<br /><br />At the same time, Brown, like all of us, is stuck in the body. He has a litany of irritations which he hilariously recounts throughout. Glaucoma, plantar fasciitis, deafness, allergies, bronchitis, hemorrhoids, which he describes as "a rich, lustrous, steamy affair, full of itching and compulsive scratching, a Satyricon of the perineal world. Christ knows what's going on down there, but it feels like the intersection of highway 410 and the Trans-Canada highway." These are all signposts to aging but they are lit up with humour and gutsy candour!<br /><br />I'm not sure if you have seen the movie <i>My Dinner With Andre</i>. It is one of the most interesting that I have seen, just a conversation about life between two men in a restaurant. It was so simple and natural that I naively thought that it must have been easy to make. Then I read an article that said how may takes were involved in the movie. Many, many, many to create an elegant, simple movie. This is what I feel about the way Brown writes. Everything flows, but behind it all is hours of research and a lifetime of love with the written word. Thank you, Ian Brown. My weekend with you was a pleasure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Barb</span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-15208013166378222902015-11-01T14:27:00.002-08:002015-11-01T14:27:22.562-08:00REVIEW: NATIONAL TREASURE: NICOLAS CAGE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vU8WGT7dh1XmC6x_eG_YQIkKIE6H6G3VOWNUvOOFan3LlkOjwWFCZW4jDe_pcqB0kxRhKaFoXVBirg5qa5tVyabrr3s-TPcemzUXt_ACfDh0EPay9kdaDXWifLcD83l-4b5oDkKNAmR6/s1600/216487-vampires-kiss-nicolas-cage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vU8WGT7dh1XmC6x_eG_YQIkKIE6H6G3VOWNUvOOFan3LlkOjwWFCZW4jDe_pcqB0kxRhKaFoXVBirg5qa5tVyabrr3s-TPcemzUXt_ACfDh0EPay9kdaDXWifLcD83l-4b5oDkKNAmR6/s400/216487-vampires-kiss-nicolas-cage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sometimes it takes reading a study of Nicolas Cage to realize that you wanted – even needed – to read a study of Nicolas Cage. Being a youngster into indie cinema thanks to an older brother, my initial experience with Cage was in stuff like <i>Raising Arizona</i>, <i>Wild at Heart</i>, and <i>Leaving Las Vegas. </i>These are vehicles perfectly suited to Cage's seemingly erratic driving. In these, Cage performs like a capital-A Actor, with the sort of seriousness and intensity that actors playing serious actors on TV usually project. But thanks to being young, I didn't really think there was anything wrong with Cage also taking rolls in action movies like <i>Face/Off</i> or <i>The Rock</i> or <i>Con Air</i>. (In fact, <i>Con Air </i>is still an odd little action flick, featuring Actor-actors John Malkovich, John Cusak, and Steve Buscemi.) The last work of Cage's I took notice of was <i>Adaptation, </i>which felt like career defining stuff in capital-A category.<i> </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But I stopped paying attention for a few years and when I looked up again in the late 2000s to see stuff like this:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsblsx_GWah6k8wfDJhPrNU7Fa_UAY5VXEqFQJFyB2QFvYYBaS-RerVhoBLIVLlNlFENCPi4mrOp9jwVsZxY_sMhjGpOvgaP13v2IFsi2akQGjnCwsTFyOpxtKuA98-i9zO1miEHy2eQmJ/s1600/Or%252Bwill%252BNicholas%252BCage%252Bs%252Bhair%252Bbecome%252Ba%252Bbird%252B_722910acdee25c3d5534a1168c3920eb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsblsx_GWah6k8wfDJhPrNU7Fa_UAY5VXEqFQJFyB2QFvYYBaS-RerVhoBLIVLlNlFENCPi4mrOp9jwVsZxY_sMhjGpOvgaP13v2IFsi2akQGjnCwsTFyOpxtKuA98-i9zO1miEHy2eQmJ/s320/Or%252Bwill%252BNicholas%252BCage%252Bs%252Bhair%252Bbecome%252Ba%252Bbird%252B_722910acdee25c3d5534a1168c3920eb.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cage is perfect fodder for the internet, with its bored, often cruel penchant for sampling and recontextualizing. With performances so big they can be seen from space and his own odd personal life, the actor makes for an especially malleable target. Of course, the internet is more often than not just an exaggeration of ideas already out there in the world. The that Nicolas Cage is a horrible actor and weird person is not new, not an invention of the internet. All his career he has been divisive, covering the range between subtle, avante garde, and flat-out horrible. When Cage was admitted to internet, however, that idea of him overwhelmed the fact of him and now it's hard to see the man for the memes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>National Treasure: Nicolas Cage </i>(ECW) is an apposite response to Cage's meme-ification. The problem with the internet and memes (<a href="https://tuluwatexaminer.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/old-man-yells-at-cloud.jpg">yes, I know how that sounds...</a>) is the purchase they're increasingly gaining on our reality. The adolescent and oddball perception of stuff online feels like it's starting to leech into the real world. You might never be able to see Cage without hawk hair ever again. That this stuff gets discussed virologically is fitting. A spin gets put on some static thing, and if it it catches – ermahgerd! – that spin spirals out of control, finally distorting and mangling that initial noun. I've started thinking of internet virology as being like Alvin Lucier's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk"><i>I am sitting in a room</i></a>, in which the composer reads a short statement and then begins to layer the recording of that statement on top of itself. "I am recording the sound of my speaking voice," says Lucier,</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The result is an eldrich metallic ambiance, which is pretty much how I experience exhausted-but-somehow-tireless memes now, gags and absurdities repeated so many times that the lot of it become inarticulate. All of which is to say that once a thing is distorted in the mocking fun-house-echo-chamber of the internet, returning the thing being memed to itself feels impossible. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lindsay Gibb's <i>National Treasure </i>manages to retrieve Nicolas Cage from the internet's perverting spiral. And she does so by taking him seriously – calm intelligence being, of course, the internet's mortal foe.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Having to consistently defend something you like can make you love it
more fiercely," Gibb writes, in her introduction, of her interest in Cage being treated like an affectation. "And being accused of liking something ironically was, at
least for me, infuriating." That lack of irony is key here. What seems to be most risible about Cage is just how earnest he is. When he's doing work that's seen as important, he's giving it his all. When he's doing work that's perceived as fucking bonkers, he's giving it his all.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gibb doesn't make a case for Cage being the most important living actor or anything, but over the 75 page monograph, employing a wide range of sources, she roots out the logic of Cage's performances and his roll choices, all of which can appear so wildly illogical. The portrait of Cage which emerges is that of an eccentric person with eccentric ideas who is out to explore the limits of performance, to take rolls outside his wheelhouse, and work with people that he can constantly be learning from. Gibb argues and establishes consistency and intention in a career easily perceived as manic and impulsive.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Increasingly, I've been feeling pretty grim about the meme-y ambiance that is more and more turning from how we interact on the internet into how we interact in real life (IRL). One isn't obviously connected to the other, but Gibb's <i>National Treasure: Nicolas Cage </i>feels hopeful. That a subject which has been nearly obliterated by online weirdness can be treated with and withstand a thoughtful kind of respect augurs well for all of us, I think. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Andrew</span></span><br />
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<br />Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-54203157326570968902015-10-19T13:28:00.003-07:002015-10-19T13:28:48.397-07:00REVIEW: BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2015 marks the 100th anniversary of <i>The Best American Short Stories</i> series as well as the first year of <i>The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy</i>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The centenary feting comes along with a best of the Best, 40 stories that represent a 100 years of the
form. Over 700 pages you can see the progression of the short story from
"a predictable plot tied up neatly with a happy ending... the literary
equivalent of the Norman Rockwell paintings beside which they sometimes
appeared" to more artful expressions of deeper emotional and
intellectual truths exploded by smaller, more contained experiences and
interactions. Between the 20s and the 60s, the form was honed by the
likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Salinger and O'Connor, only to
then be recalibrated and complicated by the likes of Barthelme and Carver and Moore. Over the century, short stories became less about an
experience and more about the experience of an experience; meanings gradually take the place of happenings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The tome of shorts ends with George Saunders' "Semplica Girls", a story about Third World women shipped to the US to be used as status-enhancing lawn ornaments. Squeaking in at the end of the century, the presence of this story points out what might be termed a "genre-bias" in the previous 98 or so years of <i>The Best American Short Stories</i>. Beginning in 1915, the anthology can't help but leave out the forefathers of the form, the Irvings and Hawthornes and Poes – forefathers, too, of science fiction and fantasy. But the fact that <i>The Best American Short Stories</i> doesn't include the likes of Lovecraft
or Bradbury or Sturgeon or Ellison™or Heinleine or Le Guin or Willis is disappointing, but is also not surprising. As the short story became more self-serious over the century – more "literary" – science fiction and fantasy more and more became the redheaded step-children of the form. Of course, "literary" is a genre like any other. It's not a mark of
quality, but a summation of conventions. Just as there are heaps of rotten, cheap science fiction and
fantasy stories, there is literary dross – god, it seems like there's so
much of it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've been recommending this inaugural <i>Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy</i> to anyone who'll listen, and the response has mostly been the same: No way this can be the first year. Championed by <a href="http://www.johnjosephadams.com/">John Joseph Adams</a> and edited by <a href="http://www.joehillfiction.com/">Joe Hill</a> (Adams read basically every weird story published in 2014 and recommended a list of 80 to Hill, who chose his favorite 20), the resulting anthology is the best of its kind that I've read in a long time. In Karen Russell's "The Bad Graft", a woman becomes possessed by the seed of a Joshua Tree; in Alaya Dawn Johnson's "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i", humanity has been conquered by vampires and turned into feeding slaves; in Theodora Goss's "Cimmeria: From the <i>Journal of Imaginary Anthropology"</i>, a serious nod to Borges' classic "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", academics visit a land of their own creation; in Adam-Troy Castro's "The Thing About Shapes to Come," a mysterious plague has most of the world's women given birth to spheres, cubes, and pyramids; in Sam J. Miller's "We Are the Cloud", the brains of orphans are used as wi-fi ports; in T.C. Boyle's "The Relive Box", people become addicted to a devise which allows them to revisit the past. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a sort of happy accident – <i>accident </i>because Hill's selection process was "blind", meaning he had only the stories, not knowledge of their authors – <i>The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy</i> turned out also to be an impressive showcase for women writers. Whether there's a connection between marginalized writers excelling in marginalized genres can't be answered here, but it's certainly worth a think. I've always used – as I think many readers do – the Best American series as a way to find out about new authors, and it just so happens that this particular iteration is crawling some amazing writers you may never have heard of who just happen to be women.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The leg up that sci-fi and fantasy writing has always had on literary
fare is that, even if the writing's poor, a crackerjack concept can
sustain a story. But in the case of this collection, great premises are
supported by the kind of storytelling chops that usually lands writers
in <i>The Best American Short Stories</i> anthology. We're living in a literary landscape where a writer like Stephen King (Hill's dad, don't'cha know),
either ignored or reviled by literary critics for the first half of his
career, has been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/07/stephen-king-national-medal-of-arts-barack-obama">awarded</a> the National Medal of Arts. The fact is that much of the great work being done today is being done in previously maligned genres. My sense is that both readers and writers have grown a little tired of strictly "literary" conventions and are beginning to seek, in their short fiction, the sort of entertainment that used to be the hallmark of the form. With this in mind, I can't wait to read – as a head in a jar – the next centenary collection of <i>The Best American Short Stories 2015 – 2115</i>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Andrew</span></span><br />
Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-32134710275557276092015-10-17T10:11:00.002-07:002015-10-19T13:17:40.297-07:00Politics and Baseball<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since our announcement that The Bookshelf would be having an election party in the eBar, the response has been overwhelming. To accomodate the enthusiasm sparked by our election party, we are doing the following on Monday, October 19:<br />
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1. The Bookstore will remain open until at least 11:00pm. We will be streaming CBC election coverage on store screens and via our in-store sound system.<br />
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2. A non-partisan party will be hosted in the Bistro and Cinema, including great Green, blue, red, and orange-themed drink specials, and complimentary snacks.<br />
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3. Our friends at Miijidaa will be extending their open hours and screening the election.<br />
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4. The Liberal Party will be having their volunteer appreciation party in the eBar, and all Bookshelf patrons are welcome to stop by to say hello.<br />
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It is going to be the biggest election party we have ever had and we are very excited for it. We will have a "Speakers' Corner," inviting guests to give us a 5-10 second video clip on how to make Canadian politics better. We will also have a big surprise for those who arrive during the Blue Jays game. Come early, it is going to be BUSY! Space is limited but we believe that with all of our venues and Miijidaa operating late, we will be able to accommodate everyone. We hope to see you here. Be sure to vote before you come!Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-92151066248711417522015-10-11T10:52:00.000-07:002015-10-11T10:59:19.988-07:00REVIEW: PAULS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwR-Fx5sp3g1xj9etIPcip8sIOSxZjbjPptFcMaaw2vnOdOgqhPHbefHvJpBN0sTm9FFfjdEfmQgeTtH3HGcR4e_6AfvUSIbVq4dnpXTcJqkuyDxJ1NGBjBCbpRggi0cWYQ0H5Uv-FaifE/s1600/pauls.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwR-Fx5sp3g1xj9etIPcip8sIOSxZjbjPptFcMaaw2vnOdOgqhPHbefHvJpBN0sTm9FFfjdEfmQgeTtH3HGcR4e_6AfvUSIbVq4dnpXTcJqkuyDxJ1NGBjBCbpRggi0cWYQ0H5Uv-FaifE/s400/pauls.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/535773333251121/"><i>Jess Taylor will read with Kevin Hardcastle in the ebar on Thursday October 15th at 7:00pm.</i></a> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maybe you were one of those Matthews or Sarahs who in school had to share your name with another squirt or squirts in your class. I can recall at that age being confused that someone else could have your name. Your name was what individuated you, made you you. But where I was confused, all the Matthews and Sarahs were thoroughly chafed. At school they weren't just themselves, but sort of versions of themselves, divvied up by last names, or numbers, or qualities; members of some group by default. I'm sure this must make for some sub-phase in the steps of Lacanian maturation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pauls populate Jess Taylor's fist collection, <i>Pauls</i>. They show up as main characters or friends, men or women, with nothing more than their first names immediately in common. The inclusion of all these Pauls might seem arbitrary at first. The Pauls throughout these 10 stories – some of them fleeting, a few of them recurring – do not share any psychic connection or are members of some shady Paul cabal, nor do they combine at any point to create some megazord-type Paul. They're just regular Pauls. And it's this unremarkableness that makes them special.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The stories they dapple are ones of angst and strife and fancy, mostly experienced by the young. The characters, Pauls or otherwise, are at the age or in a place in their life, where what they're going through feels unique, as though they're the first people to struggle with relationships, with health, with getting older. But the simple presence of a Paul serves to ground whatever the experience, tether it to something bigger. Like all those Matthews and Sarahs in everyone's elementary school, the Pauls in <i>Pauls </i>appear as a reminder that as much as we are ourselves, we're also a moving piece inconceivable machination, whether we want to be or not.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Each Paul, too, serves as a sort of symbol of regularness. (Sorry all you remarkable, dazzling Pauls out there, but you've got a very ordinary name.) The world of Taylor's stories is not odd or quirky, but the banal and brutal place that the world just is. It's how that world is viewed in Taylor's stories that rotoscopes poetry onto the reality. In this way, Taylor's stories recall the early work of Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore, where life is just regular old, Paulful life enlivened and distorted by how each character experiences it, where a secondary, narrative tension is created by the ways in which the world always seems to fight against our want for it to be something more, something a little less Paul-y.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Andrew</span></span> <br />
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<br />Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-2855235991218614472015-10-04T15:43:00.000-07:002015-10-04T15:47:55.542-07:00REVIEW: DEBRIS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/535773333251121/"><i>Come see Kevin Hardcastle read with Jess Taylor in the ebar Thursday October 15 at 7:00pm.</i></a> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Full disclosure: I got to know Kevin Hardcastle a little bit in late 2012 when we were both shortlisted for and did not win that year's Journey Prize. He was the only other person at the fancy dinner and glitzy ceremony who seemed as uncomfortable as I was. It was the first time I'd donned the Ritz since some wedding I'd been to as a toddler and I got the same impression from Kevin. Afterwards, we got our commiseration on and on account of how much we drank – we were younger back then and the world was slated to end that December, so... – I don't remember all that much about the time we had. But I liked the guy. He was warm dude, passionate about his work, and equal parts nervous and chuffed about having that work recognized. I liked him even after catching him trying to secret an expensive bottle of bar wine out of my hotel room at the end of the night. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The three years between Kevin almost swiping a swanky wine and the release of <i>Debris </i>feels like too long, but the wait was worth it. In those three years, Kevin's been polishing his prose, building up visibility, plugging holes in just about every lit mag in the country – he even lost the Journey Prize a second time. The refinements aren't astronomical, or even glaring – he had he knives pretty sharp back in 2012 – but <i>Debris </i>reads all the better for time taken with it. There's a confidence and a consistency in the stories that's rare for first books. In a genre where it's easy for less-experienced, less-involved writers to hide behind the laconic cruelty of the subject matter – that genre being GritLit, or HickLit, or whatever you want to term stories about rural people and places – Kevin smokes an impressive amount of nuanced flavour into these tough, gritty strips of stories.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The fringe grittiness – shotguns and fistfights and lawns strewn with debris and detritus – will likely be the dominant talking point with Kevin's writing. Yet the refinement and delicacy of the seeing and telling that goes on makes for a stoic beauty that's the real success of <i>Debris, </i>is what seriously sets the work apart from whatever generic comparisons it will inevitably attract. The rural settings are not the mopey, lonely, objective correlative wildernesses described by <i>Survival. </i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yes, all the fences are a bit
busted and need painting, but that disrepair is just daily fact, not a metaphor for anything</span></span></span><i>.</i></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The self-segregated isolation here is a sort of a proud heritage.</span></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Most importantly, Kevin's characters are not simply brutish dumb misfits, but men (mostly) and women driven by </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">love and loyalty and duty in such a clear, unconflicted way that conflict is inevitable and intense. All of which is to say that, while the stories in <i>Debris</i> might seem like bummers on the surface, you'd be hard-pressed to find stories this loving, hurt, and alive in anything else coming out lately.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In a different world where Kevin had gotten away with that bottle of room wine and left me with a stupid expensive hotel bill, I'd still have to admit that he's a good guy who's written a great book.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Andrew</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-6795276625632879662015-09-23T12:12:00.001-07:002015-10-06T11:42:12.712-07:00Q&A: GREGORY PEPPER<style>
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<tr align="right"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Photo by <a href="http://www.jaimehogge.com/">Jaime Hogge</a></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Historically, I haven’t seen eye to eye with Gregory Pepper. It could be that his hair is always blocking the view. Or maybe we began to look past each other that time a houseguest spilt red wine over all his homemade merch at a houseshow I was co-presenting. But more likely our overall divergence stems from when we almost came to sitcom quick blows over </i>Seinfeld<i> at the ebar one primetime summer’s night. If pressed – and Pepper presses – I would say everyone’s beloved show about nothing is a misanthropic tautology of irony better left in the 90s with Jerry’s jeans and its theme song’s synth slap bass. Pepper, for his part, thinks so highly of the show that he even cites it in this very important and exclusive interview. Not one to extensively pick at old wounds, I suggested we meet in the cold comfort of the internet to discuss the succinct pop of his new record </i>Chorus! Chorus! Chorus!<i> and to promote his upcoming show at the ebar. He generously agreed. Proceeding in this seemingly necessary spirit of small city reconciliation may have been an oversight. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Brad de Roo, who forgives almost everything in the name of well-made music. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Your newest record <a href="http://gregorypepper.bandcamp.com/album/chorus-chorus-chorus"><i>Chorus! Chorus! Chorus!</i></a> is short short short. What’s the appeal of short songs? What do they do that longer tracks don’t? Do you have any favourite short songs? Short albums? What does the diminutive form offer you? </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm not really trying to make the songs short so much as economical. Like how you probably could have boiled that question down to a single sentence and still basically said the same thing: “How does the temporal length of a song influence you, both as a writer and a listener?” See? Much better! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Did the songs start off with the intention of being shorter? Were they edited down form larger ones? Is it common for you to start a song in short form?</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Remember in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><i>Amadeus</i></a> when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU">Mister Rooney starts giving Mozart shit</a> for using “too many notes”? And then dude is like, “There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less.” </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Shortness of song calls to mind jingles. Are you readying yourself for a career of ad music work? What would be your dream ad project? What product best suits your music? What product defines Gregory Pepper, the man?</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I don't know if you're picking up what I'm putting down, man. The “ten songs on a seven inch” thing may seem like a gimmick, but they're actual songs. You know, themes, momentum, tension, release, etc. I feel like I put more concerted effort and thought into ninety seconds than most of these unkempt garage rockers put into the A side. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Would you ever consider doing an album of exceptionally long songs – with every song over 10 mins? Or maybe with one album-length song?</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm always game for a lengthy, pot-fueled jam session but I think it would be pretty self indulgent to formally release any of that delay-soaked madness. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The lead off single to <i>Chorus! Chorus! Chorus!</i> is ‘Welcome To the Dullhouse’. Do you live in a dullhouse? If so, is its dullness at all integral to getting creative work done? How does it differ from a dollhouse? Would you every consider scoring a Todd Solonz film? How important are puns to your lyrics? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiG0-AvOmLg">What's your record for consecutive questions asked?</a> Let's see: No, N/A, N/A, sure, very. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The second release is ‘Come By It Honestly’. Did you come by music honestly? How important is honesty in music? What are the biggest lies of the Canadian indie music scene? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yeah, like a lot of people I started flipping through my parents’ records when I was a young shorty and really got turned on by the poppy stuff. Well, mostly just The Beatles, really. As far as honesty in music, that's kind of hard to say. “Just remember: It's not a lie <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ">if you believe it.</a>” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Besides making music, you are a visual artist. How linked are these pursuits? Do you notice aesthetic commonalities? Would you ever consider making a graphic novel concept album or an animated music video?</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These pursuits have lots of links. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0EHVGs11w4&feature=youtu.be">HERE'S </a>a link to a rotoscope animation I did for <a href="https://fakefour.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-depression">Common Grackle</a> a few years ago. </span> <br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You’ve made some videos for this release.? Were you active in their inception? Is this a fun or tedious process? How many videos will you make for <i>Chorus! Chorus! Chorus!</i>? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Dullhouse” was a really fun. We just drank beer and horsed around outside all weekend. “Come By It Honestly” wasn't so much tedious as torturous. I had to cram Vaseline drenched cotton swabs up my nose to keep the water out and simultaneously hold my breath and lip-sync for a minute and a half. I think we're gonna do one more video which, god willing, I won't have to appear in. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You’re pretty independently prolific. Do you have a Prince style vault over at Camp Pepper? Are there any projects or recordings that will forever go unreleased? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've got a few hard drives stashed away for sure. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx5y6ArY4h0">Madadam</a> and I recorded some hyper-sexual jams while were making the <a href="https://fakefour.bandcamp.com/album/big-huge-truck">Big Huge Truck</a> album that I don't think the world will ever be ready for. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You seem to like collaborations too. What’s the attraction? How problematic are the Problems? Do you have any dream collaborations that you’d double-mortgage Camp Pepper to make happen? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not sure if I like the collaborative process so much as the human company. Though now that I think of it, most of the collabo work I do is via the internet so it's still a pretty lonesome pursuit. And no, a second lien on the compound is not worth the privilege of compromising my brilliant ideas. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Do you have any causes you’d like to champion here? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJvbZZWt9g4">The Human Fund</a>. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Are there any general statements you’d like to make? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A little self promotion never hurt anyone. Local album release <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/522249564617423/">Oct 2nd at the ebar</a>. New album is available on <a href="http://fakefour.11spot.com/gregory-pepper-and-his-problems-chorus-chorus-chorus-7.html">vinyl</a> and <a href="https://gregorypepper.bandcamp.com/">digital</a> formats. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Besides this interview, is there anything you’d care to regret in public? </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Probably my “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIuOLU_iKLA">40oz. To Freedom</a>” backpiece.</span><br />
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Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-50071166667400849182015-09-20T05:56:00.002-07:002015-09-20T05:56:26.202-07:002015 BOOK BASH<style>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><i><a href="https://vocamuspress.wordpress.com/book-bash-2015/">The Book Bash festival</a> is an annual celebration of Guelph books. It’s a relaxed afternoon of music and prizes and fun that features recently published books by more than twenty local authors and also music by Ian Reid. The Bookshelf will be on hand to sell local books, and there will also be tables by Guelph micro-publishers. <br /><br />The 2015 edition of Book Bash is being held from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM at the Red Papaya (55 Wyndham Street North) on Sunday, September 27th as part of Culture Days. <br /><br />There is no cost for the event, but donations will be accepted for Action Read, a charity that provides literacy programs in the community. <br /><br />The host of this year's Book Bash is <a href="https://vocamuspress.wordpress.com/authors/valerie-senyk/">Valerie Senyk</a>, a Guelph-based performance artist, actress, visual artist and poet. She presented her debut book of poetry at last year's Book Bash event, and she agreed to answer some questions about her experience.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i> </i><br /> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Jeremy Luke Hill <br /><b><br /> What were your impressions of Book Bash last year?</b> <br /><br /> Book Bash was a remarkable celebration of Guelph area authors in particular, and books and writing in general. It made me feel that Guelph is indeed a very literate city. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Why should people bother coming to Book Bash? What makes this festival unique?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /> People should come to see what was brought out in publishing this past year, to see the diversity of talent in and around Guelph, to get to know their local authors... and to talk books. <br /><br /> <b>What would you like to see Book Bash become? </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /> I'd like to see it encourage what I once witnessed in St. Petersburg, Russia... I was there as a visitor in 1990. I was in the core city area, and I saw a long line-up of people on the street – the longest I'd seen so far. I tried to find someone in the line who could speak English, and when I did I asked him what they were lining up for. He told me that one of their writers had just published a new book, and they wanted a copy. When I expressed my astonishment, he told me: "Writers are the soul of our country!" <br /><br /> <b>Why is book culture important to a community? What role does it play? </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /> Book culture is important to any community. It's from books we learn about life, about what it means to be a human being. <br /><br /> <i>The Book Bash festival is presented by Friends of Vocamus Press, a non-profit community organization that supports book culture in the Guelph area. For more information about the festival please email <a href="mailto:vocamuspress@gmail.com">vocamuspress@gmail.com</a> or phone 226-500-7301.</i></span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-34758268709395862432015-09-09T08:10:00.000-07:002015-09-09T08:10:14.636-07:00REVIEW: THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB: A LISBETH SALANDER NOVEL<style>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />It begins with a hand beating rhythmically on a mattress. Lisbeth Salander is back. The outlandish heroine of the famed Millennium Series, part computer genius, part anti-misogynist avenging angel, the girl with the dragon tattoo is once again caught in a complex tale of computer hacking and murder, leading directly to the arch institution of criminal malfeasance, the US National Security Agency. <br /><br />All our favourite characters are back as well: Michael (Kalle) Blomkvist, once again fighting to keep his crusading magazine, <i>Millennium</i>, from corporate takeover; Inspector Jan Bublanski, leading the investigation into the murder of Sweden’s top Artificial Intelligence researcher; Salander’s comrades from Hacker Republic and Holger Palmgren, Lisbeth’s former guardian and the only person who knows the full details of her upbringing. All the tropes of the Millennium novels are here as well – the incompetent police forces, petty minded bureaucrats who mistake Michael and Lisbeth for the real villains and the deep link between criminals and the highest offices of the Swedish and American governments. <br /><br />I will be honest; I was ambivalent about reading this new book. The story of Steig Larsson’s untimely death – the battle over his estate and disinheritance of his common-law wife based on archaic Swedish law by his father and brother who have commissioned this book – itself has the intrigue of a Scandinavian thriller. What enamored 80 million readers (yes, really) to the original books was their uncompromising exposure of how pursuit of power and profit leads admired exploiters into criminality and corruption. Not to mention our heroes’ relentless efforts to tell the truth and right the wrongs, at the risk of their lives. After a slow start, this novel lives up to its predecessors’ fame. David Lagercrantz's <i>The Girl in the Spider's Web</i> is a taut drama unfolding over barely a week in bleakest November, with a back story that encompasses decades. Remember, blood is thicker than water.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Brian </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-10533357137060993912015-08-30T06:48:00.000-07:002015-08-30T14:07:15.283-07:00EMWF BOOKSELLER PICKS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival has a great track record of bringing in your favourite authors. This year they’ve got the likes of Naomi Klein, Lawrence Hill, Elizabeth Hay, and Ann-Marie McDonald. But as much as Eden Mills is a place to see your tried and true favs, it’s always been where you discover new favourite authors. Here’s a certainly small, incomplete list of writers that we, in our humble opinion, think you should make a point of checking out at this year’s festival. </i><br /> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Craig Davidson (AKA Nick Cutter)<br /><br />After cutting his teeth and knuckles on a decade’s worth of gritty realism (<i>The Fighter, Rust and Bone, Cataract City</i>), Craig Davidson, writing as Nick Cutter, has in the past year published some of the most visceral, tactile, and flat-out fun genre fiction I’ve read in a while. <i>The Troop</i> was hailed by Stephen King as “old school horror at its best”, <i>The Deep</i> was wonderfully claustrophobic and twisted, and his most recent, <i>The Acolyte</i>, drops James Ellroy into a dystopian future of religious fanaticism. Of course there’s no shortage of deft genre writers, but hopefully Davidson’s pedigree as a writer of so-called “serious” literature will hold the hands of readers reluctant to return to the sort of crackerjack fare that, if we’re being honest, turned most of us into readers in the first place. <br /><br />- Andrew </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Madhur Anand <br /><br />There is a reason that we have asked Madhur Anand to facilitate the evening of November 25th which features Margaret Atwood. She has just been chosen by the CBC as one of the 16 writers to watch this year for her first book of poetry New Index For Predicting Catastrophes. Madhur is a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph. Like Atwood, she is a true renaissance woman and navigates emotional realms with the language of the sciences and the world of science with an ironic blend of skepticism and wonder. Her grand vocabulary will open up your boundaries! <br /><br />- Barb<br /><br /> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />Plum Johnson <br /><br />Plum Johnson was a 68 year old first time writer when she won the prestigious RBC Charles Taylor Prize for <i>They Left Us Everything</i>. The book had received very good reviews in the fall and had sold moderately well for someone most readers had never heard of. But after she won the prize, the book took off like a rocket with her in it. I’m sure that it has been a splendid but wild media ride as she seemed to be everywhere at once. One of the reasons for the book's popularity is the subject matter. She helped care for her elderly, quirky parents for twenty years and then after their death she and her siblings had to declutter a home that had accumulating history for 50 years. This is an inevitable human experience and she gives us a sweet and touching glimpse of our own futures. My guess is that her reading will be packed! <br /><br />- Barb <br /><br /> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Norah McClintock <br /><br />Norah McClintock's newest book, <i>My Life Before Me</i>, is her third contribution to the enormously popular Seven Series; a well-written, gripping read set during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Before Me is a tautly-paced murder mystery, featuring an intelligent and courageous heroine who is equal parts Nancy Drew and Hermione Granger. Following a devastating fire at the orphanage where she has grown up, Cady Andrews is given a mysterious envelope containing a single clue about her origins. An aspiring reporter and natural skeptic, Cady decides to view the contents of the envelope as a journalistic opportunity, but it isn't long before her personal world and professional ambitions overlap in surprising and terrifying ways. Highly recommended. <br /><br />- Steph </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Check out the panoply of great authors descending on Eden Mills this year at <a href="http://www.edenmillswritersfestival.ca/">http://www.edenmillswritersfestival.ca. </a>See you September 10 - 13th! </i><br /> </span></span>Bookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3086734013603584232.post-48838665741828678632015-08-23T07:05:00.000-07:002015-08-23T13:24:28.581-07:00Q&A: PETER DEMAKOS of BLIMP ROCK<style>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><i>You like to stay in and sip herbal tea, to eat a strong variety of chips and play dancing games of Twister on Friday nights with a few grounded pals. Who doesn’t? But you’re motivated and seriously plugged into the thrilling grid of the upward corporate world as well. You’re not stingy with your business acumen. You portion it out like a suddenly relocated bag of late get-together salty vins. Your strategies are tangy yet full of deeply crystallized grit. Who is going to give the mild party PowerPoint presentation, if you don’t, you always expertly syngerject? Who is going to keep our soiree in line with our long-term business goals, you tell us all on the sunken crumb couch of capitalistic repose. <br /><br />Still, on profitable occasion a Friday on the town calls out to you like a spark in a hydrogen-powered dream, like a whirring guitar riff from the old future of rock. Business and pleasure blur like a clean burning fuel of buoyant propulsion. And so you doubly dream. And your dreams get lofty, so lofty that they hover over iconic bodies of water cradling mixed drinks, so efficiently afloat that their merger requires the smooth lift of a summer’s festive blimp to take purchase. You don’t need to land, dear dream-investor. You needn’t reengineer the general thrust of your ambitiously relaxed plans. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/852054924879111/">Just float down to the eBar this Friday at 9pm</a>, after all of your meetings have run long into an industrious dinner of fine chips and table wine. Blimp Rock is raising your dream one well-costed spark after the next with a vinyl/video release in the well-researched name of quiet combustion. Blimp Rock is setting down with their songs of staying-in and cheering up to make some dollars for their dreams.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i> </i>- Brad de Roo, who should mention that, stalwart Captain of Industry, Wax Mannequin will join the Blimp Rock crew in having a gas. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><b>For those unfortunate souls who don't have a bit of blimp in their lives, could you succinctly explain the historical origins, name etymology, musical mythology, aerodynamic specifications, long-term fiscal outlook, PowerPoint fluency, and floating motivations of <a href="http://www.blimprockenterprises.com/">Blimp Rock</a>?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Thank you so much for that 7 part question! For the sake of avoiding a blimp-sized paragraph, I will break it down. <br /><br />Historical Origins: Blimp Rock is a band hired to raise money for a music festival in a blimp floating over Lake Ontario through album and merchandise sales. On behalf of parent corporation Blimp Rock Enterprises, we are hoping to raise the $700 000 required for the festival to be fully realized. <br /><br />Musical Mythology: Blimp Rock writes simple tunes that hearken back to a simpler era – a time when hydrogen was loved and not feared for its combustible properties. Our new album <i>Sophomore Slump</i> features songs about boys who cry during movies, conflict resolution over stolen pizza and a tribute to homebodies called “Let’s All Stay In Tonight.” Essentially, we are trying to capture the odd sides and emotional ends of real life while raising venture capital. <br /><br />Aerodynamic Specifications: The blimp for Blimp Rock Live (name of the festival) will be quite well rounded. It will feature 1) Wood Paneling 2) Fancy Mix Drinks and 3) The Finest Cover Bands. We are also currently working on a plan to expand the number of fire exits from 0 to 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /> Long Term Fiscal Outlook: Due to unforeseen economic sluggishness in the music industry, Blimp Rock has yet to meet its goal. However, given that we are now only $-2100 in debt to various payday loan companies, it is safe to say that we are closer to our goal than ever before. <br /><br />PowerPoint Fluency: In today's modern business era, PowerPoint has usurped English as the first language of business, and it is for that reason that our live show is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation on our marketing plan for the aforementioned festival. <br /><br />Floating Motivations: Listening to a cover band while sipping on a mix drink and leaning against wood paneling 2500 feet above Lake Ontario. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><b>You've Blimped the eBar in Guelph before. Would you ever consider taking this metaphor into literal territory and converting the whole Bookshelf complex of bookstore, cinema, bar, and restaurant into a Blimp passenger deck? What movie would you show on your inaugural flight? Where would you dock it? Could so much culture actually take to the Guelph air? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Thank you for your 4 part question on converting the Bookshelf into a blimp! We would most definitely consider such a project. Though most modern blimps only have a capacity of 14 people and 1000 pounds, I’m guessing the Bookshelf has more than enough extra cash to research how to fit all of its ventures in a 40x40 blimp gondola. As for the film, I think it would have to be “Around The World By Zeppelin” which is the story of the first airship to circum-navigate the globe in 1929. The logical place to dock the blimp would be The Co-operators building at 130 Macdonnell given its stature; and perhaps they would cut us a deal on insurance in exchange for the publicity (their first quote was surprisingly high). And yes, there is already so much culture on Guelph’s ground level, it’s only a matter of time before it wafts upwards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /> <b>The lyrics of your Blimp torch songs (a sentimentally explosive genre to many) are full of absurdist understatement, satire, and whimsical narrative. How much do you employ literary effects or modes in the Office of Blimp? Do any particular lyricists or writers pilot your wordy airship? Often The Blimp Rock Live Experience, as I am contractually obligated to rebrand it, features presentations of Blimp Rock's business savvy M.O.? Do you see lyrics as distinct from presentation notes or scripts or other combinations of words? Or does voice (in the literary sense) have a wide-ranging, genre-hovering flight path? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Thank you for your 5 part question of the intersection of literary devices and corporate strategy! Literary effects I often use include rhyme, irony and hiding sentimental messages under a safety blanket of jokes. A literary mode I’ve recently been into is contradiction. <i>Sophomore Slump</i> opens up with a song called <a href="https://blimprock.bandcamp.com/track/will-it-ever">“Will It Ever?”</a> that questions whether you can ever live up to profound first time experiences. The next track <a href="https://blimprock.bandcamp.com/track/sophomore-slump">“Sophomore Slump”</a> is a line-by-line contradiction of that song that champions trying things again. In reality, I think both songs have elements of truth to them and neither is correct. Too many lyricists pilot my ship to list here, however, my current favourite lyrics go to Richard Laviolette’s song <a href="https://soundcloud.com/headless_owl_records/community-theatre-snailhouse-richard-laviolette">“Snailhouse”</a> from the <a href="http://youvechangedrecords.com/category/records/#Northern%20Register"><i>Community Theatre</i></a> album. And yes! In full embrace of the First Rule Of Business, our show opens with a PowerPoint on our blimp festival, however it only works its way into 2 of our songs (<a href="https://blimprock.bandcamp.com/track/blimp-rock-live">“Blimp Rock Live”</a> and <a href="https://blimprock.bandcamp.com/track/blimp-rock-live-2">“Blimp Rock Live 2”</a>), so if blimps aren’t your thing, we’ll sing about other stuff too. I think lyrics are distinct from presentation notes and scripts in the sense that it is hard to work graphs and economic analysis into poetry (though we are working on it) however, there can be overlap in areas such as writing choruses and slogans and joke timing. <br /><br /> <b>How important is storytelling to good Blimp-positive music and culture? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Storytelling is massively important to Blimp-positive culture. We believe that we have been living in a Blimp-negative culture for much too long, as blimps are often being dismissed as unsafe, irrelevant or even a bad idea. We are trying to shift (or ‘spin’ as we say at the office) that conversation in a direction that redefines blimps in an exclusively positive way. Here’s a story for you: Did you know that blimp travel has become much safer since the days of the blimp that shall not be named? In fact, in the last 70 years, there have been just 17 blimp-related accidents, and only one exploded. <br /><br /> <b>Since I balloon on about books all day at a bookstore, I am obliged to enter into a sudden multipart book-melee of questions. Luckily, I think of books as compact blimps of the mind, so moving through the barrage should not be too disaster-connotative for you. Here goes: </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /><b>a) If you could bring 5 books (excluding blimp manuals) onto a blimp during a free-float or a super-long circle to land, what would they be? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />- <a href="https://www.drawnandquarterly.com/one-hundred-demons"><i>One! Hundred! Demons!</i> by Lynda Barry </a><br /><br />- <a href="https://www.dundurn.com/books/festival-man"><i>Festival Man</i> by Geoff Berner </a><br /><br /> - <a href="http://www.123helpme.com/search.asp?text=Fifth+Business"><i>Fifth Business</i> by Robertson Davies</a> <br /><br /> - <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/60762-patti-smith-turning-just-kids-memoir-into-showtime-series/"><i>Just Kids</i> by Patti Smith </a><br /><br /> - <a href="http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-076458457X.html"><i>Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies</i> by Susannah Gardner </a><br /><br /><b>b) You’ve toured around a bit in Europe and Canada. What are your thoughts on travelogues, travel guides, and tour diaries? Have you ever considered penning any of the above? Do you have any favourites in the travel book catchall? </b><br /><br />I am a fan of all three. I am interested in writing travelogues on some of Ontario’s overlooked hamlets. Places that may be suburban, small, isolated and trying to find out what people do for a good time. Recently we played in a small town called <a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Hastings+Highlands,+ON/@45.2431289,-77.9007885,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4cd6a3610b76271d:0x47c3a092f1419ebf">Maynooth</a> and there’s a great hostel that hosts live bands. There was also a <a href="http://www.algonquingourmetbuttertarts.com/home.html">little bakery</a> that exclusively sold different varieties of butter tarts and they were delicious. I was told people also like to hang out at the Legion there, which often hosts cover bands. Perhaps I could also pen a travelogue on seeking Ontario’s finest cover bands. No favourites in the catchall, though the Burning Hell song <a href="https://theburninghell.bandcamp.com/track/travel-writers">“Travel Writers”</a> is a stand-out tune on the subject. <br /><br /><b>c) What are your thoughts on music writing? Do you enjoy music criticism and journalism? Do interviews irk or awe you? Are there any music-themed books you would kick out of your Blimp? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />Music writers have been very kind to me, though I don't anticipate that trend to continue. There's so much good music out there, it's slightly terrifying, and probably impossible for it to get the attention it deserves, which is a sad thing. I can understand the perspective of the music publications that only write about established bands as well as the bands that don't get written about. I like publications that put at least some priority on the former. I like interviewers like I like my people: weird and friendly. I don’t think I’ve read a music book I didn’t enjoy, but for the record, <i>Festival Man</i> by Geoff Berner would be wearing a seatbelt to ensure its place on board.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maynooth tarts</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>This upcoming show is with <a href="http://waxmannequin.com/">Wax Mannequin</a>. Here’s a guy who’s known to burn candles on his head and release many balloons into the air in a reckless fashion. Is he someone you’d permit to play your Blimp Festival or is a safety risk taken in the name of song? Do you have any dream headliners for your festival? </b><br /><br /> We are currently in negotiations with Wax and The Co-operators to figure out a way of making this work. There are a lot of logistics to sort out such as whether or not the Wax’s chrysalis (which the balloons are stored in) can fit on board, and how far Wax should play away from it to ensure that it doesn’t catch on fire. We are actually having a meeting on the 28th that should finalize the safety plan for a “Flaming Chrysalis Scenario”. As for a dream headliner, I think it goes without saying that re-uniting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWcLQBQDWXI">Sheezer</a> 2500 ft. above Lake Ontario would be well worth the $700K.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wax Mannequin</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>You’ll be coming to this show with some new vinyl and a video reel. Is there anything we should know about these corporate missives? <br /> </b><br /> Yes, more details on both! The vinyl includes a fancy insert of the lyrics, and FAQ on our blimp festival and a download code. The video is for the song <a href="https://blimprock.bandcamp.com/track/my-mind-is-a-shark">“My Mind Is A Shark”</a> and it was animated by <a href="http://parkerbryant.blogspot.ca/">Parker Bryant</a> who also made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FTHkqcP9Sg">“Lake Ontario Lifeguards.”</a> We’ll be screening the video right before we play. <br /><br /><b>Would you ever consider crowdsourcing or a TVO Can-rock telethon to get Blimp Rock Live off the ground? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br /> We would not consider crowdsourcing as we are highly confident in our current plan, however a TVO telethon would pique our interest. Perhaps I could also go on The Agenda and cross-promote my upcoming travelogue entitled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyS8Yy2plCg">Requesting 'Bobcaygeon' in Bobcaygeon: The Cover Bands of Southern Ontario</a>.” <br /><br /><b>If you were forced to depart your perceptual blimp to refuel, what questions would you ask yourself? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b><br />1. How did we convince so many people to come to the eBar Aug. 28 that we were able to launch our blimp festival 45 years sooner than anticipated!? <br /><br />2. How did we Wax the Co-operators to allow that paper-mache chrysalis on board? </span><br />
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