Recent Journal Entries
2008•07•21 ~ The visit
The fence is down. Chunks of cement are stowed in the bin. My back is sore. I’m taking extra-strength Advil to move through the day NOT like a stick-man. The fence crew arrives tomorrow to begin work on the new fence. There’s Stella in fridge. Come on over. Here’s a newer piece…can’t really call it a poem….it’s more a “riff.” A riff, like a particularly poignant jazz piano riff, or a haunting saxophone riff. I riff with words. So, this riff is called “the visit.”
The VISIT
Last night on the back deck with the propane heater hiccupping about something, I looked across the table at my mother. She was drinking a screwdriver – a vodka and orange juice. She was shorter than I remembered but the wrinkles around her mouth remained the same. She didn’t say anything; but watched as I smoked my cigar and sucked back a celebratory scotch. And she smiled. She smiled like everything was all right – she wasn’t worried about me. I started to tell her about my daughter, the books, about my wife, but she already knew. She was a little concerned about my sister. She thought I ought to talk to her more often – try and connect, but she understood that too.
So we just sat there across from each other being pleased. It brought me joy to sit with her for a while. She’s been gone about 15 years now. I tried to tell her the reason I was out there in the cool night smoking and drinking was that I’d just finished the revisions on the new book, and that it was my tradition to celebrate such things – that I’d taken the book apart and now it was back together – that I’d just e-mailed it to my publishers. Then I thought I ought to explain what e-mail was but really, it didn’t matter. I looked at her, and then across the yard at the Buddhist prayer flags completely becalmed – throwing frozen shadow prayers at the fence. A moth is franticly attacking the light above the deck. The cat comes purring – looking for love.
Now, I know she wasn’t really there. I know that. I know it was just an empty chair with a blue cushion and my tiredness. But some part of my big grey brain put her there tonight. I put her there – I created reality with my thoughts, like a good little Buddhist – and I loved sitting with her, for just a while.
2008•07•14 ~ COLUMBUS at 4AM is on its way
I sent COLUMBUS at 4AM off to the publishers just a few minutes ago. Hesitated to hit send. Hesitated some more. Played Bruce Cockburn's Pacing the Cage on the computer stereo and then hit SEND. Off it goes to TORONTO and NEW YORK... and eventually the UK...McClelland & Stewart, Doubleday, and Picador.
Six weeks of every-day, and every-night revising. Four days of 10 -12 hour editing/revising sessions at Miette Hot Springs. Six weeks of pulling at the threads of this incredibly complex novel and letting it all unravel -- trusting that I could weave it together again. Six weeks of writing new elements into the narrative. It's a hell of a fine book. I'm happy. I'm going to pour a healthy whisky and maybe grab one of the Partagas cigars from the Humidor -- go out on the deck and NOT think about the book.
If that isn't nice; I don't know what is!!
2008•07•11 ~ This niece turns thirty
If she had asked, I might have said – carry on doing what you’re doing. I would probably have said something glib, like – always wear sunscreen, or, buy low, sell high. Or, dance like an idiot, always. Never use semi-colons – they’re snooty and difficult and as the writer, atheist, humanist, Kurt Vonnegut said: “They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
But my almost-niece doesn’t ask for my counsel, which is a good thing because I don’t know how to do anything but write stories, in which there is a lot of drinking and breasts. But I might have said; don’t worry about turning thirty. You see, she turns thirty tomorrow and is having a party, which I will attend instead of going to see James Taylor sing and play guitar (James Taylor already turned 30 and he never cooks for me.) I might have grunted at her and said: Man-up, for Christ’s sake. It’s a friggin’ number. Your life is good.
Really, all the numbers are good. I recently turned a number – a nice even number about twenty more than her puny little number. Even this huge number, is really, no big deal. It’s nice to be alive. Even though we are, with our petrochemical-addition-gone-mad, killing the planet, it is nice to be alive. On the occasion of my two-score anniversary, a friend told me; Don’t waste this decade, it’ll fly by. I published three books, fathered a daughter, and married a woman with prairie honesty. So that’s good advice, too. When our daughter was born, I swore I’d pay attention – not let the years slip by without noticing the little things. But raising kids is not a sprint; it’s a marathon in which you must always have hope of winning, even if the other runners are so far ahead you can’t recall what they look like anymore. So far, so good.
I appreciate this niece; for her kindness, her huge heart, her growth – thank god she’s been growing – and for her cooking. She comes to our house and cooks (Not as often as I’d like). While I am eating I will often think, as Kurt Vonnegut's Uncle Alex used to say: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” Her food brings me into the moment; it’s that good (Has anybody noticed how many semicolons are in this piece? – I hope you are all impressed). If she didn’t have a good job, I’d encourage her to become a chef – in fact; I’m going to do it anyway: Quit your job. Apply at the Sorbonne in Paris. Become the best chef you can be. But mostly, I want to encourage you, young woman, to simply notice when you are happy and, in a nod to Vonnegut, whisper under your breath: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
2008•07•04 ~ Canwrite! 2008
The Raving Poets Band, a little group I’ve been involved with over the past eight years, played at the Canadian Authors’ Association National Conference (Canwrite! 2008) last night, at the University of Alberta campus. We backed up about 25 writers/poets/spoken-word performers in a thoroughly rewarding evening for me. The music veered away from cliché, for the most part, and the readers represented a great mix of voices. Special thanks to Kathy Fisher for organizing, Bassist Mark Kozub, percussionist Gordon McRae, and sitting in on guitar, Mysterio.
Tomorrow (Saturday), I’m presenting a session with my friend Michael Gravel on “writers who blog,” at 1 p.m.
Tonight, I’m introducing the Spoken Word Youth Choir at the same conference.
2008•06•26 ~ Cutting Columbus
Editing is sometimes a painful process. Especially when you are cutting sections you’ve grown to love…Here is one such section from the new book, Columbus at 4AM.
Steinway
Where do I begin, he thinks. Where do I start to make sense of this? Intellectually, he can understand the journey of a thousand miles and the single step of beginning, but where is that step? What does it look like? Is it this renovation? Should he sell the house? Buy a condo?
“I won’t say it’s as simple as telling your story, but that would be a start,” she says. “Communicating your grief in some way. Death is an inevitable phase of life. So is grief. Jung said that when one encounters a crisis such as loss, the unconscious often breaks through to help us with new adjustments.” She smiles kindly. “Your unconscious went into protection mode. Now, you need your grief to transcend your everyday experience of life – to awaken you to your spiritual essence.” “How exactly do you suggest I wake up my spiritual essence?” “What about writing? Or painting? Or drawing little sketches. Anything to move the grief inside-out.” “I can’t even believe I said the words spiritual essence. What does that mean, anyway?” A week later, he is walking past a small jazz club on the Main. It’s mid-morning. Julian can hear the sound of someone tuning a piano coming from inside the club. He walks past the front door and is halfway down the block before he stops – acknowledges the pull of the piano. Inside the doorway of the Petit Opportun it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. The door was open. The front windows are pulled open so the club is essentially one big patio overlooking the street. Still, it was dark inside. The awnings and the trees filtered the light. The man at the piano has a full grey beard and a no-nonsense face. His focus is on tuning the piano. He looks up at Julian quickly, then back to his job. He says nothing. Julian stands in the entranceway, awkward but also drawn to the pure sound of the piano. The single notes ring out in the club – they hang in the air – Julian thinks of a raven, or a hawk, suspended in an air current, wings motionless except for a small flutter. Five minutes later, the grey bearded man is packing up his gear. He looks toward the entranceway. “Still there?” “I…” “Come and play then. It’s want you need, yes? I will take coffee with a little Courvoisier. It is my custom. And I will listen.” Is that a Slavic accent? Eastern European? Julian can’t decide. He doesn’t know what to do with this invitation. He doesn’t move. Fear makes him hesitate. It’s been so long since he’s played. It seems his feet are nailed to the wooden floor. “It’s what you need,” the man says. “I’ll make us coffee in the back.” He does not move like an old person. There is a lithe vitality in his walk. Julian sits at the piano. It’s a Steinway, a good choice for a jazz piano. Julian read in the Globe and Mail that Keith Jarrett plays a Steinway. Julian plays a single note; a middle D and lets it ring out in the dark room. Then he begins to unravel all he was taught as a child. He purposely forgets how chords work. He unremembers scales, theories and circles of fifths. He plays notes and combinations of notes that make no sense – he embraces dissonance, and yet, there is an ephemeral order. Julian draws on feelings and colours. If he stumbles upon a musical cliché, he will repeat it, warp it, ruin it to the point where it becomes original and new. He remembers scents. Rain. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Cedar. Leather. He plays weather. He plays the stars and Moroccan beaches. The colour of ocean. The way dried grasses touch the wind. He plays a woman’s long legs and slender toes. He plays a memory of a woman’s voice speaking his name – whispering his name over and over inside an absence of periwinkle. A half-hour later, he is improvising inside a 16-bar blues riff he didn’t know he knew. The grey bearded man is sitting at a table in the middle of the club sipping his cognac and reading the newspaper. Julian notices there is a cup of coffee sitting on the bench beside him. He stops playing, turns around on the bench and looks out into the club. “Thank you,” he whispers. The man pulls the newspaper down, away from his face. “It’s nothing to make two coffees when I am already making one,” he says. “No, not the coffee…” “…I know what you meant.” Julian reaches for the coffee and sips. It’s lukewarm. How long have I been playing? he thinks. “I’m here every morning. Come when you like and play. Or not. Just come for coffee and Courvoisier if your prefer.” “I don’t know what I…” “…Yes, you do. What I have heard this morning was beautiful, from the heart. What more can we do? Your style is reminiscent of Thelonious Monk. Not derivative, only suggestive.” Julian finishes his coffee and begins to put his hand into his pocket; he wants to pay for the coffee, at least. “I own this club,” the man says, his voice flattened out and matter-of-fact. “I can buy coffee for whomever I please. Besides, you gave me your music – this damaged heart music – this morning.”Older Entries:
- 2008•06•24 ~ Bonnyville is excellent {3}
- 2008•06•20 ~ Kolumbo prodati iznova, a iznova!! Columbo vende outra vez, e outra vez!! {2}
- 2008•06•12 ~ Shaking hands with Martin
- 2008•05•30 ~ the touch {1}
- 2008•05•16 ~ MARK THIS IN YOUR Calendar: Michael Gravel chapbook imminent {3}
- 2008•05•12 ~ That’s three!!! Picador UK is on board! {11}
- 2008•05•09 ~ Alone again...
- 2008•05•05 ~ grounded... {1}
- 2008•05•02 ~ Doubleday US scoops "Columbus at 4A.M.!!! {3}
- 2008•04•29 ~ The "Emile riffs" and Kozub's "Uptown Browns" hits Chapters {3}
- 0000•00•00 ~ Complete Journal Archives
