THE BIG WHY

okay so who hasnt fallen into an incinerator

2006-12-22T22:29:00.000-04:00

okay small things. she was lying in bed
with her earrings and lipstick on. she
left her umbrella outside on the stairs.
she said she could smell the scotch
tape at the post office. the fishmongers
on roncesvalles were not happy
with the mild weather.

New Generation

2006-06-08T11:46:00.000-03:00

It's terrible when a sushi restaurant
burns down -- the fish had no idea it
was coming. But now it's rebuilt. There
is a faint whiff of kipper. But it's
all new inside and I order a bento box
and drink my miso. Then I see the only
thing left from the old restaurant:
a red smudged fire alarm.

sport and a pastime

2006-05-13T16:36:00.000-03:00

we're playing half-court, three
to a team. our team is called
three in the key. and I wrestle
him softly to the floor. forty
minutes and I'm exhausted. do
you want to play full court
now? just to get some cardio?
I limp off and eat and enter
the bar for a drink. the oilers
are down 3 to 1. and they score.
a man with an edmonton jersey
says, drink is on me. then they
tie the game. a pitcher this time.
then another goal and in total
five unanswered goals. that's a
good word, unanswered. and I take
a small bow and the table of
strangers says I must return
for sunday's game. will I arrive in
the middle of the second period?
if you could get here a little
earlier, he says. for they are
playing in san jose.

In Banff for Game 7

2006-05-02T17:10:00.000-03:00

Deer in the snow. Horses with
their foals behind them. At breakfast
a woman in a green ski jacket. And later
she's in the programme: cabaret sequins
and a band full of tuxedos. If you
are an artist and left a tube of toothpaste
at Community Services, I now have it.
The owner of the borrowed guitar, I thank
you. I'm listening to Keith Jarrett
at La Scala. If I stick my head around
the balcony, a ship of fog is snagged
on the top of Rundel Mountain. The
librarians prefer to work on the lower
level, not the basement.

I become the girl in the photo

2006-04-14T23:16:00.000-03:00

Last night all of the moon came up out
of the headland and you saw the land
because of the moon. The land was almost
yellow and brown and almost too the green patches
of moss. You could almost see all of that. And
we wondered if people ever looked for
lost things with the help of the moon,
and said no we'll wait for another night
to look, a night when the moon is full.
I've spent days on a roof with a
gallon of tar and felt and tacks and
then a few days inside a house prying
off various qualities of wallboard
and peeling away seven layers of wallpaper
and then finding photos that are ninety
years old, of a girl standing by the
side of a house and suddenly I see that
it's the house I'm in -- there's a
distinct feature to the frame of the
window. And I go outside to check the
window and yes I'm right it is the
very window and then I realize I'm
standing in the same spot as the girl
in the photo. When you stand on a roof
you own the house.

Around the bay with the Delmore Brothers

2006-04-11T11:10:00.000-03:00

A pickup passes with a young ram
in the back. I'm listening to the
Delmore Brothers. Why didnt anyone
tell me about the Delmore Brothers
before? From the 30s and 40s.
They have one song, The Frozen
Girl, that the Handsome Family
must have heard. They are not bluegrass
even though the CD cover says they
are. They yodel. They have a tenor
guitar. I heard of them because they
are mentioned in the CD liner notes
to The Louvin Brothers. Their harmonies
are breaking my heart. I have to stop
and look at the cold blue sea. The snow
in a backyard is arced like a horseshoe,
and catches in all the alders.

Half a day in St. John's

2006-04-09T00:06:00.000-03:00

The car rental agencies close at noon
on Saturdays. On Signal Hill it's
a belting wind, freezing, a destroyer
storming into port, a white
stretch limo parks and the driver opens
the door to a turquoise bride and
her husband and the best man and his
date. Are they crazy? They stand around
determined to take pictures,
there are bare shoulders and hands
on hairdos, then they all convince
whoever it was who had the idea to
pile in again. At the newest Sobeys
in the newest part of town a young clerk has to
flatten the bar code on my blood
pudding so he can swipe it.

Two lines

2006-04-04T18:10:00.000-03:00

Woman: How are you feeling?
Man: Yes.

Stereolab

2006-03-15T17:41:00.000-04:00

She bangs her tambourine like
Catherine Deneuve, though someone
says she's not wearing a bra. The
man in front of me is leaning back,
with his ear plugs in on little
wires, and I feel like I'm about
to bite the top of his balding skull.
This is atmosphere, I guess, this is
ramped up Lambchop, this is a ticket
someone's given me, and I'm at the
Phoenix when a few hours before I was
in Western Bay Newfoundland looking
at a house with no wiring or water
and thinking of buying it.

Reading at Whistler

2006-02-27T13:17:00.000-04:00

He volunteers on the slopes. He
helps the handicapped. Blind people, for
instance. He skis behind them. That's
a gondola, that's a snowboarder. Now
youre passing trees on your right.
The snow is like scar tissue and the
blind listen their way down.

Book Lovers Ball

2006-02-17T15:26:00.000-04:00

The wind is high and the sidewalks
shine in clear ice. Nine valets wear
green balaclavas. The man who grew the
oyster beds has seven shucking knives.
It's a long walk for a martini -- probably
a good thing. Do I have a library
card? I have three. A Tiffany watch
walks around on the pink glove of a model.
The brocade tux appears to be in. We all
eat beef, even the vegetarians, and
there are skewers of pickerel and the
skewers are made from real branches.
There's a literary catwalk and a child
scans ahead as she walks with a woman
wearing seven pounds of black crepe.
Followed by a nine piece band and I keep
my eye on the sax and trumpet. When the
sax and trumpet are raised we dance.
I wear down the heels of my shoes.
To a private club, that's where the taxis
go, where half of us whine and
the other half mix pints with the
vodka, the beginning of a bad sign.
But we haul ourselves out of there
and our tuxes receive a free round at
the Inter Steer. Also pickled eggs
in Italian wine glasses. Who suggested
LPs and egg sandwiches? Who was that
who sprayed medicinal cannabis on
my gums like I'm a doped race horse?
Who knew librarians had such midnight
dealings? On some illicit website
there are photos of all this.

Curling at Leaside

2006-02-14T14:37:00.000-04:00

I pulled on the red slider. I chose a broom.
I listened carefully to Heather. When she
crouched, I crouched. When she put the
butt end of her broom on the toe of her
shoe, so did I. When she pushed off and
slid and curled her stone into the
button, well how was it that I ended up careening
over the side of the curling rink and
jeopardizing three lanes of curlers while
recovering, in a Buster Keaton move, my
balance on the pebbled ice? Why was I the
only one of the eight of us to spend the
next day in bed reading Joseph Roth?

Toilet at Tiffany's

2006-02-02T17:11:00.000-04:00

As some of you diehard blog readers know,
I like to visit and grade the public restrooms
of this world. I was passing Tiffany's.
So I went in. I headed for the men's watches.
A man with a handlebar moustache, he rubbed
his shirt cuffs. I'm just looking, thanks.
The price is tucked under the body of the
watch, or perhaps there is no price, just
a series of numbers indicating the provenance
of the watch. I hear an elevator. I walk
to the back of Tiffany's. Which floor sir?
I scan the list and ask for six. To the
men's lounge! And at the top of the building
is a hallway to the washrooms. One toilet
in a room on its own, and one urinal. The
fixtures are by Toto. A square sink. Regular
paper towels. The mirror is generous and
clean. B+

Last dregs of New York

2006-01-30T13:50:00.000-04:00

Just a bicycle tire locked to a pole,
the rusted chain, no rim. New phone books
are out. The strong legs of Citigroup
Building, aluminum square legs. At Times
Square a silver box -- a US Armed Forces
recruitment station. A guard at ease,
blue cargo pants. Little side windows in
the corrugated metal, like a country
mailbox. A flotilla of yellow cabs
pouring up out of East 79th Street.
Heading east. The bumber guard, a plastic
panel between driver and back seat.
I happen onto the Explorers Club, where
Bob Bartlett met Robert Peary ninety
years ago. Tusks by the fireplace.

New York aftermath

2006-01-26T16:45:00.000-04:00

I'm in the reading room at the New
York Public Library. I walked between
the lions and the lions are white.
The oak tables are about eighteen feet
long. Brass circles for electric outlets.
On inner floor, flatscreen monitors
with CATNYP as the screensaver. Most people
here are reading or writing with pens, about
a seventh have laptops. Each seat is numbered,
I'm at 657, and all the numbers are odd at
this table and run clockwise. I've turned
all the open encyclopedias to the page with
the word Newfoundland. There's an exhibit
of illuminated manuscripts downstairs, the
first open book has a map of the world,
a portuguese map from 1552. And the words,
Terra D Baccalao.
I meet my publisher. She gives me directions to
the office. She says we're at Broadway and Fifth
Avenue, a little sidestreet that joins them.
I'm writing this down and then she says, We're
in the Flatiron Building. Okay, I said. I know
where youre to. So I'm in the Flatiron Building,
and the windows at the peak are covered in
clear plastic and the ceilings are dropped. You
can protect the outside of a building, but not
the inside.
I read with Joel Hynes. Is it strange to see Joel
in New York? I'm in the bookstore with the owner
and then hear, Hey. It's Joel, finishing a smoke.
He offers one and I have one with him. He looks
good, that beleaguered cool thing he has going on.
And we read and Joel is very good and professional
and the expatriot Newfoundlanders take
care of us, and our publishers take care of
the bill. Thank you publishers, thank you.
It's late in the morning when I say goodbye
to Joel, and the garbage trucks
hurl down 5th Avenue. A man drops off the back of
the truck and whips out the white bag of garbage
sponsored by the Doe Fund. And runs across a
crosswalk and jumps back aboard the rear lip
of the truck. The garbage bin is empty. I guess
someone else puts in a new bin liner later in
the morning.
The silver tower on the Empire State Building is
like a picture tube in a TV, or the filament in a
lightbulb. The lightbulb broken off. Some silver
in the Chrysler Building too. Like the silver on
the cathedral spires in Ottawa, the one in Lower
Town.
In Madison Square, park staff clean up sidewalks,
green coats with a white maple leaf on the back.
One is wearing homemade cardboard shoes over
his personal shoes.
And then I'm home in my bed and there's tennis
from Melbourne while I brush my teeth.

my New York reading, beforemath

2006-01-23T18:04:00.000-04:00

I'm reading in New York Tuesday night, with
Mr Joel Hynes, at the McNally Robinson bookstore
in Soho. Probably the reason my publisher
has set up this blog is so I'll mention things
like this. So I'm giving you twenty-six hours
notice. Any suggestions about what Joel
and I should do after we've read?

the Bloor line

2006-01-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

At Victoria Park a man in a grey
winter coat is ascending the
subway escalator. He has a
grocery bag full of gasoline at his
face. At Matt Cohen Square an elderly
Chinese couple feed a dog that is
dressed in baby's clothes, the dog
is sitting in a pram. Youre not
going to say anything else, are you.
A young guy sits with a
man in his fifties who is carrying
a thermos of alcohol. He nudges
him. Youre going to shut up, arent
you, or you get off at the next
stop. The young man resumes his
old seat. There's an Asian woman
in her fifties between them. It's
rush hour, crammed full. Then the
guy must say something because the
youngster is on him. He's smaller
than the man but he lifts him by
the neck and hauls him out the
opening subway doors and launches
him at the floor. The man's legs are
still in the subway train. There's a
moment when he's like a patient on
a table. But he suddenly sobers up,
pulls in his knees and swivels
on his back and stands, laughing as
the doors close and the train accelerates.
The young man is shaken, embarrassed,
he whips through the pages of a magazine.
He looks like he works with paper in a
warehouse. A minute goes by, then the
Asian woman leans over and says something
and she is saying thank you.

Hello tree

2006-01-05T14:11:00.000-04:00

I visited a tree I hadnt seen in a year.
Same tree.
Same snow in its limbs.
This was near Flesherton.

New Year's Eve in Grand Bend

2006-01-04T13:36:00.000-04:00

We drove to Lake Huron and stood on the
ice. There was sand mixed with the ice.
A woman said to her daughter, Skate
out further I dont want you skating on
the sand. We played darts at Finnegans,
in Grand Bend. We'd asked people, what's
to do in Grand Bend at New Years. But
they were all heading to Sarnia and
London. You had to play darts with a drink
in hand, house rule. If you ask someone
how old they are, that's flirting. If
you tug on a man's coat lapels, that's
also a good sign. But midnight was spent
on the ice with an Ipod and shooters
and very small champagne glasses.
We walked further out towards the
rim of water. We followed a string of
shadow made by the flagpole and the
porchlight. Until our lead man, a man
wearing Italian shoes and no socks,
broke through rotten ice. He fell two
feet, jammed in the ice up to his thighs.
He looked at his waist and then pulled
himself out and turned around, drink in
hand. We all turned back to the
cottage. We followed him. It was a bit
like a christening, a welcoming into the
world of the new year.

Why I like Al Tuck

2005-12-27T15:43:00.000-04:00

He arranges three glasses
of whisky on the piano stool. Then
the piano player wants to sit
down, so he carefully arranges
them on a small cushioned seat.
He leans back on a high chair
wearing a velvet jacket that shows
his wrists. He is concentrating on
a small brown guitar.
And he sings a slow song that
I thought had the line "beneath
the snow the unborn christ"
but was of course "unborn grass",
though I still imagine jesus
lying quietly under the snow.
And he sings this song so quietly
and long that it is only late into the
eighth minute of it that we
recognize it as "Snowbird".
Spread your tiny wings and fly away.

In the middle of thirty women talking

2005-12-23T11:49:00.000-04:00

We're shoulder to shoulder at the
best party of the year. One of those dangerous,
catered parties, where waiters refill
your glass, so you can't count your drinks.
An extravagant party where the furniture
is hiding in rooms upstairs. There is
dancing in the coachhouse. Women are grinding
the parmesan cheese on the dance floor,
where smoking is permitted.
I broke my hand, she said, falling
off a horse.
Women arent allowed cheese, her friend
says. They have to be skinny all the time.
That's how the French women stay skinny. This,
from a third woman.
Curiosity, the woman who had fallen
off a horse said, is its own reward.
I dont think women get their vulvas
stared at enough. That was one woman
to the boyfriend of another. I guess it
was advice. She hadnt broken her hand falling off
a horse. That was her new story. She
had broken her hand doing dishes, but that
answer was not Tolstoyan enough.
She had her glass filled with the
Chardonnay that was not Australian.
The hardwood floor had electrical
outlets where the lamps would be
if the furniture had not been moved.
There was a joke told about how Jesus
saves. And takes half damage. It's a
joke I cannot uncloak but someone
at this blog will decipher for me.
Guests had removed their shoes, but,
like me, put them back on at around
midnight, to combat the naughty
shoed company that dripped their
evil outdoor melt. A fantastic party. It's
always a good sign when youve barely
spoken to a man all night. When the
beautiful women in their twinkly
sleeveless outfits or even their
smart dark numbers seem to fill the
air with the cotton of their exuberant
joy. God do I love that cotton.

Rat

2005-12-21T13:44:00.000-04:00

It sat under the kitchen table,
bleeding. Was this a mouse. It was
a big mouse. It sat there, panting,
dripping. The rat trap upside
down beside it. The long coil of tail.
Dark and tapered and touching the
baseboard. The kitchen tiles are eight
inches square and the tail was longer than
a tile. The tail was precise and
clear, what I mean is, it did not
have fur. But it was dark under
the kitchen table. We'd set the traps.
The korean grocer was a little shocked
when I brought the traps up to the
counter, as if he didnt know he carried
rat traps. One night we'd heard gnawing. It was
tremendous gnawing. And I flicked on the
kitchen light and the two avocadoes had
been gouged, the squash had teeth marks
and two bananas in the bunch had a strip
of banana out of them the way some
people eat corn, in a row. That was rat
behaviour. But there hasnt been a rat
in the building in the eighteen years
that our friend on the first floor has
lived here. But this was evidence of rat.
And now I had a stunned rat on my hands.
I went for the hammer. It saw the move
for the hammer and decided. It trotted.
It went for the hallway. And down the
hallway it bled. Under the bed it went.
I moved the bed. Little footprints of
red out to the living room, behind the
Christmas tree. I followed the blood
trail. I moved the tree. It lumbered
over to the couch, dying but energetic.
I moved that heaviest piece of furniture
in the apartment. A smear of blood that it
had sat in on the hardwood under the couch.
Then we lost it. And we cleaned up rat blood.
And went to bed. An hour later its claws woke us,
loping down the hall to the kitchen.

dinner with oblonsky and levin

2005-12-17T15:41:00.000-04:00

I'm carryng two fillets of turbot,
two dozen oysters and a nine pound
capon. there's a pound of parmesan
too. It has the word parmigiana on
the yellow rind. I'm on my way home
to cook the lunch that oblonsky and
levin have in anna karenina. It's
been driving me nuts, this lunch.
They arrive and the waiter pours
them a vodka with a piece of smoked
fish. Then a fresh tablecloth is
laid over another tablecloth. And
they sit and eat oysters, champagne,
vegetable soup, turbot and capon.
Roast beef is mentioned in the menu,
but the waiter does not read it back
to them, the things theyve ordered.
And I have a woman arriving for lunch
who will not eat mammals. The turbot
sauce has absynthe in it. The oysters
are malpaeques. The champagne is from
a man who I was on a shortlist with,
and just before the winner was announced
he suggested whoever wins gets the other
a bottle of champage. It's Krug champagne.
There's also white wine. And dried fruit.
But when the capon hauls itself out
of the oven, my guests are a little
overwhelmed. They have dressed as
Russians, but they have not brought
their Russian appetites. I serve it
on a plate made in the USSR. I'm
telling you there's barely a dent
out of it.

Great Red North

2005-11-30T12:54:00.000-04:00

Late at night, we're with
friends attending the launch of Spirit
magazine. We're in a crushed bar, DNA, on
Adelaide. A native hiphop artist,
doing those hand gestures, as if he's
pressing air down. A baseball cap on
and a white towel under the cap.
He's a great mimic of black gang culture.
A waiter twisting through the crowd,
carries a grey plastic tray full of
empties above his head. A video screen
with poker. Am I the last to figure
out that native Canadians have a home
in hiphop music? The next act is
so American I have to ask: they are
Hispanics from Los Angeles, playing
the aboriginal card.

Haircut in the Snow

2005-11-25T17:40:00.000-04:00

Snow hurtles us forward into
the year. At night, faces are lit
from below because of the snow.
Waiting for a streetcar at
the Spadina subway line. How
unfinished these underground
stations look. The raw cement
and railings, it's like looking
at the back of bits of furniture
meant to stand against a wall.
Like I'm inside the machinery
that makes cities. I've promised
that I'll leave the party after
two hours, but I'm enjoying myself.
I meet a woman who's a hairdresser.
Do I need a haircut. Oh yes. Well
where can I find you. You can't afford
me. Well what's a man to do. I could
cut your hair now. Right here? Yes,
here.
Her apartment is next door. She fetches
her scissors. And while the food
critic and a group of women from
Montreal dance to Wild Cherry, I
sit in a chair and have a hair cut.
Her boyfriend comes over to check it
out. Remember, he says, youre ahead
of the curve.
I make the fucking curve, she says.