all my little words...CK's mono{b}logue

Perfect Days

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:52:00 +0000

I tend to write a lot of blog entries in my mind. Many that don't make it to the page because of the time involved and especially lately I've been concentrating on fiction. Spending quality time with my grant book. It's been wonderful, at times, and challenging, at times. Sometimes it's both of those things at the exact same time! But I hope that when I'm finished the new YA book I'll be able to translate some more of my unwritten blog entries into words.

Before any of that happens, though, I'll be taking a short book break to spend a few days in Montreal. Billy Bragg's currently on a North American tour and since I haven't seen him live since 09 catching only his Toronto gig didn't seem enough. So we're heading out to Montreal to see him play there too: Bragg-o-mania! In anticipation I've been listening to his new album, Tooth & Nail, over and over today.

When I'm sitting at my laptop actively working on a book I need silence but today has been what the Irish call "a doss day." A lovely one at that. The warmest, sunniest day we've had in Southern Ontario in months and months. So what did we do with it? Well, we drove out to the next town over (Billy Bragg accompanying us on the stereo) where we didn't have to pay for parking because a woman leaving the lot generously gave us her unused minutes. Then we munched on melts and pasta salad in a cute little coffee house, strolled on the beach and sat on the warm sand. Drove halfway home (Billy Bragg once again providing the soundtrack) and stopped into a European supermarket, terrific used bookstore that must not have been open long because I've never seen it before, and a wonderful British import shop that I love to death. Bought crisps, British chocolate and an off-shoot show of Spooks that I've never seen: Code 9. If you've read my new adult book Come See About Me this shop will be familiar to you because it's one of a few that I based Leah's workplace on. In my dreams I win the lottery and buy a shop exactly like this!

While at the bookshop I overheard a customer at the register. Upon realizing he was offering too much money for his books (overpaying) he remarked to the clerk, "Oh well, it's only moneyI would rather have the books." The remark made me grin to myself in my corner of the bookstore. It was a perfect comment in a perfect day. I hope that before I get back here to blog again you all have some perfect days on the way too! And thanks, always and forever, to Billy Bragg, for the music, the poetry, and for being a voice of compassion and reason.

Easter Greetings From Our Prime Minister

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:00:00 +0000

As in years of yore, I've scanned in the Prime Minister's annual Easter card so Canadians who happen to be out of the country or who didn't receive their greeting before the holiday can see what Stephen's up to.

Click below picture to see larger image:

This Easter Prime Minister Harper will be on-site at the Alberta Tar Sands handing out Easter chocolates to animals whose habitat has been destroyed by the Tar Sands and the numerous children worldwide whose futures have been put in jeopardy by the plundering of our environment. Just look for the Syncrude signage if you want to know where to go to collect your free chocolate. There will also be a hunt for Canadian democracy (likely lying at the bottom of a toxic tailing pond) and Tar Sands Easter decorating competition. So you gotta know that will be a wicked fun time! Get your pastel paints and scuba gear ready.

* CAUTION: The Government of Canada and Syncrude are not responsible for death, dismemberment or illness suffered in conjunction with this offer.

Additional Harper greeting cards, action figures, and promotional photos available here.

Mister Dash and the Cupcake Calamity

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:04:00 +0000

When we last peeked in at model of manners and dapper dresser Mister Dash, the mixed breed pooch was saving Madame Croissant's rambunctious granddaughter Daphne from a Radio Flyer accident in Merci Mister Dash! Happily there's a brand new Mister Dash adventure on shelves and it involves tantalizing cupcakes, the spirited but troublesome Daphne, more Dash heroics, and heaping servings of charm and laughter.

Jauntily gorgeous illustrations by Esperança Melo are the perfect match for Monica Kulling's (author of Lumpito and the Painter from Spain and Tundra's award-winning Great Idea series) warmly dynamic story. The delightful combination is bound to make Mister Dash and the Cupcake Calamity a favourite with youngsters.

Kulling has a winning hero in the fastidious but loyal Dash, who plays delivery dog for Madame Croissant's bakery business even as he feels foolish in the baker's hat, and I hope we have many more Mister Dash adventures to look forward to.

Happy News

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:07:00 +0000

I'm honoured, thrilled and stunned to be able to say I found out earlier this week that I got a Canada Council grant for a YA book I've been working on! To have this vote of confidence from Canada Council is such a heady thing. I'm over the moon and have never felt more like a Canadian writer.

Recently I also learned, to my immense joy, that Yesterday made the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book Award shortlist along with 9 other fantastic books: 40 Things I Want to Tell You (Alice Kuipers), Bright's Light (Susan Juby), The Calling (Kelley Armstrong), The Last Song (Eva Wiseman), My Book of Life by Angel (Martine Leavitt), One Good Hustle (Billie Livingston), The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (Susin Nielsen), Such Wicked Intent (Kenneth Oppel), and What Happened to Ivy (Kathy Stinson). You can see the complete lists for the CLA Book of the Year for Children Award, the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrators Award and the CLA Young Adult Book Award here. Congrats to all the CLA-nominated authors!

Before these two wonderful pieces of news good luck was in short supply (the publishing business is hard, hard, hard) and it means so much to me to have this recognition from other Canadians. It would be impossible for me to overstate that. And if it happens that there's another tough patch around the corner, these two things will see me through it.

Finally, before I go I want to share the stunning cover of the Chinese edition of My Beating Teenage Heart. Four copies arrived from my agent yesterday and I keep wandering over to the sideboard to stare at them. Aren't they lovely?

Global Warming? Canada (& everyone else) Yawns

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:23:00 +0000

Did you happen to see the report released by the Conference Board of Canada six weeks ago that revealed Canada dumps more garbage per capita than any other country in the developed world? Additionally, its water use is almost double the average of other countries. In the report entitled "How Canada Performs - Environment" Canada was ranked 15 out of 17 countries. Only the United States and Australia's performance were worse.

And do you happen to remember the annual Climate Change Performance Index results released in December by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe? "Canada fell to 58th place out of 61 countries analyzed for their policies and action on climate change this year, trailed only by Kazakhstan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia." It's embarrassing and unconscionable that a country of Canada's wealth and natural beauty should behave with such recklessness and disdain for the natural world, our home.

It's this disdain that so often in recent years leaves me feeling acutely embarrassed to be Canadian. I would like to apologize to the rest of the world for our brazen disregard for the environment, only apparently they don't care either.

That's right, nobody much cares. A global poll of nearly 23,000 people across 22 countries found that environmental concerns are at record lows. "Asked how serious they consider each of six environmental problems to be-air pollution, water pollution, species loss, automobile emissions, fresh water shortages, and climate change-fewer people now consider them "very serious" than at any time since tracking began twenty years ago. Climate change is the only exception, where concern was lower from 1998 to 2003 than it is now. Concern about air and water pollution, as well as biodiversity, is significantly below where it was even in the 1990s. Many of the sharpest falls have taken place in the past two years."

It's staggering. Wasn't this the year we saw Hurricane Sandy vomit the Atlantic Ocean up over New Jersey and New York? The summer of 2012/2013 was Australia's hottest on record, not in a nice let's drink our margaritas on the beach way but in a "catastrophic" fire threat one. Then there's Bangladesh. Experts predict that 250 million people worldwide will become climate refugees by 2050. Of those, 20 million to 30 million climate change refugees (likely the largest number from one place) are expected to be in Bangladesh, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Rising sea levels, a result of melting glaciers, could flood and/or erode 17 % of the country.

The human capacity for denial is seemingly infinite. Surely, at some point we must've been smarter than this? Otherwise how did we make it this far?

In the short term I guess as a Canadian I should be glad that generally people aren't as worried about climate change as they have been in the past, because it means this country can act like the asshole it apparently is without any worry about folks coming over to pelt us with rotten tomatoes and kick sand in our faces. As for our long term strategy, I can only conclude that Stephen Harper (our cyborg Prime Minister) is arranging safe passage to another solar system for all us Canadians. When the planet revolts against our abuse with a vehemence that makes daily living a struggle beyond our capabilities the Conservative Party's alien pals will whisk us away to a peaceful, unoccupied planet with an enviable bounty of natural resources. There, our descendants will be free to repeat our loveable old tradition of junking the planet with wild abandon. Hell, as long as Stephen Harper's at the helm, NHL is on the boob tube, there's Tim Hortons coffee readily available, and the bright promise of a new Target opening around the corner, millions of us Canucks may not even notice we've left earth.

Books With No Bounds

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 02:25:00 +0000

You may have already heard about Books with no Bounds, founded by Oakville teen sisters and ardent readers, Julia and Emma. If you haven't, and particularly if you live in Ontario, I'd like to call your attention to their cause: a book drive sending much-needed books to aboriginal young people in Northern Ontario.

In a Facebook post Julia and Emma explained: (First Nations) Regional Chief Stan Beardy once told us that First Nation kids sometimes grow up owning only one book their whole lives. Many of these kids are also four to five years behind in literacy skills.

That this is happening in our province is to our deep shame. But Julia and Emma are on a mission to change these conditions. We can help them in their aim "to fill the shelves of the children's homes and school libraries."

So far Books with no Bounds has sent 12,500 books to the northern communities of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, but they're not done yet. Shipments are continuing four times a year. Last weekend I donated several copies of my own books and if you're an Ontario reader/writer/concerned resident, please consider doing the same.

Book or monetary donation can be arranged by visiting Books with no Bounds Facebook page or website. You can read more about Books with no Bounds in the National Post and Inside Halton articles from July and February.

Yesterday Goodreads Giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:51:00 +0000

I'm having a Yesterday giveaway at Goodreads which is now open. Three signed hardcovers are available to win! The grand prize winner will also receive a Yesterday poster. Contest closes February 24th.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Yesterday

by C.K. Kelly Martin

Giveaway ends February 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Time Travel

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 01:38:00 +0000

"Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change." ~Thomas Hardy

I've been a fan of time travel stories since, as a second-grader, I watched Charlton Heston discover the half-sunken Statue of Liberty on a shoreline of a planet ruled by intelligent apes. Our planet. Charlton, understandably, takes the news of his whereabouts badly. "Oh my God," he says. "I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it... You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell."

Later, in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (the third of five Apes movie), three chimpanzees from the future escape the destruction of the earth by repairing the same spacecraft Heston had arrived in. The intelligent apes arrive back in 1973 where one of them gives birth to the world's first talking ape, thereby setting the stage for the rise of the apes (something which has both already happened but has still, in 1973, yet to happen). A perfect circle. Watching Escape from the Planet of the Apes for the first time my brain looped around and around, trying to get a handle on this idea.

I think the chief reason that time travel in fiction and movies has such enduring appealing is that for all our technological advancements time is still something we have no control over. Yes, theoretically time travel is possible but I don't have any friends who have actually achieved it. And there are occasions in all our lives when we could desperately use a do-over. Occasions when such intervention would have prevented terrible disasters. Then there's nostalgia, the feeling that the past is somehow closer to perfection than the present. We can hope for the future (or dread it) and miss the past, but both things are always beyond reach.

One of my favourite time travel plots occurs in Stephen Fry's Making History (1996). Time travel prevents the birth of Adolph Hitler. This deviation in history turns the United States into an ultra-conservative nation where racial segregation still occurs and homosexuality is a crime. The alternate post-WWII history of the western world is fascinating and feels credible.

Here are my some of my other favourite time travel plots, mostly from the film world:

La Jetee/12 Monkeys: I first saw Chris Marker's 1962 French sci-fi short La Jetee in film school. It's both stark and beautiful and contains only a brief moment of actual moving footage. The rest of the film is composed of still-photographs and centers on a Third World war prisoner who is sent back in time, in a series of experiments, to seek help for his world from the future. Director Terry Gilliam made an appealing full length version of the film in 1995: 12 Monkeys.

Donnie Darko: A teenage boy is haunted by visions which include a guy in a creepy rabbit costume and time lines made visible. Where the hell is all this going? Trippy as all get out but in the best possible way.

Donnie Darko

The Terminator/Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Trying to save the future from doom when what's left of humanity only has access to inferior cyborgs is an uphill battle. One that we have to wage time after time. Peristance is everything.

The Time Machine: First published in 1895, a movie adaptation was produced in 1960 and a second in 2002. This classic tale of humanity's downfall a collapse brought about by scientific "advancement" remains as potent as ever.

Groundhog Day: The transformation Billy Murray makes from perpetually irritated self-centered newsman to a well-rounded human being when he finally stops fighting the fact that the rest of his life might well be spent in the same winter day is hilarious, warm and wise.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey: The Black Death is sweeping 14th century England. A Cumbrian village boy's visions inspire a group of his fellow villagers to tunnel through the earth and erect a cross in an attempt to ward off infection. The journey through the earth leads the travellers to 20th century New Zealand, a place they struggle to understand as they race to fulfill their quest.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Planet of the Apes/Escape from the Planet of the Apes: The 1968 film was based on a 1963 book by Pierre Boulle. The horrifying idea that we might one day devastate the planet through human invention (atomic bombs) was much newer when these films were released than it is now. In fact, the rise of an ape civilization after a nuclear war would now appear to be the good news. There's something intriguing about watching our nearest biological relatives follow in our footsteps in these films.

Looper: In 2044, where time travel is possible but illegal, a crime syndicate has come up with a handy workaround to help them wipe out their enemies and, ultimately, the assassins themselves. When hitman Joe is sent back in time to be killed, young Joe is the one about to pull the trigger. Until he discovers who his target is. And this is just the first few minutes! A must-see for people who like their action movies smart.

Lost: "Think of the island as a record, spinning on a turntable," Daniel Faraday said. "Only now, that record is skipping." Whatever you say, Faraday! Time travel back to the 70s was only one of the treats in Lost's goody bag. I think the main reason we devoured all the weirdness (including temporal disturbances) was our fondness for the characters who remained three-dimensional no matter what was thrown at them.

Life on Mars: BBC police procedural show about a cop who wakes up in 1973 after a 2006 car accident and aims to enlighten the '73 police force while hoping for a return to the future. This show simultaneously inspires nostalgia for a less politically correct time while we also root for main character Sam Tyler in his efforts to, in effect, make the future arrive faster by putting his progressive twenty-first century ideas into action.

Being Erica: Emotional Canadian time travel drama about a woman whose temporally gifted therapist allows her to work out her various issues by travelling back to certain parts of her life and redo them. Erin Karpluk plays the likeable Erica Strange (intrepid time traveller!) and Torontonians will especially enjoy the local scenery, from Centre Island to Casa Loma.

Fringe: I've seldom been so sorry to see a series end. For five seasons Walter Bishop was the smartest man on television and Olivia its greatest hero. Fringe featured astounding plotlines hinging on parallel universes and a race of people called Watchers who have mastery over time. But it never forgot the humanity of its central characters and the importance of their relationships with each other. Love. Sacrifice. Hope. Courage. On Fringe these qualities endured across time and place proving a wonderful inspiration.

Fringe

Christmas Special!

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:52:00 +0000

Christmas special starts today. Final sale ever of Come See About Me (Dec 19 - 26). Just .99 at Amazon.com and equivalent prices at .ca, .co.uk etc.

Amazon Books, Gingerbread Men & Smurf Village

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Big hair & cold war politics! My guest blog "Yesterday: Introducing the 80s" is up at Kindlepost UK. Yesterday, My Beating Teenage Heart and I Know It's Over are now available as ebook downloads from Amazon.co.uk with The Lighter Side of Life and Death and One Lonely Degree soon to follow. I had great fun designing the ebook covers and am happy to share them with you (click on the image to see a larger version):

I've also been preparing for Christmas and last week I headed over to my friend's house with a gingerbread kit and one of my favourite Christmas movies of recent years, The Holiday. Neither of us had ever put a gingerbread house together, but how hard could it be?

We started out by laying the materials as directed by the package, and the foundation piece (the one that sits at the bottom of the house) promptly broke in two in my hands. Ooph!

We managed to glue the severed pieces together with icing and successfully erect the basic house (even the chimney!). Yippee!

Ultimately, our gingerbread house didn't closely resemble the one on the cover of the package. In fact, ours looks as though it's been hit by a fierce blizzard (a candy blizzard perhaps?). But hey, that's in keeping with the season too, right? I find it awfully cute anyway, even the mutant gingerbread men.

On Monday Paddy and I finally put up our Christmas decorations around the apartment and an interesting thing happened. Remember the childhood Smurf collection I brought back from my mom's place not long ago? Well, the Smurfs took a shine to our Christmas village and have invaded. The original village inhabitants don't know quite what to make of them and some of the Smurfs have been revelling a little too hard (the pub has been a problem area) but generally the Smurfs are following Papa Smurf's genial example. So I have every faith peace (and comfort and joy) will prevail.

Yesterday, in Review & in the U.K.

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Home late last night after a sublime Leonard Cohen show (that I wish I was still at!), I'm mucho groggy today but am interrupting my Internet break to point folks in the direction of my guest blog entry on "Reconnecting with Your Lost Love of Writing" over at Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing. If you've lost that loving feeling lately, this post might be for you. Signed copies of Yesterday and My Beating Teenage Heart are up for grabs too!

Some very cool reviews of Yesterday have been appearing on the Internet and out in the world recently. I wish I could link to the wonderful Quill & Quire write-up, but it's not online yet. Here's an outtake to whet your appetite: "A satisfying, original blend of time-travel thriller, science fiction and romance, this white-knuckle read is more Jason Bourne than Katniss Everdeen."

I'm very happy to say that Yesterday review appears on the same page with a lovely one for Monica Kulling's new book Lumpito and the Painter from Spain. Aimed at readers five and up, Lumpito is based on true eventsPablo Picasso's love for the one of a kind daschund that comes into his life. Quill and Quire say, "Young readers will delight," but this older reader is very much looking forward to reading it too! Sounds like a great Christmas gift, n'est-ce pas?

I'm also extremely excited to report that School Library Journal has given Yesterday a starred review. Yaaaaaay! You can read the entire review on the School Library Journal website. The National Post has also been very kind to Yesterday and said, "Yesterday is a compelling novel that will take up permanent residence in your mind and haunt you, continually leaving you suspended in its spell until the very last page. Martins ability to manipulate the laws of time and space to create a fantastical fictional world is exceptional." Check out the full review here.

Finally, if you're in the U.K. and looking to pick up a copy of Yesterday as an e-book you can now download it from Amazon.co.uk. My guest blog entry about Yesterday will be going up at Kindle Post (uk) on December 11th and my other YA books will soon be available in-ebook format on Amazon.co.uk too. They're being released via Curtis Brown's digital self-publishing programme, which you can read the details of on the Curtis Brown website. One of the things I loved about this is that it gave me a chance to design alternate covers for my books. Here's the U.K. e-book cover. I'll try to post the others soon too.

Tomorrow (Yesterday Book #2)

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 02:22:00 +0000

From now until late December/early Janaury I'll be keeping a low profile on the Internet while I concentrate on the Yesterday sequel and other projects. That means minimal Facebook, Twitter and blogging time, but I'll still be checking email. You can also find me guest blogging at Adventures in YA & Childrens Publishing on December 5th. There'll be a Yesterday/My Beating Teenage Heart giveaway there too so don't forget to toss your name in the hat if you're curious about the books!

As for the Yesterday sequel, I don't want to give too much away but I can say it's called Tomorrow and is from Garren's point of view. The future's reach is long and Freya and Garren are not safe in the Vancouver of 1986. No one is.

Speaking of not being safe, I watched Flight earlier today and it had one of the best airplane crash scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie (right up there alongside United 93 and The Grey). If you're thinking about watching Flight, definitely go...unless maybe you're intending to fly anytime soon.

Fairly early on in the movie there's a scene in a hospital stairwell that let me know Flight was going to offer more a whole lot more than I expected in terms of character development. As persuasive as the trailer is, the film itself is much more compelling. Denzel Washington could, of course, convince a person of anything and between his brilliant performance and a script that never overplays emotions this is one of the strongest dramas I've seen this year.

I also watched Skyfall recently (I was never a huge Connery fan and was entirely won over by Daniel Craig back during Casino Royale so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this latest Bond offering too) and have been tensely following Olivia , Peter and Walter's ongoing battle in 2036 in Fringe. Peter Bishop, damnit, what have you done? In case I haven't mentioned it before, in my opinion Fringe is the best thing on TV right now and I'm simultaneously savouring every minute of its fifth and final season and mourning its imminent end. If you haven't checked out the show yet but like your sci-fi offbeat, super smart and with strong, likeable characters, I highly recommend starting at the very beginning. Fringe isn't the kind of thing you can just dip into and hope to understand but damn it's worth the time you'll dedicate to it.

C.K. Time Capsule

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 01:42:00 +0000

My mom's moving house shortly and my brother was home from L.A. for a couple of days to help her pack things up. I spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday pitching in with the effort so now have two sets of clothes covered in a fine layer of dust. But what a trip down memory lane!

While I'd either gotten rid of or taken most of my things in previous years, some stuff I didn't expect was still lying around, including notes I'd taken about my first trip to London, England a vacation my best friend and I paid for with our summer jobs when we were seventeen, a letter one of my cousins had written me when I was thirteen informing me he'd beaten my Pac-Man score (must have been a lie!), and a letter from my aunt which included the comment that I was developing a very impressive super ball collection. Yes, I actually had a super ball collection when I was a kid! See the below photo.

As well as the things you can see in the picture, I rescued a copy of The Detroit Free Press from February 9, 1986 and issue of Time Magazine dated December 23, 1985 that I'd boxed eons ago. Actually, I'd kept a good few newspapers from that period but I just didn't have room to take all of them home with me so tossed most of them in recycle yesterday. It was interesting that I'd saved so many in the first placeI guess I thought someday I'd need a time capsule to consult (perhaps sensing that in the future I'd write a book set in the 80s??). Seeing as I'm about to resume work on the Yesterday sequel I'm extremely eager to have a read of that old copy of Time and the Detroit newspaper.

And can I just say, my old View-Master is every bit as cool as I remembered! I can't imagine what younger generations would make of the thing but I absolutely adored my View-Master and looking through the slide reels of Star Trek (both animated and from the original TV show), Charlotte's Web, Charlie Browns, Land of the Lost, Scooby Doo and Planet of the Apes (the TV show) brought my enthusiasm back in waves.

You'll also notice my extensive Smurf collection from when I was eleven and twelve. Considering how many decades they've been packed away, the Smurfs remain in admirable condition. I was gleeful to discover some of the Babar books from my earlier years too. I am no less fond of Babar now than I was then and my heart leapt to see them. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust myself off and go play with my stuff!

The Drilling is the Good News

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:08:00 +0000

The day after the big storm and it seems the rain hasn't stopped them from continuing industrious work on the parking garage beneath my building. They started fixing the expansion joints early in October and the construction is scheduled to be completed near to Christmas. I'm on day two of a headache but it seems churlish to complain about drilling noise when the power is on, the streets outside aren't flooded and here in Southern Ontario we're not having to deal with anything remotely like the damage some states have seen.

The images from New York City are particularly sobering and what a job ahead to clean up and put all the pieces back together again. The scope of this is to difficult to fathom.

Earlier today I read a New Yorker article, "Watching Sandy, Ignoring Climate Change" which discusses the harsh realities bearing in on us, whether we're ready to deal with them or not. Between the memory of summer drought barely behind us, the destruction Hurricane Sandy's wrought as well as the results of a new Munich Re study, it's difficult to understand how nations that like to consider themselves enlightened (I'm looking at you Canada) continue to be in denial re. global warming and their part in it. "Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America. The study shows a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades, compared with an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe and 1.5 in South America."

We're not like Middle-earth elves, we have no Undying Lands to retreat to once we've junked up this planet. Yet we're still not giving the global warming issue the focus it should demand. What does it take, I wonder?

We need sea change and we need it now. Or better yet, yesterday.

Speaking of which, if you'd like to talk to me about my latest book (or anything else), I'll be spending next week (November 5 - 9) at Random Buzzers. If you want to read more about the book, two fantastic recent reviews are available at Midnight Bloom Reads and the School Library Journal blog. My local paper also did a nice write-up on Yesterday and me.

More importantly, I hope everyone's safe and remains that way and that you all impart to businesses and politicians at all levels how important protecting the environment is to you. Because unless we can strike up a deal with those Middle-earth elves, this planet is all we've got.

Frodo and Sam watch the elves leave Middle-earth for the Undying lands.

Wish List: YA Books to Movies

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 01:12:00 +0000

When I started writing YA, contemporary books were king. I fell in love with and was inspired by honest, emotionally complex novels like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Life is Funny, Breathing Underwater, Borrowed Light, and Every Time a Rainbow Dies. Although I love to write various types of books and intend to continue to stretch myself, I will always, always have a soft spot the size of Asia for contemporary books.

If you happened to read my last blog entry you know how much I enjoyed the movie adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It made me think of all the other contemporary books I'd be thrilled to see adapted for the silver screen. I'm very happy to note that Before I Die, a wonderful YA book that broke my heart, has also been made into a film, renamed as Now is Good. But that still leaves plenty of excellent YA material to adapt and here's my top ten wish list:

Stolen: There's such an odd beauty about this story of a girl abducted at an airport and whisked away to the Australian outback and the right director (Jane Campion?) could turn it into an equally magical film.

Boy Toy: My favourite Barry Lyga book deals with the difficult subject matter of a seventeen-year-old boy molested by a teacher five years earlier. As far as I'm concerned there's not a single false note in what could also be a fantastic film by someone who knows how to handle nuanced dramas. Someone like Peter Berg (writer-director of Friday Night Lights) perhaps!

Some Girls Are: I don't know how Courtney Summers manages to make mean girl Regina such a sympathetic character, but this is both a fascinating and chilling story of the cruel power dynamics that play out in high school. Sadly, that's a topic that's only grow more relevant in the last few years. Since I've started watching the first season of American Horror Story I've been thinking that Taissa Farmiga (Violet) would be riveting as the steely mean girl turned target character of Regina.

Let's Get Lost: Sarra Manning really knows how to write chemistry and, although this isn't strictly a romance, with the right young actors cast as Isabel and Smith the sparks would FLY.

Broken Soup: There's a mystery at the centre of this drama that makes this story of a brother's death even more compelling. Lone Scherfig's An Education convinces me she'd be the ideal director for this.

48 Shades of Brown: I jotted down this list before finding out this way already made into a movie back in 2006 (which I'll obviously have to check out!). But here's what I was going to write about it: Lighter material than most of the other books I've named here, Nick Earl's novel is the charming, funny and realistic tale of a teenage boy who moves in with his young aunt while his parents are in Geneva for work and promptly develops a crush on her roommate. Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) or Greg Mottola (Adventureland) are both equally perfect for this jaunty material.

Tyrell: I can't imagine anyone, of any age, not being captivated by Coe Booth's story of an inner city teenager in a homeless shelter trying to hold things together for his younger brother while fielding numerous other issues (including relationships with girls) in his own life. Gritty without being overwhelming bleak, Tyrell isn't the type to feel sorry for himself so we don't either. But you root for him all the way in what, in my opinion, is already a very cinematic story.

Recovery Road: Like alot of folks, I first fell in love with Blake Nelson's work with Girl. But I just might even like this book about the love and friendship between two recovering young drug addicts even better. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (writers & director of Half Nelson, It's Kind of a Funny Story and Sugar), you two need to read this!

Teach Me: There's zero melodrama in this story of a romantic relationship between a female teenager and her male teacher. Instead it's admirably forthright with not a cliche in sight and I think Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) could be the one to accomplish the same with the film.

Gentlemen: This YA has one of the most arresting covers I've seen in recent years and the story inside is just as arresting. Mike's friend Tommy is missing and meanwhile their hate English teacher is acting very strange indeed. Coincidence? I was on edge for the entire story and think Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) would be ideal for this edgy material that feels liable to erupt at any second.

Fall Perks & Highlights

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 18:59:00 +0000

I'm writing this after more than two weeks away from the blog because I've just finished assembling everything I need for the writing grant I'm applying for. Hurrah! Loads of writers apply for this particular work in progress grant so I have no idea what the odds of success are but I've read my novel sample pages as many times as I can stand and the application due date is mid-October so it's time to let it go. Because I won't know whether I'll receive the grant money for several months I won't be returning to work on this particular novel until I hear how my application fared in the middle of winter. I won't lieit's tough to walk away when the characters and their very dramatic situation are on my mind but this is what it's like being a writer, your head gets very crowded with fictional people and their concerns and you can't tend to them all at the same time!

In the meantime I'm moving on to rewrites for my agent (on a middle grade novel), returning to another YA project and generally enjoying fall. Yesterday Paddy and I had a delightful day in Niagara-on-the-Lake, stocking up on things like gourmet coffee from Victoria Teas (for himI prefer my caffeine via Coca-Cola), Greaves jam and British snacks from the Scottish Loft. But mainly it was just a lovely day to stroll around town and look at the changing colours of the season.

On Saturday I caught The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the film adaptation of one of my all-time favourite young adult books. I was both excited and a little worried about how the change in medium might alter the material, but I needn't have been because Perks is one of the best movies about young people that I've seen in the last decade. The soundtrack alone would be enough reason to see it. I mean, here's a movie featuring the songs Come On Eileen (Dexy's Midnight Runners), Asleep (The Smiths) AND Dear God (XTC): my inner sixteen-year-old self was in heaven. At the same time, music is just a small part of what makes this movie great. Logan Lerman is luminous as Charlie, really just perfect. Perks wears its heart on its sleeve without being the slightest bit cheesy and Stephen Chbosky (screenwriter, director, author) makes the feat look effortless. So, yeah, the movie is infinite and if you enjoy intelligently rendered, sensitive characters, you'll love Perks. And if you still haven't read the book yet, what are you waiting for?

Recently I also had the chance to visit the Toronto Zoo again (my first visit in many years). For me the highlight was being able to get up and close and personal with polar bear cub, Hudson, whose first birthday is tomorrow. Having spotted a blue glass bottle on the ledge of the viewing area that someone seemed to have left behind, Hudson wandered over to take a look. Seeing him approach, I neared the glass myself and we had a cool moment, just the two of us while Paddy and the friends I'd come with hung back. Aren't they sweet? And Isn't he gorgeous?

Not to mention, playful!

And now it's time for me to nip out and do a bunch of errands, while the sun is shining.

The past is a foreign country: 8os music

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:56:00 +0000

Just a reminder that the Yesterday blog tour begins tomorrow at Diary of a Bookworm! There are also some swoon-worthy reviews of Yesterday starting to appear including ones from CM Magazine: Canadian Review of Material, Happy Owl Books, Dark Faerie Tales, Stacked, Boekie's Book Reviews and YA Reads where Yesterday is the book of the month and you can enter to win 1 of 3 copies.

With Yesterday hitting shelves this coming Tuesday, sadly it's time to wrap up my nostalgic musings on the 80s. But first, here's the concluding post about music from 1980-1985.

People's relationship to music was very different pre-Internet and as a teenager I haunted my local record stores to browse and purchase new music. Even better was when I could travel to downtown Toronto to hang out in Sam the Record Man, with its vast collection of offerings (I've never stopped missing Sam's!). I also spent alot of timemore than most people I knewlistening to the radio and watching MuchMusic and the video shows that preceeded it.

The 80s was a terrifically dynamic time for music and I think many people would agree that pop music doesn't get any more angsty than Morrissey singing:

"There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry
And you want to die."

The 80s just wouldn't have been the eighties without the edgy ache of new wave. I still ache when I hear songs like How Soon is Now, Yazoo's Nobody's Diary, Depeche Mode's Somebody, Tears for Fears' Mad World or Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy. How could anyone not?

There's a naked honesty in these songsa depth of emotion that I have wonder if we've almost become afraid of in this age bent on cynicism and obsessed with superficialities. Not that 80s music consisted solely of opening up an emotional vein and bleeding onto the vinyl, to be sure. The first half of the decade (since that what's I'm concentrating on in this series) is also chock full of damn fine lighter fare too, songs full of sunshine and optimism or even ones that didn't have much to say but just made you want to dance or punch the air. Remember these fantastic tunes?

The Go-Go's, We Got The Beat:

Banarama, Shy Boy

Duran Duran, Is There Something I Should Know

Howard Jones, Things Can Only Get Better

The Belle Stars, Sign of the Times

In a Big Country, Big Country

Haircut One Hundred, Love Plus One

If you've already read Yesterday you'll remember that early on main character Freya becomes friends with a couple of new wave kids who stick out in the school hallways. During 1985, as I lived, it there were very visible groups of new wavers at schooldiehard fans of bands like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Psychedic Furs, and Echo and The Bunnymen who emulated the style of such bands. But the new wavers weren't the only hardcore music fans at my high schoolthere was a second group that was equally passionate about hard rock and heavy metal bands. At that time, teens ins Southern Ontario referred to this group as "rock-ons. " While the new wavers generally wore pale makeup, dyied their hair black and dressed in dark clothing, the "rock-ons" had their own distinct style which consisted mainly of mullets and Kodiak boots (perpetually untied). Although overall I enjoyed new wave music more than hard rock I never fully committed to either camp and bought music from across the spectrum (all my babysitting music went on tapes, vinyl and concert tickets). Here are a few of my favourite hard rock songs from the early 80s:

Scorpions, Still Loving You

Saga, Scratching the Surface

Def Leppard, Photograph

AC/DC, You Shook Me All Night Long

Marillion, Kayleigh

Van Halen, I'll Wait

Twisted Sister, We're Not Gonna Take It

Finally, although the 80s isn't generally regarded as a sexy time like the free love era of the sixties (which Freya visits in virtual reality) there were some pretty hot songs. Here are some of my personal favourites from 1980-85.

Modern English, I Melt With You

INXS, The One Thing

Adam and the Ants, Physical THIS ONE IS HEAT FACTOR 10.
Proceed with caution!

Romeo Void, Never Say Never

'You Shook Me All Night Long' by AC/DC (embedded earlier in the page! Scroll up)

Bryan Ferry, Slave to Love

Bryan Ferry, Windswept

Blondie, Call Me

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, I Love Rock N' Roll

The Rolling Stones, Start Me Up

Sheena Easton, For Your Eyes Only

There's nothing like music to hurl you back in time and in a way that means I visit the 80s not infrequently, but I'm happy to have had a longer stay in the past thanks to Yesterday. If you read the book I hope you'll also enjoy the trip.

The best music is both a pathway to the past and timeless and I'm going to close this entry on a song that is both those things a tune I consider to be one of the most inspirational songs from the 80s from British band Talk Talk.

Before & After

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:22:00 +0000

With the release of Yesterday just a week away (gasp!) I still have one final 80s post to write. I'm planning to put up my 80s music entry on the weekend but today want to point people in the direction of YA Reads where they're giving away 3 copies of the book. You still have 11 more days to enter the contest and there's also a new interview with me there.

If you want to read more about Yesterday, I hope you'll also catch up with the blog tour which begins this Sunday. I was lucky to work with a great group of Canadian bloggers on this tour who all had fantastic questions and ideas for guest posts. You'll find plenty of Canadian content!

Diary of a Bookworm	September 23
Just a lil' Lost	September 24
Mermaid Visions	September 25
Evie Bookish	September 26
Midnight Bloom Reads	September 27
Book Nerd	September 28

From November 5th - 9th I'll be at Random Buzzers answering questions so would be happy to see you there too. In between times I expect to be pretty quiet as I work on other projects. I'm applying for an Ontario Arts Council WIP grant which is due October 15th and need to have forty pages of a sparkling new book ready for that. I know some writers could whip forty pages up in no time, but I write at a snail's pace. Anyway, it's much too early to talk about that book yet but here's the first line as proof of its existence:

"Who can really explain why a certain piece of straw is the one that breaks a camel's back?"

After I hand the grant application in, I'm simultaneously moving on to rewrites for my agent and returning to work on yet another YA project. Having taken a writing break for the Toronto International Film Festival earlier in the month I feel like I need to be extra on the ball in order to get everything done but I'm in a bit of a TIFF withdrawal funk and today's rain isn't helping. Is it weird to even miss the movie line-ups? I guess they help raise the thrill of anticipation, plus they give you the chance to hear everyone else's cool TIFF stories!

Anyway, I was lucky to have the chance to sing Happy Birthday to Colin Firth again this year (this last happened to me two years ago when he was here for The King's Speech gala on his birthday) at the premiere of Arthur Newman. Colin Firth''s a total class-act and was very eloquent in answering his questions about the film. He even brought screenwriter, Becky Johnston, who was equally insightful, up on stage to speak about it. Emily Blunt, who has to be one of my favourite female actors, co-stars as the charismatic 'Mike' and was also at the screening.

The most ambitious flick I saw at the festival was the much anticipated Cloud Atlas.

The critic's response to the film was markedly fractured and prompted the following Movie Line article:

Early Reviews: Is Cloud Atlas A Triumph Or A Disaster (Or Both)?

I think the article makes an extremely important point here: "one critic's disaster is another's transcendent cinematic opus." For the record, while I didn't think Cloud Atlas was perfect I greatly admired its scope and aspirations and found it a thrilling watch.

Meanwhile if I were handing out awards for most positive TIFF film The Sessions—based on the true story of Mark O'Brien (played by John Hawkes), a poet paralyzed from the neck down since childhood, who embarks on a voyage to lose his virginity—would have my vote.

I was already a John Hawkes fan—he's what drew me to this movie—and his portrayal of Mark O'Brien is so full of light and warmth that I'm hoping he wins an Oscar for his stunner of a performance. Helen Hunt is outstanding as the sex therapist who helps him too. I loved what she had to say about the film in her interview with The Toronto Star: "For me, the take-away is this sex-positive message that I wish so badly 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds would see (in) this movieI would so want any young adult that I cared about, along with all the other (sexual) images that they're going to see, to see this." Hear, hear!

Finally, the film that provoked the strongest emotional response from me was Mr. Pip starring Hugh Laurie and Xzannjah, and directed and written by Andrew Adamson, based on the Lloyd Jones novel. I went into the movie knowing little about it but expecting the story of a schoolteacher and young girl who form a friendship based on their shared love of Great Expectations during the Papua New Guinean civil war. What I actually discovered was so much morea brutality, depth and passionate respect for truth and love that had me thinking about the film for the rest of the evening.

Now you know what I've been up to and what I'll be doing through the fall so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not around much. Don't forget to check back for my 80s music post this weekend!

The past is a foreign country: 80s toys & technology

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:32:00 +0000

So far in my blog series on the early 80s, I've written a post introducing the period and covered my favourite movies and television shows. But the 80s wouldn't have been without the 80s without the popular technology and toys of the time. With that in my mind here's a list of my favourite tech and toys from 1980-1985:

VCRs.

Before there was Netflix, before DVDs and even before Blockbuster Video was born (the first store opened in Dallax, Texas in late 1985) VCRs were making their way into homes and changing the way people watched movies and television. The two big formats at the time were Betamax (considered the superior technology) and VHS (the format that won the war despite Betamax's better quality). My family were late-ish in acquiring our first VCR in 1986, but even beforehand we rented machines or occasionally borrowed them from my dad's school over the weekends. The summer I was fourteen we rented a top loading VHS VCR along with the Duran Duran video album and a couple of movies while away at the cottage for a couple of weeks. I was so excited at the thrill of being able to repeatedly watch even the most obscure Duran Duran videos, that it's a wonder my head didn't explode and burn down the cottage. Watching what you wanted exactly when you wanted to watch it was revolutionary and when our own VCR arrived a couple of years later it was pretty awesome to be able to tape General Hospital, Late Night with David Letterman

Merlin

In 1980 and 81 (possibly even 1982!) I was pretty much inseparable from my Merlin, a handheld device the size of a mutant phone that contained 6 different games. I can't imagine how many batteries I must've gone through or remember whatever happened to my Merlin, but I'd love to stumble across one of these again and see if I still remember how to play the tune Molly Malone on it in electronic chirps.

Rubik's Cube

You knew that was coming, right? I think everyone who lived through this period probably had a Rubik's cube in their hands at some time during the early 80s. Its runaway popularity led to a sort of 3D handheld puzzle fad and I probably had ten different games inspired by the Rubik's Cube at one point. But the Rubik's Cube was my first and favourite. I became sort of obsessed by it and worked on it for hours at a time, until I finally figured out how to solve it. I still can't explain the process in words and don't know exactly how I can do it but a part of my brain recognizes the patterns that come up while you're shifting the cube and also knows how to turn the various sides accordingly until the six sides each show a solid colour. There was a time during the early 80s when I could do the cube in 2 minutes but when I tried about five years ago it took much longer.

Pac-Man (arcade game)

The 80s was a hot time for arcades and before Atari really took off the best way to get your Pacman fix was to throw a quarter in the machine. This and Burgertime were my favourite arcade games of the time.

Burgertime (arcade game)

You can check out what Burgertime was like at Shockingly Fun! Games. And if you ask me what I found so compelling about a game centering on a tiny chef who must assemble burgers by walking the length of buns, meat patties, tomatoes, etc.), while being hunted by an egg, hot dog and pickle, I confess that I have no idea, but then, most arcade games didn't make much sense! Better not to apply logic to them.

MTV

You may wonder if I should've stuck this under TV shows but the idea of a channel dedicated solely to pop music felt like a technological breakthrough too. As did the newly popular artistic medium of music videos and their role in selling music.

MuchMusic (1984 and onwards)

Canada's very own version of MuchMusic hit airwaves in the summer of 1984. After the free trial of the channel was over my main birthday gift the following December was a subscription to MuchMusic.

Atari

The first mainstream videogame console! Obviously the thrill wasn't dependent on cool graphics. Those didn't exist yet. So the sense of fun in Atari games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Pitfall! and Missile Command was more along the lines of what you'd experience playing something like pinball. You can see a list of top-selling Atari Games here. I never played RiverRaid or Atlantis but most of the other titles are familiar and I can't tell you exactly how many times I saved E.T. by sending him home during the early 80s but for awhile saving E.T. was kinda one of my hobbies.

Smurfs

The Smurf craze was at its height when I was in seventh grade. All us Smurf fans taking part would bring our Smurf collections ins and sit them on our desks and, no, the teachers didn't tell us to put them away. I was much less a fan of the show than I was of collecting the toy smurfs but I watched them on TV too and although there was seemingly only one female SmurfSmurfetteI actually had several female smurfs. I believe my Smurf collection still exists, intact but well-worn, in a box somewhere in my storage locker.

Sony Walkman

As a music format, tapes sucked they'd get tangled up and warped if you listened to them too many times (as a result I had to throw out most of the favourite albums that I'd purchase on tape from this time). But the coolest thing about tapes was that they allowed you to carry your music with you. Portability! From the moment I got a Walkman my favourite music went everywhere with me (Goodbye, Merlin). Bliss!

Just one more eighties post left. Drop back in next week and read my fav music from 1980-85 entry.

The past is a foreign country: 80s Movies

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Before I get down to my movie list I wanted to shout a quick but loud hurray! Yesterday is YA Reads Book of the Month. Head on over to read their review. I'll also be guest blogging there during the month.

Continuing on with my 80s series (see previous posts on 80s TV and intro to the 80s) today I want to focus on my favourite movies from the first half of the decade. My family bought their first VCR in 1986 and while we were fairly late in getting a machine there were plenty of other people who didn't have a videocassette recorder until then either. In the early 80s people usually watched movies in a theatre or on TV (full of commercials and usually quite awhile after a movie would've finished its theatre run). Theatre runs were also longer than they are today, probably because there was less competition from other types of entertainment which had yet to develop (videogames were in their infancy, the Internet as we know it today wouldn't be born for years to come and in Canada dedicated movie channels were brand new and had few subscribers in the early 80s).

For the first few years of the decade one of my major problems in movie-going was getting the box office clerk to sell me a ticket for movies with an AA rating while I was underage. The Canadian rating meant adult accompaniment was required for viewers under the age of 14 and was usually applied to PG-13 type material. In grades 7 and 8 I was the youngest of my friends but also the tallest and as the majority of the movies we wanted to see fell under the AA rating we'd generally slather on the makeup and try to appear as blasé as possible while approaching the ticket counter. Mostly it worked and like millions of other Canadian kids I saw oodles of AA rated movies well before I turned 14. However, some of the movies listed below I caught up with when they were shown on TV, when our VCR showed up on the scene or when my parents subscribed to the movie channel. You'll see from a few of the groupings I've done here that my top twenty list is a bit of a cheat and even with the groupings comes in at 24. But hey, there were so many movies I loved during that period that making a true top twenty list was pretty impossible. It's also important to note that this is time capsule type listthe movies from the period I would'e called my favourite then, but not necessarily now.

Top 20 + personal film favs from 1980-1985 in no particular order:

E.T. (1982, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore) This is a movie that totally wears its heart on its sleeve. I went to see the tale of a lost, Reese's Pieces loving alien at the theatre numerous times when it was originally released and I cried at E.T.'s demise on every occasion.

Gorky Park (1983, directed by Michael Apted, starring William Hurt, Joanna Pacula, Brian Dennehy, Lee Marvin and Ian Bannen) /The Big Chill (1983, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, starring William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Jeff Goldblum, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams and Tom Berenger)/Body Heat (1981, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner)/Altered States (1980, directed by Ken Russell, starring William Hurt and Blair Brown). You can see by this William Hurt grouping I was a big fan and if Children of a Lesser God had been made a year earlier I would've squeezed it in here too. In Gorky Park Hurt plays a Moscow police detective investigating a triple homicide. The Big Chill centres on a large group of college friends reunited for the weekend by the death of one of their friends. Body Heat sees Hurt paired with Kathleen Turner who wants him to murder her husband. The film was considered super hot in its day. Altered States, where Hurt plays a scientist conducting experiments that cause him to regress genetically was every bit as trippy as Body Heat was sexy. But personally I like it best when Hurt plays angst which puts Gorky Park at the head of the pack.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen). Snakes, Nazi bad guys, the Ark of the Covenant and Harrison Ford as our archeologist hero, but then, I don't really need to tell you about this movie, do I? In my opinion it remains one of the best adventure films ever made.

After Hours (1985, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr and John Heard). Griffin Dunne plays a word-processor unlucky enough to run into Rosanne Arquette in a coffee shop one evening. Soon he's having the worst night of his life in an after-hours New York not unlike an adult version of Alice's 'Wonderland.'

Blade Runner (1982, directed by Ridley Scott, Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young). It's bizarre to think this wasn't the runaway hit it should've been (a victim of bad timing, it seems, as it was released the week after E.T.) but this sci-fi thriller only looks and feels better as time goes by. Rutger Hauer, as the replicant Roy is mesmirizing, but then so is everyone in this movie, which carries with it an aura as thick as smoke but cool as granite. I'm dying to see what Ridley Scott does with the coming sequel.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980, directed by Irvin Kershner, starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher)/Return of the Jedi (1983, directed by Richard Marquand starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher) My favourite Star Wars movie remains The Empire Strikes Back. Ending on that dark note, with victory uncertain, left us all wanting more. But who can frown at celebrating Ewoks? So I couldn't leave Jedi off the list.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982, directed by Amy Heckerling, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates). Most 80s teen movies were so gentle that this one about a group of California young people seems comparatively hard-edged and realistic. Sean Penn is highly entertaining as stoner Jeff Spicoli but it's Jennifer Jason Leigh's naturalistic performance that you can't take your eyes off.

Letter to Brezhnev (1985, directed by Chris Bernard, starring Peter Firth, Tracy Marshak-Nash and Alfred Molina). Endearing British romantic comedy about a working class girl who falls in love with a Soviet sailer during his one night in Liverpool. Unable to forget him she writes to Soviet leader Brezhnev asking for help in allowing them to be together.

Poltergeist (1982, directed by Tobe Hooper, starring Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams and Heather O'Rourke). I first went to see this film about a family terrorized by ghosts with my own family while we were visiting California and I couldn't stop thinking about the tree behind my bedroom while lying in bed that night. And who would ever give a kid a toy clown? That's just cruel. They're creepy as hell.

This is Spinal Tap (1984, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer). Mock documentary about a hard rock band that inspires genuine fondness for the characters while offering up classic "this one goes to eleven" moments.

The Breakfast Club (1985, directed by John Hughes, starring Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall). If, like me, you were a teenager in the 80s there's ZERO possibility you haven't see The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. But The Breakfast Club remains the best of the bunch. The five stereotypes the film throws together for morning detention may not have been as clearcut in real life but they're not total fabrications either.

Restless Natives (1985, directed by Michael Hoffman, starring Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney). Two Scottish friends commit colourful, non-violent hold ups of tourist coaches in the highlands and become folk heroes and tourist attractions in the process. Loveable and highly entertaining.

Reckless (1984, directed by James Foley, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah)/Desperately Seeking Susan (1985, directed by Susan Seidelman, starring Rosanna Arquette, Madonna and Aidan Quinn). The Aidan Quinn grouping! I actually did an entire blog entry on Reckless in August 09) but if you want the short version it's this: High school student Tracy (Darly Hannah) falls for Rourke (Quinn) a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. Desperately Seeking Susan sees a married suburban woman (Arquette) falling into Susan's (played by Madonna) crazy life when a conk on the head gives her amnesia. Lucky for Arquette, Madonna's life comes with an attachment to cool projectionist Dez (Quinn).

Until September (1984, directed by Richard Marquand, starring Karen Allen and Thierry Lhermitte). I haven't seen this film in yonks but at the time found the romance between exceptionally blue eyed but married Frenchman Thierry and loveable but single Karen Allen extremely charming. I'm kinda surprised they haven't remade it yet.

The Terminator (1984, directed by James Cameron, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn). With all the sequels its spawned the Terminator plot needs no explanation. While this first film now feels dated it's still a damn cool idea and the spark between Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn feels genuine. The romance is my favourite aspect of this movie.

Legend (1985, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara and Tim Curry). It's been so long since I've seen Legend that I'm damned if I can remember what it was about. Some fantasy whimsy about a demons, a unicorn and a fairy princess. It had a terrific vibe about it.

Little Darlings (1980, directed byRonald F. Maxwell, starring Kristy McNichol, Tatum O'Neal and Matt Dillon). Fifteen-year-olds Kirsty McNichol and Tatum O'Neal compete to lose their virginity first while at summer camp and end up feeling differently about it than they expected. What impressed me watching this as a young person was that it didn't feel as if the movie was being didactive, although it definitely has a message. Neither was it sensationlist.

The Company of Wolves (1984, directed by Neil Jordan, starring Angela Lansbury and David Warner). These interwoven tales of wolves are a visual feast and delightfully heaven on atmosphere.

Heaven Help Us (1985, directed by Michael Dinner, starring Andrew McCarthy, John Heard, Mary Stuart Masterson and Donald Sutherland)/St. Elmo's Fire (1985, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham/ Class (1983, directed by, starring Rob Lowe, Jacqueline Bisset and Andrew McCarthy). The Andrew MCarthy grouping. Like with William Hurt, I prefer Andrew McCarthy when he's playing angsty which he does frequently in these movies about 1) a boy's prep school 2) a group of fresh-out-of-college friends and 3) an innocent prep school boy who falls into an affair with a sophisticated older woman who just happens to be his roommate's mother.

Romancing the Stone (1984, directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner) The chemistry between the two leads makes this picture about a romance writer drawn to Columbia where she meets rough around the edges Douglas. Pure fluff, but plenty enjoyable.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984, directed by W.D. Richter, starring Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin and Jeff Goldblum)/Firstborn (1984, directed by Michael Apted, starring Peter Weller, Teri Garr, Christopher Collet and Cory Haim)/Of Unknown Origin (1983, directed by George P. Cosmatos, starring Peter Weller and Jennifer Dale)/Shoot the Moon (1982, directed by Alan Parker, starring Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, Karen Allen, Peter Weller). The Peter Weller group! These three films have nothing in common aside from Weller's coolness. He's at his coolest as Buckaroo Banzai, an almost Doctor Who like figure that battles evil alien invaders. In Of Unknown Origin he fights a different foe, rats that infest his townhouse. But in Firstborn it's Weller who's the bad guy, dragging Teri Garr into a destructive lifestyle and forcing her young son to take action.

The World According to Garp (1982, directed by George Roy Hill, starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close, Mary Beth Hurt and John Lithgow). My first introduction to John Irving's writing was via this film where Robin Williams offers a wonderful performance as the gentle but flawed Garp, son of one-of-a-kind nurse Jenny. The World According to Garp has such a warmth and perceptiveness about people that I couldn't grasp in its entirety when I first saw the movie, being as young as I was. But I knew enough to know I loved it.

White Nights (1985, directed by Taylor Hackford, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Isabella Rossellini and Helen Mirren). When a plane mulfunction lands expat Russian dancer Baryshnikov back in the Soviet Union he plots an escape, watched over by Gregory Hines, an American tap dancer who defected to Russia years earlier. The dance scenes make the movie.

The Sure Thing (1985, directed by Rob Reiner, starring John Cusack. Daphne Zuniga, Anthony Ewards & Nicollette Sheridan). Sort of an 80s remake of classic screwball comedy It Happened One Night with opposites Cusack and Zuniga finding themselves on a college road trip together. The chemistry works and it's a very gentle comedy with Cusack at the height of his boyish charm.

Other notable movies from 1980-85:

Gandhi (1982), Back to the Future (1985), Witness (1985), The Right Stuff (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), The Road Warrior (1981), Tron (1982), Footloose (1984), Flashdance (1983), Fame (1980), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Gremlins (1984), Time Bandits (1981) Superman II (1980), War Games (1984), Excalibur (1981), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Blue Lagoon (1980), The Shining (1980), National Lampoons Vacation (1983), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Amadeus (1984), The Color Purple (1985), Ordinary People (1980), Tootise (1982), The Killing Fields (1984), Out of Africa (1985), Scarface (1983), The Outsiders (1983), Gregory's Girl (1981), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), A Christmas Story (1983), Ladyhawke (1985), My Bodyguard (1980), Starman (1984)

Yesterday Blog Tour

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Many thanks to Lindsey over at Random House Canada for assembling the upcoming Yesterday blog tour! Also BIG thanks to the terrific Canadian bloggers taking part for their cool guest blog ideas and questions. Here's the final tour schedule:

Diary of a Bookworm	September 23
Just a lil' Lost	September 24
Mermaid Visions	September 25
Evie Bookish	September 26
Midnight Bloom Reads	September 27
Book Nerd	September 28

I hope you'll drop by one of the stops and say hello. I'll be the tall woman in Doc Martens nursing a Coca-Cola.

About a week ago I received my first hardcover copy of Yesterday and it's so stunning that I can still hardly believe, whenever I lay eyes on it, that it's not some cool sci-film directed by Sofia Coppola (I know she hasn't directed a sci-fi movie yet but I can always dream an adaptation of my book will be the one!) but my very own novel. Thank you, Nicole De Las Heras, for this this beautiful looking book!

With the release right around the corner, on September 25th, I was inspired to re-design the website to match up with the novel and create double-sided (because My Beating Teenage Heart has it's paperback release on the same day) bookmarks to be used in giveaways and stuff. Also because, let's face it, I have way too much fun designing this stuff to consider NOT doing it.

As for my next blog post here, that will be posted early next week and I'll be talking about my favourite movies from the early 80s. The following post will cover technology and toys from the 80s and I'm saving favourite music for last but here's a peekSuch A Shame, from Talk Talk's second album, It's My Life (1984).

To this day I regret never seeing Talk Talk play live and I'm still pretty much convinced from here to 2063 that there was no one cooler in the 80s than Talk Talk lead singer Mark Hollis.

The past is a foreign country: 80s TV

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:46:00 +0000

First, if you want a chance to win a copy of Yesterday head on over to Xpresso Reads and drop your name in the hat. Now, following on from my intro to the 80s post, it's time to delve into some of my favourite shows from the first part of the decade. This is all stuff that Freya might've run into while flicking channels (with the monster-sized corded remote that was in use at the time). Because this post is focusing on the 80s I'm leaving out all the 50s-70s repeats I would've watched in the 80s, but they made up a lot of my viewing then too (I have to admit that to this day I love watching Theodore Cleaver's antics in Leave It to Beaver).

Back then the TV environment was very different from today and most popular shows were on the three big networks ABC, CBS and NBC (Fox didn't launch until fall 1986). Plus, in the pre-Internet days and with VCRs only beginning to gain popularity (my family didn't get one until 1986) you had to watch your favourite show in its regular timeslot. Here are my most-loved shows from 1980-1985, in no particular order, with some notes on each.

Simon and Simon (weekly primetime show)

Sort of like a detective version of The Odd Couple but featuring two brothers who run a detective agency together (also sort of like Supernatural without the demons!). Rick was the freewheeling one with the cowboy hat and A.J. was his strait-laced younger brother. So big a fan of the show was I that I wrote the program asking for a signed photo and actors Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker obliged. While I quite liked them both I had a definite JP crush at the time.

City Limits (Fridays & Saturdays from around 12:30 to dawn)

Only Canadians of a certain age will remember this classic video show hosted by Chris Ward. It ran for about five hours through the night, and starting at around fifteen years old I would park myself in front of City Limits for as many hours as I could keep my eyes open. This was pre-MuchMusic, which started in the summer of 1984, so at the time City Limits was the closest thing we had to MTV but also somehow cooler because its late timeslot made it seem almost like a secret. Broadcaster and songwriter Christopher Ward hosted and City Limits is where Mike Myers character Wayne Campbell first appeared. Mike used to drop by City Limits as his alter ego. Sadly I couldn't find one existing clip of the show to link to or embed.

Three's Company (weekly primetime show)

Remake of British sitcom Man about the House. Premise: Aspiring chef Jack Tripper pretends to be gay so his uptight landlord won't mind him living with two cute women his own age. Silly as that sounds (although most sitcoms sound pretty silly anyway!) John Ritter's easy charm made the show loveable.

The Equalizer (weekly primetime show)

Edward Woodward has such a steely vibe that he was perfectly believable as Robert McCall a retired intelligence officer who has turned to directly helping civilians for free. I see this as an ancestor of today's Person of Interest. They're even both set in New York.

Late Night with David Letterman (Mondays to Thursdays from 12:30 - 1:30)

The first time I saw Letterman I was sleeping over at a friend's house and her older sister happened to be a fan. When Late Night began in 82 it was way past my bedtime so it wasn't until I was about fifteen that I was able to catch it myself and even then it was somewhat of a rarity (my school insisted on starting in the morning!) but for several years whenever I was in a crappy mood just tuning in to Late Night would set me right. It was funny in a way that I'd never seen before at the time, as well as being another show that almost felt like a secret by virtue of its timeslot. Check out this clip of rival:

Family Ties (weekly primetime show)

This family oriented sitcom ran from 1982-1989. A left-wing couple bring up their ultra-conservative son (played by Michael J. Fox) alongside their two daughters. Mostly the show was played for laughs but it had its serious side, tackling issues like drug abuse, racism, alcoholism and suicide.

General Hospital (Monday - Friday, 3-4PM)

One of my favourite General Hospital storylines included secret agent Robert Scorpio and an arch-villain's evil plot to build a weather machine capable of creating something called "carbonic snow" which could be used to freeze the world (I swear I'm not making this up! It was an actual GH plot in '81). Here Scorpio finds kidnapped love interest Holly.

But I started watching around about the time of Luke and Laura's romance and was just as entranced by it as everyone else. Now I'm appalled that show ever developed a romance between the two considering Luke had actually raped Laura two years earlier. Disturbing, harmful and incredibly insensitive - this is exactly the kind of attitude that fuels rape.

You can hear the Luke character admit his crime to his sister, Bobbie, here:

Kate & Allie (weekly primetime show)

Two divorced long-time friends move share a house and raise their kids together which seemed like somewhat of a novel arrangement at the time. Divorce really only became common in North America during the 70s and 80s. I confess I barely remember any specifics about the show, except that the characters were likeable.

St. Elsewhere (weekly primetime show)

My mom and I were totally devoted to this angsty medical drama that ran from 82 - 88. It was both realistic and emotional in a way which most 80s shows just weren't, and featured a strong cast including Denzel Washington, Bruce Greenwood, David Morse, Mark Harmon and Ed Begley Jr. No surprise that later my mom and I both became devotees of E.R. too! My heart still melts a little at the sound of the St. Elsewhere opening credits tune.

The New Music (weekly show, Saturday night?)

Canadian cutting edge magazine style show about music that started in 1979 and was eventually incorporated into MuchMusic in what evolved into a less interesting tone and format. In the 80s I considered host Daniel Richler the epitome of cool (I even list him as one of my heroes in the school yearbook). I still have his autograph somewhere along with 1985's anti-drug slogan: "Stay alive in 85". Below you can see him interview the band Cabaret Voltaire around the 1:12 mark:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 14:36:00 +0000

To celebrate Yesterday's release, in the run-up to September 25th I'll be blogging about the early 80s (1980-1985). Just like Yesterday's main character, Freya, I was sixteen in 1985 and if you were a teenager then too, these blog entries will be a trip down memory lane, back to the days of new wave music and the glory of Atari. If you weren't around for the early 80s, welcome to the time before cell phones you could fit in your pocket and the Internet as we know it today! This first post is an introduction to the period and will give you an idea (or remind you) what was happing culturally and politically during that time. Ready? Let's get started.

1980

* The arcade game PacMan is released in Japan in May and then in October in the U.S.A. sparking PacMan mania in 1981.
* John Lennon is assassinated in New York City.
* Ted Turner establishes CNN, the first all news TV service.
* The Rubik's Cube gains worldwide popularity.
* The world population is 4,434,682,000.
* In 1980 the average new house in the U.S. costs $68,714., the average U.S. income per year is $19,170 and a gallon of gas costs $1.19.
* Terry Fox launches his Marathon of Hope, a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer research.

1981

* An assassination attempt is made on U.S. President Reagan.
* AIDS is first recognized by the CDC: five men in Los Angeles have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems.
* IBM introduces Personal Computers (PC).
* After fourteen months, fifty-two American hostages are released, ending the Iran hostage crisis, within minutes of Ronald Reagan succeeding Jimmy Carter as the President of the United States.
* Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer are married at St Paul's Cathedral in London drawing a global TV audience of over 700 million people.
* On August 1st the 24 hour a day music television station MTV is launched on cable television in the U.S.
* The first launch of a space shuttle (Columbia) occurs.
* Luke and Laura get married on TV soap General Hospital. Their wedding becomes the second most watched in history.

1982

* Argentina invades the Falkland Islands.
* Michael Jackson releases Thriller which sells 20 million copies making it the largest selling album up to that time.
* The Vietnam War Memorial opens in Washington, DC.
* Prince William is born in West London.
* Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player.
* The Commodore 64 PC is released.
* Time Magazine names the computer its man of the year.
* The first artificial heart transplant takes place, the receipent lives 112 days.
* The Toyota Camry is introduced.

1983

* The popularity of Cabbage Patch Kids causes a Christmas shopping frenzy in the U.S.
* Camcorders are introduced.
* President Reagan announces a defense intiative to intercept enemy missiles, a plan which becomes popularly known as "Star Wars."
* The first flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger occurs in April. Several months later Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
* A Provisional IRA bomb kills 6 Christmas shoppers and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.
* McDonald's introduces the McNugget.

1984

* The PG-13 Movie rating is created.
* The Apple Macintosh is introduced and swells the ranks of new computer users.
* The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
* Stonewashed jeans are introduced.
* Famine in Ethiopia begins, killing a million people by the end of the year.
* Crack, a smokeable form of cocaine, is first introduced in the LA area and soon spreads across the U.S.
* Canadian Music TV station MuchMusic launches on August 31.
* Novelist William Gibson coins the term cyberspace in his book Neuromancer.

1985

* Continuing famine in Ethiopia prompts the Live Aid Rock Concerts in London and Philadelphia which raise over $600M for famine relief.
* The Hole in the ozone layer, first detected in 1977, is now indisputable.
* Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the last president of the Soviet Union.
* New Coke hits the Market, flops and is quickly replaced with Coke Classic ( the original formula).
* The wreck of the Titanic is discovered.
* The first Nintendo home entertainment system is introduced.
* Leaded gas is officially banned in the US.

And that, in a nutshell, was the first half of the 80's, the backdrop of events against which we all lived our lives from 1980 - 1985. Next time I'll be talking about my personal favourite TV shows from the period. Future posts will also cover music, movies and favourite technology/toys from the era. In the meantime, if you need more 80s in a hurry check out my post on my blast from the past vacation in 1981. Don't miss the photos!

My Beating Teenage Heart: child of the universe edition

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:01:00 +0000

I've seldom been so happy to see the back of a summer month as I was when August hit. July outright sucked on multiple levels. But so far August has been a breath of fresh air (thank you, universe!)and not just because our air conditioning was finally, finally fixed after twenty-seven days. So many things started to look up after July bit the dust that I thought there must have been some major astrological shift going on in my chart (not that I really believe in that, but sometimes you have to wonder...).

Anyway, with the release of Yesterday just around the corner I plan to do some blogging about the 80s in August and Septembermusic, technology, movies and TV, that sort of thing. I was sixteen in 1985 like Yesterday's main character, Freya, and there are times I wish I could go back for a visit and see how close some my rose-coloured glasses memories of the place are to the truth.

I also want to celebrate the same-day (September 25th) paperback release of My Beating Teenage Heart. You may remember that the hardcover looked like this:

Pretty creepy and atmospheric. The main thing the paperback cover has in common with its predecessor is that there's a a close-up of the girl on the cover. But the vibe of it is markedly different, I think. The paperback screams child of the universe which is pretty damn cool. And though I'm not one for faces on covers (I much prefer to imagine what a character looks like) I think this, thankfully, still leaves much of Ashlyn's appearance to imagination. I love its vibrancy.

Before last September's hardcover release of My Beating Teenage Heart I wrote a brief essay for Amazon which somehow got lost in the shuffle and was never posted, but that I'd like to share with you now:

The kind of books I love to write are solidly rooted in reality, books that focus on ordinary young people living ordinary lives but who are at a point in their lives where whatever is happening to them feels anything but ordinary. They've lost their best friend because of a line that's been crossed. They've been the victim of violence and as a result have lost their sense of trust and well-being. They've fallen in love but have been unable to hold on to it. None of these things are unusual experiences, but they matter; people's emotional lives matter. We're not just the things we do or the things that happen to uswe're how we feel about those things.

When it came to writing My Beating Teenage Heart, I wanted to write the sort of book I've described above. But after penning many YA manuscripts that were strictly contemporary in nature (three of which have already seen the light of day), I also wanted to try something a little different.

So I wrote a story about two teenage characters, Breckon and Ashlyn, whose lives are intertwined, although they don't actually know each other. Breckon is grieving the death of his younger sister and holds himself responsible for her death to the extent that it's tearing him apart inside. Meanwhile, Ashlyn, when she becomes aware of her own existence, is a consciousness without a body, at first falling through a sea of stars and then completely tethered to a boy who is oblivious to her presence. Ashlyn sees everything Breckon does. She becomes his constant witness and has no idea why. In fact, she has only the most basic inkling of who she is and initially she wants nothing more than to be free of Breckon and his anguish.

I approached My Beating Teenage Heart as though it were based in reality, the same way I did with my previous books. While the situation is out of the ordinary (at least as far as our understanding of life goes), at heart it's very much the story of two teenagers' emotional lives. I hope reading the details of Breckon and Ashlyn's story makes you care about how they feel about things they've done and the things that have happened to themthat would mean I've done right by them.

Summer Hot & Cold

noreply@blogger.com (C.K.) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:20:00 +0000

As you may or may not have noticed it's been awhile since I've been on the blog. It's been a hell of a summer and not in a good way. The Dublin/London vacation was terrific but before and after, not so much. There've been several personal things going on behind the scenes that have made life trying, and a couple of less personal things that have thrown my schedule entirely out of whack. One of the main issues is that we've been without working air conditioning for over three weeks at this point. If we had a house we'd no doubt be spending most of our time hanging out in the basement where it'd be cooler but since we live in an apartment that soaks up the sun like a sponge there's not much coolness to be found!

Did you know that even turning on lights and running fans sends the temperature up a degree or two? As a result we've been doing a lot of flapping around in the dark like bats, which isn't actually as entertaining as the new Batman movie (I know this because I went to see it yesterday and loved it), but I digress.

Seventeen short months ago, in February 2011, our old heat pump/AC unit bit the dust and was replaced so to be dealing with a complete breakdown so soon again is no fun. In fact, the lack of air conditioning in a July heatwave is significantly less fun than the lack of heating in February because, like I said, this place sucks in and retains warmth like nobody's business. I mean, if holding on to heat were an Olympic sport my apartment would be in the running for a gold medal.

We now have a portable unit cooling the bedroom but the rest of the place gets pretty darn sweaty by early afternoon and cooking is a thing of the past. First thing every morning and last thing every night, when the outside air is finally fresher, we try to cool the apartment down as much as possible because God knows how roasting it would get in here otherwise. We've also been spending as much time out of the apartment as possible—at the movies, the mall, the library, my parents' respective houses etc. Needless to say I'm not getting a heck of a lot done and I still don't know when the heat pump/AC unit will be fixed. The company that handles the manufacturer's warranty have hauled it off to the shop to get to the heart of the problem and in the meantime it's continually degrees of toasty and ick.

Now, how one picks up a cold (or whatever exactly it is that I have) in the middle of such a warm July, I don't know, but I've somehow managed to accomplish it. For almost two weeks I've been slinking around my icky hot apartment (plus the mall, the movies, etc.) with tissues and lozenges, coughing and sneezing miserably.

While it's too late to make a long story short I will say that this summer has been rotten. So personally, I would like to be granted a do-over for the season. Or, to wake up tomorrow and for it to be September 1st. I don't know who I have to apply to in order to accomplish this but if you have the name of someone who can swing it, please forward me their contact details ASAP.

Yours in sickness and humidity,

C.K.