Lit Party

October the last, 2013.  So I decide I’m going.  I must go, must present, must be my own unpublished brand.  Writing stinks when you can’t make a go of it.  You feel lousy, like a loser.  It’s sad.  Success is for other people.  But go to the party.  Free food.  Stand around with published Penguin Random House writers.  People will wonder who you are and they’ll be right, all right.  You’re no one they know because you’re not one of them.  You’re a spy.  A spy from nowhere bringing nothing.  It’s tiresome, but go anyway.

I go.  I walk down.  I can’t sit here like a wet bar stool with my 20+ rejections.  It’s ‘The Sandbar’ on Granville Island.  I go upstairs and see Trish, who sent me the invitation.  The Penguin Random House party in conjunction with the ‘Vancouver Writers Fest’ is in the same space in the restaurant as last year’s Random House party, also hosted by Trish.  That was before Random, for whom Trish has worked for a long time, merged with Penguin to form a really, really big publishing company.  Trish has a new job title: Publicity Manager.

I remember last year.  It was so hot in that upstairs space I nearly melted.  It was all the bodies.  And there was a raging gas-fired fireplace fire making it even hotter.  I was standing next to Aleister Simpson or whatever the crap his name is and we both had our backs to that raging, unnecessary roaring gas-powered fire and I remember saying, “It’s hot in here.”  I think Aleister gmumphed or something.  Something came out of his mouth.  I had nothing else to say to him having read none of his work and with no plan to. Aleister. Aleister something.  Some writer, published a few books, damn him.  I then shook Timothy Taylor’s hand.  I hadn’t much to say to him either.  I read a story of his once I thought rather good.  I read a novel of his I loathed and not just because it enjoyed some publishing success.  I thought the novel was bull.  I hated it, cover to cover.  I remember thinking my unpublished novel of the day being much better than “Stanley Park”.  Alas, Taylor gets published, Brown not so much.  Taylor’s a player, Brown not so much.  I hate writing and all writers.  My non-career is an embarrassment.  Nevertheless I was slightly sycophantic to Taylor, as I recall.  “You’re a big strap,” I said to him.  “You write big too.”  The dude was taller than I remember from some reading I saw him at.  Plus he looked as if he’d been working out.  Bench presses, or something.  But he can’t be that cool, I remember thinking.  Drives an Autobus.  Saw him getting into it up 10th one afternoon in the supermarket parking lot.  Well, crap all these published writers.  Crap crap crap ’em.  Then later I saw Taylor talking to another real writer, what was his name?  Crap.  Can’t remember the names of these titans of Canned-adian literature.  They shake hands.  Heighton.  Steven farking Heighton.  That was it.  Two tall white guys in their dark blue tailored jackets having a jaw as I was in process of deciding to get the hay out of here that night.  These wunderkinds of Canned-adian literature.  So good.  So fine.  The word “greatness” has been attached to Taylor by some doped-up book reviewer.  Heighton is merely a “genius”.  To tell you the truth I’ve no doubt they’re good guys and were probably embarrassed by such asinine encomiums.

This year there’s fewer people and vastly fewer dark blue, tailored power jackets on male backs.  For instance, I’m not wearing one myself.  I come pretty much as I feel, which is every day-type clothing including the black, rayon pants made in Bangladesh that I’m wearing tonight, the same ones I wear to my part-time job.  I’m in disguise.  I’m an outsider.  States said this later when I told her about this.  L’Étranger.  An outsider not completely out of it, apparently, as I’m first talking to Trish, then I’m saying hello to Hal Wake, then I go over and I’m talking to Lesley Hurtig and from there, moving on to Michael Winter.

“Michael Winter.  Great to see you.  Steven Brown.  Haven’t read your latest, I’ve got a copy of ‘The Big Why’ but haven’t read it yet, but I really thought ‘This All Happened’ was terrific.  Yeah.  I was doing a thing with Martha Sharpe at the time.”

“Oh yeah, she’s great.”

We shake hands.  He’s taller than I would have imagined and speaks with a definite Newfoundlander twang.  He looks tired too, and older than images I’ve seen of him.  He’s a long way from home and doing all this book promotion stuff and Writers Festival-ing.  He introduces his companion, a lady who speaks with a European accent, possibly Czech.  I decide to pop the question.

“Michael, how do you get a novel published in this country?”

“Just keep trying.”

I’m on my way out because I have to get up early and this party didn’t start until ten p.m., but there’s John Vaillant whom I’ve met before, whether he remembers or not.

“John.  Steven Brown.  Met you a couple of times.  Once at UBC and at the Tiger event for the film festival down at Cinematheque.”  We shake hands.  I ask him about the novel I’d heard from Trish over a year ago that he was writing.

“It’s coming out next year,” he says.

“That’s great.  Looking forward to reading it and possibly writing about it.”

“Oh.”

“Do you live in town?’  I ask, kind of off the cuff.

“Yeah, not far from here.  I walked down.”

“Me too.  I’m close.”

I see Trish again.  “Thanks a lot, Trish.  Heading out.  Got an early start tomorrow.  See ya.”

Home by 11:30 p.m., and beddie-byes, just as planned.  In my mind’s eye I see Michael Winter walking over to John Vaillant after I disappeared.

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know.  What did he say his name was?”

 “I forget.  Some guy.”

September Whenever

September Something or Other, 2013.  Saturna Island.  Perfect morning.  Make coffee.  End chapter one.  Chapter two, part one.  Change light fixture.  Change broken outdoor plug cover.  Done.  End part one.  Part two.  More coffee.  Watch States sanding deck right outside my windows.  She’s doing great.  Doesn’t need my help.  We’re finishing the re-staining of the deck begun last September.  You have to do things in stages because you’re not here all the time.  Months go by.  Magnificent job, States.  Magnificent job.  She’ll have it done and I won’t have moved a muscle.  Thas grand.

All calm this morning.  Sunlight through the pines and firs.  The trees.  Through all that forest green.  Fell down drunk last night.  Didn’t take much.  Sometimes even one shot of bourbon is enough.  Don’t mention  a shot and a half.  Was up since 4:00 a.m. so feel the whole experience worth it although in my downfall I scratched my right ankle on a broom stump.  You know.  Broom.  That invasive species from Scotland some twit planted in these isles a century ago.  We’re hacking it back.IMAG1030

Beans are ready, States’ time-honoured baked beans.  Need to seriously think about eggs here.  What we do is we dig a hole in the beans in the shallow pan, like a frying pan?  Crack the egg and it goes in the hole and cooks and then you eat the beans and eggs.  Usually, in fact always, it’s two eggs apiece.  Those and of course the beans and a glass of juice or milk and maybe a slice of toast and you can certainly say you’ve had breakfast here today.

The deck.  Stuff is easy enough to slop on but you’re either on your knees or bent over double plus under the burning rays of the sun and this is work.  I’m sweating and groaning but we get it done..  I put a little Willie Dixon on and take a break.  It’s 1:57 in the afternoon.  Not sure what happens now.  Maybe a bit of a look at the distilled spirits course material.  Can’t seem to get over as a novelist, moving on to distilled spirits.  Simply put it’s wait things out until “Frailty” comes together, my next benighted novel, and try to make a little extra dough as a spirits consultant.  Or I could start reading Douglas Coupland, whoever he is, as I’m apparently reviewing his new novel for some newspaper.

     Done.  Jerez Brandy.  Solera system.  Pot still.  Continuous still.  Pomme William.  Calvados.  Fundador, señor.  Can’t find the special n with the little squiggle on top in the “Symbol” file.  This is messed up.  Why isn’t it here?  And what the fright is it called, moreover.  It’s called a “tilde”.  Found it, not in “Advanced” but in the “Symbol Gallery”, as it’s called.  Johnny Tilde.  So.  Versus the Saturna Mouse.  Peromyskis Maniculatus Saturatus.  Not to be confused with Peromyskis Maniculatus Vancouverensis.  Let’s keep it straight, guys.  Let’s stay on stream and find a way. More about the indigenous mouse later, if ever.

     Tonight’s poetry break is brought to you by Sico products and Al Stewart.  “The windows are crying, the sun is shining, and the dazzle.  The wasp cannot figure out the window.  He’s young and old at the same time and his back is bent.  Looks like he hasn’t the strength, mate.  Looks like as it turns out you’re just another bug in the room.  Buzzing around looking, waiting, to kill or be killed.  Look at him/her/it.  Poor little thing.  It’s going high but that isn’t going to be good enough.  Okay okay, a little buzzing.  Expected.  Expected…  Okay wow.  Holy wow.  Just flew out of here!  Yes!  Gained my freedom!  Buzz buzz, I’m gone.  I’ve disappeared!  Yay!”

     Chapter lucky 7.  “Bugs are crawling up my old route.  Could we look at it at six?  It seems we have rather a lot of catching up to do.  Turning ‘I forgot the rest.’  Stuck here on this narrow ledge.  Thanks a lot.  And I really mean that, son.  Thans a lot.  The mayhem went well.  Thanks for not being here, and I mean that.  Appreciate it a lot.  Okay.

September 13, 2013.  Friday morning fog.  10 a.m.  We’ve even got the fire going.  The wood is well seasoned now and burns well.  Fire burning.  Out of nowhere the Juncos came.  Looking for seed but we have it not.  We have coffee, but they’re all coffeed out.  Bouncing around with a Kinglet or two it seems, as if that were possible.  The flight flies off.

Breakfast of bangers and hash browns and old cassettes from the 80s and 90s.  The un-recapturable past.  Or is it unrecapturable?  In the woods you decide.  It’s your program out here.  Things will not always be as they have been.  But the old honeysuckle vines will be everywhere, as they have been.  States:  “Sure is a lot of wood around here.  You wouldn’t want anybody playing with matches.  Dad liked the honeysuckle because his mother used to have it in the garden.”

Noon and it’s still foggy.

4 p.m. and the sun is out.  We drive to the store for a few provisions.  Going down the hill from the store homeward bound we pick up a hitchhiker.  His name is Cameron, he’s a fairly elderly islander, and we give him a ride to his place on Sunset Boulevard.  He has two Siamese cats.  “Nootka” is in the driveway and is a friendly feline.  “Neptune” is about somewhere but doesn’t come hither as States pets Nootka in the driveway a few moments.  Cameron had a slightly gamey odour coming off him from his position in the back seat for the short ride.  Gamey and perhaps an undercurrent of alcohol.  Well, what else is there to do on this pokey island?  But the guy’s got two Schmeezers.  He’s gotta be all right.  It was foggy around Sunset Boulevard too, he said, but it burned off hours earlier.

     Found some fresh-looking pieces of frozen spring salmon swimming in the freezer at the store and opted to grab a couple for tonight’s repast.  All right then.  States is improving the water catchment flow to the barrels on the east side.  Brought some “elbows” and strapping and screws from town.  We use rain water around here for everything but drinking.  When it comes to drinking it’s bottled water, wine, beer, scotch or, a-hem, bourbon.  Okay then.

 September 15.  Don’t know what happened to September 14.  Lost in the fog, seems like.  Foggy fog all around here now at nine o’clock in the morning.  Fog and gossamer and dew drop in.  Lots of fog horns last night.

September 17, 2013.  Don’t know what happened to September 16.  Heard something drop away and when I turned to look—gone.  Rose at ten.  Did dishes, which seems to be the ritual around here.  Do the dinner dishes in the morning because why bother with them after dinner?  Works well.  Plenty of water in the tanks and we heat it in the big and bigger kettle on the stove.  The stove is old and in need of replacement and we hope to do that by the end of this year.  New stove.  New fridge.  Just a general round of new appliances all around.  Would you like a couple for yourself?

     Septic tank.  Need to have another look.  Right after lunch, not before.  Septic tank and the realization that your literary ambits are not being fulfilled.  It seems a cruel parody, Mesdames et Messieurs, of a fruitful something of a career instead of this agonizing non-entity.  Be that as it may, mates, I step outside to pick some lint and hair off my old MEC lightweight fleece top and hear this scrabbling on the east side of the deck around the corner.  I look and see this hairy thing approaching me at a waddle.  It is a semi-elderly marauding black and bit of white Corgi dog.  Yes.  A Corgi or corgi has chosen to visit us and we know not from whence he came.  As far as we can tell he is a male.  He is very friendly.  He waddles around the deck.  Even takes a look inside the house.  Occasionally, however, he gets into fits of barking.

Later. He’s already been here an hour and shows no signs of leaving.  For a while we thought he might be trying to tell us something, but he is not trying to lead us anywhere as in the old Lassie/Rin Tin Tin/Littlest Hobo.  He’s content to just lie around.  He spends a long time lying out by the car having a little siesta, but now we’re taking off so it is presumed, once we’ve gone away, that he will return to his own environs.  Mystery corgi.  We’re callin him “Corgi”.

He comes down the path again and has some of the water we put out in a bowl for him.  He’s barking again.  Maybe he’s trying to communicate to his handlers, who can’t be all that far away, that there’s people here, and usually when he stops by there’s no one here, so it’s a change for him and not only for him, but for us as well.  We can hear a drill or something coming from not too far away, to the East, I think, and perhaps it’s the driller’s Corgi.  There’s just no way of being sure right now.  We’ll try not to run him over as we leave down the driveway, if he follows us to the car.  He moves pretty slowly and seems a bit arthritic.

We left Corgi in the driveway and drove to the store.  He was obviously used to going for car rides because he very definitely wanted to come with us.  He was eager.  I stayed with him as States drove to the road.  We didn’t want any squashed, arthritic Corgis besplattering our leafy parking area and driveway.  I got in the car at the road and Corgi was making his way towards us.  We drove off and could see him in the rearview mirror standing in the middle of the road watching us disappear.

     At the store we talked to a couple of people and Corgi’s name appears to be “Reggie” and he’s owned by the Janzens.  If Harvey Janzen was in the area doing a job he may have had Reggie with him and Reggie matches the description of the kind of lost seeming Corgi we felt kind of sad about driving off on.  The store lady gave States the Janzen’s number and States talked to Pam Janzen on the store phone. Pam Janzen said she could come and get Reggie if need be.  We got back here and no Reggie so we hope he’s been returned to his sanctuary.  Come on in, Reggie.  It’s supper time.

Reggie update.  September 19, 2013.  Reggie the corgi indeed made it home.  We’ve sent a picture to the Janzens. Pam Janzen said seeing old Reggie always makes her smile.Reggie

Wayne et al.

Friday August 2, 2013.  Saturna Island.  Whether or not we want to see Wayne.  He wants to see us, do we want to see him?  Answer. Answer in the rain, ladies and gentlemen.  I pick up the phone and give him the call.  He’s okay with it.  We might not be coming by.  It’s raining and he’s not in any danger of riding his motorcycle out here either.  If we feel like we need a tub of yogurt from the store we may come by and see if he’s around.  He’s got things to do although, with the rain, he can’t do the main thing he was planning to do.  Some sort of paid piece of work, is my guess.  He doesn’t say what it is, but he’ll be ‘in and out’.  We leave it at that.  Saved.

We already have to leave tomorrow and it’s too bad.  Another week would be good.  We got some work done but I haven’t written a word except this.  It takes a while to establish a routine and if you can avoid doing that by not being here long enough, is this something like a non-accomplishment?  That’s pretty much what my writing’s about.

Took a small hike out past Fiddler’s Cove under the overcast sky.  Always nice in the woods with the views, the moss, the arbutus, the trail hammered through by generations of deer and goats.  The area is actually owned by the original inhabitants of these parts but no one lives in there.

I find it satisfying, rewarding and a confidence-builder to finally be chopping some wood over here from the newly fallen trees we took down to improve the view and the safety of the little cottage, brought to you by “Dr. Sunshine”, the wise-in-years lumberman who came by and helped us out and left the trees in nice, wood burning stove sized rounds.  I haven’t hacked into any of those rounds until today, eight months later.  The splitter axe works wonderfully well on this magnificent wood.  I am a woodsman at last.  As I was saying to my bodyguard just earlier, “I never made it to Scouts.  Barely made it through Cubs.”  I remember in earlier days I always hated trying to chop wood with an axe that just wasn’t doing the job.

I was just thinking I could write my column from here.  Except that I don’t have a column.  Everybody’s a columnist now.  The sordid net is awash in ’em.  I think they call ’em blogs.  People want to give it away, and everybody has their own opinion.  But the one opinion that really counts is yours, right?  Thing is it ain’t true.

Found the remains of a raptor on the trail today.  Picked clean.  Nothing left but the two fairly large wings.  Got out-raptored by a bigger raptor, I’d say.  Just the feathery wings were left and the bone and cartilage of the body were right there, reddish-hued, for all the forest to see.  Nearby were a lot of feathers where Confederate States surmises the battle of the raptors went down.  I had to admit this was probably the scene else how could that carcass and all those feathers, which weren’t right beside each other, get there by accident?  Good call.

We gave up on the trail as we’d started late and I wasn’t interested myself in hiking the length of the island, which, I was pretty sure, was the route of this trail because the deer and goats are everywhere.  It would have been a few kilometers to Mt. David and I said, “Let’s do the whole thing but get an earlier start on it and maybe bring a sandwich or something.”  So we turned back.  States saw an old pileated woodpecker, grey hairs in it’s red top-tuft, dunting as they do with his beak atop some old snag.  In the quiet forest that dunting sound carries a long way.