Category: ragdoll rambles

Stephen Henighan Slays The Gillers

I can’t remember exactly how I came across Stephen Henighan’s Kingmaker’s column in Geist 63. But it’s certainly stirring up the pot in terms the Canadian literary world. I’m probably late to the party (it’s a bad habit I have, of never being on time, but I digress), but I read the article this week and thought, “what Mel Gibson-inspired bee’s up his bonnet?”

Although Henighan does have a point with this idiotic decision by Chapters / Indigo:

But the real future of Canadian writing lay on the banquet tables of the 2006 Giller dinner, where each guest was invited to take home an individually wrapped party favour provided by Chapters- Indigo. When the guests opened their favours, they found that all the packages contained the same remaindered Stephen King novel.

Oh. My.

There’s probably a good reason why there were all those Stephen King books remaindered anyway. But should they be on the tables of one of the most prestigious literary events in Canada of all places? Perhaps not. Smarten up people!

But I really don’t think that Giller prize is “the most conspicuous example of corporate suffocation of the public institutions that built our literary culture.” If anything, it’s a symbol of the random and relentlessly confusing individuality of the jurors chosen to pick the winners. And I still think that Three Day Road should have won last year; I’ll viciously tell anyone who’ll listen that Consumption is a far better book than Bloodletting, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be just as excited this year to see what the Giller comes up with.

If anything, the Giller, like Canada Reads (yay! Heather O’Neill), is an opportunity for Canadians to not only read books written by and for Canadians, books that will, inevitably contribute to our culture, but also to then debate and discuss the choices made by the judges. I mean, if this year’s Oscars are any indication (how many times was Scorsese denied before now?), it sometimes takes awards a long time to get something right. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong, or by extension, bad. But perhaps that’s not what Henighan means. I know he’s making the point that the awards are serving the giant conglomerate steamroller of Canadian publishing but does that necessarily equate that Lam didn’t deserve to win?

But in a day and age where people are reading less, and choosing the Giller winner simply because it’s an easy pick when it’s all over the media, maybe I kind of see his point. Or maybe I’m just too naive because I think that these kinds of prizes are done with a level of honesty and integrity, that those three jurors truly felt that of the books they read last year, Vincent Lam’s debut short story collection was the best. Obviously, Henighan doesn’t share my rosy outlook.

Tragic Right Update

1. There is a lot of snow outside.

2. This is not good for a girl with a tragic hip.

3. This is especially not good for a girl with a tragic hip who didn’t listen to the weather reports this morning and wore her Frye boots to work.

4. This meant the girl slipped all the way home from the subway and almost killed herself approximately 67 times.

5. But it sure shows the power of weather-appropriate footwear.

(PS – The first week of my new job has been awesome but busy).

The Way Not To Finish A Book

Here are the reasons why there is no book update today:

1. I spent much of yesterday writing, yay!

2. Instead of curling up with a good book after my pilates class (the first one in almost three weeks, ouch. Seriously, I almost passed out, it was a bit much), I feverishly started knitting so that I could have my homework completed for my knitting class tonight. Yeah, I stayed up until almost 4 AM. So. Not. Relaxing. My fingers are so cramped that I had to sleep with them splayed across my stomach just so they wouldn’t curl up into little balls I couldn’t get open in the morning.

3. The book I picked is a whopping 400 pages long. Damn you Out of Africa, damn you!

4. Too much television was consumed last night (see #2) in a pathetic attempt to stay awake.

5. Had a very poor night’s sleep on Tuesday as a result of eating massive, and I mean massive, amounts of chocolate because I gave up sugar on Wednesday. I had a caffeine buzz from chocolate people. Just think of how much was actually consumed!

TRH Movies & A Stupid Cold

I’ve been sidelined at home the past few days with a rotten cold, a sore throat and lots and lots of sneezing. Good for reading, not so good for thinking, which means I’m not getting as much writing done as I’d like, but I’m making progress regardless.

I’ve been buying DVDs lately for two reasons, one because we always need stuff to watch at the cottage in the summer, and we generally end up viewing many films multiple times so I don’t really think it’s a waste of money; plus, I’m sick to death of paying late fees because we never get the videos back on time.

Annnwaaay. Yesterday I picked up Babel and The Prestige. I kind of feel like the first film was a waste of money. We haven’t watched it last night. And you know what? It’s kind of overbearing and quite unbelievable. I know it’s all arty and ohhh look how connected the world is but the tenuous nature of said connection in terms of the Japanese storyline was almost laughable. Like Crash, it kind of plays out with a bit of the movie of the week sensibility where you’re forced to suspend your disbelief just that little bit too much. Why is it nominated for so many Oscars?

All in all having a stupid cold the last few days has meant I’ve watched way, way too much television. I’m looking forward to getting out of the house tomorrow and enjoying the few days I’ve got left before I start my new job.

Oh, and just FYI, I wrote a guest post over at Martinis For Milk about a trip to the doctor yesterday. It’s a bit graphic (there’s a whole gross but funny thing going on) and it’s about lady bits, so be forewarned, only read it if you are truly convinced there are some things that you just NEED to know about me.

This Is The End

Yesterday was my last day of work. It was the last time I’ll need to take the car to the outer limits of Mississauga, too. So, I’m happy that I’ve just decreased my ecological footprint. As of next Monday, I’ll be taking the transit every day, walking after work, and in the summer, riding my bike. That makes me feel much better. I made a donation the other day to Tree Canada to offset some of my carbon emissions, but I still felt guilty every single time I got into the car, especially in the dead of summer, with sweat rising up off the asphalt, the earth burning up underneath me. Anyway, it’s over now, the daily commute.

For the first time in a long time, I actually left a job versus the job leaving me. Almost every experience in my adult life has been the other way around. I worked in magazines for many years before getting into the web side of things; and both of the magazines I worked for folded, which meant I lost my job twice in less than a year. In the first case, I had worked for three years on contract, which meant I got no package, no severance. I didn’t even get two weeks notice. The second magazine went bust after my only working there for eight months. In that case, despite how broke they were, we all still ended up with two weeks severance. This all happened during and just after my years in grad school as I was finishing up my Master’s degree with massive amounts of debt. I lived hand to mouth, paycheque to paycheque, constantly worrying about money and how to get the bills paid.

So leaving was always by signaled a time to panic. How was I going to pay the rent? How was I going to afford groceries? Each new job hunt was like a pressure cooker: it had to happen and it had to happen fast. And when I got fired from my old-old job by the boss from hell, it was met by a mini-nervous breakdown. I paced the hallways of our newly bought house convinced that we were headed for the poorhouse because my RRHB had recently lost his job as well. I think it was the most stressful period of my life.

And then things got under control. I had good spin on the story: evil empire firing a poor slightly disabled girl who was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. Girl with serious and scary disease thrown in the gallows of stress by a wicked witch who wanted nothing more than her own success and to punish anyone who spoke ill of her behind her back. Who was going to smell like a sweet Jo Malone perfume at the end of that story? Through some of the contacts I had made by working for the evil empire, I found my last job. And it was lovely. The people were lovely, I was working for and with books, which I adore. I kind of found my calling, I think.

So yesterday was bittersweet. I am sad to be leaving. I am thankful for the opportunities that I was given, for the people I’ve met, for the books I’ve read. But I am also totally thrilled for the new challenges that I’ll be facing at the end of the month. My new job is a combination of what I did for the evil empire and what I did up until yesterday. It was an opportunity I did not, or could not, turn down.

But I was also proud of myself that I made a decision based not on desperation, not on the basic need for survival, but for myself. As Oprah as that moment felt, I also feel somewhat vindicated. For the longest time, I felt put upon, depressed from all the tragedy in my life, frustrated that no matter how good I thought I was, terrible things kept happening to me. Some of what I felt just turned out to be life lessons: that you need to rise above certain things, hold your head up and work hard. Some of what I felt turned back inside me and caused things like depression and disease: that bad things happen to bad people, and illogical thoughts persisting, I must be the worst person on earth, so what’s the point of doing things that might make me happy, that might make me well adjusted.

So now with my week off, I have no stress. I’m not under the gun. I’m going to write my stories, take long walks, go shopping, maybe donate some more money to compensate for the fact that I would really like some new shoes, see movies and relax before I get back into the daily grind.

And I’m all about being well adjusted and taking deep breaths. Because my life might not be an episode of My Name is Earl, but it kind of feels that way, with all the good karma finally making its way back into the palm of my hand.

Friday Musings

1. I do honestly know the difference between “forth” and “fourth” but it seems the typo was up on the site for, like, two days before I even noticed that I had spelled it wrong. And it’s still in the perma-url. Oh well.

2. Well, I might have to break up with Grey’s Anatomy. I simply can’t take the emotional pressure and/or over the top, everybody dying, heartwrenching stuff that happens every single bloody week. Could someone, anyone, please a) not die, b) not break up, make up, make out, or whine and c) not have something absolutely tragic like an abortion happen to them? Please, just one week where I’m not waking up with giant, red, puffy eyes from bawling about the damn show saying to my RRHB, “I c-c-c-can’t watch this show anymore.” Sigh.

3. Some crazy dude is stalking Edgar Allen Poe’s grave. Now there’s a slasher film in the making…and would that be a first, a literary-stalker inspired horror movie? Please educate me if I’m wrong.

4. I had an Office moment when I sent out Linked In notes to a whole bunch of people I didn’t mean to. Kind of like when Michael sent out that email with him and Jan in it to, like, his entire company. Yeah, it was like that. But it all turned out okay, I made a lot of new connections.

5. There’s snow on the ground in Toronto, and it’s cold, but it doesn’t matter because at long last I have a brand-new winter coat. And it’s lovely. And warm. And lovely. And did I mention it’s warm? It’s so snuggly that my RRHB says it looks like I’m wearing a sleeping bag. Isn’t that awesome?