My Book is a Success. . .

. . . in a small, but satisfying way.

The storybook I made of my trip to New York City for my 5 year old niece was a hit. So was the monkey itself. My niece has already arranged for readings both in Junior Kindergarten and also in daycare on Friday (she's a bit of a type-A personality).

I'm big in Sioux Lookout. Not many people can say that. Furthermore, I'm also almost through my first printing. Of course, my first printing was 5 copies done at Kinkos and the price was free, but those are just details. And who really cares about details anyways?

Anyways, I have 2 more days with CN. It's strange - and a bit scary - but it's time. I've been with CN since the summer after high school. I worked summers on the gangs doing trackwork. Then I moved on to work as a conductor. Finally, I've spent the past few years as a commuter central officer dealing with the GO Trains.

Starting next Monday, I will be working with GO Transit. This involves a number of changes. Payday will become Tuesday instead of Thursday. I'll now have a pension and a retirement fund. And I'll have much less vacation for now.

Did I ever mention that I'm not really good with change?

But the money's good and the people are great to work with. Furthermore, I get to keep working downtown, a fact that is quite important to me. Transit to Vaughan kind of sucks and that's what I probably would have been stuck with if I had stayed with CN (I'm glad I have my license but I have no interest in owning a car any time soon).

So I am off to greener pastures and it feels. . . well. . . odd. Good as well, though, which is the main thing.

What keeps me up at night. . .

. . . laughing.

http://www.emophilips.com/video/

Check out the video "Vintage VidEmo: No Glass Bottles".

The fall of the Western Empire

I will be the first to admit the above clip is funny. . . For a minute. Then it just becomes sad. Now before we Canucks start feeling all high and mighty, realize that we are not that much better. We are capable of being just as short-sighted as our southern neighbours when it comes to the myriad issues that lie beyond what is presented on prime time TV.

What really disturbs me is how little she really cares about her ignorance. She makes her flippant remark about how she knows more than men and then she laughs a little but you can tell she is not really bothered by it at all. She is not even burying her head in the sand; she just brushes it off because "who knew that 'hungry' was a country?" Wait until she finds out that Hamburg is not just something she buys at the local McDonald's.

I can accept that our society is getting dumber. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I do find it sad that we as a society have chosen wilful ignorance at a time when the tools of knowledge have never been so widespread, cheap and available. What bothers me is how easy it is happening. How quickly we have dismissed anything that is vaguely intellectual in favour of some homogenized mess of slogans and pratfalls.

Almost half a century ago, JFK told a nation to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Nowadays, that sentence would have to be jettisoned in favour of a short sound bite. I mean, how dare he ask the citizens to actually get up off their couches and do something? Next thing you know, they might start asking questions for themselves. Who knows? Maybe, someday in the future, they might even dig out a map and figure out where Hungary is.

Canuck Book 6 - King Leary by Paul Quarrington

Finally finished King Leary by Paul Quarrington. For a funny book, it took me a while to really get into. More to the point, for a funny book, it wound up packing a punch that was both unfunny and surprisingly effective.

The more I think about the book, the more I like it and the more I realize the skill and care that went into it. In the last third of the book, I had many of those 'a-ha' moments where I would finally get where Quarrington was going with some of the asides and digressions. The only other Quarrington book I've ever read is Whale Music, a book I liked a lot. While this one took longer to grow on me, I will definitely be reading more of his work.

In thinking about the book, I realize more and more that I should have paid greater attention to its title, because much of the Bard's Lear can be found in this king of the ice. It's not a retelling by any stretch of the imagination, but the influence is there. These are tales of Kings without kingdoms. While Lear gives his up, Leary winds up outliving his, hanging onto a title that lost meaning years ago for most everyone but him.

King Leary is a tragicomedy born of hubris and selfishness. On one level, it revolves around a trio of friends from Ottawa who go on to careers in professional hockey. Leary and Manny Oz become players while Clay Bors Clinton becomes owner of the Toronto Leaves. Oz falls to alcohol and a broken heart. Clinton falls to the excesses of his lifestyle. All that's left of the trio is Leary, Indian name Loofweeda, stuck in an old age home with Blue Hermann, one-time hockey scribe and full-time boozehound.

On another level, the story follows Leary, his ghosts, Hermann and an orderly on a trip to Toronto for King Leary night at the Gardens. The next day, Leary is supposed to film a ginger ale commercial with the latest rising hockey star. The story bounces back and forth between the two narratives. The aged Leary is even prone to spells where the two tales intrude upon each other and overlap.

King Leary is a book about memory, family and the unpleasant decisions that we are faced with. It's also a book about hockey, for sure, but it’s more about the mythical side of hockey. It's about the sort of hockey that gets dragged out once a year on CBC so we can watch rosy-cheeked kids wobble around on outdoor rinks and pat ourselves on the back for loving such an odd spectacle. For all the mess that Leary's life becomes, he still believes in the game.

It's the people who take part in the game that are all messed up.

More New York Pics

New York Pics

It seems I have been remiss in not offering up some pics from my New York trip. Well, here are a few. Perhaps not the most original selection but they are a few of the things I love about New York.

This next one is part of a project I did for my niece. I took pictures of the monkey all over New York and then made a small book out of it.

How can you not love a city where you pull out and pose a plush toy in the middle of Times Square and nobody even bothers to look at you.

My last day of vacation. . .

. . . was spent making a book for my niece.

Not as fun as it sounds. I had this vision before I left for New York of taking a small plush toy with me and photographing it wherever I went. I would then send the pictures up to her with the toy. Cute and fun were what I intended.

Then I thought to myself, "Hey, self, why don't you make a small book of it? You have the camera and computer for it. You can even string words together pretty well when you really want to. Wouldn't you be a cool uncle if you did this?" Thus began the downward spiral.

The road to hell is paved with plush toys, digital cameras and computers. Actually, that sounded far worse than intended. This modern age. . .

I know better. I know that kids’ books are hard and should really be written only by those with the skill and talent to do it well. I cringe every time I see a star, even a d level star like that guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, put out a children's book because, for all their talk of good intentions, what they are doing is committing an act of great hubris. They are saying that not only can they recite other people words in front of a camera, they can also write.

Truth is, they mostly can't.

And then we are forced to see them on the morning shows shilling these books that are a torture for both the parent and the kid.

I set my sights much lower and still it became a pain in the butt. I wasn't looking at publishing more than one copy of the thing but I was determined to make it at least worthy of a good show and tell session.

The reality is I really do not know how to talk to five year olds. All I knew is I did not want to talk down to them. For someone who grew up watching such talented children's entertainers as Mr. Dressup, that is the great evil. (I'm serious, watch him now and you will be amazed at how he does it all without pandering) Of course, the danger is that, in trying to avoid this, I wind up writing something that is too complex. I'm in my thirties and I live on my own. The only person I know anywhere close to kindergarten age is my niece. And I couldn't well ask her, now could I?

So I wavered back and forth. I rearranged things, reworded things. I played with fonts and formatting. I resized and repositioned the photos. I cracked open a beer and ordered in dinner. Eventually, with little fanfare and many doubts, I got it finished.

My verdict? I'm not too sure. There are thing I like about it, for sure, but I am not the target demographic. It's enough to make me almost glad to go to work tomorrow. If given another week, I don't know what sort of foolishness I would come up with.

Next time, she's getting a postcard.