Writer's Diary #51- I Can Haz Rebate

Cat Haiku

The cat, her head down
On my taxes, flicks an ear.
The fireplace crackles.

The Great Wednesday Compare #5- Chuck Palahniuk VRESUS Miriam Toews

The final winner of last week's Great Wednesday Compare (Chuck Palahniuk Vs Don Delillo), with a final score of 3-2, was Chuck Palahniuk!

Not an overwhelming response last week.

Perhaps you're like me and simply haven't read any Delillo yet. I've wanted to for some time, though. Over two years ago I posted 20 books I should have read but hadn't, and it included Delillo's White Noise. While I have managed to knock 5 off that list, White Noise isn't one of them. (Interestingly, I haven't read any Palahniuk either and if I was to update that list, I'd certainly add him.) For now, we move on...

Remember, vote simply by adding your comment below, base it on whatever merit you choose, voting does not end until Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. (Nov. 24, 2009), and if you want your book to get more votes, feel free to promote them here or on your blog!

Who is better?

Chuck Palahniuk or Miriam Toews

Reader's Diary #546- The Good News Bible: Nehemiah

Keeping with the change to first person that was first introduced in the book of Ezra, Nehemiah is by and large the narrator of this book (though like the last book, it does change to the third on occasion, without warning.)

I like this difference in writing style. It personalizes the story a little, even if it doesn't exactly make me warm to the protagonist any more. Also like Ezra, Nehemiah comes across as xenophobic, and even worse, prays for the destruction of others. I'm all for praying for others, I can even tolerate praying for oneself, but praying against someone? That leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

On a lighter note, as is my usual way of getting through the lists and lists of names, I was scanning to see which names still exist today. You don't see many Helkais or Athaiahs anymore, but I was surprised to find a Perez amongst them. I wonder if he was the guy who used a white marker to draw crude scenes on Esther's face?

Reader's Diary #545- Jack London: To Build A Fire

Way back in '02 when I was teaching in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, I had a chance to attend a teachers' conference in Calgary. One of the speakers I had the pleasure I seeing was renown teacher and parenting expert, Barbara Coloroso. I really enjoyed her no-nonsense and honest approach to dealing with children. However, I took issue with one of her examples, and it's stuck with me to this day. "Children should be allowed to learn on their own, to learn from their own mistakes," she said-- so far, so good-- "if your kids, for example, are going outside, you don't have to insist they put on their mittens. Their hands will get cold, and they'll put them on."

People cheered (yes, teachers get excited for things like that). Except I didn't. I'd just come from Rankin where we had an entire month below -60° C (-76°F). If I'd let my students go outside without mittens in those temperatures, before they realized their hands were cold, they'd have severe frostbite. That's a bit of a harsh lesson, don't you think?

Well, it's no where near the harsh lesson learned by the protagonist in Jack London's "To Build A Fire." In this tale, an unnamed man sets out to walk towards a logging camp in the interior of the Yukon. It's the middle of winter and his only companion is a dog. It would seem that the story is preoccupied with the cold, cold temperatures, but it isn't about London boiling a survival tale down to its essence, it's simply a survival tale. A man is in danger of freezing to death, of course there is only one focus.

"To Build a Fire" is an insanely a well-written story. I love in the opening paragraph when London writes,

It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man.

So much is accomplished in these two lines. An intangible pall. Subtle gloom. Absence of sun... the man was not worried? Without having set foot in the north, a reader could easily ascertain that London is setting this guy up for a fall. Not, of course, that a reader would root for this man's demise, but it would certainly be nice if the man could learn a lesson and live to tell it.

One of the most compelling sentences of the story is when London writes, "The trouble with him was that he was without imagination." It's a stance that seems to contradict many other survival stories in which man must keep his wits about him and not to let his imagination get the better of him. London's logic seems to have been that an imaginative man might contemplate his insignificance in the greater scheme of things and use that fear wisely.

Getting back to the temperatures for a second, it gets cold here in Yellowknife to be sure, but nothing compared to Rankin Inlet. I mentioned the -60 temps there, but the coldest I experienced was -74 (-101 F). That, by the way, is colder than the day in London's story by about 25 degrees. Then, I spent most of that day in my cozy apartment.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below.)

Saturday Word Play- Author or Title?

Sometimes, when the title of a book is simply a full name, it could get pretty confusing figuring out who's the author and who's the title. Fortunately, most of these below probably wouldn't have that problem. In one column I give you the first names, in the other the surnames. Can you find the authors and their title characters?

As always, feel free to do all ten at home but only only answer one in the comment section, that way at least other nine others can play along.

First Names
Adam
Charles
Charlotte
Daisy
David
Dolores
Douglas
E.B.
Eleanor
Elizabeth
George
Henry
Herman
Jane
J.M.
Marjorie
Olive
Peter
Stephen
Stuart

Surnames
Barrie
Bede
Bronte
Claiborne
Copperfield
Coupland
Dickens
Eliot
Eyre
James
King
Kitteridge
Little
Miller
Morningstar
Pan
Rigby
Strout
White
Wouk

Reader's Diary #544- Moisés Kaufman: The Laramie Project

Recently I auditioned for a role in Moisés Kaufman's The Laramie Project. I did so hardly knowing anything about the play or the story behind it. The last, and only time, I acted was in Iqaluit a couple years back as a murderer in Macbeth. I was itching to act again and was excited to finally have a chance in something here that wasn't a musical.

I have now have four roles. But, for those of you familiar with the play, most actors in it take multiple roles. I'm Father Roger Schmidt, Jon Peacock, Stephen Belber and Russell Henderson.

For those of you that don't know, The Laramie Project is based on the real life murder of Matthew Shepard. In 1998 Matthew, a gay university student from Laramie, Wyoming, was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence and left to die. I'm sad to say that though this made international headlines at the time, I remember nothing about it.

Five weeks after Matthew was discovered, Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project showed up in Laramie, where they spent the year conducting interviews with residents of Laramie. From these interviews, they wrote The Laramie Project.

It's obviously an emotional story. But that doesn't necessarily translate into a good play. The Laramie Project risked being too black and white, too artificially sentimental, too militant. It's none of the above.

While taking a definite stance that Matthew Sheppard's murder was 100% wrong, it really goes beyond the death; the soul searching, the debates, the legacy one life can leave. Besides the obvious discussions on homophobia, Kaufman and company also delve into other such weighty issues as hate crimes, capital punishment, religion, revenge, forgiveness and much, much more.

Yet for all this, the play doesn't feel overly preachy or convoluted. Through the residents of Laramie, it shows humanity from all angles, and there's a glimmer of hope.

There's not much action, it's mostly talking, but the conversations are believable, interesting and forceful nonetheless.

I'm absolutely honoured to be a part of it.

Matthew was born in 1976, just twelve days before me.

Guest Post- Debbie Mutford's Review of Runaway by Evelyn Lau

I have only one of two choices when reviewing Evelyn Lau’s Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid; I can either keep it quick and painless or vent for pages on end (don’t get me started...don’t even get me started).

I will make a few blanket statements, use quotes from the book to support my points, and gracefully back off.

Point 1: It’s hard to take the writing seriously when I believe (not fact, just my gut feeling) that Evelyn wrote the journals with the original intention of publishing it.
- Pg.53 “Maybe eventually I’ll make a living selling drugs, then write a bestseller about the whole thing and become rich and famous and live happily ever after”
- Pg.212 “All I want to do is get my writing published”
I just find it difficult to read a book of published journal entries with interest when I get the sense of there being an audience from the start rather than genuine self-expression.

Point 2: I don’t want to come across as unsympathetic but the yelling and, albeit extreme, approach to parenting didn’t come across as harsh as the homeless lifestyle of prostitution that Lau purposefully chose. She came across as ungrateful and melodramatic rather than abused (yes I recognize that those are the typical qualities accused of teenagers).
- Pg.221 (reference to a foster parent) “Now I’m left with the fear of coming home to Melanie’s each night, the fear that is no different from when I was living with my parents”.
This quote to me either implies that Melanie was abusive (which she never states) or that her parents were not (in which case I have no idea why she ran away to begin with).
Time and time again people tried to help her but she made erratic and selfish choices based on spontaneity rather than logic.

I could go on and on (and on and on) but I won’t. I will chalk it up to my own lack of understanding and inability to sympathize with the main character but for whatever reason, this book was just frustrating to read.

I am hoping others will read it. (Please?) I would like to hear some feedback if others found it equally as frustrating as I found it...or if I’m just an insensitive turd.

Sidenote: Lau has written and published several other books (poetry, short stories, and a novel). I will definitely look for some more of her writing in hopes that her writing is as talented as the journals describe. Maybe in another form, I will enjoy Lau’s work.