Ewokphobia

The cruellest thing you can do to a man with a pathological fear of teddybears:

mailbox

I hope this is real graffiti, not something staged by the photographer. Either way, it inexplicably made me piss myself laughing.

(No offence to anyone in Chinatown, of course. I'm sure it's not true.)

Review: Blood on the Ground

Jakob Cayne, Blood on the Ground. Autoautopsy Press, 2009. Pp. 488. CAN$28.99.

"This is gritty and disturbing crime novel with obvious hints of Calder, a bouquet of Welsh and some Palahniuk in the swallow. The hapless protagonist, unhappy in a life of crime, flees from the clutches of the gangster cartel to which he is indentured, only to find that beneath the streets of the unnamed Canadian city is a bizarre underground world of urban fantasy monsters darker than he had imagined, and possibly more dangerous than the one he has left behind. Both the crime and the dark fantasy pats of this novel are well-written and entertaining, with faced-paced fight and chase scenes, an engaging protagonist, terrifying but believable villains, and an inevitable but thrilling dénouement in the tunnels beneath a sewage treatment works. The mechanics of the underworld perhaps stretch credibility in places, and to be honest the story is a bit too long, but there is no denying this is an excellent read.

"But.

"Billed as a début novel by 'acclaimed critic, poet and anthologist' Cayne, this work must be read within the context of the author's oeuvre. Cayne's poetry (as any web-search through the review sites will confirm) is derivative and turgid, borrowing a romantic style and Eighteenth Century diction and yet labelling itself avant garde because of the controversial and political subject matters he likes to address. With this in mind, the ostensibly readable crime novel, mixing genres and literary influences to disguise the lack of deep content, is guilty of the same sins. However entertaining this single volume might be, this is no Stieg Larsson in the making, but rather a derivative and degenerate writer with little to recommend him."

(reproduced by permission of the author)

Dribbles of babble

Under the bridge, too sleepy to take the long way around, but alert enough to be nervous about the uniformed feral kids who sometimes hang out between the pilings. The bridge is safe, but halfway down the lane a streetlight is out and shadows pool around the pretentious pillars in front of the new apartments. Flash of coat tails in the corner of your eye. Nothing. Shadow of backbrushed hair makes you jump. You pick up your pace, but she steps out in front of you just before the light starts again. “Try a little harder,” you think she whispers.

Juice

Every time I pass this particular wall in Montréal, there's a new muraille, or a jungle of graffiti obscuring what used to be a turgid example of the city's self-expression. I should find out if someone is documenting this more methodically, because they really should be. (I don't head this far east more than once every few years.) Anyway, on my latest visit, the following squeaky-clean offering appeared before me…

As we can see, the central figure is a posh prick from Outremont, sneering at the viewer and pouring milk on his breakfast of rainbow-tinted alien tentacles. Meanwhile the whole scene is spattered with gobs of phlegm from the disgusted common citizens on whose backs he lives his life of unearthly luxury. It'll be stratified under yet more paint before long, but if it is still there when you pass it, feel free to add your contemptuous spit to his face.

The music of pyuuuuuke

Yesterday on Radio Lethbridge's Literature Hour show, imaginatively themed around "luuurve poetry" (I"m sorry, they really did say it that way), five minutes of airtime were dedicated to each of four Canadian writers, among them a certain plucky, amateur, deservedly obscure hack, Sylvia Barschatz, plugging her second book, The Music of Love.

Barschatz herself was blandly inoffensive and placid as always (the only amusing moment being her use of the expression "my editor" to describe what is in fact her husband), and unmemorably gave us a good indication of the quality of her book. The rather gushing junior DJ, however, spouted what must have been publisher's copy, and described the scribbler's latest efforts as "a bold and unconventional tour de force into the glorious heights and gut-wrenching lows of our favorite emotion", and the "startlingly original language-use" of a "darling of the poetic establishment."

Reviews of The Music of Love from more reputable sources tell a different story—this is neither a novel nor a book of poetry, but the worst of both genres: 600 pages (still only 2/3 the length of her previous outing) of turgid, ill-constructed, unattractively typeset prose that may borrow from blank-verse and stream-of-consciousness traditions but never approaches the poetic in style or quality. A protagonist as depressingly gray as the ghost girl of her début novel, a love story as convincing as a leprous horse in schoolgirl uniform, and a dénouement as staggeringly unoriginal as the title of the book itself.

The only thing bold or startling about this sordid little five minutes of fame was the audacity to claim Barschatz is a "writer".

Keep it up, Independent Radio. This is why we love you.

Cage

Squelette grits her teeth in a rictus grimace, unable to do much more than swallow the pain of a broken rib as she lies in middle of the rain-slick Paris street. Passersby walk on, heads down, seeing nothing but their own sodden shoes. The culprit sped away, wheels spinning oily water, more worried about his insurance premiums than an injured pedestrian. Fuck it hurts.