Poem

Pythonerger’s

he says he’s on the spectrum

free to choose his own

snake prefix     “Let him!”

his mother says to him

though it’s me she means

sitting across from them

“A syndrome," she begins
"is just a list of symptoms --

one of which is brilliance!”

he stares ahead as she says this

unstimulated, powered-down

a mother's pride in profile

Two Paintings

A recent notice for Oakville Galleries' upcoming Allison Katz exhibition carried with it a familiar image. Not that I had seen Katz's Giant (2013-2016) before, but I had seen something like it. Then it dawned on me -- Is this an homage to John Gast's Manifest Destiny (1872)? A response to it?

Unfortunately there was not enough information on Katz's painting, as both Oakville (who provide a cropped view of it) and Canadian Art spoke less of the painting than of its installation, which, given the subject of Gast's canvas (the unidirectional passage of "Progress" westward), has Katz's presented amongst others "in the round."

Dean Allen

Yesterday morning I received an email from a friend who told me that another friend -- Dean Allen -- has gone to spirit. In writing this, the Dean I knew would have scoffed at the idea of having "gone" anywhere, let alone "to spirit," but that was part of his charm: not just the verbal and written forms his disagreements took, but the facial dance in advance of them.

Dean designed a couple of my earliest books: Kingsway (1995) and American Whiskey Bar (1997). As a designer, he made these books more than they were after I had signed off on them, and made a point of telling me so -- lovingly! Although both books were re-designed for later editions, Dean's original designs (especially Kingsway) remain my favourites.

There are already some nice remembrances of Dean online, including this one by Om Malik (the picture above is from Om's site and was taken by Matt Mullenweg). Om knew Dean after I knew Dean, who I met in Vancouver in 1986, and who I said goodbye to in the months before 9/11 when he moved to France "For good!" as he replied happily after I asked him, "For how long?"

I have more to say about my friendship with Dean, and will likely get to that over what remains of my own life. In the meantime, I would like to share a favourite (and friendlier!) piece that Dean wrote and posted on his Textism site on January 10th, 2001:

HOW TO COOK SOUP

First, you need some water. Fuse two hydrogen with one oxygen and repeat until you have enough. While the water is heating, raise some cattle. Pay a man with grim eyes to do the slaughtering, preferably while you are away. Roast the bones, then add to the water. Go away again. Come back once in awhile to skim. When the bones begin to float, lash together into booms and tow up the coast. Reduce. Keep reducing. When you think you have reduced enough, reduce some more. Raise some barley. When the broth coats the back of a spoon and light cannot escape it, you are nearly there. Pause to mop your brow as you harvest the barley. Search in vain for a cloud in the sky. Soak the barley overnight (you will need more water here), then add to the broth. When, out of the blue, you remember the first person you truly loved, the soup is ready. Serve.

F[]ight Patterns

The Trump Administration's invention of "fake news" as a device to dismiss those critical of its antics also serves to distance that Administration from the "fake news" that put it in office. A similar imperative might apply to recent "accidents" in Hawaii and Japan, where residents were alerted to ballistic missile attacks.

Were these "accidents" not their own form of testing? What did the United States, Japan and North Korea learn from the behaviours of those alerted to these attacks? Just because something is a mistake doesn't mean that something didn't happen. And make no mistake, this was no accident.

I am sure there are at present rooms in the U.S., Japan and North Korea filled with analysts pouring over time-coded CCTV footage, social media postings and phone logs noting what people were and were not doing during these alerts. And what will these analysts conclude from their findings, apart from new projections on how many lives will be lost as a result of what people failed to do when alerted to what might turn out to be a "limited nuclear war"?

The Invention of Thanksgiving

National Museum of the American Indian associate curator Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche) gives an illustrated chat on the invention of Thanksgiving -- a day "that isn't like any other day of American life."

"The way it's corny, it's cartoonish and kitsch is kind of a protective layer to sort of not get too direct about it. So, underneath all those things, Thanksgiving is about trying to come to terms with this very difficult truth about the United States: that the country is a national project that came about at a great expense to native people."

I appreciate your research, Paul. From my childhood (and for many years after that) I carried with me the 1621 Wampanoag-Pilgrim dinner as a heralded first instance of settler-indigenous conciliation. Yet as David Garneau says of Reconciliation -- "There was no conciliation to begin with."

What the Tweeters Are Tweeting

Not sure what evidence the tweeter has that Peter Culley doesn't have a "way bigger readership." Friends at the Amazon warehouse? Access to library databases? Or is it simply a case of connoisseurial omnipotence? I have attended readings by Pete in New York and San Francisco -- places that likely mean something to the tweeter -- and was impressed by the turnouts.

Pete deserves better than this. If people think so much of someone's work, tell us more about it, not less.

Not sure what evidence the tweeter has that 18th century German poet Friedrich Hölderlin is better known outside his native Germany -- or Europe, for that matter. But in the context of the New York Times book review to which the tweeter is reacting, where the measure of what is "known" is relative to key works by Defoe, Hawthorne, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Maddox Ford, Beckett etc., I think it is reasonable to say (though pointless to say so) that Hölderlin and his works are "lesser known."

A small room behind a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

The sun is low and has turned the white wall opposite an orange gold. What puzzles me is the shadow. There is nothing in the sun's way to cast a shadow, nor can I make out what that nothing is.

Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming the shadow? The sunlight, too?