This is in no way an April Fool’s Joke. This is really what today looks like at our house.

NOT an April Fools Joke!

Vancouver is more akin to the weather patterns of Seattle or Portland in the USA, and Brighton or Bristol in the UK. THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!

Will someone please make this stop?

Many of you — possibly 75% of you actually, are not sitting in the Dominion of Canada when reading this. Many of you still wonder ‘when I’ll be writing that book explaining Canada to foreigners?’ Well, after seeing things like this video from Rick Mercer I realise there isn’t any need to add to the material available. The man has the entire thing tapped (or ‘taped’, if you’re in the UK). Thankfully, I’ve just run across a post over at Tentative Equinox (happy belated Spring, by the way, oh belovèd TE)

The thing to remember here is that 99% of the things stated in this, which may seem at first glance to be a skit, are correct. Queen Elisabeth [hurrah!] is the titular Queen of Canada and holds that office when in the Dominion (so named because she has dominion over it and therefore us [hurrah!]), and the parliamentary democratic system of government we employ operates in exactly the way he explains. The election described is the one in October of last year which was held whilst I was in London (for a reaction to its results, go here to read the post¹).

Sometimes the strangest turn of events is more accurate than anything a writer of fiction might concoct on his best day following a morning reading in the British Library and stopping off for a double espresso on the way back to the keyboard.

The only thing better than this at explaining matters political is the introduction to “side two” of the Blues Brothers’ concert album Made in America which begins with the Blues Brothers’ All-Star Blues Band (Paul “The Shiv” Shaffer², conductor) playing the tune “Green Onions”, and then continues as Elwood J. Blues (played by Dan Aykroyd³) appears on stage to give the crowd a straight-forward lecture on “How Geopolitical Structures are Affected by Cultural Developments (and the Chrysler 440 Cubic-Inch Engine)” [ED. — not its actual title]. Brilliance and absurdity, all with a chunka-chunka Memphis back-beat! Possibly the finest way that Political Science and Social Geography has ever been presented as part of a rock show. Not there’s much competition,granted… outside of U2 concerts and Press Conferences…

If only I could locate a CD of that album… damn, that record is everything one could want and a long sleep-in the next morning.

So… That’s Canada, in a sense: we all want records made by our countrymen playing music developed from songs sung by African Slaves in the United States of America. Which is a change from having the English singing them [c.f. any recording by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones]

¹ While I did have a rather emotional response to the results, it was with more disappointment than anything else. Our PM, while I may not agree with his policies or management style, bear him no ill will as a person and am certain he loves his wife and children, is a friend to small dogs, etc. I’m certain he and I could have a beer together and discuss things such as the economy and the arts and agree to disagree about the priorities of them both to the nation’s well-being. ‘Live and let live’; ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it’; and all that. Except Mr. Harper may have to pick up the tab for the beer, as I’m a struggling Canadian Publishing Entrepreneur and could use some government financial stimulation even if that’s merely an evening of pints.

² Canadian

³ also a Canadian

So in about 24 hours, I’ll be looking at that thing there on the right. And, yes, it does look like some sort of phallic symbol: perhaps a penis with a condom designed by a minimalist (“as long as the ‘working end’ is covered, then the job’s sorted, innit?”). Perhaps something different; more filthy, perhaps.

Anyway, the point is that that’s the Air Traffic Control Tower of Vancouver International Airport. And, no it’s not a joke: we really do have an international one, with more than one runway and all that, just like a real airport. As a matter of fact, there’s four runways (yes, they’re all paved), and a total of 17,495,049 people on 326,026 æroplanes went in and/or out of the terminal for one reason or another, and if you don’t believe me, then go here.

So there!

All of the final matters are done: tickets confirmed for train to and from Warwick; the hotel in Londinium’s King’s Cross area booked (“room comes decorated with modern ‘rusted shopping trolley and discarded condom/hypodermic needle’ motif…”); relevant pages of Lonely Planet book of Britain passed through OCR and proofed for most weirdness (Westminster Abbey doesn’t have ‘electrical’ burial monuments, for instance, preferring “elaborate” ones); PDF copies of passport and other identity papers amassed in folder on lap-top’s hard-drive, along with as much music as I can shoe-horn on there as well; the digital camera’s 2GB memory card is empty and ready for images; extra batteries for the camera and an electrical adaptor for the laptop are ready; etc.

What’s not been done yet is packing.

Yes, really.

I’m doing laundry right now, so I’m getting very, very close to that. Probably most of it will be done tonight, with one last sweep through things tomorrow, ensuring I’ve enough socks, shirts, boxers, a face flannel, that sort of thing.

One must have priorities; mine happen to involve lots of digital media, personal documents, and travel guide pages.

The next you hear from me — should everything co-operate according to plan — will be from the Midlands of the UK and will cover flight plus train journeys.

Let’s hope the first two hours in England goes a tad better on this trip than the first two hours the last trip provided after landing.

Since I [Mariane Lepa] started doing Arts News Canada four years ago, I’ve come to appreciate just how much creativity, talent and imagination there is in this country from coast to coast to coast to political border. In fact, I’ve become so immersed in what Canadian artists are doing, I am a little surprised when I’m confronted with Canada’s low-level image beyond our borders.

I expect it from Americans — that’s just how they are (if you’ll permit me the over generalization) — but I don’t expect it from the UK. Certainly with all the conflict Britons have endured, internally and externally, in the name of cultural uniqueness, I have always thought we had a kindred spirit in our struggle to remain unique despite looming geopolitical influences just beyond our borders. So it came as a surprise to see the their perception of Canada described as “the US’s slightly slow cousin” in an weekend article on the London Guardian’s website.

Jean Hannah Edelstein is a London-based former New Yorker, who attended university in Montréal. Before coming to Canada, she “spent very little time even thinking about Canada, much less reading about it.” But upon arriving in Montréal to study, “I was swiftly — within hours — disabused of the south-of-the-border assumption that everyone in Canada is a bit sorry they’re not American.”

Her article in the Guardian is about Canadian literature, and she regrets that Michael Redhill’s novel, Consolation, did not make the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker prize.

“But though I can’t help but bristle when I come across people being dismissive of Canadian writing,” she writes, “I was disheartened when I worked in publishing to find that ‘Canadian’ is an adjective often used to justify not publishing a book in the UK.”

Accepting that Margaret Atwood has a well-deserved international reputation for her work, Edelstein goes on to list works by poets Gwendolyn MacEwen, Robert Kroetsch, and George Elliot Clark; novelists Robert McGill and Miriam Toews, and francophone writers Roch Carrier, Gisele Villeneuve and Monique Proulx, as worthy as anything else being published internationally.

She says, “a preoccupation with naming and identity runs through a great deal of the classic of CanLit, as writers attempt to explain what it means for a country to be a ‘cultural mosaic’ rather than an American-style melting pot.”

Canadians are right to reject “American-ness”, she says. “Canadians are quietly and deservedly smug about their rich and distinctive culture, which includes a distinguished literary canon.”

You can read Edelstein’s article in the Guardian at: blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/10/dont_look_down_on_canadian_lit.html

Huzzah! More grist for the mill of my book!

As a recent visitor to the UK, I can confirm that the Mother Land is a bit thin on details about ‘The Colony Over There’. The sheer size of our country is beyond them; they know it’s big, but ‘it’s not bigger than France and Germany combined, right?’ [NOTE: not an actual quote]

Actually I staggered myself with the reality that the distance from Victoria to St. John’s is equal to County Cork to the middle of Pakistan.

The Canadian authors known are few and far between, with people like Ms Atwood being an exception probably due to the RCS recent stage adaptation of The Penelopiad. Mordechi Richler is another one who is known, but not as a Canadian per se; merely as a good writer. Carol Shields is somewhat known, barely, Leonard Cohen is unknown as Canadian, a poet, or a singer — although I can see this being understandable — but mostly not at all.

Again, we’ve done a bad job of selling ourselves.

“Canadians kick ass!” isn’t a good approach either, as this sort of ‘in your face’, ‘we’re fucking important, so respect us or we’ll kick your teeth in’ doesn’t get one anywhere either.

Soon, I hope, we’ll be quietly able to introduce our works to the world and let the quality of them speak for themselves. Only then will we deserve the attention of the world for our culture.

I know, two posts in one day, I know… try to remain calm…

So I was bumbling around avoiding writing the book and decided to check how the data-bases were starting to have their information flow through to their particular retailers about Humdrumming’s books. All seemed well enough. Guy’s new book Dogs of Waugh (Deatbeat II) seems to have hit most places — what a shame I listed myself as editor as it’s not really a credit per se, oh well — and the price and cover are right. Steve’s books seem to be all there, yes. As are Charles’… yes… James Cooper… all of the authors named Gary (or Garry)… Mark Morris’ hard-back edition of Toady… good…“Hang on… Why did my name have a link with it…?”

And suddenly I realize that seemingly the entire Amazon system has my book listed as being something to order today. Which is not something I would advise as I am — at best — 33% done, if that much.

Here’s some links to see the joyous listings for yourselves.

Also, WHSmith, Blackwell, Amazon France and Amazon Germany. No idea how well it’ll sell on the continent, but you never know.

Now, I suppose I should write that thing, eh? Hmm…?