Larry Gibbons
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life and death themes

7/7/2016

1 Comment

 
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Baby Evening Grosbeak on our Deck
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine passed away. Terry Phliger, who lived in Michigan, died only days from his 69th birthday and only hours before his scheduled resettlement in Ontario.
PictureTerry Phliger--R.I.P.
Terry was an artist, professor, humourist, practical joker, story-teller and a compassionate and highly intelligent human being. His mind and spirit were powerful, which was obvious in all he did and said. He was also a person who continually encouraged me, whether in my personal life or in my creative one. His humour and laser-sharp, insightful responses would usually leave me chuckling and encouraged, while sending my problems fleeing to some decrepit corner, where, safe from Terry’s iron-clad diagnosis, they could sulk and suck their miserable thumbs away.

I’ll miss Terry. As astute a man as I have ever known and one who, I’m sure, if there is an afterlife, is already planning some heavenly prank or is busily becoming a pain in the devil’s ass.

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
                                                              H.D. Thoreau, Thoreau On Man & Nature

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Larry, Grace and Sue on our Knotty Pines Patio in Ingonish
Maritime Mac, who likes to hang around train stations, was hanging around the front door of the Truro train station one grey, humid day . He was there because he had to drive a friend to the station.

While hanging out by the heavy doors he also enjoyed the delicious odour of Murphy’s Sea Food which drifted around the corner and into Maritime’s nose.

Three young lads approached on their bicycles. The oldest boy might have been twelve while the other two were younger. Maritime only heard part of the conversation and he didn’t hear the names of these characters, nor that of the character they were talking about, but what he did hear made his loitering worthwhile.

I’m going to make up the names, all for the sake of security and quality, so you can enjoy the conversation.

“Tod kissed Rebecca,” one boy said.

“I’m going to kiss her,” said the second little boy.

“You already kissed her. It’s my turn to get one,” responded the third little fella.

Then the three cycling smooch bandits rolled on down the concrete plaza sidewalk and out of Maritime’s life. Leaving Maritime Mac chuckling and with a wee story he knew he’d just have to tell to some Cape Bretoner when he got back to the mountains.
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Sue, Grace and Buster enjoying a morning walk in Ingonish
***
And now a brief note to Marianne. Never fear, I have been keeping my eyes open for the angelica plant and have already filled two big plastic bags with their shrivelled up bodies. I think, however, now that I recognize what they look like in their infancy, that next year, I’ll walk my grounds in the early spring and pull them up when they’re in their babyhood.

Thought you’d like to know.
***
I think comments on the language in my book, ‘White Eyes’ are a good example of democracy at work. For every person who doesn’t like the swear words in my book, there is at least one other who doesn’t mind those nasty words or may even find them cathartic.

I’ve mentioned this profanity issue in another blog, but because it has been brought up again and because I try to respond to comments from folks who read my blog, I’m discussing it here, once again.

I think profanity can make the dialogue in a story more authentic and not too sugary sweet, when used appropriately. However, the longer I continue to write, the more careful I am about when and when not to use these big-bad-wolf words.

The strange thing is, I don’t, for the most part, swear. However, when I’m writing, and I have the dialogue bouncing around in my mind, the words are there and I simply type them out. Later on I may edit out some of the little buggers.

My hope is that folks who don’t swear, can read through, over or under the words and still enjoy the stories.

Like the fella who read my book and then congratulated me on capturing the insanity in this world. I appreciated his kind words. He’d apparently found this theme in my stories and as in many stories in many books, the messages aren’t always so easy to discover.
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Moon Peering Through the Trees

“The voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It comes from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it: that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active invention; that which is the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit of them all.”

                                                                         Emerson, Selected Essays

One thing I’m trying to say through my stories, is that we aren’t as important as we think we are. Our actions, philosophy and status on this small, rotating, egg-shaped ball of immense diversity, aren’t as solid, momentous, or as superior to ‘the others’ as we believe they are. Intrinsically believing that an idea or opinion is rock solid does not prove anything.

HOWEVER, BEWARE! Our creative muses, like wind or spirit, once tamed or fully understood, lose their power. Sort of like when Delilah cut off Samson’s long hair. He couldn’t pull down a pillar, a post or a two-by-four and maybe that’s why, in the original Hebrew, the word God was written without vowels. Impossible to utter and therefore out of our taming and diminishment-of-awe reach.

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Heavy Mist at Ingonish
Anyway, no matter how I try to convey it, I’m really not very good at verbally expressing what touches and affects my soul. That’s why I write stories.
***
When ‘White Eyes’ first came out, I found myself walking around town with my head down as I waited for the criticism - negative and/or positive - to begin. I found that both kinds of appraisals filled me with all kinds of emotions and often not the feelings I expected.

Not too long after ‘White Eyes’ was published, I was walking along the lake shore in Baddeck. It was only a few days until Christmas and the snow hadn’t yet come to Baddeck with any vengeance. While hiking along the shoreline I came upon a  friend who was sitting in his vehicle, looking out over the lake, teary-eyed. Not because of having read my book, but because the memories Christmas brought to him were stirring his heart.

We chatted and, at one point, he told me he’d read one of my stories.

Then he said, “I didn’t like it.”

He apologized for not liking it.


I told him not to apologize, because I took negative criticism better than positive. Maybe I’m more used to it, I don’t know. But funnily enough, he has since become one of my best ‘White Eyes’ promoters. However,  I found his negative criticism easier to handle coming from a non-Aboriginal than the accolades coming from non-Aboriginals. At least during the first year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I genuinely appreciated receiving positive comments from non-Aboriginal folks. However, what I really needed was to hear the Aboriginals respond positively to ‘White Eyes’ and therefore, being congratulated by non-Aboriginals would often cause me to feel, at some level, emotions of guilt and sadness, even though I appreciated their kind, supportive words.

I think it was because I knew that the stories only existed because I’d had the chance to spend time with the Aboriginals. Therefore, I needed to know what the Aboriginals thought about my book. Because, if I didn’t hear positives from them, then I knew I’d feel like just another exploiter, as so many White people were before me.

‘White Eyes’ wouldn’t have existed had I not been able to live in their community, taste their food, drink their drinks, experience their customs, share in their joy, feel their pain, be sad when they were sad, laugh at their humour and a whole lot more that I will probably never be able to properly represent. 
That’s why, on the first page of ‘White Eyes’, you can find an appropriate verse which is taken from the Bible. “I was a stranger and you took me in.” Matthew 25:35
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One cold night, a Native fella and his daughter dropped around to pick up some toilet paper. Notice I didn’t say borrow toilet paper, for obvious reasons.

It was after midnight. The Aboriginal fella’s daughter, about twelve years of age or so, picked up a copy of my book from the coffee table. She opened it, quietly read a little bit, looked up and then told me she liked the book, specially when it talked about eagles and she told me all her friends were passing the book around and enjoying it.

That was the best critique I could hear. And then as time went on and other Aboriginals commented on White Eyes, I came to realize that the Aboriginal folks around here enjoyed the fact these stories were written about them. They found the stories funny and ‘White Eyes’ had also allowed the non-Aboriginal world to take notice.

Also, many of them visualized me as being the main character in most of the stories. One fella talked about when I fell under a truck in the story called, ‘Mountain Iris Spirits’. It wasn’t really me and that specific incident never happened to anybody I knew. It was made up. However, I did get my thumb wrapped up in a rope as a load of logs shifted on the back of a wagon.

I may, from time to time, include in my blog the beginning of one of my stories. Just a page or two, in the hope that it may whet the appetite of some blog readers to read ‘White Eyes’.

Oh, and many of you might be wondering what bits of Busterness Buster is up to. A lot, so stay tuned. I’m sure you’ll hear more about Buster, but for now, please read the first very small section from one of my stories in ‘White Eyes’.

MOUNTAIN IRIS SPIRITS
We were up on Owl Mountain.  Both of us frustrated up to our yin yangs with Denise’s extended family. We live with them, on the reserve, in the family home. Three bedrooms and fourteen people. Us sleeping on the living room floor. Everybody else sleeping in bedrooms, except for Uncle Charlie who, with his fat tabby cat, slumbers half his day away in a tent on the front porch. Denise’s ex moved in last month and Denise gave him our small basement bedroom. A piss-off but she felt sorry for him. Red alert to our relationship, as we couldn’t sleep or do anything personal until the last member of the family had decided to turn off the television. Phony anger fits and antics were on almost the whole goddamn night, and in the morning we’d awaken, our eyes swollen from lack of sleep, to find the kids dripping their breakfast all over our bed sheets while they watched cartoons, or tiny Tod-alias Batman during the day-soaking us in everything from thirty-five S.P.F. sunscreen lotion to his cereal milk.

According to Denise, this mountain we had retreated to is also the home of spirits. She said they were everywhere, but today it was quiet and peaceful, as a bald eagle circled over the spruce forest. I hadn’t seen many eagles in Ontario but there sure were a lot of them in this part of Cape Breton.

“My stomach’s all jittery. Means there’s spirits hanging around,” Denise said.

“I get that with a hangover.” I laughed. She didn’t.

“Yeah, right. Most of you white people couldn’t see the spirits if they were plastered to your nose.” She swept her long black hair up into the mountain air, looking like an ancient mountain fairy queen.

“Maybe I can. I’m just not around people who talk about them all the time. You’ve been drenched in ghost talk. People always going on about spirits. Everywhere. Cripes, your sister ties her blankets down so the ghost won’t yank them off her bed, and you’re always hearing about somebody finding Mary or Jesus or some saint on a window or somebody’s toilet seat.”

I was sounding skeptical. Denise didn’t care for skepticism.———-

***
There, that wasn’t so painful, was it?

Thanks for reading my blog and you all take care.
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1 Comment

Does Wily Have a Microwave? 

28/3/2016

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Our Local Coyote
This coyote is wanted by some angry neighbours. He is wily and I think he’d catch the Road Runner in quick fashion. Anyway, I snapped the photo while he watched Sue, Buster and me strolling down Gold Brook Road.

We are pretty sure that he’s the coyote who killed a neighbour’s cat. He also ate all the cat food and dog food that our neighbour had put out for her many pets. But get this, there was also a bowl of frozen milk on the woman’s porch. Old Wily picked up the bowl of milk and carried it into the forest, I assume to defrost it before he drank it. Milk builds up the calcium in your bones and is good with kibble. The coyote is more than crafty and a vegan he is not.
Of note is that Buster is now nervous at certain spots on the road. He is a smart dog and does not want to become a coyote sandwich.
***
I think I need to give a wee explanation about my Buster Wear photo. And while I’m at it, also let you know that Buster is excited about how well his Buster Wear clothing project has been doing. It’s selling like hot kibble.

Anyway, a fella read my blog and wondered afterwards what the yellow area was on the front of the black Buster Wear shorts. I explained to him what it was and now I am going to explain it to the whole blogosphere.

It is a picture of a yellow chick who is looking at a fried egg on a plate. The chick is saying, “Holy crap! Larry, is that you?!?!
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***
Here’s part of a poem I could have used in my last blog, in which I expressed one of the reasons why I regard money the way I do.

             “Honest John Tomkins, a hedger and ditcher,
               Although he was poor, didn’t want to be richer;
               All such wishes in him were prevented,
               By a fortunate habit of being contented.”

                                                                                         “Anonymous” John Tomkins

***
It seems to me that I spend an inordinate amount of time writing blogs with the word ‘Buster” in them. Have you noticed that? Lots of photos of him too, and here’s one more.
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Be cool. Wear Buster Wear!
A friend of mine told me that she often thinks her husband’s dog is the other woman. I sometimes wonder if Buster isn’t the other woman in my blogs.

You see, I could write a blog that answered one of the greatest philosophical questions of all time. The question being: “Why are we here, in this world?” This blog answer could potentially set the world on a new course and still, I’m sure, I would receive emails that wouldn’t mention my solving the big universal question. Nope, they’d ask me, “Where’s the Buster stuff?
***
 And yes, Buster does give me material for my blogs. Like last week...

I have read that some Indigenous tribes believe animals can understand what we are saying. I have never really believed this. My line of thinking has been that animals, especially Buster dogs, have an ability to glean an amazing amount of info from the tone of our voice and from our body language. As one fella told us, dogs have had centuries and centuries of time to learn how to understand us humans and how to fit into our human lives.


Well, after yesterday’s walk, I may have to change my theory.

You see, every afternoon without fail, Buster waits around in the trailer while Sue finishes up her lunch. Once she’s finished, Buster goes into his song and dance. Which is to bark, bother, growl, and get in the way. Because it’s his Sue/Buster walk time.

Sue will, right smartly, snap a leash onto Buster’s red collar and then off they go. Usually for a one-and-a-half to three-km walk. The weather plays no role in this operation. Buster has decreed.

However, Buster’s decree has played a key role in one aspect of Sue’s life. He has improved Sue’s health immeasurably - both physical and mental - and I recommend that people get a dog to improve their health.

Anyway, after the walk, Buster and Sue will come inside where Buster gets his treat and then afterwards he has a little nap. Where he dreams about expanding his Buster Wear business into Buster Punk Rock Neck Collars. Using Trump’s foreign workers to save money.

Well, yesterday, while I was walking with Sue and Buster, I mentioned to Sue that I was going to go to Margaree and get some post-hockey beer and then maybe drop into the excellent Dancing Goat Coffee Shop and have a tea. Sue asked me if I wanted her to tag along. We got into a confab about this. The conversation theme was whether or not Sue will or won’t ride shotgun with me. We discussed this at some length while little furry Buster sniffed, peed and walked his walk.

At some point in our discussion, after we’d parsed to death my words, ‘Yes, I want you to come with me’, and we were able to come to the conclusion that I really did want Sue to be part of my coffee shop adventure, we also decided, somewhere in the smoke of words and meaning, that we’d leave Buster at home.

When we got to the deck, Buster wouldn’t climb the stairs up to the front door. No sir. He just wanted to laze around outside. Enjoy the scents and sights. Life is too short to rush, that kind of attitude.

So we hooked the outdoor dog chain onto his collar and then we went inside while Buster nosed around. However, when I took a peek out the door window, there was Buster, sitting on the porch looking in while I looked out. Making no attempt to get us to let him inside. Where he would get his usual post-walk treat. Rather unusual, wouldn’t you think?

Had Buster understood that we were planning on leaving him at home? In which case, his coming into the trailer would make it a damn sight easier for us to carry out the leaving-him-alone procedure.

Anyway, the result of Buster’s approach to this situation was that he enjoyed a bird’s eye view from my truck’s arm-rest, as he watched Sue and me sitting inside The Dancing Goat Coffee Shop enjoying our mugs of hot java. Did I mention that they make excellent home-made bread and other baked goods? We didn't tell Buster that, needless to say.
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***
NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH! BUSTER WINS ANOTHER DECISIVE BATTLE! WHAT CAN I SAY, OTHER THAN “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH ME”?
Buster has been turning his nose up at his meals. Even when we mix some of our food into his dry kibble.

The reason we feel that some dry kibble is important, other than because it’s the accepted and politically correct way to feed our presently scientifically raised canine buddies, is that it stops him from having an anal blockage. And I’ll tell you something, if you heard your beloved Buster dog trying to blow crap out of his or her intestinal pipes and not being successful, well, the cries and whines and howls are memorable.

 However, last Sunday morning I said, “Screw it. Forget the correct dog feeding methodology.”

Instead I said, “Get the frying pan, kettle and toaster rolling. Move ’em on out. Yah, hah,” and all that sort of Sunday morning nonsense.

You see, most Sunday mornings I make breakfast for Sue and me. I usually cook up fried or scrambled eggs with bacon or sausages, toast some bread and add a few slices of tomatoes or cucumbers. Often I sprinkle curry and pepper on the fried eggs. Two eggs for Sue and two eggs for me. Three sausages or bacon strips for Sue and three sausages or bacon strips for me.
 
Last Sunday we had sausages. And here is what I did. I fried six sausages, because that was all I had, fried five eggs, sliced up some cucumbers and made some toast.

Notice I said five eggs? Well, to quickly summarize this part of my blog, I made three breakfasts this morning. And Buster loved his and then he even ate his kibble. He looked awfully happy. And he ate the cucumber slices. Can’t even get plenty of kids to eat their cucumbers.

But when Buster jumped on my lap, turned his head to the side, so he could catch my eyes and then telepathically ordered a cup of tea with a teaspoon of sugar and a little milk, well, I had to draw the line. You have to draw a line somewhere. Don’t you?

But when he sat next to me while I was watching another pathetic bit on CNN about this Trump blow-hard, Buster telepathically said he would like to remind me that he was expecting a few buddy burgers when we go to Kingston, and I knew that buddy burgers it would be.

Since that breakfast, Buster has feasted on bits of steak, carrots, baked potatoes, spaghetti, bread and jam, but, and I must emphasize the BUT, he always has kibble with it. And he eats the kibble last of all. BUT he eats it. And he’s crapping just fine, thank-you.

And there you are. An almost one hundred-proof Buster blog. Please be warned. Blog 53 may not have Buster in it.  Sorry.   
***
             “Now I’m walkin down that long lonesome hallway
              Headin’ for the kitchen again
              All I want to do is eat everything
              Then I want to eat it all again.
              I need way more food, Babe.”
              Four-course meals at 8, 12, 6 and ten.
                                                      Merrill MARKOE, Ballad of Winky


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Snowshoers on the Skyline Trail in a blizzard a couple of weeks ago
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The Trail to Friendship

7/1/2015

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I think it’s time to quote Stephen King, who wrote, in the third foreword to his book ‘On Writing’, “…the editor is always right.” He also wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”

I haven’t written these blogs all by my lonesome. No way, Hosea. I have an editor. Sue is my editor and it’s Sue who corrects my usages of ‘had’ and ‘have’, ‘practice' and ‘practise’, ‘take’ and ‘bring’ and all the other language practices I have learned or not learned to use correctly over my life-time. As a matter of fact, as I write this, I’m thinking that the last ‘practices’ I just wrote, might, by the time it strikes your eyes, be spelt ‘practises’. (Ed. note: Not this time, Larry, though I can see why you might think so!)

Oh, and then there’s all that punctuation! You see, I sometimes add too many punctuation marks, put them in the wrong places or don’t use them at all when I should. Then it’s up to Sue to grab her grammar broom and sweep some of them away. Or scoop up her grammar pepper shaker and begin jiggling a few of those there punctuations into their grammatically correct hideaways.

Grammar could make a person scream, “Bloody hell!”, if it weren’t for an editor. Tenses getting all tense, co-ordinate conjunctions constipating the writing flow and the proper use of ‘taking’ and ‘bringing’. I mean, it all gets there, doesn’t it, whether you bring it or take it?

Then there are those possessive endings, passive and active verbs, quotation marks gone wonkers, and on and on and on. AND ON. Per se and ad infinitum.
                          “I’ve an inkling to stutter and stammer
                       In an effort to subjugate grammar
                       For although I love words
                       I adore the absurd
                        Punctuated, pauses; tend to enamour.”
                                                            Mike Youds, T’talking
When I write this blog, I often get passionate about an issue, whether it’s about language snobbery, earth degradation or what I perceive as our society drowning in a deluge of social media dribble. See what I mean? 

So, when I’ve finished writing what I have written, and then handed it to Sue, I’m expecting she’ll temper my passionate over-kill with a few cautionary pixels of advice. I listen to her advice, because I don’t want to piss the wrong people off. And when I say the wrong people, I don’t mean those who are in power, but the folks who regularly read this blog. Thank god I’m not paranoid or full of conspiracy theories. Would I write this blog if I were?  However, I don’t always listen to Sue and then I do or don’t pay for that decision.

Sue also does all the blog set-ups, as I’m not as familiar with the computer as Sue, nor do I want to be. She also chooses some of the pictures from time to time, or suggests quotes that she finds on her beloved computer.

So there. I didn’t want my readers to think this is all me, me, me. It’s also Sue, Sue, Sue. And it only took thirty-three blogs to say it. What a guy.
Note from "Editor Sue":
Every writer has an editor and I feel lucky to be Larry's.  He has a unique way of looking at things that I find thought-provoking, so I thoroughly enjoy reading what he writes and occasionally having my suggestions accepted. 

***
Eskasoni Hill Cross
Cross on Eskasoni Hill
 A few weeks ago I drove to Eskasoni. It’s a Mi’kmaq reserve in Cape Breton. One of the reasons I went there was because of a poem I read. Here’s a portion of it.

    “In Eskasoni there is a hill you may climb
    There is a cross and the image of the Blessed Mother
    You may climb as we do, especially on Good Friday
    Then maybe we may look upon each other as friends
    Like we wanted you to since the day you came.
    Na ntalasutmaqnminal mawita’tal-Our prayers will join
    Aq we’jitutesnu wlo’ti’.”-We will find happiness
                                                    Rita Joe,    There is a Hill

A hiking friend from Eskasoni, had given me a fairly good idea where the trail up the mountain to the cross could be located. Also, when I drove through Eskasoni, I could see the giant cross standing on top of the mountain, so I knew its general location.

I turned into what looked like the trail. An Aboriginal woman, on the way up her steep driveway, stopped her car. She rolled down her window and shouted, “What are you looking for?”

Her voice wasn’t particularly friendly. There was a little park nearby and she was probably wondering what this gray-haired guy had in mind while poking around the area.

I asked her if she could tell me which trail leads up to the cross. Her face went smiley and she directed me to the correct path.

I thought of the lines in the poem:
                                 “You may climb as we do, especially on Good Friday
                                   Then maybe we may look upon each other as friends.”
Staion of the Cross
A Station of the Cross on Eskasoni Hill

All along the route up to the cross, are Stations of the Cross. As I looked at the pictures and read the words, I thought about the suffering being shown in the stations. I meditated on some of the hardships the Aboriginals have suffered as they’ve tried, and still try, to fit into a society which seems set on its present course of pursuing infinite growth and the resulting destruction of the natural world. How they’ve had to learn to forgive those who were connected to the residential schools. Places that were established, not to segregate the aboriginals from the colonists, but, as was infamously said at the time,  “…to kill the Indian in the child”, by removing them from their families, and refusing to allow them to speak their own language.

                    “I lost my talk
                     The talk you took away
                     When I was a little girl
                     At Shubenacadie school.”
                                                          Rita Joe, I Lost My Talk

Also, treaties signed in good faith were broken and the list goes on, and as I looked at the stations of the cross, I thought, this is why many Mi’kmaq can relate so naturally to the Easter story.

                    “If we are slow
                      Embracing today’s thoughts,
                      Be patient with us a while
                      Seeing
                      What wrongs have been wrought,
                      Native ways seem not so wild.”
                                                           Rita Joe
Statue Mother Mary
Eskasoni Statue of Mother Mary
By the cross is a statue of compassionate Mary. All kinds of gifts were strewn at her feet. I left a pewter bear paw with her before I climbed down the mountain and returned to a world that is so different from the ways of the spirit.

                “When the stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city?
                  Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’
                  What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together
                  To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’?
                  And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
                  O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
                  Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”
                                                                        T.S. Eliot, Choruses from ‘The Rock’
Uisgeban Falls Brook
Brook Racing from Uisgeban Falls after Many Days of Rain
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Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

6/4/2014

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I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby declare that as of Sunday, April 6th, I have received more than enough rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow.
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I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that my snow blower is useless. Unless I can hire a team of moose to pull it through the above mentioned precipitation. Snow blowers detest ice pellets underneath their wheels. Confound them!
shovelling snowLarry's Daily Occupation
I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that after clearing off the snow plough’s many big dumps, along with the sky’s larger dumps uponst all the sundry acres of paradise for which I am responsible, that I have, as of now, fired myself from snow removal. I will continue to be available for minor wood splitting and spooning of sugar into my piping hot tea.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also further hereby declare, that I was not friggen impressed by the April Fool’s joke of another snowstorm. Ha, ha, and who else is laughing?  

Finally, I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby and finally declare, that this is my last hereby declaration. Which I hereby declare to be declared.


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Have you read “Cape Breton Christ”, written by Denise Aucoin and published by Breton Books? I have, and although I’m not much for writing a technically proper book review, I can say that I enjoyed this book. It was a comforting and uplifting read. The thing about this book is that it’s a short novel written in the form of a poem. And I loved the ending. I won’t give it away, but I’m reasonably sure that if Christ were going to pick a place to live, he might very well decide to settle down in Cape Breton. It’s an island with a big heart.  Here’s a quote from Denise’s book:  

“not for one second am i about to suggest
that our baby Christ came to be born
in the middle of mabou
or bridgeport
or any other such community on cape breton island
  what i am announcing is that
in the sacred and incredible act of creation
our beautiful island was immensely blessed
by the heart and hand of god
over five hundred and seventy million years ago.”
I’m not a person who has settled into many new places. So I don’t have the skills down pat on how to burrow into a new environment, while keeping the connections back in the last place piping hot and fresh. And, being reasonably sensitive, according to some observers, I worry about keeping the old emotional ties strong back in Ontario, while working on building new emotional bonds in Cape Breton.
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One niggling worry is that my associations in Ontario are feeling the strain on the psychological threads of friendship that were nurtured over so many years.

So, hello to all my friends in Ontario, Alberta and Michigan.

C’est la vie, mes amis. May we someday enjoy a Gamay together at our favourite aunt’s place. 

Rona LightfootRona Lightfoot-Celtic Piper
Life is a koan. Don’t you think? One of the biggest koans might be the viewpoints held by non-Aboriginals versus those of the Aboriginals. Whew, a tough one, and the puzzle is quite apparent up here in Cape Breton, where different colonial cultures live side by side with the Aboriginal population.
On Saturday, I was talking to an Aboriginal friend who lives off the reserve. This offers him a different set of problems from
those who live on the reserve.

Picture
So he deals from his unique perspective with the intrinsic views of the non-Aboriginals and with those of his culture who live on the reserve. If that isn’t a rock to the noggin, problem-solving puzzle, I don’t know what is. His attempts to fit the pieces together must have his synapses firing fast enough to burn down a meth lab.

I was thinking, what if this fella was a writer? He’d have lots of emotional material to put into words. Because, as you know, I believe writers need at least some chaos and uncertainty in their lives for them to have the material to incorporate into their blood and guts creations.

However, it may be difficult to write about a crisis such as a relationship breakdown, if you are in the midst of one. But once you’ve put it behind you and are trucking on down the road, well, the pen will, at some point, be ready to burn, baby, burn.


Many writers, like myself, get discouraged. Sometimes I’ll read a short story or a novel and I’ll think, “Shit, I can’t write like that. Hell, I don’t even think like that”.

Take many of the literary magazines. So many of their stories have been diced, spliced and sautéed into an urban gruel. They’re the ones that seem to grab the publishers’ attention. Put a character in a bar, a bedroom, a downtown apartment, a subdivision, a jail or a whore house on Yonge Street and your odds of being published rise. Of course, I know this is not always true, but these thoughts do occasionally bounce around inside my skull.

And hell, we live in a forty-five-foot mini home in the forest. My main conversations are with crows, squirrels and Ben, the dog down the road. Now, I’ve seen birds and squirrels getting amorous. And I’ve seen a crow eating a dead squirrel while the squirrel’s family members run up and down the branch trying to get a look at who it was that was killed and is being devoured. We suspect the perpetrator was the black cat who creeps up to our house in the early morning and waits for breakfast by our bird feeders.


squirrel at window
Squirrel peeking through our window
And the chatter on the street is there’s a new crow in town. What is the inner angst of this rogue crow? Why does Ben choose to poop on our laneway and not on his own? Look out, literary magazines. Here comes an award winner.

But, really, there are so many good writers out there. Urban or rural. Which leads me to a point about my marketing savvy. By the way, don’t spend too much time trying to find my marketing savvy, because I don’t have a lot. And, I don’t know if I will ever get myself worked up into a marketing frenzy. Which, I think, is a problem for many writers. Because the various forms of social media, with their unlimited potential, are so powerful that writers feel they have to be involved in it all the time. If not, they worry they are going to be left behind by a massive herd of social media-savvy key-tappers. Which must have some deleterious effects on their energy to create.

 Here’s an example of my marketing enthusiasm. When I was a kid and thought as a kid and didn’t look at myself in the mirror very often, I used to have a paper route. The newspaper would hold subscription drives. I hated the door-knocking, the persuading and the rah-rah sessions. I did, however, win a raincoat at one rally, but they had to draw twenty times and there were only about twenty-five carriers in the room. Plus it was a dry summer. Ha.


                                                                            ***

I’m also humble about my vocabulary. Which isn’t gigantic, although it’s growing. People generally use the words they heard when they were growing up. So, if you hear a lot of words when you are a child, you will most likely use them when you’re older, along with the dialect you heard.

Note, that doesn’t make a person with a larger vocabulary more intelligent, but it will open up more opportunities for them. My warning to those with a big vocabulary is to not resent having to drop your vocabulary by a thousand words so you can communicate with the likes of me. Because isn’t it the luck of the draw as to what family you have or don’t have? Just buck up and enjoy your view.

Stephen King has pointed out that a person shouldn’t wait to write until after they have acquired a greater number of words. The words will come with the writing and the reading. However, you must read.


                                                                             ***  
Finally, what amazes me about writing, is that the creative activity involved in this pen to paper thing, opens us up to universal bits and pieces. Maybe because a writer is someone who keeps an eye out for these messages and surprises. Most writers are always on the job. Therefore they recognize more clues and bits of unusual info. 

Like last week. I was travelling down Disheartened Highway 104. I was questioning my vision and my style and indulging in other downer thoughts, when I stumbled upon a Walter Whitman poem. It’s called, “Quicksand Years”. (I do this stumbling thing all the time.) Here’s the poem:

“Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,

Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possesse’d soul, eludes not,

One’s-self must never give way-that is the final substance-that out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?

When shows break up what but One’s Self is sure?

Does this poem say a lot about what your own soul has to express? Have you stumbled on any creative aids?
Have a great week!
snow buried cabin
Cabin across the road from us
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