Larry Gibbons
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A  Colourful Story

17/8/2017

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Wild Roses Near Port Hood Trail
You all remember Maritime Mac’s second cousin, Wilbur Mackenzie. He’s the fella who drove to Sydney to pick up a bicycle and returned home empty-handed, but with both he and his dog, Bradley having learned an important lesson about likes and dislikes.

Anyway, Wilbur, besides owning a 2010 red Accent, also owns a large, dark red pick-up truck. He uses it to plough his neighbours’ roads in the Cape Breton snow belt, truck fire-wood to folks and occasionally haul his sometimes sorry ass to this place and that. Once in a while, he even likes to sit in his truck, listen to the radio and occasionally rev up the engine. He loves his hemi.
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Church on Mountain
On one particular Sunday, Wilbur, Bradley and his nephew, Tyrell jumped into the pick-up and drove to Wilbur’s friend’s small trailer. The friend’s trailer was stuffed with Wilbur’s friends and folks and the day was very, very hot.

How hot was it?

It was so hot that the cold beer became warm beer practically before it hit their lips. So, there were Wilbur and his significant others imbibing at high speed to beat the heat. Even Bradley was turbo-licking the beer out of a black, cast iron frying pan.

There was no air conditioner, so it got very stuffy, even with the tiny fan blowing to beat the band, bless its little fanny.

Wilbur was majorly sweating and it was supposed to continue to be hot for another few days. When he looked out the window, he could see the heat rising off the hood of his dark red truck. Wave after wave of hot air floating up, up and away.


And speaking of hot air, Wilbur let the laughter and much of the conversation zing over his head, out the patio door and up to the top of some mountain. Wilbur wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
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Bald Mountain Summit
And Wilbur couldn’t help but notice that wee Timmy’s father, who was Wilbur’s cousin, could sure swear up a storm. He could roughly expound on any topic and therefore, wee Timmy, who was only seven years old, could already talk like an irate mechanic who’d just spent two hours throwing things at a rusty bolt.

“You want to go fishing with us?” Wilbur’s cousin asked.

Wilbur didn’t want to go fishing, because he can’t deal with wire or string or rope. It tangles up on him and drives him just a short distance from stir-crazy.

However, Tyrol was keen to go fishing and was one of the first ones in the motor boat.


“If you’re not going, would you mind looking after little Timmy then?” Wilbur’s cousin asked. “He gets boat-sick and we spend more time cleaning up his %^&$%^& puke than we do fishing.”

Wilbur said he wouldn’t mind, so very soon Wilbur, wee Timmy and Bradley were listening to the sound of the motor boat pushing its way through the heat. 

They’d only been gone about five minutes, when Wilbur realized he had to use the little boys’ room because of all the beer he’d downloaded.  However, little Timmy who’d been downloading his share of hot dogs and pop, had already bee-lined his way to the one small washroom, and the way he’d comported himself to the tiny water closet, it looked like he was possibly in for a number one and number two combo.  So Wilbur, whose kidneys were becoming more then a little insistent, went outside. Once there, he walked to the back of his steaming hot truck, unzipped and began to merrily stress the innocent grass.

Suddenly, he heard one heck of a scary boom. An explosion, which sounded like a stick or two of dynamite had blown up practically inside his head. Why, the ground even shook and Wilbur later told Maritime Mac that he had, for a brief instant, seen the big, fat, white light.

And then, who should come running out of the trailer, but wee Timmy! He burst through the trailer door, his pants falling down around his knees, trailing a stream of toilet paper and looking like a scared white-tailed deer. And my gosh, but he was cursing like a scared trooper.

“What the F$%^&* $^&$ $)(*% was that?”

Wilbur was still in shock and had no answer.

And we can’t forget poor Bradley. He’d been in mid-dump himself when the explosion occurred.
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Bradley
What the heck had happened anyway? Well, I’ll tell you.    The truck had got so hot that one of its very large tires had blown to smithereens.

What happened after that, you may ask? Well, to put it bluntly, Wilbur wet himself. The little fella messed himself and Bradley got backed up until a week next Sunday.   And when the folks came home with their load of rainbow trout, did wee Timmy ever have a colourful story for them!
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Deer on Trail Near Port Hood
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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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Escapees

31/1/2016

1 Comment

 
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Wreck Cove, Cape Breton
Wow! Blog number fifty! Woo-hoo! Hard to believe I’ve managed to stay with this blog writing endeavour. And, maybe even more surprisingly, that Sue has managed to hang in there and continue editing and submitting my fifty blogs to the blogosphere. Is there a medal for that?

Now I know some bloggers write a blog almost every day, but for me, fifty is a satisfying number and maybe that’s why I like the colour of the fifty-dollar bill. I might like the colour of the one hundred-dollar bill, but I’ve never spotted one. Maybe they're extinct.

***
About three weeks ago, four of us snowshoed on the Skyline trail. It was a blustery wintry Sunday. The snow was blowing itself dizzy and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better. Furthermore, the Skyline trail is located on top of a mountain, a sure recipe for down home snow trouble. However, we all travelled in some mighty fine four-by-four machines so I wasn’t too worried.

We parked our vehicles next to a brand new emergency station. This little building has a land-line phone, a wood stove, a bench or two and a goodly amount of firewood. I have, at other times in my life, attempted to get trapped in one of these emergency mountain accommodations, just so my partner and I would be forced to share the hut overnight with only a little food, a large bottle of champagne and some big ideas.

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Emergency Hut
Anyway, we had plenty of snow on which to snowshoe to one of the most beautiful lookouts in the world.

But first, we had to pass a little washroom. Which always causes us to stop for a few seconds of silence. For it was here some hikers came upon a woman lying on the ground, bleeding and very close to death. Standing on her was a coyote. The hikers had shouted and thrown all kinds of things at the coyote while the coyote remained reluctant to flee his or her takeout. He did scram off eventually, but, sadly, left the woman critically injured. Apparently she was able to whisper her name before she died. A sad tragedy and a clear warning to never take wildlife for granted.

One of the characteristics of the Skyline trail is that a hiker has about an eighty percent chance of seeing a moose or two. One hiker with us had never been on this trail and he was looking forward to seeing a moose. He was hoping to get a photo of one.

Well, not too far in, we all saw a moose run across the trail in front of us. None of us was camera ready, but we all did see the moose and we all laughed and joked about how nobody had their camera or cell phone ready for the ‘BIG MOOSE PICTURE’.

About halfway down the trail is a huge, fenced-in area with two gigantic gates. This barrier protects acres and acres of land where they plan on planting about 50,000 trees. The moose have devastated the forest in this part of the highlands.

We entered through a tall gate and walked to the other end, where we exited by another tall gate. It felt like being in Jurassic Park, so I stopped snowshoeing for a brief time, and imagined feeling the vibrations of gigantic moose dinosaur feet stomping outside our fenced-in refuge. I have a vivid imagination.

At the look-out we couldn’t look out. There was nothing to see but gray snow-filled emptiness. So, as the wind attempted to gain entry to our bare skin and we bundled up tighter than ever, we ate a quick snack. Eventually, it got so blizzardy we could hardly see twenty feet in front of us. So we headed back. The snow settled down once we got into the forest.

                                  Out where the winding foot-path goes,
                          Out by the singing rill,
                          Out to the edge of mystery
                          And the land beyond the hill.
                                                Henry Holcomb Bennett, Adventure

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Visibility Nil
The funniest incident of this venture involved a hiker taking a selfie. He had those huge, one plate of glass, ski goggles which look a little like a skin diver’s mask. Actually, they’re quite a bit like "beer goggles", (Google it!), except when you look through them, everything is clear, and no female or male hikers can be mistaken for the prettiest or handsomest persons in the whole wide world, bar none, until you sober up, anyway.

The goggle wearer likes to do the selfie photo thing. This is now a very big fad. He took out his cell phone and pointed it at his face while we all stood behind him. As he took a picture of his own face, which he probably sees a lot of in the mirror, a moose chose to cross the road.

Why did the moose cross the road anyway? So he could get to the other side and give the chicken a pointer or two.

What a laugh! What a hoot! Wally getting a picture of the wrong face! But, this is what happens on these hikes and makes them so much fun.

More interesting still, if you look carefully at the picture, which I have included, you might see a strange reflection in the fella’s goggles. Doesn’t it look like a moose?

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Check out the goggles...
***
A week later I went snowshoeing up by Wreck Cove, God’s country, as one fella put it. I, however, replied that when I am skiing on our road and I stop to take a long gander at the mountains and the snow blowing around their crowns, I think that where I live is also quite godly.

Now, I should note that I didn't group hike often when I was in Ontario, but because I’m not as familiar with Cape Breton trails and because there are a plenty of big critters around here and the terrain is much rougher than where I used to hike, I now often go on group hikes.

And, as if to remind me that it wasn’t a bad idea to be with other hikers, a coyote crossed the road in front of us as we drove to the trail head. Let me tell you, this was one healthy looking coyote. I’ve seen coyotes in Ontario and they’re not as big as this one. He was more the size of a wolf and I’ve been told these coyotes run in packs, the same as wolves. I believe they call these Cape Breton canines, coy-wolves.

Last summer I met a fella on his favourite bridge over a section of the Middle River. He told me he’d had to fight a coyote off. The coyote had been quite determined and had tried different tactics to get himself a finger-licking good meal. Luckily, this fella won the battle or he’d not have been around to tell his tale.
 
Anyway, there were about fifteen hikers assembling at the trailhead while four dogs excitedly scampered amongst our pack of humans as we prepared to head up the mountain. They obviously couldn’t wait for the hike to begin.

But alas, on the porch, was a poor, sad, large German shepherd type of dog. He, apparently, wasn’t allowed to go on the hike. He was howling and crying and barking and tearing back and forth across his verandah jail cell. Poor dog. Poor, poor dog and that’s what everyone was thinking. And partway up the mountain, we could still hear his sad cries of abandonment.

Speaking of up the mountain, it was up the mountain that the THING happened. The event happened. The whatever you want to call it happened. Things happen to me. It’s my tagline.

I was climbing up a fairly steep grade. I was at the tail end of the lead group, but behind me, quite far behind me, were the slowpokes.

Up, up and away I went, until, at some point, I looked down at my right foot, and lo and behold, I saw there was no snowshoe to behold.

I dropped to the ground and started digging in the snow with my ski pole. I dug and dug, as if I was looking for an avalanche victim, while the hiking party ahead of me disappeared into the forest. I dug some more and there was still no snowshoe to be found. I was a little embarrassed, because the THING had happened to me and nobody else.

I surmised that it might have come off further down the mountain. Hadn’t I realized that my snowshoe had fallen off? Apparently not. This is what other hikers and folks to whom I’ve told this tale have asked me. “Didn’t you realize your snowshoe was missing?”

“No sir. No ma'am. It was the THING that came with me and I never know where the hell it’ll show up. This incident happened and I didn’t know it happened until when it became a THING.”

I think this part of the blog might confuse you and my editor, bless her heart. 

(Note from Ed: "No surprise to me!")

Anyway, I stopped and looked down the mountain. Oh god, how far down had it fallen off my footsie without my noticing it? Then suddenly I hearkened to the sound of a voice. A voice further down the mountain. The voice said, “Surely they’ll miss it eventually?”

The eventually had arrived. I shouted that it was I who had lost his snowshoe. Ha, ha, ha. And as they were all filled with mirth and laughter, guess who blew by me, sans snowshoes, and as happy as a flea on a grizzly bear? The German shepherd escapee. He was making up for lost time.

Near the end of the hike, as I walked along the Cabot Trail, snowshoes in hand, I saw a small barn. In front of the barn was a horse. I wasn’t going to take a photo of the horse until who should pop his head out of the barn entrance, but a small goat.

Now this goat had personality and even from the fair distance I was standing from the barn I could tell he was the boss. Why, it looked like the goat was saying, “Horse, what are you gawking at?  Do you know that fella with the bushy beard? Do you have some business with him? Stand back, I’ll deal with it.”

I just had to take their picture. So I did.

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Goat, Horse and Dog Escapee
Later on, the owner of the horse, the goat and the escapee German shepherd, told us that her horse gets super lonely if the goat wanders off. The goat seems to keep him calm and happy. She also explained another thing. Most horses feel better if there is a goat around. For example, if a horse is going to race and his goat friend isn’t around, the horse gets all upset and will probably lose the race. She said, “that’s where the phrase, ‘He got my goat’ comes from.”

Now isn’t that interesting?

I will sign off now and wait for the THING. It’s the THING that has helped me write fifty blogs. He or she is a rather speculative fella so I’m not evicting the THING any time soon.  Not even if I could, because I have a thing for the THING.


          My modus operandi this--
                      To take no heed of what’s amiss
                                              And not a bad one:
                      Because as Shakespeare used to say
                      A merry heart goes twice the way
                                              That tires a sad one.

                          Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, The Wisdom Of Folly


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View of Cabot Trail from Skyline Look-off
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Psyching the Mic

25/1/2015

1 Comment

 
Flashpoint
Not long before Christmas, I had to do a CBC radio interview. I’m not going to give out the time of the show because I don’t think I did very well. But what the hey, I never promised I would, and I’m sure all the professional Google people out there can find it. But, just in case you’re interested, I’ll give you one hint. It was on a Friday afternoon.  

I was on the radio because one of my stories was in a book called, 'FLASHPOINT' which had just been published by Third Person Press. I’m grateful that they published my story and also grateful for what they’ve taught me about short story writing.

There are also no fingers on my hand pointed at the interviewer. “She” was professional and kind. (I think I just gave you another clue.)

This anthology of speculative fiction short stories can be bought in some bookstores and can also be purchased from the Third Person Press website. So, before I go any further, I suggest you drop everything you’re doing, and buy the book. Chop, chop.


Here's their website: 
http://www.thirdpersonpress.com/   (There's a lot of interesting stuff on their site, by the way.)

Here’s what John Updike said about being interviewed:  “It rots a writer’s brain, it cretinises you. You say the same thing again and again and when you do that happily you’re on the way to being a cretin. Or a politician.”

Anyway, apparently there are some things that interviewers find difficult when they are interviewing. For example, they don’t like interviewees who give too long or too complicated a response, who are boring, who leave their sense of humour somewhere else - those sorts of things. Well, I have to say that humour is not something I can leave anywhere. My problem is trying not to be funny or crazy when answering questions.
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Quite a while before this particular interview, I’d been prepped for another online conversation. It occurred in the early summer. That interviewer let me practise before I was let loose. When I thought I was ready, I sucked it up and spewed it out.  One of the things this online interviewer explained to me was how to hold the mic. He said that the microphone should be approximately a fist’s length from my trap.  So, while I was being interviewed, the CBC interviewer poked the mic toward my face, while she asked me a question. I tried to grab the mic out of her hand. She quickly yanked it away and I think she shook her head in a ‘don’t-do-that’ way. However, it’s not like any listeners saw me make a grab for the intimidating mic.

Now, I have never loved my voice because I know what the little bugger can do. My tongue, especially if I’m nervous or have exercised hard, has the ability to dump a bucket of hot peppers over my yapper box. On the other hand, the author who was being interviewed with me, had a voice that seemed immune to cracking and squeaking. So I felt a bit intimidated by the contrast. Oh, if I could only sound like Gregory Peck.

Here's another point about my earlier on-line interview session. One of the questions I was asked at that interview was, “What books have been important to you in your life?”

I could have mentioned Grisham, George Elliot, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Larry Brown, Stephen King, or a whole slew of authors. At least some author that would make me look or sound a teeny bit suave, cool, professional and literate.  But no friggen way. Nope, and believe you me, I did hear my brain shouting, fairly loudly, “Don’t say it, moron.”

But all to no avail as I said, “Walter Brookes and his wonderful ‘Freddy the Pig’ books: ‘Freddy Goes to Florida’, ‘Freddy the Detective’, ‘Freddy the Cowboy’, ‘Freddy and the Ignoramus’, and on and on. "
Not anything wrong with the books, but couldn’t I have dug a little bit deeper? Apparently not.  

So, before the CBC interrogation, I’d prepared a little cheat sheet, because I’m not that good at remembering names or titles. This list had included the title of some speculative fiction books I’d read or was reading, along with some other book genres I was reading or had read. But you see, the author who was being interviewed with me, and who I thought had a really cool voice, had no cheat sheet to encumber his response freedom.  So there I was, intimidated by him and by the fact that I’m on CBC radio, live, and so what did I do? I parked my cheat sheet. I went raw.

Then, look out. The CBC questioner asked, “You write speculative fiction, so you must read a lot of it. What books do you read?”

Oh, duh! Come on, Larry. Get a grip. My brain was shouting, “Moron, moron!”, even before I answered the question, and for Pete’s sake I knew damn well that one of the main purposes of the book launch and for us authors being interviewed was to sell speculative fiction and ‘Flashpoint’ in particular. But what did I say in response to her question? I said, “No, I don’t read much speculative fiction.” 

You think the interviewer looked surprised when I made a pass at the mic? Nothing compared to her reaction to that answer. After this faux pas, I bungled around a bit and said I was trying to catch up on the classics and I was even able to name a few authors.

But you see, I don’t try hard to make my stories speculative fiction. Because my life is so damn speculative, that to be accurate I should say that some of my stories should probably be considered non-fiction. However, I didn’t think to mention that. It might have added some balance.

James Thurber wrote: “My opposition to interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give-and-take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”

Also, maybe subconsciously, I mentioned the classics to the interviewer because I didn’t want all the on-line listeners from my summer interview to think the greatest books in my past were ‘Freddy the Pig’ books. Which, by the way, really were a great read, particularly behind my grade five math book.
By the way, Wikipedia defines ‘Speculative Fiction’ as  “…a broad literary genre encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements.”  It also probably includes a mix of the above, which I would suggest they call ‘mutt speculative fiction’ in celebration of the mutt we just purchased from the SPCA.

His name is Buster and he acts like a Buster. One of his first tasks, after arriving at our little trailer, was to force us to flip the mattress. Which, we then discovered, has only one official lie-on-it side, so we had to flip it back and put the wet end at the far corner, along with a change of sheets. We love Buster.
Our dog and friend
Buster and Mr. Peabody
So, in the CBC interview, I mentioned the classics and then I squeaked out, through the hot peppers and coal dust, that I also read Stephen King, but doesn’t everybody? And finally I threw out the name of a fantasy author whose book I’d been reading. But by gosh, I couldn’t remember the author’s name, because I’d pocketed my cheat sheet. So I said that I was presently reading a fantasy book by Bradley Zimmer. Oh, if I’d only looked at my tiny sheet of paper, I’d have known to say that I was reading ‘The Saga of the Renunciates’  by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Did you notice where the Zimmer and Bradley were supposed to be?

And it totally escaped my mind that I was also working my way through ‘Black Water’, a terribly thick anthology of magic realism short stories.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.”  

So, this blog is, in a way, a bit of an apology for not doing a better job of promoting the book, ‘FLASHPOINT’.

However, possibly on the positive side, I suspect that I have some kind of safety valve in my brain and mouth, which will not allow me to be a cool interviewee or a charming regurgitator. I think I can safely say that I’m in some ways immune to being sucked into the dumping grounds of slickness and consumption and I suppose I should be happy about that. However, if I’m not really immune, but only think I am, then please be kind enough to let me be like the ostrich and keep my head buried up my keister.
Inverness ski trail
Ski Trail Near Inverness, Cape Breton
My next blog, number 35, might have a little more about Buster, our new dog, who has decided that his brand new expensive bed is a chew toy. Lord, help us.  Guess where he sleeps?
Dog destroying bed
Do they really think I'm going to sleep in this thing?
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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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Fish Stories

13/11/2014

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No matter how hard we try to make our windows look like windows and not entrances to a more exciting and fantastic forest, we always have birds crashing into them. Most of the birds survive but unfortunately a few don’t.

Like last summer. We found a Northern Parula Warbler lying on our little side porch. She was a beautiful little bluish coloured bird with a yellow throat and breast and two white bars on her wings.  We looked her up and discovered that our area is definitely part of her breeding range. I also read that they like to nest in moist woodsy areas. BINGO. That’s our woods to a tree. Moist and mossy.
Picture
Last weekend we opened the door and found a stunned chickadee lying on our deck floor. He was alive, but looked like he was down for the count. I picked him up and let him sit in my warm cupped hand. The little rascal chirped at me when I picked him up but then settled down and just sat there.

Sue brought out a box with a cloth inside. She thought it might be like a nest to the little feller. It wasn’t. To the bird it was a jail or a superbug-infested hospital room and when I tried to gently place her into the box, she fluttered away and landed on the edge of our porch railing. Then she just sat there and sat there and sat there. Perched precariously on the edge, looking around and, as I said, sitting there.

That got us into a caucus meeting. Should we go and try the box out again? We deliberated and discussed and watched the little fella through our window, just sitting there and not doing much of anything.  A motion was passed, which we put into a birdie omnibus bill, which said that we should, once again, retrieve the box and put clean water in the nest along with a bowl of black oil sunflower seeds.

It was also passed that we place the hospital room/King Cole Tea box into the woodshed where we figured the poor little bird would be comforted by Skippy the squirrel. Who we’re sure has now finished building her condo in the back of our firewood pile.

We also passed 100 other motions that had no relation to birds, so if anyone votes against our omnibus bill, we can accuse them of voting against the welfare of our birds. Democracy is alive and well in Cape Breton.

But guess what? All the plans of men and mice were for naught. The tiny chickadee looked through our window at us, with what looked like a thank you in his eyes, and then he looked up into the sky and whoosh! He was soaring off towards the trees.

Thinking it over, I would have to say that the chickadee had been down for the ten count.  We should have put the little bird in the corner, given her a shot of water from a water bottle, dried her off with a towel and given her a pep talk. “You go out there, keep your left up and punch with your right.”
***
There’s a wonderfully informative column in The Victoria Standard, our local weekly paper. It’s called ‘Strictly For the Birds’ and it’s written by a knowledgeable birder by the name of Bethsheila Kent.

I phoned Ms. Kent one afternoon and told her about some of the birds we’d seen at our feeders. Two exciting sightings were a brightly coloured Baltimore Oriole and a Red Bellied Woodpecker.

The Red Bellied Woodpecker and the Baltimore Oriole are outside their ranges. The Oriole not so far outside but I believe the Red Bellied Woodpeckers are supposed to be found south of the Great Lakes, a long way from Cape Breton. But with the climate warming thing going on, these sightings are probably just going to become more common, as long as these critters can survive our rush for lower taxes, greater wealth and higher productivity.  For some fascinating information about red-bellied woodpeckers, look here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-bellied_woodpecker/lifehistory
red bellied woodpecker
Red Bellied Woodpecker at our suet feeder
We’re happy that we have these birds to entertain us. I’m also grateful for being able to help so many birds make it through our rough winters when the snow and ice lie thick on the ground.
                        “How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way,
                          Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?”
                                                                                          William Blake, A Memorable Fancy
***
I read somewhere, in some book, at some time in the last six years, that the universe has a strange and unique way of looking after those of us who, how do I put it, have our heads in highly charged fog and aren’t quite so logical and good at rational planning as others. It compensates. Puts events and opportunities and solutions in front of us, so we can at least give them a good eyeball.

And if we’re perceptive, we’ll take a good look at these universal gems and see them as important messengers for our pilgrimage through this earthly gift of life. Maybe clearing out some of the stifling socialization defaults we’ve been hobbled with.

                       “The world has room to make a bear feel free;
                        The universe seems cramped to you and me.
                        Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
                        That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
                        His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.”
                                                                       Robert Frost, The Bear

And is it possible that more of us would be aware of these connections and, dare I call them, messages from the other side, if we were more connected to nature and less influenced by the hypnotic attractions of culture, education, conventionality and unnaturalness, by which our citified population is so controlled?

As a writer, I deal in connections, happenstance, and surprise. And much like love, these things are not easy to codify. Thank God for that.

Because, if you too closely observe them through your logical microscope, there’s a good chance your desperate need to rationalize them into a neat bundle will get your brain all fired up and sweaty. Your brain warmth might then heat up and melt away these communications until they become only troublesome storm clouds lurking in the back of your subconscious.

That’s why I call my efforts at marketing, “soft marketing”. It’s loosely based on this happenstance theory. Because I know if I start too intensely pushing and jawing away about my writing, and if I start putting its source under rational scrutiny, then it’s bye-bye gut thoughts.

So, as with my marketing approach, it’s my responsibility to look at these surprises and connections and try to understand them, but it behooves me to approach them with child-like wonder and humility.
pumpkins
My Grandsons Tackling their Pumpkins
***
So let’s talk about our river, happenstance and surprise. As you know, it is prone to boiling over its banks and taking short cuts across our property. She even takes some of our property with her and carries it out to the ocean. Five acres and counting down. Four point nine, four point eight…

We haven’t really tried too hard to get something done about the flooding. We have even been told that we aren’t doing enough about the flooding. I call this soft flood marketing.
However, one day, the universe threw out a line of opportunity. Nudge, nudge, Larry, pay attention kind of thing.

This particular day I was hiking towards the trail that leads up the mountain. A man in a red pick-up passed me by. He parked in a field. Jumped out of the truck with a fishing rod.
We got talking. During the conversation I offered him the opportunity to salmon fish in our salmon pool, which the river had so kindly created, without a yes or a no from us.

At one point, the man pulled a cigar out of his pocket and reached for his lighter. “Damn it,” he said. “I forgot my lighter.”

I took off my knapsack, opened it up, pulled out a lighter and gave him the cigar starter.


Anyway, that’s when the fella told me he was a fishery enforcement officer. Then he told me that he would drop around sometime and look at our river and see how the river was treating our property. He said that after he made his visit, he would send out an official who would make suggestions as to what we could do about the flooding.

Of course, I now need to follow up. Phone him and remind him of the conversation. I mean I don’t just let the ocean roll over me without my helping it along.

Now, here comes the coincidence and surprise and being synched-in stuff I was talking about. Although this encounter was already a happenstance kind of thing.

At one point, the fisher person, (did I say that correctly?), told me that every year he wraps a salmon tag around a birch tree, at a certain place along the Middle River. It sounded like a ceremony of sorts. Maybe keeping a connection to a place he loved.

Have you followed the connections so far? How connections and happenstance and circumstance can create a story? A real story which can’t be imagined?


A few days later, we looked out of our living room window and saw two aliens walking around in the river. They looked like two salmon, who had undergone a pop-in-the-microwave-evolutionary burst and grown two feet and two arms and a head like ours. 
However, after careful observation, we realized they were two skin divers. Probably looking for relics and interesting things tossed into the river.

See what’s happening? Are you watching the connections here?
skin diver
Skin Divers in our River
Later on that day, while I was hiking towards the Wilderness Area, I saw a Fishery and Oceans truck parked at the end of our road. I thought it was the fella I’d been talking to earlier, who was doing some fishing in the wilderness area.

Anyway, I hiked to my meditation place along the Middle River. There I sat on my tiny hiking chair and listened, smelled, observed and thought about unbelievably deep things. Ha.

Suddenly, I heard voices. I turned around and there were the two evolutionary-salmon guys walking towards me. Wearing the full skin diver outfit. It was un-nerving seeing these fellas pop out of the bush.

Do you know what they were planning on doing after they plunged into the water and let the river float them away? Their heads underwater and their feet thrashing from time to time? They were counting salmon.

Do you know who they worked for? The Fisheries and Oceans.

You see what I mean? It’s like the universe throws these themes out and you don’t have to be too far above dense, or below it for that matter, to know that there are these connections going on.

Guess what else I saw?

Wrapped around a thin birch tree, in the Middle River Wilderness Area, was a blue salmon fishing tag. Are you counting the odds here?
                         “The current of life runs ever away
                          To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
                          Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
                          And think to alter its motion.
                          Don’t waste a curse on the universe--
                          Remember it lived before you.
                          Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
                          But bend and let it go o’er you.”
                                           Ella Wheeler Wilcox, As You Go Through Life

                                       “Your fish stories hang together
                                         when they’re just a pack of lies:
                                         you ought to have a leather medal:
                                        you ought to have a statue
                                        carved of butter: you deserve
                                        a large bouquet of turnips.”

                                       “There were no Christians among the early Gauls;
                                         they were mostly lawyers.”
             
                                                          From ‘The People, Yes’, Carl Sandburg


***
Here's a challenge for you.  Can you find the moose in this picture?
Picture
Find the moose!
Aspy Trail
Brave Tree on Aspy Trail
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Worth Fighting For

29/10/2014

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I began this blog in Kingston. My spanking new computer set up on the hotel room’s wee round table. A large steamy window to my right. An air conditioner clinging to the glass. Its rusty, damp air invading our room and lungs.

Today, we’re back in Cape Breton. The wind is shaking the trees loose from their leaves, and Grinder, our snow blower, has already had me down on bended knees with grass, wood chips and mud dampening my clean blue jeans, as I performed some emergency surgery. This involved the loosening up of his little paws to make it possible to get him started. Which would give us a fighting chance of holding off the relentless attacks of snow which use our yard as a shortcut.

These days, I find myself standing on the porch, gazing out over the huddling mountains, looking at the sky and wondering if the snow forces are already formed up and ready to rush over the mountain and plunge us into another winter battle.

And Skippy, the squirrel, is terribly quiet. He wasn’t when the wood was first delivered, but now, since we’ve returned from Kingston, we haven’t heard a swear word from him. I think he used his time wisely while we were away. I wish him a cozy winter in behind the many stacks of firewood.

Finally, because this is my twenty-ninth blog, yeah, I decided to take a little time to rant. Use a few words to spout off. Get some irritations off my chest because there are times in my life when a rant is about all I can do.
Little Salmon Lake
Little Salmon Lake north of Kingston, ON
TIRADE NUMBER ONE
First, I would like to say that this is not directed against all marketers, nor all those who try to help writers and me in particular, including all my friends and colleagues who give me their kind support.

However, I have had some irritating personal experiences lately. Also, I have read and listened to authors and other artists discussing this topic, so I think that my spouting off isn’t uselessly spinning towards a distant galaxy. May the force be with you, Hal.

One night, at a bar, I was talking to a fella. We got to talking about art and writing and that sort of thing. He’s a playwright and has a movie floating around called, ‘21 Brothers’. I haven’t watched it but it can be found at these establishments: Amazon, Hunes, Shaw and Cogeco and DVDs are available at HMV and Amazon. I’m planning on watching this movie and I believe it has been positively critiqued.

Anyway, he was talking about sending the movie off and the marketers getting hold of it and, well ———, I don’t want to say too much but there are a lot of sharks out there in the Marketers’ Ocean of Despair.

I’ve been exposed to the forces that be and if I’m going to protect anything, beyond my family and friends, it’s my art.

You see, my writing isn’t based upon how much I sell, although I’m definitely not against selling.

It’s not based on becoming a famous writer. Do I have to worry?

I write because I love to write. I’ll admit that I enjoy hearing that my writing is being read but that’s secondary to the actual writing.

However, like my friend who made a movie, artists are under constant pressure. Pressure from their own creativity and emotional foibles. Pressure from the marketing world where there is always a better way presented to get the readers’ attention or a more profitable place suggested where they can feed out their work. Many of these folks are willing and eager to take your dollars to help you become known and re-known.

Then there’s the occasional acquaintance who thinks he knows the best way for you to get your work known is to get it on the big screen.

For some, it’s just because they want to see you become successful, but for others it’s an attempt to own your work or at least ride on your coat-tails to some pre-conceived marketing success. I’m not sure how fast the ride would be if you hopped onto my coat-tails.

I once asked a fella, ‘What is the difference between a writer and most of the marketers and critics?’ I was actually surprised when he didn’t have the answer.

The answer to this quiz question is, ‘Writers write’.

That’s the thing about writers. They write and they’re not always so proficient with the selling part.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with searching for help. And many of us have the creativity to think outside the box and sell our work, but that takes energy. Also, there’s a certain amount of anxiety about single-mindedly spouting off about our work. Which, I think, might be wed to the sense of nurturing and mindfulness we have for our inspirations?

One piece of advice I have heard about writing is, ‘Don’t talk your story out.’ Why not? Because it can sap your need to write. The little or big story you’re going to tell gets out too early and like wine bottled too soon, it’s watery and tasteless.

The emotions and ideas must soak in time and thought and when they’re ready, and only then, can they be fruitfully and organically lifted out of our minds and placed full-bodied unto the paper or screen.

Maybe one could also say, “Don’t market your vision away.” Too much emphasis on marketing can flatten the writing energy. Some selling needs to be done, but I’m not willing to use up too much energy doing it. I’m not willing to twist and turn the mystery that drives me to write in the first place, so I can grab a chunk of readership. I like to call my marketing efforts ‘soft marketing’.

You see, I want my little bubble of magic to be sitting comfy and cozy, on a soft patch of grass, her privacy protected by a mountain of wild forest and wind. Covered by a thin veil of gentle mist, faintly perfumed with fir and spruce scent, camouflaged and chameleon-like. Suckling on the universe’s unfathomable ocean.

I want it to be only as clear as will allow it to remain a heartfelt enigma. A contrast to the eager grasping of our society as it attempts to get hold of everything that is worth anything.
Throwing out a little bafflement never hurts. So, as with a good poem you have read, you have a sense that the poem has no solid mental perimeters. An awareness, faint but present, that there’s an idea or emotion that hasn’t yet been fully plumbed.
TIRADE NUMBER TWO
Something else I’ve noticed. This may be because I was born into a rather black and white religion. It was my difficult and harsh departure from this form of thinking which instilled in me a terribly strong, tenacious need to defend my little creative piece of turf. Besides, trying to separate any artist from control over his or her art is like trying to take a bone from a hungry wolf.

And it’s because of my black and white background that I have become an expert at recognizing when my creative vision is under threat. I might even have to consider myself hyper-sensitive.

And guess what? When I hear somebody tell me that they know what’s best, that they are certain they are correct when it comes to how I should write, what I should write, how I should market, the existence of a pink elephant hiding in the back of my truck, or anything else for that matter, I realize there are a hell of a lot of black and white thinkers out there besides those who are labelled fundamentalists.
Picture
***
“Besides, what you love, you will protect.
That thou lovest well remains,
                     the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
                       or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee"   
                    Ezra Pound, Canto LXXXI- libretto
   
***
I believe that many artists see their art as some form of commission. Maybe even as prophetic.

William Noble, in his book ‘Conflict, Action and Suspense’ wrote, “It’s pretty well acknowledged that readers “hear” as well as see words on the page. That is, word sounds and word images play in the readers’ minds even as their eyes scan the words. Some have referred to this as “the music of words.”

So, using this quote as an introduction, I’d like to quote another section of an Ezra Pound poem.

“Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.
Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the woman entailed."
          Ezra Pound, “Commission”

North River Falls
Hike to North River Falls, Cape Breton
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Missing Out

19/9/2014

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I’ve spent years hiking, mostly by myself. Because I love being alone in the forest. Sitting on a rock, a log, or any piece of natural furniture is more comfortable for me than reclining on expensive furniture in places where I have to be careful about what I say, how I say it, or what I might knock over or spill. However, some couches are more pleasant than others as butt resters.

And lately, the folks up here have decided, and have spread the word around, that I’m a trail guide. Even though I’m not as familiar with this area as I could be. And I’ve met some interesting people on the rugged Cape Breton trails.

Also, I’ve never stopped being amazed at how helpful and friendly the folks up here are. They accept us for who we are and last Sunday we even received an email from a fella who said that Cape Breton was a better place because Sue and I had made it our home. Well, that nearly knocked my socks off. Both of them.

As many of you know, Sue struggles with some chronic diseases, one of which can impede her ability to walk far. But, she gave it the old college try and actually joined our group on a hike to the Uisgeban Falls. It’s a magical place and she didn’t think she would be able to make it all the way. But she did and that’s a feather in her emotional cap. The big surprise was that her post-hike pain was no different than it was before she hiked the trail.  I’m sure many of you are happy to hear that.

Tree clasping rock
Sue's Favourite Tree on Uisgeban Falls Trail
Cape Breton Highlands

Which  brings me to the mentioning of a new book that was recently published: the second edition of  “Guide to Cape Breton Highlands National Park”. The author is Clarence Barrett, a retired Highland Park warden. His first edition was very popular. To write this updated edition, he once again hiked all 26 official park trails and then rewrote his descriptions.

If you’re travelling to Cape Breton this is certainly a book to add to your library. Here’s a link to Parks Canada’s information about the book:
http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2014-08-24/article-3845394/New-park-guide-edition-being-launched-this-week/1

old Mac computerMy old Mac
 I got a new computer for my birthday. Happy birthday to me… and that’s one of the reasons that this blog is late. Excuses, excuses, excuses. But, I have been tearing my ^*%&^%$ hair out trying to get up to speed so I can just plain sit down on my asteroid and write this blog and other things that I tap out on a computer keyboard.

However, I do try to get a blog out every two weeks or so. I know folks who have a blog out almost every day. Which I’ve heard is an excellent way to keep your readership up. It might also be an excellent way to empty your idea coffers, or at least mine.

One thing I try to do is respond to comments made on my blog. If you don’t get one from me then it’s because my comments didn’t get through or my website machine wouldn’t let me. You see, I’m relatively new to the blog world and sometimes I try to respond but I can’t get it to work. I think it’s because I don’t have all the blog ins and outs down pat. So, I apologize now for any comments I haven’t been able to respond to. I tried. Really.

Oh, and if you write a response please make sure you add your email address if you think I don’t have it. It’s supposed to come to me through the website, but doesn’t always seem to make it.

Anyway, back to the new computer. Cripes, I got so used to my old Mac. It’s twenty years plus old. It’s been everywhere, man. Had lots of sticky fingers tapping and thunking on its keyboard. Had plenty of little kids playing computer games on it and it has been dropped once or twice.


PictureMy New Mac
Oh woe is me, though. It’s not easy trying to master this new computer and I will give you an example.

I am, if you haven’t already suspected, a person who uses more of the creative side of my brain than my not creative side. Surprise, surprise.

Now as you might have read in an earlier blog, I bought myself a new camera. Only a little over a month ago, I think. It’s digital with all the funny-pictures-on the-screen stuff and with  knobs,  buttons or cranks spotted all over its smooth, black body.

And I have, as mentioned earlier, become known as a trail guide. So this means that I get to guide hikers into the forest. And, during the hike, I take pictures so that the fella who runs the recreational activities in Victoria County, (that’s the county I live in), gets to see pictures of the hikers and the beautiful places we walk in. He often posts them or pins them to his ‘wall of shame’.

So, I go home after a hike and hook my camera up to my new computer. Sue used to do this but now this technologic fledgling, who is me, has jumped off the tree and has ever since been wildly flapping his wings, bouncing off pixels and leafy start buttons and repeatedly crash-landing into digital bushes. Over and over again.

(*&^@%#$%&!!!! I mean, Sue used to be able to take my articles from my twenty-something-year-old computer and put them into her computer and her computer would translate the ones and zeros into an understandable language and then send it out over the internet or print it out for me. Now her computer looks at my new computer’s efforts, shrugs its shoulders and spits out these nasty, impossible to understand, bits and pieces of bits.

Yesterday Sue, whose computer acumen and expertise I trust, looked at one of my attempts and its pathetic appearance on her computer screen and said, “This is scary.”


Does one have to be a mind reader to understand some of the computer jargon?

I’ll give you a specific example.

To get the pics to my computer I have to hook my new K50 camera up to Mac. I use a thin black cord called a USB cable. The next thing I do is turn on my camera. Why do I turn on my camera now instead of before? I don’t know. Because it’s says in the Bible somewhere?

Then there’s a little box that pops up on my computer which I have to click on to IMPORT my photos. I was told this was the button I had to click on using my mouse. And that’s another story. The mouse, that is.

The pix are then supposed to slide along the inside of the cord and pour into some empty picture station where a tiny zit gets them to line up and stand at attention in order of entry .

This IMPORT box did not make sense to me.  So I asked Sue where the EXPORT box was.

You must use your imagination to see a vision of the expression on Sue’s face when I asked this question. But come on. I took economics in high school.  I was taught that if you live in Canada and you ship products to other countries you are exporting them. If you are receiving products from other countries then you are importing them. Do you understand?

You see, my photographs are coming from my camera. My camera was here first. I figured that I was therefore from the Camera Country. Oh Camerada, we stand on guard for thee, and I was sending out pictures to the strange place called MacBook Pro. So therefore, am I not exporting pictures?


So, how the hell am I supposed to know which place is my country and which place is not my country? How can I sort out import and export if I don’t know this? For poop sake, I’m dyslexic and this doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.

Oh god, I have so much to learn about the camera, let alone the computer. Have you noticed a change in mood in this blog? A little more hesitation in the sentence structure? Words that don’t sound so appropriate?

Where the hell is the thesaurus in this new computer? Maybe it dropped out when I took Mac out of the box. I mean when I buy a hammer, I don’t want to have to spend a long time learning how to use it before I can bang nails into wood. I just want to bang nails into wood.


Then there is my stacked-to-the-throat-with-new-gizmos camera. I’ll tell you how much I have to learn about this wonderful toy.

A friend from Australia was visiting. She has a good quality tiny camera. A quick shot thing which you can carry in your pocket like a pet Chihuahua.  Anyway, we were talking about our individual cameras. I think we got to talking about the flash. This is where I pulled out the manual for my camera.  It’s thick.

She asked me, “How many different languages is your manual written in?”

I said, “One *&^% LANGUAGE. English.”

 It’s a friggen Stephen King novel full of Cujo mumbo jumbo. Like import, export, four way controller, JPEG, RAW, Button Customization.

I have been told that I should take up writing manuals for people like me. Ha.


***
         Let’s stop and think; Let’s know and feel

         That things like these are truly real,

         Yes, think how very rich are we

          When all the best of things are free.


                                                                John Martin, “These Things Are Free”
***
textingTexting
I do think the virtual world is amazing, but sometimes I think it’s too enchanting and addictive. For example, there have been many times when I’ve been sitting outside on the patio of a local coffee shop. I’ve sat and watched the tourists and the locals bustling about or sitting at the little metal tables, drinking their drinks and eating their treats. Many of them, and I mean many of them, (sometimes even including me),  are staring at their little prissy machines. Using their fingers to punch or rub commands into the magical virtual world that is hypnotizing so many of us.

Sometimes I’ve seen young couples at tables under romantic lighting, texting.  And I’m sure they’re sometimes texting to each other. Whatever happened to the touching of hands? Leaning over for a little kiss? Rubbing your footsie up your lover’s leg? Now it’s being done with pixels.

“Oh honey, ooxx.”

“Yes, baby, XXXXXOO.”

“More, more.”

“XOXOXOXOXOXOIIIIIooooxx”


And while  this human interaction in all its forms are going on, I’ve watched the crows, sitting on the power lines above the street, or on the post office roof or the steeple on the church, cawing their asses off. I can tell there’s some form of drama going on up nearer the sky.

They’re making different sounds or are buzzing each other and generally making a racket. I then take a look around at the flocks of pristine viewers and non-pristine viewers and nary a one is paying any attention. Not one. All caught up in their people or virtual world. Maybe some are even looking at the crows through their virtuals or are gazing at pixel crows on Google.

Which makes me think.  Gets me wondering what would happen if this natural world, to which we don’t pay much attention, just vanished?  How lonely this world would be if everyone was totally focused on the virtual world and on the human world and paid no mind to the real time world of wild others.

And what would happen if it got to the point where everybody was almost exclusively hooked up? Got to the point where we would all, for example, be checking the weather on our machines or on something imbedded inside our eye balls. Swirling our fingers down the little doo-dad screens, or poking ourselves in the eyeballs to find out whether we are going to get snow today, while outside our window there is a hell of a snow storm dumping all over our yards.

Just wondering.


“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone,  men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”

                                                                                                                                      Chief Seattle

Skyway Trail
Sunset on the Skyway Trail
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