Larry Gibbons
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A Two-Point Dunk

22/7/2015

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Sorry my blog is late. I just returned from Ontario, where I visited and visited and visited. Had loads of fun and interaction and the time spent was certainly important for keeping the bonds with my family and friends strong and true. But Whew!

I think I just wrote a poem
...
***
Oh, and a special news flash. My friend George is back in Cape Breton, primed and ready to absorb some more Cape Breton beauty, hospitality and down-home common sense. Why, he even apologized for not talking much when we were having supper at “The Lakes” Restaurant last night. He explained that the red wine and the gorgeous scenery he was observing through the window had left him spell-bound. We understood, totally.
George
George preparing for the long trip to Cape Breton
***
In a recent blog, I wrote about my experiences with panhandlers in an Ontario city. I mentioned one man to whom I gave some money on a dreary Thanksgiving Sunday. The important point I was trying to emphasize was that when I offered the man more money on a later occasion, he turned it down. He also thanked me for the money I had given him, and then told me he had bought groceries with the lucre.

Well, I met him again on this last trip. I think he was doing his garbage picking rounds. I also was more aware this time, that he was missing most of his teeth.  Anyway, we exchanged pleasantries and then I asked him if he was okay for money. He told me that he would get his pension cheque at the end of the month.

We parted with both of us having our dignity intact.
***
Like most little kids, my two grandchildren have their battles, their jealousies and their competitions.  One evening, I was in their ‘WRECK’ room, where there are a zillion toys which I would have salivated over and died for when I was a child.  Standing fairly prominently in the room full of indestructible chairs, dinky toys, stuffed this and thats, zappers and clappers and whatnots, is one mother of a toy crane. Which I think was put together by my grandson, Carter. Carter could take a box of broken up corn flakes and put them together. And even if he couldn’t reassemble them into their original corn flake shape, he could invent a new cereal shape out of them.

This large, possibly Lego toy concoction even has a remote with it. The grandchildren like to get the crane swinging this way and that way and it can pick up objects and might even be able to break-dance to the music of Billy the Singing Lobster.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that it would have been a blow-my-mind toy if it had been in my boyish life. For that matter, it is now.

On one of my visits, my elder grandson, Carter, was playing with this crane. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Callum, was trying to find something to do. One choice he had in mind, I’m sure, was to disrupt whatever Carter was doing.

Anyway, during this Mayberry moment, I’d grabbed my son’s guitar. I began to tune it and then did a little amateurish finger picking. Which attracted Callum. Offered him a possible activity. So he took an interest in what I was doing. Even reached out and did some strumming of his own.

Obviously, the older grandson took note of this. Saw that I was taking an interest in his brother. Wasn’t possibly paying as much attention to him as I should be. So, it must have put him beyond the pale of self-control when Callum was allowed to strum the guitar all by himself, while receiving my total attention.

The attack came without warning. A Carter blitzkrieg. One minute Callum and I were talking and sharing a moment with the acoustic guitar and then, in the blink of an eye, I was in darkness.

Was I having a stroke? Was I going blind? No. What I was experiencing was having my head tucked nicely inside the confines of a wastepaper basket. Which Carter had expertly jammed over my head.

Thus sayeth the Lord, “Stop taking an interest in my younger brother and pay attention to me or there will be more to come.”  Brotherly love comes with its own dangers.

I’ll end this story with the observation that my son and daughter-in-law are two great parents. Why, the waste-paper basket was even empty when it was thunked down over my noggin. That was some sort of blessing.

            “There was a child went forth every day,
             And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
             And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
             Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”
                                Walter Whitman, There Was A Child Went Forth
 
Grandchildren
The Elder Setting up the Younger, Perhaps?
***
Do you know why I got a bargain price on my hotel room? Because of Buster, our small pooch.

When I arrived at the check-in desk the receptionist asked me if I’d brought Buster with me. I told her he was at home, but promised to make some prints of pictures of Buster and give them to her. Which I did, a few days later.

The receptionist said, “It was so funny when you asked me to put you through to Buster’s room.”  

I’d asked that when I had phoned our room the last time we were all here.

“You knew who he was, too,” I said. We both had a good guffaw. Maybe two guffaws.

Anyway, as she was booking me in she told me she was going to give me a special rate. She then gave me a lower daily rate than normal and not only that, but gave me the same low rate for the peak weekend days when the prices go up.

So, do you see what I mean when I say that Buster got me a discount on the price of my hotel room?

                 “If you can uncomplaining spend the day
                  In solitude and when it ends
                  Greet those who finally return to play
                  As long lost friends
                  And if digging, without damage to a single rose
                  You find your long lost bone on which to sup
                  You’ll have acquired a hound’s discerning nose
                  And - what is more - you’ll be a dog, my pup!”
                                                                Lily Tuck, Sniff
Canine Leafs Fan
Buster is a Leafs Fan, of Course!
Cape Breton misty morning
Early Misty Morning in Cape Breton
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Creativity, Crocks and Rejection

30/6/2015

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Picture
There are two new realities and achievements in the world that weren’t in the world last year.

In alphabetical order, we have a book authored by Jennifer Bain. The book is called, “HILDEGARD OF BINGEN and Musical Reception, The Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer”.

The book is an achievement for sure. Jennifer said she tried to write the book in such a way that both academics and non-academics would find it enjoyable and instructive and Sue thinks she's accomplished that goal very nicely. (Pic of book)

Then there’s Suzi Hübler’s achievement: a brand new business she has opened up in Toronto and it’s aerobically friendly. The business is called, “HIGH JUNCTION GYMNASTICS”. This is a place where young people can skin cats, do the splits, go to parallel bars, somersault themselves silly and become proficient at gymnastics, because Suzi is an expert at teaching gymnastics. You can check out her colourful website here: http://highjunction.ca/  

(Jennifer is Sue’s daughter, and Suzi is Sue’s daughter-in-law, so you can see why we are excited about both of these accomplishments!)

Picture
High Junction
***
Supposedly, if you’re a writer you’re creative. Which in some ways probably involves a high level of daydreaming and the imagining of scenarios which haven’t happened, have happened or might happen.

Writers write a lot about feelings. Usually, if the story is going to have some punch and power, then the author feels and empathizes with the characters he’s creating or writing about.
So it’s no surprise that writers are filled with strong emotions. In many cases they’re not buried far below the surface. From time to time they even seep out like oil out of the ground.
At the same time, writers deal with the fickle world of fashion, pop culture, political correctness, social perceptions, changing rules, high and low grammar and lots and lots and lots of rejection.

If you write, you get to know about rejection. And most writers aren’t cold stone stoics, so it affects them. Sometimes a rejection makes no sense. And for many writers, the rejection slips/emails reinforce their deep feelings that they aren’t any damn good. The proof is there to see.

But, writers write anyway. Now, what I do is write and duck. Like the old duck and cover procedure they used to teach students to follow if an incoming atomic bomb was heading their way. Incoming rejection coming soon to your mail box. What an attitude, eh?

I heard a story about a fella who submitted some short stories to a national short story competition. They were stories written by the likes of Ernest Hemingway. These stories didn’t even make the long list.

I once had a story on the long list, but not on the short list. Ironically, I didn’t come up short and did. Now that’s a riddle for you.  Anyway, I sent the story out to three other publishers. They all rejected it and yet I’m pretty sure that stories which would most likely not have made the long list, were published in their magazines.

J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was rejected twelve times and then bought by the thirteenth publisher, not an unlucky number in this case.  You want to know the reason why the thirteenth publisher bought it? I’ll tell you. Because the publisher’s CEO’s daughter loved it. How was poor Ms. Rowling supposed to know that she should have addressed her manuscript to the big honcho’s daughter?

The classic, "Lord of the Flies", was rejected twenty-one times. And you can damn well tell it was a classic because they made me read it in high school. One publisher wrote that it was “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”

Do you know what one publisher told F. Scott Fitzgerald when he read "The Great Gatsby"? He said, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.” So funny!

Stephen King filled a spike with impaled rejection slips by the age of fourteen. Wow! He was prolific for sure.

My feeling is that if you are going to be rejected, at least have your writing as polished as it can be. That’s why I have an editor. Her name is Sue and she can spy a rogue, “I’ve went...” a mile away. Which, apparently, is one of my favourite illiterate-oral weaknesses. At least in a Jane Austen type of world.

Stephen King wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”
***
cloudy mountainView from our Place on Middle River, Cape Breton


I’ve started reading some poetry and short stories by Alden Nowlan. He was a mostly self-taught man, who was born in Nova Scotia. One of my favourite poems is called, “The Bull Moose”.

Here’s another one of his poems.

                                 “This is the amazing thing
                                   that it is so easy
                                   to fool them—-
                                   the sane bastards.

                                   I can talk about weather,
                                   eat, preside at meetings
                                   of the PTA.
                                   They don’t know.

                                   Me foreign as a Martian
                                   With the third eye in my forehead!
                                   But I comb my hair
                                   cleverly so it doesn’t show

                                   except a little
                                   sometimes when the wind blows.
                                                       
                                                                    Alden Nowlan, “Disguise”



***
                                             “If you can sniff out danger and keep barking
                                     When those around you seem to doubt the cause
                                     And all they find to do is keep remarking
                                     Don’t track up the carpet with your paws!
                                     If you can lick the hand who needs you
                                     and realize it’s really no mistake
                                     When that hand that somehow failed to feed you
                                     Feeds itself the whole darn sirloin steak.”

                                                                                     Lily Tuck,  “Sniff”

Sue says I think like a dog. I’ve been telling her that for years. You see, I can be walking down a busy street and on the opposite side of the street can be, and has been, a man walking his dog.

The dog will stare at me like I’m wearing a tracking device. The dog’s eyeballs will hone in on me and not get his peepers off my moving form until we’re way beyond the human encounter distance of seventeen feet. (Apparently this has been measured by people who like to measure things.)

In some ways I think this places me at the dog's level of the food chain. Which could be way above the human's. This theory comes from watching too much news.

Which might be why I’m more comfortable on a log, inside or outside, rather than on a beautiful couch. A not so expensive, not so beautiful couch, doesn’t bother me quite as much. I guess my mind won’t stop reminding me that there’s a whole lot of social voo-doo comes with sitting on a beautiful couch in a living room.
 
Oh, and before you let your creative minds run wild, I have not yet had the desire to lift my leg and piddle on said log, nor on said less beautiful couch.

So, this Sunday, while I was in the washroom brushing my teeth, Buster was in the hallway barking. Sue, (who now barks back, but that’s another story), could not decipher from Buster’s barks, what the heck he wanted.

I stepped out of the washroom. Sue said, “What does he want?”

I said, thinking I was just guessing, that he was looking for his slipper so he could play “Fetch the Slipper”. So I found the slipper and sure enough, that’s what he wanted to do. Fetch the slipper.

Which goes like this. I throw the slipper or toss it, if you prefer that word. Buster runs and fetches the slipper. He returns with the slipper, which, for accuracy’s sake, is actually an old croc. He lets me pull the croc, thinking that I don’t know that he’s not really jawing down on it as hard as he would like me to think. Because he really wants me to wrench the croc out of his mouth, so the croc can glide through the air like an eagle and land on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge. So Buster can burst out of the starting gate, slide and slam into the fridge door, return the slipper and his drool to me and start the process all over again.

The whole game is a Buster diplomatic exercise in pretending he doesn’t want me to have the croc while wanting me to have the croc. Which I know is all a crock.

tired dog
Buster Tuckered Out From Playing "Fetch the Croc"
                                             “A living room, the catholic area you
                                    (Thou rather) and I may enter
                                    without knocking, leave without a bow, confronts
                                    each visitor with a style,

                                    a secular faith: he compares its dogmas
                                    with his, and decides whether
                                    he would like to see more of us. Spotless rooms
                                    where nothing’s left lying about

                                    chill me, so do cups used for ashtrays or smeared
                                    with lipstick: the homes I warm to,
                                    though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling
                                    of bills being promptly settled”

                                                                                            W.H. Auden, “The Common Life”
Spring Pond
Our Pond in Spring
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