K.I.T.H.

Meant to blog about this earlier - Sunday I went to the first Canadian tour date of the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Besides being one of the best spells of non-stop laughing I've had in a long time, going to the show was completing a circle of sorts.

When I lived in Toronto, I went to small clubs to watch bands and a few local improv groups. I started noticing this group of very odd, bizarre really, guys doing a style of comedy that no one else was doing. The Rivoli on Queen was a great place to catch these shows, small crowded, smoky and beer crowded tables. One night I was there to watch a sort of comedy showdown between these two groups - one was a group called Fred's Bicycle shop, and the other, as you probably guessed, was those odd guys, the Kids in the Hall.
The odd guys won the showdown, knocking the crowd over, the other troupe not so much. The kicker was Lorne Michaels (of SNL fame) was in the crowd that night and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

About a year ago, I told my son, who is very into improv (and is quite good), about K.I.T.H. Through youtube he got hooked. So of course when I saw the ad that they were coming through town, I knew he'd be asking for tickets.

They're still a bunch of odd guys. Extremely talented odd guys. And still funny as hell, as good as sketch comedy gets.

The President's Men

 

I've mentioned around here before that the novel I am working on uses Watergate as a backdrop (or I think I have).

Now, I have seen the movie All the President's Men so many times that I can almost recite the dialogue along with Redford and Hoffman. But I have never, until recently, read the book. It's a damn fine read. What interests me is the third person telling of Woodward and Bernstein. I have to keep reminding myself that not only are they characters in the story, but they wrote it, and on top of that, it all happened. I can see why they got the Pulitzer - though, that was for their newspaper articles. At times, the book doesn't seem that well written, but it is gripping. Well, gripping for someone obsessed enough with Watergate to make it part of a novel, anyway.

I delight in reading all those names again, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Liddy, Porter, Magruder, Dean, and on and on - they've have become buzzwords in my brain to a fascinating era of corruption and the underbelly of politics.

I think I need to watch that movie one more time. 

One Real Story

I was pleased with a recent review of my story, Samurai Bluegrass, published in Carve magazine, summer of 2007. I never know how a work of my fiction will be read, or after spending hours on making the themes and motifs subtle, even buried, if anyone will even know what the hell I am talking about.

The writer of this review really nailed some key things:
There are many levels of grief, and even more expressions of the same. Here we meet a man who has suffered a terrible loss, but is not overly emotional, who doesn’t seem to be struggling, and not quite numb. We feel Jim’s grief, not in his dialog as much as in the atmosphere that the story creates for us.

Read the complete review at One Real Story

Share the Obsession

I have admitted before, I get obsessed with certain authors (George Saunders anyone?) The latest, and fairly long lasting one, is Cormac McCarthy. He is brilliant, dark, meaningful and I believe has something to say that is of utmost relevance to our world. More specifically the violence of society. I could say, the U.S., but I don't want to release Canada or other countries from our share of responsibility.

We live in dark times. There is no way around that. Sure, other places and times have thought the same thing (pass me that bunch of grapes Caesar, I am watching civilization fall). Yet, there is something that feels so different about our current civilization. I can't help but think others thought this too. But I can't time travel, I live in the here and now (except when I escape into the dystopian future or past of authors like P.K. Dick and McCarthy).

My point in mentioning this, is tonight I lead a discussion on McCarthy's Pulitzer prize winning, The Road. I am confident that first time readers of McCarthy are bound to get a bit messed up - especially if they took to reading him before bed.

Still, I am excited about the prospect of talking about a writer that I think matters so very much. In the midst of the pain, dystopia, blood and guts, depressive hell-like scenario of his books is beauty. And a call to hold onto that beauty.

Now that's an obsession.

Monday Monday

I usually like blogging on Monday.

This time I didn't.

Busybusybusy. Maybe tomorrow, thanks for checking in.

Check out savage chickens in the mean time.