Up in Ontario

Free Associations of Canadiana

The Newsroom

Last night I watched what I count to be the third episode of The Newsroom on CBC. In case you're not hip to the edge of narcissus-glory satire, Ken Finkleman, an ex-Winnipegger, does it better than anyone else on the American continent. The first two episodes didn't have the same pop and innovation as the movie of the same name that made Finkleman famous a few years ago. But last night's episode, it really had teeth. Naomi Klein guest starred as herself and Jim the anchorman was brilliant in his pre-interview investigation. But I found Douglas Bell really distracting as a reporter fearful he has lost his moral centre. As the producer he gets bullied into dropping a story on tens of thousands of starving Somalis from the lead in favour of a boa constrictor who has escaped from his pen and is on the loose. He even titles the story himself: 'Boas Night Out'. But in his screen time he stuttered on and frustrated me. Every scene dragged whenever he was onscreen wrestling with his conscience. He was excellent, he just reminded me of a shaggy walrus.

Walrus Magazine

If you aren't wired into the Canadian magazine industry - and if you don't have to be, don't - you might not yet have discovered The Walrus. Big hitters like Margaret Atwood, Michael Ignatieff, Saul Bellow and Moses Znaimer have blurbed the mag and their first cover package was a long expose on the machinations of Paul Martin's arms-length amoral morass, Canada Steamships Lines. The story of the launch of The Walrus contained the following essential details: the magazine was to be run through a foundation, the foundation had received a sizeable endowment (does that mean it's well endowed?) and The Walrus would not simply be Harper's Magazine North, although it was modelled somewhat on Harper's and some of the same people were involved behind the scenes with both publications.

Isn't it funny how the magazine industry in Canada ebbs and flows in about an 8 year cycle?

Toro Magazine

Toro Magazine is the latest hot young male magazine for the hot young male readership, with slightly more dignified tastes than the lads reaching for Maxim, FHM, Stuff and the rest of the NNN (No Nipples Nudity) crowd. When I first heard that the magazine was to be called Toro I asked aloud, "And it's a Canadian magazine?" But I have to confess, they put out a fine and shiny product. The articles are enjoyable, short, airport reads. The two pieces by the aforementioned Douglas Bell were some of the best to be had so far. The recurring columns by Zsuzsi Gartner (meat), Mark Kingwell (drink) and Bebe O'Shea (sex and your Johnson) stand up to rereading when I peruse the less-than-brand-new stack.

Some pieces that run in Toro may look not nearly as clever in a few issues as they did over that late night editorial meeting, but the good intentions of the crew on staff coincide with some good execution in the design department to create a fairly satisfying read. The nationalism is apparent but not obnoxious, the touchstones of beer, babes, cars and pop culture interspersed with some articles that open a part of the world to you.

Freddy the Bullfighter

I ate an incredible salmon dinner at M & M Tisdale's on Sunday night. M1 fired up the barbecue while M2 soaked the cedar planks I had been given for my birthday by the generous and effervescent Jason & Anita. M1 had caught the coho salmon on a fishing trip in the late summer to Vancouver Island.

After we had finished dinner, M & M updated me on stories from Freddy of Mexico, an exchange student with intense green eyes who had stayed with the Tisdales over 10 years ago and who had returned this past summer to visit Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods.

Freddy had trained in his late teen years to be a bullfighter. His skill had been far advanced for his years and he was invited to a bullfighting tournament for his region. If he won the tournament he would become a professional bullfighter. To gain the maximum points possible, Freddy took chances during the bullfight. He kneeled in front of the shute when the bull entered the ring, and he kept the bull in so close that at one point its horn ripped through the material of his shirt where it hung off his chest.

M & M were a little unclear on how the climax of the story came to happen - whether Freddy was injured and returned to the fight or not - but they told the ending well. The bull finally did not miss. Its horn gored Freddy right between the legs, right behind the scrotum, lifting him into the air like a tornado. He woke up in the hospital bandaged and bruised, unable to stand. His father was there in the room with him when he awoke and reassured him that no permanent damage had been. As Freddy said, "I can still have the children you know."

Winnipeg Launch Report

We arrived in Winnipeg on Thursday night and my mom picked the Duck and I up at the airport. Through the windows of the plane I had seen the degree of cold that awaited us outside the doors. It promised to be a jarring reminder of the reality of the rest of the country for our west coast sensibilities, just the same as it is every time I go home to Winnipeg in the winter.

{Anecdote}
A few years ago the Duck and I spent Christmas in Winnipeg. We arrived in a harried state on Christmas Eve in a full plane. A number of families with children were travelling on the same flight, and tempers were short, lines were long and the holiday spirit of cheer and goodwill seemed delusional. After retrieving our frosty bags, we followed one family of four from the baggage carousel to the line to pay for parking, where we stood in line to take part in the most insane and complicated parking process I have ever seen. They had one toddler of about four and another younger child that the mother carried in her arms. After figuring out the process of payment at the parking machine we prepared to face the cold just beyond the glass doors. Again we followed the family of four. They passed through the first set of automatic doors and triggered the second set. The doors parted and the blackness of the night lay beyond. A blast of cold air hit us. In front of us, the four year-old had stopped at the doors, and he stood there where the cold hit him, wailing and refusing to walk any further into the freezing air. I looked over at the Duck and I could see exactly what she was thinking, that the four year-old's response - tears, refusal to go a step further - was an instinct that she shared, and that he was doing what she felt like doing.
{/Anecdote}

So it was cold when we arrived, but we were prepared and bundled up before leaving the building. The car was still warm and we climbed in. The Duck took a photo of the parking machines that take your ticket as you leave the lot because they had little insulated coats on them. Snow crews cleared some of the intersections we crossed through on our way to my mom's house, their amber lights illuminating the chunks of snow piled into banks the bordered the curbs of the road, as if we were driving along trenches.

The next morning we rose early and spent the day running around Winnipeg gathering items for decoration or prizes at the Live at the Lake Social. We visited the Manitoba legislature and took photos of the statue of Louis Riel. That night, we met friends at an Ethiopian and Eritrian restaurant for dinner. We visited with family on Saturday and I did an interview with Mike Warkentin of Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg's Source for Arts, Entertainment & News.

On Sunday morning I woke early and went by myself for a walk through the Assiniboine Park. The day was cool but not cold, a sharp breeze blew from the west. Joggers ran along the paths that wound along the river, under the naked branches of oaks. I passed by a hill I remember we used to slide down as children, a hill that seemed so big at the time and that now I can climb in less than 10 steps. Skaters called to each other as they cruised around the islands of the frozen duck pond. I crossed the river on a pedestrian bridge, sat in a coffee shop, ordered a coffee and an apple jack, and prepared myself for my first book launch.

After an hour had passed I felt like I had enough material, and I had my material together enough, to be ready to do my reading. I wanted to say something about my book that I had been unable to put into words so far, something about why I had written the book, why I had set it in Winnipeg and Manitoba and the Lake of the Woods area of Northern Ontario. I wanted to strike a balance of substance and candour, of profundity and enjoyment. I also remembered well the feeling of reading in front of a crowd and being poorly prepared, and I did not want a repeat of that performance.

By the time I walked back across the pedestrian bridge the wind had gotten fiercer and more snow had started to fall. I walked in the door and my mom told me that the forecast was calling for snow and wind, blustery conditions that could keep people close to home. That seems about right, I thought to myself, as I remembered that sense of foreboding, that intense awareness of the elements that comes with living on the prairies in the winter; the consequence of if you're ill prepared for a storm never far from your mind. Now this was the garrison mentality Canadian literary critics wrote of in their dense words and cryptic quotations.

We arrived at the McNallyRobinson bookstore at 1:30, about half an hour before the book launch was scheduled to begin. I recognized some faces already in attendance, some that I had not seen for many years. A feeling of homecoming and expectation hung in the air. I shook hands with people and hugged others and it was wonderful to see so many people out for a book event. I did a quick interview with the pretty arts reporter from the local independent TV station, A Channel. Later, after the dinner that night we would be gathered around the television watching the six o'clock news for the interview, with others on standby nearby, waiting to be told, "It's on."

By 2 all of the seats were filled and my dad was waving at people on the other side of the store. Come on over. The multi-talented Kelly Stifora of Turnstone Press acted as MC and kicked everything off. Parents and grandparents, friends and friends of friends were in attendance. I stood behind the podium and looked out at the people gathered for the launch of Up in Ontario and it was an incredible thing to see them all there. The Smiths (of Smith Camps) arrived along Wayne Tefs, my editor on the book. I said my piece about the book, and why I had written it, and I shortened up the lengthy parts that the Duck had told me to cut when I rehearsed it for her: "Whoa, you're going on too much there," she had said. "And it doesn't really go anywhere."

I had just about finished my introduction when I looked out to the second row to where my grandparents were seated. My grandmother smiled back at me and my grandfather's blue eyes were cloudy with tears, and I had to look away to keep it all together. I read the first chapter of the novel (First) and then two of the shorter pieces (Kenora and Blindfold Creek) that join some of the longer chapters and then I was done.

Kelly circulated with the much-travelled Turnstone Press Prize Box to make sure we had everyone's tickets, then we raffled off our prizes as follows:

Winnipeg Free Press Review of Up in Ontario

From Winnipeg's broadsheet, the Winnipeg Free Press, another review of Up in Ontario.

Vacation for mind and soul

Sun Jan 25 2004
Reviewed by Corey Redekop

Up in Ontario
By James Sherrett
Turnstone Press , 232 pages , $18

"Either you belong to someplace or you don't. If you don't, you can go anywhere. If you do, then the place belongs to you too."

So says Gil Dubois, a trapper and fisher who defiantly belongs to a place, and will not leave it for anything. Not for his wife in Winnipeg. Not for his impressionable young son Wade. Gil belongs to Lake of the Woods, and it belongs to him.

On one level, Gil dominates Up in Ontario, the assured literary debut by former Manitoban James Sherrett. Gil is an attractive, classical archetype, a Marlboro Man in the Canadian backwoods, living by his own rules.

Yet rather than pursue the obvious Grizzly Adams parallel, Sherrett reaches for something far more significant. Up in Ontario is a tale of father and son, separated through distance and time, brought together in their mutual love of an idyllic wilderness.

Sherrett is a powerful enough writer to trust his talents, bringing about the story in his own relaxed manner. Like Lake of the Woods itself, Sherrett leisurely follows the currents and eddies of the Dubois's lives, touching on those precise moments where simultaneously nothing happens and everything changes.

Both Gil and Wade, as the years pass, find themselves struggling to discover their places in the world. Gil accepts that his life is an anachronism, part of an ever-shrinking population, railing against the encroachment of a constantly expanding civilization. He lives "in the last century," knowing that there was "no changing the things that had happened, there was only being less afraid of the things to come."

Wade, growing up in Winnipeg, bemoans his realization that he is not his father. Influenced equally by Gil and the environment of a large city, Wade tries to unearth a compromise, a plan whereby both of his natures can be sated.

Sherrett proves himself gifted at conveying the humanity of father and son. His unforced prose style effortlessly guides the reader through the pain and happiness of the men as they strive to bridge the gap between them.

Sherrett also displays exceptional skill at keeping the reader's attention through long passages where seemingly nothing occurs. As the men go hunting, the minutiae of the event are thrust forward.

The wind caressing the skin, the cocking of a rifle, the scrape of reeds against the hull of a boat. Sherrett creates more excitement though periods of absolute silence than the loudest Hollywood extravaganza.

Despite a lamentable tendency to speechifying near the end, Sherrett has produced an elegant elegy to the chasm that exists between us all.
Like a drowsy day at the cottage, Up in Ontario is a vacation for the mind and soul. Like Gil, Sherrett knows well "the feeling of arriving where you wanted to be, of needing time to let all else melt away, making the space for what you wanted."

Copyright Winnipeg Free Press, 2004

James Sherrett Reads from Up in Ontario

I have posted four MP3s of readings from Up in Ontario on the Book Information and Synopsis page of the Up in Ontario website. They are the following:

At the Cabin (pages 11-14; 6.5 MB)
Blindfold Creek (pages 82-83; 2.5 MB)
Gone Two Days (pages 87-94; 16.5 MB)
Kenora (pages 137-138; 2.3 MB)

The MP3s were recorded in the basement of Patrick Brealey's house, in his own private studio, where I can assure you, magic is made and virtuouso has a perch where it has come home to roost. Anyone who made it out to Live at the Lake in Vancouver and heard Patrick's set surely must agree with me, the man has gobs of musical talent. And he's also a whiz with The Rocket, his dual-processor Apple G4 supercomputer.

So many thanks to Patrick for the acoustic enlightenment and technical production, and I hope you enjoy hearing excerpts from my novel, Up in Ontario.

Owen Sound Sun-Times Review of Up in Ontario

From the Owen Sound Sun-Times, another review of Up in Ontairo.

(Thursday, 22 January 2004)

Read This!

Do you remember that singular summer romance? Perhaps some of the most memorable moments of your life came at the cottage or some camp chosen by your parents. Or maybe it was on spring break in Florida where a moonlight walk on the beach seemed forever. Love was young, mysterious, and urgent - until September came.

If you were unlucky enough to never experience long looks and love on a July afternoon, I’ve got just the book for you. Up in Ontario (Turnstone, $18.95) is James Sherrett’s debut novel. Sherrett, a Winnipeg-based writer, is not exactly a literary household name nor will this small-press publication sweep the nation. But, I can’t imagine a warmer read for a cold winter night.

Gill Dubois, barely in his 20s, is a guide at Smith Camps on Lake of the Woods, a place where he has lived all of his young life. On a summer day he meets 18-year old Christine Johnson, the daughter of well-off parents from Winnipeg who have arrived to spend a few idyllic weeks at the lake. “For the next two weeks, Christine watched Gilbert. From behind her sunglasses, in a beach chair beside her mother, she watched Gilbert.”

When Christine returns to the city, she and Gill promise to keep in touch. They do, fall deeper into love and two years later marry, living in a Winnipeg apartment while Christine makes her way through law school. But Gill has a vision of paradise and its name is Storm Bay, a forested shoreline on Lake of the Woods.

They sign a deed on a parcel of land, commute on summer weekends from Winnipeg and begin to build a cabin. When their son, Wade, is born, Christine begins to realize that her marriage is doomed to failure. Gilbert Dubois is not a city man. His heart lies in the wilderness. Gill’s talents are for finding fish, hunting geese, and listening to the silence of the forest.

Slowly, their lives come apart; Christine finding meaning in her work and the city; Gill making the weekend trip to Winnipeg less often. Separation is followed by divorce until all that is left is their son and memories of the summer sun on water when they were both young and in love.

The years pass as Wade returns each summer to fish and hunt with his father. And then the magic of this bittersweet novel takes over. Although many a Canadian novel has been filled with lines on the water and ducks in the air, rarely has the outdoor life been so solidly described. Sherratt (sic) doesn’t indulge himself with lyrical symbolism. Instead, his simple sentences raise the same goosebumps that are the hallmark of a Hemingway short story.

As mallards poured skyways over his head, “Wade brought his gun up in line with the drake and started to swing. The drake flared suddenly in a sharp arc and Wade stayed with him, leading him off the tip of the beak. The motion was smooth and fluid and Wade squeezed the trigger. The recoil of the gun popped him on the cheekbone as it jumped in his hands and he watched the pellets hit the drake and spin it down to the ground.”

Wade has come to terms with his parents who are friends-but-nothing-more. As he accepts his father’s need to live off the land, his mother decides to remarry. Her choice is Gary, a boorish Winnipeg businessman who, at the wedding, presses Gill to find him investment land around Lake of the Woods. It could be, Gary claims, a good deal for both of them.

“Good deal?,” Gill answers. “You have to understand, to me this is not cottage land. It’s the land I work with to make a living. Why should I want someone who doesn’t understand that to move in next door and play for twelve weekends a year? How would you like someone living in your office twelve weekends a year?”

One of the many strengths of Up in Ontario is its sense of place. Sherratt (sic) brings his reader home to the north shore of Lake of the Woods complete with its Queen City, Kenora, once called Rat Portage. His fondness for this western reach of Ontario - with its bedrock highways, laconic people, and vast stretches of water that spill down into Manitoba – is evident on every page.

A story about a solitary fishing guide, living deep in the woods could have ended up a bit of a Canadian cliché. Instead, James Sherrett has created a captivating first novel, a love story about summer romance and all the long years that follow.

Copyright Owen Sound Sun-Sentinel, 2004

McNallyRobinson Bestseller #3

Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who attended the launch of Up in Ontario in Winnipeg on Sunday, January 11, and who helped propel Up in Ontairo to #3 on the McNallyRobinson Bestsellers list.

CBC Interview with Paul Grant

For all those who missed my interview on The Afternoon Show on CBC Radio One Vancouver (690 AM) last week, you can now listen to it here, online. The file is large but should stream well. Just click on the link below and let your computer handle the file. A little chatter happens before the interview starts and then a great oldie from Neil Young and the Squires wraps it up.

Listen to the interview.

Globe and Mail Review of Up in Ontario

I awoke on Saturday morning to an email in my inbox from the lovely and talented Adrienne Guthrie in Toronto. "Congratulations" read the subject line. The body went like this:

Yay, you're in the Globe this morning! What a nice surprise and great review.
Congrats and hope the launch last night was a lot of fun.

A.

I fired up a web browser and pointed it at the Globe and Mail front page. I searched for 'sherrett' and there she was, "Parent Trouble? Bear with it." I did a little dance. I read the first few sentences and then stopped. I wanted to buy a copy of the paper and read it as it was meant to be read, with the ink staining my fingertips.

My friend Riggs met me at the front door of our building. He was coming by to pick up a pair of glasses left by someone he knew the night before at Live at the Lake. I told him about the review and he told me that we had to get ourselves a copy. We walked down to the corner store and found they had already sold out of their allotment of Globe and Mails. We crossed the street, spotted a letter box, and spent the next few minutes wrestling with the coin-operated demon. Finally we pried it open and plucked the last two copies of the paper from its gaping maw. Riggs spread the paper open there on top of the letter box and pointed at the review, page D5.

We skimmed over the article and then stopped into the Epicurean coffee shop for a shot of strong joe and an orange-almond cookie so good you want to kill yourself. Riggs explained to me how fortunate I was to get a review in the Globe, that many first novels are published every year and only a few get reviewed. I just sat there and felt tired and elated.

Live at the Lake: Lost and Found

The following items were lost and found at the ANZA Club:

Origin of the Rye Czar

A few years ago, a group of friends went on a fishing trip to Lake of the Woods. With them they brought a Texas Mickey (3L) bottle of Crown Royal rye. They stopped on their way out of the city at a burger stand, and a few of them walked over to the 7-Eleven while the burgers cooked. They bought Slurpees in the largest cups they could find. All the friends then climbed into the van, which would take them to the docks and the boats to go out to the island where they planned on camping. The van was a sprinkler van, the business vehicle of one of the friends who owned Sunshower Sprinklers. Various parts from sprinkler heads and pipe fittings littered the floor of the van.

As the friends set out from the city, one of them opened the bottle of rye and poured out shots to top up the empty space in the Slurpee cups. I was driving so I refrained. My friend Shaun, who is a doctor now, demanded a particularly aggressive shot of rye in his Slurpee. Everyone else took a reasonable nip and the smell of the rye circled around the van as the wind blew in the windows. By the time we passed the halfway marker of the trip, Shaun was asleep in his seat.

We arrived at the dock on the shore of Lake of the Woods and unpacked the van and loaded the boats and headed out to an island on the south end of French Narrows. A couple of hours before dark we arrived at the island and set up our tents and then brought the rest of our gear up from the boats. My brother started a fire in the fire pit on the bare rock and we sat around to watch the sun go down and have a few pops. Shaun stood on the far side of the fire from where I sat in my lawn chair. I could see him wavering as he stood and talked about anything that came to his addled mind. The light of the fire danced on his face. Behind him, the rock sloped down at a sharp angle to the water. He took a step back and stumbled a little. He looked back at the drop off behind him, took a step forward and fell into the fire.

From that point on, the Rye Czar was born. The first Rye Czar was my friend Craig Dunn. His duties consisted of doling out the rye with fairness and justice and keeping an eye toward preservation on everyone else, should any drinker have forfeited their own sense of self-preservation. And I am happy to report that Shaun escaped from the fire pit without burns, yet only to have his younger brother Kyle yell at him, "Go to bed, Shaun. You're a disgrace."

CBC Interview: The Arts Today with Paul Grant

For those interested, I did an interview this morning with Paul Grant of CBC Radio Vancouver, which will air at 4:20 (PST) today on Radio One Vancouver. Two options are available to listen to the interview:

Invitation #2 to Live at the Lake

Live at the Lake Program

What follows is the proposed schedule for Live at the Lake: Winnipeg Comes to the West Coast, as previously announced. To refresh your memory and to learn more about the legendary Manitoba Social, visit the Live at the Lake Press Release.

Get yer tickets by emailing social{at}upinontario.com

8:00 - Doors open, drink service opens
8:15 - mingling, dancing, flirting, chatting
8:30 - """
8:45 - """
9:00 - 1st Reading from Up in Ontario
9:15 - Polar Shift kicks into high gear
9:30 - """
9:45 - """
10:00 - Prize Draw - 2nd Reading from Up in Ontario
10:15 - Authentic Manitoba wild game served
10:30 - """
10:45 - The Feminists onstage
11:00 - """
11:15 - """
11:30 - Grand Prize Draw
11:45 - 3rd Reading from Up in Ontario
12:00 - Party plates served
12:15 - Patrick Brealey solo
12:30 - Mark Tisdale solo
12:45 - Onstage jam
1:00 - Fin. Retrieve damage deposit.

Find your way to the Anza Club with a map like this one.

Live at the Lake Tickets

To get your tickets to Live at the Lake, send an email to social@upinontario.com. If you need a reminder what Live at the Lake is all about, read on.

Live at the Lake: Winnipeg Comes to the West Coast

Winnipeg comes to the West Coast when Live at the Lake kicks off at 8 p.m., Friday, January 16 at the ANZA Club.

Vancouverites will get an unforgettable party to launch James Sherrett's new novel, UP IN ONTARIO, and will also help raise money for important environmental causes, Markets Initiative and the Haig-Brown Institute. Great bands will play, prizes will be given away, food and drinks will be served, all in celebration of the launch of the bestselling UP IN ONTARIO, a novel Lynn Coady calls, "an assured, captivating debut."

---------------

Events details:

Friday, January 16, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.
ANZA Club, 3 West 8th Avenue
(between Manitoba and Ontario), Vancouver.

Tickets: $10.00, available in advance by contacting social@upinontario.com.

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Book details:

Up in Ontario by James Sherrett
Turnstone Press, 0-88801-286-1, $18.95 paper

http://www.upinontario.com

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Partial Proceeds Donated to Markets Initiative and Haig-Brown Institute:
http://marketsinitiative.org/
http://haigbrowninstitute.org/

Live at the Lake

It's on. Here's your first invitation to the Live at the Lake Manitoba-style Social to launch Up in Ontario in Vancouver.

Live at the Lake Program

Potent Quotables: Celebrities 2003

Everyone else seems to have Top 10 lists and Best-of lists for the end of the year. Then they roll out the predictions for the next year. But me, I'm just going to collect some things that other people said, and let them make their own points.

"I suppose people will call me Sir Mick. But Sir Michael has a nice ring to it." — Sir Mick Jagger accepts a knighthood at Her Majesty's request.

"I don't want to step out on stage with someone wearing a fucking coronet and sporting the old ermine." — Keith Richards expresses his disagreement with Sir Mick's new title.

"I think he's a bit like a bawling child who hasn't got an ice cream." — Sir Mick rebuts his commoner bandmate.

"To have a lot of dolls made of two characters that I have played or to find little representations of myself falling out of a cornflakes box or on a Burger King mug, these are not necessarily desirable things, but when they happen, you just sort of hug yourself with delight." — Sir Ian McKellen, on starring in both The Lord of the Rings and X-Men movies.

"When I shake my butt, I feel it in my soul." — Bootylicious singer Beyoncé Knowles.

"I always laugh when actors fight over trailers. I'm from Kentucky. We try to stay out of trailers. It's not a status symbol for us." — George Clooney, on film-set etiquette.

"I'll phone up and say, 'Hi, it's Paris Hilton,' and they'll say, 'Yes, this is the Paris Hilton.' So I'm like, 'Yes, I know, I'm Paris Hilton.' It can go on for hours like some badcomedy film." — Paris Hilton, on getting booked at the family hotel.

"I've been lucky because I do regard myself as a slightly aging character and I've been able to be in scenes with delightful women, like Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Goldie Hawn. ..... It's been a perk of the job. And the prettiest of all, of course, was Johnny Depp." — Actor Geoffrey Rush, on beauties with whom he has starred.

"Looking back, I don't know why we needed it to be quite so loud all the time." — The Who star Pete Townshend, on his current problems with tinnitus.

"Someone asked me the other day, 'What do you do?' And I said, 'Mainly interviews about things that I did more than 25 years ago.'." — Comedian John Cleese, on being a living legend.

"Monica Lewinsky has agreed to host a new Fox reality show called Mr. Personality. Lewinsky says this way, when people ask her the most degrading thing she's ever done, she'll have a new answer." — Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.

"Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the spread of SARS has been stopped dead in its tracks. That means the biggest health threat in Toronto is, once again, acute boredom." — Conan O'Brien on Late Night.

"I wish him all the luck and I'd really like him to grope me." — One of Schwarzenegger's many political rivals in the race, porn star Mary Carey.

"I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars/ They criticize me for it but they all yell 'Holla!'." — Jay-Z on his new The Black Album.

"Don't tell anyone. I'm supposed to be dumb." — Former supermodel Helena Christensen admits she can speak six languages.