So as someone who keeps a blog (albeit, rather poorly or late) I am interested in reading other blogs. One of my favourites is Bookninja because I can keep in touch with the writing and publishing scene of Canada and the world without having to spend much effort. The site is run by Peter Darbyshire and George Murphy and they do a fine job of collecting links and making comments, ranging from acidic-snarky to pithy, on stories.
Today Bookninja points to an article in the Elko Daily Free Press entitled, Young Poet: Freshman's poem selected for publication in national anthology. Reading through the article I thought to myself, this could just as easily be appearing in The Onion. Opportunities for satire were ripe.
Then once I had finished the article I got to thinking to myself that really, the easy way out is to satirize the sensitive, young poet, trying to express themselves and make sense of their world of hurt feelings through words. The tougher thing to do is to engage with the story and admit that we've all been teenagers at some time and we've all written terrible, introspective poetry. Some of us just have had the good sense (so far) to keep it locked away, so we'll sidestep the groaning pain of revisiting it later in life, when we're beyond the moment which made its contents seem so vivid.
In closing, congratulations to Janaya Sahara Johnson for writing the poem Love Happens and for its acceptance for publication in Poetry.com. Look for it in bookstores in November.
Coda: I once worked for an entrepreneurial fellow with undiagnosed ADHD who came from humble beginnings, started a string of risky companies straight out of high school and eventually hit on an idea that made him moderately rich very fast. He had a peculiar pattern to his baldness which left a tuft on his forehead and a ring of hair around the rest of his head. He hired his best friend early on in his company's development to be his vice president of marketing, and together they scrambled and schemed their way to some success. In his early 40s the entrepreneurial fellow with undiagnosed ADHD and his wife had their first child and they named her Summer Sierra S*******. The woman I carpooled with at the time, a good friend and sharp wit, wondered aloud to me one day whethey they would be putting a pole in the nursery, since the name Summer Sierra seemed to destine the girl for nothing but life as an exotic dancer. We never asked the proud parents what they had been thinking naming their daughter as they had. We let them be as they trolled around the office with their precious bundle in her carriage, as co-workers cooed and giggled or left for timely trips to the bathroom, as everyone avoided the lie of what a cute baby she was, because she was not remotely cute.
Over the remaining few months I worked at that company I continued to enjoy my carpooler's pole joke in much the same way as I savour a good nickname that sticks to someone because it describes them more fully than their given name. I dreamwalked the office halls and collected my check and my carpooler grew larger with her own child in her belly that turned out to be her own daughter, who was cute.
A little while ago I came across a record of another James Sherrett at a geneological site called PastFinders. That James Sherrett happened to be convicted of a crime in March, 1842. Perhaps in a past life I was a convicted criminal?
A full page on the PastFinders site lists all unclaimed convicts whose last name starts with S (scroll down through the alphabetical listings to James Sherrett).
James Sherrett
Date Tried: Lancashire Assizes, March 1842
Source: Local newspaper report. Approx 900 words. Gives excellent description of offence
Price: £29
Reference No: UC5280
I made an enquiry to PastFinders to see what I might be receiving in exchange for my £29 and I will update the Up in Ontario blog with any response I receive. Until discovering this record of another James Sherrett, I had operated under the misguided notion that my father and I were the only two James Sherretts in the world with our exact spelling.
(random movie reference)
"Solipcism is my favourite word."
"Mine too."
If you're interested in seeing if your alter ego was a convict, check out the PastFinders full index page of unclaimed convicts and select the appropriate letter listing for you family name. But only if you are of English blood.
As many of you loyal Up in Ontario readers will know, I have an enthusiasm for popcorn. It is, perhaps, the perfect snack for sedentary activities. Sure it doesn't travel well, but head yourself into a house or apartment within hours of popcorn being popped and your body will tell you what it wants.
I share my enthusiasm with my father and my brother Scott and some other select aficianados. We appreciate the corn, you might say. So, when my brother turned up on Friday night for the weekend to celebrate my birthday and pulled out a box containing a stovetop popcorn popper, my heart went flipty flop with delight. Just the week before I had been telling him about a similar unit I had seen at a mutual friend's, and the fine, fine corn it had produced. Now here was one ready to go before my very eyes.
We broke it out right away. After cleaning out the hopper, I gave it a few test cranks. Now maybe, before I get into the full action of what happened, I should describe the popper for our viewers at home. Imagine a large-sized pot, almost large enough for cobs of corn, but more closely associated with a large lashing of soup. Place a tight lid on the pot, with clips on the lid to hold it to the rim and a handle off the side of the lid. The handle is wooden and drives a gear in the middle of the lid, which drives a cylinder that stretches down to the centre of the base of the pot. Three arms extend from the cylinder. When the handle is cranked it drives the gear that rotates the cylinder and the arms sweep around the base of the pot, rolling the popcorn kernels with love.
So we broke it out right away. Scott told me he thought he knew what he was doing, since he had lived in Ireland for a year playing rugby, and had learned to make popcorn on a stovetop with some skill. We added the right amount of oil to the bottom of the pot and four or five popcorn kernals. This was the best way to proceed, he told me, since we wanted to oil at the right temperature before we added all the kernels. We applied the heat, crowded over the stovetop, and waited.
Every few seconds I gave the pot a shake on the element. I also worked the crank and heard those precious little kernals rolling around inside. After a few minutes the gentle sound of the oil bubbling whispered from the pot. A second later the first kernel fired. Scott was ready with the balance of kernels when I opened the lid. They clattered in and I kept churning the handle. The Duck watched us with some bemusement, so we put her to work. She loaded up our measuring cup - the one I had bought solely for melting butter for popcorn - with an appropriate level of buttery goodness and slid it into the microwave. The kernels popped rapid fire by then, like an automatic weapon. I cranked the handle and gave a little shake now and then. The weight in the pot began to dissapate and move up towards the lid. I cranked and shook some more, until I turned the handle around and the arms connecting to the cylinder on the inside would no longer turn. We were done.
"She's done," I said to Scott and he nodded.
"Just a few seconds and we'll have to take it off."
I slipped on an oven mit and pried open the clamp that held the lid shut. Once released, the lid lifted on its own, the popcorn inside bursting from the pot. Scott held the big popcorn bowl ready while I tilted the pot. We ending up getting almost all the popcorn into the bowl. He poured the butter over the top, I sprinkled some salt on, and he tossed those glistening white kernels to distribute the goodness. We grabbed some napkins and headed to the couch. Do I have to tell you what happened next? I think I even got to hold the bowl.
Tomorrow night Canada plays Finland in the finals of the World Cup of Hockey. I think the new popcorn maker could well see it's second run.
On Tuesday, September 21 Rex Weyler officially launches his new book Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World (Raincoast, 1-55192-529-X, $39.95 cloth) at the Commodore Ballroom, 868 Granville Street in Vancouver. The launch gets under way at 7 pm, tickets are $25 and are available through Banyen Books (604-737-8858) or through the deplorable Ticketmaster.
The book launch for Greenpeace promises, like my own book launch for Up in Ontario, Live at the Lake, to transcend the usual affair. The launch is titled a Greenpeace benefit concert,
Honouring the ordinary people who, for nearly 40 years, have been making an extraordinary difference worldwide. Proceeds from this event will go to the Greenpeace Boreal Forest campaign to save the largest remaining ancient forest in North America.
Musicians like Chilliwack, Paul Horn, Ann Mortifee, Jim Byrnes with Zubot & Dawson, Gordy Ryan with Oba, Valdy, Shari Ulrich & Friends, Downland, Pete Trower (the logger's poet) and Joe Keithley may very well rock the place with some strong degree of enthusiasm. The mayor will be there and so will I. Throw down the $25 and join us. Maybe something memorable will happen.
I don't really know why I'm following this story of stolen beer in New Brunswick (see Truck of Beer Gone Missing and Beer Truck Driver Charged with Theft for background) but I am, with that great mixture of horror and fascincation reserved for spectacles. What follows is the latest.
N.B. residents scour countryside for stolen beerFREDERICTON, N.B. - Residents scoured rural New Brunswick for thousands of cans of stolen beer Tuesday, as the truck driver charged with stealing them was ordered held in custody until a Sept. 8 hearing.
RCMP said approximately 5,000 cans of missing Moosehead beer have turned up in a wooded area near Millville, in the third major find since about 50,400 cans disappeared from a transport truck bound for Mexico on Aug. 15.
Nearly two-thirds of the load is still missing, and police said residents are combing ditches and backwoods roads, hoping to find the rest.
"People are actually out looking for it, because they know we're looking for it in that certain area," RCMP Sgt. Gary Cameron said.
Truck's driver denied bail
The truck's driver, Wade Haines, 30, did not offer a plea when he appeared in a Fredericton courtroom Tuesday, charged with theft over $5,000. He was denied bail and will be back in court on Sept. 8.
The truck was discovered empty and idling in a parking lot in Grand Falls three weeks ago. Both the beer and the driver were missing. Police later located Haines, in Lindsay, Ont.
Latest stash found on trail
A passerby found the latest stash of beer stacked on a trail behind a cemetery near a highway and reported it, police said.
One thousand cans of the stolen beer turned up on a dirt road outside Nackawic Aug. 27.
Three days earlier, more than 5,000 cans were found in a makeshift trailer that had overturned near Woodstock, strewing beer in a ditch and a nearby farmer's field.
Sgt. Cameron said the media attention is helping police locate the beer stashes, which are being dusted for fingerprints and returned to Moosehead Breweries.
The driver of the truck, Wade Haines, seems destined to prove himself to be a modern-day Robin Hood, stealing from the multinational brewer of Moosehead and sharing his beery riches with the people of his province. Or Wade's a couple of pops short of a six pack and the people of his province are just discovering the stashes that he wanted to keep for himself. But either way, folks out there are on the lookout for Mexican Moosehead. Hablar espagnol?