(Entry originally published April 24th, 2008)

LeVack Block, Anansi Poetry Bash

Caucasian male, 50s, with curly dark hair, wearing dark dress jacket and shirt. Family and students gather close to the stage, whooping when he takes the mic.

The Sentinel, A.F. Moritz (House of Anansi Press)

From “You That I Loved”

You that I loved all my life long,
you are not the one.
You that I followed, my line or path or way,
that I followed singing, and you
earth and air of the world the way went through,
and you who stood around it so it could be
the way, you forests and cities,
you deer and opossums struck by the lonely hunter
and left decaying, you paralyzed obese ones
who sat on a falling porch in a deep green holler
and observed me, your bald dog barking,
as I stumbled past in a hurry along my line,
you are not the one…

Her head rolls into his shoulder nightly. Their hands meet at their waists, their legs entwined. In sleep they align, their bodies folding into one another, a reduction of the best they have to offer.

The Gladstone Hotel, Launch and Panel discussion

Caucasian male, late 40s, with short grey hair, wearing glasses, black leather jacket, and tan pants.

The New Quarterly, Issue 107 (The Salon des Refusés)

Page 63:

From the short story “Impossible to Die in Your Dreams” by Heather Birrell

Samantha is still talking to the tall man, her eyebrows meeting in the middle of her forehead like something from a political cartoon. Smile, I will her silently. Look into his eyes. There is softness in her, I’ve seen it. Post-Bobby, for an entire year, Annie refused to dress in anything but purple, right down to the skin. Left stubborn rings like bands of grape juice around the tub, in the good mixing bowls. When her mother lost patience, what little she had, it was Samantha who showed up in a lavender pantsuit and mauve eye shadow to intercede.

There was that year that everyone made fun of the actor who only ate orange food. Of course, it wasn’t true, the actor had retorted, was it on some late night talk show, or maybe among the pages of some mens’ magazine, he tried to remember. He opened the freezer, the condensation fogging his glasses, and reached blindly into the rows of tangerine sherbet packed tightly to the back and sides, knowing, after all, what he’d retrieve.

Spadina Station

Asian male, 40s, with short black hair, wearing pink polo shirt, baggy blue jeans, and baby blue Crocs.

Angels & Demons, Dan Brown (Pocket Books)

Page 193:

At first glance the room appeared to be a darkened airline hangar in which someone had built a dozen free-standing racquetball courts. Langdon knew of course what the glass-walled enclosures were. He was not surprised to see them; humidity and heat eroded ancient vellums and parchments, and proper preservation required hermetic vaults like these-airtight cubicles that kept out humidity and natural acids in the air. Langdon had been inside hermetic vaults many times, but it was always an unsettling experience . . . something about entering an airtight container where the oxygen was regulated by a reference librarian. 

In school, his roommate’s girlfriend sat him in the kitchen and took his hands, palms up, in hers. She asked him to close his eyes and focus on the moment of his death. When he opened his eyes, she confirmed the worst. Not because drowning would be a bad way to go, but because it was done. He would die. And that was that.

Waiting for streetcar, Spadina and Front

Asian woman, early 30s, with long black hair, wearing pink top, black jeans, and black flip flops. She adjusts her posture, taking a sharp breath, and wincing.

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown and Company)

Page 557:

I watched Edward’s face go absolutely white as he read what Sam was thinking. Sam ignored him, looking straight at Carlisle as he stopped walking and began to speak.

“Right after midnight, Alice and Jasper came to this place and asked permission to cross our land to the ocean. I granted them that and escorted them to the coast myself. They went immediately into the water and did not return. As we journeyed, Alice told me it was of the utmost importance that I say nothing to Jacob about seeing her until I spoke to you. I was to wait here for you to come looking for her and then give you this note. She told me to obey her as if all our lives depended on it.”

Eternal life without pain. Hers had worsened in recent months. She knew she should see someone. Before vampires, she’d believed in something else. She’d pictured loved ones looking down, saddened that she hadn’t chosen, her existence tied too tightly to consciousness. But these creatures, just like her, only faster, more limber, full of endless sensation . . . that would be a supreme sacrifice she’d be willing to embrace if it meant she could breathe without aching.

Rose-coloured

(Originally published October 31, 2007)

Starbucks, Spadina and Richmond

Caucasian male, early 40s, settled deep into an easy chair, legs crossed wide, staking his claim in the early morning rush of bar drinks and lingering line-ups.

The Communist’s Daughter, Dennis Bock (HarperCollins)

About page 177:

We found room in a railcar loaded with an irreplaceable cargo of government-issue rice, perhaps four hundred bags in all, stacked right to the ceiling. Approximately three hours into our journey, however, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by an all-encompassing silence. We were no longer moving.

He’s a young boy, about ten, moving his tray along the rails, considering the desserts. J-ello, red and green, in a glass sundae dish, topped with a hardening dollop of piped whipped cream. Milk chocolate pudding in a glass dish, topped, again, with a hardening dollop of piped whipped cream. A glass bowl of creamy rice pudding with raisins. Something layered and spongy, kind of creamy with a dusting of chocolate slivers. He lifts it and smells. Strong. Alcohol. The clock strikes the hour and he turns to scan the dark wood panel wall. The bird slides in and out, followed by the lederhosen couple chasing each other through the shell, two times. He looks toward the long hall leading to the women’s washroom, back to his table and his grandmother’s beige purse, tan overcoat. She has trouble swallowing and she’s been gone a long time.

Bloor Line, eastbound, concealing the cover

Caucasian woman, mid 50s, with trim grey hair, wearing black-rimmed glasses, grey shirt, black slacks, and sensible shoes.

Straight into Darkness, Faye Kellerman (Vision)

Page 199:

Ten beds on each side, all of them were occupied. Above the headboards hung wooden crucifixes; nuns in black habits and nurses in starched white uniforms scurried about—a life-size chessboard. As the grogginess lifted from his brain, he became aware of sounds . . . moans . . . groans . . . the soft sighs of weeping. Whispers crackled through the air like radio static.

She doesn’t wish he was dead, but when she bumps into him in the street it’s hard to accept that he still walks among the earth. She thought he was gone. And he stands in front of her, waves without speaking, as if he, too, can’t bring himself to say hello, that the sight of his mouth forming salutation would look, from a distance, as if he’s attempting to converse with an empty void. Such is the first encounter between ex lovers.

Bloor Line, owning the door

Caucasian woman, late 30s, dark brown hair pulled back in ponytail, wearing gold rimmed glasses, grey shirt, and black pants.

Die With Me, Elena Forbes (House of Anansi Press)

Page 87:

Tom had asked Gemma if she found high places exciting, if she got a thrill looking down from a tall building or a cliff. Still trying to justify to himself why he felt Marion Spear’s death worth looking into, Tartaglia had re-read the email earlier that morning after coming back from the cemetery.

Do you feel the attraction of the void? Do you feel the pull as you look over the edge of a high place, knowing that you’re only a second away from death if you choose?

It had been twenty minutes. She stood at the middle of the bridge and looked out over the ravine. Family back home still didn’t believe that things could live here, stare up at her from beside a four-lane highway, the morning commuters sneaking up on a slowly waking city. The sun had risen, the doe in full view, her fur the fiery red of a smeared cross on a metal first aid kit hidden under a sink in country laundry room.

QN Podcast

Don’t live in my ‘hood? Email me your mp3 and picture, just like Sage! julie [at] seenreading [dot] com

(Originally published September 19, 2007)

Spadina streetcar, Tom’s of Maine

Caucasian woman, early 20s, with short, spiky red hair tucked in a green paisley bandana, wearing a loose black T-shirt with a hole in the right shoulder at the seam, fraying jeans shorts and Crocs.

No Logo, Naomi Klein (Knopf)

Page 138:

After all, the Gap’s project is to take a distinctive object–clothing–and brand it so completely that purchasing it from the Gap is as easy as buying a quart of milk or a can of Coke. Starbucks, on the other hand, is in the business of taking a much more generic object –a cup of coffee– and branding it so completely that it becomes a spiritual/designer object. So Starbucks doesn’t want to be known as a blockbuster, it wants, as its marketing director Scott Bedbury says, to “align ourselves with one of the greatest movements towards finding a connection with your soul.”

She buys her organic coffee at The Big Carrot, $2.00 for a large, sweetened with Stevia, and her croissant at Tim Horton’s where it’s solid and chewy, not airy and dry, because she resents paying for something that flakes off into the bag as if her money grows on trees.