Today I received a letter from Saint Paul’s United College informing me that my story, “A Story With No Title Whatever”, won this past year’s Tom York Memorial Short Story Writing Award. I will be given a cash award of $300 at the Scholarship and Awards Community Dinner, on February 26th. As you can well imagine, I am very pleased, and will most likely be insufferably full of myself for the next several days.
It may interest some of you to know that this month marks vestige.org’s third year online. I’m not sure of the exact date I launched this site, but I’m certain that it’s very close to today’s date, if not today’s date. So. Happy anniversary.
Thing the first: I just returned from my first screening of The Two Towers, and while reactions to this film have been overwhelmingly positive, I have mixed feelings. One of the strengths of the first film was how closely it followed the book(s), with the possible exception of Tom Bombodil, who is a delightful character, but ultimately serves a function unnecessary to the film. At the same time, the actors were allowed to do their jobs, which is to create believable characters through, well, acting. The Two Towers does not follow the book quite so closely, particularly with the addition of the scenes with Liv Tyler. I think this is a good thing, because it humanizes the relationship (and its potential problems) between Aragorn and the Horse-Princess, and makes Aragorn’s moral dilemma quite sharp in our minds. We feel for these characters in ways the book does not allow us.… Continue Reading
Today there was much snow, and little rejoicing.
I found, quite by chance (I was actually in search of a copy of A Tale of Two Cities, by the illustrious Mr. Dickens) copies of the first three issues of McSweeney’s, which I purchased for a price which I can only define as exorbitant, but which of course I paid, though I can ill afford it. I am confident that I will be repaid by the contents of the magazines. For those of you not familiar with the literary journal, I’m not sure how to describe it. Comically earnest? Sincerely ironic? It defies classification, except in terms of its intended audience, who are generally speaking wealthy white kids just out of college who think they know more than they do. This is why you will find the work of the talented but abnoxious David Foster Wallace creeping about its pages. Despite its best efforst, McSweeney’s is actually quite good,… Continue Reading
Before the holidays Jon and I went to an Irish pub in downtown Waterloo. They had a man with a guitar, like most pubs in the area, and he sang folk classics, acoustic numbers from the ’70s, and the odd country song (he was funny, too). When he played “Folsom Prison Blues”, Jon leaned across the table and said, “If country music were as cool as Johnny Cash, I would listen to country.” Truer words have ne’er been spoken.
I was going through a box of old books before going to bed last night, and in my copy of the old Book of Common Prayer I found a bookmark that looks older than I am, in fact almost as old as my father. The bookmark, printed for a store in Fort Frances called The Book Stop, expresses a fine holiday sentiment, and I would like to share it with you. Why Books Are Nice Presents They don’t require batteries They don’t give you a hangover Easy to assemble and operate Re-usable over and over No calories Available in a large variety of sizes and colour No messy maintenance Nothing to clean up when you finish They don’t make horrible noises They don’t wilt and die Books are excellent gifts. Every year I receive them with open arms, and every year I give more books as gifts than anything else… Continue Reading
Yesterday Julianne and I drove from Sudbury home to Dryden, and it took us somewhere in the neighbourhood of twenty hours. Think about that for a moment. Twenty. Hours. Actually the only truly difficult part was the last four hours from Thunder Bay to Dryden. I think Dryden heard we were coming and was trying to run away. I’ve obviously not had regular access to a computer this last week or so, and my time online will continue to be irregular up until the fifth or sixth of January. If you have e-mailed me and I have not responded, this is why. Likewise this is why I have not e-mailed many of you. Or posted many entries. I will do what I can. Finally, I want to wish everyone a happy holidays, a merry Christmas, or a cheerful x (where x=your celebration of choice, religious or otherwise).
Julianne and I went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets tonight at Silver City. It was good (probably better than the first), but (maybe because I was a little used to the world) didn’t seem to have the same sense of awe and wonder in it that the first had. Better acting and f/x, though. Kenneth Branaugh (sp?) wasn’t at his best, but it was a surprise to see him in it to begin with. I’m looking forward to the third movie, but it’s not going to be the same with a different actor as Dumbledore (sp?).
All the templates are up and built. I’m still of the opinion that the search and comment templates aren’t what they could (or should) be, but I don’t know enough about Movable Type‘s proprietary tags (are they proprietary?) to mess with them further at this point. After the holidays I’ll take another look. For now it’s enough that they work. I’m going to Julianne’s in the morning. The trip is eight hours via Greyhound, but I don’t mind. I’ll get some sleep, and maybe get some reading done. Speaking of reading, I recently finished a project on Nabokov’s Lolita for my Contemporary American Literature class. It’s a little rough around the edges, but have fun with it anyway. And as always, Wooden Fish is still accepting submissions for our second issue.