Autumn, 2024, fragments as falling leaves
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"Name of organization had a good run, and it kept Name of person out of the madhouse."
--anonymous, on some small local organization that may finally close, and its apparently contentious chair
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I have a couple of small events forthcoming. D.S. Barrick and I will have a small table at Christmas market, courtesy of LA Mood, a local comics and gaming shop located in Kellogg's Lane, London, Ontario, which runs the market in question. We will be there November 30, 2024 until about 5 pm, selling books and graphic novels. Barrick will be selling one-of-a-kind cards, some featuring creatures from my writing, in festive apparel.
December 3 at 6 pm, I will be doing a reading at the library in Thamesford, Ontario. It's a small event in a small town, but it holds particular significance. The library in my short story, "Hapax Lizardman" was based loosely on this one, though the town of Lainebridge draws its layout more from Thorndale, Ontario 15 minutes away down rural roads.
UPDATE: The market was a huge success! The Thamesford Library event will have to be rescheduled due to inclement weather.
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For our anniversary, a friend gifted us a destination adventure. It provides information for what to bring and directs you where to go and how much time it will take, but treats the actual destinations as mysteries, with steps in sealed envelopes. On an unseasonably warm day the week before Halloween, we left on our pre-packaged adventure. We already guessed from the clues that the first destinations would be near St. Jacobs, a tourist town with an abundance of Mennonites.
We drove through some towns we've not seen on a route we wouldn't have taken, tortuous but scenic. In Plover Mills we saw a wild fox running across a yard. Given its feral nature, Nancy did not insist on stopping to pet it.
We knew that the market would be closed Friday, but we explored a large antique place and then had an excellent lunch at the Stone Crock Bakery. There's a restaurant portion and they do great food. Any bread is fresh-baked on-site, of course.
In the relatively uncrowded restaurant we both took notice of a character who spoke too loudly, to and at an older couple with whom he sat. He wore a blue and white checked shirt, brown pants, a blue jacket, and two-tone brogues. His glasses were heavy and plastic. Loud apparel to match the voice; he had raided a high-end thrift shop for his wardrobe. His manner and demeanor felt staged, a performance, a surreal job interview. Both of us, discussing it later, couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
He spoke loudly of many things. His church, which was a short walk from his house— he proclaimed that distance "the height of luxury." His past travels. His work with youth. None of this seems alarming, but something was off. Like I said, it felt like they were interviewing him, or that his life was some kind of entertainment for them. They looked well-heeled.
Both of us shared the perception that he had some kind of game going, though what, we could not know. We made a range of sometimes outrageous suggestions as we drove away: an interview for a threesome or a Jerry Jr. Pool Boy situation, a scam artist selling something, a new youth minister for hire, a secretive cult.
We drove to our next destination, the last covered bridge in the province. It's red, functional, nostalgic, and retroactively clichéd. The West Montrose Bridge (1881), also called the Kissing Bridge, has featured in Stephen King's IT, every other Hallmark Christmas Movie, and in numerous photos, including, now, ours.
Half of our "adventure" remained. We decided to complete it in spring.
We created our own route back, and passed the Snyder Farm. Their locally-famous Fear Farm wouldn't open until the evening, but there was a school PD Day and the family Pumpkin Patch sort of attractions were in full swing. We parked in the lot while I double-checked the way home. Nancy tried to coax a goat in the petting zoo to come to the fence but it was not interested. I suspect the kids had exhausted it.
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We attended the first of the James Reaney lectures, which proved quite entertaining. Like much of the audience, we had a connection with the late James Reaney and Colleen Thibaudeau, husband-and-wife icons of Canadian lit but not so well-known outside of the country. I first encountered Reaney in high school, watching another school’s adaptation of "One Man Masque," performed, in this instance, by an entire cast, with the addition of music and some beguiling special effects. It opened up my eyes to what can be done in theatre. I did not know then that he would be one of my professors a couple of years later, that I would get him to sign one of the original copies of The Dance of Death at London, Ontario (a contemporary Danse Macabre illustrated by the artist Jack Chambers), or that a turn of circumstances would have me driving Colleen to her hair appointment one afternoon in the 90s.
In any case, the lecture provoked lively discussion. The presence of an obviously disturbed individual who had wandered in, possibly to get warm, created only a small distraction. When we first sat down, I noted him a couple rows up and thought he was talking to someone, possibly on a Bluetooth. Then I realized that he was rambling incoherently to no one in particular, though, admittedly, in three languages (English, French, Italian). Mostly English. He raised his hand during the Q&A. What he said made no real sense.
Properly and clearly delivered, I suppose that it might have been some damn fine poetry.
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Halloween sent us near-record warm weather and a fine night for kids to wander about. We gave out candy. I spent some time with the guy who used to run the charity haunted house on our street—most of his stuff was destroyed in a flood. However, he decorated again this year, and his house became a popular spot.
I also did a couple adult treats. I mixed Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway's favorite cocktail, and delivered them to the Haunted House Guy and three of our other neighbours. Much gets made of Hemingway's suicide being the result of depression over losing his voice as a prose writer. I suspect his heavy alcohol consumption and multiple concussions might be a more accurate, if more prosaic, explanation.
I helped the Captain of local haunts put on his costume after the flow of ghost and goblins abated. Newly divorced, he planned to hit the bars.
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A vast stadium with a stage as wide presented some kind of performance, theatrical, dramatic, musical. Perhaps the dream was influenced by the coverage of Taylor Swift's week-long invasion of Toronto, the end of an Eras Tour. In any case, I sat near the side, but some people with whom I used to work beckoned me to some folding chairs closer to the middle. An old college housemate appeared on one of the many screens, dressed casually and his hair, implausibly, in braids. I suspect now, as then, he keeps his hair conservatively trim. He was the kind of student, in the 1980s, who was not beyond wearing a tie to class.
On stage, women danced in glittering outfits and a giant cube materialized in which rested the Great Floating Head of Marlon Brando.
No, I did not drink a Death in the Afternoon (or consume anything of a mind-altering nature) before going to bed the night before. I just dream stuff like this.
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Working on some stories to send out and about to return to the Cryptids and Lesser-Known Small Town Mysteries book.
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On the subject of Donald Trump's cabinet picks: unqualified pervert Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from the Attorney-General nomination, to avoid, apparently "becoming a distraction." However, he did not do so before Marjorie Taylor Greene came to his defense in a most revealing manner:
For my Republican colleagues in the House and Senate,
If we are going to release ethics reports and rip apart our own that Trump has appointed, then put it ALL out there for the American people to see.
Yes..
all the ethics reports and claims including the ones I filed
all your sexual harassment and assault claims that were secretly settled paying off victims with tax payer money
the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews
but not just those, there's more, Epstein wasn't/isn't the only asset
If we're going to dance, let's all dance in the sunlight.
I'll make sure we do
--MTG, Posting on the App Formerly Known as Twitter
You know, this might be the one time I'm somewhat in agreement with her, but, as a defense of Gaetz it's pretty poor.
So, numerous sitting Republicans have committed sexual crimes and indiscretions, and she knows about it? But she'll only tell on them if they don't do what Papa Trump say? Yeah, keep draining that swamp and being tough on crime.
Pretty on point, really, for the party that says it will protect women, whether they want it or not.
I can't wait to see how MTG's position on Elon Musk's advisory committee works out.
Future history will tell the tale, and I fear it will be a history neither Trump's supporters nor detractors really wanted.
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We've had our own scandals up here. A cabinet minister resigned over a business conflict of interest and some dubious claims of indigenous ancestry. We have serious issues with cost-of-living. Somehow, our politics matter less at the moment than those of a country with nuclear weapons and a disproportionate influence on world affairs.
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It's autumn. Leaves keep falling.