"The Lost Salt Gift of Blood", Alistair MacLeod, 1976

A while back a friend gave me a collection of short stories by Alistair MacLeod, a Canadian writer whose stories are mostly set on Cape Breton and the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.
I read a couple of the stories and really enjoyed them. But then the book was put aside and got buried under a giant pile of things waiting to be read and I never had the chance to finish it.
But a couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I took a trip to the Eastern Shore to visit my friends DeeDee and Jeremy.
I spotted “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood” on my bookshelf just moments before we departed, and almost as an afterthought I stuffed it into my backpack.
It was a good decision. There’s something about reading literature while visiting the very place that it captured.
TLSGOB enhanced my experience in Nova Scotia and really made the place come alive. The lonely, socked-in coves and beaches, the rugged, harsh headlands – even the hardy, colourful people we met took on new meaning when seen through MacLeod’s lens.
There are seven stories in this collection, and it took MacLeod seven years to write.
It’s not surprising that years of labour went into this project. Stories about miners, fishermen, Cape Bretoners returning home after years away, only to feel like the had never left, the desperate struggle to hang onto a way of life that is steadily eroding into the Atlantic – you feel as though MacLeod has lived each of these lives and he’s speaking from inside the heart of his characters and from the very soil where his ancestors are buried.
The Road to Rankin’s Point, in particular, I found, to be a haunting, heartbreaking story that seems to represent a microcosm for a disappearing way of life.
“But for me, in this my 26th years, it is not into the larger world that I go today. And the road that I follow feeds into no other that will take the traveler to the great adventures of the wild unknown. Instead, at the village’s end it veers sharply to the right, leaves the pavement behind and almost immediately begins to climb along the rocky cliffs that hang high above the sea. It winds its torturous, clinging way for some eight miles before it ends quite abruptly and permanently in my grandmother’s yard…Above this last small cultivated outpost and jutting beyond it out to sea is the rocky promontory of Rankin’s Point. As one cannot drive beyond it, neither can one see beyond it farther up the coast. It is an end in every way and it is to the beginning of this conclusion that my car now begins its long ascent.”

In this story Calum, a young man returns to Cape Breton from Toronto to visit his grandmother, part of an annual family reunion that he says could better be titled “What to do about Grandma.”

And as he travels the tangled, overgrown road to her home on Rankin’s Point he recounts the beautiful tragedy of his family history.

“The sharp, right-angled turn and its ascending steepness has always been called by us 'The Little Turn of Sadness' because it is here that my grandfather died so many years ago on a February night when he somehow fell as he walked or staggered toward his home which was a steep two miles away. He had already covered the six miles from the village when he lost his footing on the ice-covered rock, falling backwards and shattering the rum bottle he carried within his safe back pocket. Now, as I feel my own blood diseased and dying, I think of his, the brightest scarlet, staining the moon-white snow while the joyous rabbits leapt and pirouetted beneath the pale, clear moon.”

And every inch of the journey described the unique scenery and way of life that only exists there – bringing the reader along until his – my – heart swells with the beauty of the scenery and the loss this young man and his family has endured.

In another story, the one for which the book is titled, the main character describes driving across the country to revisit the fishing village that was once his home. Like all small towns, his return is somehow expected, though he gave no word of his plans.
Long-lost relatives open their home to him and in a pattern that seems timelessly ingrained in these people there is supper, followed by weather reports on the shortwave radio, and then music as a young boy plays harmonica and the old couple sings.

“Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court your men
They’re like the stars on a summer’s morning
First they’ll appear and then they’re gone.

I wish I were a tiny sparrow
And I had wings and I could fly
I’d fly away to my own true loves
And all he’d ask I would deny

Alas I’m not a tiny sparrow
I have not wings nor can fly
And on this earth in grief and sorrow
I am bound until I die.

Like their way of life, the words of their song seem to take on an agelessness that could characterize centuries of Cape Bretoners or their Irish or Scottish forefathers.

The narrator says:
“Stranded here, alien of my middle-generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously upon the linoleum. The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like the snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!”

The power, the strength of the stories contained in this book is proven by this: As I sit in this trendy, downtown Toronto coffee shop, surrounded by busy successful, up and coming city-types, I’m still able to disappear completely into these pages and tune out the conversations and the pretension and the smell of money that permeates everything here, and allow myself to be tugged irresistible by the heartstrings back to the Eastern Shore.

"The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie, 2008

So, I had the honour of sitting down with Salman Rushdie yesterday for an entire hour!

Author of nine novels, Booker prize winner, British knight, the man who infuriated much of the Muslim world and prompted Iran's supreme leader to put a price on his head, forcing him to go into hiding for a decade...

Yeah, I was nervous, but it actually went really, really well. We were only scheduled for 45 minutes, and I planned to only use 30, but we had such a great conversation and the interview went in so many different directions, that we stretched it out for a whole hour.

At the end we both said 'wow, that flew by!'. So fascinating to speak with him.

He has a new book out called "The Enchantress of Florence" which I really enjoyed.

I've written a story about the book and the interview. If you want to, you can read it here

Also, he asked for my blog address, so he might be reading this right now.

Just kidding about that last part.

Thanks for checking in! I promise to write more soon...

Up the Yangtze (2007, Yung Chang)

Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News Staff

Up the Yangtze follows one peasant family as their home and way of life is swept up in the rising tide of China's march towards progress.

The epic documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang captures some of the final moments before the Three Gorges Dam chokes off the river and the rising waters displace two million people.

* Read the complete story here

"There Will Be Blood" (Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Daniel Day Lewis)

“There Will Be Blood” is essentially about greed and the downfall of a capitalistic society where individual empire building is encouraged and even lifted up as a hallmark of the society’s success.

Starring Daniel Day Lewis and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it’s a grim, dark tale about the life of Daniel Plainfield, a stubborn, determined, self-serving oil prospector who finds the precious substance in the late 1890s as America is just beginning to develop a dependency.

Plainfield goes on to build a successful oil business, through sheer grit and greed and a willingness to push anyone out of his way to accomplish his own ends.

Though it’s not black and white, there’s almost no colour in this film. Long, still images of bleak, rocky hills are accompanied by spine-chilling, drawn out, single notes played on violin that adds to the constant tension through the film.

Most of the characters seem purposefully non-descript compared to Plainfield. Their stark black clothes and hard-working faces provide some contrast to the frames but little more. This film is clearly about Plainfield – his greed, selfishness and ultimate descent into a dark mine shaft of his own creation.

Paul Thomas Anderson is known for dark subject matter. “Magnolia” and “Hard Eight” both looked at human weakness and the dark side of people. But there is usually some redeeming qualities that allow the viewer to connect and relate to the characters, despite – or maybe because of – their flaws and weaknesses.

TWBB is different, though. Maybe Anderson is taking a shot at U.S. oil dependency and greed by looking closely at how that industry began. Or perhaps he’s offering a warning about the dangers if being a slave to the dollar. But there’s little cause for sympathy towards Plainfield – who is played brilliantly by Lewis, by the way.

In the early days of his career his determination and grit are admirable – you can’t help but admire his toughness as he chips away in a lonely mine shaft, drags himself out of a hole with a broken leg, or huddles beside a fire at night, wind-battered on an exposed plain.

Little by little that respect shifts to disgust, as it becomes obvious that the sole motivation for all of his decisions is greed.

What is compelling, is Lewis’ portrayal of Plainfield. It’s breathtaking and absolutely convincing. When he says “I hate most people,” or when he heartlessly dismisses someone whom he is close to, from his life forever, or when he murders in cold blood, you feel it in your bones and you know he was fully immersed -- in typical Lewis style – in the role.

TWBB is also a visual masterpiece. An oil well gushing a black baptism over Plainfield, a derrick fully immersed in flame contrasted with a dusky desert sky, the construction of a church juxtaposed with the erecting of an oil rig.

You should be in the right mood to see this film, but you should see it nonetheless.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale (Art Spiegelman)

The Holocaust has always had a place in my mind as a tragic, sad, incredibly important moment in human history, but one that has also always been inaccessible and foreign to me.

I guess I studied it in school. I vaguely remember an animated history teacher trying to capture the realities of concentration camp life during a classroom exercise. But I’ve had no real portal or entry point to achieve a personal connection to what took place. After reading “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” by Art Spiegelman, I feel differently.

True, no one in my family lived through that ordeal. None of my relatives ever sheltered Jews or fled the Nazis. But this Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel has given me a new insight and allowed me to connect in a new way to the events that led up to, and occurred during, the Second World War.

Told in two volumes, “Maus” is the story of Spiegelman’s father Vladek’s experience living through the Holocaust and struggling to survive, narrowly escaping death numerous times, watching almost all of his family and friends die at the hands of the Nazis. It’s gripping and haunting and all the more touching because it’s based on a true story.

In Spiegelman’s unique treatment of this story, the Jews are portrayed as mice and the Nazis as cats. Done badly, this technique could have come across as tacky or insensitive. But it doesn’t. It only takes a page or two to just accept it. And it really is effective – as seen through Jewish eyes, the Nazis really were ruthless predators with little sympathy for their prey. And the Jews, at least in Vladek’s experience, were the hunted – hiding out, trying desperately to avoid drawing attention to themselves and with little or no resources to protect or defend against the enemy.

The first page of Book 1, titled “My Father Bleeds History,” has a grim image of dozens of Jews staring towards a single point. They’re well-dressed and stoic but there’s a common look of fear and bewilderment in their eyes, as if they know there’s something foreboding on the horizon, but they have no idea what form it will take.

Book 2, “And Here My Troubles Began,” begins with another image of dozens of Jews, all men this time, wearing matching prison stripes. Their eyes are also staring towards a single point but this time their eyes display a glazed-over muted fear and it’s clear they have seen terrible things and have little hope for a happy ending.

And through Vladek’s recounting of the central story of his life, we experience these deeds first hand – murder, extermination, genocide – all the worst things that come to mind when one thinks of the Holocaust, are represented in Vladek’s story.

But "Maus" doesn’t just dwell on the past. It flips between the images of the past and the present as Art and Vladek try to bridge the generational and cultural divide that separates them and causes friction.

“Just thinking about my book – it’s so presumptuous of me,” Spiegelman says to his wife in one of their conversations.

“I mean, I can’t even make any sense out of my relationship with my father. How am I supposed to make any sense out of Auschwitz, of the Holocaust?”

But somehow, you see them getting closer through the course of this book. Over the years it took to collect the entire story and set it down. Something does happen. Art does, somehow, make sense out of his relationship with his father and why he is the way he is, by extension, why he has become the man he is.

Through asking and learning and trying, despite the obvious difficulties of doing so, he achieves some sort of understanding, some sort of reconciliation, and that achievement gives this story – which becomes as much his as his father’s – legitimacy and credibility.

And somehow I was taken along for the ride on Spiegelman’s journey and gained my own new connection and understanding of this moment in history and its real impact on real lives.

Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Ed Harris)

“Gone Baby Gone” triggered a two-hour conversation between my brother and I about morality, integrity, honour and living with the consequences of doing the right thing.

Directed by Ben Affleck and starring his younger, until now overshadowed brother Casey Affleck, it’s a gripping thriller about two men investigating a grim missing-child case in a rough, poor area of Boston.

Right from the beginning, the film provides a believable, seemingly accurate illustration of Dorchester, one of Boston’s grittiest neighbourhoods and an area where Affleck’s character Patrick Kenzie grew up and still remains connected.

The film opens with footage of the area where the crime has taken place, accompanied by narration as Patrick describes his life – the images of shabby homes, children, young mothers, and people barbecuing on their front stoops, reminded me of Toronto’s Regent Park and the families I volunteer with there.

Patrick and his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) are low-level private investigators who make their living tracking down people who are dodging debts. When Amanda McReady, a four-year-old girl goes missing, her aunt and uncle come to Patrick for help, believing he may have local connections that the detectives, led by Ed Harris as Det. Remy Bressant, don’t.

Though the case is bigger than anything they’ve ever tackled, they grudgingly accept the job and begin talking to Patrick’s old friends, and soon find his ‘from there’ status opens doors, though it also gets them into some tight spots.

Asking too many questions in a shabby bar where the missing girl’s mother spent most of her nights, Patrick and Angie soon find the door locked and a tough, imposing crowd confronting them.

Patrick, a slight, not-so-intimidating guy, quickly rises to the challenge with a determined, unflinching gaze that suggests he’s ready for anything.

This willingness to face any challenge head on, despite the impossible odds against him, quickly comes to characterize Patrick, whether he’s threatening a Haitian gangster, challenging the integrity of the detectives working the case, or repeatedly defending his girlfriend’s honour. And it’s believable. You quickly understand that Patrick’s heart is much larger than his shoe size and his stubborn nature will accomplish great things.

That determination quickly becomes the driving force of this film. Big obstacles arise and we soon learn there’s much more to this story than what is seen on the surface. And ultimately it becomes a story about two men and their very different moral compasses and how that affects their handling of the investigation.

While Patrick almost always tries to do the right thing no matter what the consequences, he has his weaknesses, as demonstrated when he executes a child-molester and murderer, in cold blood.

Bressant, on the other hand, is a corrupt cop who admits to his willingness to bend the rules to accomplish his own ends – though his motivation is often rooted in a twisted sense of moral justice and an attempt to do the right thing.

This film is full of unexpected surprises and twists and turns, and in addition to raising deep moral questions, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, and guessing, right up until the stunning finish with Morgan Freeman that leaves a moral question mark that hangs over the credits and will haunt you for days afterwards.


Both Casey and Ben Affleck are receiving Oscar buzz for their respectable efforts on this project.

American Splendor (the book by Harvey Pekar)

I think many writers and artsy types in general often find themselves frustrated by the lack of appropriate medium or venue to tell the simple but compelling stories of everyday life. I know I often feel that way.

The other day I was driving down Dundas Street just around the corner from my house. While I was stopped at a red light at Parliament, I noticed an older black man on the far corner of the intersection. We made eye contact, and he gestured to the north in a questioning manner, and it was pretty obvious he wanted a ride somewhere. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I called him over. He hopped in and we had a really interesting conversation about his experience growing old in St. Jamestown and the Cabbagetown neighbourhood we both call home.

After I dropped him off at Bloor Street I couldn’t help but feel somewhat inspired from the conversation, and wished desperately for the means to tell the story in a way that people could easily access –- and it’s a feeling I get about once a week, usually due to some interesting, chance encounter I’d like to share before it fades away into a vague anecdote.

Harvey Pekar has found a way to do it. If you’ve seen the film ‘American Splendor’ starring Paul Giamatti you have a bit of the back-story, and you understand a little bit about this complicated writer/hospital file clerk from Cleveland. You should watch the film, definitely, but more importantly, I think, you should read his comic books.

My friend Phil recently loaned me an anthology of American Splendor comics, and I spent about three straight days locked up in my house, unable to put the book down. I ended up feeling like Harvey Pekar was someone I had known for years.

That’s to be expected, I think. Pekar’s stories are always about his everyday life, and they’re brutally, bravely honest, completely willing to be vulnerable and exposed. He describes his life and the people in it exactly the way he sees them.

He once said his stories focus on the mundane moments in life and how they add up to make an impact in the long run: “If you’re of the misery-loves-company persuasion, chances are you’ll find it comforting,” he added.

R. Crumb, an old friend of Pekar’s and one of the artists who illustrates his work, summed it up pretty well in the introduction to the book:

“The subject matter of these stories is so mundane it verges on the exotic! It is very disorienting at first, but after a while you get with it. Myself, I love it. Pekar has proven once and for all that even the most seemingly dreary and monotonous of lives is filled with poignancy and heroic struggle. All is takes is someone with an eye to see, an ear to hear, and a demented, desperate Jewish mind to get it down on paper,” Crumb says.

“It takes chutzpah to tell it exactly the way it happened, with no adornment, no great wrap-up, no bizarre twist, nothing. Pekar’s genius is that he pulls this off and does it with humour, pathos, all the drama you could ever want, and in a comic book yet.”

I once interviewed Todd McFarlane, the creator of Spawn and one of the artists to illustrate Spiderman -- pretty much a giant in the comic book world. He had a slightly different perspective on Pekar’s work.

"I don't know if it's necessarily the heroism we relate to, I think it's the flaws," he told me. "We understand that our life is completely imperfect, and these guys are completely imperfect, but somehow they're getting along and it's just called life at the end of the day and it's not meant to be perfect."

American Splendor is mostly autobiographical, with Pekar sharing anecdotes from his life in Cleveland – everything from the old Jewish guy who drives him to work, to a conversation between a veteran bus driver and the new, young driver he is training, and quite often his stories chronicle his struggles with the women in his life.

And it’s all so deeply personal. In one story he goes into great depth about losing his voice for several months, just after getting married, and all the anger, depression and worry this caused him.

“I felt anxious and guilty. My wife hadn’t known me very long before we got married. I lost my voice on the first day of my honeymoon and had barely talked for weeks after that. What kind of a husband was I? Would she forget what I was like when I could talk? What if there was something bad wrong with me?”

In another story he describes his desperate addiction to buying records and the internal battle he waged to overcome the weakness. In another, he describes helping an acquaintance that he didn’t care for all that much, to move, and how he later received a favour in return from this person.

You get the feeling that all the embarrassing parts are left in –- the self-doubt, the bad habits, weaknesses and addictions – nothing is skipped over. The stories are told with a level of transparency and honesty that gives Pekar’s writing credibility and adds integrity and value to what he has to say because he’s willing to expose so much of himself to his readers – something few writers, including myself, are willing to do on a consistent basis.

The few times I have been that honest still haunt me, and I still get butterflies thinking about how I’ve put myself out there publicly on one or two occasions. It’s scary to do that, and much easier to present a version of yourself that is slightly smarter, slightly better looking, and has fewer bad habits. I think the fact that Pekar seems to do the opposite to this, all the time, is partly what makes it so unique and intriguing.

It also helps that he has somehow convinced some really credible artists -- often by begging, harassing and cajoling – to illustrate his stories, following his pages of scribbles and stick-figure diagrams to come up with some truly beautiful works of art.

I know American Splendor isn’t for everyone and I understand why. It’s rough, really intimate, and resembles in no way the Hollywood style of storytelling most of us have been force-fed our entire lives. But that’s refreshing to me. That’s why, I think, this type of work is valuable. It takes an honest look at life, even if it’s through the eyes of one pretty unimportant, normal guy who has worked mediocre jobs and barely scraped by for years in order to just keep telling his stories and putting his work out there. Hmmm. I think there’s something honourable about that…I take it back. These stories ARE for everyone. We can all learn something from them, and we should – even it’s the simple lesson that there’s beauty and poignancy in all those little life moments and they’re worth sharing with someone else…

This is my promise: I’ll listen to your story about standing in line at the grocery store, or the streetcar drivers who held up traffic both ways to talk about a party they were both at last week, if you'll listen to mine. Those moments are important, they're inspiring and they're worth sharing. I think we’ll all be better off if we make an attempt. Who’s with me?