Sun Goes Down As Do Thumbs on Sasquatch Sunset

Last night, my wife and I watched Sasquatch Sunset, a feature film from Bleeker Street Films and directed by the Zellner brothers. My interest in the cryptid had me looking forward to it but after only the first opening minutes, my anticipation soon gave in to disappointment and disgust. The film's pretense is noble enough, following the movements and activities of a Sasquatch family of four through the seasons. There is a comedic approach, which is fine, but on all fronts, it fizzles clumsily. Though there is some star quality in the casting with Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Justice League) and Riley Keough (granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley) as the parental units, it seems the film is just as decidedly low budget as it is low-brow, with ape costumes clearly showing the actors are wearing loose furry pants, and a baby that is no more than a thrift shop doll with hair pasted on it. A lot of this makes it cringy, but the real downfall of this film is the failure to balance the thoughtful and touching elements with the ridiculous and vulgar.

Though popular knowledge believes the Sasquatch to be majestic and cunning, the film has cast them as hapless babes in the woods, grunting unintelligibly and throwing their own shit when they are upset, lowering them below the mark of a chimpanzee or orangutan.

There is the interesting underlying element of their predicament as the last of their kind, with several scenes of their calling out into the wilderness, waiting for a response that never comes. Considering their clumsiness however, it’s a wonder they survive at all, too stupid to possess any sense of self-preservation. The screenwriters have these characters in a constant state of confusion, too high on mushrooms to repel cougar attacks, mistaking bear traps as playthings, playing with logs without realizing they can roll over on top of them. Indeed they make comparative Rhodes scholars out of the film’s actual animals as far as their survival instincts. 

And for creatures that have been incredibly hard to find, with the amount of grunting and barking they do, and the amount of time they spend completely exposed on mountaintops and grassy meadows, how is it no-one has ever hunted one down? Or maybe the filmmakers are suggesting we are stupid ones for never noticing. Or perhaps it’s the fact that, for every point of contact between them and humans depicted in the movie- campsites, logging operations and even a small town, there is never an actual human being to be found. Indeed, and maybe on purpose for this film, humanity is the movie’s cryptic species.

It also seems that whatever research the developers put into the creation of this film, they spent more time studying chimpanzees than what has been actually documented about the mysterious animal. They would have done much better to draw deeper from indigenous knowledge and actual scientific papers on the subject. Any such attention is only glossed over in the movie and instead we are given a depiction of moronic, impulse-riddled goofs, clinging to survival for no apparent reason. To wit, any didactic or even touching moments are invariably spoiled by a fart joke or badly timed pratfall.

So what they’ve made is a comedic movie about Sasquatch. Unfortunately, what could have been a great idea for the art of film and the cultural phenomena of Bigfoot is, as a result, nothing more than unmemorable scatalogical humour and bumbling ineptitude both in front of and behind the camera. An insult to what is, by all indications, a regal and resilient creature of wonder, worthy of respect. As an agnostic observer of the Bigfoot phenomenon, I was looking forward to watching this movie, but now on the other side, I’m angry at how the creature has been depicted and I think they, and we as the audience, deserve better.

Camel Two - a personal review

It was Friday of the long Thanksgiving weekend and I was at the Shaw Center for Christian Community Day, the big annual school board powwow. I was sitting there with the lulled educated masses when my phone chirped. It was a message from Marie with a photo telling me I'd received a brown manila envelope with the University of New Brunswick logo embossed upon it. My heart flipped halleluja. It was my author copies of the new issue of Camel, the illustrated journal of narrative curated by Clarissa Hurley and my literary Wayne Gretzky- the great one, Mark Anthony Jarman. This issue has been the harbinger of many great things in my life as of late.  It was enough to be accepted for publication in it, but it had also been announced that the story was in the shortlist for the magazine’s Gilmer Prize. Being able to mention to shortlisted story when I write my literary cover letters is a huge affirmation for an emerging writer like me, so I was over the moon proud of being even considered. Reading that list, I found that I would be sharing a cover with Elisabeth De Mariaffi, Zsuzsi Gartner and lit phenom Jowita Bydlowska among others leaving me startstruck. But in it all, the greatest reward is that it solidified a friendship through correspondence with Mark Jarman, which is something I had never expected but now deeply appreciate. Thanksgiving, indeed.

I came home from the PD event earlier than expected to find the front (and back) door locked while Marie was out with a friend. To this, I shrugged and turned to trudge over to the Bridge Pub where I treated myself to a Perth Brewery Mocha Stout (nice!) and a G.O.A.T. burger. It wasn’t the greatest actually, but the goat cheese and 6oz chuck beef patty hit the spot well enough. Once Marie was home, I was able to tear into the envelope and hold the two copies in my hands. I was delighted at how very heavy and thick it was, always an indicator for the sheer volume of good stuff in it. At this, I made it my mission to spend this long weekend delving into the stories stuffed into its pages not unlike a good cabbage roll, some spice, some meat, some veggie healthiness, some things that might cause gas later but all in all a hearty meal for an autumn indulgence.

The next morning, I awoke early while the sun had yet to rise, had my first coffee then decided to take the air before diving into my reading. It's become cold now at the shallow end of October, so I threw on my tattered old work jacket, pulled my union toque over my cranium and set out for Strathcona Park just over the Adawe footbridge.

 As I'd hoped, the ducks were in attendance, dipping their silly heads under the water lofting their silly duckbutts in the air, as always, making me smile. There was no one in the park so I could sit on the embankment of the river soaking in the rich sensory orchestra around me without interruptions. I stayed until people started arriving and to preserve my good mood, I set off back home to start on Camel 2.

Proof - Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Winner of the first annual Gilmer Prize, Proof explores the contrast between public and private narratives. The story centers around a compelling murder mystery, reports of which a local newspaper must censor for public consumption, frustrating the rookie reporter covering the case. This creates a familiar scenario: a small town, seemingly idyllic, is shaken by a senseless tragedy while a macabre story unfolds beneath the surface. De Mariaffi skillfully navigates these two tiers, the public and private, ultimately demonstrating that the uncensored, ugly truth is more compelling than the sanitized version. The cerebral burn that I felt after reading it told me unquestionably why this story took the prize.

Father Eduardo - Elaine McCluskey 

In "Father Eduardo," we meet Anthony, a neurodivergent young man whose life revolves around his lucrative, yet isolated, stay-at-home job. The story's premise, as conveniently stated within the narrative itself, is that "life is a surprise party of the incongruous and the unexplainable." 

Anthony lives a rigidly calculated life, finding the randomness of the neurotypical people around him clashing with his concise and ordered world. He reacts without emotion to the crazy things that happen under his watch, offering chilled observations or annoyance when they arrive. Even when calamity strikes close, he still analyzes it with a cold remove. Behind it all the subject of a priest that Anthony’s grandfather once knew appears in the intrusive conversations he has with his mother, acting as a conduit into the familial complexities that Anthony actively ignores. However, the minimal mentions of the title character of Father Eduardo makes his inclusion in the story enigmatic. It’s never concluded what the priest’s actual relationship with the grandfather is, which brings up a lot of question marks in my head. I think more clues into the priest’s story might help, but perhaps McCluskey’s intent was to keep the subject buried in conjecture to illustrate the depth of the family’s historical mystery. If that’s so, then it’s effective, but I can’t help but feel that the character was left unattended and the story without closure.

Cult Film - Jowita Bydlowska

Jowita Bydlowska's work first caught my attention through the praise of fellow authors on social media. Intrigued, I read her novel Possessed, a dense, psychologically rich work layered with metaphor, where the lines between reality and dream were blurred. While Marie, who'd read the book first, found the enigmatic narrative frustrating, I was captivated by the challenge of deciphering its meaning. Bydlowska's "Cult Film" echoes the style of Possessed, featuring similar narrators and a shared commitment to metaphor. The story revolves around an obscure short film curated by two lovers, loosely based on the myth of Hades and Persephone. The narrative alternates between a film student's obsessive analysis of the film and the perspective of the woman who co-created it. As in Possessed, we oscillate between a dream state and real time though even the boundaries between the two remain a thin place. In the end, my mind was buzzing so much I wanted a second read, which always makes a story a keeper to me.

Meat Bingo - Darryl Whetter

Meat Bingo, a nonfiction piece, follows the author in their conversion from an ethically conscious young person to a gun toting middle aged deerhunter in order to preserve his late father-in-law’s gun collection. It’s a beautiful elegy for a good man as he faithfully maintains the family cottage property deep in la forêt acadienne in Nova Scotia. He approaches both tedious processes of applying to a gun registry and for euthanasia with a calm humour that never descends into the macabre or the satirical. Sometimes Whetter’s use of pseudonyms pulls me out of the story with question marks buzzing my head, but it's nothing sharper attentiveness as a reader can't remedy. All in all, it’s an engaging read, marrying two very different perspectives to coexist in one narrative and paying proper tribune to the good man his father-in-law was.

My Piece, A Hierarchy of Needs

The impetus of this story comes from the ice storm that once gripped the St. Lawrence Basin in 1998. Those that will remember know that it was a precarious situation back then, hanging by the thread of just a few power grids, the threat of long-term blackout looming with menacing possibility. It was through this near-disaster when my brother and brother-in-law hunkered down in my sister’s house to protect it from possible looters while the rest of the family vacated to somewhere that had power. Entertained by nothing more than a few bottles of wine and conversation, they led a nearly prehistoric existence for a few days before the power finally came back on and life returned to normal. Their experience intrigued me enough to start writing notes for a story. The resulting train of thought brought up memories of my father teaching me how to cut wood, stack it and get a fireplace going to warm my parents’ house for winter. Later it was me purchasing my own three cords of wood each fall and spending the winter chopping it all up into woodstove-sized bits for my own house. I fell in love with the whole culture of wood and it informed much of the short story as it was developing.

 As I considered what the intellectual milieu of the story would be, I started thinking about how mankind had emerged from the gauntlet of the Ice Age and whether or not we had the tenacity to do it again if things fell apart. I considered how our intelligence and creativity did much to help us get through, evolving through our technological advances and progressive ideas. I remembered a passage from one of Neil Peart’s books wherein Neil sat with a book of Aristotlean theory, attributing the reading of philosophy to drinking a fine wine. You take sips and consider it on your mental palate, letting the intoxication of thought ease through you. That scene worked itself into my story as I found it fit well as a comforting thought on the progress of our species.

When the story came together, I was very proud of the finished product and always considered it my favourite that I had written, if not the best. When I started submitting it to magazines, I was always surprised and somewhat dejected when it was declined. I edited it, revised it and workshopped it and still it never seemed to catch anywhere, much to my frustration. So it was a deep affirmation when the editors at Camel accepted it at long last, most of all because my favourite author, Mark Anthony Jarman, was on the panel that accepted it. Over the editing process, it was such a delight to have Mark offer suggestions, especially towards adding an end part that brought substance to an otherwise sudden closing. This, with the story’s inclusion on the shortlist for Camel’s Gilmer Prize, makes this story a huge source of esteem and pride. It will always be a glowing moment for me in my writing career.

Paintings by David Woods- 

David Woods is an artist with many awards and accolades for his work in the black community in Nova Scotia. It shows in the three paintings that are included in this issue. In the three, there are vivid primary colours arranged in an almost cubist style on the fringes of the frame while the colour becomes dark and in that darkness you find his human subjects, members of the community, huddled as family or as a series of masks collected within the urban surroundings. Like modern Inuit art or the early paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, Wood shows the spirit of community candidly placed in its environment, present, active and vibrant.

A Pearl of Great Price - John Metcalf 

I first saw John Metcalf at a reading at the Manx Pub here in Ottawa, which is also the time and place of my first true meeting ever with Mark Jarman. There was much adoration surrounding the man at this event, which brought together the Bookhug launch of Mark’s book of selected stories, Burn Man, with John’s birthday and the launch of a chapbook of his story, the same one I am reviewing, republished in Camel. I remember John reading a portion of this piece with an actor’s diction and to hear that voice speak of such things as a foreskin examination was just an uproarious treat. Many times during the reading, Marie and I looked at each other, mouthing ‘did he just say that?’. In print, you can sense the innovation that flowed from those halcyon days of CanLit when Metcalf started out, the same innovation that charts our progress today. The brave candidness and the deep descriptive passages fold into a great comic discourse between a man and his doctor, in the end taking the reader on a wild ride.

And So In Conclusion…

It’s only every so often that I feel like keeping a literary journal. There are times when I read one and none of the stories stand out for me and they never really ever end up on my bookshelf for keeps. Sometimes though, a story or two will resonate with me and I have an increasingly full shelf of such copies that I return to now and again for inspiration and entertainment. Camel does this for me from cover to cover and I’m not speaking from the bias of having my own story included, or my admiration for its editors. 

Every story is chock full of meaning for me. All of them speak to and for a part of me and this is what I find most special. Camel has a deep respect for tradition as well as an eye for modern innovation. I really do hope that it will succeed in Canada’s literary landscape as one oasis of strong cultural contributions.  I want to thank Clarissa and Mark for bringing all of these components together and I trust that future editions will be just as momentous. Camel is something to watch for, mainly because it means so much to the community and industry in which it functions. 

Here are some more pictures from my walks along the riverside trail...

GOOSEBUTT!!

from Charting The Minute Spectrum of Probability (Chapter 16 of LefTturn)

Life is like a pinball game. You strike the ball and depending on the angle you hit it, it can go anywhere. You could ring up a lot of points or you can end up in the hole. Sometimes the ball will just shoot right between your flippers where you can’t reach it and you lose. You lose a life. There are a lot of bells and whistles and sometimes music. Sometimes you’re the ball and sometimes you’re the flipper. Sometimes you’re the kid slapping the button that moves the flipper.

Sometimes life is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. You read the first few pages when you enter and then at a certain point you are faced with a decision to make. Then you make your choice and something happens because of that choice. It might be good. It might be bad. After reading along whatever scenario you’ve chosen, it eventually gives you another choice. This choice can change your fortune for better or for worst. You might be able to go back to the page where you made that choice and take the other option to see where it goes, but that’s against the rules. And in life, going against the rules has its own consequences and is not recommended. It’s a luxury you really shouldn’t utilize simply because it’s sleazy, not to mention cowardly.

Sometimes Life is like a haunted funhouse. You are completely in the dark, and loud scary things jump out at you without warning and you have to react. Sometimes you may pee your pants. Sometimes you will jump into the arms of the person closest to you. Sometimes that person might be a complete stranger or it might be the person you love most in this world. You might exercise the option to punch the actor in the face out of sheer self-defence, but this might end things really quick for you. But you come out of it full of adrenaline, laughing or maybe even crying. But there’s an end to it where you walk out into the light of the world with all its people and its sounds and you can look back and remember what you’d been through.

Life can be like a job interview. You’re given a set of questions and you need to come up with the best answers as quickly as possible. You will have no idea if you are giving the actual best answer while you are saying it. All you can do is hope that your experience is wide enough to cover all the contingencies. Experience helps. At the end of the interview, you will still have no idea if you will be hired or if you have bombed completely. If you’re hired, you get a phone call a couple weeks down the line. If you’ve bombed, you get no phone call at all.

Life can be like a game of cards. The outcome depends on how you play the cards the dealer hands you. This might make the dealer seem like they have some kind of power over you, but the truth is the dealer hasn’t got a goddamned clue what they’re dealing either. The power is in the cards and in the choices you make with them. The power is yours, Planeteers.








In the end, the choices are always yours. The choices might bring either rewards or consequences. You never really know which until after you’ve made your decision and the result comes into play. You might get warnings from people who have been through similar things before, or you might simply have a sense of prescience to figure out what awaits after you’ve made the decision.

Good or bad, the results of your decisions aren’t something that is handed down to you by any kind of providence. The results of your actions have always been there, just waiting for you to arrive at them. That said, there is no destiny, no path that lays before you that you can’t deviate from. There is only a string of good decisions that line up to read as a good life, or a string of bad decisions that end up in disaster.

We only know what we know. We can take events in our life as lessons and refer back to them when we need help making a decision. Mistakes are opportunities to learn and he who has not failed has yet to live. You only fail when you stop trying. You don’t score if you don’t shoot. You don’t win if you don’t play the game.

You know what you know. Knowledge, when you think of it that way, is like a flashlight when the way ahead is dark and invisible. You take what you’ve learned and apply it later, otherwise you haven’t learned a goddamned thing.

Things that might seem like cosmic intervention are really nothing but a happy alignment of circumstances. It might seem mindblowingly improbable, but that’s the thing with probability. It’s a spectrum. From impossible to certain, there are an almost limitless number of points in between. You can touch that rainbow anywhere. And when it’s good, you can revel in that goodness. You can be happy it happened. Indeed, happiness comes from happenstance.

You can chew on that one all day if you want.

Plans for a Summer

 “The sun is lingering in the sky, inching towards the horizon at the widest radius of the daily arc, stretching the day to its longest point. There is much tension in the air. Summer has arrived in growing increments of light, drawing dusk and dawn closer to one another and contracting night into a rushed compression of hours…”

That passage is from a new piece of flash fiction that I had written just last week about the shortening nights of summer. Summer has arrived. School is over and I’m on layoff from my educational assistant job. This morning I’m dealing with the aftermath of an end-of-year party with my coworkers, faced with piles of dishes, empty bottles and a mild hangover. It was a beautiful evening though, with much laughter and stories culminating in a fantastic light show from a troupe of fireflies that performed their nightly rituals in our backyard bushes.

It comes at the end of a frenetic month at work packed tight with summer liturgies, retirement parties, graduation ceremonies and play days along with the usual descent to the holidays, all things that make the end of the school year a gauntlet to get through, but at home there was a high point that I think will make a difference for my writing career.

Just as the month of June was starting, I received word that my short story “A Hierarchy of Needs” had been shortlisted for the Gilmer Prize put on through Camel, an illustrated journal of narrative published by Mark Jarman and Clarissa Hurley. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always considered ‘Hierarchy’ one of my favourites, but for it to be noticed was the greatest affirmation and being shortlisted for any prize is a powerful statement to have in your CV. In the end, the prize went to Elizabeth de Mariaffi for her story “Proof”, but I am taking this as an indication that I have some momentum building behind me.

So now, with all this urging me on, I can now springboard into the summer to tighten things up as well as get things started.

Though I will definitely read my books and take my walks, there is still work to be done. I plan to spend at least 6-8 hours a weekday working on something literary. The first task is writing this blog to report on what I’ve been up to, and then use it to update my website. Then there are submissions to be sent out, queries to send to potential agents, proposals to be mailed out publishers for my short fiction collection “O Anthropos” and an Ontario Arts Council grant application to be started.

On the novel front, I’ve secured my friend Jeanette Jones to edit “LefTturn” to find out what changes need to be made to bring it to the point where I can show it to a publisher. I’d known Jeanette for about ten years now and every time I’ve shown her one of my stories, she’s always understood exactly what I’d intended with them, always offering constructive criticism with her keen insight. I think she would be a great team member. Over last summer and since then, I’ve been working on evolving from rough draft to first draft and I now feel that I have something solid and “showable”, though still in need of deep revision. I feel good about the novel. I don’t have that doubt that sometimes plague writers when they finally have something resembling complete. I know there’s a lot of work to be done but I’m eager to do that work. I want to make this the main summer job, to get this novel ready to submit to publishers. It has a good story with good characters. I believe I’ve made a dynamic plotline with surprising twists and a great climax and ending. I think it will do well. I just have to do the work. I’m sure that with Jeanette’s help, I can get it in the shops soon.

Of course, Marie and I will still enjoy the summer. We intend to make this summer break into a two-month staycation, exploring and appreciating this beautiful area by the river. On July 1st we’ll bring our lawn chairs to Riverrain Park to watch the planes fly for the “parade in the sky” during the day and to watch the fireworks when night falls. We will take walks, ride our bikes, catch some outdoor movies with the Capital Pop-Up Cinema and share drinks and dinners at The Bridge Public House and the Working Title Cafe. We’ll also entertain. We’ve had some beautiful evenings already with people here in our home and we are open for more. 

Speaking of entertaining… I’ve said before how Marie and I want to plan a home salon for this summer. That’s still in the works. We’ve even come up with a name: “Frutch on the Rideau”. We call our home the ‘Frutch’ because Marie is French and I am Dutch. We thought we had coined a new word, but as it turns out, a frutch is actually a female river otter. Pair that up with our proximity to the Rideau River and the connection is easy. I can see a logo and a mascot coming out of it already! Soon I am going to start messaging some artists that I would like to have participate for an evening of culture and community. We are aiming for a date sometime in September/October, so I will be sending out invitations soon. If you would like to be included, you can let me know through Facebook or my other media sources and we can make it happen.

So that will be my summer. With those things out of the way, I can start the new school year, get myself one year closer to retirement, though we have two things in September coming up. First is a trip to Niagara Falls. Marie’s daughter-in-law is a tattoo artist and there is a tattoo expo on the weekend of the 20th of September.  I can use that trip to show Marie my old stomping grounds and connect her with where I grew up. It’s something I’m proud of. Other members of her family are coming too, so this will be a beautiful extended affair full of wine, reminiscing and new memories to create.  

Then lastly Mark Jarman and Clarissa Hurley are planning an Ottawa launch in September of the second issue of Camel which will have “A Hierarchy of Needs” included. If it happens I will be helping with preparations on top of reading that night. So many things are happening. It’s all part of a succession of happy events that continue to unfold even now.

You see, after New Years Day 2023, with the publication of three of my short stories, it started a string of beautiful and positive things in my life. I’d been keeping a journal of it all which motivates me to keep generating things to report. This is the momentum I feel but even with this momentum, I still need to work hard. Dreams need to become Plans. That’s the only way dreams come true. There isn’t any divine providence or stroke of luck that accidentally falls in your lap. It’s all legwork. It’s all putting yourself on the path to success. I’m not going to do a Tony Robbins motivational speech here. I just know what I need to do to get what I want in life. It takes work, and this summer is a grand opportunity for doing that work.

So be on the lookout for things from me in the future. I’m making news.

P.S. Here is a picture of our new kitten Wilhelminette or “Minnie” for short:

The Open Concept

So it’s all done. It’s all happened. We are safely moved into the new house. The one in the nice part of town just a few doors down from the river. The one with the wall to wall windows, the bathtub and the dishwasher. The deck that’s half the size of the house and the nice big backyard. We’re all settled in now. There are so many things that lend themselves to the beauty here. The way the many windows catch the light, especially the bedroom windows facing south. The expansive space of the open concept kitchen and living room. The warm ambience of the lights at night, the general sapience of my paintings and shelves of books. The aroma of Marie’s cooking paired with the sweet music of her singing.

In my last blog entry written when I was still in my second-floor bachelor apartment, regular readers will remember how I’d lost the trees that had given me so much pleasure in the seven years I lived there before my landlord had them razed for reasons that are still not apparent to me. That lot now is just a muddy parcel of bare earth. There probably couldn’t have been a more poignant sign that it was time for me to move. We, Marie and I, six months into our relationship, spent the Christmas holidays looking for apartments, having decided we wanted to cohabitate. We found a few units that were nice but, as the real estate market goes, they were snapped up quickly by other applicants, leaving us to surge on for other viewings. When we found this apartment, which is really the main floor of a house, we immediately knew we had to have it. I can tell you that the wait to see if our application had been accepted was torturous. But here we are now, and life is fresh and new.

It might seem like our relationship has moved at lightning’s pace and you’d be right. It’s true that there was a risk that we could be completely wrong for each other, where there would be some undisclosed flaw in one or both of us that would end up as a dealbreaker. Against the odds, no such flaws have materialized. Realistically, we are human and we have the requisite quirks that come with that humanity, but our puzzle pieces match together, quite miraculously, I would say. I now feel the last ten years are truly behind me, but maybe it’s a homecoming that goes back even further. Indeed now that I am returning home from work to meet Marie, sharing kitchen duties, talking and laughing through dinner then convening on the couch to watch an episode or two of Yellowstone or Love On The Spectrum, I am experiencing a homeyness, a hygge, a gezelligheid that I had not felt since living with my parents. It’s such a beautiful feeling. 

The only difference now is that this is all mine. Mine and Marie’s.

It’s something Marie and I have worked towards for quite some time, even individually before we'd even met each other. Now it seems to be paying off. It really feels like some kind of favour and grace is shining on us and we are so happy and grateful for it.

So when we feel such wealth, the most logical step is to share it. As the folk adage goes- “If you have more than you need, build a bigger table not a higher fence.” So we are willing to open our doors, offer our table, our chairs, our floors and our home. It’s true that the biggest joy I have now is having family and friends over. There is so much joy to be found in these events and the house lends itself to that. So now we have a plan to put that joy to good use.

A few weeks ago, Catherine Owen, a poet friend out of Edmonton had one of her home art salons, a series that she calls “The 94th Street Trobairitz”. She had long been interested in the concept of curated exhibitions of literature, art and music in her own home. Facebook photos of her events show happy patrons and performers appreciating diverse displays of art and the post-event comments are always glowing and positive. She does it partly as a service to the Edmonton art community and as an expression of love for her home which she affectionately calls “Delilah” and shares with her partner, musician Mucha Bee. Instilled with the same pride of place, I’d often thought of it myself, inviting other artists to do readings, showings and playing music in my space, even while my space was impossibly small at the time. Now it seems more of a possibility than ever.

I’d done it once before. It was supposed to be a poetry event in the loft of a bar called Sami’s in Welland, Ontario. It was my contribution to a series of events called the Niagara Literary Festival in 2011. I put myself in the local newspaper, posted flyers all around downtown and promoted it heavily on Facebook and invited poets who were all on tour at the time, from Hamilton, Ottawa and British Columbia.

No one showed up.

The other artists- one of whom was Catherine herself, having driven across the continental divide in a tightly packed smart car- they showed, of course. Rob McLennan, Gary Barwin, Monty Reid. They, and a couple others, all were there. Without an audience, we just ordered drinks, some food and read to each other, taking turns stepping up to the mic and sharing versions of our works. Because of them, one of my most humiliating failures were simultaneously one of the greatest nights of my life. We simply read to each other, drank, talked and laughed. It was wonderful and memorable.

So when Catherine posted news about her latest event, I mentioned that I would like to do the same. She was delighted to hear it and decided to make it the topic for Ms. Lyric’s Poetry Outlaws, her podcast which I listen to regularly and support through Patreon. In it and on the resulting Facebook post, she graciously mentions my name and presents some great resources for putting on a home salon paired with her own advice stemming from her own experiences and misfires. All of it informs me and inspires me to carry this idea through.

I talked it over with Marie and she loves the idea of opening our home for an art event. The open concept of our home would provide ample space for a small audience, especially in the warmer seasons where we can access our large deck and spacious backyard. So this is the plan. We are going to do this in the summer and hopefully again in the fall, inviting writers, artists and musicians to curate, read and put on performances in our home. I don’t yet know what I’m going to call it and am not sure exactly when we will make this happen. Rest assured that it will happen though. Keep your eyes open on my personal Facebook newsfeed and my business page: Kees Kapteyn - Author as well as keeskapteyn.ca, Threads, Blue Sky and Instagram.

This is going to be good!!

Tree Theatre

My second story bachelor apartment has a south-facing balcony entrance that looks over a wooded lot, which is actually part of the property that I rent. In that lot there grows an assortment of ash, maple and poplar, which I'm told by neighbours has grown wild since it became a rental property almost twenty years ago. What was once a manicured lawn is now a reclamation of nature and habitat for squirrels and numerous species of local and migrant birds. For the last six years, it's become a source of solace and joy for me. Every morning when the weather is mild, I will sit out on my balcony to sip coffee and watch the theatre of nature unfold in those crowded branches across from me. As I mention later in this blog entry: "Every morning when I sit outside I force myself to observe for a few minutes out of respect for my surroundings. I almost feel like the spirits have something to show me each morning and I should indulge them." Every morning I will sit, avoid my phone and give the trees my complete attention and without fail, something always happens that makes me smile.

The following is a journal that I've written in the last couple years about the rewards of my patience each morning and the drama of the natural world that I've fallen in love with.

May 25th 2022- A kestrel frequenting the area. I think it's a female from the way it lingers here, as if it has a nest nearby. Mama Kestrel at the top of the pine tree, a seagull flying by tries to swoop down in pester her. It gave it up when its buddy flies past.

May 26th 2022- A lone Crow lunges at a little Sparrow at the top of a telephone pole. The sparrow flies away and the crow gives Chase and one of the sparrows buddies flies after to assist. 5 minutes later, Mama Kestrel flies right in front of my deck. It has caught something and I can hear it's cry of distress. She flies to the top of the pine tree where she starts to pluck feathers from it. wow that's so fucking cool

May 28 2022- Two squirrels climbing to the top of a hydro Pole, the same pole where I have seen the kestrels perch on occasion. I've never seen squirrels climb this pole before. The whole kestrel family have been dive bombing these squirrels. Maybe they have a stash there that they are trying to protect. That would be the only reason why the squirrels would be going there.

May 29 2022- A flying V of geese flapping by as the sun was going down, and a medium sized butterfly zigzagging along in the same direction, towards the setting sun

June 2 2022- No sign of the kestrels for the last few days, though there has been a presence of crows lately. They had even been checking out the pine tree, specifically on the branches where the kestrel had brought some of its prey. Perhaps they’d forced the kestrels out. Such a shame, although I knew if the chicks were flying now, there’d be no real reason for the kestrels to stay in the area. I’m glad to have seen them and that I’d recorded what I’ve seen.

June 5 2022- Kestrels seem to be long gone now. A bunch of seagulls have been hovering around the area for a while. They are looking for something. Put on my hearing aids this morning because the sparrows are really chirping up a storm. Sometimes I am in awe at how much I miss when I don't wear my hearing aids. A cardinal is somewhere nearby as well.

June 8 2022- Three robins attacking a black squirrel in the poplar trees. Squirrel is desperately parkouring from branch to branch while the robins frantically divebomb him from all directions. The squirrel can’t use the trunk of the tree to hide as it usually would because the trunk is so smooth it can’t get a grasp on it, plus there are three of them. Obviously the squirrel committed some kind of transgression against the robins’ nest and is receiving due justice.

June 12 2022- A new bird in the neighbourhood. The size of a small robin, grey with a black crown, wings and tail. Google suggests this is a grey catbird, but I’m not certain because some catbird pictures it showed has a longer tail. Maybe it’s a juvenile? Cute little thing though.

June 13 2022- A pair of little red squirrels chasing each other in the poplar tree. One seems to be a mature adult as it has more coloring on it, such as a white belly and throat. For some reason I want to call this adult Minzie. I thought that was only one little red squirrel in the area and they would often make an appearance scuttling along the telephone wires behind the house come up and now I am seeing more and more. I am so glad to see them in the trees pulling off their insane parkour moves leaping recklessly from tree to tree. The catbird is back as well and I have noticed its tail is indeed long which confirms it's catbirdness.

June 14 2022- Young (med. size) raccoon has climbed the poplar tree and is trying to negotiate its way down its smooth sides, being very dainty and cautious about each step. Minzie squirrel scurrying across the telephone wire shoving past a robin that was perchedin front of it, much to the consternation of the robin. Catbird makes another appearance in it's usual place, on the fence in front of me. I think there are two, a male and a female - the male with a longer tail (?)

Later that evening - I caught a glimpse of a bird that I thought looked like our kestrel from the way it was flying. A few seconds later, a crow flew by and the bird flew up along this Crow then divebombed it falcon style. Definitely our Kestrel. Later on, I see two large birds flying at a distance. Judging by their short necks and blunt faces I'm assuming they were two owls. It's the first time I've seen owls around here, much less a pair of them. Also a robin and a catbird were having an altercation on the fence in front of me.

June 15 2022- The robins are having quite enough of the squirrels here. A black squirrel was tight roping his way across the telephone wire while a robin was fluttering underneath trying to peck at its feet. I've been hoping to see a Kestrel this morning but none have appeared as yet

June 22 2022- Five starlings all approaching around a light post. Menacing a robin at the top. Finally one starling harasses the robin away. The other four then try to join him on the perch and he just pecks them to go away. What a bunch of jerks

July 2 2022- Catbird remains in the area come up bringing food to a nest somewhere in the thicket of the

wooded lot. When it arrives, it perches on the fence and flutters its wings like a juvenile. I wonder what this behavior means. I also note that cat birds shit prolifically.

July 12 2022- Verified there are two catbirds here now. I am assuming a male and female as one is certainly bigger the other, though one could also possibly be juvenile offspring.

I also sighted a single firefly tonight. It was quite a coincidence because I was just looking out off the deck and hoping to see one and there it was. Serendipity!

July 14 2022- A crow morning. Several crow's arriving in the area. Some with tail, wing feathers missing. A couple seemed to be tussling on the roof of the building behind me. At one point there were four of them together on the fascia, surveying the neighborhood. More soon gathered together hidden from my view but once in a while going to the edge to look around.

July 16 2022- slept so much and went to bed so early last night that I was fully awake at 4:00 a.m. trying to get back to sleep to no avail. So I decided to get up and experience Beedahbun, the sunrise when the spirits are said to be most active. Sit outside in the darkness and listened to the home of air conditioners all around me, until I heard a faint chirp. I thought I'd better put on my hearing aids. As soon as I did I heard the frantic call of a cardinal. I couldn't believe I had been missing it. When I took my hearing aids off his call disappeared. I have been missing so much. So I sat and listened to his call, and then heard a crow that seemed to me answering back to him. After the Cardinal flew away there seemed to be more crows arriving and arguing with him. As the lite built in the sky, I tried to find where the crows were but I could not see them anywhere. They were often the trees elsewhere in the neighborhood. I cried a little bit from realizing how much I had been missing. The street lights went off and the world turned orange as the sun broke the crest of the horizon.

July 21 2022- Windy tonight. Five crows probably tired from fighting the wind stop in one of my poplars. They are still jostled in the swaying branches yet they poke and nudge at each other like hyper teenage boys. Finally they stop in a sturdier pine tree for a spell then carry on

July 25 2022- Two ravens, one in the pine tree, the other on the roof, with their delightful raspy croaks.

July 26 2022- One crow on the highest branch of an ash tree, calling out continually to three others on the apartment roof. When two from the trio flew by me, they almost collided and the larger one growled at the other, making me think it was a raven at first.

August 25 2022- Tree theater has been very quiet these last few weeks. Crows have flown by, but not stopped anywhere near me. The cat birds have moved on. There is a black squirrel that has become adventurous and started up my stairs while I was sitting having my coffee. But not much of note as actually happened. Today there was a raven that flew by with a crow. I don't know if the crow was harassing the raven or not but I can assume that it might have been, being what they are. I could tell their distinctive voices.

August 28 2022- the first V of geese flew very low overhead of the house. They were all very noisy and it seemed like no one knew which direction they really wanted to go and they kept splitting up and trying to regroup. Airborne chaos

Sept. 3 2022- Saw Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal together for the first time. He arrived first and perched on a wire then she arrived swooping very close to him but landing in a branch of a young poplar tree above him. Both content with at least being in proximity with each other, though it was only him that would turn a twitter at her and regard her in any direct way.  I personally hate that dynamic.

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July 6 2023- I wasn't going to write anything this year, but something very dramatic happened this morning.

The crows seem to be inhabiting the area more this year, which is nice because I barely ever saw them at all last year. Every morning when I sit outside I force myself to sit and observe for a few minutes out of respect for my surroundings. I almost feel like the spirits have something to show me each morning and I should indulge them. So this morning I did that, and being a little later in the morning I thought nothing was going to happen so I picked up my phone. In the moment I did that, a crow appeared and was flying directly at me and seem to change direction only when it noticed me sitting here. I took this as a the sign and put the phone down to be vigilant.

A couple minutes later, I heard a crow crying petulantly and then saw it fly directly in front of my balcony. It had something in his beak, but I couldn't make out what it was. Directly behind the crow were more crows, all pursuing the first, obviously trying to steal its prize away. They looped around the poplar tree and started flying away from me. As if having heard the commotion, some sparrows joined the chase. Apparently this was a big deal. For the next few minutes, crows and sparrows were flying all around and another Crow flew by with something in his mouth. Perhaps it was the crow that had retained his prize or it was another that had stolen it.

July 15, 2023- A squirrel has been frantically leaping from branch to branch, grabbing leaves and stalks of leaves aggressively this morning. I notice it's continually going back to the same spot in a crotch of the poplar tree. Is it making a nest? It makes me laugh every time it leaps from the nest to a branch on another tree. So agile and yet funny looking. It also makes me happy because now I know this squirrel is going to be hanging around.

November 22, 2023- Some very sad news. Yesterday when I returned home from work, I was met with an invasion of machinery tearing out the wood fencing surrounding the wooded lot. It seems my landlord has decided he wants to take all the trees and brush out and lay down some grass in their stead. He had mentioned it to me a few years ago and some workers had actually taken out a couple of the older trees that were threatening the phone wires that are drawn across the lot. I'd asked him to leave the two adult poplars and he did, saying that he would be clearing out the lot to make a lawn with a gazebo in the future. It never happened, until, evidently, today. I left for the gym for an hour and a half and when I returned the machines had made short work of the lot, tearing out essentially all the brush, including both my beloved poplars. I was shocked. When I trudged up the steps and looked back on the devastation, I felt like crying. Ever since my arrival at this apartment in 2017, I felt such solace looking out on this beautiful collection of trees and the characters that visited and lived in them were a constant source of entertainment. There was always such peace there. Now, the neighbour's piles of pallets and defunct cars are bare to me and at night, the full klieg glare of the new apartment complex behind me assaults my eyes. I feel like a cushion has been removed and the harshness of the urban world can reach me undeterred now. There is nothing to rest my eyes on anymore, nothing to ease my mind when I sit out on that deck. I have a girlfriend now and we will be moving in together in the next few months. I thought I would have to let that beautiful wooded lot go, but it seems stolen from me now. This will make the impending move easier, but I feel like I may never have a vista like that again. I'm glad that I kept this journal and that I've taken a few pics when something caught my eye.  I will miss it.