tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58269482012-02-01T14:30:01.838-05:00ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.comBlogger7381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-52456719677491837622012-01-31T02:07:00.007-05:002012-02-01T02:43:49.898-05:00

An open letter to Robert Fulford, culture critic emeritus, Toronto, Canada. Dear Robert Fulford, I am an obscure writer from Newmarket, Ontario. We have at different times crossed paths, but yours has always been the lucky and achieving way. I have watched your rise while at the Toronto Star, and certainly well before. And your recognition! Migod, you have more honorary degrees and published

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-85270738260313440012012-01-17T01:38:00.005-05:002012-01-21T01:51:49.027-05:00

I fear that the older I get, the more I'm becoming like the body fluids man out of old Dr. Strangelove, "Body fluids, body fluids, Mandrake. There is a Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, Colonel. "We must preserve out body fluids. I have to be like a Commie...Ever see a commie drink water, Mandrake?" That's because he's preserving his body fluids."Well,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-50115659542517195822012-01-02T22:29:00.003-05:002012-01-03T01:18:24.806-05:00

Some years ago, after my clamoring for attention in the local press ("You can't ignore me, you can't ignore me! I am God's gift to writing,I have a tattoo across my back in which a full fox hunt is in progress. I have even joined the hunt club to get into your boardrooms. You can't ignore me)."Yet editors continued to ignore me.Here I was in the horsey part of Ontario, Tottenham and all that,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-72932435371899750812011-12-21T01:31:00.010-05:002011-12-24T16:30:26.081-05:00

Frustrated of late by low reader response, I uncharactersiticaly got a bit into to occult, by first tossing the I-Ching and then fooling with astrology.Well, the I-Ching was a bit dour."You have dipped your tail into the water. Nothing will further."The astrological message made me laugh out loud:"Uranus is currently in retrograde and is in tough aspect to Pluto."Seems my anus has definitely

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-32663003994408349232011-12-14T12:11:00.006-05:002011-12-14T12:22:46.988-05:00

I can't seem to write anything with any force unless, figuratively, my balls are in stock...Seems the way the subconcious works: While you're in pain, the solution to complex problems can be supplied just like that. But Lord, take away the pain!Right now the pain is coming from my accountant--precisely at the time Lou Grant is coming around.Lou Grant. Not the hardboiled editor from old Mary

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-53134171175065973332011-12-03T21:30:00.002-05:002011-12-03T21:35:16.132-05:00

Depressed today....A professional setback.This is a new development? Hah.I think of warmer places, warmer times.Oh wonderful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.I had just finished my premier novel, The Black Icon, and began to write about that experience in my second novel, The Hat People. Most books on writing say it should never about any kind of artist, but what the hell. It was about the

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-34946283510006952202011-11-21T11:55:00.002-05:002011-11-21T15:57:02.768-05:00

Tastes and sounds in the morning.Fresh salmon fillets sizzling in a pan.I had, uncharacteristically, had fish for breakfast. It was damn good salmon. It brought memories of Manzanilla, Mexico. Cheap hotels, lots of fish from the nearby dock.Eating fish, which, of course is great for the libido...And you're in an illicit love affair. It is wrong. You know that it's wrong. You are somewhere between

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-36385567717793762542011-11-05T12:18:00.007-04:002011-11-07T01:15:43.556-05:00

I am not too impressed with myself this morning.To do a riff on an old Bobbie Gentry song, "You been drinking all morningAnd you haven't touched a single bite." It's deadline time again. This is the time when you've marshalled your words like an army and sent it out into the peaks and canyons of New York.But where she goes, nobody knows.Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Or maybe mad

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-74317891193943023132011-11-04T00:14:00.004-04:002011-11-04T00:23:37.097-04:00

Seems the older I get the more I am like today's physicists. They seem bamboozled by the "orneriness" of quanta and the unexpected ghost of a dark matter that seems to stand Einstinian physics on its head, certainly in a possible acceleration of the speed of light to beyond Einsteins absolute speed limit of 186,000 miles per second.And synchronicity. Much synchronicity.I am here and I am there

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-89179082446860456802011-10-27T12:44:00.005-04:002011-10-27T17:30:04.451-04:00

Slowly, the multitude gathered....Well, not quite a mutitude, say a baker's dozen, as it was a cold and rainy day in Newmarkt on Oct. 17, 2011 where Regional Councillor John Taylor and I spoke on poverty issues not only in our York Region, but the world, as this was a U.N. sanctioned event. It was organized by local PACC chairman Tom Pearson.Since it was a small crowd--augmented in fact on

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-31290435097678308992011-10-21T03:25:00.005-04:002011-10-21T08:46:11.489-04:00

(Photo by MaryRose Gurica)The cupboard is getting overdrawn at the local food bank.Not a single can of corned beef, even Klik. There is a tin of canned ham, but it says Maple Leaf, and that makes you skittish to use after the last set of problems with that company. And I just read that Maple Leaf is out of business. Some Seniors have been known to drop dead over the cold cuts.No Carnation milk

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-27480559456699023312011-10-12T22:53:00.004-04:002011-10-13T15:58:07.295-04:00

The trouble with writing by the seat of your pants is that you are so enamored by a style that seems to come from nowhere--pretty well the result of three million words in print--that you just let the ideas flow, never mind what it is that you are actually trying to say.So when I wrote my "The Hat People", I had no idea what I meant in half my scenes, which included burning towers, people

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-30948949566927609932011-10-02T18:21:00.004-04:002011-10-02T23:33:01.646-04:00

It is possible that I am out of journalism because of a tendency to histrionics--bruising some facts to make a point.Oh say it on: In l968, Chief Editor Andrea Merry of the Noth York Mirror quipped: "Ivan, you never let the facts distort a good story."So I won't use any histrionics to reprint a note to my from Newmarket-Aurora MPP Frank Klees, when he wrote to me in January 5, l998 to offer some

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-43752647593444599372011-09-27T11:01:00.004-04:002011-09-28T01:15:41.546-04:00

There is a time when a blogger runs out of gas, is gasping for air. So he writes about things around the house. Things he's read. Things he'd seen on TV.I must admit I am tired of Public Television and their money grubbing sales pitches about long-dead albums and songs, but I must say I kind of like Tavis Smiley's show. It is somehow funky and here and there, there is certainly soul, and even

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-17898317524012007862011-09-11T21:34:00.004-04:002011-09-12T11:50:42.467-04:00

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone Susanne the plans they made put an end to you I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song I just can't remember who to send it to --James Taylor. Well, it wasn't quite like that, but separation makes you quite unable to do ordinary things, and my penny dreadnought for the local papers that I had composedbecame lost in the "sent items

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-79264207713565693012011-08-28T18:18:00.004-04:002011-09-08T11:40:29.073-04:00

Abundaman en todos costados ventanas viejos y abas el derribar debuhan adelante una cella o pozo.--Jorge Luis Borges.(It abounded on windows on all sides, with stairs leading down to a cell or pit).It's probably my immigrant family backround, but every so often, I get the feeling that Canadian society leads you to a trap, or a series of traps.--Or maybe I mean just Canadian women.Whatever the

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-3769712995890181182011-08-19T04:54:00.003-04:002011-08-19T05:05:29.379-04:00

Pimping my work for the local papers, I thought I might as well write my own review of my book, hoping some editor could pick up on the info. She did, and eventually a mini-review was put out on my The Fire in Bradford, my local version of a Professor and the Blue Angel. Here is what I teased the lady editor with, to give her some background on my novel. "Newmarket's veteran writer,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-14489155790517116102011-07-23T02:59:00.001-04:002011-07-23T03:19:21.180-04:00

Seems that the first few times you see your name in print, you are sort of excited, but after some years in the trade, it becomes more or less old hat.Not necessarily so with reviews or news items about your work.Especialy when no one has reviewed your work for years....So I sent a novel or two to my old employer of a generation ago, TOPIC Magazine.Maybe there was a vestige of some old clout

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-44361612670073389712011-07-09T04:42:00.007-04:002011-07-09T04:54:44.984-04:00

This last chapter of my novel, The Hat People describes what happens when a weak writer aligns himself with a political family on the Left in Canada. They grow stronger, while he, now dependent, grows weaker.Chapter Thirty-SixDays merged into one another. Elliot Jones' checks came every Monday. John would go out for long walks, along Downsview Dells, getting what beauty he could out of the red

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-12769896224030393042011-06-28T21:12:00.006-04:002011-07-12T01:28:14.842-04:00

Greeted by what seems a pall over my roman 'a clef about local politics Is it my blog's relative inacessibility to others because of my busted computer?...Or is my "true life "fiction" dull?) Whatever the case, only the technologically adept true blue readers seen to somehow get past the near-inacessibility of my comment space. I know I should clean out my machine, but it's too close to a

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-79890997650582573402011-06-22T01:28:00.002-04:002011-06-22T01:30:58.161-04:00

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-19519295795080021452011-06-02T04:02:00.010-04:002011-06-02T10:31:16.501-04:00

Roman à clef. Roman à clef or roman à clé. French for novel with a key, is the term used for a novel describing real life, behind a façade of fiction... Author's forward:Impatience. Old problem. My prof, years and years ago, saying to callow me, "You're trying too hard to show how good you are."Trying now, I supppose to show how sloppy and perfunctory after too many kicks, some badly aimed,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-58611814680388646382011-05-26T15:50:00.005-04:002011-05-26T15:59:26.943-04:00

What on earth, people ask, is a roman à clef, a novel about real life? It seems almost a contradiction in terms. If you write a novel in terms of a peceived truth, then it must be nonfiction, fact, truth, a kind of journalism.Yet the truth can and will adapt itself to the cunning of some fictional techniques. The form has been successfullytried by French 19th century novelists under the

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-86382290120000292932011-05-17T07:01:00.007-04:002011-05-22T21:07:33.148-04:00

One of these days I swear I'm going to register in a self-help course like How to Cure Yourself of Creative Writing.Of the writing of books there is no end, says Ecclesiaste the preacher.And yet like some kind of trained seals, we persist, hoping, I suppose--for a seal-bottom seal?What does it matter that the last five projects ended in disaster? Andalay, andalay! Keep hitting that piñata funny

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-26589351043043800642011-05-09T10:33:00.001-04:002011-05-09T10:43:12.305-04:00

Golly, Goya!You saw Osama buried in 1816?

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-65883269321526713252011-05-02T15:36:00.004-04:002011-05-02T16:22:28.314-04:00

After age thirty, I'd often pause on the even decades of life to, sort- of, mourn the passage of my youth.Ah, thirty. Borderline between youth and maturity...But harder and harder now to get over the monstrous all- nighters, working all day and having a twelve pack that evening just to get over it all. But by 31, you can't do the entire twelve bottles; there is a liverishness now to your liver

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-82323121528512404472011-04-21T10:26:00.005-04:002011-04-25T12:52:52.378-04:00

IDYLLI had a mother and a father who gave me beauty, and perfect eyesight(so I could see the imperfections in nature).And wisdom like an asp in the bottom of a well.I got to know the nature of men.And when you came to court me with your bouquet of words,which were jumbled,I turnedAnd rejected you.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-21559691499723057592011-04-11T18:29:00.003-04:002011-04-15T07:07:01.874-04:00

Sitting in the managing editor's office, while his secretary and receptionist are poring over something I had left for the M.E.--probably my scrapbook of published articles.They are giggling and, it seemed to me, nigh-on to peeing themselves with laughter.Silently, I keen, What's the joke, what's the fucking joke?I check to see if my fly is not undone.But no. It's something in my scrapbook.Maybe

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-18486642401386128472011-04-06T01:35:00.004-04:002011-04-06T01:50:03.891-04:00

Those of you who may have read the more interesting parts of Wuthering Heights--and are there any parts that aren't interesting?--may have come across the sickly Character of Hareton, who trundles around like an old TV dinner tray; he has trouble even sitting on the ground, let alone standing up...Well, I have been Hareton this week. Trouble walking. Certainly running. Also a dizzy bastard. I

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-71118172293350768032011-03-28T10:53:00.002-04:002011-03-28T11:03:37.728-04:00

A near-death experience can shake you up, rock the old chassis, make you think of Doris Lessing's "Briefing For a Descent into Hell"-- or some really religious movie like 2001. It can also, strangely make you laugh out loud.Why is humour so closely allied with what surely looks like gallows?Michael Palin out of that famous mock-crucifiction scene in Monty Python;Rodney the Cowardly Knight in

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-71773399803837934762011-03-23T17:33:00.006-04:002011-03-28T09:57:42.339-04:00

It's hard to get out of the training....The investigative reporter's approach to a story, the bureau chief's assertion that if something happens three times, it is a fact.I have been "published" three times this week while lying in my hospital bed.This publishing must be a fact.The first publishing was actually a reprinting of my virgin novel, The Black Icon...Seems a noted academic out of

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-88415454307427179912011-03-16T22:11:00.003-04:002011-03-16T22:14:49.241-04:00

Ivan is sick. Really.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-11045318189339440172011-03-10T08:53:00.006-05:002011-03-10T18:32:36.916-05:00

The stock image of the Ken Kesey or Jack Kerouac type of novelist: A guy getting up in the morning, hardly bothering to get dressed, sitting at the typewriter in his shorts, getting a mental block, and then cranking himself up on speed or meth to get over the block to produce the eight hundred words needed to finish his chapter.Well, its a little like that.Actually a lot like that for a

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-4567265442573233712011-03-03T05:57:00.008-05:002011-03-09T08:46:14.343-05:00

It has suddenly dawned on me after forty years in the vinyards (and sometimes alleyways) of the writing profession, that it may not a publisher, but a client that you seek.It seems that there are people out there who have been following your work, in blogs or leaves (treeware?), and more often than not, unbeknownst to you, they have enjoyed your writing, have been passing it around, sometimes

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-71260613072478007002011-02-26T10:34:00.003-05:002011-02-26T10:40:46.721-05:00

My intention had been to unload an entire chapter of my novel, Light Over Newmarket up on Jo's blog (Jo from Vancouver, where the bud grows) but I decided against it. The chapter is about a woman's drug experience. Jo' blog on this today sort of triggered this blog idea. Drugs. Six years ago, I did much the same on Bernita's blog and she was, well, mad. "You could have sent a link!I guess people

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-16935913283356156032011-02-20T02:10:00.005-05:002011-02-21T09:24:56.636-05:00

February Blues.The cliche is true.You feel blue.It is a dark, cold, stormy February night.I am, as they used to say in the Air Force, lying "tits-up" on my rumpled bed with its sleeping bag for a duvet. Daydreaming. There used to be hot and cold running women under that bed, but now in February, all I can look forward to is the semi-annual event of my erection, which, even now in this February

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-66277058723145029642011-02-14T09:13:00.003-05:002011-02-14T09:17:32.720-05:00

CHAPTER THREE (From Light Over Newmarket)She was lying face downwards on her terrycloth towel, a breeze toying with her fine blonde hair. I reached out to stroke that hair, so spanking clean, and the woman turned to face me with her full pale blue eyes, wide apart and a little crazy, the high California cheekbones and a mouth as wide and pretty as an idyll's. We were lying in the grass before a

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-35182006909524631442011-02-08T17:31:00.004-05:002011-02-08T17:46:37.856-05:00

5571450753238620690" />As the only white guy in an all-black maintenance crew at the old Prince Hotel, Toronto, I didn't know what to expect.Me the only Hunky around?Jesus. I was the token?How life turns around.I had decided to take a job working with my hands for therapy. I was separating from my wife, had a girlfriend, tried to hold onto the kids over weekends, and was trying to hang onto my

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-18498510087698165702011-02-05T12:16:00.005-05:002011-02-05T20:20:52.389-05:00

While a young reporter, arts critic and general bum-boy around a small funky newspaper (Chores! Chores! Chores!), I once took a poke at some of the subjects of my stories to task, using such descriptions as"Surfing dolt from California", or "writes like I f*ck--badly", and "Why can't that garbagemouth shut up--Can't he see I'm busy?It was a good thing I had a mature editor. "Look, Trapper,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-75414638674263898192011-02-03T09:53:00.005-05:002011-02-03T10:34:26.985-05:00

"You write too well for us. "Zippy writers are shat upon at the Globe & Mail."Well, I must admit the copyeditor knew how to decline the verb "shit."You've got to pay respect where respect is due.A big league copy editor, or Slot Man, is a rare specimen in the newsaper business. He is the poet of typography. It is under his supervision that copy is checked and double checked, the headline

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-55905588327338646142011-01-30T11:05:00.007-05:002011-02-02T19:45:55.490-05:00

He saw in his own eye yesterday's confusion, the leaving of his wife for an exotic lover, and he found the truth, lay, as always, in the commonplace. Chinese symbol for cigarette.....................Chinese symbol for death..........He had hit the Yang line.He could not find a symbol for a higher plane.Perhaps there was none.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-12318203136899086912011-01-26T12:47:00.004-05:002011-01-27T17:47:08.997-05:00

Every major city in Canada today has not only a Mayor, but--wait for it-- a poet laureate!The second-last one in Toronto was Giorgio Di Cicco and the man worked hard for it. Published novelist, published journalist, and world -class poet.Sample of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco's poems (If you excuse my crummy typing): 1These are the most extraordinary women in the world, 2they

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-20846984811571956322011-01-22T10:18:00.004-05:002011-01-22T10:31:22.106-05:00

Driving around the loop in Chicago looking for a lost friend who I fear had fallen prey to a cult farther South, why else the strange letters and then silence. He said he was getting married. And that was all. Maried to whom? Where?..."Someone from among my friends," he had telegraphed. And then no more contact, either with me or his family.He was a sensitive guy, very creative. Photographer.But

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-47117455097636328472011-01-14T08:45:00.004-05:002011-01-14T11:51:08.555-05:00

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-5410150696180390252011-01-12T03:42:00.004-05:002011-01-12T03:51:07.504-05:00

Happy belated New Year to all of you. Hope it was as fun as mine, thought as usual, my gallivanting at New Year's leads to strange and baroque company, and oddly, a whole lot of God thrown in. The God part came when I went to see Baba to find she had slightly recovered from (poor old girl) falling on her head and breaking her pelvis as a bonus. Maybe it was the pain-killers, but she greeted me

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-69698649987655244182011-01-04T03:03:00.004-05:002011-01-11T02:42:39.597-05:00

It was one of those Mac Davis mornings.It's the new year, the bills are coming in, you haven't really sold any stories for ten years (you'd been writing for free), the billl are coming in, MasterCharge is overdrawn, you haven't had sex for what certainly feels like years --and it looks like you're not even going to get laid in the future.You need an antidote for the old man depression.So you

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-33460170616257618522011-01-01T01:43:00.001-05:002011-01-01T01:47:24.546-05:00

Back in the days when Ivan was hot.Now notso much.But Happy New Year, everybody!

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-44623978805222325582010-12-29T04:00:00.005-05:002010-12-29T04:21:15.512-05:00

About this time of year, when you're a bit hung over and on the edges of a really good flu, don't some of the news stories of the past year and a little before-- just want to make you sharpen a miniature hatchet against the media poseurs who hog all the headlines. Like...PoliticiansEnvironmentalists.Lawyers.Anti-smoking grinches rich on the public trough.Health care professionals and their

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-16907099464214341502010-12-24T18:08:00.003-05:002010-12-24T18:16:39.538-05:00

Christmas is surely a time of miracles, some large, some small. The small miracle is in a number of Ukrainian professors out west, who are demanding a reprint of my first novel,The Black Icon. The book was published thirty-five years ago by the Bradford Witness Publishing company, it is out of print, and so unfortunately is The Bradford Witness. It has been bought by Metroland. I don't have an

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-397421840140820182010-12-19T07:21:00.008-05:002010-12-25T17:15:54.566-05:00

When I first heard it on the radio, I swear the rap I was almost jiving to-- was written by Mark, or Jim or any number of my fellow blogger poets from Michigan.But no. It was Lil Wayne and Eminem, who last Saturday night went Socko Boffo on SNL.[Verse 1 - Lil Wayne]Throw dirt on me and grow a wildflowerBut it's "fuck the world", get a child out herYeah, my life a bitch, but you know nothing

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-57146702677372269892010-12-13T02:27:00.004-05:002010-12-13T17:11:16.357-05:00

It seems to me that when the Holidays come up, Big Brother moves to the top. RIDE patrols here in Canada, arbitrarily stopping motorists, whether guilty of imparied driving or not. You must be caught! Police parked in Beer and liquor parking lots, behind bars--the drinking bars. Mothers against Imparied Driving, certainly with legitimate sorrows and complaints seem to want us all to stop just

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-35095764219501778372010-12-07T10:40:00.004-05:002010-12-07T10:51:35.291-05:00

Computer is in the shop today.Needs to be rewired.Ivan is in the jigsaw puzzle assembly plant today.Also needs to be rewired.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-12928875942710601542010-12-02T17:43:00.004-05:002010-12-03T17:54:24.126-05:00

Mentally blocked.Can't set word to screen.And all his while, they are blockbusting my neighbourhood.Just next door, where the venerable and much-used hockey arena had been, there is now a huge hole, and all around, the edges of the pit, there is a tall Tyrannosaurus Rex of a Hitachi backhoe, nodding and nodding on its treads, scooping out the once- rich earth and loading onto a truck, itself

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-28168502399937195712010-11-26T20:46:00.001-05:002010-11-26T20:48:21.570-05:00

Something to think about while doing the laundry:Perusing my favourite blogs of late, one theme seems constant.Going hither and thither, suffering damnably, but always returning to self. But there is somehow redemption for all that travail. We come to realize that only through trouble, much trouble that we find ouselves. And the reality of others, and their trouble as well.It may be the source

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-56139252484577229942010-11-24T06:48:00.005-05:002010-11-24T07:10:25.896-05:00

From this horrible witch's brew of the id at night-- comes the calm and collected speaker?... I have not been asked to speak anywhere for some weeks.You don't suppose they found out? :)

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-67691583001433684492010-11-21T10:03:00.005-05:002010-11-21T17:28:50.255-05:00

I forget which blog comment I picked it up from--probably somebody commenting into Razored Zen, or The Walking Man( some of my favourites)--but over and over again I hear echoes of the late and great writer, Joyce Cary: Your plan no good. God's plan rocks.This seems echoed by a Russian trapeze artist and tightrope walking lady.You have the skill. But what actually happens is up to God.How many

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-44281418621913925492010-11-14T20:38:00.006-05:002010-11-16T23:02:16.919-05:00

My intention was to produce a yeoman essay on the late Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges, addressed especially to Mona, who often writes-in here. She is a bona fide PhD-- and myself, I think I once got a doctorate in dancing and Voodoo in what was left of a forest in Haiti; an MD of the rain forest.But in the course of writing my er, discourse, I had some sort of mental blackout, a power

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-64173719278303163482010-11-09T15:16:00.013-05:002010-11-12T13:54:51.388-05:00

Every so often, (at around the even decades), we seem to want to write our memoirs. Some do, but, as in the production of a full-blown novel, some have brained themselves on merely this project. You might be Victor Immmature. Some memoirs might be premature, as the important people in your life may still be alive, and some far from "memoraible" yet. But now, as so many of the old companions

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-64353894857810582802010-11-05T13:19:00.001-04:002010-11-05T13:21:00.007-04:00

Comes to reading, I'm so busy with the blogging these days that I am like the Champion Oyster Eater out of old Bob and Ray radio.....They are interviewing a man on a very early prototype radio show of something like "Man Versus Food."They ask the champion oyster eater, "How many oysters did you eat today?"He answers, "Three""Three?...I though you were the champon oyster eater!"Champ:"Yeah, but

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-89258029540051792042010-11-02T10:12:00.004-04:002010-11-02T10:24:11.248-04:00

For a while, I tried to re-integare myself back into the Ukrainian community from whence I sprang.It just didn't seem to work for an Anglicized Slav who had gone too far working in the vinyards of Journalistic English.But I did take a course in Slavics, U of T, and after re-discovering the poetry of our Taras Shevchenko (on whose grave Canada's PM,Stephen Harper laid a wreath last week), I was

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-78803780468151062562010-10-31T03:56:00.004-04:002010-10-31T04:19:46.780-04:00

It's Halloween, and I fear my art has come to this:Old horse masturbating in his stall.Doing he steel-toe quatruped shuffle.Thwack of two-foot long penis against belly.Oh to be prehensile, like a Houyhnhnm out of Gullivers Travels.Holding between hoof and pastern.But no.Old horse. Limited..HoweverLook ma, no hands.Not hard to conjure for myself as the image of an old horse.Or the image of a

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-2541837193863901652010-10-28T13:41:00.007-04:002010-10-31T03:23:58.786-04:00

I've always had trouble with balloons as symbols.When in love, the balloon is a beautiful symbol of the moon being a balloon, of things going swimmingly, of you being David Niven in evening wear and she in a silk taffeta gown, the two of you in a brisk foxtrot.Kinda gay, what?Don't worry, it gets dark.At least darker.Little did you know that you were dancing with a witch. You had no way to

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-9426577862179776292010-10-26T07:08:00.003-04:002010-10-27T04:13:39.304-04:00

Suppose a Martian were to write this blog.Supposing he saw "spots" out of his saucer window on his way here, and that would have maybe even scared the average alien. Migod, this is extraterrestrial!What would he say?..."Well, it's a typical earth-specific phenomenon. Some earth astronauts in their crude analogies for spacecraft have seen 'spots' outside their capsules, and when debriefed by

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-52149885931070576272010-10-19T01:29:00.012-04:002010-10-19T08:19:35.028-04:00

I am trying to write some SciFi.Nice work if you can get it.How do you top Bradbury, Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Anthony Burgess or even Kurt Vonnegut Jr. when he gets the wind up.Ya don't. These were extremely versatile people capable as much of writing a symphony as a novel...And they probably would have written in either novel or song format--hell even Cobol or Fortran if

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-39814327494073598302010-10-14T10:52:00.006-04:002010-10-17T22:25:19.997-04:00

It was fun being broke and hopefully brilliant-- until what was left of the money died.So I'm out here beside a supermarket dumpster that they have now sealed because they knew that old moth-eaten Ivan would be there one day holding vigil over the opening that had spewed out all the stale- dated steaks that had somehow escaped the whee-thump! of the automatic compacting process.No longer can I

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-34979754280149167752010-10-10T23:46:00.005-04:002010-10-11T11:28:33.925-04:00

Actually, I had an unhappy childhood, thank God.How else to be a writer?But if one only had been born a toff!Ah, what could have been. I could have been somebody.I could have been Marlon Brando. I coulda been a contenda! I could have invented 3D!

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-91081791874325888502010-10-03T19:33:00.004-04:002010-10-03T20:02:32.718-04:00

Durn. I meant to photocopy and display the image of Mark C. Durfee's receipt of legal deposit for Library and Archives Canada, now that Mark is officially published, at least in this country.So I had to go the long way, viz,LIbrary and Archives Canada Bibliotheque et Archives Canada RECEIPT FOR LEGAL DEPOSITRECU POUR DEPOT LEGAL ................................... Legal deposit numberNumero de

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-40208087432258398952010-09-28T21:41:00.009-04:002010-09-29T05:03:48.407-04:00

While mainly teaching english and creative writing at Seneca College, I was Shanghaied one March break, when most of the other profs were gone, to teach something called existential philosophy.What did I know about existentialism?.The regular philosophy prof seemed to hear me.Yes, she said. "It's absurd!"But I really need my March break (At Seneca,we were teaching trimester)...And you, as an

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-40326254435226879392010-09-25T03:47:00.005-04:002010-09-25T23:59:18.315-04:00

The best writing is the best researched-- otherwise what can you contribute with your own awkward scrawls...At least, so I tell myselfOrdinarily, I research all my material--who had said in print what you now say, long before you, and probably better.But I find I'm more like that ancient noble Frog, Montaigne. He wasn't up to too much research: "How can you square the circle when you're perched

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-49698181248768689522010-09-22T07:52:00.004-04:002010-09-22T08:27:40.642-04:00

The recent interest in Geneology and the source of one's name has me poring through old family records hoping to find a distinguished old Cossack or somebody. I am not English, but with my luck it'll be John of Gaunt, not the most savory of historical characters.What's in a name, you ask.Well, suddenly long names are in. New movie stars appear, with easy -to- pronounce names likeGyllenhaal,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-46902025646924194602010-09-16T23:02:00.005-04:002010-09-21T15:27:02.480-04:00

I am bugged of late by people who want their short stories published here.Latest supplicant is an old Ryerson U. acquaintance, Tony Mac. I am holding his story on "the ghost out of the swimming pool" on my desk, pending feedback from the "Quarks", my sort-of editorial board...Or is that Editorial Broad? They're all women.But I felt Tony's story lacked something. What?And what did I know? I was a

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-10268818823558262132010-09-14T10:58:00.005-04:002010-09-14T13:03:18.433-04:00

It used to be held among big writers gone to seed, that a professional was at least safe among amateurs.This may have been true in the old days of typewriters-- or among any number of fuzzy-eared incompetents in a creative writing class--but not today.An idiot on a computer can make a football schedule sound interesting and relevant. Such is the nature of technnology...Just give the god out of

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-31784217798649961702010-09-11T12:15:00.006-04:002010-09-11T12:37:55.408-04:00

Invitation attached)Roseway Publishing invites you to a Book Launch for Drive-by Savioursa novel by Chris Benjamin8 pm, Monday October 4Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas Street West, TorontoWith musical guests Charms (the duet of Gabe Levine and Jessica Moore) and Sarah Kenvynon hand and on stage to celebrate the launch of Chris Benjamin’s new novel.All those 19+ are welcome to this free event. Cash bar.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-17816955545798439562010-09-07T06:24:00.011-04:002010-09-08T00:16:33.382-04:00

The quest started in the late Sixties, A comic book collaboration between geniuses Michael O'Donoghue and Robert Springer, "The Adventures of Phoebe-Zeitgeist", a drop-dead gorgeous Moonbeam McSwine, almost out of old All Capp, perhaps, but nothing McSwinish about Phoebe- Zeitgeist. She is beautiful, especially when drawn nude and in extremely stressful situations.Phoebe-Zeitgeist, the belle of

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-34081826238567997772010-09-03T00:48:00.005-04:002010-09-03T01:13:31.871-04:00

Recently invited by ChuckerCanuck, a blogger, to do my own review of my latest edition of my novel,The Fire in Bradford, I found myself in a kind of kaleidescope. How can you review what you yourself have produced, how did the work come about, and what in f*ck a are you talking about?Except for the late Norman Mailer, no one has explored the mental calisthenics to do with such a project. Being

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-44139600496604321362010-08-26T06:17:00.005-04:002010-08-29T07:32:01.508-04:00

Booker T and MG's were always good news, even back in 1961, when I got a promotion in the Air Force. I was elated, feeling somehow American, certainly American oriented because of all the Amerians I met in the Service, mostly black, jazz fans, and Green Onions on the juke box was elating me all the more. Who could ignore the head-nodding sound, organ, guitar and bass of that "Stax" band whom

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-3854647548936825732010-08-19T02:37:00.006-04:002010-08-19T03:51:53.369-04:00

Re, "Norman Mailer's letter to Ernest Hemingway after his novel, The Deer Park was rejected by eight publishers and finally taken by Putnam's" (Ivan's blog, Sunday Aug. 15, 2010). Ivan,Frankly it strikes me as childish. "Give me what I want or I'll never talk to you again!" Kinda sad to see that from one of the luminaries. But, of course, the luminaries are/were human. Ivan, I thought you might

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-7150495371607892862010-08-15T01:57:00.002-04:002010-08-15T02:03:18.997-04:00

TO ERNEST HEMINGWAY--because finally after all these years I am deeply curious to knowwhat you think of this.--but if you do not answer, or you do answer with the same kind of crap you use to answer unprofessional writers, syncopants, brown-nosers, etc., then fuck you, and I will never attempt to communicate with your again.--and since i suspect the you're even vainer than I am, I migh as well

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-23172164657162622342010-08-11T18:57:00.003-04:002010-08-11T19:13:56.122-04:00

Well, I was supposed to bring home the bacon with my magum opus, The Fire in Bradford.But all I've got in front of me right now is an old university essay of mine on Fancis Bacon, probably the father of modern science.A sentence of his, somewhat loosely remembered, has caught my eye. A young man will drive the full bolt home, but an older man will not.Oh-oh. Reminds me of my military training. ..

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-75880949280906712572010-08-08T15:41:00.007-04:002010-08-09T01:53:27.016-04:00

I am no Seventh Day Adventist, but like a New Guinea wanderer I once met, I am sort of, like one M. Dennie Mark, Seventh Day Adventist. He seemed very self-important,said he was "very well educated", by missionaries. "You can address me as M." And,"I believe in the Seventh Day."Well, Saturday for me is for revelling and carousing.But I seriously need a Sunday.Consider: For the past eight years,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-13675110172984535682010-08-03T02:45:00.009-04:002010-08-09T07:33:25.020-04:00

It was one of those mornings after a night of drinking, letting off steam,in a euphoria, as if on drugs, still in the Dionisaic bloom of youth, possessed, he thought, of a body that would never corrode or wither, of living forever, of being a drunken artist, constructing huge, sprawling novels in the barroom air, bragging, fighting--but knocked down off his barstool at least once. It was

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-2229874508041413132010-07-28T02:17:00.005-04:002010-07-28T09:34:03.708-04:00

I'm gonna write this real fast, because my computer is full of little viruses and followers, making it hard to research stuff without being spammed, jammed and crammed.My intention had been to discuss what happens to a writer when he or she achieves the lifelong goal of getting something into print, between covers with your name on it. According to one author, almost nothing. Enjoy the rush and

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com54tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-59926021732661613462010-07-26T23:55:00.006-04:002010-07-27T00:48:27.605-04:00

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Recommendation for Mona Rahman, PhD. I am a former Teaching Master at Seneca College, King City Ontario, LOG1 WO. I had attained the position following journalistic and creative work with all three Toronto newspapers, The Reader's Digest and some published novels, largely though the Bradford Witness Publishing Company, Bradford, Ontario, Canada. Seneca College at the time

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-48130562797918675932010-07-19T08:41:00.016-04:002010-07-19T16:04:01.104-04:00

Before completion, successIf, before completion, the little fox dips his tail into the water,nothing will further.--The I-Ching.I am tossing the I-Ching again. Last time I did it when I quit my glamorous job with the slick Canadian Magazine and decided to buy a cottage in the backwoods to be a writer.Well. Great expectations. I sat for two years with something like a painter's Blank Canvas

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-44192693427344947452010-07-16T03:28:00.008-04:002010-07-17T09:30:33.324-04:00

What do I find in the mail this morning but a neat, saddle-stitched 52- page chapbook nestled there among the bills.Well. Definitely not a flyer.Nice photo for the cover -- an almost sepia tone of a woman with a Fifties-style hairdo, bloused, seated, and holding in each crook of her right and left arm, a smashing little boy. I presume the younger one on the left is JR Tomlinson and I

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-20177255739359884402010-07-13T09:18:00.004-04:002010-07-13T13:13:52.015-04:00

A somewhat off-the-wall correspondent on ChuckerCanuck 2.0, (a political blog where I was promised a review of my book), has a commentator named "Midnight" wondering why http://wwww.creativewriting.ca does not work as a link to my site. I guess he was trying to read my "Fire in Bradford", my novel online.I dasn't lose a reader, even from a Canadian Conservative site. Hell, I'll even take a pan

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-9293359712050377142010-07-12T07:30:00.005-04:002010-07-12T10:33:01.314-04:00

Folks, you can ignore this blog.My printer has broken down.So here, I offer instructions to my real printer, Mike, as to how to set up this afterword by the amazing Mona Rahman, PhD. I will extract part of her review to be at the back of my novel, The Fire in Bradford, in front of the picture of Frank Klees, MPP. Mona's picture will now be above the Hon. Frank Klees along with an excerpt from

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-15932072001752647602010-07-10T00:30:00.002-04:002010-07-10T00:34:30.958-04:00

Tracy, What the hell. If you've got it, flaunt it. ....But ain't quite got it. It's still at the printers. Needs much work. Publisher is Warbrooke Publishers Ltd., Montreal...Limited edition. --Ivan Prokopchuk

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-37130194322184415062010-07-05T11:28:00.005-04:002010-07-05T11:48:04.217-04:00

I may sound a bit cliched in expressing the view ; that whenever I regard a work of Fiction, it is the first chapter that intrigues me. For it is in this chapter, where the author usually deposits the crux of his novel.Consider the hammer hitting first lines of Dickens' s "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" or an Austen opening with " Its a truth universally acknowledged that

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-86897305852569222992010-07-01T01:31:00.004-04:002010-07-01T09:14:54.128-04:00

Yes, yes, the book is by yours truly, in a new version published by Warbrooke Publishers Ltd., but when the cover proof was sent to me, it looked more like a basement job than a professional rendering. Too much white, and sort of woodcut black for the picture.Difficult for a guy with not too much graphic sense.Well, an editor did tell me once, that difficulties create art.Never mind that, I said

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-23517893260619821612010-06-28T13:08:00.008-04:002010-06-28T22:23:16.193-04:00

I gave up politics when I'd check the phases of the moonbefore campagning. Never campaign on a full moon! Gnotis sauton, says Socrates Know thyself. I mean, be realistic. Know thyself for a madman-- and a politician can't be friggin' crazy. Neither can a teacher be batshit.. So I had to be a writer.A writer is a person who writes.But you can't just write into a vacuum, or all of it going into

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-46358089015984850262010-06-25T20:15:00.009-04:002010-06-27T02:16:31.148-04:00

A tale of two letters.Every so often, when frustrated by one or another ofthe government's behaviour modification schemes, one is forced to rail against the Ontario government's wrongheaded plan to tax cigarettes out of existence.Of course, Mafia Miltie always has other ideas....A thriving black market cigarette trade at an eighth the cost of overground cigarettes.And so I sally forth in the

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-17982506093807448012010-06-25T08:45:00.002-04:002010-06-25T08:49:36.311-04:00

...Too much to do this morning. Survival!In the meantime, I'll offer something from vintage SNL, at the heady time when Nancy Polosi became speaker and Mr. Obama was on his way to the Presidency.SNL has since pretty well gone downhill, but it took Kristen Wiig and some brilliant writing to get the show back on speed: Here is Episode 5 from Season 32:A Message from the Speaker-Elect of the U.S.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-89811640104240910752010-06-22T09:05:00.002-04:002010-06-22T09:08:43.113-04:00

While I won't pretend I've read all of "The Fire in Bradford",I do notice it has lots of local colour. This is important.Good luck with all your enterprises.---Frank KleesMPP Newmarket-Aurora.

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-32617261428055672272010-06-21T13:55:00.005-04:002010-06-21T14:05:19.155-04:00

FROM AN OLDER BLOG:My friend -- we'll call him Seymour-- was a mass of contradictions--and he had a really short fuse.In the middle of a drinking bout, he's pipe up and say, "You know, Ivan you bring out in this feeling of inferiority/superiority in me. Sometimes you piss me off."Well, I noticed that wine sometimes brings out the Jekyll and Hyde in you, certainly an old girlfriend, but never

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-86099157640976294762010-06-17T11:45:00.004-04:002010-06-17T12:19:43.059-04:00

The quest at first seems noble.Listen up, all you poseurs and incompetents, writer manqués, poseurs, English teacher all.I will go to Tahiti, do what I have to do there, and when I come back, I will go to the auditorium, read my stuff and bring the house down.Well. Certainly great expectations.But the allure of a new paradise, the smell of eucalyptus, the vodka taste of alcohol, the gleaming

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-42729739262271824892010-06-13T09:58:00.004-04:002010-06-13T11:40:40.024-04:00

It has long been a lonstanding maxim of mine to never take advice from a student. Last time, it was disastrous. During a dark night of the soul, I asked a mature student what would she do if her life fell apart and she could not go home again.She had said, "Listen to the voice of inexperience. Go home and beg."It isn't what my estranged one had aswered It was sort of Brooklyn.Drop dead.Seems

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-91142255178118125082010-06-07T13:31:00.005-04:002010-06-07T23:30:30.898-04:00

Somehow it happened.Thirty years of stumbling around, mislaying parts of family, business, houses--many houses--good friends and at least seven of the best women one could love--to finally crash land on Main Street Newmaket ON, accompanied, at least metaphorically, by two Mexican goats (have noticed how adorable young kids are as they tentatively clatter along?)Ivan and his goats on Main Street,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-90012690091193805382010-05-29T20:02:00.008-04:002010-05-30T15:54:47.567-04:00

Ivan,TovarichThere has been no change in my health or medication (Lipitor for cholesterol, Insulin for Diabetes, Vicodin for pain and Valium for fun). I woke up one day last week and saw futility. Hell of an ugly creature it is, I allow that nothing in the apocalypse chronicles even compares in horror, to the heart of a man who sees there is no value left in anything, not life, not gold, not

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com69tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826948.post-55997208870197024692010-05-22T11:29:00.013-04:002010-05-26T12:54:58.186-04:00

Matt,Doesn't it always come that way?In the middle of of the journey, you suddenly stop, surrender the vows and say that's it. They have dumped on me in this city. I am going to move to another city where I can be the writer I am, to be around other writers, to be appreciated by my peers, to get out of this ghetto which is Shankvillle.Well, a lifetime ago, I moved out of another kind of ghetto,

ivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05662075375182633162noreply@blogger.com32