William Matheson's Journal
Apr. 8th, 2007
05:06 am - on writing and comedy and thinking about things
My Chaucer paper is finally finished. I’m disgusted at how long I’ve dragged it out, but luckily for me my fatigued relief outweighs said disgust. Only two more papers to go!
I had an illuminating interview with my seminar professor on Thursday. After we talked about my proposed topic, he told me that I was a very precise and funny writer, but that I needed to work on sustaining my arguments. He as much as said that I should be getting into travel writing or comedy writing, probably more so than academic writing. I told him that I didn’t make a habit out of sustaining arguments because I’ve always found it easier to introduce something new when I’m running out of steam rather than try to find different ways to look at it – much as a comedian would, or so I believed.
Upon reflection, though, I see many problems with this reasoning. First, it’s quite possible that the second or third strains of an argument might turn out to be more persuasive than the first, even though the first comes more readily to mind, and a good comedian would be just as interested in the more persuasive arguments as the thorough academic.
Secondly, I don’t even know if I’m a natural comedian. I have a reasonably odd sense of humour, and I expend a lot of energy chasing sophisticated ironies or trying to cram details and minutiae that only I think are interesting, down people’s cochleae. The only way people know that I’m trying to make a joke is that I tend to laugh after most of my non-sarcastic “jokes” and, depending on their mood, they’ll humour me into thinking I’m being funny. Oh, and because of my natural shortcomings I’ve had to almost entirely give up on sarcasm, although this isn’t any great loss to me as I think it’s a fairly low form of wit in the first place.
I’m not really all that cracked up about this (HA-HA, GET IT?!), though. I’m okay with not being naturally funny, or with being funny in a very odd sort of way. I remember my classmates in Grade 9 at Sandy Lake telling me – upon the occasion of watching videos by an overtly Christian theorist who convincingly (for me, at the time) used the four humours to describe personalities* – that I just wasn’t funny.
* - We are very fortunate indeed that personality psychology and astrophysics are entirely separate disciplines. (This woman was not claiming to be any sort of psychologist, but bear with me!) If astronomers were like personality theorists, and needed to explain why Titan has such a thick atmosphere while our Moon hasn’t any (the real answer has something to do with the masses of the two bodies and their relative distances from the Sun), they would not hesitate to introduce a theory that explained Titan really well, but had the inconvenient side-effect of turning the Moon into green cheese. I kid and exaggerate, but if you go back to Freud and work your way forward, you’ll see what I mean.
What did I do after that? I’m afraid I tried to prove them wrong. A teacher there introduced me to Dave Barry, and it was through his writing that I discovered that the written word could be funny. (I realize now that this discovery is about as profound as discovering that snow can be cold.) Most of my early essays and stories would even steal many of his jokes, and it’s taken me a long time to develop my own style that works without resorting to his special brand of incongruity. (For instance, he’ll express his disbelief about some future occurrence by saying, “And someday trained sheep will pilot the Concorde!”)
I can’t write like that, but I can write like me, by me, and that’s going to be the challenge that faces me for the rest of my writing career, should I ever be bothered to embark upon one. (You know those stereotypes about writers being lazy procrastinators? … … Good.)
There’s also the ever-present problem that writing is rewriting. It would be really nice to be able to sit down and tap out a novel: (“Martha awoke with a start as a thunder clap punctuated the night air blah blah blah they kissed, and slipped into the taxicab The End.”) but it just doesn’t work that way, and the parts you have halfway working need to be diligently re-tilled. This is a lot of… brace yourselves, fellow writers! … work. Very few people become writers because they enjoy working for a living.
But now that I think about it (and there is little we will not do to escape the labour of thinking, which is why I haven’t thought of this already), perhaps I’m looking at the writing problem the wrong way. Instead of worrying about the finished product, I should look at things one stroke at a time, just as one should in golf. (+2 is leading at The Masters! +2!!) For example, this Chaucer paper was worrying the bebejus out of me, especially as I sat staring at my notebook screen, wireless transmitter off, waiting for inspiration. But then I took up my yoke and started ploughing through from the beginning, one page at a time, slowly and steadily. Before long I had a heap of words and paragraphs, and I could see the gate at the end of the field.
Such a diligent, careful approach serves us well in other endeavours, so why not with writing? Again, I apologize for taking a routine “discovery” and giving it the raiment of profundity. Appropriately enough, my learning experience with writing parallels the “learning” experiences of Chauntecleer the rooster in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale – the topic of tonight’s paper.
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tiredDec. 2nd, 2006
03:46 am - thoughts on the Liberal leadership speeches
I didn’t work on any of my term papers today, and spent way too much time in front of the TV following the Liberal Leadership Convention.
Overall, I was really impressed by almost all of the candidates (I slept through most of Joe Volpe’s speech after his video which was basically a glorified PowerPoint presentation).
I came into today thinking that I didn’t like Bob Rae because of his defensiveness concerning his time as Ontario premier that he exhibited during early media interviews. But it seems that now he’s this congenial, charismatic, driven, and gifted speaker. Being from the Maritimes, I guess I don’t know Rae as much as I should like.
He impresses me because he seems really good with people, and when he was congratulating his competitors on their speeches, he wasn’t just politicking – you could tell that he meant it. And he has a great sense of humour. For me, his speech was the best overall, striking the perfect balance of rhetoric and spontaneity. He was also the only one who dared tell a joke:
“Stephen Harper took his Cabinet out to dinner. The waiter asked what he’d have, and he said ‘Steak.’ The waiter asked, ‘What about the vegetables?’ ‘They’ll have steak, too.’”
What I think I would like to see is a you-steer, I’ll-work-the-gas-and-brakes arrangement with Bob Rae as the mouthpiece. But maybe that’s not what is needed most for the Liberals right now.
Martha Hall Findlay: She had a really sharp presentation and deserves future consideration. Just take Stronach and add personality. You’ll notice that Stronach is a brunette this weekend.
Scott Brison: I hope he sticks around for the second ballot. I had no idea he was such a good speaker. CBC just about forced me to write them a nasty e-mail when they put on the screen that Brison was twice elected as a “Conservative MP” in 1997 and 2000, had stepped down for “Conservative leader Joe Clark” and had run for the leadership. No, “Progressive Conservative,” and I’m always ready to draw the distinction. CTV got it right though, as anyone who follows politics more than once a decade would.
Gerard Kennedy: Appeals to Western Canada, said in his speech that he would win seats in Alberta and that “Canada is counting on us to win the next election, and we won’t let them down!”
Ken Dryden: I could live with any of these candidates as Prime Minister (the only Liberal leader to fail to become Prime Minister is from the nineteenth century: Edward Blake, the second leader of the party), but Dryden would be an inspired choice. He has a lot of fire in him, and I like how he said he’d stick around tomorrow. He talked a lot about how he’s distressed that the “small-thinking” Conservatives are undermining his vision of Canada. He said to a reporter, “I want my Canada back!”
Dion: He would be a highly respectable choice, though I worry about how he’d perform in election debates and in Question Period. But if he’s suddenly thrust into a position where he has to speak English almost every hour of every day, he’ll improve very quickly. It’s all nitpicking anyway, he was eloquent and decisive, and it’s easy to forget that he missed a few words here and there.
BTW, I have an idea for a Liberal Drinking Game: Take a drink every time you hear “social justice.” Stéphane Dion will have you under the table in no time.
Still on Dion, was it he that said, “The NDP doesn’t understand the market economy, and the Conservatives don’t understand social justice?” I know he did say that he’d like to take those two traditional piers of Liberalism and add environmental sustainability. Take a drink every time the environment is mentioned; if a candidate says “climate change” or “global warming,” take two.
Okay, who’s left… Ah! Michael Ignatieff! If he becomes leader and eventually Prime Minister, the delegates at this convention will be cursed by millions of future history students who need to look up the spelling every time they refer to the 40th Canadian Parliament.
But seriously, he is one of the greatest intellectuals we have. If we want a Philosopher king, here he is. He’s got lots of new ideas about a green economy, and he’s got a great way of explaining high concepts in layperson’s terms. (Paul Martin had this talent as well, which I feel he didn’t employ nearly often enough. You don’t often find yourself wishing that a political figure would talk more, but there you have it.)
I also like that Ignatieff said, with regards to post-secondary education in his ideal Canada, “If you’ve got the grades, you get to go!” We’ll hold him to that.
Movements:
- Joe Volpe put himself into irrelevance shockingly fast. He did make some good points about making things easier for new Canadians, and I’m definitely with him there as far as things like credential-recognition go. But his time at the convention was short, as he crossed over to Rae before the first ballot was even counted. It was obviously staged, and it makes a bit of a mockery of the process: You’re a Volpe delegate who has yet to vote, and you have Volpe’s name automatically checked off on your ballot. Wouldn’t you then feel that voting was a bit of a waste of time?
- Ignatieff got less than 30% on the first ballot (29.3%). Rae got 20.3%, so Dion at 17.8% is perfectly positioned to leapfrog over the two of them if he gets enough outside support. I think getting outside support is going to be a struggle for Rae, even with Volpe coming over to his camp. Dion will roll down a hill like a snowball in a cartoon and accumulate hundreds of delegates. Kennedy will be an interesting Kingmaker.
- Findlay’s votes, though the smallest in number, will carry some extra suasion to whomever she takes her votes. She won’t be the next Liberal Leader, but she will have an important role, at about the same magnitude as Brison’s. I say this both because she is the the only woman candidate and because she has a certain poise and drive that is not reflected in the voting results.
Oh, and there’s good news concerning Twelfth Night. Looks like I’m playing Malvolio. This will be Yet Another Malcontent™ among the roles I’ve played over the years, and sometimes I’m alarmed at the frequency with which I play argumentative, opinionated characters. I wonder who is playing Sir Toby Belch, my favourite character, the festive drunk? Anyway, I need to think about what I can bring to my role as the outcast, the puritan, and the only (or nearly the only) single person at the end of the play who doesn’t get married. I hope I don’t end up becoming the character!
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excitedDec. 1st, 2006
01:49 am - in which I experience many awkward moments
I’m going to restrain myself tonight. I am going to have this entry finished in an hour! Yes, that means minimizing Google Maps and Wikipedia links, which are probably my favourite part about blogging anyway. Yes, some intrepid e-friends of mine such as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kitkatlj will pen thoughtful, almost academic entries about the most important social and religious issues in our world today. Others such as carrieko have an exciting life abroad. But I continue to boldly forge my blog on the anvil of idiocy, in the name of having the best idiot’s blog on LiveJournal. Let me know how I’m doing if you get the chance.
Okay, 11:45pm, I’m on the clock! Paul and I just got back from groceries. It’s a shame I didn’t have my camera with me, as they’re selling buckets of chicken-bone candies at Sobeys in Clayton Park for $124. I kid you not. The scary part is, two of them have been bought since the last time we were there!
I had a few really awkward moments today (but some of them were pretty funny). Let’s start in the morning.
I’m on the bus, sitting near these two guys having a chat:
“How was the missus’ last night?”
“Oh… well, I was exhausted this morning, let me put it that way.”
They laugh.
“How’d you like her ta-tas?”
“What? … Oh, yeah she’s got really nice b***s. Really nice.”
“Yeah… so what’s her name?”
“A***l.”
“Is that really her name or just a nick-? Wow, that’s just too f***in’ weird.”
“Yeah, her family’s Portuguese but she was born in Kuwait.”
“Where is Kuwait? Is it in Iraq?”
“No, it’s another country.”
“It’s small,” I throw in. (We had exchanged a few items of small talk already, because the questioning fellow had his suit hooked on the handbar above us, which is a good conversation starter.)
He turns to me, “I thought there was a city in Iraq called Kuwait.”
“There might be, but Kuwait the country was invaded by Iraq – that started the first Gulf War.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly a woman’s voice is heard a few rows up, addressing the answering boy. “Are you A**x?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m her sister.”
The worst part, after two of the three of us stopped chortling, was that we were on the 80, and we weren’t even at China Town yet. Boy, was that ever a long, awkward bus ride.
After my fin de siècle quiz, I puttered around for a bit and then met up with K. for lunch. First she needed to bring her books to the used book buyback, and since she had so many left over from previous semesters, she was dragging them along in a wheeled suitcase. When I first saw her I thought she was going back home today. Anyway, we took care of that as much as we could, but while some of her books would fetch $50, others would fetch $.50, so we dragged most of her books back to her apartment! (I’ve never sold a textbook yet, and I’m beginning to think that I’m not really any worse off financially for my restraint.)
On our way through the South End, we met Paul (Angela’s husband Paul, as opposed to my stepfather Paul) on the street on a coffee break with his co-workers. Paul invited us to tag along, and we chatted about our travels and the new baby Zachary, and K. knew Angela, so the conversation was easy. They left, and we went on our way, eventually coming to St. Mary’s Basilica in order to complete K.’s Religious Studies homework. (By now we’re starving.) I flipped through some hymnbooks in a vain search for something familiar while K. walked around taking notes.
She didn’t get finished, though, because we were all but forced to leave early after I walked by a guy sitting at the rearmost pew, and he murmured something “Jesus… soul,” that seemed to be directed at me.
“Pardon me?” I asked him.
“Yeah, you don’t … [indistinguishable] … FRIGGING IDIOT!!!”
At this moment K. took my arm and led me behind the wall of vestibule. “You don’t want to talk to that guy.” And K. decided that rather than risk catching his notice again, we ought to leave quietly. I feel bad for being so naïve (and essentially making K. have to come back tomorrow); I didn’t know he was a loon. But I feel even worse for him, because in running away we were being rather unkind, weren’t we? I can think back to how I was so rudely treated in high school, and a lot of it boiled down to my inability to deal effectively with other people (most of the problems arose from my negligence of letting others feel important). But when people ran away from me, it didn’t teach me anything at all, it just caused me to feel even more resentment. That poor fellow at the pew must have decades’ worth of pent up rage and frustration. It’s heartbreaking. But yet we’re both unwilling and unable to do anything about it, and we go back to our own blessed lives. It seems almost un-Christian, and yet there we were in that Christian church.
So we finally eat, at the Shoe Shop. We walk back to K.’s apartment. In order to deambiguify things, let me add that she shows me a picture of her chic-looking Cuban boyfriend. =) I go my merry way, and about a frillion minutes later I’m back on the bus heading into Bedford.
Just as we’re approaching my stop, I look out the window into the Sobeys parking lot where I’ve parked my car. It’s still where it was in the morning, except now it’s surrounded by a Christmas tree lot.
When I approached my car, a gaggle of kind rednecks poured out of their trailer and offered to move some of the trees so I could get out. I thanked them but declined, and tried to get out on my own, already embarrassed for having left my car in their way for the past eight hours. I promptly back into a tree, tipping it a few degrees askance. Then I try to pull myself around some kind of rack, and by this time I’m getting hand signals, and basically by the time I got out of there I wanted me and my car to disappear into the evening mist.
I think that’s everything, and I’m way over my time limit. Tomorrow I’ll present my thoughts on the Liberal convention – IF I get my Contemporary Canadian Fiction paper finished. If not, then no dice. Also, I have it from castusalbuscor that we may hear about our Twelfth Night auditions tomorrow. I’d better get some sleep so that I don’t answer the phone, “He-uh,huh-wha?”
tiredMar. 2nd, 2006
10:01 pm - skip this; personal junk
I've had an aversion to blogging lately. As a matter of fact, I've had an aversion to doing very much of anything. I've been lazy with a capital "L," if the six or seven novels I've read since I got back is any indication. But mostly I just bumble around in a stupor.
A few days ago I finally got my résumé fixed up and now I'm formulating a Demonstration English Lesson. (I answered the ad in The Coast for English teachers; it was placed by a Japanese agency.) Sure, I've done this a hundred times already, but now it'll be under pressure. I've rarely been so scared in my life. Sitting here right now I'm convinced that I'll hate teaching (both conventional and EFL); sure, I was all cheery and optimistic when I was writing my application essay, but now that it's put-up-or-shut-up time, I feel like sinking back into the hole* I came from. What's wrong with me? Why am I so depressed (again!?)? People like me shouldn't be doing things like this. We're not mentally fit.
* - In my case, a cliffside hospital that's now a retirement home.
I can't think my way out of a cardboard box. Dave's ESL cafe is littered with stories and anecdotes and tips from enthusiastic, youthful, passionate and energetic people. You can see how I don't think I fit in. Tonight I feel like I'm an alien about to pretend to be human for a day. I don't have any energy at all. All my smiles are false.
It'll get better. I should stress that I don't intend to travel again so soon. I know that running away from my problems doesn't work. It's too easy to zip off to a foreign country and pretend to have a life, but your old existence will be waiting for you when you get home, in all its former ignobility. I don't want to go anywhere outside Canada until at least September. In the meantime, I saw a job posting for a library clerk, and I'm going to apply for it. (I almost didn't want to tell you that. Why? Because you're no doubt asking, "Why aren't you applying for a fast food job or to the call centre?" and the truth is I have no palatable answer for you.)
Failure is knocking at my door, and I'm afraid to answer, but in my lack of answer I am effectively acknowledging Her call nonetheless.
* * *
A week or so ago I was out on a shoot with Mike Fox. We were filming Entherance Online, which is basically a more human and character-driven piece than the one I was supposed to be working on while I was in Alberta and Poland and Ukraine. I sent him what I had, but we were going in two different directions, so it's unlikely that any of my work will be incorporated into the finished product, but on the plus side I'll get a story credit and a shot at appearing on IMDB again. ("Mr. Matheson? Why are you on IMDB?" "Oh, Johnny, that was back when I had dreams and thought I was smart. ... ... Excuse me a moment.")
Actually, I had a lot of fun at the shoot. This is going to be a pretty good movie - at least as good as The Living Impaired, and possibly better. I think it'll be a sleeper hit - in the sense of people gradually waking up to some unknown movie being good rather than the sense of people falling asleep in the theatres.
I told you that story to tell you this one. My Mom still has her Christmas lights out, and often on. Mike noticed this when he pulled into my driveway. The other occupants of the car were likewise impressed by the still-present boughs and festive ribbons.
"The question is," Mike posited, "are they out late, or are they out early?"
I just about died laughing. We'd had a little stuff before getting underway, and I could barely sound out, "My Mom had them out for me... she was saving Christmas until I got home... but that was a month ago!"
A few other comments were exchanged as I almost asphyxiated in the back seat of the car. Mike and his friends thought I should ask Mom for some turkey. And...
"Tell your Mom to bring us a figgy pudding!"
* * *
There's not much else to say about that New York trip. But then again, I haven't tried. Okay, how about this: I will do SOMETHING to document it, one way or the other, by the end of this coming weekend. Even with these coming interviews and whatnot. It's actually easier to get things done when you have a bunch of things to do. It forces you to budget your time properly. I'm the sort of person who could be locked inside a room with pen and paper for a thousand years and be released carrying about ten pages hastily scrawled in the last six hours I was there. It's tough being a notwriter.
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depressed