Glen Hirshberg's Blog - Posts Tagged "2014"

T.R.U.E. (Tuesday Round-up of Everything), Week of 7/22, Post #1

In between Ian Rogers' superb reading and mine last week at the ChiZine event in Toronto, Kari Maaren and her ukelele popped up onstage and delivered a ripping, rousing version of this song. Having just heard it again, I've decided that it's even funnier and smarter than I thought. It doesn't just skewer the entire Canadian literary establishment; it pretty much nails the rampant snobbery among that substantial garrison of the entire English-speaking literary world hellbent on keeping Literature safe from anyone with an imagination. Best, funniest piece of litcrit I've sung all year:
CanLit

Across Ontario in a spitting, frigid Canadian rain borrowed from the fall (courtesy, apparently, of the Japanese typhoon), into Michigan for maybe the third time since it stopped being my home, 35 years ago, now. Winding with my son down the 696, waiting for the names on the signs to start ringing things inside me,



and a few of them maybe did--Evergreen, Southfield, Cider Mill--but mostly the words just knocked other words around, like one of those hanging ball-toys where the balls at either end fly up when you knock them, but the ones in the center don't move anymore. Stay dead. View of the Detroit Zoo watertower--that chimed. Don't know why. Piano-lessons-very-old-friend-deli near there, when I was very, very young. The birches--forgot their trunks were so spindly--like crossed legs at the edge of the forest.

But my home is where my home is NOW, turns out. Where my kids are. And I have more nostalgia every day at my writing desk, just because that's where those feelings typically get summoned and put to use.

However. Having arrived, tired, in Ann Arbor, we did discover an Olga's down the block. And so I gave Sid one of those. Had one myself, for the first time in 12 years, second in 35. THAT rang me, alright. I'm ringing, still...



Tigers at Comerica and the oldest friends I will ever have (as in, the friends who lived next door to me almost from the day I was born) tomorrow. Then a Motherless Child tour grand finale rush at Literati in Ann Arbor, Schuler's in East Lansing. Then home, to my home.

Much smaller crowd tonight, but one of the great experiences of the whole trip, because Lorna and Mary and Annette--the Furies of the Merril--toured me through the Merril Collection. First edition Dracula, anyone?



Gorgeous William Timlin The Ship That Sailed to Mars whose illustrations could--should--hang in galleries showcasing the most haunting fantastical art ever dreamed and executed? How about the first issue of "Amazing Stories", its colors lurid-bright and glowing? Beautiful Lud-in-the-Mist, impossibly elegant, musty old Dunsanys and Machens. Stories about researchers needing to know about the color of the insides of Batman's mouth, about Margaret Atwood holing up in the stacks, told by the Furies,



two of them easily sixty, one of them stuttering, all of them ferociously passionate about and in love with the work they catalog and treasure.

Whether or not this tour, or this book, or any of my books ever "breaks out" (whatever that means)...they are already here. Already nestling in and resting. Sweet little Cthulhu things, among the Old Gods. Right where they belong. Home.



Then of course more fantastic conversation with Carolyn and Michael Kelly, Simon Strantzas (who either has a LOT of gas or else smiles much more easily and often than you people have been letting on), and Bob Knowlton (who acquired many of the Merril's treasures, including the DRAC). A memorable more than a profitable night, perhaps. Which I'll take, every time...

(photos courtesy Michael Kelly)

No readings today, no events, just my boy and me. So what do my boy and I do when we're alone in a city worth loving (see similar post below)? Walk forever, naturally. East and south this time, collecting stories as we went. The Mad Cows of Osgood Hall, Toronto? That's some funky justice-system issues you've got. Then there's the Grand Hall, or whatever you call it, in the Hockey Hall of Fame, where you keep that thing. That Cup thing? I've seen a room like that once before. Napoleon buried himself in it.



Oh, the Canadian humility.

Then to the First Post Office (which was fantastic), to St. Lawrence Market for "Peameal Bacon" (which you're really going to have to explain to us, because there were handmade wild cherry perogies and gorgeous Indian stews bubbling right nearby, and yet we honored your wishes, got the sandwich). Gregg Hirshberg, this one's for you, because I'm not sure it's possible to get a lunch that is more completely and definitively meat-on-bread. Simon Stranzas, you were so right.

Then all the way east to the Distillery District, where that chocolate shop is, and that's more like it: chocolate sour cherries, birch branches stuffed with cherries and hazelnuts, the Douglas Fir truffle. Plus, those are some seriously atmospheric streets. Good feet-on-cobblestones sound all around. Some subtle, lovely art in the galleries.

Then all along the waterfront (at least, we hear there's waterfront; this was more constructionfront), staring at the architecture, which is remarkable everywhere here, reminds me of Prague, so many styles and eras tumbled together. Glass sail building flying above 170 year-old stone cathedral, etc. Sid wanted to check out the aquarium, so that's where we went, and that's one fine aquarium. Communed with the octopi, marveled at the Goliath Grouper



(and the little tidbit on the sign about the Goliath's ability to unleash a sound from its bladder that can be felt miles away to terrify potential predators, prompting Sid to rename the fish Grampy--sorry, Jerry Hirshberg, but he's a perceptive kid, and he calls 'em like he smells 'em), stared up at the sawfish in the towering tanks over the tunnel.

Then we were going to go back to our little room, exhausted. But the Blue Jays were playing. So we went there instead.

Not the most restful possible break-day before the last events of the tour. Just the best possible.

Great, great night reading at the Round Venue with the tremendously talented Ian Rogers and Sally McBride



while getting just a taste of the remarkable speculative fiction scene bubbling around Toronto and environs just now. Matzoh balls, corned beef, and a Nigel Kneale/Mordecai Richler/untranslated spooky French Canadians discussion with the Tribunal (Peter Halasz and Bob Knowlton) at Caplansky's (where they "kick it old Schul") beforehand. Then a warm, laughing, spook-filled night in the easy company of gifted, welcoming, fascinating people like Richard Gavin, Michael Rowe, Gemma Files, Michael Kelly and Carolyn Kelly, David Nickle, Ian and Kathryn Verlhurst-Rogers, Sean Moreland, Dominik Parisien (who needs to get well), Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory of Chizine...



it was so fun and so lively, I swear I saw Simon Strantzas smile. Twice. (If I left anyone out, please forgive me. A little bleary and buzzing with it all this morning.) Quite a thing you have going on here, folks. You should treasure it. Thanks for letting me be part of it.

Final Motherless Child East/Midwest Tour Stats:



Read to: I don't know, maybe 400 people?

Sold: didn't keep track. Decent number of books. Would have sold more if there had actually BEEN books at Readercon or in Toronto. But it's a long game...

Met: At least thirty people I did not previously know (at least not personally) who will add color and kindness and stories and new light to my life.



Reconnected: With approximately ten people who already add all of the above to my life, and whom I haven't seen in way too long.

Wrote: Every single day. In hotels. In a train station. In a coffee shop.

Spent: It's a good sign, right, that I typed this word intending to comment on the six sweet days with my son, walking everywhere, talking when he felt like talking, presenting obscure tomes to each other, inventing personal Monty Python skits, communing with fishes and horror writers. And only then realized the word could also apply to the money.

I suppose I could also comment on the money. That line would read: Less than I could have. More than I'm comfortable with. Enough that I'll notice. Not enough that I'd trade one second of these days to get it back.

Bottom line: Met people. Got Sid time. Read stories. Listened to stories. Walked cities. Made friends. Remade friends. Saw the Tigers. Ate nanaimos. Ate cheese curds. Wrote to within 10 pages of the end of Good Girls . Missed my wife and my girl. Lived hard. Lived well. Went home grateful.

The Art of Fear at Comic-Con

Comic-Con bound, to moderate this puppy, alongside these gifted people: Mira Grant (Parasite), G. Michael Hopf (The New World Series), Katherine Howe (Conversion), April Genevieve Tucholke (Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea), Brenna Yovanoff (Fiendish), and James Rollins (The 6th Extinction).

Room 8 2:30-3:30

Signing afterward from 4-5. Come find me.

Just arrived: my contributor's copies of Paula Guran's The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2014 Edition antho, which features BOTH Peter Atkins' and my stories from last year's Rolling Darkness Revue (The Imposter's Monocle). My story, "Pride," is the second of my tales featuring the Collector, my vaguely Mysterious Mr. Quin-style central figure--more catalyst than occult detective or even protagonist--and the second straight to appear in one of the major year's best collections. Lots of great stuff in this book, from Nathan Ballingrud, Kit Reed, Dale Bailey, Steve Duffy, Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, and more. And Peter Atkins's story may be my favorite single thing he's done, which is saying a serious something, as far as I'm concerned.