WHEN WINTER LOOSENS ITS GRIP

View of Wildgoose Lake from our home. The farther from shore, the blacker the ice.

I woke up this morning because the lake was growling.

Olga and I live in the bush on the shore of a lake.  Our house perches on a hill perhaps 10 metres high, about 30 metres back from the lake.  All winter we had a view of the white reaches of the lake, backdropped by evergreen-clad islands and shores.   In the last few days the surface has darkened; some areas are black; the ice is rotting.

We too are participating in one of the warmest Marches on record.  Our snow is practically gone.  Yesterday it rained – again.  Today we had both rain and sleet. 

Daffodils are pushing up to join the metal mushrooms.

We used to have a railway skirting the north shore of the lake, about three kilometres from us.  We often heard the trains passing.  However, for a few years now, there’ve been no trains.  The tracks have been pulled.  And normally, nothing breaks the silence but the yap of a dog or a snow machine racing across the ice.

But this morning, the lake growled.  It sounded very much like a freight train in the distance.  We’ve heard the sound before, and we are no longer weirded out.  Sometimes the rumbling built up to the point where it seemed the ice was climbing the hill and thumping our walls.

But it is simply a natural sound.  It is the ice growling.

Sometimes, when we stand outside, it sounds like a fighter plane has skimmed the lake surface just out of sight.

Close to thirty years ago, military aircraft did just that.  Once I was standing in front of our house when two jets streaked overhead just above the trees.  For some reason, the air force was sending pilots over our home on low-level training missions.  We are three hours away from any airport that could accommodate jet fighters.   And there are a quintillion square kilometres of wilderness in Canada without residences.  But the military gods chose our lake.

On a couple of occasions, these jets broke the sound barrier, scaring the bejesus out of us.

Now, when we stand outside, sometimes the growling and rumbling crescendos, and we expect a CT-114 Tutor to drop a package any moment.

Enormous cracks at the shoreline.

What causes the phenomenon?  I don’t know.  But I suspect it is the ice detaching itself from the shores.  Sometimes in the dead of winter, a traveler on a frozen lake will hear similar sounds, short-lived, of course.  It is the sound of ice cracking, even if it is three metres thick.  It’s a pretty unnerving experience.

One of these fine mornings we will wake up to the tinkle of ice.  Overnight a wind will have broken up the ice and reduced the floes to blocks and the blocks to shards and the shards to splinters, splinters which will be tinkling against the shore.

It will take several months then for winter to establish its grip again.

The sap is rising in these willow branches, pruned last fall.

A STORE FRONT IN BERLIN

A magical world . . . Unsourced image.

[I never believed I would ever be passing on a commercial to you, dear readers, but this show is an outstanding work of art.

The only evidence that this is a commercial, in real time in real life, comes at the end, when the name LG Optimus One with Google appears.  So, all the pyrotechnics are advertising for a smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics, Inc.  Sales began in November, 2010, and by December, 2 million units had been sold worldwide.  Futhermore, since then, according to Wikipedia, seven variants on the Optimus One have been released.

Other sources suggest that the video clip started making the rounds in virtual space in November, 2011.  It is - if this helps you understand - 3-D projection. 

The store front, by the way, remains unchanged.  Not a single new crack.  And the whales and fishes have returned to the deep . . .]

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=XVTga6GmbGw&vq=medium#t=74

SQUATCHBERRY FESTIVAL REVIVED

I don’t believe in retirement.  If I’m retired, then Stephen Harper* is a closet New Democrat.  Believe that, if your philosophy permits. 

Some time ago, I said I would catch you up on something momentous.  I’ve just taken three breaths without interruption, so I guess it’s time.

In November I and a group of literary junkies applied to Ontario Arts Council to fund a festival in Greenstone.  Actually, in Geraldton, a community in the great Municipality of Greenstone.  Greenstone – the largest municipality in the Province north of the French River.  That’s in Ontario, by the way.  Population 5,000, give or take a few hundred.  Mostly take.  Greenstone, that is.  Not Ontario.  We are large in lakes and muskeg and moose, not in people-type population.

And we supplicants on the marge of civilization got most of what we asked for.  Yikes.  Somebody down there in balmy Toronto has actually sent money and moral support to the Great White North.

Okay.  What is a squatchberry?  People have been asking that since 1975, when I founded a literary magazine called The Squatchberry Journal.  I will tell you.  Eventually.  But first about the festival . . .

On Canada Day weekend we will hold Squatchberry Literary Festival in Geraldton.  For you non-Canadians, be advised that Canada Day weekend is June 29^th and 30^th and July 1^st. 

We have a great program.  We have recruited outstanding authors from Northwestern Ontario to offer readings and workshops.  And, we will have a couple of authors whose names are household words.  If not in your household, then in literary salons throughout this great nation.  Which we call Canada.  Which surrounds a lot of Greenstone.

Okay.  ALL of Greenstone.  Jeez, you’re picky.

For further news, watch this space.

*Note: Stephen Harper, twenty-second Prime Minister of Canada.  A very conservative Conservative who never turns left.  Consequently, he always finds himself back where he started . . . in hot water.

BRINGING LIGHT TO THE MASSES

I’ve been too busy to bring you original posts, but I’ll be telling you about it later.  Meanwhile . . .

[One flash of genius can light up the world!  Right now it costs a dollar to light up your home, but if you delay, some a--hole like Donald Trump will come along, patent it, and charge you big time for one of God's gifts . . . light.]

http://www.wimp.com/lightenup/

A VALENTINE FROM THE MOTHER OF US ALL

[Hey!  What can I say?  Love is where you find it . . .]

http://www.wimp.com/babymoose

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

 

Cost of free advice = Nada : Cost of good advice = Priceless

[I follow the blog of Seth Godin, author of 12 books translated into 30 languages.  In this post, he says things such as:

"There is no such thing as effective book promotion by a book publisher."

"If you need the advance to live on, then publishers serve an essential function."

"The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out."

"Don’t try to sell your book to everyone."

"Your cover matters. Way more than you think."

"Publishing a book is not the same as printing a book."

"Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility . . . You should write one."

Enjoy . . .]

http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/01/advice-for-authors-part-one-and-part-two.html

HOW TO CHOP WOOD

A Canadian woodchopper

[There is the right way and there is the wrong way to chop wood.  Then there is my way.

I set up the stick on the chopping block, tinker with it until it stands by itself, and then I step back, poise with my axe over my head, and bring it down on the stick as hard as I can.

If I'm lucky, I split off a wedge, which lands a few steps from the block, and then the remaining stick falls off the other side.  I pick up the stick and try finding its balancing point on the chopping block, and repeat.  If I'm not thoroughly exhausted after this exercise, I try the procedure on another stick.  What fun. 

Who is this guy anyway?  Can we see his wood-chopping permit?]

http://www.ask.com/videos/watch-video/how-to-chop-wood-without-messing-around/TgVUdiaY0Bha4eTFe_n3RA?o=undefined&l=dis&ver=11&domain=ask.com

THE SOUNDING SEA

[Homer was fond of the phrase "the sounding sea".  Here we get a sense of why it awed him.  Imagine a wooden galley on this water, or the tiny caravel of Christopher Columbus.]

   http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=T4FIS1FnOQg

A SUPERIOR BOOK EVENT

Writer Peter Fergus-Moore at Chapters on Friday surprises the audience with another talent. All photos by Elle Andra-Warner.

           We’ve all heard the stories: writers are solitary creatures –unfriendly, friendless, and friendproof.

            That may be true . . . sometimes.  Certainly there have been times I felt that way, when I was writing, but . . . and this is a big BUT . . . that changes when you’re an author.  An author is a writer who has been published.

            Once a writer’s work is out there, he or she is no longer solitary.  He has friends.  And he has enemies.  And the friends and enemies are far outnumbered by the people who are entirely indifferent to who the author is and what the author writes.  They could care less.  But here’s the point: the author is no longer solitary, even if he or she is rubbing shoulders with a mass of humanity who do not know or even care about his existence.

            For the author cares.  He or she cares a lot.  The author’s role is to find friends.  Well, readers.  Who will become friends. 

            Writing may be solitary.  Authoring is a gregarious activity.

Shameless self-promoters at Coles on Saturday: Edgar Lavoie, Elle Andra-Warner, Lee Chambers.

            On January 20^th and 21^st, I and a group of authors offered readings and book signings to a Thunder Bay audience.  We performed at the Chapters Indigo store on Friday evening, and at the Coles Book Store on Saturday mid-day. 

Local TV showed up . . . Free promotion!

           We laughed, we listened, we spoke, we smiled, we read, we signed, we chatted, we chortled, we just generally had a darn good time.  We sold our books and we sold one another’s books.  We opened a great many eyes to the great things we local authors are doing, and we made a few more readers.  Which is to say, friends. 

            A great many customersto both book stores remained entirely indifferent to our presence or to our promotions.  That’s fair game.

            Serendipitously, we got a clip on the local television channel on Saturday night, and our photo in the local daily on Sunday.  No doubt that opened a few eyes of those who had been indifferent to us – they had ignored a newsworthy event.

An anti-smoking rally brushes by the authors, oblivious to their presence.

            Here’s a link to the TBT clip:          

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/Video/23685/Book-Signing-

             Now we go back to writing.  In solitude.  For a while.  Until we put on our author hats again, and reach out . . . way, way out . . . and touch a new friend.

ET – NO HOME TO PHONE

Communicating across time and space . ..

[This video depicts a terrestrial with an uncanny resemblance to the world-famous extra-terrestrial depicted by Steven Spielberg.  A powerful statement of love and loss . . .  Imagine being the last living prehistoric terrestrial on planet Earth.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR3Z4p5hspI