Category Archives: Dispatches from the Road

Storytelling at the Royal Ontario Museum

by JK

I was contacted out of the blue by the ROM, asking if I, a storyteller, born in Scotland, could come to their “Celtic Weekend” as a “Scottish Storyteller.” I said that I knew some good Scottish stories, so, yes, could come along and tell them to a mixed audience of kids and parents.

A few days later, they were back with a further inquiry. This was a Celtic weekend, so could I tell Irish and Welsh stories, too. A little research provided good stories, so I said yes, and we were all set for two 40-minute sessions, at 12:00 and at 2:00.

I sat on a throne-like chair in front of a collection of movable stools occupied by a group of kids, who included my grandchildren Lindsay (7) and Alistair (5). When I told the Irish story, about Niall of the Nine Hostages who was “The Slave Woman’s Son,” I prefaced it with a word or two about slaves in different cultures, and unwisely referred to the Haida totem pole in the space just outside our room. I explained that a visit to the Haida Museum in Skidegate reveals that the Haida were sea-raiders who took slaves, which allowed them to have a slave-supported leisure society that could create great poetry and great art, like totem poles.

This was too much for Lindsay, who dragged Jane off to see the nearby pole, from top to bottom, then loudly returned to interrupt my tale-weaving with the words “What did I miss, Grandad?”

For future reference, the Welsh tale was about “The Lady from the Lake” and the Scottish one (where Alistair proudly told his neighbours, “I know this one. I know what happens.”) was “The Good Man Of Ballangeich,” about a king passing secretly among his people, doing mediaeval public opinion surveys in a very informal way.

Just before the second show, Jane and I were roaming around the main floor of the ROM, where an all-woman Celtic band was playing fine traditional music. When they paused to ask for a song from anyone in the audience, Jane asked them if they knew the old Irish song “The Wild Rover.” When they said yes, and invited her to start singing, she demurred, saying, “Not me, him!” and thrust me forward.

So it came about that the main floor resounded to three verses of me singing “The Wild Rover” while the audience joined loudly in the chorus “And it’s no, nay, never (CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP) No, nay never no more . . .” Etcetera.

And then as I took my bow, still blushing in disbelief, the PA system cut in to announce that “The Celtic Storytelling Session is just about to begin on the fourth floor” and I had to rush off. Believe it or not, some of the audience actually followed me upstairs, for my second storytelling session.

So clearly my resume has to be updated, to include the sacred title “Celtic Storyteller.” I think we’ll leave out the entry about Irish drinking songs.

Green Door Cabaret

by Douglas Gibson

The Lower Ossington Theatre is in the trendiest part of Toronto, near the junction of trendy Queen Street, and up-and-coming Ossington, where hip new restaurants sit alongside auto repair shops and cigar factories.

The Green Door Cabaret is a new venture by my friend (and theatre agent) Bob Missen, and I put on a Sunday afternoon cabaret there. Forget about striding around a stage. I perched on a bar stool and talked about my authors, while I flashed power point caricatures on the screen that Jane and I had rented. We’re becoming pros, able to rent mikes and speakers, or projectors and screens, as necessary.

Forty-five brave souls made up the (paying) audience, and it went well, give or take the odd technical glitch with the music that accompanies the slides. And I got to see a lot of old friends, including the amazing bookseller, Janet Inksetter. She earns the adjective this time by revealing that she read my entire book at one sitting! Surely an award of some sort is in order. And a job as a speed-reading book reviewer.

— Douglas Gibson

Supporting Striking Library Workers

by Douglas Gibson

On Sunday, March 25, the Writers’ Union of Canada joined the ongoing demonstration by striking library workers outside the Metro Reference Library. As an honorary member of the union, I was glad to be able to lend my support to this event, which was organized by Susan Swan and headed by TWUC President Greg Hollingshead.

After Greg and Susan, a number of other authors spoke briefly but vigorously in favour of libraries and their workers.  These speakers included Ken McGoogan, (the head of the Public Lending Right committee, which ensures that authors are recompensed for the use of their books in libraries), Erika Ritter, and me.

Photo: TPLWU Local 4948

I spoke (entirely unofficially) on behalf of publishers, none of whom were present (ahem), noting that publishers knew and appreciated the role of librarians. Then I spoke as an author, and as a member of the union who was glad to participate  in the event. I explained that I was a writer who had benefited from the libraries, pointing to the adjoining Reference Library and announcing that I had researched my own book “right there.”

Then I commented on the famous proudly ignorant statement by Doug Ford that he would not recognize the (library-supporting) Margaret Atwood if she passed him “in the street.” I was able to tell the crowd that in June I was in Kirkwall, a small town in the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. There an excited Scot stopped me in the street, saying, “My wife’s just seen Margaret Atwood!” Since Margaret and I were both staff members of the visiting Adventure Canada cruise I was able to confirm the sighting, and he went off, thrilled. Clearly, people around the world do recognize Toronto’s famous author in the street. Doug Ford – who embarrasses Dougs everywhere – should himself be embarrassed.

I did not go on to comment that Rob and Doug Ford do not strike me (and this may be an unfair assumption) as people whose worldview has been shaped by much time spent in libraries. Nor did I go on to suggest that the library workers are in the front lines of a battle that concerns us all; battle between Tea Party-inspired politicians who believe that all taxes are bad, and must always be cut, and never, ever raised. This has led to an extraordinary event in Silicon Valley (as I learned on a brief recent trip to California) where there is extreme, billion-dollar private affluence alongside public squalor, with closed libraries, crowded schools and bad roads. The situation is so bad that major players at the head of some  Silicon Valley companies are organizing to raise private funds in support of public services. One company spokesman noted that people don’t like living in communities with these public flaws, hence the new fundraising movement.

It all reminds me of the American judge (was it Oliver Wendell Holmes?) who said flatly, “I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” I’m sorry now that I didn’t lead the crowd in a chant: “What Do We Want? . . . Civilization! When Do We Want It? Now!”

But, clad in my bright yellow, orange and red Buchanan tartan shirt, I learned a useful tip about making outdoor speeches against the roar of passing traffic. Speak loudly, and wear a loud shirt.

— Douglas Gibson

CBC Stuff

by JK

January was a big Scottish month for me, but it was for the CBC, too, and I found myself as “a prominent Canadian Scot” playing two unexpected roles.

First, on Michael Enright’s excellent CBC radio show The Sunday Edition on Jan. 22 I was part of a discussion involving me, a Canadian born in Scotland, and Luke Skipper, a Canadian raised in Alice Munro country (Kincardine) who now works in London for the Scottish Government as they try to arrange a referendum on Scottish Independence. On a recent visit to Scotland I roamed around doing an informal survey of opinion on the matter and found a wide range of responses.

Our discussion was interesting, but I was so busy answering Michael’s last question (if Scottish expatriates were allowed to vote on this, how would you vote) by explaining that I was an outsider and had no fixed opinion, that I failed to make the general point that I do not believe that Canadians should vote in any foreign election.

I’m glad to be able to state that now.

Second, an email on Saturday, January 21 from George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight said that they needed someone to do a funny stand-up talk about Scottish words that might baffle a Canadian visitor.

These Strombo guys work fast! By Monday at 1 p.m. I was standing outside the CBC studio (wearing a tartan shirt . . . the man has no shame) talking into a camera, beginning with the words “Hi, George,” though I never saw him at any point. The two guys running the shoot, Fraser and Andrew, did a great job of spinning straw into gold, producing a passable clip that was apparently seen by every living Canadian between the ages of 20 and 40. You can find it on this blog.

January

by JK

Since Rabbie Burns Day falls on January 25, this is a big Scottish month. And since I grew up in Burns Country (Ayrshire) in Scotland, speaking the language, I’m kept pretty busy going around making speeches at Burns Suppers in Toronto, Hamilton, and Montreal (even once being re-imported to Scotland to do so). My Translation of “The Address to the Haggis” into modern Canadian has made me thousands of dollars, and over the years has become semi-official, so that it is featured at the annual event staged at home by Margaret Atwood and Graeme (no relation) Gibson.

This year I did my stuff at a Scottish Studies fundraiser at The Granite Club (scandalizing the audience by revealing a Burns link with the slave trade). On the day itself I marched around the Burns statue in Allan Gardens with 20 other kilted eccentrics (at the pub afterwards, a “warm up event” in the fullest sense) I concluded the “Toast to the Lassies” with the story of the lovestruck John Kenneth Galbraith, the farm girl who was the object of his affections, and the cow. It’s in my chapter on Robertson Davies, who loved the story.

Christmas Holidays

by Douglas Gibson

And indeed I did retire for the Christmas season, which was devoted to the usual family stuff, with the usual range of turkey and vegetarian dishes on offer, and kids pausing only occasionally to sit down at the table. They obviously had never studied any Norman Rockwell paintings.

One unique aspect of this Christmas is that friends and neighbours would show up at the door asking me to sign the books that they had bought as gifts (for especially lucky loved ones). I was always happy to do it. We even considered hanging a sign on the door . . . “Books Signed Here.”

Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer in Burlington

by Douglas Gibson

This was the last pre-Christmas show, and in several ways it was the biggest.

Ian Elliot at A Different Drummer Books had bravely booked the new Burlington Arts Centre (recently opened by Stephen Harper, and then filled in its main space by Sarah McLachlan). Even more bravely, he had asked me to do the full 90-minute version of the show.

The hall (the smaller of the two) was so new that the sound guys were still finding out which system worked. This delayed the start, meaning that the crowd was kept in the lobby, outside the closed theatre doors. I took the chance to go out and roam around, explaining that there was just a brief technical hitch, and we’d be starting soon. The best part was that I was able to meet lots of old friends and colleagues and to make some new ones, so when the show started I felt at home.

In the end 125 people showed up to fill the place, paying $10.00 for the privilege. Best of all, Ian reported that a staff usher on duty, who had been disgruntled at not being assigned the (very expensive) Sarah McLachlan show, felt compensated, at least partly.

People in the audience seemed to like it, with an enthusiastic minority giving me a standing ovation . . . or perhaps their legs were cramping after 90 minutes. I was delighted when Ian reported that one man told him, “I had no idea what to expect of the evening . . . but, God, he was good!” I’m going to retire now.

Another Bookstore Lesson

by Douglas Gibson

I dropped in on Book City’s Danforth Avenue store, fresh from buying a Big Carrot tofurkey for the vegetarian troublemakers around our Christmas table.

The elder statesman of the Toronto chain, the eminent Frans Donker, happened to be in the store, and greeted me warmly. He urged me to sign the two copies of my book, then went looking for a third copy out on the shelves. He returned, shaking his head over that copy. The flap had been carefully folded over to mark a place two-thirds of the way through the book. Some anonymous browser had apparently been working his or her way through the book, and was nearing the end — without any messy expenditure of dollars.

I’m torn between pleasure that this discriminating reader would sacrifice a part of lunch-hour each day to drink in my stories — and outrage that the book is being devoured for free. I’d love to meet the culprit. We could have an interesting conversation.

As for the life of a bookseller, who could have predicted this?

— Douglas Gibson

Back in Toronto

by Douglas Gibson

On November 30th (St. Andrew’s Day, a big day for haggis-eaters everywhere), I was lucky enough to be the first speaker in a lunch series hosted by the Literary Review of Canada and the Gardiner Museum, which provided the venue. At the top floor’s southwest corner we all gathered in a pleasant room with tables and chairs arrayed before the screen.

While people munched through their paper-bag lunch (yes, it was a brown bag), I whizzed through the Tony Jenkins caricatures, then asked the audience for suggestions about which authors they’d like to hear about. The questions came thick and fast (they always do) and I was able to be a polar bear gutting James Houston’s husky or Morley Callaghan knocking down Ernest Hemingway, and so on.

At the end I signed a dozen copies or so. As I was leaving my signing place, compliments still ringing in my ears, I was approached by an elderly member of my audience. I stooped graciously to accept her comments.  “I notice,” she said, severely, “that frequently you use ‘who’ when it should be ‘whom.’  ‘Who’ is the subjective, and ‘whom’ the objective case.”

I thanked her, as objectively as I could.

Barnstorming, Day 3: Guelph

by Douglas Gibson

The London morning starts with a visit to “the oldest brick house in London,” now occupied by our friends Robert Collins and Mary Lake. Not only did they take our gang to dinner last night, they bought 10 copies of my book, and I’m delighted to spend much of the morning signing them. Then a London lunch with friends and relatives Judy and Peter Castle, before we hit the trail to Guelph.

First destination was the University Art Gallery, where Judy Nasby, knowing of my James Houston-inspired love of Inuit Art, took us around a behind the scenes Inuit display. An interesting gallery.

Downtown we park near The Book Shelf, and Jane starts the set-up with Dan, who runs the show there. I return from the car with the computer hearing Jane’s voice saying, “One, two, three, testing, testing . . . ” She really is into the “techie”( even the “roadie”) role!

The theatre setting there is in the upstairs café, and the stage is about two paces wide. But I am now an old pro, Dan is very helpful on the sound system and the show goes on, in front of an audience that includes Daniel, son of Alistair MacLeod (and I claimed that I had to tone down my criticism of his father, due to his presence); Jacquie, daughter of Max and Monique Nemni;  J.R. Tim Struthers, the critic; and Stephen Henighan (ditto, and an interesting writer on the publishing world, as I’m pleased to tell him). Above all, the crowd of perhaps 50 includes my old friend, the distinguished editor Jonathan Webb, who writes an unexpected review of the show that pleases me a lot. I’m especially amused by his description of me as a “self-deprecating, self-assured Scot.”

The Guelph evening ended with kind words from Dan and a fine dinner in the café, courtesy of my old friend Doug Minett. And so, back home, arriving just before midnight.

This bookselling business is hard work.

— Douglas Gibson