Radio interview: CBC Toronto

Here's a sound file featuring the interview I gave on Tuesday to CBC's Here and Now, the afternoon show for southern Ontario; the host was Marichka Melnyk:

Here and Now Interview.mp3

I rather wonder how many people this will bring out to the show at Fort York tomorrow. We stopped by today to see the venue: quite a spacious hall, and hopefully large enough for the big crowd I anticipate! I've been sleeping up, so I should be in top form tomorrow evening.

Am working on a transcript of the St. John's High School show, to bring out how it differs from the "canonical" version; this is a bit slow-going, but I hope to have it up soon.

A relatively lazy day today. I spent blissful hours watching Gomery gossip on CBC Newsworld. Before Canadian readers of this blog, having absorbed that last sentence, call 9-1-1 on my behalf, I should add that I really consider it Fate's little gift to me that I should happen to be touring the country at a moment of national political crisis. Sure, I'm competing with the likes of Chuck Guite for front page coverage, but I get to see how each region responds to sustained dysfunctionality. My general conclusion: the country that plaints together stays together.

And then there are the moments of sheer bear-baiting excitement, like Question Period yesterday. In contrast to all other segments I've seen for, oh, about ten years, there were lots of apropros questions, posed passionately from the opposition side and answered with Gladstonian dignity by the Government. Layton was quite suave, indeed as airbrushed as ever; the PM looked primeministerial. My own MP, Mauril Belanger of Ottawa Centre, answered a question well, though he seems to have bought a huge 70's toupee since last election flyer. Scott Brison is looking more and more like a minor Father of Confederation. The highlight was Rahim Jaffer's departure from the script when he was ragging on Joe Volpe: you could see him getting more and more worked up as he read from his prepared question until at last, rapt in rhetorical rage, he couldn't focus on the printed page and instead just went with it -- "or will the Prime Minister fire this embarassment to Canadians?" He was on all the newscasts, too: MPs should take the lesson and quit reading their questions. It looks terrible. Not as bad as schoolboy heckling from the back benches, that disgraceful practice, but terrible nonetheless.

Deixis

I've been using more deixis in performance. I hadn't meant to, but it's crept in.

Deixis literally means "pointing" (deiknumi, to point or show). It's a linguistic term which describes the way in which language can "point to" the here&now, usually with words like "this," "that," etc. For instance, "The tree is green" is a sentence not marked by deixis, while "That there tree is green" or "Yonder mountain-top" are marked by deixis, because "That there" and "Yonder" only take their meaning with reference to the moment of utterance.

I first heard about deixis from the esteemed Egbert Bakker, now of Yale, when I studied with him as an undergrad in Montreal. As Bakker has emphasised, deixis is important for Homeric poetics becuase a poetry of performance melds the present instant (of the performer performing) and the past (of the story told). So when epic talks about "this here chariot" or what have you, it uses a type of linguistic marking (namely deixis) normally restricted to the here&now, but it applies that here&now marker to something which would normally be distant, namely the heroic past. Thus the heroic past becomes the here&now, for the duration of performance.

Well, on stage of late I've had recourse to deixis quite often. Instead of saying "the soldiers clad in red" for instance, I would say "those soldiers clad in red" or even "these soldiers clad in red." The effect on the audience is quite different: with "the" they are merely hearing another detail of the story; with "those" they are themselves referring a new detail to something they've already heard, and this knits the tale together in their minds, reassuring them that there is a continuity between what they've already heard, what they're hearing, and what (presumably) they are going to hear. This is particularly useful for ring composition, where the poem departs from the main story-line for a few verses and then returns to it, usually to accomodate brief description: by using deixis at the end of these little ring compositions, I signal to the audience that we have returned to something they already know. An example:

So there, behold, upon the left : he passed the holy nunnery
The sacred order of the nuns : as ancient as the citadel
The sisters Ursuline : who made the vow : to be the brides of Christ
So there, behold, upon his left : stood thirty ladies clothed in black
Those sisters Ursuline : who made that vow : to be the brides of Christ
And then the Marquis of Montcalm : perceived those holy women there
And straightaway he turned his steed : and reached that holy nunnery

Ah, the joys, such were the joys, of deixis!

Route so far (updated)

Here's a map of our route so far, up to Toronto. I've added in the spots we've stopped with blue dots, and noted the date of various journeys alongside.

Route up to Toronto.gif

Many browsers will scale down the image initially: click to zoom in and scroll right (it's a big image).

Blogs of omission

I've been a bad blogger of late, but a good interviewee: since arriving in Toronto I've done two radio interviews (one with Here and Now, the CBC Toronto afternoon show; the other with Les arts et les autres, the Ontario Radio-Canada noon show), and one newspaper interview (today, to The Globe and Mail). The Here and Now one was live yesterday; we made a recording but haven't had a chance to put it up yet. Les arts et les autres may air tomorrow at noon; the Globe piece may be a few days coming. (No word on the CP story as yet.)

Whew! Talking to the media is always a pleasure, but the interviews seem to happen right before or right after a performance. If they're before, I'm in the process of psyching myself up; if afterwards, I'm usually in a state of mental exhaustion. But I think they've gone well; I rather dread hearing what my accent in French sounds like -- sort of like hearing your own voice on an answering machine as you make multiple grammatical errors -- but maybe our digital equipment can correct my vowels when we get it up online.

It's great to be in Toronto. What a place, especially after so long on the road! The drive down from Sault Ste. Marie was nice, though marked by the hail/rain/sleet/freezing rain combination we are now used to (and which has incidentally 150% justified the decision to go by car this time and not by bike!). We continue to have Internet accessibility problems, perhaps because our hotel is not top-of-the-line (rates being very high here); and by God it's slow. My mind continues to boggle that this essential service should be so hard to secure. The best connection we've had yet is still the little motel in Revelstoke on our first night on the road.

And surfers shake their heads : but in their hearts : a dread and wonder dwell

to paraphrase myself.

Two school shows here in Toronto so far, both to Grade 7 and 8 classes. I think this is the most challenging age group, being neither fish nor fowl; but no one has attacked me yet. The shows are good, and would be better still if I took care to get more sleep. The public Toronto performance is on Friday at Fort York (7pm); this will probably be the biggest audience on the Tour, especially as I advertised it on the radio yesterday (with a listenership of several hundred thousand). The show will also be featured on BookTelevision!

Full-length performance video! Good sound!

Not to overshadow the North Shore post below, but here it is, a full-length video of the performance at St. John's High School in Winnipeg on Wednesday. The audio is great, and the fades are (IMHO) quite cool. This is the definitive video so far, no question: kudos to Dave for tireless and outstanding work as cameraman, sound technician, and editor.

Download the St. John's performance video clip.wmv

Some observations: Again, you may wish to enlarge the window of the video player. At many places the "text" departs from the script; there's a good deal of improvisation, both invisible and visible. I'm thinking of transcribing the video as we drive down to Toronto tomorrow, to bring out the difference between the "canonical" version and the version that appeared this time. Will try to do so, though time is scarce these days.

May Day in Sault Ste. Marie

We have reached the worker's paradise of the Soo, having passed the longitudinal meridian of Canada (the day before yesterday), the Arctic/Atlantic watershed (yesterday), and the mid-point of the Trans-Canada (today). The half-way point in terms of the schedule will be the public show in Ottawa on Sunday (2pm at the public library on Metcalfe). Here's an updated map tracing our route!

The day began in Thunder Bay, where our hotel window looked out on the Sleeping Giant, who rests on his back in front of the city:

[Sleeping Giant near Thunder Bay]

In case you can't quite see it, or dread waking him up to ask, here's the Sleeping Giant's anatomy:

[the Sleeping Giant explicated]

Get it? Well, apparently I didn't, because the explanation above is Dave's, which happens to coincide with the city of Thunder Bay's. Here is how I was seeing it:

[Sleeping Giant explicated acc. to Jack Mitchell]

Also near Thunder Bay, we of course visited the Terry Fox Memorial. Terry Fox is one of the greatest Canadians who ever lived; his story is inspiring and tragic. In brief: afflicted with cancer, which had taken one of his legs, he decided to run across Canada, from Newfoundland to the Pacific, in a Marathon of Hope to raise money for cancer research. He made it to Thunder Bay, where the cancer finally forced him to stop, and he died not long after. It is absolutely staggering that he made it half way across. Dave remarked to me, "Every kilometer we drive from now on, he ran with one leg." The 25th Anniversary was April 12th, day of the first public performance on this Tour.

[the Terry Fox Memorial]

The drive along the North Shore of Lake Superior . . . they always tell you, "Boy, it's farther than it looks, especially along the North Shore of Lake Superior there. You'll be amazed, believe me." Having been told this fairly often throughout my life, I was not amazed, and it actually seemed to go by fairly quickly. Of course, it's the largest lake in the world, so driving around it does take some time.

[the big lake they call Gitche Gumee]

Along the way, we were rather surprised to pass hundreds of inukshuks, piled atop the many cliffs along the side of the road. This is an Inuit word meaning (I believe) something like "humanitans," or something that takes the place of a human being in the landscape (usually to indicate directions). It's a pile of rocks shaped (usually) like a person; the word's been in the news recently because it forms the basis of the recently announced 2010 Olympic Games logo.

[an inukshuk]

This being Canada, some (not the Inuit themselves) have objected to the use of the inukshuk as a symbol, on the grounds that it's an Inuit, as opposed to pan-Canadian, practice. But something tells me that thousands of Inuit have not built navigation markers along the North Shore of Lake Superior; rather it really is true that a great number of Canadians have taken up the inukshuk.

[another inukshuk]

Their position on the Trans-Canada at this point is somewhat strange, I suppose, because there is only one way to go!

Oh, and we made it past Wawa safe and sound.