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.

In Thunder Bay

[reading my handy all-in-one Homer edition en route]

We're now in Thunder Bay, fairly tired. A beautiful drive today: one climbs into the Canadian Shield very quickly (it happened when Dave was changing tapes, so the camera missed it!), and the change from flat, tree-speckled prairie to embouldered, lake-bearing Shield is very striking. We also passed across the Arctic/Atlantic watershed line on the Trans-Canada (not far past Upsala, if I recall correctly). Some splendid pics for upload, but I'll add them to this post a bit later.

Internet access . . . well, it's working, isn't it? It's easy to forget that there are large chunks of the world, say 99%, for whom the Internet is somehow not as important as toothpaste. These fine folks do not suffer panic attacks when unable to check their email every day; they still know how to use the Yellow Pages; they wonder who the guy is with the bags under his eyes sitting in the lobby of their hotel, his power cable fully extended as he stretches his laptop towards the one known wireless node, clutching his brow as the signal sputters. O sancta simplicitas!

---

Added on May Day: pics as promised


[into the Canadian Shield: note rocks, hills, trees]


[Dave at the watershed line; behind him, things are flowing into the Arctic]


[me at the watershed line; behind me, things are flowing into the Atlantic]

Farewell to Winnipeg

Pardon the blog's silence these last 48 hours; it's been a hectic, though altogether rewarding, time in this fair city. Here's a pic for the blog's loyal foreign readers:

[Winnipeg, April 27; the white area is snow-covered, eh?]

This was the view from our hotel window two of the last three days; it has also been hailing intermittently. But I dare not show my trepidation, lest I provoke the contempt of these stalwart all-weather Winnipeggers. Entre nous autres, however, the wind is icy.

We just came from the public show here, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. An impressive building, and an impressive venue: a 200 seat auditorium, complete with expert lighting technician, which we managed to fill to about 1/5th full. Not bad!

We also had the pleasure of seeing Annie Forget at the show, the program coordinator at the Dominion Institute; and many fine members of the Fraser Highlanders were on hand. Mjr James Oborne, who is an authentic modern fur-trader and a director of the North-West Company (which still exists and does a flourishing trade throughout the North, just like back in the 18th century), is their officer commanding, and he gave a very interesting introduction to the poem and to the historical period. He was particularly pleased at the references to the Fraser Highlanders and their key contribution to the British effort in the Siege and battle; I've been working to include more of this, and I'm glad to see it paid off: the Frasers are exigent historians, and they approved.

[Mjr. James Oborne introducing the poem with historical commentary]

The show itself could have gone better, from my POV as performer; I stumbled twice, and there was a good deal of (invisible) stitching and improvisation. Also, I need to work on air/lung-management, especially on spontaneously enjambing lines: being reduced to a desperate, brave, unyielding croak is great for death scenes (of which I have at least two, of course), but a couple of times this happened inopportunely, as in

The officers and volunteers : whose glory now shall never die

which doesn't really get the message across, acoustically speaking.


[onstage at the Winnipeg Art Gallery]

We hit the road bright and early tomorrow for Toronto, passing through Wawa on Sunday. I will try and post (we have another, better video in the pipe) but may be at the mercy of Internet-accessibility. Our gas guage has begun working again, though, which is perhaps all too reassuring.

----

Added note: I've at last got the Video Clips and Digital Pics archive going on the website: there you can find all the video clips posted to the blog, plus a good number of never-before-seen-photos of both tour and trip.

Full performance video!

Here it is, a full video of the whole performance at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon (this last Sunday). Click on the following link!

Saskatoon performance.wmv

Notes: It's a large file (112 mb) but I hope it will stream. (If not, we will take it down and fix it.) You may wish to increase the size of the .wmv player (it doesn't lose much in quality). Also, the sound could be better; we had a technical glitch on that front.

I just performed at St. John's High School on the North Side of Winnipeg; about 60 students in the audience, and we should have better sound for the footage we got. We are working to upload this show too -- quite soon!

Was interviewed the The Beaver this afternoon; they are doing a profile of me, which will likely appear in the August-September issue.

Winnipeg reached

We have reached Winnipeg. What a fine city. The streets hum with life; history lurks on every block. It's a mite chilly today, at least for those of us used to the perpetual 20 degrees celsius of Silicon Valley; it was about 3 degrees on the Yellowhead, the great northern branch of the Trans-Canada which links Saskatoon to Winnipeg, or say minus 15 with the wind chill.

Tomorrow I start the Winnipeg shows with a performance at St. John's High School; a writer from The Beaver magazine will be there covering the show, and there are rumours of further media coverage for Thursday and Friday. Tonight Dave and I happily reunited with our paternal grandmother, Mary Lamont, one of the country's great readers. The Lamont branch of our family lives here, and we are preparing to meet more relatives than we knew we had, at dinner on Thursday; tonight we saw, besides our grandmother, two great aunts, one step-second cousin, and the sister of our first-cousin-once-removed-in-law. It was thanks to the Lamont clan that I learned my genealogical terms.

We are once again on the cusp of a major video upload. The proof: we just upgraded the video-rendering computer by 1 gig of RAM. Stay tuned; we're psyched.

Three Weeks on the Road

Just noticed that we've been on the road for three weeks: we left California on April 4th. Of course, the Tour proper did not begin until April 12th, or two weeks ago tomorrow, but physiologically speaking that's a footnote! We've driven just under 4000km so far. One certainly loses track of the passage of time; there are no "normal" days, and glancing at the schedule I see there are not likely to be any in the future! A few very stray notes:

• We continue to roll up rims, and to win nothing.
• Our schedule is nowhere near as intense as Blue Rodeo's, who played tonight in Saskatoon (just after I mentioned their great live show on this blog; we thought of going but had a lot to do; also, they're playing in Winnipeg later this week!)
• We are rather afraid of the upcoming drive from Winnipeg to Toronto. Not only is it three 10-hour days, with doubtful Internet-accessibility, but we will have to pass through Wawa, the Bermuda Triangle of the Trans-Canada.
• We are acquiring books at a reckless rate. Part of this is owing to my dropping off brochures in bookstores prior to the public shows. Since many of these are used book stores, a) a lot of time is wasted in wandering around the stacks, and b) I have to face the fact that I have a problem. (Just picked up three stray histories of New France, for instance: Thomas Costain, The White and the Gold; J. L. Rutledge, Century of Conflict; W. J. Eccles, Canada Under Louis XIV. The first is both jocose and appallingly racist; the second is rather romantic; the third is outstanding & much recommended. Dave also found two ancient Greek textbooks from way back when at a bookstore in rural Alberta; he's making amazing progress.)
• Today I bought a new pair of black pants, to be featured in future performances. "Pure polyester!" the salesman remarked with great satisfaction.

Saskatoon show at WDM

[onstage in Saskatoon]

We just got back from the Saskatoon show, which was at the Western Development Museum. It was probably the best show to date.


[facing the audience]

I improvised a good deal, but in a seamless manner (if I do say so myself). In one line there were two extra syllables, but I enjambed straight into the next line so it didn't faze the audience! Nearly a full 700 lines, but only one guy at the back was fidgeting. My goal remains to hold the whole audience, though, so there is room for improvement. We are planning a huge video upload from this show, so watch this space.


[Main Street in Boomtown]

The venue was superb. If you're ever in Saskatoon, you must see it. It's one huge space, an indoor Main Street from 1910 (of a fictional "Boomtown"). As much of it is the result of volunteer labour, one comes away (yet again) with admiration for the civic spirit of Saskatchewan.

We also ran into the great Dan Ring, a semi-legendary figure, who works at the Mendel Gallery. I had stayed at his place on Rhapsodic Tour 2000, when the bike all but died literally as I rolled up his driveway (after a 10 hour ride from Winnipeg). So I was his guest that year for rather longer than he anticipated, drinking Pil in the warm prairie summer sun; I gave my interview to As It Happens sitting on his living room couch. A pleasure to get the chance to introduce Dave to him; the guy is about the most bohemian person ever to walk the face of the earth, with a bottomless store of amazing stories. We had some good Pils tonight too, at a bar where he used to play guitar while chairs were broken over people's backs.

[a Pil]

Prairie tour video

Dave has been working overtime with the video material, and here's a taste: a short (2 min) little montage of us driving from Calgary to Saskatoon.

It features the song White Rose by Slaid Cleeves, off the tribute album to Fred Eaglesmith.

We're hoping to upload a full performance video before long; possibly the upcoming one at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, today at 7pm (mapped here).

Foreign readers may be mystified by the reference at the end of the clip to Tim Horton's, the strangely potent, certainly ubiquitous national coffee&doughnut-shop icon. No kidding, it's a cult. We have so far rolled up the rim and won nothing eight times.

Route so far (map link)

Out of sheer idleness, and because Google Maps is so cool, I've put together a little map showing our route so far.

Across the Prairies to Saskatoon

[the prairie in April]

We've made it to Saskatoon after a, well, epic drive across Alberta and up through western Saskatchewan.

It's hard for a non-native to talk about the Prairies without falling into clichés, so I'll just say it: the prairie is incredibly flat, and it's incredibly beautiful. And the beauty lies in the flatness. The whole way to Medicine Hat I kept telling Dave, who periodically remarked that things were looking rather flatter than they had been around Banff, that he'd as yet seen all but nothing (beautiful as the Alberta grazing lands are). Then he took to observing that, while a certain levelness was never very far off, the fabled flatness of the Prairies was broken by some rolling patches, wasn't it? But by the time I took the following picture --

-- there was no more room for light-hearted debate. Saskatchewan has the purest relationship to earth and sky of any region of the world, and you feel your mind adjust. It should be humbling, but it also makes you feel more important. And we've been comparing notes on how friendly the people are, which has got to be the effect of this unearthly, yet so earthy, enviornment.

[barns on SK Hwy 21]

All this, of course, should set the simile-producing gears going in my brain; I can't help thinking that my prairie simile --

As when upon the western plains : the threat'ning thunderclouds approach
And all at once a dreadful rain : pours down in thick and lashing drops
It floods a peaceful river valley : drowning man and beast alike
And from a lonely knoll : survivors gaze : and weep for ruined life
With just such sudden force the English : fired against the charging French . . .

is rather inadequate, and not only because it was pretty cloudless. But then the idea behind the similes is to use Canadian landscape to express action (in contrast to Homer, who in his similes mostly expresses character through non-human animate life); and what sort of action is worthy of, or equivalent to, the Saskatchewan sky? Perhaps the battlefield the morning afterwards? That could be quite moving; but the Tour episode ends the night of the battle.

Quite a lot of driving.

[me hurtling down the road]

The Calgary-Saskatoon road music was mostly from the tribute album to Fred Eaglesmith (including White Rose, performed by Slaid Cleeves); Radiohead's Amnesiac; and of course the Blue Rodeo live album (disc 2) which we listened to several times. Blue Rodeo is really one of the great live bands of all time.

Calgary school shows

Yesterday and today I performed in the two school shows, one at Richmond Elementary School in a residential neighbourhood of Calgary, the other at Chestermere Secondary School about 10 minutes outside town on the Trans-Canada. They both went well, but I had quite different audiences for the two performances: at Richmond, the kids looked to be about 9-10 (I know, it's appalling that I can't say for sure; they were small, though), while at Chestermere they must have been between 14 and 17. About 50 students in the audience at Richmond, and perhaps 150-180 at Chestermere.

For the young kids, the key thing was to abandon anything harsh and forbidding about the performance style (i.e. no "song tones" or quasi-chanting -- just plain metrical storytelling in my normal voice). Also, I managed to compress the story down to under 20 minutes, which was key. We had questions before and after -- extremely interesting ones, I may say: what bright kids -- and I think I held their attention completely after the first two or three minutes (it always takes an audience some time to adapt their minds to the meter, and then they're hooked).

At Chestermere, with older students, it was more difficult to guage what they would like; also, whereas I'd been in a fully lit room (the library) at Richmond, here I was in the gym with the lights on me and the audience in darkness. In some ways it's easier not to see the audience, but the intimacy of a fully lit room is also nice; hard to say which is better, as fundamentally different as the two spaces (lit and non-lit) are. Anyway, the Chestermere show today also went well, though I felt very tired by the end; I'm looking forward to a brief break as we head to Saskatoon. I also signed some autographs!

The technical end of things, both in terms of setting up sound and light and in terms of video recording, is going so well. Dave has really mastered all this stuff, and I'm so grateful for his untiring labour: I don't know how this Tour could happen without it.

Here are some snapshots of the Chestermere show:


[getting ready for the show]



[speaking in character]


[I think this is the description of the "solemn Ottawa" (the First Nation, not the town poised for the PM's sudden Party Political)]


["Behold, the bright red blood flowed forth : and spilled across his coat and clothes"]

Update: I forgot to mention that there are a few pics of our trip through the Mountains, added below.

Octameter vs. Tetrameter

I had the pleasure of getting a good metrics-oriented email from Professor Reviel Netz of Stanford Classics the other day, and I thank him for letting me put it up. Regarding my remarks on iambic octameter, he writes (with links added by me, for some metrical terms readers may not be familiar with):

I still doubt that your poem is in octameter. I am not sure octameters exist. This is rather like saying that elegies are written in hendecameter. I do believe your poem is written in tetrameter with a fixed relation between odd and even lines (which has the same character as, say, that of the rhymed lines in heroic couplets). The theoretical reason to doubt the existence of lines above the 6-7 feet length has to do with the assumption that prosodic units are marked by hierarchical structures, so that we have morae - syllables - feet - cola - lines; with each level containing 2-3 constituents from the level underneath it. One can say that it is a matter of terminology, then, where we stop and call a level a "line"; but the recognition of a structural level makes it at least clear that the pentameter in an iambic pentameter, as well as the hexameter in epic, as well as the hexameter in Alexandrine, as well as the classic Russian tetrameter, all belong to the same level, whereas your 16 syllables belong to a higher level.

These are excellent observations and, I believe, quite true, especially as regards the basic, two-part line which structures c. 80% of the verses in the poem. Audiences used to compliment me on my tetrametric (4-foot, 8-syllable) consistency, at which my heart would sink: the idea behind the meter was to develop a line of a weight equal to Homer's dactylic hexameter, not to pair courtly tetrameters (as much as I appreciate that mode).

But I think Prof. Netz is right to note that we are dealing with a question of terminology. Certainly, it is the case that the dactylic hexameter --

~ u u ~ u u ~ | u u ~ u u ~ u u ~ ~ [or]
~ u u ~ u u ~ u | u ~ u u ~ u u ~ ~ [with ~=long, u=short]

-- was, in the hands of the skilled Alexandrian and Roman poets, a complete unity; this is why we speak of hyperbaton and not enjambment; indeed, a Latin hexameter (or pentameter for that matter) is hardly a hexameter without necessary hyperbaton.

Nevertheless, I believe the startling regularity with which the Homeric hexameter breaks its lines at the medial caesura (I forget the exact figure, but it's over 80%; and the remaining 20% might also qualify if we allow for artistic overstepping of the caesura; it's really only Rising Threefolders [~ u u ~ | u u ~ u u ~ | u u ~ u u ~ ~] that break the pattern) is traceable to the very origins of the hexameter, as suggested both by Nagy and West: the original independent metrical unit, expressing a single thought in (usually) two morae, and which has come to be called a colon, and which would have fit Prof. Netz's definition of a "line" (on par with Russian tetrameter, for instance), would have been something like:

x x ~ u u ~

evolving into something like

~ u u ~ u u ~ [a hemiepes]

give or take a syllable at the beginning or end. These would then have been paired in a manner characteristic of Indoeuropean poetry (and other poetries) in general -- a sort of couplet. For instance, in Beowulf, we find the line (101):

fyrene fremman : feond on helle
[to fashion evils, that fiend of hell]

Thus, in Steisichorus, we find the altogether unimaginable (for Homer) scheme:

~ u u ~ u u ~ | u ~ u u ~ u u ~ ~

and similar syllable-variation at the beginning and at the caesura, surely pointing to a phase in which the first half-line and the second half-line had not been welded together into the regular Homeric hexameter. (I believe no one has ever studied this on a formulaic level -- hearken, fellow young Homerists, this would be very interesting!)

So, what are we to call the un-hyperbaton-ised Homeric hexameter? A line (in Prof. Netz's excellent terms) with two cola, or rather two lines welded together? Is it perhaps somewhere in between, with lines like

(I.80)
[He is mighty among the Argives, and the Achaeans obey him]

being (diachronically, but also synchronically) two lines welded together, and lines like

(I.92)
[Who now claims to be by far the best of the Achaeans]

being complete wholes, and thus single "lines" all by themselves? Prof. Netz is entirely right that my "iambic octameter" is only octameter in the sense that I.80 above is true hexameter, as we know it from a later period; but full Steisichorean freedom (allowing feminine end in the first half line but beginning the second with an unaccented syllable) does not work with my verse -- indeed, I've noticed that the odd slip in this regard distracts the audience out of its semi-hypnosis. Perhaps I'm exploiting the grey area between line and colon?

First Experiment in Amoebic Verse : Gomery Inquiry

[Judge John Gomery]

"Amoebic verse" sounds pretty cool; contrary to what you might suspect, it's a term used to describe verse-making in which one person provides the first verse, another person the second verse, the first person the third verse, the second person the fourth verse, and so on, responsively.

Theoretically, iambic octameter, the meter of The Plains of Abraham, should be good for this. (More soon on whether the meter is actually octameter or in fact paired tetrameters . . .) So, while driving from Lake Louise to Calgary the other day, Dave and I tried it out.

Here are the downloadable results of this first amoebic experiment, a digital video clip in .wmv format.

Update (Feb 2007) I've now uploaded the videos to YouTube.com, which means we get a nice streaming version!



You may have to boost the sound on your computer, as I was holding the camera and not speaking directly into the mike. Also, you'll see that we get better as we go along. We chose the hottest item in Canadian politics these days, the Gomery Inquiry into the Sponsorship Scandal, as our subject.

Here's the transcript -- HTML is wary of leaving you multiple spaces, so I've indicated caesuras (regular breaks in the verse) with colon marks [:] --

Jack. . . . Lake Louise. And Dave and I, keen political addicts, decided that we're going to see what we can do in terms of alternating lines describing the ongoing Gomery Scandal, in spontaneous composition. So, we're going to alternate lines, right?
Dave. Well, we're going to try.
J. We're going to try.
D. . . . And all the nation then : did hearken unto Gomery
J. Judge Gomery, a noble man : who sat before the tribunal
D. Tis bad, he said, and tis corrupt : but worse it is, but small-town cheap
J. Just so indeed Judge Gomery : declaring things to Jean Chretien
D. And then he turned unto the scoundrels : to the men of bad comp'nies
J. And many were their disgraced names : and sprung from far and wide they came
D. And first among them was Jean Brault : the president of Groupe Action
J. And he it was whose name was foulest : of the advertising chiefs
D. And yet in turn, when th' inquiry came : 'twas he who turned his back on sin
J. And yet he could not stain his name : more deeply than it had just been
D. For pure indeed was his reliance : on the federal sponsorship
J. The scandal of the sponsorship : the most disgraceful deed of all
D. And next to him was Corriveau : an ageing man of silver hair
J. Unyielding was his will : and stern his glance : but bad his memory
D. For like unto the Alzheimer's : was the disease which racked his brains
J. And yet some said, in whispered words : it was not illness in his brain
D. But rather it was his cowardice : for well he knew the guilt was his
J. And yet he did not speak : on each in turn : he laid forgetful eyes
D. Polite to him were all the lawyers : [who] asked the questions at th 'inquir[y]
J. Six million dollars in cold cash : he'd walked away with, on a time
D. Yet scornful were the nation's papers : scornful most in proud Quebec
J. And then behold, the Globe and Mail : and even that Toronto Star
D. Did yell and shout and fill their pages : with their bold denunctiat[ions]
J. And then the editorial boards : did gather up within their groups
D. And boundless words did they opine : in columns, banners, op-eds too
J. And all the public did come forth : and sit before the tribunal
D. For many days was it blacked out : and none allowed to cover it
J. And yet they knew there was a blog : some said, in Minnesota's land
D. From which one could, in dark of night : read details, even testimon[y]
J. And all the journalists indeed : knew of this blog, yet could not speak
D. And deeply did it grieve them thus : that they should know and not send word

Breaking news: We just heard that Ratzinger has been chosen by the Holy Spirit as Pope Benedict XVI. Apparently Dave hedged his bets and actually put a euro on this outcome, which at 16-1 covers all his losses. (He had been unable to find out if hedging one's bets on papal elections was covered by the 1591 papal bull which forbade betting on this sort of thing.)

Fort Calgary show / composition-in-performance

Egad, I'm tired. We had quite a nifty little show at Fort Calgary this evening: the first full hour of performance I've tried, and it went well. A wonderful theatre space there -- many thanks to The Dominion Institute for a spot-on booking. The length resulted from my slowing down the delivery somewhat, and including more or less each episode. Of course, each performance inevitably misses some lines, as well as adding some: I invented several describing the Mother of the Ursulines, and reconfigured Donald MacLeod's lament on the fly.

Here, for instance, is the "canonical" version of phantom Abercrombie's speech to Wolfe. (He appears to Wolfe in a dream, early in the Tour episode; diachronically, he is the angel Gabriel in disguise, but that aspect was taken out as I removed supernatural elements.)

Now listen to me, General Wolfe from Heaven I have come to speak
Now here you lie in bed and toss and turn as sickness burns your cheeks
You won't go back across the sea nor see again the English shore
But now it comes to pass that by your deeds the town of Frontenac
Shall fall at last with bloody slaughter as was prophesied of old.
Assemble all the men you can and cross the cold St. Lawrence' stream
And I shall guide you to a cove which lies beneath a dreadful cliff
L'Anse-au-Foulon it's called which guards a path which climbs the dreadful cliff
And at the top there stretch the fields men call the Plains of Abraham
And yet the angels and the saints describe them as the Fields of Grief
And there you may fulfill your vow to seize impregnable Quebec.

Here's how it manifested itself in the performance tonight (as transcribed from Dave's videorecording):

Now listen to me, General Wolfe from Heaven I have come to speak
For now you may fulfill your vow to seize impregnable Quebec
Though now you rest in bed and well you know this sickness is your last
I shall direct you to a cove which lies beneath a lofty cliff
L'Anse-au-Foulon it's called [etc.]

This isn't a very radical example, but you get the idea. We'll try and transcribe more in the weeks ahead, as this is an interesting phenomenon with regard to composition-in-performance. Again, I'm not trying to vary things, I just have to go with whatever has started its way out of my mouth. All this is getting much easier, and there have only been 7 shows so far! It is interesting to note that the difference, from an audience's point of view, between 45 and 60 minutes is practically nil: the only thing they're concerned about is that nothing, especially in the second half, be extraneous.

We had the benefit of two great audience members tonight, from the University of Calgary, one interested in mythological history and one an expert on James Wolfe. The latter was able to tell me that Wolfe was not initially struck on the left-hand wrist, as I'd had it, but on the right-hand wrist -- talk about accurate historical feedback!

Tomorrow I perform at a local elementary school, and Wednesday at a highschool not far outside town. Many thanks to the Saskatoon readers who wrote in about the typo on one of the flyers: the show is indeed on Sunday the 24th, not on (the nonexistent) Sunday the 29th.

Calgary reached

We have reached Calgary, and are just about to go off to Fort Calgary to scope the place out (it's tonight's venue). Meanwhile, Dave, never much of a betting man, and not a Catholic, but a great patriot, and caught like millions worldwide in a fervour of speculation about papabilitas, has placed a small wager on Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal. The Holy Spirit, he reasoned, has always been very pro-Canadian, and certainly has never been daunted by odds of 100-1.

[Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte]

Update as of Monday: Here are some shots of us going through Roger's Pass and the Rockies on the weekend:


[The mountains seen from the Trans-Canada; it was a view like this every five minutes]


[Dave in Roger's Pass; the Illecilewaet glacier is just over his left shoulder]


[Me (with rhabdos) in front of accumulated snow in Roger's Pass; mountains in BG]

And, for good measure, here's a pic we took in our Calgary hotel room of the Scottish broadsword which Jim Mair lent us in Vancouver; given that the rhabdos comes up to my elbows (and I'm 6'2"), you can see how big this sucker is: