The Queen of Hearts
I write this as I cannot sleep, because I cannot stop thinking about Myrai Lavoie, whom I have just finished having drinks with earlier this very evening. Perhaps it is premature to write this piece now, without the golden seal of hindsight to grant me assurance, or even a good night’s sleep to sober me up. But I cannot sleep. Perhaps, if I write this now, I could be done with it by early morning. Myrai and I met at my favorite joint in all of Vancouver; a karaoke dive on Hastings, where folks from all...
The Spirit of Hitchhiking
Perhaps I should tell this story the way Mel tells stories: sparing not one enjoyable detail, and leaving out none of the crucial context for everything. Then the story starts thirty-something years ago, back in Nova Scotia, when Mel was only a funny little kid playing with bugs and frogs in the mud; Or maybe the story starts after they received their Bachelor of Science at the University of Toronto, knowing full well they had no intention of using it; Maybe the story starts when they met those people under their porch who told their that...
A New Myth
Nolan James Steven Cross is an exceptional name. It is a name one would expect wedged in among the romantics: Lord George Gordon Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Nolan James Steven Cross. The name smacks one hard with what I believe Sigmund Freud first coined as “pen-name envy”, a common affliction among writers of all classifications. Nolan Cross is a fiction writer, from the very bottom of his heart, and I am not. We first met at Green Auto, an ex-mechanic’s shop turned indie music venue in the industrial east corner of Vancouver...
First Story
I’m in a cafe eavesdropping on two elderly men, and one is telling the story of how he came into possession of his vest, which is certainly one of the ugliest vests I’ve seen. The old man is handsome, even handsome when wearing the thing, I think. His friend had arrived before him and was saving the table next to mine for their morning cup – he waited without ordering for himself, patient in his anticipation, glancing over at my empty document to pass the time; but old men are punctual, and he didn’t have to...
I like the metaphor by Will Campos, that storytelling is the act of uncovering emotional truths, which are distinct from…