Category: Life

There and Back Again

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

Potential Hobbit Book and Film Spoilers. You have been warned.

This past weekend, a day after its first official release, I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. And it was important that I did.

I mean, yes, as a fanboy and someone who loves Middle-Earth I would not have been able to look at myself in the elven enchantress Galadriel’s mirror if I hadn’t gone to see it, but I’m talking about something else. It seems like I’m almost always talking about more than one thing these days when I look at, and share, what I love.

I honestly … didn’t know what to think when this movie finally became a reality. It reminded me of all the times back in the early 200os where, once a year on a cold winter’s night I would go with friends to Silver City in Richmond Hill and get to see these films unfold. There is a warm, epic feeling involved in watching something like these films in the heart of the season. I can’t even describe it, but the closest thing I can tell you is that it was like I was coming home.

Home.

Yes, that is the word and it is a very apt one. In 2001, I was nineteen years old. I had just entered University and it was overwhelming. After I’d graduated high school, my friends went to their separate Universities and jobs. Also at this time, I had been involved in an online roleplaying community that just … wasn’t meshing well with me. Or that I wasn’t meshing well with. Really, it was probably a bit of both. I couldn’t find an offline equivalent of this game with actual people–partially because I was shy and introverted–and there never seemed to be a game going on. And I always felt, at the time, that I could never say the right thing. The irony was that it was a game about magic.

In those days, I was pretty smart and I read what I could, but I was also in that age-range or with that personality type back then that either didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know something, or felt entitled to be educated, or by admitting ignorance somehow thinking that this excused it.

I was also not very happy with my life. So here I was at Lord of the Rings: specifically The Fellowship of the Ring. I had no idea what to make of it or what it would be like. And then … it happened.

I was transported into a whole other world that I had read to me as a child. The music was beautiful and terrifying and fun depending on the moments. The characters–as Hobbits–were very relatable. And the scene where Gandalf fell actually made tears come to my eyes. As I watched this movie, then, I thought about everything else in the back of my mind. I found it ironic that I was having so much difficulty and frustration with a game about magic and then it occurred to me that I was watching magic–real magic–right in front of me. I remembered what it was all about.

The only thing that really happened after seeing this incredible movie was that I dropped out of the game and tried to focus on the things that mattered: my work, my friends, my life and … my own stories again.

The long-winded point I’m trying to make is that the first Lord of the Rings movie clicked something back into place way back when. The other two never quite did it, though they were good, and as far as I am concerned Fellowship was the best film of the whole trilogy. It just had such symmetry, and life, and warmth in it. It was complete in itself. I was utterly in love with the magic of it.

So then The Hobbit comes out. It’s December 2012. I’m thirty years old and am in another transitional time. I have moved on from school. My friends tend to do their own thing now and my other friends and I have since drifted apart. I’ve graduated from Graduate School, but I’m still looking for work and money. I’ve been tired and frustrated. I have been dealing with depression and anxiety to the point where sometimes I barely go outside. In addition, I’d recently been delving into personal and creative matters that had left me in a really bad mood. Sometimes being a writer does that: you mine the material inside of you that starts to flame up like any Balrog, and you can delve a little too greedily, a little too deep into that black ore of you.

I used to go out a lot more and explore, but as time has gone on I have become more and more sedentary due to many of the above elements. I gave up on a lot of things, and ensconced myself in my hole almost as much as Bilbo Baggins himself.

A long time ago, my friend Lex forced me to navigate my way to her old place in Toronto on my own. It tells you something that I didn’t have the knowledge or the confidence to do so on my own. I was a very sheltered person and I pretty know that this trait has led me to some of the above difficulties: especially for a natural introvert.

One day, after I did indeed learn how to get to her place, I did something entirely spontaneous and went to a gathering of new and unknown people deep downtown on my own. I remember Lex actually saying that she was proud of me. That day I remembered Bilbo Baggins and something he said that I quoted as a heading on my old online journal. He said, “I think I am quite ready for another adventure.”

I look back on those words that I quoted and the years that I followed them. You know, people think that my role-models are wise figures and Dark Lords, and most of the time I would agree with them. But in that one moment, my role-model was a Hobbit: a particular Hobbit who after a lifetime of anxiety and adventure, very calmly and benignly realized it was time that he went on another one.

So now we have Peter Jackson’s movie opening the day before on Friday. And I pretty much gave up on seeing it anytime soon. I was going to wait maybe a few days or a week. I was in a really black mood: dwelling on things from the past and staying away from people. But somewhere I still hoped that Saturday that my parents and I could go see this film that I wasn’t sure I was waiting for. I was almost scared to see it for reasons that I wasn’t conscious of at the time. So my Dad came to the basement and I had every reason to not only say that there was no way we would be able to see that film the day after its first release, but that I really didn’t want to go out to a movie–or anywhere else–at all.

The truth is, I wanted to see this movie badly. So much that I had to convince myself that I didn’t. I know some people who got advanced screenings and I was a little jealous of this. My reasons for not going to see this movie were pretty sound: there would be a crowd, times would sold out, there would be no parking, I had to meet my friends the next day and so on and so forth.

I had every reason not to go except for one. And this one gnawed at me like a small ember coming a reluctant inferno. And the anger I was feeling towards a lot of things became something else. So I went to my Dad and said to him, “Well, we can try it. If not, well we had an outing and we can try it again some other time.”

So we eventually all left and went to Silver City. We were in luck. We had left early and the line wasn’t bad. My Dad got parking and we got the seats that we wanted. That ember was still burning in me and I didn’t want to fuel it too high, but just enough to get me through this. I was remembering the season of the first movies and how I role-played a custom made world with my friend Noah back when he lived closer by. How I felt then with that magic from that world and ambiance.

Then, in that line that was not as long as I thought it would be, I realized why I was hesitating throughout all of this. I realized I really needed to feel that magic again. I needed to feel it now. Right now. I delved into a necessary darkness, but now was the time to stop delving and writing and just experience something beautiful. And I was afraid–terrified–that The Hobbit wouldn’t provide that magic from 2001, and other times: that I would still be feeling the unhappiness–the sheer bitterness–in me and I just couldn’t bear it.

I’m no fool though. This was a movie: just a movie. It was–and isn’t–a cure-all for all woes. It isn’t a psychologist or medicine. It is a piece of entertainment. But that was exactly what I was looking for. Entertainment. And immersion into a whole other world: a familiar warm world in the cold of the winter night.

Experiencing The Hobbit at thirty was different than experiencing Fellowship at nineteen. Sometimes it felt like it dragged a bit. Other times the fighting got a little much. I over-thought some things and tried to remember the book it was based from. The singing … was strange in that my impulse would have usually been to wince, but I just couldn’t find the strength to.

I think the most poignant moment for me was when Bilbo woke up in his Hobbit hole–after Gandalf almost cheerfully “ruined his good morning” by inviting thirteen questing Dwarves that drank and messed up his place–and found the place spotless again.

And found himself alone.

I thought about that. I thought about Bilbo completely out of his element and Gandalf doing his damnedest to wreck his peaceful life out of very intrinsic good intentions. I thought of the laughter, mirth, the drunkenness, the storytelling, the sombre singing of the Dwarves that lost and wanted to reclaim their stolen home from an impossible monster, and I thought of Bilbo with his books and armchair encountering all of this and finding that spark growing inside him: making him uncomfortable in his comfort that was never really comfortable for who he was at all.

Then I thought of him finding himself alone in the peace and quiet again: with the adventurers’ contract that he never signed.

And I’ll be damned. I will be damned. I will be three-times damned if I had not felt the same way too many damn things (four times) in my own life.

So Bilbo ran like a crazy little man after the Company of boisterous Dwarves and a meddling old red-wine drinking Wizard. I sat there in a theatre seat and watched. I also watched as he entered and left Rivendell: first with wonder at its beauty, and then with longing for its peace. For me, that was the second poignant moment for me: because we all know that the next time Bilbo–now a young man–goes back there, he will be much, much older and with only one journey left to him then. After the film was over, I came home and went on my Facebook. I thought of writing this Blog entry: which in the end took much longer than I thought. Then I thought about how the next day I was going to be playing a favourite old game with Noah and the others.

It didn’t end up happening, but since I was out anyway I decided to explore a bit. I ran into an old friend on the subway, then I hunted unsuccessfully for a camera, and then came back home. That darkness I was feeling is still there. It will always be and I don’t pretend otherwise. But I’m feeling a levity. I’m not “cured” of myself. I have a lot of work to do and I know it will take one step at a time to balance out my life, but now I am remembering that I can actually adapt. I can work around the anxiety and the bad moods.

I might not have a meddling Wizard to carve a strange bit of graffiti into my door, but I guess I can fulfill dual roles for myself. I have to move at my own pace, a little faster than that of an Ent’s, but I will do it. I have plans. My journey isn’t over. The writing is just part of it and will benefit in the long run from the things I plan to do. Each day you live once and I want to do different things each day: even the small things.

So before I wrote this Blog post, I went on my Facebook and wrote the following as my status. And I quote:

“Matthew Kirshenblatt thinks The Hobbit was awesome. In fact, I think I’m quite ready for another adventure.”

So I did find the magic again. And it is home.

I Don’t Have a Witty Title for Sexism or Elitists, But Here is What Really Matters

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Me and my Head

For the purpose of the rhetoric in this article–its method of expression–I am going to be using the general second-person pronoun of “you.”

I’ve gone to Conventions before. They are some of the few places that have the opportunity to actually relate to people who have similar interests as mine. I’ve been to the crowded, but varied Toronto Fan Expo. I went to Anime North with all of its variance of cosplayers. I have gone to, and volunteered at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival. I even went all the way to Atlanta to go to what is arguably a grandparent of them all: Dragon Con.

I don’t go to nearly as many as I should: given what this Writer’s Blog is about, and the fact that I’d like to meet with more people who have similar interests to my own.

So I’m not really going to say anything new. There will be no insight into anything here that you already haven’t read a thousand times before. The sad thing is that I feel like I even have to repeat this at all because you would think, by now, that this would be common sense. But I have two points that I’m going to make.

First of all, when a girl or a woman–or anyone–is at a Convention, they want to be there. Period. If they have taken the time, such as at Anime North, or Fan Expo, or Dragon Con, or any other Convention or Festival to dress up as a fictional character or otherwise, chances are they want to be at this Event and they know who they are dressed as. Some good friends of mine, and people I love create their own costumes from raw sewing materials. Also, I’ve been told that–as such–it is more than okay to compliment someone on their costume–self-made or otherwise–and to ask to take pictures of them. Hell, you might even talk with them and make a friend.

Hey, it could happen, or so I hear.

So please do not talk about who knows what about what character, or series, or franchise and then some.

And even if they don’t, they are there–after paying money and a substantial amount of money at that–to have fun. That is what a Comics, Video Game, Film, and Geek Convention or Festival is ultimately about. To have fun.

They are not there for you and they do not have to fulfill your standards as to what a “true geek” should be. And here is some more common sense, I don’t care what their costume looks like, you do not have the right to touch someone without their permission. This is basic kindergarten knowledge. Do not touch someone without their permission. Period.

Also, here is an exercise. Imagine that women can create, buy, review, play, and add to Geek Culture. Or, you know, simply enjoy it.

Well, you don’t have actually imagine this, because this has already happened. And it is happening right now. Because guess what: women are people. People make choices and sometimes different choices from those you might make. Therefore it is pretty foolish to make generalizations or assumptions based on intrinsically different individuals who happen to have flesh bodies like all human beings do.

So here is something constructive that I can suggest. Talk to a woman like a human being and treat her like one (because well, duh, she is one), and you might learn something about another human being who may or may not share the same interests as you. Encourage them to create and review works. In fact, encourage anyone to do that. Moreover, if you do not agree with what they have to say, insults, threats, and sexist remarks really will not help your case or make you look any more intelligent by comparison. If you have something constructive to say, take the time to say it and remember that you are talking to another human being who has their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

And as your parents will tell you, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t bloody say it. This man here astonishes me not so much because of his views with regards to “a majority” of female cosplayers–of which I don’t agree with in the slightest–but because he is an artist and he decided that it was wise to publicly post this for anyone to see. I can’t really fathom it, to be honest. As an aspiring creator, cultivating an audience is important to getting your work off the ground, and to continue supporting it, and this just looks like a whole lot of personal sabotage of everything he has ever collaborated in. It’s just sad. It’s just really sad and unacceptable.

So I am going to get into the second part of my rant now, which will also begin with the word “unacceptable.”

Just because you like a certain work, or have followed something for a while, or bought a wide range of products, or have Joe Shuster’s autograph, or written ridiculous fanfics, or created other works, or any wide variety of Geeky things does not make you better than other people. I’m now really talking about the overarching issue here in addition to sexism: elitism.

Now, you can find jerks in any human endeavour or culture of some kind. They’re jerks: enough said and you don’t need to waste your time with them if they bother you that much. But–but–that does not give you or anyone else the right to make the judgment that they are not “true geeks” and it doesn’t reflect well on what you love by disparaging others who may not meet “your standards.”

What is a geek? Honestly, I believe that a geek is someone who really loves something to the point of obsession–or bordering on it–and it can be a wide range of different subjects and objects. Just because a geek might not know as much as another, or doesn’t own as many toys doesn’t mean they are any lesser. The term “geek” and indeed any label is problematic at best, so the rest of this is going to be more of my opinion: as if you haven’t already heard enough of it.

Do you know what I think a “true geek” is? I think a true geek is someone that loves something so much that they are willing–and happily so–to share that love with someone else. This could be in the form of education, or telling stories, or hanging around each other, or making things together, or playing games together, or trading knowledge, skills, and experiences, or something even so basic as simply acknowledging that–even if you don’t share the same interest–that you can at least respect it.

Because here’s the thing. When you get to the point of trying to prove you are better than someone, you are entering a pissing match.

And the thing about pissing matches is even if you win, you’re still going to be covered in urine.

So keep that in mind. I actually like Conventions and I’d like to it to stay that way. And if they can be even better, then I am all for that too.

Credit: Matt & Kristy on Flickr, whose picture and costumes these actually are.

Ice-Nine Mornings and Vonnegut Nights

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I’d only heard his name in passing as I read other works of fiction and science-fiction. I’m not even sure how my girlfriend got me to start reading Kurt Vonnegut: what the precise details of that moment were like but I remember other details.

It was summer of last year. I was still in the process of (procrastinating) writing my Master’s Thesis and driving myself crazy. I’d finished reading Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game–or Magister Ludi if you’d like–and I found that once I did I wasn’t really interested in reading anything else of his. But I was starving for reading material: so much so I didn’t even know that I was.

I don’t exactly remember when my girlfriend and I started talking about Cat’s Cradle, but we did and I really wanted to read it. But as I write this I remember that it had to do with her introducing me to Vonnegut’s made-up religion of Bokononism–of the concept of a karass as a strange unification of people under God or divine influence, and especially a granfalloon: the creation of a forced or “false” group of people who really have nothing in common whatsoever but–again–something forced or artificial. I’d had some personal experiences with both–and it is hilarious and fitting just how fictional concepts make human nature and interaction easier to understand–and I wanted to know more about the book from where it all came from.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find her copy. So I gave in and borrowed it from York’s library. As I was reading it and making commentary on the way as I usually do, all my girlfriend really told me at the time was that she found it “cute” that I thought I could predict how a Kurt Vonnegut novel would end or even continue.

She was right.

What can I tell you? That summer, Kurt Vonnegut–or “Grandpa” as my girlfriend likes to call him–exposed me to a world of black, black humour and rendered spectacularly the banal frailty and stupidity of the human race in such a way that was immensely entertaining. His “what-the-fuck” moments were plenty and awfully true to the strangeness of life. I started Cat’s Cradle slow. It was a deceptive little bugger: with each chapter little more than a few pages for the most part. Then as I got towards the middle I consumed each page with voraciousness and a notable lack of mercy or pity.

After that there was an old, tattered, and well-loved copy of Mother Night for my consideration: where what we consider war crimes and human atrocity, stupidity, and uniqueness essentially and cunningly “fuck you the fuck up” and your preconceptions too. The best lesson I got out of the thing that I read as I took the bus to school, lay in our bed, and even rode with my friends to a table-top role-playing game session with Lego is to be careful of what you pretend to be, because you might become it.

I remember mornings where my girlfriend forced me to go meet my friends for gaming weekends and those books accompanied me with lunch. I didn’t think about my looming school project, but I learned from Grandpa Vonnegut instead–my cynical, grumpy, literary grandfather–about life. I don’t remember the last Vonnegut book I read. It was about a man who was a former soldier and he taught at a college close to a prison. I never got farther than the chapter with him and his class looking at old and failed perpetual motion machines found in an attic.

I remember that part well. I was riding by myself back down two buses from York Region back downtown from said gaming session and the serious work around it  :). It was the bus I took on Bloor in the late warm summer night: under the amber artificial lighting of the bus, the ambiance of the passing streetlights outside, the fading blue darkness in the sky. and a metal framed red-purple seat. I put that book on hold to read A Song of Ice and Fire–based on my friends’ constant pestering that I needed to–and I never picked it up again. I wish I had.

My Vonnegut education is not complete. I didn’t finish that book and my girlfriend doesn’t have Slaughterhouse Five. I hear Vonnegut likes to break the fourth wall so much after a while that he just gets fed up and it is less a spectacle and more a matter of a “I don’t give a damn” course. I can sympathize with that. I think I will be a grumpy old man like that when I’m old. I’m already half-way there with the grumpy part. Or maybe that’s crazy I’m thinking about.

I do think that you need to have time between readings of Vonnegut: just like you don’t want to eat bitter-sweet chocolate all the time: just occasionally and when the summer times come, and when you have a long bus ride far past two in the morning and you need some black therapeutic entertainment on the TTC … all the way home.

Now I am the Master

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Eventually, I will get tired of saying that.

One day, I am going to look back at the events of my Convocation yesterday and laugh, or use it to make someone else feel better about their own or other embarrassing experiences, or–really–just to remember the time fondly.

The title of this post is the exact opposite to what I felt yesterday. My family and I arrived at the Rexall Centre with seemingly little time to spare for me to figure out where to get my robe and hood. It was raining outside. In order to get to the robe and hood fitting section, the graduates had to walk through said rain up various stair and enclosures to get to a room and stand in a line for a while. If there is one thing that York is good at being, it is definitely being labyrinthine and liking its lines a lot.

The line went relatively quickly and we managed to find our sections. There was a very nice volunteer there that helped us put on the white and red hoods on our robes properly. And we waited there for over an hour and a half. I talked with some people I never met before about what they did in their Programs. I feel a little of two minds on that subject. I mean, I can understand getting really sick of people asking you what you do in your Program and what your work was. I mean, you spent all that time on it and energy–perhaps even sacrificed a fair amount–and your Graduation comes and you just want to think about that and then get on with life. You can get sick of it really fast. On the other hand, you did spend a lot of time on your Graduate work presumably because you were interested in it–perhaps even believe in it–and when you’re in a line for a really long time with people that have done similar or different studies in what is a relatively solitary understanding, you do get curious and it can definitely make for good conversation.

We were finally led in and I was hoping that now the hard part was over and the rest would just be sitting back, listening to speeches, then shaking hands, photographs, and then the end.

Of course, that was not what happened: at least not for me.

In the meantime, there was the other side of the equation: my girlfriend and my family. I had only been allowed to pre-order three guest tickets, so if they wanted any more they would have to basically wait outside directly before the ceremony to get more. My aunt wanted to attend along with my grandmother and her helper. To compound matters my Dad misplaced his cellphone before we left and needed to use my Mom’s. They had also meet my girlfriend who was making her own way to the Centre.

All that apparently went well. They even got a special guest status for my grandmother who needed it for her and her helper. But then something happened. The ceremony apparently started earlier than was advertised and people were not allowed back into the guest tent. This included my family who were in the process of doing the telemetry to have everyone there. They were told that they couldn’t come back in and were obviously rather pissed off about that: and they were not the only ones.

However, they told me later that at intermission they were let back in and hadn’t missed anything. Someone very nice apparently realized just how angry people locked out of their own loved ones’ Convocation ceremony might be and dealt with it.

For my own part, I couldn’t see any of them from where I was sitting: though I did manage to see the resigned and chagrined expression on my face as the big screen in the tent caught me and my fellow graduates. It had been an interesting procession to the tent. Actual bagpipes were being played along the way and the sun came out. As a result of course, it had become quite hot and muggy and I was wearing a sweatshirt under my robes. But the tent had air-conditioning.

So we were sitting on stage and listened to a few speeches. The one that stood out for me the most was by the Honoris Causa recipient and the host of CBC’s Radio One Sunday Edition  Michael Enright. He essentially addressed us directly and offered many words of advice: including learning how to drive a motorcycle.

All was relatively fine and underway until the Dean’s speech. And I had to go to the restroom.

Yeah.

That was fun. I have to tell you: moving those robes around after they are perfectly fitted–especially the hood–is a whole other kind of fun that it is not: especially when you consider that the zipper on my robes came apart and I had to adjust it.

But that was all right. I managed to get out and then back into the ceremony. I remembered my Undergrad Convocation we were lined up in Vari Hall and I had to go to the restroom: only to come back and find out that they had all left without me. This time though was even better because, of course, it wasn’t that long after I decided to leave that my row had been called up to the Chancellor, President, and Dean.

Essentially, I missed going on stage, and almost missed my whole Convocation.

I came back and found that my seat had been taken and I sat at the end of the row fiddling around with the paper I was supposed to present to the announcer, watching the Undergraduates go onto the stage and thinking about how my family would not get to see me on stage, how I’d not get my photograph taken, how I’d wasted a whole load of money just to miss my own Convocation, wondering if I should just leave at that point, wondering why I even bothered to come here, and overall feeling a tremendous amount of despair. Not one of my best moments.

Luckily, after an agonizing long time of watching the upper rows of Undergraduates come down, I managed to show an organizer my paper (while not getting anyone’s attention which is no mean feat considering how I was on a stage with people filming us like the perfect paragons of educational virtue we were supposed to look like) and–being the very nice lady that she was–fit me in at the very end. I was also very pleased that throughout all this ridiculous stress that my stomach had not decided to betray me again.

My family tells me that I managed to get all the applause, being the last person on the stage, but I barely even noticed. I was tired, hot, most likely dehydrated, and I just wanted this spectacle over with. At the same time, it felt nice to stride on there and tell Michael Enright that he made an excellent speech: to which replied something to the effect of “this your day” or “you made it.” I don’t actually remember, but he was nice. Then I shook hands with the Chancellor (I got to actually greet someone as “Chancellor,” which is a favourite word of mine for various reasons), the President of the University, and the Dean and I got my picture taken and then eventually we all left in a procession in which we were lead in circles throughout the building and then abandoned outside the guest pavilion for everything to become a barely organized chaos of parents, families, and camera-taking everywhere.

It took me a long time to find everyone: what with my Dad not having his phone and waiting for my Mom and my girlfriend to text me back. I finally went into the guest tent: wanting at this point to just go the hell home, as it were. Everyone wondered why I was the last person to be called and almost everyone found the very anticlimactic reason behind it pretty damned funny.

My Dad had to take my grandmother and my aunt back, so after going through another winding journey I gave back my sweaty robes and got my piece of cardboard with the excellent words “Magisteriate of Arts” below my name. At some point my girlfriend realized that I hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day and got me some iced tea, and she and my Mom–when we found each other yet again (getting lost was a running theme for this Convocation, yes that was an unintentional pun) we were going to wait for my Dad to pick us up in an insane spot that used to be the place where we were all dropped off to begin with. It was filled with more cars and buses for the next ceremony.

At that point, my Dad managed to gain access to a phone and I had a plan. I decided we were going to go for a walk: from the Rexall Centre all the way to Vanier College. It would be far less crowded there and easier for my Dad to come in. I also recognized the area we were at: having lived close-by back when I was on residence.

So my Mom, my girlfriend, and I walked for twenty minutes through the sun, past Tate Mackenzie, past the Office building all the way to McLaughlin and then finally Vanier. As we passed, I saw people playing tennis, walking around, even measuring a tree, and just talking and walking. It was just another day at York for them. I suspect a few were even summer school students. By the time we came to Vanier, I was thinking of all the times I had and didn’t have at York. I was thinking of how beautiful the campus became in the summer and of all the clubs and friends here that would meet throughout the year.

And then it occurred to me. This is one of the last times I’m going to be here. Again, I thought all the things happened and didn’t happen to me on this campus and I thought about my Graduation earlier on that day and how it isn’t every day that one graduates from their first Master’s Program: from their only one. I realized it was a special day and one I would not see again. I’m not going try for another Master’s or PhD–at least not for a long time–and so much has already changed in my life these past four years. What should have supposedly been a one or two year program became a four year odyssey. Sometimes it felt lonely and empty. Many times I wondered why I did this to myself. The sun felt just as bright and warm as it did when I got my first apartment at York, like when the Sakura trees began to blossom after my Japanese class ended in song, and all the adventures I had downtown.

That sun would be that way for someone else now, and maybe it had been for someone else: just like it will for the future me. I don’t think these thoughts are really unexpected or even unwarranted given the event of significance that happened yesterday. It was an exhausting, sometimes very frustrating day but it also had its grace, its moments of good karma, and its place of transformation. I remember sitting on a bench outside Vanier and thinking to myself that once I’d skipped a class to write a paper on Children’s Literature there: back when I wrote papers by hand.

You know, despite or because of all the events that happened yesterday, I’m glad I went to my Convocation. I’m glad I had my moment. And as for what happens after, as many people have been asking me incessantly, I don’t know. But I do know that I have–and I will–be facing it.

As a Master.

Thanks, The Last Fat Lady Sang, I’ll Be Wearing Robes Tomorrow, and Other Tales

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

First of all, let me thank everyone from yesterday and today who “liked” and liked my articles on horror. It was the most “Likes” I’d ever gotten on here–in one day and ever–and I more than appreciate it and the new readers that I have Following me. I just love writing about subject matters as though I am some kind of expert, though I tend to expand on just a few thoughts I have rolling around in my head and fill in the blanks with Internet and whatever books or other people I have access to. I also notice that there are some topics and themes that can really strike at the heart of the matter when you write about them or when they are even seen: some human universals if you’d like and I woud definitely like to write about more of them. But let me thank you all again: you are all awesome and I hope to make many more things here that will be worthy of further entertainment.

Well, I didn’t make it to the Finalists on ENO’s Mini-Opera Contest, however they are all pretty bad ass from what little I’ve skimmed through. I’m not surprised I didn’t make it–what with it being my first attempt and being done more or less at the last minute–however, it left me with quite a few ideas that I want to work on in other ways, shapes, and forms. And I also get to say that I dabbled briefly with librettos at one time too. For those of you just tuning in now, you can find my works through my “mini-operas” tag because linking to them apparently makes WordPress believe that I am actually commenting on the post directly and that just plain feels weird.

But speaking of standing ovations and conclusions, I’m going to be Graduating tomorrow. It is my Convocation Ceremony at York University at the Rexall Centre at 10:30 in the morning (I do wish my section had been given the afternoon time-slot and was closer to campus–I’m not used to as early mornings these days though I am working on it). Of course, I will have to be there much earler to wear a bunch of rental robes and then help my guests get their seats and all the fun that entails because I was only able to get three tickets in advance: again making something that should have been simple into rocket-science. So I want to get some writing of various kinds today while my time is still my own. I am kind of nervous, but it is one day and I will get through it. And I get to wear robes and a strange hat legitimately too.

What else can I tell you? I am very proud of finally getting my Master’s. But I also very proud of the Master’s Thesis that got to this point: a paper that used Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Herodotus, and their works as its basis. I finished off my first year of Undergrad reading American Gods for the first time and there is some symmetry in ending my Graduate Program with a paper on a good portion of my favourite author’s work as well. There is something really satisfying in that that I can’t explain except to say it is. I think of all the books and articles I used as old friends or collaborators. We all came together, sometimes procrastinating, sometimes arguing, and constantly moving around to make this paper. We’ve been together for a long time, some of us, but we really worked together for two and half years: perhaps even longer. Now some of them are back in the libraries, others still roaming on the Internet and quite a few more back on their respective shelves having said goodbye to one another. We don’t know when we will meet again, but I know that even if I don’t always hold them in my hands, they will always be with me: them and the work that I did.

It’s been a long ride and I am glad I got to tell a little of the story.

This Land Like a Mirror Where I Met Gwendolyn MacEwen

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I met Gwendolyn MacEwen after she died in 1987. In fact, it was many years later in the early twenty-first century at York University back when I was in its Creative Writing Program. My teacher read us–and then had us read–some of her poems. She chose Dark Pines Under Water and it really left a powerful impression on me.

I recall trying to talk with my teacher about that at the time and I wasn’t even able to remember the poem’s name. I was so ashamed of that fact that when we had to memorize a poem for an assignment, I choose the above. Over the following years, I read all of Gwendolyn’s poems that I could find: though reading poetry is quite different from prose and sometimes difficult to read never mind even explain.

Gwendolyn was a poet deeply concerned with her craft and the power of mythology and the mythopoeic. She approached matters of mysticism along with darkness, sensuality, and a profound sense of psycho-geography: of history and the echoes of all people in the land they used to–and still-live in. Gwendolyn wrote many books of poetry and two published novels: Julian the Magician and King of Egypt, King of Dreams: both of which are dense but incredibly charged and multi-layered stories. An ex-girlfriend of mine bought me the last book as well as two of her selected poetic readings.

What really gets to me, however, is that this woman–who was shy, quiet, small and sleight with a round face, dark hair, and kohl-lined intensely dreamy blue eyes in her youth–was born and lived in Toronto. I think about it sometimes: that she once walked and biked to many of the places I’ve walked or drove on the bus past. She lived in the places that I visited and somehow made poetry and art there. From the sixties to the eighties she did this: learning Kabbalah, a multitude of languages, and she read her poems a loud. And while she did travel from time to time: to Israel, Egypt, Greece and England she tried to find herself–and find–Toronto’s spirit. Her series of short stories in Noman and Noman’s Land are some of the best Canadian literature I’ve ever wanted to read. I remember my time taking those books out of York and the Toronto Public Library fondly: especially since they meshed so well with the mythological writing I was doing, developing and planning on doing.

She was a complex character in herself, something that Rosemary Sullivan explores with a certain creative flair in her Shadow-Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen: a book that I liked for the most part, though there were some psychological intimations on some of Gwendolyn’s behaviour on Sullivan’s part that I found to be very reductionist and necessarily the result of simply one particular potential trauma. Nevertheless, I really liked how she incorporated Gwendolyn’s life and works together into her narrative and it gave me another glimpse of the emerging literary scene and talent in Toronto at that time.

I won’t lie. Gwendolyn MacEwen and I have a lot of similarities, and despite years and death I sometimes felt close to her in a way. We both really like Star Wars and, as she knew it, the Marvel Family: though I wonder what she would have thought of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman’s interpretations of the latter. She even wrote a poem about it called Fragments From a Childhood: a superhero poem which I found online and fell totally in love with. It is also no coincidence that I wrote a glosa in undergrad of her poem Shadow-Maker: something I won’t show here … at least not for some time.

I wanted to write a story somehow from all I learned about her. I still have that idea. I spent a significant amount of time at the Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto going through the collection of manuscripts and notes that she left open to the public: including an unpublished novel about a female musician’s life growing up in the early years and turmoil of modern Israel called Gabriela. It was so strange to see someone writing about a culture that I grew up in, something that she did not grow up in, and yet get many of the nuances that were there along with some insights I’m not sure even I knew about.

When the Fisher was open until the evenings on Thursdays, I would spend many a time holding the very pages she did when creating her own works as the light of the afternoon sun turned into evening. It was some of the most peaceful and exciting times I had traveling to St. George campus to take a look at her works and hold them in my hands.

I wish I could have met her. I think we would have had a lot to talk about. I also know that she was a genius and she deserved to be acknowledged as such. She did a tremendous amount of research for her second published novel King of Egypt, she wrote prolifically and she did and learned to do so many things having not even been a high school graduate. Although she gained praise from her peers, I feel she deserved much more than she got. Gwendolyn MacEwen, as far as I am concerned, is one of the best Canadian and Torontonian creators we ever had and it is a shame that she’s gone and her work is not that well-known outside Canadian writer and academic circles.

Sometimes I thought about visiting her in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, but I’ve never gotten around to it and I’m not sure I ever will. I am glad that I looked through her Fonds at the Fisher however. I wish I could convey how it felt to look through the notes, drafts, and unpublished manuscripts of a writer and person that I respect: who influenced me so much and came into my life long after her own had ended so unexpectedly and easily like she was always there without it sounding creepy and ridiculous. But there it is. People come into your life for a reason and I believe she made my life richer for it.

In case you are interested, Gwendolyn’s collection can be accessed by anyone with a registration card at the Fisher. You just need to go and provide an address and ID and you are all set. I really recommend Gabriela because it is still very relevant and timely to today: especially with continued Israeli-Palestinian and Arabic relations being as they are. I wish it had been published, but I also loved reading it in that lovely Reading Room with the miles-high levels of bookshelves that the Fisher possesses.

I also want to link you to a review I did on Julian the Magician–Gwendolyn’s first published novel–on my Goodreads profile. It does get full of a bit of literary jargon, but I am pretty proud of it and what I got out of it. Sometimes I wonder if Neil read Gwendolyn, and if he hasn’t he definitely should.

Finally, I would add that Gwendolyn loved to read her poems aloud and at gatherings such as those at the Bohemian Embassy Club. There is a documentary made about her called Shadowmaker: The Life and Times of Gwendolyn MacEwen by Brenda Longfellow that has some filmed shots of her giving interviews and reading her poems. She has a melodic, resonant voice. It is worth seeing and listening to because her works make up a land that does, in the end, turn you inward.

After the Fiction

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I wrote my first bit of fiction on here yesterday called Lethe and Mnemos. I haven’t directly linked anyone to it yet because I’m not sure how it turned out and it’s kind of an experiment: like a lot of the things that I planned to put in “Mythic Bios”: both on and offline. I’ll leave it up to you if you want to read it and the subsequent cycles of the thing that I plan.

When I first started “Mythic Bios” as an online Journal, I thought I would be writing a lot more fiction on here than non-fiction. It does make more sense though that I’d be writing articles on films, books and comics on here as well as some of my own personal thoughts. Writing stories takes time and a certain focus: at least on my part.

But this isn’t a bad thing. Not at all. Perhaps it makes more sense for me to have my creative notebook exist offline and have some commentary and popular culture articles be more public here. I also realize that anything I write on here in terms of fiction may well be construed as being published and it would be difficult to send these stories elsewhere.

However, this will not stop me. “Lethe and Mnemos” started off as a joke: or more specifically a creative “half-joke.” It came from a series of “oral stories” that I tend to make when I’m in a brainstorming mood and talking out loud: a more fanciful way of saying that it came from the place where I sometimes “make shit up on the spot.” Originally, Lethe and Mmemos were just the names of the different philosophies or orders of the people that I planned to combat each other and it was meant to be somewhat semi-silly. I do have another story that I wrote down previously that I can adapt onto here as well, and I think at some point I might do that.

I can always self-publish these stories–beyond them simply being on my Blog–and some of the things I come up with deserve to be serialized and have more immediate viewers. I also admit that I really like to have an audience for my work and thoughts and experiments like “Lethe and Mnemos” can be fun.

I will admit though that the above linked story probably has its faults: perhaps being a little too ostentatious and pseudo-philosophical–really just being plain trite at times–but maybe posting my other “Lethe and Mnemos” story might show it something of the way it was supposed to be. Perhaps some of the silliness will offset the cliche: like parodies are supposed to. Still, it was experiment to try it in that tone and I don’t regret it. After all, I’ve learned that a combination of silliness and seriousness–that parody that says something–can be very effective a story.

In other news, I’ve applied to another contest The CZP/Rannu Fund: specifically for the short story segment of their contest. The deadline was yesterday and it was yet another last minute entry on my part. Luckily, I had a short story on hand that I was proud of, and worked on enough to actually send. I have not heard back from them yet as to whether they had received the entry and I know I had some formatting issues with regards to sending it to them (try copying and pasting a Word document into inline email plain-text format sometime without it becoming single-spaced and eliminating all of your underlining: it can be a lot of the fun that it is not). But I was fascinated enough to see where I can go with it, so we will see what happens.

In the meantime, I need to write more stories and send them out. I also need to keep writing, and that is exactly what I am going to do.

Wise Words and Timeliness

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I really don’t have much more to add to the above video. I also don’t know how long this video will last given the mercurial and transitory nature of the Internet. I think it’s really interesting how I found this link–where Neil Gaiman is addressing the 2012 graduating class of the University of the Arts–a few weeks before my own Convocation at York.

He touches on a lot of different issues and points that I’ve been having to deal with and he has some very good advice as well. You know, I almost didn’t make this Blog. I’m a perfectionist and sometimes I get technologically challenged. I also tend to find myself in a place where I get used to doing things in a certain way and I have to fight myself to go beyond my comfort zone. I started writing this online journal to do exactly what Neil is talking about: to make my works seen.

Neil is right in that things are changing and there are different ways to have yourself and your work seen now. I thought to myself that if Neil or the Bloggess or even some of my friends could make Blogs to get their work “out there,” why couldn’t I? Yes, I know that this journal is not particularly decorative and I am still toggling with a lot of stuff here. Hell, I didn’t even know if WordPress would show my video link as something already embedded but I learned through some common sense trial and error instead of fretting … too much over it.

But more than the technicalities of this, I think there is something that Neil said that applies to my work and my current situation even more succinctly. He says in his speech to the graduates that he told someone to pretend to be someone who can do what they need to do. He didn’t say to pretend to do this, but rather to pretend to themselves that they can and just go with it from there.

And that is exactly what I am doing right now. I am pretending that my writing and my opinions as such are valid, unique things that deserve to be seen by others and this is how I am operating this Blog: just precisely like that. I’m going to pretend to myself–to actually and truly believe–that I can do this. Perhaps it isn’t perfect, but having something imperfect at least is a starting point and something to build upon and changing. It is something to work with. If you wait for the perfect clay, you definitely won’t make that sculpture or even get that clay.

I guess what I am saying is that this show will continue, and I look forward to revealing a lot more of what I can do, and what I can ultimately say: because, really, I just want to make “good art.”