New Year's Eve Wedding

Surprise episode of Wedding happening across the street right now, 3 pm start. Liz thinks that the cabbie who drove her back from the StuporStore is singing at the reception. The party will be big! The party will outlive the marriage. Every year rain or shine they will remember their wedding.

T: long-sleeved burgandy
loc: church TV studio
temp: -8 C
sound: The Arrogant Worms with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Semi-Conducted

Thermostats

In the past month or so, I've burnt or overcooked roasts, blacked the top of a chicken casserole, charred a pizza. I thought it was the oven's bottom element overheating, burning up. Was hoping that it might mean a new stove to replace the 35-year-old McClary Easy that was the original stove installed in this apartment. No such luck.

I called the building manager who called the appliance service centre who called me to ask what I though the problem was. Then they sent buddy over. He said that bad elements simply don't work, don't heat up. Overheating likely means the thermostat had died. We pulled the stove out and tripped the circuit breaker OFF because the stove is hardwired. Below is the dead thermostat.


Funny thing is that when I called the building manager I also told her the building's back stairwell radiator was overheating. Thermostat was set at 15 C but the temperature was over 40 C /100 F. I know because I tested the heat with my photo developing thermometer. After the oven was repaired I went down the hall to find that the wall-mounted thermostat had also been replaced.

Funnier still is that under the parent's tree was a digital meat thermometer for me. No batteries though. Need two AAA.

t: long-sleeve burgandy
loc: conCtr
temp: -13 C
sound: The Cars, Greatest Hits

Happy last weekday!

Wouldn't it be nice if there were no more weekdays? Stop.
Not just this year but forever. Stop.
No workdays. Stop.
Just life. Stop.
Free Fridays for Frigga. Stop.
It's always someone's b'day. Happy . . . happy. Stop.
Today it's one of my publishers' b'day. Stop.
Happy birthday, Simon. Stop.
Having a short whisky for breakfast here. Stop.
Shorts or shots of Alberta Springs all around. Stop.
Cheers! with everyone at Rad. Stop.
Never saw the bookstore. Stop.
Saving it for next time. Stop.
Tomorrow is WhiteFeather's b'day. Stop.
Biggest party of the year. Stop.
It's not just for her but . . . Stop.
How many others? Stop.
Cheers! Stop.

T: History of Art
loc: comCtr
temp: 3 C
sound: Clash on Broadway (CD 1)

How you say it

On Tuesday, I was at my grandmother's in Cole Harbour. For some not-reason she had a rock'n'roll station on the radio. I was surprised. Maybe the liveliness of the beats register if the words don't. Who knows?

Anyway . . . After some ads, the announcer FM- DJ- radio personnality, whatever, came on and announced that the next song would be "Rock the Cash-Bar" by The Clash. Said it twice. No attempt at a correct pronunciation of Casbah or Kasbah.

Earlier the same day or the day before CBC One was broadcasting some concert from England and the British radio commentator introducing it said they'd be performing several "Bar-Rock" pieces when in reality they were baroque compositions.

It's all in how you say it. Same with visitors, non-locals or come-from-aways that say "anTIGoNish" for Antigonish (the opposite of it might be the nonexistent town of "Progonish") or "Agri-Cola" for Agricola Street in Halifax.

I'm no perfectionist in this area: I grew up saying "fillum" for film (and my mother still says "fillum"), Chicargo and Newb Brunswick amongst other mispronunciations.

Worry pas. I's been workin' 'pon me Anguish. Hit's gettin' bedder tha more ah spek it.

Wes wish yous an yers:

'appy New Year!

t: Guinness
loc: comCtr
temp: 2
sound: Bif I Bificus

found posted

Found on buildings and power poles in the Reserve.

T: Guiness
temp: 2 C
loc: fred ComCtr
sound: BTO, "Down to the Line"

on xmas day

What is a Christmas season without something unexpected?

The day before’s dusting of sun disappeared by noon. Dad went and cut still-growing green onions in the cold frame out in the yard. Mom and I went for a morning walk back along the causeway and past the two spring-alive-with-peepers ponds now ice-covered and ringed with dried-on-the-stalk cattails and low spruce trees. A piece of land (22 acres, Mom thinks) for sale there. Much of it low, but there is one good ridge that might be build-on-able as long as there’s water suitable for a well.

We walked back out to Hawkeye Island along one of the beaches where I used to play as a kid. A beach often busy with little shorebirds running in the surf line. This ship’s hull has been in the bank there for many years. Never visible until a few years ago, it is slowly revealing itself. I wish I had a large building lobby, or sunken floor area in a living room, vast enough to hold and display this wooden, pegged-together hull. A space with high open-raftered wood ceiling, skylights, a field stone wall with fireplace and a square of comfy chairs with end tables in the corners. But that’s the stuff of dreams . . .

This Christmas Day had its puzzles and troubles but not in the gifting or cooking (other than no one knowing how long mom had been cooking the turkey, and she suspects at least an hour too long). I called my sister in Toronto and got her answering machine. Ruth had done the same the night before when we were gathered at her place. Carol wasn't at her home or wasn't answering . . . ?

In late afternoon, while we were doing the gift unwrapping thing, Ruth & Mike’s black Labrador, Abbey, got into the pantry and attacked Mom’s cherry pound cake. It was on a low shelf. Dad thinks he accidentally left the pantry’s folding door open. That’s their normal position for the folding door even though it jams up the space in front of the microwave. I always close it or I’m forever banging into it and/or the pull-out shelf underneath the microwave.

Worse happened at dinner. When we were toasting the season, the day, Mom and my arms connected wrong. I was sitting to her left on one side of the table. My arm had been high above hers as I was clinking with Ruth across the table. Somehow, and I didn’t see it because I was looking at Ruth and Mike, her wine glass collided with the side or underside of my outstreached arm. Mom’s wine glass smashed into my water glass sitting on the table below. Both broke and scattered glass and liquids across our side of the table and our plates of turkey dinner. Mom fled the table and refused to come back even though we cleaned everything up and prepared new plates of food. At least she sulked instead of raged. That may have been the shock, I don’t know. Yesterday she mentioned just being too tired, exhausted.

This photo is of the tree though the living room window with the reflected Fishermen’s Reserve giving depth and colour. An interesting blend, not double exposed or a negative sandwich. Something my eye saw that the camera actually captured well. I like it!

t: grey
loc: loft
temp: 0 C
sound: East Coast Christmas

Seaforth or Bus(ed)

I had intended to write here yesterday. More stories from the road or pictures and descriptions from road to Seaforth. But yesterday morning I checked my email first thing. An incident simply described in a close friend’s email filled my head and I ended up spending most of the day writing two short stories simultaneously. Stories for children, at that. Or they hopefully will be stories suitable for children once they’re edited and rewritten to clear the fog and replace up to 29-word sentences, some of the polysyllabic words, and too complex or abstract sentence structures. Don’t hold your breath waiting.

Okay, I’ll start with one moving sunset tree photo taken from inside the bus as we approached the Halifax International Airport exit.

Buddy in the aisle seat beside me was a 3rd year geek from UNB taking I don’t know what except for taking a new girl home to his parents’ for xmas. Who else but a geek would carry their student union health insurance plan brochure with them and joke about the monetary values attached to various injuries and dismemberments.

While the “segregation” drama was unfolding in the two rows behind us he inhaled chunks of Chris Bros. TNT pepperoni while the girl picked at the vegies and sliced meats sticking out of the side of her sub sandwich. She said it would be rude to put the whole thing to her mouth and bite it. [Why’d she buy it then?] Boy then dives into shortbread cookies, Coca-Cola, potato chips and bottled water. By the time we are a half hour out of Moncton, passing Sackville, he’s also lathered his hands twice with Vaseline Intensive Care lotion. [What’s so freakin’ special about his hands?]

Seaforth is located by road on Highway 207 on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. Eastern being east of Halifax, but the latest expansion of Halifax absorbed Seaforth and much more into the Halifax Regional Municipality (or HRM). My parents’ house is on the shore of Three Fathom Harbour. Beyond the string of low-tide connected islands there’s nothing until you hit Portugal. Beyond the other side of Three-Fathom Harbour we can see the mouth of Halifax Harbour.

Out the kitchen window one sees the garden plots where many vegetables are grown and far beyond them a cluster of shacks and sheds.

How long the Fishermen's Reserves has been here, I don’t know. Since whenever the Causeway Road was build to connect Hawkeye Island to the mainland. I’ve been coming out here all my life, since long before my parents bought a micro cottage and land here upon which to build this house. We came here to buy live lobster and fresh fish in season directly from the fishermen. [We still do.] We came here to dig clams and to enjoy the beaches.

The reserve holds a crazy mix of working fishing season shacks, equipment sheds, wharves, boats, nets, lobster traps, crab pots, summer and artist cottages, human-loon-built structures, and mangy feline-leukemia sick cats fed by do-gooder city crazies we’d all like to put the run to. Some to the buildings are abandoned, Every year or two one gets lost to fire. two years ago Hurrican Jaun claimed several buildings and wharves and scattered the contents far and wide. Beyond the reserve is a breakwater, walkable at low tide, that connects to Wedge Island and Rat Rock. Beyond them is the vast Atlantic Ocean.


T: moose petrogylph
loc: loft desk
temp: -1 C
sound: Little Feat Waiting for Columbus

just to leave Moncton

Second bus is an overflow charter bus, a Gray Line that’s Orleans/Acadian subsidiary owned. It is taking people for the Halifax Airport and Dartmouth before filling remaining seats with Halifax bound. No Sackville, Amherst, Springhill, Oxford, Truro, Antigonish, Capers or Newfie bound. They’ll be on other busses out of Moncton.

Some insanely stressed onboard. Freaking about their luggage and a perceived “segregation” of passengers. Just because she works for herself but may have to hire in the new year and she’s large enough for two seats and too loud talking all the time as if it’s her wind that’s the only thing running this bus, and has several equally large offspring clutched to her of whom, the daughter, hasn’t been back in 11-years since they moved to Ottawa and they happen to be black people and are heading to Fairview by taxi from the Highfield Square bus stop in North-end Dartmouth [my stop too, that why I on this same freaking bus] doesn’t mean that they’re being segregated. How freaking paranoid to think that organizing three buses of passengers going somewhere along the same bus route is segregation!

I hear the “segregation” word repeatedly but I can’t respond to her self-centred delusion. I want to tell her, Shut up and breathe. Shut up and rest. The bus company been running this route longer than you have. They know what they’re doing. If everyone going to the airport and Dartmouth is on this bus then all of our tagged luggage will also be on this bus. That’s how it works. When the ticket collector come onboard she starts yammering at him about the luggage. He tries to reassure her. It doesn’t take. Then she confesses that at least one of her pieces is labelled “Halifax-Dartmouth” not “Dartmouth” or “Highfield, Dartmouth” like the rest. So that it: she doesn’t want to be responsible for the possibility that someone else might misinterpret her stupidity in labelling excess luggage. How did she ever get this far?

All this before we ever left the Moncton terminal. This was the first time in well over a year that I’ve arrived at the Moncton terminal in weekday daytime and not seen the bus met by the crew of undercover RCMP led by baldy with the push-broom mustache. Nice present.

T: grey knit
loc: Gray Lines coach
temp (?) -14 C
sound: yammering all around and in my head

Happy Solstice

Happy Shortest Day of the Year! Merry Longest Night!

Today is the real New Year's Eve. We've made it through another year. Yeah! I recognized it this year simply by being up before dawn (rosy coloured in the west) with a mug of hot chocolated coffee and a raisin bread roll (and of course by writing this). Have already wished several people, family and friends, a "Happy Solstice" on live chat and will continue to wish this to people I meet throughout the day.

Cheers! Sociable! Živeli!

[Photo by me is of the namesake carving in front of the Blue Canoe Restaurant, Lincoln, NB.]

T: lavender
loc: comCtr
temp: -14 C
sound: Les Paiens, Sphére: épiphonoe 2

Mall Mauled

I don't do malls or shopping centres well. They assault my senses and what little sensibility this poor artist has going for him. The excess of the StupourStore, no longer a simpler grocery store, is often enough to do me in. Subjecting or submitting myself to consumer abuse is worse.


Last Thursday, because I already had the excess of a rented car in the parting lot behind the apartment building, I made myself go to the mall. Really, I was going for an even rarer thing for me, to see a movie in a movie theatre. But that not what I'm writing about today.

I feel as freak-alien as an Amish person or member of some other closed group [and I am a near-impoverished poet-artist-creator] when I'm in a shopping centre's excess of products and dazzle and conspicuous acquisition and consumption. I don't recognize the people, their shapes and sizes, the wheeled carts of mostly branded plastic crap and shinies cast-offs, knock-offs, rip-offs. Fashion, marketing of consumption-driven trends, greed, lust, envy, coveting [I sound like a bible-addict ranting this stuff]—what is it that makes all this necessary?

I can see that I am clearly not of that world, their world, even if there is some congruency. I'm not aspiring to adopt their lifestyle or to acquire those dry goods and sundries, those excesses. I don't want to acquire them and their stuff. I don't even like seeing that it's been created. But I do have to admit that PlayStation, stretch denim, remainder bins, double doubles and much more are all human creations as much as church and state, poetry and prostitution, ICBMs and drift-nets.

I am always more inclined to walk by a store than to enter. Am I a loner [a one wolf] or sociopath? I don't think so. I just don't have that type of desire. I don't want those things. I have too much art stuff already. My (mostly Canadian) literature shelved over the past quarter-century would augment most any university library collection [especially in theses days of acquisition restraint perverted by academic and scientific publications rates].

A mall is so much worse for me than storefronts along a street. The mall is dictator to it's paying tenants. The mall wants/needs as many of us as it can spiderweb catch as badly as any televangelist. Cnsumption is a faith. Not mine.

shirt(s): faded lavender T, dk blue knit
loc: conCtr
temp: -5 C
sound: CHSR, Hatchet to the Head

Warp Tree Weavings

Last Sunday, pre-full moon, was even warmer at plus 6 C than today's plus 1 C. Walked to No'side Fredericton across the ex-train bridge and then unpriver on the trail past were Gibson's engine roundhouse used to stand to Carleton Park. Gulls at the water's edge. Evidence all around of the rain-filled floodwaters of recent weeks.

The scattered young, city-planted maples near the boat ramp all supported small ice-structures hanging of their truynks and lower branches. They drew me closer to photograph the trees and ice.

Once I got close enough to really see the trees I was struck by the floodwater-forced weavings in the wefts of branches. From the downriver-backside the branches were clearly visible.

From the front, the upriver side, the weaving is truly great: a tightly pressed arrangement of grasses, corn stalks and cobs filling the fan of tree branches.

T: plain black
loc: ComCtr
temP: -5
sound: NOFX "What's the Matter With Parents Today?"

Griffin Poetry Prize

The deadline for the C$100,000 Griffin Poetry Prize is approaching. Books must be submitted postmarked no later than December 31, 2005 for books published between January 1 and December 31, 2005. Please remember to complete all necessary customs/duties paperwork when shipping your entries to ensure delays are avoided.

Griffin Poetry Reading Podcasts

The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry now provides poetry lovers with unique Griffin Poetry Prize content via a new medium—podcasting. Podcasting enables you to download and listen to audio content on your computer or on any device that plays MP3 files, such as iPods—whenever you want. Visit their selection of poetry podcasts at griffinpoetryprize.com/podcast

If you have any questions regarding the rules, or would like to download an entry form, please visit the web site, at griffinpoetryprize.com.

The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry
6610 Edwards Blvd
Mississauga ON L5T 2V6
Canada
Telephone: 905.565.5993

still weird

Haven't blogged in a week. Been too busy. Not surprisingly, I am still weird . . .

Jelena, of RAD a.d., beside one of the many historic :-) site plaques in Fredericton.

Yesterday, I drove my publisher's representative from Beograd to the Fredericton (YFC) airport after a two-week visit to moi et Broken Jaw. A select few BJP books and catalogues, a Fredericton sign, a bottle of Albert Springs whisky for the publisher, a pewter bracelet of leaves, a CD of photographs, a CD of Bon Jovi for the publisher's son, Bay of Fundy beach rocks and much more in Jelena' luggage. Ideas in our heads for possible things, book and other projects, activities to do in the future . . .

The weather was all over the place. Last Sunday was a warm plus 6 C so we went out for a walk along the Saint John River. This photo is a view from Devon looking downriver.

Meetings, books and beer, especially Picaroon's Bitter—draft or bottled. Meals of my tomato and tarragon chicken; bacon-wrapped scallops; assorted cheeses, smoked meats and pickles; ajvar; homemade jams and bell pepper jellies; breads; Alberta buffalo stew; maple-smoked Atlantic salmon, farmers' market samosas, schnitzle; a MAC Yule feast on Saturday-past of bacon-wrapped dates, curry lentils, mixed greens salad, stuffed eggs, goose and Cornish hen with cherry sauce, poached pears and BYOB . . .

Wednesday, this week, was -12 C with wind and a -19 sensation, but without the snowbomb happening in other parts of New Brunswick. I rented a car, a grey Neon, and we roadtripped to the shore> through Harvey to St. Stephen and Jelena's first view of the evil empire across the St Croix River (but without a visa to enter), a church of Tim Horton's pit stop (her first time there for coffee and donuts); then along the shore to St Andrews and fish & chips lunch, a dollar store visit; and out the twisty Glebe Road on the shore to and through Chamcook; and back to Fredericton with a stop at Pete's for a bag of live seabugs of the farewell feast (and, not surprisingly, Jelena's first lobster & fiddleheads. Liz made a great seafood chowder to start the meal (with Schooner lager in memory of her dad).

The under-renovations airport is such a confusing mess. Jelen's check-in went okay except for not getting a Frankfurt-Budapest boarding pass (but to ask and get one in Toronto during her five-hour layover). Right now she should be on the road out of Budapest in a Gea Tours mini-van heading for Beograd.

T: long-sleeve burgandy
loc: comCtr
temp: -9 C
sound: none (internal error, need to reboot)

25 years ago

Last night, Jelena and I watched The Beatles' movie HELP. Spoof on themselves, espionage movies, comic skiing and more. Some really great laughs! Spontaneously borrowed it from the public library when looking for their copy of Robert Rodriguez's low budget, indie masterpiece, El Miriachi.

Twenty-five years ago tonight I went to Nathan Phillips Square in front of Toronto City Hall and joined a spontaneous gathering of about 10,000 people shocked by the shooting and death-murder of John Lennon the day before. The shooting made no sense. It still doesn't.

It was a cold night, 9 December 1980. Far colder than during John's concerts in the very same square. People at that concert were in the crowd around me. We talked to strangers. Many lit white candles. Some cried, sobbed, hugged. It was an emotional gathering. We were all shocked at the senseless taking of John Lennon's life. I thing there may have been people talking, giving speeches or something . . . The vigil ended with a spontaneous walk-march by many of the gathered mourners up Yonge Street all the way up to the home of CHUM FM.

A day or two later there was a local musicians tribute show at the El Mocambo. What I remember most clearly from that show, where most of the musicians-bands played a mix of their own and Lennon-Beatles tunes, was Goddo (It's Lonely at the Top But Who Cares) without guitar who stood at the mic and talked, said he just couldn't make music that day, then he gave a reading of the lyrics of "Johnny Was" by Bob Marley:

Woman hold her head and cry
Cause her son had been
Shot down in the street and died
From a stray bullet

. . .

Johnny was a goodman

A week or so later I moved from Toronto after 15-months of living there and returned a passenger on the train to Nova Scotia.

Today, I give this small telling from my time in Toronto around John being gunned down. Without planning to, I guess that we paid tribute last night.

T: Little Feat Smooth Sailin' tour 2005
loc: comCtr
temp: -11 C
Sound: Bob Marley & The Wailers, Babylon by Bus

Unpreempted!?!

Just had a phone call from Tristis, the CHSR station manager. The preemption of tonight's Ashes, Paper & Beans is off. Melissa is too sick to get to the station, to speak, to be on air with a day of planned special broadcast programming in recognition of the sad anniversary of the Montreal Massacre (of 16 women students at École Polytechnique) and the now annual call for the elimination of violence against women.

Tris told me I am "unpreempted" and apologized for the short notice [8 hours] where preemptions require a week's notice. Instead of having one of the very few, very rare, Tuesday nights in Fredericton that I'm not live on air, I'm to pull together a not planned program and rearrange people and things to make it happen.

Expect the unexpected: a known-world Viking, The Clash & Allen Ginsberg, an Irish-Canadian poet, a Portuguese-Canadian storyteller.

T: Dragon's Breath Pale Ale
loc: comCTR
temp: -5
sound: Portishead, Dummy

She’s Such a Geek

Anthology call for submissions:

She’s Such a Geek

An Anthology by and for Women Obsessed with Computers, Science, Comic Books, Gaming, Spaceships, and Revolution Slated for Fall 2006

Geeks are taking over the world. They make the most popular movies and games, pioneer new ways to communicate using technology, and create new ideas that will change the future. But the stereotype is that only men can be geeks. So when are we going to hear from the triumphant female nerds whose stories of outer space battles will inspire generations, and whose inventions will change the future? Right now. Female geeks are busting out of the labs and into the spotlight. They have the skills and knowledge that can inspire social progress, scientific breakthroughs, and change the world for the better, and they’re making their voices heard, some for the first time, in Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders’ book She’s Such a Geek. This anthology will celebrate women who have flourished in the male-dominated realms of technical and cultural arcana. We’re looking for a wide range of personal essays about the meaning of female nerdhood by women who are in love with genomics, obsessed with blogging, learned about sex from Dungeons and Dragons, and aren’t afraid to match wits with men or computers. The essays in She’s Such a Geek will explain what it means to be passionately engaged with technical or obscure topics—and how to deal with it when people tell you that your interests are weird, especially for a girl. This book aims to bust stereotypes of what it means to be a geek, as well as what it means to be female. More than anything, She’s Such a Geek is a celebration and call to arms: it’s a hopeful book which looks forward to a day when women will pilot spaceships, invent molecular motors, design the next ultra-tiny supercomputer, write epics, and run the government. We want introspective essays that explain what being a geek has meant to you. Describe how you’ve fought stereotypes to be accepted among nerds. Explore why you are obsessed with topics and ideas that are supposed to be “for boys only.” Tell us how you felt the day you realized that you would be devoting the rest of your life to discovering algorithms or collecting comic books. We want strong, personal writing that is also smart and critical. We don’t mind if you use the word “fuck,” and we don’t mind if you use the word “telomerase.” Be celebratory, polemical, wistful, angry, and just plain dorky. Possible topics include:

* what turned you into a geek
* your career in science, technology, or engineering
* growing up geeky
* being a geek in high school today
* battling geek stereotypes (i.e racial stereotypes and geekdom, cultural analysis of geek chic and the truth about nerds, the idea that women have to choose between being sexually desirable and smart, stereotypes about geek professions such as computer programmers)
* sex and dating among geeks
* science fiction fandom
* role-playing game or comic-book subcultures
* the joys of math
* blogging or videogames
* female geek bonding
* geek role models for women
* feminist commentary on geek culture
* women’s involvement in DIY science and technology groups
* stories from women involved in geek pop and underground cultures. These might include comic book writers, science fiction writers, electronic music musicians, and women interested in the gaming world.
* women’s web networks and web zine grrrl culture
* issues of sexism in any or all of the above themes

Editors: Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders are geeky women writers. Annalee is a contributing editor at Wired magazine and writes the syndicated column Techsploitation. Charlie is the author of Choir Boy (Soft Skull Press) and publisher of other magazine.
Publisher: Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, publishes groundbreaking books by and for women in a variety of topics.
Deadline: January 15, 2006
Length: 3,000-6,000 words
Format: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page. Essays will not be returned.
Submitting: Send essay electronically as a Document or Rich Text Format file to Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders at sheissuchageek@gmail.com.
Payment: $100 plus two books
Reply: Please allow until February 15 for a response. If you haven’t received a response by then, please assume your essay has not been selected. It is not possible to reply to every submission.

---

shirt: charcoal polo sport
loc: comCtr
temp: -3 C
sound: Great Big Sea, play

make like a tree

Postcard from the corkboard beside my computer. I've had it several years now, from one of my travels to or through Montreal. It's a real fav for the image.

T: Mojo Club, Senta
loc: ComCtr
temp: -1 C
sound: Richard Kean, Shrine

Merry Timewarp Day

Happy Bonus New Years Day!

You'd thing that a wall calendar produced and published by the national trade magazine of the Canadian book publishing industry would not have mistakes but this is the second mistake on this one this year. No question that today's timewarp is a bonus. An additional and early New Year's Eve can be a wonderful thing.

WW Boyce Farmer's Market morning to start the day: samosas and schnitzel, fair trade coffee, pot stickers and pad thai, buffalo sausage and burgers, fisherhof smoked herring, mackerel, eel and maybe sturgeon, organic vegetables, turkeys, salmon, scallops, eggs, bread, Montreal bagles, turkey jerky, chili bufallo jerky, spring rolls, apples, squash, cider and so much more. Saturday morning in Fredericton in the Saint John River valley.

By 8 pm you might find me at the CD launch-concert-fundraiser by New Brunswick Latino musician Cesar Morales for his first CD. Happens at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte St, Fredericton. Tickets: $8 (students), $10 (adults); available at Mazzuca's, Underground Cafe, True Food Organics, or at the door. This is a fundraiser for the New Hope Foundation school building and scholarship fund in Rabinal, Guatemala. Supported by the Breaking the Silence Network.

T: whale by Red Crane
loc: ar(ti)s(t) studio
temp: -1
sound: Dylan & The Dead, "All Along the Watchtower"

neopigeons

smudged cold feet dancing
in city squares and parking lots
jabbing chattering blue streaks
on benches streets and sidewalks
clogging building entryways
banned from cubicle and kitchen
from taxi bus and airplane
from store school and hospital
—even patients hobble ouside
join flocks of neopigeons
huddled in clouds of blue funk

T: Pennsic XXXII
loc: comCtr
temp: 11 C
sound: Dylan & The Dead, "Gotta Serve Somebody"

The passing of a Wee Giant

I rose this Friday morning to find a distributed email of personal significance waiting to be downloaded to my In Box. Many thanks, first of all, to James Deahl, a Past President, and to Donna Allard, President of the Canadian Poetry Association, for sending out the following notice:

Dear fellow CPA members,

It is my sad duty to announce the deaths of Margaret Saunders and David Hillen earlier this week. Both were buried today [Thursday, 1 Dec 2005].

Margaret and David were both very active in the Hamilton literary scene and in the old Hamilton chapter of the CPA. Margaret died of cancer; David died of heart disease.

Cards and notes can be sent to the family of Margaret Saunders at 178 Bond St N, Hamilton ON L8S 3W6 and to the family of David Hillen at 111 Cannon St E, Hamilton ON L8L 2A2.

Both Margaret and David had been ill for quite some time. Their passing is a great loss to Canadian letters and, of course, to all Hamilton-area writers. They were well loved.

Fraternally,

James Deahl

Margaret Saunders was a poet, editor and publisher. We first met during my young pup 15-months in Toronto in 1979-80 when she was editor and publisher of WEE Giant magazine. She must have been in Toronto for an Axle Tree Coffee House reading or something like that. She later published poetry of mine in her mag. Because of something I did, or said, or that happened early on, Margaret jokingly called me her guardian angel and that stuck for years whenever we met.

Margaret was active in the Haiku Society of Canada and at their annual gathering at the monastery in Alymer, Québec the participants had early morning walks on the rocks of les rapides Deschênes on the Ottawa River. The year I attended, Margaret started the group writing of a linked renga later published as sounds of an occasional monk (Haiku Canada Sheet, 1988).

Margaret is one of the poets who was so encouraging of me when I first went public with my poetry. I've always had good thoughts and good memories about her. As James wrote above, Margaret was truly well loved.

T: Pennsic XXXII
loc: comCtr
temp: 7
sound:

world wings
tap letters for words
december rain

Meet me at the horse

How long before I next do the Beograd thing? Before I next go to meet someone at the horse before going to a cafe, the theatre or opera, the university, a bookstore? Or to lead a workshop, or to give a lecture or reading?

The horse statue everybody knows: the great Prince Mihailo, long dead, leader, cast in bronze heroic in the theatre square off Kneza Mihailova, in front of the National Theatre.

How long before I again walk those streets cobbled or paved? How long before I walk passed the out-of-doors cafes that can seat thousands of patrons?. How long before I again stand, or sit on the wide stone steps below the horse, waiting . . . ?

t: Guinness
loc: comCtr
temp: 6 C
sound: Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine

a spill of olives

a spill of olives across kitchen
off-yellows 30-year-old cushion flooring
have to clean it must clean it must
finish writing a beggar's 1500 words
want better without the letter t
look up from the computer because
of a tapping outside the office window
woodpecker feeding on an elm tree
this last afternoon of november
but warm as late september or spring
before blossoms and buds open wide
left knee quietly sings its pain song
of high grey cloud and light rain
sprinkling this wide river valley


shirt: Insomniac Press
loc: beggin' bowl
temp: 14 C
sound: Jamiroquai Travelling Without Moving

Cracked Egg Day

Afternoon high of 11 C. I went biking out beyond Marysville to clear or calm my head, to dull the edge of my grant-writing anxiety. Came back soaked the skin, needing a shower. Some of the trail was sopping with water and most of the Gibson Trail was covered with thin slushy ice that the day's warmth and sun had not melted away but which crumbled under the tires. My pants got soaked from waist to the knees and a grey-brown swath of mud went up my lime-green jacket, and I had mud splatterd on my helmet and gloves (and I'm not some off-road mountain bike fool, was just on the riverside walking trails).

After the shower, I ate a bowl of the fish chowder I made this morning and a scotch pie with some of mom's pickles on the side, then took one of my 20-minute power naps.


Cracked Egg Day at Victory Meats. I remembered to make a run. Bought fresh vegies, greens, chicken, Montreal-style smoked meat and, of course, NB cracks @ $1.19 per dozen.

Tonight's Ashes, Paper & Beans program was primarially a live interview with poet Lynn Davies about her new collection Where Sound Pools (Goose Lane Editions) and the Sackville-recorded interview with author Beth Powning about her Edge Seasons book. Next week's APB has been preempted by a Montreal Massacre memorial special broadcast day.

Then I made the downhill walk on a surprising warm late November evening. Very dark. Raccoon darting between parked cars to cross York Street almost got penobsquised by another car as I was entering my building. That would have been a sight!

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some are to be chewed and digested."
—Francis Bacon

T: CHSR Highland Radio 2000
loc: comCtr
temp: 5 C
sound: Brian Eno, Ambient 1: Music for Airports

saying du jour

It's easier to turn gold into art
than to turn art into gold.
—Joe Blades

T: Brier Island . . .
loc: comCtr
temp: -5
sound: Sarah McLaughlan, "Good Enough"

collected sex: seeking poems

Poets rob mclennan & Barry McKinnon are editing a collection of poems influced by the original "Sex at 31" series started by McKinnon, Brian Fawcett & Artie Gold (with others since done by George Bowering, Mark Cochrane, Wanda O'Connor and George Stanley). please email pieces to rob_mclennan@hotmail.com, or by mail to:

rob mclennan
858 Somerset St W - main floor
Ottawa ON K1R 6R7

Barry's "Sex at 31" & "Sex at 38" can be found in The Centre: Poems 1970-2000 (Talonbooks, 2004). Artie Gold's "Sex at Thirty-One" in The Beautiful Chemical Waltz (The Muses' Company, 1992). For more information on the series, read the essay online in poetics.ca at www.poetics.ca/poetics04/04sexat31.html

---

T: "Brier Island is for the birds"
loc: comCtr
tepm: -6 C
sound: Zappa, "I Have Been In You"

nerves

belled
hanging off the ring
below
between
one lost by one of the reindeer
or someone celebratorious

cupped close in cold
but a hand reaches pocketed wrist
worried for gauntness seen
felt in the reaching out
how to reply?

no sunshine on my shoulder
no soap on a rope
not led by a collar
not licking
how to wish everyone

shirt: dk bleu prairie-knit
loc: conCtr
temp: -6 C
sound: Frank Zappa, Shiek Yerbouti

retournez l'emballage

peeled off a flip over
as if i'm that excited
unseen or submissive
wanting
not that it needs response
snowfalls
as poetry flies away
from its packaged expectations
the last saturday night
off season
new brunswick november
question emasculated
or too stressed responsible
to live
wilder
open life
frontpoet on stage
"i can't hear you
shout it! shout it
jump to the left
jump jump jump"
no modest mind
but this body lags
holds back on action

shirt: dk blue prairie-knit
loc: comCtr
temp: -1 C
sound: Kora Woolsey & Matt Robinsion: Original Music for the Film Margaret and Deirdre

pickled herring plus

so here i am eating picked herring watching
the mostly-dresseed-in-black assemble
wasn't looking for or expecting this "special" but here i am
am guessing a uni stud and studette
welcome any effort to prove me wrong
woman sticks her head in through church doors
"is this the wedding of ...?"

cold day
bride wears hide
overtop her white
maids all in wine red
with black coats
nice
t: camouflage
loc: conCtr
temp; 0:
sound: The Wordburglar The Wordburglar

weddingcraptv

i missed it (the rehersal) yesterday but i'm here today, live, as it happens. fukin november wedding: 3 pm curtain. should have an unsoundtrack live by Dust 'n' Bones, a Hungarian coverband of . . . [guess!], not the original for this union of not state, not church, not corporate, but people.

First foto is of the boychiks:
t: camouflage
loc: conCtr
temp: 0 C
sound: System of a Down, "Pictures"

special stickers not used

bicycled to the stupour
dry streets only no trails
with their uneven coatings
of frozen walked-through slush
and the dust of a small flurry
that today's sun hasn't yet melted
away to damp chipsand bike tires
could grip to roll

poem on a house:
folk artist painted poem
surrounded by wood carvings
and little feat in harvest
want full-frame enlargements
one-hour is too soon
for a return
to here

had desire
to bike to marysville
and back alongside the nashwaak river
but those trails would be too icy
for road-cross-mountain steed
so poet turned face into the wind
the better to travel to a water
nymph on a river so far beyond

poetry waiting
in a mess of administration
a wee dram of life to warm up
football preempted by empty stocking
and the poets today are anxious
and goal-orientated wanting more
than the mystery of their whatever
to get knights through

making space here
floor for the spare single
hauled from basement warehouse
and stuffed under stacked futons
not presuming poet a pea princess
or a role greater than being
however joked by experienced
wanting new magic to dazzle

warmest decembar day
an arrival in light tears
joy not sorrow predicted and hoped
but that is the first of next month
sure it's coming soon but days away
and almost a quarter of earth
separates as days shorten
and draw all closer

T: camouflage
loc: comCtr
temp: -1 C
sound: Pere Ubu, "My Darkness"

in dark water

struggling
swimming in dark water
for shore
or bottom
or something floating
that i can hold onto
until a better idea comes along

t: camouflage (contract-134421)
loc: comCtr
temp: -3 C
sound: Fiftymen After Darkfall

Two Notices

T: Quod nos non necat ...
loc: mailbox
temp: 0 C
sound: Bob Dylan Blood On the Tracks

Crummey Interviewed

Extremely phat rain and blustery winds yesterday didn't prevent Newfoundland author Michael Crummey from arriving in Fredericton for his 8 pm reading at the UNB Arts Centre.

Author of the Giller Award-finalist novel River Thieves, Michael Crummey was on tour promoting his new novel The Wreckage (Doubleday Canada, 2005).

I have had an advanced reading copy since his signing at BookExpo Canada in Toronto in June. We discussed doing an interview for my radio program when he got to town. He knew his Fredericton reading was scheduled for late November.

Getting closer to the date, things became less certain as to when or where, even if, we'd do the interview. My preference all along was to have Michael live on air at CHSR across the mixing board for me in the Master Control Room. Being a community radio producer-host is a volunteer activity for me and I can't and don't want to give over my workday time and resources to do a homemade version of CBC. I'll leave that to my cousin Ted and his merry band.

Last week, I discovered that two groups I'm involved with had scheduled a 12 noon meeting downtown and a 5:30 CHSR general meeting in the UNB/STU SUB. Knowing that, I was even more inclined to getting Michael live on air. I left it that way in an email to the publicist as I ran to catch the Acadian bus to Sackville for the Beth Powning workshop and interview.

Returned to emails from the Atlantic publicist going offline because of house construction and to a phone message from someone with the publisher in Toronto. They were both leaning toward an interview recorded at some earlier time on the same day. Michael was open to doing the interview, but was inclined toward a pre-recorded because of the unknown factor of dinner with UNB-types before his reading.

On Monday, I emailed Michael, hoping that he was checking email because he read at UNB-Saint John that night, to asked how his Tuesday afternoon was looking.

Perhaps the weather was a deciding factor . . . Wasn't fit to walk about Fredericton yesterday. Michael was lodged at the Delta out beyond Old Government House on the Woodstock Road. When we talked by phone in the afternoon he said Mark Jarman was collecting him for dinner at 5:30 and that Mark would try to get him to CHSR as close to 7 pm as possible.

It worked. We went on air at 7:12 and talked, with a short reading thrown into the mix, until 7:36. Because of the technical aspects of making two simultaneous recordings of a show that ended at 8 pm, I arrived at Memorial Hall in the UNB Arts Centre after the introduction and his reading had started.

Afterwards, a bunch of the audience went across to Alden Nowlan House-Windsor Castle Bar to hoist a pint.

shirt: plain purple
loc: comCtr
temp: 1
sound: The Beatles, "Here, There and Everywhere"

nap shower eat meet

there's no nap for dzo awake and working seven and a half hours today on book design and correspondence while hammer and saw work on renovation or repairs in the apartments on the floor above

he stood in hot water as it rained over him and soften his bristled face until he scraped it with a safe razor blade then shampooed and conditioned his mass of threatening spiral ringlet hair

steak tartar and pickled roasted red pepper and cheese bcubes are safe use of the stove this morning as it the auto-shutoff kettle for coffee water and the passive microwave oven for oatmeal

the meeting is immediate future in a bowl of november rain inverted with textiles and papers scattered gathered recombined and sodden with fear of the non-biting virtual alternative lapdog at his side

T: plain burgundy
loc: comCtr
temp: 7 C
Sound: Screaming Trees "More or Less"

The gift of publishing knowledge

The gift of publishing knowledge . . .

Employees are the life and foundation of the publishing industry. This year, why not show your appreciation for their hard work and dedication with a gift that combines knowledge, learning, and inspiration, broadens their horizons, and provides a mind-opening experience? These are the values inherent in the Canadian Centre for Publishing's first title release in their Publishing Studies series, Book Publishing I.

Brilliantly written and edited, Book Publishing I presents a compilation of twelve investigative studies, written by Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing program graduates and faculty members, into the practices of the publishing industry today. The studies cover a broad rangc of topics. including title acquisition, operations and management, target marketing, marketing analysis, merchandising, purchasing, and reading; foreign markets, and the impact of changing technology, and present a critical assessment of industry practices. Book Publishing I is a valuable resource and learning tool for all industry professionals: whether they are just learning the tricks of the publishing trade, or wish to critically reflect on years of experience.

Book Publishing I (Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing Press). Edited by: Rowland Lorimer, John W. Maxwell, Jillian G. Shoichet. ISBN 0-9738727-0-5.

To order please contact Jo-Anne Ray at ccsp-info@sfu.ca. Phone (604) 291-5242; or fax (604) 291-5239. If faxing please include relevant credit card information. Orders received prior to December 1 will receive a special 15 per cent discount off the retail price of $39.95; 20 per cent off for orders of over 20 copies. From December 2 to 15, 2005, the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing Press offers a 10 percent discount to the industry. Orders will be processed until December 15.

shirt: N&L: A World of Difference
loc: In basket
temp: 6 C
sound: The Cars Heartbeat City

Beth Powning in Sackville

Midnight Madness in Sackville Friday evening. Stores and cafe's opened late with Christmas Shopping Season. Kel and me ate a good meal at The Olive Branch then walked about the few blocks of active downtown Sackville streets. There were two horse-drawn wagons giving rides, non-profit groups fundraising at picnic tables, musicians in the window corner of a cafe, a 20% off sale in the bookstore, even a sale in the Sally Anne Thrift Store (with boxes and boxes of previously owned xmas decorations), complementary hot chocolate or cider outside Sackville Town Hall with inflated deer and lit-up tanenbaum. The largest crowd was the lineup to see the 8:50 screening of the new Harry Potter movie.

I bused to Sackville to take a WFNB writing workshop from Beth Powning; to interview her on tape for my Ashes, Paper & Beans radio program; to have some Miramichi hospitality with Kellie; to get away from Broken Jaw work for a few days.

Interviewed Beth late Saturday morning before the workshop. It went well. Probably about 17-20 minutes in duration. Might transcribe some of it if I ever get a chance (& give the publisher something quotable?) Some surprise answers too, i.e., Beth said this latest book began as, and was submitted as, a collection of nature essays with an "Animal Tracks" tile but it evolved into a memoir. Ended with Beth reading pages 220-223 from Edge Seasons (Alfred A. Knoff Canada, 2005). Melanie, the contract publicist (who lives on Causeway Road very near my parents), should be pleased. I might even broadcast the interview on Tuesday's episode.

Workshop was held in the basement of the Sackvile Public Library. Wallpaper border of "goose duck duck goose duck duck" at the top of the wall so we're all in the wet, in the duck pond below, swimming or bottom feeding or something . . . ? Good group: 14 participants, only two males (so an extreme version of the usual more-women-than-men participant ratio), more younger participants than expected. Beth said her writing is "an examination of her life to discover something about her life not previously known—it's a quest—and that journey, that quest, creates its own voice."

shirt: Newfoundland & Labrador: A World of Difference
loc: Dzo comCtr
temp: 3 C
sound: Miles Davis Sketches of Spain

in front of a computer

if there is time to sit in front of a computer
and converse with impossibly far-off friends
and if there is exhaustion for an afternoon nap
then falling asleep repeatedly in front of a tv
and if travel’s elliptic return discovers
grapes becoming raisins in a refrigerator
and if cheques received are postdated
while those amounts owed are past due
and if it is t-shirt afternoon weather
but longjohns and wool socks night
and if a not-watched kettle boils three times
before its hot water gets poured on coffee
and if everyone wants to tell their story
there might be less human destruction
and if a hurricane has destroyed this year
then an abysmal silence has reclaimed
and if a cowboy drops a match burning
sulphurous into neighbouring bushes
and if there are manuscripts to read
for books to publish but not retail
and if a pigeon atop a statue head
of state religion industry is death
and if school buses continue gathering
then dropping children in institutions
and if come-down leaves clog gutter
backed-up water pools and freezes
and if sudden winter hits fiercely
during extended construction season
and if this is a one-minute survey
but another is an essay question worth
and if the telephone ringer is off
a robot answers to records messages
and if morning departure for afternoon
arrival means a short-work friday
and if waking for dawn’s arrival
is another’s high noon waiting
and if there’s an end to possibilities
then this is all rendered meaningless

T: NB Filmmakers Coop, 15 Years of Filmmaking, 1979-1994
loc: comCtre
Temp: 6 C
Sound: Tragically Hip Music @ Work

cycling

Warm Sunday in November . . . what can I do but cycle on trails out of town . . . "I just wanna ride my bi-cycle . . ."

Me and my shadow upriver.

Looking downriver towards Currie's Mountain. Covered in Great Eastern White Pines, I'd like to see it forever preserved from developer encroacment. Make a walking trail contemplation park out of it. Have heard stories, not surprisingly, that it's considered sacred by some of the local Maliseet people. I watched eagles or something circle over it today as I approached. Love it.

T: volunteer
Loc: comCtr
Temp: 8 C
Sound: U2 Boy

Book Launch: Nis

Book launch for Slike iz kanade: Tri kanadska pesnika (Images of Canada: Three Canadian Poets) by Joe Blades, Nancy Burke and Fraser Sutherland published by Studentski kulturni centar Niš. The event was at Klub SCA-a Na Pranvom Fakultetu, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia & Montenegro, 24 October 2005.

At her own table in front of us, our presentor for the book launch, Gordana Mitić Zivković, Urednik Studentski kulturni centar Niš. Vesna Lopičić spoke about the book project then asked us three poets to introduce ourselves and to read a poem or two in English. We gladly did so. Oddly, to me at least, there was no reading of any of the poems from the Serbian translation.

An audience shot from the stage. At least 70 people present, most of them students for the University of Nis.

Fraser Sutherland signing books.

After the book launch we are rushed across town to see a play, Bop, by a Bulgarian theatre troupe, that is being hosted by SKC Niš. They had the curtain held for our arrival and then sat us in the front row. Staged in appearance like classic Greek theatre with everyone initially in white robes the play quickly incorporated Woody Allen-style comic elements, dance, and powerful singing with new lyrics to known music. Bop is god. It was very, very well done.

Afterwards we had drinks with the theatre director and a book publisher from the Bulgarian minority living in Serbia.

After that we boarded the theatre troupe's tour bus and went back to Klub SCA-a Na Pranvom Fakultetu. It was party time. They hauled cases of Bulgarian wine and brandy off the bus. Inside the club the table were put together for an incredible spread of mostly meats and cheese-filled pasteries. The smoked ham was incredible! The brandy was the smoothest I've ever tasted. The tables were cleared away and dancing began, the music changed to more polkas, and two callers took to the stage to start organizing the dancers and calling out the steps. At some point I was dragged onto the floor and found myself in the midst of Bulgaria's national dance, one as complex as a traditional ceilidh dance, and there was I a dancing fool, right to the Inverness stomp at the end. Not something that I could have ever imagined myself doing, but this whole Eastern European adventure is not something I'd ever expected.

T: Blades Maintenance
Loc: comCtr
Temp: 11 C
Sound: U2 Boy

in a wilding field

so still, so dull—faded grass
almost mouse grey, no longer golden
as juniper tree losing its needles

while that oak at wood's edge
holds fast its dead leaves
against bare branches of bush

a twitch of ear and my eyes
identify a third deer grazing
watching me as i watch them

out of the corner of my left eye
a stranger and a dog walk
along valley trail towards me

or us, unaware of the three
decidedly autumn dull-coloured deer
and a white pickup truck behind

them on the walking and biking trail
two men inside the cab watch
me watching deer in a wilding field

trucks not allowed here, but poacher
eyes see deer within city limits
and their minds are already beyond

so still, so dull—dusty bike
at rest between my legs, feet
planted firmly on the ground

quiet camera in knit-gloved hands
my poet mind sees our tableau
as the pickup truck encroaches

the three deer turn and run
between nearby trees as i mount
my bicycle and peddle away

---

T: Struts Gallery
loc: writing desk
temp: -2 C
sound: Cool Blue Outlaws: Songs of rogues, rascals and rapscallions

Introducing Recna svita

The Serbian edition of River Suite has been beautifully done. The cover matches the orginal Insomniac Press edition even to the title font. I was surprised, pleasantly surprised. This is a tipped-in cover page.

The book is one of three translated and published in their entirety, with an introductory essay by Vesna Lopicic, in a volume, an anthology, titled Slike iz kanade: Tri kananadska pesnika (Images of Canada: Three Canadian Poets).

The publisher is Studentski kulturni centar Nis at the University of Nis in southwestern Serbia.

The other poetry books translated in the collection are Ghostface by Fraser Sutherland (of Nova Scotia, living in Toronto) and Scorched Earth by Nancy Burke (Director of the Canada Centre at the University of Warsaw).

Busin' TCH

6:40 AM. H'Edmunston, New Brunswick. The longest part of the long night bus ride is done: It's all downriver from here. Unlike many other's I'm not going next door for a dose of Tim's diesel. Don't want MSGed coffee. There's been snow here in Edmunston. I first noticed it in Rivier-du-Loup but missed its first appearance while I slept.


Takes 11 hours to bus from Montreal to Fredericton. Left in the return of scattered showers, only 4 C @ 10:29 on the Molson brewery building in dwntown Mtl.

All night I had the seat beside me occupied by a quiet sprite of a skater girl with at least a Truro destination ticket.

Either a real skater girl or girlfiend-something with skater-punk boys who look like Beastie Boys video extras except for their Slipknot shirts underneath "cool [something]" baggy hoodies. Her sniffs are torture: declines tissue; declines Advil cold & sinus; says it's just the bus air. I and everyone around her have 11 house of her sniffing several times a minute to endure.

About Woodstock she pulls out of her pack some accounding homework to do: Chapter 3, Serial Problem (cont.) Sniffs less while working the Debit and Credit columns.


From here we've only a breakfast stop in Perth-Andover. A milk-run bus is simultaneously catching people and parcels in all the smaller towns along our route along the Saint John River. For a while we're out of the drizzle or low cloud scraping the river valley hills.
Hartland: world's longest coverered bridge a sans-flash photo blur out the far window.

Q: Why do i take pictures like this?
A: Because they're bad tourist but capture the feel of our passage, not of our being anywhere.

shirt: Polo long-sleeved
loc: Broken Džo commCtr
temp: 6 C, overcast
sound: Bif Naked, "Any Day Now"