I have not written for a long while and it is a shame, but I have written some fiction tonight and it has perhaps given a new voice to the fiction I have been crafting over the last year.  The working title is The Curse from Cain, but it plays off of more than the biblical Cain.  It brings in the giving of the name Cain since that most famous Cain; particularly it brings in 'The Night they Drove Ole Dixie Down" (see link below).  Anyways, I have been working on this story for quite a while now and while there was parts that really sang to me, there was a lot of apprehension in my writer's heart -- there was something missing from the mix and I knew it was a specific element of my personal style.  The whimsy was missing.  I thought about this along time and considered starting a whole new story, but I was happy with the themes and current characters.  It just needed something, and this something has stopped me from continuing on and starting something new.
The story needed a parallel element with a character set that does not function the same way as the primary story-line.  There needed to be the tricksters, the hardness of things that were traditionally known as fate.  It is through these new figures, Satyrs, that the dreamy comedic undertones of the story can be expressed: I was just looking for some characters to round things out, and now I hope things will finally begin to flow.

-- JjD

As a youth, I would read a book on any possible surface.  I remember rolling over on a bench to find that my whole body was asleep after being enamored with two hundred pages of an adventure novel.  However, as an adult I find my reading to be much more chair bound and drink bound.  As I have aged I have found that I am reading several different books at the same time, and the books I am not reading find their way onto the arm rest or end table where resting materials are often found.  In the mornings and afternoons my cup of coffee encounters a resting point upon the same spot as the discarded books find their place.  In a happy abode there is no place for misplaced articles unless they are articles of the cultural type: one is not allowed to have old glasses and plates scattered around but one is allowed to have books and exquisite dinner jackets tossed everywhere.  When these grand artifacts are tossed everywhere there is the possibility that things may be set upon them.
I have the habit of using my cheaper paperbacks as coasters for my beverages.  This is an, almost, deliberate habit.  There is something of a "lived in" look that I try to foster in my home and placing drinks on used objects is a part of it.  My books need to feel that they are mine and that they have gained something from being in my presence.  In another vein, when I have guests they are often unaware of the surfaces that their drinks find.  I do not like it when my wood surfaces get a drink ring from an improperly placed glass, but I do adore when my books are embellished with the mark of a drink ring.  Each ring tells a story and a good reader can look at each ring and tell the tale of a party or a pleasant morning passed with nothing other than a good coffee or a drink poured to accommodate an aggrieved brain.
This is why any good book has a ring on it.  The drink ring tells the story of life lived into literature: stories are told by the past laid onto to present markings.  These markings may be drink rings or the creases upon faces or the twitches in eyes.  As a youth, I would read books and get lost in the pages; however, as an adult I tend to get lost in the human markings upon the books.

-- JjD

When I first came to law school I was amazed by the historic cases that referenced literature and the ones that broke into marvelous poetic passages.  These are my favorite cases and I still talk about them fondly after reading two hundred page SCC judgments devoid of artistry.  This does not mean that I want poetry for the law, but I do think that an injection of art or literature into the law would not be misguided.
I am thus advocating for an interdisciplinary approach to legal studies.  My first exposure to the law was through a reading of To Kill a Mockingbird.  Its pages spoke of justice and discrimination in such a way that my eyes became open to the injustices all around me.  Now that I am older I am bringing this novel back into my studies as I am writing a paper on how adults view children and their perspective of the law.  To Kill a Mockingbird will be the cornerstone work in my paper.
Looking at the law through these different perspective allows for new thought processes and vibrant solutions.  Furthermore, interdisciplinary studies open up discourse between people and create a broader sharing of ideas; it also helps when one tries to convey the law to a layman.
Lastly, it is also fun to study the law through mediums other than text books and cases.  While I am fully aware that Kafka's The Trial is not a good representation of our judicial system, I am amused by a bureaucracy gone awry.  Alternatively, I am pleased I am not an officer of Charles Dickens's Chancery Court, but he does paint a lovely picture of how equity can go wrong.

-- JjD

As a continually failing author I am tempted by possibilities to get exposure for my writing while maintaining a level of respectability.  The internet has always been a place where people can publish whatever the hell they want.  This has the possibility to democratize art, but it also removes the gatekeepers and the people who filter out the crap.  However, there is a substantial amount of quality that gets filtered out in the process and this is all dependent upon the whims of any given period.  These are the basic arguments about self-publishing on the internet.
For me, it has always involved trying to find a legitimate service or website where exposure can occur and the market can decide for itself.  It is all well and good to share short stories or novels with a discussion board of authors; it is another thing to have a site where the market begins to choose, where you subject yourself to utter obscurity.  I have put some of my stories up on this website, but to this date only a few of them have been downloaded.
My new temptation is Kindle, and perhaps the only thing holding me back is that I have not read their legal contract yet.  I am sure I can bring my legal mind around to the terms they purpose, but will I be able to accept these terms and how much am I willing to give before I assert that the terms are unacceptable.  On the other hand, as an author who has not received acceptance, should I just cave in an effort at exposure.  This would mean putting out a novel that I have poured years and years into.
In the end, I will cave, Hemingway essentially gave away The Sun Also Rises and I should be willing to sacrifice my novel of lesser ability.

-- JjD

Any person who has checked out my website should understand that I have a passion for Thomas Mann.  Yet, I have not expressed my passion for The Magic Mountain yet and it is surely one of those carefully crafted masterpieces lost in academia and common reading.  However, the theme of these blog posts deals with which character a person, or me in particular, would identify with in a novel and would embody in real life if they needed to.  Picking a work like The Magic Mountain for this analysis is problematic as it involves very difficult, and often racist historic figures -- how can we understand these people in an historic context.  We also have the issue of the sheer volume of character; this might be why I refuse to address a Russian novel under this topic thread.
Moving forward,  there are three characters I would like to focus on, and they are all men because Mann cannot write women -- in this vein he makes me think of Oscar Wilde who was incompetent in regards to women.  The first character is Castorp, and he is the protagonist.  He is appealing because he is the young man becoming enlightened, learning the differing motives and values that exist in our world.  At moments he takes a more active role in his life on the magic mountain, but most of the time he is a passive player being compelled forward by the society that he lives in.  Yet, he has an inquisitive mind, desiring to learn, but hesitant to succumb to idol worship.  He mostly like any good man in this regard and that is why he is so appealing.
One of the figures he comes across is the humanist Settembrini.  Essentially, this man speaks to a particular understanding of the world.  However, it is full of dogma and lacks pragmatic understandings of the world and people.  Castorp eventually sees through this and i could not help but cheer this strength as a reader because you begin to sense the failures of Settembrini and his logic.
Next we have the nihilist in all of his glory in the character of Naphta.  We might say it is decadent nihilism and love him for it.  However, we have to think of Naphta and Setembrini in a dualist perspective when it comes to this novel.  By themselves they are dogma in a vacuum, but together they are able to enlighten the young Castorp.
In the end, I am the young Castorp, coming away from the novel with a new understanding of the world.

There has been an increasing amount of specialization over the years in the work profession.  I rail against this specialization with an effort to be as dilettantish as possible.  It is not an easy path to follow as the demands of knowing a subject inside and out encroaches on one's personal interests; however, it is much more fulfilling to delve into the plethora of activities in the world. Most people, after years of careful study and practice, can become experts at something in the world, but this can become boring and repetitive -- soon, you will start to dread the very field of study or practice that you once loved.  Currently, I am engaged with a number of different fields in which my skill is improving and developing: I write, work with wood, tailor clothing, discuss art and culture with ease, and play tennis.  The goal here is to not become an expert at any given field -- it is to develop a variety of skills that can benefit you in life; these are the skills that will help you during a zombie apocalypse if you are expecting it.
There are several key benefits in being a dilettante:
1. You can impress people by the amount of knowledge you know: in order to impress people you do not need in depth knowledge -- all you need is an ability to scratch the surface of a topic.
2. You are able to do a variety of unique tasks for yourself: imagine if you are able to tailor your own suits or hem your own pants; imagine if that you can construct a wonderful meal rather than having to send out for one.
3. You can cut expenses: because of your new found abilities, you no longer have to pay for certain things to be done for you; also, you can cut costs in construction -- now you only have to pay for materials and not for the labour or mechanization.
4.  In case of the end of the world you become invaluable as you can do a huge variety of tasks.
Some may criticize the life of a dilettante as it does not allow for intense knowledge of a field.  I counter this with the fact that we have long lives and have the time to pursue certain topics to fuller fruition.  This does not mean only studying one field, but I dedicated a year of my life to inter-war Greenwich Village culture -- no more than that though.  Having a limited specialty does provide some strength in conversation and cultural capital.  the best bet, in these regards, is to pick a hobby or field of study that is sexy and obscure.

Viva le dilettante (studying French was also one of my sub-fields)

-- JjD
 

It is a long discussed topic that we can find art and peace in the outdoors, that nature can feed the soul.  I do not want to get into the discussion around whether or not nature is art, nor do I want to discuss the natural environment.  Instead, I want to draw attention to beauty of experiencing art in outdoor spaces, and, particularly, free performances in public spaces.  Previously I have discussed the joy I find in the Culture Crawl and perhaps I wrote on the special dynamics of the free summer events during Vancouver Jazz festival. 
This time, I have come across some free events being put on by the Push Festival (http://pushfestival.ca/shows/la-marea/).  It is taking place in Gastown and I will be in attendance.
The outdoor event contains a spontaneity that indoor events lack for sheer predictability of space.  There is no danger of the weather, no potential for the drizzle or downpour which can truly turn an outdoor event to a performance piece.  Next, there is the milling and interaction of people, and in Gastown this will be even more pronounced because the event can be seen by the tourists, residents, and those without homes.  This leads to the other joy I find in these events: they are free!  This allows a viewing opportunity for a much larger cross-section of Vancouver's population.  You may be standing my a rich man and a struggling artist.  Because of these factors, a different energy begins to exist in the crowd; there is no longer the formal rules around viewing as people will come and go as they please.  Following this train of thought, there is also the elimination of the dreaded undeserved standing ovation as everyone will already be standing.
Make sure to dress warm in your finest outerwear and head down -- you might just see me milling through the crowd, looking for the best angle to view the events.

This can be a short or long post depending on my desire to write.  There is a strange dynamic in my mental makeup and it deals with the ability to order thoughts and the ability to stay in the moment of life: to not be taken away with the negative.  My writing is not critically successful and I am generally unconcerned with this, but when a writer's block hits me it can be troublesome.  This is because I write to sort out issues even if the writing does not mirror my life at all, but when I can't write the mental problems crash in on themselves; this adds to stress around writing and an inability to sort things out.  This equals a classic catch 22 and one of those nasty cycles.  For me, the trick is not to push through it at the keyboard, rather I have to find a mental thread of strength and grasp onto it and if it is strong enough it will pull me through all the negative brain shouting to a place where perspective can be gained -- let us call it nirvana.  Don't be deceived, I have never got there through peaceful meditation; I grit my teeth and try to look myself in the eyes and often they do not like what they see, but the place exists and it is becoming a better place the older I get.  The more I go back there after these moments, the better it is, and the more it holds.  This is why I write.  When I am back at this place, things begin to flow and I am better than before.  Maybe I am a bit harsher or face the world with an ironic snarl, but I am not in the realm of the writer's block anymore.


-- JjD

The trick here is to create the great, and successful, Canadian drama.  The trick here is to get outside of the current national mentality around pleasing everybody, or staying non-offensive, and actually being able to get at the guts of a national story.  So far we have not been able to attempt to write stories that are accurate, raw, and compelling.  I believe it is a sense of false sensitivity and a desire in producers to not spend the money on that which will challenge.  We have examples of the potential -- Trailer Park Boys, Corner Gas, North of 60, and Street Legal -- where there is a scratching of the surface, but the narrative gets lost along the way in grants or a misguided self-consciousness.  What I am thinking of now is a west coast drama stretching down into the US about European contact on the west coast.   Everything can be included, the perspectives and the violence: the politics and the mental tensions.  It is time to rival the television dramas of other nations with a representation of our own.  We have to keep it Canadian but ignore some of our assumptions about ourselves: evils were committed and they need to be recorded, but the people who came had their own impulses and understandings.  The only way that this will succeed is in a careful understanding in the writing staff.  This is where the arguments about culture will be played out.  We live in the results of colonization and we should begin to address them in ways that are brutally real and do not bow down to our misguided understandings of multiculturalism.  I want to see a representation of the signing of the Douglas Treaties or what happened on this culturally significant land where I write this post now.  Let us collect a staff of writers that can span this gap and begin to create gripping stories.

The culture crawl started with a downpour.  The morning was filled with rain and it was clear, but not in the sky, that the night would be filled with rain.  With this in mind, I went about preparing myself for the event.  I collected my outerwear that is the most weather resistant and contemplated how well it would withstand any level of a cats and dogs onslaught -- it did not look good.  Because of this, I got out the water-proofing sprays and coated my boots, jacket, and hat to such an extent that I believed I could withstand a swim.  After this I collected the warming drinks that are to accompany me on the crawl; they are the products of grape and grain and exude heat from the inside of one's body.
Before striking off I was met by one of my companions for the night, a young Dimitri unschooled in much of the culture of Vancouver.  We headed out into the light drizzle obscuring the streetlights powering up in the already darkened fall.  We take the 84 and I am saddened that it is no longer one of the old buses with the walk up stairs and soft seats -- no longer is it an antiquated bus whisking me away to a novel experience, but rather it was one of the new kneeling buses deferring to me rather than requiring the trudge up the steps.  Along the way we meet the other companion, my old comrade in these adventures -- Scott enters the bus with the requisite smile and supplies for such a journey.  We exit the bus at the Clark station where an industrial district is illuminated by a neon cross displaying that we are definitely in East Van.  Up the hill beside the splashing cars, the rain begins to increase as we approach the first destination, the old foundry.  It is here we are greeted by a plate of food and an unknowable burning green punch.  This is the place that we have always started at -- it is the tradition.
From here we moved off and away from tradition, crossing Clark to explore the spaces on the East side.  A discovery of large spaces with attempts at masterpieces -- scattered discussions of abstraction and representation.
The newness behind us, we jump from house to house, little studio to little studio; little quality as we focus on the crawl, the night, and the joy of the rain disappearing. It is now that we move back to the well marched trail, hitting the sprawling warehouses that house those wanting to express.  It is here where there are snippets of brilliance coupled with utter failure until we take a random exit to an alley two feet wide with graffiti illuminated by windows stretching four stories skyward; street art only seen within snippets of passing time.
Euphoria passes and we move off into Old Strathcona where the oldest houses in Vancouver line the streets in new paint attempting to maintain the heritage character of the area.  Streets and turns and then a line of lights and balloons; it seems we have been here before.  The scene opens up to the glory land of last year where free food and wine flowed around quality works.  We move in and give thoughtful glances and comments before we are approached by the hostess who recognizes our mooching asses from last year -- this makes it difficult to continue to eat the free food.  However, we claim that next year we will have money and will come back to patronize this artist and perhaps I will as he has evolved over the year and things are better and grander.
At this point we are too warm for more art so the march takes a new direction down to East Hastings where we contemplate bars and futures, where the city begins to unfold in its nighttime decadence.  This is the end.


-- JjD