Now we need horses

Another turn cornered, fall revolves and this Vagabond is mourning red and orange leaves. In the West, trees hiccup their greens to yellow and let them drop after a farewell hands up. The sky splits in two: dark grey underlining sky’s eyes side by lonesome with the sparking yellow sunrise.

Everything is dun, and nothing gets me over needing water. There’s a river three blocks from my door, but it isn’t the same, not touchable. Hard to pause on the pedestrian bridge here when everyone is passing through.

Remember jamming in the Corolla on the way to the Wednesday night meets? Four or five prosers crammed in like strays picked up on the road to the Miramichi, cawing on about this or that plot line. Actually excited about telling a good story.

The long rails run the length of this land, and I imagine you could all walk down to the old bottle depot, and hop the chain link fence to the weather beaten broken old train station. Hail a ghost, come on out to me. Bring 5 to 7 pages and we’ll talk about the presence of metaphor in the everyday slog.

Let’s make a call: Hobos and rangers, lovers and strangers, pack your gumption and bear bells. All great stories begin at the end. So tie them up and haul out with a handful in your pocket. There’s a territory out this way called the Badlands. I wonder if something good would come of it’s exploration. Someone needs to haul out a webcam, we need to talk writers vacation.

All you Merries are tearing up the Coast with your good writerly work.

Now we need horses,
Campeye

The same

How quickly we’ve
got on. By autumn
we’ll be interested
in the same architecture.

Aliens with Feathertales

Hey Dudes,

The Yin and Yang, or Karma, or whatever, of life is so f’-ing weird. When one career seems to be tanking, the other comes along to tow you back to the surface. I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m tooting my tugboat horn here, but I just got word that the humour magazine feathertale.com wants to publish my poem If You Turned Into an Alien… “Giddy” best sums up my mood this weekend in November.

JT

December means Dino Porn!

That’s Right Folks,

The independent publisher Ferno House in Toronto has accepted my story Longest Known Dinosaur for their collection entitled Dinosaur Porn. I’m pretty stoked, and based on this success, I think I’ll devote myself entirely to the erotically strange.

JT

Campeye Comet goes great with Fiddleheads

Hooray,

Katie Brown has scored another publication for herself and our illustrious brood. She has two poems in the Autumn 2009 issue of The Fiddlehead.

Congrats,

Los Vagabondos

More wisdom from traveling with a French Poodle

The last post of this kind went out, primarily, to Eagle Eye. This one is for the Boxcar Breezer:

“[...] I am not shy about admitting that I am an incorrigible Peeping Tom. I have never passed an unshaded window without looking in, have never closed my ears to a conversation that was none of my business. I can justify or even dignify this by protesting that in my trade I must know about people, but I suspect that I am simply curious.” -John Steinbeck (from Travels with Charley)

Ta Da! -JT

Tips on NFLD. dialect

Well, hello there,

Thought I’d share some recent feedback on a new story of mine set in an Newfoundland outport village. The comments are funny and fab and helped me tighten up my regional dialect a bit. They are provided by Dodi Pretty, artist, Chapel Arm Nfld. resident, mother of the Groundhog Timberbeast and all-round wonderful person. Enjoy. And thanks again, Mamma Dodi.

JT

Hi Luv,

Dis story wus pretty darn good if ya ask me. Now den if ya really wants me feedback I don’t mind givin ya some iders. Now to start wit us Newfies has a good reson to talk like we does. We just don’t have time fer all the fancy stuff, like th in a word. Sur we does pretty good wen we leaves it out all togedder.This and that becomes dis and dat, these and those becomes dese and dose, enerything is everyting and thanks is tanks by. Now I knowns ye is from da mainland and ye has a lot of spar time on ya hands but youell get it if ye tries hard enuf. Anudder fancy word ye uses is “my”when referring to belongins. Well on da rock everyting is me belongins; like me car and me dog and me nuts, and me coveralls, and lets not ferget me muddder and me fadder or me brudder or me dauter. Also you wus at the market ferget dat “were” word, I can’t figer dat one out. Try usin wus it’s a nicer word. We sometimes puts an extra s wherever we wants it. Like I gots to go pottie, or we gets stuff from da shop. To sav even more time we drops all da g’s from anythin endin in g likes me weddin dress and jumpin rope. Some long words like fabulous sur we’d take all day to say dat, so we says fablos and visitor is vistor. Now me old trout, I hopes dis helps ye out some. I’ve enjoyed writtin it. God luck bucky and long may yer big jib draw.

Loves ya and wonderin wen youll be headin back dis way.

Momma Dodi

Raison d’etre

For the shiftless:

“[W]e do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” -John Steinbeck (from Travels With Charley)

There you have it,

JT

A Shortcut Through The Minefield

I forgot to pimp this last month when it happened. My short story A Shortcut Through The Minefield appeared at unfilteredsmoke.com, a website started by a guy named Jason Wilson. The site is about exploring your creative side, and they’re looking for pretty much any kind of art you’ve got.

Timberbeast howls in T.O. tomorrow

Hey all,

Our hero, Step “Groundhog Timberbeast” Taylor, will be breaking some theatrical legs at Theatre Books in Toronto for the launch of his newly published play Chapel Arm. Sweetback Twist and the T-dot chapter should show up and give an East Coast brother some love.

The event site is: http://www.theatrebooks.com/events/index.html

JT