Drowning Nor Waving

So, Leah, what did you do this afternoon?

I'm glad you asked, Little Timmy! I went with cszego to the Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic!

Pics or it didn't happen.

You drive a hard bargain, Imaginary Interlocutor...



It's the warmup skate! We spent this mostly going: "OMG IT'S MARK MESSIER--NO WAIT! OMG! IT'S WENDEL CLARK!"




Some Stanley Cups, hung from the rafters.




Of course, we can't have a hockey post without snapping a nice one of Bill. Hello, m'dear.*

*For those who don't know already, I am the only girl in all creation with a #5 Leafs Heritage jersey.




Carpet Man trains six days a week to roll out that carpet on cue. Here he is, crouched like a tiger in readiness. It's a hard job, but he does it for the privilege of serving his country.



The ceremony where they gave out the blazers to the 2009 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees (Brett Hull, Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, and some team owner dude who is not a hockey player and thus not important to this post) featured things like fireworks and Mounties. Really, this is the perfect confluence of all the things that make my heart happy.

(Note Carpet Man executed his duty duly and well.)



Vague and blurry shot of the Skydiggers playing between the two 30-minute periods. This lacked a crucial ingredient: Gord Downie.

There are no actual pictures of the hockey game. Pfft. You think I'd be taking pictures? I was watching hockey.

But as to the game itself, this was pretty much the world's fanciest casual game of pickup. It was pretty obviously rigged, in a sense that they weren't going to let the Canadian Legends lose no matter what went down (and really, they were winning by three goals anyway) and they didn't call any offsides, penalties, or anything else. The clock maybe stopped once. The linesman was more an emcee than anything else.

It was hella fun though. Wendel Clark played in a little ballcap, and you could practically see him thinking must...not...check...old men! Lanny MacDonald still has a totally fearsome moustache, and his moustache was playing this game before you were born, whippersnapper, so get out of the way! Robitaille and Leetch actually suited up and played a few shifts, and that was cool. Glenn Anderson has that whooshy Pantene hair when he skates; you get the feeling he doesn't wear a helmet not due to any safety thing, but because he's humming shampoo commercials to himself as he skates by. And we will still dork out and holler for Borje Salming even when he's on the wrong team.

In sum?



ME LIKE HOCKEY. ME WATCH HOCKEY. OM NOM NOM.

I forgot how good it feels when you're winning the hockey game.

Heh heh heh.

Stomach's a little unsettled tonight, so instead of going out to Nuit Blanche, I'm in listening to the Leafs lose to the Caps and working on the neverending socks. The roster may be all new, but these kids know how to piss away a power play just like the last batch. Ah, home sweet home. :p

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On a complete other topic, the Clockwork Phoenix books are still getting some press: there's a review at Sequential Tart that covers both volumes.

"Six" makes out okay; "Bell, Book, and Candle" seems to not have clicked with the reviewer:

Leah Bobet's "Six" tells of the relationship between two brothers, and how it's affected by both the preconceptions of their people and by their own experiences. I like this story much better than previous one, as it was easier to follow, save for (like so many stories) the end being a bit vague. Still, even that was tolerable, and I enjoy strong tales of interpersonal relationships. The world she's created is an intriguing one, and I'd like to see more of it.

Leah Bobet's "Bell, Book, and Candle" tells of three timeless characters who are tools of sort, used in some dark ritual. I feel like I could have enjoyed this story if it only had more backstory, but as it was, it was like watching a foreign film without subtitles; I only had the vaguest notion of who these people were and what their situation was. Well, at least it had a happy ending — I think.

However, all is not lost, for Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 1 is out, and "Bell, Book, and Candle" seems to have received an honourable mention.

Leafs're still losing, though. :p

Back from my sojourn through Nuit Blanche with the intrepid jo_etal and delta_november. While we saw a lot of things we were not sure qualified as Art and some random things that we don't think were intended to be Art and yet probably were (as well as things that were decidedly Art, like the giant Pong and Space Invaders games projected on the towers of City Hall. That, my friends, is goddamn Art), we did get one side benefit of Arting:

They opened up Maple Leaf Gardens.

Now, for those not in the know about the Gardens, it is made of refined and processed holiness. It is the site of 11 Stanley Cup wins and hosted hockey games from 1931 to February 1999, when it was closed down in favour of the newer, much larger Air Canada Centre (which is a very nice venue, but not Maple Leaf Gardens). Since, despite protests from people up to and including Senator Frank Mahovlich, who is himself made of at least a quarter processed and refined hockey holiness, the Gardens have been sold to Loblaw, Inc., who was going to turn it into a grocery store.

Except there's structural issues they didn't know about. Like the fact that the tiered seating is holding up the ceiling. And Loblaws isn't exactly rolling in cash right now.

So they haven't done any work.

I will leave the question of whether the processed and refined holy spirit of Maple Leaf Gardens actively desires to stay a working hockey arena as an exercise to the reader. :D

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But anyways, I haven't been inside since 1998 or so -- yeah, ten years. And tonight they opened it up for a dual-screen and audio installation, and the lineup was around the block. To get back inside Maple Leaf Gardens, and pet it.

( I have pictures. )

So even had we walked our four-hour walk (and it was a lovely, refreshing, cool and giggly and happy four-hour walk) and not seen any good Art and only lame Art made of weaksauce, tonight would have entirely still been worth it.

Also, I have a lemon tart. Life is grand. :)

So once upon a time they took away the Hockey Night in Canada theme, which was, as the man says, A Part of My Heritage.

However, the upside to this was that the CBC is having the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge, which is I guess like American Idol for hockey themes. And high school friend lonicus, who is by day seriously up-and-coming composer for orchestra, film, game soundtrack, and stage Kevin Lau, has put in an entry.

Take a listen, and if the spirit moves you, give it a rating.

This ends this official pimping announcement.

(Yes, all my friends are awesome.)

October 28, 2007 Progress Notes:

"Une Annee Sans Neige"

Words today: 1550.
Words total: 1550.
Reason for stopping: Good shit, it is 3am.
Tea: None.
Munchies: Salad with grilled chicken.
Exercise: N/A. Yesterday was for leaving the house, not today,
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: Night clunked piecemeal into the rooftop lab, chasing her to the stairwell door. She waited in the dark as the glass fogged up, the fog chilled, and ran, and stopped.
The frost set in.

Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: workboot, botox
Research Roundup: U of T Botany department, rental rates for indoor ice rinks in the GTA, types of windows, hockey league designations.

Mean Things: Global warming! No hockey! Dickery!
Books in progress: Liz Williams, The Demon and The City; textbooks.
The glamour: Not feeling particularly glamorous today, even ironically.

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Apparently the cure for months of inching, frustrating brainlessness (I refuse to call it writer's block) is to write about hockey. With lots of swearing. I don't actually want to stop writing, but it's three in the morning and I need to go to bed.

Remember, kids. When in doubt? Hockey.

February 26, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 750.
Words total: 33,600 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: Quota. Take that. *spits in book's eye*
Liquid Refreshment: Cardamom coffee.
Munchies: French toast.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: An eight-month or so rejection from On Spec.

Darling du Jour: N/A
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Case: They were lying in wait for you. Oops. *g*
Research Roundup: Rope-making
Books in progress: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories; Minister Faust, From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain; James Ellroy, The Cold Six Thousand; Textbooks.

The glamour: Okay, it doesn't suck toooo bad, but now I have to runrunrun!

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I'm not even keeping track of the Novel in 90 day anymore. I think I failed it. Oh well. *g*

Also, I now have to rush to get some outside clothes on and go into the snow that has been falling allll night and alll day now, because I am going to paint ceramics with my mom and sister and sister's friend* and gift my baby plants with new pots. Which means I won't see the hockey game tonight.

So yes, if you're with me, please think crap hockey fall-on-the-ass incomplete pass and penalty-taking thoughts towards the Montreal Canadiens tonight between 7pm and 10pm.

Your nation thanks you.

*This may mean I am no longer Deathly Embarrassing, or maybe just Mostly Deathly Embarrassing, which is still partially alive!

My study break tonight has serendipitously and coincidentally *cough* coincided with the beginning of the Leafs-Oilers game on CBC. So I turned it on and tonight's the night they're doing the tribute to the 1967 Leafs team -- the team that won the last Stanley Cup this city has unfortunately seen.

So they get all these people out on the blue carpet on the ice, and they're old. They're old men: half the team was over 36 that year, which means they're mostly in their seventies and eighties now, which is something you'd never see in the NHL today. They didn't by and large stride down that carpet waving. They shuffled, heads down, because they had to pay attention to every step.

But they're just...beaming, y'know? Big wide grins, except for Dave Keon (oh my god I saw Dave Keon just now!) who has this little half-smile on his face that were he a character, would be the detail that tells it all about who he is.

And then they get Sundin out to do the ceremonial faceoff and he's got the same shit-eating grin on his face, shaking each of their hands like a five year old boy who's never going to wash that handshaking hand ever again.

The crowd cheered for every one of these little old men. For Keon, Red Kelly, Johnny Bower, Frank Mahovlich they screamed for a solid minute each.

(Holy crap I saw Red Kelly!)


cpolk once characterized my town and our hockey team as having Barilko Syndrome -- we're always living in hope for that Cup-winning goal, against all odds, coming out of the sky. It's 1967 Syndrome too: getting through the first round past a team that should by rights have kicked the crap out of us, and then to the Cup through another team that should by rights have kicked the crap out of us with half your roster old and injured and on a week's less rest than the other guy. It's mythology and legend.

I just grinned and bawled through the whole pregame thing.

I love my town.

January 9, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 800.
Words total: 19,250 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: This is the most interminable, boring, tedious, mellow, hippieish flashpoint riot ever. Get it away from me. I cannot look upon its face.
Liquid Refreshment: Soy chai thingy that I don't think is sitting well.
Munchies: Leftover chicken and rice.
Exercise: 1 hour walking.
Mail: A nice review from IROSF for "Lost Wax". And then slushmaster was nice about it too!

Darling du Jour: Nothing really darlingy today.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A.

Mean Things: Qara and Sakhile, Rogue Xenobiologists: Dudes, you really need to study your local customs before marching in to do science. Lest you find yourselves tied up and being trundled off to a teenage ganglord's place.
Case: Beat it, it's the fuzz!
Lyss: For the last time, not a child-stealing heretic! Also, the sadness of working a job with a uniform.
Research Roundup: Actually none today, for once. Today is all verrrry sloooow stabbing.
Books in progress: John Scalzi, The Android's Dream; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers.

The glamour: Sooo yeah, I had no water this morning when I woke up. This was sad. I went to school hungry and my tummy burbled until I made it out to the coffeeshop at break.

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Day Four:

3,650 / 67,500 (5.4%)

*dances* I! am! aheee-ead! I! am! aheee-ead!

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So today was the first day of classes, wherein we attended Revitalizing Languages and learned that it is going to be quite cool. I am getting that burn of guilt you get in fourth-year courses where they cheerfully talk about when you're going on to grad school, and the few of you who know you're not going to grad school* look at each other with these furtive, guilty glances and try to sink into the background.

However, it is good and well that there are enough people I know in that class to have those glances in the first place, and it was nice to catch up with people I didn't have classes with last semester, but know from the year before. And for once I will take a course in the department with a practical application. Joy. :)

This evening was Short Story Collections, which is full of English students. 'Nuff said. We shall not be moved. :p


And in closing, in the process of thinking up more creative mocks for people who didn't make their novel_in_90 wordcount today, I have rediscovered a joy of my life: the Mockerie! Mockerie! Heritage Minute video. Anyone Canadian and within ten years of my age will have lovely, lovely memories of sitting in movie theatres through this ad and shouting Mockerie! Mockerie! along with it, and then dissolving into giggles, and feeling a warm glow as you knew that the whole theatre had done the same thing, and you were all united together: one nation, truly Canadians. :D


*I could go to grad school, but it would require a serious lift in my GPA, the wherewithal to study further, and two more years of being student poor. I am tired of being student poor. I am twenty-four years old with a year left in my undergrad degree and I want my life back already thank you.