Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Prudence Emery (1936-2024)
Saturday, April 13, 2024
PRIDE in the wild
Defying the official publication date, which is April 27th, a few copies of PRIDE have snuck into key bookstores across this city. So lovely to visit "the kids" today in the 2SLGBTQ+ section of Indigo, both Bay/Bloor and the Eaton Centre. They'll be available for order on Amazon on the 27th within Canada (U.S. readers can pre-order for the October U.S. release) and will trickle into bookstores across Canada during the next few weeks
Friday, April 5, 2024
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Some thoughts on Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon's NEFARIOUS (2023)
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Some thoughts on Jonathan Glazer's THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)
Sunday, March 10, 2024
When life is Kenough
Sunday, March 3, 2024
A year on
A year ago today, a month post-final cancer surgery, hobbling a bit, but feeling...something. Probably not "joy," because I was too tentative about the future and its possibilities. "Optimistic" is the wrong word too, because "optimism" didn't enter into my lexicon again until this past December. Probably feeling very "at one" with the word on that snowy morning, feeling gratitude. And feeling a sense of smallness, and a oneness with life that I hope I never forget. Truly, looking back at this picture feels like one of those dreams where you're falling into vast space. It's not fear, it's just an utter disconnection from anything I can feel right now.
Friday, March 1, 2024
Second cup
Yesterday afternoon, I stopped into the Cherie Bistro for a quick lunch before heading home. At the next table were two young people—one visibly trans, the other gender variant. They were having lunch and speaking to each other in rapid-fire Spanish.
Something about they way they leaned towards each other, obviously sharing gossip, laughing, and ordering cocktails reminded me of my friends and I in the early 80s, either out with friends or having lunch with co-workers at whatever restaurant was closest to our places of employment.
The one striking difference was the long-ish periods during which they stared at their phones, tapping away. For obvious reasons, this would not have occurred during those early-80s lunches. But the joy the took in each other's company, and in he possibilities of their own youth, was instantly recognizable and familiar.
After lunch, I went next door to the Second Cup on Church Street to pick up some coffee beans. There has always been a Second Cup on Church Street, from the famous "steps" of the 80s, so immortalized in THE KIDS IN THE HALL and elsewhere.
The current incarnation, due to yesterday's cutting cold, meant that the patio was obviously close, and the guests were inside, pressed close to each other at the tables, laughing, and the air was redolent with the strong smell of delicious coffee.
As I waited, I looked at the crowd, which was easily 90% older gay men. I don't even mean "older," I mean "old," in every glorious sense of the word—white hair, wrinkles, "old man" clothes and shoes. And again, much like in with the two in next door at Cherie Bistro, their joy in each other's company was palpable.
It occurred to me how many years queers spend listening to people teach them to dread growing old, telling them that they'll become "invisible," and "undesirable," and yet there was almost more joy here than there was next door. I loved the idea of youth and age being bracketed by two restaurants, side by side, on what is still he Main Street of Toronto's gay village.
My friends of my own age and I seem to have been largely immune to those teachings. We are obviously part of the "60 is the new 50" generation, so there's that. In addition, we are the generation that survived AIDS, even as we lost some of the people we loved the most in the world. Perhaps living under that shadow has given us more of an appreciation for the gift that life is. Or maybe those lessons didn't damage as many of us as they might have.
Clearly, and to my delight, both the young friends at Cherie and the older gay gentlemen at the Second Cup were completely in their moment, and in their joys, in their own circles.
The images moved me enough to jot down some notes about it in my Moleskine as soon as I got home. Everyone has their time, and their times, and life is a series of concentric, overlapping circles of those times, and the luckiest of us know all of them. ☕
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Throwback Thursday: MIDNIGHT MASS, 2021
Throwback Thursday: The sequence in Midnight Mass where Henry Thomas plucks Wild Fell out of Kristen Lehman's hands in order to dance with her, to Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy," is one of my proudest moments as a grownup horror nerd, let alone as a novelist. It's nothing I could have imagined in 1982, at age twenty, when I watched him play Elliot in ET The Extra-Terrestrial. The entire scene is sunlight in a bottle, and even more so in light of the horror that follows. It looks gorgeous on the new TV, but I've always watched it when I needed a lift. I'm so grateful to Mike Flanagan for reaching out in 2020, and for inviting the book to play a small part in that glorious miniseries, one of my great filmed narrative loves.
PRIDE, coming spring 2024
The new book, PRIDE, will be published by Douglas & McIntyre two months from today, just in time for full spring. I'm delighted to be able to share the beautiful cover for the first time. Please follow along for updates as we get closer to publication day.
Monday, February 26, 2024
The brave, cruel death of Aaron Bushnell
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Airport thoughts, Sunday night
Friday, February 2, 2024
Sleep deeply, dream sweetly, Brianna
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Queen's U, here I come
I'm delighted and honoured to share that I'll be speaking a Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario at the Jack.Org annual summit, on February 10th, 20204 at 1:00 p.m.
Monday, January 22, 2024
ThinkPad glory days