journal features

the old gang

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2004.11.26

Tonight I met with the old gang from my time at Star Data. It was good - I got caught up with everyone, and got some valuable input into one of my projects.

Throughout the night, however, we were sitting next to the actor from those intensely annoying Canadian Tire ads. You know the ones - where these cheesy scenarios are played out with one neighbour using the newest gizmo from Canadian Tire, and the other neighbours hanging around to ask all of the set-up questions. They had, at first, a kind of charm because they were so dumb. But recently they've gotten obsessively bad. Squirmingly awful.

I wanted to grab him and say, "It was cute, at first. But you must stop, now." But I didn't. Cos I'm Canadian, I expect.

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot