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This is how you steer clear of tenants from hell
Managing agents are the "first line of defence" for landlords when it comes to keeping problem tenants out of their properties, so they need to ensure they have the systems and knowledge necessary to do so.
"As the laws governing the relationships between landlords and tenants become ever more complicated, rental property owners are increasingly turning to professional managing agents to help them find tenants that are not going to default on the rent, damage their property, or involve them in lengthy court proceedings," says Shaun Rademeyer, CEO of BetterLife Home Loans, SA's biggest mortgage originator.
In addition, they are looking for help with lease documentation, and the consequences of getting things wrong can be just as serious for an agent as for the landlord.
How to steer clear of "tenants from hell"
- Check the credit records of all potential tenants. Even if you can see that they will be able to afford the rent on their salary, you need to establish whether they have a history of paying their debts on time and how much outstanding debt they have, because those repayment obligations obviously also have to come out of their monthly cheque.
- If at all possible, check the rental history of potential tenants directly with their previous landlords. If that is not possible, look out for warning signs such as a history of moving around a lot. Most landlords prefer tenants who will commit to longer leases.
- Interview potential tenants in person. It is never a good idea to let a property to people you have not met and taken through the property yourself. Even more importantly, never give the keys of a rental property to a prospective tenant who has not paid the required damage and utilities deposits in full.
- Make sure your paperwork is impeccable. Keep copies of tenants' identity documents or passports as well as their proof of income such as a contract of employment and most recent pay slips. You will also need their written permission to obtain a copy of their credit record and, of course, a copy of the lease and any supplementary documents.
- Subscribe to a good online rental property management system to help you track the rental payments, municipal account payments, inspection dates and lease renewal dates for each property in your portfolio, and to alert you immediately if something goes wrong. If a tenant defaults, you need to be aware of it as soon as possible and take action to remedy the situation right away.
- And finally, listen to your instincts. If you feel uncomfortable renting to someone even when all the information and documentation they provide seems fine, don't give them the keys until you've run a few more checks. If you're experienced, the chances are that your instincts were right and that you will find out not all was as it appeared to be – and be saved from a potentially costly mistake.


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What happens when luxury hotels ask the world's top tea maker to create teabags? The TEALEAVES Teabag.
- Extraordinary leaves = Superior taste
- 3 layer, airtight envelope = Desired flavors in and unwanted flavors out
- Individually wrapped teabag = Freshest tea
- More tea = Pure, full flavor
Each of oversized teabags is strong enough to steep two cups of tea. Includes a recipe booklet with 10 #PaletteForYourPalate cocktail recipes from renowned mixologists of Mandarin Oriental, the Beverly Hills Hotel, The Four Seasons and more.
In art, as in a cup of tea, color evokes mood. So we have collaborated with Pantone Color Institute in the design of our artwork. By uniting TEA + ART, we hope to elevate the tea experience.
The TEALEAVES x Pantone #PaletteForYourPalate Collaboration focused on the impact of color on mood, and included over 30 of TEALEAVES' prestigious luxury hotel clients. The campaign was nominated for a Webby Award and selected for a SxSW 2017 Panel Discussion. This packaging was featured on The Dieline.
The Master Blender's favorites. The ultimate teabag presentation, and the ultimate tea gift. Designed in collaboration with the Pantone Color Institute for #PaletteForYourPalate. Offering the superior flavor and aroma of whole leaf teas with the convenience of a teabag, a silken pyramid cradles the finest teas, herbs, and spices. This assortment box contains 3 individually wrapped silk pyramid teabags each of: Organic Long Life Green, Organic Imperial Oolong, Organic English Breakfast, Organic Earl Grey with Lavender, Monsoon Chai, Organic Chamomile Blossoms, Organic Peppermint, Organic Vanilla Rooibos, Relax, Energy.
AHAlife is committed to help you live a conscious and inspired life.
Many of the items you discover here are exclusive to AHAlife, which is what makes our community of designers and artisans so special.
If you find one of our products anywhere else for less than it's being sold on our site, we will match it.
Our dedicated Support Team is here to help. Reach out any time at:


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I'm always a bit strange right after a show. I feel all empty and very vulnerable.
Now, 4 days later I finally feel happy and proud over what we have created for Stylein FW14.
I truly feel that this is a strong collection and I would like to send all my thoughts and thank you to my team at Stylein.
All of you who work with me are all very important in your own way.
Thank you.
Pic taken from great Stylemag.no


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Show By Rock!!
Show by Rock!! Is an Anime produced by Bones based on Rock Bands making it big in the music world with a bit of magical girl thrown in there.
It's Sanrio's first ever character project that they've aimed for a mature set of male fans as opposed to young little girls. Now I'm a huge Sanrio fan so I had to check this out. Once I checked out how cute the characters were I knew I was going to have to give it a go. I mean Sanrio, Hello Kitty, music…it sounds like a match made in heaven.
The project started off as a game by Geechs and Sanrio for your phone and then it became an anime. There are plans for a manga later on and the anime recently came out in April making it fairly new.
So what is it? It's an anime based around music or a world that lives by music, and we first meet our main character Cyan, who is normal school girl, hanging out in her room and playing a guitar like game on her phone. After getting a high score or unlocking an item that is called strawberry heart guitar, she is sucked into the game and finds herself in a new world of music.
Unlucky for Cyan, after being sucked into the game she ends up in a music concert and then a battle of some kind unfolds with a huge dark monster and she has to use that guitar she unlocked to save the the other members of the music band who are being attacked.
This is where the fancy 3D style animation comes into the anime, and I love this bit! When the characters are preforming on stage or in this battle like scene, they switch the characters into Kawaii looking 3D ones. Oh and I forgot to say once Cyan enters the Music world (Midi City) , she becomes a Kawaii Gothic Lolita styled Cat, yes with tail and all. She also gets very embarrassed when she comes out with a "nyan" at the end of a sentence. Whenever Cyan's caught in a battle or performance, she uses the guitar she unlocked from playing the game to win the that first battle encounter, and did I also mention that the Pink Guitar has a male voice and talks?!
After the battle she ends up getting signed up to an aspiring new band called Plasmamagica, aiming to become the best band in Midi City and Cyan has to defeat more monsters in order to return back to her own world.
What I really like about the anime is that the main characters are super cute, and all the characters in Midi City are based on animals with Cyan being the cat. Her band members are made up of a Puppy, Sheep and Rabbit and their manager looks like an Egg…There are lots of funny moments and overly exaggerated anime expressions used throughout the show which makes it both enjoyable to watch and laugh at.
As its all based on music, there is naturally a lot of music in the anime, mainly pop/rock music with the bands rocking out on their performances and do things like battle of the bands and contests to win more fans.
I enjoy the music very much so, and with only 9 episodes having been released, I am really looking forward to the next one and watching the adventures of Cyan and her band members continue on their roller-coaster ride.


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- Author : Lawrence Burns
- Posted : 03 October 18 06:59:46
- Category : Spreadsheet Template
- Tags : Drug And
- File Size : 106 KB
- File Type : image/jpeg
- Resolution : 1300x1683 Pixel
- Viewed : 798 Visitor
Drug and Alcohol Worksheets for Adults
– You'll find many computer end users that make use of spreadsheet applications since those really are really beneficial for them. It matters not whether you are a business man, a student or an instructor as you will be capable of using this readily. Interactive actions as well as lectures and computations can be achieved here without the should work with a third party program.
Whenever you get to the end of your financial plan , the more remainder for the month should be 0. Funding in – Funds outside = 0. In the event you wind up getting a bad amount, then you have over spent and has to adapt by reducing budgeted funds in another category or by diminishing the entire sum of funds available for that next month. In the event you get a good number, you have put in less than you personally made. Good for youpersonally! Now, put that money into good use. Pay down some debt, or put it right into financial savings.
She desired this Budget Spreadsheet for awhile were offered by that time. It would have saved countless hours. With the spreadsheet all she needed to do was input the assembly info and also the formulas would do the rest. The dictionary will be installed using the key Drug and Alcohol Worksheets for Adults
listing all of the things needed for that assembly. Income categories record: Registration prices, Organization Funding, Sponsor Funding, Exhibit or Fees, Advertising and Additional Income.
Variable Cost categories incorporate major classes such like: meals charges, Beverage bills, Exhibition Expenses and three more. Set Expense categories include a dozen are as including: workers expenditures, Speaker costs, audio visual, Printing, and eight .
What you do next really is dependent on which version of Microsoft Word you're employing. In term 2007 you want to click the drop down arrow onto the'glue' button, which is the initial icon to the'property'ribbon. Now you need to decide on'paste special' as well as from the dialogue box choose'paste hyperlink' and choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object. If you are using Microsoft Word 2003, simply click'edit' from the menu bar and choose'paste special'. The subsequent dialogue box remains exactly the exact same in terms of term 2007.
Make sure that you download Excel spreadsheet comparison tool that really functions. There are loads of great programs the even allow one to merge two spreadsheets so you can easily finish the job of all of your data files.
Yet again, depth is very good, but you should be skeptical of going in to too much detail. Column B is the place you are going to put how much you're budgeting for that category. Vitamin do, simply how much you've allocated to such an category to date. If you want (or really are some stats junkie) that you can include columns for a percentage of budgeted volume, and % of overall funding too. For the simple budget, we'll simply leave that out for today.
Substance Abuse Worksheets Pdf Briefencounters Worksheet Template by the Drug And Alcohol Worksheets For Adults , image source:briefencounters.ca
You are unable to get any mistakes as most of the formulas are safeguarded and examples are based about just about every sheet showing you how to use these sorts. Simple, Easy, Easy.


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We recently gave a talk at the Travel Alberta annual conference on the 'Global Best Practices in DMO Marketing'. We were delighted to meet so many people during and after the talk, and were asked to post our powerpoint slides online.
Et voila...
Links to the videos presented are embedded in the PDF. As always, let us know what you think!


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Look: Camping-themed Home Decor!
We blogged about going camping with your pets yesterday, but if your idea of camping is more "Troop Beverly Hills" than "Man vs. Wild", we've got some home décor items that will have you feeling like you're "roughing it" in your own home in no time. More after the jump!
Some of these items are old favorites, and some we had never seen before! We love how using a few of these items together could really create a cute and fun concept for a space, or even help define a party theme!
- Porcelain Campfire Candle Holder from Kikkerland $25
- Bambi Lamps Wool Deer Statuette from Kikkerland $20
- Gama-Go's Campfire pillow $25
- Lumen by Adam Frank $48
- Snap-A-Party Tableware Set by Fred $12
- Deer Salt and Pepper Shakers by Kikkerland $31
- Grass Pillow by Nourish $59
- Log Pillow by Gama-Go $34
- Branches wall sticker by Ferm Living $154
What about you? Are you a Troop Beverly Hills camper or does the idea of being in the woods with nothing but a knife get you going? How have you brought a bit of camping and nature into your home? Let us know!
[Photo credit: Bear Gryllis photo from Yahoo TV ]
Apartment Therapy supports our readers with carefully chosen product recommendations to improve life at home. You support us through our independently chosen links, many of which earn us a commission.


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Recently I heard some murmurings about my ex-wife from mutual friends. So I googled her.
I see how happy she is and how so many things in her life are going absolutely splendidly. She is really living her dream.
I can see now that she is so, so much better off without me. I was probably dead weight holding her back.
Anyone else look up an ex-wife or ex-husband and realize they are a lot better off without you?


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5 Best Free Programs To Learn A New Language
by CollegeDegrees360
There is a great demand for useful language teaching tools. By consequence, the variety of language programs available is vast, but many of these resources are often expensive as well. Costs can range from monthly bills to a flat rate of up to a few hundred dollars. This can be very discouraging for some. Undertaking the goal to learn an entirely new language is already time consuming. Add financial stressors to this, and a lot of people will shy away from the chance to learn. Fortunately, there are free programs available for those who want to avoid such expenses. Here are a few gadgets that offer a variety of different teaching approaches.
For exploration and immersion, BBC Languages is a convenient start; all attributes are easily accessed by clicking a link. The key aspect that makes BBC languages beneficial is the variety of learning tactics it offers. It lets the user focus on grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, or a host of other distinct learning areas. Pages are interactive and media rich. In addition to straightforward lessons, there are practical entertainment options as well, such as listening to radio or watching television in different languages. Primarily, BBC teaches Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese, but there are a few lessons that go beyond these five options. Of all the programs available, BBC Languages is less extensive, so it is best for light self-directed learning or review. There are more fitting options for a student who desires a rigorous step-by-step program.
Read more →


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Port Adelaide Football Club have issued an indefinite AFL ban to a female fan who appeared to throw a banana at Adelaide Crows player Eddie Betts during a fixture on Saturday night.
The incident occurred close to the end of the game when Betts, appearing in his 250th AFL match, kicked a goal from the left pocket, clinching the 15-point win at the Adelaide Oval.
Prior to meeting with the alleged fan on Sunday, Port Adelaide Chairman David Koch, said: "We're a club, we're an industry, we're a code that doesn't shirk away from these sorts of incidents," according to the AAP.
"If it was racially motivated, not only would she be banned for life from the club, we would encourage her to come and sit with our players, our Aboriginal players and try to understand what these actions mean to them."
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Betts is said to have looked into the crowd of mostly Power fans, before turning away and celebrating the goal with teammates.
The ABC reports that a video showed up on social media in the hours after the fixture that seems to show a woman tossing a banana towards the Aboriginal player.
The alleged thrower is also accused of mouthing the word "monkey".
On Sunday morning, the Crows labeled the actions of some fans at the game as disgusting and said that it was disappointed by what had occurred.
"The Adelaide Football Club is both disappointed and disgusted at the behaviour of some members of the crowd during tonight's Showdown at Adelaide Oval," the Crows said in a statement, according to Fairfax Media.
"Of particular concern, an object was thrown onto the field of play and in the direction of one of our players."
In an earlier statement, Port Adelaide said a full investigation would be launched into the incident.
"Port Adelaide is appalled by the vision and will not tolerate this type of anti-social behaviour at its games," it read.
"Any object thrown onto the field in the direction of players, coaches or umpires is completely unacceptable and the club will conduct a full investigation in the coming days."
The incident brings to mind the the "orchestrated and contagious" vilification of former Sydney Swans star Adam Goodes, which was widely considered to have racial overtones.


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Disclaimer: This story is written for an adult audience and contains material unsuitable for minors. Please turn back if you're not old enough to be here.
The thing was, Paul thought. The thing was, it was, that he didn't even drink.
Yet the glass seemed to be empty again.
He wobbled his way across the flat to Silas' well-stocked drinks cabinet. He needed a sensible drink, because he was a sensible person, with a sensible girlfriend, and a sensible job. Silas said he probably had sensible tattooed across his arse, the git. The only thing in his life that wasn't sensible was his flatmate.
'Cept he didn't have a sensible girlfriend any more, did he? And that was Silas' fault, too.
Sort of.
So, not whiskey, nor that ridiculously expensive French wine, which was probably made by the sort of gnarly-faced vintner who sacrificed his firstborn son to Dionysus, and none of that funny blue stuff with the crystallized beetles floating in it. Just another gin and tonic, like he'd been having all evening.
He slopped ice and a generous measure of gin into his glass, and then splashed tonic over the top. Hadn't been able to taste the gin in the last one.
No more lemon. Damn, that was the second one he'd finished tonight.
A few seconds stumbling around the kitchen only produced a satsuma. He supposed it was a citrus fruit, but the part of him that had been properly brought up refused to tolerate the idea. He retreated to his chair gloomily.
Bloody Silas. Bloody Laura. Bloody world.
He heard the skitter of his flatmate's key missing the lock, followed by a few drunken swearwords before the latch clunked open on the third attempt, and sighed, world-weary. Would Silas be alone tonight, or would he be making polite conversation with the latest scorned twink over tea and toast tomorrow morning?
"Evening, Tootles," Silas boomed, the ridiculous nickname rolling out in that patrician Eton and Balliol drawl of his as if they had taken a wrong turn into a Tardis and landed in the fountain at Brideshead.
"Effning," Paul said and blinked. That hadn't been what he was trying to say.
Silas appeared in his line of sight, dark eyebrows raised. Miraculously, he was alone.
"You okay there, mate?"
"Perfectly smashing," Paul said, with dignity.
Silas blinked at him. "Looks more like perfectly smashed to me, if you don't mind me saying."
Paul scowled at him. He thought he might mind, actually. It wasn't as if Silas was a great advocate of sobriety. Out every bloody night, and who was the one who fetched a glass of water and an aspirin while Silas worshiped the toilet bowl, and who always restocked the medicine cabinet afterward? If Silas hadn't been so, well, so Silas, he wouldn't have got away with it.
"You still with me, Toots? Looking a bit under the weather there. Under the weather, I said."
"I've heard it before," Paul pointed out. He'd been working at the Met Office since he finished his doctorate and moved up to London last year (and for some reason which currently eluded him, in with Silas) and his friends still didn't understand that he was a scientist and not the next weather girl.
"Spoilsport. Where, one might ask, is the lovely and luscious Laura?"
"Gone," Paul said, taking a generous gulp. "Departed. Absconded. No more."
"Eh?" It was at moments like this that he had to remind himself that Silas was not merely six foot something of slinky-hipped, pouty-lipped, dark-skinned temptation but had, when sober at least, an IQ at least as high as his own and the ability to make obscene amounts of money for a company whose very name made anti-capitalist protesters froth at the mouth.
"Decamped," Paul clarified. "In high-whatchacallit. Dungeon."
"You can't have a high dungeon," Silas said, swaying on his feet as if the only thing holding him up was the tightness of his jeans. "Dungeons are underground."
Paul was beginning to feel lost. To make it better, he took another sip.
"You dumped her!" Silas exclaimed, looking delighted.
"No," Paul said, and sank back a little further into his chair.
Silas plumped himself down on the arm of the chair, and squirmed round to stare at him. "She dumped you? Were your book collections incompatible? Planning to run off to Ibiza to sell her body for a record deal? Secretly a man?"
Paul, who had managed to get through three years of undergrad and six more of unlikely friendship without telling Silas he was bi, let the worse slurs on Laura's character pass. Trying not to catch Silas' eye, he muttered, "Got her name wrong."
"Could happen to anyone."
"It was at a – a very sensitive moment."
Silas howled with laughter, so hard that he slid off the arm of the chair. Paul, confronted with a lap full of honking flatmate, was inclined to be offended.
Swallowing his laughter, Silas grinned up at him. His mouth was still slick, and his dark eyes were bright with glee. He had obviously been dancing, for his t-shirt was still damp with exertion, and indecently tight.
"Oh, Tootles," he crowed. "You cad."
He was very warm, too, Paul thought, clinging to his glass for comfort.
Silas really felt very hot against his thighs. No wonder he never wore pajamas any more. He probably didn't need them to stay warm. It was probably why he wandered around the flat half-dressed, too, and why he'd spent all that time last weekend rubbing ice cubes across his chest, even though it was the middle of October. Paul couldn't really blame him for the effect that had had. Silas obviously wasn't aware of quite how attractive he was.
That really wasn't a profitable line of thought, given Silas didn't show any sign of moving. Worried, Paul tried to shift his hips back, which only made Silas loll against him more, still snickering. Thwarted, Paul downed the rest of his drink, hoping fervently for a sudden case of brewer's droop.
"Whose name was it, then? Becky the Bimbo? Alison with the teeth? That Ibiza girl?"
"She was called Caroline," Paul said around the glass he had somehow forgotten to remove from his lips, fascinated by its cool press against his mouth. "What is it with you and Ibiza tonight?"
"I hated Ibiza," Silas said, scowling.
"You were drunk for the entire week. You seemed happy enough."
Silas' scowl deepened. "As if you would have noticed."
"What?" Paul said, baffled. Ten of them had gone out there the summer after their Finals. He'd been with Caroline, then: sweet, earnest Caroline who had dumped him on the plane home in a flood of incoherent tears about his beard, which was bizarre as he had been clean shaven at the time. "What are you on about? Where's all my gin gone?"
Silas sat up, suddenly frowning a little, and took the glass out of his hand. "Right, how many have you had there, Paul?"
"I ran out of lemon," Paul confided in him sadly, reaching after the glass.
"That's probably a good thing," Silas muttered and rolled off his lap. "You know, mate, this feels like fucking blasphemy, but I'm cutting you off."
"Off what?"
"Off to beddy-byes," Silas said brightly. "Up the stairs to Bedfordshire. Time to pass out and ready yourself for one hell of a morning after. Hups-a-daisy now." He grabbed Paul's hand and tried to tug him out of the depths of the armchair.
Paul was quite unprepared for it and stumbled forward too fast, straight into Silas, who was none too steady on his own feet. They hit the carpet hard, Silas' legs spreading as Paul thudded down on his chest, foreheads banging together hard enough that Paul's vision went white.
When he could see again, the first thing he noticed was how Silas' hands were cupped around his arse. The second thing he realized was that he was as hard as he had ever been, snuggled between Silas' thighs.
The third thing was that he wasn't the only one.
"Oh, thank God," Silas groaned in his ear, hands tightening and hips rocking up. "Finally."
It made no sense, because Silas wasn't interested; he'd always chased the dim and pretty ones. He'd never look at his boring old gawky mathmo best mate, but Silas' mouth was suddenly on his, hot and demanding. His tongue coaxed Paul's lips apart and slid in, making Paul's head spin more than the booze, until all he could possibly do was kiss back desperately, his heart pounding in his chest and his pulse thudding in his ears. Silas gasped against his lips and wrapped his legs around Paul's hips.
Which was probably why neither of them heard the door open until Laura was halfway into the room.
"-so, really, I'm just bringing your keys back, but if you're really prepared to make it up to me and move out of this dump, I might consider- oh, my God, I knew it, you bastard!"
Silas tore his mouth away as Paul was still thinking, wait, what, come back, and snarled, "Fuck off. He's mine now!"
Paul had never heard him be so rude, and he was aware, through the fog of gin, that it probably wasn't the done thing to get caught rolling around the floor with another man mere hours after breaking up with a girl. Rolling cautiously off Silas, he sat up and said, very carefully, "Hello, Laura."
She looked so hurt that Paul wished the floor would swallow him up. She'd always been perfectly lovely to him, even if he'd known from the start that she wouldn't shake his world, and she didn't deserve this.
He tried to say so, and suddenly became aware of another disadvantage of drinking too much too fast. Pressing his lips closed, he tried will his stomach steady.
"My friends warned me about you," she snarled at Silas, her pretty mouth twisting miserably. "They told me you'd never let anyone else get close to Paul, but I thought-"
"That you'd poach anyway?" Silas demanded, rolling to his feet. Paul had never seen him like this – he was usually a happy and somewhat slutty drunk. It was horrible to see him so fierce and tense and furious.
"That he was a nice guy who deserved better," Laura snapped back.
"Hey!" Paul protested, trying to get up. It was a mistake, and his stomach rose faster than he could. He made a vague, hopeless lunge towards the bathroom.
And then, as Laura demanded, poking Silas in the chest, "So, just how long have you been sleeping with him?" Paul heaved the entire contents of his stomach over both their feet.
By the time Paul had crawled into bed, Silas had got rid of Laura, with a lot more shouting Paul had tried not to hear through the door. It was all he had been able to do to pull the duvet over his head as the room span giddily around him. His head was too full for comfort: Laura's fury, Silas' mouth, the bite of gin and the sting of vomit overlapping in increasingly disturbing ways.
When his door creaked open, a surge of panic went roiling into the mix and he groaned into his pillow. He really wasn't ready to face Silas, let alone hear one of the little talks the bastard used to shatter over-eager hearts.
The mattress shifted below him, and there was a hand on his back, warm even through the weight of the duvet.
"You still awake under there?"
Paul whimpered, hoping Silas would take the hint and leave him alone to die with dignity. Instead he felt the duvet being tugged away, exposing him to the cruel world.
"You'll suffocate like that," Silas informed him, as he tried to drag the pillows over his head instead. "Fuck, Toots, is this why you never drink? Haven't seen that much vomit since the Maths Society dinner where the curtains caught fire."
"Fuck off," Paul muttered into the underside of the pillow, clenching his fists into it so Silas couldn't steal it too. Did the man have no empathy for abject humiliation?
Actually, remembering some of his more shameless Oxford stunts, probably not.
"Paul." It was his name, not that bloody nickname, and Silas sounded worried and a little unsure.
Paul let go of the pillow and dragged himself out. Silas was perched on the side of the bed, looking down at him with a strange expression – part amused, part concerned, part something Paul couldn't work out, not when his head was pounding and his gut aching.
"Head hurt?"
"Not at all," Paul muttered, closing his eyes on a wince. "Never felt better."
"Right," Silas said, chuckling, and slipped an arm around his shoulders.
Paul fought the overwhelming urge to collapse against him and never let go by clenching his fists and locking his shoulders.
"Just sit up a bit, yeah. Right, there you are. Sleep on your side." He lowered Paul back down onto freshly plumped pillows. "Comfy?"
"Who are you and what have you done with the Silas I know?"
"Must have hit my head," Silas said brightly. "You know, when you were wrestling me to the floor."
"Oh, God," Paul muttered and made another lunge for the duvet.
Silas caught his hands and lifted them to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to Paul's knuckles. "Panic in the morning, mate. We'll sort it out, then."
"Paul," Silas replied, and brushed the next kiss against his mouth. "Go to sleep."
Heat flushed through him, from lips down to his toes, and made him stutter in protest when Silas stood up and loped away. As he reached the door, he turned and said, mouth sharpening into a grin again, "Paul? She told me whose name you said."
Oh, fuck, Paul thought, but Silas was pulling the door closed quietly and there was nothing to do but sleep.
When he woke up next morning, it was to a twisted stomach, stinging eyes and a head that throbbed in agony when he tried to sit up.
He sank back against his pillows with a groan and remembered, with the vivid horror of sobriety, gasping out Silas' name into Laura's hair, and groaned again, for different reasons.
Lying there didn't make it any better, so he hauled himself out of bed and stumbled across the room. As he walked into the door frame, the next wave of memories hit and he remembered rolling across the floor with Silas, mouths burning against each other.
"Oh, dear fuck," he let out, and then clapped his hand over his mouth in case Silas heard, because if there was one thing he could not handle right now, it would be facing Silas and trying to apologize for drunkenly groping his arse.
But Silas did not come running, and a moment of listening to the clear, discreet silence of the flat told him that he was alone. The clean pale light through the tall narrow windows meant it was late morning.
Saturday morning, that was, and on a Saturday morning Silas would be down the park, coaching the local kids' football team, as if hangovers were something that only happened to other people. With a dim lurch of relief, Paul staggered over to the kitchen table. As he got there, he remembered the rest of it: Laura and the vomit and that Silas finally knew.
He dropped his head against the table, whimpering into the grubby tablecloth. When he finally looked up, it was to see a glass of water, stuck with a bright pink post-it note which said Drink me, and a box of aspirin labeled Take me (gently).
He did as he was told, smiling a little, because there was a reason he liked the mad fool, after all. As his headache began to retreat, he stumbled into the kitchen and tugged the fridge open.
The eggs read Scramble me and the bacon Fry me, big boy.
Paul's stomach roiled, and he retreated warily with the butter. Toast would do, even if he did have to search three cupboards to work out where Silas had hidden the Marmite ("The food of the devil, Tootles! The devil!").
Toast made a new man of him, and he stumbled off into the shower with his mind almost working again.
He'd met Silas on the second day of Freshers' Week, when he'd been awoken at two in the morning by a certain moronic champagne-quaffing ex-public schoolboy who had lost the ability to manage stairs right outside Paul's first floor room. Being an anxious sort, Paul had taken the prat in and tried to sober him up with a mixture of coffee and chocolate Hobnobs. Silas had hugged him gleefully before throwing up in his bin and passing out in his bed.
The next day, just as Paul was threatening to report Silas' drunken arse to everyone he could think of, Silas had grinned up at him lazily before sweeping him off to eat bagels and ice-cream for breakfast. An hour after that, with Paul only slightly mellowed, he'd been assigned Silas as a tutorial partner.
A week after that, he learned that Silas, despite appearances, was as brilliant as he was ridiculous. From there, their friendship had staggered into something fixed and immutable. Silas dragged Paul away from his books and into mayhem, whether it was streaking through the Fellows' garden or gatecrashing parties Paul would never have thought of attending. In return, Paul stayed steady, whether he was plotting their escape routes or reminding Silas to pay his bills on time. By now, he trusted that if he ever started to wonder if he was doomed to a life of books and research and stifling quiet, Silas would be there to pull him out of himself, whether it was with a dare or just a ridiculous assertion. And Paul knew Silas, as much as anyone did: knew about the string of boarding schools and glamorous stepmothers ("The clichés, Toots, it's unbearable!"), the lengths to which Silas would go not to be alone, his love of cooking, just because he needed to feed people, and the way his face stilled and his voice went stiff on the occasions his jet-setting father phoned.
And, yes, he was attracted to the man, of course he was. Silas was pretty much the one who'd made him realize that he was bi. He wasn't stupid, though. Silas had always been out of his league. Paul had watched him break the hearts of the rich and gorgeous for years now, and he had no illusions about himself. He was tall and awkward, reserved where Silas chased bubbly, controlled rather than uninhibited, dull rather than charming.
He'd slept with other men, in those few years when he was still studying and Silas was here in London, but they had never been enough. Part of him would always be waiting for Silas, but Silas was never going to see him like that.
Except- except Silas had kissed him.
And, yeah, they'd both been drunk, but Silas-
If the data didn't fit your hypothesis, then you needed a new theory.
So, if he were to take the more peculiar examples of Silas' recent behavior, the excess nudity in a cold season and the constant small touches and that moment of blazing glee as they rolled across the floor last night, and say from there that Silas did fancy him, did it work? Could it be disproven?
Well, yes, by all the one-night stands Silas had dragged home since Paul moved in.
Except, there was a pattern there too, wasn't there?
Frowning to himself, Paul made it out of the shower and dragged a pair of clean jeans on before he went to look for his laptop. He'd never really been one for poetry or great flowery declarations (Silas, to him, was a constant, of both types: unchanging no matter the variables, and also wound into the underpinnings of Paul's life, his own golden ratio), but he could do numbers and he did like a good spreadsheet.
So, if he plotted date against incident, added in his own romantic history, and then generated a graph like so…
And there it was, nine months of emotional confusion set out in little colored crosses. Each time Silas made a move and Paul didn't notice, Silas then pulled someone else. There were outliers, of course, because this was human emotion, which was naturally untidy, and a secondary pattern where the frequency of one night stands went up whenever Paul himself started seeing someone, but the numbers were undeniable.
Then, as he sat and stared at it, his triumph in a theory well proven faded into a nasty knot of guilt. He'd done this. This was his fault. Silas wasn't just living for the moment and the thrill, not with that sort of pattern. He was unhappy, and Paul had done it, just by not noticing.
Had he been so secure in his conviction that Silas didn't care that he'd stopped paying attention? It had always been a safe place to retreat to, the assurance that his feelings were unrequited and so it wasn't his fault if all his other relationships foundered and failed. And while he'd been idling away, Silas had been trying, in his own way, which never did use words where gestures would do.
Never mind anything else – that made him a pretty shit friend.
And just how far back did the pattern go, he wondered suddenly and sharply. His data was less reliable for past years, now he couldn't remember the exact dates of every romantic disaster the two of them had survived, but he could reconstruct some of it, surely. He had to know-
The key scraped in the lock, and the front door crunched open, to the normal mutter of obscenities, and Silas called, voice pitched low and amused, "You alive yet, Toots?"
Paul slammed the laptop closed and cleared his throat. "In here."
Silas strode in, still in his footie kit, and gave a cheerful whistle. "And upright too. Good show."
"Piss off, you patronizing bastard," Paul answered instinctively. Silas snorted a laugh, but now Paul was looking he could see the line of tension in his shoulders and, flatteringly, the way that Silas' gaze lingered on his bare chest. A little ashamed of himself, he added hurriedly, "Not that I don't appreciate the effort, yeah."
Silas smiled at him, quick and surprisingly sweet, and said, "Don't mention it. Nothing you haven't done a thousand times. I'm going to wash the mud off – any chance of coffee?"
Paul stared at him. He'd been waiting for something more than that. Then, as Silas stretched and turned, he understood. Silas, drunk, would cling to him like a drowning man. Sober, he'd pretend nothing had ever happened, rather than risk scaring Paul away.
If he'd been smooth – if he'd been Silas faced with the latest meaningless lovely – he'd have rolled out something about not needing to shower alone. Instead, he stumbled to his feet and yelped, "Wait!"
Silas turned, and Paul crossed the room in two strides, because he couldn't let things stay like this a moment longer. He locked his fists in Silas' football shirt, and dragged him forward into a kiss.
Silas went taut under his hands, but his mouth opened under Paul's with gratifying eagerness, so Paul kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, eight years' worth of kisses all in this moment.
When Silas pulled his mouth away, one of them whimpered, and Paul lunged back after his lips, pressing himself against every bit of Silas he could touch.
"Paul," Silas heaved out, on a shuddering breath. "Paul. Properly, yeah?"
"Properly," Paul promised. "Actually. Completely."
"Oh, thank fuck," Silas said and kissed him again. This time it wasn't fast and desperate. This time it was slow. This time it was dirty, Silas' tongue sliding around his, Silas' hands splaying across his bare back, Silas' thigh pressing between his. He could feel the hot throb of Silas' cock against his leg through his jeans, and he let go of Silas' shirt with a moan. He reached down and cupped Silas' arse instead, spreading the thin, cool cloth of his shorts tight as he pulled him closer still, dried mud flaking away below his fingers.
"Damn, I'm filthy," Silas protested, freeing one hand to shove at his own waistband.
"Yeah," Paul said, and it was meant as agreement, not appreciation, but it came out on a sigh, and Silas cracked into laughter, dropping his face into the crook of Paul's neck. A moment later, his mouth fastened to the skin there, tongue circling over the pulse, and Paul, who had been trying to get those shorts off, flung his head back and whimpered as heat shot straight from Silas' mouth to his balls.
Silas took advantage of his distraction to get Paul's belt undone and shove his jeans down his thighs. Paul just had time to register the cool air on the back of his legs before Silas' hand curved around his cock, stroking up as Silas hummed in satisfaction.
"Oh, God," Paul groaned, clawing at Silas' t-shirt. "Get your own clothes off, you bastard."
Silas grinned at him, and tightened his grip just slightly on the down stroke. "I'm a bit busy here, mate." He kissed Paul again, tongue sloppy and graceless as he worked Paul's cock. Paul gave up and kissed him back, riding his hand with increasing urgency, rutting into the slick curve of Silas' palm, teeth raking Silas' lip until he came in a sudden shock of heat.
When his head stopped spinning, Silas had one arm locked around his waist, holding him up, and was panting swearwords into his ear, his other hand jerking himself off, knuckles pressing against Paul's slack thigh.
"Let me," Paul gasped and shoved his hand down into Silas' shorts, twining their fingers together, feeling the slick pre-come coating hard flesh. Three strokes, and Silas was throwing his head back, and splattering hotly into Paul's hand.
It was Paul's turn to hold him up, and they swayed wordlessly in the middle of the room for long minutes. Then, as Silas stayed quiet, Paul began to panic.
Then Silas wrapped his other arm around him and dropped his head onto Paul's shoulder with a slow sigh. Paul hugged him back, resting his cheek against the soft bristle of Silas' short curls.
"We didn't even make it to the floor this time," he said to break the silence.
Silas laughed and then pulled back a little, grimacing. He plucked at his shorts with a grimace. "I really am filthy now."
"Take them off, then," Paul said, and had to laugh at the expression on Silas' face.
"What kind of monster have I created?" Silas muttered and peeled off his top. Paul had been about to snap back, but his words all dried up at the shift of Silas' chest just inches away. The man was stunning, smooth brown skin over lean muscles. Captivated, Paul reached out and ran his finger around one of Silas' flat, dark nipples.
Silas froze with his t-shirt over his head and then flung it off in a hurry. "Do that again."
"Really?" Paul said and dipped his head to kiss it instead. He could have this, after all.
"Yeah," Silas breathed out, hands catching on Paul's hips. "Do you think we can get to a bed this time?"
Paul had been considering just dropping to his knees, but a bed sounded good. He pulled away with a last graze of his teeth and pushed Silas gently backwards towards his bedroom, kicking off his jeans on the way.
"I'm seeing a whole new side to you, Tootles," Silas marveled, his grin brighter and brighter by the moment. "I like it."
Silas' bed was massive and strewn with pillows, DVDs and Silas' laptop, which had always been something Paul had laughed at before. Now he pushed everything to one side, leaning over the bed, ignoring Silas' low whistle, and then Silas was sliding in against his back, hands roaming as he rolled them onto the bed, darting kisses across Paul's shoulders. He pressed in close, cock riding against Paul's crease.
Paul twisted round to tug him into another kiss, and there was no panic in him now. This was him and Silas, so it was natural and a little unlikely and so easy he could barely remember why he'd been so afraid to start it.
The head of Silas' cock brushed lower, pressing against his hole and sending jitters of pleasure through his belly. Groaning into Silas' mouth, he pulled away enough to pull the top drawer of the dresser open and rummage for lube and condoms (and, okay, yes, the fact that he knew where Silas kept those should maybe have been a clue that they were more than just flatmates).
Silas caught the lube out of his hand, and a moment later he was tracing slick circles around Paul's hole, pressing deeper and deeper. Paul, who loved this part of it, the slow, relentless stretch and tease, pressed his hard on against the mattress, desperate for friction, and gasped into his forearm. He had imagined this for so long, and it was only the edge of the condom packet digging into his hand that convinced him it was real.
Silas added a second finger, haste making him clumsier, and Paul rocked his hips in earnest, impaling himself on Silas' fingers.
Silas nibbled his ear and breathed, on a rough laugh, "Bit eager there, mate? How long has it been?"
"With you?"Paul managed. "Never."
"Fair play. I'll shut up now, shall I?" And he twisted his fingers higher, making Paul buck off the bed.
"There, please. Oh, god, Silas, please. Silas!"
Silas pulled his fingers out and grabbed Paul's hip, pulling him over onto his back. Paul got a glimpse of his eyes, wide and amazed, and then Silas was on him again, his mouth sloppy and desperate.
Snarling in frustration, Paul met his kiss, and wrapped his leg around Silas' hips, pulling him down in clear invitation. Kissing was fine, but right now he wanted to be fucked, before he came too soon.
Silas knelt up, grabbing the condom from Paul's hand and tore it open on the second attempt. Paul, looking up at him and trying to hold back his orgasm a little longer, was struck again by how gorgeous he was: the clean line of his shoulders, his flat stomach and its brush of curling hair thickening towards his groin, his cock, long and thick-headed, purple-dark and tempting. No wonder he thought he could bed anyone.
But he was here now, with Paul, who couldn't help smiling up at him.
Silas' breath caught and he finished rolling the condom on in a hurry, crawling between Paul's legs. Paul lifted his hips, wadding the duvet up below himself, and then Silas was pushing his thighs apart and pressing slowly into him.
"Yeah," Paul murmured. "That's it. Don't stop."
Silas was silent, his breathing fast and his head flung back as he thrust forward. His cock, hard and hot, brushed Paul's prostate, and Paul cried out, dropping back on the pillows. He could feel Silas in every inch of him: driving into his arse, beating behind his heart, making his fingers curl and claw at the sheets. He thrust back, just as hard, just as desperate, grabbing for his own cock as his balls tightened.
It wasn't until Silas' eyes flew open, fixing on him in blazing joy, that he realized what he was sobbing out on every thrust.
"Silas! Silas! Silas!"
He came so hard his eyes went dark, but he could still feel Silas through it, slamming into him for the last time, his hands tight on Paul's hips before he sagged down, breath shuddering against Paul's neck as they clung to each other.
Later, still slumped in bed together, the autumn sunlight falling warmly through the window, Silas chuckled against the back of his neck and murmured, "At least you didn't call me Laura."
"I never would," Paul protested, pressing his shoulder back in indignation.
"Good thing too," Silas agreed, pulling him a little closer.
"Why's that?"
He was rewarded with another lazy laugh. "Why, Toots, I don't think I could afford to keep you in lemons."
© Amy Durreson 2013


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our Whistler Out of Bounds group ventured out to check out the new Sea to Sky Gondola south of Squamish, along with photographer Diane Hanna.. dramatic scenery on a dramatic weather day made for interesting and challenging conditions
there are some great view points/vistas and lookouts, and the trails are very accessible - it feels like cheating getting whisked up to the top with lots of plein air gear, but for those that didn't inherit the "packing lightly" plein air gene, its just perfect!
Sea to Sky Gondola check out http://www.seatoskygondola.com
here is one of the lookouts and suspension bridge
the good news... is that you are on top of a mountain.... paradise... the bad news... is that you are on top of a mountain!... very challenging conditions as the clouds kept rolling in....
Photographer Diane captured the moving fog and cloud...
nothing like some creative composition on the fly!
one of my three pieces from that day in progress
a fabulous day! highly recommended


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The Temple will be having a Special Gala Weekend with two great events in March.
Join us for the Installation of Rabbi Dov Gartenberg as our Rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom at Friday Evening Services, March 7, 2008. This festive service will be led by Cantor Gelman and will involve the cantorial talent of our congregation, including Rabbi-Cantor David Kane, Cantor Jonathan Friedmann, and Cantor Elisa Waltzman.
Sally Weber, LCSW, Director of Jewish Community Programs and Director of Special Needs Programs of the Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles will install Rabbi Gartenberg at services. Rabbi Gartenberg will follow with a sermon, "The Top 10 Things I Learned from Synagogue." The Service will be followed by a special Oneg Shabbat prepared by our Temple Beth Shalom Sisterhood in honor of the occasion.
Sally Weber is a long time friend and professional colleague of Rabbi Gartenberg. The two worked together on the staff of Congregation Adat Ariel of North Hollywood, Californi,a where Rabbi Gartenberg began his career as an Assistant Rabbi. Ms. Weber, as Program Director of the synagogue, collaborated with Rabbi Gartenberg on many award-winning programs during that time and afterward.
On Saturday, March 8, 2008, Temple Beth Shalom is hosting a rededication of our Sanctuary with a Gala Celebration Tribute Dinner. At the dinner, we will be honoring two very special members of Temple Beth Shalom -- Eva & Eugene Schlesinger. Their support, commitment, and unending devotion to Temple Beth Shalom and the Long Beach Jewish Community is indeed worthy of recognition and praise.
In conjunction with the Gala celebration, a special Tribute Journal is being compiled. We are asking all of you, dear friends, to join us in honoring the Schlesingers and supporting Temple Beth Shalom by placing an adi in the tribute journal. We invite you to be part of the Temple Beth Shalom legacy -- past, present, and future. Send a message to our honorees, Eva & Eugene Schlesinger, share your favorite Synagogue memories, and/or welcome Rabbi Gartenberg to Temple Beth Shalom. The Tribute Journal will be distributed at the dinner.
We hope you will attend this special evening, which will feature a rededication of our sanctuary, a delicious kosher dinner, fabulous entertainment, and a special tribute to our honorees, Eva & Eugene Schlesinger.
Please refer to the Tribute Book Ad/Dinner Order Form for types and prices of ads and dinner and ad packages available. If you need help with your ad, please call Barbara Alhadeff at (562) 594-4333. The deadline for submitting your ad is February 15, 2008.


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We spotted Bent with his vintage Frank Stavem 8-string "psychobird" Details: Luthier: Frank Stavem / Norway Body: Thinderbird style (mahogany) Neck: MusicMan Stingray style (alder) W/ stabilized peghead Active electronics (Bartolini) Pickups build by Frank Stavem Strings: Newtone / UKmore
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The Fly in Autumn by David Zieroth
Winner of the 2009 Governor General's Award for Poetry
David Zieroth is a pretty typical Canadian career poet. He regularly puts out collections, he taught English at the post secondary level, and he adheres to a fairly traditional lyrical style. As a side note, a former English professor and thesis advisor of mine, Richard Lemm another typical Canadian career poet, is mentioned in the acknowledgements of this book. In 2009, this career poet published his masterpiece and was awarded the top prize in Canadian Poetry, the Governor General's Award. The Fly in Autumn is a good example of a satisfying poetry collection accessible, tight in terms of metaphor and symbol, not afraid of humour, and the author doesn't go out of his way to reinvent the wheel in regards to style.
Now, I have to be honest, this isn't going to be the most insightful review ever written. I read this book one night in bed when I was very tired, not feeling well and half tripping out on cold and sinus medication.
The strength of this book is the absurdest twist Zieroth takes with a lot of his poems, particularly the closing, and title, sequence, "The Fly in Autumn." Like in "Insurance":
Insurance offices are full of fat men
(cramped behind small desks stacked
with forms and notes) willing to act
as agents while chewing on a time when
they were blessed with a full head of hair.
This one's thinking of lunch, the eclair
As you can see from this stanza as well, Zieroth isn't afraid to throw a rhyme into the mix here and there. The pattern above, ABBACC, or close enough, is the one which the author continually returns. Zieroth uses this scheme in about a third of the poems but manages to avoid the sing-song feeling that sometimes roars its head with rhyming in contemporary poetry.
I've ranted on this blog about how much I am annoyed by collections of poetry that try to find something sublime or transcendent in the minutiae of everyday existence. This book had the potential to go in that direction, but fortunately for all involved, Zieroth took simple subjects and treated them to a quirky re-imagining.
North End Love Songs by Katherena Vermette
Winner of the 2013 Governor General's Award for Poetry
Katherena Vermette pulled off an impressive accomplishment, winning a Governor General's award with her first book. North End Love Songs is an incredible collection. I've been lucky lately; my last few reading picks have been fantastic. Vermette is Métis and this identity permeates every line of her writing. This is autobiographical poetry of the highest degree, but it takes on a variety of topics. The author blends humour, sadness, hope, hopelessness, and coming-of-age using a style that is a throwback to Modernist American poets like ee cummings.
The most moving part of the collection is the author's recounting of the disappearance of her brother. I enjoyed these poems for several reasons, mainly though because it addresses so many themes. Vermette tackles the personal sadness that comes with a situation like this; the stereotyping that comes with being aboriginal, including from the police – such as assuming since he's young and Native he must just be on a bender; and on being Native in general – the good, the bad, and, of course, the ugly.
The structure of poetry is magnificent and, as I mentioned before, is a throwback to Modernist poets. There is no punctuation and the author doesn't stick to any stylistic constant – be it enjambment, stanza structure, etc. This is free verse in its most pure form. Lines contain as few as a single word and individual poems can range from a few lines to extended sequences over 10 pages. This use of free verse and colloquial north end Winnipeg language really takes you inside the poet's thoughts. One could even argue that Vermette is using a poetic stream-of-consciousness style in her writing. Finally, my last thought on structure, the poet ties her sequences together with highly intertwined themes, images, and symbolism – be it birds, seasons, holidays, or music.
One more thing I have to throw out there is Vermette's use of music as metaphor and "image." I am a huge 80s music fan, specifically, hair metal (Poison, Skid Row, Guns N Roses… I'm actually listening to Great White as I write this). If you are a serious fan of this musical genre, I really think you will get much more out of this book. The sequence "November" is really the thematic climax of the collection, and so much of this section relies on these musical references to help illustrate the speaker's state-of-mind. The poem "mixed tape" goes as far to use individual songs (I've actually created a playlist on Google Play of the songs in this poem if you'd care to listen).
Overall, a great read. This collection is funny in places and gut wrenchingly difficult in places. Vermette pulls no punches and uses her old-school writing style to connect you with the depths of her own soul. Childhood memories, personal pain, music, and North End Winnipeg all shaped this collection of poems in a highly coheasive collection even though the poems are more lyrical than they are narrative. I think that North End Love Songs is a triumphant announcement proclaiming that Katherena Vermette is an important new voice in Native Canadian literature.
The Island Means Minago by Milton Acorn
Winner of the 1975 Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama
When someone thinks of PEI literature, the first image to pop into their mind would be that of Lucy Maud Montgomery and her little redhead Anne. I've written on this blog many times before about the development and current state of PEI literature and how the last 25 years has really been a high point for writing in the province. There was very little early (pre-1950s) PEI literature worth discussing. Lucy Maud really was the grandmother of PEI writing and her contemporary Sir Andrew Macphail was the grandfather with his masterpiece The Master's Wife. But, PEI lit as we know it now was really founded in earnest with Milton Acorn's 1956 self-published mimeographed chapbook In Love and Anger. Acorn was a very different voice from his contemporaries; he was a working man's poet. A World War II veteran with little formal education, The People's Poet spent most of his life living off a Veteran's Affairs pension due to war injuries. Some of his titles were best-sellers in Canada and he was a superstar in the world of poetry – even marrying Gwendolyn MacEwen for a short time. The 1975 collection The Island Means Minago, his only collection to win the Governor General's Award, is Acorn's most ambitions treatise on his home province and contains many of his signature poems.
The Island Means Minago is a very cohesive volume, both in terms of narrative and themes. It mixes narrative poems, lyrics, prose pieces, dramatic scenes, and photos to tell the story of his people. Right in the opening poem, Acorn's love of his island is evident:
In the fanged jaws of the Gulf,
a red tongue.
Indians say a musical God
took up his brush and painted it,
named it in His own language
"The Island".
In terms of narrative, Acorn takes on a number of issues prominent in Island history (honestly, if you're familiar with these items it makes this a much more enjoyable book): the absentee landlord problem from the 19th century and Island Development Plan that began in the 1960s that would be top of mind in 1975. Acorn uses these narratives to tie together the thematic concept of this book. It is no secret that he was a far-left socialist, and that is the lens through which the author writes. He lambastes capitalism, roasts the ineffective administration of the government for not representing the people, and takes up the cause of the proletariat.
As I mentioned, Acorn was the working man's poet. He was a big personality and it is easy to envision him reciting these poems in a pub throwing back beers and shots of whiskey. His language is accessible and free of those 20-dollar-words too often used by MFA graduates. But, that is not to say that these poems are "simple," quite the opposite. Acorn manipulates genre and form in fascinating ways, he often uses an isolated rhyme as a narrative turning point, he creates intriguing imagery while using down-home dialect, and he is very cognizant of the sound, the music so to speak, of his poetry by doing interesting things with repetition, dialogue, and syllable structure.
An element of this book that was interesting was the collection of prose pieces. Each of the three sections has one prose piece, with each being about 10 pages in length. It is hard to classify these parts – as I said, he does interesting things with genre. These three pieces are not prose poems, but they're not exactly stories either. They're something of a blend of history, storytelling, social commentary, and political treatise. These prose pieces were excellent additions to the poems because they provide some historical and socio-economic context and further entrench Acorn's socialist themes.
Finally, the actual physical volume itself is an interesting specimen. It was published by NC Press, who according to the ads in the back of the book, published the paper New Canada, that reported "on the struggles being waged across the country for independence and socialism" and was also the leading publisher of books and documents from the People's Republic of China. So, the strong leftist overtones shouldn't be surprising.
I've said before that PEI has the most nationalistic literature and sense of identity in general in English Canada. This collection was one the flashpoints for this Island literary tradition. The Island Means Minago is a great example of Maritime and PEI poetry, an excellent collection of historical poetry, an interesting political exposition, and just an overall engaging read.
Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke
Winner of the 1991 Archibald Lampman Award
Selected for Canada Reads 2002
I've written on this site before about my love of George Elliott Clarke. He is a master writer, a brilliant public reader and speaker, a top notch literary scholar, a genuine nice guy, and Toronto's Poet Laureate. His writing is a mix of down-home Nova Scotia charm and rich African-Canadian historicism – which he dubbed "Africadian". Whylah Falls is Clarke's second book and one of signature works. This volume is the narrative of the residents of the fictional Nova Scotia black village of Whylah Falls, focusing primarily a young lady named Shelley and her immediate family. This book has the notable distinction of being selected for the first edition of Canada Reads held back in 2002 (defended by sci-fi author Nalo Hopkinson, finishing second only to the winning title In the Skin of a Lion) and still remains one of only two books of poetry to be featured on the competition.
Whylah Falls is a book of poetry but it is a mixed-genre book; it uses traditional narrative poems, prose poems, sermons, dramatic monologues, theatrical scenes, newspaper-style articles, letters, and photography. This collection is often referred to as a novel told through poetry, but I think a better description is a cycle of stories told through poetic forms as each section focuses on different groups of characters in the village.
This has become an important and landmark book in Canadian literature and is now solidly in the canon of Black Canadian writing. I read a selection of these poems in a Canadian Lit course at Saint Mary's University in 2003 but I had never read the whole volume from start to finish despite the fact I've had a first edition sitting on my shelf for years (oddly enough the first edition cover is really terrible and both the 10th and 20th anniversary editions are much nicer). I really really wanted to love this book. I recently re-listened to Canada Reads 2002 and Hopkinson's impassioned defense ignited a desire to immerse myself into Clarke's best known world. But. But, in the end, I wasn't blown away like I was hoping I would be. To this reader, Whylah Falls was just ok. And here's why.
Firstly, I absolutely adored the love poetry in the two sections titled "The Adoration of Shelley" and I loved the whole section "The Martyrdom of Othello Clemence." The imagery in the love poems was beautiful, sensual, and tastefully erotic and the narrative in "The Martyrdom" was powerful and vivid. Overall though, I was a little underwhelmed by a lot of the book. I think the primary problem was the huge cast of characters; I was continually lost and had to keep referring back to the Dramatis Personae. Unlike a novel or a play where there is ample narrative introduction and development of primary characters, this format didn't really allow for that, so you are simply thrown into the middle of this dynamic little town (almost the identical problem I had with Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town).
I want to be clear that my rating of "just ok" doesn't mean that I didn't like the book. The quality of writing was very high and the innovative nature of the volume was superb. Ultimately though, Whylah Falls didn't grab me the way Execution Poems did. Maybe I was just the wrong audience or I read the book at the wrong time. All that being said though, this is still one of the most important books in contemporary Canadian literature and maintains an important place in African Canadian culture.
Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen recently released his 13th studio album, Popular Problems, his best release since Various Positions in my humble opinion. So, needless to say, I have been listening to lots of Cohen's music lately, reconnecting with old favorites and grooving to his hearty baritone rhythms. Obviously I decided it was a good time to read some Cohen. His bibliography is quite extensive, likely more so than most CanLit fans realize: eight original books of poetry, two novels, one collection of selected poems (for which he won, and subsequently refused, the 1968 Governor-General's Award for Poetry), and one anthology of selected poetry, songs and prose. I haven't actually read a lot of Cohen's works; other than a few selected poems in Canadian literature classes, I've only read two of his books – his debut collection Let Us Compare Mythologies and, about 10 years, his infamous novel Beautiful Losers. I was up for a challenge this week, so I chose the 1984 book Book of Mercy.
Book of Mercy is collection of prose poems that take the form of devotional "contemporary psalms." I have always struggled with prose poems and even more so with deeply religious writing, so I knew going into this collection that it would be a tough read. This collection, while frustratingly difficult, was an enjoyable and interesting read. If you're familiar with either Cohen's writing or music, you will recognize many of the themes and motifs present in almost all of the poems, especially if you imagine Cohen himself reciting them to you with his haunting deep voice.
All 50 of these prose poems are steeped in Judeo-Christian imagery and Biblical references – to the extent that someone unfamiliar with the basics of the Old Testament would likely be lost. Frankly, if you were to present these to a quality 4th year literature major, they would likely think these are translated 14th century Middle English devotions, not poems from a Jewish Canadian written in 1984. Overall, I would use one word to describe Book of Mercy: sad. The speaker is writing from a place of pain, spiritual torture, and religious uncertainty. At various points, the writing is desperate, angry, dark, but it is always gripping and, above all, sincere. Leonard Cohen is an extreme example of poetry being inseparable from the poet and this particular collection is case-in-point why.
Book of Mercy is not for the casual reader of poetry. It is difficult, confusing, and filled with obscure references. I read more poetry than most, I have a degree in literature and I have studied English at the graduate level, and still, I struggled greatly with this book. But, that is not to say this is a title to be avoided. If you're a fan of Leonard Cohen, it is a fantastic example of what makes him tick. Just know that you're not alone when you shake your head and mutter "huh?"
1996 by Sara Peters
A Quill and Quire Book of Year – 2013
Sara Peters and I were both born in 1982 in Canada's greatest province, Nova Scotia, but alas since we were born hundreds of kilometers apart, we never met. She went on to earn an MFA from Boston University and hold a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, whereas I did not. 1996 is the debut collection from this exciting new voice in Canadian poetry. The description on the back of the book describes this collection using words like desire, violence, sex, beauty, and cruelty; this, along with the endorsement of Robert Pinksy (impressive for a debut collection from a Maritime poet), immediately grabbed my attention and commanded me to buy this book. It was a good decision.
I read a lot of poetry – at least half of the reviews on this blog are of poetry collections, but it is undeniable that, for the most part, volumes of poetry as a whole are less memorable than say a novel or a memoir. For myself, and many people with whom I discuss poetry, it is usually individual poems or smaller sequences that stick with me after I've finished a book. There are exceptions to this rule, Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen,The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje and The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood are a few personal exceptions. 1996 is now also one of those exceptions.
I would use one word to describe this collection: dark. Sara Peters has a real knack for crafting short, punchy, macabre lines that just send shivers down your spine as a reader. From the Poem "Cruelty":
When I was eleven, I watched my cousin cut open a gopher
with the serrated top of a tin can.
From "Camden 14"
He'd been kept awake all night
by snowflakes, so Camden
set himself on fire.
From "Bionic", discussing the speaker's mother and brother:
She's senile and probably dying.
He's cruel but his cruelty's probably temporary.
He's dressed her in a T-shirt that says
I kill everything I fuck // I fuck everything I kill.
And one more example, from "The Last Time I Slept in this Bed":
I was involved in the serious business
of ripping apart my own body.
Most of these examples are from the opening few lines of their respective poems. Throughout the collection, the author uses these sharp and attention grabbing opening lines to set the mood, so to speak, and then further explore whatever theme or topic it is she's writing about.
1996 is a very quick read. Most of the poems are in the 2 page range and Peters uses short, staccato-esque, rhythmic verses, with stanzas typically in the 2 to 3 line range. While it is a quick read, it is not an easy read. Peters' poems are incredibly complex, hardly narrative, and so rife with metaphor, symbolism, and abstract associational imagery, that the very casual or non-reader of poetry may be slightly intimidated or even lost.
Harold Bloom once said something to the effect of "great poetry should make your head hurt." 1996 certainly does that, and it is a wonderful thing. It pushes the reader's boundaries of understanding and demands he or she dig deep to soak up every syllable. These poems demand slow reading and re-reading. But, even if you just read from start to finish without digging too deep, you'll still be pulled into the absorbing dark language and the beautiful sound of the poetry.
1996 isn't simply read, it's remembered.
Afternoon Horses by Deirdre Kessler
Deirdre Kessler is very well known as a children's author. Her Brupp books and the picture book Lobster in my Pocket are quite well known. She has been a fixture at UPEI for many years, teaching creative writing, an unbelievably popular course on children's literature (there are usually huge wait lists), and a course unique to our island – a course on Lucy Maud Montgomery. In my recent PEI literature seminar, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with Deirdre; she has many interesting insights into Maritime literature and, as a person, is a very fascinating character. After the class, she was kind enough to give all 10 of us in the class a personally inscribed copy of her poetry collection. Afternoon Horses is Kessler's only poetry book. It is a very personal mix of the lyrical and narrative and is, above all, incredibly intimate and personal.
The collection is broken down into four sections, but the poems really fall into two categories: poems about family and poems about travelling. Deirdre's poems about her family are some of my favorite of recent PEI literature. The second section, "Blueberries in a green bowl," is the strongest part of the book – with the first poem, "The names of things," being my favorite of the whole collection. I think this section was so strong because of the author's experience as a children's writer. Writing for children requires getting into the heads of those little people; understanding children is the essential to producing good writing for or about children. In the poems of "Blueberries in a green bowl," the children, especially a nephew of the author, are the star.
The collection takes the reader through the landscapes of PEI, Tasmania, and various remote areas of the Western US and then you're invited into the kitchen of the Kessler family. In recent years, PEI poets have mastered what I call "the local narrative." Poets like Kessler, Brinklow, Ledwell, and Morrow have published books (all from Acorn Press) of personal and accessible, yet literary, narrative poetry. The poems are not simply stories "chopped" into verse; they have a distinct poetic rhythm and flow. All-in-all, Afternoon Horses is an attractive, fun, and satisfying volume of poetry. I hope that another volume of poems from Deirdre Kessler appears in the near future.
The Taste of Water by Frank Ledwell
The Ledwell Family is an artistic juggernaut on Prince Edward Island. Jane Ledwell wrote an excellent collection of poems, Last Tomato, and is known as one of the Island's finest poetry editors. Patrick Ledwell is a very talented comedian, a playwright (Come All Ye), and now a respected writer (I Am an Islander). Danny Ledwell is a painter whose work is gaining popularity (the cover of this book is one of his paintings). The patriarch of this brood is Frank Ledwell, PEI's second Poet Laureate, beloved story teller, and legendary English and creative writing professor at UPEI. The bulk of Frank Ledwell's collection of writing is very PEI centric; Crowbush, The North Shore of Home, and Island Sketchbook all explore life on the Island, especially rural PEI, while Dip & Veer is a lyrical collection that reflects on Alex Colville's art. The Taste of Water is a diverse mix of poems that is completely steeped in "islandness."
The poems in this collection are a mix of the narrative, pastoral, and lyrical. Reading Frank Ledwell properly requires an understanding of his style of writing. Many of his PEI contemporaries, like John Smith and Brent MacLaine are masters of technical subtlety and eclectic metaphors; Ledwell is not. His poetry is like Bon Jovi, whereas John Smith is like Rush. Rush's music is esoteric, difficult, and almost distant in its complexity. Bon Jovi, while not the most "artistic," is still fun to listen to and highly entertaining. If you are looking for a demonstration of technical prowess, Frank Ledwell is not going to deliver. If you want to read poems that are written in "down-home" language that are accessible, fun, and convey clear and unambiguous stories and feelings, then The Taste of Water is your book.
The poems in this book are largely selections from poems Ledwell publicly read during his time as Poet Laureate. Poems like "The Sweater," "Jean Finding Things," and "Lasagna, April '06" tell tales of what life is like on this little island. Family ties, communal dinners, and the comfort of Condon's Woollen Mills' sweaters are among the topics of Ledwell's writing. These poems, as well as the rest of the 71 page collection, wrap themselves in the red soil of PEI. And, whether some think of this as a positive or a negative, the poems are written in a straight-forward way that anyone can enjoy.
This small, beautifully designed collection is a must have. It is the kind of book that every Islander should proudly display on their coffee table. This was Ledwell's last book before his 2008 death. Acorn Press did a fantastic job designing this book – with the exception of a weird font that does something strange with lower-case t's. The Taste of Water, combined with Jane Ledwell's Last Tomato, and Patrick Ledwell's I Am an Islander would make an excellent gift to anyone that wanted a taste of Island literature.
What Really Happened is This by Dianne Hicks Morrow
Winner of the 2012 PEI Book Award for Poetry
I was initially introduced to this book in my Contemporary PEI Literature course when we read a selection of five poems. What Really Happened is This is the award winning poetry memoir, and second collection of poems, by PEI writer Dianne Hicks Morrow. I was greatly intrigued by the idea of a poetry memoir and didn't know what to expect. These poems were, for the most part, very sad; but, I do not mean that in a negative way. Instead, I mean that Morrow has opened herself up in an incredibly close and intimate way and is bearing her soul to the world during a very personal and traumatic part of life. Being a "memoir", one cannot separate "poet" and "speaker" – the result was a heightened emotional connection with the writing.
The poems "Belonging" and "What Really Happened Is This" get to the core of what Morrow is trying to do. Both poems are very personal and easily to take to heart. "Belonging," a look back at Morrow's feeling of fitting in and the difficulties that that can entail in Prince Edward Island, is very reflective and introspective. She looks back the little things that helped shape her, contemplates being an "Islander," reflecting on the minutiae of human existence. And ultimately, as I'm sure happens with most people, trying to figure out where one "belongs" simply leaves more questions.
The title poem, "What Really Happened Is This," is a longer multipart poem and it is by far the highpoint of Morrow's collection. It is absolutely heart-wrenching and will leave you pondering long after you've finished the book. It juxtaposes two powerful images that most people with severely ill loved ones probably go through: the person that you grew up with and love and the person who is connected to machines, surrounded by doctors, and away from home praying that they can return to who they used to be. The whole collection, but this poem in particular, really draws the line from personal tragedy to memory to reality and back again.
I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with Mrs. Morrow and discuss her writing. She is very passionate about poetry and PEI writing. Her reading from this book really added a depth to the personal character of the poems. Every poem in this 73 page collection is a work of art – with the two I discussed above being the highlights. They physical book itself, published by PEI's Acorn Press, is quite attractive and would look great on any bookshelf. What Really Happened is This is a quick, touching, accessible, and memorable read.
Local News by Glen Downie
One thing that Canadian writers certainly do well is prose poetry, that contradictory hybrid of the poem and the very short-story. Glen Downie's 2011 collection Local News is a collection of prose poems that explores the everyday world all of us. I was attracted to this volume because of my interest in the genre, not necessarily the subject matter. The book is divided into four sections, each with its own focus. While I did find one particular section interesting, the one where the speaker is essentially pontificating on the decline of the small town, overall this book was a bit of a letdown.
Over the last number of years, I have read a lot of poetry that explores mystic properties of the old sofa in the living-room or the metaphysical character of a kitchen sink, etc; I think this trend of finding the magical in the meaningless has run its course and should be placed on the trash heap of English literature. The sequences "Home", "Garage", and "Mall" were filled with this kind of writing and it left a very forced and cold feeling. The poem "Pitch Fork" was a great example of this. Downie muses on the symbolic power that this simple garden tool radiates, invoking images of Satan and Poseidon. As the Freudian maxim goes, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Downie and other authors who are writing this kind of material need to realize that they are not Robert Browning and that picture hanging in the hallway is not their "last Duchess painted on the wall,/ Looking as if she were alive."
The one redeeming section of the book was his look at the various small shops one would find in any generic dying small town in Canada. The characters that inhabit the shops and town, their ambiance, and how they are a throwback to a simpler time permeate this short sequence. This was the only part of the book that felt fresh, original, and passionate.
I get what Glen Downie was going for with Local News, his words simply fell on deaf and unsympathetic ears that were tired of hearing about how supernatural a mattress is. A for effort, C for execution.


text:
Climate Changeby Senator Barbara Boxer
Posted on 2013-03-04
BOXER. Now I wish to talk about climate change. It is one of the
most serious threats facing our Nation. All you really have to do is
look out the window to see it is already happening.
I would like to talk about a great thing that happened recently. When USA TODAY, the Nation's largest newspaper in print form--more people read that paper than any other. They announced in a front-page story last Friday, on March 1, that they are going to spend a year looking at the issue of climate change.
This is the front page. They show that the temperatures are going up. They talk about more asthma. But let's look at what they say because I am appalled that with all of this going on around us, we seem to have no way forward on this issue. I am going to be here every Monday after votes to talk about this, and I urge every Member of the Senate, Democratic or Republican, who cares about this issue to join me. We have to wake up the American people to the fact that this Senate is doing nothing. Even though I believe there is a majority for doing something, we don't have the 60 votes. So let's talk about it.
This is what USA TODAY says: "Why you should sweat climate change.'' More American children are getting asthma and allergies, and more seniors are suffering heat strokes. [Already] food and utility prices are rising. Flooding is overrunning bridges, swamping subways and closing airport runways.
We know this is true.
People are losing jobs in drought-related factory closings. Cataclysmic storms are wiping out sprawling neighborhoods. Towns are sinking.
And Congress does nothing.
USA TODAY: This isn't a science-fiction, end-of-the-world scenario. . . . these scenes are already playing out somewhere in the United States, and they're expected to get worse in the years ahead.
People need to act quickly.
Climate change is not a place and time distant--it's here and now.
That is a quote from Kim Knowlton, who is a health professor at Columbia University, and this was shown in USA TODAY.
The most recent decade was the Nation's hottest on record.
This isn't a guess, this is the truth.
The most recent decade was the Nation's hottest on record, and 2012 was the hottest single year. The average U.S. temperature has risen 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since reliable recordkeeping began in 1895--80% of that has occurred since 1980.
The economic costs of all these changes are enormous--not only for those directly affected but for the nation's taxpayers, who are stuck with the bills for disaster relief, national flood insurance and drought-related crop losses.
Now, what are we supposed to do about this? Clearly, scientists tell us there is too much carbon pollution in the air, and I will show you where it is coming from. The electricity sector gives us 34 percent of the carbon; the transportation sector, 27 percent of the carbon comes from there; the industrial sector, 20 percent; the agriculture [[Page S1084]] sector, 7 percent; residential and commercial building, 11 percent.
We know President Obama has done an amazing job in leading us, with Members here in the Senate, bipartisan. Senators Snowe and Feinstein worked so hard on this. He said it is time for us to get better fuel economy. Fuel efficiency is going to take carbon out of the air, and we are moving toward 55 miles per gallon. That is excellent. And we can continue to make great progress as we move toward plug-in hybrids--I drive one of those myself--and eventually electric cars. I can tell you, when you drive those cars, you don't visit those gas stations. It saves you money. It is a win-win. The environment gets cleaned up. You save money. It is all good.
We know the electricity sector is complicated, but what we want to do--many of us here--is to say: If you put a price on carbon, it will move us away from the dirtiest types of electricity production toward clean, clean electricity.
That is what we are trying to do. So Senator Sanders wrote a very strong bill of which I am a cosponsor. It would put a price on carbon and we would take the funds we get from that price on carbon--I think it is $20 a ton when you start--and it will bring in many billions. What we will do with it is 60 percent of it will go to the people to soften the blow of higher electricity prices until we have moved to clean energy. We have to move on this.
On residential and commercial buildings, I have a bill to move forward through the GSA, the biggest landlord in the country, and we can move forward with economies to those buildings by making sure the windows do not let in all that air or let all that heat escape, we can make those weather-related improvements and we can encourage them to move to solar and other ways. The industrial sector is the same. Once there is a price on carbon, they will move toward putting solar and the rest.
In closing, we have one self-inflicted wound called the sequester. We can get out of it easily by working together on deficit reduction in a balanced way and stop these mindless cuts that hurt the people of our Nation, the children of our Nation, the seniors of our Nation, law enforcement of our Nation--our busiest airports, trains, and the rest. We can avoid all that if we are smart and we say we want a balanced approach.
I believe if we recognize what USA Today is saying, which is we should sweat climate change because it is happening now, if we can come together we can move forward and do our part. We just heard, in the Environment and Public Works Committee--I am proud to chair it--we heard from four scientists. They were asked if we do nothing what will happen. They said parts of our Nation will not exist anymore. Imagine hearing people say no more Atlantic City, no more New Orleans. In Florida--you wouldn't recognize it. That is the first answer. We did not even get to what happens in the West.
We know from Senators such as Tom Udall what would happen to that beautiful State of New Mexico. It would become a desert environment; no more green, and the fires have already been starting. I am sad to say we have done little to nothing. I can only say this President has done whatever he could do. Any progress we have had has come from his executive orders and, I might add, the States.
My home State of California is moving forward, creating jobs in clean energy, moving forward, being a model, and I am going to support them and our Governor, Jerry Brown. He gets this. It doesn't take a degree in climatology to see what is happening to our climate--and it is happening. We understand it.
I saw a movie, ``Chasing Ice.'' O God, if you have not seen it, I suggest you watch it. This is a great photographer who goes to four different places, including Montana, Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska. He puts these cameras up there to watch the glaciers. You see what happens over 2 years. These glaciers are disappearing. This is not some kind of cry for attention on my part. I love my grandkids, and I want them to have a planet that is habitable for them. They deserve that. They are going to look back to this time someday and say: My goodness, what were they thinking? It is not too late for us. With USA Today leading the way, I think we can turn public opinion around and get going on this issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
(The remarks of Mrs. Gillibrand pertaning to the introduction of S. 443 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I yield the floor.


text:
It's about a wizard named Harald, who--
That's right, Harald. Oh kids, I had a bugger of a time recording this one, with almost constant repetitions of "said Harold sadly, as he-- I mean said Harald sadly..." And even then, about one of every five Harolds I forgot to correct, and I had to decide whether it sounded enough like Harald to get by, or whether I had to rerecord the line.
Anyway, Harald is a failed warlock who teams up with a failed demon, in an attempt to change his stars.
Oh, just go listen to the fudging thing. It's free.
Here be the link!


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#ManiMonday: Licorice Nails with a Jewel Accent
For today's #ManiMonday I have another yet another trendy yet easy to do at home mani that features some of the new nail accessories Kiss is putting out. I used some of the pre-glued stones from the BeJeweled kit to play up my accent nails, adding a little something to an otherwise simple, classy black mani. I love how the little rhinestones are preglued making it so easy to place them on the nail. I secured them in place with a clear topcoat and they didn't budge for over a week. The nail polish I used for the base color was Avon's Nailwear Pro+ in Licorice, a gorgeous black, glossy shade.
*Products provided for consideration. This does not influence my opinions or reviews


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