My Brilliant Careerism, part 7

I'm on the Canada book tour this fall; my schedule is posted here. I'm happy to sign books, and love to see old friends along the way.

Last weekend in Montreal I read/talked/signed my new novel THE O'BRIENS at Westmount Public Library, and at the last moment decided to include a slide show of family--that is, O'Brien--photographs.

French Appalachia

 Hwy 212, near Notre Dame des Bois, QC

One of my favorite roads in the world: the route from the Maine coast to Montreal. There are actually many different ways to go, none of them involving major roads and all featuring moose--rather than traffic--as the main road hazard. This stretch near Notre Dame des Bois Quebec is on my current favourite route: Quebec Highway 212 from the Maine border at Cobourn Gore ME/Woburn QC to Cookshire, QC. Then to Lennoxville and on to Montreal.
             I like this road because of the farms, villages and mountains. The mountains are les Appalaches, elsewhere known as the Appalachians, which start way down in Alabama and end as the Notre Dame Mountains in the interior of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula.

La Patrie, Qc

Upland dairy farming near N.D. des Bois, Megantic County, Quebec.

               It is interesting how much borders matter. I've heard people say the Canada/US border is meaningless, barely noticeable....it is actually one of the more dramatic and telling borderlines in the Western world. For one thing, along most of its three-thousand-mile length it corresponds to a geographic divide, usually riverine. In most of Quebec, the border is a squiggly line between the watershed of the St Lawrence, and the watershed of the Atlantic coast of New England. North of the border everything (water, business, culture)  slopes toward the St Lawrence Valley; south of the border, rivers and the cultures flow elsewhere, toward the Atlantic seaboard and its cities. Civilizations--Amerindian and others--were shaped by this divide. (Likewise, in the West, the 49th parallel pretty much marks the divide of the Hudson Bay watershed and the Gulf Coast watershed (east of the Continental Divide in the Rockies, that is). The Canadian "Nor'West" was explored and organized into the Hudson's Bay Co. fur empire, along rivers running into Hudson's Bay: from where company ships would sail to England.
                 But I digress.
                 Cobourn Gore, Maine is about 2.5 hours from Montreal, but it feels a lot further away than that. Borders signify.

Montreal. Not Maine.

Autobody & Ballroom Marfa

AUTOBODY  CURATED BY NEVILLE WAKEFIELD featuring the film NORTH OF SOUTH WEST OF EAST

All events are free and open to the public.

_______________________________________________

(Fall is happening in Maine, with beautiful sunny days (so far). Apples have fallen, and been gathered;  breezes out on the Reach tends to NW; and we start to think of our winter home in West Texas.                  One of the reasons we like Marfa so much is events like this one, upcoming at Ballroom Marfa.                  Another reason we like Marfa is old trucks and the Marfa guys who work on them. Speaking of autobody, check out Hector Sanchez's work on our truck at H&M Auto in Marfa (just behind Mando's) )---PB AutoBody, curated by Neville Wakefield, explores the mythology of the American automobile through the carcasses of an industry turned art. From Robert Frank to Richard Prince, the automobile has been the driving force of American freedom: its promise of escape provided in an image of mobility. However, as JG Ballard pronounced over 40 years ago, "the car as we know it is on the way out... for as a basically old fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashion idea: freedom." The American dream that it once represented, and freedom-the idea it once enshrined-may, like the car itself, be turning obsolete. With a nod to those windshields that cinematized landscape, AutoBody features the newly commissioned four-channel video work, North of South West of East, by emerging artist Meredith Danluck and produced by Matthew Shattuck. Shot on location in Detroit, Michigan and Marfa, Texas, North of South West of East uses the car as an entry point, a subtle connective tissue, between the equally loaded but seemingly disparate archetypes of the Cowboy, the Rebel, the Immigrant, and the Actress. Eschewing the simplification of abstraction, the film employs the mainstays of narrative with a strong focus on temporality. Each of the four character's retention of the past, attention to present actions and future anticipation play out on separate screens simultaneously manifesting both mobility and stasis-the chronic existential crisis that is American identity. Marfa local punk band Solid Waste and New York musician John Carpenter are featured on the film's soundtrack. This is happening at Ballroom  Marfa in--where else--Marfa Texas.  _______________________________________________ FRIDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER 2011  6-8 pm: Opening reception    with a performance by Mick Barr 8:30 pm: Community dinner at the Capri    followed by a performance by Mariachi Las Alteñas    SATURDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2101 2 pm: Exhibition walkthrough with artists

Learning to Drive, sort of

I learned to drive on King's Highway, Goose Rocks Beach, Maine when my father would sit me on his lap and let me steer the '59 Catalina from our beach house down to Verriere's Store to pick up the Montreal Star. When I was visiting cousins at the beach last week, I let my son do the same, in our aged Volvo. He was pretty good at it, too.
What a powerful memory that is: my hands on the wheel, at last; the old man trusting me to make the decisions.
One of the reasons I've always been a Springsteen fan: that song My Hometown:

"Eight years old/runnin with/
a dime in my hand/
to the bus stop to pick up/
a paper for my old man.

"Sit on his lap/big old Buick/
let me steer as we drove through the town/
he'd tousle my hair, say/
Son take a good look around/
this is your hometown..."

         

Next Novel (My Brilliant Careerism, part 6)

Finally started next novel, in a brand-new Rhodia (No 16) notebook. Three years. Starting now.

Mid-1950s Drag Races, Spokane, WA.

1950s drag racing footage shot in 8mm.

"THE O'BRIENS" (My Brilliant Careerism, part 5)

             PB hits the Canadian road this fall with his new novel THE O'BRIENS (House of Anansi). Tour schedule is posted on the website. Hope to see you along the way.

              Six weeks now on Macleans Canada bestseller list! 
           

                                                   Eldridge Pub. Library, Sand Cove NS,  July 2011.
                                                      A library with a Loyalist section.                              
        Don't see that in Maine.

                         The O'Briens comes out in the U.S. in March 2012. (Pantheon)