The Count from Sesame Street was a Holocaust Survivor

The writer and scholar, Jennifer Glaser wrote on her Facebook page that, as a child, she thought that Sesame Street's The Count (AKA Count von Count) was a Holocaust survivor. This made sense to me, it resonated. So I wrote a prose poem based on this recollection.

I'm delighted that it was published today on Menachem Matthew Feuer's the Schlemiel in Theory Blog. Here it is. Von beautiful poem. Two beautiful poems...ah ha ha ha ha....

Crap Orgasm and Owls.

In response to the magazine The Walrus's new "family friendly" fiction rules, and the subsequent resignation of its fiction editor, Nick Mount (see here for the story), A.G. Pasquella created a new lit journal (named after two words which were forbidden in the new rules.)

I'm delighted to have the first piece posted in this new venture.
 I think A.G. missed the fact that I sneakily integrated the forbidden words into this piece along with another element which was the initial cause of the kerfuffle—why else would have let this in?

But really, it's important that significant journals choose quality and not some patronizing and misguided notion of what might be appropriate. Writing is about engagement and sometimes that engagement might be not be silky smooth, indeed might have some grit and resistance. I think we can take it.

Here's my story, Owls.

India, Books and a Great New Review of Yiddish for Pirates

As you can see from the above picture of a guy (not me, I'm taking the picture) checking his cellphone in a monument, we've just returned from 9 days in India (via New York City.) We were in Agra, Delhi, and Jaipur and points in between.  Truly a remarkable experience and one which I have to write about properly but first, laundry and catching up on responsibilities, including composing/programming a digital interactive typewriter piece for installation at the Art Gallery of Hamilton next month. Now here is a photo snapped from a bicycle rickshaw of a bookseller on a street of booksellers just opening up for the morning.

I did come across this really insightful review/ essay concerning Yiddish for Pirates by Kerry Riley on her fantastic blog which I'm just discovering now. (I know, a blog isn't real until it talks about me...) I'm really grateful for her perceptive examination of the novel from a number of different perspectives, including the motif of books, the repository of past narratives in our culture, and the notion of story which run throughout the novel.

Yiddish for Pirates is on the Giller Longlist!

Very excited that Yiddish for Pirates is on the Giller Prize longlist. It's there with eleven really fantastic books including Susan Perly's Death Valley published by local small press, Wolsak & Wynn.

I'm really happy for the recognition of these great writers and publishers but I'm also thinking about all the others who weren't able to be on the list but who also deserve recognition and excitement. Also all those editors (mine was Amanda Lewis), publishers, and other book support people who make all these books possible.

Also...I just got news that my book will soon appear in paperback. I've posted the cover (front, back, and spine) above It's another beautiful cover designed by Five Seventeen in cahoots with my editor, Amanda Lewis. It does looks a bit like a scrimshaw.

Before I was on the shortlist, the designer stuck in a dummy prize sticker which I really wish was an actual category. Here it is:

Some of my favourite Star Wars Stormtroopers are Jewish

I remember attending the premiere of Star Wars while in high school And I remember listening to Joseph Campbell talking (from George Lucas’ dazzlingly beautiful library at his ranch) about the mythic structure of the series. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, etc. And I’ve seen remarkable images by West Coast indigenous artist Andy Everson where he appropriates Star Wars’ imagery and patterns them with West Coast Native iconography/decoration, a really brilliant mash-up which speaks to colonialism, power, myth, our expectations and how cultures interact. There is another non-Native artist who has also—though to my eye—less successfully and less interestingly done the same thing.

I wondered what it would mean if I appropriated these images? My background is Jewish. The ‘iconography’ of my people would involve Hebrew calligraphy and perhaps a Hamsa (the hand with protects against the evil eye.) And there would be an extra frisson with the Star Wars imagery given that some of the Empire imagery is itself riffing off Nazi German iconography (as well as Japanese: cf. Darth Vader.)

Nazi Stormtroopers don’t look like Star Wars stormtroopers but the connection is there. So. I covered a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet Hebrew and included a hamsa. Something else to note. The Hebrew is from a font which looks like Hebrew but actually replicates English letters. Another interesting faux syncretism.

And, of course, in the current geopolitical climate, it is hard not to consider this stormtrooper image in relation, not only to past Nazi militarism, but I think it does engage with images of Israeli force.

But I think the goal of art is to raise interesting questions, to problematize….but not to give any answers, particularly simple ones.

Visuals

In Memoriam: Jonathan Borwein

My cousin, Jon Borwein, died unexpectedly yesterday. Though I hadn't seen him in quite a few years, his part of the family though not actually close cousins (there was some arcane mathematical formula by which we could calculate our cousin relationship--I think it involved the square root of a negative number divided by borscht squared) have always felt very close to us and our families have always made a point of connecting over several continents. Somehow as the B*rw*ns (Borwein is the non-Anglicized version of Barwin) moved across the globe, there has always been the sense that we were in this together.

 Jon was a renowned mathematician. Though clearly the specifics of his work were beyond my understanding, his approach to it was very inspiring to me. Through math, he made the wonder, mystery, elegance, delight, and beauty of the world, of the inquiring intellect and of knowledge and discovery itself very apparent. When with him, he had that gift of being "present," of valuing your interaction with him, of connecting to you in his inimitable way. I don't think I've ever met a more inquisitive and penetrating intellect, though I've also never met anyone who would talk about genital crabs when a guest at a passover dinner. ;) Also, though he was able to roam through the very abstract world of experimental mathematics, it was so apparent how much love of family was important to him and fundamentally at the centre of his life. I am feeling so sorry for his family, his parents and brother & sister, and for my parents.

Here is an obituary from a colleague. And here is the public obiturary:

Jonathan Borwein’s obituary

BORWEIN, Jonathan Michael, August 2, 2016 at age 65. Jon Borwein, Laureate Professor at the University of Newcastle, FRSC, FAAAS, FBAS, FAustMS, FAA, FAMS, FRSNSW passed away suddenly at 12:32 a.m. on August 2 during a stint as Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Western University in London, Ontario.

An innovative and prolific mathematician of international renown, he is survived by his parents, Bessie and David Borwein of London; his adoring wife Judith, three daughters Naomi, Rachel, and Tova; five grandchildren Jakob Joseph, Noah Erasmus, Skye, Zoe and Taj; siblings Sarah and Peter; sister-in-law Jennifer Moore.

The funeral will take place at Logan Funeral Home, 371 Dundas Street, London, Ontario at 1:00 pm on Wednesday August 10, 2016 with a visitation period from noon to 1:00 pm. In lieu of flowers, friends and colleagues may wish to donate to a scholarship fund being set up in Jonathan’s name. For information on how to donate contact Judith.Borwein@gmail.com.

John Coltrane was my Bar Mitzvah Teacher .

When I was a suburban Jewish kid living in Ottawa, studying for my Bar Mitzvah, I began listening to the music of John Coltrane, and perhaps nothing more than “Alabama.”

When I went to synagogue and heard the chanting of the cantor, I heard the modal freeform improvisations of Coltrane on soprano (for example, on “India” or “My Favourite Things” or “Impressions,”), and his exploration of modality and, particularly, the non-western scales of Indian music. A solo voice keening, birling, undulation. I heard the expression of another kind of identity, what I imagined was an alternative to the four-square homophonics of the dominant Western culture. A kind of non-tempered heterophony, or a monophonic swirling through different scales and otherness.

And of course, in “Alabama,” I heard the deep grief for the young girls murdered in Alabama, the victims of racial hate. Coltrane standing with his tenor expressing his grief and blessing them with this secular prayer. Sanctifying their experience. What felt like “our” experience, even though, I could, of course, share almost nothing of their experience, or Coltrane’s, and came to it as a middle class white Jewish teenager, fifteen years later in suburban Ottawa. But it revealed something about the world. This was what was important. This was how one responded with courage and a sense of empathy and morality. It did make me consider my grandparents in Eastern Europe, the hateful system of apartheid that my parents left in South Africa, and the religious strife in Northern Ireland where I grew up.

Through this piece and the model of John Coltrane, I understood that music and the arts in general could express profound feelings of empathy, a kind of large-picture view of the world (which might perhaps be termed “spirituality,”) and the powerful sense of consolation and healing through shared experience and expression, and a meditative energized sense of being-in-the-moment as it unfolds. I remember reading somewhere about the recording of “Alabama” which appeared on an album (“Live at Birdland,”) that it was remarkable that this profound and deeply moving piece was recorded live in a nightclub (i.e. Birdland)
 where people were drinking their beers and cocktails.

On the Jewish high holidays, I’d heard the Kol Nidre prayer, which is one of the most serious, intense and emotional sung prayers in the tradition and heard in it the sorrow of persecution and suffering of the Holocaust, and the suffering afflicted on other peoples at other times. Of course, because I was a teenager, I also heard a general cri de coeur for life’s difficulties and fundamental existential dilemma. But through this, I understood that such expression could bring meaning and perhaps consolation.

I also understood the model of Coltrane’s relentless experimentation—his drive to discover and to explore what might be possible, rather than just continuing with the utter mastery that he had achieved. (For example, Kind of Blue or that mind-blowingly perfect album with Cannonball Adderly.) The role of the artist—and by extension, the role of the person—was to explore, was to push through to greater understanding and expression (I saw those as two facets of the same thing.)

I don’t remember what the rabbi taught me for my Bar Mitzvah. Ethical responsibility? Moral choices and culpability for one’s actions? How Jewish text and musical culture could articulate values and identity and form a way of being-in-the-world? I remember nothing of that. I do remember him telling me that I should say “Moses’s” instead of “Moses’” which rankled my Anglo-grammatical sensibilities—and I refused. I do think of the grief and consolation of “Alabama,” of how Coltrane responded with compassion, empathy, moral courage, tenderness and strength.

I do remember John Coltrane and what he taught me for my Bar Mitzvah.

Canadian Jewish News writes about Yiddish for Pirates

I'm delighted by this review in the Canadian Jewish News. Apparently they believe I must have been paying attention during all those interminable cheder (Hebrew school) lessons. But, really, it is quite moving to have such a review in such a place.

I was thinking tonight about how they would say that the American composer Charles Ives wrote the music that his father would have written, that his music came out of a love and concern for the kinds of things that he saw mattered to his father, filtered (I think) through a kind of nostalgia and affection.

I would say that some significant part of my novel comes from my perception of what mattered to my maternal grandparents.  My grandfather's interest in Jewish learning, in the mystery and value of books, language and knowledge for itself, and a kind of intellectual Yiddishkeit which made me consider that each corner and crook of the world is filled with story, with knowledge, with thought, with words, and with an opinion. He also had an interest in bon mots (frequently his own) and Jewish jokes (frequently his own.) There was a sense that through knowledge the world was larger and had roots.

He was also was a polyglot. (Man, he was hard to clean up after -- ask my grandmother.) He was not a religious man, but was fascinated by religious texts and knew Hebrew, Afrikaans, English, Yiddish, French, Russian, some German, and bits of other languages. I remember arriving one night late and seeing him have about five different bibles open in front of him, comparing the texts. My grandfather and I would go to the local library once a week when I was between ten and thirteen. I remember reading about madrigals and haiku while he read the Israeli newspapers in English and Hebrew.

A characteristic memory of my grandmother. She would be sitting in her green chair or lying on her bed with a book (library-wrapped by her in plastic)—mostly frequently a contemporary or classic literary novel—reading with a dictionary beside her. She was a fastidious reader, always careful to check on unfamiliar words or usages. She also told stories, mostly during those times when my grandfather wasn't there to interrupt or eclipse her. Those quieter times between things. There wasn't the sense of having an audience (in both meanings of the word) that there was with my grandfather or of tagging along on a particular project or enthusiasm that he'd being seized with. She'd talk while baking or while I helped her walk from a chair to the dinner table (which, as her arthritis took told of her bones, could take enough time for a story or anecdote.)

When they moved to Canada, I remember one of the first things they did in their new house was to knock down the wall between two room so that they could install "their library,"—their large book collection with its dark wood shelves and Persian rugs. Each book was carefully catalogued by my grandmother and I would look through the various dictionaries, encylopedias (Jewish, historical and philosophical), the older editions, the collections of many or all the books by a single author gathered together on the shelf (I imagined where my books would go, in their place on the "B" shelf) and the bookcases of Hebrew and Yiddish books, obscure to me, but their unintelligible whispering and humming was a mysterious and affective ghost for me.

All of my grandparents were migrants, immigrants, wandering a varied diaspora of Jews, living in a diaspora of memory. They moved from Lithuania and the Ukraine where they were born to South Africa, where my parents were born, and eventually to Canada, where I was born. In my novel, the boy who eventually becomes a pirate captain, Moishe, is born in Lithuania, travels to Spain and then eventually finds himself in the Caribbean. There is this sense of travelling, of following story, of following the horizon. Following the horizon looking for home, looking for possibility. Often Jews feel like they are a diaspora of themselves, living in the past and in the future, but with a complicated feeling about the present. And so, they live in language, a place that is there and not there. Its palpable sensory reality is present, is here, but yet always refers to something else. A sign of relief, of regret, of hope, expectation, of witness.

I remember when my first son was born, my grandfather spoke to me about how he had known his grandfather and now he had met his great-grandson. That's six generations, he said. And he was in the middle of the past and the future.

But here I am at 3 a.m. in the Calgary airport writing to the sound of the cleaners' vacuums as I nod off with exhaustion. I, too, am between one place and the other. Between being awake and asleep. Between Hamilton, Ontario and Victoria, B.C. Between one flight and the next. Between sense and reverie. Beginning and ending. Guess I'd better find a comfy and quiet bank of airport chairs to steal a quick shloff before it is time for my flight in a few hours, before it is time for me, too, to fly off toward the horizon.

Welcome to Hamilton: a fundraiser for Syrian refugess

Last night, I was really happy to get to perform at the Welcome to Hamilton event raising money for arts programs for Syrian refugees staged by Supercrawl and hosted by Ralph Benmergui. There were 800 people at Hamilton’s New Vision church (a really beautiful setting) and a brilliant array of fantastic bands and performers. including The National, Hayden, Terra Lightfoot, Max Kerman from The Arkells, Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene. All the performances were knockouts and it was a complete love-in for the audience. A lovely positive vibe.

I was one of four writers who read at the event. John Terpstra, Steven Brunt, and Sally Cooper also read. I was really so grateful to be invited and so glad that writers were included.  And apparently, over $50,000 were raised. So it was a good thing, yes? 

Of course. But much as it was great, I was concerned that the audience was almost entirely white. Except for Mother Tareka, a local performer of Syrian-descent, the performers were white (and almost entirely male.) I feel that it would have been important to include a greater range of backgrounds, to “decolonize” the event. I would have liked some more people of colour and some indigenous people represented in the performing line-up which might have then attracted a greater range of people in the audience. I know that the opportunity to present The National came up and so a show was built around them and their audience—and both were fantastic. The audience was incredibly warm, attentive, and appreciative of everyone—we writers as well as the phenomenal performers and host Ralph Benmergui. 

I was concerned that the event had a bit of a white liberal middle class “saviourist” feel to it. Us, privileged white people helping these poor Syrians. A one-way street. Ralph Benmergui did make the point, which I greatly appreciated, that Syria is an extremely old culture, vibrant and rich in culture. However, I would have like a greater sense of this being a relation among cultural equals (even if not equal in terms of ecomomic and physical safety—refugees are, after all, coming here because the situation is better in Canada at the moment.) Perhaps some Syrian writers. Or a refugee or immigrant (sure, I’m an immigrant, but I’m thinking one who arrived with less implicit privilege) or a representative from a Syrian organization in Hamilton/Ontario/Canada. Some people to speak to the experience of being a non-white person in Canada. The audience was so welcoming, I think they'd have been open to hearing about this kind of experience, to learning about things outside their experience.

I do love that the money was being raised for music, arts and recreation for refugee youth, acknowledging that refugees need access to the full range of things that we all need, which means not only socks and tins of beans.

I was thinking about reading from my new novel, Yiddish for Pirates, but then I realized that perhaps a book about Jews on boats might not be the most appropriate thing in this context, so I sat down to write something. The organizers had asked for something affirming, open-hearted, something perhaps about Hamilton. I thought about the idea that the refugees (as immigrants and refugees always have) bring something valuable to our community. Their experiences, culture, whatever they are as humans and the potential they and their children bring to this new place. It isn’t a one way street. They get a new place to live, but that means that we do, too.

My poem deliberately plays with the idea of appropriating voice. If it works as I hope, it is ambiguous who exactly is the “we” that is speaking. It changes. And that is part of the point. Sometime it is the voice of the refugee, something it is the voice of the current Hamiltonian.  I hope that it succeeds. I was very concerned not to take on the voice of the refugee. 

Oh, and also, old bad jokes. 

Poem for Welcome to Hamilton.

we have counted each day

we have counted each night

we have counted footsteps

we have counted each river

each ocean

each boat and plane 

we have counted the old

we have counted the new

each minute and mile 

we have counted our friends and family

we have counted the words 

the shouts, the songs, the old jokes

we have counted the air

we have flown for days, we say

your arms must be tired, they say

yes, we say, and before we left

we couldn’t play the violin

and now? they ask

we still can’t play the violin

but we are here

we have counted each breakfast

each lunch

each pair of pants

we have counted each bed

each school

each job and each penny

each new word to say

we have counted each road

each airport

each train

each shoe and each video game

each bike 

and each plate

each brother

sister

each father and son

each mother 

daughter

each grandmother and lover

each grandfather

cousin

each husband and wife

we have counted each city

each town

and each road

we have counted each suitcase

each one left behind

each departure and each road

we have counted each border 

each new country

each new promise, each old regret

we have counted each of these months

waiting

imagining each other

travelling by travelling

or travelling by not travelling

each greeting 

each journey’s end

and we have counted each arrival

each of us 

welcome to the city 

now each other’s home

_____________________________

On my way walking home from the benefit, cutting through the McNab Street transit block, I ran into three young people who I had taught as part of the ArtForms arts education for street-involved youth. Mostly recently, I'd seen them at  creative writing workshops at Notre Dame House, a shelter for homeless youth. One of the youth—I'd first met him before he had begun transitioning—had been at the show (he worked with the church), the other had set up in front to sell his artwork—paintings and buttons. Yeah. Three young toughs at large in the street in Hamilton. What did they want to talk about. Art and poetry. Yeah. Arts education. Part of a complete breakfast. Always.

A song based on Yiddish for Pirates

http://serifofnottingham.tumblr.com/post/145266583383

Do you already say it in Yiddish: a brief glossary for Yiddish for Pirates:

Do you already say it in Yiddish?

Yiddish is the perfect pirate tongue. It plunders with panache and delights—often with delicious irony—in the rich swash of its own buckle. 

Below are some definitions of many of the Yiddish words that are used in Yiddish for Pirates. But maybe you’re a maven and already know them all, and not some poor shmuck who can’t make head or tail of this farkakteh list.

I didn't include a glossary in the book for a few reasons. I didn't want the reader to get hung up looking up words but rather I wanted to allow the sentences to flow over them and immerse the reader in the sensibility of the novel and its narrator. And for the most part, I cunningly included the corresponding English word or phrase along with the Yiddish in the sentence where it was used, because I'm no fool shlemiel. In any case, the meanings are usually clear given their context.

I love Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. One thing that I especially love is that it is filled with idiomatic Dominican Spanish. For me, as a non-Dominican and non-Spanish speaker it made clear to me that this was a novel narrated by and about a worldview that was very different to mine, and I was an outsider, albeit one who was charmed, moved, entertained, and captivated by the voices and experiences of the novel. Of course, Dominicans would immediately get that it spoke directly to them and reflected something of (at least one part of their culture's) linguistic experience and worldview. I hoped that my novel could do the same thing with its Yiddish and Yiddishkeit, though my novel has its own very different, decolonializing project. I've found it very moving when I've read from Yiddish for Pirates that Yiddish speakers (usually older people) have expressed their appreciation of the Yiddish, often speaking to me in Yiddish and sharing Yiddish jokes, stories, and expressions. One nonagenarian told me that "Yiddish always provides you the words to say at a hospital bed."

There's something really energizing about an admixture of languages in one sentence. It's a vibrant polyphonic or polyrhythmic music. A lively dialogue. Or maybe it is a case of "you can't dance at two weddings with only one tuches."

And now you look at the words below and you say, “This, eppes, is a dictionary?” So, nu, not all of the subtle shades of meaning are included. That would take example stories, jokes, sayings, and …hand-gestures. Also, as Yiddish is normally written in Hebrew script, there is not really one standard way to render it in English letters…except for the wrong way. But, abi gezunt, what does it matter, really. As long as you’re healthy. (P.S. I'm planning on creating a comprehensive glossary of ALL the Yiddish in the novel for those who just need to know, but that's a bigger project for later.)

abi gezunt

as long as you’re healthy

a broch

an expletive, a curse 

brocheh

a blessing

alav ha’shalom

“May he rest in peace”

alter kaker

old fart

azoy

so (appears in many expressions and has many meanings); Azoy geyt es: That’s how it goes!)

balebosteh
impressive housewife (who often runs things)

balmelocheh
an expert (often used sarcastically)

bashert(er)

fated or predestined; often used about one’s soulmate

beytsim

testicles

bialy

a small baked roll

boychik

young boy, a kid (often as a term of endearment for any familiar male)

bubbeleh
like “darling,” a term of endearment

bupkes

nothing, worthless

cheder

elementary school; cheder-bocher: schoolboy

chutzpah

cheek, audacity, guts, temerity

dybbuk

evil possessing spirit

eppes

a little

farkakte, farkakteh
shitty, messed up

farklemt

overcome with emotion; also spelled verklempt

farmisht
mixed up, confused, crazy

feygeleh

lit. “little bird,” but also used pejoratively for homosexual

gevalt

“Oh my God!” “help!” or “good grief!”

gonif

a crook, a scoundrel 

keneynehoreh

Said to ward off the evil eye, a bit like “knock on wood”…but spookier

kishkas

intestines, guts

kvell

to beam with pride and pleasure

l’chaim

a toast, “to life!”

maidel, maideleh
girl, especially shaynah maidel, beautiful girl/young woman

mamaloshen

the mother tongue (i.e. Yiddish)

mamzer

bastard

matzoh

the traditional unleavened bread of Passover

macher

big shot

maven

expert (often used sarcastically)

mechayeh

a feeling of pleasure, delight or relief

megillah

a lengthy, involved story or explanation 

meshugas

craziness, nonsense

mishpocheh

family

nosh

snack

ongeshtopt

stuffed

punim

face

pupiklech

dish of chicken gizzards

sheyneh

beautiful

shikker(ed)

drunk

shlepp

v. to move laboriously; to lug

n. a long or arduous journey, or a slovenly person, a drag 

shlemiel

a fool, often clumsy

shloff

sleep

shlumper

a slob, an ineffectual loser

shmatte

rags, clothes

shmeckel

little penis

shmegegge 

a fool, buffoon, dawdler

shmendrick

a nerdy fool 

shmutzy

dirty

shnorrer

someone who is greedy

shnozz

nose, big nose 

shtarker

tough guy, a thug

shtikl

a small piece

shtup

to stuff; (vulgar slang) to have sex with

tchatchke

trinket, knickknack

tsitske(s)

nipple(s)

tuches

backside

zaftik

buxom

Images from the amazing YiddishWit.com

On Names and Naming: How the Jews Sunk the Titanic

New Chiefs on The Land, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, 2006

Several years ago, I had an interesting discussion with my son Ryan about names. We were talking about the Canadian Indigenous artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. He embraces his traditional last name but notes that his first two names are names from the residential school system. He only signs his paintings with his traditional name. Likewise, many people of African descent, leave their "slave" names, or at least, identify that the names have this origin. Dollar Brand, the South African musician, became Abdullah Ibrahim. Leroi Jones became Amiri Baraka.

Ryan was wondered about our Jewish last name. As I recall from Hebrew school, Jews of Eastern European origin only got last names sometime in the 19th century for census (thus tax) purposes by the non-Jewish government. Different names were given to different families according to status and money. Hence, Goldberg was worth more than Greenberg. Waxman was a occupational name. And Jews made lots of candles.

And there's that ancient joke:

—The Jews sunk the Titanic.

—No, they didn't. That was an iceberg. 

—Greenberg, Goldberg, Iceberg. They're all the same.

The traditional way for Jews to be named is "Someone Son of Someone." Thus, Ryan Ben (son of) Gary, or, with our Hebrew names, Ronen Ben Gershon. Nowdays, it's usual, at least in reform congregations to include the mother's name. So: Ronen Ben Gershon v'Bela. (The v means 'and.') 

Jewish last names, like many non-anglo names were also modified when Jews emigrated. 'Barwin' was "Borwein" or "Borweinis" in Lithuania where my grandfather was born. His family changed it to Barwin when they moved to South Africa. I still have Borwein relations. For example Jon Borwein. My maternal grandfather's last name was Zelikowitz, which became Zelikow when he emigrated to South Africa. Ryan remembered that Stuart Ross's family name was Razovsky which was Anglicized to Ross and then appeared on and in some of Stuart's books.

I have chosen to consider "Barwin" as an invented name, albeit one derived from my family's past. I consider that my grandfather changed it to reflect his new life of opportunity outside of the shettls of Europe. Perhaps I could see it as a concession to the dominant power and language of the time and place, however I'd prefer to consider it as part of a process of shaping a life and a person. (For more on the very interesting topic of Jewish emmigration to South Africa, check out Victor Barwin's — my grand-uncle or cousin, I'm not sure — book about it "Millionaires and Tatterdemalions" )

"Ryan" is obviously not a traditional Jewish name, though he was given it in memory of his great-grandmother whose name began with an "R" --Rita Barwin. It is traditional with Ashkenazi Jews to name children after dead relatives. It would be bad luck to name them after someone alive. (No Moshe Jr.'s for Jews.) My son Aaron Barwin is named after Aaron Barwin, my dad's dad. Once when we were at a funeral, Aaron (age 5) noticed that his great-grandfather's grave was nearby and ran and lay down with his arms crossed in front of the gravestone. It was very freaky for Beth and I to see him lying on a grave with his own name on it. 

I wrote a prose poem (which appeared in my book, I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457 (Anvil Press) last year. 

STREAMBED 

A cloudless day in the cemetery where we have gone for the funeral of an aunt. Our five-year-old, named after his late grandfather, wanders about the headstones, dragging his fingers along the streambeds of carved-out letters. He stumbles upon his own name inscribed above a small bed of grass. He lies down, crosses his arms, closes his eyes, and waits. In time, he becomes old. The wind carves his features smooth as river rock. Someone lifts him and places him on his grandfather’s headstone. We no longer remember the town where he was born. 

I don't know what Ryan will do about his name. Perhaps he will change his name. Perhaps he will modify or stylize it in order to claim it for his own. bpNichol. e.e. cummings. Geof Huth. mIEKAL aND. Or, like Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, keep it as a sign of the complexity of his personal and cultural history. Maybe he'll be "the son formerly known as Ryan" and invent his own sign. (When Prince navigated away from "Prince," Bob Wiseman suggested that he would change his name to Prince, and then the name "Bob Wiseman" would be available for someone else to adopt. Basically, we could all move one name to the right. 

What would it be like with a different name? Would I think differently about myself if I were John King? My late friend Kerry Schooley was a very big man. He wrote under the very funny pen name of "Slim Volumes," as a poet. He also wrote as "John Swan" for detective fiction.

Certainly the exploration of culture, identity, and naming is a powerful and unfolding topic for discovery. 

A few years ago, when my son, Aaron, completely lost his temper, he would call me a "Bitch." This was convenient, since he is my son, and there exists a rather simple and pre-made retort, one with much precedent in popular culture, and available to me should I choose to invoke the fact that he is my male offspring.

On being a multifarious denizen in the Winnipeg Review. On being enthralled in Quill and Quire

Very happy to have this review of the novel in Quill & Quire.

Rarely does one  encounter a work of Canadian literature this exuberant, impassioned, and enthralled with the very nature and essence of storytelling.

And I loved this sentence from Shawn Syms' column in The Winnipeg Review describing me. I've never been identified as a denizen of anywhere before, not to mention multifarious. Is that like nefarious squared?

The multifarious experimental scribe and noted small-press denizen Gary Barwin ...

This Globe & Mail review made me entirely verklempt!

"some of the freshest and most whimsical English ever contained between covers"

This Globe and Mail review of Yiddish for Pirates rendered me smobgacked. I was really delighted, overwhelmed really, by the kind words, of course, but especially by the fact that the reviewer, S. Bear Bergman really seemed to "get" the book, and indeed made some points which I hadn't quite considered or thought of in the way that he framed them. I found it really moving that he was engaged in this way.

Review: Gary Barwin’s Yiddish for Pirates is unlike anything else you’ll read this year.

The book received another review today, also, this one from the Winnipeg Free Press. Here is that one.

And finally for today, the writer/critic Jeanie MacFarlane has this great blog where she writes about things to do with the neighbourhood that we both live in, as well as about Hamilton, and lately, some amazing memoir-like writing.

She recently asked me to add to her series "Where I Write" where she asks other writers to answer that question. I guess I should have cleaned up my desk, but I wrote this piece in answer, speaking about our neighbourhood, city, and even, Facebook as a place where writing happens. Thanks for the opportunity, Jeanie. (And actually, I DID clean up my desk & yeah, I know...)

Metro News (Toronto) writes about Yiddish for Pirates

"This humorous, pun-laden twist on the classic adventure story which at its heart deals with the very serious issues of religious persecution and identity…"

Pirates, Radio shows, book releases, shopping carts, and one the best seller list

My friend and collaborator Craig Conley on receiving Yiddish for Pirates coincident with the arrival of this galleon. The world always offers curious and wondrous marvels as seen through the lens flare of Craig's eyes.

I read in Sarnia and made the front page of the local newspaper along with a probing article about the problematics of dog hair for car detailers.

April 5 was the official publication date of my novel Here is a picture from thousands of miles away Victoria, B.C. that my brother Alan sent.

I did a great radio show on Sirius XM today. The Ward and Al show. They were lovely and we had a great talk about the book as well as a range of other things. 

Here are the three of us, post show. Fun.

My art show with Lisa Pijuan-Nomura at the Hundred Dollar Gallery opens on Friday. The rest of the work is prints, but here is the one sculptural piece.

And—amazingly enough—on the day that it was first out in the world, the book was on the Macleans' best seller list! Number 6!

Indie Bookstores, Yann Martel, Yiddish for Pirates, Indie for Authors Day and community.

I pose with Yann Martel and the great staff of The Book Keeper bookstore.

Over the last week, I read a few times from my not-even-released-yet novel Yiddish for Pirates (it comes out officially, tomorrow, April 5!) notably in two events arranged by independent bookstores in Sarnia and Uxbridge. Both events were with Yann Martel (Life of Pi, and just released, The High Mountains of Portugal.) I'd never met him and he turned out to be a fascinating and charming guy. I had quite a lot of time to chat with him as we took a limo (when you're Yann Martel you get a limo!) to the events and when we had dinner with the people from the bookstores. That was great and I'm really glad to have had the opportunity. And the events each had nearly 200 people in attendance who were extremely enthusiastic and engaged and bought books (and not just Yann's!—I was relieved there were some who lined up to have me sign also—I've been at events as a poet reading with a graphic novelist where he had a line-up of 300 and no-one, except my kind wife, came to my table. And she didn't even ask me to sign!)

What really struck me at these events was the vitality of the readership in these small communities. And the importance that these local bookstores (Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge and The Book Keeper in Sarnia) have in cultivating, maintaining and energizing these reading communities. These both were small independent bookstores with a handful of staff (but yet who regularly organize these large events.) Both were owned and run by very dynamic and knowledgable women who appeared to know everyone—the network of other booksellers, authors, and most especially, their customers and community. 

Here I am in Sarnia likely making a terrible joke about parrots or language.

This is perhaps something that isn't talked about enough. How local indie bookshops not only know books and know the tastes of their customers, but how they add to the community by participating in and organizing a host of community events and creating and supporting local initiatives—literary, cultural, educational, social, and more. 

The Book Keeper event in Sarnia, for instance, raised money for the Organization for Lambton Literacy. I know my local Hamilton bookstores (Epic Books and Bryan Prince Bookseller) do a ton of things in the city. Every time I look around, there they are, involved in events, supporting community, schools, local writers, etc. 

Indie bookstores make readers and writers connect and believe that writers and readers have a place in the community and that they add something positive to life in the city or town. That thinking and talking about ideas and literary is worthwhile, enjoyable, and fun. And that the whole shebang—reading, writing, thinking, talking and engaging—is an extremely positive and important endeavour. 

So many indie bookstores punch far above their weight. They don't just sell widgets but books as well as that thing that isn't selling.

AND they are enthusiastic, hospitable, friendly and supportive to an author like me. I'm grateful as both a writer and a reader. As someone who buys a ton of books he reads. And a ton of books he does't get around to reading but buy anyway. I'm really glad that I'm going to be participating in the Authors for Indies day on April 30 (I'll be at Epic Books and Bryan Prince Bookseller in Hamilton) to celebrate indie booksellers and let everyone know—including them—how much important they are to me and to our community.