Tag Archives: writing process

The Inspiration of “Manitou Island”

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The Robinson Treaty made in the Year 1850 with the Ojibewa Indians of Lake Huron, conveying certain lands to the crown of Canada is a stark reminder of a history to regret.It’s very officious, legal and permanent-sounding: “…the sum of two thousand pounds of good and lawful money of Upper Canada…to convey unto Her Majesty, her heirs and successors for ever, all their right, title and interest to, and in the whole of…eastern and northern shores of Lake Huron, northern shores of Lake Superior, together with the islands…” The fact that our history is centered on stories like this – stealing tens of millions of acres of land to bleed it dry – inspired me to write a book some years ago, now being transformed into an illustrated novella: Manitou Island.

“Asawasanay.” Norma poured him a glass of water. “That’s a beautiful name.”     

“I was named after one of my forefathers. His name is on the Robinson Treaty, the treaty that signed away all of these lands.”

“I don’t understand,” Gerbi replied. “I mean, isn’t there some kind of custom to what you’re doing here? Don’t you have rituals or anything like that?”

“What would you have me do? Appear on a white stallion? Or perhaps you envisioned a birch-bark canoe.”  

“How did you get here?”   

“I hitchhiked.”

“You hitchhiked,” Gerbi repeated dully. 

Screenplay: “Nogo, The Anti-Trump”

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The film opens with an extreme close-up of a black man, Nogo, driving at night on a deserted road. Screenplay Nogo, The Anti-TrumpThe camera pulls back to reveal Nogo being followed by a full-size pickup truck, its high beams bearing down. Nogo is forced off the road. The driver and passengers, each bearing arms, lean out of the truck as Nogo leaps out, tire iron in hand.The Anti-Trump“Tolerance! You got that?” He smashes out a headlight and then the other as the driver raises a shotgun.Screenplay Nogo The Anti-Trump Nogo stares back, defiant. “You better have more than that.”

Black out, gun shots. Opening credits roll. Screenplay: "Nogo, The Anti-Trump"

Yes, just think Django Unchained meets Punch Drunk Love meets Easy Rider.

Ice Friday: Dino Buzzati’s “Tartar Steppes”

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Little by little his hopes grew fainter. It is difficult to believe in a thing when one is alone and there is no one to speak to. It was at this point that Drogo realized how far apart men are whatever their affection for each other, that if you suffer, the pain is yours and yours alone. No one else can take upon himself the least part of it; that you suffer it does not mean that others feel pain even though their love is great: hence the loneliness of life.

Friendly Fire: University Band

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In his second year at university, Gerbi was in a rock band, Friendly Fire. Like most bands, they had more energy than talent but were booked almost every weekend in the university bars. Gerbi played bass, sang backing vocals and wrote most of the lyrics.Two crowd favorites were Green Desire (I don’t know what it is I want/ I just know it’s not what I got) and Death Squad Jump (How high can you jump?/ Do you want to die?/ Is this the night to die?/ Do the death squad jump!)  Friendly Fire brought a tremendous change to his social life. he was awkward as hell, but he still managed to become a campus slut. His worst moment might have been when he was caught in a hotel room hallway with his track pants down and this girl he had just met pressed up against the wall. He just walked away, never talked to her again.

Ice Friday: Pirandello’s “One, No One”

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The idea that the others saw me as one who was not I as I knew myself, one whom they could know only through watching me from outside with eyes that weren’t mine, giving me the appearance fated to remain always an outsider’s to me, though for them it was inside me, mine, a life which, though for them it was mine, I couldn’t penetrate: this idea allowed me no peace. How could I bear the outsider in me? This outsider that I was for myself? How could I live without seeing him? Without knowing him? How could I remain forever doomed to carrying him with me, inside me, visible to others and beyond my vision?

Dreams of You

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I was walking down the sidewalk with friends and saw you, sitting behind a large plate glass window. You were wrapped in a large blanket and smiling. I waved and you waved back. I continued on, wishing to leave you in peace, but thought again and came back around. I went up the steps and gave my name. It appears you were staying in a hospice of some kind. I went down the narrow halls, through the darkness, and sat with you. Your face was black and blue, and you spoke animatedly of hearing death, something your father had taught you. It was an intense moment, desperate and close. And then you told me you could not eat sweets and crawled across the floor and produced a specialized beer that fermented in your glass. I drank a can of Budweiser. And then many of others were there, banging on the plate glass window. Someone tore up a tree and wielded it like a toy, and I yelled at him for that. But I didn’t know him. And then I was on to something else.

Be What You Know, Stupid

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I now know, or think I know, that I should only write what I know. I liked writing as a teenager and kid, but it wasn’t anything big. I just had a compulsion to write things down – travelogues, ratings for movies, things like that. When it came to writing stories, I was a clod, convinced that I had to write about important things, be philosophical, and I was really bad at that. (Expect examples to be forthcoming.) I didn’t write about me, about being a teenager, and that I didn’t like being a teenager or kid because I thought being a teenager was a stupid thing.

I didn’t write about that feeling of being stupid, never being happy with who or what I was, where I fit, because I didn’t – fit, that is. I wanted something else, something I couldn’t figure out. And so I pretended that I knew and wrote like that, instead of this, which, good or not, is what I know.It’s my voice, pathetic but real. I can be almost happy to share my embarrassment, my regrets and humiliations, my spasms. I’m getting better at that, better at understanding that the more I let it be what it is, the more to the point, the clearer my understanding of something – I don’t know what – becomes.

For one thing, I’m not much for Christmas. I liked it as a kid, the promise of it, but that was over by 8 am, lost among the heaps of wrapping paper and stacked-up stuff. I looked for it on the TV after that, but there were just cartoons and a dreadfully long dinner to come. As an adult, it’s so much worse, the desperation of trying to get back to something that never was, wearing elf hats, miming good cheer, taking pictures of each other looking stupid doing that. I am happy to be generous, but that does not mean having to listen to the drivel of siblings and offspring. No, I would rather do what makes me happy instead, yes, writing about that.

Canada’s Soul: Metis to Ahmic Harbour

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June 27, Ride Two: Pont du Quebec to St. Georges (Beige Subaru) Driver was an anesthesiologist: “The separatist movement meant nothing.”

Ride Three: St. Georges to outside Montreal (White Fury) Driver got stopped for speeding, used ‘judge’s card’ to get off. Gave me a pack of Matinee cigarettes. “We’re all on this earth together, man.” Stayed in Ottawa and wrote on “the silken void” and “First Impression Syndrome”.

June 29, Ride One: Ottawa to Carleton Place Turnoff (Cadillac) Took me on scenic route to see Ottawa River shoreline.

Ride Two: Carleton Place Turnoff to Pembroke (Dark red Rabbit) Saw space shuttle  over apartment building, not too thrilled with “peace and love crap”.

July 1, Ride One: Pembroke to North Bay (Grey sports car) Driver had worked on the Trans Canada Pipeline.

Ride Two: North Bay to Ahmic Harbour (Brown VW Rabbit) Driver was well traveled across Canada; constant barrage on how many “twats he’d snatched”. Stayed at Ahmic Lake for two days at my family’s cottage.

Ice Friday: Salinger’s Holden Caulfield

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“You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime,” I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddamn Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddamn cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddamn intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddamn Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little intelligent–” “Look,” I said. “Here’s my idea. How would you like to get the hell out of here? Here’s my idea. I know this guy down in Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. He used to go to the same school I did and he still owes me ten bucks. What we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there, see. It’s beautiful as hell up there, It really is.” I was getting excited as hell, the more I thought of it, and I sort of reached over and took old Sally’s goddamn hand. What a goddamn fool I was. “No kidding,” I said. “I have about a hundred and eighty bucks in the bank. I can take it out when it opens in the morning, and then I could go down and get this guy’s car. No kidding. We’ll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then, when the dough runs out, I could get a job somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all. Honest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C’mon! Wuddaya say? Will you do it with me? Please!”

Ice Friday: Kerouac’s “On The Road”

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It was a magnificent car; it could hold the road like a boat holds the water. Gradual curves were its singing ease. “Ah, man, what a dreamboat,” sighed Dean. “Think if you and I had a car like this what we could do. Do you know there’s a road that goes down Mexico and all the way to Panama? – and maybe all the way to the bottom of South America where the Indians are seven feet tall and eat cocaine on the mountainside.” “Yes! You and I, Sal, we’d dig the whole world with a car like this because, man, the road must eventually lead to the whole world. Ain’t nowhere else it can go, right?”