Many thanks to @HarperCollinsCa for offering me a copy of this book so that I could participate in the One Book, One Twitter movement this summer.

In case you missed #1b1t – Keep your eyes peeled for future reads! – here’s how it worked: Everyone on Twitter who was interested in a worldwide book club voted on a book to be read. Book choices were narrowed down and voted on, book chosen and reading schedule laid out, then hashtags for the book itself and each chapter in it were determined. People were to tweet and reply and have a book group type conversation using the main hashtag for general musings and the chapter tags for thoughts relevant to that chapter. Voila, instant filtering created to prevent spoilers, allowing everyone to read at their own pace. (It was a really awesome experience!)

I signed up without hesitation.  Beyond the appeal of using Twitter for a book club – genius! – Gaiman’s fantasy entertains like no other. It feels derivative of nothing and is only itself, totally new creative imaginings. The fantasy genre  has copycatting as an unfortunate and common flaw on its shelves. Everyone wants to be the next Tolkien.

But Gaiman is unique. For me, he has consistently made the hero’s journey from small town to the larger world and all the lessons that go along seem entirely new each time he puts pen to paper. Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book did so, one in underground London and the other in a New England graveyard

This time around, in American Gods, Gaiman impressed me by penning yet another amazing story but with even better amusement park thrills and taking his macabre style to the next level, writing a distinctly smart and adult fantasy novel.

American Gods is a literal road trip through small-town America – complete with constant weather updates that would make CNN proud and bank clocks alternately displaying the time then the local temperature – as well as a figurative one, illuminating the soul of a country and the fight over who shall rule it. And yet it is Shadow’s story, our narrator and main character, a young man with too much past for his age, whisked off onto that thing which at first seems innocent but is really larger than life. It is his defining moment.

“That was 1950. Seemed that year that the only way  that winter would end was is somebody hammered a stake through it’s heart.”

It really excites me to finally read a fantstical tale by a genre author that I know will one day be read as a classic in university programs. There must be so much more to look forward to, so much not yet written, if we’ve only just discovered the potential of fantasy. And yet, is it new… or something of the old world, a lesson forgotten and remembered again? Quite the common theme.

Hours and hours could be spend mulling over the mythology in this book. I wish I had known more before reading it as many of the innuendos, descriptions and hints were lost upon my half educated neurons, but the novel still works. And works so very well. What the reader does get and know and catch and connect is enough. The story is there and you feel triumphant for piecing together what you do know. The rest sits in memory and mystery with hope for later reveal. You won’t be disappointed. All manner of characters, the ghastly, grotesque and pitiful, become endearing friends that you will miss. Oh, and you will google the names of gods.

“Nobody ever believed in Paul Bunyan. He came staggering out of a New York ad agency in 1910 and filled the nation’s myth stomach with empty calories.”

It is a who-dunnit, an essay wrapped in an adventure about who Americans really worship, written with imagery that whips your hair as you breeze throught it’s pages.  Do me a favour and read this book slowly. Savour its lines. Heartbreakingly beautiful. So alive.

“…and the crash of the breakers on the beach of skulls was not loud enough to drown that whisper.”

I’m so glad I gave it a re-read. Picked up some essential points that I had missed because I read too fast, noticed lots of breadcrumbs leading to the conclusion if only you have the eyes to see, and – like Shadow – feel that it sunk in deeply. An experience I try to call forward as I know it’s in me but can’t catch the details the more I attempt to grasp for them. But it’s definitely a real part of me.

“Perhaps its a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s hows well they go together.”

ps. Sometime shortly after my first read-through, a HUGE blackbird landed on a low branch of the maple in my backyard. He looked like a raven, and I smiled, wanting so badly to re-enact the scene on page 158. Who, indeed, had come to visit?

p.s.s. Try the book for yourself. You can start reading it for free here!

I am the proud owner of a Tim Hortons Refill Mug!

liked the green
like the tree that you can’t see on the other side
REALLY like the idea of not adding to the garbage
every time a pick up a Timmies

ps. on a totally other topic, i’ve added a “poetry” category to my posts and moved all the poems i’ve ever posted into there. i was sad not to be able to find them in one click. much happier now. so far, i have two mary oliver’s. need to pick up a book of hers soon. enjoy loves!

One of our local radio talk shows was commenting and taking phone calls about NBC’s recent enormous error in confusing Michael J. Fox for Terry Fox, one of Canada’s legends remembered yearly with The Terry Fox Run.

The theme to the whole conversation was easy to find: do the Americans really know so little about Canada?

And then a Texan got on the phone and confirmed all our worst fears.

He married a Canadian – like me – and moved to the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario – like me – and thought Canadians lived in igloos before his move – I wasn’t that bad, was I? – but was pleasantly surprised to find that they had an actual house upon arriving, that Canada was advanced enough to boast a Burger King and McDonalds and that the country had actual cities.

See, he knew way back in ‘88 that Canada had one city and it was called Calgary. Now, he joked, the Americans must surely surmise that Canada is growing as it seems to have sprouted yet another city, for a grand total of two, called Vancouver.

The Rabbi’s talk was aired on a Canadian television show called Big Ideas. From their website,

“BIG IDEAS is a showcase of ideas that shape our public debates. At their best the lectures featured on the program expose us to the differing ways of defining what matters and how that affects our understanding of the world as it is and as it is likely to be… Each age has a set of questions by which it defines itself. If, 50 years from now, someone came across a list of BIG IDEAS shows, they would have a pretty good idea of what people thought about and debated in the early 2000s.”

From this link to the Big Ideas website, you can see the video or listen to the audio. We get the show in podcast form via iTunes each week. Expand your world view and have a listen. It certainly did for me.

“Family traditions are more than arguments with the dead, more than collections of family letters you try to decipher. A tradition is also a channel of memory through which fierce and unrequited longings surge, longings that define and shape a whole life. “

If you are reading this from America, you might be asking yourself “What Canadian identity?” with an incredulous look on your face. My answer to that would be “Exactly!” Ever since stepping foot in this expansive land, I have known deeply that something about it was fundamentally different than the US. But you have to look deeply to find it. Because for all exterior purposes, Canadians look just like Americans and the few minor differences have become cliches and frequent targets of comedians, eh?

With a swift pace that carries you along willingly, his retelling is filled with historical detail and the romantic imaginings of the bigger picture he is trying to paint. The theme of the book is carried very well throughout. The Canada that was always undescribable to me is, after this reading, much more at my fingertips. And political situations that used to make me scratch my head have suddenly come into the light.

“Because we remain a land of hope and opportunity, and new Canadians see in our unfinished destiny an image of their own unfinished destines.”

I particularly admire his humility upon what he calls “The Inheritance” of all these generations upon himself and what he feels is his responsibility to go forward for the good of Canada. The last chapter bears this same name and where every other chapter has drawn each ancestor in a larger than life fashion, Mr. Ignatieff chooses not to detail the accomplishments of his own years. Rather he looks forward to what he believes are the next hurdles for Canada as a nation.

Excellent and inspirational. I really liked it.

“The next morning… Grant awoke, rubbed his eyes and stepped out into bright sunshine. They had broken through the forest cover and he was standing on the edge of the Prairies.

‘I found myself in Paradise,’ Grant scribbled excitedly into his diary.

A vast whispering ocean of green grass, waist high, sprinkled with wildflowers, yellow, lilac and white, stretched to the horizon, perfectly flat, under a vast blue sky. The elemental stillness was broken only by the whispering grass and snatches of birdsong. There was not a building, not a fence, not a column of smoke in sight.”

Specimen #1: Coffee Crisp from the Nestle company “makes a nice light snack.” How surprised I was to discover that my love of all things coffee does not extent to this chocolate bar. The kids love them however, and my son lined them up along the floor parallel to the Kit Kat. I think it started as two different piles that eventually reached and reached and just barely touched each other. What a nice pictorial metaphor of north meeting south.

#2  is Aero, also from the Nestle company. Bubbles, lots and lots of bubbles!

This third picture includes Oh Henry and Crispy Crunch. The latter is the Canadian version of Butterfinger, but imho doesn’t hold a candle to the peanut-buttery wonder I grew up with. hehe

And finally, the eternal debate: what is a Rocket and what is a Smartie?

The first picture shown above contains what I grew up knowing as the little tablets of pure sugar called Smarties. No way man, here they are called Rockets. Because the name Smarties is reserved and beloved by all Canadians as a slighty different but no less tasty version of an M&M.

That Peter Puck in the picture is the only treat that was new to me. Apparently Hanna Barbara invented this little guy in 1973 at the request of an NBC sports executive. He was featured in little shorts intended to teach kids about the game of hockey and that would play during commercial breaks of NHL games. He’s really quite adorable. Check out this recently reinvigorated Canadian icon turned Halloween candy and his short videos on the CBC website.

Hope I’ve helped defer any international incidents of a Halloween nature.  Happy chocolates everyone!!!

ps. no i was not rifling through the candy bags this morning. it is my children’s halloween ritual to sort and organize their loot then trade like mad with each other. two crispy crunches for that mars bar?

This year’s event had almost 60,000(!!!) people when they expected half that many. Silliness that we are and due to the issue of whether I could get off work to go, we forgot to buy advanced tickets and stood in a long line to buy them that morning. When we thought we had arrived at the front of the line, it turns out there were still more twisting rows of people hiding behind a well-placed curtain. And sadly even after we finally had our tickets(!!!) there was one more line waiting for us: the line to actually enter the exhibition hall. What a tease these show organizers turned out to be! So we passed by the brightly colored blown up pictures of Wonder-Woman, Frodo Baggins and Spock only to continue moving past out of the warmth of their luminescent glow.

Master Chief himself however greeted us when we got into the exhibition hall and the rest of the day was all good. (Turns out in the end we were the lucky ones. Some of those people behind us in line got turned away. Imagine. Sheesh.)

I want to call it a geek fest, but to my eyes, it was like seeing creativity come alive. From the people in costume to the independent artists offering prints of their work to the enormous display of graphic tees, I felt like I was walking in vibes of goodness. Weary feet and cranky kids – did I mention the line there was to get a pizza at lunchtime? – nothing lessened my experience. I was a kid in a huge candy store.

And yet I yearned for more! More cosplayers. More creativity. More… genius. I mean, come on. How many “fleece hats with cat ears” booths does one convention need?! And that’s when I realized for the first time that there is a difference between production and creativity. Reinvent the wheel – or the fleece hat with cat ears industry – and that’s something. Use your sewing machine to crank out a few hundred of someone else’s bright idea. Not so much.

Anywho back to goodness, the costumes were awesome!!! I could have walked around all day and only taken photos of them. We did get a few snaps but this guy on Flickr has a whole set of them! Hop over there to see zombies, Waldo, Supergirl, the Joker and many more famous characters come to life. Some of the simpler costumes were great too – like the girl dressed up as Starbuck in everyday around Galatica wear that the pilots wore on BSG.

On the comic book front, I was not immune. The fever in the air carried me away. It wasn’t all that hard to follow either. DC had a huge booth with tons of free mini-comics, and their main slogan seemed to be “After Watchmen… what’s Next?” Watchmen is one of the classics of graphic novels that was recently made into a movie – aka why I read it. Now that movie seems to be part of this larger marketing scheme of getting people into comics in general. The idea is that if you liked Watchmen – which I did – what else in the genre might you also like to read? They offered plenty of suggestions. lol

And even though my one comic book purchase went to my undying devotion of Buffy, I have – since the convention – been maddeningly requesting the other great graphic novels from my library, bloating my currently reading shelf to epic proportions and requiring me to create an actual graphic novel shelf in my profile! {gasp}
Here’s a link to my new graphic-novel shelf @

I do find that comics are great for keeping me awake on night shift!

The playfulness of people, friendliness and camaraderie was another great aspect and simultaneously mind-blowing — Darth Vader playfully attacking my daughter who was dressed up as one of the Jedi when we accidentally stepped onto the escalator next to him, people gladly taking pictures with my kids, people asking my kids for *their* picture, adults looking so psyched to even see kids there instead of grumping about their disruptive presence. I got my picture taken with a hunky and way too nice Green Lantern, we watched the local branch of the 501st duke things out Jedi vs. Sith and somehow managed to see celebrities I didn’t care so much about while missing the Mary McDonnell and Emma Caulfield that I really did care to see. Ah well.

Then it happened. It was time to leave. But the day held one more surprise for us.

Walking out of the convention center, with my son dressed as one of the 4 Castle Crashers from a popular Xbox Live Arcade game by the same name and not seeing anyone else costumed likewise all day, we finally run into… duh duh duh… the green knight!

He goes “Dude! We couldn’t find one more friend to be our orange! My friends just left they’ll be right back. You HAVE to meet them. They’ll be SO excited!” Sure enough, they appeared shortly and it was quite the reunion spectacle. Most cute. Proud mom.

So, yea, it was a fun day. Can’t wait till next year.

The awkward young sailor who is always seasick
Is the one who will write about ships.
The young man whose soldiery consists in the delivery
Of candy and cigarettes to the front
Is the one who will write about war.
The man who will never learn to drive a car
And keeps going home to his mother
Is the one who write about the road.

Stranger still, hardly anyone else will write so well
About the sea or war or the road.
And then there is the woman
who has scarcely spoken to man except her brother
and who works in a room no larger than a closet,
she will write as well as anyone who has ever lived
about vast open spaces and the desires of the flesh:
and that other woman who will live with her sister and
rarely leaves her village, she will excel
in portraying men and women in society:
and that woman,
in some ways the most wonderful of them all,
who is afraid to go outdoors,
who hides when someone knocks,
she will write great poems about the universe inside her.

by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan

the more i read this one, the more i am blown away by the lines. each individual one. i am walking around the house today, tidying organizing in bliss with the last line on repeat in my head.

ps. Can you name the authors referred to in the poem?

i will confess to only being able to name two of them before looking at the answers. but i’ve left the answers in the comment section.