While a text asking you to believe in fairies and spirits might seem flaky, seeing as this gives us no solid program to reclaim the city, such faith does awaken the desire to see the postmodern, uneven city restored from its ruins
Tag: McGill
“Index”: an HTMElegy
On CKUT (McGill Campus Radio) this week on Monday and at the launch for the Veg magazine yesterday, I read some magical poems I composed recently. One was inspired by Gwendolyn MacEwen and John Dee, the other was an elimination of James Frazer's The Golden Bough, and the last was a pantoum, a fabulously musical …
The Almásy Controversy: History, Fantasy, and The English Patient
The following is an update of an essay I submitted to a class on Michael Ondaatje taught by Prof. Robert Lecker at McGill. The English Patient, especially after it was transformed into a movie, ignited a controversy about historical representation. Was it ethical to rewrite the death of marginal desert explorer László Almásy by having …
Continue reading The Almásy Controversy: History, Fantasy, and The English Patient
“Gecko” : a poem for Michael Ondaatje
Two weeks ago, my seminar class on Michael Ondaatje got together to put on a fantastic presentation for Professor Robert Lecker. We were reading Ondaatje's poem "Tin Roof" and instead of writing a four-page essay response, which we are supposed to do every week, Prof. Lecker told us to go do something as a group. …
Poetry Launch Parties: The Veg and Scrivener
Last week's launches for Scrivener Creative Review at Kafein last Thursday and The Veg at Le Cagibi last Friday were a success. There were many talented readers at both launches. At Kafein for the Scrivener evening, speakers recited their poems like real hipsters in front of the electronic keyboard in the lounge area of the …
Continue reading Poetry Launch Parties: The Veg and Scrivener
Poetry Launch at the Veg!
The semester is just about over and it's time for some poetry! The Veg, one of McGill's student literary magazines, is holding a launch later tonight at 8:00pm at Le Cagibi, where I will be reading a selection of poems including my haiku. I will be running a fuller post next week describing the event …
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
The following is an excerpt from the presentation I made earlier this week for my seminar on (Post)Colonial Geographies with Professor Sandeep Banerjee at McGill University. The young protagonist of Salman Rushdie's children's fantasy novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories asks his father Rashid Khalifa, a great storyteller better known as the Shah of …
Continue reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Folklore and Graffiti: A (Potential) Study of Spatial Tactics and Urban Fantasy (Part II)
When we left off last week, I was trying to prove that graffiti interrupts the rational order of the city, as a spatial tactic, and therefore can be compared to urban fantasy, inasmuch as it too subverts conventional "consensus reality." I quoted Bramley Dapple in Charles de Lint's short story “Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair,” who says, …
MythCon 45 Day 3: Postmodernity at MythCon
Sunday morning at MythCon, and I took it easy, only getting to "Harry Potter as Dystopian Literature" for 10:00. Kris Swank framed Harry Potter not only in terms of the latest dystopian craze in YA fiction (Divergent, The Hunger Games), but also with the dystopian tradition of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. The Dolores Umbridge-corrupted …
“Return to Methuselah”
"Return to Methuselah," one of my short stories, is now available at Dark Fire Fiction! It's a dark fantasy of an immortal painter who has become fed up with his immortality. I came up with this story after reflecting on the classical paradox of living an immortal life. An immortal can live forever, but in …
Matthew Rettino 