Malarky tour 2012 and major weather events
I have been on the road with Malarky on and off since Sept. 23 when I began at the Brooklyn Book Festival followed by Ontario (Trent, Peterborough), THIN AIR Winnipeg International Writers Festival, Victoria Writers Festival, Wordstock Portland Writers Festival, Vancouver Writers Fest and I am just returned from the marvellous experience that is IFOA in Toronto.
Thank you to all those festivals who invited me, to the audiences and many readers I met, writers I read with and the staff and volunteers who work so hard at these festivals and my publisher Biblioasis for their stellar efforts on behalf of Malarky. I also thank the Canada Council for the Arts, the Writers Union and the BC Arts Council for support.
Obviously I have been greviously remiss with my weather reports and must take a big inhale and apologize for this. It is not that I haven’t been observing for I have, just have not quite managed to nail it onto the screen.
Yesterday’s weather events in New Jersey and New York give great pause. The ferocity. The build and how the weather pattern increased its speed on approach, thus making the predication even more challenging. One of the descriptions that has stayed with me from relatives in the middle of it was of the windows bending. The windows being bent (inwards I assume) from the power of the wind. And how fire and water co-existed throughout. Houses on fire in the Rockaways that were surrounded by water on all sides was another description I caught.
I send good thoughts and courage to those involved in recovery efforts and getting the lights turned back on. I am always impressed by the spirit of New Yorkers and was doubly impressed by noting friends who woke this morning there and immediately turned their thoughts and attention to how they might join volunteer efforts today in that city.
Over the next weeks I will catch up on some postings and thoughts about my experience on the road.
Stay warm and safe and thank you again.
Weather wonderer: nippy note
I have been quite distracted from my weather wondering, but this evening I noted a new nippyness to the evening temperature when I went out for an impromtu later evening run. It gave me a sense of impending Fall and all that it brings. I was not unhappy to remember or think about it. I love detecting the seasons and Autumn/Fall is my favourite season.
Before that I have to put the canning pan to work and can some peaches.
Hot Spot!
The wave of heat has been with us for two days and we are delighted with it. Welcome heat. Welcome wave. It’s a particularly good combination because at night the temperate falls and it’s not unbearable.
Or it may be the case that we are simply defrosting from the past six months of chilly puddling and therefore cannot gain any actual sense of the temperature because we’ve been so frozen. Who would actually know at this point what’s unbearably hot as we’ve become fluent in unbearably overcast.
Yesterday (Sunday) it was scorching at 4pm. I gave thanks and scorched along with it.
My only concern now is that of thunderstorms and what they lead to — the dreadful forest fires.
Sources tell me there was an hour long discussion on BC Almanac on the weather today. I am ashamed to say I missed it. Such is the nature of my present life my weather forecasting or weather watching has been derailed.
*
Weather diaries, George & planting
I’ve just discovered, thanks to my partner Jeremy, the Weather Diaries of film maker George Kuchar. Joy!
Not inconveniently I am enduring a period of immense challenge with our current West Coast weather. I saw the Flowerman on the road today and he conveyed his despair over the weather and his plans to usurp his current arrangement in his plot at the community garden. He generously reconfigured some of his great plants along the communal sides of our garden and I was struck by them as I left the garden the other day. He really is an extraordinary and generous gardener. I sometimes imagine all of the people who receive immense joy from his efforts. He gave me some advice on seeds… apparently I am planting them way too deep because everything should germinate in this weather and basically in my much neglected plot very little has germinated.
Mme Beespeaker gave me some bee friendly plants, but so far not much luck in them popping up, likely because I messed up some of the planting. Repeat! Repeat seeding will be required! Not too worry am wiser now.
One great aspect of this decling weather situation is the planning. When it’s pouring rain, a la aujourd ‘hui, my community garden plot can’t flourish beyond not having to water it, so I begin plotting how I’ll move the strawberry plants once the fruits are finished (And boyo they have been fantastic this year) to the sides and then plant some vegetable starts and hope we are lucky with some sun before September. The Flowerman and I shared our “plans” in the rain today.
As I type this I’ve been listening to a video interview with George Kuchar (RIP 1942-2011), right now he’s joking about his eyebrows, but earlier he talked about his fascination with twisters and how the internet more than provided for his weather watching needs in that regard.
*
There has been some astonishing flooding as the Fraser River gave it up in Sicamouse (sp?) and some truly horrific forest fires in Colorado. I took a peek at the Fraser out in New West last week and it was high(er) and swirly. I would love some day to write a novel about or around that river. I have developed quite an affection for the small parts I’ve come to know of it.
There was also concurrent flooding epsiodes in Belfast and Cork. Cork has previously been hit very badly by flashfoods and this last round seemed to come on so fast. A weather forecast, yes, but bam! Floods like you wouldn’t believe. One spokesperson commented it was impossible to be prepared. The wonder of rain, ne c’est pas?
Lost sneeze weather
Today a darkening series of rainclouds closed in on us over several hours until they finally conceded to burst their banks. But the waiting was like missing a sneeze that kept threatening return. Except there was no light to entice it with! (If you miss a sneeze, look at the light so the saying goes)
At the pet shop (guinea pig hay supplies) the woman behind the counter compared notes with me on how she had processed the darkness according to her working day. I looked out thought it must be 7pm, it wasn’t yet 3 she said.
Walser
I have had a merry old time enjoying cross-country/international commiserations on the weather and reading Mr Robert Walser’s The Assistant. (Translated by Susan Bernofsky)
“…lets not allow ourselves to get too worked up over such a woman finding such a young man odd, but rather report on their conversation.”
I shall later offer a snip from Walser’s take on the weather that’s particularly dotey.
Rain and quakes
Wales appears to be under serious flooding, I heard reports of heavy rainfall from the West of Ireland and here in BC we have a mixture of 6 current flood watches and warnings in effect. Rain is the theme!
Today however we enjoyed a blast of sunshine. At 6.30pm I had to dodge indoors for fear I might even get burnt. (It doesn’t take much, I can manage to get sunburned indoors with the curtains shut)
Oh the other enormous piece of news that I managed to shamefully miss for two days because of being in a deadline tunnel was an earthquake (4.0) off the coast of Co. Mayo! Felt in Mayo, Sligo, Galway which has the geologists pondering and some of us pointing at the fracking activity for inquiry.
On the road with Malarky: Malarky roadie
I have been away on the road with Malarky, so apologies for the interrupted weather forecasts and meanderings. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to Bolen Books in Victoria, Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle and Village Books in Bellingham.
The highlight for me was at the Seattle launch when 10-yr-old Willie Bays, on his flute, played traditional Irish music (trad) with his mother Susan on fiddle. A mighty player and together they played a mighty set. Go raibh mile to them both.
Also, am enormously grateful for the enthusiasm and warmth of booksellers Robert, Casey and Claire (in store order respectively). Most impressed with the woodwork in many of these shops and the array of jigsaw puzzles that surrounded the reading area at Bolen Books. (including one of a teapot)
*
What about the weather event at Union Station in Toronto yesterday? A bathtub rainfall event! We were grim on this coast around the same time, but I had to shift my overcast sulking when I saw what had been dealt to the floor at Union. A spot I stood but two weeks ago and imagined doing a cozy waltz around (if I could manage such a thing).
*
In gardening news I am a disgrace. Officially flagged a green one. Some mysterious objecter has plunged a bamboo pole into my plot with green masking tape on it to alert … I am not sure whom. Not the Mason Bees who were happily mining in my strawberry patch today. Thank you to the gardeners who offered help for my beleagured plot and added soil to it in my absence.
The Flowerman has the most magnificent Pink Poppies. They have to be capitalized they are such stunners. He also generously added some manure to my plot and consequently the purple geranium has gone nuclear in size and I think has made for happy bees.
*
Profuse thanks to all who have read/are reading Malarky and have tweeted or written about it. Lovely to hear of this happening. A book is nothing without readers. I have great faith in readers and it grows deeper by the day.
Washing retrieval wind
I noted a sharp wind ouside just now when I pulled in the washing off the line. I was surprised at the chill in it and checked the weather station which claims an 8 degrees. But there was something enlivening in it after a particularly draining day. An encore quality. The reward for carrying on. Must remember to dip out and take note of night weathers and temperatures, they can be so satisfying.