ABOUTISM

The Short Version An ABC’s book-in-progress …Perhaps my ABC’s are instead of: instead of a novel, instead of an essay on the twentieth century, instead of a memoir. Each of the individuals [and places] remembered here sets into motion a network of mutual allusions and interdependencies linked to the facts of my century. In the final analysis, I do not regret that I have dropped names so cavalierly (or so it must seem), or that I have made a virtue of my casual way. ... 
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SHARPE READING

I I remember the first time I spoke publicly about the Robin Sharpe affair. I was disguised as a TV-talkinghead, my paunch perched frog-like in a TV chair on-set. The venue was one of those local Vancouver chat shows that always seem to be titled On The Edge or At The End or Apocalypse Now–i.e., "urban edgy," meaning that the viewer demographic aimed at is 19-34, and the ultimate point seems to be to get in the host’s pre-discussion stand-up monologue in which... 
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What’s Happening At Andy’s

The "Andy" in the title of Vancouver poet George Stanley’s new collection, At Andy’s (New Star, 79 pages, $16) is psychologist Andy Klingner, a longtime resident of the northwest town of Terrace, British Columbia. It’s a place of about 10,000 or so people on the banks of the winding and powerful Skeena River (which flows out to sea at Prince Rupert, about 150 km. Beyond this bend). I’d be tempted to call Terrace, with its unlovely malls and former sawmills, "nondescript,"... 
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