Thirsty: A Biblioasis Miscellany

Upcoming Biblioasis Events

2008-11-13T12:01:00.001-08:00

Friday, November 14^th
Zach Wells: Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets
W/ readings by Wells, Lyle Neff, Steven Price and Alan R. Wilson
Black Stilt Cafe, #103-1633 Hillside Ave., 7:30 pm

Thursday, November 27^th
Rebecca Rosenblum (ONCE), with Mark Anthony Jarman, Heather Birrell and Russell Smith as a Salon des Refuses event
Art Gallery of Windsor
7:00 pm

Tuesday December 2^nd
Mike Barnes, Lily Pond, along with Sally Armstrong and Ernst Hillen
La Salle Park Pavilion, Burlington
9 a.m.

Tuesday, December 2
Grant Buday (Dragonflies) reads with Craig Boyko (Black Out), Samantha Warwick (Sage Island) and A.S. Penne (Reckoning)
Cornerstone Café
1301 Gladstone Avenue, Victoria
7:00 p.m.

Tuesday, December 2nd
Joshua Glenn, Idler's Glossary
Bookslut Reading Series
Chicago Illinois

Thursday December 4th
Grant Buday (Dragonflies): The Vancouver Launch
Café Montmartre
4362 Main St., Vancouver
6:30-8:30

Staurday, December 6^th
Zach Wells & Rachel Lebowitz
Anything but Hanks at Tinars for Tots
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen St. W.
Toronto, Ont.
9:30 a.m.

Idling: The Windsor View

2008-11-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

The Lance, a paper I penned some of my first reviews for a decade or so ago, has featured the Idler's Glossary in its current edition. See below.

Glenn, Boston-based journalist and scholar, examines the etymology and history of hundreds of terms and phrases used to describe idlers and the act of idling in his new work, The Idler’s Glossary. In doing this, Glenn looks to clarify the misconceptions about idling and introduce a new way of thinking about working and not working.

Glenn examines why work time—slaving away in a cubicle, factory, or elsewhere—is more valued than free time in today’s society.

Alongside Glenn is Mark Kingwell who contributes an introductory essay to the glossary.

Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and also well known for his appearance in The Corporation. His involvement in the project stemmed from a longstanding online friendship with Glenn, who had edited a magazine called Hermenaut out of Boston, MI. Kingwell became interested in the magazine and donated money when it was strapped for cash. The two became long distance friends that only met offline for the first time earlier this year.

An early version of The Idler’s Glossary, which appeared in The Idler Magazine in the U.K., caught Kingwell’s eye.

“I thought it would be a great standalone book. Around the same time I had been talking to Dan Wells at Biblioasis who was looking to start a pamphlet series, and I thought this is the perfect kick-off project for that series,” said Kingwell.

Seth, the pen name of Gregory Gallant, a Canadian comic book artist and writer, has a keen sense of design that contributed greatly to the look and feel of The Idler’s Glossary. The raised print on the cover accented in gold along with the old-timey feel of the graphics gives the reference guide a unique look.

“As soon as we had the package together we knew that if Seth could make time to be a part of it, it could really bring it to another level,” said Kingwell.

As for what Idler terms he can best be described with, Kingwell opts for flâneur. “I like to spend a lot of time walking and specifically walking in cities and the flâneur is an indication of that sort of idling where you’re not going anywhere particular you’re just kind of drifting through the streets and experiencing the variety of stimulants a city has to offer,” explained Kingwell.

Recently, Kingwell released a collection of essays called Opening Gambits, which he says is kind of related to The Idler’s Glossary because “it looks at art and philosophy as forms of play. A lot of what we talk about in Idler is really a kind of play.”

Furthering the concept of The Idler’s Glossary, Kingwell and Glenn are currently in talks of possibly working on a sequel.

“We’ve found so many words even since this book came out that are interesting and relevant,” said Kingwell.

The focus of the glossary this time around would be more on the words that characterize the working world.

“Some of them are already in this glossary, but there are a lot of terms on the edges of the working world that we didn’t really think about, and that could make another book,” Kingwell explained.

The big misconception about idling is that the term is interchangeable with slacking. Not so, according to Kingwell.

“Slacking is avoiding work and it’s closely related to procrastinating. True idling is to set yourself free from all those worries about what you should be doing instead and live in the moment of not doing anything in particular,” he said.

The definitions are funny, but only because they’re true. One of the definitions that sum up the idlers versus slackers debate pretty well is Asleep at the Switch: “Why demonize those unfortunate souls who lose focus and zone out while on the job? No matter how focused their caffeinated colleagues may be, aren’t they sleepwalking through life?”

A Very Bad Cell Phone picture of the Brooklyn Launch for the Idler's Glossary

2008-11-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Cabinet Magazine hosted the Brooklyn launch of The Idler's Glossary this past Saturday, an event that was, by all accounts, fantastic. No real cameras, alas, so this is the best image we can provide you.

There's another Boston event with Josh Glenn this week, and on December 2nd he'll take part in the Bookslut reading series in Chicago. In late January we are hoping to bring Mark, Josh and Seth together for the long-awaited Windsor launch. Stay tuned for more details.

Mike Barnes: The St. Clement's Talk

2008-11-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

On November 2nd, Mike Barnes was the guest speaker at the St. Clement's 40 Minute Forum, and all indications are that it was, like every other Barnes / Lily Pond event this fall, a moving, powerful, and thought provoking presentation. Mike has since taped his discussion, which can be found here, at archives.org, where you can download it and listen to it at your leisure.

We're looking to set up some additional speaking engagements for Mike, so if you like his talk and would like to set something up, please get in touch. I can be reached at biblioasis@gmail.com.

A Talented Observer of Lives In Between

2008-11-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Yet another rave review for Rebecca Rosenblum's debut story collection Once, this one from the Toronto Star. If you haven't gone out and picked up a copy yet, what are you waiting for?

Rebecca Rosenblum's head-turningly good debut, Once, is a story collection about people who tend not to see the narrative of their own lives.

They're preoccupied by the more mundane distractions of the immediate. They want to know why they suddenly don't love somebody any more (or if they ever did), why their wife has never noticed the bald spot on the back of their head, who the woman is that keeps leaving messages for a guy who hasn't shown up for work for a week, and why that stupid 99 TTC bus hasn't stopped to pick up passengers for a year.

Here's our introduction to a guy named Joe, from a story called "The Words": "People used the words holy fool if you were still thirty-two and still messing around with your guitar. If you wore stretched-out T-shirts with brand names on them and played for free at parties while the only perk at your real job was a headset phone. If you couldn't afford cable or brand-name cheese, but you thought you were a musician. Joe accepted that, mainly."

Once trades in the kinds of hangnail distractions that tend to obliterate all thoughts of larger patterns and greater significance. When you're waiting for a bus on a killingly cold Toronto day, your thoughts tend to dig in to the here and now. But such observations also make for a great story.

Rosenblum, who was born in Hamilton and educated in Montreal and Toronto, is an expert observer of lives lived in between. Her subjects are mostly people in their twenties who can't find the traction necessary to gear up for adulthood. There's a grad student who works in a bookstore; a waitress taking a night school course in tax accounting; a man living in a dissipating marriage with two kids and a blind baby; a tech support employee who, tagged on the nose by an airborne calculator, nearly bleeds to death in the men's room.

There's a squeegee kid who visits his grandparents weekly to trim their lawn (and accept their thoughtful but useless gifts of mix cassettes), and a Vietnamese immigrant who becomes enraptured with skateboarding while working in a Vietnamese restaurant owned by a man with the conspicuously non-Vietnamese-sounding name of Koenberg.

Koenberg's establishment is called the Pho-Mi 99, and it sits at the intersection of both a number of apparently phantom TTC bus routes and the lives of Rosenblum's characters. It's a typical grace note of the collection that most of the characters that pass through or by the Pho-Mi 99 pay no attention to the other characters who do also, a device that enhances the stories' pervading sense of existential randomness.

In "Cal is Helpful," Cal finds himself sitting next to an explanation-hungry former flame. He's bone-tired, itchy and wishes he were anywhere else.

"He didn't even wait until she turned before scratching through his pants, but the fabric was too thick and slippery for it to be satisfying. He knew he couldn't escape until he told Mira what she wanted to know, but he didn't know what that was. She seemed to want to be told why she'd broken up with him. And he didn't know."

Rosenblum has that good short story writer's gift of making complex events out of stalled lives, for riveting reader interest to the most outwardly non-dramatic of circumstances. There's precious little by way of revelation, even less by way of personal breakthrough, and practically nothing by way of emotional reckoning.

Remarkably, Rosenblum's characters are made vividly dimensional not by their transcendence but their surrender to low horizons. The insight is left entirely to the reader. That's the real story here, and – especially for a writer so fresh to the game – it's as good as telling gets.

Author and broadcaster Geoff Pevere is The Star's books columnist. He appears weekly.

St. Louis Dispatch review of Three Balconies

2008-11-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

From the St. Louis Dispatch, a review of Friedman's Three Balconies. Friedman will be in St. Louis as part of the Jewish Bookfair there this Friday.

Prankster Friedman reveals his alter ego

By Amy Woods Butler

SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH

11/04/2008

"As is the case with most men, Harry wanted to be taken seriously and resented the suggestion that he was not a serious man," begins one of the stories in "Three Balconies." "Yet there may have been some truth to the charge."

It's a theme taken up again and again in this delightful new collection by Bruce Jay Friedman. Harry, an aging writer and the charming protagonist of three of the book's stories, weighs his literary output against the years he spent chasing women and churning out Hollywood scripts. Alexander, a failed novelist, dreams of escape through prison, while the writer Baum is stymied by the success of his prolific nemesis.

Not failures, exactly, each of the characters looks back on his life with a sense of good-natured puzzlement. Whether his name is Baum, Harry or Alexander, the protagonist in most of the stories is in essence the same person, given to the same preoccupations. By the time Friedman, who penned the screenplays for the hit movies "Splash" and "Stir Crazy," has a character repeatedly mention his Two Big Pictures, it's impossible not think of all these Harrys as tweaked versions of the author himself. In a departure from the strictly realistic style, several stories read like off-beat fantasies, riffs on daydreams that end with a twist. This is Friedman in prankster-mode, and you can almost hear him chuckle as he has his bit of fun. In the hilarious "The People Person," an unnamed president with ties to Texas is abducted and "tortured" with literature. In "The Reversal," a troubled psychiatrist unburdens himself to a long-time patient.

Though humorous, not all of these lighter pieces are successful, and one wonders whether it's precisely this kind of work that fuels the self-doubt of his alter-ego in Friedman's more serious stories. If so, they are worth it.

A graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, Friedman will appear on the Missouri's Own panel at the Jewish Book Festival with local authors Jody Feldman ("The Gollywhopper Games") and Joanna Campbell Slan ("Paper, Scissors, Death."

Rysard Kapuscinski's Stone Reviewed on Bookslut

2008-11-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Andrew Wessels writes that Ryszard Kapuscinski's I Wrote Stone "...touches upon the great fear of death with a surprisingly unbiased touch even as the lines are imbued with emotion by the reader, who knows the inevitability and is faced with a posthumous message from beyond."

The complete review can be found here.

Rebecca Rosenblum on Nigel Beale

2008-11-03T11:07:00.001-08:00

Rebecca Rosenblum has been interviewed by Nigel Beale about her Metcalf-Rooke Award winning short story collection Once. You can hear it here.

More Idle Coverage

2008-11-03T06:53:00.001-08:00

Idler's Glossary coverage is coming fast and furious. There's a good interview with Mark Kingwell on CBC's The Point, (check out the Part Two section, first 7 or so minutes) which can be found here.

The Walrus blog has posted on the Idler's Glossary, with a list of Kingwell's favourite terms. Jared Bland writes, "To celebrate the publication of Josh Glenn and Mark Kingwell’s excellent small book, The Idler’s Glossary, I asked Mark to offer glosses on a few of his favourite entries. His response is below. I urge everyone to buy this book; there’ll be nothing more curious and delightful published this fall. (Nor many as beautiful—Seth’s design work is lovely.)" the rest of the post can be found here.

The LA Times Book Jacket also weighs in here.

Dwell Magazine weighs in here, saying, in part: "While it's perhaps difficult to sit down and read the book from cover to cover, The Idler's Glossary is a fun–and beautifully produced– book to set aside some time to flip through, as these gray autumn days turn cold and we're all faced with slumberous (Slumberous: "To be slumberous [from the Middle English word for 'doze'] is to be tired in the sense of lethargic, torpid.") winter."

The Atlantic Monthly has confirmed that they will be reviewing it as well. And more is sure to follow, so stay tuned.

The Idler's Glossary in the Guardian

2008-11-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

We had a short review of the Idler's Glossary in the UK's Guardian yesterday. Our first UK review! If anyone out there gets the Guardian could you send it in? It's on page 8 of the Features and Review section!

You can read the review here.

Bookfest Windsor

2008-10-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

The Windsor Bookfest is on this weekend, and the big event for Biblioasis-o-philes is Saturday. It begins early, at 11 Am, when Stephen Henighan, Linda Leith, May Jane Maffini and Nino Ricci take part in a panel on literature and criticism in the Wilkinson Room (Main Floor). At 1 pm Mike Barnes will be talking about his memoir about bi-polar disorder, The Lily Pond (I heard a version of this talk a few weeks ago in Hamilton, and it is one of the best author talks I've heard. ), to be held in the Valiant/Rodzick Room on the 3rd floor. Between 3:30 - 5:30 Stephen Henighan will be part of a panel called Writing with Attitude alongside Nino Ricci, Diane Schoemperlen and David French, again in the Wilkinson room on the main floor. And between 8-10 pm David Hickey will participate in a poetry panel on the Wired, Wired Word alongside Di Brandt, Alanna Bondar, Karl Jirgens, M. Nourbese Philip and Steven R. Smith.

I'm very disappointed to hear I'll be missing Mary Swan tonight. But t'is Halloween, and I'll be guiding my Batman and Vampire-Knight around the neighbourhood. I can take some solace in the fact that I'll have the comapny of Mike Barnes, his wife (and wonderful artist) Heather Simcoe and David Hickey's company for the evening.

Author Tackles Highs and Lows

2008-10-31T06:52:00.000-07:00

An article by Ted Shaw on Mike Barnes The Lily Pond appeared in this morning's Windsor Star. Mike will be reading Saturday (tomorrow) November 1st at 1 pm at the Art Gallery of Windsor. For any area Windsor bibliophiles, I do hope that you will try and make it down.

The article:

For years, Mike Barnes would burn the midnight oil in a furious, almost desparate pursuit of art.

A poet and fiction writer, he mistakenly believed that he produced his best work during those manic episodes.

But 15 years ago, when he was in late 30s, Barnes discovered his experiences were much more serious and clinical than the romantic image he had created in his mind.

Barnes, 53, suffers from bipolar disorder, or as it was once known, manic depression. He has chronicled his harrowing experiences, and his efforts to make peace with himself and his family, in The Lily Pond: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis, published by Windsor's Biblioasis Press.

Barnes will read from The Lily Pond and discuss the book Saturday at 1 p.m. at the 2008 BookFest Windsor at the Art Gallery of Windsor.

"For many years I did think that I could only write in my manic upswings," he said. "The depressive periods, pardon the expression, were pretty much a write-off."

His diagnosis when he was 38 followed years in and out of mental institutions, undergoing shock treatments, medication and clinical analysis. All the while, Barnes was a successful author with six works of poetry and fiction.

"It has just been in the last three years or so, since I've been seeing a new doctor, that she has encouraged me to start to question when I have those moments of inspiration."

His doctor suggested he write at times when he didn't feel inspired.

"The results were shocking," said Barnes. "I ended up writing less than before, but not that much less. And the really shocking part was what I ended up writing was just as good as the other stuff."

That experience occupies a key section of The Lily Pond, where Barnes describes how his 2006 book of poetry, A Thaw Foretold, also published by Biblioasis, came about.

"I realized just how much time was wasted in my periods of manic energy," he said.

The impetus for The Lily Pond came when Barnes' wife, Heather, also suffered a breakdown, and how they managed to survive takes up the final section of the book.

"It has been a struggle to get the word out about the book because people tend to categorize it as a bipolar book or a book about recovery," said Barnes.

"But one of the first reactions I had from someone who doesn't suffer from mental illness is that the book raises many issues that were more existential than psychiatric.

"It can apply to personal relationships, life stories, (and) to the choices you make in your life."

TDR Interviews Rebecca Rosenblum

2008-10-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

The Danforth Review interviews Rebecca Rosenblum, here.

Brandeis Justice: An Idle Dialogue

2008-10-28T10:31:00.001-07:00

Glossary' explores the art of idling

By: Marianna Faynshteyn

Posted: 10/28/08

As college students, procrastinating, slacking and activities of that ilk come naturally. But what about dawdling or idling? Do these terms strike a different note than the ones listed above? For Mark Kingwell and Joshua Glenn, not only does slacking have little to do with idling, but idling is distinct enough to warrant its own book. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Kingwell, a leading Canadian social critic and popular philosopher, and Joshua Glenn, a prominent Boston-based editor. They are writers of the recently released Idler's Glossary, a self proclaimed "Devil's Dictionary for do-nothings" in which I discovered the nuances of idling.

JustArts: When I first picked up The Idler's Glossary, I thought I was opening up a book form of the Urban Dictionary and other amusing texts of the like. But, after reading the introduction, it almost seemed like you had made a philosophical manifesto out of idling-equipped with a glossary! What was your intention in creating this book?

G: You're right-the book is not a manifesto equipped with a glossary. In fact, The Idler's Glossary doesn't support any text, unless you agree with a very flattering, hyperbolic line in Mark's introduction, where he suggests that "the ur-text for which this glossary is definitive must be, in the end, life itself." My intention in writing the Glossary was two-fold. I wanted to make a contribution but without working too hard at it, to the obscure but age-old tradition of defending "idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class," as Robert Louis Stevenson once put it. And I also wanted to distinguish between the slacker-a person who is failing to work, or who ought to be at work but isn't-and the idler, who somehow transcends the imperatives of work (e.g., the idler demands free time; the slacker settles for mere leisure time. The idler dreams; the slacker daydreams. The idler naps; the slacker dozes at his desk). Writing a glossary seemed to me an undemanding, non-didactic way to draw such sharp distinctions. And like all aphoristic writing, the form encourages the reader to dawdle, to meander, to drift from entry to entry. Don't you think?

K: Absolutely. I say in my introduction that the glossary form, meandering and always incomplete, structured only by the contingency of the alphabet, is the [idlest] of texts. Any glossary is a kind of amble of words, and so a glossary seemed the perfect form for an investigation of idling. Like Josh, I've always been drawn to the persistence of the aphorism in philosophical thought: the tiny idea-bomb, timed to go off at any moment. But the intro itself posed a problem. If it became too manifesto-like, it would self-defeat; that would make idling a demand. Even to treat the intro as an essay-a word rooted in trying and effort-would sail close to self-contradiction. So, I made it a loose and playful philosophical defense of the idling life as the best life, mixing uncontroversial claims with some deliberately provocative ones. One blog entry about the book said my intro moves from erudite to evangelical. I'm not sure about the evangelical part, but there is a subversive political and personal message here: You must change your life! But, you know, no pressure.

JA: Josh, I know you're a blogger for the Boston Globe, and having mentioned Urban Dictionary [a viral forum for most college-aged idlers of the 21st century], I was wondering what your thoughts were on the Internet's influence on idling. Has the Internet provided a community for idlers or has it reduced the art form that you have taken great pains in describing?

G: Good question! But I should point out that I quit blogging for the Boston Globe this past summer. Idlers see quitting as a creative, life-affirming act. Idling is a solitary practice and art form, yet idlers do enjoy communing with one another, forming a nation-within-a-nation of sorts. They don't want to live together, or even spend too much time together, but they [do] want to stay in touch. In his early book Daybreak, Nietzsche compares the "company of thinkers" that he hopes to participate in forming to "birds of passage" meeting on an island in the middle of the ocean and enjoying "a precarious minute of knowing and divining, amid joyful beating of wings and chirping with one another" before going their separate ways again. This is a perfect description of an idler's community. Now, nothing can replace a face-to-face get-together, but I should note that Nietzsche never managed to convene his company of thinkers. Perhaps if the Internet had existed then, he'd at least have been able to commune with like-minded contemporaries. So, two cheers for the Internet.

K: One of the great things about this book is that Josh and I did not meet face to face until after it was completed. In fact, our launch event in Toronto was only the second time we'd met, and the one in New York will be the third. Our intellectual friendship was entirely facilitated by the Internet. True, we could have been old-fashioned hardcopy correspondents instead and achieved the same end. But then, no hot links to stuff we know the other will like, no connections to his wide range of interesting friends (artists, cultural journalists, writers, musicians). I get far more out of this complex connection than anything from, say, my departmental colleagues at the University of Toronto. To answer the question more directly: Creating a thought-stroll by clicking on interesting stuff, following your mind's nose is certainly idling in the best sense. It doesn't replace sequential thought and argument, but the great thing is that it doesn't have to.

JA: Also, in the same vein as the last question, I think most people would consider idling a more recent phenomenon given the slew of technological distractions we have these days, but with references to the work of Oscar Wilde, Bertrand Russell, Kafka, and Aristotle, it seems quite the opposite. What has time done to the idler--how has he changed over the years?

G: You may be confusing dawdling with dilly-dallying. The idler dawdles-she's often late to appointments, because she has stopped to smell the roses, for example, or chat with a charming stranger. The slacker dilly-dallies-that is to say, he's late to appointments because he's acted with trifling vacillation or indecision. Alas, all too often, I spend my mornings dilly-dallying, not dawdling. And, it's true that technological distractions can exacerbate dilly-dallying! But dilly-dallying is nothing new. According to Aristotle, Socrates was invariably late (atopos). It's been suggested that the sort of philosophy that Socrates demonstrated-endlessly curious, unsettled and unsettling-goes hand-in-hand with dawdling. But Mark is the philosopher, not me- what do you think of this proposition, Mark?

K: The more time I spend with the ancient philosophers, the more convinced I become that everything they wrote was really about idling. Socrates strolling in the agora, Aristotle's peripatesis, Lao Tzu's walking along old tracks-they're all trying to tell us something. And that is: all this striving we go in for, all the achieving and getting ahead will not succeed in making us happy. Desire is a kind of booby-trap, sprung to catch us even as we imagine we escape it in satisfaction. I tried to capture this insight in a book I wrote about happiness ten years ago, but it still exercises me and needs more saying. It's hard wisdom to follow.

JA: Co-authors are in general a bit of an odd concept, but especially with a book that would suggest that neither person wanted to particularly work. How did you two collaborate over this piece? Did one indulge in a stint of idling while the other studiously gathered the inspiration from the idler in question?

G: We wrote the two parts of the book -- my glossary, his introduction -- separately. But I've been reading Mark's brilliant essays for years; there's no one with whom I'd rather collaborate. We know each other, I think, because I wrote him a fan letter about eight years ago. Then I sent him a magazine that I was publishing called Hermenau, and he bought one of our T-shirts. So I knew he was the coolest philosopher ever.

K: See, this is why I like to work with Josh! Really, the best collaborations are like happy chance meetings, in a bar or along the road. I should add that, once the text was done, we invited the artist Seth to join us in illustrating and designing the book. I had worked with Seth before, and I think he's a genius. The beauty of the final product, and much of the whimsy, are largely owing to his presence.

JA: Finally, is The Idler's Glossary the culmination of your best idling moments or is it a departure from your mutual talent in idling in order to showcase it to the world?

G: Well, creating the book didn't feel like labor, if that answers your question. Idling is a mode of life and a state of mind that I've found compelling at least since I was an undergraduate, if not my entire life -- so when the opportunity arose, thanks originally to a British magazine called The Idler, and more recently to the book's publisher, Biblioasis, the ideas just flowed. However, I should conclude by stating forcefully that I'm not a bona fide idler! The idler is an ideal type to which I aspire. If my glossary and Mark's introduction encourage others to aspire to the same difficult ideal, then I'm sure we'd both be thrilled.

K: I agree there was no labor involved! I say in my bio note that years of graduate [school] made me proficient at a form of idling for which I could get paid. I'm a very lucky guy. Idling is analogous to Aristotle's idea of virtue in that it needs luck as well as personal cultivation to produce the best outcomes. We don't always have opportunities to idle, especially if we remain mired in work-slack cycles. The basic idea of the glossary is simple: when an idle moment comes your way, seize it and make the most of it. As Nietzsche said, live your life as a work of art!

Rebecca Rosenblum on Michael Enright's Sunday Edition

2008-10-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Michael Enright interviewed Rebecca Rosenblum on his programme Sunday Edition. It's a fabulous discussion about fiction, process, dialogue and the lives and afterlives of characters. It made me want to reread some of the stories yet again, and long (hint, hint, Rebecca) to read some of the new, linked ones. Though the interview is not isolated, it can be found at the 57th minute of the podcast (the current one, October 26th, running to 1:14, approximately) here.

Ondjaki wins African Literature Prize

2008-10-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ondjaki, alongside Ben Okri and Ngugi wa Thiong'o has won the prestigious African Literature Prize. Ondjaki won in the category of Best Young writer. More information on the award can be found here .

Vancouver Review reviews Dragonflies

2008-10-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Word has reached me that the Vancouver Review has given a rave review to Grant Buday's novel about the last days of the Trojan War, Dragonflies. Though I haven't seen the full thing yet, a reader sent along a few choice quotes which I'll post below, and I'll try and post the full review as soon as I get it .

from the review:

"This short, graceful book is infused with a deep understanding of the ancient stories, and crafted with a visual, poetic and psychological aesthetic that is redolent of the originals, yet manages to avoid feeling derivative."

"What I lingered over most in the book, though, were superb incidental details that dot the story like jewels."

"Buday has produced a significant work that honours the Homeric tradition with its awesome balance of sweeping action, deep but compact characterizations, and breathtaking visual moments."

Review by Dania Sheldon

Idler's Glossary: the Boston (Harvard, no less) Launch

2008-10-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Brainiac, the Boston Globe blog, highlights the Glossary in anticipation of tomorrow's Boston launch.

A conundrum: How to encourage people interested in the concept of idling to rouse themselves to come to an event … honoring idling?

Joshua Glenn, my predecessor as Brainiac's author, has certainly not been slacking since his departure from the blogosphere a few months ago -- although he has been assiduously idling. The distinction between the two lies at the heart of his new book, co-written with the philosopher Mark Kingwell: "The Idler's Glossary." Tomorrow night (Thursday, October 23), the Harvard Advocate is hosting a release party for the book, from 5 to 8 p.m. Its offices are at 21 South Street, in Harvard Square. Bestir yourselves, fellow lubbers, shirkers and scrimshankers! (9-to-5'ers will not be turned away from the door, either, even content ones.)

This book, it must be said, is no joke. Kingwell's introduction begins with a Kierkegaard quote, and carves up concepts with true philosophical rigor. "A slacker is not a true idler," Kingwell writes, "because he is engaged in the project of avoiding work, and as long as that remains the case, work's dominion remains unchallenged …"

The "genius of idling," he continues, "is not its avoidance of work but rather its construction of a value system entirely independent of work."

The glossary, a sequel of sorts to Bertrand Russell's small book of 1932 titled "In Praise of Idleness," explains exactly what it means to cabbage, and parses the distinctions among cadgers, clock-watchers, and couch potatoes -- just to touch on the C's.

The rest of the post can be found here.

Glossaries: An Idle Pleasure

2008-10-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Over at the Washington Post Book Blog SHORT STACK, book editor Rachel Shea writes about the Idler's Glossary.

Glossaries: An Idle Pleasure

Surely, one must be nearly paralyzed with boredom to idly flip through the pages of a glossary. And yet, there's something strangely compelling about a compendium of definitions, especially those clustered around a specific subject. Last year, I reviewed the delightfully informative 'Isms and Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies, and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World, by Arthur Goldwag. Now, across my desk comes the diminutive The Idler's Glossary, by Joshua Glenn* and Mark Kingwell (with nifty illustrations from the cartoon hero Seth). This little book explains -- nay, argues -- for the moral superiority (over work, slacking and even leisure time) of idleness.

Kingwell, in an introduction that quickly shifts in tone from erudite to evangelical, parses the meaning of idleness: First of all, idleness is not not working. That implies that work is the positive, and idleness is only its opposite.

Glenn, who provides the actual glossary of all things idle-related (for instance, "good-for-nothing," "loiter," "moocher"), defines the term thusly:

"Idleness [from the Old English word for "worthless, useless"] may look to the untrained eye like laziness, slacking, killing time. Unlike slacking, though, idling is not the opposite of working hard, but is instead a rare, hard-won mode in which your art is your work and your work is your art. See: FREE TIME, LEISURE, USELESSNESS"

Following Glenn's instructions, let's turn to the entry for "free time":

"Free time, in the sense of 'freedom to,' is electrifying and beautiful. But free time, in the sense of "freedom from," is merely restful and relaxing. Freedom-to time is what all idlers seek; it is a true state of leisure, in which actions are performed entirely for their own sake. Freedom-from time, on the other hand, is merely a vacation or a recess; i.e., it's a scheduled (and mandated) period during which we androidized humans can recharge our batteries."

Doesn't the idea of "freedom to" time fill you with longing?

Uo fT's Varsity on "the Idle Handbook

2008-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Kingwell detailed how idling differs from simple leisure. “It’s not production of the kind that is sanctioned by the capital economy,” he said. “It’s not the production of consumption. It’s activity for its own sake and its own beauty.”

While some may argue current economic conditions necessitate a day job, Kingwell argued that a book on idling is relevant now more than ever. “It was greed and growth that drove us to that boom and bust cycle that we’re now witnessing the latest pathology of,” he said. “This is the counter argument; this is the other way of thinking about what life is about.”

...

Those seeking to learn the way of the idler without sliding into slacker territory should follow Kingwell’s oft-quoted line about the “great Daoist Yoda.” “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. That’s idling.”

The full article can be found here: thevarsity.ca/article/5153

Starred Q&Q review of Grant Buday's Dragonflies

2008-10-20T07:49:00.001-07:00

In the November issue of Quill & Quire, Grant Buday's Dragonflies, a novel about the last days of the Trojan War as told from Odysseus's perspective, received a starred review. This is the second starred review from Q&Q for Biblioasis in as many months. The key things to get from this review: very funny, superbly imagined, beautifully told. Also: a damn good yarn. Fab cover. Need we say more?

The review:

Re-imagining history is popular with novelists at the moment, as evidenced by Fred Stenson’s recent book The Great Karoo, among others. But few make the past come alive as vividly as Vancouver author Grant Buday does in Dragonflies, a very funny book, superbly imagined and beautifully told.

In the sad, desperate last days of the Trojan War, Troy is no closer to falling than it was 10 years before, and the Greeks, reduced to eating limpets, are down to their last sacrificial bulls. Agamemnon gives the clever Odysseus, the “battered old tomcat” who narrates the tale, has a servant to pluck the hairs from his nose, remembers the past, and doubts the present, the task of coming up with one last gambit to win the war.

Dragonflies features many of the Trojan War’s major figures, including Menelaus, Palamedes, and Ajax, but they are not the mythic heroes we have become accustomed to. They are flawed humans lured into fighting by desire, fear, or old oaths. Agamemnon is a clod, thick-necked and hairy, and Calchas the soothsayer, whom Odysseus nicknames “Couch Ass,” is a fraudulent, “ugly old man whose face looks like it’s been carved from an onion.”

Odysseus is a very likeable narrator, but his skill with words can be hurtful and his skepticism gets him into trouble. His suggestion that all of Helen’s suitors swear allegiance to whomever eventually wins her hand avoids conflict in the short term, but only augments the size of Menelaus’s army later on.

A detailed knowledge of Greek myth is not essential to appreciate Buday’s novel, although spotting the occasional Homeric turn of phrase is fun. And the wonderful, tragic irony of Odysseus’s glee at the prospect of being home in a month depends on knowing that his journey is really just beginning. – John Wilson, whose latest book is Germania (Key Porter Books).

Idler's Glossary as Slacker Utopia

2008-10-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

from i09.com

If you're wondering why you always have a deep urge to be a lazy, unproductive goof off, Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell have written a manifesto for you. It's called The Idler's Glossary, and it's a history via creative etymologies and definitions of words that refer to the high art of slackery. An odd and beautiful book, The Idler's Glossary imagines an alternate world where free time is valued as much as cubicle time.

Glenn told us via email:

The Glossary is a utopian book, imagining a world where our contemporary values have been revalued — from that vantage point, for example, the heroic slacker (who sticks it to the man by goofing off at work) seems a tragically misguided figure. Because he's still trapped in the value system that privileges work over not-work. Oh, and I invoke Philip K. Dick three times — see APATHETIC, GOOF (OFF), and TINKER.

Ah Dick, that most lazy of idlers. Glenn isn't just celebrating laziness, you see: He's suggesting that our hyper-productive work values are skewed. We need to be idle more often, need to have time to read and ponder, so that we can dream up better worlds instead of just living in this crappy one.

Also, by the way, the book is just good, silly fun.

BP (Bipolar) Magazine review of The Lily Pond

2008-10-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

A short review has appeared in the important mental health magazine BP (Bipolar) Magazine, raving about Mike Barnes's The Lily Pond. As I have said elsewhere, repeatedly (sorry about that), I think this is one of the most important memoirs of its kind, better than Jamison, Styron, Solomon, Alvarez: most who have picked it up seem to agree. So, please, do so.

Here's the review:

The Lily Pond: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis
By Mike Barnes (Biblioasis, 2008)

Reviewed by Rachel Bravmann

In 2008, memoirs about bipolar disorder are flying off the shelves. Barnes’ personal chronicle rises to the top due not only to content but to his sheer mastery of language.

Exploring 30 years of living with bipolar disorder from a variety of perspectives, including in-patient hospitalization, he weaves a complex narrative of memory and pondering. From descriptions of depression to the natural world and even mythology, Barnes commands a natural affinity for exposition and depiction. Take notice of his relationship to a nursery web spider, a wood frog, his family, and his partner, Heather, who also lives with mental illness. These bonds are beautifully illustrated, venerated, and illuminated.

In describing Heather, Barnes may also be describing the nature of bipolar disorder: “Mental Illness–meaning here, the diagnosis and treatment of it especially–is working against her confidence, implanting radical doubts in her about her basic capability.” In doing so he creates an essential element of trust with readers. Full of fraught childhood reminisces, explanations of the excruciating and familiar ebb and flow of despair, and complex existential tracts, The Lily Pond shines.

Boing Boing highlights The Idler's Glossary

2008-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

boing boing, one of the most widely read blogs in the world (last I heard, top 5, with millions of daily hits, and lord knows how many daily subscribers), has highlighted our Idler's Glossary in today's posting. If you're Canadian, you should be able to find this book almost everywhere; in the US, at the best independents and online at borders, b&n, amazon and elsewhere.

You can find the boing boing entry here.

And from the glossary, a term highlighted by boing boing:

cadger: Cadging, the ancient art of imposing upon the generosity of others, is an essential skill for the would-be idler, since poverty is the easiest way to obtain a great deal of free time. According to Henry Miller, who calls it "mooching," when performed without squeamishness or reservations, cadging is both exhilarating and instructive. So long as a cadger [from the Scandinavian word for "huckster"] is generous in turn (though not necessarily in kind), he ought not to be considered a deadbeat, freeloader, or sponger. See: BEGGAR, SCROUNGER.

Yet More Salon coverage

2008-10-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

... on Steven Beattie's blog That Shakespherian Rag, where he does a far better job than I at showing just how sloppy a critic Wayne Grady is. (Since I belong to that "lazy" school, I couldn't be bothered." Well worth reading in its entirety, here.

Additionally, Michael Bryson gives his own, different take on the debate, here.