Now Playing: tea; the Kama Sutra soundtrack; heavy eyelids.
Happy Halloween. Happy New Year, at least to the ancient Celts.
It's nearly nine o'clock. I should have been home about three hours ago - what you get for getting complacent about the speed of the TTC and your own ability to find the Greyhound station from Dundas subway stop. Missed the 11:30 and had to wait around for the next bus at 2:30. However, I got to do it while reading An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, which is Jim Munroe's latest book and a lot of fun, so I didn't mind. And I'm home now.
I've been in Toronto for the last three days or so. Sunday was CanZine at the Gladstone Hotel - for which Steve came up on the redeye bus the morning of, leaving Ottawa at midnight and arriving in Toronto at 6 in the morning, giving him time to go to church, eat breakfast and meet me at the fair (we walked in within a minute of each other, I think.) He's certifiable. I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course. We shoved a couple of tables together at CanZine so we'd have space, and sold a few books - and one copy of the Capital Slam collection, although to our utter dismay we later discovered that what we'd sold was in fact the empty case of the copy we'd opened in order to let people listen to the CD.
By the way - if you've Googled "Capital Slam" because your CD wasn't in the case, and by some fluke found this entry - my deepest, deepest apologies. Post a comment or get in touch with me through Dusty Owl (www.dustyowl.com) and we'll send you your CD with our heartfelt contrition. I blame the heat and the sensory overload at Hotel Canzine.
The CanZine experience is draining and entertaining and overloading and inspiring all at once - I only got to attend one of the panel discussions being held in the No Media Kings room, but I did pick up two of Jim Munroe's books (he started No Media Kings, publishes his own books, and does an awesome job with them. Besides the fact that I was handed Angry Young Spaceman, his second book, by a friend of mine who taught in Japan with me, and I promptly recommended it on my Japan website as required reading for anyone going to teach in Asia.)
The energy at CanZine is impressive. It might be partly due to the crowded conditions - it's a cramped market-day sort of feel, with people packed in (as we were) and sprawling into the connecting hallways. People come from all over - I saw a couple of groups from Ottawa, and ran into one more artist from town who had been at the Toronto Small Press Fair the day before and was now shopping at this one. I'll write more about it, though, when I have my pictures uploaded and I'm not exhausted from a long weekend of talking and reading and thinking and reacting and generally having a great time. I took notes. I took pictures. I'm trying to do it justice.
Posted by Kathryn Hunt
at 9:39 PM EST
