The Ideas of March
Befuckingware. Vowels are wierd. As are cnsnnts. Put an i in pens and you get something else entirely. Take an o from poop and it only goes pop which reminds me of that here I sit broken hearted little shitty and it was spellcheck’s idea to call it that btw. And substituting a consonant for a vowel is another hot one which also has nothing to do with what I’m talking about toddy
So the ZoomerShow for which I did a million pieces of advertising and signage, as well as a 60-page guidebook which is nicely magazine-y, is on this coming weekend in Vancouver and now I can breathe. Mostly anyway. This was my first time on the ZoomerShow and I worked with amazing and smart and fun people that I’ve never worked with before and never once did any of us lose our shit.
Here’s to coworkers who quietly and competently get it all done and don’t fucking buckle except once in a while with laughter
Also there’s that freelance job I’ve been doing which is going to press next week and will soon be tucked inside an LCBO Food & Drink magazine near you. It’s well under control or at least I am telling myself it is because I want some time off because Clutterbucks is getting away from me a little and I gotta get back into the shoes of my characters because those motherfuckers need to be on the move. Seriously. They have so much to do. Places to go. People to see. And huge empty speech bubbles on the tips of their tongues just waiting for me to fill up.
I’m working it out in my head all the time and when I do sit down to write this weekend, it’ll pour out of me like mad and I’ll be glad that Susan and I – when we were side-by-side typographers totally in love with all things type, words, and one another – used to have those typing races, laughing our heads off, yes, but in earnest competition, too.
Sometimes the words come out steeplechase and you pretty much have to gallop-type which is what all that prepared me for
But nothing prepared me for that time some 25 years later when I was reading Maclean’s magazine in my dentist’s waiting room and the last page was about Susan who had died just as her novel, The Silent Wife, which is soon to be a movie starring Nicole Kidman, was published.
I think of her still; she remains an inspiration
I’ve been dreaming up a new character because one of the originals, Avo, had to go back to Yemen for an arranged marriage – his exit was spectacular btw – and another of them, Greybird, is going soon too, at the end of Season 3, which is just now at the starting gate.
Did I tell you I’m writing this book in Seasons and Episodes as opposed to Sections and Chapters? It’s because it started out as a sit-com and it just wants to go that way so I’m letting it. Anyway. Greybird’s replacement character is a cinch because it’s a height-wary actual bird whose resemblance to Greybird, who had his own troubles with heights, is so strong that everybody believes it’s actually him. So that’s fun to write about because suspension of disbelief is boundless and although he’s no Jonathan Livingston, he’s a heroic little guy. And I can’t wait to introduce Avo’s replacement, Gideon, a homeless gentleman who sleeps on the bench outside of Clutterbucks and who, Daphne discovers long after hiring him, was her music teacher in high school.
So those are some of my Ideas Of March. How about you?
I’m looking forward to it, whatever “it” is, in part because it’s almost spring and in part because weekends will be mine again and I’ll get lots of gallop writing done and also it will be a time of delicious things to eat that aren’t bad for you which means basically I’ll go back to my regular way of eating which I know is stupid trendy right now but whatev. I like yogurt and cheese and avocado and berries and fish and all kinds of vegetables and don’t really give much of a hoot for anything else unless it’s extraordinary bread and even then I can control myself, mostly, most of the time.
Unless I am stressed, in which case I go high-fat AND high-carb, which is regrettable, but brief. Mostly.
Also I will get back to the gym where I belong in the early morning hours rather than being in the company of those pushy 7am GO train over-achievers, although I think they might miss me because they won’t have anybody to glare at. Can’t wait to slouch on the platform with my own coffee-guzzling-9:30-train peeps who don’t get all weird when I type loud.
The actual Ides of March: A History Lesson
I wouldn’t say the Romans did things the easy way – I mean take a look at the way they settled a grudge for instance – but I also think maybe there was no easy way back in double-digit BC.
They did not number days of a month from the first to the last for instance. Oh no. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month, one of them being the Ides which was the 13th of most months, but the 15th of a few, including March. These dates were determined by the full moon, and in the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the new year.
So there were Ides of Other Months, too, and the only reason the Ides of March became notorious was because it was the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar and so became a turning point in Roman history.
In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date my parents were married
But back to Julius Caesar. He was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate in 44 BC, an event led by Brutus and Cassius and a shitload of co-conspirators.
A seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March and on his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, “The Ides of March are come”, implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied, “Aye, Caesar; but not gone.”
Which among other things goes to show you how long the semi-colon has been puzzling mankind
This meeting is dramatised in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to “beware the Ides of March.”
“Don’t send an Anniversary Card,” my mother used to joke, “send a Sympathy Card.”
Saw Knives Out last night btw and thought it was far too average and predictable for such a great title. Christopher Plummer is cast these days as the dead guy which must be a bummer. The whole thing was meh at best but I did like the art direction mostly because I like doors that go nowhere and fake windows and arches and rooms full of books and colour and stuff and nonsense. Daniel Craig was mis mis mis cast. His character was like Archie fucking Bunker when he played that southern cop. After All In The Family. Remember? Or Big Daddy from Hot Tin Roof.
