neil gaiman is one of my all-time favourite writers. most recently, his story stardust was turned into a major hollywood film from last year (which lamentably, i did not see in the theatres, but i watched this weekend on video). he has also written several excellent novels, but the reason that i love him is because he wrote one of the greatest comic stories, really, a peridoical-form literary masterpiece of modern adult fantasy, the sandman.

born in portchester, england on november 10, 1960, gaiman's stories have absorbed the sense of fantasy and wonder of some of his early influences, such as c.s. lewis, j.r.r.tolkein, and ursula le guin.

i can still remember the day that i went to my local comic book shop in downtown edmonton and saw the first sandman comic. it was unlike anything i'd ever seen before. the cover was beautifully painted by comic artist legend dave mckean (who deserves an entire blog entry himself for his incomparable montage art pieces that have graced every cover of sandman). the artwork was sketchy and moody and dense, but the prose was simply stunning. i bought two copies.

sandman is about an anthropomorphization of an abstract concept - dream. his family is a cast of other dysfunctional anthropomorphizations, all cleverly possessing the first initial, "D" - there's dream (who also goes by the name of morpheus - yes, before the matrix trilogy), death (perhaps the most popular other main character, probably because she took the form of a cutie goth girl with an ankh necklace), destiny, destruction, desire, despair and delirium. there's really no justice that a couple of paragraphs can give to the sprawling universe that gaiman constructs in the title's 75-issue run. favourite characters of mine are lucifer (yes, that lucifer) who is an elegant, sophisticated blonde gentleman (when you're on his good side), hob gadling (a 600-year old man who death agrees to let live forever, just to see how he'll take it), william shakespeare and francis bacon, oh damn it - there are simply too many to count. my favourite story line was probably "seasons of mists" in which lucifer decides to leave hell and gives dream the key to the kingdom, which brings virtually every diety from ever mythology or faith to dream's doorstep, hoping to acquire hell from dream, is if it were an apartment to be sublet - i mean, this stuff is pure genius.

i've read many of his novels, including american gods, fragile things, good omens (one of my favourites), and neverwhere, which was turned into a BBC mini-series with limited production values, but a high degree of faithfulness to the original. mirrormask was another notable title, created with collaborator dave mckean, was made into a low-budget, highly-CG film that went into limited distribution and should be available at your local blockbuster - incredibly brilliant - i promise that you have not seen a film like this... well, except perhaps for pan's labyrinth. all of them are genius and all of them are worth hunting down.

i watched stardust this weekend, as i've already said, and it was simply beautiful. there are some exceptional performances put in by some very worthwhile actors, like robert deniro, claire danes (who is unbelievably beautiful in this film), and most especially, by michelle pfeiffer. but this beautiful, simple, silly little fairy tale, so full of clever humour, chases, heroes and villains, destinies hidden and revealed, and discovery of true love make this movie a contender for the title "princess bride for the 21st century".

- g

song of the day for honouring a fantasy genius: paperback writer, the beatles

this weekend’s whirlwind adventure began on thursday, with my almost seeing canadian new wave legends martha and the muffins at an out of the cold fundraiser.  i’ve loved martha and the muffins since i was a young boy, and echo beach still fills me with joy, living so close to sunnyside beach, which was the inspiration for the song.  i remember in 2002 when i first lived in toronto, walking from my high park apartment to the lakeshore and watching the lake and listening the waves brush against the beach in spring when no one else was around and thinking that it was the most serene place i’d ever been, even though it was surrounded by one of the biggest metropolises in canada.  the fundraiser began at 6:30, so i had to go right after work.  due to a cancellation and a schedule change, martha wouldn’t play until 9:30, and that was too late for me because the next day, friday, i was heading to ottawa on a company retreat and i had to get home to pack and prepare and finish some last minute work before my mid-afternoon departure.  so i was hugely disappointed at not seeing m+m!

this wouldn’t have really impacted my weekend adventure, except that i was also dangerously low on my cats’ special cat food!  if i was to go away for the weekend, then i had to be sure that they would be alright on their own until sunday evening, and i was sure the half cup of food they had left would not be enough.  i knew this on wednesday, but work and friends’ personal crises and martha and her muffins all conspired to keep me from getting to the pet food store!  so friday morning, i was streaking (no, no nudity) to work to commit my changes and brief the team, rushing back to high park to get cat food and set things up for my departure, and then back to the office to meet with my friends and get on the bus for sunny ottawa!

this was my first outing with company who annually (or so) go out to a retreat to bond and celebrate our successes for the past year.  this year, we went to ottawa to take in the winterlude!  the five hour bus ride was fun – it was great to hang out with coworkers and friends who i don’t normally get to see because i’ve been working away from the office for over a year and i only get to see a small subset of them for most of my time.  we arrived at night in ottawa and immediately set out to have a look at ice sculptures and enjoy a satisfying meal of wendy’s burgers (for me – prime rib or salmon for everyone who didn’t want to go and see the ice sculptures at night).

saturday morning, we went out early to tour the parliament building.  vigilant georgepechtol.com readers will realize that i’ve just been to the parliament last year, but i got to see some pretty impressive parts of the building that i didn’t get to see last time, mainly the parliamentary library which is very impressive, even though the pine that it is built of seems pale and folksy compared to some darker, more auspicious woods.  but we had to hurry through because the next event for the weekend would be…

curling.  a great canadian pastime.  the last time i went curling was in high school with my friend, EC.  i remember enjoying curling, even though it doesn’t require great strength or speed or agility or even concentration really to be good at.  what it requires is practice, experience, and focus, which meant that all of us were pretty much on an even playing field, being novice curlers all of us.  we played for two hours and my team lost both rounds, probably in small part due to the fact that as skip, i could never get the signals quite right in my head.  i’m pretty sure though that there were a few of us who left the rink in nepean thinking that an imason curling team might not be out of the realm of possibility!

i broke my camera falling on my ass at the curling ring, so i didn’t bother taking it out to the clubs that we went to that night.  imason works very very hard – harder than any company i’ve ever worked for – and to match, they play just as hard.  after dinner at the metropolitan brasserie, hosted by rather seductive looking wait staff to which i paid absolutely no attention, and in the presence of great conversation, we went to a new club in the byward market area of ottawa called heaven.  we got there at a respectably late hour (11 or so) for our VIP area and bottle service, but the club was still incredibly dead.  apparently, clubs in ottawa get started at around 11:30 and go hard for exactly three hours, after which there’s not a diner or fast-food joint that’s not overrun by sweaty drunken young people.  it was a typical imason night out with crazy drinking, clothing exchanges between co-workers, myself included, and random venue changes leaving us all shaking our heads wondering why we didn’t just stay put so that we wouldn’t be scrambling at last call – great times!!!

but the icing on the cake was sunday afternoon’s skating excursion along the rideau canal.  i haven’t done any serious skating since i was about 8 years old, and it’s always been a fear of mine, as a proud canadian, to demonstrate my lack of facility on the ice.  i started out slowly with my buddy jim and his incredibly adept sweetie, han, who on her second time on skates was making me look pretty bad.  however, skating is hard work, and after a couple of kilometers, han had to turn back.  i was torn – i could go back with them, or keep skating the length of the canal, which both jim and i had wanted to try.  jim and han set off to head back to the start, and i took it upon myself, novice skater that i am to get to the other end of the canal, 5 kilometers away.  the ice was terrible and the wind was strong, but it was such a thrill to partake of this defining canadian experience, and i finally made it as far as one could go (due to safety-related closures) – 7 kilometers from the start.  in total, i managed to squeeze in a gruelling 12km skate that was way more painful than if i had just run the distance, and i managed somehow to soak my heavy gray sweater with sweat by the time i literally stumbled back to the skate rental centre.

i spent the four hour bus trip back to toronto panicking that i had failed to leave my cats enough WATER to drink while i was away, even though i knew they had enough to eat, clutching at my stiff thighs.  in the end, the cats had food and water to spare, everyone was completely exhausted by thoroughly entertained by the excursion, and now we can all resume stressing out over the workload of the next week.  the toronto to which we returned was a full 10 degrees colder and much much windier than the national capital, and it was a cold welcome home.  but this weekend of curling, ice skating and drinking really taught me that the canadian winter experience is so very very hard to beat.  especially when you are surrounded by fabulous interesting friends and colleagues.

- g

this weekend’s whirlwind adventure began on thursday, with my almost seeing canadian new wave legends martha and the muffins at an out of the cold fundraiser.  i’ve loved martha and the muffins since i was a young boy, and echo beach still fills me with joy, living so close to sunnyside beach, which was the inspiration for the song.  i remember in 2002 when i first lived in toronto, walking from my high park apartment to the lakeshore and watching the lake and listening the waves brush against the beach in spring when no one else was around and thinking that it was the most serene place i’d ever been, even though it was surrounded by one of the biggest metropolises in canada.  the fundraiser began at 6:30, so i had to go right after work.  due to a cancellation and a schedule change, martha wouldn’t play until 9:30, and that was too late for me because the next day, friday, i was heading to ottawa on a company retreat and i had to get home to pack and prepare and finish some last minute work before my mid-afternoon departure.  so i was hugely disappointed at not seeing m+m!

this wouldn’t have really impacted my weekend adventure, except that i was also dangerously low on my cats’ special cat food!  if i was to go away for the weekend, then i had to be sure that they would be alright on their own until sunday evening, and i was sure the half cup of food they had left would not be enough.  i knew this on wednesday, but work and friends’ personal crises and martha and her muffins all conspired to keep me from getting to the pet food store!  so friday morning, i was streaking (no, no nudity) to work to commit my changes and brief the team, rushing back to high park to get cat food and set things up for my departure, and then back to the office to meet with my friends and get on the bus for sunny ottawa!

this was my first outing with company who annually (or so) go out to a retreat to bond and celebrate our successes for the past year.  this year, we went to ottawa to take in the winterlude!  the five hour bus ride was fun – it was great to hang out with coworkers and friends who i don’t normally get to see because i’ve been working away from the office for over a year and i only get to see a small subset of them for most of my time.  we arrived at night in ottawa and immediately set out to have a look at ice sculptures and enjoy a satisfying meal of wendy’s burgers (for me – prime rib or salmon for everyone who didn’t want to go and see the ice sculptures at night).

saturday morning, we went out early to tour the parliament building.  vigilant georgepechtol.com readers will realize that i’ve just been to the parliament last year, but i got to see some pretty impressive parts of the building that i didn’t get to see last time, mainly the parliamentary library which is very impressive, even though the pine that it is built of seems pale and folksy compared to some darker, more auspicious woods.  but we had to hurry through because the next event for the weekend would be…

curling.  a great canadian pastime.  the last time i went curling was in high school with my friend, EC.  i remember enjoying curling, even though it doesn’t require great strength or speed or agility or even concentration really to be good at.  what it requires is practice, experience, and focus, which meant that all of us were pretty much on an even playing field, being novice curlers all of us.  we played for two hours and my team lost both rounds, probably in small part due to the fact that as skip, i could never get the signals quite right in my head.  i’m pretty sure though that there were a few of us who left the rink in nepean thinking that an imason curling team might not be out of the realm of possibility!

i broke my camera falling on my ass at the curling ring, so i didn’t bother taking it out to the clubs that we went to that night.  imason works very very hard – harder than any company i’ve ever worked for – and to match, they play just as hard.  after dinner at the metropolitan brasserie, hosted by rather seductive looking wait staff to which i paid absolutely no attention, and in the presence of great conversation, we went to a new club in the byward market area of ottawa called heaven.  we got there at a respectably late hour (11 or so) for our VIP area and bottle service, but the club was still incredibly dead.  apparently, clubs in ottawa get started at around 11:30 and go hard for exactly three hours, after which there’s not a diner or fast-food joint that’s not overrun by sweaty drunken young people.  it was a typical imason night out with crazy drinking, clothing exchanges between co-workers, myself included, and random venue changes leaving us all shaking our heads wondering why we didn’t just stay put so that we wouldn’t be scrambling at last call – great times!!!

but the icing on the cake was sunday afternoon’s skating excursion along the rideau canal.  i haven’t done any serious skating since i was about 8 years old, and it’s always been a fear of mine, as a proud canadian, to demonstrate my lack of facility on the ice.  i started out slowly with my buddy jim and his incredibly adept sweetie, han, who on her second time on skates was making me look pretty bad.  however, skating is hard work, and after a couple of kilometers, han had to turn back.  i was torn – i could go back with them, or keep skating the length of the canal, which both jim and i had wanted to try.  jim and han set off to head back to the start, and i took it upon myself, novice skater that i am to get to the other end of the canal, 5 kilometers away.  the ice was terrible and the wind was strong, but it was such a thrill to partake of this defining canadian experience, and i finally made it as far as one could go (due to safety-related closures) – 7 kilometers from the start.  in total, i managed to squeeze in a gruelling 12km skate that was way more painful than if i had just run the distance, and i managed somehow to soak my heavy gray sweater with sweat by the time i literally stumbled back to the skate rental centre.

i spent the four hour bus trip back to toronto panicking that i had failed to leave my cats enough WATER to drink while i was away, even though i knew they had enough to eat, clutching at my stiff thighs.  in the end, the cats had food and water to spare, everyone was completely exhausted by thoroughly entertained by the excursion, and now we can all resume stressing out over the workload of the next week.  the toronto to which we returned was a full 10 degrees colder and much much windier than the national capital, and it was a cold welcome home.  but this weekend of curling, ice skating and drinking really taught me that the canadian winter experience is so very very hard to beat.  especially when you are surrounded by fabulous interesting friends and colleagues.

- g