Banffing it up in Banff. Banff, the town with the name like the word "smock" that you just want to keep saying over and over...

7:49pm Banff AB.

Banff is like Quebec West, I’m telling you. I was at the grocery store and the cashier started going off about the “asti’d vache” qui ne lui “calissait pas la paix, crisse de tabernac” because even though there were too many people working, she wasn’t allowed to go home. Then there was the shaggy kid with the wide-brimmed ball cap and the fake I.D. (his buddy’s Quebec license). Christine, the secretary at the registrar’s office is also from Montréal. You walk down the street and you are as likely to hear French as English. I even told the dinning room guy “Merci” out of habit. It was because I’d been talking to Marie, one of the opera singers (there is an opera singers’ convention) who is also from Montreal.

As far as the work goes, it is great. The environment is really conducive to writing. I’ll probably get the last of the sonnets drafted by tomorrow (a full 10 days ahead of schedule!), which means I’ll get on that play for sure. Also, the New Canon review is not going to take that long either—it’s just the reading, which doubles as “inspirational” reading anyway, that’ll take a few days.

Maybe I should explain about the reading. I usually need to read some poetry first, before I can actually write any myself. I think because I work in so many different head spaces (coaching, training, teaching, reviewing, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, plays) I need to really isolate each space. So for now I am in poetry mode, and to get there I need to be reading some. A preview of the review: I like Bruce Taylor, Noah Leznoff, Iain Higgins and George Elliot Clarke, so far. The rest of the first 20 or so poets I found to be, well, exactly what Carmine said he was trying to avoid: “the plain, the soft-spoken, the flatly prosy, the paraphrasingly simple, the accessibly Canadian.” I’m a little surprised because Carmine is usually quite rigorous, but then again, there is still his unexplained appreciation for Robyn Sarah…

Running-wise, I ran for over two hours yesterday afternoon, 36min of which were spent on the Sulphur Mountain trail. Today I ran up Mount Norquay, but it was all road, and not that steep. Still a solid 20min climb. I am still not really feeling the altitude like I did last time. I must be in better shape. Not sure what else to say: more of the same to come.

Still working on getting those photos up.