One of the things I’m doing with the Sel Souris project is trying to build a diverse series of art pieces that relate to the island.

I’m blessed to have a diverse and creative group of friends. Several of them have made their own contributions as a gift. I cherish these, and many of them are up on the site, and over then next few weeks, I’m going to talk about them, and what they evoked in me. it’s a very powerful emotional experience for me every time someone paddles in this pool with me. I feel as though the work is resonating, and I feel understood. Who doesn’t like that?

So, you can understand how dismayed I was when it seemed I’d lost one of these pieces.

As I was building the website, I came to the conclusion that this poem was just missing altogether, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Happily, I found it as one of the million pieces of paper attached to my little shrine to Sel Souris, and can now include it on the site here.

Isn’t that nice?

Rilla was one of the gang back on my old blog, and one of the original readers of The Irresponsible Voyage as it was posted daily.

She then read the first draft of Now England Sees, making a great many useful suggestions.

Shortly thereafter, she gifted me with this poem, and I bawled (I’m not much of a man, by the light of day). She got it.

I wanted to share it with you. To see more of Rilla, you can head to her blog over here.

In the near future, I’m hoping I can twist her arm into doing a guest post. In the meantime, I’ll give you the poem, and her blog. She’s squinky.

On her blog, Miss Polymath, has already written eloquently and completely on the life of our dog Destine. Desi died this afternoon after a long illness but, happily, without a great deal of suffering.

I wanted to write about her death, which may seem morbid. For this I apologize, but it spoke a great deal to me, and I found it moving and sad.

Last week, Polymath and I agreed that it was time to have her euthanized. She had lost a great deal of weight with no change in eating habits, and was beginning to have some mobility issues. Neither of us foresaw anything pleasant in her immediate future. It was, as you may guess, among the harder decisions to make.

Right up until the last minute, we weren’t sure. When you take on total responsibility for a creature who cannot speak, who cannot tell you if they are well or not, it is incredibly heavy. Part of that burden is that you know a dog will not question your decision. They trust you as the arbiter of life and death.

We spent much of the day with her. She was crabby, and not much in the mood to have attention lavished upon her. This has often been the case of late. Still, we wanted to try and make her last hours peaceful.

When the time came, we took her to the car. it was a short drive to the clinic. She was reasonably cooperative about going inside considering she does not like needles.

The doctor assured us, based on what he could determine, that this was the right time for Desi to go, before the pain became intense. This gave Polymath great comfort. I took slightly less from it. I had harboured fewer doubts on this front from the outset. And there is a piece of me that hates very much to be right.

She was taken into another room where an IV catheter was placed in her right forepaw. She came back into the examining room with a purple bandage on her paw, and the catheter ready to receive the injection. This procedure is very kind. It ensures that the needle is not the very last thing they experience.

We had a few minutes alone with Desi, trying hard to remain calm and positive and friendly, so as not to produce stress. It was not easy, but Desi did not seem upset.

The vet returned, and we placed Desi on a blanket on the table, and held her softly while he prepared. We attempted to get her to lie down, but she would have none of it.

The vet said that it was fine. Polymath stroked her and kissed her and the vet plunged the Euthanol into the catheter.

Desi’s legs drooped at once, instantly, so quickly that it shocked Polymath. I saw the surprise and some horror. We helped her gently down to the blanket.

The light, pale yellow and green, that had always surrounded her, went out in that sudden moment that her body lay still.

“She’s gone,” he said.

And she was. Instantly gone from the companion of ten years to this frail and empty thing on the table. So fast and so utterly that it made me weep.

I kissed her face one final time (I don’t know why), and we left. Desi wasn’t there anymore, and this shell was too painful a reminder of that.

Where she has gone, if indeed anywhere, I do not know.

Though I had a year to make peace with the loss of her, the death leaves me sad and horrified. I know her death was the best one she could have hoped for in many ways. I have no doubt that it was kinder than the alternative.

Still, I have a hard time finding beauty in this thing. Intellectually, I understand some of the beauty inherent in death, but emotionally I can’t right now.

She faced her death on her feet, with no fear and no pain.

We should all be so lucky.

We’ll miss her terribly.

Miss Polymath and I went to see a movie on Friday night. It was the new film by Atom Egoyan, Chloe. Most people are not aware of it by name. Almost everybody knows it simply as “that new movie where Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore have a nude love scene.

Look, I’ve nothing against that. I’m not proud. I’ll admit that seeing this girl

and this girl

together was more than a small selling point for us to see the movie. It’s not just a hotness thing, either. These women are not just smoking hot, they are both incredible actresses.

It’s also directed, as I said, by Atom Egoyan. Now, I’m not in love with Egoyan the way that so many people are. More than half of his films are just kind of there as far as I’m concerned. On the other hand, he’s directed at least one of my favorite films of all time, so I was more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

A small note here. The film was playing at the Princess Theatre here in Edmonton. The princess is a gorgeous little theater on Whyte Avenue. It’s one of my favourite places to watch films.

The last time Miss Polymath and I went to the Princess we saw the film Moon, which was on my ten best list for last year. Then she and I wandered up and down Whyte Avenue and had one of those really good, kind of magical times that teenagers have all the time, and thrity-somethings have once every couple of years.

So I was stoked.

Well, Miss Polymath was still lovely company, but Chloe isn’t going to make anybody’s top 10.

It was one of the very worst films I have ever seen.

The plot, such as it is, goes like this. Julianne Moore plays a gynecologist with a teen-aged son and a mostly absent husband, played by Liam Neeson. (Liam Neeson does the best he can do with a very badly written role, and I’m laying off him. This is the film he was making when his wife died suddenly. I thought about this often while watching.) The wife suspects the husband is cheating, and she hires a prostitute, played by Amanda Seyfried, to see if he is, in fact, on the prowl. The prostitute becomes involved with the wife in more than the usual way, and then the movie turns into a big pile of shit.

There are spoilers coming. Ha! As if you could have this film SPOILED.

Atom Egoyan has lost his fucking mind. First off, this screenplay is absolutely appalling. It’s adapted from the french film Nathalie by Erin Cressida Wilson. Had I known this, I’d have pulled the plug earlier. Now, I can’t speak to the quality of the original film. It doesn’t look MUCH better, and I expect to watch it this week. What I can say is that Wilson is responsible for two of the worst written films of the last fifteen years Fur and Secretary.

Her dialogue is death.

Some writers write dialogue that is utterly true to life, and that is a hell of an achievement. Other writers are merely competent. Still others write dialogue that no living humans have ever said, but in such a way that it is magnificent. The dialogue in Deadwood, for example, or in the best of works by Mamet and Parker. You WISH that people spoke in such a way.

Wilson’s characters speak like robots which have been poorly programmed to mimic conversation. It would fail a Turing test.

Her story structure is just as poor, though some of the blame may fall to Egoyan here as well.

The film starts with some narration from Chloe, the eponymous call-girl, about her line of work. We then cut to the story. There is never a trace of narration again. Ever. The film is simply NOT from her point of view. It’s entirely from the point of view of the wife. In fact, as you’ll find, the whole film hinges on the wife’s inability (and, therefore, ours) to know what is going on in Chloe’s head.

With this in mind, that narration is simply a mistake. A mistake the film OPENS with.

It doesn’t get better. Minor characters appear in scenes that seem to be designed to impart significance to their actions, or to make them the proverbial gun on the mantelpiece for later, and then they simply disappear from the film.

Most egregiously, the pacing is off. The film is 96 minutes long, and the film takes it’s crucial twist with fewer than twenty minutes left in the film, which ends in a muddled and risible mess.

The woman needs to have her keyboard privileges revoked. End of story.

Egoyan must be insane to choose this screenplay out of all the ones on offer. To then compound that mistake with terrible editing and pacing is only further sign that something has gone horribly wrong with his ability to discern.

I want to be charitable and offer that the untimely death of Neeson’s wife may have had an effect there as well. I don’t see how, but I’ll leave that out there.

The actors, to a one, do the best they can. They act their asses off. Julianne Moore, in particular, does everything she can to make her character coherent, but in the end just has to surrender to the stupidity and look as tired and sad as I felt watching it. Amanda Seyfried seems to have been the brunt of the inexplicable directorial choices. She is allowed to show not a sign of the darkness of her character until the big twist, and after that point, I think the only direction she must have been given was “Act harder”. I’ve seen her be fantastic in too many things to believe the muddled character of Chloe is her fault.

The story is ridiculous. It didn’t have to be. It was never going to be original, but it could have at least been entertaining. There are several ways to approach this story, and Egoyan seems to have wanted to use all of them.

First, you could make the film as a story of middle-aged sexual alienation, and a tragedy of manners. The film seems to try that for the first third. At heart it’s the story of a man and wife, who love deeply, but no longer passionately. Great films have been made on this topic. Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut covered this ground with passion and depth, humanity, and no small amount of kink. This film was never going to match that effort, but you can see signs of the movie it might have been.

Second, you could make the film a psychological thriller, a story of obsession that spirals out of control. You see, the big spoilery twist is this: Chloe is in love with the wife. She tells the wife that the husband DID take advantage of her. She describes these assignations to the obvious titillation of the wife, and eventually more or less seduces her with them. They didn’t, however, actually happen. The husband has remained loyal. The wife is the cheat, now.

The main problem here is that this twist happens when the movie is nearly over. Chloe’s stalking behaviour is so abbreviated and out of left field that you wind up feeling like the director had no ending and just went for a sudden swerve. There was no a-ha moment to pay off this twist. In fact, the twist is just laughable and hurried and resolved poorly.

They could have made the reveal a half an hour in and the movie much better for it, as the wife tried to deal with her real feelings for Chloe, and Chloe attempted to worm her way closer.

But no. Instead, Chloe just hurriedly seduces the son in the marital bedroom. There is a brief confrontation and then Chloe falls out of a very conveniently loose window. In slow motion. With a smile on her face. With no consequences to the woman who accidentally pushed her. And the movie ends.

Finally, you could just make the movie an exercise in titillation. This is, I think, the approach of the original, though I can’t be sure. There’s no shame in this, if you’re honest. This could be a movie in which hot people fuck. There are lots of movies like that. There’s no denying the attractiveness of all involved. There came a point in the film where I honestly said to myself, “Well, they’re going to have sex eventually, so at least there’s that.”

When that much vaunted sex scene came, I was astonished to find it both dull and mildly repellent. The utter lack of chemistry was part of the problem,\ but also the framing just robbed it of any impact.

After the film, I ranted for an hour. The rant was a lot funnier than this review is, I’m afraid. I called the movie Thighs Wide Shut. The more I think about that, the more correct it feels to me.

This movie was neither highbrow, nor lowbrow, while it pandered to both extremes.

It was full of people who deserve better, and made by a man who is certainly capable of greatness.

It cost at least a few million dollars to make, and I can’t help but think that money would have been better spent making just about any other film in the world.

And I guess, ultimately, that offends me the most. Sometimes a movie reaches high, and fails. Some would say that Eyes Wide Shut is one of these. Not me, but I can respect the opinion. In that case, I can look at the choice to make it and I understand it. This film reached for nothing, so why bother?

As an artist, I think about the fee Erin Cressida Wilson took for the screenplay, and I think about how little she deserved it. I can’t recall who once said that praise of the unworthy is like robbery, but that’s how it feels.

Of all the stories, and of all the screenplays, why this? Of all the ways to film it, why this?

And for the love of god, if your publicity campaign is going to focus almost entirely on a single nude scene? Make it good.

Just in general, Atom Egoyan, make it good.

Hi there,

Go FAQ yourself will be a regular feature here on Fishclock, where experts in a variety of fields answer your questions. Happily, I’ve been collecting these questions privately from friends and family for a while in preparation for this first column.

Our expert today is Rosalie Morrisson. Rosalie is the inventor of the chronokinetic oscillator. She is currently the chair of Applied Engineering at Aquabis University.

Q: What is a chronokinetic oscillator?

A: A chronokinetic oscillator is a mechanism which converts time into kinetic energy. In the near future, we are hoping that the reverse will also be true.

Q: How, exactly, is that accomplished?

A: I’m afraid that’s proprietary, at this point.

Q: What are the practical applications of the invention right now?

A: Right now, as time passes through the oscillator, a kinetic charge is built. At the will of the operator, this charge is released. One is suddenly struck with that force, and given a very thorough and immediate sense of how much time has passed.

Q: Once the reverse is true, what then?

A: That’s the real key. Theoretically, kinetic force applied to the oscillator should be able to, depending on direction and level of force, affect the flow of perceived time. For example, a person wearing an oscillator as a headband might turn time backwards by rubbing their temple.

A forceful slap applied to a person wearing an oscillator could send them slightly forward in time, as if to say, “Bitch, I will deal with you later.”

Q: How much does the unit cost?

A: At present the unit is only conceptual, but we anticipate a time when every person owns several. Ubiquity is the goal.

Q: Are you actually a scientist?

A: No. I’m just very full of regret.

(Okay… so clearly, that was a gag. Such as it was. This is, however, a real column. I realized that I have, in my acquaintance, a bewildering variety of subject matter experts. Please do send in your actual questions on damned near any topic of your choice, and I will do my best to have them answered here by one of them. I think this could be fun, but I need your participation. Join me, won’t you? I will run out of my own questions very soon.)

True to my word, this page is updated:

How am I doing?

Answer

Also this.

Also, starving and restless. Two damned days wasted by lying in a dark room.

No more bright flickery screen.

Oh. But this.

The blog is now officially up and running. Please let me know if you find any typos or weirdness, and expect some fine tuning over the next little while. For example, the links list will change a lot.

If there’s anything you want to see, let me know. I’d be happy to try and accommodate.

I intend to have a fairly lengthy post each Monday. I also intend to post some links and small comments on Wednesday. On Friday I hope to have some occasional guests, and do some lighter stuff.

I intend to go on a very extreme diet in the near future, and I may blog about that experience as well.

Mostly, though, I’ll be talking about writing, the process of shopping a book, and art in general.

Today, I’d like to discuss nanotechnology. In particular, this.

Furthermore, I’ve been reading that the Church of Scientology is having severe international finance problems. This, coupled with a lack of new high profile recruits, of late, and increasing spread of their supposedly classified religious secrets, indicates that the scam may be coming, at long last to an end.

Being a citizen of the internet as I am, I would like to make a humble proposition to the nanotech engineers out there. Please begin construction of the world’s smallest violin. I will be wanting to play it when the followers of Hubbard finally admit defeat.

Thanks.