He bought damaged and used sex dolls online. So many they crowded his apartment, lying on all the furniture, taking turns in his bed. He didn’t have sex with them though. Instead he just held them and repaired their tears and dents and bought them new outfits. He was patient and listened to them talk without interrupting. They told him the secret things they’d done with their past lovers. He knew he wasn’t alone anymore.

previous |  index |  next

buy postcard |  buy postcard with added lit

Inspired by John Robb‘s comment that Baghdad is the 21st century’s first Guernica. That and Christmas shopping season.

Here’s some of the mental shrapnel that’s been hitting me lately:

– The foreclosure factories: America’s new industry!

– The age of nations is over. The age of cities is well under way.

– I’m not the only one saying we should send people to Mars on one-way trips.

– Watch the next Mars Rover being built live.

– Apache helicopter crew seeks legal advice on killing during battle.

– Dinosaur skull found in wall of church. Well, that changes everything!

– Paparazzi want to use drones. So do divorce lawyers.

– CSI: Microsoft

– Is open-source jihad the first new military theory of the 21st century?

– Courier company wants to crowdsource its deliveries.

The National Post asked a number of Canadian writers, including me, to come up with one word that best summed up their work. I chose the word “apocalypse” for reasons explained in the article — including the fact that it’s part of the title of my new book.

I also considered “simulacra” and “Disneyland.”

I had a lovely time reading at the latest W2 Real Vancouver Writers Series last night. I was honoured to be a guest of the first series, and doubly honoured to be invited back for the sequel. The first time I had the misfortune of following Kevin Chong onstage. Kevin’s a great guy and a great reader — and an impossible act to follow. So this time series organizer Sean Cranbury was kind enough to let me read first — which always gives me a bad case of the nerves. So I was a little rambly, but the audience was forgiving, and we all had a good time in the end. My reading starts around the eight minute mark. I’m not actually tweeting at the beginning of it — I was trying to record the reading on audio but my Cinch app logged me out. Ah well.

(The image is a detail taken from inside the venue.)

I’ll be reading at the latest Real Vancouver Writers Series event, Wednesday, Nov. 17. I’d love to see you if you can make it.

Wednesday, Nov. 17
8 p.m.
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street
Vancouver

My dear friend George Murray just interviewed me over at Open Book Toronto. It’s one of those different kind of interviews.

Partway through this investigative feature about counterfeit products, I began to wonder how many of our modern maladies could be caused by knock-offs. That nasty skin rash you’ve had for months? It’s your fake Louis Vutton bag. Those hallucinations you’ve been having? Those cheap imitation Oakleys. That stomach cancer that’s killing you? That fraudulent truffle oil. Maybe it’s not pollution and toxic chemicals that are poisoning us. Maybe it’s the fact that everything we know is false, that nothing is real. There are even cheap knock-offs of you sitting in identical cubicles somewhere else, waiting to take over your life, to become you. We are all counterfeits now.

In my first book, Please, the narrator — who is only me sometimes in the books, despite what some friends and family have claimed — works for a while as a human drug tester. It wasn’t nearly as fun as this guy makes it out to be — and it’s sure as hell not a viable career choice. Or so I’ve been told.

The baby is closing in on being a toddler, or least a crawler, and continues to keep me busy. So I may have missed your post/tweet/update in which you sang the praises of The Warhol Gang, thus earning yourself a free short story. Let me know if that’s the case and I’ll ship you a PDF hot off the presses.

I’m probably going to do something similar with the paperback release of The Warhol Gang in the spring, but hopefully with a new story. (I need to find the time to write it.) And hopefully something with some design to it and an epub version. But I’d need somebody with design and epub skills for that. So if you know anyone….