Monday, May 19, 2008

Opération Point-QC

J'ajoute un lien au site web de l'Opération Point-QC, fondée par Daniel Turp afin de pétitioner la création d'un nom de domaine .QC sans le .CA à la fin. C'est une bonne idée qui circulent depuis très longtemps (j'ai entendu des gens se plaindent à ce sujet il y a une décennie), et je félicite Daniel d'avoir le courage et la conviction de mener le project à terme, ce que je suis convaincu qu'il va réussir à faire.


Et en même temps, allez faire un tour au site web de Daniel à sa nouvelle adresse: http://www.danielturpqc.org/

Et pourquoi pas devenir un "fan" de Daniel sur sa nouvelle page Facebook?

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Cultural Stockpiling

I set out from home this sunny morning with a plan to hit the used record and cd shops in the cool part of town in order to try to sell off 4 records (not originally mine; I don't even own a record player) and 4 cds. It was also a chance to take in the sun since it's supposed to rain for the next couple of days, and more importantly to take in this city which I love so much and which I will be forced to leave in just two short months. I managed to sell / simply give away the records and cds. I didn't get much for them, but I was mainly happy to get rid of them since they were emotional baggage I did not want to take with me when I move (I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff from my late spouse lately in anticipation of this move and starting over somewhat afresh and unburdened by material objects from that relationship).

Anyway, I finally arrived back home a shocking 8 hours later extremely happy and weighed down with an immense pile of second-hand treasures! And when I say immense, I mean immense. I ended up hitting just 5 second-hand cd and books stores, but I browsed away almost the entire day and ended up buying 8 books, 7 dvd's, and a whopping 18 cd's!!!

I have never shopped like that in my life. I have never splurged that much at a single time before. To be fair, it wasn't entirely splurging since everything was so cheap, no where near what one would pay for all that new. But given how fiscally responsible and conservative I am when it comes to money, blowing $300 in a single day on books, dvd's, and cd's is a big deal for me.

I am absolutely thrilled though and don't regret a single penny. I am cultural stockpiling. Yes, this splurge was all about stocking up for when I cross the border in two months into the big, bad U.S. of A. where I know that everything that is normal, abundant popular culture around here will suddenly become a rare "import", if lucky enough to be available for importation at all.

Presque tout ce que j'ai acheté est en français. Des livres sur le nationalisme (technically some of these could count as "research"), des films que je pense peut-être pouvoir jouer pour mes futurs étudiants dans une espèce de ciné-club qui existe (je pense) sur le campus, ou bien que moi je devrais fondé en arrivant, avec l'aide des profs de français, et tout simplement de la musique québécoise pour me consoler une fois que je serai pognée là-bas, triste et en peine d'amour pour mon pays. For both of my countries, actually. A third of the cd's were pure English Canadian, the kind of English Canadian rock that couldn't be any more canuck if you doused it in maple syrup.

Cultural stockpiling. It doesn't make forced exile any less emotional, but it does provide some solace. It's money well spent. I can't wait for the next sunny day to hit the second-hand shops and stock up some more... No matter how long I end up stuck south of the 49th, mon âme et mon coeur seront toujours ici dans mes pays.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Book Proposal, Take Two

I have just sent off my book proposal to the big publisher whom I talked to at MLA and whom I really hope takes it. The more I think about it, the more I think this publisher would be the best fit, probably much better than the first one I sent it too, mainly for prestige reasons and with a "there's no harm in trying" attitude. But this publisher is prestigious too, and the only harm was waiting and waiting for a response only to find out that the first one was definitely cancelling the series I'd submitted to. And not having my proposal in the pipeline at this other publisher during that time. But hopefully having talked to the editor at MLA before sending it off will prove to have been a good thing, and hopefully there will be a positive response this time around!

Now there's just that darn anthology proposal to write, the one I've been procrastinating about for over two years now, probablement parce que je dois l'écrire en français. Ayoye, il va falloir dépoussiérer ma cervelle.