A Brief History of Time at Work 1

Above is one of the less iconic photos from the Great Depression. Of course, while the style -- from the fashions people wore to the method by which employment agencies marketed themselves -- has changed, a lot remains the same. I remember first getting work through an employment agency, located around the corner from my shared house on Callandar Street, when I was spending my first years in Toronto. It was a small storefront that managed to exude a hopeless quality far out of proportion to its size. 

One goes to an emploment agency for obvious reasons, but one also goes out of a sense of desperation -- the uneasy feeling that while others have it all figured out and know how to land the really plum jobs, one is missing something, is a bit clued out, is de-looped. The rationalizing thought that occurs is this: at least one is doing something. But this something is being performed in a feckless, inefficient manner.


The agency is the one making the real money. The man or woman who works for it for a few days -- or weeks, or months -- is the vehicle that supplies profit; a profit that goes primarily to the organizers of the agency, not the one who does the daily labour ... not the worker.

John Reed

My interview with John Reed on TALES OF WOE is now up at Literary Kicks.

Loveography: Inside Haemi Fortress

EXT. A SMALL KOREAN VILLAGE. AN EARLY SUMMER EVENING, MID-WEEK.

A WESTERN MAN is walking down the city's main street. To his left is Haemi Fortress, a medieval Korean fort. Its wall is built of unevenly-matched stones, each lightened by age to a gentle ochre, as if the stone itself has softened.

Adam Bellow - publisher, writer [part one]

Adam Bellow of the New Pamphleteer and HarperCollins:

Note: This is the first part of a longer interview which I previously posted. An abridged version of it appeared at The Brooklyn Rail.

Truth Marathon

Added

The following publishers have been added to my links section, after having conducted interviews with them. (I began interviewing francophones earlier this summer; I hope to branch out to Korean publishers as well.) Given the cultural divide that exists between English and French literatures in Canada, their sites are well worth checking out:

Marcel Broquet, La Nouvelle Edition

Guy Saint-Jean, Editeur

Kerry Clare -- critic, lit-blogger

Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This

1. When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

Jacob Russell - poet, lit-blogger

Jacob Russell of Jacob Russell's Barking Dog and the poetry scene in Philadephia

1. When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

Unspooling thread

More chronicles of the warz.

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Loveography 1: Inside Haemi Fortress

EXT. A SMALL KOREAN VILLAGE. AN EARLY SUMMER EVENING, MID-WEEK.

A WESTERN MAN is walking down the city's main street. To his left is Haemi Fortress, a medieval Korean fort. Its wall is built of unevenly-matched stones, each lightened by age to a gentle ochre, as if the stone itself has softened.

The MAN walking beside this wall has a peaceful expression on his face. But from his body language we can tell he's lonely.

VO: Those were the days before I met you.

SFX: A light breeze.



EXT. THE INNER COURTYARD OF THE FORTRESS. MOMENTS LATER.

The Western man sees a group of CHILDREN. They are giggling and playing with each other. Then one of them spots the man.



CHILD: 의국인! [Foreigner]

SECOND CHILD: [sing-songy] Hello!

MAN: [smiling] Hello.

ALL CHILDREN: [gleefully] Hello! Hello!

MAN: [speaking slowly] Can you speak English?

The CHILDREN suddenly start to giggle uproariously. But their amusement is more a symptom of shyness than a desire to carry the game any further. They run away, still laughing.

The MAN continues walking. He makes his way through small, sad, empty streets.




V.O.: Chris Marker once asked how we can remember thirst. What I want to know is, how can we remember loneliness? It penetrates not just oneself but the world. Reality itself appears changed. The side-streets suck themselves empty, their noise vacuumed behind shuttered store-fronts. The sky pulls itself as taut as a blue drum. The clouds starve themselves and harm themselves, like self-loathing anorexics.

And as the world seems to change, so does the self: feel lonely enough, and that juncture of soul and body that comprises what you think of as you becomes as parched as cracked soil. The lonely individual is ancient, he is dirt.


INT. AN EVANGELICAL CHURCH. TEN MINUTES LATER.



The MAN enters. He is somewhat surprised to see a CROWD OF WORSHIPPERS. They are very involved in their prayers.

The MAN walks cautiously forward.

A MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN spots him.

CUT TO: CLOSE UP of MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN.

MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN: 하느님! 하느님이 자를 사랑하습니다! [God! God loves you!]

The MAN pulls back, alarmed.


EXT. A STREET. MOMENTS LATER.

The MAN is walking by himself again. He looks even sadder than before. A DIFFERENT CHILD spots him.

DIFFERENT CHILD: [especially enthusiastically] Hello!

V.O.: I don't know what it is was about that kid's voice. It went to my heart -- pierced it, like an exquisitely fine spear, the sharp end of sweetness. And it was this strange combination of sensations -- the needle's prick and the blood's sunny melt -- that suddenly transported me (there's no other phrase) to a different time. It was a time in the more recent past, when I still felt the residual parch of loneliness. But it was a time when I started to feel.

I mean, it was a time when I started to feel again.