Mid-July Book Shopping Interlude

I've been hard at work on two short projects I'll be writing about here in the next couple of days. In the meantime, since it was a bit cooler today (and my eyes were going Hammer-red from staring at my computer) I had lunch downtown and hit the World's Biggest Bookstore on Edward St. in downtown Toronto today. In addition to their always wonderful support of local writers, like yours truly...

...there's never a shortage of great books on sale to pick up for a song. I found this one today. This is the sort of marked down coffee table book that makes horror writers instinctively reach for their credit cards. I used to work at this store back in the mid-80s when I was getting started as a writer. You know how some bookstores just smell like bookstores? Well, this one does. Feels like home.

Keep cool, and stay tuned. I'll be back over the weekend with some updates.

Happy Canada Day/Happy Pride

Sunday is a day I like to lie in bed a little later than usual. I don't' sleep, but I do take my iced coffee in bed and usually throw in an easy-on-the-mind horror movie, for instance Dracula A.D. 1972.

The affection I feel for this brainless cinematic giggle, which was already a dated period-piece before the cameras were switched off during the filming, is one I share with my friend and colleague, novelist Rio Youers. He and I can toss lines from this movie back and forth with a dexterity that is Wimbledon-worthy. Fecund with clichés and improbability (the Scotland Yard cops discussing the possibility of vampirism alone is worth the price of the DVD) it's the ideal "don't talk to me, I'm not awake" sort of flick, and since the DVD player is in the bedroom, it barely necessitates movement.

Last night, I had dinner with friends. It was the perfect pre-Canada Day, pre-Pride evening--a traditional backyard barbecue in good company, with beer and wine aplenty, and lots of bookish gossip and good cheer.

When we called it a night near one p.m., I took a taxi back home. The CN Tower was lit up in rainbow colours, and there was a festive mood on the streets as Toronto prepared for the annual Pride celebrations, the city's biggest and most lucrative cultural event of the year. At home, I took Beckett around the block for a walk, then settled down for a long summer's nap (interrupted, naturally, hellishly early by Beckett, whose own schedule is sacrosanct to him, and by extension, his "forever family.")

This morning, between reading the Happy Canada Day and Happy Pride Day messages on Facebook, and swiping back and forth with BFF Ron Oliver, and checking Huffington Post Canada for its Pride coverage (and the always hateful, turgid comments from readers whose lips likely move when they watch television), I revisited London in 1972 via Dracula A.D. 1972. I love this movie the way one loves an old dog who was never completely "there," who farted and bumped into mirrors, but who was ever-present and ubiquitous throughout one's childhood. Christopher Lee is an actor whose brilliance shone through the material he played, whether it was good, bad, or mediocre. He was always Christopher Lee, no matter what the film.

Now, time to get cleaned up, hit the gym (via non-Pride Parade routes) and then come home and do some writing, as deadlines loom. Happy Pride (even if you're not gay) Happy Canada Day (even if you're not Canadian) and Happy Sunday (even if you're unlucky enough never to have seen Dracula A.D. 1972.)