Craig Davidson

Thursday, April 26th

REFRESH EDIT

Gotta put a new entry in to refresh the old. Bit of an odd system. I wrote the entry below on Wordperfect then transferred it. When it came up on the blog it was full of wing-dings and screwy fonts. So I had to fix it and refresh it with this post.

Odd aside: one of my buddies has a bad back and we always pick on him for it. Y'know, the shape of his spine. We're assholes. Anyway, I think my best was when I compared his back to one of those corkscrew slides at the park. Another buddy compared it to a DNA helix. Then my other buddy trumped it all by comparing it to the letter "U" written in wing-ding cursive. I don't know what the letter "U" even looks like in wingding cursive, or if there even is one, but that's why I found it so funny. The imagination took over.

Needless to say, our vertebrally-challenged buddy isn't too pleased with all this picking on his "wacky back" or his "banana back" as it is variously known.

He got over it. He's in a wheelchair now.

Kidding! I'm kidding! Come on, take it easy.

He spends most of his day floating in a pool like a jellyfish---that is, when he's not in his wheelchair.

What you're looking for is below.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 04.26.07 @ 11:01 PM EST [link]

STUCK IN A RUT?

Hi All,

I thought I'd address something that feels important to me to address. Nothing earthshattering, no big revelation, not a hermaphrodite or anything ... well, okay, so I'm a hermaphrodite but that's not really the point. Okay, so I'm not a hermaphrodite I just like writing that word.

Hermaphrodite.

Hermaphrodite: one having both male and female sexual characteristics and organs; at birth an unambiguous assignment of male or female cannot be made. -Websters dictionary.

Hey, when I looked up "hermaphrodite" online, the first few results all alluded to the rumor that Jamie Lee Curtis is/was one. I had no idea. She cannot be. Well, I mean, maybe, not that it's any of my beeswax anyway, but really? Jamie Lee? The comely Laurie Strode from HALLOWEEN---and the slightly older but nonetheless comely Laurie Strode from HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION? Well, I don't buy it. Remember that scene in TRADING PLACES when she played comely hooker Ophelia, humping some randy john in a bathtub full of ermine coats, moaning and emoting to beat the ole band, then, just when you think she's really into it, she gives her wristwatch a totally bored and dispassionate glance? In my experience, only a woman---a woman in FULL---could give such a glance. Then again, maybe that has more to do with my boudoir mannerisms than anything else.

Craig Davidson on 04.26.07 @ 10:28 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, April 24th

FIGHT UPDATE

Hi All,

Here's the press release I got from Sarah, my publicist at Soho the other day. My opponent, Jonathan Ames, has got to be the world's only Guggenheim Fellow / part-time pornstar.

The press release follows in the [more] section.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 04.24.07 @ 05:18 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, April 17th

GATORADE COMMERCIAL

Hi All,

So I'm watching TV and there's this commercial featuring Sidney Crosby, a Gatorade commercial. The idea is inside Sdney's head there's a whole war-room of little people who coordinate Sidney's life, help him score goals, etc. I'm sure a lot of you have seen it. The weirdest, most absurd part of it is---well, listen, it's all absurd, but still---the most absurd is that, as the view goes through Sidney's helmet, into his brain, into one cell of his brain where everything takes places, before that ... there are sharks in Sidney's brain. And most absurdly, the sharks look to be wearing backpacks. Does this make any sense to anyone, on any conceivable level? I mean, I know the very idea of a horde of little people inside Sidney's brain is silly so I shouldn't be nitpicking, but at least that works in terms of the ad ... but sharks wearing backpacks? In a man's brain?

These are some of the things I puzzle over.

I'm sort of busy at the moment with novel stuff, edits, a few freelance pieces I need to wrap up, so I'm sorry it's been relatively quiet on the blog front. Suffice it to say, I'm writing a lot, but not always in this space. This space is fun, I like to write here, but it doesn't exactly pay the billz. But I do want to do an entry ranking the Food Network TV chefs, from "Mildly Annoying" to "If I Could Kill This Person and Get Away Scot-Free, I'd Consider It." So look for that in a bit.

All best, Craig.

Craig Davidson on 04.17.07 @ 12:43 PM EST [link]

Wednesday, April 4th

I'M ALLAN, MAN! ALLAN!

Hi All,

Been awhile since I posted anything of consequence, so I thought I’d post something that entertains me to no end but may be of slim, may I say even nonexistent, entertainment to anyone whose name is not David Hickey.

This started the other day when my buddy Dave, a poet living out in PEI now, emailed me with news that, amongst other things, he’s been shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert award. This, I know, is a poetry award. The shortlist is as follows:

* a broken mirror, fallen leaf by Yvonne Blomer (Ekstasis Editions)
* In the Lights of a Midnight Plow by David Hickey (Biblioasis)
* Tacoma Narrows by Mitchell Parry (Goose Lane Editions)
* Anatomy of Keys by Steven Price (Brick Books)
* Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists by A. Rawlings (Coach House Books)
* Every Inadequate Name by Nick Thran (Insomniac Press)

Craig Davidson on 04.04.07 @ 09:43 PM EST [more..]

Sunday, April 1st

THE FIGHTER REVIEW (BIC)

Hi All,

Here's a review for THE FIGHTER. My thanks to Nancy Wigston, who may be the only woman other than my agent and editors and translator who's ever willingly and of open heart read the book. Then again, she got paid for the review. So perhaps the trend continues. My thanks, as always, to Nancy for the review.

All best, Craig.

Books in Canada:

Equal (sort of) and opposite (certainly) a force to the current “Chick Lit” explosion is its masculine manifestation, which might be labelled Man Lit or Dick Lit (the better rhyme). Whereas the girls need marriage and kids to verify their femaleness, the boys need something else-fighting in Craig Davidson’s book-to verify their manliness. Scratch the surface of the snot (reams of it), blood (ditto), and sore, aching bodies, and you’ll find a romantic substratum of society, driven away from the soul-less consumerism that defines current success. These boys ache to achieve something primal. As one of the main characters, Paul Harris, states to his bewildered parents, “People need to suffer, . . . to feel pain and experience want and get smashed apart if only to fix themselves.” Maybe. Paul’s need leads him to hell, or one of its circles. All this stems from a single bar fight which this cosseted son of Niagara winemakers lost ignominiously. We can imagine his parents’ dismay as they look into the face of their bruised, scarred, steroid-abusing son, once destined to take over the family business. The odd fact is that Paul is genuinely funny when talking to his folks, whereas the underworld of hard-core gyms and illegal bare-knuckle fights offers few laughs. Across the bridge in the infamous Love Canal neighourhood, lives Paul’s opposite, a naturally gifted fighter, seventeen-year-old Robert Tully, descended from a long line of boxing Tullys. But Rob is reluctant to pursue his gift because he sees the whole person (and that person’s wife and child) in every opponent. Both young men start off trying to fit in and please their fathers. Both rebel. When fate inevitably brings them together, Rob knows he will win and therefore revenge his beloved uncle whom Paul’s “lucky punch” has made comatose, but at what cost? This raw but poignant tale is well-constructed and aesthetically pleasing, despite its many intimate close-ups of the human body in extremis.
Nancy Wigston (Books in Canada)
Craig Davidson on 04.01.07 @ 05:44 PM EST [link]