Happy 100th A.M. Klein

Two milestones today. No, Valentine's Day is not one of them. Birthdays. First it's my father's 81st birthday. If, within the next twenty-four hours, you've somehow managed to learn how to surf the net and stumble upon my blog dad, let me wish you a very happy birthday. I'm sorry I can't be in Florida celebrating with you. Anyway, I'll be calling later on as usual.

Second, it's the birthday of someone I've always considered a literary grandfather, the late great Montreal poet and novelist Abraham Moses Klein. My friend and fellow Klein-disciple Harold Heft (who wrote his PhD dissertation on Klein) has written a nice commemorative piece in today's Gazette. Also, nice that Harold slipped in mention of the Klein tribute poetry anthology I co-edited with Seymour Mayne (pictured) on the occasion of the poet's 90th birthday. As Heft mentions, it may not have the PR of Robbie Burn's Day, but Klein's centenary is being commemorated, including this upcoming event organized by the University of Ottawa (as part of the Tree Reading Series) on February 24th, and the staging of Montreal poet Endre Farkas's play Haunted House based on Klein's life and works at The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts. So have some haggis, no make that some gefilte fish, in celebration of the day. Incidentally, of the portrait by Ernst Neumann which Klein did not like much, the subject wrote, "had its geography correct but its climate all wrong."

Book signing for ZOO

In case you happen to be slumming it in Palm Beach in the next couple of weeks. You can read my blurb here:

You are invited to meet
ARLEEN SOLOMON ROTCHIN
Who will sign copies of

her debut novel

ZOO

Thursday February 26, 2009
2:00PM-4:00PM
at
Tanya Pierce
219 Royal Poinciana Way
Via Testa #3
Palm Beach Florida 33480

Closer to Home in Globe and Mail Web edition

Terrence Byrnes' wonderful book of author portraits, which I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, was featured in The Globe and Mail's web edition this weekend. My pic (above) is part of the slideshow which includes shots of Anne Carson, David McGimpsey, Rawi Hage, Heather O'Neill and Yann Martel among others. Terry was kind enough to make a blow-up print for me which now hangs framed in my study. I love it. It's an evocative shot and oddly, very personally revealing, with me standing amid a massive complicated spaghetti-tangle of heating pipes and pumps in the basement furnace room of 99 Chabanel, my stiff body and head appearing as part of the plumbing.

'Uncle' Bernie (Madoff) and the Jews

From Newsweek: Read on and you will understand why Joseph Epstein is simply one of the best (and funniest) American writers.
Sample: There is something deeply trivial about golf that is unseemly for Jews, who have traditionally been accustomed to taking themselves seriously. Whacking away at a little ball, hoping, at the end of four hours' effort, to arrive at the finish a stroke or two fewer than the previous time one wasted a morning at this game—no, no, no, I'm sorry, but this is all wrong for Jews. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn't undergo pogroms and the struggle to evade conscription in the tsar's army to come to America for their descendants to put on peach-colored pants, spiked Nike shoes and chemises Lacoste to appear on the first tee promptly at 8 a.m. A Jew should be studying, arguing, thinking, working, making money, contemplating why God has put him through so many trials. A phrase like "dogleg to the left" should never pass his lips. If Madoff's depredations will bring a few Jews in off the links, perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing.

Legendary Israeli Rock Band Churchills - scrapbook

Some pictures recently discovered of the legendary Israeli rock band Churchills (also known as 'The Churchills'). They are of interest (to me and my kin at least) because the cute guy in the middle with longish hair is my uncle Stan Solomon, who's recently come back 'home' to Montreal after spending most of his life Stateside. Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies I remember receiving records (vinyl) in the mail from Israel that had been either performed, written and/or produced by Uncle Stan. Of course, the significance of these recordings completely escaped me at the time. What did I know from Israel, or music for that matter, I was six or seven. Uncle Stan's stint with Churchills (and Israel) were shortlived, though even as he went on to illustrious careers in the shmatta business and then as an art dealer in Florida, he maintained producing, recording and musical management activities on the side with aspiring young bands. For years, the old Churchills records gathered dust in a cardboard box. I only became aware of the gold I was harbouring when, in 1990 I was in Israel and wandered into a Tel-Aviv record store called HaOzen HaShlishi (The Third Ear). I was greeted by huge posters of my uncle and his bandmates wallpapering the inside featuring a photo from the Churchills debut album in which my uncle flatteringly appears in his underwear. I asked the manager why the display? He answered that the eponymous album had just been 'rediscovered' as a lost classic and one of Israel's most important albums. It had just been re-issued in CD format. Of course I bought a half dozen copies to bring home and distribute among family. When I told the store manager that Stan was my uncle and I had an original copy of the album he offered me twenty-five CDs in exchange. Turns out that the vinyl is a much sought-after rarity fetching significant sums among collectors. Now, the news from Israel via two of uncle Stan's former bandmates (Florida-based Rob Huxley who also played with the legendary British band The Tornadoes, and Israeli Miki Gavrielov, who went on to a major solo career, Churchills guitarist and bassist respectively,) that a small reunion tour scheduled for the fall 2009 is set. Uncle Stan is already warming up his vocal chords. He'll need to work hard. Besides the three decade hiatus, warming up anything this week when Montreal is expecting temps of -25 will be tough.

SNOW ANGELS

The snow fell and fell and I only thought
Of the dreaded shoveling to be done,
Counted the seconds as flakes piled-up, fought
With myself, asked how long should I wait? One
Two, three, four hours, or more before we’d got
Too much for my unsteady heart - a ton.

While I fretted, from up and down the street
Hooded faces exploded through doorways,
Like rebels from dark forest hideaways;
Kids with their mouths double-bound in scarves, feet
Booted; they lined up along my walkway
Straight as a firing squad, counted to three,

And all at once fell backward, dropped flat, played
Dead: Arms and legs flapped like convulsing geese
Blown clean from the sky (but not quite deceased);
Then they lifted themselves like spirits, gazed
Down at the shadow imprints they had made
Where their departed bodies had once laid.

A Christmas favourite...

The Rent Collector? Apparently. At the Westmount library anyhow. The staff came up with the inspired idea to spruce up the old tree creatively by inviting library patrons to help decorate it with miniatures of their favourite books. As mentioned in this article from The Westmount Examiner my novel is now hanging from an evergreen bough between loops of tinsel. It's deliciously strange to think that a story about a deeply religious orthodox Jew is hanging as a Christmas ornament. But it wouldn't be the first time that the book was chosen as a Christmas holiday favourite (more specifically "Best book to give your Jewish in-law trying to navigate Christmas dinner with the goyim.") Oh holy night!