REVISED

THE RAM’S HEAD REVIEW

NOVEMBER 25, 2006

In spite of the threat of snow, there were 8 of us here Thursday night. Although when Marshall arrived to pick up his mother, Margaret, and told us it was trying to snow, the meeting adjourned hastily. The poor Ram seems to be weather phobic.

Mentioned Sonny joining us on December 28th and that brought forth some eager agreement. Bob said he had already marked it on his calendar and will bring his famous Sticky Date Pudding that night. He said to tell Michael and Nathaniel to entice them to show up that night as well.

Bob had some military medals to show us from WWI. And then he read first, about Gould & McCue Jewellers of North Vancouver. They started as watchmakers and years later, when the business had been sold, the name was changed to Edgemont Village Jewellers Ltd.

Susan brought a copy of Louis Riel’s Poem to Robert Gordon which she read to us. Then she told us about her sister advising her to cut the prologue to her novel and rewrite in first person. Susan read Chapter 1, re-written in first person, and even though it gives a lot of background info about Barley, there was no apparent conflict for the novel in that chapter until the very last sentence, and it seemed to be mostly about a love interest between Barley and Claudia, which is not what the story is about. As adults, we liked the expansion of Barley’s character, but don’t think a young adult audience of mostly boys would find it interesting enough to keep reading, not enough action. We advised Susan to put off thinking about rewriting in first person until after Christmas. She said she would just continue reading to us what she has accomplished in her sencond version of this novel.

Lynette told us she had her own table at the Langley Library’s event for local authors. She also read to us two of her poems that she calls existential. The first was “Nevertheless” about being important as an individual nevertheless. The second was “Walkabout”, expressing the need to do an interior ‘walkabout’ to reconnect with Self. I’m hoping to convince Lynette to place some of her poetry on our website.

Ellie read some more of Syvald and companions travelling at night. As they approach Muskut, they see early morning cooking fires, but realize they are not being tended by the villagers. They need to find a cache of food somewhere. Remeos is nusing an injured sword arm, and Chaylis uses her knowledge as a healer to help him. Syvald is annoyed she didn’t tell him she was a healer.

Margaret read another story from her Peabody Collection. This one has a Rev. Peabody telling some young boys to go and bring potted trees being lent to the church from a local nursery to decorate the stage for their Christmas pageant. The boys oblige, but during the pageant, the local Mountie seems to be ill, but confesses to his wife it’s just that he has realized the “forest” on stage is made of marijuana plants. And the title of this story is “Oh Christmas Tree”. We roared laughing.

Susan brought us November’s issue of Senior Newsmagazine and I saw that Ann’s story about being a senior who goes back to university is included in this issue. Congratulations, Ann. I told Bryon when he retires he can go back to school tuition-free and he wanted to know where I heard that. I’ll give him your article.

Also in this issue of Senior Newsmagazine is Marilyn’s article entitled “Fender Skirts?” on page 13, about our loss of old colloquialisms such as fender skirts, emergency brake, and percolator. I’m sure Marilyn could have added to our recent discussion on the Canadian perception in the difference meant in the words “sanitarium” and “sanitorium”, even though published dictionaries equate the two. (My apologies to Marilyn for not catching her article before I wrote the first issue of this week’s Review.)

Jean and Gemma were both present at our meeting, but did not read.

An email from Michael says he should be coming home in 2 weeks. We hope we’ll get to see him.

I understand the weather is supposed to be very cold this coming week. Good time to hibernate and write. Offer the Muse some brandy to warm up and see what happens.

Next meeting here at my place next week, Thursday, November 30th at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see you then.

Lisa