Jenni Zelin’s A is for Angst: An Alphabet of Woe, opening tonight at The Guild and running until August 13, is an art exhibition surgically designed to hit me on almost every artistic pleasure centre: typography, mixed up media, do-it-yourself activities, repetition on a theme.

It is my favourite Gallery at the Guild show of the year (at least). If you only see one show this summer here, come see this one.

Danny Gregory has a weekly “sketchbook club” video series on YouTube where he leafs through sketchbooks–his own or others’–and uses what he sees as a jumping off point for talking about sketching.

In this week’s edition he shows off his own first sketchbook, from the late 1990s; twenty minutes in there’s a comment from a live viewer, Valerie:

It looks like you already knew how to sketch at this time; I don’t know how to start.

Gregory, in responding, lays out a sort of “philosophy of sketching”:

I started this way: by carrying a sketchbook around, and recording what I saw in my life. That is how you start. Now you know.

He continues down this road, and by the time he’s done he’s described something that works well for sketching, but which is also a pretty good prescription for taking on anything new.

As someone who’s been carrying around a sketchbook in his back pocket for the last 4 months and recording what I see in my life, I can attest to this: there’s no better way to start seeing than by opening your eyes.

Now that Meat Pie at the Landmark Café has an ISBN, I need to send a Legal Deposit copy to the National Library:

The national library collection is assembled through legal deposit and becomes the record of the nation’s published heritage. Legal deposit applies to all publishers in Canada, and to all publications in all mediums and formats. Through legal deposit, all materials produced by Canadian publishers become part of Library and Archive Canada (LAC)’s collection and are available for public consultation and use.

Once a publication is received, a description acknowledging the contribution of the publisher is entered into LAC’s online catalogue, which can be accessed by all Canadians in the comfort of their home. 

So I printed a copy specifically for this (a modest effort than it might be otherwise, as my letterpress printing skills haven’t graduated to texts of this length yet) and bound it together using the technique I learned from Jennifer Brown:

Next, I filled in a Publication Submitted to Legal Deposit (Monograph) form. I needed to set a price for the book, and so I chose $18 because that’s the price of an actual meat pie at the Landmark Café, and it seemed like the book should cost the same thing.

I bundled everything together in an envelope, and it will go out in the 5:00 p.m. mail, off to live its new life as part of the “nation’s published heritage.”

Two months ago I produced a little book, about a Saturday spent with Oliver, called Meat Pie at the Landmark Café.

Among other things, the writing, printing and binding gave me a taste of what it takes to manufacture books in small quantities, and I decided to follow through into the next step, and use the project to see what happens next.

First step: get an ISBN.

I’d always conflated product barcodes and ISBNs: they do, after all, look the same.

But barcodes for products require Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), and getting GTINs requires paying for a Prefix License.

But ISBNs are free, and easy to get via Library and Archives Canada.

So that’s what I did: registered myself up as Reinvented Press (which took about a week once I submitted the application) and then, once I was approved, registered an ISBN for my book using their web system (which was instantaneous).

And so Meat Pie at the Landmark Café is now ISBN 978-1-988893-00-6.

I fed that ISBN into this ISBN bar code generator and, presto, I have a barcode for the back of the book too:

My next step is to print and bind up another copy of the book so that I can fulfill my obligation to provide a Legal Deposit copy.

I moved to Montreal in the fall of 1990, having managed, by way of a few months in El Paso, Texas, to develop enough momentum to achieve escape velocity from Peterborough, Ontario, where I’d lived since the fall of 1985.

My friends Jill and Colin were already there–Jill had been my roommate the year before–and I knew a few other people in the city, but mostly I was a stranger in a strange land. I was unemployed and collecting unemployment insurance, didn’t particularly have a plan, and, in the end, was much more not somewhere else than I was in Montreal.

I started out squatting with Jill and Colin in their studio on St-Laurent and, after a few weeks, found a sublet on the 31st floor of a high-rise at 2250 Rue Guy, near Maisonneuve. I spent a few months there before decamping, midwinter, for 6107 Avenue du Parc, near the north-western edge of Mile End.

My time in Montreal was not entirely without its pleasures. On Tuesday nights I took “French as a Second Language” from the Catholic School Board. I ate a lot of bagels. I spent a lot of time on the Walden Commune BBS. I had a tiny black and white television and every night I’d stay up late to watch Newhart followed by the late movie on the local CTV affiliate.

But I didn’t really have enough money, or friends, to truly enjoy living in Montreal, and the alienation of the long, snowy, cold winter combined with the alienation of being a mostly-unilingual anglophone meant that I did not feel wrapped up in the warm embrace of the city.

It’s not without irony that when I return to Montreal these days, it’s Mile End that I often find myself returning to; Oliver and I were there just last month, and it looked and felt nothing like the cold, austere place I remember it being.

By spring–arguably the nicest time of the year in Montreal–I was ready to get out, and when a job opportunity at the Peterborough Examiner presented itself, I jumped at the chance, calling up my friend Stephen for help, loading my life’s possessions into my Toyota Tercel and a rented van, and re-entering the Peterborough orbit after only 9 months away.

This adventure would have an unhappy ending if not for the fact that I happened to move into 621 George Street North to become roommates with my friends Tim, Dy and Richard; next door at 627 George Street North lived a young woman named Catherine Miller. Because Tim and Dy were out of town when I landed, it was Catherine who handed me the keys to my new place. It was the first time I laid eyes on her. We’ve now been together almost 26 years.

It’s taken me most of that time to be able to look more fondly on Montreal. Having a brother and sister-in-law there and two strapping young nephews helps, of course, but it’s mostly the passage of time that’s allowed me to experience Montreal’s many pleasures.

But there’s no getting away from the fact that, the first time around, I absolutely flunked at Montreal.

Warren Ellis, in this week’s Orbital Operations, on Monocle:

MONOCLE magazine continues to fascinate me as a cultural entity. I don’t read it, but I’ll always read an article about it. Weird, right. They’re releasing a weekly newspaper over August. Like pretty much everything they do, it’s a power play as much as anything else. Fascinated.

I agree completely: I find the magazine, perhaps because it’s finely targeted at the watch-and-Merino set, unreadable. But I like the ideal of Monocle and its consistency.

And, having had an espresso in both their London and Tokyo cafes, I enjoy seeing how they translate their mojo into coffee and sandwiches.

Ironically, I could say the same thing about Warren Ellis: I’ve no interest whatsoever in consuming his work product, but I’m fascinated by his work product about his work product.

(And his recommendation of Kristine Barrett is a good one too).

On Friday I reported that the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market was going to test out a new system for getting patrons to sort their waste.

The Market reported on the success of the effort on Instagram:

And a huge success today! Over 90% improvement in sorting and 100% sorted recycling in the eating areas!

That’s great news.

Here’s what the new waste station in the “coffee corner” looked like yesterday:

Oliver and I–spurred on by a car with failed brakes–contributed to the ecology of the day by taking the bus to the market; we fell down, however, on replacing our plastic cups with refillable ones. We’ll tackle that one next week.

Both Catherine and I have a lot of miscellaneous gear to schlep around: Catherine has sewing machines, quilting fabric, and works of art; I have drawers of metal type, bankers boxes of files, and computers.

It’s never been enough schlepping to warrant purchase of assistive devices, but cancer has affected Catherine’s bones to the point where she can use a little help (and I’m not exactly Fred Astaire myself these days).

So, when Catherine was set to head up west for a Modern Quilters weekend, I was nominated to go to Canadian Tire to see what I could find.

There, amongst the more traditional hand trucks and dollies, I found exactly what we needed: a low-cost tool that, Transformers-like, could work both as hand truck and hand cart: the elaborately-named Cosco Shifter Multi-Position Heavy Duty Folding Hand Truck and Dolly.

Even better: it’s regular price at Canadian Tire was $104.99, but it was on sale for $64.99.

Sold.

It has three positions.

Folded up it’s about 16 inches by 32 inches and it looks like this:

If you snap the green handle on the right out of its lock (it doesn’t seem, at first, like it will snap out, but it does), and pull up, then it transforms into a hand cart:

I just used it, in this position, to haul a big sewing machine, a piece of plexiglass, a bag of fabric, a basket of fabric, and a canvas bag of supplies from our house to Catherine’s studio; it worked well on the newly-paved street from our house to the end of Victoria Row and then rattled and shook (but kept its cool) once we hit the faux cobblestones for the rest of the roll.

Snap the blue switch on the left (in the middle of the green assembly) and move the green handle over to the right side, and it transforms into a stand-up hand truck:

This position is good for moving boxes and similar rectangular-shaped things, and can benefit from the addition of a bungie cord to secure the load to the truck.

I wouldn’t want to use this for an Everest expedition, or even on a job site, but for light-duty household and shop work it’s just what we needed, and it’s small enough folded that we can tuck it in the closet for when we need it next.

• Drove to Murray River for the Block Party. Bought a used Daniel Libeskind book. Hoped there would be food. There was no food.
• Brake pad warning light came on in the Jetta. In Murray River. Miles from home.
• Googled “can I still drive my Jetta with the brake pad warning light on” and found the consensus was “yes, but only for a little while.”
• Found that there isn’t a single restaurant in Southern Kings County open after 8:00 p.m.
• Drove back to Charlottetown and finally got supper at 9:30 p.m., at home.
• Finally got all people and dogs to bed about 11:30 p.m.
• All people and dogs woke up very late this morning.
• Oliver decided he needed a Nyan Cat t-shirt and sign for the Pride Parade at 1:00 p.m. In two hours.
• Found old t-shirt transfer paper in the cupboard and made a t-shirt with Oliver. Not the 100% best T-shirt in the world, but enough to keep us moving forward.
• With no brakes on the car, took the bus to the market.
• Whirled through the market: bagel, coffee, smoothie, chocolate, iced tea.
• Hurried to catch the 12:20 p.m. bus back downtown; got to the bus on time, but was told by the bus driver that the bus was full and we had to wait 30 minutes for the next one (frustrated, but also filled with pride that our transit system is so well-used).
• Walked over to the Burger King and called a cab to get us home.
• Cab arrived in mere minutes. Nicest driver ever. And he skilfully managed traffic and lights to get us home in record time.
• Assigned Catherine the task of developing a Nyan Cat sign; decided it was best to do this on the white board. Catherine rose to the challenge.
• Applied sunscreen to all people.
• All people headed over to the Province House back yard to watch the Pride Parade.
• In the middle of the Pride Parade my mobile started alerting me about server issues.
• Did some triage from my chair at the Pride Parade, and found that the server issues were primarily with the alerting system, not the systems that were alerting.
• After the parade ferried all people and dogs home, and headed to the office; restarted the alerting system and affected services. All good.

What else will this day hold?

The flagship Yurakucho story of MUJI, Japan’s anti-brand brand, has undergone a transformation, and has a new food section.

Specifically, we will be offering basic foods such as vegetables and fruits, and other groceries. Vegetables are coming directly from the producers, who either do not use chemical pesticides and fertilizers at all, or use them sparingly. While we will not be offering a large variety, we will be offering seasonal items, and are planning to offer rare and interesting vegetables such as traditional vegetables of Tokyo. We will be offering vegetables with their inherent flavors, even if they do not meet the standards of shape and size. We plan on displaying a sign on each product, with a note from the producers and some seasonally-appropriate ways to eat them. In addition, about 300 pieces of stringently-selected grocery items will be offered, including seasonal fruits, seasonings that go well with vegetables, and snacks featuring vegetables.

Translated into 1970s folk music, this reads “Hey farmer farmer, put away that DDT now, give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please!” To which I say: good on MUJI.

Here’s what it will look like, from MUJI’s website:

There is almost no chance that we’ll ever have a MUJI here in Charlottetown, but one can hope. I would happily shop there and only there for all my worldly goods.