******************************************

Atwood: You must know how much it pains me to do this, but after the most recent injuries to both Elvis Andrus AND Corey Seager ( si non fortuna velim fortuna omnino! ) I have found that my team, The Bad Feminists, is in need of some help at shortstop. Thusly compromised, I have no alternative but to attempt to discuss the possibility of a trade with you.

Me: You know, I really don’t have a clue how much it pains you to open a chat window with me. Please describe.

Atwood: It feels as if am a lone tree burning on the desert.

Me: A really ancient, worn out and desiccated tree? One that’s been completely abandoned by all the other trees that used to respect her but now subtweet her because they think her work is over-rated and old fashioned? A tree that just decided to go ahead and set herself on fire because let’s be honest, nobody was even going to notice?

Atwood: No, not that tree.

Me: Sounds like that tree.

Atwood: Your ability to evaluate the world around you is very poor. It’s why your team always finishes at the bottom of the league and you’re in a constant, emasculating state of rebuilding. It’s your cycle of pointlessness, part of what feeds your rage.

Me: I can’t remember– maybe because you look so much alike– but was it you who won the Nobel prize for literature or that singer Bob Dylan?

He might have come along after your time, so here’s a little video of him to ensure you have a clear, very clear picture, of the great literary talent who bested you for the Nobel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJymBJ_5iUg

Atwood: I am interested in acquiring New York Mets infielder Asdrubel Cabrera from you, and as you obviously have no chance of winning this year, I’ll give you a couple of promising, young players who you can use next year in exchange for him.

Me: No.

Atwood: Without even hearing who those players are?

Me: I’m not out of contention yet.

Atwood: Yes you are. You’ve never been in contention.

Me: I WON’T BE BULLIED!!!

Atwood: Is that what’s been happening to you? You’ve been bullied into failure again and again and again? That daily video chat with your mother each morning, it’s not really helping you organize your life and establish your own goals, is it? No? Well ask yourself, is it your mother refusing to trade me Cabrera, or is it you, Michael?

Me: Look, I’ll give you Joe Panik for Jake Baurers and Nick Williams.

Atwood: NO! As the great Aeschylus said, “ I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery!” You are a cheat, a blackguard! Panik just had thumb surgery and is out for the next two months! He’s worthless to me! Cabrera for Bauers and Williams, that’s it. Take it or leave it!!

Me: Can you arrange for me to meet Elisabeth Moss?

Atwood: I refuse to pimp out the wonderful actress from the award winning TV show, based on my award winning book, The Handmaid’s Tale, to you!

Me: You will if you want Asdrubel Cabrera in your lineup.

Atwood: You wouldn’t be allowed to make eye contact with her or touch her, you know.

Me: Jesus, of course I know that!

Atwood: I will think on the matter. You are dismissed.

Well, the other day my mother actually received this letter from Margaret Atwood:

********************************************************

December, 6th, 2017

bärb/

noun

noun: barb; plural noun: barbs

1. 1. a sharp projection near the end of an arrow, fishhook, or similar item, angled away from themain point so as to make extraction difficult.

                  2. a cluster of spikes on barbed wire.

                  3. a deliberately hurtful remark.

Dear Barb:

Please forgive me for being so informal as to use your first name. I can see that you’re not just appropriately (refer to above prolegomenon) named, but that the Murray line carries very excitable genes, and I certainly don’t want to offend you or any of the other members in your easily inflamed tribe.

Let me first thank you for your apology concerning the alarming behaviour of your 50-something son, and the thoughtful inclusion of hand sanitizer with your letter. You are right, hand sanitizer does make for a nice, affordable stocking stuffer. Thank Heavens for Shoppers Optimum points, eh, Barb?

It’s interesting to note that the word “barb” is derived from Latin and Old French words for “beard.” The patriarchy has a deep reach, Mrs. Murray, a very deep reach. For instance, I wonder why your fully grown, almost elderly son, does not feel the need to apologize for himself to a respected woman he’s been publicly berating? Why would his mother have to do it?

Could it be that Michael, an archetypically mediocre white man,

was born into a world that was made for him, a world where women existed as bit players present only to serve his narrative? And then, with all competition smothered, with the entire force of a white, phallocentric history pushing him forward, Michael, armed with every conceivable advantage, became the author of one very unsuccessful vanity-published book.

That’s what he did.

He did not become an astronaut, he became a fantasy baseball enthusiast. And as he ascended to the status of fantasy baseball enthusiast and nothing else, he fully believed that all his “achievements” were due to his unique genius, and all failures a conspiracy of invisible, unknowable enemies.

Does that sound about right?

But it’s not your fault, Barb. It’s the world we were born into, and if you want to learn more about why your son is an asshole, you should tune in to Bravo on April 30th to watch the award-winning, crisply produced recreation of my uncannily predictive dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale. It stars Elisabeth Moss, whom you might have seen on the cover of some of the magazines you buy at the mall.

Margaret Atwood

PS: Von all den Kreaturen, die auf der Erde atmen und sich bewegen, wird nichts gezüchtet, das schwächer ist als der Mensch.

She lives in the same part of Toronto as I do, and occasionally we bump into one another as we did yesterday when Rachelle and I were at the local park with our two-year old son Jones:

************************************************

Me: Oh, shit.

Rachelle: What?

Me: Two o’clock.

Rachelle: The woman in the cloak?

Me: I thought it was a cape.

Rachelle: No, that’s a cloak.

Me: Ok, whatever. Either way, it’s Margaret fucking Atwood.

Rachelle: I think she’s coming over. I’m going to take Jones to the swings! You two talk on your own!!

( Rachelle and Jones run off as Atwood approaches)

Atwood: Forgive me, but I have to ask, do the police get called very often?

Me: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

Atwood: You, a middle-aged loner who will never be accepted by his neighbouring, wealthy peers.

Never-quite wearing the right brand and always on the periphery, just shy of conversation, always staring at the children and their pretty young mothers, staring so hard it seems as if you’re trying to fill some interior void that can never stop hungering. I’d think that might make many of the parents nervous.

Me: I think I’m seen more as a kind of guardian, like Batman.

Atwood: Yes, Batman, or perhaps a guardian, like a hollowed-out and mother-dominated crossing guard still living with his deceased parents. Maybe like that, too.

Me: Did you make it to the corn boil here the other day? Blue grass band and everything.

Atwood: Here at Sibelius park?

Me: Yes.

Atwood: No, I was in LA at the Emmy’s.

Me: Funny how the city of Toronto would name a park Sibelius, after a Finnish composer of classical music, before naming one after you, a Canadian writer of impenetrable, mostly hated books. Wonder why that is?

Atwood: I am astonished. You must have been reading your Wikipedia in order to find out who Jean Sibelius was, for surely you thought he was some old Toronto Maple Leaf who died in car crash, no?

Me: JONES!!! NO KICKING!!!! I’M SERIOUS!! I WILL TAKE THAT DIGGER AWAY!!! DON’T THINK I WON’T!!

Atwood: They’re so beautiful at that age. It’s wonderful to see such attentive nurturing, too. With all the advantages you’re giving your son, I am sure he will go far in this world, maybe all the way to The Keg.

Me: I heard you were wearing your housecoat on stage when that thing you wrote so long ago, The Handmaiden’s Tale, won some Emmy for best red outfit worn by a supporting actress, or something.

Atwood: Handmaid’s Tale, and it was awarded Best Drama, amongst several other awards, for being considered a prescient and uncanny representation of Trump’s America.

Me: It’s no Game of Thrones, is all I can say.

Atwood: “Perlen vor Schweinen geworfen,” as they say.

Me: Yeah, whatever.

Atwood: I saw that the *Giller Prize nominees were announced.

Me: JONES!!! I’M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!!

Atwood: I couldn’t help but notice you weren’t nominated.

Not even on the long list.

Again.

How does that make you feel, Marcel?

Me: It’s Michael.

Atwood: Right, so sorry.

* The prize awards $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English, and $10,000 to each of the finalists.

One of the components of this event was that I was signing copies of my bestselling book A Van Full of Girls. In case the book has somehow escaped your attention, here are a few press clippings:
“ I thought it was fine, but it could stand for less swearing. Swearing doesn’t prove what a big man you are.”
—Barb Murray, Canadian mother

“Although I could not invest in Michael’s book project, I was struck by how courageous he was to put his thoughts down like that and then, in spite of the risk of public embarrassment and the terribly long odds of any sort of success, seek publication. So brave. We need more people with Michael’s spirit in Canada.”
—Arlene Dickinson, star of the CBC hit TV show Dragon’s Den

“ It’s just lie after lie after lie.”
—Doug Ford, Canadian businessman and politician

I have to say, and I’m giving you the straight-up truth here, the book really is a fucking game-changer.

You should buy it.

At any rate, while we were selling off our things, Margaret Atwood, who lives in the same area, happened upon us. I conducted a somewhat adversarial interview with her a few months ago for a magazine called The Knuckler, ( http://michaelmurray.ca/atwood-interview ) and as this took place  via phone I was unsure if she knew who I was, but when she saw me at my little A Van Full of Girls kiosk, she approached.

Margaret Atwood: I’ve been surveying all your trinkets here, such a contrast amidst the grandeur of the neighbourhood. So sweet, so hopeful.

Me: Thanks.

Margaret Atwood: It’s like an archeological dig. Sifting through the debris you can see the arc of a life, the enthusiasm and ambition that inevitably crumbles into failure, and then finally the recognition of that failure and the selling off of all that had symbolized your hope.

Me: I’ll let you have the Six Million Dollar Man thermos for a buck.

Margaret Atwood: I don’t think so.

Me: Your loss.

Margaret Atwood: You seem to have an awful lot of unfinished self-help books for sale. Why is that?

Me: I don’t know, why is the Handmaiden’s Tale so much more popular as a TV show not written by you, than as a book written by you?

Margaret Atwood: Handmaid’s Tale, it’s Handmaid’s Tale.

Me: Oh. Sorry.

Margaret Atwood: This book, A Van Full of Girls? Are you the author?

Me: Yes. You should buy a copy. Support the arts.

Margaret Atwood: So tell me, how does self-publishing work these days?

Me: My book wasn’t self-published.

Margaret Atwood: Really!? How extraordinary. Typically you don’t seen an established author out on a front lawn selling his book from a knapsack. And look, you have so many copies! You must have at least 40!

Me: You know what? I also have an awful lot of Margaret Atwood books for sale over there, but people just don’t seem interested. One woman picked up a copy of Lady Oracle, showed it to her friend and said, “Barf.”

Margaret Atwood: (Gives withering look)

Me: (Imitates withering look)

Margaret Atwood left shortly after this exchange, but not before telling me that I should keep all the self-help books I was trying to sell, and buying, for reasons we can only imagine, a used The Very Best of Chris de Burgh LP.

Monica Lewinsky 40:

Dear Monica:

I just want to say that it’s amazing and impressive that you’ve lived this long. I think everybody in the media was sure you’d die in a self-loathing pit of drugs, despair and faded memories, but no! You took up knitting! That is completely awesome, and I wish more borderline celebrity types would do this. MC Hammer? He should be knitting. Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a most excellent and happy 40^th and continued success in living an anonymous and not disastrously adjusted life! You’re doing great!

Lynda Carter 62

Dear Lynda:

You probably know what you meant to me when I was a boy growing up, so I won’t get into that here. But sweet Jesus, you were hot. My friend Ian used to hump the TV when your show Wonder Woman came on. Can you imagine that? I tell you, young boys will put their dicks on anything. Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have written that to you, it’s kind of gross, I guess. But I don’t know, maybe it makes you feel kind of proud, too? You are getting old, after all. I don’t mind admitting that women, even Wonder Women (LOL) have always confused me. Anyway, you’re beautiful on the inside and out, and all of us are very proud of you for being a spokesperson for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I’m on a gluten-free diet, myself. Happy birthday!!

Kevin Spacey 53

Dear Kevin:

I have to say, and you’re now old enough to hear it, you’re a VERY over-rated actor. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a happy birthday, you should, but you just need to stop hamming it up so much.

Elisabeth Moss 31

Dear Elisabeth:

I just want you to know that I think that Peggy Olson, your character on Mad Men, is made of steel. She takes no shit!! I mean, it’s a man’s world where she works, but Peggy stands up for herself, changes with the times and learns how to dress! It’s awesome. How does it feel to have your own doll? Pretty cool, I bet. I’d like to have my own action figure. He’d be playing table tennis. Do you know Jennifer Lawrence? Happy birthday!

Selena Gomez 21

Dear Selena:

You know what’s weird? It’s weird that on your birthday I was riding my bicycle by a fancy hotel in Toronto that was being swarmed by gitchy teen girls in really short shorts all waiting to see Justin Bieber, the guy you dumped. What a bunch of losers! Like you, I’m not a Belieber, and you know what? I’m old enough to be your father but still find you really sexy! Funny, eh? Happy birthday, Selena, may your 20s be wild, unpredictable and very experimental!