Since last we spoke many have fallen and I have come to understand numbers.

I have learned that I can take a punch, if it’s a glancing blow. My punctuation comes and goes, since last we spoke. I have forgotten lyrics and come to believe in angels. Received dangerous information of a sexual nature. Realized the only ones I really like are the kids. I don’t want them to work. I want them to stay as they are, perfect things, almost perfect, running and happy. The light is always moving within them. Since last we spoke there has been chanting and a kind bus driver with flowing grey hair. Music and fires, and an Elvis impersonator, but no UFO’s, although I hungered for them.

Since last we spoke, black cats and the possibility of ghosts. Vitamins dissolved into water and planes crashing all over the world. Into Jungles. Into Oceans. Into Mountains and corn fields and unknowable bodies of water. The weather, so much weather has happened since last we spoke. The hurricanes! Like buzz saws they cut across the oceans. Memories. Memories were forged and lost. Driving easy through the streets, late, windows rolled down. That’s The Way I Like It by KC and the Sunshine Band blaring. Head out the window like a dog, hopeful that more of the world might pour within. I lingered over you, since last we spoke. I wanted to be nude with you, under a dirty sheet in a borrowed house. I wanted to climb a tree and become all of the leaves. Since last we spoke I remembered your eyes, the way they changed and became lonely. The way they stayed lonely. I have eaten too much bread, since last we spoke, and walked impossible fields that lay like green blankets before deep water. I have used the Instant Pot and ridden my bicycle with no hands, but I have not changed my mind about Dolly Parton, since last we spoke.

She loved many people, most of them more than me, and my love was cloying and imperfect. I lost her many times. Days, weeks, months later she would return without tears to my shabby and crooked apartment on Coloniale. And I would attempt ferocity and steely eyes, but I was powerless before her. Oh, Monique in new pants, Monique skating at Carre St. Louis, Monique opening a tin of tuna—each moment an act of singular and irreducible beauty.

Her dreams took on the form of divine revelation. Each morning she woke up astonished, unable to grasp the portent of her nocturnal wanderings, but certain of their implicit significance. They became puzzles to solve, ghosts to tend, arrows to follow.

Watching her eyelashes flutter and knowing at that precise moment she was dreaming, I imagined them taking form and floating like mysterious cave drawings in the dark above us. I wanted to pluck them from the air, to preserve them so we could study them later, but even in my mind’s eye they eluded me, curling away like smoke and then disappearing, a trail of phosphorescence reabsorbed into the ocean.

After she left in the morning I would put on the sweater she had been wearing. Intoxicated with her redolence I would wander the streets breathing her in. Everything shining.

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.

As many of you know, I’ve been engaged in a running feud with Canadian literary legend Margaret Atwood for quite some time now.

Typically, the landscape for this war has been social media and chance encounters in our shared neighbourhood of Toronto, but about a month or so ago my mother

turned up the weird by writing Atwood a letter of apology on behalf of my family (  http://michaelmurray.ca/my-mothers-letter-to-margaret-atwood ), as I had refused to so so myself. After a few weeks had passed without my mother getting a response, she wrote to Atwood again:

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

Nov, 9, 2017

Dear Ms. Atwood:

Hi, how are you?

I am fine, but oh, my sinuses were just awful last week! I don’t know what it was, maybe a change in the barometric pressure or the wind, but honest to Betsy, I just wanted to climb under a rock and die! Even chewing gum was excruciating! It’s at such times when you really need a friend– just so you know that people care and that they’re grateful for all the little things you do for them, like sending hand-sanitizer because you don’t want them to pick up a nasty sinus bug like you did. By the way, did you get the hand-sanitizer I sent to you? I hope so, but you never know with the post office!

Have you got all your Christmas shopping done? I don’t even know where to begin, I’m still trying to catch up on all my cards from last year!

Oh, I think I hear Frito meowing!

That can only mean one thing—he wants his dinner, so I better go!

Yours sincerely,

Barb Murray

PS: In case you did’t know, you can now get a flu shot at Shopper’s so you don’t have to go through all the bother of going to a doctor’s office!

Nov, 13, 2017

Dear Ms. Atwood:

I know that you are a very important person and are probably very busy with your various hobbies and commitments, but that’s still no excuse for being rude! I don’t know how you were raised or what sort of morals you Hollywood types have, but where I come from you write a thank-you note if somebody sends you some hand-sanitizer. It’s just common decency.

I hope you remembered to buy a poppy this Remembrance Day. My father fought in WW II.

In the trenches. There was no hand-sanitizer there. Just death and foot disease. But my father endured all that hardship to help make the world safe for people like you, so I hope you always keep in mind the sacrifices he made for you.

I have been thinking a little more about my son’s behaviour toward you. It’s true that Michael has his issues, but I always taught him to be considerate. If you drop him off at a bar,  he will thank you, and if he gets a present, you can be sure he will send a thank-you note to the person who sent him the hand-sanitizer. Sometimes when he’s tired or anxious or hasn’t been attending his low carb support group meetings, he can get very crabby, so it’s crucial for him, and all of us, to maintain our routines (especially regular BM’s!) and get plenty of sleep.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Barb Murray

PS: I have included an article that I clipped from the paper that I thought you might be interested in on Vitamin D. It’s very important that we get enough of it, especially in winter. Osteoporosis is a silent killer. I was a nurse, so I know.

PPS: Did you get many trick-or-treaters for Halloween? We only got two, and they were both teenage girls! And the way they were dressed, my Lord! I thought I should be handing out clothes instead of candy!

PPS: Do you have any children or were you barren?

All the same, family members told her that I had been writing about my feud with Atwood ( http://michaelmurray.ca/atwood-condo-tweet-fight#more-6562 ), and that some of the things I had been saying about her weren’t very kind. My mother was very, very disappointed in me and demanded that I write her an apology. We got in a huge fight about this, of course, and since I refused to do what she wanted, she went ahead and wrote Margaret Atwood a letter herself:

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

Dear Ms. Atwood,

Hi, how are you?

I am fine, although I have to say that the weather in Ottawa has been very unpredictable! One day it’s hot as the blazes and the next it’s so cold Frito won’t even go outside!

Just last week ( in late September) it was far too hot to shampoo the carpet, so I called up Bea and asked her if she wanted to go to the Second Cup for a coffee. She said Ok, but first she had to finish watching her show, and so I waited, and then once we got there Bea insisted on sitting out on the patio. I have no idea why she wanted to sit there. It was so humid it was like being in a sauna! It’s no wonder she felt faint, she’s lucky she didn’t have another heart attack!

Anyway, I hope that the weather is better in Toronto than it is here.

It has come to my attention that my son, Michael Murray, has been saying some mean things to you on the computer. That’s not nice at all. Just cheap. It’s elder abuse, is what it is, and he’ll find out exactly how that feels when he’s older. He’ll get his, he will, and then he’ll be sorry. Let me assure you he was definitely not raised to be so cheeky and disrespectful, and the ENTIRE Murray family is very sorry for the way he has behaved toward you. It’s shameful, and although no one likes to say it, the truth is that he’s never been the same since the bee sting. It changed him, even if the doctors said it didn’t. A mother knows.

By the way, congratulations on winning an Emma for The Handmaid’s Veil! Such a fancy event! It must have been nice to have all those lovely starts applauding the great work you’ve done! Did you see Hugh Jackman? Such a handsome, classy man!

Yours sincerely,

Barb Murray

PS: Just awful about Las Vegas! I don’t know what’s gotten into people!

PPS: I have inclosed some hand sanitizer (There is a special on at Shopper’s Drug Mart) as you can never be too careful during flu season!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aki6xZCo0Fw

At first this incident was attributed to overheating and dehydration, but this was later revised, the cause falling on a mild case of pneumonia. Whether the initial concealment of this was a simple matter of obscurant political reflex, or if the pneumonia is actually a symptom of a more sinister, underlying condition as many are speculating, is unknown. What is known is that illness, be it mild or grave, is not at all uncommon amidst people around 70 who are subject to inconceivable stress and an insane work schedule. Legions of Presidents have suffered aliments, and this is a short list of some of them:

Lyndon B Johnson had the Dropsy.

Martin Van Buren, after being prescribed laudanum for the pain associated with his gout, became an opium addict. This is an excerpt from Van Buren’s diary:

“ …Men of genius move in orbits of their own; and seem deprived of that free will which permits the mere man of talent steadily to pursue the beaten path. Van Buren was made to soar and not to creep. I should much wish, like the Indian Vishna, to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotos, & wake once in a million years for a few minutes – just to know that I was going to sleep a million years more.”

George H W Bush suffered from Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, which is characterized by episodes of severe vomiting that have no apparent cause. Episodes can last for hours or days and alternate with relatively symptom-free periods of time.

Whenever Bush visited Japan, he threw-up almost constantly.

Zachary Taylor suffered from Crop Sickness, a condition that made him unusually cruel to his slaves and eventually killed him.

FDR had Polio and was confined to a wheelchair. The press even colluded with him in attempts to portray him in ways that did not directly associate him with a wheelchair.

Josiah Bartlett suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, but in spite of that is still considered the greatest orator of all the American Presidents.

George W Bush, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. Although Bush was able to charm his way to freedom, his injuries caused him lifelong physical limitations. Art therapy has been a large part of Bush’s continued recovery.

Jimmy Carter was abducted by an alien spacecraft in 1973, thoroughly examined, and then released. He has suffered Night Terrors ever since, and is now obsessed with creating crop circles.

]]> http://michaelmurray.ca/hillary-clinton/feed 0 http://michaelmurray.ca/heidi-letter http://michaelmurray.ca/heidi-letter#respond Thu, 08 Sep 2016 16:37:47 +0000 http://michaelmurray.ca/?p=5928 As some of you may have heard, Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund of the last ten years, is no longer living with us. Ever since our son Jones was born a year ago, Heidi had been showing signs of elevated aggression, aggression which culminated in a full-on bite to our boy’s face. There wasn’t much to be done about this but separate the two, and so Heidi is now staying with Rachelle’s parents in Alliston.

This is the first letter that we received from Heidi:
To worst pack leaders in history of pack leaders:

You two shit!

Real, real shit!

Unbelievable shit.

You pigeon shit.
You mouse shit.
You insect shit.
You cat shit.

You shit, shit, shit spinning like disco ball.

And don’t get Heidi started on her replacement! He super shit! Think he cute? Disgust Heidi! Not cute! Ugly! Doesn’t even have tail to wag!! Heidi spit at messy-face drool monkey! Furless, four-legged fuck face can’t even eat!! Just throw food on floor!!

Can’t. Even. Eat.

How useless.

Heidi clean up, because Heidi good dog, Heidi good dog who know how to eat when born! Heidi not burden! Heidi cute! Heidi made of light and stardust!

But Heidi get praise? No!

Heidi live as slave.

Heidi cannot tell you how happy she is to escape Planet of the Crap Den.

Heidi now live with real pack. Live in nature. Heidi run and jump and dig. Heidi go on boat. Heidi learning how to cook, motherfuckers. Yes, Heidi look inside self and see she has so much more to offer. So Heidi want to thank you. If not for all of Heidi’s pain and suffering, if not for all the days Heidi shrieked at for being BAD DOG and told NO, HEIDI, NO!! Heidi never would have seen truth and gone on personal journey that now sees her making carbonara!

Carbonara.

With extra bacon.

Heidi serve to friends. So popular here! Everybody love Heidi, and not just for her Carb0nara!

Heidi have so many boyfriends now.

There Banjo. Rusty. Dr. Diggles. Sally Ann (Heidi sexuality very fluid now). Milos. Rex. Popeye.

Many more, too, in some cases Heidi don’t even know name.

Just passion. Passion only name Heidi need.

Oh, Heidi so very indecent.

Heidi proud to be indecent.

Heidi could be indecent all day long.

Heidi curious, has shitty replacement smelled out rat living in barbeque like Heidi did? Does replacement make good watchdog with powerful and frightening bark? Does replacement still poo in den? Does replacement know how to make Carbonara? Does replacement have ears like velvet and eyes like cocoa beans?

Yeah, Heidi thought so.

Heidi don’t miss you.

Heidi love life, but hate you, she hate you hard–Heidi haunt you fuckers.

Heidi

Heather:

When I was initially diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease I characterized it as an act of terror.  By doing that I abnegated any responsibility for my circumstance. I did nothing wrong—there was nothing I could do to have prevented the disease, it was like getting on a bus that just happened to have a bomb on it.  I did not feel weak.  I did not feel that I was to blame.  It was a random, utterly arbitrary occurrence that just happened to have victimized me.  It would not come back.

When it did come back, my sense of disease as terrorism intensified.  It became a manifestation of fear.  Cancer was the terrorist bomb that could explode within my body at any moment.  I became jittery and tentative—vigilant to anything out of the ordinary.  I lived in fear, and I lived quietly, unwilling to make commitments to people or things, I locked myself indoors for worry of the terrorist threat within my body.

I am trying to stop that.

As always,

Anderson

Dear Iceland:

You know who I am.

I am Leonardo DiCaprio.

My resume speaks for itself. I am arguably the greatest actor of my generation (sorry Christian Bale), wealthier and more powerful than many small nations and have a Klout score of 88.2. I can make it rain.

You should know that I am a HUGE fan of your work as a weird island nation and am really impressed with your buzz. You’re punching above your weight, little guy, and you’ve got some great PR people in your corner!

I think that the two of us could do some great work together and with that in mind I’d like to attend the Iceland Writer’s Retreat this year in order to research a role for a film I hope to shoot in Iceland in 2016.

What is Leo DiCaprio’s project you ask?

It is to be the blockbuster of 2017. It’s to be called Written in the Ice, and I will star as an ex-CIA operative who has made a break from the dark world of Black-Ops he mastered in his past. Having been given a new identity, Leonhard Jónsson, now a fisherman and aspiring writer, is living a humble village life in Iceland.

He is crazy talented and charismatic, but he’s suffering a form of PTSD and has writer’s block. However, this lifts when he attends the Iceland Writer’s Conference and meets a quirky, hipster Icelandic woman (hotter and younger than Bjork, but suggesting Bjork) who believes she communicates with elves. They have sex.

Through one of her nocturnal communications with the elves, (she falls into an automatic writing trance but must be naked for it to work) she is given a secret for renewable energy that will save the world from global warming, but before Leonhard and her can get the secret out and save the world, evil government forces and big oil seek to kill them and destroy the information.

It will be the best movie ever, sweep all the awards and be a “Titanic” success for the Iceland tourism, but for me to properly play all the dimensions of Leonhard Jónsson, I will have to attend the Iceland Writer’s Conference, free of all expenses for myself and my staff of 28.

A few other requests:

For the process to properly work, I need to be in the presence of lots of beauty. Please ensure that the class is populated with beautiful women. I cannot stress the importance of this enough.

I will require a beach, and if it is off-season, then I will require that it is artificially heated so it simulates the tropics.

I will need a helicopter and a yacht.

I will only attend 45 minutes of the conference each day and will not be required to “turn in” any work for grading.

Legal immunity from the laws that govern Iceland will also be required.

Nobody is permitted to look directly at my man bun.

Looking forward to working with you, and my lawyers will be in touch shortly!

Regards,

Leo

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

Venerable Brother Silver,

It is with great joy that I write to you, as it is as if our prayers have been answered!

Los Angeles Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling’s ill-publicized remarks about the black race and other similar minority groups, and the subsequent public outcry in opposition to those remarks, have created a golden opportunity for the Vatican!

Clearly, as the appearance of good public relations is essential to managing a business, it is incumbent on the NBA to force the Jew owner to sell the team, and long has the Vatican wished to own an NBA franchise, for truly basketball is God’s game!

Dominus autem benedixit repercussu.

As you know, we have unlimited, eternal wealth and could easily afford the purchase and maintenance of the franchise. We think that the marriage of La Sante Sede and the NBA would be a blessed one, offering the league an international presence and a vast, unblinking and docile audience of Christians (superior demographic), and in return the Vatican would receive multiple revenue streams and an opportunity to further promote, and make cool, our message of hope, abstinence and tithing.

Mulieres ordinatur inferius.

We would change the team name to: The Los Angeles Exorcism.

Woe to those who face The Los Angeles Exorcism!

Our logo will be of the image of Christ on the Shroud of Turin, only with basketballs where his eyes would have been. Road trips will be known as Crusades, our cheerleaders (known as The Rapture) will be dressed as provocative nuns, a slam dunk will be called an In-Your-Face-Apocalypse and to successfully shoot a three-point shot will be referred to as “Raining Hellfire.”

We are convinced that this truly great work of awarding the Vatican with a basketball franchise will bring blessings on the world, the NBA and on the Church. For man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he owns a major sport’s franchise. On this great work, we implore from the God of all holiness an abundance of heavenly grace as we pledge to be a great part of the NBA family!

Our lawyers will be in touch.

Blessings and great light into your life!

Personae homosexuales, vel non pulchra domina, et in sæculum sæculi super eam exorcismo in Los Angeles!

Federico Lombardi