The Naked, the Queer and the Starlost

A sharp-eyed friend sends this photo of The Queers of New York, spotted a few days ago in a Toronto used bookstore. Can't say I'm tempted – not at $50 – though I do appreciate the effort. Leo Orenstein's 1972 novel is, I believe, the most sought after Pocket Canadian Paperback Original. Easy to understand why. Who couldn't use a book that features both gay and Yiddish glossaries? For now, I'm happy just to see the cover, which Orenstein himself provided. Not bad.

When I first learned of this novel back in February, I made a bit too much of the fact that Orenstein directed Chekhov, Ibsen and Shaw – pretty much every director working in the early days of CBC television did much the same. The only film the man directed was Have Figure, Will Travel, a low-budget travelogue about three young women who sail a luxury yacht from staid Canada to nudist colonies in the United States.

Orenstein was far more active as a producer than a director, putting together one-off television dramas by names like Ted Allan, Hugh Garner and Arthur Hailey. For the most part, these appear to have been well-received, though this 25 May 1966 Globe and Mail review by Dennis Braithwaite is worthy of note:

I don't see how we can put all the blame on Barry Morse for what happened on Show of the Week Monday night. Morse is an actor and therefore by definition a ham: give any actor his head, free him from all directorial restraints, say to him. "Do as you like, have a ball." give him a plot so sketchy and inane that it can't possibly by hurt, turn him loose on the set with a make-up box and a drawing account on the wardrobe department, close your eyes and ears to the results, and – well, if you saw It's Murder, Cherie, you know what will happen. Leo Orenstein produced this show; I want that information prominently displayed.

Could it really have been as bad as all that? Does anyone remember? I ask because it wasn't long after this review that Orenstein stopped working as a producer for the CBC. In fact, this man who had been there right from the medium's earliest days seems to have left television entirely. He returned only briefly, directing two episodes of The Starlost, CTV's 1973 science fiction series. Here's the beginning of the first, "Lazarus from the Mist":

By Canadian standards it was a pretty big deal, though no one seems to have noticed. After the devastating 1966 Braithwaite review, Orenstein's name didn't appear again in our newspaper of record until he died in February of last year. He was eighty-nine.

An aside: An "audacious television concept" says star and pitch man Keir Dullea. Those with who bask in nostalgia and young folks wondering what all the fuss was about may find the Starlost promo to be of interest.

The screen captures of Have Figure, Will Travel come from Canuxploitation, which has an excellent write-up on the film.

Related posts:

Carroll's Canadian Originals

Figuring Out the Queers of New York

Lovell's Legacy (and Its Besmirching)

John Lovell was born two hundred years ago today. The most important Canadian publisher of the nineteenth century, I suppose he's best remembered for his directories, much valued by genealogists, but his contributions to the country's literature should not be overlooked. The man published Mrs Leprohon, François-Xavier Garneau, Joseph Howe and Charles Sangster, as well as Moodies Susanna and John. Lovell's Literary Garland was not only the first magazine of its kind in British North America, it paid.

Then there are the illustrated books. Today, Hunter's Eastern Townships Scenery, Canada East (1860), William Notman's Portraits of British Americans (1865) and Canadian Wild Flowers (1869) by Catharine Parr Traill, cannot be had for anything less than four figures. More modest in intent is Lovell's Advanced Geography for the Use of Schools and Colleges (1880), which features some very beautiful images of Canada, convincing evidence that the Earth is a sphere and one truly cringe-worthy illustration.

It's been a while since I've seen a proper copy of Lovell's Advanced Geography on offer. The only current listings come from booksellers flogging print on demand abominations. Here's one from the UK, UK:

Black and white, no illustrations... What sort of dog's breakfast, one wonders, will OCR software vomit forth after scanning these pages:

The mess that is the bookseller's description probably provides a clue.

Yours for a mere £28.73 (plus shipping).

Atwood et al. Shill for Apple

An advert published twenty-five years ago this month in Books in Canada finds McClelland and Stewart under the sway of the "computer evangelicals of Apple Canada Inc." I had no idea such people existed. Could it be that I was out when they came to call? My first computer, bought the following year, was a PC. I've since seen the light.

Abebooks as Wikipedia or a Lame Joke?

Nine decades ago, Frank L. Packard was giving Stephen Leacock good chase for position as Montreal's bestselling author. Today, his novels are all but forgotten, but I'm not so sure they're forgettable. Populated by con men, gangsters, faith healers and dope fiends, they look to be gritty, entertaining summer reading. I'm betting that each is more fun than his rival's Hellements of Hickonomics.

I've been meaning to give Packard a read for some time now – say, two decades – but where to begin? No one I know has read the man. W.H. New's Encyclopedia of Canadian Literature is of no help; it's entry consists of just two sentences, including: "Packard practiced as an engineer."

All is to explain how it is that I came across this very peculiar Abebooks listing:

So, we're meant to believe that the man who wrote both Pawned and this book...

also acted in this...

and is the same Frank Packard who directed this...

which was originally released as this...

a few months after his hundredth birthday.

...

"Obviously a joke", said my wife.

"But the seller is a member of the ABAA. They do have standards... and a Code of Ethics."

"No, it must be a joke. It's so over the top."

"But—" And it's here that I realized it doesn't matter nearly so much as our need for a new eavestrough.

Not that the recognition prevented this post.

Avert Your Eyes, Children!

Legends of Quebec: From the Land of the Golden Dog

Hazel Boswell

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966

Hazel Boswell seems to have led such a charmed life. A direct descendant of the first Marquis de Lotbinière, she spent much of her childhood at the Seigneury de Lotbinière on the south shore of the St Lawrence between Quebec City and Trois Rivières. When her grandfather, Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, was appointed Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, she moved into Victoria's Government House, where she spent six years living off the public purse. I can find no evidence that Miss Boswell worked so much as a day in her life, though she did study art under Horatio Walker and Percyval Tudor-Hart.

Miss Boswell was a mere fifty-six years old when Viking published her first book, French Canada: Pictures and Stories (1938). A very slim volume, it features glimpses of Quebec life and folklore, accompanied by the author's very pleasant colour illustrations.

The Christian Science Monitor thought it a "lovely picture book", while Montreal's Gazette found it "charmingly illustrated... in gay colour, reminiscent of the French Canadian's own hooked rug pattern [sic]."

Miss Boswell dedicated French Canada to "the children of the Province of Quebec". Most had children of their own by the time Legends of Quebec, her second book, was published. On the surface, it's more of the same: a collection of folk tales with paintings by the author. However, Miss Boswell seems to have undergone some changes in the twenty-eight years between books. For one, the octogenarian had been robbed of much of her ability as a visual artist. Quebec, too, had changed, a fact recognized by the author in her Foreword: "These folklore stories have come from the years long past when French Canada slept its enchanted sleep amongst its apple orchards and maple groves, and time was measured by the chime of the church bells."

It's an odd statement, evoking a gentle, idyllic time that is better reflected in French Canada than Legends of Quebec.

The first of the book's ten tales, "The Feast of St. John the Baptist", moves the saint's story to an ancient kingdom that is said to have once existed somewhere north of the St Lawrence. There are reveillons and tortières, but all is otherwise familiar... until Salome straps on her skates. A vain and careless creature, she ignores warnings of thinning ice and tumbles into the drink:

As she fell, she struck a great block of ice floating down the lead that was widening. The jagged edge of the block was as sharp as a razor blade, and as it struck the Princess, it sliced off her head just above her collar. In a moment her body sank out of sight, but her head on the great block of ice went drifting down the lead before the horrified eyes of her friends.

In Legends of Quebec, bad things happen to bad people, but also to the not so bad. Here a man is crushed by a tree after dismissing stories of the White Owl as a bird of ill omen.

In "Felix the Obstinate", a farmer who tends to his farm rather than attend Good Friday mass finds that the sap coming from his maple trees has turned to blood.

And then there's Cléophas Ouellet, the wealthiest farmer in Ste Rose des Pins, who loses his temper over some inclement weather and takes a shot at a wayside cross.

In an instant, Cléophas is paralyzed. Able only to move his eyes, it seems he is doomed to spend eternity standing in his potato field, unable to say an Act of Contrition... or get off a second shot.

Enchanted sleep? Bloody nightmare is more like it. Thank God French Canada woke up.

Object and Access: A squarish hardcover in heavy dust jacket, Legends of Quebec has all but disappeared from our public libraries. Fortunately, decent copies aren't hard to find and begin at about C$9. The most expensive on offer, at C$45, is signed by Miss Boswell.

Back from Dear Old Blighty

Returning to my desk after a very enjoyable and eventful weekend at the Knowlton Wordfest. These photos, taken in nearby Foster, feature what is left of the home of Bill Arnold, one of John Glassco's neighbours. A veteran of the Great War, Arnold called his house "Blighty". The man and building inspired Glassco's 20-line of the same name, which was first published in the November 1952 issue of The Canadian Forum.

See by the tracks, where a sodden shingled roof

Droops on a worn façade, a wilting visor

Over dead window-panes and the lettered board

Where exultation, curled into one word,

Still celebrates a half forgotten war —

That "lettered board", featuring the name of Arnold's house, remained nailed above the front door for nearly nine decades. It was stolen earlier this year.

Related post: Glassco in Knowlton