Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!

Everyday Children

Edith Lelean Groves

Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1932

Unearthed during a recent trip to Cambridge, the publisher, "the children of the Saturday classes, Art Gallery of Toronto" and the promise of a biographical sketch by eugenics advocate Helen MacMurchy, CBE, conspired to remove five dollars from my wallet.

Of Edith Lelean Groves, I knew nothing, but was soon set right by Dr MacMurchy, who provides a good amount of detail, beginning with an account of her subject's great-grandfather and his imprisonment during the Napoleonic Wars. I dare say Mrs Groves is a much more admirable figure. She devoted most of her 61 years to the education of children, particularly those we describe today as having "special needs". Nearly a century ago, Mrs Groves fought for their integration into Toronto's public school system. When she succeeded, she turned her attention to providing wheelchair ramps and transportation.

Transportation, Crippled Scholars. Alfred Pearson, 15 April 1926

City of Toronto Archives

Sadly, Mrs Graves wasn't nearly so remarkable as a poet. Everyday Children is everyday poetry. Typical of what was once foisted on young readers, the collection stresses the importance of good manners, study, respect for authority and healthy living:

Still, the reader who sticks with it will find "My Upstairs Brother", about a young girl's relationship with her bedridden older sibling: "His name is Welcome Jack and he's got a twisted back,/ His arms and legs don't seem to want to go." This is followed by "Mended", in which a girl's "queer little mis-shaped limb" is straightened through surgery. These poems and others dealing with "crippled" everyday children are no better, but they do provide interesting and uncommon glimpses of the time.

It's not at all surprising that Everyday Children is forgotten, but what of Mrs Groves? She has no entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia. There was once a school named in her honour, but no more – it's since been renamed Heydon Park Secondary School. Seems no one knows why.

Gray Coach Lines' Crippled Scholars' Service. Alfred Pearson, 20 December 1928.

City of Toronto Archives

Object: A well-bound hardcover printed on very thick paper. My copy lacks the dust jacket by Arthur Lismer – he of the Group of Seven – which the Introduction tells us depicts "little faces of 'Everyday Children' who smile... the result of his gifted pencil."

Access: Everyday Children can be found in seventeen of our universities. Public library users are stuck with a single reference copy housed somewhere in the stacks of the Toronto Public Library. It would seem that this collection of verse enjoyed only one printing. Used copies range from US$15 to US$25, the uppermost price fetching that elusive dust jacket.

In Commemoration of Road Resurfacing

North Bay mayor Victor Fedell with Tony Clement, 7 September 2010

Minister of Industry Tony Clement was in North Bay this week, taking time from his busy schedule to unveil a commemorative plaque.

Something to honour the birthplace of Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet? Perhaps a bit of ornamentation for the late Bobby Gimby's house? No, this plaque commemorates a programme, not a person.

The Infrastructure Canada website informs:

Between 2006 and 2009, the city of North Bay received over $8.2 million through the federal Gas Tax Fund, which has been used to widen lanes, install new traffic signals, replace sidewalks and provide safer parking on some of North Bay’s most widely used roads.

Intrigued? There's more:

Asphalt resurfacing of various streets - $2,273,876 in GTF funding to complete asphalt resurfacing of more than 15 city streets between 2006 and 2009.

Worthington Street Bridge - $150,000 in GTF funding toward the new concrete water crossing structure, drainage improvements, road realignment and road resurfacing.

But why go on, you'll want to visit the site yourself.

"The Government of Canada is proud to commemorate such important improvements to the City of North Bay’s roads and bridges," crowed the Honourable Minister. And so, the plaque was unveiled, and future generations will learn how it was that the right turn lane on Algonquin Avenue came into being.

The celebration of upkeep and upgrade comes as work begins on a more worthwhile plaque, this one to commemorate the life of A.J.M. Smith. Like last year's memorial to John Glassco, it will be installed in the chapel of Montreal's St James the Apostle Anglican Church.

No Gas Tax money for this project, I'm afraid - funding will rely entirely on family, friends and admirers of the poet. Anyone interested can write for more information through the email link on my profile page.

Minister Clement can be contacted at 1-866-375-TONY.

A Long Lost Song of the Sea?

Sailors don’t care,
Sailors don’t care
Whether she’s dark
Or whether she’s fair!
As long as her lily-white bottom is bare
Sailors don’t care!

I caught myself singing this ditty while going through some paperwork last night.

Better at my desk than in church.

Ribald? You bet! But my real interest lies in the song's connection to American author Edwin Lanham's debut novel Sailors Don't Care (1929), first published in Paris by Contact Editions. The author and his publisher, Robert McAlmon, had contradictory stories as to the origins of the title – each credited the other – though it's probable that they drew from our own John Glassco. Then a teenager, the Montreal poet had learned the song aboard the Canadian Traveller, the ship that in 1928 carried him across the Atlantic to his Montparnassean adventures. Fourteen years later, Glassco wrote McAlmon, reminding him that the title "was taken from Captain Miller's (no relation to Henry) song in the second chapter of those abortive memoirs of mine ... both you and Ed read it, I know."

The lyrics to Captain Miller's song are found in John Glassco's papers at Library and Archives Canada... and, it seems, nowhere else.

Andrew Draskóy, of Shanties & Sea Songs, tells me that "'sailors don’t care' was a common saying around that time in its sense of sailors aren't picky." I note that the phrase also gave title to two American films, the first released the year before Lanham’s book was published. However, what I find particularly interesting is its appearance in the Victor Schertzinger/Johnny Mercer song "The Fleet's In", from the 1942 film of the same name. Its use is... well... fleeting. You'll hear the words just after the two minute mark:

She may be dark or fair,

But sailors don't care...

I wonder, was Johnny Mercer also familiar with Captain Miller's song?

Trivia: Really, isn't everything about this post trivial? That said, it's worth noting that Sailors Don't Care was published twice. The less ribald 1930 Jonathan Cape edition, pictured above, will set you back US$1000. The truly wealthy might consider the most desirable copy of the dirtier first edition. Inscribed by Lanham to McAlmon's partner in publishing William Carlos Williams, it goes for a mere US$2250.

Reliant upon his siblings, McAlmon died in near-poverty in 1956. At the time, Lanham was living a hand to mouth existence as a writer of mystery novels.

Career Advice from A.E. van Vogt

Popular Mechanics, June 1949

Happy Labour Day, Young Fella!

Canadian Reader: Primer II. (Toronto: Gage, c. 1881)

The Homoerotic A.E. van Vogt

Astounding Science Fiction

October 1948

Empire of the Atom

Chicago: Shasta, 1957

Siege of the Unseen

New York: Ace, 1959

Earth's Last Fortress

New York: Ace, 1960

The Twisted Men

New York: Ace, 1964

SF, Not S/M

The House that Stood Still

A.E. van Vogt

Toronto: Harlequin, 1952

224 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Crayola's Canadian Prime Ministers

Our ninth prime minister, Arthur Meighen, died fifty years ago this month. The anniversary itself, August 5, passed unnoticed, even in his little hometown of St Marys. I chose to recognize the day by sending an email to the folks at Crayola PLC, pointing out that their Arthur Meighen "coloring" page lists the wrong year of death. No response. No correction, either. I just checked... and then took a look at the rest of Crayola's Canadian Prime Ministers. Turns out that Meighen's page is not unique.

Things get off to a bad start with the misspelling of John A. Macdonald's surname, an error repeated on the page of his rival, Alexander Mackenzie.

Don't know why such a big deal is made over Tintin's Mackenzie's editorship of The Lambton Shield; he certainly had much greater accomplishments. Not that the creation of the North-West Mounted Police was one of them. Credit belongs to Macdonald.

Things improve slightly with prime minister #3, John Abbott, though I will quibble with the term "natively born" and point out the misplaced accent in "Quebéc".

All told, thirteen of Crayola's twenty-two prime ministerial profiles contain errors. John Thompson's year of birth is wrong, Laurier and Chrétien's terms of office are incorrect, and poor Louis St. Laurent is not only robbed of his moustache, but is made over as a dischevelled old man in pajamas and bathrobe. We're also told that he was an advocate of something called the "North Atlantic Pact".

He's referred to elsewhere as "Prime Minister Laurent".

The greatest indignity is done to Robert Laird Borden. Sure, his middle name is misspelled... yes, he was the eighth prime minister, not the ninth... but what I find particularly galling is that the man who led the country through the Great War is recognized for nothing more than having been born.

In Crayola's Canada there's a place in Nova Scotia called "Amnerst", a Member of Parliament is a "Parliament member", majority governments are known as "Majority votes" and the Official Languages Act was adopted in "the 1970's [sic]". We're told that King "prevented a separation between French and English Canadians" and Pearson worked as a diplomat right up to the moment he took office. It's a familiar, yet foreign country, one that has been blessed with prime ministers named William King and Charles Clark.

William King was before my time, but I do remember Chuck Clark; in the 1970s he led a Minority vote.

The new school year begins in eleven days.

Related post: Meighen as Monster

No Belly Band Brings Bare Bum Book Ban

First it was the seals, then all those stories about the tar sands, now we have to deal with the disgrace that is British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., laid out for the world to see in the pages of The Guardian and The New Yorker. Goodness, could they not have seen it coming?

Or am I being too harsh? Perhaps the real blame lies with the prissy, prudish people running the corporation's Passages Gift Shops. You know, that area of the ferry devoted to those who'd rather shop for an Orca figurine than take advantage of the opportunity to see the real thing.

"Passages Gift Shops are uniquely West Coast in feel and theme", their website tells us. "The aim is to provide a unique West Coast shopping experience." How do they do it? Just how are they able to offer a unique West Coast shopping experience? Well, one way is by refusing to sell The Golden Mean, the acclaimed first novel by BC native Annabel Lyon. Seems such a curious decision; after all the book hit the bestseller lists, was nominated for both the GG and the Giller, won the Rogers Writers' Trust, and is now garnering rave reviews in the UK. What gives?

As BC Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall explains, it's all about that bum on the cover: "Because we're obviously a 'family show' and we've got children in our gift shops, we had suggested we could carry the book if there's what's called a 'belly band,' wrap around the photo."

Can't say I've ever thought of those trips to Vancouver Island as a "show", family or otherwise. Never once felt tempted to walk out half-way through.

Update: No news to report – international ridicule has not encouraged Passages to revisit its boneheaded decision. In place of their mea culpa, I present the British and American editions of The Golden Mean.

That's the American one on the right. Apparently, being a #1 Canadian bestseller doesn't carry quite the same cachet it does across the pond.

Amazon Customer Review: 'Reading Munroe'

Related posts:

Homophobes and Book Burners Weigh In

Amazon Customer Review: 'undescribable and obscene'

Amazon Customer Review: Michel Tremblay's 'possible potential'

The Final Indignity

Further to yesterday's post:

Monarch was captured and brought to San Francisco in 1889 as part of a publicity stunt for William Randolph Hearst's Examiner, the "Monarch of the Dailies". His first four years in the city were spent in a cramped cage at an amusement park; it wasn't until 1894 that he was lowered into that concrete pit at Golden Gate Park. The bear lived over 22 years in captivity. After he died, Monarch was stuffed and mounted, and became part of a diorama replicating California's flag.

Today, the Bear Flag Republic has no bears, but you can still see Monarch – or what's left of him – at the California Academy of Sciences. Take the kids!

I wonder whether Delaware has a similar display for their flag.

Related posts:
Six More Cinders in the Eye
Magic Mushrooms and Bad, Bad Boys

Six More Cinders in the Eye

It wasn't until reading up on Bannertail that I learned of Japan's attraction to things Seton. This pales beside the idolization of our beloved Anne Shirley, of course, but it is out there... and has been for some time. Manga adaptations go back to the years preceding the Second World War; there's even a biography of the man, illustrated by the very talented Jiro Taniguchi. Anyone looking for further evidence that the Seton name holds weight in Japan need only consider the title of that horrendous cartoon featured in the previous post: Seton Animal Chronicles: Banner the Squirrel. It was just one of three Japanese animated series based on Seton's work.

The first, Seton Animal Chronicles: Jacky the Bearcub, was inspired by Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac, a novella published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1904. It's about a... Oh, why not let Seton's images carry the story.

Jacky, a bear cub, is orphaned after a hunter shoots his mother in the brain.

He's adopted by the hunter, who takes delight in his antics.

Jacky's sold to a crazy rancher who keeps him in chains.

He grows into adulthood, escapes, and feasts on lamb.

Shepherds fear Jacky, who they refer to as Monarch.

The hunter who adopted Jacky/Monarch all those years ago fails to capture him.

A second attempt is successful. The bear ends his days in captivity at Golden Gate Park, "seeking forever Freedom's Blue, seeking and raging – raging and seeking – back and forth, forever – in vain."

Monarch – or Jacky, if you prefer – did exist; that's him above. Though Seton took some liberties with the story of his early life, the bear lived his final years in a concrete pit, just as the author describes.

Everything is happier in Seton Animal Chronicles: Jacky the Bearcub because the bear never grows up. His fun filled days are spent with sister Jill, a Native American boy named Lan, and Lan's Grandpa Rocky (best not to dwell upon the incident in which Rocky killed Jacky and Jill's mother).

That third animated Seton series? Well, it appears to have been a grab bag of Seton stories, including a retelling of Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac. The animation, a touch more sophisticated, depicts the author communing with his cartoon pals.

An aside: Remember that Miami bookseller who was selling all those print on demand copies of Bannertail? Well, he's listed a POD copy of Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac at US$145.95. "Perfect Condition", he claims. I recommend the 106-year-old first edition, which is readily available for less than US$20.

Related posts:

Magic Mushrooms and Bad, Bad Boys

The Final Indignity

Magic Mushrooms and Bad, Bad Boys

Bannertail: The Story of a Graysquirrel

Ernest Thompson Seton

London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1922

230 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related post:

Six More Cinders in the Eye