The time I’ve been able to devote to my real work—blogging—has been limited lately thanks to my editing duties, researching a potential politics story for the fall, and studying for a course I’m taking on modern drama.^{*Which will, next time some Hollywood-approved star shows up in Ottawa to decry Bill C-10, prompt some seriously trenchant comparisons with Lord Chamberlain’s censorship of George Bernard Shaw’s Miss Warren’s Profession. I recommend checking in early and often.} As such, in the grand tradition of starving freelance writers everywhere, I’m recycling some content created for another forum in hopes no one will care.

In this case, following is the text of a eulogy I delivered for Bigfoot last Thursday at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel, a launch for Walrus contributing artist Graham Roumieu’s Bigfoot: I Not Dead (which you can purchase here) that was part of the This Is Not a Reading Series put on by Pages Books. You can also read managing editor Jared Bland’s interview with Bigfoot for more.

I should note that I was forced to deliver this right after comedian and writer Seán Cullen had seemingly drawn out every laugh a hundred or so human bodies are capable of expelling in a single evening^{*Calculated by eminent guffologists to be exactly 1,753.} with his largely improvised take on how we should all learn from Bigfoot’s ability to live in the now. But no pressure.

Warning: could be viewed as vulgar by human standards, though it will seem profoundly commonplace to most sasquatches.^{*And to Michael Winter, whose scatalogical eulogy stretched the boundaries of good, bad, and awful taste—and we are all the better for having heard it.}

(more…)

Much like Damien Hirst, Bigfoot considers his work “No dark, just misunderstood and ahead of time”

(Much like Damien Hirst, Bigfoot considers his work “No dark, just misunderstood and ahead of time.”)

This month marks the release of the third book in a series of collaborative memoirs by Bigfoot and Walrus contributing illustrator Graham Roumieu. Bigfoot: I Not Dead is a tender yet violent addition to Bigfoot’s ongoing self-exploration project, sure to please both fans of his previous work and those who aren’t yet familiar with him but enjoy furry creatures, mutilation, poetry, existential anxiety, and/or hard-learned life lessons.

Readers in Toronto should be sure to attend the book’s launch, which takes place Thursday night at the Gladstone Hotel as part of Pages Books’ “This Is Not a Reading Series.” Michael Winter, Nathan Whitlock, Douglas Bell, The Walrus’s own Jeremy Keehn, and others will speak about what Bigfoot means to them. Second floor, 7.30pm, free.

I reached Bigfoot last week at his home in the woods.

How has your life changed since your first book came out?

Bigfoot hang dirty laundry on line for all to see. Some things just needed be aired out on wind of disclosure. Others so heavy shit-encrusted that they fall off of line into mud and now scrutiny birds pick bits of corn out of it and neighbor steal and put on Ebay. Not totally regret writing books but wish sometime to go back to old technique of whisper secrets into hollow stump. (more…)