Day 21: Ottawa UPDATE! More Ottawa! Blink Gallery! Free Range Print! Amanda Earl! Page Half Full! **** When I was in high school my brother worked at a McDonald’s (macdo here in Quebec where we&;re headed to Montreal) on Lincoln Way in Ames, Iowa and in this McDonald’s on Lincoln Way in Ames, Iowa they had a hand dryer in the bathroom with the standard message on it: “This sanitary device has been provided for your convenience 1) Press button 2) Place hands below vent 3) Rub hands until dry” But at this particular hand dryer in the McDonald’s on Lincoln way in Ames, someone had scratched out “until dry” and written “4) wipe hands on pants.” In high school I thought this was very funny. Since then I’ve assumed that this particular experience in the bathroom of the McDonald&;s on Lincoln Way in Ames, Iowa would wind up being the most fun I would ever have with an automated hand dryer. That all changed today in Quebec. At a rest area packed full of maps, brochures and frenchies I went to the rest room, washed my hands and then approached the hand dryer expecting the standard “wipe on pants” sickly breath of a tubercular child, but instead I was treated to the explosive drying power of Quebec. My hands have never been so dry! It was like drying my hands in the exhaust of a very sanitary jet. Needless to say, the other gentlemen poets gathered around for much howling glee and experimentation with this awesome drying force, much to the annoyance of the surrounding Quebecois. Thank you Quebec for drying my hands so thoroughly! Anyways, this is all after we had a highly enjoyable night in the lovely civic center of Ottawa at the Blink Gallery in view of the parliament building and the American embassy. Kate Hall, a poet from Montreal, read an amazing poem, “Insomnia,’ which I forgot to record but which you can hear over at weird deer. What is it about this poem that is equally terrifying and supremely compelling? Thanks, Kate. And thank you David, Amber, Malcolm and Craig for your wonderful hospitality. And thank you Ottawa for joining us for a brief post-reading party on the bus. 037.jpg 038.jpg 039.jpg 040.jpg

3 Comments

Comment by Connolly on 09.27.2006 1:50 pm

Yeah, Kate&;s poem is a thing of beauty &; and as a fellow Canuck I hadn&;t heard of her until we read together at the Toronto reading. So thanks for that welcome meeting, too. Asked Joshua (who also read a gorgeous poem) at the afterparty if he was getting tired yet and he said, &;not really, not bad&; and then signed three books to &;Chris.&; Payback perhaps for the time it took me to get it through my skull that yes, Monica and Monica were both, in fact, Monica.

See you all later, I&;m hoping. Careful down there among all those Yankees.

Comment by Ottawa on 09.29.2006 1:05 am

PS Ottawa is in the Province of Ontario.

Comment by travis on 09.29.2006 10:32 am

I know it&;s in Ontario, but we left in the morning and landed in Quebec where the hand dryers were. That&;s where the writing happened, but thank you for the geography reminder.

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September 27th, 2006

Day 20: Toronto Day 22: Montreal