GG winning author, Art Slade (who is coming to FIMS on October 23 for the Lunch Bucket speaker series – mark your calendars!), discusses the reasons he became (and stayed) a reader as a young boy on his blog. His answer? Heavy metal.
Two thoughts. Why did I become a reader? I think mainly because I always had books around and reading was made to be enjoyable and not “work”. A big part of that was that my parents supported my reading whether it was Stephen King or magazines or Hardy Boys or whatever – no pressure to read worthy literary works. Why did I stay a reader as a teenager? I'd accepted that I was more of a “nerd” than a “jock” by about grade six so being a big reader in my early teen years wasn't any more embarrassing. (I remember our Grade seven teacher made us do 10 book reports during the year. If you did 15, he bought you a Coke. I did 52. He only bought me one Coke.) As well, our hometown was so small that the lines were blurred. I played on the hockey and football teams as well as being on yearbook and in drama.
The other important question. Which heavy metal influenced my reading? None off the top of my head but I can say that one thing that links almost all of my favourite artists – Boo Radleys, REM, Radiohead, Hawksley Workman – are obtuse, poetic lyrics and my other favourites are simply poetic – John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen.
Classmate of the Day: Missed their party last night (too tired after the pool party and a class bbq) but met up with David and Sabina at APK this afternoon for a good visit that I probably wouldn't have gotten at their party anyhow. They're off to Ottawa tomorrow. They really did so much to make my first eight months here so amazing and successful and I owe them a huge thanks for that. I don't know if this analogy works but I was thinking that first term is like kindergarten, second term is like grade eight and (I'm guessing) third term will be like grade twelve. So getting to hang out with and learn from some middle school kids while I was only in kindergarten was a great advantage in helping me in this program in so many ways.
I'm off to another end-of-term party so hopefully this post isn't too disjointed or has too many errors (compared to usual anyhow.)
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