Or Falling off the Edge of the World
DOCUMENTARY FILM SHOOT: CONCLUDED
DAY 11: INTO THE WEST
The tides and B.C. Ferries wait for no man, so it is wise to leave early for Horseshoe Bay. As it is, we are there in plenty of time, but too early for the Starbucks at the terminal to be open. (Production has received a gift in the form of a hefty fistful of 25-dollar Starbucks certificates, so the rest of the trip will be an attempt to juggle a shooting schedule with the shimmering mirage of free coffee. I have also embarked on a quest to find a decent pair of cowboy boots. This is definitely turning into a road movie!)
The sunrise from the boat is amazing, and once again I am in desperation at how beautiful it is, and how I’ll never be able to paint it. It’s enough to make me want to stay at home and never set foot outdoors again, or at very least, lapse into some worldly ennui and sophistication that would let me look at everything through half-closed eyes and say “Oh but it’s not half as lovely as Capri or Salzbourg, dah-ling.” I have nothing but admiration for people who see the world as an extension of themselves or a succession of backgrounds in photo albums.
Happily, all this febrility keeps one warm; it is freezing cold out on deck.
 |
 |
 |
Photos left & center: Stéphanie Chapelle
Arriving on Vancouver Island, Bob, not content to have me risk my life in the saddle, has decided that wild predatory birds would be just the thing, and off we head to the next place he has in mind for me to briefly become an endangered species in my turn.
I end up conversing nose-to-beak with owls and an eagle. Robin and Sylvia Campbell have single-handedly created a unique center where injured creatures are taken in, nursed back to health, and then released. (They even take in bears, but thankfully had none right then, or Bob probably would’ve suggested I wrestle one.)
I’ve never been that close to wild birds before, and again I am struck speechless at how intricately beautiful they are. Of course, given that we live in a world where we are televisually bombarded by all manner of temerious and/or foolish individuals poking their fingers at nearly every creature alive, it may not seem terribly interesting to you, but believe me, I was thinking two things simultaneously: these creatures are sublimely beautiful and if one decides to suddenly eat my hand or my nose, then I am in big trouble….
Ever onwards, past Coombs (where I see my dream castle, but fail to find any cowboy boots) and west again.
 |
 |
Photo left: Gretchen Jordan-Bastow
Over the rise in the middle of the Island, a brief stop at Cathedral Grove, where I am ready to lose myself contemplating some of North America’s tallest trees when Bob decrees “This sucks.” – footpaths with railings and the interdiction to stray from them makes filming impossible – and we are suddenly back in the van heading for Pacific Rim.
We scour Tofino for a place to have coffee, but despite Werner’s lament of what tourism has done to it since he last visited 30 years hence, civilization has yet to parachute in a Starbucks, and we settle for coffee undoubtedly filtered through old socks. We head up Radar Hill and check a few beaches, but the light is going already, we have tarried on the road to watch a wandering black bear and have lost precious time.
DAY 12: PLACES OF SAND AND FOG
First light finds us out on the beach, the weather is rotten, but that’s what we want. No sunny blue skies and calm seas for today. If we could conjure up the minor demons of wind and storm and the malicious mermaids of crashing surf, we would do it. We also manage to get stranded by the rising tide, but Bob gets his shots despite damp feet.
 |
 |
I always feel very small on the edge of the Pacific. It’s the Farthest Shore, the land of earthsea, the space between the tides, the place of sand and fog. It’s where my mind drifts to anyway. Must be a North American thing – your mind wanders ever west, never east, until it fetches up against the Pacific. Generations of pioneers in covered wagons and hippies in Volkswagons have imprinted a flow on the continent (ever seen anybody hitchiking east? Ever seen a road movie that isn’t heading into the sunset? Or a poor lonesome cowboy for that matter?) that sweeps you along until you’re knee-deep in the surf.
I can discard all scientific knowledge of the earth and be on a beach of less sophisticated times. Before a sea dotted with isles named Hy Brazil, Avalon, Xipangu… and that somewhere out there beyond the horizon I could fall off the edge of the world. Suddenly the beach doesn’t feel so firm any more.
Ever had that happen – like a slow lift off into space? First you imagine your surroundings, then the few square miles around you, then the region and you lift up with the certitude of where you are all the way until the earth is a small blue ball in front of a curtain of stars. It’s only happened to me three times, once in a school bus when I was 14 or so (of all places), once on a freeway (I pulled over), and once on that beach. (But wasn’t I just falling off the edge seconds before? None of this makes sense at all.)
Thankfully, the camera box snapping shut and someone saying “Okay, let’s go.” brings me down out of orbit or I might still be up there, like Major Tom…
To another spot we found the day before, where the most fabulous trees overlook the ocean.
 |
 |
Wind shapes. Trees frozen in flight. Trees are portraits of time clothed in bark and bearing branches. It’s too wet and windy to draw, and besides, I’ve left the sketchbook in the safety of the hotel. Thankfully I have my camera, and these are going on my next book cover.
 |
 |
Left: Working on my ” film director” look – generally hirsute, RotK cap and Kiwi stockman’s coat.
Photo: Gretchen Jordan-Bastow
Right: Heading back east
DAY 14: HIGH TIDE, LOW TIDE
Day 14 is a short one, and the last little bit to be shot. I am to sign a few books at Chapters on Granville. “A few”, because given that there are only 8 copies of Myth & Magic to be had in all of Canada, Chapters hasn’t exactly announced anything for fear of being beseiged by angry and empty-handed clients. As it turns out, if you subtract immediate family and forum members, I think one person, perhaps two, did actually turn up, which gets Vancouver a prime spot at the top of my Worst Signing Session List, along with Oxford and Neuchâtel. Alas, of course Bob was diligently shooting away, thus immortalizing the proof that nobody EVER comes to these things…
(One of the employees did say that “Alan Howe” would be signing books… I wonder what John Lee was up to?) There was, however, a Starbucks IN the bookstore, but since coffee was free for visiting authors, I was still unable to inaugurate my card.
On the other hand, it did leave me time to do fairly decent little sketches for everyone, and a chance to chat a little before being whisked off to the airport.
So that’s showbiz boys and girls – you get to spend an exceptional time practically married to a crew of wonderful people, and then suddenly you find yourself orphaned, abandoned in an airport waiting room – and worse still, the d**n Starbucks at the gate DOESN’T accept the magic coffee card. Sic transit faba arabica. My luck was not to improve – given that I had in my possession a certified international card accepted the world over, I rushed off to find the Heathrow Starbucks, but it was closed for renovations… (By this time, the free coffee no longer mattered, it had become a quest on principle – a caffeine-deprived Pellinore hot – well, at least lukewarm – on the trail of a Glatisant Decaf Skim Latté…) Damnation, thwarted yet again. But I will prevail. (I can see myself now at JFK: “What’s your reason for your visit, sir?”, at which point I will hold up my coffee card. “Oh, and I need cowboy boots too.”)
In the meantime however, there is a web site if you want to find out more.
BUT OTHERWISE…
Have been certainly doing far too much slipsliding away for my own good of late, so back in the real world…
I’ll be at Montreuil, at the Salon du Livre, some time during the last weekend in November. I’ll post the times if I get them in time.
Also, there will be an exhibition of the illustrations for “The Abandoned City” in Bruges, at the city library (Kuipersstraat 3, 8000 Brugge), opening at 11 a.m. on Saturday December 4th, followed by a book signing at 2 p.m. (For those of you who haven’t been to Bruges, only one question: What are you waiting for?) More information will follow as I receive it.
Received my copy of “When a Fan Hits the Sh*t”, which I read in one shot – couldn’t put it down. It’s very funny and incrediby sad in a way, like all things involving good will that go awry. I even have a little chapter, but, unlike a few of the cast, who ended up stranded in LAX, my involvement was limited to a few e-mail exhanges.
Received proofs of the Artbook, which look good. The book should be out any day now. I’ll be signing in Lyon on December 10th, Annecy on the 11th and Aix-en-Provence on the 18th.
More on that next time.
