Day 14

Wednesday July 9th, 1997

I woke to the gorgeous sight of the sunlit lake through the timber-panelled window of the bedroom, and to the rather strange sounds of some television show coming from the lounge room, and which was prompting a lot of animated discussion. It turned out to be a video of the 'Rapid T. Rabbit show', and by the time I emerged and joined Ann, Ron and the kids, the tape was on at least its second run through. The first thing that ought to be said about the Rapid T. Rabbit show is that it is almost inconceivably bad. And yet it is quite splendid. I'll see if I can explain what I mean. The show goes to air on a public broadcast channel in New York or New Jersey or somewhere, and the production is not what you'd call professional. In fact it isn't what you'd call competent. I've been in public radio broadcasting in Tasmania for 20 years, and I thought I'd seen 'amateur', but now I'm not so sure. But the almost absence of production makes it riveting. The show has spirit. There are moments...well, I'll get to that in a minute.*

The show in question featured the Doo-dah Parade at Ocean City, which in turn featured a parade by fursuiters, which in turn featured Tirran as Romeo Porcupine. Rapid was narrating the thing, but it was sometimes rather hard to work out what he was saying. The parade itself looked like a lot of fun, but you had to use a bit of imagination, because the production did not do much to enliven things by way of editing or much else, really. But even here there was a bizarre sort of fascination. I think that if Rapid T. Rabbit and his crew had done the telecast of Princess Diana's funeral, the video would have become a cult classic.

Anyway the real fascination of this particular show, or shows - I forget if there were more than one now - were the appearance of the Over-reacting Chickens - an improvised series of routines put on by Tirran and Loneheart, using hand puppets. The main gag is that the chickens over-react to somethingorother, and scream and go berserk. The sequence shot at the Doo-Dah parade worked well, and unfortunately I therefore remember less about it than I do of the one shot in the subway station in Toronto. This warrants some detailed description, I think.

Firstly, there was some problem with the editing. I forget now. From memory, Rapid tried to botch together the sequence using a vocal track supplied by Ron and Ann over the telephone, but without being able to view the video component in order to synchronise it. Something like that, anyway. Additionally, there were bizarre edits in the middle of sentences, so it had the sort of feel of an avant-garde rock video - or like those weird jumps and cuts that Woody Allen does in 'Deconstructing Harry', if you've seen that. The thing was shot in a subway station. There was brown, tungsten lighting effect. People walked by. A red light blinked on and off sometimes overhead. The sound was mostly unintelligible, and every now and again the chickens would scream. The action occurred far enough away from the camera for it to be fairly indistinguishable, too. And it went on and on and on. Most of the time I didn't have the faintest idea what was being said, or even what the sketch or routine was about. At the end of it cut back to Rapid T. Rabbit in the studio, with his sidekick - a smallish animal of what species I can't remember. His sidekick was flabbergasted. "What the hell was that about? It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Those people walking past... that red light going on and off!" I totally agree. It was like something by Bunuel and Dali. I have to see it again. Again! An Andalusian Chicken!

Some time later that day, or perhaps the day before (hey, if he can edit like that, so can I) we took the powerboat back across the lake to Magnetewan, so the girls could have swimming lessons. Tirran and I stood around beside the village swimming hole, which seemed to be a man-made (or maybe man-encouraged) anteroom to the lake, or elbow in a river, or something. Ann did explain what the lock was for, or whatever it was that the workmen were working on across the pond, but I didn't quite get the hang of it.

It was a really pleasant feeling, just hanging around there while the local community did their Wednesday swimming lesson thing. The pool was a couple of hundred yards across, with some boatsheds on the far side, a floating jetty that the kids were using, picnic tables and trees and stuff. There were maybe twenty or so parents there with their kids. It started raining, and it looked a bit cold for swimming to me, but I figured these Canadians were used to it. Tir' and I had a good old natter about furry things, and homicidal postal workers (I don't remember what that was in regard to, but I do remember it coming up.) It was one of several conversations which I wish we'd have had a few weeks to explore a bit further.

I went for a wander up to Downtown Magnetewan; ordered something else, and got black coffee no sugar, at the hamburger-stand. I can't in good conscience really recommend hamburgers at all now, as I'm vegetarian again, but I did have my best hamburger of the trip at that stand. The service is... vague. Ron and Ann picked me up as I was walking back down the road. I remember having shades on, so it must have stopped raining. We went to the shop that sold 'Downtown Magnetewan' T-shirts, and they bought me one. They discussed it in French, so I wouldn't know what colour they were getting. The local somethingorother club, or progress association or whatever, has a wall where they stick up pictures of people wearing Downtown Magnetewan T-shirts in faraway places. The deal was I had to get one of me wearing this T-shirt in Tasmania. I did get someone to take one, but it was crap. Maybe I'll get my act together for next time, though... **

We headed back across the lake. We ate a turkey. It took a very long time to cook, for what reason I can't remember. I sat on the deck around the boathouse, just grokking on the amazing lake, sky, those Canadian pine trees. Cathy hit the water again. Maybe, I just thought, swimming is big in those parts because it gets you away from the mosquitoes.

That night we sat inside, enjoying each other's company, starting to get a tinge maudlin, perhaps. Tir' played me Bob Drake's first album, which was the beginning of a bit of a love affair between me and his music - and I'm pleased to say that Bob's recorded one of my songs as the last track on his forthcoming album. The track's called 'Dunwich Confidential and has me on guitar and vocals, and him on everything else. I dunno what the album's called yet. I played Tir' some excerpts from 'West'; one of my radio serials. It featured a good deal of Rod the Camel cursing and behaving atrociously. Ron seemed to like it, and said 'Furries would go nuts for this, you know,' but I became a bit troubled that Rod might have been impinging on Ann's sensibilities a bit. It's a good thing I didn't play any of the bad bits, like where Howie accidentally gives him a headjob - or wait, did I play that? I think I played the bit where he got roped into hosting a game show called 'The Fabulous Old Thingie'.

"Our first contestant is Karen Eldritch, of Wheelbarrow. Her hobbies include looking around corners, and standing still. Next we have Earl Mograx, of Murmaria. He's a major landowner, who enjoys being misunderstood. And our final contestant is Mistress Jell-Jell, of Castle Earnth. She watches insects mating."

Or something like that. Then he said some stuff I shouldn�t print here. We had another one of those conversations that ought to have had more room to finish, or start again, or something. Later we sat for a while. Ann rugged up and cuddled Beth, and I took a photo.

It was only the second night in the cabin, my third night in Canada, and it was nearly over already. Tir' helped me with my packing. I had two big Douglas Huskies with me by now, on top of what I started with, and we had to incorporate a large cardboard box as a third item of luggage. Tir' reckoned the bubble gund would be OK to put in there. It wasn't. It blew up somewhere over Guam. Luckily large photoprint of a wolf and a couple of calendars can absorb quite a lot of moisture. Pity it wasn't that furry portrait of me that soaked it up, but nevermind.

I went to bed wishing we had just a little more time. I still do. Tomorrow was a drive to Toronto, a flight to Chicago, a drive to Wisconsin; back to Chicago, back to Wisconsin. It was a bit full-on. No, it was full-on; no bittiness about it That's tomorrow.

*having since seen Rapid T.Rabbit in person, at Anthrocon in Valley Forge PA, in 1999, I can say that he is a very funny and talented person.

**I have since gotten my act together in this regard, but haven't had the film processed yet (the only person who would care about this is Ron, but just in case he ever reads these things...