An evening with Elizabeth May
Under every stone lurks a subtitle
Being the 25th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
An Evening With Elizabeth May
I live a fame-adjacent life.
Not the least bit famous myself, my life often conspires to place me near well-known people. Sometimes these people are what I call “niche” famous (for example, famous to fans of science fiction or Canadian rock bands), other times they’re household names (I’m guessing you’ve probably heard of Phil Collins). Sometimes I’m complicit in the process, such as when I approach someone to appear on a podcast; more often than not it just kind of happens to me. (I devote a chapter to this phenomenon in Adventures in the Radio Trade.) I am basically Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump, though I’ve yet to tell any famous person that “I gotta pee.”
(Why do famous people interest so many of us? I keep coming back to this. The most interesting people I’ve ever met, and the ones I like the most, are usually not famous, with some exceptions. But humans are social creatures, fascinated by people who stand out, and the names I will crudely drop later in this piece may be of some interest to some of you because some of you will know of some of them. And in certain cases, all of our lives have been impacted by certain of these people, in ways good and bad, which probably tends to make us especially curious about them.)
Anyhoo, this past Monday night the Riverview Green Party asked me to co-host “An Evening with Elizabeth May,” a fund-raising event for the local Green Party. Elizabeth May being the current co-leader of the Federal Green Party, which I guess puts her somewhere in between “niche famous” and “household name,” in Canada, at least.
I’ve encountered a few other well-known politicians in my time: I heard Pierre Elliot Trudeau speak in Summerside, PEI (I was a kid at the time; I don’t remember a single word of it); I shook hands with Jean Chrétien, also in Summerside (I remember feeling palpable charisma). I’ve recorded Ed Broadbent for CBC Radio (friendly, down-to-earth). I also recorded Jean Charest for CBC French radio in Toronto, and I’ve recorded Bob Rae several times for various shows on CBC Radio, not that he would remember me, as we never exchanged a single word. I failed to get my picture taken with Kim Campbell while recording a radio play with her (she seemed quite likeable). And just to take this boorish name-dropping one step further, I also encountered Rob Ford early one morning in the Toronto Broadcast Centre just as he was poised to become Toronto’s (most notorious) mayor.
“Let me be among the first to congratulate you,” I said to him.
“Thanks,” he said, and shook my hand.
So anyway, I spent this past Monday night rubbing shoulders with Elizabeth May along with the leader of the New Brunswick Green Party, sitting MLA David Coon (who greeted me warmly), as well as other Green Party MLAs and candidates, including Sarah Lord, candidate for Riverview (Sarah being the reason for the whole event and the reason I was there).
I’m not one hundred percent (or even twenty-four percent) sure why I was asked to do this, other than that the Green Party folks thought I did a reasonably good job at Sarah Lord’s launch party. But I’m not exactly sure why they asked me to do that, either, other than that Sarah worked with my wife for a while, and I gather she knew I used to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. But not everyone who’s worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation can MC a public event, so I think it was a bit of a leap of faith for Sarah and her team.
Luckily, I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating at least a bit of an ability to do public speaking. I’ve MC’d several weddings, attended courses on public speaking, and delivered many speeches at work over the years. Back in high school I was petrified of public speaking, but I would do it. Asked to MC a variety show, I did almost the entire event staring at the stage floor, only acquiring the courage to look up and out to the audience at the very end.
I got better at it, though, and developed an ability to speak fairly naturally at these sorts of events until one memorable day I completely blew a speech at work. Confident in my ability to speak extemporaneously, I didn’t really prepare and only had a vague notion of what I wanted to talk about. And when I got up in front of the podium and looked out into the audience I completely blanked. Basically I had a panic attack in front of my whole department. It was pretty embarrassing, but I did my best to shrug it off. And it taught me never to go into one of these things unprepared. I’ve delivered many speeches since then sans incident.
I felt better after that debacle when former CBC host Michael Enright told me that the exact same thing had happened to him once. He panicked at the beginning of a speech he was supposed to deliver in front of some VIPs at a dinner, managed to stumble through it, and remembered nothing of the event afterward except the colour of his shoes (brown), if I recall the story correctly. If it can happen to a veteran broadcaster like Michael Enright, it can happen to anyone.
It just so happened that I was co-hosting the Elizabeth May event with another veteran CBC broadcaster, Jo-Ann Roberts, who is very experienced at this sort of thing and one hundred percent comfortable in that political milieu. Jo-Ann really did not need me at her side; my only real contribution was to provide a more personal introduction to local Riverview candidate Sarah Lord, which I was happy to do.
I hope Jo-Ann won’t mind me sharing one tiny slip of the tongue on her part. Intending to say, “We need clean air,” she accidentally said, “We need clean hair,” which became a running joke throughout the evening. It provided a nice transition for me in between David Coon’s speech and my introduction to Sarah Lord.
“I really think you guys are onto something with this clean hair business,” I told David, which earned a few chuckles from the room.
The event itself was fun, relaxing and informative. Elizabeth May was a charismatic ball of energy, at one point informing local musician J. F. Moreau that his beautiful rendition of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon “was better than Neil Young ever did it,” or words to that effect. (To which I will add that every single song Moreau performed, almost exclusively Canadian tunes such as those of Young and the Tragically Hip, was superb.)
Forced to cancel a “whistle stop” earlier in the day due to her train arriving late, May also spoke about the unfortunate decline in rail service in this country (I concur; I love travelling by train). She also pointed out that the reason the train was late was because the “heat dome” had made the rail tracks too hot, forcing the train to go slow. According to scientists the heat dome is a result of global warming, so her delay was actually a result of climate change, obviously a major plank in the Green Party’s platform.
(Walking the dog after writing a draft of this post, it occurred to me that out of all the famous politicians I’ve ever met, recorded or briefly worked with, Elizabeth May is the only one to have called me by name after having clearly made it a point to remember it. Earlier in the evening, she asked me J. F. Moreau’s name before addressing him, and remembered it later as well. Remembering and using the names of people I’ve just met is something I try to do but usually fail at.)
Sarah Lord herself delivered a personable, heartfelt speech underscoring a sincere, personal interest in the well-being of her potential constituents, highlighting concern over a mysterious neurological illness afflicting New Brunswickers, and pointing out that Elizabeth May herself was instrumental in getting Lyme disease recognized.
Now, you would be forgiven at this point for thinking that I’ve gone all political, and that I’m a died-in-the-wool, card-carrying member of the Green Party. The purpose of this little piece is not to tell you who to vote for, though. I’m not a card-carrying member of any party, and I’ve voted for other parties in the past. You can make up your own mind who to vote for. This piece is just to tell you about my latest, pleasant “fame adjacent” experience.
That being said, I’m definitely aligned with Green Party values. I’m all for treating this planet and the people on it properly. I have voted Green in the past, I will be voting for Sarah in this election, and I have donated a small sum of money as well as my time and skills (such as they are) to Sarah’s campaign. I always vote for my favourite candidate in whichever election I’m voting in (and I ALWAYS vote, because… democracy). And this time around my favourite candidate just happens to be Sarah Lord.
Do vote, though, when you get the chance. That I have no problem telling you to do, unequivocally.
Subscribe to Mark A Rayner’s Newsletter!
Mark Rayner’s a good guy.
He’s co-host of our podcast, Re-Creative.
He’s the author of several great books.
And, like us, he newsletters! (Is that a bad thing, using newsletter as a verb? Probably. Sorry.)
In fact, Mark’s newsletter (which is subtitled “scribblings, squibs and sundry monkey joys”) is one of the reasons I newsletter. I always read his newsletter top to bottom. I liked his newsletter (and Mark) so much I invited him to co-host Re-Creative, and started a newsletter of my own, for DSP Inc.
All to say that you should consider subscribing to Mark’s newsletter as well.
Book Distributors
Regular readers know I’ve been exploring book distributors to understand how that side of the business works. Today we will look at this company:
Raincoast Books Distribution
Raincoast Books is Canadian, based in Vancouver.
They were founded by two guys named Mark Stanton and Allan MacDougall. The distribution division is actually one of three divisions of Raincoast Books.
They began in 1979 as a consignment wholesaler, whatever that is. Seems kind of contradictory, actually, as “consignment” means you only get paid if your product sells, while “wholesale” means you get paid whether your product sells or not. It’s like somebody asks, “Hey, what’s the weather supposed to be like today?” and you tell them, “Gonna be sunny cloudy today. Oh, and hot cold. Gonna be a sunny cloudy hot cold day! Dress appropriately!”
Despite this inauspicious beginning (I am of course being facetious) Raincoast Books has done quite well for themselves. At one time they were the Canadian publisher of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, but that ended in 2010.
They provide “complete sales, marketing and fulfillment services to a wide range of general trade and gift publishers from the United States, Britain and Canada.” They represent about 100 publishers from around the world and boast a “warehouse system capable of swiftly delivering over 20,000 new titles to over 2500 bookstores and other specialty retailers across Canada’s 5 time zones.”
They only deal with well established large and medium sized publishers. They do not distribute single titles or self-published books.
It is worth mentioning (especially in a newsletter containing a piece about the Green Party) that Raincoast Books is known for “sustainable environmental practices and for being an industry leader in the adoption of Ancient Forest Friendly paper.” (Ancient Forest Friendly paper is “free of ancient or endangered forest fiber, made with 100% recycled or straw paper, and is whitened without chlorine.)
I would love to distribute with Raincoast Books. But it will be a while before Donovan Street Press Inc. is ready for them, I think. That’s okay. Baby steps!
Re-Creative: the Podcast
Season 3 of Re-Creative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it, launches July 3rd! Our first episode will feature a conversation with Ben Fox, the brains behind Shepherd, a book discovery site, and very much a fan of books.
As well as Ben, we also have the following guests already recorded: John Scalzi, Michael Antman, Catherine Fitzsimmons, Candas Jane Dorsey, Ira Nayman, Blair Young, Bruce Sterling, Tom Bradley, Hugh Spencer, Jenn Thorson
With plenty more guests on the way.
You can already listen to the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires. From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Beethoven, the movies Aliens and The Thing, pottery, a map of Paris and so much more, our often humorous chats with actors, writers, scholars, musicians, journalists (the list goes on) cover a wide range of territory.
Join Mark A. Rayner and myself and all our terrific guests on our podcast Re-Creative to learn a thing or two about all sorts of art you might not be familiar with and maybe have a chuckle or two.
Donovan Street Press Inc. Books (so far!)
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." ~ Kirkus Reviews
A Time and a Place
“Entertaining, chaotic adventure.” ~ Publishers Weekly.
A note as well that the hardcover version of A Time and a Place now features the new cover (featuring art by my daughter Keira), and is available at a much less expensive price than before.
Other Times and Places
“ …a lovely little collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories, fun and well written.” ~ Charles P. Kelly
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read …well-written, gentle stories, well worth reading.” ~ Ottawa Review of Books
Coming Soon
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
Follow Joe Mahoney on Goodreads.
This has been the twenty-fifth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
It’s not easy being green…