Blue Metropolis - Life Is Lit
In the media room of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival the computer glitches, and the woman trying to get me my press pass apologizes for the wait. I'm relieved for the delay, for the honesty, and I make myself comfortable in one of the chairs facing her desk. "Take your time," I say with a wave. "I'm just glad to be here."
I mean it too. Blue Metropolis has loomed large for me, if also just outside my comfort zone. The words "literary festival" roll around in my head, different intonations and speeds, savouring the musicality and the concept. It's a gathering of the heavy hitters, and people I have yet to learn about. Room to room, floor to ceiling there are bookworms, language lovers, famous writers, and secret scribblers. My nerd heart is exploding, and I am consciously looking like I casually belong. I'm feeling connected to these behind the scenes office ladies, one diligently hand numbering what appears to be raffle tickets that she herself cut out earlier. They were designed by the woman helping with my media pass. The third gives me an approving nod when she hears I'll be attending Freedom of Speech, Propaganda and Cacophony.
"You're political," she says with a twinkle in her eye. You can make quick connections here; everyone's brain is hanging out in a beautifully rare way. Ideas are floating around, and it feels like what I wanted university to be.
I tell them it's my first time here, and the woman carefully inscribing tickets quips that they waited 25 years to finally host me. "I wanted to make sure you guys were consistent," I volley back. These gals are quick, and I'm in my zone. Lit wits are superior in my book (*gigglesnort, see what I -- nevermind).
"So, you guys are the ones who really make it all happen, huh?"
They smile at the recognition.
"Small hands," one says, and I am grateful for both their work and their warmth.
I'm early, because statistically I'm either early or late, and this particular flavour of nerves demanded a prompt arrival. What if I couldn't find the room? What if a million irrational things that are honestly impertinent here? But I'd also misread the time of my first lecture, meaning I’m an extra half hour earlier than intended.
No matter, I wasn’t the only one who found a lovely nook where I could just chill, pulling up a book (on my phone…Just Kids by Patti Smith, by the by) and let time do its thing. Having never been inside the Hotel 10, I must add that it's stunning. It was the perfect choice for the festival, with artistic decor and a thoughtful layout that allowed for a choice of mingling or avoidance.
Paragraphe bookstore had a pop up shop going on, authors milling about, signing books without the formality of lineups. I tried to absorb all the elementary school book fair vibes, and luckily, I’d left my credit card at home (JK, it was in my pocket, safely maxed out). Even without buying anything (I do love me a souvenir purchase), my brain was making a happy high pitched EEEEEEEE, and everyone who didn't accompany me should be grateful they weren't there, or I would've done it out loud -- while grabbing at them, or smacking their arm. I handle excitement questionably.
The first talk I attended was called Myths of Montreal with novelists Dimitri Nasrallah and Daniel Allen Cox, hosted by novelist and founder of the Violet Hour Book Club, Christopher DiRaddo. Nasrallah is also a Creative Writing professor at Concordia, a program I dropped out of years ago, certain that whatever I was looking for wouldn't be found behind a school desk (I regret nothing). The other jobs don't matter here though; it's a stage full of award winning writers.
The atmosphere was vibrating. The standing room crowd was there to hear people talk about things that mattered to them and influenced their art. That’s the shit that gets me stoked. My eyes are probably too wide. I'm taking notes even as I'm aware they won't fit into this article. I'm a nerd without apology. This is my Comicon.
The discussion is about Montreal's role in fiction, and Nasrallah is talking about his latest book, a semi-biographical novel told from the perspective of a Lebanese Muslim single mother arriving in Montreal in 1986. He tells us that he really arrived in 1988, but there is a lot of truth to be discovered in his work: his mother, a skilled French teacher, was unable to find work here, eventually moving them to Toronto when she found a teaching position there. During question period a well dressed elderly white woman stands, and with her thick accent that I cannot place, says that she didn't encounter any stigma when she arrived here in 1967. We shift in our seats, and there are tight, uncomfortable smiles throughout the room. No one can argue her experience, but we all know that it wasn't the same as the prepubescent, brown, Muslim boy who grew into manhood here.
He is kind, indulgent, does not say what I'm thinking, instead saying that it was a different time, there was a war in his country, implying the uncertainty of Canadians unable to look beyond colour and religion, unsure who were victims and who were oppressors.
The woman went on, asking how authors pay their bills before they make it big. There is uncomfortable laughter and honest groans through the room. Everyone here has heard those words spoken by their least imaginative loved one. It's beyond cringe, but at the same time I am comforted that even here, even a professor, an editor at Vehicule Press, an award winning four time novelist, is still being diminished in this way. For some people, artistic paths will always be risky and "less than"; start ignoring them now, they will never stop existing, no matter how much success you attain.
He shouted out the founders of Vehicule Press, and I realize they're the sweet, silver haired couple in front of me. I've been watching them: people younger than myself have been approaching them with giant smiles, excited to reconnect. In response, they've been asking thoughtful questions, remembering everyone and their story. They founded the press 50 years ago. It's a love story, an art story, a Montreal story. If I had been there with someone, I would've clutched them and made a humming sound.
Next was the aforementioned Freedom of Speech, Propaganda and Cacophony, and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I misunderstood what I was in for, and was happily surprised. Philippe Sands, a novelist / lawyer, and Suzanne Nossel, novelist / CEO of PEN America / Member of the Meta Oversight Board quickly got into the nitty gritty. Not only did I go in with an open mind, I left with an even broader perspective and fewer concrete answers. They weren't trying to pitch a view: they were diving directly into the grey zones, the legal and moral battles wherein the boundaries are inescapably murky. Hmm. I took more notes. My brian was turned up to 11, and if the knob had broken off right then, I would've been content into infinity.
Everyone seemed to know someone at Blue Metropolis. From the silver haired power couple, to people happily running into friends they didn't know would be attending, I had the thought that it was like a giant book club -- then I heard someone tell someone else that they would see them at the next book club meeting, and I thought (as I so often do), how truth is stranger than fiction; stranger even than similes and metaphor.
Even I ran into someone I knew, if only virtually. Our mutually narrowed eyes locked as we silently asked "is that you?", and it was. We were glad to connect, and she complimented my writing. I thanked her, and she said;: "no, you're a really good writer." I hear the italics, and feel her honesty. My brain is making that high-pitched noise again, and I am consciously acting like a grown ass human. Media pass aside, this makes me feel like I belong.
But the truth is, having finally attended the Festival, I realize that I always did belong there. Everyone was friendly, ready to talk to strangers without a hint of pretence, and there was no quiz to prove you're literary enough to be there. As is so often the case when I finally go somewhere I've been stalling on, I felt silly for having stayed away so long. I swear on a pile of books that I won't make that mistake again.
Until next year, Blue Metropolis.
