We're not going to just come out and say we're signing off. We're going to work it into the Das Boot record real subliminal-like.
First, back to Halifax. Tierney and Connolly arrived pumped after their conquest of the Gonish of the North, a one-eyed, saccharine town where the panhandlers are flinty in the face of the same-old. Overheard on Main:
Q: How ya been, Deidre?
A: Yep, OK. Not dead yet.
So Halifax was a shovelful of sand. We arrived, dwarfed by the mother of all Lusitanias docked on the pier, checked in and then supped healthy for a change at The Wired Monk. "Best eats all trip," Connolly thunk in his out-loud voice. Tierney 'membered a chowder and soda in Wolfville and kept mum.
The Haliburton Club hosted our reading, a modest but nimble-minded crew that shook Tierney more than once with their depth-charged Q’s pre- and post-reading. They quickly turned their guns on Connolly, promoted to the brains of the op, whose evasive maneuvers kept them entertained and flummoxed for a wild 1/2 hour or so. Connolly emerged Nicked and Needled and clutching his keel, but chuffed at the promise of youth.
Boxed wine was drunk like punch. The cheese (what's with undergrads and curdled milk?) scarfed down and/or crackerwiched for later. A photog from Halifax Chronicle made like a National Geographic journo: swooped in for some action shots, careful not to disturb the poet in his natural habitat. Then gone. As we soon were, into the night, a few slider beers at Henry House, then a sigh of belief. It's done like donair.
Which is to say nothing of the 20-hour drive back. The less, the better. So this is us, singing off. As Connolly said to Tierney after this coastal shot: Thanks for the mammaries.
