Douglas Coupland's Massey Lecture

Today, Carmella and I went to the Chan Centre at UBC, for the first stop on the Massey Lecture cross-Canada tour.  Douglas Coupland was reading.

I bought our tickets a few weeks ago, and picked them up today.  I was expecting to have a discussion with the lady at the ticket booth about Carmella's student-priced ticket, as I didn't have her ID with me.  Turns out she didn't even notice, or probably didn't care.  I've come to realize students get a lot of perks, and if one was surly enough to fib student-dom, many discounts could be had.

Carmella was working in Whistler today, and left work there right away to make it back to Vancouver in time for the show.  She got to my house at about 7pm, and we would travel the short distance to UBC for the 8pm show.  I had a homemade pizza almost made, but not quite because I realized I should cook the sausage before putting it on the pizza.

We brought the finished pizza along in the car, and ate on the way there.  We also brought two glasses and a jug of apple juice, so I made sure to drive in a manner that wouldn't cause a massive apple juice clean-up.

We got there in good time, at about 7:45.  The tickets were General Admission, so we just found our own seats.  There were two at the very front, so we took those as I wanted to be right in on the action!  Here's Rick Cluff from Vancouver's CBC morning show, introducing the evening.  It's an interesting experience seeing someone talk, when you're used to only hearing them.  He was older than I imagined.

Douglas Coupland appeared on stage, and began to speak.  It was great.  He decided to write fiction instead of the traditional non-fiction lecture, and read us the first of a five-part novel that deals with what it means to be human.

His reading was punctuated by several "minefields", a word he used to explain the kind of sentence he trips on for no reason; the kind of sentence that requires extra care to navigate.  He asked us who put the comma on the page, when obviously it needed a period.  Then he remembered who wrote what he was reading.  It was funny, and provided a short mental break from the text.  I wonder if he did it on purpose, to keep the crowd engaged.

After his reading, he sat down with CBC's Paul Kennedy, who hosts the radio show called Ideas.  There were a few questions from the audience, and some from Paul Kennedy.  Again, it was interesting to watch someone speak after only hearing his voice in my car.  Like Rick Cluff, Paul Kennedy was a surprise; he had more years and less height than I expected.

Vancouver's literati were in attendance, and people wore business suits and tried to look fancy.  I didn't have time to look around really, but the average age was older than Carmella and I although there were a few teenagers in the seats.

It was a different crowd from the one Kirsten and I were a part of in Victoria, around 2003 when we heard him read from Hey Nostradamus!, my favourite Coupland book.  That crowd was full of art students, hippies, and colourful characters who enjoy his style of writing.

The audience questions at the 2003 reading were very light, and delt with his past books, the characters in his books, future plans, and other random, fun topics.  The questions from the crowd tonight were a bit more wordy and the average syllable count was likely higher than in 2003.  It made me wonder if people put their syllables in their back pockets and take them out when necessary, perhaps when the CBC is recording them for a nationally broadcast show.

There was a good balance though, and not everyone was out to prove themselves a literary pundit.  One girl asked a great question, but prefaced it by saying she recently earned her PhD by writing a thesis on Douglas Coupland.  She was star-struck, and the crowd enjoyed it.  Her question was good, and I figure it won't end up on the editing room floor when the talk gets aired in November.  It was about when she teaches his material, the students feel he's not analogous to the rest of the CanLit authors.

It was a great show, and ended with both Carmella and I wishing we wrote more.  We agreed it was an inspiring event, as it made us want to write in our spare time.  I hope I can do that!

There is a book with the complete set of talks already published, and the CBC will be broadcasting the shows near the beginning of November. Make sure to listen in!  It's very entertaining and enjoyable.