griddle talk

For 52 weeks, bill bissett and Carol Malyon met for brunch and conversation at the Golden Griddle in Toronto. This sustained conversational encounter between Carol Malyon, who writes within the objective bounds of standard English usage, and bill bissett, one of contemporary writing's most exotic practitioners, working with the visual forms of language in his own non-hierarchic, phonetic orthography, produces, as if by accident, invariably astonishing social, moral and ethical critical insights. Each of these writers' particular uses of language--the most radically different in contemporary literature--consistently foregrounds and interrogates the cultural origins of "common" perceptions that too often remain hidden and undiscovered in the dictionaries we search for "common" meaning: proof positive that each person's perception of life's most fundamental questions and answers is almost never shared, and is always and only ever subject to translation, even among those who "share" the same language. Here is what they talked about: Trouble and the Self What is Forever Does Belonging Exist Luck and Life We Need Not Hold Our Experiences Against Life Is There a Script The Role of Mysteries in People's Lives Time Free Will and Wider Wiring Families God &/or the Loved One and Individual Freedom Mortality and the Jigsaw Puzzle of Replicating a Parent in a Lover Why "Shoulds" are No Good Delusional Relationships The Chemistry Metaphor Censorship and Propaganda True Love Fact or Fiction--Where's the Line Do We Invent Everything We Go Through Is Rationality a Costume Can We Influence Larger Book Sales Maybe We All Want to Move to Sweden Just for Today I'm Confused About Religion Tax Reform Predictability Stage Fright Carol, What Is It Them Know Thyself and the Writer's Delusions Wondering What about the Stars and Our Friends Childhood Versus Later On Real Life--Does it Really Exist All Those Prayers--Where are They Going, Exactly Meaninglessness Time and Relativity Each Day We Wake Up and Realize They've Given Us Another Day Everything is Answered The Questions in Our Lives--the Balance, and What's Peripheral Dogs Give Unconditional Love, Why Can't People