Anna Smith hit her head, hit her head, hit her head…
I have received a communication from Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent.
She lives in Vancouver.
I pass it on without comment.
I walked right into the courthouse building about a week ago and bruised my forehead. I wasn’t knocked out cold or anything, I’ve just had a headache…
People said I should get it checked out, but I was feeling over-scanned at the time…
My sisters seem to be taking turns going to Colombia and being driven round in motorcades with armed guards, each for different reasons. It seems a bit excessive, but I don’t know, maybe that’s what everyone does there. It is making me wonder a bit though. I have never been in a motorcade. Am I missing out on something?
I think my brain is OK.
I went and looked at the place where I bumped my head and tried to recreate it because it didn’t seem possible… I still don’t understand how I could have done it… and it’s a really nice building by Arthur Erickson.
One night in early spring, ages ago, I met a Channel Four television producer from London on the street here. It was very late at night and he was quite drunk and with two other men. One was a Canadian animator and the other had just bought a television station so they were all celebrating.
The Channel Four man had just bought a series from the animator. So I started teasing the three of them, especially the Londoner, putting on different accents because they were wondering where I was from and I was saying “I’m from Canning Town; no, maybe it was Texas or Argentina….”
They were going mad, especially Mr. Channel Four… So they took me home in a taxi to a nice area and it happened they were staying in a simple but particularly well-designed small apartment building, made of dark lumber, which I admired. It had an inviting courtyard which was hidden from the street, with a grassy lawn and apple trees scattered about. The owner told me it was one of Arthur Erickson’s first commissions.
The Channel Four man was about sixty years old and very pleasant. He asked if I could go with him to the Pope’s summer palace because his son was being married there in August. He said I could stay in his flat in St Johns Wood but then he suddenly hesitated.
“I have cats,” he said. “Two of them. You don’t mind cats do you?”
I told him that I didn’t mind cats. We had a drink and I think his Canadian friends wanted me to sleep with him, but he was very sweet and said it wasn’t necessary. They gave me some money to get a taxi home and I never went back.
In any case, I had small children at home and it was out of the question that I might run off to the Pope’s summer palace in August. But I do once in a while wonder who that man was.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 