Alvin Williams Returns!

What do Alvin Williams and Billy Bob Thornton have in common?

Nothing. Not one blessed thing. In fact, it's shocking to see their names in the same sentence.

But both men were in town recently. Raptor fans and basketball cognoscenti know who Mr. Williams is. Sadly, not enough people outside that sport do. Tragically, a great many people know who Mr. Thornton is. That's just wrong.

Alvin Williams was the heart of the Toronto Raptors basketball franchise and he has never been replaced. Never. When Alvin left, the Raptors lost their soul. Oh sure, the franchise has played on - and with some very talented players - but it's not the same.

I'm not sure it will ever be the same.

I could give you stats - Alvin was the last Raptor to post a triple double, Alvin is the guy who put us into the second round of the playoffs - the one and only time we made it that far... but stats don't tell the story. Alvin personified basketball. I don't know how else to say it. Some guys make the highlight reel, and some guys are the face of the franchise and some guys get the shoe contracts and some make the headlines because they're feuding with the coach... but Alvin? He was the game. Now of course I don't know him - I only know the player. But for better or worse, Alvin was basketball. He always came to play, he never quit, he dove for every loose ball, he played one way only - hard - and he respected the game and its history and the people who came before him... When Alvin's knees quit on him, it was like seeing a surgeon or a concert pianist lose his hands. The loss to everyone who cared about the Raptors, who cared about the game, was staggering. Even today, it's a gaping hole. Sure, you grow the scar tissue, you move on, but there is no "healing process". You don't just get another Alvin.

He was, as we can all see now, irreplaceable.

Then there's Billy Bob. Tragically, this sometime actor is far more famous than Alvin Williams. First famous for being a middling actor, then better known for being dumped by more famous (but slightly creepy) actress, Mr. Thornton has now reinvented himself as a rube who believes "Renaissance man" is a shocking insult. After infamously sulking his way through a recent CBC radio interview (he was upset over the way he was introduced) Mr. Thornton mercifully cut short his planned stint in this country, leaving headliner Willie Nelson to muddle through on his own.

It's the difference between elegance and hubris. Alvin Williams returned to town a few days after Billy Bob Thornton fled. Taking a seat courtside, Alvin courteously signed autographs, hugged fans and kissed babies. He received a standing ovation, a brief video celebration, and sporadic chants of "let's go, Alvin, let's go!". And he watched the game. I'm guessing it was harder than any of us can imagine for him to do that. Oh not because we lost. That was expected. But this was his town, his court, and his game.

Toronto waited a long time for Alvin to return, and I'm guessing that he waited to come back until he knew he could handle it all, and handle it gracefully. Which he did. But there's no way it wasn't difficult for him. Difficult in the way that one Billy Bob Thornton could never - oh not in a million years - handle.

But Alvin could.

It's the difference between elegance and hubris, between a great player and a lucky one. No, Alvin wasn't given the same physical gifts as some number one draft picks we could name. But he was talented and he was smart, and oh man, he worked hard - and over the years, Alvin was careful to learn from everyone. The sad thing is, you can't say Billy Bob hasn't had the same opportunities - for pete's sake, his two-year-old band was given the chance to open for an American icon! But apparently he lacks the wit and humility to seize that oportunity. Hubris.

Like every Toronto basketball fan, I harbour a dream that Alvin Williams will return to do more than just watch a game. I'd love him to coach. I'd settle for him to do media commentary. I'd like him to find some way to share his understanding and love of basketball with the guys lucky enough to still be playing in the league. I know it's asking a lot. But if there ever was an artist who understood that it was all about the art, a player who knew that he was not bigger than the game, but that the game was so much bigger than all of us, well, that's Alvin. So maybe it will happen. Someday.

Oh but please, America. Keep Billy Bob at home.

Top Ten Fiction Titles in 2008!

Every year the Ontario Library Association puts together something called "Best Bets" - a list of their top ten picks for picture books, non-fiction books, and fiction books for children and young adults. It's a helpful guide for other librarians, parents, teachers, and even booksellers.

And guess what's on the top ten fiction list for Best Bets 2008?


Legend of the Lost Jewels!!!

How crazy-wonderful is that?

Now if you guessed the latest Ken Oppel or Shane Peacock, or Art Slade - well so did I. And we were right. No surprises there - those guys are excellent writers and those were terrific books.

But imagine how it feels to see your book up there too. On the same list!!!!

Seriously. Legend is there - I'm not making this up.

The books are listed in alphabetical order by author's last name (I know, I know, those quirky librarians with their love of chaos and obfuscation!) so my book isn't technically beside Oppel or Peacock's title. But that's kind of a relief. It's a bit intimidating to have a surname that starts with L - when you walk into a library or a bookshop, your books are usually nestled up to those of Madeleine L'Engle or C.S. Lewis or Janet Lunn. And in your mind, you begin to hear the strains of that old Sesame Street tune... one of these things just doesn't belong here...

The Best Bets 2008 list has so many great books by great writers... (I really can't help wondering if Legend is up there by mistake. But if it is, don't tell me -I don't want to know.) The top ten fiction list includes:

Maureen Bush's Feather Brain; Alan Cumyn's Dear Sylvia; Marie Louise Gay & David Hormel's On the Road Again - More Travels With My Family; Don Lemna's When The Sergeant Came Marching Home; Annabel Lyon's All-Season Edie; Susin Nielsin's Word Nerd; Ken Oppel's Starclimber; Shane Peacock's Death In the Air; and Art Slade's Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival.

!!!!!!

Pretty impressive company, eh?


Publishing a book is a little like launching a message in a bottle out to sea. (For one thing, you rarely encounter it again.) Legend came out and sort of sank without a trace - at least as far as I could tell, from the book review sections I perused in vain, or the bookstores I took to lurking in... But still you hope. You hope your book, like a tiny, glassed-in bit of parchment, will bob merrily along, enjoying favorable winds on a long and happy voyage to interesting places. You hope it will eventually find its way into the hands of someone delighted to receive it, someone who may, after reading, send it on another journey, to another reader...


But you don't actually know.


Unless, of course, they tell you. For example, if a reader sends you an email (not that I'm hinting) saying something along the lines of "Not bad, looking forward to more"? If a reader does that I swear your feet will not touch the ground for a week. When the estimable Otto Penzler reviewed Martello Tower for the late, lamented NY Sun, and called my book "captivating", it's possible I may have gone shoeless for a month - I certainly would never have noticed.


But these moments are few. Most of the time writers toil alone and in uncertainty. It's a great life and all that but, as with most jobs, there's precious little feedback.



Enter the librarians!



I haven't read all the books on the Best Bets 2008 list, but of course that's one of the things Best Bets does for people like me - it spurs us on to check out these titles. My pal Helaine Becker turns up on the non-fiction list, of course, with her mesmerizing Science on the Loose. (hmm... and now I'm wondering... is there an award Helaine has NOT won or been nominated for?) And the elegant and inspiring Elizabeth MacLeod (a personal favorite of my middle child) appears on the non-fiction list twice, both for Royal Murder and for Why Do Cats Have Whiskers? (Talk about range!) I will have to read Linda Granfield's The Unknown Soldier, now that I've read the librarians' description, as well as the latest by John Wilson, Desperate Glory. The Story of World War 1.

And what of the picture books? My kids are now past this stage (although still unwilling to part with the thousands that line our shelves) but I have nieces and nephews and I still volunteer in the library of my neighborhood school. So while I do know enough to reach for the latest Ruth Ohi, Hazel Hutchins or Melanie Watt (and yes, their titles are all on the list) I need informed, expert advice to guide me to the authors and illustrators I might not yet have encountered. (A copy of this list, slipped into my backpack, will be invaluable the next time I'm birthday shopping for the kindergarten set!)

And that's the kicker, isn't it? Expert, informed advice. That's what Best Bets means to me. That's why it means so much to me, to be included on this list. Because librarians made this list. If you've read my Globe and Mail piece from years and years ago (and goodness knows why you would have) you'll know that librarians are my heroes. My mother was a librarian in Sudbury, my grandfather started a parish library in Montreal West, and my grandmother was a children's school librarian in Montreal West. Cicero wrote: "If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need". And, for an individual, I think that is still true. But for a healthy society, I would expand Cicero's quotation to say that if you have gardeners and librarians, you have everything you need.

Reading is a deeply personal experience. Not all books and not all writers speak to all readers. To be a reader requires persistence, patience, and, I truly believe, the right to walk away when it's clear your relationship with a book or a writer is doomed. (Coincidentally, to be a writer requires the same persistence and patience, as the rejections pile up and the writing turns balky. Also, I suppose, a thick skin.)

Loads of people won't ever read Legend. The title, the jacket, the characters or plot - any or all of those things may turn people off. And even when a reader does crack its spine, he may decide it's not right for him. But a group of Ontario librarians read it. And the librarians liked it. They liked it enough to recommend it.

And that's the nicest thing that's happened to me in a very long time

Twice In One Week?

Perhaps blogging more than once a week is asking for trouble... oh, but how much more trouble could we be in anyway? The business sections of all the papers keep finding metaphorical cliffs for companies and entire industries to fall off, the Raptors manage to lose horribly to the 76ers, (letting the not-as-good-as-they-looked-last-night team shoot a crazy 55% from the floor for the game) and it's a miserably grey and rainy day in November.
Which makes me wistful for grey and rainy Ireland.
I don't want to go into too much detail about my Amazing Irish Adventure, lest I spoil things for the book. But I do want to mention, at least briefly, the wonderful, kind people who helped me on my travels.
Travelling in another country is a fascinating, absorbing experience for anyone. But a middle-aged woman is perhaps ideally suited for the type of travel that requires the traveller to disappear, to blend in, and slip among the throng unnoticed, discreetly making notes and listening to others talk. At 44, if you're a woman travelling alone, you travel alone. No-one is going to start up a conversation with you unless they have to; shop keepers, waitresses, and lost tourists seeking directions will form the bulk of your encounters.
This is great, much of the time.
But some of the time it's horribly lonely.
It's especially lonely if you're used to a bustling house full of Guitar Hero-playing children and their friends, set to the soundtrack of bins of Legos sent crashing to the floor as eight-year-old inventors scramble to find that one crucial piece for their world-weather-controlling device, telephones and doorbells ringing non-stop and someone howling at an inscrutable, non-compliant computer.
In the end, Ireland was an almost perfect balance between that long sought-after state of being left alone with my thoughts, and not being left alone.
But I think I might have gone a little mad, had I not had the great fortune to meet certain people during the first week of my trip. The Hopkins family - Dermot and Cathy, and their lovely and inspiring daughter Alice - are the sort of people who make you reach for a thesaurus, because the ordinary adjectives - like "kind" or "intelligent" aren't glowing enough. How many people would take a complete stranger under their wings, trap themselves for an entire day on a boat with her, just so that she could see how her characters could manoeuvre a vintage river barge through a lock and under bridges and along a canal?
The incredible Hopkins family fed me, let me drive their magnificent boat (!!!) and showed great patience and generosity as I pestered them with questions. In the process, they gave me a glimpse of just the sort of warm, loving, family Hazel and Ned will encounter. I could never ever repay them.
But I also had the good luck in that first week to stumble upon two of the very finest places to stay in the Irish countryside: Markree Castle, just outside Sligo, and Lough Key House B&B, just outside Boyle. I could travel for months and months and spend untold thousands of euros, and never find anywhere as welcoming and wonderful. Markree Castle was perfect in every way, and staffers Rachel and Alex could not have been more helpful. And Lough Key House - a stone Georgian B&B straight out of the best novels of Noel Streatfeild and E. Nesbitt, introduced me to the incomparable Emily, Frances, and their good friend Lydia, to whom I owe so much. These are people I will never forget. I could not have invented Lough Key House; I am so grateful that Frances has.
My travels took me to Yeats country, Connemara, Galway and the Aran Islands, and saw me criss-crossing the mid-western counties, before finally ending up in Dublin. In Connemara I was fortunate to have a fantastic guide, Fergal, from Ireland West Tours, and in Inis Moir, I was privileged to share a pony and trap with Yolanda. And in Dublin, Evelyn made sure my stay at Waterloo House B&B was everything I hoped it could be.
I needed to make this trip, to write the book I want to write. And I spent nearly three weeks in a frenetic race, trying to take in everything I could, to leave nothing undone. But in the end, the people I met will shape my writing at least as much as the museums, the cathedrals, the stone age and medieval monuments, or the scenery. I'm so grateful to everyone.
Obviously, travel of this sort is not challenging in the way that it would be if one journeyed to a place of danger or privation, or even simply to a country with a language and culture that differed dramatically from one's one. Clearly any sense of dislocation is minimal when you're exploring a country already familiar through books, films, or televsion - a country where they speak your language, a country whose history and culture shaped that of your own.
Even so, travel can make you stupid.
At least, it can make you feel stupid.
You know, for example, how to go into a store and purchase something. But in another country, you will probably stand - or queue - in the wrong place, and fumble with the money. Perhaps you'll be able to read the signs or names of places but chances are excellent you will mangle them in the pronounciation. And even if you've made the prudent decision to avoid opposite-side driving, you will still have to navigate those roads as a pedestrian - and remembering which way to look turns out to be far harder than it sounds.
Everything is more complicated, yet laughingly simple or obvious once you've figured it out. And you are always surrounded by strangers for whom - of course - buying a Luas ticket or taking a bus is all second nature and plain as the egg on your face.
I'm very grateful for this trip for what it means for the book. But I'm also grateful because I feel as if I just spend several weeks living the life of a child. Because surely this is what it's like to be young? To be trying every day to function in a world that you're still busy de-coding, surrounded by systems and procedures everyone else seems to know or understand. To constantly have to tug on someone's arm to ask how or why?
How easy it would be, in those circumstances, to grow frustrated or fretful.
How amazing it is, then, that children behave as well as they do.
The helpfulness and kindness of so many people I met in Ireland made my journey the trip of a lifetime. I'll try to remember that, the next time I'm volunteering in my children's school, or hosting playdates in my harried home.
j

The Lazy Blogger's Return!

I'm back. And even though I suspect no-one ever actually reads this page, I apologize anyway for the extended absence. Look at all the incredible things that happened while I was gone! Summer, for starters. Here in Toronto, Canada, we had grave doubts summer would ever arrive. But it did and it was everything summer should be. At least, I hope summer came to the city - in truth, I spent it mostly in the country, at an 1858 farmhouse, with 98 acres of pasture, cornfields, and woods. It was the first goof-off summer I've had in years. We picked wild strawberries and raspberries and watched beavers dam the creek, and we climbed trees and kicked soccer balls and we turned croquet into a blood sport (surprisingly easy to do). We slept under the stars and sang songs around a campfire and swam and gardened and talked to frogs and mink and rabbits. We built and launched rockets. We lost kites to hungry trees (including one especially voracious maple) and we startled the deer that came to drink the cool creek waters at dawn. We had a summer.
After all the snow and grey of last winter, we made every moment count.
But before we knew it, autumn arrived, and with it the return to school, elections here and in the United States, and a new-look Raptors team with the aging (but still great?) Jermaine O'Neal and the slender but stealthy Roko Ukic added to the roster.
Lots going on.
And thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, I missed it. Well, most of it.
I was in Ireland.
Yup: Ireland.
!!!!!!
In fact, I've only just returned from the most exhausting, absorbing, exciting, and amazing adventure: nearly three weeks exploring Ireland. Alone.
How? Why? Well, much of the credit goes to my brave spouse, who turned a blind eye to the mounting bills and shouldered the task of caring for three children on his own. And even more of the credit goes to the children, who rose to the occasion with grit and grace, never once setting the house on fire or accidentally bringing peanut butter to school in their lunches.
But most of the thanks goes to the Canadian taxpayers.
Last winter, I received the most wonderful gift: a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to work on a third Hazel Frump book. According to the rules, I could use some of the money for groceries and childcare, and some of the money to travel to Ireland, where the next adventure takes place, to research the book.
I can't tell you what this grant has meant to me. When I visit schools, I am usually asked, by younger readers: "Are you famous?"
To which I reply cheerfully that I am not.
The follow-up question is most often: "Are you rich?"
Rather less cheerfully, I explain that I am not.
"How come?"
"Because... I write children's books."
I explain that writing for children is a very expensive hobby. I'm lucky to have a husband who can support me, and children who recognize that some things that are worth doing come at a cost. Children's books, and children's authors do not, as a rule, make much money - J.K. Rowling notwithstanding, they never have. And to be brutally honest, my books are not selling well.
Now, it may be that my books don't sell for the simple reason that they aren't very good. Most of the time, particularly at three a.m., that is what I think.
But then I remind myself that although most bestselling books for children are terrific, many terrific kids' books never become bestsellers. Sometimes good books - like good TV shows - don't find their audience. Sometimes they are cancelled.
Just ask Joss Whedon.
So when the Canada Council for the Arts awarded me that grant, the money was important (oh so very important) but even more crucial was the vote of confidence. I had ripped open the envelope and tossed it on the recycling pile, and the letter was drifting down to join it, before the first words of the opening sentence registered: "We are pleased to..."
Pleased?
That didn't sound like a rejection. And I should know - I had thirty-four rejection letters for The Mystery of the Martello Tower before HarperCollins came along. Some of those letters were written by people who clearly relished the task, relished it more than might be considered seemly; still, no-one had ever been bold enough to use the word "pleased" when rejecting me.
I snatched the letter back and studied it, reading it three times before the words sank in. The Canada Council for the Arts was awarding me a grant. Me, the forty-four-year-old mother of three whose books were languishing unsold in storerooms across the country!
Someone out there believed my work was worth supporting. Someone not related to me.
I can't begin to explain how wonderful that was. Is.
In the end, of course, I will have spent far more on writing the next book - on travel and subsistence - than the grant would cover. But that's hardly the point. The letter - and the money - buoyed me more than I can say. I am now determined, so very determined, to write a good book, a better book, my best book (not to mention a book that might actually sell) because of it.
I want to prove the Council right. I want Canadian taxpayers to know that they were right to support me, and that their support meant everything, that it made the difference between a story in my head and a book in the library.
I left for Ireland just as the global economy slid off a cliff. You can imagine the guilt, the worry. I lay awake a few nights before departure, fretting: should I cancel the trip and send the money back?
It was too late, too many costs were sunk, too many arrangements made; alea jacta est, as they say. So I went. And it was everything I could have hoped for and more and better.
Next post, I'll tell you about some of my Irish adventures, and the incredible people who helped me along the way.

Legend of the Lost Jewels

The latest installment of Hazel Frump's adventures is hitting bookstores now!!!!!!!
I thought bringing out my first book was scary, but the release of The Legend of the Lost Jewels has me petrified. What if it's too dark, too creepy?

Or worse - what if it's boring?

I imagine every writer hopes that their second book will demonstrate some sort of growth, or improvement - tighter pacing, a more fluid style, a stronger command of language. But what if you had to write that second book very, very quickly - and at the same time, you were re-writing that first book for a U.S. publisher, taking out characters, adding and deleting scenes? Could you write a stronger, more compelling sequel? Or would you struggle just to keep all the plots straight?

The first time around, many reviewers compared Hazel to Nancy Drew. On the surface, this is a bit perplexing. Hazel is not a young adult with her own car. She's 12 years old - she doesn't drive, doesn't have a boyfriend, and the last thing she's yearning to be is an amateur detective. Hazel just wants to be safe, with her family, and left alone to shoot hoops - a classic reluctant hero. Hazel is Cary Grant running through a cornfield. In the first book, The Mystery of the Martello Tower, Hazel spends a great deal of time trying to figure out what's going on, as people and paintings disappear and menacing criminals follow her everywhere. Like any reluctant hero, she tries at first to run away from trouble. But trouble, of course, follows her. Eventually, she realizes her only chance lies in trying to out-play or out-wit the bad guys.

I think evoking Nancy Drew is a polite way for reviews to signal that the Hazel Frump Adventures are genre books - not high-end literary fiction. I'm not offended by that - hey, they're not high-end books! But I wish reviewers would just come out and say that. Because - not to take anything away from Nancy or her Hardy counterparts - the books are nothing alike.

In children's fiction, the characters in a series are usually trapped in amber. The appeal lies in the way that the same characters face the same - or remarkably similar challenges - over and over again. But the Mystery of the Martello Tower didn't sell all that well, so by the time I began work on The Legend of the Lost Jewels, I was already concerned that this might be the last adventure for Hazel and Ned and the cousins. So I set out to write more of a sequel, one that would let me peek behind the curtain that fell at the ending of Martello. A sequel that would explore not only the lives of the main characters, but also what happened to some of the bit players after the happily ever after.

I really hope that Legend succeeds. Once again, Hazel must solve two mysteries. A modern-day treasure hunt that goes awry provides much of the danger and adventure. But in a creepy twist, Hazel and Ned also uncover clues that something dark and terrible happened in their family's castle more than a hundred years ago, leaving a legacy that has shaped the lives of many of the characters we met in Martello.

Man I hope it works.

I guess we'll see.

Battle of the Books

I know many wonderful, inspiring teachers. I know many wonderful, inspiring kids. It's puzzling to hear people malign today's schools and teachers and students but I suspect it was always thus. (I remember in my high school Latin class reading Pliny or Catullus or someone moaning on about "kids these days" and how the whole Empire was on a road to ruin paved with slothfulness and generally uncouth behavior.)

But just imagine the creativity and intellectual curiosity it requires to stride into a classroom each morning, knowing that two or three dozen minds - unique brains, all - will be seeking help understanding that day's lessons. I have a hard enough time conveying simple information to my three children. How could any one person possibly hold the attention of so many diverse creatures, let alone devise the keys that will allow them to unlock their potential? I love visiting classrooms but I always leave full of respect for the teacher who remains behind. What a hugely important job.

I don't know who invented the concept of Battle of the Books. I figure it just has to have started with a teacher or a librarian. But I've seen it now at bookstores like the venerable Woozles in Halifax, and also in schools on the west coast. I hope it's viral. I hope it spreads across the globe. If you haven't encountered an example of Battle of the Books, let me explain: schools compete with each other by having their students read books on a reading list, then answer questions based on the books' content.

I can't describe the thrill when a Google Alert pops up in your mailbox, and you discover that your book has made it onto the list of someone's Battle of the Books. Now, somewhere hundreds of kilometres away, kids I've never met are reading my book! Maybe they're even talking about it! Maybe some of them will send me an email or a letter! Maybe they'll read the next book too!

And there are other great reading programs now well established across the country, like the Willow awards in Saskatchewan or the Forest of Reading in Ontario, where kids read from a list of recommended books and vote for their favourites. (You can't vote unless you've read a certain minimum number of books on the list.) I've volunteered in my local school library for the past ten years and I can testify to the passions that swirl around these programs. I've even attended the awards ceremony, as a chaperone for students from our school, and I've heard kids in the audience around me arguing the merits of their favourite books, right up to the moment the winner's name is called. American/Canadian Idol just can't compare - these readers are thoughtful, analytical, opinionated and inspired.

There's no shortage of reasons to feel grey or despondent in this world. But when I feel discouraged, I head to a school, a library, or a bookstore. They give me hope.

mayday mayday

How can it possibly be May? How can an entire month - nearly two - have passed without a blog post?

All too easily, my friend.

I spent most of April in the nineteenth century. Not figuratively, as I did when researching Legend of the Lost Jewels. No, I mean I actually lived as a Victorian. In the space of a few scant weeks my vacuum died, my dishwasher died, my car - and I do mean this literally - blew up. Big boom. Clouds of smoke. Thousands of dollars of mysteriously uncovered by warranty damage.

And in the middle of all that, four of the five members of my immediate family were visited by a most determined colony of head lice. (Which four members, you ask? Naturally, I'm sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you this much: it was those of us with hair.)

Weeks later, when I finally emerged, blinking, from my Dickensian state? Playoff time. Hmm. Local reporters may cringe before Sam Mitchell, like he's Stringer Bell in a nicer suit, but that's just cause they give up about 75 - 100 IQ points to the man. Each. It says here that Sam Mitchell is an excellent coach but I believe I called this season last fall, when I pointed out that the Raptors, while apparently an awfully nice cast of characters, were relying for toughness on a player with a broken foot. A European player, not to unduly indulge in anyone's fondness for stereotypes, because any guy willing to play on the strength of his tendons gets cred for toughness. Not sanity, perhaps, or intelligence, but playing with a big old crack in your ankle bone sounds pretty darn tough to me.

But apart from that gaping chasm in the roster? I thought Rasho Nesterovic had a truly impressive season. Seriously. But doesn't that just speak volumes about our roster? I don't honestly know who will get through to our former number one draft pick, but someone better find a way to help Barnagni play like he's seven feet tall and fast, because we have enough depth at the one, ta very much. And here I should just add that - unlike many of my fellow callers to great Fan 590 sports radio - I send my love to both our point guards, to the selfless, steady Calderon and the mercurial, magical Ford. If the league has room for both Iverson and Nash, surely the Raptors have room for two tiny little playmakers? Still, Bosh, the hardworking racehorse, needs more talent in his stable. It's nothing personal about these guys. I've worn AP's jersey since he arrived and I love the aging rookie Moon as much as the next guy. Jason Kapono had great hair all season long (and great game through much of the post season). And Carlos Delfino? When he was good he was very very good and well, you know...

I'm not saying I want to see us sign an Artest or a Bowen, but someone has to grab rebounds and throw elbows and go to work on their guy. But when the toughest guy on our team is wearing a finely tailored suit and holding a clipboard and the rules say he can't cross centre court... well, we're just treading water and the sharks know it.

Man, I could never have survived in the nineteenth century. I can do without the car - even a non-combusting version. But I wouldn't want to inhabit a a world with no vacuums, no dishwashers, no Raptors.

Just rampant, unchecked armies of head lice.