News

I’ve been absent for a while, but contrary to rumors, I did not perish in California. I am now back in Toronto. The U.S. paperback edition of my memoir came out last August, and now I have two wonderful pieces of news about the book’s life in Canada:

1) It will be out in paperback in this cold land in two weeks, and

2) It is now an e-book!

The U.S. e-book is forthcoming! Although I don’t know when it with forthcome just yet…

My journey has now taken me to Santa Cruz, where I’ll spend the next three weeks in a tiny and perfect hut near the beach. I’ve spent the last day and a half setting myself up. Today I had to take a bus to go pick up the bike I’ll be using while I’m here. At the bus stop, this young person – probably fourteen or fifteen years old – told me the bus would be there in five minutes. I couldn’t tell if he or she was a boy or a girl. I’m leaning towards thinking he was a boy, but he had a round pretty face, a high-pitched gentle voice and the demeanor of a girl. He actually reminded me a bit of the boy in Terminator, played by Edward Furlong. (Coincidentally, that movie takes place probably not far from Los Angeles, where I was last week.)

In fact, he was a dead ringer for him. He even had the same haircut and wore the clothes I think the kid wore in that movie. I liked that I didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl — I have a bit of a fascination with androgyny, as evidenced by my defense of it long ago on Ryberg.com. Maybe I’ll attempt to involve some aspect of androgyny into my next book. Yes, I think I will.

Today I biked — bicycled — up to the Griffith Park Observatory, where I took the picture above. I’m subletting a place here in Los Angeles in order to work on my next book. It’s a sort of self-organized writing retreat. When I told people I was doing this they thought I was crazy not to get a car, even though many of these people knew I once wrote this article about the joys of bicycling in L.A.

My second time around I still love it biking here. If you give yourself enough time, you can get anywhere by bike in Los Angeles. (Almost anywhere). I did consider getting a car, but I’m glad I didn’t because sometimes it’s better to not have that option. If I had a car, I’d probably figure out ways to use it, to justify my having it. Today, if I had a car, I might have sat in it for hours on the freeway to get to the beach, but instead I biked to the top of Griffith Park. I’m sure it all depends on what you need to do, and since I’m writing, it’s also best that I not go too far away from my desk.

After riding down to the bottom of the park, I went to the grocery store to get some food. It’s a health food store, and I saw a sign for “Organic Popcorn,” a phrase which I think perfectly explains California.

Also, in the line at the health food store, I overheard a conversation between a kid about ten years old and his mom. He was pointing out something he wanted at the checkout.

“You’re Consumer Boy,” said the mom.

“What’s Consumer Boy?” he asked.

“You always want to buy stuff.”

I was in Ottawa last weekend to participate in a Books and Brunch event at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. During the event, I shared a moments with each of the three other authors who were talking and reading that morning.

Before sitting down at the head table – I felt like we were at a wedding – Roy MacSkimming and I got into a conversation about the similarity between Carl Jung’s and Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s love lives. (MacSkimming’s historical novel is called Laurier in Love). Both of these men were married, but had long-term ongoing affairs with another woman. In both cases, the “other woman” represented someone with whom there was a physical, but also intellectual, compatibility. Perhaps a bit ahead of their time, these men valued womens’ opinions and minds and liked to talk to women on this level. Of course, this also led both to cheat on their wives. Not so nice. And, in Jung’s case, his lovers – he had more than the one during his marriage – didn’t always get credit for the ideas they gave him. Check out Deirdre Bair’s biography of Jung if you’re interested in hearing more of the salacious details.

After taking my seat, I got into a short chat with Lawrence Martin, author of the best-selling Harperland, an investigation into the inner workings of the current prime minister of Canada. I felt way out of my league politically so avoided the subject, but finally admitted I did not keep up much with what was happening in Canadian federal politics. He seemed a little dismayed by that, and in general felt young people were becoming increasingly uninvolved and uninformed. I reassured him, though, that I had been keeping up with the Toronto election for mayor and that, in fact, Facebook had been used by my friends and acquaintances during the whole municipal campaign as a forum for debate and information gathering. That cheered him – and me – up, but I also resolved to become more informed about politics on a countrywide scale. After listening to his talk about the manipulative way that the Harper administration has handled the media – he even compared it to the Kremlin in the 80s – I realized how important this is.

Lastly, I had a very nice time chatting with Charlotte Gray, who was sitting next to me. Early on, I remarked that her book about the Yukon gold rush – Gold Diggers – was interesting to me because I grew up in Denver, also a city founded by a gold rush. This led to me explaining how I left Denver to go to McGill University in Montreal, met my wife, came to Toronto, got divorced, and now am not sure where I’m going to be living in the future. She listened to my story quietly while finishing her breakfast and then observed: “You keep leaving families.” In a way, it’s not exactly correct – I’d say I was collecting families, as I’m still close with both my own family and my ex’s – but nonetheless, I still loved getting an up close and personal glimpse of Gray’s biographical mind in action.

Kate:

Dreamed that I was in “Target”, but it was more like a shitty off-brand department store than actual Target. (In real life I listened to a Mitch Hedberg album yesterday wherein he makes jokes about Target.) I was there shopping for furniture (in real life, I’m on the lookout for a low, simple dresser and debating between a really nice one from Chatelet or something used/refurbished). However, in my dream I was after a three-piece set of bed, night-table, and dresser, and the only options were extremely child-like pieces: they were in “girl” and “boy” sections; the girl options were hyper-literal, like the headboard was pink and had a picture of a girl on it; on another the headboard had a child’s drawing of a unicorn flying through a starry sky. I was really discouraged and left and went to the clothes section, but there all the clothes were girly summertime dresses, nothing that I wanted.

Micah:

When I was living with my father after my parents’ divorce, he used to take me to Target to shop. That’s where I got all my clothes as a preteen and I would sometimes pout and even cry when I was alone because I knew that I was unfashionable, but was conflicted about doing anything about it. I didn’t want to complain. Target may not have as much of an emotional-historical resonance for you, but as you point out, there is definitely something about the store that brings to awareness one’s relationship with class and status, something that is possibly a salient theme in your life right now.

Interestingly, within this milieu, you’re still in some way stuck in childhood, despite your interest to not be. Jung says that sometimes we have dreams that are our own and are personal and sometimes we have dreams that are tapping into a greater collective, to the zeitgeist. It’s possible your dream is reflecting on this idea going around right now – one which I know you’ve commented on in your own writing – that your generation (I happen to also know you’re about to turn 30) is late in coming to adulthood.

Then again, maybe it is personal. If so, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that prominent within your symbols of childhood lurks a possibly transformative mythical creature – the unicorn. I did a little reading on unicorns for you. There are, I have found, countless interpretations of what the unicorn “means”. Some of them are: independence, purity, integrity, even the concept of God itself. So this would be a Choose-Your-Own-Meaning moment. What do you associate to unicorns?

And then, a cautionary tale: In some versions of the unicorn story, unicorns were fond of hanging out with virgins (not in that way! At least, I don’t think so). They liked to take a rest from all their worries and lay their heads down on the virgins’ laps. Unfortunately, some of these virgins were in cahoots with hunters and once the unicorn was asleep, the hunters would pop out from the bushes, capture the unicorn and either kill it or remove its horn (Freud alert!), rendering the unicorn defenceless. I know you’re a woman, but we all know women possess penetrative powers, too.

As far as I know from reading descriptions in his memoir, when Jung talked about dreams with clients, it was a two-way street. He didn’t just tell clients’ what their dreams meant – he started a dialogue with them. Partly, it’s to avoid the tendency for the dream interpreter to simply project his own concerns onto the dreamer. (In fact, I’ve probably already done that to some extent). So, I’m going to leave it there.

If you want me to respond to your dream, send it to me at the email address listed on the Bio & Contacts page

The title of this post is the headline given to the review of Growing Up Jung that The Globe and Mail ran on Monday. I think it’s one of the best puns yet. (“The Jung and the Restless,” used twice so far, is also a nice one).

I haven’t been posting all my media coverage here, since I’m compiling it on the Reviews & Press page on this site, but I wanted to highlight this review. Not only because it’s in the national newspaper (!), and not only because it’s a very positive review, but because it’s a very thoughtful one. The reviewer engaged with the ideas in the book, and from a writer’s perspective, there is nothing better than that, even if it’s a negative review. (But glad it’s not!)

Hi there,

I was wondering if you (yes, you) might send me a description of one of your dreams, a part of a dream, or even just a description of a figure in a dream you had recently. Let me explain.

The Saturday before last, I had a segment on CBC’s Day 6 radio show where I gave a Jungian response to Buried, a film starring Ryan Reynolds that just came out. To listen to what I said, go here and scroll forward to 24:48.

Now, obviously I’m not a Jungian analyst. I’m a writer, which means I’m half-entertainer, half-provocateur, and… half-broke. Also I’m a journalist, which means I explore worlds I’m unfamiliar or half-familiar with in order to bring back experiences and information.

I thought it would be fun to explore the way in which I can “be a Jungian” and how I’d like to do this is respond to your dreams. I’ll respond in a variety of ways, or in whatever way seems best — I might research symbols from your dreams in Jung’s books; I might just share a personal experience; I might respond with a piece of art. To start it off, I just need your dreams. You can remain anonymous if you like. Send to micah@micahtoub.com.

The title of this blog post (and the working title for this project) is the first line of my book. It’s a question from my father from when I was four. As an answer to him, I end up making up a dream. If you go here and scroll to page 11, you can read this part of the introduction.

This quote was a piece of advice my mother gave me when I was 17, after I talked to her about a certain something that happened – or didn’t happen – the first time I tried to have sex. The story of what brought me to be able to talk so openly about something so sensitive and then how I used the advice to get laid is in chapter 3 — titled The Oedipus Complex — of Growing Up Jung.

Here I am “reading” a bit of that section, with visuals. Click on the image below to watch the video.

The Canadian launch of Growing Up Jung has now been set. It will take place on September 27th at a place called The Beaver on Queen West in Toronto. I have a bit of a sentimental connection with The Beaver so I was happy when my publisher suggested it as a possible party venue. The Beaver is where I first had dinner with my then-colleague and now fellow columnist and good friend Lisan Jutras. The two of us met up there several times after that, once at the beginning of a long night roaming the city during Nuit Blanche. When I was working as an editor at The Globe and Mail, I met Canadian director Laurie Lynd at The Beaver to interview him about his gay hockey film, Breakfast With Scot. And on another night, I ended up at dancing at The Beaver at the end of a night of club-hopping down Ossington. The Beaver, once owned by the late Will Munro, is known as queer friendly, but I find it just plain friendly. It’s an open space for whatever you are, as far as I can tell. And the food is good!

A week and a half after the launch, on October 7th, I’ll be doing a reading at TYPE Books in Forest Hill. I’m excited about this reading because it’s in the neighborhood of my former in-laws, so they will have to come (and maybe drag their friends too). But if you see this my dear former in-laws, don’t worry, I will not read any embarrassing scenes involving your daughter.

Other events forthcoming will be a reading at the Deer Park library in Toronto, The Box Salon at the Rivoli, Books and Brunch in Montreal, and more, which you can see here at the events page of this website.

At a party a few months ago, I got involved in a late night, drunken conversation about porn. A male friend of mine was talking to a woman I hadn’t met before. My friend insisted that some of the porn consumed online was the result of some kind of coercion, even rape. The woman thought that might be an exaggeration, but we all agreed it was possible. Then the woman said that men (and women, but especially men) needed to publicly admit that they watch porn, and that this admission would help in legitimizing the profession and industry. Legitimization, she felt, would at least throw light onto it and thus more scrutiny on how performers were treated, where the porn comes from, etc. This conversation, in addition to a documentary I saw about Hugh Hefner, was the impetus for a recent column on “ethical porn” that I wrote for The Globe and Mail, whose headline was “How to revel in porn and feel good about it.”

A long time ago, a woman once said to me, when discussing the inherent problem of pornography and prostitution: “If something can be bought and sold, then it can also be stolen.”

I think there is a certain logic to this, and a debate about whether porn, at its base, could ever be ethical could certainly spring from it. However, when writing the column I wanted to start from the assumption that men and women will always consume porn. We have for decades and I don’t see it ending. Overall, I think it’s better to not get too much into porn if you can help it, but I also think completely repressing the desire to view it is equally problematic.

To whatever extent that you do watch porn – and most of us do – I think it’s important to understand that we have a role as consumers to support porn that is at least made in a relatively ethical manner.

A couple of the sources I used in the article wrote blog posts with additional thoughts after the column came out. There’s this one, from Peter Nowak, author of Sex, Bombs, and Burgers. And also this (scroll down to number 6 on her list), from the Montreal-based self-pornographer Seska Lee, pictured above.