This is sort of an uncharacteristic post.

I want to weigh in on Kate Carraway’s piece, “Bonfire of Inanities” in the most recent issue of Eye Weekly. Quick summary: Toronto’s media scene is boring and too-polite-by-half when compared to New York’s catty, backstabbing scene; this is reflected in the writing produced in both cities. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything she has to say, parts of it really struck a chord:

There’s some of it, here, some excitement, which I know for sure because I am informed of the sagas and punch-outs and hookups and breakups of an incestuous handful of Toronto media characters. Like any city, Toronto’s junior creative class is intertwined at all points.

Kindly suspend your disbelief, as I am about to count myself as a member of this Toronto media scene (a tenuous label for me at best as my only media credibility comes from frequent yet minimal contribution to a national music monthly). Her observation’s dead-on and I would venture to say that this is the exact reason for much of the safe writing and lack of vicious competition happening in Toronto. This encouragement and support and all-encompassing “niceness” she speaks of stems from the fact that our arts and media scene is small. Very small. And incestuous is an understatement.

I have only met Kate once or twice, but we’ve communicated for a variety of reasons every now and again. I am friends with people she has slept with. And she is friends with people I have slept with. (We haven’t admitted this to each other, but such things have a way of coming to the surface eventually.) Everyone knows everyone, is my point. We are all friends. Or on our way to becoming friends. Or have slept with one another. Or are on our way to sleeping with one another. We don’t wish to criticize. We don’t wish to cut down. We don’t wish to burn bridges. We are all like-minded young people who are struggling in one way or another. Why challenge each other and stomp on each other and create public drama when deep down, all we really want to do is write, get together for beers afterwards and maybe make out a little bit?

Due to our apologetic and self-effacing Canadian natures, we also don’t have the inflated egos or senses of self-importance (Leah McLaren exempted, naturally) to think that our private dramas are generally worthy of public spectacle. And amen for that. I don’t feel there is a need for the more prominent of us to become celebrity figures worth gossiping about.

That said, here is another passage that I read twice:

It is entirely necessary that Toronto’s media owns up to the collective sensibility of tepid inadequacy, a common editorial agenda that talks guns and drugs and sex without any blood or high or come. We don’t need mindless provocation for its own sake, just a collective pursuit of something better and more worthwhile.

This was followed by a point about Leah McLaren “opting to use her coveted weekly space to write about her garden rather than the fuckery of the young urban female experience.”

So here is the thing: I want to be taken seriously as a writer. I always thought that when I had a little more time, I would nail that tear-jerking feature or pen the brilliant novel that’s been living in my head for years. I have had some extra time on my hands lately. And I live in a beautiful and inspirational part of the city. But what have I written in the past month? Let me tell you what I have written in the past month; a couple of album reviews and some silly fluff features on entertaining and decor that I phoned in. They honestly wrote themselves. I just typed.

I am not challenging readers.

I am not challenging myself.

Whether or not “playing it safe” with my writing is symptomatic of living in Toronto or whether it just boils down to laziness on my part, I need to break free of it.

I am not a kid anymore. Now is the time to make things happen for myself and reach my potential as a writer. I have a piece in the pipe right now and I need to make it count. I’m not about to stab anyone in the back, but I am ready to write something worth reading.

Thanks for throwing down the gauntlet, Kate.