WWW (1999)

In which the author becomes an author

My favorite Internet is still 1999 Internet, though I didn't think so at the time. Now, there are TV ads about how terrible cable-connected Internet is, but back then it was the future, the dream. Brrreeeeturrrrbup! Telephone-dial-up Internet. Can't-take-a-phone-call-and-check-your-email-at-the-same-time Internet.

Then there was the dancing baby gif.

I usually title these year-in-review pieces with the name of an author, but for this one I'm changing it up, because the arrival of the Internet was a world historical event. Of course, the Internet didn't arrive in 1999, but for me the Internet and my life converged that year in a way that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another.

I wrote that 1997 was a pivot year for me. I worked two part-time jobs, I slept in my parents' basement, I wrote short stories and book reviews, I looked forward to something better happening. In 1998, that something better turned out to be I got laid off after a billion dollar satellite that made one of my jobs possible spun off into space. I applied for employment insurance and also applied to the Canadian Film Centre to attend their New Media Design Program. New Media was the future, right? This is where I needed to be, right? They accepted me, and from September 1998 until Spring 1999 I soaked up the vibes of the new thing. The EI office, after some coaxing, funded the program as job-related re-training. Employment was definitely my goal.

I had taken a couple of night classes at Centennial College in HTML, so I could build a website. I could manage information assets. I knew storytelling and had a take on what new media storytelling could be. I read Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (1998) by Janet H. Murray. I was ready, willing, and able. My timing, surely, was right for once. (The New Yorker took another look at it 20 years later.)

In retrospect, much of what Murray wrote applied quite well to video games. They become immersive, building on interactivity, expanding to massive multi-player platforms. But cyberspace? Does anyone use that term any more? In 1998, the iPhone was a void, but the Blackberry was emergent, at least in prototype: "The very first device to carry the BlackBerry name was the BlackBerry 850, an email pager, released January 19, 1999." At the time, the browser (Netscape!) remained mesmerizing. Plus, there were interactive CD games making waves like You Don't Know Jack. Non-linear storytelling is also a feature of installation art and an approach enabled by wearable technology. The Metaverse, anyone?

As part of the CFC program, we visited the CBC and spoke to the head of their new New Media Department, which sat uncomfortably between the legacy television and radio departments. It was, essentially, taking television and radio content and putting online. The head spoke about a future where they would make their own content, and (think podcasts) later they did. But the different media streams still exist 25 years later. What's different is perpetual fragmentation and loss of audience to social media and YouTube (not on the scene in 1998). We also toured the CBC children's department, which was hopping with creating online content for kid's. The manager there said she would love to hire all of us, but she couldn't.

On another day we took a tour of a Toronto New Media company was that super cool. I don't remember the name of it, and it doesn't exist any more. It rose out of someone's garage, I'm pretty sure, starting as a service that digitized something something. When we visited, they had dozens of staff in a converted warehouse, open office plan. The company had rose from dirt and was now worth millions. The young dude in charge had an older partner he was working with on a new project (not revealed). It turned out this older partner had gone to Ryerson in the 1950s with my father: Radio and Television Arts. My father found out and one day visit the centre and spent a few minutes with his old colleague. It occurred to me that what I was doing in 1999 (the new media thing) was a rough parallel to what my father had done in the 1950s, taking his first job in a then emerging/expanding technology, television. His first post graduation job was at CKNX Wingham, home town, of course, of Alice Munro (nee Laidlaw). My father would later spend most of his career in photography at various Toronto hospitals.

Later, I had that converted warehouse New Media company in mind when I wrote "Niagara" (published in Numéro Cinq, Feb 2011), among other things a satire of late-capitalism, I guess the target might be.

In sum, and from the perspective of today the bottom line is, this CFC program did not lead to a job in New Media, but it did lead (indirectly) to a job, which would lead (indirectly) to a career, but more on that below.

The cohort I was in consisted of all men, eight or nine of us. Incredible, I know. There was one woman at the start, but she dropped out — and later made news for other sad reasons, which are wild enough to fuel a novel, or maybe a podcast series. CBC? This individual came to maybe a week of the CFC program, and at one point she shared 4x6 colour photographs taken by an associate of hers of the Rwandan genocide. Yes, I mean photographs of dead, mutilated bodies. She thought there was some digital storytelling project she could use these for.... What? I remember one exchange I had with her, where I said something I'm wont to say, like, "Life is not perfect. Everyone is doing the best they can." In response, she insisted that perfection was indeed possible. She was an architect, and perfection is what she strove for and achieved. These thoughts repelled me, then and now.

Who were the dudes? One wrote a column for Toronto Life. One was an accomplished theatre actor. One was a musician who was part of a musical comedy duo who played conventions. One was a film-maker. The following year he made a documentary about London, Ontario's Nihilist Spasm Band. Greg Curnoe and pals.

Ultimately, what I learned in the CFC program wasn't about technology, or immersive-interactive storytelling, the historical moment, or how to build a business case or good arts administration. That latter point is kind of funny, because when I would soon launch an online literary magazine it was done without a business case, and it was managed for years without any sense of "running it like a business." It was DIY and arts-idealism. Just do it because it's a good thing, and it came to be seen by many as a kind of public service, except it was also based on hundreds of hours of free labour, mostly mine. I had a lot of idealism to burn through. By the end, though, that carbon was compressed into shiny diamonds. My high school guidance counsellor had suggested I go into arts/culture administration, and I thought he was nuts, but that's what has fed me more than any other occupation. Can administration be artsy? Not so much. But good administration is essential to making a lot of art possible.

What sticks with me about my CFC experience is, it was a view into a world of privilege I would not have otherwise had. Because when I finished the program, my first job was to get a job. The others in the program, it seemed to me, had financial cushions I did not have. They also came from entrepreneurial environments (families, I mean), and they had both mindsets I did not have ("we'll cook up some idea and then sell it to our contacts, work contract-to-contract, building our business") and the resources to make it so. I needed something to get myself out of my parents' basement and into rent-paying employment. When the program ended, I took myself to the Canada Employment office and found a job ad for "legal editor." The company was looking for many of them. I applied, and that was my next gig, Spring/Summer 1999. More on that in a moment.

First, through 1998 and 1999, I continued to publish book reviews:

• 1998. The Two-Headed Calf by Sandra Birdsell. Paragraph #23.

• 1998/99. Restless by Stan Rogal. Paragraph #25.

• 1998/99. Smell It by Hal Niedzviecki. Paragraph #25.

• Feb 1999. City of Ice by John Farrow. Quill and Quire.

• April 1999. Felix Roth by Cary Fagan. Quill and Quire.

• July 1999. The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls by Karen Dubinsky. Quill and Quire.

• Sept 1999. Egotists and Autocrats: The Prime Ministers of Canada by George Bowering. Quill and Quire.

• Nov 1999. W.O.: The Life of W.O. Mitchell, Beginnings to Who Has Seen the Wind by Barbara and Ormond Mitchell. Quill and Quire.

In 1999, I was also anticipating the release in the fall of my first book of short stories, Thirteen Shades of Black and White (Turnstone Press) — and publishing short stories:

• 1998. “Bike Tricks.” The New Quarterly.

• 1998. “The Last Man on Earth.” Broken Pencil.

• 1998. “The Handsomest Kid.” The Antigonish Review.

• 1998. “Working It Out.” Pottersfield Portfolio.

• 1999. “Beginnings & Endings.” Event.

• 1999. “At Least One Good Thing.” Urban Graffiti.

• 1999. “Something in the Water.” Backwater Review.

• 1999. “Crow Teaches City Boy a Few Tricks.” Front & Centre.

• 1999. “Silver and Light.” paperplates (online) (pdf).

Notice how that last one says "online." This was my first Internet publication. Internet-based literary magazines would be the thing of the future, surely. At some point in the summer of 1999, I decided to start one, The Danforth Review (TDR). It started as a lark, really. I wanted to practice my HTML, and I wanted to practice it on something real. I had a personal website — www.michaelbryson.com — and I created a new folder, and TDR was born. The first URL was michaelbryson.com/danforth. Surely, no one would bother to even submit to this thing [link goes to the Library and Archives Canada, which maintains archival copies of early TDR issues]. I asked a few friends and contacts if they would share work with me I could include, then put up an online shingle, shared links with other online magazines, and the submissions started pouring in. (Incidentally, when I asked my publisher to include my URL in my book, they initially suggested it wasn't recommended. It wasn't information that would age well? Something like that. I insisted, and they did it, though. For what it's worth LOL.)

TDR continued in many iterations from 1999 until 2009, then again from 2011-2018. It turned into, measured in many ways, the biggest project of my life. But I'm not going to summarize all of that here. Something for another time.

Moving on. The summer of 1999, I also found an online writing workshop, where folks posted stories and offered critiques to others. I dove in deeply, and I remember it being a meaningful experience. There were a couple of folks I continued to correspond with for a while. The Internet seemed, at times, a place of real connection and authenticity. Hard to see what's left of that in the performative hellscape it is now. Too harsh? I dunno.

In any case, if 1997 was the pivot, by 1999 the new future was emerging. The CFC gig hadn't led to anything directly, but it would soon help open a door. The literary life was continuing in fits and starts, and soon the world would swoon at the arrival of my book. I mean, right? No, I didn't expect that. I actually had a question I asked folks as a barometer. In 1998, Lynn Coady's debut, Strange Heaven had been nominated for the Governor General's Award. I asked folks if they had ever heard of it. Basically, nope. Have you heard of it? No? Well, I recommend it!

There is even a small inside joke between me and that book. The author photo of Lynn, I believe, is taken on a beach in Vancouver. I was in Vancouver for Christmas 1998, and I had my brother take my author photo in what we guessed was about the same spot. Why? Just cuz. Inside joke. Haha.

The legal editing gig was a once-in-a-lifetime wowsa. The deal was, the company was setting up a digitized database of legal decisions, and they were scanning print versions. The scans produced text that was full of errors, and they needed "editors" to read through the new text and "clean it up." Not really editing, but text-based work! They had space in an industrial park, I forget where. It was suitably desolate, but the people the job attracted were interesting. Lots of eager arts grads, banging away on keyboards. I made some friends, and we hung out on weekends. I remember I was reading a biography of Turgenev that summer, probably inspired by my earlier reading of Isaiah Berlin. I was intrigued by the legal rulings, the tone of the judge, the logic of the statements, but even more I was fascinated by the storytelling. The judges would spend most of their statements recounting the facts and outlining the events, then giving a short description of what they were ruling on, then they would conclude with their ruling. Almost every statement had some level of intrigue. One case stands out in my memory, it was #9 Gordie Howe and others against the National Hockey League (1992), suing over their pension. They won.

While I was doing the legal editing job, the CFC coordinator sent me a message asking if I was looking for work. She knew of someone who needed a writer as part of an IT project at the Government of Ontario. That someone was her mother.

"Yes!" I said, hoping for something with more traction.

The deal with this was, I needed to sign up with a temp agency, and they would give me temp hours. The Ontario Government in the 1990s had an in-house temp agency, but the Mike Harris administration outsourced it. The service was the same, run by the same people, except the fees didn't go back into the public service, they went to the private owners. Later the Ontario Auditor General reviewed the scheme. Anyway, I signed up, and they gave me like 6 hours a week. I went to meetings and took minutes. There was a project coming, they kept saying. We need you, just not yet.

Then the temp agency asked if I would be interested in taking a six-month contract doing something else. I said yes to that. The other folks said, that's cool. We might not need you until then. So I started a six month contract as an Administrative Assistant in the IT procurement area, helping sort Y2K-related issues. It was the steadiest full-time (contract) work I'd ever done and the most lucrative. I moved out of my parents' basement and got an apartment above The Sunset Grill, Coxwell and Danforth. Two months late someone broke in and stole my laptop.

My brother, sister-in-law and infant nephew returned to Toronto from Vancouver.

In November, my book came out. There was no official launch. I had a reading at the Idler Pub Reading Series and called that the launch. I received, I believe, a $500 advance, and a year later perhaps $200 more based on sales. Then Stoddart (the book distribution service) collapsed, and Chapters returned thousands of books to publishers, and no one knew exactly how many books had been sold. The next royalty statement I got from the publisher, and every one since, has stated that I owe them money. Haha. (I am eternally grateful to Turnstone, let me say clearly. Without them, the book wouldn’t have happened, and it was a dream come true — and it will remain that way for me always. And thank you to Richard Stipl for the awesome cover art!)

I should be trying to sell the book here, but my take is, there are some good stories in there, maybe even a couple exceptional ones, but there are also ones I'd rather not see again and some I can't believe ever saw the light of day.

Reviews? The Globe and Mail included two paragraph about it in a review, one good, one not so much: “From page one Bryson’s prose had me scribbling words of praise: ‘clean,’ ‘spare,’ ‘pure,’ ‘enters the mind like thought.'”

From the Quill & Quire review, I could squeeze: “Thirteen Shades of Black and White showcases Bryson’s disparate reach and contemporary voice.”

Broken Pencil found, “This inaugural collection of bitterly hopeful short stories succeeds in illuminating our collective malaise without acceding to it.”

A review in Word, Toronto's literary calendar said, “Existence in these stories is inexplicable and aimless; the characters purposeless and alienated – physically and mentally – from those they love. Yet, at the same time, there is a sense of quiet optimism and possibility.”

Did I do readings? Here and there. The Idler Pub, mentioned above. An open stage, where I stayed too long (sorry). I read at Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo, my old residence. It was a weird experience, standing in front of a new generational of undergraduates. Somehow, I'd imagined myself reading to my old friends, but this was a whole new crew. It seemed odd and disjointed. The church where I'd grown up hosted a reading at the seniors' residence where I'd worked as a teenager. It was probably my largest, most generous audience. As I started to speak, I looked up and a selection of my cousins walked in. My father had secretly invited them.

When I was at the University of Waterloo, I sat down for an interview with a student journalist for Imprint, the paper I'd written for when I was on campus (1987-92). Her piece was less than pleasant — the headline and photo cutline particularly cruel. She clearly didn't like the book, which is fine. Also, it's clear I didn't do a good job of selling it. I'm pleased, though, to see how the article ends:

This last line, "The small press needs more coverage," sums up Bryson's demeanor for the entire interview. It was clear that he felt that readers need to look beyond the national icons to the small press for interesting books and perhaps even better literature.

Well, yeah. That's been my key message for the past 25 years! It's the motivating vision for TDR, too. Atwood doesn't need more attention, not then, not now. In 1999, everything was converging, and I was finding my core reason to be. Speak from the margin and celebrate literature from outside the mainstream. Seek the unique, the original. Believe in the "holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of the imagination." Play it straight. Even before social media, try not to be performative. Have fun. Don't be afraid to be silly or look ridiculous, something I've achieved probably all too frequently.

Looking at it now, it is strange to me that the Mennonites were more generous to me than the student newspaper. The Canadian Mennonite, where I'd worked part-time in 1994-95, ran a short interview with me — without a snarky headline.

One of my cousin's around this time told me he'd concocted a plan to get my book to Mordecai Richler. His wife was friends with Jacob Richler.

"Two Two?" I asked.

One and the same.

Actually, I'd crossed paths with Jacob at one of their house parties. Immaculately dressed, he shook me with recognition: Young Mordecai.

Sadly, this plan was never implemented.

On December 31, 1999, the last New Year's Eve that mattered happened. I was at a house party on Broadview Avenue, overlooking Riverdale Park. What I remember is, there was an actress there that I didn't know, but she was such a bombshell that I will never forget her. She became increasingly drunk and hung off her escort, a man in a superbly tailored suit.

There were fireworks. The world did not end.

My Y2K temp job did conclude, however. I would start the Year 2000 once again unemployed, though now the publisher/editor of an online literary magazine, open to the world.

My literary education would continue.