PAUL:	We writers have a strange 
	camaraderie among ourselves, 
	and we have strange 
	relationships with the rest of 
	the world.
	
	Editors, publishers, dust 
	jacket photographers, lawyers, 
	agents, therapists, 
	counsellors, and probation 
	officers.  But perhaps the 
	roughest alliance with any 
	“other” is the one we share 
	with our muse.
	
	The muse does not respond to 
	reason, nor to emotion.  She  
	brooks no tantrum, no silence 
	draws her forth from neath her 
	shroud.  The muse is 
	peripatetic, her stop at your 
	address is unscheduled.
	
	My muse once worked overtime.
	
	It was Los Angeles.  197X.
	
SFX:	RUFFLES MANUSCRIPT

	Over 1400 pages later, she 
	deserted me.  However, she 
	left me with this, “Working 
	Title: ‘The Acoustic 
	Typewriter’”, the unpublished 
	manuscript.  
	
	I thought I’d lost it - in 
	more ways than one - but 
	thanks to Canada’s new madame 
	of Hollywood, the Rt. Hon. Kim 
	Campbell, I have the original 
	right here. 
	
	“Chapter One - The Dawn
	
	Blades of light slice my eyes, 
	grappling hooks of percolating 
	coffee board by ears, knitting 
	needles of frying bacon pierce 
	my nostrils, a nail bed 
	caresses my back - where’d I 
	put that bag ?  Oh, here it 
	is.
		
	Los Angeles, the city of 
	angles.  Obtuse,  scalene, 
	right, wrong.
		
	Angles I know.  I’m a 
	geographer.  A geographer must  
	know angles.
		
	But I’ve always had trouble 
	with right and wrong. 
		
	That’s why I’m here.”
		
	So ends page one.  Hmm.  
	That’s not bad ... I like it.