... couldn't help but set down some reflections on how silly last night's awards ceremony was. Here they flew the three first-place winners all the way down to Montreal to drink champagne and chat for half an hour with Eleanor Wachtel about how wonderful it feels to win the award, what got them started, what inspired them to write what they did, cite judges' comments, hear a couple of local musicians sing harmonies over strummed guitar -- and, they didn't even read excerpts from the work that won the award to begin with. (Unlike what the above hyperlinked PR indicates.) I hope if the CBC went through all that public expense they at least recorded the writers reading their work for broadcast next week. Even so...

P.S. They didn't.