Sweet Assorted, the latest book from former Gibsons resident Jim Christy, is like being at a cocktail party with strangers. You might hear something colourful - a shared anecdote, a travel tale or someone expounding on a thought du jour written in haste on a napkin. But if the story is dull, no problem, you simply move on to the next person.
It's ephemera at its finest. Christy has worked his raconteur style into an engaging collection - 121 pieces in all. For nearly 40 years, Christy has thrown seemingly random items into a Sweet Assorted Peek, Frean & Co., tin biscuit box. He's been a traveller, an author, a journalist, an artist and a boxing fan, all of which create artefacts to be slipped into the tin as memorabilia.
He has saved other people's letters picked up from the street, rough sketches, an old family photo, a train ticket, a postcard of three emus and a coin from Swaziland. One of the most interesting items is a liquor ration card from Greenland. Christy tells the story of an entertaining bar above the Arctic Circle in which a patron slowly stripped while she was doused in beer.
The biscuit tin also shelters human teeth, slightly used. Christy hastens to tell the reader that they were not obtained in any nefarious manner, nor are they his own. (Note that when the author smiles he displays a mouthful of dazzling gold.)
His newspaper items are particularly fascinating, articles clipped from various newspapers for their arcane interest.
One article, possibly from the Seattle Times in 1982, describes a North Carolina man who took to his bed for 50 years. What happened to him after that? Christy researched and wrote up the result in a story that makes the National Enquirer seem believable.
The Sunshine Coast touched Christy in many ways. In the tin, there's a clipping of a display ad that appeared in this newspaper, ca.1998, placed by Christy while he was seeking commissions for his mosaic-making craft. He still builds mosaic towers - one of them stands in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. There is also anice shout out to local photographer Alan Sirulnikoff, inspired by the artist's business card.
And in one item, based on a saved message from musician and librarian Stuart Young, Christy bemoans that the Coast was once a haven for "all manner of drifters and rapscallions, lamsters and remittance men. Now it's a paradise for retirees and le haute bourgeoisie."
Christy lived in Gibsons for years and sported an art car around town, embellished with colourful doodads. (Its story is also in the book.) He now lives in Ontario, but he returns to the Coast this Tuesday, Aug. 6, to read at Gibsons Public Library from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Sweet Assorted, 121 Takes from a Tin Box (Anvil Press) is available at bookstores for $20.
