This is Avi Surlin
Meet Avi Sirlin, a Toronto writer, runner, reader and Ruthian, who gets nostalgic about former slacker jobs and dead Swedish drummers.
Where did you grow up?
If I said ‘Bathurst Manor’, it’d probably ring a bell for only the Toronto Jewish demographic and it’d be just half true; my family later moved to ‘eastern’ North York, where the houses were newer and the streets formed undisturbed cul-de-sacs which allowed me to elevate my ball hockey game to a whole shiny new level of mediocrity.
How long have you been in Toronto?
Um, about 40 years – aiyeehhhh!!!!
What do you do for a living?
I quit my (paying) career about a year and a half ago. Since then, I’ve written two screenplays and the first draft of a novel and – oh right, you were asking about making a living…
What was your favourite summer job?
After first year university, I proudly took my nascent higher education to the hallowed Ontario Place parking lot as a Parking Attendant: sun-kissed days amongst other under-achieving university students offering minimalist parking cues to haggard drivers; we invented slacking.
Dream job?
Montreal Expos are now defunct, so there’s nothing for me out there. Nothing.
What’s your passion?
The four ‘R’s: reading, writing, running and Ruth (ahem, not necessarily in that order)
If I say jump?
I say ‘let’s sit and talk’ about why you have a deep-seated need to control others and then I mention my cute little bilingual cousin Madeline who with Swedish accent says ‘yump’ instead of jump and how, speaking of Sweden, it’s so sad that the ABBA drummer – whatshisname? – recently died, but I don’t think he was in Sweden when he expired, but wherever it was, he was at his own house at the time and, like, our homes are our sanctuaries, y’know? well at least mine is, so what better place to perish, if you think about it, but then again, this isn’t really about me, is it?
What do you give back to the No Fly Zone?
I conscientiously boycott all those cookie-cutter trendoid bar/resto places on College in the hope of instigating their early demise so that one bright and spiffy day there’ll be a fun and unpretentious place where my friend Eric and I can sit all day for the price of a beer (probably instigating the early demise of the fun and unpretentious place).
What can we do to make Toronto a “world class” city?
Next?
Are you an artist?
I am what I am.
Hands or feet?
Good solid question and a tough choice. Dad always told me, though, that people who work their way up get the most respect. So, first feet and then, hopefully, with a lot of hard work, one day, hands.
Worst public moment?
While I talk about my previous career only with great reluctance because it causes my brain pan to flood and then all the previously good stuff in there gets sopping wet and stays useless for days, I do recall a moment as a young, highly anxious lawyer when, with a battery of supportive social and health care workers looking on, encouragement and goodwill radiating from their beatific eyes, my client testified in the middle of his mental fitness assessment that I was Jesus Christ. Right then and there, my train of thought pulled out of the station, no one aboard…
Favourite public space?
It’s a tie (and activity dependent): running along the waterfront, writing in Trinity-Bellwoods, watching the (real) Leafs play @ Christie Pits.
Who are your favorite artists?
There are so many of ‘em, but right now, as I just started another of his books and he’s already got me by the throat, I have to say Californian writer TC Boyle who just bounds from one memorable image to another, one memorable story to another, without repeating himself or mimicking others.