Last night’s poutine

So distracted am I by this glorious week of spring weather that I haven’t been physically able to sit still long enough to recount the slightest detail, but last night’s Leacock debate, the 11th annual such event at the venerable Hart House in Toronto simply demands a mention.

As guests of  the brilliantly witty and charming journo power-couple Ian Brown (who was one of the event’s organisers) and Johanna Schneller, we were fortunate to be seated front and centre so that I had ample opportunity to spy (gaze adoringly?) at one of my idols, New Yorker magazine’s prize bon mot artiste, Calvin Trillin. 

The King of Droll himself was here  in the provinces as the moderator of the evening’s debate, the subject of which was prompted by a recent Trillin piece in the New Yorker on poutine. Hence the Great Poutine Debate (be it resolved that) Poutine should be Canada’s national dish.

Literary glitterati at our table included JohnMacFarlane, editor of The Walrus, with his companion, arts philanthropist Roz Ivey, and Globe and Mail ed John Stackhouse, whom, according to his seating companions (I was much farther down the table) did not surprise anyone by making any significant contribution to the evening’s conversation.

Also glimpsed: writer Sarah Hampson, who looked pretty and slim and seemed most excited about her new book, Happily Ever After Marriage, hitting bookstore shelves next week, ever-vivacious Variant Path founder Susie Kololian, who is planning the group’s next international jaunt to the Berlin Art week, and highly prolific U of T philosophe Mark Kingwell, who briskly dashed in and was one of the first to dash out–presumably in order to complete yet another brilliant book.

Dinner, as befit the location and occasion, was old-school Upper Canada–served up at 7 on the dot, a soup of inderminate origin followed by beef and pie in gravy (at that point I was longing for the poutine that I had foolishly declined at cocktail hour), not enough Niagara wines and a cottage-y fruit pudding.

Then after a few very funny lines on Trillin from Ian Brown (who, quite rightly pointed out that it was impossible to be particularly witty or original introducing Trillin as the man himself had already mined all his own best material), Trillin, who had the slightly dour, world-weary air of a mid-life Walter Matthau, but with extremely twinkly blue eyes that gave away a keen sense of delight and humour he obviously preferred to keep under wraps, took the podium and was generally droll and hilarious about everything, including poutine, a culinary subject upon which he appears to remain unconvinced.

First up was CBC’s Carol Off, who was no less than stellar, with a rousing and hilarious presentation that evoked the great history of this country, linking it’s great moments to poutine, while wearing a full-frontal apron of  Michelango’s David. She was followed by Bob Ramsey, for the Cons, who dressed for the occasion in a rather aggressive full Scot kilt. Off’s partner for the Pros was a very big man named William McDowell, a partner in Lenczner, Slaght who has clearly missed his calling–he is simply too funny and too damn clever to practice law for a living. (If I recall correctly, for I was laughing too hard, his best line attributed the obscure motto stencilled beneath the room’s crown moulding to a recent press release from the office of Michael Ignatieff).

The lovely Andrew Pyper, who I have always found to be both pleasant and accomplished as a novellist, surprised us all as a natural hambone with excellent comic timing (his touches of comic theatre involved extensive heavenwardly eye rolling and a bottle of Bovril, which, at one point, he withdrew  from the inside pocket of his vest).

To my mind, the pros took it, but on Trillin’s read of the audience clap-o-meter, victory was awarded to the Cons. However, as I was able to judge from my excellent perch and endless observation of the star of the evening, William McDowell, solicitor,  was the only one to successfully make Trillin laugh.