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Untitled DocumentRant & Dawdle is a fictional memoir comprising thirty-eight interwoven stories from the perspective of a grumpy old man living on a small island off the west coast of Canada and an expectant young boy born into the poverty of WW2 English working class. The old man dreaming in retrospect, the young boy living a developing history, both to eventually rendezvous in the eighties. Filled with the humour and history of a post war generation nurtured on comic books, the Goon Show and jazz. William (Bill) E. Smith is a British Columbia-based musician, writer, editor, graphic designer, photographer, and record and film producer. With John Norris, Smith co-produced the Canadian jazz periodical Coda Magazine, Sackville Recordings and its subsidiary label Onari Records from 1976 until 2001. Smith was a founder of a succession of Toronto-based groups integral to the Canadian improvised music community in the 1970s, including Canadian Creative Music Collective, and New Art Music Ensemble. The latter became the Bill Smith Ensemble in 1980; they recorded five albums, including collaborations with Joe McPhee and Wadada Leo Smith. Smith has also recorded with, among others, Birdyak, Wolfgang Fuchs and The Six Winds. Smith initiated a series of projects with the title Imagine the Sound in the '80s, including a book of his writings and photography and the acclaimed documentary film directed by Ron Mann. Now residing on Hornby Island, Smith currently works with Arthur Bull and Tony Wilson, Comments on the self-published limited edition from fellow artists: "You covered an enormous territory and gave new life to an era of history and ideals that we all need to remember. There were so many things that rang a bell, I wished I'd taken notes. And so many times I laughed!" -Renee Rodin: Writer, Visual Artist, and Cultural Worker (Vancouver, Canada). "It's bleedin' brilliant. It's not a book, it's an achievement. Bravo." -Art Lange: Writer, Producer, Former editor Downbeat Magazine (Chicago, USA). "Fantastic! I started reading and found it was almost impossible to stop! What is so great is that I can relate to a lot of things you write about. Thank you very much. And what a brilliant edition!" -Leo Feigen, Leo Records (Newton Abbott, UK). "I laughed out loud many times. And the jazz stuff. I think it's very important that you have written it all down. Unique and insightful." -Jim Munro: Musician, Bricoleur (Richmond, Canada). "A wild bit of synchronicity today ...overburdened with work-related stress i closed my office door and on impulse dialed up You Tube to watch the Chuvalo-Ali fight, which i have never seen (it's there). Later that same day I come home to my little apartment, pour myself deep glass of scotch, open your book randomly for a read, only to find, not only the wonderful evocation of the mystique of the Colonial Tavern, but your beautiful account of that very same fight. And so it goes..." -Arthur Bull,:Musician, Poet , Chinese Translator (Digby Neck, Canada).

No Viable Option is at once an unusual literary mystery with a noirish evocation of the inner city and a political satire of activist groups whose ideals are undermined by in-fighting. On a summer evening in 1992, two young residents of a homeless shelter break into the house of legal aid lawyer, Will Burgess. He is murdered during the act and certain items are stolen. With the stolen articles in hand, one of the perpetrators, a Native youth named Sam Weir, desperately flees from both his cronies and the police (who are convinced that Sam acted alone). Simultaneously we meet Eric Speers, an aspiring writer and worker at the charity which owns the shelter and other endeavors. It was an organization in its death throes. Eric is, as well, a mess: suffering insomnia, increasingly neurotic, confused about his course in life and broke. Together with Sandy, a niece of the murdered man, they begin to investigate the stolen items after Sandy receives a threatening phone call and the police appear uninterested. The pair are drawn into a labyrinth of secrets and crimes, and finding their way through it may be the only hope that Sam Weir has for staying alive. Set during the severe recession of the early 90's, No Viable Option is an impassioned indictment of the failure of political groups to live up to the principles they espouse. Always entertaining with striking characters, it is an ingenious pastiche. The story is told using multiple points of view, lists, narrative, dreams, journal entries, song lyrics, newspaper columns and sex as a political metaphor. Craig Grimes is a Canadian novelist. His works are built around stories of personal conflict which focus on ethical and political concerns. They are set in Canada and there is a strong sense of place. They are also characterized by shifting points of view and narrative form, and the inclusion of other sorts of writing to advance the action (poems, journal entries, lists, quotes, songs, etc.).