Today I am starting with a tabula rasa ... a blank screen and an equally blank mind.
I need to do a Costco run today some time. Kenya must be walked. I have some last minute lesson planning left to do because I will be out all day tomorrow .I should get more paint on the chair pieces.
I am finding it a pain in the butt to work on the pieces rather than a whole chair that can be moved as one item and on which I can see the effect of colours side by side.. It will be easier to do the design work ... maybe ... but the basic painting is much slower and trickier. You can place a chair on a drop cloth or a newspaper, but pieces have to be laid out carefully on my table, and, even with care they end up blotchier than they would be if I were painting the whole thing. I try to speed up the process by painting more than one surface and then have nowhere to to dry the piece without damage that will need to be scraped or sanded back.
Next time I will know better.
I wonder if my lassitude is the result of boredom, frustration or just plain laziness and a desire to get back to my current book. I am reading a lot more lately. I bought a raft of good books for the winter, and here it is, not even December, and I have gobbled up a few and am eating my way ravenously through Room.
Room is a strange book. The writer has limited herself to a particularly focused point of view and setting which could have resulted in an absolutely claustrophobic read, but her skill has lifted it beyond the narrow confines she set for herself. It was up for (and may have won) the Man Booker prize this year.
Annabel and Light Lifting were both finalists for the Giller.
Annabel has made me reflect on things I seldom consider. It is a sensitively written story of a hermaphroditic child born in a time and place where the condition was misunderstood and hidden so that the results were more tragic than they should have been. Love, however, makes this ultimately a redemptive novel.
I am giving Light Lifting to a friend for Christmas. It is a very male book. Well written ... but masculine in a way books that appeal mainly to women are not. It is about physicality rather than feelings; action rather than contemplation. Strong detail throughout and all the other positives associated with excellent writing ... but I am more interested in the softer more amorphous things that go on within a person than I am in how accurately the writer is able to convey physical sensations.
I think any athlete with a penchant for reading would love this book which captures a runner's pain, exhaustion and exultation; the physical details of a father dealing with recurrent infestations of lice; and, most often, the pain inflicted on men by other men or by themselves. Because he handles sensory detail so well, the writing is powerful. It is not that other good writers (women more often than men) get at feelings by emoting about them; it's that Alexander MacLeod's focus is on the physical ... and on men and their perspective.
I haven't finished reading all the stories yet, partly because it is so very male, but also partly because I prefer novels to short fiction. I will write a proper review of this one when I have finished it, because I know I have not done it justice. I may have given the incorrect impression that the stories are just about physical pain endured by men ... and the ones I have read are more than that ... they illuminate truth just as all fine fiction does.
So ... on with my day ... hope you have a good one ...
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Movie and Book Reviews
Today I watched Full Metal Jacket ... not exactly uplifting for a November afternoon when it was dark so early and then raining. But a fine movie. Vietnam ... the reality show ... one that revealed just who the Americans were who were doing the fighting ... a whole range of young men from the almost feeble minded to incredibly brutal to intelligent.
The star, if there was one, was a sensitive thoughtful young man who should have been studying in some ivory tower instead of spewing bullets thousands of miles from home in someone else's senseless war. On his helmet, crudely lettered, was "Born to Kill" ... and on his lapel, a peace symbol. Said it all.
Yesterday I watched Hannah and Her Sisters. I expected to hate it. I have not liked many of the movies Woody Allen has produced and acted in. I think my dislike goes back a long way to a sex scene that was supposed to be funny, but which inhibited me for a very long time.
However; I enjoyed Hannah and Her Sisters..
Woody Allen is more likeable in this one ... just as neurotic but redeemed by love here. And the other characters are more human as well.
I have also started reading Alain de Botton's A Week at the Airport. He writes well (likely the reason he was chosen by British Airways to spend a week at Heathrow writing about it). But I found myself wondering just what purpose the book serves.
The organization reflects the realities of the airport ... Approach ... Departures ... Airside ... Arrivals. Approach is his introduction to the project. In Departures he takes us from the hotel to landings to luggage retrieval and architectural notes and then gives us vignettes of people: the disappointed traveler, the farewells of two lovers, business travelers, a family on vacation. This one is the most complex as he explores the family relationships. This section ends with a description and some musings about the prayer room. I have just entered the Airside section, and gone through security, and am now in the duty free shopping area of Terminal 5.
I don't want to dismiss the book before finishing it ... and it is certainly not painful to read. But apart from being a vehicle for the writing of a good travel writer who brings all his international experience to bear on his description of this airport, I am still wondering why he was hired to write the book in the first place. It reminds me of the kind of exercise all writers indulge in when they are biding their time. As we put in hours waiting for planes in airports or meals in restaurants or friends who are late, we all observe and reflect and write copious notes in our travel journals. It is that kind of book.
The star, if there was one, was a sensitive thoughtful young man who should have been studying in some ivory tower instead of spewing bullets thousands of miles from home in someone else's senseless war. On his helmet, crudely lettered, was "Born to Kill" ... and on his lapel, a peace symbol. Said it all.
Yesterday I watched Hannah and Her Sisters. I expected to hate it. I have not liked many of the movies Woody Allen has produced and acted in. I think my dislike goes back a long way to a sex scene that was supposed to be funny, but which inhibited me for a very long time.
However; I enjoyed Hannah and Her Sisters..
Woody Allen is more likeable in this one ... just as neurotic but redeemed by love here. And the other characters are more human as well.
I have also started reading Alain de Botton's A Week at the Airport. He writes well (likely the reason he was chosen by British Airways to spend a week at Heathrow writing about it). But I found myself wondering just what purpose the book serves.
The organization reflects the realities of the airport ... Approach ... Departures ... Airside ... Arrivals. Approach is his introduction to the project. In Departures he takes us from the hotel to landings to luggage retrieval and architectural notes and then gives us vignettes of people: the disappointed traveler, the farewells of two lovers, business travelers, a family on vacation. This one is the most complex as he explores the family relationships. This section ends with a description and some musings about the prayer room. I have just entered the Airside section, and gone through security, and am now in the duty free shopping area of Terminal 5.
I don't want to dismiss the book before finishing it ... and it is certainly not painful to read. But apart from being a vehicle for the writing of a good travel writer who brings all his international experience to bear on his description of this airport, I am still wondering why he was hired to write the book in the first place. It reminds me of the kind of exercise all writers indulge in when they are biding their time. As we put in hours waiting for planes in airports or meals in restaurants or friends who are late, we all observe and reflect and write copious notes in our travel journals. It is that kind of book.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Travel Books and Gardens
am reading Laurie Gough's first travel book, Kite Strings. It was written in her twenties and tells of her adventures in the southern hemisphere. Much of it deals with living in Fiji which abundantly supports its society of food gatherers. Laurie taught with me in June. She has a second book out (which I will definitely buy) and she teaches a course in travel writing which I intend to take. Her writing is remarkable ... on a par with Karen Connely's, Touch the Dragon, which won a GG for non-fiction the year it came out. This is a book I would find hard to lend out in case it didn't come home.
My own garden is becoming Edenic in its fecundity too. Here are some photos.
First the beans ... the vines ... no beans yet.
Then the beefsteak tomato plant which has two tiny tomatoes so far. This is one of them.
And the other tomato plant in the box which has five mini tomatoes so far:
And then there are the zucchinis. I am already eating from the first plant shown, but the other garden up by the house looks as if it will soon be feeding me too.
And then there are the nasturtiums which are wonderfully colourful and edible, and the herbs which are all madly producing far more than I can enjoy by myself despite my most heroic efforts.
My own garden is becoming Edenic in its fecundity too. Here are some photos.
First the beans ... the vines ... no beans yet.
Then the beefsteak tomato plant which has two tiny tomatoes so far. This is one of them.
And the other tomato plant in the box which has five mini tomatoes so far:
And then there are the zucchinis. I am already eating from the first plant shown, but the other garden up by the house looks as if it will soon be feeding me too.
And then there are the nasturtiums which are wonderfully colourful and edible, and the herbs which are all madly producing far more than I can enjoy by myself despite my most heroic efforts.
Monday, 28 June 2010
A Book Report and Some Thoughts About the G8 and G20 Nonsense
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
My friend Erma sent me this book recently. It is wonderful. Beautifully written. A fine story. And an important one. I won't spoil it for you by telling all, but it deals with women, global ugliness, relationships, courage and cowardice, and does so in an interesting way. I couldn't put this book down.
If I had to mention one thing that sets this writer right up there with the best, and it is hard to choose just one, I would mention his care with dialogue. He captures so many ways that English is spoken ... by the Queen, by a Jamaican refugee, by Nigerians, and by a four year old who thinks he is Batman.
I was especially taken by the four year old superhero.
I could hear my grandson Max, the pirate, in every speech. It made me sad because I haven't seen Max for almost a year, not since we had his birthday party here.
At his daddy's funeral:
"Mummy, where mine daddy is now?"
.....
"Mmmn. Is mine daddy coming back soon?"
...
"Is mine daddy in that box?"
...
"Is that box heaven?"
.....
"Mummy! Get him out! Get mine daddy out of heaven!"
One of the major themes of the book is what happens when developing countries become inextricably entwined with the politics and economies of the developed nations. So that is my segue into my views about the G8 and G20 in Toronto.
Toronto, the Violent:
I have been in a great many peaceful demonstrations over the years and my first instinctual response is always to assume that demonstrators will be peaceful if they are allowed to be.
I haven't been avidly following this conference but you would have to be dead not to know that Huntsville has been locked down for some time and the central core of Toronto has been turned into a militarized zone. I was dismayed by the idea of the sound cannons.
Like most of the commentators I've listened to or read, I thought it was ridiculous to spend the kind of money being spent on this conference; nonsensical to hold it in Toronto which made policing even more expensive; and just plain ludicrous that an artificial Muskoka lake would be built next door to Lake Ontario.
So all my normal prejudices were solidly in place. Harper was over reacting and spending OUR money foolishly.
But when I began to read about the senseless violence directed against plate glass store windows, and police cars, my sentiments began to shift. These demonstrators seemed determined to create trouble rather than making solid political points.
Of course these economic conferences are always more violent than other protests; I think part of the point they are making forces them to scale walls and climb over razor wire. Part of the protest is against spending money foolishly on 8 or 20 world leaders when millions of people in those countries are not being fed, let alone feted. So spending gazillions on security is bound to create more violent behaviour anyway.
But even if one could understand the vandalizing of the police vehicles ... what about those store owners and their businesses?
And then this morning for the first time (remember I was not attempting to follow all this) I heard on CBC about a man who was about 5'4" and 140 pounds who was reporting the conference for the Guardian newspaper in Britain. The police roughed him up ... twisted his arm behind his back and then, when he was helpless, a third policeman punched him very hard in the stomach. All the while, he was protesting that he was not resisting arrest, that he was press. A Canadian reporter witnessed it all and reported it to CBC. He added the information that not only was the man small and no threat to anyone, he had one kidney and was an asthmatic.
So now all my notions, preconceived and recently formed, have been scrambled.
Maybe we got this much violent behaviour in Toronto because it was provoked ... by the police ... and by a government that expected the worst so it created an environment that encouraged it.
Early this morning I received an email that read:
"If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet." Isaac Bashevis Singer 1904-1991, Journalist and Writer
Mr. Singer died long before Mr. Harper came to power in this country, but he could have been talking to our prime minister, who has spent six times as much on this summit's security as was spent in Pittsburgh last year ... a summit that was much more peaceful and whose damage was far less costly.
My friend Erma sent me this book recently. It is wonderful. Beautifully written. A fine story. And an important one. I won't spoil it for you by telling all, but it deals with women, global ugliness, relationships, courage and cowardice, and does so in an interesting way. I couldn't put this book down.
If I had to mention one thing that sets this writer right up there with the best, and it is hard to choose just one, I would mention his care with dialogue. He captures so many ways that English is spoken ... by the Queen, by a Jamaican refugee, by Nigerians, and by a four year old who thinks he is Batman.
I was especially taken by the four year old superhero.
I could hear my grandson Max, the pirate, in every speech. It made me sad because I haven't seen Max for almost a year, not since we had his birthday party here.
At his daddy's funeral:
"Mummy, where mine daddy is now?"
.....
"Mmmn. Is mine daddy coming back soon?"
...
"Is mine daddy in that box?"
...
"Is that box heaven?"
.....
"Mummy! Get him out! Get mine daddy out of heaven!"
One of the major themes of the book is what happens when developing countries become inextricably entwined with the politics and economies of the developed nations. So that is my segue into my views about the G8 and G20 in Toronto.
Toronto, the Violent:
I have been in a great many peaceful demonstrations over the years and my first instinctual response is always to assume that demonstrators will be peaceful if they are allowed to be.
I haven't been avidly following this conference but you would have to be dead not to know that Huntsville has been locked down for some time and the central core of Toronto has been turned into a militarized zone. I was dismayed by the idea of the sound cannons.
Like most of the commentators I've listened to or read, I thought it was ridiculous to spend the kind of money being spent on this conference; nonsensical to hold it in Toronto which made policing even more expensive; and just plain ludicrous that an artificial Muskoka lake would be built next door to Lake Ontario.
So all my normal prejudices were solidly in place. Harper was over reacting and spending OUR money foolishly.
But when I began to read about the senseless violence directed against plate glass store windows, and police cars, my sentiments began to shift. These demonstrators seemed determined to create trouble rather than making solid political points.
Of course these economic conferences are always more violent than other protests; I think part of the point they are making forces them to scale walls and climb over razor wire. Part of the protest is against spending money foolishly on 8 or 20 world leaders when millions of people in those countries are not being fed, let alone feted. So spending gazillions on security is bound to create more violent behaviour anyway.
But even if one could understand the vandalizing of the police vehicles ... what about those store owners and their businesses?
And then this morning for the first time (remember I was not attempting to follow all this) I heard on CBC about a man who was about 5'4" and 140 pounds who was reporting the conference for the Guardian newspaper in Britain. The police roughed him up ... twisted his arm behind his back and then, when he was helpless, a third policeman punched him very hard in the stomach. All the while, he was protesting that he was not resisting arrest, that he was press. A Canadian reporter witnessed it all and reported it to CBC. He added the information that not only was the man small and no threat to anyone, he had one kidney and was an asthmatic.
So now all my notions, preconceived and recently formed, have been scrambled.
Maybe we got this much violent behaviour in Toronto because it was provoked ... by the police ... and by a government that expected the worst so it created an environment that encouraged it.
Early this morning I received an email that read:
"If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet." Isaac Bashevis Singer 1904-1991, Journalist and Writer
Mr. Singer died long before Mr. Harper came to power in this country, but he could have been talking to our prime minister, who has spent six times as much on this summit's security as was spent in Pittsburgh last year ... a summit that was much more peaceful and whose damage was far less costly.
Monday, 10 May 2010
A little of this 'n' a little of that ...
First the new dog treat testing ...
I decided to end the trial run with the C&Cs as they were causing a smelly bum ... likely the result of diarrhea and long feathers ... I know ... more information than you need ... but also because Kenya so obviously did not enjoy them ... and a treat ... even a healthy one ... should be a treat.
#2 Iams Tartar Treats (TTs)
These look like little brown nubbly tooth brushes and Kenya spent a lot of time chewing and drooling the first time she ate one (Monday, May 10, 2010). I suspect this is healthy for her gums and for the stimulation of teeth cleansing saliva.
The recommended amount for dogs 10-20 lb. is one per day. I think I will give my 90 pound dog 2 per day ... one each morning and night.
I was a little concerned about the cautions regarding size of treat. Kenya doesn't gulp down large objects so is unlikely to be in danger of the "harmful or fatal" results of swallowing the thing whole ... but if I had a Lab ... or that Mountain Dog puppy ...
No mention of calories on this one ... I like to know.
Here are the ingredients:
wheat gluten ... uh oh
sodium caseinate
water
glycerin
tapioca starch
corn oil
gelatin
pea protein
natural chicken flavour
calcium carbonate
potassium sorbate (a preservative)
potassium chloride
titanium dioxide
Basically a cookie made from fairly innocuous ingredients that give it the consistency of hard rubber plus those last few chemicals which I will check out ... I suspect they are teeth cleansers.
I don't like the fact that the first ingredient is wheat since Kenya gets diarrhea from too much wheat.
Titanium Dioxide is a fine particulate produced mainly in China and used in almost every sun screen, name brand vitamins, and most anything requiring whiteness. It has been listed as a possible carcinogenic, but not for those who ingest it, rather for those who inhale it. In other words, all those Chinese workers are likely to get lung cancer from inhaling it by mouth so that the dust goes down the trachea to the lungs or by breathing it in as they work in not-too-well-controlled factory conditions. Kenya is unlikely to be in danger as this is not a cookie that crumbles, but I am not overly impressed by the addition of something that could be toxic for anyone. Just how important could whiteness be?
Potassium Chloride is saltpeter, and the calcium is the same thing found in bone strengthening pills for osteoporosis. Not too worrisome. I don't think she has a sex drive to diminish, and strong teeth and bones are good, right?
The sodium caseinate is just milk with acid added.
Next ... glass work ...
I had trouble controlling the little tube brush that dispenses the fake lead lines. It was all right on the smaller test piece, but long flowing lead lines are hard to manage. My first little table top has blobby lead lines.
I thought when I finished that it might be fun to actually make a top out of bits and pieces of stained glass ... and my lead or solder lines would be neater. However I would have to learn to use lead if I wanted small pieces because solder only works if you can wrap the edges in foil. Tiffany glass lamps shade, for example, are all made with channeled lead and the other , less finicky, modern types of construction join copper wrapped pieces by soldering them with lead (speaking of toxic products).
Something to think about.
What I am reading ...
I have almost finished Khaled Hosseini's newest book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and can recommend it without reservation. I find it hard to put down.
I have been trying to read Birth of a Nation, the story of Kenya's biggest and best newspaper, but it is heavy going. The author doesn't know what to leave out . So, while the history is accurate and interesting, the flow is like my lead lines ... blobby. It is an easy book to put down. I am sending it on to a friend who is younger, more academically inclined, and even more interested in Kenya's socio-political history than I am. Like me, she read The Nation every day while living in Kenya ... and continues to read it on-line.
I enjoyed Twenty Chickens for a Saddle and would recommend it to anyone interested in Africa, simple alternative life styles, and home schooling.
I am also picking away at the square foot gardening book ... chock full of good ideas.
And that ... for today ... is that ... Have a great week. I think I will finally go to town this week to get new frames for my glasses ... and make the trip a Costco run as well ... My tummy is finally feeling as if it might hold up for a trip to town.
I decided to end the trial run with the C&Cs as they were causing a smelly bum ... likely the result of diarrhea and long feathers ... I know ... more information than you need ... but also because Kenya so obviously did not enjoy them ... and a treat ... even a healthy one ... should be a treat.
#2 Iams Tartar Treats (TTs)
These look like little brown nubbly tooth brushes and Kenya spent a lot of time chewing and drooling the first time she ate one (Monday, May 10, 2010). I suspect this is healthy for her gums and for the stimulation of teeth cleansing saliva.
The recommended amount for dogs 10-20 lb. is one per day. I think I will give my 90 pound dog 2 per day ... one each morning and night.
I was a little concerned about the cautions regarding size of treat. Kenya doesn't gulp down large objects so is unlikely to be in danger of the "harmful or fatal" results of swallowing the thing whole ... but if I had a Lab ... or that Mountain Dog puppy ...
No mention of calories on this one ... I like to know.
Here are the ingredients:
wheat gluten ... uh oh
sodium caseinate
water
glycerin
tapioca starch
corn oil
gelatin
pea protein
natural chicken flavour
calcium carbonate
potassium sorbate (a preservative)
potassium chloride
titanium dioxide
Basically a cookie made from fairly innocuous ingredients that give it the consistency of hard rubber plus those last few chemicals which I will check out ... I suspect they are teeth cleansers.
I don't like the fact that the first ingredient is wheat since Kenya gets diarrhea from too much wheat.
Titanium Dioxide is a fine particulate produced mainly in China and used in almost every sun screen, name brand vitamins, and most anything requiring whiteness. It has been listed as a possible carcinogenic, but not for those who ingest it, rather for those who inhale it. In other words, all those Chinese workers are likely to get lung cancer from inhaling it by mouth so that the dust goes down the trachea to the lungs or by breathing it in as they work in not-too-well-controlled factory conditions. Kenya is unlikely to be in danger as this is not a cookie that crumbles, but I am not overly impressed by the addition of something that could be toxic for anyone. Just how important could whiteness be?
Potassium Chloride is saltpeter, and the calcium is the same thing found in bone strengthening pills for osteoporosis. Not too worrisome. I don't think she has a sex drive to diminish, and strong teeth and bones are good, right?
The sodium caseinate is just milk with acid added.
Next ... glass work ...
I had trouble controlling the little tube brush that dispenses the fake lead lines. It was all right on the smaller test piece, but long flowing lead lines are hard to manage. My first little table top has blobby lead lines.
I thought when I finished that it might be fun to actually make a top out of bits and pieces of stained glass ... and my lead or solder lines would be neater. However I would have to learn to use lead if I wanted small pieces because solder only works if you can wrap the edges in foil. Tiffany glass lamps shade, for example, are all made with channeled lead and the other , less finicky, modern types of construction join copper wrapped pieces by soldering them with lead (speaking of toxic products).
Something to think about.
What I am reading ...
I have almost finished Khaled Hosseini's newest book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and can recommend it without reservation. I find it hard to put down.
I have been trying to read Birth of a Nation, the story of Kenya's biggest and best newspaper, but it is heavy going. The author doesn't know what to leave out . So, while the history is accurate and interesting, the flow is like my lead lines ... blobby. It is an easy book to put down. I am sending it on to a friend who is younger, more academically inclined, and even more interested in Kenya's socio-political history than I am. Like me, she read The Nation every day while living in Kenya ... and continues to read it on-line.
I enjoyed Twenty Chickens for a Saddle and would recommend it to anyone interested in Africa, simple alternative life styles, and home schooling.
I am also picking away at the square foot gardening book ... chock full of good ideas.
And that ... for today ... is that ... Have a great week. I think I will finally go to town this week to get new frames for my glasses ... and make the trip a Costco run as well ... My tummy is finally feeling as if it might hold up for a trip to town.
Monday, 6 July 2009
I Must be Meant to Read This Book!
A few days ago, Lois (a lurking blog reader friend) sent me Barack Obama's book, Dreams from My Father. I was delighted and very appreciative but thought I had better finish reading Miriam Toews' new novel about a totally dysfunctional family.
Today an old friend with whom I have traveled to Jordan and other Middle Eastern places, and who was with me with a different organization (VSO) in Kakamega, Kenya, sent me the same book just before she took off for Cambodia.
You have to understand. I almost never receive gifts. I almost never receive snail mail. And yet ... in less than a fortnight I received two copies of this book. Is fate at work ... or what??? Soooo ... tonight I will finish the novel and pass it on to Sharon .... and tomorrow I will start ready Obama's book.
Today an old friend with whom I have traveled to Jordan and other Middle Eastern places, and who was with me with a different organization (VSO) in Kakamega, Kenya, sent me the same book just before she took off for Cambodia.
You have to understand. I almost never receive gifts. I almost never receive snail mail. And yet ... in less than a fortnight I received two copies of this book. Is fate at work ... or what??? Soooo ... tonight I will finish the novel and pass it on to Sharon .... and tomorrow I will start ready Obama's book.
Friday, 30 January 2009
Endangered Species
A Swedish reader wrote that she is reveling in the bookstores of San Francisco (People Reading Blog) because bookstores have disappeared in her country. Everyone buys their books on-line. A good reason for us to protect our endangered species while we still have them.
I, however, am as guilty as everyone else. Here we have one book store. I would love to give them all my business but every time I have tried, the books have to be ordered and they invariably take much longer (and are far more expensive) than Amazon.
I would love to go to San Francisco and spend a week in book stores, wouldn't you? I would also look for the parrots and climb the hills and take photos of idiosyncratic windows and doorways populated by cats.
As you can see by the last photo, I am neither knitting nor reading. Instead we are all cooking, cuddling babies and enjoying the joy of our dogs' reunion.
Zeke the Nova Scotia Toller comes this morning so Kenya will have company for a whole week.
I will start reading and knitting again this weekend.
I, however, am as guilty as everyone else. Here we have one book store. I would love to give them all my business but every time I have tried, the books have to be ordered and they invariably take much longer (and are far more expensive) than Amazon.
I would love to go to San Francisco and spend a week in book stores, wouldn't you? I would also look for the parrots and climb the hills and take photos of idiosyncratic windows and doorways populated by cats.
As you can see by the last photo, I am neither knitting nor reading. Instead we are all cooking, cuddling babies and enjoying the joy of our dogs' reunion.
Zeke the Nova Scotia Toller comes this morning so Kenya will have company for a whole week.
I will start reading and knitting again this weekend.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
The Brain and the Tango
First Real Book Club Meeting ...
Not quite a consensus, but few people had managed to finish reading This is Your Brain on Music, and even those who felt it had been a worthwhile endeavour were critical of the writing style, the quality of the arguments put forward, and the organization of the book.
Some people were genuinely interested in the technicalities of music. One was totally disinterested in the connections between the brain and music. But I think what almost all of us felt was that while the book may have been a dud, thinking about the complexity of the human brain was interesting.
One member suggested that a very different format would have made the study interesting ... using only four pieces of music and having the presentation multi-media rather than in book form. And forgetting about the first section except as an appendix of some kind.
So ... as a first draft that should not have been hastily published, The Brain does have some potential, but Leviton has to get rid of his "Look at Me! Look at Me!" sophomoric style of interacting with his readers/audience.
The to-ing and fro-ing of the discussion, the wine and snacks were certainly worthwhile.
Tango ...
Today I get to meet a new Tango. He is an old, un-neutered Old English Sheepdog who likely has one more year to enjoy life on this earth. He is medicated, has glucosamine in his water, and cannot climb stairs. He likes leisurely sniff about walks and is unlikely to be very interested in playing with Kenya. Anyway we will see how this meeting goes. If the hill is manageable for him and if he and Kenya hit it off, it would mean about 8 days of dog sitting which would be nice financially He is the grandfather of Wilbur, the sheep dog I used to walk.
I have been putting off dealing with onerous chores so the rest of my day will likely be spent cleaning my den, dealing with bills, and making a big pot of stew. But I think I will manage to sneak in a few pages of Lullabies and maybe start those slippers. And Kenya and I will go for another off leash walk now that the hunters have left our woods. I suspect that Tango's walks will have to involve Kenya being off leash. It would be painful otherwise.
Not quite a consensus, but few people had managed to finish reading This is Your Brain on Music, and even those who felt it had been a worthwhile endeavour were critical of the writing style, the quality of the arguments put forward, and the organization of the book.
Some people were genuinely interested in the technicalities of music. One was totally disinterested in the connections between the brain and music. But I think what almost all of us felt was that while the book may have been a dud, thinking about the complexity of the human brain was interesting.
One member suggested that a very different format would have made the study interesting ... using only four pieces of music and having the presentation multi-media rather than in book form. And forgetting about the first section except as an appendix of some kind.
So ... as a first draft that should not have been hastily published, The Brain does have some potential, but Leviton has to get rid of his "Look at Me! Look at Me!" sophomoric style of interacting with his readers/audience.
The to-ing and fro-ing of the discussion, the wine and snacks were certainly worthwhile.
Tango ...
Today I get to meet a new Tango. He is an old, un-neutered Old English Sheepdog who likely has one more year to enjoy life on this earth. He is medicated, has glucosamine in his water, and cannot climb stairs. He likes leisurely sniff about walks and is unlikely to be very interested in playing with Kenya. Anyway we will see how this meeting goes. If the hill is manageable for him and if he and Kenya hit it off, it would mean about 8 days of dog sitting which would be nice financially He is the grandfather of Wilbur, the sheep dog I used to walk.
I have been putting off dealing with onerous chores so the rest of my day will likely be spent cleaning my den, dealing with bills, and making a big pot of stew. But I think I will manage to sneak in a few pages of Lullabies and maybe start those slippers. And Kenya and I will go for another off leash walk now that the hunters have left our woods. I suspect that Tango's walks will have to involve Kenya being off leash. It would be painful otherwise.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
A Jumble of News
Well ... lots of news:
I keep forgetting to blog about the beautiful healthy coyote I saw dead in the ditch on Mountain Road on Friday. S/he had been hit by a car and I felt as saddened as I would have if it had been someone's pet. It was the first time I have seen a coyote close up. Its incisors were half the size of Kenya's and s/he likely weighed about 15 pounds less than Kenya ... not skinny at all, just a well proportioned smaller animal. And certainly not at all feral looking ... or wily.
I have finished Merle's Door and written a letter to the author thanking him for restoring my faith in my own dog rearing philosophy.
I just started reading another book on the Book Club list: Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals. I was captivated from the first page.
I've been baking and cooking up a storm and enjoying the Suzie Homemaker feeling that comes over me when I tip loaves of homemade bread onto the counter and look out over my healthy house plants at the lake beyond.
I spent a few hours yesterday painting stars with glaze to help Carrie prepare for her show next weekend. We munched on the chocolate zucchini bread I had brought with me. Carrie asked me if I would consider sitting a potbellied pig. She is thinking about getting one this spring but needs to know that she has a reliable care back-up plan.
I've also received a couple of queries about dog sitting. Yay! Some money-making potential finally!
I have been working on a sweater for Arrow for Christmas, and I also want to make a basket of felted slippers to keep at the front door, so if you visit often, please get me an outline of your feet or your favourite slippers.
As part of this project I contacted a Mongolian friend to ask for Mongolian patterns for slippers and boots. Seema didn't have information on felting at her finger tips but said she would hunt for it. Then she posed a question: "Would I consider coming to Mongolia for six weeks this spring to conduct lessons for ESL teachers?" Well ... that was certainly a surprise ... but I felt that old excited whoosh of anticipation surge up and asked a few questions myself to determine whether I could do it.
I just received a copy of my friend Philippe's novel in the mail yesterday, and Claire's chemo is producing good results ... her tumour is shrinking.
So ... life is good and I feel younger now that there is promise in the air.
I keep forgetting to blog about the beautiful healthy coyote I saw dead in the ditch on Mountain Road on Friday. S/he had been hit by a car and I felt as saddened as I would have if it had been someone's pet. It was the first time I have seen a coyote close up. Its incisors were half the size of Kenya's and s/he likely weighed about 15 pounds less than Kenya ... not skinny at all, just a well proportioned smaller animal. And certainly not at all feral looking ... or wily.I have finished Merle's Door and written a letter to the author thanking him for restoring my faith in my own dog rearing philosophy.
I just started reading another book on the Book Club list: Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals. I was captivated from the first page.
I've been baking and cooking up a storm and enjoying the Suzie Homemaker feeling that comes over me when I tip loaves of homemade bread onto the counter and look out over my healthy house plants at the lake beyond.
I spent a few hours yesterday painting stars with glaze to help Carrie prepare for her show next weekend. We munched on the chocolate zucchini bread I had brought with me. Carrie asked me if I would consider sitting a potbellied pig. She is thinking about getting one this spring but needs to know that she has a reliable care back-up plan.
I've also received a couple of queries about dog sitting. Yay! Some money-making potential finally!
I have been working on a sweater for Arrow for Christmas, and I also want to make a basket of felted slippers to keep at the front door, so if you visit often, please get me an outline of your feet or your favourite slippers.
As part of this project I contacted a Mongolian friend to ask for Mongolian patterns for slippers and boots. Seema didn't have information on felting at her finger tips but said she would hunt for it. Then she posed a question: "Would I consider coming to Mongolia for six weeks this spring to conduct lessons for ESL teachers?" Well ... that was certainly a surprise ... but I felt that old excited whoosh of anticipation surge up and asked a few questions myself to determine whether I could do it.
I just received a copy of my friend Philippe's novel in the mail yesterday, and Claire's chemo is producing good results ... her tumour is shrinking.
So ... life is good and I feel younger now that there is promise in the air.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Life is Good
Two Books and an Art and Pottery Show
I handed over The Brain on Music to my book buddy who called me yesterday to ask what the hell was wrong with her. She couldn't read the damned thing. She had no desire to know every single technicality about music. I laughed and told her to forget the first chapter. The book was not wonderful but that first chapter was deadly because it was written in such boringly dense and unnecessarily complex prose.
It did improve. Eventually I began to interact with the material ... perhaps by chapter 4 or 5 ... and by the time I was skimming the last chapter in order to pass on the book, I was thinking I might re-read the final bit, if not for pleasure, at least for information.
In contrast, Merle's Door is also well researched and filled with information, but I like reading it. The style is engaging and down to earth. The voice of the writer as he deals with his subject is that of a man I can relate to. Unlike The Brain's Leviton, Kerasote never sinks to name dropping or veiled braggadocio.
There were so many parallels ... brain activity research ... historical and anthropological tracings ... two men intimately connected with their subjects ... an interest in autism ... comparisons of theories about the subjects ... that it became very easy to note the differences.
One difference was the fact that I was far more interested in how dogs and people interact than in how music affects the brain, but I wasn't completely disinterested in the other subject. If Leviton had been a more human writer; if he hadn't puffed himself up; if he'd come down from his university lectern more often, I would have found his subject far more interesting than I did.
And that first chapter ... whew! ... wonder where his editor was when that appeared right up front instead of at the end as an appendix. Probably asleep ... and too impressed by the writer's credentials to be helpfully critical.
I have a few more pages to read in Merle's Door. Last night I couldn't see through my tears to read on. Merle was failing and Kerasote was having a difficult time knowing what to do; when to intervene and say enough. Any of us who have had to make that decision will understand.
Yesterday my only social excursions were to the Nearly New Shop where I spent less than $10 on sweaters for Arrow and felting, and to Cathy Payne and Dave Fisher's show.
Dave's work is always professional but Cathy's work is growing by leaps and bounds.
She is doing really interesting things with glazing and with texture, and has started making bottomless pieces that are thrown on the wheel and cut apart. Then she uses slab which she imprints with lace to make the sides and bottoms. Sometimes she just makes the bottomless pots, distorts their shape and makes textured slab bottoms. The result is some wonderful pieces. If I had had money I'd have bought far more than I did. I came away with a very small casserole dish that can be used to cook one or two portion casseroles or to serve vegetables.
Back at the lake I spent the rest of the day baking. Today I will get outside with Kenya, do some more baking and make a curried pumpkin mushroom soup ... and Tammy and Carlos will be coming with the boys. Kenya will be delighted to have some canine buddies around.
Life is good! Enjoy this wonderful fall Sunday.
I handed over The Brain on Music to my book buddy who called me yesterday to ask what the hell was wrong with her. She couldn't read the damned thing. She had no desire to know every single technicality about music. I laughed and told her to forget the first chapter. The book was not wonderful but that first chapter was deadly because it was written in such boringly dense and unnecessarily complex prose.
It did improve. Eventually I began to interact with the material ... perhaps by chapter 4 or 5 ... and by the time I was skimming the last chapter in order to pass on the book, I was thinking I might re-read the final bit, if not for pleasure, at least for information.
In contrast, Merle's Door is also well researched and filled with information, but I like reading it. The style is engaging and down to earth. The voice of the writer as he deals with his subject is that of a man I can relate to. Unlike The Brain's Leviton, Kerasote never sinks to name dropping or veiled braggadocio.
There were so many parallels ... brain activity research ... historical and anthropological tracings ... two men intimately connected with their subjects ... an interest in autism ... comparisons of theories about the subjects ... that it became very easy to note the differences.
One difference was the fact that I was far more interested in how dogs and people interact than in how music affects the brain, but I wasn't completely disinterested in the other subject. If Leviton had been a more human writer; if he hadn't puffed himself up; if he'd come down from his university lectern more often, I would have found his subject far more interesting than I did.
And that first chapter ... whew! ... wonder where his editor was when that appeared right up front instead of at the end as an appendix. Probably asleep ... and too impressed by the writer's credentials to be helpfully critical.
I have a few more pages to read in Merle's Door. Last night I couldn't see through my tears to read on. Merle was failing and Kerasote was having a difficult time knowing what to do; when to intervene and say enough. Any of us who have had to make that decision will understand.
Yesterday my only social excursions were to the Nearly New Shop where I spent less than $10 on sweaters for Arrow and felting, and to Cathy Payne and Dave Fisher's show.
Dave's work is always professional but Cathy's work is growing by leaps and bounds.
She is doing really interesting things with glazing and with texture, and has started making bottomless pieces that are thrown on the wheel and cut apart. Then she uses slab which she imprints with lace to make the sides and bottoms. Sometimes she just makes the bottomless pots, distorts their shape and makes textured slab bottoms. The result is some wonderful pieces. If I had had money I'd have bought far more than I did. I came away with a very small casserole dish that can be used to cook one or two portion casseroles or to serve vegetables.
Back at the lake I spent the rest of the day baking. Today I will get outside with Kenya, do some more baking and make a curried pumpkin mushroom soup ... and Tammy and Carlos will be coming with the boys. Kenya will be delighted to have some canine buddies around.
Life is good! Enjoy this wonderful fall Sunday.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Waking Up to a More Hopeful World
I don't know whether it will be a new world with Obama elected in the USA but symbolically it is important for a number of reasons besides the most obvious one; that he is the first African American president in a country whose black population has been struggling for almost the entire 232 year history of that country.
It signals the possibility of a radical shift from the policies of the Bush era. This new president has roots in the developing world and in the African American world of the USA. He cannot help but be influenced by his own history.
He is young and energetic, and his vitality has sparked something far more positive in the USA than the terrible fear that has pervaded that country and influenced all of its policies since 911, a fear that continues today during the current economic crisis. It is as though he has awakened the electorate. People who were either too timid, too disinterested or too downtrodden to participate in the political process are now involved, just as they were during the Vietnam protests and during the Civil Rights Movement days in the United States.
It has been a long time coming, and change won't happen overnight, but at least now there is hope.
My own world is also feeling more hopeful. I have reconnected in positive ways with several old friends this year, three of them in the past few days, and I have established connections with some new people whom I think may become friends. Many of those friends are doing interesting things with their lives in exciting creative ways. One is active politically. Another has just published a novel that has emerged from a two year long mourning period. A couple are producing some wonderful art; one of these seems to have awakened from a long sleep, and I feel inspired by her newfound enthusiasm. Another is becoming a star in her own field and she seems to glow with positive energy these days.
And one has simply reconnected in a very personal way that has lifted a heaviness from my heart.
As for my own activities, I have some ideas for those felted slippers, and I've even managed to read a few chapters of The Brain on Music. I still don't like it much but at least I have figured out why, so I don't feel like a complete loser every time I pick it up with a disgruntled sigh.
Today I hope to finish the book, cook a pumpkin, make a zucchini bread, and spend some time outdoors with Kenya enjoying this wonderful weather. And maybe I will start cutting out pattern pieces for the first pair of slippers.
It signals the possibility of a radical shift from the policies of the Bush era. This new president has roots in the developing world and in the African American world of the USA. He cannot help but be influenced by his own history.
He is young and energetic, and his vitality has sparked something far more positive in the USA than the terrible fear that has pervaded that country and influenced all of its policies since 911, a fear that continues today during the current economic crisis. It is as though he has awakened the electorate. People who were either too timid, too disinterested or too downtrodden to participate in the political process are now involved, just as they were during the Vietnam protests and during the Civil Rights Movement days in the United States.
It has been a long time coming, and change won't happen overnight, but at least now there is hope.
My own world is also feeling more hopeful. I have reconnected in positive ways with several old friends this year, three of them in the past few days, and I have established connections with some new people whom I think may become friends. Many of those friends are doing interesting things with their lives in exciting creative ways. One is active politically. Another has just published a novel that has emerged from a two year long mourning period. A couple are producing some wonderful art; one of these seems to have awakened from a long sleep, and I feel inspired by her newfound enthusiasm. Another is becoming a star in her own field and she seems to glow with positive energy these days.
And one has simply reconnected in a very personal way that has lifted a heaviness from my heart.
As for my own activities, I have some ideas for those felted slippers, and I've even managed to read a few chapters of The Brain on Music. I still don't like it much but at least I have figured out why, so I don't feel like a complete loser every time I pick it up with a disgruntled sigh.
Today I hope to finish the book, cook a pumpkin, make a zucchini bread, and spend some time outdoors with Kenya enjoying this wonderful weather. And maybe I will start cutting out pattern pieces for the first pair of slippers.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Brains, Moo Moo Cows and Free Thinkers
I tried off and on again yesterday to read the book club selection, Your Brain on Music by Daniel Leviton, and was unsuccessful. I guess if you were really into music it might be riveting, but I'm not so sure. The author suggested that people who were musicians or were knowledgeable, skim the first chapter.
Since my only formal encounters with music occurred between the ages of 6 and 11 when I took piano lessons, I felt I'd better plow my way through it. I have managed pp 13-38 and have 27 pages to finish the chapter tantalizingly entitled "What is Music?" The writing style is as deadly as the choice of title. How, I kept asking myself, did this book become a New York Times bestseller?
If it doesn't catch me and hold me today I am going to give up and hand the book over to Sharon with whom I am sharing the cost of the books on the list.
I sure hope the other books suggested by the group leader are better choices, but the first book, like any respectable first chapter, should grab the reader immediately. Don't you agree? And it should not be 65 pages of hard labour.
I would like to be able to like the book. Honestly. And every once in a while I find myself thinking, "Yes ... that's the way it happens in literature or art," but mostly I find myself acting like an ADD kid who starts counting the pages to the end instead of concentrating.
I really want to get back to Ted Kerasote's book, Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog.
And some of the other book club selections look good enough to read too.
This is the first time I have been part of a book club so I am not sure of the etiquette. If you hate the book and can't read it, do you go to that meeting anyway or do you keep your opinions (based on ignorance as they are) at home?
Earlier this year I read Virginia Ironside's wonderful hoot of a book, No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub: a diary of growing old disgracefully, and liked it so much I wrote to her. I wonder if she has a fan club made up of people unable to deal with book clubs. Do they get together and discuss unreadable books?
Have any of you got past the first chapter of The Brain?
When I was in university I couldn't get past the first chapter of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I kept gagging on the moo moo cow segment. Years later I told an Irish friend I should probably read it; that my education must be sadly lacking. She said it was probably unnecessary now, but I decided to try again. Surprisingly I liked it fine and slid right past the moo moo cow without incident. Maybe that will happen with The Brain in thirty years. I will be 98 then.
Since my only formal encounters with music occurred between the ages of 6 and 11 when I took piano lessons, I felt I'd better plow my way through it. I have managed pp 13-38 and have 27 pages to finish the chapter tantalizingly entitled "What is Music?" The writing style is as deadly as the choice of title. How, I kept asking myself, did this book become a New York Times bestseller?
If it doesn't catch me and hold me today I am going to give up and hand the book over to Sharon with whom I am sharing the cost of the books on the list.
I sure hope the other books suggested by the group leader are better choices, but the first book, like any respectable first chapter, should grab the reader immediately. Don't you agree? And it should not be 65 pages of hard labour.
I would like to be able to like the book. Honestly. And every once in a while I find myself thinking, "Yes ... that's the way it happens in literature or art," but mostly I find myself acting like an ADD kid who starts counting the pages to the end instead of concentrating.
I really want to get back to Ted Kerasote's book, Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog.
And some of the other book club selections look good enough to read too.
This is the first time I have been part of a book club so I am not sure of the etiquette. If you hate the book and can't read it, do you go to that meeting anyway or do you keep your opinions (based on ignorance as they are) at home?
Earlier this year I read Virginia Ironside's wonderful hoot of a book, No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub: a diary of growing old disgracefully, and liked it so much I wrote to her. I wonder if she has a fan club made up of people unable to deal with book clubs. Do they get together and discuss unreadable books?
Have any of you got past the first chapter of The Brain?
When I was in university I couldn't get past the first chapter of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I kept gagging on the moo moo cow segment. Years later I told an Irish friend I should probably read it; that my education must be sadly lacking. She said it was probably unnecessary now, but I decided to try again. Surprisingly I liked it fine and slid right past the moo moo cow without incident. Maybe that will happen with The Brain in thirty years. I will be 98 then.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Zapped Brain Cells
Brain Cells Zapped
Every time I have a hot flash ... that's when your crazy mixed up adrenals shoot an overload of adrenalin into your system ... I feel as if my brain has been zapped by something like a battery operated mosquito killer, only this zap is powered by something much more powerful than a couple of 2A batteries.
My hot flashes are nuclear powered and the number of brain cells that get zapped is in the multitudes. I can forget my own name when it happens, never mind the train of thought or even the topic under discussion.
But I could learn to live with the ones that happen during the day if I could only get a night's sleep. I am awakened every hour and sometimes awake for two or three hours when I get one of these night sweats.
I find myself dying to go to bed each evening because I am exhausted, and dying to get up for the day in the small hours of every morning because sleep is impossible.
Last night I took a herbal remedy for insomnia containing Valerian. I was wonderfully relaxed and fell asleep immediately. Of course I fall asleep immediately anyway because I am so exhausted by bedtime. But imagine my surprise when I was wide awake at 11 but peaceful so I went back to sleep. And then again at 12 and 1 and 2.
Except that at 2 I lay there thinking. I wasn't anxious, just very awake. I read for a while ... a book of short stories by Melanie Little. I had met her in a poetry course we were both taking and then again at the International Writers' Festival where she was speaking. In that occasion, Marta and I discussed her in the washroom and a voice emerged from one of the cubicles saying she was listening and she was Melanie. A few months later, Marta and I took a weekend writing course from her and we all had lunch together. Then she became the writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta and we lost even those ephemeral strands of connection. Last week I read in the Globe and Mail that Melanie has started a small publishing house in Calgary, where she is the only employee. She has limited the number of books she publishes this fall to 4. The first one, a novel by Marina Endicott called Good to a Fault has been nominated for the Giller Prize. Wow, Melanie!
In Melanie's own book I discovered a note from her, a response to some poems I had written. I couldn't even remember the poems she mentioned.
I was wide awake so I went into my den closet where I store all kinds of writing, my own and that of others. I hunted for half an hour and finally found them. I almost couldn't remember the woman who wrote them. I think the hot flashes must have zapped those cells completely.
Here is a poem by that other Oma.
It is part of a series called "Acts of Casual Brutality".
Every time I have a hot flash ... that's when your crazy mixed up adrenals shoot an overload of adrenalin into your system ... I feel as if my brain has been zapped by something like a battery operated mosquito killer, only this zap is powered by something much more powerful than a couple of 2A batteries.
My hot flashes are nuclear powered and the number of brain cells that get zapped is in the multitudes. I can forget my own name when it happens, never mind the train of thought or even the topic under discussion.
But I could learn to live with the ones that happen during the day if I could only get a night's sleep. I am awakened every hour and sometimes awake for two or three hours when I get one of these night sweats.
I find myself dying to go to bed each evening because I am exhausted, and dying to get up for the day in the small hours of every morning because sleep is impossible.
Last night I took a herbal remedy for insomnia containing Valerian. I was wonderfully relaxed and fell asleep immediately. Of course I fall asleep immediately anyway because I am so exhausted by bedtime. But imagine my surprise when I was wide awake at 11 but peaceful so I went back to sleep. And then again at 12 and 1 and 2.
Except that at 2 I lay there thinking. I wasn't anxious, just very awake. I read for a while ... a book of short stories by Melanie Little. I had met her in a poetry course we were both taking and then again at the International Writers' Festival where she was speaking. In that occasion, Marta and I discussed her in the washroom and a voice emerged from one of the cubicles saying she was listening and she was Melanie. A few months later, Marta and I took a weekend writing course from her and we all had lunch together. Then she became the writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta and we lost even those ephemeral strands of connection. Last week I read in the Globe and Mail that Melanie has started a small publishing house in Calgary, where she is the only employee. She has limited the number of books she publishes this fall to 4. The first one, a novel by Marina Endicott called Good to a Fault has been nominated for the Giller Prize. Wow, Melanie!
In Melanie's own book I discovered a note from her, a response to some poems I had written. I couldn't even remember the poems she mentioned.
I was wide awake so I went into my den closet where I store all kinds of writing, my own and that of others. I hunted for half an hour and finally found them. I almost couldn't remember the woman who wrote them. I think the hot flashes must have zapped those cells completely.
Here is a poem by that other Oma.
It is part of a series called "Acts of Casual Brutality".
Disappearing Acts
Where do you go when you leave?
Do you disappear into a book?
your work?
a bottle?
an all consuming affair of the heart?
a vagina?
or do you drop wordlessly
into an abyss?
When women friends plummet
I worry
so I hunt for them
and try to help them out
but with you I'm not sure ...
with you I perch uneasily ...
At first
you phoned as soon as you got home,
left things here,
returned.
Then the small disappearing acts began.
Unanswered emails.
Dead phone lines.
One day you vanished completely.
Later you said it was temporary.
Where did you go?
and where are you now?
Where do you go when you leave?
Do you disappear into a book?
your work?
a bottle?
an all consuming affair of the heart?
a vagina?
or do you drop wordlessly
into an abyss?
When women friends plummet
I worry
so I hunt for them
and try to help them out
but with you I'm not sure ...
with you I perch uneasily ...
At first
you phoned as soon as you got home,
left things here,
returned.
Then the small disappearing acts began.
Unanswered emails.
Dead phone lines.
One day you vanished completely.
Later you said it was temporary.
Where did you go?
and where are you now?
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Strategy sucks
Well ... so much for strategic voting! I am going back to the tried and true ... well at least to the familiar ... I will simply vote for what I believe in from now on.
Last night I went to the first meeting of a new book club. I think I will enjoy it. The books chosen range from non-fiction to biography to the short story to the novel to poetry. I like reading novels better than anything else, but maybe this will stretch me. The people seem interesting and intelligent. I just hope I can afford the books!
Today is going to be a cooking day. I am trying out recipes that are basic, down-to-earth and cheap. Yesterday I did a side dish with beans and green pepper. Today I am cooking up a minestrone and an apple cake.
I am glad this election is over and we can go on to other things, but that post election coverage on CBC was helpful last night. When I awoke every hour with night sweats I drank water while listening to the latest returns. The night passed more quickly than it usually does.
Last night I went to the first meeting of a new book club. I think I will enjoy it. The books chosen range from non-fiction to biography to the short story to the novel to poetry. I like reading novels better than anything else, but maybe this will stretch me. The people seem interesting and intelligent. I just hope I can afford the books!
Today is going to be a cooking day. I am trying out recipes that are basic, down-to-earth and cheap. Yesterday I did a side dish with beans and green pepper. Today I am cooking up a minestrone and an apple cake.
I am glad this election is over and we can go on to other things, but that post election coverage on CBC was helpful last night. When I awoke every hour with night sweats I drank water while listening to the latest returns. The night passed more quickly than it usually does.
Saturday, 21 June 2008
The Alchemist
I am reading a book that for me could become my bible ... you know ... the only book you need if you are shipwrecked ... the one book to take on a cruise or to a long prison term.
It is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo and is a fable, the story of an Andalusian shepherd who goes on a quest. A simple tale. A simple man. But filled with profound thoughts. It is a kind of distillation of the things one needs to discover in order to live one's life meaningfully. Paulo Coehlo has been quoted so widely that most of the things his young shepherd discovers are now homilies mouthed by many. Ubiquitous. No longer profound. But still true. Things like living in the moment. Or realizing that your soul is part of the soul of the universe. Understanding that the universe delights when we follow our dreams.
It has been compared to The Little Prince. I have never read The Little Prince, but I will now. Perhaps one will rest in one pocket as I journey, the second in the other ... to balance me.
My friend, Paul, who died in France a year and a half ago told me about The Little Prince. We were in an outdoor cafe in Corsica drinking wine and sharing a light meal. Pizza, I think. Paul loved pizza. I know it wasn't the day I ate the perfect pasta carbonara with the rosy egg yolk bursting forth like a rising sun from its centre. That too was in Corsica, and with Paul, but at a country inn. No ... we were in the city, Ajaccio, when he told me about The Little Prince.
I cannot remember the details but I remember thinking that if I just followed the truths of that simple story I would live a happy life.
It is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo and is a fable, the story of an Andalusian shepherd who goes on a quest. A simple tale. A simple man. But filled with profound thoughts. It is a kind of distillation of the things one needs to discover in order to live one's life meaningfully. Paulo Coehlo has been quoted so widely that most of the things his young shepherd discovers are now homilies mouthed by many. Ubiquitous. No longer profound. But still true. Things like living in the moment. Or realizing that your soul is part of the soul of the universe. Understanding that the universe delights when we follow our dreams.
It has been compared to The Little Prince. I have never read The Little Prince, but I will now. Perhaps one will rest in one pocket as I journey, the second in the other ... to balance me.
My friend, Paul, who died in France a year and a half ago told me about The Little Prince. We were in an outdoor cafe in Corsica drinking wine and sharing a light meal. Pizza, I think. Paul loved pizza. I know it wasn't the day I ate the perfect pasta carbonara with the rosy egg yolk bursting forth like a rising sun from its centre. That too was in Corsica, and with Paul, but at a country inn. No ... we were in the city, Ajaccio, when he told me about The Little Prince.
I cannot remember the details but I remember thinking that if I just followed the truths of that simple story I would live a happy life.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
A Rainy Rainy Day ... Again
Kenya and I are toasting ourselves by the fire, and I am taking another day's reprieve from dealing with the problem that kept me awake a good bit of the night. I have a somewhat smelly dead raccoon lying in the old basement of the original cottage. He is between a big rock and a some cemented cinder blocks. I have been advised to bury him, but am trying to figure out the logistics of getting him from his almost final resting place to his final one. The dogs surprisingly have left him alone which makes me wonder what killed him. It also makes me a little nervous about dealing with his remains. The dogs have all been vaccinated against rabies but it has been years since I had the series of shots, and the last titre I had done was in 2002, just before I moved to Kenya for six months, when it was determined that I was still protected.
My birthday will go on all week. Marta, Tammy and Sarah are all coming to my pizza party this afternoon/evening. I am having lunch with Christina, a former student, at Chez Eric tomorrow, and on Thursday I am having dinner at my friend Roger's place. Then on the weekend, Remi is coming for a couple of days.
Dad's 100th birthday (and 68th Father's Day) on the 15th has unfortunately fizzled out.
I will go out for the mail and deliver some blackstrap molasses to Rowboat Flo around noon, and will read (an Anne Tyler novel called Morgan is Passing). I like her strange characters and the situations in which she places them.
I may also watch a movie.
The last one I watched was You've Got Mail which I watch a couple of times a year. I really am a romantic at heart I think, and I like that movie because they are humanly flawed people who really like one another. I like that they can open up to one another and discuss their deepest thoughts even before they meet in person. It is what internet dating should be but generally isn't.
So ... a book ... a movie ... a pizza party ... and a postponed burial. Not such a bad way to spend one's birthday!
My birthday will go on all week. Marta, Tammy and Sarah are all coming to my pizza party this afternoon/evening. I am having lunch with Christina, a former student, at Chez Eric tomorrow, and on Thursday I am having dinner at my friend Roger's place. Then on the weekend, Remi is coming for a couple of days.
Dad's 100th birthday (and 68th Father's Day) on the 15th has unfortunately fizzled out.
I will go out for the mail and deliver some blackstrap molasses to Rowboat Flo around noon, and will read (an Anne Tyler novel called Morgan is Passing). I like her strange characters and the situations in which she places them.
I may also watch a movie.
The last one I watched was You've Got Mail which I watch a couple of times a year. I really am a romantic at heart I think, and I like that movie because they are humanly flawed people who really like one another. I like that they can open up to one another and discuss their deepest thoughts even before they meet in person. It is what internet dating should be but generally isn't.
So ... a book ... a movie ... a pizza party ... and a postponed burial. Not such a bad way to spend one's birthday!
Saturday, 24 May 2008
A Splitting Headache ... Several Actually ...
Sorry I have not been posting lately. The reasons are the same ones that are giving me the headaches.
1. It took me three hours on the phone, another hour to write a letter and get the documentation Hydro wanted faxed, and another hour to take it into Wakefield and fax it because their line was continually in use. Five hours and the problem is still not resolved. My bank took my money, deposited it in a non-existent Hydro account, and then Hydro told me my bill was overdue. So that was one day and one major headache.
2. The following day the dial-up refused to do anything without bumping me off-line. Headache #2.
3. That was also the day I went to the ByTowne to see a movie with Marta. The movie was a disappointment. One of my favourite novels, The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, had been badly translated into a film. The novel is a wonderful sprawling rendition of a life; the film is an awkwardly patched together attempt to capture what perhaps is unmanageable. The filmmaker's changes to time were disconcerting, as was the incorrect aging of the characters. Hagar was far too young for 90; Doris and Marvin far too young for 65; and the age difference between Marvin and John which was perhaps five years suddenly at one point became a twenty year spread. I am usually not as upset by the liberties taken by film makers attempting to move a novel onto the screen, but this was a travesty. Dickens' novels like Bleak House are also big novels, but the BBC did not ruin Bleak House by trying to fit a 400 page novel into 1 1/2 hours. They made a 3 DVD production. Better to have put The Stone Angel aside as undo-able than to seriously damage the integrity of a fine novel. Headache #3.
4. Today Tom and his crew came to finish up the removal of the cottage debris. They did not finish. They did create clouds of bilious, headache-causing smoke ... and on the May 24th weekend. (My neighbours are likely cursing me.) When I went to get them clean boxes out of the big blue bin, it (the bin) ... 4 1/2 feet high here in Quebec ... came crashing down on my head raising a long ridgelike goosebump on the scalp. Ouch! Headaches #4 and 5.
Not a good few days ... but I hope the air, my head, and my schedule will all be clear by tomorrow morning so that I can prepare for company (faithful blog readers all) and post a morning entry.
1. It took me three hours on the phone, another hour to write a letter and get the documentation Hydro wanted faxed, and another hour to take it into Wakefield and fax it because their line was continually in use. Five hours and the problem is still not resolved. My bank took my money, deposited it in a non-existent Hydro account, and then Hydro told me my bill was overdue. So that was one day and one major headache.
2. The following day the dial-up refused to do anything without bumping me off-line. Headache #2.
3. That was also the day I went to the ByTowne to see a movie with Marta. The movie was a disappointment. One of my favourite novels, The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, had been badly translated into a film. The novel is a wonderful sprawling rendition of a life; the film is an awkwardly patched together attempt to capture what perhaps is unmanageable. The filmmaker's changes to time were disconcerting, as was the incorrect aging of the characters. Hagar was far too young for 90; Doris and Marvin far too young for 65; and the age difference between Marvin and John which was perhaps five years suddenly at one point became a twenty year spread. I am usually not as upset by the liberties taken by film makers attempting to move a novel onto the screen, but this was a travesty. Dickens' novels like Bleak House are also big novels, but the BBC did not ruin Bleak House by trying to fit a 400 page novel into 1 1/2 hours. They made a 3 DVD production. Better to have put The Stone Angel aside as undo-able than to seriously damage the integrity of a fine novel. Headache #3.
4. Today Tom and his crew came to finish up the removal of the cottage debris. They did not finish. They did create clouds of bilious, headache-causing smoke ... and on the May 24th weekend. (My neighbours are likely cursing me.) When I went to get them clean boxes out of the big blue bin, it (the bin) ... 4 1/2 feet high here in Quebec ... came crashing down on my head raising a long ridgelike goosebump on the scalp. Ouch! Headaches #4 and 5.
Not a good few days ... but I hope the air, my head, and my schedule will all be clear by tomorrow morning so that I can prepare for company (faithful blog readers all) and post a morning entry.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
A hermit prepares to become a nomad ...
The car and Kenya are easy ... oil change, tune-up, good tires ... add in meds and food for Kenya ... and they are set to go.
After all the traveling I've done, you would think getting me ready would be at least as simple, but it's not. Even choosing which clothes to take is a problem. I have to consider ranges of temperature and all kinds of weather because I don't wear metal or fur year round. I have to worry about the demands of different social occasions.
I also have to deal with mapping things and ensuring that I can find pet-friendly accommodation.
And make sure that I can manage my finances from a distance.
And I have to consider my sanity. I am most sane when I am settled in my hermit's life at the lake. That is where I write, watch my films, read and reflect. I become too scattered for thoughtful pursuits when I am on the move.
I love the infusion of new experiences and the adventure of travel but I also need the settled feeling of being at home. That is likely why I travel as I do, settling in to a place as soon as I arrive, even if it is only for a few days. I treat each new place the way I treat a move to a new home. I travel out from it in ever-increasing concentric circles, learning where I am and what amenities are close by.
On this trip I will be staying with friends and family for periods ranging from 4 days to a month, and, except for the road trip to Nova Scotia I will be staying in people's homes.
Nevertheless I am mentally preparing for this trip as if I will be on the road with Kenya for 2 ½ months. I am trying to ensure that I can carry as much as possible of the serenity of our life at the lake with us. Kenya will be perfectly happy as long as I make sure she exercises regularly, eats properly, and has the odd cookie. She will also have other dogs to visit most places.
I need to be able to read and write. I need to create hermitages even in the midst of family life.
I have decided that I will take an interesting range of books, a fresh journal, a used laptop, and my first cell phone.
My book list is eclectic: two books of poetry - Ariel by Sylvia Plath, and Birthday Letters by her husband Ted Hughes; a book about death - nothing to be frightened of (Julian Barnes); three books about Africa - The Village of Waiting (George Packer), God's Bits of Wood (Sembene Ousmane), and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (Peter Godwin); a memoir - The Gargoyle's Left Ear: writing in Ottawa by Susan McMaster; and two travel memoirs by women who travel as I do - Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storage and Touch the Dragon by Karen Connelly. I should not be bored.
No novels, despite the fact that novels have always been my favourite genre. Perhaps because I know that I can likely pick up novels along the way.
Almost all of these books are about transience, and I will be a transient all summer.
And my own writing this summer will likely be pick up and go, so stream of consciousness travel writing is most like journaling.
I hope that the book about death will, like the poetry, give me food for thought as I drive.
My journal will likely be a day-to-day account of my travels with Kenya. As long as I can carve out a couple of hours every day to reflect and write, I should be okay.
This summer is an experiment. The next nomadic summer (2010) I may choose to rent a place in Newfoundland or Western Kenya or Nova Scotia rather than traveling from one place to another.
After all the traveling I've done, you would think getting me ready would be at least as simple, but it's not. Even choosing which clothes to take is a problem. I have to consider ranges of temperature and all kinds of weather because I don't wear metal or fur year round. I have to worry about the demands of different social occasions.
I also have to deal with mapping things and ensuring that I can find pet-friendly accommodation.
And make sure that I can manage my finances from a distance.
And I have to consider my sanity. I am most sane when I am settled in my hermit's life at the lake. That is where I write, watch my films, read and reflect. I become too scattered for thoughtful pursuits when I am on the move.
I love the infusion of new experiences and the adventure of travel but I also need the settled feeling of being at home. That is likely why I travel as I do, settling in to a place as soon as I arrive, even if it is only for a few days. I treat each new place the way I treat a move to a new home. I travel out from it in ever-increasing concentric circles, learning where I am and what amenities are close by.
On this trip I will be staying with friends and family for periods ranging from 4 days to a month, and, except for the road trip to Nova Scotia I will be staying in people's homes.
Nevertheless I am mentally preparing for this trip as if I will be on the road with Kenya for 2 ½ months. I am trying to ensure that I can carry as much as possible of the serenity of our life at the lake with us. Kenya will be perfectly happy as long as I make sure she exercises regularly, eats properly, and has the odd cookie. She will also have other dogs to visit most places.
I need to be able to read and write. I need to create hermitages even in the midst of family life.
I have decided that I will take an interesting range of books, a fresh journal, a used laptop, and my first cell phone.
My book list is eclectic: two books of poetry - Ariel by Sylvia Plath, and Birthday Letters by her husband Ted Hughes; a book about death - nothing to be frightened of (Julian Barnes); three books about Africa - The Village of Waiting (George Packer), God's Bits of Wood (Sembene Ousmane), and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (Peter Godwin); a memoir - The Gargoyle's Left Ear: writing in Ottawa by Susan McMaster; and two travel memoirs by women who travel as I do - Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storage and Touch the Dragon by Karen Connelly. I should not be bored.No novels, despite the fact that novels have always been my favourite genre. Perhaps because I know that I can likely pick up novels along the way.
Almost all of these books are about transience, and I will be a transient all summer.
And my own writing this summer will likely be pick up and go, so stream of consciousness travel writing is most like journaling.
I hope that the book about death will, like the poetry, give me food for thought as I drive.
My journal will likely be a day-to-day account of my travels with Kenya. As long as I can carve out a couple of hours every day to reflect and write, I should be okay.
This summer is an experiment. The next nomadic summer (2010) I may choose to rent a place in Newfoundland or Western Kenya or Nova Scotia rather than traveling from one place to another.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Poets who write prose ...
Poets who write prose ...
They used to say writing was either poetic or prosaic, prose being the rough-edged, uncouth cousin of elegant poetry. Today, more and more poets are writing prose, and the lines between prose and poetry have blurred.
You can gulp down prosaic writing in lumps of undigested words, but this kind of prose makes you want to savour it rather than skimming it. Poets like Helen Humphreys (Wild Dogs) are writing fiction, but even more poets have turned to travel writing and other forms of literary non- fiction.
The first piece I read which fit into this category was Touch the Dragon by Karen Connelly. She experienced Thailand as a seventeen year old on a one year exchange, and kept a journal. The travel memoir based on these first raw impresssions of a very young girl, her senses unblunted by experience, was not written till a few years later when she was a published poet. Read it. You won't be sorry. I have to go looking for a copy; I lent mine to a Thai student I was tutoring.
Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storace is another account by a poet of a year spent abroad.. It begins with the line "I lived in Athens, at the intersection of a prostitute and a saint." I doubt if I will finish this book quickly; I expect I shall relish every word.
That means I won't get to read The Gargoyle's Left Ear by Susan McMaster very soon. A bookstore in Ottawa has it on order for me. McMaster read from her book on CBC the other day and I knew immediately that I must get hold of a copy. She too is a poet. She founded Branching Out, a feminist magazine all of us lefties read in the seventies. She was twenty-two, and it was a wonderful magazine, filled with thoughtful writing about politics and elegant prose and poetry written by intelligent Canadian women. The Gargoyle's Left Ear is a writer's memoir set in Ottawa.
This is the kind of book I cannot borrow from a friend or the library. I must have my own copy. I want to return to these books over and over again at will. I want to high;ight passages and scribble in their margins. They are the books that nourish me as I consume them and which become part of who I am.
They used to say writing was either poetic or prosaic, prose being the rough-edged, uncouth cousin of elegant poetry. Today, more and more poets are writing prose, and the lines between prose and poetry have blurred.
You can gulp down prosaic writing in lumps of undigested words, but this kind of prose makes you want to savour it rather than skimming it. Poets like Helen Humphreys (Wild Dogs) are writing fiction, but even more poets have turned to travel writing and other forms of literary non- fiction.
The first piece I read which fit into this category was Touch the Dragon by Karen Connelly. She experienced Thailand as a seventeen year old on a one year exchange, and kept a journal. The travel memoir based on these first raw impresssions of a very young girl, her senses unblunted by experience, was not written till a few years later when she was a published poet. Read it. You won't be sorry. I have to go looking for a copy; I lent mine to a Thai student I was tutoring.
Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storace is another account by a poet of a year spent abroad.. It begins with the line "I lived in Athens, at the intersection of a prostitute and a saint." I doubt if I will finish this book quickly; I expect I shall relish every word.
That means I won't get to read The Gargoyle's Left Ear by Susan McMaster very soon. A bookstore in Ottawa has it on order for me. McMaster read from her book on CBC the other day and I knew immediately that I must get hold of a copy. She too is a poet. She founded Branching Out, a feminist magazine all of us lefties read in the seventies. She was twenty-two, and it was a wonderful magazine, filled with thoughtful writing about politics and elegant prose and poetry written by intelligent Canadian women. The Gargoyle's Left Ear is a writer's memoir set in Ottawa.
This is the kind of book I cannot borrow from a friend or the library. I must have my own copy. I want to return to these books over and over again at will. I want to high;ight passages and scribble in their margins. They are the books that nourish me as I consume them and which become part of who I am.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Portrayals of Conflict in Africa
Blood Diamond and A Long Way Gone, both set in war-torn Sierra Leone, and What is the What, set in Sudan, portray the reality of countries torn apart by civil war, and all show what happens to the children when adults lose their tenuous hold on civility.
I was more touched by the film and the memoir set in Sierra Leone, not because they deal with child soldiers instead of displaced boys, but rather because they were stronger pieces of film and literature than What is the What.
The film, Blood Diamond, shows the complexity of the conflict. This is not simply an attempt to seize power by a revolutionary front. The interests of diamond dealers fed by the developed world's hunger for cheap diamonds complicate the struggle. Journalists hungry for adventure and acclaim play into the mess that Sierra Leone has become. The good people of Sierra Leone, the ones who just want to do their jobs and look after their families, are trampled in the process. Children are turned into killers by the revolutionaries. Families are driven from their homes into sprawling overcrowded refugee camps enclosed by barbed wire.
Both books are written in the first person. Both narrators are young African men who have survived civil war in their countries. There the similarity ends.
The memoir, A Long Way Gone, by one of the reclaimed lost boy soldiers, is written simply and movingly by a young man who has faced his own heart of darkness and writes honestly about the whole experience of loss, terror, and survival by any means. He was one of the lucky ones, saved by the UN, given the chance to complete his education. It helps that he is also a talented writer .. not a clever writer, but a good one, an honest straightforward one, who tells his story naturally and clearly.
What is the What, on the other hand, is written by an American writer. He has taken the story of one of the lost boys of Sudan and produced a book that jars because the voice of the narrator has been lost. The writer has played with literary devices so that the voice of the boy, the voice of Sudan, has disappeared. I found myself paying attention to the writing rather than to the story of a lost boy.
Africa is a continent in which the oral tradition, story telling, is still alive and part of the culture. The written literature reflects that tradition. It was part of A Long Way Gone; it was not part of What is the What.
The traditional telling of stories is chronological. Film techniques, like flashbacks, and literary techniques like the use of stream of consciousness, and insertion of other genres into the writing are all legitimately part of western writing which has evolved because of the things it has encountered as it grew. They are not part of the African tradition. African literature will evolve in its own way.
Blood Diamond is not written in the African tradition either, but it makes no claim to be from the perspective of a lost boy, a child soldier, or a Sierra Leonian. It is what it is: an outsider's view of a complex war.
Non-African writers can write about Africa, just as non-native writers can write about indigenous people, but we cannot appropriate their voices. It just doesn't work. And when we try, we reveal our arrogance.
I was more touched by the film and the memoir set in Sierra Leone, not because they deal with child soldiers instead of displaced boys, but rather because they were stronger pieces of film and literature than What is the What.
The film, Blood Diamond, shows the complexity of the conflict. This is not simply an attempt to seize power by a revolutionary front. The interests of diamond dealers fed by the developed world's hunger for cheap diamonds complicate the struggle. Journalists hungry for adventure and acclaim play into the mess that Sierra Leone has become. The good people of Sierra Leone, the ones who just want to do their jobs and look after their families, are trampled in the process. Children are turned into killers by the revolutionaries. Families are driven from their homes into sprawling overcrowded refugee camps enclosed by barbed wire.
Both books are written in the first person. Both narrators are young African men who have survived civil war in their countries. There the similarity ends.
The memoir, A Long Way Gone, by one of the reclaimed lost boy soldiers, is written simply and movingly by a young man who has faced his own heart of darkness and writes honestly about the whole experience of loss, terror, and survival by any means. He was one of the lucky ones, saved by the UN, given the chance to complete his education. It helps that he is also a talented writer .. not a clever writer, but a good one, an honest straightforward one, who tells his story naturally and clearly.
What is the What, on the other hand, is written by an American writer. He has taken the story of one of the lost boys of Sudan and produced a book that jars because the voice of the narrator has been lost. The writer has played with literary devices so that the voice of the boy, the voice of Sudan, has disappeared. I found myself paying attention to the writing rather than to the story of a lost boy.
Africa is a continent in which the oral tradition, story telling, is still alive and part of the culture. The written literature reflects that tradition. It was part of A Long Way Gone; it was not part of What is the What.
The traditional telling of stories is chronological. Film techniques, like flashbacks, and literary techniques like the use of stream of consciousness, and insertion of other genres into the writing are all legitimately part of western writing which has evolved because of the things it has encountered as it grew. They are not part of the African tradition. African literature will evolve in its own way.
Blood Diamond is not written in the African tradition either, but it makes no claim to be from the perspective of a lost boy, a child soldier, or a Sierra Leonian. It is what it is: an outsider's view of a complex war.
Non-African writers can write about Africa, just as non-native writers can write about indigenous people, but we cannot appropriate their voices. It just doesn't work. And when we try, we reveal our arrogance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
