September 7, 2005

Perks

Becky’s website is redesigned and you can see our Canadian wedding photos here! Today has been a marvelous day of schoolbook buying, as I managed to spend $50 of gift certificates I got as a wedding present, and get an out-of-print book used for $10. I also wrangled free cookies and juice, and Stuart and I had a little picnic at Hart House. To update the “Toronto is the best city to live in if you’re broke and looking for fun” file, we went to see the Fembots last night play a little free show at Soundscapes on College Street. They were ace, inevitable comparisons to the Jayhawks or Wilco but enough of their own. Their new CD is said to be excellent. A review of Zadie Smith’s “On Beauty”. She places her story in America, and I’m interested to see how she does that. I get a strong sense that (North) American writers really shouldn’t try to “write British”, and that the Brits themselves have more freedom to jump continents. My story takes place in England and I oft fear I don’t have the authority to carry it off altogether, though I did live there for nearly two years. There is a cultural gap however minute and it matters. Stuart keeps comparing everyone here to characters from an American Pie movie. Here, top ten books on Russia. Oh! Zadie is profiled, and discusses the novel as “an ethical enterprise”. I ran into a Professor today, and we talked about not only about the pain of so many books to be read, and the number that should be reread and how it’s never going to happen. Being a grad student has perks I never even imagined by the way.