February 13, 2007
Self Portrait
We’re tired at our house, which is what happens when we both spend the night having dreams in which we are struggling to sleep. And so for today, in lieu of coherence, Pickle Me This brings you me waiting for the tub to fill. Turban-headed because if my Japanese life taught me anything, it was that a bath sans shower is foul. And I like this image because it incorporates four of my favourite things: books, baths, big mugs of tea and Stuart (for it is his robe after all). Happy All The Time was a splish-splash delight.
Today in the post was a letter from Bronwyn, with whom I’ve defied Laurie Colwin’s quote from Happy All The Time: “Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed”. (That said woman is Bronwyn and not me should be revelatory to nobody). And her note contained the news that she has subscribed me to the London Review of Books, which is sort of like having pennies rain from the sky. I’d say life must be mostly good, with friends like that.
And I think Lucky Beans is one of the prettiest blogs I’ve ever seen.
February 11, 2007
Culling Nothing
Wonderful! Some writers’ rooms (with photos!). This one is Hilary Mantel’s. Here for literary friendships, and rivalries. Calvin Trillin in conversation. The beginning of this article is something a lot of book collectors can related to, on pruning your shelves: “…the same thing happens with every potential discard: You start to read it. Four hours later, you wake up on the floor, having culled nothing.” This article pleased me– on being a good wife. Heather Mallick’s manifesto— it’s always amusing to read the comments of her irate (and apparently avid) readers.
February 8, 2007
At 57 Mount Pleasant Street
Bronwyn and I once had the pleasure (or terror) of seeing The Proclaimers live at the T in the Park festival in Scotland, and I must say I’ve never been part of a scarier crowd. We both very nearly cried, but then neither of us thrive in chaos at the best of time. We just thought that we like “500 Miles” sort of, and we could hum along with it, but the experience was like being at a ten-thousand-strong revival when you’re sort of not bothered about Jsus. It was a cultural thing, and I thought of it whilst reading this article about how the English just don’t “get” the point of those bespectacled boys. The Costa Book of the Year has been won, and it’s a book researched entirely in the British library which takes place in Northern Ontario. Ohhh! CanCon (sort of). On movie/book cover tie-ins. Irène Némirovsky. And last night I was lucky enough to attend Trudeau night at The Kama Reading Series which was lovely, except that Stephen Clarkson and Peter C. Newman never showed!
Today I’m starting Jacob’s Room for the first time.
February 7, 2007
Voluble
“A literary portrait of marriage”, so says this profile of Calvin Trillin of About Alice (which I read in December). A different perspective on those streamlined classics. Margaret Atwood once again on arts funding cuts.
Just finishing No Longer at Ease.
My friend Sk8 proposed to her lovely boyfriend in the company of bison on Sunday, and he said yes. Hooray!
And finally, Sunday night I saw a penguin being eaten by a seal on David Attenborough, and I’ve been traumatized ever since.
February 6, 2007
From YA to Feldman
My favourite bookish link of the week is Lois Lowry’s blog. She has a website too. I loved her Anastasia books when I was young, and I am going to be rereading the first one in the near future. It occured to me yesterday that my first references to Freud, Gertrude Stein and Billie Holiday were courtesy of her. I’m glad she’s made a such a fine place for herself online. Another YA author I enjoyed who has done so is Marilyn Sachs, and looking through her bibliography brought back quite a few memories.
Speaking of ghosts of books past, I found Stump the Bookseller recently while searching for the book Me and Fat Glenda. My google query was “burgers” and “inez” (marvelous thing seach engines) and evidently someone had had a similar question because this book had appeared at Stump the Bookseller. Readers write in with bits they can remember of long-lost books, their queries are available for perusal, and you can fill in other readers’ gaps, or check out the “solved” section to bring back memories of your own. It’s quite cool.
Along the lines of YA, I’ve been inspired to read The Unreluctant Years: A Critical Approach to Children’s Literature by the most famous Toronto librarian of all, Lillian H. Smith. Recommended by the booklet “100 Memorable Books” which I picked at my local branch of the Toronto Public last week. And you should get one of those if you’re able. It’s a list of books recommended by TPL librarians as not necessarily the best or most important books, but books which have had an impact on their own lives. It’s a lovely booklet with great commentary and best of all, it’s free. Thank the TPL. I always do.
Further in Toronto things, check out Write Around Town, a new column by Ragdoll whose blog I enjoy. February is bursting with bookish business.
And finally, I think I’m starting a new feature here at Pickle Me This. This past month I’ve been banned from the internet Wednesday to Friday between 8:30 and 5:30. I’ve made my husband take the internet cable to work with him because I have the most incredible talent of whiling my time away on internet inanities. Last week’s was my high school’s ‘where are they now’ page, which provided an afternoon of fun to my BFs Britt and Jennie when I sent it their way. “This is a goldmine” quoth Britt. Oh Britt, it gets better. This week’s time-sucker was the best site on all the net, Corey Feldman’s homepage. This site is essential. If it weren’t for this site, we couldn’t have had this conversation tonight at dinner:
S- (talking about something I can’t remember) is very zen.
K- Corey Feldman’s son is called Zen.
S- Who’s Corey Feldman?
It seems they didn’t have him in England. But really folks, if it weren’t for Corey Feldman’s homepage, I could never have segued into the most important conversation my husband and I have ever had.
February 6, 2007
Bookishly (sort of)
I want to address two books, not of the literary sort.
The first is Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin, which I mention because Ms. Calhoun was talking about cooking the other day. I credit this cookbook with teaching Stu and I how to cook. Our credo that a Jeanne Lemlin recipe has never failed us remains ever-true, and we often wish we could be adopted into her family so she would cook for us. Failing that, we cook her stuff ourselves. Vegetable Tagine, Greek Pasta Casserole, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Quesidillas, Veggie Pot Pie, Garlicky Squash Penne, and the pizza dough are now some of our favourites. A variety of salads that saw us through a summer too hot for the oven. She has also provided me with two of my very best cakes: lemon almond and carmelized apple upside-down. And the thing is that we aren’t even vegetarian, but last year when we were ninks (no income, no kids) meat was just too precious. And we rarely eat meat now. Thanks to Jeanne, we don’t really have to. So yes, a cookbook recommendation to other burgeoning cooks.
The second is very loosely considered a book– my passport, expired-just after five good years. And what a time it’s been. I applied for it in my final semester of my undergraduate studies, as I was all set to go continental come graduation. Previous to that, I’d hardly been anywhere. But this little passport saw me in and out of a variety of European countries by air and plane, on a two year working holiday to the UK, on a visa to work in Japan for a year (with one extension), in and out of Thailand, and my favourite visa of all: my UK entry clearance as a “Marriage Visitor”, issued by the British consulate in Tokyo. For the last year and a half, my passport has been rather unoccupied (see “ninks” reference in above paragraph), but we’re off to England (hurrah!) in June. And I do look forward to seeing where my new passport takes me, because these things, of course, one can never predict.
February 1, 2007
Sites to see
The big news is that echolocation issue six is online and it’s beautiful. The launch is tomorrow night, Thursday, February 1st, 2007 8pm and thereafter at Labspace Studio, 276 Carlaw Ave., Suite 202. www.labspacestudio.com.
Also online, I’ve just found Jennica Harper’s website, where you can find out more about this fabulous poet/screenwriter/comedian/teacher/etc/etc.
And finally, we bring you every book Art Garfunkel has read since June 1968 (via 50 Books). The world has beeen waiting too long.
January 29, 2007
Books Mapped
Stuart has kindly pointed my attention toward books mapped at Google Books Search. Only a few books are mapped at the mo, but the maps are fascinating– in particular those which offer some concretization to fictional worlds.
January 29, 2007
Cell One
Speaking of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “Cell One” is in the New Yorker this week and you can read it here. It’s wonderful.
January 29, 2007
Show and tell
Last week The Robber Bride TV movie was slagged off in the Globe, and I must voice my disagreement. The adaptation wasn’t flawless by any means, and I do wonder how the story was different for a man having joined the triumvirate which told so much about women’s relationships. Nevertheless. For two hours last Sunday night my husband and I sat together and thoroughly enjoyed a made-for-CBC movie and I consider this an unusual mark of great achievement.
Speaking of Ms. Atwood, her fine and illuminating piece in Saturday’s paper is here, regarding the federal government axing the promotion of Canadian arts abroad. Mix-Tape mania at The Observer. Today’s feature on violence in Nottingham (which was my home for a while) turns bookish in its reference to the 1958 novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, and I’ve decided to read it soon. Q&A with the marvelous Sue Townsend. Canadians write great songs— Joni Mitchell in particular. Katrina Onstad concurs.
Why why why instead of actually governing has our government launched an idiotic attack upon its opposition? Please please please let’s not retaliate. Give Canadians some credit for intelligence, let this crap slide, and win favour with integrity and dignity.
Things Fall Apart was as powerful as they said. Oh my goodness the last chapter. And this book enlightened quite a few bits of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun.
Though the amazon link for this book is such a lesson in idiot reviewing. Can you imagine prefacing your review of a book like this with “As a writer myself…”? Some nerve. Virginia Woolf never even did that in her criticism, and unless you are Virginia Woolf, you probably shouldn’t either. (I googled said reviewer, and found a link to some of his “work” which was unsurprisingly a pile of crap.) Further, knocking Achebe for his failure to show instead of tell? Oh go puke on yourself. Really.
I’m beginning to sound irate. However it’s January, which is excuse enough, and I will be nicer tomorrow. Now I am going to read Rosemary’s Baby for a good dose of satnic action. Though if it tells instead of shows, I’m totally asking the public library for a refund.
