September 13, 2008
Oishi-desu, ne?
In Japan, one lives to eat, or at least one travels to eat, for every city or region is famed for some kind of delicacy which must be indulged in on a visit. (In our city Himeji, it was conger eel.)
It is also important that when you do travel someplace, to bring back omiyage— a (n often edible) souvenir– for friends and co-workers back home. It is a slight not do so, and every city– and the train station in particular– will have numerous gift shops full of such delights.
When we lived in Japan, I had a co-worker whose boyfriend was working in the city of Nagoya, and she’d often go to visit him on her days off. And though her visits were quite regular, she never dared an omiyage lapse, and she would usually bring us back uiro— the snack for which Nagoya is famed. Uiro is a sweet snack of pounded rice, loaded with sugar. It comes in a block that appears kind of waxy, has a consistency not dissimilar to cheese, and I love it. I am a uiro glutton, which was fine as most people were unable to get past its strange appearance and texture, so there was always plenty for me. I still keep an eye out for it in the Asian shops around the city, but not a sign of it have I seen.
Last month before our neighbours left for their trip to Japan, I’d asked if they’d be going to Nagoya. I was being a bit flippant– their trip would be a whirlwind, wedding and honeymoon all in one– and really I just wanted a chance to reminisce about the pleasures of uiro. But I should have known– Japanese people take omiyage very seriously, and any kind thing a Japanese person has ever done for me has been mindblowingly beyond the call of duty.
They got back this week, and we were hanging out in the backyard last night when I was presented a box of uiro. It turns out that their shinkansen had passed through Nagoya, making a brief stop. My neighbour asked the attendant how long the stop would be, and she said one minute and a half. My neighbour tells his wife, he’s going to chance it. He says that if he doesn’t get back on, he’ll take the next train and meet her at the end of the line. But he makes it. In 90 seconds, he managed to buy my heart’s desire, get back on the train, solidifying all suspicions I’d ever had regarding his superheroism. As well as his wife’s patience, their generosity and all-around infinite goodness.
So we’re savouring the uiro at the moment. Tiny slices, we want to make it last. What a fabulous surprise! It’s as good as I remembered.
September 1, 2008
Very Strange
When I realized in June that the colours of my dress coordinated so perfectly with a Miriam Toews novel, I thought it was a marvelous sort of coincidence. But what to make of it now, Toews’ new novel The Flying Troutmans such a perfect match for my other favourite summer dress? Have I failed to notice book designers rummaging through my closet for inspiration?
September 1, 2008
Her reading aloud had killed
“When Lydia was alive, my grandmother seemed content with her reading; either she and Lydia took turns reading to each other, or they forced Germaine to read aloud to them– while they rested their eyes and exercised their acute interest in educating Germaine. But after Lydia died, Germaine refused to read aloud to my grandmother; Germaine was convinced that her reading aloud to Lydia had either killed Lydia or had hastened her death, and Germaine was resolute in not wanting to murder Grandmother in a similar fashion.For a while, my grandmother read aloud to Germaine; but this afforded no opportunity for Grandmother to rest her eyes, and she would often interrupt her reading to make sure that Germaine was paying proper attention. Germaine could not possibly pay attention to the subject– she was so intent on keeping herself alive for the duration of the reading.” –John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
August 22, 2008
Alternatively…
Alternatively, from a rather strange book called Great British Short Novels (circa 1970, which I bought for a quarter and from which I am currently rereading Heart of Darkness) we find this:
“Given its narrow confines, a short story cannot probe character beyond a few basic traits. It cannot allow for great scenic detail or elaborate plot to illuminate the conduct of its protagonist. Effective as a means for providing sudden insight or creating a powerful emotional impact, it cannot diffuse its focus to include anything beyond the immediately relevant.” –from “Introduction: The Art of the Novella” by Robert Donald Spector
August 21, 2008
Eleveneses and Scone Rage
Another excuse to drink tea, and I never knew: from Lucky Beans I discover “Elevenses“. I’m totally taking it up, as long as I get to continue to have eightsies, twelvsies and twosies too. Wikipedia even says elevenses are literary: “For Elevenses, Winnie the Pooh preferred honey on bread with condensed milk. In Middle-earth it is a meal eaten by Hobbits in addition to second breakfast. Paddington Bear often took elevenses at the antique shop on Portobello Road run by his friend Mr Gruber and usually received some sound advice about his current thorny problem at the same time.”
In other tea-ish news (and from the same magnificent source), I am fascinated to learn that Liam Gallagher was charged with air rage and banned from Cathay Pacific after an altercation over a scone.
August 1, 2008
On finding math in my book
It’s amazing, rereading, how it takes you back in time. Providing intimate encounters, so unexpected, with the yous you used to be. For example, yesterday I opened my copy of The Stone Angel for the first time since I read it in my grade twelve English class. First, on the first page is written in my (still) best friend’s hand: “I hate this book because I can’t read it because I am illiterate,” ascribed to me, which must have been funny once. (What is funny, of course, is that illiterate was spelled wrong.) And then how about the trigonometry on the inside cover?? At least I think it’s trigonometry, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it’s my handwriting! That once upon a time that gibberish meant anything at all to me, and I struggled over it, slaved over it, vandalized my very own paperbacks with it (and for naught, I think I see now considering I don’t even know what it is. Though did anybody even pretend that trigonometry was going to be useful?). What a strange life I must have lived then, and no wonder I sort of missed the point of the book, and we’ll just add this to the exponentially ever-growing list of reasons why I’m glad I get to be an adult now.
July 24, 2008
Of poetry and war crimes
What I’ve found fascinating about recently-captured Serbian war-criminal Radovan Karadžić was not his hair (which, incidentally, is quite remarkable both before and after) but rather the fact that, in addition to being guilty of crimes of genocide, he is a poet. That he is a poet surprised me, because I’d always supposed that literature in general and poetry in most particular would act as some sort of inoculating force against the decisiveness, the arrogance, narrow vision, and lack of empathy necessary for such a crime.
But perhaps I am naive, and you-know-who was a painter, etc., and surely there have been plenty of evil writers. Yes, definitely there have been some evil writers, by which I mean writers who thought, said, wrote some evil things, but unlike the poet/war-criminal, this doesn’t surprise me at all. For surely it is the writer’s role to think himself into places others can’t even fathom, and it’s natural that some might choose to stay there. But I do see a mild distinction between thinking and doing, the former abhorrent and the latter inexcusable.
It still surprises me that poet could do, a poet. Poets, I’d supposed, knowing better than the rest of us the careful constructs upon which ideas are built, of “just words” after all, and how those words and those ideas can’t be bent and twisted into anything, and that anything is everything, and that nothing can be sure. The difference of a line break, a comma; how fragile is simply everything, including life itself.
But perhaps I’ve overestimating this man, and all evidence suggests as much– the poems are terrible. I read the excerpts and reasoned that they must have been put through an online translator, or translated by a drunk illiterate baboon, but they are said to be as “bad in the original as they sound in the English version.” The lesson being that bad poets are prone to war crimes? But then I’m not so sure, because that kind of assumption is bound to tarnish the reputations of a lot of us.
July 19, 2008
Three Facts
- Slippery boys are hard to hold on to
- Indefatigable boys aren’t easily tired.
- Elusive boys are hard to find.
July 16, 2008
With a brown cover
A google search that sounds like a long shot: i had a short story book when i was little im 23- with a brown cover- any ideas. They probably didn’t find it here.
July 8, 2008
Fits and starts
It’s been a strange day, and I’ve got stitches in my mouth. I’m also a bit doped up, and all of it has been sort of fascinating, however awful. That I’ve been bored, all afternoon. And I am never bored. I firmly believe that boredom is the jurisdiction of the lazy (or of those who forget to carry at book at all times). But this afternoon I’ve not been able to concentrate on very much, save the daring feats of squirrels outside my window, crossing and crisscrossing the street via tightrope power lines. That I’ve been unable to read very much at all, can you believe it. I was reading Marilynne Robinson before, but she requires more attention and care from her readers than I have energy to offer her now. I did listen to the podcast of Lorrie Moore reading her story “Paper Losses”, which is sort of wonderful, actually, as I can’t think of any other day in which I would have cleared the space. In fits and starts, I’ve been rereading Justine Picardie’s If the Spirit Moves You, which is just the ticket, I think, for my current state of mind. I also read another story today, which I hated– the danger of linking books and experience– mainly because I was taking out upon it my “mild discomfort”. But I’m also sure it sort of sucked. And the story will therefore remind me of excruciating pain as I long as I shall live.
I am turning my evening over to the benevolent force of the DVD.
