May 6, 2008
But Not Quite
I heard today’s quote on the radio, from an American woman who’s had enough of the Democratic Primary:
It’s almost enough to make me turn off the television.
May 6, 2008
Elaine Dundy
From Maud Newton’s blog, I discover that the writer Elaine Dundy has died. Except that I’ve never heard of Elaine Dundy before, but being currently afflicted with an obsession for the alligator pear, her novel The Dud Avocado caught my attention. Though I don’t know what the book has to do with avocados, but my obsession doesn’t really have much to do with them either (more their essence, naturally). And so I’m going to read this novel, which means I’m jumping onto a just-deceased author bandwagon again, however I feel less bad about it than usual. Elaine Dundy, who once wrote a book on Elvis, is quoted on the source of sources as saying, “I didn’t know that Elvis was alive until he died”.
May 1, 2008
Woolf on book blogs?
“But still we have our responsibilities as readers and even our importance. The standards we raise and the judgments we pass steal into the air and become part of the atmosphere which writers breathe as they work. An influence is created which tells upon them even if it never finds its way into print. And that influence, if it were well instructed, vigorous and individual and sincere, might be of great value now when criticism is necessarily in abeyance; when books pass in review like the procession of animals in a shooting gallery, and the critic has only one second in which to load and aim and shoot and may well be pardoned if he mistakes rabbits for tigers, eagers for barndoor fowls, or misses altogether and wastes his shot upon some peaceful cow grazing in a further field. If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people reading for the love of reading, slowly and yet unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.” –1926, Virginia Woolf, “How Should One Read a Book?”
April 20, 2008
Indie Cred
Last December I dared to request National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation from my local independent video store, and the clerk asked me if I was serious. This was his version of customer service, it happened all the time, and maybe he thought he was helping me. He probably thought he worked “in film” too, but he reminded me of Dawson’s Creek. One day in February, I asked him if he’d caught Alvin and the Chipmunks yet, just to be annoying, and he practically threw up on me. Everything I rented, he might have laughed at, but being too ironic for laughter, he’d scoff instead. Each time we came out of there, we vowed a boycott, but we always returned, since Blockbuster has had nothing in stock ever since they cut out late fees.
We’ve moved, and our new house has a branch of the same independent video store just around the corner. The difference between the two locations is astounding, in that every video we’ve been after has been in stock (incl. new releases) and that the staff aren’t mean. We’re just not used to the latter. Today we returned Juno, and as we walked away from the counter, the clerk began making strange noises. We turned around, prepared for whatever was coming, which was potentially being spat on.
“What,” we said, bracing ourselves.
“Juno,” said the clerk, in mock-dramatic tones.
“I liked it,” I said, pleading. “It was a good movie.”
The clerk cackled in an evil fashion (instead of the unevil fashion).
“Come on, what is it?” said Stuart.
“No, just everyone’s been wanting this and it’s the first one back. Thanks for bringing it back guys! And have a great day!”
Our gratitude at not being abused was almost sad.
March 21, 2008
The Postal Phantoms I have known
I’ve just finished reading The Letter Opener by Kyo Maclear, which I have absolutely fallen in love with. I’ll fit in a review during my empty tomorrow, but at the moment I want to write a bit about something I read in the “PS…” section of the book (and may I point out how always interesting is the “PS content” in these books).
Maclear writes about the “postal phantom” at her house, the inspiration for her novel– “Mr. Szabo– a man who, for whatever reason, never got around to having his mail redirected.” And of course I know about postal phantoms, though I’d never considered them in such specific terms, never thought of these people as a collective, and it hadn’t occurred to me that such figures could even be given a name.
My postal phantoms as follows: there was Robin Stephenson, in my university apartment on Dundas Street. I can’t remember if it was her or a roommate that received Scientology paraphernalia, but Robin had forgotten to change her address when she finished university, and was always getting alumni notices from the U of T Geography Department.
No phantom, I believe, will ever be as prolific as Mrs. Sandra M. Spencer from our house in Nottingham. We’d suspected she’d died, as she’d left all her cake tins behind, and death is as good an excuse as any for leaving no forwarding address. She owed a ton of council tax, going back a few years, received regular notices for mammograms, and often was summoned to court to come and testify against her son. Note, we didn’t start opening the mail until about after a year, after we’d called the council to tell them she wasn’t there anymore, and they said they’d keep sending her bills anyway, because it was her last known address (which also goes part way towards explaining why there’s no longer a British Empire).
We received a lot of mail for the Moniz family here at our current address, as well for Amanda Hickman (who is on the list of numerous charities) and Michael Popowich (and in case he googles himself, Michael– McGill University is desperate to get in touch with you.) Each of these are characters, wholly present in their own peculiar contexts, which is their absence. And we practically know them, we do, though the foundation of this knowledge is the fact we never ever will.
Further, what about the bizarre idea that somewhere out there, somebody’s postal phantom is you.
March 13, 2008
Degrees of theft
A piece at the Guardian Books blog about stealing books, which you might remember I covered properly in my post on bibliokleptomania at the Descant blog. I’ve stolen quite a few books in my time, not so ashamedly. I think I stole my copy of Happiness is a Warm Puppy from a dentists’ office, and Love Story from a desk in my geography class when I was twelve. During the last month I have actually stolen a copy of The Animals of that Country by Margaret Atwood, or rather I liberated it, for it was being ill-treated by its former carers, stuck on a shelf with Barbara Cartlands and its cover torn off. I promise you that they will never even know that it is missing. And that I only steal from those weird sad dump-off libraries that nobody loves. And that once I committed the utter opposite of book stealing, which was donating my books to a charity shop and then deciding that I couldn’t live without them and buying my books back again.
March 12, 2008
Lately
Everyone I know is in a rage lately. For some of us it’s because we keep reading reader comments in the Globe & Mail, and we should probably stop, but the fact is that lately I’ve been identifying with Marian McAlpin, which is a bad bad sign.
March 9, 2008
Underlining my point
Check out this photo (I assume it to be stock) from the front page of yesterday’s Globe & Mail. Yesterday at the Descant blog I wrote about the resonance of 1970s YA fiction, and the effect of writers like Norma Klein on our formative years. More of an effect than I imagined, however, if this photograph is anything to go by. But then Girls Can Be Anything was published in 1973! I wonder, are we holding onto these books out of nostalgia, or has nothing as good or better come along since then? I’ve not actually been paying attention, and hope indeed something else has come along. These are things that can’t get lost. Liberal propaganda it might have been, but then my own indoctrination into Free to Be… You and Me, for example, only ever had the effect of teaching me how to be happy.
March 8, 2008
How the world is to be saved
Perhaps somebody already thought of this, but it just occurred to me. How the world is to be saved, not by crackpot TV psychologists, or even books (particularly this one). If your self and spirit are in such dire straits, wouldn’t it do wonders to quit watching TV in the afternoon?
February 26, 2008
I danced with a girl
“The room was wooden, like a ship, and once in it we were trapped and couldn’t escape. I danced with a girl who had no fingers. Her hand kept slipping out of my grasp.” –Julia Darling, Crocodile Soup.
This happened to me, during a short-lived career as a ballerina during late 1984. It was the sole remarkable feature of this experience, and I can’t quite believe I’m not the only one. Fictional or otherwise. Books are so amazing.
