April 9, 2005
Pink Poo in the Press
On the inequality of parenthood. It was an interesting story, but a bit silly and it’s tiresome to continually read the tragic plights of women the likes of whom can actually afford nannies and au pairs. I’ve never been one to knock the upper-middle class, but all the same. Also, when you marry a massively-driven-career-monster, you can’t really be surprised when he opts out of household chores. Disappointed, yes but what were you expecting? I did love the woman in this story who has gladly accepted full responsibility for household matters while her husband works, and has given up most of her life to do so. Her child is three! Call her in ten years and see if she’s still so content, even with her daytime home help.
In more women-sans-choice news, Hillary Rodham Clinton goes to war to fight the troglodytes for the Morning-After Pill’s availability. May she filibuster vigilently.
Fantastic! An interview with Margot Kidder. She describes Pierre Trudeau as a “great lover” and George Bush as “a monkey”.
George Elliott Clarke reviews Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets.
On the fantastic Takashi Murakami art show in New York. This article focuses particularly on Chinatsu Ban’s Central Park exhibit, VWX Yellow Elephant Underwear/ HIJ Kiddy Elephant Underwear, which as an elephant-lover I’m obsessed with. Today at work we had a conversation on how the pink pile of elephant poo, spotted with hearts, was very cute, and then we realised we’d been in Japan too long.
April 9, 2005
Listlessness
Stuart is justifiably often irritated by my obsessive list-making, and so I retired my book of lists this past weekend so we could spend time relaxedly. It was not an unenjoyable experiment, but yet I felt somewhat at a loss. Listless, you might even say. Do you feel listless when you are listless? I’d never thought about it before. We looked it up in the dictionary, and found that that meaning” lacking energy or disinclined to exert effort” comes from root “liste” meaning “to desire” in Middle English. However “list” as in “a series of things in an order” comes from the French “liste” which presumably means something different. It is sad that I do not have lingual authority for my neuroses.
April 8, 2005
Hanami Afternoon
The freakin weekend has passed all too quickly. Yesterday we went to Kobe Harborland and met my friend Katch for lunch. We went to this fabulous restaurant with an all-you-can eat bread buffet. We actually weren’t sure if it was all-you-can-eat, but we treated it as such. This is what happens when you set foreigners loose at a bread buffet. It was comically embarrassing when they had to bring another plate, as all our bread couldn’t possibly fit on the three we’d been allotted. We each had an exquisite lunch. I am deeply going to miss Japanese lunch sets- they’re phenomenal. We did prikura and then said good bye to Katch and walked for ages to Motomachi to supplement my soup habit, and then farther to Sannomiya to get the train home. I was exhausted by then. A backpack full of soup will do that to you. Last night we hit karaoke and it was great. Stuart was very supportive, and duetted with me to “Almost Paradise- Love Theme From Footloose” and “Always” by Atlantic Starr. In cooler tunes, Hush by Kula Shakur was fantastic. This morning, Stuart went to the gym and I stayed home, presumably to make good use of my time but instead I fell into yet another of my infamous and socially embarrassing scrapes, though I don’t want to talk about it. I spent the morning neither writing, working out or cleaning my apartment, but rather clutching my head with idiot angst. We left the house around 1:00 but had to come home after one as it was so warm, and I hate wearing jeans when it’s hot outside. It was cotton capris and a sleeveless top, and sandals. Welcome to summer. We went up to the castle and the blossoms were out in full force, absolutely beautiful. We sat on a bamboo mat under the trees, drank and blissed. I played a little guitar and it was truly lovely. Baskin Robbins and more prikura after that. Needless to say, this weekend was an exercise in pleasure.
April 6, 2005
Just red
Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt was excellent. I love Graham Greene. His books end so magnificently. This book is quite different from his others, as it’s quite whimsical, but has the same measured brilliance. Then Hiroshima by John Hersey. I think after visiting Hiroshima, the experience of reading a book about it is a bit paled, but still an important book that underlines the unnecessary agony of war. There is no excuse for such horror, no matter how great your intentions. And then The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time, which I’ve been putting off reading due to my illogical problem with adults reading hyped childrens books. Illogical indeed. This book was incredible with the most convincing narrative voice I’ve read in a long time and a gripping story I stayed up half the night obsessed with.
April 3, 2005
Books etc.
Okay then, I’ve accepted the fact it will be too expensive to get to and be admitted to EXPO so it seems that nothing will happen on the way to the World’s Fair. I’ve been reading the papers and I cannot claim understanding of the people who are “shocked” at the Pope’s death. In other news, the fascinating life of Amber Reeves, HG Wells’ mistress and feminist author in her own right. This article of interest primarily because it’s written by my beloved Margaret Drabble. This profile taught me about Laura Nyro and I think I’m in love. Women crime writers are bustin out all over in Moscow. This new book on Virginia Woolf sounds excellent. Tom Bissell’s amazing article about visiting Vietnam with his father, which I read previously in UTNE is in The Observer today. A survey of Canadian book habits here, with the truth that “Bookish people tend to be active people”.
April 2, 2005
An awfully skewed perspective
The Pope is dying. Politics aside, he is an eighty-four year old man. Terri Schiavo died. Politics aside, she was living in a vegetative state for a decade and a half. As far as I am concerned, the things that send people out weeping in the streets versus all of that which no one is too worked up about, show an awfully skewed human perspective.
April 2, 2005
A little out of touch
I saw Spiderman 2 and Fahrenheit 9/11 in the theatres this summer, though long after they were playing in the rest of the world. Did you know that apart from these movies, I haven’t watched a new movie in over a year? And then our video store closed, so I didn’t even get them as DVD releases. I am an avid magazine reader so I know new movies exist, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. What is a Napoleon dynamite? And that Spotless Mind movie with Kate Winslet where she has pink hair and sleeps on a bed on a beach? Not to mention, Sideways, which sounds sort of sexual to me. And what’s with Jude Law’s ubiquity? I am also sort of glad I didn’t see The Aviator. Anyway, the same goes for television- what’s this The OC business all the kids are talking about, and the blathering going on about Desperate Housewives? I can’t say I miss the television so much, though this is probably because I follow the Eastenders online synopses religiously. But I miss movies, and can’t wait to spend a week or three just watching at least one a day. The list of movies I’ve got to see is absolutely massive.
However out of touch I am however, there is a List of Things I Now Know about Japan.
1) People breakdance every night in the covered arcades wearing crash helmets while they spin on their heads
2) The badasses drive either souped up mini-vans or 1970s Cadillacs
3) Loose kneesocks are the ultimate in rebel schoolgirl wear
4) Tokyo Disneyland has a park called “Disney Sea” beside it but no one can tell me what one does there
5) The number one children’s clothing company is called Miki House, the name donning socks, shoes, sweaters, pants and underpants (as I learn daily when young girls in dresses do somersaults in my class)
6) If something is “service”, it’s free. If you live in a “mansion”, it’s an apartment. And when you invite someone to your “room”, you’re really just inviting them to your “mansion”. A sundae is a “parfait”. Allergies are “allurgee”- and everybody is currently suffering.
7) Relating to the latter, blowing your nose is rude, but snorting it back is ok. (I fear social problems when I return to the real world).
8) Crews of volunteers clean up local public areas every Saturday morning wearing identical jump suits. In fact, any group of people doing anything wear identical jump suits.
9) Black vans with big red suns drive around regularly with loud speakers blaring, “Foreigners, get out…
10) The people who are employed to unnecessarily guide cars out of parking lots carry light sabres.
April 2, 2005
Literature is not a verb
Polly Toynbee on consumerist voting and the danger of eating politicians for dinner. This lot manage to make the politicians look noble. Regarding books, the golden age of kid lit. Some interesting ideas about storytelling- from Rana Dasgupta Tokyo Cancelled; this collection of stranded travellers sharing stories presents literature “as something that normal people do. If it seems fantastical that a collection of travellers might tell such stories then this raises the question of why it is so much easier to stomach the idea that Chaucerian illiterates might do so.” And then Ian McEwan’s Saturday– neurosurgeon-lit. Indeed, literature about a man to whom literature means nothing. New April poetry exercise here at The Guardian Books. Today we bought Paper Tigers by the Caesars. It’s an excellent album. And I continue to be quite overwhelmed/underwhelmed by recent events.
