April 15, 2007
News of the world
I read so many interesting stories in the news this weekend! Our national paper in particular, I thought, was rife with goodness. I value preposterousity in a woman, which is why I enjoy reading Margaret Wente even when she’s wrong, but this time I thought she was right on the mark about Belinda Stronach. How brilliant were Susan Swan’s Tips for Stephen Harper, emerging writer? This wonderful interview with Michael Ondaatje. Yann Martel wants to know what is stephen harper reading? I liked Laura Penny’s column on idiot media. Across the sea, Jodi Picoult is profiled. What writers need to write (Douglas Coupland says chocolate). Most importantly India Knight on the royal break-up.
April 15, 2007
Home news
Big changes are a-coming around our house and it’s time to let the secret out: we’re expecting a new addition. This is the divide between our youth and adulthood, I suppose, and time for us to face up to our responsibilities, to begin to approach respectability. Never again, our salad days, but this change signifies a new era of possibility– aesthetically and ergonomically.
We bought a sofa. No more will our cheapest-in-the-shop futon be your sole option for asseyez-vousing when you come round. No longer will our apartment be outfitted like a college flat. A sofa: three seater, comfortable, classic. Our sofa: the most grown-up thing we’ve ever done.
And so the sofa was the point of yesterday. Luckily its purchase coincided with our need for a change of scenery, and we took the subway out to Main Street station to choose it. It is fortunate that Stuart and I have the exact same taste (good or bad, though he is less partial to tye-dye than I am) and so we picked it fast: exactly what we wanted. And then we walked the Danforth, all the way from Main Street to Chester to visit Erin-who-we-love. On the way we stopped off at the Chocolate Heaven Cafe (as heard on Metro Morning and as featured in the Globe last week).) We had dinner with Erin at Asteria Soulaki Place and it was the best Greek food we’ve ever had. Oishilicious. Today has moved at a slower pace, but highlights included She Said Boom for book purchases*, and Tealish to replenish our stock.
Book purchases: Happenstance by Carol Shields and Where I Was From by Joan Didion.
We are excited because tonight Curtis returns after two weeks of chaos in the United Kingdom. We are also excited because he might have brought us candy.
April 15, 2007
We forgot my father-in-law
I love it when I’m reading and I can pinpoint the moment a book casts its spell. Suite Francaise took a little while, but at the end of page 112 when I gasped audibly with horror and surprise (laced with the slightest dash of amusement), I was hooked. I’ve just finished “Storm in June” now, and I am looking forward to the rest.
April 13, 2007
Hip-hop Wordsworth Squirrel
See, I told you they’d hate the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel. Of course they do. The most unremarkable thing in the world is that they hate the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel, and so I can’t imagine why someone has to write a blog entry to that effect. Or, I suppose, why I have to write another blog entry to keep you up to date on who’s predicably hating the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel today.
The hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel is breaking my heart.
April 13, 2007
Smart books
I don’t know how to calculate the odds that going to my bookshelf and pulling down In the Skin of a Lion to check a reference on page 106 for the paper I am marking, I will open the book right to page 106 without thinking. In fact I don’t really want to know the odds, because I like the idea of some sort of a connection between my head, my hands and the text itself. This happens often at my library job where I go to retrieve a book, I know the general area, and then reading the call number I realize that my intended book is right where my hand already rests, or that it was the first book I looked at on the shelf. Sometimes books do know us better than we know ourselves.
However Rebecca Rosenblum is experiencing the opposite phenomenon today. Much concerned is she that her Jane Eyre has disappeared!
April 13, 2007
Perfectly in time
Now reading Suite Française. Ragdoll read it last year, and I love what she had to say about it: “Written before the author died at Auschwitz in 1942, Suite Française hums along like an orchestral movement, each sentence an instrument finely tuned and perfectly in time with the one sitting before and after it.”
April 12, 2007
Spring
Here is an image of spring– last spring, of course, because this spring is crap.
The number of undergraduate essays I have left to mark is in the single digits. Soon Pickle Me This, and my entire life, will return to regular service.
April 12, 2007
Wordsworth Rap
The Lake District has turned “I Wondered Lonely As a Cloud” into a rap delivered by a person dressed up as a squirrel. You can watch the video here. The squirrel is weird and frightening, but I didn’t hate the rap. Though I suspect this is only because it’s the littlest bit pitiful, and I feel terribly sorry for the scorn it will inevitably incur. Poor little rap– you’re trying so hard. (Thank you to PK in Chile for the link).
April 12, 2007
There she blows
Margaret Drabble writes with an omniscience that absolutely wows me. Rereading The Realms of Gold is like being strapped inside a rocket ship. Though the rocket permeates the depths of consciousness rather than outer space. It’s really quite a Woolfian book in many respects, which I didn’t notice when I read it first three years ago. It didn’t get a very good review in the NYTimes when it came out in 1975 though. Funny how much the criticism in that review is so similar to reviews of Drabble’s most recent book. Funny also that when I read bad reviews of Margaret Drabble’s work, I don’t ever necessarily disagree with them, but it never means I love her any less. In fact I think my love for Margaret Drabble may be unconditional. This, however, does not mean I intend to read her biography of Arnold Bennett ever.
Upcoming bookishness: Suite Francais, Kitchen, The Horseman’s Graves, and Open because The Calhoun says so.
Marking continues. 46 down. Yesterday’s treat was lunch with RR.
April 11, 2007
Treasures treasures
Today the best thing ever happened. The postman rang twice! I think maybe he forgot to ring yesterday, but no matter. For a mail-enthusiast such as myself, it was a dream come true. What a haul! The first delivery brought me a cheque, and the phone bill (which had already been paid). The second round was even better: two books and a magazine. And then Stuart came home with strawberries. Treasures treasures, arriving at my door.
