April 5, 2006
The Soundtrack: a small story
The Soundtrack
Darren was driving his mother’s car. His girlfriend Erica was looking for tapes in the glove compartment. She had just realized she had forgotten about the soundtrack, which might have spoiled everything. Darren’s mother’s cassette collection was limited to 1960s Rock and Roll compilations she’d gotten free from gas stations and Erica hadn’t envisioned losing her virginity to the strains of Gene Pitney. She suspected they had good reason now to turn the car around and abandon the whole thing altogether, but Darren would never agree to this. They were already more than halfway to the point, and besides they’d been planning tonight for ages.
Gene Pitney 1941-2006
Music legend and a fine form of birth control.
April 2, 2006
Worth Knowing
Now reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, partly upon Stuart’s urging but also due to this article on literary science writing. A wonderful article by Jane Smiley on her own literary marathon. She says of it, “It’s worth knowing that serious thoughts are being thought, and also that serious fun is being made of fools everywhere. It’s also worth knowing, in dangerous times, that dangers have come and gone and we still have these books.” And good good news: the end of the age of ironing.
March 31, 2006
God did it.
Mrs. Woolf is dead and my chances of ever working in a place where walls reach the ceiling are remarkably slim. I am afraid that I will end up selling flaming pants in a kiosk. I dread kiosks as much as call centres- perhaps moreso for I was once attacked by a kiosk, in a Budapest shopping mall. A kiosk fell on me and the kiosk attendant (who was understandably disgruntled being Hungarian and a kiosk attendant) apologized by way of saying “God did it.” As of yet, I have never been attacked by a call centre, though of course it remains a possibility.
March 30, 2006
That's all there is to the coastline craze…
The sun is pouring inside and the temperature is in the double digits (and I don’t mean minus). Meanwhile, Virginia Woolf and I sit on the very edge of World War Two and I need to finish her diary before her own neuroses are impressed upon me permanently. What a read though. I finished Grace Paley’s Collected Stories, and found them ever surprising, and gut-wrenching in the most imaginative ways. I am also reading Hologram by PK Page. Tonight we are going to see Michael Geist at the Hart House Lecture.
Here on pseudonyms. Great poetry persists and Ken Babstock is on the cover of Eye Weekly here. Russell Smith on how bloggers lower the tone. I think he makes a fair argument. There is nothing wrong with blogging per se, except when bloggers cloak their self-absorption in delusions of self-importance. Blogging can be but is usually not a part of any real discourse, and if you’re straight with that you’re probably not a blog-wanker and don’t care what Russell Smith thinks about you anyway. Hereon the wonderful M. Drabble’s honorary degree from Cambridge (and just six months till her new book is out! It will be my first Drabble in hardcover. I fell in love with her late in the game). Check out the pro-life Brit Spears birthing statue. Just when you thought “pro-life” couldn’t be made any more offensive!
Mmmmm. My husband is roasting eggplant!
March 28, 2006
Waking from Walford
Dreams are fundamentally uninteresting, but I think that it’s worth mentioning that I often dream EastEnders episodes. It’s never restful, but I am usually sorry to wake.
In the press, what’s missing from the shelves of the British Library. Apple vs. Apple. I’m excited about the new book Mean Boy.
And I am far too tired to do anything but knit my sock.
March 27, 2006
Let the sunshine in
You might think that weather is all idle chatter, but if that’s the case, you’ve probably never come through a Canadian winter. It is entirely monumental that I let you know that today I wore a strappy top to school, and I rode here on a bicycle!
March 25, 2006
Introducing the Murdermobile
Word of advice, if you’ve got things to do. Do NOT pick up Volume Five of The Diary of Virginia Woolf, thinking you’ll just read it in dribs and drabs in between the more useful things you do. Don’t do it, because you’ll end up super-glue-ing the book to your palms and the whole world around you will just cease.
Otherwise, a lovely brunch this morning with my friend from Japan’s sister and her husband, only because the world is very small. And tonight a small dinner party chez us with The Girls. We splurged and bought Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison yesterday, and we love it. I am also enamoured with Jack Johnson’s video for Upside Down. You can watch it here if you do so desire.
And how sinister is this? Wouldn’t you be a bit concerned if you found it parked outside your house? We call it The Murdermobile, and it parks itself around our neighbourhood- we’ve never actually seen it in drive. There is an entire horror movie lurking within it, I suspect.
March 24, 2006
Book Wages
Ah, payment in the form of books! Stuart and I spent the afternoon helping sort books for the Echolocation Book Sale (7 King College Circle, Monday and Tuesday). And I have come away with a haul. I got The Female of the Species by Lionel Shriver, Volume 5 of The Diary of Virginia Woolf, The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty, Sarah Bastard’s Notebook by Marian Engel. Bliss and other Stories by Katherine Mansfield, Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford and Democracy and A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion.
In news of great satisfaction, I have a 100 page portfolio compiled, of which I am immensely pleased. And a date for brunch in the morn.
