May 14, 2006
And I do believe I love you…
Friday night began with a visit from an ice cream truck, and we rushed outside for a sweet treat. Then a call from friends to meet for drinks, and we partook in that just as happily. Saturday morn was a grocery shop and the purchase of a new teapot (the old one was disintegrating into our cups of tea, which we didn’t figure was healthy). And then Curtis made us brunch and we got it in our heads to clean up the porch, so we did, and then we sat our and drank beer, all Portuguese like. Nothing is quite as entertaining as watching the world go by, really. Life is a walking reality TV show. And then we went to Kensington for fruit and veg, and they played “That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne Warwick in some place we walked past, and I’ve been humming it since. Tonight I finished Giving Up the Ghost (stunning) and started Democracy by Joan Didion, which I like so far.
And now, for either your educational pleasure or an opportunity to scoff at my stupidity, here are words I’ve written down from the last few books I read, because I did not know their definitions:
Putative: reputed, supposed
Molybdenum: a silver white brittle metallic transition element occurring naturally in molybdenite and used in steel to give strength and resistance to corrosion.
Fatuous: silly, purposeless
Exculpatory: freeing from blame
Lacunae: something missing or left out
Compunction: Uneasy conscience or feeling of remorse
Etiolate: to make a plant lose colour, to render something lost of vigour or substance
Intransigence: stubborness, the quality of being uncompromising
Persiflage: banter
Exhort: to urge or advise strongly
Maurice Vellacott: Idiot.
May 12, 2006
I suppose my umbrella
In Howard’s End, Leonard Bast loses his umbrella and just cannot get over it. My favourite line in the book is him thinking, “I suppose my umbrella wil be all right… I don’t really mind about it. I will think about the music instead. I suppose my umbrella will be all right”. And I do so understand, having a similarly one-tracked mind, and a special attachment to my umbrella. My umbrella is wonderful and oft-complimented, and if you were as bereft of style as I am, you would be happy to own at least one thing that invites admiration (I am fortunate to also have many pairs of red shoes). My umbrella is a Totes Novelty Supermini Umbrella that is black with ducks round its border and the phrase “Lovely weather for ducks” printed among them. I bought it at the John Lewis in Nottingham in 2003, where it cost about 15 quid, which was too much for an umbrella, and such an extragence- a department store extravagence no less- which was monumental in those days (and these, come to think of it). And to prove just how responsible, and deserving of a posh umbrella, I am, I have kept it close to me for three years, keeping it out of strong winds, dashing just in time back into restaurants where it has been forgotten and never once leaving it on the train. The duck umbrella has lasted me through English rain and Japanese typhoons, and now I pull it out for a rainy Canadian day, and I find there is a small hole in it. Wear and tear, no doubt. And it’s not yet retireable. There’s still some life in her yet, but it’s just painfully sad to contemplate the future without her.
*Along the lines of Leonard Bast-ian preoccupation, there was another book I read in the past few months in which an umbrella is misplaced to great distress. I cannot remember for the life of me which it was. Does anyone else? This is driving me a bit mad.
May 12, 2006
Solutions
What with working and all, I don’t have time enough for reading (all I want to read). It’s troubling and I want to petition to extend the day to thirty hours. It’s especially crucial, and I have started to read newspapers and magazines again after swearing them off this winter to do my homework. My Walrus arrived today, which was exciting, and I just started Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel, which is as wonderful as everything Hilary Mantel writes (oh my British lady writers- how I do love you!) Oh, and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was absolutely beautiful and fascinating, and so much like Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, even though the two books are so fundamentally different. Anyway, my supper dishes need washing and my book needs reading, and I just don’t know which option is going to win in the end.
Things I have been thinking about include how wonderful the trees are in this city, in my neighbourhood in particular. I’d forgotten they came in so many colours. And the blossoms! Saturday morning I was reading a book on my front step, and every few seconds a blossom of every variety would fall into my open pages. I’ve recently fallen in love with the idea of books as objects embedded in the natural environment, so you can see how that was cool. Another thing I have been thinking about is the overuse of the word “solutions”. It’s ubiquitous in all those lifestyle magazines like Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living that a) make you feel like a bad person and b) make you feel like you could be a good person with just the right shelving unit. I think I recently saw a magazine entitled “Solutions”. And what bothers me about all of this is the implication that life itself is a problem.
Speaking of problems, in exciting news, our doorknob fell off and if we shut the door we can’t get out. All residing in our household look forward to seeing how this pans out, and what solutions are in store.
And tomorrow is Friday, the third weekend of my summer. The first Weekend Summer Adventure was the Library Bar Experience, last weekend was the Drunken BBQ and this weekend we’ve got the Great Cabbagetown Adventure in store- if it stops raining. Yea, Riverdale Zoo! Yea, Goats!
May 10, 2006
I miss your ginger hair
I’ve been streaming BBC Radio 1 at work, and my new favourite song is Valerie by The Zutons. You can watch the video here!
May 10, 2006
Hey Farmer farmer
I’m now reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and it’s wonderful. I can see the Annie Dillard comparisons, because as Dillard is a writer who knows science, Rachel Carson was a scientist who really knew how to write. It’s also been fascinating to read Silent Spring so close to The Death and Life of the Great American Cities, as Jacobs’ and Carson’s messages were so similar. Both preaching the virtues of diversity and the power of time to develop things as it should.
May 7, 2006
All the news
More here on Muriel Spark. On Double Fault by Lionel Shriver, a reissue from her back catalogue (and bring on The Female of the Species too!) She has a brand new book coming out soon as well. Donna Martin gets wed (again)! Her new husband is quoted as saying, “I’ve never had as much of a desire to get married and make a woman my wife as I’ve had with her.” Now, that’s poetry. Along those lines, Horatio Caine gets married tomorrow! Lucky lady.
May 7, 2006
The Weekender
We went to the new bookstore this afternoon, which was wonderful because getting there involved walking through Trinity Bellwoods Park, which I always love to do. And it was wonderful, with books that were so pretty and lovely to hold, as well as those that are fine to read. The children’s section was fantastic (though devoid of Miffy, which is never good). They had lots of Drabbles however, and a whole wall of fiction that included popfic and litfic all shelved together, which is what I like to see. I ended up buying Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel, which I’ve wanted to read forever. (It’s a memoir, and I absolutely love her fiction. Plus it came recently recommended by Bronwyn, my partner in bookishness). So hurray for sunny days and book purchases. We walked along Queen Street to the Japanese grocery store, in which I indulged in my irritating habit of asking questions in Japanese that I will not understand the answer to. It’s always a bit humiliating in the end, but there is a fantastic few-second period in between me asking, “Meron-pan wa doca desu ca?” and someone looking slightly startled before answering in Japanese that is sort of like a drug to me. A socially harmful drug of course, but one that is also really quite fantastic.
Overheard from a small boy on a tricycle: “What goes up…. must come down”. “Yup,” says his mom. “So….” continues the boy, “what comes down must go up?” I didn’t catch the mom’s answer.
Friday night I was too tired to be vertical, and so I sprawled about my house and fell asleep early. We did have pizza though (with a new baking-powder crust that is delicious!). Saturday morning I was kidnapped and taken away to Brampton to help move my grandparents’s furniture to a different wing in their Springfield Retirement Castle, which was less than fun and I was there all day. However when I was returned downtown (unharmed and carrying a 24 of Labatt Blue), Stuart and I indulged in the College Street Life and went to The Big Chill on Manning for ice cream cones. Then after, we had a barbeque in our disgusting backyard with our ever-wonderful downstairs neighbour. Desiring to unwind a bit, I drank far too much of various things and was a bit of a moron, but the hotdogs were very very good. It was a fun night. And now I must go and eat some Japanese curry before I go out to work my last shift at the library (until next year, of course).
May 5, 2006
Catch
The other exciting thing about today is that I played catch on my lunch break! The other two girls who will be a part of our team haven’t started yet, and so this week I was the only girl at work. This was not a problem however, and everyone was extraordinarily nice and fun. I found myself giggling hysterically a fair bit, which is always a good sign. Anyway, today everyone went to play catch at lunch time. I tagged along, even though I haven’t tossed or caught a ball in years. And you know, I wasn’t terrible. Sometimes it’s really wonderful to do new things (or at least really old things). I was loving it, and my catching was alright. My throwing was a bit crap, but everyone was very nice about it. So I was sort of on top of the world, tossing the ball around the UC Back Campus and feeling all collegiate, even in my old age. Having never had a brother, I still get a kick out of playing with boys. But I was borrowing someone’s glove, so I dropped out before too long so he could have a chance to catch without using his bare hands. I tossed him the glove, and went off to side on the sidelines and read my book. And as I walked away, I heard them say, “Let’s use the real ball now!” and then they proceed to hurl throws that would have sent me cowering, covering my pretty face with my hands in mortal fear.
In further news, Baroque-A-Nova by Kevin Chong was wonderful. First, physically speaking it was really well-designed. And it was an absolutely enjoyable novel, and I would like to recommend it to boys and girls everywhere (though most specifically those who live in Canada). What I especially loved about this novel (as opposed to other books by young “first novelists”) was that the character “Saul” was not Kevin Chong. I felt as though he had specifically gone out of his way to make this not the case, which did not come across as trying to hard in the text, but rather Saul’s character was wonderfully developed in a way it would not have been had this been an auto-bio in the guise of a novel. Now reading Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.
May 5, 2006
Pleasure of Ruins
Today was a significant day in book acquisitions, seeing as I purchased the most beautiful book ever. And you know I am not prone to hyperbole. The book is Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay, “photographically interpreted” by Roloff Beny. And it’s absolutely stunning. I came across it in December whilst shelf-reading the large book section at the library and I immediately fell in love. I even carted it home over the holidays, even though it’s very heavy and hurt my back to carry. But I wanted to read this book, fall under the spell cast by the prose and the photos. And I loved it. And then a few months back, a copy appeared in the window of this very strange and slightly gross bookshop on my way to school. I looked longingly every time I walked by, but was too afraid of the feral shopmaster to approach (he has one of those white beards that have turned yellow). But Stu went in other day and got the price, and it wasn’t bad. So braved the smell of wee and bought it tonight. The book itself does not smell like wee, thanks be to god. The dust jacket it slightly battered, and the edges of the pages are yellow, but still, I am the very proud owner of the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen.
