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.
March 22, 2006
Libraries to go
Just finished my 40th book of the year. “It’s not a race!” you might say, to which I would argue that it most certainly is. I’m racing against my all too limited lifespan. But I’ve got libraries and libraries to go before I sleep.
March 21, 2006
Mardi Livre!
Today was really exciting because I received my first letter in The PenPal Project from Bronwyn. Post! I got a bunch of bookmarks from the London Library as well as London Library scrap paper (which is cut into bigger pieces than the scrap paper at my library). I will have to brainstorm a steller text-based treat to include in her next letter, and mail it all within the ten day window of course. Sugoi indeed.
Now reading On Writing by Stephen King, which is excellent and fun. I also read Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett, and it was beautiful.
The Guardian is seeking the best of CanLit. I’ve responded, and so has Heather Mallick, so join the fun! An lovely essay here on a former Canadian expat’s homecoming. The new Guardian Poetry Workshop here.
March 20, 2006
Sleepy Devil
Avid readers will be happy to know there are readers sleeping in the library. Today the soporific text is a mystery novel, Devil in a Blue Dress.
March 19, 2006
My mind has wings and I dun know to where it's flew
About two and a half years ago, on my way home from work in Nottingham one September evening, I was walking past the cemetery at the top of Mansfield Road. Separated from the pavement by a tall wrought-iron fence with deathly-pointy tips along the top, it was a lovely, sprawling weedy old graveyard with crumbling stones falling down its clines and I used to love to see the sun setting orange just beyond, atop the Goose Fair Grounds. A sign on the gates explicitly warned that said gates were locked each evening at a certain time whose specificity should not be compromised by the fact that I’ve forgotten it. But I never concerned myself much with those details; I’m not a real fancier of cemeteries. I was content to watch the place fly by each night behind its iron bars as I walked my way home, listening to shoddy BBC1 Europop on my crappy Panasonic Cassette Walkman.
This particular night I was in a hurry; I had a doctor’s appointment, which I was already late for. I was rushing down the back side of the hill on Mansfield Road beside the cemetery, when a girl about my age called out to me from inside it. I couldn’t hear her over “Fly on the Wings of Love” by XTM, so I turned the radio off.
“Pardon me?” I asked her.
“I said, I’m stuck in here,” she said. “What time do they close the gates?”
“At * o’ clock.”
“What time is it now?”
“Past * o’clock I guess.” I’ve never worn a watch.
“Could you help me?” she asked. She had chased me along the length of the graveyard and I was just about to slip out of her arm’s reach.
But as I said, I was in a hurry. “You could climb the fence,” I suggested. “Or call 999?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said. “What am I going to do?” She was strangely calm for one so needy.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Good luck though.” I hurried on to get my throat examined.
And I think about her often. I wonder if she’s still camped out ‘neath a tombstone.
