February 8, 2006
Relics
For the past few years, my reading has consisted primarily of British women writers. The writers who do not focus on urban themes (and even some who do) share such a preoccupation with history and archeology. Relics are dug up in nearly every book, and characters are obsessed with the thousand years of history that came before them. Rarely do books not contain references to buried civilizations (Esther Freud’s The Sea House is no exception). I am fascinated by this, what the implications must be for all British people (not just the fictional ones) living on top of ancient worlds, and how this manifests itself. This is why I was particularly excited with my postcard from Margaret Drabble, which came from a museum in France and had a photo of some ancient pottery unearthed. Anyway, it’s such a vastly different thematic concern from Canadian literature, which still seems to be making sense of our physical geography. It’s an interesting contrast.
I got up early this morning to finish my seminar, which I am presenting tomorrow. I worked hard on it but don’t know how cohesive my vision is. It is on literary acknowledgments, and upon completion I learned that I have been spelling acknowledgments incorrectly my whole life. No “e”. I am quite busy with school work at the mo, and writing stuff stuff stuff.
The new Vanity Fair cover is creepy. Zadie Smith wins the regional Commonwealth Prize, and will now go to battle with Canadian Lisa Moore’s Alligator, which is the next book on my bedside waiting list (thank heaven for libraries). On how booklearning leaves us with questionable pronunciation skills. Jeanette Winterson says that not all books need to be books. And hilariously, from McSweeneys, The Elements of Spam Style.
February 7, 2006
On Iran
Polly Toynbee sounds the voice of reason with Let’s Cut a Deal With the Mullahs. She writes:
Fantasy diplomacy is ready to fight all the way to stop the mullahs getting the bomb. Reality suggests there is a difficult choice: if you cannot win, give up at once to minimise the damage. Get off the high horse and start to negotiate terms on which Iran can be allowed to enrich uranium. It amounts to turning a blind eye to their weapons potential while striking a deal that saves their face, affords them some dignity and entices them economically into becoming a more stable force.
February 6, 2006
Bad English
The Bad English verbal scuffle the other night has proved a bit incendiary. It’s the way things go, because now I’m obsessed with “When I See You Smile”. My computer was unimpressed and swallowed my “Power Ballads” CD. But can you blame me, with the following lyrics. Sheer poetry, bringing hope to the adolescent and lovelorn.
Sometimes I wonder
How I’d ever make it through,
Through this world without having you
I just wouldn’t have a clue
‘Cause sometimes it seems
Like this world’s closing in on me,
And there’s no way of breaking free
And then I see you reach for me
Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you, baby
And everything’s alright,
everything’s alright
When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
you know I can do anything
When I see you smile
I see a ray of light, oh oh,
I see it shining right through the rain
When I see you smile
Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me
Baby there’s nothing in this world
that could ever do
What a touch of your hand can do
It’s like nothing that I ever knew
And when the rain is falling
I don’t feel it,
’cause you’re here with me now
And one look at you baby
Is all I’ll ever need,
you’re all I’ll ever need
Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you baby
And everything’s alright,
everything’s alright
I think “I wanna quit the fight” is my favourite line, and that they managed to rhyme it with “everything’s alright”. And the obligatory falling rain. What a set of teeth that woman must have had, to cast whole rays of light. I sort of wish I lived in a world where Bad English was at the top of the pop charts.
Now reading Esther Freud’s The Sea House.
And believe it or not, the little story I am writing about sewing a button on a coat is proving sort of dull.
February 4, 2006
Book in the post Alert
How exciting! A book in the post is due to arrive this week. It’s my first used book purchased online. I have bought The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, which the more attentive might recognised as being a book I already owned but left behind in Japan. I am writing my final paper for one of my courses on it, and I am quite interested to see how my perspective on it has changed since I last read it, as my attitude toward writing is quite different now. In other book news, I just read “Judgement Day” by Penelope Lively, and I think it my favourite book of hers that I have read. Also reading AN Wilson’s “After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World”, which is long long long but full of the most excellent stories.
Siri Hustvedt (of the wonderful “What I Loved”) is profiled. Her comment that with her essays and even her fiction, she believes in “rigorous honesty”. Take that jab Frey! February Poetry workshop in The Guardian. Ivor tells us how to love our cities online.
This weekend’s highlights include brunch with Fiona I et al, and then dress shopping with Miss Katie Doering Sunday afternoon. Have I mentioned that I am a bridesmaid?
Husband and I just had small altercation about me playing “When I See You Smile” by Bad English in the living room.
February 2, 2006
Unrequition
A break-up is always difficult, whatever the circumstances. The end of a marriage is devastating, being dumped is humiliating, dealing with the end of a common-law relationship is hard because there is no established paradigm as to how to do this. The end of love is doomed to be a messy business, but particularly so if there was only half a love involved. Getting over unrequited love is perhaps the hardest thing of all.
The divorcees don’t know how lucky they have it. They look around and see painful reminders, but I call it proof. Wedding photos, old cards and letters, souvenirs from vacation past. At least somebody liked you once upon a time. All I had was a photograph folded into three, to cut out my friend in the middle so it looked like he and I were standing side-by-side. And you can’t put that up on the mantel.
I remember the futility of shaving my legs almost daily, just in case, and it all coming to naught. I remember laying awake all night, terrified he had ordered call display and was going to find out that it was I who had called and hung up nineteen times while he was at work one day. Trying to interpret signals in such a way that him going out of his way to avoid my path somehow meant affection. “He is intimidated by you,” my friends said. “He’s afraid of me,” I declared, implying that he was afraid of someone like me, someone he couldn’t help but fall in love with, because it was a big step to take. Though of course, in fact, no. He was just really afraid of me. As anyone would be of one who called nineteen times and hung up while they were at work.
There is no vocabulary for it. You can’t refer to “my ex”. Instead, you just can’t talk about it at all and years of your life get wiped away. Which might be a good thing, considering how remembering those years make your writhe in agonizing embarrassment. But no one lets you mourn. Mainly because they’re tired of you, him, and the fact that you’ve been mourning since the day you met him. No one lets you mourn the death of hope, which is the saddest death of all.
The end of unrequited love is no less monumental than any other. Look at the great unrequited loves throughout history: Britney Spears and Prince William, Rosie O’Donnell and Tom Cruise, Scarlet O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes. It is a proud tradition. And there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Glowing beaming radiant light. Because in the end Brit found K-Fed. And as God as her witness, I am sure, she will never be hungry again.
January 31, 2006
There's a dog in the school
Do you remember what it was like when a dog got into your school? Stuart and I were discussing this today, the ensuing chaos, cheering children and a very confused canine. We went to very different schools on separate continents, so this may be an under-recognised universal phenomenon.
Must-read lists for children! It’s a fun article, except that Andrew Motion recommends Ulysses, that pretentious fecker. Anyway, I will make my own Kid Lit Must-Reads, as follows, in no particular order: Madeleine (Series) by Ludwig Bemelmans, Miffy (Series) by Dick Bruna, Dogger by Shirley Hughes, Olivia by Ian Falconer, Ramona (Series) by Beverley Quimby, Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, A Handful of Time by Kit Pearson, Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer and A Wrinkle in Time (Series)- particularly A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle. For one who so distains Science Fiction/Fantasy (sorry), I am confused as to why almost all the YA Books I remember, love and recommend are about time travel.
On peddling words.
And I toted Woolf in Ceylon home from the library today!
January 29, 2006
The testicles of the west
Oh, in the news. Here, “spinster” is removed from the dictionary, which I think is sort of strange. More sensibly, it has now been removed from British Law and women who marry in that great kingdom no longer are classified as such on their marriage certificates. Fortunately I missed that change by a mere six months, and so I will be noted forever as a spinster in the annals of the Blackburn Lancashire Registry Office. Further, gorgeous, sophisticated, erudite and married to a British heartthrob. No silly, not me! It’s Gwyneth, profiled. I love her. James Frey aside, this article asks why “we” (by this “we” I do not include myself) are so enthralled by mems of other people’s misery. Obviously, it cites British agony mags like “Take a Break”, which I incidentally find to be one of the oddest periodicals ever to appeal. I saw one the other day with “My husband stapled me to our floor!!” on the front cover. A review of new Cold War texts (including one by Gaddis!) that serve to “cure Cold War nostalgia”.
It was a lovely weekend- out Friday night for Erin’s brilliant birthday karaoke. Saturday was the most gorgeous day ever, and we spent it basking in some Kensington Market sunshine. I wrote for two and a half hours today, and my story is growing growing in ways that absolutely fascinate me. I am learning about so much through this endeavour, about stuff I never even thought about before. Though I think Stuart is beginning to find it a bit dull that the story is the only thing I ever talk about.
Except Need for Speed on his Gamecube. Yesterday we started playing it together, but not competitively. When I drive into the wall and can’t turn around, Stu stops his car and waits for me to catch up. And sometimes he selects the Lincoln Navigator to race in, just so I can beat him fair and square.
January 27, 2006
Mrs. Harper
In recent photos, Stephen Harper is beginning to look more human. He also has cute children. So my heart warms. But I do find it very strange that his wife didn’t let it slip until this week that she is no longer known by her maiden name. I can understand why as a Prime Minister’s wife, she may find it simpler to share his name but it’s odd that she didn’t let anyone know about this change during her husband’s campaign. Perhaps I am just being paranoid, but I am worried this is just the first veil falling and we’re in the fast lane to Handmaid’s Tale.
January 26, 2006
Poem Exercise
*This was my exercise for class this week- a poem without an ‘e’.
What I know is a mountain
What I know is a mountain, high as a coin.
My liquid wisdom would not fill a cup.
This vastity, that unshrinking cupity-
sit back and watch it grow.
Sunk far-off lands’ topography.
Magic words forgot by history.
Ursa Major, Asia Minor-
a thousand stations I’ll not go.
Fossils, bugs and dragon wings.
Burnt, lost or abandon’d things.
Mud or flood or lava lost-
mislaid worlds I cannot know.
A show that’s shown, curtain down.
Unsung songs and pin drop sounds.
Hot air balloons and sailing ships-
an old wind’s worn out blow.
Untold truths and uncaught looks.
Oral myths and dirty books.
Wombs and tombs and pyramids-
and a mountain’s all I know.
