Today was my official Robbie Williams Fan Day. I’m not sure when that started exactly. I knew of him and even liked a few of his songs, even bought one of his albums, but I’d mostly ignored him up until a couple of years ago when one of his songs [with irony now] just spoke to my heart and then I’d rushed onto YouTube and watched countless Robbie Williams clips and somehow decided he was my long lost love. Pathetic I know. Especially now that I’m over the hill and really should (and do) know better. I mean... haven’t I done the bad boy thing to death already? So then, what happened that time was that the very next day wouldn’t you know it, I was taking a walk with my camera, snapping everything in sight until my lens focused on an absolutely beautiful man who looked... just like Robbie Williams’ twin brother. He told me his name, then he said he’d marry me someday and then one thing quickly led to another. He’s been my ex for a long time now but the jury is still out on whether that encounter was a godsend or a curse from hell, though he still insists we’re soul mates and I will be his wife someday. One major difference between Robbie and the ex is that one is an established superstar with proven talent as a singer/songwriter and, oh yeah, loads of money, and the other is... not even close. But then, comparing anyone to Robbie Williams: Britain’s Best Selling Male Performer Of All Time, is not playing fair. In any case I’ve gone off on a tangent. The point was NOT to bring up the ex, though that little anecdote of meeting Robbie Williams’ clone the day after I’d spent hours staring at his pictures and crying to one of his songs over and over again, well that’s that’s right out of the movies. Though in the movies, I would have met the real Robbie Williams, obviously, and it would have been an absolute fairy tale and they lived happily ever after, The End, quick before they start arguing and screaming and swearing and throwing stuff at each other and calling in the lawyers while the tabloids of course have a field day.
So what I was getting at when I started this post was that today I sought solace in Robbie Williams once again. It was pure escapism. I would probably have taken some kind of illicit drug had I had some on hand, or drank three quarters of a bottle of scotch if I was still into self-medicating that way. But instead I let myself daydream about what life with Robbie Williams would be like, if I was a different person who liked being around crowds all the time and also looked flawlessly gorgeous (though the latter isn’t necessarily a prerequisite since from what I’ve seen so far, he just hits on any woman who happens to be within the vicinity) and he was the sort of man who was capable of actually falling in love. I don’t think the distraction worked though, because I’m still feeling miserable, still am on the verge of tears, still feel like the biggest loser in the world. All these thoughts just poisoning my mind, which I’ve become really good at ignoring usually, but today there was no escaping them. “I had so much promise... it’s too late now, I’ve ruined my life, where did it all go?” repeated over and over again, like a broken record. I know where it all went, it’s this fucking depression, one bout after another which has stolen half my life away. After all, how far can one get when hope seems like a bad joke, the only dreams you have wake you in a cold sweat, and your self-esteem is so low that you shy away from friends and family for the shame of it? Before the lithium cocktail, I could at least look forward to the relief of a manic high once in a while, when I actually felt good about myself for a change and didn’t let my fear paralyze me from making any kind of decision. I don’t care what anyone says, this is no way to live. And putting a smile on it and faking it until you make it just doesn’t cut it either. Days like today, it’s a good thing I’ve got my cats keeping me alive. And Robbie Williams, let’s not forget. He’s bipolar too—I’m sure he’d understand.
March 31, 2009
It’s The Official Robbie Williams Fan Day
March 29, 2009
Quote of the Day
“None can reach the dawn without first traveling
through the night.” ~Khalil Gibran
Photo: “Pre-Dawn Silhouette” by TrombaMarina, Flickr
on a walk
It was beautiful out, and warm too. Still, I was barely able to drag myself out of the house. Then I did and even though I had music playing to distract me, it was one black thought after another. I kept walking, and they kept following me. It was punishing. But hey, I got out of the house. Woo-hoo. Getting home with my kitties waiting for me was the best part. Pics taken on my iPhone.
March 27, 2009
On Men, Guns and Horses (oh, and a love story too)
“In his sleep he could hear the horses stepping among the rocks and he could hear them drink from the shallow pools in the dark where the rocks lay smooth and rectilinear as the stones of ancient ruins and the water from their muzzles dripped and rang like water dripping in a well and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again.”
Well I finally finished All the Pretty Horses and I must say it’s been quite a journey. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that my journey as a reader mirrored that of John Grady Cole, the protagonist of the book, but where my appreciation of this novel is concerned, there have been plenty of difficult passages, more than one surprising development, as well as rich rewards. As some of you regulars to this blog know, my experience with this book started on what I could only call shaky ground. When we are first introduced to John Grady, who is the last in a long line of ranchers, his grandfather has just passed away and soon John Grady learns he will be left with no land to continue in the family tradition. This is what prompts his decision to get away, though he never goes as far as describing what his intentions are, being a man of few words. For the first 40 pages or so describing the start of the journey, McCarthy only referred to John Grady Cole and other people he encounters as “he” and “she” and I was completely lost, barely able to figure out who was who. Unsurprisingly, the questions of “who what where when and why” were left unanswered, or were vaguely sketched out at best, perhaps with the exception of the “where”: we were starting out on a small Texas ranch, soon to be put up for sale, and heading toward Mexico. As for the “when” it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the book but I found out that the story takes place in 1948. Still, I may have managed just fine, only I was also struggling to make sense of McCarthy’s other idiosyncrasies adopted for this book. This included the use of compounded polysyndetonic sentences (use of many and sometimes unnecessary conjunctions) which could sometimes run for whole paragraphs, as shown above*, as well as the omission of punctuation, such as quotation marks, which sometimes made it almost impossible to keep track of whom was saying what. This is the point at which I went into my tirade (click here to read it), though knowing how much beloved this book was by so many readers, I decided to forge on to the 100th page before deciding whether to go on or not. Then, as if by some magic, when I picked up the book to go on reading, it was as if a thick veil was removed and I was finally able to appreciate McCarthy’s brilliant writing, his love of storytelling which often resided in the scrupulous attention given to the various landscapes and settings, the flora and fauna, the people and the horses of course, who form the central theme of this story.
There are of course many other elements to the narrative. There is a love story of course, which many agree is the central element in this book. While I think the love story is one important element which has many ramifications, in my opinion the element on which the story rests (other than the horses of course) is actually just a kid. As the cousins reach Mexico on their horses, they are followed by, and then meet a young boy claiming to be sixteen, astride a horse which looks much too good for him, which leads John Grady and especially Rawlins to assume it has been stolen. The boy, who has a gun but no provisions nor water nor money claims his name is Jimmy Blevins and soon trails along with them into Mexico. Rawlins takes an instant disliking to him, claiming Blevins will surely get them into serious trouble. As we soon find out, Blevin does in fact inadvertently instigate a chain of events which fuel much of the drama and adventure throughout the novel, which is a Western story above all, one about men, guns and horses, and one exquisitely told.
Final word: the writing warrants a 2nd and 3rd reading which would surely yield further satisfaction, and as another reader said “I'm not sure why [McCarthy] chose to dispense with speech marks along with most punctuation, though I can guess, but by gum if you can write like that you can just do what you like.”
I ended up giving it: ★★★★½ (just like people, some books take time warming up to).
*I would simply like to point out that by the time I got to that paragraph I was fully enjoying the flow of the writing and this drawn out sentence touched me deeply, as it was meant to.
March 26, 2009
This one has me crying... (for cat lovers)
This poor little guy has taken quite a beating from life. I don’t know how she can be so sure he’s never had human contact, but it’s clear he craves and needs it. Bittersweet.
Books: A Wish List (1.1)
[26/03/09: I did a bit of an edit today on this post originally published on 13/06/08 to indicate which books I’ve obtained (*) and which I’ve also read (**) since then. All the book icons link to Amazon. When I’ve written a review, the book title links to that review. I have yet to compile another list as promised. All in due course I suppose. Most of the text in the rest of this post remains unchanged.]
There was no method to this particular folly I’ve committed, so don’t go looking for one. I’ve made it a full time activity over the past few weeks to look through countless book lists just for the fun of it; New York Times Best Books 1996-2007, The Guardian’s Top 100 Books of all Time, Time Magazine’s All-Time 100 Novels, Dr. Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, a list of the Definitive Book Lists (yes, a list of lists), a list of literary awards, which includes, the Nobel Laureates in Literature, The Pulitzer Prize, The Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, just to name a few, and then read countless reviews and suggestions, all for the sake of compiling my own ideal list of “Books I’d Hypothetically Like to Read In Near Future”. Many books didn’t make it on the list either because a) I haven’t gotten around to including them or b) I’ve already read them, or c) I’d like to read them later on and finally d) they simply don’t appeal to me.
I’m only posting a partial list today—less than half of what I’ve come up with so far in terms of fiction alone.I’ve already spent far too many days agonizing on how best to present the material, and finally my decision is just to present it as it comes. Please don’t be shy to comment, let me know what you’ve read or what you’d love to read whether it’s on the list or not. Today’s list is defined as “Fiction and Literature: part 1”
The Swallows of Kabul*, by Yasmina Khadra
Empress*, by Shan Sa
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao**, by Junot Diaz
The Time Traveler’s Wife*, by Audrey Niffenegger
Post Office, by Charles Bukowski
Zookeepers Wife, by Diane Ackerman
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Blindness*, by Jose Saramago
Kafka on the Shore**, by Haruki Murakami
A Fine Balance*, by Rohinton Mistry
The Interpretation Of Murder*, by Jed Rubenfeld
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon
Midnight's Children**, by Salman Rushdie
Beloved**, by Toni Morrison
In The Company Of The Courtesan**, by Sarah Dunant
People Of The Book**, by Geraldine Brooks
Shape Of Water, by Andrea Camilleri
Catch-22*, by Joseph Heller
Children of the Alley: A Novel**, by Naguib Mahfouz 
I’m Not Scared, by Niccolo Ammaniti
White Oleander, by Janet Fitch
Fabrizio's Return, by Mark Frutkin
The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory
Border Trilogy**, by Cormac Mccarthy (currently reading)
The Shipping News*, by Annie Proulx
My Brilliant Career, by Miles Franklin
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007, by Laura Furman (Editor)
The Best American Short Stories 2007, by Stephen King (Compiler), Heidi Pitlor (Series Editor)
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer**, by Steven Millhauser
Thousand Splendid Suns*, by Khaled Hosseini
Runaway**, by Alice Munro
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Fifth Business**, by Robertson Davies
Amsterdam, by Ian Mcewan
Haroun And The Sea Of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
Music Of Chance, by Paul Auster
Invention Of Solitude, by Paul Auster
Moon Palace, by Paul Auster
In The Country Of Last Things, by Paul Auster
Leviathan, by Paul Auster
The Book of Illusions: A Novel**, by Paul Auster
Timbuktu, by Paul Auster
Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing
The Complete Stories, by Franz Kafka
Exit Music, by Ian Rankin
Morality for Beautiful Girls (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 3)**, by Alexander Mccall Smith
Infidel , by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir*, by Frank McCourt
Migraine, by Oliver Sacks
The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls
Death at La Fenice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery**, by Donna Leon
Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo
The Tin Drum*, by Gunter Grass
Et si c'était vrai ?..., par Marc Levy
Je voudrais que quelqu’un m’attende quelque part*, par Anna Gavalda
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street**, by Naguib Mahfouz
Lullabies for Little Criminals*, by Heather O'Neill
New York Trilogy*, by Paul Auster
The Forgery of Venus, by Michael Gruber
Nobody’s Fool*, by Richard Russo
The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
The Poisonwood Bible*, by Barbara Kingsolver
Human Croquet: A Novel, by Kate Atkinson
Bright Shiny Morning, by James Frey
The House at Riverton: A Novel, by Kate Morton
Letters to a Young Contrarian, by Christopher Hitchens
Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold
Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel*, by David Guterson
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Green Darkness, by Anya Seton
Slammerkin, by Emma Donoghue
In The Country Of Men, by Hisham Matar
Love 0f a Good Woman, by Alice Munro
My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro, by Jeffrey Eugenides (Editor)
Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson
View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro
From The Fifteenth District, by Mavis Gallant
Flying Changes, by Sara Gruen
Modern Classics At Swim Two Birds, by Flann Obrien
I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: The Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, by Karolyn Smardz-Frost
Le Parfum*, par Patrick Suskind
Year Of Wonders*, by Geraldine Brooks
L’élégance du hérisson, by Muriel Barbery
Unfeeling: A Novel, by Ian Holding
Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino
Je L’Aimais, par Anna Gavalda
Sept jours pour une éternité...*, par Marc Levy
La prochaine fois, par Marc Levy
Modern Classics Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh
Straight Man: A Novel, by Richard Russo
Two Lives, by Vikram Seth
Native Son, by Richard Wright
The Bad Girl, by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Historian*, by Elizabeth Kostova
Law of Dreams, by Peter Behrens
The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Outlander, by Gil Adamson
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino
The Book of Salt: A Novel, by Monique Truong
Natasha and Other Stories, by David Bezmozgis
The Bone People, by Keri Hulme
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, by Thomas Mann
Small Island, by Andrea Levy
The Light of Day, by Graham Swift
The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa
Independent People, by Halldor Laxness
Hunger, by Knut Hamsun
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes
Shadow Of The Wind*, by Carlos Zafon
The Yacoubian Building*, by Alaa Al-Aswany
Green grass, running water, by Thomas King
Turtle Valley, by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Secret River, by Kate Grenville
Mister Pip*, by Lloyd Jones
Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill
The Known World, by Edward Jones
Brick Lane: A Novel*, by Monica Ali
Remembering the Bones, by Frances Itani
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, by Ken Kesey
Penguin Modern Classics World Of Wonders*, by Robertson Davies
Penguin Modern Classics Manticore*, by Robertson Davies
Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb
A Spot of Bother: A Novel*, by Mark Haddon
Shantaram: A Novel, by Gregory David Roberts
Tales from Firozsha Baag, by Rohinton Mistry
History Of Love, by Nicole Krauss
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi
Bookseller Of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel**, by Dai Sijie
Girl With A Pearl Earring A Novel, by Tracy Chevalier
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
Mistress of the Sun, by Sandra Gulland
Lady Oracle, by Margaret Atwood
Three Cups Of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Becoming Madame Mao, by Anchee Min
The Dante Club: A Novel, by Matthew Pearl
The Sea*, by John Banville
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
Empress Orchid: A Novel*, by Anchee Min
The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
White Noise, by Don Delillo
The Book of Air and Shadows, by Michael Gruber
Such a Long Journey, by Rohinton Mistry
On Chesil Beach**, by Ian Mcewan
Suite Francaise*, by Irene Nemirovsky
Bel Canto*, by Ann Patchett
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus*, by Margaret Atwood
Everything Must Go
Actually, the trouble is that everything did go, so I was left with little choice.
Excuse me?
I didn’t even have a chance to have a sale, because everything just got snapped up!
What?
They were gouging out my eyes with fees on top of fees, so I just had to... end it.
End what?
My store. My eBay store. I closed it down just now, but not without a little bit of sadness in my heart. I kind of like the idea of having my own store but the trouble with having a store is that you have to keep putting inventory into it or else you find yourself with nothing to sell!
Well yes, that goes for a lot of things.
I just didn’t think I’d run out of things to sell so fast!
So why didn’t you prevent them from buying everything?
Because that’s just crazy! That thought did occur to me though. Several times. I thought: if I charge like, wayyyyyy too much for this then NO ONE will buy it and I’ll always have something to sell. Unless someone comes along and is willing to pay the price of course, and then yay, but we’re back to square one.
So that’s it? You have nothing left to sell already?
No. I mean, yes! But... odds and ends which need to be photographed and then I have to write up my little sales pitches and list them and so on...
Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all along?
Well yes, only it was exciting then because I had so many things to sell!
And now?
Less things. Though when I think about it, I’ll probably have enough to fill up a store with, which means it was really dumb of me to close it down so soon!
So then why did you close it?
Because it was empty. I sold the last item I had listed in it and I hated to think anyone might stop by and see it empty like that. Bad for business. Plus, the fees, let’s not forget the fees.
So it’s done! Taken care of, so where’s the problem?
No problem. Only I liked the name Smiler’s Bazaar... it had a ring to it. And I liked selling stuff.
So maybe you should open a new store!
With the same name?
Same name, no name, different name, whatever!
And become like, a real merchant and stuff?
Why not?
Oh no, I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly!
Because...?
Well it’s a lot of trouble isn’t it? And where would I put everything? My apartment already looks like a warehouse with all these empty boxes all over the place. And I don’t have any capital. And then what if it doesn’t work out?
That kind of thinking isn’t going to get you anywhere, friend.
Don’t I know it.
...
I’ll just list a thing or two and take it from there.
Fine.
I just wanted to say I felt sorry about closing my store is all.
My condolences.
Thanks.
Photo by: Unknown
Quote of the Day
“The faculty of bursting out with laughter is indicative of an excellent soul.”
~ Jean Cocteau
March 25, 2009
Between the Bars in Three Acts
Here’s a positive change that occured recently: I’ve started listening to music again after at least a year of silence. I got myself some decent speakers and then went and picked out loads of new songs on iTunes and that got me started again. It had been awfully quiet around here which I suppose is okay—makes you appreciate music that much more. I made a belated discovery in the form of a jazz singer called Madeleine Peyroux. I remember being sixteen or so and discovering Billie Holiday for the first time and feeling like I’d found a piece of me I hadn’t even realized was missing. Peyroux’s voice and phrasing are so similar to Billie Holliday’s that I was shocked that I’d somehow managed to miss her until now. She’ll never replace Billie of course, but she’s got quite an interesting repertoire and has gone from singing lots of standards to writing more and more of her own lyrics which are writen in a style similar to those golden oldies which is quite a rarity. So I ended up purchasing all my favourite songs from her four albums and been listening to them quite a lot, and one song in particular called Between the Bars caught my attention. I found out it was written by Elliot Smith, another newly discovered musician (because of Peyroux’s cover of his song actually). He had a very devoted fan base and a was a great lyricist, and his songs have been covered by many contemporary singers. Like many artists, Smith suffered from depression, alcoholism and drug addiction and he would be my age now had he not died from mysterious stab wounds which may or may not have been self-inflicted in 2003 which has now turned him into a real legend. The more I found out about the song’s composer the more poignant it became to me and so I sought out other artists who had covered it and wouldn’t you know it there is also Emily Haines from Metric, one of my favourite current singers, who does another very good live version. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: Between the Bars in Three Acts
Elliott Smith’s live version
Emily Haines (looking like she’s just pulled herself out of a bar to make it to the taping!)
Madeleine Peyroux (nice video but sadly of a poor quality)
March 24, 2009
Happiness is...
A couple of weeks ago, I realized my cats had just about everything, except for their own cat bed. So I immediately set out to the local pet shop which always carries loads of them in every colour and countless patterns. I wanted the bed to be big enough to accommodate both cats and when I got home with the huge bed I’d picked out, Fritz immediately settled into it and filled it up completely. I was glad he was so quick to adopt it, but had to pull him out of there and off I went for another walk up the hill to get an even bigger bed. The thought that they might not want to share and that I was probably wasting time and money did cross my mind. But I was worrying for nothing. Fritz lives in it day and night, but every so often I see the two of them cuddling up in there and it just melts my heart. When I’ve tried getting my camera to capture them, Mimi’s usually gotten up to follow me, so this time I just grabbed my iPhone which was within reach and... there we have it. Fritz and Mimi and me, living together in harmony. :-)
Pic by Smiler
March 23, 2009
Period Pieces
I watched two movies rented on iTunes this weekend and though they couldn’t be more different from one another, I couldn’t help but notice how much they had in common. Changeling is the the true story story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), searching for her missing son Walter. Set in 1928 Los Angeles, at a period when the police force was overtly corrupt and much criticized by the press for abuse of power and routine criminal activity. One day Christine is told by the police Captain that her son has been found alive and that they have organized a reunion. The press is invited to the event, as police Chief James E. Davis is desperate for positive coverage. The real trouble begins as soon as Christine sees the boy. She knows he’s not her son and says so to Captain Jones, head of the department’s Juvenile Division, but he insists she is mistaken, that she isn’t thinking straight, that specialists have been consulted to verify the boy’s identity, and that she must take him home “on a trial basis” until she regains her senses. But first she is told to pose with the boy and smile for the cameras. And she does.
Seeing Angelina Jolie as a meek woman who defers to people even when she knows they are lying to her seemed completely unbelievable. But soon Christine insists on making her voice heard as she (correctly) fears that now that she has been saddled with this other boy, all searches for he son have been stopped. When she stubbornly insists that her son is still missing, the police Captain accuses her of being an unfit mother and worse, a woman seeking independence. On the basis that Christine “refuses to recognize her own son” he claims she is mentally unbalanced and has her immediately commited to the psychiatric hospital. That is just the beginning of the story, but I think I have revealed enough for now.
Set at the end of the eighteenth century, The Duchess is a historical costume drama based on the life of Georgiana Cavendish, better known as the Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightley). The film starts with the marriage arrangement made between Georgina’s mother (Charlotte Rampling) and the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), who makes it immediately clear the main thing he expects out of the marriage is for Georgiana to produce a male heir as soon as possible. As the “it” girl of her time, she captivated the public with her beauty, charm and wit, and her fashion sense was the standard which all the ladies of her time sought to emulate. Everyone seems captivated by her except for her husband who has constant dalliances and doesn’t show any signs of affection to Georgiana. When she gets pregnant for the first time, she is hopeful that producing a male heir might bring them closer together but when her baby turns out to be a girl, the Duke is angry with her and accuses her of not being able to deliver an heir, as per the original agreement.
One day, Georgiana befriends Lady Bess Foster and a love triangle soon ensues when her husband lays his claim on her. Georgiana takes this as her cue to pursue an affair with Earl Grey, future Prime Minister, but is soon confronted by her husband who of course is violently opposed to her indiscretions with the excuse that he will not tolerate being ridiculed as a cuckold. The movie is lush and an absolute pleasure for the eyes, but it was impossible not to feel frustrated throughout.
So, the answers might seem obvious, but what did these movies have in common? Both movies were based on real people and events. Both movies were gorgeous period pieces. Both heroines have a strong independent streak and are vilified for not being the submissive, meek little creatures they are expected to be. Both heroines have unrealistic, even cruel expectations placed on them. Both heroines are oppressed by male figures of authority, at times when figures of authority were inevitably men. But guess what? Nowadays, female figures of authority are also more than capable of power tripping, but they get to do while pretending they really care and that really, they just want to be your friend*. And beyond that I’m just getting a little bit tired of Hollywood’s way of turning everyone into a one-dimensional caricature.
*Yes, I’m thinking of someone I had the pleasure of working for.
March 22, 2009
March 21, 2009
A Bookish Rant
I’m about 40 pages into All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy and feeling really frustrated with it. Truly, I had no expectations when I started this novel other than the hope that I would enjoy it. It’s my first Cormac McCarthy novel, and I had every intention of following up with the two other books of his Border Trilogy . But so far, just getting through the first 40 pages has been somewhat punishing. Right there on the first few pages, I knew there would probably be trouble between Cormac and I. It just seemed like I was supposed to have already read the book to figure out what the heck he was talking about. And then, what’s with the pronouns?? Can’t he just NAME people instead of starting off every other sentence with a “he” or a “she”? I can never tell who the f$#@ he’s talking about!? (I did say this is a rant). And then the dialogue. How does one figure out who is saying what, I’d like to know? According to Wikipedia, “All the books of the Border Trilogy are written in an unconventional format, omitting traditional Western punctuation, such as quotation marks, and making great use of polysyndetonic syntax” which makes for long, winding, unending sentences. I happen to be a fan of Hemingway’s because he makes life easy for me and keeps it snappy. How am I supposed to remember what (or who) McCarthy is talking about by the end of one of his endless sentences? I’m sure he’s a fantastic storyteller, otherwise his books wouldn’t be as popular as they are, but all those details are so aggravating to me that I can’t just relax into the flow of the writing and let him lead me along. I suppose I should have looked it up on Wikipedia before deciding to read it. It just upsets me so much when a much acclaimed novel fails to captivate me. But I shall give it a chance. Perhaps if I keep at it his writing style will grow on me. I’ve decided to push on to 100 pages, at which point I’ll decide whether I wish to continue or not. 60 more pages. Sounds endless to me. That’s hundreds more sentences for me to try to figure out. I just hate it when a book makes me feel like I don’t know how to read.
Update: After ranting about it and airing my frustration I went on reading and found, to my amazement that I was hardly having difficulty understanding him after all so that by the 100th page I was fully caught up in the story. I’m now well into it at over 200 and some pages, with every intention of finishing it in the next couple of days and very possibly reading the next book in the series relatively soon. Sometimes perseverance pays off. But just for the record: not always.
This post is also featured on the Library Thing “50 Book Challenge” forum.
March 20, 2009
Photo of the Day
“Childhood is the ground upon which we shall walk all our lives.”
~ Lya Luft, Brazilian writer and novelist
Photo: Kids in Cuzco, Peru by Harry Kikstra, ExposedPlanet.com
March 19, 2009
Currently Playing
Is Life Itself Not an Illusion?
The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster
Professor David Zimmer is a broken man following a plane crash that killed his wife and two young sons. Overcome with grief, he drowns his sorrows in booze until one night, as he watches a tv documentary, he bursts out laughing at the sight of Hector Mann acting in a silent comedy from the 1920’s. When he learns that the actor disappeared without a trace in 1929 Zimmer is sufficiently intrigued to try to find out more about Mann and his work. Enthralled with Mann’s genius in both creating and acting in physical comedy, Zimmer devotes the following year to tracking down Mann’s movies and writing a book about this man who has been an enigma ever since his disappearance. This is just the beginning of Zimmer’s journey and soon he finds himself more closely involved with Hector Mann’s story than he could ever have imagined.
Paul Auster is in top form in this book and the storytelling is engrossing. For nearly a whole chapter, Zimmer describes one of Hector Mann’s comedies in great detail—giving a scene by scene description of the cast, the action, the sets, the various facial expressions, right down to Mann’s skillful mustache twitches—which are apparently prominently featured in his movies. What I found fascinating was that while this exercise might have become tedious, on the contrary, he managed to make the description of this silent movie absolutely captivating and I quickly suspended disbelief and indeed started imagining that this movie truly does exist. This is only one of the many layers of illusions in this book. This story lingers on well after the last lines have been read. It’s is my third Paul Auster novel so far, but something tells me there will be a few more.
I rated this book: ★★★★½
March 18, 2009
Quote of the Day
“I feel very optimistic about the future of pessimism.”
~ Jean Rostand, French biologist and writer
March 17, 2009
A Good Day
Even though I’d rather be in bed right now, I thought I should put up this second post, if anything to keep a public record of this day. The first day in a long time that didn’t totally suck because I actually felt kind of okay, almost bordering on happy—kind of. I should say right away that nothing major happened, nothing out of the ordinary or special at all took place*, but that’s hardly the point. It started with me successfully managing to drag myself out of bed before 9 a.m., just in time to make my morning yoga class with J, my landladly who lives downstairs. The class itself was nice and relaxing and just stretching felt great, and I mostly felt proud of myself just to have made it there, considering my track record lately with doing any sort of exercise or getting up at a decent hour. After the relaxation bit at the end, I was ready to get back to my place and crash right back into bed, but I resisted, bribing myself with the promise of almost unlimited playtime on my new iPod videogames, on the condition that I would at least wash the kitchen floor, which I hadn’t done in... let’s just say in quite a while.
I had an appointment with my family doctor, which isn’t something to write home about other than the fact that she is a very caring doctor who always takes plenty of time with each patient to and seems to genuinely care about one’s general wellbeing. I was there for her to just look at my knee which has been bothering me, but more as a preventative measure than anything else, and she too my request seriously instead of treating me like a hypochondriac. Knowing there are still doctors out there who actually care about their patients, and that I was lucky enough to be taken on by her, is always a nice little boost.
My next appointment was my psychologist, who was just a few blocks over. I thought I’d go sit in the waiting room and read the book I had brought with me, feeling good about the fact that I was early for once, as opposed to 5-10 minutes+ late as usual. But instead, I stopped by a coffee shop which is just next door. This place has some of the best lattés in the city and since lunch was going to come late, I decided to indulge in a Cannoli too, one of my favourite desserts and an absolute no-no on my diet, but I decided to ignore the guilt and enjoyed it twice as much.
Not feeling like complete crap makes for more more interesting therapy sessions too as a general rule, and interestingly enough, one of my major topics of conversation today had to do with insights I had gained while reading Death of a Salesman. Nothing I had mentioned in my review, but let’s say I was able to draw many parallels between myself and each character in the play, which is probably not all that exceptional considering the universal appeal this play still enjoys. As a response to my mum’s comment that there are lots of Willy and Linda Lomans in the world, I would say that we all have a little bit of Willie and Linda Loman in us, whether we like to admit it or not.
After the appointment, I got outside and was pleased to find that the sun was still shining and the weather was still clement. I was wearing a new pair of boots for the first time which I had bought several months ago—a source of joy in itself—and then realizing that they were actually comfortable to walk in as well as beautiful, decided to take the 40 minutes walk home, enjoying the fact that for once I was taking advantage of a beautiful day and spending time outdoors.
But the hightlight of the day? The big reward that really clenched it for me? When I got home, I tried on a pair of jeans I hadn’t been able to fit into for quite some time and found they slipped on just perfectly. The fact that I had bought these same jeans last year and called them my “fat” jeans because I couldn’t fit into the yet smaller pairs I own didn’t take away from my satisfaction. Everything is relative as we all know. Even what one considers “happiness” versus what constitutes “misery” and for some of us it’s just a difference between being able to perceive the full spectrum of colours or... not. I’m not asking for the moon, and I’m certainly not impossible to please. I just want to be able to do all the things that most average people can do and be able to feel reasonably good about myself in the process. Not too much to ask, and for once, I got a nice dose of that today. I was starting to think it was no longer within my reach. But thank goodness I was wrong. Amen to that.
* Ok, maybe that’s not quite true.
Photo: from Le Ballon Rouge Directed by Albert Lamorisse, France 1956
Tin Hat Trio (An Auditory Exploration)
I owe this latest discovery to the Genius feature on iTunes, which suggests various artists based on items in your music library. Tin Hat Trio’s strange, quirky yet melodic sound seems perfectly suited to accompany moody indie films. They were in fact featured on the soundtrack for Everything is Illuminated , a movie based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is currently on my reading wish list. I like letting images form themselves in my mind while I listen to this strange chamber music, discovering the sounds as they emerge, unexpected, slightly off kilter, moment by moment. It seems like each song is an anthem for a small contained little world where the laws of physics don’t necessarily apply (think dreamtime). The videos look like (and probably were) produced on a shoestring, but the quirkiness is there in spades. More on YouTube and iTunes if you like.
March 16, 2009
What They Don’t Teach You in Business School
#14: [Death of a Salesman] by Arthur Miller
When I started reading Death of a Salesman, I was convinced I had read it before and just wanted to refresh my mind, but as it turns out, I had confused it with David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and it was actually a new discovery for me. We have Willy Loman, an aging traveling salesman who has managed to convince himself and his family that he is a big success, though all evidence points to the contrary. It appears Willy has never stopped and asked himself whether he’s cut out to be a leader, or what motivates his mad desire for success, but it quickly becomes clear that he has sacrificed his mental health in the process of trying to attain the American Dream. His grown sons are torn between the desire to be like their father, such as the younger Happy, who opts to pursue his father’s dream and try to become the success Willy never could be, and Biff, the eldest who is happiest working on a ranch under the blue skies, but knowing his father sees that option as a failure, still struggles and tries to satisfy Willy’s desire for him to be a businessman, only to find bitter disappointment in the process.
The Willy of “now” is more and more prone to losing touch with his present environment and loses himself in reveries of the past, when life was full of promise and the boys looked up to their father as a hero. But much has happened since then, and much has been left unsaid and soon Willy is confronted with a present which bears no resemblance to the reality which he has conveniently fabricated for himself in order to survive...
I rated it: ★★★★
Chocolate & Strawberries
So it’s been two months now since I got on the Nutrisystem program. I’ve lost some weight though I have no idea how much weight because I refuse to weigh myself and don’t own a scale besides. But that’s not important. What’s important is I’m a little bit smaller than when I started. The food, most of it, is mediocre to disgusting so I just eat the same four dishes that are palatable on rotation every day along with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and lots of dairy for additional dietary requirements, all of which I absolutely love. I didn’t think I’d do this for much longer than a month or two yet I’ve signed up for my third month now. Sure, there’s the convenience of not having to sweat over a hot stove (other than when steaming veggies), but what’s really got me hooked are the desserts. There’s a microwave chocolate cake that’s pretty yummy and caramel-coated popcorn and almond biscotti and the best oatmeal cookies I’ve ever tried (other than my own of course!). Tonight I had some chocolate pudding along with a bunch of strawberries which I dipped into the chocolate. Felt so decadent! So basically I’m doing this diet just so I can keep eating their desserts. All day long I look forward to that moment in the day. Yum. Think they’ll want me as a spokesperson maybe?
March 15, 2009
On Sanity
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination”
~ Mark Twain
“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.”
~ Herman Melville
“Sanity - that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought”
~ Erich Fromm
“Sanity is a cozy lie.”
~ Susan Sontag
“If being sane is thinking there’s something wrong with being different....
I’d rather be completely fucking mental.”
~ Angelina Jolie
March 14, 2009
Those Who Have them and Those Who Don’t (Options)
By the time I get around to creating my blog post usually, it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired and just wanting to get to bed and I’m annoyed at myself for not having fed the blog sooner in the day and I curse myself for having promised my mom and dad that I would post something, anything, every day which is why, every other night, I find a quote I like and just post that so I can hurry to shut down my computer and rejoin my 600 thread count sheets. Tonight in no exception.
In fact, I was about to start writing about some completely other thing, kind of light and insignificant, and then decided that I should follow a link first to see what it’s all about. A new reader on this blog, whom I knew as BrainFlakes on the LibraryThing forums left me a very nice comment along with a link to a piece he wrote called Throwaway Women. It follows a review about Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution, and I highly recommend it. Thinking about these women right now certainly puts things into perspective. For some reason my mind skipped back to some 25 years ago when I was a teenager and being held at a youth detention center (which I suppose was probably the best place for me to be at that point). I remembered meeting countless girls who are now grownups like me, only most of them had parents who hated them and fathers who raped them and sometimes got them pregnant, with boyfriends who were equally abusive to them, whereas that kind of reality to me was unthinkable. Spending time with those girls, I realized that no matter how screwed up I thought my life was, I had many gifts in life and that I should try to make the best of them if for no other reason than the fact that such an option was available to me.
I spend a lot of time worrying these days, and feeling like a failure and a loser and being upset at myself for not being stronger, not being able to take the pressure, and I worry that what few material comforts I’ve gained through my hard work might be taken away at any moment, and it all seems sometimes that the end of the world is just one wrong decision away. But tonight, thinking about those Throwaway Women and then remembering those girls, many of whom were kept locked up to protect them from their own families, I think... even though it might seem to me sometimes that I’m just one step away from becoming that bag lady, I need to remember that I still have options in life. And I keep thanking my lucky stars for that.
March 13, 2009
Quote of the Day
“Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.”
~Oscar Wilde
My shrink no only agreed with me today, but spoke of an entire revamp. “A revamp?” I chuckled, “that’s the kind of thing I get paid to do for magazines”. She was talking about the drugs. Between my complaints and the results she saw on paper from the blood test results, it looks like the cocktail I’m on isn’t so great after all (no, really??). The best (but slightly scary) news I got was that my thyroid activity is on the low side—from the lithium—I knew there was something wrong with that stuff. The good news portion of this news is that I now have a perfectly good medical reason to explain why I’ve been such a lazy bum lately. So after my next appointment with her, I’ll be undergoing a major revamp. And with a little bit of luck, that might help give me enough energy to vacuum the floors.
March 11, 2009
March 10, 2009
Thank God for That!
Today, I wanted to try something a little bit different and get up earlier, tackle the day and feel victorious. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. To wit: I was unable to get myself out of bed this morning until the doorbell rang. I jumped up actually feeling grateful for the disturbance, figuring I would get a bit of a head-start. I buzzed the door open, assuming it was the mailman and was met with two Jehova’s Witnesses instead. Just great. “We are here to bring good news!” said one of the two ladies “may I read you something from the scriptures?” figuring there couldn’t be any harm in that I said go ahead. I was wearing my pyjamas, completely disheveled and blurry-eyed and this woman wanted to discuss theology with me. “What do you think about God? Do you think he is a he’s described in the bible?”. I said while I believe in God, mine is a private kind of spirituality and more than anything I feel there is a force of the universe that some religious groups like to maintain is God and which they then make in their own projected images. Then she showed me an image from their small magazine which looked like a green park with lots of smiling people in it. “Do you know what this is?” she aked me. No I didn’t. “That’s what heaven looks like see? And did you notice? There aren’t any old people in heaven. Everybody is young and happy”. I was going to say something about ageism and ignorance being bliss but I let that one slide. When they realized I wasn’t being receptive, they left after a long while, but not before offering to come again. That visit got me down though I can’t say why exactly. I was trying to imagine afterwards what this woman’s life must be like and wondering if every discussion around the dinner table and any casual exchange with her husband, kids, co-workers and friends always involved God and the scriptures and I concluded that depressingly enough, that was probably the case, yes. She just had that crazy God worshiper gleam in her eyes.
Then, thinking I’d make myself useful, I decided to empty that box that had been sent back to me from the office once and for all and be done with it. But no sooner had I begun that task that I thought “after 5 years of devoted service, hard work and insanity, this is all that I have to show for it”. There were some calling cards and various promos from illustrators and photographers, some stupid award for having made a certain amount of sales on a specific title (not the kind of thing I give a flying &%$# about, believe me) and then a bunch of envelopes, adressed to me in my former capacity as art director. By then it was too late to just stop and back away, but the damage was done. I was pulled into the vortex of negativity, thinking I would never be considered a VIP again, never get to choose who to work with again, never benefit from special perks and extras, never in fact be anyone of any consequence at all. I think that way because I’m not sure I have it in me to build myself up again into that kind of person. It’s a matter of energy as much as of desire, two things I am now woefully lacking in.
By then I wanted to drag myself back to bed, but seeing it was only just past noon or so, determined not to sleep until a decent bed-time. It was beautiful outside, but I had no energy at all to do a thing about it. In fact, that’s usually the case on most days, and this lack of energy is actually felt in every inch of my body and translated into pain. One would think that with all the medication I take, things would look a bit more encouraging somehow and some of the burden would lift, right? I feel like Lithium just kills my soul.
The one thing I’ve been holding on to all day is that tomorrow morning, I will do the first in a series of yoga sessions with my landlady who has offered to trade off a bit of French tutoring for some yoga stretches which I know my body, mind and soul desperately need. I knew that would mean early sessions when she offered, which would probably force me to adopt a more sane schedule, all of which are good things, but I emailed J today telling her I’m very nervous about sleeping right through the alarm clock in the morning and she nicely responded that if that happens, there will always be other sessions to join in.
Yep, so tomorrow’s another day. Thank God for that. (Amen)
March 9, 2009
Wish I Hadn’t Bothered
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
The principal character Harry Haller, also known as Steppenwolf is a strange man, a loner and a recluse. He is convinced that his main problem in life is the fact that he has two dueling personalities, namely that of a wolf; untamed, wild, savage, and that of a cultured man who is in awe of Mozart, and Goethe (two name just those two) and all which is thought to come from evolved and refined minds. He comes to learn one day that we all in fact have countless personalities. But his mental and spiritual suffering become so intolerable to him that he decides the only thing left for him to do is to kill himself. This is when he meets Hermine, a lovely girl who understands the Steppenwolf in all his complexity but also loves having a good time. She teaches Harry how to dance and pretty soon has him taking full advantage of the nightlife and beautiful women. Harry is happy for the first time ever, though he feels that this happiness cannot last.
I did not like this book. The main reason is that Harry reflected back to me all those things which I dislike about myself, in particular this insistence on living from the mind and not being able to break free and just have a good time for it’s own sake. The book seemed pedantic to me. Some notions of Buddhism, were repeated over and over again which made the book feel more like a school manual than a novel. In parts of the book, namely towards the end where he ends up in the Magic Theater—For Madmen Only! I just wanted Hesse to move on and couldn’t understand what point he was trying to make if not to just show how absurd life and humanity is. This did not come as a big surprise, to say the least.
I rated this book: ★★
Quote of the Day
“Improvement makes straight roads,
But the crooked ones without improvement
Are roads of genius”
~William Blake
Not sure what he’s talking about, but I like the sound of it.
March 8, 2009
The Venetian’s Wife
The Venetian’s Wife by Nick Bantock
Funny that I ended up reading two Nick Bantock books back to back, since I’d had both of them for so long and usually like to break things up. But I listed them on BookMooch and they were both taken within minutes, giving me a last chance to read them before sending them out. I’d had The Venetian's Wife for over 12 years in my library. For that whole time was under the impression that I had already read it and when I opened it I saw I had penned “Christmas 1996” on an opening page, which brought back a vague memory that my father had probably given it to me. I had probably looked through it then set it aside thinking I’d read it later as some point and the rest is ancient history. So it was quite a wonderful surprise when I discovered a wholly new (to me) story. Where I felt The Museum at Purgatory fell short as far as the storyline goes, The Venetian’s Wife grabbed me from the beginning. A young woman working at a bland museum job is contacted via email one day by a complete stranger who asks her if she’ll work for him, her mission being to find four missing sculptures out of a collection of 42 depictions of Hindu gods. The design of the book was very appealing and the drawings and collages were quite beautiful and even included pages made to look like they were part of a catalogue and magazine, and though there weren’t necessarily illustrations on every page, it still felt richly crafted. I'm definitely glad I took the time to check whether I had actually read this book as I thought, or I would have seriously missed out. The moocher of this book works at a school in the Philippines, and I like thinking that it’ll go through many children’s hands, maybe inspiring new generations of artists and creative minds.
I rated this book: ★★★★½
March 7, 2009
Relativity: Don’t Try This at Home
It’s all a little bit confusing today. I sort of jumped the gun last night when I went ahead and changed all my clocks one hour ahead. In the back or the apartment is the kitchen and bedroom where there are plenty of clocks and electronics needing manual adjustments. Then in the front, where my living room, office/lounge area is, all the clocks are self-regulated (on the computer, cable box, iPhone etc), which means when I woke up today, I thought it was already after noon and by the time I got to the living room two minutes after it was actually a whole hour earlier. Then a few hours later looking out the kitchen window, I was glad to see that at 5:00 p.m. there was still plenty of light out only to realize once I’d returned to the living room that it was only just past four o'clock and evening was fast approaching already. Someone more brilliant than me would make some comment that my little experiment is yet another demonstration of the relativity of time that and maybe that’s one way Einstein might have come up with this brilliant theory to begin with. But I digress.
I didn’t bother to change back all those other clocks today because honestly don’t want to go through all that trouble only to have to change them forward again tonight, but it’s funny how living in two time zones does play tricks on your brain.
Pic by Smiler
Springing Ahead...
Excuse me,
do you have the time?
I’m just asking because this whole Daylight Saving Time business throws me for a loop twice a year, every year, when I’m trying to figure out the time difference between here (i.e. Montreal) and other parts of the world (e.g. France and Israel) since everybody changes their clocks at different times according to various policies. Could we not ALL, i.e. all of us around the world change our clocks at the same time??? to avoid all this confusion? And that’s not taking those crazy farmers in Saskatchewan into consideration, nor a bunch of other countries and territories that never change their clocks. Sheesh. Maybe if we all had reliable time zones... I don’t know, might be a step toward achieving world peace? That’s probably overly optimistic. It’s actually likely to start more wars, seeing how humanity has dealt with trying to impose any kind of system so far (I’m thinking religious wars and genocides, for example). I bet anything there are no clocks at all in heaven. Or if there are, they’re there purely as fashion accessories but nobody ever bothers winding them or changing the batteries.
I wonder... does that mean it’s always daytime in heaven, or is it always night time? When does the sun rise and fall if there is no time at all? Or do they just have artificial lighting? That sounds kinda hellish to me... hmm...I’ll mull that one over as I go to sleep... after having changed all the clocks here first, that is.
March 6, 2009
Winter Rave
It’s 4º today. FOUR DEGREES celcius. That's 39 F. Which by Canadian standards is practically summer! Or, ok, maybe more like practically spring. Or... fine, maybe more like a really really warm winter day. It’s grey and blah out there, but who cares? It’s just four degrees! I’ll be running around in shorts and sandals in a few minutes! Or maybe not, but it’s the thought that counts.
/End of winter rave.
Today’s Musical Discovery
Cibelle singing Green Grass, a song by Tom Waits. Am probably buying the album The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves on iTunes soon.
Edit: according to the notes accompanying this video on iTunes, the illustrator who worked on this video is Adams Carvalho. He’s a Brazilian artist and I did not know him before, but his work is very inspiring. The video was first filmed and edited and then Adams drew on each frame, which is what gives the lines the nervous quality you see. Very cool. Of course every time I watch it I can't help but think hey, I coulda done that! and sure yeah, for what it's worth, but only if I made an effort to draw every day and get the right people to see my drawings and dedicated myself to being an illustrator, among many other things, right? Right./end of edit.
March 5, 2009
Something is Better than Nothing.
“It is much more entertaining to be boring than to be interesting.”
~ Amélie Nothomb
I just came across that quote today. I’m not sure whether I like Nothomb as a writer or not. Someone gave me one of her books once and I couldn’t get past the first fifty pages because it just seemed too depressing to me. I haven’t tried reading anything of hers since, but this quote works for me. Kind of takes the pressure off. I feel like I’ve painted myself into a corner. Having come to the understanding that what motivated my choices and actions before was the desire to perform for performance’s sake, and having understood how futile that is, I’ve been avoiding anything remotely close to performing, or putting on a show, or painting on a prettier face to try to make a good impression.
But of course, since I have this blog that I put out there every day, I can’t help but hope for an audience. Only what kind of show to you put on for an invisible audience which is mostly consisted of your own mom and dad when the writer and director are on strike, all the other actors have taken on other projects and taken the lights and sound men with them, and all the props, costumes, and makeup are locked away? You do what you gotta do. Sometimes the motivation is there, and most times it isn’t but you just keep on putting on a show, however sparse and minimalistic it might be. Some days you don’t even want to bother to get out of bed, and though you fight it, sometimes that force wins over after all. Given the circumstances and what’s left to work with, there’s nothing scarier than feeling like you still have to be entertaining, charming, amusing and most of all, interesting. So boring is where it’s at. Not bored mind you. Just real and not particularly joyful or fun.
The picture? I took it this afternoon with my camera phone as I was on my way out to buy cat food. I’ve been getting books in the mail almost every day since last week. They’re coming from all over the world thanks to this BookMooch site I’ve been talking about. I took a picture of this package right out of the mailbox because I thought it looked so nice and so bright with those pretty heart-shaped stamps from France. For some reason it doesn’t look as bright on the web as it does on my own screen. But with everything else so grey and dirty-looking outside even just a little touch of colour helps brighten up the day a little you know? It would be safe to say that those stamps were the brightest part of my day today. Which is something. Because something is definitely better than nothing.
Quote of the Day
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape
finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
March 2, 2009
Night Terrors
So confused. I can still hear their cawing even though they’ve been gone for a while now. They were at it all night and well into the morning. I thought it was all a bad dream until I looked out my bedroom window and saw droves of them filling up the great big tree just outside my window. I couldn’t tell what was dream or reality even as I saw them break through the windows and come after the cats and I. After I realized it was just a bad dream, their cawing grew louder and louder until I could hear them talking to me and saying frightening things I couldn’t fully understand. And still their cawing filled the skies and my dread would not let go of me. I thought I should put in some earplugs to block out their horrible noises, but then became unreasonably attached to the bed covers, feeling certain that those evil crows would seize their opportunity the moment I exposed myself. When I did manage to block my ears, I thought I could still hear them, and this uncertainty felt even more unbearable. This went on for what seemed like days. Even the cats did not bring me any comfort—they seemed too afraid for that. Now I’ve woken up and it’s dark outside. I know I’ve lost an entire day to a bad spell of night terrors. The surrounding trees have all grown quiet again. But it’ll take a while longer for the persistent cawing to subside inside my head.
A Murder of Crows
Earlier this evening I felt like there was a remake of Alfred Hitchock’s The Birds beings filmed in my neighborhood. I don’t remember what kinds of birds Hitchcock had used, whether they were pigeons or seagulls or a collection of various winged creatures but it was quite obvious from the sounds in the sky and the blackened trees that thousands of crows had decided to convene in several of the tallest trees close to my apartment. I needed to get a carton of milk at the corner store but did without because I was honestly too scared of the birds to put my nose outside. Now according to the Medicine Cards, Crows are the keepers of the sacred law, their eyes are the gateway to the supernatural, and they are omens of change, among other things. I don’t suppose they were all here just to help me now, were they?
Top: Unknown, Bottom: James Alridge, A Murder of Crows (detail), 2006, David Risley Gallery
March 1, 2009
Quote of the Day
“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old
age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”
~ Robertson Davies
