M.D.K.A.

When I first read this obituary(Margaret Atwood’s ma) on Monday I thought it remarkable and considered the advantage of having writerly offspring to pen one’s obit, until a few hours later the image of the broom, the bear and the ice-dancing all made sense. It was the life that was remarkable, which must have meant the obituary wrote itself.

On the shelf with James

Colm Toibin reflects on how Henry James wrestled with the effect of marriage and being broke on the artist.

I’m partial to these essays. They provide the literary equivalent of the Puffin’s daily requests for me to disclose exactly what his stuffed horse is thinking about him. You can be beating an egg and may have the passing wonder of whether Mr James worried about putting eggs in the cupboard and eh voila Colm Toibin’s (or whomever) dished it up. No need to trawl four biographies … the man was frantic over eggs. These days however James might have needed to be a bit more frantic about the likelihood of finding someone who’d be willing to put up with him.

Such literary pairings are to be encouraged. I’d like to know more about the kitchen table of the author who wrote The Tenants of Moonbloom, (excellent book) whose name presently escapes me. Edwin, or Edward something. The kitchen table is of significance because he’d a bunch of children and apparently sat at it and wrote with them milling about. Therefore it must have been some incredible table to help sustain his concentration. Hopefully some writer will pair off with him and reflect…

More generally no writer ever need worry ’bout the impact of marriage on their work if they accept as previously, proudly asserted in this blog the best person for them to have a relationship with is the leg of a table.

Broke? Here’s Orwell

If you’re broke, and if you’re a writer it’ll be a permanent state that you’ll adjust to like a penicillin allergy … well here’s some company Mr Orwell. Compare notes, put yer feet up listen and find some comfort in this Radio 4 Classic Serial

 Down and out in Paris and London By George Orwell, adapted by PG Morgan

On the shelf

At the library on the DVD shelf people do not borrow Charlie Chaplin collections, nor Indiana Jones. I counted seven rejected Charlo collections on an otherwise bare looking shelf.

Folks have this ritual where they hurriedly flick through what’s there, nearly taking neighbouring arms off in the process, slam the shelf back. Repeat process. Look dismayed.

I’d love to know exactly what they are all hoping to find. Maybe the excellent documentary I grabbed last week about The New York Times crossword. Another curiousity is why the boxes often emit an odour that suggests they’ve hibernated under someone’s armpit for six months.

To stay or go

A browse at a charity shop yesterday made me think  it’s as interesting to consider what people do not throw out, as much as what they do chuck.

People do not dump Scrabble. They do toss Scrabble Junior, Trivial Pursuit, odd looking games that may be inspired by tv shows that I would recognize if I could find any tv shows, but my television has gone on a strike refuses to display any pictures except fizz. Jigsaw puzzles. Bakelite ovens, whatever they may be. Gilbert and Sullivan records. 

The best thing I spotted was a foot spa … with the water still in it.  A red petrol canister nearby made me wonder if it too came complete with fuel.

In a burst of nostalgia I considered bringing home a hoover that we had in our house back in 1975. But the other four vacuums presently co habiting in my cupboard do not deserve another pal to the tune of 34 dollars.  Really 34 bucks. Charity shopping is enjoying a very high rate of inflation these days. Gone are the days of picking up a nifty old radio to gather dust.

Goodnight Mr V.

For those of you reflecting or saying bon soir there’s some great columns he wrote here. Also The New York Times have collected some of his articles in one useful spot

 Was wandering along the road reading the introduction to his essay collection today and chortling, when a woman passing said “he’s very dead” which provided me with a good solution to my usual emotive whittering along the injustice of writers I like not being immortal. One could just as easily insist he’s not dead. “Not at all, I’ve just seen him,” I could have called back. Immediately felt better about the fact he is. The long pause between books would give sufficient time for necessary acceptance. This 24 hour news culture means we are getting news so rapidly, far too rapidly, before we’re ready for it.  In anycase in that introduction … he’s hilariously alive. Look it up. Mustily must, mustily must.

A wandering with The Met

So there I was a wandering along the street with this opera broadcast in my ear  — in an attempt to block out the din of the traffic more than any true operatic appreciation — when I made the astonishing discovery. Football and opera: nothing in between them.

The CBC radio 2 have this rather useful broadcast each weekend Live from the Met in New York. Seemingly it broadcasts to dozens of countries and that’s why it takes so long to hook up. There’s a lengthy preamble, according to the website it’s a man called Howard, but it was a husky voiced woman in my ear. The reason I was so acutely aware of the preamble was because I was desperately awaiting the orchestra to strike up a note. Anything.. the tap of a baton would do, but no instead much speculation about the Italian opera whose name was mentioned 24 times and I have subsequently forgotten, followed by resident experts (a young sounding bloke perhaps) commenting on its origins, its intentions blah blah. Exactly like they do before a football match. You know Johnny’s knee injury set him back last season, watch Jimmy carefully who learned to play in the back alley kicking around an old can except obviously the comments were a bit more sophisticated. “In the second act …. this composer likes a lot of bodies on the stage … he was very influenced by the colour red … his mother forced him to sew curtains endlessly thus this opera really is a hommage to a hem ..”  But it provokes the same frustration. Would you ever get on with it? Blast that trumpet, raise that curtain because I can still hear the darn traffic and I only want some music to get myself across 12 streets and I’ve now crossed ten of them and no one has sung a note and I am refusing to push the button on the player for fear I might crash unexpectedly into some country tune about widows needing cars.

Finally a note did arrive. A note that sounded out of tune but is likely not out of tune it’s my hearing that’s out of tune with opera. I feel like opera is something a mature ear has to confront, so my ears have been signed up for confrontation.

Spotted: iceclimbers on global warming

Awash as I am with admiration for anyone who climbs anything, having recently climbed a little something myself, I was initially curious about this story. Not sure you need to really be climbing to see effects of global warming; a quick peek out the window or at the barometer should suffice. Also, I’m sure they didn’t hop to Kenya or any of those mountains.  I wish those 7 day ships between New York and Liverpool like the Queen Elizabeth with deck class would make a comeback.

Iceclimbers give eyewitness accounts of global warming 

The Associated Press

Mountaineers are bringing back first-hand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose.
  
The observations are transforming a growing number of alpine and ice climbers, some of whom have scientific training, into witnesses of global warming. Increasingly, they are deciding not to leave it to scientists to tell the entire story.
  
“I personally have done a bunch of ice climbs around the world that no longer exist,” said Yvon Chouinard, a renowned climber and surfer, and founder of Patagonia, Inc., an outdoor clothing and gear company that champions the environment.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/07/climbers-warming.html