“SOME 350 dangerous or “developerabandoned” housing estates, in need of urgent work for the safety of residents, have been identified in a Government report published today.
The developments represent almost 8,000 houses and account for about one in six of the 2,800 “ghost” estates identified last October by the National Housing Development Survey, which was commissioned by the Department of the Environment.”
(Source The Irish Times)
At gymnastics last night there was a scene between two males redolent of the Japanese wrestling scene in Women in Love. Have to say I rather enjoyed clocking that one!
There’s a young woman who’s very passionate about literature in the group. Lately, much to my delight, she talks excitedly about what she’s reading or read each week and I listen while I am standing on my hands. I was glad to alert her to the Lawrence scene in our midst. “look ‘ere at that” says I indicating les deux.
She hadn’t read Lawrence’s Women in Love, but it may gain an added resonance when she does!
*
Spiderman has reappeared at gymnastics. I thought he hadn’t been around. He’d sprained his ankle very badly and it took four months to recover. How’d you do it? I was doing a double full back somersault one and a half twists … he began …
just looked up the noise by-laws for the City of Vancouver and noted this within them:
“Amplified sound of a radio, television, player or other sound playback device or amplification equipment, or the sound of musical instrument that emanates from a motor vehicle should not be easily heard by someone outside the motor vehicle.”
It’s very specific this part of the by-law thus beware if you are thinking of whipping out your mouth organ. What is the likelihood of someone playing a musical instrument inside a car?
Yet there is no mention of putting your hand on the horn. In other words the car can make music, not the passengers (but the car alarm cannot make music the bylaw covers that)
Being Female. Eileen Myles
When I think about being female I think about being loved. What I mean by that: I have a little exercise I do when I present my work or speak publicly or even write (like this). In order to build up my courage I try to imagine myself deeply loved.
GO HERE AND READ THE REST: http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/being-female
Nobody rocks it the way Eileen does. Print it up and read it on those days when it needs to be read.
A man yesterday was telling me a great story about noise. The story he told was about someone telling him to be quiet. As he told the story we were both running side by side and as the story concluded or then repeated its last loop, we became louder and louder until when I clarified one detail he had to shout it across to me. We laughed a great deal at the story. It seemed apt to laugh loudly at a ridiculous story about telling someone to be quiet.
Vancouver is a city fixated on silence and instruction at times. This can veer into instruction on silence as the man told me in his story. What’s curious is yet its located on these serious fault lines and we know that with earthquakes comes a horrible first sound. Is this why people are instructing each other on volume?
Helen Potrebenko blog
Anyone looking for more info on Helen’s work needs to jog on over to her blog: Doing my share of the world’s work.
You’ll find some of her poems and other writings are uploaded there for your delight and reading.
There’s a wind event happening outside right now. It’s reassuring. Like the world has lungs. The wind lifts and rustles all the parts of my greenhouse, reminding me that it is there. I am already excited about the community garden this year and must get back to agonizing and studying the seed catalogue for the hundreds of varieties before I settle on 3 packets of beetroot seeds and chocolate bachelor button flowers (so handsome).