Piped
I should be afloat with considering the implications of indentation on my (novel) sentences instead I remain abuzzed from a documentary The Pipe I saw at today’s Projecting Change Film Festival at SFU Woodwards.
Here at Literature et Folie we’ve been supporting the Rossport 5 for many years with the link on the old sidebar, but The Pipe is quite an extraordinary documentation of the struggle the community of Rossport endured when they took on the govt- enabled – corporate- bully Shell. This film was particularly moving for me being of strong Mayo stock myself and it taking place in a very familiar landscape. Knowing that landscape is also to know the implications of what Shell proposed to inflict on it. As Pat ‘The Chief’ McDonnell said “You can’t trust the Bog”. I watched the documentary with several other women from rural Ireland and it was a staggering watch and emotional. We talked after of the incredible strength and courage of those who stood up and persisted in the quest of justice. Even though the community is irrevocably damaged by what took place over the 8 years and the divisiveness it inflicted amongst them — it’s still an incredible tribute to the plain person’s determination to speak up and resist the bullying tactics that are employed to put the fear of God into people and suppress their voices.
The most galling and appalling moment in the film is actually the shot of Bertie Ahern talking about people “breaking the law”. It almost sent me out of seat with fury, given what we now know of the damage to the country by successive Fianna Fail governments and the wanker bankers still on the loose and NAMA -itis that continues to closet them from facing the music for the mess they made.
The sheer audacity that the govt enabled corporate bully assumed they could plough in and plant their pipeline any old where that suited, with no regard for the livelihood and safety of the people living there. That those people had to go to the European court to get any sense at all and were thrown in jail and abused by the local Garda force. But still they rose again. And by the sounds of it their struggle continues and is far from over
Here is the trailer for the documentary, I’d highly recommend you try to see the film as its a great reminder of the need to speak up and refuse to be silenced regardless of the personal price & discomfort that comes from that stance. Justice is not a popularity contest, it’s a hard battle and in this case, the people prevailed momentarily at least. (Thanks to the divine intervention of mechanical failure, followed by the courts).
Mason bee’d
At the garden today i was delilah to hear the Mason bees chattering in their little house, which is located right beside my plot. At first I couldn’t distinguish what the sound was, but then I noted activity in the little plug holes and realized the bees were remarking to each other.
I finally plunged some seeds into the soil and tidied up the strawberry plants and deslugged the landscape. The geraniums I collected from the giveaway garden out by UBC last summer have begun to bloom and … they are purple, a lilac purple colour, which I am thrilled about, since I’ve been romancing purple tulips all season long.
The Mother’s Day begonia from my Beloved is a strong, annunciating pink in a corner of its own and I have to say I had a moment of very brief admiration over the fact my plot is waking up. Partly the strawberry patch is so healthy looking because it’s had so many years to establish itself.
My planting was so erratic that I have a feeling it may not produce quite the plumage I’d hope for, so will pick up a few more starts in case disaster strikes.
Had a lovely tour of Mme Beespeaker’s garden tonight — have a sweet bunch of Forget-me-nots- on my desk from it, adopted a pumpkin, a zucchini plant and my first nasturtium ! And enjoyed some of her fennel in a tea I brewed tonight. The guinea pigs also downed a chunk of said fennel. I love her garden because it is like several gardens in one. A whole nesting of different continents. Plus Bees live there, which makes it even more special.
Of the four visual art related shows/installations/events I’ve attended lately two were deliberately a stretch, one had no idea it was a stretch (and the sense of oblivion had a longevity to it) and the final one was chronically trying to stretch and attach importance to something, which was really unremarkable.
The first two were affecting, two videos and a book, designed to frustrate and mislead so the viewer could depart within that frustration, the latter two lacked insight being too (two?) wrapped up in themselves, even though they made plenty ‘noise’ or repeated rattling.
The stretch is rather a recurrent theme in Vancouver. High lactic acid?
Middle of Moravia’s Boredom and I begin to see why he never could have written a response to this book in the form of Cecilia. His conception of women is too limited. I shall read his other works to see if it remained in abeyance
It would have to be another writer who appropriated and inverted what he established here perhaps.
What he established remains compelling, if limited. Crochet – he knits only on the one needle.
En famille
Each morning a conversation takes place between my two males that I listen to, often, it takes place in the next room but today it was in the bed beside me over the head of a free range guinea pig between the lot of us. Lately the exchange is a recap on events of The Game or The Match and information related to injuries, speculation and adjudication. (In other words the late breaking news of yester-eve).
Today for emphasis my son addressed his dad as “Dude, blah blah blah” It was very touching.
I enjoy these daily exchanges (and sometime heckle them to little effect) the same way I enjoy the weather forecast and boiling the kettle. They are the markers of my day. The morning exchange indicates the day has begun. The boyos have woken and onward we all trek.
Moravia’s Boredom
I have been reading Alberto Moravia’s Boredom intensely during some sleep-disturbed nights and long sick-bed days. I started it sometime ago, but read over to Breton’s Nadja and much else before finally coming back to meet it encore a few days ago.
100 pages in, I went back and read the introduction written by a friend of Moravia’s who used to take walks with him. Moravia the essay explained walked because of sciatica and boredom. I don’t tend to read introductory essays because i prefer to read the writer’s work as it was intended read in the first instance. But in this instance I was glad whatever sent me to it did, because what I learnt tied in with some of the motivation and query behind my deciding to read this particular book in the first place.
I have to say of it that it’s compulsive and like crochet. The character he depicts in the first person is very familiar, almost uncomfortably familiar. You may be surprised how familiar he is. Perhaps it’s not the he or the character that’s familiar but the agitation and grinding nature of his dissatisfaction, his numb distance and flattened affect. There’s something universal in that. That’s what he’s captured — the grinding unease — in this portrait, despite the specifics of class and privilege and culture in this Roman depiction.
I am not quite finished the novel yet, so on va voir where else it goes. Would love to have seen Moravia write a second version and invert this novel and retell it from the perspective of Cecilia. (Boredom Deux perhaps). A response to Dino perhaps.
collaring
From: why collar size matters when it comes to men’s shirts.
“Get the collar size wrong and you may end up with an ill-fitting garment. In the best case, there will be a yawning gap between collar and neck and you will give the appearance of swimming in your shirt. Get it too tight and you start endangering your health as the carotid and jugular veins in your neck get restricted for 8 hours a day if you wear a tie for work.”
Eh voila! The puzzling world of the collar.