Tripping over Anne Carson, deliberating on comfort

Today I was searching for another interview and tripped over this Anne Carson interview on Writers and Company. I loved her book Nox. The tactile unfolding, fragments and collage and what it intended. During the interview she tells a story about a teacher who taught her Latin at lunch time in school, whom she subsequently learnt took off to a farm and became a hermit. It reminded me of the single or individual teachers in life who impact us and how important that impact can be. I particularly enjoyed her tale because it reminded me of a wonderful, eccentric French teacher I had, who was very encouraging and supportive of my desire to create odd, effusive sentences in a language I could barely mutter where’s the park, Jean-Paul is sitting by the side of a lake and can I have a raspberry ice-cream in. When it came to writing she would smile at my requests for vocabulary or attempts to add details and delight in them. Strangely in hindsight many of my vocabulary requests concerned the weather!

I must read more of Anne Carson’s work as I am only familiar with a small amount of it.

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I drank a cup of Lea Valley Tools tea today and it was very acceptable. The tin of tea was a present from a much loved friend several years ago and I’ve admired the tin, but never religiously engaged with its contents. That will change! It was a particular taste I was looking for and needed to cure a headache from today’s low clouds. And the green tin delivered. Later in the evening thinking maybe it could be a hint, I took up the tools catalogue for a bit of comfort reading.

I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort and how and where we go for it, or how and where it may be right there beside us. I think possibly because yesterday my partner’s brother gave me the most incredible food to eat that he had prepared and I was very taken by the near musical notes in its taste. Also, because our winter and spring have been strangely colder than usual we are still clutching blankets and putting on scarves, which brings me again to the consolation of comfort.

Reading the Mahon Tribunal

Here’s a link to last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne — an extended edition to discuss the findings of the Mahon Tribunal report.

Yesterday’s Prime Time is also on the RTE player.

Two or three bo…

Two or three bouts of hail stones today.

I liked the way they kept revisiting. Spaced out like an alarm clock that repeats itself. Except they are such a musical force the way they clatter.

Another thing that I respect about hailstones is their duration. It’s kinda unique in weather terms. They really seem in control of themselves. They fall only as long as they are interested and then cease, cut you the viewer, the consumer off and you can never quite tell when that might be. They are not on the dimmer switch hailstones. They are on and bang they are off.

Tonight it is very cold.

Elsewhere cabbage seeds are germinating and 250 million euros later we discover that the Mahon Tribunal has deemed Bertie was talking through his hose for the past 15 years. I was thinking of a more financial effective way to determine this: I think customs officers have ways to tell if people are lying, something to do with looking left or in a particular direction. I was thinking if there was a fault line under Ireland the bridges would have been toppling today from the shudder until i remembered all the other tribunals and how little change has come out of them.

Reading the car park hours

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to VPL last night for the Incite reading. It was a great, lively night and I loved reading with Tamara Faith Berger and Ben Wood. I am just about to crack Tamara’s book Maidenhead. I hugely admired Tamara’s reading. We had a great exchange about writing and thinking and so on. Ben also told me fun tales about when he was a singer/songwriter.  One thing he said that stayed with me was a description of trying to persuade someone you really know will like a particular album to listen to it and the resistance therein. Great stories into the small hours. I managed to get my car locked in the car park which in turn became another story. Thank you to the very kind nightwatchman who helped me.

Malarky thank you.

Thank you so much to everyone who is engaging with my novel Malarky.

I have received some lovely responses from early readers.

I greatly appreciate every reader who takes precious time to read my book.

Merci encore. Deeply grateful.

I am looking forward to reading at the Vancouver Public Library (Alice McKay room) on Weds evening at 7.30pm.

Pandering alpha

It’s clear after listening to an NPR piece today on neuroscience and creativity that reading the book on How to build a shed induced a state of alpha brain waves. I wonder if I built a model of a shed would it do likewise. If I was to attempt to repeat the process I read about. Perhaps some topics are just to be read about.

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I was previously thoroughly enamoured to penguins. I did not think any creature could top the penguin, but they’ve been joined by the male Panda. I had no idea that the male panda has to be able to do a handstand as part of its scenting ritual (pre-mating carryon). My reincarnation options now include coming back as a male panda, note to the reincarnation list maker, if you are out there making notes. Mark my reincanration file with checks against penguin, panda, weather forecaster and shed builder.

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The weather is doing curious things. I read about storms in the plural in a tweet from Ohio. (are they successive or parallel I wonder?) There was a storm reported in Mayo today also. Here a dirty cloud took up the sky for several hours, then gave way to a descending chill, a biting wind that surprised me and is now tinkling out there. A bite of metal rain alright.

I am already excited about the new weather forecasting info a student of atmospheric science sent my way, despite not yet comprehending what the maps mean. The scope of what they might mean is plenty satisfying. My excitement is what the maps might show in the morning when I click on them and fail to comprehend them. This is the beauty of being a fiction writer. I can draw my own conclusions!

Final Victory

“For Tony, ideas were a kind of emotion, something he felt and cared about in the way that most people do about feelings like sadness or love.”

Read the whole essay here

Tony Judt A Final Victory by Jennifer Houmans.

Six women and a…

Six women and a concertina for La na Troika celebrations yesterday. The place was spinning. The stew was great.

Three women,  five knitting needles and a bundle of beads for this evening’s knitting adventure.

In between the two events a walk around Kits Point with my lovely fella, scouring the topography of gorse, bramble bushes and trying to figure out: is that a wall holding it up? And which buildings across the water there were added since the 1970’s?

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Yesterday I undertook a significant indulgence and read a book about how to build a shed. On the walk today I couldn’t cease examining the foundations of things.

Parrot toed

Here’s a volume of dictionaries I’d love to own: The Dictionary of American Regional English and here’s 100 words from them.

My exposure to American Regional English may have mainly been through song so far.

I enjoyed parrot-toed, nebby and quill pig in the list. (could be handily patch worked into he was a nebby, parrot-toed, old quill pig)

I have a relative who uses futz and putzing around so that word crosses the border.

Mega-watty bluster

Overnight a major wind event, the like of which hasn’t been seen I hazard since 2006. Your trusty forecaster here was convening with it when it began around the midnight mark.

This system surprised me. Yesterday I noted wind warnings for Victoria and Campbell River but nothing for Nanaimo. I was suspicious!

By 1am I was outside in my pj’s scrambling to save my greenhouse which had risen and blown over the balcony. I settled in for a serious weather event. It blew all night and all day and well I am keeping an eye on it. There’s still the odd wave.

What was particularly fascinating with this storm was the icy-grip on the cheeks, which burned into mine, as I ventured along the road to inspect the local foliage and collect caffeine so many hours later. (would that be 10-11 hrs maybe)

I was laughing as around 1am I checked the readings and they offered a paltry 37-54 kph. Huh, says I not likely. By morning they’d finally upped them to 80kph. Truly we need a bit more edge from our weather peeps.

For a while there I was encouraging some collaborative forecasting/weather reporting on Facebook with some pals dotted about the Island. Very fun when we get collective weather weigh-ins going on.  Highly recommend it.

My best weather collaborator is my mother, who sends daily reports and maintains an enthusiasm for weather news from the other sea (or ocean) to her.  Between the two of us we have the Atlantic and the Pacific covered.

Anyway Glory Be to the Weather! We are well provided for. Honestly I love the weather in Vancouver more and more, it is a source of startling fulfillment for me. I heartily encourage everyone to pay attention to it. Deep meteorological topography.