November 16, 2006
The ice rink: a smudge from every decade
So there I was admiring the way ice rinks can gather and maintain a smudge from every decade without having to bid any of it goodbye. The reason I was able to deduce such an astonishing conclusion was I was freezing my arse off in the bleachers, while my six-year-old puffin was zipping and twisting between grown, middle, and diddy men, women, children, pushchairs (indeed you can take your baby skating in the stroller, literally ice rinks adapt to every decade’s needs), wheelchairs. Somewhere out there was his father. Yours truly has only ever tried it twice, to little success and such intense discomfort in the foot region that I’m not tempted to repeat it. It’s perishing up there in the stands, with an electric heat strip hanging down in three spots, with no real heat ever reaching the top of your head. I was struck by how ice rinks refuse to cover up their age, so the hokey looking polar bear complete with woolly hat and ice hockey stick painted on the wall probably arrived in the 1970’s say. Then there’s the bunting flags which openly declare which season the various teams obtained them and finally the unapologetic soundtrack of Boney M bouncing the foot of the Grand-dad beside me, with mp3 player in his ears (Boney M overruled whatever was going on in the ears), and thermos at the ready, while his grandson skates alone below.
So out I meander to try warm the bloodflow at the desk and the woman explains she learnt to skate in this rink at age three and attended the preschool in the same building and oh, they’re ripping it down to build a fancy new one because of the impending Olympics. Drat and damnation I had been so uplifted at the prospect of revisiting the 1970’s, 80’s every Sunday and concluded the only other place which records the decades so proudly and incidentally in its walls is the outdoor swimming pool, which they’ve been threatening to destroy for two years. I wonder if the Boney M tapes will go into the same mush, when the bulldozers plough through the poor polar bear.
November 3, 2006
The peril of Aunts: Mrs Desai gettin’ it in the ear
Well Kiran Desai is going to need that humility I mentioned: God help writers when the ever noble medja phones up your Aunt.
Residents of the Himalayan town featured in Kiran Desai’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Inheritance of Loss are upset over her portrayal of them.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2006/11/02/desai-booker-nepalese.html
Desai’s aunt recently told a magazine in India that she has not told people in the town of Kalimpong about her niece because “the book contains many insensitive things.”
Now the curious thing is where exactly can a writer write about without the inhabitants taking umbrage? Will we have to invent ungeographically placeable (forgive appalling grammar) cities, towns, humps in the road. A generic lego-town where no beggar (meaning general person, not person clutching a bowl) can get offended. To say nothing of the peril of having to write only inoffensive characters who do nothing wrong or perhaps do nothing at all. Is it the onset of the blank page in publishing…
In the meantime be careful what you say to your Aunt when she’s beside you at next years Christmas dinner, birthday, family get together, if you run into her when collecting your contraceptive prescription, buying a shoelace. They’re powerful creatures … they don’t mince words.
I once had a conversation with my Aunt while watching telly (I had a broken jaw at the time so perhaps conversation is an exaggeration) in which I professed an interest in watching a video nation piece about this mad looking Morris dancer who worked for the Council that was three minutes long. Rubbish, she said, it’s Saturday night, I want to watch a quiz show. I’m will be glad I had a broken jaw if the papers ever phone her for a quote.
November 2, 2006
Ah humility…as reassuring as a good cuppa tea
Here’s Kiran Desai on her Booker winning novel: The Inheritance of Loss:
“I don’t think it’s a perfect book,” she says of her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss. “There are bits that seem too slow or too fast. And in some places, I don’t think it works at all.”
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/desai.html
Frankly, I think the woman deserved to win on her humility alone and patience sitting at the kitchen table for eight years. It’s uplifting to see writers win who have that dazed, “behind closed curtains for many years” look about them, rather than the chumped up, “I’m pleased with myself on a Monday afternoon whether I win a book prize or not” alternative. There’s no science to a book prize, if there were, books could come with literary steriods such as: yellow ribbons, fifty dollars slipped in the back, nude snaps of authors head on a better body, petrol coupons, green shield stamps for those hoping a 1970’s vibe might swing it for them, or low income tax returns with long overdue bills attached — the mercy inducing steroid. It’s got to be as random as choosing a hamster in a cage of thirty.
November 1, 2006
Seperated at birth: Blogging and leafblowers
ok so, I cannot understand blogging. It’s like learning a dialect spoken by a remote group of chickens and rather like having to read the instructions on a new camera. It’s very unlikely I will ever grasp exactly what all these peculiar sounding words (avatar? er?sound like a bus pass to go on board the Starship Enterprise.) actually mean or do. So it’s very likely that my posts will be higgledy-piggeldy. On a completely different note: leafblowers. En route to the school two men in hats and scarfs blow leafs and get paid to do so. They blow leafs right into my small face. They turn the blowers away with an appropriate extended glower, but the dust still lines the bottom of my eyes. More importantly what’s the point? I heard a woman say once: they can destroy a lawn And? If a lawn gets destroyed? So armies of men and women and concerned citizens blow leafs from garden to passerby’s face en route to a black plastic bag. Meanwhile the earth heats up beyond anything imaginable. Al Gore walks out on stage to give his speech to the folks. People plug in leaf blowers. It’s like the language of blogging. Somehow I am missing the details. I need to read that book of instructions.
November 1, 2006
In the meantime
The promised and much appreciated Pamuk essay is still missing in action, but have come upon some other nuggets to get your eyes around in the meantime. First http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18991 is Pamuk’s “Pen Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture” which amongst other things mentions Pinter and Istanbul traffic.
<p> Also, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/28/opinion/edpamuk.php this piece has a wonderful part:
In the 1970s, when my mother asked, “Who are you writing for?” her mournful and compassionate tone told me she was really asking, “How are you planning to support yourself?”
okay so, this part about the mother I fathom, (“roger Mrs Pamuk”) I’m a mother and mother’s often say unhelpful things to their offspring. Today my first born reminded me “it’s not fair you get to chose pillows.” He has a point. It’s taken thirty-five years and numerous disappointments, but the height of my privilege includes choosing a pillow.
The next bit however…
When friends asked me who I wrote for, they were mockingly suggesting that no one would ever want to read a book by someone like me
Jaysus, well not sure if he’s still running with that gang but they may not be getting the invite to come over for the Nobel prize tea-party. Most incredibly, how did the man manage to persist in writing his books. Bad and all as it is, one expects one’s family to take a dim view on most pursuits sauf say gardening or jobs with pensions but your friends, amigos. Lordacious indeed. Given most writers spend life indoors one can only hope the mockingly suggestive encounters were minimized by the 10 hours a day at the desk which you’ll be able to read about once I locate the link to that blessed article I rambled about earlier.
October 31, 2006
Has anyone ever said it better? Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk had an essay in this weekends Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) describing why he writes .. called something like the Implied Author. This isn’t a great kick off for a blog since er.. I cannot find the blessed thing to link to it.
Anyhow if indeed you do find it consider the words “Glory be.. has anyone ever said it better.” I did wonder if one needed to be living in Istanbul to find it quite that lyrical. It’s certainly not that poetic at the uncomfortable, but classy blue kitchen table here in these parts.