July 11, 2010
Next Post
Random generation (Possibly Related Posts) is pretty funny. An old post on this blog, a review of an art installation during the Olympics that I took a fairly dim view on now pops up as a “you might like this” alongside an explicit description of a young woman’s sexual exploits as she rides her way across random males in London. My original post is about as sexy as a stale baguette, so Lord knows exactly how they have randomly achieved relevance.
In any case the diary of the gal getting it on is a way better read (if at times disturbing. I also wonder if it is not actually written by a male). Strangely though it hasn’t generated a link in reverse, so you cannot get to it from my post.
I can imagine the disappointed fringes in high elevated state after reading Story of (London) Eye type blog, then clicking on my review and shaking their bangs in dismay.
July 11, 2010
Sunday questions
1. What has been the role in the explosion of writer as teacher and creative writing industry in reducing the amount of literary criticism (and such considering) generated?
2. And the question of academia. It seems to me that academics are able to generate critical writings because they have a pay check. Is this the only model by which such writing can be achieved? Is it fair to make a distinction between an academic and a working writer (someone who doesn’t have a pay check from a teaching job) and for whom the writing generates the food source? Or is that entirely irrelevant?
3. How can I build an improvised greenhouse on my petite balcony? (low budget masking tape and pole style)
July 11, 2010
This morning at 9.36 I experienced pangs of homesickness, which is odd since I am technically at home. As the hour carried on they became stronger and defeating like a big old bag of sigh. Two hours later I realized I was not homesick for place but for people, particular people. The ease, the natter, the what, what the and stories. The oxygen of a tale. The endless tales about sometimes very little that mean so much in the course of a day. The endless stop and interruption for a tale. You’ve to work so much harder in Vancouver to find a tale. They’re there alright, but require a bit of dig or budge. There’s a lack of ease in this constant need for extraction and tempting.
I turned to reading for relief.
I continue to read Declan Kiberd’s Ulysses and Us and find that for a book so specifically about one text (Joyce’s Ulysses) it propels me not so much into or inside Ulysses but rather out, out, out into the possibilities for literature.
“Oh rocks, she moans, tell us in plain words” (p77)
***
Early in the book Kiberd cites the loss of common culture, he describes how
“because of the rise of specialists prepared to devote years to the study of its secret codes — parallax, indeterminacy, consciousness-time being among the buzz words. Such specialists often tend to work in teams. Many of them reject the notion of a national culture, assuming that to be cultured nowadays is to be international, even global, in consciousness. In doing this they have often removed Joyce from the Irish context which gave so much of its work meaning and value….
…The middle decades of the twentieth century were the years in which the idea of a common culture was abandoned — yet Ulysses depends on that very notion. “
I have been engaged in a nonsensical debate with myself whether common culture could be reeclaimed or recreated through fictional creation of common culture(s) in the novel. Then it struck me that the very exoticization of place in literature (certainly prevelant in Canadian fiction of the last 20 years. At times it seems an “anywhere but here” took over the novel, sometimes triptych in its approach. Three places: none here) has perhaps done that. What seemed promising on first consideration suddenly disappated to having perhaps had the opposite effect, that of being a plugger up rather than an opener outer. And then the thinking mitt snapped shut on it.
July 11, 2010
dear helen…
apparently there was something growing below that dubious foliage … mighty spuds revealed themselves.
Thanks for the digging.
Thanks for novels.
July 8, 2010
En route to my gymnastics training last night I was listening I subsequently learnt to Arlo Guthrie on the radio. I did not know Arlo Guthrie, but he was singing a song about a train in New Orleans. I do know of his dad (I subsequently learnt). So how come I don’t know his son. I suppose it’s reasonable not to know of him.
Anyway there he was singing fresh as a daisy bout a train. At the training session, I was working with a new coach on what they call “drills” trying to link two moves into a tumble, having worked the two moves separately. The coach, a very patient young fella, wanted me to do these various drills before hooking the engine to the carriage. But these drills felt so odd, hurling myself backwards into a pit and having to land one move before the pit started and being at the age of reluctance, this old Missy was having none of it.
We discussed it. I said you know psychologically these drills aren’t doing it for me. He said maybe I thought the drills were boring. I said I didn’t think I could find them boring since I was basically so resistant I couldn’t even attempt them. We debated a bit more. I said I have a funny brain. I like to run before I can walk even if I land in a heap. He explained the drills were to remove the psychological fear that’s inherent in linking two moves. I said hmm. He said he’d look at my first move and based on whether or not it was iffy, he’d decide if he was willing to spot the second move. I showed him the round off, he said it was good. We set up sting mats on tumble run thing, we set the first move up, then I was to throw the two moves with him offering a spot for the second.
I was standing on the tumble run. He looked uncertain and mumbled uncertainty. I suddenly felt a holy terror about what I had just set up as needing to be done, was now actually going to have to be done and neither of the two of us were certain what was going to result. Then I remembered some of my fury this week and said fuck it, and launched into the damn thing, which was as it turns out damn fine! He kept his head without getting clacked, and I couldn’t believe I had landed on my feet.
He said something like ok there we’ve thrown it as in we know you can throw it. I thanked him. We moved into refining it. I was grateful to him for facilitating my arse about face approach. It was a great moment. The link had been tentatively made and will not be unmade only improved one hopes. Then we had a long philosophical discussion about absolutely nothing to do with gymnastics.
Every aspect of that sport reminds me of novel writing. Except the progress is indisputable.
July 8, 2010
hover II
… what happened was the very opposite of what I’d intended. The text delivered itself sans any breath whatsoever. No need to breathe was a health theme for me on that day as my lung lining was inexplicably inflamed and breathing in caused bad chest pain and I was existing on a great deal less oxygen and a fun fair ride constant hangover. So it was delightful to find no need to breathe whatsoever in the reading…!
I love how you can approach a book through the left door and it will boot you out the right door. Return to it via the boot and find yourself riding on the bonnet.
July 8, 2010
hover I
We are at the age where chunks of rock songs get repeatedly sung 54 times a day. It’s a wonderful age. The content, in a new context, is v fun. When my child was small he enjoyed the Steve Miller Band (paternal influence) and it was rather curious to see a 4 year old singing about the trouble he was having finding a job or working real hard the whole day through and struggling to manage his temperamental women and so on.
Now, however, we’re in the stalled what I call hover land. (not to be confused with hovercraft, which would actually move someplace). The mind catches certain chunks of songs by it seems only ONE band and they exude out of his pores day and night.
I get to concentrate on the words in those 2 or 3 sentences. In public they are accompanied by a charming left handed air guitar. Our living space can’t accommodate too much air guitar or you’ll end up with a fractured wrist. So in public the words become even more vivid!
Unconnected p’haps but I am back thinking about single line reading of texts. A kind of fixated reading of the single lines, that would be slow and careful and you can feel each word digest through the six stomachs. It struck me reading Beckett’s How it is last month. Then a gap. A Sunday reread with even more determination and I shall have to tell you what happened. First though, a phone call, it is my ma’s birthday!
H-a-p-p-y B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y H-a-n-n-a-h (delores, cecelia etc)
July 7, 2010
I woke up this morning (and it was a night on fever duty) with the reminder that there is no country in the world likely where its citizens feel entirely chuffed with the state of critical culture. If you think it’s shite, basically you’ve one option and that is to contribute to it. And if it’s still shite contribute more to it. Despair. Contribute. Despair. Contribute. Repeat.