June 18, 2007
o’verbally
The great mystery of human behaviour in the midst of city traffic continues. Here I am a trotting along, reading, when a certain rouse of verbal abuse is detected by my auditory radar. Three individuals, two fellas, one gal but can’t look sufficient to determine, for am attempting to keep up guise of not having heard they are offering their opinions loudly out the truck window for my benefit.
The truck, which is a can’t quite make it’s mind up colour between almost gold and yellow and green and sand, I dislike. It’s occupants are continuing to unnerve me with their remarks.
I placate myself with the possibility it’s the book they’re objecting to: Francine Prose’s Reading like a writer. Those truck occupants are repudiating her insistence on a good sentence. It’s true she’s getting a bit pedantic on the merits of a sentence on this particular page, but I would defend her across this lane of traffic. “It matters to her, let her have her sentences I could yell over to them. Leave Francine to her livres.”
They’re still objecting in the truck that moves too slowly due to the clogged up into a single lane instead of two because we’re building a tunnel traffic. (Francine would most certainly not approve of that sentence) It’s moving at a walker’s pace which is unfortunate because there’s a long lump of concrete tunnel lying in the road, which by virtue of being a short person, would block their access. Try slowing, try timing the trot, but no it would be necessary to stop still and squat beside the pipe like something from the “funnies” section and no truck shall make me do such.
Emerge past said concrete barrier and they’re now again at my left ear. The verdict is announced and it’s hard to be certain the exact combination of the words but it’s something like: you should give up reading that book, or you should give up reading or you should give that up.
Molto perplexing. There’s much to be gained from reading this book or I would not have been compelled to risk walking into a lamp post in the quest to read more of it.
Walking and reading makes much sense when the possibility of sitting and reading isn’t available. It’s necessary to get places and sometimes you don’t wish to be aware of getting there, preferring instead to spend the journey unravelling exactly where it all went wrong for Monsieur Goriot. It also offers excellent remediation for the balance organs, of which, high numbers of writers appear to suffer trouble with.
I think it was the act of walking that the truck passengers didn’t care for. Perhaps it’s part of the leasing deal. If you lease a four wheel 8 cylinder engine you have to harass four pedestrians a week to avoid interest hikes.
June 11, 2007
o’gloomy: repent
Here are some antidotes to the glooms:
First this is a delightful piece on Hepburn by Heather Rose Ryan and includes Miss K’s brownie recipe. What a treat! I could actually be converted to cooking on the basis of it. Sequential inabilities mean recipes always fail me, but surely Miss Katherine’s wouldn’t
Eleanor Wachtel now has many of her audio interviews archived, ‘specially pertinent for folks across the water, Check out Elaine Scarry for a reminder to look upwards.
Or Colm Toibin because he’s an interesting man to listen to and there’s a moving anecdote about his mother and his bridge playing brother that has the familiar ring of every teapot and kitchen table. Honest, not pitying.
or Hermione Lee on Edith Wharton because she’s funny and smart and knows her stuff.
There’s also been a recent focus on Turkish writers
Finalement there’s Elgar. (this programme is only avail til next Thurs)
In the week marking Elgar’s 150th anniversary, four commentators reflect on aspects of Elgar in the context of his time and after, exploring the contradictions and enigmas in his complex and paradoxical personality.
May 20, 2007
Another pairing
By virtue of another combination of circumstances I found myself at a show yesterday where a book on Henry James was my only reading material. I read it while a woman with a guitar sang loudly I am a pizza in three languages.
May 18, 2007
Workers
Yup someone else has noticed:
Work’s relative absence from the novel is all the odder when you consider its absolute ubiquity. Not only is it a universal leveller, it is also one of the great venues for social interaction. Even the members of a chain-gang can be guaranteed to speak to each other now and again. Work ought to occupy the literary imagination as much as sex, money, or power, and yet for the most part the Anglo-American novel has spent at least half of the first two or three centuries of its development resolutely denying its existence.
Could this absence on the page be attributed to the matter of unemployment (or perhaps incarceration?) being the ideal state for a writer. Long, uninterrupted spells and all that.
It’s also tricky to find more general non-fiction descriptions and documentation about working life. Blogs where people moan about their jobs don’t offer detailed descriptions of the processes of fixing a telephone pole or deciding on blah blah levels in x-rays or deciding on how the council should signpost a roundabout …likely because people probably assume no one’s interested. Likely no one is interested except some quirky novelist zooming in for curious details to borrow.
May 7, 2007
Unusual pairing
A generous invitation from a friend and I find myself present at a tribute to Frank Sinatra’s music. I cannot resist an opportunity to hear an orchestra live, despite technically not knowing nor liking much of Frank Sinatra’s music.
A few songs in and the experience of the pink lights and arm swinging by the singer, who apparently sounds just like Frank and from my p.o.v not knowing how Frank sounds could have been Frank, was vastly improved by reading a Philip Roth book: The Facts.
On the page, slightly tricky in the low light of this theatre, I read Roth’s descriptions of an Alcatraz marriage that wrecked ten years of his life and had to be equally trying for the other party, while on stage the joviality blasts on. I can manage this music as long as I don’t actually look at it, which is unfortunate because the very animated conductor is pulling some bendy moves with his lower body and every now and again swings around picks up a trumpet and parps it out beautifully across the auditorium while swaying his belly.
There’s a robust trombone player on the right, whose trombone wails affectionately. The audience swing their curls. The man beside me appears to have poor control of his plump left knee, which keeps visiting my seat and clanking in to my bone. He has binoculars. What’s he looking at? Close up of fingers on the trumpet. How can he handle a closeup on the pink lights when I’m a-dizzy up here in the distance?
I’m more of a Shostakovitch gal and it’s sad that the place is hopping yetlast year at the CBC Radio Orchestra Shostakovitch 100 series the theatre was rattling like a half empty biscuit tin.
The man with the poor knee control is taking a break on the binocs, he wants to know what I am reading. He shrugs. Who is he? He mouthes. More blather from the Frank singer takes care of it. Up go the binocs.
The content of the book and music seemed an unlikely pairing until I wondered afterward if Frank Sinatra’s music was likely the soundtrack to the demise of most marriages.
Having been raised on Boy George it may explain why marriage has never held any remote appeal.
April 28, 2007
M.D.K.A.
When I first read this obituary(Margaret Atwood’s ma) on Monday I thought it remarkable and considered the advantage of having writerly offspring to pen one’s obit, until a few hours later the image of the broom, the bear and the ice-dancing all made sense. It was the life that was remarkable, which must have meant the obituary wrote itself.
When I first read this obituary(Margaret Atwood’s ma) on Monday I thought it remarkable and considered the advantage of having writerly offspring to pen one’s obit, until a few hours later the image of the broom, the bear and the ice-dancing all made sense. It was the life that was remarkable, which must have meant the obituary wrote itself.
April 28, 2007
On the shelf with James
Colm Toibin reflects on how Henry James wrestled with the effect of marriage and being broke on the artist.
I’m partial to these essays. They provide the literary equivalent of the Puffin’s daily requests for me to disclose exactly what his stuffed horse is thinking about him. You can be beating an egg and may have the passing wonder of whether Mr James worried about putting eggs in the cupboard and eh voila Colm Toibin’s (or whomever) dished it up. No need to trawl four biographies … the man was frantic over eggs. These days however James might have needed to be a bit more frantic about the likelihood of finding someone who’d be willing to put up with him.
Such literary pairings are to be encouraged. I’d like to know more about the kitchen table of the author who wrote The Tenants of Moonbloom, (excellent book) whose name presently escapes me. Edwin, or Edward something. The kitchen table is of significance because he’d a bunch of children and apparently sat at it and wrote with them milling about. Therefore it must have been some incredible table to help sustain his concentration. Hopefully some writer will pair off with him and reflect…
More generally no writer ever need worry ’bout the impact of marriage on their work if they accept as previously, proudly asserted in this blog the best person for them to have a relationship with is the leg of a table.
April 27, 2007
Broke? Here’s Orwell
If you’re broke, and if you’re a writer it’ll be a permanent state that you’ll adjust to like a penicillin allergy … well here’s some company Mr Orwell. Compare notes, put yer feet up listen and find some comfort in this Radio 4 Classic Serial
Down and out in Paris and London By George Orwell, adapted by PG Morgan
April 26, 2007
On the shelf
At the library on the DVD shelf people do not borrow Charlie Chaplin collections, nor Indiana Jones. I counted seven rejected Charlo collections on an otherwise bare looking shelf.
Folks have this ritual where they hurriedly flick through what’s there, nearly taking neighbouring arms off in the process, slam the shelf back. Repeat process. Look dismayed.
I’d love to know exactly what they are all hoping to find. Maybe the excellent documentary I grabbed last week about The New York Times crossword. Another curiousity is why the boxes often emit an odour that suggests they’ve hibernated under someone’s armpit for six months.
April 23, 2007
To stay or go
A browse at a charity shop yesterday made me think it’s as interesting to consider what people do not throw out, as much as what they do chuck.
People do not dump Scrabble. They do toss Scrabble Junior, Trivial Pursuit, odd looking games that may be inspired by tv shows that I would recognize if I could find any tv shows, but my television has gone on a strike refuses to display any pictures except fizz. Jigsaw puzzles. Bakelite ovens, whatever they may be. Gilbert and Sullivan records.
The best thing I spotted was a foot spa … with the water still in it. A red petrol canister nearby made me wonder if it too came complete with fuel.
In a burst of nostalgia I considered bringing home a hoover that we had in our house back in 1975. But the other four vacuums presently co habiting in my cupboard do not deserve another pal to the tune of 34 dollars. Really 34 bucks. Charity shopping is enjoying a very high rate of inflation these days. Gone are the days of picking up a nifty old radio to gather dust.