August 19, 2011
I was thrilled to learn yesterday that I have a reader who is enjoying my insomniac weather report.
Thus a bit tardy, but I can report the other night at 3am there was a lovely fresh breeze about, with a crisp, washed sheet waft to it.
The literary weather report this week has consisted of 4 novels, one of which I’m reviewing for the Globe and Mail.
August 19, 2011
David Lynch Weather Forecaster
I hope if, as rumoured, David Lynch is retiring as a film maker he will embrace his second calling that of Weather Forecaster. Mr Lynch is one of my favourite weather forecasters. He forecasts reliably from a single cigarette smoke cloud and a cup of coffee, staring out the window. He only discusses the weather in Los Angeles and could expand a bit up the coast here without cluttering matters up.
Mr Lynch is also a formidable woodworker. Sometimes he posts snaps of his projects on Twitter. A bunch of how to make cupboards with no fancy tools videos on youtube would also be another welcome contribution to this second floor enclave. My current how to make cupboards viewing consists of a headless Texan who has way too many tools, but affectionately talks about making cupboards for his “man cave”. (Thankfully it’s not his Bat Cave).
August 17, 2011
A splendid couple of hours in the Rare Books archive at UBC, with the help of a librarian whose father was a labour lawyer.
My father was an Industrial Relations Officer, I told him and we both smiled.
*
I’m simply astonished by some of the sentences being handed out in England after last week’s unrest. 4 years for stealing an ice cream cornet (was I reading right?) A woman jailed for 5 months for handling a pair of stolen shorts, looted by her flatmate during the riot, but she was no where near the riot. The report, as I heard it and this is no transcript, said the Judge declared she should have set a better example for her 2 children. If I understand this those children will have no parent for 5 months, exactly what kind of example does this offer them? Ultimately the value of a pair of shorts is higher than that placed on parenting, even if its dubious parenting.
Parents (read Mothers, likely single mothers) are also going to be evicted from their council flats for the misbehaviour of their looting sons or daughters. Exactly where does this leave the rest of their children? Why are they too victimized by sibling association? The fact is that some siblings in a family go off the rails. Some have mental health issues. The solution, therefore, is to screw up the entire family for the actions of one. I live in a building with a history of single volatile teens, who cohabit the space with perfectly reasonable teens.
I’ve also lived in buildings where a mother had a particularly troubled child/teen who ended up on the street with the disease of drug problems. I can verify that she was not necessarily doing anything different from the rest of us. He did, however, have a mental health issue.
August 16, 2011
Today at a branch library I attempted to find three different B.C. novels and found none of them. Fair enough it’s a branch library I don’t expect the shelves can hold everything, but my eyes caught at least 3 memoirs by American politicians. It really seems quite remote what ends up on the shelves. I imagine popularity and taste and even desire might dictate. Last week I had better luck and left with five copies of Handyman magazine and the Women’s Guide to Woodworking or some such.
Today I did nab a nifty book about Steveston and, literally, a sculpture of a book by Anne Carson that on tactile grounds alone more than compensates.
I heard telephone reports of two happening rainstorms on Cortes Island latter nights that I wish I could have heard. (mainly).
August 15, 2011
I am trying to locate a photograph of Gerry Gilbert reading a poem to about 15,000 assembled for an Operation Solidarity rally & march in Sept/Oct 1983. If you have such a thing or have a lead on who might, please comment or contact me at [email protected]
thank you.
August 15, 2011
The Rereading the Riot Act book and collation process therein is now well underway. Whilst the graphic elements of physically working with pages in Scribus are demanding for this neophyte, the manner in which material can sit beside each other intrigues me and how material relegated to the stacks of my half-remembered reading comes back into focus or at least announces itself as a candidate for reexamination.
I like this remembering or even re-remembering as a process and the departure it offers. It appeases my chronic consumption of what can seem like redundant material. But no, it all has value and inter- informs. I place high value on the moment.
I also will be glad of the assistance and collaboration from my visual art compadres and especially, my visual artist partner Jeremy.
August 12, 2011
Bunty biffs Bataille
I’ve begun working and collating material for my book for the Rereading the Riot Act project/series.
It’s going to involve a paste-up/collage form, and the curator I am working with gave me two books to look at for reference.
After I ploughed through them I felt a small burst of excitement because they reminded me so keenly of some reading material, some thinking before I realized no, it was not George Bataille’s Details, it was the Bunty for Girls Annual, which so absorbed me a child.
August 12, 2011
Last night at gymnastics a young woman told me she’d already attended Cross Fit class three times that day. Three times! That in food terms would be like eating three whole turkeys yourself. Cross Fit, as I understand it, is a form of exercise that verges on the type of training competitive athletes undertake. It sound punishing to attend it for more than the five minute range.
Today another woman told me she attends yoga classes twice a day! What’s with all this duplication?
I have to confess to spending much of my time at gymnastics undertaking sociological questioning of three young males on their generation and its current dilemmas and perceptions therein. (early 20’s) They are quite fun and offer all kinds of advice on my son and ask me puzzling questions on unrelated matters. Yesterday one of them had a back injury and I attempted to talk sense into him on the need for ice and rest and recovery, which appeared to make little impact. Curiously tho’ for my part I find their insights and advice on young males, high school, sports (not injuries), video games etc compelling and I listen closely between the more jovial banter. The thought occurred to me that my inquiries may be the equivalent to asking someone age 70 to comment on the high level of hip replacements.
August 7, 2011
I had the good fortune to visit a cranberry farm today for a birthday gathering and it was splendid.
The cranberry farm was in Richmond, which was — in this particular spot — rather like being in Holland. The only thing was the towers in what I was told was North Burnaby looked ridiculous from where we were. I thought at first they must be downtown towers, but asked our hosts, who told me it was N Burnaby.
The cranberry plants fascinated me I had no idea they grew on such a small, bush arrangement. The plants look a tad heathery in texture. I have a new respect for the cranberry. She’s a hardy, stout looking berry. In order to harvest them, water and flooding is used. Like I said the berry is hardy — she floats for collection.
I had a lovely conversation with the cranberry farmer about peat and how they used to harvest peat on this farm years ago (to sell to nurseries) and how they stacked it. We compared notes based on how my mother makes Reckles to stack her peat in rural Ireland, (used as fuel) so it can dry. The farmer described a different arrangement that was like an igloo, built up in curving walls so the peat would dry out in the wind. As we sat chatting large jumbo jets and small planes flew overhead descending to land at the nearby airport.
I am smitten by the land out there and it’s so close to the city. The ditches and tall reeds reminded me of the Norfolk Broads a bit.