May 31, 2011
If any other person invokes the smell of books and the musk of bookshops I shall have to expire.
The most recent sensory memory I have of a bookshop is that of a putrid rotting vermin corpse … dead somewhere in the vicinity of the BC Labour History titles I rifled through to retrieve the Premier’s Radio Address from 1935. (for a very reasonable price I hasten to add)
The Bookseller did warn me about el smell. His advice, don’t sniff.
I can’t quite comprehend this balding nostalgia for sniffing books. I have 2 dozen better suggestions of things to inhale. I remain unconvinced that the book needs to be gilded inside a (psychological) tabernacle.
May 30, 2011
Twinned
This is a Met Eireann forecast, but it could nearly be our forecast right here on another West coast.
Occasional heavy showers.Lows 3-7C.Bright Tuesday with scattered showers.Cloudy, drizzly weather will develop on W coast later.Highs 13-16C.
I just reviewed our longer term and summer forecast. It will be wet and cold right through June, so the speculation goes. Yet the summer rainfall chart suggests below normal. We really have to compete for data, all the detailed weather analysis seems to always favour the East of the country. We have weather too! It may not seem as drastic, but when you’re living under the dripping pipe as we have been the latter weeks, it has its own drastic note that demands interrogation and an understanding of whether there is any variety to be found within it. (I am convinced there is, but have yet to raise any army of agreement over it!)
The great thing about the constant drizzle is how much you notice the colours once it, momentarily, abates. Somehow tho’ the drizzle needs to be embraced and all its qualities explored and examined.
May 30, 2011
Missed identity
Two strange incidents of misidentification this week.
A Brussel Sprout plant I bought at the Farmer’s Market months ago has sprouted a head of brocolli.
The second yesterday I bought a lamb steak, labelled as such, cooked it, ate in and 5 mouthfuls later realized I was certainly eating beef, not lamb at all.
There’s the question of visual recognition in all this, which I shall evade. I read rather than examine.
May 27, 2011
Mason bee’d
At the garden today i was delilah to hear the Mason bees chattering in their little house, which is located right beside my plot. At first I couldn’t distinguish what the sound was, but then I noted activity in the little plug holes and realized the bees were remarking to each other.
I finally plunged some seeds into the soil and tidied up the strawberry plants and deslugged the landscape. The geraniums I collected from the giveaway garden out by UBC last summer have begun to bloom and … they are purple, a lilac purple colour, which I am thrilled about, since I’ve been romancing purple tulips all season long.
The Mother’s Day begonia from my Beloved is a strong, annunciating pink in a corner of its own and I have to say I had a moment of very brief admiration over the fact my plot is waking up. Partly the strawberry patch is so healthy looking because it’s had so many years to establish itself.
My planting was so erratic that I have a feeling it may not produce quite the plumage I’d hope for, so will pick up a few more starts in case disaster strikes.
Had a lovely tour of Mme Beespeaker’s garden tonight — have a sweet bunch of Forget-me-nots- on my desk from it, adopted a pumpkin, a zucchini plant and my first nasturtium ! And enjoyed some of her fennel in a tea I brewed tonight. The guinea pigs also downed a chunk of said fennel. I love her garden because it is like several gardens in one. A whole nesting of different continents. Plus Bees live there, which makes it even more special.
May 27, 2011
Of the four visual art related shows/installations/events I’ve attended lately two were deliberately a stretch, one had no idea it was a stretch (and the sense of oblivion had a longevity to it) and the final one was chronically trying to stretch and attach importance to something, which was really unremarkable.
The first two were affecting, two videos and a book, designed to frustrate and mislead so the viewer could depart within that frustration, the latter two lacked insight being too (two?) wrapped up in themselves, even though they made plenty ‘noise’ or repeated rattling.
The stretch is rather a recurrent theme in Vancouver. High lactic acid?