Anakana Schofield

Blog

  • Nice piece by Ed Vuillamy in yesterday’s Observer depicting the Corrib/ Sea to Shell situation.

    For generations, the people of Erris have been farming and fishing along the remote coast of County Mayo. When gas was discovered offshore, Shell pounced. But it hadn’t bargained for the unyielding resistance of the community

  • [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0kCMNGU3-w&w=450&h=210]

  • Whimdentation.

  • Outdentation

    (Neolexia on a Sunday)

  • 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.

  • Consistency is so confounding.

  • Piped

    I should be afloat with considering the implications of indentation on my (novel) sentences instead I remain abuzzed from a documentary The Pipe I saw at today’s Projecting Change Film Festival at SFU Woodwards.

    Here at Literature et Folie we’ve been supporting the Rossport 5 for many years with the link on the old sidebar, but The Pipe is quite an extraordinary documentation of the struggle the community of Rossport endured when they took on the govt- enabled – corporate- bully Shell. This film was particularly moving for me being of strong Mayo stock myself and it taking place in a very familiar landscape. Knowing that landscape is also to know the implications of what Shell proposed to inflict on it.  As Pat ‘The Chief’ McDonnell said “You can’t trust the Bog”. I watched the documentary with several other women from rural Ireland and it was a staggering watch and emotional. We talked after of the incredible strength and courage of those who stood up and persisted in the quest of justice. Even though the community is irrevocably damaged by what took place over the 8 years and the divisiveness it inflicted amongst them — it’s still an incredible tribute to the plain person’s determination to speak up and resist the bullying tactics that are employed to put the fear of God into people and suppress their voices.

    The most galling and appalling moment in the film is actually the shot of Bertie Ahern talking about people “breaking the law”. It almost sent me out of seat with fury, given what we now know of the damage to the country by successive Fianna Fail governments and the wanker bankers still on the loose and NAMA -itis that continues to closet them from facing the music for the mess they made.

    The sheer audacity that the govt enabled corporate bully assumed they could plough in and plant their pipeline any old where that suited, with no regard for the livelihood and safety of the people living there. That those people had to go to the European court to get any sense at all and were thrown in jail and abused by the local Garda force. But still they rose again. And by the sounds of it their struggle continues and is far from over

    Here is the trailer for the documentary, I’d highly recommend you try to see the film as its a great reminder of the need to speak up and refuse to be silenced regardless of the personal price & discomfort that comes from that stance. Justice is not a popularity contest, it’s a hard battle and in this case, the people prevailed momentarily at least. (Thanks to the divine intervention of mechanical failure, followed by the courts).

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • Middle of Moravia’s Boredom and I begin to see why he never could have written a response to this book in the form of Cecilia. His conception of women is too limited. I shall read his other works to see if it remained in abeyance

    It would have to be another writer who appropriated and inverted what he established here perhaps.

    What he established remains compelling, if limited. Crochet – he knits only on the one needle.