The woman who inspired the main character of the novel I am working on is interfering with the character who is emerging from the research and writing. Memory and desire keep pulling me back and, though I know little about her, I have been trying to square my limited knowledge with what I am discovering about son epoque. Being aware of that may allow me to completely disengage and let the character be who she wants to be instead of the person I imagined.
angling towards e-publishing
In the latest of a series of Skype conversations - http://artchatpodcast.com/art-chat-podcast-21-cover-songs-cover-paintin - about e-publishing, I asked my encouraging friend and e-mentor, Steve, how one promotes a book via social networks when one does not have much of a social network. Steve proposed that I make process a news story. For example, the fact that I wrote to a former publisher four months ago, regarding my wish to e-publish an updated version of a book he published in 1989, and that he still has not replied.. that's news, says Steve. Well, the fact that publishers of literary fiction take notoriously long to reply is not news to those of us who have dealt with them over the years. In my view, there is no reason why I should not republish, in e-form, my second and fifth books. The paper copies have not been selling. The publisher has nothing to lose, and, de mon côté it will be an opportunity to revisit and polish old work, and make it available to those who want to read the first two books of the trilogy I have recently completed with You Again. I bought a scanner so that I can scan in the text of Shinny's Girls and Flashing Yellow. I have to figure out how to use it and then proceed with Steve on making the e-book, then, at least, attach it to this site.
The art chat podcast discussion this week featured our thoughts on making money via web publishing. I said, perhaps hastily, that I would rather people read my work then get paid, but it isn't as if I object to earning money from my writing. I have earned a living as a writer and a teacher since about 1972. Who would not want to earn more? It's just that I have rarely earned enough solely from writing to support myself. Unless things change, money will continue to be an undependable reward. That doesn't mean I can stop writing books and plays, or will stop. I write stories and plays to entertain people, not for myself alone, so making them available is the least I want to do.
Jimmy the Peach recounted what he read about haiku, that it is not finished until it is read.
The art chat podcast discussion this week featured our thoughts on making money via web publishing. I said, perhaps hastily, that I would rather people read my work then get paid, but it isn't as if I object to earning money from my writing. I have earned a living as a writer and a teacher since about 1972. Who would not want to earn more? It's just that I have rarely earned enough solely from writing to support myself. Unless things change, money will continue to be an undependable reward. That doesn't mean I can stop writing books and plays, or will stop. I write stories and plays to entertain people, not for myself alone, so making them available is the least I want to do.
Jimmy the Peach recounted what he read about haiku, that it is not finished until it is read.
Lake cities
Two great lakes, Michigan and Ontario; two great cities, Chicago and Toronto. Chicago holds more of a personal connection for me, having visited Lincoln Park Zoo as a child, prowled the Art Institute often during my teens, loitered in hotel lobbies pretending to be someone else. Attended some of my first theatre. Felt self-conscious with boys in fancy restaurants after a prom. The end of January weather was clear, sometimes cold and windy, but what zest the blue sky injected. The lake lay just on the other side of an overpass from Lincoln Park, near where I was working at the Chicago History museum; later in the week, just down the street from where I stayed in the Loop, a short walk - that included a crossing of Lake Shore drive, where there is a crossing light for pedestrians, down to Monroe Harbour and a sidewalk that stretches around the water.
This is a big difference between the two cities, lake accessibility... unless it is just that I do not know my way around Toronto well. Yes, I can walk from Union Station, under the freeway and across some busy streets to Queen's Quay, and from there along the lake shore, past Harbour Centre and further along, the lovely park with its musical references. But it seems further away from the core of downtown, and so I rode the streetcar out to The Beaches, stopped in Leslieville along the way, for coffee with Alison. It was a raw day, so I didn't walk far, but did see a lovely view of the lake and appreciate the potential of the sand on a sunny day. Development decisions in the past have affected the appearance of Toronto, and with more high rise condos going up, the lake may just disappear from easy view?
The Dufferin Centre theatre complex, Saturday afternoon. In the Ladies room, in the large stall next to me, a woman speaks: "It's okay, Joe. It's only the movies. Did it scare you? I guess I'll never see the end of that movie. It's okay, Joe. We're only at the movies.
The thin lady dressed in yellow pants, with a yellow scarf over her head, whipping around the new Dollorama on West St. Clair, chattering in Spanish to a friend she finds in an aisle.
The couple at Honest Ed's, the woman perhaps 5 feet, drawn-on eyebrows, rusty hair, her husband maybe 5 foot 4, a three inch fringe around the back of his bald head; jars and jars of honey, piles of clothes heaped on the counter. The woman bargaining with the Asian clerk,the blocky husband packing items in their carry-all, forebearing, conspiring.
The big black gallumphing poodle in Cedarvale Park on a sunny cool day, the paths half ice, half mud. Dog society, dog-owner society. Some are new, wary, others familiar and know how to behave, whether to restrain, or simply toss the ball. A small woman with an Irish face, short brown hair, pushing a shopping cart up the hill from the base of the ravine. The contrast between the gritty feel of Bathurst and St. Clair West, with food banks, Phillipine Fruit and Vegetable stores, the Dollorama, and the grand homes of Forest Hill nearby.
Eatons's Centre area, so busy, so loud, full of people. What can I say about Toronto that isn't a cliche? But if I am going to be visiting more or less frequently, I need to find a connection in addition to my daughter. Old City Hall is beautiful, I like the variety of people -- always someone to catch one's attention. The noisy yakka bar (it's our culture, remarked the hostess, when I commented on the volume).
When I stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab a woman in, perhaps, her late 40's, early 50's walked toward me, smoking, muttering. She wore a good cloth coat. "It's all about greed and money. I told her to cash the cheque right away." She was on the verge of tears. Straight teeth, full lips, pencilled-on eyebrows, a hat low over her forehead. Eyes the colour of the lake on a cloudy day. Her rent cheque bounced. Her mother didn't like her. She was the oldest and her mother didn't like her. But she has the church, where they let her lead the rosary." I'm weird," she said. "I believe in Jesus. And I have two beautiful daughters. It's a beautiful day, I like days like this. And you're beautiful, too," she concluded, before continuing on. The arc of an encounter.
Avant Noel
11 decembre. Moins 15.
Ce soir, un souper bilingue avec mes amis: l'entrée de Québec et le dessert de Colombie-Brittanique, et, Fricot, pomme des terres et truite arc-ciel pour le plat principal.
Yesterday afternoon was perfect: kouign-aman et café au lait chez Croquembouche. Un marche le longue Grand Allée vers vieux Québec, parmi toutes les lumieres de noel, l'air froid sur les joues, une pleine lune monte le ciel au-dessous du fleuve. C'est une ville vraiment formidable.
The carillon at St. Dominics now, on the quarter hour, plays Christmas carols. In our classroom, the old heating system sounds like a carillon when it begins to activate. In September, there were 13 students, five from Columbia. Now, if six students make the class, it is a success. Only one Colombienne. La professeure continues to talk souvent de Québec and one can always count on the question, q'est-ce que tu as fait à la fin de semaine?
Earlier in the month, in a high wind, gusts to 40 kmh, squirrels capered along the wires, leapt from tree limbs, playing.
But it was sunny the day Mary de S drove us le longue de fleuve, parcours Chemin du Roy, through the villages between long narrow fields first laid out in the time of the seignuries. I loved the serveuse at Yoan Bistro in Deschambeault, her pride as she told us that nearly everything was homemade. Smoked salmon, tarte au chocolat, soupe des legumes. More pride at the fromagerie des Grondines, where we sampled cow, goat and sheep cheeses.
The week before, I had accompanied Guy and Mireille to the Christmas fair at one of the villages along this route, Cap-Santé with its huge church, circa 1755. It was begun before the guerre with the English, but not finished until after. That is why, Mireille said, that the church was not burned like everything else in the villages when the English came through in 1757. A display of creches in the church, accordion music, vin chaud, many craftsman in the little huts around the church square.La maison des tartes, with irresistible sugar pies et sucre à la creme. A cemetery near the church, as I would see the following week in Déschambeaults et les autres villages le longue Chemin du Roy.
So much more comfortable with the language now. I actually answer questions posed to me aux arrêts d'autobus. Yet, there are times I experience the sensation David Zieroth described from his dream, of feeling that there was a box around him, isolating him from other people. He wrote also: last night I had a dream that I was travelling in Europe (some unspecified place), and I couldn't remember why I was there, why I was alone, everything that usually worked had just fallen away, and I was a suddenly without will or energy and so far from home or anything meaningful. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. It seemed impossibly far from daylight.
Mes amis anglophones say that they will always be on the outside here, and if it is the case, it is not a bad thing for a writer, despite occasional tristesse. I felt that at the last yoga class, the leaving, separation, yet walked back up Cartier avec deux autre élevès, and the sadness lifted a bit as they wished me beaux fêtes, and called, à le prochain! Yet fell into that isolated feeling again when the vendeuse au poissonnerie, after hearing my accent, asked en anglais, if I wanted her to remove the skin from the trout.
In a way it is a kindness, Marie reminded me, when people are not sure of the customer's ability, to make it easier for them. And, au Provisions, le boucher a continué en francçais quand j'ai dit, je veux essayer parler le français.L'exploration continue.
les notes novembre
20 novembre, the coldest night so far this autumn. - 8. Beautifully sunny today. A walk across les Plaines à l'escalier, le long de la rue Champlain et à Petit Champlain with its Christmas trees in front of old stone buildings, white lights on those, red, silver, gold objects gleaming in les vitirines. No snow, though.
The only snow came a week or so ago, only flurries, which blanketed car tops and yards, but melted by the afternoon. Fall has been luxurious. Most trees bare now, but gold and brown leaves still skitter across the pavement in the strong winds off the St. Lawrence. One day the wind so strong I thought it was forcing the bells of St. Dominic to peal and peal, but maybe those were echoes swirling through le voisinage.
Days later, the 23, more snow, hours of flurries add up to a good inch on the ground, enough to also outline the branches of the trees. I saw my first huge snow clearing machine of the season, les gens avec des peles pour déneigement.
En route my walk the brilliant day three days earlier, I stopped at Chez Paillard and felt an inner "yes!" when I ordered a jèsuite et cafe au lait en français and no one replied to me in English. An improvement from last year. La langue, la langue. Such interesting interfaces. The tongue c'est la langue, aussi, the language est la langue. Risky in French is risqué, which means something quite different. Yes, generally dangerous, but mothers in Vancouver don't advise their children to be careful (prudent) crossing the street because it is risqué.
At the Musée the other night with Mireille to listen to the passionate Bernard Émond. Among other things he talked about the dynamism of language and said he accepted the fact that his films are not well received in France because people there abhor the Québecois accent. Mayor LeBeaume had been quoted in Le Soleil about the creeping anglicization of French as spoken in the mother country. Émond suggested that parents faced with the anglicization of Montréal confront the problem by giving their children French books to read, by finding ways to avoid the homogenization that is the result of American TV culture, primarily. Some official person is investigating the proliferation of signs with names like Second Cup, Urban Outfitters, and on and on; another example of the proliferation of American pop culture, the so-called malling of the world.
Émond said that he accepts that Québec is a petit cultur, and I like that notion, of seeing Québec as distinct, unique, if petit. And not so petit considering that the population of Ireland, for example, is less at 4.5 million, and look at the wonderful noise that has been made from there. Quebec creeps toward 8 million, almost as twice as many people, with a strong sense of itself and the need for survival, for self-protection.
Vagueness often surrounds spontaneous conversations. My aim is to admit when I cannot understand instead of nodding or replying inappropriately. Très drole quelquefois! I make so many errors, and some days I get tired of trying, but overall I love the challenge of communicating in a language other than ma langue maternelle. I am doing this for fun, but pity the people who try to find refuge in a new country/culture and must live in vagueness perhaps for years until they master English or French. How isolated they must feel.
Souvenirs: The monk striding down a slope sur les Plaines, his burgundy robes against the green, a burgundy hat pulled over the face I recognize from le Centre Boudiste. The bright cheeked man in the bonbonniere, the apples à Provisoners, hats, skates, Ile d'Orélans, its stands of birch, apples and leeks in wooden boxes by the side of the road.
The temporary garages, white plastic stretched over metal poles, entryways to the big churches guarded in that manner too. The red berries on the trees à les plaines, the metal poles inserted to show where obstacles will meet the blades of snow clearing equipment. Big bags of leaves raked; 20 from Mireille's. Anais and her sewing machine furious, as if it is saying grrr. The pride in Q authors, Mireille eloquent, even in English, on the subject of Gaston Miron, and showing me the grave, decorated with les souliers, of Felix Le Clerc, on Ile d'Orléans.
The only snow came a week or so ago, only flurries, which blanketed car tops and yards, but melted by the afternoon. Fall has been luxurious. Most trees bare now, but gold and brown leaves still skitter across the pavement in the strong winds off the St. Lawrence. One day the wind so strong I thought it was forcing the bells of St. Dominic to peal and peal, but maybe those were echoes swirling through le voisinage.Days later, the 23, more snow, hours of flurries add up to a good inch on the ground, enough to also outline the branches of the trees. I saw my first huge snow clearing machine of the season, les gens avec des peles pour déneigement.
En route my walk the brilliant day three days earlier, I stopped at Chez Paillard and felt an inner "yes!" when I ordered a jèsuite et cafe au lait en français and no one replied to me in English. An improvement from last year. La langue, la langue. Such interesting interfaces. The tongue c'est la langue, aussi, the language est la langue. Risky in French is risqué, which means something quite different. Yes, generally dangerous, but mothers in Vancouver don't advise their children to be careful (prudent) crossing the street because it is risqué.
At the Musée the other night with Mireille to listen to the passionate Bernard Émond. Among other things he talked about the dynamism of language and said he accepted the fact that his films are not well received in France because people there abhor the Québecois accent. Mayor LeBeaume had been quoted in Le Soleil about the creeping anglicization of French as spoken in the mother country. Émond suggested that parents faced with the anglicization of Montréal confront the problem by giving their children French books to read, by finding ways to avoid the homogenization that is the result of American TV culture, primarily. Some official person is investigating the proliferation of signs with names like Second Cup, Urban Outfitters, and on and on; another example of the proliferation of American pop culture, the so-called malling of the world.
Émond said that he accepts that Québec is a petit cultur, and I like that notion, of seeing Québec as distinct, unique, if petit. And not so petit considering that the population of Ireland, for example, is less at 4.5 million, and look at the wonderful noise that has been made from there. Quebec creeps toward 8 million, almost as twice as many people, with a strong sense of itself and the need for survival, for self-protection.
Vagueness often surrounds spontaneous conversations. My aim is to admit when I cannot understand instead of nodding or replying inappropriately. Très drole quelquefois! I make so many errors, and some days I get tired of trying, but overall I love the challenge of communicating in a language other than ma langue maternelle. I am doing this for fun, but pity the people who try to find refuge in a new country/culture and must live in vagueness perhaps for years until they master English or French. How isolated they must feel.
Souvenirs: The monk striding down a slope sur les Plaines, his burgundy robes against the green, a burgundy hat pulled over the face I recognize from le Centre Boudiste. The bright cheeked man in the bonbonniere, the apples à Provisoners, hats, skates, Ile d'Orélans, its stands of birch, apples and leeks in wooden boxes by the side of the road.
The temporary garages, white plastic stretched over metal poles, entryways to the big churches guarded in that manner too. The red berries on the trees à les plaines, the metal poles inserted to show where obstacles will meet the blades of snow clearing equipment. Big bags of leaves raked; 20 from Mireille's. Anais and her sewing machine furious, as if it is saying grrr. The pride in Q authors, Mireille eloquent, even in English, on the subject of Gaston Miron, and showing me the grave, decorated with les souliers, of Felix Le Clerc, on Ile d'Orléans.
Une amie de conversation
Hier, yesterday, she listed her priorities. Budget, health, the meaning of life as expressed in Concept Therapy. She does not like to take risks with money, but saves, first, for her funeral arrangements. Payments of 41. per month, to a total of 4100. (plus interest?), will buy her the cremation and burial, the service, the catering, the exposition, a graphic artist to enlarge a picture of her for display. As she approaches her 73 birthday, she is arranging all this so that her younger sister will not have to take the responsibility. She isn't sad when she explains these arrangments. She feels good to accomplish this, to have it taken care of. She looks ahead to the immediate future, when the phone will ring informing her of an inheritance a fortune teller has predicted, from a somewhat distant relative. Maybe April prochain, maybe May. She says, I am a person who prefers to be rather than to have. She will make the money last for the rest of her life. She will help others.
Greying brown hair cropped close to her scalp, no make up, thick eyebrows over alert hazel eyes, skin virtually free from the wrinkles common to people her age, nails trimmed short, she loves clothes and looks for sales, but only of quality goods. She feels that she was born into the wrong family, that she comes from wealth, but wealth, malheuresement, lost. On the brisk damp days of fall she dresses in leather, black knee length coat, black pants, boots, gloves.
Her skin is pale and burns easily, which is why, she explains, she had to decline a marriage proposal from the rich pharmacist in the Bahamas, who flew his own plane, docked his boat in front of his house, drove a Lincoln Continental.She would not have been able to live in the sun long term. She seems not to regret him, or a man she met in London, perhaps another pharmacist - the stories mix and meld - but she misses the salt water, the palm trees of those places she was able to visit when she was working as a secretary for the Quebec government. Florida several times, the Bahamas. She loved to travel, and salt water is good for the health.
Normalement, elle se réveille à 7 heure, mais today she stayed in bed and dreamed jolie dreams. She laughs loudly, happily, delivers the au revoir bisou à les deux joues with genuine feeling. À la prochaine!
A novel less than full
I was knocked out by Tom Wolfe's powers as a writer of language and a storyteller in his novel A Man in Full. What insight, characterization! What a fabulously detailed scene at Turpmtine, when a humiliated Charlie Croker restores (for himself and his underlings) his manhood by picking up a rattlesnake with his bare hands. Wow! So why does Charlie so easily turn to evangelism at the end? Even if an unusual kind, ie, stoicism. Even if a hugely sympathetic character, Conrad, introduced Charlie to the philosphy. Despite the workmanlike set up, I did not believe it. And why rely on pure exposition for the last chapter? Okay, Wolfe was making a point about politics and politicians and different classes, shades of skin, while winding up the various story threads he had introduced. And yet... The exhilerating time I had reading the novel ended in a whimper.
Québec à l'automne
L'été indien. The temperature has dropped to moins 2 for several nights, the sky clear, a waxing moon. Leaves turn at different stages, most still green, but some brilliant,true scarlet in the sun, also the Virginia creeper that sprawls across the wonderful house at the corner of Salaberry and Aberdeen. In this neighbourhood, several street names honour Scots: Fraser, Aberdeen, Turnbull, Lockwell. Construction workers bang and drill, rivet, saw, slather mortar between bricks, rout sewers, repave roads. Above St. Jean, an entire block torn up to get at some underground failure. People spend weekends painting their porches. Cement trucks straddle the sidewalks. A part of the art gallery is blocked by high fences to hide the work and protect pedestrians. Cranes still tower alongside the new buildings rising up near the Grand Theâtre.
Amidst all this construction - and while the National Assembly debates the merits of opening an inquiry into corruption in the construction industry - there are signs on the street of dismantling: an historic steeple removed, sitting in front of a building, waiting for a new buidling to crown?
The cement corps of some public work, like the trunk of a human body chopped so that arteries extrude from the top and the bottom.This long weekend, Canadian Thanksgiving, Quebécers often use the extra day to buy winter clothes and tires, seal windows, erect temporary garages, plastic sheds, really, to keep the snow off their cars. So says ma professeure, who spends a good part of each class relating weather stories. Weather is not a default subject here. it is important to consult le méteo,les prévisions, she says. To leave the window open mere centimetres at night, to keep les gants, le tuque, etc ready to wear.
The cafes along Cartier still have tables out on the terraces, but plants have been moved indoors, geraniums replaced by pumpkins. At le jardin Jeanne d'arc, the Halloween displays dominate the bronze and lemon and lavender chrysanthemums that jewel the various beds.
The abundance of Île d'Orleans displayed à la Marché de Vieux Port, and nearby à Les Provisioners. Chou-fleur the colour of a cantelope, des carrottes purple, orange, yellow: apples, apples, apples. I will by a dozen Cortlands today in memory of Russ, who liked that variety best, because, he said, when you bite in, they bite back.
Grosse Île
Un autre automne à Québec. Construction everywhere. A white disc of sun presses through, like a light bulb behind a dirty sheet. Fog. But on days ensoleillé, the light seems grades brighter, sharper. Because of the river?
Finally made the cruise to Grosse Île le samedi passé. A good boat provided by Croisières Coudrier. From a seat in front, to see as much as possible, I was first struck by the length of Île d'Orléans, along which we cruised for what seemed to be half the 90 minute trip. Could see the wide chutes de Montmorency in the distance, silos rising from the big farms. A river, yes, but so wide the shores seem a mirage, an illusion of land. A dream of white church spires and white birch trunks and pretty, red-roofed houses. Into the tossy slate waves that expel crests of foamy breath, nosing up, plunging down. Le fleuve nudges, slaps, at the Orléans wharf, a sudsy ring edges back and forth from a breakwater of sharp, umber rock.
The St Lawrence seaway, something every school child learns of, and now I am cruising on it, towards the wide mouth that opens to the Atlantic beyond the Gaspé I will never reach. Not on this trip. Beyond d'Orléans, at Île Madame, the water is just 10% salt. The islands in the distance float like dark cream above le fleuve, another illusion, of course, but land may have seemed that unlikely to the voyagers who glimpsed it, finally, after weeks at sea. The mountains to the north, cloud shadows changing shape over them, blue marine against a hundred shades of green and the threatening russet.
As we near Grosse Île I spot the Celtic cross that soars up from the highest rocky point. Facts channel out from the guide's microphone. From 1832 to 1873, 55.8 percent of the immigrants who stopped here were fleeing Ireland. 40-50 died every day. In 1847 alone, 5,424 deaths. So precise those numbers. It has to be only a general ancestral association that causes my eyes to wet. Same as the tears that surprised me in the archives of the National Library in Dublin. As for my family, of the little we know, there is the fact that my grandparents arrived later in the 1800's, through Ellis Island.
Still, along the list of names inscribed on glass at the Irish memorial above the lumpy grass beneath which coffins are stacked one upon the other, I see one Mary Curry, four Mary Ryans, ghosts with the names of my grandmothers.
Perhaps women like they were, but whose hopes typhus fever burned to nothing. I see my own name too. The young Parks Canada guide, his English words charmingly accented with Québecois, explains the famine, the failure of the potato crop, the insistence of the English landlords that tenant farmers use their oat crops to pay the rent. He talks about the doctors who fell ill trying to cure, the priests who came to administer the last rites and soon joined the crowded path from Grosse Île to the next life. The day has warmed. The guide slips off his handsome green jacket and his cap and places them on a rock. That he is sympa enough to imagine the suffering he describes is apparent as he speaks, and improbable though it is this late in the this season, a butterfly casually flutters across the space between him and his audience.One Lazeretto still stands from 1847. Inside, a glass case holds some objects found under the building, the stained bowl of a clay pipe and a brogue of brittle brown leather, heel collar pressed down, laces lost.
Unknown Caller
The words appear on your call display. You have craned your head to look at the home phone, or, grabbed your cell out of your pocket, disturbed while eating dinner, watching Law and Order, boiling water, combing your hair, inventing a cure for cancer. Hmm. Unknown caller. Could be a phone solicitor, could be someone wanting money for the Horn of Africa, or some other country in distress. Could be someone wanting you to sign up for a new credit card, or answer just a few questions, or ask, is this the right number? Maybe your father-in-law, the one who is hard of hearing. Or the mother of that kid your son harassed on FB. A credit company, the bank itself.
But... it's me.
I'm lost. As you know, I don't own a cell phone. I just arrived at the airport and you didn't say where we should meet.
I'm scared. Someone is stalking me in this dark neighbourhood. Not a soul here but me, and whomever belongs to those footsteps. I was lucky enough to find this old pay phone, and, amazingly, it still works. Please pick up.
I'm bleeding. I was walking along my usual path and I stumbled over a rock and hit my head. This nice couple found me. They said I could use their phone.
I'm dying, and the emergency room staff found your number on the in case of emergency line on my driver's license.
The numbers I am calling from are all unknown to you. But it's me, and I need help.
But... it's me.
I'm lost. As you know, I don't own a cell phone. I just arrived at the airport and you didn't say where we should meet.
I'm scared. Someone is stalking me in this dark neighbourhood. Not a soul here but me, and whomever belongs to those footsteps. I was lucky enough to find this old pay phone, and, amazingly, it still works. Please pick up.
I'm bleeding. I was walking along my usual path and I stumbled over a rock and hit my head. This nice couple found me. They said I could use their phone.
I'm dying, and the emergency room staff found your number on the in case of emergency line on my driver's license.
The numbers I am calling from are all unknown to you. But it's me, and I need help.
Two Books
Great House by Nicole Krauss and The Last Life by Claire Messud. After reading A History of Love, I was so looking forward to another Krauss novel. This one, however, has not held me. I started, stopped after 50 pages or so. Picked it up again, persevered for awhile, then put it down again, maybe for good. While I admire her writing itself and appreciate the literary ambition of this particular book - the structure, for example - the unrelenting morose tone was not only heavy but boring to me. So too the abundance of narration over scene creation. The Last Life, by contrast, which is also a sad story, engaged me with its many fully realized, haunting and multilayered scenes. One example, the chapter concerning Alexandre's grandmother's long dying and his attempt to get her coffin aboard one of the last, crowded ships sailing from Algiers to France. I liked the subject matter and settings, too, with which I was not as familiar as those depicted in the Krauss novel. I will read Messud again. Krauss, well... a writer should not write the same book over and over again, but I missed the charm, the humour, the wonderful story, and yes, the structure too of A History of Love.
On a rainy Saturday morning
Birds seem to have a single emotion...joy. The pitch and clarity of their songs, the robins, towhees, thrushes. The twittering and tapping of the red-headed sapsucker pair that poke patterns into the Siberian elm outside my window. Back to work now that their babies have flown. All except crows, who gather on wires, on a branch of the walnut, buzz, click, complain, scold. Squawk. Lift up and pass over the neighbourhood with a steady flap I can hear, a whir as air sifts through their jet feathers. My favourite sound is the one I can mimic by tapping the tip of my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
On a recent Sunday Edition, the director of the Ontario Art Gallery talked about abstract expressionism, the influence of the first atomic bomb on artistic thought. Pollack, his presence in the work, the relation between the canvas and the artist's body. From static to kinetic. Hmm. Television came along around then too.
I had recently seen the surrealist show at the VAG, on a night when three young composers presented new work somewhat inspired by the surrealists.To me it seems that the surrealists were imaginative in a more hopeful, glorious way. Did the bomb destroy hope? Or did the a-e's feel that their work had to be more immediate than reflective?
Calla lilies to look at each day!
Annie Dillard: the writing that so thrills and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing right next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.
C'est vrai.
My new one act, have to find the basting stitch and pull it together. Ceiling... You Again... Unspecified Perils. It is harder to find a publisher and near impossible to get a production. Imperfect has been put on three times. As often at this point I feel a little sadness. The new work is not finished... not what it could be, I think; but my sense of urgency has been dulled a bit by time, my chronically sore shoulder and arm, and experience. Resolve continues to be tested each day. This is what I do, how I occupy myself. Take a break, get a clear handle on what I'm doing with the comedy, try to somehow interest someone in it. It has been fun to write. I say to David, no wonder you like writing comedy. To laugh as you write!
On a recent Sunday Edition, the director of the Ontario Art Gallery talked about abstract expressionism, the influence of the first atomic bomb on artistic thought. Pollack, his presence in the work, the relation between the canvas and the artist's body. From static to kinetic. Hmm. Television came along around then too.
I had recently seen the surrealist show at the VAG, on a night when three young composers presented new work somewhat inspired by the surrealists.To me it seems that the surrealists were imaginative in a more hopeful, glorious way. Did the bomb destroy hope? Or did the a-e's feel that their work had to be more immediate than reflective?
Calla lilies to look at each day!
Annie Dillard: the writing that so thrills and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing right next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.
C'est vrai.
My new one act, have to find the basting stitch and pull it together. Ceiling... You Again... Unspecified Perils. It is harder to find a publisher and near impossible to get a production. Imperfect has been put on three times. As often at this point I feel a little sadness. The new work is not finished... not what it could be, I think; but my sense of urgency has been dulled a bit by time, my chronically sore shoulder and arm, and experience. Resolve continues to be tested each day. This is what I do, how I occupy myself. Take a break, get a clear handle on what I'm doing with the comedy, try to somehow interest someone in it. It has been fun to write. I say to David, no wonder you like writing comedy. To laugh as you write!
Les FF's
Je pense à eux comme ça, les femmes françaises. Ici j'ai aussi deux femmes qui pratiquer la langue avec moi. Ginette je vois régulièrement. L'autre démeure à Sechelt et je ne la vois pas souvent. Aujourd'hui Ginette et moi nous promenons autour le parc Cliff Gilker. Elle aime se promener et elle aime la nature.
I learned the words for moss, mousse, and we saw les chutes très forts. She speaks in English for practice, and I speak in French. If everyone could speak and understand the other's language, this could be a regular practice. Our brains would be sparking with activity. With some effort, it is possible to continue une vie bilingue, even in B.C.
I learned the words for moss, mousse, and we saw les chutes très forts. She speaks in English for practice, and I speak in French. If everyone could speak and understand the other's language, this could be a regular practice. Our brains would be sparking with activity. With some effort, it is possible to continue une vie bilingue, even in B.C.
Community Spirit
Just back from the beach and my first walk down the ramp from the wharf to the new floats. Many neighbours got together on the Victoria Day weekend to build them.
About ten days later, great excitement as the big truck-mounted crane picked up the floats from our Elphinstone "park" and drove them to the Gibsons marina for the high tide launch. Exciting to see some of the builders standing on the floats as they were towed across to Granthams from the marina. Kids found their way down from the wharf and skipped back and forth as Bjorn, Clay, Mark and Brian, and the tow boat operator, got the floats in place and secured them to the historic dolphin and the wharf itself.
I felt the water today. Almost warm enough for a swim!
About ten days later, great excitement as the big truck-mounted crane picked up the floats from our Elphinstone "park" and drove them to the Gibsons marina for the high tide launch. Exciting to see some of the builders standing on the floats as they were towed across to Granthams from the marina. Kids found their way down from the wharf and skipped back and forth as Bjorn, Clay, Mark and Brian, and the tow boat operator, got the floats in place and secured them to the historic dolphin and the wharf itself.
I felt the water today. Almost warm enough for a swim!
R.I.P. Riley
March 2, 2011
On a windy day in Gibsons, after 14 years. A noble spirit.
Vers mars
Sur les Plaines, une fille chants pendant elle fait de les raquettes.
The soft clots of snow fall from branches and Pollack the scintillant smoothness layering the ground. Verglas gloving each tree limb catches light that shines the entire neighbourhood. Snowshoeing the path above the river that morning, I entered a bower of black trees bending under their perfectly balanced white, the thick blue above and between, sound of each racquette lifting and settling, sinking, lifting, settling, sinking.
To be truly bilingual, one must live for part of the time in a francophone area like Quebec. It doesn't matter that official documents and labels are presented in les deux langues, personne ne les lit pas.
ROC, the rest of Canada, as Quebecois dit, and, in Persian mythology, an enormous legendary bird of prey, often white.
Charest plans to change the way English is taught, making it more concentrated in the middle school years. Also, to encourage politeness, he wants school kids to address their teachers using vous, not tu. It is called "vousvoiement"
On mild days, after wind has swept dry snow, things being uncovered, heads, faces, a disc of brown turf on a sunny hill. As snow deteriorates. there is not quite a honeycomb pattern, but more the texture and sooty colour of Riopelle's hibous.
le francais s'apprend, l'anglais s'attrape
lacher prise
il m'inspire
Sandra's father worked in deneigement, she said.
Février à Québec
The sound of a place, snowploughs, the beep beep of a bobcat backing up, to make another run down the sidewalk. Crows, tweety birds. Church bells from St. Dominic, the creak of the old wood floors mid-night,
The bigh yellow machines. The plough with the blower, the dump truck full of snow, then, in the morning, more light snow. Not a huge dump, but an accumulation, day by day, la neige tombe. February has been snowier than January. Now I wear earplugs to sleep when I know the snowploughs will be working
Valentine's day blizzard, snow drifted deep even on these usally cleared sidewalks. a lovely amount, high where drifted, otherwiwse knee high at most.
At Ashton, on Chemin St. Louis, two bobcats and threee big snowploughs parked. Two others drive in while I wait for the bus back to Cartier parce que l'école était fermé. Two even bigger ploughs roar along Chemin St. Louis, yellow lights blinking. Roar, scape, drop the plough.
Sleep my love and dream about me, all through the night.
Growling, scraping, snorting, blinking, they leave patterns on the snow, pressed nets, hives.
vendredi, le 18 février, il pleut!
The bigh yellow machines. The plough with the blower, the dump truck full of snow, then, in the morning, more light snow. Not a huge dump, but an accumulation, day by day, la neige tombe. February has been snowier than January. Now I wear earplugs to sleep when I know the snowploughs will be working
Valentine's day blizzard, snow drifted deep even on these usally cleared sidewalks. a lovely amount, high where drifted, otherwiwse knee high at most.
At Ashton, on Chemin St. Louis, two bobcats and threee big snowploughs parked. Two others drive in while I wait for the bus back to Cartier parce que l'école était fermé. Two even bigger ploughs roar along Chemin St. Louis, yellow lights blinking. Roar, scape, drop the plough.
Sleep my love and dream about me, all through the night.
Growling, scraping, snorting, blinking, they leave patterns on the snow, pressed nets, hives.
vendredi, le 18 février, il pleut!
Visite en Raquette à les Plaines
The softness of fresh snow. The black tree limbs. Soft yellow light from the lanterns. The animatrice in her long jupe, son manteau blanc avec bleu, les raquettes historiques.
I did not understand all our guide told us, but I understood some of the history of sport sur les Plaines d'Abraham. That information was not necessary to enjoy the trip. I wanted to snowshoe through Les Plaines in the dark, avec les lanternes. I made it up the hill to the Martello Tower without much trouble. Only the disengagement of the back strap once. And once we were up, fireworks from the dernière week-end du Carnval. Un très beau soir.
Mon Voisin
How to live graciously as you grow old: Une leçon de simplicité, apples and music.
Mon voisin a 93 ans. Il est hauteur, and straight, his white hair falls to his shoulders. He cooks for himself, organic vegetables, soybeans, applesauce. He eats peanut butter, bread - both biologique. He cooks organic oats for breakfast everyday. He buys many boxes of apples in the fall and uses then, also shares them, through the year.
He keeps a cat, Pussy, and a bird, Blueberry, that a neighbour gave him when her daughter grew tired of having pets. The litter box rests on the red carpet in the living room, across from the cot he keeps there, and the bird cage hangs from a pole in the kitchen, near the card table and the two chairs with their down-to-the-threads cushions. When he leaves the apartment he assures Pussy that although he is going out, he will be back. Pussy occasionally roams the halls of this petit édifice, sniffing my shoes to get to know me, and whomever else might interest her. He does not let Pussy outside because cats are murder on birds. My neighbour also has a friend who is a dog. In fair weather, the dog lies still à les Plaines, on a bench, while my neighbour combs his long hair smooth. The dog loves my neighbour as much as my neighbour loves him.
My neighbour adores la musique. He is a season ticket holder to all series presented by Orcheste Symphonique de Québec. He is a big-time supporter of the opera, so much so that the director of the opera makes a point of introducing visiting artists to him. Charming to see those storied stars, those big voices stop to chat with this very old, exceedingly modest fan, who has saved up memories, and occasionally a joke, to entertain them.
Although he uses a cane, he is not otherwise accessorized and walks his mile circuit every day it is not excessively windy or icy. He wears a brown toque pulled over his forehead, a brown coat, home-knitted slippers inside old-fashioned rubbers. Ten years ago he slipped on a minute icy patch and broke his wrist. He is healthy, healthy enough to endure tooth implantation to make it easier to chew.
He enjoys company, yet he seems not to crave it, but, with his Pussy, his Bluebell, l'opéra and programs de la musique on CBC et Espace Musique, he enjoys what there is, as he says, left. Self-sufficient, desiring little, using to its threads, a rag for cleaning, wearing the same robe over his self-mended long sleeved t-shirt. This former physicist, who has neither computer nor tv, un bon model.
Mon voisin a 93 ans. Il est hauteur, and straight, his white hair falls to his shoulders. He cooks for himself, organic vegetables, soybeans, applesauce. He eats peanut butter, bread - both biologique. He cooks organic oats for breakfast everyday. He buys many boxes of apples in the fall and uses then, also shares them, through the year.
He keeps a cat, Pussy, and a bird, Blueberry, that a neighbour gave him when her daughter grew tired of having pets. The litter box rests on the red carpet in the living room, across from the cot he keeps there, and the bird cage hangs from a pole in the kitchen, near the card table and the two chairs with their down-to-the-threads cushions. When he leaves the apartment he assures Pussy that although he is going out, he will be back. Pussy occasionally roams the halls of this petit édifice, sniffing my shoes to get to know me, and whomever else might interest her. He does not let Pussy outside because cats are murder on birds. My neighbour also has a friend who is a dog. In fair weather, the dog lies still à les Plaines, on a bench, while my neighbour combs his long hair smooth. The dog loves my neighbour as much as my neighbour loves him.
My neighbour adores la musique. He is a season ticket holder to all series presented by Orcheste Symphonique de Québec. He is a big-time supporter of the opera, so much so that the director of the opera makes a point of introducing visiting artists to him. Charming to see those storied stars, those big voices stop to chat with this very old, exceedingly modest fan, who has saved up memories, and occasionally a joke, to entertain them.
Although he uses a cane, he is not otherwise accessorized and walks his mile circuit every day it is not excessively windy or icy. He wears a brown toque pulled over his forehead, a brown coat, home-knitted slippers inside old-fashioned rubbers. Ten years ago he slipped on a minute icy patch and broke his wrist. He is healthy, healthy enough to endure tooth implantation to make it easier to chew.
He enjoys company, yet he seems not to crave it, but, with his Pussy, his Bluebell, l'opéra and programs de la musique on CBC et Espace Musique, he enjoys what there is, as he says, left. Self-sufficient, desiring little, using to its threads, a rag for cleaning, wearing the same robe over his self-mended long sleeved t-shirt. This former physicist, who has neither computer nor tv, un bon model.
Bilingue encore
Discussion on RC 106.3 about the looser language law re schools. A panel debating the merits of forcing allophones to learn French, because English is the language of work in most places, of the university. The anglicization of Montreal.
Je suis en train de penser de ça.
LeSoleil: in response to Charest, Pauline Marois (PQ leader) asks, would it be right to give people the right to vote, and to be elected themselves, when they can't speak the language of the majority?
I recall conversations with Pascal last fall. The tu or vous controversy he observed. Moncton vs Quebec. Gardez la monnai, he said, a phrase particular to Québec. And Mireille, Québecois have many words related to winter, one being gadue, which means slush.
While Radio Canada hosts a debate about whether French schools should be forced on people, young adults from Ontario - including a Macedonian-Ontarian who wants to be a hockey referee en francais -, Saskatchewan, B.C attend FSL à Centre de Formation de Québec est, le cours I am taking.
Lâche pas la patate, francophones...
Federal minister Maxime Bernier's remark about whether it should be required by law, la langue, or left to choice... I pondered that same question, and I have some sympathy for his view, yet... I think of the Canadian content regulations that did so much for Canadian music. It has been the human way, in NA, to give a hand up to those in the minority.
Another article in LeSoleil, orginally published in La Presse, reports the results of a sondage sur la langue, bilingualisme et la loi 101. Most Francophone Québecois 90%, et 79% de non-francophone Québecois believe 101 is necessary. And it is not so much the anglphone majority in the U.S. and Canada, but the multicultural nature of contemporary Canada that Québecois perceive as a threat to the Francophone culture. The survey also found that Québecois are more willing to learn English than Anglo Canadians are to learn French. Seems so. That Québecois recognize the practicality of knowing English, while there is no real reason for English Canadians to know French. And even for we who study it, there is little opportunity to speak it outside Québec, which is why I came here. It seems that Quebcois have/will have the intellectual edge, in that knowing and practicing more than one language is definitely brain enhancing.
English Québecois are different of course. Selon un sondage, 80% feel it is important to speak French. Yet I have picked up on some slight anti-francisation at the Centre de Formation.
One thing that is unqiue, the passion for language ici. Parfait pour ecrivaine et on qui aime les livres. Vive le Québec! Mon reve est que notre pays va devinir vraiement bilingue.
Je suis en train de penser de ça.
LeSoleil: in response to Charest, Pauline Marois (PQ leader) asks, would it be right to give people the right to vote, and to be elected themselves, when they can't speak the language of the majority?
I recall conversations with Pascal last fall. The tu or vous controversy he observed. Moncton vs Quebec. Gardez la monnai, he said, a phrase particular to Québec. And Mireille, Québecois have many words related to winter, one being gadue, which means slush.
While Radio Canada hosts a debate about whether French schools should be forced on people, young adults from Ontario - including a Macedonian-Ontarian who wants to be a hockey referee en francais -, Saskatchewan, B.C attend FSL à Centre de Formation de Québec est, le cours I am taking.
Lâche pas la patate, francophones...
Federal minister Maxime Bernier's remark about whether it should be required by law, la langue, or left to choice... I pondered that same question, and I have some sympathy for his view, yet... I think of the Canadian content regulations that did so much for Canadian music. It has been the human way, in NA, to give a hand up to those in the minority.
Another article in LeSoleil, orginally published in La Presse, reports the results of a sondage sur la langue, bilingualisme et la loi 101. Most Francophone Québecois 90%, et 79% de non-francophone Québecois believe 101 is necessary. And it is not so much the anglphone majority in the U.S. and Canada, but the multicultural nature of contemporary Canada that Québecois perceive as a threat to the Francophone culture. The survey also found that Québecois are more willing to learn English than Anglo Canadians are to learn French. Seems so. That Québecois recognize the practicality of knowing English, while there is no real reason for English Canadians to know French. And even for we who study it, there is little opportunity to speak it outside Québec, which is why I came here. It seems that Quebcois have/will have the intellectual edge, in that knowing and practicing more than one language is definitely brain enhancing.
English Québecois are different of course. Selon un sondage, 80% feel it is important to speak French. Yet I have picked up on some slight anti-francisation at the Centre de Formation.
One thing that is unqiue, the passion for language ici. Parfait pour ecrivaine et on qui aime les livres. Vive le Québec! Mon reve est que notre pays va devinir vraiement bilingue.