May 24th, 2008
Good times, v. 3.0
Yesterday was my birthday and it was awesome, and now I’m thirty. I’m excited for thirty, since when you say you are twenty-nine everyone assumes you are lying. I’ve never been one of those who dislikes birthdays–I’m selfish enough to really enjoy the concept of a day that’s all about me, though with new people it’s often hard to think of a way to tell them exactly what day it *is*. Ever since I was in high school, I’ve had a clever trick–I wear glitter on my birthday, to work or school or wherever I’m going. Then, when people rightly ask why, I tell them I am celebrating and they are then forced to wish me a happy birthday. Which is all I really want out of life.
I got all kinds of other stuff, too, including a pirate eyepatch (I covered it in glitter), a sparkler that singed some of my arm hair, and many many good wishes from lovely people. Also some good stuff that wasn’t even birthday related–the Biblioasis Fall catalogue came in the mail on Thursday, and it is really classy-looking and interesting and CONTAINS MY BOOK, and I can’t pretend I didn’t flip to that page first. And that arrival inspired the Google-based ecstasy of the previous post–you can now pre-order my book via Chapters-Indigo! This is very exciting to me. Kerry pointed out that you can also find it on Amazon.ca, and then I found it on Amazon.com which is awesome in a largely theoretical way, since I don’t know many people in the states. But still…maybe I’ll meet some!
Later on tonight, I’ll be seeing a dance show (may be you want to, too
Danceworks Co-Works and Kemi Collective Present
“Between Here and Now”
choreography by Jennifer Dallas and Marc Boivin
May 22-24, 8pm
The Winchester Street Theatre (80 Winchester Street,
Toronto)
Tickets 416 204 1082)
And tomorrow, birthday luncheon.
And it’s freaking finally spring. Look how gorgeous is outside. It’s all for me, clearly.
A change of heart / don’t call me back
RR
May 23rd, 2008
Aaaaahhh!
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Once-Rebecca-Rosenblum/9781897231494-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%2527Rosenblum%2527
May 20th, 2008
Apples and avocados
The ever-intelligent Kerry Clare has posted a response at Descant blog to my post Chick-lit ruined my life from a while back. Kerry works through a number of interesting examples on the blog, and you should go read her post (the reason I’m responding here rather than there is that Descant blog eats my comments). Towards the end she pinpoints one of her fears about the genre of chick-lit/comic novels for and about women:
… anyone can fall off a chair with aplomb, then, and perhaps I’m just being sensitive. But I’m still troubled a bit: are only losers funny? Is idiot synonymous with clown? As women have had historical difficulties being taken seriously at all, how are such literary characters detrimental to perceptions of women in general?
I think the danger of dismissing women as clumsy, over-eating, under-ambitious, brand-obsessed drunks (not what Kerry said at all, but one of my own secret fears caused my chick-lit) comes not from any one text, but from the *trend* of chick-lit. Bridget Jones *is* a clumsy, over-eating, under-ambitious brand-obsessed person-who-drinks-a-lot, but she’s also sweet and terribly funny and, in many ways, extremely relatable to one such as I, who doesn’t want to be any of those things but, on certain occasions, is (except the drunk thing).
Bridget Jones’ diary is a worst-case scenario, a what-if-everything-I-fear-actually happened fantasy, told by and for people who want to know as much about their worst selves as possible, if only to make it all seem less heinous. It’s a brilliant book, and there are many others that do the same thing. But as my friend J commented once, about why he doesn’t like these books (yes, *he*–he still has a good point), self-consciousness is still self-absorbtion. These books are about women watching their own every move with fascination. Goodness knows, I do it enough (ohmygod, my hair, that zit on my cheek, the way I laughed just now is stupid and I think she hates my shoes!) and it’s good to have a fictional character to empathize with, but like clumsiness, over-eating, and brand-obsession, self-absorbtion is nothing to be proud of. I’m trying to stop, and think about other stuff.
And therein, I think, lies the problem with chick-lit, not with individual books (though some *are* terrible) but with the genre–do we need a whole category of books for women to think more about how we’re viewed from the outside? I’m generalizing broadly (yes, I have read Marian Keyes’ senstive and hilarious books about addiction and other real problems) but as a whole, these books *don’t* protray women in a wonderful light and the protagonists don’t have a lot of characteristics other than those foibles of which they are so agonizingly aware. The problem, I think, is that most humans are goofballs on occasions, but these books required women *only* to be goofy all the way through. Such is genre fiction–no one faults the heroes of westerns for not having a homelife and a sensitive side. It’s when this stuff starts to be taken as the way to go–an occasional instance of goofy/bad behaviour can brighten any book, but, as KC points out, clownishness is becoming the major vehicle for funny women in books. Oh no!
This is perhaps my favourite instance of female physical comedy in literature:
“That morning I had tried to hang myself.
“I had taken the silk cord of my mother’s yellow bathrobe as soon as she left for work, and, in the amber shade of the bedroom, fashioned it into a knot that slipped up and down on itself. It took me a long time to do this, because I was poor at knots and had no idea how to make a proper one.
“Then I hunted around for a place to attach the rope.
“The trouble was, our house had the wrong kind of ceilings. The ceilings were low, white and smoothly plastered, without a light fixture or a wooden beam in sight.
…
“After a discouraging time of walking about with the slik cord dangling from my neck like a yellow cat’s tail and finding no place to fasten it, I sat on the edge of my mother’s bed and tried pulling the cord tight.
—The Bell Jar, pp. 127–129
Esther Greenwood is always a pretty funny girl, even when she’s trying to commit suicide, but the key thing about Esther is that sometimes she’s dumber than everyone else, and sometimes much smarter. Sometimes the joke is on her, sometimes not. She’s not a real person, but she’s an approximation, not a caricature.
Many many titles in the chick-lit cannon are a joy to read, but reading many many chick-lit titles all at once would probably be confusing if you were trying to pin down What Women Are Like. That’s something you can’t really do, and we should always question books that claim to have done so.
Come on and make it a soft one
RR
Non-internet reference
It seems silly to say that a short story in the New Yorker is good. It’s become almost tautological that the New Yorker publishes good stories, but they aren’t *always*, actually, and not always to everyone’s taste, and certainly as rarely brilliant as anything is in this world. But Annie Proulx’s “Them Old Cowboy Songs” truly is brilliantly to my taste, and I recommend it heartily despite the fact that the piece isn’t online. It’s in the May 5th issue (I’m behind, I know) or else in her new collection, not out in North America until September 9 (the reason the piece isn’t online?)
So this is pretty much just a tease unless you are also behind on the New Yorker. But I wanted to share, because though I read very little bad fiction these days (I’m learning to choose carefully) this is still something rare.
Have to get used to it
RR
May 18th, 2008
I take requests
My interpretation of the words to “Daytime Emmy” by Heartbreak Scene. Whaddya think–am I close? It *is* hard to make out, but I think I’ve got the soul of it here:
I’m the winner of a daytime Emmy
Not too bad for a clockpuncher
They killed me once and the fans brought me back
I make such beautiful enemies.
My scar’s on already
My drink needs a straw
And then I gotta get ahold of my agent
But I’m off in Iowa openin a mall
You were broke, I’d been fired
(chorus)
I don’t feel very safe
You always used to always treat me like a special case
The offer offer looks good
Sellin’ garbage to trash
But do I disappoint them or the ones that catch me?
Entertainment’s a lifetime callin’
They’ll always be watchin as long as you’re fallin’
(chorus repeated many times)
The qualified ideal that you gotta be patient
They’re running your seasons right now in Malasyia
(chorus repeated many times)
Hitches
It was me who was late to the meeting place, for myriad stupid reasons, none of them sufficient excuse. I ran up the stairs, and we three went briskly in search of the cab stand. But we ended up at the kiss’n’ride, and so we went to call the special number that would bring us a free taxi. They promised to come, but did not come.
We discussed, after a while, abandoning the free taxi and paying for one, or was it too late to get the bus, or was the whole operation doomed? A girl overheard, and pointed us in the direction of the actual cab stand. We started to make our delusatory way there, in painful shoes, lugging gifts. I became so distracted by my skirt blowing up above my waste that I walked in front of a moving car.
A voice called to us. Did we want a ride? The helpful girl of a moment before had kissed’n’rode with her mother, in a minivan. Strangers in cars are bad news, we knew, but really, what could be safer than mother and daughter in mini-van? They drove us exactly there, brushed off our thanks, turned out to have the same family name as one of my compatriots. We all work in the same industry. Thank you, kind strangers.
“We’re not *very* late,” we posited, running up the drive. It had rained in the morning, but by 4:08 the sun was bright, so we assumed the wedding would go as planned out of doors. We ran three-quarters of the way ’round the building before we realized it wouldn’t.
“Go all the way around!”
“Fence!”
“Go back!”
“Wait, gate. Gate!”
“Go forward.”
We spotted, then, a conservatory window filled with expectant, forward-facing faces. “Oh, *there’s* the wedding!”
“Get down, get down, they’ll see us.”
Creeping through the garden lugging gifts in uncomfortable shoes, we re-emerged at the front of the building and whirled open the front door, to come face-to-face with the bride, on her father’s arm.
Da-dum-dee-dum!
“What are you doing? You’re late!!”
“We’re sorry!”
“It’s all my—”
“Get in there!”
And, as she was walking down the aisle, “You’ll hear about this on Tuesday!”
And now J and K are married, and no two people could have had a more splendid, generous and fun day, despite such errant friends.
It caught on in a flash
RR
May 15th, 2008
Spring Fever
I am ill. Ill! Not anything anyone should be concerned about, just sniffling and coughing and swollen lymph nodes that make neck feel it’s about to sprout ridges like an iguana. But still. It’s spring! Lilacs are out, and crabapple (proofreading note: I originally wrote “cranapple” there and below–apparently, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated by the Ocean Spray people) blossoms and magnolias and forsythia. On Monday the road that runs by my office smelled *so good* on the walk home because of crabapple blossoms, but today I can no longer smell it. Bah!
(Possibly, one could note here that I should stop wandering around outside trying to smell things, grocery shopping in the rain, leaving the house with wet hair, etc., if I do not wish to be sick. But no, I think I’d rather continue to do those things, and complain.)
It’s so ridiculous / I can barely stop
RR
May 13th, 2008
Evidence
If you need evidence that a good literary time was had at the IV reading on Friday, you can check out the Open Book Toronto article on it. If you follow the link to the Flikr page, you’ll see a bunch of fun photos, including a demented one of me trying really really hard not to blink.
If some dimbulb should say / we were in love in some way / kick all his teeth in for me
RR
May 12th, 2008
Today in Books
I fear change of any sort, even when the status quo isn’t all that great. When it’s actually something I *like*, though, change is terrifying. As it turns out, Julie Wilson’s Seen Reading blog, which was already perfect, hasn’t really changed in its new home–it’s just grown. As of today, there’s podcasts, and the author’s fiction archived there as well, and a lovely new layout. Share and enjoy!
Also today, the Toronto date in the Fiery First Fiction tour. Organized by my dynamic friend K, happening in the lovely Supermarket backspace, and featuring so many hot new authors–I’m excited!
The first time I sang my heart
RR
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