June 7th, 2007

Think About It (III)

Cathode
Cathartic
Catheter

All words relating to sending or getting out: electrons, emotions, pee.

For all of the men / who have served with no fear
RR

June 5th, 2007

Ben Gets the Last Word

My brother and I have been debating the definition of “seafood” (all fish or just shellfish?) but I’ve decided he wins on wit:

Seafood is food from the sea (like seaweed, dolphins and castaways).

June 4th, 2007

Challenge: punctuation and paragraphing

Well, there was this movie I seen one time. About a man riding across the desert, and it starred Gregory Peck. He was shot down by a hungry kid tryin to make a name for himself. The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.
Well, the marshal, now he beat that kid to a bloody pulp. As the dyin young fighter lay in the sun and gasped for his last breath: Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me, fair and square. I want him feel what it’s like to every moment face his death.
Well, I keep seein this stuff, and it just comes rollin in, and you know it blows right through me like a ball and chain. You know, I can’t believe we’ve lived so long, and are still so far apart. The memory of you keeps callin out to me like a rollin’ train.
I can still see the day you came to me on a painted desert in your busted down Ford and your platform heels. I could never figure out why you chose that particular place to meet. Ah, but you were right, it was perfect as I got in behind the wheel. Well, we drove that car all night, until we got into St. Antoine. And we stared at the Alamamo. Oh, your skin was so tender and soft. Way down in Mexico, you went out to find a doctor and you never came back. I would’ve gone out after you, but I didn’t feel like lettin my head get blown off.
Well, we’re drivin’ this car, and the sun is comin’ up over the Rockies. And well, I know she ain’t you, but she’s here and she’s got that dark rhythm in her soul. But I’m too over-the-edge and I ain’t in the mood anymore to remember the times when I was your only man. Ah, she don’t wanna remind me, she knows this car would go out of control.

Brownsville girl, with your Brownsville curls
Teeth like pearls, shinin’ like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my only girl

Well, we crossed the panhandle, and then we headed towards Amarillo. We pulled up where Henry Porter used to live. He owned a wreckin’ lot outside-a town about a mile. Ruby was in the backyard hangin’ clothes. She had her red hair tied back. She saw us come rolling up in trail of dust. She said, Henry ain’t here, but you can come on in, he’ll be back in a little while. And she told us how times were tough, and about she was thinkin-a bummin a ride back to from where she started, but she’d change the subject every time money came up.
She said, Welcome to the land of the livin’ dead, but you could tell she was so broken-hearted. She said, Even the swap-meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.
How far you all goin’? Ruby asked us with a sigh.
We’re goin’ all the way, until the wheels fall off and burn. Till the sun peels the paint, and the seatcovers fade, and water moccasins die.
Ruby just smiled and said, Oh, you know, some they just never learn.
Something about that movie though, that I just can’t get it out of my head. But I can’t remember why I was in it, or what part I was supposed to play. All I remember about it is Gregory Peck and the way the people moved. And that a lot of them seemed to be looking my way.

Brownsville girl, with your Brownsville curls
Teeth like pearls, shinin’ like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my only girl

Well, they were lookin for somebody with a pompadour. I was crossin the street when shots rang out. I didn’t know whether to duck or to run, so I ran. We got him cornered in the churchyard, I heard somebody shout.
Well, you saw my picture in the Corpus Christi Tribune. Underneath it, it said, A Man with No Alibi. You went out on a limb to testify for me, you said I was with you. And when I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears–it was the best acting I saw anybody do.
And I’ve always been the kind of person who doesn’t like to trespass, but sometimes you just find yourself over the line. Oh, if there’s an original thought out there, I could use it right now. You know, I feel pretty good, but that ain’t sayin’ much. I could feel a whole lot better, if you were just here by my side to show me how.
Well, I’m standing in line in the rain to see a movie starring Gregory Peck, yeah but you know it’s not the one that I had in mind. He’s got a new one out now, I don’t know what it’s about, but I’ll see him in anything, so I’ll stand in line.

Brownsville girl, with your Brownsville curls
Teeth like pearls, shinin’ like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my only girl

You know, it’s funny how things never turn out the way you had’em planned. The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter. And you know there was somethin about you, baby, that I liked, that was always too good for this world. Just like you always said there was somethin about me you liked that I left in the French Quarter.
Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content. I don’t have any regrets; they can talk about me plenty when I’m gone. (Oh, yeah?) You always said, People don’t do what they believe in–they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent. And I always said, Hang on to me, baby, and let’s hope that the roof stays on.
There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice. I don’t remember who I was, or where I was bound. All I remember about it was that it starred Gregory Peck. He wore a gun and he was shot in the back. Seems like a long time ago, long before the stars were torn down.

Brownsville girl, with your Brownsville curls
Teeth like pearls, shinin’ like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my only girl

The text above is not mine; I just transcribed that from the MP3 so that I could attempt to add punctuation and paragraphing without anyone else’s ideas impinging upon my own. Obviously, wherever the line breaks are, it’s a song and it’s not written like that, but I think it makes good sense as prose my way. And it is one of my favourite sets of lyrics anywhere ever (lyrics as a opposed to songs, it doesn’t work too well as a piece of music, I don’t think). 50 points if you can name the author (not too hard, given the style?) Hell, 25 points just for reading through to the end. I can see why it’s not everyone’s favourite.

Even the swap-meet around here are getting pretty corrupt (gosh, I love this)
RR

Minor troubles

This past week has been fraught with mild distress as two good friends moved permanently out of the city and a number of others went far far away temporarily (vacations! such a weird concept). Also the weather was weird and the smog was gross. Also I wrecked my favourite pair of tights. And I’m not getting as much work done as I should be on le livre. And yesterday I got caught in a torrential downpour that rendered my t-shirt a public decency issue in *half a block* and when I finally got indoors I discovered that rain had come in the open windows and mixed with dust on the ledge to form a toxic grey sludge. And I am working too many hours this week. Also one of my students informed me he had kissed a snail.

Obviously, my problems are not insurmountable. And they are ameliorated by bright spots like: A’s cooking, company and cool friends on Saturday night; and watching C.R.A.Z.Y. with P and the girls on Sunday.

This week’s projects include freaking out about punctuation and paragraphing (more soon), planning how to reach the Bronx from JFK without falling into the Hudson, and being excited that Ben returns tomorrow from the Middle East. So things are really looking up. Right? Right.

One day the little girl and the little boy / were both baked in a pie
RR

June 1st, 2007

Quotations

“What I know, love and desire in another person isn’t inside him like a nut in its shell, but it is everywhere that he is, forming him. My identity isn’t inside me–it is how I am. It is hard to express the way we know the forms of things, but this is the knowing that art exercises.”
–Hugh Hood in “Sober Colouring: The Ontology of Super Realism”
Maybe I need to get out more, but I think that is the sexiest writing lesson I’ve ever read.

“You take a chance the day you’re born. Why stop now?” That’s Barbara Stanwyck, speaking as Lorna Moon in the Louis Meltzer’s screenplay of Clifford Odets’ play Golden Boys as quoted by Anthony Lane in a New Yorker article on Stanwyck’s career last month. I like the line, of course–always good to be reminded not to be a chicken. I also just like the layers of quotation–obviously, Odets, Meltzer and Lane liked the line, too. I actually thought about doing the citation in MLA style, just for fun, but then I thought, “Do you want to be the sort of person who does MLA style ‘for fun’?” Ahem.

One final quote note: In case anyone was deluded, my signoff lines are not original; though uncredited, they are from pop songs, usually good lines, often from bad songs. My point may or may not be that anything can sound deep taken way out of context, or perhaps I just like a lot of silly music. But I’ll put a good one today, because I’m in the mood for other people’s wisdom,

I’m walking up the face of the mountain
Counting every step I climb
Remembering the names of the constellations
Forgotten is a long long time

That’s Paul Simon, I believe I’ve quoted those lines here before, but they are really really good.
RR

May 31st, 2007

On Sleep

In my final semester at McGill, I somehow managed to nearly completely invert my circadian rhythm, and in the process discovered the horrid but fascinating world of Canadian network late-night programming: reruns, test patterns, infomercials, and soft-core pornography (listed in order of entertainment value). Such was the misery of that period that, since then, I have been a model of regular sleep. I could doze through the apocolypse, I am convinced, as long as it took place between 10:30 pm and 6:30 am. Between those times, I can and will attempt to be social, but you may notice me becoming increasingly bug-eyed and incoherent. I have trouble forming complete sentences on less than 8 hours sleep. It’s not pretty.

Somehow, this rigid but acceptable pattern has been thrown for a loop with the coming of spring. There just seems to be too much light–like a six-year-old, I wake up at five with my brain screaming, “It’s day! I hear birds and joggers! Let’s get on with it, we’re missing stuff!!” My body answers, like a grouchy adult, that it does not wish to get up and jog or do anything, because the long and gorgeous evenings are prompting me to stay up long past my bedtime every night. Even if I’m only writing (I’m usually writing), I like to watch the protracted sunset out the window. It seems to go on for hours.

The above two paragraphs are really only to say that I am very tired, and am a poor candidate for polar expeditions. But it sure is lovely in the world, these days. Even when exhausted.

Put your weight against the door / Kick-drum on the basement floor
RR

May 28th, 2007

Mid-year review and world report

I usually take the opportunity of my approximately mid-year birthday to look over my new year’s resolutions and see which are proceeding apace, which I’m falling down on, and which were actually stupid ideas. I’ll spare you the itemized list, but it seems I’m basically doing ok, except for the fact that I resolved to spend an hour a week (not much!) on current events. Anybody seen me do that? Um, no.

This is pathetic, obviously. There’s such a thing as a daily newspaper, and it’s not just for fish. I’ll read a six-hundred page novel, but if it’s real, something in my brain just quiets down. This is not an attractive quality, I know.

You, Rose-coloured readers, are encouraged to encourage me, but I am going to take responsibility for this irresponsibility as a global citizen. I’m off to CBC.ca after this report, I swear.

In other news, my weekend was made up of the sort frivolity that regularly distracts me from the serious issues of the day. In other words, it was a really nice weekend. Hanging out in my new (rose-coloured) swimsuit with the gang at a summer bbq, seeing the inner workings and sanctums of Coachhouse Books at Doors Open Toronto, eating Italian food, encouraging my thriving students (those little whippersnappers are *so smart*) and having good conversations near and far. Needless to say, I got little work done, which is bad, but when the sun is shining and life is so entertaining, it’s hard to care.

It’s the pause that refreshes / in the corridors of power
RR

May 25th, 2007

Summerish variety pack

Summer is coming on in Toronto, which means many places are refrigerated inside. This morning, I left the house bare-armed and bare-legged for the first time this year, and momentarily reveled in the air on my limbs. Then I got on the bus and started to shiver. My war with air-conditioning is decidedly lopsided, since I am out of step with most of the rest of the population, temperature-wise. I had dinner on a patio last night, and with the aid of tights and a cardigan, was able to last until well past dark, but indoor deep-freezes are harder to counter.

Enough with the kvetching; I had *dinner* on a *patio* last night. I’m going to a *BBQ* on Saturday! It is summer and life is sweet. Oh, and my birthday on Wednesday was lovely as well, thanks to all well-wishers. I ran and read and wrote and dined: these are a few of my favourite things.

Oh, and this starts out as a complaint, but then improves: I have more or less mastered the 15-pound dumbbells at the gym, but can scarcely twitch at the 20s, and was fuming of the lack of 17-pound dumbbells, at Hart House or possibly in the world. My solution was to do one set of pathetic half-raises with the 20s and then switch to 15s, and hope somehow (by osmosis?) I eventually get strong enough to do the 20s, preferably before one of the big boys of the weight room notices me and comments, “Um, you know you’re not actually lifting those, right?” The good bit? I just feel so *jocky,* having a problem with free weights, when all my other problems concern words.

With regard to that, this is going to be a CanLit summer, because another word problem is that I haven’t read near enough of the nearby literature. There will be exceptions, natch–already, I can foresee that I *must* read Then We Came to the End very soon or go mad with wanting to. But, yes, the bulk of my reading time with go towards my countrymen and -women. Onward, at this very moment, actually, to Clark Blaise, who has been precise and potent and deeply disturbing so far. I’ve been missing a great deal, clearly, and I intend to rectify that.

Get gotten
RR

May 23rd, 2007

What is Good

Once, in I believe the fall of 2002, I and a few similarly tinted friends created the list of “1000 Things We Like,” perhaps number 1001 being how easy it was (and number 1002 being that there is enough strange synchronicity in our circle that more than one person suggested “little staplers”). The world is overflowing with very good things. This weekend alone, were I still working on the list, I would’ve added,

1) Waterfront winds
2) Marshmallow-mandarin orange salad
3) Unexpected fireworks displays seen out the car window, over the school around the corner, at the house across the street, even three feet in front of me as I walked home last night (ok, that one was a little alarming)
4) The Ben Report–my brother phoned yesterday from Tel Aviv to report that he is fine. He swam in the Dead Sea and played chess with soliders (not simultaneously). He is en route to Cairo, if you’re following this.
5) Cranberry-based birthday confections
6) Free perfume
7) The new issue of The New Quarterly (#102), filled with a slow wry heart-break in Annabel Lyon’s novella *Palaces,* a sad hilarious snapshot of fabulousness in Russell Smith’s story “Confidence” and, well, just tonnes and tonnes of good stuff. And, um, a story by me. No, I can’t believe it either.
8) Teenaged punks who do their vocabulary homework just because I begged them to for months. No, I can’t believe it either.

Life is good. I guess there’s nothing to do but get on with it. Back to work.

You’re such a lovely audience / We’d like to take you home with us
RR

May 18th, 2007

Victoriana

The world is shiny leafy green bird-ridden and nearly the holiday weekend. I’m at work now, and I work tomorrow, but then I get taken to my favourite beachfront Lake Erie restaurant in the official kickoff to pre-birthday festivities, for both myself and Ms. Victoria. Yay! And the mailbox contained “Awake is the New Sleep” by Ben Lee this morning. And it was as catchy as the title indicates, despite the fact that Mr. Lee seems to thank his guru in the liner notes.

And in the valley today, it was an avian rainbow, with a cardinal, a Baltimore Oriole, too many robins to count and a pair of decidedly loved-up finches. Such brilliance as I trotted along. I think I’m starting to come up to speed for the summer months, although also this morning I baked bread and ate rather a lot of it, which isn’t helping my training. It’s funny, with running or writing or speaking or thinking, I’m never really sure how I’m doing, but when I bake good bread, I know it’s good. I can be absolutely positive, even if other people don’t want to eat any. This morning’s batch? Best ever. In my humble opinion.

The head can be a prison / And these are just conjugal visits

RR