August 8th, 2011

What’s Happening

Saturday: The Big Dream received its first review, in Publishers Weekly and it was good! I am hoping this starts a trend!

Sunday: Mark and I had our first Co-habitational Reading Challenge chat about Owen Meaney. We tried to record it for you, but it turned out the batteries in the recorder, *and* the spare batteries in the drawer were dead (???) I blame the kitten. Anyway, we’re both really loving the book this time round, which is a relief since it’s awfully long. We both love nervous, OCD Owen and his all-caps diction, and the way Irving is in such complete control of his narrative that it can swoop and dive in time and the reader never gets lost. I also have a soft spot for crotchety Grandmother Wheelwright (“it’s that boy again!”)

Monday (that’s today!): I am reading at the Toronto launch of the Fiddlehead fiction issue, tonight at the Dora Keogh on the Danforth. Mark Jarman, Leon Rooke, Kathleen Brown, and yours truly–so excited.

Thursday August 25: Jeff Bursey is launching his new novel at Type Books, and Mark and I are reading too. This will probably be my last reading before TBD launches, so I’ll probably read from *Once*–I haven’t in ages–for old time’s sakes.

What more could you ask from August? Well, actually, one of my most beloved-est friends is getting married on Sunday and I am maid-of-honouring it up, so this week may well be a write-off, writing-wise–there may be a mini-break in the blogging in order to attend rehearsal dinner, hair appointments, and sundry other fun frivolity. If someone takes a picture of me in my adorable be-crinolined purple dress and I don’t look insane, I promise to post it.

August 7th, 2011

The Co-habitational Reading Challenge

My partner, Mark, and I are both writers and voracious readers; we say, “What did you read today?” with the same frequency as weather commentary or requests for popsicles (near constant at my house). It’s obviously a much livelier conversation if the other person has read the book you’re commenting on; there’s only so much I can contribute to rantings or ravings if said comments are my only information on the book.

We’ve read a lot of the same material, but not hardly a majority. One book we both loved long ago was A Prayer for Owen Meany, but sadly now we forget a lot about it. The moving-in process has given us two copies of the novel, so we’ve decided to both reread simultaneously–hopefully the book is as a good as we remember, but either way we’ll get some good book chats out of it.

We’ll try to post the recaps of said chats, and invite any who likes to play along at home, either by (re)reading Owen and sharing your own thoughts on the novel, or by reading any book at all in tandem with your house-mate, and seeing how the conversations go.

Happy book-talking!

August 5th, 2011

Mentions

Just FYI, the current print editions of Quill and Quire and Fashion both have little bits about The Big Dream. They aren’t reviews, just mentions that the book is coming out in the fall–though the one in *Fashion* does call the stories “Coupland-esque,” which is rather nice. But it’s also just nice to know they know, you know?

August 4th, 2011

Songs for The Big Dream

The Big Dream has music in it, but no lyrics. Music is ubiquitous in our culture–with the advent of iPods, less and less of our lives is unsoundtracked, and if you’re going to write real life, you need at least some ambient music popping up sometime. When I wrote Once, there were occasional snatches of whatever the characters were listening to. When I was finished, someone told me that you can’t use song lyrics, even just a few, even if they’re diegetic, even for atmosphere, without paying the artist who wrote them, and the licensing company and whatever-expensive-nightmare.

So I went through the whole book and took out all the direct quotations. I left some vague references and titles in–surely they can’t sue for that, and I guess most readers would be at least slightly familiar with the sorts of music I was writing about, so they’d be able to tune in inside their brains. And it’s not as if music is a huge aspect of my work–it’s just there, a part of things, a thread in the fabric… It was just frustrating, is all, to have to leave things out, even little things.

But since I found out the rules, I’ve been writing with them in mind. In Road Trips, when I wanted to show a character flipping through the radio stations and hearing a little snatch of rap, I wrote the lyrics myself (the joke was how bad it was, so it was ok that I that; I’m not planning an alternative career as a rap lyricist). And in *The Big Dream* I found other ways of describing music besides direct quotations. Sometimes it works better than others, but I think I was largely successful in creating the impression of certain music without using the lyrics. Again, this is a really small part of the book, but I worked hard on it.

Except…somehow I didn’t think all these rules applied to epigraphs. I have no idea why I believed this–probably just because I wanted to, as none of the fair use exceptions of study, review, criticism, etc. applied. I just found this really really perfect epigraph for TBD, and I wanted it and I couldn’t write my way around it–an epigraph is a direct quotation and only that.

So I’ve come to my senses, looked into the matter further, and finally deleted the epigraph. I am sad, because the song and the quotation I picked said the perfect thing, I felt, to introduce the book. So I’ll write this post, I figure, reviewing and critiquing all the music that meant a lot to me and the process of writing TBD, and then I’ll have an excuse to include the quotation here–not in the book, where I feel it belongs, but at least somewhere where people can read it and make the connection. And there’s actually a lot of other music to give credit to, here. I think a lot of writers have music they keep in mind as they write or think about their work, whether or not it’s on in the room where we’re actually tapping at the keys–see Dani Couture’s playlists series or Large Heart Boy’s Book Notes. So it’s a proud tradition of us song-listing authors that I join now–onwards.

Believe it or not, I had never ever heard Dolly Parton’s working-girl classic 9 to 5 until less than a year ago, when my friend K played a dance mix of it in the aerobics class she teaches. True! I don’t generally like the “they let you dream just to watch’em shatter” type of song–too reductive, too whingy. But this song is *very* catch, great for aerobics, and it has two great lines: “there’s a better life and you think about it / dontcha?” and “in the same boat with a lot of your friends / waiting for the day your ship will come in / the tide’s gonna turn and it’s all gonna roll you away.” Have *you* heard a better extended metaphor in a pop-song? A nice bit of solidarity, too! And I like “pour myself a cup of ambition,” too. Someday, I may write a story called, “A Cup of Ambition”–or is that not fair use? Oh, probably not. Sigh. (Query: I’ve still not seen the movie nor the stage show; should I?)

My background in songs about work is, well, work songs. I’m from that sort of family. So I was pleased to find a collection of our old favourites in Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions. A bit more modern than the original Seeger, and also easier to find on CD (oh, sigh, sacrilege), this album is delightful. I certainly realize that a lot of these songs are about work done by slaves, and that it’s grossly offensive to align office work with that history. I don’t do so–I just like songs about work in any form. My favourites are “Jacob’s Ladder,” (that’s actually a really wonderful video there, which I hadn’t seen before now), for the incredible line, “Every new rock just makes us stronger,”  and “John Henry”, about the strongest man in the world. But no kidding, there’s everybody else and then there is Mr. Seeger–a singer for us all.

I’m a literalist, and I always felt that The New Pornographers’ The Crash Year is actually about a market crash–no idea if that’s true or not, although the album being released in 2010 would indicates so, as do lines like “you’re ruined like the rest of us” and “oh my child you’re not safe here.” And there’s a whistle-chorus!

You know you’re a serious Simon and Garfunkel fan when you are into the B sides–the tracks with a horn section, and more ribaldry, less tender reflection. One of my favourite all-time S&G works is Keep the Customer Satisfied. This is essentially a barstool plaint by a travelling salesman, exuberantly sung even when the lyrics are, “And I’m sooo tired / I’m oh-oh-oh so tired/I’m just trying to keep the customer satisfied.” You just don’t hear that line in rock’n’roll very often, and it makes me feel like these guys really know what it’s like to have a not-too-great job–though, as far as I know, they mainly didn’t. I mean, quirky musical icon isn’t a bad gig, right?

Of course, I like lots of music by folks who don’t work at job-jobs or write about them. In fact, I spent most of my time while writing this book listening to music by Vampire Weekend and The National, with a little Neil Diamond and Arcade Fire thrown in. And none of those artists give the impression of having done their time in the salt mine, but that’s ok–I really don’t theme my life by what I’m writing, I just shape it for posts like this.

And there’s Weezer. Silly, irreverent, possibly outdated Weezer, whose music is mainly about flirting and being awkward at parties–not that isn’t awesome, because it totally is. But sometimes, especially this one time, they manage to get right at the heart of things, and write the line that encapsulates not only my book but a chunk of my life’s philosophy. It was in the song Keep Fishin’ (yes, it’s the video with the Muppets–watch it if you haven’t, it’s brilliant). Note that throughout this post I have offered an evaluative judgement on all directly quoted material–it’s criticism, people, and therefore fair use. That *wonderful* line, which really should be my epigraph–fie on the greedy music industry and their selfish need to keep all their good lines for themselves, is:

You’ll never do
The things you want
If you don’t move
And get a job

July 27th, 2011

When Stories Die

I am usually willing to rework a story for nigh on forever if I want to save it–if I’ve changed every word but the heart is the same, I consider it saved still. But I just had to go through my entire freaking hard drive for a piece I’d forgotten the file name for (I found it, amazingly) and I realized how many stories I just kind of quietly forget about so I don’t have to face the fact that they are failures and I can never fix them. I tell myself I’m just taking a break and will come back and solve the problem, but I never do, and the stories live quietly forever on the hard drive, ill-conceived and awkwardly paced and all the rest.

It’s worse when I am actually staring at a story that I subjectively like, but objectively I know that there is not enough worthwhile substance there to save–to save it would mean a heart transplant, making it a different story, and what I should really do is start again. I do it, but I hate it.

Here’s a couple paragraphs–maybe the only good ones–from a story called “Wives.” The piece is truly not very good–glib and maudlin, both, and upon rereading also really skirting what I wanted to say. It deserves to rest in piece–let this be its memorial.

The setup is that some men have escaped from the waiting room while their wives are intensive care, and gone up to the hospital roof to blow off steam by having wheelchair races.

~~~

The grips felt slick and cutting to Grey’s soft palms. He had to lean his whole weight into the first turn, but he got it. On the second turn he lost sight of Collin in his peripheral vision. He was winning.

“Fuck, Collin, knock it off,” he heard Mees bellow, then footsteps pounding on the sticky gravel of the roof.

Grey turned to see what had upset Mees. Collin hadn’t turned, that was it. He was continuing on towards the edge of the roof. It was a sizable concrete lip, a foot, maybe, and there was no real likelihood that a wheelchair could roll up and over it, but still it was startling to see Collin’s long stringy arms thrusting his chair towards the sky’s edge.

Startling enough to send Mees sprinting to tackle him just as the chair tipped up on the concrete. They both hit the gravel hard, Collin on his back in the chair, Mees draped on top of him.

Rose-coloured reviews Some Summer Comedies

A lot of the problems with Bad Teacher could have been eliminated if Cameron Diaz hadn’t been the star. The deepest problem, that this film is dead at its core, obviously could not have been helped by anyone but the scriptwriters, but getting a pretty young unknown to star would’ve alleviated some of the surface nonsense.

This is not to say Diaz does a bad job–she’s even fairly funny as a sexy cynical snob who has evaluated her beauty as her best feature and wants to sell it to the highest bidder, ie., richest husband. When her fiance divines her golddigging ways and cancels the wedding, Elizabeth Halsey has no choice to return to what she had thought was an extremely temporary job, teaching junior high. There, she bides her time, trolling for men, saving money for a breast-enhancement to up her market value even more, and doing as little work as humanly possible teaching, or even speaking to, seventh graders.

One reason I wish that a young unknown had gotten this roles is that Diaz is 39 years old, and while she is far more stunning than most other humans who have ever lived, in my opinion she looks like a stunning 39 year old. Or maybe it’s just because I know how old she is that it always occurs to me when I look at her. Elizabeth’s age is not alluded to–ever–in the film, but it was on my mind, because, yeah, if she were 22 she’d kind of be shallow loser, but with time ahead of her to get it together and find something more useful to do than shoving her boobs at boys. But if you’re 39 and all that’s occurred to you career-wise is to sleep around until you get your hooks into a rich dude… I think this made the movie far more depressing than was intended.

If the filmmakers had given Elizabeth a clear past, and insisted that she was very young, I could’ve believed that she was 22–it’s not inconceivable. But Elizabeth has no past–no friends, no parents, no memories of things that happened before the director said, “Action!” on the first scene. Always the mark of a bad movie, in my book–the script just doesn’t bother with a whole character–a few characteristics will do.

The flip side–a fully imagined character– works wonders on the admittedly simple but enjoyable film Bridesmaids. Star Kristen Wiig is 38 and, again, looks an attractive 38. Here, it works, though, because the character has a history that coincides with her looks. Pretty Annie is a sweet loser, with a failed bakery behind her and only annoying roommates, a dead-end job in a jewellery store, and business-like sex with her unfriendly friend-with-benefits. She also has a mom, a hometown, memories of her ex, and she wears her life on her face. As played by Wiig, whom I’ve never encountered before but will be seeking out in the future, Annie’s hilarious resignation at say, being forced to climb over a gate when she can’t work the controls to open it, and then at the gate starting to move when she’s halfway over, is based on an imagined long history of similar issues.

I hate to say it, but a big part of the reason that *Bridesmaids* suceeds where *Bad Teacher* fails is that Annie is likeable, and Elizabeth is the worst person in the world. I am *not* saying that female protagonists all have to be likeable, but maybe they do in light-hearted romps about falling in love. Or at least have some redeeming qualities. The best we ever get from Elizabeth is that when finally gives a test to her class, she herself knows the right answers–apparently, she’s not dumb. But that’s all she’s got–she’s viciously mean to almost everyone, throws a basketball at kids heads, steals answers for a test to cheat for her students, and humiliates and eventually destroys a fellow teacher whose only crime is being really annoying and self-righteous. (That would be someone named Lucy Punch, doing some of the only genuine comic acting in the movie, as the manic Lucy Squirrel.)

Annie, on the other hand, tries her best, but life–job problems, man problems, and a bitchy fellow-bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding party–push her towards the edge. When Annie does bad things–like screaming at everything at her friend’s bridal shower, then attaching a chocolate fountain and wrestling with a giant cookie–you kinda sorta get where she’s coming from. And it’s also way funnier than sleeping with a rival’s boyfriend, then planting drugs on her and seeing her dragged off to jail!

Reviews have been mixed about the gross-out moments in *Bridesmaids*–everyone knows the big puke-n-diarrhea scene was a late-stage addition by studio powers. It’s not all that funny–it’s *really* gross–but it’s a little funny, and it also has a great moment where Annie, grey-faced and sweating with the effort not to vomit, is forced to consume a Jordan almond by the evil bridesmaid.

This is the other reason it would’ve been great had Diaz’s role gone to someone else–she’s less funny than she could be because she’s a big stahhhhr, and she has to look good in every damn scene. She would *never* have done grey-faced and sweating–she doesn’t even do pasty or pale when Elizabeth is allegedly hitting rock bottom. I don’t know if the director’s decision or Ms. Diaz’s to insist that she always be perfectly lit and made-up, that Elizabeth’s day-to-day clothing be pinup worthy, and that she do a big sexy carwash scene that’s basically looks like a prelude to soft porn. Who doesn’t know that Cameron Diaz is pretty, seriously? Did we need a whole movie to prove that point?

It’s what we get–Elizabeth never really does anything undignified, certainly no real physical comedy. It bugs me that she gave away her big gross-out moment to Justin Timberlake. Remember *There’s Something about Mary*, semen in her hair? This time Mr. Timberlake gets all the semen, all the “Oh, no, really? In a *movie*?” So much for equality of the sexes–the implication here is that Timberlake has so much dignity he can spare some, whereas Diaz can’t (Justin is pretty funny in this movie, btw. But I wish he’d quit movies and get *NSYNC back together. There, I said it.)

The big crazy moment in *Bridesmaids* is also given to a co-star, but the star is a woman too–Maya Rudolph is hilarious giving the news (in a whisper) about what she’s doing inside her wedding dress. (Why Rudolph is not in every movie ever is a strange problem–she’s so great, and so *weird*!) So I love humour that resides in semen and shit? No, not really–but if you’re going to do it, but your heart into it.

In the end, I loved *Bridesmaids* but felt it could’ve done lots more–it’s supposed to be a movie about female friendship, but the whole central conceit is about catty rivalry between women. The friendship between Wiig’s and Rudolph’s characters starts out wonderfully, with an improvised-looking chat about how a lady might indicate she was not eager to offer fellatio right at that moment. But it peters out, until it’s all Wilson Philips gags, and Annie is saved by the love of a good (but not particularly funny) man in the end.

*Bad Teacher* too, is based on the idea that women hate each other more than they like each other, and in the end all problems are solved with a kiss and promise of romance (that would be Jason Segel, playing the pleasant schlub he always plays). These two films were promised as daring, original movies about women messing up, but the plot lines are pure romantic comedy, with a little poop and semen on the side.

It’s kind of devastating to me that one of the low-key, low-marketing, goof-off movies of the summer, a buddy-caper picture you might not even have heard of called Horrible Bosses, is so much better than both these movies put together. What is this movie about? Friendship, male friendship, and how dudes pull together in the face of adversity. The specific adversity in this film is the title–three friends from high-school having their lives ruined by their vicious and insane bosses. So they decide to kill them, as you do–the hire a murder consultant (weirdly good, played by Jamie Foxx) and go on a series of hijinx-y reconnaissance and later murderous adventures.

It’s so so so funny, because the screenwriters put their money where it matters–the plot barely makes any sense, I haven’t heard of two of the three lead guys, but the chemistry between them is perfect. Most of the movie, and all of the best parts, is just them bickering in a car or a bar or in front of the tv, sounding exactly like dudes that have been friends from high school, who love each other and are sick of each other in equal measures.

There are no love interests. Of course not: it’s a buddy caper, not a rom-com, so there’s no room for that. One of the main 3 is engaged, to a woman who has about 7 lines, all of them idiotic. But the guy she’s engaged to is an idiot too, so that’s supposed to be ok. You can’t help but notice that his idiocy gets laughs and hers doesn’t, though.

The only other female speaking role in this film is Jennifer Aniston, playing one of the horrible bosses. And, shock of a lifetime, she’s really really funny. I always thought she and Ross were tied for most boring characters on *Friends* and in *Marley and Me* her main characteristics were a) nice and b) tanned (that’s a surprisingly ok movie, actually, if you are into watching movies where a dog gets all the good lines). But in *Horrible Bosses,* playing a completely deranged psycho maneater, Aniston is balls-out funny. Prowling around in her panties pretending to be fully dressed, proposing to have sex on top of unconscious dental patients, grabbing and snatching fistfuls of flesh whenever she can–she’s a terror, and one who’s not worried about her “image.”

Jennifer Aniston is 42, and I admit that the cougar-type is a poor substitute for good roles for women. But Aniston makes the most of it, and some good gags come from the fact that some guys think she’s too hot to sexually harass anyone–why doesn’t the guy just sleep with her?

I chortled through most of *Horrible Bosses*–our boys accidentally sound racist, accidentally take cocaine, shove things up their bums, and whack each other on the head thousands of times. The actors aren’t afraid to goof around–the characters *are* goofs, so they’re just acting. I think there are no risks at all in this movie–it’s safe, because it’s about dudes being morons. It’s only risky when girls do it.

I wish *Bridesmaids* creators had been able to take more risks, and that *Bad Teacher*’s had been willing to take *any,* but I’m not entirely sure whom to blame. Maybe it’s the dudes who want the ladies laughing at the jokes and not making them, but maybe it’s the ladies who are afraid to look like idiots. Real empowerment, I would think, would be realizing we have dignity to spare.

July 25th, 2011

My Favourite Short Story

When I was 12ish, my favourite short story was For Esmé Esme, with Love and Squalor by J. D. Salinger. Looking back, I figure that’s the way you think when you haven’t read very many stories, and it’s a very small pool to choose from. After a while, you read more and you realize that there are too many ways for a story to be good, too many different vectors of excellence, and having a single favourite makes no sense. This applies to music, too. And art. Also human beings, and a lot of other things.

I tried to do the math, and I’m guessing a very rough estimate would that I’ve read about 2000 professional short stories (not counting workshop, or student work) in books, journals, and magazines in the last 5 years alone. I’ve loved so many of them, for so many vast and varied reasons. But I reread “Esmé,” for probably the 10th time, but perhaps the first in 10 years, last Friday, and I laughed and almost cried on the bus, and thought it was, along a certain gentle realist vector of excellence, sublime.

Like most people, I was mainly an idiot when I was 12, but it’s nice to know I was in the ballpark on a few things.

July 24th, 2011

And then you get the kitten!

There were a lot of things I needed to do and achieve in my life before I was ready for the responsibility of a kitten, so this moment was a long time coming. This is Evan. I promise not to blog about dccccccc=]]]]s[]p—–= him constantly ,jmk or indeed very much at all, but I just wanted you to know he exists. Because he just walked across my keyboard (x2) and that’s how we end up with the text junk above–if sometime I miss deleting that stuff, I want you to know I haven’t lost my mind.

But mainly because Evan is so awesome and I am so very happy to have him.

July 22nd, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews *London Fields* by Martin Amis

Martin Amis’s London Fields is a novel about murderee constructing her own murder. But a 470-page (my edition, anyway) book, like this one is, is going to be about a lot of other things, other people. There are four central characters, and a good dozen secondaries whom we get to know well, plus a dozen minor characters after that that we at least recognize. The most central of the centrals is  Nicola Six, the best named character ever, who is gorgeous, at the end of men, and wanting to die–in her own way, though not by her own hand. She befriends three men–Keith Talent, a London cheat (what it sounds like–small-time hustler) who wants to be a darting champion; Guy Clinch, a rich and titled father with a difficult home-life; and Samson Young, a would-be novelist whose one failing is his complete inability to make anything up.

That last is a fun little po-mo conceit–the novelist decides to write the novel of Nicola’s murder, because it is unspooling in front of him, no making-up required. Sam weaves in and out of the action, sometimes directly addressing the reader, or a future editor, or a rival writer. Sam comments on the action throughout and also, because he knows all the constituents, is sometimes a part of it. I’m even now trying to work out exactly the ways he might’ve been–could’ve been unreliable. I’m not really sure.

Sam is a fascinating character, though–the best-fleshed in the novel. He is American, in London because he has traded flats with another, much more successful writer, Mark Asprey. Through living in Asprey’s home and reading various notes and articles he has left about, Sam grows to loathe him both professionally and personally. But he has other problems–the novel he wants to write is deadline to his publisher and he has another deadline, too: he is dying. It is never explicitly said what disease is killing him, but various physical symptoms plus his unremitting vague references to global crisis caused me to think probably AIDS, or whatever they were calling AIDS in 1989 (when the book was published). Anyone else who has read it want to take another guess?

By a stunning string of coincidences, Sam finds Nicola’s discarded diaries and meets her when he tries to return them. Nicola meets Keith when she stops by his local pub after a funeral. Sam meets Keith when Keith is his driver from Heathrow to London and cheats him mercilessly. I think everyone meets Guy at the pub, too, but I sorta forget. This event happens at the very beginning, and it took me close to two weeks to read the book–long for me in general, though short for me on such a dense book. And it’s super-hard to flip back and double-check something, again owing to density–everything is embedded in a giant paragraph, each paragraph a swirl of useful info about the plot and random ephemera.

I found a lot of the ephemera funny–very funny–but I don’t know what it was doing in the book. Amis’s pet filler topics are: the strategies of competitive darts, traffic in London, unrelieved erections, and ill-behaved children. A single riff on any of these topics–and there’s probably at least half a dozen on each–can go on for over a page, not advancing the plot in any way, or even illuminating character. I guess it adds to tension, maybe, all these little peeves…

No, dammit–I can’t talk myself out of the notion that this book is just too long, and I’m speaking as someone who mainly enjoyed it. *London Fields* feels almost Dickensian at times, as if Amis were serializing it and being paid by the penny. Nicola’s plot is extremely complicated and goes on for ages. I’m not sure how long because the timelines are a bit obscure (it’s often not clear whether it’s the same day or a week later) but it seems part of her plan to leave Guy with a constant erection for over a month. At one point his penis seems to turn gangrenous and he has to start walking with a cane…no, I don’t know if any of that’s actually possible. Anyway! The point is, I was like, “Wow, this is so messed up, I wonder what purpose it serves–must be so clever and obscure. I can’t wait to get to the end.” As the book went on and Nicola’s actions got more bizarre, I read faster and faster, wanting to find out why, why, why.

I can say without wrecking it that there is no why for *many* of the events in the book–not for Nicola’s endless sexual tease of Guy, nor Guy’s bizarre embargo against masturbation. The novel’s crisis is a rat’s nest of plot fragments and characters with no clear motivation. And the climax is, yes, incredibly bizarre and moving, but part of me wanted to scream, “This could’ve happened 200 pages ago!!”

What saves the book, in the end, is Amis’s incredible joy in writing. This book is an indulgence–it seems pretty clear to me that he wrote if for fun and fun is what he had. That’s no bad thing, though, since he shares the fun. The rants about double-parking in London are as witty and entertaining as traffic rants can be, though that’s a limited sphere. The best writing is reserved for the kids–Keith has a baby daughter who is an angel, and Guy has a toddler who is a terror (poetic reversals much?) and all the riffs on both kids are fine and fizzy writing (though, in the case of Guy’s son Marmaduke[!] often disgusting: I have to admit I laughed when he “swamped himself with ordure” but still–ugh).

So…I liked *London Fields* just fine…I simply have no idea what the rave reviews referring to the novel being such a comment on modern times, so intellectual, so “nourishing”–I worry that I’ve missed a great deal of the content of the book. I really just thought it was funny. Anyone who wants to explain the rest, feel free.

This is my ninth book for the To Be Read Reading Challenge–3 books in the next 5 months should be no problem (famous last words??)

July 19th, 2011

Days 8 to 11–Manchester, London, and Home

After a delicious breakfast in the hotel of Crunchy Nut Clusters (the heroin of breakfast cereals; seemingly available only in the UK; contains *caramel*) eaten dry and straight from the box–I never did get the hang of the English habit of eggs and toast and everything else for breakfast–we headed for the delights of Manchester.

M’s great goal was to see the Anthony Burgess Foundation, as he is a tremendous fan of that author. I, on the other hand, have not read any Burgess. When I’d thought the foundation had a museum, which would teach about Burgess, I’d plan to accompany him, but then I found it was just an archive, preaching pretty much entirely to the converted. So I set off for The Museum of Science and Industry.

I saw on my tourist map that there would be a church called “The Hidden Gem” close by my route, so I tried a detour to find, and failed–hence the name, I suppose. But instead I found Manchester City Hall, which is one of the loveliest buildings I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t totally clear on what it was at first–maybe a church–so I went in to find a busy, businesslike place of work. There’s a desk where you can sign in, though, and they tourists are allowed to look around, at least in certain areas. I signed a waiver to take these pictures, which had me slightly worried–not really sure what I agreed to. Except I did promise not to photograph the murals in the mural room (second picture below–I don’t know why it’s sideways, and I can’t seem to fix it. Sorry. Please just tip your head.). That’s too bad, as they really were stunning, depicting highlights of Manchester’s history over the past 500 years or so. Really, it was just an incredible place.

So I eventually got over to the Science and Tech Museum, which was also pretty interesting. I was there mainly for the older technologies, the spinning machines that the industrial revolution was founded on. I was less interested in the air and space stuff, though I’m assured Manchester had some wonderful accomplishments in that area. I actually snuck in with a kindergarten (called “reception” in England; I’m learning!) demonstration of the various IR-age machines–it was fascinating, if loud.

Right around the time I was tiring of MOSI, it started to pour outside. This was very disappointing, as it meant that I had to forgo the intriguing fast-food options that would have required a soaking 5-minute walk, and eat lunch instead in the over-priced museum restaurant. 6 pounds for soup and some bread and soda–urgh!

Of course it cleared as I was finishing my last mouthful, but at least then it was an easy stroll to the People’s History Museum. I was a little confused about this one, as I had thought it would be a history of labour unions, and work in the city in general–some of my favourite topics! And there were certainly allusions to that, but it was more earlier stuff, about the fight for the vote for working men, and then for women. Very very interesting, if not exactly what I expected.

Then I went off to meet Mark at the Manchester Art Gallery, a lovely if smallish gallery in the heart of town. At this point, I may have been a bit tuckered by all the looking-at-stuff (I gave up taking pictures), but I still really enjoyed the exhibits, particularly the collection of pieces by artists and designers native to the city.

Then we had tea (on a tiered tray!), a nap, a stroll, dinner in a pub, and then the drizzle and exhaustion were too much for us and we went to see Bad Teacher, which I would not recommend, but that’s another blog post.

The next morning we staggered off to the MetroLink back to Piccadilly station (scoffing at other tourists in our hotel’s lobby, who were waiting for a taxi to the same place). The train back to London was non-local, non-crowded, and with assigned seats–bliss! I even found a bathroom! Back in London, I felt like a tube-map expert compared to my week-ago self, and we reached the hotel in, well, less than an hour, anyway.

For the bulk of the trip, we’d been super-cheap with regard to hotels (no bathroom door/half hour out of town/potato bugs–couldja tell?) but for the last two nights, we swung for something higher end. In London, there seemed to be no middle rung between cupboard-sized basement rooms and the truly posh–the middle rung that happy spots like Best Western and Holiday Inn typically occupy. So we ended up at Tara Copthorne, an incredibly nice (and expensive) hotel in Kennsington. Still, though, we actually *could* afford it, which meant it was the least posh of the posh, ie., in the parent company’s adverts for it’s five London hotels, the Tara doesn’t even rate a mention.

We were celebrated our bathtub and minifridge, functional tv and lack of potato bugs for a while, then headed off into Kennsington, which is a terribly nice part of town. We had an excellent lunch in a kebab shop–just like native Londoners, right?–and walked to where we’d get the airport bus two days later (I was already nervous). Then I thought…why not Westminister Abbey?

Ok, ok, more organized tourists would’ve thought of that before. And they also probably wouldn’t’ve said, “Hey, that’s a big clock! I’m going to take a picture of it…Hey, is this Big Ben?” But the experience of strolling around Parliament and Westminister Abbey was no less awe-inspiring even to dimwits (everything shuts surprisingly early there, so we couldn’t go inside).

Then we walked across the Thames, which I’d been wanting to do, and had dinner in another pub. Did I mention that London pub food is excellent, and fare cheaper than in other restaurants?

We got up early in order to do everything possible with our last day in England. This started with another walk across the Thames, this time on London Bridge, in the rain, but still fun (we’re getting used to it). Then the Tate Modern, where we had not nearly enough time but still managed to really enjoy the Material Gestures display, including the “red” pictures by my heartthrob, Mark Rothko.

Then back to Victoria Station for lunch with friends of Mark’s (my first London pizza=about the same as all pizzas, ie., great). Then briefly to the hotel, then dinner with Kim, who came into town to bid us farewell. We went for a walk in Kennsington Gardens, which later came up in the Martin Amis novel I read on the flight home–now that’s posh. Then we ate some Dairy Milk, watched some tube, and said our last good night to London.

So terrible was our entry into London that I insisted on getting up at 5am in a cold panic about our exit. We were at the bus stop–this doesn’t make me look sane–over an hour early for our planned pickup. The bus driver was mystified and annoyed about this, but finally allowed us onto the bus as the 5:50am bus apparently does not draw that much of a crowd. After the first EasyBus experience, I was pretty relieved.

Gatwick also was more sane the second time round. We were actually present before our flight had begun checkins (sigh) but once they got started it went smoothly enough. Mysteriously, the carryon I’d entered the country with was deemed too big to leave as carryon, so I had to check it. I was worried about my enormous collection of souvenir Dairy Milks being smashed, but let it go.

We wandered the food courts and malls of Gatwick, as our gate had not opened yet, and bought breakfast. My last scone of the trip came with a tiny glass jar of strawberry jam–yes, really! I took the jar home as a souvenir, and it’s in the fridge now. Then Mark bought some duty-free and I bought a 1500mL bottle of water–we won’t be having a repeat of last time’s airplane drought. Then we waited for our gate to open–and waited and waited. Finally I realized that there wasn’t a delay, Gatwick’s system is just different than I’m used to, and one waits mainly in the general seating, not at the gate. I guess that’s ok.

It was a 20 minute indoor walk to the gate when it was at least announced–that’s some airport. And the flight left on time.

The rest of this is not exciting (well, I’m not sure anyone else is finding *any* of this exciting, but if not even I do then it’s a bad sign) so I’ll try to speed up. The flight was fine, the food was edible, no one projectile vomited in my hearing, and though it took a long time our luggage eventually rematerialized (the Dairy Milks, near as I could tell, were fine). Then Mark’s kindly sister-in-law drove us home in her shiny new car. Once there, we bought groceries, and contemplated our mountain of laundry.

A great trip, I think. Thanks for letting me relive it via blog. Next post will be in present tense, and maybe even about a book!