I'm late...very late. You see a few weeks ago my computer crashed and I lost access to the schedule and then forgot. Now, all is good, thanks Tartlette, but I'm late...
Here is what I am reading and why I am reading it!
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. I read it years ago, the man and I watched a very good movie and I was inspired to read it again. It is ideal to read while I'm in heavy revisions because my book is nothing like a book written circa 1845! It is a sweeping hilarious non-family saga - Thackeray is a genius and although he and Dickens could've been crib-mates - a totally different approach. The heroine or anit-heroine, Becky Sharpe, is so obviously the model for Scarlett O'Hara - an ambitious little vixen - with her foil, Amelia Sedley ( Melanie) and her man, Rawden Crawley (Rhett). Well, I could go on. It is fun to read and Thackeray's skewering of the greedy upper-class is brilliant.
Feed My Dear Dogs by Emma Richler (daughter of the amazing Mordechai) - this is also a re-read. Oh, what a wondrous book this is - it follows the foibles of a girl in a wild bohemian family as it moves from London to Montreal. It is so obviously a love letter to her own wonderous family, and is written in the most amazing prose - I love it. Get it. Read it.
A Zillion Books on Writing and Revising - Lamott, King, Bell, Koch, and so on. I pick one up every time I take a break from my wrting retreat. They keep me going in what seems at times to be a fool's errand. Well, aren't they all, ultimately.
Sorry I'm late - here goes...
Showing posts with label Jan Morrison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jan Morrison. Show all posts
14 February 2012
10 January 2012
Topical Tuesday Tackles the Tarsands
Those who know me, know that in the last few years I've been on a news diet. Especially in the car while I'm driving. Instead I listen to audio books from the library. This week, due to several technical malfunctions, I found myself without my defence against listening to the radio. And so I did.
I listened to the CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for you non-canucks and I listened to a report on the proposed pipe-line, The Northern Gateway - hearings begin today on this controversial project. Who's agin it - 1st Nation Peoples who live, fish, hunt and enjoy the land it will cross, most environmental groups with any smarts, who do not wish to support any further exploiting of the tarsands. Who's for it? The Harper Hooligans, the big oil companies and well, you know, the usual suspects of greed and avarice.
What I heard yesterday that got my head a-steaming, was that Harper is furious that "highly financed groups from the United States were protesting the pipe-line. How dare those non-Canadians interfere?? Bluster bluster blah blah!
Here's a story I heard about Stephen Harper when he was little. It may be not be true ;) He was taken to the municipal swimming pool - a pool that his Daddy was on the board of, being an important man about town. Little Stevie had to pee so he did, in the pool. An older smart-guy from another community asked him what the heck he thought he was doing. Stevie said 'it's my pool and I'll pee in it if I want - it isn't any of your beeswax. You just swim in the deep-end...so it won't matter to you."
Here's a piece from the Globe & Mail for those of you who want to know more. Please engage. As a Canadian, I believe it is your business what big oil is getting up to. I invite you to join those 'moneyed rebels' with your pledges of support.
I listened to the CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for you non-canucks and I listened to a report on the proposed pipe-line, The Northern Gateway - hearings begin today on this controversial project. Who's agin it - 1st Nation Peoples who live, fish, hunt and enjoy the land it will cross, most environmental groups with any smarts, who do not wish to support any further exploiting of the tarsands. Who's for it? The Harper Hooligans, the big oil companies and well, you know, the usual suspects of greed and avarice.
What I heard yesterday that got my head a-steaming, was that Harper is furious that "highly financed groups from the United States were protesting the pipe-line. How dare those non-Canadians interfere?? Bluster bluster blah blah!
Here's a story I heard about Stephen Harper when he was little. It may be not be true ;) He was taken to the municipal swimming pool - a pool that his Daddy was on the board of, being an important man about town. Little Stevie had to pee so he did, in the pool. An older smart-guy from another community asked him what the heck he thought he was doing. Stevie said 'it's my pool and I'll pee in it if I want - it isn't any of your beeswax. You just swim in the deep-end...so it won't matter to you."
Here's a piece from the Globe & Mail for those of you who want to know more. Please engage. As a Canadian, I believe it is your business what big oil is getting up to. I invite you to join those 'moneyed rebels' with your pledges of support.
The Northern Gateway pipeline, politics and the law
nathan vanderklippe
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
After years of preparation, a project that would reshape the geography of Canada’s energy landscape is entering public hearings. But with the tremendous rancour already stoked by Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, it’s likely some of the most important decisions that will clear – or block – the path for its construction won’t be made by the three-person federal joint review panel that expects to render a verdict by the end of 2013.
Instead, it’s possible the courts – and perhaps even Parliament – will be called on to play defining roles. The pipeline represents such an important confluence of issues – Canada’s future energy development versus its commitment to environmental obligations and first nations rights – that legal and political intervention could set important national precedents.
There are several ways this could happen, and several important possible outcomes – both if the National Energy Board approves Gateway, angering opponents, or if it denies a project the Harper government has vocally supported.
Legal challenge
First nations and environmental groups are almost certain to appeal any approval of Northern Gateway. They could do so on numerous grounds. If the NEB gives its blessing, that decision can be challenged in the Federal Court of Appeal on procedural grounds. First nations groups could also mount constitutional challenges, arguing that they have not been accorded sufficient consultation or accommodation. First nations do not have a veto on resource projects, but legal wrangling can force substantial delays.
Creative federal intervention
Ottawa has been loath to directly interfere with the National Energy Board, which is supposed to operate independently. But there are several examples of how it has used more creative means to overturn a decision, without doing so directly. For example, when the NEB came out with a restrictive policy on natural gas exports, Ottawa asked the board to reconsider – and the NEB came back with a less restrictive policy. The NEB also said no to a natural gas pipeline to Atlantic Canada, saying it didn’t make financial sense. After Ottawa implemented the National Energy Plan, which included provisions that changed the economics of the pipeline, the NEB reconsidered and approved. The Harper government has already shown its willingness to intervene in similar ways with the CRTC and Investment Canada.
Direct federal intervention
Parliament has often intervened in major pipeline projects. It was Parliament that cleared the way for construction of the initial TransCanada Corp. Mainline pipeline, which delivers western gas to eastern markets by way of Northern Ontario. And Parliament also stepped in to pass legislation for an Alaska gas pipeline through Canada, drafting and passing the Northern Pipeline Act. Legislation could be used to overturn an NEB decision not to approve – a move that would, according to multiple sources, be unprecedented and susceptible to legal challenge. But Ottawa could also use legislation to strengthen an approval. Legislation can still be challenged on some grounds, but it’s a more ironclad method to approve a pipeline, since there are fewer grounds for appeal. It would be an unusual method, but it’s been done before with pipelines.
The stakes
A Supreme Court ruling on first nations consultation and accommodation could provide an important clarification of how aboriginal people should be treated in relation to resource projects and industrial development. That’s something lawyers have been begging for, since there is no neat prescription of what needs to be done to meet those principles. But if Ottawa forces through a project that either the NEB turns down or first nations continue to stridently oppose, it risks damaging the credibility of the NEB – or opening a major conflict with aboriginal people. “One of the things I’ve always looked at as a key to this case is whether or not this is the issue on which Prime Minister Harper wants to pick a battle with the first nations,” said George Hoberg, a professor in environmental and natural resource policy and governance at the University of British Columbia. The Gateway case is fraught with so many issues that Prof. Hoberg is already using it as a classroom case study. Lawyers with first nations expertise are also watching closely.
And so will I be. Like an endangered-hawk I'll be watching...
There are several ways this could happen, and several important possible outcomes – both if the National Energy Board approves Gateway, angering opponents, or if it denies a project the Harper government has vocally supported.
Legal challenge
First nations and environmental groups are almost certain to appeal any approval of Northern Gateway. They could do so on numerous grounds. If the NEB gives its blessing, that decision can be challenged in the Federal Court of Appeal on procedural grounds. First nations groups could also mount constitutional challenges, arguing that they have not been accorded sufficient consultation or accommodation. First nations do not have a veto on resource projects, but legal wrangling can force substantial delays.
Creative federal intervention
Ottawa has been loath to directly interfere with the National Energy Board, which is supposed to operate independently. But there are several examples of how it has used more creative means to overturn a decision, without doing so directly. For example, when the NEB came out with a restrictive policy on natural gas exports, Ottawa asked the board to reconsider – and the NEB came back with a less restrictive policy. The NEB also said no to a natural gas pipeline to Atlantic Canada, saying it didn’t make financial sense. After Ottawa implemented the National Energy Plan, which included provisions that changed the economics of the pipeline, the NEB reconsidered and approved. The Harper government has already shown its willingness to intervene in similar ways with the CRTC and Investment Canada.
Direct federal intervention
Parliament has often intervened in major pipeline projects. It was Parliament that cleared the way for construction of the initial TransCanada Corp. Mainline pipeline, which delivers western gas to eastern markets by way of Northern Ontario. And Parliament also stepped in to pass legislation for an Alaska gas pipeline through Canada, drafting and passing the Northern Pipeline Act. Legislation could be used to overturn an NEB decision not to approve – a move that would, according to multiple sources, be unprecedented and susceptible to legal challenge. But Ottawa could also use legislation to strengthen an approval. Legislation can still be challenged on some grounds, but it’s a more ironclad method to approve a pipeline, since there are fewer grounds for appeal. It would be an unusual method, but it’s been done before with pipelines.
The stakes
A Supreme Court ruling on first nations consultation and accommodation could provide an important clarification of how aboriginal people should be treated in relation to resource projects and industrial development. That’s something lawyers have been begging for, since there is no neat prescription of what needs to be done to meet those principles. But if Ottawa forces through a project that either the NEB turns down or first nations continue to stridently oppose, it risks damaging the credibility of the NEB – or opening a major conflict with aboriginal people. “One of the things I’ve always looked at as a key to this case is whether or not this is the issue on which Prime Minister Harper wants to pick a battle with the first nations,” said George Hoberg, a professor in environmental and natural resource policy and governance at the University of British Columbia. The Gateway case is fraught with so many issues that Prof. Hoberg is already using it as a classroom case study. Lawyers with first nations expertise are also watching closely.
And so will I be. Like an endangered-hawk I'll be watching...
01 January 2012
delusional much?
OK - I totally blew it again. Please forgive me as my mind was addled on too much sugar. Too much booze, too much fun, too much socializing, just plain tooo toooo much.
I'm going to join some of my friends in what is affectionately called 'Buddhist Lent'. We will abstain from harmful substances from one New Year (this Roman one - January 1st) to Shambhala Day or the Tibetan New Year which falls on February 22nd this year. Am I delusional to think I can do this for 51 days? Maybe. I will start tomorrow and give it a try. I feel all yucked up with sugary stuff, boozy stuff and wheaty stuff. I want to be a mean clean fighting machine by the Year of the Water Dragon. I want to be ready for whatever this year throws me. And I'll continue to keep both my meditation practice and my writing one too. And oh, yeah, a clean house. Or a sort of clean house. I'm well on my way to that one.
Here's a picture of what I made over the Christmas season...
I'm going to join some of my friends in what is affectionately called 'Buddhist Lent'. We will abstain from harmful substances from one New Year (this Roman one - January 1st) to Shambhala Day or the Tibetan New Year which falls on February 22nd this year. Am I delusional to think I can do this for 51 days? Maybe. I will start tomorrow and give it a try. I feel all yucked up with sugary stuff, boozy stuff and wheaty stuff. I want to be a mean clean fighting machine by the Year of the Water Dragon. I want to be ready for whatever this year throws me. And I'll continue to keep both my meditation practice and my writing one too. And oh, yeah, a clean house. Or a sort of clean house. I'm well on my way to that one.
Here's a picture of what I made over the Christmas season...
20 December 2011
Topical Tuesday - Lotus Outreach
Today I'm nice and toasty in my home. My sixteen year old step-daughter is moody and surly and then happy and ecstatic - pretty normal in other words. She is safe too. But lots and lots of sixteen year old girls aren't safe. Lots and lots of younger than sixteen girls aren't safe. So today - in the midst of Christmas baking and little things making and dog-walking and writing with my pal Gwen - I gave money to Lotus Outreach. For many girls and women every day is full of one topic - how can I survive? Lotus Outreach works with girls and women in areas where there isn't a lot of anything and girls are vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
Here in there own words:
Originally established to support refugee education, Lotus Outreach now also helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking and keep at-risk students in school. We support this mission through effective grassroots projects, particularly among the rural poor.
Here in there own words:
Originally established to support refugee education, Lotus Outreach now also helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking and keep at-risk students in school. We support this mission through effective grassroots projects, particularly among the rural poor.
What We Do
Lotus Outreach supports the development of effective grassroots projects in vulnerable communities. We aim to build the capacity and sustainability of our local project partners and aspire to raise awareness in our home countries of the problems presented by poverty throughout Asia. Our mission is pursued on several fronts:
- We promote and provide education for children previously denied this right due to extreme poverty or discrimination
- We provide basic healthcare where it’s needed most
- We provide trauma counseling, education and training to children and young women rescued from human trafficking and sexual slavery
- We advocate for social change through informational grass-roots programs
- We provide non-formal and alternative forms of education and basic job skills training
- work to identify and prevent the causes of trafficking and sexual slavery through outreach work, public education campaigns and advocacy.
Today I wanted to post about this program and ask everyone who stops in here to think of young girls who are at risk - either here or abroad - how can you reach out to help them. There is a current belief and I think a well-founded one, that if the 12 year old girls of the world are educated - world poverty will be eradicated. What could be more topical than that?
11 December 2011
very late on Friday...OK it is Sunday afternoon but I'm sure it is very late on Friday somewhere...
OY! I flubbed again. I thought I'd written all my burrow blog dates in my datebook but alas alack - I did not. When I didn't see a post for Friday I went looking and sure enough - it was me - gone!
And it is a Friday Free ForFall - so here goes.
Ten Reasons Why I'm Not Ready for the Holiday Madness
10. As a certified conquistador of chaos (that's CCofC to you) I can't find my embroidery thread. I can't find my scissors. I don't even know where to find a vanilla bean. I can't finish my many holiday-type projects cuz I can't find anything.
9. Almost everyone I know has a birthday in the holiday period - my brother, three out of 6 Canadian Babes, several other buddies and myself. This means birthday breakfasts, birthday lunches, and birthday dinners.
8. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Jew. I'm not a Pagan. All of these have established celebrations at this time. We Buddhists have a sort of fake one but everyone knows it isn't real. So...what am I doing with a Christmas tree (Pagan with Christian covering), candles (Jewish, Pagan, Christian) and so on...well. I live here don't I?
7. The revisions for my novel are at a tricky point.
6. I am busier as a therapist than I have been for years - everyone else needs assistance this time of year dontcha know?
5. It is sunny, dry and warm out. I don't believe in winter any more.
4. I don't have my snow tires on, my teeth cleaned, my bills paid and all sorts of other adult responsibilities are undone too.
3. My sweet patootie and I cannot miss even one night of watching endless West Wing episodes. Ones we've already seen mind you.
2. Trying to have a simplified non-commercial holiday is VERY complicated.
and the number one reason I haven't gotten ready for the holiday madness yet...
1. I LOVE THE LAST MINUTES CRAZINESS
And it is a Friday Free For
Ten Reasons Why I'm Not Ready for the Holiday Madness
10. As a certified conquistador of chaos (that's CCofC to you) I can't find my embroidery thread. I can't find my scissors. I don't even know where to find a vanilla bean. I can't finish my many holiday-type projects cuz I can't find anything.
9. Almost everyone I know has a birthday in the holiday period - my brother, three out of 6 Canadian Babes, several other buddies and myself. This means birthday breakfasts, birthday lunches, and birthday dinners.
8. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Jew. I'm not a Pagan. All of these have established celebrations at this time. We Buddhists have a sort of fake one but everyone knows it isn't real. So...what am I doing with a Christmas tree (Pagan with Christian covering), candles (Jewish, Pagan, Christian) and so on...well. I live here don't I?
7. The revisions for my novel are at a tricky point.
6. I am busier as a therapist than I have been for years - everyone else needs assistance this time of year dontcha know?
5. It is sunny, dry and warm out. I don't believe in winter any more.
4. I don't have my snow tires on, my teeth cleaned, my bills paid and all sorts of other adult responsibilities are undone too.
3. My sweet patootie and I cannot miss even one night of watching endless West Wing episodes. Ones we've already seen mind you.
2. Trying to have a simplified non-commercial holiday is VERY complicated.
and the number one reason I haven't gotten ready for the holiday madness yet...
1. I LOVE THE LAST MINUTES CRAZINESS
30 November 2011
Writing Wednesday - writing through rejection and dejection
I decided that I would be brutally honest today. Brutally. Honest. I am sure I'm not alone in having two sides, especially on the blog and off of it. Or in front of people who we aren't sure have our back. Or those that do and have enough of their own misery not to need any more of it. Especially writerly misery, which is of a very certain, and some might say, self-indulgent sort.
This year, with my writing, I've been a Charlie Brown. And the community I've looked to for support has been a Lucy. I've entered various challenges, contests, etc... and always with a cheerful optimistic outlook. But each time I've come up a chump. I've run forward, ready to kick that football, and lo and behold, each and every time it has been snatched away. Oh, don't worry, I'm not seriously deluded. I know that no one is doing this to me. The thing is I've been behind the magician's curtain in many of these instances. I know how the thing works. I've laboured to choose among many bad and several good entries, or sat on boards that decide who is going to get to breath financially for a bit and who will have to keep on keeping on. And I have found it profoundly hard this year to write through rejection. Perhaps it is because I've also been writing through dejection - my dad died, we had a sudden and horrible reversal of fortune, grandchildren woes and on and on.
I'm not going to leave the story there - how mean would that be? But from time to time I realize that my bloggy persona is one cheery broad - a let's just whistle a tune as we walk through the graveyard sort. And I don't feel like trotting that ego-state out today. I will say what has worked for me and continues to - the support of writing pals. In particular, my writing pal Gwen lifts me up when I am down and I in turn do that for her. Not even my dearest guy can get the depth of writing hell but Gwen can. I also know my fellow Burrowers can do the same. We've shared some of the worst and the load has been the lighter for it.
So, if you are writing through rejection and dejection find yourself a writing pal - as soon as ever you can - whether it is in the flesh or on the web - do it.
Meanwhile (and it does seem a very mean while) I'm writing up a grant proposal. Like Charlie Brown I will go forward optimistically once again into the fray. Here is a photo of my eldest grandson, contemplating snatching victory from the jaws of defeat...
This year, with my writing, I've been a Charlie Brown. And the community I've looked to for support has been a Lucy. I've entered various challenges, contests, etc... and always with a cheerful optimistic outlook. But each time I've come up a chump. I've run forward, ready to kick that football, and lo and behold, each and every time it has been snatched away. Oh, don't worry, I'm not seriously deluded. I know that no one is doing this to me. The thing is I've been behind the magician's curtain in many of these instances. I know how the thing works. I've laboured to choose among many bad and several good entries, or sat on boards that decide who is going to get to breath financially for a bit and who will have to keep on keeping on. And I have found it profoundly hard this year to write through rejection. Perhaps it is because I've also been writing through dejection - my dad died, we had a sudden and horrible reversal of fortune, grandchildren woes and on and on.
I'm not going to leave the story there - how mean would that be? But from time to time I realize that my bloggy persona is one cheery broad - a let's just whistle a tune as we walk through the graveyard sort. And I don't feel like trotting that ego-state out today. I will say what has worked for me and continues to - the support of writing pals. In particular, my writing pal Gwen lifts me up when I am down and I in turn do that for her. Not even my dearest guy can get the depth of writing hell but Gwen can. I also know my fellow Burrowers can do the same. We've shared some of the worst and the load has been the lighter for it.
So, if you are writing through rejection and dejection find yourself a writing pal - as soon as ever you can - whether it is in the flesh or on the web - do it.
21 November 2011
Reading Monday
Hi dear readers! I'm not going to discuss what I'm reading today. I'm going to discuss reading period. There has been much in the news of late about the demise of reading. Do our children (or in my case - grandchildren) read enough or at all? Is the world of books collapsing? Is reading just too much when other things are so fresh and exciting? I'm not talking about the death of story telling - that will never happen. We are a story-making species and will continue to make stories until we are out of breath.
But story telling happens in many ways - through plays, long poems, television series, movies, ballads, opera, dance and, as we now know, in games.
Reading can be private or in community. I love nothing so much as when me and the sweet-patootie and the step-dot are all sitting companionably in the living room, reading our respective books, stopping from time to time to share exquisite details. That is my idea of heaven -especially if there is chocolate involved. When my kids were young, I would read to them every night, as my father did for me and my siblings. When my step-children were younger, their father (S-P) would read to them and I would make myself inconspicuous but present, so as to hear his lovely voice read from books that never grow old.
For most of my life I have read before bed-time. Until the S-P actually - who I hooked up with when I was fifty. Sometimes I still read before bed - like last night when I was just at an exciting bit and absolutely couldn't put it down until I'd finished. But since he and I have cohabited, he brings me coffee in the morning and I do a good bulk of my reading then. I also read in the tub - unlike my pal, the Tartlette, I cannot write in the tub, but I can read until the water is too cold to bear (bare?)
I was talking about education with S-P the other day and telling him that I tried to quit school in Grade One. For I had already learned to read and I knew that they had little else to offer me. I still believe I was correct and if they'd just left me in a room with a whack of books I would've been as far ahead as I am now. But alas alack, I had to put up with the idiocy of school for another 12 years - then a certain falling out while I had a baby or two and then back at it - to get an honours degree in English Literature. University was so unlike public school that it took my breath away. I could sit in the university library for hours, days even, wandering through the stacks, letting my intuition take me from one lovely idea to another.
Reading is so crucial to my well-being that when I read about those who don't read - either because of some failing in their upbringing, a problem with how they read, or a culture (like the ones I wrote about last time with Margaret Mead's books on Samoa etc...) I feel such a panicky feeling. What if I didn't read? What would I do? I think of all the time my dog has to lie around all day and feel such compassion for him, not being able to take the edge of with a good book - like Lassie or Rin Tin Tin. Or maybe he would be an avid reader of Joyce Carey, or Dickens!
I haven't gotten an e-reader yet and don't know if I will. I thought I wanted one for awhile but every time I've tried one I get all messed up with losing my place. I might be too dull to read one of those things. Then a friend lends me a book or I go to the library and get a pile of them out or my birthday comes up and a stack appears just before Christmas break - ah...the luxury. I wouldn't give up reading for anything. In fact, and this is true I suddenly realize, as I write this, I would give up writing before reading. Yep.
How about you?
But story telling happens in many ways - through plays, long poems, television series, movies, ballads, opera, dance and, as we now know, in games.
Reading can be private or in community. I love nothing so much as when me and the sweet-patootie and the step-dot are all sitting companionably in the living room, reading our respective books, stopping from time to time to share exquisite details. That is my idea of heaven -especially if there is chocolate involved. When my kids were young, I would read to them every night, as my father did for me and my siblings. When my step-children were younger, their father (S-P) would read to them and I would make myself inconspicuous but present, so as to hear his lovely voice read from books that never grow old.
For most of my life I have read before bed-time. Until the S-P actually - who I hooked up with when I was fifty. Sometimes I still read before bed - like last night when I was just at an exciting bit and absolutely couldn't put it down until I'd finished. But since he and I have cohabited, he brings me coffee in the morning and I do a good bulk of my reading then. I also read in the tub - unlike my pal, the Tartlette, I cannot write in the tub, but I can read until the water is too cold to bear (bare?)
I was talking about education with S-P the other day and telling him that I tried to quit school in Grade One. For I had already learned to read and I knew that they had little else to offer me. I still believe I was correct and if they'd just left me in a room with a whack of books I would've been as far ahead as I am now. But alas alack, I had to put up with the idiocy of school for another 12 years - then a certain falling out while I had a baby or two and then back at it - to get an honours degree in English Literature. University was so unlike public school that it took my breath away. I could sit in the university library for hours, days even, wandering through the stacks, letting my intuition take me from one lovely idea to another.
Reading is so crucial to my well-being that when I read about those who don't read - either because of some failing in their upbringing, a problem with how they read, or a culture (like the ones I wrote about last time with Margaret Mead's books on Samoa etc...) I feel such a panicky feeling. What if I didn't read? What would I do? I think of all the time my dog has to lie around all day and feel such compassion for him, not being able to take the edge of with a good book - like Lassie or Rin Tin Tin. Or maybe he would be an avid reader of Joyce Carey, or Dickens!
I haven't gotten an e-reader yet and don't know if I will. I thought I wanted one for awhile but every time I've tried one I get all messed up with losing my place. I might be too dull to read one of those things. Then a friend lends me a book or I go to the library and get a pile of them out or my birthday comes up and a stack appears just before Christmas break - ah...the luxury. I wouldn't give up reading for anything. In fact, and this is true I suddenly realize, as I write this, I would give up writing before reading. Yep.
How about you?
31 October 2011
Reading Monday - a very old book...
Happy Hallow's Eve, all you ghouls and bhoys! Like my fellow Burrowers, I love this time of the year. Something about exploring the dark side is infinitely appealing to me. I grew up on a steady diet of fairy tales, such so that it is an odd day that one of them doesn't spring to mind. Many of them have stories about what trouble or glory people get into by either offering or denying hospitality to strangers at their door. Woe betide the errant youth who mocks an elderly woman - she is sure to show up later and give him back his karmic due. The message is clear - the elderly, the lame, animals, and strangers are all dependent on the good will of those whose threshold they find themselves. If the householder is churlish, mean, or stingy, then the very fabric of society is imperilled.
For the Potter fans among you - Harry is an orphan - both without parents and without ability to make his own way when he is cast upon his fate - the wickedly mean Dursley family. Their counters - the Weasley family are open to any stranger, sometimes to their detriment but nonetheless, they believe in giving the benefit of the doubt to those who come to their doorway seeking refuge.
The book I'm reading right now is an old one of mine. I found it on the bookshelf for my step-dot, who professes an interest in anthropology. I knew it was there, I've moved it probably 26 times since I got it - it is Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa. The step-dot didn't pick it up fast enough and I was between good reads so I've been devouring it -as I once did when I was my step-dot's age - 16. As it focusses on adolescent girls it is endlessly fascinating to me. And for those of you looking for the thread to what I've been on about - here it is! Samoans believe in ghosts. They believe that there are scary things out there in the archipelago paradise they call home. And they believe it is of upmost importance to be hospitable to strangers or visitors from other villages. I highly recommend that you read this book if you haven't, or re-read it if, like me, it has been many years since you dipped into it. You will find much of interest - the sexual customs of other cultures are riveting, both in their similarities and their differences - the day to day life of a culture, which I'm sure no longer exists (it was threatened in Mead's time and that was half a century ago) and the fragile nature of all of us on the archipelago we call Earth, makes it a relevant read.
Our libraries aren't open on Mondays, here in Nova Scotia, but tomorrow I'm going to search out the memoir Mead wrote - Blackberry Winter. What are you all reading?
In the meantime I'm going to get some candy together and get ready to welcome strangers to my hearth.
For the Potter fans among you - Harry is an orphan - both without parents and without ability to make his own way when he is cast upon his fate - the wickedly mean Dursley family. Their counters - the Weasley family are open to any stranger, sometimes to their detriment but nonetheless, they believe in giving the benefit of the doubt to those who come to their doorway seeking refuge.
The book I'm reading right now is an old one of mine. I found it on the bookshelf for my step-dot, who professes an interest in anthropology. I knew it was there, I've moved it probably 26 times since I got it - it is Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa. The step-dot didn't pick it up fast enough and I was between good reads so I've been devouring it -as I once did when I was my step-dot's age - 16. As it focusses on adolescent girls it is endlessly fascinating to me. And for those of you looking for the thread to what I've been on about - here it is! Samoans believe in ghosts. They believe that there are scary things out there in the archipelago paradise they call home. And they believe it is of upmost importance to be hospitable to strangers or visitors from other villages. I highly recommend that you read this book if you haven't, or re-read it if, like me, it has been many years since you dipped into it. You will find much of interest - the sexual customs of other cultures are riveting, both in their similarities and their differences - the day to day life of a culture, which I'm sure no longer exists (it was threatened in Mead's time and that was half a century ago) and the fragile nature of all of us on the archipelago we call Earth, makes it a relevant read.
Our libraries aren't open on Mondays, here in Nova Scotia, but tomorrow I'm going to search out the memoir Mead wrote - Blackberry Winter. What are you all reading?
In the meantime I'm going to get some candy together and get ready to welcome strangers to my hearth.
19 October 2011
Writing Wednesday Weeding Whimsy
Do you weed? I hate weeding. But I'm trying to challenge myself on that mind-set. I've challenged myself on lots and lots of mind-sets over the past few years. I now know that I can read and follow directions (I knit lace!! I bake complicated tortes!!); I have discipline (I sit everyday! I write most days!), I don't lose things - I never did but my family thought I did and so I thought I did.
This weeding thing is related to another mind-set I've had - that I like the beginnings of things but rarely finish them. That is absolutely not true of me any more. I finished the Dublin Marathon 9 years ago - hmmm...the date was the 27th I think of this month. I have finished three novels. Beginnings, middles, and ends. I have had successful gardens, though not this year, and I've finished lots and lots of other things too. I've got an old dog! I never thought that would happen but it has. I've lived in a house longer than I thought possible, and longer than I've lived anywhere. My guy and I have been together, as of this year, longer than any other relationship with a guy-type that I've had.
Back to weeding. I hate weeding in my garden and I hate weeding in my writing. Or I did. Now I'm changing, as I said. (am I stressing that too much do you think? does it mean I doth protest too vociferously? don't you love that word?) Even more than weeding, I have challenges with thinning - as in thinning out this row of carrots. A couple of years ago I tricked my gardening self by buying seed tapes of carrots - voila! Pre-thinned. It worked a treat. But I can't do that with my writing. I can't imagine what the equivalent of seed tapes for writing would be. I suppose an editor that looked at your messy manuscript every day and just weeded out all the little shoots that weren't going to go anywhere, or were but had to be cut back because EVERY idea can't be in one book.
That is the problem, right there! Why can't every idea be in the book? Well, because it wouldn't be a story, it would be an encyclopaedia or a rainy day book or a pillow book or a terrible Roman a clef but it wouldn't be a real novel.
And it goes to the same part of my heart that asks me - why can't I go down every road? Why can't I have every possible job that I want? Why can't I live everywhere but still have best friends, old dogs, long-term relationships and so forth?
I'm an experience slut. Yep. I am. And in some essential way that is why I like writing. I can pretend that I'm every character with zillions of different jobs and husbands and dogs and boobs and problems and babies and, well, experiences.
Why not?
Back to weeding - I used to not be a good weeder - see - that right there is bull-pucky. Of course, I was a good enough weeder - there isn't anything hard about it. It's like my first husband used to say "oh honey, you make the best popcorn!" Can you see anything wrong with that statement? Of course you can but it sucked me in for awhile. So - I could weed - I just didn't like it. I would say that I couldn't tell the weeds from the perennials. Why shouldn't weeds live? What makes them less lovely than the flowers? But now, I'm liking it. I'm liking thinning and weeding and supplementing the earth with lovely compost and seeing the crop through to harvest.
Every day that I revise (and that is most days of the week including holidays) I'm enjoying the discipline. The more I weed and thin, the more I want to do. I'll have a bloody poem soon!
So dear readers, if you have some mind-set that you believe about yourself (I'm no good at plots and structure - I hate dialogue - themes evade me) dig into those weedy mental roots and get them outta there!
This weeding thing is related to another mind-set I've had - that I like the beginnings of things but rarely finish them. That is absolutely not true of me any more. I finished the Dublin Marathon 9 years ago - hmmm...the date was the 27th I think of this month. I have finished three novels. Beginnings, middles, and ends. I have had successful gardens, though not this year, and I've finished lots and lots of other things too. I've got an old dog! I never thought that would happen but it has. I've lived in a house longer than I thought possible, and longer than I've lived anywhere. My guy and I have been together, as of this year, longer than any other relationship with a guy-type that I've had.
Back to weeding. I hate weeding in my garden and I hate weeding in my writing. Or I did. Now I'm changing, as I said. (am I stressing that too much do you think? does it mean I doth protest too vociferously? don't you love that word?) Even more than weeding, I have challenges with thinning - as in thinning out this row of carrots. A couple of years ago I tricked my gardening self by buying seed tapes of carrots - voila! Pre-thinned. It worked a treat. But I can't do that with my writing. I can't imagine what the equivalent of seed tapes for writing would be. I suppose an editor that looked at your messy manuscript every day and just weeded out all the little shoots that weren't going to go anywhere, or were but had to be cut back because EVERY idea can't be in one book.
That is the problem, right there! Why can't every idea be in the book? Well, because it wouldn't be a story, it would be an encyclopaedia or a rainy day book or a pillow book or a terrible Roman a clef but it wouldn't be a real novel.
And it goes to the same part of my heart that asks me - why can't I go down every road? Why can't I have every possible job that I want? Why can't I live everywhere but still have best friends, old dogs, long-term relationships and so forth?
I'm an experience slut. Yep. I am. And in some essential way that is why I like writing. I can pretend that I'm every character with zillions of different jobs and husbands and dogs and boobs and problems and babies and, well, experiences.
Why not?
Back to weeding - I used to not be a good weeder - see - that right there is bull-pucky. Of course, I was a good enough weeder - there isn't anything hard about it. It's like my first husband used to say "oh honey, you make the best popcorn!" Can you see anything wrong with that statement? Of course you can but it sucked me in for awhile. So - I could weed - I just didn't like it. I would say that I couldn't tell the weeds from the perennials. Why shouldn't weeds live? What makes them less lovely than the flowers? But now, I'm liking it. I'm liking thinning and weeding and supplementing the earth with lovely compost and seeing the crop through to harvest.
Every day that I revise (and that is most days of the week including holidays) I'm enjoying the discipline. The more I weed and thin, the more I want to do. I'll have a bloody poem soon!
So dear readers, if you have some mind-set that you believe about yourself (I'm no good at plots and structure - I hate dialogue - themes evade me) dig into those weedy mental roots and get them outta there!
Here is a glorious wild weed photo for you all.
07 October 2011
Who Am I - where did I come from?
In the morning I sit on my cushion and meditate. For months and months I have been contemplating the emptiness of such notions as 'self'. It is a very tricky thing to contemplate such a thing, and then to write about my supposed, unreal and empty self on this blog -well...dangerous.
I thought I might as well write about where I came from. Often, in this neck of the woods, that is how people relate to you - who's your mother? where'd ya spring from? It is hard, in small town Nova Scotia, to have an identity if you weren't born here, or really if your folks and your folks' folks weren't born here too. I came to Nova Scotia when I was in my mid-twenties. I moved here from Ottawa, Ontario - our nation's capital. Before Ottawa (I lived there two different times in my life), I lived in Oakville, Ontario, before that, Colorado Springs, before that Ottawa, Osgoode (both Ontario), Edmonton, Alberta, Rivers, Manitoba, and Medicine Hat, Alberta, where I was born. My dad was in the air force, so we lived a vagabond life. We used to go to Lake Metigoshe most summers, at our cottage 'Ups & Downs'. It was in southern Manitoba - both my parents were from small towns in Manitoba, so we had folks there. My Aunt Grace and Uncle Cliff's farm was a big deal for us kids too. We knew its every nook and cranny (every crook and nanny!).
Really, if you asked me to say what place felt most like home to me - where my mind wanders when I think of home - it would be our big old station-wagon, a box on the roof with camping supplies or moving stuff, the back (wagon part) covered in an old satin comforter - blue on one side and gold on the other - covered in a flower sprigged cotton cover. There would be a couple of dolls and a few matchbox cars, when I was younger, and as we grew older (my sis, bro and I) these morphed into comic books. In the front seat there would be a plaid cooler bag, full of sandwiches and cookies. Beside it would be a plaid thermos with coffee. My dad would usually drive and he would definitely be smoking, as would my mum. She'd have the maps out, telling him which route to take. We'd be piled into that car before we were awake in the morning - my dad standing by the station-wagon, going over every detail. It hadn't been that long since he'd made sure his bomber crew on the Lancaster he flew in the war, had its contents checked off - so he was very serious about
checking that list. We'd sleep in the back for the first couple of hours, until the sun woke us up - all sticky in our pj's and hungry. My mum would make sure we found a good restaurant for breakfast - the only meal we'd eat in restaurants. At lunch, we'd have the sandwiches she'd prepared the night before, and at night, we'd either be camping or staying in cabins with tiny little kitchens. We'd drive for ever - sometimes five hundred miles in a day. And this was when the speed limit was much lower.
I loved that time - the songs we'd sing, the craziness we kids would get up to, reading love comics with my feet pressed against the warm glass of the back window.
That's where I sprung from.
I thought I might as well write about where I came from. Often, in this neck of the woods, that is how people relate to you - who's your mother? where'd ya spring from? It is hard, in small town Nova Scotia, to have an identity if you weren't born here, or really if your folks and your folks' folks weren't born here too. I came to Nova Scotia when I was in my mid-twenties. I moved here from Ottawa, Ontario - our nation's capital. Before Ottawa (I lived there two different times in my life), I lived in Oakville, Ontario, before that, Colorado Springs, before that Ottawa, Osgoode (both Ontario), Edmonton, Alberta, Rivers, Manitoba, and Medicine Hat, Alberta, where I was born. My dad was in the air force, so we lived a vagabond life. We used to go to Lake Metigoshe most summers, at our cottage 'Ups & Downs'. It was in southern Manitoba - both my parents were from small towns in Manitoba, so we had folks there. My Aunt Grace and Uncle Cliff's farm was a big deal for us kids too. We knew its every nook and cranny (every crook and nanny!).
Really, if you asked me to say what place felt most like home to me - where my mind wanders when I think of home - it would be our big old station-wagon, a box on the roof with camping supplies or moving stuff, the back (wagon part) covered in an old satin comforter - blue on one side and gold on the other - covered in a flower sprigged cotton cover. There would be a couple of dolls and a few matchbox cars, when I was younger, and as we grew older (my sis, bro and I) these morphed into comic books. In the front seat there would be a plaid cooler bag, full of sandwiches and cookies. Beside it would be a plaid thermos with coffee. My dad would usually drive and he would definitely be smoking, as would my mum. She'd have the maps out, telling him which route to take. We'd be piled into that car before we were awake in the morning - my dad standing by the station-wagon, going over every detail. It hadn't been that long since he'd made sure his bomber crew on the Lancaster he flew in the war, had its contents checked off - so he was very serious about
checking that list. We'd sleep in the back for the first couple of hours, until the sun woke us up - all sticky in our pj's and hungry. My mum would make sure we found a good restaurant for breakfast - the only meal we'd eat in restaurants. At lunch, we'd have the sandwiches she'd prepared the night before, and at night, we'd either be camping or staying in cabins with tiny little kitchens. We'd drive for ever - sometimes five hundred miles in a day. And this was when the speed limit was much lower.
I loved that time - the songs we'd sing, the craziness we kids would get up to, reading love comics with my feet pressed against the warm glass of the back window.
That's where I sprung from.
27 September 2011
topical tuesday, terrific tales of tomorrow, today!
What does topical even mean? Did you ever wonder why the essence of something and being cruel share the same word. I mean to be mean to you today!
Topical means:
1 a : of, relating to, or arranged by topics <set down in topicalform>
Topical means:
1 a : of, relating to, or arranged by topics <set down in topicalform>
b : referring to the topics of the day or place : of local or temporary interest <a topical novel> <topical references>
2
: designed for or involving local application and action (as on the body) <a topical anesthetic> <a topical remedy>
Today, I've decided to go with the second meaning. I am going to discuss goo-like stuff we spread on our surfaces to remedy problems we may have. Three of these leap immediately to mind:
Clearasil - I was a somewhat pimply kid. This stuff stunk. It left a muddy-orange-like deposit on your face, which, face it, was worse than pimples. My Dad, bless his tiny little head, thought I should put Noxema on my pimples. I liked Noxema - its fragrance was so refreshing and yet it smelled effective. Ha! Finally, my skin completely out of control, my mum took me to the doc's. He said - Never ever use Noxema on pimples! It makes them worse!!
The second unguent that springs to mind, is Calamine Lotion - oh dear, remember that? We went to the cottage every summer. It was heaven there - outdoor biffy, endless swimming, mosquitoes and poison ivy. One year, in particular, was baaaaad. My sister always got it worse than me. I remember her lying on the little cottage couch, her legs wrapped in calamine lotion infused rags, her eyes leaking tears. She couldn't walk, her legs were so infected. I like the smell of calamine lotion still, but I hated poison ivy. So, I got mad. Very mad. And I went out to where I knew the leaflets three thrived and I stomped around in them, in my bare feet. Yes, I did. I never got poison ivy again. True dat.
Third thing put on body in youth - Dettol - this was another of my Dad's remedies. He couldn't wait until we got a scrape or a bump, so he could take the stuff out and put it on us - protecting us from evil germs and causing us to scream in pain at the mere odour of the stuff. Our reckoning was that it must be a really bad hurt for him to go to so much trouble. We'd be hauled into the bathroom and sat up on the counter. He'd pour hot water in the sink and the yellow Dettol - it would immediately make the water milky. What was in that stuff?
I miss my Dad. I wish he could put some dettol on my heart so I wouldn't miss him so painfully. But he can't. So...
Third thing put on body in youth - Dettol - this was another of my Dad's remedies. He couldn't wait until we got a scrape or a bump, so he could take the stuff out and put it on us - protecting us from evil germs and causing us to scream in pain at the mere odour of the stuff. Our reckoning was that it must be a really bad hurt for him to go to so much trouble. We'd be hauled into the bathroom and sat up on the counter. He'd pour hot water in the sink and the yellow Dettol - it would immediately make the water milky. What was in that stuff?
I miss my Dad. I wish he could put some dettol on my heart so I wouldn't miss him so painfully. But he can't. So...
08 August 2011
Summer Reading - so oppressive an idea!
Every time I open a magazine or newspaper in the summer it is chock full of so-called 'summer reading' ideas. What is with people? I read all the time. All the time. Even when I'm driving - don't worry, when I'm driving I read by listening to audio books. It isn't exactly the same but it is reading.
I don't read lighter or heavier books in the summer or any other season. I'm sort of like a cow when it comes to reading - I just mow down the books in front of my soft squishy cow nose. Sometimes a farmer comes out and gives me a book to read, sometimes I take my cow library card into the wonderfully full field of books at the library, sometimes I buy old hay, I mean books. OK - enough with this analogy - it wasn't that good to begin with.
The other day I bought a NEW book. One that hasn't even been out that long. It is Ann Patchett's new book World of Wonder. And it is. I mowed through that book at a ferocious pace because it was completely thrilling to me. Have you read her novel, Bel Canto? No? Well go get it and read it NOW. Then read this new one. Oh my but she is a swell writer.
I finished it the other morning - Sunday. I read my allotted bit (until my morning coffee was half-drunk) then I meditated and then I got back into bed and finished it! Sometimes when I read a fabulous book, I get a feeling of deep despair - in my writerly heart. But I didn't when I finished World of Wonder. I cried for awhile because it was so good and I was so sad to finish it but then I had a feeling of goodness. Like if I wanted to be an architect and I went and saw a building that Douglas Cardinal designed. Cardinal is a well-known Canadian architect, born of Métis and Blackfoot heritage. When you see his beautiful buildings, you just feel good. And it was like that. It is in the realm of possibility for me to write a book that someone will cry when they put it down after finishing it.
Ron is reading Rebecca West's great work, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), a 1,181-page classic of travel literature, giving an account of Balkan history and ethnography, and the significance of Nazism, structured about her trip to Yugoslavia in 1937. I adored this book - it took me over two years to read it. And I'm a speed reader. Why? It is so dense and rich that you simply can't mow through it. Or I couldn't. Ron keeps reading me bits of it, which is the number one reason to have a partner, in my opinion.
My point is that no one would consider this book 'light summer reading'. Nor would World of Wonder be considered 'light' by anyone I'm friends with. But they are good any time of the year.
After seeing the latest Harry Potter I have a slight desire to read all of them again. But it might pass. There is so much to read...so little time.
What do you read in the summer?
I don't read lighter or heavier books in the summer or any other season. I'm sort of like a cow when it comes to reading - I just mow down the books in front of my soft squishy cow nose. Sometimes a farmer comes out and gives me a book to read, sometimes I take my cow library card into the wonderfully full field of books at the library, sometimes I buy old hay, I mean books. OK - enough with this analogy - it wasn't that good to begin with.
The other day I bought a NEW book. One that hasn't even been out that long. It is Ann Patchett's new book World of Wonder. And it is. I mowed through that book at a ferocious pace because it was completely thrilling to me. Have you read her novel, Bel Canto? No? Well go get it and read it NOW. Then read this new one. Oh my but she is a swell writer.
Ron is reading Rebecca West's great work, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), a 1,181-page classic of travel literature, giving an account of Balkan history and ethnography, and the significance of Nazism, structured about her trip to Yugoslavia in 1937. I adored this book - it took me over two years to read it. And I'm a speed reader. Why? It is so dense and rich that you simply can't mow through it. Or I couldn't. Ron keeps reading me bits of it, which is the number one reason to have a partner, in my opinion.
My point is that no one would consider this book 'light summer reading'. Nor would World of Wonder be considered 'light' by anyone I'm friends with. But they are good any time of the year.
After seeing the latest Harry Potter I have a slight desire to read all of them again. But it might pass. There is so much to read...so little time.
What do you read in the summer?
15 July 2011
Who Am I?
Today, here, on this bit of floating real estate, I am going to be a photographer. I could be a mother, or a collector of dolls, a Buddhist, or a clown. All of those are part of who I am. I am a writer of plays, a keeper of chickens, a knitter of lace and a therapist. I'm a friend, a lover, a grannie jannie bananie, and a workshop leader. I'm also aware that there are no descriptors extensive enough to capture the essence of a human being. So today, I will go beyond words - to the image. Here is what turns me on these days...
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23 June 2011
Y'all know I'm a therapist right? I mean a PSYCHOtherapist? Yep. And you want me to write about delusional stuff? Yep. OK. But instead of my therapy hat (which is a soft grey slouchy thing), I'm going to wear my writer's cap - it is a beret. Orange
Because I'm a writer and my tools are words I want to talk about some that often get mishandled by the ham-fisted among us word wrasslers. Let's look at the first two up for grabs : illusion and delusion.
An illusion is a false mental image produced by misinterpretation of things that actually exist: 'A mirage is an illusion produced by reflection of light against the sky'.... A delusion is a persistent false belief: A' paranoiac has delusions of persecution'.
Random House Dictionary.
An illusion is fleeting, it is ephemeral - a delusion is a persistent false belief. Persistent. No matter how many times I smack my head on the overhead beam in my friend's basement - I still persist in thinking that I'm shorter than I am. As I fall to the cellar floor I see what I believe to be stars sparkling in the firmament. They aren't. They are illusions caused by the whack to my head.
But if I look up the word illusory - it starts to all get very sketchy:
illusory - based on or having the nature of an illusion; "illusive hopes of finding a better job"; "Secret activities offer presidents the alluring but often illusory promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals without the bothersome debate and open decision that are staples of democracy"
Do you see what I mean or is it only me? With this second definition the 'hopes' are illusive. What are they based on that makes them illusive rather than delusional? Is it that it isn't a persistent hope...yet? And with the secret activities statement is the promise really illusory or is it is just nicer to say that than 'offer presidents the alluring but delusional promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals etc...' I mean, surely to goodness, we can see the foregoing is a PERSISTENT delusion, not just a passing whimsy. Come on.
Let's go on to a few other views on this debate: Here is part of an article written by psychology professor, David A. Gershaw, Ph.D.
Another way to think of this is to remember that magicians perform acts of illusion NOT delusion. We might be delusioned when we realize that there is no magic involved however.
What do you think of this pair of words? Do you have any other pairs of confusing words to share with us today? I mean besides bear and bare, aural and oral, discreet and discrete and amoral and immoral? Just wondering....
Because I'm a writer and my tools are words I want to talk about some that often get mishandled by the ham-fisted among us word wrasslers. Let's look at the first two up for grabs : illusion and delusion.
An illusion is a false mental image produced by misinterpretation of things that actually exist: 'A mirage is an illusion produced by reflection of light against the sky'.... A delusion is a persistent false belief: A' paranoiac has delusions of persecution'.
Random House Dictionary.
An illusion is fleeting, it is ephemeral - a delusion is a persistent false belief. Persistent. No matter how many times I smack my head on the overhead beam in my friend's basement - I still persist in thinking that I'm shorter than I am. As I fall to the cellar floor I see what I believe to be stars sparkling in the firmament. They aren't. They are illusions caused by the whack to my head.
But if I look up the word illusory - it starts to all get very sketchy:
illusory - based on or having the nature of an illusion; "illusive hopes of finding a better job"; "Secret activities offer presidents the alluring but often illusory promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals without the bothersome debate and open decision that are staples of democracy"
Do you see what I mean or is it only me? With this second definition the 'hopes' are illusive. What are they based on that makes them illusive rather than delusional? Is it that it isn't a persistent hope...yet? And with the secret activities statement is the promise really illusory or is it is just nicer to say that than 'offer presidents the alluring but delusional promise that they can achieve foreign policy goals etc...' I mean, surely to goodness, we can see the foregoing is a PERSISTENT delusion, not just a passing whimsy. Come on.
Let's go on to a few other views on this debate: Here is part of an article written by psychology professor, David A. Gershaw, Ph.D.
Just recently in my introductory psychology course, a student did not know the difference between an "illusion" and a "delusion." Since this is a common source of confusion, it is worth explaining.
An illusion is a misleading perception, usually visual. You see something, but you consistently misjudge its length, shape, motion or direction. To avoid further confusion, illusions are distinctly different from hallucinations – which involve sensing something that is not actually present. In contrast, illusions deal with stimuli that are actually present, but they are misinterpreted or hard to interpret.
"An illusion is a perceptual disturbance,
while a delusion is a belief disturbance."
On the other hand, a delusion is a deeply held false belief that is maintained – even when other information contradicts the belief. The contradictory information is either ignored completely or discounted in some way. Many prejudices rely on stereotypes that apply to a small minority in a group, but these stereotypes become delusional when they are used to judge everyone in that group.
Another way to think of this is to remember that magicians perform acts of illusion NOT delusion. We might be delusioned when we realize that there is no magic involved however.
What do you think of this pair of words? Do you have any other pairs of confusing words to share with us today? I mean besides bear and bare, aural and oral, discreet and discrete and amoral and immoral? Just wondering....
13 June 2011
What am I reading? What are you reading? What are we reading?
A novel that I'm reading is one I read ages ago and someone just returned. I must be in a lazy frame of mind - it is called Fits Like a Rubber Dress and it is by Canadian Roxane Ward. It is sharp and funny and very current and youthful. It is about a young married woman named Indigo Blackwell (cool huh?) who is fed up with her mind and her life and her dopey marriage. The scene that made me craziest so far was with her AWFUL father. Yikes. Made me want to murderalize him.
I just finished Happenstance by Carol Shields. I read it years ago too - it is about a marriage and the book is in two parts. From one side you read the wife's view of the story and then you flip it over and read the male's or the other way around. Reminded me of my first husband's weird sci fi books in the early 70's. Now, my guy is reading it. He was reading an awful book that I bought at a bookstore cuz the author was there and I felt guilty - no, I'm not going to name it. He put it down and said "Enough of this nonsense - got something for me to read?" I handed him Happenstance and he started right in. After a few minutes he sighed with delight and said, "Now I'm reading a real book." Ha!
What else am I reading? I'm reading a wonderful book by friend Andy Karr, Contemplating Reality - A Practioner's Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. I'm reading this as part of my daily meditation practice. It is a guide and it gives me certain views of Buddhism for me to wrestle with in contemplation. Yes, I'm afraid I don't quite get it but any day now!
I'm also reading a biography Vanessa Bell by Frances Spalding. Bell was the sister of Virginia Woolf, an artist and a central figure in the Bloomsbury Circle. This is not a sparkling read but I'm enjoying it. I love this gang so it is interesting to read about them.
What are you reading? Do you have different books on the go for different times in the day or week?
Do you think you should be reading something yet can't quite do it?
What is the zeigeist on reading right now? Is reading over?
Has reading saved your life? Tell me about it. Let's have a conversation about reading. Right here and right now, now, now...
I just finished Happenstance by Carol Shields. I read it years ago too - it is about a marriage and the book is in two parts. From one side you read the wife's view of the story and then you flip it over and read the male's or the other way around. Reminded me of my first husband's weird sci fi books in the early 70's. Now, my guy is reading it. He was reading an awful book that I bought at a bookstore cuz the author was there and I felt guilty - no, I'm not going to name it. He put it down and said "Enough of this nonsense - got something for me to read?" I handed him Happenstance and he started right in. After a few minutes he sighed with delight and said, "Now I'm reading a real book." Ha!
What else am I reading? I'm reading a wonderful book by friend Andy Karr, Contemplating Reality - A Practioner's Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. I'm reading this as part of my daily meditation practice. It is a guide and it gives me certain views of Buddhism for me to wrestle with in contemplation. Yes, I'm afraid I don't quite get it but any day now!
I'm also reading a biography Vanessa Bell by Frances Spalding. Bell was the sister of Virginia Woolf, an artist and a central figure in the Bloomsbury Circle. This is not a sparkling read but I'm enjoying it. I love this gang so it is interesting to read about them.
What are you reading? Do you have different books on the go for different times in the day or week?
Do you think you should be reading something yet can't quite do it?
What is the zeigeist on reading right now? Is reading over?
Has reading saved your life? Tell me about it. Let's have a conversation about reading. Right here and right now, now, now...
01 June 2011
writing writing writing
As some of you who follow my blog, Jan Morrison, may know, I got a virus in my computer while simultaneously getting a virus in my self. Thus I have spent the last two days in my pyjamas drinking ginger ale (Sussex Golden - the most divine form of the elixir). And the Sweet Patootie fixed most of the computer nightmare.
I did manage to read a book. I like what happens when you read books in the transcendent state of illness. The book I read was Among the Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson (daughter of Quentin Bell, writer; granddaughter of Vanessa Bell, painter; grand-niece of Virginia Woolf, writer). This is a wonderful book as it explores the real life of the people who chose to live outside of society from 1900 to 1939. I've long been interested in the likes of Dylan Thomas, of Roger Fry, Rebeca West, of artists and writers in Parisian garrets, living on canned sardines and free love. And Nicholson does it wonderfully. She divides the book up into very curious chapters - the first on money (or the dreadful lack of it) and others on love and sex, the children of Bohemia, the household details, cleaning (or the dreadful lack of it), clothing, travel et al. It was a delight and just amusing enough to not be too bothersome to a fluish mind.
Although these folks did what we hippies did to a great extent - only earlier and without bell bottoms - the women had one thing going against them. Nearly all middle class types at that time had servants, but the Bohemians eschewed such things. And guess who took up the slack (imagine a question mark here as I've lost those to the virus). Here is Katherine Mansfield complaining about being a skivvy to John Middleton Murry, when what she wants to do is to get at her writing:
I know I do. Just for a week or two. Or I need a place where nothing much happens, no kids, dogs, chicks, or men. Just writer nuns like I aspire to be. And question marks would be nice too, not that I'm complaining mind you.
Although these folks did what we hippies did to a great extent - only earlier and without bell bottoms - the women had one thing going against them. Nearly all middle class types at that time had servants, but the Bohemians eschewed such things. And guess who took up the slack (imagine a question mark here as I've lost those to the virus). Here is Katherine Mansfield complaining about being a skivvy to John Middleton Murry, when what she wants to do is to get at her writing:
I hate hate hate doing these things that you accept just as all men accept of their women...I walk about with a mind full of ghosts of saucepans and primus stoves and 'Will there be enough to go round'...and you calling (whatever I am doing) 'Tig, isn't there going to be tea It's five o'clock' as though I were a dilatory housemaid.Was it, I wonder (question mark) Or was it just that old thing (question mark) You know. That same old thing. I'm blessed, absolutely blessed. I have a guy who does as much as I do about the house, who cooks and washes floors and is sweet to boot (well, not sweet to boot, you know what I mean - really should get a handle on these commas!). And still...and still the cheese wrappers are out and the compost needs to be emptied and well, we have NO servants. Do you all remember that song by Neil Young 'a man needs a maid' QUESTION MARK Maybe it is that writers and artists and other worthy bohemians need a maid, or a manservant (nudge nudge Tartlette) who will take care of thingies while we work.
I loathe myself, today. I detest this woman who 'superintends' you and rushes about, slamming doors and slopping water - all untidy with her blouse out and her nails grimed. I am disgusted and repelled by the creature that shouts at you, 'You might at least empty the pail and wash out the tea-leaves!' Yes, no wonder you 'come over silent'.
....All the fault of money, I suppose.
I know I do. Just for a week or two. Or I need a place where nothing much happens, no kids, dogs, chicks, or men. Just writer nuns like I aspire to be. And question marks would be nice too, not that I'm complaining mind you.
20 May 2011
Who Am I?
Today, I am a mother! Honestly though, I've been a mother for over forty-one years. I know, I know - how could that be when I'm only 38 myself? But tout alors! It is true. My second son, who believes himself to be the NEW IMPROVED model, turns 39 years old today.
I adore being Calvin's mother. Calvin is a total trip. He has been since he was born. Really. The nurses brought him to me after they'd cleaned him up a bit - this was in the olden days when you had a room with other new mums and the babies were kept in a nursery - well away from your incompetence, thank you very much! At any rate, they brought him to me, with his sprig of very red hair standing straight up and his humungous cheeks, looking like Baby Huey (check out old cartoons if you don't know this character) and I laughed in delight. The nurses got all huffy but I didn't care. They didn't understand. I did. This guy was going to be his own man right off. And that was and is totally true.
It is a challenge to mother any children - or it is for me. I'm not your classic ma. I forget that you aren't supposed to make fart jokes with your eight year old sons. I'm not consistent. Except for loving them that is. I delighted in all their crazy ways - and Calvin has taken that and run with it. He won't settle down - he lives for awhile somewhere doing something and then he is off. I think - cool dat! Why should he settle? Other than the fact that I would like more grandchildren, I don't need him to settle. He tells me about his adventures in Croatia, in Sweden, in England, in Banff and Quebec and I adore him for it. He is creative - both the boys are - and we love to talk about movies and books and art. He is kind - I've seen him taking care in his own imitiable fashion - no one could pin it on him but I notice. If you can't tell, I adore him to pieces and liked being his mum. Oh we fought! Man, we fought. We drove poor Jesse, his milder brother, crazy. But we liked it. We were engaged, connected. He can be infuriating but so can I.
Once, I came home, tired from work - to see my rose bushes lying in ruins - mowed down. Calvin was running over the hill to hide from me, Jesse was hooting and told me that Cal had rode over them with the ride-on mower. When caught he said "I just gave them a good hard pruning!"
That's my lad and I hope he has a swell day.
I adore being Calvin's mother. Calvin is a total trip. He has been since he was born. Really. The nurses brought him to me after they'd cleaned him up a bit - this was in the olden days when you had a room with other new mums and the babies were kept in a nursery - well away from your incompetence, thank you very much! At any rate, they brought him to me, with his sprig of very red hair standing straight up and his humungous cheeks, looking like Baby Huey (check out old cartoons if you don't know this character) and I laughed in delight. The nurses got all huffy but I didn't care. They didn't understand. I did. This guy was going to be his own man right off. And that was and is totally true.
It is a challenge to mother any children - or it is for me. I'm not your classic ma. I forget that you aren't supposed to make fart jokes with your eight year old sons. I'm not consistent. Except for loving them that is. I delighted in all their crazy ways - and Calvin has taken that and run with it. He won't settle down - he lives for awhile somewhere doing something and then he is off. I think - cool dat! Why should he settle? Other than the fact that I would like more grandchildren, I don't need him to settle. He tells me about his adventures in Croatia, in Sweden, in England, in Banff and Quebec and I adore him for it. He is creative - both the boys are - and we love to talk about movies and books and art. He is kind - I've seen him taking care in his own imitiable fashion - no one could pin it on him but I notice. If you can't tell, I adore him to pieces and liked being his mum. Oh we fought! Man, we fought. We drove poor Jesse, his milder brother, crazy. But we liked it. We were engaged, connected. He can be infuriating but so can I.
Once, I came home, tired from work - to see my rose bushes lying in ruins - mowed down. Calvin was running over the hill to hide from me, Jesse was hooting and told me that Cal had rode over them with the ride-on mower. When caught he said "I just gave them a good hard pruning!"
That's my lad and I hope he has a swell day.
me, Jess and Cal making weird faces
10 May 2011
Topical Tuesday Redux
Oh dear.
A week ago, as you read this, Canadians awoke to a brand new scene. Things had gotten shaken, not stirred, in the federal election. I'm not going to bore you with how Canadian politics work - we don't have the same system as the lower North American one or quite the same as the United Kingdom either. The main thing to understand is that we are a VAAAAAAST nearly empty country. So the popular vote doesn't work - well honestly - nothing quite does.
Despite that you won't hear me complaining that the prime one got a majority of seats without a majority of votes - that's how it all shakes down. And I won't complain that he is the devil incarnate (a phrase that perplexes me in that if the devil isn't embodied (the meaning of incarnate - in flesh) then what kind of devil could he possibly be... but I digress), or that Canada has been sold to the highest bidder. Neither will you hear me say smugly that it is so damn wonderful that the NDP have formed the official opposition. Because, dear readers, it isn't. I am not so secretly pleased that the oh so elite liberals got a good comeuppance but even that statement curls and dies on my lips. I'm not happy about anything to do with this election except one thing. I'm allowed to vote.
I'm allowed to haul my fat socialist ass down to the polling station and without anyone giving me any grief other than to look a little longer than I'd like at my driver's license photo, place my X beside my faint hope. I love voting. Every single time - even when I'm so annoyed that the goons in Ottawa make it happen so often - I dance my vote, I sing my vote, I trance my vote. I suck in the particular old export A smell that still lingers in the long smoke free legion. I rest my eyes on the old dolls that are hired to make sure the lists get crossed off and the new lads with shiny eyes who are helping. I like seeing my neighbours shyly making comments about this and that - careful not to ask about your vote or hint about theirs - and I like folding up the origami sheets after I've shakily made my lost cause X and giving it to the guy or gal who has to tear off the bit of paper that says I did it. Then I push my precious golden vote past the corrugated lip down into the box with all the others. All the other flags of this freedom, this sweet place that lets me whinge and whine and crap on the leaders - who lets me dis them or love them but asks me please to make it real. To exercise my prerogative - to be counted.
No matter how jaded or sad or f***ked up I get about what is happening with our government, please don't let me lose my love affair with voting. And if you live in a democracy, I hope you feel the same, and dance the dance. For it is a precious, precious dance.
A week ago, as you read this, Canadians awoke to a brand new scene. Things had gotten shaken, not stirred, in the federal election. I'm not going to bore you with how Canadian politics work - we don't have the same system as the lower North American one or quite the same as the United Kingdom either. The main thing to understand is that we are a VAAAAAAST nearly empty country. So the popular vote doesn't work - well honestly - nothing quite does.
Despite that you won't hear me complaining that the prime one got a majority of seats without a majority of votes - that's how it all shakes down. And I won't complain that he is the devil incarnate (a phrase that perplexes me in that if the devil isn't embodied (the meaning of incarnate - in flesh) then what kind of devil could he possibly be... but I digress), or that Canada has been sold to the highest bidder. Neither will you hear me say smugly that it is so damn wonderful that the NDP have formed the official opposition. Because, dear readers, it isn't. I am not so secretly pleased that the oh so elite liberals got a good comeuppance but even that statement curls and dies on my lips. I'm not happy about anything to do with this election except one thing. I'm allowed to vote.
I'm allowed to haul my fat socialist ass down to the polling station and without anyone giving me any grief other than to look a little longer than I'd like at my driver's license photo, place my X beside my faint hope. I love voting. Every single time - even when I'm so annoyed that the goons in Ottawa make it happen so often - I dance my vote, I sing my vote, I trance my vote. I suck in the particular old export A smell that still lingers in the long smoke free legion. I rest my eyes on the old dolls that are hired to make sure the lists get crossed off and the new lads with shiny eyes who are helping. I like seeing my neighbours shyly making comments about this and that - careful not to ask about your vote or hint about theirs - and I like folding up the origami sheets after I've shakily made my lost cause X and giving it to the guy or gal who has to tear off the bit of paper that says I did it. Then I push my precious golden vote past the corrugated lip down into the box with all the others. All the other flags of this freedom, this sweet place that lets me whinge and whine and crap on the leaders - who lets me dis them or love them but asks me please to make it real. To exercise my prerogative - to be counted.
No matter how jaded or sad or f***ked up I get about what is happening with our government, please don't let me lose my love affair with voting. And if you live in a democracy, I hope you feel the same, and dance the dance. For it is a precious, precious dance.
18 April 2011
Reading Monday - do you re-read?
As you are reading this I am whizzing through the air from one coast to another. Or I'm home and lying down recovering from this. Either way, there is something you can depend on - I will be reading. The thought of being 'out of a book' strikes terror deep in my heart. Luckily, unlike some of my friends, I am a happy re-reader. I will read books again and again. It has to be the 'right' time though. If I'm unhappy in book land then I scour the shelves and come across an old favourite - recently it was a book I've read about four or five times. It had been awhile and I was ready to leap into visiting my friends again. As I've explained to those of you who don't re-read, I don't get bored with hearing the story again, just as I don't get bored with hearing your stories again. I know, I know, you tell it slightly differently each time and my life is different so I hear it in a new way BUT my dears, the same thing happens when I re-read a book. Sure the writing is the same but I notice different elements of the story based on my own experiences and state of mind. Reading isn't a passive act. Not to go all po-mo on you - we're part of the equation of the literary experience.
a very young Margaret Drabble
The book I was reading was Margaret Drabble's The Radiant Way. Having devoured this wonderfully rich story of life in Britain during the Thatcher years (shudder), I went on to read the other two in the trilogy - A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory. All of Drabble's books are brilliant. She has a Dickensian way about her and can write stream of consciousness (as he could) without it being the least bit irritating. And she describes women's friendships in an acceptable way to me. I think she actually has female friends and has had babies and struggles and poverty and all - it is real. This is Drabble in her middle years writing about that time. For those of you who haven't read Drabble, you might start with her earlier books - I particularly like The Waterfall and The Millstone but as I say - I haven't read any that I don't like. Wait, there is one - a more recent one called The Red Queen which didn't grab me. But 16 out of 17 is pretty good! I envy those of you who haven't read her as you'll have this rich resource of books and not need to be 'out of a book' for simply ages. These books are usually in libraries. Dive in, have fun and let me know what you think.
And tell me - do you re-read?
a very young Margaret DrabbleThe book I was reading was Margaret Drabble's The Radiant Way. Having devoured this wonderfully rich story of life in Britain during the Thatcher years (shudder), I went on to read the other two in the trilogy - A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory. All of Drabble's books are brilliant. She has a Dickensian way about her and can write stream of consciousness (as he could) without it being the least bit irritating. And she describes women's friendships in an acceptable way to me. I think she actually has female friends and has had babies and struggles and poverty and all - it is real. This is Drabble in her middle years writing about that time. For those of you who haven't read Drabble, you might start with her earlier books - I particularly like The Waterfall and The Millstone but as I say - I haven't read any that I don't like. Wait, there is one - a more recent one called The Red Queen which didn't grab me. But 16 out of 17 is pretty good! I envy those of you who haven't read her as you'll have this rich resource of books and not need to be 'out of a book' for simply ages. These books are usually in libraries. Dive in, have fun and let me know what you think.
And tell me - do you re-read?
06 April 2011
Writing on Wednesdays
Oh man oh man, I'm blogging too much. I'm doing this A to Zed challenge, which is a hoot, and I'm blogging on my other blogs about Rumi and chickens and knitting and, of course, here, at the Burrow. Today I'm writing about writing. I thought I might tell you all why I blog in terms of my writing. Weird but true. I blog to write, I write to blog. Blogging keeps me away from my WIP maybe, but it doesn't keep me away from my writing. I know, I know, people say it does but it doesn't. It would be like saying that cleaning the top of my cupboards (which I'm also doing today - hateful task) keeps me away from housecleaning. No, it keeps me away from cleaning the bathroom but not housekeeping. My writing has improved a great deal since I started blogging. After about 600 posts (500 at my main site and a bunch more elsewhere) I think I can safely say that my writing has improved. And it spills into my 'real writing'. Yes, it does.
I get instant feedback from savvy readers on what constitutes a good blog post and I can tell you, the writing has much to do with it. For instance, I nearly wrote 'alot' to do with it but I know that word is a no-no, or funny, or something - and I know it from blogging. I have honed my skills to use other better words, different words, unusual or unexpected words BECAUSE I don't want every blog to sound like one after another of cliches. And it is the daily practice which tells me this.
So, complain if you like about how blogging is taking you away from your important writing - even if you only do this to yourself or your cat, but ask yourself this. Why do I blog then? Because you do if you're here. You do.
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