Resolutions

Instead of New Year's resolutions, Sally and I spent the solstice making lists of things we were releasing and things we were inviting into our lives. Top of my list for things I'm inviting into my life: a focus on creative projects, and sharing them with other people. Because as much as I write, and make, and experiment, it's usually just for me. I know that that can have its place, but where I'm stuck is putting those things out into the world, and out in the world is where I think they should be.

Then I came across literary resolutions, and decided to make one of those, a fair bit after the fact. I posted mine in this week's edition of bookishness, but here it is again:

I resolve to write something that's not an email every day (and read some classic literature). This is today.

Did I ever tell you how much I loved The Book of Dahlia?

I was reminded of it last night while talking to a friend of mine about how much I wish I were Jewish (and how I'm secretly - or not so secretly - convinced that I actually am, somehow*). I connect so strongly to Jewish culture. Last spring I put my bibliographic search skills to work poring over the public library catalogue to find novels with Jewish protagonists. I found The Book of Dahlia (among others, rest assured. I'm a fantastic librarian.).

Dahlia is a chronic underachiever. The 29-year-old spends her time smoking a lot of pot and occasionally, vaguely considering grad school while watching old movies on TV. Then she has a grand mal seizure and is diagnosed with brain cancer. Yup. The novel is hilarious and smart and dark and sad and awesome. Love. LOVE.

*Seriously. Just after Dahlia gets out of the hospital after being diagnosed, she and her parents head to Barnes & Noble: "This is what Jews do when the shit hits the fan. Go find books." How am I not Jewish?

(This post in English brought to you by a rainy day where I really felt like expressing myself with some semblance of clarity and intelligence.)

Last night I had a dream

Last night I had a dream that I wrote a short story, and was going to give it to my dad to read. I was reading over the last bit, and it was awful, like bad Bukowski.

This is stunningly, awesomely beautiful.

Also: I'm done school (for the semester)! Any awesome things (that don't cost money) that I should be spending my time with (according to you)?

(Video found via BOOOOOOOM.)

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I had my first ever book club meeting today. I can't think of very many things better than eating and talking about books. Well, reading is one of the things I can think of.

Our first pick was Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. For some reason (and I should learn my lesson, because this happens over and over again in life) I didn't think I would really like it, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The story follows Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old New Yorker whose father was killed in the World Trade Centre attack. Oskar is ridiculously intelligent, literal, awkward, anxious, thoughtful - among the most neurotic fictional characters, I've ever encountered, child or otherwise. The book jumps between characters and times, language and writing styles, and makes use of images. I wasn't sure these literary techniques would serve any purpose but novelty, but there are so many beautiful moments, and every word (and picture) helps define the emotions and the characters so precisely, that I ended up cherishing the little things I thought would annoy me (including Oskar).

This book is about grief. It's about the fact that every single person is grieving something, and that we carry that around with us forever. There was some discussion of whether this was a depressing book; for me it absolutely wasn't. It was a sad book sometimes, yes. But I felt hopeful, realizing that we have all lost people and things, but we are still able to make new connections, and still able to love - not just able, but we can't help it.

8.6/10. (Yes, that is my way of giving it an A.)

Side note: In the book, Oskar finds a mysterious key in an envelope marked only with the word "Black." He decides to speak to everyone in New York with the last name of Black, to see if someone can help him figure out what the key is for. In this adorable video, Jonathan Safran Foer sets out to recreate his protagonist's quest. Sort of.

Read read read read read read read

I wish I could do this.

Found via A Cup of Jo.

Things I took out of the library today:

Born Standing Up / Steve Martin
The Gospel of Food / Barry Glassner
The Lovvers LP / AIDS Wolf
The Song Is You / Arthur Phillips
You Can Pick Me Up at Peggy's Cove / Brian Doyle (Tiffany's recommendation/ she went and got it off the shelf and handed it to me. We were at Peggy's Cove on Thursday.)

Labyrinth again:

Apparently there is an authorized English language manga sequel to Labyrinth...



Awesome.

Things I love today

The number 9.

Sleep.

Coffee.

Sunshine.

Looking forward to seeing District 9 when I make that happen. (Maybe it should be today, theme day.)

Smoothies.

Wooden boats (went to the maritime museum yesterday with friends from Vancouver - cried at the Halifax Explosion exhibit. Also - Tuesdays are by donation, yay.).

My half-price sunscreen that smells like creamsicle, even though the hornets love it too.

Water.

The library (as per usual).

Scott Pilgrim.

Thinking about space.

Serendipity: I was sitting on a bench, reading the aforementioned Scott Pilgrim, when I came across the word gallivanting, and paused to reflect on the fact that it was spelled differently than I thought it was. As I was staring at the word and thinking about this, the woman sitting next to me said into her cellphone, "Yeah, they're off gallivanting around..." It just made me feel like I was in the right spot.

Cutting off split ends.

Thinking about food.

I want to

I want to read all of the Pulitzer Prize winners (for Fiction). My top two favourite books are winners (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Middlesex). New project - yay.

The Ruins of California

I had to finish this book tonight, and I had to write about it.

I picked it up at Indigo a couple of weeks ago, where a paperback copy was sitting in the cheap section. I liked the cover, and the praise on the back was so effusive that I had to buy it, even though I'm trying not to buy too many books. It sat on the chair beside my bed for a week or so, and then I picked it up.

Set in California during the 70s, it is a coming of age story told from the perspective of Inez Ruin, a "baton of a girl" who shifts back and forth between the suburban life she shares with her mother and grandmother, and her visits to her father (and an array of his girlfriends) in San Francisco. Inez is among my favourite characters I've read lately. She is so well drawn and true, and whenever I opened the book I could feel myself stepping into her skin - I could feel its warmth. It is fascinating to move with Inez from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood - the changes in her are both significant and subtle, and they happen so organically that it feels like life, the way that things just happen; things are one way and then, gradually, suddenly, they are another.

This is a book about love in all of its forms, but mostly about love in families, and the complications that love entails. Every moment I spent reading it felt like... being in the best parts of the world.

My favourite line: Her shyness and awkwardness weren't an obstacle to knowing her anymore, but an opening where you could see her heart.

Highly recommended. As Carolyn See wrote in her Washington Post Book World review, "[The Ruins of California] isn't for everyone, but I don't want to know the people it isn't for."

9/10.

Instead of writing

My hold came into the library the other day. Plot and Structure: techniques and exercises for crafting a plot that grips readers from start to finish, by James Scott Bell.

He begins by discussing the process by which he decided to take his writing seriously, which included obtaining a number of talismans: a poster of Stephen King, a black mug with the word writer stretched across it. He suggested posting something inspiring, so I immediately put down the book and started trolling the internet for quotes (I've always been a quote kind of girl). I found these ones here.

Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.
- Jules Renard

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
- Emile Zola

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
- Gustave Flaubert

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
- Gaston Bachelard

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
- Raymond Chandler

Make it new.
- Ezra Pound

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.
- Orson Scott Card

In the wind

I was prepared for differences in climate and weather when I moved from one coast to the other, but I didn't know exactly how it would be different. The thing that has surprised me is the wind.

On windy days I go out into the world, and in the places and moments when the wind picks up behind me and pushes into me, I feel so alive. I feel whipped up. Aware. Awake.

I've been trying to put the feeling into words, and reading Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkold Estés, I came across an idea that resonates with me. Estés (who I just discovered shares my birthday, albeit in 1945) is talking about storytelling, and she says, "The trance teller calls on El duende, the wind that blows soul into the faces of listeners" (20). This line is paired with an end note that says: "El duende is literally the goblin wind or force behind a person's actions and creative life, including the way they walk, the sound of their voice, even the way they lift their little finger. It is a term used in flamenco dance, and is also used to describe the ability to "think" in poetic images. Among latina curanderas who recollect story, it is understood as the ability to be filled with spirit that is more than one's own spirit. Whether one is the artist or one is the watcher, listener, or reader, when el duende is present, one sees it, hears it, reads it, feels it underneath the dance, the music, the words, the art; one knows it is there. When el duende is not present, one knows that too" (519).

I love that feeling.

The Very Hungry Catterpillar

Do you know how much I am loving today's google design?


A whole lot, that's how much.

Books I bought today

Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg.

I've been meaning to read something by Sharon Salzberg for quite some time. When I was about eight years old, my dad started practicing Buddhism, and it had a profound impact on my world view and spirituality and sense of life. I remember being upset about someone being mean to me, and going to my dad, and chanting with him for just a couple of minutes (seconds? I have no idea), and yes, it was that simple, I felt better. I think a lot about Buddhism, and about what it would be like to be a monk, and about the lessons one would learn and how one would learn them. I had the thought, yesterday, If a monk were being attacked by a wild dog, would he fight back? And the answer is no. I guess my question is if I were a monk and attacked by a wild dog, would I fight back. At this stage in my life, yes, I probably would (I can't imagine being so centred and so sure as to not let instinct take over to save myself).

And then there is that other side of myself - the side that delights in pleasure and sensation and dinners that cost hundreds of dollars (not that I've done that more than once). And that part bought Service Included: Four-star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, by Phoebe Damrosch. I love food. It is probably my main pleasure and passion and joy in the world. And I love reading about it, though not nearly as much as eating it. I was slightly disappointed when I got home and looked it up on amazon, because it doesn't have the best reviews, although the cover pronounces it to be a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year. I read the introduction while in the bookstore, and I enjoyed it, so I'm hoping to be one of those people who would give it five stars. I'll let you know.

The best thing about buying books as presents for myself is that when I've finished I can pass them on.

Back to Buddhism for a moment. One of my favourite Buddhists is Tina Turner - she radiates the groundedness and sense of self and joy that I would like to embody. (Is it totally un-Buddhist to have a favourite Buddhist?)

Claudia Kishi, style icon

This is my favourite blog of all time (alright, that might be a stretch, but still). I loved the Babysitter's Club. A lot. I would sit down in the Save-On-Foods while my mum shopped and devour the books. And I wanted to be Claudia Kishi. I still kind of do. I need way more high ponytails in my life.

How I Live Now

I posted about this over on my Young Adult reading blog, but How I Live Now was so stupefyingly amazing that I felt the need to post here too. It's about a 15 year old girl who goes to live with her aunt and cousins in the English countryside just before a war breaks out. The time is contemporary/near future, and while at first the family exists in an idyllic state unaffected by the war, they ultimately descend into the sort of madness that is horrible but still sort of normal because it is life and they are still living. It was published in North America as a young adult book, but it is so much more than that. The style is distinct and hypnotic; I was entranced. I absolutely loved it, and as soon as I finished I nearly flipped to the front of the book to start again. Gorgeous, human, lovely, honest, funny, sarcastic, affecting, dark, brilliant.

5/5 stars.

Scary.

Apparently I turn 27 and immediately start wanting kids. In this case I was talking about how wonderful the book Little Men is, and was struck by the desire to have a roomful of kids in bed to read it aloud to. I want to be Jo Bhaer! I want to run a tiny school for boys (and girl)! Full of hijinks! With my kindly professor husband! Oh no!

Powerful shushing action

You're not really a library student until you've got a Librarian Action Figure on your desk. Now I have mine. This is Nancy Pearl, world famous librarian. She's written wonderful books on books: Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Crush (among others).

Caramelo

Here's a book I took out of the library today based solely on the gorgeousness of the cover.

It must be good.