Favourite Things

Book: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Movie: Annie Hall

TV show: Friday Night Lights/Six Feet Under tie

Item of clothing: Black jersey v-neck dress from Banana Republic

Flower: Magnolia. Or Peony

Tree: Arbutus

Colour: Teal

Food: Kielke with "shmaundtfat" (sp?) and farmer sausage, made by Grandma. And dim sum.

Dessert: Cream puff/Strawberry Angel Food Birthday cake

Beverage: Caesar (extra spicy) (oh wait, water. )

Animal: Lion/lynx

White sheets

I'm super into white these days. I bought the first white t-shirt I've had in years (the Gap "favorite T"). Yes, it always has some kind of mark on it at the end of the day (often soup), but in the interim between being washed and getting dirty it is so perfect and crisp and classic. I kind of wish I could wear a white t-shirt every day. I guess I could...

Now I'm starting to think about the move, and I think, for the first time in my life, I'm going to have plain white sheets. I got an email the other day telling me, The college provides each Don with a fully furnished suite, which contains a double bed, bookshelf, desk chair, sofa set, coffee table, end table, night stand, and small fridge. I have no idea what any of this is going to look like, but I know that I want to feel like I'm living in a home, my own, and I want it to look as beautiful, clean, warm and lovely as it can. So I'm thinking classic. White sheets and some awesome original artwork (see you soon, Etsy!).












I haven't decided whether I will go for the thirty dollar Ikea sheets, or something more sumptuous and expensive. If you know of any amazing, simple, affordable sheets, let me know.

Scenes from a Marriage

Some films seem to be dated just a few years after they come out. Others, like Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, somehow feel fresh even thirty-five years later. Maybe it's the Swedish aesthetic, rendered timeless by our familiarity with Ikea (which opened its first store in 1958), but almost everything about this film felt thoroughly contemporary. I say film, but this Criterion Collection DVD set actually includes the original six-part miniseries, which was collapsed into a three hour theatrical release for North American audiences. I watched the full version, ensconced in my bed all afternoon and evening. It was thoroughly engrossing and perfect. It's like unfunny Woody Allen, in the best possible way.

The title is apt; each "scene" is an episode, and taken as a series they chart the dissolution of a marriage and the evolution of a relationship. Liv Ullman is luminous (it's hard to look at anything but her) as Marianne, a woman who is devastated by the breakup of her marriage, but comes to realize who she was meant to be, as opposed to who she became in a relationship. Erland Josephson plays Johan, who sort of undergoes the opposite realization.

The best parts of this series are the moments of absurdity that reveal themselves in the minutiae of Marianne and Johan's relationship. Their marriage is on the brink of collapse, Johan is planning on leaving in the morning, and they go to bed together. Marianne suddenly leaps up, leans over Johan and picks up the alarm clock from his side of the bed, lying against him as she sets the alarm so he's up in time.

Love is complicated. Life is complicated. Scenes from a Marriage is complicated yet beautifully simple.

5/5 stars.

Yum

I know I'm going to have at least a few days like this before I leave Vancouver. Days that have me saying out loud, "Why on earth am I leaving this ridiculously amazing city?"

Sally and I hopped on the 98 B-line at Broadway and Granville, and twenty minutes later stood in the hot, dusty traffic of Richmond. Across the busy street lay our destination: Aberdeen Centre.

The Asian Mall.

I had no camera, and it's almost impossible to share in words the wonders of this magical place. There is a dancing fountain. It dances, to music. The ceiling of the building features a moving cloudscape. The building itself is laid out in the most ridiculously indirect path, all the better to get you walking past as many stores as possible. Most of the stores are filled with overpriced clothes. One store features "Japanese" fashions (ultra cool multi-hued babydoll dresses, stripey varsity sweaters, swarovski crystal jewellery) most of which I'm pretty sure came from Value Village and have been relabeled. One store bucks this overpriced trend (or toonies it, haha): Daiso. The two dollar store. Yes, you've been to dollar stores. It's not one of those. It's filled with everything you could possibly imagine (incontinence pads, makeup, chopsticks, plastic flowers, origami paper, wool, mugs, vases, piggy banks, and on, and on) for two dollars! For anything! And all laid out fairly nicely, like a sort of hodge-podgey department store. Two floors! Although, as I said to Sally once we were safely outside, I feel like everything is made of lead and weird chemicals, and I don't think I would buy anything that would actually ever touch my skin.

Neither Sally nor I was tempted by any of the treasures. We were there for one reason only: to eat. We wandered around the food court, overwhelmed by all the choices. We decided to split a few things: Deep fried squid, deep fried tofu (tofu is healthy!), wonton noodle soup, and steamed dumplings. Yum, yum, and yum.

But we were really there for dessert.

I have been hearing about Beard Papa's since they opened up just over six months ago. Japanese Cream Puffs. That is all you need to know. Okay, no, you need to hear more. Apparently the pastry part is made of two layers. Choux pastry inside, and a flakier "Pie crust" pastry outside. This makes them a little bit crispier than other cream puffs I've had. The pie crust taste is a little weird, but the filling makes up for it. AMAZING. Vanilla custard mixed with whipped cream. They were holy cow delicious.

Then we wandered around, tried to find Parker Place (another Asian mall, this one with more affordable clothing choices). Couldn't figure out where it was. Went back to Aberdeen Centre, watched some more dancing fountain. Got some mediocre bubble tea (Sally's was apparently good. My green tea/milk tasted, as they often do, like it was made with non-dairy creamer. Gross. Which is good because it's not like I really needed it (though this trip was not about need; it was about cramming as much Vancouver suburb awesomeness as I possibly could into my short time before I leave, boo hoo).

Then: PHOTOBOOTH PICTURES! Ta dah! The beautiful pictures that grace the head of this post were the most complicated to achieve ever. Gone are the days of coin, sit, picture. We went into five booths before we found one that would take our money. There were two cameras, and it was kind of like dance dance revolution figuring out which side to pose for. It took about a bajillion pictures, us swivelling the entire time, and finally it gave us the shortest minute of my life with which to pick which ones we wanted to print. I didn't even have time to pick the full six we were allowed, so we managed to get four, and not even the four best ones. I look like I'm posing as an American Gladiator, or a Sci-fi channel TV movie star in the two middle ones. THEN! We had to go outside the booth where we had something like 300 seconds to adorn our pictures with hearts and stars and glory. I gave up after accidentally giving us both green mullets that I couldn't figure out how to erase. Luckily Sally is a star and got us back to normal. Is it a sign of my age that I prefer the regular plain ones? Probably.

Anyways, all this writing is to get across the fact that I had an awesome day, and this is an awesome city, and I am going to miss it so much. I'm excited about Halifax, and from everything I hear it's a wonderful place, and I know I'll have a great time, but man. This city. It's a special place.

Weirdest compliment ever

The other day at work I was checking out this girl's books, and she looked up at me, and in a sort of startled way exclaimed, "You have Frodo eyes!"

Manly Men

I like manly men. I admit it. Cliche though it may be, I have a bit of a thing for firefighters.

So today, there was an accident outside of the library. Tara came rushing up to the desk and said, "Can someone call 911?" And I said, "What happened?" And she said, "A motorcycle accident."

So I dialled 911 and waited on the line, gave them my city and address, and they asked, "Is this about the motorcycle accident?" I said yes. "Are you with the body?" (maybe it's just my memory in which they said, body, because they must have said something that would indicate more life, aliveness, than the depressing word body). I said, "No, I'm calling from inside the library."

"We have lots of help on the way. Thanks for calling." (Although I don't think he actually thanked me... I'm not sure how we hung up).

Some moments (who ever know how many) later, sirens were there. I looked out the window and saw pieces of red motorcycle and people surrounding someone who lay on the ground. I didn't look for details. Went back to work.

A few minutes later, we're all around the window watching a little bit.

"I love firefighters," I said. "At least there's something of an..." and then I looked down, ashamed. I was going to say "upside to the accident." But I felt so guilty. My boss said, "It's okay, Angela. We all have our natural reactions."

I love the world.

I must be in a weird mood today. This ad made me cry (although crying at commercials is not a stretch for me, a fact about which I am glad). It was happy crying, mostly. I love happy crying.

I've been doing lots of library searching today, and reading library blogs. This clip came my way via Mazar, a Canadian (among other things) librarian whose site I found through the CLA's "Infonation", all about choosing a career in libraries!

Go books!

An artist

I want to start drawing. And watercolouring.

Perfection

Why is it that I want to be amazing at everything I do the first time out? There are so many things that look like they should be easy: tennis, skiing, writing a novel... and when I try them, I am so frustrated with not being as amazing as I think I should be that I don't get very far.

I know writer's say it time and time again, all you need to be to be a writer is to write. What I only recently realized is this: you need to write because what you start out with is going to be awful, and you're going to need to keep doing it in order to be any good. My conception of what I can write falls so far from what actually happens when I sit at the computer and type that I am inevitably disappointed and don't sit down again for eons (take that clunky sentence there, for example).

So I'm trying to write more. But I want it to flow. I want it to be like when authors say, "the characters just walked onto the page." Because my characters haven't walked anywhere. They're all hiding in my imagination, hoping I won't notice them.

Library treasures

Every day at work I end up with a huge pile in the back room waiting to come home with me. I usually edit it down to about half, and sign those out. Here is my list of things I took home today, along with first impressions.

Nine Queens - Argentinian heist movie that sounds great, in so far as the reviews go.

Scenes from a Marriage - Somehow I made it through film school without ever watching this. I'm psyched that it has Bergman's original 5-hour television version. I'm very much looking forward to this.

Bach - Brandenburg Concertos - Listening to it right now.... feel kind of like I'm in a TV show set in an upscale British department store... not my favourite. Okay, number four is much nicer than number three. I'm such a classical music snob. Ha.

How the Rich Get Thin: Park Avenue's Top Diet Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling Great - Not sure why I took this. It sounds pretty lame.

The Sonoma Diet Cookbook - I just like finding new healthy recipes, not following crazy diets. I swear.

The Glass Castle - at Amanda's recommendation. I like the cover so far. (Wow, 1030 customer reviews. Popular.)

Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian - I think this one will make my week. By Scott Douglas, who has been chronicling his librarian-ness for McSweeney's since 2003. Yee haw.