Opera Like That

On Sunday, we went to see Otello performed by the Canadian Opera Company. And then someone died, and then someone else died. I think they call that a tragedy.

Insects fly, read.

The first books I can remember hearing true buzz about- The way I selected books to read back then was chiefly the pitch of their buzz.

1. Catcher in the rye,
   
2. Life of pi

My older and cooler cousin recommended Catcher in the Rye. I remember being unmoved by it, and shocked by all the swears! Number and severity of swears in literature was only going to increase exponentially the more I read and the older I got. C'est la vie. I liked it, because I thought I should like it. Nevertheless I was happy to be introduced to J.D. Salinger then, because I went on to read Franny and Zooey which I actually connected with at the time and still do.

Life of Pi; a former teacher was reading with her book club. I didn't pick up on any media hype, didn't know about the Booker Prize etc. Just a word of mouth pick - I also really liked the cover; bright red with a tiger's face. Then I liked that it was partially set in Toronto (Scarborough), then the questions it tackled, then the narration etc. etc. Yann Martel finally has a follow-up coming out; Beatrice and Virgil. Despite publishers' attempts to market it as "shocking" I'm really looking forward to it. I'm excited to see what he's been up to.

Books J'ai Lu 2009

This is the first year, I think that I've read any amount of books worth listing- the result of a full year of reading-goodness-working in a bookstore. Almost all of these were excellent reads, or at least fulfilled their purpose at the time, because I usually will abandon a book if I find that it doesn't hold my interest for whatever reason. The following are in no particular order.

1. Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
2. Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon
3. Education of a British Protected Child, Chinua Achebe
4. The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk
5. Barney's Version, Mordecai Richler
6. Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro
7. Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli
8. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
9. Youth, JM Coetzee
10. Elizabeth Costello, JM Coetzee
11. What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell
12. The Confessions of Edward Day, Valerie Martin
13. Superfreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
14. Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes
15. Brightsided, Barbara Ehrenreich
16. Nickle and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
17. Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro
18. What is Stephen Harper Reading, Yann Martel
19. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
20. Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
21. The Blue Hour, Lillian Pizzichini
22. Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
23. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
24. This is Not a Book, Keri Smith
25. Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, Carl Wilson
26. French Women for All Seasons, Mireille Guiliano
27. The First Person and Other Stories, Ali Smith
28. Food Rules, Michael Pollan
29. Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay
30. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
31. When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
32. Things I Have Been Silent About, Azar Nafisi
33. Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963, Susan Sontag
34. A Blue Hand, Deborah Baker
35. Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
36. After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Jean Rhys
37. Somewhere Towards the End, Diana Athill

- All the ones that I had recorded or could readily remember, but the list may get slightly longer.

Little Crown

Little Crown, originally uploaded by _stringsong.

One of six drawings in a series. Pencil crayon and ink on found paper.

Starstruck

Photograph by Nicholas Alan Cope

In the beginning
She made it
Clear
Her dislike of astronauts.

Pure contempt
For those suited up
Flyers-
Bound for beyond
Heaven.

Their journey
The effect caused
By a rocket fuel
Explosion.

Hurdle jumping
Through space,
Exploring galaxies
and bombing the moon.

For great cause
or for country,
For space glory.

Gold medalists in
the cosmic Olympics,
With flags flying.
None of it
Could be figured out.

Bee's Nest- Bee's Knees

Bee's Nest
Originally uploaded by _stringsong

A pretty shot from my trip to Toronto's beaches in November. Wishing for blue skies on this dreary + cold day.

Going to try to make it this year...

Slow Sunday

(photo from ffffound.com)

Andre and I vowed several times to be Internet free this weekend, but we're finding it impossible! We constantly go back and forth on whether or not to cancel our Internet. I think we have been a teensy bit more mindful this weekend though and I haven't been on the facebook thing at all. I also got a lot of other nice things accomplished like cooking and baking and going to 7 West with friends.

Tonight I made this recipe for chana masala- adapted from a sweet little Orangette recipe. At first I thought it wasn't flavourful and Indian-foodish enough, but after it cooled a bit I was very happy with it. I recommend.

Now I'm waiting for my banana bread from Veganomicon to bake. Our oven takes about 1/3 longer than it should and I even turned the temperature up. Need to buy oven thermometer.

Happy Sunday evening everyone,

I recommend enjoying it with Boards of Canada and a whiskey and coke.

Home Tonight

Making pizza. Now eating pizza actually; pear, brie, onion, prosciutto.

Needing some new music: the new Tegan and Sara, Dead Man's Bones- both need to purchase. I'm also on the lookout for good podcasts. Anyone know of some?

I want to move to Kansas City,
Move to Kansas City;
Move pretty baby
Where the skies are so blue.

COME to Canzine

Will be offering my first ever lil poetry zine TOAST ATTACK.

Voila!



See you there!

Red Letters.

I never read the card you wrote.
I moved away.
floated
downstream.
settled offshore.
shoeboxed it-
locked it-
iced over
and
ended.

Pretended.
Built walls from
straw-
Blew them down.

Set fires.
Rewired
thought waves.
Had
heart worms
embedded,
then
unthreaded.

Regretted/
dreaded
going back.

Just for fun.

Very poorly lit photos of Ripley and Mowat.