Category: Amusing Musings

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, tonight we have a special edition of What’s On My Book Shelf as we explore not one BUT TWO shelves dans la bibliothèque de moi. It’s been a while since we took a peek at my taste in literature, and this edition is going to be a delightful treat for all the Can Lit fans out there. For yes, these two shelves hold (the majority of) my collection of Canadian Literature and Short Story Collections*!

Canadian short story writers are my favourites. Especially the women. Carol Shields, obviously, is the champion. But my ALL-TIME favourite short story is “boys growing” by Zsuzsi Gartner. I discovered it in Write Turns: New Directions in Canadian Fiction and have read it a hundred times. Every time I read it, I highlight another amazing passage.

But this one is the best:

He went for milk in the driving rain wearing only shorts and my trench coat, bare feet in Nikes, umbrella held so high above his head it did no good. I found this so endearing I would have chewed my right leg out of a steel trap to follow him if I had thought he wasn’t coming back. On all fours, my own blood puddling off my chin.

Hot chocolate and a thin jolt, then backgammon with our eyes wide open, skulls flaring like jack-o’-lanterns.

I lined up all the other dark-haired boys I’ve ever loved and shot them like ducks in an arcade.

Fadiman, Clifton. The World of the Short Story: 20th Century Collection.
Dudek, Louis. In Defence of Art.
Skene-Melvin, David. Crime in a Cold Climate: An Anthology of Classic Canadian Crime.
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye.
Shields, Carol. The Collected Stories.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale.
Atwood, Margaret. Alias Grace.
Nicholson, Colin. Margaret Atwood: Writing and Subjectivity.
Atwood, Margaret. Payback.
Friedman, Elyse. Long Story Short.
Various. The Vancouver Stories: West Coast Fiction from Canada’s Best Writers.
Oates, Joyce Carol. On Boxing.
Wolfe, Morris and Daymond, Douglas. Toronto Short Stories.
Grady, Wayne. The Penquin Book of Modern Canadian Short Stories.
Lawrence, Margaret. The Stone Angel.
Lawrence, Margaret. The Tomorrow-Tamer.
Cohen, Leonard. Beautiful Losers.
Munro, Alice. Selected Stories.
Gibson, Graeme. The Bedside Book of Birds.
Nicholson, Colin. Margaret Atwood: Writing and Subjectivity. (yes, I have two)
Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature.
Harris, Florence A. A Packet of Prose.
Richard, Rohmer. Separation Two.
Grove, Frederick Philip. Consider Her Ways.
Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries.
Leacock, Stephen. Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich.
Maclennan, Hugh. Two Solitudes.
Various. Write Turns: New Directions in Canadian Fiction.
Remnick, David. The New Gilded Age: The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence.
Brown, Ian. What I Meant To Say: The Private Lives of Men.
Heilpern, John. John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man.
Crosbie, Lynn. Click: Becoming Feminists.
Smith, Patricia Juliana. The Book of Gay & Lesbian Quotations.
Sawyer, Robert J. Identity Theft.
Chong, Denise. The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women.
Gallant, Mavis. Home Truths.
Munro, Alice. The Moons of Jupiter.
Bök, Christian and Atwood, Margaret. Ground Works: Avant-Garde For Thee.
Various. The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against The War.
Scobie, Stephen. Intricate Preparations: Writing Leonard Cohen.
Grobel, Lawrence. Endangered Species: Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives.
Berry, Michelle and Caple, Natalee. The Notebooks: Interviews and New Fiction from Contemporary Writers.
Dewdney, Christopher. Acquainted With The Night.
Sullivan, Rosemary. Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen.
Weaver, Robert. Canadian Short Stories.
Crane, Milton. 50 Great Short Stories.
Shields, Carol and Anderson, Marjorie. Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told.
Anderson, Marjorie. Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle.
Sherman, Jason. Canadian Brash: New Voices in Fiction, Drama, Poetry.
McClymont, Christine. Something to Declare: Selections from International Literature.
Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing.

*Please note: I am normally quite OCD about arranging my library, but unfortunately I never seem to have the shelf space to keep the subjects completely together. So there exists three shelves of randoms that drive me crazy but I am forced to live with. I assume these three will be my final WOMBH posts! I’m sure you find this très exciting.

And yes, I had a lovely Friday night writing this post, playing with my books, drinking a Coors Light, and blasting The Signal on CBC Radio 2.

To quote myself: “Nerd Alert!”

Enjoy,

x

Julie Nesrallah of CBC Radio 2’s “Tempo” played this gorgeous, haunting song this afternoon. Her selection was performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, but trying to find a YouTube video of that performance resulted in naught. Instead, I present this rendition by the SWR Orchestra Baden-Baden (otherwise known as the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra), featuring the voices of Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca.

Enjoy,

x

The Book Lover’s Ball was launched in February 2006 to increase awareness and raise funds to enhance the work of Toronto’s Library, the busiest urban public library system in the world. Every year, more than 18 million people visit its 99 branches and borrow more than 32 million items.

The first BLB I attended was in 2008. I had always wanted to go; being a word nerd, obviously Toronto Public Library Foundation’s fundraiser would be my gala de choix. It was amazing to see Margaret Atwood, and also my former creative writing profs, Christopher Dewdney (from York) and Camilla Gibb (from U of T), just hanging out, eating canapés. The atmosphere is pretty relaxed, and the event includes a reception featuring hors d’oeuvres prepared by a celebrity author-chef, a silent auction and raffle, a literary-inspired fashion show, a gourmet dinner, and a live auction. This is the 6th anniversary of The Book Lover’s Ball, taking place tonight at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

This year’s reception will star Marc Thuet, whose epicurean talents have spawned a cult following, as well as a television series, a chain of pastiseries, a catering company, numerous books, and an impressive resume.

During the seated dinner, a Celebrity Author joins every table, so you actually get a chance to converse with Toronto’s literatti, and they can’t make excuses to ditch you because their vodka needs refreshing. AND you get a copy of their latest book.

This year’s Celebrity Authors include:

Alissa York
Alyson Schafer
Andrew Heintzman
Andrew Pyper
Anna Porter
Annabel Lyon
Barry Callaghan
Betsy Powell
Brian Goldman
Camilla Gibb
Carla Collins
Catherine Gildiner
Cathy Marie Buchanan
Charles Foran
Charles Pachter
Claudia Dey
David Dyment
Emily St. John Mandel
Giles Blunt
Gillian Deacon
Graeme Gibson
Gregory Levey
John Brady
Joy Fielding
Kary Osmond
Kate Taylor
Ken McGoogan
Lawrence Hill
Les Stroud
Lesley Livingston
Lewis DeSoto
Linda McQuaig
Linwood Barclay
Lyndsay Green
Mahtab Narsimhan
Marc Levy
Micah Toub
Nicolas Dickner
Rebecca Eckler
Richard Greene
Robert Herjavec
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert Paul Weston
Robert Rotenberg
Rose Reisman
Sarah Elton
Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Shinan Govani
Steven Heighton
Stuart McLean
Sylvia Tyson
Ted Barris
Terry Fallis
The Honourable James Karl Bartleman
Tish Cohen
Zoe Whittall

Yes, I have a degree in English Literature, but those links above are the only names I am familiar with on this list. Me fail English? That’s unpossible!

Did you know that Joy Fielding wrote her first novel at her parents’ kitchen table when she was 27 years old? Gives us hope. I started mine in the corner of my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house when I was 31, on a rickety antique chair, with my PC on a magazine stand and its keyboard on my lap. Another phase of vagabond-living for me, after coming back from the U.K. and having no home of my own. Also before I bought my first laptop.

I read an interesting article the other day on Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist where PT was asked who her childhood hero was by a potential investor, and she replied “Judy Blume” then regretted it because she wanted to appear like a CEO not a writer/blogger. But at the end of the article she says:

“And then I think that the investor is a genius for asking me my childhood hero because it does, in fact, reveal who I am. I just have to keep reminding myself that Judy Blume is not only a writer. She is an empire.”

The Book Lover’s Ball reminds budding writers that literature is a viable way to make a living. And to be surrounded by a room full of people who share your calling and your passion… well, that’s unique for an artist. The Arts just don’t get the support that the Science or Business realms receives. Which is why supporting TPLF is so important. Keeping Toronto’s libraries funded and accessible is necessary to maintaining a thriving city. It’s nice to touch actual books, printed on paper, and not just stare at a computer all day. It connects you to the past, and it will change the way you see the world in the future. It’s a tangible, fixed piece of intelligence in our intangible, ever-changing digital lives.

Books are like trees. Befriend them.

Funds raised at The 2011 Book Lover’s Ball will support priority needs of Toronto’s Library: enhancing and expanding programs, services, collections, and community spaces.

For more information click here.

Toods,

x

Painted in 1911, “Yellow Cow” is a work by the German artist Franz Marc, and is a key part of The Great Upheaval collection of modern art (1910-1918) from the Guggenheim Museum. This exhibit also features works by Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky, Rousseau, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Gauguin, van Gogh, and more. Marc and Kandinsky started this movement in 1911 with a group called The Blue Rider (from the eponymous journal) that radically changed the traditional modes of painting and artistic production. The time period was ripe with innovation; but also destruction, for it emcompasses the Great War. The technological advances would of course create new ways of looking at the world, and with them, new ways of expressing those perceptions through art.

From the Guggenheim’s Feb-May 2011 guide:

The Great Upheaval: Modern Art from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918 not only illuminates the dynamism of this fertile period, as artists hurled toward abstraction and the ultimate “great upheaval” of a catastrophic war, but also highlights the masterpieces of modern art that launched the museum’s collection […]

Featuring more than one hundred paintings, sculptures, and works on paper […] The Great Upheaval attests to this period of collaboration, interchange, and innovation.

The Guggenheim Museum’s modern collection began in 1927 when Soloman R. Guggenheim met Hilla Rebay, a young German artist who was commissioned to paint SRG’s portrait. However, this serendipitous meeting resulted in Solomon and wife Irene Rothschild shifting their focus away from the old master paintings that were fashionable within their circle. By 1929, Guggenheim was enthusiastically collecting works from his time. He even acquired art directly from artists, including Kandinsky.

Because of the incredible place in history that this collection resides, there is so much backstory to the exhibit. The Guggenheim offers free audio tours, which I highly recommend you take advantage of. I personally find artwork comes to life once I know its backstory; much like how I enjoy literature so much more after analyzing it in depth.

Franz Marc’s “Yellow Cow” stood out in this collection because of its overpowering mood of happiness. The cow is smiling! Leaping with joy! Marc painted it in celebration of his (second) wedding, and saw the cow as his wife, Maria Franck. This also represents what he considered the feminine principle: soft, natural, light, happy, flexible. In the background there are blue mountains, and this is what Marc saw as himself. The male principle: strong, sharp, dark, fixed. The cow exists in the mountain’s world, just as woman exists in man’s world. Marc also saw a divine presence in animals and nature that was not there in human beings. By 1907 he devoted himself almost exclusively to depicting scenes of animals in nature.

From www.guggenheimcollection.org:

To complement this imagery, through which he expressed his spiritual ideals, Marc developed a theory of color Symbolism. His efforts to evoke metaphysical realms through specific color combinations and contrasts were similar to those of [Wassily] Kandinsky […]

For Marc, different hues evoked gender stereotypes: yellow, a “gentle, cheerful and sensual” color, symbolized femininity, while blue, representing the “spiritual and intellectual,” symbolized masculinity.

This happy yellow cow, frolicking past the blue mountains, is quite contrasted to another work of Marc’s featured in The Great Upheaval entitled “The Unfortunate Land of Tyrol.”

Painted in 1913, it depicts the state of Tyrol in Austria after the Balkan Wars, and foreshadows even worse devastation to come in the Great War. Here, Marc’s horses are emanciated, unlike the plump, jolly cow of two years prior. Some people view the bird with outstretched arms in the top corner as a positive sign, but I see it more like a vulture, an omen of death. However, there’s no arguing that the rainbow behind the bird depicts Marc’s ultimate faith in the restorative qualities of nature.

Franz Marc is considered one of the key figures in the German Expressionist movement, but unfortunately his career was cut short. Killed in 1916 during the Battle of Verdun in north-eastern France, considered one of the most devastating battles in WWI, his name was on a list of notable artists to be withdrawn from combat for protection. Marc died before those orders could reach him. He was 36 years old.

The Great Upheaval is exhibited at the Guggenheim from February 4th to June 1st, 2011. A lot of museums and galleries in NYC are PWYC (or Pay-What-You-Wish as they say in the U.S. of A.), and the Guggenheim offers this discount on Saturdays from 5:15pm-7:45pm. For more information, click here.

Vous ne les laisserez pas passer,

x

I’ve just come back to Toronto after spending the weekend in New York City with my friend J. It was our first time there. I want to tell you all about it, but I’m shopping around a travel article and don’t want posting it here first to deter potential buyers. So, instead I shall briefly sum up what we did, and then talk about the delicious sandwich I had for lunch today.

We didn’t really set out with any specific plans other than to drink a Coors in Central Park (ended up raining that day so we drank a tea in the park instead), and of course to eat Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn. We are massive fans of pizzerias in general. (You get a very different definition for this on Urban Dictionary!)

But anyHOO, somehow things just fell into place and we actually did SO MUCH.

Things we saw:

– Empire State Building, plus view from the top (was so scared! hate heights!)
– Times Square, all lit up at night (was so scared! hate overwhelming bright lights and tall billboards!)
– Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s (drank a Starbucks whilst watching women viciously root through three large piles of discounted purses)
– the subway (holy long wait between trains Batman)
– Paddy Reilly’s, the world’s first and only all draught Guinness pub
– an H&M on every corner
– a total of three homeless guys! THREE! (we think NYC solved the homeless problem by employing them at all the H&Ms)
– “The Great Upheaval” at the Guggenheim (LOVED IT)
– Central Park in the rain
– JAMES EARL JONES & VANESSA REDGRAVE in the Broadway production of “Driving Miss Daisy” (to quote the man outside, “His voice didn’t sound anything like it did in Star Wars”)
– the former KGB headquarters, now a packed local pub (with painting of wiener dog on wall, yay)
– an actual rat on Wall Street (we took photos while a woman screamed)
– Mr. Grimaldi dressed in a suit, pink tie and fedora, working the door with a bouncer at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria underneath the Brooklyn Bridge (it’s true what they say about it being worth the wait)
– how cheap taxis are in New York compared to Toronto (about three times less)
– the World Trade Centre site (under construction but still sad)
– the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry (it’s a free ride!!)
– Coors regular, not Light (yum)
– a waitress who asked us to “be more specific” when we said we were from Toronto because she “didn’t know what that was”
– a cute skating rink at Bryant Park (so romantical)
– the biggest bagel either of us had ever seen let alone attempted to consume! (if you guessed that we were both able to finish it, you’d be correct)

That’s about it. I swear it will sound much more exciting in my article.

Until then, may I present… My Sandwich!

Basically this is a raw veg sandwich, not grilled veg, to be made with anything you have in your fridge. You may be suspicious of the addition of carrots, but they make it! As does the onion. Ghetto version could be onion, carrot, spinach and cheese. Must also have mayo and yellow mustard. Now I want another one. It’s SO GOOD. I had mine with a chocolate chip cookie and glass of passion fruit juice. Mm, mm, mmm.

You will need:

– delicious bread (rye or farmer’s loaf works best)
– mayo
– mustard (yellow)
– carrots, thinly sliced
– cucumber or zucchini, thinly sliced
– onion (I prefer white in this sandwich but used red today)
– lettuce of sorts or sprouts (I used arugula, but also enjoy spinach or onion sprouts)
– tomato slices
– green and/or red peppers, thinly sliced (I didn’t have any today, boo)
– hard cheese (any kind, today I used Monterey Jack because it was on sale)

In my kitchen I have a little mirror hanging from a random nail in the wall. It is too low to be used for freshening my chapstick before heading out the front door, and it only reflects the edge of my teapot shelf, so I decided to write a quote on it au café français. The mirror is also très petit so I needed a short quote. And it had to be about food or cooking or wine or eating. And it had to reflect (pun intended) my perspective on those topics. This is what I chose:

“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”

I just love it. Totally sums up my food philosophy. Also because I am very opinionated and love judging others. Ha. But I believe that quote; what you eat does reflect what you are.

So, based on what I eat, what am I? Hmm… let’s see:

Cute, colourful, fresh, light-hearted, natural, multi-cultural, educated, centered on being local but injected with travel, interesting, creative, definitely not mundane, witty (I own products purely for their hilarious factor such as Cock Soup), organized (my fridge is strategically positioned like a shop’s display case), okay maybe a bit OCD, but obviously avec beaucoup du charme.

What about you?

I think if I owned a café it would be exactly like my description. And it would be in the Junction. And would serve Picnic Reds in screw-cap bottles only. And would constantly play CBC Radio 2. And would be called Café Carolyn. Apparently there is a Carolyn’s Café in Altanta, Georgia. Ooh! There’s also a Café Carolyn on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn! OMG, am definitely adding that to the list for my next trip to NYC!

OMG, NYC! Le sigh! Will keep you posted on article progress. But for now, get ye to a kitch’ery, and make yourself a sandwich.

Toods,

x