Something about year’s end makes me think of Jane Austen and want to reread her work. I think Sense and Sensibility was the first of her novels I read, and I have no recollection of it at all, despite an addiction to PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre and the phenomenal recent popularity of the novels as film and mini-series properties. Somehow when watching them I get caught up in the period piece aspect of the visuals, and find myself focusing on the clothing and the difficulty of maneuvering in it. I become fascinated with the kerchiefs that translucently cover a rather immodest expanse of bosoms and wonder precisely how uncomfortable those Empire-waisted gowns would be. I know every time I’ve tried on an Empire-waist garment I’ve had to fight feelings of suffocation as I attempt to get the unnaturally tight and high yoke over my breasts, and the relief at doing so just doesn’t make the prospect of owning a garment that will engender a wrestling match every time I want to wear – or discard it – terribly attractive.
But without the distraction of the kerchiefs and the bosoms and the elaborately dressed hair supplied by the visual, one can focus on the social and emotional dilemmas Austen’s novels of manners pose. And my recent rereading of Persuasion confirms my long-held opinion – no matter how dramatically Western society has changed, the dilemmas faced by Jane’s heroines are timeless, and not limited by the inequality of the sexes to a particular time period in the 18th Century.
For those of you who haven’t read Persuasion, or haven’t read it recently, the novel’s heroine, Anne Elliott, is well on her way to becoming a spinster, having broken off her early engagement to a naval captain on the advice of a family friend, Lady Russell. As the novel opens, Anne is 28 and has lost her early bloom. There have been no other suitors, really, the result of a combination of Anne’s disinclination to consider any others and of the fact that she alone of her immediate nuclear family (baronet father and two sisters) is marginalized. Something outward-looking and principled in Anne’s nature makes it difficult for her to put her needs first, and while she is without a doubt the most sensible, the kindest, and the brightest of the three sisters, these qualities aren’t valued by her family. Not terribly concerned by questions of rank and privilege, with egalitarian leanings and an intellectual bent, Anne is, like many of Austen’s heroines, a social anomaly. She would rather discuss a novel (or even, perish the thought, a work of philosophy), than who should precede whom at a dinner party or ball, or waste her time unraveling the degrees of separation between members of the minor nobility.
Anne gets a second chance though: eight years after ending her engagement to Captain Wentworth on Lady Russell’s advice (sound insofar as it went, since he had yet to make his fortune and at the time of their engagement had insufficient means to support her in the style to which a baronet’s daughter had the right to be accustomed), she and Captain Wentworth meet again. There would be no novel if Anne and her captain saw each other again and reaffirmed their love – that would be a Harlequin romance. Instead, the novel spans several months of tortuous social intercourse in which it is impossible to speak plainly, and in which rumour, innuendo, and misperceptions influence events so the lovers have ample time to consider the mistakes they made in the past and learn to behave differently in the present and future.
Looking back on the decision she was persuaded to make at 19, early in the novel Anne reflects:
“How eloquent could [she] have been, -- how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! – She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”
I would argue though that a cheerful confidence in futurity has little to do with age, and everything to do with whether one is a risk-taker or not, and with whether one is willing to trust one’s own instincts. The impulsiveness of youth may lead to risk-taking, but the willingness to take a chance doesn’t rest on a firm foundation in the immature character, and results from ignorance of potential consequences rather than a true willingness to let the chips fall where they may and enter new ventures, new relationships, and new situations with either a cheerful optimism that they will succeed or the knowledge that nothing ventured, nothing gained is the worst possible scenario.
The true evolution of Anne Elliot in the novel is her journey of self discovery and self acceptance. Once she begins to trust her own judgment of situations and individuals and assert herself, she embarks on the road to happiness. Ironically, in Anne’s case, this involves returning to the certainty of youth in order to assert her convictions as a mature woman. With the benefit of hindsight, Anne has learned who she is – who she has to be – and who she wants in her life.
“Mr. Elliot [Anne’s cousin, who becomes one of her suitors] was rational, discreet, polished, -- but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.”
Rawk on, Anne Elliot.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
To thine own self be true: reflections on Jane Austen's significance in the 21st Century
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Monday, December 04, 2006
Politics - and that's a photo of a tomatillo
Copyright Ruth Seeley
I’m glad I didn’t watch the entire Liberal leadership convention on Saturday – watching the last half hour was enough of a body blow.
Where to begin the discussion of the horrors of this convention? The startling news that Bob Rae, who was a lifelong NDP member and the guy who led the NDP to their only victory in Ontario provincial politics, was now a Liberal in his unceasing quest not really for power, I don’t think, but for the limelight, was pretty shocking. As a lifelong non-affiliated federal Liberal, I was amazed that the party would take him. Anyone who witnessed Bob Rae’s appearance on Ralph Benmergui’s short-lived TV variety show a decade or so ago (when Rae was premier of Ontario and first revealed he had no principles by introducing anti-labour legislation that seemed designed to smack the unions that had helped elect him), must have realized something about this man: he likes to be the centre of attention and he doesn’t much care what he has to do to stay in the spotlight. Rae’s appearance on that show was a travesty. Claiming that his grandfather had been in vaudeville (implying that he was genetically worth watching as a performer), he persisted in playing the piano. With a sense of rhythm that can only be described as gooey (as opposed to elastic), Rae slowed the song’s tempo repeatedly despite the band’s talented efforts to keep it consistent. It was one long ritardando and had it not been so horrifying I would have switched channels. Swan song, you say? I think swans sing about as well as Rae does.
Then there was the rather crowded field of high profile candidates. Yes, there were a few people I had never heard of or hadn’t heard much about – four years of living in
Joan Bryden’s interesting article (below) on what went on behind the scenes at the convention in terms of momentum and Kennedy’s supporters explains a lot. I wondered why Kennedy would throw his support behind Dion, but I suppose it makes sense given his opposition to the Ignatieff Quebec nation initiative. As for Bob Rae – well – I’d like a more convincing explanation of why he didn’t direct his delegates to vote for Ignatieff in the final ballot. And frankly, Scarlett? I blame Rae for the fact that the Liberals now don’t have a hope in hell of forming a government in the next decade. No offense to Stephane Dion, but he hasn’t been the highest profile cabinet minister in a Liberal government – and he’s been Minister of the Environment at a time when the best you could do in terms of Liberal environmental policy was to damn them with faint praise. Initiatives like the EnerGuide for Houses™ program were pretty feeble attempts to meet our Kyoto commitments – and the fact that the program existed for something like seven years before the Liberals put anything into promoting it speaks volumes. But there’s more to it than that. I don’t think
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Nancy Drew, Feminist Icon
It seems I had a lot to learn about Nancy Drew, despite having read the entire series as a child. I was puzzled by the clothes when watching the movie – it was hard to place the time period, although I knew it had to be post-Depression, because the skirts were just below knee length. I guessed incorrectly, from the hats and clothing styles, that it was immediately post WWII. It was actually filmed in 1938, and trying to determine when it had been filmed sent me down a whole path of not only research but reflection about Nancy Drew.
What struck me about the movie, in which Bonita Granville played the title character, Frankie Thomas played Ted (or ‘Ned”)
But here, in the 1938 movie, you have a very clear female leader who is smart, attractive, independent, and willing not only to take charge, but completely unwilling to be bossed around or dismissed by men who don’t hesitate to tell her that she should ‘run along, little girl.’ Probably even more important than the female role model
For those of you who don’t know (or have forgotten), the Nancy Drew character lives with her father and their housekeeper. Her mother died when she was young (
Nancy and her father are unable to persuade police chief Tweedy to even look for the elderly woman who has vanished and is being held against her will. She keeps her cool even when being patronized in a way that would make anyone’s blood boil by the police, and mounts her own investigation, dragging the unwilling Ted
As part of my research for this entry, I reread the first Nancy Drew, The Secret of the Old Clock. The series, written by more than one author for The Stratemeyer Syndicate, was substantially revised in the 50s and 60s. The same clear spirit of self sufficiency is present in the revised novels though. At one point in The Secret of the Old Clock,
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Beginnings
Copyright Ruth Seeley
Hard to believe it's been almost three months since I last added to this blog. Writing about Colin's death helped me grieve for him, as has hearing from his father, his sister, his nephew, the folks who adopted his dog, and a woman who stopped after witnessing the accident that killed him. I don't want to overestimate his importance in my life. But whenever something like this happens it's inevitable that one takes stock, even if it's only to make sure you're doing what you think you should be doing.
By August 1st I already knew I had been accepted into a self employment program funded by Service Canada that would allow me to start my own business - I had put in my proposal in mid July and was promptly informed that I'd been accepted. Never one to do things by halves, I also decided in August that it was time to move. Kitsilano may be a wonderful place to live if you want to spend 20 hours a day at the beach, but living right at the corner of 4th and Vine for two years was a hideous experience. For the first time in my life I actually found I wanted to sleep eight hours a day (or night), and that just wasn't possible in that location. With a Shopper's Drug Mart open 24 hours a day across the street, I was almost always wakened at 5:30 AM by the sound of delivery trucks flinging their steel doors open. That would have been fine if I hadn't also been awakened almost every night by either a car accident, a drunken altercation, or the not-so-dulcet tones of Septic Girl complaining about her treatment at the hands of Dog Boy. No Nose, the other semi-permanent resident of the four corners at Fourth and Vine (he tended to favour the Capers corner), was never loud. I'm not sure what happened to No Nose - he is a very handsome young man, but he has a very precise triangular piece of his right nostril missing. It looked to me like it had been done with a very sharp knife, and I could never look at him without thinking of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown when Roman Polanski slits his nose. I also could never bring myself to photograph this trio. I have no objection to street photography, and in fact Bert Bell's Bowery Bums series is one of the most moving examples of that type of photography I have ever seen. I could have asked permission to photograph them - I would have had to - just snapping their photos without permission would have been wrong. I was disinclined to do so. Living on the street is hard enough without strangers attempting to exploit your situation - even if the exploitation amounts to no more than documentation. I felt both powerless and disinclined to even try to help any of them. The most I could ever do was respond courteously in the negative when they asked me for money (or, in the case of Septic Girl, to her demands that I buy her a cinnamon bun at Cobbs Bakery!). I have no way of knowing what led to the waste of these three lives. I do know that I don't have any resources (other than, perhaps, a few spiritual ones) to spare them.
And in the spirit of saving oneself, I am now open for business. Ruth Seeley Writing & Photography is actively seeking clients. Yesterday was the first day in months that I had time to take some self portraits. It felt just blissful to actually have some time for photography. I wouldn't say any of them was a huge success, despite the wonderful floor-to-ceiling mirrors in my new shared space, or the grand piano that graces the living room. But I liked what happened when I played with this one a bit, first autobalancing it in MS PhotoEditor, then applying the watercolour effect, and finally using Picasa to straighten the image (rumour has it there's a program that lets you do all these things in one fell swoop - CS2 are you listening? I'll be happy to test your software and report back to you if you'd like to send me a copy). Isn't there an expression, "Don't it make your brown eyes green?" What I like best about this treatment of my self portrait is that it appears to make my green eyes brown.
Oh - and it is blissfully quiet here in the new home. I'm getting my eight hours' sleep and then some. Hallellujah.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Colin Stuart Krivy - In Memoriam
Copyright Ruth Seeley
This blog was never intended to be personal ramblings. The next entry was to have been about a series of four Canadian historical fictions I’ve read recently. But that one will have to wait. And in a way, this entry is about books. More precisely it’s about the connections we form with fellow readers, particularly if they share our very precise taste in literature.
Just over two years ago, I saw my friend Colin Krivy when he was in Vancouver at the outset of a cross-Canada cycling trip. He’d quit his Ontario government job, rented his house in Toronto, arranged for someone to look after his dog, and had decided that after he cycled across Canada he was going to become a teacher and writer. He wasn’t sure where he was going to do his education degree – admissions were tight in Ontario, and he was considering going to school in Australia as well, depending on where he was accepted.
For five or six months I had been trying to track down a phone number or an email address for his father, because it just didn’t seem like Colin not to have got in touch for so long. His first email from the road came from Merritt, but that was early days and pre Roger’s Pass, so I thought he might have been using his rest days to actually rest rather than rush to the closest internet café to email us. Then too, I had moved in September of 2004 and had a different email address – and had messed up my sending out the notification of it, managing to get both my email address and my new phone number wrong. But something had been nagging at me, and that’s why I was trying to track down his dad. I missed Colin, and I had been reading a lot of wonderful books recently, including some new-to-me Australian authors like Tim Winton and Joy Dettman, and I wanted to talk to him about them, find out if he was in Australia, and get him to send me hot young Aussie author recommendations if he was.
On Monday, July 31, 2006, having become increasingly concerned by the fact that I hadn’t heard from Colin in more than two years, I ‘googled’ him, only to discover that he had died two years and 20 days earlier, only 10 days into his cycling trip. Hit by a car about an hour’s drive northeast of Calgary, he never regained consciousness, and died July 11, 2004 at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital.
And so….
The day I met Colin he was 26, and engrossed in Martin Amis’s London Fields in the lunchroom at the Ontario Court of Appeal. I had already read it and asked him if he was enjoying it. He launched into a dissertation on Amis's brilliance. I said I'd found London Fields rather turgid. One of his lovely arched eyebrows shot up, and I could see no one had warned him about me, even though he’d been one of the job’s unique selling points ('we have a playwright on staff' was the phrase used. ‘When would you like me to start?’ I’d asked.). After that we were off and running, with me making my usual claim that Amis's first novel, The Rachel Papers, was actually one of his best works and in many ways the best male 'rites of passage' novel written since J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Like me, I don’t think Colin had encountered too many people since leaving university who read literature as if we were still working hard on our undergraduate degrees.
I'm not sure if Colin gave up on Martin Amis before he got to his autobiography, Experience, a book I found profoundly affecting. I hadn't realized it dealt so intensively with Amis's relationship with his father, Kingsley. I was reading it in Montreal at a difficult time in my life and immediately prior to the anniversary of my father's death. I found it very touching, and it was enough to make me continue reading Amis at least up to Yellow Dog. But Colin had given up on Amis after Night Train I think. I had given it to him in hardcover for his birthday one year, knowing he would be thrilled. Sadly, it was terrible, and when he asked me if I had read it prior to giving it to him (a terrible habit I acquired while working in a bookstore, the art of reading a book and leaving no trace), I had to confess that yes, I had, and that I didn't think he was going to like it. And he didn't. But that was nothing compared with his fury with Time's Arrow, the one that's written backwards. He had tossed it in the back seat of his car and refused to even try to finish it. I borrowed it and read it. When I returned it to him I gently explained that the secret was to start at the end of each chapter and read upwards and backwards, from end of chapter to beginning, rather than down and forwards. I think he actually snorted when I said this - he had had it with Amis's pyrotechnics. I had always said I was on Julian Barnes' side in the Amis/Barnes brouhaha, and I think Colin eventually came to agree with me that there was more substance in Barnes' work and a whole lot more flash in Amis's.
Among the many literary connections we had in addition to Amis was Gabriel Garcia Marquez, after whom he named his dog. As soon as he told me he'd got a dog and named her Gabby, I asked if he'd named her after Marquez. I think he was relieved that someone actually got it on the first go.
Gabby was a lovely dog, and the bond between her and Colin was touching to witness. He worried about her being alone all day while he was at work, and hired a dog walker to take her out in the middle of the day when she was a puppy. But years after Gabby was more than capable of spending the day on her own, Colin, at great personal expense, continued to pay the dog walker because he knew that she and Gabby had bonded, and he was afraid Gabby would miss her. He brought Gabby over to my house one day, along with a treat, an enormous pig’s ear which she delicately devoured on my living room rug. She ate it silently and ferociously, and I was mesmerized by her intensity. When it was time to give her some water, Colin surprised me by whipping out a stainless steel dog water bowl. I pointed out that I had bowls, but Colin would never have presumed that I’d be willing to use one of my bowls as a dog-watering dish. Later that day, Colin gave me a ride somewhere, and as Gabby and I waited in the car while he went into the Harbord Bakery, it became apparent to me that I was a poor substitute for the love of her life. She was polite to me, she was even relatively attentive. But she wanted Colin back, and she kept up a low keening and her eyes firmly fixed on the bakery entrance until he reappeared.
Colin and I both loved Peter Carey, and I think we agreed Oscar and Lucinda was our favourite (although I may have made a case for The Tax Inspector just to be difficult once). We adored Ian McEwan - well - we both aspired to write something a tenth as good as Atonement. Nancy Huston was a Canadian ex-pat author living in France of whom I had never heard - Colin was particularly taken with her collection of stories, Slow Emergencies, which I read on his recommendation. I remember getting an email from him about The Corrections at a time when I knew nothing about the whole Oprah fuss regarding Jonathan Franzen’s refusal to allow his novel to become an Oprah pick. I misunderstood what he'd said and emailed back to say I had actually had trouble finishing it and what did he think was so good about it. He replied pertly, "I didn't say it was good - I said that it had made me laugh out loud in parts." He gave me a dispensation on reading Don DeLillo’s Underworld - I made three valiant efforts and he encouraged me to give it up. He knew I’d read and appreciated White Noise and Libra, and that I wasn’t giving up on DeLillo as an author. I think the fact that Colin was a baseball fan made Underworld far more bearable for him than for me. That was the only spectator sport he enjoyed watching on TV, and in fact he often didn’t bother having the cable connected. I was always startled and slightly in awe of Colin’s willingness to cut his losses with books he wasn't enjoying – and he in turn found it odd that I would always try to plod through them once I'd started them. I also remember discussing the Cracker series with him - I had cable at the time and was able to watch the series every week - and I remember excitedly telling him about the scene between Coltrane and the priest in one episode and declaring that it was the best writing for television I'd ever seen. I had always intended to get the series on videotape or DVD for him, because I knew he'd seen them sporadically and out of sequence.
I gave him a copy of David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, or loaned him my copy. It was very much a book I’d bought for the cover and opening paragraph – I hadn’t read any reviews of it and it was his first novel. But it was a rewarding read for both of us.
Having read Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy (The Snapper, The Van and The Commitments) and of course Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha, I got us tickets to hear Doyle at Convocation Hall in Toronto. Colin was the only person I knew in Toronto who would willingly accompany me to readings. Doyle read from The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. We were both impressed by his unassuming manner and his matter of fact transformation from rather ordinary teacher of geography to amazing novelist - Doyle gave us both hope.
Colin was an inveterate writer of letters to the editor, and of opinion pieces for the back page of The Globe and Mail's front section, the same page on which the Social Studies column appears. He often emailed me the links to his pieces when they appeared and the last one he sent was about the absurdity of bridge becoming a potential Olympic sport - we were in absolute agreement that one must distinguish between a game and a sport. One of these essays resulted from an encounter he and Gabby had had in the park near the house he’d bought in the east end of Toronto. Gabby had had to go to obedience school because she was just too fond of joggers in the park – she would leap on them with her muddy paws and Colin realized this just wasn’t appropriate behaviour. When he called me to tell me she’d graduated, he made a point of saying that she was the smartest dog in the class – and there was not a trace of self mockery in his voice when he said this. I had to stifle a giggle – he was dead serious and there was no reason for me to believe it was merely a proud human companion talking and that his conclusion regarding her brilliance wasn’t objective. Gabby’s behaviour may have been modified, but her general friendliness wasn’t, and one of the people they encountered turned out to be none other than one of Colin’s heroes, the brilliant Canadian actor, playwright, and novelist Ann-Marie Macdonald. He didn’t realize who she was until after they’d talked in the park, and he wrote a charming essay about their encounter for The Globe and Mail.
It was very strange to read one of Colin's letters to the editor about circumcision on the net after reading of his death. It was one of the ones he hadn't shared with me. It was very 'him' - iconoclastic, witty, well reasoned, and strongly worded. Here's a taste of his style: “...to assert that to have the procedure done is tantamount to torture is just plain offensive. Jews have been circumcising their male children for thousands of years. And believe it or not, we’re not all physically, sexually and psychologically scarred because of it.”
I am glad, after Colin told me Jewish people feel very much at loose ends on Christmas Day and tend to stay home eating cold pizza, that I started inviting him to my low-key Christmas celebrations. He was only able to make it once. I made a kugel for him, the first one I'd ever made, and he was suitably gratified by the pantheistic culinary effort. The following year he was in Florida visiting his grandparents, and then I myself left Toronto. I am also glad that I once hugged him really really hard, almost sending him through the plate glass window of a bookstore. More than anything else, I am glad that the last time I saw him I had nothing but good things to say to him about the new course he'd crafted for his life. I just had no idea it would kill him, and so soon.
In the last few years of his life, Colin was writing mostly prose rather than drama, and the last story he sent me was about a woman who habitually left the keys to her house in the door. The tension between her husband and herself was delicately depicted, centring around her absent-mindedness and its implications for their relationship. Like Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby, she was careless in a way that her husband worried would cause harm to others. As it turned out, she herself was murdered as a result of leaving her keys in the lock. It's hard, in hindsight, not to view the bleakness present in this work as foreshadowing of his own untimely death.
Colin Stuart Krivy
February 23, 1967 to July 11, 2004
Rest in peace, Coli-baba.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Sailors and Business Girls
Copyright Ruth Seeley
I spotted this altered sign in a little studio/storefront on Yew Street in Vancouver's Kitsilano. It attracted a fair bit of attention on flickr (more so than most of my other photos), and I'm at a loss to understand its appeal, frankly.
It's not that great a photo, and the sign, when you look at it closely, has been altered. I've been struggling to figure out what it used to say - looks to me like 'business' has been altered from 'whores' - but then it doesn't look like 'girls' has been added. 'Working Girls' wouldn't have fit (since the 'e' is obviously part of the original signage.
Anyway, here it is. I'll go back and try to track down the sign's owner to see what s/he knows about its origins. And for the record, I'm a fourth generation 'working girl' - and none of us has been a member of the world's oldest profession.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Aging
Copyright Ruth Seeley
"Growing old," observed British novelist Anthony Powell, “is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you didn't commit.”
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Updike in defense of the tangible book
Authors will, says Kelly, make money for their appearances, from workshops, and from interfacing directly with their readers. Updike points out that he rarely encountered one of his readers in the first 10 or 15 years after his work started being published. He also waxes eloquent on the joy of visiting bookstores, although not as eloquently as I could wax. Or perhaps, just as eloquently but in a different way.
The tactile experience of reading is not to be dismissed. Although I probably wouldn't have had the patience to slit the pages of a book two by two, I can certainly understand, given the weight and quality of the paper on which those books were printed and bound in their signatures, that for those a little less impatient than me, there was a ceremonial aspect to sitting at a lovely solid wood desk and carefully slicing along the folded edge with a utensil dedicated for this purpose. As one of my 18th and 19th Century lit profs said, in the days before television, reading was considered entertainment for the literate masses, and those who had the leisure to read at all were not daunted by the prospect of a long novel - they were, rather, delighted by the prospect of one that would occupy their leisure time for many days to come.
A real book is also portable, and while it's not difficult to imagine that technology will soon devise tiny perfect little optical readers that can be grabbed on the way out the door just like a book, they will NOT be just like books. Having worked in more than one bookstore on more than one occasion, I can tell you that for those who are passionate about reading, every shipment is like Christmas. In fact, the last time I worked in a bookstore I was forbidden to go anywhere near the shipments unless I was prepared to actually receive and shelve the books, since I'd fallen into the bad habit of opening all the totes, exclaiming with joy, and leaving a huge mess behind me. The design factor is not to be discounted in the book publishing industry - and frankly, web design has a long way to go before it can catch up with the sophistication of the book and magazine industries design capabilities (mainly because just about anyone can get some sort of web site up and going these days, regardless of their lack of comprehension of typography, graphic elements, and what constitutes good design, coupled with a blissful ignorance of its basic premise, The Golden Rule). I have seen books without even a title on their front covers fly off the shelves - there was a series of naughty books by a guy called John Colleton in the 70s that regularly disappeared in moments after being shelved based on their covers alone.
The prospect of reading even more megapixels isn't an appealing one. Even the experience of buying books online, convenient though it is, isn't as much fun as browsing in a bookstore. Nor am I anywhere near as likely to buy a book by an unknown author online, no matter how good its reviews. I certainly can't imagine buying a dozen or more books by authors unknown to me online. And yet I had no hesitation whatsoever to scoop up at least two dozen in the Virago women's writers series when they were on sale at David Mirvish Books in Toronto a decade or two ago. The covers, the chance to glance at the first paragraph, the fact that they were all on sale for less than half price - I was sold in no time. And I read every one of them too. The online book buying experience has really only one consolation for me - I have usually forgotten that I've placed an order by the time the books arrive, and thus conclude it's either my birthday or Christmas when they do magically appear. That's the point at which I get a little bit of the same excitement I get by fondling and poring over them in an actual store, accepting or rejecting them based on their covers, their first paragraphs, the back jacket blurb - and the amount of show-through in the paper on which they're printed. Buying online will also never give the joy of that spontaneous exchange of information called a conversation, either - the sort of conversation that often happens in the retail outlet when the person you're paying for the book has read it him- or herself - or the person in the line behind you spots it over your shoulder and tells you how much you're going to enjoy it. These conversations can take place wherever you go with your actual, real, live, fondle-able, tearable, write-in-able book, when someone sees you carrying it and you're suddenly embarked - often in the most unlikely places - on an oral ramble through the merits of the latest Peter Carey, My Life as a Fake, versus his earlier work, like Oscar and Lucinda or even - gasp - The Illywhacker.
It's a peculiar form of intellectual democracy when you feel you are constrained from speaking to someone because their ears are plugged with little headsets. What will happen when we can no longer make eye contact with our fellow public transit users because their eyes are also engaged in reading the text (downloaded from the internet and custom-selected by them) that's scrolling past (speed adjustable of course)?
"The printed, bound and paid-for book was — still is, for the moment — more exacting, more demanding [than information posted on the internet], of its producer and consumer both. It is the site of an encounter, in silence, of two minds, one following in the other's steps but invited to imagine, to argue, to concur on a level of reflection beyond that of personal encounter, with all its merely social conventions, its merciful padding of blather and mutual forgiveness. Book readers and writers are approaching the condition of holdouts, surly hermits who refuse to come out and play in the electronic sunshine of the post-Gutenberg village," says Updike. It's precisely because I want to read a book in the sunshine that I won't be giving up buying books anytime soon.
Things I wish I'd said
Reflected in the tuba's bell
Copyright Ruth Seeley
To use a camera as a means of artistic expression, a certain quality of spirit must be brought to aid light and air.
What is love? It is passion, admiration and respect. If you have two, you have enough. If you have all three, you don't have to die to go to heaven.
The truly fearless think of themselves as normal. Margaret Atwood
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. Margaret Thatcher
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
Truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is. Nadine
Trust is the key element in generating social capital. Paul Dickenson
[A] company’s brand image is made up of two things: What they do inside and how they communicate themselves outside. If these two become one it becomes a very strong brand. Jamie Anley, Jam Design
http://www.jamdesign.co.uk/
Monday, June 19, 2006
Commercial Drive Festival
I took almost 400 photos at the Commercial Drive Festival yesterday, an annual car-free event held in the city's east end. I was a little nervous about doing event photography, because crowds aren't my thing. I'd love to go to the big national exhibitions like the CNE and the PNE, because I love the rides. But I can't take the crowds, I start to feel quite panicky. I've always regretted not making it back to the fair in Goderich, Ontario, that had all the rides and none of the crowds. Cheap thrills.
Much to my surprise, despite an estimated crowd of 50,000 over the course of the day, the Commercial Drive Festival was a joy to attend. The photographic themes we were trying to capture were Father's Day, community, and what a car-free street looks like. Most of the photos I took were of the children's bike-decorating event, and it was lovely to see fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, working to get those bikes decorated in time for the parade behind the marching band that picked them up in the park and led them to the main street of the festival (Commercial Drive). Not one of the people I asked permission to photograph refused me (and I was very conscientious about asking). Of course, this meant there was a certain amount of posing going on, but I was also able to get some great candid shots. This little girl insisted that her fuzzy toy was going to be the one riding the bike. I guess it's her current favourite. And this is one of my favourites from the almost 400 shots. Five of my photos have been used on www.nowpublic.com already - must keep uploading, must keep uploading.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Disappointing
The photos are amazing, but I was so very disappointed to see that they weren't actually prints on display. Instead, the format was similar to display panels I've had created for community and stakeholder communication events (open houses, town halls). Printed on paper that didn't do the photos justice and surrounded by an incredible amount of text that won the war in terms of distracting the viewer, I'm left frustrated. These are beautiful photos, and I want to see some decent prints of them. I'll read the catalogue later, thank you very much.
For some web images of his work: www.alexwaterhousehayward.com/index.php.
The Mermaid and The Fisherman
Copyright Ruth Seeley
On a brief trip to Granville Island today I noticed the life-size statues of a mermaid and a ship's captain outside a store called The Walrus and The Carpenter. This is a proud, lovely, and successful mermaid. The accompanying statue of the captain shows him holding the tiller but otherwise empty handed - distracted, no doubt, by the enigmatic smile he'd received from the mermaid.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Stalking the wild rosehip
Copyright Ruth SeeleyWednesday, June 14, 2006
Birkenhead Lake
Copyright Ruth Seeley
One of three photos taken in July 2004 on a camping trip to Birkenhead Lake. Since moving to British Columbia in 2002, I've made a real effort to do the things I've always meant to do. This was the first time I'd been camping since I was eight. It was a beautiful weekend, horseflies notwithstanding. Naturally there were equipment failures (what's up with that air mattress) and certain failures to anticipate. I'd never encountered horseflies before, and I'll never go camping without bug spray again. But it was worth it for the sight of this gorgeous lake. Next time I'll get some photos of the skunk cabbage too. www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/birkenhe.html
Posts
