Have had a nice few days swanning about in Cambridge - my planned day trip to London keeps being postponed, so I find that tomorrow's the last day I can take it! But I won't put it off again, because I'm quite determined to see the Rothko room at the Tate Modern, and wander a little in Bloomsbury, see what else I can fit in on these adventures.
We spent Sunday studying for our trip this weekend, eventually tossing a coin to determine who got to buy the Lonely Planet guide when we realised we might as well spend the £9.99 to buy it and study up all week. Felicity won the toss with heads. It was a Canadian coin, and my backing the Maple Leaf did me no good at all. Disappointed, I decided to buy the Lonely Planet Tuscany, so I could figure out where all my little weekend adventures away from Florence would take me - I especially wanted to read a little more about Siena after meeting Claudia, and about Lucca, after we were nearly going to stop there on Saturday night, on the way to our mysterious final destination. Felicity told me after she'd won the coin toss that if she'd lost, she would've bought the Lonely Planet guide anyway, and then I probably would've felt that that was silly and pointless and bought Tuscany anyway.
I really had a very lazy weekend - spent a lot of time reading. Finished The Portrait of a Lady and now find I want to read more Henry James - a state of affairs that has come about rather suddenly and surprised me considerably! I've also been reading a little more Carson McCullers - couldn't find The Member of the Wedding here, so I read Clock Without Hands. Was taken by the fact that at the same time as being somewhat horrified by a character such as the Judge, I couldn't help but feel a great deal of sympathy towards him and his little delusions. I'm glad my attention is sharp - I feel like I'm drinking in every sentence that I'm reading, like I just can't take in enough. It's lead to a few nights reading till after midnight, and a few mornings spent in bed, just wanting to finish a few more chapters before I start the day.
Yesterday was my "Sylvia Plath day". I wanted to see a few of the things I'd read about in her journals, and Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters while I was here. We rode our bicycles, and, as I was wearing a skirt, I think I may have flashed my knickers a few times around Cambridge - but I'm sure this is something Sylvia wouldn't have been above herself! We had a look at Newnham College, and wandered around the gardens, then rode our bikes down across the Mill Lane Bridge, stopped along Eltisley ave to take a look at no. 55 where they first lived when they were married and then walked through Grantchester Meadows to The Orchard at Grantchester where we had a very civilised lunch. I finally had my scone with jam and cream in England, and drank Peach Iced Tea, and wandered through the Rupert Brooke museum they had there, and wondered at the fact that not only Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes had been there regularly, but that before then Brooke, and Russell, Wittgenstein, Keynes and Virginia Woolf had all been among the regular roll-call. I spent the evening walking around Cambridge, and then walking through Jesus meadow we settled to eat an ice-cream on the banks of the Cam. Acquiring some bread from a nice couple nearby, we started feeding the swans, barracking especially for the black swans, nicknamed en masse "Perthy". I found out that it is not true that all the swans in England belong to the Queen - in fact, half belong to the Queen, and the other half belong to the people. Apparently each year when the signets are born people can volunteer, and they tag all the signets accordingly, allocating half for the Queen and half for the people. I was thinking about this in terms of an asset. I had to fill out those horrible forms at the bank before leaving, estimating what my assets were worth. If I were English I should definitely list in all such reckonings of assets, "Part share in Half the Swans of England." I don't know how their value would be measured. Felicity told me I couldn't claim any ownership, because I'm Australian, but then she decided that I should be able to claim my part share in half the black swans of England, which I think is most appropriate.
Am about to embark on reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary for the first time - I hope this will be followed by some more Henry James and then I'll see where I go from there. I keep on picking up books to read, and wondering that I never read them before.
I may go quiet for a few days - the Easter weekend coming up. We're hoping to make it to a Good Friday service at King's College - I'd love to hear the choir sing. Saturday morning we leave for our two week adventure. I hope I can find somewhere to access the internet at the other end - have to see how it goes.
Cambridge
Cambridge
Saturday, April 12, 2003
I arrived in London around 8am yesterday morning after a sleepless flight. Organisation at the Montreal end was a little bit haphazard at best, but in the end the flight was only delayed by 55 minutes, and walking straight through customs, and straight onto the Piccadilly line underground to King's Cross I suppose I didn't really understand what all the fuss made over the difficulty of finding your way around Heathrow was referring to. Got to King's Cross, had a Harry Potter moment at Platform 9 and 3/4 and got onto the train to Cambridge, where I was met by the intrepid Felicity. We walked back to her apartment and jettisoned all my stuff, ate some fresh focaccia she'd made and then went for a walk.
Okay, people who have spoken to me in the last few weeks will know I wasn't sounding too keen about England, though I knew I didn't have any rational or justifiable excuse for not being "in the mood" for a place I'd never been. As it is, we're still going on a little adventure for a fortnight, but I'll get a week kicking around in Cambridge, with a day trip into London to see the Tate Modern and one or two other things, and the rest of the time watching people punting of the river and making my way through all the bookshops, of which there are many. My two favourites of the many we have already visited are as follows (though not in order of preference, because they're too different from each other for that):
The Haunted Bookshop, which is in a narrow little laneway, and has an enormous selection of Boarding School fiction upstairs. Heaven. Anna bought me a nice little stash of Chalet schoolbooks recently, and one of them was the first half of a two volume story - A Genius at the Chalet school ended, and I was left hanging! I finally bought the next book, The Chalet School Fete at the Haunted bookshop, and have been busying myself finding out the fate of Nina Rutherford, the aforementioned genius. (Temperamental pianist, always worried about practising at least four hours a day, and quite grumpy about participating in games which may injure her.) Quite smashing.
The other shop is G. David - Bookseller. Oh my, the room out the back has the most amazing old volumes and bits and pieces. For £2 I got a page of a bible (from Judith) printed in Venice in 1519. I went back today and bought something I knew I'd always think about if I didn't - a single leaf from an illuminated manuscript, from France, 1500. It's beautiful, and such an amazing thing to now own. I think I need to keep pinching myself. I'll definitely need to get it framed when I get back.
I've also chosen my next book - Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady. I take back every since bad thing I've ever said about Henry James. I find Isabel Archer the most compelling figure, because her quest is for knowledge, and the right to choose for herself what she will make of her life. The book is also moving in the same direction as me - Isabel going from America to England, and later to Florence. She has just been put in the way of Gilbert Osmond. My prejudice against Henry James, for what it's worth, derives from the fact that when I was 13 (in year eight) we studied The Turn of the Screw, which at that stage seemed rather dull. We didn't really understand the layers of a psychological reading of the story, and as a ghost story - nothing happens. So I'd always thought he was a bit overrated. I know his sentences can get very long and involved, and that Portrait of a Lady comes comparatively early in his career. I'll be interested to see how I like the later book, which I've now quite decided I will read.
Cambridge
Okay, people who have spoken to me in the last few weeks will know I wasn't sounding too keen about England, though I knew I didn't have any rational or justifiable excuse for not being "in the mood" for a place I'd never been. As it is, we're still going on a little adventure for a fortnight, but I'll get a week kicking around in Cambridge, with a day trip into London to see the Tate Modern and one or two other things, and the rest of the time watching people punting of the river and making my way through all the bookshops, of which there are many. My two favourites of the many we have already visited are as follows (though not in order of preference, because they're too different from each other for that):
The Haunted Bookshop, which is in a narrow little laneway, and has an enormous selection of Boarding School fiction upstairs. Heaven. Anna bought me a nice little stash of Chalet schoolbooks recently, and one of them was the first half of a two volume story - A Genius at the Chalet school ended, and I was left hanging! I finally bought the next book, The Chalet School Fete at the Haunted bookshop, and have been busying myself finding out the fate of Nina Rutherford, the aforementioned genius. (Temperamental pianist, always worried about practising at least four hours a day, and quite grumpy about participating in games which may injure her.) Quite smashing.
The other shop is G. David - Bookseller. Oh my, the room out the back has the most amazing old volumes and bits and pieces. For £2 I got a page of a bible (from Judith) printed in Venice in 1519. I went back today and bought something I knew I'd always think about if I didn't - a single leaf from an illuminated manuscript, from France, 1500. It's beautiful, and such an amazing thing to now own. I think I need to keep pinching myself. I'll definitely need to get it framed when I get back.
I've also chosen my next book - Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady. I take back every since bad thing I've ever said about Henry James. I find Isabel Archer the most compelling figure, because her quest is for knowledge, and the right to choose for herself what she will make of her life. The book is also moving in the same direction as me - Isabel going from America to England, and later to Florence. She has just been put in the way of Gilbert Osmond. My prejudice against Henry James, for what it's worth, derives from the fact that when I was 13 (in year eight) we studied The Turn of the Screw, which at that stage seemed rather dull. We didn't really understand the layers of a psychological reading of the story, and as a ghost story - nothing happens. So I'd always thought he was a bit overrated. I know his sentences can get very long and involved, and that Portrait of a Lady comes comparatively early in his career. I'll be interested to see how I like the later book, which I've now quite decided I will read.
Cambridge
Thursday, April 10, 2003
First of all, a LOST AND FOUND message. I don't know if you're reading this, but Alice I've lost your address in Maryland, and I've written you a postcard I want to send! So, if you happen across this, please send me your address! I haven't forgotten my promise.
Now that my scatterbrained nature is dealt with, I can move on.
My last day in Montreal, and it will be a quiet one. Over the past few days I've become well-acquainted with the man at the postoffice, and I have to visit him one more time to mail one last thing home. I feel like I've jettisoned much that I've acquired over the last month, so I'm almost beginning again - except my scrapbook is bulging. Other than a visit to the post office (and the weather is beautiful today - sunny and mild after the weekend snow) I'm just going to be milling around, packing, knitting, reading. A gentle day before I traipse off to London. (And yes, is the answer to my mother's question. I AM going to London to visit the Queen.)
Yesterday I went to the Museum of Fine Arts. They have a major exhibition on, but I decided instead of seeing that I'd make my way around the permanent collection. I'm very glad I did this - spent a lot of time looking at the pre-Columbian, Asian, Oceanic and African art, and making little notes on things. I was especially taken with an African idiophone - the "Disaster Bird" idiophone. One day a bird warned the Obo (king) against a battle. The king ignored his advice, and won the battle. Since this time, the Obo has been considered the person who can determine fate, and there is an annual celebration of this victory.
I also spent quite a long time among the contemporary art. A beautiful Hans Hoffman - I've begun to realise that I love Hoffman's work: the same extremely bold juxtapositions of colour as there are in the work of Howard Hodgkin, another of my favourite painters. Against the scale of many Abstract Expressionist canvases, Hoffman's works are quite small (though large enough that they would dominate an ordinary room without hesitation) - but they're colour seems much more demanding than the colour of a Pollock, or a Rothko, or a Newman... His use of complimentary colours - in this case a canvas dominated by luminous, orangey red, with attacks of a bright green. Something both violent, but also joyful in this onslaught of colour. A very thick texture to the paint, not the drip texture of a Pollock, but most probably the thick application of the palette knife.
There were two rooms dedicated to the two major Canadian artists - whose works I also saw at the Contemporary Art Museum - Riopelle and Borduas. I think after seeing 30 or 40 of each of their works I can tell their styles quite well now. I admire Riopelle - think his "mosaic" period of abstraction particularly interesting - but don't find the works as engaging as the work of Borduas. Borduas moved slowly away from figurative painting, into his "automatiste" style, comparable to the practice of automatic writing, and not dissimilar to the aims of American abstract expressionism. The landscape is still obvious as the subject of his middle-period abstraction, but toward the end of his life he began to abandon colour, and these last canvases are dominated by white: somehow giving the viewer a feeling of both despair and a strange kind of warmth in their solitary vision. There are still occasional bold slashes of colour - "Composition 59" is dominated by a wide, vertical olive green streak across it - but for the most part he is heading toward monochrome. One of his late Compositions is wholly white, all texture. There seems some kind of striving towards a pure vision in the passage of these paintings.
The other interesting thing I found was that the gallery had on display two pieces on 1986 by Gerhard Richter - one of his photographic paintings, and one of his abstractions. They displayed these pieces in two different galleries. I love that split in Richter's oeuvre.
Montreal
Now that my scatterbrained nature is dealt with, I can move on.
My last day in Montreal, and it will be a quiet one. Over the past few days I've become well-acquainted with the man at the postoffice, and I have to visit him one more time to mail one last thing home. I feel like I've jettisoned much that I've acquired over the last month, so I'm almost beginning again - except my scrapbook is bulging. Other than a visit to the post office (and the weather is beautiful today - sunny and mild after the weekend snow) I'm just going to be milling around, packing, knitting, reading. A gentle day before I traipse off to London. (And yes, is the answer to my mother's question. I AM going to London to visit the Queen.)
Yesterday I went to the Museum of Fine Arts. They have a major exhibition on, but I decided instead of seeing that I'd make my way around the permanent collection. I'm very glad I did this - spent a lot of time looking at the pre-Columbian, Asian, Oceanic and African art, and making little notes on things. I was especially taken with an African idiophone - the "Disaster Bird" idiophone. One day a bird warned the Obo (king) against a battle. The king ignored his advice, and won the battle. Since this time, the Obo has been considered the person who can determine fate, and there is an annual celebration of this victory.
I also spent quite a long time among the contemporary art. A beautiful Hans Hoffman - I've begun to realise that I love Hoffman's work: the same extremely bold juxtapositions of colour as there are in the work of Howard Hodgkin, another of my favourite painters. Against the scale of many Abstract Expressionist canvases, Hoffman's works are quite small (though large enough that they would dominate an ordinary room without hesitation) - but they're colour seems much more demanding than the colour of a Pollock, or a Rothko, or a Newman... His use of complimentary colours - in this case a canvas dominated by luminous, orangey red, with attacks of a bright green. Something both violent, but also joyful in this onslaught of colour. A very thick texture to the paint, not the drip texture of a Pollock, but most probably the thick application of the palette knife.
There were two rooms dedicated to the two major Canadian artists - whose works I also saw at the Contemporary Art Museum - Riopelle and Borduas. I think after seeing 30 or 40 of each of their works I can tell their styles quite well now. I admire Riopelle - think his "mosaic" period of abstraction particularly interesting - but don't find the works as engaging as the work of Borduas. Borduas moved slowly away from figurative painting, into his "automatiste" style, comparable to the practice of automatic writing, and not dissimilar to the aims of American abstract expressionism. The landscape is still obvious as the subject of his middle-period abstraction, but toward the end of his life he began to abandon colour, and these last canvases are dominated by white: somehow giving the viewer a feeling of both despair and a strange kind of warmth in their solitary vision. There are still occasional bold slashes of colour - "Composition 59" is dominated by a wide, vertical olive green streak across it - but for the most part he is heading toward monochrome. One of his late Compositions is wholly white, all texture. There seems some kind of striving towards a pure vision in the passage of these paintings.
The other interesting thing I found was that the gallery had on display two pieces on 1986 by Gerhard Richter - one of his photographic paintings, and one of his abstractions. They displayed these pieces in two different galleries. I love that split in Richter's oeuvre.
Montreal
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
I wrote a long explanation of my existence this morning, only to find I'd lost the lot when I tried to post it. I'm hoping I'll have better luck this time.
I think it's something in my blood - I seem to attract, or at the very least find myself attracted to - writers festivals. Went to "Metropolis Bleu" on Saturday night to see and hear Kathryn Harrison speak, which was fascinating - also nice that she was in conversation with Ramona Koval, who I said a brief hello to after the session. (Which apparently be heard on Radio National sometime later this year). I've only read one of Kathryn Harrison's book - I somehow didn't hear about it when there was all the controversy when it was first published, but I picked up The Kiss after reading Jill Ker Conway's book on autobiography. She's written many other books - essays and novels, but it is always The Kiss people seem to remember. It is her memoir, the story of a four year "affair" she had with her father beginning at the age of twenty.
I reread the book after the session, because I was interested - I remembered it being beautifully written, and wanted to see if that was the case. Besides, I only borrowed it from the library last time, and it was cheap to buy - and now I have a signed copy! On rereading, it was still beautiful: the prose has both a real crispness and an underlying stillness - as though she has written straight through the subject matter, looking beyond it. Like Annie Dillard's anecdote about learning to chop wood - you only learn when you are no longer aiming for the block, but through it. As well as being very well written, I liked it because she had the courage to write a very grey book - nothing was simplified, and she refused the easy position of the "victim", because, no matter how appalling the situation was, things were of course more complicated than simple black and white. She gave an account of some of the reactions at the time of its publication - some very vitriolic attacks, not only in the book review pages, but also often straying to the opinion pages. A strange storm to be at the centre of. She said part of the reason she wrote the book was almost political - the notion that this was still something so unspeakable, that people wouldn't acknowledge it unless forced to. And then to be attacked - have her morals questioned because she dared to publish this book when she had children of her own to "protect" - she was even criticised as a bad mother in the pages of major newspapers. And now, several years later, the book is still beautiful, still disturbing.
On Sunday I went to St Joseph's Oratory - which turned out to be a two hour walk, with snow underfoot, nearly all uphill. When I finally reached the Oratory I was exhausted, and entertained vague notions that as it was a place of piety and charity, I'd find some nice person to drive me back downtown - no such luck, unfortunately. But before I had to walk all the way back to the hostel I looked around the Oratory a little.
The main reason I decided to go was because they have in the museum the heart of Brother Andre, the founder of the Oratory, on permanent display - something I thought was quite strange. He died in 1937, and after many cures etc have been attributed to him, he was beatified in 1982. Now there's an ongoing campaign for his canonisation, with invitations throughout the oratory to sign one of the books they have dedicated to this campaign. There were Brother Andre medallions for sale in the gift shop for 0.35 cents, so I thought I bought one - I felt I should do something after I'd looked at the man's heart.
There was another display - another campaign they have going for the canonisation of a Frenchman, Moreau. They had little cards there, with his portrait on one side, and then, pasted on the other side, pieces of cloth that had touched his bones. Such a weird system of external objects of worship, so fascinating. I think I found the whole experience a little overwhelming - after I got back I fell asleep for 17 hours. I must admit that I think this had more to do with a headcold than a religious experience.
I finished reading Vanity Fair last night, which, after 800 pages of following the fortunes of Becky, Amelia, and the lovely Dobbin (I have to admit his honesty and upstandingness won me over very early) feels worthy of mention. I feel that I have vanquished Thackeray. Well, that's an exaggeration - but I'm very glad to have read it. I'm left with poetry and essay for the next few days - am still trying to decide what I'll buy to read next when I get to the UK. I'm considering more Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding is a must, I think) and perhaps more Henry James, or else something swashbuckling by Dumas, or perhaps plunge into the Russians, who I've been waiting to have time for since I was sixteen.
I also finished reading Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God. In his introduction to it, Guy Davenport stated that Carson is "a fancier of volcanoes" - a description I love. Her essay on the gender of sound, jumping all over the place, from Ancient Greece to the 20th century,and Hemingway's dislike of Gertrude Stein's voice was strange, leading me in new directions - as her work always does.
I still haven't written any of my own poetry - although I've written a small mountain of postcards today - but I've been slowly, gently taking notes, and am sure the poems will follow later, when I have time to spread out and think slowly. My "gentle, slow-paced" stay in Montreal is already close to finished. I'm hoping to go to McGill tomorrow and find Anne Carson's office - even just to see the door! Also, to the art gallery, to look at their permanent collection, as well as to the post office! The next day I fly out to the UK, where I'll meet up with Felicity in Cambridge.
Montreal
I think it's something in my blood - I seem to attract, or at the very least find myself attracted to - writers festivals. Went to "Metropolis Bleu" on Saturday night to see and hear Kathryn Harrison speak, which was fascinating - also nice that she was in conversation with Ramona Koval, who I said a brief hello to after the session. (Which apparently be heard on Radio National sometime later this year). I've only read one of Kathryn Harrison's book - I somehow didn't hear about it when there was all the controversy when it was first published, but I picked up The Kiss after reading Jill Ker Conway's book on autobiography. She's written many other books - essays and novels, but it is always The Kiss people seem to remember. It is her memoir, the story of a four year "affair" she had with her father beginning at the age of twenty.
I reread the book after the session, because I was interested - I remembered it being beautifully written, and wanted to see if that was the case. Besides, I only borrowed it from the library last time, and it was cheap to buy - and now I have a signed copy! On rereading, it was still beautiful: the prose has both a real crispness and an underlying stillness - as though she has written straight through the subject matter, looking beyond it. Like Annie Dillard's anecdote about learning to chop wood - you only learn when you are no longer aiming for the block, but through it. As well as being very well written, I liked it because she had the courage to write a very grey book - nothing was simplified, and she refused the easy position of the "victim", because, no matter how appalling the situation was, things were of course more complicated than simple black and white. She gave an account of some of the reactions at the time of its publication - some very vitriolic attacks, not only in the book review pages, but also often straying to the opinion pages. A strange storm to be at the centre of. She said part of the reason she wrote the book was almost political - the notion that this was still something so unspeakable, that people wouldn't acknowledge it unless forced to. And then to be attacked - have her morals questioned because she dared to publish this book when she had children of her own to "protect" - she was even criticised as a bad mother in the pages of major newspapers. And now, several years later, the book is still beautiful, still disturbing.
On Sunday I went to St Joseph's Oratory - which turned out to be a two hour walk, with snow underfoot, nearly all uphill. When I finally reached the Oratory I was exhausted, and entertained vague notions that as it was a place of piety and charity, I'd find some nice person to drive me back downtown - no such luck, unfortunately. But before I had to walk all the way back to the hostel I looked around the Oratory a little.
The main reason I decided to go was because they have in the museum the heart of Brother Andre, the founder of the Oratory, on permanent display - something I thought was quite strange. He died in 1937, and after many cures etc have been attributed to him, he was beatified in 1982. Now there's an ongoing campaign for his canonisation, with invitations throughout the oratory to sign one of the books they have dedicated to this campaign. There were Brother Andre medallions for sale in the gift shop for 0.35 cents, so I thought I bought one - I felt I should do something after I'd looked at the man's heart.
There was another display - another campaign they have going for the canonisation of a Frenchman, Moreau. They had little cards there, with his portrait on one side, and then, pasted on the other side, pieces of cloth that had touched his bones. Such a weird system of external objects of worship, so fascinating. I think I found the whole experience a little overwhelming - after I got back I fell asleep for 17 hours. I must admit that I think this had more to do with a headcold than a religious experience.
I finished reading Vanity Fair last night, which, after 800 pages of following the fortunes of Becky, Amelia, and the lovely Dobbin (I have to admit his honesty and upstandingness won me over very early) feels worthy of mention. I feel that I have vanquished Thackeray. Well, that's an exaggeration - but I'm very glad to have read it. I'm left with poetry and essay for the next few days - am still trying to decide what I'll buy to read next when I get to the UK. I'm considering more Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding is a must, I think) and perhaps more Henry James, or else something swashbuckling by Dumas, or perhaps plunge into the Russians, who I've been waiting to have time for since I was sixteen.
I also finished reading Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God. In his introduction to it, Guy Davenport stated that Carson is "a fancier of volcanoes" - a description I love. Her essay on the gender of sound, jumping all over the place, from Ancient Greece to the 20th century,and Hemingway's dislike of Gertrude Stein's voice was strange, leading me in new directions - as her work always does.
I still haven't written any of my own poetry - although I've written a small mountain of postcards today - but I've been slowly, gently taking notes, and am sure the poems will follow later, when I have time to spread out and think slowly. My "gentle, slow-paced" stay in Montreal is already close to finished. I'm hoping to go to McGill tomorrow and find Anne Carson's office - even just to see the door! Also, to the art gallery, to look at their permanent collection, as well as to the post office! The next day I fly out to the UK, where I'll meet up with Felicity in Cambridge.
Montreal
Friday, April 04, 2003
A long slow week of meandering around the city, occasionally stopping to see a museum or gallery, but mostly just walking.
When I went to the Atwater market last weekend, I arrived to find someone talking, surrounded by cameras and journalists. There's an election here soon, and so I figured it was a politician, though as they were chatting away in French I didn't have much of an idea. But I hung around on the edge of the crowd in case something spectacular happened, and when he finished talking he started to shake hands with people. He took a look at me, walked straight up, said "Bonjour" and shook my hand. I've been wondering all week who he was.
I went to the Museum of Contemporary art on Tuesday and spent a quiet afternoon watching the video work of Gillian Wearing, as well as exploring the work of some Canadian and Quebecoise artists. There's currently an exhibition of major Quebecoise art from the 40s, 50s and 60s - it was interesting to see that work after studying American art of the same period, and seeing the influence of Abstract Expressionism, Op and the beginnings of Pop art. Some reminded me strongly of the work of Joan Mitchell - a predominance of white, and obvious allusion to landscape as the major subject.
I went to the cinema on Wednesday at the forum - bought a ticket for Auberge L'Espagnole, and then, when that finished, snuck in to see About Schmidt. My Wednesday lunchtime club meeting found me munching on a fresh baguette with brie in a darkened cinema. It felt like a nice civilised way to spend the afternoon.
I spent the day yesterday with Claudia, a girl from Rome, who's been living in the US for the past four years. She's currently doing her PhD in Italian Literature at Yale, looking at the theatre of Siena. Had some long talks about her thesis, and my own poetry, and history, religion, the US, among other things. Went to the Notre Dame Basilica. "I like the objects can tell the story of a place" she said. The cathedrale is beautiful, but the stonework is quite simple:it is the woodwork inside that makes it so unusual, so beautiful. Spent a while exploring. Some beautiful stained glass windows with depictions of very Canadian landscapes, which was particularly interesting.
I also purchased something I've been looking for for a long time: a 1966 issue of Playboy. Now, I'm sure this takes some explaining... Or else everyone will just think that studying Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda last year went to my head! About 4 or 5 years ago I watched some of the documentary series SBS ran on the 1950s in America, and one of the episodes talked about the launch of Playboy magazine. Flipping through it, it's not terribly full of girly pictures (and the Miss April centrefold is done very tastefully - and accompanied by a story, and snapshots of her surfing! Gidget as centrefold!) but it was a magazine young men could read to find out how they were meant to behave in certain social situations. I've always found this a bit bizarre - Playboy as guide to etiquette - hence the fact that I've always wanted a chance to look at it. Scanning it I found phrases such as "Brechtian song" and "Camp, camp, camp, the Baroque Beatles Madrigals..." as well as the conclusion of the Ian Fleming serial Octopussy , and writing by Nabakov. So strange! It was quite an object of fascination in the common room last night- everyone took a chance to flip through it. Particular special is the fact that is contains a story about several previous Playboy covers! All in all - a worthwhile purchase. I'm just worried that Playboy poems will follow Gidget poems...
Last night Claudia and I walked up Saint Laurent and around the Latin Quarter for a while - wish I'd made my way up there a little earlier. Paused in a shop full of posters and prints and postcards - took a while to decide which Tintin postcard to purchase in French! We ended up in an Indian restaurant for dinner - for $9 I felt like I'd eaten quite a feast! And I realised how much I miss curry - am heading out to the supermarket today to get some groceries to catch up on my curry consumption!
Have been reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair for the past week, and reading other bits and pieces in between - rereading Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God at the moment, and still astounded by the suddenness of her sentences, the way they immediately cut to the point. There's a sentence in one of her Short Talks that somehow sums up her writing for me - in her short talk "On Sylvia Plath". Writing about seeing Plath's mother on the television, she observes that Aurelia "said plain, burned things." Rereading "The Glass Essay" is like a series of shocks, all the while coaxing me towards writing my own pieces. Sometime in the next few days I'm going to head to either the library or one of the bookshops with big armchairs (that might as well be libraries) to do a little research on Robert Smithson for a piece I've begun thinking through.
I'm also hoping to make it to the Quebec literary festival - Kathryn Harrison is a guest, and I'd like to see her speak. Got to try to book tickets today.
Montreal.
When I went to the Atwater market last weekend, I arrived to find someone talking, surrounded by cameras and journalists. There's an election here soon, and so I figured it was a politician, though as they were chatting away in French I didn't have much of an idea. But I hung around on the edge of the crowd in case something spectacular happened, and when he finished talking he started to shake hands with people. He took a look at me, walked straight up, said "Bonjour" and shook my hand. I've been wondering all week who he was.
I went to the Museum of Contemporary art on Tuesday and spent a quiet afternoon watching the video work of Gillian Wearing, as well as exploring the work of some Canadian and Quebecoise artists. There's currently an exhibition of major Quebecoise art from the 40s, 50s and 60s - it was interesting to see that work after studying American art of the same period, and seeing the influence of Abstract Expressionism, Op and the beginnings of Pop art. Some reminded me strongly of the work of Joan Mitchell - a predominance of white, and obvious allusion to landscape as the major subject.
I went to the cinema on Wednesday at the forum - bought a ticket for Auberge L'Espagnole, and then, when that finished, snuck in to see About Schmidt. My Wednesday lunchtime club meeting found me munching on a fresh baguette with brie in a darkened cinema. It felt like a nice civilised way to spend the afternoon.
I spent the day yesterday with Claudia, a girl from Rome, who's been living in the US for the past four years. She's currently doing her PhD in Italian Literature at Yale, looking at the theatre of Siena. Had some long talks about her thesis, and my own poetry, and history, religion, the US, among other things. Went to the Notre Dame Basilica. "I like the objects can tell the story of a place" she said. The cathedrale is beautiful, but the stonework is quite simple:it is the woodwork inside that makes it so unusual, so beautiful. Spent a while exploring. Some beautiful stained glass windows with depictions of very Canadian landscapes, which was particularly interesting.
I also purchased something I've been looking for for a long time: a 1966 issue of Playboy. Now, I'm sure this takes some explaining... Or else everyone will just think that studying Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda last year went to my head! About 4 or 5 years ago I watched some of the documentary series SBS ran on the 1950s in America, and one of the episodes talked about the launch of Playboy magazine. Flipping through it, it's not terribly full of girly pictures (and the Miss April centrefold is done very tastefully - and accompanied by a story, and snapshots of her surfing! Gidget as centrefold!) but it was a magazine young men could read to find out how they were meant to behave in certain social situations. I've always found this a bit bizarre - Playboy as guide to etiquette - hence the fact that I've always wanted a chance to look at it. Scanning it I found phrases such as "Brechtian song" and "Camp, camp, camp, the Baroque Beatles Madrigals..." as well as the conclusion of the Ian Fleming serial Octopussy , and writing by Nabakov. So strange! It was quite an object of fascination in the common room last night- everyone took a chance to flip through it. Particular special is the fact that is contains a story about several previous Playboy covers! All in all - a worthwhile purchase. I'm just worried that Playboy poems will follow Gidget poems...
Last night Claudia and I walked up Saint Laurent and around the Latin Quarter for a while - wish I'd made my way up there a little earlier. Paused in a shop full of posters and prints and postcards - took a while to decide which Tintin postcard to purchase in French! We ended up in an Indian restaurant for dinner - for $9 I felt like I'd eaten quite a feast! And I realised how much I miss curry - am heading out to the supermarket today to get some groceries to catch up on my curry consumption!
Have been reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair for the past week, and reading other bits and pieces in between - rereading Anne Carson's Glass, Irony and God at the moment, and still astounded by the suddenness of her sentences, the way they immediately cut to the point. There's a sentence in one of her Short Talks that somehow sums up her writing for me - in her short talk "On Sylvia Plath". Writing about seeing Plath's mother on the television, she observes that Aurelia "said plain, burned things." Rereading "The Glass Essay" is like a series of shocks, all the while coaxing me towards writing my own pieces. Sometime in the next few days I'm going to head to either the library or one of the bookshops with big armchairs (that might as well be libraries) to do a little research on Robert Smithson for a piece I've begun thinking through.
I'm also hoping to make it to the Quebec literary festival - Kathryn Harrison is a guest, and I'd like to see her speak. Got to try to book tickets today.
Montreal.
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