Author: carin

this is not a review — back alleys and urban landscapes, by michael cho

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

I don’t remember how I first heard about Michael Cho’s beautiful book: back alleys and urban landscapes but the title made it a sure-fire gifty pick for an alley loving friend. The book is more collection of drawings than text—in fact there’s almost no text, which makes the experience of wandering through its pages not unlike ‘wandering’, generally. Flipping through—being careful not to leave jammy fingerprints [is it wrong to test run a gift book?]—I was reminded of my own favourite alleyway behind a Toronto duplex where I carved out a garden in the gravel between dilapidated wooden garages. With the addition of a wonky table and a barely working 61WPGikTBtL__SL500_AA300_BBQ, it became a hub for summer games, watermelon seed spitting contests and the first of many ‘ant hotels’ [ant hills that are left to prosper and grow] complete with No Vacancy sign.

When seen in a certain light, past the grit and the scruff, alleys are more inviting than intimidating… connections not barriers.

Micheal Cho knows this and his drawings beautifully reflect one of the very best aspects of city life.

“They’re family places, quiet and often hidden in plain sight… when you know a city, you know its back alleys. It’s like a house: the dining room is in the front to show guests, while the real living goes on in the kitchen…”  ~back alleys and urban landscapes, by Michael Cho (Drawn & Quarterly, 2012)

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—Purchase back alleys and urban landscapes online at Blue Heron Books.

journal notes – montreal

~ carin ~ 16 Comments

Me on flagstone patio in wicker chair—a collection of mirrors among the clematis and to my right a pool of much-loved fish that have recently received an infusion of ice, so hot has it become—reading about Ringuet’s life while somewhere a piano is played, windows open.
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Dinner: mackerel and greens, marrow and baguette, pickles, asparagus salad, followed by tea in the park.
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In my room I find a book of photos by Annie Liebowitz who says that The Summer of Love was the end of flower power culture, not the beginning—that you could get mugged in Haight Ashbury by then. This reminds me of a story I wrote, inspired by my regret at having never been a Haight Ashbury flower child.
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Lunch: spinach salad with smoked trout, frites.
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BONNE ENTENTE by F.R. Scott

(“One man’s meat is another man’s poisson” ~ A. Lismer)

The advantages of living with two cultures
Strike one at every turn,
Especially when one finds a notice in an office building
“This elevator will not run on Ascension Day”‘
Or reads in the Montreal Star:
“Tomorrow being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
There will be no collection of garbage in the city”;
Or sees on the restaurant menu the bilingual dish:
DEEP APPLE PIE
TARTE AUX POMMES PROFONDES
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This city is like a favourite wild child the way it makes you love it one minute then annoys you the next. How can you be angry with it for being so alive… except that its noise can sometimes be inconsiderate. Those voices… Hear me! See me! Hahahahaha! And to the neighbours’ wee hour reveries, you want to shout: does no one own a watch?? You spend the night awake cursing the irony of a hall clock that chimes every quarter hour then nap in the light of the city’s eccentric decadence and wake to offerings of freshly baked bread and strong tea and you forgive it as you always knew you would.
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Today, a lunch of six pois, beans really, and gazpacho, conversation. A walk along heated streets, laughter en route, no sparrows, thank god. And at 6 p.m. bells are ringing beyond this mirrored garden, these rooftops, and I know that on the street they are also heard by those smoking and drinking and tabernacking at those hightop tables near the boulangerie where I bought my dinner to go… a saumon quiche epinard and salade verte, une petite s’il vous plait… and where when I paid and was desperately trying to keep up my end in French with the lad at cash who kindly didn’t switch to English, or didn’t know how, I unknowingly dropped a $20 bill on the floor and he tried to tell me but I didn’t understand and then an English-speaking girl picked it up and said: “Excuse me, is this yours?”
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And now on this patio, a breeze. Montreal wanting to kiss and make up, all quiet innocence tonight. There is always kissing here. Parties and smashed crockery, foul language, slammed doors, a broken swing, no chance of sleep causing more foul language… and then the embrace… none of it more or less sincere than the other, all of it adding to the whole. Impossible not to love this mad relative.
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♦◊♦

More Travel:

Stratford
Prince Edward Island
Miami
Niagara Region
Peterborough
Chile
Vancouver

a frivolous five minutes over pizza with ‘k’ — age 58

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 

I met K in the 70’s. We used to work together for what now seems like a fraction of a second. Then I moved away and for a brief time we stayed in touch. Then I moved even further away, and further still, and eventually she moved too and married and remarried. Along the way there have been an assortment of cats and dogs, long ago mutual friends and at least one hamster, as well as a gap of years and years and years when all we did was send birthday and xmas cards. We rarely spoke and we never saw each other. Yet we remained connected in that peculiar way of old friends… where when the phone rings one day and you hear their voice for the first time in a decade and you start talking like no time at all has passed.

Recently, we’ve been meeting for lunch once or twice a year at a place about an hour’s drive for each of us. We rarely do phone calls and emails are few, yet when we see each other it’s like someone spliced out all the gaps and this lovely film just continues on from the last scene…

K always begins every lunch by explaining to the server that we’ll be there a while.

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen her place an order. “And exactly what size are the peppers when they come out?”

She still has the most contagious laugh I know.

♦

How long could you go without talking?  However long I’m asleep.

Do you prefer silence or noise?  Noise, as in background… a fan at night, TV on while reading…

How many pairs of shoes do you own?  Fewer than 10.

If you won $25 million?  I’d fix the garage and the driveway, give some to family and Humane Society.

One law you’d make?  Install a device in cars that prevents driving drunk.

Unusual talent?  Am a ‘Name that Tune’ master.

What do you like to cook? One pot meals.

Have you or would you ever bungee jump?  No.

What’s the most daredevilish thing you’ve done?  Roller coaster at CNE. Hated it.

Do you like surprise parties, practical jokes?  Yes.

Favourite time of day?  Early morning.

What tree would you be?  Birch.

Best present ever received?  An opal ring I’d had my eye on. My dad gave it to me to me the year my mum died just before xmas.

What do you like on your toast?  Peanut butter.

The last thing you drew a picture of?  A map with directions.

Last thing written in ink.  Birthday card.

Favourite childhood meal?  My dad’s meatloaf.

Best invention?  Car.

Describe your childhood bedroom.  Pink with rosy wallpaper. Maybe. We rented and moved around a lot.

Afraid of spiders?  Not spiders, snakes.

Phobias?  Heights. [see bungee jumping and devilish thing; also declined hot air balloon idea]

Least favourite teacher?  Mr. Something—made me put gum on my nose for chewing in class.

Favourite children’s story?  Anything Winnie the Pooh.

Ideal picnic ingredients?  Potato salad, devilled eggs, fresh buns and butter, pickles, cold cuts, strawberries, ice tea, no bugs.

Is Barbie a negative role model?  No.

No?  No.

Best thing about Canada?  Landscape.

Best thing about people in general?  Their differences.

What flavour would you be? Chocolate.

What colour? Pink.

What would you come back as? Medium sized border collie.

Favourite saying: “She offered her honour; he honoured her offer; and all night long he was honour and offer.”
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♦

—the frivolous five, a series of frivolity

orwellian times

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Flipping through a collection of Orwell’s novels I notice that all but one opens with a reference to the time of day. And two begin in April.  I’ve never studied him… perhaps this is common knowledge and I’m among the last to be amazed.

♦

Burmese Days (1934)

“U Po Kyin, Sub-divisional Magistrate of Kyaukfad, in Upper Burma, was sitting in his veranda. It was only half past eight, but the month was April, and there was a closeness in the air, a threat of long, stifling midday hours.”

A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935)

“As the alarm clock on the chest of drawers exploded like a horrid little bomb of bell metal, Dorothy, wrenched from the depths of some complex, troubling dream, awoke with a start and lay on her back looking into the darkness in extreme exhaustion.”

Keep the Apidistra Flying (1936)

“The clock struck half past two.”

Coming up for Air (1939)

“The idea really came to me the day I got my false teeth. I remember the morning well. At about a quarter to eight I’d nipped out of bed and got into the bathroom just in time to shut the kids out. It wa a beastly January morning with a dirty yellowish-grey sky.”

Nineteen Eighty Four (1949)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

♦

The one that doesn’t begin with ‘time’ is  Animal Farm  (1945), which begins instead with a pie-eyed farmer.

“Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes.”

Hmmm… better look out, Farmer Jones… could be your time has come.
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cedar hedge theory — wherein once something lives at your house it’s no longer invisible elsewhere

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

Once upon a time I didn’t notice cedar hedges.
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Then we bought a house that was surrounded by them.
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Suddenly I saw them everywhere.
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Cedar hedges, I mean.
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It was like that with these yellow flowers someone dug up for me out of a very special garden. It was late in the season and they were no longer blooming, just fronds, and as we passed clumps of fronds the person said: “Would you like some of these yellow flowers?”
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I had no idea what they looked like but the way they said it I assumed they were beautiful and at the very least ‘special’. Possibly rare.
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“Yes please!” I said and began counting the days until the special yellow flowers would bloom.
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And when they did I was thrilled with the sight of them, thrilled to have this unique specimen.
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Then I went for a walk.

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