making a list

~ carin ~ 3 Comments

Of course the holidays aren’t about gifts. Who said they were?? Gifts shmifts. We’re above that, right? It’s all about feelings and togetherness and kumbaya, man. Yessirree Bob it surely is. Still, I have the feeling that if a few gifts don’t cross a few palms there will be some questionable vibes floating around amongst the joy and the shortbread crumbs.

Having said that… there’s no rule about what the gift should be and between you, me and the lamppost, I don’t like shopping and most of the people I know already have too much stuff. (Books don’t count. We all need books.)

So for the past few years I’ve been moving to non-stuff gifts (except for books, which, just to make it crystal clear, are NOT included in the ‘stuff’ category, not in any land or galaxy because, among other things, and unlike stuff, they’re fun to buy).

I was, therefore, super chuffed when a friend recently sent me a list of “Out of the Box” gift ideas. Nothing especially mind-blowing, but that’s the point: to consider some of the basic things that everybody needs but don’t treat themselves to. Like new underwear, only better.

— gift certificate to an art supply store
— or hair salon, barber
— garden centre
— car detailing (someone to clean my car—they do that??)
— lawn mowing service
— snow ploughing
— ski hills/trails
— restaurants, cafes, diners, bistros, a really great mom & pop breakfast joint
— house-cleaning for a day
— window washing service for spring
— eavestrough cleaning for fall
— local art, pottery, scarves, jewellery, etc.
— subscription to local theatre
— membership to museum, gallery
— chimney cleaning

Lots there to appeal to mums and dads, grandparents or older friends/relatives who have mown enough lawns and cleaned enough gutters that the lustre has faded a little from those particular DIY jobs… and it helps support small businesses.

Then there’s food: homemade preserves, baked things (markets sell this stuff year-round), or (for people you really like): Community Supported Agriculture and similar farm programs that deliver baskets of fresh veggies all summer. There’s magazine subscriptions and favourite charities of course. And donkeys… You get the idea.

In fact, if you do get any ideas, or come across other sites that are doing unusually fun gifty things worthy of note, please let me know.

So here’s to keeping out of the malls and, as much as possible, supporting community and independent retailers, book shops… and always, always… FARMERS!

Happy trails!

Via Melwyck–— give the library!

Via Eating Niagara –— give ice and rock climbing, outdoorsy adventures, nudist dining, and more!

love... it's all in the detail(ing)s

so the money thing… it’s not just a rumour??

~ carin ~ 4 Comments


Advertisement for the Palmer Institute of Authorship, from which a “free typical lesson package and book: The Art of Writing Salable Stories”, can be requested by mailing coupon to: 1680 N. Sycamore, Desk GD-16, Hollywood, CA.
~as seen in Astrology Guide, Vol 19, No 1, Jan-Feb 1956

Now then, should there be even the slightest doubt about the validity of writing programs offered in the front pages of astrology magazines… please consider a testimonial from J.G. Doar, whoever he may be: “After completing only the first few lessons I felt I knew what a short story is. My success will not affect my study of the Palmer Course.”

If that isn’t enough to convince the cynics, there are other devotees—equally giddy, confident and obscure in their success. (A.B. Aretz anyone?)

Had the Palmer folks been really smart or, better yet, prescient, they’d have asked for a few words from a young Raymond Carver who was among those that sent away for the package— and also came to know what a short story is. More or less.

(Though they did get one from A.E. Van Vogt, who claimed the Palmer course was a milestone in his career, after which his entire income, he said, was made through writing.)

[Incidentally, the man in the photograph above the caption: “Famous Author Praises Palmer” is Howard Hughes’ brother, Rupert Hughes.]

Interesting times.

there oughta be a law

~ carin ~ 7 Comments

Better yet, there oughta be a land where litterers live. A pretty little place with lakes and trees and green green hills knee deep in rusting cans—(three cups is not nearly enough)—plastic bottles, fast food containers, cigarette packs and newspapers. There should be no garbage service in this land, no trucks nor people employed to pick things up, put them where they should be. Because then one day with a bit of luck the hills would be obscured, the lakes choked with debris— and the plastic bags would be where the litterers like them: all a-flutter in the spring blossom’d boughs of trees.

More from Planet Litter:

—the colour of winter (aka: a red litter day)

—fancy a cool one?

—garbage magic 101

fuel for small talk of a purple nature…

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

“It is the irresistibly deep and beckoning colour of leather, heather, feathers, sagebrush, winter slush, Tibetan mush, age, sage, shade, grapeade, a forest glade, mince pies, winter skies, a harlot’s eyes, a baby’s cries, vicious lies, butchers’ dyes, and purple drifts of evening snow.” ~from The Secondary Colors, by Alexander Theroux

From the same book, and the essay titled Purple, come the following bits of essential trivia:

1.    Shakespeare never once uses the word violet as a colour, only purple; nor… does he ever employ the words heliotrope, mauve, lilac, or fuchsia. Burgundy was a place, a duke, and, by extension, a wine.

2.    The Nile, in literature, is often said to be purple.

3.    An amethyst placed under the pillow promotes pleasant dreams, and wine drunk from an amethyst cup is said never to intoxicate.

4.    The infamous [in some circles] shade of ‘Tyrian purple’ was discovered by the Phoenicians by extracting the dye from the cyst or vein near the head of a mollusk; 250,000 shellfish were required to make one ounce of dye as each mollusk secreted only one drop.

5.    Rimbaud regarded the letter ‘i’ as purple.

6.    There is, apparently, purple soil [somewhere] in Tahiti.

7.    Henry James saw Italy as picturesquely violet.

8.    A polar bear’s tongue is purple. [Also a giraffe’s.]

9.    Also the sunshine through a person’s paper-thin ears.

10.  The spaceship Endeavour went into orbit on March 2, 1995, with the specific mission to try to determine the nature of ultraviolet light in space emitted from stars and quasars.

11.  The rarest of food colours. There are no purple M&Ms, for instance, though they were made for a short time but proved so unpopular, they were replaced by tan ones in 1949.

12.  Horace on purple prose: “Often to a work of grave purpose and high promise, one or two purple patches are sewed on to give the effect of colour.”

13.  There’s speculation [in some circles] [what circles would these be??] that all seven of Salome’s veils were purple.

14.  The dominant colour of Gillikin Country in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful World of Oz.

15.  Except for plum, all shades of purple lose their lustre in candlelight.

16.  The naturalist, John Muir, wrote a letter to a friend on purple sap from a 4,000 year old redwood.

17.  Rumour has it Anatole France, Voltaire, Diderot, Flaubert and Balzac all wore a purple dressing gown while they worked.

18.  Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, owned three dressing gowns. One brown, one blue, one purple.

19.  Daisy, in the film version of The Great Gatsby, wears a violet dress, scarf and hat, on her reunion with Nick, who sports a purple silk shirt.

20.  Twiggy’s favourite colour.

21.  Harriet Quimby, first women pilot to fly across the English Chanel, always wore a plum coloured flying suit.

22.  From The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker: I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

23.  Gloaming = Twilight [and, according to Theroux, it is dark purple brown]

because it’s sunday

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

“…Wake early one Sunday and smell the person sleeping next to you. Do it. Lean over. The inside of the neck will do, just below the ear. Take a deep breath. The knowledge of this scent is lodged in the deepest part of your brain.

“Breathe deeply, if only to remind yourself of why you are where you are, doing what you’re doing.

“Now go into the kitchen. Throw two eggs into a bowl with a cup of milk and a cup of flour. Add a quarter teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of melted butter. Mix until smooth, but don’t overdo it.

“Pour the batter into buttered muffin tins, filling the cups no more than half-full. Put the tins in a cold oven. Turn on the heat to 450F. After fifteen minutes, turn the oven down to 340F. Wait for fifteen minutes more.

“This recipe comes from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham. It’s an important book, with clear recipes and much new thinking. For example, prior to Marion, popovers, were always started in a hot oven. This is a small thing, but one which changed my life.

“While you’re changing yours, make some coffee and squeeze a couple of oranges. Do want you want with a pear or a pineapple. Get a tray ready to take back to bed.

“Now open the oven. It will make you smile. They don’t call these things popovers for nothing. They look like little domes, golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside.”

~From Comfort me with Apples, by Joe Fiorito (McClelland & Stewart, 2000)

(p.s. If you like this, here’s more from the same book.)