“For some reason, we know not what, his childhood was sharply severed. It lodged in him whole and entire. He could not disperse it.”
—Virginia Woolf writing about Lewis Carroll.
(Glass lantern slide based on based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustration.)
Last night I watched and listened to the storm from my attic bedroom window. It was high-octane drama: from the insane lashing of tree branches to the whoosh and howl of gale force winds to the abrupt wail of sirens rushing to a west-end fire. Last night, my double-glazed windows suddenly seemed very, very thin…
Here is a link to a piece I wrote for Shambhala Sun about maintaining (swaying) balance in the face of outer or inner storm conditions.
(Etching by Tokyo-based Kumi Obata.)
The primordial urge of childhood is to re-invent the world, to reject the already-signified (be it a Lego castle, or a Tonka truck), in favor of the disassembled and fragmentary—the yet-to-be. Children break toys apart, reduce them to raw materials, and re-combine them in order to contravene the laws of nature and manufacture. All children are surrealists at heart. They can make a squid drive a bus, and draw speech from a log.
My own children inspire me by refuting the rules and values which govern the adult world, by retreating into the forest of their imaginations. They show me what it means to be a creator rather than a proprietor: to see in the world things worth making not just worth owning.
(Art by Mika, age 8.)
Thinking of teachers: the one with the wild scribbled notes that grow wilder with enthusiasm or tiredness, the one with the ears that seem larger for being open and listening, the one with the reclining deckchair that turns every child into a king or queen for a day, the one who can transforms a child’s hindrance into her proud gift, the one who calls on the weekend to see how a child is doing after a bad fall, the one who encourages loud undisciplined reckless music, the one who gives space to a child’s grief without making that space feel like a banishment, the one who openly admits to being outsmarted every single day, the one who teaches the genius of a good mistake, the one who appears unbendable who then bends, the one who grows kindness in his classroom so it spreads like a robust weed…
Thinking of teachers in Ontario and why they deserve our full and unconditional support (despite the short-term frustration of losing extracurricular sports, arts and clubs) as they defend their long-term constitutional rights, their right to strike and to exercise collective action and their right to oppose the frightful legislation known as Bill-115.
If you want a reminder of what a school can be if its teachers are treated with the respect they have earned and deserve, then you might want to visit George Webster Junior School (as I did last week.) The Principal, Nancy Steinhauer, will tell you that the so-called “little things” (whether that be nutrition programs, weekend programs, a pediatric health clinic) require a boosted staff and can make a world of difference.
A happy and hearty howl of congratulations to Isabelle for her GG illustration nomination for VIRGINIA WOLF!!!
Apparently, Marshall McLuhan would always turn to page 69 of a book and read that page to decide whether or not the book was worth reading in its entirety. Today, I finally decided to give the “page 69 test” a try. The book: Nuala O’Faolain’s Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman. (It’s actually one I read several years ago). The page:
I loved reading Nuala’s book but what I found on page 69 made me pause. Those who know me even a little know of my love for John Berger. The infatuation began when I was art history student. One moment I was numbly memorizing the Western canon, the next moment I was sneaking off to watch episodes of Ways of Seeing. What can I say? Berger was my moonshine, my contraband cigarette. His entire worldview carried a waft of the illicit. With his piercing stare and tousled hair, he opened my eyes to what a story (or an artwork) could be—i.e. the thing happening off to the side of the tale other writers/artists were telling. Call it the “sideview” or “underview” or whatever you wish. I have been lost in my own version of (what Nuala O’Faolain describes as) “hero worship” ever since.
So Nuala and John. There is So Much Implied on page 69 (and page 68!) but let’s forget the salacious, and perhaps questionable, overtones and focus instead on the gulf O’Faolain describes existing between the coal miners and the villagers they filmed. This idea of the “gap between” strikes me as one of the most perfectly observed portraits of empathy and its limits that I have ever come across. “There is a gap between what you can see and feel and what you can imagine….between the life aboveground and life underground.”
If we’re very lucky, if we find the right book, or the right circumstance, I suppose that’s where fiction can take us—to that place in-between. Imperfectly, and maybe in a compensatory way, our stories have the power to get us a bit closer to seeing and feeling other worlds.
(For those lucky enough to live on the west coast, a portrait of Nuala O’Faolain is currently screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival.)
The winners of les Prix Jeunesse des libraires du Québec were announced this past Saturday in Montreal. “Fourchon” (the French version of “Spork”) received the award in the 0 to 4 years old category. Isabelle and I share this honor with our wonderful French publisher, La Pastèque.
(Isabelle Arsenault created this beautiful drawing in appreciation.)
October 11, 2012
WordFest
9:30AM. “First Calgary Financial Book Rapport (Gr.1-3).”
Children’s event with Mélanie Watt.
(John Dutton Theatre, Calgary Public Library.)
October 11, 2012
WordFest
1:00PM. Visit to Douglasdale School.
October 12, 2012
WordFest
9:00AM. Visit to East Grey Elementary.
October 13, 2012
WordFest
11:00AM. “Family Reading Circle.”
Children’s event with Jeremy Tankard.
(Fish Creek Library, Calgary.)
October 13, 2012
WordFest
3:30PM. “Exile and Exodus.”
Reading and discussion with Vaddey Ratner and Kim Scott.
(Vertigo Theatre Centre, Studio, Calgary.)
October 14, 2012
WordFest
11:00AM. “The Ties that Bind.”
Reading and discussion with Shree Ghatage, Simonetta Agnello Hornby, Vincent Lam, and J. Jill Robinson.
(The Banff Centre, The Kinnear Centre -KC 203, Banff.)
October 15, 2012
Vancouver International Writers Festival
6PM. Annual Literati Gala.
(Fairmont Waterfront.)
October 16, 2012
Vancouver International Writers Festival
8:00PM. “Grand Openings: The Alma Lee Opening Night Event.”
Reading with Rawi Hage, Marie Darrieussecq, Junot Díaz, Nuruddin Farah, Simonetta Agnello Hornby and Gail Jones.
(Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright Street.)
October 18, 2012
Vancouver International Writers Festival
10:00PM. “High and Low and All Around.”
Children’s event with Sheree Fitch.
(Improv Centre, Vancouver.)
October 27, 2012
International Festival of Authors
2:00PM. Reading with Bill Gaston, Rawi Hage, and Tanis Rideout
(Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront.)
October 28, 2012
International Festival of Authors
2:00PM. Roundtable (Reading Like a Writer) with James Clarke, Christine Pountney and Susan Swan. Antanas Sileika hosts and moderates.
(Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront.)
November 8, 2012
Brampton Public Library and the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA).
7:00 PM. Public talk.
November 16-18, 2012.
Salon du Livre de Montréal.
More details to come.
February 7, 2013.
The Eighth Annual Book Lover’s Ball.
(The Fairmont Royal York, Toronto.)
March 19, 2013
Heliconian Club Literary Lecture Series.
7:30PM. Public talk.
(Toronto Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Avenue.)
March 27, 2013
The Kama Reading Series. (Fundraiser for World Literacy Canada.)
6:30PM. Reading with Safia Fazlul, Eva Stachniak, and Richard B. Wright.
(The Park Hyatt Toronto.)
I’ve had a few Cage moments this year—riding the subway in New York City, standing at a busy Toronto intersection, staying on a beach in Halfmoon Bay. In each case, I’ve been swept up by aural happenstance. Strange music in the urban unquiet, accidental symphonies in the wild open air. From bicycle bells to persistent cicadas, I was suddenly hearing all the things I don’t hear because I’m too busy.
The other day I saw a friend who works in the social services sector. “All my life I’ve felt that I need to talk and dole out advice,” she said. “This summer I decided to do something different. I decided to just stop and listen.”
What does it take to listen without conducting or interfering? The writer in me often wants to speak her piece. But lately I’ve also been heeding the counter-voice that says “Shhhh.” You know, the wise voice that says: “Listen. Receive. Don’t be so quick to declare, to offer, to prefer, to make, to fix, to do. Let go of your small mind.” (Yeah, that voice.)
All of which to say: What better way to celebrate John Cage‘s 100th birthday today than in silence, for four minutes, thirty-three seconds?
What better way to remember than to be part of that Cage-ian gesture of listening, stretching across time, holding a space for other living and breathing (and coughing and snorting) beings? As the anarchic genius himself once advised: “Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire.”
(Photo: David Tudor and John Cage in Japan, 1962. Photographer unknown.)
See you in September.
(Photo: Virginia Woolf and Clive Bell on the beach at Studland Bay, Dorset.)