the cassandra pages

I Want Colors and a Laugh

We haven't had as much of the thick wet white stuff as New York, though it did snow most of yesterday -- it's been a pretty easy winter here in Montreal. But the city is at its ugliest: piles of grey glop everywhere, four inch slush with ice water underneath at every streetcorner, heavy ruts in all the alleys, and, on most days, a leaden sky. I paw through my clothes closet looking for bright colors, and every time I pick up my paintbrush it automatically hovers over Hansa Yellow, Cadmium Red, Ultramarine Blue: palette as Ouija Board.

Today, which began with a howling wind out of the north, has turned sunny and almost warm, and I hope some of the slush is melting and running down the drainholes into the St. Lawrence to be carried away, far away from here, out to the Gulf and the big bumpy sturgeons who like that grey color. If I don't walk home while it's still light, I'm thinking I may go down to the end of the next block where there's a little florist and look for something bright - a little primrose or something - to ease the turbulent days when winter refuses to relinquish its grip.  I don't think I've bought flowers all winter. They're expensive here and, well,  I forget. Instead, we always have bowls of fruit: right now I'm looking at yellow pears and fat orange clementines. But I do sometimes wonder think we're absolutely crazy as to live here. We moved NORTH! Nobody does that.

I guess you have to just laugh about it. My friend Vivian sent me a Kate Beaton comic today - I didn't even know about her - and I thought this one was very funny - I love her face when she's in the stationary store saying "PENS!" and I love the bits about halfway down where she goes outside and talks about Canada with, well, what we could call "a grim but familiar affection." Yep, Kate, you're right. It's nuts, especially when you weren't born here. But -- take that, New York City! How long will you be immobilized? Finally, something we're definitely better at than you.

But it's almost the weekend, and I'll leave you with humor: here's another Kate Beaton, this time about poetry: Hipsters Ruin Everything, and one about Queen ELizabeth I. The artist says she "was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario to draw pictures." As her topic index indicates, she likes drawing about history, literary figures, Canada, Catholic saints. She's good, eh?

Vermonters Say No

The legislature in my old recalcitrant state has refused to renew the license for the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. I'm proud of them.

In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.

Unless the chamber reverses itself, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor.

Vermont currently has a Republican governor, Jim Douglas, of whom I'm not fond. He said that he had been talking to President Obama, who (incomprehensibly, to me) agrees with him and other Republican governors about the need to build many more reactors in the U.S., and had been hoping to delay this vote. I'm glad that grassroots Vermont, which has been fighting problems at Vermont Yankee for decades (it was commissioned in 1966) was finally able to express itself through the legislature. A cooling tower collapsed in 2007, and plant officials recently lied under oath about buried pipes that could have leaked tritium. Furthermore, the Louisiana-based parent company, Entergy, wants to spin off Vermont Yankee and five others, including Indian Point in New York State into a new public company that would sell stock and raise money to pay back Entergy.

Schemes like that don't go over well in Vermont, where there is still a sense, albeit diminished, that small is better and local control (and legal liability) are important.

Hearts in the Snow

This story first appeared here in 2007, but it seemed like a good accompaniment for the photograph; in our monochrome winters, every bit of color is welcome and people tend to leave their decorations up for a long time. In fact, some people still have their Christmas lights up! Mid-February is usually a turning point here, and that's certainly been true this year - last week the light seemed to change dramatically, and tipped us decisively toward spring. And the birds! Singing from morning to night, even when it's snowing! On the weekend we had a couple of very warm days - well, that means it got close to 40 degrees F.! - and everyone streamed outside, into the parks dragging their kids on sleds, or just walking on the newly-clear sidewalks, blinking in the sunshine. Then, of course, it snowed again, but that's the cruelly predictable pattern of late February and early March, until winter is finally defeated for good. Meanwhile, the maple sap begins to run; at the market on Saturday, maple vendors poured hot syrup onto trays of packed snow, and swirled the hardening candy onto sticks; everybody was buying one of these treats and sucking on them happily; it's one more sweet sign that spring is coming.

A VALENTINE (Feb 14 2007 - which was a much colder winter than this one)

Are you ready? he asks at 5:25, and we throw open the coat-closet doors, pulling out heavy parkas and scarves and woolen hats. We've eaten an early dinner of fragrant chicken slowly simmered in a lemony, fresh cilantro sauce with Indian spices, and the apartment smells warm, beckoning us to stay. But his French class starts in half an hour, and there's only one more week until the final week of oral exams. I lace my boots, zip my parka, wrap my scarf around my face, pull on a fleece headband and a wool hat over that; the final addition is a pair of stretchy gloves and a pair of thick handknit mittens, and then, padded to twice our size, we tumble out into the night.

In spite of the extreme cold, people are riding bicycles in the snow; young men with bare heads leave the park carrying hockey sticks over their shoulders. In a basement apartment, goldfish swim obliviously in a large heated tank. On the streetlight posts someone has put up white signs saying "La Collecte" bearing big red teardrop-shapes, and arrows pointing forward. What is it? he asks, and I say, blood - blood collection. But where? We speculate: the church? the firehouse? the school? All the signs are the same, leading us on toward the beating crimson source. A thin girl wearing a short skirt and tights crosses Brebeuf, her bare hands struggling to light a cigarette. Another girl hurries across, her mittened hand pressed over her mouth and nose. I feel my own cheeks prickling; soon I'll barely be able to feel them at all.

At Le Poisson Rouge, white tablecloths and wine glasses shine against the dim interior; the staff, in silhouette, eat at a back table before the first patrons arrive. In the window of the medical supply store, the macabre skeleton manikin still wears her white doctor's coat and stethoscope, and the clerk, in a black t-shirt, frowns over the cash register as he always does at the end of the day. We walk faster to make it across Christophe-Colombe with the green light. There are more red teardrop signs. Look how much lighter the sky is each evening! he remarks, as rue Rachel stretches out straight in front of us, all the way to the mountain and the lighted cross at the peak. I squeeze his hand. We pass Cafe Rico, where the smell of roasting coffee beans permeates a full block. The teardrop signs finally point to the right: the blood collection is somewhere inside the same building as the Toyota dealership! An answer, but wrapped as opaquely as a heart in the chest of urban life.

We're very cold now, but walking fast. How are you? I ask and he nods. It feels good, he adds, and I silently agree. People come out of the fresh pasta store clutching brown paper bags and hurry away down the street; overgrown pink-blooming geraniums and aloe vera plants press their greenness against the long expanse of steamy windows. As we run across St. Hubert, we pass the little boy who's always accompanied home from school by his mother or father at this exact hour; the parent firmly grasps his hand while the boy talks and gesticulates with the other: an exuberant personality refusing to be contained inside the bundle of hooded down parka, hat and snowpants.

Past the bars with their round St. Ambroise and Belle Geule signs; the clothing store where metal grills are being drawn inside the windows by a clerk; the frites shop with its smell of grease and potatoes. How many times have we walked like this, matching our steps, hips close together, noticing all the same things? I only think about it when I'm walking with people whose eyes are so different, who cover up all the possible sights and sounds and smells with their own conversations. Now that thought is succeeded, in quick succession, by a pang of regret for the times we've walked together in anger, and then shifts rapidly back to our rhythm, then to the cruel mathematics of years, and the unbearable potential for loss. I recognize the cycle of thoughts, and deliberately notice our steps - right, left, right, left - and the pattern keeps me here, now - and then we're at the corner of St. Denis where a firetruck is crossing rue Rachel surrounded by cars and I say all right, I'm leaving you here and then hesitate and say, no I'll wait with you for the light to change. I stamp my feet rather than stand still and he turns his face to me and we find each other's mouths, tongues exploring a startling wet heat while our icy cheeks press together. There's snow on his dark lashes. Dark-clothed figures stream around us and when we pull apart the last second has passed and the amber light changes to green; our hands separate; we move perpendicularly, arrows pointing in different directions, lost in the swiftly moving crowd.

Read, Write, Cut -- and Keep Going

Read, Write, Cut -- and Keep Going: a new essay in the series on books, writing, and publishing over at my Phoenicia Publishing site.

My Saturday morning began with a quick read of a two-part article in the Guardian, "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction," in which a number of contemporary authors were asked to give their advice. As both a writer and an editor, I found a lot that was worthwhile, though some took the question more seriously than others, and the article was very long -- probably the editors didn't want to offend anyone by leaving them out. The best standalone lists, I thought, were those by Geoff Dyer and Al Kennedy.

So let's look at what the responses had in common, and what stood out...

The Violinist in the Garrett

 

Yesterday I got a note from a friend, asking if I could identify a story he remembered reading long ago which was still haunting him. It felt vaguely familiar to me but I had no idea from where. I thought probably someone here would remember. Can you help? Here's what he wrote, poignant in itself for the way he describes the hold that certain tales have over our imaginations, and the almost obsessive way we seek to recall them much later, suspecting, perhaps, that they hold a key to something we'd now understand.

From time to time, when I think of readings that left a mark, I recall a short story from many years ago.  By now it is almost a dream memory, imagined and distorted by desperate reconstruction more than recalled.  I don't know the author or title, and have tried, even recently in these days of online tools and cooperative reference librarians, to find it again, unsuccessfully.  It seems now like a story that might have been by L. Buñuel or H. Hesse (and I know I was fond of both these authors at the time), although I have searched the works of each of these authors recently, and unsuccessfully.  

The main character was a young man living an ascetic life in a frosty garret of some Bohemian city, a dedicated and solitary violinist who never performed in public, despite his excellence, although he often enchanted his neighbors,  listening through the walls.  Through some fairy-tale scheme, he was given an opportunity to wish for a life of comfort, or companionship, or riches.  Of course he turned these all down, and wished instead that he could learn to play the violin.  Whether through a pact with the devil or a djinn, or some other supernatural agent, he indeed learned to play the violin as no one had before.   He remained, however, a solitary ascetic in a frosty garret in some Bohemian city with no friends or comfort, besides his music, which gave him unbounded joy.

I have probably embellished or distorted key details in this story, maybe even the unbounded joy part, and certainly left out what makes it a story instead of a dream synopsis.  I'd love to find and reread this story again some day.  By any chance does this sound familiar?  Or only archetypal?

Mercredi des cendres

There were hot cross buns last Saturday at Motta, the Italian bakery near Jean-Talon. I didn't buy any, although they're a favorite - that really would have felt like jumping the gun -- but I was glad to see them because they've become harder to find as Montreal becomes more and more post-Christian. We also didn't make it to the cathedral's Shrove Tuesday pancake supper: too tired and sleepy, and somehow the thought of all those fatty sausages and pancakes swimming in syrup didn't have much appeal that evening.

Last night, though, I was in the choir for the Ash Wednesday evening service, and it felt like everything fell into its appointed place and time. As our director pointed out at the beginning of the rehearsal, "Tonight we're about Renaissance intensity." On the program were William Byrd's "Mass for Five Voices", two chanted psalms, and a rather long motet, "Peccantem me quotidie" by Claudio Merulo (1533-1604). This was one of those sleeper pieces that at first run-through doesn't seem so special, but on the second time reveals its potential, which in this case is an intensity that builds, through the counterpoint, to a white heat at the end. It was very good in rehearsal, but when we performed it, right after communion, it was electrifying. Patrick sensed where we could go with it and he pulled everything he could out of the choir - we had about 30 voices last night - and it was quite something at the end, with the different parts repeating "Salve me!" with urgency and passion.

After the recessional hymn he played Bach's meditative chorale prelude "O world, bewail thy grievous fall". It was the perfect conclusion to the moving Ash Wednesday liturgy, which moves from penitence, humility, and grief to a more hopeful tone of preparation and reflection.  I no longer participate in the ashes-on-the-forehead thing, which always felt too Catholic for me, but I'm looking forward to Lent: there are some things I need and want to think about, and I appreciate that there's a specific season set aside for that kind of inner work, supported by a community of other people who are doing similar work in the privacy of their own hearts.

I went to a side pew and listened. During the entire postlude, no one moved; like me, perhaps, they were reflecting on the emotional arc of the service, and their own regrets, pains, and hopes. More than any words or prayers or ritual, music -- especially Bach -- does this for me, and how typical of his genius to take the darkest possible subject, and fill it with humanity and light.

More metro encounters

The old man exits, and his seat is taken by a young woman in a close-fitting brownish-red leather coat, cinched at the waist; ankle-high laced boots and dark rose tights. Around her throat, a hand-knitted wool scarf in a chunky soft yarn in muted tones of rose and brown. A headful of thick brown hair frames her fine features in soft curls; her lips are painted the same color as her tights. I place her as French, though she could be Iranian. She settles into her illicit seat just as the Muslim woman across the aisle rises, smiling, to yield hers to a limping elderly man.

We all get out at the Papineau station and make our way down the two flights of escalators; a cleaning woman with a large rag waits for the first group to pass before starting her circles again on the stainless steel. At the bottom, a young man pulls a large pack off his back and leans against the wall; inside is some sort of harp-like instrument. I want to stay and listen but I'm already late, so I walk down to the platform and wait with the rest of the passengers. There's an announcement in French on the PA system mentioning the station I'm headed for, but I miss the beginning of it, and turn to a blond woman nearby in an embroidered sheepskin coat. Do you speak English? I ask. She nods. Did you happen to hear what that announcement just said? She smiles and answers in an eastern-European accent, "I don't speak French!" I smile back and laugh, but she turns away again, carving a private arc in the air around her body. The first strains of music drift down from the tiled hallway above: a haunting ancient folksong plucked from the strings of the still-unidentifiable instrument, and then the train is here, the doors close, and we're gone.

(I had pictures to go with these posts, but the camera's memory card somehow became de-formatted! Aargh!)

February Morning, On the Bus

In the seat behind the driver, for persons with mobilité réduite, at first he seems like yet another old person on a half-full bus in this mid-morning hour, when the elderly venture out on errands while the sun is highest and the wind less bitter. He wears an old black fur hat, a dun-colored knee-length jacket of some smooth material and dubious warmth; corduroy trousers; boots. Between his legs, in a sturdy gym bag imprinted with the logo of a local radio station, is a large but dated computer CPU. Perhaps it's broken and he's taking it for repairs...I speculate as we pass the auto-glass and used-appliance shops along Papineau. But his face! Cascades of curling grey hair, tinged with the red that used to color it; a long beard; a wide gap between his front teeth, or perhaps one is missing; red-rimmed eyes that gaze calmly out the window opposite; sensitive hands with long fingers resting calmly on the top of his baggage. On one wrist, a watch; on the other, a bracelet made of small interlocking hearts of gold and silver metal. A deeply-lined face, and down one cheek, from eyebrow to jaw, a vertical scar that looks like it was made by a saber.

He walks out of Tolstoy, stands up and exits at rue Marie-Anne.

Macro- and Micro-Economies

"At What Price Progress?" is the first in a series I'm writing at Phoenicia Publishing to encourage discussion about about the future of poetry (and other forms of writing) in the challenging new publishing environment. Hope you'll go over and read it there; this is a typical Cassandra series (but I decided to post there to encourage visits to the new site.)

"It's obvious that as the larger publishing houses merge and find themselves squeezed financially, taking risks on experimental, innovative writing - especially where the audience may be limited - has already become less and less viable. Academic publishing and journals are becoming, in my opinion, an increasingly  insular club. So, for truly creative writing, writing by people who don't fit into the existing systems, writing that crosses genres and boundaries and takes risks -- the sorts of things that small presses and independent bookstores once championed -- online publishing is one of the only remaining solutions. Doesn't some of that work also deserve to be in print?  Yes. But we've yet to figure out how the economy of it can work for everyone's benefit."

Laced Journal

Here's the next bookbinding project, which was to bind my journal and correspondence from 1992, a tumultuous year when my grandmother died, ending an era that had defined much of our lives as a family. That year I was also trying to face the fact that I would have to have some major surgery, which terrified me. But in spite of these difficulties, I was beginning to sense the light from the opening of new spiritual and artistic doors. As I began to think about the cover for the journal, having re-read some of what was inside, I decided to try to do a painting that would express some of the emotion of that particular time in my life. This is the gestural underpainting with which I began, and the first wavy stamps in whitish-grey acrylic.

And this is a detail of what it looked like when it was finished. When the painting was nearly done, I felt it needed some marks made with a pen  -- some scribbled marks, hatchings, or even letters. As I thought more about the latter idea, I decided to write an inscription on the book, a message about -- and for -- my grandmother. But I didn't want it to be overtly obvious, or even legible. I mixed a thin burnt-umber in acrylics, and used a calligraphy pen nib to write my message, loosely following the curl of the vortex from the edges into its center. Then I went back and scrubbed over the drying paint with a cloth to soften and blur the edges, and when it was completely dry I worked on the surface in a few places with sandpaper to further distress the surface.

The spiral motif went onto the cover of the journal, and the straighter, complementary section became the back. I wanted to use linen for the spine to go with two other journals I made a long time ago, but linen is always dicey: too little glue, and the fabric won't stick to the boards, too much glue and it comes through the fabric and shows. All seemed to have gone well until I removed the front of the book from the book press: the pressure of the press had squeezed some extra glue through and left a stain on the bottom part of the spine. That was pretty discouraging, but finally I decided to put a label on the spine to cover up the problem, and went ahead.

The 8 1/2 x 11" inside pages of the journal had been punched for a plastic binding years ago, and I pondered how to structure the binding itself. I decided to try using laces that would incorporate the existing holes, rather than a sewn Japanese-style binding which would have to avoid them. It took some trial-and-error punching through mock spines, with different types of chisels, before I was able to get slits that would work.

 

Now, what to use for the lacing? I started out thinking I'd do it in linen tape (above) or in brown grosgrain ribbon, but then I remembered an old watered silk ribbon that had been in my grandmother's "trimming" drawer that I've been carting around for probably forty years. The color was perfect, but it was too wide, and had some faded spots. I decided to ignore the imperfections, because I really wanted to use it. So I cut the ribbon in half lengthwise, turned the edges in and sewed them carefully to form a 1/4" wide band, and pressed it flat. It no longer looked like watered silk, but that was OK. Then I did a trial run lacing the covers in Xs across the spine, which is how I'd imagined doing it. The lacing looked great but it didn't hold the book flat and tight - the holes were too close to the edge. I realized I'd have to lace it vertically, more like a sewn binding. That worked but I had a terrible time getting the ribbon through the holes twice; I used a tapestry needle and pulled it through with pliers, breaking one needle in the process. I had to go to the store today and buy more.

Then, at the very end,  I stabbed myself (I was trying a large but non-blunt needle - bad idea) and a big drop of blood fell right on the edge of the linen spine. I said a lot of bad words and rushed to the sink to get a wet cloth and some salt; fortunately I was able to get the stain out, and the blood didn't get onto the paper. But I was very glad when the binding was finished - this had been a long, difficult one!

  

In spite of all the near-disasters, I'm pretty happy with the result, and very glad I was able to use that ribbon, after all these years!