Kate Austin talks about ...

What I learned this week

2012-02-10T01:30:00.000-08:00

was one big thing.

That doing writing sprints with my friend Lisa is a GREAT way to keep moving forward on whatever I'm working on - especially when I'm busy with so many things other than writing. For those of you who don't know what a writing sprint is, it's a commitment between two or several writers to set aside a specific amount of time (we've been doing it in 45 minute blocks) to write as fast as we can. Turn off the internet, ignore the world around you (unless, of course, there's a fire alarm or the bathtub is overflowing!), and write, write, write.

It doesn't just work for the time you're doing the sprint, it works for quite a while after it - but I remember the statistics and I know we're going to run into a wall - somewhere around a month from now. It's like going to the gym or walking or eating well - any of those habits it takes so little time to get out of and so much time to get back into.

But it's such a terrific incentive that I'm hoping between the two of us, we can stick to it, work around both our complicated schedules, and do at least 2-3 sprints a week.

Got my fingers crossed...

Kate

The art of the winter sunset

2012-02-08T01:30:00.000-08:00

It usually rains in Vancouver in February - so sunsets of any kind are few and far between. This was last night's sunset - an absolutely beautiful walk on the beach in the early evening as the sun fell beneath Vancouver Island.

See those mountains in the distance? Those are Vancouver Island. We only get to see them half a dozen times a year when there's the perfect combination of circumstances -

1. Sunshine - which doesn't often happen in the winter, remember, Vancouver is the land of the rain;

2. Clear skies - again, if the wind's in the wrong direction, there's just enough pollution to mask this far distant island;

3. I actually have to be out on the beach at the exact right moment.

And I was - and it was perfect.

Kate

Monday review - Monsieur Lazhar

2012-02-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm working my way through the Oscar movies - and as this is the Canadian contribution to the foreign film award, I thought I should see it.

It was a terrific movie, sad and uplifting and politically engrossing. Monsieur Lazhar is a refugee from Algeria. He has come to Quebec without his family and becomes a teacher in a small school because the teacher before him committed suicide.

Fellad, the actor who plays the main character, is amazing. Able to convey his sorrow, his discomfort with the new world in which he finds himself, his reawakening joy in life, with only the slightest of gestures, of facial expressions - he's an actor I'm going to watch.

We live in a world where we're always encountering people from elsewhere, where we're struggling to understand their lives and their emotions and this movie helps us to see - at least partially - how it feels to be a stranger in a strange land.

But even more than that, it deals in basic human emotions - both Monsieur Lazhar's and the children he teaches and helps to heal.

You'll definitely want to see this one.

Kate

Friday Five - movies I have to see before the Oscars

2012-02-03T01:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, here are the five movies (and yes, there are a few more but these are at the top of the list) I have to see before the Oscars on February 26.

Why?

1. A Separation is likely to win for best foreign film and my partner's Persian.

2. My Week with Marilyn, Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh - need I say more?

3. Midnight in Paris - I've fought against seeing it (I have a Woody Allen aversion) but it's nominated in so many categories, I love Paris, and I'm dying to see Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein.

4. Albert Nobbs - I just want to see another female actor over 50 other than Meryl Streep get the great role she deserves. And I love Glenn Close and the photos I've seen of her in this role.

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - it's all about Gary Oldman!

Kate

Monthly book list - January 2012

2012-02-01T01:30:00.000-08:00

A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness
Eden Burning, Elizabeth Lowell
The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje
If You Hear Her, Shiloh Walker
Sex Drive, Susan Lyons
Mystery Man, Lisa Jackson
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
Coventry, Helen Humphreys
McKettrick's Luck, Linda Lael Miller
All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson
The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Hunter of Shadows, Nancy Gideon
Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan
Sharp Edges, Jayne Ann Krentz
Border Crossing, Pat Barker
Acts of Mercy, Mariah Stewart
Against the Fire, Kat Martin
Dark Vow, Shona Husk
Against the Storm, Kat Martin
All Clear, Connie Willis
Cleopatra, Stacy Schiff

I'm forcing myself to work myself through my TBR pile - 8 of these books were resuscitated from deep in that pile. I'm quite proud of myself. If I keep at this all year, I might be down to just a few books in the pile. Got my fingers crossed!

Kate

The Beautiful Game

2012-01-30T01:30:00.000-08:00

I often wondered to what they referred when they spoke about the beautiful game but I was always fascinated by that title, in fact, I still am, still think it would make a great novel, though probably not by me.

But it's only in the last few years that I've figured out what the beautiful game really is. And I, like billions (and I'm not kidding) of people around the world, am addicted.

It's probably the only sport that's played right around the world, that's played in rich countries and poor countries, that's played on city streets and desert sands. It's played for money and it's played for the pure joy of it. It's played - now more than ever - by woman as well as by men. It's played by children as young as two or three and by men as old as eighty or more.

It's known as football in England, as futbal or futbol in other European countries - but I call it soccer.

What do I love about it? I could go on and on and on about it - but I won't. What I will say is for me it's mostly about the pure athleticism of it. These athletes aren't like football players or basketball players or hockey players who play for short periods of time - they're on that pitch for 90 minutes. And they just don't stop. Often in games, they measure how far a player has run at full speed in those 90 minutes - and it's somewhere around 10 kilometers. And they're not jogging, they're sprinting.

Sunday afternoon I was at the final of the CONCACAF women's Olympic qualifying tournament - though both teams were already heading to the Olympics. The game was between the USA and Canada and as it was held in Vancouver, the Canadian team was the favorite - and when I say favorite, I mean big-time, top of the line, we love you to death kind of favorite.

In the end, it doesn't matter who wins the game (please don't tell that to any of the millions of rabid fans of the beautiful game), it's all about the beauty of it. The crispness of the passes, the bodies racing across the brilliant green pitch. That great shot arising from a perfect run down the field. The way a midfielder and a striker just know where the ball should be and where it's going to be. The way a goalkeeper leaps right across the goal and gets just their fingertips on the ball. The way they play in the rain or the snow, the way the fans sing throughout the game, the way it's impossible not to get caught up in it.

Today, the USA beat Canada 4-0. They deserved to win. Yes, we were all more than a little disappointed, but we're consoling ourselves with the fact that we'll get to try it again in London this summer. And maybe, just maybe, we'll win the beautiful game.

Kate

Food Friday - the perfect (and perfectly simple) dessert

2012-01-27T01:30:00.000-08:00

I'll tell you first that this was not my idea - I like to give credit where credit is due. As always, my friend Heather comes over to watch all kinds of awards ceremonies with me. Golden Globe night, I made vegetarian lasagna and all kinds of nibbles, she brought dessert.

And I'm telling you - this is fabulous!

The crispness of the lemon sorbet (and this is high-end sorbet - probably the best in Vancouver), the tart incredibly lemony taste, was perfect.

And when you added ginger snaps, thin crispy ones, crunched up on top of the sorbet?

It was the perfect dessert - perfect for the meal, perfect for anytime.

Try it.

Kate

The art of the ballad - Etta James

2012-01-25T01:30:00.000-08:00

The brilliant and lovely and troubled Etta James died on January 20, 2012. And even though I've never seen her live, she's been a big part of my life...

Perhaps especially her signature song, At Last. Her version was released in 1961 and I'm pretty sure I've been listening to it ever since then. Etta and Elvis and Patsy - those are the voices I remember from my childhood, those are the songs I turn to when I'm sad or when I'm happy.

At Last (written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren for a 1941 musical I've never heard of - Orchestra Wives) is one of those classic ballads - all about love and loss - with a beautiful melody which is enhanced by Etta's strong and soulful voice.

I play this song over and over and over again. Sometimes I'll play it four or five times in a row before I'm ready to move on to something else. Sometimes it's the only song I play.

If you've never heard it - go to youtube and check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSS9VcMidA

Goodbye, Etta. You're gone but your voice will live on...

Kate

Monday review - The Descendants

2012-01-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

This is a deceptively simple movie. You know what's going to happen - all the events are there for you from the beginning. Oh, there are minor twists and turns, but nothing that can't be anticipated, nothing that makes you say, oh, now that changes everything.

But none of that matters.

Because what works in this movie, what makes it so good, is the acting. It's very clean, very clear, and again, deceptively simple. It's the tiniest tightening of the eyes, the smallest twitch of a mouth, a single teardrop.

There are dozens of actors who don't speak, but whose stance says everything, whose faces, still and calm and unyielding, say everything we need to know about them.

And the words that are spoken are simple, straightforward. The anger is vicious. The remorse is slow and heavy. The sorrow is buried so deep it almost needs to be dragged out of their throats.

All of this works in a way that Hollywood movies seldom do. It's not all laid out for you. You don't get hit over the head with a hammer of emotion, and yet the secrets each character conceals are so painful, so real, so true - you can't resist them.

As you can tell, I thought this movie was terrific. I'm not sure I would see it again, not for a while, anyway. Because the way it works is so subtle, so sweet, so perfectly tied together, that if I saw it again, I might start to unravel some of those threads and ruin it.

But see it. You need to see how it works, why it works. It's worth it.

Kate

January Twitter story - Divining

2012-01-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

Divining

My great-grandfather was veryyoung when he arrived in Englandfrom a very small town in the Canadian prairies. He was very old when he toldme this story and he only told me then becausehe’d discovered my secret. His secret, too.

He was on hisway to York fortraining with the Canadian contingent just before the war. When he arrived,they measured him for a uniform and sent him along to a small room in a dingyhallway in the back of the building. He wondered about that, he said, becauseonly he and one other boy stood outside the closed door.

They waited afew minutes then an elderly man with a shock of still red hair and a Yorkshire accent he could hardly understand shepherdedthem into a room filled with… well, he said, filled with everything you couldimagine. Books on every subject in the world – geography, geometry, gems andgrammaries. There were odd little objects stuck in between the books, and evenodder items hung from the ceiling. A crow sat on the windowsill and watched himwith his beady little eyes.

And then theelderly man started asking questions. The other boy was obviously a farmer andthe questions obviously made him uncomfortable. Do you have a well on your farm? How did your family find that well? Doyou have a tradition of dowsing or divining in your family? The other boywas dismissed. His answers were all shrugs or noes.

But he, my great-grandfathersaid, answered yes to all of them. And then the red-haired man asked if he useda rod and when he said yes, he nodded. You’llgo to this new unit, he said. It’sexperimental but…

"We used ourskills to ferret out mines and tunnels. There were only a few of us and we werecalled sappers though that wasn’t what we did. We found mines or otherunexploded ordinances for the sappers. They wouldn’t waste us on defusingthings – they needed us." He smiled at me and said, people will need you, youknow. Your skills are useful.

No one hadever said that to me before. No one had ever called me anything but weird orwitchy or creepy. To hear that from him, to hear his story, changed my life. Or at least my attitude to mylife and now, whenever I feel scared or worried or unhappy about the skill inmy hands, I think of his story andhis confidence in me and I carry on.

Kate

What I learned this week

2012-01-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

More than anything else, that winter is black and white. And I'm used to green and red and... This is the view outside my window one day this week - and no, I didn't take the picture in black and white. This is exactly what it looked like.

The trees and grass and hedges were all bright green earlier that day. The walkways were brick red. The little hutch was a lovely cedar brown.

This is what I forget, that we're so fortunate to enjoy color all year round, instead of living with the grey-brown-slushy white winters that so much of the rest of the country spends December through March in.

There's this tiny little oasis of color in Canada in the winter - and we're it. I miss it when it's gone for even a day.

Kate

The art of the bookstore

2012-01-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

This blog grew out of an upsetting experience I had at my local Chapters/Indigo (now I see the reason for the name change from Chapters - book related - to Indigo - not book related) bookstore and I planned for it to be a rant about this company and its policies. But it's not that - it's more about my sorrow because I'm losing one of my favorite things - the bookstore.

First, let me start by saying that I understand completely the pressures bookstores are under. I get that. But I'm not convinced that turning bookstores into "department stores" (which is what the manager told me the bookstore now was) is the solution.

I've been reading a bit about bookstores and their problems and the way we - the readers, the public - use them. And one of the things, maybe the only thing, that seems clear is that human beings, readers, all of us, like to browse. And we like to browse in an actual store.

Some independent bookstores have started a campaign that outs people who come into bookstores, browse, get information and advice from booksellers and then buy their books online - sometimes right in the store. I get that, it's insulting, as well as undermining the bookstore's financial viability. But it does do one thing - the fact that people are still using bookstores for information and advice means that they're not getting it online. Bookstores still have value.

Now I buy 90% of the books I buy in an actual bookstore. I buy the occasional book online, but it's usually a book that's not available in a real bookstore - out of print, unusual, self-published. That's it. And I buy a LOT of books.

But my local bookstore (and yes, I understand that it's hard to make things work in an expensive downtown location) is making it harder for me to buy books at their store. It's a three story high store and on the main floor they have: a Starbucks, KOBO e-readers and accessories, new hardcovers and featured hardcovers with the occasional trade paperback thrown in), a few CDs, and the rest of the floor (probably 2/3rds of it) is taken up with stuff. Vases. Cards. Baby stuff. Food and things to serve it with. Glasses. Coffee. Calendars. Cards. Journals.

They used to have two racks of bestselling paperbacks on the main floor and I bought a lot of books from that rack because it was a quick in and out. Now, there are no paperbacks on the main floor, in fact, I have to go up two escalators to get to them.

Many times I don't have time to go up and, more than that, many times, because I'm a browser and don't often (always) have a list or a name, I don't have time to go upstairs and wander. I liked the bestseller racks - it gave me an idea of what was going on out there, and I often bought a book that I wouldn't otherwise have bought, discovered a new writer I wouldn't otherwise have discovered.

So, there's my rant. I get the economic problems bookstores have. I get the reasoning behind the "department store" on the main floor. I get all of this - but if bookstores want to succeed, they need to sell to buyers like me - big spenders, impulsive spenders - rather than changing the bookstore into a place where I can only buy vases which are way more expensive than I can buy them at a "real" department store.

Kate

Monday review - The Golden Globes

2012-01-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

It's awards season (aka the silly season) and I'm changing my tune.

I'm a huge movie fan and, thus, am also a huge fan of the awards shows - which up until recently has meant the Academy Awards.

But, trying to expand my horizons, last week, for the first time, I watched the Peoples' Choice Awards. Big thumbs down. The best part of the whole thing - the Big Bang Theory intro. It was fabulous - funny and smart and interesting. The rest of the show? Pretty much did nothing for me, except for the lovely speech from Morgan Freeman.

Last year, for the first time, I watched the Golden Globes and I loved it. I loved the casualness of it, the fact that it included TV as well as movies - and despite Ricky Gervais' obnoxiousness, I liked him as well.

So, reporting in from the Golden Globes, I enjoyed it this year as well - though I have to admit I didn't enjoy it quite as much as last year. That may be because I hadn't seen many of the TV series that were nominated and didn't recognize many of the actors from those series. It may be that Ricky Gervais wasn't anywhere near as obnoxiously funny as he was last year.

But continuing on broadening my horizons - in two weeks I'm going to watch the SAG awards and then the Oscars, not officially a trifecta (unless you don't count the People's Choice, which I don't) but the three grand dames of awards shows. I am a fan of the Oscars, perhaps because of their production values? but I'm going to watch all three of the biggies this year and see how the season goes.

Kate

Monthly movie list - Dec 2011/Jan 2012

2012-01-15T01:30:00.000-08:00

This month, the movie list is a little skewed (and may not be completely accurate) because I don't think I remember all the movies I saw in the last half of December - plus my partner was off work and he LOVES action films! I promise, I don't normally see quite so many of them...

The Artist
Margin Call
Cowboys and Aliens
Friends with Benefits
Jaws
Super 8
Just Like Heaven
Klitschko
The Blind Side
Mr.Popper's Penguins
Fist 2 Fist
Up
Manufactured Landscapes
Killer Elite

Kate

Friday Five - Spring flowers

2012-01-13T01:30:00.000-08:00

One of the things Vancouver does really well is spring - and because we're just now heading into real winter (cold, probably snow, short, short days), I wanted to remind myself that it's really only a couple of months before THIS!

Kate

Art wishes

2012-01-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I've always wanted to be able to paint.

Maybe it's because I worked in the art business on and off for many years - call it artist's envy, I guess. I saw these beautiful pieces and I wanted, somehow, to be able to recreate them myself.

I've taken a few courses, starting at the very beginning, progressing (not very far) to watercolor courses. I've painted a few watercolors - though none of them worthy of even being shown in the cabinets at your local community centre.

But there are days like yesterday when I arrived at the office early and saw the sun rising and the clouds and I thought of Monet and how he painted clouds and I felt sad. Because it was so beautiful, so perfect, and I knew I'd never paint it.

My skills aren't in my hands, they're in my head - I have writing skills but ... I've tried music, I've tried painting, I've tried dancing. But, although I enjoyed them all, I am never ever ever going to be very skilled at any of them. The thing I'm good at? Is listening, seeing, enjoying. And I guess I'll have to settle for that.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is one of my favorite Monets - it's the clouds for me.

Though I have to admit that I also love the train!

Kate

Monday review - A Discovery of Witches

2012-01-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches is one of those books I kept looking at in the bookstore, kept picking it up, reading the back cover, and then putting it back down. I suppose - though I'm not sure I was ever conscious of this - that I was waiting for it to come out in paperback or at least trade paperback. I buy quite a few hardcover books, but they tend to be by writers I know and love - I seldom buy hardcovers otherwise.

Hardcover books are expensive. I'm happy to buy them for writers - Michael Ondaatje, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, Suzenne Brockmann, for starters, plus other writers I love - I know I'll read and reread. I'm happy to make sure they get the best royalties possible by spending more money than I usually do on a book.

Why then did I buy this book in hardcover?

I was in Chapters one day (this book has been on the front shelves at Chapters for a very long time) and I picked it up again. This time I had gift certificates (that I'd bought for myself) and I read the back cover copy and said, okay, I could buy three paperbacks or I could put myself out of my misery and buy the book I'd been looking at for months.

It's a big book, 43 chapters, 579 pages - big, dense, complicated pages. What sold me on it? I think it was the reference in the cover copy to Oxford's Bodleian Library - a place I've dreamt about for years. It's one of those places I've always wanted to go but haven't yet managed - probably thanks to Dorothy Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane - all three of whom went to Oxford and Sayers' books are replete with references to Oxford and the library.

A Discovery of Witches reminded me a bit of Sayers and it kept me reading, even though the references to alchemy were complicated and sometimes confusing. I loved the characters and the world-building - there were witches, and vampires, and daemons - but they weren't your usual "creatures" as they call themselves. This book is filled with highly intelligent and well-educated creatures - the heroine (a witch) is a professor, the hero (a vampire - shades of Romeo and Juliet) has degrees in all kinds of things (after all, he's had a very long life). There are terrific references to history (that he's experienced). The book ranges from Oxford to Massachusetts to France.

It wasn't an easy read but it was amazing. Each character was fascinating, deep and rich and real. The world-building was the same - I never felt as if she was cheating or taking short cuts with the characters, the setting or the world-building.

So I'm sorry now that I didn't buy it earlier, but I've put it back on my TBR pile and will read it again in a few months. I know I'll get even more out of it the second time when I won't be in such a rush to see what happens, when I can simply linger over details and events, rather than rushing through them.

Definitely a worthwhile buy - even in hardcover.

Kate

Two of my favorite things - books and food

2012-01-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

I took this photograph at lunch today because one of the women I work with on Fridays is having some mobility problems so she's stuck in the office. She jokingly asked if I would take photos of where I'd been at lunch - little did she realize that I would actually do that!

First I stopped at Chapters (aka Indigo Books, though it will always be Chapters to me) and bought a book my friend Lisa had recommended. I'd been looking at it - mostly because I loved the cover - but hadn't yet bought it. Lisa's vote for made me buy it.

Having forgotten to bring lunch and the rain having started while I was out (without my umbrella), I went to the A&W next door to the bookstore - thus you see my Grilled Chicken, frosty cold Diet Coke, and Miss Peregrine's peculiar children.

I had never had a Grilled Chicken - my usual fare is a Mama Burger and fries. This time no fries and grilled chicken. The sandwich was terrific and I would definitely have that again.

As for Ransom Riggs, the author of Miss Peregrine, I'm definitely committed. I loved the first couple of chapters and will probably finish it tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted.

Kate

Van Gogh - Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum

2012-01-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

This painting - like many of Van Gogh's great paintings - was painted in the couple of years before his death, while he was at Arles in France.

It's kind of a companion painting to the more famous Starry Night paintings which were painted before and after this one - at least it is for me.

It has the night stars, but they illuminate a warm street scene filled with people enjoying the night. I like to think this painting was done on a day when Vincent won the battle with his mental demons and was able to see the joy and beauty and comfort of the human world.

Plus, this painting for me exemplifies what I love about small town France. I've sat in dozens of cafes like this one, sipping a glass of wine, eating a jambon and brie sandwich, having coffee and a croissant. And more than anything else, enjoying the buzz of conversation and the relaxing atmosphere that a visitor is almost always assured of in any one of thousands of cafes throughout France.

Kate

Welcome to a brand new year!

2012-01-02T01:30:00.000-08:00

And it's going to be a great one! I can feel it.

Why, you ask, do I have both a book and a movie cover on the blog today?

Because I'm going to try a little psychological trick on myself this year. Yes, I see a lot of movies (but not as many as I'd like) and yes, I read a whole heck of a lot of books (sometimes way more than I should).

But what I'm going to try to do this year is to be accountable - in public - for the movies I see and the books I read.

Twice a month, I'm going to post a list. On the 15th of each month, I'll post a list of the movies I've seen in the previous month and on the 30th of each month, I'll post a list of the books I've read.

I'm not going to comment on them. I'm just going to list them.

I won't cheat - I promise. I might be a little out of whack on the movie list in January because I'm not sure I can remember all the movies I saw in the last two weeks of the year, but as of January 1, I'm on it. Completely.

And I'm looking forward to the end of the year when I can pull all of that information together and...

And what?

I'm not sure, but I am 100% positive it's going to be interesting.

Kate

What I learned this week (or is it this year?)

2011-12-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I think 2012's going to be a terrific year for all of us - so I'm getting ready for it by thinking about what I've learned this year that I can take forward into 2012, not resolutions exactly, but lessons.

The number one thing I've learned? My life is NEVER going to be organized in a way that stays the same from week to week (sometimes from day to day) so I have to roll with the changes. What I am going to do, and have already started, is to fit in my writing life wherever I can, kind of like jamming that final piece of clothing into a suitcase when I'm traveling. Fifteen minutes here, an hour there? They're priceless. No more waiting for that big four hour stretch - for me, those are few and far between.

In conjunction with that I've learned that I'm going to have to get WAY better at working ahead. By that I mean if I have a whole bunch of things that are due at the end of the month, I can't leave them until the last week - I get them done then, but it's stressful especially if (see Lesson #1 above) my schedule changes drastically and the time I thought I'd have disappears.

I've learned that everyone has complicated lives no matter how perfect they appear from the outside. (You think I'd know this, I'm a writer and I write about those lives all the time. Duh.) So I've learned to stop envying friends whose lives appear so simple compared to mine - they're just different, not easier.

The second most important thing I've learned? I've had a tough year in terms of exercise. I had almost six months off any serious exercise due to one thing or another (all of which - health and work related - I couldn't avoid). And now that it's December 30, I realize how detrimental that's been to my health (ironic? no kidding) and, like writing, I'm going to squeeze it in wherever I can. I feel better when I do it, I get more done, so the time it takes to do it isn't wasted time, it's good time.

I've learned - thanks Dr. Oz - that coffee is good, good, good for you, so I'm drinking more coffee, which in my case, seeing as I gave it up almost 20 years ago, means starting up with a cup a day. I'm not sure I can handle too much more caffeine than that to start with.

I've probably learned a million other things this year - but the one thing I didn't have to learn? Gratitude. I'm always grateful for the life I have, for the friends and family I enjoy, for the beautiful world around me.

So thanks, 2011, I learned a lot this year. And I'm hoping 2012 is just as educational. And fun!

Kate

The art of the photograph

2011-12-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

Alfred Stieglitz is a photographer and I love his photographs.

I first got to know him through his connection with Georgia O'Keeffe, one of my favorite painters. They were married for many many years and many of his photographs echo or are precursors to, her paintings.

I like his early photos, like this picture of the wintry Flatiron Building in New York from 1903, to the much later ones, like this different view of New York (From the Shelton, West) which he took in 1935. I'm fascinated by the way the technicalities of photography changed over those 32 years, and I'm fascinated by the way, despite those changes, I can still see that Stieglitz took both of these photographs.

But the photographs that blow me away are portraits. Below are a self-portrait and one of the many, many photographs he took of Georgia O'Keeffe. There's something about the way he sees people (including himself) - focused, intense, as if he's looking into his own image in their eyes. They look directly at the camera, there's no fooling around with what we see now in photographic portraits. The face isn't angled to be seen at its best, the head isn't resting on a hand. These portraits feel solemn and real in a way that few modern portraits do.

Kate

Twitter story - See How They Run

2011-12-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

Three blind mice…
See how they run…

Jenn popped herself in the temple – again – trying to getthe damned song out of her head. But it wouldn’t go.

Ever since she’d seen the first road sign announcing she wasalmost there – Brest,50 kilometres – her wayward mind had been singing of blind mice. She knewit didn’t make sense, if anything, she should be singing about breasts orchickens, but that’s what had come to mind and that’s what wouldn’t let go.

She was sick of this trip, sick of the mice, sick of – well,she was sick of pretty much everything. Ever since her Gran had insisted shetravel to Breston a moment’s notice, Jenn’s life had deteriorated into a place where singingThree Blind Mice seemed normal.

The flight to Paris was a disaster – three hours lateleaving and Jenn stuck in a middle seat (because she’d had to book at the lastminute) between a snoring drunk and a football-player sized businessmanjuggling a laptop, an iPhone and two stress-relief balls. She hadn’t slept thenight before, Gran waking her every hour with another list of instructions.

Nowshe was in this tiny Renault, driving to Brestto find the sisters her Gran hadn’t seen for almost fifty years.

She didn’t know what had triggered Gran’s anxiety – theholiday season? – and it hardly mattered. She would do anything for her Gran,up to and including this trip over nine time zones on the third day ofChristmas. Damn, she thought, that’s why the mice. Though now she was here, shewondered if there had been some other way to find the sisters. A privatedetective? An internet search? A few phone calls?

Because Jenn was pretty certain that if they weren’t in thehouse they’d all three grown up in, her chances of finding them were slim. HerFrench was laughable despite having grown up with Gran. Her skills as anaccordion player were legendary; her other skills? Nominal at best.

Anyway, here she was, less than an hour from her destinationand willing to do her best.

She checked – again – to make sure her cellphonewas charged. She’d promised to call the minute she arrived though Jenn plannedto wait until she had some news. Gran wasn’t much on accurate time keeping,hence the wake up calls every hour during the night.

Welcome to Brest.

The sign – in French, of course – translated easily, even toJenn’s tired and untrained eyes and she heaved a sigh of relief. She wasn’tsure she could drive another mile. She pulled over and took the map from herbag. She couldn’t sit long, she’d fall asleep, but hoped the roads were asclearly marked as the hotel.

Because Brestwas a mystery to her – as much a mystery as her Gran’s sisters.

***

Her Gran, Madam Celeste FrancoiseAnnalise Berthaulme, had been Jenn’s salvation as a child. She had fed her,clothed her, made sure she got to school on time and properly accoutered. Shehad found a woman who would teach Jenn the accordion the week after Jenn hadfallen in love with the instrument.

Gran made Jenn’s life as normal as it was possible to bewith a mother who lived in another world and a father who had died when she wasa baby. Gran, her only son gone and buried, had transferred her love to hergranddaughter and had replaced both parents – carefully, completely, perfectly.

So here Jenn was, tired to death and sitting on the side ofthe road in the far west of western France. She’d never been to France, thoughshe’d often suggested the trip to Gran.

“Let’s go to Francethis year,” she’d say as they began their planning for their summer vacation.“I’d love to see where you grew up.”

Gran would hum and haw and pretend to consider it. But inreality, Jenn knew that for some reason – a reason she couldn’t figure out andGran refused to reveal – her grandmother did not want to go back to France. Shemissed it, though, that was obvious.

It was obvious in the music she played, leaning heavily toFrench lounge singers like Piaf and Aznavour; it was clear in the art in herroom, posters of Monet’s garden and photos of the Eiffel Tower; and even moreobvious in the food she cooked and the wine she drank. Jenn hadn’t realized anyother country made wine until she turned 19 and could go into a liquor storefor herself.

Jenn shook herself out of her memories and back onto theside of the road. She checked again her Google map. The hotel she’d booked –the Lion D’Or – was two blocks away from her Gran’s childhood home and,according to the map, a straight shot from where she sat.

The map was right.

Jenn arrived at the hanging sign of the golden lion fifteenminutes after she’d finally managed to shake off her exhaustion enough tosafely navigate the city streets. Because Brestwasn’t the town her Gran remembered, it was a city. A big city.

The jet lag rolled over her like a tsunami the minute sheclosed the door to her room. She dropped her bag, ripped off her worn-way-too-longclothes and fell into bed, promising her face and teeth and body a darn goodwash in the morning.

***

The croissant and café au laitrevived Jenn just enough to kickstart her conscience. She pulled her cellphonefrom her pocket and dialed the number she knew better than any other.

“I’m here,” she said when her Gran answered the phone withher usual brisk “Oui?”

“And?” Gran was a woman of few words.

“I’m on my way to find the house.”

The silence in return spoke volumes.

“I only got here late last night and I needed to get somesleep. It’s only eight o’clockhere, Gran, and I didn’t want to go barging in before daylight.”

Silence again.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“Bien.”

No time to say goodbye, the click as adamant as Gran hadbeen about her trip to France.She had tried to convince Gran to come, to say about the great-aunts (herbrand-new, never-before-heard-of great-aunts), but she did neither.

Jenn walked out of the hotel into the cold, bright sunshineand turned left – á gauche. The house,number 122, was two blocks from the hotel and she took deep breaths as shestrolled, as slowly as she could without stopping, toward her Gran’s past. HerGran’s secret life.

The house was painted a brilliant canary yellow withcarnelian red trim to match the window boxes spilling over with geraniums inspite of the winter air. Jenn, a closet painter, wanted to sit down across thestreet and paint this perfect house. Now, more than ever, she couldn’tunderstand why her Gran had left and why she had never returned.

She steeled herself to climb the worn steps and knock on thedoor at the top of them. Her first attempt, tentative and light, brought noresponse. Her second, two or three minutes later, worked better.

The door was thrown open. Jenn smiled at the … not an oldwoman. Not her Gran’s sister. But a man, a beautiful man. Her dream man.

He wore jeans and sneakers and a scowl.

“Oui?”

Jenn knew how to respond to that, she’d been doing it allher life. She pulled out the set speech she’d practiced all the way across the Atlantic. “My name is Jenn Berthaulme. My grandmother,Celeste Berthaulme, lived in this house as a child.”

He looked at her, sizing her up as she had him. He said nothing.

Jenn knew how to respond to that as well. “I’m looking forher sisters, my great-aunts. Their names are Berthe and Jeanne. Do they stilllive here?”

Jenn crossed her fingers behind her back. If they weren’there, she had no idea what to do next. She’d have to go to the town hall andtry and decipher the death certificates or something. Or she’d have to hire aprivate detective – in French – andget him to find them.

She closed her eyes and hoped for a miracle.

She got one.

He spoke with an accent, though not a pronounced one, asunlike as possible as the thick, difficult to decipher English her Gran spokeeven after all these years. His accent was lyrical, soft and sexy.

“My name is Daniel Bourdain. Your great-aunts are mylandladies.”

Jenn breathed a silent sigh of relief. She did not want tobe related to Daniel Bourdain, at least not by blood. She grinned at him.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For speaking English. For telling me that Berthe and Jeanneare still alive and still at this house. If they weren’t, I had no idea what todo next and my Gran would flay me alive if I came home without news of them.”

He grinned back at her and gestured her into the hallway.

“They’re out shopping right now but they should be back,” heglanced at the clock on the wall, “within an hour or so. Will you have a coffeewith me while you wait?”

***

The great-aunts returned and made ahuge fuss over Jenn once they got over their astonishment. And they spokeEnglish, Gran’s English, easy for Jenn after so many years of practice.

Jenn offered her cellphone for their call to Celeste butthey said, “Wait. Wait until tomorrow. We will call her tomorrow.”

They shooed her and Daniel out of the kitchen for a walkaround the town. “Bring her back for dinner,” they told him. “Stop at the winemerchant and none of that cheap watered down wine. Only the best for family.”

“You don’t speak French?” Daniel asked as they wandered downto the waterfront.

“I tried, even went to a French immersion school, but Idon’t have an ear for language. What ear I do have is for music.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her across the crowded streetinto a narrow alley. “Then you’ll love this.”

A tiny bar, six tables and the smallest stage Jenn had everseen. An accordion player sat on a stool. Next to him, a smaller stool holdinga glass of red wine.

The hours until dinner time passed in a moment – Saeed, aPersian friend of Daniel’s – had been in Brestfor almost forty years and he played the accordion like an angel. Or a djinn,he told her. She promised to return forthe next four days – the four days until she had to be home for a concert ofher own.

“Come back tomorrow and play with me,” Saeed said.

Daniel grinned at her and she grinned back. Playing theaccordion was a snap compared to the rest of her life right now.

***

Three nights later, three dinners later, bottle after bottle offabulous wine later, and Jenn knew no more of why her Gran had left and stayedgone. The great-aunts hadn’t spoken to Gran nor to Jenn about it and all Jennhad been able to say when she spoke to Gran each night was, “They’re going to call.”

She felt Gran’s restlessness but Daniel and Saeed and thegreat-aunts and the wine coerced her out of her anxiety and into relaxation.Daniel had already promised to visit in February and Saeed was embarking on aworld tour that would take him to within two hundred miles of Jenn and Gran.She had the dates – both of them – in her Blackberry.

The last night. Daniel was coming back to the hotel withher, she’d said goodbye to Saeed, and she now sat at the dining table with thegreat-aunts, hoping they’d finally call Gran, at least say something.

“She’s our baby sister, you know,” Berthe murmured.

“We miss her every single day,” Jeanne added.

“But she asked us not to call, asked us to think of her asdead. We couldn’t do that,” tears stood in Berthe’s eyes, “but we did respecther wishes not to call.”

“We always knew where she was. We knew when Michel died.Berthe wanted to call her then, but I said non.”Jeanne shrugged. “She had been adamant about it and I did not want to make herunhappy.”

“Why?” Jenn asked, asking more than she could articulate.

Berthe’s smile was sad. “The usual reasons. No husband, ababy, a scandal. Back then, this was a very small town. Now?”

“Now,” Jeanne said. “It no longer matters.”

Jenn smiled at the two of them, their faces so like herGran’s. “Now,” she said, “it won’t matter.”

She smiled again as she pictured her Gran at this table withher sisters, pictured her at the church down the road, pictured her at the winestore arguing over vintages with the old man behind the counter. She picturedher in the room at the top of the stairs, the one that still held her communiondress and the gold necklace she’d received for her sixteenth birthday.

And while Gran was in Brest,Jenn – and Daniel – would be traveling the world. Merry Christmas, she thought,the merriest of all Christmases.

-------------

This story is part of a Christmas e-anthology called 12 Days of Christmas. Twelve writers, twelve stories. If you'd like to read the rest of them, you can get a free download of the anthology at my website at http://kateaustin.ca/treats/12DaysAnthology.pdf

Have a wonderful holiday!

Kate

Friday five

2011-12-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

Because it's close to the end of the year and because I'm always thinking about - not resolutions, but ideas about how I want to live my life for the next 365 days - I'm giving you some of my favorite quotes.

Yes, it's Friday Five, but I've used one of my favorite quotes (and yes, it sits on my desk so I can't miss it every time I look up from my computer) as the picture so you're going to get six.

This Kahlil Gibran quote is how I try and live my life - loving my work, both writing and other, and even if I'm having a bad day, remembering that "work is love made visible" - whether I'm doing the dishes or the laundry or cleaning my house, whether I'm typing a letter at the office, or editing a story or writing a poem - it's love.

The next quote isn't quite as solemn or perhaps as life changing, but this quote is also on my desk - perhaps I keep it there to remind myself that no one knows what's out there:

How do you know that the planet Mars isn't carried around by an angel? ~ J.B.S. Haldane

I don't know where this next quote came from, but it's one of my favorites:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - cigar in one hand, favorite beverage in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming WOW - what a ride!

This forces me to remember that the only moment I know I've got is this one - so I damn well better enjoy it.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~ William James

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop. ~ Confucius

Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ~Mary Oliver

What I plan to do with my one wild and precious life is to live it, to act as if what I do makes a difference, to carry on and not stop, to remember that work - all work, is love made visible.

Good plans for 2012.

Kate

Movie review: The Artist

2011-12-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

I saw The Artist last night and it is, definitely, the best movie I've seen this year and it may be the best movie I've seen in a few years.

One of the things I loved about it (which reminded me of Wall-E) was the way it expected things of us, the audience. Most movies today tell us everything - oh, there might be a few surprises, but they're expected surprises, surprises within the story. They're not surprises about the movie itself, rather twists and turns in the story.

This movie constantly surprised me. I knew a fair bit about it from reviews and a terrific article in the New Yorker so I thought I knew what to expect. And I did, on a surface level.

What I didn't expect was the way I had to immerse myself into the movie - not just the story but the way that story was told.

And, honestly? It was brilliant.

The acting is better than good and some of the smaller parts - John Goodman and James Cromwell, for example - are lovely, funny and emotionally intense. But the two French actors who carry the show - Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo - are extraordinary. Every expression conveys a thousand words, every movement made me feel as if I was watching the perfect version of Swan Lake, where the tiniest movements were choreographed to perfection.

The concept of the silent movie is carried out with charm and grace and verve. The allusions to other movies are pitch perfect, especially if you're a fan of black and white movies. The music is unfamiliar and familiar at the same time - just what you'd expect from a silent movie.

This is one of those movies I'm going to see again and again and I can hardly wait for the next time.

Kate

Monday review - Breaking the Rules

2011-12-19T01:30:00.000-08:00

Most of you know how much I love Suzanne Brockmann - I talk about her often enough.

You know that she's one of the few writers I buy in hardcover because I can't wait for the book to come out in paperback. I buy her in hardcover because I love her characters, the pace of the books, the romance.

This book - her new one - did not disappoint me. I picked it up Saturday night, I kept reading until it was almost 2 AM, and I woke up at 7 Sunday morning so I could finish it.

It's an amazing combination of two stories which were begun in earlier books, of the birth of a post-millenium kind of family, of the growth of trust and love and ...

Well, I don't want to spoil it for you. I will say that Izzy Zanella and Danny Gillman are the Navy SEALs in the book - and that, if you're a Brockmann fan - is enough to tell you just where this book is going.

It's fast, it's sad, it's scary, it's perfect.

Kate

Christmas in Vancouver...

2011-12-16T15:40:00.000-08:00

isn't exactly what you might imagine.

I took this photograph at lunchtime today when I was out - in a sweater - doing some Christmas shopping. It was warm enough to go without gloves, without a coat, and dry enough to walk around without boots.

This photograph is of Robson Square - the heart of the city. It would definitely look more like a holiday scene if there were a little snow but, in Vancouver, it would probably have to be fake snow.

See those figures in the bright light under the dome? They're ice skating. It's the only outdoor rink in the city and it's free. It's a very small rink and very expensive to run as on most days during the winter, the outdoor temperature is way above freezing.

But it is beautiful - and despite the lack of snow, despite the temperature, despite the rain, just looking at this scene convinces me that we are in the middle of holiday season.

How about you?

Kate

The art of the new year

2011-12-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but my absolutely favorite thing about the new year is the calendar.

I LOVE new calendars, ones which still allow me an infinity of opportunities, ones where appointments aren't made and then remade and then scratched out yet again, ones where every single page is a blank slate.

Each year I begin with a perfect calendar, one which I am determined to keep pristine. I use the same pen, the same type of printing, the same color. I keep the writing carefully between the lines. It looks perfect and that's what I want.

But it's never very long (sometimes even before the new year actually begins) before I'm using whiteout, carefully deleting the old appointment waiting for the white to dry before putting in the new. Not long after that, I'm scratching things out with ferocious pen strokes.

I'll start using red pens and green pens and black ones. I'll ignore the lines because some days I have too much to do to stay within those tiny squares. Generally, somewhere around March, I give up on the tidy calendar - and the tidy life - and revert to the mess which my calendar always becomes.

What I want and what I get with respect to my calendars are two completely different things - maybe a metaphor for life in general?

Kate

Monday review - Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (Part 1)

2011-12-12T08:44:00.000-08:00

I couldn't wait until I finished this book to tell you about it. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I'm savoring it, working my way slowly through the wonderful prose, enjoying every minute of the journey -

Now, I'm a gulper. I gulp down books at a tremendous rate. If I have a whole day to myself with nothing to do, I might read two or three books. I can't help myself - I'm always desperate to find out what happens at the end and NO, I absolutely do not ever read the ending first.

So, I'll write about the book in the fullness (I'm assuming) of its beautiful self when I'm finished it - probably sometime in the next couple of weeks.

But what I really wanted to talk about right now is the physical book. Not the words. Not the writing. Not the story or the characters. But the book itself.

It is, without doubt, the most beautiful book I've picked up this year. From the cover to the frontispiece to each individual chapter. It is gorgeous -

And the drawings and the art of it - as far as I can tell so far - just add to the reading experience. It's dark. It's beautiful. It's a little bit frightening. And so is the art. The designers did a terrific job in taking the story and turning it to truly evocative art.

I love it. Next time I'll tell you about the book.

Kate

What I learned this week

2011-12-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

That Vancouver is chock-a-block full of public art - I walk past the other side of this concrete wall on a daily basis. Yesterday I walked past it from the other and found...

A huge far-more-than-life-size man sleeping (or dead). Those benches are normal size so you can imagine how big he is. He looks pretty healthy, so I'm assuming he's sleeping but I could be wrong.

I also learned that the Christmas event Hellweek is kicking my butt. Four events, six days - plus work and life itself. I'm hoping that when the last event is done on Saturday, I'll be able to start thinking about other parts of the holidays. Not that I don't enjoy hanging out with friends and co-workers - but four times in six days? Not so much.

I've learned that lentil soup is my new favorite lunch. I discovered a small restaurant up the street called Ando. They make lentil soup every day and I've had it three times in the past four days - yum yum yum.

Haven't had much time to learn anything else this week...

What about you?

Kate

My favorite Rembrandt

2011-12-08T11:15:00.001-08:00

Because Rembrandt was poor for all of his life and mostly couldn't afford models, he did self-portraits throughout his life.

The painting - at the Frick Museum in New York - is my favorite.

I have spent hours and hours sitting in front of this painting, in fact, if I don't have time to spend anywhere else, I will spend all my free time in New York in front of this painting.

The color, the light, the hands - all amazing, Rembrandt at his very best. But the painting, despite its brilliant color palette, is so so sad. It always makes me cry.

Kate

The Yale Hotel

2011-12-04T21:27:00.001-08:00

This post is about loss. The Yale Hotel has been a fixture in Vancouver for more than years than I've been around, for more years than I can imagine.

It's an old-fashioned kind of place on a street that's all about the new. It's a place where the patrons might be 60 or 70 as easily as 25 or 30 in a city full of clubs where only youth is celebrated.

It's a club that celebrates the sorrow and pain of the blues at a time when the world we live in tends to focus on being happy.

Most of all, though, it's a club that's all about music.

And for now, it's gone. Oh, they say it'll be back better than ever in a year or two, when the condo project that's building itself around the Yale is finished, when the strip club that lived next door for decades is forgotten, when the uneven sidewalk with the trap doors for the booze to be loaded into the basement are turned into perfectly even walkways. When the ratty old carpets and pool tables are gone.

But how can it be better than ever when all that atmosphere is gone? Maybe the carpet will be new. Maybe the pool tables won't have wobbles in them. Maybe the lights and the sound system will be better. But it won't be the Yale. It won't be the same.

I'll miss it.

Kate

Friday Five - Christmas movies

2011-12-01T22:41:00.001-08:00

Christmas movies are on TV and in the theaters and I love it! I love these movies, corny and stale as they might be. These movies are only the tip of the iceberg for me because I had to pick five. But almost any Christmas movie will do.

These movies aren't in any real order - but I can still remember seeing Die Hard for the very first time and was totally blown away. It's still one of my favorite thrillers and, because it's set at Christmas, and it's shown at Christmas, I still think of it as a Christmas movie.

I love the driver of the limo and the teddy bear, the cop with the donuts, the party and the relationships. It works for me.

This is probably at the top of my list. The cast is terrific, the way all the different stories weave together, and it seems to me that the way all the different types of love come together - really feels like Christmas. The music is fabulous and I watch it every year, sometimes two or three times.

The Polar Express. Need I say more? But I will say that I'd read the book before the movie came out and I saw it the first time in 3-D, with my dad and my brother before my dad died. All of us loved it - and it always makes me think of my dad. It is, even without that, a terrific movie. Definitely worth seeing - and if you can, do see it in 3-D.

This cartoon - only 27 minutes long - is Christmas for me. We watched this every single year, with the commercials, and that's how I still see it in my mind. It's funny, it's smart, it's poignant, the music is great, and Boris Karloff is fabulous. And when the Grinch's heart grows? It always makes me cry.

I'm not sure if this is officially a Christmas movie - but as it's set around the holidays, I'm going to include it. It's one of those movies that works on many different levels. Even if you don't like James Joyce, even if you don't like art films, there's just something about this movie. It's partly the pacing, partly the cast, partly the setting, the music, the story - everything seems to pull you into a kind of a dream.

It's definitely worth seeing.

Which are your favorites? Is there something I should add to my list?

Kate

The art of the femme fatale

2011-11-30T16:13:00.001-08:00

There's just something about those classic black and white movies - and it isn't always about the director or the story or even the acting. Sometimes it's about the beauty - and for me, there's no one more beautiful than Gene Tierney. I caught a terrible movie - and I can't even remember the name of it - late one night on TCM and I saw this face.

I wished that I could paint it because it's one of those faces that's just as beautiful when still as it is when it's in motion.

If I could have any face I wanted (and I'm pretty happy with mine), I'd have this face.

What about you?

Kate

Monday review - Grey Cup

2011-11-27T20:00:00.001-08:00

I'm not reviewing the game - I didn't watch much of it because I had to be at the office for a couple of hours right in the middle of it, but the final score did favor the BC Lions :)

But I am reviewing the great fun we had wandering around downtown in the midst of the Grey Cup party. People were so happy, so boisterous, so entertained by the crowds.

The best part, for me, was the fact that there were fans from all over the country - Stampeder fans from Calgary, Eskimo fans from Edmonton, piles and piles of Roughrider fans from Saskatchewan - definitely disproportionate numbers to the population of the province! Alouette fans from Montreal, hordes of Blue Bombers fans from Winnipeg and Lions fans from all over. Even a few Argo fans from Toronto and Ticat fans from Hamilton.

This is the joy of the Grey Cup for me - the fans come to watch to the game, to enjoy the show, both on the field and in the streets. They come from all over, bringing their families and friends and, occasionally, horses, and they just have fun. They have fun getting their faces painted - everyone from five to 80 lined up for face painting, just like they lined up to get their picture taken with the giant Grey Cup and to throw the football. They laughed and danced in front of the bands that played in the plaza and they cheered the game.

Honestly? For me? It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday - and the sun came out after two days of absolute downpours. We showed everybody from the cold and wintry east that even at the end of November, Vancouver can shed the rain and show her warm and sunny self.

It was a great day.

Kate

Friday food - Mademoiselle Cocotte

2011-11-25T18:51:00.001-08:00

aka Ani Kalemkerian, aka a friend of my good friend and fellow writer, eden baylee.

eden introduced me to Ani, who introduced me - via her guest blog on Black Ink, White Paper - to her blog. Mademoiselle Cocette.

And you must check it out... the photographs will made you drool, the recipes are amazing.

Here's the link - I'm making this cornbread. Soon.

http://www.mademoisellecocotte.com

Kate

Arnold Bocklin - Isle of the Dead

2011-11-23T07:49:00.001-08:00

This morning I did something I haven't had time to do in months - I went to one of my favorite websites and spent some time just hanging out, looking at art.

If you haven't been to Mark Harden's Artchive and you're a fan of art of any kind (because it has literally everything) - www.artchive.com - you'll want to put this on your favorites bar.

There are over 250 artists and some 3000 scans - good ones - of art, plus links to art that isn't on the site. You can choose to look at a style of art, an era, a group of artists. It's a terrific resource.

Today I found Arnold Bocklin - a German painter who spent a lot of time in Rome. This painting blew me away. Bocklin (or Boecklin) spent a lot of time in Rome and he actually painted this island five times. This version, it seems, he painted because a widow had asked him for something to meditate on.

For me, it's the light and dark, the way the figure on the boat and the coffin glow, the way the trees are somehow so very Italian.

Lovely morning for me.

Kate

I felt like poisoning a monk...

2011-11-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

I first fell in love with Umberto Eco when I read The Name of the Rose sometime in the early80s. It’s been a thirty year love affair.

Maybe this doesn’t happen for you and it certainly doesn’thappen for me very often – but I didn’t just fall in love with the book, I fellin love with Umberto Eco (I always use his full name, it somehow feels moreintimate). And my love for him grew deeper with each book. There was justsomething about the way he wrote, the sweep of each story, the mysteries, themany things I learned from reading them.

And the books caused me to do something I rarely do. I startedto read about Umberto Eco. In general, I read only about dead writers. But withUmberto Eco? The more I read about him, the more I loved him. One of the snippetsof informaiton about him that served to deepen my love was this: his librarycontains 40,000 books.

I’m disclosing this fact because I don’t want you to bemisled. This post is personal, aspersonal as it can get. After all, it’s above love.

This morning, as I often do on Sundays, I spent a fewmoments listening to CBC Radio’s (the Canadian equivalent of NPR) Sunday Edition. It began with the host, MichaelEnright, introducing Umberto Eco. He mentioned that when Umberto Eco was askedabout what got him started writing TheName of the Rose, he said I felt likepoisoning a monk. How could I resist that? A brilliant, wide-ranging 536page novel grew out of that simple thought.

Then Mr. Enright quoted from the postscript to The Name of the Rose:

Entering a novel islike going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm ofrespiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away.

This is something I try to tell friends, students,acquaintances who are discouraged by what they initially see as a long orcomplicated or boring book. I say, “When you start reading Dickens or VirginiaWoolf or Shakespeare (and I should add, Umberto Eco), you need to give yourselftime to get used to the writing. It’s different than what we normally read andit takes time to settle into the rhythm of it. Once you get into the rhythm ofit, you’re going to enjoy it. Don’t stop, though, after the first book. Keep readingbecause pretty soon you’re going to love it.”

But how could I not fall even more deeply in love with a manwho takes my boring and straightforward idea and turns it into music? How couldI not feel as if I understood at least a little bit about him, about how hethought, and then – even more importantly and delightfully – that he somehowunderstood me?

How could I ask for more than that? How could anyone wantmore? That the object of my love, an object I will never meet, who will neverknow I exist, understands me? That I understand him? That must be enough. It is enough.

I’m going to leave with you with the words (and the face) of Umberto Eco:

Thus I rediscoveredwhat writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books alwaysspeak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.

Kate

(this post can also be found on my group blog - Black Ink White Paper - at www.blackinkwhitepaper.wordpress.com - I wanted to make sure, if you don't check in over there, that you saw this post)

November's Twitter Story - East of Likely

2011-11-19T01:30:00.000-08:00

Susannah lived east of Likely. Her house wasn't more than a couple of blocksoutside the town limits, but far enough that she was on the wrong side of thetracks. Geographically undesirable. She'd learned the phrase when the Likely Gazettestarted carrying personal ads and she wanted to believe that it explained hersingle status.

That'sme, she thought, not just geographically undesirable, but I've lived alone toolong.

Her last date occurred almost fiveyears ago and it had been a disaster. Soshe'd given it up, and gone on her merry way, hoping to meet some nice guy byaccident. No such luck. When the Gazette started carrying personalads, she'd thought about placing one herself. SWF, over 40, seeks matureman. That's where she gotstuck. The other ads were so - so personal - and Susannah couldn't bearthe thought of exposing herself that way. Everyone in town would know about it. And besides, Susannah hated meeting strangers. She still lived in the town where she wasborn. She knew everyone and they knewher. She couldn't date a stranger.

But deciding not to place an ad didn'tstop her from reading and trying to guess who placed them. George Wilson ran the same ad he'd beenrunning since the beginning. Cantankerous rancher seeks lively widow forcooking, cleaning, and a little hanky panky. He'd had few responses but George was anoptimist.

Susannah finished reading the paper,shrugged her shoulders and contemplated the scene outside her kitchenwindow. A moving van sat in the drivewayof Aunt Lila's house. She'd been gonefor almost a year. Aunt Lila had stoodon her front stoop to watch Susannah's comings and goings, had made cookies(usually burnt) and left them on her back porch in the night. Susannah missed her. The two houses lay on the last paved streeton the south side of town. Beyondwilderness.

Susannah sighed and picked up hercarafe of coffee. She made a mental noteto bake a lemon poppyseed loaf to drop off to her new neighbors after themoving van left and walked up the stairs to the attic.

Susannah loved her attic. It was the reason she bought the houseinstead of staying in Lively. The manwho built it was an architect and a painter. He installed skylights, french doors instead of windows, light oakflooring, and built cupboards right around the walls.

She put the carafe down and surveyedher working space. Bits of vibrantfabric littered every flat surface. Sequins, paints, scissors, silk wings, satin scales, beads, glitter,stuffing, and tiny line drawings of fantastic creatures filled the room withcolor. Susannah woke up this morningwith an idea and now she prowled, fingering fabric, opening drawers and doors,collecting raw materials. When shefinally looked up, the sun was setting and she was starving. But a gorgeous lime green half cat, halfdragon sat on the table, and she smiled as she thought of the look on heragent's face when she dropped by to pick up the month's output.

Susannah raided the fridge and inhaleda tomato sandwich before starting on the loaf. As she moved around the kitchen, she caught glimpses of shadows movingin the windows of the house next door but the blinds were closed so her viewwas limited. Exhausted, she placed theloaf on the cooling rack and went to bed.

Early the next morning, she took a pagefrom Aunt Lila's book and tiptoed across the lawn in the cool light ofdawn. A basket lined with a red andwhite checked napkin held the loaf and a card: She'd painted it yesterday afternoon in a break from the lime greencreature. Her house wore a smile andflew a flag from its chimney saying, "Welcome to theneighborhood."

Susannah spent the week watching forthe new neighbors in her spare time. Each night she baked something - muffins, cookies, cheese straws - anddropped it off on the back porch. Butbecause she wanted to see the occupants, assess them, before meeting them, shedropped the food off in the early morning or late at night after the lightswent out.

Five days into this schedule, Susannahstarted feeling a bit, well, resentful. She phoned Frannie.

"I've been dropping off cookiesand stuff every morning for a week and nothing. Not even a thank you card. And Istill haven't seen a single soul except in silhouette behind the blinds."

Frannie said, "You don't have anyother neighbors. You have to stick itout. Maybe they're shy. Or busy. Did you leave your name and phone number? I mean, what if they don't know it'syou?"

"Oh, please. Of course they know it's me. I painted my house on the card. All they have to do is open their front doorand they'll see my house." Susannahpondered that for a minute. Oops. She'd painted the house on the card limegreen to match the creature, and her house didn't really have a flag saying "Welcome to theneighborhood." So maybe it wasn'tquite so easy. She told Frannie whathappened.

"Why am I not surprised? Susannah, you just have to march over thereand say hello."

"I can't. You know I can't. I live in Likely because I can't talk tostrangers. My agent keeps telling me I'dbe rich if I moved to the city and did a little marketing. I can't go next door."

"Okay, okay. But you'll have to talk to themeventually."

"I know. As long as I don't have to plan it, I'll befine."

Susannah sat down at the kitchen tablewith her first cup of coffee and the Gazette. She ignored the pictures of engagements and weddings and christeningsand turned directly to the personal ads. George Wilson. A woman fromFrench Creek looking for a rich husband. Two of Frannie's creations - her personal ads were completefiction. Two twenty-somethings lookingfor a couple of girls to double date. Susannah laughed. Good luck tothem, there were no young women in Likely. They headed off to the city as soon as they finished high school. Except for her and Frannie, of course. And then she choked on her coffee.

Who areyou? I just moved into the green houseon Wilson Street. Someone has beenleaving me home baked goodies in the night. Thank you. Can I meet you? Please call.

She jumped when her phone rang.

"See?" Frannie said beforeSusannah had a chance to speak. "Itold you. They have no idea who youare. You have to go over there rightnow."

"I can't. Besides, it's Saturday. And I can't keep sneaking over there in themiddle of the night. They'll catchme."

Frannie tried and tried and tried toconvince Susannah. She even offered tocome over and go next door with her.

"No. No. No. I can't."

Susannah started to panic. What if the neighbors came to her house tosee if she knew anything about the midnight goodie giver? She pulled the shutters closed, locked thedoors, and hurried up to the attic. Shealways felt safe there. There was magicin the fabric, in the fantastic creatures lining the walls, in the multi-coloredwings hanging from the ceiling. She'dwork on something new. Except shecouldn't. Nothing came to her, not aface or a claw or a shape.

Three hours later, Susannah realizedthe attic's usual magic wasn't working. She couldn't concentrate because all she could think about were theneighbors. No matter how uncomfortableshe was about meeting strangers, she had to put this to rest before she'd beable to get any work done.

A deep breath, a cup of camomile tea tocalm her nerves, a small square of her favourite deep green silk in her pocketfor courage, and Susannah was as ready as she'd ever be to call on a completestranger.

The green house's door opened beforeshe had a chance to knock.

"Ah ha!" A deep voice said. "I caught a glimpse of you last nightbut I didn't realize how beautiful you were. Come in, come in. I've beenbaking."

As soon as Susannah took a breath shecould smell the sweet scent of cinnamon and brown sugar. "Cinnamon buns?"

"I thought you might likethem. You use a lot of cinnamon in yourbaking."

Susannah looked up a tall man with eyesthe colour of the silk square in her pocket. He held out a flour-covered hand. She took his hand and smiled up at him.

"My name's John Twining. Come on in. I'll show you around the place."

"I was tired of the city," hesaid, "and I missed knowing everyone. It's easier to concentrate in a small town. - I design furniture."

Bemused, Susannah found herself sittingat John's kitchen table, looking out at her house. She had a cinnamon bun in one hand and John'shand still holding her other. She felt ashiver of anticipation. John Twiningwasn't going to be a stranger for long.

What I learned this week

2011-11-18T14:08:00.001-08:00

I learned only two things this week - it was all I had time for. It was a brutally busy week, and it's not over yet. But I did, at least, learn two things.

The first is that this block - east, west, north, south - is the prettiest block in the city once the holidays begins. They have these gorgeous lights on trees on each side of the block and they light up the late afternoon, the early morning, and the night brilliantly.

The second thing I learned? that walking up flights of stairs that are four stairs and then a landing is a real pain in the butt. You just get started on the steps and then they're over. You just get started on the landing and then it's over. I'll never have these kinds of stairs in my house!

Have a terrific weekend, everyone.

Kate

Visiting galleries and museums

2011-11-15T21:45:00.001-08:00

Sshhh, don't tell anyone.

But I love going to art galleries and museums by myself. Yes, you heard me right. I admit it. By preference, I'm a solo gallery and museum goer.

Why?

At the top of the list is that I'm an odd combination of a sprinter and a loiterer and no one else wants to see galleries the way I do. I tend to rush through a new exhibit at the speed of light to see what there is and then, when I've done my race-through, I go back to the three or four, occasionally five, pieces that I've fallen in love with. I don't want to hang around looking at things I'm not interested in, art that may be famous but just doesn't grab me.

If it's a permanent exhibit, or an exhibit of paintings I've mostly seen elsewhere, I'll head for the ones I already know I love. I can ignore everything else and spend an hour in front of the one thing - the thing - that I'm passionate about.

I like to revisit museums or galleries, like the familiarity of space and art. If I'm in New York by myself I might go to the Frick three days in a row. Oh, I'll go to many other places while I'm there, but I'll spend a lot of my quality time at the Frick. It's an intimate place and it contains my favorite Rembrandt self-portrait. I can sit in front of that painting for hours.

If I'm in Ottawa? I might run in every day for half an hour and sit in front of Carl Schaefer's Ontario Farmhouse and see nothing else. Schaefer was a student of J.E.H. Macdonald, one of the founding members of the Group of Seven, and I'll post about his work next week.

This all brings me back to the Audain Collection that's showing at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I did my usual race-through one pouring-with-rain evening this week. By myself.

Yes, the Emily Carrs and the E.J. Hughes paintings were gorgeous and, as always, I fell in love with the couple of Lawrence Paul Yesweluptun's - the political mockery always pulls me in.

But this time what I went back to see were two things, both artists unknown. One was a portrait mask from the early 19th century which reminded me a little of a Japanese Noh mask. The other was a guardian spirit, maybe three feet tall - all stained and cracked with age, yet beautiful. They spoke to me. I fell in love.

That's the way it always happens.

Kate

Monday review - weekend weather

2011-11-14T12:24:00.001-08:00

This will just tell you how hard it rained in Vancouver on the weekend - I took this photo with my Blackberry, not the best of cameras - and you can still see the rain.

Before it began, those two trees were still full of leaves. One half hour later, thanks to the power of the rain and the wind, they were almost nude.

Amazing, really, isn't it?

But I stood on my balcony for the whole storm - I couldn't resist it.

Kate

Remembrance Day - Friday five

2011-11-11T01:30:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a page from my friend Ann Charles' blog about her favorite war films - I'm taking it a step further, though. I'm including books that weren't made into movies (okay, one book that wasn't made into a movie).

Probably my top pick is this terrific film with Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern and Jon Voight. The first time I saw it, it blew me away - it was frightening because, unlike many war films, it was a deeply personal story. It wasn't about battles or victories, it was about the complicating and challenging aftermath of war for three very different people. It's just the kind of story I like, a story about people, about characters, and not about a huge landscape of battle where I never really get to know anyone.

So you won't be surprised if one of my other picks is For Whom the Bell Tolls - both the book and the movie starring two of my all-time favorite actors - Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Hemingway had spent some time reporting on the Spanish Civil War and this novel that he wrote about it is a classic.

The movie was as good as the book - one of the movies where scenes stick with you forever. Again, this story is personal - there are battles, but they don't involve tanks or aircraft carriers or regiments of soldiers. It involves a few people fighting a war that means everything to them. It's terrific.

Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses. This book was never made into a movie but from the first moment I read it, I felt like I was on that ship, I was completely and totally engrossed in this tiny part of the war. I was very young when I first read this book and I can still remember being scared to death of being on that small ship in the North Sea, the waves rolling over the ship, the fear and the cold and the pain each of those men felt. It's beautifully rendered, touching, frightening and cold. It's well worth reading - I've read it many times over the years.

Those of you who follow my blog, those of you who know me, know that the writer who is always on my top three list is Michael Ondaatje. This screen adaption, by Merchant and Ivory, of The English Patient is absolutely brilliant.

They managed to take a single strand of a very complicated and complex book and turn it into a movie that somehow captures the entire feel of the book and still be a story we all can follow.

The desert, Italy - stories from the past, stories from the present - they all work together and turn into a completely spellbinding movie.

This is the only classic war movie on my list - and I didn't know until today that it was written by a Frenchman (who also, amazing to me, wrote The Planet of the Apes). This movie, by David Lean, a great director of great epics, has it all. Music, scenery, hordes of great actors, a story that it's impossible not to get behind. And when the good guys win out? We cannot help but cheer.

The rest of the movies on my list don't have that classic ending, the endings aren't such obvious wins.

Maybe that's why I like them?

Kate

The art of writing a serial

2011-11-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

As you know, I don't talk a whole lot about writing on this blog - I wanted, still want, it to be more about me and my life than about my work.

But I couldn't resist this time.

My alter ego, Josee Renard (who writes erotica, which is the reason I don't talk much about her here), has been writing a 10-part serial for Cobblestone Press called Part Time Lovers.

It's one of those things I thought would be fun - kind of like writing a linked series of stories (which I've done before) and also, though far less obviously, an homage to Charles Dickens, one of my favorite writers.

I had an idea for this series - a website totally unlike e-Harmony or Match.com or any of those relationship websites. It's called Part Time Lovers (and each of the 10 stories except one are also titled using a Stevie Wonder song) and it's a place where you can find the right person for right now. No questionnaires required.

I wanted this serial to have two things - something that linked them all together (the website and the best friends and occasional lovers who ran it) and different, yet compelling, stories for each week.

I just finished the tenth story this morning and I hope I succeeded. I learned a lot.

it's not all that much easier writing 80,000 words in ten separate stories than it is writing an 80K novel
you've gotta pay attention to everything that's happened in all the earlier stories - I'm not sure I got this exactly right
it took me until the 8th story to figure out how I wanted to wrap this all up by which time I was starting to panic about it

It was fun. It was entertaining. I don't know, really, how Dickens did it with a book like The Old Curiosity Shop, writing one of those long chapters every single week for almost a year. It's like running marathon after marathon - at least that's what it must have felt like.

But, in the end, he finished the book to great applause. And I finished my book - my serial.

Will I do it again?

Not right now, that's for sure!

Kate

Vancouver in the fall

2011-11-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite pictures - ever. I took this in the late afternoon when I was sitting at the bar in the Pan Pacific Hotel. The windows are basically floor to ceiling and when you look west, this is what you see.

The floating gas station in the foreground, then Stanley Park where the leaves are changing color, then, if you look carefully right above the gas station, you can see the span of the Lions Gate Bridge.

Above that? The mountains rising out of Burrard Inlet, with the houses of West Vancouver adorning their feet. Most days in the winter, this is what you can see (if even this much). Once the clouds arrive for their permanent residence - usually October to April - the tops of the mountains are clothed in cloud.

It's impossible to tell if they're covered with rain or with snow until the clouds roll away and, suddenly, what you see is this -

The end of the housing and the beginning of the mountains. Right now, this early in November, there is no snow. But it's cold and it won't be more than a few days before the first sprinkles of white highlight the tops of the peaks.

I can hardly wait.

Kate

Honey crisp, ambrosia, fuji, gala

2011-11-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

What do all these words have in common? They're one of my favorite things in the whole world and I look forward to the fall because they're all fresh...

I think we had two choices of apples when I was a kid - Red Delicious and Macintoshes. I can still remember eating Red Delicious apples as a kid and going ewwwww. I ate Macs but I was never a real apple fan.

And then, years later, there were Granny Smiths. It's hard to find a more beautiful apple - that lovely brilliant green is absolutely gorgeous. But just thinking about biting into one makes my mouth pucker up. Way too sour for me.

Apples weren't high on my list of fruits to eat but now? I'm addicted to apples - and for the last few years, I've been discovering more and more varieties that meet my particular addiction. I like them sweet and I like them crispy.

Food for me is all about texture so if an apple is mealy, I can't eat it.

But there are so many new varieties, so many wonderful possibilities. A few years ago, I was at Granville Island and someone handed me a slice of ambrosia - and that's exactly what it was. I fell in love and I've been eating them ever since. They're so sweet and so firm and so... perfect. Plus how could an apple have a better name?

But this year, I've discovered a new love. Honey crisps. That's them above. They're beautiful and they're wonderful. A little lighter, I think, than ambrosias, maybe a little juicier. And for some reason, they're everywhere.

I haven't forgotten my old love, but I've got a crush on honey crisps. It's like finding a new CD that you love and can't stop playing. It doesn't mean I've given up on ambrosias, just that, until I'm tired of this apple, I'm going to gorge myself on it.

What apples do you love?

Kate

The Group of Seven in London

2011-11-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

Since I started this series of blogs about the Group of Seven, they seem to be everywhere. It's one of the things I've come to expect over the years I've been thinking about art - once I become fascinated with a subject, that subject starts to follow me.

I understand that these connections don't just pop up because I'm thinking about the Group of Seven - though it feels that way. I understand that they've always been there and that, suddenly, I'm noticing them.

This painting, Tom Thomson's The West Wind is an iconic Canadian painting and now it's everywhere I look.

This is a big connection - and I definitely didn't know this before I began writing about them. For the first time - although there was a small show in London many years ago - the Group of Seven is making a huge splash in Europe. I've heard it on the news, seen it in newspapers and magazines, seen it on TV shows.

And it all came about because a single curator (also the director) - Ian Dejardin - at the Dulwich Gallery in London had fallen in love with the Group of Seven's work. He plotted and planned for many years (having first seen the paintings 25 years ago) and there they are, the biggest collection of the Group of Seven ever assembled outside of Canada and maybe the biggest collection in one place at one time. After London, they're off to Amsterdam and Scandinavia.

This is what the Dulwich's website says about the Group of Seven:

"In the early twentieth century in Toronto, Canada, the first stirrings of a new movement of painting were being felt. A group of artists started to engage with the awesome Canadian wilderness, a landscape previously considered too wild and untamed to inspire ‘true’ art. Tom Thomson paved the way for this artistic collective, the Group of Seven, and their works have become revered in Canada. This exhibition will reintroduce their stunning impressions of the Canadian landscape to the British public for the first time since the 1920s."

It's nice to know that the rest of the world is getting to see some great Canadian paintings.

Kate

This is not a review -

2011-10-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

but it is about a book. I just finished reading Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists and there is a passage in this book that is absolutely brilliant.

It's very short and I fell in love with it. The problem is that it was very early in the book and I kept going back to it - nothing else in the book struck me as strongly as this little bit did and I think I might have to re-read the book, beginning the next time at p. 39 so I don't get distracted by this.

One of the characters, an elderly woman who is being interviewed, says:

"... You can't dread what you can't experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. ... I understood what death was at its worst: something that happens to other people. ... But my point, you see, is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself. From one's own perspective, experience simply halts. From one's own perspective, there is no loss."

And this is true - at least it seems to be so for me. We may dread the process of dying, but death itself? Maybe not.

This passage absolutely blew me away. Brilliant.

Kate

What I learned this week...

2011-10-28T01:30:00.000-07:00

The first thing I learned this week is that even though my shoes are comfortable enough for walking to work and working in all day, that does NOT make them comfortable enough to stand around for five hours at a cocktail party. I purposely chose to wear relatively low-heeled shoes but my feet were absolutely killing me at the end of the night.

The second thing I learned this week is that I hate weeks where I'm running from one thing to the next. I had to do a fair bit of last minute organizing for the above cocktail party and a table at the conference where it was held. What it meant was that I was copying and folding and collecting and pricing and doing lists and getting up early to drive to the conference three times in three days. And then running to work and home or to the conference hotel again. This does not work for me. I need blocks of time much longer than 30 minutes or an hour in order to be productive. If I do this again, I will plan much farther ahead.

The final thing I learned this week is that I've fallen in love with California zinfandels. They've replaced Argentinian malbecs as my go to wine. I had a nice zin at the conference hotel while I was waiting for my afternoon tea date and then this one - even better - at my favorite restaurant/bar on Tuesday night. I'm in love.

Kate

A.J. Casson - Housetops in the Ward

2011-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

A.J. Casson is one of the "unofficial" members of the Group of Seven but is definitely my favorite. I love his work, all of it.

He began painting at a very young age and had his very first exhibition at 19. He lived a long life, painting throughout, and died at 93.

And just as an aside - I learned something I hadn't known about the Group of Seven. Casson and six other members of the group are buried on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection north of Toronto - now that's interesting.

This painting is one of my favorites - though I admit that there are many many of of them. With Casson, my problem wasn't finding a building, it was choosing a painting with buildings in it. I choose this one because I love the clear warm colors that brighten up what might have been a gloomy winter scene. I love the way the houses are fitted in all higgledy-piggledy. I love the fact that it's square - he must have had to cut and frame this canvas himself to get this odd shape.

I actually own two of his silkscreens from the 1920s and I wouldn't sell them for any price. It's the connection to one of my favorite artists. I took pictures of them so you can see the range of his work - he was working for a commercial art / printing firm during the time these were done.

Kate

Conan the Octogenarian?

2011-10-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

At Surrey International Writers Conference this weekend, I first met Conan dressed in street clothes. He was interested in writing and he seemed, at the time, like a perfectly normal human being who wanted to find out about writing.

Boy, was I wrong!

We hosted a cocktail party on Saturday night and, unbeknownst to us, it was fantasy night at the conference. I saw a fair number of angels - if I hadn't already known that angels were the hot new thing, this conference would have convinced me of it.

I saw a whole lot of elves, mostly girls, and I suspect that's because the costumes are so beautiful. It's hard to go wrong wearing lovely flowing silk and lace and long curly hair.

I saw a man wearing an antique Mounted Police uniform - and the gossip was that he and his wife, wearing angel wings, had just been married the weekend before.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when Dan - I'm pretty sure his name was Dan, though the surprise of the costume kind of put his real name out of my head - showed up wearing a Tina Turner wig, Conan's clothes and staff, and Huff and Puff bunny slippers.

Great conference. Great people. Great costume. Thanks, Conan the Octogenarian (and no, he's nowhere near 80) for the entertainment. And don't forget to give those bunny slippers back to your son.

Kate

Friday five - water features

2011-10-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

As you know, the city of Vancouver is surrounded by water - creeks, oceans, lagoons, inlets. Everywhere you turn you see water. But I've fallen in love with the small things - the fountains and ponds and miscellaneous tiny bits of water that also enhance the city. This is one of my favorites - one of the reflecting pools around the Law Courts. I took this picture Thursday morning because I couldn't resist the reflections.

This is the fountain at the foot of Granville Street - it is the water vision of a dandelion being blown in the wind. It doesn't matter whether it's summer or winter or whether it's raining or windy or just simply gloomy - this fountain always brightens my day.

And who could resist the seagull bathing fountain? I've never been by this fountain (which is also the eternal flame fountain) where there wasn't at least a few seagulls enjoying the free bath.

I pass this fountain almost every day - it's part of the Sheraton Wall Centre complex and the whole complex is always immaculate. I love the lush green geometry of these hedges and the contrast of the vivacious sparkling water. I often stop - and so does almost everyone else.

And here's one of my favorite water features - you have to catch this one at precisely the right time. The downpour must just have stopped and the sun must have come out in order to see the city's reflection in a leftover puddle. I stand over them and get the slightest hint of vertigo - as if I'm somehow seeing a different world than the one I'm standing in.

Kate

Street art, aka pant art

2011-10-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm walking down Davie Street past a store that carries vintage clothes, most of which I wouldn't be seen dead in - but by which I'm always fascinated. I can't help myself.

I'm especially fascinated by those clothes I might have worn in my youth. You know, the clothes we all wished we'd worn when we were teenagers or in our early twenties - the clothes we couldn't afford or were embarrassed by, but now think, wow! I would have been totally cool and amazing if I'd just worn that.

These pants are definitely not those clothes.

But for some reason I couldn't resist them.

I've spend quite a few days, on and off, wondering who might have worn the plaid pants. And the only people I can think of who might have worn something like this are the men on the Norwegian curling team.

As for these -

What could you possibly call them? Who might have worn them? What decade are they from?

The world and the people in it are amazing. Weird and amazing and some of them have terrible taste.

Kate

Monday review - Psycho

2011-10-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

I suspect I'm not the only person who thinks she's seen Psycho all the way through but hasn't. It's one of those iconic movies that we all know scenes and lines and characters and the story from. Like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz and Love Story.

Well, I know I've seen all those other movies, and I was sure I'd seen Psycho. I was wrong.

The Vancouver Public Library has movie nights showing classic movies and so I wandered down to the library last week to see Psycho, assuming I'd seen it but not for many years and enjoying the idea of seeing it in the library rather than at home by myself or in a movie theater by myself. Plus, it was free.

Spoiler alert - if you haven't seen the movie, I'm going to spoil some of it for you - stop right here.

I knew immediately - okay, almost immediately - that I hadn't seen it before when I was shocked, not scared, but shocked at the early death of Marian Crane. Hard to be scared by a scene you've seen thousands of times in various ways. I don't know why - oh, yes, I do know why, it's because I hadn't seen it before - but I thought that scene was the culmination of the movie. Not so.

It was only the beginning of it.

I'd forgotten - and this I did remember when I saw him - how gorgeous Anthony Perkins was in the movie. I'd forgotten (had never known?) that even though it was made in 1960, it was still in black and white. I'd forgotten (hadn't known, I'm pretty sure) the back story about Marian and why she was at the motel.

The trouble with seeing an iconic movie so long after the fact - especially if, like me, you're an avid reader and movie goer - is that you know too much. I'd seen the climactic scenes many times, in homages, in pieces of the movie as I flipped through the channel. I recognized the Hitchcockian camera work. I knew many of the lines -

And the other problem? So did everyone else in the audience and so, in a way, it wasn't frightening at all. It was sort of like watching Rocky Horror Picture Show where everything is played for laughs.

But, despite all of that, I was glad I'd gone. I enjoyed watching it all the way through and, thanks to the librarian who hosted the showing, I learned a few things I hadn't known. Robert Bloch, who wrote the short story the movie was based on, ended up writing for Hitchcock's TV series. And his book containing the story, which came out in 1959, had an odd history. Hitchcock knew right away that he wanted to make the film so he had his people buy up as many copies of it as they could so that no one would know the ending.

So next month, I'm going back to the library to see All Quiet on the Western Front, another movie I think I've seen and another movie based on a book.

I can hardly wait. I'll keep you posted.

Kate

Lost in the Drywall

2011-10-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Happy October! I thought you might enjoy something a little scary this month - Kate

Somehow,being lost in the drywall seems so much worse than being lost in the barrens(ah, a literary reference) or the Antarctic (a scientific reference) or inspace (a TV and movie reference). Spencer wishes he could transform himselfinto one of those other stories but he’s well and truly stuck here in thedrywall.

He isn’t surehow it happened. What he does know is that, if he gets out, he will never say yes to helping with renovations again.Even if the person asking for the favor is the woman he’s been trying to getnext to for almost five years.

He said yes because of her big brown eyes, hersilky hair, her jaw-dropping breasts and perfect hips. He said yes because he’s been in love (or lust,at least) with Leanne for what feels like forever.

He didn’tknow much about drywalling when she asked, but he’s a quick learner and thedrywall guy at the Home Depot down the street was a genius at telling him whathe needed to know. He and Leanne had no trouble lifting the big slabs intoplace and he was damn good – if he said so himself – at the taping and filling.But then something went wrong.

And here heis in some limbo between her apartment and his, surrounded by slabs ofperfectly taped and filled drywall, the dust on the floor silencing hisfootsteps and making his eyes water each time he moves. He has tried yellingbut the dust and the drywall throws his voice back at him. He tried pounding onthe walls with the same result. Finally, he sits in the dust and ponders hissituation.

The lastthing he remembers was filling the final nail hole while listening to the chantLeanne crooned behind him and smelling the oddly scented candle she had lit tocelebrate the completion of the job. It was an odd-sounding piece of music,certainly nothing he’d ever heard before, and an unusual scent. Together theymade him a little dizzy. Maybe he fainted.

Spencer liftshis head and looks around one more time. He swears he’s been in this space forweeks but he’s neither hungry nor thirsty. And he swears he’s walked miles andnever once re-crossed his footsteps. When he looks behind him, the indentationsin the dust are clear but when he tries to step back into them, they disappear.

Something iskeeping him here. Be realistic, he tells himself. Someone named Leanne iskeeping him here. And he doesn’t know why. Except maybe she was a little upset when he accidentallybrushed against her breasts for the fifteenth time. The look in her eyes scaredhim to death. He remembers that.

And heremembers occasionally thinking that he should maybe give up this job but eachtime he thought that, Leanne would say something or make a slight gesture withher hand, and he would forget all about it. He would remember how much he lovedworking with Leanne and how the sight of the drywall he helped her with, would ensure his success with her.

But it wasn’ttoo long after the chant and the candle that the dizziness started. He pickshimself up off the floor and starts walking again. This time, he follows noplan, thinking that a completely random walk might lead him somewhere.Anywhere.

And it does.It leads him to a big black metal door. It’s slightly ajar and he pushes at ituntil it swings all the way open. There is a fire flickering in the room heenters and it’s warm. There is no dust. And there is no drywall.

Spencercarefully sits himself down in the leather chair on the hearth and takes a sipfrom the glass of water on the table beside it. He is a bit worried aboutpoison but suddenly, the thirst he has been denying seizes him by the throatand poison becomes the least of his worries. He crams the meat on the plateinto his mouth and swallows it without chewing. Spencer groans in relief.

A tall woman,taller than he and Spencer is considered a tall man, materializes at his elbow.

“Spencer.Have you figured out where you are? And why you are here?”

He shrugs andcontinues drinking and eating.

“You arehere,” she says in a stern voice, “because of your bad attitude.”

“I figured itwas something like that,” he says around a gob of meat. “I’m sorry, but I’vebeen attracted to Leanne for years. I couldn’t help myself.”

The womansmiles at him, her teeth shiny and bone white. Spencer feels a frisson ofhorror but thinks about the days in the drywall and shakes it off.

“Go home,Spencer.”

And just likethat, he is in his dining room, drywall dust falling from his clothes and hairand skin onto his mahogany table and matching floors. He can hear each dropletas it hits. Each time he inhales, dust invades his nostrils and histhroat. He shakes himself like aLabrador puppy coming out of the water and the dust flies around him, coatingeverything in the room.

Spencerlistens carefully but there is no one else in the apartment. He leans againstthe wall and hears nothing from Leanne’s apartment. He drops his clothes to thefloor – no point making another room messy – and hurries into the shower.

The Chinesefood – five different dishes – is delivered just in time to stop him fromfainting again. He sits in his recliner and repeats his new mantra. Just say no. Just say no. Just say no.But the thought of Leanne in the apartment across the hall has him rushingthrough his shower. He wonders what he might help her with as he steps outsidehis door and into the dust.

Food Friday - The meal of a lifetime

2011-10-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

I've been eating this exact same meal for a very, very long time - a time that can be measured in decades, not years.

My first job - I was 14 or 15 (the authorities let us work much younger then) when I went to work at the A&W drive-in on King George Highway in Surrey.

I hated the smell of the kitchen, and the ugly white uniform and shoes and the hairnet, but I loved the idea of working. It gave me money at a time when there wasn't much spare money in our household so I could buy books, pens, a few pieces of clothing, earrings, things I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.

And it also afforded me the opportunity to practice my Mama Burger preferences. It took me a while before I made the perfect Mama Burger for me - no onions, extra pickles, ketchup and mustard. Simple but yummy. And I still eat my Mama Burgers - once or twice a year - exactly the same way.

I could make these same burgers at home, but there's something about the hamburger A&W uses that I can't replicate - so I crave one occasionally and when I do, I treat myself to the whole nine yards. Burger, fries and an icy cold drink.

Takes me back to the hot, sweaty, smelly kitchen and those traumatic and exciting months I worked at the A&W.

Kate

Arthur Lismer, The Mill, Quebec

2011-10-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Arthur Lismer was one of the original Group of Seven - which some sources say was as big as 10 people.

I love this painting - it's almost a fairy tale scene, with the colors and the crooked buildings.

I expect to see a wicked witch or a princess or the man who spun straw into gold in this painting. Or any one of a number of heroes or heroines of books written when these types of mills were still around. They were a convenient place for mysteries, lots of murders have taken place in these types of mills. A convenient place for suicide. A convenient place for smuggling.

The proportions are terrific - what you see is the way the mill runs down alongside the stream, and I expect that there is more stream up above to run the mill.

The further I go into the Group of Seven, the more glad I am I began this series of blogs.

Kate

Monday Review - DUMA KEY

2011-10-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

First, let me start by saying, again, that I love Stephen King's writing. I think he's a genius and I read his books, even if I'm not always enthralled (not being a huge fan of horror) by the subject matter. But he's such a good writer that I generally, okay, almost always, buy in on the very first page.

Mr. King is a storyteller - not all writers are.

But most of the writers I love are. I want to jump in at the deep end and wallow in the story. I want to get to know the characters and live their lives with them. I want to feel what they feel, see what they see, do what they do.

That's exactly what Stephen King does in DUMA KEY. He grabs me by the throat and drags me, sometimes kicking and screaming, along for the ride. And this ride is a thrill.

In many ways DUMA KEY is a classic horror story - isolated location, a few characters battling the big, bad unknown. But it's also a story about art - how it works, how inspiration is almost always unknowable and thus, more than a little frightening.

You should read this book, but there are parts of it that you're going to want to read in the daylight, with other people around you. It scared me and I'm not easily scared.

Once again, Stephen King has convinced me to buy his next book. And the next one. And the one after that.

Kate

What I learned this week...

2011-10-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

The first thing I learned this week was that I’m notinvincible. I pride myself on never catching cold – yet there I was snifflingand coughing just like I used to do at the end of each term at university. Ah,she says to herself, what does thathave in common with this? Oh, yeah,it’s that I’ve been busy, busy, busy and stressed, and now, though notcompletely gone, the stress is normal rather than extra-normal. When I wasworking full-time and going to university full-time, I’d work my butt off untilthe end of term, 14-18 hour days, and then I’d get a cold. It was as if myimmune system understood that I was available for be sick and so it allowed me,perhaps even encouraged me, to be so. And here I am again. Got it.

I learned that if the bolts that hold your toilet seat ontothe toilet have been there for a long time (say longer than the 8 years I knowthey haven’t been changed in this apartment), you practically have to blastthem off to replace the seat with a new one.

I learned that getting in touch with someone who works threetime zones away from you isn’t always easy, especially if, like me, one of thepeople works odd hours. If I worked 9-5, we’d probably have connected by now.We’ve now traded phone calls for a whole week and hope to finally speak to each other in person tomorrow.

And finally, I’ve learned that even though you’ve been wearingthe same glasses you’ve had for over 30 years at home for all that time, therecomes a time when they no longer fit. I’ve sat on them, dropped them, lostthem, twisted the frames dozens and dozens of times so they’ll stay on my head.Note to self: replace the glasses you wear at home AT LEAST once every ten years!

What did you learn this week?

Kate

Monday Review - Major Pettrigrew's Last Stand

2011-10-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

This is one of those books I would have bought just because of the cover and the title. I probably wouldn't even have read the back cover copy -

But it's also one of those books I kept forgetting to buy. I'm not very good at keeping lists and, even for the writers I love, I tend to see their books in the bookstores and then buy them when I see them.

A friend gave it to me to read and I was delighted she did. It didn't quite, in my opinion, live up to the terrific cover and the terrific title, but it was close. I enjoyed it, read it basically in one short sitting and did not at all feel like I'd wasted my time.

But...

I guess for me the thing that didn't work was the fact that I felt I'd met all these characters - and the locations - before. The elderly (and he felt elderly even though he was only 68) curmudgeonly English major; his greedy yuppie son; the sweet middle-aged woman in the perfect English village; the evil bankers and developers; the lord of the manor losing his property; the lovely yet sad Mrs. Ali; the terrible gossiping and judgmental women at the golf club.

I'm not saying it wasn't worth spending the time with these characters, it was. But for me it was kind of like friends you enjoy for an evening but wouldn't want in your house for a weekend - I liked these people, I found them interesting enough to spend a few hours with them, but they're not going to be invited to spend the weekend.

What really did work for me was the lovely, sweet and pretty darn sexy flowering of the relationship between the Major and the widowed Mrs. Ali. That was unusual, that was interesting.

Kate

Friday five - my favorite women's fiction books

2011-09-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

This is a tough five (and as you'll see I couldn't cut it down to five but ended up with six). There are many women's fiction books that I love, that I read and re-read, but these are the ones that I could not live without. They range from publication in 1818 to 2009 and each of them I've read dozens of times, even the newest of them. I'll give you these books in no particular order, I'm not sure I could pick one that I loved more than the others, but they're all different, all a deeply rooted part of my reading life.

Let's begin with Jane Austen's Persuasion, a book I've been reading and re-reading for over 40 years. I like Jane Austen, and have read all of her books more than once, but this is the book that speaks to me. What makes me love Captain Wentworth more than Mr. Darcy? It's that he and Anne Elliot are grownups. They've lived - and for me, that's a crucial part of women's fiction. They have to forgive themselves, and each other, before they can begin their life together. They have to learn from their mistakes and take risks. Each time I think of Anne standing in the bow of Wentworth's ship as they sail the seas, I can't help but cheer at the courage it must have taken to choose that life rather than the one she knew.

I first read Gene Stratton-Porter's The Keeper of the Bees in my grandmother's basement. I don't think I could have been more than 9 or 10. This was my grandmother's copy (published in 1853), now falling apart, stained from being in storage, the pages falling away from the spine. And despite the damage to it, this is the copy I read even now. Again, Jamie and Molly have learned from the mistakes they've made. It's not easy for them to trust each other - lies might keep them apart. But since the first time I read this book, I have wanted to walk down the sandy street to the little house on Halfmoon Bay. I've wanted to sit on the rock and soak in the heat of it, healing my body and my heart as Jamie does. I've wanted to meet Little Scout (who is the model, I'm sure, for Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird). This is the book of my heart, of my childhood, the book I always aspire to write.

Alice Hoffman and Barbara Kingsolver are two of my favorite writers and it wasn't easy to pick only one book from each of them, but these were my choices. Interestingly, having written this blog, I realize how much these two writers - and books - have in common.

Turtle Moon was the first book I ever read by Alice Hoffman and my copy of it is so tattered, I think I might have to replace it. I'll never give up the original, but I will stop actually reading it. The magic of this book, in the book, entranced me, captured me in a way few books do. It was partly the way the setting forms the characters so clearly, the way the characters struggle to turn their lives around, the suspense and sorrow and pain. The characters in this book aren't perfect, they're flawed and frightened and running from their pasts, but they're wonderful. I love them so much.

The Bean Trees was the first book I ever read by Barbara Kingsolver and I hadn't realized that when I picked these two particular books to sit side by side on this list. Again, there's so much magic, so much LIFE in this book. I loved it when I first read it and I still love it now.

I love this book by Pamela Morsi - Red's Hot Honky Tonk Bar. I bought it because I couldn't resist the title. The book lives up to the title, which doesn't always happen. It's funny, it's smart, it's poignant - for me, it was darn near irresistible. Once again, the characters are older, damaged by their pasts, but willing, in the end, to go for it, to see what might happen if they give life and love another chance. This is the newest of the books - published in 2009 - but it's on my permanent read-when-I'm-having-a-tought-week or when I want a book that I know will cheer me up.

Bronwen Wallace is one of my favorite poets. I met her when I was living and going to university in Toronto after I'd ever so tentatively decided I, too, might want to be a writer. I had already fallen in love with her poetry and she was very gracious to me. This book, her only book of fiction, was published after she died in mid-life, far too early. It's a book of short stories, each of which sings in the same way her poetry does. It sings of ordinary lives lived, of the magic of the everyday, of the beauty of friendship and hot summer days. When I write a short story, I almost always think of Bronwen and hope that I capture a tiny bit of what she did in her stories.

Kate

Stephen King is a genius - and my hero

2011-09-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've just finished Duma Key this morning - and I'll review it later - but I found these lines that I want to share with you. Whether you're a writer or a painter or a cook or a homemaker, it's all about art:

Be prepared to see it all. If you want to create -- God help you if you do, God help you if yuo can -- don't you dare commit the immorality of stopping on the surface. Go deep and take your fair salvage. Do it no matter how much it hurts.

Wow. This is what it means to be an artist of any kind. Sometimes it hurts to get the truth on the canvas, on the page, on the plate -

This is what Stephen King does every time he writes a book or a story.

Mr. King, you're the man.

Kate

Monday Review - Word on the Street

2011-09-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Word on the Street is an event that is held the last Sunday of September all across Canada. I love going for a lot of reasons, but it's the idea of it that fascinates me. There I am, at the library down the street from my house, enjoying readings, talking to writers and publishers and editors and books designers. I can chat with book makers, with poets, with people who run dozens and dozens of writing organizations, with magazine publishers and literary journal publishers. And I do every single one of these things. I make the rounds of the covered part of the rotunda two or three times to make sure I haven't missed anything. I carefully go through the tents to make sure I've seen everything - and everyone - that's there.

I can enjoy readings from poets and novelists and journalists and childrens' book authors. I can see how a book is made, how a graphic novel becomes one. I can get lucky words and an origami crane from the writers and publishers of Happy Science (as well as two free copies of their magazine). I can have my tarot cards read by a woman who has designed a new deck that includes recipes and her art. I can chat with people who are immersed in fringe worlds of science and health. There are mini-plays and dragon dances. There are giveaways and books to buy.

It's fun, it's entertaining, it's insightful. But most of all it's a community of readers and writers of all ages and all stripes. I love it.

And all of this takes place, rain and shine, in the beautiful confines of the Moshe Safdie designed Central Library. It didn't matter that wind and rain warnings were predicted, the event went on. And it rained buckets and the wind blew is huge gusts - and people still came and came and came.

That's Vancouver for you. A little rain and wind never stops us. And that's readers for you. Nothing stops a reader.

Kate

Frederick Varley, Night Ferry Vancouver

2011-09-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

An early member of the Group of Seven, Frederick Farley was born and lived in England for the early part of his life, then moved to Ontario, to Vancouver, to Montreal.

Because I'm trying to look at this group of artists from a slightly different perspective, I'm trying to choose paintings that aren't traditionally what we expect from the Group of Seven - no wild and beautiful landscapes - but buildings - or at least something made by the hands of man.

It was almost as difficult with Varley as it was with Thomson to find a painting that fit my criteria. It wasn't the landscapes that were the problem in Varley's case, he was a portrait painter as much as anything else and when you added the portraits to the landscapes, it was hard to find something else.

I picked this picture for two reasons - one because it is a Vancouver scene (both Macdonald and Varley lived in Vancouver for a time) and the other because I appreciate the way he transformed the ocean and the concrete into a scene that contains all the colors of autumn in a forest in Ontario, almost feels as if you could close your eyes and be somewhere else. And yet, for me, even though this painting was done in 1937, I still recognize my city.

That intrigues me - that despite the changes I see happening on a daily basis, something still remains about Vancouver that has been the same for 70 years. Great art like this captures an essence rather than a reality.

Kate

Review - Zero History

2011-09-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of William Gibson, have been since I picked up Neuromancer, read three pages, and realized that I'd only understood about half of what I'd read.

But I persisted and I fell in love. Sometimes the harder we have to work, the brighter the romance, and that's always been true with me and Bill - I allow myself to call him that because that's what his fabulous website calls him. You can check it out at http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp.

I often think of Bill as the dark side of Bill Gates - showing us the possibilities of what might happen in the new world we're arriving in right this minute.

I finished Zero History yesterday afternoon and I have returned it, as I do with only a very few books (and his are always included) to my to be read pile, to read again sometime in the next few weeks. He's in that pile along with Michael Ondaatje and Suzanne Brockmann and Pat Conroy and Nora Roberts' romantic suspence. I read them once - fast - because I'm dying to find out what happens (and I can't read the last few pages first) and then I read them again, lovingly and delightedly and slowly so I can enjoy every minute of the process.

Zero History is terrific. I've told you the above because you'll know you're unlikely to get a bad review out of me of books by any of my favorite writers. But this book, for me, is terrific for a whole bunch of reasons.

the book itself is beautifully designed, each page is a delight with the footers and the opening page of each chapter
I'm fascinated by the chapter titles - I know when I reread the book, the titles will give me insight that I didn't have the first time, especially since I kept going back because I was in such a hurry to find out what happened, I kept forgetting to read them
several characters appear in this book who were in previous books - and I was so happy to find out what had happened to them
I learned, as always, many things about how the world is changing and I know, as I have with every one of Bill's books, that I will soon see in advertisements and news stories and stores exactly what he's writing about

If you haven't read Gibson and you're ready for a book that's going to blow your mind, READ THIS BOOK. Or Neuromancer or Pattern Recognition or... Or, if you want to start with a movie, you could try Johnny Mnemonic, based on a short story of Bill's.

Try it. Hang in there. It's worth it.

Kate

September Twitter story - What I Really, Really Want

2011-09-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

Well, see, now there’s the problem because I have no friggin’ idea what I really, really want. I don’t even have an idea of what I should want or could want. Life’s a bitch, then you die. That’s my motto. Or same shit, different day.

Because nothing ever changes for me. I work at my miserable minimum wage job, get harassed by customers and bosses alike, eat food that makes me feel sick. I come home to this crummy smelly one room and watch snowy TV while I drink the two brews I can afford.

I’ve been doing this for almost thirty years and I’m sick to death of it. I need someone to see through the mess and figure out what I do want, what I really, really want. And then I need to figure out how to get it.

There’s a psychic down the street and for three nights I forego my brews and save enough money for a half hour session with her. I figure I’ll start with her. She’s beautiful and she smells like a million bucks – whatever she tells me, I’m doing. She tells me to stop sitting on my ass, to go back to school – for what, I ask her. She says anything is better than what you’ve got, right? She tells me to get my hair cut and keep my clothes clean. She tells me to start living as if I believe in myself and my ability to have what I really, really want.

If I do, she says, it will happen. “Come back in three months,” she says, “that session is free.”

I do what she says. I go to the Carnegie Center and ask them what courses I can take. “I don’t have much money,” I say, and they say not to worry. I decide on a carpentry course. I’ve always wanted to work with my hands. They help me fill out the apprenticeship forms – and even though I’m thirty years older than most apprentices, no one laughs at me. They point me in the direction of a place to get good clothes, a place to get my hair cut. And I do.

And every morning now I get up and I go to school and then I go to work. I’m working harder than I have in my life and I’m loving it. I can hardly wait until my three months are up.

Finally, I walk into her storefront and she smiles that million dollar smile at me. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“You already have,” I say and I tell her my story. I see a look in her eyes I haven’t seen in a woman’s eyes for many, many years and she says yes when I ask her out for a cup of coffee.

Now I know what I really, really want.

Kate

What I learned this week...

2011-09-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

I've stolen this idea from one of the many blogs I read this week and I'm sorry I can't remember where or who because I'd like to give them credit for the idea. You will, occasionally, find me doing a blog like this, mostly on a Friday.

Now, remember, this is my first shot at it, so you'll have to give me a break if I don't get it exactly right.

First, I learned that a harbor seal can swim way way way faster than any human being can walk so it's no use hurrying along the Seawall to get a picture of it when it surfaces the next time. Each time, that harbor seal will be further and further (or is that farther and farther, memo to self to ask Raymond) away until you're exhausted and that brown head with the big brown eyes and inset ears and great big whiskers is only a tiny bump in the big big ocean. So, no pictures of harbor seals for you.

Second, I learned that if I pay attention I can take pretty darn good photographs with my Blackberry. And, if I don't pay attention, the photographs are just as bad as the bad ones I take with my digital camera. Got it. Pay attention. See above.

Third, going back to the gym after six months is hell. Big. Big. Big. Hell. I have to force myself to go and will have to force myself to go for about two weeks before I, occasionally, have a day that I'm looking forward to going. Another two or four weeks before I realize, oh, look at that, I'm back into gym mode. All I need to do is make it through those four or six weeks and then don't give up again. Don't allow complicated schedules to keep me from the gym, because going back to the gym after six months or three months or even one month is hell. And it's not worth doing it again.

Finally, I've learned that the world hasn't progressed all that much since my mom and dad got divorced 43 years ago. I tried to convince our electrical authority to put my name on our electrical bill along with my partner's name. I've had an account for the past 30 years but when we moved in together, we moved into his place and so the bill was in his name. But they tell me that only one person's name can be on the bill - which means (and this is true mostly for women) that if something happens between us or to him, I'm scuppered. I will have to pay a deposit (a big one) to get electrical service in any new place. WTF? Are we still stuck in the 1950s? I feel like I should start a class action lawsuit against them and bring them into the 21st century. Hmmm, maybe....

Kate

Tom Thomson, The Tent

2011-09-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

After last week, I thought I'd do a little series on the Group of Seven (which will be longer than seven weeks because the Group of Seven kept expanding past the original seven members - Fitzgerald wasn't an original member). And because I began with a painting of a house rather than a landscape - which the Group of Seven is famous for - I thought I'd try and find something unusual - a house or a building or at least a structure of some kind from each of them. It wasn't easy.

Tom Thomson, though not officially a member because he died before they formed, was in many eyes the man who inspired the formation of the Group of Seven.

And I'll tell you that for some of these painters, finding a painting that wasn't a landscape was tough. This is as close as I could get for Tom Thomson - famous not just for his art, but for his disappearance and death. He disappeared in the Northern Ontario wilderness while on a canoe trip and his body was found 8 days later. Suicide? Murder? Accident? No one really knows.

But this painting of a tent - probably a tent that Thomson spent a lot of time in while painting in the wilderness - is fabulous. I'm so happy I thought to do this, because, even though I've been to many galleries that contain many Thomson pieces, I'd never seen this one before.

The deep blue of the lake, the autumn colors of the trees and grass, and then the white of the tent - they make me feel as if I'm in Northern Ontario. I guarantee you that the day this painting was created was cold. And yet there he was, standing behind his easel, painting this amazing rendering of the place he loved.

Kate

Monday Review - Britannia Mining Museum

2011-09-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our friend Javier and his 8 year old son, Adrian, we spent the day yesterday driving an hour north of Vancouver to the Britannia Mining Museum.

And let me tell you - it was WAY worth it. This is a terrific museum, beautifully designed, well thought out, and fascinating. Britannia Beach was a copper mine from 1904 to 1974, when it closed because it wasn't worth the cost of getting the copper out of the rock. Above is one of the giant pieces of machinery that litter the grounds of the museum - very very very big pieces of equipment!

Every half hour you can hop on the tiny bright yellow train - I suspect everything's this color so you can see it in the dark - and take a trip into the heart of the mountain where the copper was mined.

And, although you don't go too deep into the mine, you definitely get the sense of what it's like to work there - 8 hour shifts in the dark and damp and cold, thousands of feet into the rock of the mountain. Scary stuff, especially when the very knowledgeable guide turns off all the lights and you can't see the hand in front of your face. And when he demonstrates the drills, even with your ears covered, the sound of it is apocalyptic. I can't imagine hearing that for 8 hours a day - and early on, they didn't have very good ear coverings, and went deaf very quickly.

Miners also, in the early years, died of inhaling the silica that was released into the air with the drilling. It definitely wasn't the kind of job that left you healthy, wealthy and wise at the end of it.

And it wasn't all that much better if you worked in the outside of the mine - see those steps on the right? They go up twenty stories at a 45 degree angle and they didn't have railings when they were in use. Basically, you climbed up them and then back down without handholds of any kind. Good for your cardio, I guess. The railings on the left were used for a skid that carried equipment up and down - you were fired immediately if you tried riding it because it didn't have brakes and occasionally came off the rails at the end - they found it once four buildings over.

If you want to take a beautiful drive out of the city - and stop at Horseshoe Bay for a beer and fish and chips on the way back - this is an amazing place. I loved it, took dozens of photographs, and even though it was a bit scary being in the mine, I learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of it.

Kate

Friday five - five favorite book covers

2011-09-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I often do buy a book by its cover. I've blogged about Plain Kate by Erin Bow and the story of how I bought the book because I loved the cover (and the title, of course!). I'm not counting this as one of my favorites because I've already blogged about it but here it is for those of you who didn't read about it earlier...

Now I have to admit that some of the covers I love are personal - I love them because I love the book rather than the cover itself. And then there are covers I love just because.

I love this cover because it's the first book I had published - plus I think it's pretty beautiful whether or not I wrote it.

This cover I picked because, you guessed it, male torso. These are great covers and they're everywhere. I picked this one because Suzanne Brockmann is one of my favorite writers of romantic suspense and for me, all these naked male torsos are kind of the same. That's not to say I don't appreciate each and every one of them, because I do.

And then there's this cover from Pablo Neruda (okay, probably not from him because I suspect he was dead by the time this edition was published) that I love because the painting is perfect for the contents. Neruda is one of my favorite poets and this cover does justice to his work.

And there's Leonard. I could have picked a different cover but this one is not just a great photograph of Leonard, it's also a piece of art. This is a cover I would pick up even if I weren't a Leonard Cohen fan.

And last, but not least, there is Michael Ondaatje's cover for In the Skin of the Lion. This is the first edition cover of this book, and I chose it for this list because I heard Michael read from this book twice - once before it was published and once just as it was published. I bought the book at that second reading and it's one of my favorite books ever - even more than The English Patient (which is another one of my favorite books).

So what about you? How do you buy books? What are your favorite covers?

Kate

L.L. Fitzgerald, Doc Snyder's House

2011-09-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

This painting by Lionel Lemoine Fitzgerald is one of my favorite paintings. It's called Doc Snyder's House.

Fitzgerald was a member of the Group of Seven, mostly celebrated for their vibrant landscapes, yet this painting is as delicate as a piece of calligraphy.

What do I love about it?

First, being a writer, I love the title and the way it draws me into the painting. I want to know who Doc Snyder was, I was to write his story. Or maybe I want to write the story of the little boy who sat in his bedroom, all bundled up with a cold on this wintry Winnipeg day.

Or maybe it's the light. Look at those shadows and the way the light catches the snow and the beautifully graceful trees.

Or maybe it's the house itself.

I've been to Winnipeg in the winter and there are still houses that look exactly like this - even though this painting was created in 1931. It was a different world in that year, somewhere between one war and another, in the middle of the Great Depression - and somehow Fitzgerald has managed to capture all of that in this painting.

It looks so simple, doesn't it?

And yet it's not.

Kate

Friday Five - Five pretty plates...

2011-09-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

I often talk about service - which is crucial for me. But eating out isn't just about service. And food isn't just about taste or texture, it's also about plating. If you watch Iron Chef America, or just about any other cooking show, you'll see that points are always awarded for how the food is presented -

I will admit that I watch Iron Chef America for more than the food. I think Mark Dacascos is as good-looking as any of the food and my erotica alter ego, Josee Renard, has used him as the model for Jules in the Part Time Lovers serial. If you're interested, check it out at Josee's blog - http://www.joseerenard.wordpress.com/.

Here are photos of the five most beautiful meals I've had recently. I'm not talking about taste or service or anything, just how beautifully they were plated, though I'll admit that they were all pretty darn good.

Kate

Princess Kathleen

2011-08-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

I saw this name at the Vancouver Maritime Museum a few months ago and it's been on the desk ever since - I really couldn't resist it.

Even though I've never been called Kathleen, even though I'm not really a princess, this piece of a ship takes me back to my childhood when I wanted, more than anything, to be a princess.

Oh, I'm pretty sure that even back then I didn't want to be a real princess, not the kind that has to work for charities, always be perfectly dressed, and coiffed, and mannered.

That last part would have been especially tough for me.

No, I wanted to be a very particular kind of princess - the kind that got to do whatever she wanted, that got presents every day, that ate only what and when she wanted, the got to ride the best horse, lived in the most beautiful room in the turret of the castle...

Well, you get the picture. I wanted to be the princess that almost every little girl dreamed of being.

So I want to thank the Maritime Museum and the shipping company that named their ship the Princess Kathleen and the people - whoever they are - who saved this piece of the old ship and donated it to the museum.

For it's because of those people that I got a chance to go back to those days of my childhood and got to remember what it felt like to be that princess. The princess that I made up.

Kate

Book review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

2011-08-29T01:30:00.000-07:00

I love books. I love hedgehogs. I love Paris. I love elegance. So, think I, when I see this book - and no, I hadn't read a single review about it, in fact, I'd never heard of it before I saw it in an airport bookstore - what could be better?

It's set in Paris. Check #1. It's a book. Check #2. It's got a hedgehog in the title. Check #3. It's got elegance in the title. Check #4.

So of course I bought it. But I'll tell you right up front that if I hadn't asked my book club to read it, I probably would have put it away about 2 chapters in. Now, I hope that I would have gone back to it eventually - but I can't guarantee it.

So right here is a huge thanks to my book club. I stuck with the book - nothing worse than showing up at book club and NOT having read a book you recommended - and another of couple of chapters in and I was hooked. Completely, utterly, absolutely hooked in a way I haven't been with a book for a very long time.

The writing is lovely (elegant, actually). The characters are fascinating and the story is engaging. This is a book that I didn't want to end - by the time I got to the last few chapters, I wanted it to go on forever.

That's the sign of a great book. Now I'm going to go back and buy her first book and I'll let you know what I think.

Buy this book or get it from the library. Stick with it - you're gonna love it.

Kate

Four nights, four restaurants

2011-08-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I had dinner out every night from Wednesday to Saturday. How did it go?

For the first two nights, Wednesday at the Bistro de Paris on Denman, and Thursday at Felico's in Richmond, the decor was better than the food.

Above is the bar at the Bistro de Paris. It's a lovely little restaurant that looks very much like a bistro in Paris - the problem is that the food isn't anywhere near as good as the real thing. It's not bad, and if you're a tourist looking for some French ambience, this place might be for you. The service was good, though not outstanding. The best part was the wine.

Thursday night I ate with some friends at Felico's in Richmond. The friends were great, the entrance to the restaurant was great, and so I had high hopes of the food.

There was nothing wrong with it, and it was certainly reasonably priced, and the service was very good. The menu was Greek and Italian and maybe something else, and for me, the food reflected the restaurant's ambivalent view of what it was. My food was fine but it's not a place I'd go back to unless I was going back with terrific friends and it was all about the companions rather than the food.

Friday night I had dinner at a friend's house. She's a terrific cook but as she was packing for a six week trip, we ordered in.

I have to say that the Panago pizza (which I've never had before) was the best meal of the four. We had a veggie on thin-crust multigrain and it was terrific. In fact, I've switched my personal pizza ordering to Panago on the basis of that meal. The wine was good too - I brought along a bottle of Dancing Bull California zin, an inexpensive wine I've become addicted to.

Saturday night was a special treat as my partner almost always works on Saturday nights, but he took it off because a friend was having a surprise birthday party at Priscilla's - it's a bright pink restaurant on Davie. They closed the restaurant for the party and it was so much fun. We sat with two couples, complete strangers, and had plenty of laughs. And it was a complete surprise to the birthday boy which made it even more fun. The food was a fixed menu and for the price it was pretty darn good. The dessert - tiramisu - was exceptional. Definitely the best food of the dining out marathon.

Kate

Three days, three museums - Part 3 of 3 - Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum

2011-08-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

The last museum - and by this time I was getting a bit tired - was the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum, housed in the same building at Seattle Center, at the foot of the Space Needle.

I think this museum, of all three, is the museum you need to go to with kids - they'll love the experiential part of it, playing drums, guitars, pianos, making a video of a band - made up of family or friends and getting a poster for your room.

For me, there were two parts of it I absolutely loved - not saying I didn't enjoy it, but these two things I adored. The first is the building itself, designed by Frank Gehry. It's weird and wonderful and gorgeous.

The other thing was when you enter the museum into the great hall where they play videos and interviews on a huge screen.

While I was there they played Christopher Walken (I know, I know, bear wth me) dancing to Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim. Check it out on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs - you're gonna love it!

Kate

TV Review - Aurelio Zen: Ratking

2011-08-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago, after a long Sunday writing and walking and shopping, I was flipping through the channels.

One of my first stops is always PBS - especially on weekend evenings - because they often have terrific programs brought over from BBC, who make, to my mind, some of the best TV ever, starting way back with the original Brideshead Revisited.

I stopped when I got to Channel 27 because there was Alan Cumming talking about Masterpiece Mystery. I had no idea about the show, had never heard of Aurelio Zen, but Alan convinced me to stick it out and I can't tell how delighted I was to do so.

I was hypnotized within 60 seconds. I'm not kidding. Aurelio Zen: Ratking (first of all, who could resist the title?) is 90 minutes of perfect television. It stars Rufus Sewell, who is one of those actors who just seems to get better and better. The story is convoluted and complicated and fascinating.

You're never quite sure whether the good guys are really bad or the bad guys are really good - is he lying to Aurelio? is she cheating? what about the other police officers? the politicians? Nothing is what it seems and everything is wrong.

The writing is good, all the actors - from the smallest of bit parts to the largest roles - are terrific.

And like most BBC TV productions, they don't put on accents. This show is set in Rome but with the exception of a few Italian actors, all the parts are played without resorting to fake Italian accents. Bravo!

Rome is beautiful - as perfect as she can be in the summer sun - and her part in this production is as important as that of Aurelio Zen.

The other thing this production did for me was to send me back to the books of Michael Dibdin. I had read a few of his mysteries 10 or 12 years ago and had really enjoyed them (though no Aurelio Zen books). Somehow, he fell off my radar.

Well, he's right back on it and I've ordered all the Zen books (there aren't that many), and will probably go on to the balance of his books when I finish them.

I'm looking forward to reading them and I'll keep you posted as I do.

Kate

Twitter story - JAMAL

2011-08-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

Jamal was four years old when it happened and though he sees it in his dreams, he knows that he doesn’t see what really happened but what he read in the newspapers and saw on the TV long after it was over.

So he has this un-memory superimposed over the reality of it – the things that he remembers. The real things. He remembers the noise, the big unbearably loud bang. He remembers the car slowing and zig-zagging down the road, making him feel sick. He remembers a man – he to this day he doesn’t know who the man was – reaching in through the broken window and steering the car to a halt. He remembers being trapped in his car seat.

Most of all, he remembers that he never saw his mother again. Or his father.

He remembers being taken to a cold place with other children. They were nice, he thinks he remembers, but he didn’t know them and he wanted his mother. Even his seldom-seen and often-mean father would be better than these strangers.

It isn’t until he is sixteen and spending a lot of time in the computer lab at school that he finds out what happened to him when he was four. At first, he can’t believe it, can’t believe that the young child who witnessed his mother’s murder is him. But there are too many coincidences to be ignored.

So now Jamal must live with not just the memories, but the reality of this story that isn’t really his. He was in the back seat of his father’s car. His mother’s car had broken down so she took the Cadillac. She was driving him to… Where? That’s one thing that doesn’t seem clear in any of the articles. Wherever. Someone (no one knows who or if they do, they aren’t saying) pulled up beside the car and shot his mother three times in the chest. She slumped against the wheel and the car started to zig-zag slowly down the street until a man reached in the broken window and steered them to the curb.

His mother was dead. His father, rich and scary and probably (so the stories go) a drug dealer, allows the Ministry to take Jamal away and put him to live with strangers. He never saw or heard of either of them again.

Nice story, he thinks. He should be able to dine out on that story. But every time he tries, the person laughs and says, you’ve made that up.

Only part of it, Jamal says. Most of it is true.

Jamie v. Cuisinart

2011-08-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

Observe the simple knife sharpener in this photo - not much can go wrong, they last practically forever, AND THEY WORK.

I had occasion yesterday to purchase a new one. No, I didn't need a new one, but I had a friend who did, so off I go to the store.

They had two varieties of knife sharpeners - one made by Cuisinart, one made for Jamie Oliver's brand. I bet you can guess the rest of this story.

It's not that I'm cheap - I'm happy to spend the appropriate amount of money if necessary for an object where price equals quality. And, of course, perhaps that's true for knife sharpeners but you couldn't tell it by me.

Jamie's sharpener was more than twice the cost of the Cuisinart. The packaging was a little flashier but, honestly? They looked exactly the same to me inside the hardshell plastic cases. No hesitation on my part - I picked the Cuisinart and saved myself the price of a first-class glass of wine, a new journal, a paperback book or many other things I'd prefer to have.

When I got it home and took it from its package, it was lovely and shiny and new - but basically the same as the knife sharpener I've had for 20 years. For me, this is one of the things I'll probably never buy again and the inexpensive one is just as good as the other.

Kate

Three days, three museums - Part 2 of 3 - Seattle Art Museum

2011-08-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Art Museum, or SAM, is one of my favorite museums. I've spent many hours there over the years but this is my first trip back since the big renovation and I have to admit that I do miss the grand staircase.

But the installation below which is the first thing you see almost makes up for it. I love these cars - half a dozen white Ford Tauruses - the world's most generic car. All lit up. It's definitely a great way to get into the museum.

One of the things I really like about the new layout is the way the curators have jumbled (okay, not a real art museum word, but you'll see what I mean) everything up. You can go from one room that contains Italian masters to the next which might contain African masks or modern photography or something by the surrealists.

The connection aren't as obvious as they are in a traditional format, but they are interesting - and they made me think. A lot.

For example, this totally scary Maori mask...

Sits in a room next to this gorgeous antique Persian ceramic...

which sits in a room next to a series of relatively modern Seattle paintings which are like canvases filled to the brim with all kinds of crazy people...

which sit in a room next to abstract paintings...

which sit next to a hallway lined with photographs of artists...

which sit beside...

You get the picture. You need hours and hours to decipher the connections - and even then, I'd bet 99 times out of 100 they weren't the connections the curators planned. Which is, for me, the best part of the whole experience.

Kate

Write what you know - or maybe not...

2011-08-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

I'm the kind of writer who basically makes a career about writing what she doesn't know. I do minimal research, usually only the tiniest of details, and rely mostly on what I remember about things, rather than what I know.

I've always taken that old adage - Write what you know - as a piece of advice that applies mostly to emotions rather than to facts. And I think all of us are experts at feelings - it's what we know best. They're universal - sadness and joy and anger and fear and despair. It doesn't matter whether you're young or old, male or female, from Canada or China. Emotions are the same.

You can dress it up with whatever you want - a quiet story about a family in the country, a thriller that moves throughout Europe, a romance, a mystery, a horror story. But what makes a story true is emotion. At least that's how I write.

I can write about people completely different from me - as long as I get the feeling right. I can write about people thousands of years dead or thousands of years not-yet-born. I can write about anything, any time, any place, any situation - all I have to do is get the emotional truth of the story.

So I was delighted to read this article by Bret Anthony Johnston in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/08/don-rsquo-t-write-what-you-know/8576/

It's great to know I'm doing the right thing -

Kate

My favorite things...

2011-08-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

I meant to take a picture of the food - but it was sooooo good, I couldn't stop myself for long enough to click.

Lisa and I spent 5 days last week in Bellevue and Seattle. Yes, we discovered art (as you'll see on my Wednesday blogs). Yes, we discovered new writers - and you'll hear about them as well. But mostly what we did was eat.

And we were incredibly lucky with food. The only bad meals we had were at the conference. Other than that, everything was fabulous.

This was a special treat. I LOVE creme caramel, though for some reason the world seems to have shifted its attention to creme brulee which means that it's hard to find creme caramel.

Gelatiamo is a small - but gorgeous - gelato shop just up the street from the Seattle Art Museum. And I was hooked immediately when I discovered they make creme caramel gelato. It was astonishingly good and Gelatiamo has been added to the list of places I must go when I'm in Seattle.

That list includes Nordstrom's, SAM, Pike Place Market, the harborfront, the Roosevelt Hotel (because it's across the street from Nordstrom's), and now, Gelatiamo. And the Mexican restaurant in Pacific Place, whose name I can't remember.

Kate

Three days, three museums - Part 1 of 3 - The Bellevue Art Museum

2011-08-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from a writing conference in Bellevue, Washington - and although I enjoyed the conference, I have to say that the very best part of the 5 days were the museums. Vancouver's museums, while interesting, aren't that big, so whatever's there, I've mostly seen.

So getting to spend hours and hours looking at art and exhibits I hadn't seen for probably a year, sometimes two, sometimes never, was a fabulous treat. I loved every minute of it and now I want to do that every weekend.

The first museum was the Bellevue Art Museum, aka BAM (and who could resist that title?). Sculpture, sculpture, sculpture. It was everywhere - in all kinds of forms - and it was all terrific.

Michael Cooper's sculpture - sinuous and seductive and kind of creepy at the same time - took fine wood and turned it into muscle bikes and guns as part of three-wheelers. Beautiful with an undertone of a frightening world.

And then there was Wanxin Zhang - amazing life size clay slab sculptures modelled after the terracotta warriors. Each of them so individual, so lifelike, I wanted to take one of them home.

And Cathy McLure - might give you a headache, especially the carousel, but it's fun and smart and beautiful.

Great museum, great art - great thoughts!

Kate

I couldn't resist...

2011-08-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

'Nuff said...

Kate

Book Review: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

2011-07-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing - and attracted to seeing as we have the same first name - Kate Morton's books for a while but for some reason I've been resisting buying one.

I don't know what the reason is, maybe it's envy that her books are on every bookshelf and in every bookstore and mine aren't?

Maybe it's because I've been frantically busy and a little bit stressed so, as I always do when that happens, I stick to familiar writers and often re-read books rather than start a new one.

I like to think that it's the latter - envy never looks good on anyone.

What I will tell you is that The Forgotten Garden is definitely worth reading. The characters are terrific, the story fascinating. I have a couple of quibbles with it - and I expect these are both just me.

First, despite the headings that grounded us in a specific time period, I felt that an timeline and character chart (neither of which I usually read but I would have if there was one while reading this story) at the front of the book would have been helpful. I kept having to stop and think about who was whose child, about where they were and how they all connected. That took a bit of the enjoyment out of the story for me.

The second isn't really a quibble but I actually figured out the secret quite early on in the book though we don't learn it until much later. Did that spoil the book for me? No, but like my first quibble, it did take a bit of the enjoyment out of the book for me.

Despite these two quibbles, I really enjoyed the writing, enjoyed the story and its complications, loved the themes that ran so consistently through all three stories. Would I buy another one of her books? I already have and that's more important than all of my quibbles.

Kate

Marilyn's feet

2011-07-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

The world really is an amazing place - these very large feet are exactly how I'd pictured Marilyn's feet after so many years of seeing that iconic photograph of her. The grate, the white skirt billowing, and now, a man polishing her toes...

These feet are part of a huge sculpture that now sits - temporarily - in Chicago. Here's a photograph - of the whole sculpture. It looks like her, it feels as if the wind is blowing up from the grate - it's brilliant. It brings back Marilyn to everyone who sees it - how she walked somewhere above the world.

She's one of the people who are magic, I think, who are so much larger than life that they deserve to be 100 feet tall, in fact, that should have been 100 feet tall, because that's the kind of people they were. People who everyone noticed, people who never got a chance to live their own lives because all of the rest of us were fascinated by them.

We can't help ourselves, can we? People who have this magic - and there aren't many of them - draw us to them and we follow.

Kate

Twitter story - LITTLE WHITE LIES

2011-07-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

Reminds me of that song, the song I can never remember. And that’s probably just as well, because if I remember the song then I’ll remember the lies. And they weren’t so little. Or white. But they were – very definitely – lies.

I didn’t really mean to tell them, at least from this distance it seems that way. I meant, as I remember it, to make things better. Or at least bearable. She seemed so unhappy, that deep down dirty kind of unhappiness, and I couldn’t bear to see her that way.

So I said, “He’ll be back, Mom.”

“No he won’t.”

“He told me he’d be back.”

“When?”

Okay, you can see what happened, can’t you? With every question of hers, I got myself in deeper. I had to keep going, had to keep the story alive. Or she’d be unhappy and pissed off, a lethal combination.

“He didn’t say exactly, but definitely before your birthday.”

Her birthday was almost six months away. By that time I was sure she’d be on to some new guy. They never lasted very long though he had been around for almost a year before he disappeared.

“Why didn’t he say goodbye to me?”

The sobs weren’t subsiding.

“Because,” I hesitated, searching for inspiration. “Because he couldn’t bear to see you cry.”

“Oh,” she said, the sniffles slowing and the tears stopping.

I hadn’t counted on her waiting for him. I hadn’t even considered it a possibility. But she did. And the night before her birthday she stood on the porch in the cool night air and waited for the headlights to come up the drive. She waited all through the night and the next day and into heat of the following one before she swayed and fell to the porch.

I lifted her up – she never was very big – and carried her into bed. I made her drink chicken noodle soup and water and I waited for her to move on.

But she didn’t. She hasn’t. She’s convinced something terrible happened to him and she has me searching for him. Each afternoon when I get home from school, I turn on the computer and search – state by state – for any mention of him. It’s been good for my geography class but otherwise? Nothing.

But she believes.

And I, I have to live with it.

It's a sign

2011-07-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, I thought about the one book I've always meant to read and haven't. I carried my paperback copy with me on probably a hundred trips - thinking I'd read it in an airplane when I didn't have any other choice.

Instead, each time, while still carrying this book, I bought something else to read in the airport bookstore.

This is the year, I said to myself, that I'm going to read War and Peace. And what I'll do is to read 10 pages of this book before I allow myself to pick up and read anything else.

Searching my bookshelves for my twenty year old unread copy of War and Peace I found that it had been misplaced. Lost, left in an airport somewhere, discarded when I moved a couple of years ago. Who knows?

I then plan to buy the book the next time I go to my favorite secondhand store - not because I don't want to pay the full price, but because I want a copy of the book that has the same feel as the book I somehow misplaced.

Look what I found today! A new/used copy of War and Peace for only two dollars. Whoever bought it before me (at Chapters) cracked the spine but otherwise left it in fine shape.

Definitely a sign...

I'll be tweeting my daily move through War and Peace @kateavancouver if you want to keep up with me.

Kate

Not really a review...

2011-07-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've just spent some time emailing back and forth with my friend Lisa about writing, scheduling, what I have been doing, what I might change.

While that was going on, one of the things I've done is to work out - ever so vaguely - my writing schedule for the next few months. Much of that schedule will be revisions of three books that are already completed - one big set of revisions, two books which only need a little work.

I have a novella - the first in a series of three - to write and I'm looking forward to that.

But what I'm really excited about is the novel I'm going to write starting in September. And so these movies - Bed of Roses and Beastly are really research for that book. I know they don't seem to have much in common except that they're both love stories - but that isn't why I thought of them.

I thought of them because one of the things I remember most about Bed of Roses and Beastly is the magic that is associated with the gardens in these movies.

I love the gardens that were created out of love. I'm not a gardener, never have been but I appreciate the act of love that is needed to cherish the soil and the plantings in it.

So these movies are on my research list for September, not so much for the reality of the gardening but for the creation of this particular earthy gift of love.

Kate

Alliterative food...

2011-07-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

How often does this happen to you?

Today I wrote a very short list to remind myself to stop for groceries on the way home...

Bananas, I wrote. In my house we're ALWAYS running out of bananas. But I'm very picky about my bananas - they have to be firm. The minute they get the slightest bit soft, it's all over for me.

Bread's almost always on my list as well. I don't like to freeze bread, in fact, I like it as fresh as possible. So that means I'm buying bread on a fairly regular basis, though nowhere near as often as I buy bananas. It's not ALWAYS on my list - but today? Yep. And of course it has to be what we used to call "brown" bread and now call "whole wheat".

And then today there was broccoli. That's actually not on my list very often but in the last couple of weeks I've had a broccoli craving - so today it was the first thing on my list.

Alliterative food...

And it's funny how often it happens. Maybe I do it on purpose so it's easier to remember?

Kate

Is this what's over the rainbow?

2011-07-13T01:30:00.000-07:00

I took this picture this week while walking, as usual, around the city. This was the only place and time there were any clouds at all - so I was lucky to get it.

It looks to me like a tornado would look if it were centered around the sun.

It's gorgeous but kind of scary at the same time. I wonder if this is what Harburg was thinking of when he wrote those lyrics?

Because sometimes the most beautiful things - birth, children, love and passion, art, music - are also the most frightening. Because they're so perfect and we're not sure how to respond to them.

Kate

Book review - Plain Kate by Erin Bow

2011-07-11T01:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of YA as you know, plus it's hard to resist a book that has your name in the title. I bought Erin Bow's debut novel, Plain Kate, on Friday and I finished it Friday evening.

I bought it for a whole bunch of reasons:

1. Of course I loved the title.

2. The cover is even more gorgeous in person than it is in this blog.

3. The inside cover blurb blew me away.

4. Erin Bow lives in Canada.

I actually walked away from the book - it's in hardcover and I try not to buy too many books in hardcover as I already spend wayyyy too much money on books - and hardcover books are expensive. But in the end, I went back and bought it.

And I loved it. I loved the characters - Plain Kate and her cat Taggle, the wizard Linay and the gypsies she encounters throughout her journey. I loved the writing, deceptively simple, it draws you in without a single jarring moment. I love the story from beginning to end, even when I'm worried that something terrible will happen, I have to keep reading. And the ending? It's sad and perfect at the same time.

This book is worth buying in hardcover - and I'll read it again. Soon.

Kate

The food of love

2011-07-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

You know I'm a lover of food but I'm also addicted to shoes. I'm not sure whether I'd choose shoes or food if I could only have one of them - and, of course, if I could actually live without food.

I was doing a little research - no, really, I was - on the internet. It was for a pair of shoes for a character to wear, she's even more of a clotheshorse than I am and she has a whole heck of a lot more money than I do. She normally wears very high heels but her date wanted to eat and then walk along the Seawall after dinner so she needed shoes she could walk in.

A little research and voila! I'm in shoe love. I want these shoes and, if I wanted to give up shopping for the rest of the summer (which I don't), I could actually buy them.

Because, I've discovered (a little more research) that they're available at Neiman Marcus. Now, there isn't a Neiman Marcus around here BUT... There is one in Bellevue and I just happen to be spending a few days in Bellevue at the beginning of August for the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference.

But these shoes, as lovely as they are, are way out of my budget. So I'm just going to have to drool over the photograph, maybe wander over to Neiman Marcus and fondle them a bit, and then let them go.

My character can wear them, enjoy her walk on the Seawall with the very sexy Spaniard she's about to meet for dinner, little realizing that he's the very boy - all grown up - that she had a crush on in high school. He's in Vancouver and looking her up.

But even though I'm happy she gets to enjoy the shoes - and the Spaniard - I WANT THEM for myself.

Kate

Emily Carr

2011-07-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

Emily Carr is one of those iconic women who challenged the world she lived in. She fought to be accepted as an artist at a time when art by women was mostly seen as part of their domestic lives.

Emily - almost everyone in British Columbia will know who you're speaking of when you say Emily the painter - was an amazing woman and a terrific artist.

She travelled alone when it was almost unheard for women to do so. She travelled to parts of the province so isolated almost no one had seen them. She lived alone when it was more than eccentric for a woman to do this. She painted when she had no money to buy canvas.

Also an amazing writer, her books are the best possible accompaniment to her visual art. giving the reader a sense of what she went through to create, what it cost her, and what it gained her.

This sculpture sits at the corner of Granville and 7th Avenue in Vancouver. Emily's monkey and donkey are at the centre of much of her writing. You might try Hundreds and Thousands, her journals - one of my favorite books. And you can learn more and take a look at some of her paintings at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Carr

She's a part of British Columbia and if you don't know her, she's definitely worth a read and a look.

Kate