Some links

DoveGreyReader reflects upon reflecting upon reading (after reading Susan Hill's Howards' End is on the Landing, which has joined my bookish wishlist and I will probably buy it when we go to England next week, along with all the other books I'll probably buy when we go to England next week. Too bad everything is my weakness, huh?). At Inklings, the first interesting article in ages I've read about e-books. Salon de Refuses lives on in academia! The misadventures of The New Quarterly at Word on the Street. Dionne Brand is Toronto's new poet laureate. Hilary Mantel on being a social worker.

Television saved my life

Though I've always been partial to television, its tendency to consume my evenings whole meant that I've kept my distance from it these last few years. I also don't have cable, which definitely helps with this. (Further, I hate commericals, which is why I love Midsomer Murders on TV Ontario, also because MM is the best show ever.)

But this summer, it's true that television saved my life. First, when a friend lent us her Series 1 and 2 DVDs of 30 Rock in late June, and though we'd have to turn it up loud to be heard over the baby's screaming, each episode provided us with a little bit of lightness every evening. And though I went into the show with Liz Lemon's character appealing to me most, I was surprised to find that Tracy Jordan became my favourite. In every episode, he'd utter a line that would completely surprise me, and turn my idea of who he was inside out. His complete lack of conformity (to anything) made him always fresh and interesting, bizarre and hysterical. ThoughI do continue to worship at the alter of Tina Fey. (Naturally. I'm a girl with glasses).

The other show I've watched, and the one I appreciated the most, however, is CBC's Being Erica. Which does appeal by its Toronto location (and Jessica Westhead reference-- see Pulpy & Midge behind Erica's desk. This is one bookish show). I'd almost given up on liking Canadian television, as every show I tried to watch was usually terrible, but I had heard good things about this one, and the series was being rerun for the summer. (I also liked that I could watch it online whenever I wanted.) It's a show with a gimmick (girl goes back in time to learn lessons from her past), but the gimmick was never the point for me.

For me, the part of the hook was half-decent acting from most of the cast. (Most of the cast-- some do act like actors on Canadian TV series, but this is a Canadian TV series after all.) A really wonderful soundtrack that catered to my nostalgic side whenever Erica went back to high school. And pretty fantastic writing that veered towards the unexpected. (I also liked it when Erica enquired whether her going back in time to change the past would disrupt the space-time continuum, as you do, and he informed her that her overall impact on the universe was not quite that extensive.)

I put Erica to the test in a recent episode, where Erica is at the movies with her pregnant friend. Friend has to go to the bathroom, but can't get out from her seat, and just before the show breaks for commercial, water splooshes all over the floor. "If she's wet her pants instead of having her water break, therefore defying all television convention," I said, "then this is the best show ever". (It was a water splooshing all over the floor moment that had me sure I was never again going to watch Sophie, a previous Canadian show I'd tried to like). And back from commerical, Erica won!

Now, full disclosure, Judith's water did go sploosh later in the 'sode, but I'm still giving credit. This show isn't perfect, but it's a million times better than most of the other stuff on TV. It's immensely entertaining, and I look forward to Season Two in a couple of weeks.

Patticakes

Photo by E. Smith

I IS for Toronto Island Ferry

We had a wonderful day away from the mainland.

T is for Toronto books

Oh, no one tagged me, but I want to play too. To join Rebecca and Kate in compiling their top Toronto books. I'm not sure I can come up with fifteen, but this is the best I can do off the top of my head. (Update: Fourteen. I'll do my best to think of another. Update Update as inspired by Rebecca: YES! BOOKY! Update 3 see below).

1) A Big City ABC by Alan Moak: I have the original edition of this book, with Exhibition Stadium instead of the SkyDome under "B is for baseball". And I is for island ferry indeed. The illustrations are beautiful, and I remember spending considerable time examining them closely when I was small. (This book was re-released in 2002, and will be coming out in paperback in October).

2) The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood: I love the depictions of Ward's Island (I is for island ferry, see above) especially, but the entire book captures the city's neighbourhoods brilliantly. I was also quite fond of the university setting when I was getting ready to become a student in Toronto myself.

3) Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood: Shows the fringes of the city back when the fringes were newly constructed bungalows in a sea of mud up around St. Clair Avenue. And the ravines! And then revisits to find the city changed by the 1980s, with grey skyscrapers that were like tombstones.

4) Headhunter by Timothy Findley: For a course I took called "Reading Toronto" in university, I read works including some Morley Callaghan, Fugitive Pieces, Alias Grace, The Swing in the Garden by Hugh Hood, and this book. I'm not cheating by stocking this list with my course syllabus, but Headhunter has to be included as it's stayed with me ever since I read it, particularly the scenes in the Toronto Reference Library.

5) Stunt by Claudia Dey: I is once again for island ferry, and P is for Parkdale. Eugenia Ledoux's narrative is Toronto as an underwater dream.

6) Muriella Pent by Russell Smith: The reason I ever took a walk to Wychwood Park, Smith's most recent novel is Russell Smith the novelist coming into his own. Also notable for Brian Sillwell's basement apartment.

7) Helpless by Barbara Gowdy: Once again, the neighbourhoods. Here is Cabbagetown, the dodgy end, portrayed as a place where people live and where community happens.

8) Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig: Toronto underground, in the deepest ravines and down in the subway's depths. Helwig creates an unfamiliar city out of Toronto in the grip of panic.

9) When I Was Young and In My Prime by Alayna Munce: P is still for Parkdale, and for poetry too, Munce's poem/fiction hybrid an extraordinarily rendered feat. Toronto stands for onward and away as the narrator grapples with her grandparents' decline.

10) The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper: Terrifying! And you could plot it on a map, which is Terrifying! doubly.

11) How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad: Here is great urban fiction, undeniably set in its place. Which is Toronto 'round the turn of this century as lived in by a media/culture/cool savvy journalist who's less savvy about where her life is headed.

12) Minus Time by Catherine Bush: I found this to be an imperfect novel with so many perfect components, one of which is its depiction of Toronto. Particularly a Toronto not-too-long-ago already lost, the Robert Street tennis courts/ice rink which had been the home of the narrator's now-demolished childhood home. And not just because it's around the corner from my house.

13) In The Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje: I know it's cliched, we're supposed to hate this book, and though I've loved it less with each reread, it still makes the Bloor Street Viaduct magical to me, as well as the majestic RC Harris Water Treatment Plant (which I despair they no longer offer tours of).

14) Unless by Carol Shields: Much of it takes place in a fictional small town north of the city, but the heart of it is set on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst, just across from Honest Ed's.

15) The Booky Trilogy by Bernice Thurman Hunter

15.5) Jonathan Cleaned Up and Then He Heard a Sound (or blackberry subway jam) by Robert Munsch

Barren Ground Caribou

Links

New (to me) blogs on the horizon! Such as The Literary Type, the official blog of The New Quarterly. TNQ is always good, and I'm sure we'll see the same quality of work online. Check out the first post, "On Joining the Conversation", about how online is where literary people are talking these days. I'm also obsessed with the blog Making It Lovely, which is sort of strange because it's about interior design, but also about design on a broader scale and its creator is brilliant. And join our Facebook group, [re]use your mug. As some of you can't help but know, our city is in the midst of a garbage strike, and trash has piled up in the streets. We've posted pictures of the mess in our gallery-- note how much of it is cups, yes? A grand opportunity (in disguise) for us to realize how much less garbage we'd produce if we cut the disposible cups out of our lives. I, for one, had taken the pledge.

Toronto Sakura

Out in the world-- a concert and a play

Various events this winter are conspiring to keep me from becoming hermetic, and also providing me with opportunities I won't see again for a long time once The Baby is born. For example, a concert-- Dar Williams, live at the Mod Club this Saturday!! I am very excited, as I've not seen her since 2003 (live in Sheffield), being too poor for tickets when she was in Toronto in '05. And then a play! My very favourite play, no less- Arcadia, performed at Hart House Theatre in March. By Tom Stoppard-- have you read it? I've done so many times over the past ten years, and can't wait to delight in it again on stage.

Madeleine's Cherry Pie and Ice Cream

Today's random ramble rather conveniently veered us towards Madeleine's Cherry Pie and Ice Cream, which I've many times passed on the route to somewhere and have long been meaning to make a destination. The shop's name a literary reference (not this one, but that one), and the space is an emporium of perfect delights. A tea shop, with a back garden (come spring), and pies, and ice cream. We had scones with jam, and a pot each of rooibos, and I really must go back again for more-- cupcakes, said madeleines, brownies, where to stop? The cakery was mesmerizing, and the shop shelves bursting with wonderful things-- teapots, jam jars, cups, mugs, and the like. (And how lucky are we to live in a neighbourhood with so many corners to discover?)

Good Egg

We maintain a list at our house of small businesses unlikely to weather the economic downturn well. Already, the pillow shop on Queen Street has gone out of business, and I don't have high hopes for organic dog bakeries and fromageries. Though that our local tea boutique is flourishing means that Good Egg might stand a chance. At least, I really, really hope it does, because I liked the place a lot.

Another bookstore in Kensingston Market, and that this one specializes in cookbooks is only half the story. They've got display tables crowded with kitchen stuff, all your heart so desires but doesn't especially need, which does nothing to negate that desire-- perhaps I should have that ninth teapot. And though usually I'd think twice about any store that sells books and gifts together, Good Egg has selected their books with such obvious care that I really can't help but forgive them.

The books take up about half the store, and aren't just cookbooks, but food books, and all varieties of food books. Their children's section is lovely, stocked with food-themed books for babies and up (I spotted Green Eggs and Ham, The Carrot Seed, The Giving Tree, though there were plenty more), as well as non-food books that are just delicious. Similarly are non-food books for adults stuck in amongst the other shelves, though I got the feeling that if I thought about them hard enough, I could discern how they might fit in with motif. Fiction fascinatingly scattered in the manner of a treasure trove around cookbooks from all over the world, food essays, chef bios, books on agriculture, and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Every shelf yielding a surprise-- an etiquette section, India Knight's new book on thrift, a book on the art of letter writing, as well as numerous crafty delights.

The whole effect sounds a bit kitschy, but there was substance to it. (Oh, and aren't Tessa Kiros' cookbooks the most beautiful in the world?) Every single book in Good Egg had been selected so deliberately, arranged so artfully, and the entire place was a delight to explore just like every good bookstore should be.

Hear me read.

Today I'm the reader reading at Julie Wilson's marvelous Seen Reading, and I'm reading from Rebecca Rosenblum's Once, from the story "The Words" which I've loved for years-- this passage in particular. I am reading in a bathroom with a book launch crowd outside, and Julie Wilson had to teach me to say "ennui", but the rest I knew already.

Do have a listen...

Last Night

Last night, after a good ten years of meaning to get around to it, I finally had dinner at Country Style Hungarian Restaurant on Bloor Street. Partly to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, of course, but also because I was hankering after an enormous plate of chicken paprikash and dumplings. Delicious. They serve schnitzel at that place that is bigger than your head. Also surprising: that we had to wait a good twenty minutes before we got a table. And we were the youngest people there, which is unusual for a downtown restaurant. It was full of the most normal middle-aged people I'd ever seen in my life-- not a hipster in sight! I hope the decor continues to be never ever updated, because it was so perfect. The food was amazing, and since I want to try everything on the menu, we'll be going back again.

You can't control it all

This weekend, I found myself in the ridiculous predicament of only having delightful things to have to do. Not counting the things I didn't have to do, like go out for lunch with my husband, take a long long walk up to the Type Books location in Forest Hill. But that my to-do list contained the following: 1 Bake two blueberry pies; 2 Finish knitting cardigan (which has been on-going for ten months; 3 Finish rereading the brilliant The Girl in Saskatoon and work on interview questions for Sharon Butala; 4 Continue work upon my own story (which has just reached 25,000 words; 5 read the entire newspaper (sans any mention of the olympics, of course, which made the whole experience a lot shorter).

You can't control it all, though. The list didn't include being awakened at 3:55 am by a massive explosion that shook our house and turned the sky a fiery orange (and do note how far away we live from where the explosion occurred). A blast so powerful it made my husband roll over in his sleep (and this is remarkable, mind you). Nor did the list include me not going back to bed until past sunrise (after listening to the radio in my cold and darkened kitchen [it was thirteen degrees, news and weather together] searching the internet for more news and finding only a livejournal forum [which proved quite informative, actually]). Oh, it was frightening, it really was and we are so fortunate that devastation was remarkably contained and that so few people were hurt.

Everyday I violate some principles

So at the end of June, I vowed not to buy another book until September. (I haven't announced this officially, hoping to avoid driving book stock further into the toilet). Because I have 27 books on my books unread shelf, I'm rereading all summer, and also because I feared that my book buying had become compulsive, and I wanted to prove that it wasn't. I couldn't. I already bought a book on Monday, and then I did it again today. But then how could I not have, for this is not just any book. Sigh, but when is it ever?

I'd never heard of Toronto: A Literary Guide until today, when it appeared in the window of a used bookshop calling my name. Published in 1999 by Greg Gatenby (of the International Festival of Authors), this sweet tome is a perfect catalogue of all the places writers have lived or visited, written or read, or congregated together in Toronto. Broken down by neighbourhood, written in a non-cataloguey convivial tone, with fabulous details, context, historical fact, dealing with writers working in a variety of genres, dating back to the nineteenth century. Page upon page of lives.

Let's take my neighbourhood, "South Annex", or a one-block radius of my house, to break it down more. Major Street has been home to writers M.T. Kelly, Janet Hamilton, Howard Engel, Albert E.S. Smythe, Aviva Layton, Leon and Constance Rooke, Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding, Charles Tidler and Martyn Burke. Gwendolyn MacEwen lived around the corner on Robert. The marvelous house at 84 Sussex was home of the new press in the early '70s. Greg Hollingshead and John Bemrose lived there as well. Brunswick Ave. has been home to Janice Kulyk Keefer, Olive Senior, Maggie Helwig, Adele Wiseman, David French, Erika Ritter, and Karen Mulhallen. Do note these details (whose prose is far more charming than I let on here) take up three pages of 622. Which means that my neighbourhood is fabulous, and this book is tremendously rich.

Indeed I am one of those curious (and ubiquitous) creatures partial to the literary pilgrimage. How fun to now have so many now right outside the door, and a whole new book full of fantastic things to know, new connections. Awakening me to the secret history of maps I know by heart.

Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig

Having lived away from Toronto from 2002 to 2005, I found a very foreign city depicted within Maggie Helwig's Girls Fall Down. This city under siege, by paranoia underlined by strange happenings. The falling girls, the first one collapsing on a streetcar, and others follow, but no answers can be found. Authorities rule out poison-- well, as much as they possibly can, which is not entirely. There are no significant abnormalities: "'What does that mean...? What is an insignificant abnormality?'"

The first girl is the template, the precedent, for escalation. People whispering about bioterrorism becomes brown-skinned people beaten in the streets.

I do remember Toronto the morning of September 11th 2001. As Helwig writes, "Everyone waiting, almost wanting it, a secret guilty desire for meaning. Their time in history made significant for once by that distant wall of black cloud." The week I left the city, about nine months later, a garbage strike was just beginning. The SARS epidemic outbreak during the year that followed, and that massive blackout the year after that-- I missed it all, the brink of chaos. My city has always functioned in an orderly fashion, as much as possible with so many people in one place. This is the land of reason, logical explanation, and everything has always happened elsewhere.

And so I would suspect Helwig's Toronto would be more familiar to those who were here then. Here is a fiction steeped in reality, Helwig's Toronto so actualized that it fooled me, made me disoriented, but the problem was mine. All the part of the city I've not paid attention to-- references to The Cloud Gardens, for instance, which couldn't possibly exist, but it's just that I've never been there. To Bloor Supersave, which I thought might be standing in for Dominion, or the ManuLife Valu Mart, but of course it's its own place, right at the top of my road.

Against the city backdrop, is Alex, to whom a chance meeting has brought the past back in the midst of this chaos. Reconnecting with Susie-Paul, who broke his heart more than a decade ago, and she's got him all wound up (the way she always could do) in a quest to find her missing schizophrenic brother. She accompanies him on his nighttime rambles through the city, photographing the city's dark side (this theme, albeit in a very different style, reminding me of Haruki Murakami's After Dark).

The particulars of the story at this novel's heart weren't its strongest aspect. Connection and significance somewhat tenuous at times, but all this is strengthened in the context of the novel as a whole. The atmosphere that Helwig creates, and the greater connections between the people that live in this place. Moreover Helwig's fascinating exploration of girls, "the things that girls do." Their secret lives, never entirely uncovered, and their power, however unconscious, the novel's true heart. With such far-reaching ripples, the implications immense.

Rosenblum Reading

It's not quite fair, as I booked the day off three months ago and you'll only get a few days notice, but I wanted to let you know about an excellent event this Friday. Rebecca Rosenblum will be reading this Friday at 12:30 pm at Toronto Public Library's Northern District Branch as part of the Luminato Festival of the Short Story. David Whitton will also be reading, Lynn Coady moderating. I am terribly excited. Rebecca's book comes out in September.

Welcome!

Welcome to my kitchen and the entrance to our new home. After perhaps a total of nine hours scrubbing and unpacking, this is the first room to be wholly presentable. It was also the room that made me fall in love with the apartment, which I still love even though now I know about the leaky sink. It is beginning to feel like home here, though the move has left me exhausted and disconnected from my entire life. And I'm not sure why, the move having been easy as pie, our movers lovely, friendly, helpful and strong, and the new house being an ten minute drive from the old one. This place was filthy though, which might be part of it. Previously inhabited by dirt moreso than people, but it's clean now. We're home now. Clothes must be unpacked still, wall hangings mounted, odds and ends purchased, but we're nearly there.

Our new neighbourhood is technically called Sussex-Ulster, though you could also locate it as south of the Annex. And it's been made clear to me how defined are Toronto's neighbourhoods: I've lived in a walkable distance to here for a lot of the past decade, know the neighbourhood well, my old neighbourhood still so close by, but I feel as though I've moved to a whole other world ripe for discovery. Though of course living somewhere is always a wholly different experience than just passing through, but it's strange to be somewhere you've passed through so many times and have it feel like new. To have it almost feel like home.

I like my new house because it doesn't shake in the wind, because the cat next door comes to visit, because we've received post every day we've been here, because there are so many book shelves that Stuart said in all seriousness that we needed to get more to fill them, because our downstairs neighbours appear to be human, because it's so big, because I get to sleep in an attic, because the washing machine operates coin free, because the sun comes in and the breeze comes in, and because here it has always been spring.

Life in a Northern Town

On this Sunday cars so insistent on not heeding weather warnings have become marooned, abandoned by their drivers, and now they're buried up to their mirrors in drifts outside my house and I've got no place to be but here with my best company, good smoked cheddar cheese, and books and periodicals begging for reading.

Parentbooks Contest

Though I'm not a parent, the Toronto bookshop Parentbooks still has much to offer. In addition to their specialty books, they've got a lovely little kids book section (Corduroy! Be still my heart!) and they're running an Olivia promotion. Stop in (on Harbord, just west of Bathurst) to enter to win a marvelous basket of Olivia tricks. Contest closes December 14th.