things we saw in High Park

Faute De Mieux

Travel, trouble, music, art,
A kiss, a frock, a rhyme-
I never said they feed my heart,
But still they pass my time

-Dorothy Parker

Predicitive Twittering Abstract Poetry

So I know some of you hate the idea of twitter, some of you love it. I've been using it for quite some time now (@minouette), and enjoy it a lot more than I would have suspected. If you're curious there are many tricks to making it work for you. It's pretty easy to avoid the mundane, the shrill, or otherwise unfortunate users, and their existence shouldn't deter you from the entire concept. I find it a great news source for specific interests, and a means to filter the internet for interesting links. (I can follow everyone from @NASA to @feministhulk to @DAVID_LYNCH to @rebelmayor (William Lyon MacKenzie, Toronto's first mayor and 1837 rebel) to @sockington (a rotund cat) to collections of artists and science journalists, and of course several of the people on my friends' list here and this works for me). But it is, what it is. I doubt anyone's tweets warrant archiving (I'm looking at you, @librarycongress the Library of Congress). One can only be so profound in 140 characters. So, after that verbose caveat, let me pass on this funny Twitter tool du jour, That Can Be My Next Tweet, which employs your previous tweets as a means to predict your next (via teenangster, who calls it "like magnetic poetry, except way more embarrassing and personal.")

Here are some of the funnier suggestions for @minouette:

“More block print of Memories’ wedding guestbook will show up the pussycat… pillow. congratulations!”

“You promised tweets. Still waiting. : enough seismic data. perspective is crazy, but luckily not inside.”

“Haha! I watched a carpentry tool? It ought to Scott Walker and eating a documentary about reindeer and.”

“Radiolarians block prints. Will be at Pearson. Somehow, I’m listening to radiolarians Working on my block.”

“New monster avatar : today too!”

“Model wireless solar-powered charging ‘tree’ for a block printed pillow new monster avatar ; drinking tea?”

and, my favorite, (though I do love the idea of listening to radiolaria at the airport),

“Debugging imaginary problems is crazy, but more elegant than Toronto Street Team.”

Reading is Sexy XXXI

(image via the wit of the staircase archive)
4. The State of Constraint - New Work by Oulipo, by Paul Fournel, Harry Mathews, Jacques Jouet, Hervé Le Tellier, Ian Monk, Jacques Roubaud, Olivier Salon, Marcel Bénabou, Lynn Crawford, Frédéric Forte, Michelle Grangaud, François Caradec, Anne F. Garréta Oulipo is a name derived from Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle; it's a school of literature devoted to employing mathematics and science to develop new literary structures. It's not as deadly as that may sound. Think of the joy of reading Lewis Carroll, whose work could not have existed in the absence of mathematics. One of my favorite authors, Douglas R. Hofstadter argues in Le Ton Beau de Marot (a book, by the way, which is actually written in English) that constraints can inspire creativity. In it, Hofstader discusses (amongst many other things) Georges Perec's La disparition, a lipogram, written without ever using the letter "e". The pieces in this anthology include similar word games, stories with binary structures (the literary equivalent of a choose-your-own adventure book), variations on themes, works based on the structure of classical music forms, "shattered" limericks, folk songs written by selecting four words from ninety Tom Waits songs, univocalism written with a single vowel, and so forth. Some have the same effect as reading puzzles or mind games, and some have more literary merit above and beyond the structure of the medium.

5. The Poetry Chains of Dominic Luxford - Ten Poets Pick Ten More And So On I haven't the patience to list all the poets. It seems I simply forget to read poetry. I have some on my shelves, but I don't seek it out. I never understood why my fellow students in schools would complain that poetry was obscure in meaning; I always found the meaning transparent, though perhaps less so with the most contemporary work. Also, taking a poem apart to see how it works, was something which appealed to the reductionist scientific mind (in a way I did not find with the dissection of the novel*). The conceit of this volume is that the publishers begin with five (allegedly) familiar poets and a poem, then request that the poet choose a second poem of their own and a third by another poet. Then repeat, so they gathered a series of chains of poems. I confess, I had only heard of the Canadians (Michael Ondaatje and Lisa Robertson). I do like the poems about something (as opposed to nothing), with the unexpected but apt image, and unsurprisingly, the magical realism of a penguin made of cheese.

6. The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa The interesting thing about this novel is the clear challenge Vargas Llosa has set himself, with his titular anti-hero the bad girl. How do you make your readers care for a woman who is not nice? Patricia Highsmith does this in her Ripley novels by making anti-hero Ripley the narrator - pure adrenaline gets you caught up in his schemes. In The Bad Girl, our narrator is Peruvian Richardo, who starts his life in 1950s Miraflores as a young adolescent, obsessed with Lily, the glamorous Chilean girl, who repeatedly refuses to be his girlfriend, and turns out not to be Chilean at all. It is merely a means for a poor girl to fit in, despite being different, by lying to disguise her differences as something exotic. Bookish Ricardo's only goal in life is to life in Paris, which is where he next meets the bad girl, through his Peruvian friend Paúl, cook and revolutionary. Now, the Bad Girl is Comrade Arlette, who using a free Cuban scholarship to see the world. Cuba wants to train youth to bring revolution to Peru - the bad girl just wants to see the world. Ricardo courts her again, but not wanting to hurt Paúl, does not help her avoid going to Cuba. So, motivated always to find riches and comfort, she finds herself a French diplomat to marry and gets herself back to Paris. Ricardo has set himself up as a translator and interpreter for UNESCO, by the time he meets the bad girl again, now a sophisticated French diplomat's wife. She deigns to have an affair with him, before moving onward and upward with her world-traveling social climbing, through the horsey-set in England, to yakuza Japan. Our likable narrator is frankly, a bit of a sap. The bad girl repeatedly abuses him, lies to him, berates him, but he remains obsessed. You care about Ricardito because of the way he behaves and the full friendships he has with a series of people in different eras of his life. The history of Peru is woven into the background of the novel. Vargas Llosa slowly builds the reader's interest in the bad girl - she is, if nothing else, true to herself, strong in the face of adversity (which she cannot help but seek out) and ultimately a product of injustices in socially and racially stratified society.

7. Ingenious Pursuits by Lisa Jardine Once again Jardine mines the (non-existent) scientific revolution; here making the case that science is culture. Beautifully illustrated, though the illustrations could do with some proper documentation. What the historian and the scientist find important in the history of science are not always the same thing.

{Series so far: books read, more books read, books read, books read continues, more books read, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII,XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX}

*In Grade 9, I lost all respect for Miss F., English teacher, who thought it apposite to point out that when Atticus Finch shoots the mad dog in To Kill A Mockingbird, that 'dog' spelt backwards is 'God'. Just because it's true, doesn't make it worth observing.

Renaissance Polar Bear

Here's something I've been working on. I've had this polar bear wearing a ruff, in my head for two years. He needed out. So I put him on paper (variety of Japanese washi, pencil, pen and ink, acrylic ink, vintage geological map of the arctic with embroidery floss). I got interested in the possibilities of working just with texture and pattern making those monochromatic 'chunky pages' for swaps. Somehow, the aurora was nonetheless called for.... I've been hoarding vintage frames.



The thing about bears is that they can stand on two legs, but they are not shaped like us. Their heads to not sit at the top, and as his back appears to hunch away from his ruff, I wonder in hindsight if people will misinterpret it as an anorak, though his coat is rather Henry VIII, so I hope it is clear.



A lot of the Japanese papers have iridescence or gold or silver foil laminae (haha! there's a word) so it changes in the light.




I like the reflections of the sky light.

I was going to have him more off to the side, to indicate the vast arctic emptiness, but I couldn't resist the 'Mackenzie King Island'.

William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in the middle and played with string
He loved his mother like anything
William Lyon Mackenzie King

Or at least, that's how I remember Dennis Lee's poem. I also recall visiting his home in Ottawa, with my family, when I was a child.* The guide told us that William Lyon Mackenzie King, who lead this country (successfully) through WWII, used to consult his mother about affairs of state. Which would not have been unreasonable, except, she was, um, deceased. Further, he apparently consulted his beloved dogs - also deceased. And, the position of the hands of the clock. But, you shouldn't quote me on that. This is what I recall from a tour guide's story, sometime in the 80's.** (Actually, I just checked the wikipedia entry and the 'Personal Life' section is far more salacious. Like something straight out of Gravity's Rainbow.)

This is posted with the ulterior motive of inspiring F. in wrangling her former downstairs neighbour. There will be more of this sort of thing... for the art show, which will materialize. The bear says so.


*I believe we visited every single historic site between here and Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. Sincere indoctrination - it was effective. See, I care about Canadian history.
**His grandfather was the revolutionary William Lyon Mackenzie, one-time mayor of Toronto, general shit-disturber, who donned three bulky overcoats In case the bullets flew.