-Bets

 

Hemingway writing tip (via A Moveable Feast).

Dev.

My Thursday was a lot less pretty. It involved me nesting in my bed writing papers, papers, papers. Then I got bored of that and wasted hours looking at pretty blogs and reading (not a waste of time in my books..pun NOT intended).
We should definitely book club it up when we finish perks.
You're not the only one who wants me to come home. My madre sent me no fewer than three emails this morning that pertained to student jobs in W. I'm just so reluctant to leave G for summer. It's so gosh darned nice here, and it's likely the last chance I'll have to spend with all my friends here enjoying the summer and making lists of adventures we'll likely be too lazy to ever have.
Plus it looks like you won't be home this summer and I'd much rather stay here so I can visit you in the big city.
I might also have a summer job here. What?! I need to iron out a few of the details though, since at this point its fruition is entirely dependent on my brain. How cryptic.
Here's a few from my new haunt: the roof.

                                                                                -Bets

thursday.

I spent the evening being classy as all get out.
Vino and cheese and paints and poetry and music and singing out loud.

 

I was a little lonely, though. Would have been nicer with a friend.
Bets, come home would'ya?

Dev. 

Nice purchases! I'm planning on reading The Perks after my bro is done with it. Let's talk, book club style yo. Dylan is very much enjoying it.

  Right now my reading list is:

(located a school library copy of this)

(as previously mentioned)

(library find too. Went looking for The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, but that was out)

 

(bought this beautiful 1962 picture book from work last week)

Sense a theme?

Dev.

Tarnations! The one I specifically ordered from Amazon was available on that site..and for less!
Here's my haul:

Beowulf- The old English heroic epic poem. I feel it's a required read at some point.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower- recommended by Rookie.

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby- This is a collection 20th century Russian fairy tales that was recommended to me a few years back.

The Magnificent Ambersons- I've heard that this is the book that The Royal Tenenbaums was based off of. If it's as chock full of dysfunctional families and black humour I'll be tickled pink.

These better get here soon!

-Bets

I don't hate you for ordering online, but I'm obviously not a fan of Amazon. I'll forgive you, being in a small town with limited literary resources. What books did you order?

For future online purches, may I direct your attention to Abe Books, "an online marketplace where you can buy new, used, rare and out-of-print books" while supporting indie booksellers!

And while we're on the subjects of books...

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bookseller

books books books

Accidental online book buying bonanza. I know you'll hate me for ordering online Dev, but I haven't been able to find one of the books in a real live store, so I resorted to ordering from Amazon. Then they offered me free shipping if I spent $25, which inevitably led to me spending $35.
I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival.
Summer books for summer reading. I just can't wait!
I'm off to read now (rereading the Lord of the Rings trilogy and liking it much more than when I last read it at age 12).
-Bets

Everything ends, I thought.
Everything except Paris, I say now. Everything ends except Paris, for there is never any end to Paris, it is always with me, it's a feast that follows me. There can be an end to this summer, it will end. The world can go to ruin, it will be ruined. But to my youth, to Paris, there is never any end.

 ~ Enrique Vila- Matas, Never Any End to Paris 

I started this novel this evening. I thought, perhaps, that I could read it prior to A Moveable Feast, but the narrative is so contingent on Hemingway's posthumous publication that I now realize it impossible. As books often are when you need them most, A Moveable Feast was borrowed from the library. Ten pages in and this book is already incredible, but I know it will be better in context, so I am willing to wait. 

For me, Paris is a dream. It exists, immortalized in my mind, as images of the 1920s. The era of the Lost Generation; of Stein's salons and Sylvia's bookshop. Of Hemingway and Joyce and Fitzgerald. I know this is not Paris, at least not any more, but it is so easy to romanticize a place you've never been that I find it hard to think otherwise. 

Will this Paris end for me when, one day, I finally see France for myself? Will I build for myself a new vision of Paris, combining the past with what I've seen? I'm curious, because I really have no answer. 

Vila-Matas writes of a stubborn man who believes himself the spitting image of Hemingway, his idol and who, as it turns out was disqualified from a Hemingway look alike contest due to an "absolute lack of physical resemblance". He tells of his time in Paris, two years in his youth, during which attempted to relive the Left Bank life of the 1920s. I know I would be prone to this nostalgic brand of tourism. But tourism and nostalgia are old friends, for what is the appeal of visiting a historic site or location of where a building once stood, where people once lived, if not to imagine you'd been there yourself? To imagine what has ended? To relive what has gone to ruin? I'd propose historical tourism as an exercise in imagination, but that would call for a much longer piece of writing. 

So back to Vila-Matas, that fine Spanish novelist. I don't know much else about the story yet, except that I assume it will eventually end, like this post is about to and like Paris never does. Putting the book down was a challenge. I can't wait to start Hemingway, then come back to this one. 

Dev. 

“It’s nerdy to be obsessed with things, but I would rather be like that, than be disinterested"

~Tavi Gevinson.

I liked this a lot. 

When I was seventeen, a friend told me I was obsessive. Of course I was (am) obsessive, but I'd never pin-pointed it, never thought it was strange or out of the ordinary. From bands to people to places to anything, my obsessions know no bounds. For a moment, it made me uncomfortable; self-conscious at the implications of such an accusation.


But I have come to realize:
Those who collect things are not all hoarders. 
Those with fan-girl crushes are not all ditzes, nor all stalkers. 
Those with obsessions are not unsound.
Obsession is not inherently unhealthy. 

I equate obsession with passion, though they are not synonymous. I equate passion with Philippe Petit, who said of the inevitable risks of his life calling, "if I die, what a beautiful death... to die in the exercise of your passion"


A beautiful man, a beautiful sentiment. Now, I'm the first to acknowledge my obsessions. I love to love things and people and bands and places and books and movies and blogs. I hope, one day, that I will experience obsession grow into a passion as profound and driving as Philippe's. We do, as it happens, share a birthday.


So, I agree with Tavi. Love what you love and be interested in your interests. That's what I'm saying.




Dev. 

Spring has sprung where I am too, though usually it comes a whole lot later. Today I walked to work in a short sleeve shirt, legs bare in a skirt to my knees. A lovely day, but June temperatures in March are a little disconcerting.

On my mind every minute is the possibility of spending three summer months in my most favourite place. What little focus I had on papers and tests and exams has been lost to hours spent scouring the internet for lodgings, budgeting my time and money so I might actually live, if only for a short while, in the city that lives like no other. 

(August '09)

Dev. 

Cat on a hot tin roof

I've never thought of myself as a big fan of spring, it's rainy, wet and muddy, but this year might change me. Spring air is the best air; it's cold, fresh and crisp, and breathing it in feels amazing. Lately, I've been basking in the sun on my roof rather than attending to the impending doom of papers and midterms. I don't see how I can be expected to sit inside and write essays while the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Ever since we changed the clocks, I've been unable to stay indoors. I look out my window and just need to be outside. This has lead to me living outside on my roof with my roommate (who snapped these photos) and my curious cats. 

-Bets

Wanderlust

I definitely know how you feel Dev. Before my trip I felt incredibly restless, but now I just want to EXPLODE. Since coming back I've spent at least seven hours a day in the library studying and now I am beyond restless. I don't even know what category that is.THE CATEGORY WHERE I EMPHASIZE MY BOREDOM USING ALL CAPS. I'M JUST REALLY BORED AND WANT TO LEAVE OKAY? Summer can't come soon enough, despite my lack of job, concrete plans or ideas. I've been getting on my bike every night, just to ride and pretend I'm leaving. But of course, I keep stopping at the city limits and coming right back home.
Here are some pretty pictures from when I was happy in Charleston, just to make me feel MORE angsty:

They are void of colour just so you don't forget how ANGSTY I am. 

-Bets

P.S I really liked your Ginsberg picture

Bets, you're out posting me! Your trip looks so lovely - I wish I'd been there. The top picture of your last post is my favourite.

All I can say is that wanderlust is eating my soul and I wish I had money to travel and I will be very glad when school is over.

This week I turned down an offer to be a cultural ambassador in August in the hopes I'll be elsewhere. I really hope I'm right.

I've also taken to drawing poets lately, it seems. Here's ol' Walt and Ginzy.

Dev. 

The Atlantic!

While I've plunged into the Mediterranean, floated along in the Pacific, crossed the Strait of Gilbratar and been in a few Great Lakes, I'd never actually seen or been in the Atlantic. So when we got into Charleston and made a beeline for Folly Beach I was pretty pumped. I have a policy that if I'm ever near a major body of water I will go in it no matter what the weather is like. So, despite the fact that it was a windy February day and the water was cold I ran right in. After that we wandered along the coast for a while. I collected sea shells and sand dollars, ran through a flock of seagulls, poked at a dead jellyfish and befriended a dog. Water automatically brings a smile to my face and makes me act like a child. (Top two pictures are not by me, they are of me). -Bets

Old Sheldon Church Ruins

The morning we left Savannah, we drove right into South Carolina. Mere miles into the state, we began seeing advertisements for a shooting range and the boys deemed it a necessary stop. The place was run by an older man, and it seemed to be the local hang out for all of the sheriff employees, as I saw five the entire time we were there. After my friends chose their guns and targets we were led into the shooting area by a gigantic man who was the deputy sheriff of wherever the hell we were. Out of 11 possible targets to choose from, 3 were of terrorists and one was of a hostage and victim. The only other people shooting there were a middle aged man and his ten year old son. The boy seemed to be a good shot, but I still thought it strange that a ten year old boy was at a shooting range at 1 p.m on a Wednesday. Shouldn't you be in school little boy?
After shooting up the paper terrorists, we got back on the road and decided to explore some plantations. We found one that was open to the public but I was upset to find the inside had been converted into a gigantic kitschy gift shop and the upper levels were closed to the public. Next we set out to find the Old Sheldon Church ruins. This church was burned down once during the revolutionary war, rebuilt and then burnt down again by Sherman's troops during the Civil War. After that, they gave up and didn't try to build again. The ruins are in a quiet area surrounded by old plantation properties (we drove onto one just to experience driving up one of those long canopied driveways). Most of the properties have signs every few yards that warn "Trespassers will be shot, and shot again." We got lost for half an hour trying to find these ruins and were just about to give up when we stumbled across them. I'm glad we made it. The sun was right above them in the sky and it was lovely. -Bets