Page Fright: Writers do it everywhere

I’m left-handed and writing with a pen almost always ends up being a messy affair. In the West, we write left to right, making my left hand drag the ink along and smudge the page. Even with a pencil, my hand tends to cramp as a left-handed person must write inward across the page. I’ve often envied right-handed people who can gracefully write outward across the page like a violinist with his bow extended to caress the sweet high and low notes.

The computer is an equal-opportunity instrument, though I imagine if I researched the origins of the QWERTY keyboard, I’d find it was designed not only for the slowness of mechanical typewriters, but also for the prominent right-handed population. Even though I prefer writing my first draft in longhand, I often start on the computer.

That’s the kind of mundane detail Harry Bruce describes in Page Fright: Foibles and Fetishes of Famous Writers. Bruce chronicles writers’ habits from the era of quill pens, fountain pens, long-hand writing with pencils or pen, to modern-day writers who use the typewriter or computer.

Read more of this post

Tea according to Christopher Hitchens

Do I really need Christopher Hitchens to tell me how to make tea? Yes, it turns out I do.

After buying some high-end French Theodor tea that I squished into one of those spoon-type loose tea holders, I mused that something was not quite right with my method. The very next day, I hear the Hitch has written about the proper way to make tea.

I followed Hitch’s directions, which were really George Orwell’s, published in 1946, and sipped on my early afternoon brew. The tea was preceded by a salad of mango, avocado, and orange with bits of walnuts.

Read more of this post

Baseball Poem for John Lee Hooker

I hated you loving baseball
Not because I hated you
but because I hated baseball

And when I learned to hate baseball

I learned to love you loving baseball

I  loved you loving baseball.

Yours, Slim

John Lee Hooker | August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001
We’ll meet again

Who let the pooch out

Even dogs enjoy the thrill of cycling. At the City of Vancouver’s Urban Bike Fair today, I spotted two pooches in cyclists’ pouches.

The Dunsmuir Street separated bike lane is officially open. Gregor Robertson, mayor of Vancouver and Amy Walker, publisher of Momentum Magazine gave little talks on the joys of cycling. Proper cycling infrastructure, such as this new separated bike lane, prevents cyclists from being smeared by cars.

Read more of this post

Break-Up with Your Car

In Vancouver in June, cyclists rock all month long. Bikesummer grew into Velolove, which evolved into Velopalooza. And the city’s bike culture continues to grow.

Read more of this post

Nag for hire I—HabitForge

If you’re like me and don’t have a wife to nag you about your bad habits, no problem. Habitforge.com will do the nagging for you. Based on a theory that it takes 21 days to quit an old habit or develop a new habit, HabitForge will send you emails for 21 days asking you to respond yes or no to the goals you had cited. HabitForge will then send your friends an email of your progress and of your success. That way, they can get in on the nagging too. If you mess up, HabitForge starts counting from 1 again.

But you’re right out of luck if you don’t have the habit of checking your email.

Read more of this post

Women writers who whine too much

In Salon.com women writers continue to whine over male writers getting more attention in best lists and awards.

Some have been whining about this for years. Here’s a 1998 article, Are men better writers than women? reviewing the Harper’s piece, Scent of a woman’s ink: are women writers really inferior? The editors who write the titles could do with a little writing face lift.

And here’s a story about a woman writer who had a hard time making it until she wrote with a male alias. Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants? But, hey a real male writer would never say, “women’s underpants.” Panties. Babes wear panties. Even my 90-year-old mother wears panties.

A Meatless Monday

With Monday around the corner, I thought of Meatless Mondays, a promotion by Earthsave to get us away from eating meat. In the spirit of Meatless Monday, I got out my vegetarian cookbook and found a recipe for filo filled with vegetables and feta and a little pesto.

I’ve never bought or used filo pastry before. Instead of following the directions on the Krinoz box, which says to thaw first, I pulled the filo box right from the freezer. Of course, filo doesn’t work frozen — it broke off in small pieces. Even when thawed, it appears to be a tricky thing and needs to be covered with a damp cloth so it won’t dry out while preparing the recipe.

I managed to make my recipe with the small pieces of filo. Mmm, good. Certainly worth the hassle. I’ll use the leftover filo to make apple strudel from the recipe on the box or maybe a spinach and feta filo. There’s lots of great filo recipes including the one pictured: Filo and Apricot Purses.

Resources

logo_krinos

Portrait of an Artist in Black Top Sneakers

The first time Javier Bardem appears on-screen in Vicky Christina Barcelona, a lusciously photographed film set in Barcelona, he’s leaning against a wall in an art gallery looking forlorn. And, he’s wearing sneakers. The black top-white shoelace kind of sneakers that you see in a movie set in Barcelona about an artist picking up women for a ménage trios weekend. Bardem, in the role of a painter, exudes sex just as his character Anton Chigurh in No County for Old Man oozed evilness. The sexy ooze and the black top sneakers accompany Bardem in every scene he’s in. Except, of course, when he’s in bed.

Read more of this post

Murakami’s perfect reader

Writers’ body parts don’t usually get media attention. The profile of Haruki Murakami in the Globe & Mail described a man with toned biceps and quadriceps.  What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, a memoir of Murakami’s running and sitting life. Murakami, a former jazz club owner and successful novelist prone to reclusiveness, took up marathon running to combat the sedentary life of writing. This resonated with me. As a production artist working at a computer for hours, my extra pounds stay on an upward trajectory along with my age.

Read more of this post

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.