An appetite for delight

My children look like their fathers (yes, there are two of them, so what?).  It is an undisputed fact.  Blonde, blue-eyed, with perfect eyesight, one tall and thin, the other tall and sturdy, they are strangers to my average stature, my black-brown eyes, dark mane, and bespectacled feminine face.  No one would know they were mine.  Until they laugh, that is. 

Today I watched my youngest, not quite six months old, explode with joy at something absurd, and frankly mundane:  a tippy bowl, my clumsy fumbling.  He smiled; the biggest most delightful grin (toothless, of course) and looked at me with eyes shining, searching my face to see if I was sharing in his pleasure.

I thought: “Ahh, there I am.”  I live inside my boys in our adaptability under pressure, our explosive anger at life’s injustices, our deep grief at forced isolation.  Their abundant energy, their relentless curiosity, their unassailing charm: this is my territory.  My legacy.  My contribution to their DNA.

They may share genders, body bits and complexions with their fathers, but my boys’ presence on this earth, their aliveness, their luminosity, that is all mine.

Which will you choose today? Love or Fear?

"The voice inside the mountain speaks to me, tells me again not to be afraid, tells me that there is only love in this world. Our choice is to be in love or to be in fear. But to choose to be in love means to have a mountain inside of you, means to have the heart of the world inside you, means you will feel another’s suffering inside your own body and you will weep. . . . You will under­stand that this pain is your own because you are not separate, from life, or from anyone or anything else. But you will fall into a forgetting. You may die before you remember. You will forget that you know this, again and again. Do not be afraid. The body remembers, it never forgets. It is your own knowing that you hide from and do not know."

China Galland

Warning: blobs of peach-colored flesh!

 

My Mom’s Having a Baby!
by Dori Hillestad Butler, Illustrated by Carol Thompson

This delightful watercolor-filled picture book reached #4 on the American Library Association’s Top Ten Challenged Books List for 2011.  Reasons for being banned?  Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group.  Seriously, “sex-education” is a valid reason for removing a book from the library?  You can challenge a book for wanting to TEACH YOU SOMETHING?  Or just because it is teaching you something about SEX?  And since SEX is a terrible, horrible thing (that we pretty much all engage in at some point in our lives and is required to perpetuate the human race) and HAVING A BABY is a very scandalous affair, I can totally see why this would need to be pried from the chubby fingers of every preschooler on the verge of learning the word vagina (the horror!).

Ok, ok, all sarcasm aside, this is a totally legit non-fiction book designed to help parents teach young children (toddlers to early elementary) where babies come from.  Taken in this context I find it to be VERY age-appropriate.  Elizabeth’s mom has just discovered she is four weeks pregnant.  She learns the baby is only as big as her tooth, but he has a heart and a spine and skin just like a real person.  There is a super cute drawing of a maze-like umbilical cord delivering snacks and yummy food right to the baby’s belly (ice cream, carrots, and broccoli, oh my!) with an excellent explanation of how the baby is protected by a special sack of water and fed food and oxygen through this “twisty tube.”  Butler makes sure to explain all the aches and pains and grumpiness of pregnancy in a way that children can understand and not take personally.  Most children are frightened that something dreadful and dangerous is happening to their precious mothers, and this book can help put them at ease.

When Elizabeth wants to know how the baby got inside the belly her mom says, “It takes two people to make a baby.  A man and a woman.  Children can’t make babies.”  That’s a good point!  There are a lot of small children walking around with the misconception that you can spontaneously become pregnant through your belly button (no thanks to the Bible) or that you may stumble upon infants while walking among the cabbages.  Thompson’s simple drawings are designed to illustrate the basic difference between male and female reproductive organs.  The nudity is far from titillating, as the genitalia are mostly harmless blobs of peach made to represent flesh.  The most “shocking” passage is the actual description of the sex act: “The man puts his penis between the women’s legs and inside her vagina.  After a while, a white liquid shoots out of the man’s penis and into the woman’s vagina.  The liquid is full of millions of sperm.  They swim up the woman’s vagina, through her uterus, and into one of her fallopian tubes.” 

I gave a similar explanation to my five-year-old (minus the drawings) when I was pregnant with his baby brother and he asked me how Oliver “got into my tummy.”  He wasn’t frightened or damaged and has yet to start lusting after anyone on the playground.  A quarter century ago my own mother gave me a similar explanation, as well as some horribly illustrated book from the late-seventies about the “facts of life.”  I tucked the hardback behind my shelf full of more respectable fiction and only pulled it out when I could be absolutely sure no one would barge in on me.  My male cousins, on the other hand, would bribe me to steal my mother’s Reader’s Digest Medical Encyclopedia so they could sneak looks at the soft-focus pencil drawing of a wistful looking (and very-pregnant) woman reclining, her resplendent milk-breasts resting on her sensually sloping abdomen.  Either that or they actually wanted to look at the cut-away testicle illustration, also a real beauty.  My point is, children will learn about things when they are ready and curious, with or without our help.  Not only does it do a disservice to children to poo-poo their very real and mature questions with lies like, “the stork brought him during the night,” but it is ineffectual in the long run.  I would rather my child find out from me where babies come from than from his (often misinformed) peers, or worse, the internet.  And sometimes, even despite a parent’s best efforts, small children still mix up fantasy and reality.  I believed a penis looked like a tube sock (and could be stretched or rolled up like one) until I was about 13.  And let me tell you, 13 was a fine age to start that journey to growing up.  I really should send my Sex. Ed. Teacher a thank you note.

Dori Hillestad Butler, in defense of her work, has said,

Reading a book about a difficult, embarrassing, or unpleasant subject is a good way to open dialogue with your child! Even if you disagree with the values or the point of view in the book, it’s a good opportunity to share your own values with your children.  But some people just don’t want to do that. Some people would rather raise a generation of uninformed kids who have never learned to think for themselves.

She has put up with hate mail and cyber-bullying and being #4 on the ALA’s Banned Books List (which personally I see as a compliment) when all she has done is written a totally age-appropriate, lucid tale of a small family adding a new baby to the mix and dealing with all the questions that arise from younger siblings, something a million families across the world can relate to.  She has taken a difficult topic and approached it with tact and dignity and respect, both for the parents as readers and the children as listeners.  Because let’s face it, most literate children would be absolutely mortified to be caught checking out a book with baby penises on it from the library!  I think anyone who gets their nose out of joint by reading this book needs to get a handle on their own fears and insecurities before they start raining the fire and brimstone down on an author who is trying her best to answer the innocent question that makes every parent squirm: “Where do babies come from?”

Highly recommended (especially for those afraid of the word "vagina").

Underground

 

Underground by Shane E. Evans

 



A winner of the 2012 Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustration, this thoughtful picture book is deserving of its fame.  I was extremely impressed with the artwork.  The theme of darkness and slavery giving way to freedom and light is perfectly captured by Evans’ textured and moody illustrations.  I think the simple text combined with the grave and emotional artwork strikes a nice balance. 
I question whether the story itself is presented in such a simple way as to be for a very young audience (say age 3-6), in which case, the subject matter may be too complicated for such a generalized explanation.  If it is intended for an older audience (say age 6-12) its text may be insultingly easy and considered “babyish.”  This is, in my opinion, its only fault.  I did enjoy the author’s note at the end of the book expounding on the topic and the author’s personal relationship to it.  A nice, easy introduction to a horrific, complicated subject.

Grandpa Green

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

I love love love the artwork in this book!  The layering of curvy pen and ink tree trunks and minor details with the larger swaths and geometric shapes of green watercolor and oil paint foliage really works.  The illustrations make sense with the text and I like the intertextuality at play with Smith’s references to other classic picture books.  The story is accessible and relatable, everyone has a favorite relative who no longer remembers much of the past but is still bound to it by rituals, hobbies and passions.  My only beef is whether the artwork may be enjoyed more by an adult audience than a child.  My son didn’t seem to be quite sure what the story was “about” exactly, as there is no obvious plot or action.  A good one to borrow from the library, but not sure if I'd lay down the clams for a hardback.  Though I would sure love a print to decorate the nursery with!

Most interesting thing I read this week (so far!)

“But being uninhibited may help babies and young children to explore freely. There is a trade-off between the ability to explore creatively and learn flexibly, like a child, and the ability to plan and act effectively, like an adult. The very qualities needed to act efficiently—such as swift automatic processing and a highly pruned brain network—may be intrinsically antithetical to the qualities that are useful for learning, such as flexibility.” 

 Gopnik, A.  (July 2010).  How babies think.  Scientific American, 303(1), 76-81. 

As adults, we get things done, but we stop learning new things and so the things we get done are the same old things.  Discuss.

when your day starts at 4:30am

I was just getting used to the loveliness of a baby that sleeps through the night, when TA-DA! he decided today should start at 4:30am.  I tried nursing him back to sleep, but that was a no go, so instead I put on a pot of oatmeal, made a pot of chai, cut up a cantaloupe and did some yoga...with a baby incorporated into my poses.  He finally konked out after a second feed.  Then my five year old crawled out of bed as the sun was coming up and declared he wanted to get out HIS yoga mat and do yoga with me. 
And it's funny, because I was just thinking to myself yesterday that I would really like to start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, to try and set a more natural sun-centered rhythm to my day.  And also because Ben will be back to school next week and the 7am rising is gonna slay me if I don't get used to it now.

Life always has a funny way of giving me what I want.

"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.  For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession."  ~Khalil Gibran

Happy beginnings

Heading out to spend this gloriously sunny and chilly New Year's Day with friends on the sliding hill and snowshoe trails in beautiful Hampton, NB.  I have two healthy children, both of whom slept through the night, and one lovely partner who joins me for New Year's parties and snowy adventures, even when he'd rather be watching footie on the couch.  My parents are both alive and well.  I have friends who love me.  I am blessed.
Starting back to my Masters degree in January and will be teaching yoga again for the first time since the baby was born.  Happy beginnings.  And happy New Year to you and yours.

Long time no type, a lazy year-in-review

Well, I'm back from my ridiculously long hiatus.  I was a bit busy, you know, having a baby and selling a house and moving cities and so forth.  But now that that's settled and I'm back in school (MSLIS) I'm going to be spending a whole lot more time sitting in front of this screen.  I need to have a diversion from all that, you know...working, so I thought I better get this poor ol' blog up and running. 
It's not like I haven't read any books lately.  My library card is smoking from use.  And Tim can attest to the stacks of books around here that never really go away, they simply change form and content.  If I hazard a conservative guess, I would estimate I've read 100 books since last April's post, and I obviously can't review them all. 

But some highlights would definitely be: Pema Chodron's The Places That Scare You, The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (who knew boobs could be so riveting?) and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which I haven't quite finished on purpose because it is so good I want to draw it out.

Speaking of boobs, I also read Stacked: A 32DDD Reports from the Front by Susan Seligson which, as an owner of a pair of 32Ds (34Fs at present thanks to the milk!), gave me a tickle.  She describes being in plow pose in a yoga class and nearly drowning in her cleavage.  I can relate.  There have been moments while teaching yoga that I've had to come out of a pose I was demonstrating to students in order to explain something because I couldn't be heard through a mouth full of doughy breast flesh.  "Then mrurf yur mbows ash clmosh togemer ash moffible..." is a bit indecipherable to even the most attentive yogi.  The book was nothing special, mostly just a light-hearted overview of the ridiculous lengths women will go to to get the giant (albeit fake) melons most men desire and the health consequences.  But it was still a fun beach read.  In the end, Ms. Seligson, gets a topless shot of her own done on  a busy street in Little Italy (I'm not going to post it here due to "internet traffic" consequences) but you can easily find it on Google Images.  She looks pretty good for being 50+ with no work done.  If that's what I have to look forward to after nursing two babies with a set the same size, gravity isn't the terrible enemy we all make it out to be.  And if you've ever had the (ahem) "pleasure" of seeing a pair of middle-age balls...well, let's just say men would be wise to keep their comments to themselves!

Moving on to mouths, I've been cooking my way through Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila, which I got for Christmas (thanks mum!).  I'm drinking her Chai recipe right now, and it is delicious.  Highly recommended.  I made her lemonade yesterday (with Meyer lemons instead of regular) and it's lovely, not too sweet, not too sour.  I know December is a strange time of year for lemonade, but for a lemon-junky like me, it's always welcome.  Plus, you can heat it up, it's good for getting a cloggy nose running!

Another fun cookbook I've enjoyed this year is The Best of Clean Eating.  Best.  breakfast. bars.  ever.  Tim even liked them, and they had dried fruit!  I've also been on a bit of a raw food kick....but more on that another day.  The "girls" have a hungry baby that needs attention.  Happy healthy New Year everyone!  And, of course, happy reading!

Lullabies for Little Criminals

I try not to write reviews of popular books, even though I'm guilty of reading them like everyone else.  I just figure they've been talked about to death.  But Lullabies has to be written about, so that I may exorcise it from my soul. 

Set in Montreal in the 1980s, it is the first-person account of 12-year-old Baby (yes, that's her real name, stay with me), a precocious, wise-cracking little thug who lives in seedy apartments with her junkie dad Jules.

Baby, being an adolescent with no guidance or structure, except for her somewhat regular attendance at school, gets herself in all sorts of shenanigans, often with terrifying consequences.

So what makes this novel different from all the other tragic coming of age stories of children growing up amid chaos, mental illness and extreme poverty?  Well, for one, it is so genuinely funny and entertaining that I read it in two sittings.  The dismal, alarming plot twists are interspersed with hilariously accurate observations about narcissistic prostitutes, eccentric street urchins, cut-and-paste social workers, and lonely drug dealers.  Baby's voice, though distinctly infused with Heather O'Neill's rich, adult vocabulary and fluid syntax is nevertheless believable because it is so remarkably child-like in its expression. 

O'Neill, from what I can tell, knows the streets.  I don't think she could have written the book without some first-hand knowledge of its truth and consequences.  During the 1980s, she lived alone with her dad and sisters in the seedy but magical red light district of Montreal.  She is therefore able to recount and create with a startling honesty and accuracy both the realities of parental instability and the fantasies and resilience of a child's imagination.  The result is a book that both breaks your heart and forces you to marvel at the unique coping mechanisms of the human mind and body to endure unbelievable trauma and humiliation.  An outstanding debut.

"I don't know why I was upset about not being an adult.  It was right around the corner.  Becoming a child again is what is impossible.  That's what you have a legitimate reason to be upset over.  Childhood is the most valuable thing that's taken away from you in life, if you think about it."

Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures is a fun little historical graphic novel with a Canadian background I picked up on a whim at the Kennebecasis Public Library this week.  It's written by a husband and wife team.  And by fun, I mean fun in a plodding, ominous, can-you-solve-the-riddle sort of way. 

Set during the Second World War, Ila is a Canadian curator in France who has been assigned to label the value and importance of works of art so that they can be "catalogued" (i.e. stolen) by the Third Reich.  A quiet, tense commentary on the nature of loss, betrayal, and war; the beauty of art becomes Ila's only self-granted permission to feel, in a time when feeling too much can lead only to heartache.  We are left to solve the mysterious emotions and motivations between her and a high-ranking German official and their art-filled love affair.

Not recommended for a newcomer to graphic novels or those without a serious crush on art or historical fiction.  For those who appreciate the 5 minutes and 2 seconds they get to spend with a favourite painting, it will haunt you.

Humor is Essential for February

Humor is Essential for February

February is the shortest month with the longest days
the temperature plummets along with my mood
dark like the dirty snow collected everywhere
in crusty, unsightly lumps waiting for the sun of spring
to finally emerge from its endless slumber
and bring life back to this depressing tundra
and my cold, listless bones

Driving to the grocery store
my son yammering away in the back seat
about sour gumballs and Spiderman
I make an emergency stop
on the bumpy, brown-snow shoulder
and promptly vomit down the front of my wool coat
while soaking my jeans with pee
my post-baby bladder no match
for the icky undulations of my diaphragm

Oh February!  Month of romantic disappointment and winter illness
with my birthday thrown in for good measure
I sit here soaking urine and acid-drenched carrot mush
into my Golf’s black upholstery
and I can’t help but laugh
as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band twangs
“keep on the sunny side of life”
out my crappy, warbling speakers

Chin up, young one
you have a long way to go yet

© Jenn Carson 2012

Please do not reproduce without permission from the author.

Lola: A Ghost Story

Jessie is a young Filipino Canadian returning to his family's hometown for his grandmother Lola's funeral.  Although he feels a strong spiritual connection to Lola, he secretly believes she once tried to drown him, and that her "visions" were perhaps the workings of a dark, evil mind.  The reason Jessie feels this way is because he too sees ghosts and demons, including his dead cousin JonJon.

While the premise of a boy who sees ghosts is nothing new, the interesting Filipino cultural lore makes up for any originality the story is lacking.  Readers get to learn about different (but equally scary!) stories about The Kapre (cigar smoking ogre who eats children), The Manananggal (vampire woman who sticks her tongue in a pregnant woman's bellybutton to suck the heart of the baby out of her womb), and The Tiyanak (an evil baby that hides in the woods and seduces people with its pitiful cries).

Although not for everyone, and liable to give some young readers nightmares due to the storyline, the cheerfully drawn pictures are cartoonish enough not to leave a lasting impression on sensitive minds (this isn't exactly The Sandman).  Worth a borrow at the library for a fun Sunday afternoon read.

oooooh....Fashion.

I am not a fashionable person.  If, by fashionable, we mean someone who keeps up with current cultural trends and clothing styles.  I am not by any means an "early adopter."  I've never owned a cell phone.  I don't have cable or satellite or Netflix or a TV that doesn't run on cathode ray.  I listen to CDs and vinyl and don't have an MP3 player.  I am proud to say I have never worn a pair of Uggs or Crocs.  I couldn't tell you what colour is hot this season.  I've never watched an episode of Sex and the City.  I think those shorty jumpsuits everyone was wearing last year looked like something I romped around in when I was wearing diapers.  I know women want to look young, but...toddleresque?  Then again, I still wear clothes I owned in high school...well over a decade ago.

So, that said, why the HELL do I read so many books about fashion and couture?  Because I have an ongoing and lifelong obsession with clothing.  Mostly, its shape, its construction.  Raised by a grandmother seamstress who made a lot of my apparel, I have been fascinated ever since with the design and drape and texture of garments.  Watch me walk through a clothing store and I could care less what everyone is wearing or what is most popular, I'm touching the fabric, looking at seams, collars, darts, watching it hang.  As a child, I would sneak down to my grandparents' basement to watch Fashion Television in secret, blushing at the occasional nipple or bum cheek and terrified I would be caught looking at "garbage."  I would spend hours and hours dressing my Barbies and drawing outfits for them and "sewing" them new ones from Nan's scrap bag.

I now can sew for real, but I spend most of my time making pedestrian things like pyjamas and sundresses, napkins and place mats.  There is not a lot of time in my life for couture.  But a girl can dream, can't she?  Which is why the bedside floor is always covered with beautiful hardbacks, begging for a ruffle.  Here's what I'm currently drooling over:

Great picture book and inspiring read.  Goes through a timeline of realistic fashion purchases for those who actively seek vintage garments, either for real-life wear or collecting.  Points out key pieces from each decade and suggestions of how to shop smart for these fragile used goods.

This is not a coffee table book but a resource for the serious fashion researcher.  More encyclopedia than Cosmo.  If you want to read an essay on the folklore of sneakers, this is the book for you.

My all-time fav stutter-inducing picture-perfect book from Taschen, it gives us a tiny but unforgettable peek into the vast Kyoto Fashion Institute's collections.  Your mind will be blown. 

Most of the crazy crap that is churned out of the Japan clothing market either confuses, mystifies or worse, disinterests me.  Mostly, I just don't get it.  Why do 30-year-old women want to dress like creepy babies?  Why do some Japanese men call themselves "Mamba" and go tanning and wear make-up to try to look black and therefore more "hip-hop"?  Why is it all so extreme?  Surely not everyone in Japan under the age of 40 is THAT attention-starved?

Yohji Yamamoto, from the "Wedding" Collection, Spring/Summer 1999

That said, there is a lot of awesome happening right now in the Japanese high-end fashion scene.  I'm thinking of the well-tailored menswear being created by Hiroki Nakamura for visvim or the stunning sculptural formalism of Yohji Yamamoto.  As usual, anything mass-produced for popular culture seems to turn me off, but the real artwork of master creators is enough to make me want to sift through any culture's junk drawer and pull out the gold. 

This book is a real hodge-podge of both high and low end Japanese fashion and is worth a read if you are even slightly interested.

Lastly, a weird one.  My interest in fashion occasionally forays into decorating and architecture, but rarely for long.  This book attempts to take interesting or famous people (often not mutually exclusive) and document their houses, gardens and lifestyles.  Some of it is interesting, but mostly is just leaves me wondering: do people REALLY have THIS much MONEY?  People LIVE like this?  Every day?  It's too depressing.  It's the kind of book that belongs on a coffee table in a yacht, not on the dusty floor next to my unmade bed and pile of snotty kleenex.

Waiting with winter

I'm a fairly healthy person.  Those that have known me since childhood (or have seen my list of surgeries or broken bones) may protest, but I consider myself to be in relatively good health, especially since I work in the school system, have a son in daycare, and am pretty well smothered by germs from every angle.  Sure, I get the occasional cold or flu, the odd headache, an itchy rash or two, but my yoga practice, stellar eating habits, non-smoking, rarely drinking, and need for eight-hours-of-sleep-or-I-am-a-zombie lifestyle are good preventative medicine. 

So, my Achilles heel?  STRESS.  I do too much.  WAY too much.  Some nice friends say I have "good time management skills."  Those that know me better are more inclined to realize that I am just WAY TOO optimistic about how much I can get done in the run of a day.  Work two jobs and go to grad school?  Sure.  Single mum?  No prob.  Read three books by tomorrow?  Lovely.  Knit a hat while I wait at the Dr.'s office?  Well, of course.  Watch a movie while folding laundry and making next year's Christmas presents?  What better way to spend two hours!  Why not do sit-ups while I'm at it? 

The truth is: I am delusional.  I really, truly, heartfully believe that I can accomplish all these things (and MORE!....I should get chickens!  Bake my own bread!  Sew a dress tonight!) and not burn myself out.  And frankly, most of the time, I succeed in pulling the wool over my own eyes (while my poor friends and family watch from a distance waiting for me to run into a brick wall from my blindness).  My confidence in my own abilities sometimes outweighs my own actual, you know...HUMANNESS.  What's that you say?  I'm not Superwoman?  Pish tosh.  My self-righteousness will not even ALLOW me to grace that with a reply.

And then, I get sick.  A first, a little sick.  A cold.  A cough.  A sore throat.  A bladder infection.  A fever.  Intense and prolonged fatigue.  Oh, maybe I cracked some ribs there from coughing too hard for the last two weeks.  Oh, I can still teach yoga class tonight...I'll just "take it easy."  Oh, I guess I should take a couple days off work and rest up.  I can still work on my grad school assignments on the couch and knit a few things and scrub the toilets...gently.  Oh, gosh, my ribs are really really painful and I can't sleep and I can't stop sweating and I vomit when I cough too hard.  Oh, what's that Doctor?  Oh, pneumonia.  That's kinda bad right?  I'm not going to be able to attend ASIST training this week or teach Ashtanga?  Oh, bed rest.  Perfect.  I totally LOVE sitting still.

And so, life wins.  I am human after all, it appears.  Dang. 

Please don't tell anyone.

Pulling.my.plug

Pulling.my.plug

When the black tidal wave crashes night on my skinny heart strings
And I’m sure they’ll snap with the gallows
I slap-dash round the bathtub searching for driftwood
Cursing at anchors and rough granite and grout

Breath
Find the breath

Can’t sink with lungs filled with air
Can’t drown on dry land

© Jenn Carson 2012

Please do not quote or reproduce this work without permission from the author.

Seducing the Demon

It's no secret I like Erica Jong.  Part of the strength of my affection is that she also gives me permission to hate her, as sometimes I do with equal ferocity.  She is brash, selfish, insecure, flippant, tireless.  She takes life by the balls.  Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life was dubbed a "car-wreck" by the Chicago Sun-Times and I think they are confusing the author with the work, a common mistake among critics and everyday readers as well.  The book is superbly well-written.  Sure, it's self-indulgent, sure it gets a little side-tracked, but it fulfills its stated purpose: to expose the writing side of Jong's life (as opposed to her many, many other demons which make cameos along the way).

It is Jong, not her writing, that is the car-wreck.  It's impossible to look away from a life this colourful, dramatic, out-of-control.  You are mesmerised by the broken bodies, dribbling gasoline, the unnecessary trauma.  But, as Jong makes clear, to what an outsider seems like a useless lineage of heartache and foolishness has actually been a necessary learning curve, a coping mechanism, a survival-by-obstacle-course approach to keeping the devil at bay.  "My tendency to dramatise murders ordinary life and ordinary people.  I care more about drama than ordinary people and ordinary life...Don't be a novelist unless you can tolerate this...Novelists love to weep."

This memoir is everything we have come to expect from Jong: brazen, contradictory feminism, blow jobs to wrinkly old publishers in hopes of a first edition of Keats, DUIs, bad choices, big cocks, sweaty backstage kisses, searing honesty.

She talks intimately of her ambivalence towards motherhood, how she wrongly believed real writers weren't mothers, until she had her daughter Molly and realised that a writer learns more about fantasy and reality from children than from books.  Writing is an author's meditation, a chance to make sense of the chaos swirling around us (and within us).  It would seem, in respect to Jong and many other writers, that a dramatic, challenging, exhausting life is necessary in order to come in from the cold, sit down at the table, and record the brutal truth of things (the worst of those brutal truths being that we must deal with the consequences of our actions and reactions).

"Writing is not a hostile act but an act of understanding - even when it's satirical, even when it's bitter.  You only write about the things you care about.  Indifference doesn't need to be put into words."

And I guess that's why I keep coming back to her, even when she infuriates me: she CARES.  About everylittlething.  Writing isn't a vocation like bar tending or bookkeeping.  It's a life.  A full one.



Out.running.storms

Out.running.storms

Crouched like kerosene lamps
in a rainstorm
eyes flickering while we squat
naked on the plastic shower floor

I rock, knees at my chest
you, contorting to meet me
thin lips form soft kisses that
make their way to full cursive tumblings
locked fingers, drunk tongues

Black dirt thoughts
gong my eardrums
escape me, my demons
run home, run away
be anywhere but here

Your devil-hearts like icicles
tug on my fear-hairs
shivering, I’m thunder skies
waiting for the light

To be caught in the downpour
leaves me raw, drenched and vulnerable
seeking cover from storm clouds
under clean nights

© Jenn Carson 2012

Please do not quote or reproduce this work without permission from the author.

The Quitter

Anyone who reads a lot of comics or graphic novels is familiar with Harvey Pekar, of American Splendor fame.  For those who don't, I'll bring you up to speed: Pekar is a now late-middle age Jewish guy of Polish immigrants who has lived in Cleveland, Ohio his whole life.  He became famous through his friendship with Robert Crumb, illustrator-king of underground comics, who at the time they met was just a 19 year-old-kid with a similar obsession for Jazz records.  Pekar was a regular reader of comics but saw a distinct gap between the traditional storyline of the genre at the time (i.e.: mostly superhero comics) and wished there was something more for the "everyman."  So he crudely drew some storyboards that he thought were funny and honest and appealing.  Crumb, who at this time was already an obsessive pen-and-ink man and worked for the American Greeting Card Company, agreed to illustrate them.  That was the beginning of American Splendor, which went on to great success.  In 2003 a movie with the same title, starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar, came out to great critical acclaim and shot Pekar and his curmudgeon ways even farther into the limelight.  It also delved into his marriage to wife Joyce, his adopted daughter, and his long career as a federal file clerk.

Quitter tells us the back story.  For the first time we get a focused look into the anxiety and loneliness and distinctly immigrant experience of Pekar's background.  We meet his uptight, depressive mother and hardworking, unemotional father.  He explores the feelings of isolation he had, being the only Polish Jew in a distinctly poor, Black neighbourhood.  He tells us his history of street fighting and remarkable talent for sports (that you would never guess from his later work).  His shyness around girls.  His self-loathing.  His obsessional interests in whatever had taken his fancy: sport statistics, comic books, boxing, Jazz music.  We also get to see his young friendships and his failures at day jobs (including a one-week stint in the Navy) while he triumphed as an unpaid Jazz writer.

Most importantly, we can see how his intelligence, talent and struggle to be a writer was greatly thwarted by his family's lack of faith in his non-traditional interests; and his undiagnosed mental illness caused him severe self-doubt, depression, and self-sabotage.

For all the truth of the title, we can see why Pekar would consider himself a "quitter," he gives up on himself far more often then he follows through with any of his ideas or dreams or vocations.  But the reality is that on the surface he may be a "quitter" but in the long run of his life he has stuck by a difficult marriage and unplanned fatherhood, survived fame and cancer, and maintained his file clerk job for 30 years.  So his rocky beginning does not necessarily belie his true nature.  As usual, Pekar always sees the short end of the stick.

No power? No problem!

It scares me how little we as a culture know about taking care of ourselves.  The average town has about 3 days worth of supplies in the case of an emergency.  3 days!  Can you imagine the chaos?  I must have at least 3 weeks worth of food in my larder.  And that's not counting the freezers.

The power went out today unexpectedly, for a number of hours.  It was starting to get chilly so I built a nice fire.  Then I boiled some water on top and made tea and some eggs for lunch.

I wanted to read but, of course, there was no light.  But it was a nice sunny day, so I went outdoors.  Cold?  No problem, dress warm!  I had a great time on the back deck reading Joel Salatin's Folks, this ain't normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World.

Good book.  Good tea.  Good times.

"When a child plays a video game, if the race car wrecks, in a few seconds the game gives him a new one and he goes right on playing...No one, at any other time in human history, has been able to replace their materials, their tools, their playthings with such instant fabrication or resurrection.  Life is not like this at all...If your tomato plant dies because you failed to water it, you don't count to ten and watch a miraculous resurrection."

Like Joel, it makes me scared and sad that people think there are an endless supply of tomatoes.  Who grows those tomatoes?  Do you know where they came from?  If there was suddenly no more oil to transport them from California (or to make pesticides), what would you do? 

What did I spend the afternoon doing?  Not shopping for out-of-season tomatoes.  Not playing video games.  Though both of those activities aren't inherently bad.  It's when people are dependent on them that scares me.

Nope, I sorted my old clothespins.  Took out the rotten and broken ones.  Sat in the warm sunshine and thought about spring and fresh laundry.  Ahh....delayed gratification.

Geek Girls Unite

I really wanted to like this book.  After all, with a subtitle like: "How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and other Misfits are Taking Over the World"...how could I not?

It's no secret I'm a geek and proud of it: Geeky employment and educational history?  Check.  Glasses?  Check.  Obscure record collection?  Definitely.  More bookshelves than appropriate wall space?  Wouldn't have it any other way. 

This book didn't excite or inspire me, it just made me tired.  Tired that we live in a culture where women who have chosen to think for themselves have now been offered a book where we get....GUY ADVICE?  Seriously!?  Depending on the kind of "geek" you are (Fashion Geek or Film Geek, but never both!) you get advice on the kind of guy that would best compliment your "geekiness."  Yes, seriously.  I may as well have been reading an article in Cosmo.

I therefore refuse to waste anymore type on this schlock so here is my uber-concise summary:   Bleh.

Forgetfulness

Great animated poem by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins.  Enjoy!!!!

Needs.nettled

Needs.nettled

The tourist rolled up two American dollar bills
tight like a secret
placed them in my hand
not a bribe, she said
but to buy school supplies for my kids

My blind aunt sent over a box filled with frozen turkey
potatoes and canned beans
her Christmas feast from the food bank
not a handout, she said
but things I needed more than her

Poor, it appears, is relative
generosity too

©Jenn Carson 2012

Please do not quote or reproduce this work without permission from the author.

What Do Women Want? Bread, Roses, Sex, Power

I love Erica Jong.  I don't always agree with her, but she always gives me a good kick in the ass when I need it most. 

This book came out in 1998 and I'm only getting around to reading it now.  It is a collection of essays centering around the essential question of what women most desire.  And the truth is, as any lover worth his (or her) salt knows: we want everything!  Drawing on such varied figures and topics as Anais Nin, Nabokov, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband's penis, Princess Di, James Joyce, pornography, plastic surgery, and Viagra; Jong skewers politicians, porn stars and virgins alike.

Though not always an engrossing read (I skipped around from chapter to chapter depending on my current attention span), the book has its memorable moments.  My favourite being when Jong recalls throwing a glass ashtray at the television in her hospital room after enduring a painful C-section with the birth of her daughter.  The program?  An anti-abortion diatribe by a priest and male politician; people without a uterus who have the nerve to tell us what to do with ours! 

The book is full of great Jong one-liners: "You were born to breed and die and the heart breaks either way."

The best chapter, for personal if not political reasons, is The Perfect Man.  Because, if we are going to be frank, and Jong always inspires frankness, is that is what almost every heterosexual woman is in search for, resenting, frustrated with, or completely given up on.  Keep in mind Jong has been married four times, so I consider her to be quite an expert on the relentless search for "getting it right."  As she admits, sometimes the man who is perfect for one stage of your life, say the stable provider, is not who you need twenty years later, when you want a passionate best friend.  As Jong points out, for years women had to sell their beauty and sexuality in order to acquire social status and financial stability.  Now that we no longer have to give up our sexuality (I can live in my own house and sleep with whom I please thank-you-very-much!), why should we?  Most men certainly don't!  Three cheers for freedom of speech and freedom to choose!

Winter.West Side

Winter. West side

There are two belly-heavy men
working on a van
that’s been jacked up in the driveway
three days now

A child plays underfoot
his red mittens hanging on a string
fingers stiff and frostbitten
they slide his tiny body under the chassis
getting grease on his dingy blue parka

A big brown cat prowls the front yard
picking its way over plastic trucks
rusted shovels, crusts of leftover snow
a fat cheetah chasing prey in a wasteland

The men will stop their work
to drink beer
yell at the dog
say fuck you or hello to passing ramshackle cars

The child cries from cold and boredom
great rivers of snot flooding red cheeks
and a woman occasionally peers out
through the cracked window pane
aware of her son’s fate
cigarette dangling from her warm fingertips

©Jenn Carson 2012

Please do not quote or reproduce this work without permission of the author.