Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 10
June 27, 2013
June 7, 2013
Art in Progress
Artist at work: an Ancient Egyptian style decorative collar by M (click to enlarge).
And it’s finished!
Filed under: Beautiful Tagged: young artists
May 31, 2013
Joyce Carol Oates on 1st Draft
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.
Filed under: Fun, Literary Tagged: Writing Life
May 16, 2013
Railroad Ramble
It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these. It was beautiful up there in the sun with new leaves all around. I saw so much in that peaceful one hour walk. Here’s a bit of it. (Click any photo to enlarge.)
Filed under: Beautiful Tagged: urban nature
May 5, 2013
Pothole Problem Solved
click to enlarge
This pothole has been around on Palmerston Square for a while. Recently someone anonymously filled it in with earth and planted flowers. Neighbourliness and creativity abound.
Filed under: Fun
April 11, 2013
April 3, 2013
March 27, 2013
Words on Wednesday
Passover is here, which means eating matzah, also chocolate and more eggs than usual. This year during the seder one line struck me from our (radically abridged) reading of the Hagaddah: “Today we are slaves; next year may we be free.” It contradicts a note I have taped to my wall as a reminder: “you are free.”
There is this contradiction between feeling free, as in the experience of making choices and free will, and feeling trapped the way we do when fears hem us around, fears that seem both groundless and inevitable in the mental arguments that often accompany them.
There is also a contradiction between the subjective feeling of choice making and the research that shows how easily the human brain can be manipulated through priming of words or images. Even holding a heavier clipboard makes the material attached to the clipboard seem weightier. We are shaped, more than we realize, by the messages with which we are bombarded on a daily basis.
I’m working on a book set in the Soviet Union. Every day I am grateful that we don’t have a gulag. But we are subject to propaganda in the form of spin and in the form of media, which relies on sensation, not reportage, to keep it afloat.
If we are slaves, then who is the master? There are all kinds of conspiracy theories out there, to which I don’t personally subscribe. Perhaps then the master is our own brain, which is so susceptible to cues like the clipboard. Then let us choose our own cues, let us re-write the stories we tell ourselves about what today is worth and what tomorrow may bring. Put the BS on a light clipboard.
May we all be free.
Filed under: Miscellany Tagged: passover, priming
March 20, 2013
March 18, 2013
What I Learned from Figure Skating
The figure skaters at the World Championship competition, held this past week in London, Ontario, are the top skaters in the world. And they fall. They fall on their bums in front of a packed stadium, eyes upon them, and in front of TV cameras that represent the millions watching from home. They work all year–for years–for the 3 minute short program and 6 minute free skate. They are young, they defy gravity, and they fall.
At least as a writer I get the chance to revise. Being a writer is more like being a hockey player. There are good games and bad games. Sometimes you’re on, and sometimes you’re off. You get to the playoffs or you don’t. You keep playing. Because you love it.
Being a writer is sometimes lonely and sad: you’ve got no chance for a gold medal or the Stanley Cup; the Prime Minister of your country does not write a book about you. But on the flip side, you don’t get concussions and best of all you don’t fall on your bum in front of millions of people.
You can be eighty years old, like Alice Munro, and publish another good book. That is something to aspire to.
Filed under: Fun, Literary Tagged: why writing is not like figure skating
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