K.I. Press's Blog, page 25

Another memory of Hawthorden Castle: the sundial.

Another memory of Hawthorden Castle: the sundial.

More drafty novel excerpt; I'm aware the verb tense is inconsistent

I cannot take the waiting anymore and so I decide to keep walking. I close up the shack but before doing so I have another look at my ravaged feet, but part of this journey is about pain, isn't it, and I put my shoes back on. Why did I wear these shoes and not my boots? No one else was awake, or so it seemed, at least in town, though the farmers were probably stirring. The grey dawn was just arising, with an orange tinged smoke in front of it.  It was like walking underwater, on the bottom of a lake of smoke. Instead of the silt and algae of swimming, your feet stir up more dust, more smoke, lifting up all around you so you swim, or walk, in a halo.

"I was weeping as much for him as for her; we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the..."

"I was weeping as much for him as for her; we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others."

- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Kate Brown, artist

Kate Brown, artist

"A doctor, a logician and a marine biologist had also just arrived, flown in at phenomenal expense..."

"A doctor, a logician and a marine biologist had also just arrived, flown in at phenomenal expense from Maximegalon to try to reason with the lead singer who had locked himself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills and was refusing to come out till it could be proved conclusively to him that he wasn't a fish. The bass player was busy machine-gunning his bedroom and the drummer was nowhere on board."

- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Another of my favourite old Toronto photos. This was in a shop...

Another of my favourite old Toronto photos. This was in a shop window on West Queen West, not quite Parkdale. Lomo Fisheye. Hand-printed with a bit too much dodge so it looks like he's got a bit of a halo or otherwise ethereal glow.

Well, this speaks for itself, but I'll tell you a little...

Well, this speaks for itself, but I'll tell you a little story about me.

I had a pretty musically deprived childhood. A lot of this stuff I only heard/heard about later in life. We had local country music radio, CBC Stereo (which was classical music), and only three kinds of records: kids' music (a lot of soundtracks/Disney stuff), Christmas albums, and Elvis Hawaii. My parents have lots of musical brothers and sisters, but the genes seemed to totally skip both of them. It took a LOT of work to develop, you know, some kind of musical taste.

(Conversation that happened not too many years ago:

Me: Hey, that's a great song! Who sings it?

Musically Inclined Husband: The Beatles.

Me: Oh.)

I'm trying very hard to supply only quality listening materials for my daughter as a good foundation. I know chances are she'll go through some nasty phases (I went through Like A Virgin followed by Too Much Celtic Rock before settling on greater variety), but here's hoping.

"The surgeon is optimistic that not only will he be able to remove her legs and hips but that he will..."

"The surgeon is optimistic that not only will he be able to remove her legs and hips but that he will also succeed in ridding her of what he calls her excess plumbing."

- Barbara Gowdy, "Sylvie," We So Seldom Look on Love

Robert Lemay, still life oil paintings

Robert Lemay, still life oil paintings

"Lyra turned the hands to the camel, which meant Asia, which meant Tartars; to the cornucopia, for..."

"Lyra turned the hands to the camel, which meant Asia, which meant Tartars; to the cornucopia, for Kamchatka, where there were gold mines; and to the ant, which meant activity, which meant purpose and intention. Then she sat still, letting her mind hold the three levels of meaning together in focus, and relaxed for the answer, which came almost at once. The long needle trembled on the dolphin, the helmet, the baby, and the anchor, dancing between them and onto the crucible in a complicated pattern that Lyra's eyes followed without hesitation, but which was incomprehensible to the two men."

- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass