Sixth picture

OK Janna. You've sweet-talked me again. But I'm not tagging anybody. I just won't do that anymore. Anybody who likes this meme and wants to do, consider yourself tagged by me.

This is a picture meme. I'm supposed to find the sixth photo in the sixth folder on my computer, post and explain it. This is a little tough, as I'm on a relatively new computer and have uploaded very few pictures. Haven't even created folders yet.

But here is the sixth picture of what I've got.



This album was put out last year by a friend of mine. It's a live show that was a trip down nostalgia lane. I'd seen all these songs performed live about 30 years ago, so it really is a nostalgia trip for me in particular. Louise is a gifted singer/songwriter with a very powerful stage presence. The recording quality isn't the greatest on this album due to the coffeeshop environment, but for me, it's a rush. And yes, I bought it. (Disclaimer: we're also friends.)


Technorati tags: Louise Guay

How do I get myself into these things?

Cut it out, Rafique. I'll play along this time, but that's it. No more memes!

It's even worse that I've come late to the game for this one, and just about everybody has already done it. So I'm going to break a rule or two on this one.

I. Link to the person who tagged you.
II. Post the Rules Here.
III. Share Seven Random or Weird Facts About Yourself.

1. In the three generations spanning our parents to our children, there are five different languages spoken in our family.
2. I have been on TV in three different shows that had absolutely nothing in common. This does not include woman-in-the-street interviews that may or may not have aired.
3. I speak two languages fluently, one semi-fluently, and a smattering of a couple of others.
4. I turned down an African, a Palestinian, an Inuit (Should I count the Austrian? Why not?) before finally saying yes to an Italian. I have no idea why WASPs seemed to ignore me.
5. I published an online newsletter that forecast the movements of commodity markets, using a method I devised myself. I pulled the plug on it because it required me to be two people and I didn't have that many hours in a day.
6. I was born on a Canadian Air Force base in France, back in the days when they still existed.
7. A friend of mine was once kidnapped while walking my baby in a stroller. In front of a cop's house. The only witness was my two-year-old. Fortunately, there was a happy ending.

And the ones I'm breaking:
IV. Tag 7 random people, linking to them.
V. Leave a comment letting them know you've tagged them.
Anybody reading this who hasn't already done it and who is amused by these things, consider yourself tagged.

And all taggers, consider yourself warned. The probability of me simply ignoring the next meme is very, very high.

Technorati tags: Memes

Page 123

Rafique of The Liberal War Journal (and The Stubborn Facts) has tagged me for yet another book meme. He's too likable for me to say no, and at least this one is easy.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

There is a full bookcase to the right of the computer (yikes!) but to my great relief there are several books strewn across the surface of the low table to the left and the closest one comes in several inches closer than the bookshelf. It is one of my all-time favourites, My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.

She sounded frightened. I wondered why she was frightened. She hadn't drawn the Rebbe's face in a Chumash.

This is a magnificent novel about a young ultra-orthodox Jewish boy who is consumed by his gift. From the time he can hold a stubby crayon in his fat little fist, he cannot stop himself from drawing, painting, documenting his life. And it ultimately leads him to paint a crucifixion, although it is not Jesus, but his mother who hangs on the cross formed by the intersection of the living room window panes. Potok explores with his customary compassion and sensitivity the relationships between father and son, mother and son, art and religion, belief and doubt. I don't know if the book is still in print, but if you can get your hands on a copy, do so. And cherish it.

Now that I am "it", I need to tag five others. Mwahaha.

Janna at Something She Wrote, of course (revenge is sweet)
Jared at Total Depravity (despite the name, a blog of great charm)
Greg at Sippican Cottage, essayist extraordinaire
Edward Willett at the misspelled (no I won't give it up, Ed!) Hassenpfeffer
and
Annie at The Superfast Reader

Technorati tags: Memes, Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

Writers' meme

I have been tagged. By name. And by URL. Someone who I thought was my friend, Janna at Something She Wrote - *sniff* - has left me with no place to hide. I am therefore obliged to come out, fearful and trembling, and participate in this thing. I have been summoned to:

1. Link back to the person who tagged me
2. List three things I believe are necessary to make writing good and powerful
3. Tag five other people via comment

So, at the risk of seeming pretentious, here goes. My advice is worth every penny you paid for it.

1. Face your fears. Are you afraid to start, for fear you won't have enough ideas? Start anyway, and you'll learn where ideas come from. Are you afraid to put your character in certain circumstances because of what it might stir up, both for the character and for you? Do it. You'll find an emotional energy there that you wouldn't by staying safe. Do you feel that anything you write will be pure and utter dreck? Write anyway. When you read back, it is usually difficult to tell which parts were written under "inspiration" and which under "perspiration". Your subjective feelings before you start have little or nothing to do with the quality of what's produced.

2. Be humble. Don't think that the gods speak through your fingers. They don't. Even if you are brimming with talent, there's still a lot to learn. Even if you've published ten books, it is entirely possible to go stale. (It happens all the time.) Be open to constructive criticism, be willing to learn.

3. Don't describe emotions. Put us in the skin of the character so that we feel them. Let the situation call forth the emotions. Don't tell the reader what he/she should be feeling.

I am tagging in return:
David Isaak at Tomorrowville
Edward Willett at Hassenpfeffer
Patricia Wood at Orion
J.M. McDermott at his eponymous blog
Jeffrey Overstreet at The Looking Closer Journal


Technorati tags: Writing, Memes

Thursday Thirteen on Saturday - Opening Lines

I don't do memes. But I'm doing this one. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, right? We all know that.

Here are thirteen opening lines from thirteen novels. Which ones can you guess? Correct answers will be inserted as they come in.

(Too late folks; it's over. I'm putting all the answers in now.)

1. "I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, guessed by Annie #2

2. "Matrimony was ordained, thirdly," said Jane Studdock to herself, "for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other."
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, guessed by Annie.

3. It came by mail, the old-fashioned way, since the Judge was almost eighty and distrusted modern devices.
The Summons by John Grisham, guessed by Anonymous (part way) and Annie #2.

4. No knowledge has come down of Joseph Knecht's origins.
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse, guessed by Vomaxx at AW, who didn't turn up to put it in the comments here.

5. A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, guessed by Danika.

6. The news hit the British High Commission in Nairobi at nine-thirty on a Monday morning.
The Constant Gardener by John LeCarré, guessed by Eva.

7. The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, guessed by Poodlerat.

8. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, guessed by Poodlerat.

9. My name is Perry L. Crandall and I am not retarded.
Lottery by Patricia Wood, guessed by Annie.

10. Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert.
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, guessed by Annie #2.
Follow this up with the second sentence, and I consider it one of the best openings I've ever read.

Never before had Brother Francis actually seen a pilgrim with girded loins, but that this one was the bona fide article he was convinced as soon as he had recovered from the spin-chilling effect of the pilgrim's advent on the far horizon, as a wiggling iota of black caught in a shimmering haze of heat.

Great voice, sense of place, unusual but effective description and a good sense of the dry but sympathetic humour that characterizes the book. By the end of this second sentence I was smitten.

11. Here was the least common denominator of nature, the skeleton requirements simply, of land and sky - Saskatchewan prairie.
Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell, guessed by the husband of Danika.

12. In the tombs of Kursi sits a man with his back to the sea.
Madman by Tracy Groot. Fantastic book, see my review in the previous post.

13. The cabin-passenger wrote in his diary a parody of Descartes: 'I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,' then sat pen in hand with no more to record.
A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene. I was more than a little surprised that no one got this one.

And that's it for this time.

You can find the original here, but I found it through Superfast Reader. Oh, and Poodlerat has done one too.

Technorati tags: Book memes, Opening lines, C.S. Lewis, Patricia Wood, Aldous Huxley, Orson Scott Card, John Grisham, Walter M. Miller, Ursula LeGuin, Anna Sewell, W.O. Mitchell, John LeCarré, Hermann Hesse, Tracy Groot, Graham Greene

One thing the SWC has done for me

Glaze my eyes over with endless bureaucratese, without giving me any solid information to chew on.

My SWC meme hasn't exactly been a riproaring success, for three reasons. First of all, this blog is still pretty obscure, so most people are probably still unaware of it. Second, those who are aware of it don't have a clue what to say about Status of Women Canada if they aren't allowed knee-jerk, partisan generalities. And third, I haven't tagged anybody specific.

Well, there's not much I can do about the first, at least not quickly.

As for the second, I sympathize. I had nothing to say off the top of my head either, positive or negative. Research wasn't very helpful. The government documents were full of meaningless flow charts, bureaucratese that must be designed to thoroughly discourage anybody trying to find real information, and page after page of vague generalities. After a couple of hours, my brain was numb and I was no closer to finding out what programmes were actually funded by SWC, nor what practical difference they made to anybody. I am still therefore basically without an opinion, although my suspicions have been raised. One of their main emphases is GBA - Gender Based Analysis - which seems to be a programme to make sure there isn't any gender bias in the public service. In a 2002 document they said it was too early to have any concrete results, but they should be able to say something more precise in a couple of years. In 2005, they were saying much the same thing. This has all the earmarks of a government sinkhole, money being spent on endless, perpetual studies that never make recommendations or even come to any kind of conclusion. What I really want to find is a list of organizations that SWC has sponsored, how much money they were each given, and what they accomplished with it. If anybody can help me, I would love to know where to find it.

As for the third reason, I will try to put together a politically diverse list of both genders and see if that gets the ball rolling better. In the meanwhile, I would like to hear from you: what difference has the SWC made in your life, for better or worse? You can comment here or at the original post, email me (make the necessary changes to the address), or post on your own blog and link back or let me know.

Technorati tags: Status of Women Canada, Feminism meme

Time for an SWC meme

I imagine most Canadian bloggers are aware of the "Five Things Feminism Has Done for me" meme going around, in protest of the Conservatives' reduction of the funding to the Status of Women Canada. I didn't get tagged and didn't offer to participate on my own, because I found the meme irrelevant. Reading some of the many posts entitled "Five Things..." confirmed my impression.

Most bloggers came out with thoughtful, sometimes quite personal meditations on the positive contributions of feminism. Few of them were controversial: the right to vote, equal pay for equal work, the right to own property and the like. You'll get no debate from me on the value of such contributions.

But the meme was a red herring. It's not feminism, particularly not early feminism, that is the issue. It is the value of the work done by Status of Women Canada and to what extent they are representative of the women of Canada.

Now, I could give you my knee-jerk reaction based on a few reports more or less vaguely remembered, but of what value is that? About the same as the majority of the reactions, one way or another. Quite honestly, I know virtually nothing about what the Status of Women has accomplished in concrete terms, or what practical effect it has had. And really, to have an intelligent opinion on the cutting of funding to SWC, you have to know this kind of stuff.

So I want to know, can you name one single thing SWC has done that has impacted your life, positively or negatively? No vague partisan rhetoric, please.

If you are a Canadian blogger, please consider yourself tagged. (I've never participated in a meme before, so please bear with me. I'll probably tag some specific individuals later as well.) And please let me know about your posts, so I can index them here. In the meanwhile, I'm going to go do some research, so I can participate in my own meme. Hopefully we will all come out of this with a better and more informed idea of whether cutting SWC funding is a positive or a negative.

Technorati tags: Feminism meme