twyla tharp | on generosity

Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. 

If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help them out, 

you are in effect making them lucky.

This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.

photo | ray h. mercado

 

ray h. mercado

edward hopper | compartment c car - 1938

 

angeline teay | empire of the son

 

@angelineteay

'that thirst for homicide which habitual bicycling so commonly produces' | new york times

 

new york times, 1894

aug 8 | the feast of the holy crossing

 

end cards

Citizen Kane / Joker

shirley jackson | response to a disappointed reader

 

gary nay | vancouver paintings

sunday services

the beach store

border town

beach grove store

morning motel

my night at the nat

real real gone

reflections

on the drive

it's just lunch

all paintings by gary nay

available at his website 

ishiuchi miyako : postwar shadows

 

isabella rosner | quaker names

 

ron reed | canada day in steveston

All the mixed feelings.

So Canadian. Mostly Chinese families, waving Canada flags and dressed in Canada T-shirts and Canada hats. South Asians in their teens and twenties with their dates. A few white folk, sprinkled in for contrast. A Japanese woman, gorgeous in a black kimono.

Food trucks and tents from everywhere. Baba's House Polish sausages and pyrogies. Another truck with Greek and Mexican food. The Namaste Indian food truck, Persian saffron ice cream from Cazba Restaurant, pancake breakfast for Ukrainian relief, southern barbecue, grilled cheese. Salmon from British Columbia. And Japadogs and Teriaki Boys. A world's worth of food arrayed in the Japanese Cultural Centre parking lot. 

The kimono woman conjured for me the memory of Steveston's fishermen, and their families who worked the cannery, rounded up after Pearl Harbor and interred far inland, far from the sea, far from the homes they could never return to. A friend once wrote a poem about the graduating class photos that lined the halls of his alma mater, Steveston High. Year after year, so many Japanese faces. Until the class of 1942. 

Canada Day. I've always been wary of patriotism, which makes me as Canadian as a Canadian can be. All the more so in recent years, and much more since May 2021, thinking of the people who lived here before we showed up and shoved them aside, and worse. I was sad not to see any of those folks there in Steveston on Canada Day, Musqueam or Tsawwassen or Kwantlen people. Maybe they were there, I didn't see everybody. But maybe not. There would be more than enough reasons for that.  

There was "a police presence," very Canadian cops strolling the streets, smiling, nodding to the people. I didn't see any guns. The Sikh officer with the beard, some other guys, a few policewomen, standing around in the shade of a tree having what I guess was a cop coffee break? Double doubles all round? Like the Boston Red Sox infield converging on the pitcher's mound in the bottom of the eighth clinging to a one-run lead with two Blue Jays on base, but much more relaxed. (Don't talk about the ballgame.)

A block down Moncton Street, kids gathered around a fancy cop car, a couple officers showing off all the gadgets. A few blocks north of beautiful downtown Steveston, one solitary guy patrolled the residential streets, writing enough parking tickets to offset most of the extra police department expenses for the day.  

My daughter's American friend asked asked if Canada Day celebrates the day we defeated the British. I thought that was charming. As Katie said, "a very American question." In more than one way. I responded that, no, it celebrates the day we defeated the Americans! (Red Sox - Blue Jays notwithstanding.)

But I was only joshing. That wouldn't be July 1, it would be August 16. Or August 24, though we really don't get to claim that one. Or October 13. All things considered, 1812 was a bad year for south-of-the-border dudes who picked fights with Canadians. But we've mostly gotten along since then. (We won't talk about the Women's Hockey...) (Which, by the way, was called "ice hockey" on a little quiz I saw today, a test to determine How Canadian You Are. Demonstrating that the quiz was cobbled together by a Yank. ICE hockey? There's not a Canadian alive who calls it ICE hockey. That's like saying "water swimming." Jeez.)  

(And also by the way, I must note that the test rated me as only 75% Canadian, because I scored only 18 out of 24 - an honest and self-deprecating admission which identifies me unequivocally as 100% Canadian, regardless of whether I've had a double double or been up the CN Tower. And the CN Tower, I must point out, is in TORONTO, which every Canadian in the rest of the country knows is NOT in fact a part of Canada. So the test was totally bogus.)

Apart from Aaron Wong's Elvis tribute, all the musicians I happened to hear today who weren't in the Steveston High School band were as white as I am, and at least as old. Probably singing their folk songs and playing their jazz in Vancouver parks and on Kitsilano coffee house stages half a century ago, long hair and bellbottoms, when they were the revolution. Now they just look like Old White Folks. Just like me. What we used to call "The Establishment." One fellow dated himself by mentioning Bobby Gimby's Centennial ditty, "Ca-na-da..." but it didn't sound like anybody in the crowd besides me had any idea what he was talking about. "Now we are twenty million..." Or the three white guys in the quiet little garden by the Steveston Museum - hey, the fiddler couldn't have been much more than thirty, a kid! - who played Irish tunes on Uillean pipes and the bodhran, and sang the tragedy of the Irish people, centuries of genocide and enforced famine and exile, and I thought, we really don't treat each other very well.  

But everybody was treating each other just fine today in Steveston. There was plenty of food to go around, which helps, and nobody was at war with anybody, not here, not right now, anyhow. Bygones were, apparently, bygones. So Canadian.

Tonight, fireworks bursting in the night air. Which won't remind most Canadians of bombs, or rockets' red glare, won't be mistaken for gunfire. Unless they immigrated from Ukraine in the past year or so, or from a major American city almost any time, or served in the Canadian forces to "keep the peace" overseas somewhere, sometime. 

All the mixed feelings.

sharon singleton | the dock-sitters

To sit on a dock which has 
walked out on stiff legs
twelve to fifteen feet away
from the weedy shore,
one board after another
reaching outward, drawing 
your gaze across the unblinking 
eye of the lake whose color 

deepens further out, to sit 

on this dock which seems 

to want to hold you, even 

rock you a little, to dangle 

your feet, whiter in the green 

cool water, to gaze down 

into that silent world where 

minnows eddy around 

your toes, where sand 

has agreed to be shaped 

by ripples of water, 

where reeds and water lilies 

witness to you as that 

which endures. To look out 

on that lake, as birds dip low, 

as quiet men in boats peer 

into the depths, cast 

their lines searching for 

what is shadowy, elusive;

to lie back on gray, splintery 

sun-warmed boards 

in the silence of light—

is to allow that tight band 

constricting your breath 

to loosen, is to quench 

your dire thirst for

the present. To sit

on such a dock is one 

of the forgotten beatitudes—

blessed are the dock-sitters, 

for they shall soon feel 

shriven, their humor restored 

and their pant legs 

cool and damp.

 

Sharron Singleton 

sixfold

 

 

photo | noel wong | onward

 kyoto, japan

robert pirosh | cover letter

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "v" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words. May I have a few with you?

A New York copywriter by the name of Robert Pirosh quit his well-paid job and headed for Hollywood in 1934, determined to begin the career of his dreams as a screenwriter. When he arrived, he gathered the names and addresses of as many directors, producers and studio executives as he could find and sent them what is surely one of the greatest, most effective cover letters ever to be written; a letter which secured him three interviews, one of which led to his job as a junior writer at MGM. Fifteen years later, Pirosh won an Oscar for best original screenplay for his work on the war film BATTLEGROUND. A few months after that, he also won a Golden Globe.

neil postman | baby talk, a vaudeville act, and culture-death

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility. 

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

photo | rick colhoun | east van vw

 

premier league promotion for luton town fc

 

Luton Town Football Club has just been promoted to the English Premier League.  

 

Luton is a bit north of London, a near neighbour of Leighton Buzzard to the west and Stevenage to the east.  Stevenage, of course, being the home of our beloved back garden radio DJ, Deke Duncan.  BBC Archive, 1974

 

Their 10,000 seat stadium, Kenilworth Road, has been the club's home since 1905.  (Liverpool's  Anfield holds 54,000; Man United's Old Trafford, 74,000). On three sides, brick row housing butts up against Kenilworth's outer walls. Fans enter through a narrow underground passage; away teams reach the park via a corrugated metal walkway, above neighbours' back gardens.  

 

"Like it or not, Kenilworth Road is real life, proper old school football, and it should be embraced or scorned upon at your peril," according to club boss Gary Sweet.   

 

BBC, May 28, 2023

saunders lewis | to the good thief

You did not see Him on the mount of the Transfiguration

Or the night He walked the sea;

You never saw corpses colour when bier and grave

Felt the force of His cry.

It was in the hour of His flaying and His filth you saw Him,

Under whip, under thorns,

And nailed, a sack of bones, outside the city,

On a stick, like a scarecrow. 

You did not hear the parables shaped like a Parthenon of language,

Or His tone in talking of His Father,

Neither did you hear the secrets of the upper room,

Or the prayer before Cedron and betrayal. 

It was in the revel of a crowd of sadists carousing on sorrow,

And their shriek, howl, curse, and shout,

You heard the profound lament of the broken heart of their prey,

'Why have You forsaken me?' 

You, crucified on the right; on the left, your brother;

Writhing like toads that were skinned,

Flea-ridden pilferers tossed as retainers to deride Him,

Courtiers for a mock king in agony. 

Oh master of courtesy and manners, who enlightened for you

Your part in the savage charade?

“Lord, when you enter your kingdom, remember me,'

The kingdom conquered by dying. 

Rex Judaeorum; you were the first to see the mocking

Blasphemy as a living oracle,

You were first to believe in the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek,

That a cross was God's throne. 

Oh thief who stole Paradise from the nails of a stake,

Leader of heaven's nobility,

Pray that it may be given us too, before the hour of our death,

To see Him and know Him.”

translated from the Welsh by Joseph Clancy

painting: detail from Andrea Mantegna's 'Crucifixion' (c. 1457)

mary karr | the voice of god

               Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you

                  could be cured with a hot bath,

               says God from the bowels of the subway.

                  But we want magic, to win

               the lottery we never bought a ticket for.

                  (Tenderly, the monks chant, embrace

               the suffering.) The voice of God does not pander,

                  offers no five year plan, no long-term

               solution, nary an edict. It is small & fond & local.

                  Don’t look for your initials in the geese

               honking overhead or to see thru the glass even

                  darkly. It says the most obvious crap—

               put down that gun, you need a sandwich

paul jones | sullivan wasted time with beatles

 

steve keene

 

Sydney Morning Herald

the institute of useless activity

The new official name for my study.  How do I get a proper plaque made?  

stolen

photo | roy salmond | water beads on a patio tarp

 

no filter / no black & white

rube waddell

This is Rube Waddell, an American baseball player from the early 1900s.

In the middle of a game, Waddell would disappear to chase fire trucks. He was easily distracted, so opposing fans would bring puppies to the game which would have Waddell running over to play with them.

American sportswriter and baseball historian Lee Allen wrote that in 1903, Waddell was "sleeping in a firehouse at Camden, New Jersey, and ended it tending bar in a saloon in Wheeling, West Virginia. In between those events, he won 22 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, toured the nation in a melodrama called The Stain of Guilt, courted, married, and became separated from May Wynne Skinner of Lynn, Massachusetts, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend through the hand, and was bitten by a lion."

It should be noted that Waddell was incapable of memorizing his lines for his part in The Stain of Guilt, so he was allowed to improvise his lines in every show. The play went on to critical acclaim.

In 1905, Waddell shared a room with baseball catcher Ossee Schreckengost who refused to continue sharing the room unless there was a clause in Waddell’s contract that forbade him from eating crackers in bed. It should be noted that it was common for players to share the same bed in hotel rooms while on the road. That same year, he missed the World Series after injuring his shoulder while trying to destroy a straw hat.

He did however, went on to win a Triple Crown in pitching. If the Cy Young award had existed during this time, Waddell would have won it over Cy Young himself.

Waddell never used the locker rooms and would come to the stadium in street clothes and strip down naked and change into his uniform for everyone to see. He then would proceed to grab drinks and hot dogs from spectators and down them before getting to the pitcher’s mound. He was so confident that he would occasionally tell his outfielders to vacate their positions and then proceed to strike out his opponents one by one. He would then cartwheel or somersault back to the dugout.

He died of tuberculosis at the age of 37 on April Fool’s Day, 1914.

History Cool Kids

cormac mccarthy | i live in a windmill

 

What about you?

I live in a windmill. I light candles for the dead and I'm trying to learn how to pray.

What do you pray for?

I don't pray for anything, I just pray.

I thought you were an atheist.

No. I don't have any religion.

And you live in a windmill.

Yes.

from The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

daniel woodrell | the ways of life

"The ways of life are glum and grim and nasty and I guess you want to turn crybaby about that, but what's on my mind is, Whoever misled you things were otherwise, hon? What sugar factory spun you out with such candy-assed notions? For cryin' out loud, there's other staples I'll break to you right now, too: the sun gives life but you'd be an ash flake if you got close to it, you got to swallow water to live but sometimes it kills you, Uncle Sam don't truly count you as no relation, and God has gone blank on your name and face."

from Tomato Red

by Daniel Woodrell 

author of Winter's Bone

jan 5 | toni the carpenter

Just before Christmas, Tofino's beloved Shelter restaurant was destroyed by fire. Located just down the block from where my daughter's family lives, it has really shaken the two little girls to see a familiar landmark gone. They were at a Christmas party there only a few days before the fire; the owners of the restaurant are well known to everyone in the town. Thea's husband, Lalo, is a builder, so six-year-old Rosa thinks their family should build them a new restaurant, and if they hurry they can get it done before leaving for Disneyland at spring break. Toni is practising her carpentry skills.