Well, that didn't quite... work out.

Continued adventures in blogging, eternally deferred...

Finals start in three days and I am wrecked by this godforsaken weather.

In no particular order, a partial list of books that I have finished between April and now or will have finished by the end of May, and which I am going to SOMEDAY post at least short, unwholesome reviews of:

• Cereus Blooms at Night - Shani Mootoo
• Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif
• The Temple of My Familiar - Alice Walker
• Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat
• The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier
• Black Chin, White Chin - Ronnie Govender
• Cadenza - Ralph Cusack
• Crush - Richard Siken
• Skin Folk - Nalo Hopkinson
• 2666 - Roberto Bolaño (englished)
• A Question of Power - Bessie Head

So all but two are novels. Hopkinson's is a collection of short stories - definitely enjoyed this one. Ugh, only one book of poetry! But what an evisceratingly gorgeous book of poetry. Twelve books in two months is probably shoddy by the measure of some voracious readers I know, but I AM SLOW. At least I enjoyed every single of those twelve books. Mostly. The Alice Walker novel was almost unbearably irritating at times. More on this later. The Bessie Head book BROKE ME.

Plus, this is where 'partial list' comes in, I very conscientiously left out everything that was connected directly to my academic work*. Although I'm tempted to stick Danby's Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature or Erich Segal's Roman Laughter up there. There's an idea: frothy, chatty reviews of classics of scholarly study. It's been done, but so what?

* Lies; I ended up writing a soul-destroying term paper on the Hopkinson book that I feel like personally emailing the author an apology for.

Dig yourself, Lazarus.

Tomorrow I am going to listen to the writer of this excellent book:



I love how I wrote that, as if I am not horribly excited and nervous about it.

Over the weekend I'm going to start on two of my papers and also watch some movies at the Latin American film festival.

Maybe on Tuesday I will have an actual post. Containing reviews. Yes!

Favourite thing drawn last year.

It made me a little happier.
I'm going to print it out and pin it above my desk, maybe.

Harder better faster stronger!

Whatever it is that is wrong with me, the doctors had better find out soon. I have plans to sketchcrawl, starve and soliloquise my way through unsuspecting foreign lands, I would really appreciate it if my mind and my body were on the same starting page.

Having written this, she sighed.

Well.

Down on life again. Listening to Karen Dalton. A dead folk/blues singer. This album is called It's so hard to tell who's going to love you. She sounds a bit like Janis Joplin, a lot like Billie Holiday, but, above everything, like herself. Please listen to her. My favourite is this moody little corner of a song called "Ribbon bow".

A least tomorrow is Monday, back to paper-writing and lecture-attending and... and i think Nadine Gordimer's gonna be in town. Now i am ashamed to admit this, but i must. I have only read one book by her. The Conservationist. I can never type 'conservationist' without typing 'conversationist' first. Gordimer is by all accounts a fabulously cranky, no-nonsense woman, and i do want to listen to what she has to say. O, that's it. I'm going. I half-want to take a good picture of her, but she'd probably slap me for my cheap insolence. On the other hand, how many people can say 'i went to a talk by Nadine Gordimer and all i got was a resounding public slap!' It would make a fine anecdote for sure.

In other news i have watched this video at least ten times. That sound effect there, the one that sounds like a glass tabletop being aggressively wiped with a damp bit of cloth, is so annoying and wonderful! I have also overthought those lyrics. Beyonce insists that she does not actually intend to rule the world like the insane diva she is: 'what i prefer, what i deserve is a man that makes me and takes me and delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond.' Do i detect the easy confidence of a woman who knows she can have both, despite her words, or do i sigh and go back to wanting to bite her amazing thighs? No prizes for guessing. Hey, and because i'm incapable of turning off my nerdiness, i really want to see Beyonce as Starfire in a live action movie someday.

This is going to be the first pujo away from home in very many years. And then the growing up embarrassingly late (not that, not that). And the cat, it is out of the bag, and it has left its paws behind. Or its wits. Who knows? I have a list in my head of things i want to paint. Except that they aren't things, exactly. Also embarrassing: yes, there is a playlist for the journey. Music made with instruments i can only identify half the time, if at all, so that i won't follow the words. (A perfectly serene double meaning emerged. Good?)

Things i am (probably) going to read: a biography of Charlie Chaplin, a book on travel in the ancient world, Shakespeare textual scholarship (a guy forges a bunch of plays, letters, etc. claiming them to be by Shakespeare; another guy lays the smackdown on this shameless villainy; the manuscript for the second edition for the second guy's book is owned for a time by a third guy who, you guessed it, is notorious for Shakespeare forgery. Is this not a thing of beauty?), the first twenty-six issues of the lovesome Blue Beetle III (one more time).

But not when i am away. When i am away... Painting, yes. Sleeping sound and early. Self-possession? Yes. Something still, something distilled.

This is my song.

If there has to be just one, this is it.



I intensely love Rufus's cover of it - and in a meta way that one is doubly ironic and poignant - but Loudon's has a kick to it.