Tag Archives: france

opening week

My mom is off to France, heck, she might even be there soon, and I am done school for the term. Many of my classmates are now done school for good, which is a little weird. Weird that we don’t all finish together, I mean. I don’t have the great cathartic sighs of relief, since I’ve still got two and a third classes over the next four months. Plus doing interviews for a book we’re working on.

The good thing is that remaining a student leaves me able to work in Graduate Research Assistant positions over the next few months. I’ll hopefully be doing a bunch of video production work for one of my profs, and right now I’m doing a whack of content management stuff for SLAIS’ new MA in Children’s Literature website (which isn’t up yet).

The wonderful bit about this kind of work is that I can do it on my own with a baseball game on. The Jays have new uniforms and hey, maybe this is the year they’ll play meaningful September ball. I enjoyed the hell out of their first victory of the season yesterday, but really, I just like watching games.

I was looking at my history of being here in Vancouver and I noticed that this month till the summer classes begin is my first time I’ve really spent in Vancouver without school going on. I ran off to China and Australia at the ends of my previous semesters, so I’m going to have to remember that there isn’t any meeting with people in my classes that will just happen because I’m sitting in a chair near somewhere they are going. If I’m going to see my friends I have to contact them. Which will be difficult but I’ll do my best. It’s a time for hope.

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book review: suite francaise

Aileen told me about Irene Nemirovsky last year some time and I read one of her books. That book was not Suite Francaise, her unfinished book about civilian life in occupied France. The book was unfinished because she was sent to Auschwitz, where she was killed. But now I’ve gotten to and finished Suite Francaise and it was good.

There are two parts to the novel (out of a projected 5). The first is about people escaping from Paris as the Germans approached. The second is about life in an occupied village, where German officers are billeting with French families. They were both very good, written in a light, straightforward style that got out of the way of itself. I absolutely hated a bunch of characters for being rich and hypocritical and weak and loved some of the others for being brave understated and strong.

Aileen and I have talked in the past about how we’re a bunch of frauds, not having a huge traumatic incident of history shaping our lives. And yes, war is terrible, but there’s something to be said of the shared experience of having lived through something catastrophic as opposed to shared memories of the ThunderCats. In the abstract sense of course.

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ambling through the hoar frost and other winter denizens

I was out walking today. Once because there was a showing of my condo (please please please like it and buy it) and then there was the usual walking to work stuff. Although it wasn’t the usual walking to work stuff because today was the day for me to be stopped in the street for conversation.

The first chat was pretty pleasant, actually. A couple of Mormon guys with their suits and identification badges on their parkas crossed my path on Cumberland and they asked how my day was going. I always leave for work early so I decided I’d not be an asshole and chat with these Elders who were younger than me. They weren’t pushy, just asked about myself a bit. The shorter one was kind of amazed about working in a library. “When I was little I kind of said, ‘Books? Who needs them?’ But I guess it’s pretty important, huh?” He said “huh,” instead of “eh” because he was from Idaho. The other guy was from Salt Lake City and survived last winter. We talked about the importance of going new places and seeing new things (and how not all Mormons are lucky enough to do their proselytizing trips to France).

They weren’t pushy on the religion angle. It might have helped that I’d mentioned I know a couple of Mormons. They asked if these Mormons had ever explained their faith to me, and I told them I knew bits and pieces. I refrained from mentioning how the Mormons I know are both apostates, and didn’t explain exactly which bits and pieces I knew. They gave me a card and let me get on my way to work. All in all, a fine little small-talk chat.

Then a block fucking later I run into a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

No, I didn’t. I was actually waiting to cross Balmoral when I was asked for change from a drunk whose friend was leaving him behind. The guy looked at my army parka and asked if I’d served. “Not in the army,” I replied as he handled one of the buttons. He was looking at it pretty blearily. “You know you can make soup out of good buttons like those.” He’s got one of my buttons between his fingers at this point. His buddy is three houses down, yelling for him to hurry up. The light changes.

“Sorry, man. I have no cash.” I plucked his fingers from my button with my mittened hands and off I went. “Good luck!”

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book review: fire in the blood

I read this book on recommendation by Aileen. Not this book specifically; she just told me to read something by Irene Nemirovsky and for some reason Millennium has a billion copies of Fire in the Blood. It’s pretty and simple and sad, about an older man who lives in a house in the forest. He watches his cousin’s daughter get caught up in what could be a scandal if it was known. All about secrets and sullen places and youth. I will be reading more of her work.

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book review: ordinary victories

Also last week I read Ordinary Victories a French comic (translated) by Manu Larcenet. It’s another one about a photographer but this one was good. Less action packed than Shutterbug Follies but actually about something, the whole idea of art and work and holding onto things that are disappearing. Change change change. I wanted to live in the main character’s house out in the countryside.

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