One last post related to the removal of the monkey from my back and then I’ll retire the subject for at least two days.
My backpack felt so unnaturally light and empty last night that by the time I got up on Capitol Hill I decided that, if my dancing and pack mule muscles were going to be allowed to atrophy, I should at least do a bit of spot-toning of the book-shopping muscles, so I popped into both Twice Sold Tales and Half Price Books, replenished some of the weight, and then actually went home and read. Poetry. (Thanks, M-----l, for the Billy Collins recommendation.)
Also, I noticed that Twice Sold Tales has dedicated the litterbox in the new store:
So Marco now poops in honor of the editor of one of our local free weeklies.
What I'm carrying home today instead of the computer:
Notes:
- Source: Schmancy on 2nd Avenue. I went in today looking for a monkey but they were all out of monkeys.
- I am not a pin person or a jewelry person of any kind really (except for tiny earrings and sometimes a fun watch). Little cloud will live inside my backpack, sheltered from the rain.
The shoulder injury has prompted a change of routine effective immediately: the laptop stays parked at its docking station at the office, at least on weeknights.
The smart person would have decided to do this the day the Dell boxes were delivered. The smarter person would have requested a lighter-weight notebook or a desktop to begin with. Instead, the foolish person decides she can tough it out and add intensity to her daily hike and uses this as an excuse to spend $140 on a flash messenger backpack that is proportioned for someone taller, makes her stoop a bit to get the full advantage of the waist support, eventually realizes this is not good for her spine, reverts back to the shoulder-hugging urban commuter pack in which at least she can stand upright, and pushes on by golly until something is clearly damaged.
The smart person would also recognize an injury for what it is, go to a doctor, get physical therapy, etc. soon after it occurs. The foolish person relies on self-diagnosis of mere underutilized muscle soreness, stretches it vigorously for a week before realizing that is making it worse, and persists in dancing “through” it anyway, takes on new yoga classes, continues to strap on heavy backpack, etc. for weeks and weeks. Then, one day, she can’t raise her right arm.
In case you are in any doubt as to who the foolish person is, let me tell you that once I stuck my finger in the beater-bar of a vacuum cleaner (in the “on” mode) that I thought I wasn’t working. It was. In addition to the pain of the shredding of the fingernail, there was the added humiliation of the witnessing of the seven-year-old I was babysitting at the time. She knew better than to do that. (She probably learned quite a few useful life lessons by observing two years of babysitter foibles.)
Anyways … I will leave the computer at work tonight and I will see a doctor at a sports medicine clinic next Thursday and I hereby cease the self-flagellation right this minute.
Now I just have to get used to having no more monkey (i.e., Internet) on weeknights. This will no doubt do wonderful things for my reading, art-making, housekeeping, and living. I might even start riding my bike to work again. Hurrah! I feel better and lighter and freer and more productive already. And a bit wiser.
I do not like:
- Rescheduled appointment for shoulder pain (must wait extra week and resist urge to do added damage during that time), but it’s still good to know it’s gonna be looked at eventually.
- Muki’s breath.
- PMS. I think I’m ready for menopause. Bring it on.
- Feeling generally imbalanced.
I do like:
- The new Masterpiece Theatre production of A Room with a View.* The 1985 Merchant-Ivory film is one of my all-time favorite movies ever, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this production very much. In mine humble opine, the young lead actors in the new production have a better chemistry than those in earlier film, though the film trumps with many more elements including Maggie Smith, the glorious shots of the Tuscan countryside (especially the one just before the storm), and Julian Sands’s tush in the “come and have a bathe” scene.
- The sidewalk across the street has finally been repaired.
- Gentle reality checks.
- Divine-brand 70% dark chocolate (most divine in the 1.5 oz size bar).
- Kale-pepperjack enchilada.
- SIFF starts next week. Yay!
*Forster is another writer whose stories I’ve tended to enjoy more on the screen than in reading, though now I’m in the mood to re-read this one.
Work on Wake (or whatever it will be called) continues fitfully. The clouds briefly cooperated yesterday afternoon, so after class we went on a field trip to the sculpture garden. I messed around with a borrowed Hi8 video camera (thanks, A) while the dancers improvised in between the sculptures and curious passers-by. We got in a good 45 minutes and then it started to rain again. I was hoping to extract some still shots from the footage but it seems I first need to purchase a driver to extract the footage from the cassette tape. I'm feeling too technologically inept at present to deal with that. Instead, here is a poorly cropped photo of a small child who was having great silly fun running between the rusty canyon walls (Fig. 1).
In other dance-ish news,
... I took some pictures of the main Velocity studio last weekend that have been waiting for an excuse to post (Fig. 2).
... Saturday night I saw the SCUBA show, which is a collaborative “touring exchange” showing edgy dance works from multiple cities, which I think means these works tour together to the cities from whence they sprang.
- The first piece of the evening, Kate Watson-Wallace's HOUSE, took place in the former Reel Grrls offices, on the fourth floor of the building from which the arts organizations and other tenants are emptying out to make way for gutting and redevelopment. The dance started at a large table near the office kitchen sink, with six dancers entering and exiting the room, exploring the possibilities of support and balance using the table, chairs, walls, and each other, in various combinations. The audience was then led into a second smaller room in which a woman emerged from a closet in which she was supported door by the inside doorknob, stepping onto an electrical outlet box and onto another doorknob, to do some gravity-defying shifting and reclining on a couch had been secured sideways up a wall. (Earlier in the previous room, the same dancer had crept out of a kitchen cabinet, like some sort of spirit which occupies the cupboards of this house and comes out when no one is watching.) I like it when dances happen in real people places; the surreal furniture use was a bonus. I felt sad when we left the space and passed by the Chamber Theater’s closed doors, theater no more, on the way back downstairs.
- The second piece, in the Velocity theater on the second floor, was comprised of the six astounding solos from Scott/Powell’s Geography, which I had seen last year in its entirety at On the Boards. I am in awe of this company. Now I know why those gongs were in the studio last week.
- The third piece, Navarrete x Kajiyama Dance Theater's The Revenge of Huitlacoche, was over-the-top clownishly weird. The program notes described a fungus that lives in living ears of corn that is considered a culinary delicacy in Mexico and persecuted by U.S. fungicides and genetic modification. I think the piece might also have something to do with border patrol and immigration. Near the end, after hurling corn kernels all over the stage and tumbling and stomping upon them, the solo performer (costumed in body paint and a skirt constructed of corn husks) distributed handfuls to audience members (Fig. 3) and chanted “A fungus has no seeds but it is the ferment of things to come.” I walked away from that work wondering “What the f…?” but that didn’t stop me from feeling entertained.
... and lastly, in the wake of the weekend’s classes and this morning’s extra-laden-backpack commute, it seems my right shoulder has decided that any rotation at all is to be painful enough to override my aversion to doctors. Thursday I have an appointment for the shoulder as well as the lingering hamstring attachment issue. I punted tonight's class (Fig. 4) but figured I should do Wednesday’s full on, so the shoulder will be good’n’torn for the x-rays, and as a last hurrah, in case the doctor tells me to stop dancing for more than a couple of weeks. I really want to do Strictly Seattle this year, but need the full use of my arm more. Grumble. Ouch. Whimper. Repeat. Of course this might just be the ferment to develop that ambidextrousness I’ve always dreamed about.
QotD: Show us one of your plants.
The soapy water was triumphant! The aphids have retreated!
Unfortunately, the human forgot to follow up with non-soapy water for a week and a half, but there are a few hopeful little growth spurts happening.
I just finished my first Jonathan Carroll novel, Outside the Dog Museum, and loved it. Now I feel ready to try that scary-covered Carroll book which I bought a couple of weeks ago.
I think the last time I mentioned completing a book was during my brief period of reading the Brontës last winter: Wuthering Heights (did not like at all), Jane Eyre (liked very much), and Agnes Grey (enjoyed the writing but found the story depressing. It had a happy ending though). While I was slowly reading these I was also buying up annotated editions of all of Jane Austen and a few Victorian writers with grand plans for a 19th century English reading fest to fill in some of the gaping holes in my literary experience. This plan was triggered by Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale and gorging on Jane Austen screen adaptations.
Confession #1: I would much rather watch costumed ladies and gentlemen at a country dance in even a Hollywood-style adaption of a Jane Austen novel than read the actual novel. Years ago I struggled through three of her novels, and this February I started Persuasion, but quit after the ninth short chapter, just about the time the DVD of the new BBC production was released. Also, having seen the 1995 Amanda Root/Ciarán Hinds feature film enough times to memorize the script, I felt like I’d absorbed enough for now. Plus, I got distracted by some other, er, genre fiction (see Confession #2). However, all of those Broadview editions look impressive gathering dust in a pile on the outer layer of a shelf.
Confession #2: I am a sucker for packaging. Early this year it was covers of novels featuring ladies in long dresses with their heads cropped off at the top edge (or their faces masked), often gilded. This is how I got sucked into a series of what my sister-in-law affectionately refers to as swills. A couple of 'em inspired the reading of part of a biography of Catherine de Medici, as well as repeated viewings of La Reine Margot (well, at least the first viewing – the second and third were inspired by Vincent Perez), so some nutritional value was gained from their consumption.
Confession #3: I am a slow reader. More accurately, I don’t make enough time to read, so it takes me a long time to finish a book. Because reading feels like an indulgence, I tend to save it until after whatever household business has been attended to and I’m crawling into bed, exhausted, by which time I’m lucky to stay awake for eight pages. Couple this with a habit of buying books more quickly than reading them, and I've piled up a very optimistic quantity of yet-to-read books. At this rate, my nest will be well-lined for retirement. (My reading habit was more robust in the days when I had a rail commute. These days I still carry a book in my purse or backpack, just in case, but it only comes out when waiting in line or for the movie to start, or sometimes over lunch.)
Confession #4: I probably need bifocals now. If someone were to accuse me of having my nose in a book these days, it is because reading often requires removing or peering over my counter-nearsightedness glasses and holding the page very close to my face. When choosing what edition of a book to buy, print size is now a consideration. This sign of aging depresses me, and I am in denial, avoiding visiting the eye doctor until my current pair of glasses falls apart.
Confession #5: I own as many children’s books as grown-up books.
Confession #6: I own as many picture books as chapter books, taking into account both children’s books and grown-up books. The grown-up picture books include illustrated stories, artists' monographs, books of photos of old cities, dancers rehearsing and performing, interior design, funny signage, etc., and a few comics. By the way, Peter Sís and Maira Kalman are two of my favorite illustrators.
Confession #7: In addition to their covers, I choose books for the way they feel in my hands. I generally prefer trade paperbacks; the size and supple cover are comfortable to hold. The paper, too, is important. I like pages with loft and heft and tooth. Paper on which a soft lead pencil would feel so nice pressing against (but I would only do that with a sketch book, mind). And the scent of the paper … yes, I smell the pages. Are there words like “hoppy” or “malty” to describe the a book's bouquet? Typeface is also important. I look for the typefaces that sing.
Confession #8: I generally have no problem quitting a book I’m not enjoying. There are too many other books waiting to have a go. That said, I will usually give it a sporting chance, and am willing to wait and try again. Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one book I was and am still hoping to enjoy, based on the reviews of others. I started it two and a half years ago, but wasn’t hooked even after 150 pages, so I put it aside to revisit later. Maybe this will be the year. Another book I just restarted for the third time is Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking. I gobbled up her A Field Guide to Getting Lost, but somehow still can’t quite get going on this one. I bought it back when it was first published in hardcover, attracted by the cover photo. That was eight years ago. Perhaps I am just too distracted by the quotations streaming across the bottom of the pages, and if I can ignore them long enough the real book will gain momentum.
Confession #9: I haven't yet happened upon poetry (other than song lyrics) that I enjoy. Even on the second reading of A.S. Byatt’s Possession, which I loved, I skipped over almost all of the verse. (Any recommendations in this direction would be welcome!)
Confession #10: Sadly, on any given list of the most important books of the last century (or any other century for that matter), I bet I can count those I have read on only one hand.
----------
So what do I enjoy reading? Here are some books I loved within the past 12 months or so, in addition to three of the books mentioned above:
- Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore
- Stephen Kuusisto’s Planet of the Blind and Eavesdropping
- Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation and Take the Cannoli
- Jordan Crane’s The Clouds Above
Yes, that's a very short list. Hmm ... wanna see photos of most of my all-time favorite writers? They are posted here.
----------
Confession #11: I stayed up half the night writing this post, when I could have been reading, or sleeping.
Speaking of fiddlers, this evening I enjoyed learning a bit about some old timey music heroes at a presentation called Roots and Branches. The film clips shown included Jimmie Rogers, Jack Johnson, Dock Boggs, Rev. Gary Davis, Woodie Guthrie, Sam McGee, Doc Watson, Clarence Tom Ashley, and Bob Wills, with history and stories about the film clips from three very knowledgeable fellows (and musicians who I am quite ashamed to say I didn't stick around to listen to, but I am very sleepy tonight).
Today I received my first piece of uninvited junk mail addressed to my new company at the office where I continue my squatting arrangement from the last one. This was validating, and much less intrusive than the recorded calls that continue to try to sell credit card processing systems. Plus, it was more tactile. It was a catalog from Uline Shipping Supply Specialists.
I don’t ship anything from this office, but I can never resist giving any catalog a cursory flip-through before depositing it into the recycling. Right there on page 352, this product caught my eye:
Bogus Paper – An economical choice for multipurpose void fill.
(I’m now thinking maybe I should change my Vox handle. Either that or the title of the report I'm working on.)
My buddy-from-9th-grade Aaron and I are going to see Poi Dog Pondering tonight. This will be the first show I’ve been to since frickin’ September and only the second non-G-related one in a year. Patootie-shakin’ will occur.*
*So long as no new injuries happen in class beforehand and I can manage to stay awake that late.
