Spontaneous Roadtrip: Destination Portland

This weekend, I headed down to Portland to see my Grandmother.  She hasn't been feeling 100% so it was fun and mischevious to surprise her with a quick visit.   I made it down there in about 4 hours and 45 minutes, which was probably the best time I've ever made.  It was awesome to see her smiling face and I have a super cute picture of us together, but she made me promise not to put it on the internet!  So, here is a picture of a sign that I saw in the washroom of a rest area that I stopped at on the way... It kind of freaked me out. Apparently the patrons of Washington State Rest Areas are the prime audience for this type of message:

While I was down there, I got to hit up a few of my favourite shops too!  Besides Trader Joe's (http://www.traderjoes.com/), which I head to almost every time that I go over the border to get some awesome (quality and flavour) basics, I patronized some prime retail destinations.

In Portland, I went to Deschutes Brewery (http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/) for lunch, which is a tried, tested and true favourite.  I tried the craft beer sampler, which had six (4 oz) glasses of beer (picture below).  They had a big gluten free food menu too, which I don't really care about for me but some people might find that interesting.  It was packed, and we waited almost a half an hour to get in.  I didn't love all the beers, as three were IPA's which I can take or leave most of the time.  My  favourite was the Winterweisen and  it washed down a killer quinoa, cashew and avocado sandwich... I ate it before I got a picture, sorry.

I also made a pilgrimage to Powell's City of  Books, on Burnside and 10th in downtown Portland.  I did so well!  I only bought four books, which shows considerable self restraint when put into comparison with the all-consuming awesomeness that is Powell's.  If you haven't been, it's completely worth the trip if you're in Portland (http://www.powells.com/).  They have many locations, but the one downtown is definitely the best one, even though it is under renovation right now.

The four titles I walked away with were "The Game" by A.S. Byatt, "Seiobo There Below" by László Krasznahorkai, "Thirst for Love" by Yukio Mishima, and "Pussy, King of the Pirates" by Kathy Acker.  I can't wait to sink my teeth in.  I'm reading Houellebecq for book club right now though, which is definitely keeping me entertained, so it'll be a few days at least before I can move over.  

I love how people who live in Portland waltz around in there like it's no big deal.  "Oh Yeah, we do have a book store that has pretty much every book that could ever be written and is an enormous community center and holds all kinds of book related events that elevates novelists to the status of celebrities.  Whatever, doesn't everyone have that?"  NO, they don't.  The rest of us have Chapters and an occasional gem of a local bookseller.

On the way home from Grandma's, I decided to stop quickly in Seattle to check out an awesome Video Game store, Pink Gorilla (http://www.pinkgorillagames.com/).  We went to the one in Chinatown, but there is also a store in the University District, Bellevue and West Seattle.  The chain specializes in retro and imported video games, but they have a little bit of evertyhing, and mostly they just have an awesome collection that is fun to browse through.  "Mugen Souls: Collectors Edition (NIS America) for PS3 and "Eternal Eyes" for PS1 (SunSoft) decided to follow us home... don't know how that happened.

Because I was right up the block from it, I decided to bip over to the International Village to do a quick browse through Kinokuniya Bookstores (http://www.kinokuniya.com/us/).  I exited unscathed, only to be thrown into the enticing jaws of Uwajimaya (http://www.uwajimaya.com/) where I was not so lucky.  Uwajimaya is a phenomenal Asian market with everything from seaweed to furniture.  It was a delicious break in the driving, that resulted in some cold soba noodles for dinner.  Om nom nom.  I'd post the recipe, but it's not really a recipe.  You just boil the noodles and then rinse them with cold water once they are softened up.  After draining them stick them in a bowl and then dip them into Soba dipping sauce.  I did not make my own, but if there are any traditional Japanese cooks out there with suggestions on making soup base for Soba noodles, I'm all ears.  I imagine that it is basically Dashi and soy sauce.

I'm home again and all settled in, but heading out of town for a couple of days left me feeling refreshed and ready for the week.  Bring on Monday. I have so many new things to read on the skytrain in.  

Cheers!

ET

Getting back to blogging... Finally!

After quite a hiatus from this blog, I've decided to come back to it full force, with a little bit of a twist.  While previously, this blog was reserved solely for my comments on books, I'll now be writing about a range of lifestyle topics:

1. Books - Still central to my life!  I've now started a great book club, so I'm sure that some synthesis of discussion from that and titles from that will show up, as well as other miscellaneous stories and book reviews.  If I can get permission from the club, you may even see some videos of our Google hangout discussions.
2. Living in Vancouver - Every time I get into a conversation with someone about where to go eat, or where to shop for groceries, or what to do on a rainy day in Vancouver, I always hear "You should write this stuff down".  So I'll try to do that.  I'll be adding some posts about eating, living and being in Vancouver. 
3. Cooking - Since January 2014, I've been really trying to wrestle with losing weight.  I'm doing well, already 20 pounds down so far this year, and I contribute it almost entirely to two things: walking instead of driving (I walk at least 50 kilometers per week) and making my own food (not too much, and keeping it healthy).  I'm going to be posting pictures and recipes to pass on that knowledge.  I thought about making a separate blog (called Thin by Thirty, or something like that) but decided that it's best to keep it all in one big lifestyle silo.
4. Travelling - This year is going to be a big year for travelling for me!  I'll be sharing my adventures, as well as discovering a little bit more about my own backyard through recommendations for local walking trails and nearby destinations.

I'm sure that there will be other little slices of life that will work their way in out of interest.  Mostly, I hope that by being conscious of my activities and taking care to document and post certain aspects of my life I'll become a better writer, and have better awareness of my surroundings.  Suggestions and edits welcome, and you'll probably also see lots of promo plugs for different projects that I'm involved in.

Here's looking forward to whatever life may bring.  Cheers!

Emily

Thoughts on: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Recently I've been craving an adventure.  Of course, my idea of a real life adventure these days is buying a new kind of shampoo at the Shopper's Drug Mart.  Luckily, I have books like Tarzan of the Apes to let me escape from the shoebox in which I live, and traverse the murky depths of the African Jungle.

One quick preface to this book.  It is a cultural transmission from a different age.  Back when it was written (1912 originally), there was a steadfast belief that the white man had been scientifically been proven a superior genus to any other "genus".  This was based in bullshit science like craniometry (measuring skulls) and other "scientific" methods.  Anthropology was widely influenced, and many people "discovered" the validity of what was being "proven" in the lab.  The whole thing was a giant sham, obviously, to try to scientifically prove the natural, born right of the English nobleman over all other species on earth.  In fact, the point of the entire book is to prove that point.  Tarzan would have been more successful than any other creature anywhere because he came from a long line of whitey white faces with a serious attitude problem.  Le sigh, we can't erase the past but we can recognize the bogus-ness of things like scientific racism.

That being said, Tarzan was a very exciting, very fast paced novel that was enormously entertaining.  The book itself is so different from any of the movie versions I've ever seen.  It starts with mutiny.  His parents are forced onto an island after the ship that they are on undergoes a change in power structure.  After surviving for several years, his parents finally fall prey to the animals on the island and little baby Lord Greystoke undergoes a change of parentage.  Kala, the beautiful, strong limbed lady gorilla swaps her dead baby for the living one left in the little shack on the beach.  And so Tarzan grows up among the apes.

First man Tarzan sees?  A native african tribesman.  He steals their weapons and kills their hunters.  They worship him as a forest God.  Eventually, after a gauntlet of Lion and Gorilla fights, Tarzan sets his eyes on the now stranded Jane Porter.  Her little party includes her father, Archimedes Q. Porter, Mr. Philander, Esmerelda (her servant) and Clayton, the now Lord Greystoke.  Tarzan protects this little motley crew and eventually saves Jane from the clutches of a rival Ape.  They fall in love, but it is not meant to be (now anyway.  Apparently there are like 40 Tarzan books...).  Jane sails away while Tarzan is protecting a wounded French soldier.  In return for saving his life, the Frenchman teaches him to speak and they travel to Paris, and eventually America, in search of the lovely Jane.  When they find her, she is betrothed to another.  Some good old fashioned rough and tumble leaves Jane not betrothed to the evil money lender, but instead Clayton, the English born Lord Greystoke.  Little do they know that Tarzan is infact the heir to that title.

And so ends the first book.  All in all it was pretty straight forward.  It was definitely thrilling.  I could gobble books like this up all day.  Tarzan is a perfect mix of adventure, romance and revenge.  It's not the most witty or inspired plot, but I can definitely see why it has become such a widely transmitted cultural myth.  It strikes a balance between identity, self- love and DYI.  I wonder if I can get my hands on some more of the installations and see if I can't see how the saga ends :)

Ta for now,

ET

Thoughts on: The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

When I heard all the accolades that Terry Fallis' first novel was getting, I had to pick it up.  Winner of CBC Canada Reads 2011. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour.  Fallis' political satire "The Best Laid Plans" was shaping up to be the read of the year:

I can tell you right now that this book does not dissapoint.  It appeals to me on a variety of levels, but even moreso, it has a broadness of appeal that would spread to anyone who is not a frequent reader.  Besides the fact that it is well-written, poignant, romantic and intelligent, it has all the right stuff to make it a knock-out success.  It's fast-paced and allows you to slip comfortably into a world from which us civilians are pretty sheltered. 

What made this book Awesome? Well:

1) Lots of correcting grammar humour.  Who knew split infinitives could make me laugh so violently?  When two english nerds get together to critique the ill-fitting rhetoric of aging parlimentarians, it adds a shade of hilarity that is just high-brow enough to hit home. 

2) Fart jokes... enough said

3) A fabulously romantic, and realistic love story.  One between a widowed man and the ghost of his wife, another between a beautiful young masters student and an English Professor/Liberal Part Speech writer.  The former especially tugs at the heart strings.

4) Exploration into the Machiavellian world of Canadian Politics. Seriously, there are some freaking douches in the Capital. 

5) A searing inditement of our narrow minded education system that focuses on specialization.  Blinders on we major in something obscurely academic, without a broader scope of cultural awareness.  Unless you are an individual who is seeking out a well rounded education, Universities push a certain path onto chosen degree programs.  Art majors (like myself) have a gross misunderstanding of basic scientific principles.  Science majors do not get a substantial exposure to philosophy, art and literature (like I said before, unless it is self sought). 

6) Frequent Chess games

7) Home-made hovercrafts

8) Environmental kick-assery

AND FINALLY!  (Finish him....)

9) It's Canadian -- I know what you're thinking... So is Nickelback, Default, and my poops... But this book reveled in its own nationality.  It was situated in an unmistakably familiar location with ideals very close to my own heart.  Instead of just playing the token Canadian Author card, Fallis really takes his understanding of what people know and love about this country, and transforms it into a banner for action.  Well played, salesman.

I'm feeling a bit like a snot monster has taken up residence inside my noggin, so I must sleep early and well in order to stand a chance at functioning tomorrow.

Ta for now,

ET

Thoughts on: Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age by Kenzaburo Oe

I've never read any by Kenzaburo Oe before, but I own two of his novels.  I think subconsciously I've  been drawn to his literature, not just through the recommendations of others, but also through some innate karma harmonization between his thoughts and my own.  This is similar to the relationship that Oe has with William Blake's work, the theme in his novel "Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age". 

In the novel, Oe describes Blake's work as follows:

"What attracts me to Blake so powerfully is that he not only formulates his own unique mythological world based on a tradition that extends Christianity to esoteric mysticism, he also empowers his mythology to develop on its own by infusing it with energy from his life and times.  And the motion he achieves in this way allows him to drive his mythological world through and beyond his motifs of contemporary politics and international relations to a place beyond time.  For me these two facets of the same achievement account for Blake's magnetic power":

In this deeply personal novel (or memoir, or critical piece, or political meditation, depending on where you drop in and how much you believe to be not fiction), Oe intricately weaves his experiences with his mentally handicapped son with his life long affinity with William Blake's poetry.  Personal anecdotes, pieces of past fiction and literary criticism and profound dream sequences flow together to create an unrelenting torrent of dissonance and joy.  I am intellectually exhausting having read this book, holy moly.  Oe is an incredibly intelligent man, not just as a writer of fiction, but also as a political activist, a father and a literary critic. 

The span of the book seems unwieldy, but Oe always brings the reader back to two main pillars that fortify the architecture of the novel.  The first is his relationship with his son, at times strained, but always profound.  The second is William Blake's poetry, which has unconsciously guided, Oe explains, some of his main works throughout his life.  From this starting point, Oe bounds up and down the timeline of his career and personal life, injecting astute comments about memory, imagination, the role of the author in society, anti-nuclear politics and imperialism in Japan.  Oh, what a whirlwind. 

Parts of this book went completely over my head.  I don't think that I have the critical capacity to intuit all of the aspects of Oe's writing.  However, what I did get will stay with me. 

I went out today and bought the complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake and Blake: Prophet Against Empire by Erdman.  I was in a frenzy.  I was just inspired, and saw a used book store and somehow ended up in the poetry section and.... oh, I know I'm weak.  But I am glad I bought it.  I can't wait to put into context some of the sampled mythology that Oe relies so heavily upon in both his writing and home life.

I'm sure I'll get to it, some day.

Ta for Now,

ET

Thoughts on: Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan

In 1954, a saucy little piece of fiction came out of France.  Her first book (she was 18 at the time), Bonjour Tristesse established Francoise Sagan as a wunderkind of sorts, a strong, talented and extremely sought after voice in literature.

The plot is deceptively simple.  The main character (and narrator) Cecile, her father (a widower) and his mistress Elsa go for a vacation in the French Riviera.  Spoiled and precocious, Cecile begins her first romance with a slightly older boy named Cyril.  An old friend of her mother's, Anne, joins them in the Riviera.  Elsa is soon cast off, and her father and Anne announce their engagement.  Cecile begins plans, using Elsa and Cyril as pawns, to disrupt her father and Anne's engagement, so that she can return to her former relationship she had with her father. 

Let's face it, Cecile is a two-faced, lying douche bag.  I'm not saying that she doesn't have a discreet charm.  She is absolutely lovely in many ways.  She drinks too much, and loves to sail.  She loves her father.  She internalizes philosophy and lives simply.  That said, Cecile manipulates those that love her into doing her often ill judged, ill timed bidding. Sagan manages to make us believe in Cecile's simplicity, and thus forgive her sins.  I think that we could blame the douche bag a little more.  It makes me wonder if any of this is autobiographical and she just doesn't believe that she herself has done anything wrong.  The writing was a little lackluster, and I got a little tired of hearing "Oh, I know it's wrong, but selfish reason A and selfish reason B are my uninventive reasons for not giving a shit".  

The content was provocative, and fast paced.  It really was a nice novel. The subtlety of the narrator gives the somewhat cliched plot a new life, and the setting is just marvelous.  First love on the French Riviera never felt so sandy.  At 120 pages, it is a quick read, and it is a great introduction modern French lit. 

Ta for now,

ET

Thoughts on: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

On a recommendation of a good friend of mine, I have recently taken up (and completed) the book Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

Maugham is a very distinct literary figure.  His career was prolific, and to this day he is remarkably widely read.  He lived off the royalties of his works well into his twilight years.  Several of his works, including Of Human Bondage, have been made into major motion pictures.  Yet, Maugham was not particularly progressive.  Neither is his style amazingly interesting.  He lived in the same era as Virginia Woolf but his prose possesses none of the revolutionary ideals of his time.   Instead, Maugham is a simple storyteller.  He takes a simple concept and simply creates a world around it, guiding the reader through by the hand.  His voice is clear and even, his style direct, and his settings are built from the world he knows.  He travelled all over the world, away from his native England, at a time when the world seemed larger than it does now, thus several of his stories

Of Human Bondage is a buildingsroman (woo hoo, I thought I'd never have leave to use that word in "real life") that is semiautobiographical.  Our protagonist is Philip Carey, son of wealthy parents who died when he was very young.  Now orphaned, Philip moves in with his Uncle, the Vicar of Blackstable, and his wife.  With a club foot, and a social awkwardness about him, Philip's formative years were a nightmare.  As a schoolboy in England, he was constantly pestered for his disability and for his shy nature. 

Philip leaves school to go to Germany.  Then, after feeling the wanderlust again, he returns to England, only to leave promptly for Paris, to study painting.  What follows is a story of ups and downs, with a suprisingly large focus on the exact amount of money that Philip has, and the style of life he can lead and the freedom he can savour with any level of fortune. Philip also has the strange trait of disliking people right off the bat.  Only after conversation and forced acquaintance does Philip forge relationships with people.  Maugham had a wife, but also a lifelong male partner.  One theory is that his descriptive first impressions, followed by immediate distrust may be an autobiographical description of his budding homosexuality, and his inability (in the context of 1900s England) to express himself or feel comfortable in his surroundings. 

The whole story is good, but where it excels (and is rightly remembered for) is its love story.  Philip has several female acquaintances throughout the novel but the most compelling and well developed relationship is with the anemic, scrawny but oddly tantalizing Mildred.  He immediately loves her, but is also repelled by her.  She is just terrible to him.  Like, REALLY terrible.  But he keeps on taking her back, taking her back.  She has another man's kid, and he just takes in the kid too.  A lot of his unhappiness is tied up with her.  But the relationship spans many years, off and on.  Philip's love for Mildred shows an odd preponsity for enjoying pain.  In the beginning, Philip gives Mildred the benefit of the doubt, but as their relationship continues, he knows exactly what kind of person she is.  He has no illusions about her stupidity, her sluttiness and her poverty.  It really is a unique love story, and it is told in Maughams unervingly straightforward voice, which shows subtlety that may otherwise have been lost in the telling. 

It was pretty good, and very theraputic to read.  But, it was sad, bleak and unremarkable in many ways.  Not much spice, but amazing ingredients that are well seasoned.  At just over 700 pages, it was a remarkably quick read.  The host of characters are believable and vibrant.  What is more, the autobiographical aspects of the book give great insight into how such a prolific author becomes the way that he is.  I'm sure that Philip Carey's fears often mirror Maugham's.  He fears is seeming mediocrity, his wanderlust, and his loneliness. 

I... shouldn't... have.  But I bought another Maugham novel, The Painted Veil.  I'm have the feeling that I could pick up the Maugham habit, in the same way that I read Jane Austen.  There is a safety in his voice that make his stories appealing and comfortable. And, it made me want to drink lots of tea.

Ta for now,

ET