Archives for June, 2006

They don’t allow food in this library, and there are no sofas (that I know of) and people are actually studying. Also, the guy behind me wheezes as he laughes. Wheezes like he’s about to die, but the mucus in his throat is giving that last breath hell as it scrapes through the escape chute.

Gerstein is no Stauffer.
Expect this list to lengthen.

So today The Star described Zaid Shakir and Hamza Yusuf as “controversial.”
No reason was given as to what makes them controversial or why we should be afraid of them.
Meanwhile, three days ago the NY Times wrote a lengthy article on Shakir and Yusuf, in which the paper described them as “leading intellectual lights for a new generation of American Muslims looking for homegrown leaders who can help them learn how to live their faith without succumbing to American materialism or Islamic extremism.”

People, we are talking about Shakir who has blasted the Muslim community for its lack of social commitments to the wellbeing of the poor; Shakir, who at 50, has a passion for community involvement far exceeding most 20 year olds.

I mean, sure, you have a problem with Haq, discuss it.
In fact, if you have problem with anyone, let’s hear it.
But don’t go slandering people, without proof as though proof is unnecessary – and I’m not talking about Haq.

Shakir and Yusuf are controversial? Fine. Controversial in whose opinion? Controversial for what opinions?

My god, lazy reporting taking over.

So I knew it was inevitable. At some point I would formulate an opinion about Harry Potter – this is what English majors do.
In my defence, I did tell myself I would not let this happen, but then I’ve never been good at self-discipline. (The more I tell myself not to talk about it, the more I do. I even mentioned Potter in a review of an article on Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education.)

So here’s the thing. Potter is boring. Continue reading this entry »

My own experience with poetry is that it’s better read than listened to, because so few people, so few poets especially, ever seem to read poetry well. Most people (myself included) read poetry tonelessly, as though the lack of emotion might give some extra gravitas to the lines. Line breaks are usually non-existent and stresses strangely placed. In short, people try too hard to recite too seriously.
(That said, I haven’t heard much poetry read, so if you know of some good recitals please link away.)

So I was pleased to stumble on a reading by Gwendolyn Brooks of “We Real Cool”. Now this is how people should read: with emotion, with life, and with attention to punctuation (because we’re assuming the punctuation is in there for a reason).

As a child, I read Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Enid Blyton. I met the Hardy Boys long before I read Nancy Drew (and for the longest while did not realise her last name was only that and not a verb).
Then, as a pre-adolescent, I gorged on LM Montgomery¹ and Sweet Valley High, the latter always in secret and always guiltily. It was the thing to do, like reading RL Stine and, later, Christopher Pike.
My family moved to Canada when I was 15. I joined the high school here when there was only half a semester left to go. I spent much of those months hiding at the back of the library, where I met Canadian and post-colonial fiction.

Recently, I’ve felt twinges of nostalgia for The Pickwick Papers and Kim and Father Brown, but until school is over, won’t have time to read them.

All this to say, that except for that stint during middle school, my reading was never explicitly gendered. Continue reading this entry »

It occurred to me that madness is not always flashes of brilliance against an otherwise mundane sky, not always personalities self-destructing with all the usual fireworks.
Madness is also the stuff of the mundane. It’s getting lost in the every day agonies and petty details, losing track of the larger schemes – most importantly, no longer believing in a larger plane of life.
Because otherwise this is all there is: the failure of merely surviving.