fog

Southeast Portland was very foggy when I went out to catch my bus this morning. I was glad when someone else came to stand at my bus stop, because if there were two of us the driver would see us and stop, right? (It worked.)

I like how fog lends solitude to a walk, even in the city. It’s like snow– everything is quieter. When I’m cross-country skiing, the most popular trails on Mt. Hood feel uncrowded (partly because sound is dampened and partly because I’m watching my feet a lot). I suppose for some people fog is just a pain, like snow is a pain for commuters, but for me it hasn’t lost its magic.

And fog is so literary. When I got to the Hawthorne Bridge, I couldn’t see the west bank from the eastern end of the bridge. People were taking photos (I’m no photographer, but that struck me as futile!). The fog made me want to smuggle something, made me think of Huck Finn and Poldark.

But the book I always think of when I step into a fog is Julia Sauer’s Fog Magic. Its status as a Newbery Honor book in 1944 is probably what kept it in print; I still have the Pocket Books paperback I got in the late 1970s. It’s a quiet story about a girl who loves the fog, and who finds that on foggy days she can slip back in time to a long-ago village. Her adventures start when she sees through the fog the outline of a house where there has been only a cellar hole for many years.

I just found a sweet web tribute (angelfire, that’s a time-trip itself!) to Julia Sauer, her partner, and the Nova Scotia village the book was based on:

Julia was a Librarian and an Author. Alice was a Fruit Farm Proprietor. It was talked in the village that they were wealthy ladies since they drove a big sports car to the envy of many here at that time….

Julia was a very hospitable lady. She was always so pleasant. She had a quiet, soft voice and a very friendly and welcoming smile. All were drawn to her charisma and charm. She was heavy in stature and both she and Alice dressed in country style attire.

It was a common sight to see them walk along the roads of Little River and stop to visit or chat with folks along their way. Little River was blessed by their kindnesses in many ways.

There are some books that form a quiet, almost unnoticed part of a reader’s DNA. Fog Magic is one of mine.

Everything’s better in letterpress…I hope

Tonight is my first letterpress class! We’re supposed to bring in a six-word story or memoir to practice with. I’ve been jotting over the week, but didn’t come up with anything I was really in love with. Here’s part of the list:

  • liberal arts major, liberal, minor artist.
  • She looks around while she drifts.
  • work, then live. wait, what happened?
  • we have to talk, she said
  • why do you read those storybooks?
  • excellent student becomes a crappy secretary
  • well, I can read books. yup.
  • sheltered white girl reads a lot.
  • Married at 23, not repenting yet.
  • Perpetual student of life. Middling grades.
  • making lists, then throwing them away
  • fantasy dog was better. oh well.

    • I’ll let you know what comes of it!

Trip Report: Albany, Oregon

When we saw that our friend Pat was starring as Granny Weatherwax in an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Wyrd Sisters, Sanguinity and I knew we had to be sure to catch the show. Sang’s a Pratchett fan and likes the witch series especially. We’re both fans of Pat, who invited us to stay overnight with her and drive home the next morning (Albany’s about 90 minutes by freeway from Portland).

Leboyfriend dog-sat Louie overnight. I feel so much better knowing Louie’s with his favorite guy while I’m gone, especially since Louie’s not a “hold it for twelve hours” dog anymore now that he’s an old man dog. (In fact, other than two trips I’ve agreed to with my in-laws, I’m srsly thinking of not traveling until the post-Louie era. We’ll see if that holds.) Leboyfriend has been battling a major bug for the better part of three weeks now, but still came over. He’s so good to us.

Sang and I hit the road around two in the afternoon. It was sunny and I’d been running around all day with no coat, just a hoodie. Freedom! We crossed the 45th parallel. We neglected to do the spedometer test. Does anyone pull out their stopwatch and do that? Are they planned on purpose for boring stretches of road? Do certain people who fix up old cars or whatever use them over and over?

We mostly know Pat from the internet, though we’ve met up a few times. But hanging out with her still includes seeing the stars of her blog posts, sort of like seeing characters in a book come to life. It’s the VW Bug! It’s the wisteria over the porch! And the kitties Mojito and Margarita, who are just as pretty as their photos! (The first time I went to a play Pat worked on, she introduced me to a man named Don Taco who builds sets, repairs stuff, and solves problems. I’d been thinking Don Taco was an internet pseudonym, so I blurted out “You’re DON TACO?” with a look on my face that clearly said some mix of you’re real?! and wow, a celebrity. Mr. Taco gave Pat a sidelong look, wondering what was going on.)

And most notably, we got to meet Pat’s boyfriend J, who turned up as a surprise for the weekend! I know he wasn’t exactly as I’d imagined from the internet– I remember thinking his voice was different– but close enough that now I can’t call up my original made-up version of him.

We had really good food (and alcohol, lemon drop, whee!) at a place that started serving dinner before five p.m., which is good because Pat had to do her makeup and get to the theater. And because we were hungry. Everything was within walking distance; Albany is a very appealing small town with lots of Victorian houses and old buildings. I did a little sock-knitting and chatting and then the rest of us wandered to the theater too. The ticket reservation system for out-of-towners involves calling the jewelry store down the street and requesting seats, and the nice lady really did right by us– fifth row center. The theater is small and cozy and festive.

And the play was fun! They whipped smoothly through a rather astounding number of scene changes, juggling a plot of witches and princes and Shakespeare. I’m definitely going to read the novel, though I might start with Equal Rites, in which I understand Granny Weatherwax is introduced. When I get to the letter P in alphabet reading, if not before. Pat ruled the stage in a wimple and Fluevogs.

Hanging out, a big and wonderful breakfast (featuring, for me, potatoes with sausage gravy), and a drive home talking about Pratchett. Turns out it was almost exactly a 24-hour trip, and precisely what a weekend jaunt should be.

O is for OMG Ossum

Today I finally sat down with a post-it note and figured out what I want to read for the letter O. (I still have a few chapters to go with Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, which had to be returned to the library and then come back to me, and a significant amount of listening in The Time-Traveler’s Wife, which is my housecleaning audiobook and you know how much housecleaning I do. But it’s high time to start tucking some O into my library queues.)

Joyce Carol Oates, After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away
Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father
Robert C. O’Brien, Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH (reread)
Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death
Sharon Olds, Strike Sparks (collected poems)
George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Cynthia Ozick, Foreign Bodies (have to read Henry James’ Ambassadors first because that’s what it’s based on. Oh twist my arm why doncha!)

Old-Fashioned Sounds

Sang looked over at me from the other end of the couch, where she had been reading the internets. “What are you doing?” she said. “You have a newspaper? How Leave It to Beaver.”

“Well, except it’s the Mercury,” I said. The Mercury is a really trashy paper. I picked it up at the bus stop because it had an article about bars on 82nd Avenue.

Sang said it had been awhile since she’d heard the sound of newspaper pages turning.

Earlier today, at work, I walked into the office kitchen and found that someone had brought in a replacement toaster oven. (The old one, which was really old, caught on fire a few months ago. [Unfortunately, I was at a meeting and didn’t get to see that.] Social workers are a cozy bunch and we missed our toaster oven.) It ticks! That resonant metallic tickticktickticktick of old-fashioned timers. I stared at the oven like it was TV; I had to drag myself away lest the owner of the bagel inside come back and think I had designs on it.

In another life I’d like to be a sound engineer. I love listening to soundscapes in movies and in real life. My sure-fire way to go to sleep is to lie down and close my eyes, and let my hearing spread out and out, until all the sounds are the same size and then I’m asleep.

Suzuki Beane

To my fellow Louise Fitzhugh fans–

You may already know this, as it’s been on Boing Boing, Fuse #8, Bookshelves of Doom, and so on, but…

You can view Suzuki Beane for free (or download it for five bucks or the hassle of a free trial) at Scribd!

Suzuki Beane was illustrated by Fitzhugh, written by Sandra Scoppettone. It’s a hepcat response to Eloise and awesome in its own right. Here’s a page:

I especially liked this Amazon review from Arella in my hometown, Fort Collins, Colorado (LJH is probably Lesher Junior High):

My name is Arella, my mom’s name is Gelly, and we LOVE Suzuki Beane. My mom’s name has been Gelly Beane since she was a kid, because she loved this book so much. Recently, while I was on the ‘net researching a project on the 50’s and 60’s for Ms. Marsh, (@ LJH) I came across a site that mentioned Bleeker Street and had some photos of it. My mom got this weird, delighted look on her face and brought out a falling-apart (of course) copy of the book. I can’t find the words to describe it. READ THIS BOOK. Okay, there’s my story. ^_^

Represent!

p.s. oh, and this just in from Fuse #8: Pinkwater’s Lizard Music is being published in a new edition with a cover similar to the hardback original. It’s almost enough to erase the trauma of that awful, awful paperback cover I had to make do with for years! Look how pretty:

IPRC Part Two

It was cool to see my classmates at the IPRC again last night. I think I beamed at everyone. One of the hopes of this program is that it will hook us all into the Portland literary scene, which of course includes each other: I like this aspect, but I sort of wish it could do something to make me more social in the first place. I’ve gotten really fond of the people I’ve met, but I still seldom go out after class– only partly because it’s usually ten at night. What is the balance between working in solitude and connecting for inspiration and collaboration? I get the feeling that a small press is not something to run by yourself, and maybe neither is a writing life.

Anyway, the semester sounds fun. Letterpress at the IPRC, then screen printing at Em-space Book Arts down by the Springwater Trail. Classes in In-Design, E-Books, binding. I’m mostly worried I don’t have enough material to practice all this stuff on. But for letterpress, we’re just bringing in six-word memoirs to practice with. Six words by Monday, I think I can handle.

by 10 a.m.

We have a new rule at our house, and it is this: on weekends and holidays, Holly has to be playing outside by 10 a.m.

If this doesn’t happen, then most likely I am simultaneously reading the internet and thinking “I should go for a run,” in a more and more anxious, stubborn, and crabby state of mind. And not getting my daylight fix. And then I’m snapping something like “No, the oven is on for a reason,” while my family slooowly backs away.

So today I got out for my run very close to 10 a.m., and it was sunny! Sunny and muddy. On the boulevard in Eastmoreland I saw some huge five-toed footprints that I finally decided had to be from Vibrams. I predict lots of kids looking for Bigfoot in Forest Park after they see tracks like that.

Westmoreland Park was partly flooded, not that it bothered the ducks, geese, pigeons, and gulls. In case you’re wondering if birds yawn, I totally saw a gull yawning.

Today I met the roof guy and wrote him a really big check. And tonight my IPRC class starts up again. I’m going to go pack my lunch and get ready for tomorrow; it will be bedtime by the time I get home.

lists beget lists

Bookherd posted her 2010 book list! I also got lists from my dad, my sister, and Sanguinity, and I want to read books from all of them in 2011. Not just because I can snag good book recommendations from all of them, but because I like the idea of creating little pieces of common ground. If everyone reads completely different sets of books, that’s as unsatisfying as if everyone reads exactly the same books, you know?

So to add to my to-read list:
From my dad, T.C. Boyle’s When the Killing’s Done
From my sister, Lavany Sankaran’s The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories and Colleen McCullough’s The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett
From Bookherd, Carl Wilson’s Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste and Hope Larson’s Chiggers
From Sanguinity, Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing, Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and Nicola Griffith’s Slow River. Also Peter Watts’ Blindsight, from a previous year.

Plus eventually I will move on to O and letters beyond in my alphabet reading. I usually read 75 to 100 books each year… my dance card is filling up fast!

Maybe I should find a better way to organize the queue than my current haphazard combination of desktop stickies, unsent email to myself, holds list at the public library, and wishlists at Amazon and Powells.com. But maybe not. Maybe some haphazard should be preserved.

I like my Friday nights quiet

I had my last visit with the kitties this evening. Phew, I did not forget them for too long at a time and no one died including the fish. Loaner Kitty was under the bed for the duration of all my visits, and Hermi-1 had short, focused snuggles (with me or with Sang if she came with me) and then was done.

I’m thinking of jettisoning any plans and schedules for Friday evening and Saturday morning, as a rule. Let that be my time to stay up late, sleep in, read the internets, drink coffee. At least until hiking season revs up.

Tonight I’m reading Leaving Atlanta, by Tayari Jones. It’s set durng the Atlanta child murders between 1979 and 1981. I have a dim memory of hearing about them on the TV news; I would have been nine to eleven years old. I don’t remember feeling scared for myself; Atlanta was a long way away.

I found out about the book in a circuitous, internet-fueled way: I was reading the author’s blog (don’t remember how I found that, probably through another kidlit blog), then saw there was a Kickstart campaign for an independent movie being made from the book. I chipped in five bucks, and then I really had to read the book, right? The campaign is a go and apparently I will get an autographed postcard from Tayari Jones for helping! I like the book so far. There’s one event that I’m not sure I buy, but I like the kids. (One is named Tayari Jones, on the fringes so far, spilling stuff in the school cafeteria or bringing in a poster for the school contest. Heh.) Because of the whole Kickstarter thing, I can’t help but try to figure out as I read how the book would translate to a movie. A lot of it is pretty interior.

I keep forgetting and then remembering that this is a three-day weekend we’re headed into! I hope to cast on my second sock, get some revision underway, cook a big pot of pinto beans, and see my friends as schedules allow. Sweet.