Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands claims, in its subtitle, to be about “the fearsome battle between spirit and matter”. It isn’t much of a battle, in the end–having known extremities of sexual joy with her first husband, the roguish and incorrigible Vadhino, Dona Flor tries to re-imagine herself as a staid and…
Month: April 2012
Operation Empty the Cupboards
Oh hi. I’ve been busy the past week wrapping up my classes; actually, I’m not quite done. Tomorrow night will comprise my last three hours of “Edible Gardening in the City”. I should be working on my final presentation right now, but I thought I’d quickly provide a state of the nation blog post. (Also,…
Handwork for the over-educated and generally helpless youngish lady of the early 21st century
My formal higher education went on for approximately 500 uninterrupted years before I segued smoothly into the highly lucrative career of selling secondhand books. During my tenure as a pusher of moldering paperbacks, primarily of the Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy variety, I engaged in on the job training including, but not limited to: Updating…
Kale: a love story
I used to embody one kind of cliché: a kid, later a young adult, who didn’t like vegetables. In retrospect, this is perhaps not surprising given that the majority of my veg came from a can and/or was boiled into the world after the next world. No flavour, no substance; only pain, fear, and disgust….
A recurring character in the novels of Anthony Trollope: Charles Dickens
Last year, I read Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography and almost broke up with him; as it was, just taking a break helped me to fall back in blissful love with him. In the last few months, I’ve read the first two novels in his most famous series, the Chronicles of Barsetshire: The Warden and Barchester Towers….
The end of stew season
Spring in southeastern Ontario is a perfect and beautiful thing. Warm, cyclable, sit out and readable days come early and everything gets so green so quickly that it’s easy to forget that it will soon be too hot to safely go outside, except at around 6 am. Haven’t been to Toronto during the summer? The…
Note the date
April 2, 2012. Today, I put Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers on hold at the library. There are 279 circulating copies and 1408 holds. How long will it take for this book to come to me? Let’s start the illegal, off-track betting now. Options: 1) April 2, 2013. 2) By the time The Sisters Brothers…
Jam and Idleness 