Saturday Photo: Light at the End of the Tunnel?

The days are getting shorter and shorter--only three weeks to the Solstice, more or less, and the sun around here is rising about 7 a.m.  Dark days, indeed.  The prospect of a holiday season in confinement makes it all even more depressing.

But this morning, when reading that the Canadian government projects having the majority of the population vaccinated against Covid 19 by next September, I suddenly felt much more hopeful.

Yes, things are rotten right now, but all signs are that it won't last forever, if we're prudent.  Next year at this time we ought to be able to be planning big get-togethers, promising grandkids a visit to see Caisse Noisette, not worrying about crowds when shopping...

Of course, we have to get there, and it may be a long slog.  But let us enjoy what we can this year, and hope for the best for next.
 

Saturday Photo: What to Do on a Dark Winter Day

 

Elena Ferrante’s top 40 books by female authors

What to do these long, dark days when you may be in semi-lockdown: Elena Ferrante's top 40 novels by women (from The Guardian.) I've read 13, how about you?

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate)
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Virago)
• The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, translated by Anonymous (Europa Editions)
• Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Philip Boehm (Penguin Classics)
• A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (Picador)
• Outline by Rachel Cusk (Faber)
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Harper Perennial)
• A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa)
• Disoriental by Négar Djavadi, translated by Tina Kover (Europa Editions)
• The Lover by Marguerite Duras, translated by Barbara Bray (Harper Perennial)
• The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison Strayer (Fitzcarraldo)
• Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Jenny McPhee (Daunts)
• The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (Bloomsbury)
• Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Windmill Books)
• Motherhood by Sheila Heti (Vintage)
• The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Joachim Neugroschel (Serpent’s Tail)
• Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd (Picador)
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Flamingo)
• The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (Flamingo)
• The Passion According to GH by Clarice Lispector, translated by Idra Novey (Penguin Classics)
• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (Fourth Estate)
• Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante, translated by Ann Goldstein (Pushkin)
• Beloved by Toni Morrison (Vintage Classics)
• Dear Life by Alice Munro (Vintage)
• The Bell by Iris Murdoch (Vintage Classics)
• Accabadora by Michela Murgia, translated by Silvester Mazzarella (MacLehose Press)
• Le Bal by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith (Vintage)
• Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (Fourth Estate)
• The Love Object: Selected Stories by Edna O’Brien (Faber)
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor (Faber)
• Evening Descends Upon the Hills: Stories from Naples by Anna Maria Ortese, translated by Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee (Pushkin)
• Gilead by Marylinne Robinson (Virago)
• Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber)
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Harper Perennial)
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith (Penguin)
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Simon & Schuster)
• The Door by Magda Szabò, translated by Len Rix (Vintage Classics)
• Cassandra by Christa Wolf, translated by Jan van Heurck (Daunts)
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Picador)
• Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, translated by Grace Frick (Penguin Classics)

Saturday Photo: Concrete and the End of the Road...

 The Globe and Mail this weekend is featuring a number of articles about cities.  Among them is one about the role that concrete has played in building them, and the threat it poses for us all.  Check it out here.

Saturday Photo: Bicycles and Winter...

It snowed on Tuesday, and is shirt-sleeve weather today.  Good day to go for a bike ride--or if you're like me, a walk.

Bixi, Montreal's bike share service, goes for another week, good weather or bad weather.  I haven't seen the stats on its use this year.  Probably down a bit because of the lock down early in the season, although a general increase in bike riding for the same reason might weigh the balance the other way.

Whatever, more and more people in Montreal are riding bikes all year 'round.  Probably good for their health, probably also good for the CO2 balance.

 

Saturday Photo: A Little Change-up, a Change in the Kitchen and Bathroom Chez Nous

After a couple of years of chat, and 11 months of planning etc. our renovations are complete.  New floors, countertops, more cabinets and paint in the kitchen.  New walk in shower to replace the clawfoot bathtub in the bathroom.  So nice to have something accomplished in this year when so many things have not turned out the way they were supposed to!

 

Saturday Photo: Trees in the Golden Forest...

No message today because I'm calling for the election. But if you have a chance to get out, do.  The light and the trees are wonderful.

October's bright blue weather, indeed`

Saturday Photo: Grape Leaves, Or the Fruit of Sunlight

There isn't a whole lot of sunlight in our backyard because the maple tree two doors to the south shades everything most of the day.  But that hasn't stopped a volunteer grape from flourishing.

The grapes themselves are small, bitter and full of seeds, but the vine does a good job of covering a multitude of ills, including a garage that needs a good paint job but which certainly won't get on this year.

Then this time of year the leaves turn a wonderful yellow that makes me think of all the sunshine the vine absorbed over the summer.  So lovely...

Need all the brightness we can is this difficult time.
 

Saturday Photo: Never Hurts to Stop and Take Stock, Or Happy Thanksgiving

 I'm far from being a religious person, but I think it's important to occasionally stop and consider what we have in this life.  That's particularly true in this Plague Year, where the forces of darkness are out there, hammering at the gates.

Ordinarily we have a big buffet for family and friends on this weekend, which is Canadian Thanksgiving, but of course, Covid-19 oblige, we'll just be me, Lee and the turkey (or as one of his friends just said, me and two turkeys!)

Nevertheless, we've made it so far with no one falling ill, we've just about finished a renovation project that has been in the works for more than a year, and we are among the lucky ones who have suffered no financial uncertainty this year. 

So, while I think that giving thanks to some deity is not in the game, I'd like to thank those who helped keep our corner of the world safe, beginning with Tommy Douglas, the Father of Canada's Medicare program. As for the rest of you, well, come election time I'll be on the phone for you.  

Besides, as the French saying goes, quand on se compare, on se console,  That is, when you compare, you can be comforted.  It always helps to put one's own life in perspective. 

Saturday Photo: The Book Launch Will Be BYOB, Unfortunately

 

Usually when I have a new book come out we have a little launch party at an independent book store.  Last year just about now we were preparing for one for Frenenemy Nations: Love and Hate between Neighbo(u)ring States at Librairie Drawn and Quarterly.  We shared some good things to eat and drink, and I got a chance to hold forth in front of about 40 friends.   (That's what it looked like then.)

This time things are different, Covid-19 oblige.  There will no way of getting together in person to celebrate and talk about Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future, so we've organized a virtual launch through the resources of the publisher, the University of Regina Press.  There's a little video about the book to show and I'll, of course, hold forth.  Would be great fun to have you join us, even if any toasts we might make will have to be provided by you or done in your imagination..  Here's the link to the reservation: it's free, but we need to know how many folks to expect.  bit.ly/marysoderstrom

 

Saturday Photo: Golden Rod, One Thing That Shines in These Dark Times

The golden rod has been blooming around here for several weeks.  In fact, in some places it's actually well past its prime, and is looking a little faded.  But this morning I found this bunch just as the sun began to shine on it.  Somewhere there are a few bees buzzing around, although I couldn't get close enough to catch them in action.

 We are heading in the wrong direction when it comes to Covid-19, and the political situation in the US is pretty grim.  I keep looking for hopeful signs, and while these plants have absolutely not impact on the state of the world, they made me smile this morning, which is not a bad thing. 

Thin Air Festival Featuring Concrete, Believe It or Not

 It may sound like an oxymoron, but concrete in North America frequently contains up to 6 per cent

air.  Why, is something I talk about in Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future,  which will be officially published Oct. 10.  But before then there's a chance to learn more about it and my thoughts on the material that built the world as we know it.

Winnipeg's Thin Air Festival is now on, and is featuring two videos I've made about concrete as well as an interview with festival staffer Teresa Horosko.  Then on Sunday October 11 I'll be leading a 90 minute interactive workshop on writing non-fiction, called Thanks for the Memory: Writing Non-Fiction in a Time of False News.  Check it out at: https://thinairfestival.ca/user/136/

Saturday Photo: Cosmos, the Flower That Keeps on Giving...

 

If you wait long enough, that is.  Cosmos are wonderful flowers that reseed themselves and change sunny places to corners of cosmic delight.

I've never had much luck with them because our neighboring trees cast too much shade.  But I love these flowers that burst into bloom at the end of summer, and dellight the eye when the senses begin to think that summer is over.

Would that the Cosmos were as well regulated...

Saturday Photo: Good Crop of Umbrellas This Summer

 Well, it rained a lot here in August, so obviously these folks were on the case.  The umbrella stayed there for a couple of weeks, during the worst of the downpours.  This morning it had disappeared.  Can't decide if that was because the forecast is for sun, or because someone came along and "harvested" it.

Saturday Photo: Reclaiming the City...

One of the up-sides of this Plague Year is the way people and cities are rethinking public spaces.  Around here a number of neighborhoods have widened sidewalks by allowing terraces in street parking place or even shutting down whole blocks of commercial streets so cafés can expand seating a kids can play in the liberated space.

And then there are the folks who have been at it for a long time like sculptor Glenn Demesurier whose sculptures made from found bits and pieces of old machinery are sometimes whimsical and frequently lovely.

These are three of his now gracing the corner of Bernard and Waverly in Montreal's Mile End district.  They make me smile every time I walk past. 

Saturday Photo: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The work is far from done, alas!

Fifty-seven years ago I was there, having hitched a ride with a friend with parishioners from a church in Indianapolis.  We had been attending the National Students' Association annual convention at Indiana University, he as a member of the UC Berkeley student council and I as the incoming editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Californian.

It was a wonderful experience, and it looked like society in the United States might actually come to grips with its racist past.  And there were some improvements, I must admit.

But the fact that the country is currently shaken by justifiable protests about police brutality and more divided than ever shows that progress can be illusory.

So there were peaceful demonstrations yesterday in Washington.  Wish I could have been there, but I'm hunkered down in Canada, having left the US 52 years ago next week.  Things are better here, but there's still a lot to fight for. 

Saturday Photo: Goldenrod and Badminton, the Resilience of the Former, the Lure of the Latter

Here you have the remains of a badminton court on which a generation or two of nuns played on summer afternoons.  Part of the convent's grounds was sold to a developer a couple of years ago and condos have gone up on its slope. I'm not sure if the badminton court was included in the deal--one of the buildings appears to be still used by the order--but certainly it has been abandoned.  From which comes the lesson for this week. 

Which is that everyone needs a little fun, even women who have dedicated their lives to their deity, and nature is strong.  Goldenrod is everywhere this summer, its beautiful plumes shining in the afternoon light.  Glad to see that it is taken over this place where afternoons were once used for recreation of another sort.

Saturday Photo: Black Lives Matter in Outremont

The part of Montreal where we live was designed more than 100 years ago as a garden suburb, sort of.  Today it is home to a mixed population that includes some folks who are pretty well off. 

Nevertheless, we came across this window sign this week on one of the tonier residences.  Nice to see!

Saturday Photo: Closest I Get to Religion...

Had an interesting conversation this week with one of my Hassidic neighbours about life, death, and Covid 19.  She lost a brother, 62, to the disease early on in the epidemic, and since then she and her family have been very careful.

Once again I extended my condolences and our conversation drifted toward doing good, etc.  At the end I quoted my paternal grandfather who used to say "the Lord helps those who help themselves."

She nodded, and then asked me if we go to church.  She knows we don't I'm pretty sure but I had to say that, no, we didn't but that I think it's important to know what religion is and what religions teach.  Told her the story about how our son was the last person baptized at a nearby church before it was deconsecrated: he was 11 and the church was 90 something.

Then later on  I came upon this graffiti.  It's about as close I get to any kind of religious thought.  Don't know if I completely agree, even then.  Worth thinking about on this fine summer morning, though.

Saturday Photo: Wake-up Call?

In this difficult time I've been on the look out for things that make one smile. That's whey I was delighted when a friend brought over sunflowers last weekend: everytime I saw them I found myself cheering up. 

Also I've been taking photos of bits of whimsy, and came across this one just across from Parc Molson in Montreal's Petite Patrie district.  The mattress may have been put out to be taken away by the garbage men, but someone had a better idea....

Maybe it's time for all of us to Wake up, to the bad things that we might be able to fix, and to the good things we should appreciate.

End of positive message for today....

Satruday Photo: Not a Trojan Horse, but More Whimsy

Because we all need a little whimsy these days, here's what I found in an alley not far from me. 

Couldn't do much carpentry on this saw horse, but kudos to whomever put it together.  Creativity can blossom when times are tough...