Category Archives: Uncategorized

To make, to hold.

Observation from The Wabi-sabi House: the Japanese art of imperfect beauty They provide a tactile meditation almost impossible to find anywhere else. “They” are “[t]he arts of spinning wool, making pottery, and weaving baskets”. They are “more than just wabi-sabi … Continue reading

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Ergonomics of Continuous Listening

The poet’s voice in Robert Kroetsch’s The Hornbooks of Rita K invites us to contemplate acts of audition. The poets of Canada learn to sing by walking barefoot on gravel beaches. This makes for a fascinated listening. A constricted listening. … Continue reading

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Attributions

Reproduced from the back cover of Volume 4, Perspectives and Realties, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996 I have no written speech. Everything that I have said I have been carrying in my heart, because I have … Continue reading

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Two French Verbs or Three

There are two French verbs, s’attarder and s’attacher that make me think of the semantic ground covered by linger awhile, dwell upon and brood over. Yet the valence is different and can be set in the key of “mindfulness” or … Continue reading

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Woolf II

In the back matter of Woolf by Madalyn Eastus is an epigraph drawn from Michel Foucualt. The human intellect, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes greater order and equanimity in things than it actually finds; and while there are many … Continue reading

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Woolf I

Madalyn Eastus has designed a picture book in which “a series of images made only of paper — cut, folded, and woven […] rely upon each other to create multilayered” offerings. It is evocatively titled Woolf. In the back matter … Continue reading

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On the authentic

A page from Judith Martin’s Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Communication [Etiquette provides] a whole catalogue of things to say on every occasion: congratulations, thank you, I’m so sorry, happy birthday, I love you, happy holidays, best wishes and I offer … Continue reading

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Costume, Person, Role

Tony Peake in Derek Jarman: a biography offers a description of an aspect of the film The Tempest: For the costumes, a sense of timelessness was aimed at […] Jarman was equally keen that the costumes reinforce character. The way … Continue reading

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Personality, Role, Function

The narrator of Robert Silverberg’s Those Who Watch describes the mores of the Dirnan: Vorneen was by nature a seducer. That was his role in the sexual group: he was the predator, the aggressor who initiated the matings. Mirtin would … Continue reading

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Ambiguities

Artist Alastair MacLennan: Art is the demonstrated wish and will to resolve conflict through action, be it spiritual, religious, political, personal, social or cultural. I read and reread the sentence and if I am correct all those adjectives are modifying … Continue reading

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