Name Recognition

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Francois Lachance

From “Sofa Rhyme” F.R. Scott in The Eye of the Needle

Egg, ego, id.
Genes, janes, johns.
Homo, hetero, pansy,
Hurtling down to Kinsey.

Oedipus, Priapus,
Sade … and Masochism …
Deeper, deeper, Canada !
Santa Claus ! Brock Chisholm !

And who you may wonder is Brock Chisholm and what is his relation to Santa Claus? He’s a denier.

He received many awards and honours and also his share of criticism for his attacks on superstitions, myths and methods of indoctrinating children. His attack on teaching children to believe in Santa Claus received national comment.

From the Canadian Encyclopedia entry

Scott here stands in the great tradition of Alexander Pope whose The Dunciad immortalized names that might otherwise be forgotten.

And so for day 1952
17.04.2012

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Still Point Sipping

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Francois Lachance

A previous posting about a tea poem by Robert Finch focused on the accoutrements. This poem, a tour of a tea merchant’s shop, derives some of its verve and energy from an enumeration of types: Ling Ching, Chunmee, Pi Lo Chun, Bai Mu Dan pearls. The latter give the poem its arresting final image:

Bai Mu Dan pearls
from this Spring’s first-snow pickings,
fingertip-rolled round petals of jasmine
slowly unfurl, greening
his kettle of clear well water,
each sip unhinging
in that first, stilling cup of tea.

“Tea Merchant” in Red Lacquered Chopsticks by Betty Warrington-Kearsley.

And so for day 1951
16.04.2012

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Accroche-toi à ton rêve

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Francois Lachance

150 stories | 150 récits

Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

It’s a collection of vignettes and thought pieces with French and English side by side.

From the conclusion of the text by Janice Stein recounting an encounter on the Toronto subway:

Just then the subway lurched, stopped and the lights went out. The young man began to tremble; he told me that when he finds himself in a confined dark space, he returns to the cellar he hid in when Aleppo was bombed. I reached out to hold his hand and reassured him that he was now in Toronto. He grabbed my hand and held tight — to Toronto. À ce moment-là, la voiture a tangué, s’est arrêtée et nous avons été plongés dans le noir. Le jeune homme a commencé à trembler. Il m’a raconté que lorsqu’il se retrouve dans un lieu sombre et confiné cela le ramène dans la cave où il se cachait pendant les bombardements à Alep. Je lui ai tendu la main et l’ai rassuré, lui disant qu’il était bien à Toronto. Il m’a pris la main, la serrant bien fort, jusqu’à Toronto

Double take on my part. That last bit in French back translates “all the way to Toronto” which of course is nonsensical since the actants are already in Toronto. The English is obviously metaphorical in its reach — it’s about connecting with the people and the place of Toronto. Lost in translation. “Il m’a pris la main, la serrant bien fort; s’accrochant à Toronto.”

The translation is attributed to Laroque Linguistic Services Inc.

One wishes that they had been able to channel the lyrics to the Electronic Light Orchestra “Hold on Tight” with its importation of French — Hold on tight to your dream.

And so for day 1950
15.04.2012

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Death By Chocolate

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Francois Lachance

Long before there was a cake by that name, there was an anecdote:

It was said that a nobleman of Louis XIII’s court had offended the honour of one of the ladies-in-waiting. She was so incensed that she poisoned a cup of chocolate she prepared him and just before he died, he held her in his arms and whispered, ‘The chocolate would have been better if you had added a little more sugar; the poison gives it a bitter flavour. Think of this the next time you offer a gentleman chocolate.’

Reported by Jennie Reekie in The Little Chocolate Book

And so for day 1949
14.04.2012

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Residues For the Colour Blind

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Francois Lachance

These are from a series inspired by Fisher Price alphabet magnets.
Feel Happier in Nine Seconds by Linda Besner

glassblowers trumpet delicate lullabies

darkness worships sparklers

Translated into marked and unmarked letters:

glassblowers trumpet delicate lullabies

darkness worships sparklers

Like turning up the bass … not quite capturing the fluted subtleties of g-l-assb-lower-s

And so for day 1948
13.04.2012

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Colour Analysis

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Francois Lachance

from “Our Baby”

Art irritating Life

from “Your Happy Place May Be in Need of an Undersea Princess”

she said ‘caca d’oie’ and I said ‘war.’
she said ‘cuisse de nymphe effrayé’ and I said ‘peace.’

All in Feel Happier in Nine Seconds by Linda Besner

And so for day 1947
12.04.2012

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Hibiscus syriacus

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Francois Lachance

from
James Schuyler
“Sonnet”
in The Home Book

while the trees lean in folds and the rose of Sharon blooms
and blooms at each twig and branch tip like a toy tree

the lines themselves carry over like the overburdened shrub itself — it’s that repetition that crosses the enjambement — almost toppling over

And so for day 1946
11.04.2012

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Grotesque Appeals

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Francois Lachance

It’s from a 1964 speech (The White Problem) collected in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings. And is given this configuration by Raoul Peck in the film and book, I Am Not Your Negro compiled and edited from texts by James Baldwin:

In this country,
for a dangerously long time,
there have been two levels of experience.
One, to put it cruelly, can be summed up
in the images of Gary Cooper and Doris Day:
two of the most grotesque appeals
to innocence the world has ever seen.
And the other,
subterranean, indispensable, and denied,
can be summed up, let us say,
in the tone and the face of Ray Charles.
And there has never been any genuine confrontation
between these two levels of experience.

What was continuous prose gains a new energy and incision with the line breaks. In the best and most honest of receptions, it forces us to re-read the originating essay and its animating spirit that calls for the facing of truth in order to work through history, recognizing the price of transformation, in order to take the first awkward steps towards survival.

And so for day 1945
10.04.2012

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Or Words to That Effect

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Francois Lachance

The fate of a text by F.R. Scott, “W.L.M.K.”

I was led to the library copy because I saw multiplied across the WWW citations containing the same error (“oderly decontrol”). The library copy netted another accidental (“conscription is necessary”) which one reader corrected in the Robarts Library copy with a big fat F in blue ink which is closer to the popular conditional.

F.R. Scott poem W.L.M.K.

[The “is” is silently corrected to “if” in online versions that netted “oderly decontrol”.]

Further research reveals that the often cited phrase “conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription” reverses the syntax of what William Lyon Mackenzie King uttered in much more compact and clipped phrasing:

“Not necessarily conscription, but conscription if necessary“

But there is space in the popular imagination for poetic liberties.

And so for day 1944
09.04.2012

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Between Bites

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Francois Lachance

The main ingredient …

DINNER. A major daily activity, which can be accomplished in worthy fashion only by intelligent people. It is not enough to eat. To dine, there must be diversified, calm conversation. It should sparkle with the rubies of the wine between courses, be deliciously suave with the sweetness of dessert, and acquire true profundity with the coffee.

Alexandre Dumas Dictionary of Cuisine edited, abridged, translated by Louis Colman.

And so for day 1943
08.04.2012

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