On the Spaces of Narrative

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Lisa Robertson
“The Hut”
Boat

  what matters in the nar  native is not the story
             but the shad  ows it casts
          narrative becom  es a linking space
 where elements can be ta  ken up again, reanimated
        it holds rather t  han represents
      it's the storage sp  ace for concepts
    like the night sky wi  th its constellations

reminds me of my own take a while back on storing and sorting as things to do with stories

https://lachance.artsci.utoronto.ca/S6.HTM

And so for day 3102
09.06.2015

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Hellebore: Shade-Lover

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Larry Hodgson
Making the Most of Shade

Like manny other slow-growing perennials, hellebores are little troubled by insects and diseases, and most herbivores avoid them.

Marjorie Harris
Favorite Shade Plants

I was astounded the first time a hellebore bloomed in my garden. I’d planted it in the shady section and one day noticed a flash of luminous white amid the mud of spring. I was so enchanted that I made visiting friends slog out to get a better view.

And so for day 3101
08.06.2015

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Lines and Gaps

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Lisa Robertson
“The Hut”
Boat

I’m her e for it

[…]

theory as a n aperture

seeing subject positions through diectic spacing and pro nouns sutured a loud

And so for day 3100
07.06.2015

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Root Division

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Sienna Tristen
“snaketongue”
Hortus animarum: a new herbal for the queer heart

[…] I know now we all need repotting sometimes, that not every plant wants water each day, that to divide is not to conquer but to propagate & still you surprise me my gentlest mentor, still you push new shoots up from the ground when I’m not looking.

And so for day 3099
06.06.2015

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O

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Francois Lachance

First line of Lisa Robertson’s Boat:

Day o pens

That spacing reminds me of one of the topics of Robertson’s Nilling (The Story of O). There Robertson opens:

I open the codex; with skirty murmur, commodiousness arrives.

And a few paragraphs later, Robertson continues:

By commodious I mean: This object furnishes hospitable circumstances for entering and tarrying […]

And I find myself thinking: O pens an o penning.

And so for day 3098
05.06.2015

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Preparations for Conversations

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Francois Lachance

This is a simply marvellous enumeration of tasks leading to remarks about the spending of time.

Alice Toklas was the first true gourmet I ever met. She knew how to grow, to buy, to prepare, to cook, to savor, to serve – and how to put food in its proper place. She understated flavors so that you were deliciously tormented trying to grasp them. A lunch at rue Christine lasted three hours if you broke way brusquely, but is was more likely to be a leisurely four hours, for the meal was meant to be a trampoline for conversation and pithy criticism.

Naomi Barry
“A Memory of Alice B. Toklas”
Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet

And so for day 3097
04.06.2015

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Cryptic Notes on Energy Transfers and Transduction

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Francois Lachance

If the hunger for stories is not to lead to mere accumulation, dépense.

Retelling in some circles appears as just another form of appropriation.

Expenditure results in transmutations.

And so for day 3096
03.06.2015

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Sonorous Swoon

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Francois Lachance

A telling paratext …

Finnegans Wake was another intimidating work singled out by Caedmon. According to the album’s liner notes, speech acts as both “concert” and “crutch” in helping readers to appreciate Joyce’s linguistic sonority: “With a work like Finnegans Wake, it may well be the only way of arriving at an experience of the book. Joyce reduces language to pure music; and, hearing it, one slips into a kind of swoon, a not even listening for words, but only the ebb and flow of sound. The reading-aloud is not one more tool to help penetrate the jungle, but a part of the text.” (77)

(77)Liner notes, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, read by Cyril Cusack and Siobhan McKenna, dir. Howard O. Sackler, Caedmon TC1086 [1959], 1 LP record.

References and quotation from Matthew Rubery
The Untold Story of the Talking Book

And so for day 3095
02.06.2015

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A Fresh Take on the Cliché

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Francois Lachance

“Do you know what a cliche is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

From French Exit by Patrick DeWitt delivered with impeccable panache by Michelle Pfeiffer in the film.

And so for day 3094
01.06.2015

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Leafmold and sun … a line

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Francois Lachance

Laurie D. Graham
Fast Commute

slow reading & pulling a single line that reads like a haiku

Sun and leafmold and a form of calm, a way of knowing.

And so for day 3093
31.05.2015

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