Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, September 04, 2004 VIVE LES ARTS!
Friday: J. is taking pictures out our front window; I’m writing and thinking about what to make for dinner. This afternoon we both went out on our bikes – he went to the Sherbrooke branch of our bank, and I went up to Av. Mont-Royal to buy first-aid supplies – since we were caught so unprepared last time - and some fruit. I discovered that the street was closed to traffic and a street fair was in progress, and ended up looking through bins of hippie clothing along with a multitude of other women. There was a basket of reversible sarong skirts, all in silk prints and marked $15 Canadian, and a number of us gravitated there, holding up the lovely double-faced lengths of light silk, which blew in the breeze as each woman held the skirt up to her body. I chose one in beautiful reddish-orange, with details in pink, green, beige and slate blue; it reverses to a burnished, soft golden color with a subtle green and orange-red print. Wearing it, I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a Persian miniature.
I biked home with my knapsack pockets filled with my new skirt, a package of gauze, some antibiotic ointment, and surgical tape, and a little basket of wild blueberries and some strawberries.
Also this afternoon, we heard the sound of a snare drum, whistles and bells, and went outside to see a parade of school children from the Ecole Lanaudiere (an elementary school on rue Lanaudiere), all decorated with headbands and masks that they had painted, and carrying signs celebrating the arts. Vive les Arts! said one poster. "Drama!” “Les Arts Plastiques!” There were signs extolling Monet, and Picasso, and Mondrian, and a poster of a nude blowing big blue bubbles, and the teachers, many also decorated with handmade headbands, signs, and facepaint, were providing the musical accompaniment to the parade. (You can see some "Mondrian" headbands in the picture above.) It was all exuberant and jovial, and we stood in wide-eyed amazement as the parade wound its way around our block and back to the school.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Oh, yesterday was a bloggy day in Montreal-town ! Only a half hour after our own arrival here, we met Language Hat and his wife at our door and proceeded to enjoy a bottle of wine (Borsao, which I thought was Chilean and presumed to argue - how dumb can you be - with LH, who said it had to be Spanish - of course he was right) and then off we went to a nearby Afghan restaurant - Khyber Pass - where we sampled spicy red lentil soup, various chelows and koftas, and a rice-starch dessert flavored with rose water. The two non-blogging spouses found they had quite a bit in common as well, and all four of us enjoyed the food, each other, and the wide-ranging conversation on an outdoor terrace hung with bougainvilla vines on turquoise-painted overhead trellises.
Then we walked over to Blvd. St. Laurent and La Cabane, where the monthly Yulblog meeting of Montreal bloggers was already in full, noisy swing. LH was urged to stay by Zenon, who reads his blog regularly, but to no avail - it was a cameo appearance only, and the Hat and his intrepid spouse disappeared into the night to sleep well, one hopes, and rise early for their return home.
We, however, stayed until nearly midnight. I had a long conversation with Zenon and a new acquaintence, Sally, whose blog and memoirs of Vietnam I am looking forward to reading very much. We spoke, or tried to speak, over the din, in French and English about the differences between our languages and the difficulties of each, about our own blogs, and about religion and metaphysics. Then we were joined by Patrick, who organizes these gatherings and is involved in various projects such as mapping the wireless internet access points in the city, and spoke briefly to Martine and Blork before all of us tumbled out into the cool night, eyes burning from smoke and fatigue but in an excellent mood.
Today has been a much-needed quiet day; I spent a lot of it fixing curtains for our bedroom windows and, in the evening, J. taught me how to wire Ethernet cables myself.
Just before dinner (which was sweet corn and fresh green beans that we'd bought at a farm on the way up here, and braised pork chops with cooked onions and peaches) I walked to the neighborhood bakery to buy a baguette. Once there, I spotted some small, 4" tarts in the pastry case and chose a glistening almond-encrusted gem to split for our dessert. The girl who waited on me asked, in French, if I wanted it in a box or just to take as it was. A box seemed ridiculous, and I was only walking a couple of blocks, so I said, "No, c'est bon dans la main". So I walked home with my baguette in one hand, the little tart balanced on a square of waxed paper on the other, past the elementary school, the salon, the depanneur (convenience store) and the bicycle shop, feeling as if the world - despite hostage-takers and Republicans - was still smiling.
Oh ye timid, embittered, or discouraged artists of any ilk - hie thee over to whiskey river and read the current excerpt from Brenda Ueland on "what kills the creative impulse" - and then take courage and pen in hand.
The first sound I heard in the woods nearby was a pileated woodpecker; the second was this (scroll down and play the "tremolo").
Rather than say much, I'll leave you with that call of wildness, and the silence that follows it. It was a restorative day, filled to overflowing with dear old friends, wild blueberry cake and homemade peach ice cream, children growing up, memories of my own childhood on a lake and of all these people when we were younger, coming to the same place, doing the same things. Gratitude, peacefulness: floating on my back, all alone, feeling the waves rippling over my body and the water supporting it, seeing nothing but blue sky and the tops of the white pines that stand guard over the shoreline.
Travel day tomorrow and a blogger meeting; more on Thursday. I hope others will contribute to the ongoing, great discussion of the previous post.
Monday, August 30, 2004
There is the beginning of a very good discussion in the comment thread on the previous post, about "love" of America. The political argument and kneejerk response is obvous: as Chris said and those of us who lived through Vietnam remember only too well, criticism doesn't mean a lack of love for one's country. Many of us do have a quick emotional response if our criticism is confronted: "I do love America!" and often go into the riff about how one can love America and hate the government's policies, and so forth - for this, see the previous comments. Obviously love of one's country - that often arbitrary division of our planet into political/economic/social/linguistic entities, subject to one dominant group's definition over potential others' - has led to some terrible things. But it is also possible, I hope, to think of those divisions with intelligence, affection and humor, and to go beyond the oft-repeated repartee.
What DOES "love" mean in this context? I love the land, and the great cities, I love "My Antonia" and "Huck Finn" and "Franny and Zooey" just as I love the people I've known who are quintessentially "American" in the way those books and characters are... Is America its people, or its government, or the land that comprises it? Its artists and writers? Is it a particular spirit or ideal that can be defined - God knows the politicians are trying! Looking just at American art (all mediums) is there something we can pin down or identify that makes it "American"?
I'd love to hear from other readers on this expanding topic....
