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
Friday, February 18, 2005 A DIFFERENT WORLD
If anyone thinks a different kind of world is impossible, take a close look at this picture. It was taken today at Montreal's Musee d'art contemporain. When we arrived, this class from a local elementary school was just coming into the museum for a couple of hours of group workshops with a resident artist. I noticed that the students were so diverse it was almost a cliche - black, white, brown, Asian - and with teachers to match. But what was even more exciting to me was to see that the kids were close friends across those ethnic and racial divides - a white girl with blonde braids was arm-in-arm with one of these Muslim girls - and so on. Everyone was chattering together in French as they headed toward the bright classroom.
We checked our coats and bags and went to the exhibition we wanted to see (interestingly enough, a large retrospective installation of the work of South African artist William Kentridge, whose amazing animated charcoal drawings are as dark a window onto the world's problems as these kids were light). Afterwards we came back downstairs, and there were the kids again, teeming around the lobby as the curators proudly hung the product of their day - the exuberant, bright, joyful mural you can see in the photograph. It's actually a collection of big square canvases, put together; I loved it and so did everyone else.
"Did you make this?" I asked. "Yes!" they said, happily, while the resident artist beamed, camera in hand, and curators hung proper signs on the wall next to the mural, telling exactly who had made it.
Art didn't bring these kids together - they were friends before they ever walked into that museum. But it sure gave them a way to express themselves, and to work together to create something that - to their surprise, I think - was giving a roomful of friends and strangers a lot of happiness.
5:20 PM
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Lest more people think I am in favor of fox hunts, please read the comments thread.
11:20 AM
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
LINKS
A warm blogosphere welcome to Jean, a familiar and thoughtful presence in the comments threads here, who has started her own blog. Congratulations and best of luck, Jean! I'll look forward to reading you.
We called on Monday evening to see how my father-in-law was doing. I could overhear him saying that it had been the first day in ages when he hadn’t been in any pain at all. “I don’t know what it means,” he said, “because nothing else has changed. But I’ve been telling everybody. I tell them it’s the calm before the storm!” I heard them both laugh. J. talked for a while longer and then passed me the phone.
“Hello, my dear!” he said, enthusiastically.
“Hello!” I said. “So, will you be my Valentine?”
He laughed. “Well, you’re going to have to get in line. I have so many Valentines today! I gave away all my remaining orchid blossoms but one, and oh, the ladies were so happy! When they see it’s an orchid, they think you’ve given them something really precious.” This is all so ironic; I doubt he ever gave his own wife flowers except for the bouquets he always brought home after conducting funerals, which were not exactly received with delight. Nor was he a womanizer. But he always had charm, and a keen sense of what people outside the family wanted him to say; if it suited his purposes, he’d say it, and then relate the story with a certain contempt later on. There was an element of that in his story of the orchid-giving, but something has changed since his wife died; the gift-giving to these fellow-residents of the retirement home now is more of an exchange, and more sincere. He wants and needs affection, and knows it, and the gestures are becoming more childlike and more genuine.
“Well, that’s great,” I said. “You’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that orchid plant! But can I still be your Valentine?”
“I only gave away three, and the Qu’ran says I can have four wives. You’re used to Islam, so if that’s OK with you you can be the fourth.”
I laughed; he never ceases to amaze me. “OK,” I said. “I can handle it.”
He paused for just a split second before replying. “Of course, if I were Mohammed, I’d be allowed seven!”
4:59 PM
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A POEM
After Dinner, Rain
Apples, a pear; an empty wineglass on the wiped table; spectacles, a pen.
After working diligently all day, while cars sped through the puddles on the street outside, we bundled up and walked up rue Rachel to the Portugese section to pick up some grilled chicken for dinner. There was light snow falling, so light it was forming delicate drifts against the curb separating the bike path from the sidewalk. "It's not so cold," said J., and then we came around into the wider part of the street and were hit by a blast of strong wind. I felt the warmth begin to leach out of me, but it felt so good to be outside and moving after a day inside, ied to the computer. We walked past the fire station; past the closed corner cafe where the sturdy wooden chairs were piled on top of the tables; the yarn store with two grey, cabled heavy wool sweaters hung in the windows; the block of fancier restaurants where dressed-up Valentine couples sat studying their menus, and the cheaper bars where younger couples entered from the street, slipping against each other and laughing.
The wind blew harder as we headed up the hill and along the slippery pavement in front of Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste. Tiny pellets of ice bit into our faces. We made light of it with little remarks: "This jacket is really warm." "It's not nearly as cold as that night with D. and G." The typical cold-weather encouragement wasn't really necessary; I was happy, eagerly peering into the restaurants, the closed shops of children's clothing, consigned men's wear, the Portugese travel agency with its posters for Cuba and the Caribbean. J. squeezed my hand. "You're a good sport," he said.
"But I love it," I replied. "You know that."
Anyone else would think we were crazy; we've voluntarily moved to this, paid good money to live in a place where the Arctic constantly reminds us of its proximity; where the snow building up on your boots causes you to slip slightly a hundred times on a long walk but you don't even notice, it's just part of the rhythm, the stuttery dance of winter.
We reached our destination: a bakery and butcher shop with a grill in the back. They were still open but a girl with a red heart painted on her cheek was washing down the counters and setting the wooden stools upside down on top; the bread bins were empty but chocolate cakes and little lemon and almond tarts lingered in the bakery case, and beneath the cash registers lay a mound of snowy white meringues.
We went to the short-order window and asked for some chicken and frites - the home-cut French fries that were frying in big vats of oil beyond the wood-fired grill. A strong, sinewy Portugese woman was taking the orders. She looked at us with sparkling, sharp eyes; she could have been my age, or ten years older or younger; she wore a white butcher's apron over a black shirt open at the throat, where a gold chain and a heavy gold cross hung against her weathered, sun-darkened skin; behind her a young man tended the grill and fished huge baskets of fries out of the oil. The day's menu was written in Portugese and French on a whiteboard above the order-window. J. asked for a half poulet and frites. She explained in French, with a smile, flicking the paper tacked to the window edge in front of her, that the chicken on the grill was for a pick-up order and she could only give us the smaller pieces that were left. We shrugged and smiled; it was fine. She packed our order, topping it with a piquant sauce, smiled contentedly at us again.
J. tucked the hot package of fragrant chicken beneath his coat and we started back. It was warmer going home, away from the wind; we walked briskly and hungrily. On the corner of St. Denis the mannequins at Le Chateau shivered in their flimsy flowered dresses; the shoe store advertised all red shoes on sale, 50 % off. At the corner of Christophe-Colombe, two fire trucks tore out of the fire station, sirens blaring.
The wind had died down a little by the time we got home. We rushed into the apartment, peeling off scarves, gloves, hats, parkas, one layer of sweaters. I poured some red wine and turned on the radio while J. set the table and the room filled with the delicious scent of the grilled chicken, oil, spices, potatoes, and we settled down to our winter picnic.
9:50 PM
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TYMOSCHENKO HIGH HEELS
Looking through the recent Google searches that had referenced my blog, I saw the above headline. The CassandraPages reference was to a recent post about a woman on the Montreal street wearing "pointy white high heels", and another unrelated mention i made of Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. But when i followed the number-one hit for this headline, I found this article from Ukrainian Pravda about our braided heroine and her "style" which was amusing both for its English translation and the very different (and, I thought, rather refreshing) way of reporting about a female political celebrity.
11:32 AM
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