Dance & Drink & Screw

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This biography deservedly won the Costa Book award for best non-fiction in 2010. Edmund de Waal not only writes beautifully but he takes the material he researched - in this case his entire father's family going back to the mid 1800s' - and distills it into a page turner.

The hare with amber eyes is one of hundreds of netsuke owned by his elderly gay uncle in Japan, which Edmund inherits after his death. Through these beautiful, tiny sculptures Edmund traces the history of his family - from the grand salons in France where they crossed paths with Manet, Renoir and Proust under the weight of the Japonism popular at the time - through Vienna and its fall to the Nazis. Because Edmund's family were originally Russian Jews - never allowed to forget their background despite their secularism - there's a growing tension in the book as you know that the concentration camps are just around the corner and their idyllic, rich lives will soon come to an end.

There's a neat, moving twist in the story: the secret as to how the netsuke survived the Second World War and the ransacking of the family's mansion. It had me thinking about my own family and how little I know about my ancestry. Also, it made me think of the objects we have around us and how disconnected we are from who created most of them, the journeys they took to get to us, and the cost (sometimes human) involved.

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I think I'm gonna have to give up NaNoWriMo: the good ol' RSI in both hands has returned. I need them hands. I need them for applying to jobs and recruitment agencies.

A few months ago I bought a ticket to see Hurts at the Brixton Academy. I was really looking forward to this gig and even penciled the date into my iCalendar. Except that I put down yesterday instead of Friday, the correct date. I found out my mistake yesterday morning.

In the afternoon, I took the No.8 bus downtown to meet loveinsuburbia for a coffee. The bus now detours around St Paul's Cathedral, giving you a privileged view of the Occupy London campsite. It looks realy well organised and put together, with information and university tents, posters with info on all pillars and small groups of people having conversations every few feet. It also has a lot of tourists snapping pictures and the feel of a prominent tourist attraction if it stays there longer than a year. I'm keen to drop by soon and visit.

This is the time of year when everyone in London starts looking pale and horrible, pulling their dark clothes out of the wardrobe. I'm still in denial that it's winter time: you can find me walking around London with my hands in my light summer jacket's pockets, shivering. During my wander with loveinsuburbia, we came across the #OLSX crowd again, this time marching down Tottenham Court Road; one of them was my upstairs neighbour, the one who sometimes stands outside Mile End Station handing out socialist flyers. She gave me a searing look because we were walking in the opposite direction.

Came back home and watched the frankly dreadful X Factor then an episode of The Wire season 4. During the night, I dreamt that Anne Wintour walked down a hallway - probably the most bizarre and pointless dream of my life.

I need to find a job soon, before this boredom and lack of money consumes me.

[Poll #1520195]

Margaret Atwood's upcoming sci-fi/speculative fiction novel: The Year of the Flood

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners – a religion devoted to the melding of science, religion, and nature – has long predicted a disaster. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women remain: Ren, a young dancer locked away in a high-end sex club, and Toby, a former God’s Gardener, who barricades herself inside a luxurious spa. Have others survived? Ren’s bio-artist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy policing force of the ruling powers... As Adam One and his beleaguered followers regroup, Ren and Toby emerge into an altered world, where nothing – including the animal life – is predictable.

Sounds to me like a sequel of sorts to Oryx and Crake and completely barmy. I'll probably love it. I hope The Painballers are a homage of sorts to that classic The Warriors.

And her tour blog: http://marg09.wordpress.com/.

And her Twitter: atwood_twitter (thanks to mjl)

Leave a comment and I'll give you five topics to talk about in your journal. sushidog gave me these:

Boys
BOYS! Summa-summa-time love, summa-summa-time love. Boys, boys, boys. What can I say, I started liking boys as soon as puberty hit. Unfortunately, I was part of a large group of boys that only liked girls. Then I fell in love with a singer who seemed to like boys but chose instead to be celibate for the rest of his life - it seemed at the time like a good idea. Then someone took me to a gay club in Montreal and my mouth hit the floor at the quantity of gorgeous men filling up the rooms. I never looked back. And now I have a boy of my own. We wander the streets of London and when a cute boy goes by we sigh: *boys*.

Incidentally, if you ever need to move your office, look no further than Ward Thomas Removals. Not only are they brilliantly efficient, their team is made up of all those hot Ozzies and Kiwis that come over to England for work experience and find their rugby muscles and friendly smiles appreciated and needed. Diamonds are a girl's best friend; boys are a boy's.

Being a long way from home
Is tough. When I returned from Brasil in January, I tried to convince Kevin that we should live at the farm with my mom and brothers. Kevin didn't like the idea but, with each passing day, he's warming up to it. The latest plan is for us to leave Britain for one year - a sort of sabbatical - and stay with my family. He could dedicate himself to his illustration and I could help with the running of the guesthouse and sort out my legal situation in Brasil, which is a mess right now. London is a sort of home, but so is Brasil. And my uncles and aunts are like parents, my cousins like siblings. Years are speeding away and I'm losing all that time I could be spending with them. They ask after Kevin - they know about us. With Kevin there with me, I'd be less afraid of growing bored from their sedate pace of life. I could write a million books from the comfort of our hammock.

Gossip
Every writer is a gossip. Every longterm LJ user is a gossip - we are here because we enjoy sharing stories about ourselves and others. The ones that don't like that sort of thing gave up their journals a long time ago. Asking after someone's well being is gossip. Hanging out with a friend will eventually lead to gossip. We learn from the world through gossip. We can't resist a good story, an enthralling cliffhanger - we seek that from those closest to us, and we take pleasure when we find it unexpectedly. Thousands of years ago, when we were still picking fleas from each others hair after a long day of hunting, we developed language through gossip (I'm sure of it). Something dramatic had to be informed (so-and-so wasn't hunting tigers as they should; they were swimming in the river) and thus gossip was born.

Cooking
I should do more of this. I eat too many ready-made soups and sandwiches. I've developed a bad habit of bringing kebab home on Thursdays (Kevin loves it.) But I'm a great cook - I've got the patience and attention to detail down to a tee. I make the best burek in the world. Doubtful? Come over and try for yourself (especially if you are a *boy*).

The environment
Depresses me. I look at my brother and friends who have children and I worry for all the problems they'll have to deal with - the diminishing natural resources (bound to cause wars), the exploding population, the way people don't give a shit about anything. My tower block's elevator is a testament to our species' impending destruction - all that garbage thrown on the floor each day says a lot about what the people here think of their "environment". When I'm feeling more positive, I remember science and all its recent giant leaps. I place my poker chips on them and hope that the nerd shall overcome.

From icymorning



I hope the game makers at Nintendo have seen this.

Ali Smith, Girl Meets boy: The Myth of Iphis, 2007
Ali Smith's work is poetic and lyrical even if it is often about the mundane: offices, supermarkets, overpasses, high street stores, people stuck in dead-end lives. She mixes current trends like Facebook with big political issues, like the preference for male babies in certain cultures or the impending global fight for water resources.

This story revolves around two Scottish sisters - Midge and Anthea - and the different ways they end up finding love. Both work for a corporation intent on making a fast buck with bottled water. Anthea, the first sister to realize there's something shady about the corporation, falls in love with an androgynous activist who was in school with Midge, leading Midge to question her own views on gender, masculinity and love.

This novel's mood seems to have been lifted straight out of The Cure's back catalogue: the disappearance of Midge and Anthea's grandparents while sailing the oceans made me think of "Just Like Heaven"; and the sisters nostalgic and romantic yearning for ideal relationships was a sweet combination of the band's greatest hits from the 80s. Too bad the story flows away as soon as the last page is read.

"Girl meets boy" is based on one of Ovid's Metamorphosis, as part of Canongate's Myth Series. Other authors who have taken up the challenge to re-interpret an ancient myth include Margaret Atwood with "The Penelopiad" and Jeanette Winterson with "Weight".

Many of my dear readers won't be familiar with the annual European event called the Eurovision Song Contest. It's basically a giant car crash that throws kitschiness and politics through the driver's window, miles away from any ambulance remotely equipped to clean up the mess. If you thought American Idol was bad, think again. If you thought talent contests in high school were bad, think again. If you thought your local yobs singing karaoke down at the pub were bad, think again.

Now, having said that, I must confess that Eurovision parties can be sublime. People gathering together to celebrate trash (and yes, if you are there you are celebrating it) easily drop their guard and confess within the hour that they like Aqua, Abba and Limahl. Discussion on Sonia's height (she who competed for England in 1993) can easily last the whole night. craig and deadsarah throw the best parties, and are the hostesses with the mostesses. Last year, I was one of the two people who showed up to their apartment, for a night of pizza and horror (when it dawned on us that the Serbian lesbian had won against much stronger contestants, i.e. Ukraine's Verka Serduchka). This year, over 20 people decided to show up, though thankfully craig and sarah now live in much larger accomodations and have plenty of pink cushions for everyone. Unsurprisingly, the toe-curling entry from Russia won, beating much better fare such as the Azerbaijan entry (gay goths gone to hell), Croatia (the rapping grandpa) and my favourites, Latvia (pirates that had promised to "steal the show"). Along the way, there was much shouting at the television, laughter, conversations in the kitchen, on the leather sofa and on the floor (later in the night, when lying on the floor and propping your head with someone's purse wasn't such an embarrassing thing anymore.)

Terry Wogan, the presenter/spokesman for England, sounded more bitter, cynical and sarcastic than usual, though didn't get as drunk as last year. Serbia should have been given bonus points for a stage that resembled the devil. Speaking of points, they need to change the points system because it's obvious the Eastern Block is going to rule with an iron fist from now on - especially from next year, when England won't be automatically in the finals anymore, and thus will never ever make it past the semis. If we all know that countries vote based on ideological or nationalistic reasons, shouldn't something be done to stop it? Why is politics so complicated?

Irène Némirovsky, Suite française, 2004
Ce roman a été écrit pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale, par une auteur juif attrapée en France par l'invasion de l'Allemagne. De beaucoup de manières, la histoire de sa vie est plus intéressante que le roman lui-même (projeté d'avoir cinq parts et qu'elle n'a pas parvenu à accomplir.) Cette édition porte les deux premières parties, plus les lettres entre elle-même et ses amis qui ont essayé de la sauver des camps de concentration.

La première partie dépeint des caractères de différents cercles sociaux se sauvant de Paris pendant que les Nazis arrivent. La deuxième partie se concentre sur les tensions d'un petit village français forcé à recevoir les soldats allemands. Avec un réalisme acéré, Némirovsky prouve que la mesquinerie et l'égoïsme du Français étaient, de beaucoup de manières, plus horribles que la brutalité des Allemands.

On peut seulement imaginer le chef d'oeuvre qu'elle aurait créé si elle avait été permise de vivre.

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, 2004
Marjane Satrapi was ten-years-old when the Islamic revolution took away her freedom and rights, thrusting Iran back into the Dark Ages. Through simple but elegant illustrations, Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Tehran during this time in her country's history. She shows the horrors and deprivations caused by the rise of religious extremists, as well as the bitter humour and courage that each ordinary citizen found to survive such a period.

The amazing thing about this graphic novel is how Satrapi can convey and stir emotions through illustrations. The themes she explores are universal - families torn apart, innocents persecuted, evil gaining power - but she makes them all the more powerful by injecting her young self's punk humour into the storytelling and making the reader care for her and her family. There's a sequel, which I can't wait to read, as well as a film, which is being touted as 2008's winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

With Iran so often villified in the media, it's good to be reminded that the people in that country are just like you and I: not necessarily the choosers of their regime; and certainly not deserving of any bombs coming their way.