Don’t explain a gain.
Re-train the brain.
Retain the refrain in the brain:
ABSTAIN!
refrain to re-train May 11, 2011
sweetheart May 10, 2011
True story.
Names hidden to protect the guilty.
Husband to wife, as he cuts a slice of homemade carrot, banana, pineapple cake with whipped lemon buttercream icing: “Are you fighting the urge for sweet things lately?”
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Wife, who has lost almost 30 lbs in the last year: “No. I’m not fighting…”
easy infamy May 7, 2011
I’m not sure that I can adequately describe the rush of joy and connection that happens when one has been hunting down the family tree, and finally finds them. There they are, all the members of the household listed chronologically perhaps a cousin staying, perhaps a couple missing. Using the census for genealogy is a fascinating and instructive tool. One travels back by decades: where are the kids now? who’s living near the grandparents? what happened to that lost brother? Most of these people were dead before I was born, but they are my family. They are my link to the past. I want to know about their lives. Seeing their names on the census, reading their address and professions makes them real in a completely different way.
I traced my father’s maternal line back 5 generations using the census, discovering siblings and cousins we didn’t know about. We had mysteries in the paternal line. As a baby grandpa lived alone with his mother. Was his father still in London? Why doesn’t he show up on any census (or death record). Look! At 21 Grandpa had a wife (Oh! The birth index shows they had 3 little kids in the next couple of years!) But 2 years later he was in Canada marrying my grandmother and she ended up with 3 kids. What happened there? Oh! He shows up in California on the 1931 US census with another woman! Wow. Grandpa really got around. We wouldn’t know him at all, would have no ideas about these important parts of his life without the census. He hadn’t admitted them in life, but it was important for the family to understand who he was. He had a pattern. It helped understand the sense of loss of childhood abandonment, and it told us that there were 3 other little kids back in England who felt a similar abandonment. These were important connections.
At the moment the Canadian census is being compiled, and they ask you an important question at the very end. Do you want this information available to future generations in 92 years? Choose yes. The joy you will provide the great, great, great grandchildren when they see your names and your mundane information is far more profound than you can conceive. It’s easy to speak to the future, just check the affirmative box.
love at any age May 6, 2011
I wrote last week that voting is an exercise in hope, but it’s certainly not the only one. Here’s a couple who demonstrate a great deal of hope in the future. I especially like the pastor’s theme, “You’re not done living ’til you’re dead.”
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Congratulations Rose and Forrest.
♥ ♥ ♥
You were patient Forrest and you got a beautiful bride!
Here’s a tune just for you:
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ancient texts May 5, 2011
Francesco Petrarca loved old texts. He travelled throughout Europe gathering the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. He’d hire copyists, or he’d copy them out himself. At his death, he had the largest library in Christendom.
There is a famous historical biography of Petrarca written by Abbé de Sade in the 18th century. It is quoted liberally in the exhibits at the Musée Petrarque at Fontaine de Vaucluse, so I asked the curator whether they had an English translation. They did not and she didn’t know whether there ever had been. However, by the time we got back to our apartment in Avignon, there was an email from her. She’d double checked with the museum’s librarian. There had been a translation made in 1776 in England by Susannah Dobson. I laughed at that. What were the chances I’d ever see a two hundred year old book?
The concept was absurd, but of course I looked on the internet, and shock of shocks there was a 2 volume set listed on eBay…
Now that same two volume set is sitting in my kitchen. Two beautiful books. Two leather bound books that came off the press in 1776.
1776.
That’s 235 years ago. Thats 133 years older than the city I live in.
I feel so remarkably awed to have these books in my possession. Petrarch collected ancient books, and I have collected ancient books about him.
I guess ideally I’d speak fluent Italian and Latin, and I’d be able to read all Petrarch’s own words whichever language he’d used, but unfortunately I can’t, so I have to rely on translations. Since I can’t find any copies of Abbé de Sade’s Memoires sur la Vie de François Pétrarque listed on the internet, Susannah Dobson’s translation will do for now.
PS. The provanance of the books is interesting as well. They have book plates in them:
Sir John Mordaunt was a rather famous military man in his time, and now his books are at my house. Wild. He lived in Walton Hall in Warwickshire (as you can see on his book plate). These books used to sit on the library shelves in Walton Hall. The house was rebuilt in the 19th century. Presumeably these books were in the Mordaunt library until the home was sold to become a girls’ school in the last century. Imagine. My books used to live in this house. Crazy, eh?
Oh- and there’s a Harry Potter connection as well, since in the 15th century Walton Hall was the home of the Lestrange family… 😉
happy Star Wars day! May 4, 2011
Appparently today, the fourth of May, is recognised by Star Wars fans as a day to celebrate George Lucas’s brilliant world.
The original Star Wars came out in the summer before I was in grade 8. I saw it three times in the theatre, but I had a audio tape a friend made to listen to on long car trips and while working. As a result, I can almost recite the entire movie. Any time I check the TV schedule and the Spike network is playing one of the six episodes, I watch again. I have lost count of how many times I’ve seen it. The battle between good and evil never gets old.
“May the 4th be with you.”
(hey! I’m just repeating it! I didn’t make it up!) 😀
What movies do you watch over and over?
socialism on the rise… May 3, 2011
What a fascinating development! The Conservatives get a majority but the Liberals are decimated and the New Democrats become the loyal opposition. It’s a whole new world out there. I don’t even know what to say, but I’ll bet the Americans are a little nervous that the socialists got so much headway. I look forward to seeing what Jack can do with some power, though unfortunately not quite enough to balance the House and encourage lots of negotiation through coalition bargaining.
I like multi-party negotiations for ensuring the most fair policies for the largest number of Canadians. As a result, I’m not thrilled about this majority, and too be honest, based on what I heard I’m kind of surprised about it. Oh well. It is what it is. Let’s hope that everyone governs with grace and consideration for the greatest number of citizens rather than any special interest groups. Good luck Canada.
text me the gas prices, eh? May 2, 2011
Kind of summarizes how we’re all feeling, doesn’t it?
Those Gitan First Nation folks in Hazelton have a sense of humour… 😀
the cute nerd May 1, 2011
I have just had a shocking epiphany. Once upon a time when I was in elementary school, I had a wild crush on a scrawny, goofy nerd. When I looked back at this memory while I was writing Grace Awakening, I had a sense of moral superiority over my affection for the kid. He had his talents, sure, and a sense of humour to boot, but he wasn’t building his biceps in the gym after school and he wasn’t going to be signed in any model search. In fact, I built the first meeting of Ben and Grace on the foundations of this premise: that her first sight of him has no impact because he’s “just another band dweeb to pass in the halls,” until he starts playing his music and she loses herself in the inexplicable connection as their destinies entwined. It was important that there was no attraction before that moment.
Well, now I have to re-think everything.
I just saw a photo of said nerdy guy, at just the age when I first saw him. He’s cute. Nerdly cute, of course, but most definitely cute. What the heck?! I honestly don’t remember such cuteness! But there it is. Plainly, that year at least, if not in the following ones, there was decided cuteness. It’s kind of a Justin Bieber in Drew Carey’s glasses thing. Strange. Cute.
I am agog. I can see that before such cuteness I would obviously have been helpless to resist. Apparently I am far more shallow than I thought. How humbling. I may have to re-think that entire first chapter of Grace Awakening.
Or maybe not. Grace and Ben have their own history that doesn’t have anything to do with my history. But still. I built that chapter on a ‘germ of truth’ that turns out to be a ‘germ of untruth.’ It’s quite discombobulated me. When the germ of truth that became the story is wrong, all that’s left is story. Grace is once again claiming her own reality and leaving me baffled.
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PS. I wish I could show you the photo, but that would probably get me into trouble. So you’re just going to have to trust me on this one: cute.
Well. I might be able to show you the photo. Email me if you remember the kid in question. I might share.
Shawn L. Bird 
voices in the wilderness May 9, 2011
Tags: blogging, canada.com, Canadian election, postaday2011, writing
During the Canadian election, I was approached by a representative of CanWest to submit blogs for their Election Issues coverage on www.canada.com Two of my blogs were submitted, and both were selected. I considered it a serious honour to be invited to participate and to lend my words to those of other Canadians discussing issues on their minds. Since my blog address was published, presumeably exposure in this national forum would increase blog traffic and I would be able to enjoy the prestige of having my words in such a professional milieu.
http://www.canada.com/Voting+exercise+hope/4709973/story.html is a May 2 reprint of https://shawnbird.com/2011/04/27/young-voices/
http://www.canada.com/hard+respect+Commons/4677890/story.html is a April 25 reprint of https://shawnbird.com/2011/04/20/responsible-government/
Having permitted them to reprint my words, I was surprised to notice at the bottom of my reprinted piece (c) Postmedia News. Huh? Nowhere in our correspondence did they ask for nor did I give them copyright. I gave them reprint permission. Interesting, isn’t it? If some text book or magazine wants to reprint it, will they be paying Postmedia News or will they be coming to me, the author and legitimate copyright holder of the work? What would it cost me to fight it?
There is an issue among professional writers with respect to news agencies using nonprofessional, unpaid writers who work for the glory of seeing their byline. It’s pretty cool, but an unpaid byline doesn’t put bread on the table of anyone’s family, except perhaps the publisher who’s enjoying the free labour. On the other hand, how does one earn a professional reputation except through giving some words away? It’s a bit of a tightrope, to be sure.
According to the shawnbird.com site stats, although there was a bit of a spike on April 26 and 27th, there was no increase in traffic after the May 2 article was posted on canada.com which suggests that the exposure didn’t generate the potential blog traffic. None the less, it was entertaining reading the comments from readers who would not normally have been exposed to my blog, and it was a thrill to see my words in a national forum. Perhaps there will be some name recognition in the future. I’m not really counting on it, though. We Canadian artistes know that with too much free exposure you can freeze to death, after all.
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