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Reading: Karin Fossum, Juris Jurjevics and Minette Walters

By sandy

Last night, thankfully with no rain this time, I headed back down to Harbourfront for another reading at the International Festial of Authors. Like the previous night's reading by Julian Barnes et al, this was held at the Premiere Dance Theatre in order to accommodate the larger crowd there to see Minette Walters, one of Britain's most popular crime fiction writers. Our host, Andrew Kaufman (I don't know of him, and Googling finds mostly the dead comedian of the same name, so I assume that this is the right Andrew Kaufman) pointed out during his introduction that it was a night of criminal minds: all three authors were reading from their crime novels. I don't read a lot of crime novels, but after hearing some of the readings last night, I might decide to give them a go.

First up was Karin Fossum, a Norwegian writer who shunned the lectern and settled herself in one of the armchairs on stage (which I thought were there just for show). She read awkwardly from the English translation of her new book Calling Out For You, her thick accent tussling with some of the words as she read to us about a man visiting India from Norway in search of a bride, but somehow her struggle with the language made the story more riveting as the audience hung on every word. This is the latest installment in her series of crime novels featuring Inspector Konrad Sejer, translated into 16 languages and popular around the world. Like parts of Canada, Norway (the only Nordic country that I have not visited) has winters with long nights, perfect for sitting by the fire and reading a juicy murder story.

Juris Jurjevics was next: an American who was born in Latvia but grew up in New York, fought in Vietnam and founded Soho Press. Jurjevics started with some very funny comments -- he obviously knows how to work a crowd -- then read a chilling (in more ways than one) excerpt from The Trudeau Vector about a scientist in the Arctic killing himself by wandering off and stripping himself naked.

The last reading was by Minette Walters, undoubtedly the big draw for the evening, reading from The Devil's Feather. She gave quite a short reading, just the first chapter of the book, but it set up an interesting premise that made me want to read more: a serial killer who bludgeons women to death travelling around the world and using the chaos of war zones to cover up his murders. The book opens in Sierra Leone, and moves on to Baghdad later in the book. She was then joined on stage by local author Patricia Pearson, who interviewed her, or at least attempted it: Walters needed little prompting to regale us with both information on the book and tales of her past.

Two very interesting stories came out of the conversation between Walters and Pearson: first, that Walters had visited Sierra Leone on the invitation of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) after donating the prize money that she received when she won the Golden Dagger award in 1994 for The Scold's Bridle (she kept the dagger). She felt that it was the experience of a lifetime, although she was unable to get insurance coverage from anyone for the visit, and it led directly to her locating her current book there -- the first of her books with an international location. I found this particularly interesting because I have a friend who occasionally heads off for year-long jaunts as an MSF logistician, and just left a few weeks ago for Darfur in Sudan: a place that is likely as dangerous now as Sierra Leone was during Walters' trip.

The other interesting story came out when Pearson commented that Walters' first book, The Ice House, wasn't published until she was 42 years old, giving those of us over 40 a bit of inspiration for new ventures. Every source that I've ever read about Walters -- Wikipedia, publishers' websites, even Walters' own website -- refers to The Ice House as her first book, but in fact she has a dark secret in her past: for eight years when she was working as a sub-editor of romantic fiction at a magazine publisher after her graduation from university, she wrote romance novels under ten different pseudonyms. She entertained us with stories of the severe restrictions on the content of these novels imposed by the publisher (no words with double meanings, requiring one author to write an entire romance novel about tennis players without using the word "balls"), but steadfastly refused to divulge the names of her alter egos.

Reading: David Baddiel, Michael Crummey and Julian Barnes

By sandy

My evening last night had strange parallels with Answer Girl's: rainy but literary. The International Festival of Authors continues in Toronto, and I braved the cold and wet fall weather to attend a reading (one of five that went on yesterday) by David Baddiel and Julian Barnes from the U.K. and Canadian Michael Crummey at the Premiere Dance Theatre. They didn't dance, but boy, did they read, to an audience of about 250.

The event was hosted by U.K. author C.C. Humphreys (who will be participating in a round table discussion tomorrow night), who introduced each author before his reading, although there was no interview such as what I experienced at Sunday's reading. Each reading lasted 20-25 minutes, with a break after the first two to allow for people to buy books and have them signed by the authors. I hadn't noticed this at Sunday's reading since I only spent a few minutes in the book stalls before fleeing the crowds, but they were selling some of the books (the ones from tonight's authors, which I had considered buying on the spot) at inflated prices: I saw a price of $22.50 stated for one of Michael Crummey's books that had an original price printed on the cover of $21. I can understand that someone would probably pay the inflated price if they wanted to stand in line and have the author sign the book after the reading, but it seems like the festival (or whoever was running the book stalls) is taking unfair advantage of a captive audience.

Enough griping, on with the readings. David Baddiel, also well known as a comedian and co-author of the popular football anthem "Three Lions" from 1996, has taken a detour into the dramatic with his latest book The Secret Purposes. It's about the internment of refugees (many of them Jewish) by Britain on the Isle of Man during World War II, causing the separation of one particular couple: him detained on the Isle of Man, and her in Cambridge with their baby. The portion of the book that he read, which included some very funny writing in spite of the serious subject, didn't address the estranged couple, but focused on a conversation between a translator and a high-level director at the U.K. Ministry of Information during the war. Although the scenario is fictional, the crux of the conversation is an actual memo that was distributed within the M of I during that time, and can apparently be seen at the Museum of War in London. Basically, the memo stated that descriptions of the horrors (particularly the concentration camps) that were starting to emerge from Europe should be toned down before being released for general consumption, unless the targets of the atrocities were "indisputably innocent", and "not violent criminals or Jews". I found this particularly interesting because a few hours before the reading, I had read the Economist's obituary of Simon Wiesenthal (paid subscription required for link) which described Wiesenthal's dedication to ensuring that future generations knew about the Holocaust.

Next up was Michael Crummey, a poet and former finalist for the Giller Prize, reading from The Wreckage. Like Baddiel's book, it's set during the second world war, and it also tells about a couple separated by wartime events: him in a Japanese POW camp, and her in Newfoundland awaiting his return. He read three sections, two about the couple, and the last a flashback from a Japanese prison guard to his boyhood in British Columbia, which reminded me of the shameful behaviour of Canadians towards Japanese-Canadians before and during the war. I enjoyed watching and listening to Crummey read: he looked about 12 years old, but read a passage about oral sex; and he read his prose with the cadence of poetry, each sentence distinct. He's from Newfoundland, and I was surprised to hear that he has no discernible "Newf" accent, although there was a touch of it when reading the dialogue of the characters from the book. Crummey's also taking part in a round table event tonight on “The Writer’s Life in the Information Age”, along with Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Neil Bissoondath, Alison Pick and Christopher Wilson, moderated by Lewis DeSoto.

I haven't read anything of Julian Barnes’ since A History of the World In 10 1/2 Chapters; last night, he was reading from his new novel, Arthur & George. The eponymous Arthur is Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, although this book is a fictionalized account of some events in his life. Some story lines carried from real life, such as his tubercular wife and their travels to exotic warm places to ease her: the character mused about golfing near Meno House -- funny coincidence, since I lunched one day six years ago at that same Meno House in Giza, outside Cairo, looking at the pyramids while I ate. A three-time contender for the Booker Prize, Barnes was clearly the big draw for last night's reading, and likely the reason that it was held in the 450-seat Premiere Dance Theatre rather than one of the smaller venues around Harbourfront. He's in another IFOA event tonight, being interviewed by Martin Levin, if you want to catch him before he leaves the country.

The really fun thing about going to these readings is the other audience members: readings draw a diverse and sometimes weird lot, and it's easy to strike up conversations with the people around you before the lights go down. The youngish couple (well, younger than me) on my left were huge Julian Barnes fans, and had come just to hear him read although they appeared to enjoy the other readers. They seemed to have read all of his books, judging by the way that they quizzed me about various titles, and she admitted to having read one of her favourites five times. They even knew an interesting bit of trivia: Barnes had an uncredited cameo role as himself in the movie Bridget Jones' Diary.

On my right was an older man who confided that he never thought that when he retired, he could spend more than his pension amount on books in a week. Like me, he's attending several readings this week, and he was toting an armload of books. His real concern, however, was that he had brought two of the books in with him rather than purchasing them there (as many people do at these events), and he thought that the booksellers might think that he had nicked them from the stands since they weren't in a bag! I assured him that he wasn't the only one carrying in his own books, and to go ahead and get in there for an autograph.

The fun continued on the way home: I hopped on a streetcar for the short ride, and was joined by several people who had obviously attended one of the readings at Harbourfront that evening. Two women who had just met at the streetcar stop were having a lengthy discussion about authors several blocks later when I hopped off. Literature can be so contagious!

Albert, revisited

By sandy

I just noticed Andrew's great pictures of the Albert Monument in an earlier post, and wanted to add one of my own. This was taken in 2001, and I didn't notice the other-worldly cloud formations behind the monument until after I uploaded the photos.

Beau, in a further response to your questions on Andrew's post, Queen Victoria apparently became deeply depressed after Albert's death, which likely led her to eventually have this monument constructed to his memory. Her depression is the subject of the wonderful (although fictionalized) movie "Mrs. Brown", starring Judi Dench and Billy Connelly.

There's also a weird and apocryphal story that the Prince Albert style of piercing is named after the good man.

Cheri DiNovo Reading at the Gladstone Hotel

By sandy

Last night was the second night of my five-day literary extravaganza, but instead of a relatively staid reading at Harbourfront such as I attended on Sunday, this was a book launch party that happened to include a short reading.

The author was the Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo of the Emmanuel Howard Park United Church, who performed the first same-sex marriage in Canada, and her book "Que(e)rying Evangelism: Growing a Community from the Outside In" is about the acceptance of gays into mainstream religion. The party at the Gladstone Hotel in the newly-trendy West Queen West area was organized in part by my friend (and real estate agent) Al Garland, and it was a great success: full marks to Al, his kids and his office staff who appeared to be running everything flawlessly.

I arrived a bit late due to rain and work committments, and walked into a lively mix of music, dancing, conversation, drinking and some wonderful little hors d'oeuvres. My friend Tracy was waiting for me, and said that nothing had happened except for a short drag queen show, so I grabbed Al to find out when the book reading would take place. He told me that Cheri didn't intend to read because she didn't like to be centre stage -- an odd sentiment for an active minister -- but he took me over and introduced me to her. She's a petite blonde with a very welcoming smile and manner about her, and she was wearing a clerical collar with a conservative blouse, sweater and skirt. I can't remember the last time that I was face-to-face with a member of the clergy, and somehow I wasn't expecting the collar.

I told her that I was disappointed that she wouldn't be reading, and she agreed on the spot to do a reading. Shortly, the music was shut off, and she took the stage with a microphone in one hand and her book awkwardly propped in the other, obviously a bit intimidated by the venue. She read a short passage near the end of the book, some of which I missed due to the still-loud conversations in the room until I moved closer to the stage to catch her words. She had an intensity about her that came through in spite of her low voice, and I look forward to reading her book.

We were soon back to the music and dancing, interspersed with a few more drag queen singing appearances, and I had time for a chat with Tracy and a few others before I headed home, still in the rain.

Reading: Jonathan Coe and Tim Winton

By sandy

The 26th annual International Festival of Authors is on in Toronto, and yesterday I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon attending readings by Jonathan Coe and Tim Winton. I liked the format: the whole thing was hosted by George Murray, a local poet and founder of the lit blog Bookninja, who introduced each of the authors in turn for a relatively short reading, then set up an interview where Jason Sherman, a local playwright, interviewed the authors together.

Jonathan Coe's reading from his most recent book, The Closed Circle (a sequel to his popular novel The Rotter's Club), had us all laughing out loud at several points: an inattentive father in a playground on Sunday, sipping latte with one hand and talking on his mobile with the other instead of pushing his daughter on the swing; a "sex strike" by a wife in return for her husband's use of bad language in front of the children; histrionics over becoming a literary editor. Definitely on my "to buy" list.

Tim Winton's reading from The Turning was just as amusing, but for different reasons: although the prose was not particularly comedic, his asides to the audience were very funny. The Turning is a series of intertwined short stories set in western Australia, where I have visited but not travelled extensively, but his descriptions were tremendously evocative of the highway and countryside through which the characters travelled. The final bit that he read had a disorienting fast-forward through the future lives of the characters that made me catch my breath, and still sticks in my mind.

What I found most enjoyable and interesting was the conversation between the two authors. Winton, on the road for three weeks now and obviously homesick, had been reading Coe's book The Rotter's Club before coming to the reading. He seemed the stereotypical open and friendly Aussie, a counterpoint to Coe's more reserved British attitude. Although they both claimed to dislike reading aloud from their own works (a strange admission to make at a public reading), Coe appeared more as an introvert forcing himself into public appearance, whereas Winton appeared as an extrovert who interacted easily with the audience but didn't like the restrictions enforced by a reading, and admitted to re-editing his works on the fly during readings. In response to audience Q&A, they both spoke about the process of writing: Coe pre-plans his plots and characters carefully before starting to write, whereas Winton doesn't do any planning and said that the linkages between the stories in The Turning were more or less accidental.

Interesting that the reserved Brit who carefully plans his writing produces such amusing stories, whereas the casual Aussie who doesn't plan ahead ends up with such introspective prose: almost like their writing is the opposite of their public persona.

The Chopstick Chronicles: Taiwan Rice Porridge

by Stephen, Taiwan

I have been eating a lot of rice porridge lately. Once a day, at least. This is a big turnaround from my early days here in Taiwan when I thought of it as a very boring dish. I would avoid it, (as a dentist friend of mine likes to say), like the plaque.

That was until two years ago when for my birthday I asked for and got a clay cooking pot. It came with instructions recommending seasoning the pot by first cooking a batch of rice porridge. So, I decided, if I had to cook rice porridge, I might as well learn to prepare it right.

A major clue to the original rationale for rice porridge lies in its name. Xi fan means sparse rice. This is best explained by comparing rice porridge to steamed rice. Steam a cup of raw rice and you will end up with about three cups of cooked rice. Boil a cup of rice and you'll get about six cups of porridge - much more if you cook it for longer with more water. The rice is 'sparse' in relation to the water used. It is a very effective way of making rice go further.

Fungi

Thamnophis sirtalis

Thamnophis sirtalis (Eastern Garter Snake)
Rockefeller State Park, NY 16.Oct.05

Tosa-Style Castnetting

By obachan,  Japan

Perhaps cast net fishing is nothing unusual; people in many countries seem to do it for living or for recreation. I even found announcement of “cast net competitions” outside Japan on several websites. However I should say that here in Kochi, they have developed a very unique castnetting culture. Not only they developed a unique throwing style called Tosa-ryu (Tosa style), the enthusiasts in this prefecture practiced on land so hard that they finally turned it into an athletic event, on-land cast net throwing competition called Oka-ami. This “dry” castnetting competition, with the unique, colorful cast nets for “athletic use,” is something you cannot find anywhere else in Japan (or possibly in the whole world?).

This is how an “athletic” cast net (left) looks compared to a regular cast net commonly used for fishing in the river (right). Athletic versions are bigger, all hand-made and not available at fishing-gear shops, according to Mr. K who invited me to see the demonstration yesterday. What they do is that they buy nylon fishing lines at the store and dye them with the colors they like, and make their original cast nets. Those who are not skillful enough ask more experienced people to make one for them. It is said that two to three weeks are necessary to finish one net and it probably costs around 40,000 to 50, 000 yen (apx. US$350 to US$440) to make one. The leads are usually called “iwa(rock)” but in Kochi they are sometimes called “hiru (leech)” because of their shape.

Colorful nets for athletic use

In athletic castnetting, the net must be thrown from a special board which is considered to be the bow of the ship. Mr. K said that here in Kochi, experienced masters used to strictly teach younger members to show respect when getting on the board by taking off shoes and stepping on from rear of the board, not from side or front.

 

Tosa-style castnetting. Now he’s loaded and ready to throw.
See the throwing motion in a slideshow here. To have a sense of continuum, set the speed to 1 second.

It's a little hard to see in the photo, but there are ropes stretched on the ground in a radial pattern to be used as measurement lines. After landing on the ground, the net is measured on certain lines to figure out how far and how wide it spread out, and based on the sum of the measurements, the ranking of the person is decided. The competition is held 4 times between January and March every year (2 throws per person at one competition), and the annual ranking is decided based on the result of all competitions. This is their official ranking list. If you are familiar with Japanese traditional wrestling, Sumo, you might think that this looks just like Sumo ranking list. Yes, they adopted the ranking system from Sumo wrestling.
Copyright: 高知県投網連盟 Kochi-ken Toami Renmei

* Original post:

Osijek, Croatia

By sandy, Toronto