The bar, the youth, the discovery.
Drinks from a favourite book,
Science Fiction characters on the doors of bathrooms,
This is what I think of.
I think of that moment, in the darkness,
On the dance floor,
That moment of clichés,
With sparkling lights and loud bass,
And your sunlight grin.
Oh how in love I was,
With life,
With the song,
With myself,
With you.
And years later with the memory,
And the words.
A Bittersweet Symphony
Indeed.

Enjoyable, yet infuriating, Family Tree is the story of two white people, Hugh and Dana, who have a baby “with African-American features”.  Being a book that makes such an emphasis on Hugh’s family going back to the Mayflower and Dana’s not knowing her father, well obviously everyone (except Dana) freaks out.

No one is going to grant this book awards but at the same time, I couldn’t put it down. Hugh pissed me off, although a small part of me sympathized. I should have caught the outcome but didn’t. And why did we need the Earl and Corinne story lines? Unnecessary.

The discussion of what it means to be African-American was rather pathetic.  As someone who is technically mixed race (1 quarter Ojibwa), the idea that these people raised and living their entire lives as blond haired white people suddenly begin to question their very selves and go around saying “I am African-American” was aggravating.  If I was black and had read this book I would have found the whole thing patronizing and mildly offensive.

Ultimately what kept me reading was want to know the answer to the question of where Elizabeth’s dark skin came from.  The result was mediocre, but I was pleased to know.

Step 1: Put your iPod/iTunes on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist (or show ) the lines come from.
Step 4: Strikethrough when someone gets them right
Step 5: $Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!

1. There’s a lovin’ in your eyes all the way

2. The two of us are one of a kind

3. In the desert of my dreams I saw you there

4. Johnny falls he throws his hands into the air, into these walls

5. Oh it was on this Monday morning and the day bein’ calm and fine

6. How dare you say that my behaviour’s unacceptable

7. While she lays sleeping I stay out late at night and play my songs

8. Girl don’t tell me that it’s morning

9. I got a mountain to climb before I get over this hill

10. I could stay awake just to hear you breathin’

11. Past the devil’s own temptation, beyond where angel’s sleep

12. Wish you would have told me when I was young

13. From a phone booth in Vegas Jessie calls at 5 a.m.

14. Without you, the ground thaws

15. I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping

16. When the road gets dark, and you can no longer see

17. Don’t you wake up, yeah, give me some time

18. Every day when I’m away, I’m thinkin’ of you

19. Gimme a sign, gimme a reason to hold on

20. I’ve been a wake for a while now

21. I think you know what I’m getting at

22. Love come down upon us till you flow like water

23. Still falling breathless and on again

24. Like anyone worthy, I am flattered by your fascination with me

25. It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart

26. I wanna ask you, do you ever sit and wonder

27. I’m not here as a friend, I have a job to do

28. Bright cold silver moon

29. Let’s go out walking I know where to meet

30. I’m lying alone with my head on the phone

So, quite a few people I know have taken up yoga in recent months.  My friend D, plus my sister and now my niece.  Once D started taking it I thought about trying a class at the same yoga centre he goes to — Rama Lotus.  They offer a lot of different types of yoga and you can do classes on a drop in basis.  But then I thought that that might be too much.  I could just picture all the hard core yoga types in their louloulemon clothing, and then . . . me.

So, on a whim I decided to check my local community centre, and sure enough they offered a Yoga I — Basics class.  So I signed up.  Tonight was my first class.

It was good.  Hard, but good.  Probably a bit harder on me than the others, given my Cerebral Palsy.  I didn’t mention it to the instructor — I wanted to see how it would be for me if I could just try it like everyone else first.  There were a few poses where he tried to help me get into better form, like the downward dog when he tried to get me to straighten my arms more but they just wouldn’t.  Because, well, they don’t always go perfectly straight, no matter how hard I try.  And I couldn’t do the tree pose on my own.  I needed to hold onto the wall.  But you know what, that’s okay.

Because even though it was hard, even though I didn’t do it as well as everyone else, at least I did it.

I’m looking forward to next week.

This book surprised me. People of the Book is the fictionalized account of the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Haggadah is hundreds of years old, and a very real, very rare and treasured book, which is why I wanted to read about it. But when I first started this novel I was rather unimpressed. The main character seemed to have a prickly attitude from the start, which normally wouldn’t put me off, but the first chapter or so consisted of reading about her examining the bin dings of the book. Interesting work in real life I’m sure, with interesting discoveries, but not so much fun to read about. But I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did.

Brooks gives the story of the Haggadah in an interesting fashion. Interspersed with the protaganist’s point of view in 1996 are the flashback stories of all those who have played a role in the history of the book. But backwards. So we proceed to Hanna in 1996 to Lola in 1940 back to Hanna to Mittl and Herschfeldt in 1894 and back to Hanna, then to Aryeh and Vistorini in 1609 and so on and so forth. So as you’re reading you’re given hints and pieces of the puzzle as each character exposits on how the Haggadah came to them. Often I found myself missing these bits and not connecting them right away. For instance, I didn’t immediately realize that Reyna de Serena’s “elderly man servant” was the infant immersed in the water by Ruti. Once I suspected, I had to flip back to confirm.

This is a brilliant way to tease the readers. In order to truly understand the beginnings of this magnificent Haggadah, you must finish the book. By the time I got to the Venice portion in 1609 I was hooked.

There were a few plot points I didn’t like (and man, does this book have a lot of plot. You don’t even realize it until you finish and then all you can think is ‘Wow Brooks squeezed a lot of stories into this novel’).

For one — what was the point of Hanna stealing Alia’s brain scans? In the end the boy dies and it just makes her seem like a jerk, going against Ozren’s wished.

And of *course* she ended up being half-jewish. I get it, it’s a book about Jews and the Haggadah, but it’s also about the Haggadah and the gentiles who saved it and played a part in its history. Did she really have to be jewish, and not only that, but have that be a surprise and discovery to the character as well? It seemed weak and cheap.

And then there are the questions that I have. You don’t get to hear every part of the story, and I want to know it all. Mostly:

What happened that Benjamin and Zahra ended up peddling her paintings in the maket? What happened to Pedro? Are we supposed to assume that Vistorini reclaimed his jewish faith and was the patriarch of the Kohen (Cohain) jews in Sarajevo?

All in all, a slow start, with a few clunky bits that were unnecessary, but a fascinating bit of historical fiction.

Yes, everyone and their dog has linked to this, but I can’t resist.

Proposition 8: The Musical.  Starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, Alison Janney, etc.

I love this one.  My Mom used to play this on 45 all the time, and sing the chorus.  She really liked it, maybe because her mom is Italian.  I had forgotten about it until about 6 or 7 years ago, when thanks to the internet I found it again.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.
Joseph Roux

It’s only as an adult that I realize how much music played a part of my childhood, particularly the music my mother listened to. It stays with you, the songs you learn as a wee one. I remember, about 2 years ago one of my nieces got an MP3 player, and had a Beach Boys song on it.

This flabbergasted my mother, who asked “why does she have THAT on there?”, to which my sister replied, “She likes that song because *I* like that song!” It brought to mind all the many songs I love today because my mom loved them and played them at home.

This is part ONE: