Books for 2014

EDIT: Further purchases that I'm excited to read...

Michelle Orange - This is Running for Your Life (essays)

• Bought this on a whim at the bookstore (yay, Pulpfiction Commercial Drive). I love essays, I like the cover, and the first essay is called The Uses of Nostalgia and Some Thoughts on Ethan Hawke's Face. I know nothing about the author. 

Adam Gopnik - The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (culture)

• Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, about raising a family in Paris. In this book he writes about food culture, another of my favourite reading topics. 

UPDATE: to add

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (play)

• I think Borges wrote something about this, and then I spotted it at one of the best book shops I know - the guy who sells on Commercial, around 7th. A few pages in and it's so clearly an influence of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

This is aspirational for now. I'm finishing up Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, a wonderful collection of short fictions and essays (and, oddly, parables), and planning my next books as I look longingly at my book shelf.

As an aside, Nina and I have been toying with the idea of forming a book club. Standard stuff, read a book, talk about it with friends over wine and beer, etc. Might try to do something with this, might not.

The books, though. What do I want to read...

Ian Rankin - Standing in Another Man's Grave (detective/mystery)

• A new Rebus book (when there weren't meant to be any more...). I grew up reading comfortable westerns, and this is about as close as I get to that. Frustratingly repetitive at times, but it's a long series and I'll be quite happy to burn through this.

Ian Rankin - The Impossible Dead (detective/mystery)

• The series/character that Rankin moved on to after the (not-quite) final Rebus book. It's of a style, but Rankin updated the stereotypes somewhat, and he really is very good at his craft.

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

• A story of small-town soccer in Italy as experienced by an American new to the sport. A bit of travel tourism, sports history, culture, etc.

Adam Gopnik - Winter (musings, or something)

• I like to read the Massey Lectures every year. I've fallen off the wagon a bit of late, but Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, so I'm back, baby.

Lisa Moore - Alligator (fiction)

• Small-town Newfoundland, and the author won an award recently. That's all I know. 

Salman Rushdie - Fury (fiction)

• After reading his excellent memoir, Joseph Anton, I wanted to read more fiction by Rushdie, and I'll be damned if I'm going to try Midnight's Children for the third time...

Edmund White - The Flâneur (more musings)

• I love the word flâneur - it might be the most romantic word I know. White lived in Paris, and here he writes about his days there, wandering about the city, etc. I imagine the book is pretentious but fun.

Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote

• This is an ambitious move on my part. It's a bloody huge book. I'm looking for interested reading buddies to take this on with me. Borges has such high praise for this book, and since he's my latest authorial obsession...

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There, that's a decent list. I'd like to add a few more soccer books in there (most notably Dennis Bergkamp's well-received autobiography Stillness and Speed - here, watch one of the most beautiful goals ever scored). I'm certainly not as prolific a reader as I once was, or anywhere close to my friend Derrick's speed-datingreading regime...

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Oh go on, watch this other amazing goal by Bergkamp:

Vocabulary in Borges' Labyrinths

I decided this needed its own spot. Here are the words I'm looking up as I read Borges' Labyrinths. Most are words I've never heard or never known, though some I've known or looked up in the past but forget.

Nina thinks he's using words just to use words - I'm not sure if it's Borges or the translator. I appreciate his use of language, but I'm not sure why. In some instances I think she's right.


Ursprache: A proto- or root language, from ur- and the German sprache.
apotheosis: The highest point in the development of something; culmination.
proconsul: A governor of a province in ancient Rome.
palimpsest: A writing material that has had the original writing erased in order to use it again.
propitious: Giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable.
numina: Deities
lustra: 5-year periods
vade mecum: A handbook carried for constant use.
deleble: Delible, able to be erased; I think it went untranslated from Spanish, as it's an obsolete spelling.
ab aeterno: From time immemorial. 
Basilides: An early Gnostic religious teacher in Egypt.
dithyramb: A wild choral hymn of ancient Greece, or any passionate writing.
perspicuous: Clearly expressed and easily understood.
apodictic: Clearly established or beyond dispute.
Tetragrammaton: The Hebrew name of God transliterated in four letters as YHWH or JHVH and articulated as Yahweh or Jehovah.
Pentateuch: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
cosmorama: An exhibition of perspective pictures of different places in the world, usually world landmarks.
crapulous: Of or relating to the drinking of alcohol or drunkenness.
oriel: A projection from the wall of a building, typically supported from the ground or by corbels.
vespers: A service of evening prayer in churches.
essaying: Trying or attempting.
condign: Appropriate or fitting/deserved.
conventicle: A secret or unlawful religious meeting.
cosmogonic: Story of the origin of the world.
perdurable: Permanent, imperishable.
exiguous: Meager, small.
nitid: Bright, lustrous.
astragals: A small semicircular molding around the top or bottom of a column.
pullulate: Breed or spread so as to become extremely common.
hypogea: Underground chambers.
vituperated: Used harsh language towards.
impugn: Criticize as false.
solecism: A grammatical mistake; a breach of good manners; a piece of incorrect behaviour.
theriaca: Medical concoction; panacea. (In this case an antidote to venom of The Serpent.)
fulminate: Express vehement protest.
adduce: Cite as evidence.
guerdon: A reward or recompense.
fustigate: Criticize severely; hit with a cudgel.
veronal: A barbital-based sleeping aid.
misanthropy: Dislike or hatred of mankind.
stylobate: The base of a colonnade.
teleology: The doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.
philology: The study of texts and their meaning.
apostrophe: A digression addressing someone not present.
pathetic (see note 1): Arousing pity, esp. through vulnerability or sadness; relating to the emotions.
exigent: Demanding, pressing.
appurtenance: Accessories; subordinate things.
subtilize: Elevate; sharpen.
lozenge (see note 2): A diamond or square shape.
sheave: A pulley.
concatenation: A group of things linked together (like a chain).
permute (see note 3): Submit to a process of alteration.
exegetical: Critical explanation or interpretation of a text, esp. of scripture.
propension: Propensity (archaic).
lapidary: Engraved on or suitable for engraving on stone and therefore elegant and concise.
educe: Bring out or develop (something latent or potential); infer (something) from data.

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1. Borges (or the translator) uses pathetic quite often, and at times not really in a derisory fashion. As with apostrophe, I wondered if there wasn't a different meaning that we don't generally use.

2. This meaning is archaic - the shift to mean candy started in the 16th century, when it meant a square cake.

3. I'm not sure this is a correct translation, and yes, I know how presumptuous that is.

Themes in Borges' Labyrinths

For now this will just be a repository of thematic sentences or phrases from the stories in Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, which I am quickly falling in love with.

The God's Script
The presence of god in everything, the religious experience, finding salvation, etc. There's a lot going on in this that I'm missing.

The Waiting
A haunting tale about waiting for fate, about dreaming reality. This story makes me sad.

The Zahir
A story of losing oneself inadvertently in obsession.

Averroes' Search
A meditation on meaning and knowledge.

Deutsches Requiem
A powerful exploration of the mindset of a committed Nazi.

The House of Asterion
The story of the Minotaur told from the perspective of the Minotaur. Led me to read about Grendel.

Emma Zunz
Enjoyable - a revenge killing that examines fate and retribution.

Story of the Warrior and the Captive
More on duality.

The Theologians
"Aurelian spoke with God and... He was so little interested in religious differences that He mistook him for [his chief rival]."

The Immortal 
"Death (or its allusion) makes men precious and pathetic."
"... shortly, I shall be all men, I shall be dead."

The Sect of the Phoenix
The secret one.

Three Versions of Judas
Was Judas the ultimate follower of Jesus? Was his sacrifice necessary, and should it therefore be celebrated?

The Secret Miracle
A Jewish author killed by firing squad composes his opus in his head while frozen in time for a year as the bullets hang in mid-air.

Death and the Compass
The French detective/Kabbalah one.

Theme of the Traitor and the Hero


The Library of Babel
Endless possibilities - what meaning can we find?

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Funes the Memorious

"To think is to forget differences..."

The Shape of the Sword

"Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it... I am all other men, any man is all men."

The Circular Ruins

"With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another."

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

"Thinking, analyzing, inventing are not anomalous acts; they are the normal respiration of the intelligence."

The Lottery of Babylon

"Babylon is nothing else than an infinite game of chance."

The Garden of Forking Paths

"This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time."

Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

"A scattered dynasty of solitary men has changed the face of the world."

Reading Borges' Labyrinths

UPDATE - Argh, I appear to have lost some of this. Not worried about the vocab, as I've now published it elsewhere. But I had added two other thoughts that I can't recall now. Bah.


I'm going to post the random thoughts I have as I read Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths.

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1. Quote on the back from David Foster Wallace, saying Borges is the link between modernism and post-modernism. Two stories in and I think I have a sense of what he means.

2. David Mitchell is either a big fan or remarkably informed by others that are. Reading The Garden of the Forking Paths felt like I was reading something by him.

EDIT: Oh look, he totally is. This is one of his top ten books, and he specifically references that story here.

3. I feel like I am missing so much. There are references to so many things that I don't know and don't really have the time to research. I looked up one reference to a Roman leader, and loved it.

4. The last time I had to use a dictionary this much was for Nabokov. Ursprache, apotheosis, etc.*

5. Was Borges an existentialist? Does everyone who reads The Lottery of Babylon think this? In essence, there is a "Company" that people think controls their lives via randomized life decisions. But as there is no proof that this Company exists, "Babylon is nothing else than an infinite game of chance."

6. I'd like to come away from each story with a coherent thought or theme or idea. So far I'm not sure this is possible.

7. I love the playfulness in his writing. Here he is contrasting the original Don Quixote with a modern exact replication of it:

The contrast in style is also vivid. The archaic style of Menard - quite foreign, after all - suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his forerunner who handles with ease the current Spanish of his time.

8, 9. (Notes 8 and 9 are lost to time. See above.)

10. I don't understand all or aspects of: Death and the Compass and The Sect of the Phoenix. I enjoyed both of them, but the meanings or themes are not entirely clear. The first is a bit of a hardboiled crime writing, following a detective trying to solve murders that appear to be based on the Kabbalah and featuring references to Zeno's paradoxes.

The second is apparently a riddle for which the answer is sex. Thanks, Wikipedia. Seems a bit tawdry and dull, to be honest.

11. Deutsches Requiem is a powerful story, one I'm interested in exploring further. That likely means just reading this piece for now, though I'd like to read about Schopenhauer. (Yes, that's a bit ambitious.)


(Check this space for more insightful insights soon!)

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* Dictionary so far

Ursprache: A proto- or root language, from ur- and the German sprache.
apotheosis: The highest point in the development of something; culmination.
proconsul: A governor of a province in ancient Rome.
palimpsest: A writing material that has had the original writing erased in order to use it again.
propitious: Giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable.

You can shave when you want to

This afternoon I bought this safety razor.

I have been pretty fed up with the costs of Mach 3 cartridges for years and constantly buying and throwing away packaging and old cartridges, and after browsing at Revolucion a few weeks ago, I was ready to take the plunge. A quick stop at their store in Yaletown on the way home...

$39 later, I was the proud new owner of a Parker safety razor, a box of five razor blades, and some tips on how to shave.

Here are the results of my first shave:

I was a little nervous at first, but in the end it was pretty smooth, pretty easy, and only rarely did I feel like I might nick myself. Looking forward to years of low cost and minimal waste smooth shaves.

Books 2013

Books I've read this year:

Fiction:  
White Teeth - Zadie Smith (debut novel)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman (novella)
Death: The high cost of living - Neil Gaiman (comic mini-series)
The Dilettantes - Michael Hingston (debut novel)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard (play)


Non-fiction:  
The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver (statistics and probability)
Ceci n'est pas un pipe - Michel Foucault (art critique)
The Numbers Game: Why Everyhing You Know About Soccer is Wrong - Chris Anderson and David Sally (data in sports)

Vancouver Matters - UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

Eating Dirt - Charlotte Gill (memoir)
Joseph Anton - Salman Rushdie (memoir)

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Books I am currently reading: 

Fiction:

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges (short fictions)
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro - Joe McGinniss (soccer history/memoir)

The best campaign email I ever received

Subject: Harper=Hitler=HAARP= TORY STAFFORD NATION. WAR CRIMINAL is going to JAIL, NOT to OTTAWA

Full Moon MOONday 04 18 2011= 04:9:2011 or 6:9:11 or 04:11:11=8 moon (luna not lilith).Another day dedicated to the man in the moon -ALLAH=SIN=SIoN. Let's see what Bilderberg SATANIST STEPHEN HARPER has in store for CANADA today!? The real Canadian Bilderberg agenda has nothing to do with health care, marriage or Charter Rights. The real hidden agenda is that Mssrs. Martin, Harper, Harris, Manning and Klein all agree on one thing: that Canada must integrate further with the USA, Agenda Hidden by Both Parties I can guarantee you that the real hidden agenda is not the Conservative's position on medicare, marriage or any other social issue - all these are political strawmen to give the illusion of choice. The choice seems to be between a corrupt incumbent government offering social liberties and a challenging (hopefully less corrupted)government that offers economic liberties.Either way, we're gonna get a party in power that integrates Canada with the US and makes us more dependent on this market. http://grandinite.blogspot.com/2005/04/unification-real-canadian-bilderberg.html HAARP=HARPER HELL playlist Arrest him before he goes to the Antichrist's wedding. TSNEWS vol 12 issue 14 Mar 11 to 28 2011 HARPER HITLER WAR CRIMES UPDATE http://www.holyhealthy.com//The%20following%20had%20videos%20sent%20to%20them.htm April 1-15 2011 Hypothesis- If the Queen worships Satan and the POPE worships SATAN, then those who pledge allegiance to them, are also SATANISTS. http://this-present-crisis.blogspot.com/2008/08/masonic-names-jehovah-jesus.html 04 14 2011=11:11= 13-NEW WORLD ORDER and MASS GENOCIDE. $$$$ SATANIC ILLEGAL WAR TAX funded CANADIAN poliTICS continue their LIEs on $$$BEAST FUNDED TEEVEE$$$. Kiss your country and sovereignty goodbye.-BIG BROTHER SATANISTS (secret societies) PLEDGE their allegiance to a SATANIC POPE KING and a DRAGONIAN QUEEN LIZARDBETH. YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE CANADA, if you vote these guys in. You have been warned. Kevin Annett charges Stephen Harper with WAR CRIMES playlist Question to pose to federal election candidates at upcoming all candidates meetings across Canada, concerningCanada's complicity in genocide: On March 24, Prime Minister Steven Harper was issued a Public Summons by an International Tribunal in London, England to answer charges of concealing the murder of children in Canada's Indian residential schools. Considering that Canada's so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission has no mandate to bring criminal charges against the government and churches responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of these children, Will you support an international investigation into crimes in Canadian Indian residential schools - and if not, why not? Please film or record the candidates' responses to this question and forward them to me, and announce the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) and our websites at the meetings. And please share this youtube link to my delivery of the ITCCS Summons to PM Harper on March 24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWAfrth9Rm Thanks, Kevin Annett www.itccs.org www.hiddenfromhistory.org Antichrist King will I AM ARTHUR Vlad Dracul Count Dracula Moonday-04 11 2011 = 6-11-11 SioNist one party system ELECTIONS in HARPIGGYland?  $$$vote$$$ for your favourite GLOBAL GOVERNMENT SATANIST 04 10 2011=9=SIoN=Demiurge= Yaldabaoth= MOONgod=moondog=ALLAH= Leviathanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan -I'm in Fantino Fascism Land currently. York Region, Ontario, CANADA CORPinc, Vatican Invaded, Original castles/churches are Holy Grail Templar buildings. JESUits have to get their phalluses into everything, inorder to control the MASSES of SHEEPle. Monarchyrenamed CANIndian land into British landmarks. Streets are named after masonic military murderers, orsacrificed soldiers. NICE 999666$$$ BEAST SYSTEM- we have in charge of our FREE country??? Keep crashing websites of innocent teachers to try and push your ULTIMATE SLAVE AGENDA? Shame on you. I am going to have to kick start interNATIONal schools back up in Richmond Hill, where I was almost assassinated. UNIONS protectthe school boards, not the employee. $$$ protects $$$. Big Pedophile Brother stole my pension, blocked my emails, harassed my clients and tutors and sent full blownwitchcraft my way. . I had to shut the Jrgenius.com down. Homeless and BLACK BALLED from working ever again, I moved back home to Sault Ste Marie and lived under ABUSIVE ROMAN MIND CONTROL RULE since 2004. Children reading in 8 hours. WHAT is the problem here? $$$SATAN$$$. BUT I AM BACK and we are going to WALDORF the PLANet from HERE. COMMUNITY CURRENCY STYLE. What you have is what you have, when the grid goes down. There is NO such thing as JUNK. Be creative. Be 100% shared in your community tribe and be ready to teach, learn, buy and sell amongst eachother. Those ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS belong to the Chidren of the LIGHT, not to PEDOPHILE SATANISTS. BYE BYE. LOOKS like ANTICHRiST Prince William ( KING VLAD Dracul/ the Impaler/ Draken) will marry on Hitler's wedding day- 04 29 2011 =6-11-11=10=aton=marduk ra and sacrifice the virgin, who will be reborn on the3rd day as LIZARDBETH, to TRY and RULE and REIGN again in a different hijacked HUMAN skin. Blaming Islam for a potential terrorist attack? RIGHT- Vatican-British bloody vampires are always behind the terrors portrayed on their media.. GOD is watching you. Angels have their fingers on the STOP ARMAGEDDON BUTTON. We won't move intoChrist Consciousness in CANADA, until after a major WAKEUP catastrophe. Other lands will be fooled by theass-ended masters from Shamballa 4d HELL. -KARMA is individulally DUE, so prepare your SOUL for the RIDE that you have created for yourselves. NAMASTE. EDEN will begin in YORK REGION. RICHMOND HILL. BYE BYE LIZARDBETH. OFF this PLANet. Decapitation is the only way to kill a demon. www.danahorochowski.com www.canadastreetnews.com www.jrgenius.com www.serenityglobal.com www.holyhealthy.com Dana Horochowski 468 Northern Ave E Sault Ste  Marie, Ontario, P6B 4J1 416-419-9023 ( voicemail),  danah@jrgenius.com Join us in a PEACEFUL New Paradigm of Universal Oneness, Serenity and Prosperity for All. We need a Network of People with Integrity and an OPEN heart to make our future a better place.

Bon Jovi: Still slippery when wet

Inspired by some late-night karaoke, I just listened to Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet from start to finish. And then the first side of New Jersey. That is more Bon Jovi than most people can handle. The following are random thoughts inspired by this listening session.

1. Slippery When Wet has actually aged fairly well, considering.
2. One of the classic albums of 80s guitar/hard rock (it's not metal) starts with an extended keyboard bit. Keyboard features more prominently than I remember. This edges it towards glam territory, but it stays rooted in hard rock. I wish I could say the same about their clothes.
3. Bon Jovi's music has more in common with Bruce Springsteen than many of us may be comfortable admitting. Or maybe that's just a really obvious observations. No matter - lyrics like "Johnny used to work on the dock. The union's been on strike, he's down on his luck, it's tough, so tough." could have been written by the Boss if he was half the songwriter that he is.
4. There's a gospel element to Lay Your Hands On Me (the first song on New Jersey) that is actually quite good.
5. Some quick Wikipedia research shows that Slippery When Wet was recorded at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, at 201 West 7th. 
6. Some of the ballads are half-laughable but still enjoyable. And the rockin' tunes are still rockin'.
7. Livin' On A Prayer is an excellent song. I stand by that. And Wanted Dead Or Alive is kick-ass.
8. Slippery When Wet will remain in rotation on my record player for a while. 

Two Fat Bastards: The Lost Tapes

For your sort of listening pleasure, I present to you the infamous lost Episode 5.5

With apologies.

For an actual episode of Two Fat Bastards, your local podcast about soccer in Vancouver, go to www.maple-leaf-forever.com

Cheers