|
the_corbin
THIRTY THREE - Subscribe
|
| it only takes about a day in wintertime montreal to remember all the positive things about the most difficult living environment a montrealer leaves behind when they say farewell to their hometown. perhaps im the only native montrealer that is happy to walk six long blocks up saint laurent blvd from sherbrooke street in a blizzard to get a schwartzs smoke meat sandwich in the early afternoon. im certainly not the only one who enjoys sitting along a café counter facing laurier in the same blizzard with a mess of empty cappucino bowls. i sat with another ex-montrealer, discussing how lucky we were to be from such a wonderful city. the blizzard picked up steam and we ducked into a belgian patisserie, trudged up the street in a whiteout, clutching fresh baguettes getting soaked by high winds and fresh snow. the bus ride to the metro was wet, and it felt like i was riding into a white page of paper. |
|
the_corbin
THIRTY FOUR Mar 12th, 2008 11:48:25 pm - Subscribe
|
| the problem with trying to do work at home is that there are simply too many comfortable places to sit. the whole house makes me sleepy. |
|
the_corbin
THIRTY FIVE Mar 19th, 2008 6:11:45 am - Subscribe
|
|
i feel like ive had two days of absolute slackage, but ive actually managed to get through significant parts of two books in the area of Canadian history. one is a study of Holocaust in canadian and canadian-Jewish memory ; the second is a monograph on post-WWII reconstruction in Montreal, mainly focusing on family and economy. im trying to build myself a real framework from which an elusive project i have been considering can be approached. i want to look at the concept of memory - the idea of urban space - the multiple mechanisms of commemoration - and the holocaust - in Montreal. these are words and ideas that look nice in front of my nose but as of yet i can not imagine how i will bring them together meaningfully and gracefully. it usually is the problem with a lot of my early "inspiration." i see words on a page, i can sometimes see waffly phrases. but it takes a while for it to all fall into place and take on meaning. in any case, reading about Canada has become a sort of fetishy-surreal experience. this might be the crux of my interest in space - i can imagine 'it' - or "history" - occuring in familiar surroundings. i may never have experienced the event, but i feel im closer to having done so than with other histories. a good history can transport you into another time and place. but profound familiarity with the surroundings in question to begin with contributes to a strange facet of collective memory that i dont think im able to identify. it rained for most of the day and night and i might make a soup tomorrow, as soup typically makes for good rainy day food, and i do believe it will continue to pour tomorrow. |
|
the_corbin
THIRTY SIX Mar 22nd, 2008 6:53:04 pm - Subscribe
|
|
"In its traditional usage, "sacred space" refers to places with explicit religious sanctity, such as a shrine or a holy city. But there are other ways to understand sacred space. For example, the social spaces in which religious communities live also have a sacredness that, although not explicitly holy, is nevertheless essential to those communities. Put differently, sacred space can include those socially and constructed environments that are not necessarily associated with explicitly holy or religious event or objects." (Etan Diamond, And I Will Dwell in Their Midst: Orthodox Jews in Suburbia) My wheels are turning. |
|
the_corbin
THIRTY SEVEN Mar 24th, 2008 4:13:36 am - Subscribe
|
| it reminded me of waking up in rome when it was so hot we couldnt unstick ourselves from the bedsheets. the room was full of flies from the citrus trees in the courtyard that had flown in through the ten foot tall windows we kept open overnight to allow air to circulate. i remember thinking at the time there was nothing much to say, but we had felt compelled to speak anyway. there had been nothing much else to do, and in any case, it had felt as though moving about might have lessened the chance of a fleeting breeze hitting us through the window. we lay perfectly still. of course there would be no breeze, only what had felt like a heavy cloud of sweet-smelling hot air. there were no flies this time but there might as well have been. |