Library Limelights 311

 Whose Law is it when the books you ordered ALL ARRIVE AT ONCE instead of sensibly pacing themselves one at a time every few days?! How to prioritize? Most are three-week loans. Two are 500-pagers. Meanwhile I was halfway through a random grab to fill the waiting time and it had become quite fascinating. So ... Night Film was regretfully set aside because it has unlimited time. Almost halfway through Blackwater Falls I was having trouble with the style and its overabundance of diversified characters. That was returned, for future call back. I seem to have settled on one, with two others counting down on me. Stay tuned ... and meanwhile:

Fernanda Melchor. Paradais. Ebook download from TPL. USA: New Directions Ebook 2021.

What to say about this slim but astonishing book? Based in a foreign environment in more ways than one? Uneducated youth with no future? A searing slice of indigent daily life? Sixteen-year-old Polo (Leopoldo) has a job as gardener for the Paradais estate, an upscale housing development on the outskirts of Progreso, Mexico. Mom dragged him to apply for the job and his salary goes directly to her, who day and night rails abuse at him, that he's a useless loser. His cousin Zorayda, whom he thinks is a slut, lives with them—constantly, purposely, playing seductive tricks on him. Then she's pregnant, father unknown, maybe Polo. The young man also chafes at his job, being ordered to take care of any extra distasteful chore, working overtime for no pay, washing cars and dirtier tasks for the rich, white homeowners.

Polo's downtime is spent at the nearby unkempt riverside smoking cigarettes and drinking whatever rotgut he can afford. But a companion joins him, the despicable, obese, younger teenager Franco, who lives with his grandparents on the estate; Franco is often able to supply real booze or other substances for their evening enjoyment. But it's no joy to pay for it by having to listen to Franco's (Fatboy, Polo privately calls him) obsessive talk about Señora Mariána Maroño, a housewife and mother recently arrived in Paradais. Franco's obscene fantasies about the unsuspecting woman turn into stalking, betraying a psychosis, while Polo dreams about the boat he and his grandfather were going to build. His mother sold the necessary tools when the old man died. He yearns for his cousin Milton to return, although it's unclear if Polo understands that Milton has been hijacked by a drug cartel.

It sounds pretty grim, but the author is totally on target with characterization and suspense. Written in long sentences and longer paragraphs (not to my liking, normally), the style absolutely reinforces Polo's thoughts and daily drudgeries; having no control over his own life, he's worn down by Franco's wild plan to invade the Maroño household. Paradais solidifies Melchor as a powerhouse writer of contemporary youth and their struggles, having already been acclaimed for her prior novel, Hurricane Season.

BITS

▪ Which was exactly what she wanted, right? To be desired, lusted after, to put dirty thoughts into your head. (14)

▪ Had Franco not seen himself in the mirror? Did he really think a woman like Señora Maroño would cheat on her millionaire husband with a tubby pimply greaseball like him? (38)

▪ They didn't have a pot to piss in, and with his cousin Zorayda's little slipup, in a few more months they'd be more squeezed than ever, assuming the whole town didn't go to shit before then. (44)

▪ "Seriously, who do you think you are, Leopoldo? Who the hell do you think you are, you little shit?" (Mama, 45)

▪ He was one tough motherfucker, his grandfather, and completely incomprehensible. Polo had loved him to death, and feared him too, whenever the old man overdid it on the rotgut and suddenly started talking to himself like a madman and hurling things at the walls. (62)

▪ If I kill her after, she won't be able to tell anyone it was me. Polo shook his head. They'll still pin it on you. (92)

▪ Did he really think they were friends? Or was it a setup maybe, a trap so he could tell that faggot Urquiza that Polo did it? (92)

▪ You're scared, aren't you" Franco sniggered. You're scared of my gun. I'm scared of your fucking retardedness, Polo muttered with his hands still in the air. (94)

▪ Polo wasn't plannimg on killing anyone, he wasn't planning on using any violence at all, he would just throw what he could into the SUV and give it all to Milton in return for his help. (98)

That bloody churchmen

When we discuss health matters lately by email (facial wrinkles, whole grains, yoga, and the like) which is all the time, my friend began highly recommending churchmen. As we do not normally discuss our spiritual preferences, I let it slide. But it was getting kind of creepy. Was she born again without telling me? Was she going all cult-y? Yoga talk is about as close as we get to organized religion.

My friend does not review her email before sending. She was recommending curcumin. My friend does not know how to turn off her auto-correct.

Curcumin was better known to me as turmeric. A rather exotic spice popular in Asian foods. This amazing, natural anti-inflammatory was going to soothe my free radicals, whatever they are. Those online health rags boast exciting, neurotrophic-boosting antioxidant.

Now ... I've been through all the cosmetic and food and health fads with my friend. The miracles of red wine, vitamin E oil, kale, vitamin imbalances, naturopathic remedies, Feldenkrais, aquafaba, you name it. It took ages to self-diagnose her allergy to red wine. The last marvel was swathing coconut oil on your face, your hands, your body, your frying pan. I was the walking embodiment of intensive sunscreen aroma, spreading the joy everywhere I walked. Until the pervasive smell was making me heave. How many grease-stained pillowcases did I have to throw out. It was some time before I could face my beloved Thai green curry again.

So. The turmeric. Instead of buying a tiny, expensive, fancy container, I opted for like a one-pound bag at my dollar department store for the same price. The thrill of a bargain. The optimism. Simply sprinkle a teaspoon on your salad, your stir fry, your frozen dinner. If a teaspoon helps, why not a tablespoon? Maximizing my disease prevention.

No-one tells you it's yellow peril if you drop so much as a grain of powder anywhere other than on its food destination. A grain here, a grain there. No-one tells you that turmeric is non-erasable. On the counter, the utensils, the dishes, the tea towel, my shirt, my hands, the (white) floor. My face, after consumption. Yellow. Not my favourite colour. Bright, blinding yellow that defies every scrubbing; epic fail of industrial strength cleanser. Here is my kitchen:

 

Van Gogh would have loved it. I'm going to sell the remaining fifteen and a half ounces to a graffiti artist.

YELLOW BASTARD.

Words 9

The Christmas Letter

Be it on record: I am not ready for this thing called Christmas. I have not been ready for it since about 1985. That might have been the year the festive suckling pig was four inches too long for my oven. Mercifully I forget how we made the adjustment but a bit of trimming was involved and artful placement of windfall crabapples. We used to get the succulent wienies from Mr. McDowell, the inarticulate but terrifically competent farmer on the Escarpment above Campbellville. Times past.

We had traditions. Dinner was the customary noisy scenario with assorted family ― the good china clattering around, crackers and dumb paper hats, assorted wines flowing, fights over never-enough stuffing, in-laws with their uninvited dog, outlaws with dietary problems, teenage drama, always a small child bawling. We could count on Mr. Host, well-marinated in Beaujolais, crowning the event by face-planting into his dessert, raising his head at moments to mumble non-sequiturs.

One time in the festive season a grown child delivered caustic remarks to a full house about the current (admittedly rather unwise) choice of my ... man-in-residence ... and in the heated escalation I had to threaten both with eviction, Christmas or not. Strained relations? Oh yes.

Another time my children ran away from home. Together. Maybe not exactly at Christmas. It was a protest against The House Rules. My shite cousin thought it was hilarious and enjoyed elaborating on it to his own ends every time we saw him thereafter (much less often than he expected). Naturally, none of that was reported in the carefully composed Christmas Letter.

Remember them? When we used to exchange those cheery photocopied letters tarted up with poinsettia stickers and family photos? We had to assume the distant relatives and friends ― the ones we never saw from one year to the next ― had a consuming interest in what our kids did at school or how many parties we had or whether husband's boss gave him a bonus. Hello moi: just as guilty as the rest of the '80s parents.

The Christmas Letter is what I used to call it before I humbugged Christmas. Now I call it The Annual Letter, in which I shamefully, unnecessarily apologize all over myself for forgetting not even doing it every year. At least the subject matter applies to the misbegotten title of my blog here. In a way.

Because my household, my family, now consists of moi seule ― no more adorable children starring in glorified accomplishments, bad behaviour completely omitted (be thankful, all quarters). No more lists of sparkling family activities, ignoring Murphy's Law normally prevailing at each.

Trust me, it's much more difficult to spread the exaggerated cheer from a solo life perspective. A solo senior life. Plus, potential recipients dwindle down to the luddite few who haven't been terminally bored at seeing one's pathetic life daily exposed on Facebook. Oh sorry, Google+ ~~ you too.

So. Serious concerns. Aside from appalling apathy at the prospect and a yawning black hole of inspiration, can I once again pull together a year or two's worth of embroidered incidents? Can I rekindle past bonding by relating the root canal that made me miss choir practice and forget about the concert? ... or how many times I forgot anything anyway without a semi- valid invented excuse? Can I elicit the old heartwarming kindred spirit with my latest strategies for thrift store shopping? ... or by describing my paranoid neighbour forever in pyjamas who shouts daily prayers to the Samhain goddess ... or a drug bust waiting to happen two blocks away? Never mind my letters to the editors of obscure but inflammatory e-zines that never get published. Who cares to hear the pain of learning Windows 10 ... or pondering which is the better choice ― a digital barcode tombstone (listen to me: you thought you got rid of me) and cremating oneself into diamonds (wear me: you'll never get rid of me).

Or should I just send a collage of Maxine cartoons?

Nope. It's for me alone to wage war on internet grammar atrocities, to worry about my nephews' addiction to bacon ice cream, to master selfies (and/or photobombing) at important historical civic moments. The good news ― not exactly good but you know what I mean ― is that possibly I have outlived all the potential recipients of such tripe.

Ahhhh ... The Christmas Letter. Is there a point anymore? Do people still do that? Is blogging the answer? Do people still do that too?

You guessed right. This could be It.

                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  

Tylenol Crazy

Is anyone left in the neighbourdamhood with their hearing faculty still functioning?

Winter 2014

April 2014

May 2014

June 2014

They just have to keep ripping it up and doing it over and over again till they get it right! 
None of the visual even hints at the accompanying NOISE.

Oops, SORRY, this was actually FOUR YEARS AGO!

Four years and six major street/sidewalk wrecking, repair, wrecking, repair, wrecking, repair, and like that.

Today, 8 June 2014

On a Sunday, yet (lots of overtime?). First they came and stuffed what looked like a stack of diapers into the sewer opening. Then it takes six men to watch a hose draining what I assume is Lake Ontario into a huge tanker. You can't see it, but the tanker has DETOX on its side. To the right, about 100 feet along, is a second tanker doing the same thing. Did I mention the NOISE?

So far, since noon, they've been at it for eight hours. How long does it take to drain Lake Ontario anyway? It's time for a daily check of my building's foundations. We sit on the old lake bed, plus a buried stream runs under (sometimes through) our basement, facts some architectural and engineering geniuses seem to have missed. No-one on the street would be terribly surprised if we all collapse into the rubble. 

No, I no longer wonder what Monday morning will bring. More of the same. The only sure thing is that it will begin at 7 a.m. if it didn't go on all night.

Been There Already

February 2014

I submit more graphic details as evidence of the high degree of insanity accelerating on a certain block in Crazy Town (title not claimed by me).

April 2014

 We've had promises, we've had delays and reconfigurations, we've had obstacles and NOISE and traffic lunacy, we've had numerous upheavals, and we've had the impossible pharaoh ants.

May 2014

Then, nothing. For weeks.

What we don't have is trees.

WHERE ARE OUR TREES?!

Construction Redux

By the pricking of my thumbs ... something wicked this way comes.

Wheelbarrow about to suffer death by crushing?

They're back again, for the extended fourth year of their sold-out performance, the whole rootin' tootin' gang of sons a guns. The hydro guys, the city guys, the bulldozers, backhoes, pile drivers, jackhammers, riveters, and a crane too. There may be a master plan of the main act somewhere, mayhap tucked in the back pocket of some engineer's jeans, but what do we humble observers know.

Many images are taken from my dirty windows. Management can't clean the windows because the filth sneaks everywhere all the time.

Craven management is often absent, taking sick days.

   

Act IV, Scene II:

Some of them carefully measure things and after ten days of futzing around we see cement boxes appear in the dirt holes. We conjecture the boxes might be for the new trees we all hope we live long enough to see. Apart from the dirt holes and cement boxes, the entire sidewalk is an obstacle course of old pavement chunks interspersed with sunken dirt. The banshee noise continues at intervals; just when you think it's gone it attacks your central nervous system again. Trucks and worker guys come and go at a snail's pace because naturally they don't want to fall into a hole.

Progress is difficult to guage. Each stage of the project meets a point of temporary abandonment where we think this it it: this is the ultimate bare face of our twenty-first century urban life. Get used to it. Why on earth were we ever expecting clean, level sidewalks one day, with a few shade trees? Oh. An architect specializing in sidewalks has supplemented the latest gang, we are told. Who makes the worker guys rip out the cement boxes they just finished installing - oops, another little measurement fail. We call it square one again. Square one for like the fifteenth time.

Act IV, Scene III:

Then. One morning the usual noise racket changes to the oddest booming hiss. The fire department announces we have a gas leak, some worker asshole has broken the gas main. In front of our entrance. Well, it's one way to eliminate a lot of problem geriatrics. Evacuation is not ordered as yet.

Last heard, no heat, no hot water, no ... air? No applause. And yet, we are fairly confident that our future includes numerous encores. Man up and carry on, residents.

Should this mighty soap opera ever end, some of us may well have been tortured enough to start missing the hardhats and fluorescent jackets; a little Stockholmian moment? Students specializing in sidewalk psychology: apply here for internship.  

The Body Pillowwwww

Body pillow on sale! This large five-foot long recalcitrant thing I lug home on the subway train. Folded in half and stuffed into an XXL shopping bag, it leads me banging and bouncing against escalator steps, street lampposts, and small children.

Suspicious-looking, I'm sure. But because it is relatively lightweight no-one will think I am transporting body parts.

Previously, at the store. "It will change your life!" chirped the teenage retail assistant, "I adore mine!" Not that I asked, so I ignored her. She's a teenager, what does she know. Why in god's creation does a teenager want a body pillow?

For that matter, why were body pillows invented? They seem to be good for aging human bodies with a touch of arthritis, cushion all the joints and soften the impact of extended limbs on an extra-firm (good-for-you) mattress. But do they really need to be that long?

This unwieldy thing I thought was a brilliant idea now involves nightly wrestling to place it just so. The process has to be repeated in the dark every so often when I turn over (all in the dark because if I turn the light on I will think it's morning and won't get back to sleep). The covers regularly get wrecked and the synthetic stuffing induces unwanted sweating. Not only that, it's fatter than a real human body next to you. 

It's a BED HOG.

From SEO Web Content.com. The model and her perfect hair obviously never spent a whole night with that thing. 

In the middle of the night, re-assessing the brilliant idea seems like top priority for the next day. Did I suffer a brain malfunction? So I see THIS after I buy mine:

So, if you are going to purchase cushions, then first of all check out you demands and make a comparison between demands and available variety. Cotton made cushions with colorful and soft covers are very best for your household uses. ... If you dream for perfect sleep after performing your hard job, then pillow will contribute a lot in targeting your desires. Cushion selection is the duty of women, so they should always hunt and buy for the best products, which can increase the taste of sleep.

Seems I failed beforehand to check out my demands and target my sleep tastiness. Just went straight for the SALE sign. It's a shopping chromosome I inherited from my mother.

Seriously. Do men buy these things?!

For all I know, Ms Chirpy hugs hers like the potential boyfriend she dreams of. Maybe she's on to something.  

Wordless Wednesday: Spring has Sprung

My Ants

That’s ants. Not aunts ... but pronounced the same way by me and of which I had a few before they took the cemetery rest. Ants in my kitchen. Pharaoh ants throughout the entire building complex around me. Googling was a mistake because I didn’t want to know this city is infested with pharaoh ants and it doesn’t stop there by a long shot. North America is totally blighted with them unless I’ve succumbed to a hoax on tiny little feet.

Not precisely as pictured

Now back when I took the New Testament course in fourth year at St John’s, I’m pretty sure I passed it although I couldn’t give you a quote from the Book of Revelations to save my life. It only comes to mind for some cloudy, sinister images of pestilences to be visited upon us signalling imminence of The End. Speaking of Mayan calculations, did anyone get that right yet? Are they working on a new calendar? I’m telling you, the ants have their own agenda and they are marching.


Along with rats, cockroaches are a given in a big city. At least the sneaky buggers have the wily brains to stay out of sight in daylight. If not, a swiftly well-aimed boot can result in a deeply satisfying crunch. We’ve had them so long, can we really include them as harbingers of End Times?

By my own calculations, ants are the finale in a parade of plagues. Successive waves of  insect control freaks. 

There were the clothing moths. The ones that nested secretly, snugly, under carpets and in your prized sheepskin boots. Treatment: Months of moth balls and wafting camphor fumes as you slink about the outside world on your daily rounds. 

 Fruit flies that multiply like ... well, like fruit flies. Treatment: Months of creatively baiting the little suckers and renouncing bananas for the duration.

 

Bed bugs, driving helpless people to insanity. Treatment: Intense heat. Set fire to everything you own, optionally to yourself.

Now pharaoh ants. Treatment (experimental stages): Read the ingredients on the ant traps. Do not unwittingly supplement with careless bagel crumbs or smears of peanut butter. On the other hand, co-existence may be permanent so think cooperation: new pets? They’re not entirely mindless automatons, y’know. Get a dialogue going. Their leaders might be into sharing space. You will never be alone again. 

Apocalypse ... or attitude adjustment? Are the trumpets of doom blaring? Or sounding a brave strange new world? Whatever. They are coming to get you. Life as we know it is on its way out, folks.

      

Shoddy

Things that break down ... not human wear-and-tear things in your body, that’s just to be expected (expected in general terms maybe, not in scary specifics like great slabs of your skin melting and peeling off—as visually, expertly, represented in a recent HOUSE M.D. episode—totally educational TV, stuff your personal doctor wouldn’t warn you about, essential forewarned is forearmed preparation). Memo to self: Avoid conjecturing on the terrifying vista of unknown health mysteries because House won’t be there when you need him.

When did we first hear the term “planned obsolescence”? Do we hear it any more? I thought that was about fridges and stoves ... you know, in the olden days, when they were built to last a mere 20-30 years. In the lifespan of your friendly major kitchen appliance, you could get married, raise your kids, see them married, clean the thing out at least a hundred times, and hopefully when the grandkiddies arrive, you could afford a new appliance just when you need it. 

Maybe the term itself is obsolete because nothing is built or created any more to provide more than five years of perfectly normal service to an unassuming, undemanding consumer. Just look at your computer and you know the clock is ticking until your next blue screen of death.

As for other appliances lacking the electronic world’s dizzy speed of product revision and updates, is it too much to ask that everything not be made of plastic? I know we are counting trees and not wanting to waste paper, but wood has a comforting solidity. Thank your stars someone still makes furniture out of wood. And carpets out of wool.

Not that you want a blender or a telephone made of wood, but what do you do when plastic nib-widgets break off right after the (alleged) guarantee expires and the thing won’t work any more? Trust me, duct tape does not stick to every surface! And why do we have to have everything inoperable unless it’s plugged in? No-one ever has enough electrical outlets so we have a snake’s nest of wires. Hiding unaesthetic wires is only successful if you are on a Richard Branson level with a truckload of money for interior designers. 

Then there’s Murphy’s Law. Like why do so many things break down all at the same time just when your credit card sees light at the top of the hole? Product people, please: I am not a card-carrying member of Conspiracy Theory, Inc., but is it possible to stagger the breakdowns?

I have a friend who has a vacuum cleaner to clean her vacuum cleaner. (It’s complicated.) Neither machine on its own little life cycle can do the job properly. One of them probably sucked up a nib-widget that could have prolonged the service of a plastic humidifier a few more weeks.

Life as we know it.