Sunday, February 7, 2010

Happy New Year!

There are three New Year's for me in any given year.

First the Gregorian, the junkmail standard of everyday living. The clock so to say. The one where I meet everyone

The last is the vernal equinox, spring, the season of renewal, growth, beginning. Fresh, new, born again. Spring.

The middle one is today. Once upon a time, I was born today. It is my personal new year.

I just finished twenty seven. Twenty Eight begins today.

The love of my everything took me to find words today upon request made from a suggestion she made three years ago.

She took me shopping for books in many of my favourite nooks to get pages in the city.

Do you know how much I love this city. How much I love this place, being from this place?

Do I?


To see it over and over, from angles and levels, all those masses, those red red cheeks and frosty breaths, those towers and streets that bend and stretch out dn out like fingers to pull me in to the centre, come to get me wherever I am.

It was a cold day. Sharp, stinging. We walked. We rode those old trams. We walked and sought, walked and sought, walked an sought. We found treasures, treasures the more for their discovery and opportune appearances.

So my year will look a lot like this, I look forward to the construction, the liason, the memory. Most of all I look forward to the words. Always.
  1. Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur - Mordecai Richler
  2. Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler
  3. The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
  4. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
  5. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
  6. Candide - Voltaire
  7. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
  8. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
  9. Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
  10. A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews
  11. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
  12. Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
  13. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
  14. The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
  15. The Anthem - Ayn Rand
  16. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
  17. The Watch that Ends the Night - Hugh Maclennan
  18. Two Solitudes - Hugh Maclennan
  19. The Peterloo Writings - Percy Bysshe Shelley
  20. Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government - John Stuart Mill
  21. Books V. Cigarettes (a collection of essays) - George Orwell

1 comment:

  1. Score. I've actually read a bunch of those books!
    Barney's Version is one of my faves from that list, though.
    Did Garcia recommend Haroun?

    And I have to apologize. I was remiss both on RSVPing to your Super Bowl request and for calling you on your birthday (I was likely in a blizzard somewhere, either on the top of a mountain or in the heart of Sapporo, at the time).

    As repayment for the misstep, I will send you something cool.
    First, I need to find that something, though...

    ReplyDelete