On the 20th of this month I got up and went downstairs and there were leaves across the kitchen floor, as if blown in on a gust of wind. They are still there. Autumn always comforts me.
The same day, blowing in on another wind, there came two different leaves in the form of packages for me. One of them was a volume called Japanese Love Poems, edited by Jean Bennett and illustrated by Scott Cumming. Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, especially between two such dissimilar languages as Japanese and English, but I find the translations in this volume to be very fresh and evocative.
The poems date as far back as the third century (possibly further), which does tend to make me wonder for how long, exactly, humans have had the same emotions? Here's an undated Japanese lyric from the selection:
Two things cannot alter, Since Time was, nor to-day: The flowing of water; And Love's strange, sweet way.
Reminds me of another old lyric:
Of course, these are things I know nothing about, but I am anthropologically and aesthetically interested.
It's a very beautiful book, in content and as an object, the illustrations forming a significant part of its charm.
The book was not coming to me for the first time, actually. I had sent it (after my initial purchase) to the illustrious illustrator, and he very kindly wrote an inscription and sent it back.
The second package I received that day was a Japanese purse - the purse equivalent of this:
Today I received another package in the post. It was this book:
I've read and appreciated Alan Watts before, so am looking forward to reading this. I am actually, very, very slowly, working on my own translation of the Tao Te Ching and this looks as if it will help me.
By the way, talking of the "flowing of water", here's a little extract from Alan Watts' book:
... Tao is the flowing course of nature and the universe; li is its principle of order which, following Needham, we can best translate as "organic pattern"; and water is its eloquent metaphor.
That's a question I hope to ask, though there is little hope of an answer, in this blog post.
It seems to me that those growing up in the 'developed world' now will never have any notion of what life was like before the Internet, of how it felt simply to be an analogue being walking around in the literal - and not the virtual - world, in three dimensions, with no electronic extensions to one's nerve endings, and not to have any sense that one needed to check one's e-mail/Facebook messages/ever-diminishing spiral of cyber-navel. This disturbs me.
One thing I've sometimes thought about in this connection is how much more momentous it was to make personal discoveries of the music, art or literature kind in pre-Internet days.
I remember, with distinctness, the stages that led to my discovery of Celtic Frost. First there was the review in Kerrang!, accompanied by a photograph of Tom G. Warrior looking decidedly esoteric. The review was for the album To Mega Therion, and the reviewer had given it something ridiculously precise, like 3 and 3/4 stars out of 5. Going on stars alone, there was no reason at all why I should take a risk on this band without having heard any of their music - and at that time, when I was twelve or thirteen, there was no hope I would ever hear the music if I did not actually buy it myself - but there was something about the description of the album that intrigued me. I remember phrases such as "a choir of marching zombies", which piqued my interest. There was also the leader to the review: "Are you ready for art metal?" I do not doubt that there were many thirteen-year-old headbangers who read that leader and said, "No. I'm not ready. Leave me alone." I, however, was ready.
Things were so difficult to get hold of in those days, that To Mega Therion did not even comprise my first Celtic Frost purchase. I did, however, manage to find an advert for a specialist shop that was stocking the picture-disc version of the exquisitely titled EP Tragic Serenades. I sent off for it, and, some days later, in a 12-inch square, rather thin cardboard package, there arrived the first of many discs that I was to buy from that particular specialist shop.
The first time I put Tragic Serenades on the turntable, I was very disappointed. It was just heavy metal, after all. I had been expecting the 'art' part of the equation to be much, much higher. I can't really hope to convey how deep my disappointment was, since that first review of To Mega Therion had worked up my imagination in such a way that the dream of Celtic Frost had become to me an infinitely mysterious, infinitely precious kind of aether, promising in whispers to take me to strange, ancient worlds wholly other than the world that till now had been mine.
Having invested so much in it, I could not give up on the disc, however, and, as if potholing into its grim, chthonic depths, began to discover all kinds of delights that even I had not imagined. It was a key artistic discovery for me. Celtic Frost introduced me to Flaubert and Baudelaire, as well as being a significant discovery in themselves. Such were the rewards of my Celtic Frost adventure, that it encouraged me to forage even further afield for more discoveries in music and in literature.
I don't think I am alone, by any means, in my search for more and more exquisitely obscure, or obscurely exquisite, music. Such a quest is well-known in the indie music scene. But what of books?
Indie books - books from independent publishers - certainly exist, but do indie readers? I'm one of them, and I have met others, but, truth be told, indie readers are a very rare breed indeed, even proportionately to the global number of readers, which must be less than that of music-listeners. Let's put it this way, even people who like mainstream music know full well what indie music is. People who read - I won't say 'like', because I think they're just largely ignorant of what's available - mainstream literature, for the most part haven't even got a cunting clue that indie literature exists. How often have I had this experience? Someone introduces me to someone and mentions that I write books. The person to whom I am introduced, rather pleasantly, says something like, "Oh, what's your book called? I'll look it up next time I'm in Waterstones." "It won't be in Waterstones," I am forced to say, "unless the Piccadilly branch of Waterstones still has that one copy of Morbid Tales they stocked. My books have all come out through independent publishers."
At this juncture I'm usually given a quizzical, uncomprehending look. I almost expect them - seem to remember instances, even - to say, "Do 4AD do books, as well?"
It seems to me that, in contrast to music-lovers, so-called book-lovers seldom go off the beaten track and into the hinterlands in search of the rare and the exquisite.
Why?
I used the word 'discerning' in the title of this blog post. Discernment consists, I think, of two things - the desire to explore and to broaden one's horizons, and then, from the perspective of those broadened horizons, the ability to eliminate all that is inferior, unoriginal, second-rate and basically a waste of time. Life, as we all know, is very short. There are far too many books to read. At the age of 37 I am finding myself depressed to realise exactly how limited are the places on my to-read list - because of considerations of time - for what remains of my life, especially as I feel I have hardly scratched the surface of literature, really.
I am not a fast reader. I am also a reader who finds it painful not to finish a book once started. This latter fact has led to difficulties in my reading in recent years. It seems to me that I have, in some ways, shifted from the mode of broadening my horizons to the mode of eliminating what is a waste of time. (I say, in some ways - I used to be able to read and enjoy just about anything, whereas now I am finding that if something is just not good enough, I think, "The years are flying by, and I could be reading something a thousand times better than this.") In 2006, I picked up, in a second-hand shop in Arkansas, a dog-eared copy of Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac. I'd been meaning to read Balzac for some time. However, this book took me months, and because I was determined to finish it, it meant that in those months I read practically nothing else. Balzac is not a bad writer, but the book, ultimately, was dull and pointless, and, in terms of reading, it ruined those months of my life. I've had a number of similar experiences since then.
One of my most recent purchases has been The Yellow Wallpaper and selected writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Because the title story is a favourite of mine, I bought this book to discover more about a writer I had neglected in that I only knew the one story. However, after reading seven of the stories within, out of about twenty, my will to read further has shrivelled. There is another piece, two or three pages long, that I found to be worth reading. It was called 'An Extinct Angel', and was not so much a story as a parable - an extended metaphor about the historical oppression of women. For the rest, I suppose I've read worse, and they have their moments, but I find them to be facile and insubstantial. They remind me, in fact, of the little I have read - and despised - by that master of the trite, O. Henry.
I don't really know what to do about this cunting Yellow Wallpaper book. I really do hate not finishing books, but I might have to develop that ability. Life is short. I'm even finding the Ambrose Bierce collection I bought (The Spook House), after a promising start, to be duller and duller with each story.
Sick to the teeth of starting dull books, and having them destroy my reading for months on end, I've taken the step of drawing up a list of books/authors I want to read. I've only started it recently, and it is open to revision. Because I still wish to expand my horizons - very much so, in fact - this consists largely, but not entirely, of authors I have not read before. I need to be careful, though, and make sure, as best I can, that I'm not selecting dull, waste-of-time authors and books. There's always the chance that I will, however, in which case I really shall have to cultivate the habit of abandoning books I've started.
Anyway, here's the list as I have it so far:
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn Inferno, by August Strindberg The Cathedral, by J-K Huysmans Hangover Square, by Patrick Hamilton Fanny Hill, by John Cleland The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, by William Godwin The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg Flann O’Brien The Assistant, by Robert Walser The Word of God, by Thomas Disch Doris Lessing Truman Capote Flannery O’Connor Raymond Queneau Cordwainer Smith Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl Walter De La Mare Our Town, by Thornton Wilder Germinal, by Emile Zola. Boethius Reflections in a Golden Eye, by Carson McCullers The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño
I mentioned, on the telephone to a friend of mine, who recently gave me my current reading matter,The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin, and who has been trying out some Philip K. Dick, partially at my recommendation (he loved The Man in the High Castle, but was not so sure about Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said), the trouble I have been having with dull books, and how it has led me to the measure of drawing up a reading list.
"Don't you think that readers are less discerning than music lovers?" I asked.
He knew what I was talking about immediately. I'm afraid I can't remember his response verbatim, so the following will have to be taken as a paraphrase:
"Yeah. It's like, just turn on cunting Radio One and leave it at full blast from morning till the cunt of the night. That's the equivalent. I get people recommending me books, like, 'Hey, there's this great book that won the Booker Prize--', and I have to say, 'Stop right there, you cunt. I already know I'm going to hate it. Why are you recommending me cunt like that? You cunted cunting cunt.'"
I have pondered this strange phenomenon, but haven't come, as yet, to any deep or detailed conclusions. I'd be interested in any readers' opinions on the matter. I wonder, however, if there is not a whole tribe of people who think, when they pick up a prize-winning piece of pap straight off the biggest display table in Waterstones and take it home: "Hey, I'm reading a book. Books are indie! I'm indie!" It almost seems as if it doesn't matter what the hell they read. Except that it does. They think they are being discerning, perhaps, in reading respected, serious literature, and would probably turn their noses up at anything genre-related. However, people who read Booker Prize-winning books and so on are, I would hazard a guess, far, far less discerning than those who read, say, exclusively science fiction novels. At least the latter have taken the time to find out what they really like, to some extent, rather than just let some flatulent git on a panel of judges dictate their tastes to them, day after dull, middle-class, humanistic cunting day, until they die.
I thought I had more to say, but perhaps I'll stop there.
Oh yeah, I read the first page of Vernon God Little that everyone was raving about at the time - it was shit. I didn't read the rest.
I think many people have the impression that books are unlimited commodities, but, of course, no commodities are unlimited. It fascinates me, however, that within this finitude, there exists great multiplicity. Earlier this evening, I was struck by the title of a book on the shelf, and lifted it down. It was called Different Doorway (Adventures of a Caesarean Born) by Jane Butterfield English. It's basically a kind of diary account of the author's therapy sessions uncovering the trauma (or other impact) of her caesarean birth. I love the fact that a book with this title exists. One more latent reality has been made actual in this world.
There's a foreword by Stanislav Grof, with whom English underwent therapy, and whose work, I believe, generally involves guiding his patients in remembering the perinatal experience.
Entries in Different Doorway include this kind of thing:
January 23, 1978 I feel an ambivalence about this project. The caesarean thing seems to be difference and unlimited possibility. To generalize about it does violence to its very nature. It is the first step toward an orthodox view of the unorthodox. Yet these ideas are emerging in myself and in others, and I'd prefer that a caesarean-born person rather than a non-caesarean-born person do the naming. I am aware that I'm as much creating something called a caesarean world-view as I am discovering something that is already there. Yet it begins to be clear that this is true even in what is supposed to be the most objective of sciences - physics. In my Ph.D thesis, did I create, or did I discover, a split energy level in the "S" recurrence of the A2 meson?
And:
February 2, 1978 I see a connection between a caesarean's apparent lack goals and Taoist emphasis on being, rather than on doing or achieving.
The author bio tells me, amongst other things, that:
The best known of the four books she has illustrated with her black and white photographs of nature is a translation of Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching.
It turns out that I've already been reading another book in which she had a hand, a translation of Chuang Tsu's Inner Chapters, a very beautiful edition with Chinese calligraphy and black and white photographs (these, also, I believe, taken by English). Her co-translator was Gia-Fu Feng, to whom, I believe, she was or is married.
I'm going to see the doctor in a minute, so might have to cut this off suddenly.
When I visited Devon this summer, I came back to Wales with a number of books, some of which had long been in my possession, some from the mouldering spare room of the house where I grew up, and some from the local bookshop. I will list those books here:
The Lonely Doll, Dare Wright The Little One, Dare Wright Days Between Stations, Steve Erickson The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe Confucianism and Taoism, Professor R. K. Douglas On a Chinese Screen, W. Somerst Maugham Allan and the Ice Gods, H. Rider Haggard The Complete Works of D. T. Suzuki The Western Lands, William S. Burroughs Persuasion, Jane Austen Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton Selected Stories, Anton Chekhov Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany Tea Life, Tea Mind, Sen Soshitsu
Some, but not all, of these, I have read before. At least one of them I have started but never finished.
Also, as a result of a conversation that took place while I was in Devon, I now have in my possession a copy of an art book - a collection of art prints - called Visions, with an introduction by Walter Hopps, which I remember from my childhood, and which left a strong impression on my young imagination, directly influencing, I believe, at least one of my stories ('The Fairy Killer').
I list these here because it's pleasant simply to make lists of books, and also, perhaps, as a small indication of the kind of competition that other books are up against in my reading, by which I mean, books that have been given me by people kindly trying to enrich my life. I'm a slow reader, and the list of books I am currently reading, of books I am theoretically about to read, and books I would some day like to read, are quite long, very long and unfeasibly long, respectively.
I am currently reading, amongst other things, the following:
Journey to the West, author unknown The Collected Strange Stories of Robert Aickman The Penguin Anthology of Japanese Literature The Bhagavad Gita Melmoth the Wanderer (mentioned above, re-reading)
There are really so many that I'm reading that I've even forgotten many of them. Some I started years back, and never finished, so that I might have to start again at the beginning, such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's Sasameyuki, which I have already read in translation.
Books I have recently finished include Ice by Anna Kavan, Beroul's The Romance of Tristan and Tea Life, Tea Mind by Sen Soshitsu.
Books I would like to read... I would actually like to try and make a list. Some of these books will be ones that I actually possess, but still haven't got round to. Some will be books I have simply been dreaming of for a long time. I'll make a brief and haphazard essay at a list below, which I may or may not add to as the mood takes me:
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Inferno, August Strindberg Our Town, Thornton Wilder Transformation, Mary Shelley Dogura Magura, Yumeno Kyuusaku 虚無への供物 (Kyomu e no Kumotsu), 中井英夫 (Nakai Hideo) The Secret Glory, Arthur Machen Other Voices, Other Rooms, Truman Capote (or 'Cuppatea', as I call him) Reflections in a Golden Eye, Carson McCullers The Death of Ivan Illych, Leo Tolstoy
Hmmm, looks like I've got to get ready to see the doctor. Maybe more later. If you have any recommendations, or if you've lent or given me a book and wish to jog my memory, or recommended me a book before and wish to jog my memory, please feel free to use the 'comment' function.
I'm moving. My room currently looks as though it has been invaded by a particularly vindictive burglar. Soon I will be gone, but before that happens this room has to look pristine. So I'm very busy, in the very melancholy and stressful way that moving makes one busy. So, if you're waiting to hear from me, well, that's probably why you haven't heard from me yet.
The other day I popped into a certain second-hand bookshop in London, because I happened to be passing, and I said hello and was given a nice cup of tea. I'm generally a conversationally disadvantaged person, but after a while a conversation with one of the staff got underway, about the way in which many writers are known only for one or two works when they wrote a great deal - this had been prompted by the fact I'd noticed a volume by M.P. Shiel on the shelves, with a title I had never heard of. I think it was something like Lord of the Ocean. On the same shelves I noticed a copy of The Pillow Friend by Lisa Tuttle. I remarked that Lisa had written the introduction to my next book, and there was some discussion then of her work. I took the book of the shelf and looked at the price. It was twelve pounds, which, to someone like me, is a lot of money. I had read Lost Futures and Memories of the Body by Tuttle, and enjoyed them both very much, but I had not read this.
Eventually, I decided it was time for me to ramble on, as Robert Plant might have said, although not to find the queen of all my dreams, but to find lunch at a nice greasy spoon. I looked at the copy of The Pillow Friend I had placed back on the shelf. What the hell! I thought. This books wants to be read, and it wants to be read by me. I took it to the front desk and laid out the cash.
Then I left the shop. As I was walking down the road I saw another of the staff from the shop coming my way. Apparently he had just come from a late lunch himself. He stopped on the pavement and we chatted for a while. He spoke about the state of the book business. "The bookshop is dying," he said, "Publishers, bookshops and writers are all finding it hard to survive at the moment, because no one really wants to pay the kind of money for books that will keep them going." He spoke of how the Internet has driven book prices down, how bookshops have been closing one after another. Then he asked me how I was doing. As if to prove him right I told him that I was moving, because I can no longer afford to live in London. He commiserated with me and asked what I am going to do now. This is a question I have been asking myself. How will I continue to survive? I really don't know. At least, anyway, I will have a roof over my head. But who would want to be a writer now, when the world of books, and perhaps the world itself, is coming to an end.
We went our separate ways. I popped into an Ecuadorian greasy spoon and ordered a vegetarian full English breakfast, for my late lunch. I looked at my new purchase. I have got into the habit of reading so many books at once that I have instituted a policy of not starting any new books until I have finished reading a certain number, so I thought it would be a while before I could start reading this. But then I thought, what the hell, this book wants to be read, and it wants to be read by me, so I opened it and started reading.
There are few things in my life of which I am proud. I'm not proud of the fact that I'm socially inept, or that I've never had much money, or that I am so judgemental of people, or that, like a baby, still-born, or a beast with his horn, I have torn everyone who reached out for me, or that I have consistenly failed to seize the day (despite the fact that I should obviously be immensely proud of all these things). But if there is one thing I am proud of, it's the fact that I have never compromised in my writing. If I succeed at this, it will have been entirely on my own terms, and I will be able to count it a true victory. But I haven't succeeded yet. I am not recognised by the world as a writer sufficiently that I don't have to give any further account of myself. I have to justify my existence by doing other work, too. Some writers are able to work full-time and still write wonderful stories. In fact, I'm fairly sure that most of them simply have to. I honestly don't know how they do it. Having tried this myself, I have nothing but the utmost respect for such people. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be one of them. I remember now when I was in Japan, I had a conversation with a girl there that has proved highly prophetic. She asked what I would do when I returned to England. I said that I supposed I would have to work. She replied that she couldn't imagine me working. "Sugoku maipeesu na kanji," she said; "There's an incredible 'my own pace' feel about you." I have been working - but I am reminded very often that I do the work much slower than everyone else. I do really seem to be on a different time-track. My current work - a decision I made in order to make it possible for me to write - is part-time. But it does not pay my living expenses.
The future looks extremely uncertain to me. Perhaps I shouldn't be so proud of my lack of compromise in my writing. I actually think I'm incapable of compromise. And without compromise, the likelihood of me being able to make a living is reduced drastically. I sometimes think that my writing will be sufficiently recognised to support me the very moment that my miserable existence comes to an end. You know, death is a great career move and all that.
Speaking of death, these days I try to remind myself as often as I can that I could die at any time, so I'd better be satisfied with my life just as it is. Some people might anticipate another clause to that sentence: "I'd better be satisfied with my life just the way it is, or change it now." But the truth is, I don't really think I can change my life; I just don't seem to be a carpe diem sort of person. Or rather, I think the only possible way for me to change my life is through contemplation of death and acceptance. In fact, usually when I think of death, I feel ready to go. I feel like, yes, I did it my way, even if I have totally fucked things up. However, one thing keeps me going. I still haven't written enough. It's not to do with quantity so much, though partly. I just know that I haven't acheived my full potential in my writing yet. My brain truly is teeming, and my ideas for stories seem as numerous as stars in the sky. And one day, I feel, I will write something that magically comes off the page like nothing that's been written before. Perhaps I will never get there, but I do think that I am getting better and better as a writer all the time.
I think that in some ways I used to be more tolerant of what I see as bad taste. Now it seems to me criminal and corrosive. To vote for trash with your money is just one of the many ways to make the world a worse place. I would like to discourage it. For myself, I don't see the point of reading a book that's too popular. (I don't mean to imply that everything popular is trash, though that seems to be the general rule.) For instance, J.K. Rowling has enough readers already. She doesn't need me. I want to make sure that those endangered works are kept from extinction by having a home in the consciousness of one more human being - me.
Anyway, this is just a status report, really. You'll miss me when I'm gone. There are people I'll miss, too. There are, in fact, certain people I miss right now. I hope we get the time to get together. I hope that we can reflect on the fact we could die at any moment and still feel satisfied with who we have been and who we are.
This article is interspersed with Youtube clips that have been amusing or otherwise fascinating me lately.
Well, I'm going to leave the bio-ethics theme for a while and probably come back to it later.
I am currently writing a novel called Susuki, which is the sequel to my forthcoming novella, Shrike. Shrike is to be released by PS Publishing in mid-2008. Unfortunately, the fact that Susuki is a sequel to Shrike does not guarantee its publication. Publishing is an incredibly precarious and dilatory business, which, if you are prone to feelings of anxiety and suspense, can become a kind of water torture. I suppose that you probably don't have such problems getting things published if you're not actually a writer, by which I mean, if you're a celebrity. Apparently the novel Crystal by 'glamour model' Katie Price has "outsold the entire Booker shortlist combined". My source for this information is The Observer, which gives a facetious list of ways to write a blockbuster a la Katie Price:
Don't read books. It's a waste of time. Katie Price admits that she doesn't bother with fiction. Or non-fiction, for that matter. Although occasionally, she might dip into a bit of 'true crime'.
Employ a ghostwriter. Only losers write their own books. But make sure that you don't give them any credit or mention their name. A former journalist called Rebecca Farnworth is the actual 'Katie Price' in question and has, so far, written two autobiographies and two novels, with another autobiography and two further novels on the way.
Etcetera.
In this way the whole publishing industry becomes enslaved to people who don't care about literature or books. Do Katie Price's 'readers' actually read books? I doubt it very much. It's as if some conservationist body were somehow hijacked by golfers who decided the best way to save the rainforest was to turn it into a huge golf course. It's as if I managed to buy a football team and decided that it would be a vast improvement to the game if the players stopped kicking some stupid ball around and instead trained to become kabuki actors, giving performances of famous kabuki plays every time they came out onto the pitch (actually that would be great). It is the death of books, on which theme I might write more later. (I would like to add here that while previously I was quite indifferent to Katie Price, now I am more biased towards the idea that she should put on any top ten list of Britons who must immediately be assassinated.)
Anyway, on to happier things, to wit, my current novel, Susuki. I'm not going to say what the novel is about, not before the novella to which it is a sequel has even been released. I will say that I probably make greater use of my background in Japanese studies in this novel than in anything I've written previously. I've also had to do more research for this than for anything I've previously written, since there are certain sections that might be called historical. I usually try to avoid research, mainly because I don't have the budget for it. I think it's a fact that few readers grasp that writing a novel is a bit like making a film. If you don't have a big budget, you will be less able to invest in the kind of research that produces a spectacular epic spanning centuries. You will be making a low-budget film with unknown actors, limited sets and locations and so on, and the script and acting had better be pretty good. This is because, if you're not making a lot of money from writing, or you're not independently wealthy, you just don't have the time to do the kind of research you'd like to. The analogy falls down a bit in one conspicuous sense - even an independent, low-budget writer can come up with amazing special effects, and actually often does special effects better than the big studio writers.
This time, however, I have already done a significant amount of research - botanical, meteorological, cultural, literary, historical, etcetera - and intend to do a great deal more. Even if I bankrupt myself doing it, which, believe me, is a distinct possibility. All that despite the fact I cannot hope for a readership the size of that maestro Katie Price. Yes, indeed, only losers write their own books. So, in today's post, I just thought I'd share with you something rather special. It's a piece of research I did that informs one particular paragraph of the novel, and it is in the form of a film clip. This might give you some idea of the kind of things that are preoccupying me in this novel. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy famous onnagata Tamasaburo dancing in the role of Sagi Musume, the Heron Maiden:
Recently, I also discovered this rather interesting thing on the Internet. Writer Yann Martel is sending a book every week to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, partly, it seems, because he believes that the Canadian government does not sufficiently value culture. Now, if only I could get Katie Price's address, perhaps I could set up a website called, "What is Katie Price reading?" What would be the first volume I sent her, I wonder? Any suggestions?
WIDGETIZE