As soon as it came out, I wanted to read this book. Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life had lingered in the back of my mind for far too long, and I pounced on it the moment that I saw it in my sister's bookcase.
I always had a fascination for Cleopatra as a woman and a ruler, and harboured a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the literature written about her was probably more the result of an over active imagination than actual facts. A lot of the myths about Cleopatra are explored through Schiff's analysis of what few texts exist from her era, and she confirms some of the thoughts that I had when hearing about her life story. Often times female political prowess and female sexual power are viewed as interchangeable, and Cleopatra has borne the brunt of this stereotype. Her romantic conquests include two of the most influential figures in Roman history, which has positioned her as a kind of sorceress/seductress, rather than the charismatic, savvy person she really was.
Schiff makes a number of points which allow the reader to question the Cleopatra portrayed by her Roman biographers. One of the theories that resonated with me, was the connection which existed between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar centred around the fact that neither had anyone else who could relate to their demi-god statuses. It would be a lofty, but lonely position. The other lure that Cleopatra possessed which is not often brought up in contemporary accounts, is the vast amounts of wealth in the Egyptian coffers. Cleopatra was the richest ruler in the entire world, and so keeping her pacified would be one of the chief aims of her would-be collaborators. She could and did bankroll the ambitions of Mark Antony, and as such, he treated her as an equal.
The other portion of the story of Cleopatra that always seemed false is her death at the hands of the asp. It seems doubtful that anyone would choose to commit suicide with a six-foot long snake, rather than drinking poison. Schiff puts forth the idea that someone would have smuggled poison into her quarters, and this is far more plausible. Though the image of a snake is more dramatic, than a swift death at the hands of a potion.
I will not go into any more detail, but needless to say this book is a fascinating portrayal of Cleopatra which is rare in its frankness.
In my day-to-day life I tend to put a lot of my energy into my job, home and whatever familial drama happens to surface (usually at the worst time). Needless to say, when I do stop to smell the roses, I morph into a jellyfish-like creature who watches reality television. The other thing that is relevant to this discussion is the fact that I do not have cable and take the time to seek out my favourite shows online. I make a point to watch what I do.
One of the shows that I tune into faithfully is America's Next Top Model, and I have watched both the British and Canadian spin-offs. Normally I don't write about particular television programs, but the current cycle of ANTM has been disappointing enough to spur me to devote a blog post to it. In order to talk about my current issues with the show, I will go back to a previous post I wrote about the book Reality Bites Back. This book discusses ANTM at great length, and how it promotes unhealthy body image, racism and the idea that a group of women will inevitably turn on each other. There are opportunities for genuine conversations about these topics between Tyra and her young protegees, but instead the focus is on tears, fights and the quest to overcome difficult pasts.
Over the years, several models have been criticized for weight fluctuations, deficiency in height, or the appearance of a lack of effort. In some cases, they are pretty cringe-worthy for anyone in possession of critical thinking, and so going into this cycle I lost some of the enthusiasm that I once had for the show. What eroded my enjoyment even more was how the producers have gutted the usual cast members: Nigel Barker, Jay Manuel and Miss Jay Alexander. Whether they all happened to want to pursue other goals, or Tyra tyrannically banished them, there is something to be said for keeping long-time characters so that the audience has a sense of familiarity.
These casting changes, in addition to the new format which allows fan votes to count for who will be eliminated, make for a very different season than those previous. It is almost like the show is either trying to evolve (and alienating fans in the process), or the rats fled the sinking ship and ANTM had to make some necessary changes. Whatever the real story is (and I do not think I will ever hear the real truth), this season is below par and I will not be going out of my way to see where the show is headed next.
After reading the first book in the Twilight series, I wanted to dive into something completely different. I opted to read Elizabeth and After by Matt Cohen, a book set in a small town outside of Kingston, Ontario.
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The story centres around Elizabeth McKelvey, a teacher who dies tragically and shapes the lives of the three men closest to her in life. She is always in the background of the narrative, quietly influencing the decisions of her son Carl, husband William, and former lover, Adam. Her absence seems to be as powerful as her presence may have been had she lived. Up until late in the novel, the reader does not get Elizabeth's perspective and her thoughts and feelings are described through her effect on these men. Their reactions to her actions and death are how Cohen presents her as a silent (for the most part) central character. I found this to be the most fascinating aspect of the book, as I am accustomed to stories told from a first person point of view, centring around an interesting protagonist.
The male characters, whose lives are continuing to be impacted by the loss of Elizabeth, are interesting studies in denial and self-destruction. Each in their own way, they cope with their grief and try to struggle through their remaining days. Carl is particularly adept at getting into scrapes and causing collateral damage to the women in his life. He is the subject of much conflict when he returns to town, and his strain of the narrative provides the most suspense. Especially in the latter hundred pages of the novel, where the action comes to a head. I personally related to Adam Goldsmith, who always seems on the outside looking in, but who plays a vital role as tensions intensify between Carl and just about everyone.
If I am totally being honest, I would say that I had my struggles getting through this book, reading twenty pages here and there, taking my sweet time. In my mind I know that this is due to my restless mind, rather than the quality of the writing or the way that I related to the characters. Despite my frustrations, which were with myself, I would recommend this book as an interesting study in the effects of grief, on both a family and a small community.
In any relationship, there are sacrifices made by both parties for the betterment of the union. My sacrifices usually involve video games in one form or another. With great anticipation (he practically vibrated with it), my boyfriend and I went to PAX 2012 this past Labour Day Weekend. For the uninitiated, PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo) is the biggest non-industry video game conference in North America held every year in Seattle. Since its humble beginnings, PAX has now expanded, with a second conference in Boston called PAX East and a third in Australia. The appeal of PAX is that it gives video gamers the ability to try video games before they are released to the public and allows them to interact with developers. Swag is another bonus.
Needless to say, I am not a fan of video games and cannot stand it when my boyfriend sits in his favourite comfy chair, pressing buttons for hours on end. There are some notable exceptions, like Assassins Creed, which has a cinematic quality and an engaging story, but for the most part, the dialogue is forced and the storylines are far-fetched. This being said, when a person's significant other is a passionate lover of the medium, then you learn to make the best of it. In this spirit, I got up early to get in line and jogged towards the Halo 4 display when the doors opened, because that is what you do for those you love. Standing around in lines and people watching, became surprisingly amusing. Despite all the studies which say that video games promote violence, I must say that the gamers I came in contact with were all very friendly, swapping opinions and tips. The costumes were also very interesting as well, though I had no idea which game they were associated with.
My favourite part of the conference was attending the panels that included game developers talking about their creative process. The similarities are quite striking between writing a book and producing a video game, and I found the connection to be very interesting. I went to a panel discussion which focused on games which were cancelled or otherwise not released to the public. Like in literature, some ideas are never fully realized for various reasons, and seeing the mixed successes of video game developers fascinated me in particular. Often times, it takes many revisions to produce the final product and thus there is a lot of crossover between video games and other artistic mediums.
Though you won't catch me wielding a fake wooden AK-47 (on sale this year in the Skybridge kiosk) at next year's conference, I do admire the passion and creativity that gamers display. If only I knew what they were talking about.
For a while I had avoided reading any of the Twilight books, because I enjoy a good night's sleep and am suspicious of popular books. Sometimes people equate commercial success with boring, safe writing, and I am usually in that camp. My friends convinced me that I should at least give the Twilight books a chance before rendering a verdict.
Stephenie Meyer is inspired by literary classics such as Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and the influence is very much apparent in the plot, characterization and setting of the first book in the series. In Wuthering Heights, the moors provide a dark presence which almost serves as a character in an of itself. Twilight features the scenery of the Pacific Northwest and its near-constant state of rain, is essential in creating the dreary mood of the novel. Arguably this is is not executed as well as the Gothic Wuthering Heights, one still gets the general idea that this effect is what Meyer is trying to achieve.
The other work which Twilight owes a debt to is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Clearly, Edward's character is deeply rooted in the tradition of brooding, aloof, but ultimately good heroes that was originated by Austen. Though Edward falls short of the Mr. Darcy standard, an alert reader can definitely spot the similarities. I see the appeal that such a character would have with grown women and teenage girls alike, and Meyer is clever to use a time-tested formula. Personally, I am not all that enamoured with standoffish, yet perfectly formed men, maybe based on the negative effect that they had on my love life before I hit age twenty-five. After that, I basically went over to Team Jacob, before such a thing even existed.
I was pleasantly surprised, however, with the character of Bella. The movies don't really fully delve into her quirks and clumsy nature in the way that the book does, and it is a bit of a shame. Her humanity and utter ordinariness are at the heart of the narrative and allow the average person to connect with what her character is going through. I think that Bella is one of the rare rays of sunshine in this somewhat dreary story, although I think that she is a bit quick to set her sights on immortality. I'm not sure how good an example it is that Bella wishes to give up her family and friends in favour of a boy that she hasn't known for all that long. Maybe being close to death every moment she is with Edward serves to enhance their time together. Who knows.
I've only read the first book in the series, and I am under the impression that it is just a warm-up for the books yet to come, thus I don't want to be too hasty in passing judgement. At the same time, I have to be honest and I felt like the book was just satisfactory and borrowed a bit too much from classic works. I would have liked Edward to be a more three-dimensional character, and for the scenery to be better utilized. The uniquely depressing quality of the Pacific Northwest (I live there and therefore I can say it) could be more thoroughly described and used to create a more mournful mood. What I will say is that I plan on slowly making my way through the entire series, rather than making this my final verdict. Though biased, I am still fair.
In my previous post on the subject "Trial and Error: Vegetable Edition", I talked about how I am learning how to garden with help from The Zero-Mile Diet by Carolyn Herriot. I thought that I would do a follow-up blog post so that readers can see the results of my toil.
The results were mixed at best. To be fair to Herriot, I have not yet totally followed her gardening advice for an entire year, and gone rogue several times due to my own impatience. Clover has taken over my vegetable patch due to the lack of nitrogen in the soil, and this is a battle that I don't want to wage. I also used a very ad hoc planting plan (and the robins played a part too) so my seeds grew all over the place, rather than in tidy rows. Several veggies cropped up which I cannot identify (pictured below), and the phrase that I would use to describe it is "what the?" rather than "wow".This being said, I enjoyed some level of success with my tomatoes, rhubarb, Romaine lettuce, and apple tree and they made their way to the dinner table.
Generally, my success in the garden is more consistent in the flower beds. Luckily, one of the former owners of our house was a gardener by trade, and we inherited some stunning roses and lilacs. The roses take very little effort on my part, just pruning off the dead after a flower is finished blooming, but look beautiful. Our lilac trees caused me some anxiety due to the fact that our trees are late-bloomers which only began flowering a few months after every other lilac tree in the neighbourhood. I thought that maybe they were having an off year, or that my pruning skills were lacking. Then suddenly there appeared these beautiful blooms in a very vivid purple (see below).
I am currently on vacation trying to get caught up on my household projects, and I wanted to tackle one of the borders around our yard. I neglected this pitiful strip for some time because I had no concrete plan for what I wanted to plant there, and no time to put in the research. Now that I was away from work, I looked into different shrubs and settled on hydrangeas. Though Madonna may not like them, they seem to do well around the neighbourhood and the last thing that I wanted to be was the one house on the block with an overgrown garden.
I tackled the project with gusto, enjoying the possibility that this patch would no longer be a nagging reminder of my failings. After I began a preliminary hatchet job on the existing grasses and random perennials, one of my neighbours stopped to ask me what I was up to. I told her about my project, and she said that she admired my courage, admitting that she would have called a gardener to handle it. This comment chipped away at the confidence instilled in me at the Canadian Tire Garden Centre, and I enlisted the help of my boyfriend to mow down the whole bed. Fortunately he has little regard for his lawnmower, and agreed to aid me in the digging despite our understanding that gardening is my domain.
Now that the project is finished and the hydrangeas have been planted, I feel a lot better and look forward to dealing with some other problem areas, including my so so vegetable garden. If nothing else, I know what not to do.
I bought The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre about two years back with every intention of reading it quickly. It had a good combination of critical acclaim and my sister's stamp of approval, but I haven't managed to read it until now. Instead, it was one of those novels that you think about in the back of your mind, and eventually get around to. Happily, this book lived up to the hype. It is written by journalist Linden MacIntyre, best known for the CBC television show the fifth estate. I had seen a special that MacIntyre hosted which drew upon the subject matter discussed in the book, and I found myself both repulsed and intrigued.
Though this book is fairly well-known, I will give a brief sketch of the plot. The story is set in Cape Breton in the early 1990s and the main character is Father Duncan MacAskill, a priest charged with the task of helping his bishop cover up allegations of child molestation. His detached, cool-headed approach to this job belies the toll that it takes on him emotionally, and results in a gradual unravelling throughout the narrative. Due to this role as the bishop's man, MacAskill faces a great deal of isolation, and this is one of the most profound elements of the novel. MacAskill experiences a separation between himself and his flock which is attributed to the respect that people have for his role. Additionally, he cannot have candid conversations with fellow priests due to their distrust of his closeness with the bishop.
The novel centres around the struggles that MacAskill faces, and I found his inner turmoil to be the most fascinating aspect of the story. I respond to him as a character because he is a flawed individual, with his own chequered past and temptations, rather than a sterling crusader. His growing isolation and distaste for the tasks that the bishop gives him, present an interesting portrait. Though blog entries don't really lend themselves to a more detailed breakdown of the plot (I don't want to give it away), I will say that I am leaving a lot of meaty plotlines out of this post and that this novel is more rich than these few paragraphs can convey.
I would heartily recommend that readers take this brief sketch as an appetizer to a larger tale. It's subject matter may not be the ideal summer read for some, but the inner angst of the main character really draws you into the story and has its own rewards.
Schiff makes a number of points which allow the reader to question the Cleopatra portrayed by her Roman biographers. One of the theories that resonated with me, was the connection which existed between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar centred around the fact that neither had anyone else who could relate to their demi-god statuses. It would be a lofty, but lonely position. The other lure that Cleopatra possessed which is not often brought up in contemporary accounts, is the vast amounts of wealth in the Egyptian coffers. Cleopatra was the richest ruler in the entire world, and so keeping her pacified would be one of the chief aims of her would-be collaborators. She could and did bankroll the ambitions of Mark Antony, and as such, he treated her as an equal. 
