Fun and Games
I have recently taken a swimming class that left me high and dry, dear reader. In an attempt to leave the house more and do something besides sit hunched over at my desk doing a fair impression of a shrimp, I signed up for an adult swimming class at my local pool. This is the sort of class where you ostensibly learn the finer points of back crawl and whip kick, where you practice breathing patterns and build up your stamina for swimming lengths. The other folks in my lessons were all Francophone, and the vast majority were either injured runners looking to stay fit without causing further damage, or triathletes. These are a special type of person who likes three sports (running, cycling, swimming) so much that they cannot possibly choose between them, so they do all three and nearly simultaneously. This breed of vigorous Quebecois athlete is very common in my experience, and their love for sport and competition seems equal only to their love of Lycra. I was the only one there for fun.
So imagine my dismay at the end of every lesson, when there were about fifteen minutes left, that our instructor would cheerfully announce a race - a relay, individual races, round robins, you name it. Who can front crawl fastest? Who can tread water the longest? Apparently, these questions were pressing and demanded answers. The sad and sorry truth is that I had at least part of the answer: I could guarantee that under no circumstances would the answer be ‘me.’ I knew before I ever got in the water that I would be the slowest, the most awkward, the least comfortable in the pool, and I had made a tenuous sort of peace with that. Someone has to be last - why not me? I tried to be a good sport about these races, putting on a rueful smile and doing my level best, trying to ignore the thought that all of these competitive, Spandex-wrapped folks surely already had enough opportunity to beat each other at sport and then swagger about with their medals, drinking protein shakes and squirting packets of goo into their mouths. But a little voice that grew increasingly louder with every lesson had its own question: why are we doing this?
The answers to that are, in my opinion, unsatisfactory. ‘Because competition is fun!’ I hear you say. Well, fun is subjective. Swimming breathlessly against someone who is beating the pants off me, easily, over and over and over is not my idea of fun - nowhere near it. “Competition pushes you to do better!’ others might chime in. Again, I think this assertion needs deeper consideration. I actually do not find that pressure helps me do well - I tend to feel best about my output when I am left well enough alone to sort myself out. Other people screaming “Lache pas!” (Don’t give up) at me from the other side of the pool does not inspire me to greatness - it induces violent rage.
Does all of this stem from childhood sports trauma, the terror of gym class? I’m sure that it does. I have such clear memories of being picked last for things, of knowing, deeply and profoundly, that I was never an asset to any sports team. I got to a point where I would wearily offer to sit out the game to give my classmates an out from the socially awkward moment of having to pick me as a partner, making it easier for everyone. We all know how this is going to end, was my argument. Let’s not delay the inevitable with pretence. I also remember thinking that there was a strange imbalance in the pool of my childhood swimming lessons or the gymnasium of mysense of school, which I could not make . When I did exceptionally well at a spelling test or a book report, the teacher would slide those graded papers back to me overturned, and we were strictly warned not to share our grades, for fear of hurting the sensitive feelings of the rather stupid boys (and yes, they always seemed to be boys) who could not figure out how to spell ‘patio’ and refused to do the readings. But there seemed to be absolutely no consideration for my sensitivities during a dodgeball match or a game of soccer baseball - everyone knows that Jennifer is dreadful at literally all team sports, and we routinely remind her of that. What is that for? Does it build character? Does it push me to want to be better at broomball? No, dear reader, it did not. And I confess it remains an ineffective tool for motivation. My fellow adult swimmers and I did not openly discuss our incomes or divorces or emotional intelligence or our latest work performance review at the pool - but at the end of every hour, we were all left in no doubt about who was the worst swimmer in the water - and that was me. I do not have an answer for how to resolve this imbalance - I no longer wish to shame other people for being stupid and lazy as I did as a child (not an attractive tendency, I know), so I have no idea how to level the playing field, har har. If you have an answer to this question, dear reader, you might let me know.
Jennifer
Honey Cakes
Just like Bilbo and his travel companions, we are going to enjoy some delicious and fortifying honey cakes this week. These cakes are sweet but not too sweet - unlike white sugar, honey imparts flavour beyond sweetness, and depending on the type of honey you use, these cakes will also taste subtly of that more complex flavour. A good quality honey is imperative here - it’s sort of the star of the show. Lavender honey, cinnamon honey, or wildflower honey would all be welcome choices, but honey straight-up is also great. Pair these with a cup of tea or coffee for an afternoon break, or as a celebration of the taste of spring - you’ll find these tasty little cakes go with just about everything! Bon appetit!
Ingredients
1 ¾ cup flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature (plus about 3 tbsp for greasing muffin pans)
zest of 1 lemon
¼ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
¾ cup milk
2 eggs
¾ cup high quality honey + 1/4 cup honey for drizzling on top
1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Butter your muffin tin, or line your tin with baking cups or squares of parchment paper.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and lemon zest.
Using a fork, mix the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles sand. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, honey, and vanilla.
Pour the wet mixture over the dry and combine until the dry is just hydrated, but do not over-mix.
Spoon the batter into your muffin tin- it will be between 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup of batter each.
Bake for 16 minutes, or until mostly done but not quite golden.
Remove each cake from the muffin pan and allow them to cool slightly on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat.
Warm the remaining 1/4 cup of honey in the microwave or on your stovetop for about 10 seconds.
Using a silicone pastry brush, coat the tops of the cakes with the honey, allowing it to run down the sides. Let the cakes sit for about 5 minutes so the honey can soak into them.
Bake for an additional 8-10 minutes, or until the cakes are golden brown and the edges are crisp.
If you wanted to get very fancy, you could add lemon juice and a little zest into the last 1/4 c of honey to heighten the citrus flavour, or a little extra cinnamon if you’ve used cinnamon honey to make your cakes a bit spicier. But, quite honestly, these honey cakes are great as is, without any extras, and make for a tasty treat at just about any time of day. You can certainly take a page from Beorn’s book and offer them to beleaguered guests! Enjoy!
Jennifer
Seeing Stars
A few years ago, I was in an elevator, having a terrible time. I had just finished watching a comedy show at a now-defunct summer comedy festival. It was, as usual, sweltering and sticky, so the dim, cool interiors of the theatre were deeply welcome. I remember very little from the show itself aside from some heckling, which made my skin crawl, but almost nothing from the performer’s stand-up has stuck in my mind. The heckling was distinctly Canadian in nature - relatively gentle, mostly people just referencing the comic’s other work in a supportive, somewhat sycophantic way. I seem to recall that even he was a bit surprised at the quality of heckle, apparently anticipating a much more aggressive response from the punters.
The show let out, and about two hundred or so people, greatly cheered and cooled from several hours in that dark theatre, poured from the double doors. There was more than one way to get out of the building, and my husband and I took the elevators - I don’t remember why, exactly. Just as the doors were about to close, a very familiar face appeared, and another comic who was in town for his own festival performance stepped into the elevator, and down we all went. It was a harrowing journey. I am from a smallish city in the middle of the country that does not have a great reputation with performers, so I had never seen a famous person in, you know…person. I once passed by Rick Mercer in an airport, but I hardly think that counts. But this comic, whose work I had seen on numerous programs and heard on podcasts, was now standing in the same elevator with me, and I was surprised by my own reaction. I hated it. A squirmy, slithery feeling of prickly shame and embarrassment and too much self-awareness wriggled down my spine - a distinctly unpleasant experience. He was genially signing programs and taking selfies with the other people in the elevator, and I wanted the tiled floor to open up and swallow me whole.
But why? He seemed perfectly affable, quite pleased that people were speaking to him and appreciating his work, not at all the self-satisfied, hot-headed star one sometimes hears about. Why was I so uncomfortable, so eager to flee the elevator and return to the sweaty, soupy air so typical of July out east? I suspect there is more than one reason. Firstly, I can be shy with just about any new person, regardless of how many times I’ve seen them on television. But also, when you meet a new friend at a party or your weekly sewing class or something like that, (just me?) they know about you exactly the same amount that you know about them, which is usually nothing. But in this case, I had all sorts of exposure to this person in a way that is distinctly unnatural, not normally recreated in more regular encounters. There is a name for this - a parasocial relationship. It might be interesting, it might be satisfying in some ways, it might bring joy, but it will always be one-sided. And the television might have something to do with it, too. I had only ever experienced this person as a two-dimensional image, usually sitting behind a panel desk on a comedy show, and suddenly, here he was, with three dimensions and legs and everything. Very disconcerting. Perhaps my discomfort came, then, from confronting a reality that my television screen had erased: that this was not a two-dimensional, miniature image, but a real, honest-to-goodness human being, with thoughts and feelings and foibles and strengths just like everyone else. And perhaps realising this illusion-shattering reality would enable me to encounter another star in person in the future and not immediately wish to disappear. All the same, I don’t think I’ll risk it.
Jennifer
What’s Opera, Doc?
You know those moments when you realise, quite suddenly, that the things you experienced as perfectly normal turn out to be a bit strange, a bit peculiar? I thought I had a very regular, run-of-the-mill childhood well into my teens, and then discovered the awful truth: I grew up listening to classical music, and that was distinctly not the norm. Depending on your opinion of that genre, we have my mother to thank or to blame. I still sort of think of Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Magic Flute as children’s music, because those were on frequent rotation when I was a little girl. The first thing I learned to whistle (a skill I worked on with ferocious determination) was Chopin’s Nocturne No 2 in E-Flat Major Op 9, because my mother played it frequently on the piano in the living room. I did not know that this was unusual behaviour for a six- or seven-year-old. It was just the music that was around, the records that were on the usual rotation, or the melodies my mother hummed during the day.
Did I learn the more usual children’s fare? Of course. At school, I was taught classics such as Raffi’s "Baby Beluga" and happily sang along to "Skinnamarink" after watching Sharon, Lois, and Bram on Saturday mornings, but the strains of etudes and sonatas always made up the majority of this mix. This tendency was only strengthened by my enrolment in Orf classes and children’s choirs, where I learned to count rhythm to Tchaikovsky, the parts of the orchestra with Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and proudly learned the parts for Vivaldi’s Gloria. Was I an insufferable little soprano, refusing to read anything but the top line of music? Did I scoff at pop music, which I found to be extraordinarily simple and boring? Yes, I did. I’m not proud. I was a terrible snob. Thankfully, my teen years introduced me to British pop of the 1960s and 1970s rock, so my self-satisfaction was somewhat corrected. I admit I am still partial to much of the classical music and opera over other genres, and I wince at flat notes and unsupported breathing; I do not have a poker face when it comes to music. These are not the shiniest parts of my personality, not the aspects of my character of which I am most proud or pleased, but here we are.
So imagine my delight at discovering Looney Tunes’ adaptations of familiar favourites: the Barber of Seville, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Ride of the Valkyries, Hungarian Rhapsody, the Minute Waltz - all paired with the delightful comedic stylings of Bugs Bunny and company. There is something that tickled me about Elmer Fudd singing “Oh, Bwunhiwde, you’we so wooooovewy,” and Bugs responding in simpering tones, “Yes I knooooow it, I can’t heeelllp it.” Or when I was about ten, going to see Fantasia 2000, and being utterly charmed by the animation paired with Rhapsody in Blue and Carnival of the Animals and The Pines of Rome. Did the Firebird Suite scare the living daylights out of me, and did I leave the movie theatre early? Yes - that flaming bird demon was enough to give me nightmares for weeks. Trust Stravinsky to scare the pants off a kid.
The good news, dear reader, is that unlike the record store or streaming service, enjoyment does not require categorisation. I can appreciate sugary pop music, earnest 60’s folk rock, classical music, synth-heavy 1980s new wave, and opera equally. I do not need to choose - the world is my oyster, and I can delight in all of it. But I will admit that, having been reminded of Chopin’s Nocturne No 2 in E Flat Major Op 9, I will be humming it for the rest of the day: tra laaaaa!
Jennifer
What’s in a Name?
Some folks really like to name inanimate objects. This is Digby the toaster; that’s Fran the chaise longue. I can sort of get behind some of it: as mentioned in this week’s episode, naming cars makes a lot of sense to me. My mother had a car at one point in my childhood called Arthur, a dependable name that would get you out of a tight scrape - and he was red. A gallant car, chivalrous, keen to help a lady out of a tight spot: that sort of thing. My best friend’s car was Wally while we were at school, and it was an apt moniker, too. Wally was very sweet, tried hard, and sometimes wasn’t up to the task of making it through a southern Ontario winter without a little extra care. He wasn’t rough and tough: he was a bit timid, a bit in need of encouragement, which my friend usually offered by patting him lovingly on the dashboard and saying “Come on, Wally!” whenever he approached hills. Similarly, my father drove a large-ish sort of SUV for a long time, a big green behemoth I called Jimmy Hop Toad. This name was not universally adopted, but then, Jimmy did not often require support as Wally did.
But I do think you can take this sort of thing too far. My husband is a musician, and so I have encountered lots of folks who name their guitars, and this I find more difficult to swallow. Guitars are almost always named after women, which gets into yucky territory very quickly. When I have broached this opinion in the past, people will often clamour to tell me that the practice must be all right, because B.B. King named his beloved guitar Lucille. So he did. But the rest of us are not B.B. King, and so perhaps it is wise to leave the naming of instruments to the greats, and skip calling our many and varied guitars “Taloulah” or “Athena” or “Beryl” or what have you. One can take this sort of thing too far.
Relatedly, I am always on the search for good pet names. In many ways, they are deeply unused names. My cat’s name is Maebh, but I hardly ever call her that. More often than not, she is Brave Miss Maebh, Maebh-y Baby, Gremlin, Kitty, The Grey Lady, Ladygirl, Fluffbutt, or Principessa. I like Irish names for pets, but especially for cats. There is a certain impish quality that many cats possess which I feel is well encompassed in a name like Fionnukin or Aoife. But I admit that I am also charmed by the idea of a dog or cat named a perfectly normal human name - Kevin, Belinda, Eugene, Stephanie. Then one only has to wait for the perfect, delicious moment to announce that you are running late for work because “Kevin got stuck behind the fridge again” or “Stephanie jumped on me in the middle of the night”, and leave your listeners wondering about the strange, slightly inept roommate you seem to have acquired. If I’m honest though, dear reader, I’ll stick with the Irish names for the time being. They seem to suit well, and I do secretly enjoy a horrible satisfaction at watching the vet receptionist struggle through them a couple of times a year. And perhaps one day, if I am in a situation to own a car and give it a name, I might say airily to a friend that we were late getting Niamh to the vet because Gary just refused to start, and delight in their confusion. Otherwise, though, I think I’ll leave the inanimate objects in my life unnamed.
Jennifer
Bannock
Of course, if we’re going to spend a whole episode chatting about food, we’ve got to have something to snack on! This recipe for bannock is a modern take on quite a traditional food, so you may well have your own version that is a bit different from this one. Bannock has been around for so long that loads of people and cultures have had time to develop their own take on this really versatile quick bread. Make yourself a batch to accompany a cup of tea, a bowl of soup, a pot of jam, and this week’s episode! Bon appetit!
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups water
¼ cup butter, melted
Instructions
Stir together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Pour the water and melted butter over the flour mixture.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients to make a large, shaggy ball of dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead about 10 times.
Pat the dough into a flat circle, about an inch thick.
Warm an oiled or buttered frying pan or skillet over medium heat.
Place the dough in the pan and cook for about 15 minutes on each side, until golden brown.
Slice the bannock into triangles and serve.
You can choose some fun add-ins to this recipe - cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cardamom would make a lovely spiced bannock, ideal for autumn and paired with a cup of chai. Herbs and grated cheese would make a savoury bread that would be right at home next to a hearty bowl of soup or stew. Berries, dried fruit, or chocolate chips would turn this more neutral version into a sweeter quick bread, or you could just slather your piece with jam! Any way you slice it, the versatility of bannock is one of its best features, so you have plenty of room to get creative! Enjoy!
Jennifer
Seed Cake
Seed cake is old school - really old school. The earliest recipes for a cake flavoured with caraway seeds comes to us from 1591’s The Book of Cookrye and several subsequent versions appear in cookbooks and household manuals right through to the 19th century. This cake was popular and well-liked for so long because of its main ingredient: caraway seeds. Not only do they impart a nutty anise flavour, but they were also believed to aid in digestion, so eating a cake studded with caraway seeds after a meal was considered a delicious and effective way to end supper. As it happens, this belief is true - caraway is a digestive aid. But, happily, it also makes a tasty snacking cake or an after-dinner morsel, so feel free to enjoy this seed cake whenever the fancy strikes!
Ingredients
450 g butter
450 g flour
350 g sugar
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
6 eggs, whisked
200 ml brandy or 200 ml madeira
ground mace and grated nutmeg, to taste (these are both powerful spices, so I like about 1/8 tsp each)
50 g chopped candied citrus peel (optional)
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 170 °C or 325°F and grease and line a 7" round cake tin.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar, then sift in the flour.
Add the mace, nutmeg, and caraway seeds, and mix well. (Add the chopped candied peel if using at this stage as well.)
Stir in the whisked eggs and the brandy.
Beat the cake again for 2 to 3 minutes, until the batter is very smooth.
Pour the mixture into your tin lined with buttered paper.
Bake it for 1½ to 2 hours, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean and the cake is well risen, firm, and golden brown.
Now, caraway seeds can be tricky to lay your hands on - they are not as popular as they once were. Some grocery stores and specialty shops will have them, but if you are in a pinch and cannot hunt up the seeds in question, you can reach for fennel seeds or poppy seeds. However, the result will be quite different: you will have made a cake with seeds, rather than a seed cake, strictly speaking. Also, keep in mind that this cake is quite dry. It is meant to be: some writers describe it as having a delightful ‘clack’, or the tendency to stick to the roof of one’s mouth. A pretty colourful image, but never mind. As such, I recommend pairing seed cake with a beverage - it was made to be eaten at tea time, so a cup of tea is always a good choice. You could also try lemonade or cordial, or a charming little glass of something stronger (brandy or madeira, perhaps) to go along with it if a cup of tea is not quite your cup of tea. Enjoy!
Jennifer
Marginalia
In this week’s episode, we’re talking about, at least in part, book jackets, originally meant to keep books safe in their journey between book binder and book reader. Of course, the books on my shelf often have dust jackets, but in the more modern sense - the little flaps of folded paper, emblazoned with the author’s name and the book title and the cover image and blurbs and author photo and biography and the publisher’s name and all the rest. They may still go some way to protecting the books on my shelf, but they are nowhere near as defensive as the original brown paper wrappings of old. Instead, I am the defender of my books, guarding them carefully from destruction and ruin.
I do not mean that my books are under attack from invaders, swinging swords and buckling swash. I mean that I am one of those fussy, uptight people who likes to keep a book in the best condition I can, and for me that means no writing on the pages, no dog-earing the corners, fastidious use of bookmarks, and nothing more than a careful cup of tea while I read - no greasy fingers leaving stains on the paper, no smudges of dirt and dinner. I hate to hear the crack of a new book’s spine, and nothing gives me so much shame as the circular stains on a childhood favourite who had a nasty run-in with a leaking lunchbag. I have some second-hand paperbacks with crumbling, tattered front covers, softened with age, and I handle those poor dears with extra care and delicacy. My high school copy of Romeo and Juliet was in such bad shape that I made a new cover for it, hoping against hope to protect its curling pages from more damage, and, to my relief, the new binding has lasted reasonably well. The most I will admit to doing is putting my name on their frontispiece, and this is more for the books than for me - since childhood, it seemed important to me that my books know they are beloved, that they belong to someone who treasures them. If I were a book, I think I would take comfort in a pencilled name on my inner cover as a point of pride, like being named after an adored family member. Any books that might be reading this are very welcome to weigh in on the matter.
But there is a flaw in this caution, in the preservation of books taken to this level. As a reader, I delight in a pristine book, but as a historian, the very best documents are the ones covered in someone’s scrawl. Second-hand books that have little notes in them are adored - they are like little messengers, linking two strangers with those smudged notes and asides in the margins. I love an old frontispiece with a bookplate bearing the name of the previous owner, and an inscription from the giver (and, as I think we can all agree, books are among the best gifts). I once spent an exciting afternoon in Library Archives poring over correspondence between an artist and a gallery, and the typed part of each letter was polite, restrained, cordial. But the responding notes each writer had scribbled told quite a different story - one of frustration, contempt, dogged stubbornness, and some choice language. If those snarly letter-writers had stuck strictly to their typewriters, I would never have uncovered their real feelings, the dramatic complexities simmering under the surface of their words. Perhaps I am doing future historians a disservice by not writing charming, witty asides in the margin of my beloved books.
These personal, revealing little notes are nothing new, by the way. People have been scrawling things alongside the main body of their texts for centuries - there’s even a word for it: marginalia. Some of our earliest examples, which stretch all the way back to the earliest illuminated manuscripts, feature little notes and drawings, some quite silly, paired with serious religious tracts, the Gospels, and Books of Hours. There are little animals jousting, tiny knights tilting at giant snails, fantastical beasts, grinning skulls, little doodles, and rarely, little cat pawprints from when some ancient monk’s cat stepped in the ink. Scholars have dedicated their careers to studying marginalia. So perhaps I am quite wrong-headed in endeavouring to keep my books perfect, untouched. I cannot promise that I’m going to paint miniatures in the margins of my pages suddenly - that feels like quite a leap, and it would give me heart palpitations. But perhaps the very lightest of pencil marks…alas, no, dear reader. If I am honest, that still feels like too much. Instead, I might borrow another practice from those ancient monks: florilegia, the practice of keeping a little notebook or journal of quotations and scraps of text from one’s favourites, paired with reflections and thoughts, to be read together to create a new text, to spark new meaning and as a devotional practice. If future historians find my florilegium, I hope it brings them the same delight I feel when I encounter a message from a past reader. Or perhaps they’ll find some disintegrating copy of this blog, and then who knows what they’ll think, dear reader?
Jennifer
Ambulare
The charming word ‘perambulator’, rather a mouthful if truth be told, comes from the Latin ‘per’ , through, and ‘ambulare' to walk, making a perambulator ‘one who walks through’ or ‘stroller’. Now this word applies to the wheeled gadget we usually associate with babies, but first it meant a person who passed through boundaries - one who strolled, literally, a stroller. I like to apply this older meaning to myself: I am a stroller - not a wheeled carriage for babies, but one who strolls. I know by now, dear reader, that I have mentioned more than once my love for a good ramble. In my opinion, it’s the best way to encounter a new place, a good way to clear the mind, the only way to make meetings enjoyable, and the best method for seeing as many dogs as possible. I am very lucky to live in a walkable city, and although I have lived in my neighbourhood for several years now, I still find little delights and new charms every time I step out my door.
Of course, this is not necessarily the easiest time of year to go wandering. It takes many long minutes to get dressed in all the requisite layers, and by the time I am ready to leave home, I am already hot and irritated. Then there is the ever-present problem of navigating the street. Falling snow is very charming: fallen snow causes headaches. There are snowdrifts to climb and clamber over, badly-cleared sidewalks, ice, slush, and increasingly narrow tracks left by the snowplows to struggle through after several months of snow. If it’s warm, the snow melts and then freezes and melts again, creating crisp layers of ice hiding under the latest cover of snowflakes. The result is either that you stride confidently about and then slip, like a cartoon, arse over tea kettle, and wind up feet in the air, flat on your back, or that you waddle, penguin-like, taking mincing steps and an uncanny fear gripping your heart and locking your knees. The little rubber cramp-on boot covers can help with this problem, but at some point, the ice is going to win. Nature so often does.
However, we are past the Winter Solstice, and so technically speaking, the days are growing longer and the nights shorter, even if only infinitesimally. Spring is eventually going to arrive again, and one of its greatest pleasures will no doubt be the freedom to wander clear, rain-washed streets with a light jacket and no mittens. Summer, of course, is in many ways the best for this - throw on a pair of comfortable shoes and off you go, ready for any amble your heart desires. I admit that at the height of summer, I tend to go walking very early in the morning or after dark, when it is coolest, but either way, there is still untold joy in tripping out the door without much thought or care.
There is perhaps one person I regularly encounter on my regular wanderings who is at even greater ease than I am, who has even fewer cares, regardless of season or sun - and that is the chubby-cheeked baby, ensconced in a stroller, being pushed along the pavement in their pram. In winter, they too have to be dressed within an inch of their lives, often rendered immobile by the layers of clothes, so that they resemble little snow-suited starfish rather than human children, arms and legs stiffly akimbo. And in summer, when the sun is hottest, the confines of their strollers are often canopied to shade their tiny occupants. Whether wrapped from top to toe or shielded from the elements or kicking their little bootied feet with rapture as they go, I am always struck by the thought, when I see a baby in a pram pass by: “Now that is the way to travel.” Perhaps, though, upon reflection, I would miss striding about at will, and the good, tired feeling after a long walk that makes a cup of tea and a rest so satisfying. Another year of wandering and journeys awaits us in just a few short days, and I am looking forward to what those adventures have to bring. Happy ambling, or perambulating, to you, dear reader, in the coming year.
Jennifer
LBD
There is a dress hanging in my closet as I write this- black, sombre, controlled - that immediately springs to mind when I think of a ‘little black dress’. But it’s not really for going out, for date nights or parties. It’s for conferences. I pair it with the same black blazer, the same black shoes, black tights and a careful bun every time I wear it. Only my hands and face are visible, distinct from this swath of black. There is a sort of uniform at conferences, unspoken, but no less potent than if it were written down and acknowledged, and black is a big part of it. Most of the academic gatherings I have attended are a sea of black, punctuated by grey. To be fair, I have only participated in art history conferences, so perhaps meetings of other scholars are a veritable rainbow of colour - I do not know.
I’ve wondered about why we all dress in this uniform of black since my very first conference, more than a decade ago (shriek). I even wrote a paper about it. I think the rigid but silent rules of dress for these occasions are shaped by the tightrope that academic women and queer folks have to navigate. We’re wearing black to appear serious, sophisticated, equal to the challenge of the work we set out to do - and fighting against the deeply ingrained assumption that we are not up to the task. Rigid, matte black clothing (for of course, nothing should be shiny or reflective) also does a good job of erasing any hint of sexuality - the black blazer particularly obscures the body, blending with the black clothing beneath it, so that in the dimly lit rooms of a conference talk or panel, we are reduced to heads and hands, floating in an ocean of black. It reminds me very much of 17th-century Netherlandish paintings of guild members, each in their respectable black doublet and ruff, hands and faces leaping out as the only colourful elements in an otherwise murky, dark canvas. And, in a manner of speaking, we are doing something very similar to those Dutch men: following a strict dress code, one that draws attention to our faces, our heads, and shrouds all the other parts of us.
This is painting a very dark picture -ha ha - of academic life for women and queer people, and I admit, sometimes it can feel brutal. But there is light at the end of the tunnel - quite literally. At some conferences, every once in a while, if you are lucky, you will spot her: an eminence grise, literally the ‘grey eminence’ with beautiful snowy white hair, massive framed glasses and a colourful, bespoke necklace or silk scarf over the elegant grey of her draped top and trousers. She points us to a saving grace in academia, distinct from other industries - getting old is good. She is confident, stable, tenured, a research chair and the head of a department, secure in her position and her wisdom. She has nothing to prove - her list of publications is a mile long, her classes are legendary, her scholarship formidable, and she has survived forty years of academic life. She is a presence. That is, I think, why she can doff the black and settle into the gentler tones and shades of grey - she no longer needs the respectability of black: people respect her as a matter of course.
I will admit a flaw in this argument, dear reader, and that is summer. I have an upcoming conference in June, and I am struggling mightily to imagine what I am going to find to wear for that event. Most academic conferences take place during the academic school year, when everyone is on campus, so black is appropriate, because it’s fall or winter. This is my first warm-weather conference, and I have no idea what I’m going to do. Surely head-to-toe black is not a good choice; no one wants thick black tights and a black wool blazer in the dead of summer. One day, if I can survive long enough to reach the status of an eminence grise, I’ll have the luxury of soft, gentle grey - or perhaps I’ll be so well-established that I won’t care one bit about my clothes, and I’ll wear whatever pleases me. In the meantime, you’ll find me digging in my closet, frustrated, and longing for the security that only the little black dress and blazer can give.
Jennifer
Fun and Games
I am not, as a general rule, keen on board games. There have been far too many times at parties or gatherings when someone pulls out a board game or a box of cards and gleefully suggests that we all play a few rounds, and my heart sinks to my shoes. Inevitably, things start out pleasant and orderly, people take their turns, and everyone is all smiles. But someone pulls up another player on the rules; what starts out as playful banter turns rancidly to viscious arguments; everyone takes sides, now people are yelling, fingers are pointing ferociously in faces, and some poor soul, unable to contain themselves, flips the table and pieces, cards, paper money, instructions, game board all go flying, and the game is over. The game players slink away, ashamed and mournful, regretting their contributions to the goings-on. And yet those same folks seem to forget these experiences at the next gathering. Their minds do not seem to hang on to the unpleasant memories of the previous attempt at game play, and so someone pulls out a board game and suggests, with blissful glee, that we all play a few rounds. And my heart ends up back in my shoes…
Somehow, games that do not require boards and equipment are somewhat better on this front. I have played many rounds of charades with friends and I-Spy in the car on long journeys, and people seem a lot less likely to lose their tempers over “I spy with my little eye something that is green.” And yet there is still room for competition, the kind that seems to deeply upset people and make them growly and defensive. People who openly tell me they are competitive make me nervous - does that mean you find competition makes you better, pushes you to be your best self? Or does it mean you throw a temper tantrum when you don’t win? And I have gotten push-back about only children (of which I am one) being poor at playing games without winning, being sore losers, but my experience tells a different story. Often, watching siblings play a board game together is a bit like watching a global conflict building - it always starts small, but a few well-timed snarky comments and some aggressive pinching or punching, and it’s a full-on brawl. I am left wondering how these people have survived to adulthood without killing each other. As an only child playing in my room, did I understand the rules of chess and play it properly on my father’s chessboard? No, I did not. I treated the pieces like little dolls, the figures of a tiny wooden court, complete with king and queen, horses, and lines of well-behaved pawn children, who used marriage to secure alliances between the two sides. But neither did I throw the pieces and scream or stomp off, muttering about ‘proper rules’ and ‘order in society’. Frankly, I think my way is preferable, even if it ignores the rules of proper game play.
I am sure - in fact, I have to believe, if only for my own sanity - that there are lovely, calm people who can play a board game from start to finish without having a strop. So far, I have seen little evidence of these goodly people, but I know they are out there. If you are among their numbers, dear reader, pat yourself on the back and take satisfaction in your self-control. You are a rare and precious breed, and the world is better for your presence. But until I can get all of you in a room together with a Parcheesi board or a pack of cards, I think I’ll avoid board games and gently absent myself the next time someone pulls out a board game and suggests, with beatified smiles, that we play a few rounds. Thanks, but no thanks.
Jennifer
Hat Trick
Hats are so tricky, aren’t they? Several people I know say things like “Hats don’t really suit me,” or “I don’t have a head for hats.” We’ve been told, over and over, that hats are passe, difficult, awkward, unnecessary. We don’t wear them unless we absolutely have to - a toque for winter, a ballcap for summer. I, for one, love a good hat. A little boiled wool beret, at a jaunty angle or worn right back on the head, at almost a ninety-degree angle, is intensely charming. Or what about a wide-brimmed sun hat, in coiled straw with a delicate ribbon for a hat band, shading your face from the summer sun? With such a hat, the larger the better, surely - it is impossible not to be chic peering haughtily out from under an enormous, swooping hat brim as you lounge by the water, the sort of thing I assume the flight attendants give you automatically as you step off the plane to Saint-Tropez. I am also partial to a jolly little boater, neat as a pin and twice as hard, balanced on the head perkily, as though you might leap into the next boat and punt yourself straight down the Thames to Old Oxford. A heavy velvet and wool affair, pulled low over the forehead, makes for a good choice on a chilly night to the ballet or theatre in winter - stylish and warm, an impressive feat. A gauzy, chiffon turban would make for a delightful confection, perfectly paired with an antique brooch pinned right in its centre. I appreciate a newsboy on a leggy, modish model, over her swinging Sixties’ fringe and winged eyeliner, or the exuberant, ebulliant creations that crop up at the Kentucky Derby or Royal Ascot, more like sculptures than headwear. I like an embroidered kokoshnik, elegant and just a little imperious, but even better is the furred and fabulous ushanka, equal parts Soviet and stylish.
But these days, all the glamour and gaiety, the fun and variety, the sophistication and self-expression of hats has been whittled down to the well-worn ballcap and the now-ubiquitous toque, most of them without even a cheerful pom-pom on top to reassure ourselves that we can be happy, even in winter. What dire straits! I get comments (not all of them pleasant or approving) just wearing a headscarf or a padded headband, one that dares to stand an inch or two above my hair and announce itself in velvet or a bright colour. We’re completely fine with the ridiculous, the expressive, the colourful, the eye-catching - but only when it is on our feet! Surely it makes a lot more sense to draw attention to the eye and face with a becoming chapeau than to hope that everyone we meet will goggle at our toes, right? It was once this way - my grandmother’s generation wore sensible shoes in neutral colours, and spent their hard-earned pocket money on new ribbons and hat dye to perk up an old topper and give it new life. And yet, here we are, living in topsy-turvy land, buying and wearing absurd sculptures on our feet (painful) and leaving our heads bare and unloved (boring). No, thank you!
I hope, dear reader, that you will be emboldened, inspired even, to dig out the hats from the back of the closet shelf and give them the love they so rightly deserve. I appreciate that the giant sunhat with exultant brim might not be necessary at the moment, but the world of winter hats is in fact wider and more exciting than the cylinder of wool most of us cram over our heads on our way out the door. At the very least, consider a pom-pom on your daily toque, if only to add a little well-deserved winter whimsy to your day.
Jennifer
Chatelaine
The majority of my doctorate took place during the pandemic, which was not ideal in many ways. Primarily, research ground to a near-halt. Instead of haunting libraries and collections of important art galleries or museums, I was holed up in my apartment, bent over my keyboard, hunting desperately through digital files, hoping against hope to find something useful. A second, less pressing but equally upsetting outcome was realising just how closely the life of a grad student compared with lockdown and curfews. I never knew (and still don’t know) if I should be distressed by how little my life changed when lockdown happened, or grateful for the relatively small shift from normalcy to the pandemic - either way, I was stuck at my desk. The world was upside down, but deadlines are deadlines, and I had two thousand words to write a day if I hoped to finish within my lifetime. It often felt as though the work would never end. In the evenings, my beleagured little brain could only manage to read books I’d already read, and watch children’s films - animated, if possible. I wonder sometimes if, had my experience been a bit more normal, I would have taken in more appropriate media, or if I would have turned to Don Bluth and Hayao Miyazaki, regardless of the outside world.
One of the things I could rely on, at least when it came to research, was magazines. Loads of magazines have been digitised - in some cases, every issue of a publication is available through wonderful platforms like Library Archives Canada. The subject librarians at my school library were veritable angels, ministering digital copies and offering alternative sources, support, and kindness to the sobbing grad student - many, many and varied blessings upon their heads. The result was that much of my workday was spent combing through page after page of back issues of Chatelaine and Canadian Living, and I found that the advertisements for Sanforized curtains were as fascinating, sometimes more so, than the articles about Expo 67 or the Canadian Handicrafts Guild. I loved to get lost in the pages of these publications, with their faded colour photographs and snappy ad patter, written as though the author is in a hurry. I was charmed, and more often than not, bewildered, by the sorts of things advertised to women reading these magazines - silverware, curtains, horrific printed chintz sofas in polyester velveteen, rusty red wall-to-wall carpets, and, eventually, enormous vacuum cleaners to manage those carpets. There were sleek, boat-sized cars on offer, and more ads for alcohol and cigarettes than one would think possible to cram into a single issue. And hair dye, which was relatively new in the 1960s, will almost certainly pop up in the pages of these magazines. The women’s hair is huge and bouffant, matched only by their winged eyeliner and frosty pale lipstick. Perhaps my favourite part is the choice of font - from serious, sans serif fonts to show you just how modern and sophisticated the magazine is, to traditional fonts for articles, possibly for ease of reading, and finally the kooky, psychedelic confections to catch the eye. These publications proved to be rich repositories of material, of advertisements and imagery, and of the kinds of conversations Canadians were having in the 1960s about Canada itself - which was exactly what I ended up needing for much of my doctoral work.
This process of poring over digital pages echoed the fascination I had for old issues of Canadian Living or Women’s Weekly, that my mother had in her kitchen cupboard, along with the cookbooks. I loved to peruse those old magazines, delighted by the letters to the editor page, by the bizarre ads and the recipes for all sorts of questionable dishes - tuna in aspic, tomatoes in aspic, little Vienna sausages in aspic - are you sensing a theme, dear reader? I would sit at our table and flip through these magazines over breakfast, or sometimes in the afternoon on chilly winter weekends, imagining making the elaborate meals for fanciful parties, wearing frosted peach lipstick and wearing heels in the kitchen. This enjoyment for paging through magazines only increased when annual Christmas catalogues would arrive, touting the wares of department stores, with sections dedicated to children, women, home, and a handful of pages for men - in that order. Evidently, the folks in charge of the catalogues knew who was really doing the shopping! But whether it was an autumn issue of Women’s Weekly or a hefty Christmas catalogue, I think of both with nostalgic fondness. They were like a window into another world - a world that no longer exists, but whose echoes can be found in unexpected places.
Obviously, I am now spending much of my time reading texts that are noticeably devoid of images, which, for an art historian, can be tricky sometimes, but there is something very pleasing and soothing about returning to the thin, glossy pages of a magazine - whether I’m reading it for work, or to while away an hour with a cup of tea.
Jennifer
An English Charm
My first time in England was in the depths of March, as a gormless eighteen-year-old, shepherded around by my high school teachers along with a handful of classmates. It was rainy, as expected; it was cloudy and grey, as expected. What surprised me was how cold it was - coming from Winnipeg, I anticipated that England would be a balmy relief, but that was not so. Instead, a damp chill settled into my bones every morning when I got out of bed, a chill that would not be unsettled or shaken for the rest of the day. Other than the cold, it was a fascinating trip. We were ostensibly meant to be on a sort of literary tour, visiting Bath for Jane Austen’s house (excellent, very enjoyable) Dickens World, a now-closed indoor theme park (bizarre, nightmare inducing) Stratford-on-Avon for Shakespeare (an excellent house museum and lovely garden, more souvenirs than you could possibly imagine) and Canterbury for Chaucer (very pretty town, prettier cathedral, marred slightly by the disgusting rotted skull of St. Thomas Beckett). We were often on an inter-city bus, a ‘coach’, chattering away as charming scenery, spattering rain, and strange snapshots of other people’s lives sped past the windows.
Those little insights into others' lives were perhaps my favourite part of the whole trip. Indeed, the many museums and historical sites and the ruins of churches were exciting, but when I think back on that trip, the memory that comes most to mind was pausing on the way out of the local parish church in Glastonbury and noticing a pamphlet pinned to the message board, announcing enthusiastically that the following week there would be a expert on reading animal auras, and to bring pets by 6 pm - sheep welcome! What I wouldn’t give to see a sheep having its aura deciphered.
There were funny shops with bizarre names (Happy Snaps, a film and camera store) and Boots (a pharmacy chain). The people in London moved at a breakneck pace with cold, flat faces, looking neither left nor right, in dark grey and black crowds that rushed up and down escalators and in and out of tube cars, carrying us along like flotsam on the tide. I can only imagine the stress of trying to herd a wily group of girls around London - our poor teachers. The city was exciting and seemed to pulse with life, but I admit I enjoyed the smaller towns more. The main streets of Bath and Canterbury were almost too charming, like something out of a picture book, and the half-timbered buildings of Stratford-on-Avon with their old-world thatched roofs and wide, leafy avenues were a delightful respite from concrete. We were sometimes turned loose for an hour for lunch during which my friend and I would walk up and down the cobblestone streets, enjoying cheap sandwiches and window-shopping, admiring buildings and pausing to read the blue plaques that signified historical importance, which seemed to be everywhere. I hadn’t travelled much at that point in my life, but I have since learned that my favourite way to experience a new place is to ramble - to rubberneck and feast my hungry eyes on everything around me. I like to wander around, a bit aimlessly, taking in the world at a reasonable pace, eager for little details, funny signs, or interesting window displays, ready to be charmed by a new place. I was certainly charmed by England then, and several times since, and I’m sure I’ll be charmed the next time I visit.
Jennifer
Smart as Paint
I live in an apartment which is, very evidently, several decades old. The age of my home is made apparent in lots of little details: the crooked floors, more creak than wood; the funny cupboard in the kitchen that would have housed an ironing board; and, perhaps most obvious, the rather shabby paint job. Like most rented apartments, it is painted white, but not consistently. The kitchen and my little office have had their doorframes and baseboards painted the same colour as the walls, but the hallway and bathroom and our strange little living room (originally a closet) feature badly stained wooden frames and baseboards along the floor, which have not been painted white, but do have evidence of the 'landlord’s special’ - a quick, sloppy paint job, with little flecks and globs of paint marring the wood. The wood is not high quality, by any means, but it is not improved by the drips and drops of white paint. Add to this the fact that the most recent coat of paint was actually baseboard paint, so it is glossy, which means that every wall in our apartment is vaguely shiny, highlighting every lump and bubble, every uneven surface, every mark. The result is not ideal.
I am of two minds about this situation, dear reader. Part of me thinks that this sort of paint job is just part and parcel of living in a rented space, and that there is little to be done. I am loath to move all our furniture, cover the whole place in painter’s tape and tarps, and spend weeks trying to improve the appearance of our wonky white walls. Slapping paint over the mess left by decades’ worth of sloppy contractors may not actually do very much to smarten up our shabby little home. Lipstick on a pig, sow’s ear, silk purse, and all that. Fresh paint will not change the uneven floors or the strange shape of the layout, or make the rooms different sizes. And it’s an awful lot of work.
On the other hand, we do have to live here, and the current paint makes my eyes twitch. It would be so lovely not to walk down my hallway and shudder a little at the horrible paint job, or avert my eyes from the bubble of paint over the bathroom cabinet. We might even choose a colour other than white for our rooms - perhaps not to our landlord’s taste, but certainly more pleasant and somewhat less clinical than the boring, lifeless shade which currently bedecks our walls. A pale sage, not too yellow, for my room, cream for the hallway, soft blue for the bathroom, perhaps, a muted blue-green for the bedroom - the very thought is charming. I have even gone so far as to purchase those little paint cards, the ones with the colours on them and their rather unusual names in the corners: Spring Valley, Linen, Reflecting Moment, New Day. None of these titles actually gives you much information about the colours themselves, but they are suggestive, evoking emotional reactions that seem quite separate from the actual shades and hues they represent. I think it would be a delight to work as the person who chooses the names for paint colours - how does one apply to such a post? Is there a guild, populated by the people who name crayon colours, ice cream flavours, and nail polish?
But I digress. Whether we decide to paint or not, the apartment will continue to feature a bizarre layout, ugly light fixtures, a floor full of creaks and pops, bulging walls, pitiful water pressure and a mostly-working bathtub tap. And yet, despite its many and varied flaws, I am fond of our little home - it is too full, and sometimes deeply frustrating, but it is ours - and for now, that is enough.
Jennifer
A Spoonful of Sugar
The holidays are fast approaching, the weather has turned distinctly chilly, some of us are contending with the slop, annoyance, and wonder of the first few snows of the year, which can only mean one thing: colds. Everybody gets them, sometimes one right after another, to the extent that your average classroom, office, subway car, busstop, and grocery store line is accompanied by a chorus of sniffles and coughing. Not pleasant music, all things considered. Some folks seem to get colds that are gentle, a slight irritation: they drink a little more tea, they go to bed a little earlier, they carry around a package of travel tissues, just in case. I am not one of these people. Colds hit me like a transport truck hitting a concrete wall. The worst ones leave me in bed for days, guzzling hot liquids and longing for the days when I could breathe properly through my nose. My head goes heavy and fuzzy; my throat is dry and sore; my sinuses are stuffed and swollen; I am exhausted by turning over in bed. It is not a pleasant sight.
There are a few upsides to this state of being - a very few. I am allowed to wallow in self-pity and trashy television while ill, which can be comforting in its own way. My small grey cat usually comes to snuggle me while I am ensconced in my bed, and her purring is tranquil. I can catch up on all the podcast episodes I’ve missed, and enjoy audiobooks, one right after another, without pause. And the comforting, soothing foods most folks reach for while ill are a positive boon: chicken soup, hot lemon water with honey, pastina, popsicles, ginger chews, juicy, in-season oranges - all delicious. And I give myself permission to sleep the day away, which can be extremely boring but also kind of a nice little break. Maybe that’s really the key to happiness generally - acceptance, gratitude, choosing to be content with a circumstance whenever we can. I cannot promise that I have achieved this cold-induced nirvana, but it certainly helps to give up on fighting the reality of a cold or a sore throat, curl up on the sofa with a cat, a box of tissues, and a substantial collection of old movies or trashy television, and embrace the inevitable down-time. I might feel like I’m the brain in my head, but at the end of the day, my body is running the show in many ways.
I hope, dear reader, that if you find yourself wrapped up in bed with a nasty cold, sipping tea or endlessly blowing your nose, that you give yourself permission to enjoy it as much as you can - to snuggle down in your blankets and give over to sleep, that you indulge in the little treats which will make you feel better, both emotionally and physically, that you do not judge yourself for watching all those episodes of that goofy old show or that comforting movie from your childhood that always makes you feel better. Get well soon.
Jennifer
A Pen Pal
I do not have a dedicated writing pen. That’s not to say that I don’t have pens in my house - I do. They’re scattered around my office, in my husband’s office, sometimes making their way to the kitchen (for grocery lists and recipes, mostly.) But these pens are scraps, leftovers. The most reliable one I have at the moment came from a hotel chain. The one I used most before that was probably from the dollar store - I don’t remember buying it. These are cheap, plastic, ball-point pens, usually with blue or black ink, ink that tends to be sticky and skiddering rather than smooth. I had quite a nice one a while ago, in a dark floral print with a cap and everything, but even that was only a ball-point pen, and it had no way to refill the ink reservoir, so when its little interior plastic tube of ink ran dry, the pen became obsolete. The result is a pencil cup full of dried up, unusued, cheap plastic pens, all dead, and a handful of actually useable writing implements, nearly all of which will have their day in the sun as I write birthday cards and scribble notes to myself, and then will go the way of their older brethren: back in the pencil cup, untouched, until I grow frustrated with the clutter and throw them all out in one furious go.
But, oh, to have a dedicated pen, one that feels good in the hand and writes beautifully, with smooth ink, never sticking. And refillable, ready at a moment’s notice. I appreciate that most folks reach for their keyboards and phones to send messages, but I admit that I cling to paper and pens, charming little hand-drawn, hand-written cards, pleasant mail that makes a nice change from bills and junk. I am in the process now of organising the Christmas cards I send out every year, which simultaneously makes me feel about a million years old, and fills me with joy. Do the people at the post office give me strange looks at my handfuls of red and green envelopes, addressed in my tidiest cursive, or frown a little when I ask for more than one book of stamps? Yes, they do. I do not care. There is something connective, relational, real, about a handwritten note in the mail. I used to handwrite all sorts of things - notes, grocery lists, and rough drafts for schoolwork - but that has drastically dwindled, really down to the last little vestiges of paper mail I insist on sending, especially for the holidays. And wouldn’t it be so thrilling, so certain, wouldn’t it fill a person up with a kind of delightful sureness to reach for the same lovely, well-used pen for every Christmas card, every message of birthday wishes, every letter, every signature? I think it would.
Instead, I am left, as ever, with two much less appealing options: my tip-tip-tapping keyboard and computer, or a handful of nearly-dead plastic pens in ugly colours with broken or missing caps. It is a depressing thought - and yet, the Christmas cards must go out! It’s early, dear reader, I know, for holiday wishes, so instead I’ll send you hope for a comfortable pen grip, the smoothest ink, a smudge-less page, and the perfect pen to write with. Happy scribbling.
Jennifer
A Day at the Beach
Ah, the beach. The very word conjures up images of warm, golden sand, idyllic waves, the sun glittering on the water, and hours of relaxation on a charmingly striped towel under a well-positioned umbrella. Alternatively, that word might evoke images of screaming children, a steaming parking lot with asphalt like lava, sunburns, lost sunglasses, sand in the picnic basket, and swimmer’s itch. Agatha Christie may have loved the beach (indeed, she was an avid surfer, if you can believe it), so for her, the beach probably meant adventure and excitement. I find the beach tiresome. For me, it is not relaxing - it is boring, and usually quite a faff to get there and get home again - a lot of rigmarole, in my estimation, for what turns out to be rather a flat experience. This may be, in part, a result of my own personal failings. I am loath to bring a really good book to the beach for fear of ruining it, so I end up with a ‘beach book’, something light and fluffy, a little bit awful, but crucially, cheap - that way, if sand and surf are not kind to it, I’m less put out. I also burn like a lobster, and spend most of my summer covered wrist to ankle in light-coloured linen and big hats, trying to stave off sun damage and blistering.
Part of this loathing is, no doubt, the horrible, spandex spectre that looms over all such activities: the dreaded bathing suit. I do not enjoy wearing a bathing suit. I do not enjoy purchasing a bathing suit. In all cases, the whole thing feels like a minefield. Finding one that fits and doesn’t dig in or ride up or bunch or slide around or twist or stick or pucker feels miraculous, a moment where angels sing and dolphins dance. I admit that at this juncture in my life, I have not yet experienced such a moment. Even colour presents problems: black feels sombre, too aggressive, especially without a tan (see ‘burns like a lobster’ above for more details), patterns can be tricky, and recently I read that my standard choice of shades of blue or green is not as safe as brighter colours because they lack the visibility of hot pink or vibrant yellow in water. And yet I struggle to imagine myself, decked out in eye-popping, glow-in-the-dark orange, floating in the waves peacefully like a basking shark. Is all this trouble really worth the few hours of languid boredom, stretched out on my towel and fretting about freckles? I am inclined to stay home and forget the beach entirely.
One place where the beach appears, rather surprisingly, is the bathroom. Have you ever noticed the tendency for some people to decorate their bathrooms as though they were the beach? You enter their washroom, close the door behind you, and are confronted by a dazzling array of beach-themed accoutrements. There are sailboat or sea turtle prints hanging on the wall, and the soap is shaped like a flip-flop. The shower curtain features a frieze of shells, echoing the small bowl of shells on the back of the toilet, and the shower curtain rings have starfish designs on them. Everything has to be blue - cerulean, azure, cobalt, sapphire, aquamarine, lapis lazuli. Very bright yellow or orangey-pink accents are just about acceptable. No other colours are permitted. Surfboards, sanddollars, seahorses, maybe even a piece of coral - they will all feature in one way or another. I urge you, dear reader, to investigate your host’s kitchen after you have experienced their beachy bathroom - it is very possible that if the bathroom is the beach, then the kitchen must be a farm, complete with rooster oven mitts, goose-shaped cookie jars, and an inexplicable pig in a chef’s hat. I’ll leave you to your own conclusions, dear reader.
Jennifer
Pirates
It’almost time for Hallowe’en again. The leaves are crisp, the air is chill and tangy, and there are pumpkins, skeletons, cobwebs, and floating fabric ghosts adorning the front steps of nearly every house on the block. I suspect that, if you are handing out candy at your door, or trailing after a group of ghouls and goblins, up and down the street, you may well spot a fair few pirates among the spooky group. They’ll have a tricorn hat and a parrot on one shoulder, an eye patch and a hook for a hand - or very possibly a peg leg. You might notice a puffy white shirt and a cutlass gleaming in the moonlight - for how indeed can a pirate swindle and swashbuckle without it?
I wonder sometimes how a real-life, honest-to-goodness pirate might feel about having become a costume or a caricature, the sort of person who shows up on screen in films with a West Country accent and a roguish smile? Would they be delighted at being thus memorialized? Or would they struggle to understand how we’ve romanticized them, how we’ve washed away all the reasons a person would choose to live outside the law and risk so much?
The movie theatre is full of these pirates - Peter Pan, Hook, The Pirates of the Caribbean, Muppet Treasure Island. And they have their charms, no doubt about it. Tim Curry is particularly appealing as the pirate with a lust for gold and a secret heart of it, too, playing earnestly alongside his fuzzy Muppet co-stars, decked out in what proves to be extremely accurate 18th century garb. He strikes an excellent balance between terrible criminal, quite happy to threaten, steal, lie, and murder to get what he wants, and moral father figure who sacrifices himself at least once to protect Jim Hawkins. I wonder if, after all that complexity is a better representation of real pirates - people, complicated, multilayered people who longed for a way out of poverty and suffering by any means necessary, but weren’t necessarily the embodiment of evil, either. A tricky thing, being a pirate - unless of course, it’s Hallowe’en night, and when the treasure - or candy - has been gathered and stowed, the costume comes off, and life goes back to normal.
Jennifer
Patron Saints
In this week’s episode, we learn that Astarte was a Phoenician goddess responsible for many things—love, beauty, war, and hunting. Quite a laundry list! This is, as we discussed, not dissimilar to Greek and Roman polytheism. As a kid, I was absolutely obsessed with a big yellow book from the library, D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, which had charming illustrations and page after page of Greek gods and goddesses, most of whom were capricious and badly behaved, but came with nifty specialties. Each had fabulous powers and special dedications which determined who prayed to them and for what. So Hermes is the messenger god and herald and therefore the god of communication, travellers, and orators. Aphrodite is obviously the goddess of love and lust. Her long-suffering husband, Hephaestus, is the god of blacksmiths and artisans.
It reminds me of saintly patronage, which defines much of Catholic devotion. There are loads of tragic martyrs, holy men and women, who’ve been saddled with a particular thing - a virtue, a preoccupation, a group of people, a concern, an activity - for which they are responsible. There are the better-known ones, like St. Anthony, to whom you might pray if you have mislaid something, because St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things. St. Christopher, patron saint of travellers, receives many prayers for safe car journeys. Devout lawyers pray to St. Alphonsus; archeologists like Max Mallowan might pray to St. Helen of Constantinople. There are saints for academics, Boy Scouts, comedians, dentists, equestrians, farmers and flight attendants, gardeners, hairdressers, ice skaters, janitors and journalists, lighthouse keepers, motorcycle riders, notaries, obstetricians, pasties and poor students, queens, radiologists, secretaries and shepherds, teachers, undertakers, veterinarians, writers, and zookeepers. There are saints for locations, for diseases and injuries, and for specific dangers. And, when in doubt, you can always turn to St Mary, who is the patron saint of cyclists, fishmongers, overseas Filipino workers, harness makers, seafarers, the Spanish Civil Guard, and pilots. But, more generally, she is also the patron saint of all humanity, so as long as you’re a person, then Mary’s for you.
In both the modern Catholic context and in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Phoenicia, too, the way to tell one god or saint from another was by their attributes, as we saw in today’s episode. Astarte is identified by her crescent moon, her doves, or her lions. Aphrodite, who was influenced by the earlier Astarte, is shown with doves, too. Hephaestus always has a smith’s hammer, an anvil, and a pair of working tongs to indicate his profession. And the saints are no different: they each get items, objects, or attributes that identify them, because without those objects, you might find that it’s quite difficult to tell the difference between a sculpture of Mary and a sculpture of St. Catherine or St Theresa of Avila or St. Margaret, or indeed any other female saint.
It does lead me to wonder what, if any, attributes I would have if depicted in a sculpture or a stained glass window. Perhaps Agatha Christie’s would be her typewriter, or perhaps her beloved terrier, Peter, sitting at her feet. And what of our heroine, the great and good Miss Marple? Surely her attribute would have to be her knitting needles and that ubiquitous fleecy white wool!
Jennifer