A time for semantics (part 2)

“Van attack” has a “short sharp shock” metre going for it, but, for assonance, “van rampage” – the name the Toronto Star and Huffington Post are pushing – is hard to beat. And it has a spirit of something more extraordinary, of old made new, beast made man, of erratic movement and duration, of predictable unpredictability.
     “1715, in Scottish, probably from Middle English verb ramp ‘rave, rush wildly about’ (c. 1300), especially of beasts rearing on their hind legs, as if climbing, from Old French ramper (see ramp (n.1), also see rampant).”
     Yeah, on this one, that’s all I got.

A time for semantics (part 1)

Some earlier mass killings-by-vehicle, e.g., “the Berlin Christmas Market attack” or “the London Bridge attack” are named for more specific places. This one, on our “longest street in the world,” makes “Yonge Street van attack” unworkable.
     But is calling this “the Toronto van attack” (CNN, The Guardian, Globe & Mail, National Post) a done deal? How events get their names is the question of Peter Eglin, who traces how a 1989 event initially called terrorism, tragedy, and disaster, became “the Montreal Massacre.” Holocaust, Shoah, Final Solution: names encapsulate our views of cause, effect, rightness, wrongness, extraordinariness, ownership, and appropriate redress.

The Typeface Families, part iii

Arial Baskerville wished she’d never signed up for speed dating. The first man to read her nametag asked if her parents liked Shakespeare. Arial, who generally felt more muffin toppy than spritely, tried not to cry. The second man asked if her parents liked The Little Mermaid. No, said Arial, wondering if it was his hair gel that gave him a kind of pedophile vibe. The third asked if her parents had been in the mile-high club. At that, Arial bolted, crashing into a rumpled but nice-looking man who’d evidently had the same idea. His name tag read Gill Sans.

The Typeface Families, part i

The Morisons lived as if in times that were Roman – yet new. Stanley Morison embraced a Mediterranean fusion diet. His signature dish: a straight-up egg linguine drenched in olive oil from a bottle with girls in togas, and that would’ve been fine. But then he’d spray on this Thai fish sauce, an update, he said, of an ancient fermented fish recipe. Actually it wasn’t bad. But no one visited the Morisons a second time, not just because of Stanley’s rotting fish gut disquisition, but also because of the spray of serifs he’d leave hanging in the air as he talked.

Gold Star

It’s well-established I'm shallow but “Gold Star?” Seriously? Gotta wonder what were the other contenders for this label?
     My Trump Schadenglee is wrecked by seeing it takes a dead son to trump Trump, and now on CNN dude in lecture mode about radical Islam is trying to trump the dead son’s Gold Star dad—“the threat, sir, is not from Swedish Lutherans named Anna and Lars.” So, where does this end? With people whose dead son got killed by heinous Swedish Lutherans named Anna and Lars to trump the Trump-trumper’s trumper? (In Swedish, yo, “Gold Star” is “Guldstjärna.”)

Image: www.zazzle.ca

Pasta al packer

The rest of the spaghetti noodles
Half a Belgian endive
The rest of the crumbly low-fat goat cheese, maybe it’s crumbly b/c it sat out two hours during the packing of the glasses but whatevs, heat’ll kill shit
2 dried chili peppers
Walnut oil

Cook noodles. Heat oil in pan, throw in chopped endive. Clean fridge drawer. Remember endive. Stir. Dump in noodles. Add crumbled chili peppers, crumbly goat cheese. Wash Royal Doulton bunny bowl. Dry with same somewhat Windexy teatowel just used to wipe fridge drawer, oh well, price of civilization. Dump into bowl. Photograph. Blog. (Civilization.) Eat. Civilization.

The Last Days of Mon Patou, Part III

I finally got my answer to how Riley's dog was faring among the trampling cows at his new home. Turned out, he’d never reached it. While Riley was still on her own, she’d gotten new chicks for her chicken house. Mon Patou had guarded the chickens stoutly, but something about those chicks -- perhaps their squeakiness -- set him off. He’d chewed through the lot of them, leaving the yard littered with wistful feathers. Riley went on Craigslist, and that same night, Mon Patou was taken away. A man came from Halifax, bringing a satin cushion for Mon Patou’s ride.

The Last Days of Mon Patou, Part II

Riley was writing happy emails about moving in with her beau. But she never answered when I asked how her dog, Mon Patou, was doing. I tried to imagine a happy story for him. But the new home had cows, and I couldn’t imagine Mon Patou, with his dodgy hips, managing a barn's worth of cows instead of three goats, one sheep, and a chicken house. It would kill him to be a failure. I imagined him trampled by cows, made a fool of by that wild-eyed sheep, depressed, not eating, and finally put to a querulous sleep.

The Last Days of Mon Patou, Part I

I adored Mon Patou. We’d taken to each other instantly, lunging and feinting as we played in the new snow. He’d used to work with a whole herd of sheep, but the hip trouble that made him bunnyhop through the snow put an end to his farm days. My friend Riley took him in. She brushed the mats out of his hair and gave him a manageable fiefdom: three goats, one sheep, and a chicken house. When someone walked down the road, Mon Patou would bark his head off; when the sheep went for his food, he’d snap her away.

Your report on the subway

I saw your report on the subway. The one from the SickKids Neuroscopy Department. You’re sitting sleepy in your parka, between a man and a woman with hair dyed the same brown as her purse. Your report has three pages. No, the man turns to a fourth; the woman’s purse strap is laced through a gold chain. The man draws his finger down a column of numbers. Maybe the words beside them are the same width as the word “normal”? The woman looks too, quickly, pursing her lips differently. You all get off at Glencairn. I really hope you’re okay.

Men of Tin, Take Pity

In fields of Oz the poppies blew, succumbing the blood of beast and man to luscious slumber. Dorothy slept, and Toto too, and their burly lion companion. The poppies’ charms could be resisted only by men of tin and straw. They rescued Dorothy, and Toto too, but it seemed they’d have to break faith with their burly friend. Yet... the lion was rescued nonetheless. Taking pity on a fieldmouse that was fleeing a wildcat, the man of tin chopped off the wildcat’s head. The grateful fieldmouse, revealed to be a queen, rallied her subjects to lug friend lion to sanctuary

Image: Jane Long.
For other posts inspired by this image, see Magpie Tales.

Bobby Martin IX: Guacamole

Mrs. Terplitsky brought over guacamole this time. Cally wondered how to eat guacamole when Theo had died, alone and upset. He’d been worried about some little boy who’d come in for his first session. But why? She should’ve paid more attention. Should’ve woken up. Should’ve helped him.
      Mrs. Terplitsky’s poodle, Pickford, whined in the doorstep and Cally remembered. That boy had a neighbour whose Lab had keeled over in High Park. Suddenly, Cally was determined to find the boy. To understand why his story had sent her husband to his demise.
     “Could I take Pickford to the park?” she asked.

Bobby Martin VIII: Peaceful

“Bears attack rapidly, Mrs. W-w-webb,” said the coroner. “Your husband w-w-would've died almost immediately, p-p-peacefully even.”
     “He was not peaceful!” Cally Webb yelled. She wasn’t a yeller by nature, but she found it satisfying. She’d have to tell Theo when she got home, she thought, and then realized again that he was dead. Her face crumpled.
     The coroner winced. “P-p-please,” he said.
     “He couldn’t have been peaceful,” Cally muttered, “his socks didn’t match.”
     “What?” said the coroner, surprisingly easily.
     “His socks. Didn’t match. Theo never wore socks that didn’t match. Something must've worried him that morning. And now he’s dead.”

Bobby Martin VI: Comforter

Cally Webb snuggled into the comforter, eking out her perfect dream. She was in a chalet. With Theo, who actually had taken a vacation. There was a fireplace, and Merlot, and toast, why not lots of toast, cinnamon toast with lots of butter, and she was telling Theo, “You’ve got butter on your nose,” and leaning in, laughing, to lick it off, when he clamped his hand, suddenly icy, on her shoulder. The chalet windows shuddered and broke. A cold, ashy wind blew the fire out and Cally awoke, panicked and kicking. “Theo?” she said. “Theo?”
     But he wasn't there.

Image: mariaemb.

Patriot of a nation

Consider me a patriot of the nation of Procrastination. Crastinum is Latin for tomorrow (cras) + a time-related suffix (tinus). It once was possible to call the day after a holiday, or a term, or whatever, its “crastin” or “crostino”. The national custom is to eat cranberry crostini on the crastino of Christmas. You see we are a fine little nation, where first we do no harm. We grant asylum gladly to all seekers, waiving tiresome paperwork gently, like an old breeze. Our citizenship test is easy. Every day you can pass if you just say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Image: NeighborFood

Bobby Martin II: I See You

“Please don’t think I’m crazy,” Bobby’s mother said to the doctor. She knew she had a crazy story to tell and now she looked crazy too. Her hair was stuck to her face in rain-soaked tangles and, when she tried to give Bobby a tissue, all she had in her pocket was a sodden wad.
      The doctor reached for his tissue box. He’s kind, Bobby’s mother thought, and he has polka dot socks.
      “Tell me what’s happening,” he said.
      Bobby stirred. “I see you phoning someone,” he said to the doctor. “Someone called Cyril. From the FIB. I mean, FBI.”

This story began here.

Image: StockPhotos.Ro

Leaps of faith

At 51 I leapt. The occasion was the first washing of a new dress, a first-day-of-classes dress, a dress whose iron gray midweight cotton weave would announce “I’m dead serious” but whose polka dots and neck bow would say “this could be fun.” Hope against hope, the bow came fucking undone in the wash. Enter this diagram. Step 5 was where I leapt, the step at which what’s depicted as an inviting loop really has become a hanging sweat-creased string. (Yeah, you try it). But if you believe it’s a loop, bingo, you get a bow. Next step, finding Jesus.

Image: Frills, Fluff and Trucks.

Looking for the new moon

The east side of the park is lit by the hard white
glare on the tennis courts, neon balls smashing
past, and through the bushes that mask the semi-
rich people’s houses, light glints off their swimming
pool and Mick Jagger pounds on about how this
lady said she’d cover him in roses.

On the west side of the park the air is soft
with smudges of a contemplative joint. The
watery emeralds of the distant tower lights
turn meekly pink, the only flickering star
might be a firefly. I’d come out looking
for the newborn moon. Hush, no, not yet.

Turquoise Bowl

A comfort food of my childhood was rice with cheese. The rice used to be, well, rice. Today it’s Freekeh, a pretentiously-roasted green wheat – I read the package – with rosemary thrown in. The cheese used to be Samso, an über-bland Danish cheese even plainer than mozzarella. Today it’s a 3-year old cheddar, the kind that disturbed my father. “Can’t you finish it before you go back to Toronto,” he’d fret, “it makes a mess, it’s so crumbly.” But the grater I’m using was once my mother’s, and I’m still eating from the same stripey bowl as when I was six.

50 Ways To Leave Your Dentist

Carol was cool, a woman dentist when there were no women dentists, and her boyfriend-receptionist was a tattooed biker with silver rings. But Carol got this new hygienist, a former oral surgeon from a former Soviet Republic, who cleaned my teeth with violent efficiency, as though I were out cold. Blood streamed down my cheek and that was that.
     Then I found Joel. He was an empath, flinching whenever I’d flinch, yet I liked him and his thin, tired eyes. Six months later, when I came back, he was gone. Joel quit, they said. I always felt he’d committed suicide.