So I had begun a small but precious collection of Richie-isms, and loved to compare specimens with Sol, who appreciated them as much as I did. That day, I recall, I had shared with him, “Don’t kill the goose that laid the deviled egg,” and “You can’t sell a fuckin’ book by looking undercover.” John threw one in, then: he’d heard someone ask the pair why they were constantly together, and Richie had said, “Tho heads are better than none.” And Sol had just gifted us all with the gem “Atojiso,”, as in “I knew that would happen. I hate to say atojiso, Jules, but I fuckin’ atojiso,” and we were roaring with appreciation.

—–

Have you ever had a serious fever? The misery seems not only to last forever, but to have lasted forever—and then it goes on like that for days. But there comes a point when some kind of knot inside suddenly lets go—at the base of the throat, it feels like—and something starts to ease, or melt, or release. It’s a little like drifting off to sleep, only it leaves you more conscious. At first you can’t believe it, and then for a time you’re tearful with gratitude, and about ten minutes later you’re demanding food and the remote control.

Mais non, je ne vais pas vous parler de l’élimination des Canadiens. Je suis en train de lire L’anglais n’est pas une langue magique, le nouveau Jacques Poulin. Je dois d’abord vous dire que Jacques Poulin est mon auteur québécois favori, que j’ai tous ses livres et que je les aime tous. Quand j’apprends que le grand auteur a publié de nouveau, je cours à la librairie. D’autant plus que le premier de ses livres que j’ai lu alors qu’il venait de paraître, il y a longtemps, m’avait laissé une profonde impression de finalité. Je m’en souviens fort bien : c’était après mon premier voyage à Natashquan, seule. J’avais traversé en Gaspésie et j’y étouffais (des gens et des villages, sympathiques, mais partout! Partout!). Incapable de me trouver un coin tranquille pour dormir dans la voiture (partout, je vous dis!), j’avais loué une chambre dans un gîte. J’ai pris une douche, je me suis allongée sur le lit et j’ai fini mon livre. Ensuite j’ai pleuré. Surtout parce que je sentais que l’auteur, dont on disait la santé fragile à l’époque, me semblait avoir tiré un grand trait, très final. J’avais tort, je m’en réjouis depuis.

Il est donc plus qu’évident que je me suis jetée sur son nouveau roman. Oui, j’ai retardé le moment de commencer. J’ai commencé ce matin, j’en suis à la moitié. Voyez pourquoi j’ai retardé? Ce soir ce sera déjà fini. Mais voilà, j’ai interrompu ma lecture pour en parler. Du livre? Pas vraiment. Si vous suivez le lien qui précède, vous en apprendrez déjà beaucoup trop, alors rien ne sert d’en remettre. Ce qui me turlupine, c’est que dans la prose de Jacques Poulin, on décrit soudainement un match de hockey. Pas de problème… jusqu’à ce qu’il parle du but… qu’il appelle des filets. Des filets. Comme dans « son ailier gauche posté à l’embouchure des filets ». Je n’ai pas interrompu ma lecture, c’est elle qui m’a interrompue. Si le joueur est à l’embouchure des filets, c’est qu’il est… à la fois des deux côtés de la patinoire! On est bien d’accord? Un gardien se tient devant SON filet, pas ses filets. Il n’est pas à la pêche, pardi!

Attention, ce pardi n’est pas lancé innocemment… je me demande si la relecture a été effectuée par un Français-de-France… qui frappe le palet de son gourdin ou je ne sais quoi, mais ne joue certainement pas au hockey qu’on connaît. Enfin, j’en doute, puisqu’on dit l’auteur plutôt maniaque des mots. Il a donc choisi de dire ses filets? Et l’éditeur et les relecteurs l’ont laissé faire? J’en suis pantoise. Enfin, ce n’est pas si important, n’est-ce pas? Pourtant si. Trois fois, qu’il l’utilise, sa lubie de filets-au-pluriel. Le résultat? Je vous écris plutôt que de poursuivre ma lecture. Je suis agacée. Je ne cesse de me répéter que je dois pourtant avoir tort, mais… Enfin, si quelqu’un peut me fournir une preuve, une source, un texte d’ici qui parle du hockey correctement et qui utilise des filets à chaque bout de la patinoire, je serais rassurée. Pacifiée. Pour le moment, au beau milieu de ma lecture, je suis surtout déçue (de façon générale, pas simplement filettière!). Et ça, ça me surprend.

PLUS TARD : Un ami me dit qu’anciennement il y avait peut-être plusieurs filets. Or, je viens de trouver cet article d’époque (comme contexte on peut difficilement faire mieux, mais je n’en dis pas plus pour ne rien gâcher de votre lecture!) qui dit et répète filets. Tous ensemble, alors : ouf! Ouais bon enfin, ouf un peu, pas trop. Ça continue de choquer mon oreille interne de lectrice pas-assez-vieille-peut-être (tiens, ça faisait longtemps!), mais qui connaît son hockey, tout de même. Comme prévu, j’ai déjà fini le roman. J’en suis déçue (d’avoir fini, surtout, mais du roman un peu aussi. Faut pas vous en faire, car j’attends toujours que le prochain Poulin soit le meilleur et tant qu’à moi ça n’est plus facile à faire depuis longtemps!). Si quelqu’un trouve quelque part une preuve de la théorie des deux-ou-plus filets, qu’il se manifeste!

So I received my package from amazon.co.uk this morning. Yup. All wrapped in a Canada Post plastic bag saying “this package was in this condition when we were handed it” or some such. Great. So what happened? I’ll tell you what happened: my brand-new Akira volume 6, which I’ve been looking for for over a year, was stolen in transit! Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Akira 3 got here with two damaged corners, but given what happened to volume 6, I’m glad I have it, period. And at least I can now read 3, 4 and 5. Y’know, just so I can break down and cry that I don’t have the freaking last book! (Bah, who cares, it’s only the conclusion to a 3,000-page-plus saga!) I sent an email to Amazon, but I doubt anything can or will be done — they shipped both books. Then some fucker met my books and decided he didn’t need to look all over the world for a year or spend any of his money. Great.

The only other time something like this happened to me (and I order most of what I buy), other than the fraud-mongers at israelmusic.com who simply don’t reply to email, don’t ship but DO take payment (avoid at all costs!), I had ordered awesome beads from the US, including some pretty unique ones to make myself a few items of jewelry. All I got was the more ordinary beads I’d ordered, and no response to my emails to the company. I expect slightly better from Amazon, but we’ll see. Bottom line is still that I got screwed out of my money but more importantly, out of MY BOOK! (I’m trying not be overly dramatic by stopping before I call Akira 6 the “peak moment of my holidays,” but between you and me? Yeah.) :-(

THREE HOURS LATER: I’m beyond impressed. Three hours after sending a complaint to Amazon.co.uk, I’ve received a response, and they will be shipping me another copy of Akira 6 at no charge! I can’t believe it! Now THAT’s good customer service! (I’ve made a point of telling them so, of course!) Wow. Hurray!

Last year during the holidays I started what is now promising to become a tradition: I took a week off and I read graphic novels. I loved it and found it most relaxing (even though my choices were far from tame). I ordered more graphic novels this year and I’ll resist reading them until I’m off. I can already feel the relaxation that will take me over.

The only annoying thing in all that is that in now over a year, I’ve been unable to find volumes 3 and 6 of Akira (by Katsuhiro Otomo). I’ve read the first two and I have volumes 4 and 5. No store anywhere seems to have volumes 3 or 6 new, and the used prices I find online are quite prohibitive. I’m somewhere between annoyed, upset and discouraged. I’ve even looked for them in French (figuring the English books I have are translated anyway), but I only found volume 6 and so I didn’t buy it (I’m stuck at 3 until I find it, I’m not going to skip a volume and read 4-5-6! I’m very picky about series like that!). *sigh*

Belle “liked” my cat — oh, sure, sure! She adored cats and she loved my incipent bald spot and admired my choice in restaurants and she liked everything about me.

But liking cats is hard to fake to a cat person. There are cat people and there are others, more than a majority probably, who “cannot abide a harmless, necessary cat.” If they try to pretend, out of politeness or any reason, it shows, because they don’t understand how to treat cats — and cat protocol is more rigid that that of diplomacy.

Y’know, I read 73 books in 2007 (45 in 2005, 37 in 2006). 2008 has started well, too. But I’m already 32! Say I have another fifty years to live… it’s horrible how puny my number can be, compared to all the books I WANT to read! (Heck, it’s puny compared to the size of my book collection!) I need to buy lottery tickets. And when I win, and they ask me, So, what are you going to do with seventeen gazimillion dollars? I’ll say, I’m going to read. To buy books and read. And I would, too. Don’t try to impress upon me how little one lives when one reads; if you can think this way, we’ll never see eye to eye. I can read anywhere, too, allowing me to travel physically as well. *Sigh* Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some lottery tickets to buy.

(Granny Weatherwax speaking to Mightily Oats)

– There’s no grays, only white that got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

– It’s a lot more complicated than that–

– No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.

– Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–

– But they starts with thinking about people as things…

I love reading old sci-fi. I often enjoy the naïveté and the places where the author’s historical background comes through, with much straying from what the future actually became (heard any woman called “toots” recently?). “The Time Machine” is a short, enjoyable read, but… it is quite moralizing. As in, human progress and facility, taken too far, will turn us into blabbering idiots, because it is adversity and novelty that triggers intelligence. Well… maybe. It seems a little simplistic and convenient to the author’s apparent opinion, but… maybe. Who am I to say that H.G. Wells went wrong, when he postulates his future in the year 802,701?

– THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE, said Death.

– What does it contain, then?

– ME.

– Besides you I mean!

Death gave him a puzzled look.

– I’M SORRY?

The storm reached its howling peak overhead. A seagull went past backwards

– I meant, said Ipslore, bitterly, what is there in this world that makes living worth while?

Death thought about it.

– CATS, he said eventually, CATS ARE NICE.