An evening with PJ Harvey

I've been a fan of PJ Harvey for a long time. I saw her in concert in Stockholm in 1993, and then in Dublin in (I think) 2004. Last night I saw her in Laval.

The concert started awkwardly as many people hadn't gotten the message that there was no support band. So in the second song 'Autumn Term', when she gestured to each side of the hall and the spotlight followed her, we just saw hundreds of people wandering around trying to find their seats in the dark. The first part of the concert was taken up with her new album 'I Inside The Old Year Dying' which is even stronger live than the recording - and the recording is poetic and gripping and one of the best albums of the past few years. (I told you I'm a fan.) The second half was a selection of songs from her extensive back catalogue. 'Dress' was thrillingly energetic, 'To Bring You My Love' mesmerising as she totally inhabited the character, and the finale with 'White Chalk' held the audience rapt with its intense wistfulness.

The band was super tight, featuring her long-time collaborator John Parish on guitar and keyboards, and the production was carefully choreographed with the stage set out like a living room, giving it an intimate feel despite the size of the hall. But there was no getting away from the fact that Place Bell is an ice-hockey stadium - the sound was quite muddy where I was sitting, the bass and drums reverberating too loudly off the walls and ceiling. 

Another disappointment was that she finished by repeating 'thank you very much' at least a dozen times, but not a single 'merci beaucoup', which showed a bit of a lack of awareness of her mostly francophone audience. 

Last year she presented much the same show in Paris and this recording of that night is stunning: the sound quality is excellent, and voilà, she remembers the 'merci beaucoup.' 

The Truth and The Reckoning

In Isabelle Picard's podcast series L'autre motié de l'histoire, she interviews the Algonquin Elder and University of Ottawa professor Claudette Commanda, who has problems with the word reconciliation in the phrase Truth and Reconciliation that is used ad nauseum by the Canadian government. Firstly, she says, we skip over the first part, the truth, far too easily. Secondly, the idea of reconciliation as a kind of forgiveness is alien to the cultures of the First Nations. They recognise reparation, not reconciliation. She suggests a hybrid word: reconcili-Action.

In Camille Rankine's poetry podcast series The Glimpse there's an interview with the poet John Murillo who describes how he loves the word 'reckoning' in its sense of evaluation and final judgement. This strikes me as apt for the situation of the First Nations in Canada. We, the colonialists, must discover and confront the truth, and after that there must be a reckoning for and by us.

It's not going to be easy, and we're not going to like all of it. But that's how it is with justice. 

Courage

In 1980, abortion was a major topic in Ireland. The public debate was not, as you might have expected, about legalizing it, but on whether the existing ban should be reinforced constitutionally, to the point where there could never be a possibility of allowing it, no matter the consequences for women. The rights of women were a non-issue in that country for old men.

I was a teenager then, attending a Dublin school for boys run by the Christian Brothers, and the ethos of the Catholic Church ran deep in me. Unhappily. I was a fervent anti-abortionist, as were the other thirty or so boys in my class.  Our German teacher was a young woman from the west of Ireland, and one morning she brought a newspaper into the class with an article about abortion and proceeded to debate us. For the next hour she held her ground against us, advocating for a woman's right to choose, in the face of thirty holier-than-thou little pricks. When we couldn't win the argument through logic, we resorted to shouting her down. But though she had tears in her eyes she remained calm, explaining why we were wrong. 

In the Ireland of the 1980s her views would have been considered outrageous, and unacceptable for a teacher. If any of us had told the school principal Brother Kenny about this debate, not only would she have been fired instantly, she would never have been allowed to teach anywhere in Ireland again.

The thirty of us acted like young fools that day, but at least I can say that none of us reported her. Now, more than forty years later, I know very well how wrong I was. Her courage in debating us that morning was remarkable. I've tried many times to find her, to say exactly this and to apologise to her, but I've never been able to locate her.

Ireland changed with the repeal of the 8th amendment to the constitution in 2018. In the long run she won the argument, convincingly and courageously.

Coláiste Caoímhín CBS on Parnell Road in Dublin, the Jewish
cemetery on Aughavanagh Road in the upper left background.
(Photo source unknown). The school was demolished in 1995.

Confession

I have a confession to make. On Saint Patrick's Day, of all days. 

(Deep breath.)

I like cricket.

I like its deep pointlessness. 

I like to fall asleep in the dead of winter knowing that The Ashes is being played in searing Australian sunshine, and that the innings will build while I’m asleep. Or there’ll be a batting collapse, and somewhere in England in the dead of night a journalist is sipping coffee, trying not to wake their young child, typing an over-by-over commentary of what they see on their TV to inform people like me around the world with wit and wisdom. 

And then there are articles, like this one by Robert McLiam Wilson, where a writer says something profoundly important about the world by writing about cricket.

Cricket. Bloody hell. 

2023 Reading list

This should have been my first post of 2023, but here, belatedly, is a list of the books I read in 2023:

Fiction

Companion Piece by Ali Smith

Daydreams of Angels by Heather O’Neill

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet

Foster by Claire Keegan

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

Look at me by Jennifer Egan

Nirliit by Juliana Léveillé-Trudel (en Français)

Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood

Tenth of December by George Saunders

The Hour after Happy Hour by Mary O’Donoghue

The Singularities by John Banville

The Writer’s Torch ed. by Boumans, et al

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

Tiohtiá:ke by Michel Jean (en Français)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Poetry

Ariel – The Restored Edition by Syliva Plath

If Some God Shakes Your House by Jennifer Franklin

Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert

Non-fiction

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy

Negative Space by Cristín Leach

The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

It's hard to pick a favourite from this list, but I particularly loved the novels by Paul Harding and Claire Keegan and their completely opposite approaches: the former for the brilliance of his prose in capturing the immediate experience of his characters, and the latter for the deceptive simplicity of her narration and the way it creeps up on you. The non-fiction work by Cristín Leach is wonderfully insightful on the intersection between writing lives and personal lives and I added many quotes from it to my notebook.

See also:

September 2021 - December 2022 reading list

January 2020 - August 2021 reading list

Published!

It doesn't mean much in the world of literature, but it means a lot to me: two of my pieces, Memento Mori and Homing, have been published in the online magazine Sky Island Journal. 

I've been writing fiction and poetry for two and a half years now, and this is motivation for me to keep on writing and to submit more of my pieces for publication. It feels good.

Lake Trousers, innit?

Our chalet is in the township of Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton, close to the river Missisquoi, on the shores of Lake Trousers.

Yep, Lake bloody Trousers!

I imagine how it was named by an intrepid English explorer and his lackey.

Explorer: I've discovered and named so many majestic mountains, rivers, and inland seas, I would like to grant you the privilege of naming this delightful little lake.

Lackey: Me, m'Lord?

Explorer: You, sirrah! Behold this vista. What does it bring to mind?

Lackey: Well, I dunno really. Looks a bit like a pair of trousers, innit.

Explorer: A pair of trousers?

Lackey: Yeh, that's it. I'll call it Lake Trousers then.

Explorer: Are you quite sure, my good man? It doesn't bring to mind the rich bounties of the green and golden summer of this new world? The sweeping wings of a Loon as it thrills through the clear water in pursuit of its prey? Or perhaps, with a little more imagination, the open jaws of a ravenous wolf racing across the windswept ice in the frozen depths of winter?

Lackey: No

Explorer: (sighing) Alright so, Lake Trousers it shall be. Let posterity forgive me.

Lackey: Yay!

Dehors Novembre

Last Friday Martine and I went to see the show Dehors Novembre about the creation of the celebrated album by Les Colocs (almost twenty-five years ago now) and the too brief life and times of Dédé Fortin (pronounced DayDay and not DeeDee - Martine is a bit frustrated at having to correct my prononciation all the time, and I'm a bit frustrated that she has to).

The show was moving and heart-warming. I had joked beforehand that I'd be the only anglophone in the audience and, sure enough, the couple in the seats beside us were stunned to hear my accented French. (Un anglo icitte? Je ne le crois pas!)

Pretty well everyone in Québec knows the song 'Tassez-vous de d'là' and indeed it was a centre-piece of the show, first just spoken to emphasise the lyrics, and then sung in a boisterous finale. But for me the highlight of the evening was the song 'Le Repondeur' - the lyrics are so poetic, and the actor Hubert Proulx playing the role of Dédé was close to tears as he softly sang them.

J'y ai jamais dit "je t'aime" tout court
J'rajoute toujours quelque chose après
C'comme ça qu'on voit si on est en amour
"Je t'aime beaucoup", ça fait moins vrai

Peut-être qu'y neige, peut-être qu'y pleut
L'hiver est même pas sûr de lui
Yé faite comme moé, yé aussi peureux
Dans l'fond, l'hiver, c'est mon ami

At the end we bought the T-shirts, featuring another line from 'Le Repondeur'.

La vie, c'est court, mais c'est long des p'tits boutes

According to an anecdote told on the night, Vander got that line from a homeless man on St. Laurent boulevard, and whenever Dédé passed the man afterwards he'd always give him twenty bucks for the 'droit d'auteur'.

The original album was written and recorded in a chalet in Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton, the municipality where our own chalet is located. We'll probably try to find the place in the coming months.

Facebook link to Dehors November: au cours de la création de l'album mythique des Colocs

  

 

What a coincidence?

I'd never heard of the poet Jack Gilbert until he came up for study in a writing class a few weeks ago. He was never particularly well known, published only six or seven collections in his lifetime, and died in 2012. But I was struck by the works we discussed, their earthiness and in-your-face honesty, the courage of the writer.

Then, in a mysterious coincidence, one of his poems was released this month in a moving video on a channel I follow.

Well, of course there's no mystery here, I simply wouldn't have noticed the video before the class.

The Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation releases many wonderful videos on its channel (another example: the Doireann Ní Ghríofa poem I wrote about before) but there are very few subscribers. This venture must be making a big loss given the obvious high cost of the productions. I wonder what's behind it?

Talk to the hand

'Is that an Android or an iPhone?'

He was scruffy, short and gap-toothed, walking toward me across the pedestrian crossing, ignoring the forbidding red hand above me. I was waiting to cross, idly looking at my phone.

'Doesn't matter anyway,' he continued without waiting for a reply. 'They're all the same.' He stopped in front of me, standing on the road as the traffic roared past less than a meter behind him.

'Right,' I managed to say, displaying all the fluency I'd developed in two years of creative writing classes.

'What really matters is the number,' he said.

'Oh?'

'Do you know how to use your camera,' he asked.

'Eh…'

'Come on, are you telling me you don't know how to use your camera?'

'Oh, sure I do, yes.'

'Well take a photo of this.'

He held up his phone. There was a scrap of paper taped to its back with a phone number on it, written in black marker in a shaky hand. 'This is the number you want,' he said with a note of pride.

I felt many pairs of eyes on my back, the crowd of pedestrians behind me waiting for my response. I hesitated. The red hand became a white man and we all spilled on to the road in a rush to cross, flowing around the man as a stream does around a rock, overwhelming it. I heard him sigh loudly then saw him no more.

I should have taken his number. 

RIP Sinéad

I wasn't surprised to hear of Sinéad O'Connor's death - she'd seemed so fragile in recent years - but I was shocked. Almost a week later I still have a feeling of great loss.

For many Irish people of her generation, my generation, she wasn't just a brilliant songwriter and singer. She was one of the first to speak and sing the truth about our country: the abusive Catholic chuch and the patriarchy it enabled, the abandonment of children, the lamentable state of mental health services. She sang from anger and hurt, and out of illness, but she sang so that things might change, and she was one of the catalysts behind the wave of changes for the better that have swept across Ireland these past twenty years.

And how she sang. 

The hymn 'Make me a channel of your peace' is known by every Catholic raised in Ireland. But when Sinéad sang it, the prayer of St. Francis, it was like hearing it for the first time. You realised that you'd been saying these lines without thinking about them, whereas she meant every single word. And she wanted us to mean them too.

She sang it on the Late Late Show after having a makeover for charity (in support of refugees from the former Yugoslavia). It was like being visited by an angel.

 

I never had a conversation with her, though I met her a few times. Outside Dún Laoghaire music school, in the passport line at Dublin airport, and most memorably at a birthday party for one of my sons in the Lambert Puppet Theatre.

I've been playing her music in the kitchen these past days and my sons all light up when they hear 'No Man's Woman', a song we used to listen to on the school run. It's how I'd like to remember her: smart and sassy, the woman who was usually right and always right on, and who made a real difference.

Codladh sámh Sinéad.

P.S. This tribute to Sinéad in The Irish Times by Úna Mullally is perfect. And Fintan O'Toole nails it when he writes that her honesty was 'a curse for her but a blessing for us'.

P.P.S. I think Sinéad would have appreciated the candour of this article by Hannah Jane Parkinson in The Guardian: Sinéad O’Connor showed mental illness as it truly is.

The Red Maple at 1

A few weeks after we bought the chalet Martine won a red maple sapling in a 10K run in Magog. We planted it carefully in a sunlit clearing in the front of the chalet, watered it, put stones and a protective cage around it, and spent the rest of 2022 watching it do absolutely nothing. The snow covered it, and by the time winter finally departed, I thought it was dead. 

But now, suddenly, leaves!

We've had a wonderful first year in Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton and our red maple sapling has made it to its first birthday.

My French is pretty good, but...

Sometimes the order of words in French just wrecks my head. 

After chatting about it with Martine I now understand why it's 'ne me le' and not 'ne le me', but getting this right at conversation speed is still beyond me. Harder even than the subjunctive case!

 Learning a language is a project for life.

The man at Esposito

Grey-bearded and smiling, he was also awkward and gangly, as though his limbs had been transplanted from a taller donor. He was buying two cans of something, soup perhaps, and he asked the cashier for a paper bag. 

She passed it to him. He unfolded it carefully, turned it upside down, and lowered it over his head.

'Oh no, not again,' he cried, with hands as big as dinner plates waving around in mock alarm.

We all looked elsewhere, until he took the bag off his head, packed his two items, and left. Still smiling.

He was a mystery. Our non-reaction felt like a missed opportunity, a minor tragedy.

Montreal life and music

We were at the symphony orchestra last night. 

On our way in the metro, we sat in the seats reserved for non-able-bodied passengers. That always makes me feel uneasy, even when the carriage is half-empty and no-one needs them. Two teenagers in high spirits stood beside us. When we arrived at Place-des-Arts one of them shouted at Martine as we got off the train. 

'Madame!' 

We were startled. He pointed at the floor under the seat where we'd been sitting. 

'Vous avez oublié quelque chose.' 

There was a grubby sweater on the floor, like something a homeless person might wear. 

'Ce n'est pas à moi' said Martine. We turned away, relieved. 'Merci,' added Martine, just as the doors closed behind us. 

In the Place-des-Arts metro station a figure wearing a white animal mask (a white wolf? a husky?) played Beethoven on a violin. Was it someone well known? I once saw a video of Joshua Bell playing in the New York metro, maybe it was him?  People were hurrying to the concert, no-one had time to stop and listen to the free music, though the figure played really well.

The first piece at the concert inside the Maison Symphonique was atonal and strange. 'Il n'y a pas de mélodie' said the elderly woman beside me under her breath. The last part of it was moving, the violins making a sound like water trickling from melting ice, the violinists bowing rapidly while sliding their fretting fingers up and down the neck of their violins. The second piece was a symphony by Sibelius, which flipped the normal sequence by rushing to a huge crescendo at the end of the third movement, while the final movement slipped away as the violins made a sound like a final breath. The third piece was a Chopin concerto played beautifully by a Chinese-Canadian pianist from Montreal, Bruce Liu. 

Returning to the Place-des-Arts metro station we passed a homeless man sitting on the floor by the metro's ticket booth. He had a wide smile for everyone, and an elderly lady dropped a toony in his paper cup.

Exiting the metro At Villa Maria station we passed an elderly man sitting on the floor at the bottom of the escalator. A young guy passing handed him a small Tim Horton's bag and he took out a chocolate donut. 'Thanks man,' he shouted, beaming toothlessly. 'No problem,' replied the young guy. 

Outside it was chilly, normal for mid-April, but it had been unseasonably warm over the weekend and we'd thought that summer had arrived. It hadn't.

P.S. (May 24th) I've seen the masked violinist several times since and gave him five dollars after taking this photo. I don't think it's Johsua Bell...