This post may come across as a bit of a tangent and for that I apologize, I really really do. It's just that I am going to write about something that fills me with a violent desire to tell people to get the hell over themselves.
I do not understand for the life of me what is wrong with people who take public transit in this city. Riding public transit is not ideal. Sure, it's a great way to avoid the costs of owning a car, and yes, it is definitely better for the environment than congesting the roadways however, let's be honest here - when you ride public transit especially during rush hour - it is no walk in the park. Luckily when I start my day I get onto a relatively empty streetcar however, on my way home it's another story. You add in cold or dreary, rainy days and the story becomes even more dire.
People here seem to demand personal space on public transit as if it's a right. They don't want anyone touching them, they don't want the person sitting next to them to (god forbid) touch them, and they don't want to be reminded that they are sharing this space with other people. Obviously, I am generalizing here but please hear me out.
They complain when they can't get onto a crowded streetcar and yet those same people who complain, once on a streetcar, don't move to the back - instead they stand where they are, looking around expecting others to move while the streetcar driver encourages everyone to get to know their neighbour. People we should not have to be reminded to move to the back, seriously you take the streetcar at least 5 days a week, you see how crowded it gets and inevitably the majority of the time there is room at the back but few move back.
Another pet peeve of mine is people with book bags who refuse to take them off. You know who you are. Put. The. Bag. On. The. Floor. Seriously. It's uncomfortable for you to have people trying to work their way around it and it's ridiculously annoying for those of us you have to get around it or feel it poking into us. Also, a lot more people could fit on the streetcar if you just embraced this concept.
In my short time living in this city I have seen about 4 fights on the streetcar. People are full of rage and just itching to get it out. So they lash out at the streetcar driver, or the person sitting next to them, or the person touching them or in one case the person who happened to look at them. One of these fights ended with one girl calling the other a fat cow and the other telling her she was a dirty c-word. Yeah, the fight was over, get this - a bookbag hitting the larger girl in the head. In. The. Head. Life is too short to be filled with this burning desire to lash out at other people, to be jerks, to not get out of your seat for the elderly, injured or pregnant (and yes this happens all the time that grown men and women refuse to get up).
Let's purge the rage from our lives, stop thinking only about ourselves and start at least trying to have better public commutes. Trust me, your co-workers, your family and more importantly, your fellow commuters, will thank you for it.
Love and metro tickets!
Sara
Friday, March 30, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Ecstasies
I love my local film store, actually I don't think love is a strong enough word. No, let's just say that this film store fills me with rapturous delight! When we moved into our new hood, people told us that this film store was one of the best film stores in TO. I hemmed and I sucked at my teeth and I thought disdainfully, sure it is. You see, I had been spoiled living in Montreal, we had the Boite Noir. I thought it would be hard to knock my socks off. Well, not only has this new movie store knocked my socks off and tickled me pink, it's made me want to watch movies 24/7. I've only ever wanted to do one other thing 24/7 and no you dirty little perverts, it's nothing like that. I'm talking about reading.
You see, I have these panic attacks, especially when I am in a library, or a big book store where I realize that no matter what - I will NEVER be able to read everything worth reading. Even if I read 24/7, it will never happen. Then I usually tend to go home and throw myself into my books with abandon, coming up for air and food every once in a while until my eyes hurt and my boyfriend is more than disgruntled. I occassionally have these foolish beliefs that I can defy logic and I try wholeheartedly, but no-one can read 24/7. Maybe for like two days (I think I've done it although my roommate at the time disagreed and said that I fell asleep - I don't remember so I concur that it never happened but that's another digression altogether) but eventually life must go on. School, work, meeting friends, obligations, your limbs start to atrophy - no word of a lie my bottom will start to ache awfully - but the parade must continue.
OK, I won't pull a Tristram Shandy on you, back to my movie store. This weekend, my bf was going to see Public Enemy (yes as in that Public Enemy) so I decided to have a night in and rent some movies. Well low and behold at the back of the store - free movies! FREE! If there is anything I like better than regular movies it's when they are FREEEEEEE!!!! Now, these were not hot new releases. These were movies from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and I think some from the 70s. Some were silent films. One that I particularly enjoyed was called Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die! Things that I love about it are the ridiculous plot line, the fashions, and the fantastic-ly awful music. It's a spy movie about this wealthy man who plans on sterilizing humanity and best of all it has a rocket!
So, here's what I propose, if you enjoy free movies. Come, visit me, and we'll watch them together. Who knows, maybe you too will be moved to ecstasies.
Until then,
Hot Diggity!
PS: Has anyone else noticed how much better dialogue is in older movies?
You see, I have these panic attacks, especially when I am in a library, or a big book store where I realize that no matter what - I will NEVER be able to read everything worth reading. Even if I read 24/7, it will never happen. Then I usually tend to go home and throw myself into my books with abandon, coming up for air and food every once in a while until my eyes hurt and my boyfriend is more than disgruntled. I occassionally have these foolish beliefs that I can defy logic and I try wholeheartedly, but no-one can read 24/7. Maybe for like two days (I think I've done it although my roommate at the time disagreed and said that I fell asleep - I don't remember so I concur that it never happened but that's another digression altogether) but eventually life must go on. School, work, meeting friends, obligations, your limbs start to atrophy - no word of a lie my bottom will start to ache awfully - but the parade must continue.
OK, I won't pull a Tristram Shandy on you, back to my movie store. This weekend, my bf was going to see Public Enemy (yes as in that Public Enemy) so I decided to have a night in and rent some movies. Well low and behold at the back of the store - free movies! FREE! If there is anything I like better than regular movies it's when they are FREEEEEEE!!!! Now, these were not hot new releases. These were movies from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and I think some from the 70s. Some were silent films. One that I particularly enjoyed was called Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die! Things that I love about it are the ridiculous plot line, the fashions, and the fantastic-ly awful music. It's a spy movie about this wealthy man who plans on sterilizing humanity and best of all it has a rocket!
So, here's what I propose, if you enjoy free movies. Come, visit me, and we'll watch them together. Who knows, maybe you too will be moved to ecstasies.
Until then,
Hot Diggity!
PS: Has anyone else noticed how much better dialogue is in older movies?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Passions
Where to start? I have been reading far too much Antonia Fraser than I am sure is healthy for anyone, and my passions have been excited. Therefore, I decided to join this foreign world of "blogging" to help eradicate my over-warm sentiments. The most recent book that I have had the pleasure to discover is not actually her work, however she compiled the work therein. It is called "Love Letters: An anthology" thus the name of my blog, I have been that influenced.
The book is a lovely collection of love letters written by people throughout history. She chose to make this collection because, as she so rightly noticed, with the creation of messaging, and emailing and yes probably blogging, letters - and language, don't hold the same significance in our lives as they used to. A love letter was something to cherish. We've all read the Victorian novels where a woman tries to return letters to a man who is no longer "making love to her." Typically, I imagine them to be slightly crumpled from having been pored over so frequently, perhaps tear stained depending on the content, and tied up with ribbon. Although she does not believe love letters are totally dead because, in her words, letters can be carried around as talismans to refresh the memory.
This collection is broken up into various emotions of love letters. Some of the categories are: Declarations, Pleas, Rejections (oh these ones can be quite hurtful),Ecstasies, Passions, Jealousies, Gallantries, Farewells, Unions, and more. Donne, of course, makes an appearance-he had such a way with words. Others are Napoleon, Joyce, Mozart, Chekhov, Proust, Wilde and so many more.
My boyfriend had some moral issues with this book. Why should we be reading such an intimate address between two people who are unknown to us? Do we really have the legitimate right to be privy to their innermost thoughts? I disagree wholeheartedly. As a writer, we set things down to be read - maybe just by us if it is in our diary or maybe for the world if it is in a blog and certainly with a love letter - the whole notion of it is to be read by the recipient. Anything set to paper, unless immediately burnt or destroyed through other methods, is free to the world and while some of us have felt the acute pain of having some piece of writing read that we didn't want to be, it is the reality of setting words to paper. It makes them real or more real than just merely uttered.
Once, a long time ago now it seems. I was madly in love with a boy. Feeling that it was better to know than not to know how he felt, I expressed my undying devotion. Needless to say, it was foolish and nothing came of it, as is typical of a lot of the whole teenage love affairs that we passionately engage in. However, in the throes of rejection, I gave him a book of poetry that I had written all about him and my angst over loving him and it not being reciprocated. I don't know what happened to this book, nor do I want to know. When you write a love letter or a love poem and you hand it over, it is out of your hands as to what happens to it. Is that not why it is so courageous to set your innermost emotions and desires to paper and hand it over to someone? It gives them the ability to crush you and yet we do it because it is worth it. Love changes and people change therefore, everything you sacrifice for love is worth it when you are in the heart breaking torturous passions and are unsure of where you stand. Antonia, I think, recognizes that with this book.
But this tangent has gone on for far too long. My next post I shall try to incorporate a little more brevity and maybe even some levity, I promise, lest we quarrel and find ourselves out of sorts.
Until then
Oceans of love and torrents of tears,
Sara
The book is a lovely collection of love letters written by people throughout history. She chose to make this collection because, as she so rightly noticed, with the creation of messaging, and emailing and yes probably blogging, letters - and language, don't hold the same significance in our lives as they used to. A love letter was something to cherish. We've all read the Victorian novels where a woman tries to return letters to a man who is no longer "making love to her." Typically, I imagine them to be slightly crumpled from having been pored over so frequently, perhaps tear stained depending on the content, and tied up with ribbon. Although she does not believe love letters are totally dead because, in her words, letters can be carried around as talismans to refresh the memory.
This collection is broken up into various emotions of love letters. Some of the categories are: Declarations, Pleas, Rejections (oh these ones can be quite hurtful),Ecstasies, Passions, Jealousies, Gallantries, Farewells, Unions, and more. Donne, of course, makes an appearance-he had such a way with words. Others are Napoleon, Joyce, Mozart, Chekhov, Proust, Wilde and so many more.
My boyfriend had some moral issues with this book. Why should we be reading such an intimate address between two people who are unknown to us? Do we really have the legitimate right to be privy to their innermost thoughts? I disagree wholeheartedly. As a writer, we set things down to be read - maybe just by us if it is in our diary or maybe for the world if it is in a blog and certainly with a love letter - the whole notion of it is to be read by the recipient. Anything set to paper, unless immediately burnt or destroyed through other methods, is free to the world and while some of us have felt the acute pain of having some piece of writing read that we didn't want to be, it is the reality of setting words to paper. It makes them real or more real than just merely uttered.
Once, a long time ago now it seems. I was madly in love with a boy. Feeling that it was better to know than not to know how he felt, I expressed my undying devotion. Needless to say, it was foolish and nothing came of it, as is typical of a lot of the whole teenage love affairs that we passionately engage in. However, in the throes of rejection, I gave him a book of poetry that I had written all about him and my angst over loving him and it not being reciprocated. I don't know what happened to this book, nor do I want to know. When you write a love letter or a love poem and you hand it over, it is out of your hands as to what happens to it. Is that not why it is so courageous to set your innermost emotions and desires to paper and hand it over to someone? It gives them the ability to crush you and yet we do it because it is worth it. Love changes and people change therefore, everything you sacrifice for love is worth it when you are in the heart breaking torturous passions and are unsure of where you stand. Antonia, I think, recognizes that with this book.
But this tangent has gone on for far too long. My next post I shall try to incorporate a little more brevity and maybe even some levity, I promise, lest we quarrel and find ourselves out of sorts.
Until then
Oceans of love and torrents of tears,
Sara
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