“The Little Match Girl” is one of those Hans Christian Andersen stories that wrench the heart: the poor little match seller outside a grand residence dies of cold after slowly burning all the matches she has to sell. It is a staple of sentimental coll…
Continue readingAuthor: Mary Soderstrom
Recreating Eden: Claire Messud and the Murdochs: A Novel That Saw What Was Coming
One of the few things I’ve been able to read lately–too much physical labour, it seems, makes you fall asleep at 9:30 p.m.–was Claire Messud’s novel The Emperor’s Children from 2006. I remember reading a review of it, and thinking it sounded interes…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Countdown to Moving: Let’s Hope It’s Not Like This
The clothes, rugs, linens and the like come back on Thursday. Monday it’s the furniture, Wednesday the boxes (including 5,000 books.) Maybe it will all be over soon!BTW, the plumbers fixed the rads, too!
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The Nicest Weekend of the Year? Or Why Countries Have Holidays This Time of Year
This was taken as the moon rose on Thursday night, Bastille Day or the Fête nationale française. The moon was not quite full, but the evening was lovely after a hot day. There followed a weekend where the skies were clear and the moon shone brightly…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: A Tangle of Hosta Flowers, and Shooting Star Daylilies
One of the joys of a garden full of perennials is that the plants and the flowers come back, even in yars of neglect. I took these yesterday, when the hostas–all descendants of three plants I bought 15 years ago–were in full flower around the front …
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Swimming in the St. Lawrence: Not So Crazy as You Might Think
As I write this, at shortly after 7 a.m., some hardy souls are gathering on a pier in Montreal’s Old Port, getting ready for the Grand Splash. For the seventh year in a row, the group Montreal Baignade will take the leap to demonstrate that the St. La…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The Plumbers Came and (Almost) Fixed Things
Well, actually the plumbers yesterday came to put the radiators back in place. They’d been removed so the new hardwood floors could be installed. It only took two guys to take the rads out, but it took three to wrestle them back into place without d…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Upon the Roof: The Place on a Summer Evening
The last couple of weeks on the Plateau, as the house near readiness. It is very hot, and the apartment is hotter, but at least we can get up on the roof.Reminds me of the old song:When this old world starts getting me down,And people are just too muc…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: St. Basil’s Cathedral and Disneyland: Celebrating Kitsch
Google this morning brings us an image of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow (right). Seems it was consecrated on July 12, 1561, or 550 years ago today.It’s quite an impressive construction, but I must admit my first thought was that Google was directing…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The United States: Classless Coiuntry of Equality?
One of the strange things about the US (and to a lesser extent Canada) is the way this supposeodly classless society dumps on people who would be considered on the lower end of the class scale elsewhere. Two stories over the weekend in The New York…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: The Eure at Chartres
As the pace quickens in our struggle to get back inot our house, I find myself slipping off mentally into quieter times. This photo is from our trip to France a couple of yeas ago when we wandered around Chartres. A good deal of the time was spent at…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Why There’s Nothing Interesting Here Today
Running errands, washing kitchen cabinets, putting out more fires (figuratively speaking) as the countdown on the house continues, so no post today.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Coming Up Sometime: A New Short Story Collection
My big news is a nice grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec to support work on a new short story collection. It’ll be called Desire Lines: A Geography of Love. Now all I’ve got to do is get moved back into the house (end of the July e…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Cool City = Low Rent: Better Times for Detroit?
When Montreal seemed to tank after the various crises about French nationalism, some interesting things started to happen, in part because rents were low enough to encourage edgy young people to take chances with art and new businesses. The same thing …
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Happy Fourth of July: Is It the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence You Celebrate?
In my Southern California childhood, the Fourth of July was a big holiday, right up there with Thanksgiving, not far behind Christimas. We were taught that it celebrated the birth of the greatest nation on the face of the earth, that the principles b…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Protecting Produce
As we head over to the house early these mornings to see what’s happening, we’ve been going past the community garden at the corner of Henri-Julien and Maguire even before the gardeners get there. This was the scene a couple of weeks ago when a garden…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Happy Canada/Moving Day: Maybe a Month from Now We’ll Have Moved Too!
In the Rest of Canada, this is the major national holiday, and while there will be some festivities in Quebec, the big thing in Montreal is moving. Most leases run from July 1 to June 30, and since more than half of Montrealers rent, there is a lot ru…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Real Bagels Live on in Montreal
Time Magazine is bemoaning the demise of the bagel this week, as one of New York’s big bagel bakeries, H&H, goes out of business.The story by Joshua Ozersky begins: “There are few foods that are truly unique to New York, and the bagel is one of th…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Strawberry Time: Maybe Lee Will Get His Fill, as We Eat Locally
The Jean Talon Market is full of strawberries right now–and I even saw some in a supermarket. The strawberry season is not long here: about a month, except for a couple of varieties that bear all summer. The weather has been mostly cool, so I don’t t…
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