World of Difference

Remember how last Tuesday was crap?

This Tuesday was fine. Not amazingly great, but perfectly, acceptably fine.

War Horse

THE NATIONAL THEATRE, LONDON I am taken back to my pre-critical days, days during which I would see something— a play, a film— and know what I thought, but wouldn’t have to articulate it. Despite having been creatively involved in both media, there are times that I still don’t, or perhaps do not want to, think too much about what I’ve seen. However, there are things to be expressed about the National Theatre’s Christmas offering, and, yes, I can feel the critically authorial voice coming alive…

The Will to Power

The opposite of love is not hate, according to Carl Jung, but the will to power.

I’m not feelin’ the love where Rebel is concerned.

A Cunning Plan

THINKING ALOUD In the eighth grade, I was voted class bookworm. It makes me sigh, even now.

This was not unjust. One of my earliest, abiding memories is of a long hallway, lined with long tables, piled high with books. I was five, it was kindergarten, I loved books, and I gathered up ten of them, and got a bollicking when they had to paid for. I can see the long hallway now, the journey home on the schoolbus, my copy of a pop-up Twas The Night Before Christmas, which some horrible little creature, older than me, broke.

And here we are in 2007. I have learned my lesson about loaning books to people. Thanks to the magic of the internets, however, we can imagine that I’m virtually lending out my most favoured volumes for your edification. I don’t expect that these posts will be book reviews; as an erstwhile critic, I suppose I’m able for it, but I’d prefer to be sparking a conversation rather than handing down thoughts from on high [although all good criticism should start a conversation rather appear to be finishing it].

My library ranges from practical handbooks to anthologies of the heart-warming sort, and I am the biggest fan of case studies. I would read a 50-volume encyclopedia about other people’s horses. There’s some fiction, too, and I admit, with no chagrin, that I read Black Beauty, for the first time, three months ago.

I can’t promise that every Friday is book club day, and I don’t know for sure when the first one will appear, but I’ve, er, got the bit between my teeth. And we all know what that means.

Detalles, Detalles

¡MUY EXCITANTE! I’m trying to sort out how to get from Malaga to Seville. Yes, life sucks.

Rebel is Annoying— Again

Remember how last Tuesday was amazing?

This Tuesday was crap.

Talkin’ the Talk

THE FLYING CHANGES BOOK CLUB In this post I mentioned in passing about how I read that holding my pelvis, while in saddle, as if it were full of water, with the intent to prevent the water spilling, would secure my seat. This reference inspired the following comment from a reader:

You mention here about how a book describes it and somewhere else you mention things you’ve picked up from books. Do you have any good recommendations on books that were worthwhile? Especially any with exercises geared towards riders?

Why, thanks for asking. It happens that I do.

¡Ascendente Vertiginoso!

STUPID WIDGETS Oh, high school Espanol, donde esta? Not that we had any equestrian modules: it was all about el Bosque de Chapultepec, en la cuidad de [la?] Mexico. And, janey mac, that effortlessly floated right up to the top of my neocortex. ¡Santa Maria! I’ve got some brushing up to do.

It didn’t occur to me until I was emailing Shauna with the news of my Christmas horse riding holiday that the horses might not speak English. It now occurs to me that, as in many things, they may be smarter than I linguistically, and could easily be bi-lingual. Tri-lingual, for all I know. But I do like to try to do things right, so I’ve begun scouring the web for vocabulario de los caballos.

I did that without looking it up.

My Mac widgets are kinda useless, producing the above as the translation of ‘giddy up’. Which I’ve never said in my life. I can only imagine the look Delilah would shoot me— withering, incredulous. SpanishDict.com is more helpful, as you would imagine. ‘Trote’ is a bit of a disappointment, as is ‘galope’, but I’m delighted with ‘medio galope’… [canter.] Bridle is ‘brida’ and saddle is the superb ’silla de montar’. Not that I’ve ever had reason to discuss tack with the guys, but I suppose I’ve asked Rebel if that was his bridle or not when I wasn’t sure. ‘Ay, Pepe! Esto es su brida?’ Hey, I only had to look up ‘your’.

I am so lazy when it comes to language. I lived in Paris for six months, and just about got by. Okay, I didn’t do too badly, I even had a dream in French, once, and my crowning achievement was an argument with a mec in the post office [I lost]… but it’s mostly drained away. The thing is, I can comprehend everything said, via context— both in French and Spanish. When I’m visiting Vanina, and she’s talking to her papa, I can understand because I can manage to get the words to group conceptually without having to know all of them. Gotta say all the words you mean, though. That’s the problema.

I’m delighted my first instinct was to wonder how to communicate with the horse, when it oocurs to me that I should have thought about the things that I’ll get shouted at about. But then the instructors will be shouting at us in English. So no need to work out what ‘Heels down!’ ‘Shorten your reins!’ ‘Leg on!’ all mean… but now I’m curious…

Walkin’ the Walk

MORE BODY LANGUAGE I am walking past Connolly Station and I see everything: I see the people swarming out of the station itself, I see the crowd surging against the light to cross to Talbot Street, I see the taxis pulling out of the rank, I see the buses trundling back up the coast road, and in the distance, I see the LUAS curving away towards Abbey Street. I see it all, I take in all the information, because my head is up, my eyes are forward, and my chin is down.

I’m fairly certain I’ve spent most of my life walking with my head in the pavement rather than the clouds. When I lived in NYC, I was pathologically obssessed with picking up pennies— because I always saw the poxy things. I always saw them because I was always always looking down. I was walking up Seventh Avenue once, saw a penny, picked it up, and some homeless dude passing on my right smiled at me and said, ‘Good luck!’ I replied, ‘I think I should be looking up at the sky, or something, you know?’ Sadly, he had places to go, and our conversation ended there.

Hasta la Vista, Baby!

WOO HOO Just booked my flight, ahead of posting off a cheque, for my Christmas horse riding holiday in Spain!

More to follow!