Not a review ...

... but in the spirit of NaBloPoMo - here's a picture of my latest book haul compliments of my "Hatch-day" Book Shopping Spree (a little shout out to Chapters Indigo ... love the bag!)

Most of them were on them were on the bargain shelf so I got a few more than usual.  Score!!

14/30

In Paris They Read REAL Books

When my daughters and I were in Paris recently we walked (and walked ... and walked ... and walked) to the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens, which were highly recommended by a friend of my youngest daughter.  Excellent recommendation by the way!  We stopped at some quaint shops and purchased a picnic lunch complete with (the obligatory) bottle of wine to enjoy in this gorgeous setting.  When we finished our wine and cheese feast we strolled around the grounds.  One of things that immediately popped out at me (being the book nerd that I am) was the extraordinary number of people who were sitting and reading in the park.  Not only that BUT reading REAL books.

I live in a house so if I want to read outdoors I can step out the door and read on the front porch-ette or in the backyard.  Heft of a real book -- no problem.  These folks carried books in their bags and purses to read in the park.  I prefer real books (of course) but for portability nothing beats my eReader. 

I found this very interesting and (much to the chagrin of my daughters -- I'm sure) I began surreptitiously snapping pics of these folks enjoying their books.

At Versailles?  Same thing!  Parisians certainly enjoy beautiful settings to sit and read.  In my opinion, the only thing missing was an extra large cup of Cafe au Lait.

I loved it!

In Paris They Read REAL Books - Kizoa Movie Maker - Video Editor

So, thanks to all the folks enjoying their books who (hopefully) didn't realize I was taking their pictures.   You all made me smile!

13/30

How Did I Miss This??

On October 1^st the city of Toronto hosted its annual Nuit Blanche.

The annual event closes down streets in the downtown core for one night in favor of art installations and cultural events. 

 

This year an anonymous group of artists calling themselves “Luzinterruptus” closed Hangerman Street for their “Literature vs. Traffic” installation.  They claim “light as their medium and darkness as their canvass” so Nuit Blanche was right up their alley – or street as the case may be.  Toronto was not the first time they closed a street for the “Literature vs. Traffic” exhibit but it may be the first time they were invited to do so.  Their missions statement?  ‘We want literature to take over the streets and conquer public spaces, freely offering those passersby a traffic-free place which, for some hours, will succumb to the humble power of the written word’.

 

Under the guidance of Luzinterruptus 50 volunteers spent 12 days placing the 10,000 books along the street, with small lights illuminating the open pages of the books, no doubt hoping for dry weather the whole time.

The installation was totally interactive and people were invited to sit down, enjoy the books and then take away any books that they chose.  The street was emptied of books in 10 hours.

Nuit Blanche starts at dusk and goes ‘til dawn … which is the only feasible reason I can see that I did not know about this until after the fact … it takes place after my bedtime!  Nope … turns out I was out of the country.  Oh well, maybe there will be something equally creative and book related next year?  (Nuit Blanche 2017 is on September 30^th)

 

  





06/11

Be Warned!

Want!

I totally agree with Goodwill Librarian ... I would park this in my backyard - turn it into a library - and chances are good that my family would not see me for VERY long stretches of time.  I mean ... come on! ... it even looks like an open book.

For those folks who might even use it for something like actual camping (crazy ... I know) there are more pictures HERE.

Fashion. Titanic. Scandal ... My Local Connection

I recently read and reviewed the book "The Dressmaker" by Kate Alcott.  A principal character in the book was Lady Lucile Duff Gordon.  I knew that the character in the book was based on a real person, an early 20th century fashion designer and fashion innovator.

Tidbit:

 She was a trendsetter; introducing the first runway fashion show with live models, designing a line of "ready-to-wear" designer clothes for women and designing fashion/costumes for Broadway plays.

Unfortunately, despite her enormous contribution to the early days of the fashion industry what Lucile is most known for is being on the Titanic's first and only voyage and her allegedly deplorable, (dare I say it?) inhumane behavior as the ship went down.

What I did not know, and learned through happenstance watching a local news broadcast, was that Lady Duff Gordon had a local connection to my little part of the world.  I was puttering around in the kitchen getting supper things cleared from the table when her name being announced caught my attention.  So I immediately began listening a little more closely.  I learned that Lady Duff Gordon had lived part of her, somewhat notorious, life in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.  And ... the Guelph Civic Museum happened to be having an exhibit featuring her that was going on right now.  Well ... I knew I had to visit the exhibit.  After all, there is no such thing as coincidence, right?  So this past Victoria Day weekend I spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon exploring the Guelph Civic Museum - a lovely building that I not visited before - and learning just a little bit more about this woman with the local connection.

The exhibit was staged on two floors of the museum, the first floor dedicated to her early years in Guelph and the "Titanic Incident" and the third floor dedicated to actual samples of her dresses and fashion innovations.

Tidbit:

She is partly responsible to getting women out of corsets and fashioning more

comfortable lingerie.  Sounds like the Victoria Secret of her time.  There is still a line of lingerie marketed under the "Lucile, Established 1890" label today.

THE LADY

Lucy Christiana Sutherland was born on July 13, 1863 to Douglas Sutherland, a Toronto civil engineer and his wife Elinor Saunders, an Anglo-French-Canadian.

As I was wandering the exhibit I overheard two other patrons, rather elderly ladies, discussing the picture of the house were Lucile was raised ... commenting that the house is still standing albeit sans wrap around porch.  All right ... YES! ... I WAS eavesdropping.

Lucile began sewing early in her life.  There probably wasn't much else to do in Guelph in the late 1800's?   At the age of seven she began making dresses for her dolls with materials from cases of cast off clothes and fabrics which were sent yearly from relatives in France.  She soon moved on to making dresses for herself and her sister, future novelist Elinor Glyn.

Lucile married for the first time in 1884, when she wed James Stuart Wallace.  Alas, despite having a child together, daughter Esme, the marriage was not a happy one.  Wallace was a alcoholic and was involved in several not so discreet love affairs.  Lucile consoled herself in love affairs of her own and in 1890 they separated and Lucile began divorce proceedings.  In 1900 she married Cosmo Duff Gordon, a wealthy Scottish landowner and sportsman.

THE FASHIONS

After her divorce from Wallace Lucile had supported herself and her daughter by working as a dressmaker.  Before long she had opened Maison Lucile, in the fashionable west end of London.  From all accounts Sir Cosmo supported Lucile's venture's into the fashion industry and invested in her business.  In 1910 she opened her first "fashion house" in New York City.  It was an almost instant success and it wasn't long before she moved to a larger venue.

Lucile made a name for herself on Broadway as well, designing many fashionable costumes for the stage and for the new phenom - the silver screen.  One of her frequent and loyal customers was Ontario born movie legend Mary Pickford.

Tidbit:

Lucille Limited can rightly be called the first international leading house of couture as in addition to her New York house, she opened a house in Paris in 1911 and in Chicago in 1915.  She was legitimately international with couture houses in three countries. 

Despite her success, the "French fashion world was scornful" and she often found herself the subject of cartoonists because of her innovative and the, hitherto unheard of,  idea of using "live mannequins" to model her clothes.

Lady Duff Gordon would enlist pretty shop girls working for her, dress them in her designer clothes and parade them around the room as "live mannequins" while patrons enjoyed tea and treats.  Although the practice was scoffed at and ridiculed at the time, we all know how that turned out ... can we say Milan, Paris, New York and Toronto Fashion Weeks!

 

 

 

 

 

 THE TITANIC

With her success as a fashion designer and her husband being a Baronet, money seemed to be no object for the Duff Gordons.  Needing to travel to America they booked first class passage on maiden voyage of the ill-fated Titanic.  For some unknown reason they booked their passage under the names Mr. and Mrs. Morgan.  Of course we all know that the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink.  As passengers were being evacuated Lucile, Cosmo and Lucile's secretary Laura Francatelli were placed in Lifeboat 1, the fourth lifeboat to be launched approximately one hour after the ship struck the iceberg.  The lifeboat was a "cutter" designed for the emergency use of the Titanic crew so had less seats than the other lifeboats.  Despite it's smaller size (pictured below) it still had a maximum capacity of 40 people and was launched with only 12 persons aboard.  Despite the infamous call for "women and children first" Lifeboat 1 carried 10 male passengers (seven of whom were crew members).

Lifeboat 1 was dubbed "the money boat" because of it's not near capacity cargo and rumors that Lord Duff Gordon had bribed the seamen on board to

keep rowing and not allow any of the multitude of people in the water to climb into the lifeboat.  Taking a page from Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" guide, Lady Duff Gordon even commented to her secretary that it was too bad that she had now lost her "beautiful nightdress". 

A general inquiry was held into the sinking of the Titanic and fueled by pressure from the tabloid press in both the United States and England a special inquiry was held into the circumstances surrounding the launch of Lifeboat 1.  The appearance of Lord and Lady Duff Gordon, the only passengers called to testify at any of the Titanic inquiries, resulted in the largest crowd of spectators.  Lord and Lady Duff Gordon were never formally charged in any wrong doing but the court did admonish that "occupants of Lifeboat 1 should have made a more concerted effort to rescue survivors from the water".

 

 Tidbit:

Lucile Duff Gordon really had no luck when it came to traveling by sea and it could even be said that she had somewhat of a charmed life when it came to boat and ship disasters ...

When her mother remarried she and her sister moved to the Isle of Jersey with their mother and her new husband, David Kennedy.  In 1875 following a visit to relatives in England, Lucy and her sister Elinor survived a shipwreck when their ship ran aground in a gale force storm.

Lucile escaped with her life when the Titanic hit an iceberg.

In 1915 Lucile had booked passage on the RMS Lusitania.  It was reported that due to illness she cancelled her trip at the last minute.  On that voyage, where Lady Duff Gordon should have been aboard,

the Lusitania was hit by a German torpedo and sank.

I guess three times is the charm. 

 SOME ITEMS OF PERSONAL INTEREST TO ME

A few years back I went to an exhibit of "Story Quilts" entitled "From Oma to Oma" which left me with a bit of a fascination of how people can make quilts to reflect a story as clearly as any written on a page.  There was one such quilt, crafted by fabric artist John Willard, hanging as part of this exhibit entitled "A Night to Remember".  It was a beautifully crafted piece of art and looking like the caps of waves were the names of all the passengers and crew members that sailed on the Titanic on that fateful voyage.  I was able to locate the names of Lucile and Cosmo Duff Gordon and Lucile's secretary, Laura Francatelli (admittedly with a little prompting from an arrow on the descriptive picture posted along side the quilt) as well as the name of another rather well known survivor, the "unsinkable" Molly Brown (which I found all on my own - thank you).

  

And since this after all a "book" blog I had to include the following which were displayed among the object in glass cabinets filled with the smaller sized mementos of Lucile's life and accomplishments.  Two first edition books concerning Lucile and her family.  Lucile herself wrote two autobiographies, the American first edition of the first autobiography was on display.

Lucile's sister, Elinor Glyn, was a rather well known author.  She was a journalist, screen writer and author who was quite notorious in her own life, causing scandal on both sides of the ocean.  It is widely accepted that Ms. Glyn was this first to coin the phrase "It Girl" in her novel "The Man and the Moment" which throughout the 1920's was a common term referring to "sex appeal".

Her book "Letters to Caroline" was also included and it features an original sketch by Lucille on the front flyleaf.

A rather sad sidebar to this exhibit is based on another "local connection".  Thomson Beattie was born in Fergus, Ontario which is 20 Km north of Guelph.  Thomson and two friends were traveling on a winter vacation when one of his friends became sick and had to return home.  Tired of traveling themselves Thomson and his other friend, lifelong companion Thomas McCaffry, decided to make their way home as well booking passage on the Titanic.  Thomas wrote his mother before leaving "we are changing ships and coming home in a new, unsinkable, boat".

Beattie and his companions did make it on to one of the last available lifeboats, a collapsible, but died of exposure waiting for rescue.  A month after the Titanic went down, from the deck of the liner Oceanic, a lifeboat was seen bobbing in the water.  The three bodies in the raft were sewn into canvas bags and buried at sea.  Thomson Beattie was still wearing the evening clothes he had worn on the Titanic that last night.

In a coincidence odd enough to give you goose flesh ... Thomson Beattie was buried at sea on his mother's birthday at almost the exact spot were where she had been born 82 years earlier ... in the Atlantic ocean on a ship bound for Canada.

He is remembered with a stone on the family grave site in Fergus, Ontario.

So very many things I learned today because of one name in a book!

Thanks for reading.

10 Books on Being Canadian, Just in Case ... Well, You Know!

I don’t have a horse in the race but I have been watching with equal parts amusement and trepidation what is going on in the U.S. presidential election.  I’ve also heard much chatter from famous and not-so famous folks about moving to Canada if Mr. Trump is successful in his bid for office.  Having swept five primaries in the Eastern states Mr. Trump has thrown down the gauntlet …

“Donald Trump to celebrities threatening to immigrate toCanada: GO!” 

When you get here and you feel ready to go “oot and aboot” (which we DO NOT really say) I’d love to meet you at Timmies for a double double.  Then I can explain some things such as why the air hurts your face in January?  Why, if you pay for your $1.98 purchase with a Toonie you will not get any change back?  And just exactly how many calories there are in Poutine (LOTS)!  Aside from those important things, being your friendly neighbour (YES – we put the letter ‘u’ in strange places in words - curse you American spell-check) to the north I thought I’d help out with the learning curve.  So, here’s a list of books and other things that may make your transition from ‘merican to canajun a little easier.

Just one more thing ... I’m sorry (yes, it’s true, we do apologize often and for no reason) even I cannot explain why books cost more in Canada than in the U.S.

Canajun, Eh?

This is basically an American to Canadian word and phrase book.  You should probably carry it around with you for the first little while, as it will help explain some of the differences in our English.  Examples such as knowing how to pronounce “Tronno” will keep you from getting embarrassed because if you pronounce the second ‘t’ in Toronto … well … it’s a dead giveaway that you are not from here.  It will also help you out with common acronyms such as “Arsee-Empee” (R.C.M.P.) – Dudley Do-Right et.al.

Only in Canada You Say

This is an excellent companion book to Canajun, Eh?  Ask any Canadian about a distinctly Canadian form of English, and most will offer an enthusiastic Bob-and-Doug-McKenzie 'eh' in response. A passionate few might also bring up the colour vs. color debate or our pronunciations of 'out' and 'about'. And some may point to the ubiquitous Canadian toque as evidence of a language that is all our own. If this is your idea of Canadian English, then it might surprise you that Katherine Barber, Editor-in-Chief of the best-selling Canadian Oxford Dictionary and author of the best-selling Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do With Pigs, has written a new book filled with nothing but made-in-Canada vocabulary. Only in Canada You Say highlights more than 1,200 words and phrases that are unique to our neck of the woods. Did you know, for example, that every time you ask for Gravol at the drug store, you're using a word that is unknown anywhere else? That those tasty butter tarts your mother used to make don't exist beyond our borders? Or that there are three distinctly Canadian sex words? And jokes about living in the Great White North aside, it is still pretty interesting to discover that there are 17 Canadian words for ice! 

Pogey, Poutine and Warm, Furry Beavers

A frenetic celebration of all things Canucky … the sort of result you might get if you pumped Dave Barry full of maple syrup and Moosehead, then left him tied up in a sack for a week with Ron James and the Littlest Hobo.  If none of that makes any sense then I guess you need to check out the book?

Canadian History for Dummies by Will Ferguson

This just proves that contrary to popular belief and the opinion of all grade seven students in the Canadian school system Canadian History can be fun!

Truthfully, almost anything by Will Ferguson that you can get your hands on will help your transition.

Mr. Fergusons was born in the former fur-trading post of Vermilion (population 840) in Northern Canada.  After some traveling and marriage Mr. Ferguson and his wife moved to Prince Edward Island where Mr. Ferguson found work with a local travel company selling Ann of Green Gables tours to Japanese tourists.  (Really … if that doesn’t qualify you as an expert on all things Canadian I don’t know what does?) 

Will Ferguson's publishing debut, Why I Hate Canadians, was released in September 1997, and went on to sell over 50,000 copies.

The follow-up, How to Be a Canadian, written with his brother Ian, has now sold 200,000 copies and won the CBA Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

In 2002, Will Ferguson was shortlisted twice for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour: once for Happiness(aka. "Generica") and again for How to Be a Canadian.  There are only five books on the final shortlist, and this was the first time in the history of the Leacock Award that an author had been nominated twice in the same year. (Happiness went on to win.)

In 2005, he won his second Leacock Award for Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw. He was also awarded the Pierre Berton Award by Canada’s National History Society.

Speaking of Pierre Berton, anyone wanting to take a more serious approach to learning about The Great White North should most definitely invest in a personal library of Mr. Berton’s books. 

Pierre Berton spent his early newspaper career in Vancouver, where at 21 he was the youngest city editor on any Canadian daily. He moved to Toronto in 1947, and at the age of 31 was named managing editor of Maclean's magazine. In 1957, he became a key member of the CBC's public affairs flagship program, Close-Up, and a permanent panelist on Front Page Challenge. He joined The Toronto Star as associate editor and columnist in 1958, leaving in 1962 to commence The Pierre Berton Show, which ran until 1973.

His books include “My Country” in which Mr. Berton brings the past alive with true stories of mystery and romance, tragedy and heroism, from the piracy of Bill Johnston, scourge of the St. Lawrence, to the weird saga of Brother XII and his mystic cult on Vancouver Island.

“Niagara” which is full of heroes and villains, eccentrics and daredevils, scientists, and power brokers, Niagara has a contemporary resonance: how a great natural wonder created both the industrial heartland of southern Ontario and the worst pollution on the continent.

“The Invasion of Canada” … to America's leaders in 1812, an invasion of Canada seemed to be "a mere matter of marching," as Thomas Jefferson confidently predicted. How could a nation of 8 million fail to subdue a struggling colony of 300,000? Yet, when the campaign of 1812 ended, the only Americans left on Canadian soil were prisoners of war.

Should you not want to immigrate to Canada you might consider reading the Canada Party Manifesto, “America, But Better”.  As the American election increasingly resembles a production of CATS performed by actual cats, U.S. citizens are looking for a new leader. That leader is Canada, and they want your vote for president of the United States.

Since launching their viral video campaign in January, the Canada Party has been covered around the world, including CNN, BBC, the Huffington Post, and German State Television. America, but Better: the Canada Party Manifesto, balances the doctrine of American exceptionalism with a dose of Canadian humility and common sense to secure Canada as the new leader of the free world, by proxy.

Their promises: One gay couple will be allowed to marry for every straight couple that gets divorced. The phrase "job creators" will be changed to "job creationists," and they will be given seven days to actually create some.  Corporations will still be people, but if they can't provide a birth certificate they will be legally obligated to care for your lawn. Corners will be installed in the Oval Office, and timeouts given to congressmen who can't play nice.

Devoted to restoring America to its former glory, the Canada Party will soon have the whole world chanting, "Yes We Canada."

 If reading isn’t your style you can always resort to film. 

The recent documentary style movie “Being Canadian” takes you on a tour of well-known and out-of-the-way places with some of Canada’s iconic celebrities … you know, those folks that will be making their back across the border should … well you know!

And, of course, “Men With Brooms”, this movie will not only teach you what you need to know about curling (sort of) but also what to do if you end up trapped in the middle of a colony (yes, that’s what a group of beavers is called – you’re welcome) and how to get the Canadian girl of your dreams (if you are Paul Gross that is).