Compassion

BikerGirl and I (me?) were having a heart-to-heart, and began to wonder about writing that evokes empathy, and writers who are good at doing it. Or speakers, for that matter. There are books, articles, essays that create that strange feeling, an identity with what is being written about. Situations, people far from our own realities, [...]

Jommetry, Headology and a Personal Statement

I finished the last, so felt entitled to a bit of the first two. Yes, I’ve been reading Pratchett, and hugely enjoying myself. (Thanks, BB, for lending me Equal Rites!)
I’ve also been accused of talking too much, and realised how true it was when I picked up a hugely excited Pooh from the airport yesterday [...]

Bodies

I was reading an essay while invigilating the exam today (Mari Matsuda on the construction of masculinity), and I was struck by what she says about how the abstract individual of polity doesn’t have a body, except as something he needs in order to exist… here’s the actual quote, I can’t put it better than:
…the “abstract [...]

Lovely poem

Are the angels of her bed the angels
who come near me alone in mine?
Are the green trees in her window
the color I see in ripe plums?
If she always sees backward
and upside down without knowing it
what chance do we have? I am haunted
by the feeling that she is saying
melting lords of death, avalanches,
rivers and moments of [...]

Holiday Books

Books I read during the hols (heavy spoilers, if anything can spoil these books!)*:
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Atwood is as good as ever - I got hooked to her when I read the Handmaid’s Tale, continued it with Alias Grace, and so when I saw this one at the Kochi Airport book store (lovely airport, btb), [...]

Catching up, living ‘alone’, and other things

Dips is on a mountaineering course. Which means she is away in the Himalayas for 26 days. The last I spoke to her, she was in Manali, cursing the food and the fact that she had to give exams. Haven’t talked to her in ages - messaging just doesn’t cut it! And just when I [...]