Archive for October, 2009

I wrote this on Friday in Vancouver. – I am having a problem with displacement. To leave one city and arrive in the middle of another without preface or enough time lapsed for my softened mind to come to equilibrium–this is displacement. Like a hangover it stays with me longer than I would ever want; [...]

Pickpocketing. Urban filth: cold, grey grimy. Poverty, crime and mortality. Dickens. Rain and horses and fashion. Yep, Victorian London. Sara Stockbridge’s novel recounts all of its requisite stereotypes–emphasizing the east-end, grimmer ones–without adding much to consider. “Grace Hammer” is a sometimes mystery, sometimes crime story, sometimes quasi-historical vignette that, while it has a collection of endearing impressions, doesn’t seem to have much to say.

Of late, I have been intrigued by books about exploration, geography, and the Age of Discovery. 1521: It’s the height of the Spanish Inquisition. The New World has been discovered, but is mostly a cartographic blank spot (embellished with dragons and mermaids). European men and women are dirty and poor, for the most part, and [...]