Need to revive a gel pen that stopped working? If your gel pen still has ink but it won’t come out then you can fix a dried out gel pen with this lifehack.
It’s super easy to revive gel pens. Just use a water dropper to add a drop or two of water to the ink. Lucky I have droppers from my perfume days. But you could use a leaky faucet! Next shake the pen and attempt to write.
If it doesn’t work, add another drop of water and try again.
Still not working? Blow into the ink. I only needed to do this for 1 pen but I managed to force out some ink, then the ball was rolling again and working.
For a super tricky pen, soak the entire pen in warm water for 5 minutes. I had to go all out to get my green mini gel pen working, but it’s awesome now.
The predictive manifesto is a very simple question of whether you want revolutionary ideas or nothing to change in your mind and your personal experience with edits. One day when you’re not alone with your own mind and don’t know what to expect from the rest of the digital revolution then go back to the public that you have been told to keep in touch with, the audience that you’re not sure of, the future of this particular issue, and consider how much you need to be seen by the same person as a whole other world and think of the social networking platforms that you can use to help them understand what you think of your life. You will need to make a decision on what the fuck is a collective imagination. Put that into a digital file. Can there be anything more complex than the same thing that happened in your life, with edits and a few other people who don’t know how to make a difference in the process of creating a culture industry, on purpose, to make a point about how much they value you? Can they find out if you’re willing to pay for publishing it, willing to create a new system for the future of this world or your own mind, when you’re not alone with your own time and energy and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and space and
My Publishing@SFU colleague Hannah McGregor had her PUB448 students create digital publishing manifestos. They had to do something creative with the relationship between form and content. This is the coolest: The Predictive Manifesto https://zvedova.wixsite.com/, which generated the above. I made minor edits to make it into a poem.
Description: I discovered this novel at Hagar Books, which always has a lovely display in the window. I loved the fun colours on the cover, I haven’t read many Iranian authors, and the book was published by Europa Editions–a publisher I recently discovered.
Azar’s writing reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree has that 100-Years-of-Solitude. It also reminds me of Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Azar’s writing is beautiful, the story is spellbinding yet sad, there’s a mystical element to the storytelling, and Azar has an interesting and playful voice.
I say it’s like Thien in that we are deep into the worst of Iran’s Islamic Republic Revolution. It’s hard to read about the grief of a family, young men hanged without trial, children killed in fire bombs. From Thien, I came to better understand China’s Cultural Revolution. From Azar, I got a good introduction to Persian storytelling and traditions. Plus the book is littered with literary quotes and references!
Favourite quote: I love the fairytale elements, the tricksy jinns, the sister who turns into a mermaid. The opening paragraph is reflective of the overall tone of the novel:
Beeta says that Mom attained enlightenment at exactly 2:35 P.M. on August 18, 1988, atop the grove’s tallest greengage plum tree on a hill overlooking all fifty-three village houses, to the sound of the scrubbing of pots and pans, a ruckus that pulled the grove out of its lethargy every afternoon. At that very moment, blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, Sohrab was hanged.
chapter 1
Perfect read for fans of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
Mark Haddon is probably best known for his bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which won 17 literary prizes and was made into an acclaimed stage play. I’m a Haddon fan. But I didn’t love this novel. Haddon’s recent works re-imagine myths and legends and turn them into contemporary stories. In this novel Darius and the yacht, the Porpoise, become Pericles, the prince of Tyre.
Description: The novel opens with a terrifying plane crash. I started reading this novel the week that Kobe Bryant’s plane went down and it was eerie. Then there is one violent moment after another as we weave between different versions of the Darius character across time. This is not a linear novel, many of the male characters are unlikeable, if not despicable.
The baby who survives the plane crash is raised by her wealthy, overprotective AND incestuous father. Yuck. She eventually starves herself to death. The Darius in this story is a potential suitor and saviour but he’s beaten almost to death by the father and escapes. Or maybe dies and in another universe because Pericles.
Pericles also loses his wife and daughter in a crash — this time it’s a ship. But actually they both survive, unbeknownst to him. There are a few lovely moments in the lives of these women when mythical beings save them, or they save themselves.
Basically this is a novel about shattered families. Asshole men. And women who are beaten down yet survive.
Favourite quote: Marina (daughter of Pericles) escapes her foster family (who were plotting to kill her) and she’s being hunted by soldiers. She’s already escaped her kidnapper / assassin.
She slides swiftly into a profound sleep in which she runs with a band of women across rolling grasslands, over hard, packed sand, through fine columns of leaf-light between trees. They turn into deer and she becomes a deer running with them. Their speed is thrilling, the earth spun to a blur by their hooves. Then they become a thousand arrows falling from the clear sky, into bark, into grass, into fur, into flesh. They are women and deer and arrows and this is no contradiction. They they are the wolves tearing into the flesh of the dying horse and tearing out the slippery liver and kidneys of the man who kidnapped her, and this is both terrifying and absolutely right, the way lightning is terrifying and absolutely right. They snap away the white ribs with their powerful jaws and yank out the lungs and she knows without question that this is precisely how he died.
The Porpoise by Mark haddon
Perfect read for those who like Greek Myths with a contemporary twist. I’d choose The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood over this one though.
The Starless Sea is the long awaited second novel of Erin Morgenstern, who hit the literary scene with her 100% blockbuster novel The Night Circus. The Starless Sea is equally fine in its mix of magic and myth, but it didn’t give me the same sleepless nights of page turning awesomeness. Indeed, I almost didn’t cart this 500 pager with me on holiday. I’m glad I did.
Description: Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller. As a boy, he discovers a magic door painted on the alley wall. It’s obviously not a magic door, and he’s obviously too old to believe in magic, so he doesn’t try the knob. The thing is, he misses out, at least for a few years.
Zachary is studying video games and narrative in university and strange things happen. He finds a book in the library about the son of a fortune teller who finds a painted door on an alley wall and doesn’t open it. Wait, what! The book is about Zachary. The spin-tingling magic starts shortly after he takes the train, on a lark, to a costume party, where he’s hoping to find a woman wearing a necklace with a bee, a key, and a sword.
Turns out those painted doors open and lead down to the labyrinth land of the Starless Sea.
Favourite quote:
The boy is the son of the fortune-teller. He has reached an age that brings an uncertainty as to whether this is something to be proud of, or even a detail to be divulged, but it remains true.
He walks home from school toward an apartment situated above a shop strewn with crystal balls and tarot cards, incense and statues of animal-headed deities and dried sage. (The scent of sage permeates everything, from his bedsheets to his shoelaces.)
Today, as he does every school day, the boy takes a shortcut through an alleyway that loops behind the store, a narrow passage between tall brick walls that are often covered with graffiti and then whitewashed and then graffitied again.
Today, instead of the creatively spelled tags and bubble-lettered profanities, there is a single piece of artwork on the otherwise white bricks.
It is a door.
The Starless Sea
There are so many magical moments in this novel. I loved the incredible descriptions of the costume balls. Every time there was a short story within the novel, it was a magical little moment.
The Starless Sea is the perfect read for lovers of fairy tales and people who believe in magic doors, fans of The Night Circus or Ron Livingston’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Description: This is magic realism Canadian style. Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Raymond Chandler, in Toronto. What do I mean? The Ticking Heart is a story about the inevitable and the inescapable. For the protagonist Charlie, the inevitable and inescapable truth is that his marriage is over and he needs to get on with it. To force his hand (or rather his heart), the universe intervenes by “poof” and Charlie finds himself in Metamorphia, a place where nothing is as it seems. Charlie is a private detective, summoned by an ex-girlfriend, to resolve the unpleasant matter of where her beloved has hidden his heart. There’s a cyclops, a man with twigs for arms, and a jail that you put yourself into voluntarily. I can’t explain the crazy, but this is a fun read.
Poof is how people get in and out of Metamorphia. For Charlie, the clock is ticking. His kids have karate, and the ex-girlfriend has replace his heart with a ticking bomb. Falling in and out of love is tricky business!
Who is it for? Fans of film noir, scifi, and magic realism. If you’re a fan of Kaufman and his previous works then no doubt you have already read this one. It’s quirky, cute and at its heart a fable about what it means to love.
Favourite moment: Chapter 16: Return of the Cyclops
“It was raining sheet music when Charlie came out of the Library of Blank Pages. Crisp white scores, lined with staffs and dotted with notes, fell through the air. Each page struck a note as it hit the ground, producing random plunks, a Cage-like cat pacing the length of a piano. Charlie didn’t try to figure out what it mean. He allowed himself to become engrossed in the beauty of it. That is why he didn’t notice how quickly the Cyclops was approaching him.”
I’ve been a fan of Andrew Kaufman’s since I first read his first book All My Friends Are Superheros. I discovered the title on my friend’s shelf, borrowed it and went down to the Beaches in Toronto. This was a 1-sitting kind of book.
Coach House Books has a 10th anniversary edition out, which is lovely, but come on … look at that original cover!
My other favourite Andrew Kaufman book was The Tiny Wife. I have the little purple edition below. Again there’s newer editions with different covers but hey, you show up early and get the early edition right!
In The Tiny Wife, a bank robber demands everyone give up the object of greatest significance to them. One survivor’s tattoo jumps off her ankle and chases her around. That’s nothing. Poor Stacey Hinterland soon discovers that she’s shrinking and nothing can keep her from losing herself.
The Waterproof Bible was hilarious. But now I’m gushing and I wasn’t intending to talk about every book — there’s more! Anyway, Andrew Kaufman’s writing is quirky and funny. It’s is right up my alley. There’s always some twist of magic realism and wild imagination. And it’s the same with his newest book The Ticking Heart.
Two hours and seventeen minutes into his forty-third year, Charlie Waterfield realized he was lost. He was standing at the corner of Euclid and Barton in downtown Toronto. He could have walked home if he’d wanted to. He probably should have. What prevented him from doing so was the painful realization that he was lost inside the one thing it is impossible to escape: his own life.
opening paragraph, The Ticking Heart by Andrew Kaufman
Description: This novel reads like a series of short stories linked together. Each are fairy-tale romances with strange heroines and a bit of magic. The general premise is that celebrated Mr. Fox can’t stop thinking about his muse, so much so that she actually comes to life, much to the chagrin of his wife Daphne. The characters in the stories often are named Mr. Fox, Mary Foxe, and Daphne, but they are never the same people in the same story.
Who is it for? If you liked The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, this has some of the mystery and magic, and the nonlinear narrative. I found it odd in a lovely way.
Favourite moment: When Daphne thinks Mr. Fox is cheating on her but then comes face to face with Mary. Daphne knows Mary is not real but still takes her out to dinner.
Description: The book blurbs reference Philip Roth and John Updike but to me this is Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Great Gatsby. Regardless, it’s a remarkable debut novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and has the feel of an amazing personal account with embellishment.
Toby Fleishman is a well-respected New York doctor earning $285K. But his wife Rachel is the true breadwinner and the more ambitious partner. She wants (and has) the house in the Hampton’s, she runs a successful talent agency, she works out at the right yoga gyms with the right people, but it’s never enough. She’s driven to achieve more and more. She puts her career above her family and Toby is the working dad who leaves on time to pick up the kids, who makes the dinners, and is on hand for homework and parental duties like fundraisers and parent conferences.
The Fleishman’s are a modern-day family and Rachel battles sexism in her job, friend circle, and family. She’s the absentee parent who loves her children but feels wrecked by them. The Fleishman’s whole world really goes topsy turvy though when Rachel disappears. She drops the kids off unexpectedly with Toby then vanishes. She’s 3 weeks late picking up the kids, and by her standards that’s late.
Brodesser-Akner structures this novel in a fascinating way where we have Toby’s point of view for 3/4 of the novel and Rachel’s at the end. The tale is narrated by Elizabeth, a mutual friend (well mostly Toby’s friend from university), and through her perspective we see a big unraveling of the structure of marriage, the competitive nature of New Yorkers, and feminism and in the workplace.
Perfect read for fans of Tom Wolfe, JD Salinger, or Edith Wharton. I love the writing. This is a classic like Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe) or The Great Gatsby in its shrewd observations of this moment in time. From afar, it looks like a perfect portrait of New York society and a careful re-construction of the pain and endless questions prompted by divorce. Brodesser-Akner dutifully probes the behaviour and psychology of upper-class New Yorkers in the style of long-form magazine prose.
Description: Andrei Kaplan leaves his lacklustre academic pursuits in New York to care for his ailing grandmother in Moscow. It’s not at all what he expects.
Andrei emigrated from Russia to the US when he was 6. His brother Dina was 16 and didn’t really embrace the States so left to make his fortune back home. Dima, now a well-placed businessman in Moscow, has been caring for Seva Efraimovna for several years. But certain political winds have changed and he’s laying low in London, hoping his business failings that have left him exposed to prosecution in Russia will blow over.
The novel is set around the financial crisis in 2008, which unfolds shortly after Andrei arrives to aid his grandma. Seva is in failing health and has dementia. As her health fails, so does the Russian economy.
Initially Andrei is scared and unsure about his life in Russia. Things have changed. There’s still the decrepit buildings and police presence, but there’s also exciting activism, along with flashy cars and mob behaviour. He’s at a loss as to how to support his grandma, he has no money, no friends and no Dima, except occasionally over Gchat. Then things start to change as he settles in.
A Terrible Country is a melancholic novel that gives Western readers a perspective of young Russians and one expat’s view of Putin. At its heart, this is a love story to Russia, with vodka, the FSB (formerly KGB), cheap snacks, over priced housewares, and the Russian leisure hockey leagues.
The back jacket ends with ‘A Terrible Country asks what you owe the place you were born, and what it owes you.’
Favourite moment: Andrei is an academic, and not a very good one. He’s also a terrible cook and has no DIY skills. There’s a sink clogged and the plumber has left him to it with the sink snake.
And then suddenly it felt like my clog had fallen into space and my snake was free. I turned the handle a few more times but it was unnecessary. The clog was gone! I just knew it. Motherfucking clog!
The setup and end of this scene is hilarious, and I was left cheering for Andrei. Maybe things would work out.
Perfect read for anyone who likes a modern-day Chekhov, David Lodge (The British Museum Is Falling Down), or John Boyne (The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas). This is a story about loss, family, friendships, finding ones’ place, and being displaced.
