Good Radio

Tonight on IDEAS:

Part One of James Joyce: A Tale of Two Cities.
James Joyce chose "silence, exile and cunning," and abandoned Dublin for Trieste in 1904. He was looking for a job, a new way of being a writer, and an alternative to Irish Nationalism. He found them all in the Mediterranean city of Trieste. Philip Coulter explores Dublin's Joyce and Joyce's Trieste. That's tonight on Ideas at 9:00 (9:30 NT) on CBC Radio One. (CONCLUDES NEXT FRIDAY)

[of course you know, oh faithful reader, that Leonor Fini was raised in “Trieste, in the circle of James Joyce and Rainer Maria Rilke ...”]

Good TV

An American in Canada

Tune in to CBC Television tonight for An American in Canada, a bizarre extension of Robbie Burns' wish to see ourselves as others see us. It's the comedic story of Jake, a transplanted American working in Canada television. An American in Canada, tonight at 9 on CBC Television.

*photos taken in Clever's yard

When I turned 40, I bought myself the first "expensive" purse I ever owned.

I'd looked for it for 20 years. It was like a miniature briefcase, all leather, pockets, and zippers. It had a place for everything, so that there'd never have to be any digging or dumping.

Oh yeah, it was a beaut! My ex (whom I still lived with at the time), always broke, looked at the bill and almost threw up.

I said, "Every woman deserves a good purse sometime in her life."
I thought, laughing all the way, "That'll teach you not to buy me a birthday present!"

Four years later, I don't carry it often because even empty, it's heavy and pulls on my shoulder, causing a neck migraine. I carry a fanny pack instead, with just my wallet in it, for a grocery run into town or a drive to Grandma's. The only time I take my purse is when I leave for a few days at a time and may need all those essentials tucked tidily into its compartments.

But *the* purse is still the keeper of my wallet, keys, and all the various and sundry that have no other proper place... the bank books, the tiny pack of kleenex, the spare eyeglasses, stray cough-candies, lip balm, a couple tampons, a notebook and pen ... all the things one likes to keep near at hand.

I picked this ceramic glass up at a yard sale and it has been one of my prized possessions ever since. There is nothing written on its bottom or anywhere else. All I can tell by looking at it, at all the little cracks that can be seen inside it, is that it’s old.

Does anyone know where the following picture might be found on the web? Clever had printed it and put it on her wall, but wants to know what it is so she can get a better copy. Do you recognize it?

K.

I have been using white light for protection since about 1983. My sister will phone me, nervous before a plane trip, and say: "Kathy, white-light me please!" I white-light my children; I white-light my garden vegetables and flowers and houseplants and the crops on our farm with a white-light blanket, when I hear raindrops turning into hail. When I feel worried about anyone, I white-light them. When I see horrific news stories on TV, I white-light the victims and yes, the perpetrators. I white-light the earth, the universe, the past, the present, and the future.

In the early days of my use of white light, I lived in a tiny town in northern Saskatchewan. One evening I had invited two young gentlemen over for supper. One of them had arrived, and the other one was on his way, driving over a curving highway. The road was slippery with spring snow and slush, and the second young man was late, so my guest and I decided to put our heads together and white-light him as a little insurance.

When the second fellow finally arrived, he told us that he had been coming around a dangerous curve when his vehicle started sliding straight for a deep ditch. Then, suddenly, it straightened itself out and carried on as if it had never gone awry. My first guest and I looked at each other as our jaws dropped, mutually calculating that the time he had been at that curve was the exact moment we had been white-lighting him.

It was a small but powerful reinforcement on a physical level that yes indeed, white light has a tangible effect on life as we know it. You could say it was a coincidence. But we didn’t think so at the time, and I still don’t.

I’ve been a whitelighter ever since.