Edmund

Patroness of the loquacious

“We’ve had enough exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.” — St. Catherine of Siena

The Middle Ages

“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.” — Bob Hope

Pilate in retirement

So I started reading Great Short Stories, one of my latest purchases from The Folio Society, yesterday. The collection opens with Alexander Pushkin’s haunting The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama). Roman Pisarev, one of my favorite Folio artists, is the illustrator of the Russian portion of the anthology. I’m looking forward to reading Guy de Maupassant’s Miss Harriet. De Maupassant is my all-time favorite storyteller, and I haven’t read Miss Harriet before.

It is rather unfortunate that Anatole France is not represented in the collection—I was really hoping that his Le Procurateur de Judée (The Procurator of Judea) would be in it. It is quite difficult to find it in any decent short story collection. The story is about the later years of Pontius Pilate, the man who ordered the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s one of those short stories that really stays inside your head. The last line uttered by the ex-Procurator is really unforgettable. Read the story here.

From Irulan to Lady Jessica

I just did the Which Dune Character Are You? quiz again. Last year, I was Irulan, Paul Atreides’ studious Imperial Consort. Now I’m Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother. I can identify with Irulan, since I’m also a writer. But I don’t understand why I’m suddenly Lady Jessica. My personality must’ve changed drastically in the space of a year! I actually took the quiz again with the hope that this year I’d finally be Gaius Helen Mohiam, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and my favorite Dune character.

Books of the month

I’m presently on a self-imposed moratorium on buying books. I already have tons of unread volumes, and I’m really running out of space to store them. The moratorium, however, has its limitations—I can buy books from The Folio Society whenever I please. Talk about self-restraint. I’ve been a member of The Folio Society since 2006, and last year I decided to buy books only from them. Their books are simply awesome, and a book addict like myself simply couldn’t resist their beautiful tomes of essential titles. My latest acquisitions are Great Short Stories and Cover Her Face. The former is a compendium of 43 short stories from the world’s greatest writers, while the latter is a murder mystery by P.D. James. I actually haven’t read anything by P.D. James yet, but I’ve seen the BBC adaptation of Death in Holy Orders many, many years ago. And by the way, no Folio book of mine has gone unread.

What Kabbalah isn’t and is

Kabbalah is not a cult or religion of has-beens and Z-list celebrities. It has nothing to do with wearing a $26.00-red yarn bracelet or using a $10.00-water spray.

Kabbalah is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. It is about understanding the deeper meaning of the Torah and putting the Torah into practice.

My answer to the Twitter question

Who cares?

Canadian, tired

I totally forgot that it’s not winter anymore. Seriously. When you’re living in a land where it’s almost always winter, you’re always set to “Winter Mode.” Anyway, I immediately went to the garage to have my winter tires removed. This happens every year—that I’m probably the last person in the whole province (or probably, the land) to have those danged tires changed.

How Hannah Montana nearly gave me a heart attack

Yesterday, there was going to be a meeting in the library—where my life-sized Hannah Montana stand-up is displayed. Knowing that it’s gonna be a source of distraction, I temporarily took it out of the library and inadvertently placed it (quite strategically) in the hallway that leads to the door of the laundry room. After the meeting—several hours later—I decided to do my laundry. I have forgotten all about the stand-up, so when I saw it on my path, I screamed.