Category: Read Run Write

week sixteen

Books Read:
25. For Your Safety Please Hold On — Kayla Czaga
26. The Apothecary — Lisa Robertson

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 25.15
to date — 481.42

I’d read and heard a lot of hype around Kayla Czaga’s first poetry collection and I’ve wanted to read it for a while, and I finally picked up a copy at Russel’s Books in Victoria when I was there for the Easter weekend. I really like that bookstore. Its poetry section is a gem for contemporary Canadian stuff, especially Western Canada stuff. The collection is really great and it did not disappoint in spite of the hype. My favourite is the long piece Many Metaphorical Birds that completes the collection. I’m a sucker for existentialist philosophy. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The day after getting home from Barcelona, The Paper Hound hosted a poetry reading featuring Michael Barnholden and Catriona Strang and it was really great and I left with half a dozen Lisa Robertson titles. I don’t know what the connection is there, except for The Giantesses, I guess. Incidentally, Robertson is going to be in town in mid-May to read alongside another Giantess Christine Stewart at READ Books over on Granville Island. I’m excited. It should be great.
week sixteen
I Sun Ran on Sunday. It was another gong show. I can’t decide if it’s become too big or just poorly managed. I set a new personal best time for 10 km, which is great, but I’m not sure it was worth the near panic attack I had after 30 minutes corralled with a few thousand people. I understand that pretty much everyone lies about their expected finish time when they register (I don’t, but I’m beginning to wonder…) but the problem was the people manning the corrals did zero to segregate bib colours and consequently the yellow section was flooded with every other colour, not to mention at least a half dozen strollers. Seriously. Fucking strollers. Then the number of people already walking at the 1 km marker. I’m not quick, but for the second half of the race I was passed by maybe ten people. I like the Sun Run, but if they cannot figure out how to manage it better I might stop participating. There seem to be a bunch of alternatives that likely have less aggravation. But it’s my own fault, really. It seems like every other post here is me lamenting how much I dislike other people when I’m running, so what the hell was I expecting joining a race with 42,000 other people. The BMO Half Marathon is in ten days. I’m hoping for a dearth of crowds at the start line. Fingers and laces crossed.

week fourteen + fifteen

Some Stuff Read:
The Voyeur’s Motel — Gay Talese — New Yorker, April 11, 2016
Rachel Maddow Interview — Playboy (USA), March 2016
The Morning After — Karl Ove Knausgaard — Playboy (USA), March 2016
What XOXO Really Means — Emma Rathbone — New Yorker, April 18, 2016
The Assad Files — Ben Taub — New Yorker, April 18, 2016
Binge-watching Game of Thrones — Clive James — New Yorker, April 18, 2016

Kilometres Ran:
these weeks — 31.15
to date — 456.27

I’m sort of cheating putting two weeks into one post but I was traveling eight of the fourteen days and it seemed an easy way to get past this little blip in my reading-running-writing endeavor, so here it is. I didn’t read much before, during or after my jaunt to Barcelona. Before was overly occupied with getting ready to go. During was entirely occupied with doing stuff. And after was recuperation, and, let’s be honest, getting caught up on The Division. If you don’t know what that is, that’s ok. Anyway, I knew I wasn’t going to read much so I only took my iPad, preloaded with a few books I thought that I might attempt, along with the new, no-nudie March issue of Playboy I managed to procure on PDF (ahem…) and a full-access New Yorker app graciously given to me by the lovely SC. I didn’t read any of the books. I find it difficult to read books on airplanes for whatever reason. I did consume a bunch of articles, a few of which I listed above, in the order I recall that I read them. I think. The Voyeur’s Motel was entirely captivating from start to finish. I’d very curious to read the book, but I wonder if the article was just the right length. I’m not sure it needs a book. Maybe. I quite like Rachel Maddow, and I enjoyed her interview. She’s a lot smarter than I thought, and I thought she was pretty damn smart. Does Knausgaard really expect me to believe he was in his 20s before he masturbated for the first time? Really? Creative non-fiction indeed…. For a short bit I signed emails Godspeed. It didn’t make the list, but I thought what Rathbone included was pretty great. Assad is terrifying. I had no idea. I had a bit of an idea. But didn’t think it was this bad. But I also wonder if it was a propaganda piece. James’ rundown made me want to re-binge-watch Game of Thrones in advance of the new season starting up in a couple weeks. That’s definitely going to cut into my reading time.
week fourteen fifteen
I ran three times, including today. I didn’t run at all in Barcelona. The Sun Run is on Sunday and while I’m not worried about it I really want to smash my last year’s time and I’m not feeling overly confident that I’m going to do all that well. A year ago I’d run 10 km less than a half dozen times in my life. Now a 10 km run is my short run. I find it incredible how much I’ve progressed in the past year. I certainly don’t regret the time off in Barcelona, but I think next year I’ll plan my spring trip a week or two earlier. I also wish that I would have run in Barcelona, and I think I’m going to make an effort to run at least once where ever I travel from now on, just for the experience of doing it. Turns out we stayed not too far from some great running and I sort of feel like I missed out.