week twenty seven

Books Read:
41. The Queue — Basma Abdel Aziz
42. Mercenary English — Mercedes Eng

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 41.56
to date — 958.79

I imagine that when Trump wins the US presidential election this November that America will soon descending to the Kafkaesque post-Arab Spring world that Aziz describes so uncomfortably well in The Queue. It’s disheartening to think that what she describes may very well be happening in many places in the Middle East right now. Egypt comes to mind as most obvious. A post civil war Syria seems likely as well. I followed The Queue with a revisit to Eng’s Mercenary English — from a book about ultimate government surveillance, bureaucracy and control, to one about a group of people and a neighbourhood that for too long was largely ignored in the hopes that it would just go away. I’m currently working on an expanded new edition of Mercenary English for CUE Books. The new edition has a new introduction from Eng along with some additions to the autocartography section, and concludes with an interview between Eng and the inimitable Fred Moten (that I am [still] anxious to see/read). I’m hoping to have it out by September, but all of a sudden it’s nearly the middle of July — it’s not looking good. But I’m going to try.
week twenty seven
After putting bout 550 kilometres on my Adidas runners I went out on my birthday (back in June) and bought some new Nike runners from The Right Shoe. And they were great. She was great. I cannot remember her name. Anyway, it was a first for me. Until then all of my runners have come from Costco or Winners. And I’ve had mostly good luck. My physiotherapist suggested The Right Shoe because, well, it’s not just a clever name. And the woman that helped me (Tashaorsomething) made me try on a whole pile of shoes and I honestly went with the ones that I thought felt the best and then I started to get a pain in the top of my foot and the last time this happened was when I bought a pair of Saucony runners (from Winners) and in the first run on them I started experiencing extensor tendonitis and as soon as I went back to my old runners (Nikes, also from Winners) it went away. So I thought that me and Saucony just weren’t going to get along. So I went and bought Adidas runners (from Winners) and they were great, and I wore them out and then bought another pair (from Costco) and (now we’re full circle) and wore them out and then ended up at The Right Shoe on my birthday buying a pair of Nikes that I’d previously had good luck with but this time I did not. So I’m at a bit of a loss because there was zero indication in the store that these shoes were going to hurt my feet (also, gave me my first running blister ever during the Scotiabank half marathon). Anyway, it’s just a bit frustrating. And I don’t know what the solution is except to just chance it and see.

week twenty six

Books Read:
40. Oryx and Crake — Margaret Atwood

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 33.52
to date — 917.23

For the life of this journal I’ve posted books that I’ve read and I’ve linked them to where you can buy them and I always try to link back to the publisher especially since a lot of what I read comes from small presses and they deserve the tiny, utterly insignificant amount of traffic that I might in some parallel universe provide. And sometimes I read a book that really doesn’t need any help. Like this one. So I’ve decided that when I post such a title, from now on I’ll like to a good indie/used bookstore and you’ll have to click the link to see which one. But don’t worry, there’s no chance that we’re going to crash any websites with this little endeavor. And I’ll always set to open in a new tab, because websites that don’t do that are jerks. Yeah especially you, Wikipedia. I said last week that I was looking forward to reading Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue but instead I read Oryx and Crake and saved The Queue for next. I really liked this book and I’m interested in continuing the series. I thought Jimmy/Snowman was likeable. I did not like how things unfolded with Jimmy and Oryx and Crake at the end of the book; it felt rushed or something, and unfulfilling. Like when I finally finished the main storyline in Fallout 4 today and sort of went, huh, put down the controller and started reading The Queue.
week twenty six
I spent the long weekend visiting family in Victoria, which meant another 10 kilometre jaunt by Beacon Hill Park and out along The Breakwater around the lighthouse at the end and then back to Clover Point. And on Canada Day no less. I expected a nightmarish crowd of people, but the weather wasn’t all that great, so the strollers were rather thin. I never noticed before that the beach below the Terry Fox Mile Zero monument is named for Steve Fonyo. It doesn’t ever show up on Google Maps. I just noticed a little sign as I ran down Waterfront Trail. I don’t know why that’s significant. It probably isn’t.

week twenty five

Books Read:
37.1 Jackals and Arabs — Franz Kafka
37.2 Kafka and Arabs — Jens Hanssen in Critical Inquiry 39 (Autumn 2012)
37.3 Jens Hanssen, Kafka and Arabs — in Jadaliyya (Nov. 7, 2012)
38. The Men — Lisa Robertson
39. Cinema of the Present — Lisa Robertson

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 57.75
to date — 883.71

Politics is something that I’ve consciously tried to avoid in these post and so far I’ve done an okay job of it I think, but it’s been a tough slog over these past few days to avoid all the crap that’s going on what with the Pulse shooting and the Brexit vote and the fiasco around Steven Galloway at UBC none of which are actually related except that they’ve caused an overall feeling of being emotionally deflated. None of that has anything to do with any of the reading above, either. I met my friend Jeff for drinks and we talked a bit about the Middle East, he just getting back from a conference that coincided with the opening of a contemporary art gallery in Palestine. I’ve a growing interest in speculative fiction and works in translation from the Middle East, though it’s not showing up in my reading, yet. I have a few titles in my to-read-pile (Aziz’s The Queue sits at the top) that I hope to get to soon. He suggested revisiting Kafka and forwarded me the two companion pieces from Hanssen. I hadn’t read “Jackals and Arabs” before. It’s pretty clear, though, that Kafka would have been appalled by the Israeli occupation of Palestine. And if there was any doubt, I think that Hanssen sufficiently crushes said doubt. I’m nearly through my pile of Robertson; I think that I have one or two titles left. I liked The Men better than Cinema, though when it comes to book-length poems I tend to prefer more narrative(?) style in the vein of William’s Patterson or Carson’s Autobiography of Red. Purely personal preference. I’ve no regrets spending a couple transit trips with Cinema.
week twenty five
I noticed very early on in my running that I tend to perform better when I’ve shit on my mind. I tweeted once that given my experience I didn’t understand why professional athletes would want to be happy at all. And so I figured that going into the Scotiabank half marathon this morning I would have a decent run. I did, I guess, but I’d really hoped to crush my BMO half time of 1:46:00 and in that I fell short. I ended up with 1:46:31, which I do think is pretty good for me, for my second half marathon, but I wanted to do better. World events didn’t propel me through the race this time around, so I think I need to rethink my hypothesis. I did everything nearly identical to my BMO prep, but for whatever reason nerves were higher, giving me an upset stomach and sufficiently dehydrating me before I even left the house this morning. I’ll spare you the [shitty] details. Or not, apparently. Anyway, I started well, and the race starts fast and I hit 10 kilometres with nearly a personal best, but I ran out of gas by the 12 kilometre mark and it was a struggle between my body and my pride to not walk a couple times. I haven’t done many races, but I have never walked. That being said I went from first-half splits of 4:30 down to 5:30 in the last 5 kilometres. Pacing is clearly still a problem, along with nutrition and hydration. Maybe there’s some psychology in there too.