Interview with Rebecca Solnit

 

•The Rumpus (Aug. 2009)
Rebecca Solnit’s 2003 book, River of Shadows, was about the 19th century photographer Eadward Muybridge. Muybridge produced, for the first time in history, still images of a body in motion, showing what was right in front of us, daily, but that we couldn’t see without his intercession. This is much like what Solnit herself does. (Click for more.)
   
Beat Cops
 

•En Route (Oct. 2003)

My aunt tells me she saw a dancing cop at Luz Corner. She readily demonstrates, turning and waving gracefully like she’s doing traffic-direction Tai Chi. Finally, I have an eyewitness. I try not to feel cheated. Despite weeks of methodically spying on traffic police in Chennai (better known as Madras), I haven’t yet seen one dance, whereas my aunt just waltzed out to run some errands and got the full monty. (Click for more.)

   
Residents Gone Batty
 

•National Post (Aug. 17, 2002
The Squilax General Store and Caboose Hostel, like the Shuswap Lakes region of south-central British Columbia where it is located, offers many offbeat attractions. The main house is full of 20th-century treasures, such as vinyl hairdressers' recliners in the reading nook... (Click for more.)
   
Taking the Carnival Cure
 

•Islands (Sept./Oct. 2001)

My friend Claudio and I drag our slightly haggard selves up the steps from the boat landing at Ilha de Tinhare, pass through an old stone arch, and enter the village of the Morro de São Paulo. It’s the weekend after Carnival, and we’ve come to this small island in the state of Bahia, in northeast Brazil, to recover. (Click for more.)

   
In Brazil, a Pacifist's Legacy Endures
 

•National Post (24 Nov. 1999)

Though centuries have passed since the Portuguese set out on colonial excursions that would see them establish a presence in both southern India and Brazil, the cultural connections forged between the two nations remain. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Brazilian city of Salvador, where the 9,000-strong Filhos de Gandhy, devotees of the late Indian pacifist, practice his teachings in the most Brazilian of ways: through music and carnival. (Click for more.)

   
Brazilian Heat: Caetano Veloso
 

•National Post (26 June 1999)

It’s a clear night in late March, in Salvador da Bahia in northeast Brazil. On a plaza overlooking the Bay of All Saints, thousands upon thousands of spectators are watching a slight, elegant figure in white. The hush and the crush are intense. The crowd surges and shifts a little bit more, like a great pile of iron filings orienting itself to this magnetic presence on stage. Then everyone breaks into cheers and starts singing along. (Click for more.)

   
A Gallery of Garbage Treasures
 

•National Post (21 Nov. 1998)

In the Quartier Éphémère gallery, a thin stream of purified water falls from a long copper pipe suspended nine feet above a goldfish tank. The fish are not merely decorative; rather, they are the purity test in this installation created by artist Jean-Pierre Aubé. The water is from an underground river, rediscovered and recycled, just like the building that houses the Montreal gallery. (Click for more.)
   
The Fall in Miniature
 

•National Post (date?)
Autumn in Montreal turns waxy green oak leaves to rich brown, maples to fiery red and poplar to buttery gold. City residents dream of weekends in the Laurentians or Vermont, of the fuller sort of contact with the seasons not available from a balcony above the sparser urban treeline. But there is another option, a 2,000-year-old art form created to bring the benefits of nature into the over-civilized heart of humankind. (Click for more.)
 
last modified 12-aug-09
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