Library Matters

Well, a return to blogging as promised to Em over at Em Types.

I had decided that between 9pm and 10pm I would work on a cover letter and I'd write a 500 word essay on the topic of Why My Library is Important to Me for the contest of the same name. (Our current Toronto mayor is trying to cut 10% from every municipal program's budget and the Toronto Public Library workers' union is fighting back and holding a contest. Winners can win lunch with authors like Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.)

I stared at a blank page for a while and decided it would be easier to riff on why my library is important to me if I blogged it first.

So what is my library to me? It's not as if I don't own enough unread books.

It is, corny as it sounds, a sanctuary.

• A place to be surrounded by books without having people ask you if you need help.
• A place to read books without having to buy a coffee.
• A place that reminds me of all the things I have yet to learn. This sets it apart from the internet which constantly reminds me of all the things I wish I did not know.
• A place to research and study, and to cheaply photocopy pages to mark-up later.
• A place to be inspired by books that people leave on tables.

A public library (as opposed to a school library - though, those are important too) is place where a nerdy girl can sit and learn about the world without having to deal with peer pressure or fend off questions about 'how far she's gone with a boy'?

• A place to be around people without being really having to interact with them.
• A place that provides me with unending optimism for the human race. Every opportunity that a child does not discover at home or at school, they can still discover at their public library for free. Classical music, opera, films, novels, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, plays, magazines - a wealth of specific information that's been edited and peer-reviewed available for free!

The library is critical to my idea of a functioning society. It is like an intellectual safety net and vitally important to new immigrants learning English - and Toronto is mostly immigrants (including me). Is it naive and hopeful to think that at least Toronto's homeless can find something to read when they wake up from their nap at the Reference Library? Sure. But once the homeless or low-income are at the library, isn't it a relief to know that if they need to look up a shelter or go to a seminar on fighting bedbugs that help is available?

I believe in libraries because I believe in self-improvement and knowledge being power, or at least, that the withholding of knowledge leads to powerlessness. In the library I didn't have to call my mother constantly to quell her worrying, it was, in a way, the place I could be most free as a 13-year-old. I didn't have to divulge what I chose to look at or read. I grew up in a fairly well-read, liberal household, but if I'd grown up in a more closed-minded atmosphere, the library would be the place where I could safely explore beyond the limits that others set up. The library was an important part of my childhood and adolescence. And if I end up old and alone, the library (whether in building form, or mobile, with large-print and audio books) is where I will find the solace and comfort and company of books.

I guess Edward P. Morgan (in Clearing the Air, 1963) already said it better:

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

Curated Shelving

Wait, wait, that post below, with the shelf?

The designers are Mike and Maaike, and you can learn more about this shelf at their site. It is first in a series of "curated shelves". This one is called "Religion" and is created to hold "the world's most influential religious texts together".

I'm more in love with the design than the idea of someone else curating my books. (I'm picky.)

The idea of my books sitting snugly in their own little cubbies, or aligned from the tops rather than the bottom kinda thrills me.

Scream 2009

What kind of blogger am I, that I completely neglected to blog or thus attend this year's The Scream Literary Festival?!
The theme this year is "The Book is Dead". Go check out the wake-like Day of the Dead-ish atmosphere.

I aim to be at Wednesday's event, but tonight's is cool too. If you're in T.O. and want to go to the Dennis Lee Reading and dinner on Friday with me, leave a note in the comments.

Tomorrow I'm Fringe-ing. Toronto, you have too many festivals in the summer and it is delicious and frustrating.

16 Fake Rules Worth Reading

Pete Tarslaw's 16 Rules of Novel Writing (as posted by The Ragbag*) is hilarious.

The list of rules is from How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely, which drops July 8th.

Hat tip Mich, who always alerts me to cool things.


*sorry Tammy, but that's the name of the blog!

Harping (Happily) on Harpers

FREE stories from HarperCollins editor Cal Morgan, one per week, at FiftyTwoStories.com. Yippee!

HarperPerennial, imprint of the way awesome covers, has its own blog, The Olive Reader. Add some vodka and vermouth and I'm all set.

What is this "new book publishing model" thing, HarperStudio? I don't know yet, but I aim to find out. I know, I ought to read before I blog, but that would delay the posts even further. I'll come back to this. I think I need to blog the ongoing debate amongst friends as to whether to e-book or not to e-book.

What I'm Reading

I tend to inadvertently read on themes. I don't do it onpurpose, but I start several books, and then when I stack them together, I realize they all connect. I guess my subconscious takes care of it.



I'm reading The Wicked Son by David Mamet. I'm re-reading The Merchant of Venice and The Outsider by Albert Camus.

I really did not enjoy The Outsider in high school, but I was full of pep and vigour then, and was quite repulsed by Existentialism. Camus' writing is much better than I remember. I've never warmed to Existentialism, but I'll see how I feel at the end of the book.

I also forgot that Merchant has one of my favourite openings of Shakespeare's plays, which I often misattributed to Romeo and Juliet.

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you.
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.

I'll write more when I finish reading them.

More Disgrace/Scandal/Debt

I haven't learned to think before I blog. (And probably won't, so don't hold your breath.)

Disgrace and Notes on a Scandal are two very different books. And neither is really about an affair between a teacher and a student.


That is the incident that gets the ball rolling. It's a significant event, but both novels deal much more with power and loneliness. Sex (including rape and statutory rape) is a charged catharsis with vast political aftershocks.

The problem I have with Disgrace is that I never, at any point, liked this protagonist. I understood him, sure, but I spent two hours this evening in the company of a character I didn't like and never grew to love. I appreciated his principles (as far as he stood by them), but the protagonist's (psychological) affect was more reminiscent of Camus' The Outsider. I could not find a way to believe the relationship between him and his daughter, either. Maybe there is something about this aging-man POV I don't get or can't slip vicariously into; I've never read About Schmidt, but I'm not sure I should bother.

Coetzee is as erudite as his anti-hero, so the writing - the actual choice and placement of the words - is strong. The story moves along, and it did agitate me enough (at least intellectually) that I bit my nails. That's a good sign. I just didn't love anyone in the book at all. Is there a clinical detachment here from the writer? Or am I simply very sentimental as a reader, drawn to more sentimental stories? The novel was realistic, but realism does not always move me.

Both Notes on a Scandal and The Debt to Pleasure have strange broken characters who are somehow fun (or interesting) to inhabit, despite being unlovable. You love them in their despicable actions, in their twisted self-preserving logic.

Disgrace is a far-reaching novel. It touches on many themes with intelligence and depth, yet the emotional experience was tepid. Perhaps it is one of those books that will stay with me longer than I expect. Perhaps I am not well-read enough, and don't know enough of the classic literature references. (Like reading Camille Paglia or Harold Bloom, I felt very ignorant as to all the classics I have not read, and the potential layers of meaning I was missing.) Then again, a work should stand on its own.

I'm glad I read it (so people can stop telling me to read it), but will I walk past it at the bookstore, and grab my friend's arm, and say, "Hey! Have you read this?" while jabbing at its cover? No.

(Though I have to add: I really like the cover!)

Scandal and Disgrace

This is a lazy blog post.

"The present letter blog post is a very long
one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter."
Blaise Pascal Lettres Provinciales, XVI

If I save this as a draft, I'll never come back to it, so I'm posting it as "rough notes" and perhaps I'll write more on this later. Keep in mind I haven't finished reading Disgrace yet. Feel free to add your thoughts and free associations in the comments!

From the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1993):

Scandal
n 1- cause of public outrage
2- outrage etc. so caused
3- malicious gossip

Disgrace
n 1- shame; ignominy
v 2- dismiss from a position of honour or favour

Disgrace (1999)
- a male professor sleeps with a young female student
- male writer: J. M. Coetzee
- Booker Prize Winner (1999)
- Nobel Prize Winner (2003)
- motion picture starring John Malcovich (2008)
- screenplay by Anna Maria Monticelli
- (recommended to me by two different men in their forties - not teachers!)

Notes on a Scandal (2003)
- a female teacher sleeps with a young male student
- female writer: Zoe Heller
- Man Booker Prize shortlist
- motion picture starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judy Dench (BAFTA, Oscar, Golden Globe nominations for both) (2006)
- screenplay by Patrick Marber
- (picked it up because I was impressed with the film cast and the library book's cover)

Wikipedia on sexual relationships between students and teachers.

My initial thought that led to this blog post was simply, did one deserve the Nobel Prize and not the other? (One might ask, is the Nobel Prize worth winning with this judge's attitude?)

I just cut 133 words re: gender bias, 'cause I had nothing new to say: Men have dominated as short/longlisted authors, jury members, and winners in the past 30 years. I didn't want to wade into gender-bias issues.

But can you discuss sexual relations between a teacher and a student without wading into gender issues? It's a tangled mess of gender-roles, age-differences, power-wielding, and questions of consent.

So:
Have you read both?
How do they compare?
What did you think?
Did you see either movie?
Are they more similar to each other, or to other works? (Oleanna and Pretty Persuasion or others?)

Well? You only get points if you participate.

The Portable MFA

I got The Portable MFA from the library. I am on page 28. So far it is excellent. I've worked through my mini-drought and I've written 793 words this evening. Hurrah.

The book is meant to be a portable summary of the lessons you'd learn in the New York Writer's Workshop and so far, the fiction portion is quite good. (It also address magazine, screenplay, and non-fiction writing.)

I especially recommend the Introduction by Tim Tomlinson where he discusses the uses of an MFA (and abuses, too, in programs that are poorly taught by lazy teachers). His list of top ten flaws of Creative Writing MFA programs should be required reading for anyone applying to/pursuing an MFA program and for those teaching one.

While there is nothing radical in the fiction section, I much prefer Tomlinson's approach to teaching plot and structure to McKee's. A lot of the story set-ups he examines are familiar, but I've never looked at them with a writerly perspective as story forms.

So far so good. I'll let you know what else I discover.

Honey Cake II

This is not the season for honey cake.

Purim is coming up and that means different kinds of treats, but I just read a story called Honey Cake.

It describes the invasion of Denmark during WWII, from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy. It is, like honey cake, dense without being too heavy, and sweet. Denmark's king, if you'll recall, was a brave and honourable soul.

Naturally, when I read about food, I get the urge to eat it or cook it, and there is a recipe in the back which I can't wait to try.

Here is a review from Quill & Quire that I pretty much agree with.

This is How I Like Them Apples

I'm reading Apple: A History of Canada's Perfect Fruit by Carol Martin. I'm still at the beginning, but it's a great story of the apple, wild and cultivated, including which varieties were native to Canada and how different varieties got here. So that naturally led to more googling, and I found the following (emphasis mine):

From Apple Journal regarding Red Delicious:

The most controversial and widely distributed American apple. Red Delicious stores and ships so well, while retaining its shiny deep-red good looks, that it is sold in every possible state of internal disintegration. Too often, store bought Reds are little more than cardboard flavored, mealy mush beneath their glamorous skin. Still, Americans continue to buy it more than all other varieties combined. It can be a pretty good apple under the right conditions. Look for locally grown apples in season, and don't insist on a uniformly dark red color, and the chances of getting a better apple will improve in your favor. Many growers are now growing strains that have been developed more for flavor than for looks. Don't defeat their efforts by rejecting apples that don't look as though they came from a plastic injection molding machine. Remember this simple rule- art is a matter of visual esthetics and food is a matter of taste- not the other way around.

The problem is now the consumers of Red Delicious (whoever they are) are used to seeing perfect-looking shiny fruit. Re-introducing a more Delicious, but less Red apple will likely be an uphill battle.

Apple Journal seems to be somewhere between a trade journal and a promotional site. At any rate, I couldn't agree more with the description above. I never buy Red Delicious, partly 'cause they're too sweet, but mostly 'cause there's no way to tell a good from a bad one. Too much googling and now I'm daydreaming about orchards full of heirloom strains like Snow and Court Pendu Plat.

*
Update: More on the "Keep Calm" poster soon!

Atwood's Not Going to Dubai

Margaret Atwood has decided not to go to Dubai for the Emirate Airlines International Festival of Literature. The Gulf Between Us, written by Geraldine Bedell, contains mention of a gay Sheik and his English boyfriend as minor characters and has been banned in the UAE.

According to The Guardian (and you can guess how much store I put by The Guardian),

In a letter to Isobel Abulhoul, the festival's director, Atwood wrote that "as an international vice-president of Pen, an organisation concerned with the censorship of writers, I cannot be part of the festival this year".

This year? Like "I'll be specific and diplomatic, 'cause I'm Canadian and polite" or "Just wait till I'm done with this PEN thing"?

I'm surprised that so many authors agreed to go, without suspecting that something like this would happen.

Statements from other authors and the Director of English PEN here.

I do have a problem with Penguin waiting five months on this news - coughpublicitycough, but I have a bigger problem with this from The Times Online:

Sir Ranulph Fiennes said the festival organisers were merely being practical. “I think that if anybody out there wants to establish a festival of some sort, they would be rather stupid to offend the locals in any way.”

Hm, well, then don't have an "international" festival. Or set the guidelines ahead of time - "nothing may happen in your book that is punishable by UAE law in real life". The Toronto Film Festival offends locals annually. This quote, if it's real, makes the explorer sound like a spoiled fool who has never given too much thought to freedom because he's had the money to open doors. I respect him for his SAS training and charity work, but there's a difference between "not offending the locals" when they're going to help you find the next wadi, and "not offending the locals" at a festival of literature. Also, does he speak for the gay locals? Or did I miss something - is the UAE, like Iran, not home to any homosexuals?

Blog Bookkake has listed agent contacts for the authors that are attending, as well as a link to a facebook protest group. (Don't blame me for their blog name!)

Unfortunately, now I feel compelled to read "The Gulf Between Us" when it becomes available and it doesn't even look like my cup of tea.

Reading

Right now I'm reading:

Gilded Lilies - was in the graphic novel section of the library, but seems more like collected sketches (Jillian Tamaki)
Good Advice on Writing - out of print compilation of quotations (William Safire and Leonard Safir)
Thierry Mugler - part of the Universe of Fashion series (Francois Baudot)
Heat - I'm listening to the audio-book from the library and I am dismayed to see it is abridged. The hardcover is available now on super sale! (Bill Buford)
The Far Euphrates - finished this. It was moving and elegant and I recommend it. I bought it on clearance, but now find that it's apparently out of print, which is strange. (Aryeh Lev Stollman)

That Book from your Childhood

Loganberry Books is a bookstore in Ohio that also sells books online.
Even better, proprietess Harriett offers an amazing service called Stump the Bookseller.

So you know that book you loved as a child, but all you can remember was that it had a girl and a white pony, and the pony's name was snowball or snowdrop or something - and oh yeah, there was a really wicked witch in it?*

Well, you send Harriet $2 via Paypal and a description of the book. She, and various readers who are librarians or teachers, or just book-lovers like me, search and write in with info to help you out. If Harriet finds the book for you she'll get it and you can buy it.

What is most amazing about this site is not the joy when the book is found, but the sheer number of stories people remember from their childhoods. I love that a book can be out of print since 1923 and yet, someone was so touched by an element of the story that they will remember it (and look for it) 50 years later. It is a beautiful testament to the power of stories and how they continue to move and inspire, delight (or creep out) years after you first read or hear them.

* Reading descriptions of books with the keyword "witch" reminded me of the title for the out-of-print (and now quite pricey) The Wickedest Witch in the World which I thought had been lost in my subconscious forever! Author Beverly Nichols was apparently a gentleman.

Don't Get Me Wrong, Some of My Best Fiction is Science!

David Barnett present a good article (with a great title) about one of my personal bete-noirs: science fiction that refuses to be labeled so.

This annoyed me when Philip K. Dick moved from the Science Fiction section to the Fiction section at the store, 'cause he had "moved into the literary cannon", as my teacher at the time said. I call foul. His work is, was, and will always be science fiction - so why does he get "elevated" to the Fiction aisle, while Harlan Ellison stays in the Science Fiction section? (Did it have more to do with the movie "Minority Report" coming out at the time?)

What puts Oryx and Crake in Fiction? Is Margaret Atwood better than Octavia Butler? Puh-leeze.

Science Fiction, or SF, gets a bad rap because of it's hokey genre associations. Mystery novels, however, don't attract the same disrespect. You can write genre mystery or literary mystery, and your work will be in the mystery aisle with no one pooh-poohing it either way. But if you happen to have a science fiction slant to your novel, then your publisher will take great pains to keep it quarantined from the Science Fiction/Fantasy section. It's just snobbery and makes me grumpy. (As I mentioned a few posts ago, Jonathan Lethem's book was SF marketed as "literary" and still crap.)

I'd be quite happy to do away with most of the categories in the bookstore starting with "Books for Her" tables and "African-American" shelves. I don't like ghettos for people or for the written word.

Spider Robinson wrote an article once delineating between what he writes, "science fiction", and that other, silly genre stuff, "sci-fi". To me, it was a meaningless distinction. (Sorry, I can't find it to post.) IMO, the cream will rise to the top no matter what you call it, and people will gravitate to whatever stories they want in the moment. You could put Anna Karenina in the Romance section and no one's gonna mistake it for The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Wife!

There is a lot of good science fiction out there - Heinlein, Willis, Butler, Robinson, Varley, Hopkinson, and Ellison are just a few. So for "mainstream" authors to write science fiction and then shirk the label does a disservice to all the great SF out there. Why are we still at the not that there's anything wrong with that stage? If, as an author, writing SF is an aberration for you, it would be much classier to say, "There's a lot of excellent science fiction out there, and I'm proud of the company my book is in".

What do you think? Does it matter to you if it's called science fiction, sci-fi, or speculative fiction? If you had to get your Murakami fix from the SF section, would you be caught dead there? What about vampire fiction - is it going to demand its own section in the basement?

Wishlist

I want to go see this Valentina exhibit in New York for Valentine's Day!

Then I'd catch this off-Broadway play, Becky Shaw. (Off-Broadway tix half-price from Feb. 15 - March 1st!) I'd hop on over and see this Raymond Chandler discussion/exhibit too. I love pulp, I love noir, I love photography, and I couldn't get through "The Big Sleep". This way I would get to hear les smarty-pantses talk about it. I'd go even though Jonathan Lethem will be speaking. The only book of his I've read is As She Climbed Across the Table, which has prevented me from reading anything else he's written.

But before all this - and this is the biggest wish - I would jet on over to Paris and see Dita at Le Crazy Horse! Starting at only 100 euros and including a half-bottle of champagne! (Except at 100 euros, why can't they give me a full-size bottle?!)

Since I'm wishing anyway, I'll throw in some Bulgari jewels and some chocolate bars. Oh heck, and these too. But in the green suede. I couldn't find a photo or I'd make a shrine post it.

Speaking of wishes, shouldn't the tooth fairy revisit us all in our old age? Just an idea.

Who am I and what do I write - Part III

Wandering Jews? is part of this year's Limmud, a festival of Jewish learning and culture.

"Wandering Jews?" looks like it grapples with some of the questions I raised in my previous posts, in terms of identity in the writing of Jewish writers. The seminar, however, will focus more on "place" and what is "home" and how or whether Judaism informs the idea of home in a Jewish writer's work.

The panelists are Adam Sol, Sidura Ludwig, and Rebecca Rosenblum.

Limmud (which means "learning" in Hebrew, I think) takes place on Sunday, February 15, 209. This particular seminar goes from 4:35PM–5:45PM. Maybe I'll see you there.

Who am I and what do I write - Part II

In my last post I discussed whether I should "write what I know" in reference to my Judaism, and I posed the question, "What are my stories?".

Here is another look at an answer.
The problem with "my stories" is that I am reticent to claim ownership. Are they really mine?

They are my parents', my aunts' and uncles', my grandparents' stories. Do I ask for them and begin tape-recording, listening diligently? And then what? Would I have what it takes to shape them with the respect and finesse they deserve? Why do it? Can I give my relatives back their own memories? Would I be a writer or a ventriloquist?

Would I be honouring my genealogical history or exploiting my family for material?

I would guess that to a storyteller in the oral tradition, like Dan Yashinsky, stories can belong to one person (or group), but can be told by anyone as long as they are told faithfully. He is quoted as saying,

"Stories show you that other people have traveled before you," he says. "They show you that no matter what is happening in your life, someone else has gone there before you. Someone else has been there, come back, and at least has a good story to show for it."

Some of these stories (like those of my family) have already been told by writers like Andree Aciman in Out of Egypt, Hisham Matar in In the Country of Men, and Lucette Lagnado's The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. Aciman's memoir beautifully and painfully renders Alexandria and the expulsion of Egypt's Jews, and Matar (whom I have not yet read), tells of the fear of his (non-Jewish) family during Khadafi's rise to power. Lagnado relates the contrast of her father's dashing life in Cairo society till Nasser's rise, and the cost on the family of delaying their departure from Egypt.

Some of my own childhood feels "told" in the first story (about Russian Jews in 1980s Toronto) in Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmosgis. What my parents may have felt upon their arrival to Canada was projected so intensely on top of my own memories that I found it hard to breathe.

If I am to record the stories I have heard all my life, I must do it soon. These inherited stories are not mine directly, but I am free to try and preserve them or keep them in trust for future generations.

My friend, an Egyptian Christian (Copt), who introduced me to "Out of Egypt" says that even though it is not exactly his story, nothing comforts him and takes him back to his youth like the description of old Alexandria in the novel.

Maybe I won't know who the stories belong to until they are read.

Who am I and what do I write - Part I

When I visited my sister in Kansas the week before last, we went to services at a synagogue she was thinking of joining. I met a women there who ran a book group that focused mainly on books with Jewish themes.

"Are there any Jewish themes in your writing?" she asked.

"No," I said. "But I don't know why not."

*

If I'm supposed to write what I know, shouldn't I be writing... Jewish?
What are my stories? I am not a product of Ashkenazi Montreal in it's heyday - that incubator of Jewish literature. I am a transplanted Israeli, who came of age and happily assimilated in Canada. I can't (or won't) throw around "Bubbie" and "Zaidi" with any authenticity, and I don't want to be writing some kind of Jewish schtick. (Which, when I tried to read Goy Crazy on the recommendation of a friend, found that I couldn't choke down the first page. Sorry.)

*

So far, I have worked on chick-lit, YA, mystery and short stories. There is nothing overtly Jewish about any of the writing I've completed, and it would be far-fetched to say there are any "hidden" Jewish themes.

I don't want to create grotesque stereotypes, but I don't want to create two-dimensional Jews either. (In this 2003 article by Kera Bolonik , Grace from Will & Grace is lauded as a positive Jewish character on TV, but I had no idea the character was Jewish till the words "bat mitzvah" flew out of her mouth one day. I see Bolonik's point, but I always found Grace's Judaism superficial.)

Howard Engel's detective, Benny Cooperman, on the other hand, believably goes to his aging parents' house for Shabbat dinner, and reads like an authentically-drawn character whose Judaism is a fully integrated part of him.

As I've worked on this post I wonder if my problem is with my protagonist's name. If she is Jewish, then I've given her an Ashkenazi name: Mara Liefe. This means that I've set myself up for writing out of ignorance (or relying on popular representations of Ashkenazi culture to a large degree). Giving her a Sephardi or Mizrahi last name might allow me to create a more realistic Jewish protagonist - I could truly write what I know.

For now, as I revise structure and plot, this is a moot point, but soon Mara will have to leap off the page and into an agent's (or publisher's) heart. I will need to figure out whether writing Mara Jewish will make her a stronger character - or me a better writer.

Update

Last week I went to Kansas to visit my sister. Hurray for sisters and God bless America (and Boxing Week sales). Came home. Caught a cold. Stayed home for three days. Went out today to see humans and go to the library.

One day I will write a post about how much I love libraries, but today is not that day. I took out a book about cooking with your toaster oven. I am a big fan of toaster ovens, but that deserves a separate post too. A toast post. (I'm hilaaaarious.)

Any writing done?

Finally, yes! One fairy tale written (needs another pass or ten), and five chapters of Novel #1 revised tonight. Hurray!

Otherwise, I'm on a Michael Chabon reading kick, and a Cary Grant watching spree. (You don't really need an html link for Cary Grant, do you?)

As for 2009 - I have no goals, no impressions, no visions, no nuthin'. 2009 is a blank slate. 2009 is so blank it is practically see-through. And that's as deep as I get at 4:00am.