This is Not a Message

Not a message, just sharing some amazing lyrics off Paul Simon's "Surprise" album. I took it out from the library, and I may have to buy it.

Another Galaxy (by Paul Simon)

On the morning of her wedding day, when no one was awake, she drove across the border. Leaving all the yellow roses on her wedding cake. Her mother's tears, her breakfast order.
She's gone, gone, gone.
There is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime.
When your eyes are blind with tears, but your heart can see: another life, another galaxy.

That night her dreams are storm-tossed as a willow. She hears the clouds, she sees the eye of a hurricane, as it sweeps across her island pillow.
But she's gone, gone, gone.
There is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime.
When your eyes are blind with tears, but your heart can see:
Another life, another galaxy.

Domestic Abuse

WendyB linked to Topaz Horizon on her blog in talking about domestic abuse. (I'm not linking, 'cause Wendy got the permission, not me - but DO check out Wendy's blog!) The blogger at Topaz Horizon discusses her own experience of being in an abusive relationship, and it is eye-opening.
I can't really comment on the lives of celebrities, (though of course I do), because by the time we read something on the internet lord knows how many ways it's been distorted. In the case of the singer currently in the news, I hope the people closest to her are watching the situation like hawks. Hawks with guns.

However, if you know a teen you might want to share these posters with her or him. They were a joint project with the Speers Society, the Toronto Police, and Kids Help Phone, and designed by students from Seneca College. I think they do a good job of addressing how abuse might present in a teen relationship, and what it does to the abused party (isolate, destroy self-esteem, etc.). I post them here without permission, but if you want to order them or find out more, there is contact info here.

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.