then there's the people

who tell you all the books they love about Africa. Books by:

Karen Blixen.
Kuki Gallman.
Alexandra Fuller.
Paul Theroux.
Wilfred Thesiger.
Alexander McCall Smith.

I'm trying to compile a parallel list to reel off at parties - favourite books about America, written only by non-white, non-American, non-resident writers.

While I'm at it, I'm also working on a little spiel about the word expatriate. Which means: white person in the global South. I've never been considered an expatriate in Europe or America. Brown, black, yellow people are immigrants. Everyone knows the difference.

the nature of invisibility

is that we don't see what it is we're not seeing.

Like the man I spoke to recently, who would consider himself a literate, well-educated, cosmopolitan, progressive world citizen. He told me that reading fiction is an essential part of his life. I asked him who his favourite authors were. He reeled off about 15 names, from around the world, smiled widely, said: You can see I have a global appetite.

No, I said gently. You have half a global appetite.

He looked irritated, as people do when you puncture their self-congratulation in a way they can't grasp.

In your whole list, I said, there's only two women. Don't you find it strange to read just half the human race?

just fooling around

I'm in the final 6 hours of editing and shaping the script for Migritude's premiere on November 5th. And of course, I'm freaking out with all my usual paralytic terrors:

1) It's too big, too messy, too unwieldy. Where do I start?

2) Any choices I make about what to include, what to cut, how to arrange pieces, will be the wrong choices. Then I'll be stuck with the regrets for all eternity.

3) Everything I'm saying has been said before - and better.

4) It's got to be perfect. Each line must be the best line I've ever written.

So I drink endless cups of coffee, answer trifling emails, go for walks around the block, research studio space, update the production budget, book travel, do laundry, obsess over finances, cruise the websites of other artists I'm jealous of, panic about marketing and timelines - all to put off that moment of opening the document, and engaging with the text.

In the throes of this avoidance, I wander into my local bookshop, and pick up Julia Cameron's Vein of Gold. Open it at random, and read a paragraph that likens paralytic artist perfectionism to performance anxiety about sex. How we think that if we don't have the perfect formula to make the work earthshaking, orgasmic, we freeze. If we can't control and orchestrate every detail according to our fantasy of How It Should Be, we starve ourselves of the simple touch and cuddle, the kiss on the cheek, the daily hug. How regular frequent fooling around with our work is what keeps the marriage hot. Not the tired mythical fireworks-and-champagne, penthouse suite, Valentine's Day weekend.

So I came home to nuzzle my script. To blow raspberries on her belly. To search out her ticklish spots. To put on our favourite music, neck and giggle and make out until 3am, when I will finally stretch out against her, full length, body to body. Inhale, belly expanding into her. Exhale. Say:

I think we're done here, love.

Google: the Evil Empire?

According to someone I met, a leading researcher on the internet, Google are terrible violators of privacy. If you have a gmail account, here's the information they store about you:

1) your IP address
2) your raw search strings
3) your email address (in gmail)
4) list of email addresses you communicate with
5) the ads that you might click on a result of searches
6) google page ad syndication reports back to google other ads you click on even if you don't use google

Does it make you feel a little queasy that a single company holds this much info about you?

Google does not have a stated policy that they will not cross link databases. So there's nothing to stop them constructing a super-powerful per-user information database. What do you think the odds are that they won't sell this information, when it becomes expedient? Or turn it over to federal authorities, or repressive regimes, on demand?

I'm back!!!!

Giddy with relief. Haven't been able to access my accounts on blogger.com for 5 days. They've introduced a beta version, linked to gmail, and it wouldn't let me log in, or when it did, my accounts had vanished.

I thought I might have lost my entire blog archive. I had nightmares about not being able to update my calendar in the crucial lead-up to Migritude's premiere.

For the last 5 days, I've been shooting frantic emails at blogger.com's Help address, only to receive rote referrals to their help topics. I've begged my web designer to switch me to another blog program - her response was:


I think more patience and being more persistent with Blogger will give you more positive results. Getting locked out of your car doesn't mean it's time to buy a new car.

Two minutes ago, I finally got a real response, from what seemed to be a real person, at blogger.com, directing me to an alternative login page.

My obviously delusional sense of online security has been yanked abruptly out from under me. Chapters from Margaret Atwood's brilliant book, The Handmaid's Tale, where all the women in North America wake up one day to find all their accounts and assets frozen and inaccessible, are scrolling inside my brain.