Cosmic Prose

Natasha Regehr

Tag: criticism

Maybe!

June 18, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I have been stressing out about French. Have you noticed? Likely not, because you think I’m still obsessing about the Royal Wedding.  Forget that.  I’m over it.

No, French is my ongoing obsession, more than ever now, as the stakes creep higher in equal proportion to my rising self-doubt.

What if I can’t do it? What if, no matter how much I study and how long I persist, I never pass beyond the blundering idiot phase of language learning? Oh, sure, I’m less of a blundering idiot than I was three years ago, when I couldn’t say, “I want to walk up the hill.” But the subjunctive has its own mode of blunder induction (did you catch that, French-speakers? Its own mode?).  The more I learn, the more I blunder.

Now, these rising stakes of which I speak so melodramatically.  What are they? Well, you know.  Employment. That about sums it up.  You see, I miss Canada. Continue reading

Royal Wedding Recant

May 23, 2018 / / 1 Comment

True story: I posted my Royal Wedding Rant in the wee hours of the night, and then hastily took it down the next morning, when, in the cold light of day, I realized that I had typified myself as a bitter old woman with no hope – but not before a robust 39 people had had the opportunity to read it and form opinions about my perceived state of ongoing misery.

Therefore I feel I must further unpack my comments, and perhaps qualify them with a few points that, in my state of royal grumpiness, I had overlooked.

First: I stand by my suggestion that perhaps there was a touch too much money poured into this particular matrimonial event. No woman, princess or not, needs a $600,000 wedding dress.  I also feel duly entitled to my opinion that all of the media hoop-la was a little excessive.  But then again, I feel the same way about the idolization of rich and famous people in general.  I simply have no interest in pop culture and its dull derivatives.  I prefer dead baroque musicians.  Call me quirky.

So there we go.  The royal wedding phenomenon, as a newsworthy event, struck me as a rather silly over-investment of time and money, when there are so many more interesting things in the world with which to occupy oneself.  French grammar, for instance.  I truly do get a kick out of French grammar.

Yes, I’ll concede that I’m an anomaly when it comes to entertainment.

But that does not make me a bitter old woman with no hope.  For that, we must address my feelings about weddings, and marriage, in general.  And that is a stickier topic indeed. Continue reading

Royal Wedding Rant

May 20, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Here is my embarrassing, uncensored rant, in all of its original pathetic-ness.  Please, if you must read it, read my Royal Wedding Recant, too.

I hated the royal wedding.  I hated every minute of it.  I hated the pomp, the false religiosity, the needless expenditures, the manufactured sentimentalism.  I hated the way the swooning public lapped it up, as dished to them by the cooing media. I am dumbfounded that people would camp out for hours for a glimpse of what is really just two human beings signing a perfectly ordinary contract.

What I hated the most were the promises.  Have and hold, love and cherish, blah blah blah… Imperfect human beings simply cannot keep those promises, regardless of their lineage, their celebrity status, or their perceived levels of infatuation with one another.  Do you realize what you’re doing? You are making a solemn vow that you will need to keep for your entire life.  And you won’t be able to do it. Continue reading

Greece, Part 2: A Little Gruff Around the Edges

November 6, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Greeks can be gruff.  This is my studied opinion after spending a week in the myth-infused homeland of the gods, with its gruesome stories of bickering deities vying for power and favour.

My Airbnb hostess in Athens was the first to freak out at me.  “Why are you late? You should have called! I have a baby! I’ve been waiting for you in this apartment for eight hours now!”  For the record, I was not eight hours late, my hostess lived a mere 15 minutes away from the apartment, and I communicated with her the instant my plane landed, so now that I think about it, I’m kind of sorrynotsorry…

Then came the old couple on the ferry.  The ones who freaked out when I took one of six empty seats around a table, because they had, in absentia, appropriated all six seats for themselves – only to abandon them after I meekly relocated.   I sat at the next table and gave them the evil eye for the rest of the trip.  Yeah, mister.  You’d better get out your worry beads. Continue reading

Greece, Part 1: Taking the Plunge

October 22, 2017 / / 1 Comment

IMG_4731I love water.  I love being in water.  I love being in deep water.  I love being upside down in deep water.  I love gliding through it, feeling its silky caress against my skin.  I love the aquamarine blueness of it, the way the light dances through it, the way I drift and float and submerge and emerge with perfect ease and grace.  I love the serenity of this glowing world to which I can escape and suspend time — until my lungs oblige me to surface for a little bit of oxygen.

You can imagine, then, the appeal of staying in this underwater world indefinitely, unconcerned about the trivialities of inhaling and exhaling — just drifting from one delight to the next in a slow ballet of submarine bliss.

Scuba diving, I thought, is exactly what my life has been missing.  I must go scuba diving.  I will be a natural at manoeuvring through this liquid paradise.  I will feel utterly at ease in my favoured element.

Not so. Continue reading

This Reader and Her Romance

February 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments

This Reader and Her Romance

Do you hate Valentine’s Day? Well here’s a little gem from back in 2010, when I was academically obliged to analyze a case study of a bunch of Harlequin Romance addicts from the 1970s.  Part of the assignment was to read and respond to a romance novel myself, and compare my experience to that of the readers in Janice Radway’s study.  I confess, I had a little fun…

Continue reading

How Do You Solve a Problem Like…

September 20, 2015 / / 4 Comments

Sound-of-music-nuns-630x315This is what it’s like to audition for a choir in Casablanca.

First, you email the director, in impeccable French (or, should I say, infantile French that has been nicely elevated by your conveniently bilingual pal back in pleasantly predictable Canada). The director emails you back –eventually– in a casual French that lacks the standards of punctuation and capitalization to which you have grown accustomed in such exchanges. No matter. She is a native speaker. You will allow her this linguistic license.

The content of her message is, essentially, “call me, maybe.”

The second step in auditioning for a choir in Casablanca is a brief moment of panic. Continue reading

Writer

On Criticism

October 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I was fortunate today to attend an inspiring writer’s workshop with a pretty welcoming and inclusive crowd; my first such experience, however, was not quite so affirming.  Here’s a brash little tale about a critic from my rather distant past.

She trundles into class on the first day and everyone acknowledges her with an affectionate respect. I wonder why.

The first thing is her posture. It plots with her rather unremarkable clothing to create a bag lady effect. I feel sorry for her. How brave of her to come. Continue reading

Bucket List

August 24, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I am angry with this thing called Cancer. Most of us are. We often hear it said that Cancer has “touched everyone’s lives” in some way. This is true. And it’s natural to hate the thing that causes loss.

But that’s not why I’m angry with Cancer. I’m angry with Cancer because I’m jealous of it. I have been for years. It’s infantile, I know, but I have wished it upon my family. “Cancer,” I have thought, “would be better than this.”

Let me tell you why.

Continue reading

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