“Just as an anthropologist’s presence among the group he is studying can alter the behaviour of the group, or as the bombarding of an atom alters the pattern it is meant to illuminate, so the style in which an artist explores reality may alter the thing explored.”
-The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

--------------------------

Laurie Lansens, author of Rush Home Road, and more recently The Girls*, wrote in the new Quill and Quire about a book she thought was forthcoming until she had to abandon it: “I began to write my story, slowly at first, then more slowly, and slower still. Like walking on a fractured bone, it didn’t matter how slowly I was writing, it was painful. I blamed exhaustion, the demands of the children, my basement workspace, anything to explain why the process was so difficult.”

Quel dommage. So today, instead of pretending I’d write the big book about all the people, I baked a cake. I photographed it in my basement. Please note: wood paneling, 1977-1986 National Geographics, and the Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’. Happy Birthday Miriam. If you see this blog before your party tomorrow, that’s your birthday cake.



Notes:
* The Girls: It’s about two Siamese twins conjoined at the head, and the correct term for this condition escapes me. I just started it.