Spring Fever

Often, when a flu lingers, or my irritable bowel picks up speed, or my gall bladder (and its accompanying organs) hurt, I sometimes forget to take stock of all that is going on in my life – those kinds of things that might exacerbate my symptoms. And sometimes I find that enumerating helps me put my life and events into (or is that in?) perspective. (I guess the preposition choice depends on a person’s perspective.)

First off, it’s that work-out-of-home time of year, which I love, but which also brings with it a certain amount of increased tension. It’s one thing to write an email, a blog or a novel. Those grammar mistakes don’t bother me in the same way that editing for public consumption does. More, I don’t want to disappoint those people who have put faith in me, trusting that I am qualified and capable of finding, and fixing, mistakes. Add to that divergent opinions, and editing can be a busy, gut-churning time.

Second, which is really first on my mind, my daughter is slated to have surgery this Thursday – as long as her cold disappears in a day. I am always anxious when anyone, let alone my daughter, is having surgery, even when the surgery is considered minor. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I picked up a lot of little knowledge those ten years I worked in health care. I am sure (I hope I hope I hope) that all will go well. Clearly, my daughter is not in the most minor way concerned. But I am a mother after all, and it is a mother’s privilege to worry.

Third, I am supposed to be going for regular physiotherapy, but cannot get myself there when I feel this way. I have not been keeping up with the exercises, and worse, paranoia always leads me to terror when I imagine what all that deep laser and electricity might do to further upset my body. Still, I was feeling so much better, and I really really like the capable man who is treating me.

Fourth, I have a relative who I have not known for the bulk of my life, but who persists in emailing me once, sometimes twice, a year, usually with abusive intent and hurling invectives. This year she cropped up to let me know that she had sent my email address and personal information to another relative, a relative she has always claimed to intensely dislike; a person she describes as someone who “has done nothing with his life” and “who relies on handouts.” (She tends to make proper nouns out of common ones, too, but I haven’t the heart to replicate that.) I am not sure what disproportionate sense of entitlement allows a person to take such deeply personal tasks upon herself, but I am crossing my fingers and bowing to the east that she will, finally, leave me alone. Still, it’s enough to make a person bloat with dis-ease.

Fifth, the mortgage renewal is taking place this month, which, while not exactly terrifying, always produces angst. I am never comfortable inside financial institutions, or with money, and while being debt-free (because “a house is an investment, not a debt”) produces a fleeting feeling of comfort, I  don’t like to talk about things like houses and cars or other major purchases. The kinds of purchases I like to discuss are the sorts of items I have wrapped up and packed for Easter weekend, although even happy news (Easter weekend) can cause its own sort of excited stomach ache. (Where’s the wine?)

Sixth, I am waiting, fingers crossed crossed crossed crossed crossed on behalf of an industrious, good living woman – waiting to see if the work news she is hoping for will finally come through.

Seventh, I am a seasonal person. When the weather changes – even, and especially, from grey and damp to this period of glorious warmth and sun – I find myself feeling anxious. As each season goes by, and as life progresses, I realize what I have not yet accomplished, and I am inevitably disappointed in myself. Why haven’t I lost the weight? Why have I not completed the book? Why have I not done more on the house? Why haven’t I helped prepare the yard for flowers? Why hasn’t the swimming pool opened?

Eighth, there are some people in my life who I love and who are not happy. I know that tides and time are transitional, but I cannot keep myself from worrying and wondering, imagining the vicissitudes and what their futures hold. It’s one thing when middle-aged people are disillusioned, but completely heartbreaking when individuals are young; when their whole lives stretch ahead of them, and when what they once dreamed of and hoped for will not be coming to fruition, at least not in the ways they imagined. While we cannot live forever in our pasts, we cannot live healthily or richly without them, and therefore hard lessons, while often ultimately good lessons, are painful.

Finally, I am waiting to hear from Isabella and Simon; to see their lovely little faces; to hug and to kiss them; to bounce them on my knee; to give them treats; to read and to walk with them; to see them play with their cousins and aunts and grandparents; to hear them laugh; to know that they are happy; to hear what Lainey, and eventually Blue, will have to say to them and about them, the way Lainey does now about her friends: “I love her, Mummy. I think she’s beautiful. Can she stay for supper?”

A woman I knew in Ottawa once said to me, “You have anxiety in lieu of the things you cannot let yourself feel.” And somewhere here, hiding in a trunk, I have a list of homeopathic symptoms and their meanings: itchiness = guilt; gall bladder pain = anger; IBS = holding on – then letting go – then holding on – (and so on).

Still, enumeration has its place. By laying things out in front of me, I can sort them into piles: some for the trash, some for the treasure chest. And in the meantime, I will try to remember what my mother used to sing to me as she folded laundry from the basket: Count your blessings, name them one by one…and maybe this way I can make this irritable trouble go away.

As The Saying Goes

or ought to.

Avoid The Following:

irregardless: Regardless of how you feel about me, I still like you.

being that, being as: Because I was late, I couldn’t have pie.

where at: Where is the store? Not Where is the store at?

as to: We wondered about his family. Not We wondered as to his family.

could of, would of, should of: We could have, would have, should have.

had ought: We had to go. We ought to go. Not We had ought to go.

in regards to: Regarding your homework…

owing to the fact that: We have money because we worked hard.

in the event that: I will come with you if it doesn’t rain.

small in size

circulate around

true fact or true fact

joint partnership

close to the point of or close to the point of (two different meanings, in my head)

reason…is because

reason why…is because

in this day and time (choose one)

consensus of opinion

pair of twins (unless you mean two pair) (= 4)

cooperate together, collaborate together

close proximity (choose one)

contemporary writers of today (writers of today is acceptable, but why use three words when two will do?)

if and when (choose one)

mingle together

joint cooperation

3:00 AM in the morning/7:00 PM at night

snowing out/snowing outside

Say What You Mean:

advert/avert

affect/effect

alternate/alternative

allusion/illusion

ambiguous/ambivalent

can/may

common/mutual

compliment/complement

continuous/continual

deduce/deduct

disinterested/dispassionate/indifferent

emigrate/immigrate

eminent/imminent/immanent

enormity/enormousness

felicitous/fortuitous/fortunate

former/latter

healthful/healthy

implicit/explicit

imply/infer

incredible/incredulous

ingenious/ingenuous/disingenuous

libel/slander

nauseated/nauseous

practical/practicable

principle/principal

sensory/sensuous/sensual

tortuous/torturous

Up next, idioms!

Thank you to The Princeton Review: Grammar Smart, 2nd edition ISBN: 0-375-76215-9

*The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University of ETS.

Asking for Roses

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.

'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'

We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

Robert Frost

Why, Mary loves the lamb you know…

Mary taught me a lesson in composure yesterday, simply by stating (to an extremely nasty person) things as they were, without any stray movement across any margins or boundaries; without any vindictiveness or swearing (mind you, I am generally good on that one myself) (well, maybe not generally, but sometimes); without any drama at all. She hit a nail on its head, and then put her toolbox away (metaphorically speaking).

She also taught me something about the value of words. She was deleting email she had no desire to read, and as she hit the delete key the words “empty trash” came up. Suddenly, she said, the phrase took on new meaning, transforming from verb + noun into adjective + noun, lending itself to compound noun. She said she thought to herself, “Yes, this is empty trash” and she hit the button and…

Mary is the same woman who, when I said a few years ago that I had hit rock bottom, reminded me that this was good, “because the bottom is where we start building up.” You have no idea how long I held onto that sentence; how many terrible days and weeks and months her words carried me through. She has had wise answers for many of my impatient questions, and I am not alone in the demands I make on her.

She cooks, cleans, repairs drywall, builds walls, erects porches, bakes, writes music, sings, plays guitar (and some piano, violin and banjo), tends to the animals, makes travel plans, rips up carpet and flooring, manages an office, helps and loves my children and grandchildren, rubs my sore places, gardens, listens, laughs, remembers birthdays, introduces me to new places and things, teaches, and carries her 17-year-old 75-pound dog, a golden retriever, up and down two long flights of stairs several times a day.

I know that Mary looks like what she is: reliable (or a woman of the Scottish hills, which is probably why our friend Mike calls her Highland Mary). And I also know that on more than one occasion she has been treated poorly on account of it. I have family members, in fact, who did not want her coming to their backyard barbeque, for fear she might touch my arm and give their adult children a bad impression (or, perhaps, a disease).

I know that she had difficult childhood and young adult days, too, as people in her own life struggled, and too often failed, to come to terms with her desire to spend her private life with women. The world isn’t nearly as evolved as you might think, or as it claims to be.

Conversely, I also know how admired, respected, revered, appreciated, and loved she is by a great number of people…probably because, as Rudyard Kipling advised, she keeps her head when all about her are losing theirs and blaming it on [whomever].

She can be funny, too – like the time we were on a beach and saw a flash of lighting, and she glanced at her umbrella and then at me: “Here, hold this,” she said. Or the other night, when I was rambling on about something funny but entirely inappropriate and she smiled with all her teeth showing and said, “My my my – look at the time!”

I am not nearly as good to her as I ought to be; as careful in the way I say things or how I react. And I am not able to keep up in ways that would be to Mary’s benefit. I have fantasies, in fact, that someday, after I have gone off fishing with my mother and Don, Mary will find somebody wonderful – someone able to work alongside of her, bending and lifting and kneeling, tending to the various tasks,  smiling as they bring in an armload of summer flowers or jump feet first into the lake at the cottage.

The world is a funny place, and life can be strange. We never know who we will meet or why we meet them; what lies ahead, or how our pasts  will influence our future choices. No matter how long I live, though, I will never understand what I have done, or haven’t done, to have been blessed with two such wonderful partners in one such remarkable life.

Why does the lamb love Mary so?
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?"

Copping a Feel

A friend sent me this question today:

“If you saw ME in a police car what would you think I got arrested for? “

I am not sure all the reasons why, but this theme fascinates me no end.

Perhaps it is because once, when I was a teenager and newly living on my own, I did sit in a police car as it patrolled the quiet Sunday morning streets of our small town just after church let out.

Given the townspeople’s awareness of my mum’s and stepfather’s hijinks, God only knows what everyone thought about my car ride. No doubt they imagined that I had been arrested for rum running or drug importation or lewd and lascivious behaviour.

But none of that was true.

In fact, what had happened was that the night before, as I strolled home barefoot from the corner store, I spied a man – truth be told, I couldn’t have missed him – playing with his you-know-what in between the jewelry store and the glorious Lakeshore Road apartment house (which has since been turned into a Hasty Mart) where I lived.

I can close my eyes and see him now, standing there in his beige all-weather coat and nothing else (!), playing with his sham a lam a ding dong, eyes wide open, looking at me with a half-beseeching sneer…which is hard (no pun intended) to do with so much on your mind (and in – and on – your hands).

Anyway, I raced upstairs with my bag of mixed candy and called the police, which I realized soon enough was a mistake.

Q: What was the man doing?

A: You know (I said, my eyes widening).

Q: No, I don’t know. What was he doing?

A: He was playing with himself (my eyes widening more).

Q: What do you mean – playing with himself?

A: You know (fierce tone in my voice, but not too fierce, lest he ask where my parents were, which I am pretty sure he did, to which I would have replied, “My mum’s in hospital and my stepfather isn’t home”) (although I would have neglected to say that my stepfather had left home a year and a half earlier, and that he had taken the colour TV with him).

Q (in the form of a statement): You will have to be more descriptive.

A: He was standing in the alley in his beige all-weather coat and he had his hand…

Q: Where?

A: Where do you think?

Q: Don’t get smart with me, young lady. Where did he have his hand?

A: He had his hand...on his PENIS.

Q: And what was he doing with his hand?

Which, ultimately, was the cause of the Sunday car ride – as if I would recognize this man in broad daylight without his all-weather coat and his pants on. What did the police think he would be doing? Exiting the side door of a church? (Mind you…)

Anyway, I love the notion of trying to imagine what people I know would be doing if they were sitting in the back seat (or perhaps even the front seat) of a police car.

About 25% of my friends would be there because they were a witness to something and were being asked for evidence.

Another 25% would have committed some sort of noble crime of passion: saved a dog from a vicious owner; attacked someone who was beating up a child; tried to stop a corner store robbery with a tennis racket.

Another 25% would be there either because they were arrested under false pretences or because they knew the police officer. In PEI, where I lived for many years, the police used to stop their cars in the middle of the street in the dead of night so I could jaywalk home from my bartending shift – which is only to say, the police knew or were related to just about everybody.

The final 25% would be in the police car for something illegitimate they had done: purchased dope; bought liquor from a bootlegger; managed a still (I actually helped manage a still once, for a friend’s wedding. It was fun); talked back; stole a cookie from a bakery just for badness…that sort of thing.

Anyway, I sent the question around to some of my friends and family, and I will wait and see what sort of replies I get.

The only reason my friend (who sent the question) would be in a police car is because of her passion or because she was related to or friends with the driver. The furthest thing from her mind would be an actual crime. (I wish I could say the same for myself. It all depends on how much white wine I’ve had to drink.)

In the meantime, if I get any interesting answers I’ll be sure to post them on-line. Unless, of course, one of my friends has come across (no pun intended) a man in a beige all-weather coat standing in an alley…

The wheels of the bus go round and round…all through the town.

Footnote: Here are some of the thoughts people have as to why I am in a police car:

~ I made a citizen’s arrest (for a traffic violation)

~ lookin’ too good (now that’s a friend!)

~ disturbing the peace (because I was involved in a protest)

~ crimes against conformity

~ sticking up for someone when everyone else thinks it would be a lot more convenient if I weren’t

~ [for beating up on someone else for their] murder of the English language in the first degree (I laughed so hard over this one I choked on an expletive)

~ it was a clear case of break-in and edit!

Anyway, I love these replies and the people who wrote them, and this is one of the many things I appreciate about the Internet. Now all I have left to do is wonder why YOU were in the back of that car.

Did Paige Throw Her Chances on Idol?

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Paige threw her chances on Idol?

Otherwise, how is it that this girl with third-grade laryngitis who sang beautifully two weeks ago, and last night exited with more powerful vocals than several of the other contestants combined, managed, as the judges said, to sound like five different people on Tuesday night?

Something smells fishy to me.

It’s not merely that her vocals that were strong, but she seemed so ready to go, so at ease, so assured, the instant her final song got underway, as if to say, “Yes, I’m leaving Idol. But record producers, here I am!”

I have a fantasy that Paige’s parents made a final decision, unbeknownst to the producers or judges, that their daughter was not to move forward into the tour (she is quite young, after all); that Idol was too much for her, and for them; that the overarching nature of the show is too cynical. And with that, sweet and dutiful Paige threw in the towel.

Of course, she had earlier rocky moments in a performance or two, it’s true…but I think she was hoping that voters would chalk her Tuesday night performance up to just another botched number and let it go – let her go – at that.

No matter, something sticks in my craw (where is my craw?) about this. Her exit performance was simply too fabulous, too happy, too composed – too different from the young woman who had performed, unbelievably badly, twenty-four hours earlier.

Speaking of Idol and duplicitous behaviour, does anyone else wonder, when Kara and Simon are sidling up to one another, if – as two people who have been in the music business for a long time – some of this new-found closeness has to do with their wanting to keep Ellen in her newbie place, the two pros thereby diverting the voters and audience members away from TV’s most popular day-time (and now night-time) host? And while they’re at it, why not kill two birds with one stone by tamping down last year’s rumours about Simon and Paula?

And what’s up with Simon’s sudden reliance on Kara’s opinions? Is he trying to subtly undermine, or perhaps even disengage from the power of American Idol – doh dee doh dee doh – here I am, not quite knowing what I’m saying – thereby affecting Idol ratings when he leaves next year?

I have to say that, in my view, this is the dullest run the program has had since I began watching it a few years ago, and it isn’t entirely because of the contestants. I think many of the top ten are great, extremely likeable, singers. But there’s something absent in the overall chemistry of the show, and I think much of that has to do with the hand-picked nature of this year’s program, which leads me to wonder about motivation.

On the other hand, perhaps Simon finally understands that the best service he can offer the contestants, and the show, is for everyone to give solid, constructive criticism. Let’s face it, Kara’s commentary is often spot on, and as much as I like Randy, I find “Yo, dog!” completely ineffective critique.

And speaking of deferring, why am I sitting here rambling on inanely about American Idol when I have a thousand other more important things waiting? What is wrong when a woman my age has nothing more functional to do than criticize a reality show? Why am I so completely obsessed, so utterly consumed, in fact, by anything that smacks of disingenuousness; unfairness; mismanagement? I wonder, Freud.

Anyway, it’s true. Time's a’wastin’ and I have work to do. But you can be sure while I am mopping and dusting and editing and writing, the rusty wheels in the back of my head will be churning out this tune: Paige threw her chances on Idol. Paige threw her chances on Idol.

The Dog Ate My Homework

I worked with a ‘famous’ writer once – a fellow who had been recommended to me by an editor who thought this writer would be the perfect analyst for my work. It might have been true, except that this writer was so busy self-promoting and making money elsewhere he kept forgetting to look at the pages of my manuscript – the same 20 pages we ‘worked’ on for over six months.

The worst of it happened when, for three of the months when I didn’t hear from him at all, he finally replied to tell me that the skylight in his New York brownstone had suffered a crack and that, wouldn’t you know, my chapter, which was sitting three floors below on his glass coffee table, was soaked through to the point of illegibility. I still have his letter, which he might just as easily have sent two months earlier by email.

I’m not talking about just any writer, either. I am talking about a writer who has won prizes so big you couldn’t shake a dozen sticks at them; a writer whose novels have been turned into movies; a writer well-known on seven continents. (Just goes to show you that talent doesn’t necessarily lend itself to character.)

Don and I were by turns so annoyed and so amused by this man’s b____s____ that we spent half of our time cursing up one side of the wall and back down the other, Don smacking big red handprints into his forehead, me walking the long hallway on Gilmour Street, the dog hot on my heels. The other half of our time we spent laughing.

Years later, I still haven’t published the novel. I haven’t quite (almost, but not quite) finished. I was never very good at accessing anything in the first place, and I wouldn’t have even known about this other possibility, this great writing mentor man, had it not been gently thrust upon me by a kindly editing expert, a woman I inadvertently met when I was studying in Timothy Findley’s class. (That’s another story entirely.) And I probably don’t need to tell you that this sort of negligence can put a damper on a woman’s self-confidence.

Anyway, I am not sure what I am trying to say, except maybe that

• It is always better to be honest. If you are too busy to complete a task, or if you lose interest, just say so. Free yourself up, and your waiting student (whomever), which will then leave both of you open to new exchanges.
• The writing is in the doing, not the done. It’s the road you take that is interesting, not the motel at the end of the drive (unless it has a vibrating bed of course, which used to amuse my mother and I no end in those Edmundston and Trois-Rivières stopovers).
• Don’t be selfish. Think of the people along the way who have helped, or tried to help, or wanted to help, you. Imagine the joy you will feel from lending your hand, your heart, your ideas.
• Don’t be a Pollyanna. Just because one kind person recommends your work in an excited way, do not assume that the next person in the chain is going to care one whit. In fact, sometimes the very person who is going to care least about your work is another writer, the person who is (technically and metaphorically) paid to care most.
• If at first you don’t succeed…figure out what it is you want and go after it – or leave it alone if going after it is not what you want. Some of the finest, most talented individuals  haven’t a lick of interest in being published, recorded, taped or printed, and are happy just driving along at a steady pace, sometimes stopping for gas and a Mars bar, other times speeding straight on out of sight. They couldn’t care less about a final destination, where the adventure stops and the hard work of living begins.

No matter what you choose to do, however, if lying is your only recourse, try something more believable than the skylight story. There are so many viable options: a cerebral aneurysm; an incorrigible child; foreclosure on your home; a lengthy book tour; seasonal depression; a marriage break-up; hysterical blindness; anal fissures; a sudden allergy to reading – or even, when all else fails, that old stand-by: “The dog ate your homework.”

"It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.”  ~ Homer Simpson

Wonderland

The city of Toronto, for the past two weekends at least, has opened itself up into a wonderland kind of paradise for me. I have been hopping, much in the way of the white rabbit, from event to event, enchanted.

First, we had a wonderful dinner companion who, although he did the hopping, allowed us to drive him back home. I can’t recall the last time someone came here for dinner, shared so much of himself, and seemed to truly want to be here. No offense to gay men everywhere, but we have few homosexual friends (Mike and Stephan excepted) who don’t find their skin crawling just a little in and among the two pianos, the half-finished kitchen, the hundred-year-old furniture, and the unpainted subfloors.

The next night, we sat in the balcony of Trinity-St. Paul’s Church enthralled by bassist Alison Mackay’s Tafelmusik production of Bach in Liepzig. Here’s a review from the Santa Barbara News Press:

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir take audiences on a musical journey to the city of Leipzig during the 18th century, when J. S. Bach lived and worked there. Bach in Leipzig is another imaginative conceptual concert conceived by Tafelmusik bassist Alison Mackay, whose most recent creations was the “imaginative, engaging, and spontaneous” Galileo Project (San Diego.com), which recently toured to the United States and is scheduled to premiere in Asia next fall.

Bach in Leipzig is narrated by Soulpepper’s William Webster, with Jeanne Lamon and Ivars Taurins directing the Orchestra and Chamber Choir. Featured works include large choral movements from Cantatas 137, 207, 30a and 118b, a variety of instrumental movements from trio sonatas, chorale settings, and arrangements from Bach’s keyboard works including the Goldberg Variations.

Mackay’s gift for creating programmes that present baroque music in a unique context for 21st-century audiences has been widely recognized. Toronto Star music critic John Terauds named her “one of five musicians who made me proud to be a Torontonian over the past year” in 2009, and the American reviews for The Galileo Project have been unanimously positive: “Intonation approached a golden mean of perfection; styling, phrasing, bowing, color, articulation — all in superb focus — mined the full array of emotion and subtext that divines the repertoire.”

Sunday, we enjoyed a marvellous birthday brunch at Whitlock’s  (1961 Queen East in the Beaches, call 647-260-0604). The atmosphere is reminiscent of a woody bar I worked in years ago in PEI, and the buffet is laden: roast beef; ribs; eggs cooked to order; sausages; potatoes; pancakes; whipped cream and fresh fruit coulis; fresh bread and toast; orange, apple and what looked like cranberry juice; Greek salad; rice salad – in fact, several bowls heaped with various salads; grapes; honeydew melon; cantaloupe; rich desserts, and so on. Afterwards, we all trundled back here for coffee and home-made chocolate…mmm…custard-filled…mmm…cake.

This past Friday we spent an impromptu evening with lively friends, a couple we have known for a few years, and who live a ten minute walk away – ideal if alcohol is on your menu (which in this case, it invariably is). Their conversation is so passionate and engaging that I feel as if I might actually have something to say. And there is always something to learn. The best part about their separate and blended characters is their inclusion; their generosity; their intensity; their humour; the way they make a person feel as if she has value for them. And that they, both he and she, have always opened their home, and their homes away from home, to us, feels remarkable.

Saturday, mareseatoats and I went off with three very nice women to see My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, which, truth be painfully told, I thought I was going to find smarmy, tedious, pandering, silly…that sort of thing. What a terrific surprise. The play is tender, smart, evocative, heartbreaking, funny, well-written and well-performed. From Toronto Life:

David Hein and Irene Carl Sankoff have hit the jackpot. Their charming musical depiction of Hein’s relationship with his mom—and the resulting stories about coming out, meeting one’s future in-laws at Hooters and seven-parent weddings—was a must-see at this year’s Fringe. Mirvish scooped it up immediately; it’s only the second time the theatre giant has shepherded a show from the fest. Remember a little something called The Drowsy Chaperone?—Stéphanie Verge

When: Feb. 26/10 - Mar. 21/10 (held over until early April)Cost: $25–$60 
Where: Panasonic Theatre 651 Yonge St. 416-872-1111 Event Web Site: http://www.mirvish.com

Afterward, we spent several hours over dinner at the beautifully atmospheric Spring Rolls, 693 Yonge Street, described on Toronto.com:

Spring Rolls is famous for its stylish atmosphere [see what I mean?] and decor, tasty food, and most of all, value prices. Offering a pan-Asian dining experience, the menu spans from Thai to Vietnamese to Chinese cuisine. The culinary tour comes with a distinct, contemporary flair. Take-out menus and catering is [are] also available.

I have never seen dessert like this, either – deep-fried bananas sprinkled with sesame and served with a bowlful of, in this instance, cocoanut ice cream, the plate lined with banana leaf, a sail of opaque plantain setting off the dessert to perfection.

Then yesterday, after months of anticipation, Mary and Mike and I set off on what turned out to be a minor pilgrimage, jotting down to the Varsity (“Too late! Too Late!”) and back to the Beaches for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. We found the last three side-by-side seats up in the preferred (by me) back row, and with 3-D glasses in place and chips and Pepsi in hand, we settled back for a spellbinding adventure.

Let me just say first, preemptively, that the critics at Rotten Tomatoes be damned for their aspersions of “cold” “unpleasant” “tiresome” “lacking in joy, innovation, curiosity” “bombastic” “predictable” “a missed opportunity” “leaden, formulaic” “lacks energy” …

If actions speak more loudly than words, first off all of those naysayers ought to have spent their afternoon in the theatre with us, where dozens of children, and adults, sat riveted in their seats, nail biting, crying, laughing, gasping, throat clutching, wet-eyed, wide-eyed, absolutely and reverentially silent, applauding at the end of the film.

I can’t imagine anyone calling Burton’s Alice in Wonderland cold! Mia Wasikowska is ideal as the curious and longing Alice; Helena Bonham Carter memorable as the heady Red Queen; Alan Rickman enticing as Absalon, the Blue Caterpillar; Matt Lucas tenderly funny as Tweedledee and Tweedledum; Stephen Fry  purringly delicious as the Cheshire Cat, and Johnny Depp as moving as his bygone character, Edward Scissorhands, where he also geniusly  interprets the theme of injustice.

Perhaps because I have not seen the bulk of Tim Burton’s films, I was not expecting a copy of the template. But as a woman who spent the bulk of her very young life wandering the parks and St. John riverbank and floral cemeteries of Fredericton, and who later read and re-read and re-re-read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I can tell you that the movie hit such a resonant chord that the credits weren’t half rolled away when I shouted, “Again! I want to see it again!”

What I especially loved about the film is the way Tim Burton and Linda Woolverton blended Lewis Carroll’s fiction with their own images and story manifestations, still managing to create a story that is appealing to every age group, while remaining true to the author who made the work possible in the first place.

I laughed (a lot), I cried (Johnny Depp’s eyes practically killed me), I worried, I wondered and wondered, and I was transported. The portrayals, costumes, cinematography, art direction, and special effects were terrific – naysayers be damned! In the beginning, middle and end, Alice was every wonderful thing it promised to be.

As if all of this weren’t enough, we tuned into Elvis Costello’s Spectacle last night in order to see the uber talented Ron Sexsmith (http://www.ronsexsmith.com/), and lo and behold, at the other end of the musical line sat Jesse Winchester, singing Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding – talk about a case of mass weeping – which sent me upstairs to http://www.jessewinchester.com/index.html and to two tickets purchased for his April concert at Hugh’s Room: 2261 Dundas Street West (http://www.hughsroom.com/). Happy birthday to me!

I could go on. (I listened to an excited message from my daughter this morning, for example…something about tickets, and something else about Sting...fourth row, floor!) (She loves her mother, there is no mistaking that.)

Suffice it to say that for any of you who decry the concrete jungle, we must fall short of complaining when looking for something to do. This city, as I said, is a veritable paradise, a cornucopia of musical, visual and culinary delights, where talent runs rampant and little children sit clasping their necks in wide-eyed wonder.

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” ~ White Rabbit

Cucumbers Still Repeat On Me

Nevertheless, they deserve their homage at least as much as coffee filters do. And when you think about it, I am a kind of Coffey filter all by myself, which is why it is my duty to disseminate information.

Anyway, yesterday, my friend Sheila sent me the following email, and I pass it along because, although cucumbers inevitably repeat on me (although this never happens with the English variety – could it be genetic?), a person has to be fascinated by the value of this wonderful (if you believe the seed definition/derivation) fruit (although I keep insisting, in my head, that a cucumber is a vegetable).

Note: I have taken some liberties and edited the article. I might have left things well enough alone, but the comma splices were driving me mad. And I say this only in case there are reprint or copyright issues. On the other hand, if these errors came directly from the newspaper…which, of course, I ought to check (and will, as soon as I finish eating this delicious cucumber salad).

~

This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of their "Spotlight on the Home" series that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day. Just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc [although I am not sure why all of these nouns have been turned into proper nouns. I might have to fix these, too. And yes, I know…but that’s my job].

    2. Feeling tired in the afternoon? Put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins and carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours. [I wonder how they taste deep-fried.]

     3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower?  Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror. It will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance. [The last thing I want to see after I shower is my face.]

     4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds?  Place a few slices in a small pie tin, and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee [flea?] the area.

     5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumber along your problem area for a few minutes. The phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.  Works great on wrinkles, too. [I’d need a two tonne shipment.]

     6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed, and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients in the body that were lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache.

     7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries, often by European trappers, traders and explorers, for quick meals to thwart off starvation. [I’ll trade you one beaver pelt…]

     8. Have an important meeting or job interview and realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe. Its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

     9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila! – the squeak is gone.

     10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water. The chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released into the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and in college students during final exams. [If you’re a student and pregnant, double the recipe.]

     11. Just finished a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath. The phytochemcials will kill the bacteria responsible for causing bad breath. [I turned on the TV the other night looking for a late night movie, when I hit upon a man and a woman playing with a cucumber. Thinking I had found another helpful how-to program, I waited to see what would happen next. The man pressed the cucumber – at least I think it was a cucumber – to the roof of the woman’s mouth, and she started moaning, which I guess means that bad breath wasn’t her only problem.]

     12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean. Not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won't leave streaks and won't harm your fingers or fingernails while you clean. [I find Shaklee products work well, too.]

     13. Using a pen and made a mistake? [Does a keyboard count?] [“I don’t know, Jennifer, does it? How high?”] Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the ink. This also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls. [I have to admit, my head just went somewhere far removed from decorative walls, and I am laughing so hard these cucumber seeds are getting stuck in my throat.]
 

Anyway, I shouldn’t make fun. My darling friend Sheila was kind enough to forward a useful email, and she is never one to splice commas. In fact, a few years ago, one of her stories was shortlisted for Saturday Night magazine, so I’m the one who ought to be minding my own p[ea]s and q-cumbers.

P.S. Watch out for the seeds!

Spring Cleaning

I peeked under the bed today because I could hear the dust bunnies calling my name. “It’s spring, Jennifer!” they were saying. “Come play with us!”

Typically, I can’t peek under anything with any great ease, but today I bent down on that pillow as if I were a young seventy-three.

Actually, mostly what’s under the bed is a container filled with novels (we’re running out of room/s); a recuperation present for my daughter, who is having leg surgery in April; a pair of new shoes (still in the box) (they’re gorgeous!), and several puzzle books put out by Dell and Penny Press. (Warning: Penny Press Giant Book[s] of Word Games is full of mistakes…every issue that I have. Doesn’t stop me, however.)

Anyway, one of the reasons I harbour these magazines is because, as I am whiling away my time with them, I tend to write bits and pieces in the margins: song titles, authors I hear about on television, recipes that crop up suddenly, and like that.

So my writing exercise today, as a way of purging the magazines along with a minor hoarding habit, and as another way of luring the dust bunnies, is to copy down some of what I have noted in those margins, and in this way free myself of the excess and have a handy look-up resource.

Here goes:

sherbet
turmeric
paraphernalia
accoutrement

Perhaps you can see where I was going with this—although you might miss the point if rs are not your problem.

“Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it’s time to get up.” (Bill Gold)

most important, not most importantly Arggggh!

less vs: fewer: email Tide (or boycott)

“The way out of trouble is never as simple as the way in.”

Zappos.com [shoes shoes shoes]

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, except when it’s forgery.”

colbates (no idea…)

“Mr. [Robin] Williams, why do you think we have no funny people on television?”

“Because you killed all the funny people?” 

Your haughty behaviour and tone give credence to my concerns. (Oh oh)

Stephen Leacock: “It may be those who do most, dream most.”

over-sized portions of self-esteem = too too much self-absorption…leads to a cycle of narcissism [LOL]

“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”

urbandictionary.com

(one of 4 sets) brothers and sister(s), American-born, skating for Japan, Russian coach, sister’s younger sister, also American-born, skating for Georgia with _______. [Why are you all getting dizzy?]

“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”

+ copy of your ballots, bring with $10.00 and your name, or mail to

Larry Speakes: Remember, you don’t have to explain what you don’t say.”

Don Sarah John Jon David Maureen Susan R. Noam Lise Deb Kathy Jeff Susan Jun Mary Isaac Mana Ralph Jin (Mary T. Diana Sarah C, Juanita) Gloria (Marg) Eva David R. Pablo Rosaleen Don C. Maryanne Chris Mike – no idea at all [scary] *oh my God – yes I do: these are people who have eaten that New York cheesecake.

Say, this one works (in light of my earlier comment, although my real age is 37): “To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.” (Okay, so I’m not 37. But I’m decades away from 70. Decades!) [Name two.]

Reminder: homeopathic wart removal = vinegar + duct tape + Q tip

Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland…for Sarah

And this might be one of my top ten favourite puzzle quotes: “Thoreau: An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that I have enough reminders here in this entry. Furthermore, I have unavoidably discovered that I have many puzzles left to do, and so these magazines, once slotted for recycling, are now renewed fodder for my late night puzzle frenzy.

So much for eradicating dust bunnies. So much for recycling.

“Jennifer…Jennifer! Come play with us…”

*Inspired by the puzzles books surrounding me, I decided to take a stab at just one in between my chores. The solution reads, “Gore Vidal: A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

Both Sides Now

Another St. Patrick’s Day come and gone, and not my favourite holiday for all kinds of reasons, among them

• tribalism (there’s a special kind of clannishness about any holiday that rallies round one nationality, kind of like the exclusivity in Brave Heart. Oh yes, many people scoffed at my commentary way back when, but I don’t see any long line-ups for Mel Gibson or for his movies these days)
• beer (I’m allergic) (It all started one night at the Charlottetown Legion…)
• my last name (although my previous one wasn’t any better), which used to be something like O’Coughee or O’Coughey
• snakes (I’m mostly afraid of them, even the harmless garter variety that I played with as a child), even if they have nothing to do with the holiday
• all that green, none of it natural
• leprechauns, mostly because they’re not real, no matter what Edgar Cayce said
• shillelaghs, because the spelling is murder
• the jokes: Q: Describe an Irish seven course meal. A: A six pack and a potato.
• its proximity to (and therefore, usurpation of) the Ides of March, lest we forget Shakespeare and poor Julius Caesar (Et tu, Brute?)
• the phrase “the wearing of the green,” which reminds me of my friend Kathleen, who hales from Belfast, and whose sister’s best friend, age ten, was shot to death on Kathleen’s family doorstep, for wearing the wrong colour. This is what comes from tribalism.
• too much of the hoy, hoy hoy (not to mention alcohol in general, an inevitable curse threading through the withered branches of my family tree)

That all said, yesterday I had the great pleasure sending out – because I am a hypocrite – a set of Jackie Lawson greeting e-cards, this particular design showing seven teddy bears all decked out in hats (that were all decked out in shamrocks and feathers), Irish dancing their clippity-clop way across a stage, accompanied by a trio of bear musicians. They were adorable, and funny.

It wasn’t so much the sending out, but the pouring in of receipts from around the world as friends opened their cards, that made me so happy. Ping! went the speakers on this computer. Ping ping! And just when I least expected it (doing crosswords while sitting on the you-know-what), ping! and ping! and ping! again.

And really, to be absolutely honest, there are a few things about the day of which I am also fond, memories especially:

• Don’s favourite author was James Joyce, and his (Don’s, not Joyce’s…although who can say?) favourite off-hour’s drink was Jameson. In fact, Don sometimes took on a wee bit of the brogue when he over-tippled, which used to crack me up
• People are celebrating a saint (Patrick), not stabbing statesmen (Caesar) in the back
• Although I can no longer drink beer, I have many fond memories, especially of the old days back at the Fredericton Cosmopolitan Club, where, after work on Friday and Saturday nights, we’d order up a case of beer, sit back on the wooden bench seats, listen to songs like Daniel and Crocodile Rock, and watch happy people dance
• Laughing at those Irish jokes:

  The Doctor was puzzled. "I'm very sorry but I can't diagnose your trouble, Mahoney. I think it must be drink. "
  "Don't worry about it Dr. Kelley, I'll come back when you're sober."

• shillelaghs, because they remind me of Cape Breton and the day Don and the kids and I were driving the shore road between Inverness and Shedicamp and came upon two men, well into their eighties, arguing in the middle of the road, flailing their shillelaghs at one another and roaring in Gaelic. We felt as if we had slipped into a time warp. I can still see the back of the kids’ heads through the rear-view mirror, watching them up on their knees, staring through the back window, delighted
• leprechauns, because they do remind me of Edgar Cayce and of how I retreated into the books of those mystics and charlatans (Casey, Roberts, Steiner, Gurdjieff), who brought me through some extremely difficult and lonely times when I was young and living on my own
• the Coffeys, without whom there’d be no little Coffeys
• tribalism, which often reminds me how lucky I am not to belong…and to belong…and not to belong…and to belong…
• several years ago, on March 17th, on a dark night of Celtic celebration (brought about by my writing group), I met Mary. Hoy, hoy, hoy!

Anyway, the particulars of this entry are probably neither here nor there to most of you, but I hope they will mean something special to my grandchildren, just the way my friends mean something wonderful to me. Ping!

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow…

Joni Mitchell

In Memory of My Mother ~ Patrick Kavanagh

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay

Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see

You walking down a lane among the poplars

On your way to the station, or happily

 

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday—

You meet me and you say:

‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle—’

Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

 

And I think of you walking along a headland

Of green oats in June

So full of repose, so rich with life—

And I see us meeting at the end of a town

 

On a fair day by accident, after

The bargains are all made and we can walk

Together through the shops and stalls and markets

Free in the oriental streets of thought.

 

O you are not lying in the wet clay

For it is a harvest evening now and we

Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight

And you smile up at us—eternally.

 

Patrick Kavanagh

1904-1967

Lake Superior State University 2010 List of Banished Words

I looked up this year’s banished word list from LSSU, mostly because I am curious, the list always makes me laugh, and I am happy to see that I am not alone in what people find aggravating.

Some of the words I have not heard, or if I’ve heard them I’ve not paid attention. Others have irritated me from the get go, although, in the main, if you asked me to define these words according to current usage, I would be at a loss.

Most irritating is that spell-check did not highlight any of them…which figures, given that spell-check has not yet bothered to adapt to English/Canadian spellings. Harrumph!

Instead of reading through the definitions, I think I will try and describe what I imagine they mean, judging by their sounds, our society, and what I overhear on the streetcar.

SHOVEL-READY: a compound adjective, shovel-ready refers to the aftermath of my cooking experiments. Were it not for recycling, the same would apply to my sewing endeavours, where I have been known to lose entire sleeves and wound innocent people with basting needles.

TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY: the condition of my skin since birth. Wait. I think I mean translucent, as in, “She was phosphorescent blue at the beach. Too much sun and fair genetics have rendered her translucent.”

From Dictionary.com: That which is transparent allows objects to be seen clearly through it: Clear water is transparent. That which is translucent allows light to pass through, diffusing it, however, so that objects beyond are not distinctly seen: Ground glass is translucent.

Transparent also refers to the kinds of lies told by my middle child when he was growing up: you could see right through them.

CZAR: also spelled tzar and tsar, I cannot see this word without thinking of Ingrid Bergman and how tragically beautiful she was in the film Anastasia.

There is another film titled Anastasia, which I had not heard of. Wikipedia’s plot description for this movie begins, In 1916, Czar Nicholas II hosts a grand ball at the royal palace celebrating the 300th anniversary of Romanov rule. During this celebration, his mother, Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (Angela Lansbury), gives her favo[u]rite granddaughter, 8-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia (Kirsten Dunst), a music box and a necklace reading "Together in Paris", which serves as its key…

Not having heard of this movie is probably a good thing because the thought of Angela Lansbury (who was most excellent in Gaslight, I know), playing Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, cannot compare to Ingrid Bergman in anything, especially when it was this great actress who starred (opposite the menacing Charles Boyer) as lady of the house in (the very same) Gaslight.

TWEET: what the birds are doing out on the balcony. (Although I guess that would be “tweeting.”) So, to be perfectly correct, tweet is what I love hearing the birds do on the balcony. Mind you, that there are so many of them on this abnormally warm mid-March day puts a person a little in mind of Hitchcock. Right this minute, I’m contemplating a remake: The Robins? The Larks? The Albatrosses?

APP: no idea, intrinsically. Application? Appointment? Appearance? Appetite? Appropriate?

SEXTING: This one, unfortunately, I do know. And I don’t even mind if any of you find me fossilized in my views. I think sexting is APPalling. Where are the parents, grandparents, in-laws, teachers, mentors, older siblings, aunts, uncles, guardians, guardian angels? What kind of world are we living in where teenagers are sending naked pictures of themselves across the air waves? Where are the guidelines, the consequences, the boundaries?

FRIEND AS A VERB: What’s next? Defriend? Adfriend? Profriend? Subfriend? Exfriend? Disfriend? I had dis friend who was a sub friend and now she’s an ex friend. Even as noun phrases these don’t work. Besides, making and being a friend requires patience, love, humour, generosity, acceptance and all sorts of things that can’t be covered in this particularly glib verb form. And if it’s this easy to friend, how all-too-easy will it become to un-friend?

TEACHABLE MOMENT: This sounds like a term from the Hallmark Hall of Fame. She had a teachable moment and let it slip through her fingers. As a result, her unfortunate student, diverted, missed out on her entire senior year. Now the lonely girl spends her days seeking learnable moments and cursing her foolish teacher.

Teachable moment is so implicitly and ridiculously ambiguous and haughty, I can’t imagine (well, yes I can) how it came into our lexicon in the first place.

IN THESE ECONOMIC TIMES…: All times are economic times, because we do not live, for example, in Utopia, thank God (and even there, a certain kind of economy might exist), and there is no such condition as un- or non-economic times – even if it means we have to start saving those little twist ties that come with the garbage bags, which is a whole other kind of economy altogether, I know, but still...

STIMULUS: I went into one of those places once – okay, twice – but both times I was soliciting (hey!) funds for an organization for which I volunteer. Whoa, though. I had NO idea there were so many erotic dvds or burgeoning incentive APPendages. Talk about stimulus! Say, maybe that’s where the phrase “stimulus package” arises (and arises)…?

TOXIC ASSETS: Is this supposed to be an oxymoron? If assets are truly positive, then how can they at the same time be toxic? I don’t understand. Is this their only choice? Is there a larger half to this equation that I am missing? I sense (cents?) a minor crisis. Do they have an exact estimate of these assets?

TOO BIG TO FAIL: Who might that be? And not that death represents failure, but it might to the person who’s riding that particular “too big to fail” wave and finds himself out of breath, permanently. Talk about a crash. And given that in a hundred years any of you reading this now won’t be here then, I can’t imagine what “too big to fail” means. If they’re talking about corporations, I know a few CEOs idling in prison who have some free time to enlighten.

BROMANCE: A bromance is something you take after a really bad date. It comes in little white tablets, and fizzes when you plop it into water.

CHILLAXIN’: Yikes. (Mind you, yikes was probably on this list a few years ago.) Still…yikes.

OBAMA-prefix or roots? I had to peek on this one, for examples: Obamanomics, Obamanation, Obamafication, Obamacare, Obamalicious, Obamaland

Wow. All this for a man who won that narrow margin through Facebook. Obamanation indeed! Not that I thought anyone else at that time would have made a better president, but last time I looked even Obama wasn’t too big to fail.

And when I read Obama roots, my first thought strayed to hair dye, my second to, “Has he turned grey already?! How long has he been in office?”

All of which leaves plenty of proof that I am perhaps not the person to judge what should or should not be on a banished words list. But if you would like to see who that is, and why they’ve tossed these words out on their ears, you can find it all here:

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it - torn up to irrecoverable tatters.  ~ Samuel Butler

Cucumbers Repeat On Me

Why does Elisabeth Hasselbeck continually tack on to the ends of her sentences, in the form of an impatient question, “okay?” Why do Sally Field and Susan Sarandon drop their final gs? “We’re haveen a really good time.” Why does Oprah Winfrey repeat so many of her own, and other people’s, phrases, sometimes three or four times? You know what I mean. You know what I mean. You know what I mean. And why does Barack Obama speak in iambic pentameter? To be |or not | to be | that is | the ques-tion. (An ideal consideration for the ides of March, perhaps.)

Are these traits irrevocable habits of genetics or coy adaptations intended to belie and beguile? Is that impertinent okay at the end of the sentence the same as banging one’s fist on the aluminum table and decrying, “You are wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!” or is the tacking on merely (merely?) an anaesthetized knee jerk response? Are those missing gs a person’s way of say, “Am I cute? Do you like my shoes? I’m a little giiiiirl…” or is the habit an impediment? And what about the repetition? Are these echoes narcissistic or a way of memorization, a co-opting of vocabulary designed to mesmerize, in a kind of televised evangelical Svengali way?

And why am I getting sleepy?

I’m not sure what I am trying to say, but I know what I am after knowing: are these habits that we have changeable or unalterable? And if they’re changeable, is it intense therapy that will amend them or minor modification? And yes, I know you’re thinking about degrees, but what I am doing is really talking about myself.

For example, am I always going to have periods when I bite my nails to the quick and then cover them with Band-aids? Will I always need to spit gargle water into the bathtub after showering (don’t you think that’s weird? I know I do), or is there a permanent behaviour-imprint dent in my pre-frontal lobe? (I bet I got it the day I came flying down the stairs at the Dispensary, pay cheque in hand, and smashed my head into the plaster overhang.) Will I forever pick my shoes up with my toes instead of bending over and retrieving them the human way? (Mind you, this might have something to do with my unhappy back.)

And will I, especially on cloudy Mondays, find my way to this computer, picking fault with people I do not know, will never know, mostly do not want to know, criticizing them for habits and articulations that, who knows why, drive me crazy when I hear them (and sometimes when I don’t), and make me wonder if my fault-finding is a sign of the times, astrology, temperament, intolerance, perception, justified frustration or indigestion? Okay? Is this makeen sense? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

To change |or not | to change | that is | the ques-tion.

Snippets

I’d rather be left than be leaving,

I’d rather bereft that be grieving;

I’d rather be sunny or – when all fails – funny,

I’d rather be deft than deceiving.

Jennifer Coffey

Fallen Idol

There have been other elimination nights when I have moaned at the television, “No, no, no…” but I have always come back to watch American Idol. I understand that when I was twelve my tastes were different than they are now, and I always try to remember that American Idol was probably not created for women over forty.

So I sit here, year after year, watching young men and women go home before their time (Melinda Doolittle, Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, Chris Sligh, Gina Glocksen) while others win, in my view, over more talented contestants (Jordan Sparks over Blake Lewis; Kris Allen over Adam Lambert – shame on you homophobic America!).

Generally, however, I haven’t been able to gripe past a day or two, knowing that at least all of these contestants made their way into the top twelve and were given a widely visible platform for their talent.

Last night, however, was a different story. By the end of the elimination round I realized that it is exactly twelve-year-olds who are, in fact, making the bulk of the Idol decisions – often following the lead of the judges, whose arbitrary commentary and competitive vying for popularity – or as Ellen coyly calls it, “world domination” – rankles beyond tolerance. I suddenly felt like an overweight middle-aged woman (which I am) caught in a pair of baby doll pyjamas and my Sunday best Mary Jane patent leather shoes.

In other words, the penny has dropped: I am too old for Idol.

I am too old to sit here yelling at the television set, lambasting the judges for swaying the infants who are up far too late and who shouldn’t have cell phones in the first place. Don’t they have homework? (See what I mean?)

I am too old to be spending two hours after the elimination round saying things like, “Lilly Scott? They’ve kicked off Lilly Scott? Oh my God, you were right – she is too left-of-center for those voting children. But surely the judges – especially Simon – would have highlighted her strengths in ways that would have had some influence? If they can do this for _______, they ought to have done it for her.”

I know it wasn’t Lilly’s best vocal performance or song choice, but even a child should be able to look past those chubby dialling fingers and see her whole hand.

Even more distressing, however, was the elimination of Alex Lambert. Of course, Ellen DeGeneres did not help by cutely referring to his mullet every week. You would think that after all she has been through, all of the slurs levelled against her, she would know better than to make fun of this dear and remarkably gifted young man (speaking of shame on you).

Alex Lambert is not only appealingly, enduringly sweet, but he has a voice that stands out – resonant tone, distinct, raw, honest, mature – not flavour of the month, and richer than a ripening banana. When he opens his mouth to sing he is riveting, his lack of stage savvy only adding to his appeal, especially in a world where even teenagers, it seems, know how to work the camera.

Together, Alex Lambert and Lilly Scott were two of the most compelling contestants, reminding me that perhaps Adam Lambert hadn’t been a fluke after all. But I was wrong. The special difficulty for Alex, however, is his lack of self-confidence; his willingness to believe that his talent isn’t special. I am not sure whether he might find the daring to Google himself, but Alex, if you do, and if you happen upon this entry, please trust me that late last night when I went on-line and checked your name, I came upon hundreds of individuals decrying the fact that you have been eliminated, enraged by the possibility that your exceptional voice might go unheard. Your talent is as outstanding as any I have heard on American Idol, and what a shame it would be if you were to give up now.

So that’s it for my favourite talent show. It isn’t that I will have to boycott Idol, either. It’s that the impetus for watching the show has gone. The politics and shenanigans of the judges aside, American Idol has suddenly fallen, hard, into the category of ordinary, bland, conventional, mundane, too young even for me. And as relieved as I was by Ellen’s disheartened response over the results, I can’t help but wonder whether, had she stopped pointing out “the mullet,” Alex might still be standing there on that stage.

The Sounds of Silence

Note: the entry below was written without pertinent information at hand, which isn’t exactly my fault, but might serve as a warning to all of you guileless readers out there.

When I went on-line to check out ticket prices, up popped all sorts of legitimate-looking ticket-selling sites that, as it turned out, had very little to do with the actual venue ticket prices. One site, called Concert Ticket Centre, advertises itself as “Best Tickets in Town” and offers floor seat sales at $624.00 (USA). At that rate, the seats ought to be good!

In fact, the highest priced Simon & Garfunkel tickets on the Air Canada site offers floor seats for $240.75. That’s still a lot of money, but it isn’t the price the scalpers are after. And since when did scalping become legal in Canada? Highway robbery is what my mother would have called it, but in any case, a warning to people like me who think that if it says “Concert Ticket Sales” or “Show Time Tickets” (whose price is $835.00 Canadian) the site, and the cost, is legitimate. Buyer beware!

____________________________________________________

I just got off the phone with my daughter, who informed me that Simon & Garfunkel tickets went on sale today in Ottawa – for exorbitant prices. So I checked Toronto sites to see if the duo were coming here, and at what cost, and lo and behold the cheapest ticket to be had, 100 kilometres from the stage, is $157.00 and if you want to sit on the floor (do they give you a chair?) you can pay $650.00 per! (While I was at it, I thought I would check out the Craig Ferguson Massey Hall ticket prices, which compare at the rich sum of $499.00. Yikes.)

Do you know what I can buy for $650.00?

I can purchase 21.7 tickets to see My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding at the Panasonic Theatre on Yonge Street; 32.5 tickets to listen to the rapturous Bach in Leipzig produced by Tafelmusik in Trinity-St. Paul’s Church; 50 tickets to see Alice in Wonderland at the Beach Cinemas, glasses included; 36.1 tickets to see The Foggy Hogtown Boys cd release at Hugh’s Room in June; 10 tickets for B level seating of Jersey Boys at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, and so on and so on.

Why, it wasn’t three days ago I was weeping over Simon & Garfunkel on the HBO Madison Square Garden rock concert special – it was spectacular – singing along to The Sounds of Silence and The Boxer, thinking I ought to dedicate an entire blog to the four-hour (or thereabout) extravaganza.

Well , not today. I am so incensed, in fact, by their arrogance – they haven’t made enough money between them to lower their prices for the people who bought their records?! – that today I couldn’t care less whether I ever hear another note issue from their greedy, aging lips.

Anyway, I have to be off in a hurry. I am going to a reading series – Karen Connelly and Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, who are speaking this evening at the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge & Bloor – and it’s free!

In the main and in the margins, I don’t think anyone is worth $650.00 a ticket, and I wonder now if Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence was prescient.

I am just a poor man, though my story’s seldom told…

Colour My World

It’s almost that time again – springtime – the time of year that I seem to want to paint…this season the kitchen cupboards, now that we have the rich reki tile (I’m not even sure what reki means, why or how [or if] it’s turned into tile, and if r-e-k-i is the correct spelling) blue backsplash and, after that, a re-do of the living room walls (the third go-round) because I have not yet got it right. “Warmer,” I said. “I want warmer!”

So today I trotted off to Paint Depot on Queen Street East because I love Sico Paint, and then I walked two blocks to Benjamin Moore, where a nice man confirmed what a nice man at Paint Depot had told me – that the government is eradicating all oil paint within two years – although the man at Benjamin Moore said that the linseed in  oil paint is actually friendlier than many of the plastics in acrylic paints (although I ought not to be quoting him, because I don’t do that well). While I was there (BM), I also leafed through a few of their wallpaper sample books only to discover that the world has become super intense. I wanted something sweet and simple – little bumblebees on a white background for example – but instead felt as if I was wandering feverishly through the hallways of the Louvre.

Anyway, I snatched up swatches of yellow/gold/mustard (for the living room) and blue/white-blue/green-blue (for the cupboards), drove them home and cut them up – taping the blue assortment to the kitchen cupboards and the yellows to white sheets of paper that I stuck in strategic spots around the living room. I was shocked by what I discovered:

Not one of the blue shades that I thought I would like matched the tile or even an idea of the room. My favourite blue sample, in fact, isn’t anything close to what I thought I would want in a colour – period. As for the yellows, one of the mustard shades came close to what I had imagined, but my favourite choices were about three shades darker than anything I had ever dreamed I would want for these, or for any, walls. Must be the idea of a Tuscan sunset that has me fixated…which is how, as I’ve said before, I finally found the mustard yellow for our living room in Ottawa. Sarah and I were watching (well, I was doing more of the watching and Sarah the talking) Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, and I saw the colour I wanted painted on the walls of one of the rooms/sets. “There it is!” I cried. “That’s the colour I want – Tuscany yellow!”

I wonder if it’s because I’m getting older, more tired, more sensible, less free, freer…or if we really do change so much with time and age that the colours we loved ten years ago, and ten years before that, aren’t even on the same continuum as our new choices – which takes me, tangentially, to an idea of people and relationships: would I still be seeking out the terribly tragic; the rebels; the unusual; the lost; the obliquely forlorn, if I had to do it all over again?

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. (Or is it the fort? Hold the fort? No…I think that’s “hold down the fort.” Anyway, who cares?) I left this blog a few hours ago to answer the door, and after I left, I got busy with something else and something else again, and as I got busy, the sun went down, and after the sun went down all the blues and the yellows I had chosen changed with the darkening light and so, therefore, did my opinions of them. The blues I first liked are far too light and the yellows too dark – both colours running in opposite directions from one another and away from what I had supposed.

So much for my choices. So much for analogies. All I know now is that there are about 22,000 colours and tones and shades from which to choose, and at least 1500 pamphlets to try and explain them – when painting your ceiling, choose a soft white for a warmly toned room and a cooler white for a hue that is slightly darker (or something like that) – and frankly I preferred my decorating life years ago when the only paint store we had in PEI was Colour Your World. I used to march in there on hot summer days with the kids and say, “Yes, please. I’ll have one of those and one of those and one of these",” and I always – always – loved the end result.

I guess this also means that I can stop wondering what sort of person I would choose were I to start all over again. What seems right for me in the morning would inevitably shift by lunchtime, and who knows who or what I’d be dating by dinner? For all I can imagine, I would be sharing bran flakes with Alan Rickman at sun-up, tuna on rye with Colin Firth by noon, and chicken teriyaki with Annie Leibovitz when the work day is over. Mind you, I generally make my biggest decisions after supper, and who better to help me choose colours than Annie Leibovitz? (I wonder what Mary would say…)

Anyway, it’s practically springtime and the best I can say at this juncture is that within a few weeks I will be painting. I have no idea which colours I’ll choose or if I will like them, but the sun will be shining, the wind will be blowing the curtains, and I will be singing along to whatever tune suits me. The cats, strumming beside me, and the dog humming off key, will look at me, occasionally, askance, and I will look back at them and say, “Hey – this is the thing that works best for me. This is what colours my world.”

As time goes on I realize
Just what you mean to me
And now, now that you're near…

Chicago

TV Guide

This Week In Television

Monday night might just become a viable evening for television viewing with the advent of the Canadian-produced Hiccups and Dan for Mayor, both programs showing on CTV, beginning at 8 PM.

Hiccups, the brain child of Brent Butt and his fellow actor and wife, Nancy Robertson, is smart, kinetic and punchy, the storyline following a popular children's author, Millie Upton, who is in need of, and in fact desperately seeking, anger management help by way of Stan Dirko, a somewhat beleaguered life skills' coach. And Nancy Robertson is a person everyone can relate to -- or is it only me who has stood in a coffee shop (grocery store, postal outlet, gas station, hair salon, linen shop, scissors store) line-up, deriding the indecisive snail who is ordering at the counter, and who can't make up his mind?

I also love almost any program that takes me out of doors, and I was happy to dip into a coffee shop; visit a bookstore (twice); sit at an outside patio, and traverse a Vancouver bridge with the out-of-breath author and her coach.

I wonder if the joke will wear thin, but given the success of Corner Gas, I suspect Brent Butt is too clever to let that happen.

http://shows.ctv.ca/Hiccups.aspx

Dan for Mayor, while less laugh-out-loud funny than Hiccups, stars Fred Ewanuick (also from Corner Gas) -- a Ms. Pac-man-loving, single, slightly down-on-his-luck bartender in fictional small-town Wessex, Ontario. When his ex-girlfriend works up the nerve to tell him she is engaged to be married, Dan responds by telling her he is running for mayor. His lie, and a darkly comic end to the existent mayor, catapults young Dan into a world that we can only imagine -- which might mean a more long-lasting predicament than its lead-in.

I particularly like Fred Ewanuick, who puts me in mind of a Mark Ruffalo/Dennis Quaid mix -- and the supporting cast, all of whom are compelling and perfectly ordinary.

Both programs honour the visual-seeking parts of my brain (ewww! unsavoury image), and I intend to come back next week for more. We have been completely starved for watchable sitcoms for how many years now (?), and I am impatient and eager to jump aboard any fast-moving train.

http://shows.ctv.ca/DanForMayor.aspx

Parenthood, I am almost embarrassed to say, brought me to tears at least three times (maybe more. I'm just not sure where one jag left off and another began).

I loved Ron Howard's movie, despite the outcry from feminists and my partial agreement with them, and I was relieved to see that this new script runs faithful to the original. The television cast (Lauren Graham, Craig T. Nelson, Peter Krause, Bonnie Bedelia, Monica Potter), as well, are not to be sneezed at (achoo!), and there's a lot to be said for a tender, humourous program that can tackle divorce, dating, absentee parents, Asperger's, cross-country moves, combative parents, career, sex, sibling rivalry and unexpected fatherhood all in one hour and not make me want to run out of the room.

If I have any minor problem with the whole, it relates to the irksome TLC (tender loving care -- I wince even writing the phrase) factor, the angst-ridden family dashing off en masse, for example, to a last-minute baseball game from which the father has only that day been rejected as coach. Oh, can you feel the love?

That said, the transitions are otherwise lovely, the acting terrific, the action on-going -- and again, plenty of outdoor movement and colour.

Tuesday, 10 PM, City TV & NBC

http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/

American Idol Oh dear. What to say? Who will stay? Who will go? (And that's just the judges.) Briefly, Kara is skilled, but more rapier-like this year, what with Simon's patriarchal, nudge-nudge approval...our oh heavenly father, who also doesn't want anyone to think he had any real feelings for Paula Abdul last year; Simon enamoured -- but of whom?; Randy vague, as ever, and Ellen distracting. (I keep expecting to see Tony Okungbowa peeking over her shoulder.) Ever-cynical me wonders, too, how long this particular transaction (Ellen-Idol) was in the mix -- what with Ellen's doting friendship with Ryan, and her exuberant fondness for Simon despite her lifelong insistence on an absence of cruelty (and let's face it -- Simon can be cruel). I guess this is what you have to do when you hanker after world domination, and don't kid yourself either -- this is truly what Ellen is after in the field of entertainment.

As far as the show itself goes, these are early days, of course, and I have my current favourites. I am not maternally excited yet, the way I ultimately felt for Adam Lambert, Fantasia, and David Cook (+ about 13 others), but I feel where the judging is concerned a few of the talented contestants are not receiving the positive feedback they ought to be hearing, while some of the terrible pitch problems are being completely overlooked (or under-heard).

It also seems to me that Idol is more than ever after a type, a look, an innocence, which might prove an enormous mistake in terms of viable outcomes (whatever that means) , and could therefore ultimately weigh down the ratings.

So far, I have my eyes on and my ears peeled for Alex Lambert (I wish Ellen would be quiet about his hair); Casey James; Crystal Bowersox; Katelyn Epperly (I don't think she would have been kind to my daughter when they were in high school, but that's hardly the point here); Lilly Scott; Michael Lynche; Lee Dewyze and Siobham Magnus. We shall see.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 8 PM, Fox

http://www.americanidol.com/

The Bachelor Speaking of ewwwwww... Ladies (and by ladies I mean contestants and viewers), where are your heads?

First off -- and I in no way mean this as a homophobic slur because I, speaking from both-sides-of-the-fence, don't walk through the world this way...but every time I do walk through Toronto's gay village, I pass by dozens of Jakes: pumped biceps; clean-shaven; crisp Taylor Brothers' shirt (or do I mean Armani?); that same same same same haircut with the groomed sides and tiny peaks -- all of him soon to be dancing with the stars. No wonder he has trouble finding a woman. No wonder he is looking for 'hot'. Ssssssst!

Second -- how real could any of this possibly be -- a bevy of desperate women hooked up to this randy Tom Cruise (and what does that tell you?), his shaded eyes, his crocodile tears (cam' on!), that hollow laugh...and all of that necking and sobbing and giggling with the harem who have the collective emotional maturity of a fourteen-year-old? Give me a break! In fact, I wrote an entry about this wretched program two or three years ago, and nothing has changed. What a ludicrous, vacuous premise. What a horrible waste of time.

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelor

Marriage Ref Fortunately, I volunteer Thursday nights, and I say fortunately because I am still royally pissed off (I think this is the first time I have ever used this compound verb in an entry) with Jerry Seinfeld, one of whose past head writers/executive producers partnered romantically (i.e., shared a Hollywood home) for a decade with my youthful best friend, who blithely passed along stories of my own neurotic past -- how was I to know, for example, that I wouldn't get rabies from my cat? You would have paid good money to see the looks on Don's and the children's faces the night we landed on that episode. And no residuals, either. Harrumph!

I keep Seinfeld's personally autographed photo (given to me as a gift by him through that same friend) (oh, the euphemisms!), near enough so that the lessons of ethics are never far out of reach. As for my confidante, as it turns out she had a lot to say about everybody to everybody, and I haven't seen her in years.

Series premier Thursday, March 4, 10 PM, NBC

http://www.nbc.com/the-marriage-ref/

The Bonnie Hunt Show -- why oh why has her show been cancelled? -- had me rolling off the couch and onto the floor today, no mean feat for a girthy (me, not Bonnie Hunt) woman. Their take on The Bachelor was painfully funny, and kudos to Don Lake for telling it like it is re: Jake Pavelka.

I don't know what I'm going to do without her warm sense of humour, her fabulous, wacky staff, and her ability to tell the truth without hurting anyone's feelings. Today's show was no exception, and a bit of a coincidence listening to her chat with guest Mark Ruffalo, a sweet, authentic, perfectly funny man who talked about his three children, their chickens, and the prolific rabbit population his family is fostering. I have seen Mark Ruffalo on other talk shows, but as with so many of her interviews, only Bonnie Hunt seems to be able to cull the kind of relaxed warmth most of us find among family and friends. Bonnie Hunt takes me back to the days of Mike Douglas and Merv Griffen, and Dean Martin sliding off his piano, where the world felt more loving and generous. I had a moment, in fact, when her show initially appeared, when I thought the world was changing; the cynicism disappearing, the mean-spiritedness going away. I was wrong, but I nevertheless hold out some small hope that people will write in and ask that she and her fabulous show be saved.

http://www.bonniehunt.com/

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savethebonniehuntshow/signatures

The Oprah Winfrey Show Okay, so I seem to be caving. That's what happens when you're thirty-seven. But how could I stay away from the remarkable Roger Ebert and his equally remarkable wife, Charlie (Chaz) Hammel-Smith, whose story of stalwart determination in the face -- here, quite literally -- of cancer is surely well-known to anyone who was already aware of Pulitzer prize-winning Ebert's on-going years as one of North America's most popular, incisive film critics?

Oprah followed this joint interview with another, introducing Colin Firth where, finally, a talk show host gives a marvellous movie, A Single Man, its due. (You might know from my entry on the Oscar nominees how I feel about this film -- the magnificent performances and the art direction -- and how it has been overlooked.) I was heartened to see and listen to its handsome, articulate star elaborate on the themes and the nuances. Tom Ford, having made his directorial debut with this movie, followed Firth on stage, and while Ford no doubt has given multiple interviews on account of his gem, seeing the two men together, and appreciated, was lovely.

http://www.oprah.com/oprah_show.html

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I  lived long enough to find it out." Roger Ebert

Olympic History

No wonder so many of us sit back for sixteen days, glued to our television sets and the Winter Olympics. No wonder, either, that a lot of people are feeling a little bereft today, pausing with a long sigh before tentatively jumping back into their regular day-to-day lives.

After all, when you think about it, the Olympic games are a perfect form of escape; a way out of the daily highs and lows of our own lives, a chance to put life on hold and escape the microcosm for the greater world outdoors.

I sat down with a pen and paper last night and began adding it up: the ways in which this monolithic sporting event compares with the everyday world in which each of us lives. In both cases

• there are people you root for and people you don’t; people you wish were your family, and others you wouldn’t want to share a town with. It is also true, in both cases, that the former feeling generally outweighs the latter
• there is illness, accident and death. Who can ever forget the horrific crash and subsequent loss of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, age 21; the bereavement of Joannie Rochette for her mother, and the multiple injuries sustained by so many athletes? Who among us hasn’t been, or won’t be, touched by these kinds – every kind – of cataclysmic event?
• there is family dysfunction – some of it overcome (see the case of Apolo Ohno, who was raised by his father, and whose mother is distantly, but only partially, present), and some of it not
• hierarchies persist
• drunkenness ensues, some of it playful, some of it not
• the weather changes at the drop of a hat: sun, rain, snow, hail, fog, sleet, heat, clouds, wind, stillness
• there is romance: couples are about to be married; couples are married with children; couples are separated and divorced; couples have lived together, happily, for years. Couples (who ice skate and) don’t seem to know they’re in love
• people are coming and going
• politics persists, along with marketing, media and mayhem
• some suffer depression. I listened to an interview last week on CBC Radio – an athlete talking about her experience with POD, which stands for Post-Olympic Depression, common enough, she said, that they’ve given a name to it
• family is key
• friendship is key
• industry is key
• diligence is key
• there is giddiness, surprise, innocence, gratitude, shame, apology, anger, inappropriateness, shock, education, sharing, isolation, laughter, pride, an idea of perfection, music, dancing, food, entertainment, appreciation, joy, regret, love, humour, nostalgia, celebration, restlessness, defiance, crying, competitiveness and concession
• people have to hurry off to the bathroom

I am not saying anything original, of course, which is partly my point. But I am saying that having those two weeks to project was thrilling to the point of magnificence, heartbreaking to the point of personal. I will take a deep breath – in fact, maybe three – before going back into my day…wondering how many of you are sighing, trying to imagine the next Winter Olympics – and what will happen in between.