Sometimes, when Don was alive (let’s face it – these things were far less likely to occur after he died) and I was feeling particularly vengeful (who – me?) because another dickweed dipstick had undervalued me or someone I loved, I used to ask Don if he found my enraged response off the mark. And Don would say to me, “Not at all, Chocolate Muffin.” (He had a lot of names for me, many of them connected to food.) “You are simply getting a little of your own back.”
Don had a lot of expressions like this – getting your own back; a leg up; sleepy bugs; bag them (that last one his harshest and most final commentary) – which were invaluable because they were succinct, absolutely clear, supportive and utterly confirming.
In fact, I have chosen partners who have the ability to name things and who do so fearlessly and quietly. Nothing feels as wonderful or as safe as solid affirmation when one has emerged bloody and battered from thirty years of chaos.
I have to add, too, that generally I tend to keep my thoughts and raging words within these four walls (to be fair, blog entries are also typed within these same parameters). Apart from the occasional outburst through an open car window (well, really, who do those right-to-lifers think they are, telling me my rights?) I seldom take my revenge farther than the front porch.
Not even the cats are fully aware of my anger, which is only to say I don’t throw things around or spit on the floor (which is something, given my Cape Breton roots).
Anyway, today I was sitting here with a Lake Simcoe headache (I know not to put my head underwater, and yet...) clutching my temples, while you know who (= not me) painted the kitchen bulkhead. (It looks lovely, by the way.) And what should come on the television but a new version of Stephen King’s Carrie, Patricia Clarkson playing the role of Carrie’s mad (as in very very angry but also insane) mother.
I watched with sore eyes half open, hot teacup pressed against my throbbing cheeks, trying to take in all the madness. It seems not much has changed between the old and new versions (except Stephen King’s cocaine addiction), although Carrie has taken on a slightly more demented look while her mother’s hair has become noticeably tamer.
Still, there was, and were, the same sociopathic set of students, the same tainted plot, the same bucket of blood, the same good girl (thank God not Amy Irving, but an equally thick-hair-gifted do-gooder) and, more or less, the same outcome for those who deserve bad ones (outcomes, that is).
Anyway, as I sat here watching, now gingerly chewing my onion bread toast, I said to the you know who toast-maker, “Wow. This is what Don meant. Carrie is simply getting her own back.” And for a little second it didn’t quite occur to me that killing off half the graduating student population and several kindly intended teachers was, in fact, not merely kill, but overkill.
I never imagined for a minute that torturesome students didn’t deserve whatever they had coming to them (in this instance, mostly electrocution and death by fire), or that it might be slightly more than unfair that well-intended people had to die, too.
Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that you better be nice to me because there’s no telling where my head might take me the next time I have a Lake Simcoe migraine and someone is mean to me.
In the meantime – Carrie on!
Sunday, July 31
Thursday, July 28
Conversation Conservation Calculations
Someone asked me this week at a group dinner how it was that I had come to have so many conversations with so many people. Well, that wasn’t exactly the question (I am an unreliable quoter, but a reliable get-the-gist-of-thingser), but it’s close enough.
So I asked her (rhetorically, I think), “Ah, but what did I do for twenty years?” (Twenty if you don’t count the barebones waitressing part that began, no lie, when I was thirteen; twenty-eight if you do.) But before this woman had time to answer (which I guess does say something about my ability to talk) (and interrupt), I said, “I was a bartender.”
The words weren’t half out of my mouth when I began doing the math. Let’s face it: if I served fifty customers four days a week, which is probably a good but conservative estimate if I weigh the quieter days with the busier weekends, I have exchanged words with 50 x 4 = 200 customers per week x 52 weeks per year = 10,400 x 28 years = 291,200.
Next, take the nine years I worked with patients – no fewer than 50 people three days per week + 16-50 patients two days per week (depending on whether I was working in the lab or at the hospital/s) = 150 + 50 (more or less) per week = 200 patients per week x 52 weeks per year = 10,400 x 9 years = 93, 600.
Now, when I add 93,600 + 291,200, I arrive at 384,800. That’s a lot of people – the population of Victoria, British Columbia, for one example.
On top of that, for most of those years I lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone or thought they did. And I was a talker. Hey! Not like that! In a friendly how are you did you see that so-and-so is dating so-and-so and do you think it will last sort of way. (Gotcha again!)
Then, when I add in the conversations I had at university + with various writing groups + with my children + with my students + with my friends + with Don + with Mary = oh my God.
And when I recount that Don told me, when I was still in my twenties, that I had more miles on my tongue than most people had in their eighties (hey!) it’s all a little frightening.
On top of all of this, I didn’t just offer people a beer or an eye drop and let it go at that. We had serious conversations: about life, living, death, dying, politics, politicians, writers, writing, behaviour, behaving, children, grandchildren, parents, distant relatives, in-laws, siblings (whoa...the stories people have told me), sports (mostly the Olympics, I confess, although there was some skating and aquatic talk), television, movies movies movies, the economy (mostly I just listened), government (oh, Ottawa), amity, enmity, psychology, psychologists (I could write four books on these discussions alone), plants, planting, cooks (which is everyone I have ever hooked up with), cooking, religion (there was more chitchat about this than you might imagine), business, local businesses, humour, books and more books, music, medicine, sex and sexuality, fashion, general recommendations, beer and wine and spirits (the kind you drink and the kind that go Boo!), furniture, travel, culture, societies, people in general and people specific, mysticism, news and newsmakers, pet peeves and passions, ideology, transportation, hobbies, animals, holidays, environment (mostly I asked), habits, restaurants and bars, live theatre, retirement, career, celebrity, genetics, art, language – and this is merely off the top of my head (which gives me a lop-sided look) – you can see the im/possibilities.
Furthermore, when I factor in all the email (by the thousands) and a blog that now totals more than 300,000 words (which is worth, in word count alone, three Canadian novels), along with the other bits and pieces I don’t talk about here – well, I can tell you I am as dizzy now as I was watching Dan Akyroyd grind up that fish in the Super Bass-O-Matic 76 skit
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BQFv83QJ2Y)
or practically bleed himself to fake-death a la Julia Child
(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnc9_the-french-chef_fun)
Anyway, I figure I have two options: the next time someone asks me how it is possible that I have had so many conversations. I’ll either send them a link to this entry or I'll shut up (and given the odds...).
Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two...
Frank Loesser (prompting me to add...and add...that the Loesser of two evils = four)
So I asked her (rhetorically, I think), “Ah, but what did I do for twenty years?” (Twenty if you don’t count the barebones waitressing part that began, no lie, when I was thirteen; twenty-eight if you do.) But before this woman had time to answer (which I guess does say something about my ability to talk) (and interrupt), I said, “I was a bartender.”
The words weren’t half out of my mouth when I began doing the math. Let’s face it: if I served fifty customers four days a week, which is probably a good but conservative estimate if I weigh the quieter days with the busier weekends, I have exchanged words with 50 x 4 = 200 customers per week x 52 weeks per year = 10,400 x 28 years = 291,200.
Next, take the nine years I worked with patients – no fewer than 50 people three days per week + 16-50 patients two days per week (depending on whether I was working in the lab or at the hospital/s) = 150 + 50 (more or less) per week = 200 patients per week x 52 weeks per year = 10,400 x 9 years = 93, 600.
Now, when I add 93,600 + 291,200, I arrive at 384,800. That’s a lot of people – the population of Victoria, British Columbia, for one example.
On top of that, for most of those years I lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone or thought they did. And I was a talker. Hey! Not like that! In a friendly how are you did you see that so-and-so is dating so-and-so and do you think it will last sort of way. (Gotcha again!)
Then, when I add in the conversations I had at university + with various writing groups + with my children + with my students + with my friends + with Don + with Mary = oh my God.
And when I recount that Don told me, when I was still in my twenties, that I had more miles on my tongue than most people had in their eighties (hey!) it’s all a little frightening.
On top of all of this, I didn’t just offer people a beer or an eye drop and let it go at that. We had serious conversations: about life, living, death, dying, politics, politicians, writers, writing, behaviour, behaving, children, grandchildren, parents, distant relatives, in-laws, siblings (whoa...the stories people have told me), sports (mostly the Olympics, I confess, although there was some skating and aquatic talk), television, movies movies movies, the economy (mostly I just listened), government (oh, Ottawa), amity, enmity, psychology, psychologists (I could write four books on these discussions alone), plants, planting, cooks (which is everyone I have ever hooked up with), cooking, religion (there was more chitchat about this than you might imagine), business, local businesses, humour, books and more books, music, medicine, sex and sexuality, fashion, general recommendations, beer and wine and spirits (the kind you drink and the kind that go Boo!), furniture, travel, culture, societies, people in general and people specific, mysticism, news and newsmakers, pet peeves and passions, ideology, transportation, hobbies, animals, holidays, environment (mostly I asked), habits, restaurants and bars, live theatre, retirement, career, celebrity, genetics, art, language – and this is merely off the top of my head (which gives me a lop-sided look) – you can see the im/possibilities.
Furthermore, when I factor in all the email (by the thousands) and a blog that now totals more than 300,000 words (which is worth, in word count alone, three Canadian novels), along with the other bits and pieces I don’t talk about here – well, I can tell you I am as dizzy now as I was watching Dan Akyroyd grind up that fish in the Super Bass-O-Matic 76 skit
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BQFv83QJ2Y)
or practically bleed himself to fake-death a la Julia Child
(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnc9_the-french-chef_fun)
Anyway, I figure I have two options: the next time someone asks me how it is possible that I have had so many conversations. I’ll either send them a link to this entry or I'll shut up (and given the odds...).
Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two...
Frank Loesser (prompting me to add...and add...that the Loesser of two evils = four)
Wednesday, July 27
Sarah
I need to be getting up off my duff and into action.
The plants on the balcony – I can see them from here – are calling my name, their parched little throats desperate for a cool drink of water. (The bidens, however, prefer lemonade.)
The metal alloy safety deposit box we were supposed to close weeks ago (the papers we need to add are waiting here in the house) (“fat lot of good...”) so we can open another nearer to home is ringing in my ears. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
The treadmill is tired from the weight of the clothing and cats, the machine long ago having forgotten the feel of feet on its pressure points.
Jeeves and Galoshes are meowing in the hallway, demanding their daily dental treats. You’d think I would be so pleased that the cats are taking care of their teeth that I would be rushing to feed them.
The exquisitely written book club novel I was supposed to finish reading for yesterday’s dinner is sitting downstairs on the record player.
The book I am supposed to finish writing is lying dormant and lonely in the back room, inside the other computer.
The dirty dishes that are clinging to the counter and begging to be washed are fossilizing as I type.
The email I should have replied to hours ago is trapped inside my drafts folder, some of the words leaking out around the edges. Help me!
The plumber who has to be called – shower leak into the kitchen ceiling; hot water absent from the bathroom faucet; dripping pipe under the kitchen sink; dishwasher waiting to be installed – is somewhere in the phonebook, his name lost to me.
There’s so much to be done, but there’s only one problem: Sarah.
Sarah loved the bidens and would touch them whenever she came to visit.
Some of those waiting safety deposit items belong to Sarah.
Sarah and I had a weight loss challenge last summer – a dollar for every pound not lost. (Cruel, heartless irony.)
Jeeves was Sarah’s cat, purchased and named for her father after Don died. He (Jeeves, not Don) lies here beside me, just the way Boots (also Sarah's cat) did, mourning Sarah’s loss.
Many of the exquisite book club novel characters die, some of them young.
Sarah inspired my novel. Was there anyone more excited when I won the writing prize last year? (And the year before that?) (And the year before that?) No. And would she laugh over my deliberate lack of modesty here? Harder than anyone you know.
And I wonder -- and I mean, I wonder -- how many times I happily, gleefully washed dishes in preparation of Sarah’s arrival.
Maybe worse than anything – at this point it’s impossible to know – none of those waiting email belong to Sarah or will ever be Sarah’s again.
And it was Sarah who bought us the dishwasher which, albeit compact-sized, she hefted and heaved last December, days before her tumour first began bleeding. She could not have been more excited when we arrived for our separate Christmas – and in fact, her first bleed began minutes after we opened our gifts.
It isn’t that I am trying to excuse myself for my inaction. I have been good about getting myself up and about for the myriad generous invitations we have received (I will say it again – I do not know what I would do without friends), so you would think that it wouldn’t be this difficult to pry myself away from this room.
But every time I make a move to move I see her, I sense her, I hear her, I feel her, I want her, I need her, I love her, I long for her.
For Sarah.
Who cannot raise her daughter, cannot touch the flowers, cannot wash the dishes, cannot buy presents, cannot pet her cats, cannot visit, cannot send an email, cannot read a book, cannot write a book, cannot listen to music, cannot laugh or cry.
The plants on the balcony – I can see them from here – are calling my name, their parched little throats desperate for a cool drink of water. (The bidens, however, prefer lemonade.)
The metal alloy safety deposit box we were supposed to close weeks ago (the papers we need to add are waiting here in the house) (“fat lot of good...”) so we can open another nearer to home is ringing in my ears. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
The treadmill is tired from the weight of the clothing and cats, the machine long ago having forgotten the feel of feet on its pressure points.
Jeeves and Galoshes are meowing in the hallway, demanding their daily dental treats. You’d think I would be so pleased that the cats are taking care of their teeth that I would be rushing to feed them.
The exquisitely written book club novel I was supposed to finish reading for yesterday’s dinner is sitting downstairs on the record player.
The book I am supposed to finish writing is lying dormant and lonely in the back room, inside the other computer.
The dirty dishes that are clinging to the counter and begging to be washed are fossilizing as I type.
The email I should have replied to hours ago is trapped inside my drafts folder, some of the words leaking out around the edges. Help me!
The plumber who has to be called – shower leak into the kitchen ceiling; hot water absent from the bathroom faucet; dripping pipe under the kitchen sink; dishwasher waiting to be installed – is somewhere in the phonebook, his name lost to me.
There’s so much to be done, but there’s only one problem: Sarah.
Sarah loved the bidens and would touch them whenever she came to visit.
Some of those waiting safety deposit items belong to Sarah.
Sarah and I had a weight loss challenge last summer – a dollar for every pound not lost. (Cruel, heartless irony.)
Jeeves was Sarah’s cat, purchased and named for her father after Don died. He (Jeeves, not Don) lies here beside me, just the way Boots (also Sarah's cat) did, mourning Sarah’s loss.
Many of the exquisite book club novel characters die, some of them young.
Sarah inspired my novel. Was there anyone more excited when I won the writing prize last year? (And the year before that?) (And the year before that?) No. And would she laugh over my deliberate lack of modesty here? Harder than anyone you know.
And I wonder -- and I mean, I wonder -- how many times I happily, gleefully washed dishes in preparation of Sarah’s arrival.
Maybe worse than anything – at this point it’s impossible to know – none of those waiting email belong to Sarah or will ever be Sarah’s again.
And it was Sarah who bought us the dishwasher which, albeit compact-sized, she hefted and heaved last December, days before her tumour first began bleeding. She could not have been more excited when we arrived for our separate Christmas – and in fact, her first bleed began minutes after we opened our gifts.
It isn’t that I am trying to excuse myself for my inaction. I have been good about getting myself up and about for the myriad generous invitations we have received (I will say it again – I do not know what I would do without friends), so you would think that it wouldn’t be this difficult to pry myself away from this room.
But every time I make a move to move I see her, I sense her, I hear her, I feel her, I want her, I need her, I love her, I long for her.
For Sarah.
Who cannot raise her daughter, cannot touch the flowers, cannot wash the dishes, cannot buy presents, cannot pet her cats, cannot visit, cannot send an email, cannot read a book, cannot write a book, cannot listen to music, cannot laugh or cry.
Tuesday, July 26
Russell Brand Eulogizes Amy Winehouse
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma.
Carl Barât told me that Winehouse (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance: "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric," I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but unignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his speedboat, there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was a character but that world was riddled with half-cut, doped-up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work. This not being the 1950s, I wondered how a jazz singer had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound.
So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed-up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.
Shallow fool that I am, I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood-soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that YouTube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition.
Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre Focus 12 I found recovery. Through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts that are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill.
We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.
Russell Brand writing for the Guardian
Drinking, of course, is the result of something, not the cause. Amy Winehouse had no children or dependents; she clearly wanted and tried to change; she was not glib or indifferent to the consequences of her habits and actions; she was not, or from this distance, did not seem smug. When I look at her face, I see someone who appears to be terminally sad. When I think of her dying, I feel deeply for her, and wish her life could have been happier. I think she had exceptional talent and heart.
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma.
Carl Barât told me that Winehouse (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance: "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric," I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but unignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his speedboat, there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was a character but that world was riddled with half-cut, doped-up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work. This not being the 1950s, I wondered how a jazz singer had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound.
So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed-up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.
Shallow fool that I am, I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood-soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that YouTube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition.
Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre Focus 12 I found recovery. Through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts that are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill.
We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.
Russell Brand writing for the Guardian
Drinking, of course, is the result of something, not the cause. Amy Winehouse had no children or dependents; she clearly wanted and tried to change; she was not glib or indifferent to the consequences of her habits and actions; she was not, or from this distance, did not seem smug. When I look at her face, I see someone who appears to be terminally sad. When I think of her dying, I feel deeply for her, and wish her life could have been happier. I think she had exceptional talent and heart.
Monday, July 25
Suddenly Single
Anyone who knows me or my family is aware that this has been a painful year. I do not know what we would have done, or would do, without our friends. We have spent many lovely hours this summer over dinner/s, at the beach, in various homes, accepting invitations.
So many names come crowding into my head: Crystal, Lesley, Peggy, Mary T, Mike and Stephan, Joanne, Michelle, Zach, Rod and Laura, Marg, Sheila, poking Steph, Eva and David...and on.
It was with gratitude, then, that Mary and I accepted a July 1st dinner invitation from Guy Zimmerman, who has had his own share of recent heartache and upheaval. And as you will read in the following article about Guy and his children, he harbours (odd word choice, I know) a spectacular view overlooking south/west/north Toronto.
In an entry that is supposed to be featuring Guy, I do have to say that I have never in my life experienced fireworks the way I experienced them from Guy’s 15th-floor balcony. I felt like the Friendly Giant (“Hi Rusty! Hi Jerome!”), overlooking the kingdom, dozens and dozens of colourful starbursts exploding from every possible pocket of the city. I also felt as if Sarah were standing there with us, oohing and aahing and clapping her hands.
Ultimately, however, the fireworks also serve as a metaphor for the kindness, affection and compassion – and whoa...can he cook! – we have received from Guy, who knows, because he has a compassionate heart, what it means to suffer loss.
Lifelong Renter
Suddenly single: newly divorced find renting the smart option
July 22, 2011 David Hayes
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
On a recent Monday evening, a familiar domestic scene unfolds in the apartment of Guy Zimmerman and his two children, 15-year-old Adam and 11-year-old Samantha.
Adam, who bears a striking resemblance to Justin Bieber (before the pop sensation’s recent transition from cool teenager to cool young adult), sits in front of a computer monitor playing “World of Warcraft.” Samantha, as befits her stated ambition to become a marine biologist, is in her bedroom studying her tadpoles that will, when they become frogs, be transferred to a suitable environment in a fish tank.
And Zimmerman is in the narrow galley kitchen making dinner. Tonight it’s sweet and sour ham with scalloped potatoes (Samantha’s request; it’s a favourite of hers) and vegetables. “Almost ready,” he yells to the kids. “I’m down to the short strokes.”
An involved dad, Zimmerman, 51, works as a preservation officer in the Heritage Preservation Services department of the city’s planning department. He’s also symbolic of a phenomenon common in our culture: those who, in middle age, have come out of marriages into a new reality of fresh starts, shared custody and, often, making the transition from homeowner to renter.
Today, in Canada, four in 10 first marriages end in divorce, according to a 2010 study by the Vanier Institute of the Family. Statistics Canada supports this finding, predicting that approximately 38 per cent of all marriages that took place in 2004 will end in divorce by 2035. Anecdotally, there are few of us who don’t have close friends or family members whose marriages dissolved. This usually leaves at least one spouse looking for new accommodation — often until a family home is sold — and renting is most often the choice, at least temporarily.
“I’m no longer a landowner now,” says Zimmerman. “But then again, I remember when I bought the house I thought, I’m no longer a renter, this is going to be a real commitment, do I want to invest so much of my time and energy into a house?”
Zimmerman studied architecture at the University of Toronto and then did an interdisciplinary program at the University of British Columbia that combined engineering, sociology, art history and landscape architecture. In 1984, he moved to Halifax to complete a BA in environmental design studies at the Technical University of Nova Scotia (now part of Dalhousie) and, a year later, completed a certificate in architectural technology at Ryerson University.
He and his former wife once lived in Little Italy in an apartment that was kitty-corner to Café Diplomatico. When Adam was born in 1996, the couple bought a house in the South Hillcrest neighbourhood, a few blocks south of St. Clair St. W. It was a duplex, so for the first five years they had tenants on the main floor and in the basement. During that time, the couple both operated businesses out of the home: Zimmerman did architectural renderings and editorial illustrations; his wife ran a nanny placement service. Eventually Zimmerman restored the house to a single-family dwelling, redoing the roof, installing a custom bathroom, and making a curvy countertop for the kitchen. He also took a full-time job with the city in 2001.
When the marriage ended three years ago, Zimmerman and the children stayed in the house until it was put on the market in March. The closing was last month, but by then Zimmerman had found his new rental home: a $1,275-a-month, 1,000-square-foot unit on the 15th floor of a highrise not far from St. Clair and Bathurst and close to the childrens’ schools.
Windows stretch along the west side of the unit providing a breathtaking view — the ledge is home to dozens of Zimmerman’s knickknacks, including old glass bottles that reflect the light — and there is a small balcony off the northwest corner of the living room. When the kids are over, Zimmerman sleeps in the living room on a single mattress.
“I wanted to rent because I wasn’t ready to commit to any place unless I knew where I wanted to live and if I wanted to buy again,” says Zimmerman. “I wanted to regroup, figure out what to do next. I wanted to simplify my life and enjoy time with my children.”
Like the architect that he is, Zimmerman created a scale model of the apartment out of Styrofoam to help plan the move. “A huge step was the transition from a five-bedroom house with a backyard and basement to a two-bedroom apartment,” he says. “The model was necessary so I could figure out what furniture to keep, donate or throw out. And it was nice to get excited about a new space and to get Adam and Sam involved in how it would be arranged.”
When I ask Samantha if she likes the new apartment, she says, “Y-e-a-h!” although she’s more excited to tell me about her business, “Earrings for Animals” (fionaandsamsearrings.yolasite.com). As her dad proudly watches, she explains that proceeds from the earrings that she and her friend Fiona make go to charities helping endangered animals.
Dinner is ready. One advantage of the apartment was having a dining area that would accommodate the seven-foot-long wooden table that Zimmerman picked up years ago when he worked for a contract furniture manufacturer. As we gather around it, I ask Adam whether he likes the apartment.
“Yeah, I like the smaller space,” he says thoughtfully. “We can all talk to each other. And I love the view.”
David Hayes is an author and award-winning feature writer who has been a renter most of his life. If you have stories or information to share about renting, he can be reached at lifelong_renter@sympatico.ca.
To see the terrific photo of this wonderful family or to read the story online go to http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/realestate/article/1029283--suddenly-single-newly-divorced-find-renting-the-smart-option
So many names come crowding into my head: Crystal, Lesley, Peggy, Mary T, Mike and Stephan, Joanne, Michelle, Zach, Rod and Laura, Marg, Sheila, poking Steph, Eva and David...and on.
It was with gratitude, then, that Mary and I accepted a July 1st dinner invitation from Guy Zimmerman, who has had his own share of recent heartache and upheaval. And as you will read in the following article about Guy and his children, he harbours (odd word choice, I know) a spectacular view overlooking south/west/north Toronto.
In an entry that is supposed to be featuring Guy, I do have to say that I have never in my life experienced fireworks the way I experienced them from Guy’s 15th-floor balcony. I felt like the Friendly Giant (“Hi Rusty! Hi Jerome!”), overlooking the kingdom, dozens and dozens of colourful starbursts exploding from every possible pocket of the city. I also felt as if Sarah were standing there with us, oohing and aahing and clapping her hands.
Ultimately, however, the fireworks also serve as a metaphor for the kindness, affection and compassion – and whoa...can he cook! – we have received from Guy, who knows, because he has a compassionate heart, what it means to suffer loss.
Lifelong Renter
Suddenly single: newly divorced find renting the smart option
July 22, 2011 David Hayes
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
On a recent Monday evening, a familiar domestic scene unfolds in the apartment of Guy Zimmerman and his two children, 15-year-old Adam and 11-year-old Samantha.
Adam, who bears a striking resemblance to Justin Bieber (before the pop sensation’s recent transition from cool teenager to cool young adult), sits in front of a computer monitor playing “World of Warcraft.” Samantha, as befits her stated ambition to become a marine biologist, is in her bedroom studying her tadpoles that will, when they become frogs, be transferred to a suitable environment in a fish tank.
And Zimmerman is in the narrow galley kitchen making dinner. Tonight it’s sweet and sour ham with scalloped potatoes (Samantha’s request; it’s a favourite of hers) and vegetables. “Almost ready,” he yells to the kids. “I’m down to the short strokes.”
An involved dad, Zimmerman, 51, works as a preservation officer in the Heritage Preservation Services department of the city’s planning department. He’s also symbolic of a phenomenon common in our culture: those who, in middle age, have come out of marriages into a new reality of fresh starts, shared custody and, often, making the transition from homeowner to renter.
Today, in Canada, four in 10 first marriages end in divorce, according to a 2010 study by the Vanier Institute of the Family. Statistics Canada supports this finding, predicting that approximately 38 per cent of all marriages that took place in 2004 will end in divorce by 2035. Anecdotally, there are few of us who don’t have close friends or family members whose marriages dissolved. This usually leaves at least one spouse looking for new accommodation — often until a family home is sold — and renting is most often the choice, at least temporarily.
“I’m no longer a landowner now,” says Zimmerman. “But then again, I remember when I bought the house I thought, I’m no longer a renter, this is going to be a real commitment, do I want to invest so much of my time and energy into a house?”
Zimmerman studied architecture at the University of Toronto and then did an interdisciplinary program at the University of British Columbia that combined engineering, sociology, art history and landscape architecture. In 1984, he moved to Halifax to complete a BA in environmental design studies at the Technical University of Nova Scotia (now part of Dalhousie) and, a year later, completed a certificate in architectural technology at Ryerson University.
He and his former wife once lived in Little Italy in an apartment that was kitty-corner to Café Diplomatico. When Adam was born in 1996, the couple bought a house in the South Hillcrest neighbourhood, a few blocks south of St. Clair St. W. It was a duplex, so for the first five years they had tenants on the main floor and in the basement. During that time, the couple both operated businesses out of the home: Zimmerman did architectural renderings and editorial illustrations; his wife ran a nanny placement service. Eventually Zimmerman restored the house to a single-family dwelling, redoing the roof, installing a custom bathroom, and making a curvy countertop for the kitchen. He also took a full-time job with the city in 2001.
When the marriage ended three years ago, Zimmerman and the children stayed in the house until it was put on the market in March. The closing was last month, but by then Zimmerman had found his new rental home: a $1,275-a-month, 1,000-square-foot unit on the 15th floor of a highrise not far from St. Clair and Bathurst and close to the childrens’ schools.
Windows stretch along the west side of the unit providing a breathtaking view — the ledge is home to dozens of Zimmerman’s knickknacks, including old glass bottles that reflect the light — and there is a small balcony off the northwest corner of the living room. When the kids are over, Zimmerman sleeps in the living room on a single mattress.
“I wanted to rent because I wasn’t ready to commit to any place unless I knew where I wanted to live and if I wanted to buy again,” says Zimmerman. “I wanted to regroup, figure out what to do next. I wanted to simplify my life and enjoy time with my children.”
Like the architect that he is, Zimmerman created a scale model of the apartment out of Styrofoam to help plan the move. “A huge step was the transition from a five-bedroom house with a backyard and basement to a two-bedroom apartment,” he says. “The model was necessary so I could figure out what furniture to keep, donate or throw out. And it was nice to get excited about a new space and to get Adam and Sam involved in how it would be arranged.”
When I ask Samantha if she likes the new apartment, she says, “Y-e-a-h!” although she’s more excited to tell me about her business, “Earrings for Animals” (fionaandsamsearrings.yolasite.com). As her dad proudly watches, she explains that proceeds from the earrings that she and her friend Fiona make go to charities helping endangered animals.
Dinner is ready. One advantage of the apartment was having a dining area that would accommodate the seven-foot-long wooden table that Zimmerman picked up years ago when he worked for a contract furniture manufacturer. As we gather around it, I ask Adam whether he likes the apartment.
“Yeah, I like the smaller space,” he says thoughtfully. “We can all talk to each other. And I love the view.”
David Hayes is an author and award-winning feature writer who has been a renter most of his life. If you have stories or information to share about renting, he can be reached at lifelong_renter@sympatico.ca.
To see the terrific photo of this wonderful family or to read the story online go to http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/realestate/article/1029283--suddenly-single-newly-divorced-find-renting-the-smart-option
Wednesday, July 20
Blind Thoughts
I was cleaning the bedroom blinds today – I don’t think they have been touched in many years, I am ashamed to admit – and Lainey was lying back on the bed working away at an on-line reading exercise. I forget what we were talking about – the difference between memorizing and actually reading, I think – when it occurred to me how much she is going to forget, given her young age.
Already, there are things she asks me about her mother and already she is saying, “Grammie, I don’t remember.” I tell her not to worry; that she will be reminded by all the people who love her and loved her mum, and that here in this house many mementoes await that her mother asked me to bring home.
On the other hand, I am often surprised by what I remember from my fourth year: my uncle offering me a bottle of red cream soda with a straw as I am being taken away from my mother’s home to live with my nutty aunt; my cousin’s arm snapping as she falls from her upside-down position on the monkey bars; my sister throwing the phonebook at me (I wasn’t afraid, either; only conscious of having to dodge in a hurry); eating dill pickles at the kitchen table on Gibson Street; a kind teacher (not my teacher; I was too young to go to school) showing me a soft-looking rabbit in a cage; finding my way home along the river, and my cousin being beaten black and blue by her mother for making a mistake.
Today, after I finished the blinds, I took down the pink glass jar from the window and transferred Don’s ashes into the tea tin. Then, as Lainey made her way from p through t, I went downstairs and poured Sarah’s ashes from their container into the rose-coloured bottle, careful not to spill. I was surprised that the colour of the ashes was darker than Don’s, and coarser, and that a soft-scented mist floated up into the air, momentarily over-taking me.
When I got back upstairs, Lainey was working on the letter z. Z stands for zoo and zebra and zinc. I placed the bottle on the window ledge and finished my work, wondering if one day when Lainey grows up she will have a vignette-like memory of her grandmother cleaning the window blinds, the way I remember my white dress (hand-painted with roses) sent to me by my father when I was so young.
And maybe she’ll say, as she’s retelling the tale, “Yes, my Grammie was cleaning the windows, I am pretty sure of that, and there was a lovely little bottle that she dusted. I think her whole house was quite dusty – she and Gramps always liked old things – and it was summer, and I was learning to read.”
Already, there are things she asks me about her mother and already she is saying, “Grammie, I don’t remember.” I tell her not to worry; that she will be reminded by all the people who love her and loved her mum, and that here in this house many mementoes await that her mother asked me to bring home.
On the other hand, I am often surprised by what I remember from my fourth year: my uncle offering me a bottle of red cream soda with a straw as I am being taken away from my mother’s home to live with my nutty aunt; my cousin’s arm snapping as she falls from her upside-down position on the monkey bars; my sister throwing the phonebook at me (I wasn’t afraid, either; only conscious of having to dodge in a hurry); eating dill pickles at the kitchen table on Gibson Street; a kind teacher (not my teacher; I was too young to go to school) showing me a soft-looking rabbit in a cage; finding my way home along the river, and my cousin being beaten black and blue by her mother for making a mistake.
Today, after I finished the blinds, I took down the pink glass jar from the window and transferred Don’s ashes into the tea tin. Then, as Lainey made her way from p through t, I went downstairs and poured Sarah’s ashes from their container into the rose-coloured bottle, careful not to spill. I was surprised that the colour of the ashes was darker than Don’s, and coarser, and that a soft-scented mist floated up into the air, momentarily over-taking me.
When I got back upstairs, Lainey was working on the letter z. Z stands for zoo and zebra and zinc. I placed the bottle on the window ledge and finished my work, wondering if one day when Lainey grows up she will have a vignette-like memory of her grandmother cleaning the window blinds, the way I remember my white dress (hand-painted with roses) sent to me by my father when I was so young.
And maybe she’ll say, as she’s retelling the tale, “Yes, my Grammie was cleaning the windows, I am pretty sure of that, and there was a lovely little bottle that she dusted. I think her whole house was quite dusty – she and Gramps always liked old things – and it was summer, and I was learning to read.”
Monday, July 18
I Swear
I was engaged in a conversation over the weekend about swearing, which, I confess, I have partaken of most of my life (bad language, I mean, not conversation, although both things have been prevalent throughout) (except for the five years I lived in my father’s house). My youngest child, in fact, used to call me Sailor Mouth, although I think this nickname was more a product of his romantic notion about mothers who were also bartenders than it was about anything real.
Mostly, I tried to mind what I said around my children when they were young, as I do around Lainey, although I think the occasional slip is not harmful as long as young children understand that this is not an appropriate way for people to be speaking unless they mean to be philosophically effective.
And because of this recent/weekend conversation, I have firmly decided that I intend to swear until I die (or until I lose my mind, in which case the choice might be taken away from me). While I do not condone gutter-sniping, I think any word can be the best word in the right setting.
Odd, then, that in my choice of life (life?) partners I have selected two people who almost never drop an s, c, f, d, a, b or m bomb. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I heard Mary swear (although I am fairly certain that were I to guess it would have had something to do with her job, which she loves, but...).
Mind you, Mary is one of those people who suffers deeply from anger issues in that she is almost never and seldom knows how to be angry. How she hooked up with me is beyond my capacity, given that I can get my dander in an uproar over almost anything (and am so good at it that I feel no need to apologize or even question my – shall we call it – passion).
But Don was a whole other conundrum. Like me, he often found himself thoroughly enraged, and how he held his tongue and minded his language in almost all settings remains way beyond me. (And why I have lapsed into cutesy vernacular is also way beyond what ought to be way beneath me.)
You can imagine my delight, then, to find myself walking toward the churchyard with Don one winter’s afternoon, only a few steps from the bar in which I made my wage. We had been having recent discussions about one of the men with whom I worked – an arrogant guy who was being paid under the table by our boss and collecting unemployment insurance at the same time.
I was telling Don again about how this man persistently treated me poorly (which on the island is euphemistic for “like shit” – let’s not mince words here in an entry about swearing) when, lo and behold, who was approaching us from the opposite direction but Mr. Misogyny himself.
As he moved closer to us I could sense that he was afraid...which is typically how all bullies respond in the face of integrity...and as he walked by, head down, he spoke quietly enough, saying something like, “Good day” or “How are you?” to which Don replied, also quietly (but loudly enough for me to be sure of what I was hearing), “Fuck off.”
Well, you could have knocked me over with a toothpick. I was flabbergasted and, more than that, absolutely thrilled. All those months being treated shabbily by that cocaine-infested fleabag and, in an instant, this other man – this wonderful man who almost never let a filthy word fly out of his mouth – conquering that dickweed with/in two words.
I would have jumped up and down and clapped my hands were I not such a klutz and in danger of falling and breaking my spine. I must have said to Don five times in our short walk home, “Oh my God – you told him to fuck off.” And while it is true that Don was never one to gloat or puff up, I could see the snow reflecting brightly, clearly, in his twinkly brown eyes. Not only had he rid me forever of another thorn in my side, but he had reminded me of an invaluable lesson I had previously learned in writing, applying make-up, humour and, now, bad language:
Less is more.
And if you don’t believe me, try walking through an icy churchyard in Charlottetown and replicating our experience. You will come away with one of life’s invaluable lessons, emerging braver, calmer and better armed. And like many of us who seldom do, you will know what it means to savour.
I swear.
Mostly, I tried to mind what I said around my children when they were young, as I do around Lainey, although I think the occasional slip is not harmful as long as young children understand that this is not an appropriate way for people to be speaking unless they mean to be philosophically effective.
And because of this recent/weekend conversation, I have firmly decided that I intend to swear until I die (or until I lose my mind, in which case the choice might be taken away from me). While I do not condone gutter-sniping, I think any word can be the best word in the right setting.
I think now of young (by young, I mean no older than four) Noam, walking down the apartment hallway, accidentally dropping his Tonka trucks and uttering, half under his breath, “Jesus Christ.” I don’t think I ever heard him swear for the purpose of being overheard (at least not by his parents), and I keenly admired his ability to put so succinctly into two words the full thrust of his annoyance.
My mother was also something of a blasphemer, but relegated her use to the same three words: shit, damn and balls. (I never understood which end of whose anatomy the balls referred to, and I never asked.) She was also incredibly polite and did not, within my hearing and knowledge, use foul language out of context (which isn’t exactly correct denotatively, but fits my connotative meaning).Odd, then, that in my choice of life (life?) partners I have selected two people who almost never drop an s, c, f, d, a, b or m bomb. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I heard Mary swear (although I am fairly certain that were I to guess it would have had something to do with her job, which she loves, but...).
Mind you, Mary is one of those people who suffers deeply from anger issues in that she is almost never and seldom knows how to be angry. How she hooked up with me is beyond my capacity, given that I can get my dander in an uproar over almost anything (and am so good at it that I feel no need to apologize or even question my – shall we call it – passion).
But Don was a whole other conundrum. Like me, he often found himself thoroughly enraged, and how he held his tongue and minded his language in almost all settings remains way beyond me. (And why I have lapsed into cutesy vernacular is also way beyond what ought to be way beneath me.)
You can imagine my delight, then, to find myself walking toward the churchyard with Don one winter’s afternoon, only a few steps from the bar in which I made my wage. We had been having recent discussions about one of the men with whom I worked – an arrogant guy who was being paid under the table by our boss and collecting unemployment insurance at the same time.
I was telling Don again about how this man persistently treated me poorly (which on the island is euphemistic for “like shit” – let’s not mince words here in an entry about swearing) when, lo and behold, who was approaching us from the opposite direction but Mr. Misogyny himself.
As he moved closer to us I could sense that he was afraid...which is typically how all bullies respond in the face of integrity...and as he walked by, head down, he spoke quietly enough, saying something like, “Good day” or “How are you?” to which Don replied, also quietly (but loudly enough for me to be sure of what I was hearing), “Fuck off.”
Well, you could have knocked me over with a toothpick. I was flabbergasted and, more than that, absolutely thrilled. All those months being treated shabbily by that cocaine-infested fleabag and, in an instant, this other man – this wonderful man who almost never let a filthy word fly out of his mouth – conquering that dickweed with/in two words.
I would have jumped up and down and clapped my hands were I not such a klutz and in danger of falling and breaking my spine. I must have said to Don five times in our short walk home, “Oh my God – you told him to fuck off.” And while it is true that Don was never one to gloat or puff up, I could see the snow reflecting brightly, clearly, in his twinkly brown eyes. Not only had he rid me forever of another thorn in my side, but he had reminded me of an invaluable lesson I had previously learned in writing, applying make-up, humour and, now, bad language:
Less is more.
And if you don’t believe me, try walking through an icy churchyard in Charlottetown and replicating our experience. You will come away with one of life’s invaluable lessons, emerging braver, calmer and better armed. And like many of us who seldom do, you will know what it means to savour.
I swear.
Thursday, July 14
Lainey’s Movie Review
Mr. Popper’s Penguins, 2011
Directed by Mark Waters
The movie was about Mr. Popper’s penguins. Mr. Popper learned how to be nice and loved with the penguins. Like, they lived in New York City and he lived in a big apartment. He got a penguin from the man. And for magic some more penguins came. Maybe about six, but I don’t know.
The penguins had eggs. They played in the apartment. The man put snow in the apartment for them.
They went to the zoo. It was a big fight.
I liked the movie because of the penguins because they were so cute and funny. I liked the children too because I liked-ed the girl and the boy because I like big people and I like little people.
I like Happy Feet more, but I still like Mr. Popper’s Penguins a tiny bit.
* If I am permitted an adjunct opinion, Mr. Popper’s Penguins stunk. The script could have been and maybe was written by an eight-year-old with a cold, and the acting...well, let me put it this way: I would never have known Jim Carrey had been in a film prior to this one. The movie was dreadful all way around. We tried to salvage some meaning from the film and the angry protagonist, but what a stretch that was – like pulling one’s upper lip up over one’s nose and beyond, past her eyes. Oh, if only that had happened yesterday at the movie theatre – before the opening credits rolled.
Even the popcorn was stale.
http://vueweekly.com/film/story/mr._poppers_penguins1/
Directed by Mark Waters
The movie was about Mr. Popper’s penguins. Mr. Popper learned how to be nice and loved with the penguins. Like, they lived in New York City and he lived in a big apartment. He got a penguin from the man. And for magic some more penguins came. Maybe about six, but I don’t know.
The penguins had eggs. They played in the apartment. The man put snow in the apartment for them.
They went to the zoo. It was a big fight.
I liked the movie because of the penguins because they were so cute and funny. I liked the children too because I liked-ed the girl and the boy because I like big people and I like little people.
I like Happy Feet more, but I still like Mr. Popper’s Penguins a tiny bit.
* If I am permitted an adjunct opinion, Mr. Popper’s Penguins stunk. The script could have been and maybe was written by an eight-year-old with a cold, and the acting...well, let me put it this way: I would never have known Jim Carrey had been in a film prior to this one. The movie was dreadful all way around. We tried to salvage some meaning from the film and the angry protagonist, but what a stretch that was – like pulling one’s upper lip up over one’s nose and beyond, past her eyes. Oh, if only that had happened yesterday at the movie theatre – before the opening credits rolled.
Even the popcorn was stale.
http://vueweekly.com/film/story/mr._poppers_penguins1/
Wednesday, July 13
The Parallax View
The following are not true for all people at all times, but if you asked me to make some generalizations, here are a baker’s dozen:
• The worst gossips are the people who claim they never gossip.
• The biggest liars are the people who say they never lie.
• Perpetual back-handers profess ever-innocence.
• The cruellest people are the ones who allege, loudly, dramatically, to have been most cruelly victimized.
• The smartest people don’t know that they’re smart.
• The kindest people think they’ve never done enough.
• The loneliest people never realize how loved they are, or why.
• The fastest way to gain weight is to go on a diet.
• The people who insist that no thanks are required are the first people to holler if you don’t send flowers.
• Psychotherapy is for those who aren’t quite unwell enough to need it. Everyone else is untreatable by virtue of the vortex.
• If you crave it, chances are it will harm you.
• The children who complain the loudest about their parents often turn into the worst parents. (I suppose there’s some sense to that.)
• The nights when next-morning demands demand early-to-bed dreams demean means of getting to sleep. Okay, so that's not my best work, but you try this at 12:30 AM.
I could go on all night, but an early morning awaits. Oh...wait a minute. (Or wait an hour, or...)
• The worst gossips are the people who claim they never gossip.
• The biggest liars are the people who say they never lie.
• Perpetual back-handers profess ever-innocence.
• The cruellest people are the ones who allege, loudly, dramatically, to have been most cruelly victimized.
• The smartest people don’t know that they’re smart.
• The kindest people think they’ve never done enough.
• The loneliest people never realize how loved they are, or why.
• The fastest way to gain weight is to go on a diet.
• The people who insist that no thanks are required are the first people to holler if you don’t send flowers.
• Psychotherapy is for those who aren’t quite unwell enough to need it. Everyone else is untreatable by virtue of the vortex.
• If you crave it, chances are it will harm you.
• The children who complain the loudest about their parents often turn into the worst parents. (I suppose there’s some sense to that.)
• The nights when next-morning demands demand early-to-bed dreams demean means of getting to sleep. Okay, so that's not my best work, but you try this at 12:30 AM.
I could go on all night, but an early morning awaits. Oh...wait a minute. (Or wait an hour, or...)
Monday, July 11
Three By Auden
If I Could Tell You
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Their Lonely Betters
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.
Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.
Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.
At Last the Secret is Out
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.
W.H. Auden
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Their Lonely Betters
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.
Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.
Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.
At Last the Secret is Out
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.
W.H. Auden
Thursday, July 7
Amazing Grace
How can anyone take Nancy Grace seriously? How can anyone who supports Nancy Grace (i.e., network nepotists) be taken seriously? I spent too much time last night trying to call up an SNL Nancy Grace parody, which has been removed, it seems, from the entire Internet. (We can’t call up NBC videos in Canada, despite the outrageous fees we pay for cable, and everything else had been wiped clean. I was so shocked I dropped a handful of mashed potatoes.)
As for Casey Anthony, as I was saying last night to a friend...
The jury claimed they needed more proof. What about the fact that this child is DEAD? "We don't even know how she died," juror Jennifer Ford said. (I laughed out loud at this.) “No you don’t, idiot!” I screamed at the TV. “It was your responsibility to work this into the equation of whether or not mum was guilty!” (It wasn’t the verdict that upset me as much as the ridiculous commentary that followed.)
Furthermore, Casey Anthony did not report her daughter's death for a MONTH, but this isn't enough for so much as a consideration of circumstance?
Duct tape? A baby in a bag? This is not murder? Or even minorly considered an attempt to cover up a murder? This isn’t at least grounds for reasonable doubt?
"I feel she had something to do with it, but I don't think it's fair to speculate," says Ms. Ford. Isn't it the jury's duty -- their job -- to speculate?
"Not guilty doesn't mean innocent," she added. (Well, as I said to Zach last night, they have proved that much.)
Would an adult go to the person – the man, the father she claims raped her as a child – and ask for his help hiding the child who died "accidentally" in a swimming pool? Are we supposed to believe that he owed her? Is this why she accused her brother as well -- to plant a double seed of doubt and undermine any potential testimony he might have against her?
And why would a person take a child who accidentally drowned and hide her? Why would you -- how could you -- not report this unless something (else) was very wrong?
And why all the chloroform searches? Home dentistry?
Sadly, too, I didn't know that dancing was a normal response to grief in the loss of one’s child. (If that's true, what am I doing sitting here?) I understand this in almost every other case, but never in this, the Casey Anthony, case.
"We judge people pretty harshly," said Anthony's attorney (of whom Baraba Walters describes as "very smart") when he was asked about the accused's response to the death of her two-year-old.
Oh my God.
Clearly, the death penalty had something to do with the jury's decision (this is another reason I am not in favour of death as a punishment), but isn’t the death penalty all part and parcel of Florida’s first degree murder charge? Did the jury not understand what they had been signed up for?
This all said, does anyone want to be held or hold anyone accountable to anything anymore? Anyone...?
On the other hand, why would a person give credence to the likes of Nancy Grace – the screaming banshee of sensationalistic child abduction news? A person has to watch her for no more than two minutes to find themselves smacking hands over mouths, mind-numbingly gobsmacked, incredulous, eyes rolling back in astonishment – gaping at this shrill, strident woman as she shrieks at guests on her show for a) interrupting her b) disagreeing with her c) being smarter than she is. (Mind you...) It’s all there on youtube if you don’t believe me.
Worse, how many vulnerable teenagers, just for one collective example, are sitting at home on a hot summer’s night, bag of cheesies in hand, a cool Pepsi by their side, listening to this dishrag (thank you, Michael M, for that image) ghoulishly postulate on the fate of America’s missing children?
There are ways to talk about difficult things. There are people --- gracious, smart, thoughtful, balanced individuals – who can help make a difference.
But Nancy Grace, in my opinion, is not one of them. I think she is dangerous, poisonous, contemptible, morally corrupt. Make a joke of her if you will, but as long as there are lowest common denominator Nancy Grace-like commentators – as long as they are supported by the networks and other commentators who condone her because they are supported by the same networks – there will be too many jurors saying ridiculous things such as, “I don’t think it’s fair to speculate.”
I wonder – and I really mean...I wonder – how fair Caylee’s last minutes felt, what her last glimpse of the world was, whose eyes she last looked into.
Then again, a voiceless blog writer (oh, the irony of the babbling blogger) wouldn’t want to speculate.
Besides, who would listen?
‘Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear...
As for Casey Anthony, as I was saying last night to a friend...
The jury claimed they needed more proof. What about the fact that this child is DEAD? "We don't even know how she died," juror Jennifer Ford said. (I laughed out loud at this.) “No you don’t, idiot!” I screamed at the TV. “It was your responsibility to work this into the equation of whether or not mum was guilty!” (It wasn’t the verdict that upset me as much as the ridiculous commentary that followed.)
Furthermore, Casey Anthony did not report her daughter's death for a MONTH, but this isn't enough for so much as a consideration of circumstance?
Duct tape? A baby in a bag? This is not murder? Or even minorly considered an attempt to cover up a murder? This isn’t at least grounds for reasonable doubt?
"I feel she had something to do with it, but I don't think it's fair to speculate," says Ms. Ford. Isn't it the jury's duty -- their job -- to speculate?
"Not guilty doesn't mean innocent," she added. (Well, as I said to Zach last night, they have proved that much.)
Would an adult go to the person – the man, the father she claims raped her as a child – and ask for his help hiding the child who died "accidentally" in a swimming pool? Are we supposed to believe that he owed her? Is this why she accused her brother as well -- to plant a double seed of doubt and undermine any potential testimony he might have against her?
And why would a person take a child who accidentally drowned and hide her? Why would you -- how could you -- not report this unless something (else) was very wrong?
And why all the chloroform searches? Home dentistry?
Sadly, too, I didn't know that dancing was a normal response to grief in the loss of one’s child. (If that's true, what am I doing sitting here?) I understand this in almost every other case, but never in this, the Casey Anthony, case.
"We judge people pretty harshly," said Anthony's attorney (of whom Baraba Walters describes as "very smart") when he was asked about the accused's response to the death of her two-year-old.
Oh my God.
Clearly, the death penalty had something to do with the jury's decision (this is another reason I am not in favour of death as a punishment), but isn’t the death penalty all part and parcel of Florida’s first degree murder charge? Did the jury not understand what they had been signed up for?
This all said, does anyone want to be held or hold anyone accountable to anything anymore? Anyone...?
On the other hand, why would a person give credence to the likes of Nancy Grace – the screaming banshee of sensationalistic child abduction news? A person has to watch her for no more than two minutes to find themselves smacking hands over mouths, mind-numbingly gobsmacked, incredulous, eyes rolling back in astonishment – gaping at this shrill, strident woman as she shrieks at guests on her show for a) interrupting her b) disagreeing with her c) being smarter than she is. (Mind you...) It’s all there on youtube if you don’t believe me.
Worse, how many vulnerable teenagers, just for one collective example, are sitting at home on a hot summer’s night, bag of cheesies in hand, a cool Pepsi by their side, listening to this dishrag (thank you, Michael M, for that image) ghoulishly postulate on the fate of America’s missing children?
There are ways to talk about difficult things. There are people --- gracious, smart, thoughtful, balanced individuals – who can help make a difference.
But Nancy Grace, in my opinion, is not one of them. I think she is dangerous, poisonous, contemptible, morally corrupt. Make a joke of her if you will, but as long as there are lowest common denominator Nancy Grace-like commentators – as long as they are supported by the networks and other commentators who condone her because they are supported by the same networks – there will be too many jurors saying ridiculous things such as, “I don’t think it’s fair to speculate.”
I wonder – and I really mean...I wonder – how fair Caylee’s last minutes felt, what her last glimpse of the world was, whose eyes she last looked into.
Then again, a voiceless blog writer (oh, the irony of the babbling blogger) wouldn’t want to speculate.
Besides, who would listen?
‘Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear...
Tuesday, July 5
Dodgy Lodging
I heard the funniest thing today. I heard that gay pride participants painted absentee Rob Ford’s face on their asses and marched along the parade route, people laughing and applauding. Sometimes I believe there is a heaven after all.
Speaking of heaven, however, we did not discover it this weekend in Norway Bay, Quebec.
What we discovered in Norway Bay – and more specifically, at Pine Lodge – was a mishmash of Larry, Darryl and Darryl meets The Shining meets The Hills Have Eyes – or, as Mary said, The Shining Hills Have Eyes. (Or did she say The Hills Have Shining Eyes?)
It wasn’t as if we didn’t appreciate that which (= what) was charming about the place, including some of the quaint decor, the games room, the dining room/s, the various upright pianos, and the highly polished wooden floors. But that was downstairs and, even at that, not all of the downstairs was a blessing.
Upstairs, where we slept in one of ten mostly empty rental rooms...
• the shared bathroom toilet paper holder, which was enormous and attached with a loosely fashioned wire, fell onto and scraped my hand – twice
• the shared shower, which by turns ran from trickling drops to full-blast geyser, from ice cold to blistering hot, managed to scald the right side of my head and neck while I was attempting to lather my hair, and I only narrowly escaped third degree burns because of my lithe, lissom, nimble (you get the picture) frame...hopping out onto what was a slippery and felt like a cardboard floor into which an obtrusive wooden block had been nailed (I have no idea why)
• the carpets were so dirty that a person could (okay, did) easily imagine primordial ooze seeping up and swallowing everyone (okay, me) whole in their (okay, my) sleep
• we listened to the 2 AM rollicking karaoke that the sign said would be happening on Sunday night, not Saturday (nothing happened on Sunday night, the dining room itself closing early)
• we wondered why the owners did not appreciate that the cost of putting globes over those naked ceiling fixtures, replacing torn lampshades, repairing broken panes of glass and adding a few hangers to the closet would be less expensive than the cost of guests who never returned
To be fair, the food was good (although they charged almost $16.00 for a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs, except they were out of meatballs), and once I adapted to the vertigo from the sloping floors – and by sloping, I mean every which way...imagine an Escher print – and after I removed the tiny hairs, which seemed to be everywhere, from the tinny cutlery – and once I accepted that the male staff (of the family-owned) contingent had no interest in shaving, sprucing up or smiling in any consistent way, it wasn’t so bad...
...until we went down to the beach.
Wow. Talk about depressing...a boatload of smoking, half-tanked mums and dads, many of their children wearing that woebegone look that I remember so well; flying ants taking great gouges out of our arms and legs; leftover firework containers littering the water (along with opened clam shells, crazy glue tubes and pennies...yes, that’s what I said); the river tasting more of gasoline than anything environmentally acceptable...the nomadic clusters making their way back to darkened, dirty cabins, pine needles dusting every square inch of visible surface, dogs barking frenetically, young couples bickering endlessly; once-white plastic chairs grey with grease and over-wear; golf carts, seats shredded from age and weather, littered with beer and pop cans...need I say more?
It was paradise without the Eden part. Heaven sans Jesus. Nirvana with the suffering.
By our second night, I was ready to walk home, even if it meant I had to go alone, in the dark, on hands and knees, winged ants chiselling small holes into my gentle flesh, the image of Rob Ford’s face, etched into the backsides of every naked gay man in Toronto, indelibly marked in my memory.
Speaking of heaven, however, we did not discover it this weekend in Norway Bay, Quebec.
What we discovered in Norway Bay – and more specifically, at Pine Lodge – was a mishmash of Larry, Darryl and Darryl meets The Shining meets The Hills Have Eyes – or, as Mary said, The Shining Hills Have Eyes. (Or did she say The Hills Have Shining Eyes?)
It wasn’t as if we didn’t appreciate that which (= what) was charming about the place, including some of the quaint decor, the games room, the dining room/s, the various upright pianos, and the highly polished wooden floors. But that was downstairs and, even at that, not all of the downstairs was a blessing.
Upstairs, where we slept in one of ten mostly empty rental rooms...
• the shared bathroom toilet paper holder, which was enormous and attached with a loosely fashioned wire, fell onto and scraped my hand – twice
• the shared shower, which by turns ran from trickling drops to full-blast geyser, from ice cold to blistering hot, managed to scald the right side of my head and neck while I was attempting to lather my hair, and I only narrowly escaped third degree burns because of my lithe, lissom, nimble (you get the picture) frame...hopping out onto what was a slippery and felt like a cardboard floor into which an obtrusive wooden block had been nailed (I have no idea why)
• the carpets were so dirty that a person could (okay, did) easily imagine primordial ooze seeping up and swallowing everyone (okay, me) whole in their (okay, my) sleep
• we listened to the 2 AM rollicking karaoke that the sign said would be happening on Sunday night, not Saturday (nothing happened on Sunday night, the dining room itself closing early)
• we wondered why the owners did not appreciate that the cost of putting globes over those naked ceiling fixtures, replacing torn lampshades, repairing broken panes of glass and adding a few hangers to the closet would be less expensive than the cost of guests who never returned
To be fair, the food was good (although they charged almost $16.00 for a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs, except they were out of meatballs), and once I adapted to the vertigo from the sloping floors – and by sloping, I mean every which way...imagine an Escher print – and after I removed the tiny hairs, which seemed to be everywhere, from the tinny cutlery – and once I accepted that the male staff (of the family-owned) contingent had no interest in shaving, sprucing up or smiling in any consistent way, it wasn’t so bad...
...until we went down to the beach.
Wow. Talk about depressing...a boatload of smoking, half-tanked mums and dads, many of their children wearing that woebegone look that I remember so well; flying ants taking great gouges out of our arms and legs; leftover firework containers littering the water (along with opened clam shells, crazy glue tubes and pennies...yes, that’s what I said); the river tasting more of gasoline than anything environmentally acceptable...the nomadic clusters making their way back to darkened, dirty cabins, pine needles dusting every square inch of visible surface, dogs barking frenetically, young couples bickering endlessly; once-white plastic chairs grey with grease and over-wear; golf carts, seats shredded from age and weather, littered with beer and pop cans...need I say more?
It was paradise without the Eden part. Heaven sans Jesus. Nirvana with the suffering.
By our second night, I was ready to walk home, even if it meant I had to go alone, in the dark, on hands and knees, winged ants chiselling small holes into my gentle flesh, the image of Rob Ford’s face, etched into the backsides of every naked gay man in Toronto, indelibly marked in my memory.
Friday, July 1
Giorno Dei Morti
In my life, I have read this poem well over a hundred times, haunted by it...the language of it; the meaning of it; the breadth and the depth of it. I am printing it now for Sarah, asking myself again and again and again...I wonder what it is that we know.
by D.H. Lawrence
ALONG the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices
Of linen go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .
And all along the path to the cemetery
The round dark heads of men crowd silently,
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.
And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands;
And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels
With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels
The coming of the chanting choristers
Between the avenue of cypresses,
The silence of the many villagers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.
by D.H. Lawrence
ALONG the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices
Of linen go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .
And all along the path to the cemetery
The round dark heads of men crowd silently,
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.
And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands;
And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels
With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels
The coming of the chanting choristers
Between the avenue of cypresses,
The silence of the many villagers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.
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