dixitque andreus:

Harper's Government Finds a Way

2012-01-12T19:21:00.004-05:00

Canada's Federal Government took steps this week to undermine queer equality. Please read all about it here.

Just about as worrisome as this development, is that Harper's government has said they will clarify this situation legislatively. It's a pretty safe bet that any legislation this government enacts will maximize the disenfranchisement of queers. I urge you to write a quick, two-line email to your MP with your opinion on the matter; you can find their email addresses here.

Here's the letter I just wrote to my MP:

Dear Mr Rae,

I am writing to you as a concerned voter who lives in Toronto Centre. I read with dismay the news that the Federal Government has taken the position in Court that marriages of foreign nationals performed in Canada are invalid within Canada if they are not recognized in the country of residence of those foreign nationals. Also, apparently, Mr Harper's government also refuses to recognize foreign, marriage-equivalent partnerships, such as the British civil unions, making long-term, legally partnered couples legal strangers once they arrive within our borders as residents, students or tourists.

These attacks on LGBTQ rights must be seen for what they are, and countered by the strongest, clearest messages by those legislators who, as you do, believe in equality. Whether or not Mr Harper and his caucus acknowledge a concerted effort on the part of their government to disenfranchise queer voters, the facts of their actions are what must be countered. The Conservatives have indicated that they may take steps to clarify existing laws in order to prevent ambiguities in the future. As my voice in Parliament, I ask that you speak in favour of the most inclusive resolutions possible. Queers all around the world, including in the United States, live under regimes that, like Canada before 2005, deny their citizens marriage equality. It is not acceptable to me as a Canadian voter that the bigotry of legislators in Florida, Uganda, or elsewhere effects the ability of Canadians to treat people equally within our own borders.

Please write to me at your earliest convenience to let me know how you will be addressing this issue in Parliament.

Thank you for your work.

Sincerely,

Andrew

This Book Is Still Blowing My Mind

2011-12-13T23:05:00.005-05:00

"Epic, lyric and dramatic poetry succeed each other in our handbooks and our minds in easy and canonical fashion. Lyric poetry asks no explanation, or finds it instantly in our common human egotism. But we are apt to forget that from the epos, the narrative, to the drama, the enactment, is a momentous step, one, so far as we know, not taken in Greece till after centuries of epic achievement, and then taken suddenly, almost in the dark, and irrevocably. All we really know of this momentous step is that it was taken some time in the sixth century B.C. and taken in connection with the worship of Dionysos. Surely it is at least possible that the real impulse to the drama lay not wholly in 'goat-songs' and 'circular dancing places' but also in the cardinal, the essentially dramatic, conviction of the religion of Dionysos, that the worshipper can not only worship, but can become, can be, his god. Athene and Zeus and Poseidon have no drama because no one, in his wildest moments, believed he could become and be Athene or Zeus or Poseidon. It is indeed only in the orgiastic religions that these splendid moments of conviction could come, and, for Greece at least, only in an orgiastic religion did the drama take its rise."

-Jane Ellen Harrison, in the Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

2011-12-09T11:48:00.004-05:00

I've been reading Jane Ellen Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion for what seems like forever; a couple of pages per day has meant that after months I'm still only at page 495 of this 658-page classic from 1903.

I'm always struck by the weird tension between critical writing on dead Mediterranean religions and the refusal to critique the Abrahamic religions, especially in academic texts this old. In this book in particular, there's a constant deference to Christianity, while at the same time scathing opinions about Ancient Greek practices and ideas that are not only so clearly analogous to Christian practices and ideas, but also pretty clearly the direct antecedents of things that go on in churches to this day.

There's a delight in seeing these connections as a contemporary reader, while seeing that the author herself sees them as well, but cannot or will not engage them. It's like reading The Picture of Dorian Gray knowing that Wilde was only able to point to or to encode all the gay content, but being able to fluently read that code (as most contemporary readers can). Jane Ellen Harrison is in some kind of heretical closet.

And that's how she ends up writing intense sentences like this one, after discussing the logical problem of an Orphic trinity:

"On the altar of his Unknown God through all the ages man pathetically offers the holocaust of his reason."

I wonder if such statements were likely to get one into trouble in 1903, or if burying your critique of trinities (and the Trinity) in 600 pages of academic prose is sufficiently insulating - like writing in Latin instead of the vernacular. In some ways I hope that her book was at least a little bit of a scandal.

2011-11-30T23:54:00.008-05:00

The government of Ontario continued to fail its queer students this week, when it introduced a bill that would require "support" in all publicly funded schools (including Catholic schools), but would allow schools and boards to refuse the use of any language they don't like in naming this support. Want to start a GSA at St Such-and-such? You still can't.

Here's the letter I wrote to the Premier:

Dear Premier McGuinty,

I am an Ontarian voter who lives in the riding of Toronto Centre. I am writing to you about the bill your government introduced this week to combat bullying in Ontario schools.

I appreciate that your government is attempting to address serious issues facing LGBTQ students in Ontario. I am disappointed, though, that your bill would continue to allow publicly funded schools to censor the names of groups that would support these students.

Visibility has historically been and continues to be central to the politics of sexual minorities. To pretend to support queer students in our publicly funded schools while continuing to allow the prohibition of the language by which these students identify is not acceptable to me as a citizen, a taxpayer, and a queer voter. I urge you to consider the fact that language can be an important vehicle of identity.

It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure the safety and well-being of the young people in our communities. I do not think this can be accomplished by erasing or eliding identities, nor by addressing issues of self esteem and bullying obliquely. Please work to enfranchise queer Ontario students in all of our publicly funded schools.

Thank you for your work,

Andrew

If you have opinions about this, I urge you all to write a quick email to the Premier and your MPP to let them know! Addresses can be found here.

Antique

2011-09-26T01:56:00.008-04:00

Gracious son of Pan! Around your face crowned with florets and berries your eyes, precious bowls, flicker. Stained with brown lees, your cheeks strain. Your teeth glisten. Your chest seems a cithara, tinklings circling in your blond arms. Your heart beats in this hollow where sleeps the double sex. Go walking, in the night, moving slowly this thigh, this second thigh, and this left leg.

-Arthur Rimbaud: 'Antique' from Les Illuminations, published 1874, translated by Andrew Woodrow Butcher

From my final years of high school until well past my first sally at university, French modernism - literary and musical, mostly - was an obsession of mine. Surrealism, Dada, and other Parisian ridiculousnesses between the Wars were of course appealing, but I was also really into the art from the preceding several decades: Baudelaire, Debussy, Maeterlinck, Satie.

These interests have receded over the past five years, and have been replaced by a voracious (if slapdash) study of myth and antiquity, particularly all things Dionysian. I found myself writing a poem this week that had at its conclusion a Dionysian procession, complete with satyrs and Silenoi. But as I worked on that poem I saw that I was drawing heavily on Rimbaud, particularly on his Illuminations, which I would have first read in 1996 or thereabouts. And so I went back to some of those poems this week for the first time in a few years: interests circling back on interests!

Hence tonight's quick translation of 'Antique': a great poem on its own, and lovely also as set by Benjamin Britten and sung by Karina Gauvin with Les Violons du Roy below!

DADAIST DISGUST

2011-03-22T01:36:00.005-04:00

Every product of disgust, susceptible to becoming a negation of family, is dada; protestations with the fists of your whole being in destructive action: DADA; knowledge of all the means, rejected up to now by the chaste sex of comfy compromise and politeness: DADA; abolition of logic, dance of creation’s powerless: DADA; from every hierarchy and social equation installed for values by our valets: DADA; each object, all the objects, the sentiments and the obscurities, the apparitions and the precise shock of parallel lines, are means of combat: DADA; abolition of memory: DADA; abolition of archeology: DADA; abolition of the prophets: DADA; abolition of the future: DADA; absolute undiscussable belief in each god produced immediately out of spontaneity: DADA; elegant unprejudiced leap from one harmony to the other sphere; trajectory of a word thrown like a sound-disc-cry; respecting all individualities in their madness of the moment: serious, fearful, timid, ardent, vigorous, determined, enthusiastic; stripping your church of every accessory useless and heavy; spitting out like a luminous cascade the disobliging or amorous thought, or cherishing it – with the live satisfaction that it’s all the same either way – with the same intensity in the bush, free of insects for the well born blood, and gilded with the bodies of archangels, with your soul. Liberty: DADA DADA DADA, howls of tense sorrows, interlacing of contraries, and of all the contradictions, of grotesques, of inconsequents: LIFE.

-Tristan Tzara: 'Dadaist Disgust', excerpted from Sept Manifestes Dada, published 1918, translated by Andrew Woodrow Butcher

In the 90s I was really interested in Surrealism and all its related movements, but at that time my main concern was Surrealism as an anti-rationalist worldview, and an aesthetic theory. This week, though, I read Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism. Césaire was a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and a Surrealist. Reading his political writing really brought to the fore for me the international socialist bent of Surrealism. I knew that Breton and his crowd were devout communists, but this was the first time I'd bothered to read anything purely political written by a declarèd Surrealist.

As a Surrealist, then, Césaire expresses confidence in the idea of the State, and hopes that Civilization can be put on course to enfranchise all peoples, both colonizers and colonized. I'm not personally convinced of this. What's more, Césaire disparages Silenus in the course of his argument, which doesn't sit well with me.

Which got me thinking about the politics of Dionysianism, and the politics of Dada. Both Dada and Surrealism looked back to Rimbaud and his "déreglement de tous les sens" for inspiration, but only one of them - Dadaism - seems to have understood this project as Dionysian. Not that the Surrealists were square - their art & letters are up for a good time for sure - but they seem to have been thoroughly Statist when pressed to talk about politics.

And so, from Césaire to Tzara. I got to wondering if the Dadaists - so similar in some ways to the Surrealists - were so Statist. Would they have disparaged Silenus? Were they pro-Civilization, or were they looking to break it down?

I haven't begun to answer my questions on this matter, but I checked out some Tristan Tzara - in many ways the founding voice of Dada - from the library, and I'll let you know. In the meanwhile, I ended up translating the above passage; I hope you enjoy it.

Friendly Fellowship

2011-03-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

Greek writers of the fifth century B.C. have a way of speaking of, an attitude towards, religion, as though it were wholly a thing of joyful confidence, a friendly fellowship with the gods, whose service is but a high festival for man. In Homer sacrifice is but, as it were, the signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we hear nothing of fasting, of cleansing, and atonement. This we might perhaps explain as part of the general splendid unreality of the heroic saga, but sober historians of the fifth century B.C. express the same spirit. Thucydides is assuredly by nature no reveller, yet religion is to him in the main 'a rest from toil.' He makes Pericles say: 'Moreover we have provided for our spirit very many opportunities of recreation, by the celebration of games and sacrifices throughout the year.'

-Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

2011-02-21T17:45:00.001-05:00

"The climate of Shivaite and Dionysiac life is not purely ritual. It is a seeking after joy and pleasure, and the self-realization of the individual. Wine and other intoxicating drinks are a part of this joy of living, which is one of the basic goals of all kinds of existence, since happiness (ananda) is the nature of the divine state itself. Everything which is pleasure and joy draws us nearer to God. All Dionysiac or Shivaite festivals are an explosion of happiness. Physical drunkenness, like eroticism, is an image of, and often a preparation for, mystical drunkenness."

-Alain Daniélou, Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus

My Second Letter to My New City Councillor

2011-02-08T23:20:00.007-05:00

image: solarcrash.com

Dear Councillor Layton,

My name is Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, and I am one of your constituents. I have emailed you once before (about the 5-cent bag fee) and am disappointed that that email has so far gone unacknowledged by you or your staff. I am emailing you today about Toronto's anti-art policies regarding graffiti, and I would appreciate if you would let me know that you have received this correspondence. If you would prefer I contact you by some other method in the future, please don't hesitate to let me know. I am sure you will agree that it is essential to the democratic process that there be two-way communication between citizens and those elected to represent them.

I am writing today to let you know that I oppose Toronto's laws that prohibit graffiti and that require property owners to remove any art city staff deem to be graffiti. Today I read about a homeowner who had been found to be in violation of the bylaws because a family member had painted a floral mural to cover up some graffiti; city staff described the mural itself as graffiti, and put the property owner in a position where they had to defend their aesthetics to the City in order to avoid further action against them. This is not acceptable.

When I wrote to your predecessor, Councillor Pantalone, about this issue several years ago, he assured me that the city was not putting itself in the position of arbiter of What Is Art; now we see the City in exactly that position. Not only do I, as a voting and taxpaying Torontonian, believe that graffiti very often has a value in and of itself, but I am disgusted that the City presumes to tell property owners that they must un-decorate their properties or face censure. Graffiti is a sign of life! The City I want to live in is a city of vibrancy, where beauty and expression are treated as boons, not nuisances.

Councillor Layton, I ask that you take my views to Council. I urge you to work to overturn the current graffiti bylaws and - if they must be replaced at all - replace them with laws that take into account the right of property owners to maintain their exterior décor either unadorned or graffiti-enhanced, as they see fit. Please help keep the City of Toronto out of the question: What Is Art?

Thank you for taking my views to Council.

All the best,

-Andrew

My First Letter to My New City Councillor

2010-12-30T23:50:00.003-05:00

I heard today that our new disaster of a mayor wants to get rid of the plastic bag fee, and thought it important that I let my new City Councillor know that that's not ok by me. Here's the letter I sent:

Dear Councillor Layton,

My name is Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, and I have been a Torontonian voter and retailer for the past 12 years. I am writing to you having just heard that the Mayor intends to do away with the compulsory 5-cent fee for plastic bags for people shopping in Toronto.

As a retailer, I know first-hand the huge reduction in use of plastic bags that has been achieved since this fee was mandated. The 5-cent charge does not place financial hardship on Toronto shoppers in general. Please know that I speak as a person who has interacted daily in a retail context with customers since the 5-cent fee began. Ecological and social responsibility are a part of any sane business plan, and smart retailers have embraced the 5-cent fee enthusiastically.

Further, as a shopper and citizen myself, I am happy to pay 5 cents for plastic bags. When I forget my reusable bags at home, the 5-cent fee serves as an effective reminder for next time. I fear that if we get rid of this charge, the culture of reusing bags that Toronto has been working towards will certainly decline.

I hope that you support the 5-cent bag fee, and I ask that you take my views with you to council as my representative.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!

-Andrew

I maybe should have mentioned the extent to which the new law has changed the behaviour of cashiers, too, which makes a huge impact on bag usage....

Please take some time to find your councillor's contact info here and get in touch with a quick note about this; be sure to cc the mayor.

These Are My Ties #7: New Job Tie

2010-12-28T22:36:00.005-05:00

Three months ago, when I accepted my new job at The Beguiling, my esteemed husband outdid himself and gave me a congratulatory tie. Here it is!

Christopher knows a good tie when he sees it. The hot pink was certain to appeal, and gosh is it shiny!

The fine silk is given some heft by the dense texture of the floral pattern. Because of the sheen and the delicacy of the fabric, I would usually call this an evening tie. But worn under a v-neck, cardigan, or zip-up, this could provide just the right amount of glamour to dress up an otherwise humdrum day.

The weight of the tie and its shiny, evening formality pretty much demand a full Windsor, but what this tie lacks in jauntiness it makes up for in swankiness.

Hooray for new jobs and new ties!

Aphrodite and Dolphins

2010-12-04T17:34:00.004-05:00

Hunting of dolphins is an abomination. A man
Who willfully brings about their death,
Can approach the gods no more. They will
Not love him for his offerings. His touch
Pollutes their altars, and he defiles all
Those who live below his roof. As much
As they loathe the murdering of men
Do the gods loathe to have death's doom
Brought on these chieftains of the deep.

-Oppian, 2nd Century, on dophins, who are sacred to Aphrodite, as quoted in Geoffrey Grigson's The Goddess of Love.

Andrew Learns Comics #2: Ghostopolis

2010-09-18T21:39:00.027-04:00

This week I read Ghostopolis for a couple of reasons. First of all, because it's a book for kids, and kids books are an important part of my job. And next, because there's been a surge of interest in the title now that it's going to be made into a movie. I was very disappointed.

The book is action-packed enough to be readable, but trite enough to be laughable. Although the art is proficient, and communicates the plot effectively, the plot isn't worth communicating. In Ghostopolis I found a world lazily crafted, a cardboard cast of characters, a good helping of sexism, and distasteful and alienating allusions (if you could call them that) to Christianity. I recommend you not read this book.

But - in case you feel like you might be missing something if you don't - let me tell you what it's about. Ghostopolis is set in the afterlife, or rather, a particular piece of the afterlife. It's the story of a kid who gets sent there before his time, and the lovable, screw-up, rule-breaking guy who accidentally sent him there. As it turns out, our lovable screw-up is in love with a prickly-on-the-outside, Disney-princess-on-the-inside ghost-gal, who used to go out with - what are the chances!?! - a guy who turns out to be the evil genius behind all the ills of Ghostopolis.

There's a lot of fast-paced action in this book: people are chasing things, being chased, hiding, or sneaking around almost all the time. That's something that kept me entertained from beginning to end. But it's just so laden with clichés! Anyone bored with the hackneyed plot could entertain herself through to the end by spotting them like out-of-province license plates on the highway.

The characters are a big part of creator Doug TenNapel's cliché problem. The book is action-packed - something that in general is a plus - but the result in terms of his cast is that we don't spend any down-time with them, leaving them flat or, at least, not fully realized. Thus, the stock characters have little else but stock characterisitics. The kid felt like things were bad before, at home, but he was actually special all along, and just never knew (Harry Potter? Sophie Hatter? Percy Jackson? Dorothy Gale?). The villain is grey in complexion (even though he's not dead, like the other citizens of the afterlife), and dresses in black suits that accentuate his tall skinniness. His troops are insects, while the good Bone King is helped by a horse (the book uses the insects-are-gross idea for humour a few times, and the author's website happens to have a post up as I write this that discusses how some animals, like bugs, are "the worst of God's creation"). And, in the end, everyone will be saved by that Hollywood favourite: a magical black man.

Perhaps the most upsetting character/cliché, though, is presented in the form of the aforementioned ghost-gal, Claire. TenNapel takes pains to show her as a Modern Woman when we meet her: she's all feisty: fixing a plasmapod, wearing overalls, aggressive dialogue, short hairdo. Her lips, though, are lipstick red, even when she's in her workshop (and even though she's a ghost). Her overalls are mysteriously more shapely than Franks business suit, but, just in case you find them too frumpy, she's wearing a red handkerchief in her ass pocket (any references to the hanky code are coincidental, I'm sure): make sure you notice her curves!

None of this is particularly bad, I suppose, except that she's a character disguised as a Strong Female Protagonist (she drives the plasmapod!) when in fact she does not at any point drive the action of the story. The plot turns out to be a conflict between her current interest (our lovable screw-up) and her jilted ex (our gangly villain). TenNapel goes so far as to have her change into a short, strapless yellow dress for the last quarter of the book (and we get the women-take-forever-to-get-ready joke for good measure). Sure, it's a nice looking outfit, and she puts it on just in time to watch from the sidelines (she even cries!) as the guys duke it out to Save the World (or, at least, the afterworld) and Get the Girl. And in the end, she's proclaimed Lord of the afterlife because...she's there? She looks good in the robe? I'm not really sure....

In any case, of the six or so principal characters TenNapel presents, two are women (Claire, and Garth's mom), both of whom spend much of the book being upset as they watch the guys around them do stuff. In a book without any fully realized characters, TenNapel presents only passive women.

Sadly, Ghostopolis's setting is as ingenuous as its gender politics and its characters. Once again we spend so little time living in this afterworld - action, action, action! - that we don't get a very clear picture of how things are supposed to work there. We do learn that Garth - our kid-hero - has generic magical powers because he's a living kid in the world of the dead. And we know that there are factions within the underworld - Specters, Wills-o'-the-Wisp, Mummies, Goblins, Skeletons, Zombies and Boogeymen - but we don't learn what that has to do with the ghosts, who are some of our principal characters. The book's called Ghostopolis, and somehow the villain is himself the City of Ghostopolis - physically, even - but why that's significant or problematic is mostly glossed over. Miscellaneous badness is plaguing some miscellaneous kingdoms.

One aspect of Ghostopolis's cosmology is more thoroughly explored: the opportunity for Salvation through the power of Joe. Joe is this story's Magical Black Man - a version of the Noble Savage trope. He's also a clear, clear Christ figure. Through this character, TenNapel firmly sets out the idea that his book is to be read as a Christian story. Joe has stigmata, built the World in six days, and leads the righteous through a crack in the wall to a better region of the afterlife, that is full of light.

Now, I don't think it's that important to me as a reader of his books that Doug TenNapel is (himself, personally) a Fundamentalist Christian. But golly, his religion plays a huge part in this story, to its detriment. There's Joe-as-Jesus, but there's also TenNapel's vision of life-and-death that presents a Christian theology that ultimately undermines the entire narrative: even in this imperfect corner of the afterlife, Garth makes friends, and saves the day. Next, one of his closest friends is proclaimed Queen, presumably forever. Also, Garth meets the Saviour, who is helps him out and will very likely lead him to the good part of the afterlife when the time comes. So, how important can a reader think life-and-death situations are, when the premise of the work is that there is no death, and that the afterlife is where all the protagonist's friends are?

A message of the Bible is that death ought not to be feared, and that's also the message of Ghostopolis. TenNapel nevertheless tells a there's-no-place-like-home story (home = life in this book, so heaven, schmeaven!), complete with full-on Wizard of Oz ending (..."You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas...."). And, to further confuse things, we learn from a ghost at the last moment that the unnamed disease that Garth has...has been cured! Jeesh! There's no place like home, especially when your biggest problems are whisked away just in time.... That's what we learn from Ghostopolis.

I would never argue that the stock characters and situations that are the stuff of most fictions should not be used, re-used, and re-re-used. But in presenting these, one hopes to be able to add a new style, perspective, or...something. Failing that, falling back on traditional tropes exclusively, results in bland, hackneyed storytelling. This is what is presented in Ghostopolis.

Is there anything not trite or cliché about this book? Sure. The art is actually pretty good. TenNapel makes smart use of panels in silhouette, often mid-page, which gives the action a little bit of time to breathe, especially when those panels are silent. The sense of length of or remoteness in time created by this visual trope slows down a story which in other respects moves too quickly. Overall, though, the art isn't sufficient to elevate the work to something worthwhile.

Ghostopolis reads like a brainstorm for a story about the afterlife: lots of characters and situations, but nothing really thought through enough to make it interesting, fresh - or even to make it work as a book. Add to this the antiquated roles for women and the (in my and most readers' eyes, one must assume) distastefully heavy-handed intrusion of Christianity into the narrative, and the deus ex machina ending, and the result is a book with little to recommend it.

Andrew Learns Comics #1: Salut, Deleuze!

2010-09-06T00:46:00.009-04:00

Today I start at my new job at an independent comics store, something that is both entirely similar to my former job, and entirely different. The most important thing that will be new to me, of course, will be the product. I didn't grow up with comics, and I haven't read many of them...yet. I've got some catching up to do.

To that end, I'm instituting a new regular feature on my blog: Andrew Learns Comics. Over the next year or so, I'll be getting recommendations from my colleagues (as well as stumbling onto things myself) and here is where I'll record what I read and what I think about it. So here goes....

Salut, Deleuze! is a wonderful book with art by Martin tom Dieck and text by Jens Balzer. My new boss handed it to me recently, saying "Here - read this." So I did.

I didn't know anything about Gilles Deleuze before reading this book - I could have told you he was a contemporary French philosopher but nothing more. And I certainly haven't read his book Différence et répétition, which figures prominently in Balzer's story.

Salut, Deleuze! presents a short narrative episode five times, each time with differences. Deleuze has died, and arrives at Charon's shack, to be rowed across the Lethe. They talk about the weather, what Charon is reading...and, arriving at the afterlife, Deleuze runs into his colleagues Lacan, Barthes, and Foucault. As this scene plays out over and over, Deleuze and Charon are each aware to varying degrees that they are repeating it.

The monochrome art, some panels of which repeat exactly in each episode, is appropriately sparse for the setting. But more than just dreariness, the lack of colour reinforces the disorienting sameness of the repeated moments. The visual landmarks are sparse. It's as if ones pupils must dilate to look for clues in the dark as to whether or not you've been there before.

I would definitely have gotten more out of this book if I'd known anything at all about Deleuze's philosophy. But I enjoyed it all the same. The book reads like a knot, or a puzzle, and I enjoyed reading through its twists even if I didn't finish by untying or solving it. This is a book to read slowly, to scratch your head over, and to re-read immediately after first finishing. Having gone through the story five times already, the least you can do is go through it five more....

So, who is this book for? For those who are interested in contemporary French thought, this book is a must. Otherwise, this is for someone who isn't hung up on character or narrative. The premise is engaging, and the art and text are well matched. Salut, Deleuze!, I would say, is for the reader who above all likes ideas, presented densely.

Sex at Dawn

2010-08-20T01:08:00.004-04:00

Sex at Dawn is a great book. One of those books that blew my mind and shifted my paradigms. One of those books that I think everyone should read. Here’s why you should go out and get yourself a copy.

This is a book about prehistoric human sexuality, but it touches on much, much more. Using anthropological, psychological and zoological data, Ryan and Jetha address common misconceptions about our ancestors’ lives. They show that pre-agricultural humans were neither monogamous nor bellicose, and dispel common myths about life expectancy, poverty, and social organization.

Despite the wide reach, this is still a book about sex. Though full of trivia and anecdote (ever wondered why gorillas have big muscles but tiny cocks? Or what the word “Yucatan” really means?), the authors present a cogent and persuasive argument. People are wired for promiscuity, say Ryan and Jetha, and the old narrative of the coy female and the possessive, paternity-obsessed male is a post-agriculture social construction. The breadth of research they draw upon to support this point of view is impressive, and their interrogation of past, pseudo-scientific conclusions is matched by a rigorous awareness of social and cultural biases in the contemporary research they cite.

If there’s a weak point in this book – and I’m not sure that there is – it would be the final chapter. The authors stop short of making suggestions about how to take and use their research in today’s context. Helpful, though, is their call to acknowledge that having sexual interests outside of monogamous, lifelong pairings does not make one defective or abnormal. If I'd wanted anything more from the book, I'd have wanted to see the same depth of research and consideration for their concluding chapter as for those that came before.

Perhaps the best thing about Sex at Dawn is that it’s a fun read. It’s not surprising, I suppose, that a study of sex is juicier than a study of horticulture or statistics; but beyond the subject matter, Ryan and Jetha are engaging, funny writers. They take time amidst their academic rigour and persuasion to point out that “Darwin says your mother’s a whore”, and they use the word “bullshit” when they see it. This is the first non-fiction book to make me laugh aloud in a long time.

Sex at Dawn is an important book, and lucky for us it’s also an eminently enjoyable book. I recommend it.

These Are My Ties #6: Foliage Plaid

2010-03-17T22:36:00.003-04:00

My Foliage Plaid tie was made by Bloomingdale's as part of their apparently defunct Peterborough Row line for men.

This tie is problematic for me in two ways, but despite its defects I just can't get over how much I love the patterns.

The first trouble with this all-silk number is that, despite its width, there's just not enough bulk to make a good sized knot. Have a look at this picture of a full Windsor compared to the end of the tie. A skinny tie, I think, could look just fine with such a slender knot. But this is not a skinny tie, and if it were, it wouldn't suit my frame. We've got a tie with width enough for a strapping fellow such as me, without the bulk to back it up.

That issue is compounded by the second way in which this tie is not ideal: the pattern is printed on the fabric (this sartorial sin I blame on the tie-maker, but I've nevertheless found reason to forgive him). Not only do patterns that are woven into or stitched onto a tie display a level of detail and craft that a print just can't provide, but also such a pattern would provide much of the bulk, the thickness of material that this tie lacks.

Now, if you look closely, you will see that this tie is not completely without texture. This thin silk tie actually has a very subtle plaid texture that underlies the printed pattern. The texture is parallel to the printed plaid, but the grid of textured thick and thin lines is more sparse and repeats at a different rate.

The patterns on this tie are such a daring combination, they more than make up for its other deficiencies. If you've read any of my preceding These Are My Ties posts, you'll know that I love seeing different patterns lain one on top of the other. So here, we have a lovely blue, purple and gold plaid surmounted by dark green psychedelic leafy swirls. To the tie-maker: absolvo te!

The foliage is printed on top of the plaid printing, and the plaid is visible through the green. The effect makes the green unevenly lighter and darker, and so even more leafy, reminding me a bit of the impressionist trope of sunlight shining through trees and dappling all that lies beneath.

Giverny, by Willard Leroy Metcalf, 1887

Sometimes you have to break your own rules, and though I'm not one for flimsy printed fabric, I'm happy to make an exception for my Foliage Plaid!

Young Singers Are the Real Gems in the COC's Diamond Season

2009-09-30T16:07:00.014-04:00

Soprano Yannick-Muriel Noah

This year is the Canadian Opera Company's 60th, and they've decided to mark the occasion by programming one of the blandest, most conservative seasons in recent memory. The idea, I suppose, is that this season looks back over the last sixty years. We'll see the big hits of the repertoire - the same shows that are hits in Milan, London, Tokyo, or New York...and the same shows that were hits from 1889-1949 just as much as they were from 1949 to now.

What's worse is that the COC has, at least in my 10 years as a subscriber, consistently disappointed with traditional productions of traditional repertoire. They excel at edgy, fun, more contemporary shows. The most exciting moments of the last decade at the COC have been Oedipus Rex, Bluebeard/Erwartung, the S&M Traviata, and the Handmaid's Tale. Yes, this coming season does offer a token new production - a work cobbled together from bits of Stravinsky, which I'm sure will be lovely - but it also offers Idomeneo, the Flying Dutchman, Maria Stuarda, Otello, Carmen and Madama Butterfly. Hardly a season of excitement.

Despite these misgivings, though, I went to Madama Butterfly last night and was delighted. I'd seen a COC production once before, but would not say that I'm very familiar with the show.

First, the bad news. If there were one problem in this production, it would be the movement. The actors were called upon to bow here and shuffle there, as one might expect in an opera set in Japan. Unfortunately, director Brian Macdonald's nod to his setting was just that, and we were left neither with Japanese gesture, nor an absence or abstraction thereof. There were ok moments - this didn't mar the whole show - but there were also moments more suited perhaps to a lighthearted Mikado than to Butterfly.

The sets and costumes were simple and muted, and though tasteful, did not provide very much visual interest. I'm not sure that the austerity of Susan Benson's design is optimal for a score and libretto so lush and full of japonisme. The director in his note argues otherwise, and speaks in favour of the lack of "decoration" in the décor; he did not want to distract us from the play. I am not sure that I agree with his choice, but it is true that the understated and straightforward look of the production did not distract.

What did distract were the voices of the wonderful cast. Tenor Bryan Hymel was both very attractive and in wonderful voice last night in the role of Pinkerton. His singing was round and lush and wonderfully suited to the richness of Puccini's orchestra.

The absolute star of the evening, though, was Soprano and COC Ensemble Studio graduate Yannick-Muriel Noah in the title role. When she arrived on stage for her bows the audience audibly sizzled, and leapt into a standing ovation that was the most energetic I've perhaps ever seen. She has a voice that is both delicate and powerful as needed, taking over the hall for the climax of Un Bel Di, or blending wonderfully in quieter moments with the less robust instrument of Anita Krause as Suzuki . Brava, Ms Noah!

Was this the perfect Butterfly? No. But if you are looking to hear some wonderful young voices sing well known repertoire, this show will not disappoint. Between Cio Cio San's tragedy and Ms Noah's singing, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

It's not really news that opera companies - especially big, mainstream opera companies - pander to the blue-rinse set to sell subscriptions. We see this unfortunate economic situation in action in the programming choices at the COC (when was the last time we had a season without Verdi and/or Puccini?), while even Opera Atelier continues to programme Mozart works that arguably fall outside their mandate in order to pack the house.

As a young opera-goer, I suppose I'm thankful that this has given me the opportunity to see many classics over and over again. Carmen twice in...what?...three seasons? And though it's frustrating to see this kind of artistic conservatism (or is it timidity?) on the part of our arts institutions year after year, I still enjoy seeing exciting new singers breathing life into the repertoire that we already know so well. Congratulations, Bryan Hymel and Yannick-Muriel Noah - performers like you are what will make this Diamond Season shine!

I haven't been blogging much lately...

2009-06-19T00:13:00.008-04:00

...but this news item got me riled up enough to write to some MPs.

ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill

If you think, like I do, that our police shouldn't be able to spy on us without warrants, then you should consider writing to your MP, the Prime Minister, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to let them know your views. Find their addresses here.

These Are My Ties #5: Givenchy Work Tie

2009-04-04T23:59:00.018-04:00

This tie is another second-hander, made by Givenchy.

Black and white are not colours to which I'm typically drawn, but this tie goes well with the sorts of things I tend to wear to work, and so I wear it often. Despite the palette, this tie offers a lot of the intricate, unexpected detail that makes a tie great. One thing in particular that I find charming is the way in which the materials are proclaimed:

I'd much rather have an all-silk tie than a tie that is merely 100% silk. A subtle difference, I admit, but an important one!

This tie doesn't really work as the keystone of an outfit. The colours are uninteresting and the graphics don't offer much more. But I think of this tie as a finishing accessory more than a centrepiece. This tie pulls together an outfit not as a focal point, but in the way that putting on your rings, your watch, your glasses does. This tie is a lovely detail.

That said, this tie is also full of lovely details. Although the patterns themselves are simple and geometric, there are layers of texture that increase the intricacy. The white circles and squares, and the blue rings all have their own stitched textures...

...as do the black squares and circles within the blue and white shapes. And, the black spaces in between the strands of pattern are themselves patterned with lines, dots, and cross-hatching. Look closely:

So, on one level this is a tie with an uninteresting palette and a straightforward graphical pattern. But at second and third glance there's definitely more going on here.

The pattern looks like watchbands or necklaces laid out on a black field, and I think that there's something about this that implies luxury. For topping off an ensemble that's already classy or classic, I recommend my Givenchy Work tie.

Welcome to the club!

2009-04-02T12:06:00.003-04:00

Congratulations, Sweden, on legislating equal marriage this week! There are now seven nations in the world (Canada, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain) where gay & lesbian folks have equal marital rights! Hooray!

These Are My Ties #4: Favourite Highschool tie

2009-03-31T21:01:00.014-04:00

Picture it: I'm a highschool kid. It's the Nineties and I work part-time next door to a Value Village. I'm a budding homosexual who's oblivious to popular culture. The obvious sartorial result:

Clothing that evokes Edwardian wallpaper! Yes, my absolute favourite tie during highschool was this amazing polyester number made in England by Onyx. While my contemporaries were draping themselves in flannel, I was proud to don this floral arabesque at both work and school.

Edwardian Wallpaper

You can see that this is definitely a brown tie, but the red cartouches and blue filigree dominate the field. It's rather dark, and looks good on a white shirt with or without a navy or brown jacket.

The worst thing about this tie is that it's a little short. It looks great with a full windsor, but I often use a less bulky knot only because I need the length. Despite this issue, this tie still puts a smile on my face with its unusual combination of three dark colours, and the detail of the pattern is gorgeous. It can be a dressy tie, but I wear it just as happily with jeans.

I don't know very many people my age who had favourite ties when they were in highschool, but I'm sure glad I had this one!

These Are My Ties #3: Olympic Rings Tie

2009-03-28T23:40:00.024-04:00

My Olympic Rings tie was made by Abbey Neckwear of Montréal out of what seems to be polyester. It's not very dressy, but the detail is lovely!

This tie fits my usual tie æsthetic: it's an earth-tone second-hander, with a complex pattern that is not a print. I don't wear this one too much, but it works just fine on a white shirt with brown pants or jeans, and pairs well with relaxed-looking jackets.

As with the Bear Paisley tie, the Olympic Rings has a background of monochrome diagonal stripes, surmounted by a stitched pattern. The ring pattern repeats at the same rate as the stripes, and the rust and mustard colours are counterchanged with the deep and light green.

If you look closely you'll see that the rings have irregular edges, and are shot through with crooked lines. Though made of shiny synthetic, this detail, along with the earthy colours, helps to keep the tie from looking too slick.
The Olympic Rings tie is no good for working in a bank or going to a fancy wedding, but it can be a stylish choice for dive bars, book launches, house parties, and anywhere you'd wear your vintage corduroy!

These Are My Ties #2: Bear Paisley

2009-03-24T21:21:00.022-04:00

My Bear Paisley tie was made by Lanvin Paris and looks to be from the Seventies. I bought it second-hand; it has this in common with the bulk of my collection.

The Bear Paisley is one of those ties that I absolutely love but find difficult to wear. It goes with very little. The beige is funny, but that isn't the only trouble. The paisley is concentrated in a band across the lower part of the tie. At the centre of this band, the commas are elaborate, large and dense, but towards its edges they are smaller, plainer and sparser. This unusual and irregular design works best when you get to see it in its entirety; if it's partly cut off by a cardigan or a jacket, it looks even stranger than it is.

On top of these issues, the polyester from which it's made is fairly hefty, stiff stuff, and shiny as well. Could I wear it with a dark suit? Maybe. Could I wear it with a white shirt and jeans? I'm not sure.

I want to be sure that we all see the good side of this tie, though. There are three patterns here, all working together: the textured beige stripes, the march of paisley across this beige field, and the earth-toned stripes within the paisley.

It's these earth-tone stripes that remind me of the Bear flag and have, in my mind, made this the Bear Paisley tie.

The Bear Flag

Despite its lack of versatility, the Bear Paisley tie offers a fresh take on some traditional neckwear tropes!

These Are My Ties #1: Green Coffered Ceiling Tie

2009-03-24T01:02:00.016-04:00

Made by Pal Zileri, my Green Coffered Ceiling tie was given to me by my husband a couple of years ago.

This is a rather heavy silk tie that's shiny enough for a fancy evening, but muted enough in colour that it can work with sweaters or corduroy. It's not only the pattern, but also the texture and detail make this one of the best ties in my collection. Have a look at the lovely yellow stitching along the back:

The pattern is as you can see fairly ornate, with floral shapes enclosed in hexagons. It's easy to see why this has always in my mind been my Coffered Ceiling tie.

Coffered Ceiling, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Beyond the graphics of it, the stitching is so dense and ornate that the pattern is in fact in relief. As a result the tie is somewhat bulky and doesn't work with all shirts or all knots - it hangs somewhat stiffly and can look a little out of place among more summery fabrics - but who can argue with its good looks?

As a tie for work, a brisk daytime event or a fancy evening, the Green Coffered Ceiling tie is amazing!

Olivia Chow wants you...

2009-01-20T17:27:00.003-05:00

...to tell her your priorities for the Federal Budget. If you live in her riding, you should head on over to her site and send her answers to her Budget Questionnaire.

And if you don't live in her riding? Why not send your answers to your MP? Find their email address here.

Let's Get Together!

2008-12-02T22:54:00.008-05:00

Thank goodness for the possibility of a coalition government! I am not someone who supports strongly our system of government, but this week that system seems to be shining!

If you've been following this issue, you'll have noticed that those who oppose this potential coalition, including the Conservative Party, are looking to characterize it as "undemocratic". Some have even gone so far as to call it a "coup".

Those who do so, I would say, misunderstand the way our system works. They call for another election, saying anything other than going back to the polls tramples on the people's will. They are wrong.

What's heartening, is that the people elect the members of a Parliament. We don't elect a party; we certainly don't elect a Prime Minister. The flexibility to cross the floor, to re-draw lines, to toss out a government that cannot govern, these are the things that make our system work.

The House is not a House of Commoners (despite what small-r republicans would like you to believe), it is a House of The Commons: a House of Common Concerns. And a coalition of parties that can recognize that they share common concerns would be a more appropriate government than any one-party government could be.

Sixty percent of Canadian voters voted for policies that are counter to those of the Conservatives. And so if anything, a coalition of the other parties would serve to enfranchise that real majority.

And so I'm heartened by this wonderful prospect, and hope that this is an opportunity for us to see what Canadian government could be like in the future. Thank goodness for the possibility of a coalition government!

I Agree with Elizabeth May: Don't Vote Green

2008-09-25T19:57:00.006-04:00

thestar.com

Elizabeth May has come out and said that the most important thing for Canada and the World is not that her Green Party win seats in the House of Commons, but rather that Harper's Conservatives not form a majority government.

What struck me first about this was that it was a stupid way to win an election. But upon reflection, it's pretty clear to me that this is an example of someone working selflessly for positive change. Ms May would rather see her party fail to win seat X and seat Y, in the hope that that would prevent Mr Harper from doing the damage he wants to do.

Brava, Elizabeth May!

Arts Say No to Harper

2008-09-22T13:27:00.006-04:00

An amazing image, brought to my attention by my esteemed husband.

Espérons que l'opéra arrivera en français!

2008-09-03T01:44:00.015-04:00

The Met has refused Rufus Wainwright's opera. Why? Because it's written in French.

Opera, as we know, has something to do with a delicate marriage of poetry and music. Nevertheless, the Met, which serves a mostly anglophone audience, has declared that since "it could be in English"*, presenting it in French would be "an immediate impediment to its potential success", according to Henry Samuel's article in the The Telegraph.

Yes, New Yorkers speak English, which is perhaps why the Met is presenting two - two! - of its 28 operatic productions this year in English. Yes, 7% of the Met's performances are sung in the language of New York. And both of those productions will be surtitled because operatically sung English is difficult to understand, even for anglophone New Yorkers. One wonders if the Met has considered that their 15 Italian, 6 German, 2 French (French!), 2 Russian and 1 Czech productions this season are immediate impediments to their potential success as a company?

Some arguments can be made for changing older works to make them palatable for contemporary audiences. The idea is that a work built for 18th-century Austrians might not speak as directly to the tastes of 21st-century North Americans. Rather than throw the entire thing into the dustbin, we might change a few things here and there to freshen the work up, to relate it to our lives here and now.

But this work is from the here and now. It's by an anglophone quasi-New Yorker. It's in French for many reasons I'm sure, but one big one is surely that it is set in Paris. This is a living example of what many worry is a dying form. And to decide before it's been presented that it must be beyond the reach of its audience because of such a superficial issue is pandering plain and simple. The bizarre part is that those being underestimated are a New York opera audience - perhaps one of the savviest audiences one could hope for. This kind of conservatism is much more likely to be a nail in Opera's coffin than is a new work by a young artist. **

If libretti in English were easily understood by anglophones, they wouldn't be surtitled in New York. If operagoers expected operas to be written in their vernacular, the Met would be programming a lot more Purcell and Britten, and a lot less Puccini and Wagner. If the Met had had any sense, they'd be premièring this opera.

Let's hope that it comes to Toronto. And let's hope it arrives in French.

__________

*This opera has already been written in French. It could be in English in the same way that Moby Dick could be in Portuguese. I.e., it couldn't.

**I also want to point out that Stravinsky & Cocteau wrote their opera of Oedipus Rex in Latin in the 20th Century for a Francophone audience, and it's pretty amazing. The Canadian Opera Company's staging of this was perhaps their most successful production in the last decade.

Sex and the City - Reviewing and Responding

2008-06-02T13:10:00.022-04:00

I saw the Sex and the City movie last night, and it had quite an effect. I was surrounded by hundreds of women and dozens of men. We arrived. Saved seats. Turned off our cell phones. The lights went down on our humdrummery. The movie started. Two-and-a-half hours later, the lights came up on a different group of people. We may have gone into that theatre in cardigans and coffees, but as we poured out into the street, we were suddenly a flurry of handbags and diamonds. We were canapés and high heels. Vernissages and vibrators. We were Manhattan, we were flirtation, we were a night on the town.

I was immediately overcome by the need for booze.

In a good way.

It's true: I have not seen very much of the television series, and I did not squeeze myself into a theatre on opening night. But Sex and the City is something I enjoy thoroughly, on small or big screens. Sex and the City makes me want to live a fabulous life, to live it happily, boldly, and surrounded by wonderful people.

Now, this is a movie built for gay men. Like opera, that Pillar of Gay Culture, Sex and the City is both a story, and a visual delight. Like opera, the plot is slight, but well put together. The trope of the two parallel couples drives Sex and the City just as it does la Bohème or the Marriage of Figaro.

Two-and-a-half hours is much too much time to merely present one of these stories. But opera is a multimedia extravaganza, built to delight in many ways. The drama is stretched, thinly sometimes, but between the plot points and stage directions are inserted moments of coloratura, of filigree, of bombast. Yes, the chorus could just come in and sing, once: "The Queen has arrived!" But their singing is beautiful, and we enjoy hearing them for three, four, five minutes. Next thing you know, it's 11:30pm and time for a glass of wine. I contend that Sex and the City is like opera. Yes, the plot is simple. Yes, the characters are sometimes types. The movie does not delve too deeply into its questions of the relative values of singledom and couplehood and friendship. Yes, the narrative suspense is spun thinly. But the joy of watching inheres in the felicitous combination of narrative situation, and sumptuous beauty. In this movie, fashion takes the place of aria. The feathers-and-chiffon number Carrie wears can entertain us for its moment, as can a perfect penthouse or a fabulous party. Sex and the City, in its way, is a Gesamtkunstwerk. The true pleasure in watching this movie comes from the many over-the-top moments of fashion and camp. It's been a long time since I've gasped in delight this much in a theatre.

Now, many of the reviews of this picture have been lukewarm, but, in Canada, we were all shocked to hear that the Globe and Mail gave this movie a zero rating. I didn't read that scandalous review until after I had seen the film, but I've certainly read it since (the link: theglobeandmail.com).

I'm not sure how much time Rick Groen spends at the opera. I'm not sure how immersed he is in gay culture. And I'm certainly not sure why the Globe sent him to review this piece. But I am sure that his review of Sex and the City is about as appropriate and authoritative as would be Carson Kressley's review of this month's issue of Guns & Ammo.

And Groen acknowledges that Sex in the City is not made for straight men. His first-paragraph declaration of his own gender and orientation (to wit: masculine and straight) belies his anxiety about whether he is personally equipt to review such a ...fabulous... film. So, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: Rick Groen's problem as a reviewer of this movie is that he's a straight man. I don't have a fully formed idea of the Gay Aesthetic, but I know that it exists, and that Groen doesn't get it.

Not only is his review subtly homophobic and blatantly misogynist (especially in its diction - read it closely), but it criticizes a movie for not doing things it wasn't trying to do in the first place. Well, for my part, I think that Sex and the City is a pretty bad documentary, and a pretty bad epic poem, and a really lousy sculpture in bronze. But I have the good sense to know that those failures aren't pertinent. Do we expect to critique Dude, Where's My Car? in the same manner as Pierrot le Fou?

For example, Groen disparages the fact that the character Charlotte is worried by the superfluity of happiness in her life; he sarcastically wrote: "now, there's a hot-button issue plaguing the planet". I'm not saying that no one should undertake an eco-Marxist reading of this film. But I am saying that a) Groen is not undertaking such a reading, and b) criticizing Sex and the City for a lack of global consciousness is like criticizing Anne Frank's diary for being too sad.

This is the subtitle of Groen's review: "Walking on high heels, our culture hits a new low". I think that if he had the critical context in which to read this film, he'd understand that pieces like the Marriage of Figaro, certainly "low" culture in its day, do in fact stand the test of time. It makes me wonder what his idea of high culture is. Of course, if he had any critical context at all, he'd understand that "high" and "low" as cultural categories are about as useful as the idea of "primitive" and "advanced" cultures.

As if all this weren't enough, Groen's article concludes with the following sentence:

"This is a pricey handbag of a movie, uncontaminated by anything so crass as substance, filled only with the perfumed air of a culture at rest – concept blissfully free of content."

Here we have what I think was being set up to be a damning judgement by a film critic. But, in fact, nothing in this sentence is necessarily false, or necessarily negative. If a similar sentence had been put together to review a novel of Ronald Firbank, I'm sure he would have been proud to have achieved such a thing. If we said the same thing of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, the Maestro would have been delighted.

So we see the disconnect between the film's aesthetic project and Groen's critical criteria; he more than once makes negative-sounding pronouncements that actually aren't necessarily negative. He criticizes the film for being like a "parade" (I, personally, adore a parade). He criticizes it for "[meandering] through an entire year's worth of calendar events - Halloween [sic], Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day." I, meanwhile, would say that having the seasons turn with the Wheel of Fortune is classic and classy. These pronouncements of supposed negative qualities are equivalent to the schoolyard pejorative use of the word "gay".

So, Mr Groen, I reject your hebetating heterosexualism. I refuse to come down from my high heels. Yes, some people might value deep and muscular narratives. But if they do so at the expense of style, élan, and camp, they will miss the point of this movie.

Because, in the end, Rick Groen's offensive and sloppy review fails to address any real shortcomings of the film. And though there may be shortcomings, this is a movie that spoke about relationships, independence, and the joy of cocktails.

In a good way.

Age of Consent Upped for No Good Reason

2008-05-02T01:34:00.003-04:00

canadianpress.google.com

Parliament upped the age of consent for all forms of sexual intercourse except anal sex this week. Since 1892 Canadians aged 14 and older have been considered responsible enough to make their own sexual decisions. Now, though, all of the parties in the House have decided that men and women younger than 16 can't handle that responsibility. They no longer have the right to fornicate with whomever they choose.

One would have thought that, while they were screwing around with age-of-consent laws, the Conservatives might have taken the opportunity to equalize the age of consent for anal sex in this country, which is currently the only sexual act to have its own, higher, age of consent. But no, that age remains 18. Why? Because the government doesn't care to provide equal rights to its gay citizens.*

Not only is the upping of the age rather sex-negative, but it is likely to create situations in which young people feel that they need to hide their sexual activities. The result is that some young people will not seek the information and protection they ought to because there is a further layer of disapproval - a legal layer of disapproval - of their behaviour.

The rationale for this change, it seems, was that it was necessary to protect young people from being preyed upon by older people in this age of the Internet. My understanding, however, is that rape was and continues to be illegal in this country, and thus any person who is 10, 15, 47 or 83 years old and is lured and coerced into sexual acts they don't want to engage in already has the protection of the Law. Really the change here is that the government has decided to take away the right of 14- and 15-year-olds to engage in whatever consensual activities they previously enjoyed. State, welcome to the bedrooms of the Nation! Come on in!

I read some of the comments on this issue that people posted on the Toronto Star's website. When I first clicked on the link I was worried that I was going to find a lot of prudish, anti-sex comments, and yes, some of the comments are exactly that. But many were balanced and sane, and I was happy to read that people see through this ridiculous legislative change. Here's a link: http://www.thestar.com/comment/Speakout/article/420542 .

And here's what Svend Robinson had to say on the matter: http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=2&STORY_ID=2392&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=7

Anyways, I feel really strongly that young people's rights need to be protected. And that this sort of change does just the opposite. I'd love to hear what anyone has to say about this issue.

*Yes, I realize that plenty of people other than gay men are affected by laws governing anal sex. But my sentence kept getting bogged down when I tried to be inclusive but also emphatic. Sorry.

Opera Atelier's Idomeneo

2008-04-27T15:23:00.006-04:00

operaatelier.com

Last week I went to the opening night of OA's production of Idomeneo. The cast was stellar, the stagecraft engaging...it was a good evening at the opera.

Mozart's Idomeneo is set in Crete just after the Trojan War. Neptune, god of several things, including the Sea, sets the events in motion with a shipwreck and an exacting promise, and, as so often happens in opera, love unrequited, love forbidden, love of king-and-country, and filial love all ensue.

Although full of beautiful music, Idomeneo was not my favourite opera. The first act was comprised mainly of arias, and so a lot of time the stage was empty but for the single singer front-and-centre. It lacked the spectacle I've come to expect. Luckily, by act three, a sea monster was attacking Idomeneo's kingdom, while Elletra was going mad with visions of serpents. That added a little spice to an opera that would otherwise have been a bit blah.

Opera Atelier is a company that specializes in period-informed productions of Baroque and early Classical opera. The sumptuous costuming, vibrant (but low-tech) sets, and stylized movement contribute to an operatic experience somewhat removed from the usual fare at a big generalist opera company like the COC.

The real delight in this production, though, was neither the period flare, nor the fantastical plot. The real delight was the vocal expertise on display from the four principals.

Michael Maniaci sang the role of Idamante. He is a male soprano, and his voice is strange and wonderful. I got the sense from his performance that he would be much more engaging in recital than in an opera such as Idomeneo; not every vocal moment in the piece was handled with the same dexterity. But when he was on, he was on.

Measha Brueggergosman sang Elletra with her usual élan. Her presence is larger than life both in recital and on the operatic stage, and her mad scene in particular was impressive.

Peggy Kriha Dye sang the rold of Ilia. I've seen her in several OA productions, and her voice is strong, clear and lovely. She never disappoints.

My favourite, though, was tenor Kresimir Spicer. He was a commanding presence in the title role, and his voice was round and supple. His is a voice I would like to hear more of. His performance was mesmerizing.

Although this opera was not my favourite presentation from Opera Atelier, the singing made the evening. I look forward to their next season.

Walk Score!

2008-04-23T18:42:00.003-04:00

walkscore.com

A friend of mine had linked to this site on the Facebook, and I thought I'd pass it on. Walk Score is a site that rates your address (or your friends' or enemies' addresses) on their walkability. It looks at the proximity of coffee shops, libraries, grocery stores and the like to determine the extent to which you can live where you live without recourse to vehicles. My apartment rates a 77 for walkability - that is, Very Walkable. The suburban address at which I grew up now rates a 48, or Not Walkable (and it's better served by walkable amenities now than when I was little). I heartily recommend checking out your abode to see how it rates.

"It turns out that she got high."

2008-04-22T22:29:00.009-04:00

us.penguingroup.com

This sentence appears in William J. Broad's introduction to his 2006 book The Oracle. Had I known that his book had so little to offer other than this statement, I would have been more inclined to skim my way through it. As it was, though, I read it from cover to cover.

I've been reading and enjoying an awful lot of things about Greece and Rome lately, and so when I saw that this book had been remaindered, I couldn't help but pick it up for a mere $6.99.

Broad is a journalist, and he sets out the story of the recent archæological and geological discoveries at Delphi in about 250 pages. The rest of the 320-page book is devoted to notes, a bibliography and, strangely, a glossary.

What you will get out of this book is the story of the events leading up to the recent discoveries about the mysterious pneuma that the Oracle inhaled during the course of her prophetic ritual. Ancient writers mentioned this sweet-smelling pneuma consistently, but French archæological efforts at the beginning of the Twentieth Century turned up no evidence that any gasses, mists, or smokes occurred at Delphi at all. The prevailing academic opinion last century, according to Broad, was that the Ancient sources just made it all up. Very recently, though, new geological and archæological discoveries indicate that in fact there was a sweet-smelling, high-inducing, ethylene-laden pneuma that was likely to leak out of the Earth directly beneath the temple, reconfirming the Ancient accounts.

I am glad to have learned what I learned about the Oracle from this book, but can't help but think that Broad was stretching what ought to have been a 10-page article beyond its natural limits. If he had been able to dole out the story bit by bit, meanwhile creating portraits of the figures involved in the recent discoveries (chiefly archæologist John Hale and geologist Jelle de Boer), perhaps this book would have been...well, a book. As it is, he inelegantly (irreverently, and dismissively) reveals the punchline in the introduction, ruining a great opportunity to create some sort of suspense. And the whole thing read as if it had been lengthened several times for the purposes of reaching the ideal weight or page count.

The twelve-page glossary is a great example of the extent to which this book is padded. Let me be clear first of all in saying that this book is by no means academic; it assumes no knowledge on the reader's part of history or geology, and explains all its concepts in the body of the text in what is probably too much detail. Nevertheless, the following words are glossed at the end, in case any of us need any help: acropolis, Aegean Sea, Athens, BCE, Byron (why is Lord Byron glossed?), clairvoyance, Delphi (in case you missed the maps and descriptions of Delphi in the text), metaphysics, oracle (why are you reading this book if you don't have a good idea of what an oracle is?), pantheon, and sulfur. One wonders why they didn't just stick a whole dictionary on the end.

What's also strange is that Broad spends some time talking about the institution of the Oracle, but does not choose to approach this topic in depth, despite all the other evidence of padding material. I would have loved to learn about the differences between the Oracle during its nine Apollonian months and the Oracle during its three Dionysian months. Or how other oracles worked. Or the relationship of the Oracle to her patron, Apollo. Instead, Broad stuck to his drawn-out story of archæology and luck, and left me wanting to know the same sorts of things I wanted to know when his book first caught my eye.

In the end, as I've said, I'm glad to have learned what I learned from this book, but sad that I had to wade through so much of this book to get at it.

Another New Creations Festival Begins

2008-04-10T01:09:00.003-04:00

newcreationsfestival.com

Tonight I went to the first of this year's New Creations concerts at Roy Thompson Hall. This year the themes of the festival are works by Olivier Messiaen, and works for various keyboard instruments.

The programme opened with Messiaen's Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, and closed with his Oiseaux exotiques. In between were Malcolm Forsyth's Accordion Concerto, and Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto.

This year is the centennial of Messiaen's birth. The works I heard tonight were written in 1963 and 1956 - four decades before the Forsyth and the Salonen. Nevertheless, his were the pieces that stood out as the freshest, the more vital, the most new.

Apparently, during the 50s and 60s in particular, Messiaen was obsessed with birdsong. And bird calls are the jumping off point for the motifs that form these two pieces, some quoted rather accurately, some adjusted for octave, or speed, or with intervals stretched to map them onto our usual twelve tones.

In Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, the piano, a group of xylophones and marimbas, and a trio of clarinets are featured, and are backed up by 10 brass players, at least seven of which are supposed to represent apocalypic-angelic trumpeters. While the piano, percussion and woodwinds set out delicate figures, the brass chimed in with walls of dense harmony. The piece was full of beautiful and strange sounds, and, though not very lyric, was accessible at first go. I would love to hear it again.

Next on the list was the Accordion Concerto, played by the adorable Alexander Sevastian. I really enjoyed this concerto. It was the most conservative-sounding piece of the evening; if it had been a few notches more tuneful it would have sounded something like Gershwin's Cuban Overture or his Piano Concerto. But the music had direction, and was fun and engaging. Forsyth really used the sound of the accordion well with the orchestra, playing it against the piccolo and the bassoons to good effect. The last movement is something of a rhumba - and who doesn't love an orchestral rhumba? This was the piece that got the most enthusiastic "Bravo!" of the evening from the whole audience, me included.

After the intermission, we heard the Piano Concerto. Esa-Pekka Salonen is a conductor, and his orchestrations are those of someone who spends his days causing orchestras to make beautiful sounds. This lush concerto had the sound of something post-Romantic, but in true contemporary fashion it wandered, seemingly without destination. At a certain point, I lost interest.

And then we were back to Messiaen. Oiseaux exotiques was short, interesting, and challenging. The bird calls were traded back between piano and orchestra, and there was also a good helping of gong. I recommend it.

I realize that, for an institution for whom Brahms and Mahler are the bread-and-butter, "new" is a relative term. But I find it strange that the newest sounding new tonight was 50 years old. I enjoyed the concert, and am looking forward to the two remaining New Creations evenings. But what was lacking was any real feeling of exploration or discovery. Here's hoping the next two concerts will be even newer.

I have become aware of Philip Hensher, and am excited.

2008-03-29T03:08:00.002-04:00

'I only ever wanted to write a novel which would be exactly the same in all respects as the novel Conrad would have written if he'd lived to 150 and got more interested in hot gay sex.'

Thus saith Philip Hensher (vide here), on his own æsthetic goals.

Hensher wrote the libretto to Thomas Adès's opera Powder Her Face, which I first heard in about the year 2000. (It's a pretty amazing opera, and I think that in some ways Adès is the successor to Britten.) I didn't stop to think very much about the libretto.

Later, Hensher published a novel called The Mulberry Empire, which I bought and have yet to read. When I saw it in the store, I thought to myself: "Hey - this is the guy who wrote Powder Her Face."

Then today, Google News directed me to an article he wrote about the phenomenon of popera singers - Paul Potts et alii - which I quite enjoyed: It takes more than a good voice to be an opera singer.

This then led me to find his essay on the gay, which is here: Why is 'gay' still used as an insult?, and his little bit on Dumbledore being gay, which is here: Gay wizards, hobbits and angels: a celebration.

Anyways, maybe I'll get around to The Mulberry Empire sooner rather than later. I'll let you know how it is.

Britten and Shostakovich at the TSO

2008-03-07T10:55:00.006-05:00

Last night the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was in fine form presenting Britten's Violin Concerto, and Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony.

The story of the Leningrad Symphony, which I read for the first time last night in the programme notes to the performance (and reviewed today on Wikipedia) is shocking, as is the story of the Siege of Leningrad itself. The Siege lasted 900 days, the Nazi army having encircled the city in September 1941. More than a million civilians died, mostly from starvation. Meanwhile, Hitler had ordered the destruction of the palaces surrounding the city, and had most of the art treasures removed to Germany.

Amidst all of this, Shostakovich, not in particular good health, went on the radio to tell his city that life was proceeding normally, that he was writing a symphony. He was evacuated from the city shortly before its premiere in 1942 in the wartime capital of Kuibyshev. Then it was played in Moscow. A microfilm of the score was sent to the West via Persia, and it was soon played in London and New York. It was arguably the most important piece of music in the world in 1942/3; that year in the States alone it was performed 62 times.

The Leningrad Radio Orchestra was the only orchestra in Leningrad in 1942, and it was doing poorly. Everyone was undernourished of course, and some members had to be replaced because of ill health or death. Still, that year, the score was snuck back into the city, copied, and performed in a damaged hall, by a bedraggled band for a bedraggled audience, as an expression of defiance. A bombardment of the encircling Nazis had been arranged for earlier in the day, so that they'd be quiet for the performance. Loudspeakers were set up so that the Germans outside could hear the symphony being performed in the city they were trying to destroy.

The first movement nearly brought me to tears. The TSO sounded great last night. The strings shimmered, and the intensity of the playing equalled the intensity of the score. This symphony is rather long, and the middle two movements do not have the intensity of the 1st and 4th. But the music is clear, direct, and very accessible.

Before the Shostakovich, we were treated to some Britten. I'm a huge fan of Britten's music, and the Violin Concerto (Janine Jansen was the soloist) was great. Britten was a delcared pacifist, and when war broke out in Europe in 1939 he left England for first Toronto, and then New York City. He wrote a lot of wonderful music while he was over here, including his operetta Paul Bunyan. Although the Violin Concerto is less specifically a wartime piece than the Shostakovich, it has a darkness and anxiety that stands out from the bulk of Britten's output.

The work is compact. The orchestration is not lush, but the score set the hall ringing with its expert deployment of small groupings of instruments. And Jansen's violin was given many opportunities to sing out against this austere backdrop.

These beautiful and harrowing pieces were well paired, well performed, wonderful programming from the TSO!

CBC Radio Two

2008-03-05T16:28:00.003-05:00

In the last two or three years, I've listened to the radio more than ever. When I moved into my current apartment, I placed my grandmother's old kitchen radio on my bathroom counter, and I tune it in to CBC Radio Two pretty much every day before I go to work. It provides my getting-ready-for-the-day music. Sometimes, depending on my plans, it even provides my getting-ready-for-the-evening music.

I like the radio because it's easy. No decisions to be made about what specifically to listen to; the spontaneous dissemination aspect (thank you, David Foster Wallace, for that lovely trope!) of radio and television programming is part of the charm. You know how you can have a DVD of The Wizard of Oz on your shelf for years, but the time you watch it is the time you stumble upon it (usually halfway through) while channel surfing? Thus with radio, too. The lack of control is what makes it possible for radio programming to be felicitous.

There's another thing, too. No matter how many CDs I may buy, the CBC is always going to have a bigger library than me. They play things I haven't heard, and yes, half the time that's not so exciting, but another half of the time the radio introduces me to things I didn't even know I was interested in.

So, my (first) point is: I like the radio. Particularly the Radio Two.

Last week or so, I was invited to join a facebook group sporting the alarmist name: Save Classical Music at the CBC. This week, that group directed me to this article in the Globe & Mail: Radio 2 plans less weekday classical music. The article let me know that from 6am-10am and from 3pm-6pm on weekdays, CBC Radio Two will play more contemporary Canadian music, including pop, world, blues, etc., and that the afternoon drive-home slot specifically will include no classical music at all.

How does this affect me? Well, honestly, it affects me very little. Most of my radio listening occurs between the hours of 10am and 3pm, so for the most part I'll be hearing the music I want to hear when I tune in.

Reading the comments on the Globe & Mail article online, though, lots of people are riled up. And misinformed. And a little bit stupid. Many of the listeners who will miss the classical programming dismiss other kinds of music out-of-hand. They don't see any value in pop, hip hop, folk or what have you. Many of the people who are in favour of this change think that the music included under the horribly inept umbrella term "classical" has to do with dead European art from the 19th Century.

I favour classical music programming over most of the CBC's world, jazz, folk, non-classical programming. It is my preference. I certainly don't think that to broadcast other musics is to dumb anything down. So I'm in pretty bad company, it seems, when I say that I don't support the changes that are to happen on CBC Radio Two.

Nevertheless, I would still speak against the reduced presence of classical music on the airwaves. It is true that Canadian signer-songwriters, crooners, gamelan players, tango chanteuses, et ceteri don't get as much airtime as they need. And when it comes down to it, the CBC just needs more funding, so it can start up a few more stations and disseminate all of these musics.

What I know is that there is no alternative on the radio to hear challenging classical music programming. When I was a kid I used to tune in to the radio for classical music. I did so in my parents' cars on the way to school (i.e. at 7am), and at night before I went to bed (i.e. after 3pm). I regret that kids will not be able to have those kinds of formative experiences with a certain kind of music any longer. At least not with the CBC.

If you have an opinion one way or the other, you can contact the CBC by following this link: cbc.ca/radio2/contactUs.

2008-03-03T16:55:00.006-05:00

enallage (n.)
antimeria (n.)

I felt the urge to blog again today, and as I had nothing in particular to say, I returned to my previous blogging-for-the-sake-of-it trope (vide this post), and looked up some rhetorical devices to present to you. So, Ladies, Gentlemen, Ladies-and-Gentlemen, I give you: enallage and antimeria!

The word enallage (Greek: ‘εναλλαγή = interchange) indicates, according to Wikipedia, "the substitution of one grammatical form for another". Any time that you're given a construction that is not the one you've been made to expect, you're seeing an example of enallage. Substitutions of person, number, voice, or part of speech, whether conventional or unconventional, can be considered enallage. The example that comes to mind for me is the evidence read at the trial of the Knave of Hearts:

They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone,
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

...

Here Carroll's continual shift of person - his enallage - creates a nonsense effect, but if you follow the Wikipedia link up there you'll see some other things enallage can do (with examples from Shakespeare, Byron, and the Bible).

Antimeria is the name given to instances of enallage that involve parts of speech. One example is my verby use of the word "blog" in the first paragraph of this post. Blog started its life as a noun, and now I'm using it as a verb. Another example could be "gift", as in: "We're going to re-gift this fruitcake". The etymology, according to languagehat.com, is thus: from the Greek, anti- "instead of" and mereia "a part".

I'll close this post by quoting Walt Whitman's poem When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. I've shown many people this poem, especially people who tell me that they "don't get" poetry. Not only is the poem lovely, but its stellar example of antimeria ("unaccountable" - we expect an adverb but get an adjective) is a good jumping-off point for a close reading. Enjoy!

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

2008-02-02T21:36:00.000-05:00

Finally, Tosca!

coc.ca

Last week I went to see Tosca for the first time. A Puccini opera that I hadn't seen before - I was really looking forward to it!

Before I tell you about the performances and the production, let me tell you about the opera. As a play, the action of Tosca is rather compressed, especially in the first act. And the twists and turns of the whole story are a bit far-fetched. Is this your first time at the opera? I hear you ask. Well, I know that suspension of disbelief is important to the whole endeavour of opera, but I just think that Tosca works less well than most of the repertoire I know.

Despite this, Puccini's score is unsurprisingly gorgeous. Listening to it for the first time at the opera house, I was reminded of how good he is at threading together many motifs and melodies that reflect, support, and create the drama, without losing touch with the idea of Song. Bravo, Puccini!

The sets, costuming, and lighting were all adequate in this COC production, although the third-act set didn't really blend with those of the other two acts.... It was a bit more modern and abstract, while the earlier sets did more to reproduce period rooms.

Eszter Sümegi sang Tosca, and I was not impressed with her performance. Whether her fault or the director's, she played Tosca as something of a ninny, and this made the weak drama weaker. She moved awkwardly on stage, and did not look at all comfortable in her period dresses (at one point she caught her dress on Scarpia's desk, too). It's not too surprising for an opera singer to be a poor actress, who moves poorly on stage. But Tosca, the character, is a performer, who even mentions during the opera that she could teach Mario how to move so as to convincingly fake his own death. One expects, then, that she could move so as to convincingly portray her own life. Usually, I suppose, the singing could make up for these actorly deficiencies; unfortunately Sümegi's vocal performance was proficient but uninspired.

Mikhail Agafonov's voice, however, was absolutely beautiful. He sang the role of Cavaradossi, and was totally captivating. His voice is big - very big - and round, but one never gets the sense that it's running away with him. And despite the size of his instrument, there wasn't a hint of bombast; his signing was subtle and wonderful. I was worried at one point during "E lucevan le stelle" about his tuning, but that moment passed and his performance as a whole was great.

So, it seems that Tosca is the sort of opera that I might enjoy more as a recorded piece of music than a real-live drama. Certainly this production, aside from Agafonov's contribution, left lots to be desired.

2008-02-02T20:52:00.000-05:00

A Lovely Mozart Concert
tso.ca

Last month I went to a concert of various works by Mozart. The concert was easy on the ears.
One thing that was different about this programme was that it included fully eight separate pieces, and two soloists. Often I go to concerts of two or three big works, so the variety was a nice change.

The first soloist was Karina Gauvin, whom you may know from her recordings and performances with Les Violons du Roy. Overall, I really enjoyed her performance. At her best, each note sounds like it has been ever so gingerly placed into the ear of the listener.

Unfortunately, her parts in the programme seemed to have been arranged such that her strongest performance went first, her least engaging last. She opened with the aria "Ach, ich fuehl's, es ist verschwunden" from The Magic Flute, and her rendition was stellar. Her voice was delicate, but still round and full. She followed this with an aria I'd never heard before ("Ruhe sanft" from Zaide), that was likewise beautifully sung. But her last two pieces of the evening were less impressive. In both "Voi, che sapete" and the Exsultate, jubilate, her performance was certainly proficient, but it lacked the magic of her first two numbers.

The other soloist was violinist Andrew Wan. He played two charming works that I had not previously heard (an Adagio and a Rondo, Koechel 261 and 250 respectively). His performance was euphonous, if a little schmaltzy.

The TSO also played without soloists that evening. The overture to The Magic Flute was a fine beginning, as one might expect. And the concert concluded with Mozart's 40th.

I had never heard Mozart's 40th live until that night, but it was one of those pieces that I studied intensely in school. Despite my familiarity with the work, it was fresh and vibrant and exciting. My only lament is that I have yet to hear a performance, live or recorded, of the 40th with the 2nd movement played as slowly as I'd like. Along with the Mamas & the Papas singing madrigals, and Ella Fitzgerald singing Handel arias, one of my deepest musical dreams is to hear the 2nd movement played dead, dead slow. Ah...one day....

In past years I've avoided the TSO's January Mozart festival, but I'm glad I got a taste of it this time around.

2008-01-01T14:39:00.000-05:00

Japan!
http://comics212.net/category/japan/

Hey everyone! I didn't really blog my trip to Japan. I went in September and it's been months. Luckily, my esteemed husband has been slowly blogging up a storm on the topic. If you want to see our Japan pictures, follow the link above!

2007-12-27T04:13:00.000-05:00

Exciting News from the Plains!

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/

The Lakota are their own nation again, as of last week! They went and told a bunch of embassies and the American government that they were cancelling all the treaties they'd signed with the Americans, and were going to issue their own passports.

Notably they hit the Venezuelan embassy, and I hear that Russia is considering recognizing their independence.

One has to admit this is pretty exciting!

2007-11-29T23:54:00.000-05:00

anaphora (n.)
(ἀναφορά)

I haven't blogged for a while, so I decided I would just pick something and write about it for the sake of. And here we are. Today, my topic is anaphora.

Anaphora literally means something like "carrying back". It's a rhetorical device that occurs when a word or words are repeated at the beginning of successive clauses. The two names for the related phenomenon of repeated words at the ends of successive clauses are "epiphora" and "epistrophe".

Winston Churchill provided a stirring and memorable example of anaphora when he said this:

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

Abraham Lincoln, meanwhile, provided a popular example of epiphora in the Gettysburg Address:

"...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Three wonderful words of the day!

2007-11-05T01:26:00.000-05:00

Senatus Populusque Canadæ?
"Layton veut un référendum"

So here's my question: what does everyone think of the Senate?

Jack Layton has apparently been calling for a referendum which would ask whether Canadian voters wanted to keep or abolish our current unelected Senate. He argues that, since the Senate is populated by unelected persons, it is undemocratic and thus undesireable.

I am not sure how I feel.

I know very little about the Senate. But I think it reasonable that we not resign all of our governmental decision-making to elected persons. I think the idea of the Senate is that it is a place where people who are experts - who have experience and knowledge to contribute to government - can sit. Popular figures without experience or qualifications are elected all the time. The Senate is where the expert legislators are. In theory.

Also, the fact that Senators continue to sit even after the government that appointed them loses the Lower House contributes to continuity. This does make government a slower-moving machine, but I for one am quite happy that the current Senate, for example, is full of Chrétien Liberals, because they're a nice balance to the Conservative Commons we now have.

I do lament that the Senate is so full of lawyers, politicians, and other government-types. I see an unelected house as a great opportunity to get a variety of perspectives. I would like to see a Senate that has not only lawyers but also scientists, painters, academics, writers, all sorts of people. Perhaps we need to fill that house by tying it in with our honours system - maybe all the Companions of the Order of Canada should sit in the Senate?

If anyone has any opinions on the matter, I'd love to hear them!

P.S.: Here's a link to a list of all of the living Companions of the Order of Canada: gg.ca/honours

2007-10-17T18:23:00.000-04:00

Black Coffee

This week I've been listening to Peggy Lee's fantastic album Black Coffee. Several years ago I got excited about Peggy Lee and spent a lot of time listening to a CD I had of about 25 of her hits. Most of the tracks from Black Coffee weren't on that disc, but it was then that I first heard of the album. A couple of years passed, and I saw Black Coffee in a store one day and picked it up.

This album gave me a picture of Peggy Lee that I couldn't have gotten from her various singles. The cheery singing of It's a Good Day and He's a Tramp gives way to a voice that transmits desperation, tarnish, suburban isolation, and worldweariness.

I've heard that some people look to this album as the first "concept album". Certainly the selections are ordered such that the record tells a story, and the ending of the story is creepily ambiguous. Someone was thinking when she put this together.

The arrangements and performances are all amazing, and Pete Candoli's trumpeting is marvelous in its own right. In particular the recording of My Heart Belongs to Daddy on this album is perhaps my favourite version of that song to date.

Anyways, I heartily recommend that you all rush out as soon as possible and pick up a copy of Black Coffee; you'll love it.

2007-10-10T14:13:00.000-04:00

Opening Night of the Season

http://coc.ca/performances/marriage.html

Last week I went to the first performance of the Canadian Opera Company's season. And it was a delight!

Last year I sat in the fifth ring, which is rather high up and, though acoustically not bad, did make one feel as though one were sitting in the rafters. This year my seats are on the third ring, off to the side, which I think I prefer. Although the extreme right of the stage is invisible from my new seat, I felt much more connected to the performance because of my new proximity to the stage. So that's good.

First off, the opera itself is just lovely. The only Mozart opera I had seen up to this point was the Magic Flute, which I think is really difficult to make work. The Marriage of Figaro, however, is bursting with charm, great tunes, and hilarity.

Morris Ertman's sets were simple and classy, and worked nicely with Ann Curtis's understated costume designs. The production looked current without looking modern, if that makes any sense.

Some of the performances were great, too. Robert Gleadow, a young Canadian singer, started out a bit goofy in the title role, but throughout the course of the opera his performance grew on me, and I definitely think he did very well. Ying Huang as Susanna had the stand out voice of the evening, and her duets with Jessica Muirhead (Countess Rosina) were stellar. Muirhead did get to shine on her own, though, and was particularly impressive in two slower arias where the action stopped and we got to just listen.

Overall the cast was energetic and funny, with absolutely no moments of park-and-bark. This is an engaging production and a fine start to what I hope is a fine season.

2007-10-01T16:30:00.000-04:00

Why I'm Worried about the Upcoming Referendum....
yourbigdecision.ca

I'm sure you're all aware that there's an upcoming provincial election, but I'm really worried that not enough people are aware that there's an upcoming provincial referendum.

The referendum is about our system of voting. Right now, we have the traditional first-past-the-post system. What's being proposed is a mixed system that would combine our current system with another that would help the number of seats in the legislature better reflect the popular support of each party.

The proposed system is not my favourite (the single transferable vote system proposed a while ago in BC was better, I think). But I worry that people don't really know that the referendum is happening, and that therefore there is no chance that a majority of people will support changing our electoral system.

It is suspicious that the Liberals, who would probably not benefit from electoral reform (it's parties like the NDP and the Greens that would benefit most), are in charge right now and that somehow Elections Ontario has become totally unable to let people know that a referendum is happening or what it's about. Sure, I got a pamphlet in the mail, but if I wasn't interested, how would I know what's going on? Why isn't there a Yes campaign and a No campaign?

When the referendum fails, the two parties that wouldn't benefit from this kind of change, the Tories & Liberals, can say that they put the question before the electorate and that we weren't interested. And that will be a lie.

Sorry to be so doomsaying, but it really seems to me that this is what's going on.

2007-10-01T16:07:00.000-04:00

Nuit Blanche
http://scotiabanknuitblanche.com/

I attended Nuit Blanche again this year, and am still not sure what I think of the whole thing. But here are some little things that I think:

1. Filling the city with arty installations for a night is in general a fantastic idea.

2. The streets were full of excited people, which I enjoy.

3. I didn't see anything at this year's Nuit Blanche that was really cool. Now, I only saw a small number of things, but....

4. Something's wrong with the density, or the ratio of attendees to pieces, or something. There was a whole lot of elbowing through dense crowds for very little return. Maybe this means that more citizens and businesses need to independently be doing cool stuff that night, so that it spreads things out a bit....? I'm not sure.

5. No one is dealing with the booze issue. Opening 20 bars until 4am is not the solution. The best thing would be if we could all legally drink in public.

6. We need to de-officialize this event and get more Torontonians just doing stuff. Lots of people in the crowds the other night took the opportunity to dress weird and make a spectacle of themselves. Let's also do weird and wacky things to our houses and our neighbourhoods, and not care if it ends up in the Scotiabank pamphlet.

7. The amazing folks at the TPSC ran their own stuff. Check it out: http://www.publicspace.ca/notblanche/index.html

8. As you've guessed by now, there was way too much Scotiabank on this event. Nothing brings an arts event down like banking reminders. Except maybe capitalism reminders. Either way, I'd much prefer it if my arty evening wasn't brought to me by the Bloor-Yorkville Business Association or whatever, and a fucking bank.

So, yes, Nuit Blanche has the beginnings, the kernel, of something good. I guess we'll have to see where it goes....

2007-09-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

My husband has been obsessed with Japan ever since he was a kid. And this year, his friend David, who lives in Japan, is living just outside of Tokyo. So it was time to go for a visit.

Yes, Japan. I did not know very much about Japan (I still don't). I did not have any particular idea of what I wanted to do or see in Japan.

One thing I was excited about was being somewhere where few people speak English. I've been to Holland and France, I've been to the Caribbean, I've been to Québec and to Wales. I've even been to America. But I have never been in a situation where communication was difficult. I was looking forward to learning as I went and to using a phrase book.

I was also excited to visit a culture that was very different from my own. North America is North America, and Europe - especially north-western Europe, I would say - is the Motherland for North American culture, and as such doesn't really offer much in the way of cultural difference (in my very limited experience). Holland is Holland, yes, but the West is the West.

My principal anxiety about this trip involved food (if I had to pick a secondary anxiety, I would say it had to do with public nudity - but that's for another post). I am a quasi-vegetarian. I don't habitually eat meat or fish. I admit that I have weaknesses - crispy bacon with my eggs, pepperoni, Wendy's cheeseburgers - but I stopped eating meat in general in highschool mostly because I don't enjoy it. And so I usually live on cheese and bread. And one thing I did know about Japan, was that it isn't known for its cheese and bread. Add my dietary specificities to my lack of knowledge of the Japanese language, and you get one anxious traveller. Where will I get pizza in Japan? I wondered...and how will I order it sans anchovies...?

I got on Air Canada flight 001 to Narita Airport in Tokyo on the 3rd of September, and I've been enjoying myself ever since. I was worried about passing the time on a 13-hour flight, but it turned out to be not a big deal at all. I watched a movie. I wrote. I played video games. I ate two Indian meals (they weren't great, but for airplane food: I was happy). The experience was not bad at all.

When we arrived in Tokyo, we were energetic and excited. Tune in next time...etc.....

2007-09-11T10:56:00.000-04:00

...watashiwa nihongo ga wakaramisen...

Yes, I've been in Japan now for about a week. I'm going to write all about it, but it's going to be awhile.... Sit tight...I'm back on the 18th....

2007-08-26T12:41:00.000-04:00

Highway 401 to Be Renamed in Honour of American Imperialist Aggression
theglobeandmail.com

When a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, they fly their body back to Trenton, and then drive it along the 401 to Toronto. The government is planning to rename this stretch of highway the Highway of Heroes.

I find this upsetting. These young people are dying as victims of a system that sends an army to war overseas for economic reasons. But, since the mythos of the veteran and of the fallen soldier is so strong, people confuse this victimization with heroism.

People are gathering on overpasses all along the 401 out of what I think is a legitimate sense of loss and respect for that loss. But the flags they're waving are the flags of the nation that sends these kids to their deaths. They're conflating support for the troops with support for the system that eats the troops.

I'd rather support the troops by bringing them all home. Alive. Now.

2007-08-22T14:04:00.000-04:00

Shelf Monkey
http://shelf-monkey.blogspot.com/

Folks, I read Shelf Monkey a couple of weeks ago. A friend had passed me an ARC of it because it seemed to be a novel written exactly for me. Sadly, it wasn't.

Redekop's novel centres around a character who works in a big-box bookstore, and who is frustrated by the hebetated masses. I expected a book that would bring plenty of observations of corporate culture and of the general public, presented through the eyes of lovers of literature. I wanted to laugh and smirk and identify.

Shelf Monkey did offer this. A bit. At the beginning.

The novel moves quickly away from the bookstore setting and becomes a book about a group of readers who burn books that aren't worth not burning. This cultish bookclub puts novels on trial and executes the convicts. This could have been an opportunity to explore ideas of censorship, readership, capitalism, even art. Instead, this strange group seems two-dimensional and their presence in the novel seems only to provide a forum for literary namedropping that occasionally amounts to allusion.

Overall the novel seemed disorganized. And it wasn't very funny. But I was surprised and (sort-of) delighted at the strange brutality that occurs near the end; it was a strong gesture in an otherwise bland read.

My two main problems with Shelf Monkey are both about expectations, I suppose. Problem one: I picked it up because it seemed to be a novel about working in book retail - a kind of Clerks for booksellers - but that is not what it is. Problem two: it's a book about people who love literary beauty, but it is a book that doesn't - and, to be fair, probably couldn't - possess the kind of beauty as the works it itself points out as beautiful.

So, I may have set myself up for disappointment, going into this read with the preconceptions I had. Then again, this book is built for people who read literary fiction - it lists so many authors, titles and characters that anyone who is not an avid reader would easily be alienated. I can't help but compare its prose, its storytelling, its everything to the best. And it comes up short. Michel Basilières, in his review in the Star, ironically recommends the book to those who like their fiction "light and fast"; this is the kind of fiction that the heavy-and-slow-loving characters in Shelf Monkey wouldn't touch.

2007-08-03T02:42:00.000-04:00

Polygamy, anyone?
theglobeandmail.com

So, it looks as though polygamy might not be illegal in Canada, and I'm just wondering if anyone has any opinions on this prospect that they'd like to share...?

Although same-sex marriage and polygamy have pretty much nothing to do with one another legally, I'm sure we all remember that all there were plenty of bigots up in arms about equal marriage as a kind of legal gateway for other kinds of marital diversity. Polygamy will be next! they cried, to which most of us replied not only: That doesn't make sense! but also: Who cares?

As it turns out, though, polygamy might actually be next. I don't know much about the history of anti-polygamy laws in Canada, but I assume they have to do with religion and Victorian prudishness. Nowadays, everything the media has to say against polygamy seems to take the heterosexist view that the practice of having multiple spouses has something to do with protecting young women from predatory, culty old men (in my experience, spousal partnerships have nothing to do with women). But the need to defend women from their husbands, fundamentalist Mormon or otherwise, was revealed last week to be not very pressing.

Now, I don't think that many workplaces will be rushing to extend health-and-dental plans to your spouse(s). I don't think that Revenue Canada is quite ready to assess the income of your triad. But aside from these nuts-and-bolts, which are actually very important to the legal status of a marriage, I just wondered what everyone thought of the idea in general?

My thinking, which will surprise no one who knows me, is that loving, familial relationships come in all kinds of forms, and that if three or more people have a relationship that works, then that should be supported and recognized. Courts in Ontario recently recognized that a child can have three legal guardians, and it's these kind of things that are central to the polygamy question. I don't have an easy answer to the insurance and benefits questions, but things like custody, inheritance, visits and decision-making in hospitals, these I guess are the things I'm interested in considering. The question is, given that there is a small number of long-term, romantic and domestic relationships out there involving three or four equal partners, should we deny them the status we grant to twosomes?

So, let me know what you think....

2007-08-02T23:46:00.000-04:00

My Pool Conversation

Yesterday I did something that I hadn't done since Grade Nine gym: I went to a public pool. It was rather hot yesterday and a swim at 9:30pm was just the thing for cooling off. I went to the outdoor pool at Scadding Court (at Bathurst and Dundas), and bobbed around for about an hour, occasionally glancing up at the CN Tower.

At a certain point, a 10-year-old girl swam past, and we had the following exchange:

GIRL: Why are you just standing there? Aren't you going to swim?
ME: Maybe in a bit....
GIRL: You sound like a girl!
ME: Yeah? So do you!
GIRL: I am a girl!
ME: Well...good, then!

She didn't have anything to say to that, I tell ya.

2007-08-02T23:15:00.000-04:00

Fun Fact about My Neighbourhood
Wikipedia - Koreatown

Little Korea occupies five blocks on Bloor Street West, from Honest Ed's at Markham & Bloor to Christie Pits Park at Grace Street. It takes about ten minutes to walk from one end to the other. It's a wonderful place to live, full of bibimbap joints and karaoke dens.

Another thing it's got a lot of is hair salons. It wasn't until a little while ago that I actually bothered to pay attention to how many there were. And when I did, I was shocked to count a total of eighteen hair salons, and one beauty and hair supply store. Yes, folks, that's nineteen hair establishments. Nineteen! In five blocks! There may even be a twentieth - my Korean is insufficient to read the details presented on a second-floor sign of one place that identifies itself with the ambiguous English word "studio".

Now, isn't that a fun fact about Little Korea?

2007-07-31T23:48:00.000-04:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I read the last Harry Potter book this week, as did almost everyone else. This last installment is as engaging as all the others.

I would first like to point out that I've read these books over the course of about 8 years. So I don't think that my reaction to this last book is the same as it would have been had I read the series all in one go. For example, I found it difficult in the last few books to remember characters from previous books, or rules and laws of Rowling's wizardy magic. For example, it took me ages in this last book to clue in to what a horcrux was, and I still don't really remember what the inferi are. 3400 pages are likely to contain an awful lot of information, and I didn't retain it all.

I want to be very clear that I did derive enjoyment from reading this last book. I wanted to know what was going to happen next, and how it would all come together in the end. That said, I was disappointed by the ending. I felt that her story wrapped up ingenuously, and that her treatment of death - a theme which she approaches successfully in earlier installments - was facile.

I've said before that there is nothing to Rowling's prose, but have also previously appreciated her storytelling. Sadly, neither her prose nor her storytelling are very successful in the Deathly Hallows. The whole thing seemed heavy-handed. She continues to write very cinematically, handling flashbacks, chaotic battles, overheard conversations, everything as if she were describing a movie.

I have plenty of specific negative criticisms, but I don't even think there's much point. I'm glad I know what happens in the end. I'm unlikely to reread this series, as I think that most of the value is in the doling out of the story.

To close, here's a link to a scathing but valid review of the first Harry Potter book by none other than Harold Bloom: http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/courses/205.03/bloom.html

Enjoy!

2007-07-31T21:42:00.000-04:00

The Red Shoes, or A Nice Little Visit to the Mall
torontoeatoncentre.com

I went to the Eaton Centre the other day on my way to work. I'm not a fan of most malls, but the experience was delightful at several points.

The first delight was simply the feeling of being downtown. Living up on Bloor Street, and working well past Civilization's northern border (i.e. Yorkdale Station), has given me in recent years fewer occasions to be downtown. Getting out of the subway at scuzzy Queen Station and entering directly thence into the southern end of the Centre was a breath of urban air.

It should come as no surprise that the variousness of the people one encounters at such a location is part of its charm. Also, the messiness and the layers of various decades' styles, and various corporations' occupancy contribute an air of both vitality and decay that the most bustling public spaces in big cities share. Hooray for the hallways/tunnels between the subway and the mall!

For a while I thought that this little slice of space reminded me of Manhattan. I've since realized that it just reminded me that I was living in a big city. Hence this post. A few steps on, though, there was something that did remind me of Manhattan: Sbarro.

Sbarro, of course, is an American chain of Italian fastfood restaurants. I was first introduced to their delicious stuffed pizza by an ex-boyfriend almost a decade ago. It wasn't until my first trip to New York City that I learned there Sbarros other than the one in the Eaton Centre. I had to stop and gorge myself on delicious American pizza.

And then I continued into the mall. For the most part, it was annoying in the same way as other malls. People ambled along too slowly, often without looking where they were going. The same stores sold the same stuff. I was in a rush, travelling the length of the Centre from Queen to Dundas, and as I shuffled behind the oblivious shoppers, my feeling of mall rage only abated for a short moment as I passed the hilarious ten-foot-tall close-up photo of a twinky chest - erect nipple included - inside Abercrombie & Fitch. Did they put that there to make us giggle?

One other event during my Eaton Centre visit really made me happy. I was on an escalator, heading down. At the bottom of the escalator was a shoe store. On the adjacent (up-bound) escalator, were several people, including a woman in her thirties. A metre or so into her ascent, her eye was caught by a pair of shoes on display in the window of the store. She turned to the woman behind her - a stranger, as far as I can tell - pointed at the display, and exclaimed with genuine excitement "I love those! The red Mary Janes!". The stranger, not very surprised, and also, it seemed, genuinely appreciative of the shoes, half-verbally indicated that she agreed. And then they carried on up, saying no more about them. What a wonderful interaction.

Let's hear it for crazy downtown malls!

2007-07-04T01:30:00.000-04:00

Mounties Use Pepper Spray against Babies and Toddlers
cbc.ca

Today a Mountie repeatedly sprayed a babe in arms with pepper spray. The baby, along with his mother and several other children and adults had to go to the hospital to be treated for their maltreatment. .

The infant and the fifty or so people who were with him were on their way home from a soccer tournament, which they had won.

Says Mountie spokesperson Annie Linteau: "Pepper spray is used when dealing with someone who is demonstrating combative behaviour and you as a police officer feel threatened."

2007-06-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

Reading Dennis Lee
anansi.ca

I don't read as much contemporary poetry as I'd like to. And I rarely read whole books of new poems. But last week, knowing I had some time off for Pride, I decided I would read Yesno by Dennis Lee.

I knew very little of Lee's work beyond Alligator Pie. My first exposure to his poetry for grownups was his lovely poem about the Summerhill fair that was part of the fantastic Poetry on the Way initiative on the TTC.

So tonight I sat down to Yesno and then to Un. Little did I know that I was doing it backwards. Yes, Un and Yesno, in that order, are a single work that spans two books. I have read each book once, fairly quickly, and afterward I re-read about fifteen of the poems that really struck me. So in this post you're really getting an initial reaction.

First of all, let me tell you what these books are. Un and Yesno contain between them ten groupings of short poems. And when I say short, I mean short: most of these poems are, I would say, between four and ten lines long.

Lee has several themes running through these books. Obviously poets are concerned with language; for Lee language is the topic of many of his poems. He is particularly focused here on "is", both as a piece of language and as a point of metaphysical interest.

The more salient subject of these poems, though, is techno-environmental apocalypse. These poems read like prophecies of a doomsday that is already happening. With diction such as "organs.com", "silicon gridlock", "global lobophony", "cosmochaos" and "earthwrack", Lee writes us a bleak, bleak present and does not assure us of a future.

This content is rather heavy, and I'm not sure that Lee's miniatures serve it consistently. Several times I felt as though he had not fully treated his idea. I think this has something to do with the extent to which many of Lee's poems are what I'd like to call pictoral, or maybe collage-like, as opposed to dramatic, declamative, or montage-like. I wish I had better diction for this; I'll try to explain what I mean...but first let me talk about his language.

As you can see even in the five examples I already gave, Lee's language in these books is inventive. Not only is he building compounds and coining coinages, but he also plays with small fragments and phonemes, declining adverbs, conjucating nouns, and generally using his best nursery ears to give us a great sound world. These are poems that are meant to live in the air, not on the page.

Lee is not doing what Gerard Manley Hopkins was; Gerard Manley Hopkins was not doing what Lee is. But I thought of Hopkins a lot while I was reading these books. That may be because I am generally obsessed with Hopkins. But it may be because Lee, like Hopkins, uses sounds to help to give stronger sequence to his meaning. Let's take a look at a poem from Un called Uslings:

Uslings anonymous, how
barren to chew.
Spat teeth in the umbrage, shat
flecks in the alley disject; snot
lobs on the valence of now.

I enjoy the sequence: how > chew > spat > shat > snot > lobs > now. I won't bore you by mapping out the relationships between the links in this chain. I would like to point out though that the way we are set up to expect a verb instead of the noun "snot" is very like Hopkins's use of the word "flies" in his poem Heaven Haven, which I enjoy. And this kind of sequence brings to mind the amazing penultimate line of Hopkins's That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection, which includes these words:

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, [...]

I'm not sure if Lee's poems are really meant to be read all in one sitting. Reading them this way, they seemed individually and collectively too static for my liking. I felt a lack of momentum.

Then again, lack of momentum may be the thing. Take the first two lines of Uslings, which are maybe apostrophic, or maybe questioning. But these lines thump to their end with a full stop, instead of an exclamation point or question mark (!?). Declamation or derogation here might have given us a tone, a voice, a structure to pull us through to the end. Rather than dramatize, or even tell us something, Lee chooses to lay out clumps of ideas, images, syntax for us to consider.

I'm not sure that I'm getting across what I'm really trying to say. Perhaps I should characterize these works as a set of objects for contemplation. There's little that's juicy. There is craft, not fireworks.

That said, every once in a while Lee produces a bit of narrative or a formal trope to ease us through a poem. The last poem in the books, for example, holds hints of a story that tempt you towards the end; entitled Tale, it's one of the best in the bunch. It differs from most of these peoms in that it does lean heavily on a dramatic voice and a beginning > middle > end. Likewise in Gone, Lee presents a poem that has notably more rhythmic and formal verve than most in the collection, and this refreshes.

There is a monotony to Un and Yesno, but it's only on the surface. In the end, I really enjoyed these books and I think they'll reward readings, re-readings, and re-re-re-readings.

2007-06-25T22:39:00.000-04:00

Laws upon Laws upon Laws upon Laws
...upon Laws upon Laws...
Laws upon Laws upon Laws

This story was in the news again this week. The Prime Minister has decided that the private member's bill that is now the Law of the Land is not in fact the Law of the Land.

Mr Harper has decided that he can ignore this law because it would require spending. Private members' bills aren't supposed to force the government to spend.

The thing is, we could achieve lower emissions simply by making it illegal to emit certain amounts of toxins. Then industry can spend the money to comply, and the government doesn't have to.

The bill doesn't say we should comply with Kyoto if it's convenient. It says we must comply with Kyoto.

I think that if Mr Harper's government fails to follow it's own Parliament's laws, we need another election.

Here's the quick email I sent to Olivia Chow:

Dear Ms Chow,

As one of your constituents, I am writing to you to let you know my views on the new law that requires the Government to abide by its Kyoto obligations.

Today in the news it was reported that the Prime Minister and his party intend to ignore their clear obligations to Kyoto, to Parliament, to Canadians, and to the rule of Law.

I would like you to know that I support any course of action which you or your party might take to ensure that the Goverment abides by the law and impliments a plan to meet our Kyoto targets. I do not believe any of Mr Harper's claims that the law is "unconstitutional".

Please know that I and everyone I know would be happy to go back to the polls should the current minority government lose the confidence of the House; Canadians deserve another chance to elect Jack Layton as Prime Minister.

I thank you for taking my views to Parliament. I hope to see you tomorrow at the Pride Parade!

Yours,

-Andrew

2007-06-20T02:12:00.000-04:00

this week's getting prouder by the minute...

Yes, folks, this week Columbia put through legislation to recognize the health insurance, social security and inheritance rights of same-sex couples (read about it here).

Meanwhile, New York lawmakers are working on making the Empire State the second in the Union to legislate in favour of equal marriage. During the debate, it seems God decided to weigh in on the matter. Here's an excerpt from an article in the New York Sun:

For three hours last night, gay marriage was debated before a packed chamber, with just about every Assembly member sitting in rapt attention and dozens of state senators looking on. Just as the debate began, storm clouds blotted out the sun.

Mr. Hikind, an Orthodox Jew who represents Borough Park in Brooklyn, warned that lawmakers by supporting gay marriage were paving the path toward sanctioning incest. He said he would support gay marriage if God gave him a signal. Moments later, there was a loud crack of thunder, provoking laughter.

Dixitque Deus:

«Fiat æquum matrimonium!»,

et matrimonium æquum factum est.

2007-06-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

the Helmet of Horror
themyths.ca

I read another title in the Myths series that includes the Penelopiad, Weight, a Short History of Myth, and Lion's Honey. This one revisits the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

The Helmet of Horror is a labyrinth of text. The characters have been imprisoned in strange rooms whence they communicate by internet chat. Each prisoner describes a different labyrinthine landscape outside her or his cell. The questions are: who put them there - the Minotaur? Theseus? Is Theseus one of them? All of them? Is the labyrinth real? Are all mazes merely of the mind? Are all minds merely mazes?

Pelevin does an ok job of getting across that not only are his characters caught in their labyrinths, but also we as readers are caught in our own. His text wanders and folds back on itself, and I to a certain extent think that this is a fantastic approach to retelling this story.

That said, I'm not sure that he's up to the task. Unwilling or unable to write in the styles of a bunch of characters who are instantly messaging, he takes a line partway in to explain that whoever's controlling the situation is also correcting spelling and grammar and censoring the swears. His characters don't amount to very much, and the book spends so little time with any one of them that it's hard to really feel involved with or invested in their stories. This is a book that describes what should be a horrible situation. It's called: the Helmet of Horror. But I didn't care about these people and their plight.

I was often confused reading this book. Part of the schtick is that I should get lost in it, of course. The ideas are successfully labyrinthine. And I don't mine being disoriented, even in narratives that aren't about menacing mazes. The fluency and swiftness with which the characters absorbed and then discussed the details of the Helmet, the Labyrinth, et alia, did not ring true for me. (They are in the labyrinth as much or moreso than I, as reader, am, non? Why aren't they as confused?)

In the end, the read was unsatisfying. I think Pelevin set out to do what a Calvino or a Borges might do with this kind of project, but failed.

2007-06-06T02:28:00.000-04:00

Pizza Pizza Triumphs!
pizzapizza.ca

I know it's not generally good pizza, but suddenly they have something going for them the likes of which I've never before tasted:

Yes, folks, their new pizza sauce is:

Vegetarian Tikka Masala.

I love curry-and-cheese so much I've been known to add curry powder to my kraft dinner. But this is practically ambrosia and nectar.

Enjoy!

PS I wonder several things: will this be popular? Has a large pizza chain anywhere else in the world tried this, or is it particularly Ontarian? Can I live solely on curry pizza? For how long?

2007-06-04T00:56:00.000-04:00

A Pilate Bio
Pontius Pilate by Anne Wroe

Over the last few weeks I read a biography of Pontius Pilate. Now, I'm not one for biographies. I generally have no interest whatsoever. The only biography I've gotten through is Lady Sings the Blues. But this Pilate book is the second "biography" I've read (the first was a biography of Bacchus).

I didn't really enjoy this book, although I enjoyed much of the content. Wroe draws from mediæval writings, folklore, Roman and Jewish historians, Church writings and even contemporary fictions to paint her portrait of Pilatus. I'm deeply interested in the subject matter.

The book is organized as are many - probably most, though I wouldn't know - biographies. It starts with the Pilate's birth and the world into which he was born, and continues through his life until it hits his death and possible afterlife. Wroe is able to take small clusters of facts and sparse anecdotes and turn them into vivid little episodes. Her writing is not dry at all, and the range of her investigations is great.

My issue with the book was that it seemed scattered, fragmented or disorganized. I fear that the straightforward chronology might have made it a less straightforward read.

You see, because Pilate is 95% unknown or invented, Wroe has not one portrait, but a gallery of Pilates (or maybe one cubist portrait?). But, her book has one chronology. So there's a bit of a sense of: look at this! - now look at this! - now over here - now back to this one - now look at this! - now, remember this? - look again! I think that there would have been more clarity and impact if she had instead organized her book around the different visions of this figure, rather than trying to fit them all into a single chronology. (Does this make sense?).

So, this book is for people who already have a strong interest in Pontius Pilate; I don't think many others would have the patience to stick with it.

2007-05-30T00:45:00.000-04:00

Laws upon Laws upon Laws
...upon Laws upon Laws...
Laws upon Laws

Remember how a bill was passed that made it illegal for the government to not have a plan to meet its Kyoto targets? Well, have a look at this article in the Globe and Mail.

Yes, Friends of the Earth Canada have filed a suit against the government. Because currently our government doesn't see fit to abide by the laws it enacts.

Exciting!

As a side note, our Minister for the Environment was reported as having expressed the idea that the Kyoto targets are inachievable because achieving them would cause widespread economic harm. Hmmm.... One would think he was the Finance Minister, with that kind of talk.... Obviously he's missing the point that economic harm is of little importance in the face of global calamity. Maybe we should all write and tell him how much we'd welcome some economic harm that comes with stable weather and breathable air.

2007-05-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

Outstanding Orphée!
operaatelier.com
Opera Atelier has done it again. On Sunday I went to a matinée of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice and I loved every moment of it.

The opera was presented in its French (i.e., revised-for-Paris-audiences) version, which (apparently) means more ballet. There are only three singing rôles: Orpheus, Eurydice, and Love.

Before I get to the opera itself, I just want to take a moment to talk about the whole Opera Atelier experience. The shows are presented in the lovely Elgin Theatre, which, though perhaps less acoustically perfect and less leg-roomy than the new Toronto Opera House, is full of sculptural mouldings and marble and mirrors and gold. Though not the ideal backdrop for, say, bleak productions of Elektra or Erwartung, it suits rich, warm, opulent operas wonderfully.

But more than this there's a feeling surrounding their productions that I don't get from the COC. A vibrant, happy feeling. A feeling that a smart, excited, small group of people have gotten together to make something.

I had the same kind of idea about the Esprit Orchestra and the TSO once, too. Don't get me wrong - the big, primary institutions (COC, TSO) do good work often, and they've given me the opportunity to hear Beethoven and Debussy, Stravinsky and Wagner. But, perhaps because of scale, or mandate, or interest, they don't present the same kind of verve and vision all the time. Opera Atelier's verve, however, never, never falters.

So, Orphée. Colin Ainsworth sang Orpheus, and he sang it well. He was on stage for most of the opera, and his performance was 100% engaging. Jennie Such did a fine job as Love, and Peggy Kriha Dye was an absolute delight as Eurydice. Dye's voice is warbly but strong - perhaps an unusual combination of qualities, but one that impressed. She reminded me a bit of Bidu Sayão.

The sets and lighting were lovely; Opera Atelier continues to masterfully use low-tech stagecraft to great effect. The ballet, a large part of the performance, was engaging and contributed to the storytelling.

This opera has a happy ending that the Orpheus myth we know and love lacks. Yes, Orpheus looks back and Eurydice promptly re-dies. But then Love, pitying them, restores Eurydice again. When I read that this was how the opera was going to end, I thought that it was a bad plan. But when it came to actually watching the spectacle, I had no qualms with what I saw.

With a happy ending, you get to start the opera with mourning, and end it with jubilation. And boy, was there jubilation. The end of this production had the tone of a Baz Luhrmann movie. The baroque pillars-and-porticoes sets gave way to a large primary-coloured love graphic, people sang and danced, and confetti and streamers filled the air, while actors lofted lettered cards which read (one letter each - cheerleader style) L' A M O U R
T R I O M P H E !.

A triumph for Love, and another for Opera Atelier.

2007-04-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

Vapid Verdi from the COC
http://coc.ca/performances/luisa.html

I had never heard of Verdi's opera Luisa Miller until the Canadian Opera Company announced it as part of their 2006/2007 season. There's a reason why.

Luisa Miller is not the strongest work. It seems to have little to recommend it. It opened tonight at Toronto's opera house, and I found it somewhat laughable.

To be fair to Verdi, the Canadian Opera Company doesn't consistently do well with big Romantic Italian repertoire (vide my experiences with their Norma and their Macbeth). I can't say that I expected to be blown away tonight.

Most of the singers were ok. Serena Farnocchia, in the title rôle, certainly had some wonderful, shining moments, and her voice is strong and full. Unfortunately, Mikhail Agafonov, who played opposite her as Rodolfo, was often out of tune and sometimes out of time with the orchestra. Burak Bilgili, who sang the rôle of Rodolfo's eevil father, Count Walter, also had some timing issues, and had one of those bass voices that seems too big for its possessor to control - all his melisma seemed sloppy, like it was running away with him.

The creative team didn't really seem to come through for this production either. I'm not sure what director Jose Maria Condemi was going for, but he did not do much to spice up a show that lends itself to park-and-bark. Added to this lack of direction was a mediocre set, and disasterous lighting.

It's always either a really good sign or a really bad sign when I notice the lighting. I am not someone who tends to notice the lighting. I don't know much about the technical aspects of stage lighting. It's not something I regularly think about at all.

The lighting in this production is bad. The lighting designer, Thomas C. Hase, uses light to delineate spaces in which action takes place. In some scenes, these areas of light are focused so that they have shape and are distinct from the rest of the stage. In other scenes, the areas of light blurred slightly at one end, or overlapped strangely, like someone had accidentally knocked the light. The lit areas of the stage failed to meet up where they were supposed to, the scrim interacted poorly with the lighting...it was just sloppy.

While I was sitting, watching this production, I thought to myself how sad it would be if this was anyone's first time at the opera. The production had all of the negatives that people associate with opera: tedium, laughably overblown plot, poor acting and uneasy singing. I hope everyone has the good sense to realize that, although Luisa Miller is never going to be the greatest of operas, this production brought it down.

2007-04-05T16:01:00.000-04:00

Fall on Your Knees

Finally, finally I got around to reading Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees. I have spent the last eight years hearing about it and so I decided to give it a go.

My expectations were muddled. Considering the vast popularity of the book, and the Oprah recommendation, I expected, to a certain extent, a juicy but empty read. On the other hand, MacDonald has won so many awards, and has been recommended to me by so many people whose opinions I trust, that I thought there must be something there.

Well, there's something there.

Fall on Your Knees is a novel with a rather large scope. It spans generations, locales and themes. MacDonald's prose is clever and fun, but understated. There are no Margaret-Atwooden moments of blatancy, nor are there Joycean moments of I-know-there's-something-going-on-here-that-is-over-my-head. There is enough wordsmithing to entertain readers like me, but not enough to interrupt the drama of the story.

I heard MacDonald read the first section of her more recent novel, The Way the Crow Flies, a few years ago. I was struck by how good a reader she is (she should be: she's an actress). Her performance was mesmerizing. I have learned, in reading this earlier book, that her ear for reading is something she is able to put down on paper. Not only is the text rich, but it's euphonous. Her sentences are set out to be heard.

The interests of the novel are many, as I've said. She looks at family, truth and truths, the idea of race, and how these all contribute to the self. And how selves shift as situations do. The book is full of secrets and silences, which built up a pleasant feeling of frustration with the characters; not a sense of why-can't-we-all-just-get-along, but rather one of why-can't-we-all-just-be-honest-and-open.

And did I mention the book is juicy? (It has just occured to me that I use the word "juicy" in a specific way and often. When I call a book juicy, I mean that it appeals to our voyeuristic and gossipy selves. I really must reread Robert Fulford's book about narrative, in which he talks about gossip and the novel.) There are so many gasp-inducing twists, the pages almost turn themselves. This story is nothing if not engaging.

So, I thoroughly enjoyed this read. The one negative point I have is that the book seemed lopsided on first reading. It opens with a section during which the narrator seems to be showing the reader photographs of some of the events that will occur during the story. This section does have the effect of building some tension: we know all along, for example, that so-and-so is going to die in the kitchen, but not how or why. But it felt like half a frame; we do not exit the novel the same way we enter it. There is a different document (in lieu of photographs, I mean) at the end, which does balance this to an extent. But I felt that my status in the story - the narrator was telling me the story of these photographs, telling me what to look at, and using the pronoun "we" - has shifted inexplicably. Now, it's true that one character tells another in the last line of the book that she will tell him how it all happened:

"Here, dear," says Lily, "sit down and have a cuppa tea till I tell you about your mother."

is how the novel ends. It would seem that perhaps it's constructed as a circle - that Lily will then begin where we began - but, rereading the photographic prelude, the voice can't be Lily's. The perspective's wrong, and the narrator's a little too omniscient for this novel where Lily and her sisters never know the whole story (secrets and silences!).

Also, there is a large section near the end of the book that is told in the form of a character's diary. This section is expert at divulging the right secrets at the most effective time for the reader. But, because it is such a large piece and is in a completely different style and is set in the last quarter - but not at the end - of the book, it seemed to throw off the balance of the book as a whole.

So - and remember, this was only a first reading - the novel seems to fall naturally into sections whose relationship to the whole seems off-kilter. Perhaps my second reading will reveal the shape differently; I'll let you know....

2007-03-28T04:33:00.000-04:00

Convergence!

When I first started blogging I thought it was weird to write on a variety of topics on a single blog. So I very early on started four blogs on four topics: arts, politics, language, and personal goings-on.

As it turns out, I was wrong to do this, as I ended up with four blogs that I updated not-very-often, instead of one robust, oft-updated blog.

To remedy this, I'm going to continue my original blog: dixitque andreus:, and abandon those others. Græcum est was the first to go, and the rest will follow shortly.

So far, all of the old posts from my language blog have been cut and pasted into dixitque andreus:, so you need only look here.

Enjoy!

2007-03-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

Dear Everyone,

Don't worry, it's nothing personal, and thanks for the invitation, but I don't really want to have anything to do with facebook.

love,

-Andrew

2007-02-19T10:42:00.000-05:00

Faust
coc.ca/performances/faust

Some years ago I read Michel Tremblay's novel Some Night My Prince Will Come. It's a charming coming-of-age novel set in Montréal a couple of decades ago. In it, the central character obsesses over his recording of a certain diva singing a certain aria from Gounod's opera Roméo et Juliette.

When finally that particular diva comes to town to sing that particular rôle, the protagonist scrounges money and takes himself to his first real-live opera. And what he sees disappoints. The theatre doesn't hold up compared to the scenes he'd been playing out in his head. But more than that, Gounod's opera is revealed to be somewhat shallower than was hoped. The depth of feeling that Tremblay's young man feels is contrasted with Gounod's romantic confection.

This story of unfulfilled expectations was all I had heard about Gounod going into Faust last week. Happily, my expectations were much exceeded.

The music was tuneful and well performed. The sets were clever and stylish. And the opera itself was eminently operatic. It was grand.

The opera features a crowd scene, the supernatural, love, betrayal, and surprising twists. There was a moment - unlike any at any opera I'd been to before - when the action on stage was so shocking that the audience collectively gasped and then held its breath.

I really saw opera as a festive, popular, lively art. Thanks, Faust!

2007-02-19T04:21:00.000-05:00

heathered (adj.)

Heather, of course, is a particularly Scottish purplish shrubby flowery thing.

Heathered, though, means something like "made with fibres of two or more colours". The effect is mottled.

Why does heathered mean this? I don't know. I was only able (so far) to find etymological information for the Scottish shrubbery. If anyone can shed light on this, it'd be most welcome.

In my googling, though, I found the following slang meanings for "heathered" at urbandictionary.com:

1. to be heathered: to be embarrassed after saying something stupid.

2. to be heathered: at a party, to be roughly used for sexual gratification by several people in succession.

3. to heather: to be an over-the-top bitch to someone.

Who knew?

2007-02-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

Magnetic Poems

I got a magnetic poetry set a while ago, but I really don't use it that often.

Today, though, I took a few moments, and I thought I'd present you with what I came up with.

So here it is:

blued road

after the rain

mean iron knife

run through wet forest

& legs trudging

mad raw meat

While I'm at it, I'll give you the only other poem I've made with this set of magnetic poetry; I wrote this one the day I unpacked the set:

light could leave

but my love would stare still

robbed of its vision it yet dreams

pictures of him who is recalled

though not gone

here I live you & can not take my I's away

The magnetic poetry set does of course cause you to write poems that all sound like these. I still think it's a fun thing to do while you're waiting for the tea to brew, though.

Hope you enjoyed this snapshot of my refrigerator!

2007-02-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

Bartók and Brahms

Last week a bunch of us went to hear the Toronto Symphony Orchestra play Bartók's second violin concerto and Brahms's fourth symphony. It was a pretty good evening.

My expectation going into the concert was that I would enjoy the Bartók and not enjoy the Brahms. In fact, almost the opposite was the case.

The Bartók was full of wonderful moments (for example, the impressive entrance of the orchestra just after the soloist begins the second movement). But I felt that it wandered a bit. I'm not familiar with the work at all, so I'm not sure if it takes a more clear shape in the hands of other conductors, or upon repeated listening. But this iteration didn't really win me over.

Jacques Israelievitch, the TSO's usual concertmaster, was the soloist that evening. His playing was lovely, as always.

The Brahms was bombastic, as I expected it would be. I had always agreed with one of my U of T profs, Julian Patrick, that the music of Brahms was over-climactic to the point of impotence. This was my first time going to hear a Brahms symphony, and I found that, in addition to the bombast, there is subtlety and craftsmanship. You learn something new every day.

2007-02-10T04:20:00.000-05:00

turkey (n.)

A turkey is three strikes in a row in bowling. Why? Well, according to bowl.com, it's because, before the Twentieth Century, three strikes in a row was a rare feat. Around the Holidays, those who got three strikes in a row were often awarded a turkey as a prize.

2007-02-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

Exciting Project!

At work the other day several of us were talking about reading outside our usual genres. Reading mainstream or pulp fiction, or self-help, or new age titles. So, we all resolved to try it. We're going to make an effort to read something outside our comfort zone about once a month.

What's more, my colleague Amanda and I decided that not picking the book for yourself might be fun too. We're going to pick each other's titles. She has yet to choose me something, but I've assigned her the Judgement of Paris, which is an art history book about Paris in the late 1800's, and which won the Governor General's award for non-fiction in English this year.

2007-01-28T14:39:00.000-05:00

Winterlicious and East-End Karaoke

Last night I went to the Old Mill Restaurant for a dinner that was part of Winterlicious. Unfortunately, Winterlicious wasn't as licious as one would hope.

The Old Mill Restaurant is part of the Old Mill complex that includes a spa, an inn, a restaurant and extensive nuptual facilities. I have been to this complex twice now: once, last fall for a wedding, and then the second time, yesterday for the meal in question.

The ambiance of the Old Mill Restaurant leaves something to be desired. It may have a bit more Charm and History than the Medieval Faire at Canada's Wonderland, but not by much (the Old Mill was done up in 1973, while the theme park opened in 1981). The décor involves dark wood and stone, and mixes rustic antiques and architectural details with polished woods and red upholstery and rugs. A small statue of Sir John A. MacDonald surveyed us as we ate in a room separated from the entranceway by a glassed-in collection of wines that seem to be there for display only. Think Black Creek Pioneer Village meets Ye Olde (faux-) British Pub meets More Money than Taste.

The idea of Winterlicious is this: Toronto's fancy-schmancy restaurants put together some good meals which, for the duration of this festival, are not too expensive. It's an opportunity for the restaurants to expand their special-occasion customer base, and for the customers (like me!) to try an expensive resaturant without investing a full week's pay in the experience. The number of options on the Winterlicious menus varies from restaurant to restaurant, I think, but the Old Mill's set-up was pretty typical: three choices for each of three courses.

If you ask my husband, he will tell you that I have "food things". What does he mean? He means I'm picky. I won't eat meat (except when I will). I won't eat seafood. But I'm not so hot on vegetables, either. Basically, I live on bread and cheese. Thus, a menu with thirty choices often offers only one or two Andrew-choices. My appetizer and entrée for this meal were essentially decided for me, and then I picked a dessert.

Before we got to the meal, though, we got to the wine. Two less-expensive wines were offered to complement the less-expensive menu, and my husband ordered a bottle of one of them, while someone at the other end of the table ordered the other. I was somewhat surprised when the wine came that the Old Mill still has a ladies-first wine policy. Christopher tasted the wine that we'd chosen, and then the server skipped me and went on to serve two others at the table before returning to offer me some of the wine I was buying, because they were girls. Strange? Definitely. Does this make me want to buy wine from them more often? Definitely not.

The appetizer was a ball of goat's cheese rolled in quinoa, and served with some fruit and a sweet vinaigrette. It was not a bad appetizer at all.

The main, however, disappointed. I had spinach and ricotta tortellone in a roasted tomato sauce. The initial flavour of the sauce was shocking and tasted of cinders - they had stepped past roasted, it seems, and moved on to charred. Throughout the course of the meal the flavour did build on my palate into something more, well, palatable...but I was not impressed.

The dessert involved a brandy snap bowl containing some mango and blueberry ices and about three cubes of melon. The dish was fine, but the perfect, juicy raspberry that garnished the plate was the highlight.

And then we moved on to some crazy karaoke.

It was a friend's birthday, and her boyfriend had stumbled upon a wacky bar in the east end that offers Saturday night karaoke. The bar's called Jimmy's Place, and it's at Gerrard and Woodbine.

The east end of Toronto freaks me out at the best of times. I think it's because there's a whole city on the other side of the Don that is like the Toronto I know, and yet not like the Toronto I know. The east end may be a parallel universe. But that's beside the point.

Jimmy's place is a small terra-cotta coloured space with no décor to speak of. The main room seats about 20 people, plus about 5 at the bar. right up against the front windows is the area in which the karaoke-ers sing, and in a smaller adjoining room there's a pool table.

The song lists at this karaoke place are extensive; that may be its only draw. The women in charge comment on each performance in thick Asian accents, to unwittingly comic effect. And it seems like everyone but us was a regular.

If you want somewhere where the circa-1980-costumed regulars are falling-down-knocking-things-over drunk by 9:30pm, then Jimmy's is the place for you. If you want somewhere where 50-year-olds will dance in the aisles to your rendition of your favourite Radiohead song, then look for Jimmy's. If you want somewhere where it feels like hicksville though it's steps from the subway, Jimmy's is there. If you want somewhere where you might get beat up if you stay too long on account of the fact that you're wearing a tie, run - don't walk - to Jimmy's.

Two places in one evening, each very different from the other. But I don't really want to go back to either.

2007-01-22T16:06:00.000-05:00

Rain: the Beatles Experience
All the skilled nuance of your average drag show...sans the whimsy.
raintribute.com

I went to see Rain: the Beatles Experience at the Hummingbird Centre with my husband and my brother- and sister-in-law yesterday.

I like the music of the Beatles. A fair bit. But I think that even the most casual fan of the Beatles would be disappointed by Rain.

Let me sketch the show for you. Rain is a five-member band who perform the music of the Beatles. The show is about two hours of Beatles songs performed by Rain. Four of the performers represent the four Beatles, and the fifth uses electronic keyboards etc., and is stationed off to the side, barely visible.

They perform the songs in an almost-chronological order, and there are about four costume changes, from Ed-Sullivan-era suits to the outfits on the cover of Abbey Road. The stage is framed by a large screen on either side, and a third serves as a backdrop. Onto these, throughout the show, are projected various images, many of which are supposed to provide a historical context for the Beatles' oeuvre.

The four on-scene members of Rain are not poor imitators. They look like the Beatles. They act like the Beatles. They almost even sound like the Beatles.

The problem is that Rain do nothing more than perform the songs of the Beatles. They don't really address the audience much. The show doesn't involve them bringing the personalities of the Beatles to the stage, just their musical performances. Much of the narration that takes us from one section of the show to the next is accomplished by a disembodied voice and the projections on the screen. So we're left with a band that almost, sort-of, sounds like the Beatles, and offers little else.

This made me want to go home and listen to the Beatles.

Not only did Rain not give themselves the opportunity to flesh out their show - presenting instead something a little less euphonous than a Beatles lip-sync - they didn't seem to be able to muster much energy for the first half of their act. As I said, the show was vaguely chronological, and it was obvious to everyone that they much prefer the later material to the earlier. Not only were their tempi slower than the Beatles' recordings of the songs, but their sense of time was much too relaxed to serve the songs well. The impression was that they only kinda wanted to hold my ha-a-a-a-a-a-and.

The second half was more musically rewarding. They did a few songs acoustically (or, at least, what counts as acoustically these days), which was nice. I think that they were more engaged by the material at that point because they were bringing something of their own to it. Their best song of the show, though, was their rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which was honestly a good performance in its own right. The member of Rain who represents George was not only enjoying what he was doing, but the audience was engaged by his playing.

There were some specific issues that detracted from the show as a whole. The musician representing Paul was not a bad singer when he sang alone or as the lead, but he was unable to blend as part of back-up (and sometimes not-back-up) harmonies. His voice disappeared. For a while I though it was the level of his mic, but then faux-George shared his mic for one song and still psuedo-Paul's was the only voice lost.

The voice-over narration made much of the fact that all of the music was live, but I was rather disappointed by the use of so many fake instruments. I can pay $12 to hear the whole TSO, so why pay Hummingbird Centre prices to hear a bad keyboard version of a string quartet accompanying Yesterday? Why couldn't they have a back-up band for the later stuff that has horns? There's nothing so disasterous as someone imitating the piccolo trumpet solos from Penny Lane with their cheesy keyboard "trumpet" sound, I assure you...

...or is there? Actually, the most laughable, absolute worst thing about the show was the ineptitude of the screen graphics. Whoever put them together displayed a lack of understanding of the socio-cultural warp and weft of the time. The trends and aesthetics on the screen were often mismatched with the songs being performed. The images chosen were hackneyed (swirling colours = drugs). The Union Jack that was shown during intermission was upside-down!

The screen show looked like a powerpoint presentation and betrayed the poverty of thought put into it by its creators at every turn. For Penny Lane, for example, we were presented with a series of images representing every object, person and action in the lyrics as literally as possible. Street sign that reads "Penny Lane". Barber. Barber holding a succession of photographs of heads. People coming and going. People waving "hello". Streetcorner. Banker on streetcorner getting into motorcar. Little children laughing and pointing at the banker behind his back. Idiocy.

It seems like a very proficient tribute band, that would be appropriate, say, in a suburban bar or as cruiseship entertainment, has been overblown into something more than it can really handle.

I don't recommend it.

PS: Rain does not perform the song Rain as part of their show entitled: Rain: the Beatles Experience. Why would they?

2007-01-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

Trying to Catch Up

1. Today it snowed in Toronto. Snowed for real. There's slush at every corner, and soon my shoes will all be ruined. Hooray for weather (tiddley-pom!). It feels good to have the right weather in the right season.

2. I'm in the middle of a bunch of days-off from work. They were stored-up stat days that I (of course) didn't get the week of Christmas. I feel like things are getting to a certain level of normal now, and this was a little break I really needed.

3. Today, on the internet, I encountered someone's idiot ramblings about fast-food-restaurant employees who didn't speak perfect Californian English. The rambler insisted that they weren't a racist, while at the same time including the following phrase in their rant: "Assimilate into our culture!" I couldn't resist writing a response. Fucking monoglot North Americans!

4. Yesterday I wrote a small something that I'm really happy with. And that's a good thing.

5. I newyearsly resolved to eat 5 servings of fruit a day this year, but the last couple of days I haven't even been close. I'm going to pick it up again when I go back to work on Wednesday, because the work habits are the important ones.... So there.

6. I ordered copies of my marriage certificate online today. There are two kinds of certificate: the normal and the long-form. The Government of Ontario website through which one orders these does not, however, really tell you what the differences between them are. Rather than decide, I ordered one of each. Why not?

...and that's my news.

2007-01-15T03:49:00.000-05:00

Orpheus Descending
playing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre
mirvish.com

Christopher and I went to see Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending on Saturday. It was my first time going to the Royal Alex and my first time seeing any Tennessee Williams.

The theatre is cozily opulent. The wood, chandeliers and flocked red wallpaper are fancy, but the lobbies and hall are fairly small and full of Honest-Ed's-esque performer photos, which bring the space down to Earth. (Photo notes: the photo of Edith Piaf has her name spelt wrongly, and there's a photo of Tallulah Bankhead). We sat in the upper balcony, which offered a fine view but absolutely no legroom. I almost felt that they should have mentioned the lack of legroom as I bought the tickets, the space was so cramped. Maybe people were shorter in 1907?

The play was intense and well done. I don't quite know where to begin.

The things that worked:

1. the play is smart and subtle. It layers myth, realism, and a wonderful web of symbols. The character of Lady is rich and deep.

2. the performances were good.

The thing that bugged me:

1. the sound was clunky and not quite right. Some events on stage were overemphasized by canned sound effects, and the music was too loud in comparison to the actors. Also, Valentine - the Orpheus character - was a poor singer given poorer things to sing. He sings maybe 12 bars total in the whole show, but what he sang didn't hold up well considering the title of the play.

Williams kept me on the edge of my seat (actually, the Royal Alex designer did: my seat was nothing but edge) until the shocking end. I'm excited now to see some of his more canonical work.

Can You Spell Revolution?

2007-01-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

Much of the teen fiction I read over the past year has centred on queer themes, and last week I thought I'd read something a little different. I wanted to read something built for straight kids for a change. So I did.

I sat down and read Matt Beam's Can You Spell Revolution? which was not bad.

The novel starts, as so many kids novels do, with the new kid in school: Clouds McFadden. Clouds has red hair, a taxi-driving uncle, a family secret, and a plan to shake up his new school. He quickly invites four very different kids to form a group called the "Revolutionists", and together to pursue a programme of "Acts of Dissent" in order to change their school for the better.

What I liked about this book was that it was a political novel for young people. There aren't enough of these, and I hope that this book will give kids something new to think about. What's more, this is a book about lefty and anarcho-politics. It doesn't take its ideas very far, but at least it puts its ideas out there.

The book was entertaining, and I really didn't know how it was going to play out. Beam manages to set his plot up quickly and then to keep you in suspense for a good long while.

Aside from not taking the politics far enough, the problem with this book was that it was put together a bit clunkily. Yes, the suspense was well spun, but at times the framework of the plot seemed too heavy. Each of the five revolutionists chooses a specific goal, and then invents an Act of Dissent to achieve it. Each of them is then assigned (by Clouds) a historical figure or event to use as inspiration. Watergate. Gandhi. Elizabeth I. Et cetera. Trying to get this content across to readers who might be unfamiliar with these figures made the book - at times - into an ingenuous and cursory history lesson (in a bad way).

I would nevertheless recommend it to people, especially people aged 11ish-15ish, who had an interest in history or a disinterest in authority.

2006-11-08T14:34:00.000-05:00

things you find when you're googling people...

Who knew that my father's coat-of-arms was on the internet? I googled him and there it was. It's in the Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.

As it turns out, my arms and my brother's are there too (but without the helms and crests). Here's mine:

Here's our badge, and a link to the Canadian Heraldic Authority to round out this post:

PS: Our arms are cited in a wikipedia article (here) because they contain an example of an "exotic line" (exotic by heraldic standards, at least). The repeated blue and white fir-tree lines on the bottom left halves of our shields (they look like rows of pine trees - get it? - wood rows?) are what they're talking about.

...things to write about...

2006-11-06T02:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry to anyone who's been awaiting my next post. I'm about to get back in the swing of things. Since last I wrote I have heard the TSO play some Beethoven and some Mahler, and seen the COC's production of Così fan tutte, so there's plenty to write about....

2006-11-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been writing much...

...I was busy getting married.

I'm not going to write a whole lot just right now, but when next I write I'm going to cover Christopher and I getting married (which happened on the 28th of October), and then our honeymoon.

Hooray!

2006-10-19T04:18:00.000-04:00

man up (v.)

This was a verb I heard for the first time last week. To "man up" is to steel your nerves, or suck it up. The reluctant drinker might be told to "man up" and "just do the shot", for example.

2006-10-11T04:14:00.000-04:00

Interlingua

We've all heard of Esparanto, but what about Interlingua? Interlingua is an invented language that is based heavily on Western European (mostly Romance) languages. The idea was to use the commonalities of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian (with German and Russian as back-ups) to make up something that speakers of any of these would understand. The resulting language is completely intelligible.

As someone who studied French, Italian and Latin for a while, I always feel, for example, that I can almost read Spanish. In fact, I can almost read Spanish. Every once in a while, though, I'll hit an idiosyncratic verb-form or piece of vocabulary, or an idiom, and won't understand the sentence. This is, of course, because I can't really read Spanish.

The experience of reading something written in Interlingua is similar to that of reading something in any language you have never studied or lived with, except there are no idiosyncracies to derail you. I can read it 100% fluently. And I guess the idea is that someone who speaks no English but speaks Italian or French should be able to read it with the same fluency.

Here's a sample for you:

Le Balenas Parla Differente Linguas

Le balenas parla "in differente linguas"; assi le mammales maritime del Pacifico a pena comprende lor co-racianos vivente in le Oceano Atlantic; e le balenas habitante al costas de Chile pote difficilemente arrivar a "denominator commun" con le balenas vivente presso le Polo Sud.

David Mellinger, explorator del universitate in le stato Oregon del SUA studiava le tonos producite per le balenas del Pacifico e illos del gigantesc balenas con ambergris. Le "spionar" deveniva possibile per le systema registrante seismos installate sub le aqua, que registrava tamben le conversation del mammales maritime - se lege sur le portal russe de novas "Lenta".

Como il se verificava, le "parlar" del mammales maritime consiste de ruitos, sibilos e tonos susurrante de alte frequentia, ma le specimenes del population nordic e del sud "misce" le tonos in differente proportiones e tamben le frequentia del "parlar" pote ser differente.

Le mammales maritime usa un parte del tonos pro orientation, ma le altere partes pro communication. Le explorator registrava le plus complicate "melodias" durante le epocha del copulation.

(agentia de novas MTI, rubrica Panoráma)

Have a look at the Wikipedia article.

iTunes and Dvorak: Together at Last!

2006-10-04T12:32:00.000-04:00

Ah, randomly shuffled music! What a delight! What opportunity for felicity!

Exempli gratia: what better music for a rather rainy autumn day than the second movement of Dvorak's 12th String Quartet, the American?

No one could have planned it better.

2006-09-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

I want them all!

The Threadless tshirts are amazing. I want them all.

http://www.threadless.com/catalog/

Especially "I love movies, long walks...", the Psychadelic Peacock, Happy When it Rains, "Purple is the New Blue and Red", and - of course - The Communist Party.

Honourable mentions to In a Comic and "Vegetarians Are Eating the Rainforest".

I take a men's extra-large, in case anyone's feeling generous.

2006-09-25T04:12:00.000-04:00

pandæmonium (n.)

Who knew?

"Pandemonium" is a Miltonism which originally described a demon-palace in Hell. A Pandemonium. I guess it makes sense that it means "uproar". Above is an illustration of the Miltonian version, and what follows is Georg Grosz's painting Metropolis, which, I guess, is the "uproar" version.

A Fine Start to a New Season, and Joshua Bell

2006-09-23T01:50:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday the TSO started up their 2006/2007 season with the first concert of their Beethoven Festival. We heard the 1st and the 8th, as well as the violin concerto.

I went to the concert rather tired, and must admit that the 1st and the concerto didn't receive an ideal amount of attention from me. Nevertheless, it comforted me, in listening, to realize how much a part of my mental furniture these works are.

Now, I don't know the 1st inside out at all. Could I whistle its themes on demand? Probably not. But I have heard it many, many times. As I listened to the 1st, it was like sitting down with an old friend whose mannerisms and turns of phrase I had quite forgotten, but which I re-knew intimately as soon as they were presented to me again. Yes, I enjoyed the first.

This concert was programmed with the guest soloist's piece last. This makes sense, and there's not much to be done about it. But it wasn't ideal. The violin concerto seems to me to be pretty light - Beethoven or not - and I think that I generally dislike Classical violin concerti (how many times can runs up and down the same major scales be exciting?). That said, Joshua Bell is a fine violinist, whose high notes sang and who really played with the orchestra well.

Joshua Bell does, however, need some wardrobe and hair advice. It has to be mentioned. He has bad ca.-1981-newscaster hair. He also should watch himself as he plays, and try not to make the gestures and facial expressions he makes. Someone should buy the boy a mirror. Maybe I was just tired and cranky, but these are the things that caught my attention during his performance.

And then there was the 8th. I don't know that I'd ever really payed that much attention to the 8th before. It's really rather impressive. I feel like Beethoven was really intent on deconstructing the Symphony in the 8th (maybe in the 9th he's rebuilding it?). The themes are wacky and fragmentary, and he takes them and further fragments them. I almost feel like the 8th is a meta-symphony; like there's a more square, Haydnish symphony lying underneath the 8th. Like it's a variazione senza tema. It's on my listen-to-this-more-often list.

Toronto's Opera House

2006-09-13T02:04:00.000-04:00

I went tonight to the first opera presented in Toronto's new opera house: Das Rheingold.

I had heard that this first installment of the Ring was the one that works the least well as a stand-alone work, and I think that's true. The music, of course, is delightful, but the drama left something to be desired. As a prologue to the whole cycle, it has a lot of preamble to cover, and this leaves little room for emotional, psychological theatre that comprises the rest of the four-evening spectacle.

The design of the show was beautiful at points but scattered at others. The opening scene in the Rhine was magical, using pale pale blue fabric to situate us in the river. The use of representational fabric continued throughout the show to great effect: we saw a dragon, a pile of gold, a toad, an invisible man (!) and more. Sometimes the set pieces were too numerous and various for my tastes, but, as with the sprawling story, they were setting up the visual vocabulary for the whole cycle.

Although the horns got off to a shaky start, they found their legs soon enough. From the first low rumble of the piece through the whole slowly building orchestral opening, the hall was filled with tangible excitement. The orchestra was generally in fine form all night and they certainly showed off the acoustics of the hall. I sat near the back of the fifth ring, and felt as though I was bathing in sound.

My favourite of the singers was Mette Ejsing as Erda. Her brief time on stage provided not only one of the richest, most effortless voices of the evening, but also one of director/designer Michael Levine's most clear visual moments. Her entrance was shivermaking. I also enjoyed Thomas Rolf Truhitte as Froh - very musical singing - and he was well paired with Julian Tovey's Donner.

Richard Berkeley-Steele's performance as the fire demi-god Loge was engaging, but incongruous with the show as a whole. I felt almost as if he had dropped into the Wagner from an Italian comedy. This was my first experience of Das Rheingold, and I have not given it too much thought, but my immediate reaction to this portrayal of Loge was that the director went in the wrong direction with this role.

And what about the house? The seating was comfortable and my view was great. The hall is very plain inside, but is a vast improvement over the Hummingbird Centre. The lobbies were, for the most part, dramatic spaces that complimented the buzz of the opening night. I enjoyed the view of University Avenue; I didn't enjoy the house red. Although there was a Henry Moore sculpture, the space as a whole seems to be begging for a bit more art; there are huge, plain-jane, sad-looking walls (particularly in the lobby outside the fifth ring). On the whole I loved the place, though, and look forward to going there for my six shows per year.

2006-08-20T14:25:00.000-04:00

Toronto > Binbrook > Ottawa > Wakefield > Toronto

Christopher and I had a four-day whirlwind getaway last week.

We started last Sunday by driving to my parents' new house in Binbrook (which is in Stoney Creek, which is in Hamilton). We got there pretty late, so that night we watched TV for a little while and then went to bed.

The next day Christopher made us a fabulous breakfast of bacon-and-fried-eggs-and-cheese-on-English-muffins (such a fabulous breakfast, in fact, that I demanded he recapitulate it mere days later...). Then we went to two malls, and I bought a suit (blue pinstripes!).

This was followed by a family birthday gathering at my Aunt's house, at which I watched my first ever episode of Canadian Idol.

Waking up the next day, we drove to Ottawa. We checked into the Bostonian, which was reasonably priced and perfectly located (thanks, expedia.ca!). We went out for Thai (the Green Papaya - on Queen, west of Bank St - the curry I had was very different and not bad...I don't like it when I have to pay for steamed rice to go wth my curry, though...do they think anyone is going to eat the curry without rice?) and then headed to the Market to see what we could see. I had a beavertail and then we went to a mediocre bar for a pitcher of cider.

Before we left Toronto, we had seen on the internet that there was a bar called Swizzles in Ottawa that offered, on Tuesdays, two things that Christopher and I enjoy: gaity and karaoke. We weren't sure after dinner whether it was best to try to track down that bar, or to just wander around and look for the fun.

I don't know how many times it will take us to learn this, but there's not that much fun in Ottawa. Even in the Market, which was at least populated (last time we were in Ottawa, there was a night when we couldn't find one inhabited pub on Elgin or Bank...), things were weird and not too exciting. The highlight may have been when two women insisted we go to a certain [straight] strip club (Mink? Minx? I can't remember...) as they pressed flyers into our hands; apparently my boyfriend and I aren't flaming enough to avoid such advances....

Having, after our pitcher, exhausted the charms of the bar we found by just wandering around, we decided that Swizzles would be the best option. We sought the place blindly for a bit and then decided to actually look up the address; cabbing back to Queen St, we found that it was literally underneath the restaurant at which we'd had dinner.

There's something seedy or not-quite-right about Gay Ottawa; it's very different from here in Toronto. Swizzles is a bar with little signage that you would miss if you didn't have the address (we did). The space looks like a rec room that badly needs a reno, and the crowd was (save us) all regulars. We stayed for two drinks and then called it a night. (The one plus of Swizzles: an adorable boy wearing a visor who sang a country song and was the most enthusiastic and happy person there...he was fun to watch.)

The next morning we made a quick trip to a really good (though stodgy) used book store called the Book Bazaar (on Bank St) - I bought a copy of Isherwood's Christopher and His Kind, which apparently tells the story of the conflict between Isherwood's "[rage] against...the heterosexual dictatorship" and "his support of a majority cause, the Popular Front against Fascism" - and then we drove to Wakefield.

We went to stay at a friend-of-a-friend's cottage, on a lake outside of town. Emerging from the car, the smell of not-in-a-city-nor-near-a-highway was overwhelming. We spent that day drinking beer, snacking, and playing board games.

The next day we went into Wakefield (after round two of the bacon-egg-cheese muffins), which is a charming looking town. It's very, very small, and has several bars, some cute shops, a grocery store stocked with good Québécois beer (which I'm drinking as I write this), and a really good bakery. Wakefield also seems to be a bilingual town, which kind of surprised me. Sure, it's only 20 minutes outside Ottawa, but I thought that actual bilingualism was something that was an attribute of larger cities, not small hamlets. I figured, I guess, the smaller the town, the more homogenous the culture. I think I'm wrong.

On the way back from town, we stopped at a little station that has been built around a natural spring, where we filled up our bottles of water. I'm trying to think of how to express why this was delightful, but I'm having trouble.... Anyway, I liked it.

After our trip to Wakefield, we went back to the cottage and took the pontoon boat out onto the lake, wherein we swam.

And thence back to Toronto.

It was a lot for four days, and I didn't get any of the reading or writing done that I'd thought I might, but it was a good time all the same. Going to a new place each day certainly made the time seem longer. And it's good to get out of the City every once in a while.

PS Wakefield has a covered bridge, which we drove through. Hooray!

towards an Anarchist Criticism

2006-08-12T02:02:00.000-04:00

I went to U of T for Literary Studies, and although that programme purports to be interested in literary theory, I feel like I didn't get a good foundation. So if you ask me about things like capital-eff-capital-see Feminist Criticism or (das) Kapital-emm-capital-see Marxist Criticism, I just don't know anything.

Even if I had learned about such things, I'm interested now in finding out if there's much in the way of Anarchist Criticism. And the internet doesn't seem to have heard of such a thing.

Nevertheless, I've recently been reconsidering Kafka and Huysmans (as well as Rimbaud, Sophocles and others) as anti-state and even anti-civilization. And I had hoped to find a bunch of criticism to go with these reconsiderations.

Maybe I just can't work Google....

Anyways...if anyone has anything interesting to show me à propos of this, please let me know.

Downstream

2006-08-03T22:55:00.000-04:00

I finished reading Downstream by Huysmans last night (I bought a lovely Turtle Point Press edition of this 69-page story when I was in New York City in June).

I haven't been posting much here lately, and part of that is because I like to write about things in the order in which I experience them. I'd seen two fantastic shows in New York and I felt like I should finish/start writing about them before I moved on.

Also, I've been reading Derrick Jensen's Endgame for about a month now, and it is all-consuming and also not very literary (although his writing does have æsthetic implications).

A Rebours was something I had to read for a course once, but I didn't really get that much out of it. Downstream is my second encounter with Huysmans. It seems to be a story in which Huysmans does Kafka.

Jean Folantin is a functionary who can't seem to find a good meal. We follow him through about a year of dining poorly. (It's more interesting than you'd think....) Time is something Folantin has too much of, and he dreads Sundays particularly for their lack of something to do.

The blurb on the back of my copy suggests that Downstream is a "political tale of man's enslavement by poverty". I would argue that it in fact is a political tale of our enslavement to Civilization. Folantin is trapped in the centre of the civilized world - Paris - where he is beset by consumerist "choice" that can never satisfy him. This is not a novel of poverty; Folantin isn't rich, but he has enough money to have myriad dining options.

Folantin lacks happiness in his day-to-day, and sees no way out. He rejects the solace of religion, noting that religious action and devotion are "a high price to pay for the improbable happiness of a future life!"

As in Kafka's novels, we get subtle glimpses of potential escape; these occur consistently when the character - K or Folantin - is engaged by his own activities, and doesn't remember to or care to submit to the arbitrary and imaginary heirarchies ("Civilization") that otherwise control his life. The most memorable such moment in Downstream is when Folantin suddenly decides to decorate the apartment he's occupied for years.

Downstream is a sparse and effective story about alienation from one's own self and the surroundings.

2/4

PS: This story has at least one scene that is funny like Kafka too - you just have to remember not to take it too seriously.

2006-07-19T04:10:00.000-04:00

Eutopia or Outopia? Eutopia and Outopia!

Yes, folks, it's true. "Utopia" was coined by Saint/Sir Thomas More with an intentional etymological ambiguity.

ou topos - no place

eu topos - good place

Have a look here and here.

Who knew?

2006-07-19T04:07:00.000-04:00

onboard (v.)

I read this word at work the other day. From the context, I gleaned that to "onboard" someone is to provide them with orientation sessions and basic training. I suppose it also connotes both welcoming and indoctrination, as in: "welcome aboard!" and "make sure they're on board".

2006-07-14T14:22:00.000-04:00

but Manhattan's Amazinger!

About a month ago, I took my first trip to the United States in more than a decade. I went to New York City.

I went with my ebullient fiancé, who was there to attend a big comics thingummy. This gave me about three days during which to wander around.

And wander around I did! Manhattan is a wonderful place (who knew?).

Here are some things I did:

1. went to bookstores and bought books

2. stumbled upon three different festivals

3. went to two fantastic shows (Sweeney Todd (with Patti LuPone) and the Threepenny Opera (with Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper)).

Here are some things I learned:

1. pizza is better in New York

2. buildings are taller in New York

3. there aren't many bank machines in Manhattan.

I really enjoyed the city, and found it to be very festive. Usually, when I go away, I return with a greater appreciation of Toronto. This time, I returned kinda angry at Toronto. Why are our buildings so short and so new? Why do we eat PizzaPizza?

I think I'd like to go to Manhattan again.

2006-07-14T04:02:00.000-04:00

O, Wikipedia!

Sometimes you forget that every aspect of the bible has been considered and reconsidered already.

Thus, the surprise with which I stumbled upon this article on Wikipedia: Adamic Language.

Strange Fruit

2006-06-21T11:42:00.000-04:00

Fruit, a novel by Brian Francis, was something I looked forward to. Unfortunately, it's not very good.

The book is billed as a quirky, gay coming-of-age novel in which the nipples of main character Peter Paddington begin speaking to him.

The whole thing amounts to very little.

Francis seems to be very concerned with the kitsch and trash aspects of lower-middle-class-early-eighties-smallish-city-Ontario life. He seems interested in transmitting very clearly that Sarnia in the 80's was not the same as sophisticated, twenty-first-century Toronto.

The characters are caricatures. And the narrative lacked much of an arc or a cadence. Even Peter - whose angst drives his nipples to speak - didn't really ring true. I'm not a big character person. I'm totally ok with flat caricatures, if the work doesn't need anything more. This work needed anything....

And finally: the nipples. Yes, the character is concerned about his nipples throughout the book. But, when I'm promised a talking-nipple novel, I want a talking-nipple novel. Not a novel wherein the nipples say a total of about ten lines. The nipples didn't stand out enough for me at all.

Sad to say, Francis doesn't succeed in being quirky, or genuine, or even really interesting.

0.5/4

PS if you want to read something positive about Fruit, have a look at this and this (note the American title).