Sorrow, remembrance and blood

Living in The Nation's Capital has an extra resonance in the days leading up to Remembrance Day. Not only are we in close proximity to The National War Museum and key Armed Forces offices and bases, but being resident near Rockcliffe Park, our daughters have attended school with children and relatives of prime ministers and high ranking officers, both foreign and otherwise. Remembrance Day is taken very seriously here. The wearing of the poppy (which, by the way, I think is a rather better-looking poppy than that available in Britain) is not exactly mandatory, but the custom is heavily observed, and Ottawa streets are strewn with lost poppies, dropped from the flimsy pins.

Coming from Victoria, where I grew up between the naval base and the army base (not that pleasant experience for an adolescent girl, soldiers and sailors being what they are), I bring my own strategy for making my poppy stay put. I wrap the end of the pin with scotch tape. However, Ottawans have another excellent method which doesn't work for my thick Irish cape, but does nicely for blouses and lapels. They removed the pin and black felt poppy centre and replace it with a maple leaf or Canadian flag pin, the kind you stick straight though and anchor with a metal clutch on the other side of the fabric.

Lately, there's been a debate in the papers about wearing poppies. A columnist in The Ottawa Citizen worried that poppy-wearing might symbolize support for Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. I was rather startled by this idea as I've never viewed wearing the poppy as supporting the idea of any war. I wear it because I associate it with sorrow, blood, and remembrance.

There has also been a flurry of letters to the editor in the debate over In Flanders Fields, which being written by Dr John McCrae of Guelph, Ontario after watching a close friend die at Ypres and before succumbing to pneumonia himself, is a staple of Canadian Remembrance Day ceremonies. John Finnemore recently discussed his problems with the poem in his blog, and once again, I was a bit perplexed. John McCrae was a doctor in the army for both the Boer and First World Wars. He would have seen the very worst war can offer. I don't think he had any rosy ideas about war being glorious or desirable, although I do think he thought it was necessary. The stanza both the writer of the Letter to the Editor and John Finnemore had trouble with was the third one which begins: Take up our quarrel with the foe . . .

Well, I don't boycott plays like The Merchant of Venice for anti-Semitism, nor books like Huckleberry Finn for its use of the "n-word", nor pretty much anything written or performed over the centuries for its depiction of women. Art is a reflection of its era. Good art transcends this. I happen to think both statements apply to In Flanders Fields, which, like the poppy, expresses sorrow, remembrance, and blood.

Write of Passage Number Six: The clash of the stereotypes

A number of thoughts crossed my mind when the big brutha with a ghetto blaster sent up camp at my bus stop. One of them was: A ghetto blaster? Seriously? Is he partying like it's 1979? He stashed his blaster on top of the shelter, thought better of it, then swooped it past my ear a couple of times, while shouting along with the rap lyrics and making those hand signals that seem to have been co-opted by boy bands. (I found this video to try to find out about rapper/hip-hop hand signals, but it's only marginally helpful):

Newest Rap Hand Signs @ Yahoo! Video

As I tried to studiously ignore this guy as he strutted up and down, grinning widely beneath his baggy wool cap and neon-yellow sunglasses, my next thought was: Oh Gawd. Please. Not on my bus. These appeared to be the precise thoughts of the bus driver as I climbed on. He glanced over my shoulder, then back at me and we raised our respective eyebrows. Sure enough, as I took my seat, the brutha-from-anotha-planet made his entrance and proceeded past me. Judging from the facial expressions on the swiveling heads, I'd say roughly half our fellow passengers were thinking: Oh Gawd, not on this bus, and the other half were thinking: A ghetto blaster?? Seriously?

It looked like we were all going to sit this out in quiet Canadian martyrdom, until the song finished and the next one started. That's when a number of guys started shouting back at our homie. A very large man who looked like he rode Harley Davidsons when he wasn't using public transit, was particularly incensed and insistent.

"Have some respect for other people. We don't want to listen to your &%#@."
"Stick in some earphones, like everyone else!" someone else added, while the bus driver pulled over, got out of his seat and pointed meaningfully at the door.

Our homie rose slowly with a few choice words and a face-saving shrug and made his way to the back door... closely followed by Motorcycle Man who, uttering a string of imprecations, gave him a mighty shove. Homie measured his length on the sidewalk for a split second, then sprang up and hurled himself at Motorcycle Man, while those of us still on the bus gasped and gaped. Motorcycle Man soon had Homey pinned on his back, his eyes white and wide without his sunglasses which were scattered across the sidewalk along with his ghetto blaster and several other belongings.

"He picked the wrong white guy to piss off," offered someone.
I had my face buried in my hands and looked up at the young girl seated next to me.
"That was totally unnecessary," I said wearily. "He was getting off the bus."
The girl and a young man standing by us nodded vigorously.
"He didn't need to shove him," they said. A lady in bright yellow Brunhilda braids tried to explain how Motorcycle Man was justified, but no one paid much attention; our eyes were glued on the drama outside.

Our bus driver sighed, waited a moment, then got out and strolled over to tap Motorcycle Man on the shoulder as he continued to pin Homey to the sidewalk. I guess some sort of truce was arranged as Motorcycle Man got up, and Homey struggled to his feet. M.M. tried to hand Homey a yellow book of scripture which had fallen in the melée, but Homey was spitting. There were a couple of additional angry exchanges, before a young fella handed Homey his ghetto blaster and got an embrace in return. Motorcycle Man, thank heaven, did not get back on the bus.

It was only when the woman in Brunhilda braids got off at Elgin Street that I realized she was an office worker dressed for this last day of work before Hallowe'en. I was beginning to wonder how many people on that bus had been in costume.

Things David Tennant makes me do

Okay, I admit that this is evidence that I may be losing it. See, I put together one of these using my family's heads for Facebook, but then it occurred to me: I have a few pictures on DT on my computer....

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Do you think someone will sue me?

All you zombies

I don't go to cemeteries looking for dead people. I can find them far more easily online. No, even though I'm a family historian, all my dead rellies are buried across the ocean. Or are burnt to a crisp and scattered somewhere. I happen to live about a twenty-minute walk from Beechwood Cemetery which is really old (by Canadian standards), really historical, and really, really beautiful. Particularly in the autumn. So when I saw people on the sidewalks clutching phones, cameras, and mini-camcorders, my heart sank. It was the one perfect autumn Sunday to stroll up to the cemetery and there were policemen and a huge crowd ahead. Suddenly, the crowd lurched (yes, lurched) to the far side of Beechwood Avenue, cramming themselves on the narrow sidewalk, while the police patiently instructed them not to walk on the road. I had stumbled across the Annual Zombie Walk, and even though I had my camera with me, I didn't take pictures. (I stole this one from the Ottawa Citizen web site. Ashley Fraser took this as various people in rather disgusting make-up staggered across the St Patrick Bridge en route to the Parliament Buildings.) Did I mention I was squeamish?

As the rotting crowd of about 300 tottered away, I entered the cemetery driveway and passed two attendants who were chattering amiably as they stayed long enough to ensure that no undead blundered amongst the graves. I don't think the dead would care, but their living visitors might have taken umbrage. I climbed the steep hill that leads to the burial grounds and for a long time, I could hear the roars and moans of the fake zombies who were all very young and probably largely untouched as yet by death.

I am old enough to have been touched by death but, as I've said, I don't go to the cemetery in search of the dead, although I am happy to walk companionably beside them. The trees at Beechwood Cemetery vary wildly in age, and certainly in recent decades, they have been deliberately planted for variety, which usually means a full palate of colours at this time of year. After an unusually wet summer, the colours are not as vibrant as some autumns, but, you have to admit, they're not bad.

This particular afternoon, I headed as far east as time would allow. Beechwood Cemetery is enormous and I didn't even make it as far as the military section. Quite a few people drove through, and I climbed off the path to let them pass, while looking at recent monuments and poignant memorials to more ancient families, together at last.

The leaves on the ground scuttled and whispered between the stones in sunset-coloured herds, and I waited to catch my second leaf of the autumn. Finally a golden beauty fell directly in front of me. I snatched it and made a wish for elder daughter. The first wish is always for younger daughter who has so many needs. If I catch enough, I'll make a wish for the Resident Fan Boy although I somehow think that he has all he wants. Maybe that's a tad presumptuous. His last name is on one of these tombstones, but there's no relation, thank goodness.

Much of this weekend was spent in the company of the Resident Fan Boy's dead relatives. Research last winter led to the true identity of the second wife of the RFB's paternal grandfather. Further research a few weeks ago led to the name of his first wife. Last week, a sheaf of birth, death and marriage certificates I'd ordered from the General Register Office in England arrived, and they seem to confirm that the Resident Fan Boy's late father and his late paternal uncle were, in fact, half-brothers. Paternal grand-dad had two children with his first wife, three children with second, returned to first wife and had another child (said uncle) before first wife popped clogs, leaving him free to marry second wife. My late father-in-law had carefully given me enough false information to blow me off course, and the three children of the two brothers had no idea, other than something strange had been going on. So, at the Resident Fan Boy's request, I carefully composed a time-line to lead his sister and cousin (the one who's not speaking to me) through the tangled web of deceit designed to protect delicate Edwardian sensibilities. Both women profess to be quite uninterested, but have been pelting the RFB with further questions...

I was thinking about this as I turned my toes westward, in the direction where the zombies had vanished. I imagine both my late father-in-law and his (half)brother would not have been pleased with me for dragging these skeletons out of the closet. However, I discovered an aunt and an uncle (both long dead) for my husband, his sister and cousin. Not everyone wants to know the truth about their family history (if the truth is indeed what I've uncovered -- people did lie, even on official documents), but, as I've said before, there is a certain comfort in reclaiming long-dead relatives, and I do think we forget them at our peril.

Is that why, I wondered as I wandered, hundreds of kids were staggering through Ottawa with extruded eyeballs and fake blood dribbling from their mouths? Because they can't remember where they come from? Are they so afraid of death that they think the state of un-death might be kind of neat? Or are they so unacquainted with death that they think spoofing it is a hoot? They probably haven't given it much thought. I'm probably giving it way too much thought.

When I got home, I told the family about my adventures. Elder daughter rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you've never heard of the Annual Zombie Walk. It's been going on forever." Eight years, actually. That's forever to a seventeen-year-old.

Giving thanks from the heart (well, maybe a bit lower down)

Thanksgiving in Canada, as I keep having to remind my American and British friends and relations, is celebrated the second weekend in October. Canadians have no particular links with The Mayflower or Plymouth Rock; we do have a rather shorter growing season in most parts of the country than in the US, and since many Canadians have English forebears, there is that connection with the Anglican Harvest Sunday. Coming from Victoria, the Resident Fan Boy and I are still struck by urgency of the traditional Harvest Sunday hymns. In a climate like Ottawa's, you better durn well have the crops in. The first frost is on its way.

All the same, this has never been one of my favourite holidays. For many Canadians (the more affluent ones, anyway), this is a weekend to get away. The last camping reservations fall on this weekend, and those with a cottage (in central Canada) or cabin (in British Columbia) usually retreat there for a final sojourn by the lake. This means, aside from the nightmarish gridlock that begins mid-afternoon the previous Friday, that those of us who remain in town have fewer options. The arty films of the autumn will not be opening just yet, there is little in the way of theatre and concerts, and most stores shut down, many for Sunday and Monday.

This means you'd better have all your ingredients for your Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time, whether the big dinner is on Sunday (when you have guests) or Monday (if you don't). And there's another thing: it's a holiday that requires me to spend several hours in the kitchen. We don't do turkey, but this year, because younger daughter seems unusually excited about Thanksgiving, we decided to try a new recipe, Pollo con Zucchini Fritti, which is actually an old Vancouver Sun recipe which I pasted in my book then promptly forgot to try. It involved a lot of sauté-ing, and quite a bit of scotch whiskey, chardonney, port, and cream. It was bloody delicious actually, and was followed up by the mandatory pumpkin-pie-completely-from-scratch-including-the-pastry-thank-you-very-much.

It wasn't until about 4 am that I realized that I might be in a bit of trouble. It took a while for my sleep-hazed brain to understand that the mild indigestion of the evening before had localized to rather more discomfort in a small knot below my rib cage on my right side. Y'know, where my gall bladder is.

I discovered I had gallstones five years ago when I attempted to take both daughters to a second viewing of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, then had to call the Resident Fan Boy at work to pick them up at the Rideau Centre because the pain in my side was enough to bring a sheen of cold sweat on my forehead and upper lip. I headed home on the bus, wondering if I'd just sent my family off to watch a lengthy film while I had a heart attack. I got home, and the pain (which, by the way, was worse than my labour pains and that's saying something) suddenly vanished. It kept recurring over the next week as our annual retreat to Victoria, along with a side excursion to Disneyland, approached. My doctor's locum decided I needed antacids and a bland diet. I figured out myself that it was somehow connected to peanut butter.

Since then, I've had one or two attacks, always on a holiday involving rich food. I decided against surgery since avoiding peanut butter seemed so much easier, but in the past couple of years, I've been foolishly indulging in Kraft Smooth again in a sort of nutty Russian Roulette.

So the Pollo con Zucchini Fritti came home to roost. I shifted myself carefully, praying the pain wouldn't escalate into the cold sweat phase which actually requires labour breathing. Please, no, please. I won't do it again... I took some Tylenol which has worked for me, and woke up functional and only slightly queasy two hours later when I had to get up and escort younger daughter on the long bus trek to school. As we walked through the rainy streets to the bus stop, I was filled with the euphoria similar to that I exuded when they finally gave me the epidural in both my labours. One function of pain: it feels so damn good when it stops. So I did celebrate Thanksgiving this year -- at 7:20 this morning.

Maybe I should substitute one percent milk for the cream in the Pollo...

Spin around ninjas

Last night elder daughter wrapped herself in a bath sheet before her shower and excitedly told me about a literal video. I guess she forgot to tell me earlier.

Now, literal videos are one of the things that have gone sort of quasi-viral on YouTube. I saw my first one when Stevyn Colgyn featured Dusto McNeato's literal video of "Take On Me". Elder daughter, all long legs and grey towel, sat on the stairs and told me that "the guy who did the Total Eclipse of the Heart literal video did the Barenaked Ladies' One Week".

As you might imagine, I had to get her to repeat that a few times until I got the gist of what she was saying and she was really ticked off with me in short order.

"You mean Dusto McNeato?"
"No, the guy that did the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" literal video, the one you showed me."
Now I was really confused. I don't remember ever showing her anything to do with "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a song I never liked with a video I liked even less.

Which makes it, I guess, the perfect subject for a literal video. After elder daughter vanished into the mists of her shower, I checked YouTube and discovered that our mystery literal video wizard is "dascottjr" who, classy guy that he is, credits Dusto McNeato at nearly every turn, while making some pretty damn fine literal videos. Gotta love the name of the "literal singer" for this one:I still can't for the life of me remember showing this to elder daughter. (I mean, would you forget this one in a hurry?) One of us clearly has a faulty memory.

Oops.

Anyway, here's the one elder daughter liked:Gotta love that Can/con.

"dascottjr" has done a whole mess of these things, even more than Dusto McNeato, I think, using videos from the sixties, eighties, nineties, and aughts. I like this one for The Killers:I'm now summing up the courage to see what this guy did to "Love is a Battlefield"...

The things I do for David Tennant

Some things may have already been established, if you are one of the half dozen people who regularly read this blog. (Hello. I'm always so glad to see you...): 1. I have issues with things involving numbers and technology. 2. I am squeamish. 3. I like David Tennant. This weekend has brought these three items together in surprising and disturbing ways.

On Friday evening, while blog-browsing, I became aware that the 2001 BBC Radio Four production of Much Ado About Nothing (featuring DT as Benedick, "the married man") is available at amazon.co.uk for something like £75. Now, as much as I like David Tennant, that's a bit rich for my blood, but legal audio downloads of the same are available in the $20 price range. So, I, the legal audio download virgin, embarked on a frustrating evening of typing, clicking, pasting, what-have-you. The site I'd chosen fervently assured me of how easy the whole process was, but my computer failed to access their helpful how-to video, and their so-call contact site refused to recognize my password. After several attempts, I managed to download both halves of the play, verify my licensed right to view and burn the same (this required obtaining permission, ooooh, about five times), then after several bouts of filthy language and attempting no less than three media players, actually was able to listen to the thing. After a suitable calm-down period, I will be enlisting the resident seventeen-year-old's aid in burning it to a CD. Or two. This I will do for David Tennant. (As an aside, younger daughter heard a portion of the play during breakfast and vanished upstairs to get her anime version. She wanted to know where the kiss was.)

David Tennant was also instrumental in our procuring tickets for Vision Theatre's production of The Pillowman at the Arts Court Theatre in downtown Ottawa last night. I knew from what I'd learned about the play that it wouldn't be my cup of tea, but David Tennant had waxed lyrically about the script when he appeared in the world premiere at the National Theatre in London alongside Jim Broadbent. Elder daughter declined, after reading the review in The Ottawa Citizen, so the Resident Fan Boy accompanied me. A blind-folded man in a prison jumpsuit and sock feet sat at a table on the stage as we took seats in the very front row. He sat there silently until the stage lights abruptly came on and the play began.

Oh. Dear. Let me say right now, the writing in this play is very very good as were the performances of the actors: David Whitely and Bradley Cunningham Long as the sadistic but horrendously funny good cop/bad cop interrogators (Whitely was playing Ariel, the role played by Jim Broadbent in London and Jeff Goldblum on Broadway); Geoff McBride as Michal the damaged brother who is innocently guilty and wisely simple; and best of all, Kris Joseph as the bewildered, tortured, enraged, and passionate Katurian.

If you're ever planning to see this play, the following may spoil it for you. Or not.

After an hour and a half of listening to Katurian's disturbing short stories of the torture and murder of children (illustrated at first with sort of animated chalk drawings, then silhouettes of deranged puppets), Katurian's brother lay lifeless, staring upwards on a mattress in a prison cell, as the audience departed for intermission. The Resident Fan Boy and I sat frozen in our seats, contemplating another hour of prison torture and the promised revelation of the gruesome details of another Katurian short story involving a mute little girl: The Little Jesus.

"I don't think I can face it..." I finally stammered to the Resident Fan Boy.

And so we left. Not because it was a bad play. It isn't. Not due to any lacking in the performances. There wasn't. As a matter of fact, the long agonizing revelation of the true horrors of the plot as Katurian and his brother await further torture and execution is an amazing tour-de-force for the two actors, Kris Joseph and Geoff McBride, who come off as a kind of twisted version of The Smothers Brothers (which, considering the end of the scene, is perhaps a little too appropriate). Katurian, listening in growing shock to what his stories have led the childlike (and oddly logical) Michal to commit, swings from brotherly patience to enraged exasperation to tearful protective love.

The simple fact is that I couldn't take any more. The violence is relatively bloodless, much less than other productions from what I can make out from photos online, but that makes it all the more horrible. Anyone making this into a movie would probably show everything in graphic and gory splendour, but this production (even the bit with the severed toes) restrained itself and let the narrative do its blood-chilling work.

As we made our way to the elevator, the woman from the box office hastily checked that we weren't leaving because we thought the play was over, which has apparently happened several times due to the length.

"No," I assured her. "The writing is great; the acting is great. I just can't bear anymore." She thanked us for coming.

On the bus home, I mulled over my decision, thinking of a psychologist friend who left American Beauty in a fit of disgust, thus missing the strangely redemptive ending. Looking at a synopsis of The Pillowman, I somehow doubt we were missing redemption, just more death and despair, with a couple of plot twists. Besides, I wasn't leaving in disgust. I can't say the same for the Resident Fan Boy who was appalled at the laughter during the interrogation scene. I told him that it was supposed to be funny, in the blackest possible way, but he was sure that the audience took too much delight in it, and that this is another symptom of society's growing callousness to suffering.

Maybe so. I was chagrined last year when elder daughter saw Roman Polanski's Macbeth and failed to fathom what had scarred me for life when seeing it when I was her age. (The Resident Fan Boy and I were discussing Roman Polanski and his arrest for the drugging, raping, and sodomizing of a thirteen-year-old girl three decades ago while waiting for The Pillowman to begin, another queasy quasi-relevance.) She also viewed The Exorcist for a school project with no qualms. Clearly, exposure to graphic violence has toughened up audiences over the years.

But not me. I'm not sorry I went. I wonder, however, if I would have found the stomach to continue had David Tennant been in the lead role. Part of me hopes not.

Ghosts of September

I've been leafing through my journals for a glimpse of past Septembers as my days on NaBloPoMo draw to a close, particularly appropriate as the NaBloPoMo "theme" for October is "haunted". I've discovered the hard way that I shouldn't do this before bedtime; the past of John Mortimer, even the slaughter of the Romanovs, is a good prelude to sleep while my own past keeps me awake.

The last time I did this exercise (both NaBloPoMo and journal-review) was in February, that frozen little limbo in the dead of winter that seems to go on forever. September is different, a inexorable engine of transition, being in many ways the true beginning of the year. Fluttering back into my own past, I found my daughters plunging into the unknowns of new schools, the struggle of adjusting to new homes, new neighbourhoods, new cities. I relived the starts of my pregnancies (both confirmed in September), and the first hospitalization that led to my father-in-law's final slide into death. I remembered other crises: an abortion in the family, and my own marriage trembling precariously on the brink. It isn't all Sturm und Drang, but September never has been a month for eager anticipation; it's more a gauntlet to be got through, so one can lick one's wounds in October.

Since my mind is on ghosts and September, let me keep a promise I made in August. At that time, I wrote about elder daughter's encounters with her paternal grandmother who died three years before elder daughter was born. I was inclined to believe my daughter's story and here's why: Less than twenty-four hours after my mother-in-law died, the Resident Fan Boy had a vivid dream in the early hours of a September morning. His mother came to his bedside, as she used to do when he was a small boy in the rectory, except this time her breathing was laboured as it had been in the hospital during her final week.
"I'll be dead in three days," she told him, "but I'll be out in the living room if you need me."

The Resident Fan Boy woke with a start, desperately needing to go to the bathroom, but terrified of passing by the living room in our small apartment...

Three hundred and sixty-four days later, on the eve of the anniversary of my mother-in-law's death, I too was awoken in the wee sma' hours -- by a very large moth which "strafed" me, zooming from one ceiling corner of our bedroom, down right past my ear so I could hear the small motor sound of its wings, then up to the other side of the ceiling. It did this about four or five times until I wailed in terror, waking the Resident Fan Boy. I peeped out from my refuge under the covers and noted uneasily that the time on the alarm clock was the exact hour of my mother-in-law's passing. Then I mused over the coincidence of "moth" and "mother" beginning with the same letters. She never liked me much....

Well. So much for September. As I've said before, my comfort level is really about two posts per week, so I'll be leaving NaBloPoMo for now, and see if I actually accomplish those things I've neglected while posting daily. Seeing as I've been working with short months first, I plan to "NaBloPoMo" it again in April 2010.

My mind is what I miss the most

I think it was spotting the Burger King on Clyde Avenue near Baseline Road. Although it really began with another one of those interminable dreams I get about needing to get somewhere and having something to finish first. Perhaps you get them too? The kind of dream from which you awake in a cold panic, realize that you don't have to do that or be there, only to realize there's someplace else you need to be, and that you do, in fact, have to get up.

This meant I was sitting on the #118 sometime after 8 am, en route to younger daughter's school, carefully counting off landmarks and fighting off the feeling of having been dragged through the broom ass-backwards. Clyde Avenue is my cue to count down bus stops, because we get off at the fourth one. That's when I spotted the Burger King, which started me on a free association of my year spent in Toronto, for some reason. (Probably because that was back in the days when I actually liked fast food and could eat it without gaining four pounds within twenty-four hours.) What with my sleep-deprived brain, the misted-out bus windows, and the dreary rain-washed wasteland of strip malls, I drifted off into a reverie, and suddenly came to, not knowing how much time had passed, and not recognising where we were.

Panicking, I rang the bell, and we clambered off, while I tried to get my bearings: Ferguson Street. Where the *#$%& is Ferguson Street? I glanced wildly around for land-marks, but recognized nothing, Baseline being as about as pretty a thorough-fare as its name suggests. All I could see were rows of unprepossessing houses, with endless traffic relentlessly buzzing along a road with infrequent traffic lights.

There was nothing for it but to head back the way we came, wondering how many bus stops I'd missed. After we'd been walking for about five minutes, I did finally recognise a landmark: the rather surly teen-aged girl at the next bus stop, whom we usually pass when we head up Erindale. Sure enough, the street beyond her was our turning, and I strode ahead of patient (probably oblivious) younger daughter, glancing at my watch and feeling for the first time how very long the trek up Erindale is. Fortunately, we weren't even late, and I managed to catch my bus back, but standing there in the rain, it occurred to me that I am going to make every mistake in the book while mastering this four-and-a-half-hour commute. Oh well. As long as I don't make each mistake twice, I should only have a transit crisis every week or so...
(The painting is "Bus Window" by folk-artist Cheri' Ben-Iesau.)

Thirty-five films to ease the time in Hades

Marie Phillips over at The Woman Who Talked Too Much asked about favourite movies today, and I thought: "Hey! An easy post for Day 28 of September's NaBloPoMo! I'll just copy my trusty list from Facebook..."

Anyway, here's the 35 of my top movies (in no particular order) that I came up with when I established my Facebook profile a couple of years ago. Thirty-five is not a magic number; it's just what it is. It will become thirty-six and so forth as I run into more movies that I love. Not "the best films ever", mind, just films that I love and will watch repeatedly:
#1. Harold and Maude
Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Ruth Gordon, Vivian Pickles
My desert island flick. The movie I watch when I'm feeling down and dusty. I first saw this at age 19 and my perception of this story changes markedly as I age.

#2. Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant
I just never get tired of this one. It features a dream-cast, Emma Thompson's delicately funny screenplay and the indefinably wonderful direction of Ang Lee. The commentary by Emma Thompson is worth the price of the DVD.

#3. The Ice Storm
Allison Janney, Christina Ricci, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood
This is the one film about the seventies about which I've been able to say: "Yes, that is what it was like."

#4. Broadcast News
Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Robert Prosky
I love the writing and I adore Holly Hunter in this. One of the few films that admits that women actually wear pantyhose instead of topless stockings.

#5.Impromptu
Anton Rodgers, Bernadette Peters, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin
A funny movie and fantastic cast. Gorgeous from start to finish.

#6. Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montreal)
Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Rémy Girard
A parable featuring clever parallels to the Easter story. Extra pleasures for those who know anything about Quebec culture.

#7. Swing Time
Betty Furness, Eric Blore, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick
My very favourite Astaire/Rogers outing. I'm like a little kid on Christmas Eve when waiting for them to finally start dancing in "Pick Yourself Up", then I glow...

#8. Monkey Business
Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Thelma Todd
My favourite Marx Brothers movie. So many wonderful moments: The crew can tell they have four stowaways because they are singing a barbershop quartet. (But wait a minute, isn't Harpo a mute?) All four brothers try to sneak through Customs on Maurice Chevalier's passport. It's heaven...

#9. Snow Cake
Alan Rickman, Callum Keith Rennie, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sigourney Weaver
The writer of this film has an autistic son, and my younger daughter has special needs, so I was deeply touched by this movie. I particularly love the know-it-all lady who thinks she understands autism because she's seen Rainman. It's heartbreaking without being depressing.

#10. Scrooge (A Christmas Carol)
Alastair Sim, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Michael Hordern
This is the version of A Christmas Carol for me. There are many parts of it that weren't in the novella, but somehow seem as if they should have been. I watch it and weep every year.

#11. 84, Charing Cross Road
Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench
Loved the books by Helene Hanff, and was delighted that this movie is not a disappointment. Obviously a labour of love.

#12. A Room With A View
Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, etc., etc.
Gosh, this is just a treat for the senses from start to finish! Wonderful cast and cinematography.

#13. Au Revoir Les Enfants
Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Francine Racette, Stanislas Carre de Malberg
Louis Malle telling tales out of school. Not a breath of melodrama, just a gentle story of inadvertent betrayal.

#14. Bedazzled
Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch
Forget the recent junky version. This is the original, full of pithy comments about the nature of evil. ("Julie Andrews!")

#15. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Colm Feore
Not so much a portrait of the legendary (almost mythical) Canadian pianist, as a series of impressions. What's even stranger is that Colm Feore has portrayed another legendary (almost mythical) Canadian, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. That's pretty much all the two have in common...

#16. The Sweet Hereafter
Ian Holm, Maury Chaykin, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood
Based on a novel by Russell Bank, this story has been re-set in a small town in the BC interior where a catastrophic school bus accident has left a debris field of shattered lives. The film has a dreamlike quality; one could say nightmarish, but there is startling beauty amid the broken shards.

#17. The Seventh Seal
Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson
I took my husband to see this early in our marriage, waiting for him to enjoy it as much as I did. He fell asleep. Miraculously, our marriage survived this disaster.

#18. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest
I'm not quite sure how this film got past the censors in 1944. I guess there was a war on. Really, really funny.

#19. Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain (The Decline of the American Empire)
Dominique Michel, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Pierre Curzi, Rémy Girard, Yves Jacques
This movie has entertained and perplexed me for years. When I first saw it in my late twenties, I was mystified by how supposedly good friends of long standing could treat each other in such a fashion. As I age, I understand it a bit better. Back in my teaching days, I used to have a lot of Québecois students. They told me that this was a pretty accurate depiction of university professors in Montreal. It doesn't hold out a great deal of hope for women and men understanding each other...

#20. Testament
Jane Alexander, William Devane, Rossie Harris, Roxana Zal
I watched this made-for-TV movie twice, once before having children, and once after. Two different kinds of devastation. I have never forgotten it.

#21. Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Joe E. Brown
An excellent argument for never dating musicians! A hoot!

#22. Shakespeare in Love
Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Judi Dench, etc.
Adored the very wittiness of this, and especially enjoyed the pokes at playwright John Webster (creator of such feel-good bloodfests as The Duchess of Malfi) who is portrayed here as a particularly creepy little boy.

#23. Da hong deng long gao gao gua (Raise the Red Lantern)
Li Gong, Cuifen Cao, Saifei He, Shuyuan Jin
This, to me is a perfect illustration of how oppression leads to the oppressed undermining each other. Suppose the women really had treated each other as sisters; would the power the man had over them been as devastating?

#24. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Charles Durning
Full of haunting music and lovely lines: "We thought you was a toad!" "Do not seek the tray-shure!" "He's a suitor!" The odd ritual run-and-sing of the KKK is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen on film...

#25. Monty Python's Life of Brian
Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam
One of my two favourite Easter movies. (The other is Jesus of Montreal.)

#26. Looking for Richard
Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Estelle Parsons,Aidan Quinn, Kevin Spacey, Winona Ryder, etc, etc.
I think my favourite aspect of this documentary was the juxtaposition of the earnest "Method" approach with the scholarly musings of members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. On one side, you have a sort of deliberate ignorance (maybe innocence is the better word), aiming for purity of character development and motivation, and on the other, actors who simply know Shakespeare within their bones. Which is the correct approach? Who cares? The play's the thing! (Wrong play, I know!)

#27. Le Roi de coeur (King Of Hearts)
Geneviève Bujold, Alan Bates, Michel Serrault, Madeleine Clervanne
This film stole my heart when I saw it in my university cinema as a young student. What fun to hear Alan Bates actually speaking French throughout the movie. (Dubbed versions of this film are pointless!)
#28. Kissing Jessica Stein
Jennifer Westfeldt, Heather Juergensen
I married early and never really experienced the dating scene. This film reminds me why! Although it is nice to know one has options...

#29. Arsenic and Old Lace
Cary Grant, Edward Everett Horton, Jack Carson, James Gleason, Vincent Massey, Peter Lorre
One of the two perfect Hallowe'en movies of all time! (The other is the 1963 version of The Haunting.) The play itself is a delight, but the movie has such tricks and treats as Cary Grant doing several triple-takes, and Raymond Massey being truly creepy. Very funny, and for a faint-heart like myself, not a little scary...

#30. The Haunting
Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
The terror in this film is derived entirely from camera angles and sound effects. And it works, mate! Don't watch it alone at night! As a side-dish, you can enjoy the pseudo-sophisticated psychology of the time. Apparently, Clair Bloom's penchant for dressing in black Mary Quant is a dead giveaway that her character is a lesbian. (Gee! Who knew?)

#31. Tootsie
Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Bill Murray, Sidney Pollack
My 3 favourite things about this movie (aside from the writing, direction, and Dustin Hoffman): Teri Garr as the bewildered girlfriend-who-never-was: "You schmuck!"; Bill Murray in what I believe was an uncredited role as the laid-back room-mate: "You slut!"; and director Sydney Pollack as Michael Dorsey's long-suffering agent: "I begged you to get therapy..."

#32. Amélie (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus
Charmant! Tout simplement. (Actually, I think of Amelie every time I tap the crusty top of a crème brûlée...)

#33. Singin' in the Rain
Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Gene Kelly, Jean Hagen
How many musicals have a great screenplay? I'll tell you, next to none! This movie just entertains from all angles: singing, dancing, acting, and laughing! My goose-bump moment: The minute Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor stop singing "Moses Supposes" and let-er-rip with an amazing dance on a desk-top.

#34. Life Classes
Jacinta Cormier, Leon Dubinsky, Leo Jessome, Frances Knickle
Dammit, I just love this film. A Nova Scotia girl whose idea of art is paint-by-numbers gets knocked up and heads to the city. Eventually she stumbles into being a nude model at an art college, and from there moves into the world of art herself. I've always thought this film was a small gem.

#35. Romeo and Juliet
Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Milo O'Shea, Michael York, John McEnery, etc.
The PTA actually put a ban on this film in 1968 -- which really got the viewing numbers up. (You get to see Romeo's bare bum for all of thirty seconds --- shocking!) But the magic of this film is seeing the lead roles acted (very well) by very young actors, close to the ages Romeo and Juliet were supposed to have been. The rest of the cast is amazing: a very young Michael York as Tybalt, the acerbic John McEnery as Mercutio, and the lovely voice of Laurence Olivier as the Prologue. Then there were the music and costumes. Sigh...

It's taken me hours to edit and link this list. That'll teach me to try for an easy post...