Real cool

It was beginning to seem like a dangerous way to skip the first Hockey Night in Canada in many months. The Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I penguin-walked and skidded down the icy sidewalks between walls of snow. Fifteen centimetres of snow in one morning had given away to rain by evening, freezing into silver chutes. However, we had purchased rush tickets earlier in the day for a screening of West Side Story, with the instrumental soundtrack provided live by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and for the sake of younger daughter, who adores this musical, we were going - come Hades or high water (or frozen sidewalk).

Our rush seats, a wonderful bargain courtesy of younger daughter's student status, were in the mezzanine this time, almost dead centre. We had a beautiful view of most of the NACO, although the horn section was obscured by the movie screen because of our height above the stage. The conductor, who normally opens with a humourous banter, took the stage, bowed and immediately sat in front of what appeared to be a screen the size of a large laptop. We've been to Pops concerts where the musicians played live soundtracks before -- an evening of selections from films based on Rogers and Hammerstein musicals and a showing of Bugs Bunny cartoons years ago. I'd never seen how the conductor synchronized the live musicians with the soundtrack either of those times and now rather wished I'd brought my binoculars.

As the MGM lion roared and the three eerie whistles signalled the beginning of the film, I was astonished to feel my chest constrict with excitement. I mean, I've seen this movie dozens, if not scores of times. However, I don't think I've ever seen it on a big screen in a packed auditorium -- and Southam Hall in the NAC complex is a large venue. Three large green vertical columns moved from left to right across the monitor in front of the conductor who raised his baton and brought the musicians in.

The images and music were almost as familiar as the back of my hand, but I found myself concentrating in a way I'd never done before, marvelling at the beauty of the dancing, even in the fight scenes, noticing tiny things for the first time: how Riff controls his gang with a wordless jerk of the head; the playground where Tony begins singing "Maria" is the place where he will die at the end; the foreshadowing hint of "There's a Place For Us" at the end of the rapturous lovers' duet "Tonight".

Something else I'd never noted properly - the fabulous dancing of the Jets' girlfriends, both at the fateful gymnasium dance where Tony and Maria first meet and later in the edge-of-hysteria dance number "Cool" where the remaining Jets try to come to grips with the deaths of the rival gang-leaders Riff and Bernardo.
Watch those girls dance! They're doing most of the same moves the male dancers are, and they're doing it in skirts and heels. ('Twas ever thus.) Most of the dancers you see here were in the original Broadway production, although not necessarily in the same roles. The blonde girl is Carole Andreas, the original "Velma" on Broadway and also the wife (now ex) of Robert Morse who created the role a J. Pierpont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying.

More than fifty years later, some of the lingo is dated, but the dancing isn't. I was a bit taken aback when at intermission, an acquaintance of the RFB told me that she wasn't prepared for how skinny the dancers were. She meant she didn't think they looked substantial enough to be in a street gang, perhaps being more used to the six-packed footballish image of the present-day tough guy. We had just watched this men scramble over fences, hurdle horizontal bars, dance with girl on one shoulder. I told this woman that I wouldn't want to pick a fight with a Shark or a Jet: "They could dance circles around me."

For a great deal of the film, I simply forgot to watch the musicians as they played along, which is probably a testament to how good they were. The NACO, after all, is a world-class orchestra. I watched as younger daughter sat forward in her seat for the entire three hours, rapt. The Resident Fan Boy and I felt the same. It was almost like seeing the film for the first time.

One more thing: I never felt this way for one second during my first and only viewing of Les Miserables. West Side Story has heart-break and passion, but it's also got dancing and humour, all conveyed through the varied (let's emphasize this - varied), intricate music of Leonard Bernstein, the clever lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, and the fluid choreography of Jerome Robbins, to say nothing of the performances by the cast.

West Side Story dances circles around Les Miz. Simple as that. It was worth the skid.

Helmet-heads

It's been snowing again -- 15 centimetres covering the filthy grey ice that has dominated the streets for the past week or so. This afternoon I looked out of the window as the dark began to draw in and saw a fellow leaping like a gazelle through the snowdrifts clad in his Ottawa Senators jersey.

Oh, that's right, I thought glumly. It's back.

After a stand-off of several months, hockey is back on the TV. As I walked the Accent Snob in the early evening, I could see the glow of television screens from apartments, houses and condos up and down our block. (We must be the only house in Hades without a wide-screen.) It was a line of beacons, welcoming back the violence-prone and ridiculously over-paid men on skates. Even more appalling then the idea of hockey-players going on strike is the fact that they've done this before, and no doubt will do it again, as this skit spoofing the Canadian Heritage Moment television spots attests:

It must be concussion, right?

In the company of cheerleaders (a tale of two novels, although one really isn't a novel)

One of my Facebook pals is a school librarian, so her postings are pithier than some I could mention, that is, she doesn't share glorified chain letters, urban legends masquerading as real events, nor quotes attributed to the wrong people. A couple of months ago, she posted a link to a Publishers' Weekly item entitled "The Top 10 Essays Since 1950".

I had a look and the one that really got under my skin was by Jo Ann Beard, a description of a day no one should have involving a dying pet, a dead relationship, and an incident that resulted in the deaths of half a dozen of her co-workers. It originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1996 and it's called "The Fourth State of Matter". I really recommend that you follow the link and read it; it's clear, engrossing, heart-breaking.

I recognized a voice I wanted to hear again, so I immediately checked the catalogue of my local public library and put a hold on In Zanesville, a novel Beard published in 2011, about that terrifying time when a girl feels her way over the chasm between childhood and adolescence.

There are three Zanesvilles in the United States; this one appears to be a tiny community south of Springfield, Illinois. (The towns of Heyworth and Waynesville are mentioned.) The time covers the months between the summer of 1972 and the following winter. ("Ooh Child" is called an "old" song and "Ben" [released the summer of 1972] is quoted.) Our heroine, whose name may be "Jan", is definitely not "Joan", and is in all likelihood Jo Ann, is fourteen, gifted, and a late-bloomer. In 1972's small-town America, this means she is still a little girl emotionally when the book opens. We follow her through a series of seemingly unimportant adolescent incidents which are, of course, life-changing to her, and by the end, we are hearing the thoughts and ideas of a teenager.

This is not a Young Adult novel. This is closer to being a memoir from someone who remembers exactly what it was like to be no longer pre-adolescent, but only barely -- and to have no idea what to do about it. Beard writes skillfully and truthfully. It may be lacking in sex and violence, but it is, nevertheless, a book for grown-ups.

The audio-book is inventively read by Jo Anna Perrin.

One of the turning points for the narrator of In Zanesville is her unexpected inclusion in a slumber party for cheerleaders. It just so happened that before I got out this audio-book, I was listening to the audio-book version of Girls in White Dresses

I felt compelled to get this book out because Marie Phillips has been rhapsodizing about it for months. Marie is a gifted writer herself, the author of Gods Behaving Badly (now a forthcoming film) and co-author of the BBC radio comedy Warhorses of Letters and the spoof Fifty Shelves of Grey, so when she recommends something, I pay attention. I don't always agree. Marie may be a fellow Taurus, but she isn't the boss of me.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close claims to be a novel, but it's really a series of short stories, all concerning a clique of girls from Philadelphia who get jobs (mostly) in New York. They may not be cheerleaders exactly, but they seem to share a similar sort of mentality, being privileged, well-educated, pretty girls who get jobs in areas like publishing, and when they don't, sourly contemplate how these are "not the kind of people (they are) supposed to be around". The men they date are two-dimensional and described in terms of their physical attractiveness or lack thereof (making this rather like a lot of novels by male authors, I suppose). One of the least pleasant chapters concerns a member of their set who will only go out with ugly men. Another woman wails when she is set up with an overweight date: "What about me says, Set me up with an obese person?"

Two or three of the short stories have genuine humour and show our protagonists in a more sympathetic light. One, entitled "Showers", is a neat illustration of the giddy excess and embarrassing silliness of pre-wedding rituals. Another, "Button", follows a young woman's underground power struggle with her mother-in-law. Close does best when she writes about the girls as children, or when they interact with children. This is when they come across as real human beings, perhaps because these women are nowhere near growing up. By the end of the book, there is no sense that they have developed any further than the people they were at the beginning.

Oh, I might be missing the point. Perhaps I'm failing to notice devilishly clever social satire, but the fact is, none of these women are appealing, hold my interest, nor resemble anyone I would care to meet in real life, while the heroine of In Zanesville is all three.

I think Jennifer Close is a very young writer with room to improve, while Jo Ann Beard is an accomplished writer whose further works I will seek out.

(Sorry, Marie.)

For your amusement, I leave you with two musical moments featured in In Zanesville: the - uh - remarkable Seventies soul stylings of The Five Stairsteps


...and Michael Jackson at fourteen years of age, when his face was unmarred and he was still "one fifth of the Jackson Five" That's Charlton Heston before he became the face for the NRA and yes, Michael is singing a song about a man-eating rat. Gosh, the Seventies were twisted...

Another brother from another planet (Write of passage number twenty-seven)

I often heard him vocalizing when younger daughter and I alighted from the Transitway buses to hurry up the block to waylay our bus home. He's very tall, very broad, and somewhere quite far out on the autism spectrum. He lives in Lower Town and we've often seen him on the bus with his dad over the years. Lately he had been on his own, and had created a ritual which would play out while we waited for the transfer. He would approach the line of commuters at the bus stop and, vocalizing in an insistent tone, indicate that he wanted to fist bump.

Most people turned away, but being the mother of a special needs kid, I hated to do so. The problem is, once I had fist-bumped him, he wanted me to scrub his hands with my knuckles which he demonstrated, again with some insistence. Since younger daughter had "deep pressure hunger" issues when she was smaller, I felt honour-bound to comply, but I must admit I felt embarrassed and wondered inwardly whether I should be encouraging this. Harmless enough, but what would happen if he approached a hostile person with no inhibitions?

A later refinement in the strange ceremony was a box of antibacterial hand-wipes which he wanted me to rub on the back of his hands. I was mystified. Extricating myself with some difficulty, I searched in vain for a garbage can in which to deposit the wipe, not caring to stick it in my bag when my rapidly approaching bus arrived. In desperation, I ducked into a Starbucks for the few seconds it took to throw the wipe into the bin by the door. It was a few seconds too many for younger daughter, who is at a different end of the autism spectrum and perfectly capable of telling me how upset she was: "Mom!! What are you doing!!!" She stomped to her seat as heads turned.

I haven't seen him for a few weeks. Part of me is relieved; the other part is worried.

Hades freezes over -- and over

Oh January. You're so new, yet get old so quickly.

We're up to our armpits in younger daughter's summatives. (For non-Ontarians, they're the projects due at the end of each semester in high school, in January and June.) The hot-water heater is not working and it turns out be the breakers, so after a visit from the hot-water-tank guys this afternoon, we're due to have the electrician in tomorrow morning. We've had a bit of freezing rain, followed by unseasonably warm days which have melted the piles and piles of snow from before and after Christmas so that rivulets stream across the driveways and sidewalks which freeze over night, while the dog poop that so many people have failed to pick up is being inexorably revealed.

No end in sight until April at the earliest and not even then.

Dammit. Here's some pictures I took before it got ugly. I'm going to bed.

A brother from another planet

The Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I are making our way down from the Mackenzie King Bridge, cutting through Confederation Park on our way to Elgin Street one Saturday morning. As we approach the fountain (which, apropos of nothing, used to be in Trafalgar Square and is said to be haunted), I see a fellow with a shopping cart bellowing at passersby. The path is going to take us right by him and I brace myself.

Instead, he calls after younger daughter: "Those are nice stockings!" (Younger daughter has an impressive collections of tights with every manner of design; today, she's sporting pink and blue butterflies on her legs.) She turns automatically and says, "Thank-you," before hurrying on.

I'm just coming abreast of him as he raises his mittened hands and addresses the sky: "Someone in this city has manners! It's a miracle!" The Resident Fan Boy and I grin at him and pass from the park unbellowed-at.

All in good time

It's been a busy day and not a bad one, but I just really want to go to bed. Here's some Can/Con for you. (Canadian content) I'm not fanatical about Ron Sexsmith, but I do like some of his songs. I heard this in a coffee shop last summer, but it's a pretty appropriate song for January. The video is clever, but a bit distracting. You could close your eyes. I plan to.
It all seems so obvious now
When I look back over my life
There were times that I really felt down
To think it passed me by

But in these hours of serious doubt
Through the cold black lonely night
Something told me, “It’ll work out”
Something deep inside
Was comforting me

All in good time
All in good time
It said, "All in good time,
The bad time will be gone."

“Hold your horses,” a willow tree cried
While the sun called to me, “Where’s the fire?”
“Run your course, my feverish child,”
Came a voice from even higher
Inspiring me

All in good time
All in good time
It said, "All in good time,
The bad time will be gone."

We rise and fall
We try and fail
And people may judge us
But angels, they know us, darling
All in good time.

It all seems so obvious now
When I look back over my life
There’s a need for sorrow and doubt
For darkness and for light
It’s how it must be

All in good time
All in good time
It said, "All in good time
The bad time will be gone."

Going to great lengths

I was on my way from a BIFHSGO meeting (that's my family history society, for those who don't know I'm a family history nut) which had gone overtime, to drop off a DVD at the library, then high-tail it around the corner to the Empire 7 to meet the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter at Lincoln.

This is the first family rendezvous we've done with a cell phone. As I hurried along, I already knew that the RFB would be getting the popcorn because he had texted me before leaving the house. However, the RFB is flatly refusing to get a mobile device, so when I didn't show up at the appointed time, he panicked, found a pay phone between the coming attractions, and left a message along the lines of if-you-don't-answer-your-cell-phone-what's-the-point. I hadn't answered because by the time I realized the thing was vibrating in my parka pocket, his call had gone to voice mail, and I hadn't figured out how to retrieve my voice mail. (I have now.)

So I arrived five minutes into the film and, having no night vision to speak of, had to stand at the back of the cinema until the RFB came to help me feel my way to my seat, to the dismay of the lady on the aisle.

Anyway, Lincoln:

I've only seen two of the Academy Award nominated films. Les Miserables was two and a half hours I'll never get back and of course, as I'm typing this, has just won the Golden Globe. (Fine performances, lovingly filmed, but gosh darn it, it's a musical based on variations of the same song.)

Lincoln is also epic and about half an hour too long, but it's gripping, even though we know how it panned out. Everything appears to have been filmed through a blue filter, taking us back to a cold, bleak, nearly colourless Washington DC of January 1865. Top-notch performances from many of the finest character actors in the States, including a rather wonderful turn by James Spader as one of a trio of lobbyists selling off appointments to reluctant Democrats in order to secure their vote for the Thirteenth Amendment. About four speaking roles for women, even in this large cast, but it was, after all, a man's world -- and a white man at that.

I've read complaints about the film not including the assassination, although it does show Lincoln's death a few hours later. Frankly, I thought the film should have ended at the point when the President sets off down the halls of the White House, on his way to Ford's Theater. It was a beautifully shot and poignant moment; everything beyond was superfluous.

A good film, all the same. Of the other nominations, I only really want to see Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour. That should be enough to choose something to champion come awards night. (If Les Miz wins, I'll throw snack food, I swear!)

Memories of Mackers

When I was seventeen, my Grade Twelve literature class had a field trip to go see Roman Polanski's infamous version of Macbeth which was playing at a local cinema as part of a Shakespeare-on-film festival with matinees for school groups.

When Polanski made this flick, it was only a year or so after his wife had been butchered, among others, by Charles Manson's disciples in Los Angeles. On top of this, Polanski added in images born of his boyhood memories of the Nazi persecution of Jews, including his own family, in Poland. This version of Macbeth omitted no opportunity for horror: the Thane of Cawdor was executed before our eyes, King Duncan's murder was shown in every gory detail, as was the rape and murder of MacDuff's household. Early on in the film, Macbeth and Duncan were having a little chat, while in the valley behind them, struggling men were being dragged to a huge gallows and strung up.

I spent most of the movie with my fingers in my ears and my head between my knees (I could do that when I was seventeen), but I could still hear the gasps and groans of my classmates. Plus sickening crunches.

The corker was when I emerged shaking into the lobby where a knot of girls from my school were in deep conference, punctuated by "EEEEEW"s. When I got close enough to hear the discussion, my life changed. They were disgusted by the fact that the witches were naked. It was then I knew that something was fundamentally wrong with society. More than two hours of rape, decapitation, skewering, and they were upset by nude old women. I wish I could say that attitudes have changed in the intervening years.

Anyway, last week, I finally received my library hold on Patrick Stewart's recent portrayal of Macbeth. It was on PBS a couple of years ago, but I only managed to catch bits of it, enough to know that I'd like to see the whole thing. Unlike Polanski, Rupert Goold (who directed this for the Chichester Festival Theatre and eventually brought the production to Broadway before it was adapted and filmed for television) elects to suggest rather than show -- which can amplify the terror. The one aspect that is rather more graphic than Polanski's version is in the interpretation of the witches who here are the Weird Nursing Sisters.

A YouTube contributor going by the handle tizerandchips has thoughtfully put together a comparison of our first glimpse of the witches from Polanski's version, Goold's version, and in the middle, from Australian Geoffrey Wright, three diabolical Melbourne schoolgirls.
Wow. After all that, we need to counteract the evil charms, don't we? Rather than sending you outside to turn around three times and spit, I offer my best-beloved scene from the third season of Black Adder where the Eighteenth Century incarnation of Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) explains the "Scottish Play" superstition to Baldrick (Tony Robinson) and then puts two supercilious actors (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Connor) through the wringer. Hugh Laurie is the baffled Prince George.


And as a final antidote, counter-curse, or what you will, this delightful ditty by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, the same team who brought us the hilarious and heart-breaking musical "The Drowsy Chaperone". This was the opening theme for the second season of "Slings and Arrows" - one of my favourite TV series ever, and is sung here by the late great Graham Harley:
Call me superstitious or cowardly or weak
But I'll never play a character
Whose name one dare not speak

I'll play Hamlet
In doublet and hose
Or either of the Dromeos
But sorry, I won't play Mackers

I'll play Richard the Third
With a hump and a wig
Or Henry the Eighth
That selfish pig
But sorry, I don't do Mackers

Every soul who plays this role
Risks injury or death
I'd rather sweep the bloody stage
Then ever do
Mac-you-know-who

So give me King Lear, Cleopatra,
Romeo, Juliet, Doesn’t mat-ra
I’ll play them all for free
But I’d be crackers
To take on Mackers
Y'see I’m skittish about the Scottish Tragedy
Och-ay!

Ironic, doncha think? (Write of passage number twenty-six)

Not all of my "writes of passage" take place on buses. This one doesn't:

One evening, I go down to the corner to buy hot chocolate mix from our local coffee shop. It's quite quiet, and since I'm the only person in line, I decide on the spur of the moment to also pick up some hot beverages for the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter. I put my order in and go down to the end of the corner to wait for my drinks to be ready.

Wouldn't you know it, three people pick this moment to come in for coffee and there are only two baristas on duty. The girl is hastening to complete my order and find a tray so I can carry it home, while the boy fetches things. The first two following me seem pretty relaxed, but as I get ready to cart my drinks away, the third man is starting to fidget.

"I've been in coffee shops all over the city and it has never taken this long," he tells the barista at the expresso machine testily. He has stepped up close enough that I can spot the OC Transpo logo on his pullover.

"I've been waiting ten minutes; this is unacceptable."

I debate inwardly whether to point out that a) he hasn't been waiting anywhere near ten minutes and b) this is damned funny coming from an Ottawa bus driver, but I decide this won't help the barista and, being a non-driver, my chances of encountering this oblivious grouch on the transit system are excellent.

I depart into the night, balancing lattes and smothering a grin.