My meme is true

This meme is ancient, and this variation is unlikely to be recent.

I don't care.  It's so true, it hurts.

Sorry?

A few weeks ago, I received a trio of lengthy and indignant texts from younger daughter.  We were at a local pub, and she was texting from the washroom, having stormed from the table when her cruel family exchanged less-than-complimentary remarks about our fellow-Canadian Justin Bieber.  She wasn't exactly a fan of his, she said, but she thought we were being unfair.

I was thinking about this when CBC music featured the following video.  It's one of the latest in a series called "Kids React to ...."

I'm not sure where they get the kids -- I suspect they're progeny of CBC Radio employees -- but the idea is to have them listen to a track and respond off the cuff.  The series started off with old Canadian classics such as "After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young, and "American Woman" by the Guess Who, but lately they been tackling recent tracks, mostly by Canadian artists, although they included Adele's "Hello".

Watch at about the 40 second mark for the moves displayed by "Charlie" who, I'm pretty sure, is a girl, and who is probably also a handful.

Through a glass, sneakily

One of the wisest things I've done this month is to "like" BBC Culture on Facebook. I've been getting links to all sorts of interesting articles.

The five regular readers of this blog - I may be overestimating, but I'm a fan of self-delusion - know that as a non-driver, I amuse myself at times with the mini-dramas that take place on buses. I call these "Writes of Passage", because I think I'm being clever - that self-delusion thing again.

George Georgiou, a London-born photographer who now makes his home in Folkestone, Kent, has been capturing what he calls "micro-dramas", but these are taking place outside the bus.  An article on the BBC Culture web site  describes one of his latest projects, Last Stop.  Georgiou would spend as long as twelve hours, riding  the length of London bus routes, sitting by the window with his camera in his lap, gazing into a right-angle lens, which looks something like this:

This, according to the article, allowed him to take his pictures undetected -- although if you peruse Last Stop (and you should), you'll see a couple of definitely suspicious stares.

I'm now tempted to purchase a right-angle lens and follow Georgiou's lead, except for four problems:
1) the cost of a damn right-angle lens;
2) the legality of snapping people without their knowledge;
3) the fact that Georgiou is a far, far better photographer than I;
4) the mud that cakes the windows of OC Transpo buses at this time of year - and depressingly enough, from November to May.

Reason Number Four is why most of my "Writes of Passage" concern dramas within the bus.

Heavy metal melted down

Back again to one of my favourite YouTube subscriptions - Postmodern Jukebox, which, with their roster of talented musicians, take songs from the past thirty years and imagine them in older styles.  What, for example, would happen if a Guns 'n' Roses staple of the 1980s had been composed in New Orleans fifty or sixty years earlier?

Naturally, a boffo tap specialist will kick it up a notch higher!

Snow birds?

I don't know why Ottawans are so indignant when it snows in April.  It snows every damn April, often in late April.  It is a bit depressing, of course -- this morning, I was noting that with a very few exceptions, the worst of the glaciers had retreated from the front yards.  Now, I look out the front door and it's as if we have been hurled back in time.

The birds on the back deck seem to be taking it in stride.  Well, flutter.  They're buzzing around the feeder like bees, some "nesting" in the accumulated snow on the deck railing, resting up to battle the others for seed.

I believe these are pine siskins.  There is one chubby adolescent, who seems disinclined to join the struggle.  He's bedded in the snow drift, trying to look cute enough to feed.  Typical.

Slightly used

It's difficult to gauge just how old she is; from across the coffee shop, she looks quite middle-aged. My mum's eye knows that the baby she is cradling hasn't been here long.

I'm delivering my cup and plate to the grey wash bin at the back, and so I pause at her table:

"Now that person is brand-new!"

She looks up at me and smiles and the years fall away from her face.
"He's two weeks."
"He's gorgeous; congratulations!"

She resumes her rapt perusal of his sleeping face.

I remember that.

Today, the Resident Fan Boy and I are attending yet another parents/teachers conference concerning younger daughter's plans for next year. Wish us luck.

Impressions of a knee-jerk nay-sayer

The Resident Fan Boy is not, of course, known as the "Resident Fan Boy" in his own household. He's known as the "Knee-jerk Nay-sayer", the master of the automatic "no".

Some years ago, I wanted to go see Catch Me if You Can but the RFB/KN balked. He couldn't stand Leonardo Dicaprio, he declared. Upon further questioning, it emerged that his aversion to Dicaprio was based on a couple of movie performances and the RFB's general impression that Mr Dicaprio is a smarmy smart-alec.

"Look at Titanic," he argued.
"Titanic," I retorted, "was a success because Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet are skilled enough actors to rise above that dialogue."

We went to CMiYC.  The RFB enjoyed it.  I don't remember if I restrained myself from saying, "I told you so."

I doubt it.

So, this past weekend, I wanted to go see Born to be Blue, starring Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, the troubled and tragic jazz trumpeter.  Guess what?  The Resident Fan Boy couldn't stand Ethan Hawke. "Based on what?" I asked in exasperation.

It turns out that the RFB hasn't actually seen anything Ethan Hawke has been in, but he thought EH was annoying on the Graham Norton show.  A quick check doesn't indicate that Ethan Hawke has ever been on the Graham Norton Show, and, at any rate, younger daughter wanted to go because she loves jazz, which means the RFB needed to come because he's been Favourite Parent for about five years.

My own impression of Ethan Hawke is favourable, because he's an actor who takes on risky projects.  Born to be Blue is a risky biopic because it concerns a few years in the middle of the life of Chet Baker, a man who apparently seldom told the truth about anything.  In my experience, biopics are seldom accurate anyway; real lives are never tidy enough for a satisfactory two-hour movie plot.

The movie takes some elements of Baker's life, doesn't sugar-coat them, but at the same time deals with Baker with compassion -- and from what I can gather, portrays him as a much more sympathetic person than he really was.  Ethan Hawke plays him convincingly and should you see the movie, he will break your heart.

(Keep an eye out for Canadians. Much of this was filmed in Sudbury, and k.d. lang has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a sexually ambiguous invitée to Baker's recording comeback.)

At the end of the film, younger daughter said it was a good movie:  "I'm just upset."

The Resident Fan Boy was impressed.  I don't remember if I actually said, "I told you so."

But I probably did.

Kind hearts and coronados

I'd worked out the bus I needed, but I misplaced my glasses and left the house late. The bus that eventually trundled along had the correct number on it, and it practically wafted to a halt. The fellow wasn't driving particularly slow, but we stopped at all the stops, and each time, he carefully docked at the curb like a ferry boat.

By the time we reached the Rideau Centre, I was getting a little antsy and groaned inwardly when I realized it was a change-over, because the departing driver needs to pack up his stuff, and have a chat with the arriving driver, who then has to adjust his seat several times and recheck the mirror.

While this ritual was going on, a woman boarded the bus with her toddler, and loudly inquired, "CORONADO??" Both drivers regarded her with mild incomprehension. She began talking rapidly, both to them and to her cell-phone, repeating, "Coronado? CORONADO???" Meanwhile, the long line-up of would-be passengers began squeezing past her and stepping over the waiting toddler.

A young family ahead of me conferred across the aisle, and the mum headed up to the front, while the dad sternly indicated to the little boy sharing her seat that he must stay put. Another woman grinned at me; I must have been looking perplexed. "She's on the wrong side of the street," she explained. "She needs to go on the other #7."

And as the young mum returned to her seat, the Coronado lady disembarked, toddler in tow, and we could finally leave -- hitting every single stop light.

By the time I ran into the National Arts Centre from the Elgin Street entrance, I had less than ten minutes to make it through the whole complex to the Studio theatre on the far side, and this year, the complex is more complex than usual, due to renovations. Finding my usual way blocked, I hurried back upstairs and slipped through the lounges of Southam Hall, race-walking past the main theatre, and joining the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter waiting for the matinée performance of Concord Floral.

Younger daughter was methodically reading through the cast list. I should have done the same; it might have helped.

The title itself is a bit of a riddle. I gathered through the course of the play that it was the name of the abandoned greenhouse that is a clandestine meeting place for suburban teens. Although we're told that the teenaged characters live in a neighbourhood bounded on one side by the Queensway (27-year-old playwright Jordan Tannahill grew up in Orleans, the eastern Ottawa neighbourhood bisected by the Queensway highway), Concord is a neighbourhood in the southern end of the township of Vaughn, just north of York University in Greater Toronto. On the Google Maps Satellite view, there is a huge rectangle of discoloured and patchy grass just north of where Highway 7 and Highway 407 wind by, which, I suppose, is where the greenhouse used to be, and will soon be the site of - no surprises here - condominiums. The production we were seeing had been re-set in Ottawa.

What followed was part supernatural chiller, part urban myth, part extended metaphor, and apparently, loosely based on the Decameron. Directors' notes and reviews all stressed the vital importance of having real teenagers perform, and the cast consisted of ten 16-to-19-year-olds, all local high school students except for two, who are studying drama at the University of Ottawa.

The trouble with young performers is that few of them have the skills to project and enunciate. These young actors were all miked, and performing in the Studio Theatre, which is a relatively small space, yet the only performers I could hear consistently were the two now studying theatre at U. of O. I'm all for authenticity, and certainly, these budding actors were convincing, but the authenticity also involved the rapid speech and dropped voices of adolescence -- which meant I sometimes missed key remarks.

I did manage to follow the story -- sort of. It consists of small scenes and narrations - including the viewpoints of a fox, a bird, a couch, and the greenhouse. Fortunately for me, the "greenhouse" narrator was one of the clear speakers. One of the most confusing elements is a lengthy stare-down when the cast lines up at the edge of the performance area and eyeballs the audience for what seems like an eternity. At the performance we attended, an audience member eventually started clapping in the apparent belief the show had ended. Maybe this happens every time; maybe it's the signal to continue. I found it a bit precious and baffling.



At the very end, the "greenhouse" quotes Susan Sontag, saying that ten percent of the population will embrace cruelty, ten percent of the population will embrace mercy, and the other eighty percent could go either way, and that this was a cause for hope. Commendable, but oddly unconnected with what had just gone on. I left the theatre feeling mildly irritated, but not sorry that I'd come.

The trip home on the #7 was so uneventful that I forgot to look out to see if I could see where Corona Street was.

Four-century see-saw

This is London Bridge in 1616, in a famous engraving by Claes Janz Visscher.  If you look at the lower right hand corner, you'll see heads on spikes, a little public service announcement for people considering treason. (Click on the picture, if you must.)

And this is the same scene in 2016, drawn by artist Robin Richards.

If you go here, you can spend hours of fun, sliding back and forth between two years that are four centuries apart.

Not me, though. I'm going to bed.

Blinded by the wait (write of passage number forty)

I have found out the hard way that expressing fear, frustration, or anger to younger daughter is not helpful. Such feelings ricochet off her autism and create more damage, so, if I can, I sit on my emotions until she's not here.

And she wasn't here.

That's why I was crying uncontrollably.

It was the middle of a nutty week. Elder daughter, after nearly two years of making it on to shortlists, had finally been offered something close to a dream job. However, that afternoon, she was flipping out over contract negotiations, over-thinking, and reappearing from around the corner with yet another worry. Younger daughter had informed me that morning that she'd be needing chocolate-chip-cookie therapy after a stressful evening trying to adjust to her new radio alarm clock - a series of unfortunate events that had spiralled into an impassioned late-night text about being sick of school. (A mixed blessing about texts -- we now have a much better idea of what younger daughter is thinking - she evidently finds them easier than struggling for words on the spot.)

Meanwhile, I was finishing my last-minute assignments for an online genealogy course while baking the aforementioned cookies.

Just before logging on to the course-end chat (7:15 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 3:15 pm Eastern Daylight Time), I texted younger daughter to inform her that elder daughter wanted to have dinner out at a local pub to celebrate the new job, knowing that younger daughter should, by that time, be on the first of the two long bus rides that bring her home from her school in Nepean.

I submitted my assigned question to the chat, and after half an hour, the topic had shifted to something of interest to only three of the participants. I made myself a quick snack, checked my phone and noticed that younger daughter had not responded - unusual for her. I texted again; by this time she should be waiting downtown to transfer.

Watching the online chat sporadically, I began to worry, but just a little. Four o'clock came and went. I phoned and the call went to voice mail. Five minutes later, I tried again and younger daughter's head teacher picked up, apologizing for answering a phone that wasn't hers. Younger daughter had left her phone at school. I thanked her, telling her that we were far happier knowing the phone was safe. I didn't tell her younger daughter was late, because she wasn't late enough.

She was late enough as the online chat wound down without me; I hastily signed off.

Younger daughter always waits for the #1 bus because it drops her off at our front door.  She didn't get off the next bus that rattled past our house.  I went outside to note the number of the bus stop, texting it to check the GPS of the next bus while elder daughter assured me that her sister often arrived at 4:30 -- not true, and when she has, it's been on days she's had a lift.

At 4:33, the next bus passed without stopping.  I checked and re-checked the GPS for arrivals at our stop.  I don't think I'll ever forget those four digits.  The next bus was due at 4:55 pm.  She's never been that late.

Up to this point, I'd been calm and prosaic.

And then I wasn't.

I was blind-sided by a storm of tears, hearing myself wailing, "Where-is-she-where-is-she-why-did-she-forget-her-phone-there's-nothing-I-can-do-why-isn't-home-she-can't-reach-us-I-want-her-to-come-home...."

Over and over.  Elder daughter put her arm around my shoulder.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I wept heartbrokenly.  This was supposed to be a wonderful day, a time to celebrate elder daughter's emergence from months of applications, interviews and dashed hopes.

"Where is she?  Where is she?  What if she got on the 118?  She could be anywhere and I can't help her!  She can't tell us...."

Elder daughter asked for the number of OC Transpo.  I was too beside myself to help her look up the number.  Instead, I staggered to the door, thinking I could scan the street once more.  I halted.

"She's here!  She's here!"

She was wandering up our street, having evidently caught the #7.  I saw her gazing up the hill at something.

I couldn't let her see how upset I'd been; previous experiences have taught me this.  I asked elder daughter to check the damage to my make-up, knowing it would take younger daughter several minutes to retrieve her keys from her back-pack.  She doesn't like us to open the door for her.

"I'm glad to see you," I told her, my voice shaking only a little.  If she noticed, she gave no sign.  It turned out her first bus had been half an hour late.

"May I have a hug?" I asked, because she's on the spectrum and I can't just embrace her.

She let me hold her for a few seconds.

Her hair smelled of the coming spring.