Author Archives: Autumn

Musical Voyeurism

And here I thought my migraines and backaches would be history once I stopped working. Apparently I live a rich fantasy life.

I’m lying in my bedroom working on my laptop. Usually I have music on, but right now there’s a saxophonist wandering through some pieces nearby. This is the sax player who completely enthralled me by playing “My Favourite Things” for twenty minutes last summer, arresting my motion as I swung into the bedroom with the intent to quickly grab a book.

There’s something particularly special about overhearing someone playing an instrument. Making music is such an intimate practice that listening in is a bit voyeuristic, in a way. Music has a different life if you’re aware that you have an audience; it becomes performance rather than an act of love, and while performance can be done lovingly it inevitably acquires a different dimension. Some might argue that it’s a necessary dimension – the old tree falling in a forest paradox. While performance adds spice to music, much the way an audience adds an essential element to a piece of theatre, I think that an audience of one – namely, the musician – can serve a more immediate purpose. The act of making music entails pulling emotion out of one’s soul and interpreting it through an instrument. That act of interpretation fulfils a desire within the musician whether anyone else is there or not – possibly in a purer fashion if they are alone, since there is no need to groom that emotion to present it to someone else. It’s music for the love of it, proven so by the fact that no audience is required.

Writing can be like that too. I know plenty of people who write to satisfy something inside them who, once a body of work is accomplished, quietly tuck it away somewhere. They feel no need to share the product; it was the act of putting thought to paper that satisfied some urge. I know others, of course, who seek to communicate to/with others via written word, and who have published, or who at the very least pass the writing on to someone else. The point is, the act can be done for the sake of the act itself.

I envy my saxophonist neighbour. Not just his (her?) talent and his technique, but his/her comfort in practicing with open windows. I cringe at the thought of anyone hearing me practice, to such an extent that my husband created a miniature practice room for me in our huge front hall closet in our last apartment. It was just big enough for me to sit in and have full bow arm extension in both directions, soundproofed with styrofoam and carpeting and yet I still was convinced that people could hear me. This terror of being overheard originates partially from my innate shyness, and partially from my first two years as a cellist in an apartment over a crusty elderly woman who complained if my cats ran up and down the hall.You can imagine her reaction when I practiced scales, or when a friend came over with her violin to play duets. Loud banging on my floor shattered whatever shreds of self-confidence I was struggling to establish, at a time when I was trying to figure out who I was, how to express myself as an individual, how to deal with being an adult learner with all the inhibitions that implies, and how to survive with my parents newly removed from the province. Reactions formed so early on have persisted throughout my eight years of cello-playing, which is one of the reasons why I love listening to this saxophone. Someone somewhere not only is comfortable enough to play without caring who hears, or who might complain, even if the same music is played for twenty minutes. The knowledge that someone that close to me (geographically, if not personally) is inspiring.

So, too, is my astonishing ability to play as much Bach as I have discovered I am capable of playing. A year ago, I was crushed at how poorly I played pieces I performed with capable technique when I was still studying with a teacher. Ten months of struggling in orchestra has restored much of the technique I’d thought lost. Which, of course, is one of the reasons I joined. That… and the ability to practice with less self-consciousness, as does that saxophone player nearby who will likely never know how happy s/he makes me, or what a wonderful example s/he sets me.

On Theatre

I picked up a terrific book yesterday called Standing Naked in the Wings, a collection of anecdotes and personal narratives of Canadian performers, mainly stage performers but also some TV and film actors. I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve laughed out loud a few times, giggled until tears came to my eyes, and felt my throat swell shut in empathy once or twice, too. My favourite line so far:

The sword fights at Stratford are a basic part of mounting plays written in an era when homocide was a domestic art.

I adore the theatre. I love working in it (good thing, seeing as how I’ve been doing it for over seventeen years now), I love participating in an audience setting, I love reading about it. One of my best Christmas presents last year was a gift from my parents called Romancing the Bard: Stratford at Fifty, and there’s a book out called Stratford Gold which I’m dying to get (don’t worry, I abide by my own no-buying-gift-like-things-for-yourself-within-thirty-days-of-your-birthdate! rule). If I can’t be rehearsing or performing, then dash it all, I’ll read about other people rehearsing and performing!

Something that has really surfaced while I’ve been reading this anecdotal collection is the realisation that my past couple of turns with Lakeshore Light Opera haven’t satisfied me at all. I think perhaps it’s the extended rehearsal time (rehearsing for six months instead of two, you really lose the sense of focus and tension I feel is necessary to maintaining a good theatre product, I find, even though there’s music and choreography and stage direction to cobble together). It’s more than time to move on. However, I’ll do one last show, simply because I cannot pass up the potential opportunity to work with my adopted big/younger/twin brother Rob in a musical comedy one last time. (Besides, then I’ll have had a stab at pretty much the entire accepted Savoyard canon before I start repeating shows I’ve already done.) We’ll see what the gods grant us.

My parents, thank goodness, have supported me in this foolish and addictive pastime since I began, having been members on the tech crew of a community theatre group in the Maritimes before I was born. In fact, they go so far as to tell me that if I could only make money from it, they’d consider it a complete and total success. Anyone feel like ponying up to support me in my indulgent pursuit of a life on stage?

On Shakespeare And Words

The latest issue of The Economist reviews a book called Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary & Language Companion by David and Ben Crystal, and the review begins thusly: “Although welcome as a magnificent tool, this doorstop compendium prompts an alarming question: has Shakespeare become a foreign language to us?”

I’m wildly vacillating between two extremes. On one hand, sure, modern English-speaking people don’t know enough about their own language to understand a lot of Shakespeare, which is lamentable. On the other, you don’t need to understand every word to understand the meaning. That’s why Shakespeare’s tucked into that little slot that’s marked “Genius”.

On the other other hand (let’s move down to feet, shall we?) I anticipate this new book with glee, word-lover that I am. One of the reasons I relish Shakespeare is because he uses so many different words. His vocabulary is delightfully varied, and if he didn’t have a word for something, he made it up. A goodly portion of our modern lexicon is derived from Shakespeare’s oeuvre.

Without further ado, check the review out. I hate the fact that people feel the need for a glossary to understand what someone is saying, when if they just listened and watched they’d get the gist of it, but even a glossary is preferable to rewriting a perfectly good piece of theatre. That, in my mind, is punishable by death. My back goes up every time someone suggests rewriting a line in a Savoy opera “because modern audiences don’t know the phrase”. Tough. The piece of theatre is a piece of history. Constantly updating it means you will lose the heart of it. Look at what happened to the Bible. Sure, King James brought the Bible to more people who hadn’t had previous access to it, but he rewrote and twisted meanings left, right and centre. (Incidentally, yes, that’s the same King James for whom Macbeth was written. He really had a thing about witches, didn’t he?) Rather than pandering (look! A Shakespearean word!) to the lowest common denominator, why not educate them instead by leaving the challenging reference as is and the LCD rising as a result?

Please note that by updating I don’t mean changing the setting, or performing the work in different costume. I think Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet was brilliant, transmitting the truth of the piece to modern audiences while preserving the language – excellent proof that one doesn’t need to rewrite something to tell a story originally written in Elizabeth I’s reign. Luhrmann’s work made the point (and “o, excellent well” at that) that proved something which more high school English teachers should know by now: Shakespeare is meant to be watched, at the very least heard aloud, and not read. Updating, for me, means changing words, phrases, into what a modern interpeter thinks would be equivalent. It resembles translation in that a translator cannot translate word for word; s/he must search out equivalent idiom and translate meaning. I find it ludicrous that people think Shakespeare (let alone William Schwenk Gilbert) requires translation. Older texts such as works in Middle English? Well, we’re now getting to the point where our language has shifted so much over the last millennium that yes, an extensive glossary or a side-by-side translation is required for the lay reader when approaching works dating from 1240 CE like King Horn. Chaucer (d. 1400 CE) is iffy; but again, if read aloud, his works such as the mainstay Canterbury Tales make much more sense. Shakespeare is a mere four hundred years old. Language has not shifted so far in four centuries that a translation is required.

Is Shakespeare truly becoming more obscure, though?

It is sometimes assumed that it is only a question of time before Shakespeare becomes inaccessible. But does time come into it? As early as 1679, John Dryden was complaining that �the tongue is so much refined since Shakespeare’s time that many of his words are scarce intelligible, and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions that it is as affected as it is obscure.� Shakespeare’s 17th- and 18th-century adaptors blithely clarified him. In 1664, when William Davenant adapted �Macbeth�, the hero was made to say that his bloody hands would �add a tincture to/The sea.� Not until 1744 when Garrick, in part, restored the original, was Shakespeare’s �multitudinous seas incarnadine� heard again on stage. In fact, time may have helped. Modernism has made us more patient with obscurity. We rate suggestion more than clarity. When, for example, the horrified Claudio in �Measure for Measure� imagines himself dead and lying �in cold obstruction�, we relish the strange blockish mouthful before turning to the notes. -from The Economist review Fardels By Any Other Name

Indeed. Our society has this queer dual drive to honour the past (“it must be good, because it is old”, also known as nostalgia), and to remake everything in a contemporaneous fashion, bringing things up to speed to be as cutting-edge as possible. We outgrow and outstrip our own accomplishments of a mere decade ago; it’s little wonder that much of modern society considers four-hundred-year-old theatre no longer accessible. It requires time, and patience, and the willingness to luxuriate in language, something that many people have forgotten how to do in this microwave- and Internet-dominated world.

What has also killed Shakespeare in the twentieth-century is bad, bad theatre. Dreadful interpretations. Actors still being trained to strike a pose and declaim, as opposed to speaking the emotion implicit in the script. Poorly done theatre in an age where TV and movies distribute a permanent product to billions of people in almost no time at all has had an adverse affect on how historical theatre is perceived. A fleeting, brilliant piece of live theatre has more power and depth to it, yet because it is fleeting less people are exposed to it, changed by it. Twentieth and twenty-first century media has made possible the sharing of exquisitely crafted art, but it has also made possible the sharing of so much crap. Unfortunately, there’s more of the latter, overwhelming the art by sheer numbers.

Is there hope? You bet. So long as the world doesn’t decide to go the way of Ray Bradbury’s dystopic utopia in Fahrenheit 451 and destroy literature because each author says something different, thereby dividing the people who cannot rest peacefully is they do not all share the same unchallenged opinion. Personally, I’m hoping for a renaissance in the arts sometime soon. Then again, I’m one of those who thinks holding a tangible, bound book in my hands is infinitely preferable to scrolling through an e-book. Someday, I’ll probably become outdated too, and need to be brought up to speed – contemporised, for the lack of a better term. Until then, however, I’ll honour original works in their original forms as best I can.

Canada Day Concert Review!

To everyone who made it out to the wilds of the West Island to hear me play last night – a heartfelt thank you! The concert was smashingly well received. Two notes: Next time, I will wear my glasses, no matter how hot it is; and I will never share a stand with that particular partner again. The night was a challenge: I’ve never played in such extreme conditions (no, not even that freezer of a church in January where my hands were so cold), so the exhaustion produced by playing for two straight hours with no break was compounded by the exhaustion brought on by the heat and humidity. I’d take the chill of a January church over that humidity any day. In addition to the human response to heat, the instrument response was a nightmare as well; wood moves all on its own in humidity, of course, so everyone’s instruments were swinging in and out of tune wildly. Apart from a couple of rocky patches, though, we seem to have come through just fine, judging from the enthusiastic audience reaction (especially between the first and second, then the second and third movements of the Beethoven! Was the heat so horrible that you wanted the concert to end so soon?) and our conductor’s gentle smile at the end of it all, his hands pressed to his chest as he bowed ever so slightly to us. In light of my last post about singing in either official language, I also found it highly amusing that our soloist chose to begin her rendition of O Canada in French; threw everyone off, I hear. I also had the pleasure of showing off my early birthday present of a lovely backpack cello case. I adore it; it’s everything I wanted and more. (The pockets alone are worth it!) No more hefting and swinging and bumping the instrument into my legs; now I have hands free, and it feels lighter to boot. Thank you, o parental units!

Said parental units are on their way back to Oakville today; I’m extremely glad they have air conditioning in their car, otherwise I’d have told them to stay here and to call in sick from Montreal! We had a lovely day wandering around Old Montreal yesterday; I highly recommend the newly restored Chateau Ramezay for anyone who is interested in local history. (“There was a Battle of Chateauguay?” my husband asked in amazement, looking at a large map of local military movements.) I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy museums.

It’s just too darned hot today. (Yes; go and cue the Cole Porter.) I slept poorly, and had to get up way too early for an osteopath appointment. The last one was a bit aggressive, and I was in a lot of pain (modified, but pain nonetheless) last week, so today she took a much gentler approach and I feel pretty good. Lethargic, but good.

Been playing around with my template again… I figure this will be the summer edition of Owls’ Court. You know, like green leaves, and we’ll return to the autumny browns and reds in the fall? (Maybe?) My comments also seem to be on the fritz, and for some reason I can’t access my YACCS control panel to fix them. Maintenance will be ongoing, I promise.

Books I’ve read recently and have had no time to blog (let alone list in my reading box!): Fall of Neskaya by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Deborah J Ross (not bad, but not MZB’s Darkover); The Green Man: Tales of the Mythic Forest, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; Good Night, Mr Holmes by Carole Nelson Douglas; Wicked by Gregory Maguire; and Deryni Tales, edited by Katharine Kurtz. I’ve been pretty voracious lately. It’s almost like I’m making up for lost time.

I wanted to sit down today and come up with some sort of rough weekly guideline for practice and writing and such, but my brain doesn’t seem to want to engage. Not that I’m trying to create a rigid schedule; on the contrary! This summer is about not having a schedule. I know, however, that if I just let myself drift, I’ll feel useless and get irritated with myself. I wanted to use this time to write and really work on my cello, and while a week of relaxation won’t kill me, a week can easily turn into two, then three, then it will be September.

Well, maybe not quite that quickly.

I’ll think about it tomorrow.

On Being Canadian

I’m certain that others of my generation have the same problem I do. You know, the one where you start singing our national anthem in one language and slip into another somewhere? And you don’t realise you’re doing it until you get stuck on one line?

Maybe it’s just here in Quebec. Or maybe it’s from sea to shining sea, since all of us used to watch Hockey Night in Canada and the anthems are always sung bilingually.

Isn’t that a lovely phrase? “From sea to shining sea” is my favourite way to describe our nation. We start at the East (because it’s where the sun rises, silly) and travel through red soil, farmland, fishing villages, farmland, mountains, farmland, prairie, mountains, fishing villages, and the sea once more as the sun sets in the West. Thousands and thousands of kilometers of a grab bag of geography. Going from South to North, we travel through, what is it, three climates? More? (I mean, do we seperate tundra from sub-tundra or whatever it is?) And Montreal encapsulates all of them, from sub-tropic to sub-arctic. Go us!

Looking at the stupidity going on in the rest of the world, I can confidently say that I’d choose to live in Canada every time. Our commitment to education, research and development, peace-keeping, religious and racial tolerance, farming and umpteen other disciplines makes us one of the leaders in the cultural and scientific world. I don’t know whether to be annoyed that the rest of the world hasn’t figured out how terrific we are (wake up!) or relieved (we’re still safe!).

Overall, we’re a terrific country. We’re lucky to live here. And we have kick-ass Olympic hockey teams. So hoist that Maple Leaf high; wear your red and white proudly; sing our anthem at the top of your voice when you’re at whatever celebration you’re at today. In whatever language. Heck, switch back and forth. The rest of us will be doing it too.

Pet Peeves

If Kate asked me again what my three biggest pet peeves were, I’d have to rewrite my answer. Among those three peeves would be being taken for granted.

I detest being taken for granted. It’s rude, it’s not taking someone else’s feelings into account, and it’s using someone else.

I was put into a position this weekend where someone asked me to do something at the last minute. It wasn’t a big thing, and I know perfectly well I was expected to say yes; I don’t think it even crossed the questioner’s mind that I’d refuse. I also know perfectly well that we always have a choice, etcetera etcetera; one can always say no. However, I was asked in front of other people, and to say no would have looked petty.

I hate being in a position like that. To me, that’s taking someone for granted.

Every once in a while I work on radio dramas, and I love it. One of my contacts has a habit of calling me and asking if I’m available a couple of days before a potential performance. Same thing: simple courtesy goes a long way. Asking me to rearrange my schedule so I can fit rehearsals and a performance into it without a couple of days’ notice is not only presumptuous, it’s downright discourteous. The kicker here is that I love to do radio dramas, especially with this contact, and it puts my whole week off if I have to turn him down due to other scheduled events that can’t be shifted or cancelled. He’s always disappointed too. There’s a simple solution: call me earlier. Let me know ahead of time. Assuming I’m free does both of us a disservice.

To me, being taken for granted means I’m not being considered as a real person. One of the things that frustrates me about society today is that no one seems aware that other individuals exist outside their own personal sphere. People who cut you off on the road, who stop suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, who blast their music in cars, who smoke in bus shelters – not a single one of them understands that their actions affect others around them. They’re unable to understand that everyone is an individual, that we all work together. One of my husband’s frequent comments while driving is, “Wow, it must be nice to be so important” when another driver drifts into our lane, or cuts across three lanes of traffic to get to an exit, or pulls out of a parking space without looking to see if anyone’s coming down the lane. That saying encapsulates exactly how I feel about being taken for granted.

The Grand Poobah posted an entry a couple of weeks ago about something very similar to what I’m frustrated about. I put a lot of effort into being certain that I’m not inconveniencing anyone, to be polite, to think of others, which is probably why I snap every once in a while when I feel I haven’t been offered the same consideration. Sure, I’m only human, which means that I mess up every once in a while, trip over myself, crash and burn in a particular situation; I’m not perfect. So often, though, I get fed up. Why do I bother? So few others do.

I know why I do, though. It’s the same reason that Hobbes does. Because we’re decent people. Because we have that queer ability to place ourselves in someone else’s shoes and see how our actions will be interpreted. It’s a disability at times, but overall, however, I think it gives us a really good look at the human condition. I treat others – strangers and friends – the way I would like to be treated. So when people don’t extend me the same courtesy, well, after enough of being walked over, I snap. Unfortunately, sometimes I snap in the presence of someone who has no clue why, because the irritation and unfairness of it all tends to pile up until that proverbial straw on the camel’s spine enters the picture.

Yes, I do often wish I weren’t so damned principled. It would make life a lot easier if I were one of those people who didn’t care.

I don’t post song lyrics because journals should be about your own words, but this sums things up nicely:

Wouldn’t it be great if no one ever got offended
Wouldn’t it be great to say what’s really on your mind
I’ve always said all the rules are made for bending
And if I let my hair down would that be such a crime?

I wanna be consequence free
I wanna be where nothing needs to matter
I wanna be consequence free
Just say – na na na, na na na na na na

I could really use to lose my Catholic conscience
‘Cause I’m getting sick of feeling guilty all the time
I won’t abuse it, yeah I’ve got the best intentions
For a little bit of anarchy, but not the hurting kind

I couldn’t sleep at all last night ’cause I had so much on my mind –
I’d like to leave it all behind, but you know it’s not that easy
Oh for just one night

Wouldn’t it be great if the band just never ended
We could stay out late, and we would never hear last call
We wouldn’t need to worry ’bout approval or permission
We could slip off the edge, never worry about the fall

-Great Big Sea, Consequence Free

From now on, I say no when I feel like it.

The Morning After The Farewell To Retail Party

Traditionally, I dislike parties. I especially dislike parties at my place because I can’t get away from them. I’m unsocial that way. Only once did I actually leave; I walked out of my own birthday party a few years ago. I called off holding parties for that very reason: you’re stuck there. You can always leave other people’s parties.

Last year I decided to give it a try again, and we had a successful housewarming. Might have been a fluke, I thought. We had a couple of small gatherings throughout the year, getting me up to speed again. Nothing huge. It’s not like I’ve suddenly decided that I’m throwing myself a big birthday party or anything. Let’s not go to extremes.

MLG suggested I have people over to mark my last day of work before my sabbatical. I anticipated a quiet evening with much conversation. Sure, why not, I said.

Well, this morning, I walked into my kitchen and looked at the number of empty bottles on the counter and the table. I have no idea how few people could drink so much. I’m afraid to do the math. The glorious thing is, though, that it wasn’t an alcohol-fest (I just don’t do those); it was simply a terrific evening. I think everyone needed to relax. And for once, I was happy to be the excuse everyone used to kick back.

Note to self: drink O’Casey’s with cream again sometime. Mmm.

So people had fun. Yes, we had that good conversation thing; there was also much laughter, good music (in my CD changer at the beginning of the evening: Buffy – the Musical, Ella Fitzgerald, the LOTR soundtrack, Great Big Seas’s Turn, and Classic Yo-Yo Ma… I am nothing if not eclectic), good food (I made baked Camembert with sage and then forgot I’d made it, although everyone else tells me it was terrific), and of course, good company. I know good people. And it’s good when we all get together.

My first day of my non-retail life was lovely. I went for a walk at 9 AM, grinning like an idiot. I practiced. I read. I napped a bit. I tidied up all those bottles and cans (still unable to comprehend how much alcohol was consumed). I nibbled bread and cheese. All in all, a wonderfully relaxed day. My parents should be en route to Montreal from Oakville; I’m really looking forward to seeing them soon too.

Life is pretty darn okay.