Category Archives: Art, Theatre, & Film

In Colour And Detail Hitherto Unknown!

We’re watching WALL*E for the billionth time in a month.

Except this time, we’re seeing all sorts of things in the background that we missed before, because we’re watching it on our new flat screen TV, which is sitting on the new TV corner unit (brilliantly scored in the Ikea as-is section). We’re stunned at how much we’d been missing. We loved our twenty-five year old RCA oak-encased TV, but with the new HDTV mandatory changeover happening in the next couple of years it was going to be useless for anything other than movies and games. The parental units gave HRH gift certificates for this very reason as Christmas gifts, and today we went in and found the very last unit in stock of the TV we’d decided on. HRH has classified this as the easiest set-up ever of anything electronic that he’s dealt with. It was literally unpack, switch the plugs and cables, and go.

We did try to convince the boy that watching Star Wars for the very first time on the new TV would be extra awesome, but he insisted on WALL*E. If we weren’t going out tonight we’d be watching it ourselves as soon as the boy was in bed.

Thanks Mom and Dad H., and Mum and Dad M.!

Forty-Two Months Old!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved Lego. I was going to search for something between the sizes of the Mega Bloks he’d been using when he was younger and the standard Lego size, but apparently he’s been working with standard Lego at school, so HRH brought up the huge bag of Lego that t! bequeathed to the boy and opened it up for him. (For those who were in the S:1999 game, there were parts of Moonbase Alpha still extant but not for long. I rescued the communicator before the boy wrecked it, although he did put wheels on it before I got to it.) We have made countless cars and trains and spaceships and houses since then. If anyone’s looking for gift ideas, a pile of Lego wheels would be good because there are never enough. In the realm of toys and games HRH has also introduced him to Mario Party 8 on the Wii. And as HRH and I plan to buy ourselves Rock Band for Christmas (terribly romantic, I know, but I’d rather do this than get one another things less likely to be used) I have no doubt the boy will soon be introduced to the drums there as well.

WALL*E has succeeded in completely and utterly eradicating any other film from the boy’s memory, and it’s all he watches now. He listens to the soundtrack while playing in his room and falling asleep, and now he wanders around singing the beginning of “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” as if he was our very own Michael Crawford. It’s adorable to hear him burble, “Listen, Barnaby!” and “we won’t come home until we’ve kissed a girl!” Book-wise, we’ve just finished The Wind in the Willows, and are about to start on Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series. We all love the snuggling in the big bed and reading a chapter every night.

The biggest news this past month was the bunk bed tree fort (which is what he calls it, although the fort does double duty as a pirate ship at times, as seen in the picture). HRH and I love the twin size bed because we can actually stretch out on it and cuddle him. The boy loves it because he can roll around on it, and he loves playing on the upper level (it’s where all the tins of Lego are stored). We’ve moved all his toys into his room now, and the living room is once again a free zone. He brings toys out, but we’re enforcing the put-the-others-away-before-you-play-with-a-new-one rule.

One of the other exciting things that’s happened this month is of course the piles of snow we’ve already received. Even when there was only a scattering and the grass was still visible, he made the most of it. “I’ve never seen any child make so much out of so little,” his educator told HRH. “He was rolling in it that first day.” We’ve been adding a few seasonal decorations as the days go by. He made cut-out Christmas trees and painted a cone I’d made to look like a tree, and helped make paper chains, too. We introduced him to the Advent calendar, but he forgets most of the time (and so do we, really). Evidently we’re not doing a very good job differentiating between the season and the day itself, because Liam goes back and forth between flinging a hand out at all the snow and lights and saying, “But it *is* Christmas!” and saying very seriously in reply to something we say, “But it’s not Christmas *yet*.” Poor kid. It must be hard for him to figure out the difference because there are all sorts of Christmas-related activities going on like parties and concerts. The upstairs neighbours even hung the usual Yule stockings on the banister and he ‘s just angsting over what’s inside them. He’s at the age now where he knows he’s not supposed to open them, but that he’s still young enough that if he ‘forgot’ that he’s not supposed to open them he might get away with it. (In his mind, that is, not in our eyes.) I’d wrapped Mousme‘s hat in a gift bag and set it in to corner of the room until I next see her and he found it, bringing it into the kitchen while I was making dinner. “Oh, Mama, what’s this?” he said. “It’s Mousme’s hat,” I said. “Oh, can I see what’s inside?” he said. And before I could say No, or Yes but be very careful because it’s not yours, he had slipped the tissue paper out of the bag and deftly unwrapped it. Even though he’d seen me knitting it and had seen the finished product he held it up and said, “Oh, Mama, it’s beautiful! Great job!” Then he wrapped it back up again and slipped it back into the bag, and even replaced the bag exactly where it had been. So he got the fun of unwrapping a present after all, and he practised his gracious comments on a received item, and complimented me all at the same time. We’ll see how much of that he remembers in the upcoming week.

He’s figured out that knitting is something that I do and enjoy, and he wants to help. So he’ll come up to me and pick up the ball of yarn and say, “I’ll be your helper and hold this for you.” Which would be fine if he actually did hold it, but he doesn’t. He lifts it and pretends it’s a balloon, or drops it and then the cat chases it, or some other sort of mishap occurs. When it warmed up enough for me to wear my red coat and newly knitted scarf he looked at me while struggling to get his arms into his coat sleeves. “Why are you wearing that yarn around your neck?” he said. I thought it was interesting that he knows a knitted item is made of yarn, and that once it’s knitted up he stills identifies it as yarn, not whatever object it’s been knitted into.

In the milestone category, he left his first voice mail message on Ceri’s birthday. Despite coaching as to what to expect, when the beep sounded and the time came to leave his message he kind of hung there, a tiny smile on his face, waiting for someone to say something. I finally got him to say “Happy birthday!!!” (kind of slurred together and rushed and somewhat shouted), then I disconnected the call for him. I left a message afterwards explaining what had just happened. Ceri seemed amused by the effort he’d made, so all was well. He left his first blog comment this month, too. And of course he attended his first evening concert.

At his semiannual checkup the doctor reported that he weighs 35 lbs and stands 100 centimetres tall. That’s right; he’s hit a metre. We’re going through shoes like there’s no tomorrow; he’s gone up three shoe sizes in the past twelve months. He’s maintaining a steady weight and stretching upwards. I knew this before the doctor measured him because his 3T pants no longer need to be folded up like they did a couple of months ago. It’s unreal. He’s been going on eating binges too, where he essentially grazes all day and has two or three helpings of dinner. I was most impressed by this doctor’s appointment. For the first time Liam answered all of her questions himself (very clearly, too) and stood still on the scale and against the height chart.

He’s turning into more and more of a character every day. It’s great fun. I feel bad sometimes that I can’t keep up with him (well, he was home for almost six days straight with a bad cold last week, and I was sick too, but still) and my temper gets short when he doesn’t listen or ignores what we’re telling him (ditto), but he is three and a half and testing whatever boundary he can. For every frustration there are half a dozen things to love about him and praise. We’re lucky to have him.

Other Liam posts this past month:

– Liam attends his first non-Canada Day evening concert, and attends a cello lesson
– “You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don’t go down with me”
– Liam helps us vote in the provincial election
– the arrival of the bunk beds and the rearranging of the bedroom
– a future as the drummer in a punk band
– overheard from the back seat of the car

Review: A Wood Engraver’s Alphabet by G. Brender à Brandis

Author: Gerard Brender à Brandis
Title: A Wood Engraver’s Alphabet
Publisher: The Porcupine’s Quill
Media type: Trade paperback, 64 pages
Release date: August 2008
Reading period: November 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-889843110
Category: Art; Alphabet books

The first thing that strikes you about A Wood Engraver’s Alphabet is that it is a beautifully made book. The texture of the cover and the paper delight both hands and eyes. The paper is a warm ecru colour and of very heavy weight, an excellent ground on which to display the prints. The play between dark and light in the prints themselves is fascinating. Brender à Brandis creates an incredible amount of visual texture and suggestion of different materials (wood, petal, stalk, leaf, ground cover, stamens) in his engravings. The end papers are a green between olive and moss, and the signatures are sewn, not glued.

This book is Gerard Brender à Brandis’ love letter to the botanicals in his world. The form is a simple alphabet book, but instead of illustrating the letter itself the artist has chosen to create a wood engraving of a plant whose name begins with that letter. On the lower edge of the blank left page, facing the print on the opposite page, the name of the plant is displayed, both the common name and the botanical name. The engravings themselves on the right page vary in size and shape, and in placement on the page. Some are slender tall rectangles; others are squares. In each the delicate, lyrical interplay between negative and positive space, between black and white, creates depth and light. Some almost fill the right page, while others seem to float in a vast ecru frame.

I have only one minor quibble with the book, and it rests in the choice of plant for certain illustrations. At times the plant is chosen for its Latin name, other times for its common name, yet other times for the colour. For example, ‘Nodding Trillium’ illustrates the letter N instead of T, as one would expect. And yet the quibble is so very minor, because the subjects Brender à Brandis has chosen to engrave offer so much visual interest that in the end what they are or what they’re called doesn’t matter. If he was called or inspired to illustrate a certain plant instead of something else, then there was a reason for it, and the result is so beautiful that the quibble is forgotten in the subsequent examination of the artwork.

What I appreciated most was the brief introduction written by Brender à Brandis, which talked about the physical process of production and his creative artistic process. He talks about being led to use certain woods for certain engravings, how he chose what plants to engrave, and the delight humanity takes in flowers,

It’s a slender little paperbound volume priced at $16.95. The production quality is very high. It’s an exquisite little art book that would make a lovely gift for someone interested in engraving or for a lover of botanicals. It does require a relaxed and open mind when one sits down to read it, however, and plenty of time to pore over the engravings. I will absolutely go on to look up Brender à Brandis’ other books, particularly A Gathering of Flowers from Shakespeare.

Many thanks to Mini Book Expo and The Porcupine’s Quill, through whom I acquired the review copy of this book.

Publisher web site: http://www.sentex.net/~pql
Author web site: n/a

Monday!

According to the professor I delivered a kick-ass guest lecture on Neopaganism this morning (not her exact words, but my interpretation of them). As usual I completely misjudged the time. Out of the fifteen pages I got through ten in my allotted hour, and fielded some excellent questions from the students. (Good grief, there were something like seventy there. I am used to between seven and twelve.) And then a great brief discussion with some of them afterwards in the hall, and then a two-hour long talk with the professor over tea. A fabulous morning! And not only did she give me the usual university honorarium fee for speaking, she bought me — are you ready for this? — sea-salt caramels as a personal thanks. I kid you not. She’s a saint. I love her.

It felt really good to sit and talk with someone who is an academic and who comes at the whole spirituality/mysticism thing from a similar angle. It helps that she’s a recent mom and married to someone active in comics/SF fandom, too, I think. Similarities facilitate grokking (for the lack of a better term). I’m so glad we’ve finally met in real life instead of being online friends only.

I’ve just handed in my edits of the hearthcraft book. Let’s see if I can do a brief recap of the weekend before I have to throw myself into work again.

Friday: HRH takes a half-day off work to get the winter tires put on the car. He takes me out to lunch and we sit and converse like actual grownups. We both get haircuts. I take my latest US freelance cheque to the bank and make fifty dollars on it. That’s the kind of exchange rate I like! After the now traditional weekly homemade pizza for dinner I head out for the dress rehearsal for the concert. Sat on awful stacking chairs with metal frames and bent wooden seats. We do not sound awful. Pretty encouraging, actually. There is a double bassist! ( “He lives in Kirkland,” says our guest conductor. “Imagine!”)

Saturday: HRH puts the lights and garland up along the front balcony. We head out to Canadian Tire for a new scraper/brush (we break one every single year), replacement bulbs for the strings of lights, seat covers for the car, and a string of lights for the boy’s bunk bed. We have lunch out at the hot dog place. Everyone in the store and restaurant is curiously laid back, which makes HRH and I suspicious. The boy naps, and HRH heads out to Mousme‘s place to talk about painting it. I do work on the lecture notes. It feels like I spend most of my afternoon just kind of waiting for the concert; I hate that. We change and head out. The boy is very excited about going to the concert like a grown-up person. He and HRH drop me off for warm-up and head over to Tim Horton’s for a little snack. The concert goes brilliantly. The boy claps loudly and yells, “YAY!” after big exciting finishes. A little squirmy, a little out of it during the first part of the second half (translation: flopped over Dada’s shoulder and drowsing) but thoroughly awake when we play the Brahms Hungarian Dances. (I suspect we woke a few other people up, too.) People I expected to see are in the audience, as well as people I didn’t expect to see, which was a lovely surprise indeed. Many compliments on the contrasting dynamics (ha!) and general loveliness of the evening. In my rush to get the boy home I forget to drop off my music post-concert and also to grab my lovely red water bottle from under my chair. (I remembered it when we were on the highway. Fortunately someone picked it up for me.)

Sunday: More work on the lecture notes. We manage to get the boy to nap early to facilitate the going-to-a-cello-lesson thing later. I bake brownies. Wake boy up just before 2:30, bundle him and cello into the car. HRH drops us off at my teacher’s house. The other little boy does not join us to observe the younger kids’ lesson, alas and to the boy’s disappointment, so it’s myself, the boy, and a parent. The girls have lots of fun, and the boy observes them very quietly for the first half and gets a bit squirmy during the last half. He is particularly fascinated by a game where instead of playing a note when it occurs in the music (an F, for example, or an open string) they stand up then sit down in strict time and then play the following note. He starts standing up and sitting down too. Also very interested in them using a ball in the left hand to move around the fingerboard while bowing. He informs people importantly that he was at the concert last night. He does not embarrass me in any way (not that I expected him to) although he came close when he initially darted into the room between the instruments and both I and my teacher lunged after him, telling him to never, ever run around the cellos. (He knows this; we have the same rule at home. But it was a new place and had all sorts of exciting things to look at. He’s three, as we all keep forgetting.)

HRH returns to pick the boy up and take him to the b-o-o-k-s-t-o-r-e to play with the train layout. I tell him to come back for me between 5:15 and 5:30, closer to 5:30; he misunderstands me completely. We have our group lesson, which is great. We run a bit late and I dart out at 5:45… to find no one there. Apparently HRH showed up between 5:00 and 5:15 and gave up on me not five minutes before I emerged, thinking I must have said 6:15. The car arrives at 6:05. No harm done; it’s not like the weather is driving sleet or bitter wind.

HRH has picked up WALL*E on DVD while the boy and I are at the group lesson; we all go home and watch it while eating dinner. The boy is absolutely riveted, and despite the lateness of dinner and so forth we decide to allow him to watch the whole thing before going to bed. (After reading the last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner curled up with Mama and Dada in their bed, of course. See the earlier post.)

That, in a nutshell, was the weekend. There was a lot of music, which was lovely. I discovered yet again in the group lesson that I have a nicer tone than I think I do. It has been decided that I will play the first Bach minuet as a solo since someone else is now playing the third, which suits me just fine because that was the one I was going to choose anyhow. We got yet more new music. And I admit that I had to look up the music for “Twinkle” when I offered to play the theme while others played a great blues progression boogie-type thing under it. Yes, I am that lame; I need music for “Twinkle.” Also, it does wonders for the ego when I offer to switch from the group playing the theme to the blues progression to help support it and the teacher says, “If you do that I’ll be switching to the theme,” because it suggests I’m anchoring the part I’m playing with the others. Go me and my “Twinkle” skills! I really enjoy the group lessons. And I could feel a difference between my showing in this one as compared to the last one. I’m a lot happier with my sound, thanks to the tonalization work and the bow management I’ve been working on.

I was pleased with my showing at orchestra too. I nailed some of the harder scale passages and completely blew others (usually the ones I was confident about going into the concert, ironically enough). Turns out that we have a break at orchestra until early January. Our next guest conductor is very pregnant and is due next week or so, and there’s only one available date in December for our usual rehearsal space. So rather than trying to figure it all out we’re taking a six-week leave.

Okay, I think that’s everything. I have some serious writing to do this week as well as that freelance assignment, so off I go.

Forty-One Months Old!

Arthur came over to stay with us the week after Thanksgiving his parents attended an awards dinner, and Liam dashed around the house with him showing him things. My favourite was, “These are my baby fish! They love me!” And I happened to be in the kitchen at the time so I peeked in… and saw Liam standing on his crafts table with the aquarium cover flipped up and his hands in the water, saying, “I will pet them!” That was scotched in a hurry.

Liam, 31 October 2008Have I ever mentioned that he sleeps with BunBun over his head? He does. Still. It’s odd. And he loves homemade alphabet soup. I’ve probably mentioned that before as well. In an effort to slow the mass consumerism that the paper inserts from the Thomas train packages are inducing, we have explained to him over and over that we can’t just go out and buy toys if he decides he wants them. There is a finite amount of money, and the toy budget is not huge. If he decides he wants something, he must save up his money and buy it himself. Now he pores over these papers and says, “I am going to save my money and buy [insert train here]. Then I will save up my money and buy [insert next train here].”

Words being used this month that are newish include transporter (as in a vehicle that moves things, not a Star Trek particle disassembler/reassembler), ricochet, and delightful. He got a little MegaBloks car in his Halloween gift bag from preschool and HRH said, “Hey, cool, it’s an ambulance!” “No, Dada,” the boy said patiently, “it’s an emergency vehicle.” Shows what we know. The other day he suggested something and added, “because that would be delightful.” One day after being with the caregiver he said, “I want a sister.” “A baby sister? Like Tallis or Ainsley?” I said. “No, a big sister!” he said. “Like Grace!” (Er. That might be difficult.)

Liam, 31 October 2008The Incredibles has again become his current favourite movie (thank goodness, as we were getting very sick of Thomas and the Great Discovery) because HRH made himself an Incredibles shirt to wear for Halloween. So Liam demanded that we bring out the too-small Incredibles shirt I made him for last year’s Dash costume, which we will allow him to wear as a sleepshirt only, and now he and HRH wear their shirts together and pretend they are superheroes. Which is just fine.

Starting about a week and a half ago we began curling up in our big bed to read a chapter of the Winnie the Pooh books every night. We finished the first book in a week (okay, I snuck an extra chapter in some nights because I like the snuggling). He loves to pore over the map of the Hundred Acre Wood and trace paths between everyone’s houses. I’m not sure what we’ll do when the second book is finished. I think we’ll try A Bear Called Paddington, and maybe once that’s done we can try The Wind In The Willows again. I’m so thrilled that he’s finally old enough to sit still for chapter books. He’s getting better and better at making up stories. He needs to work on climax and denouement, though. At the moment what happens is the story clips along and then suddenly stops. We know this because he will say, “Blah blah blah, the end. Was that a good story?”

The other day he turned to me and said, “Mama, I think I need my cello.” This was the first time he’d asked of his own accord and not been watching something that he wanted to play along with, or had agreed to a suggestion made by me. As a result he wasn’t super bouncy, which was a good thing. I got the viola out for him and he carried the case into the living room, set himself up, held the bow in approximately the right place and said “I’m going to sing.” “You’re giving us a concert?” I said. “Yes! A concert!” he said, and started singing the Rainbow Connection. He finished and lifted the bow (the way I do, I assume) and looked up at us, and we clapped. Then I was directed to go get my cello so we could do it together and give a concert for HRH. And we did it again the next day. It was terrific. I’d love to have a regular music time every week.

Liam and HRH share oatmeal, 2 November 2008The other evening we were at a gas station that had a Tim Horton’s in it. HRH was putting gas in the car when Liam said, “Mama, roll down my window; I have to say something to Dada.” So I reached back and rolled the window down. HRH leaned over and looked in. “Hi, pal,” he said. “What can I do for you?” Liam leaned toward him very seriously and said clearly, as if he were ordering at a drive-through window, “I would like a medium iced cappuccino, please. And one for Mama, too.” I began laughing hysterically. HRH shot me a Look. “I didn’t put him up to this, I swear,” I gasped. It could have been worse. He could have ordered a double-double.

Other Liam posts this past month:

– practising for Hallowe’en: “I say ‘trick or treat!” and they give me… good luck.”
– Sparky upholds voters’ rights
– the parent-teacher interview: “My son has minions!”
– memo to the weather gods: please do not indulge the small child

Today So Far…

… is running precisely in schedule. (Now that I’ve said that, of course, life as we know it will collapse.)

I spent the morning outlining and expanding my workshop for tomorrow’s All-Day-Double-CovenPalooza, and finished polishing it pretty much on the stroke of noon, which is when I wanted it done. There is bread rising. When that’s done and in the oven, there will be pizza dough made. (Note to self: You forgot to pick up peppers and mushrooms yesterday, scatterbrain. Not that they were on the shopping list.) (Not that being on the list would have made any difference. Or maybe it might have, because I actually did get everything on the grocery list, just not the to-do list.) I had breakfast, and lunch, too. I even managed a shower. The postman brought HRH’s copy of Fable II, and my copy of The Red Violin, so I have a new movie to watch tonight while we pack for CovenPalooza.

My last evaluation/review of the book that brought me so much pain was accepted, no edits required. You have no idea how thankful I am.

In the realm of music, I have just discovered Thea Gilmore and am thoroughly enjoying listening to Avalanche. Also still enjoying Alice Cooper’s latest, Along Came a Spider, and I recently pulled Christine Fellow’s The Last One Standing into rotation again.

I’m going to walk away from the desktop and the siren call of the Internet now and curl up with the iBook to reacquaint myself with Orchestrated. It’s very frustrating to do this in fits and starts, but one does what one can.

On Voting

I don’t talk about politics very much here because it’s my journal, and politics annoy me because they’re not what they ought to be.

But after watching highlights of the French leadership debate, overhearing bits of the English debate (notably the crack of “Where’s your platform, under the sweater?” which I heard clearly all the way in the bedroom), and reading about the various statements that leaders have made while on tour, I have this to say:

I represent Stephen Harper’s worst nightmare. I am an educated woman with a post-graduate degree. I am an artist, one of those people who drive a significant portion of the economy. I happen to practice an alternative religion, think that the environment needs a hell of a lot more attention than it’s getting, and think that the long-term effects of policy are more important than short-term effects. I read policy (when platforms have actually been released) and make my own decisions, factoring in track records regarding how planned policy is carried out.

And I’m now registered to vote in my riding. Nice try, switching my husband’s riding but conveniently not switching mine. But I’m not taking it personally, even though it’s happened every single federal election since I’ve been married/earned that post-grad degree/stood up to be counted as someone practicing an alternative religion. I’m sure it was just an oversight.

You can be damn sure I’m not going to vote for someone who has repeatedly insulted my intelligence, that of the majority of my friends, and that of the entire country. And this isn’t limited to the current party in power.