Owls' Court

White Rabbits

Ever since I was little, my mother and I have been practicing the same little charm at the beginning of the month. See, my mother told me that if you said “white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” out loud as soon as you woke up on the first day of the month, before you talk to anyone else, you’d receive a present sometime during that month.

When you’re little, this is a very exciting thing. It’s almost like magic. You say secret words, and something wonderful happens within the next thirty or so days.

Needless to say, I tried very hard, and I’d remember eight times out of ten. Now that I’m grown up (or so they say), I still do it. I feel a bit foolish, whispering it in bed next to my oblivious husband in the wee small hours, but I still do it.

So, as a public service announcement, I wish to remind you all that it is the first of August tomorrow, and if you too wish to say “white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits”, be my guest. We can all use more presents.

Corset Accomplished!

Corset accomplished. And it's nice and comfy, thank you very much. Not as much back support as I'd hoped, but better posture (particularly typing at a keyboard) which will, no doubt, help the stress along the spine. The only problem I discovered after the whole thing was together and hemmed and sealed up: the busks weren't exactly even from each end and I must have flipped one around at some point while inserting them, so the right side of the corset is a quarter inch higher than the other. I doubt anyone will ever notice, as this is technically an undergarment, and if they're beholding the undergarment then I sincerely hope they're not in the right frame of mind to be critiquing my sewing skills. The whole thing could have done with being an inch or so smaller around the rib cage to allow for the proper amount of "spring", or lacing tightness, but hey, it's my first shot, and I'm pretty impressed with myself.

Which means, alas, I realise from my phrasing, that I expect to make another one at some point in time. Maybe a nice one, in a satin brocade or jacquard, instead of natural-coloured cotton sateen. Hmm. Blue, perhaps.

No. No, no, no. Not for a long time. Well, a while, anyway. Must start thinking Hallowe'en instead. I had a revelation the other day: I work hard on a costume in October, usually putting finishing touches on it all the way up to the evening of whatever party I'm scheduled to be at. Then I get there, and I'm still so production-focused that I don't enjoy the party and want to leave right away. This year, I intend to create slowly and with time on my hands, so that I can hang the costume up and look forward to wearing it for a month or so, allowing myself to actually get excited about it instead of being tense.

Brilliant, no? I feel so smug for figuring a way around one of my little quirks.

No, I never found that missing piece of boning; I used plastic boning instead that I'd had left over from a Renaissance outfit I'd made. Not only has the corset been finished, while I was looking for the plastic boning I discovered a project I'd started a year and a half ago, and finished that as well. Two! Two projects finished by ten in the morning! And I haven't even had tea or breakfast yet!

I discovered another eight pages of the Great Canadian Novel yesterday after I gave up on the sewing machine. I'm not going to question it; I'm just going to keep sitting down with the laptop and allowing myself to have fun. And now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go make a fragrant pot of loose Lady Grey tea, and enjoy my corset for a while.

More Corset Frustration

For some odd reason, I decided to finish the corset instead.

I have now broken two needles and lost one piece of boning. How the hell I can lose a twelve inch long piece of white metal, I truly do not know. But I can't finish the ruddy thing without it.

Apart from that, it's going relatively well, and it will be nice and functional. I need a metal saw to cut down two of the pieces of boning, because of the same problem I originally ran into with the busks, and I'll have to do something about the missing one first too. Trust me, I've torn this place apart already - I had all of them when I started putting the boning in, I know I did, because I had each and everyone of them laid out on top of the fabric. It must be in Kitty Wonderland, along with a few odd earrings, a heavy pewter necklace, a nice pair of boots, and several pens. You know Kitty Wonderland if you've ever lived with a cat: Cat sees object she desires, cat takes object, cat deposits it in pocket dimension available only to those of the feline persuasion, human never sees said object again. Ever. (Although what Maggie-cat could possibly want with a piece of metal, I don't - oh wait, yes, I do know. I need it. Therefore, she must have it. Cat-logic. Sigh.)

I'm going for a walk, and when I come back the missing piece of boning will magically be lying right in front of the sewing machine. And if it's not, I will go work on the Great Canadian Novel. See if I don't.

Corset Frustration and More

I am listless. Lethargic. Languid. Langorous. Languishing. Limp, even.

I have absolutely no energy whatsoever. The most action I have participated in over the last twenty-four hours was waking up much too quickly at 2.30 this morning to bounce out of bed and partially close windows. Some storm! Then, of course, I went back to bed with a headache because of the plummeting air pressure and the waking-up-too-quickly-ness.

I broke three glasses yesterday because someone who shall remain nameless insists on piling all the used dishes into the sink. He claims he can’t stand them being on the counter. My point of view is that the counter is smaller than the sink, so the dishes would get washed faster if they’re on the counter. In addition, piling them into the sink means that as they don’t get washed as often, they take up more room, and I can’t use the faucet to get water in the kettle. Finally, he has a bad habit of just piling, not thinking it through, which means that heavy plates and pots get put on top of glasses and delicate mugs, resulting in breakage of said mugs and glasses when attempts to shift the pots and plates out of the way are made in preparation for washing.

So I was irritated about the glasses. We now have two glasses from that set left. That’s it.

On top of that, I woke up in a crafty mood and pulled out a sewing kit I’d had in my possession for over ten years. Yes, indeed; with all my back problems I’ve been toying with the idea of finally constructing the corset I fell in love with lo these many years ago. Unlike others, I actually have enjoyed my previous experiences wearing a corset; I’ve done it a couple of times now for two runs of stage work, and they’re darned comfortable, let me tell you. So I ordered a reconstructed pattern and supplies from an American dry goods company and then left it, not having time or the sewing skill at that point to accomplish what the pattern asked. After ten years, I’ve acquired a sewing machine and made my share of insanely complicated Renaissance outfits, including a couple of boned bodices, so when I looked at the corset pattern yesterday, hurrah! It made sense! In fact, it was easy! I could put it together in a single day!

Yeah, well, the best-laid plans, etcetera, etcetera.

Having such long legs and a short waist, I have to adjust every pattern I use to shorten the torso, otherwise the waist ends up around my hips. I shortened the corset pattern and then on a hunch, I decided to check to see if the boning and the front busk closing would still fit.

My hunch was correct. The busk was now an inch and a half too long.

Busks are made of metal, like the boning. You can’t just trim it. So I folded the project up and seethed for a bit about the unfairness of the one-size-fits-all mentality. I wasted time on the Internet. I finished Howards End. I decided to watch the movie while the book was fresh in my mind.

The VCR didn’t work.

By now I understood that the day was in fact out to get me. Fine, said I; I’ll read, then. Upon which I remembered that I had just finished my current fiction and had to find another novel to read. I hate choosing what book to read next. Being between books is dreadful.

Then, of course, I broke the glasses before I even started washing dishes.

The day did get better. I watched Howards End over dinner with my husband once he’d reset the VCR. He had never seen it before and was surprised to discover an energetic examination of what constitutes richness, intellectual riches or material possession. I was delighted to re-discover how true the movie is to the book. I also decided to re-fit the pattern and allow for nice big seam allowances on the top and bottom, which I rarely do (why trim the seams when you can sew tiny ones to begin with?), resulting in the front busk just barely fitting. However, alas, there was no way to rescue the glasses.

Today looks like it will be another horribly listless day. At least I can finish the corset. I started another book, Still She Haunts Me, about Charles Dodgson (whose nom-de-plume was Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell (immortalised in Alice in Wonderland), but it’s rather banal, so I think I’ll switch to The Winter King which Tas has lent to me.

Know what else is frustrating? I can’t string my own bow. I manage to flex it to about an inch short of where I’d need it to be to slip the looped bowstring over the tip, and then I’m stuck.

Maybe I’ll go see what’s happening in the Great Canadian Novel, which acquired four and a half more pages on Saturday after all that procrastination, thank you very much.

Birth of a New Novel

I think I'll procrastinate a while longer.

Funny how I manage to work myself up into excitement over writing when I'm doing something else; I use it as a carrot. "Just think - when you're done this, you can go write!" I can fool myself pretty well, right up until the point where I finish whatever work I'm doing, stand up to go to the laptop, and... well, maybe I'll get another cup of tea. Hmm, I'll check my e-mail. You know, I've been typing for three hours; I should reward myself by sitting down with a book.

Ceri and I met yesterday for our weekly check-up-on-each-other's-creativity luncheon, and we commiserated over the tactics our minds create to escape actually committing anything to paper. During university, my favourite way to avoid working on a paper was to wash my hair. Now, it's blogging. So I understood completely when Ceri looked at me and said, "I have no pages for you today. But I wrote that post on democracy."

So she did. It's a terrific post, too. I felt a bit embarrassed when I handed her my thirteen pages, though; guilty, almost. I buried myself in a magazine while she read them, half reading it, half dreading her reaction. I was pleased and (again) slightly embarrassed to note three out-loud laughs and at least one out-loud comment in the middle of it. She squared the pages at the end of it and said, "So, when do I get the next installment? This is terrific!" and away we went, discussing characters, scenes, and so forth. She asked if I knew where it was going; no, of course not, I said. I do have a vague idea; developments occur to me as I write, and I file them away to bring up later when it's time, but I don't have a point by point outline of everything that will happen. I know that I'm finding things out as my main character finds them out. Unlike her, however, I know roughly what's going on in her environment and her society, so I'm one up on her already.

It's odd. This is the first contemporary work I've ever done. I have piles and piles of fantasy tucked away - short stories, a novel, novellas, most set in a world I created which has been developing for about sixteen years now. My only ventures into anything remotely different have been two or three urban fantasies I've written, one which I even finished but exists only in longhand. I also never expected to write a comedy, which is what genre this ongoing work most definitely falls into. In all respects, this is a huge departure for me. I'm enjoying it immensely.

Not enough, obviously, to stop blogging and get over to the laptop and pick up where I left off, though.

I will. I will do it.

Although I so desperately want to curl up with Howards End...

My Name is Autumn, and I'm A Tea Snob

I have a confession to make.

I am a tea snob.

I love opening a tin of good, loose tea. I love lifting it up and breathing in the symphony of odours of every ingredient. I love scooping it up in a tea ball, hooking the tea ball onto my teapot, pouring the boiling water into the pot (but not over the ball - mustn't "scare the tea"). I even love watching the stream of golden brown liquid splash into my cup, steam rising. And then, of course, there's that first heavenly sip, where those airborne flavours marry on your tongue and produce something hinted at previously and yet oh-so-different.

I am also, alas, lazy.

So, teabags are my friends in the mornings, and usually during the day, too, when I'm working on the computer. I'm a Twinings fan, and Earl Grey used to be my standby until they introduced a new flavour a couple of years ago: Lady Grey, a similar tea but flavoured with orange and lemon as well as bergamot. I was so excited about it I gave it to countless people, who were probably just humouring me. I've been using Lady Grey teabags ever since, which I have to pick up downtown since my local grocery emporium doesn't stock it.

Until last weekend, when my mother and I walked into a specialty grocery store to pick up various dinner items. I saw rows upon rows of Twinings tins - a whole world of loose teas! - and nestled in the midst of them all was a blue one that I had never seen anywhere else.

Twinings makes loose Lady Grey tea.

I picked it up; I cradled it to my chest; I crooned to it. It came back to Montreal with me. This morning, I said to myself that I would make a proper cup of tea for the first time in months, and opened the tin.

The first thing that struck me was the look of it. Tea is, well, brown, little crinkly brown dry things. Lady Grey has blue flowers in it, and whiteish chopped up peel.

It was beautiful. Now, I know I went to bed late last night, and got up too early this morning, but it was, well, pretty. The blue was a nice Wedgewood or Spode-type of blue, and the flowers sort of look like lavender flowers. The tea was a warmer brown than I remember from my tins of Earl Grey, too.

Then the smell reached me.

I never realise how old my tins of tea are until I buy a new one. Old tea has a bit of a musty, flat smell to it when you open the tin, but it still smells like tea. A new tin smells alive.

And the flavour is... complex. A pot of tea made with loose tea is like freshly ground coffee beans to instant coffee. Sure, it's coffee, but to what degree?

Excellent tea such as this should be enjoyed in the very best cup you have. My mother gave me a single bone china cup and saucer a few years ago with pansies on them which I am petrified of breaking, so as much as I'd like to use it, I usually leave it on the shelf and admire it instead. When I'm finished this mug, though, methinks I shall fetch it down, wash it out, and go sit at my laptop to work on the Great Canadian Novel.

PotPourri

If I were a mage, there are two things I'd invent immediately.

One: Self-cleaning dishes. Coming home after a week's vacation to a sink of dirty dishes is bad. I don't not enjoy washing dishes, I dislike having to wash them.

Two: Self-cleaning clothes. Doing laundry is expensive and time-consuming. Worse, though, is the Eternal Laundry Basket Curse all my clothes seem to be laden with: Where's my brown shirt? Where are my jeans? Wait, I know - the laundry basket, because when I finally washed them, I didn't have the energy to put them away in drawers where they're supposed to go. At least they're folded.

I found a copy of Bridget Jones's Diary in a second-hand bookshop yesterday, started reading it on the way home, and finished it yesterday mid-afternoon. Brilliant. Now I have to see the movie, because in the book Bridget suggests doing a TV journalism piece on the off-screen romance between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the stars of the BBC Pride & Predjudice, and of course, Colin Firth is in the movie version of BJD, playing another Mr. Darcy. Look! Inter-media reference! I love it!

And for those who have not heard the news, we have the new car; the albatross is no longer in our possession!

The Not-So-Triumphant Return to Creative Writing

I'm not quite sure what I expected, but my triumphant return to creative writing wasn't supposed to creep up on me like this.

Out of the blue yesterday afternoon, the words "What makes a great Canadian novel?" floated through my mind, and all of a sudden I was scrambling for my laptop. Four hours later, I had eight pages of something new on my screen. I don't know what it is yet - a long short story, a novella, the seeds of something larger; I was too amazed to think that far ahead.

I used to write constantly. I'd hear a bit of dialogue, or get a flash of a visual, and away I'd go. I would have to explain the context to myself, come up with where it had come from, where it was going. I loved to write. I wrote on buses, in the back of history classes, in the backyard, in the middle of the night when I woke up.

I lost it, though, about eight years ago. I might connect it to several things: an increase in theatre, the end of my BA and the beginning of my MA, more hours at work, taking up the cello. The end result, though, was less and less words on paper that had nothign to do with Browning, Dickens, or Byatt. My creativity was being funneled into a variety of different places instead. I tried to force myself back into it about five years ago, but it was difficult, and I'm not sure when I stopped.

All I know is, I miss it. I miss having that bubbling idea surfacing and demanding a context. I miss the excitement of discovering characters, finding out what happens next in their lives.

Ceri and I made a deal: a certain amount of pages and hours spent writing per week, to be reported at a weekly coffee date. Perhaps years of MA-ing have convinced me that I'm not a creative writer any longer, for I look at half-finished stories left languishing for half a decade and I can see that they're good, but I can't finish them. Instead, I produce non-fiction, which is solid, but doesn't nourish the soul in the same fashion.

Now, however, I remember. I remember the glee with which I reach for paper and pen. Part of me watches in astonishment as the words roll onto the screen. It's the permission I give myself to drop what I'm doing and leap for the notebook, assuring the little creative spark left in my brain that it can come up with ideas, it's more than welcome to, and look how important I think it is, I'm ceasing all activity and paying attention to it, the dear thing, because what it has to say to me is important.

I can't stop thinking about my characters. Everything I see, everything I think, becomes a part of their world too. How would they act in this situation? What would they say? How would it resonate with their particular pasts, and their psyches?

I'm excited again, which is thrilling in and of itself. I'm excited about the feeling, the product, the rediscovered ability, the passion.

I think I'll buy a new pen today.

Reconstruction and Preservation: The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

My father took me to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton this afternoon. He volunteers there now that he’s not flying, and he makes a terrific tour guide: he paced everything well and gave me a wonderful range of information on each craft. There are over forty planes in the collection, housed in a wonderful new delta-shaped hangar, and every single one of them flies (except for the two wired up, and the fiberglass reconstructed craft that was destroyed in the fire that burned down the original hangar).

There are several bright yellow trainers (my favourites!) spanning several years: Finches, Moths, Harvards; there are bombers, recon craft and others. Every once in a while Dad would connect the craft to something I would recognise from his own history: “This is the one I flew in Portage-La-Prairie; this is the one I would fly up from Summerside to see your mother in Montreal.” I had no idea he had trained on so many warplanes.

The trip was fascinating, but unfortunately what I’ll remember the most is the Lancaster. The Lancaster is one of the Heritage Museum’s pride and joys; fully restored, it flies for display several times each year, and for a modest fee of $1000 (gulp!) will take passengers for a half-hour ride. It’s a beautiful aircraft. It was on the tarmac today along with four or five trainers doing passenger tours, as well as an F-5, a DC-3 and a couple of others odds and ends. We paused by the open hangar door to watch it taxi in, guided by the ground crew, and everything seemed just fine right up until a surreal moment where everyone watched without comprehending what was truly happening. Rather than completing the slow and graceful arc into the open area to taxi to a stop, the Lancaster came too close to the parked DC-3, and inexorably, like a bad dream, the right-most prop hacked into the left wing of the DC-3.

We stood in the hangar door and stared. Planes don’t do that. The surreal moment hung there as two gigantic aircraft attempted to occupy the same place. Then the props cut out on the Lancaster and it stopped dead, ground crews were running out, and the noise that I hadn’t truly heard over the sound of the engines ceased. There was debris on the runway, and a sense of numb horror in the air.

My father had spent the last hour or so detailing the expense and effort that goes into restoring these aircraft, and I had taken it all to heart. I admire any sort of dedicated restoration, and to keep an outdated piece of machinery in flying trim is a particularly impressive work. Many of the craft in the museum hangar have been salvaged from barns or fields, rusted and broken; some have been pieced together from three, five, six other craft. Apart from three paid mechanics and a cleaning staff, everyone involved in the Museum work is a volunteer, which means the pilots, the interpreters, and the restoration crews do it out of love for the aircraft and the history.

The horror I felt watching the Lancaster’s prop destroy the wing of the DC-3 was partially based on the knowledge of the expense incurred and the historic memorabilia damaged, partially on the despair of the men and women who had invested so many hours of maintenance and pride into the two craft, and partially on my empathy for the pilots, fighting a huge craft weighing several tons as it just didn’t make the turn, taking the responsibility for the result on their shoulders. The latter was heightened later on when while my father and I were having lunch, the co-pilot of the Lancaster came in with an accident report to fill in, and that disconnected air that someone dealing with shock displays. He was an old piloting friend of my father’s who sat with us as he filled in his report (although he said that it was impossible to reconstruct what had gone wrong), and we watched as the Lancaster was finally pushed back away from the DC-3 and examined. The damage to the Lancaster appears to be minimal; the DC-3, on the other hand, might lose the wing panel, which is removable thanks to a couple of hundred bolts. Depending on the extent of the damage, it will be either restored, or replaced if a panel can be found elsewhere.

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum is one of those places I truly admire, making an attempt to preserve history for future generations. The memorabilia they house (crafts and gear, medals, uniforms, communications) is evidence of another time that wasn’t so long ago. In the past century, our rate of development has shot through the roof; more progress has been made in the last hundred years than in two to three centuries previous. We go so fast that we lose track of how we got here. When I tour places like this, I am simultaneously amazed at how much I know, and always dejected at how much I still have to learn. Which is why I admire people like my father, donating time to teach people about where they came from, sharing their knowledge.

The entire staff of the Museum deserve a tip of the hat for their work, past, present and future. I’ll be back again; and I know that after many long, expensive hours of reconstruction, maintenance, and finishing, I’ll see the DC-3 and the Lancaster fly again. Because that’s what they do; they bring the past back to life. And every one of them should be honoured for it.

Someone left a holier-than-thou comment

Someone left a holier-than-thou comment on the last post and it got me thinking.

With all the crap going on in the world, if we stopped to think about every morally outrageous act – the war crimes, the abuse, the murder, the rape – and to get worked up about every single one of them, it would be as useless as ignoring it all.

How do you prioritize between evil? How do you say, “This man shooting this man is more evil than this woman abusing this boy?” There is no way to put a value on heinous acts. Each act is freshly evil.

Yet in our society, the evil acts conglomerate into a numbing mass. We hear of murder done daily, of fresh horrors in overseas wars. Have we not become desensitized?

And if so, if a single act – a particular, not-necessarily-earthshattering act – gets past the numbness, and speaks to you; if it pricks a heart jaded by everyday acts of evil… how can this be valued at less than if a heart is pricked by a bomb dropped on a city?

By reacting to one, we react to them all. We choose to stand up and say, “This violence committed is wrong”; we are horrified, outraged, saddened, turned to despair, angered, spurred to action on some level.

Who among us has the right to judge if the death of a woman, man, child or animal is more or less important than another? Who are we to say that deforestation, poisoning of crops, or salting of earth deserves less righteous fury than a capsized ferry, a leaking oil tanker?

God cares for all equally. Man, on the other hand, has spent years hacking out a hierarchy where the Earth and Her creatures rank far below us. To me, an animal is as a child. If I am horrified at an animal abused, I am extending that horror to the abuse of all creatures on this Earth. Which includes little girls raped and murdered, elderly men stabbed to death in their apartments, little boys sexually abused by their baseball coaches, and women shot and killed while jogging.

It’s just a pity that compassion doesn’t seem to flow the other way very often.

I am sickened. This man

I

am

sickened.

This man will, Gods willing, suffer the worst backlash of karma I could wish the universe to boomerang at someone.

Oh, Sekhmet? Mighty lion-headed warrior goddess, born of the fire of Ra's eyes to be a creature of vengeance; you who protect the good and annihilate the wicked... just step this way, please...

On Ballet and the Magic of Dance

Wandering through one of my favourite second-hand bookstores here in Oakville, I found a copy of Karen Kain’s Movement Never Lies: An Autobiography for only twenty dollars. Needless to say, although I walked away from it virtuously, I stopped by again later in the afternoon to take it home with me. Karen Kain was a goddess to me when I was a child. I'd borrowed this autobiography from a friend of my mother's when it was released a few years ago, but when I saw it on the shelf, I knew I had to own my own copy.

I danced for seven years as a child. I wasn't obsessed with the ballerina stereotype, the way some girls are; it might have had something to do with how much I disliked the colour pink. No, what I loved was the physical expression of dance. I could use my body, my awkward clay, my shy hands, to tell a story. I forgot that I was shy when I danced. I could be graceful, and un-self-conscious, and light.

It didn't hurt that I was naturally very flexible. Exercises that others had to fight to achieve were second-nature for me. Music, too, was a part of me without effort; others had to struggle to internalise music in order to fuel the dancing, but music has always been a language I have been able to hear and understand without difficulty. I was not, as you might guess, a favourite of my dancemates, just as I wasn't popular among children in regular classes - too quick, too smart, too easy.

My mother took me to see a ballet at Place Des Arts as often as she could, usually once a season. I have had the excellent fortune to have seen the Kirov ballet do Cinderella; I saw the National Ballet of Canada do their celebrated Giselle and Romeo and Juliet, among several other ballets. We saw a lot of theatre, too. My mother has always been very determined that I would be exposed to the same kinds of culture that she had been exposed to as a child. Her father would always take the children to see the new Rogers and Hammerstein musical as it came through town, and one of my mother’s fondest memories was going into the city to see Romeo and Juliet with her older sister. She passed that appreciation of art on to me, and I expanded into opera as well, which I adore.

I began dancing at six. After a year, the National Ballet School recruiters were coming through town, and my teacher requested that I be allowed to audition. At the time I didn’t understand what an acceptance into the National Ballet training program would entail. Yes, I would be able to train to be a dancer; no, I truly had no concept of the discipline, the homesickness, the pain, the chances of failure, the depression. My mother, knowing perfectly well the horrors that children go through at ballet school, refused to allow the audition. I was disappointed, of course, but at seven, these losses come and go, and are easily forgotten.

I danced until I was just about thirteen. At thirteen, we were considered old enough and formed to a level where we could begin pointe work. This is what every woman who has ever imagined herself in place of a ballet dancer moving gracefully across the stage dreams of: the elegant long line of leg and arm, the ethereal illusion of floating, of weightlessness created by balancing on her toes. A woman en pointe possesses an ultimate secret femininity. Part of me yearned for that; part of me yearned for the slow, controlled moves that pointe work requires. Another part of me eagerly anticipated harder work: exercises, developing a new centre of gravity, working different muscles. Going en pointe was a rite of passage from child to adult.

I would have kept on dancing but for the fact that my teacher sat me down and explained that although the next step was to move on to dancing en pointe, there would not be enough students to fill the class. I and my sole remaining classmate would have to be put back a year, repeat what we had just learned, and then go en pointe two years from now with a full group.

I was crushed, and affronted, and insulted. Repeat a year when I had been so successful? Be held back to dance with people a year younger? Did she not understand what going en pointe meant to me? Had I not paid my dues, put in seven years of work to reach this moment?

Being a few weeks shy of thirteen, however, and still shy, I felt my eyes sting with tears and said little. And I just didn’t go back in the fall.

I regret it immensely now, and I have for about a decade. At thirty-one, you can see that a year – a single year of evening classes once or twice a week – forty-odd hours of extra work is nothing. At thirteen, though, it’s a lifetime.

I tried to go back when I was twenty-three. I called a dance school and they invited me to an evening class to try it out before I registered. I was terrified, but I went. The teacher was wonderful, and had I tried a class early in the session I might have registered with them and still be dancing today. The class I audited, however, was near the end of the term, and the dozen women in the group all knew the sequences the teacher was calling out. I tripped; I stumbled. I couldn’t recognise what the teacher was calling for next. I got in people’s ways. At the end of the class I avoided the women as they cooled down, skulked into the changing room to pick up my bag, pulled my coat on over my dance clothes without changing, and slipped out, my eyes burning again with tears.

And again, I never went back.

So re-reading Movement Never Lies makes me think about a lot of things. I wonder what might have happened if that audition had gone through. I look at Karen Kain’s life and although at times it was glamorous, like any kind of theatre, the effortless and natural illusion presented to the audience covers a community clinging to sanity by the skin of its teeth, performing despite sprains, back spasms, bitter and violent fights with a co-star, touring conditions that would horrify rats, and the artificial society that never quite fits into the real world. I deeply admire any man or woman who has the physical strength and mental and emotional endurance to commit to a life of dance. Had I kept on dancing, my knee and back problems might never have existed – or I might have been crippled by them. The Might-Have-Been game shoes no horses (to mix metaphors); I do my best not to play it. Dance formed my body and my love of theatre, and for that, I’m thankful.

Seven years of dance when you’re in such a formative stage leaves its mark; it is a part of me now that I could not shed if I so desired. I am complimented on my movements, both on-stage and off. I am usually quite aware of my body and how it is reaching, stretching. It is now natural for me to stand just so, legs turned out, usually with one foot slightly in front, heel of one nestles into the arch of the other. Arm movements always lead with the hand, thumb underneath the palm. My pelvis is tucked underneath my torso – and if I catch myself not doing it, I correct myself without thinking. I rarely stand face on to anyone or anything; three-quarter front was drilled into me as being more aesthetically pleasing. If I’m sitting, I sit on an angle, or at the very least turn my head slightly. And when a man I dated for a time welcomed me into his circle of friends, the sign of acceptance was being given a mock Native American name.

He named me Walks With Grace.

A Most Palpable Hit!

I have had the most marvellous birthday weekend.

My birthdays tend to be hit or miss. This year, I’ve discovered a solution: plan things all through the weekend so everyone gets a chance to see me at least once, and I get to do all sorts of stuff I find enjoyable. Why haven’t I thought of this before?

Friday night was spent dining on gazpacho and home-made oatmeal whole wheat bread with good friends. Saturday we had a handful of people over to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which, to my delight, was such a success that as soon as we ended, someone asked, “Can we do another one?”. Saturday I also saw three films I’d never seen before: Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (and Olivia was indeed divine!); Moulin Rouge (which was absolutely spectacular, but then I love the theatre, and this was a synthesis of theatrical spectacle and cutting-edge film); and The Matrix (yes, I worked at a science-fiction bookstore when it came out, and became so turned off by every customer coming in and raving about it that I didn’t see it in theatres, and was never really in the mood to watch it when we got it on DVD). Sunday I shopped, and with some birthday money acquired an elegantly stunning linen and brocade dress in black and purple for practically nothing, and a pair of leather arm bracers to serve as arm guards with my husband’s birthday present, a 35 # bow. And then, Monday night we did the cider and baked Brie thing at Hurley’s, where people gave me a group present: the music stand that was the subject of much comment here over a month ago: a fold-out music stand that can hold (as I discovered when I got home) five sheets of music. I’ll never have to turn pages again! Coming home, I found one last present had been left for me: a hardbound double volume set of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, which I’d been seeking without much luck.

I haven’t had so much fun in ages! I should have a birthday every month!

Actually, I think I’m just relaxing enough to enjoy life again. It’s awfully nice not to be wound up, and to be able to sit back and appreciate friends, art, and literature again. I’m rediscovering how much I love art and culture, how hungrily I reach for intellectual exercise now that I have the room to do so. I’m rediscovering my analytical skills as well (I am shocked to see how much they have truly devalued, so I’m exercising them and bringing them back up to scratch!), mainly through rants on the state of culture here (you lucky readers, you), and, um, well, that book of alternative religion that MLG told me to write last summer over lunch one day. I deliberately didn’t sit down at the computer all weekend; I just wanted to live, instead of writing or thinking about living.

I’m also preparing to visit my parents for a week, taking the train up to Toronto tomorrow for a week of quiet and my mother’s home-cooked meals, so if I appear unreachable, that’s the reason why. Genteel teas; a visit to the ROM; lots of napping and reading and writing, with less distractions – bliss!

Degree: 1: A receipt for

Degree: 1: A receipt for tuition, suitable for framing. 2: Some piece of paper that has absolutely no relevance to what one does after obtaining such. 3: Something one may not get if one fails math and/or has to take entirely too much math to obtain it.

This is from Kat's list of alternate math definitions. Check them all out here. More math-related gems:

Absolut Value: The price of a bottle of vodka. The difference between this value and one's disposable income determines how trashed one can get after the math exam.

Tangent: One of those weird hybrid citrus fruits, most likely.

It was a nice start to the day. I guess you just had to be there.

Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots

Time to lighten up a bit. I can't be an angst-ridden intellectual 24/7, after all.

I promised myself I would stop wasting space on these, but I found this and I just had to share it in light of how amusing my life can be:

Which of the Disney Princesses are you?

Apparently, You are a true bookworm and dream of a life better than the simple, quiet one you lead now. Your good looks can attract the town jerks, but you manage to ignore them most of the time. Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots. So what are you waiting for? You don't need your father to be kidnapped to get out and see the world. Although you can be stubborn, you're also very compassionate and see beyond people's façades.

And I thought this would lighten things up? "Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots" is just a colloquial way of paraphrasing my last two days' worth of blogging on the devaluing of the intellectual in today's society. My life, I tell you, is a comedy.

Also amusing: in flipping through the other princess descriptions, I found this in Esmeralda's paragraph: Luckily you don't die at the end of the Disney movie, although in the book you're hanged.

More on Capitalism

Gods, I love random blog links - through the Pepys project I just discovered a site called Wealth Bondage that touches on what I was trying to work out yesterday about art and capitalism, the role of the artist and philosopher in today's increasingly inhospitable anti-intellectual society:

I think sometimes that we define altruism or philanthropy or charity too narrowly.We think that first you make money and then, if you are charitable, you give it away for a good cause. But, we all know that many people live lives of service, in which they voluntarily forego making much money: Saints, poets, teachers, artists, priests, activists, soldiers, firemen, stay at home Moms: All of these people are doing something other than profit-maximizing. Some have what used to be called a vocation or a calling, as opposed to a trade. They give of themselves, rather than accumulating what A. Bartlett Giamatti used to call "mucky pelf."

We live in the world of economics, but [...] we dwell in civil society. - from Nichomachean Ethics for Dummies

Whoa. Yeah, that. What he said.

I tripped across a blog

I tripped across a blog called Veiled 4 Allah this morning, and the young woman, Al-Muhajabah, who keeps it has a wonderful set of articles and essays on being a Muslim woman in American society. Many of them revolve around the visible, physical recognition of a Muslim woman, mainly the wearing of the hijab, the full body covering, and the niquab, the face veil. She is intelligent, highly articulate, and has impressed me to no end by writing plainly and thoughtfully about her faith, rather than using it as a club like so many others do. This is a woman who has thought through her beliefs, and has made a personal choice rather than being a sheep.

Second, we can look a little at psychology. Sometimes the observance of outward things, like dress, seems trivial. Surely it's more important to work on the inner things and on becoming a good person. Yet the outward things can often help us improve the inner things. There are several ways this is true. A woman may struggle with herself over the decision to wear hijab. It may be that she's nervous about it, or that perhaps she likes to take pride in her attractiveness. Finding the courage to overcome fear is a positive character development, and subduing pride is a positive character development. Thus, the process of coming to wear hijab can be beneficial to a woman's inner self. Also, when a woman wears hijab on a regular basis, she makes a decision each day to put it on before she goes out, and she sees it every time she looks at her reflection. She may often think, "Why do I bother with this?" And she may answer herself, "Because God commanded it, and I know that He watches what I do." Or it may be that her awareness that her dress makes her a walking symbol of her religion reminds her not to do things that would bring her or her religion into disrepute. All of these are ways that the act of undertaking an outward observance can promote inner development. A woman may come to have a greater consciousness of God because she chooses to wear hijab for His sake, and this can only improve her character. - from On Veiling

If only everyone who wore a symbol which identified them as belonging to one religion or another considered each of their actions as reflecting upon their faith! We are all ambassadors for our faiths, cultures, educational institutions, families. So often in this society we are determined to be seen as individuals, and yet we judge by appearance and association, pigeonhole people into groups, and make generalisations. Until we learn to treat others as we wish to be treated, how can we have a society that respects the rich and varied tapestry of life this planet has to offer?

Insh'Allah, Al-Muhajabah will go on being a quiet inspiration to those who come across her site, portraying her faith as a thing of beauty.

On the Uses and Abuses of Knowledge and Nostalgia

Don't think I'm anti-progress. That's not what I'm advocating at all. I'm arguing for an educational system that values the past equally with the present and the future. Nostalgia certainly isn't the way to go. It's a dead-end, idealised, two-dimensional reality. Everything old is not necessarily good. However, everything new isn't bad either. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater presents a problem eventually.

I was reading this article by Charles Leadbeater in the Financial Times on the (ab)uses of nostalgia by the media, advertising, the populace itself, and the state. I was agreeing with most of it and getting all excited until I realised at the end why it all seemed so familiar: I wrote a thesis like this. In fact, the very title Up the Down Escalator sounds so darned familiar I'd almost swear I read it as research, except it was just released.

Leadbeater's previous book, though, is called Living on Thin Air, which examines how to balance a society skewed:

Individually and collectively we are all trading on ideas, creativity and judgement to make a living. Put it another way, this is the thin air business and these are the thin air commodities. The difference is that we're now promoting a new type of brand: ourselves. "Knowledge," states Charles Leadbeater in Living on Thin Air "is our most precious resource: we should organise society to maximise its creation and use. Our aim should be to harness the power of markets and community to the more fundamental goal of creating and spreading knowledge." Big ideas, but for the truly knowledge-driven society, the prize, he says, is "radical and emancipatory."

[...] Ultimately, Living on Thin Air is concerned with the task of channelling the tensions and energy between the major forces in society towards a new era of harmonious collaboration: "a society devoted to financial capitalism will be unbalanced and soulless. A society devoted to social solidarity will stagnate, lacking the dynamism of radical new ideas and the discipline of the competitive market. A society devoted totally to knowledge creation would be intelligent but poor. When these three forces of the new economy work together, they can be hugely dynamic," he concludes. It makes a provocative manifesto. (Or so sayeth the Amazon.co.uk review.)

I'm now very curious to read what else he has to say, and how he says it.

Meltdown: Rant on Literacy, Education, and Art

My poor book club witnessed a wide range of my emotions last night, from despair through righteous fury in our discussion of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 last night. We talked for quite a while about a society that is losing its ability to read (one theory that arose was connected to scientific tests being done which are suggesting that the physical act of reading text is an increasing effort for the evolving human brain, as opposed to pictograms or other forms of communication, which was quite interesting). Naturally, that led to talking about the educational system repeatedly dropping its standards. Education is expensive; failing a student means you have to pay for a year of that student's education twice; and heaven forbid we discourage their efforts by negative reinforcement. No, no, we must empower them instead by passing them despite their lack of skills necessary to acquiring the next set of skills, which in turn undermines the next level, and so forth. Why is it a crime to do this with faulty screws on an assembly line of, say, airplane engines, but not with the human mind in an educational system?

Today I discovered an article in the Times Online (that's the UK times, not the NY Times) that addresses the same problem. The author of the piece had agreed to teach a journalism course, and began by asking the students which news programmes they watched. They couldn't answer. Nor could they name newspapers that they read regularly. These were journalism students, who should be studying the medium to which they aspire. Or, if not studying, then at least aware of, exposed to. One assumes that they must have heard about journalism somewhere!

Was it not reasonable to expect undergraduates who had signed up for a three-year media degree (encompassing subjects ranging from print journalism and website design to video production and broadcast news) to have more than a passing interest in the news agenda?

Apparently, yes.

“Many of the students I teach have basic language and writing problems which have not been addressed at school or by the university,” says a lecturer in broadcast journalism at another university.

Foreign students paying to attend media courses are being misled by universities, says the departmental head, who is obliged to take a significant percentage of them each year. “In my view, universities that take students who don’t speak English to a good standard are taking money under false pretences,” he says.

Foreign students? At least they have the excuse of a language barrier. How about the local students who can't write an essay, because they've never been taught how, in all their years of schooling?

An interesting point came up in the discussion last night. Once education became compulsory, it began communicating ideas and analytical methods to more people than ever before. Suddenly there were more educated people, bending class boundaries, flooding professional career positions. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, educational standards have been lowered alarmingly, perhaps in response to that flood of educated persons. Is society top-heavy with thinkers, who can so easily become agitators? The paranoid side of me which reads too much science fiction and dystopic novels wonders if the lowest common denominator has become the measuring stick for us all in order to keep better control over society. The point was made last night that time and again in various societies, the intelligensia has become the ruling class, and anyone of promise is usually plucked out of the masses to either be locked away, terminated, or to become part of the system of government. Which means, as soon as a government educates its citizens, they are in immediate danger. (And you may choose who I mean by “they” – the government, or the people it has educated. Or both.)

Bleak.

It returns to the question which crops up every once in a while: what purpose do artists serve? The philosophers, the writers, the painters - what function do they serve in society? Granted, yes, entertainment is one of their functions, but by no means their primary one. Artists are the conscience of a culture; they question, they compare, they cast issues in a different light, they challenge and they overturn... so long as they are free to do so.

Creative writers enjoyed great prestige in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union because of literature's unique role as a sounding board for deeper political and social issues. Vladimir Lenin believed that literature and art could be exploited for ideological and political as well as educational purposes. As a result, the party rapidly established control over print and electronic media, book publishing and distribution, bookstores and libraries, and it created or abolished newspapers and periodicals at will. - from the Library of Congress' Russian Archives: Attacks on Intelligensia: Censorship

With the intelligensia on your side, your regime will be quickly accepted. Having artists on staff (or the patrons who fund that art on your side) to uphold the current status quo is a clever move. It leaves the artist open to accusations of not producing "real" art, however - art produced freely and without allegiance. Defining that state is problematic, as artists throughout the ages are usually at the mercy of some sort of patron, or at least those clients for whom s/he produces work. Ideally, however, freed of the capitalist imperative (ha ha ha), an artist has the right – perhaps even the duty – to respond to the ideas of the day, to discuss, to question, and to push the envelope ever further. Building a better mousetrap may have gotten us to where we are today technologically, but it has been the philosophers who have made us, morally and ethically, the thinking and feeling human beings we are presently. (Interestingly enough, they used to be one and the same. Leonardo da Vinci, anyone?)

So where are today's artists? The one who are to serve as our moral compasses? Probably at the bottom of a slush pile in a publisher's office. Turned away from a film production company because their idea "just wouldn't sell". Check out this rant on the current state of art prostituting for the state entitled No Baudelaires in Babylon: Tom Bradley's Comments at the Paris Sorbonne International Conference on Electronic Literature. Wicked and grating and not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps my frustration stems from the apparent devaluing of the intellectual aspect of our culture in favour of speed and efficiency. There must be some way the two can co-exist instead of one triumphing at the expense of the other. Maybe I’m too idealistic (as I was accused of being by one of my thesis examiners), but I believe that the solution lies in an equal attention to mind, body and soul. Capitalism doesn’t have to exist in an intellectual and aesthetic vacuum. I freely admit that new methods of communication and entertainment can have value; I just don’t think they should be replacing the older methods. Such a replacement limits access to the valuable older works (be they film, text, or musical), thereby cutting off generations from their heritage. Everyone should have access to the works of the world, modern and ancient, whether they want it or not. The option should exist.

See what happens? Give me free time and I get restless and start rabble-rousing, exhorting people to think. Next thing you know, I’ll vanish – for my own good, of course, and to keep the rest of you nice and safe…

I Expected It To Be More Dickensian

Well. That was anti-climactic.

I just came back from the EI office. Having heard horror stories, I was expecting a dark, crowded, dour office with hard wooden chairs and evil civil servants looking down their noses at me because I was no longer one of society's beneficial contributors. Evidently, I read too much Dickens (or Lemony Snicket). Instead, I walked into a bright, open office, waited in a line of four people to get to the front desk, told the nice gentleman who served me in the language of my choice that I had applied on-line but was here to drop off my Record of Employment, where did I need to go? He smiled at me and said I didn't need to go anywhere or see anyone, because he could take it. Seeing by the print-outs in my hand that I had obtained a confirmation number from the on-line application (I'm so prepared), he told me that I'd be receiving further instructions in the mail. I blinked, and said, "That's all?" "Yes, he said, smiling again and holding out his hand for my ROE. "Can I just make a copy of this, then?" I said, still stunned. He even directed me to a (free) photocopier, then gestured me out of line again when I returned to take the ROE with another friendly smile.

And I walked out five minutes after I'd walked in. It would have been sooner if I'd thought ahead and had already made the copy of my ROE. My husband couldn't stop shaking his head with a grin; he claims that the ease of the whole exercise further underscores the fact that this was the right decision.

Cheers to Rob, who in

Cheers to Rob, who in this time of many persons being laid off, got a job yesterday. And it's even kind of associated with what he trained to do. Hurrah!

168 shopping days till Christmas.

168 shopping days till Christmas.

AUGH! I don't need to hear this!

Family

This is one of those mornings where I looked around at my life and started to panic again.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing, but it also means you have double the problems to deal with since it's sharing the not-so-good as well as the good. It's all very well to say "Chin up!" and "Think positive and things will unfold that way," but every once in a while when you've gradually convinced yourself that yeah, things aren't so bad, and we can handle life, and we're pretty on top of things, something creeps up and hamstrings you.

On top of that I woke up with a stiff neck again, and no osteo appointment for another two weeks. I didn't do anything, I swear!

To cheer myself up, I keep trying to remember that two very dear friends have asked us formally to become their new daughter's guardians should anything happen. I get a rush of warmth and dewy eyes every time I think about it. The trust implied in the request touched us deeply, and I believe that it's among the highest compliments anyone be paid. The term "guardian" suits us just fine as well - an older term might have been "godparents", but in our lifestyles the concept of a guardian is much more appropriate. She's not our daughter, but both of us would do pretty much anything to keep her happy and safe, whether her parents are around or not - and that was before we were asked to officially be named guardians. The idea that her parents have invited us to play that important a role in her life is awe-inspiring - almost as awe-inspiring a miracle that is a baby itself.

Of course the request led to my husband and I discussing our own plans for a family, which actually got pretty bleak. Since we got married we've been saying, "We'll see where we are in another two years," and there we are, circling right back to the problems we're having staying afloat, never mind on an even keel. My yardstick for starting a family is simple: Can we take care of ourselves properly? If no, then thanks for playing, please ask again in another few months. If yes, then go on to question #2, which is, Could we take care of a third party? It doesn't help that the knowledge that I'm not working this summer keeps worming its way into my Protestant-work-ethic-staurated moral makeup: something somewhere in my brain is screaming because I'm taking a sabbatical. I know it's necessary for both my back and my brain, since burnout was sapping what productivity I was managing to display, but in the end, deep inside, I keep saying, Yes, but you're not working. It seems a waste of time, but I think it's going to take me all summer to come to terms with the fact that not holding an official job is not going to make or break our financial life, so peanut-like was the pay in my retail position.

Listening to the final movement of Bach's sixth Brandenburg Concerto makes things seem brighter, somehow. And it's all the more soothing because it's on the radio, and came as a surprise. It's difficult to be negative when you're listening to Bach. It's even more difficult to be negative when you've just brewed a fresh pot of tea and you've taken two muscle relaxants, which means I should be delightfully drowsy in about fifteen minutes...

The Saxophonist Next Door

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.

Life Upon the Wicked Stage

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?

Damn Code

Callooh! Callay! My comments are back!

Turns out an interesting bit of code that didn't belong there crept in when I reinstalled them. Very interesting code, which looked pretty well-thought-out, and which had nothing to do with me. Cut and paste describes my advanced HTML abilities. Anywhats, problem solved.

We invaded the in-laws' place

We invaded the in-laws' place yesterday, did a few lazy laps in the pool until the body temperature dropped, then went inside into air conditioned coolness. Which quickly became frigidity, actually, since it's on very high. So high that when I crashed on the couch, I needed a blanket over me. My mother in law loves it that cold; I think my father in law is sneaking around and dropping it degree by degree so that the transition between indoors and outdoors won't be as harsh.

My darned commenting function is still down. Reinstalling didn't work. Time to e-mail the host...

A walk? Am I insane?

A walk? Am I insane? We're at 33 degrees - above our forecast high. With the humidity, it's approximately 43 degrees. Maybe I'll walk to the grocery store where it's nice and cool.

Comments appear to be down again, even though I reinstalled them. Send me an owl - er, e-mail and let me know if they're up or down for you. I'm beginning to think it's just me.

Ye gods. I woke up, got a drink of water, sat down with my laptop and editorialised for three hours.

I'm going for a walk.

Shakespeare's Words: The Importance of Language

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.

Apology Not Accepted

Oh, isn't that nice. The head of WorldCom has apologised.

Honestly, do they think that will make it all okay? A kiss for the scrape, a Band-Aid, and off they run to play with the other kids on the block again?

In other news: Ray Brown has died. It's not just me; twentieth century icons are dropping like flies.

And, the sixteen year old Jehovah's Witness known as "Mia" in Alberta has won her case to refuse transfusions for her leukemia. Her religion forbids it; until now, the state has forced them on her. This isn't about religion, although it seems like it on the surface. It's about setting a precedent for the freedom to choose and establishing fundamental human rights. The worst thing about this situation? Her father is fighting to reverse the ruling, so that Mia's choice to refuse treatment and die in peace will be taken away for her. He wants to force her to live.

Can you believe that? Granted, she's technically still a legal minor. Family court, however, has ruled that she's obviously mature enough to make her own decisions. The case is due to move on to the Supreme Court where they'll examine if a sixteen-year-old is in fact old enough to make choices about her own life, but that's in the future. It's a tricky situation; if she'd murdered someone, they'd have the choice to try her as an adult or a juvenile. I don't see why that can't apply to a situation like this as well.

It really makes me seethe. A young woman has made a courageous and difficult decision about her own life, and her father is trying to take it away from her. That's selfish. I realise that a parent, having brought a child into the world and raised her for however many years, will forever function in parental protective mode: one of the deepest tragedies in anyone's life is losing a child, no matter what the age. And through much of childhood, a parent must make heavy decisions concerning a child's health and welfare, and, as a general rule, will fight tooth and nail to preserve their progeny. However, by sixteen, if faith and serious thought dictate a youth's decisions, particularly concerning a terminal illness, you can't stomp all over their rights just because you think you know best. There comes a point where you have to allow them the individuality and maturity that you've supposedly cultivated in them.

Maybe I've been spoiled by parents who have let me make my own choices, who have stood back and watched me struggle and fall on my face at times, but who have also watched me grow into a pretty strong human being. Maybe I'm in the minority. This young woman, however, has only a ten percent chance of survival if she undergoes treatment she has described as "invasive", and will probably have to suffer various treatments for the rest of her days is she does survive. While my parents were down we talked about death of pets and making the choice to end someone else's life, and my mother used the phrase "quality of life". If the rest of your life is going to be tubes and wires and a sterile hospital room, whether you're sixteen or a septagenarian, why shouldn't you have the right to decide to end it? It saves the state money, it saves pain and emotional anguish, and conserves human dignity. A cat cannot look at you and say, "You know, I've had a good life, but I'm in severe pain. I love you, but it's time." (Actually, they can, and most cat owners know when they do, but so many people ignore what's best for the cat and keep it alive beyond what it would have lived naturally because they're afraid of facing loss and grief. Terrific. So instead you put the cat through hell, even though its quality of life has diminished?) A human being, however, can say, "I can't do this any more. I choose to stop." Apart from that whole sticky Hippocratic Oath thing, which is one of the stumbling blocks when it comes to situations like this, who has the right to deny someone the basic right to live or die?

The truth is, there is no easy answer. We can't draft a law that covers situations like this, because every one is unique and must be addressed individually. I should be pleased that the family court has made the ground-breaking ruling that allows Mia the choice to direct her own medical treatment, which in her case means having the right to deny transfusions. Instead, I'm frustrated.

Something in the back of

Something in the back of my mind is panicking and saying, "I know I've forgotten something, I know I've forgotten something..."

I'm putting it down to not-working-panic hitting early.

The commenting function is back!

The commenting function is back!

Concert Post-Mortem etc

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 lived in Chateauguay, and I never knew that.") 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 Bilingualism and the National Anthem

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 somewehere? 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.