For a while now, I've found myself drifting further and further away from podcasts. I climbed aboard the podcast train very early on, and gravitated tFor a while now, I've found myself drifting further and further away from podcasts. I climbed aboard the podcast train very early on, and gravitated towards the supernatural and true crime pods. But I grew tired of hearing multiple takes on the same batch of cryptids or haunted houses or cults or murderers, and the mostly amateur sleuthing about and readings of those topics started to seriously bore me, so I moved back to more academic histories and creepy fictions.
I couldn't help myself, though. After a while, the itch for the creepy and weird pouring into my ears though some disembodied voice(s) came back, and right about the time it did I found Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places on sale on audible. All I registered in the title was "Haunted Places" -- which screamed "SUPERNATURAL" to me -- and that was enough to shelve it and dive into some spooky places.
What I got was a surprise that shouldn't have surprised me because it was right in the title. Ghostland is first and foremost "An American History." Yes it is about "Haunted Places," but it is about what those haunted places can tell us about U.S. American history, what they can tell us about the U.S. as a society, what they can tell us about trauma in the American psyche. The places are incidental. They house the damage and crimes and exploitations of centuries of hurt, and those things are all morphed into mythology, ghosts of the traumas the country has undergone, has self-inflicted, has inflicted on others, places that contain the ruins of a country now aging itself into obsolescence.
Dickey argues that America's haunted places spring from the classism, racism and inequality at the heart of a nation that likes to believe it is more than it is, while carrying a history of deep divides, genocides, slavery, and failures to care for its most vulnerable citizens. And because of those traumas, ghosts spring up on Hurricane Katrina ravaged street corners, Civil War Battlefields, in the ruins of dying cities, in the strange houses of the eccentric or the psychopathic rich, in every corner of a country uneasy with itself and its history whether it recognizes it or not.
Ghostland was much more than I signed up for, and much better than I hoped. I would love to see something similar written about Canada and our Haunted Places. ...more
I adore Alan Alda. He has been a guiding force in my life and I promise him, wherever he is, that I will do as he says: I will take his advice and live my life. Really live it. I have always tried to do just that, but I occasionally I slip off into numb-times. I am back again now, living it again, and I will keep on doing just that.
Thanks for the advice, Papa Alan. Thanks for being your beautiful self. ...more
Is it because I love Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks, from which Daisy Jones & The Six clearly drew so much inspiration?
Is it bWhy do I love this book?
Is it because I love Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks, from which Daisy Jones & The Six clearly drew so much inspiration?
Is it because the '70s music scene binds my son, my daughters & I together the way baseball does most fathers and sons and daughters?
Is it because it is written in a docu-epistolary style (I have always loved epistolary tales)?
Is it because Taylor Jenkins Reid writes in a way that needs to be breathed in, smelled, tasted, rolled around in for a while, luxuriated in, thus immersing me in all she's creating in her parallel history of dreamy California?
Is it because Reid's characters are utterly believable, and their struggles feel so real, and their loves and hates, likes and dislikes all make so much sense?
Is it because of the shared "California Dream" universe, where Mick Riva keeps popping in like a Tyler Durden-Fight Club shadow?
Is it because Reid goes beyond turning place into character (another favourite achievement of authors I love) and actually turns a distinct time into character?
Is it because Reid actually made me sad that Aurora isn't a real album that I can go and buy, and listen to while I drive down a sunset highway? That I can only imagine the greatness of the music and I will never really hear it outside of my mind?
It's probably a little bit of all these ... the reasons why I love this book.
But I think it is really because there is no definitive story told in Daisy Jones & The Six. There are as many versions of the story as their are interviewees. Sure there is a truth in there somewhere, but it is a truth between the memories of all those who took part. (view spoiler)[Except for Eddie: I am sure that asshole has no clue what was happening around him, and all his opinions can be thrown right out the fucking window. (hide spoiler)] Which means that it is up to us, the reader to either let our own biases (see the spoiler for my bias) take over and craft "the truth" for us, or to force ourselves to watch our biases and be open to all the potential truths in the book (or as many as we are able to let ourselves see).
And that, ladies and gentlemen is good writing.
And that is also why I am terrified of the coming TV version of this book. I just can't see how Daisy Jones & The Six's greatest strength -- the slipperiness of the story's truth -- can be maintained on-screen. There is bound to be a "truth" we can see, but whose truth will that be?
And don't even get me started on hearing a real life version of Aurora because there is no way it will match what is in my head. I suppose I'll just go and listen to Fleetwood Mac's Dreams instead and hope the on-screen Aurora does no harm to the book I love....more
I want to meet Evan Placey. I can't help thinking that he is a walking, open wound. It's the only way I can see him having the incredible gift he has I want to meet Evan Placey. I can't help thinking that he is a walking, open wound. It's the only way I can see him having the incredible gift he has for understanding humanity the way he does.
In Pronoun, his play about Dean (formerly Izzy), a young man in transition, Placey offers a place for us to engage with the concerns of transitioning people and those who love them with compassion and empathy. No one's feelings are simply pushed aside as being irrelevant, while remaining squarely focused on Dean and what his journey is putting him through.
We get to see Josh's struggle, Dean's ex-boyfriend, as he tries to remain in Dean's life and understand what the changes mean to them both. We see the anger of Dari, Dean's sister, as the memories of her past make a profound shift (more later). We see how other friends try to offer support, continue to love, but can't help hurting Dean because they simply don't have the tools or the perspective to understand the new world they've all moved into. It is all deftly handled, and it allows us to care about Dean more than we might if the entire play was solely about Dean's trials.
I loved everything about Pronoun, but the beauty of the play, I think, can best be summed up by the aforementioned photograph scene between Dean and Dari. Evan Placey makes us care about both of them as they try to come to grips with what their lives have become. Dari hurts. Dean rages quietly within. We see genuine pain from both parties, and there is no neat and tidy resolution. It’s real and sad and painful, but it’s also a beautiful moment that ends badly for both of them -- and their parents.
Despite it all there is hope in Pronoun. So much hope. And I imagine Evan Placey's wounded self heals up just a bit every time he finishes writing a play. ...more
This week I was lucky enough to read She Kills Monsters, then to see it on stage with my son in multiple roles. There are few better ways to engage wiThis week I was lucky enough to read She Kills Monsters, then to see it on stage with my son in multiple roles. There are few better ways to engage with a play than the double joy of reading + watching.
Now She Kills Monsters wasn’t the best play on the page. I couldn’t help feeling that Qui Nguyen’s work needed another round or two of work shopping along with a solid edit from a skilled D&D Dungeon Master actually familiar with 2nd Edition, yet even so, there is much to be admired about Nguyen's play, even in its slightly roughened state. The conceit of sharing oneself with a loved one through a D&D module (subbing in for a journal) was unique and emotionally satisfying, and the way the play lustily embraced LGBTQ+ issues was pretty exciting. So even if my son hadn't been in the show, I'd have been keen to watch She Kills Monsters, especially to see how a theatre company would tackle the D&D elements.
But the written play wasn't without its problems. There were some cringe worthy moments, which included a false rape allegation (played off as a joke), some fairly silly dick and fart jokes, and some strong sexism towards straight white boys. More annoying to geeks like myself was the claim -- embedded in the opening narration -- that She Kills Monsters was about the 2nd edition of D&D, but that was patently false. It was much more inspired by LARPing and video games than by AD&D the 2nd, and little or no care was taken with accuracy. It wouldn't have taken much to fix these issues, and I am fairly sure D&D accuracy wouldn't have diminished Nguyen's tale. But this latter complaint reveals one of the benefits of pre-reading a play you're about to watch onstage ... I knew about the D&D anachronisms ahead of time, so I was able to avoid being pulled out of the magic the actors were weaving, thus the written issues were mitigated onstage.
And onstage, the things that were good about She Kills Monsters were definitely heightened by the performances. The revelation about a friend of Tilly's who has cerebral palsy was deftly handled, the dance battle against the Succubi was energetic and inspired, the coming of the Gelatinous Cube (played by my son!) was exactly what I wanted it to be, and the end of the play was absolutely satisfying.
All told the staging was funny, kooky, and entertaining. But I think it really could have been even better if the necessary work had been put in on the page. Oh well. My son and his friends were a blast, and I am guessing any staging of She Kills Monsters is worth watching if you know someone in the cast. But you'll like it even better if you borrow their script and give it a read ahead of time ;)...more
Such ugly beauty Such subtle confusion Such damage Such sadness Such unreliability Such a field of corn and carrot and baby
Such beautiful ugliness Such treSuch ugly beauty Such subtle confusion Such damage Such sadness Such unreliability Such a field of corn and carrot and baby
Such beautiful ugliness Such tremors of possibility Such pain Such betrayal Such existence and non-existence and debt
Such terror Such loss Such flooding Such twisted remembrance Such a reflection of us and you and me...more
I fall more and more in love with Phryne Fisher with each passing tale. She is almost too many things to relate here, but mostly I love her because shI fall more and more in love with Phryne Fisher with each passing tale. She is almost too many things to relate here, but mostly I love her because she feels real, well developed and constantly developing, a woman who could have and should have lived (and I am damn sure some Phrynes have always existed and continue to exist to this day).
Her complexity is what I look for in a good character, and her complexity makes every action she takes, every decision she makes, every risk, every piece of procrastination, every love and every hate utterly believable.
I never got very far on the TV version of Miss Fisher because it was pulled from Netflix just after I started (it might be back now ... I dunno), but having the brilliant narration of Stephanie Daniel breathing life into Phryne is more than enough for me. It may take me a while, but this is a series I expect to finish listening to. ...more
I don’t know anywhere near enough about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg nor about physics to judge the biographical or scientific accuracy of MichaelI don’t know anywhere near enough about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg nor about physics to judge the biographical or scientific accuracy of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, but I do know ethics and emotion and theatre, and I can say -- without doubt -- that Copenhagen is a stage masterpiece.
I am sad to say that I have never seen it staged, but I have read the play and now listened to an L.A. Theatreworks performance, starring Alfred Molina (Niels Bohr), Shannon Cochran (Margrethe Bohr), and David Krumholtz (Werner Heisenberg), and I have twice been captivated by the brilliance of this piece. Even for the uninitiated (although perhaps it is precisely because I am uninitiated) the science is a mind-blowing delight, and the science leads straight into powerful questions about the atomic age and nuclear arms, and both of these are reflected in and enhanced by the father-mother-son dynamics that underpin the lives of Copenhagen’s three players.
Copenhagen is as poetic as it is emotionally satisfying, as compelling as it is ethically fraught, as of a time and place as it is of an uncertain reality. It is one of the finest plays I’ve read/heard. And damn do I want to play Niels Bohr. What a wonderful part that would be....more
This is the kind of story I expect to see a film of someday. It could only be a disappointment. Or perhaps it would be an HBO mini-series. Either wa1.
This is the kind of story I expect to see a film of someday. It could only be a disappointment. Or perhaps it would be an HBO mini-series. Either way it would be a disappointment.
I can imagine critics praising the film version's loyalty to the text. All the plot points would be there. The generations would pass from hour to hour or episode to episode, and it would become Ariah's tale from beginning to end. Ariah would be the marquee part for a single godlike actor (some future generation's Streep), or three actors playing Ariah at three stages of her life.
It would stop being a tale of memory. It wouldn't be a tale told from multiple slippery perspectives. It would be a telling of The Falls without the poetry of Joyce Carol Oates. It wouldn't really be The Falls.
This big screen version. This small screen version. These versions should never exist.
I fear they will.
2 .
What is a Burnaby? Burn - a - by? Are the Burnaby's cursed? Are they charmed? And what of their guilt? And what of their innocence?
3.
Reading The Falls put me on a bar stool with a martini in hand, or sat me in a wicker chair on a veranda with a mint julep, or on a ratty old sofa in a cathedral ceilinged study with a mug of tea. And with me was Joyce Carol Oates spinning a tale off the top of her head. She'd been reading books about Love Canal, she'd been visiting Niagara Falls, going back to the roar and the mist of her childhood, she'd been dreaming of suicides and murders and chemical evils, and she had a whole family to tell me about. A mother and father and father. And a son of two fathers or maybe just one. And a son of a mother and a daughter of that mother, whose ethereal presence was a balm and a reminder of the father she never knew. And a puppy turned old dog to wiggle waggle his tail through the tale of this family, and this place and this time in her head. And so she begins at the Falls and over a night in the pub, or an evening on the veranda, or a day on the ratty sofa, she treats me to the Burnaby's, and I fall in love with them, and long for the Falls themselves, and fall in love with Ms. Oates and the way she spins a tale, hypnotizing me with her dazzling authorial stream of consciousness.
(Should I never read another word from her? Should I take this gift and not challenge the love she's planted in me? I don't know that I dare go on to her other works. Yet I want to, of course. Yet I have been daunted before. I didn't, however, expect to be daunted again)
And my copy of the Falls? When next I stand at the Falls, I know what I will have in my hand and what I will release into those waters. It won't be a sacrifice. It will be a homecoming....more
I am a man. I am a father with three children. We had no trouble conceiving, and though we lost two babies to miscarriage, we've been fairly lucky wheI am a man. I am a father with three children. We had no trouble conceiving, and though we lost two babies to miscarriage, we've been fairly lucky when it comes to fertility and childbirth. Thus, my biases probably make my feelings about Avalanche: A Love Story unhelpful or tone deaf or irrelevant to many folks who don't share my experiences.
I'm going to share my biases anyway ('cause that's often what goodreads is for).
I don't believe there is a right to pregnancy or childbirth, nor do I support medical intervention to make pregnancy possible. My position does not come from religious conviction -- of which I have absolutely none -- but from my convictions about socio-economics and the nature of intervening when natural selection has made a choice we don't like.
I'm also not a fan of one-person shows. They are mostly self-indulgent, overrated crap from spoiled artists who reveal their inner selves in ways that vilify everyone who disagreed with them in their lives and rarely contain much in the way of self-reflection or personal responsibility. Privileged elites pretending to be victims or finding their identity in victimhood is not my idea of a stimulating evening of theatre.
To some extent, Avalanche: A Love Story falls into the confines of both these biases. It is, after all, about a privileged woman -- a white (Australian?), affluent screenwriter -- and her attempts to get pregnant in her late-thirties and early-forties. Even before she gets to the latter stages of fertility, pregnancy has been a long shot for her, and her own body proves to be as problematic as the man -- her ex-, then her husband, then her ex- again -- she hopes to share the experience with. Indeed, everyone around her is to blame for her situation to some extent or other, and even her mother, who tries to talk the narrator out of becoming pregnant because she thinks the narrator will be a terrible mother, is known only through her opposition to the narrator's journey. So the selfishness, the embrace of being the victim, the unmitigated privilege, and the single, whiny, self-indulgent voice made my time spent with Avalanche: A Love Story a challenge.
Yet somehow, with all these things working against my appreciation of the one-woman show, I found myself impressed by Avalanche: A Love Story. If I set aside all my problems with Avalanche: A Love Story, I am left with a narrative that did affect me emotionally. For all the narrator's faults, for all my feelings of opposition to her, Avalanche: A Love Story was able to take me to a place where it didn't matter what my biases were or are ... the narrator's truth was her truth and that is what mattered. No. I can't know what it was to be the narrator, to be a woman facing the pressures of motherhood slipping away from her in a society that still expects motherhood for all women, to understand the struggle to conceive -- possibly alone -- but Avalanche: A Love Story gave me a chance to empathize with someone who has experienced these things, and even if it wasn't terribly entertaining Avalanche: A Love Story was enriching.
There are the things Michael Ondaatje says, the words he writes, and they are beautiful.
His prose is as often poetry as it is prose, and it is as likThere are the things Michael Ondaatje says, the words he writes, and they are beautiful.
His prose is as often poetry as it is prose, and it is as likely to serve a sensual (by which I mean “of the senses”) moment as it is a narrative step forward. It is as likely to offer us a key moment of character building (maybe even more likely to offer a moment of character building) as it is to offer a point of plot. Ondaatje is much more concerned with mood and tone and people than he is with telling a neat and tidy tale that can be easily consumed.
There are few authors I love as much as I love Ondaatje (there is a bald Londoner, there is one who gives me Hope, there was an old suicide with a shotgun, there was a whiskey loving Scot), and to sit down with his words is to be in the world he is crafting for more than a quick diversion. It is to the live there for as long as it takes.
Warlight has been a journey, for me, as winding and languid as the barge the Darter and Nathaniel used to move the smuggled greyhounds from place to place. I started Warlight months ago, then lost the book, bought another, restarted after finishing something else, then found the original copy, which was full of annotation, and decided to go back and start it a third time and pick up the annotations where I had left off. Each time I made it a little farther than I had the last. And after the third start I found myself petering out. Not because Warlight isn’t brilliant, not because I wasn’t loving it, but because I needed time to process all those things Ondaatje had said and to come to terms with the other more poignant side of his writing.
Because you see ... there are things that Michael Ondaatje doesn’t say or write at all, which are, in fact, things that Ondaatje is saying, and they are at least as beautiful as the words on the page, and sometimes even more beautiful, and I find I need time and space to let those spaces in Ondaatje’s story settle into me and around me, to teach me what they need to teach, and only then can I go on. So yesterday I found myself at the halfway point of Warlight -- where I'd been for some time -- with nothing to do but read. Everyone was busy. I was alone. And I finished the last half of Warlight in one sitting, then spent all night letting it percolate in my brain.
It is one of Michael Ondaatje’s finest achievements, and while I am sure it infuriates half of its readers, if you are willing to take the journey Ondaatje has prepared for you, you will be rewarded. ...more
There is no way my words will express anything close to my admiration for Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side. Nothing I write can be adequate. This memoThere is no way my words will express anything close to my admiration for Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side. Nothing I write can be adequate. This memoir is the bravest memoir I have ever read.
Read it yourself if you want to know Lacy's story, but I will tell you this: The Other Side is not exactly what you will be expecting.
Johnson is, as far as I can tell (and I am confident you will see this too), the most honest memoirist in the history of memoirs. She fearlessly challenges her own memory of events (or ... possibly ... fearfully; hence her bravery), yet the discrepancies she finds in the way her story is remembered by everyone touched by her story and recorded by everyone who has recorded her story (herself included, on both counts) does nothing to diminish or undercut her memory -- instead, the discrepancies bulwark her memory, making her reality all the more potent. It is an astounding act of honesty and courage.
And that would be enough to make The Other Side a required work of literature, but it is more. What she has done is more.
Johnson reveals what true crime should really be about -- the victim -- and effectively shames all the true crime that fetishizes the criminal. Johnson reveals the ongoing and inescapable damage done to victims of violence. Johnson unflinchingly describes the violence done to her, then unflinchingly describes how she can't help but pass some of this damage on, then unflinchingly describes the woman she is and how the violence done to her cannot dim her need for eroticism, love, community, living poetry.
And then there is that which pushes The Other Side even deeper into the realm of true literature: Johnson is a poet. A poet is what she truly is, and much of her memoir is strikingly poetic, to a point that if has the power to unnerve its readers its sensuality (in its appeal to the senses).
Then there is power. That is what I am left with now that Johnson's voice (she narrates her memoir herself) is a whispery ghost in my ears. The power taken away from people. The power regained. The power to heal. The power of words. The power of one's self.
Usually I would say you should read a book that's this powerful, but I think you should listen to The Other Side. When you hear Lacy M. Johnson's voice, you will know why. ...more
How slippery is memory? Pretty slippery the experts tell us, yet we rely on it as a deliverer of truth in our most important and high stakes moments. How slippery is memory? Pretty slippery the experts tell us, yet we rely on it as a deliverer of truth in our most important and high stakes moments. Stephen Belber's Tape reminds us of this. It does it well. But is that enough to deliver the short play Belber has delivered? I'm not so sure. ...more
I really needed to hear this book. The history of the anti-Vietnam / equal rights / environmental movements of the 60s and 70s is deeply underrepresenI really needed to hear this book. The history of the anti-Vietnam / equal rights / environmental movements of the 60s and 70s is deeply underrepresented. There are countless books about the Vietnam war, but much, much less about the resistance to the war and all the other resistances that sprung up around the war resistance (and all of them continue to resonate today).
Of course, it doesn't do the USA and their corrupt system any good to give voice to their most potent internal critics (sure they let them publish because of their so-called "freedom," but they also push them to the periphery); it behooves the USA, instead, to keep those voices marginal and underrepresented, so that all the USA's hard work in propaganda and indoctrination doesn't go to waste.
Knowing all of this makes Witness to the Revolution all the more important because this book is in the words of those who witnessed the era, those who resisted, those who fought the government, those who were shot by soldiers at Kent State, those who burned down or blew up government buildings, those who fled to Canada, those who lived in communes, and it is also the voices of those --FBI, CIA, government officials, President Nixon -- who tried to silence and/or stop them.
The real words of the people who were there is an invaluable piece of history (now matter how flawed eye witness accounts to anything are), and Clara Bingam makes the wise decision to let all those voices speak for themselves. There is no commentary from Bingam. Just the people who were there talking about what they saw and did.
I listened to this on audible, and I find myself deducting one star from my rating here because of the book's narrator, Jo Anna Parrin. Her voice was monotonous, nasally, and I often found myself wondering if she had bothered to preread what she was reading. Some emotional contact with the words of others would have gone a long way to mitigating the grating sound of her voice.
But that's okay. The material is strong enough to carry the day, and now that I have the physical book, I won't have to listen to it ever again. ...more
L.A. Theatre Works' recordings of their stage performances may be my favourite hidden gem on Audible. They take wonderful plays, gather together some L.A. Theatre Works' recordings of their stage performances may be my favourite hidden gem on Audible. They take wonderful plays, gather together some of the finest actors living in and around Hollywood -- some bit players who live on the Hollywood periphery, some B & C listers who fill in the ranks of famous T.V. shows as the scene stealing supporters, and some genuine stars who have time between films or on hiatus from their leading characters -- call on wonderful directors, and produce superior theatre, which is just perfect to listen to while doing dishes, folding laundry, or on the commute.
The stand our performers in their version of Biloxi Blues are Josh Radnor as Eugene (Ted from How I Met your Mother fully shaking off his famously annoying TV persona), Steve Rankin as Sgt. Toomey (a face you've seen in a million bit parts but can probably never attach to a name) and Darby Stanchfield as Daisy Hannigan (a T.V. regular who hasn't quite hit the heights she's talented enough to hit. This trio turn in wonderful performances, and made me wish I'd seen their version on-stage in L.A.. But while they are the best of the bunch, there isn't a single performance that isn't strong.
Together, the ensemble brings one of Neil Simon's finest, funniest plays, the second instalment of his Brighton Beach Trilogy, to beautiful life. Listening to these wonderful performers makes me long to see this play on stage. Hell, it makes me long to just get my ass into a live theatre again. It's been a couple of months, and I need to see a world come to life on the boards. Since that isn't possible, however, I guess I'll just pick another L.A. Theatre Works performance and let myself get carried away by the dreamlike voices of great actors from a great distance. ...more
If I had written my review straight after reading and discussing this play, I think I would have given it five stars and gushed my way through a superIf I had written my review straight after reading and discussing this play, I think I would have given it five stars and gushed my way through a superlative laden review, but it's been two months since I put it down, and my love for Incendies (translated into the English -- the way I read it -- as Scorched) has cooled to mere liking.
I was initially blown away by what I took to be an uncompromising story about memory, violence and survival, and it remains all of those things, but the more I thought about the way Wajdi Mouawad wanted us to think about his central character -- Nawal -- the less blown away I was and the more comfortable I became.
There is something of the heroine in her, something of a legend; she is a woman I feel we were supposed to look at and admire. She comes from a deeply patriarchal well, she learns to read, she spreads her learning to others, she navigates a war, she brings her twins to a life in Canada that leads one to hate himself and fight endlessly and unsuccessfully as a boxer and leads the other to a stultifying existence in academia. We must be impressed. And then when the tragedy of her life is revealed we are supposed to pity her and understand her decisions. And I felt all those things.
The trouble is that these feelings that we are manipulated into feeling for Nawal also ask us to ignore other feelings we might be having -- feelings that she is not such a heroine after all, that she is as much an abuser as she is a victim. Yet I couldn't help feeling like we were supposed to hate her abusers and to cut them absolutely no slack for the circumstances that made them abusers.
If that is so, if that is what Mouawad is asking us to do -- and I think it is -- then I cannot fully embrace Incendies, at least not at this point.
I am sure I will have other opportunities to revisit my feelings. I will teach it again (it is so worthy of discussion), and there is Denis Villeneuve's film adaptation out there waiting for me to watch it, but for now I have to say I'm struggling with the message of Incendies....more
To be honest, I don't know if this is memory is absolutely true, but I am going to tell it anyway.
I was born into a family that cared nothing for theTo be honest, I don't know if this is memory is absolutely true, but I am going to tell it anyway.
I was born into a family that cared nothing for theatre (this much is true), so the first show I saw was on a field trip to Calgary's Heritage Park with my grade 6 class. Heritage Park is one of those old pioneer parks in North America (Canada in this case), where old heritage buildings are saved and replanted in an inner city park. My favourite building is the old Canmore Opera House, a theatre moved from the mountains to the safety of Heritage Park in the foothills, and still used to this day as a home for weddings and, occasionally, shows. Anyhow, somewhen in the eighties, I saw my first stage show -- Billy Bishop Goes to War.
I am pretty sure I saw it with the original boys in their original roles, Eric Peterson (Oscar from Corner Gas) and John Gray (piano man extraordinaire). I find myself thirty-odd years later teaching their play at university and rejoicing in their work.
These men made me love theatre. They transported me in elementary school and instilled a love for theatre that has stuck with me for decades, and to be able to introduce others to them now is a privilege. Plus, they capture so much of what it is to be Canadian (and with no references to hockey or Tims -- thanks boys!) that I want Eric for PM and John for GG. That seems fair, right?
If you get the chance, buy their revival from iTunes and enjoy the brilliance of these two artists. Their filmed version isn't quite as mindblowing as their stage performance, but it showcases their mad talents....more
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir is one of the truest stories I have ever read.
I meant to go further, to say mAlexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir is one of the truest stories I have ever read.
I meant to go further, to say more about what I mean, to praise Marzano-Lesnevich in detail, but I don't think I can do justice to what she has done here in The Fact of a Body. She has picked at old scar tissue until she opened it to the air, and she unflinching poked at those wounds in relation to the wounds of others until she understood what made those wounds and enabled herself to allow them seal on her own terms. The Fact of a Body is brave; it is merciful; it is unflinching; it is what all memoirs should be.
It is the truth of Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. I am so glad she let me know her....more
As a mystery, The Girl on the Train wasn't terribly mysterious. That red-hairing (yes, the pun is intentional) was obvious from the start, and figurinAs a mystery, The Girl on the Train wasn't terribly mysterious. That red-hairing (yes, the pun is intentional) was obvious from the start, and figuring out which of the three potential murderers actually killed Megan wasn't difficult in the least. I had it nailed in the first few chapters. My big hope was that Paula Hawkins would surprise me. That maybe there would be a couple of other potential murderers that our societal biases were making me miss, but nope. That maybe there would be a truly daring finale where unhealthy decisions would reveal the ill health of the decision makers. That maybe the wrong person, despite all the righteousness in the world, would be arrested. But nope. No surprises, and the killer I thought it must be turned out to have done the deed.
As a piece of social commentary, The Girl on the Train was ham-fisted. Men are pigs. Men are dangerous. Men are manipulative. Men cheat and lie and are selfish. The women who love them are trapped. The women who love them have no choices. The women who love them are abused, if not physically (although they are always that to some degree) then certainly mentally. The women who love them cheat and lie too, but somehow fidelity and monogamy are things that we should aspire too. The women who love these men are victims, and even when they are not they are.
As a work of literature, which the opining I read about Hawkins' use of the unreliable narrator led me to believe this novel aspired to, The Girl on the Train is an utter failure. The narrator's are not unreliable, not like Lockwood or Nelly Dean. Sure Rachel has gaps in her memory, but we can rely on her always to tell us the truth of whatever she is remembering, and we never get anything unreliable from Anna or Megan (our other narrators). Sure all three of our protagonists lie and dissemble, but never to us, never to the reader. Unreliable? No. Literary? No. This is trashy stuff.
As an entertainment, though, well that is a different story. I love trash as much as the next reader, and this is exactly the kind of trash to keep me turning pages and wanting more. Can I have a peak into the sordid lives of a bunch of assholes, which include a murderer in their number? Yes please! And The Girl on the Train delivers exactly the kind of lowbrow entertainment I wanted: a bad movie in a book. Indeed, the screen is probably the place for which this book was always intended. The Girl on the Train has everything it needs to turn into a slick, hit film (as it has done), and it reads just like a film from the opening to its absolutely predictable ending. I have to hand it to Hawkins ... there isn't much good going for this book, but it was a lot of fun to read all the same. And I liked it well enough to see what they do with it on-screen. I have a feeling it might be just a little bit better than the book I read in the shower....more
I can't sit here and sagely type to you the meaning of This Census-Taker. Neither its plot or its deeper, thematic meaning. I am full of confusions anI can't sit here and sagely type to you the meaning of This Census-Taker. Neither its plot or its deeper, thematic meaning. I am full of confusions and questions and speculations. I do know that I was dazzled by Miéville's prose -- which I often am -- but in a new way, a foggy, struggling, back tracking, Joseph Conrad way.
I didn't realize it until I wrote those words, but the novel I most closely relate to This Census-Taker has to be Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There is colonization at work here, there is menace and hegemony, there is metaphysics and underlying threat, there is bureaucracy and its violent arm, there is an abyss and sound and imagination.
I will read this again and again in coming years, and I doubt I will ever pin down the whos? the whats? the whys? the hows? the whens? or the wheres?
I don't think I ever want to pin those questions down. I want to keep guessing at answers. I want to make them what I will, to let my imagination finish this story. I want to read this with friends and argue about meaning. I want to hang with that friend I am sure will hate this book and listen to them rant, then I can piss them off for loving it for all the same reasons they hate it. I need something new from Miéville. I hope it comes soon....more
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