McClelland & Stewart 100th Birthday Party

Last night, on the eve of BEC, McClelland & Stewart celebrated its 100th birthday. The gala (complete with a couple people wearing pretty fancy dresses, not me I’m afraid) was at the Distillery district, in a great room called The Fermenting Cellar. A host of infamous Canadian literary talents were there, including Margaret Atwood, who, after Avi Bennett and Doug Pepper, gave a keynote speech.

Of course, I was the only one not to catch a glimpse of her, but instead wandered around aimlessly searching for her, trying to fulfill my authorlust. Peter C. Newman, Adrienne Clarkson, and many more, authors, authors everywhere.

And it’s nice to see the lovely people that you work with out and about being themselves, kicking back with some wine, and having the guy from Google (awesome!) tell you that he only got his job by being a sharpshooter.

Now where can I sign up for lessons? I’d love to work for Google. Heh.

"Funbadness"

I heart Scott Brown. He has invented a word that completely and utterly encapsulates why I see so many bad movies: fundbadness.

Funbadness brought me (and my dear friend Tara) to many a movie on opening weekend, including Dirty Dancing: (wait for it) Havana Nights. Cuba! I can’t list on my fingers and toes the number of truly bad movies I’ve actually seen in the theatre—all by my own choice with no expectations they’ll be any good.

Now what funbadness would that be?

And yes, I’m seeing an advance screening of The Devil Wears Prada next Wednesday. How jealous are you? It’s no Nicolas Cage on fire while riding a hog, but it’s something. Oh, and Scott Brown? I too marveled in the wondrous funbadness of Reign of Fire. It’s Matthew McConaughey fighting dragons for heaven’s sake, dragons! It’s awesome.

#43 – Terrorist

I’ll say one thing for Terrorist, John Updike’s new novel, it’s certainly the perfect book for the current climate. Considering the media fury over the death of al-Zarqawi and the young men they arrested here in Canada, not to mention the ongoing efforts of George W. and company in Iraq, a novel about an 18-year-old boy who becomes embroiled in a terrorist act seems rather timely. What’s odd then, is that’s all the book truly has going for it: a good hook.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never read any other Updike. I started Rabbit Run years ago and it remains sitting unfinished on the shelf. And perhaps it’s just my own personal taste, but he’s not really a writer for me. I found this book to be trying too hard, to have angry, awkward and not entirely believable characters. The story is fascinating, but Ahmad’s (the teenager in question) faith doesn’t come across as authentic, nor does his dissent into the crucial act that defines the book feel real. Not to mention the fact that he’s stiff and speaks in such muted, oddly writerly tones that Ahmad’s almost a caricature.

But what bothered me the most were the lack of truly redeeming female characters, Ahmad’s mother was an artist who was not particularly prone to childrearing, Ahmad’s quasi-crush ends up being a hooker, and the two other women, one a spinster, the other an obese librarian, were so one-dimensional that I had a hard time finishing the book.

I had a teacher write on an essay once, “You are certainly a good writer, but this is not well written.” That’s very close to how I feel about Terrorist. It’s, of course, the job of the novelist to be consistently challenging our ideas of stereotypes, our ideas of the world around us, but in the way the Updike presents the Muslim faith, he does nothing to dispel the very misconceptions that exist in the world. And I know that’s not the point, that he’s writing about fundamentalism from the point of view of said fundamentalist, but Ahmad’s speeches, his thoughts, his actions all feel so put-upon that I have a hard time imagining him in the real world.

There is no doubt that Updike remains one of the great modern literary giants of American books, and so much of his latest speech at BEA points to this fact (where he, ironically, rails against the internet, the very tool used to disseminate his speech, um, whatever), but just because he can write doesn’t mean that everything he does write will automatically be great fiction. Despite how much it wants and/or tries to be.

It’s an interesting book to read after finishing Sweetness in the Belly considering how much deft and talent Gibb shows when discussing the same faith (albeit in two very different ways). Because I think the point of a book like this should be understanding, at least that’s my humble opinion, and it’s a shame that Updike presents me with the same dogged images/characters I hear about in the news every day. There’s no underlying enlightenment, like in Gibb’s novel, to make me feel like this book has changed my world. All in all, I’m just glad I managed to get through it.

Weekend Antics

This was how my weekend went:

Friday night attended the launch party for Taddle Creek’s latest issue. Celebrated my poem with my weekly half-pint and sat in the rain. It was lovely. Heard one really great poet and then left.

Saturday during the day I fought with my RRHB, then we went grocery shopping, made a meal plan for the week, came home, did the laundry, made a really yummy dinner of tilapia and bok choy, and went out to see Christine Fellows. It was an amazing show. She had an artist using an old school overhead projector drawing and illustrating her gorgeous songs. She wins the award for best use of old school technology: the last time I saw an overhead projector at an artsy-type event was Dave Eggers. He only drew pretentious stick figures, which we all adored, even if they were more to be cool than to be an artist, per se. At least that was my impression.

Sunday I had lunch with the girls, we laughed, at a ridiculous amount of delicious food at the Rude Native, gossiped, and enjoyed each other’s company. I came home and within the hour had to go out for dinner with my RRHB and his family for his birthday. More gluttonous eating at The Swan. Watched the season finale of The Sopranos. Fell asleep totally exhausted and thoroughly amazed that for the second weekend in a row I didn’t collapse with disease-inspired exhaustion.

I’m on the right track.

Read With TRH

Okay, I want to try something different, something that I haven’t done before—everyone who knows me knows that I love to read. And I want to share that love. And then I want to talk about that love to anyone who’ll listen. So, I’ve picked a book I’m going to read over the next few weeks. It’s called Cease to Blush by Billie Livingston.

It looks like the perfect summer read: saucy, fabulously fun and kind of sexy. What could/would be better for a hot afternoon in the city?

So, I’ve got extra copies of the book to giveaway in the hopes that someone, anyone, might want to read it with me, and then I’m hoping the author will be available to answer any questions in this space that we might have.

I don’t want to call it a book club because, well, you know. But I do want to experience a shared reading of the novel online through my blog.

Email me if you want a copy of the book. I’ve got three that need homes.

TRH Movie – The Break-Up

So, I had the chance to see an advance screening of The Break-Up last night and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I went in fearing the curse of the Hollywood romance, which tends to ruin every single film if its two stars are linked, demolished by Hollywood gossip and destroyed by the glee of reviewers taking utter delight in condemning the product on the basis of said curse. And it’s frustrating because it ruins many a decent film, with Gigli being the obvious exception, oh and, Proof of Life, which is terrible, and Eyes Wide Sh*t, I mean Shut. Well, maybe there’s something to the curse after all.

All this means is that it’s next to impossible to evaluate the film on its merits alone, what with the ridiculous amount of media attention the two stars have gotten, despite their attempts otherwise. Even knowing how wrong it is to search for clues of Anistan’s personal pain in her performance, you find yourself (well, myself) doing it anyway, and then feeling hella-guilty afterwards.

Annnwaaay. The Break-Up, touted as the anti-romantic comedy of the summer, certainly succeeds in what it sets out to do. Gary and Brooke, Vaughn and Aniston respectively, meet at a Chicago Cubs game, fall in love and buy an awesome condo. After a particularly stereotypical dinner with their respective families coming together as one, the two have a massive argument and break up. Well, at least Gary thinks that they do; Brooke is under the impression she’s ‘teaching him a lesson’ in how to be a better partner.

Funny business ensues as they both refuse to move out of their fab condo. And the ensuing situations all result from the fact that each is staying put until they absolutely can bare it no longer. The forced encampment, a staple of situation comedies, feels a bit cliched, but Vaughn and Aniston are both good, and have great chemistry, so it sort of works. It’s not a great movie, but it’s definitely better than I expected.

Both main female characters are stereotypical (Brooke plays head games; she wants Gary to go the ballet [and to “want to want to do the dishes”] but come on, any woman in that relationship would have given up that dream long ago, slapped on her Manolos and gone with a girlfriend anyway; Addie, her best friend, counsels and consoles with the best of them, yawn), but the movie is really about the evolution of Vaughn’s character. In that sense, again, it’s an anti-romcom, which is kind of nice.

Justin Long is hilarious as the obviously out receptionist at the art gallery where Brooke works, and the always terrific John Michael Higgins plays her Tone Ranger-loving brother, whose a cappella bursts annoy Gary to no end. And it’s even good that most of the bits in the commercials don’t necessarily represent the extent of hilarity in the movie—always a pleasant surprise. But in the end, the film succeeds because of Vaughn, his chemistry, his charm, his comic timing, and his ability to capitalize on the greatest casting coup of all times, Aniston, who is just coming off the world’s most publicized break up of her own, and plays exceptionally well off of him.

All in all, I enjoyed it, and was glad to see it, despite the knuckleheads who are always at these free preview thingys. Even a half an hour into when the screening was supposed to start, they wander into the theatre looking aimlessly for seats, bothering people who are obviously saving them because they’re the best in the house, munching on popcorn and speaking at the top of their lungs. How many ways can you say annoying?

TRH – Movie Update

Even with the major demolition happening of this past weekend, I still managed to watch a few movies. We started summer hours at work, which means I’ve got Friday afternoons off, and because my RRHB wasn’t letting me in the house at first while they tore the walls down, I went and saw Mission Impossible III. I know about all the arguments not to give the crazy-ass Tom Cruise any more money. I know that he’s all wacky and has a kid for the sake of publicity—I hear you. But the film has things other than Tom Cruise going for it (or not going against it, rather), namely, Philip Seymour Hoffman and J.J. Abrams.

It’s like a giant Alias episode, which means that it’s totally over-the-top, totally self-aware and self-reflexive (ah, inside jokes, love them! Cruise shaking a cocktail, Cruise on a bike with no helmet, Cruise writing on glass, heh!) in a way that only adds to its enjoyment. Oh, and while Tom Cruise is a total hambone, he certainly does run fast on his tiny little legs, you go Ethan! The plot might be a bit convoluted but the film still remains a perfect summer movie plus it’s way better than X-Men: The Last Stand. Or should I say, X-Men: The Last Crap.

We managed to sneak seeing the film in after we finished the demolition—my RRHB was dying to watch it. But I’ll tell you, what a waste of a perfectly good franchise. It’s too long, too full of characters that have no use except as plot devices to make up for the fact that there’s no real story, and the whole freakish anti-aging stuff they do up top to Sir Ian and Captain Picard makes them look like they belong at Madame Tussaud‘s. Anyway, I was totally frustrated by this film. Unlike MI:3 where the stunts are so over the top that you realize they’re burning money just thinking about them, they still fit into the script and into the style of the picture, the stunts in X-Men seem contrived and just so absurd that you’re looking at them thinking there must have been an easier way. The whole film feels like a mash-up episode where Brett Ratner decided that if he couldn’t have the stylized X-Men of Bryan Singer, he was going to go way overboard just to prove he’s got more, ahem, balls.

Oh, and then we watched The New World. Terrence Malick is one of my all-time favourite filmmakers. I love, love, loved both Badlands and The Thin Red Line, both of which I got to review for HT when I worked there. Just like those two movies, The New World is a beautiful looking movie, with luscious landscapes the backdrop to the story of Pocahontas. Colin Farrell’s Captain Smith is a man of few words (works so well in this film) and Christain Bale plays John Rolfe, the man who eventually becomes the Indian princess’s husband. In fact, this was my favourite of all three films I watched this weekend.