The Closing

We’re heading up to the cottage for the very last time of the season. It’s bittersweet. I always regret leaving because there’s a part of me that feels like it’s home up there, and it’s hard for me to sometimes admit that so much time has passed.

That life moves so quickly.

That time can feel painfully long or painfully short, and still be exactly the same physical distance between one point to the next.

Things I did today:

1. Bought a pair of super-cute silver shoes for a work function. (I went,. I felt uncomfortable, but was excited to see our company win a prestigious award for some terribly hard work and some ridiculously creative thinking).

2. The reason why I’m still up has everything to do with Friday Night Lights. First off, why in heaven’s name does Matt kiss every girl he comes into contact with, and then apologize. At least Saucy Caretaker got in the car before he could possibly do that mumbling thing he does. Aw. And my favourite line, “Don’t you whisper-yell at me. Don’t you whisper-yell at me.”

3. I’ve been reading and loving Late Nights on Air. More to follow.

4. Vacation is bliss.

5. Why do people on television wear so much makeup in bed?

6. There’s drywall on some parts of our new walls. Drywall makes everything better.

7. Smoking Aces is a very disturbing movie. Perhaps I should have picked something a little more light-hearted to watch in my final vacationing hours.

8. Wireless internet is fun.

9. I am sure that I might be the only viewer of Men in Trees that recognizes Jerome from North fo 60. He’s kind of playing a version of the same character. But that’s okay. The show just quoted Kierkegaard.

10. Riggins is still hot. Homeless, but hot.

10.5 I am trying to convince my RRHB to get back to the city in time to go and see Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

Dennis Hopper Quote Of The Week

I know the title infers there may be more, but for now, let’s begin with Dennis Hopper’s key to good acting:

“You need to relax — that way you can access your imagination. If you’re not relaxed, you only have access to your intelligence.”

And my teacher said that awesome needs to be ripped from our language forever. I, for one, do not agree because what other word to describe the above?

Seriously awesome?

Does adding an adverb help?

Self Portraits – Millbank And Stratford (Some Shadows Work, Some Don’t)

Research has been going well, although I’m afraid that my body is simply too run down full stop because I feel like I’ve got a bloody cold, again. I’m coughing and I have a basketball inside my chest that’s making it hard to breathe. The end decision is that I need to give up some of my extra curricular activities. School’s set so it’ll either be yoga or dance and as I’ve been too ill for dance over the last few weeks, I’ll probably hold off starting that again until the warmer months.

Annnywaay, I had a brilliant time in Millbank and Stratford earlier in the week doing research for the book, and I’ve got a mind full of great ideas I’m going to let bounce around in my brain before I get down to the serious business (like another page-a-day challenge) of my next draft. The Stratford-Perth archives were a grand success. But I think that I’ll need to go back, maybe at the end of December (depending on their Christmas archives) to read more about Millbank, as I’m having trouble finding information on the town. The Milverton Sun newspaper (now defunct) seems to be a good place to start, and I found some local history (albeit written in verse, wha?) that was helpful too.

Melanie and I had a wonderful dinner in town and my hotel room was hilarious. Roasting hot, full of potpourri pillows, and with a divided up bathroom (toilet separated from the shower stall by a wall and a pillar or two), it was actually quite homey and just what I needed. I’m a bit frustrated that I’ve been checking my blackberry too much and worrying about work but I’m trying to let that go, at least for tomorrow.

In terms of family research, my trip to the Ontario Archives wasn’t as successful, but I did find lots of Land Record information for my Irish ancestor. Now all that remains is tracking down the proper microfilm, which is so labour-intensive that I just couldn’t handle it on another empty stomach. So, I went home and had a sandwich. Sometimes, a little cheese, lettuce and bun is all you need to really feel like your life is all good.

#74 – The Lambs Of London

For the first time since starting all the various challenges, I actually kind of disappointed in one of my books of choice. In the manner of swapping out already-decided books for ones that are a) more accessible and b) perhaps shorter and c) actually grabbing my interest at the moment, I’ve changed Cloud Atlas, which I absolutely will read one of these days, for Peter Ackroyd’s The Lambs of London. It’s also a fitting historical novel to read for the Around the World in 52 Books challenge, as it’s based on real people (Charles and Mary Lamb, authors of Tales from Shakespeare) and set in London during the late 1700s-early 1800s, which means it’ll at least give me an accurate flavour for the time and place.

But I can’t help but feel slighted by the novel. Yes, it’s an interesting piece of historical fiction; yes, it cannot be denied that Peter Ackroyd knows his stuff; and yes, I found the characters and their situations relatively interesting. In short, Charles and Mary Lamb, themselves troubled in different ways (Charles by drinking; Mary suffers from a bipolar disorder) meet an equally troubled (even if it’s not apparent at first) William Ireland. Insistent upon proving his mettle to his bookseller father, William finally gets the attention and acclaim he feels he deserves when he uncovers a number of Shakespearean documents.

Unfortunately for me, I found the story somewhat uninspiring, and a lot of the historical details felt forced and often jumped out like a grandstanding football fan forced out of the stands. On the whole, the plot was fairly predictable despite how interesting I found both the characters and the setting. In truth, I don’t quite understand why the book was included on the 1001 Books list despite, as RG (the writer who submitted the book to the anthology) insists the author “playing to his strongest suits.” And the themes of literary and personal “fraudulence” ring quite hollow in terms of novels in this genre, if I’m being completely honest.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The book on the patterned furniture in my Stratford hotel room.

1001 BOOK SCORE: 145

52 COUNTRIES: England

#73 – The Death Of Ivan Ilyich & Master And Man

After my teacher “assigned” Tolstoy’s “Master and Man” as required background reading for my own work, I decided to kill three birds with one story collection (homework, 1001 Books, Around the World in 52 Books). I’ve left behind The Brothers Karamazov for now and replaced it with the Modern Library edition of two Tolstoy stories: “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” and the aforementioned “Master and Man.”

Now I’m going to get this out of the way first, I haven’t read a lot of the Russians. It took me months and months, and then years and years, and then four separate tries, to get through Crime and Punishment. I’m glad I did, but for a girl that likes to power through her reading because there’s simply so much to read, I find that to be a tad labour-intensive.

However, both stories were quite short, and the entire collection clocks in somewhere around 120 pages, and there’s a power to Tolstoy’s storytelling, especially in “The Death…”, that remains captivating. I mean, there’s a reason why he’s on the 1001 Books list, and of the two stories, I did enjoy “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” slightly more than “Master and Man.”

So, I’ve read Russia. It was cold. It suffered through its characters. It made me appreciate living in a world with modern medicine and a warm winter coat. But in terms of actual critical opinion, there’s nothing that I could possibly say that might remotely be original. So I’ll tell a story instead.

Last night when I told my teacher DG that I had read the story, he went on a good, long diatribe about how War and Peace is quite possible the most romantic book ever written. It’s the only book that made him weep. That’s right, weep. So now, I’ve essentially been assigned a 1,500 page book by the teacher simply because he thinks I would absolutely enjoy it. And if Virginia Woolf made a case for the Russians, as he said, shouldn’t I?

So in starting my thoughts about a reading challenge for next year, it might just be to tackle the “giants” of our canon, but I’m afraid that’ll throw me right off my goals and I’ll never catch up to Stephen King’s 75 books a year, which, for the first time since I’ve started TRH, I’m actually on track to do. Here’s a question: how many of you out there have read War and Peace and what did you think? Is it the most romantic book ever written? Like, ever?

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: Is rightfully missing because I’ve already given my copy to a friend in my class.

1001 BOOKS SCORE: Sitting at 144. Desperately trying to get to 150 by the end of the year…

TRH Movie – No Country For Old Men

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, and for shame I only realized when I looked at my TTC transfer on my way to work. Granted, on our way home yesterday we walked past Soldier’s Tower, and paused. It’s a beautiful monument, covered in wreaths, and lit up from the bottom in that way that feels so respectful. I’ve written before about the particular significance of Remembrance Day, and it always makes me think of my grandparents, and my great-grandfather, who served in the First World War. Almost every part of my being Canadian is a direct result of them, and that’s not something to be forgotten.

I spent most of my day at the office yesterday tidying up some stuff before my holidays this week. And it’s nice sometimes to be there with no meetings, no distractions, nothing to keep from concentrating and getting a lot of things done. Although I did promise myself after the evil Boss From Hell experience I would never work weekends again, I feel so much better leaving now for a week now that my entire to-do list has been crossed out.

So when the RRHB called and suggested we go see a movie, at first I balked, because there’s always more I could do, and then decided that we should maybe go and see No Country For Old Men. There’s no end to my adoration for Cormac McCarthy but having sat through All the Pretty Horses and then writing a very long article for the now-offline Chicklit about how frustrating the adaptation was, I was worried. Until I found out, months ago, that it was a Coen brothers’ film.

An incredibly honest adaptation, the Coen brothers’ storytelling, straightforward but with incredible impact, ensures the film truly feels like the book brought to life. They’ve stripped out what won’t work on film (a lot of Ed Tom’s internal narration; some of the more violent scenes) and added in bits that made the movie more effective (like the visual aspects of the setting; in the sense that it truly brought your mind’s eye to life), and the end result is quite spectacular.

Okay, that’s not normally a word I would use to describe a film, but the acting is superb, the source material strong, and I really feel like the movies coming out this fall in terms of quality of both film making and storytelling are a cut above. The movie starts off with Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) hunting in the dry Texas back country where he comes across the detritus, human and otherwise, of a drug deal gone bad.

And even though he knows it, Llewelyn makes a few decisions that change the course of his life forever, most importantly, he picks up a satchel carrying about two million dollars of heroin money. Money that doesn’t belong to him. Anton Chigurgh (a merciless Javier Bardem), hired gun and strangely philosophical hitman, is charged with tracking him down. On the other side of the law, there’s Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the sheriff in the town where Moss lives, who sits at a crossroads in his own life.

Like I said, the performances are all outstanding, but what’s more, I’ve read the book, so I know what happens, and parts of the movie still had me gripping my RRHB’s arm and gasping. Now, that’s a sure sign someone’s doing something right.

Friday Night Lights

Most of my being tired last week has completely to do with the fact that I absolutely stayed up way, way too late (like 2 AM most days) watching the first season of Friday Night Lights. There are many reasons why I like the show, not the least of which is the fact that the adult storylines are given as much, if not more, importance as those belonging to the teenagers. But I feel a list would be far more appropriate:

1. I know nothing about Texas or football. This does nothing to dissuade my obsession with the show. In fact, it’s kind of irrelevant.

2. I’m old but I still remember what it’s like to be a teenager. I think, anyway. And there’s a lot of what Matt Saracen goes through, being somewhat parentless, dealing with a lot of adult situations, and the pressures of always trying to do the right thing, that I can absolutely relate to. This is no comment on my upbringing but rather what it’s like to grow up without parents who can see to you on a day-to-day basis.

3. Riggins is hot. Like, really hot.

4. There’s something about portraying the ins and outs of everyday people, granted they are in quite heightened situations (paralysis, murder, Swedish potheads, new babies, sexual assault), in the style the show is shot (a lot of hand-held cameras) that seems to work.

5. It’s compelling. See #3.

6. There are enough characters to keep it interesting but not too many that you start not caring. It would be good if they didn’t drop storylines as often as they seem to do, see Matt’s grandmother’s caretaker, but I know it’s hard to tie up all the threads so people keep watching.

7. Television on DVD is dangerous, primarily because for obsessive-compulsive people like myself, it’s almost impossible to stop after just one episode. I mean, I can barely stop after five, six, seven and it’s 2 AM and I’m thinking, “hell, just one more, I’m already tired, what’s the big deal?” Note to self: I own the DVDs, so I can go back to it at any time. I don’t need to suck it all up real quick and then get a version of TV brain freeze. However, it does give you quite an appreciation for quality storytelling if it can stand such vigorous viewing. In a way, that’s how I know the writing for the show is really good — it builds over time, but it also sustains like a film.

8. I actually cheered when the season finale happened. State champs! Yeah.

9. There are bits that deserve to be rewound. See #3.

10. I’ve been missing that one TV show that really hooked me ever since Gilmore Girls ended. Now FNL is only in its second season, and it’s not really slumping (but the whole Landry-murder plot really needs to wrap up; I know they want a key drama, like Jason’s accident, to tie the whole season together, but really, it’s not it), if anything, I think I should have waiting to start watching until S2 is on DVD too, and that way I wouldn’t be reading spoilers and obsessively searching the internet for the next-weeks that the damned Canadian broadcaster refuses to air. Sigh.

10.5. See #3.

It Happened Last Saturday At The Sadies

We saw them. The show was very good. Andre Ethier was incredible. And then fellow who I am not familiar with took the stage, maybe he could have brushed his hair, but whatever, I felt like I was in Singles. That’s no comment on the quality of his performance, just that after Andre Ethier, it seemed incongruent.

Regardless, that’s not the point of the post. In speaking with a friend of ours, the RRHB said something about Ethan Hawke. To which, said friend said, “What a [insert derogatory comment here].”

Apparently, he and his wife had seen Ethan Hawke at the Toronto airport around the time of the festival surrounded by his “people,” barking on the phone and wearing a baseball cap. Tucked sideways. Yes, sideways. I can’t help but have preconceived notions, such as the aforementioned feeling as though I was in Singles when a guy with long, scraggly hair came on stage and got all emotional. Really? Sideways?

The Sadies rocked though. It was packed, and we were both tired from moving furniture all day, the RRHB having injured himself in the process, so we only managed to stay until mid way through their set, which was still 12:30 AM. All in all, a good night for fun.

#72 – The Old Man And The Sea

The Hemingway phase continues. I finished The Old Man and the Sea last weekend but have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to put my thoughts down. It’s a swift and sure novella that seems to be an almost perfect meditation on the classic theme of man versus nature. I can completely see how this tipped the Nobel Prize committee in his favour after it was written. The story, which follows an old Cuban fisherman on his last great run with a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream, seems simple at first, and somewhat matches Hemingway’s stripped down prose, but it’s actually quite complex.

Despite Hemingway’s deeply unemotional prose, the book certainly isn’t afraid to plainly state how pain and suffering refuse to play fair and how some people simply have bad luck (as Cormac McCarthy points out). You feel endlessly empathetic for Santiago as it becomes clearly apparent that despite eighty-four days out at sea, the fish are no longer swimming in his stream of luck. In a way, that’s kind of the strength of the book too. This idea that bad things are always happening to good people. To men who have lived long, honest, impoverished lives.

It’s also a good story to illustrate how human beings are simply powerless in terms of facing nature and winning. Like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, the landscape is as much a character in this piece then the old man himself. The small boat, the thin line, the hard tug of the marlin, they all combine to create an atmosphere the old man will never free himself from. I’m sure that there have been better words spilled about the book, so I won’t go on here. My 1001 Books tome states that critical opinion is varied on The Old Man and the Sea, but I come down on the side that it rightly deserves to be called a classic and on the list.