Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 138
October 10, 2017
P.S.
So sometimes I get carried away with the sunshine and roses. And sometimes, life feels like that. And then sometimes, it doesn't. Demons came out yesterday, and what began so well did not end so well. Isn't that life? You think you're out of the woods. But you're not.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. -R.K. Narayan, novelist (10 Oct 1906-2001)
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. -R.K. Narayan, novelist (10 Oct 1906-2001)
October 9, 2017
giving thanks
Happy 77th birthday, John Winston Lennon. Much missed. I can only imagine what songs you'd be writing today in your adopted home, a country more murderous and mad than ever.
And Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians today. It's warm and wet here in Toronto. Anna and family are on their way back from the country, as four small boys in a field in the the rain is not so much fun. Sam spent yesterday making marinades for fish and meat and preparing a vat of his spectacular French onion soup, which is resting on the stove now.
Yesterday was my mother's birthday; she would have been 94. How I wish she could see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren today, and for that matter, her profoundly grateful daughter. We'll drink a toast tonight to her, to Dad, to Edgar's parents Connie and Edgar Sr. and to his brother Don, to our much-loved ones now gone. And yes, to John Lennon, almost family, too.
And Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians today. It's warm and wet here in Toronto. Anna and family are on their way back from the country, as four small boys in a field in the the rain is not so much fun. Sam spent yesterday making marinades for fish and meat and preparing a vat of his spectacular French onion soup, which is resting on the stove now.
Yesterday was my mother's birthday; she would have been 94. How I wish she could see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren today, and for that matter, her profoundly grateful daughter. We'll drink a toast tonight to her, to Dad, to Edgar's parents Connie and Edgar Sr. and to his brother Don, to our much-loved ones now gone. And yes, to John Lennon, almost family, too.
October 8, 2017
Rosedale Heights celebrates
The most beautiful weather - how lucky we are, October and yet warm, like summer. These days are doubly precious because we know what's coming. My daughter and her family, plus Thomas's mother and two nephews, are spending Thanksgiving more or less camping in the country, four little city boys running wild in the grass and woods. Heaven. So we have deferred our dinner till later. Fine with me - I've cooked enough turkeys for a lifetime.
Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Sam's high school, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts; I'd been invited, as one of the founders of the Parents Arts Council and a parent deeply involved with the school, to speak. I wrote and practiced; it's funny, after many public speaking engagements, I'm still nervous about the task. Just walking into the school brought back those years - 1998 to 2003 - when Sam was growing from normal size to 6'8" and I was trying to get a reluctant scholar through high school. We all were. What a wonderful school it was and is, thanks to its indefatigable principal, Barrie Sketchley - a welcoming, warm environment bursting with creativity, an incredible dance and music program - fantastic. Yesterday, when the alumni and the current kids had assembled in the auditorium and Barrie stood up with the mike, he got a long, loud standing ovation. As I said at the beginning of my talk, "Try to imagine any other school on earth where the man who's been principal for 25 years gets a standing ovation."
Okay, hyperbole - I'm sure there are a few. But this school is rare. My main objective during my talk was to make the kids laugh and not to embarrass my son, and I gather I did and didn't. Sam was sitting with his friend Tristan who in 1999 lived in our basement for months and was so skinny and pale, I called him Ratboy. He graduated, went to art school, and now is a phenomenally successful graphic artist about to move to New Zealand to work with one of the world's most famous film directors. He drove me home in his BMW. Ah life, what a mystery.
Mr. Sketchley with an alumnus
Miss Snider, English teacher, with Tristan aka "Ratboy."
Today, a gorgeous Sunday, I got up at 8 to find my new tenant, the young Frenchwoman, had taken over my kitchen and was busily cooking. Carol, my former tenant, usually uses the kitchen to make meals when I'm not home; I'm not used to sharing my favourite space with such a fervent cook. So I went to the Y, where the mixtape for the class was all oldies, Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis - loved every minute, singing and loping along. And when I came back, I was given a plate of freshly-baked madeleines. The giant boy is asleep upstairs, will shop today for a grand dinner he's cooking tomorrow for me and for his girlfriend, whom I will meet for the first time. The adventure continues.
Marcel Proust here, over and out.
Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Sam's high school, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts; I'd been invited, as one of the founders of the Parents Arts Council and a parent deeply involved with the school, to speak. I wrote and practiced; it's funny, after many public speaking engagements, I'm still nervous about the task. Just walking into the school brought back those years - 1998 to 2003 - when Sam was growing from normal size to 6'8" and I was trying to get a reluctant scholar through high school. We all were. What a wonderful school it was and is, thanks to its indefatigable principal, Barrie Sketchley - a welcoming, warm environment bursting with creativity, an incredible dance and music program - fantastic. Yesterday, when the alumni and the current kids had assembled in the auditorium and Barrie stood up with the mike, he got a long, loud standing ovation. As I said at the beginning of my talk, "Try to imagine any other school on earth where the man who's been principal for 25 years gets a standing ovation."
Okay, hyperbole - I'm sure there are a few. But this school is rare. My main objective during my talk was to make the kids laugh and not to embarrass my son, and I gather I did and didn't. Sam was sitting with his friend Tristan who in 1999 lived in our basement for months and was so skinny and pale, I called him Ratboy. He graduated, went to art school, and now is a phenomenally successful graphic artist about to move to New Zealand to work with one of the world's most famous film directors. He drove me home in his BMW. Ah life, what a mystery.
Mr. Sketchley with an alumnus
Miss Snider, English teacher, with Tristan aka "Ratboy."Today, a gorgeous Sunday, I got up at 8 to find my new tenant, the young Frenchwoman, had taken over my kitchen and was busily cooking. Carol, my former tenant, usually uses the kitchen to make meals when I'm not home; I'm not used to sharing my favourite space with such a fervent cook. So I went to the Y, where the mixtape for the class was all oldies, Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis - loved every minute, singing and loping along. And when I came back, I was given a plate of freshly-baked madeleines. The giant boy is asleep upstairs, will shop today for a grand dinner he's cooking tomorrow for me and for his girlfriend, whom I will meet for the first time. The adventure continues.
Marcel Proust here, over and out.
October 4, 2017
a big decision
Swamped. Periodically I have to stop and sit and take a breath, because the world seems to be hurtling at me, at us all, out of control.
First, of course, our neighbours to the south. To think that not long ago, Canada and the U.S. felt like kin, similar English-speaking McDonald's-eating Breaking-Bad-watching Western democracies. Now, increasingly, theirs is a society of maniacs, insane, incomprehensible. A student read a piece in class on Monday which mentioned her father keeping a loaded pistol in his top drawer, so I knew she was American before she clarified that fact. Canadian fathers, with I'm sure a few exceptions, do not keep loaded pistols in their top drawers. Madness madness madness. Then the country's reprehensible vote at the U.N. about capital punishment for homosexuality; Trump, more vile and disgusting day by day, something that seemed impossible to achieve, and yet achieve it he does. Unbearable, watching a country hurtling off a cliff.
Okay, enough of that. I'll go back to the beautiful memory of the Invictus Games. And today - the English-conversation group, so lively, so much chatter. At the end, Razia, small and brown and swathed in colourful cloth, beamed at me. "Thees," she said, waving her hands at the group, "thees group - talk - I LOVE it!" She hugged me, and then she flipped down the veil to completely cover her face and was off. I love it too. Today we talked about holidays and festivals, and they were asked what their favourite holiday is. "Eid," they all to a woman replied. We have a lot more choice in many things. But they are not unhappy women, for sure. It's extraordinary to get to know women who, according to our rules, are so severely limited in dress, in society and work, in choice. And yet they do not seem to feel limited.
On Saturday afternoon, a huge treat - I rode down to Soulpepper in the Distillery District to see their production of "Waiting for Godot." And felt, as I often do, so immensely privileged that I could zip off, ten minutes from home on my bicycle, to see a fine production of perhaps the greatest masterpiece of 20th century drama - for their last minute price of $25. Oh Sam, Sam Beckett, what a dark and yet comic vision you had. At one point, one of the tramps - Vladimir, I think - is spewing a list of insults, and then comes the worst: "CRITIC!" he shouts. I'd seen it in London a few years ago, an all-star cast - Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart - and didn't like their rather jokey interpretation; it seemed to me the actors, described in a NYT review later as "a little too adorable," were having entirely too much fun at the expense of the play. This production was solid, with a haunting Lucky, very tall, ghostly, with a pale face and long white hair.
Some people regularly reread Jane Austen or George Eliot. I think I must see a production of "Waiting for Godot" every decade or so.
That night was Nuit Blanche, the whole downtown packed with young people and many quirky art installations. I stayed home.
Sunday, not one but two new tenants moved in; Hadi who lived downstairs two years ago wanted to move back and now has, and upstairs, Carol's room is now occupied by Elodie, a young French florist who is here for some months to learn English. Carol is at her other home in Ecuador till March. Elodie is paid by the French government to work for a florist here, and in the evening, she goes salsa dancing.
Tuesday, after my U of T class, a long Creative Non-fiction Collective meeting, many decisions to make, and hours later, off with four other non-fiction writers to Hemingway's in Yorkville for drinks and writing talk. Now that's my idea of fun - not art installations, but drinks and writing talk.
However - back to being swamped. This year for the very first time, as I rode off to the first class at Ryerson, I felt tired. And I realized that I've been teaching since 1994 almost without a break - just took two terms off in 2009 to live in France. Perhaps inspired by my friend Chris, who completely transformed his life in a MONTH, I in my more cautious way made a momentous decision: I am going to take 2019 off from teaching. Born in 1950, I always make some kind of switch in the last year of the decade.
It's okay with my bosses at U of T and Ryerson, who have more than a year to find a replacement. How I will pay for this and what I will do that year, I have no idea. Focus on my new book. Travel. All I know is that for one year, I won't have the treadmill - that I love, still love, will always love - of three teaching terms.
Maybe I'll take up salsa dancing.
First, of course, our neighbours to the south. To think that not long ago, Canada and the U.S. felt like kin, similar English-speaking McDonald's-eating Breaking-Bad-watching Western democracies. Now, increasingly, theirs is a society of maniacs, insane, incomprehensible. A student read a piece in class on Monday which mentioned her father keeping a loaded pistol in his top drawer, so I knew she was American before she clarified that fact. Canadian fathers, with I'm sure a few exceptions, do not keep loaded pistols in their top drawers. Madness madness madness. Then the country's reprehensible vote at the U.N. about capital punishment for homosexuality; Trump, more vile and disgusting day by day, something that seemed impossible to achieve, and yet achieve it he does. Unbearable, watching a country hurtling off a cliff.
Okay, enough of that. I'll go back to the beautiful memory of the Invictus Games. And today - the English-conversation group, so lively, so much chatter. At the end, Razia, small and brown and swathed in colourful cloth, beamed at me. "Thees," she said, waving her hands at the group, "thees group - talk - I LOVE it!" She hugged me, and then she flipped down the veil to completely cover her face and was off. I love it too. Today we talked about holidays and festivals, and they were asked what their favourite holiday is. "Eid," they all to a woman replied. We have a lot more choice in many things. But they are not unhappy women, for sure. It's extraordinary to get to know women who, according to our rules, are so severely limited in dress, in society and work, in choice. And yet they do not seem to feel limited.
On Saturday afternoon, a huge treat - I rode down to Soulpepper in the Distillery District to see their production of "Waiting for Godot." And felt, as I often do, so immensely privileged that I could zip off, ten minutes from home on my bicycle, to see a fine production of perhaps the greatest masterpiece of 20th century drama - for their last minute price of $25. Oh Sam, Sam Beckett, what a dark and yet comic vision you had. At one point, one of the tramps - Vladimir, I think - is spewing a list of insults, and then comes the worst: "CRITIC!" he shouts. I'd seen it in London a few years ago, an all-star cast - Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart - and didn't like their rather jokey interpretation; it seemed to me the actors, described in a NYT review later as "a little too adorable," were having entirely too much fun at the expense of the play. This production was solid, with a haunting Lucky, very tall, ghostly, with a pale face and long white hair.
Some people regularly reread Jane Austen or George Eliot. I think I must see a production of "Waiting for Godot" every decade or so.
That night was Nuit Blanche, the whole downtown packed with young people and many quirky art installations. I stayed home.
Sunday, not one but two new tenants moved in; Hadi who lived downstairs two years ago wanted to move back and now has, and upstairs, Carol's room is now occupied by Elodie, a young French florist who is here for some months to learn English. Carol is at her other home in Ecuador till March. Elodie is paid by the French government to work for a florist here, and in the evening, she goes salsa dancing.
Tuesday, after my U of T class, a long Creative Non-fiction Collective meeting, many decisions to make, and hours later, off with four other non-fiction writers to Hemingway's in Yorkville for drinks and writing talk. Now that's my idea of fun - not art installations, but drinks and writing talk.
However - back to being swamped. This year for the very first time, as I rode off to the first class at Ryerson, I felt tired. And I realized that I've been teaching since 1994 almost without a break - just took two terms off in 2009 to live in France. Perhaps inspired by my friend Chris, who completely transformed his life in a MONTH, I in my more cautious way made a momentous decision: I am going to take 2019 off from teaching. Born in 1950, I always make some kind of switch in the last year of the decade.
It's okay with my bosses at U of T and Ryerson, who have more than a year to find a replacement. How I will pay for this and what I will do that year, I have no idea. Focus on my new book. Travel. All I know is that for one year, I won't have the treadmill - that I love, still love, will always love - of three teaching terms.
Maybe I'll take up salsa dancing.
September 29, 2017
Obama and Harry in Toronto: swoon
Wednesday, so scorching hot we could hardly breathe. Thursday, temperate. Today, so wet and chilly that I turned on the furnace. That is something of a record, that huge a switch in temperature in 48 hours. Welcome to Canada.
I am so immersed in my volunteer activities, it's a miracle I get any work done at all. And many days, I don't. I'm writing a speech to give next weekend at the 25th anniversary of my son's high school, and another for a talk in October, with Powerpoint, in Fairfax, Virginia, plus arranging that trip. I'm finding speakers for the English conversation group, setting up a meeting about our Xmas Eve pageant Babe in the Barn, and spent the whole morning making lists of possible speakers for next year's Creative Non-fiction conference. I have to stop saying yes. Repeat after me: NO. Sorry. I have work to do.
Sigh.
This is a good time for me to do other stuff, though, with the manuscript floating about in two different places. Waiting for the no. Real writers would be starting their next book. I'm making lists of real writers to invite to our conference. And picking the basil in the garden that has to be cooked now, which is the only time I went outside all day. Didn't move all day. Sat here emailing constantly. Bad.
I did cook a delicious Japanese eggplant with garlic and basil dish, however, and spent a delightful hour delving into the file box of my son's life for material for the talk at his school. Did spend a great hour talking to him and eating a superb omelette he cooked for us both, on a quick visit to his old mum. It's a busy busy life, and I would not change a single thing. Except the presidents of the United States and North Korea - those I would definitely change. Particularly because, as a reminder of what can go wrong on our planet, Hilary Clinton was in town yesterday.
Speaking of being in town - the Invictus Games for wounded veterans have been going on all week here, and for sheer joy, how about this picture of the audience for wheelchair basketball? Two of the most adorable manspreading men on the planet side by side. And I'm not talking about Joe Biden, though he's not bad either. What I would like to say is: good job, mothers of these fine men. You done good. (Though truly, look at room taken up by the women's legs and the men's. Vive la difference!)
P.S If you want a smile, go to YouTube and find "B.C. man politely asks bears to leave his backyard." I've tried to put it here but can't. It's the most Canadian thing you'll see all day. Except for the photograph above, in which not a single audience member is paying the slightest attention to two of the most famous men in the world, seated in front of them.
I am so immersed in my volunteer activities, it's a miracle I get any work done at all. And many days, I don't. I'm writing a speech to give next weekend at the 25th anniversary of my son's high school, and another for a talk in October, with Powerpoint, in Fairfax, Virginia, plus arranging that trip. I'm finding speakers for the English conversation group, setting up a meeting about our Xmas Eve pageant Babe in the Barn, and spent the whole morning making lists of possible speakers for next year's Creative Non-fiction conference. I have to stop saying yes. Repeat after me: NO. Sorry. I have work to do.
Sigh.
This is a good time for me to do other stuff, though, with the manuscript floating about in two different places. Waiting for the no. Real writers would be starting their next book. I'm making lists of real writers to invite to our conference. And picking the basil in the garden that has to be cooked now, which is the only time I went outside all day. Didn't move all day. Sat here emailing constantly. Bad.
I did cook a delicious Japanese eggplant with garlic and basil dish, however, and spent a delightful hour delving into the file box of my son's life for material for the talk at his school. Did spend a great hour talking to him and eating a superb omelette he cooked for us both, on a quick visit to his old mum. It's a busy busy life, and I would not change a single thing. Except the presidents of the United States and North Korea - those I would definitely change. Particularly because, as a reminder of what can go wrong on our planet, Hilary Clinton was in town yesterday.
Speaking of being in town - the Invictus Games for wounded veterans have been going on all week here, and for sheer joy, how about this picture of the audience for wheelchair basketball? Two of the most adorable manspreading men on the planet side by side. And I'm not talking about Joe Biden, though he's not bad either. What I would like to say is: good job, mothers of these fine men. You done good. (Though truly, look at room taken up by the women's legs and the men's. Vive la difference!)
P.S If you want a smile, go to YouTube and find "B.C. man politely asks bears to leave his backyard." I've tried to put it here but can't. It's the most Canadian thing you'll see all day. Except for the photograph above, in which not a single audience member is paying the slightest attention to two of the most famous men in the world, seated in front of them.
September 28, 2017
some crazy stuff
The weather has turned, praise be - it's normal out there, lovely, sunny with a bite in the air. I just sent the manuscript to an agent. So am feeling that bite in the air more than usual.
For your daily smile, today's absurdities from the internet:
Someone wrote, in a great Harry Potter reference, "This is the Platform 9 3/4 of bicycle lanes."
Really?
And best of all ... The Snurds. Where are they now?
For your daily smile, today's absurdities from the internet:
Someone wrote, in a great Harry Potter reference, "This is the Platform 9 3/4 of bicycle lanes."
Really?And best of all ... The Snurds. Where are they now?
September 27, 2017
and now for the good news: Macca in NYC
We are living, my friends, through a time surreal with horror, when the base side of human nature is not only disclosed but encouraged and lauded. A time when citizens respond to inevitable change not with interest but with terror, revulsion, and violence. May this time pass quickly and vanish. May we think back on the Trump era, shaking our heads, wondering how it happened. May the dystopian literature that's bursting out not be proven true. In the meantime, I cling to newspaper columnists and sharp-tongued comedians to keep my sanity.
In the meantime, all I can do is tend my garden, not just the plants, but the neighbourhood - this morning, the English conversation group in Regents Park. There was a surreal moment when I saw me and my friend Linda surrounded by brown-skinned women, Jesmin, Razia, Nurun, and the others, wearing yards and yards of beautiful material, huge swaths of multi-coloured cloth enveloping their bodies and heads. Some new women came today, younger ones who did not wear the veil, which made me glad. But still, even those who do wear it, when they flip up that black cloth, I see beautiful lively faces anxious to learn English, full of laughter. It's a joy.
And then they flip the veil back down and go back to their lives, their many children, and Linda and I go to the Y for Carole's class where we met, running around puffing and panting and wearing very little. Not something our new Bengali friends have ever experienced.
And then I come home to my empty quiet house and think about the rest of the day, which somehow goes by, much of it sitting here with my fingers tapping - editing pieces for students, for the next So True, writing to friends, this blog, about next year's conference, preparing talks, reading online and on paper, trying to keep my head above the water of my responsibilities. My own work, buried for now. Cooking cleaning volunteering - when it's so difficult to get to work with only that, however did I do any writing when I had young children? The honest answer: I didn't, not very much.
And the New Yorker, another task, that gorgeous magazine arriving once a week in my mailbox. Impossible to keep up. But flipping through today's, I could not help but see this small mention of one of my greatest loves - yes, a mention in the coolest of the cool in NYC.
The New Yorker, Oct. 2, 2017Night Life, Rock and Pop
Paul McCartney
McCartney’s “One on One” tour has rumbled into its last week in the tristate area. The tour was advertised with billboards featuring a simple image of his signature Höfner bass, devoid of his likeness – a cryptic campaign few other rock stars could pull off. McCartney has somehow grown from his association with a band that was “bigger than Jesus” to something even larger: a living, breathing time capsule from possibly the richest, most fawned over period in popular music. He’s also become cooler with age, and his infrequent collaborations with artists generations his junior (including his sitting in as a drummer on an upcoming Foo Fighters record) only further stoke his legend.
The writer is wrong in one thing - Macca has not at all "become cooler with age," he is just the same; it's just that cool people have finally recognized how extraordinary he is. Go Macca. Could you please save the world, while you're at it?
In the meantime, all I can do is tend my garden, not just the plants, but the neighbourhood - this morning, the English conversation group in Regents Park. There was a surreal moment when I saw me and my friend Linda surrounded by brown-skinned women, Jesmin, Razia, Nurun, and the others, wearing yards and yards of beautiful material, huge swaths of multi-coloured cloth enveloping their bodies and heads. Some new women came today, younger ones who did not wear the veil, which made me glad. But still, even those who do wear it, when they flip up that black cloth, I see beautiful lively faces anxious to learn English, full of laughter. It's a joy.
And then they flip the veil back down and go back to their lives, their many children, and Linda and I go to the Y for Carole's class where we met, running around puffing and panting and wearing very little. Not something our new Bengali friends have ever experienced.
And then I come home to my empty quiet house and think about the rest of the day, which somehow goes by, much of it sitting here with my fingers tapping - editing pieces for students, for the next So True, writing to friends, this blog, about next year's conference, preparing talks, reading online and on paper, trying to keep my head above the water of my responsibilities. My own work, buried for now. Cooking cleaning volunteering - when it's so difficult to get to work with only that, however did I do any writing when I had young children? The honest answer: I didn't, not very much.
And the New Yorker, another task, that gorgeous magazine arriving once a week in my mailbox. Impossible to keep up. But flipping through today's, I could not help but see this small mention of one of my greatest loves - yes, a mention in the coolest of the cool in NYC.
The New Yorker, Oct. 2, 2017Night Life, Rock and Pop
Paul McCartney
McCartney’s “One on One” tour has rumbled into its last week in the tristate area. The tour was advertised with billboards featuring a simple image of his signature Höfner bass, devoid of his likeness – a cryptic campaign few other rock stars could pull off. McCartney has somehow grown from his association with a band that was “bigger than Jesus” to something even larger: a living, breathing time capsule from possibly the richest, most fawned over period in popular music. He’s also become cooler with age, and his infrequent collaborations with artists generations his junior (including his sitting in as a drummer on an upcoming Foo Fighters record) only further stoke his legend.
The writer is wrong in one thing - Macca has not at all "become cooler with age," he is just the same; it's just that cool people have finally recognized how extraordinary he is. Go Macca. Could you please save the world, while you're at it?
September 26, 2017
reasons to drink
Love this press release from the White House:
Melania Trump embarked on her first solo overseas trip as First Lady when she attended the Invictus Games in Toronto on Saturday.
Melania visits Canada, that great country overseas. I'm not sure exactly which seas - does Lake Ontario count?
I'm listening to CBC's The World at Six, drinking white with ice cubes, wearing as little as possible in the on-going sweltering heat - the last few days indeed record-breaking, 32 degrees feeling nearer to 40 with the humidity. Tomorrow only 38. The news on CBC is devastating. Do we even remember Barack Obama, his idealism and grace? Yes we can? It seems a lifetime ago.
I am going next month to Washington D.C., for a talk on my great-grandfather near there, in Fairfax, Virginia. I actually wrote yesterday to the woman producing the event to say - if it looks like nuclear war is going to break out, I will not be coming. I had a nightmare of war starting with me stuck in Washington, just the worst place to be. Hard to believe I'm even saying this. My father spent much of his life fighting nuclear proliferation; I grew up with the words "Strontium 90" and "nuclear proliferation" ringing in my ears. And now - two lunatics with their fingers on the button.
Spare us.
Teaching has started, two very full classes full of interesting people - I love my job, though I come home drained. I am not getting enough done. The manuscript is in limbo. Yesterday was Glenn Gould's birthday. Happy birthday, dear genius.
Melania Trump embarked on her first solo overseas trip as First Lady when she attended the Invictus Games in Toronto on Saturday.
Melania visits Canada, that great country overseas. I'm not sure exactly which seas - does Lake Ontario count?
I'm listening to CBC's The World at Six, drinking white with ice cubes, wearing as little as possible in the on-going sweltering heat - the last few days indeed record-breaking, 32 degrees feeling nearer to 40 with the humidity. Tomorrow only 38. The news on CBC is devastating. Do we even remember Barack Obama, his idealism and grace? Yes we can? It seems a lifetime ago.
I am going next month to Washington D.C., for a talk on my great-grandfather near there, in Fairfax, Virginia. I actually wrote yesterday to the woman producing the event to say - if it looks like nuclear war is going to break out, I will not be coming. I had a nightmare of war starting with me stuck in Washington, just the worst place to be. Hard to believe I'm even saying this. My father spent much of his life fighting nuclear proliferation; I grew up with the words "Strontium 90" and "nuclear proliferation" ringing in my ears. And now - two lunatics with their fingers on the button.
Spare us.
Teaching has started, two very full classes full of interesting people - I love my job, though I come home drained. I am not getting enough done. The manuscript is in limbo. Yesterday was Glenn Gould's birthday. Happy birthday, dear genius.
September 24, 2017
Word on the Street in the heat
Again, I apologize for the blowing-own-horn that follows, but what I received today via email is so beautiful and means so much to my battered writer's heart that I must share it with you. I've been corresponding with a writer who wants me to work as editor or coach on her next book, so I got her last memoir out of the library and loved it, found it powerful and profound. I wrote to tell her so, and she wrote back that she is reading "All My Loving."
Sometimes I read at night if I can’t sleep. I can usually do that without waking my partner who is a sound sleeper. But I’ve been waking him up lately because All My Loving is so damn funny it’s making me laugh out loud. You have drawn such a wonderful portrait and I am so drawn to her and all her trials. I also realize that over time I forgot the details, not just of us, but of our time, and you have brought all of it back to mind so beautifully, with such virtuosity and detail and intelligence. I am in awe.
I forgot to adore myself at least as much as I adored Paul, and the portrait of your character is so hilariously potent and magnetic that I’ve now remembered how wildly potent I was too! It’s like reading a really smart love letter and the title so perfectly reflects the warmth that I’ve felt reading it. It is a gift to us on so many levels, and I am grateful.
Not as grateful, dear reader, as this author. As I wrote to her - we send our slaved-over, beloved works out into the world like defenceless children, without knowing if they will ever matter to anyone. So to receive something like this means more than I can express.
Okay, though I'd like to linger here ... moving on. The weather, insane, surely record-breaking heat, broiling, brutal, like a mid-summer heatwave only it's nearly October. And unfortunately, today was Word on the Street at Harbourfront, where there's no shade. I heard someone lamenting the past venues for this great festival of the printed word, and I couldn't agree more - I've been going for decades, since it was stretched out along Queen Street, and then in Queen's Park where there were TREES and real grass. And now Harbourfront where it's very crowded, all the little tents packed together, madness in the heat.
I was there first with Eli; we watched a show at the TVO marquis but mostly he wanted to run up and down the wavy wooden street over the water, so when his mother arrived, we sat in the shade and he ran and slid in the sun with a new friend. He is indefatigable and wherever he goes, he makes friends. Yesterday I took him to the Wellesley Street waterpark and he ran screaming through the water for a solid hour with his new BFF who was certainly on the autism spectrum, at one point punching the jets of water and shouting, "I hate you I hate you!" Eli just kept running and jumping and getting wetter. He'd just lost his first tooth, pulled out by his mama with dental floss, as her father did with her's.
And then a sleepover with Glamma. He climbed into my bed at 3 a.m. and proceeded to thrash about and snore, so I got up and carried him back to the spare room. Once I appreciated having a handsome young man in my bed; not so much now.
Later today at WOTS I met up with Kirsten Fogg, who is also on the committee to produce the creative non-fiction conference next year, and we went about listening to possible candidates for our event and then hiding in shady places. Two more days of this blazing heat, apparently, and then it starts to fade, and soon we'll be complaining about the cold. We're Canadians.
Sometimes I read at night if I can’t sleep. I can usually do that without waking my partner who is a sound sleeper. But I’ve been waking him up lately because All My Loving is so damn funny it’s making me laugh out loud. You have drawn such a wonderful portrait and I am so drawn to her and all her trials. I also realize that over time I forgot the details, not just of us, but of our time, and you have brought all of it back to mind so beautifully, with such virtuosity and detail and intelligence. I am in awe.
I forgot to adore myself at least as much as I adored Paul, and the portrait of your character is so hilariously potent and magnetic that I’ve now remembered how wildly potent I was too! It’s like reading a really smart love letter and the title so perfectly reflects the warmth that I’ve felt reading it. It is a gift to us on so many levels, and I am grateful.
Not as grateful, dear reader, as this author. As I wrote to her - we send our slaved-over, beloved works out into the world like defenceless children, without knowing if they will ever matter to anyone. So to receive something like this means more than I can express.
Okay, though I'd like to linger here ... moving on. The weather, insane, surely record-breaking heat, broiling, brutal, like a mid-summer heatwave only it's nearly October. And unfortunately, today was Word on the Street at Harbourfront, where there's no shade. I heard someone lamenting the past venues for this great festival of the printed word, and I couldn't agree more - I've been going for decades, since it was stretched out along Queen Street, and then in Queen's Park where there were TREES and real grass. And now Harbourfront where it's very crowded, all the little tents packed together, madness in the heat.
I was there first with Eli; we watched a show at the TVO marquis but mostly he wanted to run up and down the wavy wooden street over the water, so when his mother arrived, we sat in the shade and he ran and slid in the sun with a new friend. He is indefatigable and wherever he goes, he makes friends. Yesterday I took him to the Wellesley Street waterpark and he ran screaming through the water for a solid hour with his new BFF who was certainly on the autism spectrum, at one point punching the jets of water and shouting, "I hate you I hate you!" Eli just kept running and jumping and getting wetter. He'd just lost his first tooth, pulled out by his mama with dental floss, as her father did with her's.
And then a sleepover with Glamma. He climbed into my bed at 3 a.m. and proceeded to thrash about and snore, so I got up and carried him back to the spare room. Once I appreciated having a handsome young man in my bed; not so much now.
Later today at WOTS I met up with Kirsten Fogg, who is also on the committee to produce the creative non-fiction conference next year, and we went about listening to possible candidates for our event and then hiding in shady places. Two more days of this blazing heat, apparently, and then it starts to fade, and soon we'll be complaining about the cold. We're Canadians.
September 22, 2017
hot, with cucumbers and a rant
It's the autumn equinox, first day of fall, and tomorrow there's a heat warning in effect; with the humidity, the temperature will feel like 39 degrees. It's a full-on heatwave in Toronto, after a mild summer with lots of rain. Absolutely perfect timing - it means so much more to feel that warmth blasting your bones when you know what is lurking around the corner. What's hard to comprehend is the citizens of Toronto swanning around in tank tops when half the world, it seems, is under water or on fire, fleeing slaughter, struggling to survive in refugee camps or battered, smashed, destroyed, buried under rubble. Hard to be anything but grateful, and bewildered at our luck. Not to mention the fact that Canadians have, not a giant orange blowhole of a leader who at the U.N. threatens to wipe out a country of many millions of people, but one who speaks with painful, almost embarrassing honesty about the failure of this country to deal fairly with its indigenous population. What a contrast.
Immediately Canadians leapt onto FB and Twitter to bitch, to say it was "just rhetoric." Jesus God, could we not, for a tiny moment, celebrate a courageous generosity of spirit? Just for a minute or two, before piling on to criticize? It's like, if they're not inflamed, they cease to exist. Bitch on, my angry friends.
Sigh.
Yesterday, John came with his helper, Ricky in his gold high-tops, to do the massive job of trimming the dead ivy branches on the south wall and giving a haircut to the overgrown willow. Tons of work, a wonderful workout, much better than the Y. John was cutting back around my vegetable cage and found a giant cucumber growing outside, unfortunately yellow and so inedible. What a waste! But there are still LOTS more. I just made my grandmother Nettie's "cucumbers in sour cream and lemon" recipe, that I loved when I was a kid. Asked for the recipe in the early years of my marriage and never made it. Now's the time. Delicious.
Then, tea with the old friend who gave me my job at Ryerson 23 years ago and then moved to Vancouver, here to visit her son who now lives in TO. How grateful I am to her for a job I still love, after all this time. She gave me the terrible news that her husband, a dignified, very smart arts bureaucrat who was the model of diplomacy, intellect, and articulacy, is now in a nursing home suffering from Parkinson's-related dementia. The most tragic story. God preserve us all.
I took back a library book today, "Do I make myself clear?" by Harold Evans, editor extraordinaire, who rants wonderfully about obscure or needlessly complex language and provides page after page of translation into good plain English. I picked up two other books, but first, a treat - I've received "Euclid's Orchard," the new book of my friend Theresa Kishkan, a dear blog buddy though we have never met. I can't wait. She is a passionate thoughtful very wise writer, and I'm sure the book sounds just like her. And that Harold Evans would think so too.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. -H.G. Wells, writer (21 Sep 1866-1946)
Immediately Canadians leapt onto FB and Twitter to bitch, to say it was "just rhetoric." Jesus God, could we not, for a tiny moment, celebrate a courageous generosity of spirit? Just for a minute or two, before piling on to criticize? It's like, if they're not inflamed, they cease to exist. Bitch on, my angry friends.
Sigh.
Yesterday, John came with his helper, Ricky in his gold high-tops, to do the massive job of trimming the dead ivy branches on the south wall and giving a haircut to the overgrown willow. Tons of work, a wonderful workout, much better than the Y. John was cutting back around my vegetable cage and found a giant cucumber growing outside, unfortunately yellow and so inedible. What a waste! But there are still LOTS more. I just made my grandmother Nettie's "cucumbers in sour cream and lemon" recipe, that I loved when I was a kid. Asked for the recipe in the early years of my marriage and never made it. Now's the time. Delicious.
Then, tea with the old friend who gave me my job at Ryerson 23 years ago and then moved to Vancouver, here to visit her son who now lives in TO. How grateful I am to her for a job I still love, after all this time. She gave me the terrible news that her husband, a dignified, very smart arts bureaucrat who was the model of diplomacy, intellect, and articulacy, is now in a nursing home suffering from Parkinson's-related dementia. The most tragic story. God preserve us all.I took back a library book today, "Do I make myself clear?" by Harold Evans, editor extraordinaire, who rants wonderfully about obscure or needlessly complex language and provides page after page of translation into good plain English. I picked up two other books, but first, a treat - I've received "Euclid's Orchard," the new book of my friend Theresa Kishkan, a dear blog buddy though we have never met. I can't wait. She is a passionate thoughtful very wise writer, and I'm sure the book sounds just like her. And that Harold Evans would think so too.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. -H.G. Wells, writer (21 Sep 1866-1946)
