Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 220

the best city in the world!

CITY  Toronto ranked the best city to live in the worldPosted by Derek Flack / JANUARY 29, 2015323 CommentsToronto has been ranked the best city to live in the world by the Economist. The ranking aggregates Toronto's performance across a range of indexes, which include safety, livability and cost of living. National level rankings like the Economist's Democracy and Global Food Security Index were also factored into the overall rank. So, like, we're the best. Give yourself a pat on the back.The overall rankings come as part of a new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit that ranks cities based on how safe they are. According to this report, Toronto is the safest city in North America and eighth-ranked city in the world, trailing Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Sydney, and Zurich. The safety index is ranked according to the following criteria: digital security, health security, infrastructure and personal safety.In the overall rankings (what the Economist calls the "index of indexes") Toronto has only one category in which it doesn't rank in the top 10 globally. Can you guess what it is? Yep, cost of living. In this category, our city comes in 70th place. That's not really surprising, and for what it's worth, most of the other cities in the top 10 of the overall rankings are deemed to be more expensive than Toronto.I guess we should remind ourselves of how good we have it the next time we're inclined to complain about tough commutes and winter weather (yeah, right -- like we're going to stop complaining).Especially now we have a mayor who isn't an international laughing stock. Yes, he's a boring right wing guy, but at least he's not a crack addict. Bravo, Toronto! 

room in lovely Cabbagetown house for rent

So - further to the post below - if you or someone you know needs a temporary room in downtown Toronto, mine will be available from March 20 to April 25, by the week or the month. My friend and tenant Carol will be here keeping the house running, but I hate to see my comfy bed with its view over the garden go empty.

You'd have your own private full bathroom, use of the living room and ridiculously large flat screen, and share the bright kitchen and gorgeous deck and garden with Carol.

Marketing is not my strong point, but I hope I'm convincing.

my travellin' shoes - Ferragamo?

Okay, now it's real so I can talk about it. You know I usually go to Europe between terms, at the end of March through April. My beloved, inexpensive and perfect apartment in Paris is being sold, so I wondered if I'd still be able to go - the fact that I could afford Paris opened all of Europe to me.

But Annie, a woman I met by accident my first year in Paris, 2009 - the midwives were on strike and paralyzed public transit, so a kind woman at the bus stop offered to help me figure out how to get where I was going; she was going the same way, and we walked and talked and have been good friends ever since - Annie put me in touch with a friend who lives in Turin but has a pied à terre in Paris. It's in the 14th, not as great a location as my last place a stone's throw from the Pantheon, but it's also very affordable and I have booked it sight unseen for two weeks.

So then I planned out the rest. I always go to vibrant fabulous London to see theatre, and coordinate with my young friends who travel at Easter and leave me their central apartment. The trouble is they never plan in advance, so I'm never sure when - or even if - they're leaving. But I go and eventually, they leave. So we're trying this again this Easter. I do have a friend who lives on the outskirts in case, for some reason, they don't go away. I won't be wandering the streets.

And then - oh my dear Bruce, who goes to Italy every spring and seems to enjoy my company. Last year, he guided me on a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Rome, Naples, the Amalfi Coast. This year he proposed Sicily, but we decided that was a bit far. So instead - a week in Florence, with day trips to the surrounding towns, and then Cinque Terre. Be still my beating heart. I have just booked an amazingly reasonable boutique hotel in central Florence for a week, and see on Google Maps that there's a Ferragamo store right across the street. Luckily they have no big sizes. Brucie and I will go to Siena, to Lucca. And then two or three days and nights hiking the small coastal villages of Cinque Terre.

From there, a long train ride along the coast to Nice. And in the south of France, I'll meet my friends Lynn and Denis for an unspecified visit - either to their home in Gordes or Montpellier, or a drive into the French mountains. When Denis read my memoir, he told me the place I described camping with the Belgian Girl Guides, Vallouise, is close to his parents' ski chalet, and he offered to take me there, to revisit the scene of that unhappy time. Yay. And then the train to Paris, and home April 26.

I know, lucky lucky lucky. But it's work. Truly. I write in Paris, where it's quiet and I know almost no one. I am also visiting old friends as research for the new memoir - here's a photo one of them just sent of his wedding in Carcassonne in 1979, the year I'm writing about, which my parents and I attended. That's me in the background, on the left. That's the bride in front with her dad.
I'm spending time with friend Penny in London - we have an idea for a book to write together. And in 1979 too, I visited Florence and took the train to Nice and Provence. So this trip is purely research, my friends. The pleasure involved will be incidental to the work.

And if you believe that, I've got a prime minister to sell you.

garden writing workshop - in the house

I know this is short notice, but I'll post anyway - for those of you living in the Toronto area who would like to discover your inner writer - here's your chance. Tomorrow, Sunday, is my day-long write-on-the-spot writing workshop for anyone and everyone who wants to jumpstart the writing process. Absolutely non-threatening as there is no obligation to share a single word of what you write - though I'll encourage you to do so.

The group who met in my garden in July liked the day so much they asked to come back in six months. Hence, tomorrow, when my garden will be replaced with just about every room in my house. I've just had a cancellation so am writing to let the world know there's a spot available. We start at 10.30 and go till 5 with a break for lunch (Super Bowl chill, just made), and costs $150 - inspiration, food for thought and actual food and wine included.

Go on, spend the day getting to know yourself on paper, I dare you.

the comforts of storytelling

An interesting Atlantic article, forwarded by Juliet in Paris, again outlines the importance of narrative to the human soul. Especially the list of seven major plots...

Author Christopher Booker claims there are only seven basic plots, which are repeated over and over in film, in television, and in novels with just slight tweaks. There is the “overcoming the monster” plot (Beowulf, War of the Worlds); “rags to riches” (Cinderella, Jane Eyre); “the quest” (Illiad, The Lord of the Rings); “voyage and return” (Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland); “rebirth” (Sleeping Beauty, A Christmas Carol); “comedy” (ends in marriage); and “tragedy” (ends in death).
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-psychological-comforts-of-storytelling/381964/

Write yours!

Oscar's short films

Bitter out there - oh my God Canadians are brave. We survive. With two months to go, at least.

Last night, my home class was here, wonderful writing, people sitting in my living room telling their most important truths. Particularly two students, one of whom is 87 and the other 89, strong, vital, beautiful, fascinating women in the thick of life, both writing about facing death. As inspiring as it gets. I love my job.

Today, after various errands in the freezing wind, I went to TIFF to see the Oscar nominated Live Action Short Films. I love short films and had heard several of these were worth seeing. And they were - so different, when I emerged, I felt I'd been around the world, following the drama of an Afghani girl in Switzerland, an Israeli woman meeting a Danish musician, a pair of adorable northern Irish children, an outdoor photography studio in Tibet, and a woman (the great actress Sally Hawkins) manning a crisis hotline in England, which will probably win. I liked all of them except, unfortunately, the Israeli film, Aya, which I hated, found interminably self-indulgent, slow and dull. I even texted a few times while it meandered on, because the theatre was not full and I wasn't bothering anyone. But - watching real Tibetan families pose for a camera in front of a phoney backdrop, while behind them loom the actual Himalayas - beautiful.

Then I came home to the news that Harper is fanning the flames of paranoia and hatred and extending the powers of CSIS. When he starts to speak, I turn off the radio as fast as possible because I want to throw up if I hear his voice. A loathsome human being who has done his best to destroy everything good about my country, and is still doing so.

Here, thanks to Facebook, is a fabulous bit of rock and roll history: when the musicians of Led Zeppelin were being honoured by the White House, the sisters of Heart did a cover of "Stairway to Heaven." Fabulous on a cold day especially. Will warm you right to your toes.
http://www.splentale.com/this-sensational-cover-of-stairway-to-heaven-brought-led-zeppelin-to-tears-left-obama-speechless/#

the Beatles outside my door

Right now ... and very welcome they are too. Have to get some boots for my Paul, though.

a student success story

A student worked with me at U of T and then privately, labouring on her memoir. She's in high level finance, a Vice-President who'd never done any creative writing, but she had a powerful story she wanted her children to know, about growing up overseas, her charming but neglectful and sometimes dangerous father, and later her charming but neglectful and sometimes dangerous ex-husband. As we worked together, she told me the pages beneath her pen were often sodden with tears. But she finished, edited, rewrote, rewrote, rewrote. It took years.

She self-published this well-written, thoughtful and moving work as a memoir, but though people appreciated her honesty, she felt terribly exposed. So - she reworked the memoir as a novel, which didn't take much effort - she changed all the names and a few of the places and self-published again under a pseudonym - and that was it. Otherwise, it's the same story. And a beautiful story it is too. I'm sorry she can't just own her story - but I understand the need to protect oneself. 
She's going home for a high school reunion next month - and has learned that most of her old friends have read her novel and are full of admiration for her writing ability and courage (because of course, they know exactly who it's about). And now, a professor teaching a course in the history of that country has put her book on the curriculum. As I wrote in the last post, we never know where our work is going to land, but we do it anyway.
She just sent me this very kind note:Please remember that I'd never have come up with this book if I had been left to write on my own. I needed you! To squeeze the truth out of me, to unpack and keep unpacking, to frankly tell me what wasn't working, to form the nebulous nightmare into something that others can easily understand - although not a few of those who've read it say it's a painful, difficult read, in spite of the fact that they couldn't put it down. I'd never have thought!
And what I say to that is BRAVA.

a writer talks frankly about money

At the bottom is an important article by Ann Bauer about a writer's finances. There's a chapter in "True to Life," my how-to-write textbook, about money - how incredibly little most of us make writing, and how so many of us are sponsored by our loved ones, or grants, or else take other jobs to pay the rent. I respect Ann Bauer for finally bringing it up publicly.

The problem is that we have J. K. Rowling in view - a madwoman who used her welfare cheque to pay for babysitting so she could sit in a café and write about wizards. Obviously, a lunatic who took an enormous gamble not just with her own future, but with her child's. And yet now, with talent, hard work and, yes, luck, the wealthiest writer in the world.

But a vast percentage of the time, that's not how the story ends. I was just thinking about this, because there was an event at U of T's University College yesterday celebrating U of T teachers who published books last year. There was free food and drink, so a disproportionate number from the creative writing department were there.
My two books were on display, and I was proud. But that's not to say they've made money. Neither of them had a single review in a newspaper. A linguistics professor at the event said to me, "I wish I'd known about your writing book, I needed it while writing mine." And I thought, I wish you'd known about my book too. Almost no one does.

Now I'm going to spend countless hours producing another one, with no guarantee of any more attention or remuneration than the last. Because I'm a gambling lunatic too. In other words, a writer.

Here's her honest article. A recommended reality check.
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/

Cathy Gildiner on writing memoir

A terrific piece from today's Globe - though it fizzles at the end, perhaps was cut? - about the importance, the difficulty and the pleasure, of writing memoir.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/ive-exposed-my-faults-in-three-memoirs-but-im-still-anxious-of-the-reviews/article22653807/

I'm especially interested because I recently - thrillingly - found someone, one of Canada's best editors, to coach me through the writing of my new memoir. Though she has edited famous peoples' stories about the great things they accomplished, she has never edited a "nobody memoir," as "All My Loving" was and as the new one will be. But she had valuable comments to make on the Beatle story, and I can't wait to work with her on this one.

When I told her about the new work, which is about the life-changing year 1979 when I was 28, she wrote back, "I think you’ll be writing four or five memoirs in all, Beth. You’ve already dealt with the young girl through the Paul lens.  Now the young woman, adrift, but finding her anchor. And next? Wife and mother, until the separation. And then the brave mature woman, fashioning her life in new ways yet again as teacher and mentor, landlady and friend, grandma and ?. Finally, reflections from the wise old dame, sometimes crabby but always astute, building bridges to all those, regardless of age, around her."

And I replied, "Good God, I think not. After two books, people will start paying me to shut up!" But reading about Cathy Gildiner with three memoirs, I started to think ... Hmmmm.

Here's another writer's view. Well, that's where my new editor comes in.
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. 
-Colette, author (28 Jan 1873-1954)

And for those of you in the west end needing peace and quiet, there's a wonderful new place, High Park Commons, which rents out a tranquil room with desk and coffee. If only I'd had that when my kids were little ... no, nothing would have changed. But for those of you more productive and focussed than this scattered and restless writer, check it out: www.highparkcommons.ca.