Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 71
October 2, 2020
the best bartender in Toronto
Very exciting news: a young man of my acquaintance, a certain very tall Sam, has been nominated as the Best Bartender in Toronto. Imagine - he's one of only five nominated in this entire metropolis. He works at a very small bar, so that means quite a concerted effort by his faithful patrons to get him on the list. And you too can vote. So - feel free.
In other news - there's other news?! Someone joked on Twitter that in future, Ph.D. students in History will say, "My thesis deals with October 1 2020, with a bit of overlap on October 2." They'll take it day by day. It's hard to tear away from Twitter, FB, the NYT, wherever news is erupting next. To think, as someone else joked, once there was a scandal on Fox because Obama wore a tan suit.
Since I'm blowing my son's horn, if you don't mind, I will blow mine too, or at least my book's. People still saying nice things. Carole in England, whom I've never met, emailed I’ve just this minute finished reading your superb book, I didn’t want it to end, a total page turner and believe me I read a lot of books ! It was totally engrossing, told with such honesty, heart and openness, well paced and full of beautiful descriptive prose transporting me to the depths of France and the glories of Greece...yum! Your rite of passage really touched me, being of the same age, and made me reflect on my life, the paths we choose at the fork on the road, the self discovery, the repercussions which follow us through our lives and make us who we are. What a life you’ve led, Beth. I had a tear in my eye as it ended; it moved me, particularly your dedication to your family at the end. Loved it. More please.
Thank you so, Carole - you've no idea how much that means. And someone else I've never met wrote, from Vancouver, I finished your book last night - what a wonderful read. It's so beautifully written and thought-provoking.
But though reading these things brings me joy, none of it means as much as a Best Bartender nomination for my boy. He has the family showman gene, not playing parts but making people laugh and feel comfortable and welcome. It's hard work, and it's a gift. How wonderful that his gift has been recognized.
September 30, 2020
Beth is interviewed in New York
Monday was summer - hot and sunny. Tuesday was fall - cool and drizzly. Today is both - this morning grey, this afternoon lovely and bright, with showers of leaves. Autumn in Canada!
Let's not talk about the debate. I managed half an hour before my stomach was heaving so badly I had to turn it off. A spectacle like no other. Especially appalling because two days ago I made the mistake of writing to my Trump-loving old friend Dan, in New Jersey, assuming the news about Trump's tax returns would be the coup de grâce for him. Absolutely not - he launched into a fulsome defence and, like his idol, an attack on Hunter Biden. When I wrote back with a tiny list of everything wrong with this man, he replied, "Oh lighten up, Beth. Life is short."
The end of one friendship. It's true. Life is short.
Just did an Arriba class at the Y - a shadow of its former self, so empty and barren, but at least it's there. Today at 3.35, my interview in French will be on Radio Canada. And yesterday, I was checking out the new search engine Ecosia, entered my name, and an interview I'd never seen, done in New York in 2018, popped up. I'd flown in for a production of one of my great-grandfather's plays, and the director interviewed me beforehand. What a nice jacket - one of my best buys from Doubletake. Check it out for everything you want to know about the Jewish Shakespeare, and to see how many different ways Beth can twist her face!
September 28, 2020
Pierre Trudeau made me cry again today.
Pierre Trudeau died on this day twenty years ago. Not long after, I wrote a short essay about his death which I didn't send anywhere, so am posting it here. And in fact, I did cry again, today.
September 27, 2020
Musing in the heat
A sublime day - 26 degrees feeling like 31. So much more appreciated than summer sun because - we know why.
A perfect day, though I am sad. Went for a bike ride - Safe Streets Toronto closed Yonge Street down to the lake, so I rode down and then along the lake in the sun and wind.
Yonge Street as it should look
Sugar Beach with a sugar tanker 
Soon all will be aflameHome to do Jane Ellison's class on Zoom, only she froze after 20 minutes and couldn't get back. Which was a relief, actually, because after yesterday - riding to the market and then line-dancing with Gina in the Sprucecourt playground as we did in April, a great deal of fun - and then the ride today in a stiff wind, my legs are tired.
This afternoon, listened to Eleanor interview filmmaker Mira Nair while making ratatouille and braised broccoli and leeks to go with marinated market pork chops tonight. And soon, rosé on the deck. Perfect.
But also, even in the hot sun, I'm a bit melancholy. I'm at a crossroads: my book needs me to spend tons of time learning to navigate social media, posting about myself and the book on FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. I gather that's the only chance it has to find an audience. So, spent hours figuring out LinkedIn yesterday. My practical friend Ellen is urging me to do this, make myself a marketing maven; I just need to Like a lot more people, to Follow all the people the people I'm Following Follow - and then engage with them about my book. For someone like me, almost completely unknown in CanLit with no name to speak of, no writing prizes (except for winning the Canadian Jewish Playwriting competition in about 1998 - not a crowded field), no recent essays in magazines (except a short piece about memoir writing last year in Zoomer) which all equals NO PLATFORM - the only chance for my book to thrive is for me to jump through those hoops.
Is it laziness to resist, to say, it's not me, I just can't do it? Complete lack of discipline? For that matter, I'd rather write here, in this blog, than start my next project. I'm acknowledging my deficits as a writer, coming to terms with the fact that my books may always languish in obscurity.
C'est la vie. I would not trade ma vie for another. Many things through the years have taken priority over writing. C'est la vie.
Speaking of la vie - I did do a CBC radio interview about the book the other day. It was Radio Canada, French CBC, an interview in French with my friend Sylvie-Anne Jeanson that will air next Wednesday, she says. Unfortunately, my book is in English, so this will not help sell it. But still, I wrote to Sylvie-Anne and did an interview. That I can do.
Yesterday was Celebrate Daughters Day. As the mother of a daughter and the daughter of a mother, I posted this, from 2010, on Instagram. That I can also, with great pleasure and another kind of sadness, do.
September 25, 2020
Our stories are worth telling and worth telling well
Just came home from errands to find a letter in my mailbox from Ann, a former student. Reading it is a great reminder of why we writers do what we do:
Your book practically broke my heart and restored it. I felt so engaged. Your journey, so intimately described, resonated with me down to my bones. I was in Vancouver in '79, attending the Arts Club and other theatres, and you brought back so many memories and made me feel as if I was there, with you. So thank you for sharing your life with us. Kudos, too, for the diligence in getting it published after all your hard work and perseverance. You epitomize the purpose of your "True to Life" teachings, setting an example for us to aspire to, reminding us that our stories are worth telling, and worth telling well.
Thank you so much, Ann. How kind of you to put these warm words on paper and in the mail.
At the risk of overkill, here's another email from old friend Peter Blais: Loved it all. I laughed, I cried, looked in the mirror and loved again. What a complicated plot told with such effortlessness. The L'Arche stories were fresh and wonderful for me. And Greece. And of course life in France. Naturally the theatre thread was at times painfully familiar. It's a wonder you survived to achieve the robust age and personality you can rightly claim as a great success story.
Thank you, Peter. Okay I can retire now since I have achieved writer nirvana. Not. Got scolded by a savvy friend about my laziness on social media, how I should be increasing my twitter followers by following many myself, working LinkedIn and Instagram... I will try, I promise.
More importantly, it's a stunning day. I gathered all my basil and made a big batch of pesto. (My mother's milk jug is where I keep my garlic.) And then Ruth and I went for a walk in the 'hood.
O Canada.PS. Just received 50 more copies of the book. The first shipment - 110 books - has gone. A good sign!
September 24, 2020
saying goodbye to Lola
Yesterday a very moving experience: a memorial event on Zoom for Lola, who died this year at 98 - my father's cousin, a painter and jewellery maker, born in New York in 1922 two months before Dad. There were perhaps 40 of us, from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, some of them family I know a bit and others not at all. A rabbi saying Kaddish in Hebrew brought tears to my eyes, that ancient language soft in his mouth. Some reminisced; I told them Lola meant New York to me, the place my father was exiled from by McCarthy, a huge family visited only once a year and gradually shrinking, until at the end there was only Lola, with the energy of a woman half her age. (I didn't mention Cousin Ted, the other NYC relative I visit, since nobody there speaks to him or he to them.)
"A culture junkie," someone called Lola - museums, galleries, concerts, theatre, the latest books - she was up on them all. "Grow old in a city," I said, "is one important lesson I learned from her." Until last year, she was out and about, seeing, doing, devouring, criticizing, in typical New York fashion.
Feb. 2018, our last visit. She was 97, still living alone in her rent-controlled art-filled studio on the Upper East Side. I'm wearing a gold and tourmaline ring she made. Afterward, Lola's daughter's daughter Becky, a beautiful young woman I've never met, texted that she hoped I'd come back to New York and get in touch with her. I'd love to, I said. New family. Means everything. Not sure when, tho'.
I just found a calendar I'd drawn up in January to organize my late winter travel: March 21, arrive Paris, stay with Lynn. March 25, EasyJet to Venice to meet Bruce. March 30, Trieste. April 2, Vienna. April 7, Budapest. Good Friday April 10, EasyJet to Paris. April 13, home.
Giant sigh. SIGH. In early March, it was clear Venice was out of the question. Lynn said, Come to Paris anyway, you can come back to Montpellier with me. And I considered it! It was March 10 before I cancelled. March 12 I taught my last classes, March 13 everything shut down.
Seems another world, doesn't it? Hopping around the world. MINGLING. Hugging. Absorbing all those droplets spewing about us with nary a thought.
And that was when Trump and his team had shown just a fraction of the vileness that was to come. As always, I try to explain things to my father who died in 1988, 32 years before Lola. But with the current world situation, I don't think he wants to know. I'll leave him blessedly ignorant. He's up there arguing with Lola, and everyone else.
Watched some terrific TV on PBS last night - a doc on the alphabet, and another on social media and the mind. "Writing binds humanity together almost more than anything else," said the doc. "It's the most powerful idea humankind has had." Could not agree more!
And then another doc discussing "confirmation bias" - how we cherrypick evidence, shaping narratives of what we see to fit what we already believe. "We make decisions based on cognitive illusions, the world our mind creates." They talked about the silos we all live in now, where we are right and "they" are evil. That a survey of young people in the States found a majority of them didn't value living in a democracy and thought the military should take over the government.
Dad, please, don't watch, don't listen, these things would appall you. Rest in peace. And Lola - although peace was not something that interested you much - you too.
September 23, 2020
on the deck in the sun
They say there are two seasons in Ontario - winter and road work. So today, for some reason beyond comprehension, the city has decided to repair two minuscule patches in my street's sidewalks. This entails ripping them apart and, presumably, putting them back together. Once more, noise cancelling headphones and bitchy thoughts.
And on this most stunning day, too - so warm and sunny and bright, the perfect time; it's always more delicious in the sun knowing its days around here are numbered. I'm in a patch on the deck, drinking it in.
Today, I went to the Y for the second time. It's desolate - empty, lacking its usual conviviality, but it's routine. I did an Arriba class with great Latin music - six other people in the gym, the teacher behind a plexiglass panel. But there was music and there was dancing. I'll take it.
The women's change room, usually full of chatty naked women.
Somehow I'm busier than ever - Monday an insane day, three Zoom meetings, a face to face meeting with Jason about the book and our next project - a podcast, stay tuned! Editing for several students and writing a piece for the Creative Nonfiction Collective. And then Lynn came for dinner. Sunday, one of my oldest friends, Ron, from Halifax in the early sixties, came. It's a marvellous thing to see faces we've known all our lives. And of course, what we see is the young face, not the old one. Not reality.
Yesterday, teaching and editing on Zoom for a U of T class which has kept going. I marvel, once again, at the miracle of Zoom that works so well and has kept us all going.
Treats - a silvery-green hummingbird is frequenting the rose of Sharon, darting about, dipping his or her long sharp needle nose into the blooms. The garden at its most beautiful, because soon to fade. Some fading already. As are we all. Went to the little local farmer's market yesterday for a basket of the last Ontario peaches, the dripping taste of summer. Still here!
The book is now readily available, I'm happy to report. As I was walking by yesterday, my neighbour Karen called, "I love it!" Two good reviews on Amazon and Indigo. Heard from a friend in France, waiting impatiently for the book I mailed to him, who wrote that the character called Alain in the book "has been absolutely raving about it to everyone he meets." And that means a lot, because he's a major figure in the book, and it's not an easy thing, surely, to read about your own young life through someone else's critical if affectionate eyes.
In an hour, I am attending a Zoom celebration of the life of my father's aunt Lola; this would have been her 98th birthday. Many of the Jewish side of my family, my 51%, will be there, and not a single airplane is involved. A new way to live.
September 20, 2020
reviews of the book coming in
This is the strange interlude in the life of a writer, when the book is out and people are still reading. But I'm getting wonderful reviews, even from people who haven't finished it yet. And from those who have. From Pat: Today I’m out of sorts because I finished reading your book yesterday! I miss it. Stupendous! Just wrote this review on Indigo:
"Having taken Beth’s memoir-writing course, it’s no surprise to me that she demonstrates all the characteristics of superb memoir: engaging scene-setting, compelling action, major personal change, believable dialogue. Couldn’t put this book down!"Thank you very much, Pat.And from my former acting colleague Peter, now a painter in Nova Scotia, whom I've known since university in 1967:I'm on page 37. WTF and OMG. Know the song so well. Every note is perfect. Arts Club. Wow. Only a couple of evenings in that thick and boozy place. You have so nailed it Beth Kaplan. AND I'M ONLY ON PAGE 37. Raw Stuff. Like a box of chocolates - I'll do a few more pages in bed. Hope it doesn't get so scary I can't sleep. (I sleep like a log - not to worry.)
Peter, if you stop painting, you should write!
And a French friend who's a character in the book: I advertise your book saying the author is like Saint Augustine, leading a depraved life and suddenly completely transformed.
I really enjoy reading your book, I am just half way through… Some very good laughs, some disappointment about the immensity of my qualities which do not seem totally acknowledged…
I wrote to reassure him that the immensity of his qualities are in fact acknowledged, he just isn't there yet. So strange that people are out there, reading about themselves. Anyone who's friends with a memoirist should beware!
Just spent an extremely stimulating hour listening to Eleanor Wachtel talk to Zadie Smith - it wasn't an interview, it was a conversation between two brilliant minds. At one point, Smith says she's reading Pride and Prejudice with her daughter; they came to the section about Darcy's magnificent mansion and she said, Ask yourself, how did the family come by that kind of money? Almost definitely through sugar or cotton. And who provided those things?
I've never thought about the origin of Darcy's money. But then, I've never thought about many, many things. Thank you Eleanor, and the amazing Zadie Smith, who is not only brilliant but stunningly beautiful, a married woman with children, an academic career, and a steady stream of books. How is this possible? Inspiring. Intimidating. Slacker alert: I'm sure she doesn't sit around reading nice things her friends say about her books. She'd be halfway through the next by now.
September 19, 2020
Mourning RBG, fear for what's next
NOOOOOOOOOOOO! That was the sound last night from millions of mouths when we heard about RBG. How could such a tiny slip of a woman matter so much to so many? Because she had a giant soul, a great mind, a fierce heart. I saw the documentary about her and came away with even more admiration for her work ethic, her lifelong devotion to her own family as well as to the causes she cared about, chief among them making the world more fair for women.
And now the hideous situation south of us will grow even more ugly and divided. My only hope is that this galvanizes, more than ever, the Democratic base. Though, yes, it will also galvanize the other side. Someone on Bill Maher last night said, The extreme right doesn't care about Trump's failings because all that really matters to them are 3 things: abortion, guns, and Jesus. And they think Trump is their man. Even though, as was pointed out, the Dems have never said they'd impose severe restrictions on gun ownership or on religious practice, they are pro-abortion, no question, and destroying that is the rightwing cause.
Hard to believe that a painful issue that's been resolved in just about every other civilized country on earth is still so potent, raw, and explosive in the States. How did that happen?
As those of you who've read my book know, I write about my own abortion, which happened at a time when I was lost and wild and crazy, and having a child would have been an utter disaster. Thank god - I thank god constantly, whoever he or she may be, for this - that in Canada I was able to have a safe and legal abortion. As I write in the book, It was a grave decision, and one about which I have not one moment of regret.
There are already millions of hungry children in the world, many in your own country, there are children in cages you fucking hypocritical Republicans - and some rightwing Canadians too. Look after them, for Christ's sake, feed and house and care for them before you destroy your country fighting for the unborn!
Bill Maher pointed out that authoritarian countries pretend to be democracies; they hold elections, but they're meaningless, rigged. And right now the US is headed firmly in that direction, with massive voter suppression and other Republican tactics. Can this benighted country ever recover? Last night Bill and guests thought it's possible it will not. And in a world with an authoritarian China ever rising and Europe ripped apart and in disarray - it's a terrifying thought.
September 18, 2020
Back to basics
Today things feel joyfully normal - well, not normal, but routine. I went to the Y for the first time since March. They discontinued our membership fees, but I just realized they'd started them again so I'd better get there. It's totally different, of course - you have to book online for very limited spaces, wear a mask except when you're actually working out, there's almost no one there, no water fountains or showers or pool, no coffee and tea and sitting around chatting. But it's the Y. I did a class in the gym and was relieved I wasn't totally winded by the end, after months of sitting in this chair - I guess cycling to the market, line dancing, and gardening have helped. And I saw Margot, Tony, Doris, Art, and my dear friend Lolita, who's the cheerfulest person I know.
To stay fit, I need someone to order me around in a public place, with music. It really helps.
On the way home, there was no lineup outside Doubletake, so I went in and saw Jasmine, another good friend, a Bengali woman who has worked there for years. My routine is back!
Despair, however: my cousin in Washington ordered the memoir from Barnes and Noble, was told they were out of stock, ordered it from Amazon, was told they were out of stock. As if it's not hard enough to sell books when they're available! My publisher is trying to fix this. Sheesh!!!
One more thing: I heard back from Ancestry. com, updating my genetic profile with more detail. Still 51% Ashkenazi Jewish, but - on my mother's side - 42% from England and Northwest Europe, 4% Germanic Europe, and 3% Scotland. Her people came from all over, but all from the north. I'm part Scottish!
It's surprisingly chilly - had to cover the gardenia last night, I was afraid she'd freeze. But - I know, here we go again - the garden is as glorious as ever.
