Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 9

Bye Trudeau, hello Harriet and Fixthenews.com: report from the deep freeze

Big news — our Prime Minister has finally made up his mind and is moving out. He had no choice but, like Biden, took his time. Will this be a repeat of the US election, the governing party will shoehorn in a woman who’s qualified but not the best candidate and lose to a neo-fascist? You’d think one of the two opposition leaders could have managed to say something polite about Trudeau – thanks for his years of service, at the least. No, nothing but rage and insults. That’s the disgusting state of our politics, thanks to the disgusting PP.

Yesterday’s huge treat: a meeting with Harriet Walter, no, pardon me, Dame Harriet Walter, friend since theatre school in London in 1971. This brilliant, courageous, and hugely successful actress and her husband spend part of the Xmas holidays with friends near Kingston. I met her at Union Station on her way back to London and steered her to the UP station, where we had coffee and a grand gossip. I gave her my fifth book Midlife Solo, in which she makes a cameo appearance on Page 96, and she gave me her fifth book, She Speaks: What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said, in which she invents speeches for Gertrude, Rosalind, Kate, Ophelia, and other Shakespearean heroines who don’t have nearly enough lines. Yes, in iambic pentameter! Besides being preternaturally talented, Harriet is also funny, wise, and kind. We’re lucky to have hung onto the friendship across many years and many miles. Look for her on your TV and movie screens soon; she’ll be there, dazzling as always. And buy the book. It is of course fabulous.

I watched four episodes of a powerful series from Denmark, Families Like Ours, about a time in the future when the seas have risen so far that the entire country has to be evacuated; chaos and heartbreak ensue. It’s important because it shows “families like ours” – white, educated, middle-class – at risk, lost, penniless, because of climate catastrophe. The first three episodes are marvellous, but in the fourth, the writers go way too far in torturing their protagonists, and I gave up. Friend Judy urged me to watch the rest but I’m resisting, because Episode 4 was so over the top. But 1 through 3 – admirable – and frightening. One family is distraught because all their money is tied up in their house, which becomes valueless in an empty country. That resonated uncomfortably with me. However, so far Toronto is safe from floods and forest fires.

Also watched the film Joy, with Bill Nighy and James Norton, about the difficulties surrounding the invention of IVF, nearly defeated by religion – thank you, science! – and the Golden Globes, largely so I don’t have to watch the Oscars (I deleted scores of outdated document files as I watched, very satisfying). I do not understand why actresses have to wear so little and reveal so much. They’re there to celebrate talent, not sex appeal, yet one after the other appeared in skin-tight dresses with breasts hanging out, vying to be judged on the fanciest dress. Absurd. There were a number of surprises when Hollywood favourites didn’t win. I haven’t seen The Brutalist and despite its win am not sure I want to see a 3 ½ hour show, with intermission, about architecture. But maybe I do.

Tiggy has been diagnosed as diabetic. I guess that explains why she drinks and pees so much. Of course the food for diabetic cats is more expensive. But apparently cats can recover; diabetic dogs do not. So, onward, you ridiculous animal. Speaking of which – the birds have finally discovered the new heated birdbath on the deck. The other day two cardinal couples took turns drinking amidst the clusters of sparrows. The feeder is as usual always crowded. It’s bitterly cold – minus eight feeling like minus fifteen, so I’m glad to help keep the birds not only fed but hydrated and clean.

The boys are flying home from Florida today with godmother Holly, after a fabulous vacation; Holly Facetimed me with the boys in the background, splashing in the pool like seals. She also sent pictures of them eating ice cream or dinner at a movie theatre and devouring pizza in bed. Poor Anna is going to have a hard time adjusting them to the harsh reality of Toronto in January – school tomorrow.

I discovered a terrific newsletter – Fix the News – that only posts good news, and there’s a surprising amount. We need uplifting during these dark days! I recommend reading the post about all the good things that have happened in the world recently, climate, health, human rights, and more. Thank you!

And here’s my new Substack newsletter — about my sixty-plus years of keeping a diary and then a blog. https://touchpointsawriterstruth.substack.com/p/keeping-a-diary

I photographed just a few of the notebooks – absurd! But that’s how I live. I chronicle.

Chronicle for January 6, 2025, over and out, for today. Stay tuned.

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Joyeux nouvel an! And a curse.

Last night I found the French channel and watched the celebrations on the Champs Élysées. A fabulous video display projected on the Arc de Triomphe and then fireworks for days. Those French – they know how to put on a show. It was midnight before I knew it. Yes, I actually lasted till midnight! Amazing.

In this shot from the TV, you can see Alice Neel’s portrait of my dad hovering over the festivities, where he loved to be. When we lived in Paris in 1964, we went to the Champs for New Year’s Eve. It was fun. But it wasn’t remotely like this.

I have decided — we must not let the @#$% fascists and greedy fools ruin our days, our mood, our lives. There’s a special place in hell for people who have no concern for the welfare of others, I’m sure of that, and it’s here on earth. The rest of us are in this together. Let’s celebrate everything we can, including celebrations!

Onward and upward. Moving right along. #$@&^%# you, Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Poilièvre, et al. We see you, we despise you, and we celebrate not being anything like you. Happy New Year, and rock on, friends!

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New Year’s Eve review

A quiet, solitary NY Eve after time across town with the grandboys this afternoon – they’re getting ready to go for a few days in Florida tomorrow with their godmother Holly. Lucky! It’s not raining and not cold, but the sun is elusive. I’m drinking tea poured from a pot covered with Auntie Do’s tea cosy that I found recently, taking me back to many, many cups of British tea with my relatives, always with a cosy. Always with the pot warmed beforehand with a swish of boiling water.

Although coffee is my drink, all I wanted after giving birth to my children was a cup of tea. Tea means familiarity, women, home, comfort. Tannin.

Anyway, thinking about the year 2024 – I had to write things down to keep track because I no longer remember what I’ve seen, done, read. It’s all a blur. So here’s the tally, more or less: I read 28 books, saw 37 films at home or at the cinema, went to 14 plays, 9 concerts, 5 art exhibitions, 2 talks, and one dance performance. And saw a lot of television.

Favourites: some wonderful documentaries, including The Last Repair Shop, The Giants, and the one about the Supreme Court of Canada’s Rosalie Abella. Films, too many to mention, but especially National Theatre Live’s Nye, A Real Pain, and Perfect Days, the last truly haunting.

One huge treat this year was the stuff I saw or read with Eli and Ben, like The Wild Robot film and several great books including The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers, and our current one, Impossible Creatures, by Katharine Rundell.

Other books: again, nearly impossible to choose. Followed by the Lark, Helen Humphreys. The Creative Act, Rick Rubin.

TV: Somebody Somewhere, Ken Burns’s doc about Da Vinci, and Slow Horses.

Theatre: Salesman in China, and Big Stuff.

Art: Mark Rothko at the Fondation Vuitton, the exhibition of a lifetime.

Concert: Downchild Blues Band.

Such a wealth! As I’ve said over and over, art is what keeps us alive. I’m reading a piece in an October New Yorker about survivalists, stockpiling a year’s worth of water, food, medicine, and weapons in case of civil war or climate apocalypse; the idea is to kill anyone who comes near. As if life will be worth living isolated in a bunker surrounded by corpses. Lunatics.

I have to say, in review, that although it was such an appalling year for the planet, it was not a bad year for me, professionally and personally. I’m still alive and healthy, that’s good, with just a few aches and pains (and a brand new throbbing cold sore). Not bad for 74, if I say so myself, and I will have to say so myself since no-one else is going to say it.

On the down side, I have been resisting going into my office and starting the new book. Instead, I pull up old iterations, another of the many starts I’ve made through the years. I read it and then go downstairs for a snack. Not a good way to get ahead. Time’s a’wastin’! Carol just pointed out that the first quarter of the new century is upon us. Already. How did that happen?

I have no profound words for tonight. Here are some miscellaneous photos instead, things that just popped up or were on my desktop:

A bookmark made by Mum’s oldest sister Margaret, of lace she made herself, laboriously and patiently, despite her severe arthritis. I just sent this pic and the tea cosy knitted by Do to Margaret’s two daughters, my only cousins who live near Washington D.C. and are despairing Democrats. Right now, is there any other kind?Chris who lives on Gabriola Island ordered my book in October and it just arrived today. Best friends since 1975. Love is.This popped up on FB – they love to yank you back. The boys in the Stratford Museum a few years ago. Eli is now nearly as tall as I am.Macca. Of course.A meme that made me laugh because true.My garden a few years ago. It’s not as manicured in recent summers. But one day, all that colour will return. I have faith that it will. I have faith that somehow our world will get through the time of great darkness that awaits. Let us take care of each other.

And don’t miss this hilarious video of a comedian making fun of the English language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJv_wUEKko

Happy New Year! Have some sham-pag-na! Despite all, my friends, may 2025 be a healthy, creative, fulfilling year for you all.

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Finding light in the gloom, sort of

What a dire year! 2024 — the year Putin murdered Alexei Navalny, a man of heroic integrity and courage, plus pursued the slaughter of countless Ukrainians. The year Netanyahu continued a relentless slaughter of Palestinians, a massacre, according to some a genocide, horrifying the world. The year Donald Trump was elected for the second time, which someone said was like the Titanic hitting the iceberg and then backing up to ram it again.

The year Ontario premier Doug Ford, a buffoonish crook who has starved public education, health care, and climate solutions, cut down over 850 trees in a public waterfront park to make space for a luxury Austrian spa that will cost us taxpayers countless millions, plus came up with the idea to build a tunnel under the 401 and, oh yes, to rip out bike lanes to make more space for cars.

And Alice Munro. Alice Munro.

It’s not looking good, Canada. It looks like our relatively decent but currently more than lame Prime Minister will be replaced by a mini-Trump attack dog who has no policies, just juvenile insults and doom screeching. To Poilievre, everything in Canada is broken and every single bit of it is Trudeau’s fault. I’m sure he doesn’t believe that for one minute but he spews it, over and over, until everyone believes it. That’s how it’s done these days. Can you imagine this petty, small, unpleasant man on the world stage? Well, get ready because here he comes.

So yes, it’s not good out there. Geoffrey Hinton, the inventor of AI, said the other day if we’re not careful, the machines that are smarter than we are will take over and wipe out humanity in the next thirty years. But then the climate catastrophe might do that too. Or else world war — think of the lunatics with nuclear weapons, North Korea, Iran, many others. Trump, for that matter, another lunatic with his hand on the red button and craven sycophants surrounding him, no one to say no.

Never has the world situation seemed so dire.

So what do we do, how do we get through? I’ve quoted her before, my daughter Anna, who, on November 6, said, “We need to take care of each other. That’s all that matters.”

We need to take care of each other. We start there. And from there, if we can, we need to take care of a slightly bigger piece of our world. From there, if we can, we do our best to expand our sphere of influence.

The smallest things. I try now not to go out without spare change in my pocket, for which I will inevitably be asked. I try to look at or hear people without judgement, although there are some — my extremely right-wing former schoolmate in the States, who sends me emails glorying in Trump’s foulest excesses — I find impossible to understand or forgive. I try to be grateful, every single day, for all I’ve been given in this world – a home, health and healthcare, family, friends, democracy. A garden. Birds. My incorrigible cat, who yesterday knocked the lid off my breadbox, chewed through a plastic bag, and devoured a third of a Slovakian Christmas loaf my tenant Olga had given me.

And, always, art. Books, magazines, music, dance, film, television, the visual arts – crazy creators out there, making stuff that wasn’t there before, because they have something to say. How grateful I am to them and for them, the artists who bring us pleasure and enlightenment every day.

It has been the gloomiest December I can remember — grey and drizzly, most days, including today, dark and wet from dawn to dusk. But this morning I danced on Zoom with Nicky and the gang. Then, a birthday gathering on Zoom, and now, going to visit a fellow writer for cocktails. Tonight, Sunday night TV, I’ll sit by the fire and find something to watch. And so, from moment to moment, finding a reason for celebration. That way sanity lies.

A small something to look forward to: Ian Leslie whose Substack I follow and with whom I’ve corresponded has just brought out his book. You can imagine how eager I am to read that! I even sent some suggestions to Ian, my own take on their profound and competitive love.

That’s Paul’s teenaged daughter Beatrice, showing there’s no guarantee vast wealth and fame gives you a child who doesn’t act out. Good to know, as my noisy, rebellious grandsons slide into adolescence.

Now, out into the rain for cocktails. Cheers!

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Have yourself a sweet chaotic Christmas …

That’s a wrap. I’m putting away the Xmas stuff, except for the coloured lights outside which the world needs. But enough with the rest. I’m in a Bah Humbug frame of mind. Not to mention that twelve years ago, my mother died Christmas morning, so the day is especially weighty.

In fact, I had a gloriously solitary Xmas day — a nice long FaceTime talk with Chris on Gabriola Island, but otherwise, just shouting at Tiggy to get off the counter. I ate last week’s spaghetti for lunch and my Xmas present soup for dinner. (The one downside of not cooking a vast meal is the lack of a week’s worth of leftovers.) I watched the Call the Midwife Xmas special which of course produced a tear or two, and the wonderful Emilia Perez on Netflix, the most original film I’ve seen in ages, haunting, unclassifiable, terrific.

But I’m usually accompanied by the radio when I’m in the kitchen, which is most of the time, and try as I might, I couldn’t find a station that wasn’t on Xmas overload, the same tired @#$* tunes. As if we can’t get in the mood if we’re not listening to The Little Drummer Boy. I carry earplugs in my pocket all December to block it all out. They’re jamming Xmas down our throats to trigger people to go out and buy stuff. Phooey.

Okay, bah Humbug over. Well no, not quite over. Our Christmas celebration this year was Dec. 24, and it was … busy. This is the honest — maybe too honest — depiction I sent to Chris about the day:

“I have to say, my grandsons can be a nightmare. They’re wonderful, but they can also sometimes be so horrible, I dislike them. They’re difficult, resist everything, fight with each other incessantly — though they also play together well and make each other laugh. They have no idea how incredibly lucky they are.

The day was exhausting. Anna brought them here at 9.30; they found a ball and moved everything out of the way in the living room and played soccer, loudly. We had a quiet moment while I read Impossible Creatures to them and made breakfast. Then we went to our local small multiplex to see Moana 2, which, though it had great animation and moving stuff about Polynesian legends and culture, was also loud and convoluted; I barely understood it. I did like that the loving grandmother’s ghost appears at key moments to protect and encourage her way-finding granddaughter. I told the boys on the way home that I’d haunt them in a similar way; they’d hear my voice saying, “Read a book!”

At home, more soccer in the living room and loud arguing about the score.

We’d decided as a special treat to get take-out food rather than cook, so when Anna arrived, we had to figure out where to order dinner, because everybody wants something different, and the boys will hardly eat anything. Sam arrived, instant tension — he’d dropped his phone in the Uber. Luckily when he dialled his own number, the new passengers discovered it and handed it to the driver, but arranging for delivery was complicated with a very nice driver who barely spoke English and was on his way out of the city. Carol my upstairs tenant arrived back from the Y, so I invited her to join us because she wasn’t feeling well enough to go to her own family. So then I had not ordered enough food, particularly as, when Anna went to get it, they’d forgotten part of the order. She had to stop by a crowded No Frills to buy steak to cook, because Ben eats more or less only meat.

Finally we sat down to eat and there was just enough. Anna smoked a joint and I had a nice Xmas present red, to help us through. Ben loves to ask if I was alive when world events happened: “Glamma, were you alive when the Titanic sank?” After dinner the boys made more chaos, Sam was still waiting impatiently for the driver to get back to him, and Anna was trying to download an important form so I could print it, but we couldn’t get the download to work. The noise from the living room was infernal. I thought this New Yorker cartoon was particularly apt:

Finally it seemed the Uber driver would come here with the phone at some point Xmas day. Sam fled home in a cab. I folded the laundry Anna brought to do here while she tried again unsuccessfully to download. She called an Uber. While the boys waited, they had a ferocious snowball fight in the front yard, Eli taunting Ben to misbehave as usual, and snow flew into the house. I shouted at them, enraged and beyond exhausted. They left. I sank into a chair.

And that was our joyful Christmas gathering.

Maybe solitude ain’t so bad.”

However. We were together, and we love each other. The boys each got a chocolate moose; Eli liked his rollerblades and Ben his mini-trampoline and TTC stuff – he loves anything transit.

My kids have no money, but Sam had gone to a friend’s restaurant kitchen to cook two soups for all his friends and us, with homemade croutons. Anna – true to her principles always – gave me a beautiful Palestinian cookbook.

And there was a moment with great resonance for me. When they arrived, the boys were eager to open presents; I said they could as soon as they shovelled my walkway. They did so. When their mother arrived, she congratulated them on the shovelling but also said she was disappointed. “Why didn’t you shovel the neighbour’s at the same time?” she said, looking at my attached neighbour’s snow-covered walk. They looked at her as if she had two heads. “It would have been the kind thing to do,” she continued.

In 1904, my great-grandfather the socialist playwright Jacob Gordin was living in Brooklyn with his eleven children. His youngest son Leon, eight years old, spent all one day during a snowstorm shovelling snow for the neighbours. At the end, he was proud he’d made enough money to buy the cannon he really wanted for his toy soldier set. But when Gordin heard what Leon had done, he was furious. “We don’t take money from the neighbours for helping them!” he said. “Helping them is our duty.” And made his weeping son put the money in the charity box hanging in the front hall. Then later he went out and bought the cannon. He was a harsh father, but his principles have travelled.

120 years later — genes.

Onward, my dear friends. The world is in deep trouble, more than ever in my lifetime. We need each other. Hug someone today. Make soup and share it.

Shovel someone’s walkway.

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a few of the pleasures of 2024

What else to do on December 23 but review the year? It’s cold and bleak, and awhile ago I went out to do errands as it started to snow, but when there discovered I’d lost my bicycle key, couldn’t park the bike, had to go home. Now I need to wrap and decorate; we are celebrating Xmas tomorrow afternoon, after Anna finishes work at 3, because the boys are going with Ben’s dad Matt on Dec. 25. So for the first time in my life, in all my 74 years, I will have absolutely nothing to do on Dec. 25. It will be a relief and also very very quiet, possibly too quiet. Maybe I’ll go to a movie with all the Jewish Torontonians. We’ll see.

In the meantime, here are some things that brought me pleasure this year:

Midlife Solo officially came out in February 2024. Many very nice reviews from readers. Taped the audiobook which perhaps three fine people have listened to.

True to Life bought by a Chinese publisher. With an actual advance! In U.S. dollars! Actual money! For my writing!

After decades of indecision and a ton of cash, I got rid of my American citizenship. Just in time.

I started a Substack, Touchpoints: a writer’s truth. After a post about the Alice Munro scandal, I received a reply from her daughter Sheila, thanking me for a thoughtful, nuanced essay. Meant a great deal.

Naps.

The Olympics – at least, the opening and closing ceremonies, lithe young people at the top of their game, the world in harmony – an eon ago, seems a dream now, as the world rages and fights.

Being chosen to teach at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference next February.

Our yearly visit from my dear ex, here for nearly a week – a nuclear family once more.

On an unfortunate trip to Europe in April, during which I got very sick, I met my fourth cousin Lesley and her husband Duncan for the first time, and liked them immediately. Family!

On the same trip, visiting my mother’s natal territory Northamptonshire with friend Penny – Potterspury, Towcester, Northampton – and then a stay in Liverpool, Beatle country, with her. She’s another kind of family.

My William Morris heritage roses. A third kind of family.

Four days at Ruth’s island cottage with Ruthie and Annie. O Canada.

Seeing the powerful and moving eco-doc The Giants with the Suzukis, and arranging to subsequently show it again to 112 people.

Talks at various book clubs, Word on the Street etc. How I love to talk. Will this woman never shut up?

Ben is chosen for a Blue Jays Cares ad campaign.

Still healthy. Painful arthritis in my right thumb, that’s new; mild hearing loss, the need for low dose statins. Had Covid and a bad flu or possibly another bout of Covid this year. Otherwise – very lucky, so far. Very.

Reading stories to the boys on the phone some nights.

Did I mention naps?

So that’s a few things about 2024.

The other day, waiting for the streetcar, I looked in the mirror store on Gerrard and caught a glimpse of myself. I looked old, with many new lines etched in my cheeks and new blotches and bumps. My mother had beautiful plump British skin until the end, but she did not pass it on to me, too much sun in my life. It’s too bad to be so wrinkled, yes it is. Yet I’m grateful not to be vain, not to worry about needing to look pretty and young for a partner or an audience. It is what it is, as they say, and what it is is a 74-year old face that has been around.

And it’s alive, which is what counts.

Here’s a photo Annie just sent of another time, old friends, Gay, Terry, Annie, moi, Nancy White, Annie’s sister Chrissie. We can’t even remember where this was. We called ourselves the Crones though we were young. Our faces were smooth, our hair glossy brown and gold. But we didn’t know what we know now.

More good news:

Macca going strong at 82, playing recently, sixty years later and using the same guitar, with Ringo, 84. Joy! Joy to the world, there’s music, there’s art, there’s family. Let’s eat.

And nap.

The post a few of the pleasures of 2024 appeared first on Beth Kaplan.

A Real Pain, a must-see, and Angela Hewitt, sublime.

It’s been a gloomy if mild week here in the centre of the universe, and crazy times in the world. Chaos on Parliament Hill, Trudeau sealing his own fate at last, like Biden — could he not have learned from that disaster, a leader not realizing when it’s time to get out and condemning his country to four years of a sociopath? Sheesh. (That’s unfair — probably Trump would have won anyway, that’s just the way the country is right now. But Biden hanging in there for so long against the odds didn’t help, and Trudeau the same.) And then there’s Trump nominating a trucking executive relative to be his Middle East envoy, on top of the disastrous others. The opening of nightmare prisons in Syria. And so very much more.

It would all be less devastating if we occasionally caught a glimpse of the sun.

However, yours truly powers on. There are days — last Saturday, for one — when it seems I do absolutely nothing and talk to no one, sitting around in a stupor. Well no, reading a lot online and on paper. And then the next day is very busy. On Sunday Ruthie and I went to see the film A Real Pain and both loved it, really loved it, a thoughtful funny moving film, now nominated as one of the NYT’s best films of 2024. Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and stars. Exceptional.

Then Toronto Lynn came for dinner, and we went to Hugh’s Room nearby, to hear the sublime pianist Angela Hewitt play Bach, Mozart, and Brahms. My parents were huge fans of hers in Ottawa when she was just a teenager; she’s been performing since childhood, and is now 66. Her skill is beyond compare, fingers flying at impossible speed. For me, the speed and virtuosity made it all a bit show-stoppy and so less moving, but that’s okay — still a spectacular talent to see in such an intimate venue. She was just in Seoul playing for 1700 people. Hugh’s sold out Room seats 200.

Angela in her sparkly dress speaking about the music:

I spent Monday in a frenzy about furnaces. My furnace is 18 years old and not a fine specimen to start with, so, as Brian the furnace guy said, “You’re on borrowed time.” I had two experts come to give me estimates for either a high efficiency furnace or a heat pump. The heat pump is better for the planet but also way more expensive, so … decisions decisions. In the end, I read in the Star that Olivia Chow hopes the city will have incentives for heat pumps next year, so I’m delaying, praying we get through the winter with Old Faithful downstairs.

When I have to make a decision about something so expensive and important is when I miss a sensible life partner at my side. Instead I turn to my panel of experts: Jean-Marc, Doug the handyman, Anna — who might have to deal with my decision down the line, when I’m gone — and Anne-Marie. Who all had different opinions. So delaying is a relief.

Brian exclaimed, as he came in, “What a beautiful typewriter!” There’s an old Royal in the living-room. “I collect typewriters. And beautiful boxes, like those,” he said, pointing to the gorgeous wooden boxes left me by my mother. I told him my kids aren’t interested in this stuff, and he said, “I’ll take them!” A kindred spirit. He’ll be doing the furnace, when I finally make up my mind. But he’s not getting the stuff.

The good news is that I keep getting fat royalty cheques for various projects, including this one from Findaway Voices, an alternative to Audible, which has my audiobook for Loose Woman:

Yes, it comes to $2.50, but that’s in American dollars! Gold.

Finally, here’s an example of why I feel overwhelmed sometimes. Last year. I started a notebook to list things I’d heard about to see, read, watch, listen to, do. But there’ve been so many, I don’t have time to stick them inside the book, where usually they remain ignored in any case. On the cover now, lists of children’s movies, children’s books, films, health statistics (how much calcium I need and from where?) and places to find cheap flights. The inside of the book is crammed. I guess once I hear about something I must take note of, and take note of it, I relax. It’s in the book. And then I can pay no attention because I don’t have time for it anyway.

Does this ring a bell, dear readers?

FYI, there’s a new hour-long interview with me about Finding the Jewish Shakespeare on the About page here, under Media. I’m sure you’re intrigued. Watched the terrific Ken Burns doc about Leonardo da Vinci, surely one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever known, if not THE greatest. I’m reading The World She Edited by Amy Reading (what a name for a writer) about Katherine S. White, for decades the most powerful editor at the New Yorker. Her husband E.B. White – Andy – is one of my writer heroes, but now I learn he was neurotic and needy and selfish. Ah well. He’s a fabulous writer.

500 pages plus about an editor — I’m nerding out right now, as they say. The fire is going, the house is silent, the naughty cat is asleep. The multicoloured lights swathing the forsythia in the front yard are lovely. We’re heading into the holiday maelstrom, folks. Strap in!

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feasts of various kinds

So dark in the mornings – today, when I woke, it felt like 4 a.m. but it was 7. Winter. Last night, minus 17 with the wind chill, the fire was going and the chickens were roasting when the guests arrived for our annual Xmas potluck – six members of my home class, plus Peg from B.C. on Zoom, who’ve been gathering here to read their writing for years. Dear friends, family, partners in the creative struggle.

We feasted, they read, and then, as a final treat, I read them “Mr. Kringsberg’s Christmas,” a beautiful story by former student Margaret Norquay. Margaret was in her mid-eighties when she took my Ryerson class; she was subsequently in my first home class and such a good writer, I persuaded her to compile her stories into a book. Broad is the way was published when she was eighty-eight, just before she lost her memory. Kringsberg is a Canadian classic, should be read on CBC every year. It always makes me cry. Ruth had to finish reading.

I can’t post it, but if you want to read a moving Xmas story, please respond here with an email address and I will send it to you.

More great treats: on Tuesday to nearby Winchester School, where Anna went for several early years, to watch their volleyball team play Eli’s school from Parkdale. Eli is not a keen volleyball player, he was recruited by the coach because he’s tall and they needed another player. The valiant Parkdale boys lost. I had brought two bags of cookies for them, hope that helped ease the sting.

#9 – the Beatles would approve – standing beside the coach. As Lani wrote, “That boy sure is a tall drink of water.” The slightly too big skates I gave him last Xmas are too small.

The night before, the best moment. At twelve, Elijah is the opposite of effusive; he’s cautious, shrewd, has kept his cards close to his chest since early boyhood. He expresses enthusiasm for very little, and, breaking my heart, he doesn’t like reading. But that night, after I’d read over the phone at bedtime a few more chapters of the thrilling Impossible Creatures and said, “That’s all for tonight,” I heard him say, “Can we have one more chapter please?” And I thought, “He’s engrossed! My life is worthwhile!”

That night, I went to the City Choir Christmas concert. It’s a huge choir, un-auditioned with a big span of ages and types, directed by professional musicians. It was a joyous evening of song. I went to join this choir last year but realized I do not have the time. One day.

Wednesday, appearing at a book club on Zoom. They said the nicest things about Midlife Solo, their first venture into nonfiction. One woman said when she heard it was about a divorced single mother, she thought, Oh no, boring! — but she loved it. “It brought back so many of my own memories,” she said. I told them that’s what memoir is supposed to do – illuminate what we all share, the universal beneath the specific. I was especially pleased they were most moved by the tales of my childhood friends Penny and Babs, because those are perhaps the most meaningful pieces to me. One of the main reasons I wanted to publish the book was to make sure those girls were honoured and remembered.

The New York Times asked us to email them our list of five favourite things from 2024. So I did, and am compiling a list to share with you next time. Impossible Creatures is one of them. The main reason to have grandchildren? To relish films and books intended for kids but delightful for people like me, pretending to be grownup.

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gearing up for merriment, slowly

Last night was another double weeper for this sentimental fool. First I went to the annual tree lighting at Riverdale Farm, where Annie’s choir was singing. Luckily, it was a mild night after several very cold days, and the Farm was jammed with kids and parents and everyone else. There were carols and other songs by the large choir standing outside one of the barns, including Jingle Bells sung by cats and dogs; then we counted down, and the giant tree burst into light. Misty tears. As always, I marvel a neighbourly down home scene like this is taking place in the heart of a metropolis.

And then the Leonard Cohen Live in Dublin concert on PBS. I saw him not long before he died, the second best concert-giver of my life after the Beatles and McCartney shows. His poetry is magnificent, his dry self-deprecating humour, the glory of the songs – So Long Marianne, Suzanne, Hallelujah, what a catalogue! – his superb band and angelic backup singers. Ah Leonard. Wish I’d known you.

My Xmas lights are draped over the forsythia out front and I’ve put greenery in my bike basket; that’s my main effort for décor. Had to go to the Eaton Centre to get Eli’s present: roller blades. I hate that maze of a place. But it’s done.

Did an hour-long Zoom interview about my first book Finding the Jewish Shakespeare, for Ari Barbalat of the New Books Network podcast. I rarely get to speak now about the book that took twenty-five years of my life, and I have a lot to say, many stories, it’s a rich subject. Thanks to Ari for the opportunity.

Last night, to Suzette’s for dinner with her and Jessica, friends for nearly sixty years, and here we are. I told them we should celebrate the fact that there were still six breasts in the room, when so many have lost one or both. We are lucky.

On the way to Suzette’s, since she lives near Bloor St., I trekked into several stores to look for black wool pants. Mine from Doubletake were destroyed by moths, and I’d decided I need a new pair for Henry’s big event in New York. As I was hunting through the second store, I realized – I’m turning into my mother! The minute she was invited somewhere special, she fretted about what to wear, and most often went out and bought a new shiny white blouse. At her death there were many, many lovely white blouses lined up in her wardrobe. I was fussing about what to wear to Henry’s party, and instead of a white blouse, it’s black pants. Of which I have a pair or two – or four – already.

Haunted by the parade of white blouses, I’m not going to fuss about what to wear. There will be no more shopping for black pants. Or, there will, but it will be at Doubletake.

Yesterday afternoon, to Alanna’s open house in her fab condo, where she sells her prints and cards. She is a major talent, this woman. I bought a bunch of her lovely cards, though they can’t be sent until the mail strike ends.

Today, a bicycle event, not a protest so much but a celebration, with Santa, the Grinch, and many reindeer cycling through downtown with bells ringing and much waving to passersby. Bike people, like Maritimers, are the best people. I state that categorically.

The cat and I are sitting by the fire. On we go, into the merry season. As I remember that the season is not merry for many. This is part of the lineup for a food bank at a local church.

There but for the grace of God.

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a party in New York, Beatles ’64, The Wild Robot

Excitement in my little world: an invitation arrived in my inbox from Henry, the husband of cousin Ted in New York, who’s celebrating his 70th birthday in January and invited me to the party. I have so little family left – nobody in England, my only two cousins in Washington, newly-discovered third cousin Lesley in France, and a few scattered Gordins and Kaplans. So yes, I will go, hoping that much of my New York family – at least cousins Ted, Debby, Robert, and Susan – will be there. Plus the party is at Ted’s club The Century Association, founded in 1847 primarily for people in the arts, off 5th Avenue near the NY Public Library — like entering a calm cathedral after the chaotic maelstrom outside. I feel privileged to enter this rarified space filled with rarified New Yorkers, a few of whom, by some strange quirk, are related to me.

I’ve already contacted Patty, daughter of Dad’s cousin Lola whom I used to see every visit until she died in her late nineties. Patty is an art restorer around my age who lives in New Haven, but she’s coming in for lunch with me and her daughter Becky who’s in the film business and lives on the Lower East Side. More family. I am greedy for family.

I’ve already booked a flight with points and a play with a Black Friday price, which is a relief given the sinking Canadian dollar. Ted’s spare room on East 77 where I always stay is booked with other guests for the party, but that’s okay; again, I got a good Black Friday price on a very small hotel room in midtown, an easy walk to Broadway theatres and  MOMA and from Penn Station where the train from the Newark airport gets in. Usually I’m way uptown. So – gearing up and excited for a quick two days in NYC. Happy Birthday to Henry!

Yesterday a terrific Mozart concert at a church on Bloor, as the guest of my friend the writer Julia Zarankin; it’s her parents’ music series, and her father played the piano during the difficult piano quartet no. 1 in G minor. The highlight was the string quartet “The Hunt” by four superb local musicians who came together for this concert. I’m grateful this music speaks to me so powerfully because my parents loved and played classical music, Dad in an amateur string quartet that gave him enormous joy. As the music gives me, now.

And speaking of enormous joy, another Beatles film, Beatles ’64, about their trip to the US for the Ed Sullivan show in early 1964. Interviewed writer Joe Queenan nearly weeps as he speaks about the life-changing moment of hearing “She Loves You” for the first time – exactly as hearing it was for me. A kindred spirit, 3 months younger. What you see in the film, besides their fabulous musicality, is their wit and sharp humour, their iconoclasm, and their respect for black music and people. The Ronettes helped them escape the hotel where they were imprisoned by fans and police and took them to a dive in Harlem where nobody recognized four longhairs from Liverpool. They loved it.

Singing “This Boy” in the show, with incredible harmonies. Sigh.

Last night, a long, self-indulgent evening watching Gone With the Wind for the first time. I’d never seen it, along with many great classics in my spotty film education. The racism is shocking — feeble Ashley pining for the good old days “when you’d hear the darkies singing at night in their quarters” – and the portrayal of a female sociopath, the lying, cheating, unforgivable Scarlett. Still, a spectacle like no other. Endless.

A better, more enjoyable, and shorter film – The Wild Robot, rented to watch with Eli. I was much more taken with it than he, at 12 going on 17 – but it’s a beautiful animated film about a robot who crashes on earth and learns to love. The messages are not subtle – about caring for each other, the oppressions of technology, our endangered species and planet, celebrating difference, courage, and grit. But you can never hear those messages too often, I think.

It’s cold out there now, though we’ve been lucky – over 100 cms. of snow further north! No snow here. I need to get my Xmas lights up before winter really socks in. Today, the mini-trampoline for Ben arrived in a heavy box. I’m getting started. Glamma is doing her best to pony up.

Seeing family in New York will be my Christmas present.

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