surviving the flood in Flow
Tuesday was sublime, a warm sunny day, sorely needed at this dark time. It’s March break, so Anna brought the boys over. As soon as they arrive, they always find the squishy soccer ball, push around furniture and rugs to turn my living room into a stadium, kick the ball as hard as possible from one end of the room to the other, and argue whether that was a goal or not. (Are there goals in soccer?)
I cruelly forced the poor creatures outside, to walk down to St. Lawrence Market — here’s Ben with his peameal bacon sandwich –
and then to the cinema close by – where the seats are soft recliners, you can lean back and put your feet up – to see Flow, the animated film that won Latvia its first Oscar. There are no human characters, no dialogue; it’s about a cat who survives a massive flood, and the companions who join her on the boat she manages to scramble onto – a yellow lab, a capybara, a lemur, and a large white secretary bird. Where in the world is this collection of beasts? Does it matter? At one point, the cat and bird are definitely in Tibet.
Obvious references to the biblical flood and Noah’s ark here, beautifully done with inexpensive software. The animals are not anthropomorphized but realistic, uttering actual animal sounds. When I got home, I saw Tiggy in a different way, as the fierce little individual she is. I also saw online that apparently people who watch the film at home notice their pets are mesmerized, posting videos of cats and dogs motionless in front of the screen.
I don’t think my boys enjoyed it as I did – it’s slow without car chases or shootouts. But highly recommended nonetheless.
Tuesday night, the last U of T class of term; they have plans to continue as an ongoing writer’s group, which makes me happy. I’ve just reapplied to teach in San Miguel again; hope it’s a go.
One of the great bonds Anna, Sam, and I share is our love for the Travelling Wilburys. We’d put on that music and dance around the kitchen, even though their mother’s dancing embarrassed them. Sent them this joyful video about the birth of the Wilburys, George Harrison’s idea with an unbelievable constellation of stars, and the miraculously fast making of their first record. George says at one point that all he wants to do is keep the family they’ve created together, and I couldn’t help but think of his previous musical family, the one that sadly did not stay together.
Go to Youtube and input “Traveling Wilburys – The True History Of The Traveling Wilburys Documentary.” It’s wonderful.
On Sunday I watched some of the Liberal convention, posted about it on FB. Just to say – Go Mark! And on Monday, apéritif outside on Monique’s deck with her and our friend Kathy. We remembered five years ago, at the start of Covid, launching this tradition – I sitting up on my second-floor deck, and they below, drinking wine and chatting. Five years.
In three weeks, I leave for France. Hard to believe I’ll be travelling again so soon after Mexico, but such is my fate. Monique has just come back from a week at her sister’s apartment in Paris, where I too will be staying for a week. She’s full of talk of museums and restaurants. I may just be required to enjoy this trip.
Still spending far too many hours scrolling the NYTimes, Globe, Guardian, FB, Twitter, not to mention the Substacks that pour in, to process the latest outrages. We’re all trying to comprehend living at this surreal time, watching a madman and his billionaire henchmen destroy the world as we know it. And target Canada most of all! He keeps talking about the border separating our countries as if he’s going to erase it, just like that. Absolutely insane and beyond loathsome. One day, this era will make a great story, and we’ll all laugh in disbelief. Right now, not so much.
Sheesh – a large raccoon just lumbered up onto my deck, stopped when it saw both Tiggy and me staring out the back door, stared back, turned, and lumbered off back down the yard. No raccoons in Flow. But I’m sure when the flood comes, if there’s one species that will survive, it’ll be the raccoons.
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