July 30th, 2008

More cheer

A quicky post of further things to distract you from your woes, if in fact you have any woes from which you need distraction.

–Amusing and insightful: Fred’s wisdom and wit as applied to The X-Files movie
–Sad and sweet: Lydia Millet’s lovely strange short story, Walking Bird at Joyland New York.
–Hilariously tragic: Gonzales’s clever rhyming triplets in Working Together

See, it can be a good day even though it’s raining!

I say real crazy
RR

Beautiful

I’ve been noticing a certain intensity of bad days amongst my circles these days. Not sure if it’s epidemic yet, but here’s some things I’ve been saving for a tough day:

–walking down the street in the rain, no umbrella, I pass a big hotel with a big set of stairs recesses into the building. I’m almost right in front before I can see on to the steps, where there are perhaps a dozen junior high rhythm gymnasts, each in an emerald green leotard with a warm-up jacket overtop, hair scraped back from faces, placidly watching the rain. In their hands, each girl clutches a glittering gold hoop.
–at the dentist, it suddenly occurs to me that you don’t see those white jacket-and-pants sets in stores. I asked the hygienist where they come from, and she explains to me about dental conventions, where there’s a wide range of styles and price ranges to choose from. She continues working on my mouth while she speaks, then pauses and looks away for a second. “My mother was a seamstress. When she was alive, then I had some interesting uniforms.”
–I climb some steep stairs with a two-year-old, who has only recently learned to operate herself on steps. She loses all nervousness for the ascent though, in her anxiety that I not be lost somewhere behind her. Yelling, “Becky? Becky?” over her shoulder, she reaches the second floor unaided for the first time ever.

Whoa-oh working together
Rr

July 27th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews the split-screen episode of *Coupling*

I haven’t had a functioning TV in years, and the last show I watched regularly was the first few seasons of The West Wing, but I still am devoted to the idea of the perfect situation comedy. This is a holdover from my youth, when I actually watched TV and TV actually specialized in sitcoms. Now from what I hear, the medium has largely moved on without me, towards shows that teach you how to build a house or make supper (I have always been averse to learning anything from television).

I can watch as much Much Music as I can do cardio at the gym (and I have pretty good lung capacity), but other than that, all my TV comes from someone else’s house or their DVDs and download. And the British situation comedy Coupling keeps coming up among all the smart people who share TV with me, even though it’s no longer being made (and there’s an American version that no one seems to watch). I’ve seen perhaps 10 episodes over the past couple years, and I do think it is a fine fine example of what may well be a dying breed.

Near as I can tell, there are six friends/acquaintances on the show, three men and three women: urban, neurotic, very funny and attractive, in varying degrees of romantic and sexual involvement with each other. If it sounds like Friends, it does have that flavour of banter, but a) it’s dirtier, because it’s the BBC, b) not all of the characters are actually friends. The men seem to be mainly friends with each other, and two of the girls likewise, the third girl being the ex of one of the guys, that guy now being the boyfriend of one of the other women. It’s confusing and I don’t fully get it, having watched only a smattering of non-consecutive episodes and never bothered to read an episode guide (there is so much wrong with my reviewing technique). But you can still get the jokes without the backstory.

The big diff between this show and a standard American sitcom is that it is more invested in being kooky and inventive than having to have to tie up neatly at the end. The plot of the episode Split is pretty standard and dull, but it takes place entirely in split-screen, which is very cool. It concerns, natch, the break-up of the central couple, Steve and Susan. They each retreat to their own gender teams/sides of the screen, and you get to see both sides offer truly pathetic advice and comfort. The semi-annoying thing about this show is that it’s *so* gendered–but often creepily accurate. The boys with their video games and the girls with their self-help books are lame but also very much like people you know, only funnier (Sally on women’s magazines: “A thousand articles on why men are crap, and then one on how you ought to wake him up with a blow job.” [that may not be a direct quote, since I am not in possession of the DVD, but close enough]).

To do an entire episode in split screen and not make it either boringly static or dizzyingly hard to follow is quite an accomplishment. Even better, they pull a lot of neat visual and aural tricks with the set-up. When the split couple wake up alone the morning after the breakup, each have of the screen shows a lonely arm wandering over the empty half of the bed. And best bit concerned a lot of accidental/on-purpose dialing of each other’s numbers and then hanging up, with ensuing agonies about 1471ing (the British equivalent of *69, I gather). The Greek chorus of friends jumps with each new development, and it’s neat the way the cause and effect ripples across the screen.

Who knows, sitcoms could have come so far since I watched them last that the few still being made are *all* this clever, but I don’t care. To me, with zero context, this is froth at it’s finest and I might even make a serious attempt to watch another episode, which is high praise coming from me.

No more fire / only desire
RR

July 25th, 2008

Blog stars

I wonder why everybody being extra-interesting on Wednesday? And yet they so were:

“It all comes down to the slippery definition of “friendship,” a definition that is rendered ambiguous by the Internet’s systemic blurring of the divide between the personal and the private. A person can be, in Niedzviecki’s definition, “disengaged” by virtue of a computer monitor, yet still feel a personal connection with an online figure, whether that person be someone met in a chat room, through the comments section of a blog, or via an online gaming community.”
–from With Friends Like These by Steven @ That Shakespeherian Rag

“I can be a morbid person. Especially around this grocery store, where people with canes but young bodies, and hunchbacks, and disappointed and wild eyes, inevitably attract my attention for reasons I’ve never been fully able to understand. So when I saw this bride, I was already on edge in a way. My first thought was, Oh my God, she is going to jump off the roof.”
–from “Bride on a Pawnshop Roof” by Lauren

“Poets, I’d supposed, knowing better than the rest of us the careful constructs upon which ideas are built, of “just words” after all, and how those words and those ideas can’t be bent and twisted into anything, and that anything is everything, and that nothing can be sure. The difference of a line break, a comma; how fragile is simply everything, including life itself.”
–from “Of Poetry and War Crimes” by Kerry @ Pickle Me This

Maybe Wednesdays are better than I thought!

What will become of us / oblivion
RR

Next next next

There’s always more cool stuff to do in the world, and I always want to do it. There’s a new and very funny blog in the world, The Royal Order of the Indolent, out to promote the new book, Idler’s Glossary, which is about…well, you can guess. I find the blog (and accompanying Facebook group) very fun, even though it’s probably designed for people who can relax even when they don’t have heatstroke, ie., not me. Actually, I see a few people hanging around the Facebook group who could be accused of workaholism, but I let it rest…

Other than blogging and Facebooking, I am up to some slightly more active stuff:

–in August, Steven W. Beattie will run a Short Story Month on his website, That Shakespeherian Rag, full of essays, paeons, and musings, I have no doubt. The story story being a form to which I have devoted many months, I am happy to be contributing an essay, “18% More Effective,” somewhere in the middle of things.
–September 24, I’ll be speaking at a couple of events at the dynamic and diverse Thin Air Literary Festival in Winnipeg. I’m really excited both to be participating and to check out what the other writers have to say.
–this fall, I’m pleased to say that my story “Hello Hello” will appear in Windsor’s Rampike Magazine. It’s the 25th anniversary year for this postmodern Canadian journal, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

All this, and 4th place amongst my friends on Word Scramble! Yeah, ladder mode brings out my competitive edge.

Hey shoplifter / why did you take her?
RR

July 23rd, 2008

Creative Endeavours

I don’t really mind heat, even on the extreme side–I have a lowish body temperature, and sort of even like an occasional scorching day. Some do, some don’t, with heat–but does anybody really like humidity? Other than making my skin look really good, I don’t know what there is to like about maple-syrup textured air. If you have pro-humidity theorems, I’d love to hear’em–it might make me feel better. I hate air-conditioning, but I think I hate humidity more, so it’s a fine dice of discomfort lately and really just hard on morale. Also on getting anything done: I’m working as much as ever, but at much slower rates. To slow down ones running or lifting of heavy objects in the heat seems logical, but since mine are mainly endeavours of the mind (wow, that’s a new height of pretension–I’m leaving it in!) it seems odd that the humidity has dragged me down.

It’s better tonight, whetherwise, so maybe work will improve also. In the meantime, inspiration!

I discovered The Ting Tings on David Whitton‘s website and felt an immediate sympathy with the plaint, “That’s Not My Name.” Besides having a wicked beat, the song perfectly captures my pain: despite my so-called “cool name” (I certainly think so), I am frequently called “Jane.” Also, “Rachel.” Also, very often, “you” and yesterday, “whatsyername.” This song makes me feel less alone and anonymous, but the other ones I’ve heard are good too.

Virginia at UofT Alumni endeavours made a beautiful webpage for *Once* on the Great Books by Great Grads site. You can’t see it unless you are an alum, unfortunately, but if you are one, I urge you to check out the full roster–who knew there were so many published past students?

Finally, a dead-sexy website showcasing a designer’s talents–that works. Even if you don’t need a website or letterhead designed, you should look at Create Me This for sterling examples in the form.

Ok. I’m gonna go accomplish stuff now. Really. Yeah.

Maybe Julisa / always the same / that’s not my name
RR

July 20th, 2008

Addendum

Reviewing is tough! Such is the restrictive nature of the form that yesterday’s review did not even include what I felt was the best bit of my film-going experience: what happened in the women’s bathroom after the show.

It was very crowded and noisy with the post-*Get Smart*, post-theatre-size soda crowd. Above the hubbub, though, I could hear teenaged voices yelling,
“Mira, are you here?”
“Yeah, I’m at the sinks!”
“Are you here?”
“I’m here.”
“If you’re here, I’m gonna come out.”
“Come out!”
“I’m gonna come out.”
If you are not a frequenter of women’s bathrooms in multiplexes, I should point that this is not abnormal aural wallpaper–I barely registered it. I did happen to notice the reunion of Mira with her companion exiting her stall–they turned out, unsurprisingly, to be pretty 17ish girls in shorts and elaborate ponytails. More surprisingly, their greeting to each other was not exchange of whispers and lipgloss, but whispers followed by shrieking and bouncing up and down in a tight embrace.

By this point I was registering the interaction rather accutely, and possibly doing a rather over-thorough job of washing my hands. As I turned, dripping, in search of hand towels, the girls approached me through the crowd (possibly because I was staring at them like a movie screen) and asked me for a tampon, which I gave them. I really feel I gave it to them both, they were such an intimate unit, though I’m sure they weren’t going share.

I don’t know, I was a little pleased to be involved in such a happy ending to a drama I’ll never really know, though I can sort of guess. I don’t really need more information, I don’t think. How much do I adore fluffy goofy teenagers? And how much do I want them not to be pregnant? *So much, both!*

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard
RR

July 19th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews *Get Smart*

I do not necessarily think that hard about my cinematic choices, and so far that has worked out pretty well. The *entire* reason I wanted to see Get Smart is that Fred mentioned that, at some point in the action, someone drives a car through the doors of the Arts Building at McGill, where we both studied. I am fond of McGill and have entirely happy memories of the Arts Building, but I still thought it would be cool to see someone drive a car through the doors. The fact that popcorn and hilarity might be involved just made the possibility even sweeter!

My companion had actually seen the original TV show and gave me an astute precis of what we might see (shoe phones, physical comedy, Cold War references). As soon as we got into Steve Carell‘s goofball seriousness, though, I felt right at home. This is the sort of action-satire that started with Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther–oh, what do I know about film history, it probably started long before that! But it went right up into my childhood: Leslie Neilson in The Naked Gun, Val Kilmer in Top Secret!, Inspector Gadget in Inspector Gadget: an officious, oblivious, dead-serious bumbler, adrift in a high-tech, high-stakes world he thinks he can defeat, but most certainly can’t. His (these characters are never women, it occurs to me) ineptitude is never revealed to him, because circumstances, dumb luck and quick-thinking friends (oh, Penny and Brain!) always bail him out in the nick.

Carell’s Agent 86 is a little more self-aware than the others I mentioned–he feels some of the sting of failure when he fails, and considerable embarrassment when he notices Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) bailing him out yet again. Carell’s self-awareness and vulnerable ego gives some nice laughs, but he loses others on the physical stuff. I think this guy is not a physical comedian. I haven’t seen a lot of his work, but I understand it to based more on the awkward moment rather than the hilarious pratfall, and *Get Smart* definitely dwelt more on the latter. Yeah, Carell fell down a lot, it just wasn’t all that memorable (I *love* people falling down…in movies, where no one gets hurt)

Anne Hathaway–also not known for her slapstick work! And looking really weird. Her character, Agent 99, is supposed to have had extensive facial reconstructive surgery, but I don’t know why the make-up artists tried to make her look like that. She’s awfully attractive, I’ve seen non-99 pictures (ok, full disclosure, it was The Princess Diaries) and I am sure her face is normally same colour as her neck. I don’t know why it wasn’t here.

Why am I complaining? I liked this movie. The more reviews I write, the more I realized it’s way easier to be grim than Rose-coloured. Hathaway is a fine straight woman for Carell’s awkward deadpan hilarity, and if neither of them can fall down with particular aplomb, The Rock and Alan Arkin sure can. Alan Arkin gets hit in the head with a fire-extinguisher and never lets anyone forget it. Hahaha. No, it’s funny really. And I always forget how much I like the Rock (do you capitalize the “the”, do you think? Is it part of his proper name?) Between movies, it seems like he’s some tall obnoxious wrestler, but he’s actually really goofy and fun–didja see a little gem called The Rundown? No, no you didn’t, nobody did who isn’t a big Seann William Scott fan did, and so that would basically just be me. Nevermind, it was really good. Hey, what was my point?

*Get Smart* is a good movie for not thinking very hard about. I was enjoying myself so much that I actually forgot about the McGill connection, and when the little red car busts through the doors (it comes outta nowhere, there are no previous exteriors at McGill) I bounced in my seat with joy! It was awesome!! Carell drives right past the Three Bares statue off campus to rue Sherbrooke. OMG, so cool.

If you dig that sort of thing, along with the occasional George W. joke and some high-paced action with a train that I didn’t fully understand, you should really go see this movie. I’m also told that it riffs pretty well on the TV show, so that’s good. Really, delightful fluff.

I’ve got this sentimental heart that beats
RR

July 16th, 2008

On nostalgia

For my birthday, my friend Shannon gave me Listography, a workbook compiled by Lisa Nola so you can make up an autobiography in lists, cued by prompts in the book (or on the website. Obviously, fun for those of us who like lists, and possibly a little OCD for those who do not. I’m ok with that, and appreciate Shannon’s endorsement of my fetish.

Still, not every list is magic–the one I made of every address I’ve ever had was depressing, mainly because I can’t remember the apartment number of a place I live in seven years ago, which is frustrating for my obsession. I probably can’t remember every toy and game I ever played with, either, but that toy-and-game list *is* magic, because there are plenty of them I *do* remember, and those toys are far enough in the past that I feel a pleasant burst of oh-I-remember thinking of them, whereas I still have most of the same furniture from the apartment of no-particular-number.

Oh, kid nostalgia! It’s been making the rounds lately, must be seeing all the water-fights in the park. Kerry and I were pleased to find we both desired a Power Wheel and never got one. I was mentioning to a less-astute friend that I still think Power Wheels are cool, and he said, “Uh, don’t you have a driver’s license now?” As if that makes it any better! Driving acar is totally not the point.

Nevertheless, my parents weren’t stupid–they knew that kids that could make an afternoon out of playing with a toad and drinking from the hose (my friend Nancy reminded me of that long-lost glee!) didn’t need to drive around the backyard. I don’t mean to paint my youth as quite the countryside idyll of Laura Ingalls or anything–we were as obsessed with Nintendo as any kids anywhere, we just also had the toads and the fields and spring run-off, etc.

And then eventually, you get into high-school and either start trying to be cool or actually are, and either way there’s a lot less time to waste on playing–what are toys and games but ways to occupy people who don’t have anything else to do.

I wrote a story once about hanging on to kid games when you’re in high school, about not feeling up to growing up–it’s called Grade Nine Flight. I always forget about that one, because it was written ages ago, though it later appeared on The Danforth Review, that wonderful online journal of (mainly) the short story. Someone reminded me of it recently, because it’s the only actual story that comes up when you google me (TDR archives all their stuff). She read it wanting to know what my work is like, and there’s a kind of double-nostalgia here, because that story is in a very different vein than my work these days. I’m not only nostalgic for childhood, I’m nostalgic for three years ago.

I’ll go back to that sort of story one of these days, I’m sure. On Monday night, in High Park, I saw a toad.

When Johnny saw the numbers he lied
RR

July 14th, 2008

Stories and Poems

“Look, there are more people playing ‘Grand Theft Auto’ this very second than will ever buy whatever book you’re talking about. No one cares, dude.”

“That’s no reason to ….”

“Hey! Loser! In about ten years nobody will be reading books! It’s over! Deal with it!”

–Michael Carbert, writing in “The Urquhart Disaster”, Maisonneuve Magazine

I admire the folks at Maisonneuve for, among many other things, continuing to care about stories and books in the face of mounting distractions and dissausion. So I take it as high praise indeed that they’ll be publishing my story, “Massacre Day,” in their next issue. I’m very excited, and will certainly let you know when it’s on the newsstands.

Other people working hard for the cause of words, this time poetry, are all the poets and volunteers at The Scream in High Park, culminating tonight in what, we hope, will be beautiful weather, out in the park. But really, I’m going rain or shine: Claudia Dey! Dani Couture! And a whack more talented folks!

Finally, this is neither story nor poem, but it made me laugh a lot–“My Airline” by David Owen: “You may no longer hum or do any form of beadwork.”

You’re all ladidah/but I know who you really are
RR