Oh, my darling PINS, I'm sorry! In your section of my year-end music post, I forgot to mention this wonderful piece of anti-Brexit agitprop! Brilliant and timely.
2017/12/27
2017/12/26
My 2017 in music
I bought music from emusic.com until I cancelled in the summer. Thereafter I bought albums from artists or labels via Bandcamp or from their own ecommerce sites. So my list is even less complete than usual, but I'm thinking quality over quantity. For a year that sucked politically, it sure was a good one musically.
More disappointment: The Courtney's II, Allison Crutchfield. Just expected more.
I want a new Potty Mouth album too after their brilliant EP. Until we have one, the single "Smash Hit" will do quite nicely.
Land of Talk - Life After Youth
The first Land of Talk album in seven years continues to thrill me. "Loving" and "World Made" stand out in a set of outstanding songs. Elizabeth Powell's guitar is up front again where it belongs, along with some peculiar and interesting keyboard work, and her singing is personal and affecting. Life After Youth takes me back to Land of Talk's first great EP, Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss, the intensity of which I don't think the band ever reached on their full-length releases—until now.Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm
I had been only a casual Katie Crutchfield fan, but when I first heard Out in the Storm, bam, it hit hard and has not let up. The title song is the standout for me, but only one of many. It took her long enough to leave whoever the guy was. He got way more songs than he deserved. But damn, those are good songs. I'm envious of Crutchfield's ability to make 1-4-5 chord patterns sound fresh.The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions
Whiteout Conditions is an album I liked right away and then over time came to love and appreciate deeply. I am fine with an all-Karl-no-Dan album, because this is a very strong set of songs. "Play Money" right off the bat, "High Ticket Attractions," so many good songs by the time you get to the brilliant pair "Juke" and "Clockwise." Brill Bruisers got more notice, but I think this album will be more enduring. At least for me.Chastity Belt - I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone
With I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, Chastity Belt have put together a very fine album with no low points. Their ensemble playing is better than ever, the songs are killer, and Julia Shapiro has learned to use her voice very effectively. Wish for 2018: see this band live.Aimee Mann - Mental Illness
Aimee Mann came out of the same early 1980s Boston punk/new wave scene I did. Obviously she came quite a bit further out. But then she went pop with 'Til Tuesday, and I did not follow her career...until I found this album on emusic. The songs are fantastic! "Goose Snow Cone," "Lies of Summer" and "Patient Zero" are only three among many.Louise Burns - Young Mopes
Young Mopes was the first album I bought in 2017 and it's still one of the best. Louise Burns has combined great songs with production that really works to feature her gorgeous voice. "Who's the Madman," "Pharaoh," "Storms" all in a row, the 1960s psychedelic of "Dig," the fantastic title song.The Pack a.d. - Dollhouse
The Pack a.d.'s previous album Positive Thinking was released only last year. I thought it was brilliant, not only the Pack's best work but one of the best albums I had heard in a long time. I still think so, which is why when they came out with Dollhouse it took me a while to get to it. I don't think it's as powerful as Positive Thinking, but it's very stong and clearly personal. I will be spending more time with this in the months to come.PINS - Bad Thing
I love PINS to death, and I've been waiting for another album to follow the brilliant Wild Nights. An EP was what we got. Love the (remote) collaboration with Iggy Pop on "Aggrophobe" and the audacity with snakey guitar line (from Lois Macdonald) of "All Hail." Apparently they are still doing a great live show (can't wait for them to tour this way again). But four new songs (plus a Joy Division cover), one of which nicks a bit from a previous song, is a bit thin.Cherry Glazerr - Apocalipstick
This is my "honorable mention" album. I love how Clementine Creevy (not even 21 years old) is unabashedly a guitar player in these guitar-averse times. She has also written some good songs here, and I enjoy her singing as well as her playing.The rest
Biggest disappointment: Feist's Pleasure. After the powerful Metals, this feels very artificial, sometimes even lazy, and just not up to snuff in the songwriting department.More disappointment: The Courtney's II, Allison Crutchfield. Just expected more.
I want a new Potty Mouth album too after their brilliant EP. Until we have one, the single "Smash Hit" will do quite nicely.
2017/10/23
An American in Paris (of the Prairies)
 |
| Doug Elliot's back, Rob Baker, Pat Steward, Craig Northey, Murray Atkinson |
Shortly after my return home, I received a cassette tape from a fellow student who was from Winnipeg. On one side was Social Distortion's second album. On the other side was side 2 of Up to Here by the Tragically Hip and a few songs from Sarah McLachlan's debut album.
I don't know why she chose to send side 2 of the Hip record, but that means the first Hip song I heard was "Boots or Hearts." That was a strange introduction. But then "Everytime You Go," "When the Weight Comes Down," "Trickle Down," and "Another Midnight" (especially), and "Opiated" followed, and this was a sound I liked. The melodic understatement and ringing guitars of R.E.M., and a bit of the also melodic earnestness of Dire Straits, but also that they sounded like no one else. I liked the lyrics as well. But Gord's voice, not so much. His singing from that period sounds harsh to me, like he was pushing too hard, and I don't the constant vibrato on line endings.
I did not know what this collection was. I thought it might have been an EP. I knew nothing about "Blow at High Dough" or the rest of side 1. It would take some time to learn the rest of the story.
Cut to August 1994 and my immigration to Canada. Day for Night was released in September of that year. Fully Completely had come out two years before. I'm not sure, but I think I bought Day for Night first, and I have always thought that was a sublime album. I'm sure I got the previous album soon after. I finally heard all of Up to Here. I still have a cassette of Road Apples. Somewhere in there I bought the first EP.
The only time I saw the Hip live was at the Moore Theater in Seattle in 1996, right after Donovan Bailey won the 100 metre sprint at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Since by that time the band were playing large venues in Canada, we thought it was a treat to get to see them in a theatre. Apparently so did many other Canadians, who made up most of the audience. At one point before the show, the place spontaneously burst into "O Canada!" and I think there was even some flag waving. And then the Hip gave us a (surprisingly) loud, sweaty rock show, marred only by the fact that everyone stood up (not great for me, much worse for my shorty).
That was the year of Trouble at the Henhouse, another strong album in a somewhat different direction. But tastes change. By Phantom Power, I wasn't listening to the Hip as much. I bought that album, as well as Music @ Work, but neither is among my favourites, and those were the last Hip albums I bought.
Since then I've occasionally heard Tragically Hip songs on the radio, both new and old. I will sometimes listen to the albums I have. And I never stopped appreciating them. They were important to Canadian music. Clearly they were important to a lot of people right until the end, and though less so, still to me as well.
A few years ago, at a special Odds show in a tiny pub to which I was fortunate enough to be invited, it was a thrill to meet and chat with Tragically Hip lead guitarist Rob Baker and then to see him play a couple of songs with the Odds as their side project, Stripper's Union. I thought I had more than one picture of that show!
2017/04/05
Drive, she said
[I started this post shortly after we bought a car but never finished it. We are no longer car-free. Didn't want you to think that we still were!]
Early in March, we bought a car. We got a good deal on a reliable used vehicle. But I found that after five months without a car, I could not go back to status quo ante. My thinking and feelings both had shifted.
I did my first errand by car the week that we bought it. This was a trip that takes about half the time by car as it does on transit, and I did not have that kind of time.
So I was carefully heading north on Canada Way when traffic came to a halt. It took a while to learn that the two lanes had to merge into one. A big townhouse development is being built, and a cement truck was doing its cement-spewing thing from the right lane. It occurred to me that driving would work a lot better if private contractors weren't allowed to partially block a major road to spew cement.
The bus would have been caught in the same mess, but I would have been reading or doing something on my phone and not carefully inching forward to the merge point.
Once past the single lane pinch point, it was smooth sailing to my destination. But then I realized I needed to park the car. I hadn't done any of this for four and a half months. So I checked signs and avoided rush hour lanes and found a spot.
On the way home, I headed east on Highway 1 ostensibly before rush hour but there's really no such time. It was slow going through Burnaby, but not terrible. But I was still getting re-accustomed to watching in all directions and especially avoiding getting crunched by a truck. But I made it to Kensington, and Canada Way was not yet very busy.
On that Thursday afternoon, I was waiting for a bus so I could get to an appointment. But it seems Translink got wise to the fact that we owned a car again, so the bus decided not to come. Or to be very late. I don't know which, because I high-tailed it to the vehicle in our carport, promptly got stuck at another pinch point due to another huge construction project (on Kingsway at Edmonds this time), scrambled a bit for parking near my destination, but made it to my appointment on time. I really wanted to take transit, but that time it failed me.
Then on that Friday night, Sweetie and I were going to a show in Surrey. We could have taken transit, but even short walks in Surrey on major roads are often not very nice. It's very much a vehicle-oriented city. So we drove to what we thought was the venue only to find that the show was at a different venue (our mistake). The car saved our bacon! We would not have made it to the real venue on transit in time for the show.
Having a car is expensive. Having a car is a convenience. Having a car can be an annoyance. Having a car can save your bacon.
I haven't "got religion" about living car-free, but the last several months have definitely changed my attitude. I'm starting to see that individual private vehicles, even if (successfully) driverless, are not an efficient way to get around. For one thing, there will only be more and more of them on the same amount of road. Driverless can allow more efficient road use but it will likely not be fast. And a cement truck blocks all road users.
I think about parking as well and the amount of space we use to accommodate our individual vehicles. And the amount of money it might cost to store them in that space.
Seriously, putting around in little vehicles that constantly threaten to bump into each other if any driver is not paying sufficient attention seems like a primitive method of transportation. It's like a faster, more comfortable horse, rolling along on road networks that have got much bigger and more numerous since their inception but are still fundamentally the same paths they ever were.
For whatever reason, to me it feels so much more civilized and modern to walk to a spot, be picked up by a vehicle, and transfer to a conveyance that runs rapidly along a dedicated right-of-way, with fares paid via an electronic card. Even while we hang onto our car, I plan to continue to take advantage of the public transit network. Nice to have a car as backup, for now. But anymore I prefer to read or use my hand-held device or even just to sit (or stand, which happens) and think rather than to drive.
(Unless they finally invent flying cars, like in The Jetsons. If that happens, all bets are off.)
Early in March, we bought a car. We got a good deal on a reliable used vehicle. But I found that after five months without a car, I could not go back to status quo ante. My thinking and feelings both had shifted.
I did my first errand by car the week that we bought it. This was a trip that takes about half the time by car as it does on transit, and I did not have that kind of time.
So I was carefully heading north on Canada Way when traffic came to a halt. It took a while to learn that the two lanes had to merge into one. A big townhouse development is being built, and a cement truck was doing its cement-spewing thing from the right lane. It occurred to me that driving would work a lot better if private contractors weren't allowed to partially block a major road to spew cement.
The bus would have been caught in the same mess, but I would have been reading or doing something on my phone and not carefully inching forward to the merge point.
Once past the single lane pinch point, it was smooth sailing to my destination. But then I realized I needed to park the car. I hadn't done any of this for four and a half months. So I checked signs and avoided rush hour lanes and found a spot.
On the way home, I headed east on Highway 1 ostensibly before rush hour but there's really no such time. It was slow going through Burnaby, but not terrible. But I was still getting re-accustomed to watching in all directions and especially avoiding getting crunched by a truck. But I made it to Kensington, and Canada Way was not yet very busy.
On that Thursday afternoon, I was waiting for a bus so I could get to an appointment. But it seems Translink got wise to the fact that we owned a car again, so the bus decided not to come. Or to be very late. I don't know which, because I high-tailed it to the vehicle in our carport, promptly got stuck at another pinch point due to another huge construction project (on Kingsway at Edmonds this time), scrambled a bit for parking near my destination, but made it to my appointment on time. I really wanted to take transit, but that time it failed me.
Then on that Friday night, Sweetie and I were going to a show in Surrey. We could have taken transit, but even short walks in Surrey on major roads are often not very nice. It's very much a vehicle-oriented city. So we drove to what we thought was the venue only to find that the show was at a different venue (our mistake). The car saved our bacon! We would not have made it to the real venue on transit in time for the show.
Having a car is expensive. Having a car is a convenience. Having a car can be an annoyance. Having a car can save your bacon.
I haven't "got religion" about living car-free, but the last several months have definitely changed my attitude. I'm starting to see that individual private vehicles, even if (successfully) driverless, are not an efficient way to get around. For one thing, there will only be more and more of them on the same amount of road. Driverless can allow more efficient road use but it will likely not be fast. And a cement truck blocks all road users.
I think about parking as well and the amount of space we use to accommodate our individual vehicles. And the amount of money it might cost to store them in that space.
Seriously, putting around in little vehicles that constantly threaten to bump into each other if any driver is not paying sufficient attention seems like a primitive method of transportation. It's like a faster, more comfortable horse, rolling along on road networks that have got much bigger and more numerous since their inception but are still fundamentally the same paths they ever were.
For whatever reason, to me it feels so much more civilized and modern to walk to a spot, be picked up by a vehicle, and transfer to a conveyance that runs rapidly along a dedicated right-of-way, with fares paid via an electronic card. Even while we hang onto our car, I plan to continue to take advantage of the public transit network. Nice to have a car as backup, for now. But anymore I prefer to read or use my hand-held device or even just to sit (or stand, which happens) and think rather than to drive.
(Unless they finally invent flying cars, like in The Jetsons. If that happens, all bets are off.)
2017/03/05
Life without car
The car-free experiment that began unexpectedly in mid-October 2016 will soon end. We have been given the opportunity to buy a used Nissan Versa in good condition for a good price. In a few days, we will once again be the owners of a motorized vehicle.
Being without a car has sometimes been challenging and often revealing. After the collision last fall, we had to figure out how to get around and do what we needed to do by transit, on foot, and occasionally using a taxi. That was pretty easy for Sweetie, who doesn't drive. Her daily life was little changed. But for me, it was a bigger deal. I still wanted to get to the farmers market, to the Drive for my usual shopping, to North Burnaby for Cioffi's (best Italian store), and a few other places.
I did what I had to do. I learned the transit system much better, especially buses. I now know buses that will get me where I need to go that I was not even aware of before. I have run errands to places I didn't know I could get to without a car.
Shortly after the experiment began, I realized that hauling two cloth bags on my shoulders was becoming both difficult and painful. So I bought a two-wheeled shopping cart, a.k.a., a granny cart, which made a huge difference. Did you know that granny cart owners talk to other cart users, like dog owners? There is lot of discussion about wheels and durability and how much a cart can haul. Granny carts are not just for grannies! Sometimes the front of the bus gets rather crowded with them.
Using the cart is better than carrying bags on your shoulders, but the cart doesn't haul itself. And at first I was often trudging through nasty weather and over poorly cleared sidewalks. Sometimes I wished the cart had been a sled! I also became much more aware of curb ramps—well-designed, poorly designed, blocked (by snow, ice, unmindful people), and missing entirely—and of accessibility in general, especially at SkyTrain stations. There were times during the worst of the weather that I didn't think I could keep it up. But as a cook, I value fresh ingredients, so I persisted.
It seems to be good exercise. I hate working out and so haven't done it since I has a personal trainer, so walking has long been my main physical activity. I do most of my errands within my city on foot. And then transit use adds more walking, since stops are not always right where I need to go. And why wait for a #20 when I can walk on the Drive from the SkyTrain station to Napier Street before a bus comes by? Manoeuvering my cart when it's full, up hill and down dale, has increased my fitness and helped set my weight at a place that feels comfortable for me.
Going out in the evening sans car sometimes brings extra challenges. Transit service is less frequent, especially buses, especially on weekends. Sometimes we get home rather later than we would with a car. But we have still been going out quite a lot. We've toughened up, got used to waiting longer and waiting in crappy weather, and made sure to dress for it. Somehow we have got better at finding late buses. Our taxi usage seems to have gone down.
When we have a car again, will we go back to the status quo ante? We intend not to. Even though it's a long, multi-modal trip to Nat Bailey Stadium for the Winter Farmers Market, I would still rather go by transit with my cart than have to deal with parking over there. Parking is often a deterrent to increased vehicle usage. Another is traffic. Using transit takes more time, but not as much more than driving as you might think. And much as I like to drive on a highway, I have come to appreciate being conveyed through city traffic while I read or use my phone or just look around (especially if I'm on a route I haven't taken before).
The experiment taught us that some errands are pretty much impossible without a vehicle. We have bird feeders and we buy seed in large bags. The cart would not be able to carry enough to make the long trip to the store worthwhile. Sometimes we have to buy other things that are too large to carry. It's possible to bring an accumulation of glass jars and bottles, corrugated cardboard, metal, and Styrofoam to the recycling depot, but not easy. And you can't take a road trip without a motor vehicle—unless you are the kind of cyclist I never was and will never be.
Soon I will be able to haul guitar and amp and pedal board to a gig! That is, if I ever manage to set one up again.
Sweetie and I agree that we need a car less than we had thought. We plan to try to use the new one only when we truly need to. I imagine that occasionally we will go somewhere by car that we would have done on transit. But we live in an area with an extensive transit system, in a part of our city with several bus connections, and we're happy to take advantage of that.
Postscript: Owning a car and mostly using transit instead of driving is a bad combination. We are more aware of that now. We will be paying transit fares (or buying a monthly pass) while also carrying car insurance. That bit of convenience will more than double our transportation costs (without even factoring in gas and maintenance). Once I have atoned for my collision sin, we hope to sell the car and join a car co-op. The experiment showed us that car-sharing would really make sense for us.
Being without a car has sometimes been challenging and often revealing. After the collision last fall, we had to figure out how to get around and do what we needed to do by transit, on foot, and occasionally using a taxi. That was pretty easy for Sweetie, who doesn't drive. Her daily life was little changed. But for me, it was a bigger deal. I still wanted to get to the farmers market, to the Drive for my usual shopping, to North Burnaby for Cioffi's (best Italian store), and a few other places.
I did what I had to do. I learned the transit system much better, especially buses. I now know buses that will get me where I need to go that I was not even aware of before. I have run errands to places I didn't know I could get to without a car.
Shortly after the experiment began, I realized that hauling two cloth bags on my shoulders was becoming both difficult and painful. So I bought a two-wheeled shopping cart, a.k.a., a granny cart, which made a huge difference. Did you know that granny cart owners talk to other cart users, like dog owners? There is lot of discussion about wheels and durability and how much a cart can haul. Granny carts are not just for grannies! Sometimes the front of the bus gets rather crowded with them.
Using the cart is better than carrying bags on your shoulders, but the cart doesn't haul itself. And at first I was often trudging through nasty weather and over poorly cleared sidewalks. Sometimes I wished the cart had been a sled! I also became much more aware of curb ramps—well-designed, poorly designed, blocked (by snow, ice, unmindful people), and missing entirely—and of accessibility in general, especially at SkyTrain stations. There were times during the worst of the weather that I didn't think I could keep it up. But as a cook, I value fresh ingredients, so I persisted.
It seems to be good exercise. I hate working out and so haven't done it since I has a personal trainer, so walking has long been my main physical activity. I do most of my errands within my city on foot. And then transit use adds more walking, since stops are not always right where I need to go. And why wait for a #20 when I can walk on the Drive from the SkyTrain station to Napier Street before a bus comes by? Manoeuvering my cart when it's full, up hill and down dale, has increased my fitness and helped set my weight at a place that feels comfortable for me.
Going out in the evening sans car sometimes brings extra challenges. Transit service is less frequent, especially buses, especially on weekends. Sometimes we get home rather later than we would with a car. But we have still been going out quite a lot. We've toughened up, got used to waiting longer and waiting in crappy weather, and made sure to dress for it. Somehow we have got better at finding late buses. Our taxi usage seems to have gone down.
When we have a car again, will we go back to the status quo ante? We intend not to. Even though it's a long, multi-modal trip to Nat Bailey Stadium for the Winter Farmers Market, I would still rather go by transit with my cart than have to deal with parking over there. Parking is often a deterrent to increased vehicle usage. Another is traffic. Using transit takes more time, but not as much more than driving as you might think. And much as I like to drive on a highway, I have come to appreciate being conveyed through city traffic while I read or use my phone or just look around (especially if I'm on a route I haven't taken before).
The experiment taught us that some errands are pretty much impossible without a vehicle. We have bird feeders and we buy seed in large bags. The cart would not be able to carry enough to make the long trip to the store worthwhile. Sometimes we have to buy other things that are too large to carry. It's possible to bring an accumulation of glass jars and bottles, corrugated cardboard, metal, and Styrofoam to the recycling depot, but not easy. And you can't take a road trip without a motor vehicle—unless you are the kind of cyclist I never was and will never be.
Soon I will be able to haul guitar and amp and pedal board to a gig! That is, if I ever manage to set one up again.
Sweetie and I agree that we need a car less than we had thought. We plan to try to use the new one only when we truly need to. I imagine that occasionally we will go somewhere by car that we would have done on transit. But we live in an area with an extensive transit system, in a part of our city with several bus connections, and we're happy to take advantage of that.
Postscript: Owning a car and mostly using transit instead of driving is a bad combination. We are more aware of that now. We will be paying transit fares (or buying a monthly pass) while also carrying car insurance. That bit of convenience will more than double our transportation costs (without even factoring in gas and maintenance). Once I have atoned for my collision sin, we hope to sell the car and join a car co-op. The experiment showed us that car-sharing would really make sense for us.
2017/02/01
American unexceptionalism
The horror of the United States federal elections. The nasty aftermath. Not feeling like Christmas. The nervous lead-up to the inauguration. And the rapidly escalating seizure of power by the regime.
I'm a well-off white Canadian woman, in Canada. How could I be more privileged? But I am also American, born in the United States, the first 40 years of my life lived there. I was a sometime activist in the early 1970s, protesting against the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon and the erosion of freedoms and in favour of economic democracy and an end to nuclear power. In the 1980s I wrote punk songs about Ronald Reagan. I am steeped in the Constitution and the Enlightenment thinking for which it stands.
I care very much about the republic to the south and about liberal democracy in general.
As of this writing, there can be little doubt that there is a putsch in the works. With the executive orders so far they are only getting warmed up. Part of the strategy seems to be to start with things that many defend for a some plausible (on face) reason: security in the case of the Muslim Ban, religious freedom in the case of the delayed, but certainly not for long, "religious exemptions" to serving queer people. It seems they will likely retain this kind of deniability for a while. They're doing what they're doing for security or religious freedom or some other reason, not to seize power. But the seizure is underway nonetheless.
Those of us who care about American democracy, about the survival of the republic, about the rights and freedoms of its inhabitants are appalled, shocked, angry, and more about recent events. I am too. I'm trying to stay calm through the stress while also remaining alert and putting energy to good use and not burning out or being crushed.
But a thought occurred to me. We might claim we don't believe in American exceptionalism, a hallmark of the Right, but apparently we must. Otherwise, we wouldn't have thought it would be impossible for a putsch even to be attempted. We wouldn't have thought that the fundamentals of the American system were strong enough to withstand any attempts at abuse. We came through the Watergate crisis, and the good and decent won. We thought the movie always ended that way.
It might still end that way. We had better write the ending that way. But we should not think that this putsch, this attempted coup, is really that special. Some people live their entire lives under authoritarian rule. Many have lived through a coup d'état, or two, or more. Some have seen promising democracies slide into dictatorship.
There has never been a guarantee that any Western democracy would remain democratic and based on the rule of law. Any liberal democracy can slide into illiberal democracy and then into autocracy. Even entire civilizations can collapse.
We often see claims that love is stronger than hate. I have always held to this idea. I'm no longer confident that it's true. But the only way I can continue is by assuming it is true and acting accordingly. Failure is an option. Just not one I consider acceptable.
I'm a well-off white Canadian woman, in Canada. How could I be more privileged? But I am also American, born in the United States, the first 40 years of my life lived there. I was a sometime activist in the early 1970s, protesting against the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon and the erosion of freedoms and in favour of economic democracy and an end to nuclear power. In the 1980s I wrote punk songs about Ronald Reagan. I am steeped in the Constitution and the Enlightenment thinking for which it stands.
I care very much about the republic to the south and about liberal democracy in general.
As of this writing, there can be little doubt that there is a putsch in the works. With the executive orders so far they are only getting warmed up. Part of the strategy seems to be to start with things that many defend for a some plausible (on face) reason: security in the case of the Muslim Ban, religious freedom in the case of the delayed, but certainly not for long, "religious exemptions" to serving queer people. It seems they will likely retain this kind of deniability for a while. They're doing what they're doing for security or religious freedom or some other reason, not to seize power. But the seizure is underway nonetheless.
Those of us who care about American democracy, about the survival of the republic, about the rights and freedoms of its inhabitants are appalled, shocked, angry, and more about recent events. I am too. I'm trying to stay calm through the stress while also remaining alert and putting energy to good use and not burning out or being crushed.
But a thought occurred to me. We might claim we don't believe in American exceptionalism, a hallmark of the Right, but apparently we must. Otherwise, we wouldn't have thought it would be impossible for a putsch even to be attempted. We wouldn't have thought that the fundamentals of the American system were strong enough to withstand any attempts at abuse. We came through the Watergate crisis, and the good and decent won. We thought the movie always ended that way.
It might still end that way. We had better write the ending that way. But we should not think that this putsch, this attempted coup, is really that special. Some people live their entire lives under authoritarian rule. Many have lived through a coup d'état, or two, or more. Some have seen promising democracies slide into dictatorship.
There has never been a guarantee that any Western democracy would remain democratic and based on the rule of law. Any liberal democracy can slide into illiberal democracy and then into autocracy. Even entire civilizations can collapse.
We often see claims that love is stronger than hate. I have always held to this idea. I'm no longer confident that it's true. But the only way I can continue is by assuming it is true and acting accordingly. Failure is an option. Just not one I consider acceptable.
2017/01/02
A bit of life in the theatre
Sweetie and I finished off 2016 by getting rid of almost a quarter truck load of stuff. We own a detached house, with basement. When we have that kind of space, we tend to fill it up and not look too often. It had been a long time since we had gone through stuff. We were pretty ruthless this time, and we're still not done. It's an ongoing process.
There was an orphaned box sitting in the living room that I thought was all Sweetie's stuff, but she said some of it was mine. Today I dug into it. Almost all of it was stuff from my time in the theatre: some sheet music for musical auditions, and a whole lot of working scripts, in binders, stapled, and even one in a Manila envelope. It doesn't represent all of my theatrical experience, but it's a curious assemblage of material from various periods of my brief career.
One of the most fun things I did in Boston was work with a children's theatre company. I found two original scripts by Stan---whose last name I forget. He was a very talented writer of musical plays for children. One script is for Cinderella (very memorable), the other Beauty and the Beast (which I remember less well). I was also part of a tiny touring company that performed Stan's version of Rumpelstiltskin.
For a few years, I worked with a voice teacher who then became my acting teacher. She invited me and a few other people to be part of creating a staged version of Dylan Thomas's poem Under Milk Wood, which was quite an honour because I was not yet very experienced. The five of us played several parts, including narration. It was mostly a dramatic recitation, but the power was in the words. I learned to play "The Rambling Sailor" on the tin whistle for the opening and closing. We toured a bit and played some interesting settings. Working on this project was a personal high point.
Despite my complete lack of Irishness, I was in several Irish plays with different directors. Away Alone by Janet Noble was one of my favourites. It's the story of young Irish people who show up in New York City, interact with others who came before them, and continue the cycle of getting work, settling in, and then breaking in new arrivals.
Undiscovered Country by Arthur Schnitzler was the height of my acting career in Boston. I didn't really like the play, and I was only a minor character, almost an extra, but I was on the stage of the Huntington Theatre in the midst of a professional company. I learned a lot from this experience, including such handy advice as that I should quit smoking lest I end up with wrinkles like the lead actor had.
I found a binder that contained The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerantz, which I believe was my last theatrical experience in Boston. For that one I was assistant director and stage manager. Every night, I ran the lights and sound. Every night I watched a gifted actor embody John Merrick and break my heart. If you've only ever seen the David Lynch film, you should seek out a good production of the play.
A Kind of Alaska, a one-act play by Harold Pinter, was the only theatre I did in Vancouver. My focus was on film and television. I didn't work well with the director, and it was not the happiest theatre experience. But every experience is one to remember.
There were some mysteries in the box. I found part of a script of Scenes from a Marriage by Ingmar Bergman. I have no idea why I have that. Maybe it came from a scene study class, which I did for a few years in Vancouver. I also found a play called Tide by Aidan Parkinson which is only vaguely familiar. My guess is that I participated in a reading.
I don't look back very often, but I will hang onto these scripts, at least for a while. There is plenty more in this house to clean up. Best for 2017. Stay vigilant!
There was an orphaned box sitting in the living room that I thought was all Sweetie's stuff, but she said some of it was mine. Today I dug into it. Almost all of it was stuff from my time in the theatre: some sheet music for musical auditions, and a whole lot of working scripts, in binders, stapled, and even one in a Manila envelope. It doesn't represent all of my theatrical experience, but it's a curious assemblage of material from various periods of my brief career.
One of the most fun things I did in Boston was work with a children's theatre company. I found two original scripts by Stan---whose last name I forget. He was a very talented writer of musical plays for children. One script is for Cinderella (very memorable), the other Beauty and the Beast (which I remember less well). I was also part of a tiny touring company that performed Stan's version of Rumpelstiltskin.
For a few years, I worked with a voice teacher who then became my acting teacher. She invited me and a few other people to be part of creating a staged version of Dylan Thomas's poem Under Milk Wood, which was quite an honour because I was not yet very experienced. The five of us played several parts, including narration. It was mostly a dramatic recitation, but the power was in the words. I learned to play "The Rambling Sailor" on the tin whistle for the opening and closing. We toured a bit and played some interesting settings. Working on this project was a personal high point.
Despite my complete lack of Irishness, I was in several Irish plays with different directors. Away Alone by Janet Noble was one of my favourites. It's the story of young Irish people who show up in New York City, interact with others who came before them, and continue the cycle of getting work, settling in, and then breaking in new arrivals.
Undiscovered Country by Arthur Schnitzler was the height of my acting career in Boston. I didn't really like the play, and I was only a minor character, almost an extra, but I was on the stage of the Huntington Theatre in the midst of a professional company. I learned a lot from this experience, including such handy advice as that I should quit smoking lest I end up with wrinkles like the lead actor had.
I found a binder that contained The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerantz, which I believe was my last theatrical experience in Boston. For that one I was assistant director and stage manager. Every night, I ran the lights and sound. Every night I watched a gifted actor embody John Merrick and break my heart. If you've only ever seen the David Lynch film, you should seek out a good production of the play.
A Kind of Alaska, a one-act play by Harold Pinter, was the only theatre I did in Vancouver. My focus was on film and television. I didn't work well with the director, and it was not the happiest theatre experience. But every experience is one to remember.
There were some mysteries in the box. I found part of a script of Scenes from a Marriage by Ingmar Bergman. I have no idea why I have that. Maybe it came from a scene study class, which I did for a few years in Vancouver. I also found a play called Tide by Aidan Parkinson which is only vaguely familiar. My guess is that I participated in a reading.
I don't look back very often, but I will hang onto these scripts, at least for a while. There is plenty more in this house to clean up. Best for 2017. Stay vigilant!
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