Epiphanies and Anniversaries

Dammit, body. You were supposed to spring into action around Epiphany, ready to start a new year of eating right and exercising hard. Instead...

It's been a hard week. Over a week, in fact, of being a congested, tired, achy, brain-foggy mess. At least I can console myself that everyone else in the city also has this virus right now. But worse, I started to feel my mood tipping into a dark place it hadn't been for a long time... hard not to feel that way when you're sick and the numbers in your bank account are slipping down past the safety zone, with no big job to push them back the other way. I was starting to feel as if I was standing on the crumbling edge of a cliff. I was/am too tired to exercise, too sick to watch every little thing I ate, too broke to afford a Grand Gesture or a fancy event to cheer myself up. The nagging voice of self-doubt started creeping in: How could I be loveable, with my straggly uncut hair showing months of roots (and grey), my belly rounded from holiday overindulgence, my tissue-reddened nose and glassy tired eyes? How will I ever make a living making music? Would I be forced to live forever as my brother's tenant, unable to afford my own apartment? Had I made the wrong decision in cutting myself off from the summer job and northern towns I love so much?

When my guy offered me a small, easy photography gig with a bit of money attached, I grew insecure and snappish, sure that I couldn't do what he needed, although he assured me that it was a simple job. Although I ended up doing it, I was needy and grumpy about the whole thing.
I decided we needed a date night, since I'd hardly seen my sweetheart since New Year's Eve. Although I'm still feeling gross, I rallied- 2 nights ago- and dressed up. Pretty skirt, classy fishnets with the seam, even curly hair, because I know he likes it. He called: he was feeling stir-crazy and wanted to get out. Maybe we could meet up earlier and go for a ride on the bike before dinner? I started seething, thinking of having to change out of my carefully-chosen outfit. I'd wanted to feel dressed-up and civilized, not climb on the back of a motorbike in the cold evening air... I snapped at him, unwilling to bend, to re-write the script in my head. Then I called back and apologized for snapping at him- "Did you snap at me?" he asked, puzzled. Again, the script I was writing in my head, the one called I Am A Terrible Girlfriend And He's Probably Going To Leave Me Tomorrow, was completely different from what was going on in his head, where he was feeling bad for being irritable at me because he'd had a frustrating day, and was just looking forward to seeing me and maybe taking me out for a spin because he knows I love riding on the back of his motorbike whenever I get the chance.

We met. His eyes gleamed at the skirt, the stockings and the curls. He parked the bike and we walked- me mincing a bit in unaccustomed heels- to the cheap but fun place I'd picked for us to eat at. And even though the bike broke down (later) and the movie we'd picked to go to was sold out, we managed to make our own fun. We always do. And the black mood that had sat with me for days slowly lifted. He loves being with me. He loves that I know the words for obscure things (he can't get over the fact that I knew that the word for a monk's shaved head is a tonsure). He drools at my fishnetted legs and curled hair, but is equally inclined to say "god you're hot" when I'm standing in front of him with bed-head, sweatpants and no makeup. He makes me laugh with his stories and his imitations of his friends, he draws me cartoons and plays my music for his friends; he takes me for motorbike rides and always, ALWAYS gives me the warmest gloves when we do, and insists that I borrow his hats when it's raining. I can't believe it's only been 3 months since we first met (in fact, it's exactly 3 months today).  It's time to stop writing those glum scripts in my head and try to roll with things a bit more. Because this one's a keeper.

One of my favourite bloggers has a post that touches on this as well. You can read it over here; it's what inspired me to write this post.

On a completely different note... the Oscar nominations are out!  I don't know why, but this year, I'm pretty excited about them (well, partly because Grand Budapest Hotel made the list and I think that it was a damn fine movie). Although I probably won't watch the Oscars (I'd rather watch paint dry, honestly), I DO want to spend the next couple of months watching as many of the nominated movies as possible, including the docs and the foreign films. When I do, I'll blog about it here. (I'm definitely inspired by this guy, who also worked up in Barkerville this summer, and who is a smart and funny writer.)  Hey, if nothing else, watching movies at home is something my guy and I both love to do together. And it's dirt cheap.

Everyone's a Critic, part 1

The night is young middle-aged,  I'm holed up in my sitting room with a bag of potato chips and some great music, and I feel like spouting off, so...
This post is part one of several: I'm lucky enough to get to see several shows at the PUSH Festival this week, and I also saw a movie which bugged the hell out of me, so right now you get to hear my unsolicited opinions on several things:

First of all, the movie. I've been making use of my local library lately, but its dvd selection is pretty tiny, unless you happen to be a big fan of Vietnamese action movies. So when I saw this,  I was intrigued.

"Mermaid" billed itself as "the Russian 'Amelie'". Great! I LOVE 'Amelie'! I've seen it 5 or so times and my joy at watching it never really diminishes. So I started this film with great expectations. And I ended it a couple hours later remembering why you don't hear the words "Russian" and "humour" in the same sentence too often. It's interesting that you can compare and say that yes, on the surface these 2 movies share some similarities:

Amelie                                                                                                            Mermaid
*quirky female lead...                                                                                    * quirky female lead...
*...who has an indifferent parent                                                                                       * ...who has an indifferent parent
*falls in love                                                                                                                       * falls in love
*has trouble expressing that love due to maturity issues                                                   * ditto                      

but 'Amelie' radiates charm, thanks to the stunning beauty of Paris and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's wacky vision. 'Mermaid' features the, um, stunning charm (not) of Moscow and a vision that seems self-consciously wacky but mostly bleak, until the shocking and totally unnecessary ending. Basically, a little girl grows up in a tiny Russian town with an unloving mother; they move to Moscow and she falls in love with a shallow, greedy man who sells pieces of real estate on the moon to suckers with more money than sense. Mariya Shalaeva in the lead role has the same creepy loveliness that Cate Blanchet has in the Lord of the Rings movies, but she can't save this dog. Definitely not another 'Amelie'. Nice try, Russia.

Okay, so next up we have "The God Who Comes" a one-man musical (sort-of) performed by Canadian rocker Hawksley Workman. A loose re-telling of the myth of Bacchus, it tells the story of a rigid king who is incensed at the licentious behaviour of his subjects (including his mother), who are going up a local mountain and indulging in pagan rites, including sex, drinking and animal sacrifice. The king dresses as a woman, sneaks up the mountain, hides in a tree, and observes the rituals. Unfortunately for him, his mother pulls him down from the tree and- totally caught up in her pagan frenzy- rips her royal son's head off.

I have a beef with Mr. Workman because last year I worked at a toy store and during my shifts there I listened to CBC Radio endlessly plugging his annoyingly catchy song "Warhol's Portrait of Gretzky":

Warhol's portrait of Gretzky

Pretty fuckin' sexy

Pretty fuckin' sexeeeeee

...except, being radio it was edited to "pretty bloody sexy" instead.

But after seeing this show I basically forgave him, because Hawksley Workman has an amazing singing voice that is best appreciated live. I could listen to him singing the phone book for heaven's sake. However, the show itself was uneven at best. Workman came onstage at the beginning, told us the basic outline of the legend and then launched into the song cycle which re-told the story he'd just told us. My date was glad he'd done the pre-show summary, because he didn't think that he would have understood the story without it. I see where he was coming from, but I think there's a better way of staging it so that you don't get the same story twice over. And while the music was pretty good, it wasn't great. Because he's on his own, Workman relies on a lot of looping, which is cool, but after a while it just started to seem like a gimmick as he moved from drums to keys to guitar and back again. And while he's a charismatic performer, he's no actor. I would rather have seen Workman stick to his instruments and have a couple of actors or puppeteers flesh out the story. However it was a cool idea, and I'd rather seen something like "The God Who Comes" which fails in some ways but is trying something new, than some trite rom-com play that I've seen a million times. 

So... "Mermaid" gets an F and Hawksley Workman gets an A for effort but only a C+ for overall execution for "The God Who Comes". 

Next up, I'll have a review of "Svadba", which is a 6-woman a cappella opera based on Serbian music. I'm really looking forward to that one! I also managed to get 2 comps to see a home-grown Canadian musical sensation called "Ride The Cyclone".

* A caveat: I am a performer and a musician, but my opinions are just that- my opinions. They are personal and unsolicited and you may very well disagree with them. That's wonderful. Opinions should be disagreed with. Even when I am being picky about stuff I am very rarely so disgusted with a piece that I won't be happy that I got the chance to go see it in the first place. I am always thrilled to get a chance to see theatre and music, even if I don't always love everything about it. I think that what makes art exciting is that it makes us think. Art should make us happy and excited and enraged and offended and entertained. And it should make us talk about all of our reactions to it. So this is just my long-winded way of saying that I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou about stuff when I'm reviewing it, I'm just making a note of my reactions, And you can agree or not. Just go and see stuff- that's the important part.

escapism.

Today was a rest day, an all-day-in-bed kind of day. I've been felled by a persistent virus, and after days of pretending it wasn't there so I could keep going through various gigs, I had to admit defeat on my day off. I have absolutely no energy at all; I feel low and lonely and depressed, (the virus at work; I've actually had some wonderful gigs and good fortune recently but it's hard to stay happy after days of feeling shitty), but I WAS lucky enough to have an entire day to rest.
So, I stayed in bed, but I traveled the world via the magic of movies. What better way to take a holiday from a sick body and sad mind?
My journey actually began a day or so ago with the French movie "Monsieur Ibrahim". Today I made stops in '80s America ("Charlie Wilson's War" and "Say Anything"), Belgium ("Moscow, Belgium") and Siam ("Anna & the King", which I'm taking a break from because it's long and not totally grabbing me). I also recently watched "Nowhere In Africa" (Germany & Kenya- one of the best movies I've seen in ages) and "Lost in Translation" (Japan, but more importantly, one of my favorite movies of all time).
People may complain about Netflix' selection, but I'm enchanted by all the foreign movies on there. The only problem I have is deciding what to pick!
Now, of course, I am itching to pack my bags and get on a plane to... where shall I go? I've been drawn to European movies lately, but I'm dying to get to somewhere warm, to a place where I absolutely won't shiver, not even once. Not a resort, not something fake and manufactured for tourists who want to be served everything on a platter. I want a tiny, eccentric place to live in, a new language to learn, a few people to befriend. I want a local market to shop at, and a bar/restaurant I'd be comfortable eating alone in. I want sun, water, simplicity, music. Given my limited budget, I'm thinking somewhere in Mexico where I can learn Spanish and hide out for a week or so. A total change of scene.
Of course, I know what's behind this (and probably sort of behind the illness, too): I am learning to be alone, and it's proving to be a tough lesson. Hence the need for a change of scene, I think. I need to toughen up, but it will take time. I need to learn confidence in my body and my Self, the essence of who I am, but it will take time. I need to learn to ask for help, and for company when I am feeling alone, but that will take time too.
I think the thing is that my whole concept of what is 'normal' has been severely toyed with, so I doubt everything. I left a stable relationship at a time of life when most people seem to be settling down and having babies. I got sick when I thought that I was invincible. I live in two vastly different places per year. I have roommates and live in an eccentric building and I own next to nothing. I fell madly out of and into love but I have no idea what to do about it. There is no roadmap for this life, and I know that everyone feels like this. We are all trying to find our way, and when we glance at the map we can only see the path we've taken, not the road ahead.
I love my life, the weird, winding, rocky, beautiful little path I'm on. I really do. But tonight, I will put the headphones back on soon, press 'play' and start another movie so I can escape for a while. When I get some energy back I'll start planning a little trip, I think. Because there is only so much watching I can do. I need to start starring in my OWN movie.

How Iron Maiden Taught Me a Lesson.

Last night we caught a very fun and inspiring documentary on the Sundance Channel. "Flight 666" is about Iron Maiden, and an epic tour they did a few years ago, covering countries and continents in just a few months. Not only were they flying huge distances between shows, but their lead singer, Bruce Dickinson, was also piloting the huge jet that took them there. Unlike the recent documentary about Metallica, in which the band had to enter group therapy because they were at each other's throats, "Flight 666" is incredibly sweet. This real-life Spinal Tap may sing about the Devil, but on their time off they visit tourist sites together, bring their teenaged kids on the road, and even... golf (they have Iron Maiden golf bags for heaven's sake!). The scene that really made me smile was one where they're somewhere in Mexico, visiting a Mayan ruin. They all go down into the tunnels beneath one of the temples and you're thinking okay, this is where they get all satanic and sacrifice a goat or something. In the underground dark, the drummer cups a candle in his hands and... makes a wish for his friends' health and happiness. When you see footage of them on stage in front of thousands of writhing fans, their delight in what they're doing shines through in their huge grins.
I ran into an acquaintance a while ago, a musician I respect. He was making a living playing in a band with some other aging rock stars, members of a fairly high-profile Canadian group. "They all need lawyers to talk to each other," he said. "When they need to make a decision everyone has to vote and argue and it takes forever."
I thought of that group as I was watching the Maiden documentary. How some cling stubbornly to one way of life because it is lucrative, or because it is the only way they know, even though it brings them pain and puts them into conflict with people they once liked. And how other people can be following the exact same way of life, and still be doing it with joy and enthusiasm. If I have one wish for 2011 it is that I have the courage to let go of things that are not working and also the courage to keep putting the effort into things that do work.

happily ever after...

Lately, all my posts have been very earnest and about self-improvement and other Serious Things. Which is great. But I don't want all my 2.7 readers to think that I've lost my frivolous side. So, in honour of the fact that I'm killing a bottle of red wine by myself (well, the dog is here too, but he's mostly asleep until I say the magic word "walk")and because I'm flipping channels between "Four Weddings & a Funeral" and "Grosse Pointe Blank", I present...

Romantic Movie Scenes That Make Me Swoon:

• OK, I love the part in Grosse Point Blank where John Cusack and Minnie Driver leave their high school gym during their reunion and do it in the nurse's office. That scene is coming up shortly, so I may have to stop writing for a while soon...
• The part in "Four Weddings" where Hugh Grant says "I wish I'd rung you. But you never rang me. You ruthlessly slept with me twice and never rang me." And then he runs after Andie McDowell and says ..."I really feel. In short...in the words of David Cassidy, in fact, while he was still with the Partridge Family: I think I love you." (My other favorite part, and the line my friend Toni & I used to quote to each other ad nauseum is "Excuse me. I think I need to be where other people are not.")
• Pretty much any part of "Lost in Translation". But specifically when Scarlett and Bill are in the hotel bar after the fire alarm goes off and the piano player's playing "I'm So Into You" and they're plotting to stay in Tokyo and start a jazz band. Oh, and the ending, of course. What's he whispering in her ear? Isn't it cool how we never find out?
• The sort-of creepy but at-the-same-time-cute relationship between Andrew McCarthy (teacher) and what's-er-name (student) in "New Waterford Girl". I visited New Waterford this summer (it's in Cape Breton) and believe me, you'd want out of there too.
• The surprising chemistry between Ben Kinglsey and Tea Leoni in "You Kill Me" (I watched this movie 3 times back-to-back when I was sick and visiting up at my dad's) ...
• ...and also between Denzil Washington and Angelina Jolie in "The Bone Collector" (totally forgettable movie, though, so don't bother renting it if you haven't seen it.)
• Mr. Darcy saying "I most ardently admire and love you," or something like that, at the end of "Pride & Prejudice". And yes, I mean Colin Firth. Is there any other Darcy, really?
• The ending of "The Sure Thing". I have an ex-boyfriend to thank for introducing me to that movie. He had a thing for Daphne Zuniga. I had/have a thing for John Cusack. We were well-matched. In that respect, at least.
• Oh my god, I nearly forgot "Amelie"! I adore that entire movie! But especially the end, when they kiss. growlfl.
• The ending of "Casablanca". Because although I am no expert on the Silver Screen, I DO love this movie. Just like "Lost in Translation", it proves that sometimes, it's sexier when Guy doesn't get Girl.
• Runners-Up: Dave, Bullworth, The American President, L.A. Story, While You Were Sleeping, Garden State, Delicatessen...

There's not much wine left in that bottle. Which means that I'm probably forgetting a few of my fave movies in my alcoholic haze. As you can see, I favour the quirky comedies over the mushy stuff. What about you? C'mon, weigh in. What romantic movie scene leaves you breathless?

I get up around 10 these days, adapting my schedule to J's late-night one. Get stuff done during the day, work on the computer nights, watch movies 'til 2am once J has returned from doing his show... it's actually a pleasant schedule, and one I'll miss once we swing into rehearsals this coming week and I have to get up around 8:30.

We rented "The Walker" last night; an odd little film, and one that's unusual enough that I have to remark on it here. (BTW, if you actually enjoyed "The Bucket List", talk to the hand. That "film" wasted two hours of my life- not to mention wasting 2 great actors- and I'm pissed.) Anyway, about halfway through "The Walker" I said to J "Did you notice that the protagonist is a gay man? Who has a lover? This is unusual..." And indeed it was. How many mainstream movies can you think of (other than those films about Capote and I don't know if they count 'cause they're bio-pics) where the leading man is a homosexual in a relationship? And both of them help solve the mystery of the murder that drives the plot of the movie? And the lead character's gay-ness, although certainly a defining part of his character, is not the subject 'round which the whole plot revolves, but just a part of his life? Like I said, an odd little film; slow to get going but well-written and quietly subversive.

In a spectacularly complex Work Avoidance Technique, J & I visited the pet store a few days ago and got a new, smaller fish tank, complete with new "tenants" to inhabit it. It looks great, will be easier to maintain than his old 30-gallon monster... and will probably start fading into the background of our busy lives again quite soon, until we have to remind ourselves that yes, we have an aquarium, and its occupants need caring for. We've actually been researching ferret ownership, ever since I spotted one at Mister Pet's and fell for its winning ways. Apparently they sleep lots, and are curious, smart and playful when awake. However... it's never a good idea to impulsively rush into buying a pet, so if we do get one, it won't be for ages yet.

The weather has cooled off and clouds cover the sun, which makes our apartment livable these days. I'm almost looking forward to Autumn, to putting aside time and money for piano lessons, improving my playing skillz, woodshedding. It'll feel like a new beginning or something.