Perhaps Something for Everyone

Some film...

Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One in, 2008)

"I'm twelve, but I've been twelve a long time." (Lina Leandersson as Eli)

The terrors of childhood are felt sharply in this Swedish film about a 12-year-old boy whose new neighbour is a young vampire girl. It's a hell of a life: his parents are divorced, he's being bullied cruelly at school, and he's living through a seemingly endless Swedish winter in an ugly suburban apartment block. His new friend is having a bad time of it too, and wreaking some bloody havoc. Director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011) directs the young actors in natural and heartbreaking performances. There's some appropriate but tough-to-take gruesomeness. But this film is so worth catching.


Captain Phillips (2013)

"Someone give this guy a hug!" (BPG)

Based on a true story, Tom Hanks plays a freighter captain whose vessel is boarded by Somali pirates. You've probably heard how gripping it is, and it is... with a relentless soundtrack and a gritty, realistic look. I was warned I might not enjoy it, with my vertigo and all, seeing as they're bobbing on the ocean the entire time. Weirdly it wasn't a problem, and I was moved and thrilled, ultimately saddened for all the characters. /// SPOILER WARNING! /// The pirates themselves were ultimately tragic, victims themselves of despots, even though I wanted to throttle them. But my lasting feeling was - for God's sake - couldn't someone put their arms around Captain Phillips at the end? The guy in the rescue boat? The medic on the carrier? Come on!!!


Elysium (2013)

"I really need to see Blue Jasmine." (BPG)

The premise was pretty cool, and the special effects were great. I'll see Matt Damon in anything. That's the good part. The not so good part: Jodie Foster, who has always been excellent, maybe had something interesting in mind, but it turns out to be the worst acting job I've seen in a long time. I'm not sure what her accent was... I thought, well, perhaps it's some futuristic mid-Atlantic, French-accented thing. It didn't work for me. Plot holes... lots of them. A drawn-out ending that had me writhing in my seat. But like I said: Matt Damon.


Some television...

The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011)

This excellent series is having its North American television premiere on TCM. Irish film maker Mark Cousins is behind this very personal and compelling story of film. Instead of using a professional voice over artist, he narrates the series himself, in a lulling dreamy Ulster accent. At first it took me by surprise, but I'm quite addicted to it now. This documentary is a real work of art, and tells the story not just of western cinema, but cinema all over the world. If you are fascinated by film, this is for you.


The Walking Dead (2013)

The first episode of season four exceeded all my expectations. I've become used to the rather slow, two-hour set up episodes that start each Mad Men season, and I was expecting something of the same here. Instead I was pinned to the sofa in horror as this clever, terrifying, thoughtful and gruesome episode made me wonder if I could handle any more. Let's see how I manage next Sunday. As for Talking Dead, the post-show round up seems a bit long now at an hour. I'd rather they went back to half an hour but lost some of the unnecessaries, like the poll.



Some theatre...

Schiller's Mary Stuart has been one of the big Stratford Festival hits this year. Added performances meant we managed to get in, which I'm so happy about as all the fuss was well deserved. The play is a great read (I first read it when the Canadian Opera Company did Maria Stuarda a few seasons ago). It came to life in full force with a cast of Stratford favourites: powerhouses Seana McKenna as Queen Elizabeth, Lucy Peacock as Mary Stuart and a great supporting case including Ben Carlson, Geraint Wyn Davies, and Brian Dennehy. The stage sizzled through the magnificent royal cat fight and I couldn't have asked for anything more... except for the awfulness of the seating in the Tom Patterson Theatre. Each year I try and avoid this venue, not for the stage which is a thrust stage and works well, but for the terrible audience conditions. As this isn't a theatre year round (it's a badminton court at other times I think), it has temporary bleacher type seating, and regular chairs, not flip-up theatre chairs, so there's no getting in or out of your row unless your whole row is ready to leave. How no-one has not toppled into a lower row and broken their neck is beyond me. The other two stages are fantastic of course, it's just this one venue I try and skirt... but when the offering is as good as Mary Stuart... I go along with it. Grrr.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit played at the Avon, at which I'd seen Tommy a couple of weeks earlier. We had great seats, about fifth row centre, and it was a Sunday matinee on a grey, rainy afternoon. Nothing could have been more charming than to settle into those seats and be swept up in the silly, sunny goings on in a beautiful English country house which is about to be shaken up - literally - by an wacky medium and a saucy spirit. As happens in a large festival company, scheduling dictates that actors often work together in two or three different shows in a season, so Seana McKenna, so magnficently glamorous and dangerous as Qieen Elizabeth the night before, was a wonderfully goofy and eccentric Madame Arcati, the medium who is about to discover how good her powers are. Ben Carlson, the previous night's conniving Lord Burleigh, was Charles, the master of the house, and James Blendick, Paulet in Mary Stuart, was an unsuspecting guest at dinner.

Funny aside: I've told my friend M how several years ago I was at the ballet when I sat in front of some very small, old ladies. They were concerned at my height and told me "Honey, we can't see past your head - you're blocking the WHOLE STAGE!" I felt this was slightly exaggerated but slumped down in my seat, at which point they both patted one of my shoulders and thanked me. On this occasion, we took our excellent seats and I heard a husband behind me say to his wife, "Do you want to switch seats with me again?" M nearly burst out laughing, and - to diffuse the hysterical laughter bubbling up in me -  I turned and said, "It's okay, I know I'm tall and have a big head... I'll slump a bit." They were very sweet and somewhat embarrassed. We all had a good laugh and later they assured me they had seen the whole thing. On both occasions I had been seated near the front where - traditionally - seats are not sloped, so it does make seeing past heads tricky. And in case you're wondering, no my head is not that big, I mean, it's not like I'm encephalitic or something!


On a side note...

There comes an interesting point in life where there are experiences you don't need to go through again. I have to admit, one of those is seeing Handel's Messiah. It's beautiful and it's long. But I don't have the attention span for long, static performances... HOWEVER, that all changed when I heard that this blog's favourite small, rogue opera compay, Against the Grain, is performing it this December. The performers will sing from memory. There's a choreographer. They claim that this isn't your grandma's Messiah but that she would love it too. It's restricted to people 19 and older (I think it has something to do with the drinking allowed onsite). 'Nuff said. If it's anything like anything like this fantastic group has done before, I have to see it. Read more here. Tickets are still available.


Some opera...

That preamble was my set up for the Canadian Opera Company's production of La Bohème. The connection is that Bohème is one of those pieces I've seen many, many, many times. Do I need to see it again? Well... in this case, yes. Conductor Carlo Rizzi made it sound like I'd never heard it before - fresh and energetic and romantic and lush. More so than I'd ever heard. The cast were perfectly cast, young, talented. Director John Caird made it all very real. I shed copious tears, those hot, splashing tears that scald your cheeks. Ahhh... it felt good, as only a great opera can. And tickets are still available for this one too, but there are only two weeks left of performances.

Peter Grimes, as mentioned here, also a must-see.

Another Stratford Weekend

One visit wasn't enough this fall, so I headed back to Stratford for two more plays, a lot of good food, in the best company. I'd always wanted to stay in the As You Like It Motel because... well, I hardly need to spell it out: it's called As You Like It! How sweetly saucy is that? It's an older establishment, spotless and so friendly. As You Like It - we'll be back, because it is... exactly how we like it!

Down the Street Bar and Restaurant is a popular hangout, but we were lucky to arrive for lunch a bit late, only to eat the BEST BURGER EVER. I can't say enough!

We visited Gerard Brender à Brandis's studio. Gerard is always fascinating to talk to - a charming and talented man, one of Canada's most accomplished wood engravers.

Okay, I'd eaten downstairs at Pazzo's before, where they have their delicious pizza ovens, but this time we ate upstairs in the more up-market taverna, sat in big leather wing chairs, in perfect comfort. We shared the most buttery, dripping bruschetta, laden with crab meat. M had the delicious lobster bisque and I had pasta. We didn't want to move... ever. The current plan is to move to Stratford so we can eat at Pazzo's EVERY Friday night.

We bought the official bags of swan food and had fun with the swans and quackies on Lake Victoria. The black swans are from Australia. There are heaps of white swans, and we saw two grey teenage swans (I guess). The one in the middle was very boldly interested in my swan food. Oh haiiiiii.

 And remember the cats of Watson's Bazaar? They're all still alive, a little fatter, but two of the four now live elsewhere as apparently they were being a little naughty... not the sort of behaviour that goes down well in a china shop. And speaking of china, I could go mad in this place! So much lovely stuff to buy! P.S. The website says "Come visit our cats!"

As for the plays we saw? More on that in another post.

Damp Day, Much Music

Two weekends ago, I spent a rainy day trip in Stratford, one of my favourite cities in the world. Well, it was rainy on the way, but then dried up and cooled off. I got in with lots of time to see the Stratford Festival's Fiddler on the Roof in the Festival Theatre, a very good production of a very dated piece that is so very much of its time (1964). I won't need to see it again.

Then, I was off to a concert of music that was once mostly lost, but is timeless in its appeal and virtuosity. Yes, this blog's favourite chamber music group, the ARC Ensemble, was giving a performance as part of the Stratford Festival's Forum program. The concert, "Music Suppressed in Fascist Italy," featured three pieces by Jewish-Italian composers: String Quartet No. 1 (Vittorio Rieti), Piano Quintet No. 1 (Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco) and Pavana (Aldo Finzi). Between the pieces, actor Sam Moses (the Rabbi in Fiddler) read excerpts from "October 16, 1943" by Giacomo Debenedetti, an account of the night the Rome ghetto was raided by the Gestapo and when many Italians were shipped off to Auschwitz. The playing was full of energy and panache and I particularly loved the Castelnuovo-Tedesco which - excuse my coarseness - seemed to have everything in it, including the kitchen sink. The whole program was unmissable.

THEN... I hared back across town in good time to see an evening performance of Pete Townshend's Tommy. I saw Des McAnuff's production 20 years ago, and this was a new one of his. Ah, what can I say... I love great rock. The first chord nearly killed me. It fell while the lights were still up. I did worry that the older gentleman next to me might have keeled over. He didn't. It was LOUD. I could have used earplugs and still heard it perfectly well. Damn, I sound middle-aged. But actually I remember having the same reaction 20 years ago. What the hell - it was fantastic.

I've Been Eating

Jim Gaffigan is very funny on the subject of photography and food.

Yeah, whatever, here are some food pics!

Some of my healthy lunches that I take to work... then the first lamb shank of the season (at Fionn MacCools), cooking the first leg of lamb of the fall, Betsy's chewy ginger cookies (damn)...

... then Lee Chen's pulled pork bao in the middle of an epic shopping trip, breakfast on Sunday, chocolate cupcakes (the day my Braun Multimix gave up the ghost), and a gorgeous sandwich at Wawa Grub in Stratford.

Stratford Goes Gangnam

So, the talented casts of Stratford Festival's 42nd Street and The Pirates of Penzance have produced their own homage to Psy (now over 1 billion hits on YouTube) a in this goofy, irresistible video. And here's my early Christmas present, a very clever idea from The Stratford Festival Shop: a Christmas tree ball, stuff full of scraps of fabric from the 42nd Street costumes. Off the cutting room floor, I guess. :)

Clever.

Weekday Day-Tripping: Solo

Toronto boasts all sorts of charming centres an hour or two away, like most cities do. And like most city-bound romantics, I do like to take day trips. And I do like to go on about how pleasant it is to travel alone by train and how you meet such interesting people. On a last-minute, mid-week escape to Stratford, I ended up sitting next to someone I already knew, a composer/music critic/author, and, so again, I enjoyed great conversation as we rode the rails. He's not only come out with another book, but also a CD of his chamber music! Really impressive.

I had come to see Shakespeare's Cymbeline, and so I did... half of it. During the intermission I stepped outside, gazed up into the gorgeous summer's afternoon, and decided that I wouldn't be contained a moment longer. It was also playing at the Tom Patterson theatre, which is not my favourite, the seats being very utilitarian and uncomfortable, not like the other spaces that the Festival performs in. It's always a treat to visit Stratford, its Festival, and its shops. I had a few hours to go before I met a friend for dinner, and so... I walked, fed the ducks, and shopped the summer's day away.

Art on the Park is a gathering of artisans along Lake Victoria each Wednesday and on weekends during the Festival months. I was captivated by a glass pendant that seemed to contain a moving fireball, along with a ceramic bead pendant that looked like a cross-section of a lake, from water to silt, to sand. They both came home with me. And a return visit to Watson's Chelsea Bazaar (all four cats are still there!) ended with me buying two very small cups in which to enjoy my Mayan hot chocolate. I discovered that Molly Blooms (my favourite pub) has all-you-can eat fish and chips on Wednesday nights (golly, and it's good). By the time I boarded the train for the return journey (for which I sat again next to my composer friend), I felt spoiled and happy.



Did you know that young, mop-headed Bieber is a Stratfordian? Well, you do now!

How Nice a Town is Stratford, Ontario?

This is an example of their graffiti.

Weekend in Perth County

From a few weeks ago when there were still some leaves on the trees... the open road...






Perth County is so beautiful.






Wonderful to see so many farms using solar power and no doubt feeding the grid.






Fall colours in Stratford.










Across from these stunning gates is an area that hosts a market on weekends.




A sign shows the market from many years ago.




Down by the lake.




Plovers on the main street sells bags of healthy swan/duck food!




Well, hello!

Recent Theatre

As a non-performer, I'm often amazed at the effect a talented actor or musician can have. That effect is even more remarkable when it stands out in an already-strong ensemble. I'm not talking about scene stealing, but the seemingly effortless portrayal of something or someone. I had such an experience a few weeks ago.

I was spending the weekend in Stratford with my parents (they used to live there so it was a sort of homecoming for them). The Stratford Shakespeare Festival (a blog favourite) was presenting Harold Pinter's, appropriately enough, The Homecoming, directed by Jennifer Tarver, as part of its season. It boasted a wonderful cast (Brian Dennehy, Aaron Krohn, Ian Lake, Cara Ricketts, Mike Shara) with not a weak link, although the varying accents threw me a bit. Stephen Ouimette as Sam was the stand out; I can hardly describe his performance without falling into cliché (hey, I'm no drama critic!), but it was natural, vulnerable, touching, and funny.

The previous evening we saw the festival's The Misanthrope. I've been searching my brain, but I'm sure this is the first Molière I've even seen. This was the twinkliest, most stylish production full of gorgeous costumes and chandeliers. I enjoyed the verse translation by Richard Wilbur, and wonderful performances by Ben Carlson and Juan Chioran as Alceste and Philinte. But it never seemed to take off. I missed Brian Bedford and Tim MacDonald (who'd both withdrawn from the production). A high point in my years of visiting the festival was both actors in The School for Scandal and Tim MacDonald's "Fie, Uncle!" I STILL think about that!

Last week I saw 2 Pianos, 4 Hands, at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto. I first saw it many moons ago at the Royal Alexandra, and I can't help thinking that being in that theatre enhanced my experience. It's a sweet, funny show, for anyone who's taken at least one piano lesson or who has the imagination to wonder what that might be like. It's a real feel-good evening, but not so much if you have to experience it in the Panasonic, which is industrial-ugly and quite uncomfortable. Oh, and airless. Yikes. Anyway, I still recommend this delightful two-man show, written and performed by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt. Oh, and after many years, I ate again, with my companion, at 7 West - just as cozy as ever.

Two of my friends and I were looking for a place to eat before a performance of In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at the Tarragon Theatre. I came upon Bistro Tournesol: great food, service and atmosphere. This was one of the best eating-out experiences in a long time. I'll be back and I can't wait! The play was disappointing. It seemed an interesting premise: the historical fact of doctors using a new electric vibrating device to cure women of "hysteria", basically stimulating then to orgasm. The script (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony) was a series of variations on a a joke. I was bored and found all the hooting and hollering in the audience a bit of a surprise; what's a downtown Toronto crowd doing, carrying on like a bunch of 11 year olds listening to pooh-pooh jokes? Meh!

Siegfried Sassoon

As Remembrance Day approached this year, I've been reading Siegfried Sassoon's war poetry. Much of it was written while he was serving in WWI and also while he was committed to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, for supposedly suffering from "shell shock", but more accurately because of his anti-war stance: he was willing to be sent to fight, and fight he did, but he wasn't willing to condone it.

You might have read Pat Barker's Regeneration (1991), which was based on real characters, one of whom was Sassoon. The book is stunning and I'm preparing to read it again along with its two sequels, which I haven't read. I believe it was also made into a film, but I didn't see it.

Here is a poem by Sassoon, written while he was incarcerated.


Autumn

October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves
The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves
For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud
Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves
Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown
Along the westering furnace flaring red.
O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,
The burden of your wrongs is on my head.

Craiglockhart 1917

I took the following pictures in Stratford a few weeks ago. The War Memorial is very fine. It was created by renowned Canadian sculptor W. S. Allward and was completed in 1922. It depicts the theme of "Might versus Right."

Gerard Brender à Brandis

When you visit Stratford, Ontario, one of the must-see spots on your itinerary should be the studio of artist wood-engraver, Gerard Brender à Brandis. Gerard's cottage is also his studio and gallery. When you step across his threshold you enter a simpler world of enchantment and artistry that is a real balm to the senses. All the pictures below are of Gerard's place.

Gerard is a master wood engraver, a fine artist, a thoughtful and imaginative gardener and a kind and compassionate man with a soft spot for orchids, and for dogs that need good homes.

The hours that his studio are open are posted outside.

He has an original Albion press and makes much of his paper. He works on some larger runs of his books, but he also produces limited editions of the most exquisite creations, making the paper, printing the pages, spinning the fibres used to bind the book, etc. His books on botanical prints (one of which pays homage to all the plants mentioned in Shakespeare's works) make thoughtful gifts and memorable keepsakes.

To sit in his little studio parlour and peruse the catalogues of prints is a joy. I can never visit without making a highly affordable purchase of either a simple matted, or fully framed wood engraving.

Click here to see his work in closer detail!

I have several of Gerard's prints and I know there are more in my future. As I sit here typing, I look up and see his beautiful "Winter Poems" print, which is a scene of a simple writing desk with pen and paper and a view out of a window onto snow-laden evergreen boughs.

Bruce!

Late Hallowe'eny sort of Post

Fans of Harry Potter: Stratford, Ontario has its own Whomping Willow. I make sure to walk to it each time I visit Stratford. It's so old and gnarled and impressive. And I'm sure it could do some whomping good damage if it was so inclined.

For scale, Bruce give you an idea of its size.