Eight Days on the Lake = Three Words: Too Much Happiness

I have so many years of photographs, I thought this year I'd just edit some of the video I took. Here you go - there's even seven seconds of me, slinking out from behind the camera for a change.

Canada's cottage country... can't be beat.

A Treat for you

If you don't know the music of Tom Sturdevant, as sung by Annie Sellick and the Hot Club of Nashville, then here you go. You're welcome.

LOVE

Beautiful Blossom

(I think Bruce the Bat has a crush... appropriate for the day).

Bruce the Bat's Summer

Yes, Bruce the Bat has been along for the ride a lot this summer, as usual. He had a great time.

He travelled by streetcar, subway, train, this blog's favourite cute Fiat 500, stayed in hotels and lurked in my overnight bag.He also found an intriguing door at the bottom of a tree in a forest.

He hung out with his girlfriend Anoush, his new best friend Moose and some cute birds at the cottage.





More cottage time... and island time!

His friend, M, made him a hammock, so I made a video.

The ROM has a bat cave, but even cooler was the T-Rex. Look out, Bruce!!!







After all the excitement of ths summer, it was bathtime. Now he doesn't only look good, he smells great!

Back from a Holiday Hiatus

What a holiday.

Here's a taste from last week, a few days in Haliburton. It's another of my slightly goofy, rather dreamy videos. There are photos to come of my ENTIRE time off... you heff been varned! :)

I Love These Guys

You'll Need a Tray

I can't see penne arrabiata in a menu ever again without thinking of this.

I've Seen him do Things With That Hook

It's a good day for humour and opera.

And then there's the Onion. Hee hee!

Happy Birthday, Mister Maru!

On May 24, Maru turned 6. In case you don't know this interwebs sensation, Maru is the subject of one of Japan's most popular blogs, and a YouTube star. Handsome, well-loved, box-addicted and goofy... I give you Maru!

Game-Changer

Peter Sellars is a rare talent, a brilliant director, and a loving and compassionate human being. I was lucky to attend this discussion and another. In both instances this last winter, where I got to hear him talk, he brought me to tears. Then I saw his production of Tristan und Isolde, and was blown away by this game-changing production. A large video screen dominated the stage, and showed video artist Bill Viola's stunning moving images. The singers, including Ben Heppner as Tristan, were accompanied sublimely by the COC Orchestra, and I felt those musical vibrations go right through me. Film + opera. My cup overflowed.

I've said it before on my blog - but for me the purpose of art is to take you places you weren't expecting to go. It's not always positive but it's always an adventure and sometimes (we hold out for those rare occasions) it's transformative.

Here's the video. I really hope you'll take the time to watch it. You don't have to be an opera fan!

Did I Just Take Drugs?

Music and Opera Catch Up... Hey! Where're You Going Now?

The older I get, the harder winter is to take. It's too cold and dark. So, I retreat into even darker auditoriums and give myself over to the antithesis of the withering winter emptiness: music. Having said that, and with spring almost (not quite) upon us, there will be less days and nights in dark halls, and more days, face turned upwards towards the sun. Art, music, opera, theatre... Thank you for getting me through these last few months. Now I need... water, trees, sun. Light.

Music, in its most outrageously absorbing and intense format, becomes opera. There was plenty of it: Elsa van den Heever and Ramon Vargas were ravishing in Il Trovatore (at the Canadian Opera Company); there was also a clever Fledermaus which pulled out the Freudian undercurrents that lurk in all societies; in this case it was early 20th-century Vienna. It made an operetta I don't much care for much more interesting.

Elsa van den Heever was thrilling later in her Met debut, which I watched live in HD at my local cinema, her Elisabetta up against Joyce di Donato's beautiful Maria in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. I love me a bucketful of Donizetti, and the music is glorious, but the Catholicism gets bashed over our heads way too much in the final scene. We get it already! Catholics: good; Anglicans: bad! Blimey, an editor would have been useful there. Also in HD from the Met I saw Sondra Radvanovsky and Marcelo Alvarez in Un ballo in maschera, a fantastic David Alden production, which set the story in the early 20th century, more beautiful and more meaningful than a Ballo has ever been for me before. The word "diva" of course means "goddess" and it's a perfect word for the sublime Susan Graham who was at the heart of Berlioz's epic Les Troyens. Was it four hours or five? Four I think I don't recall. I'm not sure my bottom could take too much more, but it was very beautiful, and the entire cast was perfection, with Brian Hymel (he was Don Jose here in Toronto a few years back) stepping into the killer role of Aeneas, almost effortlessly. Another epic afternoon was Parsifal. Five hours of Wagner. Great music, don't like the libretto, dripping as it does with some creepy, twisted religosity. Jonas Kaufmann hardly seems to exert any effort when he sings. He spent much of this performance shirtless (excellent) and we watched his diaphgram keenly. Again, it all seems effortless. Rene Pape was towering as Gurnemanz. I took a few naps, almost on purpose, as I was planning ahead for the latter part of my day: I fled the theatre after the curtain calls, just in time to meet my friends for a movie and dinner (my scheduling secretary must have been stoned). The Met in HD season concluded for me with a rare showing of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini. The sets and costumes were all medieval lushness with touches of Art Nouveau and Pre-Raphaelite flourishes, I was in overload heaven. The music is beautiful but having heard it once, I don't need to hear it again.

Molly Johnson was growly and glamorous at Massey Hall (but could they have turned up the heat? I sat with my coat on. I am not a nostalgia-filled fan of Massey Hall. People rhapsodize. I've only ever been uncomfortable in that space, although the good news is that a recent donation of land next to it means that it can be updated. I think washrooms, bar area and heating/cooling systems will be addressed).

Poculi Ludique Societas, who recreate theatre from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, performend A Medieveal Chistmas: Go We Hence to Bethlehem's Bower at St. Thomas's Church. It was, as might be expected, a tad bawdy, and I was riveted by the angelic face of Alice Degan (as Mary), who looked - with her sweetly hooded eyes and long, blond tresses - like Mary stepped from a painting of the period.

Nothing about music here, but the Service of Lessons and Carols at Trinity College Chapel had us sitting at the back on these elevated throne-like seats. Nice! The candles were haunting as usual but we used to hold them through the entire service. We were bade to extinguish them very early. Sigh. I love candles in church, especially holding them, as it gives me something to concentrate on. I know, I'm doomed.

More recently, I took a long lunch hour and indulged in the Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. These concerts (at least two a week during the season) are varied and generous. I was there for Christopher Mokrzewski (musical director of Against the Grain Theatre) and his program of Bill Evans/French inspirations piano works. Messiaen, Ravel, and Poulenc were interspersed with Evans in a captivating, virtuosic performance. To be in that space with that music, the great wall of glass beside us showing the city traffic silently undulating up University Avenue was mesmerizing. What a gift.

Did anyone make it to the bottom? In case you did, here's your reward.

Hot Dog!

This made me weak with laughter... but the woman founded Jazzercise and is a multi-millionnaire.I bet she's laughing too.

"Are you Ready for Your Soup?"

Time shifted, and when I woke this morning, I lay there watching the light get stronger, earlier. With it came the first really cold weather. I lost my gloves but retrieved my pea jacket from the lovely Iranian laundry, where they do excellent adjustments. They took my jacket in at the sides, and you'd never know.

Tonight I had to make warming, woodsy, fragrant soup: onions, mushrooms, organic stock, fresh thyme, salt, pepper, cream.

It's comforting and warming.

Sigh... winter is only just beginning. But, if we are lucky, we have love. And we have laughter. And there may even be espresso!

In an Eastern Frame

Along with much of my love of Middle Eastern esthetic, I find myself drawn to lanterns and candle holders with ornate cutouts, the sort that bring to mind the jaali, the fancy wooden shutters and screens of the Mughals. Oh, I'm mixing my cultures here, but between the Mughals, the Persians, and the Armenians, I find much to delight and entrance. One night this week, I read some Hafiz, he of the ghazal form of poem:

"If the scent of her hair were to blow across my dust when I had been dead a hundred years, my mouldering bones would rise and come dancing out of the tomb."

I lit my lanterns, I filmed my lanterns, I listened to the Armenian duduk. Of course, I ate some wonderful new biblical treats: dates rolled in pistachios.

Diner en Blanc

It's been an interesting summer. June was baking and dry, and the grass outside my window was parched and straw-like. July was intensely hot and humid, and then the rains began. The grass in the city became lush and green, startling me with its hardiness.

Just as hardy were those adventurous souls that took part in Toronto's first official Diner en Blanc. I volunteered to be a table host, and it was fantastic. Started in Paris in someone's garden 25 years ago, Diner en Blanc is now an international sensation. It stands for nothing, it makes no statement, but instead is an event of beautiful and gracious proportions.

The idea is that people sign up to take part in a picnic, that happens rain or shine. They bring with them white chairs, folding tables and white linens, real place settings and great food (unless they pre-order from the official caterer). They dress from head to toe in white. They don't know where they're going until the last moment.

This first Diner en Blanc Toronto was capped at 1400 participants. It will grow next year. From designated meeting spots all over the city, the unsuspecting guests were ferried to the grounds of Fort York. The rain was soft and the glow from all the white linens and the strange pink clouds made everyone look so beautiful. The outfits were stunning and varied... a beautiful woman in a white sari, young women in white tutus, a handsome gentleman in a white naval uniform, a man next to me in a white dhoti; there were modified wedding dresses, fascinators, boas, and so much more. None of my photographs did any justice as my camera got soaked. The one image of me looks like I've been rolled in marshmallow but that's my boa. My face looks like it was melting... it wasn't, but it was dripping wet as were the rest of us... so much fun! I love getting caught in the rain, maybe it's my English heritage.

Dinner was started by the mass waving of white linen napkins, and, as we did so, the rain stopped. Miracle! The sky cleared and the night became cool and dry. Perfetto! I had taken the day off work to cook, and our picnic started with gorgeous cheeses and baguette, and champagne, followed by poached salmon, asparagus in phyllo, tomato salad, and completed with key lime pie. Live jazz and opera during dinner was followed by a great DJ after dinner, and the traditional lighting of the sparklers.

At 11 o'clock we vanished, the directive being that we leave nothing behind, as though we'd never been there.

It was a very special event. I was very busy in the days leading up, and this is one of the reasons I haven't blogged much lately. *One* of the reasons.

Cheekiness

I spent a lot of time laying in the sun, so was at chipmunk level with my camera handy.

In Which the Film Student I Never was gets Indulged

I've already been teased that I'm in my Ingmar Bergman phase. Well, this video is moody and gentle, and takes me back to that happy place I always find in the Kawarthas.

As for the music, I first listened to the Schindler's List soundtrack while driving through Muskoka (remember that, Dave?) and so the connection is strong for me. I can imagine it might not work for others.

Off to the Lake for 10 Days

Me and my 10 toes and three of the best companions are off to the lake, the same cottage as in many years gone by. There'll be a gazillion trees to hug. City life is great, but - oh - how I need this too. I hope you enjoy this video I made. The sunset at the end is real. Such is the joy of a westerly view over water.