Picture of the minute, in case you missed it

When my oldest was born, I held him before his mother did. He was serenely calm until a nurse jabbed his head for some doubtfully useful inoculative purpose. I've written this here before, but I held him in my hands and showered him in my tears of joy. That was twenty five years ago. I would probably not tell him, but now he still fills me with the same love and happiness as he did then. Yesterday I saw a film about a man whose daughter dies and I cried at the thought of what I would feel if any of my precious progeny died before I do. Also, a subtext of the film is about how we feel about having children, or about not having children. I was forty before I met a woman who wanted to have my children and I had given up hope of having them. Not having them did not make me unhappy. In fact, at about that time I wrote that it was better to be un-married wishing I was than married wishing I wasn't. Well, now I am married and very glad I am. I would love my wife to see this on Valentine's day, but she won't. I will have to find some other way to express it to her.

Continuing with my latest project to see one film in a cinema every week, I just saw Edge Of Darkness. It wasn't half bad. A meditation on death and a good thriller. Very well staged action sequences, but, above all, a moving film about grief and vengeance. Some very good actors and crisp dialogue. Quite a complicated story line, which nevertheless becomes clear at the end and mercifully not before. So far, I have found no "holes" in the plot. I don't think that Mel Gibson is a particularly pleasant person, but he is a very good actor, absolutely convincing and, at times, very moving. Danny Huston has attracted my attention since"Birth", and there are two young women in the film who seem completely real and therefor attractive as whole characters. I thought I was just in for a thriller. I found that and much more as well.

I've just noticed the pun in the fact that when I go from my desktop to my blogger account I have to click on "My Account". So, anyway, this is my account of how my teeth hurt. If the pictures herewith were of me it would not be surprising, (except in the case of the first one. He's not feeling anything), but my teeth are healthy. It's just that my new dentist has mended the right side of my mouth, which had too many teeth missing at the back to chew on for the last twenty years or so and I can't get used to the strain on that side of my mouth. My jaw aches every afternoon and evening. I think I'll have to get her to take that little bridging work out again and go back to chewing all my food on the left only. Isn't this passionately interesting?

I just really like this picture. I can't tell why

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Golly! What a place. Patagonia, I think

Sleep is fine now.

Like the poor woman who did about a year ago, I almost slipped on the slush at the foot of the steps at Long Branch station. I was just saying to the nice English nurse here at work that in Switzerland such floor surfaces are often covered with a toothed steel grating, which absorbs snow and ice, drains away the slush, and stops rubber soled boots from slipping. In ski resorts steps are sometimes made of this material too. Do people sue the GO system here when they fall on GO property?
I have a cold, but perhaps because I now take Cold FX every day it is not as bothersome as my regular colds used to be.
As often happens, when I am in a stressful situation, it is often because I am committed to perform and thus I do it and cannot be too ill while the demands continue. When they are over is when I break. Thus I have not been sleeping well. The play is over and I should have every reason to be more relaxed than usual, but it is now that I can afford to let the stress get to me. Some people who get headaches get them, I gather, on the weekend.

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These three are from the gigapxl project (here), which has been collecting wonderful high resolution pictures from across America.

Matthew has been using our car to get to work. He could not get there by transit on time. Since he owes us, he picks Cathy up from work at 4.30 and came to get me at the theatre after every performance and most rehearsals. Now he also picks me up at Long Branch station, so that I have been taking the train again a few times of late. I want to go to the cinema at Yonge and Dundas every week and it is easy to drop down to Union station and betrain out to our suburb. About the car: it is now paid off and each time we spend a bomb on the repairs I say, "well we just got a good second hand car for 1600 dollars", or 1800, or 800. The car itself was originally modelled for Lancia, not used by them and sold to Chrysler. I love its sleek, organic styling. Its large enough for five, four of whom are over six feet and it rides very comfortably on the highway. As I am more and more conservative, I realise that I never want to have any other car.

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Now that the not entirely unsuccessful revival of my thespian activities is over, I was looking forward to a return to the land of Marc Aurel's blog, What more suitable picture would I find as wikipedia's POD than this of the town, which is local to our yearly summer retreat in England. Over the years I have been to Brighton countless times by train, bus, car and once on a bicycle, although that time I did not get all the way there before I came back with my tail and my bike between my legs on the train. In summer, the heat in the village we go to can be oppressive and in London the car fumes can make you quite sick, but the air in Brighton is always fresh and bracing, No wonder it was so popular with George the third and since then with practically everyone fortunate enough to go there.

Last night I experienced for the first time the actor's nightmare. I was in the middle of a short speech, feigning hot temper, when suddenly I did not know what I was supposed to say next. I panicked and stalled even more strongly. My fellow actors could not help me as they badly needed the cue at the end of my line. The one I could not remember. The woman playing my wife laughed and said, "Well I guess I've got you there". I laughed too, really faking it and said "I guess you have". Then I remembered a later line and they were thrown. Some friends in the audience said they did not notice. Either they were being kind, or, because it came in the middle of a quarrel, it was not so noticeable. I've dreamed that I was on stage and I did not know what I was supposed to do, but now it has happened. Another actress said"It happens, but then you're still alive, it hasn't harmed you". Perhaps I was right to give up acting ten years ago when I still had a suitable brain.
:)

hay Fever opens

well, we've got through our first week. I may here have blown my Marcaurel cover. It's about time I did, now that I have decided to do some acting again. I did have a hard time adjusting to it again, especially now that I am working full time, but now that we are performing, it is great fun.

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Less fun than you think


The Ottawa CitizenDecember 16, 2009



If you can remember the '60s, the expression goes, you weren't there. Or maybe you just wish you weren't.
Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar player who famously inspired The Beatles and helped launch the flower-power epoch, remembers the '60s all too well, he recently revealed in an interview. And, like the only sober person at a wild party, he was less than amused by the experience.
Although Shankar speaks warmly of the late Beatle George Harrison, who became a serious devotee of both Indian music and spiritualism, Shankar also said he resented The Beatles for turning him into a pop star complete with adoring "drug-smoking hippies."
"All you people, bearded, long hair, wearing beads and not normal ... I would tell George (Harrison), 'What have you done?'"
From Shankar's perspective, drugs were the main event during the peace, love and flower-power era.
With the recent 40th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival, many have looked back nostalgically on an event that was billed as "three days of peace and music." But Shankar saw it differently. He said he was shocked at what he found when he got to the festival held in a farmer's field in upstate New York.
"It was raining, there was mud all over. And who was listening to music? They were all stoned. completely stoned. And they were enjoying it."
Shankar, now 89, was considered a key influence on the music and thinking of the time. But his take on the '60s puts things in perspective. Serious musicianship and spiritual exploration both require discipline, something that was completely at odds with the narcissistic drug culture of the time.
Maybe it's just as well that so many people don't remember the decade.

I saw this article and found myself, as of old, agreeing with Ravi Shankar.

The thing is, in the sixties, I was not at all part of the hippy movement. I think I was too timorous to join them. When I enjoyed Ringo Star singing "I'll get high with a little help from my friends", I convinced myself that it meant that your friends alone could make you feel high and that you didn't need drugs to do it. I felt I could get high running and jumping onto a London double decker bus as it was speeding just a bit more slowly round a corner. Other times, I would stand at the bus stop and wait for the bus to take off and then chase after it, jump on, hold on to the white bar and swing out over the receding pavement. That made me high. Movies made me high. Making love made me high. I felt I didn't need drugs. All those hippy leanings and a certain nostalgia for the Woodstock period came later, when, in fact, I was too old to be an authentic hippy.

Recently I saw "Taking Woodstock", a film by Ang Lee and I loved it. It had, I have been told, been poorly reviewed in Canada, although it had also been nominated for a Palm D'or in Cannes. I thought it was quite delightful, only marred a little by not being able to afford original recordings. The whole period was very ably recreated and, as I said, I felt a great nostalgia for something I had never dared to experience for myself.

New year's meme
Friday, January 01, 2010

New meme New year's meme

(I have printed it below to make it easier to copy).

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Gotten old age half price on the Go train.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't make them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not close, but several clients.
5. What countries did you visit?

England.
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Less work.
7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
August 20th(?). My wife and brother shared a birthday party in a tent in Sussex.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Successfully auditioning for a play.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Slipping into a hint of hypo mania.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
As above, too many colds,recurring ingrown toenail.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
An expensive pillow on sale.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Barack Obama.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Prime minister Harper.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Food
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Nothing really.
16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Something from La Traviata. I listened so much to it on my MP3 player.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Taken the streetcar instead of the train.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Shaved.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Just Cathy and the kids. Wonderful. Four very relaxing days off.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
I stayed in love.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
The Amazing Race.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.
24. What was the best book you read?
Northern Lights. (Just about the only book I finished)
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Diana Panton and Sarasate.
26. What did you want and get?
That play.
27. What did you want and not get?
My own text accepted in the New Ideas Festival.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
UP.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Thai food ordered in. 64.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Nothing really.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
I like my work clothes.
32. What kept you sane?
Family.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Frances McDormand.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Afghanistan. What, on earth are we doing over there?
35. Who did you miss?
My Dad more and more.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
You can meditate your way out of turmoil.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
A long time ago, a million years BC,
The best things in life were absolutely free.

New year's meme

Friday, January 01, 2010

New meme

New year's meme

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?


2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

4. Did anyone close to you die?


5. What countries did you visit?


6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

9. What was your biggest failure?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

11. What was the best thing you bought?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

14. Where did most of your money go?

15. What did you get really, really, really excite?

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? 

b) thinner or fatter? 

c) richer or poorer?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

20. How did you spend Christmas?

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

22. What was your favorite TV program?

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

24. What was the best book you read?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

26. What did you want and get?

27. What did you want and not get?

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

32. What kept you sane?

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

35. Who did you miss?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

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Hoppy now year, everyone

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This map by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre examines the travel times from any spot on the globe to the nearest city of 50,000 or more inhabitants by land or water. The surprise?
As NewScientist observes, less than 10% of the world is more than two days away from a major city using ground-based travel. That stat only jumps to 20% when scaled to the Amazon, where river and expanding road networks have made even jungle terrain semi-assessable.
Also, nobody messes with the cold climates.
On one hand, the map is a testament to human advancement and expansion. On the other, well, there are a buncha roads in what was once pristine jungle.

Does this still work?

For a clearer, stereo You tube sound, type this after the URL &fmt=18