Book review - Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
- Cat's Eye: More Than Just a Marble (zaraalexis.wordpress.com)
The best of the tube
I am very lucky to have a tv setup with tons of channels and a PVR (Bell Fibe). I have also developed the ability to read a book while the dear-heart is watching something I'm not really interested in. So I restrict myself to the best of the TV world with clever juggling of the remote and whatever book I happen to be reading.
My current faves (in no particular order):
Web Therapy - Lisa Kudrow is absolutely brilliant in this half-hour comedy about a woman with a business degree who decides to set up an online therapy practice that replaces the usual 50-minute session with 3-minutes of right-to-brass-tacks talk. At this point, I'm watching it On Demand and am not sure that it's currently airing. [Just put up the link and realized that it's all available online, and there are 4 seasons already!]
Enlightened - Co-written, produced, and starring Laura Dern and Mike White. Dern plays a thirty-something (forty-something?) woman who, after a breakdown at her corporate job, goes on a yoga retreat. The season started with her return to "real life", moving in with her cold mother (Diane Ladd), dealing with her ex-huband (Luke Wilson), and going back to work at her old company, but into a secret, basement-located job with a group of other misfits (including Mike White). It is perfect in so many ways. Including the music that is curated especially for each episode.
The Wire - I'm late to the party on this one. (I think Season One was originally in 2002, or somthing.) If I start to use the f-word repeatedly, this show would be why.
Boardwalk Empire - Steve Buscemi rocks prohibition Atlantic City. Great cast, storyline getting a little freaky, but totally compelling viewing.
The Good Wife - A prime time drama in which the lead women don't have their breasts hanging out of their tops. Seriously, this is probably one of the best dramas on main-stream tv. Julia Marguiles and Archie Punjabi are both dreamy.
Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays - I wish this Canadian half-hour was getting more viewership. It's quirky and stars the brilliant Bob Martin (of Drowsy Chaperone fame). I have fears that it will be cancelled....
Modern Family - Can't get enough of this comedy. But enough's been written about it already.
Suburgatory - A new half-hour comedy about a father and teen daughter who move from NYC to the suburbs and go through culture shock. Reminds me of my time in a suburb of Atlanta.
Living in Your Car - Read something about this in the paper and am catching it On Demand. A corporate exec gets fired (and jailed) for fraud. When he gets out, all he has is an extremely expensive car, in which he ends up living. I may start to hate it, but three eps in and it's still pretty entertaining.
Analog Kingston
"$5000 worth of Scotch girls...."
Have been researching immigration of young Scottish women as domestics around the turn of the 20th century. Found this little newspaper notice from the Crossfield Chronicle, 5 June 1909. Love the turn of phrase "Five Thousand dollars' worth of Scotch girls..."
How to Really Listen - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review
One morning, my wife Eleanor woke up, turned over, and said, "I am not looking forward to this day." I asked her why.
What came out is that we were at the start of the Jewish high holy day season, which means colder weather and three weeks of big social meals, long religious services, broken routines, and children out of school. Eleanor didn't grow up with these traditions, and they can be overwhelming.
Now, I run a management consulting company; problem solving is what I do. So it didn't take me long to jump in.
"Cold weather means ski season is about to start," I said. "You love skiing. And these holiday meals are fun and filled with people you love — they'll make you feel better. And I'll be with you; you won't be alone with the kids. Also, you know, Jesus was Jewish, so it's kind of your tradition too."
Even as I said it, I knew that last one was a reach. It became clear that I was making her feel worse and now she wasn't just sad, she was angry.
And when she got angry, I felt myself get angry too. And self-righteous. Here I am trying to help her and this is what I get?
But then I smartened up. Instead of giving in to my anger, which would have really blown things up, I shut up and listened. When I did, I began to hear the real stuff, the things that neither of us was actually saying.
What I discovered was that she was upset because the focus on mothers during the Jewish holidays taps into her insecurities about motherhood, not being a Jewish mom, and not having time to spend on her own work.
I also discovered that my own babbling wasn't so much to help her feel better as to help me feel better. I'm the reason she's in New York City, living through cold winters, and part of a Jewish family.
In other words, by trying to make her feel better, I was doing the opposite of making her feel better. I was arguing with her. In fact, most of the time when we try to make people feel better, we end up arguing with them because we're contradicting what they're feeling. Which, inevitably, makes them feel worse....
It turns out that sometimes, just listening is problem-solving.
This is an excellent piece on listening from Peter Bregman in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network. He goes on to describe the three sometimes difficult components of active listening: actually listen; repeat back; ask questions. Read the full article at the link.
Being listened to is incredibly validating. I commit to make my listening more active.
It's been a good week...
Don't know whether it's the cooler weather or all the arts events I attended, but I feel more like writing.
First though, I've been reading Mary Gordon's Pearl, a novel concerning a young American woman studying in Dublin who goes on a hunger strike in support of a casualty (at least in her view) of the troubles. What is particularly interesting to me is the voicing of the work. If I am not mistaken, it is written in the first person, the author's voice, which was at first difficult to read. For example, at the beginning of the second section, she writes:
This is who and what Pearl Meyers believes she is, what and what she is to herself. But what is she to us? A twenty-year-old woman. A woman who is starving, a woman chained to a flagpole in front of the American embassy in Dublin, Ireland. A woman who is lying on the ground.
But who am I? you may be asking.
Think of me this way: midwife, present at the birth. Or perhaps this: godfather, present at the christening. Although of the three people with whom we are concerned, perhaps the most important, Pearl herself, was never christened. If not the christening, them, perhaps the naming. Present at the naming. A the speaking of the most important word.
I am about two thirds of the way through this work and it's a little slow going, but (I think) an important read.
Blogging hiatus
In an attempt to simplify my committments (both external and self-imposed), I'm resorting to microblogging for the foreseeable future. You can be my friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. You don't need to have an account for the latter...you can still see my tweets and when you select one, see any conversation around them.
Don't know how long I'll be hanging up my hat at Domestic Bliss. But for the meantime, I'd love to see you at either of the above!
Peace
Janet
Seven Quick Takes Friday
- It's been a tough week. I surrendered our dog, Wilson, to Toronto Animal Services yesterday after a biting incident earlier this summer. He's a terrier mix, with a lot of Jack Russell in him, and he charged and bit a letter carrier after he got off-leash. It was a horrible accident (although the bite was a minor injury), but I realized that his behaviour was too unpredictable for us to manage. Every visitor to our house was a stress. We have no yard at our current home, unlike when we adopted him in Georgia, and even with 3-4 walks a day, we were unable to provide him with sufficient opportunities to burn off energy. I've been weepy all week, and broke down at the shelter when I took him in. My greatest hope is that they can find a home for him where he will be able to be the dog that he is. I can't really say any more.
- I got my hair cut after my trip to Animal Services yesterday. It felt kind of like mourning, but at the same time a fresh start. It's shoulder length and layered a bit. And I feel so silly writing about it now.
- Last night, we attended the Season Opener for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a wonderful program including Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and a commission from Toronto Composer Larysa Kezmenko called Behold the Night, based on a Midsummer's Night Dream. The second half was William Walton's Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario featuring actor Christopher Plummer (who also arranged this work) reciting parts of the play from memory. Walton scored Larurence Olivier's film Henry V, from which this work is derived. It was spectacular, and great finish to what had been a very sad day. The evening was capped by the TSO's after party featuring the Heavyweights Brass Band in the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall.
- Z and I head to Orlando on Sunday where he is attending a conference and I will take five days to relax in the sun. I was able to score a very cheap flight and there's no upcharge for me to stay at the (very nice) hotel hosting the conference.
- Michael auditioned for and was accepted into the Hannaford Youth Band and Jazz.fm Youth Big Band, both of which he played in last year. These ensembles are wonderful ways for him to get experience performing repertoire on both the tube (Hannaford) and bass trombone (Jazz.fm) and I'm pleased that he'll be playing with them again this year.
- While we were downtown yesterday, we picked up tickets for Noel Coward's Private Lives, now in previews at the Royal Alexandra. Starring Paul Gross and Kim Cattrall, it's been getting a lot of positive buzz. Mirvish is also bringing War Horse to Toronto in the new year and I'm looking forward to that as well.
- Friends from our parish were featured on the front page of the Star this week. John and Kathleen Rudolph are both professional musicians. John is Principal Percussionist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Kathleen teaches flute at the Glenn Gould School and University of Western Ontario. Kathleen and I are altos in the parish choir, and Kathleen often fills in on the organ. Their daughter, Theresa, was just hired by the TSO, their first parent-child pair. The piece in The Star is lovely and worth a read.
More Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary.
TIFF roundup: Tuesday and Wednesday
The Lonliest Planet (Dir. Julia Loktev, USA/Germany)
This quiet, emotional film follows an engaged 30-something couple as they trek through the Caucausus mountains of Georgia with a local guide. Very little dialogue or real action in many parts, the film hangs on the relationships within this triangle and an event that happens half-way through that disrupts them. There was a lot of negative buzz around me as I was leaving the theatre: "no dialogue", "nothing happened", "I don't get the point", but it completely worked for me. Not a date movie. (5/5)
(Screening Saturday Sept 17)
The Oranges (Dir. Julian Farino, USA)
Fantastic ensemble is much of what makes this film terrific. Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Allison Janney, Oliver Platt star as two couples who live across the street from each other. The daughter of one couple has an affair with the husband of the other, and everyone's life is changed. A sort of anti-morality play wherein the end justifies the means makes it less than satisfying. (4/5)
(Screening Friday September 16)
W.E. (Dir. Madonna, UK)
A dsappointing look at the Wallis and Edward story, this is Madonna's attempt to tell the story from Simpson's point of view. Running parallel to this arc is a modern day tale of a Wally Winthrop who is trapped in an unhappy marriage and obsessed with the Wallis/Edward tale. The story lines alternate frequently, and the historical story is also split into glimpses into Wallis' first marriage as well as that with Edward. Great fashion and sets/props, but the music was leaden. Not recommended (2/5)
Damsels in Distress (Dir. Whit Stillman, USA)
Entertaining and smart, this movie looks at a posse of fashionable women at a just-gone-coed private college. It's quirky and wierd, with stellar performances particularly from Greta Gerwig as the alpha-female, Analeigh Tipton as the transfer student taken under her wing, and a bunch of frat boys who are just incredibly funny. (4/5)
Café de Flore (Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada)
A beautiful film from the director of C.R.A.Z.Y., it tells two stories, one set in Paris in the 60s in which a mother (Vanessa Paradis) is raising her Down syndrome child on her own. The other story is set in modern day Montreal and involves a divorce and remarriage of a successful DJ/electronica musician (Kevin Parent). We don't find out how these stories are related until the very end of the movie. Moving with strong performances. As in C.R.A.Z.Y., music is a strong force that ties people together. See it if you get a chance. (5/5) (official site)
Americano (Dir. Mathieu Demy, France)
Son of filmakers Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, this is Mathieu Demy's directorial debut. With a stellar cast including Geraldine Chaplin, Selma Hayak, Carlos Bardem, and Chiara Mastroianni, Demy plays a restless 30-something who travels from Paris to Los Angeles to settle the estate of his mother, who has lived in the US for most of his life. Demy integrates footage taken by his mother when they lived in LA in the 80s and incorporates it into this work as flashbacks. He discovers things about his mother, and himself, that affect him profoundly. Well worth seeing. (5/5)
(Screening Friday September 16)
TIFF roundup: Monday
I'm (obviously) quite far behind on my mini-reviews, but a day of film-screening leaves me wiped by the end of the day. I've been tweeting some thoughts, but here are my capsule summaries.
Rampart (Dir. Oren Moverman, USA)
Woody Harrelson stars in this rogue-cop drama set in LA. A masterful performance with strong support from the actors playing his ex-wives (who are sisters in the film and live together) and daughters. The twist (for me, who's not really a rogue-cop-film viewer) is that this guy is very articulate and wraps his crap in big words and charming delivery. (4/5)
(One more screening Sunday the 18th)
Behold the Lamb (Dir. John McIlduff, UK)
A small film (budget $200,000 and filmed in 20 days) it stars a young actress who had only done stage work and a lorry driver and amateur theatre actor. This is a gritty but somehow charming story of two people whose lives intersect over a 24 hour period. It involves a car theft, the transport of a lamb, a foster child, and a lot of beautiful, grey Irish scenery. And a lot of Catholic imagery that the director said was not originally part of the story, but was pointed out to him part way through the writing of the screenplay. (3/5)
(One more screening on evening of Friday the 16th)
Trailer:
Anonymous (Dir Roland Emmerich, Germany)
This is soon-to-be-released in theatres (Oct 28) and there's been lots of press about it. The premise is that there was no-one names William Shakespeare who actually wrote the plays and poetry attributed to him. Good performances and terrific cinematography. My ignorance of British history made it a bit difficult to follow the family/dynastic relationships. (4/5) ( The Official site has lots of good info that I wish I'd read before seeing the film.)
(One more screening on Saturday the 17th, but save your cash and see it in commercial run.)
Beloved (Les Bien-Aimés) (Dir Christophe Honoré, France)
Starring Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, this musical(!) set in France, spanning decades from 1964 to the 90s, was extremely enjoyable. When asked "why a musica'l in the Q&A, Honoré claimed that he is not comfortable writing about love and it was easier for him to have his characters sing during the emotional moments of the film. Not a typical musical, there are no big theatrical moments, or much dancing. Just characters, walking down the street (or playing billiards) and singing about their feelings.
(One more screening on Saturday the 17th)
Trailer:
