intertext

So, I'm 54 years old today! I can't believe that I used to hate birthdays, because I never really celebrated them but always felt like I should be self-consciously "happy" all day long. The last few have been so much fun, entirely because I have this delightful group of friends who help me to celebrate. Not to mention the legions of greetings here and on Facebook, which help to make the day special.

The major celebrations were last night. I joined lidocafe, superfoo, marri, kp, Eli, Eli's girlfriend Marinya, and Greg for extremely good Chinese food. We ordered much too much, but that meant that many of us left with boxes of leftovers for lunch today or future dinners. I was given beautiful cards and a book token (yay!!) and a gorgeous aquamarine scarf and a book I've been wanting to read and some nice smelly things to bathe with (and the promise of a hand-made toque from Eli, who KNITS, beautifully, among his many other talents).

Then Eli and lidocafe and I went a couple of blocks down the road to the Alex Goolden Hall to hear Great Lake Swimmers, and they were AWESOME. Here's a sample




And this evening, kp is cooking me dinner!

I've spent a pleasant time today sorting my iTunes playlists and tidying up the music library. I found a nifty little utility that allows me to package and move a number of spoken word things I had copied from cds, which got put in the music library. This had meant that if I ever put my iPod on "shuffle" my music would be interspersed with Ian McKellen reading The Odyssey, or bits of the BBC version of The Lord of the Rings. These have now been removed nicely into "Audiobooks" where they belong.

I also had fun creating a playlist I've called "my soundtrack" - my life in music. Everything from the love theme to Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet (which still brings tears to my eyes), to "To Sir With Love," from "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to "The River," from "In Your Eyes" to "Northwest Passage" and "City of New Orleans" (oh, and I've just remembered "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay"... maybe in the morning.) It might be really weird listening to my past coming back to me, or it might be lovely. We'll see.

And I've just remembered a few more...

My day yesterday was filled with event. lidocafe called me in the morning and asked me if I would like to go and see No Country For Old Men, which we had both been eagerly awaiting. Of course, I wanted to, but I was scheduled to go to an Early Music concert in the evening, and had work to do, dogs to walk, chores to do. So of course, I went. I remarked that going from this ultra violent movie to genteel singing and orchestral music would be a stark contrast, not from the sublime to the ridiculous, but from the "something" to the "something else"; in fact, it was from the sublime to the equally sublime.

No Country For Old Men was, to coin a phrase, "fucking awesome."

Now I can see that it might actually be possible to film The Road, but I want the Coen brothers to do it. Watching this movie was like watching the reading experience of reading The Road (if that makes any sense at all). It picked you up, sucked you in and didn't let go until the last second.

It is visually breathtaking, with its wide, gorgeous shots of sunrise, sunset, movement of clouds, lightning over prairie, but all slightly desaturated so that we know this is not some Romantic Western Epic.

There is no score. The silence is breathtaking, punctuated only by creaks, clicks, gasps of breath, explosions of gunfire and the stacatto thump of a cattle prod gun.

The cattle gun is used by one of the most terrifyingly impassive psychopathic killers in movie history. Played by a chilling Javier Bardem, he has a slightly autist air about him - detached, incapable of human empathy or understanding, but with his own peculiar standard of logic. He is Death.

Then there is Random Chance, in the figure of the Lewellyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin. He stumbles on a drug deal gone wrong and makes choices according to his own standards of behavior and logic which lead him inexorably into the path of Javier Bardem.

Then there is Good, represented by the wonderful Tommy Lee Jones. There is a line he speaks about "carrying the flame" which will resonate with all familiar with The Road. Jones' performance is, as always, wise, powerful, amused, laconic, tinged with sadness.

There is not a lot of dialogue, but what there is resonates with the music of Cormac McCarthy's words. I haven't read the book - now, I want to.

Brief intermission while lidocafe and I stumbled, gasping, from the theatre, and met up with my friend kp, with whom we went for a somewhat rushed but tasty Chinese meal

After which, kp and I met our friend mkb at the Alix Goolden Hall, where we listened to a concert of a Baroque Orchestra with guest soloists - a soprano and a counter tenor - performing a Handel orchestral suite, some Handel arias and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

We do not often enough have the opportunity to hear a counter tenor singing live. His voice is unearthly, hauntingly beautiful. With him singing the alto line, the opening verse of the Stabat Mater was so exquisite I almost broke in half.

It was lovely.

I'm amazed I slept at all, after both those experiences.

I'm prompted to make this post by two things. Most recently, by sartorias posting some awesome music videos this morning - she and I obviously share taste in music as well as other things.

Then, I've had for some time a curious bitter-sweet reaction to the news posted hither and yon about the Northwest Passage opening up because of global warming. When I was in China, I gave a talk about Canada to my students and told them if they really wanted to understand Canadians they should listen to Stan Rogers, "Northwest Passage" and I copied out the words for them and played them my tape of it. It's one of those "heart songs" for me, with all kinds of complicated resonances, not least of which is the tragic fact of Stan's too early death in a plane crash/fire.

Here's a really nice video version of it, with eye-candy. Apparently Paul Gross sang the song in the last episode of Due South - he must feel about it the same way I do. That many of us do - this song was chosen in a CBC radio poll some years ago as Canada's unofficial national anthem.

Today I played La Flaneure Flaneuse (one assumes there's a feminine form?) - one who wanders the streets, "going with the flow" of life.

My flowing took me from the Bastille to the Hotel de Ville, through Le Marais. I had lunch at a nice cafe - indoors because it was raining (the weather really has been crap; I think I'm doomed, because it was just like this last year in London). Then I wandered through the Marais, and discovered some fashionable shops, which was a mistake because now I'm lusting after a lot of clothes that I can't really afford. 350 euros for a suede jacket to die for... (no, it's okay, I didn't succumb... but I might yet). I flowed into the Picasso museum, which was interesting although I discovered that I don't like Picasso as a whole all that much. A whole lot of him in one place is... well interesting, because you can see how he repeats himself, but also a bit much of a good thing. I liked all the unconventional stuff best - the ceramic things and book illustrations.

The best thing that happened today, though, was the music. I mentioned the other day there being a jass band on the metro. Well, today it was two accordions. Jolly. Then there was a guy playing a chinese stringed instrument very beautifully at one of the stations. Then there was the celtic group playing at another station. But the BEST, the absolute best, was the string ensemble in the Place Des Vosges. Imagine wandering through the streets and hearing faint strains of Mozart. I turned a corner in the Place, and there was, not a trio, not a quartette, but a whole flipping string orchestra (10 or 12 players at least) playing really well. Then they played some Bach, which was also very good. Well, they slipped in and out of tune (it's hard staying in tune when it's cold and damp) and only one of the violinists was really, really good - the others were proficient but hit some wrong notes. But, hey, it was free, and it was on the street, and it was one heck of a lot more than you EVER see in Victoria!