In this episode:
- Just a hint: If your cycling speed is significantly less than average walking speed, maybe you should GET OFF THE BICYCLE AND WALK. At least during rush hour.
- Some of it had turned into a weird hairy, gooey fuzz. I think they put in some carpet upside down to make it padded.
- I got two roles in two completely different operas. Can you believe that?
- If my voice sounds tired, it’s because it is – I’ve been practicing bel canto and German 12-tone music All. Day.
- If you are of my generation, if you are a bit younger, if you are a bit older, if you are a woman, you have probably read Bridget Jones’ Diary.
- I saw a matching purple tracksuit and I thought, “That’s an attractive tracksuit.” Then I thought, “OH MY GOD MY LIFE IS OVER.”
Apologies for the lack of the dirty postcard video. Maybe tomorrow.
46
Posted 4 days ago at 3:06 am. Add a comment
Who prodded Yoo to write the Torture Memos?
My bet is on Dick Cheney, but I suppose it could be Rumsfeld.
Anyway, I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet. I’ve been learning two whole operas, you know. Apparently the entire world has been watching the Olympics anyway, so I’m sure I wasn’t really missed. I didn’t see any of it myself, having neither a TV or the motivation, except for part of a curling match and the closing ceremonies, which I happened to see in bars. Speaking of the closing ceremonies – I would like to apologize on behalf of the Canadian artistic community for the music. The clown was pretty good, the children’s dance school jumping around with snowboards were OK, but the American Idol rejects who sang (and the faux garage band that played) were just embarrassing.
Also, apparently after I left giant inflatable beavers were involved somehow. I’m not looking it up on YouTube – the way I’m imagining it is probably more entertaining.
Posted 1 week, 1 day ago at 3:02 pm. Add a comment
You know, that phrase seriously puzzled me when I was a kid. I always read it as “it never rains, it only pours” when it really means “it never rains UNLESS it pours”. Anyway…
…I got another part!
I’ll be playing Sophie Scholl in Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose) by Udo Zimmerman. It’s another one-off show, April 8 at Hart House Theatre. I’ll post ticket-buying etc. details when I have them. It’s an awesome piece, and a fantastic story. If you don’t know about the White Rose movement, go read about them now.
So I’ll be playing two different characters about two weeks apart. How do they compare?
Elvira (I Puritani) – High-spirited and passionate young girl.
Sophie (Die Weisse Rose) – Serious and ethically-minded young woman.
Elvira – Lives through a war.
Sophie – Dies in a war.
Elvira – Obedient to authority (at least her father’s authority).
Sophie – Defies authority.
Elvira – Very religious.
Sophie – Very religious.
Elvira – Faces adversity by going crazy.
Sophie – Faces adversity with strength and courage.
Elvira – Gets a happy ending.
Sophie – Well, not so much.
However, it should be noted that Sophie Scholl was a real person, and Elvira is character from an early 19th century opera whose actions are necessary to advance the plot.
So there you go! I seem to be developing A Career. Who knew?
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago at 11:57 pm. Add a comment
1:45 PM – Get on bicycle to go to teach. Notice it’s snowing a bit. Considering taking bike on subway to first lesson. Realize I have no money and no time to go take any out. Shrug, get on my bike, go.
2:10 PM – About halfway to my first lesson, snow suddenly gets much heavier and it’s windy. Curse my fate and continue.
2:15 – Bike gears stop working, so am stuck in 3X6 going uphill.
2:15-2:45 Continue to curse my fate.
2:50 Arrive at first lesson five minutes late, very hungry, and completely exhausted.
5:10 – Manage to grab bagel in between lessons.
8:40 – Finish teaching. Bike towards Tranzac for PRO gig.
9:10 – Eat massive falafel.
10 – PRO gig for a small but appreciative audience. Have great time.
1 AM – Ben and I get a ride home from my friend Chris Warren. Bikes are stuffed in the back seat, Ben and I are stuffed in the front seat.
1:30 AM – Get home, realize we’re both starving, make some food.
2 AM – Madeline decides that since we’re up, it must be daytime, and starts howling at Gus to wake him up.
2:01 AM – I calm Madeline down by throwing a blanket over her and speaking in soothing tones.
2:30 – Bedtime.
10 AM (today) – Wake up and contemplate the future.
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago at 6:24 pm. Add a comment
You know how I’ve been doing audition after audition for the past year? And while I’ve gotten feedback ranging from very encouraging to completely indifferent, I haven’t gotten a single role?
Not anymore!
On March 28 I’ll be singing Elvira in I Puritani with Opera in Concert. Sweet!
I’m still learning the part, so here’s a glimpse of what I’m up against:
That\'s gonna be me!
Also, the Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra is playing tonight at 10 at the Tranzac. We’re bringing back some songs we haven’t played recently, as well as playing some old favourites and the odd Torture Memo, so come out. PWYC.
Posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago at 4:12 pm. Add a comment
Dear Rita,
Many years ago I read your book Rubyfruit Jungle with great pleasure. It’s not every writer that can make a lesbian Bildungsroman a light-hearted and fun read. Also, if you had never written anything except the title of your first book of poetry, you would have earned my respect, because The Hand that Cradles the Rock is an awesome title for a book of feminist poems.
True, I haven’t followed your later books, largely because most of them were co-authored by your cat, and I am allergic to books which feature animals as either authors or protagonists (or both). So whenever I saw “Murder, She Meowed” or “Claws and Effect” at the library I did nothing except wish you and Sneaky Pie well and move on.
All that changed the other day. I went to the library to pick up R. Crumb’s bizarre rendition of Genesis, which I had put on hold, and happened to see one of your books: The Hounds and the Fury. A quick glance told me it was a murder mystery involving foxhounds and foxhunting, which is exactly the sort of book I always think I’ll like, so I got it.
Well.
Ms. Brown, as someone who has written (according to Wikipedia), some 38 full-length novels, I would have assumed that you had mastered that whole “show, don’t tell thing”. I seem to have been wrong. Not only does this book begin with a detailed description of each character – and why are there so many of them, anyway? – including the foxhounds, the horses, and a variety of wildlife – but peppered through the book are explainy explainy boring statements like this:
Freddie wanted to be like Sister, but she was too concerned with her effect on others. Beautiful as she was, this made her vulnerable. She needed praise to feel feminine, to feel good. Sister woke up in he morning feeling good.
How ’bout something like this instead?
Freddie turned to Jason. “Oh Doctor,” she said, “tell me more about your work.”
Jason smiled down at Freddie, making her heart race with anticipation. Funny, she didn’t even like him much, but his smile made her feel warm. “Well, Freddie, how much do you know about medicine?”
“Oh, not much,” said Freddie, a smile blazing across her perfect face. “I mean, my father was a doctor – but I never took much interest.” Freddie kept her eyes locked on the doctor’s, and her two years of pre-med to herself.
I wrote that last bit, by the way. Yes, it’s horribly cliched and stupid, but at least it gets across the idea that “Freddie is insecure and gets male attention by belittling herself” without a boring descriptive paragraph.
Even when you do actually show a character doing something, you immediately follow up by telling us what that shows about the character. Like this:
“Are you alright?”
“Fine. Tired. [...] Sam was in the hospital.” He held back he small detail that Sam had been shot. He was tired and didn’t feel like indulging in speculation with people who weren’t close.
Yes, thank you for pointing out the Gray didn’t tell Iffy that Sam was in the hospital. I would never, ever have noticed that in a million years if you hadn’t pointed it out. No, actually I would have, and I would have thought “Huh, that’s odd. Maybe Gray doesn’t trust Iffy. Maybe he suspects Iffy. Hmm…” and it may have added a modicum of interest to the plot.
There are a lot of other unlikeable things about this book – the constant defense of riches and privilege, the ham-handed and unrealistic race relations, the way you keep sticking references to saints’ days in the middle of things, the fact that you not only anthropomorphized all the animals but made them capable of conversing with each other. (OK, if they could talk, I can see how foxes and dogs would communicate, being closely related species, but why the fuck would an owl be able to talk to a horse? They’re wildly different animals with very different lifeways – horses are domesticated pack mammals, and owls are pair-bonding predatory birds – not to mention cognitive abilities. Both horses and owls are pretty dumb, true, but dumb in different ways: prey dumb and predator dumb, bird dumb and mammal dumb, big dumb and small dumb.)
Also the gender essentialism is pretty disturbing, considering your involvement in the feminist movement. I’m talking about statements like this:
“Once a man takes a position publicly, he rarely backs down or seeks a comprimise. It’s a particular failing of the gender…with great effort, especially from friends, most women can be brought around to seek a comprimise.”
Or like this:
Sybil appreciated Shaker’s thoughtfulness. Her marriage, a disaster, had left her a single mother. She liked her sons to be around real men, and Shaker was about as real as it got.
Never mind that feminists have been trying since the seventies to deconstruct the stifling confines of gender roles, to free us all from the idea that there are sets of behaviours and actions that you must adopt if you want to be a “real man” or a “real woman”. You want your gameskeeper character to be a Real Man, so you make Pathetic Single Mom use him to heteronormatize her sons.
(To be clear, if these two characters – Sister and Sybil, respectively – had said/thought these things as a demonstration of their subtle sexism and hidebound gender essentialism, that would have been fine. If a non-feminist writer had written that, it would have merited an eye-roll or two. But coming from the mouths/brains of the two most sympathetic/lionized characters in a book by an ostensibly feminist writer it makes me think, “What the fuck?”)
Speaking of characters, why, again, are there so many of them? By page 200 I was still flipping back to the list at the beginning to check who Betty was again, and what her relationship to Crawford was. And you do realize that the three private school girls could have been rolled into one? That what they’re there for – to show that Sister is a hip old lady who loves young people – could have been distilled down to a couple of sentences in the middle of the hunt.
But I digress. I read all sorts of awful books, and I could have forgiven all this – it still might have been an enjoyalble read – if it hadn’t been for the egregious Mary Sue that you put at the centre of your book.
I’m sure you intended Sister (Jane Arnold) to be an earthy, fierce, inspiring older woman, full of life and vigour and still sexy in her seventies. You certainly make a point of telling us how fantastic she is on every other page. Sister is perfect. Sister can do no wrong. Sister has a primeval instinct for horses and hounds. She knows everything and can both turn a young man’s head AND beat him up.
Unfortunately, as you have written her, Sister is unbelievable and annoying. I’d like to see her actually interacting with someone without them flattering her. I’d like to see her make a mistake or have a weakness or do something to hurt someone. Because then she’d seem like a human being instead of a slightly older and heterosexual embodiment of Rita Mae Brown’s superego.
I have two possible theories for how this horrible excuse for a book came to be:
1)You have complete and utter contempt for your audience. I’m guessing your publisher’s demographic research has revealed your audience to be privileged but unintelligent women aged 50-75, so you tailored your book perfectly to them, being careful to explain everything clearly so they wouldn’t miss out.
2)You have lost your touch and now write self-absorbed bilge.
I lean towards 2) but the facts could support either case. By the way, the denouement comes totally out of nowhere and there really are NO clues (other than Iffy’s hair not falling out) pointing to who the murderer ends up being. Lazy plotting.
On the plus side, you do say lots of nice things about hounds, which I appreciated, being the owner of two Beagle/Bassets. If my dog Madeline could read I’m sure she would have enjoyed it.
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago at 1:29 am. Add a comment
In this episode:
- I was chatting with this nice older lady who was there with an extremely ancient German Short-Haired Pointer and a middle-aged Labradoodle.
- I was thinking, are there people like that? And am I one of them?
- Happy Valentine’s Day! If you’re single, I hope you’re sticking it to the man and having a good time anyway.
- I will even send it in the MAIL. Maybe in an envelope.
- I should warn you that I haven’t actually done any research about this.
- Thomas Jefferson: Rapist.
- Is my life perfect? No, but that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy.
- I guess happiness depends on that tricky combination between your capacity for contentment and the lot one finds oneself in.
45
Posted 3 weeks, 2 days ago at 12:24 am. Add a comment
The traffic does rattle the house (a little) -
plants clatter on plates,
books shake on shelves -
and I’m sure it’s the exhaust
that’s tarnishing the silver,
and that we’re all going to die
of black lung during a truck-quake.
And I love it.
Posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago at 4:00 pm. Add a comment
In the spirit of good karma, happiness, and rainbows all around, a brief list of things I’ve seen recently on the Internet that I like (yeah, I know I just made another one of these lists on Thursday):
- Facebook Group “Can This Onion Ring get more Fans than Stephen Harper?” is well on its way. Not there yet, but I have high hopes.
- Some hip chemists made synthetic marijuana, and the article about it quotes one Dr. Huffman (seriously), who says: “I’ve come to the conclusion that if an enterprising person wants to find a new way to get high, they’re going to do it.”
- A surprisingly entertaining breakdown of all the horrible things that happen to your body when you’re pregnant. I sent the link to my friend Eleanor (she’s due in May) with an offer to come over with ice and Poise pads.
- Kook fight!
- You know how people who are part of the same online community get to know each other really well in oddly specific ways? And how, over time, they grow to loathe each other? And are constantly bringing up that time when you TOTALLY SAID SOMETHING UNCALLED FOR THAT WAS REALLY RUDE AND MAYBE RACIST back in the Darwin Day Anniversary thread of 2007? Yeah, I hate that too.
(That last one I posted largely because, well, whatever. Getting to truly understand the complicated layers of resentment involved would entail reading old blog posts and comment threads totalling in verbiage something approaching the works of Ayn Rand, Ann Rice, and Edgar Rice Burroughs combined. Even though I like old blog posts, I’m not going there.)
Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago at 3:54 am. Add a comment