Posted on November 30, 2008 by Venus in Relationship
“Every relationship we have with another person is really just a relationship with ourselves,” she said. These words were accompanied by the raspy sound of tissue being yanked from a resistant box. “Each person reflects back something essential about ourselves. We get a chance – however briefly – to experience ourselves through someone else’s eyes.”
And then she blew her nose.
I’ve been thinking about these words since hearing them. I’m still not sure I agree, or understand. But since they’ve been in my head a while, I thought I’d write them down.
As I sit here at lunch, dutifully consuming my homemade channa masala, brown rice and spinach salad … and lamb curry … I stumble across a description of a bacon chocolate bar.
Seriously? You can do that?
Hm.
I think I want one. Just one. Or, just a taste. A teeny tiny little taste … just to see …
I prefer music performed live. Such performances can be imperfect and revealing. If you catch the performer opening up a bit emotionally, a live rendition can be riveting.
Here is Annie Lennox (genuflect) last Sunday on the American Music Awards, performing one of my all-time favourite songs – Why. Someone just posted this on Facebook … and now I’m a-gonna be late for work … … at the end, she accepts her award of merit and we get to hear the lovely Scottish brogue that disappears when she sings, for the most part.
The People of the North have at least 42 different words to describe snow, or so I’m told. In communications-speak, we’d describe that as a “low context culture” that uses language rather than contextual clues to transmit detailed and precise meaning. Something that, in this case anyway, the People of the North have in common with the Germanic cultures.
At this moment, I’m mulling over the possibility that I could come up with 42 different words for tired. The good news is that my exhaustion hits me in the evening after a very full day and it is almost entirely physical. My brain continues to zoom along but my body, some days, just can’t keep up. I’m prepared to express this exhaustion momentarily in a high context, non-linguistic manner as I fling myself across my bed and close my eyes.
… pooped … wiped … bagged …
This is one of those damp wintery evenings in Toronto that chills a person right down to the core, even though the actual temperature hovers around freezing. It really isn’t that cold. The precipitation vacillates between wet heavy snow and cold penetrating rain. The walk back to my car after post-hockey pub was short but by the time I got into my car I was not only tired, I was shivering. Every heating device in the vehicle – defroster, heater, seat warmer – was immediately turned up to high and remained so for the short trip home. Even now, as I sip hot water and lemon and have the fireplace, I am still thawing out.
… tuckered out … spent … fatigued …
On the short walk back to my car, I caught a whiff of a fireplace in use, that lovely rich wood-smoke smell that makes you want to curl up like a cat and sleep forever. My mind wandered back to the time I bought this condo, from plans, and the stroke of inspiration that led me to ask them to put my fireplace in. Of course, I don’t have the good-smelling kind – I have the warm but kinda fake kind. No matter – the visual of having an actual “fire” to look at does as much psychological warming as the actual heat the thing throws out.
… drowsy … drained … drooping …
I bought this place in May 2002, when a trailer stood on this vacant lot. It was a confluence of amazing events that culminated in that day. From that moment onward, I drove by the site several times a week, bugged the construction guys to let me see my unit, plying them with coffee, and generally obsessed about moving in.
… dog-tired … done in … fagged …
Here are some photos taken in July 2002 by my Danish visitor, Zara. Clearly, not much had happened, construction-wise, at this point. I’m grateful that these pics don’t show, in great detail, the Worst Haircut Of My Life. I actually wound up with hockey hair … an almost mullet. This happened three days before Zara arrived and I was mortified but unable to describe to the hair-dresser – who seemed very excited about this cut – what I actually wanted her to do.
Lookit! Here is where I am going to live someday!
My BMI was a tad higher in July 2002, methinks.
The building was completed, only a few months over schedule, in July 2004. Well, “completed” is a loose, non-legal term. It was ready for people to move in. The first four months were hell – 57 things on the list of “incomplete” or “needs attention” elements that the builder had to fix, including the absence of sinks in either bathroom. My beloved couch arrived from almost three years in storage shot through with mildew. Emotionally, I was not handling being alone very well. My fantasy of living alone in my own space didn’t get off on the right foot at all.
… haggard … sleepy … worn out …
Something shifted somewhere around the fifth or sixth month. There was a settling in, a critical mass of things getting fixed or upgraded, routines getting established, things starting to feel like they were going my way for a bit. I’ve been very very happy here ever since. I have one of the only condos in Toronto that has a gigantic tree outside the window. In the summer, my neighbours call my place “The TreeHouse”.
… done rambling … signing off … anymore words for tired out there …?
I’ve just spent an inordinate amount of time – measured in hours, in fact – trying to get my company logo to:
show up in the template for my business blog,
show up in the right location, correct size and proportions in my business blog.
There is a very nice man in the UK helping me resolve this problem, but I think he’s asleep now. I know I would be at this point. This has been mind-numbing as I’m not a designer, a php coder or an expert on cascading style sheets (css). This is a matter of one tiny fragment of syntax being misplaced by me, the hacker who just randomly cuts and pastes things and hopes for the best. On the upside, I’ve hacked adjusted his original template all by myself to 98% of where I want it to be. But I just can’t get the damn logo to show up! Argh!
So, now, I must do something fun. My friend from Ottawa is going to call me any minute and that will be fun, of course. But just in case she doesn’t call for some reason, I’m going to start the mammoth project that occupies my head when I go to the gym. A detailed review of my birthday party playlist.
There are 146 songs on this playlist. Some of them reference other songs, so let’s say I have an overwhelming urge to give you my two cents on over 150 songs. There I am, at the gym, enthusiastically playing air drums on the treadmill, giving people cause to give me a Very Wide Berth, and occasionally laughing out loud at some memory or association that a song has dredged up. And, thinking – damn, I should blog about that.
I figure I can’t do 150+ songs in one fell swoop. No. I’ll break it down into bite-sized pieces, shall I?
When I put the playlist together, I was looking for songs that would help keep the party mood upbeat. So no Julie Andrews here, no sir. (She will show up later on, I guarantee.) No Brahms. No Joni Mitchell. No Jane Siberry Issa. No Scott Joplin. No Strauss. No Michael Jerome Brown. Surprisingly, no Suzie Vinnick and my wrist must be slapped for that oversight.
I didn’t put a ton of thought into it. What resulted are eight CDs that I think I could listen to, and smile at, ad nauseum.
(Note: I’m still looking for a Tragically Hip mentor. I mean, a mentor who will teach me all about The Hip. It would be lovely if you were, you know, deathly cool yourself but that isn’t a pre-requisite.)
Ready? OK …
Playlist #1 Recent Finds
All Star (from Big Shiny Tunes 4) performed by Smash Mouth: About 12 years ago, I was complaining to a friend that I can never keep on top of what is currently “cool”. She recommended that I just buy the compilation CDs called Big Shiny Tunes. So I did buy a few and this is one of my fav cuts.
American Woman (from Big Shiny Tunes) performed by Lenny Kravitz: There is a popular urban legend that the original version of this Guess Who song was improvised on stage in Sarnia, Ontario – a stone’s throw from where I grew up. At least, that is how I heard it. Wikipedia says Kitchener. Meh. This song always reminds me of growing up in S/W Ontario. However, this Kravitz cover is WAY badder than anything Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman could have drummed up in the early ’70′s. We’d never heard anything like Lenny Kravitz out in the pasture, I assure you.
If Venice Is Sinking (from Celebrate Canada!) performed by Spirit Of The West: Another gift from a compilation album. This song reminds me of a bunch of folks sitting on bales of straw around a bonfire singing about drunken back-packing through Europe. Except … the words to the chorus always strike me as being a bit more substantial than your average sing-a-long:
And if Venice is sinking, I’m going under
‘Cause beauty’s religion, and it’s christened me with wonder
Sunday Morning After (from the Juno Awards 2003 compilation) performed by Amanda Marshall: This song just makes me laugh. And thank my lucky stars that I haven’t (yet) woken up wearing something or someone that I don’t recognize.
Take Me To The River (from Medusa) performed by Annie Lennox: Interestingly, of the 146 songs in this party playlist, there are three versions of this song! (I have a feeling I’m a-gonna catch hell for not putting the Al Green version on the playlist!) Annie, ah sweet Annie … this is probably the sultriest of the three versions, a tad slower, luscious. Yum.
Bad Thing (from Blind Pig Records 20th Anniversary (Disc 2)) performed by Sarah Brown: Sadly, there is no online link to this rockin’ tune. I collect obscure women playing blues, especially using guitars that rock out.
Baila Me (from Gipsy Kings (Greatest Hits)) performed by the Gipsy Kings: My favourite Gypsy Kings song. This song fuels a particular fantasy of mine. (No, not that kind … ) I imagine a stage full of women with drums of various descriptions – like a WombBoom or Samba Squad – backed up by an impossibly large contingent of Spanish and flamenco guitars, singing our lungs out to this song. There are lots of clappers too. (I’m the one in the back with one of those little tinny drums, grinning because I can feel the stage vibrate.) I remember laying out this fantasy for a friend of mine a few years ago as I drove her home after some event or other and this song came on my car stereo. We opened all the windows and sun roof and started singing made up words that didn’t sound much at all like the original …
Cuando sei Maria Dolores ( When I met Maria Dolores)
Cuando sei quei mal d’amore ( that’s when I met [knew of] a bad love)
Cuando sei quei mal a su vera ( when I knew of her evil ways)
Cuando sei me va al dottore (that’s when I know I had to go see the doctor)
Baila(x7) me (dance with me)
Black Horse & The Cherry Tree, performed by KT Tunstall: This video has the version she does just all by herself with her looper gadget. Amazing. Beth and I performed this a few years ago, with an assist from Dan Holbrook on drums. We didn’t bomb, but we didn’t sound like this. Very fond memories of rehearsing and performing this terrific song.
Blister In The Sun (from the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack) performed by the Violent Femmes: I have a soft spot for this song and for this movie. Love John Cusack. I think the song intrigues me because the drum rhythm is so inconsistent. Somehow it manages to have a head-banger quality to it when the drummer doesn’t even keep an even rhythm. It is just … rough and ready. Reminds me of driving up Geneva Street in St. Catharines in my rattley old Honda on warm summer evenings with the windows down, going for ice cream.
Blues Before Sunrise (from From The Cradle) performed by Eric Clapton: Great album, great song … but there is a production error right here on the first track that always startles me. Clapton (hallowed be his name) manages to sustain the blues growl throughout the first few verses and then, suddenly, he loses it in the middle of “leave you, leave you all alone …” and it sort of returns, but not completely. I’ve always wondered why the producers didn’t fix this.
Brazil (from Sympathique) performed by Pink Martini: Ah, our first Pink Martini song appears as track 11. A delicious little dance number with all the romantic Latin melodrama one could ask for!
Breathless (from Women & Songs, Vol. 4) performed by The Corrs: Great song from a great girl band. I’m a sucker for a good hook and this song has a couple. (“Go on … leave me breathless …”)
Bring Me Some Water (from Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled) performed by Melissa Etheridge: No one – and I mean NO ONE – does dyke melodrama like Melissa Etheridge. This song makes me laugh out loud at the genuine gut-wrenching angst she is able to produce. It also makes me laugh out loud over a particular memory I have of this song. Late ’80′s, early 90′s … I have no idea what course I was a teaching assistant for, or maybe I was doing a project on poetry or lyrics or something. But I have a distinct memory of handing out copies of these lyrics to a seminar and earnestly forcing people to a) listen to the damn song and b) debate the lyrics. I was such an earnest, keen, evangelical little dyke. There is, of course, very little to debate here. Jilted woman, jealous, not coping well.
The Bug (from Come On Come On) performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter: Come on, come on … how can anyone not love these lyrics? Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug. Actually, this whole album is a treasure. When I listen to the whole thing at one go, I remember working in the upstairs study when J and I lived two blocks north of where I am now. The entire album was a favourite in the mid-90′s. There is a beautiful ballad on here and, although I don’t go to that many weddings these days, I do wonder if it has become a wedding type of song. It is called (Too Much To Expect but not) Too Much To Ask. Normally, I find protestations of long-term monogamy to be tedious, but something about this song moves me.
Can’t Help Falling In Love (from Then – 80′s compilation) performed by UB40: Another mid-90′s dance favourite. Nice funky beat to this. Love the horns.
Chaiyya_Chaiyya (from the soundtrack to Inside Man), performed by Sukhwinder Singh and Sapna Awasthi. This was recycled onto the Inside Man (Denzel Washington/Jodie Foster) soundtrack from a Hindi movie called Dil Se. I’m posting the link to the Bollywood music video, filmed entirely on the top of a moving train. Much more interesting than anything Denzel/Jodie can come up with vis a vis this song. When I hear the really good Bollywood stuff – like this song – I can barely contain myself. Must dance. I saw Inside Man with my friend Martina shortly after it came out. I think it was the Jodie Foster quotient that got us there. This song played during the opening and closing credits and, man, if I’d had an aisle seat … I would have been dancing. This song, Chunari Chunari from Monsoon Wedding, has the same effect. (I note, with pleasure, that Chaiyya Chaiyya was released on Venus Records.)
How many was that – 16? Woo hoo … more than 10% in! With a couple of bonus tracks! We are on our way!
Earlier today, I ventured out with my friend Veronica to the St. Lawrence Market. I will say again the same phrase that I’ve said many many times: the St. Lawrence Market is my favourite place in Toronto.
I’m a St. Lawrence Market kinda gal, though. It is in my blood. I’ve been going there for 15 years now and I know it like the back of my hand which is comforting. I know where to find the cheapest yet best olive oil in the city, the best granola in the city and which puveyors of cheese excel at specific cheeses. (Don’t get me started on cheeses, especially since I can’t eat many cheeses right now!)
Oddly, I never seem to enjoy it as much alone as when I can go with a friend, so I was pleased when Veronica said she’d be into making the trip.
The St. Lawrence Market has the Eggplant Sandwich to end all eggplant sandwiches. No, no … not the one in the basement slathered in tomato sauce and fried green peppers, served on foccacia. No. Blech.
The “death row” Eggplant Sandwich is available only here. At Future Bakery, upstairs, smack dab in the middle of the market. It is near and dear to my heart, this sandwich. My friend Amy and I have been eating this sandwich, and waxing rhapsodic over it, since we worked together on Front St. in 1993. 15 years I’ve been eating this sandwich and, remarkably, it hasn’t changed.
... yes, lots of olives please.
Getting the cut just right
Voila!
This sandwich is on a fresh Italian roll, buttered, slathered in Dijon mustard, delicately garnished with roasted red peppers, hot banana peppers, lettuce and tomatos. And olives. Lots and lots of olives. Hold the cucumbers. The eggplant itself is heated and has melted swiss cheese on it by the time it makes it into the sandwich.
I have been known to call ahead to Future Bakery to suggest (demand?) that they have eggplant on hand if I know ahead of time that I’m going to be there on a Saturday. Sometimes, you see, they run out. And this is bad. Very very bad.
So, in case I haven’t made myself clear, if I manage to wind up on death row someday and require a last meal, it is this sandwich, exactly as I have just described. Hold the cucumbers. Cucumbers would be bad. Very very bad.
Next weekend, November 28-29-30, my friend Amy, the original eggplant sandwich sharer, is coming into town and we are having our now annual “girls’ cottage weekend in the city”. We put the fireplace on, drink wine, eat good food and read books. We listen to music and gossip. We go to St. Lawrence Market. We attend the annual Women In Blues Revue. We eat some more. (uh oh) We pretend we are cut off from the rest of the world … but we might go shopping. It is a pre-Christmas distraction for both of us.
I see another eggplant sandwich in my near future (bakery). Yum .
I wish to state, categorically and emphatically, that Katja’s Auntie is not now, nor has she ever been, responsible for sending my diet off the rails. Her endless supply of dark, Lindt, 70% cocoa chocolate, the kind that melts sweetly and soothingly on the tongue while one is struggling through mind-numbing grading or class prep, delivered to my desk, for free, has NOTHING whatsoever to do with my decision to consume said morsels.
I’m a grown-up. I make my own decisions.
(… Geben Sie mir Schokolade und niemand sind verletzt …)
There is a burgeoning market these days for meat substitutes. Fake meat. Meat-like products that don’t involve killing anything that breathes.
I’m good with that. Lord knows I’ve dated enough vegetarians to have tried my share of fake meat. Some brands I even quite like. Morningstar breakfast patties rock, except I can’t find them in any stores in Toronto, for some reason. St. Yves makes a very tolerable fake ground beef. Yet, it is all pretty pricey and shockingly high in sodium.
But, I gotta say … most of the meat substitutes don’t actually taste like meat. And, I think I’ve figured out why.
I think it would be a reasonable to assert that the majority of employees who work for companies that produce meat-like products are themselves vegetarian. Si? So, when you buy a product labelled “Canadian Veggie Bacon”, how do the people who are producing the product actually know what Canadian “real” bacon tastes like?
I would assert that they don’t. Esp. if the “Canadian Veggie Bacon” that I have in my fridge is any indication. It does not taste like bacon. It does not taste like … anything. And, when you think about it, if a bunch of vegetarians are in charge of making something that tastes like meat but is not meat … isn’t this a bit …. problematic?
I’m about to either treat, or torture, my readers with an avalanche of posts about music, provided my life opens up just enough to allow such activity. Before I get to the, oh, 140 or so songs I put together for my 45th birthday party several weeks ago, I feel I need to start with one musical memory in particular.
There are some pieces that, for me, wind up having layers upon layers of meaning. The piece I’m concerned with this evening is just such an example. I have found it on YouTube and will be posting a link at the end of this entry. But please do bear with me for the long tangled story that accompanies it before you jump down, ok?
It was 1986, I was 23, and I was smitten, consciously and openly, for the first time, with a woman. Sure, I’d had crushes before but never anything I could acknowledge, even to myself. It was pretty heady, intoxicating stuff, those first conscious acknowledgments of what I was feeling, and the thrill of finding out that she was also attracted to me was almost too much to bear. She was (is) a movie and music buff and exposed me to so much that still resides happily in my musical repertoire … The Pretenders … Propaganda … The Cure … And, as far as movies go, there were many. The one that stands out remains one of my all-time favourite films: Out of Africa, with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. A powerful, rich story, beautifully told. The soundtrack, by John Barry, could almost be considered a character in the film – so many scenes would seem completely empty without the support, or urging, or comfort of the music.
One of the most moving movie moments of all time occurs about two thirds of the way through the film. Denys (the character played by Redford), shows up unexpectedly at Karyn Blixen’s (Meryl Streep) farm in a biplane. She is excited and taken aback and, as he hands her a pair of flying goggles, she asks, “When did you learn to fly?” He responds, “Yesterday!” and away they go, into the African sky.
Much earlier in the film, this moment is foreshadowed by Karyn saying that Denys gave her gifts, one of which was seeing the world through God’s eyes. This is that moment. Denys has been on a mission to show Karyn Africa as it existed before white men spoiled it. It is becoming spoiled so quickly at this point in history – the film is set in 1913 – that he has to resort to desperate, dangerous flight to accomplish his task.
But we don’t get any of that explanation in words. We get music.
The three or so minutes of John Barry’s variation on the main theme are heart-stopping, as are the visuals which it accompanies. The first 1:47 is almost choral in nature, a deep drone holding the foundation of a single muscular line of melody that is almost addictively hummable. Strong, extremely compelling. I’ve always wondered why it is so compelling and, as I listen to it again tonight for the multi-thousandth time, I hear that the deep woodwinds and strings are blended with human voices for added depth. The voices, almost like Geogorian chant, are hiding behind the instrumentation. At 1:47 the whole piece opens up into its own complexity with now many instrumental lines working in concert to draw you on, the main theme bursting forth in glorious richness, sadness and depth.
In the film, as Denys and Karyn journey over plains and impossibly beautiful vistas, she finally understands what he has been trying to show her, to tell her. She is seated in the forward seat in the plane and they are unable to speak or even see each other. She needs to communicate to him her understanding, her “a-ha” moment. She does. Only Meryl Streep could pull this off with such grace, clarity and intimacy. This particular piece of music, Flight Over Africa (Track 7 off the soundtrack), helps cement this moment in the memory of most people who have seen the film.
Just as Karyn was able to later articulate the gifts Denys gave her in their short time together, I can say that my first amore granted me many gifts as well, one of which was this film. She helped me see the world, briefly, through her eyes which, interestingly, helped me eventually see more clearly with my own.
Years later, I was in a quirky little used bookstore in Vancouver, enjoying my one and only visit out there. It was one of those dingy, slightly suspect places that make you wonder how they can afford to survive with only dusty old used books on disorganized shelves and practically no customers. I had the luxury of being able to take my time that day -I think I was killing time waiting for someone – and I suddenly found myself welling up with tears and just, well, emoting all over the place. What was going on? There was no one else in the store and I realized that the clerk had turned the music up a few notches. It was the soundtrack to Out of Africa. I hadn’t heard the music for ages. I had no idea one could actually Buy The Soundtrack to such a film. I stayed in that store much longer than I should have, wiping tears off my cheeks as they emerged, as each track took me to a new place of memory.
This film handles even the non-original music so beautifully. Have a listen to the treatment of this two minute excerpt -Mozart -Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A (K. 622). The pace of this version is much slower and more deliberate than it is normally played and yet the more deliberate pace doesn’t add any heaviness to the interpretation.
Film is the ultimate collaborative enterprise. All the pieces have to work together, in concert (pardon the pun), for the ideas, nuance, even narrative to be communicated to the audience. If Meryl Streep doesn’t do her thing in the plane on at least one of the takes, then the director hasn’t given the editor what he/she needs to move the story along. If all that doesn’t happen, the composer has very little to go on to add his polish and punctuation. On the occasions when it all works, film is an art form to be much admired.
Africa is a mysterious place to me. It strikes me as the ultimate collaborative disaster. Having experienced Africa only from a distance, my perception fed on media and popular culture only, it seems that outside influences have worked only to fail the people and the creatures there. I am happy to get information from my friends who were born and raised there, who are there – or close by – now, or who are about to be there, that tell different stories. The workshop I did this summer on drumming/singing from Ghana also told a different story. These are stories that need to be told. Stories that give my knowledge of that place more depth and context.
Yet, somehow in my mind, I when hear stories of Africa … I hear this music in the background, bringing tears to my eyes.
… at the end, she accepts her award of merit and we get to hear the lovely Scottish brogue that disappears when she sings, for the most part.
