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Every glittering ounce

February 28, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped and fondled like a priceless diamond.”

Hunter S. Thompson

It is hardly feasible – no matter how hard our forefathers may have attempted so to do back in the bad old colonial days – to relocate to the far side of the world without making changes to the way one lives. Such modifications may turn out to be unexpectedly significant or even life-changing. Lesser amendments, on the other hand, might go virtually unnoticed in the moment – though perhaps acquiring greater import with the passage of time and with the benefit of hindsight.

I am writing this – for instance – on a Sunday. Back in the UK a key part of the Sunday ritual would have been the quick trip out in the morning to purchase coffees and a stack of Sunday newspapers. My personal and long standing favourite was The Observer – now part of the Guardian group.

When we came to Canada we looked around for a substitute; only to discover that there really isn’t one…  at least, not in a truly satisfying sense. There are some multi-part weekend papers to be sure, but they are very meagre fare by comparison to their British counterparts. They lack weight in all senses and are sadly not able – in my view – to  boast columnists or journalists of a comparable calibre to their UK equivalents.

It is, of course, quite possible to purchase British newspapers – including The Observer – in Canada… if one is prepared to wait for half a week and to pay a hefty premium for so doing. We are – needless to say – not!

It is further a fact of life these days that pretty much everything print-based has now been moved (or duplicated) online. It is certainly possible to read all of the titles with which we are familiar on the tiny screen, though some are protected by pay-walls to which I am not prepared to donate. Not all of these transitions online has been effected in an agreeable form. The Independent (my daily paper of choice in the UK when I had time to read such a thing) is now an online only journal that is sadly (but inevitably) beset by advertising. No big deal in itself were it not that the implementation in this case results in the screen constantly refreshing and jumping about as one tries to read – in the service of dandling fresh adverts before one’s weary eyes. The whole experience is so irritating that I was obliged to withdraw a routine contribution to their funds and to look elsewhere.

With the BBC website now a shadow of its former self – though still indispensable – I find myself now a subscriber to The Guardian – something that I had not anticipated. Though The Guardian‘s politics have always found favour in our household we have often thought them to be a little too po-faced to be likeable and their writers a little over-fond of the sanctimonious.

A year or so back I found myself searching furiously for a new source of cultural and current affairs analysis; a journal with its heart in the right place but still attractive to writers who knew how to turn a phrase and to frame a persuasive argument. I found just such in The Atlantic – that venerable literary magazine that has evolved into an influential platform for long-form storytelling and news-maker interviews. In addition to its monthly edition it produces a most useful daily digest of articles during the working week – and I would not now willingly be without it.

I recommend it – regardless of where in the world you reside.

 

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Déjà vu – again!

November 3, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

I had an odd experience this evening…

I had just returned – on a dismal and dank November Wednesday evening – from  three hours teaching on the trot at the College. It was almost dark when I reached home and I was the first one back.

I made myself a cup of coffee – as is my habit upon returning home – and settled down with my iDevice to scan the headlines, to bring myself up to date with the goings on in the world.

Now – I was pretty tired… which may explain some of this – and I am getting on a bit… which may explain more.

I was scrolling down through the BBC website and happened upon a list of the ‘Most Read‘ news stories of the day. One of the items was the announcement of the death of Sir Sean Connery. As I studied the tributes I was overcome by emotion and my eyes filled with tears. This was clearly the end of an era.

At this point The Girl arrived home and immediately recognised that something was troubling me. Worried that I had had some bad news she quizzed me gently. I hastened to explain and to reassure her.

It took me yet a while more before the – “Hold on a minute!” – moment struck. Sean Connery died last year. I wrote an entry to this journal at the time. What was I thinking?

I hastened back to the BBC. Sure enough – at number seven in the list of ‘Most Read‘ news stories today was the item from last year announcing Connery’s death.

At a time when the nations of the world are gathered at COP26 in Glasgow in a (perhaps hopeless) attempt to save the world from climate change… in a period when the global COVID-19 pandemic threatens to burst forth anew across the globe… on a day when the US electorate have apparently forgiven and forgotten the GOP’s appalling behaviour over the past five years – on a day when the tory party in the UK has brazenly declared open season for corruption and sleaze in UK politics…

…the seventh most read story of the day was about the death of a film icon a year ago!

Most interesting!

Mind you – given how the story managed to affect me all over again a year on, perhaps that should not come as such a surprise.

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Fragile

February 21, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – The Sorrows of Young Werther

I watched the other day – on the splendid but disturbingly imperiled BBC – the latest in Alan Yentob’s arts strand – ‘Imagine’. The most timely subject of this episode was the delicate state of the arts in the UK (but by extension also throughout the western world) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The point was well made that the case for spending government monies to protect the arts at a time when the health service is all but overwhelmed and when old people are dying in care homes (as was certainly the case at the start of the pandemic) is extremely difficult to make. It is – of course – always difficult to mount any such convincing justification for the arts in times of crisis and disaster.

Except that – whereas Mazeroff’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ certainly depicts our physiological and safety needs as comprising the broad base of the pyramid, as one heads on upwards towards the top where love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation are to be found, we once again rapidly discover (as a by-product of our unwanted incarceration through lock-down) that life without the arts, with all their magnificent variety and substance, loses a surprising measure of its meaning.

If that were not case enough for protection of our priceless and precious artistic assets then let us fall back on that ever reliable argument – economic benefit. In the UK alone the arts and culture sector contributes nearly £11 billion a year to the UK economy on a turnover of more than £21 billion per year – supporting in excess of 260,000 jobs. Even given that some £900 million of funding flows each year from central government into the arts and culture, the recuperation from the sector of £2.8 billion a year in tax revenue represents a very decent return.

The UK government has at least recognised the urgency of supporting the arts sector – the which was by and large the first to close in the COVID-19 lock-downs and will in all probability be the last to re-open – and has made £1.5 billion in funding available to keep companies and venues afloat.

All very reasonable as far as it goes – except that the arts is considerably more than just famous actors and musicians, well-renowned companies and grandiose venues. The majority of those who work in the arts and culture sector do so, in fact, as freelancers and as such are not covered by the government’s emergency funding arrangements. Anyone who has even tenuous connections with the arts world (as do I) will know of people whose livelihoods have all but disappeared overnight. If they are forced out of the arts for good a large chunk of the arts economy will disappear with them.

Please do spare a thought for such folk and do whatever you can to support them.

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Sir Thomas Sean Connery

November 1, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Sean Connery

1930 – 2020

RIP


Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/skeeze-272447/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=394756">skeeze</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=394756">Pixabay</a>There is very little that can be said in addition to all that has been and will be printed on the subject of the sad passing of Sir Sean Connery. To those of us who grew up in the 1960’s he was an icon – a legend – a larger than life character who somehow managed to encapsulate the dreams and ambitions of that age… almost certainly without any intention of so doing.

There will be many lists of favourite or best performances: my two top Connery films – “The Man Who Would be King” (an incomparable pairing with Michael Caine) and – unsurprisingly – “Goldfinger”.

In later life even a minor cameo in some otherwise mediocre picture would almost inevitably imbue the project with an added sheen, a sparkle that it might not otherwise have deserved at all. And should you think this mere hyperbole – well, you may be right – but there was a world in which Sean Connery was alive… and now there is not.

A sad day…

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Ennio Morricone

July 7, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Ennio Morricone

1928 – 2020

RIP

 

We are fortunate that – in this world and at this time – we are as a civilization blessed with a sizeable number of good composers of film and television soundtracks. A considerably smaller subset of that number may actually be counted amongst the great composers, whose works will outlast them.

There are – however – only a very, very small number who can rightfully be considered and lauded as geniuses…

…and – as of today – there is one less.

Much that need be known about the importance of Morricone’s scores (even those for films that in themselves scarcely merited such adornment) can be gleaned from the widely reported fact that parts of the scores for Sergio Leone’s initial trilogy of ‘Spaghetti Western’ films were recorded before the filming was started; the antithesis of usual practice. This was done so that Leone could use the music during filming as a backdrop against which to choreograph the action.

My personal favourites – which contain music that can move me to tears on any day, let alone one as sad as this – are the scores for “The Mission” (which was a huge influence on me) and for “Cinema Paradiso”.

I leave the gentle reader and the vagaries of Google to provide a suitable soundtrack to this posting.

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Creation from chaos

June 11, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Creation from chaos is natural. We’ve come to a place where we’ve realized that we have this actual physical need to create things. We’ve discovered that we hate people en masse, we’re sick of homogenized culture, and these realizations have left holes in our hearts. We create to fill those holes, to be able to sleep at night knowing we’ve done something, even a small something, to confront the manufactured culture that is currently being churned out.”

Renee Rigdon

Those who touch base on a regular basis with these mildly mischievous meanderings will be in no doubt as to my personal views with regard to the necessity – the urgency even – of the creative process to the health, happiness and fulfillment of our spirits and souls. Whether or not we might – as Renee Rigdon suggests – actually ‘hate people en masse” it is quite clear that our creativity – shared or solo – enables us to connect with one another on a considerably more intimate and joyful level – to come to know each other through that which matters most to us.

We are blessed in this corner of the world to have a burgeoning arts scene and an abundance of those for whom the practice of creation is woven deeply into their existences. In communities such as these the commercialisation of creation – whilst naturally still a factor in some cases – is of considerably less import that it is in the big cities. You might demur – suggesting perhaps that my spectacles have lenses of a rosy hue – but that is how it seems to me.

This past weekend we entertained The Girl’s mother – she having driven down from Nanaimo and hopped over on the Mill Bay ferry. It was also the weekend of the ArtSea Spring Studio Tour – a community arts council event for which artists local to the northern reaches of the Saanich peninsula open their studios and processes to visitors. We determined to venture forth to discover what might be on offer.

I have made previous mention of MacTavish Academy of Art – which splendid re-purposing of a redundant elementary school is but a short hop from us. They were hosting an eclectic assemblage of artists and crafts-people for whom opening their own premises was not an option and included in that number were friends of ours; a mother and daughter – Wendy and Sarah Simpson – who are both jewellery designers and fabricators. We spend a most happy half-hour with them chewing the fat and investigating the wares on show at the various booths before moving on.

Crossing the peninsula to the west side we visited Jerry Anderson’s wood carving studio, where up to a dozen carvers regularly assemble to create life-size wooden replicas of birds and wildfowl. Mr Anderson had been a boat builder by trade before retirement and he showed us a number of wonderful scale models that he had built – including that of a 45 foot ketch upon which he and his wife had at one time lived.

The Girl’s parents were themselves great sailors and it amused – though not surprised – us to discover that Mr Anderson was well acquainted with the builder of their last traditional wooden sailboat. Like them he and his wife had also been residents for a period on one of the Gulf Islands and we enjoyed a most pleasant conversation that covered birds, boats, island life, shoes, ships and sealing wax – and all manner of other things.

If this gently meandering post can actually be said to have a point I feel sure that it is this: there is something about corners of the world such as these that attract those for whom creativity is a key part of the process of discovering themselves and their relationships with others. For the most part these explorations are carried out with the utmost gentleness and lightness of touch… all of which makes community life is such parts most rewarding and enjoyable.

Much more than this one cannot not reasonably ask…

 

 

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Determinedly unfashionable

October 3, 2017 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.”

George Orwell

I found myself quite taken aback the other night whilst watching the season opener for the new series of ‘Saturday Night Live’ on the TV. The item concerned was actually pretty funny; a skit featuring actor Ryan Gosling delivering a rant about the designer of the credits on James Cameron’s film ‘Avatar‘ having chosen the font ‘Papyrus’ for the main titles.

I was surprised because I had not heard that this was ‘a thing’ – (or what would now probably be referred to a ‘meme’). The InterWebNet rapidly set me right – informing me that Papyrus is one of the most hated fonts ever and offering me a panoply of websites dedicated to pejorative references to its usage. The level of loathing was well up to usual InterWebNet standards, comparing the antipathy toward the typeface to that of ‘Comic Sans’ (though I did find it amusing that some wag had apparently merged the two to create what was briefly called ‘Comic Papyrus’ before being renamed for legal reasons to ‘Comic Parchment’. Blimey!).

Now – let’s sort out issues of self-interest right away. I use Papyrus in the banner for this site and have also used it in other places for titles. I like the font and I think that – in the right place – it works pretty well. So there!

Clearly at least some of the antipathy is simply down to popularity. Microsoft inadvertently created a monster by including the relatively obscure font with their Office suite, thus giving access to those who had no right to such things. Popularity seems to bring out the worst in some people and when Microsoft is involved it is clearly open season.

Certainly a case could be made concerning over (or inappropriate) use, but I suspect that something else is going on here. On one design website an article going by the title ‘10 Iconic Fonts and Why You Should Never Use Them’ includes the following:

“Unlike other reviled typefaces, though, Papyrus isn’t bad because it is overused: it’s bad because it just doesn’t look good. Kitschy, cheap and vile, Papyrus has no place in your designs.”

Ok – so those judgements are subjective in the extreme and the designer who wrote the article is an eighteen year-old entrepreneur, but do I detect a slight whiff of professional snobbery here?

Now – I spent forty years as an IT professional and it was certainly annoying when someone who had bought a computer from a store and read a couple of magazines believed that they knew better than I how to run an IT service – but the world has changed and the gap between the professional and the ‘amateur’ is no longer as wide as it used to be. Yes – I studied Computer Science and built a career in IT; I also spent more than four decades learning without formal training how to be a musician, a composer, a writer, a theatre practitioner… and in each of these I was aided by the rapid development of tools that placed in the hands of those who cared to put in the time and effort the means to reach a pretty decent standard.

The point surely is that – counter to some recent views to the contrary – ‘experts’ are a good thing… but that their expertise should be based on wisdom and such wisdom is usually acquired through (extensive) experience. Once achieved such doyens will doubtless be wise enough to recognise when some spotty youth armed with an iThing has actually produced something that they themselves could only dream of.

Flame off!

 

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Fringe benefits

September 8, 2017 in Life in BC | Permalink

The Victoria Fringe Festival has already made several appearances in these postings (here and here – should the gentle reader feel inclined to backtrack) as the Girl and I have become regular supporters in the couple of years a that we have lived on the outskirts of the city.

This year there is – of course – a significant difference in that I am now a member of the board of Intrepid Theatre – the splendid organisation that runs the fringe (and other theatrical festivals) in Victoria.

The practical difference for me is that the period during which the fringe takes place – twelve days at the end of August and the start of September – is now considerably busier than it has been in previous years. When compared to the sterling efforts put in by the company’s staff those of the members of the board pale into relative insignificance, but there are duties incumbent upon them (us!) during fringe season which require time and effort.

For a start – there is an ambassadorial role to play. It is our job to meet and greet members of the fringe-going public, to make them feel valued and cherished, to listen to their views and criticisms and to build – where possible – the sort of ongoing relationship without which an organisation which relies so heavily on the support of the local audience could not survive.

The second (but closely related) role is to raise funds. Intrepid receives considerable and most welcome grants from government bodies without which it simply would not survive. Given that the ethos of the fringe is that all of the proceeds of the venue box offices go directly to the performers, the central costs of running the fringe must be covered by other means. Some of this shortfall comes from the sale of fringe buttons – a badge without which one may not enter a venue – but the rest must be raised by generous donations and other fundraising efforts led by the board. This year these included a fifty/fifty raffle draw that ran throughout the festival.

My direct involvement in the fringe was restricted to the first week only (for reasons that will become clear in a subsequent post) but in that brief period I worked at the Fringe Preview evening, at Fringe Kids (an event for children in Victoria’s Market Square) and – selling fifty/fifty tickets – on the queues of fourteen shows. In addition the Girl and I managed to see a total of seven shows.

The standard this year has been as high as any. Herewith our personal picks of the fringe:

  • Local comedian Morgan Cranny as ‘Vasily Djokavitch‘ (get the pun?) – billed as ‘Russia’s #1 State Approved Comedian‘. Highly amusing and directed by none other than Mike Delamont!
  • ‘Gigantic Lying Mouth‘. Glaswegian spoken word artist Kevin P. Gilday in a dazzling blend of poetry, imagined conversation and multimedia – blending humour with much that was thought-provoking on the subjects of life, art and death.

…but perhaps best of all:

  • Englishman Charles Adrian as Ms Samantha Mann in ‘Stories About Love, Death and a Rabbit‘. Adrian has won awards for this show – a gentle confection of storytelling about love, loss and bad poetry – and it is easy to see why. It is a joy to see an actor so completely in control of timing, rhythm and inflection. Perfect!

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Arts and crafts – 2

September 8, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

Victoria FringeI have in the past within the pages of this almanac expressed my views – in what can only really be considered a somewhat intemperate fashion – of the less than optimal behaviour of some of those who attend the showings at public cinema multiplexes. This based – of course – primarily on my experiences in the south east of England.

We were lucky enough – when residing in Buckinghamshire – to live within a couple of miles of Pinewood Studios. Further good fortune was evinced in that one of our neighbours ran – in the plush screening studio therein – a members’ cinema club. By this agency we we’re able to go to the movies in a civilized fashion… comfy seats, a bar, no adverts or trailers… and no children!

We are – of course – no longer in the UK, and the Pinewood film club has in any case sadly been wound up.

You might imagine my delight, therefore, to discover in Sidney, BC, a wonderful if diminutive movie house going by the name of the Star Cinema. Perhaps all you need to know of this operation is that a couple of years back – whilst the auditorium was undergoing an upgrade and on hearing that delivery of the new seats would be delayed – the patrons were invited to bring in their own couches and armchairs to keep things going… the which – of course – they duly did.

We saw there recently the estimable Sir Ian McKellen exercising his acting chops in ‘Mr Holmes‘. ‘Serena‘ was – as you might expect – excellent. The film was adequate. It seemed to me that the writer had either not quite the courage to fully exploit the premise of the film, or was perhaps subjected to the now obligatory interference by ‘those who know better‘ – whose number includes, of course, the men with the money!

On to drama of the live variety…

I have mentioned before Victoria’s Belfry Theatre. A couple of weeks back we paid our first visit there since we moved back to the province. The play concerned was ‘Boom‘ – Rick Miller’s solo multi-media tour de force that took us through two and a half decades of the cultural history of the baby boomers. Miller is massively talented and the show was certainly a hit with the Victoria audience who – it must be said – pretty much exactly fitted the demographic featured in the work.

The past week and a half has also seen the annual Victoria Fringe Festival. As a long running attendee – as both audience member and participant – of the Edinburgh Fringe I was particularly looking forward to this event. There can be no comparison in terms of scale, of course, but I was looking for a similar atmosphere of experimentation and inclusivity. I was not disappointed.

We attended six shows in a little over a week and I can honestly say that not one of them was a complete dud – which is a better hit rate that I have sometimes experienced in the land of my fathers.

Here is my pick of the fringe:

Mike Delamont – brilliant local Victorian comedian – gave us the second part of his trilogy – ‘God is a Scottish Drag Queen‘. I feel that I hardly need tell you more about this wickedly funny show… you can use your imagination. Needless to say the Girl and I were reduced to tears at several points, we were laughing so hard. Some of the best comic timing you will ever encounter.

Englishman Rob Gee offered his exquisite one man play Icarus Dancing. Informed by his previous existence as a psychiatric nurse the piece is beautifully written and performed with the lightest of touches – both funny and affecting. If you get a chance to see it you will not be disappointed.

Corin Raymond’s ‘The Great Canadian Tire Money Caper‘ is quite simply perhaps the show with the biggest heart that you will ever encounter. Corin is a Toronto based musician and storyteller who financed the making of a live double album with Canadian Tire Money. Non-Canadians will want to know that this incentive scheme by the auto-store company turned multi-department giant has been running since the fifties. Older UK readers might best compare Canadian Tire Money to Green Shield Stamps, though in the form of a Monopoly-like currency. Pretty much every Canadian has some – but no-one ever has enough to do anything worthwhile with. Corin tells the story in such a big-hearted manner that you just want to love him. (The Girl goes all gooey at the thought, which might not be an entirely good thing!) If you live in or around Vancouver the good news is that you can catch Corin at the Vancouver Fringe. The bad news – if you are in England – is that he was at the London Fringe in June.

Right! That’s about all the arts news for now. More to follow…

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