On Sunday afternoon, we joined a full house at the refurbished Majestic Theatre in downtown St. John’s for a beautiful performance.
Anita Best and Pamela Morgan have been singing together for decades, and they do not perform all that often in public. When the matinee performance was announced last month for the Majestic’s cosy (i.e., small) bar and café, I snapped up tickets. I evidently was not alone, as the show was moved upstairs to the main theatre — and that was filled to the brim.
“Briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.” — Alan Bennett
The British playwright Alan Bennett put these words in no less than the mouth of Queen Elizabeth II, for a short story called The Uncommon Reader. It imagined the Queen stumbling upon a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace, and then what happens when Her Majesty’s reading takes her to places she could not have imagined. Reading changes how she thinks and looks at life.
It’s a terrific story. I first heard it as an audiobook a few years ago, and connected with many of its points — including that it is never too late to let a book take you somewhere (often to another book).
The Uncommon Reader was published in 2007 in the London Review of Books, and can be read in full here.
“A yearly return to this heartwarming moment at David Hockney’s solo exhibition at the LA Louver gallery,” says the caption of the photo, which Jacob Sousa snapped quickly on Feb. 13, 2019, when Mitchell came to take in Hockney’s show.
The photo has been a phenomenon several times over, starting from the moment the LA Louver gallery shared it on its Instagram feed seven years ago. It has been shared and re-shared many times, on various platforms, and it’s fitting that Mitchell’s official Facebook page celebrates the image every Feb. 13.
Winter often brings some terrific things to watch on television, and we’re caught up in a few shows currently rolling out. Here are some notes.
The Pitt, second season. We quite like the first series of the medical drama set in a single day in an overworked, highly stressed emergency department in Pittsburgh. The second season, featuring Noah Wyle and a remarkable ensemble cast, is now underway, and it is gripping. Each episode covers just an hour, so little details in an earlier show can become big plot points later.
Hijack, second season. The first Idris Elba series about a negotiator caught aboard a hijacked plane felt like a limited run; how could you do a sequel on that? Well, that sequel is now airing, and (spoilers!) Elba is the hijacker on a subway in Germany. Or is he? Each episode raises the stakes and reveals more about a complicated backstory. It’s all highly improbable, but the show is riveting. We actually made popcorn for one viewing.
“I did scary things like that when I was a young woman. I had all of my 20s to fail. I wanted to be a stand-up and then I wanted to be Lily Tomlin. I had a chance to experiment and that’s riches beyond compare.” — Emma Thompson
I love this quote’s bravado. Thompson’s brightness was clearly visible young — I recall reading about how she had a professional agent even before she finished with Cambridge — and while she was busy, she wasn’t world-famous until she was out of her 20s.
When you’re in St. John’s, you might well walk right by an abandoned house without noticing something’s amiss. Take a closer look, though, and you notice things. The electrical meter is missing, or the paint is flaking away. Sometimes, there’s a more obvious clue, like wooden boards where a window pane ought to be.
Ariana Kelland did an interesting report for CBC this week on abandoned homes and the safety concerns for residents. At one house on Gower Street in the downtown, squatters have been moving in, and while a rear window is now boarded up, residents are not feeling much more assured.
The city has options, but they’re limited. Tax sales are one of them; here’s a list from last year, including the Gower Street property, which has been vacant for a decade since the owner’s death, but was by then removed from tax sale. (The current owner did not respond to Kelland’s request for comment.)
“I have never met a group of people who so routinely make so many personal sacrifices for their job. And they start so young. At a time when people are navigating Grade 8, they basically put any semblance of a normal life on hold so they can devote all their time and energy to one thing. Then they spend the rest of their formative years doing that one thing over and over again with one goal in mind: representing us — representing Canada — at the Olympics… When it comes to the Winter Olympics and Team Canada, the division of labour is crystal clear: They do all the work, we do all the cheering. Now let’s do our job so they can do theirs.” — Rick Mercer
These words were part of Rick’s rant in the Feb. 6, 2018, edition of Rick Mercer Report. I read them last evening while I was reading Rick’s book Final Report, and they are of course quite timely eight years later, with the Olympics now underway in Milan.
A mug of hot chocolate always eases the sting of a cold winter’s night, and for most of my life, I’ve been content to have a mug of milk (boiling water, if we’re low) heated up with a scoop of powder mixed in. It’s fine.
Once in a while, Martha will whip up something special: real hot chocolate, melted from brick-like blocks of Spanish chocolate, brought to a simmer, and then poured into a cup.
There’s nothing like it. (We’ve been in the habit of calling it Spanish chocolate to differentiate between the powder-based stuff, though I suspect in Spain they would just call it, well, “chocolate.”)
I finally had the opportunity to go to Spain in 2018. In Madrid, we stayed with Martha’s aunt Luci, and had fun wandering the streets, gazing at the art of Sorolla, Goya and Velasquez, and catching up with relatives. I saw that Madrid’s taberna culture — a lifestyle that values the neighbourhood eatery, which is like a pub and a family restaurant — is very much alive.
“What you try to bury just ends up burying you.” — Jane Wagner
You may not recognize Jane Wagner’s name or face, but I bet you know Lily Tomlin, her comedic and life partner for decades. They met in 1971, quickly became a couple, and were soon working together too.
The quote above comes from material for Tomlin’s character Edith Ann, a little girl sitting in an oversized rocking chair, and one of the characters Tomlin introduced on Laugh-In. Wagner has been writing for Tomlin since. Tomlin once said of their approach, “She’s able to verbalize it, and I’m able to physicalize it.”
The taproom at Quidi Vidi Brewery in St. John’s has often been a hopping (no pun intended, honest) place most of the times I’ve been there, but it’s quite quiet these days.
That’s because the company — the elder sibling of Newfoundland and Labrador’s craft beer industry, having put down roots three decades ago — has closed the taproom for February.
It’s the latest sign of trouble in an industry that was on a roll for years, and which is now struggling to keep up.
Two things are happening at this moment. One is the seasonal, wintry slowdown that comes early in the year. The other is more significant: a countrywide sluggishness that has put fierce winds on the whole industry.
The first one is cyclical and expected, but is still not any fun.
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London
The stroke of genius, the bolt of blue, the eureka moment: so much of our culture has various threads about the supposed suddenness of when inspiration happens.
Except, as Jack London gets at here, it often doesn’t happen to you; you happen to it. Or rather you make it happen. This aligns with various perspectives about working hard, or simply getting started.
There was a lot of grief in the wake of Catherine O’Hara’s death, but there were also great memories, and from those a lot of laughs and shared joy.
One thing that has delighted me is animator Trevor Carlee’s Lego version of the “fold in the cheese” scene from Schitt’s Creek, which you can see above.
This is from the second season episode “Family Dinner,” written by David West Read (who went on to write the musical & Juliet). This is the episode in which Moira and David try (and fail) to make enchiladas, and we realize the limits of Moira’s parenting, not to mention David’s ability to learn.
“People assume actors are born liars but I’d argue the actor’s job is to tell the truth. And I’ve realized I’m not a good liar.” — Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett — who gave this answer to a 2013 interview — is a fascinating performer, and one of the great actors of my generation. She seized my attention with 1997’s Oscar and Lucinda, a two-hander with Ralph Fiennes directed by fellow Australian Gillian Armstrong, and a year later had the world on notice in Elizabeth, playing the Tudor queen.
After that, she was in the movie star business. Not necessarily the easiest place to be.
Her choices have been interesting, and the variety has probably paid off. She has won two Academy Awards, and has moved from spectacles (she will always be Galadriel to Middle Earth fans) to indies to Marvel movies. One of her smaller roles: playing Petal Bear in the adaptation of The Shipping News. She won her Oscars for playing Katherine Hepburn (a multi-Oscar winner herself) in The Aviator and the title role (sort of) in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.
She’s one of those actors always worth the gamble of time.
For a while there, X were arguably the coolest band in Los Angeles. They’re often called a punk band, even though they never quite sounded like the Ramones, the Damned, etc. That said, John Doe, the band’s singer and bassist, certainly had a punk name for the ages.
By the time of 1983’s More Fun in the New World, X had relaxed and lightened up, hiring Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek to produce.
True Love Pt. #2 is a jam, and kicks off with a killer riff from guitarist Billy Zoom. Have a listen. (That riff may or may not have been influenced by the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running.)
In the song’s final two minutes comes a rapid string of references, winks and musical influences. They’re knocked off in quick succession as Doe and fellow singer Exene Cervenka trade lyrics, echoing everyone from Tammy Wynette and Elvis to Curtis Mayfield and P-Funk.
Cindy Billingham had lived out her working years in Yukon before moving to Newfoundland with her husband Ron for their retirement — only for Ron to die. Now she’s on her own, in a small community where she doesn’t know many people yet, and it’s the dead of winter.
Billingham told her story to CBC Radio’s Now or Never (the podcast of the program’s latest episode is embedded below) and it’s worth the listen. The theme of the episode is about “getting bushed,” or weighed down by winter, although Billingham’s story, which is underscored by grief, is about more than the heaviest weeks of winter.
