Vitamins

Zeitgeist

I have never felt what I am feeling right now.
It is terror and anger and revulsion all mixed with tears.

After I watched this movie, I felt like I'd been kicked in the face - like my heart had been shattered... it might have broken, if not for the fact that I have deep abiding faith in the good in people - in the holy compassionate power that is within everyone.

We - all of us, have to awaken from the madness that has hijacked our world. Nothing else matters.

Please Google "North American Union" and take a look at what our "leaders" have planned for 2010. It is already underway. It started in 2005 - and do you remember any newspaper stories about it? TV news items? ME NEITHER.

It is truly horrifying. That CEOs and politicians can decide to agree on something of such devastating magnitude without the consent or involvement of the citizens who elected them is not only flagrantly undemocratic and an affront to our human rights, but threatens to make a mockery of Canada's treasured institutions of health care, education, food safety, environmental policy, etc. The greed and injustice and Orwellian implications are positively sickening.

Everything we cherish about Canada is at stake here.

Our Prime Minister has chosen big business and partnership with a disgraceful regime over the welfare of our nation and its people. Appalling. What more in the name of profit?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T74VA3xU0EA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65f3q_Lm U&feature=related
www.stopspp.org/
www.stopspp.com/stopspp/
www.stopspp.ca/
www.spptruthwinnipeg.mb.ca/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4axRYJymHI&feature=related

Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 by Mahler

After the first three movements of this monster have thrown you around, made you cry or run for cover and then left you for dead, Mahler graciously inserts this "little Adagio" as sort of palatte-cleansing respite... but don't think you've reached dry land. The tempest takes on a different form - deeper, sadder and bigger than all the previous cacophony put together.

Mel Kadell

The greatest new light in my art universe! O! go to Mel Kadel's website and enjoy the lonely, sad, Dahl-ish magic tricks... what a mind and hand can fashion with a pencil!! I believe again, all tears and drinks and cynics be damned! The frightful month when I lived in L.A. (2004?), I made a pilgrimage of sorts to the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, home of a meticulously gathered collective of gifted, unusual artists. The owner, affable, gregarious Richard himself, was kind enough to show me his giant secret stash of Marcel Dzama drawings....Gadzooks!! a seemingly endless supply of old-children's-book magic! -- as if Dahl, Grimm and Seuss met at a public camping site and played Ouija board... or something like that. Richard later took me for sushi and told bad jokes all night long. We drank scotch and didn't talk about art. It was surreal. Anyway --- Mel Kadel... o my goodness I am happy to have eyes again. Thank you, angel! www.melkadel.com/

La Vie En Rose by Oliver Dahan, starring Marion Cotillard

Everything about this film is superb. The story of Edith Piaf was destined for immortalization in cinema -- swinging from tragedy to triumph as if clinging to the end of some tireless violent pendulum... it is no wonder her singing voice can rouse us or reduce us to tears - she lived the very limits of despair and elation. Marion Cotillard richly deserved the Oscar for this performance - she portrays Piaf from about age 17 until death, convincingly altering her posture, voice and face to suit -- it fills me with awe to watch actors of this caliber perform such transformations. And of course... the music... It is a fabulous mess, life. Don't you love it? Even when it kicks you and makes you cry?

The Eraser by Thom Yorke

Cedar twigs smoulder in lavender oil as I listen to you whisper about losing consciousness in that peculiar, menacing tone of yours. You computerize the air I am trying to fill with souvenirs from the natural world. Frantic, hypnotic rhythms, sleep-slurred murmurs from the lost and miserable. Yes, our dislocated age. A painful shoulder, jarred free from the cuddly joint. Freedom is as much a blessing as a condemnation. Oh Thom. You are Nietzsche's continuation, whether or not you know it or give a rat's ass. Your intention or the absence thereof has nothing to do with such an electric philosophical kinship. But where Freidrich calls on the Overman, you call on each of us to draw something heroic from Nothingness. It is hard to hear.

Elle Muliarchyk - photographer and model

Model. Sheesh. Does that even qualify as an occupation? Now now Sarah, play nice. This woman should definitely list "photographer and artist" before "model" on her resume.... Originally from Belarus, Elle came to New York to be a supermodel, but art came screaming into her mind and she had no choice but to obey its every command. Her unique twist is taking photographs in dangerous locations, sometimes the dressing rooms of posh boutiques, sometimes midnight forests in frightening suburban badlands... her photos conjure whole worlds and stories and emotions.... www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk

"How to Think About Science"

www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html

The Life and Times of George Sand, a biography by Frances Winwar

All I can say is, what a life. No fiction could equal her magnificent true tale.

Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther

One of my absolute favourite records of 2006. That's saying a lot, because frankly, that year was a wasteland, non? A rare top-to-bottom, warm, richly textured, satisfying, listenable, tuneful, (yes! TUNEFUL!) and original work. Bra-VO! midlake.net/

Quotes

Some fuel for your metaphysical fire. Shine bright fellow soldiers.
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson (quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural Speech)

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look
fear in the face. You must do that which you think you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The more I learn of physics,
. . . the more I'm drawn to metaphysics."

-- Albert Einstein

"I decided early to give my life to
something eternal and absolute. Not
to these little gods that are here today
and gone tomorrow, but to God who is
the same yesterday, today,
. . . and forever."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis: Vaughan Williams

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams

...a grave, surging, soaring piece for double string orchestra in the Phrygian mode that premiered in the grandeur of Gloucester Cathedral... I can only imagine what that must have sounded like...

El Perro Del Mar and Asa Arnehead

El Perro Del Mar makes poetic miniatures in pop music comparable to Chopin's poetic miniatures in piano music - as lovely as tender as fragile.... I wonder if she's short and 'consumptive' like poor Frederic was.... Asa Arnehead, the amazing Swedish artist who animated El Perro's video for God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get) is a perfect visual accompaniment to this small, delicate musical universe. The drawings are brilliant but the animations are even more so... the tiniest movements can disarm. Magic....

Sue Kwock Kim

A brilliant poet. Look up and be moved by "Leaving Chinatown" or her other Governor General's Award winning pieces... masterful. "Monologue for an Onion", what to say.... sheeeeeeesh.

The Sound and the Fury/Nobel Prize address: Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury and Nobel Prize address by William Faulkner

I didn't know very much about Faulkner before I dug right in to The Sound and The Fury, and now I plan on climbing the mountain of his output. This story didn't flatten me, but the writing did. It's like a feast of camera angles. He writes convincingly from mouths as disparate as a long-suffering black servant named Dilsey and a handicapped man-child named Benjy. Faulkner surprised everyone when he agreed to give an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1949. It is remarkable... a compass of sorts.

Amalia Rodrigues

Many thanks to Miranda for the tip. Amalia is the goddess of Portugese traditional fado music. Basically, this sounds like passionate weeping set to music. Yes please.

And pass the Wild Turkey.

Anne Sexton

So clear, fierce and potent. There is something so resonant for me in her work - the search, the struggle the aching, the frustrated urgency. Her throaty, dramatic-yet-leaden readings are absolutely captivating - like Burroughs but beautiful, sad. Images bloom so fast they overlap. Ruthlessly good. "God", "With Mercy For the Greedy", "Her Kind", "The Fury of Overshoes", "Jesus Walking" .... my new heroine of letters. Be wary of web sites with woefully inaccurate transcriptions.... Books, always trust the books.

Viola Concerto: William Walton

Viola Concerto by William Walton

Viola concerto? Really, viola? Really... by an English twentieth century composer ... and it is sublime... a bit Bernstein, a bit cinematic-film-score, a bit poetry.... massive at the end... with extraordinary melodic lines that blur major and minor modes... one phrase actually sounds like a bereaved widow moaning... enjoy!

The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This book is a tour-de-force eye-opener. I've described Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" as an epiphany-a-page. The same applies to Dawkins' latest book. I've read some of his science writing, but this, this.... It could not be more relevant, more brave, more informed. Controversial, but difficult to refute. Some passages had me raising my eyebrows, but more had me lean back in reluctant awe, "he's right...." Basically, he is calling for the complete and utter separation of church and state, in that religious issues should have absolutely no place in the laws of a civilized society, and instead, we should seek to define one moral ideology that frees and protects all citizens equally. And for this, his angle (being an evolutionary biologist by trade) is of course reason, rationality, empiricism. Judging from the world's current state, how can we move elsewhere? "Imagine no religion....."

Mind Wide Open: Steve Johnson

Mind Wide Open by Steve Johnson

Where do all sciences, arts and faiths meet to perform an elaborate ballet? The brain, of course, the mysterious, bewitching brain. Mind Wide Open is an expertly written, highly readable nugget on my favourite subject.

Winter's Tale: Mark Helprin

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Where have you been all my life Mr. Helprin. 'Peter Lake' is unforgettable... the most vivid character I've encountered in fiction since Holden Caulfield. So many moments from this book are still bright in my mind's eye.

Funny Face

Starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire; music of the Gershwins

Sigh.... supremely cheesy , gag-worthy, pie-eyed optimism - irresistibly charming!!You can't not love it... love her! love him! the dancing! the Disney-ness! and the woman who plays Ms. Prescott, what a dynamo! It contains one of my favourite lines in any film, ever, "everybody wants to be kissed, even philosophers." The cheery glorification of the American tourist probably has Parisian's rolling their eyes but who cares, I could watch Astaire dance for hours.

Les Choristes

A beautiful film about an orphanage in rural France with a foul tyrannical, beast as headmaster. At first the troubled lads aren't too impressed with a new staff member... but with patience and respect, he wins their trust, and -- starts a choir (what a magical premise!)... the music is heavenly (Rameau's O Nuit for example) and, though not a totally novel plot line, it was still an absolute pleasure to experience.... oh le petit Pepinot!

Richard Feynman lectures

I love this physicist as much as the linguist Steven Pinker. Sometimes when one's world view succumbs to the myopia of despair or apathy, listening to one of these lectures is like a cold dish of water in the face. Expansion! Wake up, Miracle! Boom, I come back to the wild realization that the natural universe is in the process of being unfolded like a magnificent flower or symphony. Its complex, elegant mysteries are being tirelessly investigated by physicists and philosophers who though still perplexed, nevertheless behave like excited little kids... as should we, as often as we can.... the universe is amazing. AMAZING. Time passes. History forgets us. Lets not forget to watch in wonder. Look up The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures : Richard Feynman.

Joyeux Noel

An invitation to great waves of beautiful emotion. This picture is the story of soldiers in the trenches during WWI who mutually agree to a cease fire for Christmas Eve, but they don't stop there.... I won't give it all away, but suffice it to say that I've expanded the mandatory Christmas Eve viewing repertoire by two hours. Move over Miracle on 34th Street. The best part is though - this event apparently actually happened.

The Pillowmaker: John Southworth

The Pillowmaker by John Southworth

Oh. Oh oh oh. Be good to yourself and walk into this beautiful landscape...
"Life is Unbelievable", "Eyes are the Flowers" and "River Rations" make me catch glimpses of gnomes, skip and click my heels in public parks, use my pink umbrella, fall in love with, toadstools, say prayers to raindrops and believe my house keys have magic powers...
I think John is Buster Keaton with a four-leaf clover in his pocket. If the world could drink of him once a day there would be no world wars. Forgive my hyperbole. This is my favourite record of this year, and I don't foresee anything topping it.
OH. oh oh oh. Ohhhh.

Who's Got Trouble: Shivaree

Who's Got Trouble by Shivaree

What Gwen Stafani would be if she hadn't hired a stylist, made that last joke of an album and married a rock star. She would be, yup, human, and therefore all her stories and music would wound us and lift us in a beautiful way, much like this record.

Gandhi

Ben Kingsley so completely disappears into the walking, talking, living essence of Gandhi that I couldn't tell what was historical footage and what was movie-making. Gandhi won India's independence from Britain with persistent non-violent protest, and though failing at his quest to unify India's internal warring factions, he unified them in reverence and grief - it was said that at his funeral the entire country was silent. They called him "Mahatma" which means "Great Soul". It is unbelievable what he endured for his faith in peace and change - unfathomable. And Einstein was quoted as saying that generations to come would scarcely believe that" such a man, in flesh and blood, ever walked the face of the earth."

The Singing Detective

This story, based on the writings of Dennis Potter, completely charmed me. Robert Downey Jr. is so good he makes a great script take flight into "even greater" territory. Keep off the booze Rob! You are too great! His character is a bitter writer hospitalized for a debilitating skin disease - from there you romp through his psyche literally, much like the films "Being John Malkovich" or "The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" - (quite possibly my favourite title ever.. but I digress.) Smart and Funny. I love it when those two shack up.

Leontyne Price

A voice from heaven.

Coming Through Slaughter: Michael Ondaatje

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje

Careful. When closing his books you will suffer, and suffer wildly. The aftershock is deep. Only because the book is gone and can't ever be new to you again. It's somewhat like the drawbridge closing after a waltz through the enchanted castle.

Dark Age Ahead: Jane Jacobs

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs

Urban planner, philosopher and Torontonian Jane Jacobs will scare you silly about the future of cities. Sometimes, while reading this cautionary tale, I wanted to drop everything and start an organic farm - jump off the grid altogether. But her chapters always propose simple effective solutions to the terrifying predicaments she describes, which prevents a book with this kind of title from being cynical and depressing. Smart smart smart.

Elbow (whole catalogue)

Sounds like a sleepy lovesick Peter Gabriel backed by Talk Talk (later days). I love this band. And the recordings sound so good it's creepy.

The Milk- Eyed Mender: Joanna Newsom

The Milk- Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom

.....one of the most unusual, beautiful voices I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. The closest approximation would be Lisa Simpson meets Melanie..... verse like fine scultpure - must have been a poetry major..... an American journalist called her part of the "New Weird America".... Did I mention she performs on the harp....

A History of Violence

I do. I admit it. I love Cronenberg. Just love him.... he examines human darkness without the filter of pity.... thus - not for the squeamish.... can't fathom how one could manage the lead role in this absorbing story (based on a graphic novel no less! ...must... find.. shelf space....) if anyone's up to this formidable task, it's Aragorn, err, I mean Viggo Mortenson... .he dips in and out of personalities with tiny detectable changes of vocal inflection, stance, expression... it's staggering..... acting with your eyeballs... I think I'm in love.

Neil Farber

www.richardhellergallery.com. I love this man's mind. He's now using weird gels and wax... so beautiful.... So L.A. is good for something, who knew? ..... kidding......

The Village

I thought this was going to be a typical creepy Hollywood thriller... camera tricks and some gore. It turned out to be a thought-provoking meditiation on the nature of truth, innocence, how to live nobly in the modern world's chaos and horror, and whether some lies are morally just. I still think about this movie. What a brilliant plot and premise. So smart, so sincere.

Charles Simic

When one of your writing heroes highly recommends another writer, you run to the library like your clothes are on fire. Well, if you're me you do. That is how I discovered Charles Simic. Poems like "A Book Full of Pictures", "The White Room" or "The Oldest Child" will chill your blood with their startling images. I'm particularly fond of one about a pair of shoes. But the finest discovery so far - (SO FAR!) is "To The One Upstairs". Holy Moses. Look out.

Necessary Secrets and On The Side of the Angels - The Journals of Elizabeth Smart

Necessary Secrets and On The Side of the Angels: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart

Ms. Smart - the unsung Canadian hero of poetic prose - records her struggle to write, her garden's progress, and the course of her tragic, doomed love affair with poet George Barker - with whom she had four children. She is the author of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". Sad... but lovely.... Reminds me of Plath a bit...

Trouble: Ray LaMontagne

Trouble by Ray LaMontagne

Otis Redding and Van Morrison pass each other walking home from different bars on the same lonely night... or something to that effect... Soulful, heartbreaking, lyrically pure. Unforgettable songs. Unforgettable voice.

Babette's Feast

Uptight pious Danes living on the coast of Jutland learn the value and redemptive power of PLEASURE.... thanks to a gifted master chef from Paris named "Babette". I laughed out of sheer delight - (which is particularly satisfying )- at the old woman trying not to sip her wine too eagerly, though she was clearly ready to bathe in it... The general's speech at dinner was so lovely it is now transcribed in my writing book. Resonant, timeless...

Herman Hesse

Have I gone on too much about this author?... perhaps... Demian and Siddharta were short and powerful works, but Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf has even meatier wisdom. It's clear he was lingering in the Eastern mysticism aisle of the library.... psychology too...Jung and Freud are all over the place in this work.... he proposes a person is a fractured kaleidoscope of souls and to insist on singularity is not only foolish but harmful.... he also has comforting theories about professional loners... good for the heart of a cabin dwelling nerd. Mozart also has a cameo....

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie: Jean Rhys

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie by Jean Rhys

In my Rhys-loving mind this book is not as perfect as Good Morning Midnight, but there is an episode with a pair of gloves that is worth the three hours you'll spend with this depressing story.

The Reprieve: Jean-Paul Sartre

The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre

In my quest to further plumb existentialism (without suffering the painfully dry Heidegger) I've been spending time with it's members' fiction and art.... Dostoevsky, Sartre, Kafka and Camus. Though Sartre is clearly working through his theories when he writes, and seems to be an intellectual before he's an artist (yes yes, send the hate mail) the writing is so masterful... so clear and fluid, even in the difficult formal structure he set out for himself in this book - simultaneous narrative - different events in different places unfolding in real time at the SAME time.... wow. The Reprieve is the second in a trilogy that starts with The Age of Reason and ends with Iron on the Soul....

The Vilde Affair: Martin Blumenson

The Vilde Affair by Martin Blumenson

...the unbelievable story of an underground newspaper "Le Resistance" created by some fearless French during the German Occupation in WWII. Oh the fuel this gave me for my musical.... I cannot describe my awe of it, my joy, other than to note that it is truly amazing what humans can do for love - of their country, their ideals, eachother. Truly amazing. As they were being tied to the execution posts they started to sing "Le Marseillaise" (sp?) That is courage. They chose death instead of ratting out their friends. Heroism in real life is so much bigger, bolder, fiercer than in the movies. Sylvette Lelou actually said to her prosecutor in court "You don't have enough bullets to kill me and my kind." Chills.

That Summer In Paris: Morley Callaghan

That Summer In Paris by Morley Callaghan

..sort of a memoir of this Canadian's life as a young writer starting out at the Toronto Star (very funny) and leaving for a summer to be in the thick of the Paris scene.... a lot of gossip, some name-dropping... insight into Hemingway and Fitzgerald's relationship... sometimes scandalous.... juicy you could say....

Some musique

2nd Mvmt - Beethoven's 7th Symphony
Goldberg Variations - Aria 1981 recording - Glenn Gould
New World Symphony - A. Dvorak
Senza Mamma - Callas singing an underloved Puccini one act opera. (i think it's Puccini) again, chillllls.

What the Bleep Do We Know

A film by William Arntz, Betsey Chasse and Mark Vicente. I went to this movie solo when I lived in Los Angeles last July. The juxtaposition still rattles me. Such insight in such a starving place. What the Bleep is a study of quantum physics as it relates to human free will, our place in the universe, and our concept of reality. It proposes that we are the *creators* of our reality- that we are not adrift in a objective, external reality.... The section on peptides (proteins that form the communicative building blocks of emotions and emotional reactions) is a revelation... it suggests that our emotional habits are not unlike addicitons-- our brains and the neuro-receptors/transmitters become accustomed to certain chemical cocktails (that emotions produce) if they happen regularly enough - i.e. being quick to anger, habitual negativity, etc... Happily, the same goes for positive reactions -- it's as if they merely need to be practised