Too Tired to Write Tonight....So I Am Dreaming About Sparkly Things Instead

Sparkly Things by amisslis featuring Rebecca Taylor dresses

Up in Arms: Another Inane Media Brouhaha

It has been a few months since I have felt such a burning need to go on a media-sparked tirade. I am going to keep this one short and vitriolic, as I do not wish to add too much to the sheer volume of words already misspent on the subject. Some of you may guess where this is heading. That is correct. I am talking about the wholly manufactured uproar over a photograph--either real, photoshopped, or just a case of 'bad lighting'--of Madonna's creepy arms. Personally, I do not give a fig, a farthing, or a f*** what the culprit is. Is she too thin? Does she work out too much? Was the image unethically altered? Was she, from a lighting standpoint, simply at the wrong angle at the right time? Stop the madness, please.
If we are to believe the whore mongers of the Internet Media Brigade, this is an issue of great and desperate importance--worth any amount of brain cells, eye-sight, and time needed to wade through the complexities to find the truth. In the midst of this absurd scramble to get the scoop--which has nothing to do with honour, professional ethics, or even basic journalistic ability--the bigger picture has been obfuscated: the subject at hand is arms, people, arms. No, not that kind. How silly you must feel if your mind automatically turned to such a declasse subject as weaponry, nuclear or otherwise. Suck it, North Korea: next to the freaky appendages of a celebrity, your attempts to cow America have gone sadly unnoticed this week. Better luck next time.
If you have not given Madonna's physique any thought, beyond laughing hysterically as you passed up the dangled carrot of an AOL or Yahoo headline, then kudos to you--you have a mind that can think independently of TMZ. Let me be clear here: I am not solely an ice-princess intellectual-type. I find pop culture fascinating and addicting, but only up to the point where I can still use my own brain. A little bit of Perez or People goes a long way: I do not buy into this lab-produced fakery wholesale.
The other half of this madness is, of course, being told what it is we should find interesting, important or relevant by people who have built entire careers on the fact that they like to gossip. It has been suggested, with some frequency over the last few years, that we should answer these increasingly obvious and annoying media blitzes with indifference to the current subject (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Speidi, the Gosselins and so on).It is a fine concept on paper but would only work if rational people ruled the world.
Madonna (and her arms-'o-horror)is just the fetish of the moment. The "story", though currently peppering the Internet like mines in a field, will soon be thrust aside to make way for the next fatuous, media-fueled obsession. Large gestures, unless done collectively by millions, are not likely to work. Doing your part on an intimate scale--simply refusing to click on the headlines or commenting on that sort of blog-article (even a negative comment is attention)--is probably the best that can be done, and is no small thing. Remember: By paying these hacks any heed, we allow mice to become Titans--it is no wonder they have come to rule over us all.

MISSING THE MAGIC....MOVIE MAGIC, THAT IS

I have loved Classic Cinema since my long-ago pre-teen years. I fell hard for its panache, mystery, and glamour. I quickly transferred that instantaneously-ignited passion into something concrete: I trained for the stage and, for a bit, actually trod those New York City boards. Being a writer is a considerably better fit for my creativity, love of language, and control-freak tendencies. Eventually, I started writing about Golden Age film and its shining stars. Although it only fills up a small part of my resume, cinema is one of my favourite article/review subjects.

It occurred to me, out of nowhere this evening, that I have not, of late, dedicated much thought, blog, or column space to this great passion of mine. I have so many balls up in the air that I let this one fall without quite realizing it: and I MISS it! I have been so busy with all manner of things personal and professional that I have not even watched a single old movie for...well, I was going to type "weeks" but, to be honest, it could be months. See, I am not even sure how long it has been.

Now that I have pondered the subject for an hour or two, I am beginning to realize how much impact the flickers have on my day-to-day life. Their visual impact has run the deepest. I have: been inspired to try Flapper hairstyles and 'forties silhouettes; picked up a handful of interesting retro pastimes;learned to thoroughly enjoy listening to crooners;nicely rounded out my vocabulary to include something less than the Queen's English;decorated a room based on a film set; become quite the quirky hostess.
Writing on classic cinema is my small way of giving back to an art form that has enriched my life in countless ways. I think that I am going to make a date with TCM this weekend, just the two of us....and some old friends.
The point to all of this? I promise to be a good girl and post a movie-friendly post at least once a week!

Reading List: Fictional Dreaming

I received an unusually compact little Daedalus Books catalogue in the post last week. Upon opening it, I was delighted to discover that it is a fiction-only edition. Like many creative writers, I cannot bring myself to read novels or short-stories when I am waist-deep in my own work. This poses no such problem when I am penning reviews or articles. As I am currently in the midst of two short-stories, I have imposed a fiction ban on my leisure reading. For the near-future, I will be indulging only in writing-craft books, biographies, and history.
This will not stop me from dreaming about some of the fabulous reads contained within that Daedalus Books catalogue.I am, at the moment, intrigued with the following.

1. 54 by Wu Ming (HARCOURT)This novel contains an epic mish-mash of threads. It is set in, naturally, 1954 and features, among many other things, Cary Grant (yes, that Cary Grant). Consider me interested.
2. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (HARVEST) I own a copy of this classic novel by one of America's foremost 20th-century poets. I think that I am overdue for a re-read, if only to erase the awful let-down that was the 2006 version of this novel (stick with the original 1949 film, if you must).
3. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (ALGONQUIN) Fires and Emily Dickinson? Another strange amalgam of seemingly unrelated concepts that I cannot get out of my mind.
4. The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa (FABER & FABER)This is a recent novel by one of my favourite contemporary writers. It is about a man desperately in love with one woman-in-many incarnations, across many years and continents.
5. The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E.M. Forster (SNOWBOOKS) I am not a fan of Forster's novels. They have never quite worked for me; I did not buy into the epic Merchant Ivory obsession. However, I am open-minded; there is little of value that I will not give a chance to, at least once. I have never read his short stories. This collection houses 6 of them. I am at least interested enough to check this out from the library.
6. The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery by Cordelia Frances Biddle (ST. MARTIN'S) This is set in 1842, with a resourceful and brave heroine at the center of the action: perhaps not very true to the times, but enthralling anyway.
7. A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (VINTAGE)While I can only take Hemingway's novels in small doses, I still find his compact, to-the-point writing immensely refreshing. 'Arms' reminds me of being 18, and getting caught up in the rather melodramatic love-story between the wounded soldier and resolute nurse. Brett Ashley of 'Sun' is, for me, a less tiring, though more artificial heroine. If you combine every female character in all of Hemingway's canon, you may just squeak by with one well-rounded woman.

A Home of Its Own

Awhile back, I wrote a few articles under the title of "A Small Press Life." This brief series explained the passionate philosophy that is held just behind my creativity. Initially, I planned to make it an ongoing, occasional feature of 1000 Follies. That changed when, in May, I realized that the concept deserved its very own, dedicated space. A Small Press Life can be found at: onetrackmuse.blogspot.com. Click HERE to go directly THERE.
This newer site is one of the reasons that I have not been posting as frequently as you are accustomed to: I have been putting the new blog into place. Well, it is almost there now. It is close enough to what I have envisioned in my head to, at last, tell you about it. ASPL is writer-centric, so there will most likely not be something-for-everyone there.
It is, generally, about the writing life and, specifically, about my own philosophy and creative-path. It is definitely more tightly-focused than what you find here. It is, and will be, full of reviews, inspiration, concept-appropriate sites, products,and professional opportunities. I will profile like-minded writers from the past as well as my contemporaries. There is also a space that will detail my own adventures through the mine-field of the writing life.
Even if you are not a writer, please check it out and, if you can, spread the word to all of your writer friends (and I JUST KNOW that you have them). Thanks!!!!

A Golden Example

Late last night, while watching television from bed, I realized that I can recognize episodes of "The Golden Girls" in a few seconds flat, without benefit of dialogue. This does not make me a specialized savant. It means, simply, that I have seen every episode of the 1980's classic too many times to count, or even estimate. I have been trying, half-heartedly, to write about this show for a few years. That's right, years. What I came up with never seemed quite right. I found no satisfaction in even the opening lines that I composed again and again. The timing was obviously not correct, was premature: the enjoyment and hope that the sitcom has given me over the years would not translate to the page. So, I did what writers do when a piece does not properly synchronize with our intentions. I set it aside, put it away, relegated it to the "maybe I will try again in a few months" corner of my brain.
I dusted the idea off a few months ago when, on my Mother's birthday, Bea Arthur died. I decided not to rush the process but, rather, let it ferment in my creative place; knowing that, this time, it would form itself into what it is meant to be, ripening when it is ready.
"The Golden Girls", which aired from 1985-1992, might seem, on the surface, a strange show to have such a strong cult following, especially among younger women. Yet obsessed we are. I was in Middle School when the show debuted. 24 years later, my mother is still younger than the characters and the actresses who played them. Indeed, my Grandmother was born after all but Rue McLanahan. So, why the fascination?
The generation that The Golden Girls represented was the first to stay young past the age of fifty. They did not have one leg in the grave just because their children were grown and their hair was grey. This is something that we are used to and comfortable with in the 21st-Century, but 25 years ago it was a revelation and wake up call to realize that sex appeal and physical desire do not have to wither. Today's magazines are full of young-looking-and-acting 60-year-olds. There are simply too many to name in this space: it is no longer singular.
"The Golden Girls", then, helped lead this particular revolution, which has been to every woman's advantage, even those of us who have since come of age. It is no secret that the 4 women of "Sex and the City", when put together, represent the varied and complex feminine nature. TGG thought of this angle 2 decades earlier: it is for this reason that the shows have often been compared, with either one or the other found wanting, depending on your viewpoint.
I am exactly who SATC caters to, exactly who they try so hard to draw in. Unfortunately, I see so little of myself in any of the characters that it ultimately fails. True, I am a writer. I love shoes, sex, and booze. Yet, the female bonding strikes me as cold, artificial, and not particularly funny. Not so with those wise-cracking ladies from Miami.
It took the girls a few episodes to find their niche. A cracking-wise gay pool-boy/housecleaner/cook wasn't necessary. Soon, he and the pool were gone, making it possible for the quartet of women to be more relatable, middle-class. They had issues galore, straight out of real-life: there was money trouble, job trouble, family trouble and, oh yes, mighty-mighty man trouble. During those famous late-night talks over cheesecake, they formed a bond tight as any flesh-and-blood family unit.
They put up with a lot but always pulled through, with their friendship and humour intact. Amorous relationships and sex remained highly important in their lives. They waded through much of the same romantic crap as younger women, yet they also had to put up with new sets of challenges. There is an odd comfort in knowing that screwed-up relationships with the opposite sex know no age boundary, that it is not just an affliction of the young. Age may bring wisdom but clear-paths of communication and enlightenment are not guaranteed. Even Sophia, the 80-plus widowed matriarch, was not above getting dolled up for a man; nor did her age offer shelter for a broken heart.
The 4 golden oldies are better, truer representations of the multi-faceted female psyche. Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia cover the bases of what it mean to be a woman.
Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak, played by Bea Arthur, is intelligent, logical, and strong. She is a smart woman who refuses to dumb herself down for a man, knowing that what she has to offer is plentiful and rich. Jokes about her inability, as a bookworm, to get a date for a Saturday night abound; however, she manages to attract her fair share of men. Indeed, she is the only one of the women (besides, briefly, Sophia) to remarry. She dealt with teen pregnancy (her own) and infidelity (her ex-husband's).
Blanche Devereaux, played by Rue McLanahan, is the voracious, not-so-superficial sex-Goddess. The southern belle spends most of her time wooing and winning men into her bed. She is the most obvious proof that sex-appeal can keep on ticking well past your forties; that a vibrant, fun life can be found at any age. While men are always at the forefront of her mind and actions, she ultimately puts friendship first. She is a widow who struggles to maintain the always- fragile relationships with her children and siblings. Her biggest struggle is that of self-image due, to aging and the lasting effects of a woman who always valued her looks above her not inconsiderable abilities.
Rose Nylund, played by Betty White, is the innocent, naive and good-hearted roommate. Known for extolling the virtues of her hometown life (the real St. Olaf, Minnesota)through painfully long-winded and fairy-tale-esque stories, Rose is always hopeful and considerate. This makes her the obvious butt of her friends' jokes. She enjoyed a long and ideal marriage with her late husband. She slowly learns to become a woman-of-the world, as she deals with dating and sex-outside-of-marriage for the first time. Rose suffered a health scare, when it was believed that she could be HIV-positive, and a goofy yet tumultuous relationship with long-time love Miles.
Sophia Petrillo, played by Estelle Getty, is Dorothy's Sicilian-immigrant mother. She is wily, cantankerous, blunt yet nurturing. She joins the household after leaving the nursing home that her daughter put her in after she suffered a stroke. She is the deepest source of wisdom and experience, often treating her roommates like naive children. Although in her eighties, she, too, enjoys a (more sporadic) dating and sex-life, even sharing a beau with Blanche at one point. She proves that the key to staying healthy and vital is curiosity and a strong-engagement with life.
TGG is an entertaining blend of the slapstick and the witty, the absurd and the topical. It covered all of the important issues of the day, without resorting to preachiness or sappiness. Tolerance and understanding exist at the very heart of the show's message. It is a wonderful, enduring example to all women that friendship is as important as family; that aging can be sexy and fun as well as graceful; and that, if you play it right, life can begin instead of end with menopause.
The Chef does not understand my obsession with these fictional women and their escapades. All that I can say in answer to his perplexity is that I see more of myself and my ways--my curiosity, adventurousness, intelligence, and love-of-life--in those 4 not-so-old ladies than I do in their cardboard-SATC counterparts who are suppose to be my avatars and role-models. Watching 60-somethings demand and take so much enjoyment from life, sans whining entitlement, is the best reminder that we get exactly one whirl-around on this planet: we had best do what we can with it.I think, occasionally, that they may have fuller lives than me, more impressive dance cards, a better-class of adventure. That is all I need to sit up and take action, to demand a little of that life-force for myself. Thanks, ladies, for being the best role-models a girl could have.

Things I Learned Over the Weekend....While I Wasn't Writing

1. 'Baby' sunscreen is just as effective as the regular kind.



2. My father makes his own Kimchee (and, no, we are not Korean).



3. That worrying is a useless diversion. It kills time, effort, and brain-cells. Usually, the things that we are worried about never reach fruition, or are vastly over-blown.



4. A chasm of 35 years can be crossed in 90 seconds.



5. The person who gave birth to me is still my best-friend.



6. It is never too late to have two parents.



7. Brothers, though they are born jack-asses, can be kind of cool.



8. I am still fascinated by bats.



9. Cincinnati is not entirely without its cultural benefits.



10. I am a really phenomenal daughter.



11. Going to the zoo is just as fun now as when I was a little girl. And I still have no interest in petting the goats, thank you.

Photos: Top:"Please,dahlings, no photographs!" Bottom: A stork.

Montreal-Wednesday, 20 September 2006

I am finally getting back to my Untitled Fiction Serial. From this point, I will try to post 1-2 installments a week. In order to make it easier to recognize, it now has its own logo, designed by artist KM Scott. Look for the croissant! Part III follows below.

I probably shouldn't tell you that I am naked as I write this. If I limited that confession to just one line, they would likely edit it out. I will not give them the option: to take the earthiness out of this article would be to gut it clean.

A faint mist has followed me around Montreal for two days,enveloping the length and breadth of my body like a cold, dank cloak. Clothes, after being exposed to the unseasonable chill, to the semi-liquid air, feel like pin-pricks of ice against my skin, uncomfortably crystalline. The overcast afternoons possess an evening-quality, bringing a night-sense with them, hours before the sun sets. My wanderings have been weather-truncated, are temporarily limited to the near-environs of the hotel. In the few ripe hours of my days, I have become intimately acquainted with a lovely stationers, the gift shop of the Museum of Archaeology & History, and a thimble-sized tea-room. For 3 days, I have gamely resisted purchasing dainty sheets of paper and pinned butterflies, throwing all of my sensual indulgence into downing small, steaming cups of Lady Grey tea.

My rainy-day uniform, so pointedly girl-columnist chic, is relaxing fire-side, where I tossed it immediately after closing my door: mint-green tam, purple galoshes, khaki trench-coat. I wish that I could regale you with the romanticisms of a raging wood-fire and pungent smoke, the sharpened dagger-point of a No. 2 pencil and a lined moleskine, a chipped glass and a bottle of Scotch. Instead, I have been tapping away, dictating my thoughts straight into this electric beast, no booze, no paper, no bonhomie.

I am trying to live up to the dreamy, intellectual writer's notions that are always fermenting in the depths of my brain, somewhere between imagination and reality. I discovered, practically as soon as my feet hit the Canadian ground, that it is just as time-consuming here as it was at home. I get bored with the whole endeavour rather quickly. If I truly had the stuff to play a continual game of dress-up, I would be an actor, not a writer. I can dream bursting Technicolor dreams of being Edna St. Vincent Millay, but the living of it is proving tedious.

Yet it is because of Edna St. V of M that I am here, in this foreign-familiar place, attempting to be a writer of fascinating dimensions. She was sent to Paris in 1920 to write for an American publication, a girl-abroad for the very first time. Not even a girl, really, but a woman, fancy-free, digging her heels in, refusing to take-on grown-up responsibility. When you live that wildly, perhaps you do not need to be an adult. Whoever she was--however she was--she was asked to write mildly ridiculous things, to write below herself, to infuse the mundane with her particular genius-disease of vivid, intellectual snarkiness and beautiful syntax: whereas I am probably being asked to write above myself, to learn and sweat my way into some kind of superior capability that someone else believes I possess. Because I, too, live wildly, love words, and wish to sit at some foreign table-side listening to the crazy world flow by, I took this job.

I have, thus far, been forced to shun tables and sidewalks, parks and walkways, due to this damnable weather. I get dressed, circle between the neighborhood shops, and take too much tea. I take tea to go, drinking the hot liquid as I stalk the aisles of that Stationers, lightly thumbing striped paper, dotted paper, floral paper. I take tea in, sitting at a different beaten-up table every time. I doodle things in my notebooks, write stubs of sentences, phrases, descriptives: I find it hard to write in earnest with so many staring eyes, lest I come off as a poseur, someone with nothing better to do than sit idly in a tea-shop writing unimportant,hollow things. My professional attitude is not quite invincible; too many people sit in public writing in notebooks or tapping away on laptops.

Until the weather breaks, clears and rises again, I have many empty hours to fill, many hours to be spent indoors recovering from the mist, getting warm. I expected to be driven indoors for a great Montreal winter, in a few months' time when snow drifts pile up man-high. Instead, I have a blazing electric fire. It lacks ambiance but its heat is potent enough to hit the backs of my thighs, the small of my back, my buttocks, as I stand across the room at the full-length windows. They are street-level, flush with the passers-by,the kind that you can open wide and walk-through, into another world. I push the green velvet black-out curtains aside, winding the fabric across my breasts, my stomach, my hips.

In the gloaming, my eyes alight on the inky-wet pavement, glowing street-lights, and sea of slowly-moving people. When I am awake, this street is never empty, its sounds never dull to anything lower than a murmur or buzz. I am staring out at a moving swirl of people, naked behind the curtain. I wonder how many people see me, if they are focusing on anything but what is at their feet. I am bereft of clothes due to laziness, due to the same mid-evening inertia that has beset the tourists outside my windows. I let the curtain fall, and I realize something.

I turn towards the reading light, towards the radiant warmth of the fireplace that allowed me to remove the coat, hat, boots and, for a few moments, my sense of professional obligation. I cannot, of course, sight-see in inclement weather. I cannot become acquainted with the wider-wonders of Montreal. I cannot write ecstatic articles about places that I have not yet seen. I can ,however, let loose my empathy for the everyday; casting my net lightly across these quaint neighborhood streets, I have been able, for fleeting moments, to glimpse its beating heart.

"When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food."-Desiderius Erasmus

Oops! I Think I Forgot to Tell You.....

....that I will be on holiday for a few days while my Dad visits from out-of-state. I will be posting again on Sunday. Take care and have a very lovely few days!

Ronald Colman Appreciation Society

I will begin this post with a disclaimer. If you do not use Facebook, then you will not be able to fully appreciate what follows. While that saddens me--truly, I feel your pain--I will continue on with my intended subject matter with no compunction whatsoever.

No intelligent person would deny that Facebook is the rancid breeding ground to some acutely ridiculous user-generated 'groups'. Some are flat-out offensive. I believe that those should be treated as one would treat an objectionable television show: don't look at it. Go look at something else, leaving it available for those who enjoy it. There is, however, one group that I have, for some months now, been steadily falling in love with: the Ronald Colman Appreciation Society.

It is swell, it is swoon-worthy, it is visually stunning: it is every type of superlative wrapped into one potently suave package. Ronald Colman is in the top three of my (imaginary) HOLLYWOOD VOICES CANON (along with Fredric March and Claude Rains, but that is the subject for another piece). The RCAS is home to more than 600 Colman photographs, many of them quite rare. It is run by avid fans and collectors, so the passion and dedication comes from the right place. It is simply a venue that allows one to share thoughts, experiences, opinions and memorabilia with like-minded others. As such, it is a small but fantastic little niche of the Facebook community.

The RCAS has definitely reminded me why, when I was new to old movies, I found Colman so appealing as an actor. I initially discovered hims as the handsome half of the romantic on-screen Colman-Banky team. There was so much to discover from there, as his talent manifested itself in so many directions. I read James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" at around this time. I was soon thrilled to realize that Colman played Robert Conway in the classic 1937 film adaptation.I may be a movie fanatic, but I am definitely a read-first, watch-after type of girl. I prefer to paint my own pictures, using the author's words and my imagination. Once that has been set in place, it is only with great difficulty that a film or an actor can supersede my peculiar inner vision. The very idea of thinking of an actor while reading the book is anathema to me. Yet, Ronald Colman is one of the few actors that I associate with a novel. That novel is not "Lost Horizon".

By the time that I watched "A Tale of Two Cities" (1935), I had already read the Dickens book twice; my current tally stands at 4. Even though I followed my own protocol, Ronald Colman is indelibly fused with Sidney Carton. From the moment that I open the front cover, Colman is in my mind. He leaps into my psyche if I so much as think about the book. His portrayal seems more of an inhabitation than an impersonation: it is one of the most fully realized and deeply ingrained in all of cinema. This single achievement--hitched to those remarkable looks, that voice--is reason enough to have a Facebook page devoted to the man.

If you have access, I highly recommend that you stop by the Ronald Colman Appreciation Society and become a fan. You can connect and share with others or, if you are like me,you can simply flip through the magnificent gallery of photos.

Photo Courtesy of Ronald Colman Appreciation Society (Helen Lallo).

R.I.P. Mrs. Slocombe-Technicolor Hair Will Never Recover

If I Were....a Flower-Child (circa 1967)

I would:

1. Seriously cut back on showering and compensate by dousing myself with patchouli-scented unguents.
2. Shop at second-hand stores to find the wildest, mix-and-match old clothes imaginable. Prairie skirt and Edwardian blouse and man's striped vest? Groovy!
3. Let my actions follow my ethics and protest things that bother me.
4. Be a crunchy-granola vegetarian because, hey, there was no other kind then!
5. Spend way too much time listening to music at The Fillmore.
6. Live in a rambling old Victorian with a rotating crew of approximately 13 roommates, many of whom I do not know.
7. Wear flowers in my hair.
8. Have dirty, dirty feet, from never wearing shoes.
9. Sleep with the band (s).
10. Experiment. Ahem.
11. Grow my own food.
12. Paint daisies and peace signs on my face and body.
13. Join a commune.
14. Make things with my hands. Preferably tie-dyed things.
15. Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.