When We Swam

Jury Duty

2012-02-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

The Situation or Pauly Shore?

I have been doing jury duty (peer assessment, arts sector styles) for the past week and much like my time in grad school I find myself preoccupied with everything but the texts I should be reading. Such as making a pot of Minnesota wild rice soup. Or watching episodes of Downton Abbey. Or wondering what's up with solar flares? Or trying to figure out what happened to that old moustachio in the Backstreet Boys, followed by wondering when he turned 40? Or asking what is up with Cee Lo and this cat? Or trying to figure out WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY??

Birthday Time

2012-01-31T18:15:00.001-08:00

My 32nd birthday is just around the corner. I'm not the biggest fan of parties, hosting things, or drawing attention to myself, but there are a few things I always (almost always) do to make the day memorable (most revolving around food).

1) Don't work! This is a no-brainer. Why would you go to work on your birthday? If my birthday falls on a weekend, as it does this year, I take the Friday off!

2) Sleep in. There is nothing more decadent in the winter months than this.

3) Go out for a decadent brunch. Eggs, bacon, hollandaise, strong coffee.

4) Follow this up with breakfast-dessert: doughnuts or cupcakes.

5) If it happens to be a sunny day, bundle up and go for a refreshing bike ride.

5) Regardless of the weather, go to a matinee. This is my favourite thing in the whole world to do. Eat popcorn and Junior Mints. I'm thinking A Dangerous Method.

6) Buy a bunch of favourite magazines and read them while lying on the floor and listening to records.

7) Go out for an amazing dinner - for me this usually means Italian. Warm, comforting pasta, red wine, burrata, olive oil, cracked pepper....amazing.

A Place Called Manitoba

2012-01-17T22:02:00.001-08:00

Suggested snacks for a snowy weekend.

2012-01-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

The temperature has dropped and, much to my enjoyment, our rainy city has briefly become a snowy one. Here are some of my suggested snacks for a cold afternoon, made even better with a sleepy Muppet curled up by your side.

- Clementines and a mug of hot cocoa
- Sweet and salty nuts roasted with rosemary and chipotle
- Popcorn popped with coconut oil with Romano cheese, salt, and pepper
- Dried apple chips from a farm in Chilliwack with a cup of chai
- Trail mix with peanut butter cups
- Medjool dates, pear slices, goat cheese with honey
- Tangerine sorbet, bubbly water, and gingerbread cookies
- Slice of toast with butter, sea salt, and blackberry jam
- Cream cheese pound cake with earl grey tea

'80s Classic

2012-01-12T17:14:00.000-08:00

Adorable Elisabeth Shue + The Crystals:

Listen to this:

2012-01-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

You won't regret it.

Rudy says...

2012-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Eat your carrots.

Sunday Music

2011-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

The great Lev Oborin playing Tchaikovsky's Song of the Lark from "The Seasons":

Style Icon: Diane Keaton

2011-12-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

I know, I know - it's been said: Diane Keaton is the style icon of all style icons.

Her style is ridiculously well-documented, adored, blogged about incessantly.

But I've been watching this Woody Allen documentary:

and again, it all comes flooding back again - the lovely masculine sensibility,

the propensity for wearing vests, the hair:

She's just so great. I stand in front of my closet in the morning and think, "What would Diane wear?" I can't wait to read her memoir.

So here are some pictures of her and Woody, being cute.

Hey look, Tony Roberts is totally secretly in love with her too! I mean, who wouldn't be?

Turtlenecks, good times:

Just being generally adorable with a tennis racket. She's such a great physical comedienne, Woody can barely stand it:

Plaid shirt & blazer (incidentally, my go to look for Winter 2011):

Classic trenches:

Irresistible, even in scrubs:

What a great first date tie:

Hand-holding, corduroy:

No one else could pull of this particular haircut without looking stupid:

The reason I have bangs:

DK forever.

Harry

2011-12-16T18:26:00.001-08:00

Toddy Time

2011-12-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

I can't stop drinking Hot Toddys.

Whiskey, hot water, honey, lemon, yes.

Meet Old Lady Emrick

2011-11-16T22:31:00.000-08:00

This is Julie Emrick. She is Felicity's first and sort of best friend when she moves to New York. She could also be called The Friend You Make Your First Year of College Because You Are Desperate for New Friends, otherwise known as The Friend You Knew, That Time, In College. Or, you could call her The Soulful College Student in Search of Her Biological Mother That Likely Will Reject Her. Julie also carries the titles of Backstabbing Ho That Seduces Your Unrequited Crush and Mediocre Singer-Songwriter/Poor Man's Jewel. To top it off, Julie suffers from Andrea Zuckerman Syndrome, a condition that is caused by late twenties actresses weirdly being cast as eighteen-year olds on teen dramas. We could also call this, Who Are You Trying to Kid?

The Hair

2011-11-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

A lot of people said a lot of things about the great Felicity hair debacle of Season 2. The cut was blamed for the show's sudden ratings drop, despite other, more legitimate contributing factors. It has since become an oft referred to pop culture moment signifying poor decision-making. As a Felicity enthusiast, I understand that in the moment, Felicity was not thinking rationally. And I'd like to argue, for the record, that watching Keri Russell grow out the unfortunate haircut on TV was in fact more unfortunate than the cut itself.

Exhibit A: Pre-cut curl-a-riffic shampoo ad hair:

Exhibit B: Post-cut:

I personally wouldn't have gone for the middle part, but it's really not that bad.

Exhibit C:

Awkward mid-length growing-out stage with strange extra-long mullet tendrils. I understand that following the haircut backlash the impulse would have been to grow it back as fast as possible, but did she need to neglect maintenance cuts to even out the length? Did she need to apply so much hair mousse? This cut is the real travesty.

Gold

2011-11-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

Heart of Gold never gets old.

What?

2011-11-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

When did Andrea Zuckerman turn 50 years old?

When young actors grow up to play awkward stoner dudes who hallucinate animal relationships.

2011-11-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

In the new FX series Wilfred, Elijah Wood plays a depressed, formerly suicidal man who has a crush on his neighbour and is left to take care of her dog, Wilfred. While everyone else sees Wilfred as a dog, Wood sees him as a man dressed in a ratty dog suit. The dog man somehow acts as a misguided mentor to Wood, teaching him lessons through extreme and compromising situations. It's a real dude romp.

Based upon my interests in mini doughnut pans and dogs dressed like pin cushions, you can assume that dude shows generally aren't my cup of tea. But this one was at a disadvantage from the start - it stars Elijah Wood. And that guy is the worst.

I know, everyone loves Frodo. He's got soft eyes and an aw shucks face. But do you remember the time he barfed off the side of a boat in Flipper? Admittedly, this opinion is in no way based upon his acting skills. It might, however, be partly based on his squeaky voice.

Goblin

2011-11-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

According to my husband, resident expert in prog rock, "Goblin is like a weird cross between CAN and Hawkwind and Vangelis." All I know is I like to bust out the Goblin rock around Halloween times:

Sidenote: If you haven't seen Phenomena, you are really missing out. Pop that collar, Jennifer Connelly.

Felicity Porter: Style Icon?

2011-10-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

Does Felicity Porter's wardrobe of baggy sweaters, mom jeans and Converse sneakers qualify her for Style Icons status? "1998 Laura" says: of course! It is a testament to how dramatically fashion changes that when Felicity aired I thought she was the epitome of college cool. She dressed like everyone my age did then - preppy and cozy with a few remnants of grunge and a sprinkling of plaid:

75% of Vancouver hipsters have since adopted her messy topknot hairdo.

Even now, watching Felicity hoist her leather backpack to her shoulders makes me want to go to the library and think about shit.

Stalking in the Pre-Social Media Era

2011-10-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

If we are to learn anything from the first season of Felicity, it is that our title character is a total creep. Instead of spending her first few months in New York consuming bad coffee and egg sandwiches at the local bodega or buying turtlenecks at the Gap, Felicity searches for new and more embarrassing ways to intensify her obsession with Ben. These days it is pretty easy to be a nondescript creep, what with all these social networking sites at our disposal. I imagine if Felicity was stalking Ben today she would visit his Facebook profile multiple times every hour, refreshing for new status updates and Google-mapping his whereabouts. She would learn that he liked basketball, Jack Kerouac, and The Wire, and would study up on all these subjects before approaching him. She would see what events he was attending and promptly say she was attending them as well, just to play it cool when they ran into each other at said event. She would post coy comments on his wall and he would likely respond in a friendly manner and she would misinterpret this as a reciprocation of feelings. This dance would go on for several weeks until Ben was tagged in a photo with Felicity's new big city best friend, Julie.

Unfortunately for Felicity she was chasing Ben in 1998 and based upon her bad pants and her continuous use of a tape recorder, I suspect Felicity wasn't that adept at using the internet. As a result, she has to stalk Ben the old fashioned way, which means: following her unrequited crush to New York; taking a job at the school admissions office to break into her crush's confidential file to read his college application essay; finding out someone has requested access to her college admissions essay (which, in typical creeper fashion, is written about Ben), and so wrongfully assumes her crush is as creepy as she is and sends him a copy of her essay in the mail only to try and commit a federal crime by stealing the mail back when she realizes her mistake; and "helping" her crush by rewriting one of his essays without telling him and then acting surprised when he is accused of cheating because he is ridiculously good-looking and his professor does not believe he is capable of intellectual ideas. Nice work, Porter.

Girl has no boundaries!

Mambo!

2011-10-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

I had been looking forward to seeing the Vancouver Opera do West Side Story for weeks now, thinking how incredible it would be to watch the musical unfold live on stage. And while last night's performance was entertaining - the colour, the famed choreography, Leonard Bernstein's wonderful score - I found my mind often wandering to the original film, a movie which I admittedly watched with religious fervour as a kid.

Perhaps something about this live show seemed too operatic, too stiff, too performed? One of the greatest strengths of the 1961 film, in my opinion, is how visceral it feels, even fifty years later.

The performances are incredible (seriously, how can anyone compete with Rita Moreno?)

Time to watch it again.

Tough Love: Felicity Porter vs. Meghan Rotundi

2011-10-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

Some might say that Meghan was a too hard on Felicity at what was, admittedly, a confusing time for our young heroine: she was far away from home and her helicopter parents, aimless, directionless, mopey, and sexually deprived.

Living in a small UNY dorm room with a total stranger is difficult at the best of times, even more so if you have a penchant for making confessional tapes of your emotional trials for your friend "Sally." In this clip, Felicity begs Meghan to take her out as a diversion from obsessing about Ben:

But what if Meghan's hostility and disdain was exactly what Felicity needed? Meghan was the goth Oscar to her preppy Felix. Through Meghan, Felicity learned to accept people with piercings, to deliver semi-witty rebuttals to personal insult, and to break it down on the techno dance floor. She learned, most importantly what it means to be entrusted with a secret box, even when the contents of said box are disappointingly existential.

Ben vs Noel, otherwise known as idolizing your father or dating your brother.

2011-10-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

What is a coming of age drama without a love triangle? For those of you unfamiliar, young Felicity Porter moves to New York to ~~be with~~ follow Ben Covington, a dreamy swimmer that she was in love with in high school. In a dramatic moment at the end of her high school graduation, Felicity reads some charming sentiments in her yearbook from the resident hot guy and breathlessly asks him where he will be going to college. He is attending the fictional University of New York and in her desperate and stalker-esque state (more on that in a future post) she promptly abandons her plans to attend Stanford and packs her corduroys and Dep gel and heads to the big city.

Here's the thing. She doesn't even know Ben, nor does he really know her. He's kind of distant and brooding and Felicity interprets that in the classic 18 year old girl way: A) This guy needs me to save him; B) A beautiful mystery must lie behind those sorrowful eyes; and C) How can I use my talents of overachieving to somehow garner the love of this man? This is where Ben falls under the category of "Daddy Issues." Throughout the series Felicity's relationship with her parents is strained, both from her mother's desire to be an independent woman and her overbearing father's wishes that she gain some sense of direction that is not "bad student painter that has inappropriate sex in the school art studio." Papa Porter is a doctor himself, and Felicity was on that career path until she chased Ben into a life of youthful indecision. Ben is as equally confused about what he wants to do with his life but inevitably chooses to become a doctor, creating a massive emotional collision of family, futures, and love for Felicity. In one fell swoop, Felicity goes from trying desperately to be her father to being in love with the man that is becoming her dad. Devastating, right?

Then there is Noel. Big friendly graphic designer with moppy hair Noel Crane. He is the resident advisor in Felicity's dormitory, whose nice guy face is constantly providing advice while secretly pining for her. A relationship eventually begins between the two, and Noel proves to be sensitive and steadfast, a trustworthy and caring partner destined for marriage and crossword puzzles. He is also, sorry to say, painfully boring. But boring is stable and dependable, and this absence of sparks does not prevent he and Felicity from having a few steamy moments together. Even though there is a peculiar and awkward drunken hookup between the two later in the series, the Noel/Felicity dynamic is predominantly about Noel being Felicity's sounding board, providing sensible advice when the giant curls on her head cause her to do neurotic and outlandish things. This reliable relationship is one comparable to siblings, with Noel playing the role of a big brother who is responsible for looking out for his little sister, offering guidance but not forcing directions upon her. If anything, the distinct lack of sexual tension between the two solidifies this analysis.

So who does she choose? In the end (here is a spoiler, nine years later), she picks Ben, the borderline alcoholic pre-med student who has fathered an illegitimate child. And what happens of Noel? Well, he dies. But don't worry, this gets reversed in a totally random series of time travel episodes. We'll get into that later.

A New Version of You

2011-10-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Kim and I have talked for a long time about how to fully capture the epic social/cultural/political/historical significance of Felicity on this blog. We agreed, of course, that the full spectrum of Felicity-ness can't be distilled to a single post. For today, I'm going to start with the basics: the epic significance of a single word within the Felicity lexicon of repressed emotions. And that word is: "Hey."

"Hey" is the means by which Felicity characters express the full spectrum of their 20-something angst. "Hey" is used not only as an alterative to "Hi" or "Hello" but as a universal signifier for everything from "I'm hungry" to "I love you." It stands in for all the pent-up feelings that college kids don't yet know how to express.

In this classic scene, observe how "Hey" breaks the ice between remorseful Felicity and Ben the cuckold as he furiously dribbles his basketball:

Couple this loaded word with Felicity's tendencies toward stalking and confessional honesty (See Season 1, Episode 1: "Don't do it Felicity! Don't tell Ben you followed him to New York!") and you have a perfect foundation for four years of TV gold. Hey.

Wise, Helpful Words

2011-10-21T17:13:00.001-07:00

Breathe it in

2011-10-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

We are currently enjoying a wonderful autumn here on the West Coast, one that makes up for our lackluster summer. Beyond the apple picking and the pumpkin patches, there is so much to look forward to this season!

Molasses - The colder air always makes me think of molasses and the warm spicy treats it creates. This season is the perfect excuse to begin a healthy gingerbread diet that lasts at least until the spring.
Knits, in particular bulky scarves and wooly socks.
Laurie Colwin's Homecooking and Joan Didion's Blue Nights.

Buttermilk - Oatmeal pancakes, biscuits, scones, cake! That sour smell of buttermilk is perhaps one of the most intoxicating aromas around.
Leaves, leaves, leaves!

Boots, with everything.
Mittens, in particular my new green leather pair. I don't care what all you glove lovers say, mittens just make sense.
Homemade apple maple butter.
Nature walks that include family dogs but do not require hiking shoes.

Speaking of the 90s

2011-10-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Before we get all dreamy about the return of the nineties, perhaps we should take a moment to acknowledge some of its more embarrassing and disheartening moments, in particular the period known as The Late Nineties. There has been much brouhaha about the reappearance of delicate plaids, neon, and leather booties, but have we already forgotten about the strange infantilization of teens (baby blues and pinks, tiny tees, pacifiers?), pleather pants, metallic makeup, twisted hairstyles, butterfly clips, The Rachel, and blond streaks? Rave pants? Ranch dressing, California Cuisine, and wraps? B4-4 and Darude's Sandstorm (and the one dude that dances to it at the club)?

Aren't they just adorable? Full-denim ensembles were just the dreamiest.

Fergie! Pre-Humps!

Fatboy who?

No really, this was a hit show!

Then there's this gem that sneaked in in the last year of the nineties:

Now, don't get me wrong, you can still find a few winners from the latter half of the decade that are always worth revisiting, but I'm not quite ready to embrace a complete nineties revival just yet. Perhaps the six seasons of Beverly Hills 90210 that just came on Netflix will help make this transition a bit easier.

The Horror!

2011-10-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

I feel like the label "classic" horror film is tossed around a lot. But what makes a horror film a classic? Can films lose their classic status over time? Where the horror genre is concerned, does aging only make a film better, and is it because the film is tied to the delicious feelings of childhood fright? Are we early 30somethings more likely to forgive and accept the dated aspects of '80s horror films because they function as symbols of our '80s childhoods?

These are the questions I pondered during a recent viewing of Poltergeist (1982) with a group of friends. As I have written before, I love horror films. I am susceptible to all the trappings of the above hypothesis, and unearthing the horror "classics" of my childhood for second, third or fourth viewings is a beloved ritual that brings me back to cultural moments absent from present-day reality: kitchen appliances, fashions, hairstyles, and a kind of suburban environment that has vanished, but was a vivid part of my growing up.

Poltergeist opens with a long-shot of a residential development in California. If you're my age, you will remember these sorts of houses and stationwagons, semi-Tudor architecture with split-level floor plans and sunken, carpeted living rooms. You probably had a comparable amount of Star Wars memorabilia in your childhood bedroom as that of the Freeling children. Mom and Dad Freeling (played by JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson) have three kids (mom stays home, dad is the affable but not too bright realtor responsible for the development of the surrounding area). They're cool - they read books on Reagan, but smoke pot while doing so:

Funny, then, that parents like these, who seem so laid back, and who respond initially to supernatural forces in their home with an excited curiosity rather than fear,

would have such tightly-wound, freaky children. Their eldest daughter suffers from the usual teen angst and predilection towards secret phone calls, but their youngest kids express more serious neuroses. Robbie, the middle child, is fearful of both the (admittedly terrifying) life-size clown which occupies a rocking chair in his bedroom,

and the massive tree which stands menacingly outside his bedroom window. He is also afraid of thunder.

Carol-Ann, the youngest and most angelic-looking of the three kids, suffers from being unusually calm and having perfect deadpan comic timing: her "They're here" announcement is a classic horror line within a classic horror film. Unlike her brother, she is eager to engage with the poltergeist in the TV,

and is seemingly unscathed when she emerges, re-birthed into the world covered in pink goo from the supernatural realm.

There are clear retribution themes here for the callous displacement of a sacred Indian burial site, whose occupants come rising out of a muddy backyard swimming hole at the end of the film, threatening to swallow poor Mrs. Freeling.

There is also a great scene where the tree Robbie fears so intensely drives home the "don't fuck with nature" theme by attempting to eat him:

Although a nerdy parapsychologist:

and a spiritual medium* intervene and the poltergeist is eventually cleansed from the house, the Freeling home collapses on itself in an electrical storm of supernatural energy during the film's third act.

So, has adult cynicism and exposure to more recent, trickier horror films (I have a particular hatred for "a-ha" style horror of the '90s and '00s, where the plot of a film turns out to be a manifestation of the protagonist's disturbed psyche. See Shutter Island for the ultimate in this sort of manipulation, coupled with gratuitous CGI) diminished my love of Poltergeist? Does it remain a "classic" after all these years? It certainly does to me. In fact, I plead with all you eager young filmmakers, don't remake this film. A story like this belongs exactly where it was first created, in the '80s.

*We can't possibly be expected to take the character of Tangina seriously, can we?

JoBeth Williams seems on the verge of giggles as Tangina asks everyone to gather round for story time and then cradles the woman's head in her talon-like hands. When she puts on her tinted aviators before walking toward the light, it is the film's best comic moment.

Writing Rules

2011-10-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just came across this great article in the Guardian, in which writers offer advice on their craft. A few of my favourites:

Roddy Doyle: "Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide."

Helen Dunmore: "Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them but the life they need."

Geoff Dyer: "Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of formwhich conform to clichés of expectation."

Anne Enright: "The first 12 years are the worst.", "Only bad writers think their work is really good."

Richard Ford: "Marry someone you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.", "Don't write letters to the editor. (No one cares)."

Jonathan Franzen: "It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction."

Esther Freud: "Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life."

PD James: "Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it."

Elmore Leonard: "Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'"

Joyce Carol Oates: "Unless you are writing something very post-modernist - self-conscious, self-reflexive and 'provocative' - be alert for possibilities of using plain familiar words in place of polysyllabic 'big' words."

Red!

2011-10-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

I can't stop thinking about red dresses lately, but haven't yet found anything as lovely as these two, from my two favourite collections of the Spring 2012 season.

1) Trussardi:

2) Yigal Azrouël:

See It: Lost Bohemia

2011-10-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago, I raved about Bill Cunningham New York. While reviewing my options for the upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival, I couldn't have been more thrilled to discover Lost Bohemia, a tragic yet inspiring documentary about the residents of Carnegie Hall (Cunningham among them) who were evicted from their homes a few years ago. Directed by one of its own, Josef Birdman Astor, the film chronicles the last days of the Carnegie's residents, whose photography, painting, music and dance studios were gutted and replaced by office cubicles. The fact that most of those evicted were in their eighties and nineties and had resided at Carnegie Hall for thirty years or more, takes this atrocity to a level far beyond historical, cultural or architectural injustice. Get yourselves to a theatre to see this film.

No guilt, just cinnamon.

2011-09-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

Okay whatever, it's autumn and so I listened to this and ate a Starbucks breakfast sandwich and drank a pumpkin spice latte the other day. It was delicious and I felt nauseous after.

This season is the bestest.

They say every man goes blind in his heart

2011-09-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of '90s in the air these days. Case in point, I spent last Sunday afternoon at a skate park.

I'm noticing backpacks, long sleeves, roomy silhouettes, long hair, denim on denim, velvet, plaid. I recently saw Kurt Vile and Thurston Moore play a show at Vancouver's Rickshaw Theatre, and it was like travelling through a wormhole to 1994:

That old '90's feeling, combined with the sudden emergence of autumn (ah yes, autumn), has me dusting off Mazzy Star albums,

and contemplating Hope Sandoval's place among this blog's Style Icons:

The middle part, the fur collar - perfection. She's probably wearing a choker under that coat.

SAXOPHONE!

2011-09-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, this video blew my mind:

Parfait.

2011-09-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

Not sure if you recognize where this is, but it's a little ol' city called Paris. It's in France. You remember France, right? That's where Carla Bruni lives.

I am not a person of extremes. I am generally moderate in most of my stances and am easily annoyed at hyperbolic statements such as "British Columbia: Best Place on Earth." But there is of course one exception to this: Paris, in its grumpy and poetic glory. If one were keeping track of such things, Paris could very well be my third home (or fourth, fifth, or sixth. I would be so lucky to even call it my sixth home). Whenever I am there, I feel unapologetic about loving beautiful things. Even the filthy black crevices in between all of the stones seem to whisper sweet nothings to me. Cafe au laits and butter croissants in the morning? Perfection. Strawberry mint macarons from Laduree and a bottle of rose in the afternoon at the Jardin du Luxembourg? Sublime. Half a tomato and a baguette with a glass of bordeaux in a plastic cup along the river? Incomparable. It all seems so lovely and downright ridiculous - with certainty some jerk is playing the accordion in your head right now - but it's true! They aren't being ironic! Those languid French bodies in the sun smoking cigarettes are completely serious.

Almost every moment I spend in Paris I think about why I am not there more often (or always), while loving and dreading each minute that passes, as I know my time there is limited. Paris has got a lot of problems, this I know. I am just not interested in learning about them. Not yet.

Optical Illusions

2011-09-05T11:50:00.001-07:00

Why do I love these shoes:

so much when I see them on other people, but on my own feet they seem like giant duck flippers? Why can't I pull this off?

Yarrrr

2011-08-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I had a thing for pirate culture. I loved the idea of ships at sea, old maps, walking the plank, buried treasure, stowaways, drowning. It also seems, in retrospect, like pirates had a greater pop culture presence in the '80s, akin to babysitters, martial arts and fluorescent hues. The penultimate meshing of pirate culture and Spielberg-ian teen adventure was of course The Goonies:

As a fixture of my cinematic youth, it represented lazy Saturday afternoons, the way kids get bored growing up in the rainy pacific northwest, bike rides, Cyndi Lauper, capitalism and real estate development, chin-ups, petty crime. I still watch it at least twice a year and every time I have the flu. I have repeated this ritual so often, in fact, that the opening car chase now sparks a craving for chicken noodle soup and ginger ale. How cute is Martha Plimpton?:

Sidenote: I used to think that '80s actresses Kerri Green (of Goonies fame):

and Jenny Lewis:

were the same person, until the latter became a musical sensation. Pre-teen Lewis in fact starred in another great Saturday afternoon movie (to which I could devote a dozen blog posts): Troop Beverly Hills.

In Review: Page One: Inside the New York Times

2011-07-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've been an online subscriber to The New York Times for a few years now and reading it has become an indispensable part of my morning routine. I don't know, maybe it's because I don't have a TV, but I have come to rely on the Times. Earlier this year I received the e-mail which explained how the Times would soon begin charging for access to online content. This restriction hasn't been a problem for me thus far, as my usual routine falls within the parameters of free viewing: a few headlines, a bit of the arts section. But the announcement, particularly to those who have predicted the death of print media, seemed like a warning sign, the beginning of an anxious era.

In the past six months, I've seen two great documentaries about aspects of the Times:

1) Bill Cunningham New York:

This film profiles the longtime Times society photographer at work on the streets of New York and won my heart in ways I haven't yet been able to put into words. Here is dear Mr. C at his Times desk:

2) Wordplay

This film explores the fanatical world of crossword puzzle enthusiasts, with Will Shortz, the editor of the Times crossword puzzle at the centre of its story. It also features adorable cameos by Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart and the Indigo Girls.

In watching both these films, I couldn't help but wonder about the machinations of the Times itself, and the bottomless pit of potential subjects lurking within this formidable paper. While both films deal with niche topics nicely, they speak to a larger institution.

Reviews of Page One, including a particularly scathing one published in the Times itself, criticize the film's lack of topical focus. On this point, I must agree. While loosely rooted in the activities of the media department and the crisis of print journalism, the film jumps around from idea to idea without ever slowing down to comment on the material it presents. David Carr's role as protagonist here seems almost accidental, rather than proclaimed. Given that Carr is such a fantastic character for this story to pivot around, this is a missed opportunity.

There are brief glimpses of Managing Editor Jill Abramson and a few more minutes with Executive Editor Bill Keller, both of whom appear in what was for me the film's most fascinating scene - inside the room where twice daily meetings take place for editors to pitch their stories, where the content for page one is considered, discussed, and determined. Mr. Keller has since stepped down from his EE post, and Ms. Abramson is slated to become the Times FIRST EVER female Executive Editor in September. What an interesting film that could be.

Another whole film could probably be made on the topic of Renzo Piano's Times building:

The last shot of the film, in which hundreds of employees gather round Bill Keller to hear the announcement of the Pulitzer Prize is a great one.

Ultimately, I left the film feeling sad about the demise of the journalistic workplace, where ideas are debated by smart people who make collaborative decisions about the way we access the news - the loss of not only medium, but methodology.

And yes, I questioned my own reverence for this institution whose employees still seem to be predominantly male (one woman, the author of obituaries and a 20+ year Times staffer, is featured packing up her desk during a round of layoffs) and also unabashed Times groupies themselves.

But I saw more than just gender binaries at work here. There is also ageism (the curmudgeonly Mr. Carr tweets to keep his job).

I suppose my point is that there seems to be ample room left in the documentary landscape for more films about the Times, perhaps even one devoted solely to the dapper Mr. Gay Talese and his immaculate three-piece suits:

Buntzen Lake

2011-07-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, for the first time in weeks, it felt like summer in our little soggy town. We packed some snacks (cherries, gingersnaps, salt and vinegar chips, pasta salad, and oranges) and activities (a sketchbook and coloured pens, an issue of Lucky Peach, the Celebrity Hollywood Puzzler, some quills, and the Sunday New York Times) and we went on a little adventure to Buntzen Lake. Once there, we were greeted with a beautiful view, beefed up dudes and overly tanned girls, Canadian geese, and blinding heat. Our bodies, so acclimated to moderate temperatures, suddenly felt so alive as intense warmth washed over us. The swelling sun fooled us into thinking we could swim in the icy glacier-fed lake and so we did. I have been on a diet of chips and burgers and vitamin D all weekend and I feel fantastic.

Bruce & Van in the Summertime

2011-07-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

Two old albums I can't stop listening to this summer - they just keep getting better with age.

1) Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska, 1982

A down and dirty cassette tape recording. Fucking amazing.

2) Van Morrison - Astral Weeks, 1968

I am not a Van Morrison fan, in general - just this album - it is ridiculously good.

Candy

2011-07-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

The town where I grew up is a place of very few charms. One of which is this old time-y candy store...

...where I discovered the best candy of all time - Romney's Kendal Mint Cake:

The back of the package reads:

"Romney's Kendal Mint Cake was carried to the summit of MOUNT EVEREST by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sirdar Tensing on the 29th May, 1953. 'We sat on the snow and looked at the country below us...we nibbled Kendal Mint Cake.' A member of the successful Everest Expedition wrote - 'It was easily the most popular item on our high altitude ration - our only criticism was that we did not have enough of it.'

It is so amazingly minty, and nothing really shakes off the sullen memories of suburban youth like eating candy in a field on a summer day.

Shining sun, cold cold water

2011-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Wilderness Essentials

2011-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

When We Swam took a little time away from the city this past weekend, for birthday celebrations and communing with nature, and enjoying the beautiful B.C. wilderness, which reaches it's rain-free peak in July. As not very wilderness-y people, we've been thinking about the fundamental importance of an "essentials" list, a survival guide of sorts for the uptight urban traveller:

1) Loungey pants (preferably cotton or linen)

2) Rice Krispie treats, with back-to-the-earth accoutrements, including fresh lavender and rosemary

3) Salty snacks of all kinds (WWS is a fan of kettle chips, cheesy popcorn, and pretzels)

4) Sun hats, for shielding winter white urban skin from the elements and preventing "ferry hair"

5) An excellent book - right now Laura is reading George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London while Kim is finishing Just Kids:

6) A selection of delicious cheeses. Do not be afraid to bring cheeses of a stinkier variety. The open air helps to alleviate the strong aromas, and its unique scent and flavour will contribute to your image as the eccentric urban guest.

7) Camera phones - for documenting all the wonderfully foreign natural wonders, such as moss, deer, and washed up crab carcasses:

8) A whole chicken, delicious when barbecued:

9) Classic rock, to sing along to while speeding down mountain roads:

10) Superior night vision (or flashlights), for finding one's way back to the cabin after an evening of pool, fish and chips, and eavesdropping on local gossip at the town pub.

11) Sensible shoes, in your own version of "sensible". A pair of white canvas sneakers from Army & Navy will certainly suffice. You will need these shoes for relaxing hikes and walking on peculiar sandstone surfaces:

Through the clouds, we do get glimmers of summer.

2011-06-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

The 70s

2011-06-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

This post started off as an ode to 1970s Meryl Streep:

But I soon realized it had more to do with films from the 1970s than about Meryl specifically. It was a fantastic, adventurous decade for filmmaking - especially, it seems, for American actors and directors. Woody made his most endearing films, and Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman did some of the best work of their long careers. It was also a particularly excellent time for horror, science fiction, and political thrillers. I can admit that I am incredibly biased about 1970s films, and couldn't resist assembling a list of favourites:

Love Story, 1970 (Arthur Hiller)

The French Connection, 1971 (William Friedkin)

Harold and Maude, 1971 (Hal Ashby)

Play Misty For Me, 1971 (Clint Eastwood)

Straw Dogs, 1971 (Sam Peckinpah)

THX 1138, 1971 (George Lucas)

Cabaret, 1972 (Bob Fosse)

Solaris, 1972 (Andrei Tarkovsky)

Don't Look Now, 1973 (Nicolas Roeg)

The Exorcist, 1973 (William Friedkin)

Chinatown, 1974 (Francis Ford Coppola)

The Conversation, 1974 (Francis Ford Coppola)

Barry Lyndon, 1975 (Stanley Kubrick)

Jaws, 1975 (Steven Spielberg)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975 (Milos Forman)

Three Days of the Condor, 1975 (Sydney Pollack)

All The President's Men, 1976 (Alan J. Pakula)

Carrie, 1976 (Brian De Palma)

Network, 1976 (Sidney Lumet)

The Omen, 1976 (Richard Donner)

Logan's Run, 1976 (Michael Anderson)

Annie Hall, 1977 (Woody Allen)

Days of Heaven, 1978 (Terrence Malick)

The Deer Hunter, 1978 (Michael Cimino)

Halloween, 1978 (John Carpenter)

Superman, 1978 (Richard Donner)

Alien, 1979 (Ridley Scott)

Being There, 1979 (Hal Ashby)

The China Syndrome, 1979 (James Bridges)

Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 (Robert Benton)

Manhattan, 1979 (Woody Allen)

Moccasin Town

2011-06-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

Buying shoes online is a risky business, but these amazing moccasins are keepers. High five.

Also, bracelet making skills are improving:

Not seeing quite as much improvement in the photographic documentation of said bracelets.

Yes.

2011-06-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Let's go to the Beach

2011-06-21T00:16:00.000-07:00

Photo: Life Magazine, c. 1948

Another sport

2011-06-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

While the rest of this city is deliriously consumed by some sort of ice sport (a game that is about to reach its zenith in mere minutes, a longwinded end to an equally lengthy and tiring series), it seems appropriate to discuss a different sport, one more suitable for the season - tennis.

Tennis was a constant presence in our household, which seems strange and bourgeois considering we lived in a rural prairie town. My father loved it, my uncles loved it, and my brother and I loved it. Since we were old enough to play we had our own racquets, mine a bright blue with rainbow strings, only gently worn due to my pathetic wrists and weak arms. My French uncle was a serious player; he strung his own racquets and had white shorts, and played actively well into his fifties. During boisterous family reunions my ears would perk up when the conversation would turn (as it often did) to the hope and disappointment around Michael Chang, probably the most successful Asian tennis player of all time. Chang, who would later develop thighs of steel, won the French Open at seventeen. The discussion would continue with comparisons, assessments, and debates about many of the greats - Edberg, McEnroe, Lendl, and Borg. Conners, Courier, Muster, and Becker. Or maybe it was Navratilova, Graf, or Seles.

My great was, and remains, Pete Sampras. He was never the dreamiest of the bunch and certainly not the loudest. He was the champion of Wimbledon, a failure on clay, and a classic player that was the antithesis to the flashier, long-haired Canon Rebel-peddling baseliner Andre Agassi. When preparing to serve, he would take three tennis balls from the ball boy or girl, examining all three in his hand carefully before selecting as he felt the fuzzy ones were the best to hit. One of my most memorable birthdays was when Sampras defeated Agassi in the Wimbledon final in 1999. Sampras had finesse and the game was an exhilarating combination of serve-and-volley, tennis whites, and strawberries and cream. It was magic.

As the rest of the city winds down from an intense few weeks of sticks and pucks, I will be sitting back with a lemonade, thinking about that amazing match in preparation for the All England Club next week. Care to join me?

No one said making friendship bracelets again was going to be easy.

2011-06-13T22:15:00.001-07:00

I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice.

2011-05-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

Although we have over a hundred posts on When We Swam, we have yet to write a single entry on the major motion picture known as Road House (1989). A huge oversight on our part, my apologies.

Road House is possibly one of the GREATEST MOVIES OF OUR TIME. It speaks of a world that resembles our own but abides by different rules. It is lawless Swayze country, in which Jeff Healey is the headlining (and only) act in a tough bar in a tough town that is run by a tough old business magnate that is trying to run Swayze and his friends out of said tough town. Swayze's character, Dalton, is brought in to tame the Double Deuce, an unruly bar that is in desperate need of a stiff arm enrobed in tight denim. The task proves challenging in the face of Wesley, Dalton's wealthy nemesis who is systematically trying to kill everyone he knows. The antics at the Double Deuce become too overwhelming for Dalton, and he seeks the council of his mentor Wade Garrett, a "legendary" (aka old) bouncer whose slight frame indicates he used to do soundcheck at bars, rather than regulate them.

The film has it all - arson, motorcycles, blonde bombshells, even a scene in which Dalton RIPS OUT A MAN'S THROAT WITH HIS BARE HANDS. The film ends with a dramatic and orderly shooting in Wesley's home, in which all kinds of law-abiding citizens kill Wesley and his henchman, taking back the night without legal repercussions. Our protagonist returns to the now safe Double Deuce, which continues to play Jeff Healey and sling pony-necked beers, as if a horrendous murder did not just occur days prior.

A triumph!

Joan

2011-05-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

A dear friend, writer, and prolific blogger (whose literary recommendations I prize above all others) recently reminded me of the wonderful writing of Ms. Joan Didion. And although I don't feel ready to peel back the cover of The Year of Magical Thinking just yet, Ms. Didion's essays are a wonder and a delight.

The White Album begins:

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be "interesting" to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

Or at least we do for a while."

(Joan Didion, The White Album, 11)

Fine meals with fine friends

2011-05-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

My love for edible rituals and weekend meditations is not a secret to this blog. Sundays are for baking muffins or making a batch of granola, preparing some bread dough for the week, or a chance to simmer several quarts of chicken stock on the stove. These efforts are always consumed with great satisfaction, in that feel good wholesome eating way, but also in the incredulous, "I can't believe people can make these things with their own two hands" kind of way.

Last night, at our usual Sunday dinner with dear friends, we took a step back to observe the array of food on our table and we were all quite pleased with what had been prepared. An organic pork loin, roasted with gala apples, rosemary, garlic, and onion, served with homemade apple butter, accompanied by a spring salad of arugula, red cabbage, radish, walnuts, and apples soaked in lemon, with a gently roasted butternut squash from the recently opened Farmer's Market. A fresh loaf of peasant bread and butter were available for the more gluten-friendly folk. For dessert was an orange and clove sorbet made with my trusted hand-me-down ice cream maker from my boyfriend's mother, and the always classic Rice Krispie treats, made with the addition of fresh rosemary and lavender flowers (are you still with me?). Meals such as this remind me of just how wonderful the produce is on the west coast, and makes me eager for my new Sunday ritual of going to the Farmer's Market to hoard all the delicious fruits and vegetables. When the next rapture comes, you know where to go first.

Adagio

2011-05-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

Two interpretations of the adagio section of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor. First, Richter:

I just love this video, but is he playing too fast?

I think I prefer Gould's slower tempo:

Tragic

2011-05-19T19:01:00.001-07:00

By the end of the month, I'm told, my favourite movie theatre will be closed. I am heartbroken.

My husband and I have seen dozens of movies at the Hollywood Theatre. Sometimes not even because we were really jazzed about the feature, but because there is something tremendously comforting about octogenarians in the ticket booth, a $7 double bill, a delicious nanaimo bar, and a theatre so elegantly disheveled that it makes the very act of watching movies seem just a little bit more special.

(Also, we saw Incendies, which was incredible - I'm too speechless to write about it....and how does one write about it at all, without ruining it, I wonder?).

Goodnight Hollywood. We will miss you.

Sunshine

2011-05-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

There's some really great finger pointing in this video. What a classic.

So sentimental

2011-04-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Words cannot express how much I adore Phoenix. They remind me of such wonderful occasions in my life, of summer, of romance, of accomplishment, of staying up all night. I have had an over ten-year love affair with this band, and when I see a video such as this I just think about how unbearably special a moment like this is for these onlookers.

Lately I have been thinking a great deal about the special, in particular about certain individuals or points in time that cannot be explained or repeated. My head spins at the thought of what forces in the universe align to create such captivating personalities and experiences. While on one level it may be disheartening to think that despite your ambition and your drive, you probably will not be special, in that Beatles-Nelson Mandela-J.D. Salinger kind of way. But on another level, it is incredibly comforting to know that you shouldn't be expected to, that it is almost better to just be a witness to the extraordinary.

Worth Waiting For

2011-04-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

There has been much buzz about Gabrielle Hamilton's culinary memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (2011), and today I finally got my grubby hands on a copy. I have only read the first few sentences and it is already pulling me out of my current fiction doldrums. After listening to an interview with Hamilton on an earlier episode of The Splendid Table, I was certain this book would not disappoint. Hamilton, owner of the acclaimed New York restaurant, Prune, is dry and honest, and through her even tone and a charming smattering of curses, her respect and love for her profession is evident. She cooks in a manner that is intensely personal, and I would expect no less from this memoir. Hamilton is a refreshing personality amongst "celebrity" chefs, and I cannot wait to read her journey from rural Pennsylvania to France, from Greece to New York, and from the brink of devastation back to the kitchen.

Patti

2011-04-20T18:59:00.001-07:00

"There were days, rainy gray days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every window the lens of a Leica, the view grainy and immobile." (1)

It would be impossible, I suspect, to read Just Kids and not fall in love, even just a little bit, with Patti Smith. Although the book is a heartbreaking memoir and tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe, a love story, a tale of poverty and of New York in the 1960s and 70s, it is the remarkable author around which the whole story pivots: her curiosities, the development of her tastes, her life in art. And although she pays homage to Mr. Mapplethorpe, it is Patti's story that keeps shining through on these pages and, much like her music, haunts you long after reading.

1. Smith, Patti. Just Kids. 60.

Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me...

2011-04-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

Let's Get Lost

2011-04-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Went to Lynn Canyon today and got seriously lost. And survived a freak hailstorm. And saw a woodpecker and some mushrooms:

The arduous journey ended with pavlova and tea and and a warm bath. All in all, not a bad Saturday afternoon.

And here's a little Saturday evening music from the incomparable Mr. Chesney "Chet" Baker Jr.:

The Stuff of Nightmares

2011-03-31T20:49:00.001-07:00

These two movie posters scared the shit out of me as a child in the '80s. When I would go to the video store with my parents, I had to will myself not to look up to where these posters were hanging, menacingly, from the ceiling.

Arvo Pärt

2011-03-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

"I think that all human achievement is like a lego. Everything can be supported by small components which have a common source material. When we go inside the material - stone, glass or a piece of wood - with an electron microscope, the deeper we go, magnifying a hundred-, a thousand-, a million times, then the more interesting the picture becomes. We see wonderful and fantastic landscapes. If we then magnify it even further, closer to the depths, there come unbelievable things. Then suddenly in front of us is an absolutely uniform commonality. This is the picture of the atom, which is common to all things. No matter what the material. Be it a stone or something else. We are at the boundary. Here there is no difference between architecture and music."

Source: Interview with Immo Mihkelson, 1998

Hello, spring!

2011-03-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

See It: Public Speaking & See It: Bill Cunningham New York

2011-03-18T19:25:00.001-07:00

Two new documentaries about two legendary New Yorkers. I'm excited.

Smoky

2011-03-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

This cedar candle smells like the smoky, woodsy magic of warm campfire evenings from that season I barely remember called summer. And when I purchased it from this lovely gem of a store it came meticulously wrapped in kraft paper and string - simple and good. There were so many delicious flavours (tomato and sugarcane were my other favourites) it was hard to choose just one.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

2011-03-07T00:30:00.000-08:00

There is something wonderful about the simplicity of breakfast. At the moment, I have some oats soaking in buttermilk in a bowl in the fridge. The oats will swell overnight and when I wake in the morning they will be ready to be mixed with some flour, butter, and eggs and cooked into oatmeal banana pancakes. I will eat them with maple syrup with a few slices of crisp bacon on the side. This will be accompanied by a cup of hot tea.

Most mornings are not like this. Most mornings I stumble out of bed and eat cold cereal with sliced bananas or peanut butter on multigrain toast. Occasionally, I will have a small bowl of lemon yogurt with homemade olive oil granola. As much as I gain pleasure from elaborate brunches on Sunday mornings, it is the humbleness of everyday breakfast that brings me the most satisfaction and comfort. When I travel, I fall in love with the first meal of the day, in its uncomplicated earnestness. A toasty baguette with butter and jam, a fresh croissant, a sesame bagel with cream cheese and a latte, smoked salmon on a slice of rye with a sliver of chive, an apple danish, or a tartine with butter, sea salt, and honey. The immediacy of lunch and the fussiness of dinner are absent from these foods, leaving only a meal that is effortless and without presumption.

Tomorrow morning I will wake up and be rewarded with the aroma of hot pancakes browning in the frying pan and the salty sweet smell of bacon, a simple meal that is perhaps the epitome of weekend decadence. What makes it even better is that it will be Monday.

So Bad It's Good: Eyes of Laura Mars AND Style Icon: Faye Dunaway

2011-03-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

Laura Mars has a problem. She's a wildly successful, controversial fashion photographer a la Helmut Newton (whose photographs double for hers in the film):

but every once in a while she sees through the eyes of a serial killer whose next victim might be her!

Everyone is a suspect, including Laura's shady ex-con driver (played by a young Brad Dourif), her crazy ex-husband, and her loyal assistant:

And because the killer is in her mind, she can't take refuge in her huge uptown apartment, massive downtown studio, or in the arms of the young detective trying to solve the case (a turtleneck-clad, unibrow-ed Tommy Lee Jones):

Glamorous parties also provide little distraction:

This film doesn't make a lot of sense, but Faye Dunaway makes up for it by being just so classy and wearing a lovely wardrobe of 3/4 lenth skirts, capes, dramatic plaid scarves and a lot of '70s beige:

Old Wood

2011-03-05T17:03:00.000-08:00

Oh, the euphoria of finding a really great old chair. I'm guessing this chair will be exceptionally good for composing letters, staring out the window, and generally seeing me through the rest of this long, rainy winter.

Who knows, who cares

2011-03-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks Olly Moss. You. Are. Right.

2011-02-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

Rachel Maddow and Maria Fusco: Keepin' it sassy

2011-02-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

I think we lost the keys to the kingdom

2011-01-24T23:52:00.001-08:00

A tiger of another stripe

2011-01-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

Ken Lum, A Tale of Two Children, 2005

In recent weeks there has been much debate in "the blogosphere" (so the kids call it) about Amy Chua's controversial article, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior" published in The Wall Street Journal. I know, I know, we are so over it already (I, too, am surprised at how long a politically sensitive person such as myself took to respond to this), but considering our readership here at WWS is up to maybe 5 individuals, I thought I would move past the shame of tardiness.

How does one begin to respond to such a contentious article with an even more unfortunate title? To start, it should be noted that the article is mostly composed of excerpts from Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), in which Chua recounts her childhood experiences while expounding a method of parenting that mirrors the strict child-rearing regime she was raised under. This includes not allowing her daughters to attend sleepovers, have playdates, be in school plays, watch television, or play any instrument that was not a piano or a violin. Academic grades below an A are also unacceptable. Chua acknowledges that she uses the term "Chinese mother" loosely, recognizing that this form of disciplinarian parenting is common in many other immigrant households.

Without surprise, the article has incited numerous heated debates, with many individuals taking immediate offense to Chua's open admission that once at a dinner party she angrily called her daughter "garbage". While some minority bloggers have had more hostile responses to the article ("So, fuck you Amy Chua..."), others have been more favourable, with Chua's own 18 year-old daughter Sophia coming to her defense in a letter to the New York Post (despite being the recipient of the garbage comment, no less).

The difficulty in locating my position within this debate speaks to my own complicated relationship with my mother, and to a past that I can make amends with but obviously am unable to change. In this situation I would avoid disclosing too much information about my own childhood (who wants to open up that whole can of worms), but can say without discretion that some of Chua's parenting tactics were reminiscent of my mother's, and it is one shared by many immigrant parents. I was allowed to attend sleepovers, but often begrudgingly. I played the piano for 8 years. Any remote interaction with a boy, almost always harmless in nature, indicated I was headed for a life of sexual depravity and corruption (I was barely allowed to play cards). My creative pursuits were eventually accepted, but again, begrudgingly, and after several years of anxiety, frustration, anger, and dry heaving in the bathroom. Those years, they were not easy.

Would I have preferred otherwise? Yes and no. Growing up I was incredibly jealous of my friends for having parents that subscribed to what I viewed as liberal parenting methods, but in retrospect it is also challenging to directly place fault on my parents for my own psychological trauma from that time period (oh, woe is me). Am I permanently damaged from the severity of their parenting? Probably, in the way we all are. But I have also received immense benefit from their rigour - I gained a desire to always want more, to improve, to progress, and to do so through organization, control, and persistence. The process is the purpose, and the achievement is merely the brief encouragement to continue on.

One of the most complex issues Chua raises is that Non-Western parents are given a certain levity when it comes to the extreme and horrific things they can do to their children in comparison to Western parents (back to the garbage again). Her reasoning for this inconsistency in perception is in part due to the sensitivity and concern Western parents have towards the psychological well-being of their offspring, and the fact that immigrant parents feel their children are permanently indebted to them beyond reason. Whether intended or not, Chua's article sparks an important conversation about second-generation immigrant children and the complexities of being raised in a place with conflicting cultural practices.

So where does that situate myself? Somewhere in between, I imagine.

January

2011-01-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, January - I've had enough.

Style Icons: Cristina Raines in The Sentinel

2011-01-20T10:55:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I'd seen all the good demon-possession/portal to hell/coming of the antichrist movies of the '70s, I uncovered this little gem:

The Sentinel!

It's a story about a young model with daddy issues who moves into a spacious Manhattan apartment which just happens to be the gateway to hell. This discovery, as you might imagine, takes a toll on our poor heroine, but not on her wardrobe.

Despite her emotional unravelling, she wears amazing wide-legged, high-waisted jeans and floaty disco dresses right up to the point of her demise, when, after losing her boyfriend (played by Chris Sarandon) to the dark side, she sacrifices her burgeoning modeling career to become The Sentinel!

Co-starring Beverly D'Angelo as the masturbating neighbor,

and Jeff Goldblum as a young photographer.

Amazing.

And so it continues.

2011-01-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

"For many who adopt the term, or bestow it on others, “it’s an innocent form of self-inflation,” said John H. McWhorter, a linguist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “You’re implying that there is some similarity between what you do and what someone with an advanced degree who works at a museum does.”

H/t RB.

Sorry Professor, but you are no more a curator than I am a doctor.

2011-01-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Are we experiencing a thesaurus shortage? Perhaps all the synonyms for select, decide, choose, edit, and gather disappeared into a void and now all we are left with is the word curate. As a result, we have an influx of curators roaming the streets. They are carefully curating dj sets, films, book reviews, cured meats and cheeses, technological wares, and runway shows. The other day someone came into the gallery I work at and asked in regards to our new art bookstore, "Who curates the bookstore?" I said, "No one, it's a bookstore."

At risk of being petty and defensive, I will say it now: making a selection or composing a list does not a curator make, and putting together a collection of vegetables does not mean you and I are one and the same. I should be pleased that people are so taken with my profession that it has become a laudatory term for making choices, but I am not. In actuality, the liberal use of this term trivializes my career.

This is not to detract from the work of musicians, literary reviewers, writers, restaurant and bookstore owners, chefs, or fashion designers. In fact, my unending respect for these professions is what sparks my defensiveness. Back off, get your own sandwich! People have a hard enough time understanding what I do, I don't need my job to be muddled with aspects of your job that are vastly more interesting.

We all can't be curators of cheese, okay?

To the top of the mountain!

2011-01-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

Julie

2010-12-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

I have many wonderful memories of seeing Julie Doiron play - in record stores, nearly forgotten Vancouver venues, churches and concert halls.

Taking a page from The Book of Chang

2010-12-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

Some days you feel like you are living like an Aphex Twin song, where a piano plays wistfully in the background as you whimper under the covers. It's probably raining. It's Monday, which is your Sunday, which means that tomorrow is Tuesday, which is more like your Monday, which is basically just a reason for you to be like Garfield and eat lasagna. You are physically and mentally exhausted from the week previous and so there is only thing to do.

Channel David Chang.

Most people that know me understand my unhealthy obsession with food. The familiar steps of a recipe are as close to religion as I get on a daily basis, and chefs are my deities. When I feel a need to slow down and be methodical, I channel Thomas Keller (and his 454 steps to root vegetable heaven). When I feel toxic and all-consumed, I seek out the vibrant simplicity of Alice Waters. When I need to be coddled, I turn to Molly Stevens (who believes you can braise your way out of any problem), or Laurie Colwin, who will inevitably remind me that the only faith I need on Sunday is a freshly baked pie and a slow cooked stew. However, when I need someone to kick my pathetic self out of Aphex Twin blues, I look to David Chang.

"I felt terrible. I was wracked with stress. So I did the only thing restaurant cooks know how to do: worked harder and harder."

David Chang has become my life guru. He smokes too much, swears too much, and refuses to give up (I am none of these things, I am a total clean living quitter). He does not pretend to be exceptional, but upholds his food and everyone else's to exceptional standards. And the food? The food is brilliant. The food is at once pickly as it is sweet, spicy as it is comforting, and brash as it is humble. The early years of Momofuku were extraordinarily challenging, and Chang was hemorrhaging money and time. At its worst, he contracted shingles and kept working until he was unable to feel the entire left side of his body. This man is not a clean living quitter.

"And me. I'm burnt out. Fried. At some point 'me' evolved into 'we.' My life stopped being mine and the restaurants' needs replaced any I might have had. I got into the kitchen to get away from sitting at a desk and having to be nice to people, and here I am with a calendar full of events and meetings and food conferences. I opened a noodle bar so I wouldn't have to deal with the expectations of the starred restaurant world and that plan fell flat on its face. (Living up to high expectations sucks).

But for all that, I know this: I am one very lucky bastard."

He is unapologetic and he works hard. But the most important thing? He does nothing on Sundays.

December Song

2010-12-02T23:07:00.000-08:00

Swan Me

2010-11-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

Darren Aronofsky + Winona Ryder + Barbara "Wind Beneath my Wings" Hershey + Rosemary's Baby comparisons + psychosexual tension between dueling ballet dancers + the unraveling of annoying Natalie Portman should = movie of the century, right? We'll see.

Can we just have a Coppola moment?

2010-11-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

Snow!

2010-11-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

Vancouver isn't a very snowy place, so when flakes do fall, it is quite a special event. This afternoon I went up to the mountains to go for a walk and take some photos.

Followed, of course, by a trip to Deep Cove for their legendary donuts.

Read It: Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould by Kevin Bazzana

2010-11-19T20:55:00.001-08:00

It is a mistake to travel by ferry from Vancouver to Victoria without a book. But, having awoken at 5:30 on Thursday morning, my brain was not at full capacity and my book accidentally stayed behind. A quick trip to Munro's (oh, Munro's!) fixed that problem, and I discovered two books, the first of which is this lovely tome about Mr. Gould:

This book is so thoroughly researched and so highly entertaining I could hardly put it down to compose this blog post. The initial pages are filled to the brim with key details from Gould's childhood in Toronto, which, author Kevin Bazzana argues, greatly informed the pianist Gould would become.

I was drawn to the book because I hope it might improve my attitude toward playing Bach (which, to my own surprise, has not changed much since I was a child - old habits die hard, it seems). Among the fascinating facts I've learned so far:

1. Gould's legacy is impressive. But, in spite of his staggering record sales, cult status, and the fact that he has served as artistic inspiration for a truly remarkable number of composers, poets, filmmakers and writers, he has never appeared on a Canadian stamp on the grounds that he is too eccentric.

2. "Gould Tourism," so-called by Mr. Bazzana, involves pilgrimages to various Toronto sites associated with Gould, including his childhood home, schools, churches and diners.

3. Gould often misspelled his own first name, claiming that when he began to write the second "n," he couldn't help but also write a third.

4. He hated bright colours (especially red), but his favourites were "battleship grey and midnight blue."1

Footnote:

1. Bazzana, Kevin. Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. Toronto: McLellan & Stewart Ltd. 31.

Slacker Dude Intelligentsia

2010-11-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

Artist Mungo Thompson and curator Matthew Higgs

In recent months I have discovered an unhealthy attraction to intellectual men with a wry sense of humour and a slacker dude aesthetic. You may recognize them based upon their attire, reminiscent of teenage boys or first-year art students. They are self-deprecating and ironic. They wear worn out sneakers, ill-fitting jeans, and hoodies or heavy knits. Many have glasses. It is likely they had a stint as a skater or moonlighted with an underground punk scene in their respective blue-collar cities. They exude a certain anti-celebrity humbleness, and on occasion act as bored curmudgeons at lavish social events. Despite being well-known in their respective careers, they likely have allergies to cauliflower or pine nuts, and an affinity for dark beers in seedy pubs in every city they travel to. They may have complexes about being nerds in high school but it makes them more sarcastic and charming.

Totally hot, right?

Zach Galifinakis and weird doll

Style Icons: Beth Gibbons

2010-11-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

Beth Gibbons was an icon for my generation - slouchy, brooding, minimal. Portishead's music, which somehow simultaneously evokes a dimly lit, cigarette smoke-filled Depression-era speakeasy, a sad 1960s spy movie, and the deserted streets of 1990s Bristol, also filled my teenage headphones on many melancholic nights:

We have so little yet so much in common, my dear upper class white lady wino.

2010-11-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
I try to write, I think about food, I eat something, I check my e-mail, I try to write — it's a continuous loop until it's time for dinner.

Douglas Lodge

2010-11-02T20:57:00.001-07:00

An old photograph of the building I live in, built in 1907:

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T21:56:00.000-07:00

Walking Home

2010-10-28T17:47:00.003-07:00

The trees are so beautiful right now.

My Sunday is Your Saturday

2010-10-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Because she's the cheese and I'm the macaroni!

2010-10-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

My friend's older brother used to drive around in the family minivan and would sometimes leave his cassettes in the tape deck. One day the cassette tape was Ill Communication and my mind was blown.

And I know, I know, this story would be cooler if I had discovered the Beastie Boys 8-10 years earlier, but I was four years old when Licenced to Ill came out and I was a nerd. So I didn't discover them until the minivan in '94. I then quickly developed a fleeting interest in Tibetan Buddhism and a mad crush on Adam Horovitz:

I struggled with the fact that he was married to Ione Skye:

mostly because she is so lame in Say Anything:

but I told myself she must have some redeeming qualities in real life. I mean, her father is none other than psychedelic pop superstar, DONOVAN:

who's greatest hits include "Mellow Yellow," "Season of the Witch," and "Jennifer Juniper":

When I finally saw the Beastie Boys live at the Pacific Coliseum in 1997 or 1998, it was probably the best thing that happened to me for a couple of years.

Adam Horovitz is now married to the very adorable Kathleen Hanna:

but maybe we'll be together when we're old, like in a García Márquez novel?

A Return

2010-10-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

I began studying piano at the age of four and fell in love with the expressive musicality of Romantic composers. I listened to recordings voraciously, often "interpreting" them by ear, and Chopin was my favourite, although it took many years before my small hands were able to conquer his vast leaps across the keyboard.

Last year, a decade since my last piano lesson, I decided to resume my study. I quickly experienced the humbling frustration of returning to an instrument after many years. Far from simply picking up where I left off, many things I once did with ease and precision had to be re-learned or remembered. The memories were there, in my fingertips and brain, and I was told that with time they could be recovered, but the learning curve felt dramatic. Over the course of the last twelve months I have slowly begun working my way back into a routine, frequently wanting to give up and dreading the lessons.

When learning a new piece of music, there are logistics involved: notes, rhythm, tempo, key signature, accidentals, and expressive markings must all be achieved with confidence before interpretation can begin. Take Chopin's Nocturne in B flat minor, Opus 9, Number 1 for example, to which I have devoted six months (and counting...) of study:

Many great pianists have performed and recorded Chopin's nocturnes, but Claudio Arrau's interpretation remains my favourite.

Whereas others, like Maurizio Pollini and Angela Hewitt, play with expert precision, there is, in my opinion, a necessary emotional quality to Arrau's version which is lacking in their interpretations. Arrau seems to be reaching out beyond technique to the ears of the listener. It is certainly something to aspire to.

On this, the day of your turkey's consumption

2010-10-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

As the leaves on my neighbourhood trees turn from green to vibrant red and warm amber, I begin to get consumed by an almost manic excitement for autumn. My scarves get thicker, my sweaters woolier, and my brain has difficulty focusing on anything beyond searching for recipes that involve pumpkin, turnips, cream, and a casserole dish. I become obsessed with insipid masses that taste like nothing but cinnamon and comfort, and pending deadlines seem unbearable without sickeningly sweet seasonal beverages from coffee places that shall remain unnamed. Autumn is a wonderful time for rain boots and falling in love, and drinking hot toddies and listening to alternative country songs about being crazy about you.

Another season passes, as does another year that I have been in this rainy city. Movements become a bit more ritualistic, and structures continue to collapse and are rebuilt. Every year the city changes, and every fall I forget what it used to look like. Few things remain the same, and, like the buildings in this city, the seasons collapse into the next. But each year I anticipate the moment in which the remnants of summer disappear, and we are left with autumn, rebuilt on a stretch of trees on Ontario and Alberta.

Happy Turkey Day everyone.

Piano

2010-10-08T19:43:00.001-07:00

Style Icons: Irène Jacob

2010-10-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Is there anyone more enigmatic than Irène Jacob? In Krzysztof Kieślowski's iconic Trois Couleurs: Rouge (my personal favourite of the three) and La double vie de Véronique her presence is nothing less than mesmerizing. Scarves and melancholy never looked better:

See It: Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

2010-10-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

I saw Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child this morning at the Vancouver International Film Festival and it surprised me. Although intrigued by the premise, I expected the film to be more one-note, as it was directed by one of Basquiat's friends, Tamra Davis. Rather, I found it to be a rich, multi-dimensional story of the New York art scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, featuring excellent interviews with Basquiat's peers and colleagues, including art world heavyweights Jeffrey Deitch, Annina Nosei, Ann Temkin, Julian Schnabel, and Larry Gagosian and friends Glenn O'Brien, Fab 5 Freddy, Kenny Scharf, and Suzanne Mallouk.

Through footage of the artist at work and in interviews, Basquiat is revealed as a charismatic and prolific young painter grappling not only with the scope of his sudden fame, wealth, and addiction, but also often contending with an elite, predominantly white, art world, for whom he served, as Nelson George suggests, as "a representation for white people of all black people because you're the only black person they know."

Trivial Problems, But Problems Nonetheless

2010-09-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello pants made of denim which I adore more than words can express. And thank you, Mr. Strauss, for being such a genius and inventing them - I could kiss you.

I love jeans. Jeans and I were meant to be together. Is your shirt a bit too fancy? Jeans. Are your legs cold? Jeans. Do you look like your mom when you wear a blazer? Jeans!

I currently have a day job at which I am not allowed to wear jeans. I have been lucky, until now, having never before encountered this most epic of wardrobe restrictions. Faced for the first time with a business-y dress code, I stare into the abyss of my closet each morning, trying to put articles of clothing together and failing miserably. I am befuddled by business style. I thought this feeling might dissipate with time. I thought that buying very expensive trousers would make me happy. It has not and it has been a waste of money. I have even had ugly trouser pants altered to make them look more like jeans. It's not the same.

I have developed certain coping strategies: every day I come home and immediately put on jeans. I feel a bit better. I wear jeans all day Saturday and all day Sunday. This also helps. But it feels like a secret love affair, and I just want to tell the world.

2010-09-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

"We could slip away

Wouldn't that be better?

Me with nothing to say

And you in your autumn sweater"