CHAPTER ONE
“Imagine discovering that your husband is a bigamist," I exclaimed, as Lisa and I donned our jackets to leave the ByTowne theatre.
“I'd kill him," Lisa retorted, as she put on her headband to brace the frigid wind.
“You'd have to stand in line!" I replied, as we forced our way through the large crowd that was waiting for the second feature.
The ByTowne was an old theatre with a wide screen, plush red velvet curtains, and hard uncomfortable seats. The seats were so low that I felt that I was leaning back in my own private jet, waiting for takeoff. But the movie house specialized in foreign films. As a result, it attracted a faithful cult audience.
We had just seen My Architect, a docudrama produced by Nathaniel Kahn, son of the late Louis I. Kahn. The senior Kahn was a well-renowned architect from Philadelphia. He had designed a number of impressive buildings including the town centre in Bangladesh, and the beautiful Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. The movie depicted the son's search for the father that he had never known.
At his funeral, colleagues were shocked to learn that Louis Kahn had not one but three wives simultaneously. He had fathered three children with different women and only saw young Nathaniel when he could sneak away from his official family. Nathaniel's longing for his father was captured perfectly in one breathtaking scene where he rollerbladed through the vast and empty courtyard of one of his father's buildings overlooking the Pacific.
An older woman with long unkempt hair was standing in front of the Days Inn. She looked weathered and carried a tin cup.
“And you call yourselves Canadians!" The woman shouted when people passed by without giving her money. I dropped a loonie in her cup and she gave me a weary toothless grin.
Lisa stopped to light a cigarette in front of a store called All Books. She leaned on a table. It was overflowing with used books with campy titles like Soul Centered Astrology and Killing Rage.
Lisa's match kept going out, thanks to the steady stream of snow that was falling. It was early April. This was probably the last snowfall of the season. Two men ahead of us were discussing the film.
“I really liked the play on words," the younger man said. “I mean, I. Kahn. Icon! Do you think that his fate was sealed by his name?"
“Oh, absolutely," his friend replied. "Look at all the children named Jesus in Venezuela. See the way they're prospering?"
“Maybe they'll get their reward in the next life," the first speaker declared.
Lisa and I laughed. “Do you want to go to Nate's?" I asked. We invariably went to Nate's Deli for a snack after our monthly excursions at the ByTowne. It was hard to say which we enjoyed more, the food at Nate's or analyzing the movies.
Occasionally, we’d vary our routine and walk down to Tucker’s Marketplace, a restaurant in the ByWard market, which had an immense buffet. But tonight, the roads were slick with freezing rain and the wind was gusting at 30 kilometres an hour, so I didn't feel much like hiking all the way down to Mother Tucker’s.
Lisa nodded in agreement. “Follow me,” she instructed, as she grabbed my arm and walked across the busy avenue.
“Lisa!" I screamed, to no avail. She was an incorrigible jaywalker whereas I always dutifully crossed at the corner.
Rideau Street was dark except for the flashing lights above the theatre. About one kilometre west of the Bytowne, Rideau became Wellington Street, which housed the Supreme Court, the elegant Fairmont Château Laurier Hotel, and the Parliament buildings.
The centre block of the Houses of Parliament was destroyed in a fire in 1916. All of the Houses had been rebuilt using a Civil Gothic design except for the library. The buildings were warm and ornate with gargoyles, stained-glass windows, and an ornamental fence. Parliament Hill stood on the south bank of the Rideau River just below the swirling waters that explorer Samuel de Champlain had called La Chaudiere, meaning “The Cauldron.”
The Hill and Confederation Square were impressive, and were often displayed on postcards for tourists. This end of the road was old and run down in comparison.
Lisa and I opened the door to 316 Rideau Street and walked up the short ramp. The smell of fresh bagels and cheese blintzes was tantalizing.
Nate’s Deli was famous for its smoked meat sandwiches. The atmosphere was homey and somewhat schizophrenic. Clearly, the store had been an old-fashioned delicatessen years ago, but a modern annex had been added to convert the deli into a restaurant.
We passed mouthwatering displays of candy, juice, gourmet salads, and cooked meat. A waitress with honey coloured hair, tied up in a bun, seated us at the back in a booth. One wall of the restaurant was covered in glass mirrors. Next to it was a large poster that said "You don't have to be Jewish," which made me smile.
We took off our coats and I brushed the wet snow from my forehead. Lisa's dark brown hair gleamed under the yellow lights. She was wearing a tight pink sweater, which showed off her cleavage, snug Guess jeans, and a delicate gold cross. I felt dowdy in my sweatshirt and baggy jeans. The men at the table next to us craned their necks to stare at Lisa.
Although we had been best friends since our late teens, I was always struck by her stark and simple beauty. Lisa was everything that I was not. She was tall, angular, and shamefully thin with a spontaneous, impulsive, and charismatic personality. Her life was full of drama, even though she had been sober for five years, and worked full time as a drug and alcohol counsellor at a small centre downtown called "Straten Narrow."
I, on the other hand, was imminently predictable. I worked as a nurse in the short term rehab unit of a local hospital. I’d been married to Mark, a Professor of Cultural Anthropology, for 15 years, which barely legitimized our 14-year-old son Devon.
The words that were most often used to describe me were "dependable, loyal, and hard-working" – polite euphemisms for "boring." In the past, I had taken pride in those descriptions, but recently, I had been feeling dull and disenchanted with my life. I was approaching 40. Just thinking those words sent a shiver down my spine.
Turning 40 sounded as appealing as being a prisoner in Abu Ghraib. Dead Woman Walking, I mused to myself. I was already sprouting grey hairs and had been making frequent trips to my hairdresser, Chan Juan, to have her colour my hair darker. My hair was an odd shade of henna at the moment, but I couldn't change it since I had coloured it four times in the last two months. It now had the texture of a Brillo pad.
I had heard the argument that 40 was the new 30, but I suspected that the phrase had been invented by someone in her fifties. If I were lucky enough to live until 80, that would mean that I was already halfway through my life. What had I done with it? Where was I headed? I could be hit by a bus or develop breast cancer, like my mother, who died when I was 10.
Every day at work, I saw people whose lives had been derailed by accidents and illness. Maybe I only had 10 or 20 years left. What was I to do with them? The faster I approached the big 4-0, the more I envied Lisa her relative freedom.
Lisa had never gotten married. She’d had a succession of boyfriends. “Cereal” monogamy, she joked. "They stay for breakfast. Then I kick them out in the morning.” Her tone was flippant but I knew that Lisa wanted stability in a relationship as much as anyone else.
When she was doing cocaine that was impossible. She was involved with one loser after another including men who ended up in jail, disappeared for days at a time, and stole money from her. One even slept with her cousin.
After she finished rehab, Lisa went through a long period of voluntary celibacy to get herself together, and to consider the qualities that she’d like to have in a mate.
Eighteen months ago, she met Ryan at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He seemed like a bad bet to me. At 36, Ryan had been clean for three years and attended meetings regularly. According to Lisa, some people go to meetings but don't actually work the steps, which involve taking one’s own inventory and making amends to those one has wronged. Consequently, the half-hearted members do not have good sobriety.
Ryan was different. He devoted himself to the program, completing one step after another. However, he had a history of physical abuse. Ryan's last girlfriend left him after calling the police several times during their domestic disputes.
I had cautioned Lisa about her involvement with Ryan but she believed in him. Her whole life revolved around addiction and recovery. To have doubted Ryan would have been tantamount to questioning her entire career, as well as her own recovery.
She was like a televangelist since she’d joined AA. Of course, I’d never say that to her. Obviously, I preferred her clean and sober to drinking and snorting white powder, but I didn't really understand her need for the program.
We were both partyers back in our university days but for some inexplicable reason, Lisa crossed a line in her drinking. Alcohol became something that she had to have and it changed her personality. Her grades went down the drain and she was often evicted from bars for being too boisterous, but the next day she’d have no recollection of what she had done.
After Lisa realized that she had an alcohol problem, she went to the Addiction Research Centre in Toronto, since we were going to school at U. of T. She received out-patient counselling at ARC and they encouraged her to go to daily meetings.
One night, Lisa brought home a quiz and waved it in my face. "Look!" she said. "Here's one test I passed with flying colours. It says I'm in Stage Two alcoholism. Scary! Stage three means I'm ready for the asylum. People lose jobs, marriages, and become institutionalized at that point."
I grabbed the quiz and studied it with interest. I decided to take it myself. Lisa had no objections but she was surprised when I scored high enough to qualify for Stage One alcoholism.
"Oh my God, Tara. You need to get into the program!"
I had no intention of joining the Bible thumpers and no real worries about my drinking either.
"We'll save a seat for you," Lisa had said at the time but it never proved necessary. I got pregnant with Devon when I was 24. It was easy for me to quit drinking during the pregnancy. Afterwards, my alcohol consumption dropped drastically. Who can take care of an infant and continue swinging from the chandelier at the same time?
On one hand, I knew that alcoholism was a disease, but I couldn't help wondering why Lisa couldn't cut back her consumption by herself, the way I had, by using more discipline and self-control. Sometimes, I wanted to scream when she talked endlessly about her meetings and used those little clichés: easy does it, one day at a time, live and let live.
Shut the hell up! I wanted to say. It seemed self-indulgent that Lisa spent 24 hours a day dealing with addiction. It was bad enough when she had a job as an assistant at Nortel and went to meetings every night. Now that she was a bona fide alcohol and drug counsellor, addiction was all she talked about. She was a full-time naval gazer.
And I was a disloyal bitch of a friend to think those things about her. I knew that. Tara – loyal, dependable and resentful as hell.
Lisa was aware of my disapproval. She sensed that I wasn't thrilled with her job and was disappointed that I never gave the thumbs-up to Ryan, although I understood her attraction to him. Tall and lanky with dirty blonde hair and athletic good looks, Ryan had always been a ladies man. He worked as a landscaper in the summer and plowed driveways in the winter, when he worked, which was not all that regularly.
I suspected that he was a lazy bastard, who preferred to live off Lisa. They’d been living together for about six months and I wasn’t eager to hear the latest details about their relationship.
We opened the menus, which said "Nate’s – where famous people come to eat." I’d never seen anyone famous in the restaurant but I always kept one eye open for Matthew Perry, Dan Aykroyd, and Kiefer Sutherland to stroll in. Apparently, Kiefer went to a Catholic boarding school in Ottawa as a teenager.
I ordered roast beef on rye with coleslaw, fries, and a dill pickle. Lisa religiously followed the Atkins diet. She requested the “Quick Burger Platter," which consisted of a cheeseburger with bacon. She wanted the coleslaw but asked the waitress to hold the potatoes. We both ordered decaffeinated coffee.
Decaf: a public announcement that we were too old to drink caffeine after dinner. We may as well have requested Maalox or Metamucil. Next it would be the senior citizen discount. I sighed.
"Still persecuting yourself with the American Heart Association Diet?" I asked Lisa, feeling the heavy weight of my thighs as I shifted my legs under the table. No wonder she was so thin but I could never give up carbohydrates. Even if men stared at me open-mouthed, I refused to part with my rocky road ice cream.
“Works for me," Lisa retorted.
“ I don't know how you can stand to live without bread and your mother's pasta. That's not to mention what that diet is doing to your arteries and your kidneys," I said.
“It's great, the food plan. Who else would let you eat an unlimited amount of cheese, steak, and bacon?" Lisa asked. “Atkins used to have a desert of macadamia nut butter that he mixed together with whole cream."
“That probably killed him." I shook my head. "Eat up. It's your funeral."
We had this conversation regularly. I could tell by Lisa's expression that she was tired of my ongoing lectures. Years of being a nurse and a mother had made me a nag, constantly worrying about other people's health, and righteously telling them what to do to improve it. I also had 15 pounds to lose. Obviously, my jealousy of Lisa's appearance had reared its ugly head. I apologized hastily and changed the topic.
"Getting back to the flick," I said, “wasn't that a great line when one of Kahn's colleagues said that we all have some sort of secret to hide? Mark and I just rented a movie called Normal, which dealt with a different theme, but it was kind of similar. A couple had been happily married for about 25 years. Then one day, the man announced that he’d been born in the wrong body! He wanted a sex change but he didn’t want to leave the marriage. It was really well-written and starred Jessica Lange, but I can't remember who played the guy."
I thought about how attractive Lange had looked in the movie. She was old. I now defined "old" as anyone who was older than me, and "young" as anyone who was younger than me. Lange had to be at least 50 or 55 and she was still gorgeous. That buoyed my spirits until I remembered that I didn't remotely resemble Jessica Lange, who had undoubtedly been a knockout in her thirties.
“Kind of like Boys Don't Cry, except with a happy ending," I continued, "because eventually the family came to accept his desire to be a woman. It was hard to imagine how the couple could stay together – that part was implausible – but it was better than watching the protagonist being gunned down like Hilary Swank."
“And what does that have to do with bigamy?" Lisa asked, as she bit into her cheeseburger.
"Both men were deceitful! The Jessica Lange character spent decades with a man who never told her what he was really thinking. How well do we know each other? Does everyone have deep dark secrets?" I waved my arms, so that Lisa would know that I was including the other patrons in the restaurant.
"I've lived my whole life as an open book. What you see is what you get or it used to be." Except for my deep-seated resentments, I thought grimly. “But with my birthday looming in the distance, suddenly, I don't know who I am anymore or what I want. I don't even know who I want, but I can't see myself growing old with Mark."
Alanis Morissette was playing softly in the background. She was quite the local celebrity. Both Lisa and I liked her music, and respected her dedication to the people of Tibet.
Two guys in their twenties sat down at the table across from us. They were flamboyantly gay. The Asian woman with them had the words "Fag hag" written across her forehead in red ink.
Hearing Alanis must have made them think about Tibet, too, because they started talking about the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Ottawa, and whether or not Prime Minister Paul Martin would agree to meet with him. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, was as popular culturally as a rock star. The trio was arguing over how the Dalai Lama could refer to himself as solely a spiritual leader, without any political affiliations, when he had spent his entire life in exile, working for the independence of Tibet.
“It’s an outrage. Almost 1.2 million Tibetans have died from starvation, imprisonment, or murder since the Chinese took over. Surely, that constitutes genocide but the United States, the world's self-appointed policeman, does nothing to stop the slaughter,” the woman declared.
"The States turns the other cheek, so they can maintain their billion-dollar trading relationship with China," her companion replied. He was wearing a yellow baseball cap on backwards, a dark blue, short-sleeved shirt, and large baggy pants with balloon figures on them.
Alanis had stopped singing. Melanie Doane was now crooning, “You leave a lot to be desired.”
"Speaking of Mark, this song could have been written for him," I said, returning my attention to Lisa.
"Could’ve been written for any man," Lisa said. "Don't be crazy, Tara! You're still an open book. You're as transparent as pantyhose: the same today that you were in university. You're just having a midlife crisis. And what's this big secret of yours? Your huge crush on the clerk at the grocery store?”
Lisa laughed. "My God, even Devon knows about that! He says you're always weirding out before you go into Loeb, stopping to put on lipstick in the car or to comb your hair."
"Devon said that?" I felt embarrassed. I thought I had been discreet. How could I tell Lisa that it was so much more than a crush? This boy had taken over my thoughts. My brain had turned to mush. It was as though there was a hole in my head that had always been there, just waiting to be filled with thoughts of Alain.
I fantasized about him day and night, wondering what it would feel like to run my hands through his crisp black hair. At least Alain had hair.
Mark’s favourite expression was "hair today, gone tomorrow." His hairline had been receding for years and he had started growing a beard to compensate. Mark had tried Rogaine, acupuncture, and brewers yeast in a vain attempt to restore his lost locks. He lived in baseball caps but fortunately, he was not the type to shave his head.
Alain's hair was alive with little spikes. He had a brush cut and I pictured him applying gel to his hair every morning after his shower. Then I thought about him naked and embracing me: on top of me, inside me, all over me. Graphic images of devouring the supermarket boy left me feeling giddy, and prevented me from concentrating on my work at the hospital.
When I was giving out medications, I was imagining how much hair Alain had on his chest. Did he have hair on his back, as well? That didn’t appeal to me. Or would he have a smooth, muscular, and relatively hairless chest? Could he keep it up for hours, the way young boys do? Was he a cuddler or did he like to roll over and fall asleep after sex?
These were the pure and professional thoughts that preoccupied me as I dispensed Cipro to my 101-year-old patient, who was recovering from pneumonia. It’s a miracle that I hadn't poisoned him yet by giving him one of my female patient’s hormone replacement pills.
The intensity of my desire for Alain shocked me. It had been so long since I’d had any sexual interest in Mark. We’d never had a passionate relationship. Our connection was based more on affection and compatibility than lust. After years of marriage, our sex life was about as exciting as watching the Weather Channel. I knew exactly when and where Mark would touch me, and how many minutes he would allot to lovemaking.
Moreover, Mark had a strange habit of talking throughout sex. He would talk about everything from current events to work to telling me jokes.
Mark and I had been so young when we got married. I remembered watching Lisa suffer heartbreaks with her "bad boys." She seemed fatally attracted to the wrong men. I swore that I wouldn’t make that mistake. Mark was decent. He was faithful, brilliant, and kind-hearted. I could count on him and that was important to me.
We had much in common in our youth. Our parents had been classic left liberals, who had ardently supported the now nearly defunct New Democratic Party. Both Mark and I were active members of the NDP, and we used to love the same authors like Stephen King, John Grisham, Ann Rice, Margaret Atwood, and Michael Crichton.
Now he likes Mordecai Richler and Michael Ondaatje, and you can't pay me to read their works. Like Elaine on Seinfeld, I almost fell asleep during The English Patient. Nor can Mark tolerate my favourites like Carol Shields, Amy Tan, or Philip Roth, who he thinks is "too American.”
American. He says the word in the same disparaging tone that one would use to refer to the kitty litter box in the kitchen.
"What about King and Grisham? They’re American." I protested.
"Yes, but I'm over them now. I'm only reading Canadian fiction and listening to Canadian music.”
“That should leave you lots of free time," I replied, when Mark first made that idiotic announcement.
Lisa was American. Mark often said to her, “I won't hold that against you," but his joke fell flat with me since I knew the depth of his antipathy towards the States.
Lisa grew up in New Jersey with her first-generation Italian family. When she was 18, her father decided to join his brother in the restaurant business in Ottawa. The family moved here and set up a fabulous restaurant called Enzo’s on Preston Street. Although she’s lived in Canada for two decades, Lisa has retained her Jersey accent and still views herself as American, whereas Mark prefers to see her as an Italian immigrant, which is a step up in his mind.
It’s hard to pinpoint a particular time when my relationship with Mark began to go sour. It may have started when he began to spend more time sitting on committees, and working on his research. His area of interest is comparative religion and he has studied aboriginal people in Manitoba and Quebec. His current fascination involves the role of religion in organ transplantation. Mark hopes to publish a book on the topic, thus, he’s been spending countless hours behind closed doors working on his manuscript.
We had also begun to argue over the right way to raise Devon, who had become an avid rapper, with an attitude that was almost as big as the ring in his nose. Recently, Devon came home with a tattoo on his arm that said, "Rot in Pieces." He claimed that he was only copying Eminem.
What kind of a role model is Eminem? I’ve been a feminist all of my life. I’ve taught my only son to respect women, yet he idolizes and emulates a punk with bleached hair, who sings songs to his daughter about how nice it would be to cut up her mother, and put her in the trunk of the car. How am I supposed to react to that?
Mark said, “Just relax. Devon's going through a phase and it’ll pass more quickly if we don't make a big deal about it. If we get upset, he may become increasingly attached to Eminem and Fifty Cents, or whatever the hell his name is.”
I suggested taking Devon with me to a meeting of WAR, Women Against Rape, a small group that I belong to, which has educational and political components. We give lectures in high schools to raise awareness about sexual assault. Although some of the members of WAR have become a bit too radical for me, essentially, I'm proud of the work that we do.
Mark thought that the group was hostile. He didn't like the name of the organization but I believed that we needed a dramatic acronym to get people's attention. Mark was opposed to me taking Devon to a meeting. He thought that WAR was full of man haters.
Women haters were okay. Devon spent hours every day listening to records that referred to women as "bitches" and "ho’s." I wanted to temper that with some reality. Let him hear real girls talk about what it was like to be sexually or physically assaulted.
TV Ontario has an excellent series on Sunday night called "Renegadepress.com." It’s all about issues that teens deal with, from meeting strangers on the Internet, to bullying to racist attitudes towards Native American kids. I tried to get Devon to watch with me but it was a losing battle.
"He's a kid, for God's sake. Why would he want to sit at home and watch TVO with his Mum?" Mark asked in an exasperated tone. He believes that Devon's fascination with violence on television and in music is normal for young boys, and will not provoke him to act dangerously or irresponsibly. I disagree and now I have two problems: one with Devon and the other with Mark.
Not only do Mark and I argue most of the time, but he is also constantly irritating me. For example, he has a habit of repeating a story a dozen times, always prefacing it with, "I don't know if I told you this." And I want to die laughing at his pronunciation of the name Zdeno Chara, defenceman for the Ottawa Senators. Mark invariably places an emphasis on the wrong syllable.
Worse, he acts as though he knows Chara and drops his name in conversation regularly because he stood behind him once in line at Home Depot, and got him to autograph a piece of paper for Devon. Since that fateful day, Mark has acted as though he and Zdeno Chara are best friends. He rambles endlessly about how tall the hockey player is – 6'9" standing and 7 ft. even in skates – as though this information is not common knowledge to any viewer who doesn't need a magnifying glass to see the screen.
Mark also has an annoying habit of joking with bank tellers, and gas station attendants, then turning right back to me and reverting to his serious self.
But it can't really be these trivial things that bother me about my husband. I suppose that my resentment stems from the fact that our love for each other has died, but neither one of us is ready to face that fact, rife as it is with unpleasant consequences for our lives.
“Alain is not a grocery clerk," I said indignantly to Lisa, defending my lust object. “He is the assistant manager of the meat department."
"Oh, excuse me," Lisa replied, grinning. “Now who's the snob?" she asked, referring to my lack of enthusiasm about Ryan's landscaping job. "At least Ryan is old enough to vote."
Alain was 24. Lisa knew that perfectly well. She was just goading me.
"But I assume your fantasy man has his high school," she added and winked. I looked blank, not catching her reference.
“You remember the B & E kid? She was one of my clients. Had a long procession of asshole boyfriends. Then one day she met someone new. She kept bragging about him. Said this one was a keeper because he had his high school, and didn't have a criminal record!"
Lisa had spoiled the mood, comparing Alain to the paramours of the B & E kid. I had wanted to tell her that Alain was rapidly becoming an obsession. I had increased my trips to the grocery store and doubled our meat order, much to Mark's chagrin, claiming that I was entertaining. Alain must think that we have a lot of barbecues.
I was conscious of my clothes now when I went to the supermarket, and tried not to go shopping after work when I knew that he wouldn’t be on duty.
Sometimes, I called his house just to hear the sound of his voice on the answering machine. I was careful to call from a pay phone or to use the *67 function in case he had call display. I had become Stalker Mom and it scared me.
Not only had I memorized Alain's work schedule, but also I was forcing myself to listen to a double album by Pearl Jam because Alain loved the band. Listening to Pearl Jam was about as much fun as studying for a physics exam. I found them to be bleak: funereal even. Their CD was called Lost Dogs and had one cheerful title after another like "Sad,” "Down," "Alone," and "Fatal." These boys made Pink Floyd look like optimists. Then suddenly, almost at the end of their second CD, the band let loose with their rocking hit of the cover song by The Cavaliers, “Last Kiss.”
Thank God for that song, so that I had something positive to say to Alain about his music. I couldn’t bear the idea of him thinking that I was ancient, matronly or clueless. I barely knew the boy but having him like me was so crucial to my self-esteem that I was studiously analyzing his likes and dislikes, so that we would have more in common. What was next for me? Midriff tops, hip hugger jeans, and liposuction?
I had become Jack Nicholson. For years, I had admired Nicholson's talent. From Five Easy Pieces to The Crossing Guard, he was an amazing and versatile actor. But once I heard him on television and he sounded like a dirty old man – a buffoon, really – going on about young girls and his new wife, who was in her thirties. WAR had no respect for middle-aged men who traded in their older wives for newer models, although this was a time-honoured tradition.
Women who went in search of men 15 or 20 years their junior would look even more shallow and pathetic. The only older women who took young lovers and didn't look ridiculous were the rich and famous like Demi Moore. Dazzling Demi could have anyone she wanted but that didn't prevent Jay Leno from having a field day, mocking her relationship with Ashton Kutcher.
I was a carnal being. My needs were not being satisfied at home. I was just going through the motions with Mark when we had sex, and the only way that I could get excited was to think about Alain. Lisa was wrong in assuming that I might not act on my fantasies, but she seemed uptight tonight, and I had lost interest in confiding in her.
"Come on, Mary Kay Letourneau. Give me the dirt about the grocery boy," Lisa said.
"Mary Kay who?"
"Letourneau! You know, the teacher from Washington State who had sex with her 13-year-old student. They had two babies together and now they’re getting married. So there's hope for you and the meat man."
"Goddamn it," I snapped. "You should think about ordering fries next time round. You have all the sensitivity of cement.”
"It's not the diet," Lisa sighed. "I'm a bitch. I know it. It's just that, um, I don't know how to explain this." Her voice trailed off. Lisa fumbled in her purse for her cigarettes.
"Shit," she lamented, remembering that she couldn’t light up in the restaurant. She flagged down the waitress and ordered another decaf. "This is just between us. I don't want you telling Mark."
"Lisa Campana, you’re not listening to me! I can barely talk to Mark about the movie we just saw let alone anything intimate."
"Oh, Tara, I'm sorry. I'm spaced out tonight. I've been wrapped up in my own problems. My period is late. I haven't had it for almost 10 weeks. I took one of those, you know, tests from the drugstore and it said that I'm …"
Lisa couldn’t finish her sentence. She brushed away her bangs. It was a nervous habit that she had adopted when she was unable to smoke. "The doctor confirmed it yesterday."
"Lise!" I took her hand across the table. "I don't understand. I thought that you and Ryan were trying to get pregnant."
"There's more," Lisa said, removing my hand from hers, as she began playing with the silverware. "Remember my slip?"
"Yeah," I said slowly.
Lisa was just about to celebrate her fifth anniversary of sobriety when she fell off the wagon, and got plastered in January. She’d had a difficult time getting through the Christmas holidays, which had involved extra parties and temptations. One day, she was depressed about Ryan's unwillingness to get married. He claimed to be committed to her and wanted to have children, but he had an aversion to the institution of marriage.
Lisa had been listening to an old song by the Pet Shop Boys, which reminded her of her party days. It was that simple. The memory provoked a craving for cocaine and her depression made her vulnerable to its calling.
"Well, I don't really know what I did that night. It's kind of a blur. I blacked out and was in the mood for Indian food. I do get tired of Atkins! Especially, I miss food with sauce and rice. And I was crashing big time from the coke, so I was ravenous. Anyway, I was in some bar on Merivale but I must’ve left there because the next thing I knew, I was in an Indian restaurant stuffing myself with tandoori chicken. A guy at the table next to me got to talking. Then it’s a blur. All I remember is being in his apartment, putting my clothes back on, and him asking if I was okay to drive." Lisa's voice was barely audible.
"You went home with a complete stranger?" I was incredulous.
"You might want to say that a little louder," Lisa replied. "I think the guys at the back table missed it. Oh, and you should have said black stranger.”
"Black? I thought he was Indian."
"He was, but he referred to himself as a black man. And if this is his baby, it’ll be black, too! You think "Mr. I Don't Want to Get Married" will be happy about that?"
My head was spinning. Lisa hadn’t wanted children in her twenties but when she hit 35, her maternal drive erupted like a volcano. She had often said that even if she didn't have a partner, she wanted a baby. Now that she was sober, the slip notwithstanding, she was perfectly capable of raising one by herself. She would want this child but there was no telling how Ryan would react to the news that it may not be his. What if the baby was born white? If she told Ryan, would Lisa have ruined her relationship with him for nothing?
Worse. She had kept this from me. She had not trusted me enough 10 weeks ago to have told me about the encounter with the stranger when it occurred. Not that I could have done anything about it but I just assumed that Lisa and I told each other everything. I thought that she viewed me as her closest confidant and yet she had been worrying, and feeling alone all this time: all because of my judgmental attitude.
"I don't know what to say. I feel so badly for you! You have some tough decisions to make. Are you going to keep the baby? Will you tell Ryan? What about the Indian guy? Pregnancy should be a happy time, especially at our age. I mean, it's not like we’re teenagers, desperately trying to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.” I paused.
"I also feel terrible that you hid this from me. We're best friends. You can tell me anything. I didn't mean to be so critical about Ryan or your relationship. I've been a real idiot but it's only ‘cause I want the best for you."
"Stop apologizing, already! I lead a crazy life compared to you. You're an old married lady. You don't understand the singles life, let alone the complications of the life of an addict. We've always been different that way but it hasn't affected our closeness. Yeah, I admit I didn't want to hear your moralizing, which is why I never told you about the guy – whose name I don't know, so I could never find him – but also I didn't tell you because I didn't want to make it real.
“I didn't want to say it out loud. I didn't even tell my sponsor. Pregnancy was the last thing on my mind! Ryan and I’ve been trying for so long, with so little success, that I never wear my diaphragm anymore. That leads me to believe this isn’t Ryan's baby since the timing is just right for my slip." Lisa took a large gulp of her coffee, which had become cold.
We stared at each other. Finally, she suggested that we get the cheque. I’d wanted to order the cherry cheesecake with coconut, but I always felt like a glutton eating desserts in front of Lisa. Moreover, I had lost my appetite listening to her story, and it was obvious that she was keen to leave.
I asked if she wanted to come back to my house to talk in private. She shook her head. She wanted to go home. It was after 10 p.m. and we both had to get up early in the morning. We walked out of Nate's on a sombre note. Our lighthearted evening had turned deadly serious.
Lisa had parked in the underground lot at Loblaws whereas I’d been lucky enough to find street parking. We hugged goodbye and I told her to call me the next night.
"You can always count on me, Lise. I may be a smug married but I still love you. And I think that you'll make a great mother. Just send the kid out for adoption when he or she reaches puberty." I smiled. She returned my embrace, but her black eyes were vacant when I looked into them. Lisa lit a smoke and walked off in the opposite direction.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Hope I Die before I Get Old -- a Book Review Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
Following prostate surgery, 71-year-old Nathan Zuckerman is left both impotent and incontinent. There's a possible solution for the latter but none for the former, leaving our sex-obsessed protagonist in a state of bittersweet agony when he becomes infatuated with a young woman who has swapped homes with him, along with her husband. Predictably, Nathan fantasizes about Jamie and Roth creates two different types of dialogue -- one that Nathan has with her in real life and the other that he has with her in his head, or rather in his journal.
The young woman is contrasted with Amy Bellette, the lover of Manny Lonoff who Nathan found entrancing when she was a young girl in The Ghost Writer. He coincidentally encounters the adult Amy in Manhattan; he's shocked and saddened by her terrible appearance and the toll that brain cancer has taken on her.
Meanwhile, a brash young journalist friend of Jamie's contacts Nathan, determined to solicit his help in writing a biography of Lonoff. This "bio," Zuckerman soon learns, consists of a dreadful exposé about a supposed sordid incident in Lonoff's life. Nathan launches into a long diatribe with his long-lost friend Amy about what constitutes good literature and questions the right of authors to peer into the private lives of other authors. He goes one step further, suggesting that book groups and classrooms should stop analyzing books (I don't think Nathan would appreciate this review, which I just crossposted on Amazon !!!), but he certainly poses interesting and important questions for us to consider.
Having been a rabid fan of Philip Roth's for the last several decades, I read as many books of his as I can. This one was good -- not fantastic because it dragged on in certain parts, but he did a beautiful job of describing the way that the body eventually gives out over time, but the heart continues to hunger for love, passion, recognition and the ability to make a significant contribution to the world.
The young woman is contrasted with Amy Bellette, the lover of Manny Lonoff who Nathan found entrancing when she was a young girl in The Ghost Writer. He coincidentally encounters the adult Amy in Manhattan; he's shocked and saddened by her terrible appearance and the toll that brain cancer has taken on her.
Meanwhile, a brash young journalist friend of Jamie's contacts Nathan, determined to solicit his help in writing a biography of Lonoff. This "bio," Zuckerman soon learns, consists of a dreadful exposé about a supposed sordid incident in Lonoff's life. Nathan launches into a long diatribe with his long-lost friend Amy about what constitutes good literature and questions the right of authors to peer into the private lives of other authors. He goes one step further, suggesting that book groups and classrooms should stop analyzing books (I don't think Nathan would appreciate this review, which I just crossposted on Amazon !!!), but he certainly poses interesting and important questions for us to consider.
Having been a rabid fan of Philip Roth's for the last several decades, I read as many books of his as I can. This one was good -- not fantastic because it dragged on in certain parts, but he did a beautiful job of describing the way that the body eventually gives out over time, but the heart continues to hunger for love, passion, recognition and the ability to make a significant contribution to the world.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go to the Hairdresser
Yesterday I spoke to a friend of mine who's having a terrible time with her mother. Her mother has Alzheimer's and is starting a rapid decline, which is heartbreaking for my friend and so sad for me because I've known them both for a decade or more. We talked about her mom for about a half hour and towards the end of our conversation, she casually mentioned that she had colored her hair ORANGE.
Allow me to say that my friend is not a punk rocker! She is just not an ORANGE type of person, so I knew there was a problem. When I probed further, she said that it was like a Lucille Ball red but then she'd put something else on top of that which had turned it orange, and now she was searching for yet a new color to add to the mix.
I was thinking of all of the Benadryl cream that I had to put on my poor scalp when my father had leukemia. During a period of a year or so, I colored my hair brown, added reverse highlights, bleached it back to blonde, and cut it off in a "short, chic" cut that made me look as though I had just enlisted in the military. By the time my dad died, I was almost bald!
It was just a distracting coping mechanism. I couldn't control my world and there sure as hell was nothing I could do to help my father. It was so awful to watch him, a medical doctor, suffer mercilessly through 30 transfusions. Every time he'd have one, I'd look in the mirror and think there was something wrong with my hair. It was an area where I could take action. And then when my hair looked horrible, I could obsess about it and make new plans to fix it.
I gave this characteristic to Tara, the main character in my novel. So if you wonder why she's a little odd, it's because she lives by the philosophy, "hair today, gone tomorrow."
Sigrid Mac
Author and Editorhttp://damourroad.blogspot.com/
Allow me to say that my friend is not a punk rocker! She is just not an ORANGE type of person, so I knew there was a problem. When I probed further, she said that it was like a Lucille Ball red but then she'd put something else on top of that which had turned it orange, and now she was searching for yet a new color to add to the mix.
I was thinking of all of the Benadryl cream that I had to put on my poor scalp when my father had leukemia. During a period of a year or so, I colored my hair brown, added reverse highlights, bleached it back to blonde, and cut it off in a "short, chic" cut that made me look as though I had just enlisted in the military. By the time my dad died, I was almost bald!
It was just a distracting coping mechanism. I couldn't control my world and there sure as hell was nothing I could do to help my father. It was so awful to watch him, a medical doctor, suffer mercilessly through 30 transfusions. Every time he'd have one, I'd look in the mirror and think there was something wrong with my hair. It was an area where I could take action. And then when my hair looked horrible, I could obsess about it and make new plans to fix it.
I gave this characteristic to Tara, the main character in my novel. So if you wonder why she's a little odd, it's because she lives by the philosophy, "hair today, gone tomorrow."
Sigrid Mac
Author and Editorhttp://damourroad.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 06, 2007
MEET ROBYN DEMBY -- AUTHOR OF WHAT THE STORYTELLER BRINGS
SIGRID: Welcome, Robyn. Thanks for being here.
ROBYN: My pleasure.
SIGRID: Can you give me a description of your novel, What the Storyteller Brings?
ROBYN: Sure, here's a brief summary: Meet Rosaline, a young girl in high school who calls herself the storyteller. Every Tuesday, she and her friends meet in her room for girl talk. Then they move on to more exciting things like storytelling. In these tales of adventure, she even uses real life characters like her friends and this boy on which she has a crush. In one story, fifteen students get kidnapped. Her listeners keep coming back for more as they wonder what will happen as the women are herded through the woods like animals. It’s all just for fun at first, until bad things and people begin merging into reality—like one of the kidnappers. Now, Rosaline must get to him in her story before he gets to them in real life.
SIGRID: Sounds fantastic! What an original idea. What inspired you to write The Storyteller?
ROBYN: This novel was originally written when I was fourteen. It was my fantasies about a boy I had a crush on written down in this orange notebook that I would carry around with me. Every week, I would write a few pages and bring it to school where my friends and classmates couldn't wait to see what would happen next. They’d get mad whenever I showed up at school without an added chapter!
Ten years later, after joining the Air Force, I received a phone call from my sister in Virginia. She found a box of short stories and other English assignments in my old room. She began reading them to me over the phone and suggested that I do something with my writing. So the next time I went home on leave, I went through that box. I ended up coming across that old orange notebook, and as a twenty-four year old looking back on what she wrote as a fourteen-year old, this adventure about getting kidnapped with my crush sounded like a low budget movie. As I dusted off the old pages handwritten by a “love sick” teenager, I decided that with some major revisions, I could rewrite that book and submit it for publication.
Although the contents of that orange notebook weren't originally about a storyteller, I thought back to when I would get threats from my friends when I didn’t bring it to school. That compelled me to insert a character who had her friends come over for storytelling hour. I kept the part about her getting kidnapped with her crush. As I continued to copy the pages from that notebook into my word processor, I asked myself, why not have situations in her stories merge into their lives and see how they handled them?
It took about fourteen years to get that novel to where it is today, and even now, I still compare myself to the storyteller. She says that once she begins telling her stories, she never knows where it will take her. The same is with my writing. Once I start typing, my imagination takes control and propels me into some surprising places. That’s what happened with my novel as I detoured from the rest of that orange notebook and let my imagination lead me. What the Storyteller Brings sounded like the perfect title for a girl who, through her stories, wreaked havoc into the real lives of those around her.
SIGRID: Having read the book, I can see how it could have taken that long to develop. It's a moving, complicated, really enjoyable tale with suspense and a moral. Do you have a particular message for young girls in their relationships?
ROBYN: Yes I do, and it’s a message I am very passionate about. The negative consequences of sex extend beyond sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Emotional baggage also involves its pain and suffering. That is my main message in general. My novel illustrates a very ugly side to premarital sex and girls need to know from the beginning the kind of behavior that can propel them into a vicious cycle of failed relationships. What gets girls in trouble is that just like the character, Rosaline, they like affection, cuddling, and the idea of having a boyfriend. They let their fantasies run away with them as they let boys tell them they are satisfied with cuddling but too often, most boys are just looking for sex. I don’t feel that this makes guys some separate evil entity; it’s just that they’re more sexually charged than girls. The problem with girls is that they think they can control a situation when they are alone with a guy and things begin moving in the wrong direction. Girls have this false sense of trust in themselves and sometimes in the guy as they think they can stop things before they go too far. Sadly, this false sense of trust pushes them into sex.
What I’d like to say to young girls is this: Sex is a powerful force in our lives and is not to be taken lightly. Abstinence gives us the power to take charge and not let the consequences of premarital sex control our lives. Women of all ages need to stop sending mixed messages and take responsibility for our actions. Recognize sexually charged situations in time to move away from them. Cuddling, making out, or doing things you feel will satisfy a guy is not telling him no. It’s telling him that you will eventually have sex with him. Show him through your actions when you’re not ready for sex. Even if it may involve breaking up with him, say no and mean it—don’t dance around it!
SIGRID: I hear you, woman! That's controversial advice nowadays because so many teens are sexually active. In many ways, this is a fallout from the women's movement which advocated free love and equal rights for women as well as men. I've always believed that SHOULD be the case; however, in reality, men and boys in particular are built different biologically. They also seem to be more into the game, the hunt, and once the hunt is over, might wish to move on. That's painful enough for grown-ups but devastating for 15-year-old girls. What you're recommending is a set of behaviors that will protect young girls from being hurt. Actually, your message is very much like that of a book geared towards adult women, The Rules. It can seem kind of old-fashioned at first, but at heart, its main goal is for females to attain relationships rather than one night stands or end up in situations where they might be used, and for them to feel good about their involvement with guys rather than lie awake at night crying on their pillow over some guy who said he would call but didn't.
Do you have plans to write a sequel?
ROBYN: My fingers are itching to get started on the sequel! It’s not only because What the Storyteller Brings just hit the market and it’s still fresh in my mind, but it’s also because there is so much more that has happened to Rosaline that I couldn’t contain it all in that first book. I already have the first twenty pages written and must warn my readers that drama is jumping from the first page—so strap on your seatbelts! Even though I’ve begun already, I have to pause as I work on the finishing touches of Triangle of Revenge, which will be released in the winter or early spring of 2008. Also fiction, this novel is about a pastor who fell away from the church when tragedy compelled him to turn his back on God. Then I expect to complete the sequel to What the Storyteller Brings in the fall of 2008.
SIGRID: I can't wait. I enjoyed the first book so much and the Triangle of Revenge sounds awesome too. Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview, and I'd like to inform my readers that Robyn Demby is a native of Chesapeake, VA. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Mount Olive College, North Carolina. Retired from the Air Force, she currently resides in Goldsboro, NC where she writes full time. What the Storyteller Brings is available on Amazon.com, so grab your copy now. Also, you can visit Robyn on My Space at http://www.myspace.com/demby6. Don't forget to add her to your friends’ list.
ROBYN: My pleasure.
SIGRID: Can you give me a description of your novel, What the Storyteller Brings?
ROBYN: Sure, here's a brief summary: Meet Rosaline, a young girl in high school who calls herself the storyteller. Every Tuesday, she and her friends meet in her room for girl talk. Then they move on to more exciting things like storytelling. In these tales of adventure, she even uses real life characters like her friends and this boy on which she has a crush. In one story, fifteen students get kidnapped. Her listeners keep coming back for more as they wonder what will happen as the women are herded through the woods like animals. It’s all just for fun at first, until bad things and people begin merging into reality—like one of the kidnappers. Now, Rosaline must get to him in her story before he gets to them in real life.
SIGRID: Sounds fantastic! What an original idea. What inspired you to write The Storyteller?
ROBYN: This novel was originally written when I was fourteen. It was my fantasies about a boy I had a crush on written down in this orange notebook that I would carry around with me. Every week, I would write a few pages and bring it to school where my friends and classmates couldn't wait to see what would happen next. They’d get mad whenever I showed up at school without an added chapter!
Ten years later, after joining the Air Force, I received a phone call from my sister in Virginia. She found a box of short stories and other English assignments in my old room. She began reading them to me over the phone and suggested that I do something with my writing. So the next time I went home on leave, I went through that box. I ended up coming across that old orange notebook, and as a twenty-four year old looking back on what she wrote as a fourteen-year old, this adventure about getting kidnapped with my crush sounded like a low budget movie. As I dusted off the old pages handwritten by a “love sick” teenager, I decided that with some major revisions, I could rewrite that book and submit it for publication.
Although the contents of that orange notebook weren't originally about a storyteller, I thought back to when I would get threats from my friends when I didn’t bring it to school. That compelled me to insert a character who had her friends come over for storytelling hour. I kept the part about her getting kidnapped with her crush. As I continued to copy the pages from that notebook into my word processor, I asked myself, why not have situations in her stories merge into their lives and see how they handled them?
It took about fourteen years to get that novel to where it is today, and even now, I still compare myself to the storyteller. She says that once she begins telling her stories, she never knows where it will take her. The same is with my writing. Once I start typing, my imagination takes control and propels me into some surprising places. That’s what happened with my novel as I detoured from the rest of that orange notebook and let my imagination lead me. What the Storyteller Brings sounded like the perfect title for a girl who, through her stories, wreaked havoc into the real lives of those around her.
SIGRID: Having read the book, I can see how it could have taken that long to develop. It's a moving, complicated, really enjoyable tale with suspense and a moral. Do you have a particular message for young girls in their relationships?
ROBYN: Yes I do, and it’s a message I am very passionate about. The negative consequences of sex extend beyond sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Emotional baggage also involves its pain and suffering. That is my main message in general. My novel illustrates a very ugly side to premarital sex and girls need to know from the beginning the kind of behavior that can propel them into a vicious cycle of failed relationships. What gets girls in trouble is that just like the character, Rosaline, they like affection, cuddling, and the idea of having a boyfriend. They let their fantasies run away with them as they let boys tell them they are satisfied with cuddling but too often, most boys are just looking for sex. I don’t feel that this makes guys some separate evil entity; it’s just that they’re more sexually charged than girls. The problem with girls is that they think they can control a situation when they are alone with a guy and things begin moving in the wrong direction. Girls have this false sense of trust in themselves and sometimes in the guy as they think they can stop things before they go too far. Sadly, this false sense of trust pushes them into sex.
What I’d like to say to young girls is this: Sex is a powerful force in our lives and is not to be taken lightly. Abstinence gives us the power to take charge and not let the consequences of premarital sex control our lives. Women of all ages need to stop sending mixed messages and take responsibility for our actions. Recognize sexually charged situations in time to move away from them. Cuddling, making out, or doing things you feel will satisfy a guy is not telling him no. It’s telling him that you will eventually have sex with him. Show him through your actions when you’re not ready for sex. Even if it may involve breaking up with him, say no and mean it—don’t dance around it!
SIGRID: I hear you, woman! That's controversial advice nowadays because so many teens are sexually active. In many ways, this is a fallout from the women's movement which advocated free love and equal rights for women as well as men. I've always believed that SHOULD be the case; however, in reality, men and boys in particular are built different biologically. They also seem to be more into the game, the hunt, and once the hunt is over, might wish to move on. That's painful enough for grown-ups but devastating for 15-year-old girls. What you're recommending is a set of behaviors that will protect young girls from being hurt. Actually, your message is very much like that of a book geared towards adult women, The Rules. It can seem kind of old-fashioned at first, but at heart, its main goal is for females to attain relationships rather than one night stands or end up in situations where they might be used, and for them to feel good about their involvement with guys rather than lie awake at night crying on their pillow over some guy who said he would call but didn't.
Do you have plans to write a sequel?
ROBYN: My fingers are itching to get started on the sequel! It’s not only because What the Storyteller Brings just hit the market and it’s still fresh in my mind, but it’s also because there is so much more that has happened to Rosaline that I couldn’t contain it all in that first book. I already have the first twenty pages written and must warn my readers that drama is jumping from the first page—so strap on your seatbelts! Even though I’ve begun already, I have to pause as I work on the finishing touches of Triangle of Revenge, which will be released in the winter or early spring of 2008. Also fiction, this novel is about a pastor who fell away from the church when tragedy compelled him to turn his back on God. Then I expect to complete the sequel to What the Storyteller Brings in the fall of 2008.
SIGRID: I can't wait. I enjoyed the first book so much and the Triangle of Revenge sounds awesome too. Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview, and I'd like to inform my readers that Robyn Demby is a native of Chesapeake, VA. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Mount Olive College, North Carolina. Retired from the Air Force, she currently resides in Goldsboro, NC where she writes full time. What the Storyteller Brings is available on Amazon.com, so grab your copy now. Also, you can visit Robyn on My Space at http://www.myspace.com/demby6. Don't forget to add her to your friends’ list.
Friday, September 28, 2007
D'Amour Road has been accepted by the Braille Institute
D'Amour Road has been accepted to be part of the permanent collection of the Braille Institute. I'm very excited about that because they are selective about the books that they put on tape and they don't accept everything by a long shot.
Also, my sister is visually impaired from a degenerative retinal condition called retinitis pigmentosa and she has never been able to read my book. Once it's on tape, she'll be able to hear it and offer her criticism ;-)
Unfortunately, they can only put it on tape cassette rather than CD because they give a certain type of cassette player to the blind and visually impaired. I would have preferred it on CD but I'm thrilled that people with limited or no vision will be able to hear my story about female friendship, midlife crisis and unrequited love.
Sigrid Mac
Also, my sister is visually impaired from a degenerative retinal condition called retinitis pigmentosa and she has never been able to read my book. Once it's on tape, she'll be able to hear it and offer her criticism ;-)
Unfortunately, they can only put it on tape cassette rather than CD because they give a certain type of cassette player to the blind and visually impaired. I would have preferred it on CD but I'm thrilled that people with limited or no vision will be able to hear my story about female friendship, midlife crisis and unrequited love.
Sigrid Mac
Saturday, September 08, 2007
New review of D'Amour Road by the author of Equal Partners
What I liked about D’amour Road
I finally managed to find the time to read D’amour Road. The book is well written and carefully edited. But of course I would expect nothing less from Sigrid Macdonald. What I want to include here is the outstanding features. They are not listed in order of importance.
1. The story unfolds in Ottawa and surrounding areas. As an Ottawan, I found myself in a familiar environment. If you’re not from Ottawa, the book may tempt you to come and pay us a visit.
2. Without apologies, the author serves us a “slice of life.” It’s all there: addiction; unrequited love; greed; entrapment in an unsatisfactory job, marriage, etc.; confronting middle age and of course our own mortality; our obsession with looks and youth; and many other human flaws.
3. The book kept my attention from the first sentence to the last. I was tempted to peek at the last pages; good thing I didn’t. I would have missed out on a really surprising resolution.
4. Dialogues are never easy for a novelist. But Sigrid makes it look easy. The dialogues are vivid; the characters seem to be talking in my presence, like in a play.
5. The epilogue is unusual. It includes the “About This Book” as part of the book. It reminds us that reality and fiction are not clearly delineated. A clever device; I am sure the author won’t mind if she is imitated.
6. The novel opens a small window into the female mind through which males can peer! Other female writers have done that; but it was done quite effectively in this case.
7. The book does not mention it, but Evolutionary Psychology (E.P.) figures prominently here . E.P. deals with old instincts that we still carry from our primitive days. The woman who starts a relationship with a former prison inmate, or an abuser, is responding to an instinct as old as the world. In primitive times a woman chose the toughest male she could get. She had a better chance of surviving if her mate was as vicious as possible. Hers was a world inhabited by frightening beasts and even more dangerous humans. While not needed anymore, such an instinct is acted upon by some modern women. E.P. applies to men as well but in different ways.
Roland Ezri, author of Equal Partners
http://www.equalpartners.ca
I finally managed to find the time to read D’amour Road. The book is well written and carefully edited. But of course I would expect nothing less from Sigrid Macdonald. What I want to include here is the outstanding features. They are not listed in order of importance.
1. The story unfolds in Ottawa and surrounding areas. As an Ottawan, I found myself in a familiar environment. If you’re not from Ottawa, the book may tempt you to come and pay us a visit.
2. Without apologies, the author serves us a “slice of life.” It’s all there: addiction; unrequited love; greed; entrapment in an unsatisfactory job, marriage, etc.; confronting middle age and of course our own mortality; our obsession with looks and youth; and many other human flaws.
3. The book kept my attention from the first sentence to the last. I was tempted to peek at the last pages; good thing I didn’t. I would have missed out on a really surprising resolution.
4. Dialogues are never easy for a novelist. But Sigrid makes it look easy. The dialogues are vivid; the characters seem to be talking in my presence, like in a play.
5. The epilogue is unusual. It includes the “About This Book” as part of the book. It reminds us that reality and fiction are not clearly delineated. A clever device; I am sure the author won’t mind if she is imitated.
6. The novel opens a small window into the female mind through which males can peer! Other female writers have done that; but it was done quite effectively in this case.
7. The book does not mention it, but Evolutionary Psychology (E.P.) figures prominently here . E.P. deals with old instincts that we still carry from our primitive days. The woman who starts a relationship with a former prison inmate, or an abuser, is responding to an instinct as old as the world. In primitive times a woman chose the toughest male she could get. She had a better chance of surviving if her mate was as vicious as possible. Hers was a world inhabited by frightening beasts and even more dangerous humans. While not needed anymore, such an instinct is acted upon by some modern women. E.P. applies to men as well but in different ways.
Roland Ezri, author of Equal Partners
http://www.equalpartners.ca
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Signs (2004 on DVD)
Signs is a sci-fi thriller about a family who discovers ominous crop circles in their fields. It's written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who was brilliant in The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village.
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a reverend who lost his belief in God after his wife was killed in a tragic car accident. His brother, Merrill Hess(Joaquin Phoenix), thinks the circles are simply a hoax whereas Graham's children, played by Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, are convinced that aliens have finally reached Earth and they may not be friendly.
This hypothesis is supported by newscasts which indicate that crop circles are popping up all over the world, and actual aliens are caught on film.
The movie revolves around the family's struggle to barricade themselves from a potentially hostile force, but the larger picture has to do with religion, faith and spirituality. What do we believe in? Is there a higher power that will protect us? Is there a purpose to death and can those who've lost their belief in God regain it?
If this sounds like a movie with a lot of depth, it's not. It's slow-moving and the acting is quite wooden from everyone except for scene stealer Abigail Breslin who wooed the film world in Little Miss Sunshine two years later. Gibson, ordinarily above average, gives a completely emotionless performance and Phoenix is, at best, subdued. Culkin is cute but slightly annoying.
Moreover, the plot itself has huge holes in it. Gibson and Phoenix are brothers although in real life there are at least 18 years between them. Depictions of the aliens are so ridiculous that they seem juvenile and their Achilles heel, which I won't mention here as a spoiler, is so absurd as to be laughable.
The truth IS out there but you won't find it in Signs; if you're truly interested in extraterrestrial life, rent Contact with Jodie Foster based on the last book that astronomer Carl Sagan wrote before he died.
Sigridmac
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a reverend who lost his belief in God after his wife was killed in a tragic car accident. His brother, Merrill Hess(Joaquin Phoenix), thinks the circles are simply a hoax whereas Graham's children, played by Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, are convinced that aliens have finally reached Earth and they may not be friendly.
This hypothesis is supported by newscasts which indicate that crop circles are popping up all over the world, and actual aliens are caught on film.
The movie revolves around the family's struggle to barricade themselves from a potentially hostile force, but the larger picture has to do with religion, faith and spirituality. What do we believe in? Is there a higher power that will protect us? Is there a purpose to death and can those who've lost their belief in God regain it?
If this sounds like a movie with a lot of depth, it's not. It's slow-moving and the acting is quite wooden from everyone except for scene stealer Abigail Breslin who wooed the film world in Little Miss Sunshine two years later. Gibson, ordinarily above average, gives a completely emotionless performance and Phoenix is, at best, subdued. Culkin is cute but slightly annoying.
Moreover, the plot itself has huge holes in it. Gibson and Phoenix are brothers although in real life there are at least 18 years between them. Depictions of the aliens are so ridiculous that they seem juvenile and their Achilles heel, which I won't mention here as a spoiler, is so absurd as to be laughable.
The truth IS out there but you won't find it in Signs; if you're truly interested in extraterrestrial life, rent Contact with Jodie Foster based on the last book that astronomer Carl Sagan wrote before he died.
Sigridmac
Joaquin and Liv
This is such a romantic video -- had to post it!! Joaquin Phoneix is sensational and it's so clear that he and Liv Tyler are infatuated here in Inventing The Abbots.
Sigrid
Sigrid
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Quills -- Examining the Marquis De Sade
Quills is a fascinating story about the infamous French aristocrat, the Marquis de Sade. More historical fiction than biography, Quills takes place in an insane asylum where Sade was banished after spending several decades in prison for sexually assaulting a number of prostitutes, almost poisoning them with Spanish Fly, beating and terrorizing a young beggar girl and deflowering his sister-in-law; the latter so infuriated his mother-in-law that she had him arrested.
Inside the madhouse, the Marquis, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush, was given permission to write by the liberal minded Abbé Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), but was forbidden to publish. Where there's a will, there is invariably a way and the Marquis found such a way in Madeleine, a young laundry maid, played by the lovely Kate Winslet, who has been remarkably good in every movie I've ever seen her in. Thus, de Sade persuades the young woman to pass his writing to an outsider who manages to publish them, evoking fury from the Emperor Napoleon and wild cries of outrage, as well as titillation, from the masses. When the abbé discovers that the Marquis has broken his rule, he takes away his mighty quill but the determined de Sade continues to write, using wine, blood and even his own feces. And he must then face the wrath of the cold and hypocritical Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), who is brought in to keep the Marquis in check.
At first glance, Quills appears to be a movie about censorship and the importance of maintaining the right to free speech. It tends to glorify the Marquis de Sade; although we do experience him as vulgar, we are sympathetic to his plight. The drums of the American Civil Liberties Union can be heard quite distinctly. What isn't emphasized in the movie is that de Sade was more than simply pornographic or shocking -- those who've read his original works (I read both Justine and something else by him when I was in my early 20s) know that he was outrageously cruel and went way beyond advocating rough porn like Larry Flynt in Hustler magazine. De Sade enjoyed torture, was completely amoral and was very much a nihilist.
Quills is a morality play since the movie makes it very clear that the Marquis' "incendiary" writings had a profound effect on other inmates and readers. This gives the movie its depth because we're asked to decide which is more important -- free speech or the potential for inflammatory material to cause grave danger by provoking acts of great malice. And we must acknowledge that for many people, particularly from the repressed era of the 18th century, de Sade's writings were liberating.
Cinematography, costumes and acting are all excellent. Joaquin Phoenix does a passionate and convincing job of playing the young Coulmier, who is tormented by his desire for the laundry maiden and Rush steals the stage as the nasty Marquis who is also entranced with Madeleine.
What is not entirely up to snuff -- no pun intended -- in Quills, is its accuracy. Screenwriter Doug Wright portrays the abbé as young, idealistic and handsome whereas in real life, according to movie reviewer Tom Holmberg, he was a gnome in his 60s, with a hunchback and gnarled legs. De Sade is depicted as having a loving feeling towards Madeleine, which saves him from being a one dimensional, frozen hearted, sex fiend, but in reality, the Marquis bragged about sodomizing the teenaged Madeleine -- probably not something that would have gone over too well with a Hollywood audience.
Aside from that, and some moments of parody that lost their authenticity for me, Quills is an ambitious, well-done movie that posed philosophical questions that stayed with me long after I finished watching.
Sigridmac
Inside the madhouse, the Marquis, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush, was given permission to write by the liberal minded Abbé Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), but was forbidden to publish. Where there's a will, there is invariably a way and the Marquis found such a way in Madeleine, a young laundry maid, played by the lovely Kate Winslet, who has been remarkably good in every movie I've ever seen her in. Thus, de Sade persuades the young woman to pass his writing to an outsider who manages to publish them, evoking fury from the Emperor Napoleon and wild cries of outrage, as well as titillation, from the masses. When the abbé discovers that the Marquis has broken his rule, he takes away his mighty quill but the determined de Sade continues to write, using wine, blood and even his own feces. And he must then face the wrath of the cold and hypocritical Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), who is brought in to keep the Marquis in check.
At first glance, Quills appears to be a movie about censorship and the importance of maintaining the right to free speech. It tends to glorify the Marquis de Sade; although we do experience him as vulgar, we are sympathetic to his plight. The drums of the American Civil Liberties Union can be heard quite distinctly. What isn't emphasized in the movie is that de Sade was more than simply pornographic or shocking -- those who've read his original works (I read both Justine and something else by him when I was in my early 20s) know that he was outrageously cruel and went way beyond advocating rough porn like Larry Flynt in Hustler magazine. De Sade enjoyed torture, was completely amoral and was very much a nihilist.
Quills is a morality play since the movie makes it very clear that the Marquis' "incendiary" writings had a profound effect on other inmates and readers. This gives the movie its depth because we're asked to decide which is more important -- free speech or the potential for inflammatory material to cause grave danger by provoking acts of great malice. And we must acknowledge that for many people, particularly from the repressed era of the 18th century, de Sade's writings were liberating.
Cinematography, costumes and acting are all excellent. Joaquin Phoenix does a passionate and convincing job of playing the young Coulmier, who is tormented by his desire for the laundry maiden and Rush steals the stage as the nasty Marquis who is also entranced with Madeleine.
What is not entirely up to snuff -- no pun intended -- in Quills, is its accuracy. Screenwriter Doug Wright portrays the abbé as young, idealistic and handsome whereas in real life, according to movie reviewer Tom Holmberg, he was a gnome in his 60s, with a hunchback and gnarled legs. De Sade is depicted as having a loving feeling towards Madeleine, which saves him from being a one dimensional, frozen hearted, sex fiend, but in reality, the Marquis bragged about sodomizing the teenaged Madeleine -- probably not something that would have gone over too well with a Hollywood audience.
Aside from that, and some moments of parody that lost their authenticity for me, Quills is an ambitious, well-done movie that posed philosophical questions that stayed with me long after I finished watching.
Sigridmac
Thursday, July 26, 2007
More Tears Than Laughs in Sicko by Michael Moore
A young child gets sick with an imminently treatable virus; her temperature soars to 104° yet the hospital refuses to treat her. She has a seizure, followed by cardiac arrest. Still no medical care. Eventually, she dies. Was this little girl an impoverished Haitian? A rural African or better yet, an inner city kid from Detroit? No, she was a white American with health insurance whose carrier insisted that she be transported to another hospital within the network. How could that happen?
In his finest film to date, Michael Moore provides a devastating critique of the US health care system, or the lack thereof. He opens the movie by talking about the 50 million Americans who don't have any health insurance but quickly moves on to focus on the remaining 250 million who are insured, largely by health maintenance organizations whose sole goal is profit at any expense.
Moore traces the origin of the HMO to a highly inflammatory conversation that President Nixon had with an aide back in 1971 whereby Nixon announced that it would be a terrible idea for government to expand its role in health care but a wonderful prospect if it were to be privatized. And so we find ourselves in the sorry state that we have today where people work their asses off, believing that they will be protected if they get sick but in fact, they are routinely denied coverage and/or benefits by HMOs for any reason under the sun. Pre-existing conditions can disqualify people from getting insurance. Failure to disclose a benign and ridiculous problem such as an ordinary yeast infection led Blue Cross to stop payment on a hospital bill for a distraught woman with endometriosis who had been faithfully paying her Blue Cross premiums.
Moore contrasts the American system with that of other countries and points out that the United States is the only Western industrialized country that lacks a universal health care system. He visits Canada, Britain, and France -- and even Cuba, in a particularly daring, in-your-face maneuver that only he could pull off -- concluding that they are vastly superior to the US.
What Moore doesn't mention is that most of the countries above, as well as Australia and New Zealand, have a parallel private system. He tends to glorify Canada with his selective perspective and interviewing techniques, dismissing news reports about long waiting lists for procedures and lack of proper equipment in Canada as being sheer propaganda; he interviews Canadians in Windsor, Ontario who claimed that they had only been waiting for 20 minutes or so to see a doctor.
Having had the advantage of living in the US for 26 years and the remainder of my 28 years in Canada, I can say with confidence that any time I've had to go to the emergency room in Ottawa, I've waited four to eight hours. I also waited 18 months for a hip replacement that I needed at the age of 47 as a result of a car accident; and there is a marked shortage of MRI machines in Canada's capital. As a result, a small private system has emerged in Québec where people go across the line to pay $700 for their MRI so as to discover a tumor before it metastasizes. Canadians also pay for medications, physiotherapy and dental care, although these services are subsidized for those with low income.
Also, theoretically, Canadians have the choice of any doctor that they want to see. However, in real life, many people have difficulty even finding a family doctor due to a severe shortage even in the cities. I wouldn't leave my family doctor for anything, even if I couldn't stand him. Fortunately, I do like the man a great deal but I know many people, including cancer survivors and older people with Parkinson's and serious blood disorders, who cannot find a family doctor so they rely on treatment from walk-in clinics. That's the worst kind of medicine for someone with a chronic problem or a complicated health history. For those with flus and bad backs, it works fine but not for anything more complex.
Despite these minor problems with the Canadian system, I would choose it hands-down any day of the week over American health care. Canadian Medicare is unquestionably better which is why it wouldn't have hurt Moore at all to have made a more balanced presentation of the facts.
Aside from the outstanding medical care that Michael Moore managed to subversively obtain for some 9/11 workers in Cuba, the country that stood above all others in his analysis was France -- 35 hour work weeks, five weeks paid vacation per year even for part-time workers, full universal health care, nannies who are sent out by the government to help new mothers (and even do their laundry!), excellent subsidized day care, and romantic couples kissing in parks along with families relaxing, so unlike their American counterparts, filled with road rage as they drive home after their backbreaking 10 hour day to pick up some fast food at Kentucky Fried Chicken. The French have it all, including the pastries.
What Moore doesn't address is the recent election in France. Why was the left-wing government voted out and replaced by a strong right-winger if everyone was so happy with their idyllic situation?
Lastly, Moore asks what's wrong with the American government. I ask what's wrong with the American people. There are only 435 members of the House of Representatives, 50 members of Congress and a handful of people in the White House. If there's power in numbers, the people have it. Why aren't they using it? When did they become so complacent? Why aren't they marching in the streets, holding dead children in their arms and missing fingers that they couldn't afford to reattach? Has the Bush regime rendered them all terrified? But the problem predates Bush by a long shot and didn't seem to improve during the eight years that Clinton/Gore had in office.
Don't buy the argument that the government can't afford universal health care -- according to the Associated Press, US taxpayers are spending an estimated $10 billion a month in Iraq. Ouch.
I loved Sicko and I'll see it again on DVD so I can pause, rewind and reflect on the horrors of the American health care plan. No one says it better than Moore and I've been a fan of all of his movies, however, he always has his point of view and it wouldn't hurt him to balance things out just a tiny bit. That won't prevent me from giving this ..ary a five-star plus rating but I didn't find it as funny as others did. Sarcastic, yes. Black humor? Definitely. Laugh-out-loud funny? Hmmm. I missed that! But don't you miss this brilliant, acerbic exposé.
Sigridmac
In his finest film to date, Michael Moore provides a devastating critique of the US health care system, or the lack thereof. He opens the movie by talking about the 50 million Americans who don't have any health insurance but quickly moves on to focus on the remaining 250 million who are insured, largely by health maintenance organizations whose sole goal is profit at any expense.
Moore traces the origin of the HMO to a highly inflammatory conversation that President Nixon had with an aide back in 1971 whereby Nixon announced that it would be a terrible idea for government to expand its role in health care but a wonderful prospect if it were to be privatized. And so we find ourselves in the sorry state that we have today where people work their asses off, believing that they will be protected if they get sick but in fact, they are routinely denied coverage and/or benefits by HMOs for any reason under the sun. Pre-existing conditions can disqualify people from getting insurance. Failure to disclose a benign and ridiculous problem such as an ordinary yeast infection led Blue Cross to stop payment on a hospital bill for a distraught woman with endometriosis who had been faithfully paying her Blue Cross premiums.
Moore contrasts the American system with that of other countries and points out that the United States is the only Western industrialized country that lacks a universal health care system. He visits Canada, Britain, and France -- and even Cuba, in a particularly daring, in-your-face maneuver that only he could pull off -- concluding that they are vastly superior to the US.
What Moore doesn't mention is that most of the countries above, as well as Australia and New Zealand, have a parallel private system. He tends to glorify Canada with his selective perspective and interviewing techniques, dismissing news reports about long waiting lists for procedures and lack of proper equipment in Canada as being sheer propaganda; he interviews Canadians in Windsor, Ontario who claimed that they had only been waiting for 20 minutes or so to see a doctor.
Having had the advantage of living in the US for 26 years and the remainder of my 28 years in Canada, I can say with confidence that any time I've had to go to the emergency room in Ottawa, I've waited four to eight hours. I also waited 18 months for a hip replacement that I needed at the age of 47 as a result of a car accident; and there is a marked shortage of MRI machines in Canada's capital. As a result, a small private system has emerged in Québec where people go across the line to pay $700 for their MRI so as to discover a tumor before it metastasizes. Canadians also pay for medications, physiotherapy and dental care, although these services are subsidized for those with low income.
Also, theoretically, Canadians have the choice of any doctor that they want to see. However, in real life, many people have difficulty even finding a family doctor due to a severe shortage even in the cities. I wouldn't leave my family doctor for anything, even if I couldn't stand him. Fortunately, I do like the man a great deal but I know many people, including cancer survivors and older people with Parkinson's and serious blood disorders, who cannot find a family doctor so they rely on treatment from walk-in clinics. That's the worst kind of medicine for someone with a chronic problem or a complicated health history. For those with flus and bad backs, it works fine but not for anything more complex.
Despite these minor problems with the Canadian system, I would choose it hands-down any day of the week over American health care. Canadian Medicare is unquestionably better which is why it wouldn't have hurt Moore at all to have made a more balanced presentation of the facts.
Aside from the outstanding medical care that Michael Moore managed to subversively obtain for some 9/11 workers in Cuba, the country that stood above all others in his analysis was France -- 35 hour work weeks, five weeks paid vacation per year even for part-time workers, full universal health care, nannies who are sent out by the government to help new mothers (and even do their laundry!), excellent subsidized day care, and romantic couples kissing in parks along with families relaxing, so unlike their American counterparts, filled with road rage as they drive home after their backbreaking 10 hour day to pick up some fast food at Kentucky Fried Chicken. The French have it all, including the pastries.
What Moore doesn't address is the recent election in France. Why was the left-wing government voted out and replaced by a strong right-winger if everyone was so happy with their idyllic situation?
Lastly, Moore asks what's wrong with the American government. I ask what's wrong with the American people. There are only 435 members of the House of Representatives, 50 members of Congress and a handful of people in the White House. If there's power in numbers, the people have it. Why aren't they using it? When did they become so complacent? Why aren't they marching in the streets, holding dead children in their arms and missing fingers that they couldn't afford to reattach? Has the Bush regime rendered them all terrified? But the problem predates Bush by a long shot and didn't seem to improve during the eight years that Clinton/Gore had in office.
Don't buy the argument that the government can't afford universal health care -- according to the Associated Press, US taxpayers are spending an estimated $10 billion a month in Iraq. Ouch.
I loved Sicko and I'll see it again on DVD so I can pause, rewind and reflect on the horrors of the American health care plan. No one says it better than Moore and I've been a fan of all of his movies, however, he always has his point of view and it wouldn't hurt him to balance things out just a tiny bit. That won't prevent me from giving this ..ary a five-star plus rating but I didn't find it as funny as others did. Sarcastic, yes. Black humor? Definitely. Laugh-out-loud funny? Hmmm. I missed that! But don't you miss this brilliant, acerbic exposé.
Sigridmac
Sunday, June 10, 2007
On behalf of all rape victims
Holly Desimone was viciously raped by an acquaintance who escaped prosecution and managed to leave the country. She launched a one-woman campaign to find him, creating her own justice.
In the process, Holly lost many things including the support of her family and her children. But she gained strength, confidence and blazed a trail for other women in Canada by having the courage to break her own publication ban and go public with her story.
You can watch a short video here -- powerful stuff. Hats off to you, Holly.
So proud of you, girlfriend! http://www.quantumshift.tv/modules/sharing/sharing.php?sid=MTE1
Sigridmac
PS Also check out Holly's Fight for Justice which is one of my links on the right.
In the process, Holly lost many things including the support of her family and her children. But she gained strength, confidence and blazed a trail for other women in Canada by having the courage to break her own publication ban and go public with her story.
You can watch a short video here -- powerful stuff. Hats off to you, Holly.
So proud of you, girlfriend! http://www.quantumshift.tv/modules/sharing/sharing.php?sid=MTE1
Sigridmac
PS Also check out Holly's Fight for Justice which is one of my links on the right.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Sweetness in the Belly: A Novel by Camilla Gibb
This beautifully written and impeccably researched tale contains a wealth of information about the battered country of Ethiopia and the strength and resilience of its people. It is obvious that Camilla Gibb had first-hand experience in the field and has the highest regard for those who went through the terrible years of war, famine, upheaval and dictatorship.
Sweetness in the Belly personalizes this unthinkable social and political tragedy so that we have an inside view into the life of Lilly, a privileged Muslim woman with an ill-fated attraction for Aziz, a doctor and a man of another class. The book goes back and forth between Ethiopia and England as Lilly reflects back on early years in her homeland before she was forced to flee. It is a testament to human nature that anyone can survive the atrocities that were perpetrated on these blameless souls, and can emerge with any kindness, decency and dreams for the future.
That makes this a book of hope with a wealth of fascinating information, although at heart, it's also just a great story. I'll be looking for more books by Gibb, after I've watched some lightweight comedies on DVD that will serve as a buffer from reading about so much pain.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario
Sweetness in the Belly personalizes this unthinkable social and political tragedy so that we have an inside view into the life of Lilly, a privileged Muslim woman with an ill-fated attraction for Aziz, a doctor and a man of another class. The book goes back and forth between Ethiopia and England as Lilly reflects back on early years in her homeland before she was forced to flee. It is a testament to human nature that anyone can survive the atrocities that were perpetrated on these blameless souls, and can emerge with any kindness, decency and dreams for the future.
That makes this a book of hope with a wealth of fascinating information, although at heart, it's also just a great story. I'll be looking for more books by Gibb, after I've watched some lightweight comedies on DVD that will serve as a buffer from reading about so much pain.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
I absolutely adored this critique of religion by Richard Dawkins. He is a preeminent scholar who backed up his arguments against the existence of God, or rather the probability of the existence of God, beautifully. Dawkins also made a compelling argument for the fact that religion is not simply a benign preference that one adopts; it can be and is indeed frequently used to justify sexism, homophobia, territorial disputes and futile, bloody wars.
It seems politically correct nowadays to separate fundamentalist religions from the mainstream, in particular when we are talking about Muslims; however, Dawkins argues that all religion is a form of fanaticism because it's based on myth and compulsion. He talks about how frequently we overlook the fact that suicide bombers truly believe that they will be rewarded in the hereafter for their heinous deeds.
The only complaint that I, as an agnostic, would have about The God Delusion is that it offers no solace. Dawkins seems to find comfort in science and the evolutionary theory but I don't and I don't imagine that a terminal cancer patient would either. That's not to say that fear of mortality justifies a belief in a higher being whose presence we can't confirm -- it is to say that I understand why people embrace the concept even if it runs contrary to what we know scientifically.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario
It seems politically correct nowadays to separate fundamentalist religions from the mainstream, in particular when we are talking about Muslims; however, Dawkins argues that all religion is a form of fanaticism because it's based on myth and compulsion. He talks about how frequently we overlook the fact that suicide bombers truly believe that they will be rewarded in the hereafter for their heinous deeds.
The only complaint that I, as an agnostic, would have about The God Delusion is that it offers no solace. Dawkins seems to find comfort in science and the evolutionary theory but I don't and I don't imagine that a terminal cancer patient would either. That's not to say that fear of mortality justifies a belief in a higher being whose presence we can't confirm -- it is to say that I understand why people embrace the concept even if it runs contrary to what we know scientifically.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario
Bush's Brain -- SCARY!!!
If you want to rent a true horror movie, watch Bush's Brain, based on the book by two Texan reporters. Their assertion that Karl Rove is running the White House is frightening because apparently he's a brilliant but ruthless man that no one elected. This DVD was released in 2004. Much of the information is outdated. Only brief allusions were made to the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq whereas much attention was paid to the background of Karl Rove -- if even 1/10 of that is true, he is a man without a soul or a conscience and he's directing our domestic and foreign policy.
The big surprise is not so much how Bush and Rove pulled this scam off; the true surprise to me is how the electorate put these men in for a second term! The first term was quite "iffy." It could be argued that Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court because that race was so damn close, but all that really says is that the country was divided right down the middle in terms of partisan politics. When we knew perfectly well that Bush revealed himself as a war president, why, oh why elect him for a second term?
Thankfully, he'll be ousted in 2008 but that's not soon enough for the dept that he's run up, the programs that he's destroyed, the American troops that he's sent needlessly to die or be maimed, and the horrific damage that he inflicted on the country and the people of Iraq. And this is only January. He's got lots of time to expand his reign.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario (formerly from New Jersey)
The big surprise is not so much how Bush and Rove pulled this scam off; the true surprise to me is how the electorate put these men in for a second term! The first term was quite "iffy." It could be argued that Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court because that race was so damn close, but all that really says is that the country was divided right down the middle in terms of partisan politics. When we knew perfectly well that Bush revealed himself as a war president, why, oh why elect him for a second term?
Thankfully, he'll be ousted in 2008 but that's not soon enough for the dept that he's run up, the programs that he's destroyed, the American troops that he's sent needlessly to die or be maimed, and the horrific damage that he inflicted on the country and the people of Iraq. And this is only January. He's got lots of time to expand his reign.
Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario (formerly from New Jersey)
Promise Me by Harlan Coben
This is the second book that I've read by Coben and I was immediately engaged by the people and the story line. He manages to weave an intricate plot without dropping characters along the way, overly complicating matters, confusing the reader and developing shallow protagonists. I loved Myron and will look forward to reading about his previous adventures.
The basic premise of this one is that one night, without thinking about the consequences, 42-year-old Myron Bolitar, an ex-athlete turned entertainment lawyer, overhears a conversation between two teenage girls, one of whom he knows quite well. They're talking about drinking. It's senior year in Bergen County, New Jersey (where I grew up, BTW!) And the number one priority for affluent parents and their children is getting those teens into a decent university.
Myron remembers that a classmate in his high school never made it because she was killed by a drunk driver. He makes the girls promise him that if they're ever in trouble in the middle of the night, they can call him at any time -- no questions asked. Little does he anticipate where that promise will lead him and us, the readers.
Much like his other book, whose name I have forgotten, this was a page turner. I will put Coben at the top of my list and go back to read his other books. Very well done and highly recommended, although it stretched the imagination a bit at times.
Sigridmac, author of D'Amour Road
America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
Mark Steyn makes a chilling and compelling argument that we need to be more concerned about international demographics than global warming and compact fluorescent light bulbs. He enumerates the birth rates for countries around the world, starting with North America and moving on to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, China, India and Russia. Steyn claims -- and I have no reason to disbelieve him -- that Europe and Canada are failing to repopulate themselves. Some countries are really bad like Germany, Japan, Spain and Italy, which Steyn also criticizes for their left-leaning, socialist tendencies since he believes they contribute to unemployment and far too great a reliance on government.
What will happen down the road is that we will have nations, or perhaps entire continents, with such aging populations that they don't have enough young people to support them in retirement. And their tax bases will be so high that fresh blood won't want to immigrate there.
The countries that are doing very well in terms of fertility are mainly Muslim countries and that scares Steyn because of their anti-Semitism, opposition to Western ways and lack of "forward thinking." He quotes a UN statistics from 2002 that said that in one year more books were translated into Spanish than into Arabic over the last one thousand years -- pretty frightening and evidence to Steyn that the Arab world is quite xenophobic.
As an independent, I'm not prone to taking a conservative position on most issues but I do like to read all sides. And in this case, much of what Steyn argues is irrefutable in terms of sheer stats about populations. For that reason alone, I give this book 5 stars because it was a serious eye-opener for me and it was very well-written, researched and funny as hell.
However, there are some things that I don't think that Mark Steyn fully addressed. The first is that he pats the United States on the back for managing to at least have a fertility rate above 2.0. He mentions that this is NOT coming from the average 30 year old couple who live in his hometown in New Hampshire; we can thank the large number of Hispanics and Mormons for keeping the US population high. Latinos are largely Catholic so it seems that both groups in the US may be keeping the population afloat for religious reasons. Thus, it's not so much that *America* is enlightened or any different from Europe or Canada when it comes to having children or being concerned about keeping the population growing; it's the Red states (Republican women) and certain religious groups that are doing so.
Another area that I think he could have focused on more was women's rights. I've been a long-time feminist since the early 70s but I concede that ready access to abortion, more reliable birth control, women entering the workforce in large numbers and thus being able to support themselves financially, along with increased cultural and social acceptance of divorce have all contributed to these declining birth rights. Therefore it's hard to recommend that giving Islamic women more rights and equality will do anything but reduce their rate of breeding.
There's no going backward and who would want to? But we need some form of education in the schools and campaigns on television and print that will raise awareness about our declining population. So many women my age were raised with the idea that they should delay having children until they were established in their careers; and by the time they reached 38 or 40 they realized that their eggs weren't that good. All of this info needs to get out to the public when they're much younger. I don't think it's that people aren't interested in having children or in keeping the population going -- much of this is simply ignorance about the fact that we even *have* a population shortage. I grew up thinking that we were having a global population explosion. The word needs to get out and reading this book is a great place to start.
When the Levees Broke -- The Enemy within
9/11 was terrifying. For the first time in decades, we were attacked on our own soil. But the assault came from outsiders. Even more frightening is to think there may be a malevolent group within the country that kills people by its own negligence. Prior to watching Spike Lee's masterpiece, I had naïvely thought that New Orleans was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Lee argues that the United States Army Corps of Engineers designed the levees so poorly that they could not withstand anything stronger than a category two hurricane.
Given the fact that the city is surrounded by water on all sides, it was inevitable that it would be hit by a storm much more powerful than category two, thus, the engineers-- who can't be sued -- bear an enormous amount of responsibility for the catastrophe that befell hundreds of thousands of people.
Worse was the downright embarrassing and disgraceful response of the Bush administration. It took George Bush 12 days to get down to New Orleans. Meanwhile, he was on vacation and making speeches about Iraq (hey, let's get our priorities straight!) while Dick Cheney was flyfishing and Condoleezza Rice was buying shoes. Spike Lee shows some old footage of Lyndon B. Johnson making a clumsy appearance in New Orleans following Hurricane Betsy -- old LBJ was out there in the dark with his flashlight and down-homey kind of way but at least he was there. People knew that he cared.
FEMA, as we all know, took five days to get to the city although somehow it only took our government two days to go across the world to help the tsunami victims. One can only conclude that it is deliberate disdain and racism or a complete lack of concern for people of lower incomes that resulted in such a horrifically slow and inadequate response to this tragedy.
Spike Lee, who I've always loved, tells the story of Katrina through the words of those who lived through it -- from rich to poor, black to white, the important to the "ordinary." Their tales moved me to tears and to an angry rage as the story unfolded from the beginning of the chaos to the cleanup -- or so-called -- and the bailouts of so many insurance companies who refused to pay up.
One thing that I would have appreciated in this HBO series was a few more facts. After watching for four hours, I still don't know exactly how many people were killed or injured. Also, there was a reference early on to the fact that the levees had been dynamited during Betsy and that some people suspected that the same may have happened during Katrina in order to flood out the homes of the poorest people to save the rich. That's a serious allegation and it deserved more time and attention in the film.
Otherwise, this DVD was fantastic. It was moving and irreverent -- a real eye-opener and must-see. Hope that it's resurrected before the next election!
Sigridmac, American living in Canada
Derailed
Although I'm not a big fan of Jennifer Aniston's, I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced thriller about a married man who meets an attractive woman on a train and arranges a hookup. His relationship with his wife is strained because their young daughter is seriously ill and the woman that he, Clive Owens, meets, Aniston, offers the promise of soothing his pain. Little does he know that the heartache and nightmares are about to begin!
Jennifer Aniston plays a different type role, which is nice to see since she's usually typecast in that boppy, upbeat and giggly kind of way. She is serious, almost too much so, as a high-powered businesswoman.
Owens, who I just saw in Children of Men, does a marvelous job and I loved the unpredictability of the story. Looks as though he's on his way to being the next Nicolas Cage.
Sigridmac
Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home
SEND is a great book that reminds us to check our knee-jerk reactions to e-mail. Regardless of how many years we've been on the Internet or how savvy we think we are in terms of e-mail etiquette, it doesn't hurt to brush up on some of the basics.
I can't count how many e-mails I receive in a given day that have a subject line that is completely unrelated to the topic; so many people, myself included, will continue a correspondence back and forth without ever changing the subject of the e-mail.
Due to the rapidity of the medium, we often expect unreasonably quick replies to our e-mails. And many people have no idea when to end a conversation. In person, we know how to do that easily. Most people are in agreement as to when a conversation is over but chitchat in e-mail can go back and forth into cyber eternity and someone has to know when to say stop, when to delete an e-mail or just reply with one line.
Much of the advice in this primer is based on common sense but I found it to be an excellent reminder that in general my own e-mails tend to be too long, partly because I dictate with a voice program, and that I reply too often instead of hitting the big "D" on my keyboard. Something here for everyone, particularly beginners, but also for old-timers too.
Sigridmac
I can't count how many e-mails I receive in a given day that have a subject line that is completely unrelated to the topic; so many people, myself included, will continue a correspondence back and forth without ever changing the subject of the e-mail.
Due to the rapidity of the medium, we often expect unreasonably quick replies to our e-mails. And many people have no idea when to end a conversation. In person, we know how to do that easily. Most people are in agreement as to when a conversation is over but chitchat in e-mail can go back and forth into cyber eternity and someone has to know when to say stop, when to delete an e-mail or just reply with one line.
Much of the advice in this primer is based on common sense but I found it to be an excellent reminder that in general my own e-mails tend to be too long, partly because I dictate with a voice program, and that I reply too often instead of hitting the big "D" on my keyboard. Something here for everyone, particularly beginners, but also for old-timers too.
Sigridmac
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
