Is Gut, Ja?

I wanted to check out the preview to Grimm Too at the Bathurst Factory Theatre but I ended up at "And So It Goes ...", a new play by George F. Walker. It stars Peter Donaldson and Martha Burns as Ned and Gwen, a middle-class couple on an economic downward spiral; Jenny Young as Karen, their schizophrenic daughter; and Jerry Franken, the dead sci-fi writer Kurt Vonnegut as the imaginary therapist/friend for Ned and Gwen.

You can check out a review of the play at the Globe and Mail. Ned in demeanour, sardonic speech, and physical appearance reminds me of actor J.K. Simmons. Gwen was your typical high-strung suburban housewife; she gave up a career as a Latin teacher to raise the kids. The downward spiral of this couple from comfortable house, to cramp apartment, to homeless shelter is played for laughs; apparently a common absurdist strain in Walker's plays. This was quite funny. However, the short, abrupt scenes and the humour made the attempts to transition to Serious Drama in some parts a bit clunky. In my opinion, it was more effective, and in keeping with the ridiculous tone, when a line was casually said by a character, that had more emotional resonance after a bit of thought.

I don't know how realistic was the portrayal of schizophrenia. But at times, at least to me, it veered to close to Oscar Material (see Sean Penn, or Dustin Hoffman). Every actor loves to dig their teeth into "mental illness".

Sometimes, the short quick scenes led to some expositional speech: "Say, isn't too bad that X happened to you?", "Why, it isn't nearly as bad as when Y happened to you." I'm not sure what else a playwright can do to advance plot or character given the format, but it's just a bugbear of mine to have my back up when I hear that sort of lazy writing.

Overall, I enjoyed the play, with the exception of the gun sub-plot. I simply don't buy the premise that a middle-class man, no matter that he's on his way onto the streets, has the "criminal" connections to buy an "untraceable" gun, especially in Toronto.

As an aside, there are apparently quite a number of young, pretty women who go to plays on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Either they are all single, an odd circumstance given their attractiveness, or their boyfriends aren't into plays. And so it goes ...

The Sound of Bulat

I went to an 30 minute in-store show at SoundScapes given by folk singer Basia Bulat. As the 7 pm start approaches, the staff was moving the shelves out of the way. I think one of them thought I was one of those weird loners who lack basic social skills since I emitted a short cackle when he pulled a shelf away. Well, I'll cop to the weird loner part but in my defense, I had noticed that somebody was looking at a CD on the same shelf. The mental image of him being startled by the retreating shelf cracked me up. Unfortunately, the shelf had sections and only the right-most one moved.

As the store filled up, I made my way to the front row. Noticing that the mob was getting 10 to 15 persons deep; Ms. Bulat is diminutive in person; and I'm of the philosophy that "If everybody sits, everybody can see" (a situation that is sadly rare at live shows), I plopped my winter coat on the floor and sat down on it as the show was about to start. Things could have gone either way but two other girls decided to follow suit. That started the ball rolling and most every one sat down except for the people along the sides and at the very back. I received congratulatory pats on the back for my initiative and what do you know, everybody can see!

As an aside, given that some people tell me I look young for my age, and my own mental immaturity, I have this self-image of myself as looking no more than mid to late 20s though I'm approaching my late 30's. This could be pure self-delusion and even if not, eventually it will no longer be true. So sooner or later, I'll simply be a weird old man to people who are, on average, probably 15 years younger than me.

Basia gave an un-amplified performance, though her auto-harp was miked. It was a good performance marred only slightly by two things: her new guitar that she bought in Halifax, and the quiet audience. She bought the guitar for the "Marvel B" label (to go with Basia? Bulat?) but it didn't tune well. The quiet audience was perhaps a consequence of unfamiliarity with her new material or the coffee-shop atmosphere. A more boisterous audience might have given her more energy but overall, she did remark later that the show had a nice, intimate feeling.

Things I learned chatting with her a bit after the show. One, she seemed like a nice person. An old friend of hers came up after the show. Upon finding out that it's his birthday, she told him to stay a bit and they'll make plans for the rest of the evening. Two, she's probably only about 5'2". Three, she's quite young as the afore-mentioned friend is one of those young man who grows a scraggly beard to hide how young he looks. Four, she doesn't usually have an instrument in mind when she writes. She experiments with matching up words and music, and some songs composed on one instrument end up being played on another. Finally, she doesn't sing Polish songs as part of her repertoire except one time last December in Poland. In fact, she thought about doing a Polish song this evening. It would have been great. This article suggests that she may decide to release a Polish CD.

P.S. Another tidbit, though not officially listed on her website, her next show in Toronto will be in June.

Learning The Word

I went to Gallery 345 near Dundas St. W and Roncesvalles for some piano improvisation. According to gallery owner Edward Epstein, he decided to hold small concerts there in response to the recent recession. The L-shaped gallery does seem to have good acoustics.probably Mr. Epstein has 2 grand pianos at the gallery: he bought a Baldwin, and was given a Steinway B from a friend at York University. In fact, both pianos will be in use at the upcoming 2 pianos 4 hands concert. He is also looking for soloists and small groups to perform there.

There were only about 25-30 people at the show although the owner said that his largest concert had 140 people, though there's only seats for 100. I'm curious if the piano would be placed in the middle of the long side of the gallery for such a concert and have the audience on both side to minimize the distance to the last row. In any case, this show had probably 80% Jews there, probably because the pianist, Marilyn Lerner, is apparently known for her compositions of traditional Jewish songs, as well as jazz pieces.

I sat at the front row for the 1st set, and at the last row (about 8 rows back) for the 2nd set. I sounded better to my ear at the back, probably because I'm deeper into the long end of the gallery instead of being in the more spacious intersection where the piano was located. It was a bit of an odd concert for me. The only piano improvisation I've heard before is jazz or blues. Marilyn Lerner seems to be more in the classical mold with a bit of modern thrown in. Not being a pianist, I wasn't quite sure during her pieces which parts were composed and which improvised.

She played a number of original compositions, a Dizzy Gillespie piece, a serbian folk song, and a number of Yiddish and Hasidic songs. In fact, my favourite piece was a Hasidic song where she was blunting the piano hammers with her left hand, resulting in a very 'synth-bass' sound. It had an almost an electronic dance feel. Other times, she strummed and plucked the piano strings. It's probably not that impressive if you're a professional pianist, but I was struck by how she improvised her chords, harmonies and melodies with her eyes usually closed. One piece descended into cacophony with her using her palms, elbows, and finally forearms to simply bang out sounds. Given her slight stature, I almost laughed because essentially it's no different than a rowdy child. Of course, the difference being that the noise slowly re-assembled into recognizably music again.

The evening ended with a Rogers and Hammerstein song from South Pacific, This Nearly Was Mine is my guess, and theoretically another original composition of a Romanian song. She picked the South Pacific song because she saw the musical last week with her daughter and partner. However, apparently the improvisation of "This Nearly Was Mine" was so inspired that she decided to end the concert there. It certainly sounded good to me. Well, she had an assistant with 3 small video cameras set up, as well as 2 directional mikes over the piano, to record the concert for archival purposes. So I guess if the piece was, on a second listen, that good it'll end up on her next CD.

Eat, Drink, Give

I attended a charity event to raise money for the earthquake relief in Haiti. Local toronto foodies gathered for a night of food and wine samples from about 30-40 restaurants/vineyards. There was a silent auction as well as a live auction for primarily vintage wine, although there were also an espresso machine, a fancy bbq, cufflinks, jewelry and other luxury items.

I only sampled maybe 3 wines, skipped most of the desserts, and was too full to try maybe 3-4 restaurants. I did get to nibble on about 17 samples. Grano had a 2 colour ravioli with truffle sauce. Nothing outstanding, just what you would expect from an italian trattoria. Noce served up some beef carpaccio with parmigianno and arugula. Can't recall much about it. Jayne's Gourmet Catering passed out some seafood ceviche with thai basil. That was a nice amuse-bouche. Cava grilled some some cumbrae farm pork in a small cornitas. This was a delicious dish. Too bad the chef oversold his extremely hot peanut sauce. Ha! Tastes mild to me. I think some people don't know hot.

Mark Cutrara of Cowbell was mixing up some venison tartare. It was a little spicy and chewy. You can definitely tell you're eating raw game meat. The Wine Bar had little corn beef reuben samples. Couldn't taste much of the meat but the sauerkraut had a nice bitter aftertaste. Forte tempted me with condensed french onion soup wrapped in a dumpling (2 of them). A little salty but it wasn't bad. My Place Pub handed out a pork pâté on a focaccia with peach butter. Tastes like pate. Barberian had a tray full of little burger-style buns stuffed with pork and caramelized onion. Quite bland actually. Massimo Bruno ladled on an eggplant parmiagianni. It was stick to your ribs italian fare. I was sure it was a pasta but apparently it was eggplant.

Buddha Dog had little hot dogs with100% beef topped with mango aioli. Tastes like a hot dog to me. Berber displayed a number of samples including a kebab, but I tried a traditional slightly sweet pastry stuffed with chicken (b'stilla). It wasn't bad, though I'm not a fan of Middle Eastern sweet treats. Wouldn't mind trying the original recipe that calls for pigeon. Splendido experimented with a chicken pâté parfait. How interesting. Both components of the dish were light and fluffy. Treadwell, way out in Port Dalhousie, served up my favourite dish of the night: head cheese. Never had it before nor know what it looks like. Turns out it looks the vietnamese dishes of thit dong (jellied meat) and gio thu (Vietnamese head cheese). I was slightly hesitant but it was delicious. The gelatin had a slight animal fat taste, the meat was primarily tender and chewy, and the curry/pickled cauliflower side was perfect. I ended the evening with some chocolate cake from Dufflet, a bit of Bailey's gelato from Frozen Vines, and some citrus oolong tea from The Tea Emporium. As noted there were lots of other dessert treats including macaron, cookies, cupcakes, etc. that I skipped.


Apparently, the restauranteurs were told to make for 500 even though only about 350 tickets were sold. So there were leftovers that can be had with a bit of sweet talk. I only took home some cupcakes for my co-workers, but my companions scored cupcakes, cookies, macarons, other desserts, some eggplant parmagianni, and even vacuum-sealed bags of brisket.

My impression of the evening was mixed. I enjoyed the wine, food, and company. I'm also glad that they probably made, in my estimation, at least $50,000. $100 x 350 tickets + raffle + $5-6K silent auction + $10K live auction. Given that all the sponsors donated their time and food, and Roy Thompson Hall was free, there was probably minimal financial overhead.

On the other hand, I was reminded of a friend who works for an NGO. She despises these 'shin-digs'. I can sympathize. It seems to me that most people were there for the wine, food, and to win some 'discounted' items at the auction. Discounted in the sense that they can bid on a $3000 (donated) bottle of wine for $1500. It was a bit jarring to realize that less than 30 people, not even 10% of the attendees, paid any attention to Gord Martineau (CityTV news reporter) or Isabelle Jeanson (MSF Communications Advisor) as they spoke. Without a mike, they wouldn't have been heard over the din of the crowd. And when the good ol' boys were high-fiving each other on winning a Chateau Lafite or some other expensive wine, the incongruity with what's currently happening in Haiti was disconcerting. But I guess you have to wine, dine, and rub elbows with the moneyed set if you want to see large donations.

King of the Turd

I finally saw Avatar. Let me rattle off the good stuff, since that's shorter. I like the 3-D, since it's not in your face. There were few flying objects aimed directly at the viewer. Everything, from the actors, to the scenery has a more 3-dimensional reality although things tend to be "floaty" instead of having real dimensions. The special effects were first rate and there wasn't the uncanny valley effect, although the main characters weren't truly human to really test that bugaboo.

Now on to the bad stuff. My theatre didn't really have a 'real' IMAX screen. It was obvious from the size of the screen as well as the seats. A real IMAX screen, the kind that are installed in places like museums, have screens so big you shouldn't even be able to see the screen edges while sitting in the middle. Also, the seats are so vertically stacked, like the nose-bleed seats at an arena or stadium, that you feel like maybe you'll fall off as you shuffle to your seat.

I wasn't bored with Avatar, but I didn't really feel any genuine excitement except for some appreciation of the 3-D and the special effects. Though Anton Chekov said that "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.", I think he would have blanched at James Cameron ham-fisted way of telegraphing every plot point.

In Avatar, if characters show some skill or information early on, why then they will no doubt use it later. If they fail at some task, then of course they will succeed at the same task when the crucial time comes. If some plan of action failed for a secondary character, then whaddaya know, it'll work later for the main character.

Of course, the most obvious plot failure is the usage, once again, of the honky hero (or mighty whitey). You can find many rant about this trope or this trope in Avatar online so I will contribute only a few thoughts to this. One, this is white man's burden, even with the sugar-coating, so no matter how positively the native culture is portrayed it is still inferior. Two, the native culture and people are really there only as obstacles or aid for the personal redemption of the white hero. Finally, not much for viewers with 2 X chromosomes, as another male protagonist stars in yet another Hollywood movie.

From a plot perspective, Avatar's narrative suffers from this Dances With Aliens lack of imagination. A traditional male leader, somewhat set in his ways, but wise enough to recognize the outsider's specialness? Check. A young, hot-blooded rival whose narrow-mindedness and hide-bound ways (often with a 'stealing our women' chip on his shoulder) is actually more of a threat than the hero's irreverent, disrespectful manners? Check. A lithesome native love interest, initially irritated by the hero's irreverent streak, who finally falls in love with his individualist, independent ways? Check. And a down-trodden outcast hero, who discovers that he has an extraordinary destiny, finds redemption? Check and mate. As an aside, nobody seems to mind that his redemption often comes only after massive, and irreparable harm or loss of life has occurred because of his action or inaction. But hey, he's a different guy now.

It's too bad since Cameron made a movie 14 years ago featuring 2 powerful women: Ripley and the female alien. Sigourney is back, and we have Neytiri, a sympathetic, and skilled, female Na'vi. So Cameron could have avoided all the cliches and gave us a movie with powerful, kick-ass women (though that is also a minor trope, at least in sci-fi), natives who save themselves, and Sigourney Weaver finding herself being the 'bad alien' this time round (how deliciously ironic that would have been).

Mr. Cameron, might I suggest Whale Rider (for strong female native characters) and the Foreigner universe (for tips on how humans may actually interact with huge aliens on a dangerous world where the humans may be technologically superior but are vastly outnumbered). Or, you know, you can just continue to blow shit up.

That's Just Ducky

I went to 2 live music shows at the Drake Underground this week, and they couldn't have been more different.

The first, to put it mildly, sucks. All performers had skill, but I'm not sure they had talent ... or rather, inspiration. Because the music was uninspiring. First up was Viviv, a trio of guitarist/singer, a cellist and a violinist. There's nothing wrong with them, except that the songs sound kind of all the same.

Next was Gary Higgins, who along with his pianist, resembled Crosby and Stills, with their 'stach and shock of white hair. He's an indifferent guitar player, and that also describes his songs. Here's a sample: "You are the sun/I am the morning dew/You had your fun/I want to have mine too." The synthesizer accompaniment really cheesed it up, especially when the synth strings, or flute, or God help me, the harpsichord came in. I think I actually fell asleep for a brief stretch leaning against the bar counter. This review says it all for me.

The headliner was 12-string instrumental guitarist James Blackshaw. The first song sounded great. But then song after song sounded very much like one another. His standard song is this: instead of tuning his guitar in 6 pairs with standard tuning, he tunes every string differently. This gives his guitar a "large", ringing, harmonized sound. He finger-picks the bottom strings (i.e., arpeggios) and plucks some basic bass line with the top strings as he transitions from chord to chord. Repeat for about 7 minutes. Nice but gets dull rather quickly. For some variety, try these amateurs and professionals.

The 2nd show was great. First up was Kite Hill. Ironically, the cellist (Anissa Hart) and violinist (Mika Posen) were the two women from Viviv. What a difference good songs make. Now instead of bowing whole notes, they have actual arrangements. Rounding out the group was a stringed bassist, a drummer, and the pianist/singer. Some nice tunes from this band though I think they'll have to try and avoid that vaguely melancholic sound that pop songs with strings sometimes have (i.e., schmaltz).

Hooded Fang is a upbeat 7-member pop band from Toronto. I first caught them playing at the Bloordale Street Festival in the Concord Cafe almost 2 years ago. They write 3-5 minutes catchy gems. I've seen them a few times since. With a live repertoire of 20 songs or more, I don't know why they don't put out a full-length LP instead of the 5 song EP that they've been schlepping since then. On the plus side, they've added a 'real' drummer about a year ago. His propulsive beat really drives the songs forward. The down side is the loss of one of the original singers. Her low earthy tones really complement the breathy hue of the other girl singer and the laconic sound of the main male singer. Also, instead of sharing singing duties, more and more songs feature the main singer, with the others providing mostly background and harmonies. This diminishes the old feel that Hooded Fang is just a bunch of friends having a good time (especially as they used to swap instruments on practically every song.)

Nevertheless, they always sound great live. It's hard to listen to them without moving your feet. Now, if only I can get my hands on a recording of all these new tunes.

Finally, Gentleman Reg came on. He is doing a 4-week "residency" stint at the Drake. A very, very blond singer with a very, very flamboyant and out-sized presence on stage. He is becoming more and more known. It's my first exposure to him and though I like his music, I'm not sure I love it unreservedly. I was thinking about why that is.

Well, he's an ok singer with a interesting, high tone. However, when he hits the limit of his upper registers he gets a bit screamy and, as Randy of American Idol would say, pitchy. His music is definitely pop and I think that's where I was iffy about it. He's at his best when he's "radio-friendly": soulful ballads (e.g., Rewind) and catchy, almost, dance tunes (e.g.We're in a Thunderstorm). But when he tries to stretch lyrically, the limitation of the pop/rock musical arrangement, which is typical of his songs, reveal themselves. It's as if someone, say a new immigrant, wishes to express some deep, expansive thought or feeling, but find himself stymied by his limited vocabulary and grammar. That is, the music doesn't soar as well as his words.

Because of those thoughts, I would consider his drummer to be a kind of stand-in for that limitation. I'm sure she's a self-taught drummer because the way she holds her drumsticks is definitely 'wrong'. I don't pound the skins, but I'm enough of a high-school band geek to know that there are certain drum techniques she can't do with those kung-fu grips. And so as the songs played, it became obvious that despite some slight variations and embellishments, it's really just a basic 4/4 rock beat she's doing. So to finish this mangled metaphor, is she the drummer for this band because her simple style matches the music, or is the music the way it is because of her simple style?

UPDATE: I finally listened to Gentleman Reg's album Jet Black. I will moderate some of my criticism. It seems that there is a different drummer on the disc and there is more instrumentation. Both of these make these songs stronger and more enjoyable.