We are not afraid to entrust the
American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien
philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let
its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation
that is afraid of its people. -John F. Kennedy, 35th US president
(1917-1963)
Jen's/Howard's Indiana
Chloe Alexis Dunn Love this kid!!!!! xxxxx
Pat,
Sorry, I have work at 3. Not sure I'm fit enough for the Seymour ascent
at this point anyway. Next good forecast looks to be Thursday. Ray
P,
I am up for a less ambitious ride, preferably with a latte break somewhere
-- if the weather isn't PR -- pissing rain.
I don't know what forecast you are looking at but mine predicts: cloudy with
showers, light rain, rain -- afternoon, evening, and overnight respectively.
Let me know what the consensus is and conversely what you decide. W
Hello Patrick,
I'm
very sad to say that I've been troubled by a throat infection since
yesterday, which puts me out of order. Porca Madonna! Hope for a new
invitation next time. Kjell
Hi Kjell!
Sorry to hear about your throat infection! Take care of yourself. Have not ironed out any details yet but looking at forecast, Wednesday seems to be ripe for a ride. Let me know if you think you will be feeling well enough to join peleton.
As things turned out, Robo Ray was dissuaded by possibility of rain from riding and Whirlygig didn't have time for Seymour. Too, too bad as we probably could have "attacked" Cariboo, given the fact that it was as dry as a bone for our entire jaunt. WE decided to leave The Heartbreak Terrace at 10:00am and did a quick up-and-over LG, pushing into North Van as far as Spirit Trail is completed, to the east. Thought of you as we passed Tatlow. Back past Ambleside but only as far as Argyle and then homeward bound.
As I mentioned, it really was a lovely day, other than the reasonably breezy headwind which dogged us, coming from the southeast, more or less, yet somehow managing to be, rather maliciously, we thought, more often in our faces than not! I "chauffeured" Whirlygig home, (I'm so used to driving Miss Daisy Lee that it's almost a knee-jerk reaction to do the same on a bike!), and after I left Giggenheimer I did a quick dipsy-doodle around Kits Point to add a few klicks to odometre to arrive back at The Heartbreak Terrace with 61.33K on the clock. Quick shower while Her Footness went to The Right Foot, on 4th and Fir, to look at some shoes that might be appropriate for travel, early on in the "normal" walking recovery period. She is to have one last x-ray this coming Thursday and then see her surgeon. She is hoping that he will allow her to don ordinary shoes, the proviso being that they provide strong support.
Earlier that morning we had thought that we'd take in Hugo at an afternoon matinee at Fifth but Chloë suggested we watch both A Better Life and Beginners. She had rented them the night before and they were not due until 9:00pm Tuesday evening. Have you seen or heard about either? We, or at least I, didn't know much, if anything about the films. Pulled a few bits from the web about both. The former:
The Bicycle Thief, directed by Vittorio De Sica and written by Cesare Zavattini in 1948, long considered one of the classic films of Italian neo-realism, tells the story of a poor man and his son. Their search for a stolen bicycle the father desperately needs for work becomes a journey that explores poverty and desperation. A Better Life from the always surprising director Chris Weitz employs the same strategy to open up the lives of a Mexican gardener in East Los Angeles and his Americanized son.
Their search for a truck becomes an odyssey of powerlessness and anxiety that creates greater understanding between father and son, who are virtually unaware of each other’s lives. Meanwhile the movie tracks the hard reality of what it means to be without documents in American society.
The latter:
Movies about sadness are inherently movies about happiness, too, because any attempt to deconstruct grief or depression must also address what it means to not be these things — in other words, to be fulfilled. So to describe Beginners as a film about a man coping with the loss of his father and, in turn, his own shortcomings in life isn’t doing it justice. To say it’s about love is more accurate, but trite.
Perhaps it’s best to go with the obvious: Beginners is about beginnings.
In the case of Hal (Christopher Plummer), who comes out of the closet at age 78, four years before he will die of cancer, it’s the start of a new life that’s true to his identity. For his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who falls in love with a French actress named Anna (Mélanie Laurent), it’s the start of life without his father and the beginning of his first honest relationship with a woman.
Both are very, very powerful, very very moving. The plight of illegal Mexicans in the US, (and by extension, I suppose, illegals anywhere in the world), is examined in a way that is truly remarkable. Once one has seen it, the film maker's approach seems self evident but that, I think, is one of the points. We really don't see the lives, imagine the devastating, ever present threat of deportation which haunts these casual, day-labourers or dishwashers or gardeners. How many of these individuals have I seen outside Home Depot in Northridge, when we've visited Ayn in LA, or cutting lawns in San Antonio, when we've visited Ruth and Randy, or picking grapes in Sonoma, when we've visited Nancy and David. Whether all or some of them were illegal immigrants is beside the point. This serious social issue exists and needs to be addressed. This film is a brilliant first step towards bringing the matter into the public debate in an informed and compassionate manner.
Beginners tackles the relationship between father and son/mother and son, (absent mother in the former), from a different perspective, obviously, but is just as moving, just as unflinching. Both films are, generally speaking, rather quiet and understated but are charged, nonetheless with strong, sometimes turbulent emotion. Both protagonists, the father, in A better life, and the son, in Beginners, struggle to understand the son/father not really known until particular crises tumble, and wrenchingly so, their respective lives. See them both if you can.
Finished watching at 5:50pm and was off to a VIWF reception on Granville Island which started at 6:00pm. Cora Lee was attending our Strata AGM so unfortunately she couldn't attend. Pico Iyer was to be interviewed by Louise Dennys. I knew a bit about her as a publisher but was not familiar with Iyer or his works.
Pico Iyer
In The Man Within My Head, Pico Iyer sets out to unravel the mysterious closeness he has always felt with the English writer Graham Greene; he examines Greene’s obsessions, his elusiveness, his penchant for mystery. Iyer follows Greene’s trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to such later classics as The Quiet American and begins to unpack all he has in common with Greene: an English public school education, a lifelong restlessness and refusal to make a home anywhere, a fascination with the complications of faith. The deeper Iyer plunges into their haunted kinship, the more he begins to wonder whether the man within his head is not Greene but his own father, or perhaps some more shadowy aspect of himself. (Random House)
Louise Dennys
Louise Dennys began her own publishing house at age 25 and helped build Lester & Orpen Dennys into an international Canadian publishing house. Today she heads the leading publishing imprints, Knopf Canada, Random House Canada, and Vintage Canada. A former President of PEN Canada, she has been a longtime PEN Board member. She received an Honorary Degree in Law from Bishop's University in 2004, and received the Order of Canada for service to Canadian culture in 2005.
There was a lovely reception before the event itself, complimentary drink and deliciously tasty hors d'oeuvres. Mingled with people I knew from volunteer stints. Paul and Joan arrived shortly after me and so we "caught up". Had a chance to meet Louise and was quite taken with her. One thing led to another and she mentioned that her father worked for MI-6 and had been posted to the Middle East. It seems that we were both in Cyprus at some point. She is an extremely personable individual, extremely engaging in a genuine way, so our brief chat was very enjoyable, given "cocktail party" nature of gathering.
Also had a chance to say hello to John Vaillant. Met him, albeit very briefly, a few years ago now, at another VIWF event when Amanda Boyden, Joseph Boyden's, (Three-Day Road), most attractive wife, introduced me to him after a reading by her husband. Our Book Club read The Tiger and I wanted to tell him how much I was taken with his writing. In fact, Louise is his editor/publisher and from what he said, they will be discussing his latest book over the coming week. Steven Galloway, (The Cellist of Sarajevo), was there and again, I know him from the VIWF circuit, so to speak so we had fun chatting. he mentioned he "owed" Louise a book so I chided him about being late with his hoework assignments. He teaches in the Creative Writing Department at UBC.
Sat with Joan and Paul when we repaired to the comfortable auditorium. I'd never been to the Improv, just kitty-corner to GI Brewery, so was pleased to find it so agreeable for such an event. Louise and Pico had more of a "conversation" than an interview so it was a fascinating, riveting dialogue. I had not known that she was Graham Greene's niece and acted as his editor for last 10 of his books, I believe. Quite a remarkable story and they are such articulate, self-deprecating individuals we could have listened to them all night. Pico, it turns out, is drawn to Leonard Cohen and talked about this in some detail. At any rate, during the Q&A after the "talk" proper, a woman sitting in her front row, (I couldn't see her from my seat.), asked Pico if he had a favourite Cohen song. If so, what it was and, finally, was there a place where he had heard one of his songs and what was the "disconnect", so to speak, between the location and the lyrics. Quite a series of questions and these had to be repeated and clarified. Questioner named her song and said she had sung it in Baghdad. I didn't catch the "clue" and it wasn't until I was waiting to buy his The Man Within My Head that I discovered it was none other than Hadani Dittmers, author of Dancing in the No Fly Zone: a Woman's Journey Through Iraq.!
By sheer chance, I met her a number of years ago,a t a book store in Edgemont Village. I was there to buys copies of Death of a Red Heroine by Xiaolong Qiu for our Book Club and Haddani was there "pushing" her book. We struck up a conversation and I ended up giving her a ride back to Kits as she had taken the bus too North Van. On the way home, we chatted and she said that she would be glad to come to speak at our Book Club. Eventually that transpired. (Another story!) Shortly thereafter she moved to Cambridge and I read one or two pieces of her journalism online. Quite surprised to see her back in Vancouver. Strange individual, I must say but who am I to judge. She radiates a nervous, edgy energy, eyes darting, never really making eye contact when she speaks. A bit worse for wear as she was using a cane. She didn't really offer any explanation, (not that she was obliged to do so, you understand), when a number of us, in the line waiting for Pico to sign our books, inquired politely, about the cane, someone having found a chair for her to sit upon. To all the friendly questions from those of us who knew something about her work, her standard retort was, "You can read about it on my website!" For my money, a strange duck indeed, seemingly a contradictory mix, wanting exposure as an accomplished writer/journalist, (I believe this is how she views herself.), yet unwilling to share details of her work.
Had discovered that Pico lives for much of the time in Japan, with his Japanese wife, so when he was signing my book I mentioned we'd like to stay with them in May! However, did ask him to suggest one place in Tokyo to visit and he said Ueno district. When I followed on with the fact that we would be staying in Osaka as well he insisted that we spend as much time as possible in Kyoto. Anyway, a truly remarkable evening. I could not have guessed how it would unfold, particularly since I knew zilch about Pico and his work. Not sure if I would have made the effort to attend had we not been invited as "chosen" volunteers!
Will be in touch regarding next ride. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Pat,
Thanks again for the invite. Amira has plans for me tonight –
maybe she will teach me to play squash with my left hand… Cant hurt my
game.
Let me know which of the movies you just sat that I must
see. If you are going to Hugo sometime soon, I might join you.
Enjoy tonight, G
Hi Whirlygig!
Thanks again for
great ride today! After I left you did a quick dipsy-doodle around Kits
Point to add a few klicks to odometre to arrive back at The Heartbreak
Terrace with 61.33K on the clock. More to report on
VIWF, (Sorry that you couldn't make it. Wonderful affair, all around!),
and other things but time for bed! Cheers, Patrizzio!
4 movies left to see for the Oscar's......i may just win the pot oh cash!!!! :)
Hi, friends,
I've composed a couple more blogs:
Thanks for your look.
Here are photos of my six MA students in my comparative philosophy class:
http://rln07.blogspot.com/ --
Randall Nadeau
Chair, Department of Religion
Professor of East Asian Religions
Trinity University
Beth Schustek Which ones do you have left???
Krissy Seymour I hope you bet on twighlight, otherwise you'll lose
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