I saw my first Walkman back in 1981 while flying from Toronto to Calgary.  I'd seen ads for them back when I was in Hamilton but we were all still emerging from the 8-Track Age in that part of the world.  This lucky guy could play whatever tapes he'd brought with him, not the nonsense that CP Airlines felt like giving you...and his headphones actually looked...comfortable!  I briefly thought about killing my fellow passenger and stealing his cool tech but there were just too many witnesses on board.  Just as well really.

By 1984 I finally owned my own Walkman and the headphones were not just comfortable, they provided absolutely great sound!  It made the long subway ride in from Downsview to the U of T much more bearable.  In fact, it actually made the ride quite exciting sometimes because you could give your day a movie soundtrack.  Play the collection of James Bond themes and you were in a spy adventure -- you knew that elderly couple were really SMERSH agents waiting to shoot at you with there umbrella dart guns.   Play the Virgin Records pop hits of 1983 sampler and you could emotionally regress a bit and believe you were in a John Hughes film.  Play any slow classical solo piece and it was Ingmar Bergman time (that scenario tended to make the ride longer and more emotionally intense).

My favourite emersive cinematic moment was one Sunday afternoon when I was at the Metro Reference Library looking to do some research for an assignment.  It was just after one in the afternoon and the place had just opened and there were hundreds of us lined up to get inside .  The Reference Library has a vast atrium with broad staircases that wind their way up the different levels.   It looks like one of the art deco futuristic buildings from Korda's Things to Come.

So anyway I'm listening to Hector Berlioz's orchestral composition Harold in Italy while the crowd and I enter the library.  When the viola section starts, we're all filing up those vast staircases.  It was like we were the seekers of truth slowly ascending to the Heaven of Truth. 

Technologically enhanced transformative aesthetic experiences.  Gotta love 'em.

 You probably think more about your parents after they've passed away then when they were alive.  Lately I've been thinking a lot about what the two minute "elevator pitch" would be to describe their life stories.  I don't know why but I keep wondering what they would say the point of their lives.  What did they stand for?  Maybe I'm asking these questions about them because it's less uncomfortable than asking the same questions about my life.

My Dad has been on my mind a lot recently.  We have the same birthday and last month was the first time that he wasn't around to share it with me.  Well, we usually shared it over a telephone wire or via cards but you know what I mean.  Arounnd that date I had Turner Classic Movies on and was gradually putting myself into a nostalgia coma.  Then a Jimmy Stewart movie came on and this woke me up some.  I like Jimmy Stewart in just about everything and an early highlight in my career as a theatre lover was when I was 18 and had second row seats to a London production of Harvey.  I was less than 30 feet from the man!  Incredible.

What was also very interesting was the movie Stewart was starring in.  It was No Highay in the Sky, an adaptation of Nevil Shute's novel No Highway.  Stewart plays Mr. Honey, an aerospace engineer who goes to some very extreme lengths to prove that an aircraft he designed is seriously unsafe.  Dad would have loved this movie.  I know he enjoyed the book because he read everything Nevil Shute wrote.   Over and over again. 

Dad definitely enjoyed science fiction (well, some SF, if he thought thes science part was too wonky, he just wasn't interested) -- but it was books written by scientists/engineers or about scientists/engineers that he really enjoyed.  Nevil Shute, Gerald Durrell and Isaac Asimov were among his favourites for as long as I can remember. 

I think Dad's personal narrative was a lot like Mr. Honey's adventure.  Dad saw himself as pursuing the truth above all else -- and it had to be personal and provable truth and it didn't matter what other people thought about it.  That attitude certainly made Dad some enemies and sometimes made the lives of family members pretty uncomfortable as well. 

But a hero has to make sacrifices and rest of us have to decide if we're going to applaud the hero, condemn him or ignore him.  Sure the antics of these aspergers adventurers can be upsetting, even frightening sometimes.  But a lot of them have done a lot for the rest of us.

Trivial Pursuit.

It was an important part of the first years of our marriage.  Back when I was a not very well paid public servant and Helen was a graduate student we really couldn't afford particularly exotic entertainment.  On a Saturday night we would take the bus to the Alderwood rink, skate around for an hour or two and if we were feeling extravagent we'd go to Country Style and have a donut and a hot chocolate.  We'd usually split the donut.  Then it was off home to eat some Ruffles chips and play Trivial Pursuit until CBC would run an old Ealing Comedy on the late movie.

It was pretty wonderful.

Yesterday we dusted off the old Trivial Pursuit game and invited the boys to a game.  It was a pretty surprising experience.  Most of the questions seemed to involve 1980s sitcoms that we'd forgotten even existed, quotes from Ronald Reagen (I mean, who cares?) and references to the USSR (remember them?).    Most of this went completely past Simon and Evan and Helen and I were shocked at how out of date the content of the game was.  We'd moved from the trivial to the fossilized.  We still had fun but it felt a little weird and pointless.  Evan in his role as corrector of things that are not right insisted that we get a more recent edition of the game. 

So trucked off to Sherway Mall today and got the Master's Edition that came out last December. 

 
Actually, we didn't do any better with the more current questions...

But there was a lot more satisfaction with the fact that we all had a shared level of ignorance. 

And it was fun and really wonderful.

Imagine the grief and the horror in my home this morning.

Elephant, our most loved puppy-toy, had been murdered.  His fluffy skin ripped off; his soft insides spread across the living room floor; his sweet little squeaky heart torn out of his body.    Poor Elephant, an innocent victim of a senseless atrocity!

Chloe and Kal, of course, deny any involvement in the crime but their spit and teeth marks are all over what's left of Elephant's body.  Their relationship with Elephant had become somewhat strained when they started spending more time with Tennis Ball and the Noisy Rubber Radish.

Both dogs are still legally minors so there is no question of criminal charges.  However they will need extensive psychotherapy and a lengthy rehabilitation process. 

Giving Kal and Chloe the help they so desperately need is going to be an expensive process.

That's where I need your help.  Please get out your credit credits and call the following number to make your donation:

1-800-MYDOGSARECRAZY

I know I'm asking a lot but only your generosity can help prevent me from having to wake up to a scene like this ever again.

This was the first Christmas without my parents.  The past few years I think I was in a self-protective distancing pattern because both of them had so much to do with the joy and meaning I experienced at this time of year.  I wouldn't have been able to lose them as a "short.sharp shock:." At least my last contacts with them were good and I'm very, very thankful for that.

The first of these entries is going to talk about my mom.

When she was trying to set up a new life for us in Lethbridge  Mom used to write stories and poems for the Christmas edition of the local paper.  She attracted something of a following.  World famous in Southern Alberta, I guess.   One of her first publications was an essay called "New Boots" all about how I and my sister Margaret conspired to get her better, and warmer, footwear.  Somewhere in the account, she mentions how I told her that she was "wandering around Loblaw's like a deranged yak." What a rotten kid I was.

This year, the first one when I knew it really was impossible to call her up and that I really wouldn't be getting a card with her beautifully penned messages, my brother John phoned me and we spent a good long time talking about how great Mom's shortbread cookies were. Won't be having any of those anytime soon but at least I got to have some when I was younger.

This years Christmas was small, and quiet.  There was a definite sense of loss but something seemed to hold off the worst of it...an odd but comforting  "gone but not gone" feeling.  Maybe it was just my incredible capacity for denial at work. (If I was was a character in a Marvel comic book my super power would be denial).

Then a few days ago, a greatly appreciated late Christmas gift.  I'm stepping out of Shoppers Drug Mart, picking up the latest batch of medications that let me be be 53 but perform at the age of 33, when I see a woman who is at least 83.  She had some mobility challenges but she seemed to be pretty proud of the fact that she could manage the walk to the store on her own.

Unfortunately she was having some trouble getting into the place.  Not really anyone's fault, this particular Shoppers is under renovation and the signage is hard to see.  The woman was trying to enter through the exit and the automatoc doors kept closing on her.  It wasn't very hard for me to offer my arm and lead her over to the actual entrance and press the button that opened the correct doors for her. It also felt really wonderful when she gave my arm a squeeze and thanked me.

To paraphrase H.G. Wells -- I don't know if these small events were by "chance or design" but I do know that at that moment it felt very good to do something helpful for a for a nice elderly lady. 

Simon read on the internet that there is a statistically higher rate of pancreatic cancer among people who drink more than two cans of pop a day.  He immediately resolved to cut down on his intake. 

This is good.

It is interesting however, because his mother has been telling him about these risks for years and there was no behavior change.

I have decided that we would be much better parental communicators if we wore computer monitors on our heads when we talk to the boys.

I was sorting through some old photo files and came across some pictures of our camping trip last summer.  At the rate the boys are growing, we'll probably only have one or two of these outings left.  So the pictures took on a bit more importance.  So here we are at Kilbear Provincial Park  (well, some of us, Helen is very good at ducking the camera):

 

Simon, of course, is attempting to use his PSP to ignite the campfire.  He is about to discover that while contemporary leisure electronics are truly ingenious...they do have some limitations.

There!  He's given up.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

Kal is keeping watch over the campsite.

Unlike our home in Mimico, Kilbear Park is not plagued with the aliens, triffids and postal workers that Kal has to repel several times every day.  Kilbear does however, have...BEARS!

From the stains around his mouth you can tell that Kal has just eaten one of those luckless bears.

Evan is in the process of a major scientific project...

...he was angling for this birthday present for months...

Yup!  A telescope!  It's a bit early in the day but later in the evening we got some really spectacular views of the lunar surface.

This is Chloe at the dog beach. 

She was quite the aquatic puppy -- when she hit the water she was half fish, half-jack rabbit, skipping along the surface of the water like a spinning stone.

Chloe was still quite young on that trip...

...so she was not quite the formidable anti-bear security system that Kal was.

However, she did seem to manage on her stealth-puppy charms!

Well, that's it for now folks.

Is famous science fiction writer Cory Doctorow the clone of also famous TV producer, the late Quinn Martin (The Fugitive, The FBI, The Invaders)?

Cory Doctorow       Quinn Martin

Uncanny, isn't it?

Went to a writer's retreat a couple of weeks ago.  Got some good work done on one of my more serious projects...and I also came up with this... 

The Story of the Abandoned Pumpkin

 

There was a young pumpkin who wanted to be the very best pumpkin he could possibly be.

He studied very hard at Public Pumpkin School and got the highest marks in his home patch.  He got all the trophies in Pumpkin Sports and in the Pumpkin Yearbook he was voted “gourd-like squash most likely to succeed.”

One week he even went to a Pumpkin Motivation Seminar because he wanted to be absolutely the best possible pumpkin he could possibly be.

“Be bigger!  Be rounder! Be more orange!” the motivational speaker would cry out to all the pumpkins in the audience.  “Know what you want to achieve in your existence as a pumpkin!”

Our young pumpkin did all the Pumpkin Development Exercises they taught him at the seminar.  It was there that he finally knew what he wanted to be in his existence as a pumpkin.    

He didn’t want to be one of those pumpkins that got painted or photographed for calendars or postcards.  That was just wasn’t challenging enough.

He didn’t want to a pumpkin that got put in a pie – because even though he knew how much people loved pumpkin pie, he would have wasted all those exercises making himself bigger and rounder and oranger.

No, the young pumpkin wanted to be a jack o-lantern!  The best jack o-lanterns were very big and very round and very orange and they had wonderfully strange faces and everyone noticed them as they shone out in the spooky and fun darkness of a Halloween night.

So the young pumpkin packed up all his pumpkin stuff (mostly old vines and seeds) and moved to an upscale farmer’s market where he felt sure he would be picked to become a jack o-lantern.   

Sure enough, as Halloween grew , a family with a mother and father and a boy and girl and a dog came to the market and picked him to come to their home.  They must have been a very rich family because they bought five other pumpkins and baskets and baskets of other fruits and vegetables.

“These people are wonderful!”  The young pumpkin thought to himself.  “They must really know how to do Halloween in style!”

The young pumpkin was absolutely right.  The family put him and the other pumpkins on a counter top in their vast and beautiful kitchen and from there he could see the family make all kinds of elaborate costumes and prepare delicious smelling foods.   This was going to be the best Halloween ever! 

The young pumpkin spent all his time doing his Pumpkin Development Exercises so he hardly had a chance to talk to any of the other pumpkins or other vegetables in the kitchen.

 

Then on the morning of Halloween, the father and the two children decided to make jack o-lanterns.  They children grabbed the pumpkin on the far end of the counter and ran outside with it. 

“They must be making the jack o-lanterns in the backyard,” the young pumpkin thought.  “That’s a great idea because it’s such a lovely autumn day today.”

After about an hour, the father and the children came back and grabbed the next pumpkin on the countertop.

“They must be taking so long because they are making really good jack o-lanterns,” the young pumpkin thought.

Another hour later the family came back and took the next pumpkin into the garden.

“That’s okay,” the young pumpkin thought.  “This gives me more time to do my Pumpkin Development Exercises!”

Another hour later, the family came back and took the next pumpkin into the garden.

“My turn soon!” the young pumpkin thought.  “This is going to be so great!”

Another hour later, the family came back and took the next pumpkin into the garden.

“My turn next!”  The young pumpkin thought.  “I am going to be the most fantastic jack o-lantern ever!”

Finally the children put their tiny, orange stained hands on the young pumpkin and lifted him off the countertop. 

“Put that pumpkin back!” the mother cried.  “It’s time for you wash your hands and get into your Halloween costumes.”

The children dropped the young pumpkin back onto the countertop and ran off laughing. 

For a while the young pumpkin was so shocked that he didn’t know what to think.

“They’ll be back,” the young pumpkin thought as the sky outside grew darker and darker.  “They’re going to need another jack o-lantern soon and I’ll be right here waiting.”

But the family never came.

From the far end of the counter top, the young pumpkin could see the other pumpkins now all carved into jack o-lanterns.  Some had funny faces, others had scary faces and one had a face that was just weird.  The light from their candles shone brightly and cast mysterious shadows on the tricker-treaters as they came to the door to get their treats.

It looked like the most fun ever!

And the young pumpkin was missing out on it.

He tried very hard to see the positive side of all this but if he was perfectly honest with himself, he just couldn’t.

He was very sad.

Soon Halloween was over and the young pumpkin sat there, all alone on the counter top.  After about a week he noticed that he was started to get a little brown around the ridges and that his shell was getting a little softer.   He saw his reflection in the refrigerator door one morning and he noticed that he looked kind of saggy...like he was turning into an old sack.

No matter how often and how hard he did his Pumpkin Development Exercises, he just couldn’t get as big, or as round or as orange as he used to be.

He wanted to talk to the other vegetables on the counter top but they were too busy getting browner and softer themselves to answer him. 

The young pumpkin decided that the people in this family were a bunch of slobs.

That Saturday, the father came around and put the young pumpkin and all the other decomposing vegetables into a big tub which he put in the back of his pickup truck.

“I wonder where we’re going?” the young pumpkin wondered.

The father drove the pickup truck to a small river. 

“What are we doing here?” the young pumpkin thought.

Then the father took the tub out of the pickup truck and carried it out to the edge of the river.

“What a pretty river,” the young pumpkin thought, feeling his old positive attitude returning.  “It if wasn’t so cold and cloudy it would be a really lovely day.”

Grunting with effort, the father dumped all the vegetables in the tube into the river.

“What’s going on?!” the young pumpkin cried.

“He’s getting rid of us,” a rotting turnip replied.

The young pumpkin and all the other vegetables fell into the water with a tremendous splash.

For a time they all drifted down the river together.   After a while they started to drift apart but the young pumpkin and rotting turnip seemed to be in the same current and so they stayed together.    Eventually they started to sink in the cold, dark water.

“So this is how my life ends?” the young pumpkin said sadly.  “I drown here?  And my life amounts to nothing?”

“You’re not alone,” the rotten turnip said.  “I’m here and what did you expect?  You’re just a pumpkin!”

“I know!” wailed the young pumpkin (he made a funny gurgling sound because he was wailing under water by now).  “I wanted to be the best pumpkin I could be!  I wanted to be a jack o-lantern!”

“A jack o-lantern!” the rotten turnip laughed with a nasty gurgling laugh.  “Are you crazy?”

“A jack o-lantern is the best thing a pumpkin can be!”  The young pumpkin cried.

“Like those saps on the front porch on Halloween?”  The rotten turnip laughed another nasty gurgly laugh.  “They had their head cut open and their insides ripped out!”

“NO!”  The young pumpkin hadn’t considered this aspect of becoming a jack o-lantern.

“Yes,” replied the rotting turnip.  “How would like to die like that?  Being wide awake while some psychotic kid pulls your brain out?  Feek your very awareness get cut away into nothing?”

“They-they...tore their brains out?”  The young pumpkin had to admit that this really did sound pretty terrible.

“Believe me kid,” the rotting turnip said.  “We’re just going to drown and decompose at the bottom of the river.  That’s a way better way to die.”

And so as the young pumpkin sank deeper and deeper and he felt the cold and dark slowly squeeze the life out of him, he thought:

“Yes...”

He didn’t mind the cold and the dark so much now.

“It was foolish of me to try and be the best pumpkin I could ever be...”

It felt kind of safe.  Kind of nice.

“...this is a much better way to die.”

 

-THE END-

 

 

 

As some of you may have figured out by now, I've been enjoying the season subscription to the Canadian Opera Company more than I expected.  I've always enjoyed classical music but most opera didn't do much for me -- well except for the Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd Wagner cartoon. 

Part of the reason I'm having a good time is that the productions are really original and the staging is amazing -- they set Evita at the time of the Suez Crisis, The Flying Dutchman looked like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Death in Venice had real water in the canals.  Incredibly cool stuff.  I just wish CoC would do Handmaid's Tale again.

Another reason I'm enjoying myself is the opportunity to spend time inside the new Opera House...which I have to say of the three big new cultural buildings in Toronto is my favourite.  I like the layout, I like the scale and I like the incredible vistas you get of both the inside of the building and the surrounding city.  Unlike most 'signature' statements, the Opera House doesn't take over the neighbourhood...it just enhances it.  Magnificent and respectful of others at the same time.

Opera good.  Architecture good.  No need for Hulk to smash.

Here's some lomo pics of the setting in question...