So here we are, watching the US election, this time from outside the country (and as if everything else weren’t so bizarre, that situation is also a first time for Pam and me).
I’ve written less about politics than I used to, partly because life went on to other things, and I felt that I was just getting angry most of the time. While I am thrilled at the prospect of Barack Obama actually becoming President (there, I’ve written it), I’m also too well acquainted with disappointment (Hey, this morning I learned that I didn’t get yet another job interview I was hoping to get.), so I’m unwilling to completely assume the best outcome.
That said, while I write this, I am listening to Obama’s speech and interview when he visited Google in 2007, and he’s smart, well informed, interested in technology, and inspiring. When shown a network map of the world, rather than being dazzled by the lights of the connected countries, he was spurred on by the darkness of the disconnected world, such as the continent of Africa, to press for how we can fix that situation. That is a World Leader I want to see in charge:
What a strange feeling it would be to actually admire the American President instead of despise him. I’m so used to apologizing for my country that it might be a switch to actually be proud of it. I’m happy at the prospect of such a problem. Given that the polls haven’t even opened yet, it’s a, what’s the word? Oh yes, an audacious hope.
Is it really Halloween again? The month, like Scarbo the ‘half goblin, half ghost’ character from Gaspard de la Nuit, a poem and the third in a set of 3 extraordinary piano pieces by Maurice Ravel, has twitched, jerked and reared up and dropped down, pirouetting like a threatening demon (at least in terms of my nail-biting regarding the Stock Market and the US Presidential Campaign) and now is about to vanish:
Mais bientôt son corps bleuissait, diaphane comme la cire d’une bougie, son visage blémissait comme la cire d’un lumignon,—et soudain il s’éteignait.
But then, his body would change, became as blue and diaphanous as the wax of a candle, his face as pale as candle grease – and suddenly he would be extinguished.
– The original poem by Louis Bertrand
(The first few measures and an excerpt that goes on a little longer are below. It’s truly some of the most menacing and spooky music that Ravel ever wrote, I think, and appropriate for this dark evening):
He he he, creepy enough for you?
Earlier in the Month
I guess the piano music excerpt is partly because piano music is partly on my mind. Last week I got to a concert at the Chan Centre by Piotr Anderszewski, a very interesting pianist who was making his return engagement to the Vancouver Recital Society. He played Bach, Mozart and Schumann, and I’d have to say that it was the Mozart that I really liked best. Mozart Sonatas, like the Sonata in C minor, K 457 that he played are often played (badly) by children. Teachers give them to their students fairly early in their development, partly because the music seems simple and ‘easy’ to play. The fact is, when a really good pianist plays them, the music reveals how complex and really difficult it is. I didn’t always love what Anderszewski did; sometimes, particularly in the Schumann Humoresques (op. 20), he would take long floating pauses, and play some passages so softly and weakly that it was almost as if they were being whispered. Even if his readings seemed to lose the thread of continuity at times, I have to admit that he made me think — a lot, and that’s something that not every performer can do for you. I think we’ll be hearing more of him in the future on the international concert circuit. In some ways, he reminded me of Radu Lupu, a Romanian pianist who was particularly active in the 70s and 80s, and who won an Edison award for his Schumann (including the Humoresques as well!).
Last Night
Pam and I got an invitation to attend another live filming of a television sitcom pilot, this time in the South Burnaby area in a studio right by the Riverway Golf Course. The pilot, called Memory Lanes and was produced and created for the CBC by one of the actors in it, Ryan Stiles, of The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line is it Anyway? fame. While it is fun to see, it is also a real education, because nearly every scene is filmed a few times, and it was a real pleasure to see Janet Wright, who plays Brent Butt’s mother Emma Leroy on the series Corner Gas practice her craft in person. Ms. Wright was a perfectionist, sculpting her delivery and gestures with each take, and always making it better (and funnier). For me, she stole every scene she was in. I found out from her bio that she’s directed over 40 productions at the Vancouver Arts Club theatre (in addition to work all over Canada, including the Stratford Festival). It shows. I hope I’ll get to see more of her; I really gained new respect for just how much a great actor can add to a sitcom character.
Oh right, the sitcom? Memory Lanes may make it to the CBC line up next year. I’d say it was a better than average script, and the characters and situation show some promise. In some ways, it reminded me of Wings, another sitcom that revolves around a pair of odd-couple brothers who end up running a family business. In the end, it will be the writing that makes or breaks it. Lets hope it gets a chance, something that never happened to the pilot of All the Comforts that we saw nearly a year ago.
When Pam and I first moved here, I remember writing about how nice everyone was to us, from the realtor who helped with the purchase, to the banker who set up new accounts for us and got us credit cards, to our new neighbors and even the law offices who helped with our immigration issues. The postal carrier for our building was helpful and friendly, as was our building manager and various tradespeople who came during our initial months of setup. I took some of this to be, perhaps, partly the West vs. the East coast, partly the Canada vs. US, and partly just being lucky.
These days, a little over three years later, I’m now convinced it wasn’t luck, because the kindness and generosity that we initially met with have continued. This past month, a friend of mine surprised me with lunch and Canucks tickets out of the blue (I won’t embarrass him with naming him, but he knows who he is). For Pam’s birthday a few weeks ago, our neighbor Estelle brought in several vases of flowers, because she was leaving town and though Pam would enjoy them. She also gave Pam tickets to see the Speed Skating trials at the Pacific Coliseum today. Yesterday, my friend DaveO, who was working at the happyfrog.ca booth at the Health Show, gave us free tickets. Last week I visited with two of the first friends I met just as I moved here, Matt and Maktaaq (in fact, I’m happy to have known them even knew them before they were married!), and at their Halloween party, Ryan offered to lend me one of his bicycles.
The frequent generosity of my friends has been seen online in this blog, with offers from Monica and others to twitter that I was looking for work (as well as others who have put the word out on their blogs), messages of good will on birthdays and anniversaries, and even flattering blog posts about me (completely unexpected as well, I might add. Thanks Raul.). Comments from fellow Bush Refugees Bob and David frequently make my day. They also gave us a bottle of their own wine.
I’ve seen the fireworks from a fabulous vantage point in Yaletown with MJ and laughed myself silly at a comedy night hosted by Tanya. I’ve gotten patient iPhone consulting from John and the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the LA Times, thanks to Travis.
I’m only scratching the surface. With both Pam and I looking for work and living off of our savings, and all the scary economic news (on CNN, mainly) I still submit that like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, I am truly a rich man, because of friends, and they keep reminding me of this fact.
It’s no secret that the youth of America have embraced Obama as their candidate, and I’m thrilled, but also a little surprised, that for the first time in my life, there is the distinct prospect of the US President actually being younger than I am (although by less than a year - 10 months and 22 days, to be exact). Barack Obama is at this moment, flying to see his ailing Grandmother in Hawaii. Mine is long gone. His age is on my mind, because I can relate to him as a member of my age group, Generation Jones. Not a boomer, much as they would like to lump us in with them (and I always think of Clinton and yes, Dubya as quintessential boomers, representing much that was both good and bad about that generation), and not a Gen-Xer, Generation Jones doesn’t get as much press, but it I’m beginning to ponder what it will be like with one of us actually in charge. To quote Wikipedia’s definition:
Generation Jones is a term that describes people in certain English-speaking countries born between the years 1954 and 1965. American social commentator Jonathan Pontell identified this generation and coined the term to name it. Generation Jones has been referred to as a heretofore lost generation between the Baby boomers and Generation X, since prior to the popularization of Pontell’s theory, its members were included with either the Boomers or Xers. The name connotes a large, anonymous generation, and derives from the slang term “jonesing”, referring to the unrequited cravings felt by this generation of unfulfilled expectations.
From Then to Now
Another age-related topic was on my mind: When I volunteered to work on the Dean campaign in Massachusetts, we used to have many people who were younger than us over to work on the Mass-for-Dean web site. Chris, Emily and James’s laptops would be out at the kitchen table sucking down bits on the still fairly new wi fi network. We worked on the web site, on handouts, signs, coordination of resources and meetings, and a bunch of other activities. I still keep in touch with a few members of the group that Pam affectionately referred to as ‘The kids’. So it’s with a little pride that I view the Dean ‘50-state strategy’, the stunningly effective use of the Internet as a fund-raising tool, and the signing up of all of those new voters as perhaps having ‘fetal’ beginnings in our townhouse in Cambridge. Nevertheless, I don’t think any of us had any idea of how sophisticated the online component of the campaign would become.
There is also so much vitality and creativity of those who are now involved in the Obama campaign, which I can plainly see, even from a distance. Even though I’m not a fan of the music, this online ‘grass-roots’ web ad struck me as so polished, so ‘professional’, and so emotionally appealing that I felt that I had to embed it here. Some of the newest generation of voters in the US (and who are, of course, even younger than the kids who crowded around the kitchen table 22 Lilac Court) have made a very impressive get-out-the-youth-vote video:
John Gruber, in Blazing Fireball pointed out this hysterical passage from a short essay by David Sedaris in the New Yorker Magazine (in their feature, Shouts and Murmurs - !) called simply ‘Undecided’ and I had to quote it as well:
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
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