Janet Berkman

Michael plays in the Jazz.fm Youth Big Band, an educational outreach program of Jazz.fm, the not-for-profit all-jazz station here in Toronto. A couple of weeks ago they played a set in the big annual fundraising drive, Jazz Lives, to a sold-out crowd Koerner Hall, the biggest venue they've ever played.

Here's a 12-minute video describing the goals and accomplishments of this wonderful ensemble of young musicians.

Jazz FM 91.1 is my go-to radio station in the car, which is pretty much the only time I have the radio on. They broadcast in the GTA and northern New York, and stream online around the world. Their fundraising drive is almost over, and while I miss the music, it's fantastic to hear where people are calling in from. Jazz stations are slowly disappearing...there's no all-jazz format in London (UK), Chicago or Philadelphia. Today there was a caller from Israel donating in the name of her father. This station is accessible to anyone with an internet connection and brings jazz lovers from all over the world together, and showcases a ton of Toronto and Canadian talent. Their educational outreach is the way they hope to build the audience of the future.

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...this is priceless!

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Zou and I have been drinking a lot of loose leaf tea recently. We have some red tea brought from China as a gift, and then received a selection of loose teas at Christmas. 

I'd been brewing tea in a small french press coffee maker which worked wonderfully but, a week or so ago, it hit the ceramic kitchen floor and broke. We have a small Piao i teapot that Z brought back from his travels but it only makes a very small cup, maybe half a mug. So after a doctor's appointment, I popped into Teaopia at Fairview Mall and invested in a larger Tea Master that makes 16 ounces at a time. Unlike our smaller one, this pot steeps the tea and then you pop it onto your cup to release the brewed (and strained) liquid. The leaves can be reused to make an additional pot.

Teopia sells a wide variety of teas, including bulk teas in dozens of formulations. I picked up three types in (reusable) tins, one each of Irish Breakfast Tea, Caramelissimo (dessert in a cup!), and Sleep Well. The tins can be refilled at the store at a discounted price.

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I subscribe to Shelf Awareness' weekly newletter and it was just chock full of good stuff today.

• First, don't you just love this diary? For people who have difficulty getting insprired, Philipp Keel's Simple Diary makes it easy.
• Next, check out this live map from Book Depository, that shows titles and locations of book purchases.
• They also featured a link to an article entitled Literary Drinks: 10 Famous Fiction Writers and Their Cocktails. I may need to initiate a tasting project.
• There are also some good book recommendations, a couple of which caught my eye for summer reading: Southern Charm: A Novel by Tinsley Mortimer (doncha love that name? Tinsley?); and The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. The first is a novel featuring a displaced Southern woman in Manhattan, the second a comic mystery set in an English manor house.

You can check out the rest of the newsletter here.

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I'm currently reading Mindy Kaling's memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) and it's a fast, light, and very funny read. Kaling is a producer and writer for the American version of The Office and also plays Kelly Kapoor. 

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We are undertaking our first major piece of renovation work on the house. It had needed (exterior) painting for three years or so, and the trim is in appalling condition so we're replacing it with afaux stucco product. We'll also add quoins to the corners of the house to give it a little presence.

We had a horrid railroad-tie-and-brick front porch/landing in which the bricks were sinking making it a trip hazard. There were also no handrails. Our contractor has dug it all up and is replacing it with flamed granite over concrete plus aluminum handrails. We'll probably go with "Sunset Granite" and a black handrail, the design of which we haven't settled on.

Finally, we're going to replace our aging windows with new ones. I am seriously thinking of getting integrated blinds for our main floor windows so that we don't need to worry about drapes. At the moment we have louvred shutters which are irritating as you can't place furniture in front of them (or you have to leave the shutters closed.)

It feels good to be getting going on this, and we have an excellent contractor who does one job at a time, hiring help when he needs it.

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In other breaking news, I'm still sick. Don't think either the antibiotics or inhaler are doing a jot. Missed Kathleen Turner in High at the Royal Alex on Tuesday and the TSO doing The Planets tonight because of my hacking. I haven't been able to sing with my choir for weeks. So I'm heading back to see my family doc and hope to get in on the secret, heavy-duty cough syrup. Or whatever. My lack of sleep and other nasty byproducts of uncontrollable cough have GOT to stop.

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The good news: it's not pnemonia.

The bad news: I'm still coughing, wheezing, feverish (low-grade) and short of breath. 

My family doc changed the antibiotics I was on as I was seeing no improvement after five days, and he gave me a "Turbuhaler", a newfangled inhaler that should reduce inflammation in my lungs.

This has been the most annoying illness ever: my trip to England was pretty much a wash-out and I'm worried about upcoming arts events where hacking coughs are discouraged. Next week we have tickets for a play and the orchestra.

It's been three weeks now and I'm SO annoyed by this. I need to apply for a building permit for some work we're having done on the house and I have no energy to do the drawings, fill out the forms, and stand in line at City Hall. I managed to get our taxes done, and luckily TurboTax caught some mistakes that I'm sure I made because I was delerious (well, feverish, at least).

Anyway, gotta run. Got another (unrelated) medical test to get to today. Sorry for the boring post. I'll try to do better next time.

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Little darlin'...it's been a long cold lonely winter.

Little darlin'... it seems like years since it's been here.

Today felt like the right day to get back to my blog. My last post was in December and I've been carried through the last few months on the backs of those who love me. 

Some of the things that I look forward to, cultural events, travel, singing, have been whizzing by me and I've only been able to partially engage. These past two weeks I have struggled with a very bad cold that started in my chest, and is ending there. My allergies have compounded the problem, but I feel like I'm coming out on top.

I am feeling the need to write more, to find creative ways to express myself, both publicly and privately. I have signed up for a webinar that introduces LifeJournal software to see if that might be a platform that I could use for my personal writing. I need to pick up knitting needles, or an embroidery needle, or set up a sewing space to get back to a quilt I've started. My plan is to claim a basement bedroom that is normally used for guests as a place where I can leave my work out for short periods of time.

We have some interesting things on the cultural calendar this month, and I hope to use this space to blog about them.

We're seeing the play High starring Kathleen Turner at the Royal Alex next week. We've also got tickets for the TSO's performance of Holst's The Planets for which Michael will be joining us. His school music program does their May Lyrics concert that week as well. The following week we have another Books on Film event at TIFF featuring Graham Greene's novel The Third Man and 1949 film starring Orson Welles.

My reading life has suffered somewhat recently, but I recently finished Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. My review over at Goodreads read:

I love Hollinghurst's prose, and would have given this five stars. But I can only take so many pages of coke-fuelled gay sex and this novel went over my limit. 

That aside, it captures the times so aptly: the British class structure; and the world of rich young men (and their hangers on) who want to DO something, like publish a glossy art magazine; the intersection of race and wealth; and what sexual sins are forgivable.

I also had a quick re-read of the Keep Toronto Reading pick Girls Fall Down prior to Sunday's book club gathering. I'm currently at work on The Vault by Ruth Rendell. Next up will be Peter Robinson's latest(?) called Before the Poison, a stand-alone mystery, not part of the Inspector Banks series.

Enough for today but I'll be back soon. May is looking up!

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Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

• Cat's Eye: More Than Just a Marble (zaraalexis.wordpress.com)

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I am very lucky to have a tv setup with tons of channels and a PVR (Bell Fibe). I have also developed the ability to read a book while the dear-heart is watching something I'm not really interested in. So I restrict myself to the best of the TV world with clever juggling of the remote and whatever book I happen to be reading.

My current faves (in no particular order):

Web Therapy - Lisa Kudrow is absolutely brilliant in this half-hour comedy about a woman with a business degree who decides to set up an online therapy practice that replaces the usual 50-minute session with 3-minutes of right-to-brass-tacks talk. At this point, I'm watching it On Demand and am not sure that it's currently airing. [Just put up the link and realized that it's all available online, and there are 4 seasons already!]

Enlightened - Co-written, produced, and starring Laura Dern and Mike White. Dern plays a thirty-something (forty-something?) woman who, after a breakdown at her corporate job, goes on a yoga retreat.  The season started with her return to "real life", moving in with her cold mother (Diane Ladd), dealing with her ex-huband (Luke Wilson), and going back to work at her old company, but into a secret, basement-located job with a group of other misfits (including Mike White). It is perfect in so many ways. Including the music that is curated especially for each episode. 

The Wire - I'm late to the party on this one. (I think Season One was originally in 2002, or somthing.)  If I start to use the f-word repeatedly, this show would be why. 

Boardwalk Empire - Steve Buscemi rocks prohibition Atlantic City. Great cast, storyline getting a little freaky, but totally compelling viewing.

The Good Wife - A prime time drama in which the lead women don't have their breasts hanging out of their tops. Seriously, this is probably one of the best dramas on main-stream tv. Julia Marguiles and Archie Punjabi are both dreamy. 

Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays - I wish this Canadian half-hour was getting more viewership. It's quirky and stars the brilliant Bob Martin (of Drowsy Chaperone fame). I have fears that it will be cancelled.... 

Modern Family - Can't get enough of this comedy. But enough's been written about it already.

Suburgatory - A new half-hour comedy about a father and teen daughter who move from NYC to the suburbs and go through culture shock. Reminds me of my time in a suburb of Atlanta. 

Living in Your Car - Read something about this in the paper and am catching it On Demand. A corporate exec gets fired (and jailed) for fraud. When he gets out, all he has is an extremely expensive car, in which he ends up living. I may start to hate it, but three eps in and it's still pretty entertaining.

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Don't know whether it's the cooler weather or all the arts events I attended, but I feel more like writing.

First though, I've been reading Mary Gordon's Pearl, a novel concerning a young American woman studying in Dublin who goes on a hunger strike in support of a casualty (at least in her view) of the troubles. What is particularly interesting to me is the voicing of the work. If I am not mistaken, it is written in the first person, the author's voice, which was at first difficult to read. For example, at the beginning of the second section, she writes:

This is who and what Pearl Meyers believes she is, what and what she is to herself. But what is she to us? A twenty-year-old woman. A woman who is starving, a woman chained to a flagpole in front of the American embassy in Dublin, Ireland.  A woman who is lying on the ground.

But who am I? you may be asking.

Think of me this way: midwife, present at the birth.  Or perhaps this: godfather, present at the christening. Although of the three people with whom we are concerned, perhaps the most important, Pearl herself, was never christened. If not the christening, them, perhaps the naming. Present at the naming. A the speaking of the most important word.

I am about two thirds of the way through this work and it's a little slow going, but (I think) an important read. 

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In an attempt to simplify my committments (both external and self-imposed), I'm resorting to microblogging for the foreseeable future. You can be my friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. You don't need to have an account for the latter...you can still see my tweets and when you select one, see any conversation around them.

Don't know how long I'll be hanging up my hat at Domestic Bliss. But for the meantime, I'd love to see you at either of the above!

Peace

Janet

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1. It's been a tough week. I surrendered our dog, Wilson, to Toronto Animal Services yesterday after a biting incident earlier this summer. He's a terrier mix, with a lot of Jack Russell in him, and he charged and bit a letter carrier after he got off-leash. It was a horrible accident (although the bite was a minor injury), but I realized that his behaviour was too unpredictable for us to manage. Every visitor to our house was a stress. We have no yard at our current home, unlike when we adopted him in Georgia, and even with 3-4 walks a day, we were unable to provide him with sufficient opportunities to burn off energy. I've been weepy all week, and broke down at the shelter when I took him in. My greatest hope is that they can find a home for him where he will be able to be the dog that he is. I can't really say any more.
2. I got my hair cut after my trip to Animal Services yesterday. It felt kind of like mourning, but at the same time a fresh start. It's shoulder length and layered a bit. And I feel so silly writing about it now.
3. Last night, we attended the Season Opener for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a wonderful program including Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and a commission from Toronto Composer Larysa Kezmenko called Behold the Night, based on a Midsummer's Night Dream. The second half was William Walton's Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario featuring actor Christopher Plummer (who also arranged this work) reciting parts of the play from memory. Walton scored Larurence Olivier's film Henry V, from which this work is derived. It was spectacular, and great finish to what had been a very sad day. The evening was capped by the TSO's after party featuring the Heavyweights Brass Band in the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall.
4. Z and I head to Orlando on Sunday where he is attending a conference and I will take five days to relax in the sun. I was able to score a very cheap flight and there's no upcharge for me to stay at the (very nice) hotel hosting the conference.
5. Michael auditioned for and was accepted into the Hannaford Youth Band and Jazz.fm Youth Big Band, both of which he played in last year. These ensembles are wonderful ways for him to get experience performing repertoire on both the tube (Hannaford) and bass trombone (Jazz.fm) and I'm pleased that he'll be playing with them again this year.
6. While we were downtown yesterday, we picked up tickets for Noel Coward's Private Lives, now in previews at the Royal Alexandra. Starring Paul Gross and Kim Cattrall, it's been getting a lot of positive buzz. Mirvish is also bringing War Horse to Toronto in the new year and I'm looking forward to that as well. 
7. Friends from our parish were featured on the front page of the Star this week. John and Kathleen Rudolph are both professional musicians.  John is Principal Percussionist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Kathleen teaches flute at the Glenn Gould School and University of Western Ontario. Kathleen and I are altos in the parish choir, and Kathleen often fills in on the organ. Their daughter, Theresa, was just hired by the TSO, their first parent-child pair. The piece in The Star is lovely and worth a read.

More Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary.

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The Lonliest Planet (Dir. Julia Loktev, USA/Germany)

This quiet, emotional film follows an engaged 30-something couple as they trek through the Caucausus mountains of Georgia with a local guide. Very little dialogue or real action in many parts, the film hangs on the relationships within this triangle and an event that happens half-way through that disrupts them. There was a lot of negative buzz around me as I was leaving the theatre: "no dialogue", "nothing happened", "I don't get the point", but it completely worked for me. Not a date movie. (5/5)

(Screening Saturday Sept 17)

The Oranges (Dir. Julian Farino, USA)

Fantastic ensemble is much of what makes this film terrific. Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Allison Janney, Oliver Platt star as two couples who live across the street from each other. The daughter of one couple has an affair with the husband of the other, and everyone's life is changed. A sort of anti-morality play wherein the end justifies the means makes it less than satisfying. (4/5)

(Screening Friday September 16)

W.E. (Dir. Madonna, UK)

A dsappointing look at the Wallis and Edward story, this is Madonna's attempt to tell the story from Simpson's point of view. Running parallel to this arc is a modern day tale of a Wally Winthrop who is trapped in an unhappy marriage and obsessed with the Wallis/Edward tale. The story lines alternate frequently, and the historical story is also split into glimpses into Wallis' first marriage as well as that with Edward. Great fashion and sets/props, but the music was leaden. Not recommended (2/5)

Damsels in Distress (Dir. Whit Stillman, USA)

Entertaining and smart, this movie looks at a posse of fashionable women at a just-gone-coed private college. It's quirky and wierd, with stellar performances particularly from Greta Gerwig as the alpha-female, Analeigh Tipton as the transfer student taken under her wing, and a bunch of frat boys who are just incredibly funny. (4/5)

Café de Flore (Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada)

A beautiful film from the director of C.R.A.Z.Y., it tells two stories, one set in Paris in the 60s in which a mother (Vanessa Paradis) is raising her Down syndrome child on her own. The other story is set in modern day Montreal and involves a divorce and remarriage of a successful DJ/electronica musician (Kevin Parent). We don't find out how these stories are related until the very end of the movie. Moving with strong performances. As in C.R.A.Z.Y., music is a strong force that ties people together. See it if you get a chance. (5/5) (official site)

Americano (Dir. Mathieu Demy, France)

Son of filmakers Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, this is Mathieu Demy's directorial debut. With a stellar cast including Geraldine Chaplin, Selma Hayak, Carlos Bardem, and Chiara Mastroianni, Demy plays a restless 30-something who travels from Paris to Los Angeles to settle the estate of his mother, who has lived in the US for most of his life. Demy integrates footage taken by his mother when they lived in LA in the 80s and incorporates it into this work as flashbacks. He discovers things about his mother, and himself, that affect him profoundly.  Well worth seeing. (5/5)

(Screening Friday September 16)

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I'm (obviously) quite far behind on my mini-reviews, but a day of film-screening leaves me wiped by the end of the day. I've been tweeting some thoughts, but here are my capsule summaries.

Rampart (Dir. Oren Moverman, USA)

Woody Harrelson stars in this rogue-cop drama set in LA. A masterful performance with strong support from the actors playing his ex-wives (who are sisters in the film and live together) and daughters. The twist (for me, who's not really a rogue-cop-film viewer) is that this guy is very articulate and wraps his crap in big words and charming delivery. (4/5)

(One more screening Sunday the 18th)

Behold the Lamb (Dir. John McIlduff, UK)

A small film (budget $200,000 and filmed in 20 days) it stars a young actress who had only done stage work and a lorry driver and amateur theatre actor. This is a gritty but somehow charming story of two people whose lives intersect over a 24 hour period. It involves a car theft, the transport of a lamb, a foster child, and a lot of beautiful, grey Irish scenery. And a lot of Catholic imagery that the director said was not originally part of the story, but was pointed out to him part way through the writing of the screenplay. (3/5)

(One more screening on evening of Friday the 16th)

Trailer:

Anonymous (Dir Roland Emmerich, Germany)

This is soon-to-be-released in theatres (Oct 28) and there's been lots of press about it. The premise is that there was no-one names William Shakespeare who actually wrote the plays and poetry attributed to him. Good performances and terrific cinematography. My ignorance of British history made it a bit difficult to follow the family/dynastic relationships. (4/5) ( The Official site has lots of good info that I wish I'd read before seeing the film.)

(One more screening on Saturday the 17th, but save your cash and see it in commercial run.)

Beloved (Les Bien-Aimés) (Dir Christophe Honoré, France)

Starring Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, this musical(!) set in France, spanning decades from 1964 to the 90s, was extremely enjoyable. When asked "why a musica'l in the Q&A, Honoré claimed that he is not comfortable writing about love and it was easier for him to have his characters sing during the emotional moments of the film. Not a typical musical, there are no big theatrical moments, or much dancing. Just characters, walking down the street (or playing billiards) and singing about their feelings.

(One more screening on Saturday the 17th)

Trailer:

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Well, things are off to a great start.  I saw four films this weekend and here are my thoughts.

Friday afternoon:  Urbanized (Director: Gary Hustwit, USA/UK)

This was the world premiere for this film and the Ryerson Theatre was filled with Jane Jacobites and other #TorontoElite (to use a hashtag favoured by Spacing editor Shawn Micallef.) Inspiring and uplifting, this is a film that should be seen by anyone interested in the future of our cities, how to make them more liveable and sustainable, and how to improve the lives of even the poorest of slumdwellers by thoughtful, citizen-centric design. A survey of cities from around the world, this film calls us to action, even in the face of a city government that seems intent on turning the clock back. Official website.  (5/5) 

Saturday Morning: Ides of March (Director: George Clooney, USA)

We attended the second (and last) screening of this film at the festival.  Clooney plays a presidential candidate during the Ohio primary and Ryan Gosling is his media guy. The story is good, well-paced, and interesting, and the film was very enjoyable. Clooney was fine, but I thought Gosling was slightly miscast for the part. His character didn't come across as bright enough for the role, but I'm not sure whether it was the casting or the writing. The big buzz should go to Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Marisa Tomei for their supporting roles as campaign managers for the opposing candidates and a NY Times reporter. It was their performances that really carried the film. Official website. (4/5)

Saturday afternoon: House of Tolerance (Director: Bertrand Bonello, France)

A languid, sensual, two-hour film about a fin de siecle brothel in Paris, this film was carefully researched and brought to being with great care. It's a frank look at the lives of these women, at the same time enslaved and surrounded by opulence, at the risks they encountered and the friendships they formed. There was a good Q&A with the director after the film and I asked about the use of music behind some key scenes. The opening credits have a kind of 60s blues thing (see trailer), and a climactic scene close to the end is scored with The Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin. Bonello did not see this as any more anachronistic than using opera music not coming from a gramaphone. This was also a subject of great discussion after the premiere at Cannes. (4/5)

Sunday noon:  Take this Waltz (Director: Sarah Polley, Canada)

This was a stunner of a film. What hits you right from the beginning is the warm, vivid, palette she has chosen for the film, representing female desire (as Polley remarked in the Q&A after the screening.) Very well cast with Michelle Williams as a twenty-something woman Margot, married for five years to Lou (Seth Rogen). When Daniel (Luke Kirby) enters her life in one of the many comedic scenes in the film), her previously domestic situation starts to unravel. This is a film with both intense drama and high humour, handled deftly by Polley and woven into a dreamy yet realistic portrayal of what happens when the gleam starts to go off a relationship. Sarah Silverman plays Lou's sister, a recovering alcoholic, and had vocal coaching for the film to "speak Canadian". See this movie! Official site. (5/5)

Here's a shot from the Q&A after the screening.  From L to R: Sarah Polley, Luke Kirby, Sarah Silverman, Seth Rogen.

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I was interviewed by phone and then "fact-checked" a week later. I use the app by TM Soft called "White Noise".

Click the link to read the whole piece.

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