I was on vacation in Seattle, and awake before Jean was, for some reason, when I got an email about a pre-sale for a Who concert in Toronto nearly a year later. Buying a concert ticket on a tablet while on vacation isn’t the ideal scenario, but I had the time, so I figured I might as well see what I could get.
As anyone who’s tried it knows, buying tickets from Ticketmaster is a roll of the dice. Who knows what seats it will cough up for your consideration, and at what price, at any given time?
But this time the dice landed landed on: Floor seats! In the front centre section! And at the normal price, no VIP / resale nonsense!
Stunned, I started the checkout process…
Only to lose the connection partway as the flaky hotel wifi conked out.
Cue the swearing. (Quiet swearing, as Jean was still sleeping.)
Jean had so much business travel this fall that it was pointless to sign up for ballroom dance classes—we would have missed too many. I decided to scan the city recreational guide for alternatives.
Have fun and work up a sweat with songs from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Start with a warm up to get footloose and ready to bust a move, and enjoy a new routine each week. Styles of dance include hip hop, jazz funk, and chair dance. Beginners are always welcome. Let’s dance!
Sounded intriguing.
Week 1
After the warm-up, we were to get in touch with our inner Britney… Spears, that is, circa “Oops I Did It Again.” With each round of running through the choreograhy, we were instructed to try to up the sass level. “This move is straight from the video,” noted instructor Julie, at one point.
Huh, I thought, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this video. Still, I felt pleased that I didn’t get hopelessly lost. And I realized that the idea of the class was that each week we’d learn video-inspired steps to a not-so-current song.
Some weeks later, I finally watched this
Week 2
Missed class because I was in Portugal.
Week 3
Slightly jet-lagged on the first day back from Portugal. The song was “That’s What I Like About You.”. The choreography was very lively and quite aerobic but, fortunately, not overly complex. I realize that while I know this song, of course, I have no idea who sings it or even what era it’s from, quite.
Turns out it’s The Romantics, in the 1980s, and they don’t really dance in this video…
But coming up is Halloween, and we have a decision to make. Which song should we do on Halloween week versus the week before: Michael Jackson “Thriller” or Backstreet Boys? I vote for “Thriller”, having no idea Backstreet Boys even had a Halloween song.
Week 4
Week before Halloween, and we warm up to “The Time Warp”. I feel like I know this choreography already, but she throws in some twists to keep me on my toes.
Then it’s Backstreet Boys Halloween song (?). Which turns out to be that one Backstreet Boys song I do know, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”? Whose lyrics don’t seem very Halloween-y to me. “Who’s never seen this video?” Julie asks, and I’m the only one who raises my hand. (So, apparently, I’m the oldest in the class, but at least I’m keeping up with the whipper-snappers.) (Also, in ballroom class, I’m usually one of the youngest.)
The choreography’s fun, with the bunny hands and what-not, though I have to ignore all the “This is the part that everybody knows!” comments.
Basically, it’s the video that’s Halloween-y, not the song
Week 5
Day after Halloween, and it’s Thriller-time! (After another round of “Time Warp” warm-up.)
This is the first time I’m actually familiar with the video in question. Julie’s had to simplify it somewhat so that we get through more than a stanza. (But it’s a long song, so we still only get up to the first round of the chorus, basically.) Crotch-grabbing is a key feature. Yay to this class not being videotaped.
Instead of maximum sass, we’re aiming for maximum zombie decay.
Week 6
Been a stressful day, but it’s good to go be distracted by having to focus on learning dance steps. This week’s is “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira. I’ve seen the video before, but I finally got the sense to re-watch it before the class. Major hip isolations required. First time something here might be useful for ballroom dance (at least the Latin dances).
Next week, we’re doing Usher “Yeah.” Oh great, I think, a song I don’t even know.
Week 7
I look up Usher “Yeah” ahead of time, and I totally do know that song, I just didn’t know that it was by Usher or that it was called “Yeah.” (Details.)
It’s the first hip hop, and that’s a bit of a mind-bender for a middle-aged white lady like me. I’m so focused on trying to remember all the fiddly steps (we’re learning the men’s steps, since the girls are mainly just twerking) my timing is all off. It finally occurs to me that it might work better to follow the beat of the music! Hey! Secrets of dance success!
At Jean’s company Christmas party, I keep threatening to break out my hip-hop moves. Fortunately for Jean (and probably me), they never do play “Yeah”.
Week 8 and 9
Have not happened yet, but I know they will feature “Jump for my Love” by the Pointer Sisters (know that song, not that video; must look up video) and “Bootylicious” by Destiny’s Child (ditto, except I don’t know that song as well).
In the winter, we might be able to sign up for ballroom dance again. Which is good, but I think I will miss working out to some crazy video-inspired choreography each week.
What I wanted to do, really, was see Bohemian Rhapsody, the new Freddie Mercury biopic, on its first day out, so that I could make up my own mind about it without the critiques or praises of others clogging my brain. However, a combination of it being released in Europe a week before North America (theoretically, I could have flown to London for the premiere, but that seemed a bit much) and a lack of willpower on my part meant that I did read some early reviews.
But I at least managed to keep my UK reading to a minimum and get to the North American preview performance.
My friends, I loved the movie.
Now, my husband’s said that it was Queen, so of course I’d like it. So I would just like to point out that I do not, in fact, like every Queen-adjacent product. I have this Queen Symphonic Tribute CD that I can’t stand, because the musical arrangements are crap. I’ve slogged through horribly written Queen bios. I did not enjoy the combination of Brian May, Roger Taylor, and Paul Rodgers performing Queen songs.
But this movie? It felt that it was made for me. I enjoyed seeing how they compressed events and use allusions to cover a decade and a half of Freddie’s life in 2 hours 15 minutes. I reveled in all the little in-jokes and references that only real Queen fans would catch: Jim Beach mucking with the sound board at Live Aid. Adam Lambert playing a trucker who catches Freddie’s eye. And I was totally captivated by Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie, which at times nearly brought me to tears.
All the music performance scenes are outstanding. And that whole final scene at Live Aid. Man. That’s every bit as good as you hope it will be. (And I love Live Aid almost as much as I love Queen.)
Being somewhat masochistic, and having seen it now, I can’t help reading the North American reviews. Now, some of them were positive (like the Toronto Star‘s), even if grudgingly (my favourite of these being the Washington Post’s: Bohemian Rhapsody is bad. Go see it anyway). But more were negative, some scathing (Globe and Mail: 1 star! New York Times: Mud on your face! Big disgrace! [that’s at least a clever diss.]). All adding up to a mere 55% (now 60%) positive critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
But a 92% (now 95%) positive audience score.
The most common complaint from the critics is that the movie is not that creative or edgy. And I’m going to grant that this is true. It’s pretty conventionally told, with a script that can’t seem to help but have its characters spell out its themes, however awkward the resulting dialog (The band is family. Freddie invents himself. Queen are a band of misfits.), rather than develop them through more natural interactions.
It’s just that I didn’t care. Cliches are cliches for a reason; they can be quite satisfying! The movie entertained me. But I guess when your job is to see all the movies, you need more from them to give them a good review. Fair enough.
But some other critiques? Deserve their own critique.
1. That the depiction of Freddie Mercury was disrespectful and inaccurate
The Globe and Mail review has that complaint, as does this Uproxx one. Interesting to me that these critics are so confident they know the essence of who Freddie Mercury was better than the people who actually knew and loved him, and who contributed to the film.
Yes, the movie depicts Freddie as, at one point, living a drug- and sex-fueled lifestyle while the rest of the band are settled with their wives and children. And this is a simplification—Roger’s marriages were rather turbulent, Brian fell in love with an actress he ultimately left his wife for, John used to drink vodka on stage, which doesn’t seem a good sign. But it’s a fact that the band was worried about Freddie’s behavior at this time, and that it did cause tension between them.
Overall, Malek plays Freddie as an essentially decent human being, one who struggled with loneliness, and who had a confidence in his talent that led to moments of arrogance. I’m OK with that depiction, and it squares with some of the stories I’ve read about him. I don’t get why it’s making some people so angry.
2. The movie skipped / condensed / reordered / simplified / added event x, y, or z
That it surely did, since otherwise the movie would have to be literally 15 years long. And admittedly, I had the advantage of knowing what was left out or added in, and just filling that in or correcting it mentally. And especially interesting are the bits they just assumed everyone knew and therefore didn’t bother depicting, like how enormously successful “Bohemian Rhapsody” (the song) was.
But OK, you can argue they didn’t make the best choices in how they selected or simplified events.
One common complaint was that it made Queen’s rise to fame look quick and easy, when in fact it was more of a struggle. That could have been interesting to show. But it probably wouldn’t have been as fun. Did you really want to see Freddie just hanging around with Smile for months, making suggestions, until Tim Staffell finally left? Or that one cute scene of him auditioning for Brian and Roger in the parking lot? Would it really be that interesting to watch the entire process of building a song like “We Will Rock You”? Versus just seeing it just go “whoosh” from studio stomping to stadium singalong?
Then there are the things missing entirely: “How about his childhood in Zanzibar?” “What about all the drama with their first manager?” I could add my own: “What about Brian May contracting hepatitis and kiboshing their first US tour?” “What about Barbara Valentine, the other woman Freddie had a love affair with, in Munich? Wouldn’t that have added an interesting complication in this story?”
The first cut of this movie was about 3 hours—maybe some of that is in there. If they ever release an extended version on DVD, that would be great. But I don’t think a theatre rock bio should be that long. And I’m not sure what I would drop from this version to add some of those other bits—though I would have scripted Freddie’s party scene differently. The band-mate fight they invented for the movie made them all look like asses; I think the other three getting alarmed at Freddie’s behavior and discussing that amongst themselves would have worked better. But some songs being out of order, the invented breakup… I can accept for the sake of drama.
Certainly the most controversial change was Freddie telling the band about his AIDS diagnosis shortly before the Live Aid concert. But in reality, that happened two years later. Some said that was unnecessarily manipulative.
But I don’t think it would have felt right if they had omitted AIDS from the movie entirely, to keep it in their selected time span. And, it’s an amazing scene in the film.
3. The movie isn’t gay enough
Likely fueled by Sasha Baron Cohen’s comments when he was dropped as the lead, has been the concern that Freddie would be “straight-washed”. Literally, before they even started filming, I read a whole ranty blog post rant by someone who was positive that would be the case. And then when the first trailer came out, and it showed Freddie with Mary Austin but not so much with dudes, same complaints.
But the movie very clearly (though not explicitly) covers the fact that Freddie had sex with men. Lots of men. And if it risks showing his being gay as a tragedy in his life (though that wasn’t, in fact, the easiest time to be gay), it certainly mitigates that by including the start of his loving relationship with Jim Hutton.
I’m too heterosexual to comment on whether the esthetic of this film is gay enough, but nobody’s going to come out of it thinking that Freddie was straight.
Conclusion
Freddie Mercury was a fascinating man. You could approach his life story from a lot of angles. I hope there are other movies, in the future, that have a different take, that focus on different parts of his life.
But for a first go, I’m satisfied. You might be, too.
Before the film Juliet, Naked, the following trailers were shown:
Colette, starring Keira Knightly, about writer Colette’s struggles to express herself as a writer in her own name, after her husband achieves success with the novels she ghost writes for him.
Mary Shelley, starring Elle Fanning, about what inspired Shelley to write Frankenstein, including a battle against the men who tried to take credit for it.
The Wife, starting Glenn Close, about a woman who gave up on her own ambitions to support her husband’s literary efforts, and what that cost her.
Wow. Can’t imagine why there are so many movies about women’s anger and their fight for self-expression right now.
#BelieveWomen #MeToo #StopKavanaugh
Juliet, Naked is a lighter film—but still the story of a woman. Annie (played by Rose Byrne) is dissatisfied with her life: the job she settled into in the town she grew up in, and especially, her long-term relationship with live-in boyfriend Duncan (played by Chris O’Dowd). Duncan has an obsession with an 1990s singer who released a single album: Tucker Crowe. Even before he has an actual affair, Annie feels she’s lost him to someone else.
Juliet, Naked refers to a demo CD that Duncan gets his hands on, featuring early versions of the songs on Tucker Crowe’s album. Annie writes a dissenting review of the album that attracts Crowe’s attention, and they begin an online correspondence. They finally meet when Crowe has business in London…
This was a perfectly delightful movie, largely because of the cast. Tucker Crowe’s kind of a wreck of man, but Ethan Hawke plays him with just the right amount of messy charm. He has very good chemistry with Rose Byrne. And Chris O’Dowd can’t help but be funny and somewhat likable as Duncan, which is important—you can understand why Annie might have fallen for him in the first place.
And the synopsis might make it sound as though Annie is “saved” by Tucker, but that’s not really how this goes. The impediments to their living happily ever after, often so contrived in romantic comedies, are pretty straightforward in this one: the continent between them, the very different places they are at in their lives. Really, Annie saves herself.
This is hardly a vital film you must see to understand the current state of our culture. It’s an enjoyable escape that you don’t need to feel guilty about. And it has a pretty good soundtrack.
Been a bit quiet on my blogging front lately, but not for any major reason. Just that things have been a bit off—just off enough to prevent me from focusing on a blog post.
Canoe trip
Not mine, of course—Jean’s. He was away for two weeks in the northwest Ontario wilderness. No wifi. No cell service. Just a brief, one-way, satellite-delivered daily message giving location and brief status update.
Away from it all at Wabakimi Park
By a combination of organization and happenstance, I had enough activities booked at that time to keep me busy and stave off loneliness: barbecue with dance friends, dinner and lunch with other friends, an outing to Stratford with my sister and brother-in-law to see To Kill a Mockingbird, blood donation appointment, Canada Day fireworks, even an unusual number of meetings at work, including some over lunch and dinner.
But it was still all out of the ordinary: Jean being not only away but basically out of touch (I think “out of touch” is just harder to deal with in these days, when we expect everyone to always be in cell range), combined with so many other social activities.
I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
smith: We have another dirty little secret. A Monkees song.
depp: Oh, “Daydream Believer.” It’s a great song. I don’t care what anyone says.
smith: “Daydream Believer” came on the radio when we were driving to the set. It was a moment of total happiness. It’s a pure, happy little song. What bad thing can you say about it?
depp: I know, I know. It’s O.K. to like “Daydream Believer.” There’s nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure from time to time. Know what I mean? It’s “Daydream Believer.” I’m justifying my own flag.
People were a bit bemused when we said we were going to The Monkees concert. “The ‘Hey, hey we’re The Monkees’ guys? They’re still around?”
They’re actually not all still around, Davy Jones having died in 2012. Peter Tork is still active in the music business—too active to go on this particular nostalgia tour. Leaving Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith to perform in what was dubbed “The Monkees Presents: The Mike and Micky Show”.
Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and band: The Mike and Micky Show
The show was to feature the hits, along with some “deep album tracks.” Or from my perspective, songs I know along with songs I don’t know.
Concerts, plays, stand-up, and movies are sometimes an escape from current events, sometimes a reflection of it.
Beethoven 9 / Mijidwewinan
The two final concerts of the KW Symphony’s season, featuring new conductor, Andrei Feher, were both sellouts. The draw, besides Feher himself, was the performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, a choral piece better known as the Ode to Joy. It’s always a worry, when facing a 65-minute symphonic live performance: Will my pop-music brain be able to stay focused for that long?
I have found a new (to me) podcasting app Pocket Casts and it’s very good. It has solved all my podcasting problems: It gathers all podcasts in one app, whereas before I was bouncing between iTunes, Google, SoundCloud, and a browser. It keeps my spot in each podcast I’ve started, even when switching devices or playing through Sonos or Chromecasting. It can even cut silences out of each episode, making it each one slightly shorter.
Wait, did I say it solved all my podcasting problems? There’s one it’s likely only exacerbated, even with the seconds or minutes saved by cutting out silences: finding time to listen to all the ones I’d like to.
Some people do this by listening on what they call chipmunk speed, playing it at a faster speed than recorded. I tried that, but I just don’t like the weird sound that results, even at only 1.5x faster.
I can’t attend to a podcast while reading, or having a conversation, or working (because fortunately my job’s not that boring), or writing, or anything else in which I have to attend to my thoughts. My commute is extremely short, which is wonderful in most ways, but means that it’s really not enough time to make much of a dent in a podcast episode.
And I just don’t want to give up my daily habit of listening to music while making dinner. I also don’t think they would be as good as soundtrack to my Monday night cleaning routine as my “high-energy songs” playlists.
“Know what would make my life better? Listening to music less often.”
— No one, ever.
So I found myself seeking out extra chores I can do, for which a podcast would be a useful adequate. Now, anything that can motivate me to do some tidying up is beneficial. But I still prefer cooking to tidying, so I also find that I’m now trying out more dessert recipes. The value of that is debatable.
(On the other hand, you can definitely overdo this podcast thing, as revealed in this article: I Listen to 35 Hours of Podcasts Every Week. Is That … Bad? Answer: yeah, kind of… And towhich I say… 35 hours a week! Jesus. When do you do… anything else?)
There seems to be podcasts about every topic under the sun, and I’m not always sure how I stumbled upon the ones I try to listen to semi-regularly. But here’s a sampling of them and what I like about them.
Psychology
These are nice because, being less attuned to current events, you can more cherry-pick through them and feel less pressure to listen to them soon after their posting date.
Good old CBC Radio—the original podcaster! This particular series is by Terry O’Reilly and is on the subject of advertising, or “the art of persuasion”. Recent episodes have covered jingles (with a WKRP reference), use of celebrities (early Ellen Degeneres!), brand myths (no, little Mikey from the Life cereal commercial didn’t die of pop rocks + coke. In fact, he’s alive and works in advertising). I’ve always loved this show, but rarely catch it on the radio. Podcasts to the rescue.
Hidden Brain is by NPR: the CBC of the US! This is how it describes itself:
Hidden Brain helps curious people understand the world – and themselves. Using science and storytelling, Hidden Brain reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, the biases that shape our choices, and the triggers that direct the course of our relationships.
One three-part series that actually changed my own behavior a little was on the subject of sleep: The “Swiss Army Knife” Of Health. It makes a pretty compelling case that while sleep feels like a waste of time, it’s really important. And that while those who routinely get only 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night might think they’re managing just fine, they actually aren’t. They just no longer notice how tired they are all the time. But they are chronically under-performing, both mentally and physically. To be at your best, you need an “uncompromising 8 hours of sleep.” Every day.
Pop culture
Pop culture stuff is timely, but not that timely, especially since I almost never see movies on opening weekends, read books when they first come out, or watch TV live (love my PVR). So I can go back a few weeks on the pop culture ones without them feeling irrelevant.
This one, hosted by two young women, looks at all aspects of pop culture—music, TV, movies, podcasts, books, magazines—from a feminist perspective. I’ve gotten some really good recommendations from it, along with some great insights; for example, their episode about the movie Get Out pointed out a whole lot of racial metaphors and symbols that I had missed, and made me admire the movie even more.
The only issue? And I don’t know how to say this without coming across as a disapproving granny, but wow, they sure swear a lot. I know, there’s a lot for American women to be angry about right now, and you gotta speak your truth. I just feel the arguments might be a bit more effective if the colorful language was applied more judiciously.
Where Backtalk is very broad; The Americans Podcast is super-specific. It’s not about all the people living in the country to the South, but about the FX TV series by that title that tells the story of Russian spies in 1980s who pose as an all-American couple, complete with all-American children. As previously reported, Jean and I love it.
It’s currently in its sixth and final season, and I have just discovered this podcast, which contains interviews with the cast, crew, and creators of the show, and thus is strictly a post-episode listen, as it’s rife with spoilers. This season is setting up to be epic.
Politics
Political stuff, especially American, is just moving with break-neck speed these days. These are the ones I don’t like to wait too long after post date before listening.
Crooked Media was a response to the election of Trump. Most of its members used to work for President Obama in some capacity. So they’re not unbiased, but the aim is to have “better conversations about politics.” They have a ton of podcasts, and I’ve sampled various ones. But my favorite is Lovett or Leave It.
Some sincerely cool Crooked Media merch
Lovett or Leave It is taped live Friday nights in front of an audience, who participates in some segments. It’s a humorous, improvised look at the week’s stories in US politics. To add to the many other sources of humorous looks at US politics. What’s different here, I guess, is that it’s a lot of super well-informed people cathartically doing things like playing a clip from Fox news, saying “OK, stop”, and responding to the stupidity. Or turning the ridiculousness into a game. Or spinning a wheel to decide which topic to rant about.
This is a relatively new one, and it’s about Canadian politics! I was drawn to it because they seem to be especially covering wonky issues I get somewhat obsessed with, like carbon pricing, why doesn’t the NDP seem more viable in Ontario, and what’s up with Sikh politics.
It features journalists Justin Ling and Jen Gerson, who are supposed to in “opposition” from left and right positions, but it took me two episodes to realize that was the idea, because neither of them is really that extreme or partisan. Which I think is good (and also kind of Canadian).
The KW Symphony recently presented “Sing-Along Musicals”! I got tickets even though Jean is not so big on “singing along”. When I saw the program, I wasn’t so sure how much of that I would be doing, either. South Pacific? Oklahoma? The King and I? Those are some old-timey musicals! Did I even know any of the songs from those?
Turns out I did, at least somewhat. “I’m Going to Wash That Man Right Outta my Hair” has not always been a shampoo jingle, it turns out. Oklahoma includes “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”, “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top”, “ I Can’t Say No”, and “People Will Say We’re in Love”. The King and I has “I Whistle a Happy Tune”, “Getting to Know You”, and “Shall We Dance”. And they projected the lyrics, so you didn’t need those memorized.
The second half got a bit more modern, with “Defying Gravity” (done as a solo, mind you), selections from The Sound of Music, and a surprise encore of “Let It Go” from Frozen. The whole evening was fun, the concert featuring a youth choir, two talented young singers leading the sing-along (when they weren’t solo-ing), and young dancers making an appearance during some numbers. Conductor John Morris Russell, of the Cincinnati Pops, was lively as usual. So Jean enjoyed it also.
It got me thinking, though: What would be my picks if programming a sing-along musicals concert? Excluding any musicals based on the works of great rock and pop artists (such as We Will Rock You, Tommy, American Idiot, Mamma Mia, and Jersey Boys), because that would be cheating. And I guess that also excludes Moulin Rouge, though kudos to Baz Luhrmann for truly re-imagining all those pop songs in that music.
But merely having mentioned Moulin Rouge, I can now include this Virtue and Moir dance video, right?
First up, musicals with multiple great numbers in them, so we could do a bit of a singalong medley with those. In no particular order…
I went to see Lowest of the Low in concert again on January 20. That ties them with The Who, Bob Geldof, U2, and Sting as the artists I’ve seen live most often: three times each.
If I keep going back to see Lowest of the Low, it’s partly that it’s so easy to do: All the shows I’ve seen have been at small-ish venues in my hometown. But it’s also that, 26 years after their first album’s release, the music still holds up.
Now, the challenge of finding someone to join me at a Lowest of the Low concert is that most people have never heard of them. (The challenge of finding someone to join me at a concert by a more famous artist is that most people won’t like them enough to want to pay the ticket prices. So concert company is always a challenge.) But, I didn’t give Jean much choice in the matter, and then he suggested I invite Tim and Jess, and they were willing to give it a go.
What I wanted to do, really, was see Bohemian Rhapsody, the new Freddie Mercury biopic, on its first day out, so that I could make up my own mind about it without the critiques or praises of others clogging my brain. However, a combination of it being released in Europe a week before North America (theoretically, I could have flown to London for the premiere, but that seemed a bit much) and a lack of willpower on my part meant that I did read some early reviews.
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