Stephen Harper: The Musical

As a fundraiser, Fair Vote Canada sponsored a production of James Gordon’s one-man show, Stephen Harper: The Musical. I got curious about it, and Jean agreed to go with me. (This was last weekend; this weekend we went to the lovely Yuletide Spectacular Christmas concert with the KW Symphony, like normal people.)

The location was kind of neat and one I hadn’t previously known about: A former shoe factory now repurposed as a cultural center—the Courtyard at Bonnie Stuart. The room where the show was performed was on the small side, but they did manage to pretty much fill it.

Stephen Harper puppet and James Gordon — James Gordon with the Stephen Harper puppet

I really didn’t know what to expect from this show, except that it would be critical, have music, and feature a Stephen Harper puppet.

For the critiquing, some I certainly agreed with it, but some was more anti-corporate, anti-capitalist than I was totally comfortable with. Bit too hippy-trippy, even for me.

But the songs weren’t half bad, making for a pretty entertaining show, overall. It was also supplemented with some video segments. One of my favorite bits was a discussion of the church Mr. Harper belongs to, an area rarely covered in the media. That featured a video cameo by “hippie Jesus”–that is, the actual peace-loving, money-damning dude of the Bible, as opposed to the distortion version espoused by some churches (whom “hippie Jesus” disavowed).

Given the subject matter, Gordon also strives to keep the material updated. There was a segment on the Occupy Movement, but he acknowledged that now seems kind of long ago (doesn’t it?). But it also included a very funny “Thank God for Rob Ford” song, so new he needed to refer to the lyrics sheet, that opined that Harper had quite appreciated Ford’s antics this fall drawing attention away from what the CPC government is up to.

As Fair Vote Canada is supposed to be non-partisan, I wasn’t sure about the fit with this show, until we got to the “What can you do?” segment. One suggestion was a change in the voting system to be more proportional. The whole last bit is meant to be something of a motivating call to arms, that didn’t entirely work on me.

But it certainly wasn’t a bad night out.

A night at the ballet

What: Les Ballet Jazz de Montréal

Where: Centre in the Square, Kitchener

When: Tuesday, 18 November 2013

While awaiting the start of this performance, Jean and tried to think how many other live dance performances we’d seen. It’s not that many, way behind live music and drama. For whatever reason, I went far more often back when I lived in Montreal, as a student. And Jean and I once saw Ballet Béjart on a trip to Montreal. They’re a Swiss company, and they were presenting a very modern ballet inspired by life of one Freddie Mercury. (Jean wasn’t sure to make of it immediately afterward, but it has aged well in his memory, and he now thinks on it fondly.)

But outside of La Belle Province, we’ve mostly experienced less arty dancing, like a “Riverdance” kind of show in Toronto (only more with tango and Latin and not so much Irish step dancing) and the So You Think You Can Dance: Canada tour stop in Hamilton (and actually, that was just me).

So it was nice of Montreal to bring the jazz ballet right to us.

They performed three pieces. The first was a sensual duet to a Phillip Glass soundtrack. The second was a longer piece featuring the whole company. It used an electronica soundtrack to present “scenes from a city”, starting with dancing at a club but moving on to various other scenes and themes. I’m not going to pretend I interpreted it all correctly, but I found the energy, beauty, and musical interpretation quite riveting.

After intermission, they performed the final, longest piece, Harry. This was presented as a sort of danced play, complete with the dancers speaking lines of dialogue (in English). But it was not a linear story; more of a revisiting of the themes of war, love, destiny, and determination. Which makes it sound all dour and serious, but it was neither; it was very funny at times and always entertaining, incorporating all kinds of dance styles, even ballroom.

And tickets were only $35 for this! If you could have gone to this, and didn’t… That was a mistake.

Harry excerpt from YouTube

Going local: Buskers opener and Solé summer dishes

This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.

Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.

It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.

Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!

Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.

Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.

There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.

They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.

For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)

Top 10 Canadian albums (with some extras)

CBC recently put out a list of the 100 greatest Canadian albums, which was then discussed on CBC Radio Kitchener. “I don’t anyone can argue with Neil Young’s Harvest being number 1”, said the host. Well…

Look, I own Harvest, I like Harvest. I’m not going to deny that it’s a great collection of songs. It’s certainly your go-to for great Canadian albums, as befitting its also being number 1 in the 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.

It’s just that I can think of a number of other Canadian albums I enjoy listening to more than Harvest. Such as…

Shakespeare my Butt cover 1. Lowest of the Low – Shakespeare My Butt (1993)

(CBC unranked; book #84)

I’ve expounded on my love of this band and album before, but… I can’t see anyone not loving this album, unless they don’t like the genre of rock music itself. The songs are catchy and instantly likeable. On repeated listening, you realize they’re smart, too. And warm. And funny. The album is 20 years old, and the music doesn’t seem dated at all. It contains a hefty 17 songs—and there isn’t a single stinker among them.

2. Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)

(CBC #12, book #6)

This was something at the time, wasn’t it? So much fun to play loud and sing along to. Angrily. To me it still holds up, even if she didn’t know what “ironic” meant. It’s melodic grunge. It’s more than just angry—you also have forgiveness, and learning, and being head over feet in love. I’ve enjoyed Alanis’ subsequent albums, mostly (not so much the India one, and haven’t bothered with the motherhood one), but this one still seems her best.

3. Swing – Tradarnac (2008)

(CBC unranked, book n/a)

I discovered these guys on Canada Day at an electrifying performance in Gatineau, and I continue to love this album. They sing in very rapid franglais (French with a healthy dose of English: “Allo, CB buddy! J’tired de m’voir promener sur le highway” and such) over a mix of French folk, rap, and pop that results in music so lively you can’t help but dance to it. Even while sitting or driving. It sounds happy, but has a dark undercurrent in the lyrics, if you can understand them. To me, that just makes it better.

4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (2010)

(CBC #22; book n/a)

I am going to complain the CBC list now: No way that their Funeral album is better than this one. No way. Funeral is fine, but it is right that The Suburbs is the one that earned them the Juno, the Grammy, and the Polaris prize. It’s sort of great that someone made a deep, thematic, almost classical-sounding album—about the suburbs. I took to it really quickly and continue to peel away its layers, this album.

5. Amanda Marshall – Everybody’s Got a Story (2001)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

I felt this album was unjustly overlooked when it came out, then nearly forgot to list it here myself… But it wouldn’t be denied, in the end. I just love listening to this. As befitting the title, most of the songs tell a story—of waking up with a stranger and a snake tatoo; of life as a blond mixed-race person (“a double-agent on my mama’s side”); of being a taxi driver with a PhD; and so on. The music is fun—more dancey, less bluesy than earlier album, but still showcasing her fantastic and powerful voice. I don’t know why it hasn’t’ gotten more love.

6. Pursuit of Happiness – The Wonderful World of… (1997)

(CBC unranked ; book unranked (but Love Junk is at #84))

I believe I own every album this band has released, and I pretty much like them all. This one is far from their best known; I don’t think it contains any hit songs. But I list this one because it’s the most album-y of them all: its 15 songs all lead one into the other as though the whole thing were one big rock opera, or something. (Note the little Tommy homage between tracks 4 and 5.)

Now, it doesn’t actually have a continuing storyline, but more of a continuing theme (which is really the theme of every Pursuit of Happiness album) of the joy, frustration, and sheer messiness of love, sex, and relationships. Yet for all that, the songs also stand alone quite nicely. No mean feat. This is a small piece of pop art.

7. Jane Siberry – When I Was a Boy (1993)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

I had to list Jane, but it was really a toss-up between this and her first, No Borders Here. I finally went with this more mature work. The opening track “Temple” sets the different tone: “You call that hard? You call that rough? Well, it’s not, rough enough.” Who would have expected that from the quirky singer of “Mimi on the Beach” (although the part of the song where she encourages Mimi to stand up on her surfboard, causing her to drown… Was maybe a clue.) Jane is a bit of an odd duck, but she can certainly put a tune together, and in this album she really seems to be more deeply expressing her soul.

8. Barenaked Ladies – Gordon (1992)

(CBC #25, book #27)

Yeah, they’re funny, but they’re also insanely talented, seemingly effortlessly putting together incredibly catchy pop. And the serious (and still tuneful) ballads like “Wrapped your arms around me” (“I put my hands around your neck)”, “The Flag”, and “Blame it on me” show that it’s not all fun and games, all the time, with this band.

9. Sarah McLaclachlan – Fumbling Toward Ecstasy (2003)

(CBC #20, book #25)

Sarah’s music sneaks up on me, randomly selected by my iPod, making me suddenly realize that I like it better than anything that was played before it. They’re mostly ballads; strong emotions expressed in a more subtle way—no screaming guitars, or any screaming, period. I guess it’s that haunting voice, or… I don’t know what. It’s not what I usually go for, but this is album is beautiful.

10. Holly Cole Trio – Don’t Smoke in Bed (1993)

(CBC unranked, book unranked)

And, I’m not the big jazz girl, usually, but man, I’ve played this album a lot. Holly takes these lovely standards and performs in this slightly twisted, dark way that makes them way more interesting.

The extras…

Top Live: Leonard Cohen – Songs from the Road (2010)

For a very long time I considered Leonard Cohen someone whose songs I loved—as long as someone else was singing them: Jennifer Warnes, KD Lang, Jeff Buckley… Then he started touring with this amazing band. And I began to love his own take on his great songs. This particular collection is his own selection of the best version of each song he did on this tour.

Highly recommended!

Top Compilation: Gordon Lightfoot – Gord’s Gold (1987)

My Dad is a big fan, so I grew up with these songs. As a teenager, of course, I wasn’t going to admit to liking them, but now I can! While I can’t really see buying his individual albums, this “greatest hits” collection is fantastic: “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown”, “Early Morning Rain”, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”…

The only other thing you might want is Gord’s Gold 2 (for “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, “Alberta Bound”, “Ghosts of Cape Horn”…).

Top Classical: KW Symphony – From Here Out (2011)

No dead composers here: This CD features classical compositions by Nico Muhly, Richard Reed Perry (of Arcade Fire), and Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead). It’s not always comfortable listening, but it’s never boring, either.

The Who’s Tommy at Stratford

Seated in the third row of the Avon Theatre at Stratford, engrossed in our conversation, Jean and I were nearly jolted from our seats by the extremely loud opening chords of “The Overture”.

Judging by the nervous giggling all around us, we weren’t the only startled patrons. Welcome to The Who’s Tommy, live on stage at Stratford, Ontario.

The Who books in literary display, Stratford — Spot The Who amongst the literature at a Stratford bookstore

I enjoyed it very much, of course. Having seen it back in the 1990s in Toronto, I suspected I would. This version has more complex staging, more special effects. I couldn’t tell you what the differences are; I don’t remember well enough. But I can tell you this is one of the most elaborately staged musicals I’ve ever seen. There were always things to look at, all around the stage. (And from the third row, that sometimes made for a sore neck.)

So the one critique this production has received is that the effects and all are too much; that they overwhelm the excellent cast. Jean and I would disagree with that. Tommy is big rock musical with big themes. It and its cast are only enhanced by staging that matches those ambitions. And I, for one, did not find that it diminished the play’s emotional impact. I remain touched by Tommy’s situation.

As I know both the album and the movie inside and out, I found it interesting to see how the story was adapted for the stage. I had recalled, from the Toronto production, that the story is somewhat softened from the movie version, both necessary (to not restrict the play to those 18 and over) and a relief, given that the Uncle Ernie, Cousin Kevin, and Acid Queen happen to the 10-year-old Tommy in the play, unlike the Daltrey-aged Tommy in the movie. (And no, little Tommy is not left alone with a hooker; his father merely toys with the idea before coming to his senses.)

But I had forgotten tons of things, like the interplay of Tommy at ages 4, 10, and 20something, which both dramatizes the character’s extreme self-imposed isolation, and allows us to enjoy the performance of lead actor Robert Marcus in the first half, before Tommy grows up; the very different handling of the Sally Simpson story (at least compared with the movie); and the much bigger role of Cousin Kevin—which is great, as he’s played by the wonderful Paul Nolan (Jesus in last year’s Jesus Christ Superstar).

Most especially, I’d forgotten that lyrical changes that turned “We’re Not Gonna Take It” into Tommy’s refusal to lead his followers into his world of isolation, whereas both album and movie had Tommy trying to do just that, and them rebelling. (Of course, the followers reject him here as well—only for a completely opposite reason.)

There are many other lyrical changes (for example, “21” refers to the mother’s age rather than the year), but only one new song appears in this production: “I Believe My Own Eyes”, which provides the segue into “Smash the Mirror” (without any need of the movie’s baked beans and melted chocolate). It’s very much a Broadway song, more so than a Who tune, but having bought the soundtrack, I do find myself humming it at times, which is interesting.

As I’ve already suggested, I thought the cast was very good, and on a shallow note, I found young Mr. Marcus very attractive, looking rather better on that stage than he did in his publicity photos. Jean was similarly struck by the lovely Kira Guloien as Mrs. Walker.

Gotta say that one thing really lost in the stage version is the power and potency of the “Listening to You” final chorus that you get from hearing The Who play that live. But a play is a different animal than a rock concert. And this one is also worth experiencing, in my opinion.

Select quotes

“At least now I know why Tommy was deaf, dumb, and blind. I never understood that before.” — Jean

“I was hoping that I would know at least one song. Just one. But I didn’t recognize any of them.” — My Mom

“Oh my God. The music is by Pete Townshend? Of The Who? Oh my God. This is terrible!” — Lady sitting behind me

Après theatre dining

If you do go to Stratford, for Tommy or other, I might suggest dinner or lunch at La Taverna, which is a new section of Pazzo restaurant, as we very much enjoyed our meal there. It’s pretty small, but a pleasant room, with a comfortable feel. Sound level would have been fine, except we had a big Italian family dining next to us! 🙂 And the service was very good.

We started by sharing oysters, and a bocconcini bruschetta with figs and prosciutto (not pictured, but very nice).

Jean had a very nice gnocchi dish as his main, while I went with the fish special of the day.

Rice pudding and baked vesuvius — Dessert

And we concluded with an arborio rice pudding for Jean and a “baked vesuvius” for me, that being a limoncello-soaked cake with lemon gelato and cardomom meringue. Delish.

Can a discount orchestra save the electric series at Centre in the Square?

Confirmed, next year’s #electricseries at Centre in the square won’t be with the @kw_symphony which is very upsetting to me. #disappointed

— Susan Prange (@snuep) May 24, 2013

This tweet was the first I’d heard about the KW Symphony being dropped from the Jeans’n’Classics series of concerts, which struck me as very strange, since the whole point of those concerts was marrying rock band with symphony.

Except for this one, though, Twitter—often a great source for finding things out—was annoyingly silent on the subject. Finally I had to go old tech: I emailed Centre in the Square to ask them about the tweet. The fact that they didn’t quickly reply made me think it was probably true.

And indeed, the email response that eventually arrived confirmed it, saying that the KW Symphony would be replaced with session musicians: “the size and make-up of the orchestra will be tailored to meet the artistic and stylistic demands of each Jeans ‘n Classics production”.

The community discussion I’d been craving kind of broke out in the pages of the Waterloo Region Record, who ran a story about this on May 31. That was followed by various letters to the editor, then a very critical commentary piece by a member of the Symphony board , followed by a defense by a member of the Centre in the Square board.

Nobody seems very happy about this change, but what strikes me in particular is that first article claims that lower production costs were not the main reason here, but an artistic need for revitalization. The last article frankly states they couldn’t afford the series any longer in this form—which at least makes more sense of the whole thing.

They both agree, though, that they want a bigger audience. Got to wonder if they’re going to achieve it. I’m afraid that I, for one, won’t be helping them out with that.

At the third concert this season, they had us vote on which three concerts we wanted to see the following year (out of six choices). I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but note that everything they selected was a reprise of a previously done show. If I go next year, I’ll be seeing three similar concerts again, only with a smaller, less talented orchestra. The promised “better staging and lighting” won’t make up for the diminished music.

When it works, it’s a fantastic sound, it really is. The sound of an orchestra when it’s playing with a rock band well… It makes every hair on your body stand on end. It’s incredibly powerful.

– Roger Daltrey (The Who), 1994

I’d know what I was missing. So after about 10 years of great seats, I’m out.

And I know I’m not the only one. So to get their bigger audience, they not only have to add people, they have to replace the ones lost to this decision.

But you know, I do wish them well. I love Centre in the Square. It’s a fantastic hall. It’s incredible that a smallish place like Kitchener-Waterloo has one of the two or three best concert halls in the whole country. More people should go experience the sound there. It’s unfortunate it’s somehow developed a bit of a “stodgy” reputation. Some things do need to change. They do need better acts, more acts, even gimmicks to drawn more people in.

I’m not sure this particular series change will work out for them. But I sure hope something their Strategic Plan does.

And it’s not like I’m abandoning the place. I’m already signed up for six KW Symphony concerts there next year (to go along with my three at the Conrad Centre). And with some dates now opened up by not going to the Jeans’n’Classics series any more, I’ll probably add a few more.

Tell me, who are you? (My parents encounter Pete Townshend)

My parents went to see the Stratford production of Tommy last week. I was wondering what they’d think of it, given its somewhat dark subject matter and the fact that they aren’t especially fans of The Who’s music.

But they came back with good reviews of the effects-laden production. Mom reported that director Des McAnuff had been at this preview performance, promising the audience that he would paper over any glitches as needed, but I guess none were apparent, anyway.

The next day, I read that not only had McAnuff been in attendance, but Mr. Pete Townshend himself had appeared to take a curtain call that night.

When I asked my parents about it later, Dad said, “You know, I wondered if that guy on stage at the end was Pete Townshend!”

“He asked me if that’s who it was,” confirmed Mom. “I said, ‘How the heck would I know?’’’

“He sure got a lot of applause, though,” she added. “So we just applauded, too.”

So that was kind of funny. (And a generational note that, in fact, my parents are much closer in age to Mr. Townshend than I am. But they are on the older side of him, and I am on the younger, and in popular music, that’s usually a big divide.)

Pete Townshend seems to be making a bit of the rounds of Canadian media, appearing on Q with Jian Ghomeshi yesterday (as were McAnuff and some of the cast), and having a big interview in the Toronto Star today. Townshend’s own review of the Tommy revival is as follows:

They’re an extraordinary company. They certainly know how to rock. The technology is great. The show looks great. I’m in a sense still reeling from the impact of it. It’s quite a journey.

I have my own tickets to the show for July, and I’m quite looking forward to it, even though I won’t be getting any rock star appearances, as The Who will be touring Europe at that point.

Cameron Carpenter: Organ superstar

I got tickets for this concert on a bit of whim, and then had trouble finding anyone to go with; seems a busy time of year for work, travel, work travel, and other. But though I could have exchanged for another, I had ended up intrigued by this guy, Cameron Carpenter.

He looks like a rock star. He’s young, good-looking, fit, has a mohawk, dresses in sparkly / paisly tights pants and shirts, and wear outlandish, heeled shoes.

And he plays classical music. On the organ.

Naturally, he doesn’t approach it in a traditional way. Notably, he prefers digital organs to traditional pipe organs. And he improvises on the classics. And composes his own arrangements, and entire concertos.

Saturday night’s KW Symphony concert gave us a taste of what this guy can do. I went to the Prelude before the concert (which I don’t always bother with) because it was a conversation between Carpenter and a musicologist. He’s a really interesting guy, and I learned a lot about organ (not that I knew much to start with), including the fact that every organ in the world is different, And not subtly different—so different that the extremes might as well be different instruments. And since organists do not travel with their own instruments, they have to arrive early and get acquainted with the particularities of whatever they will be given to play in that town.

I also found out that, somewhat to my disappointment, that Carpenter was only playing on two of the numbers in the program.

The first half was all Bach. The first was a short piece, Ricercare No 2, arranged by Anton Webern. The third was the longer Suite No 3 in D major, whose second movement is very well-known (I think I play it on the piano), but which ends with lively movements with dance rhythms.

Those were both nice. But there’s no doubt they were overshadowed by the middle bit, of Cameron Carpenter riffing on Bach’s most famous composition, Toccata and Fugue in B minor. My sixth row center seats couldn’t have been better for watching hands, and my goodness, could those move. And did you know organists also have a keyboard for their feet? The whole thing was just mesmerizing.

(A taste from YouTube, though I think what he did Saturday was even better.)

In the second half, we jumped from the 1700s to current-day. First up was just the symphony on Arron Copland’s five-movement Music for the Theatre. This was a very fun, jazz-inspired composition, with humorous bits to it.

And then Cameron Carpenter presented his composition for organ and symphony, The Scandal. Based on what he’d done in the first half, I thought this would be all about the symphony adding colour around his own demonstration of proficiency, but it wasn’t that at all. It was a true integration of organ and symphony in a beautiful and lively piece of music. The cello got a big solo moment, and until maybe the last three minutes, the organ wasn’t necessarily the major focus. I was impressed.

So was the audience, as the standing ovation felt more sincere than it sometimes does. And in an extreme rarity at classical music concerts, we got encores! I don’t know what the first was (I’m not that good at classical music edition), but the second was a wonky but awesome version of Oh Canada! Not bad for an American who now lives in Germany.

Movie reviews: Argo and Life of Pi

Just coincidentally, the last two movies we saw were Roger Ebert’s Number 1 and 2 picks for the year. (Also just realized that both have Canadian connections…)

***½ Argo (October 2012) – Theatre

Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Viktor Garber. Six Americans escaped from the embassy in 1979 at the start of the hostage crisis, getting refuge from the Canadian ambassador. This movie focuses on the American ruse used to get them out.

She says: We saw this late, so I was looking out for a diminishment of the Canadian role in this, anticipating the tension of watching the actual escape, though we all know it succeeded. I found the Canadian treatment not as bad as it might have been; it was at least clear the ambassador and his wife were putting themselves at risk in this venture. And the series of check points on the way out of Iran did, indeed, quite effectively build tension.

And it is a really interesting story, that I hadn’t known before, that a faux movie was the pretext used for them being there (as Canadians), and that the American involvement was long covered up for the sake of the remaining hostages. While I’m sure the facts were “Hollywood-ized”, it’s still good to know them. Unlike the fake Argo, this Argo was a well-made movie.

He says: It kind of got on my nerves that every point of the escape was a cliffhanger, down to the plane being chased. But I couldn’t help get caught up in it anyway. And I agree that the Canadian treatment didn’t seem that bad.

***½ Life of Pi 3D (October 2012) – Theatre

Suraj Sharma, Gérard Dépardieu, Tabu. A young man leaving India with his family and their zoo animals survives a shipwreck, ending up with a Bengal tiger as a companion.

She says: I had not read the book, so really did not know what to expect from this apparently philosophical movie about a young man on a raft with tiger. How is that a movie? Do he and the tiger talk?

This sounds strange, given the premise, but the movie was a lot more realistic that I was expecting. For one, it’s not really a spoiler to say that the tiger doesn’t talk; the tiger is a tiger. And their time on the life boat is much more about the details of survival than I was expecting: how to get sufficient food, water, and sun protection, while not being eaten by a tiger. It’s certainly an odd story, but very compelling. The final riddle, of which story you believe, definitely stuck with us.

And the movie is gorgeous. My eyes are unbalanced, so I’m never sure if I see 3D as well as other people, but there’s no doubt I could see the depth in some scenes. The underwater cinematography was particularly impressive.

He says: I wasn’t sure about this one, but I ended up really liking it—the photography, the tiger story… I’m probably missing the themes, or whatever, but I enjoyed the movie.

eReading

Not sure what it was, but this year in the wider family, three of us—including me—got eReaders. Specially, various of us gave the other’s Kobos, based on the recommendation of the one person in the family who already had an eReader.

Kobo eReader

Now, I already have an Android tablet, which I had already been using to read ebooks. (Or, ebook, really, since I’ve read only one on it so far, with two more on deck.) I wondered if it would tire out my eyes to read on the tablet, but didn’t find that to be the case. Still, I was interested in the plain, eInk eReader because:

It’s not backlit (bad for sleep, so they say), but does have a built-in book light, making it better for reading in bed.
It can be read in the sun, which tablets can’t.
It’s quite a bit smaller and lighter than my tablet—which makes it (to me) not nearly as suitable for magazine and newspaper layouts—but much better to hold for reading a book.
The battery life is dramatically longer than a tablet’s. (It also seemed to charge very quickly in the first place.)

In my few days of experimentation, I found that while it doesn’t come with any books, you can wirelessly connect to the Kobo store and buy some. What I had more trouble wrapping my mind around was how you could do anything else with it—like add ebooks from other sources. (I mean legal ones, like from Google Play.)

I’m just so used to the tablet, you see, which is truly a standalone device (at least, Android ones are). I can load pretty much anything I want to right onto my tablet; no need to tether it to a PC and drag things on there. Whereas with the browser-less Kobo, I eventually figured out, you really have to connect it to a computer to do anything other than buy from the Kobo store. In fact, I actually have three desktop apps installed for this thing now: the Kobo one, Adobe Digital Editions—required for at least some of the books from Google Play, and in case I want to borrow ebooks from the library—and one called Calibre, which helps with finding and loading legal unlocked ebooks.

But enough about the technical stuff. How is it for reading?

Maidenhead cover My sister had downloaded two books within an hour of charging her Kobo. I, on the other hand, took about a day to decide what to buy first. Since they say Shades of Grey is partly responsible for the rise of eReader popularity, I got—no, not that book, since I don’t want to read badly written erotica inspired by freakin’ Twilight—but Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger, which is often touted as a better-written alternative to the Grey trilogy.

And due to our trip home taking much longer than expected (I won’t get into why), I have already read the whole thing. So I can confirm the Kobo Glo worked quite well. I had to read mostly in the dark, and the built-in book light was effective. I did not have to futz around with font sizes and zooming; it just worked. Navigating through the pages was simple, and I appreciated that it always gave me an idea where I was up to in the book (which my tablet doesn’t, at least not as visibly).

As for the book itself, it was incredibly engaging. I would warn that it is an erotic novel involving a teenage girl obsessed with a Rastafarian man twice her age who has a somewhat violent girlfriend, so it’s likely not everyone’s cup of tea. But it is very well-written, stimulating to both mind and other body parts. And Jean liked it, too, so it’s not just a woman thing.

Only bummer is, having given Maidenhead a good rating, what do you think Kobo’s big recommendation for me is now? Hint: It rhymes with Braids of Day…

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The extras…

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Après theatre dining

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