Quilapayun

Neruda Productions presents Quilapayun , November 10, Kitchener.

Odd that Rzewski should have been in town only a few months ago. I have been listening obsessively to his The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, base on the song by Quilapayun. Isabella attended a talk by Rzewski, and he mentioned how the publishers of the song had come after him when he had recorded the song (Imagine! Socialists!). What he minded was that to them his variations were not considered original but merely an 'arrangement'. He ended up splitting the proceeds with the songwriter. "Music should be free!" said Rzewski, "and if it's not free, steal it!" He meant his own music. (A friend reported that shortly after this Rzewski's oeuvre began appearing on Demonoid.) This story is as Isabella told me and I remember it, so it may not be entirely complete or accurate.

Solidarity

Here. I have to write this down. Am reading The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century by Sheri Berman and here's Corradini addressing the opening congress of the Italian Nationalist Association in 1910:

"For years and years the socialists ... have been preaching to the workers that it was in their interest to show solidarity with the workers of Cochin-China or Paraguay and to dissociate themselves completely from their employers and the Italian nation. We must drum it into the worker's heads that it is in their best interests to maintain solidarity with their employers and, above all, with their own country and to hell with solidarity with their comrades in Paraguay or Cochin-China"

And I just had to write that down. Because it is illuminating. Easy to disagree with but hard to resist the allure of -- this fuck the wretched of the Earth, what about us?

Stephane Dion

I think the man needs to learn some poker. Not that I know any. But some people recommend it for just these situations. I'm sure David Mamet would urge it upon him.

Here's a line for him, from Henry V:

We would not seek a battle as we are,
yet as we are, we say we will not shun it.


Of course he may not want to use this line, as it is the English taunting the French, after all. But the sentiment and style are what's called for.

He needs to remind Mr. Harper that Canadians have elected a parliament in which every party is a minority -- that nevertheless Canadians expect the parties to co-operate in governing the country -- and that it is the height of arrogance to declare that bills offered by his government are complete, perfect, unalterable, irreplaceable and desperate necessities of our country. He should also remind Mr. Harper that it is not in his power to call an election; only the Governor-General may do so; and if Her Majesty's Representative sees fit to call on him, Stephane Dion, he would gladly attempt to form a government that can govern the country by making astute compromises with the other parties in parliament; yes, even Mr. Harper's.

Anyway, that's how I imagine a game of poker being played. But it's possible I am thinking of chess.

Novels in Three Lines

Went to Wordsworths to see if "Novels in Three Lines" by Felix Feneon might have come in and was not disappointed.

Again and again Mme Couderc, of Saint-Ouen, was prevented from hanging herself from her window bolt. Exasperated, she fled across the fields.

It is a collection of faits-divers printed in Le Matin in 1906, written by notoriously laconic writer Felix Feneon and only preserved because his mistress collected them.

Amorous hatred caused Alice Gallois, of Vaujours, to throw acid in the face of her step-brother, and, accidentally, a passerby. She's all of 14.

Feneon was an anarchist. He was arrested after a bombing and detonators were found in his closet at his office in the Ministry of War. He claimed his father had found them in the street. Challenged on this in court he replied, "The examining magistrate asked me why I hadn't throw them out the window instead of taking them to the Ministry. So you see, it is possible to find detonators in the street." He was acquitted.

"May the will of Allah be done!" cried the Berber Igoucinem yesterday, at Bougie, before the guillotine.

(The name Igoucinem does not appear in Google.)

Translated, and with an introduction, by Luc Sante.

Vote for MMP

I'll be voting Yes in the Oct. 10 Ontario referendum on electoral reform.

Why? Let me think about that.

I suppose because I think we are ruled by alpha-dogs.

They win a majority with something less than %50 of the vote -- maybe as little as 37% as in the 1990 provincial election --

They win a landslide on such a slender basis.

And they think:

'Man, we're good! We can do anything we want!'

(And sometimes they do.)

Or, they don't get a majority. They get a minority with 36% of the vote, say, as in the 2006 federal election. And they think:

'We were that close!'

And then they govern for the next year or two as if they are playing a slot machine. Just the right shove might hit the jackpot.

I'm in favour of MMP because it will make a majority government very hard to attain, given the political ecosystem that tends to obtain in Canada.

I want the alpha-dogs to get into parliament and think:

'Crap! We're going to have to deal with those assholes across the aisle -- forever!'

I want the alpha-dogs to realize they are pulling the sled, not leading it.

(This will sound to some people like sadism. I freely confess it.)

KW Theatre Artists Threatened with Knife

Madji Bou-Matar, artistic director of MTSpace Theatre, and visiting artist Omar Rajeh, choreographer and artistic director of Maqamat Theatre Dance of Beirut, were threatened with a knife by an aggressive panhandler last night in downtown Kitchener.

Mr. Bou-Matar and Mr. Rajeh were on their way to prestigious Kitchener restaurant Twenty King Street (41 King St. W, Kitchener) to attend a dinner in honour of Mr. Rajeh, when they were approached by a panhandler. Politely declining his request for funds, they continued on, and were followed by a torrent of abuse. When they returned to have a word with him, the "gentleman" (as Mr. Bou-Matar referred to him) drew a knife and threatened to slash their faces. At this moment the police arrived and the man was arrested, luckily for him. After making a statement to the police, the two theatre artists continued on to the restaurant where the evening was spent in fine talk and disquisition.

Suffragette Koans

Congratulations to Waterloo playwright and artist Linda Carson whose play "Suffragette Koans" will receive its American premiere at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles, September 14th - 16th.

Pinteresque

Pinteresque, June 14-23, at the Registry Theatre

presented by MTSpace

Directed by Majdi Bou-Matar
Video by Terrance Odette
Music by Nick Storring

Performed by
Badih Abouchakra
Nicholas Cumming
Anastaziya Tataryn
Stella Umeh

The Enlightenment

Link: PlayMyGame

K.M Hunter Awards

Isabella is one of the recipients of the 2007 K. M. Hunter Awards, in the multimedia category.

Intelligent Community of the Year

Waterloo

And look what this intelligence can accomplish!

Rzewski

Just downloaded from iTunes, Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, 36 variations for piano on the original song El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!, played by Stephen Drury. I confess I had never heard the original, not being a hard-core demo-goer (or even a demo-goer of any kind), but it is beautiful, and poignant, since of course it expresses a wish rather than states a fact. And in 36 variations we hear this theme lost, rediscovered, obsessed over ... a vision of lost solidarity, which is perhaps as good an ultimate end as salvation or enlightenment.

I saw Rzewski (and heard of his work for the first time) at the Open Ears Festival, at the Registry Theatre, where he played a piece called "Stop the War!" and a setting of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis and something else (I can't find the program), and as an encore something he called a nano-sonata, one of many.

Isabella also saw a talk given him where he said something like music should be free and if it isn't, then steal it!

So glad I was introduced to this amazing composer. Thanks, Open Ears.

Le Dernier Caravansérail

Found this at Twelfth Night in Waterloo. A film adaptation of Théâtre du Soleil's Le Dernier Caravansérail, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine, in a 2-DVD set with a booklet. Published by Bel Air Classiques and distributed by Harmonia Mundi. ISBN 2-240-02543-3.

Four and half hours in length cut down from the six hour performance. Interesting doc included showing how scenes in the film looked on stage (but "stage" doesn't really do justice to La Cartoucherie, a former munitions factory.)

It is based on stories gathered from refugees principally from the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais which was shut down in 2002. Episodic with recurring characters but no protagonist as such. The Taliban when they appear are like demons tormenting the damned; the pimps and other human traffickers only a little less so.

Mistaken For Love

Art Film Music

Back from Japan

We have been back from Japan now for I don't know how long -- three weeks? Both got sick when we returned. I especially had a hard time getting back to local time. It took me a week. While I had adjusted to Tokyo time in a couple of days. Because it was spring in Tokyo and we could lie out in the sunshine at Shinjuku Gyoen. Stayed at the Easton Hotel in Nakano-Sakaue. Every morning had coffee and pain au raisin at the Vie de France at the station. There was a Romanian restaurant just down the street but we did not go because Isabella thought it would be just too weird, to eat at a Romanian restaurant in Tokyo.

Saw a lot of Noh plays. 10? 11? Over three days. My impressions of Noh: refined, delicate, at the same time raw, primal. Refined movements, and I must presume the poetry; raw in the drums and drum calls and chanting. (I wonder what effect a soliloquy would have if punctuated with drum calls.) Abstract in the sense that objects or people have significance that is understood, and no effort is expended on illusion. So -- a golden tablet falls from heaven -- the stage hand brings it out and sets it down before the actor. Look! A golden tablet fell from heaven!

We also saw one scene of Kabuki from the 47 ronin. The strangest thing is the stage hand dressed as a ninja (and all the more visible for that) running out to crouch behind the main actor and wait patiently for minutes until his moment came -- to remove the tea tray! Unless he also represented the evil impulse moving Lord such-and-such to goad his companion into drawing his sword.

Tom Paine on Stephen Harper

"The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any."

Tom Paine to George Washington in 1796. Quoted in William Christian's column in this morning's Record (unfortunately behind the subscriber wall), where he also expresses reservations about other leaders.

GenX Video ...

... is, as everyone knows, a mainstay of the cultural life of Waterloo and even Kitchener-Waterloo, along with the Princess Cinema. However, they seem to be in a turmoil at the moment, or else they have adapted something like Borges' Chinese Encyclopedia as a classification scheme. That is,

1. Documentaries
   
2. Movies sacred to the Emperor
3. The Criterion Collection
4. Nouvelle Vague
   
5. TV Series
6. New Arrivals
7. Armenian Movies
8. Stray Dog(s)
   
9. others
   
10. Movies made by Stanley Kubrick
11. Godzilla

Or something like that. Anyway, it is good that I was looking for a Criterion movie (The Fallen Idol), or else I would have had to ask someone for help! The horror!

Another thing. They have a sticker that goes on a movie to identify it as Gay. I can't imagine why this should be necessary. You pick up a movie and it has a picture of two members of the same sex in a state of undress, or it has a title with Gay in it, or something like that -- and you say to yourself, aha, this is a gay movie, that is not my glass of tea, or it is, whatever -- so what is the sticker for? So gay people can zero in on them quickly? Or so non-gay people don't pick them up and go eek!

Ok, it's this, I want to get out "Angels in America" and it has a gay sticker on it. I'll have to send someone in.

Trip to Japan

We are going to Tokyo in February to attend a writer's workshop on Noh theatre. What an odd thing to do.

If a certain friend in holy orders is in Tokyo and happens to read this, we will attempt to contact you at an address given us by your mother a year or two ago. Or you may write me at the email on my profile page.

Direct Energy

Was just rather "direct" with a door-to-door salesman for (I believe) Direct Energy who breezily asked for my last gas bill. When I suggested in future the company deal with me by mail, he put on a look of astonishment, and then I all but shoved him out the door. I am surprised at myself and feeling a little queasy. I was definitely rude. But I hate this abuse of people's good nature implicit in hard selling. And most of all I hate bad acting.

I wonder if watching all those Toshiro Mifune movies has had an effect on my character.

Monster

Went to see Monster at Buddies in Toronto Thursday night. Left Waterloo at 5:30. Did not arrive in the best frame of mind for an enjoyable performance experience, as we were stuck for some 45 minutes in traffic between the 427 and the start of the Gardner. We took our seats with ten minutes to spare -- no chance to eat and nothing to eat in the Buddies canteen. So I did not have that feeling of self-satisfaction perhaps essential for puncturing by Monster: I already had a dim view of the cosmos and humanity's place in it. (Plus -- should really have used the facilities before settling in but felt ... inhibited. Not because it was a washroom in a gay theatre. But because it seemed rather too democratic -- that is to say, open, transparent -- I mean it was a public washroom! Never mind.)

So had rather a more intellectual reaction to the play than visceral. But it passed my first test for theatre which is that it should keep my mind from wandering. This is a stringent test. My mind wanders easily. Whenever I am in a theatre I am thinking how would one of my plays look on this stage? How would this audience react? And so if the action slows down just a little, I am off into fantasy land. I only had this reaction once and briefly during Monster (there was a representation of a therapy group which I found tedious.) Otherwise my attention was held and snapped back into place whenever it started to waver.

Very well lit and staged. Lots for a writer to envy in the dialog (that is, monolog -- I mean in how speech was represented.) Characters rather thin but intentionally so (I think), but still this puts it on the edge of tedious at times (with the stagecraft pulling us back.) Some amazing passages. In the end a kind of sermon (in effect, showing us hell and inviting us to look inside ourselves) but designedly so I presume (and the Scottish therapist makes me think of Presbyterianism but it seems MacIvor was raised a Catholic -- oh well, hell, damnation, whatever.) Very cold that night. Was reminded of Wyndham Lewis' description of Toronto as a "sanctimonious icebox".

Ate at a restaurant up Yonge that might have been Spanish. Nice private washroom. Glass of red wine, pizza. As Isabella has an accent and I am often mute, the head-waiter asked "L'addition?" and I said with gusto "L'addition s'il vous plait!" Embarrassed when he asked if we were from Quebec. Isabella said, no, we're just from out of town. Sped home and in bed by midnight.

Links:
Richard Ouzounian's review.
There's a review from a 1999 production in the NYTimes which, aha!, uses the word 'sermon'
And the script of Monster is available through Amazon.
(Too lazy to dig up urls.)