December cold

It's cold. November was a dream, but now here's the real thing: a few snowflakes yesterday, and today, frost in bristly patches on the ground. You can feel the city, literally, turning inward, huddling, hunkering - it's here, will be here for months, all we can do is put our heads down and get through. I made sure my bird feeder was filled, and dug the next level of warmth in coats, boots and gloves out of storage. I have my own cold, too; December has settled, coughing, in my chest.

Was at one of my favourite annual events tonight - each year, Continuing Studies at U of T has a night honouring five teachers who've been nominated by their students for a teaching award. The wine and food flow, and the five receive plaques and make short speeches. As usual, but even more so tonight, the individuals honoured - a teacher of grammar, of Dutch, of poetry - were warm, funny, fascinating, especially the little woman in a short red velvet dress and high heels, a history teacher who'd brought a tiara for herself and her boss. It's easy to see why their students love them. I'm proud to be part of this team, proud and happy to be a teacher. The food's good too.

A Hard Day's Night was on TV tonight, and I watched it yet again - not for pleasure of course, no no no, merely for research, because I'm trying to understand the power of those four men. How unique they were, cheeky and yet safe, and what a marvellous balance they had. You can see how necessary it was for the survival of the group that George and Ringo be quiet and easy-going, allowing the huge talents and egos of John and Paul to bloom. They sang "If I fell," which has the most perfect harmonic arrangement between the dark steadiness of John's voice and the sweet balladeer lightness of Paul's, and I swooned all over again.

I saw, this time, why in 1964 I didn't fall in love with John but with Paul - Paul was a boy, still, a baby-faced cherub with long curly eyelashes. John was a man. He had a warm, lively manner and smile, but there's something menacing about him too, as he stands planted at the mike, as he surveys the idiots around him and grins. At fourteen, I was not ready for a man.

And they, young young men in their early twenties, bursting with talent and energy, going along for the ride with great good humour, thinking it all might end tomorrow. My favourite line from the movie: a supercilious journalist asks George, "And what do you call that hairstyle?"

"Arthur," replies George.

I've just read an article in the New Yorker about "The Milkmaid" in New York. Vermeer was about 25 when he painted it - just a little older than the Beatles are in the film, the age my son is now. 25. I look again at the reproduction of the painting in the magazine - she stands beneath the window to her right, as so many of Vermeer's subjects do, carefully pouring milk from a pitcher into a pot. How much more humdrum can an activity be? And yet she's so beautiful, so true, so perfectly there in her white cap, yellow bodice with green sleeves and blue overskirt with red below, that countless admirers have stood still to watch her. The Dutch milkmaid is composed of little dabs of paint put on canvas in 1657, yet she breathes so nearly like us that she brings tears to the eyes. What a marvel.

The prize-winning Dutch teacher, in her speech tonight, reminded us that it was the Dutch who bought the island of New Amsterdam from the native peoples. If their colony had not been overthrown by the British, she mused, perhaps Dutch would be as common a language as English or French. Of course then, no one would need to learn Dutch at the U of T, she said, and I'd be out of a job.

for Canadians: Ron Graham on Ignatieff

I have just read the most spot-on, brilliant, and highly enjoyable piece of political writing: Ron Graham's piece about Michael Ignatieff in the current Walrus. I could not recommend it more highly; it's a must read for Canadians, no matter what party or what part of the country you're from. Even as someone utterly uninterested in Canada's political manoeuverings, I've always been aware of the smooth Toronto Liberal machine, Bay Street making decision for the party and the country based solely on their own needs and values. I was in Ottawa when, thanks to the Toronto smoothies, Jean Chretien was passed over and John Turner, smart with a good jawline and hungry for power, chosen for the leadership of the Liberal Party. We all know how that turned out.

And, says Graham, the same thing happened with Ignatieff. A small group got the idea to play kingmaker, and reality played no part - the fact that the man had been out of the country for nearly 3 decades and knew nothing about politics - didn't matter, he was smart with a good jawline and hungry for power. And now we are on the verge of a Harper majority because of it.

The piece is precise and pointed, knowledgeable and funny. At one point he says that Ignatieff produced "no new reasons why the Thinifer should replace the Fattypuff." Fattypuff is Harper - the perfect name. Wow. Ron Graham, my nominee for writer of the year. I urge you to read it, and then let's rally behind finding a new Liberal leader, one who can lead this time, to make sure that the current dreadful bunch of out-of-touch hypocritical bandits don't get a majority.

Okay, that's my gentle political analysis for the season, let's move on to Christmas, where I'm also in full battle mode. On entering my favourite place of retreat, the women's health club at the Y, I was blasted with Jingle Bells - they had installed a sound system just so we could enjoy loud Christmas music. Because we don't get to hear it anywhere else. No! I screamed, out loud. Please God, no. And eventually, they turned it off, at least while I was there. I absolutely hate these weeks before Xmas, with exhausted people rushing out to buy more stuff and the air thick with those now-meaningless saccharine songs over and over and over. I carry earplugs and put them in before I go inside, anywhere, because if I hear the Little Drummer Boy one more time I'm going to start smashing things.

I love Christmas - family and friends gathering for a meal, a tranquil day together, small quantities of reasonable gift-giving - my favourites are home-made gifts or promises, as my kids know. "I'll make you five meals," they write on a card. That's what I want for Xmas. I think my horror in NYC this time, much more extreme than in the past, was because the pre-Christmas rush felt like some kind of bloodletting or feeding frenzy. It was frightening. Accompanied by huge doses of - what else? - the Little Drummer Boy.

Every year my friend Ken goes on a silent retreat to a monastery for the two weeks around Xmas. I may join him.

And finally, two other beefs - today is the last day for the Carlton Cinema. I was going to go see a film, any film, to celebrate this important space, but the cold I was fighting in NYC has caught up with me and I'm staying put. How we Toronto'ites will miss this multiplex specialising in arty, foreign, independently made films and documentaries not shown elsewhere. Let's just hope that some intrepid entrepreneur is planning, right now, to open a replacement. I am, as the kids say, so there.

And ... the Globe is currently hosting an on-line discussion in its internet books section on why, in 9 years of the Canada Reads series on CBC honouring and publicising Canadian books, there has not been ONE single non-fiction book. I've made my own contribution to the discussion; you can log on and make yours.

Gosh, lots to bitch about today. My cold can't be that bad. What fun. Time for another glass of wine.

wrap up, NYC

Dear Beth: I can’t tell you what a strong impression you made on our students. We have had an enormous number of very impressive speakers and artists of other kinds. Rarely have I heard so much excitement or enthusiasm.

Well! That email from Tom made me happy. I also just received an email from a member of the other Yiddish theatre in NYC, which I didn't even know existed - the New Yiddish Rep Theater. He praises the book and is interested in some kind of event. Another possibility in New York. It's all good, as the kids say.

I am home. So good to be home in tiny little Toronto. I have never left New York with anything but relief, I have to say - just to flee that intensity, the relentless crush and pace, the energy, the non-stop hurtling. It's mind-boggling, the number of fabulous things to see and do. But there's something dehumanising about the city too, something debilitating. The most discontented, sour faces in the world live in New York.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went to the Morgan Library to see a wonderful exhibit on the work of Jane Austen, with some of her manuscripts and letters on display. Did you know that all Jane's novels were published anonymously? That she never made enough money from them, despite their success, to support herself independently? That means a lot, coming after the recent arguments in this blog about writing for money versus writing for truth. In a film commentary at the exhibit, one of the speakers says, "The timeless writers, the ones who do not date, stay with us because they have told the truth." Whether they made money during their lifetimes, or not.

I learned that Jane wrote some 3000 letters (of which only 160 survive), and that she also wrote poetry, her final poem three days before she died at the age of 41. It's fascinating to see her letters, mostly to her sister Cassandra, from which she has carefully edited an occasional sentence by snipping it out with scissors.

The library also had on display the original manuscript of Dicken's Christmas Carol, written in six weeks in 1843. Lots of editing there, lines scribbled out - a story written fast, expressly to make money. Which he did, and good for him. And I saw one of the Gutenberg Bibles, with no editing whatsoever.

It poured with rain in the late afternoon. I hauled my stuff from Ted's, six blocks down 3rd Avenue to Lola's at 70th. As I've said, Lola is my father's cousin and exactly the age, 87, that he would have been. She has defeated cancer and various ailments and still works as a jewellry artist, producing rings and bracelets, besides seeing everything worth seeing in New York at a vastly reduced senior's rate. She lives on very little money in a rent-controlled studio apartment - one big room, packed with books, family photographs and art, including oil paintings and ceramics by her mother Belle, my grandfather's sister and an accomplished artist. She told me that the other two apartments on her floor have been knocked into one big place that rents for $18,000 a month. Yes, that's the correct figure. $18,000 a month.

The local deli had poached some salmon for her for our dinner, and then we set out for our adventure - getting down to the theatre on W. 45th in the rain with the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting, a major NYC event, going on at the same time. Earlier, I'd seen hundreds of NYC policemen on 5th Avenue, and asked a couple of cops if they were there just for the tree lighting. Yes, they were. One asked where I was from and when I said Toronto, he said, "I'm nearly Canadian. I'm from Buffalo." Nearly Canadian, indeed!

Of course, Lola had a plan - the Lexington Avenue bus down to 42nd Street and across on 42nd and then walk up to 45th so we'd avoid the tree, at 50th, altogether. We were at the theatre in plenty of time, to see Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts who made such a splash with August: Osage County, that Lola and I saw last time I was in NYC. These tickets were a gift from my ex-husband, who picked the play for us and provided house seats. Donuts was produced by the Steppenwolf Company from Chicago, and it was superb. A classically well-made play, a wonderful company - great writing, direction, acting, just a perfect evening at the theatre, except that I wish the theatre had been full to support this fine work. It wasn't. Perhaps because there are no big stars in it. Jude Law is on Broadway in Hamlet, Cate Blanchett about to open in Streetcar, and Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in something or other that's had bad reviews but is packed anyway. (Mind you, if I'd had more time, I wouldn't have minded seeing those talented hunks...)

Lola and I got the bus home just before a major rainstorm, chatting with the bus driver and the one other passenger as if it was a limo just for us. In fact, we chatted to people all evening - on the busses there and at the theatre too. New York can be so friendly and warm, with an openness that would be unusual in London and Paris, another NYC paradox. A woman and I had such a good talk in Lola's elevator about her labradoodle, a lab/poodle cross, we were practically best friends by the time I got out.

This morning, a gorgeous day - 65 degrees, so mild and sunny, a young woman was walking around in a short-sleeved dress, bare-legged. I walked back to the Met to see the Robert Frank photography exhibit. He was a Swiss photographer who documented the America of the 50's and 60's - black, white, rich, poor, he captured them all with empathy and so much candour that when the book of his shots first appeared, he was accused of being anti-American. Jack Kerouac wrote the foreword to Frank's book and said, "Robert Frank ... with that little camera that he raises and snaps in one hand, he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. To Robert Frank, I now give this message: you got eyes."

But that was all I could stand. A vast museum, one of the best in the world, but I'm overloaded this year, after London and Paris. I know how spoiled and absurd that sounds - too much art! Can't take it any more! But it's true.

Lunch was a big bowl of chicken vegetable soup, delicious, for $2.99. Yes, that's the correct figure - $2.99. It's incredible that everyone here isn't fat, because there's cheap, delicious take-out food on every corner. New York is the most absurd juxtaposition of incomprehensible expense and cheapness. Exhausting. Every possible thing that you might want is out there, somewhere, and the only way to survive is not to want anything. Nothing at all. Once you start, it's endless. David Suzuki, we're doomed. No one in New York is reducing consumption. Rapacious consuming is the main activity, perhaps the only activity, besides an occasional walk in Central Park. Amassing stuff and throwing out other stuff.

A few other observations: Tantrums. I kept hearing children screaming with tantrums. These are the kids who are going to be paying for our pensions. Not good.

Saw a kosher Dunkin' Donuts. And tons, now, of comfy shoe stores. If there's a need - and we're all aging and our feet hurt - New York will instantly provide.

Every young person seems to have a journal. On trains, busses, subways, they're scribbling.

On the streets, black doo-wop singers doing dance routines in four-part harmony. Extremely good.

The anonymous big-footed woman let me down this trip. She gives her large shoes to the Housing Works Thrift Store, and I buy them. But she hasn't been clearing out her closets recently. A great disappointment.

Lola showed me her favourite New York holiday decoration - a giant sparkly thing strung above Fifth Avenue. It could be a snowflake, or it could be a star, depending on your orientation.

Glad to be home. But it was a very good trip.

the morning after

These days, when I start a formal talk about my book, I quote my French friend Daniel, who told me that the book “is part of the battle against amnesia.” The book fights to uncover and respect the past and understand its legacy. Last night, an audience got that exploration of legacy as never before.

What a thrilling event. I had no idea what to expect – perhaps a handful of people, as has happened in some of the other places that sponsored a talk – about 20 at the Stratford Festival, which got around to publicising it late; about a dozen at the Jewish library in Toronto. About 30 came, including five relatives, to the 92^nd Street Y the last time I spoke in New York; I was hoping for at least that but prepared for far fewer.

I got to the Stella Adler Studio early, to work, as Tom Oppenheim the director of the Studio had asked, with the actors. It’s exciting just walking into the acting school, its cramped, busy space on West 27^th crawling with intense young acting students – there, a huge bust of Stanislavsky, and there, portraits of Tom’s grandparents, the great actress and teacher Stella and her husband Harold Clurman, the influential director. “The theatre is a sacred space,” said a sign on the door of the small theatre where I was to speak and an assembly of actors to read excerpts from the plays. Marvellous actors – Betsy Parrish, who teaches at the school, read from Mirele Efros, Adam Gerber and Danielle Rabani, graduates from the school, read from the Kreutzer Sonata, and Michael Howard was the Jewish King Lear. We ran through their pieces, set up the space, and retired to the Green Room to chat.

From there, we heard a noise, growing – the sound of a lively audience. Michael said to Adam and Danielle, “May you hear that sound every night for the rest of your lives. Except for your day off.” Tom began, speaking with his usual eloquence about building a meaningful theatre, a theatre of social relevance, and then he introduced me. A joyful moment, to step onto a stage with fine actors behind me waiting to work and in front, a full house. The space was packed – standing room only. Maybe 70 or more, some of them young students from the school sitting on the floor at the front. “This is a friendship,” I said, hugging Tom, “that started 120 years ago.”

I told stories about Gordin and my search for him for almost an hour, then the actors did their magnificent readings – I had goosebumps, they were so good - and I finished off. The audience liked it. Some of the young actors, paupers though they undoubtedly are, bought the book and had me sign it.

Then adults, a whole group of Adlers, including Tom’s mother, Stella’s only daughter Ellen, and Josie, daughter of Tom’s aunt Lulla Rosenfeld who wrote her own book about the Yiddish theatre and helped me with mine. Josie reported a conversation. Ellen, at the end of my talk, asked Josie, "Are you going to say hello?" And Josie replied, "Say hello? I’m going to move in with her!"

They were so warm and generous, this bunch of descendants of Jacob Adler’s, to this descendant of his colleague Jacob Gordin. We must have lunch, Josie said. I’ll make dinner, said Ellen, who has incredible stories to tell. The Studio should help you sell your book, said Tom. And so I must come back to New York sooner rather than later, to greet my new family. Because that’s how it felt.

On the subway home, a group of women opposite were talking about the reading at the Cooper Union with Tony Kushner et al. Apparently Kushner was fabulous. I’m sorry I missed him. But my own small event was pretty fabulous too.

This morning I've received a very nice note from the Artistic Director of the Folksbiene, saying it was all a misunderstanding, he is very interested in the book and my work. That's great news. Perhaps we can work out an event of some kind.

I have been fighting a bug with massive doses of Cold-FX, but now that my talk's over, miraculously I feel healthy again. Half a day, now, to explore NYC - late afternoon I move from my cousin Ted's to Cousin Lola's and take her to the theatre tonight. She's 87 and it's supposed to pour with rain, so there are logistical problems, but she is the feistiest 87-year old in the world, so we'll make it. She has a plan. You don't go anywhere with a New Yorker without a plan.

discovering The Moth

The sky is sunny again, and so am I. My friend Lynn, who taught high-school and several times took her classes on trips, told me she'd always instruct the kids at the start, "Stop complaining. The first day is always hard. Wait till the third day to tell me your problems." I should have heeded her advice.

Last night, a grand adventure. I first heard about "The Moth" a few years ago and have been following its progress on the internet. It's a storytelling forum, founded in the south where moths would beat on screen doors at night as the storytellers recounted their tales inside. It now sponsors evenings of storytelling and "story slams," highly competitive events, in New York and L.A. Sometimes famous people, Garrison Keillor types, are involved, but mostly, it's amateurs - you put your name in a hat when you arrive, and if your name is drawn, you have five minutes to stand at the mike and tell a great story. Ten people have their five minutes, are judged, and the highest score goes on to the national competition. There are topics. Last night, at last, I was in town on a Moth night, so was thrilled to be able to go. The topic was "Nerve."

But first, I should tell you another reason I was sad yesterday. Last night, there was another event here in New York. The Folksbiene Theatre, the Yiddish theatre, held a special evening last night in honour of the hundredth anniversary of my great-grandfather Jacob Gordin's death in 1909. They showed a film of one of his plays, and an elderly Yiddish actress was the guest of honour.

I do not know why this theatre has no interest in the author of a book about Gordin, one of the best-known Yiddish playwrights whose plays have been produced in this very theatre for decades, and who is, incidentally, Gordin's great-granddaughter - but it doesn't. I have written letters, emailed and left phone messages about coming to speak there, or even just to speak to someone about my book. I have never received a response. One of the reasons I'm here this weekend is because when Tom Oppenheim, head of the Stella Adler Studio, heard about the Folksbiene event, he said in his usual enthusiastic, open way, "We should do something together!" But the Artistic Director, apparently, had no interest. Still, until yesterday afternoon, I thought that they might try to contact me.

So yes, I was hurt. But at the same time, I was glad. I've given my life's blood - more than 20 years of research and writing - to Jacob Gordin, the book and the Yiddish Theatre, and now want to move forward. One thing that interests me is stand-up storytelling, so The Moth is something I've been keen to see. And happily, I was free to go.

The event last night - the venue shifts constantly - was at the Bitter End, the famous club on Bleeker Street in the Village, home of so many musicians in the Sixties. I stood in a very long line outside for half an hour, amazed by the popularity of the event, especially among the younger crowd - I'd say the average age was 32. It was packed inside, but I managed to find a seat at a table of young people, and ended up in a fascinating discussion with Nathan, sitting next to me, who's 25, a freelance writer and peace activist who often comes to The Moth and gave me his card at the end of the evening. Nathan is a keeper.

The M.C. was Sara Barron, a stand-up comic who at first I found almost offensive, her stories were so personal, honest to the point of embarrassment, not only about herself but about her former boyfriends whose names she gave us, various friends and family - a long riff on her father's impotence. In the end, though, she won me over - she is relentlessly honest about herself most of all, and she is funny and brave. I would not, however, want to be a friend of hers.

The names were drawn and the stories began, one terrible, several not so good and a few pretty fine, almost all entertaining. There wasn't one I thought was superb, but I agreed with the winner, a thirty-ish woman who told a story about connecting with a man over the internet who turned out to want to be her love slave. It was funny but also moving - in the end, she realises she doesn't want a love slave, she wants love and sends him away.

I'd thought of trying to start The Moth in Toronto - why isn't it there yet? But last night, I realised that I hope someone else does, but it won't be me. I'm interested in developing my own stories and in teaching others to do so, but the amount of work to get this event going would be prohibitive for an old bag like me. Any takers, youths out there?

Today it's chilly but bright. It's World AIDS Day, and I'm thinking of my many friends who died of this plague over the years, but also of the many who are living healthy lives with AIDS or HIV, thanks to science. And mostly, I'm getting ready for my talk about my great-grandfather's life and my connection to it, tonight at the Stella Adler Studio. I just read in the Times that there are two other tiny, boring literary events tonight, which will be no competition at all: Salman Rushdie, Tony Kushner and Siri Hustvedt reading and Olympia Dukakis reciting at the Cooper Union, and Katha Pollitt and Ron Padgett, two marvellous writers, in a series called Poems and Pints. I myself would gladly go to either. Ah well.

Tom had hoped Tony Kusher would come to meet me, as he quoted my book in his recent work about the Yiddish Theatre. But he'll be busy. However, last night I relearned something important: the world is hungry for stories. And tonight, to however many hungry people are there, I'll tell mine.