news of the world

From the "Yo Ben, welcome to the real world" department, a headline in today's Star Business section: "Fed Chief Ben Bernanke says stronger regulation would have curbed excess speculation in the U.S. housing market."

Gosh. You think? No wonder this insightful, perceptive man is Time magazine's Person of the Year.

The Globe, on the other hand, really knows how to cheer a person up. Just wanted to leap for joy after reading this front page upper: "Costs to soar as aging Canadians face rising tide of dementia."

A riding tide of dementia, how's that for a sweet image? In case you can't quite visualise it, there's a colour picture of a demented brain.

Okay, here's something to cheer us ALL up - an article in the weekend Globe on Le Whif, an invention produced, of course, by those crazy French. Actually, I now see, it was developed by an American working in Paris, which makes sense, because it's something that smells good but you don't actually taste, like most American food. It's shaped like a lipstick tube, but inside is the smell of chocolate. You put the tube in your mouth and inhale, tiny, calorie-free particles fall upon your tongue, and voila, you taste chocolate but have eaten nothing. I really like the idea of a constant supply of imaginary chocolate in my purse.

But I like another idea better - taking a dark brown piece of an ancient and cherished foodstuff, placing it in my cakehole, and eating it. Obsolete technology, but so delicious.

I am merry today, forsooth. The gym at the Y has been closed for 2 desperate weeks, and today it re-opened. Despite the bitter cold, I ventured forth to sweat. They've painted it a trend-setting grey, there are sexy new transparent curtain dividers between the halves, but in the class was the same motley band of stragglers, and very good it was to see them, too.

One day, I'm sure, we'll be able to take a spray can and spray on some fitness. Until then, for us old-fashioned types, there's nothing like popping a large piece of chocolate into the mouth after some hard time in the gym.

today's rant

PS. Just a bit of a rant, though I am full of peaceful peanut-butter stir-fry. Unfortunately, I just read Rex Murphy's piece in the Saturday Globe, full of hateful scorn for Obama and praising Time magazine for not naming him as its Person of the Year. I should know not to read the blowhard Mr. Murphy, who writes that during the election campaign, the American press was too easy on Obama; that "the ferocity they applied to Sarah Palin, in contrast with the timidity they brought to [Obama's] campaign, will in time come to be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in American journalism."

Oh my! Where to begin with that one? I guess Mr. Murphy does not watch Jon Stewart, who delighted in showing us the extreme viciousness of the attacks on Obama, and Fox News's fawning adoration of Palin. Not to mention the unbelievably idiotic things that issued from her lipsticked mouth from the beginning of the campaign to the end. (And still, unfortunately, do.)

Shameful? What was shameful was that a woman with absolutely no intellectual or international qualifications was considered for one of the highest offices in the land. Sarah Palin makes Stephen Harper look good, and that takes quite some doing in my book.

Stop now, Beth. Best not to waste energy on this one, or I'll start to chew my mouth. Let me just say, "You, sir, are an idiot," and leave it at that.

resolute in the snow

Snow has been falling all day, just stopped a few minutes ago. In the Maritimes, they're expecting up to 60 centimetres; here we've had just a fraction of that. Outside is now muffled and quiet, except for the sounds of shovelling, of course. It was a good Sunday to stay in and enjoy the company of my little white box, MacZine. How can I be lonely, even on a grey snowy solitary day, with the whole world waiting on the other side of her screen?

But today, it was the radio that made the best companion, for an hour anyway. From 3 to 4, I chopped and sautéd a big stir-fry while listening to Eleanor Wachtel interview a Scottish writer, Willian McIlvanney, of whom I'd never heard. As usual, I had the impression they were sitting at my kitchen table, chatting while I cooked them dinner. Such a warm, lively conversation - truly, Eleanor is incomparable.

About writing, McIlvanney said that he had an epiphany at the age of 14 that he would be a writer. His parents walked into the house and he was suddenly aware of them, of really seeing, for the first time, how young his mother was. "What writing does is make you notice and appreciate the ordinary," he said, and later quoted Balzac, who opined that a writer finds out who his characters really are by depicting them "at the edges of themselves" - that is, in out-of-the-ordinary, even extreme situations. And your friends too, Mr. Balzac, I thought. When they're at the edges of themselves, or you are, you find out who your friends are, too.

He spoke about Scottish and world politics, with enormous scorn for Margaret Thatcher and what she did to his country (and, IMHO, to the world, she and her buddy Ronald.) McIlvanney loathes the "despicable political philosophy" of trickle down economics. "Money," he said, "defies the laws of gravity. It flows UP. Once people have money, they want more and find a way to get it." I've never heard it put so well. There are two ways to deal successfully with poverty, he said - to get out of it by getting money somehow, or to develop values that make living with it possible. His country has done the latter. "We value life," he said. "We are impressed by the size of your humanity, not the size of your bank account."

I was impressed by the size of his humanity. To check out the interview, listen to the podcast at www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany.

By then my stirfry was done. (It's made with peanut butter. Can't wait for dinner.) I'm lying on the divan in the kitchen, my usual perch, looking out at the stillness of the snow and listening to the new Blue Rodeo CD, "The things we left behind," which was my Xmas present from my son and is gorgeous. Time to think about resolutions. January 3 2010, a good, snowy day to make some. What are mine?

Hmm. Can't do this without a glass of wine.

Okay, that's one resolution: I am drinking, now, from a smaller, narrower glass in which less wine looks like more. So that's easy - I resolve to drink from smaller glasses.

I resolve to make more time for reading, not magazines like the New Yorker (and Paris Elle, I confess) and newspapers and sites on the Internet, but books, actual thick books. I'm back to ordering books from the library and skipping over there to get them when they come in, the call from the library like a gift from the city. Just got Lorna Sage's well-reviewed memoir Bad Blood, haven't started it yet.

I resolve to stop chewing the inside of my mouth before all my teeth fall out. One of the great quests of my life has been to get rid of the tension and neurosis with which I've always lived, and to a great extent, with a lot of high-priced help, I've done it. But there is still constant tension in my shoulders, neck, and especially, my mouth, which is often twisted in a grimace as I gnaw from the inside. I will be conscious of that tension and make it go away.

My friend Chris thinks I'm too speedy. Last night I watched 3 things on TV simultaneously - the films Lolita and Love Actually and the comic George Carlin - and at slow times, read the New Yorker too. But unlike Chris, aka Mr. Vancouver, I don't think that's a problem or a flaw, it's just how I function. It was great to see Love Actually again and, during the commercials, to watch something else.

The movie renewed my respect for the sublime Emma Thompson, who in one small scene - where she confronts at Xmas proof of her husband's infidelity - elevates a rather formulaic romantic comedy into something much greater. One of the secrets of the great British actresses - they don't let glamour get in the way of acting and truth. If a dramatic scene requires them to weep, with resulting red eyes and dripping nose, they don't hesitate. Hollywood women must weep beautifully. A great handicap.

Should I resolve not to pontificate, as I just have, about things about which I know very little? No, because that is also who I am.

Most importantly, I resolve to sit in my office chair, or somewhere else, for at least three hours a day, five days a week, and produce page after page of the memoir and other work too. That is the resolution to which you must hold me, the one I must hold myself to, dear readers. The one that counts.

As I write, I am chewing the inside of my mouth.

flexitarian time

Functional central heating: check.

Long underwear: check.

Gloves, mitts, hats, puffy coat, snow boots, scarf to cover face: check.

I think I'll survive. But boy, it's hard work. Today - minus 13, with a wind chill of minus 26. At the streetcar stop, two minutes without gloves while I got out my wallet, and my hands hurt. Not for sissies, this country, except for the softies out west in Lotusland. And Toronto has an easy winter compared with the Maritimes or the Prairies or even Montreal. Today there was a winter storm in the Maritimes with winds of more than 100 k. an hour. So a wind chill of minus 26 is nuthin'. We can take it.

It's impossible, though, not to gain weight during the long Canadian winter. Just so difficult to exercise and find fruit, and anyway, the body wants to protect itself with whatever layers it can find or create. I had spaghetti and chocolate for supper. Bring on those life-saving layers.

Neighbours Sally and David have a New Year's Day party every year, a chance to connect with the people who live all around us. I had a talk with the ubiquitous Pam McConnell, who has represented this riding at City Hall for many years; whenever she ventures out, people corner her and grouse. So I did too, not about vital issues like housing and homelessness, but about garbage. I know, litter is not that important. But a Tim Horton's coffee shop moved into the area a few years ago, and the amount of trash scattered about has quadrupled. This neighbourhood, and the city in general, is a giant garbage dump, strewn with coffee cups, plastic bags, cigarette packets, everything dropped in the street and left to pile up and blow in the wind. I think it's hard to build civic pride for a garbage dump. So I told her about the handy green garbage bags all over Paris. She filed the information away, I'm sure, in her "crackpots to avoid at neighbourhood parties" file.

Then I talked to Elizabeth Harris, the most energetic volunteer in the city, who has lived in Cabbagetown since 1975 - one of the real old-timers here, I thought, until she told me about little old Pat who lives across the street from her in the house where he was born. Elizabeth is the founder of the wonderful Farmer's Market that operates from May to October outside the Farm. She has heard my concerns for humanely-raised meat products and knows exactly the farmer I should meet. I've been reading articles about "flexitarians" - a new word for people who are mostly vegetarian but aren't rigid about it and do sometimes eat meat. So now I have two new 2009 words to describe my lifestyle - I'm a flexitarian frugalista, happy to wear second-hand clothes to eat my broccoli.

Speaking of vegetables, Sally makes delicious marinated mushrooms every year; this time I asked for the recipe. If you'd like me to pass it on to you, just ask. We flexitarians need to inspire each other to keep the taste-buds happy, and we frugalistas need to eat lots of mushrooms so our clothes still fit when winter is over.

twenty ten

Awoke this morning to fat snowflakes spiralling past the window, sparrows squawking in the ivy - January 1, 2010. Twenty ten - easier to say than the OO years.

Louise, my hostess last night, was diagnosed as HIV positive more than 15 years ago. "I didn't expect to see the millenium," she said, "let alone still be here a decade later." Not just "here" but thriving and impossibly energetic, she zooms around the world as an AIDS activist, has a cheery Xmas card from the Princess of Norway (also an AIDS activist) on her mantelpiece, speaks of her recent travels to Rwanda and Rio and her upcoming trip, not for work but for pleasure, to Mongolia - and cooks a mean lobster. In her spare time, she is writing her memoirs with me as editor and coach. We and another friend sat by the fireside drinking wine, dined on lobster, asparagus and champagne, and were watching Away we go, the new film by the admirable Sam Mendes, when midnight struck. A great way to see in the new decade.

The film has inspired such mixed reviews, some hating it and others admiring it greatly, I was curious to see where I'd fit on the spectrum. I liked it very much - a warm, humourous story of two decent and rather lost human beings who love each other and want to make a good landing for their unborn child. Because most of the characters they visit on their journey are hilariously dysfunctional, critics feel that the writers are setting themselves up as judges of others and morally superior themselves - there's "a malodorous whiff of self-satisfaction," one wrote. I don't agree. They're enjoying the spectacle of human selfishness and stupidity, yes, but more importantly, giving actors like Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara and Maggie Gyllenhaal delicious parts to dive into and nail. The work of all the actors is superb; it's clear how much they trust the director. It's an honest, moving and wise film. Isn't that enough?

Reading the "Tomatoes" reviews on-line led me to other sites listing the top ten films of the year and of the decade. With my sieve-like memory, I can't remember all the movies I enjoyed this decade. But for what it's worth, here's a list of some of my favourites. This doesn't include documentaries, which I adore.

The Lives of Others - perhaps my most favourite, except for #2 -

Up

and also loved In America

Ratatouille

The Barbarian Invasions

Wall.E

Juno

Milk

Slumdog Millionaire

The Last King of Scotland (though I couldn't watch a lot of it)

Departures

The Band's Visit

Caché (though I didn't understand some of it)

Amelie

Etre et avoir

Entre les murs - The Class

Spirited Away

The Son's Room

Happy-go-lucky

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Bright Star

Do any of you agree or disagree with one or more of these choices? Let's argue.

I took a weekend-long screenwriting course once, where the teacher spoke with respect of hard plots and with scorn of soft plots. Hard plots can be described in a few words, he said; producers like that. Soft plots cannot. As in: Aliens attack the earth and are defeated. As opposed to: a Palestinian brass band visits Israel and gets lost, and all involved, especially the band leader and the Israeli woman he meets, learn a great deal about humanity and grow into bigger human beings.

Waaaay too soft.

There are more great 2000-2009 films buried in my memory bank. But this has taken much more than an hour and two cups of coffee. It's still snowing. Time to go for a walk, blow the cobwebs from my misty brain, and jump into the new year.

P.S. Films I've heard a great deal about, which might be added when I've had a chance to see them: An Education, White Ribbon, Summer Hours, Gomorra, Anvil, Last Station, Invictus. What fun!

The New Yorker, in its list of the ten best artistic events of 2009, put as #1 Alice Munro's new book of stories, Too Much Happiness. Way to go, girl.