Toronto, in solidarity with Paris

Just back from Nathan Phillips Square, where hundreds of people gathered at 2 today to commemorate and honour the victims of the Paris attacks and their families, who are also victims, and their country. There was spontaneous singing of La Marseilleise, twice. The Toronto sign was red, white and blue today, there were French flags and Canadian flags, and everyone who spoke, spoke French as well as English, even our Mayor, whose French is not very good. But he tried, and he spoke beautifully about our own city, its bonds with Paris, how we will not be terrorized. Carolyn Bennett spoke on behalf of the federal government, and how grateful I was to have that government, and not the last one, to speak for us. At the end, there was a moment of silence - the huge crowd, the speakers, silent and motionless.

One person was missing: a member of the Muslim community. I wish there had been a representative there to denounce, a haut voix, these horrendous acts done in the name of Islam.

all love sent to Paris

More terrifying news from Paris. I think of my friends Paolo and Annie, Parisian Jews who last year, after the Charlie Hebdo murders, were thinking about leaving France. Will they stay now?

When will it end? Too terrible, too horrible, too hideous.

This is happy??

I'm turning into a crabby reader in my old age. Last week I skimmed "The Folded Clock," by Heidi Julavits, which is an odd, interesting diary, filled with her day to day activities and musings. She's intriguing with a very rich life, and she's a marvellous, intelligent writer, but still, I found it episodic and unsatisfying, too quirky, like a platter of delicious hors d'oeuvres; I didn't think it was enough. But then, I thought Julavits's friend and colleague Sheila Heti's book "How should a person be?" was self-indulgent and silly, and then it was reviewed at length, favourably, in nothing less than the New Yorker. So what do I know?

Now I am reading Camilla Gibb's popular "This is happy," the memoir about her extremely painful childhood and adulthood, her years of depression and attempts at suicide, and then happiness with her lesbian partner (who we all know, though she's given a pseudonym in the book, is Heather Conway, a top level poohbah at the CBC.) As soon as she becomes pregnant in her early forties, however, her partner dumps her. She cries every day for months, all through her pregnancy. Yet somehow - how? She's a writer! - she buys a downtown house (the price of single family homes in Toronto is through the roof) and renovates it completely, including putting in an incredible garden that had me drooling, and she hires a live-in nanny who's on site and ready when the baby is born. All this while sobbing. She gives birth, has the nanny, faithful friends and her mother to help her, but is desperately waiting for her lover, who wants to co-parent, to return. And then she finds out her lover has found someone else, and she collapses in rage and grief.

She stands watching the nanny play with her child. "It should be my daughter's other parent playing peek-a-boo in this moment, me watching her lose all inhibition - becoming innocent and childlike - and welling up with love for them both. It should be my partner seeing me anew, at greater depth, as a mother, moved by the brave extent of what we are capable of as humans ..."

Etc.

And I think to myself, you're beautiful, rich, and a successful and talented writer, you own a house and a Jeep, you live with a fabulous nanny who's like a best friend, you have a perfect, healthy child - and you're going to whine about being without a partner? My daughter is the single mother of not one but two young children. She lives in a small rented apartment and she does every single thing by herself. And I have never, not once, heard her complain. Well, maybe once. I know, she wasn't heartbroken, she chose her life - though she did hope things would turn out differently with both fathers. But Anna is brave and strong, resolute and resilient, beyond anyone I know.

So right now, I have little patience for Camilla Gibb's ceaseless suffering. I know this sounds intolerant and judgemental. Well, it is. And yes, as the writer of a memoir read by a few hundred people, I'm jealous that hers has received such a lot of attention. But mostly, I think she's a very good writer, and her editor should have reigned in the self-pity flowing like a torrent through this book.

I'm only on Page 159. Maybe there's a big change by the end. I do hope she stops referring to her daughter as "the egg."

Her nanny goes off to her own friends on the weekend. "I dread the long and lonely weekends, the boredom, the hours, the exhaustion, the early mornings. The weekends are for families... I cry too much when it's just the two of us. I cry and count the hours." Oh for God's sake.

"I want to be in my pyjamas and parenting with someone together. I want to be a family. I want to be years into a relationship, in that place where you are known and knowing and loving and loved - the place I thought I was."

You know what? I wanted that too, after my divorce. My gay friend Chris who's adopted and an orphan wants that. Tons of people want that. In the end, we all want to be known and loved. No news there.

This is what Anna just wrote on FB, the closest to a complaint I've ever heard from her:
She has to have four arms, four legs, four eyes, two hearts, and double the love. There is nothing single about being a single mum. 

This one hit me in the feels tonight.

My heart is with her. 

And while I'm lauding my kids, Sam's bar Gaslight was just voted Now Magazine's Runner Up for Best Bar in Toronto. The winner is a long-established place, where Gaslight is only a year old. Woo hoo! 

Okay, I'll stop grousing now. 

Seminar the play

Just booked a ticket to see this with Wayson - the story of an angry, abusive writing teacher, fascinating, and played by the wonderful Tom McCamus. Sent a recommendation about it to my longterm students, and got this back from Chris:

I saw this on Broadway a couple of years ago with Alan Rickman in the lead role, and it was very entertaining. Coming away from it you will realize that the instructor is about as different from Beth as one can get. Also the students pay thousands of dollars to work with him and each one is a bit of a case. In the production I saw, one of the women whipped her T-shirt off in the first scene.

Other than that it could be Beth's class.

SEMINAR is a class in wit, brains and guts See it early & save! Tickets From $19 SEE IT EARLY AND SAVE! $19/$49 Sat Nov 14, 8PM & Sun Nov 15, 2PM $19/$59 Nov 17-Dec 4, Tue to Fri 8PM Or call 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333 Use code SEM59 Remember that grade 9 report on the Mayan civilizations that you had to read out in social studies class? We've all been in situations where we've had our work judged by others. It even happens in our adult work life. Imagine being a young writer desperate to improve your craft and looking to a "genius" novelist for advice and insights. How much would you pay for such an opportunity? What if the cost was $5,000 and you were one of only four students? And what would happen if that genius also turned out to be malicious, self-involved and sex-obsessed? What if your career's success depended on his approval? SEMINAR is a hilarious comedy about such a writing workshop. It opened on Broadway a few seasons ago and was an instant success. Now it is finally getting its Canadian premiere. Starring the brilliant Tom McCamus, arguably one of the country's finest actors, SEMINAR recently started performances at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg. This is what the critics had to say: "A SNAPPY, SOPHISTICATED COMEDY with a bright, tight ensemble. Tom McCamus brings his considerable stage presence to bear as the shaggy, oversexed instructor." - Winnipeg Free Press "SHARPLY FUNNY AND CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING! Playwright Teresa Rebeck has a knack for smart dialogue and writing scathing one-liners, producing moments that are simultaneously cringeworthy and laugh-out-loud funny. Tom McCamus gives a devastatingly good performance." - Joff Schmidt, CBC Winnipeg SEE IT EARLY AND SAVE! $19/$49 Sat Nov 14, 8PM & Sun Nov 15, 2PM $19/$59 Nov 17-Dec 4, Tue to Fri 8PM Or call 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333 Use code SEM59 On stage Nov 14-Dec 6 Panasonic Theatre, 651 Yonge Street Recommended Age: 14+ Strong language, partial nudity, mature content

the perfect family