3 Positives

Beaches, Roses, Shoes:
We visited the beach at the Harris Water Filtration plant on Sunday, it was open to the public on Doors Open day.
The roses I got from my not so secret admirer here at home, they are particularly beautiful.
The shoes - my ghost shoes, always look interesting, and more so on a foggy day in the sand.

A Man After My Own Heart

Bill Cunningham is the subject of the wonderful documentary of his life, named Bill Cunningham, New York.
He is a street fashion photographer since he stopped making hats when he was drafted to go to war in Korea. His hats were good. His love of fashion is the love of his life, and he spent his 80 years immersing himself in the images of what women wear.
It's a fascinating story.
He lives his life in a monastic way, tiny studio at the Carnegie Hall (until very recently) without family, or a kitchen or a closet. He wears the same clothes all his life, by the way.

The film ends with this simple touching statement by him:
He who seeks beauty shall find it.

Consuming Culture

I was at the AGO last night - oh, the crowds! a line up after line up, to see the American Expressionist show. It is a good show.
It was, shamefully, my first time at the AGO after it's famous face lift. I bulk at the admission price, having been spoiled living in NYC for a while and being able to see the best of the best on a PWYC basis (pay what you can). I've heard so much about the new face of the museum, and I found that the exhibit rooms are still quite small, compared to the size of the halls leading to them. However, this exhibition is well put together, informative without being heavy and most of the selected artwork is worth seeing (all but the very last room). Here is a picture I took:

The Rothko room was particularly lovely, his large colourful images calming and beautiful.

And here is a glimpse into the studio of another true artist - our friend Alex Moyle, an exceptional sculptor:

Rain on the Brain

It's been raining constantly for many days, pissing rain, relentless rain. It's the end of May and I still wear a coat over a sweater and boots. I can't sit in my garden under a blooming Lilac and smell the fragrance. All we do is work and stay home. This can't be good for the economy.
Somebody do Something!
My son informs me that the world is ending this Saturday, according to internet mavens. We should all have sex this Friday just in case the prophecies are right this time.

Accentuated Positives

For the weeks past:
*) Jazzy mother's day outing at the Rex, with Club Django.
*) 2 films at the TJFF: Leonard Cohen's pre-singing days, and a nostalgic "Intimate Grammar".
*) Fabulous Sat. night dinner with great company and excellent food at Asian Legend.
*) Hard fun ballet classes with the fab Ballet Bob.
*) We'll have to see about this one: joining the age of constant technology - a cell phone. So far I still say - I can do without. But it's here and it works.
*) Blooms in gardens around the city and in mine, sunny days and warmer nights, winter is over at last.
This is my most favourite song of L. Cohen. There were no songs in the film, only early poems. Still, this is him at his best:

Mother

I am one. I have one. I'm lucky.
Both states of being are a lot of things:
A great blessing, and a joy, and a source of stress, resentment, love, regret, hard work, emotional outbursts, lessons in humility, beauty, tenderness, harsh words, tearing your hair out, crushing your teeth at night, anticipation, surprise, angst, eternal bond.
I wouldn't give any of it up for anything.
This is one of my favorite images - a few years old now.

New Qoute

It's been a while - I stopped the weekly quotes a while back. Time to resume, perhaps not as regularly as I once did:

When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life. Just as when you are drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole world revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.
Thich Nhat Hanh

The National Parks Project

Good idea, bad, bad result.
Last night I narrowly got in to see this film at Hot Docs, after standing in the rush line for an hour and a half and then whisked in by an industry insider, I thought myself lucky, until the film got on.
It's a collection of 13 short film which were supposed to bring together filmmakers and musicians to be inspired by some of the most remote and wild and exquisite places on earth.
What we got instead, save for very few, was what one spectator called bravely during the Q & A which followed, an abomination and misrepresentation of nature, and ultimately produced the worst crime of entertainment - a bore.
The brave nature lover who stood up at the end and told the producers and director what he thought about their films was right.

The opening film was good - it was about Gwaii, and it had sensitivity to the splendor and wildness and ancient environment, it had love for the softness and sensuality of what makes that area so special, it had inspiration, and it had humility before nature.
The film about Mingan was also quite beautiful, as were the ones about Waterton and the remote arctic parks.
In parts it was embarrassing to watch. One director admitted he felt no connection to nature, which was clearly evident in his piece, Misty Morning. This one was particularly offensive.
The absolute worst was about Gros Morne, which I was looking forward to, since we are planing a visit. The park itself was nothing but a backdrop - we sat there looking at a red headed girl masturbating on her guitar on some rocks, not inspired by the nature abound her, drowning the sounds of nature in screeching electric guitar while her hair is blowing in the sunset. We also got quite a long glimpse of the computers the musicians used to mix their music on the shore.
The end result is a provincial, self indulgent and mutilated version of a good idea. What a shame.