Eternal Orlando

This production at La Maison Symphonique was an 'adaptation' of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando into a performance that combined spoken word with pieces of classical music played by the Orchestre Métropolitain. I put 'adaptation' in inverted commas because beyond the basic outline of the story of the time-travelling and gender-shifting Orlando there wasn't that much left of Woolf's novel. Firstly, the text was changed into a series of dialogues and speeches in French that were more inspired by the novel that translated from it. Secondly, the story was altered to incorporate other pieces by Woolf, such as her famous essay on the historical treatment of women artists A Room of One's Own. But most annoyingly for me, the adaptation incorporated elements of Woolf's own life. 

It's increasingly common to approach art through the artist's biography and while that can be illuminating it also feels reductive, especially for women artists. So Woolf is always the lesbian who killed herself (and Syliva Plath is always the wronged wife, who killed herself). These are very one-dimensional ways of approaching their art. The final scene of this production showed the Orlando / Woolf character filling her pockets with stones, preparing to walk into the river Ouse. I'd rather engage with her art without always thinking about this, then think of her as the brilliant and original author who created Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and especially, Mrs. Dalloway. 

But the music was beautiful. 

The highlight of the evening for me was the concluding piece, the Canadian premiere of a cello concerto by Nathalie Joachim (who was in the audience) with Seth Parker Woods the soloist. The concerto was spectacular in the first movements, and then incredibly moving in the final movement. I'll be looking out for a recording. The playing by Woods was brilliant and charismatic, inspiring the orchestra and audience. His clothes made quite the statement, apparently inspired by the Black Dandyism movement. He looked like a rock star compared to the sombre orchestra musicians. I hope to hear and see him again.

Seth Parker Woods
(screengrab from YouTube)

Nerfed

It's almost five years since the first lockdown of the pandemic. Five years!

I was lucky, privileged, and got through it easier than so many, though it was a challenging time for my sons. No school, no organized sports, no interaction with their friends, and too much time in front of phones and gaming consoles. The youngest had just turned twelve and I struggled for ideas to get him out of the house and moving. 

One part of the solution was Pokémon Go.

The tables were turned: he was the master, me the student. We walked on every blade of grass in Girouard park and along every boulevard, chemin, and ruelle of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, hunting the little critters. The game design was brilliant: the more you walked, the better the Pokémon you found, walk further and the Pokémon you'd caught became stronger (known in the lingo of the app as 'training').

Over time I became even more absorbed by the game than he did (I'm now a level 40 Pokémon trainer, just sayin'), but it's still "one of our things" that we share. Back in the day, the strongest Pokémon for battling other trainers was a Galarian Stunfish and I caught a beautiful three-star example in 2021. I walked 1250 kilometers with it, most of them with my son beside me.

Last week my Stunfish finally powered up to its maximum value, a CP of 2474, and I was proud to show it to him. But strangely, it kept getting defeated easily in trainer battles. He did a quick check on a fan webpage.

'It's been nerfed,' he said, laughing. 

'What does that mean?'

'It was too strong in battles, so they weakened it. It used to rank 5 out of 5, but now, you won't believe it Dad, it's 0 out of 5.' He laughed again. This was clearly hilarious for anyone who hadn't walked his Stunfish for 1250 kilometers. 

'That was a lot of bloody walking for nothing,' I said.

'Those were good times Dad,' he said, smiling. 'Besides, you'll probably get a blog post out if it.'

A nerfed Galarian Stunfisk

Am I a writer?

In the Canada Writes Facebook group there was a debate recently about the definition of a writer, and there were opposing views. 'Anyone who writes,' said one group. 'Au contraire,' said the second group. 'That's an "aspiring writer". A writer is someone whose writing has appeared in a publication that has an editor, selection criteria, and other quality controls.' (i.e. self-publishing doesn't count).

Why do I care?  

Well, I'm not a software development leader anymore (so I no longer have much use for my LinkedIn account).

But I've had five stories published by reputable literary magazines, with a sixth one on the way. And I've been paid real money for some of this writing (though if I divided the fee by the time I spent on the piece the hourly rate would be hilariously small!)

So today, this nineteenth of November in the year twenty twenty-four, I'm putting a stake in the ground: I am a writer.

You can find my writing at my new website, www.LaurenceWrites.com. I'll continue to use this blog for occasional musings and diary entries.

Komorebi

I spent yesterday adjusting the WiFi at our chalet, creating the Dehors Lavigne network for the external cameras and lights. I love faffing with technology, tinkering with settings, running little experiments and checking signal coverage. I suppose it's the equivalent of my dad pottering about in the garden shed for hours. 

Last night Martine and I watched a movie, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders. It's one of the slowest movies I've ever seen, a toilet cleaner going about his daily routine in Tokyo. It's a bit like a short story by Clare Keegan or Raymond Carver in that on the surface nothing much happens but underneath there's all the complexity and bitter-sweetness of life. The movie references the short story The Terrapin by Patricia Highsmith, which is a shorthand way of explaining what's going on in the mind and life of the cleaner's niece i.e. huge parental issues. The cleaner spends his spare time photographing light filtering through trees, and this visual (in black and white) dominates his dreams too - at the end the Japanese word Komorebi is explained. I found an interview with the main actor of the film who gives his interpretation:

There's a fundamental principle at work behind Perfect Days, one which corresponds with its study of simplicity and lack of conflict and drama. "Komorebi" is a Japanese term that loosely refers to "sunlight filtered through trees," something which is certainly filmed frequently in Perfect Days. But the word means much more than that. It connotes a kind of contentment, a peaceful joy that is deeply connected with nature and humanity.

The same idea is also contained in a line in the film which Hirayama and his niece exchange and she repeats like a mantra: Next time is next time. Now is now.

An evening with PJ Harvey

I've been a fan of PJ Harvey for a long time. I saw her in concert in Stockholm in 1993, and then in Dublin in (I think) 2004. Last night I saw her in Laval.

The concert started awkwardly as many people hadn't gotten the message that there was no support band. So in the second song 'Autumn Term', when she gestured to each side of the hall and the spotlight followed her, we just saw hundreds of people wandering around trying to find their seats in the dark. The first part of the concert was taken up with her new album 'I Inside The Old Year Dying' which is even stronger live than the recording - and the recording is poetic and gripping and one of the best albums of the past few years. (I told you I'm a fan.) The second half was a selection of songs from her extensive back catalogue. 'Dress' was thrillingly energetic, 'To Bring You My Love' mesmerising as she totally inhabited the character, and the finale with 'White Chalk' held the audience rapt with its intense wistfulness.

The band was super tight, featuring her long-time collaborator John Parish on guitar and keyboards, and the production was carefully choreographed with the stage set out like a living room, giving it an intimate feel despite the size of the hall. But there was no getting away from the fact that Place Bell is an ice-hockey stadium - the sound was quite muddy where I was sitting, the bass and drums reverberating too loudly off the walls and ceiling. 

Another disappointment was that she finished by repeating 'thank you very much' at least a dozen times, but not a single 'merci beaucoup', which showed a bit of a lack of awareness of her mostly francophone audience. 

Last year she presented much the same show in Paris and this recording of that night is stunning: the sound quality is excellent, and voilà, she remembers the 'merci beaucoup.' 

The Truth and The Reckoning

In Isabelle Picard's podcast series L'autre motié de l'histoire, she interviews the Algonquin Elder and University of Ottawa professor Claudette Commanda, who has problems with the word reconciliation in the phrase Truth and Reconciliation that is used ad nauseum by the Canadian government. Firstly, she says, we skip over the first part, the truth, far too easily. Secondly, the idea of reconciliation as a kind of forgiveness is alien to the cultures of the First Nations. They recognise reparation, not reconciliation. She suggests a hybrid word: reconcili-Action.

In Camille Rankine's poetry podcast series The Glimpse there's an interview with the poet John Murillo who describes how he loves the word 'reckoning' in its sense of evaluation and final judgement. This strikes me as apt for the situation of the First Nations in Canada. We, the colonialists, must discover and confront the truth, and after that there must be a reckoning for and by us.

It's not going to be easy, and we're not going to like all of it. But that's how it is with justice. 

Courage

In 1980, abortion was a major topic in Ireland. The public debate was not, as you might have expected, about legalizing it, but on whether the existing ban should be reinforced constitutionally, to the point where there could never be a possibility of allowing it, no matter the consequences for women. The rights of women were a non-issue in that country for old men.

I was a teenager then, attending a Dublin school for boys run by the Christian Brothers, and the ethos of the Catholic Church ran deep in me. Unhappily. I was a fervent anti-abortionist, as were the other thirty or so boys in my class.  Our German teacher was a young woman from the west of Ireland, and one morning she brought a newspaper into the class with an article about abortion and proceeded to debate us. For the next hour she held her ground against us, advocating for a woman's right to choose, in the face of thirty holier-than-thou little pricks. When we couldn't win the argument through logic, we resorted to shouting her down. But though she had tears in her eyes she remained calm, explaining why we were wrong. 

In the Ireland of the 1980s her views would have been considered outrageous, and unacceptable for a teacher. If any of us had told the school principal Brother Kenny about this debate, not only would she have been fired instantly, she would never have been allowed to teach anywhere in Ireland again.

The thirty of us acted like young fools that day, but at least I can say that none of us reported her. Now, more than forty years later, I know very well how wrong I was. Her courage in debating us that morning was remarkable. I've tried many times to find her, to say exactly this and to apologise to her, but I've never been able to locate her.

Ireland changed with the repeal of the 8th amendment to the constitution in 2018. In the long run she won the argument, convincingly and courageously.

Coláiste Caoímhín CBS on Parnell Road in Dublin, the Jewish
cemetery on Aughavanagh Road in the upper left background.
(Photo source unknown). The school was demolished in 1995.

Confession

I have a confession to make. On Saint Patrick's Day, of all days. 

(Deep breath.)

I like cricket.

I like its deep pointlessness. 

I like to fall asleep in the dead of winter knowing that The Ashes is being played in searing Australian sunshine, and that the innings will build while I’m asleep. Or there’ll be a batting collapse, and somewhere in England in the dead of night a journalist is sipping coffee, trying not to wake their young child, typing an over-by-over commentary of what they see on their TV to inform people like me around the world with wit and wisdom. 

And then there are articles, like this one by Robert McLiam Wilson, where a writer says something profoundly important about the world by writing about cricket.

Cricket. Bloody hell. 

2023 Reading list

This should have been my first post of 2023, but here, belatedly, is a list of the books I read in 2023:

Fiction

Companion Piece by Ali Smith

Daydreams of Angels by Heather O’Neill

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet

Foster by Claire Keegan

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

Look at me by Jennifer Egan

Nirliit by Juliana Léveillé-Trudel (en Français)

Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood

Tenth of December by George Saunders

The Hour after Happy Hour by Mary O’Donoghue

The Singularities by John Banville

The Writer’s Torch ed. by Boumans, et al

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

Tiohtiá:ke by Michel Jean (en Français)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Poetry

Ariel – The Restored Edition by Syliva Plath

If Some God Shakes Your House by Jennifer Franklin

Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert

Non-fiction

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy

Negative Space by Cristín Leach

The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

It's hard to pick a favourite from this list, but I particularly loved the novels by Paul Harding and Claire Keegan and their completely opposite approaches: the former for the brilliance of his prose in capturing the immediate experience of his characters, and the latter for the deceptive simplicity of her narration and the way it creeps up on you. The non-fiction work by Cristín Leach is wonderfully insightful on the intersection between writing lives and personal lives and I added many quotes from it to my notebook.

See also:

September 2021 - December 2022 reading list

January 2020 - August 2021 reading list

Published!

It doesn't mean much in the world of literature, but it means a lot to me: two of my pieces, Memento Mori and Homing, have been published in the online magazine Sky Island Journal. 

I've been writing fiction and poetry for two and a half years now, and this is motivation for me to keep on writing and to submit more of my pieces for publication. It feels good.