Theatre Review: Parfumerie

I am fortunate enough to have very artistic friends who are employed by very artistic endeavour. My friend Mike works at Soulpepper Theatre here in Toronto and, as such, I often have the privilege of attending their opening night events (a lot of the time because he's married to Kat, one of my bestest friends). There, I see, well, possibly every Canadian ever and witness some spectacular Torontonian theatre.

Parfumerie was no exception. Based on the play by Miklos Laszlo, Parfumerie is set entirely at a cosmetics store in Budapest in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  There is a familial attachment between all of the workers at the store: borne of their long-standing familiarity with each other and the long hours they spend in the retail atmosphere.  As family, their patriarch is the good-hearted Mr. Hammerschmidt: the owner of the store and the parfumerie's namesake. At the beginning of the play, he is showing signs of wear and stress: culminating in his untimely dismissal of the bright George Asztalos: a clerk Hammerschmidt admits he had once viewed as a son.

While the workers assemble to decorate for Christmas and George prepares to leave a job he has held in senior position for 9 years, we are introduced to the problematic relationship between George and the beautiful; but seemingly prickly  Rosanna (Rosie) Balaz.  George and Rosanna are sworn enemies. They do not see eye-to-eye on even the most minute detail and they fling insults at each other in rapid, machine-gun fashion.  Neither realizes that they have been writing anonymous and passionate love-letters (recalling the intensity of Eloise and Abelard, to note George's repetition of this famous story: in his letters and in conversation) to each other for the past year.  Two people who cannot abide each other's company; are dead certain that they are made for each other on paper.

The action that follows includes the revealing of Hammerschmidt's strained relationship with his wife, his reconciliation with George following a severe misunderstanding, and the effort that George and Rosanna make to better understand each other at work as Christmas approaches.

If this epistolary romantic comedy seems familiar: it is.  Parfumerie has been made into three film adaptations: the closest being The Shop Around the Corner (1940) featuring Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart as Rosie and George, respectively.  A musical version of the story was filmed in 1949 entitled In the Good Old Summertime. Here, Judy Garland and Van Johnston star as rivals at a musical instrument shop who clash in person; but mesh on paper. More recently, the story was re-imagined with a Pride and Prejudice undercurrent in You've Got Mail: updating the premise from the years of letter writing to the new wave of email communication.  In the film, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan play a bookstore tycoon and a children's bookstore owner (of a store called Shop Around the Corner) at constant battle emblemizing the chafing relationship of box bookstore and small "brick and mortar" retailer.

Parfumerie was delightful to watch: an absolute Christmas confection.  As a whole, the Young Centre is an intimate setting: whittled away in Toronto's breathtaking Distillery District which, at this time of year, is home to our European Christmas market.  The spirit of the season is first acknowledged by the sights and sounds and smells of the market and then purveyed on stage through the imagined sights and sounds of a busy and bustling retailer.  The set was gorgeous: playing on chocolate browns and mellow pinks to recall a type of candy-coloured world of rose-petals and beautifully ornamented scents and soaps.  The highlight was the revolving door featured at the front of the shop.  It, and the two large windows of the set, provided windows to well-staged lighting and action: as cyclists and passers-by rustled by and the dim light reflected both snow, sleet and the tinted hues of evening.

On the inside, the store provided the perfect scene for the warm and compelling action unravelled.  While all of the characters were perfectly drawn and wonderfully dressed in period costume (the shoes were to die for), it was the romance between Rosie and George that kept my eyes pealed to the stage.
Stage veteran Oliver Dennis: a sprightly red-head with the same lackadaisical charm of Jimmy Stewart and the breathtakingly pretty Patricia Fagan (whose clipped and period-perfect bob framed her pixie face and bright eyes) had wonderful chemistry.  They came alive when opposite each other and I thoroughly bought into their developing relationship, their softening to each other in person as they reflected on their passionate and abiding devotion on paper.

I am lucky to live in a city with a thriving artistic community and a sprawling theatrical community, at that. To excavate a long-lost play and resurrect it every other year during the holidays ( in intervals between A Christmas Carol) provides audiences with a chance at seeing a sentimental (yet not saccharine) romantic comedy with all of its gusto and charm.   To add to the sights and imagined smells of the Hungarian Parfumerie, we were treated to nationally-appropriate music: a violin and an accordion which ushered the set and lighting changes and subtly changed the scenes.

This was probably my favourite Soulpepper Production to date and I highly encourage Torontonians to seek it out.  I absolutely LOVED it!  Parfumerie  was a critical success in its first run in 2009 and it continues to wow the critics. Read the Globe and Mail review!

Toronto's gorgeous annual European Christmas market in the heart of the historical Distillery district

A Study in Sherlock: A Game of Shadows

I saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows today with two very good friends.  I was highly anticipating this film as, despite the franchise's inauthenticity, I quite enjoyed the first instalment: mostly Guy Ritchie's gritty depiction of an always-under-construction- London in all of its tinker-toy, industrialized sepia light and for the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes and Jude Law's exceptional Watson.  

Jude Law's Watson was introduced to me after a long Sherlock draught and before I saw the (definitive?) modern adaptations starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.  I am a big Watson fan and I always hated his portrayal in the Rathbone films and, well, any subsequent film which featured him as a pudgily rotund foil and not the man-of-action and intellect he is.  Law's Watson was a breath of fresh air. He was resourceful, quick-witted, smart and ready to spring to action... much like the Watson of the books. He was the perfect antidote to Holmes' manic excitement and depraved actions.  Thus, I was excited to see Law revisit the character alongside the perfectly cast Kelly Reilly as the beautiful Mary Morstan.

Also, I felt that while the original strayed from the conceptualization so many of us have in our purist imaginings of the Canon, it did incorporate small, slight instances to peak a Sherlockian's interest. Here, this homage was more realized.  The film's core is bookended by Watson's episodes at his trusty type-writer tapping the story of The Final Problem. While this "final problem" strays significantly from the short story, the main player, Moriarty is drawn in cold, calculating light by the gravely eerie Jared Harris: perfectly cast in the role.  While the BBC Sherlock painted Moriarty in a manic, psychopathic way: this Moriarty is very much the intellectual match of Holmes: their wits at battle perfectly culminating in a tense chess game high atop the Swiss Alps with the ripples of crashing fall cascading from the ridge to the vapid cavern below.  Think Reichenbach? Think right.   The story also plays with A Scandal in Bohemia: well, at least nods to it as a principle crime takes us to the opera, to the Continent and to an intricate web that could unravel the whole of Europe, see the ultimate downfall of a Crown Prince and climax in a World War.   This is 1891 London; but Moriarty hints that Europe is on the hedge of great disaster --- and much like Sherlock ruminates on the changing climate and tides in His Last Bow, so the audience is given a tell-tale maze that will force us to consider the approaching Great War, the burgeoning practice of machinery in combat and how Sherlock and Watson might play into this changing tide. 

As with the first instalment, the film is at its weakest when it attempts to incorporate female characters into the plot. With the notable exception of Mary Morstan (who is credible and has every canonical right to be in the script ), Irene Adler is still problematic (largely due to the liberties they take in her sexual relationship with Holmes) and a new companion piece, a gypsy named Sim, is proof of screenwriters grasping at ways to bring females into the masculine world of Holmes. They needn't have bothered.  Females have loved Sherlock for years and I, for one, am contented without the unnecessary female inclusion.  

While Jude Law looks surprisingly like the Paget illustrations of Watson and keeps mostly to character, Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes remains problematic.  He fails to achieve the meticulous hygiene and detached calculation and assumptive distance of Sherlock Holmes while playing into humorous elements.  Holmes is not without humour; his sense of irony and sarcasm is very acute; but Downey Jr. errs in mistaking this humour with his need to cut through the more automaton-tendencies of the great detective, slice pre-possession and attempt to endear the audience. Again, this is a mistake. Readers love Sherlock Holmes. 21st Century viewers love Cumberbatch's realistic portrayal and seem to find that Watson steps in as everyman mediator allowing a more purist portrayal of the detective to be easily accessible, fascinating and mind-bending.   Downey Jr. is best when in the wily game of wits at the end.  

Ritchie could have played more at outlining for the viewer what Sherlock was seeing: what his eyes were drawn to and what scrapes and screeches his attuned ears gleaned from a melange of noise.   This particular manic deductive-skill was presented more than once in the first film; but not as much here.

As in the first, however, and the main reason I forgive Downey Jr. is his inescapable chemistry with Jude Law's Watson. Their love and camaraderie cannot be forged. It prevails here again in all of its frustration, bickering and succinct synchronicity.  There are some wonderful moments attesting to the unbreakable and almost impenetrable bond between the two and that makes me shrug Downey Jr.'s other liberties of character off.  Further, Ritchie makes very sure to present enough to whet a purist's appetite while re-imagining the iconic characters in an almost alternate-universe. If you keep this in mind and you allow yourself to relax and acknowledge that Downey Jr. is quite the opposite of the painted Sherlock Holmes, the Holmes of Doyle's imagination and Brett and Cumberbatch's excellent portrayals, then you will have a lot more fun.

This world is peppered with Steampunk, of automobiles driven by be-goggled drivers, of machines and harsh noises and gritty discordant music slackening popping streetlights and glistening cobblestones. 

Familiar faces like Lestrade ( a brief; but important cameo) and Mycroft Holmes (cast physically perfect in Stephen Fry) and Mrs. Hudson, not to mention the little dog Gladstone, return to delight.

The setting is a character, the dialogue can be clever and pay secret homage and even a name-drop or two (Col. Sebastian Moran, for one) can keep a Sherlockian carefully watching despite the errors and inaccuracies.

I realize that this is not everyone's cup  of tea and there are several Sherlockians who cannot bring themselves to partake in these adaptations. I do understand where they're coming from. I guess I have been successful in watching and enjoying them because I take them with a grain of salt. On the one hand, they are introducing an entirely new generation to Sherlock and they are weighted enough in the source material to add surprising credibility.  If not credibility to text, then definitely credibility to implication and spirit.  As mentioned, the chemistry and friendship between Watson and Holmes is played with unabashed affection. It is rather touching. Their glances and quick quips are so matured! For authenticity and to delight my purist's heart I must, ironically, seek out the Steven Moffatt adaptations with the near-perfect Benedict Cumberbatch: the actor who, next to Jeremy Brett, does best at recreating mentally the Holmes of my childhood.  Watson is played well here and is near spot-on physically; so I have little-to-know complaints in the Jude Law department.   Moriarty is a nice nod to his literary counterpart.   It's not perfect and there will be several, several friends of mine who will not budge on it; but I liked it. It's cracking good fun and I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Remember when I was at the Reichenbach Falls?  They do that part very well indeed.

INSPY winners 2011

I am delighted that the 2011 INSPY Winners have been announced on the INSPYs website

I was excited to judge again this year in the Romance category: where the judges and I underwent some strong discussion before reaching the final selection, Yesterday's Tomorrow by Catherine West: a gritty and moving portrait of the Vietnam War.  The Vietnam War is a very new subject to Christian romance and West, a first time author,  deserves credit and recognition for her moving romance, her realistic research and her innovation in a time and setting not pursued in this genre.

I hope you check out West's book as well as the other books on the shortlist. I would like to highlight A Heart Most Worthy  (review here) and The Preacher's Bride (review to follow) 

CD Review: Bring Me Giants

Notice how the best shows are literary adaptations? James Barbour is the musical equivalent to Colin Firth or Matthew MacFadyen or Daniel Day Lewis: any strong actor with compelling presence who does period well on-screen.   Barbour, however, has performed some of the world's greatest literary heroes on stage and with his tantalizingly rich, get-a-high-buzz-lindor-chocolate-tasting voice.

I first heard of Barbour when he was playing Beast on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast; but I didn't REALLY know him until he showed up as Rochester in Jane Eyre. I never saw the Broadway production and, let's face it, the lyrics to that musical were horrible; but his voice transfixed me.

In New York a few years back, I had the greatly wondrous pleasure of attending Tale of Two Cities in previews starring Barbour as Sydney Carton.  His performance was mind-boggling.  The musical does a lot wrong and hits many an odd chord; but one thing it did perfectly (largely thanks to Barbour's tour-de-force performance ) was Sydney. It got Sydney right --- and that's a mighty fine thing to have in your court.



[this video is just a slideshow of ToTC pics; but worth it alone for the audio if you have never heard Barbour before and the orchestration is MUCH better on CD]

It was partly Barbour's physicality ( not unlike Colm Wilkinson's: though Wilkinson is short, he is quite broad-shouldered and his stance on stage casts the illusion that he is larger than life) and his captivating presence that left me slack-jawed and near falling off my red velvet seat every time he finished a song.  The show didn't find an audience and didn't last long; however, Barbour deserved a Tony nomination for his performance-- one he never got.

His voice is pretty mesmerizing and I can say easily that, with the exception of Colm Wilkinson, he has the best male Broadway voice I have heard live (Brian Stokes Mitchell is waaay up there).  It's a powerful instrument and I am dazzled that he keeps loaning it to some of the greatest literary heroes of our time.  Soon, Rebecca DuMaurier's Rebecca will see the stage and Barbour will be Max DeWinter(as one example of his range).

The first non-cast recording CD I obtained of Barbour's was exceptional; but only when it showcased Barbour in full-on ballad form.  It was a live CD and featured numerous interruptions that kept me from sliding into the sheer hypnosis of hearing him fluidly craft and caress the lyrics to each song with that incessant musicality he has.  Fortunately, in Bring Me Giants ( the eponymous taken from the concept recording of the musical Cyrano), he showcases his malleability at performing some of literature's most fabulous leading men.

He does a magnificently powerful Bring Him Home from 'Les Miserables' which showcases a range and resonance not all performers with his natural register would be able to do with such ease.  It makes me think that the new 'Les Miserables' movie should have sought him out for Valjean and not, as is, tried to stuff Hugh Jackman in as the star-card. Barbour has a much more proficient stature, stamina and look of Valjean. Moreover, he can sing the part of Valjean in the way that gives pause when considering the more Vaudevillean Jackman.

Barbour, left, toasts Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities.( Don't think I didn't buy a t-shirt after the performance, 'cause I did ( I just don't wear it in public)

His This is the Moment from 'Jekyll and Hyde' is an exercise in restraint and slow-building exhileration.  This song has been recorded countless times by everyone from Rob Evans (in full rock-opera form) to Colm Wilkinson (on the little-known concept album I own) and is always a show-stopper.  Here, Barbour plants a unique thumbprint on what is probably now reduced to a figure skating track (I don't watch figure skating; it just seems like people would skate to this).  He slowly and electrically infuses each well-known lyric with the kind of magnetic pulse you want from the soon-to-be-murderous Jekyll: tantalizing you with soft and slow and controlled voice until he reaches the perfect, multi-triplet-ed climax and key change at the end.  [Note: This is Frank Wildhorn. You cannot have a Frank Wildhorn number without triplets, power-bridges and key changes.  It is a must. ]

Barbour as Sidney Carton (sense a photographic theme here?)

Speaking of Wildhorn, we also have the darkly sensual I'll Be There, from the concept album of Count of Monte Cristo. It's a moving and passionate duet by Mercedes and Edmond.  Here, Mercedes is sung by Morgan James.  [Note: Frank Wildhorn prefers women who sing like his first wive and muse, Linda Eder.  James definitely has a feel of Eder about her.  Gal has pipes]. Sometimes Wildhorn errs in his pairings with lyricists; but the poetic imagery in this number is melancholy and stirring enough when heard in the context of the Monte Cristo story.

He throws on Music of the Night from 'Phantom of the Opera' to show off his range again. I really didn't need another version of this; but he certainly surpasses poor awkward Michael Crawford, even he cannot beat Colm Wilkinson.

Don Quixote is obviously another literary powerhouse so, of course, Barbour proves he can eat The Impossible Dream for Breakfast.  In the aura of Classically Classic a la Classic, he also throws on his own If Ever I Would Leave You which leaves you ridiculously happy that you have cleaned your brain  of the Robert Goulet version. Go 'Camelot'!

Stolen Lucy Manette kiss: theme, theme, theme of this post photographically!

Apparently there is a concept cast album for Dracula: a musical I will hopefully never have to see live; however, Loving You Keeps Me Alive  (yes. the song is called that. muah-ha!) sits well in Barbour's voice (then again, the PHONE BOOK would sit well in Barbour's voice and I would GLADLY buy the "James Barbour Sings the Toronto Phone Book" CD.  Done.)

Finally, the last number is the one that kept running through my head as I stared at the ceiling in New York at 3 a.m. euphorically after seeing him live as Sydney Carton.   I Can't Recall is a power ballad, if ever there was one and Barbour just is  Sydney. I listened to it on my ipod today, like, 80 times.  You should listen to it on your ipod, too! .... GO BUY THIS CD


Anyways, if a novel is over one hundred years old and over 600 pages, Barbour will somehow perform its relatable, melancholy, heroic, complex, Romantic in the Romantically Romantic sense lead hero... and he will perform it with gusto, dammit.

Aside: my last interaction with Cyrano de Bergerac is when Colm Feore broke my heart performing in his perfect bilingual French and English at the Stratford Festival a few years back--- I could totally see Cyrano as a musical.  Barbour, you should be in it all over.

LOOK! LOOK! Look at how AWESOME my boots are.

James Barbour has a blog. ... and a website

Movie Review: "the Muppets"

When I was in grade two my teacher, Mrs. Hallman, taught us all of the lyrics to "The Rainbow Connection." We sang a lot in that class.   I remember arriving early at the school one morning and singing it to myself as I swung high, high on a swing that was located just parallel this amazing old, sprawling tree.  It seemed fitting to be singing about something that reaches for the sky, while just seeing the toe of your pink keds magically (optical-illusion here )brush the tips of the tree...
Now, it's my karaoke song. On the rare occasion I am caught at karaoke, I always sing the song: usually half-joshing, often having had a few beers--- but everybody loves it.... it emblemizes the world of MUPPETS!

As a kid I loved all of the Muppet movies, the Muppet Family Christmas ( which we near wore out on taped vhs before it was finally released on dvd) and the Muppet Babies television show.
It was the 1980s and there were happy meal toys and stuffed Christmas-themed muppets everywhere. We had Muppet puppets, too!, in our toy chest, Animal, Kermit and Miss Piggy.

I always sort of loved Rolf and was fascinated (in my childhood oversight) when I first noted that the Swedish Chef had human hands as he meandered about the kitchen speaking in the worst Swedish ever.

Then, there's The Muppet Christmas Carol: which this Dickensian cites as her all-time favourite version of the popular story and which I watch EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS EVER.

So, I was delighted when I learned that a new Muppet movie was being made. More delighted still upon learning that Jason Segel was making and writing it because he shared a similar passion and wanted to introduce this ingenious, pure and marvellous world to a new generation of children.  Citing in interviews (read here, for example) that part of the Muppet charm is that not only do they suspend belief with real-live actors; but they also never use humour at the expense of others in their harmless, un-cynical jokes, I related to his zesty passion for their warm-hearted world.



You don't think of Kermit as a puppet once he has been on screen for a few moments: he's a frog.  It's not unusual that he and Miss Piggy have one of the most complicated sub-species romances to ever hit the screen. It's just epic and it's natural and when they have kids (in the Christmas Carol ) and half are frogs and half are pigs; well, that's just the way it goes.

The movie I saw today re-visits this wonder and EVERYONE in the theatre alongside my friend Stephan and I was laughing and grinning and giggling NON-STOP. Most delightedly, there was the chimed laughter of children who were being introduced to this wonderful, magical, humorous world for the very first time.

There are wonderful song and dance numbers, fabulous cameos (my favourites included Ken Jeong and Jim Parsons) and Muppets. Lots and lots of Muppets. All of your favourite Muppets....with special celebrity host, Jack Black.

Jason Segel, Amy Adams and Jack Black, along with a devious Chris Cooper and several other human actors in the show seem to be as genuinely elated with the experience as the audience is.

Segel has this broad, goofy grin stretched on his elastic face throughout the whole of the movie: bespeaking his childhood passion.

What he has written and has helped create is 2 hours of wonderment: never mean, always musical and sweet.

There are singing chickens, there's a Telethon, there are moments where you will be so delighted you won't be sure whether you should laugh or cry or do both at the same time. Your cheeks will hurt afterward from incessant grinning.  When Kermit sits on stage and sings " The Rainbow Connection", later joined by his entire Muppet family, you will taste a bit of your childhood again.



This is the second FANTASTIC film I have seen this week... and I thought good movies were few and far between this year. I guess they're all just coming out at Christmas.

how's THIS for Friday Frivolity?

First off, my darling friend Martha posted this website on facebook. It randomly generates Mennonite names.

If you're writing a Mennonite novel, your characters can easily be christened ;)

If you ARE Mennonite, then shout your name proudly!   I keep hitting 'refresh' because I know her very Mennonite sounding surname will turn up eventually....


In the spirit of JINGLE, my favourite Canadian vocalist, the ultra-impressive-Canuck-answer-to-Adele, Serena Ryder has a bouncy and fun Christmas song for you to enjoy.



 Got halls? Deck 'em.

Tomorrow, I doth Muppet it.  Will keep you posted.

How Gus and Shawn saved Christmas (so far): This Post includes an odd 'To Kill a Mockingbird" reference.

Jem and Scout hate their nearby neighbour, Mrs. Dubose, in To Kill A Mockingbird. She's crotchety and rocks on her porch flinging mean-spirited insults to the children. It takes their father, Atticus, and his southern gentlemanly ways to restrain their contempt. At one particularly sensitive moment in the novel, Jem has it at her award-winning hydrangeas.  As punishment, he is forced to return to her house every day after school and read to her as she sits in bed, white-haired and scowling as a mysterious time piece ticks every painful moment he and his sister impatiently sit near.

It is soon revealed that Mrs. Dubose is dying and in a lot of pain. Proud, she is, though, and through her pain she struggles to remove herself of her morphine addiction before her final breath.  Every time Jem reads to her, she focuses on the clock and not on his voice, slowly weaning herself off of her doses of medication.  Every second combatted is a small obstacle overcome.

I cannot say that I have the same experience with excruciating pain (thank heavens); but slowly, the zombie medication that had provided a tricky yet safe cloud of numbness and blurred security has been pulled from me.   My  "bridging" medications: those with the highest doses and numbing-action--the ones that allow me to nap and stop the tremor and the stutter and the panic were only meant to see me through the most intense ramifications of my heightened anxiety and bridge me, as it were, to a more stable medication that I will continue to use and become accustomed to. A medication that will stable my moods and anxiety in the long-term and become a regular part of my make-up.

The transition has been stupid and hard and weird and emotional.  I can no longer rely on the heavy doses that I initially felt.  The drowsiness and comfort of having a little bottle that you could count on should you need an extra dose or to see you through long nights.  So much of the treatment for anxiety and depression relies on you working hard: personally, mentally, physically.  It is the marriage of cognitive therapy and medication which will have the most positive effects in the long-term.  Unfortunately, the cognitive therapy is the hardest.  The self-talk and homework and exposures which, beyond medication, help you plant your feet on solid and untrembling ground are the ideal solutions....

But the changing and lessening of medication, to me, has been keenly felt.

I remember the first time I took one of the bridging meds. I slept through the night. Peacefully. Not waking once. It was magic.  I couldn't believe that the person who had woken up every-hour-on-the-hour in the throes of irrational fears and mental trajectories winding down a dark path (made darker by the hour) could actually rest peacefully. I was used to waking and silently, catatonically watching (watching is a strong word for staring while your mind races afraid of everything from tornadoes to homework you may not have submitted in high school ) late night movies before I would thankfully wake up. 

Medication was a sure-fire remedy.

Now, I am heaps better than when I started this journey two months ago and I trust my doctor and my path so deeply that I am slowly starting the rocky road to settling into my reformed self.

Unfortunately, with the Christmas crying ( see previous post this week) and the adjustment in medication, my sleep-patterns have been off.  Not to mention ( as also referenced) I returned to my hometown which is steeped full of nostalgia and heart-breakingly wonderful moments and memories that flood on overload.  The past two weeks have been difficult and I feel them most acutely when alone. Not to mention, waking up again automatically makes me sad: I think back to worse times.  Of course, the racing thoughts no longer steer to irrational fears and yet to Christmas and family and work ---- and how I am away from all of those things: mentally and physically.   Disembodied, as it were. 

Luckily, I have had a reprieve.   On my parent's couch last weekend, laptop on coffee table, earphones in,tea-in-hand, and through those awful wakeful moments, I have watched a heap-load of Psych. Often, I'll watch the same episode more than once if my mind is not completely with the plot.  And it makes me giggle. Really giggle. Jubilantly giggle. Because it is ridiculous.  But, on  another note, it is slowly re-instilling my creative recesses of energy and thought and imaginative-illumination.  For the past few months concentrating on anything of artistic depth was difficult.  I mentioned a fair number of sitcoms I watched. Reading has been especially hard ----partly because reading makes me want to write and edit and work on my own projects---something in (not-so-distant) periphery.  But Psych bounces vocabulary and alliteration and slight character deepening and twists in a fun and colourful way.... in a safe and pronounced way that doesn't require my full mental faculties: yet exercises and awakens some kernel of my literately fun self.

[Shawn and Gus really DO save Christmas]

In a way, and as cheesy as this sounds, Gus and Shawn have taken the place of medication.  I rely on them as stimulant. I know that I can re-visit them and count on a daily dosage.  I know that I can repeat-as-needed and maybe even take less in a day than needed if I am having a particularly strong day.  If I need to let me mind drift and just spend 43 minutes watching for the appearance of a pineapple (as hyper-intensively ridiculous as this sounds), it is enough to keep me going.   I have no previous connection with them and they don't remind me of anything.  There is no link in the show that will start a stream of consciousness to the past.  It is a strange and magnetic world that, blessedly, doesn't remind me of ...anything. I am not lost in the past and the maze of unknitted thought when visiting. Foreign to most; but very important to me.  Disassociation. 

Part of my homework is to be as open as possible and to expose as much as I possibly can in hopes of explaining some odd behaviours; but also, possibly, silently throwing a rope.   I don't enjoy talking in long epistles about how television (for a bookworm! SHOCKS! EGADS! ) has proven helpful; but it can be wonderful escapism and temporary medication.

Bridges are strange and scary--- medicinally and otherwise--- for those (like me) terrified of heights, they pose a strange and sudden sensation of impending doom --- or they can be calm and beautiful as you lean over them and stare into the water below--- or they can be long and seemingly endless (I'm thinking of you, Confederation Bridge to PEI) where just a small strip of land becomes larger and larger as you make out its red rim while driving from New Brunswick...

Sometimes bridges undergo construction. 

Sometimes they act as a metaphor as you band one part of your life to another.  I am bridge in this imagery and, luckily, things step in to help shove me over...

So, Shawn and Gus save Christmas.  I look forward to their Christmas episodes, I look forward to dissecting what nonsense and rhetorical goodness will seep from its insanity and pin-prick the goofy and vulnerable and giggly side of me that was temporarily on mute.

Jude Law--- the Sidney Paget Moments

Jude Law: loaning authenticity to the rather inauthentic Downey Jr's Holmes since 2009.

I've said it before, dude looks like the Watson I knew growing up: because he resembles the Paget illustration.

I am an AWESOME Watson and will keep you fair viewers going until the BBC Sherlock resumes next year!

Random Sherlock moment!

Triggers that You Don't Think Are Triggers...

...Christmas is proving very problematic in my anxiety-induced world. It is not unusual to find me downtown Toronto holding onto the side of a building, shaking and crying, because the decorations and the music have hit me in a nostalgic place that I cannot crawl out of ...

A popular term in the treatment that I am undergoing and that will be familiar with many of you who have undergone cognitive therapy treatment for either anxiety or depression is "trigger": like your index finger itching on a gun---the seemingly pointless, harmless, ridiculous can explode ...

Today:

a message from a co-worker
the sound of Hark!, the Herald Angels Sing wafting from the ornately decorated window frames of Holt's at Bloor and Yonge
the guy flirting with me as I upgraded to a blackberry (the blackberry has been fun)
finding that dial 'm' for murder was TCM's feature this evening ----notably Grace Kelly's red dress....


All of these things trigger a reaction and all at once I am jittery or nostalgic or numb or catatonic and I fade into myself like the world is buzzing into framed blur

Clarity is as fleeting as a sip of tea or the whirr of a new message on my new phone...

....then I retreat.


Christmas is a beautiful, magical, wonderful, amazing time of kaleidoscope wonderment: but it is a trickster, too. It is a veritable bottomless tickle trunk of loss, of preservation, of winking lights that spotlight melancholy.

It does a lot to those prey to instances of emotion and panic.


The crowds were enough before to start my shudders of hand tremor; to glare my eyes and wobble my voice...

Christmas brings them in droves.

I want to visit my book people.  My book friends. A gent on the subway today was reading Martha Grimes and a part of my heart cried to curl back into a well-remembered book.   But, it just starts the tear ducts flowing.   Three times this evening I have made my way to the well-visited shelf wherein perches my collection of Horatio Lyle: but he evades me, too.

I guess one of the hardest things is recognizing that all seemingly familiar is now strange and uneven.

Last week's trip home, usually a time of solace and exploration of my favourite local, small-town haunts in the place I grew up in, had me fleeing to find a new place, to remain completely invincible.

Here, in Toronto, I revel in anonymity while recognizing myself a stranger.

Reinvention was never easy for anything or anyone.


So my Cylon selves are out in the world: sometimes bearing traces of what I was before; sometimes signalling that which is to come; sometimes staring weirdly at an angle in the mirror and studying without profundity.

It's all a profuse trigger, an explosion of colour that renders itself, somehow and most ironically, in splashes of grey---not even the concrete safety of black and white.

Film Review: 'Hugo' dir., Martin Scorsese

The movies that most resonate with me are the ones where I leave having felt an experience akin to watching a magnificent piece of theatre or closing the last page of a magnificent book.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo is a wonderment and it will tug at your heartstrings: especially if, like me, you are extremely sensitive to anything relating to imaginative experience and artistic sensibility.

Around four years ago, I was delighted to purchase and leaf through the film's source material: "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick and was immediately impressed with its innovative story/picture hybrid, its inclusion of photography and its structure as a love letter to films of old.  The film also marries a passion for literary narrative with a golden nod to the formation of film.   But, on a stronger, deeper and more heart-wringing level, it speaks to the heart of creative beguile.  Not unlike Polanski's The Pianist, it explores the loss and re-discovery of the artist in a world new and unknown.

One of the most potent aspects of this remarkable film lay in its multi-faceted enigma: which winds and turns all of our seemingly disconnected characters like the intertwining togs and mechanisms of the clocks of the Parisienne Train Station: the workings and cogs and sprints and springs which make the pulsating maze of our hero, Hugo Cabret's, world.

Indeed, clocks, time and the passing of hundreds of passengers clacking over the well-trod floor of the Station are a major motif and clever canvas.   Here is where most of the action takes place.  Orphaned since the death of his father: a clockmaker/inventor/ machine enthusiast, Hugo usurps the task of winding and charging the clocks at the crowded train station from the trembling hands of his intoxicated uncle.

Several characters including an uptight security guard, a flower girl, a coffee mistress woo'd by a man disdained by her wiener dog and a surly toy and candy salesman paint the kiosks and act as the stars in Hugo's complicated world.    Yet, the heart of the story lies beyond the adventures of Hugo and his new friend Isabelle: even if the mechanized world of nooks and towers would be more than enough to fulfill the children's imaginative whims.




This film is a love story to cinema, to history, to stories and to the working mind of the artist.   The exposition of a consummate artist starved of the mind he cannot turn off is the main triumph and tragedy of this heart-warming tale. Old books, broad libraries, odd automatons and the preservation of film, not to mention instances invaded by the First World War,add complex layers to a film definitely not made just for the entertainment of children.  I began crying mid-way through when the right book found its purpose and made it to the right owner and my 3D glasses remained fogged for the remainder of the film.

In my opinion, this is the type of magic the Academy should recognize.  It is quite clear that director Scorsese ripped out a piece of his heart and threw it up on the screen for all to see.   To mention the mere craft of this story would take a real film-maker. Thus, I speak to its narrative force, its wildly imaginative imagery and the thematic interposition which will render those who feel the blessed (cursed?) ripples of imagination often ringing through their ears and surging through their veins.

I would encourage you to see this film immediately.  I usually avoid 3D films; but this film is carefully constructed to make the most of dimensional marvel.    Children will learn a lot about the history and incarnation of film while learning new vocabulary (the bookwormish Isabelle is adorably precocious when it comes to throwing around the names Sidney Carton and Jean Valjean. Moreover, words like "panache" and "steadfast" creep into the children's vocabulary).

The relatively unknown film-maker George Melies plays a major part in the film and you will enjoy learning about his contribution to the technical developments of film. He is often credited as one of the first cinemagicians.

Snippets of old film are inserted and I was delighted, as one example, to see a famous train scene featuring a squirming Buster Keaton.  This film will act as a wonderful introduction to the black and white films which so long ago ushered in the magic that children now take for granted each time they see a new 3D film or play a new video game.

Also be sure to check out the novel by Brian Selznick: which marries imagery and narrative to beguile young adult readers.

....just when you think you know what this film is about, it will whirr and whistle and steer you in another steam-powered moment of trickery.   Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jude Law, Christopher Lee and Richard Griffiths ( not to mention a beautiful Emily Mortimer) help round out the cast.

This is the best movie I have seen this year.

Paris is not my city (Vienna is, as we all know); but it is painted in glorious light and if you have a hankering for 1930s France you will be in heaven!

For my friends: Jude Law's character and presence made me think of Melrose Plant, Horatio Lyle and Dr. Watson all at once. Not bad.

Theatre Review: Mary Poppins

Tonight I had the privilege of seeing Mary Poppins at the Princess of Wales here in Toronto.


Before I go further, may I just blatantly pronounce that I adore that we are getting Les Miz back in 2012? I have seen it 8 times in Toronto (four of those times WITH Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean), once on Broadway and once in London's West End.   Apparently, this new production has re-imagined staging.  Bring it home to Toronto, people, we LOVE this show.


But, I digress. 

Mary Poppins is produced by Cameron Mackintosh with a new Book by Julian Fellowes. While it maintains many of the standards penned by the Sherman Brothers (composers-in-residence for many of the best-loved Disney films of the 1950s and 1960s ---- they wrote It's a Small World, y'all), there are new numbers added to the show at an unfortunate disconnect. Any musical number not penned by the Brothers Sherman, and added to the re-vamped stage production, though perfunctorily performed by tonight's awe-inspiring cast, seemed jolted and intrusive. 


While this adaptation's story varies from the 1964 Julie Andrews movie and borrows heftily from the P.L. Travers' source material, the jumbling of the musical numbers in different chronology than the film and the insertion of some of the anecdotal instances indigenous to the book make for an odd theatrical experience.  


That being said, this production has some of the greatest moments of staging I have ever seen in my 20+ years as an avid theatre goer.  This production's choreography of "Step in Time" was nothing short of slack-jawed brilliance. At one point, amidst a bevy of chimney sweeps scaling and tapping the staged London rooftops, our Bert escalates aside the stage and upside down: with the careful engineering of the suspensions fans of Wicked are now used to as a mainstay in modern musical theatre.   It was one of many enchanting moments.  The choreography in SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (sorry, it must be capitalized) was equally remarkable.





The story plays out much as it does in the film: with the motifs of childhood imagination, lessons being learned with a "Spoonful of Sugar" and a hint of charity for man and child and with adults realizing that flying a kite with their family trumps any invasive moments of financial precision at one's obsessive job.   Much like Peter Pan's Mr. Darling, so investor Mr. Banks must slowly learn that his family and his childhood are worth re-possessing and the sense of awe and wonderment found in gingerbread stars is as close a link to his growing son as it is to his own careful upbringing.


As in the film we are so familiar with, the hand-shake of a chimney sweep is good luck, the tattered wares of a woman on the steps of St. Paul's heed all to sacrifice tuppence in motions of charity, and made-up words and colourful antics are the stuff that teach children exactly what they need to move from precocious to darling...


The cast was fabulous having just toured the US from Broadway and I was happy to see some familiar Canadian faces grace the stage.  As one example, Laird Mackintosh played Mr. Banks: anyone who saw The Phantom of the Opera here in T.O. during the 90s as many times as I did ( also with Colm Wilkinson. Torontonians, we are LUCKY that he calls Toronto home!!!!), would recognize him as a popular Raoul.   Rachel Wallace sang with the clear Julie Andrews' crystal soprano befitting the nanny "practically perfect in every way" and it was a delight to see the hints of romantic chemistry flowering between Mary and Nicolas Dromard's adorable Bert. [check out the full touring cast here]. Dromard is from Ottawa!  So glad he's a national treasure!


Bert was a wonderful narrator/jack-of-all-trades much like he is in the film (as we excuse poor Dick Van Dyke's mournful Cockney accent).  This Bert was pitch-perfect and both he and Mary seemed to be having genuine fun with the material they presented in high-pitched, gleeful intensity.  If they needed to kick their knees up to "step in time" with the band of guardian angel chimney sweeps, they did so with jubilant conviction.


Two minor points: the first time I had heard and internalized the meaning of the word "Suffragette" was due to Glynis John's recognizably husky number in the film version.  I wished that Mrs. Banks' character on stage were given the same political convictions to levy her stance as female equal to her workaholic husband. Instead, we are given glimpses into a theatrical history which she trades happily to be full-time nanny to her children when all is happily resolved. Secondly, I thought that the production threw away, as it were, the number Feed the Birds.  Specifically requested at Walt Disney's funeral (being his favourite number) and providing a symbol of charity and good-will, the ethereal chords of this hymn-like number were heard clearly (with strong organ, thank goodness) during its performance; but I wish they had returned to its theme as they did other songs.


[Though Mary Poppins is set in the Edwardian era, I must say that this hardcore Horatio Lyle fan kept thinking of Lyle: partly through Bert's accent, perhaps with the backdrop of St. Paul's.... he is never far from imaginatively away.]

A final moment for the set: like a story book illustration: the set is sketched and blasted with broad strokes of colour and charcoal, not unlike Bert's drawings in the park.  The house on Cherry Tree Lane unfolds quite wonderfully like a doll's house, with Mary Poppins able to snap the gas lamps on and off at her every whim.


There are hints of magic everywhere in this production and the children in the audience, of a generation who probably wouldn't be able to sit through the 1960s movie, were dazzled. As was I.

the hardest part of being me...

my memory.

it's a blessing and a curse

i remember everything in precise detail

smells, colour, sounds

a chord of music will transplant me

a word transpose me

a moment will render completely coloured deja vu

it makes me a perfect patient as i step the slow steps to my doctor's office and slink into his chair

it makes me a perfect patient as he slowly pulls every last inkling of imaginative, kaleidoscope thought from the recesses of my vortex-mind

he excavates and, like an archaeologist, knows just where to scrape the scantily wisped dirt to find the golden treasure beneath

i wish i could turn my brain off without medicinal help


i wish that the memories wouldn't flood altogether in a jumble of colour, scent and smell and sound

i wish that an opening chord wouldn't haunt up a pile of unwanted fragments

that my eyes would keep from watering

that my darkly lit apartment, with its sole-burning candle flame wouldn't strip back to a decade ago


i wish that i could put it all on hold with some slightest trick of mind ---instead of medicinal numbness

instead, thoughts crowd and flash and bend and round and erect themselves until my hand shakes and my cheeks burn....

all at once they scrape across my mind's eye and feel like the streetlamp does when its shadow first mellowly hits the slackened,  spanse of rain-soaked pavement

i don't want illumination

i want to turn it off

instead, in repeat-mode, it finds its way....

'Great Expectations' Photos make THIS gal VERY happy!

Thanks to our friend Gina at Dickensblog, I have been kept in the near loop of all things Great Expectations and I remain super duper excited about the new adaptations in our near midst!

Check out these photos! :



[Source]
Also, make sure to check out Dickensblog to learn everything you would ever want to know (and that still wouldn't be enough) about Charles Dickens, film adaptations and where all things Dickensian can be found on the web!

If "Community" saved October on the laugh-front; then "Psych" is winning November hands down

This post has no literary merit:

I have been watching a ton of Psych and it is ridiculous and funny and they don't know what to do with their secondary characters; but that's okay because of the three leads: adorable Shawn Spencer (be ye warned, he takes a few episodes to be able to tolerate and then you will fall madly in love), his adorable best friend, Gus, and his father, strict retired cop, Henry.

Zeee pineapples .....

Props to Carlton Lassiter who is the only believable secondary character  and the only one who actually seems to have some purpose, in all of his tight skepticism through the first two seasons.  I think this show takes a bit to find its stride; but its inaugural season has some incredible moments!

Canadians--- I got the first, second and fourth season for 12.50 each at Future Shop at Yonge/Dundas Square-- so you can find it there---- cheap used copies are available at amazon.ca and you can download it on itunes Canada, too!

A clip?  Mais oui!




Anyways, it makes me literally giggle ( I mean George Takei has a wonderful cameo, there is random singing and dancing and some of the obscure movie references are to die for).

This from the same station that brings us the quirk that is Monk , Burn Notice and, my favourite, White Collar. Quirk, quirk, quirk....

mmmm..... pineapple.....

Also, you will crave pineapple ---- all the time.  You will buy some and eat it. Because pineapples are a silly and gloriously unexpected motif.

Oh ... and even though it is "set" in Santa Barbara, Canadians will recognize B.C. as its REAL location very quickly.....

Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the Media

As someone diagnosed as OCD with elements of Anxiety and Panic disorder, I find it helpful when I can identify with characters in the media who exemplify some of the same symptoms.

Two shows do very well in exposing these diseases in a sensitive, provocative and well-researched manner: doing well to raise awareness about mental illness in our society.

Currently, the CBC is using actor Matt Watts' personal Social Anxiety Disorders and the tenets and phobias therein as the weekly premises for the show Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays. This show, created by Bob Martin ( Canadian Comedian and writer/star of Broadway's The Drowsy Chaperone) does well in introducing cognitive behavioural therapy when wed with medicinal therapy to help Michael with his anxieties and phobias.

Michael has tendencies of agoraphobia and his weekly "homework" can see him doing everything from attending a crowded movie theatre, to returning to spaces housing painful memories, having candid conversations and even asking a stranger for the time.

What impresses me about this show is not the continuing plot points; yet the exposition of the ongoing (15 years) relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient: proving that anxiety disorders can be treated; but not completely cured.  Having Matt Watts'  express his vulnerability and struggles and having the credits mention that the show utilizes Watts' personal phobias and anxieties makes a great step toward awareness of mental illness in a funny, sombre and often touching way.

I don't recommend the show for the other aspects of each story arch (I find the writing to be oddly-paced); but I do find this aspect of the show extremely well-written.

Matt Watts speaks to his Anxiety Disorder here and to an open panic attack here.

As someone who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( though diagnosed as having an Obsessive Compulsive Social Disorder and not the severity of compulsion and repetition as physically expressed here), I have always had a soft spot for Adrian Monk: the detective whose OCD makes it difficult for him to perform even the slightest tasks: despite the brilliance of his brain and his impenetrable dedication to solving his wife's murder. (Note: if you watch Monk, which I did religiously during its long run---even going so far as to own my favourite seasons on DVD for revisitation, your heart will be broken. Tony Shalhoub deserved the many awards and accolades he won for his mind-boggling portrayal of Adrian Monk).

Monk does well at presenting OCD in a humorous way; but with a lot of heart.  Monk's phobias are ever present; but he is a character whom the entire police force respects.  His disorder, his disease, never get in the way of his mental capabilities.

Actor Tony Shalhoub has said he suffers from elements of OCD and comprehends its debilitating nature and how it can cause embarrassment and distress for patients suffering from it.  He speaks to the importance of his character and the show's pre-occupation with raising awareness here and here.




I find that both of these television shows do well at presenting mental illness in a real and very exposed way; while still maintaining a lot of heart.  As such, they raise awareness.  You'll notice that both clips feature the patient in cognitive talk therapy: emphasizing the importance of this relationship while exposing the vulnerable and seemingly irrational fears and phobias of the patients.

1 in 10  Canadians suffers from an Anxiety Disorder; yet the stigma behind mental disorders remains prevalent, pervasive and acute.   As a society, we need to openly discuss these diseases as they are---diseases--- while their treatment can sometimes require elements which evade other diseases, i.e., a hybrid of cognitive talk therapy AND medication; rather than just medication and while these diseases are not so much curable as treatable, they are still valid and, more likely than not, you or someone you know suffers from a facet of anxiety, depression or compulsion.

I have an anxiety disorder--- how the heck will i deck those friggin' halls.....

The other day I was in a good mood. It's the point of November where a chill nips the air, the sun sets earlier settling on the lights of Toronto's mellow skyline and Christmas music floats from the retail outlets.

I had hiked up to Yonge and Eglinton to visit the David's Tea shop there and while there, I ducked inside Future Shop for new earbuds.

Upon hearing It Came Upon The Midnight Clear on the speakers in the store, I immediately broke down.  Crying and hyperventilating, I had to take refuge by finding something to grab hold to.

If you read my Advent Tour post from last year, you know that Christmas music is a major part of my life; it speeds through my veins, is much a part of my fibre.... as is all of hymnody and church and sacred music history.

I have never been able to get through Silent Night with a dry eye ( and have had to leave church before because of the overwhelming emotions it elicits); but It Came Upon The Midnight Clear?

In an attempt to dissect my panic attacks and public and private breakdowns after-the-fact, and to have something to report to my psychiatrist in our ongoing discussions and treatment, I will wait until the episode has passed, collect myself ( often ashamedly: in this case having assured two kind shoppers that I was alright--- just emotional over the Holidays--- you can get away with being vague at Christmas: it is such a cornucopia of conflicting nostalgia) and sit for a moment to connect my mental dots.

Christmas music will always hit  me and speak to me as most religious music does--- it is partly because I have an ingrained passion (which I mentioned) and partly because no matter how betrayed or disillusioned I am with the more flawed aspects of the religion I grew up with and practice, it remains a pure intercession which metes out grace, poetry and a sense of history that melds hundreds of years of followers together.... it binds.


But, what I am realizing, and what I attribute to the Disease is its waterfall effect.    I have a bit of a freaky memory which remains a blessing and a curse. I remember, in detail, vivid and resonating smells, sounds, conversations and moments like photographic snapshots on constant slideshow in my brain.

As I try hard to piece together the fragments of myself now jumbled, muted, spread out like shattered shards of pictures unmoving and forcedly symbolic,  I am overwhelmed by memory.

Music has always linked my brain to the past and to specific moments.  I have experienced 30 Christmases (well, lets say 25 or 26 lucidly) and with the strains of a familiar song,  all of the memories, at once, good and bad: those which formed my psyche, those which perturbed or suggested unending loss all crowded with the chords of a song and the pressure, the weight on my shoulders was intrusive.

It's more than a moment where you softly recall the low-tinted and framed moments of happy memories of a childhood past.    In the moment in Future Shop, holding on to a rack of video games, hundreds of pictures crammed my brain while the part of myself who cannot fathom what Christmas will look like now that I have been changed (am changing)  and the part of myself that cannot reconcile public events--- even to the point of having panic just thinking of standing in the doorjamb of a church at my favourite time of year: where snow falls softly and the organic chords of my favourite carols waft from within, it left me bereft and broken.


While I slowly become more lucid, while the days of effort seem to, in ways, pay off in leaps and bounds and honesty drips from my tongue and my keyboard, I begin to recognize the price paid, the veneer that left me in ignorant bliss, the band-aid ripped off which forces me, productively yet cruelly, to confront that that always bathed in glorious light has somehow become exposed.... that holidays once jolly and merry and full of warmth are now being seen with a sense of perturbedly quaked and shaken awe---- What will Christmas look like? What can it look like?  If it is mid-november and I am avoiding retail outlets after my Future Shop outburst, how will I make it through the next month and a half?

Must the entire world be privy to what I am privately experiencing?  No wonder so many sufferers of panic disorder become, as I recoil to admit I suffer from, agoraphobia.


But, I keep forcing myself out, stripping everything bare and trying to turn the scrutiny of the world off...


Because I never could get through Silent Night without crying---- I can bank on my emotions to overflow attuned to melodies that string me in a consciously spiritual, nostalgic, insensitively invasive way....

Sometimes people will see it and wonder..... but I'll breathe deeply, stutter, shake my hand at lightning speed and keep walking.... because Christmas has always been my favourite thing and Christmas music my favourite sector of the Holiday.


So I will be bloody damned if it will tackle and break me in the end.

There will be moments. I  will be vulnerable and exposed---- but I will keep walking through it and I will keep assuming that the Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men vibes that sprinkle my city's streets and force wide-eyed gazers to stop outside the candy-coloured toy trains in the Bay windows at Queen will reconcile my somewhat odd public spectacles with a click of a tongue and perhaps a remembrance of a loss that they experienced.... something that snaps at them during the holidays....


Except mine is not a loss, per se, it is a re-opening, a re-programming, a reformation....

My religion underwent it several times ( In fact, the King James Version of the Bible just celebrated its 400th Anniversary, as a semi-related factoid) and so shall I....

If you want something ethereal, listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing one of the most hallowed and harrowing pieces of music ever composed.... this take very much captures the rare simplicity of one of the most everlasting Christmas Carols

shameless post about something that makes me insanely happy....

When I am blue, I pull out my dvds of White Collar.  Then I am not blue anymore.

Best bromance since House and Wilson, y'all.

Wait? you haven't seen White Collar?  well, you should.....




This post has no literary merit.

In Which We Speak to the Disease

Hello Bloggosphere,

I have been sporadic here of late; have completely drifted from finishing projects started (namely RIP Challenge, a Study in Sherlock, Great Adaptations) which I have every intention of someday finishing.

NO STARBIES in my STARBIES mug

My absence however, has been brought on by a certifiable illness: I have a severe anxiety disorder which includes a dash of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, Panic Induced Agoraphobia, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and a wee bit of depression.

I am getting the help and treatment I need for this VALID illness and am on MEDICAL LEAVE from work (I have been off work since October 1st and will probably return in Feb: thank God for an amazing company which allows me to take disability/medical leave with full pay) ; but a lot of things in my life have changed ---including my presence on this blog.

I have a wonderful doctor and therapeutic appointments and homework which blends medicative therapy with experimental cognitive therapy; but it has also come at some costs.

1.) READING: The drugs make it VERY hard for me to read. In fact,  where I used to read ALL THE TIME, I read at a much slower pace.  This is a temporary thing; but frustrating. So frustrating that I was sick of having something I truly loved "stolen" from me ---so I bought a pile of Archie Comics, reverted  to my 8 year old self and got to task.

With this slow and painful return to having my mental faculties (exhausted from meds and the small seemingly insignificant exercises which work toward allowing me to reintegrate myself back into society), I have been able to still fulfill some blog tour work and, what is proving a rewarding challenge, read through the INSPYs books  I have been assigned as a Romance Judge. It just takes longer than previously and some days cannot happen at all.

2.) COFFEE: my favourite thing in the world other than books has been taken from me.  No Starbucks. Decaf Only....so I have been drowning my sorrows in literal gallons of David's Tea ---God Bless their amazing selection

3.) A SOCIAL LIFE:   My illness has become so advanced that I have had to (doctor ordered) miss my sister's phd convocation, a close friend's wedding weekend, birthday parties, housewarmings, Hallowe'en: all because seeing more than one or two people at a time is impossible right now. Church is out. Crowds are out.

4.) HAND TREMOR AND STUTTER: I started having a consistent hand tremor mid-September at work during our busiest and most stressful time of year. I would hide my hand in my pocket (wearing dress pants and skirts with pockets?  I sometimes wore jackets so I wasn't hoisting out the less attractive wear in my closet)  which advanced once I left work and was finally allowed to show my symptoms (meaning my brain was on autopilot: function,function,hide,function as I went through the motions).  My anxiety has also led way to a temporary speech impediment: I stutter. This is not forever; but part of me thinks that the tremor and stutter are my brain's way of saying: we have kept you a Rachel-bot for so long; we need sometime to let our true colours show.  Also, my way of sub-sub-consciously allowing the world to visibly know that I am sick: so that expectations are kept ( as they should be) at a minimum

ABOUT ALL I CAN READ RIGHT NOW: face it, sorta fun!

I know that Anxiety Disorders plague  many people on the bloggosphere in many ways and one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with was allowing myself to recognize that it is an illness "worthy" of medical leave from work; or life.

We do not look at someone with diabetes, say, or cancer and say: you are taking time off of work for treatment, pshaw!   But, there remains a stigma with mental illness that even I, a sufferer of,  bought into.

It's time to stop that.

I am being completely honest about the illness because I know other people suffer from it in varying degrees.

I know I am not the only person with recurring panic attacks, who hyperventilates, who cannot handle the pressure of being in crowds.


Funny thing is, kids, that I  was the most social person people had ever met. I  have literally dozens of friends, was always the social leader, work in a very people-driven facet of the publishing world and can mingle as well as the rest of them.


When I was told that I was a Conditioned Extrovert, I was not surprised. My real self is most comfortable at a pub with a friend or two; or hiding away in my apartment with tea and candles and a book or two.....

My own stigma and my own rallying against my own disease was shameful. I didn't believe I was "worthy" of time off of work, I didn't believe that I had an illness with a severity that dictated all of the medication and treatment.  My amazing doctor had to continually pull textbooks off of his shelf and point to how legitimate my illness is.


In fact, my accepting it as legitimate, makes his work legitimate. My treatment at a large research hospital in Toronto proves that Anxiety Disorders are so prevalent and so wracking and so real that they must be spoken to in an entire department in psychiatry: that research and articles must be given to a world who still cannot quite grasp what they cannot understand.


I thought that Scott Lynch, author of the Lies of Locke Lamora and the other Gentleman Bastards'  sequence titles I adore to death, was strong and wonderful for opening up about his anxiety and how, as an author, it had kept him from attending events, from writing, from feeling like himself.

I thought I would share it here


A doctor once told me that the reason he almost went into psychiatry is because he feels, in ways, it is the worst of all diseases as it keeps the sufferer from feeling like themselves....

My lack of presence on this blog, the time it is taking me to post on novels that publishers have been kind enough to send to me, the fact  that I have not yet tackled LYNN AUSTIN'S NEW BOOK: are all ramifications of a real, live disease.


I will be speaking to this blog hopefully more frequently in the coming weeks: and certainly as we inch closer to the INSPYs which, as mentioned, I am honoured to be judging.

But I also breathe a sigh of relief: because now all of YOU know what's going on and stigma is often hidden in shame and secrecy.

There is nothing to be ashamed of.  I would never walk up to someone with pneumonia and say "did you have a nervous breakdown?"

The same should keep  us from pre-judging those with disorders which start mentally and show physical symptoms.