"Hot Town, Summer in the City," Loving Spoonful's August 1966 hit song still sizzles in my synapses all these years later. I was just a teen ager. Pimple faced junior at Viscount Alexander junior high school. I was certainly a virgin. Winnipeg summer was hot.
"Hot Town, Summer in the City
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a matchhead
But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on, come - on and dance all night
Despite the heat it will be all night."
Us kids were sneaking out of bedrooms to gather late at night to sneak into the public outdoor pool behind the cop shop. Reputations were being made for daring. Can't remember who drove the bicycle off the high board. But that brought the police. Ending our nightly summer dip. Dozens of kids dispersing like cockroaches at high speed across the Vincent Massey football fields. Fort Garry police in full tilt boogie pursuit..
We'd started dancing then. There were the sock hops at school. Dan Donahue was our school's John Sebastian singer musician. Summer time street dances. Lucky kids went out the beaches. We were doing the monkey and the jerk. I remember I was really good at the jerk. And the swim, holding one's nose and jumping. Now that was dancing. Line dancing mostly.
All the guys were in love with the red heads, Carey and Kathy. Naturally they had older boyfriends with motorcycles, while we were still riding bicycles. My girlfriend was a different dark haired Kathy. I was head over heels in puppy love with her. We'd danced in her basement. Not all night by any means. Curfews for us kids in 66 were 10 o clock. Midnight was witching hour.
John Sebastian was 10 years older than us kids. He's in his 70's now. We're just kids in our 60's. We didn't start dancing all night till 10 years after the song came out, when we were in our 20's like Sebastian when he wrote the song. Dancing all night was something one did in one's 20's. Now I'm back to curfews. 10 o clock is late and Midnight is the witching hour. I read somewhere that John Sebastian's still performing. He probably dances all night still. But then he's immortal.
"Cool town, evening in the city
Dressing so fine and looking so pretty
Cool cat, looking for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city.:
Now, it's "Hot Town, Summer in the City" in Vancouver. What was normal for Winnipeg is unusual here in Rain City Vancouver. My girlfriend's a grandmother. Her apartment doesn't have air conditioning. I've got air conditioning. She says she likes me for myself. I know better. These older gals go for the guys with the air conditioning.
At 7 am I ran a mile or so with the dog, along the river trail. It was heating up by 8. I swam laps in the indoor pool before the place became wall to wall children. All afternoon we lay around inside, under the air conditioning, reading novels. I had Orson Scott Card's latest post Ender's Game science fiction. It was just like we did as teens in Winnipeg. Missing the heat of the summer day, reading inside in the cool.
I barbecued steak later. Didn't want to heat up the kitchen with the stove. Microwaved the pees and potatoes. Watched an Apple TV movie "Ex Machina".Sentient robots. Great movie, really. Hitchcockesque.
After we walked the dog down by the river again. It was still hot, sultry now. We slept with the sheets off, air conditioner turned off, windows open. Dog on bed. I never had a thought of dancing all night.
Hot town, summer in the city.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Summer Heat as Kids
It’s summer heat today. Numbers don’t do it justice. It’s hot. Like butter sizzling on a frying pan hot. Not normally what you’d get in rain city, Vancouver. But this year’s been different, more rain in winter, more drought in summer.
Winnipeg was like this when I was a child. We’d play outside in the morning and evening. Afternoon was the time to be inside. Like Mediterranean countries where siestas are the heat solution. We were caramel brown little boys by the middle of summer. We didn’t wear shoes priding ourselves on toughening up our feet after a winter of galoshes and snowboots. Later we’d have canoe shoes, leather low lying moccasins. There all had running shoes too. But mostly we’d run around barefoot and pride ourselves on being able to walk down the gravel back lane without wincing.
The sounds outside were of birds and grasshoppers. The only music we'd hear outdoors was some kid practicing his guitar or trumpet. You could hear the wind in the leaves.
I remember standing with my friends on mornings on those hot summer Winnipeg days.
“What do you want to do?"
“I don’t know."
There were three of us. We stood around in the back lane kicking things or chucking stones.
“What are we going to do."
“I don’t know."
When the older girls joined us we’d play hide and seek. Sometimes they’d include us in their plays. We couldn’t ask our parents what to do because they’d just give us chores.
“it’s going to be hot."
“Yea."
"What do you want to do?"
“I don’t know."
“We could look for golf balls along the dike."
“I don’t want to do that."
“What do you want to do."
“Maybe hit some balls at the school."
“Yea that’s a good idea."
“What about going down by the river."
“I say we hit balls."
We all had big leather baseball gloves. They were a thing of pride. Bats too. And balls. We’d just have to go to our houses and get our stuff and then meet up again. Then we’d walk the block to the school yard. In the summer no one was ever there. Someone would bat. Someone would throw. And someone would stand in the outfield.
Kirkie was the darkest tanning kid. Garth was the smartest. Then there was me. I don’t know what I was. We weren’t self reflective as young guys. We just did things. Didn’t think about them much. Like climbing the tree on the way to play ball. It was just something we did. I once fell out of that tree and got really winded. But we’d climb it because it was there. Out behind Garth’s house.
Then we’d continue on to the school yard. It was a big deal to haul our mits and the ball and bat that suburban city block to the school. It was a plan. It was a expedition. We figured everyone was watching us out their windows. And mostly they were. We’d play ball for a while. Never very long. Then we’d sit in the shade and chew on grass. It was hot in Winnipeg in the summer. Prairie hot. At least in the heat the mosquitoes weren’t out. Horseflies were. They’d bite a big chunk out of you but swatting them and squishing them was satisfying. They weren’t as fast as house flies. We’d run from the wasps. Wasps were the worst in the summer heat.
“I want to hit the ball."
“You were hitter last time."
“No I wasn’t."
“Yes you were."
“No I wasn’t."
We’d decide things with the toss of a coin. Somebody had a penny or a nickel. As kids we never ever had any paper money. A quarter was a whole lot. Even a dime was a lot. But we’d use our coin to decide who was going to be the batter. With only three of us we didn’t have a catcher. The batter when he missed went after the ball that would have bounced off the back fence. That fence was the reason we liked to go to the school to play ball. Then there wasn’t anything the ball could hit when the bat connected with it. It just flew out into the field and if it went far enough the guy not pitching would run after it.
After we’d hit the ball around for a bit and everyone took a turn we’d walk all the way home.
We’d disperse then. Each going to their house. Our mothers would have white bread sandwiches with cheese slices or maybe tuna and mayonnaise. We drank milk back then. When we came in from playing baseball, a mother would make us lunch. We knew what each other ate because we’d sometimes go for lunch at the other kids place if our mother was out or the mother invited us in. The mothers would phone then and tell each other if they were having one of the guys over. We had to wash our hands in each others house. We’d lie around in each others place reading the other guys comic books then. Kirk’s mother made the best bread. Garth’s mother sometimes had cheese whiz. Cheese whiz was really great back then, when it first came out. My mom had the big garden so we’d get carrots or radishes with our sandwiches.
Every kids mother had milk. There was always fresh milk in the refrigerators. The milk truck came each day and left glass bottles full of milk and picked up the empty bottles. Our dads had made special shutes with doors like cat entrances where the milk could be left because the milk truck came round really early.
After lunch we’d usually go back to our own houses. We were too old to nap but afternoon in the heat of the day we just sort of lay around. Comics were good then. I liked the superhero ones but later I’d get really interested in the history comic books. You could read the same comic book over and over again because there was so much in the pictures you didn’t see the first time or two. I got into reading real books really early and loved reading inside in the cool when it was so hot outside no one was going to want to play.
When the heat of the day passed we’d kind of run into each other out in the back lane again. If the older guys and older girls were around they’d plan games like hide and seek and tag or stuff and let us little kids play with them. They were always a whole lot smarter than we were and more fun and their games were the best. But when we were alone, just the three of us, we had pretty good times. We’d talk about them later. In the afternoon we really liked walking along the river trails. And biking, we biked every where.
But when it was really hot, we didn’t do much at all. We were just three guys who hung out then. Down by the river we’d watch the boats and birds and talk about fishing or tell jokes and laugh about something we remembered from school. It was just so hot somedays back then.
The heat today in Vancouver reminded me of that. I remember my dad telling me about the northern Manitoba summer heat and droughts he’d been in as a kid. I remember grand dad too talking about how the heat affected the farming and having to make sure the cattle had water. Dad was working on the farm from the time he was six. Not like us kids walking around the neighbourhood all summer with nothing to do except trying to keep out of the way of grown ups.
Winnipeg was like this when I was a child. We’d play outside in the morning and evening. Afternoon was the time to be inside. Like Mediterranean countries where siestas are the heat solution. We were caramel brown little boys by the middle of summer. We didn’t wear shoes priding ourselves on toughening up our feet after a winter of galoshes and snowboots. Later we’d have canoe shoes, leather low lying moccasins. There all had running shoes too. But mostly we’d run around barefoot and pride ourselves on being able to walk down the gravel back lane without wincing.
The sounds outside were of birds and grasshoppers. The only music we'd hear outdoors was some kid practicing his guitar or trumpet. You could hear the wind in the leaves.
I remember standing with my friends on mornings on those hot summer Winnipeg days.
“What do you want to do?"
“I don’t know."
There were three of us. We stood around in the back lane kicking things or chucking stones.
“What are we going to do."
“I don’t know."
When the older girls joined us we’d play hide and seek. Sometimes they’d include us in their plays. We couldn’t ask our parents what to do because they’d just give us chores.
“it’s going to be hot."
“Yea."
"What do you want to do?"
“I don’t know."
“We could look for golf balls along the dike."
“I don’t want to do that."
“What do you want to do."
“Maybe hit some balls at the school."
“Yea that’s a good idea."
“What about going down by the river."
“I say we hit balls."
We all had big leather baseball gloves. They were a thing of pride. Bats too. And balls. We’d just have to go to our houses and get our stuff and then meet up again. Then we’d walk the block to the school yard. In the summer no one was ever there. Someone would bat. Someone would throw. And someone would stand in the outfield.
Kirkie was the darkest tanning kid. Garth was the smartest. Then there was me. I don’t know what I was. We weren’t self reflective as young guys. We just did things. Didn’t think about them much. Like climbing the tree on the way to play ball. It was just something we did. I once fell out of that tree and got really winded. But we’d climb it because it was there. Out behind Garth’s house.
Then we’d continue on to the school yard. It was a big deal to haul our mits and the ball and bat that suburban city block to the school. It was a plan. It was a expedition. We figured everyone was watching us out their windows. And mostly they were. We’d play ball for a while. Never very long. Then we’d sit in the shade and chew on grass. It was hot in Winnipeg in the summer. Prairie hot. At least in the heat the mosquitoes weren’t out. Horseflies were. They’d bite a big chunk out of you but swatting them and squishing them was satisfying. They weren’t as fast as house flies. We’d run from the wasps. Wasps were the worst in the summer heat.
“I want to hit the ball."
“You were hitter last time."
“No I wasn’t."
“Yes you were."
“No I wasn’t."
We’d decide things with the toss of a coin. Somebody had a penny or a nickel. As kids we never ever had any paper money. A quarter was a whole lot. Even a dime was a lot. But we’d use our coin to decide who was going to be the batter. With only three of us we didn’t have a catcher. The batter when he missed went after the ball that would have bounced off the back fence. That fence was the reason we liked to go to the school to play ball. Then there wasn’t anything the ball could hit when the bat connected with it. It just flew out into the field and if it went far enough the guy not pitching would run after it.
After we’d hit the ball around for a bit and everyone took a turn we’d walk all the way home.
We’d disperse then. Each going to their house. Our mothers would have white bread sandwiches with cheese slices or maybe tuna and mayonnaise. We drank milk back then. When we came in from playing baseball, a mother would make us lunch. We knew what each other ate because we’d sometimes go for lunch at the other kids place if our mother was out or the mother invited us in. The mothers would phone then and tell each other if they were having one of the guys over. We had to wash our hands in each others house. We’d lie around in each others place reading the other guys comic books then. Kirk’s mother made the best bread. Garth’s mother sometimes had cheese whiz. Cheese whiz was really great back then, when it first came out. My mom had the big garden so we’d get carrots or radishes with our sandwiches.
Every kids mother had milk. There was always fresh milk in the refrigerators. The milk truck came each day and left glass bottles full of milk and picked up the empty bottles. Our dads had made special shutes with doors like cat entrances where the milk could be left because the milk truck came round really early.
After lunch we’d usually go back to our own houses. We were too old to nap but afternoon in the heat of the day we just sort of lay around. Comics were good then. I liked the superhero ones but later I’d get really interested in the history comic books. You could read the same comic book over and over again because there was so much in the pictures you didn’t see the first time or two. I got into reading real books really early and loved reading inside in the cool when it was so hot outside no one was going to want to play.
When the heat of the day passed we’d kind of run into each other out in the back lane again. If the older guys and older girls were around they’d plan games like hide and seek and tag or stuff and let us little kids play with them. They were always a whole lot smarter than we were and more fun and their games were the best. But when we were alone, just the three of us, we had pretty good times. We’d talk about them later. In the afternoon we really liked walking along the river trails. And biking, we biked every where.
But when it was really hot, we didn’t do much at all. We were just three guys who hung out then. Down by the river we’d watch the boats and birds and talk about fishing or tell jokes and laugh about something we remembered from school. It was just so hot somedays back then.
The heat today in Vancouver reminded me of that. I remember my dad telling me about the northern Manitoba summer heat and droughts he’d been in as a kid. I remember grand dad too talking about how the heat affected the farming and having to make sure the cattle had water. Dad was working on the farm from the time he was six. Not like us kids walking around the neighbourhood all summer with nothing to do except trying to keep out of the way of grown ups.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
The Young Ones, (Bad Land: Road to Fury) movie
The Young Ones, directed by Jake Paltrow is a western science fiction movie released in 2014 but which just came out on Netflix. We watched this Irish South African production last night and really enjoyed the spaghetti western with a twist flavour. Placed in the future after a drought farmers struggle with the lack of water and the high cost of irrigation. I thought the movie was about the American Mid West. It has that John Steinbeck 30’s barrenness about it. Characterization is its strength. The young rebel without a cause character takes the old man with an achilles heal’s land and daughter. But his son sees through the deceit. A classic Western of the Louis L’Amour genre unfolds. It’s a Shakespearean plot. But the robot that replaces the donkey keeps the whole show grounded in the future. I loved the robot wagon. The injured mother is further able to walk because of modern robotic assistance. But the gun is an over and under, rifle and shot gun, not dissimilar to one I’ve owned myself. Laura and I were mesmerized by the movie, loving it to the inevitable but twisting intriguing end.
Nicholas Hoult plays Flem Lever the motorcycle riding woman’s man bad guy with a gift for character transformation like that of Jack Nicholson.. He starts out as a misguided youth and evolves to a truly psychopathic character whose reasoning and words are so believable yet not.
Elle Fanning plays the daughter, Mary Holms in a totally believable way. Early her character is so down to earth and adolescent it holds together the family that is spiralling out of control with events of the day. But her tour de force performance in the ending shows a grit as great as Nicole Kidman’s frontier women portrayals.
Michael Shannon plays the father Ernest Holm, whose achilles heel is alcohol. It’s cost his wife her legs but she still loves him deeply. It will be his undoing but he tries desperately to fight against this disease, his personal demon, in a quiet wholly believable way.
Aimee Mullins plays the mother Katherine Holms. Despite her invalidism and the futuristic high tech solution she comes across as almost saintly. Amazing personal actress.
Kodi Smit-McPhee plays the son Jerome Holm and is quite simply amazing. He is the movie. His characterization and transformation and Hitchcock surprise developments and twists make this a movie of all time. He is like a young Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton. A man for all seasons. Still waters run deep.
The rest of the cast were excellent and the unHollywood European pace was superb. The stark otherworldliness of Giles Nuttgens cinematography will probably haunt me.
Jake Paltrow is a great writer.
Nicholas Hoult plays Flem Lever the motorcycle riding woman’s man bad guy with a gift for character transformation like that of Jack Nicholson.. He starts out as a misguided youth and evolves to a truly psychopathic character whose reasoning and words are so believable yet not.
Elle Fanning plays the daughter, Mary Holms in a totally believable way. Early her character is so down to earth and adolescent it holds together the family that is spiralling out of control with events of the day. But her tour de force performance in the ending shows a grit as great as Nicole Kidman’s frontier women portrayals.
Michael Shannon plays the father Ernest Holm, whose achilles heel is alcohol. It’s cost his wife her legs but she still loves him deeply. It will be his undoing but he tries desperately to fight against this disease, his personal demon, in a quiet wholly believable way.
Aimee Mullins plays the mother Katherine Holms. Despite her invalidism and the futuristic high tech solution she comes across as almost saintly. Amazing personal actress.
Kodi Smit-McPhee plays the son Jerome Holm and is quite simply amazing. He is the movie. His characterization and transformation and Hitchcock surprise developments and twists make this a movie of all time. He is like a young Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton. A man for all seasons. Still waters run deep.
The rest of the cast were excellent and the unHollywood European pace was superb. The stark otherworldliness of Giles Nuttgens cinematography will probably haunt me.
Jake Paltrow is a great writer.
Jesus, Parables and Climate Change
“He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed . As he was scattering the seed some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty and a hundred times.”
Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven."
Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the demons of other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others like the seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop - thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." Mark 4, The BIBLE (NIV)
When I read this, I remember that a puzzle ceases being a puzzle once it is solved. Jesus taught the Kingdom of God, the message simply, that there is a higher power, a heavenly power, that is more powerful than any earthly power. I sometimes think of Heaven as “Haven”, a safe place. The world around seems so often frightening. I fear I’ve lived a life of anxiety. But I was taught, "Anxiety is a measure of one’s distance from God and equally a measure of one’s humanity."
The great Christian theologian Kierkegaard taught, "Life is suffering unto death." Christians believe that this finite world is of secondary purpose to the world to come, after death. Scott Fitzgerald, the Christian psychiatrist, who wrote the Road Less Traveled, saw this existence for each man, a kindergarten. Despite the moaning and groaning of students, the real work begins after school. St. Paul taught that we had to put off the things of children though paradoxically Jesus taught we had to be like children to come before the Lord. We had to be reborn. St. Paul taught that now, we ‘see through a glass darkly’. The Celtic monks saw life as a journey which continued after death.
The Message of Jesus, first seek the Kingdom of God. When we are fully awake we will see life and death as one. We will also understand all that has passed as what was necessary to bring us to that point of transformation. The catterpillar, no doubt like man, complains of all the horrible things that happen to this sluggish creature until one day the caterpillar becomes the butterfly and all that is past is forgotten. As children we complained about our cribs and were angry with parents who made us go to school. My dog doesn’t even like that I clean up his poop. Children don’t like discipline any more than old ladies like doing sit ups.
Yet the greatest leaders were first the greatest followers. For to learn one must let go of pre conceptions. The parable about the seeds speaks to the closed minded, those whose minds are like the paths, pavement parking lot minds, where nothing gets in. The Message of Love is entertained by all the glitzy crowds. As adolescents we sang , “all we need is love’. The romance novels proliferate. I say I love you but like half of North Americans I’ve divorced and ‘justified’ it, and ‘rationalized’ it. I’m like the debtors who want their ‘debt’ written off. We all want a second chance. In this life some are given countless chances while others die. In this life there are layers of buffers for those with wealth and priviledge and private armies but with such power comes it’s own set of fears and anxieties. Each of us has our own challenge each and every day but we prefer to deny our own part and point our fingers at others. We blame and judge freely and are like those who receive the Word but only superficially. As quickly as not we slip back like addicts who at the first or hundredth opportunity pick up a drink or drug or turn to porn, prostitutes or gambling. There are no roots with us or them, then.. We didn’t let the seed grow deep because we were shallow thinkers and shallow people who wanted quick fixes and easy rewards. Hollywood lies about the greatness of love of strangers. It has repackaged lust as love. It claims in a thousand stories that this new love is the like of the old love of friends who’ve been together 50 years in intimacy and work, creating lives of heroism and sacrifice and dynasties. Deceitful wealth taught us , “Sha, na, na, na,na, na Live for today”. It was always such with children with credit cards who didn’t work or had parents, slaves or other tax payers to pay for their folly. It was a different message from Carpe Diem or another Jesus parable about keeping lamps lit. .
Erich From wrote the great little book Art of Loving which differentiated clearly between falling in love and standing in love. Jesus teaches that we must stand in love, let the Word grow within us, hold onto the Message, let time and nurturing allow for roots to take hold. We must open ourselves.
Grace is the unwarranted gift of God. Grace is like the sunshine. We have it. We have always had it. We don’t know why it’s there yet it gives us life. Sun worship is one of the first spiritual experiences of humans collectively. Pagans have Sun Gods and Sun God worship. Constantine who institutionalized Christianity, taking the teachings of Jesus and making them into a State Religion of the Roman Empire, which later became the Roman Catholic Church, was a Sun God worshiper. This is why so much pagan Sun God symbolism and worship crept into the new Gentile/Israeli homogenized religion. Roman Catholicism to this day remains a State Religion, the Vatican, it’s own country with it’s own police, army , stamps and boundaries. The Church of England, Anglicanism, Episcopalianism, is also a state church, though slightly more distinct from the nation state that founded it.
Jesus’ message was radical. One of the challenges for the individual is to separate the true message of Jesus from the thorns of state and ‘deceitful wealth’ because the Church, especially the Catholic and the Anglican are intimately woven into the status quo of their associated State religion. . The STATE killed Jesus. The Political figures of Israel in it’s day and the political figures of the Empire killed Jesus. They were satanic like the birds in the parables. Great black crows and vultures that swooped down on the son of God and killed him in a time space extravaganza action movie of all time.
Then one day, the STATE, made an unholy alliance with the religion of man and the religion of God. Much of Sun God worship still exists in this New Christianity of post Nicea. The Nicene Creed is the agreement between STATE and Christians which saw the end of the persecution of Christians and allowed the politics to get on with making strange bedfellows. All religions are the feet of spirituality. It is where God touches earth. It’s the muck our faith grows from. It is the outside. St. Theresa of Avila taught this well in her book, Inner Castle.
The Mystery is the darkness that is in all religions because man makes religions as he/she makes nations. So the religion state of atheism is communism and the religion/state of the Roman Empire was paganism, then Catholicism, as the religion/state of Russia was once Orthodox Christianity. The religion/state of the Islam was the Ottoman Empire which today is Saudi Arabia and Iran. There is no separation of state and religion in the religion of aetheism in communism just as there is no separation of state and religion of the Church of England. There’s a list of political martyrs who were Christians who disagreed with the powers of this earth and were sacrificed to deceitful wealth as were Jesus and St. Peter. Thomas Crammer comes to mind and St. Oliver Plunkett. Christians are the most persecuted people of the earth today. Yet if a woman questions the State Religion Book, the Koran and wants to be a leader, well, Isis will behead her too.
The atheists killed hundreds of millions in this last century , as did the Pagans under Hitler, with the Moslems are still having a bloody good time today with their Internet hollywood beheadings. The Christians live on in the United State American Empire, a bit like they do in the Post Christian , Post Britain English Empire. In Ankor Watt times the Buddhists and Hindus were whacking each other in the name of religion since state and religion separation is only a very modern idea, at most a century or three old. Today’s secularism is a novelty which might well be considered a merger of Satan and God much like the birth of the Roman Catholic Empire. It’s hard to say. Up close politics is never easy to read despite the sound bite silliness of propaganda media.
Decietful Wealth, promissory materialism is countered with ‘you can’t take it with you’ and the lie of Satan is that this world ends with death. But if that were true Shakespeare’s Hamlet would not have been given the greatest parable of modern English, “To sleep, to dream, that is the rub.” So the materialist would believe they don’t dream. Even animals dream but atheists insist death isn’t a dream state for the individual even now when we have dream post brain death scientific evidence. The near death experiences of those who have returned miraculously to life were best recorded by Dr. Moody. Yet Dr. Eben Alexander, the Neurosurgeon who died and resurrected like Lazarus published a book, Proof of Heaven and it falls like seeds on the parking lot minds of atheists. Quantum Physics and String Theory teach us scientifically today that the world may well be a great Matrix, a Shrodinger Cat box of energy and matter, inner and outer, As the Bible taught we are created in the Image of God so the universe is much more than the imagination of God and we are co creators of this dream of life and death. Information transferring under laws of conservation and spirituality. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Pray.
One can hear the terror in their voices of the promissory materialist atheists as they switch their fear from their own imminent death and claim the planet is going to die, a grandiose delusion if ever there was one.
I may die. God does not die. And if I die I will dream of God as God dreams of me. But these are parables. It’s hard to understand these things on the outside. And the mystery is that I really don’t know individually if I am on the inside or the outside but there’s a sense that all is one.
The great painting on the Cistine Chapel is Adam reaching out to God and God touching his finger. Personally I am blessed to have seen this greatest work of the age by Michelangelo. The sensual love Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa for her enigmatic smile may or may not offer a man sex or a child love. It’s that uncertain. But Adam and God reach towards each other and where Grace and Faith meet so sparks fly. It's that certain.
And in the parable of the farmer, the seeds grow and multiply, 30 times, 60 times, a hundred times. The Big Bang is within.
Turn and be forgiven!
Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven."
Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the demons of other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others like the seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop - thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." Mark 4, The BIBLE (NIV)
When I read this, I remember that a puzzle ceases being a puzzle once it is solved. Jesus taught the Kingdom of God, the message simply, that there is a higher power, a heavenly power, that is more powerful than any earthly power. I sometimes think of Heaven as “Haven”, a safe place. The world around seems so often frightening. I fear I’ve lived a life of anxiety. But I was taught, "Anxiety is a measure of one’s distance from God and equally a measure of one’s humanity."
The great Christian theologian Kierkegaard taught, "Life is suffering unto death." Christians believe that this finite world is of secondary purpose to the world to come, after death. Scott Fitzgerald, the Christian psychiatrist, who wrote the Road Less Traveled, saw this existence for each man, a kindergarten. Despite the moaning and groaning of students, the real work begins after school. St. Paul taught that we had to put off the things of children though paradoxically Jesus taught we had to be like children to come before the Lord. We had to be reborn. St. Paul taught that now, we ‘see through a glass darkly’. The Celtic monks saw life as a journey which continued after death.
The Message of Jesus, first seek the Kingdom of God. When we are fully awake we will see life and death as one. We will also understand all that has passed as what was necessary to bring us to that point of transformation. The catterpillar, no doubt like man, complains of all the horrible things that happen to this sluggish creature until one day the caterpillar becomes the butterfly and all that is past is forgotten. As children we complained about our cribs and were angry with parents who made us go to school. My dog doesn’t even like that I clean up his poop. Children don’t like discipline any more than old ladies like doing sit ups.
Yet the greatest leaders were first the greatest followers. For to learn one must let go of pre conceptions. The parable about the seeds speaks to the closed minded, those whose minds are like the paths, pavement parking lot minds, where nothing gets in. The Message of Love is entertained by all the glitzy crowds. As adolescents we sang , “all we need is love’. The romance novels proliferate. I say I love you but like half of North Americans I’ve divorced and ‘justified’ it, and ‘rationalized’ it. I’m like the debtors who want their ‘debt’ written off. We all want a second chance. In this life some are given countless chances while others die. In this life there are layers of buffers for those with wealth and priviledge and private armies but with such power comes it’s own set of fears and anxieties. Each of us has our own challenge each and every day but we prefer to deny our own part and point our fingers at others. We blame and judge freely and are like those who receive the Word but only superficially. As quickly as not we slip back like addicts who at the first or hundredth opportunity pick up a drink or drug or turn to porn, prostitutes or gambling. There are no roots with us or them, then.. We didn’t let the seed grow deep because we were shallow thinkers and shallow people who wanted quick fixes and easy rewards. Hollywood lies about the greatness of love of strangers. It has repackaged lust as love. It claims in a thousand stories that this new love is the like of the old love of friends who’ve been together 50 years in intimacy and work, creating lives of heroism and sacrifice and dynasties. Deceitful wealth taught us , “Sha, na, na, na,na, na Live for today”. It was always such with children with credit cards who didn’t work or had parents, slaves or other tax payers to pay for their folly. It was a different message from Carpe Diem or another Jesus parable about keeping lamps lit. .
Erich From wrote the great little book Art of Loving which differentiated clearly between falling in love and standing in love. Jesus teaches that we must stand in love, let the Word grow within us, hold onto the Message, let time and nurturing allow for roots to take hold. We must open ourselves.
Grace is the unwarranted gift of God. Grace is like the sunshine. We have it. We have always had it. We don’t know why it’s there yet it gives us life. Sun worship is one of the first spiritual experiences of humans collectively. Pagans have Sun Gods and Sun God worship. Constantine who institutionalized Christianity, taking the teachings of Jesus and making them into a State Religion of the Roman Empire, which later became the Roman Catholic Church, was a Sun God worshiper. This is why so much pagan Sun God symbolism and worship crept into the new Gentile/Israeli homogenized religion. Roman Catholicism to this day remains a State Religion, the Vatican, it’s own country with it’s own police, army , stamps and boundaries. The Church of England, Anglicanism, Episcopalianism, is also a state church, though slightly more distinct from the nation state that founded it.
Jesus’ message was radical. One of the challenges for the individual is to separate the true message of Jesus from the thorns of state and ‘deceitful wealth’ because the Church, especially the Catholic and the Anglican are intimately woven into the status quo of their associated State religion. . The STATE killed Jesus. The Political figures of Israel in it’s day and the political figures of the Empire killed Jesus. They were satanic like the birds in the parables. Great black crows and vultures that swooped down on the son of God and killed him in a time space extravaganza action movie of all time.
Then one day, the STATE, made an unholy alliance with the religion of man and the religion of God. Much of Sun God worship still exists in this New Christianity of post Nicea. The Nicene Creed is the agreement between STATE and Christians which saw the end of the persecution of Christians and allowed the politics to get on with making strange bedfellows. All religions are the feet of spirituality. It is where God touches earth. It’s the muck our faith grows from. It is the outside. St. Theresa of Avila taught this well in her book, Inner Castle.
The Mystery is the darkness that is in all religions because man makes religions as he/she makes nations. So the religion state of atheism is communism and the religion/state of the Roman Empire was paganism, then Catholicism, as the religion/state of Russia was once Orthodox Christianity. The religion/state of the Islam was the Ottoman Empire which today is Saudi Arabia and Iran. There is no separation of state and religion in the religion of aetheism in communism just as there is no separation of state and religion of the Church of England. There’s a list of political martyrs who were Christians who disagreed with the powers of this earth and were sacrificed to deceitful wealth as were Jesus and St. Peter. Thomas Crammer comes to mind and St. Oliver Plunkett. Christians are the most persecuted people of the earth today. Yet if a woman questions the State Religion Book, the Koran and wants to be a leader, well, Isis will behead her too.
The atheists killed hundreds of millions in this last century , as did the Pagans under Hitler, with the Moslems are still having a bloody good time today with their Internet hollywood beheadings. The Christians live on in the United State American Empire, a bit like they do in the Post Christian , Post Britain English Empire. In Ankor Watt times the Buddhists and Hindus were whacking each other in the name of religion since state and religion separation is only a very modern idea, at most a century or three old. Today’s secularism is a novelty which might well be considered a merger of Satan and God much like the birth of the Roman Catholic Empire. It’s hard to say. Up close politics is never easy to read despite the sound bite silliness of propaganda media.
Decietful Wealth, promissory materialism is countered with ‘you can’t take it with you’ and the lie of Satan is that this world ends with death. But if that were true Shakespeare’s Hamlet would not have been given the greatest parable of modern English, “To sleep, to dream, that is the rub.” So the materialist would believe they don’t dream. Even animals dream but atheists insist death isn’t a dream state for the individual even now when we have dream post brain death scientific evidence. The near death experiences of those who have returned miraculously to life were best recorded by Dr. Moody. Yet Dr. Eben Alexander, the Neurosurgeon who died and resurrected like Lazarus published a book, Proof of Heaven and it falls like seeds on the parking lot minds of atheists. Quantum Physics and String Theory teach us scientifically today that the world may well be a great Matrix, a Shrodinger Cat box of energy and matter, inner and outer, As the Bible taught we are created in the Image of God so the universe is much more than the imagination of God and we are co creators of this dream of life and death. Information transferring under laws of conservation and spirituality. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Pray.
One can hear the terror in their voices of the promissory materialist atheists as they switch their fear from their own imminent death and claim the planet is going to die, a grandiose delusion if ever there was one.
I may die. God does not die. And if I die I will dream of God as God dreams of me. But these are parables. It’s hard to understand these things on the outside. And the mystery is that I really don’t know individually if I am on the inside or the outside but there’s a sense that all is one.
The great painting on the Cistine Chapel is Adam reaching out to God and God touching his finger. Personally I am blessed to have seen this greatest work of the age by Michelangelo. The sensual love Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa for her enigmatic smile may or may not offer a man sex or a child love. It’s that uncertain. But Adam and God reach towards each other and where Grace and Faith meet so sparks fly. It's that certain.
And in the parable of the farmer, the seeds grow and multiply, 30 times, 60 times, a hundred times. The Big Bang is within.
Turn and be forgiven!
Saturday, July 11, 2015
The Move
It was a diabolical surprise. The lease was not extended. We lease from year to year as little companies whereas bigger companies, more attractive to owners, lease from decade to decade. There is no Office Aid for us little businesses. Musicians don’t gather to throw benefits as we go under one after another. We take these things in stride. It’s not the first time for me. I was moved from the Broadway corridor, with it’s $6 and $8 an hour parking, when the building I was in was sold. This time my office in the Downtown East Side (DTES) went as the floor was overrun with lucrative business. I worry I attract prosperity like the Rain God in Mostly Harmless. It doesn’t benefit me but the area around me grows rich by association. My few idiot savant patients cause the gods to smile on all those they visit.
I’m just a doctor. Today the traditional is eclipsed by the conventional. My little office lawyer neighbours left the month before me. Someone somewhere would have us all in bigger collectives, transcontinental corporations, so we could all benefit from the economies of scale. Bigger is better. The pressure has always been on me to join a collection of shrinks, pool our resources and factory work the mentally illl like Big business and Big government does. Maybe then I could buy some Big Machine and be a Big CEO and get pay 50 million to go away. Maybe one day we can all profit in our chosen profession of health care, when death is no longer more lucrative, with abortion and euthanasia competing for top dollar. It’s all so, attractive, in a sick psychotic way.
I suppose I could buy and mortgage. I could increase my debt becoming a greater slave in this slave society of indentured labourers and pimps. I lack the commitment, though. The threat of nuclear war throughout my youth has harmed my faith in real estate. Ex wives have profited by my buying houses. I imagine only the realtors would profit from my buying an office. And I’d feel more trapped than I already do, lacking the necessary space ship to depart this world of woe. I was given scholarships and wasn’t trained so early in servitude, with disgusting student debts, the way the young are today.
So I have moved. Thank God, for Angel, my office administrator, and Bill Gyles and his friends who moved me. The disruption and chaos are astonishing. I can’t find anything. And yet I muddle on looking like a professional while all around me there is disorder. I have no external validation for my own internal organization. I muddle along doing what I always do in this new place. Yet I was stretched to my outer limits before this latest ‘challenge’. The word challenge is the new therapy speak for Cluster Fuck.
Of course more is expected of me while those above me, increasingly more powerful and richer, do less and less and demand more and more. I’m dying in my harness. Bets are now being made as to which stress related disease I will die from. All the while I am told to exercise more, rest more, eat better and take more holidays. I have no time and no benefits. Thos who look down on me are paid for by my exorbitant taxes. Like Job, my sickness is blamed on my lifestyle and my sins. Yet the moment I stop dancing feverishly someone from central casting or the internal revenue service would be there in an instant to take my costume and flog me for the slave I am. I believe Satan has a lot more to do with matters than those who are denied the knowledge of his name.
I believe God and Lucifer conspire in a game like something out of Matrix or Buckaroo Bonzai. It would be so easy to fall into the Marxist Leninist paranoid stance of us and them when I know there is but one God and I’m not it. I struggle to love where fear is far easier, this myth of Sisyphus in the existential angst of existence.
I have moved. There is less shouting in the streets below than there was in the Downtown Eastside. Here there are not hourly sirens. When I go for lunch I am not hustled bootleg cigarettes, hard drugs or illicit sex block to block. I’ve not explored my neighbourhood. There’s a Serenity Shop beside me and a gun store. I wonder why this block requires the three of us to be together. God moves in mysterious ways. One stop shopping at the local mall. If serenity doesn’t work, see the shrink and if that doesn’t work, buy a gun. And if none of those seem likely solutions for what ails, there’s a tattoo shop and a bridal gown consignment store.
This is suburbia. My first psychiatric office, some 25 years ago was in the suburbs. It all comes full circle. And when I began I had no idea of where I’ve been. I am that moved.
I’m just a doctor. Today the traditional is eclipsed by the conventional. My little office lawyer neighbours left the month before me. Someone somewhere would have us all in bigger collectives, transcontinental corporations, so we could all benefit from the economies of scale. Bigger is better. The pressure has always been on me to join a collection of shrinks, pool our resources and factory work the mentally illl like Big business and Big government does. Maybe then I could buy some Big Machine and be a Big CEO and get pay 50 million to go away. Maybe one day we can all profit in our chosen profession of health care, when death is no longer more lucrative, with abortion and euthanasia competing for top dollar. It’s all so, attractive, in a sick psychotic way.
I suppose I could buy and mortgage. I could increase my debt becoming a greater slave in this slave society of indentured labourers and pimps. I lack the commitment, though. The threat of nuclear war throughout my youth has harmed my faith in real estate. Ex wives have profited by my buying houses. I imagine only the realtors would profit from my buying an office. And I’d feel more trapped than I already do, lacking the necessary space ship to depart this world of woe. I was given scholarships and wasn’t trained so early in servitude, with disgusting student debts, the way the young are today.
So I have moved. Thank God, for Angel, my office administrator, and Bill Gyles and his friends who moved me. The disruption and chaos are astonishing. I can’t find anything. And yet I muddle on looking like a professional while all around me there is disorder. I have no external validation for my own internal organization. I muddle along doing what I always do in this new place. Yet I was stretched to my outer limits before this latest ‘challenge’. The word challenge is the new therapy speak for Cluster Fuck.
Of course more is expected of me while those above me, increasingly more powerful and richer, do less and less and demand more and more. I’m dying in my harness. Bets are now being made as to which stress related disease I will die from. All the while I am told to exercise more, rest more, eat better and take more holidays. I have no time and no benefits. Thos who look down on me are paid for by my exorbitant taxes. Like Job, my sickness is blamed on my lifestyle and my sins. Yet the moment I stop dancing feverishly someone from central casting or the internal revenue service would be there in an instant to take my costume and flog me for the slave I am. I believe Satan has a lot more to do with matters than those who are denied the knowledge of his name.
I believe God and Lucifer conspire in a game like something out of Matrix or Buckaroo Bonzai. It would be so easy to fall into the Marxist Leninist paranoid stance of us and them when I know there is but one God and I’m not it. I struggle to love where fear is far easier, this myth of Sisyphus in the existential angst of existence.
I have moved. There is less shouting in the streets below than there was in the Downtown Eastside. Here there are not hourly sirens. When I go for lunch I am not hustled bootleg cigarettes, hard drugs or illicit sex block to block. I’ve not explored my neighbourhood. There’s a Serenity Shop beside me and a gun store. I wonder why this block requires the three of us to be together. God moves in mysterious ways. One stop shopping at the local mall. If serenity doesn’t work, see the shrink and if that doesn’t work, buy a gun. And if none of those seem likely solutions for what ails, there’s a tattoo shop and a bridal gown consignment store.
This is suburbia. My first psychiatric office, some 25 years ago was in the suburbs. It all comes full circle. And when I began I had no idea of where I’ve been. I am that moved.
Alive on a Saturday
It’s a miracle really. I’m alive on this Saturday. Years ago I went to a meeting, Alive on the Drive. It was alive. I was a live. It was a miracle. We were all miracles. Spiritual beings living in a material world. All week long I am bombarded by the fear based media materialism. Everything is money. We’re all reduced to the numbers of the gas camps. It’s not a tattoo that new totalitarian fascist communist entity puts on our arms but rather it’s a number they keep in a bank account somewhere. Everything is fixed then, finite. Convenient for the bean counters. They never could get trigonometry. They’re stuck in algebraic. Personally I’ve never transcended geometric. I’m happy with the Trinity.
They say though I am this number. I am shamed by this new apartheid. Leonard Cohen would call it the old snake in the new skin, fashions being what they are.
Even the Pope has become a lunatic with his pseudoscience climate change didactics. We had Old Testament Droughts and the prophets said they were the acts of God. Repent did mean we should all buy solar power panels then. What has become of the spiritual for this supposed St. Francis reincarnate. He sounds more and more each day like a worn out marxist. Jesus and his merry crew were small ‘c’ communist not big “C”, Marx Lenninist perpetual class war die hards. He speaks of the poor in proletariat dichotomies. Marx was an atheist and big C communism was the religion of atheism. So what is this Pope speaking in the words of Marx when we would hope these tired days for at very least Isaiah. Repent. Turn inwards. Seek God. Forgive Promissory Materialism. St. Francis transcended the economics of his day, coopted by the church when he worked to feed the poor rather than join the latest materialist political fashion.
With local fires and water restrictions I was remembering Steinbeck and the 30’s. That brought to mind David and the droughts of ancient Egypt. Then I thought of the recurrent feared prairies fires of Saskatchewan throughout the hundreds of years before man’s genetically modified farming efforts as a side effect slowed the wild fires. But no one reads history any more. The sweat of men in ancient days caused ‘climate change’?! It must have been the horse drawn buggies of the prairies and the first model T ford cars that caused the later droughts.
I am a heretic to even think these thoughts. I am Galileo before the Pope today. That most corrupt of all deadly entities, the United Nations, home of arms dealers, with their appalling necrophiliacs Agenda 21, their kangaroo courts, and bully consensus are as terrifying as Herod and Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler. Layers and layers of make work bureaucracy are more wasteful than all the plastic containers in the world today. Why can’t we have a recycle bin for the United Nations? Despot leaders and terrorist nations call Israel the great Satan and some would even promote Sharia Law to put women back in the gilded cage.
They just make this shit up as they go. No one confronts the idiocy. There’s no truth just groupspeak. George Orwell and 1984 are gagging in their graves. The media is a propaganda organ for mass stupidity while our own nations pushes marijunia as the solution to all that ails you. Meanwhile we invade Afghanistan to destroy their poppy fields. And the soldiers can’t help but see the irony of Flander’s Fields.
I am alive today. I am alive. This is a sacred moment for me. A miracle. I am enjoying the summer warmth and the morning breeze. I am grateful for the inexplicable reality of life, my life and this moment’s chance to focus not on the outward insanity but inwardly on God. This great and loving Mystery. How come I to be here and a part of this wondrous celebration of life. Here among trees and birds and animals. I thank you Creator. Thank you dear Grace. Please grant me love, wisdom and wealth that I might serve you better if it be Thy will. Give health and wellness to my loved ones and guide me in your purpose. May I serve you better. Thank you this day.
They say though I am this number. I am shamed by this new apartheid. Leonard Cohen would call it the old snake in the new skin, fashions being what they are.
Even the Pope has become a lunatic with his pseudoscience climate change didactics. We had Old Testament Droughts and the prophets said they were the acts of God. Repent did mean we should all buy solar power panels then. What has become of the spiritual for this supposed St. Francis reincarnate. He sounds more and more each day like a worn out marxist. Jesus and his merry crew were small ‘c’ communist not big “C”, Marx Lenninist perpetual class war die hards. He speaks of the poor in proletariat dichotomies. Marx was an atheist and big C communism was the religion of atheism. So what is this Pope speaking in the words of Marx when we would hope these tired days for at very least Isaiah. Repent. Turn inwards. Seek God. Forgive Promissory Materialism. St. Francis transcended the economics of his day, coopted by the church when he worked to feed the poor rather than join the latest materialist political fashion.
With local fires and water restrictions I was remembering Steinbeck and the 30’s. That brought to mind David and the droughts of ancient Egypt. Then I thought of the recurrent feared prairies fires of Saskatchewan throughout the hundreds of years before man’s genetically modified farming efforts as a side effect slowed the wild fires. But no one reads history any more. The sweat of men in ancient days caused ‘climate change’?! It must have been the horse drawn buggies of the prairies and the first model T ford cars that caused the later droughts.
I am a heretic to even think these thoughts. I am Galileo before the Pope today. That most corrupt of all deadly entities, the United Nations, home of arms dealers, with their appalling necrophiliacs Agenda 21, their kangaroo courts, and bully consensus are as terrifying as Herod and Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler. Layers and layers of make work bureaucracy are more wasteful than all the plastic containers in the world today. Why can’t we have a recycle bin for the United Nations? Despot leaders and terrorist nations call Israel the great Satan and some would even promote Sharia Law to put women back in the gilded cage.
They just make this shit up as they go. No one confronts the idiocy. There’s no truth just groupspeak. George Orwell and 1984 are gagging in their graves. The media is a propaganda organ for mass stupidity while our own nations pushes marijunia as the solution to all that ails you. Meanwhile we invade Afghanistan to destroy their poppy fields. And the soldiers can’t help but see the irony of Flander’s Fields.
I am alive today. I am alive. This is a sacred moment for me. A miracle. I am enjoying the summer warmth and the morning breeze. I am grateful for the inexplicable reality of life, my life and this moment’s chance to focus not on the outward insanity but inwardly on God. This great and loving Mystery. How come I to be here and a part of this wondrous celebration of life. Here among trees and birds and animals. I thank you Creator. Thank you dear Grace. Please grant me love, wisdom and wealth that I might serve you better if it be Thy will. Give health and wellness to my loved ones and guide me in your purpose. May I serve you better. Thank you this day.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
King Lear, Bard on the Beach, Vancouver, BC
Bard on the Beach was great fun last night. I confess, I’d not been since the 90’s. Then I’d loved the comedies but had tired of sitting on a blanket, aging hippy that I am. The last night I was there it was raining, the wind was blowing, I was getting wet and I really didn’t like the metal folding chair I was sitting on. Now Bard on the Beach by comparison is epic. The theatre is a really solid tent that appears like it could take a gale force wind. The stage of Pam Johnson and Gerald King was spectacular too. I loved the set design for King Lear. I loved Deitra Kalyn’s costumes. Bard on the Beach has come along way from those almost amateur theatre to a Stratford tour de force it is today. .
King Lear is my favourite play of William Shakespeare. I studied Shakespeare in my undergraduate honours English and Theatre program before deciding instead on sciences and becoming a physician. To this day I reflect fondly back on those King Lear classes when all the nuances and references of the rich layered language of Shakespeare were explained. Now I’ve seen several Lear and watched the movies starring the likes of Olivier and Hurt. Despite and because of all that, I loved last night’s King Lear.
Laura was enjoying Bard on the Beach for the first time and loved it too. “There was too much ‘shouting of lines’ for me.” I told her after. "I love a quiet intense King Lear." For me Shakespeare is all language and intensity. Volume kills it for me. Rushed delivery irritates me. There was some of that. I didn’t even hear a couple of my all time favourite lines. The play is the essence of philosophy and theology. It’s all about our relationships as parents and children, as leaders and servants, civil and filial duty, about determinism and free will, about gratitude and loyalty, about the inner and outer world. I am forever mesmerized when Lear says to Cordelia, “Lets away to prison….an talk of courtly things, whose in, whose out.” I imagine that line written about the abysmal CBC news or CNN. I love best Lear’s line “I”m more sinned against than sinning” and all the references to Job and consideration of Machiavelli. Divine right and just a man and Marx turning Hegel on his head and today’s euthanasia for our parents all makes Shakespeare a whole lot more relevant than the UN.
So I loved last night’s show, despite the time constraints and the slapstick loudness of the mad scenes. As a psychiatrist I’m today more aware of the mad and know that drunkeness is loud but madness is best delivered quietly. Again the language and the meaning are what count. Yet, that’s the joy of Shakespeare. I loved this performance because it was a really good romp. I think truly, the fight scenes are the best I ‘ve scene. I loved the choreography. I actually came away appreciating the actual plot, that weird soap opera history of Shakespeare as those times appear to us despite our own Bill Clinton, Kardasian, reality tv and pot smoking Justin. The performance really did make clear the history and the relationships of daughters and sons to fathers. Ironically there are no mothers in the play and the challenge of Shakespeare is that the men must deliver the maternal in the end.
The acting of Benedict Campbell was a tour de force. Some parts of Lear came alive for me with his insightful interpretation. All together it was an amazing performance. My criticism does not detract from the overall brilliance of a grand performance. The daughters Goneril and Regan played by Colleen Wheeler and Jennifer Lines were the very best of shrew, haughty looks and leachers wretch. Cordelia played by Andrea Rankin was as pretty as a penny and sweet but not so womanly as to deliver well enough for me some of the greatest lines in English history. Decian O’Reilley played Duke of Albany with immense skill showing the amazing transformation of character that makes the play so dynamic. Duke of Cornwall, by Robert Klein, was simple perfection, as if born for this role. I loved Earl of Clouchester played by David Marr because he really got the complexity of this character. John Murphy’s Earl of Kent was my favourite Kent of all time. What a great actor. The fool played by Scott Bellis was hit or miss for me though I can’t say why. Goneril’s Oswald, played by Ian Butcher was quite simply excellent. Edgar, played by Nathan Schmidt almost made it because the play demands he move from party boy, to fool to king to be and I couldn’t help feeling he was one step short in the finale, though really all together he was amazing. Edgar, played by Nathan Schmidt was truly villainously perfect, his arrogance oozing and his reversal subtly handled.
So despite my own demands for perfection I loved this play and would recommend it to anyone. I do think Shakespeare is best met first in a comedy especially in a Bard on the Beach like setting but King Lear is akin to Hamlet and MacBeth, though better, so if one wishes to see what may well be Shakespeares’ greatest, then this is the time and place. I think Dennis Garnhum, the director has made King Lear more accessible than it might otherwise be. Focussing on the action and the plot he’s made a play that really comes alive. I have come home to read King Lear again, the play made me want to to do that, and thanks to the Dennis Garnhum’s play I read again the immortal words with even greater joy for seeing the play live at Bard on the Beach. So thank you. It was a great romp, a great performance and a lovely night out in Vancouver at one of the most beautiful locations for a theatre ever known to man. Bard on the Beach Rocks!!!
King Lear is my favourite play of William Shakespeare. I studied Shakespeare in my undergraduate honours English and Theatre program before deciding instead on sciences and becoming a physician. To this day I reflect fondly back on those King Lear classes when all the nuances and references of the rich layered language of Shakespeare were explained. Now I’ve seen several Lear and watched the movies starring the likes of Olivier and Hurt. Despite and because of all that, I loved last night’s King Lear.
Laura was enjoying Bard on the Beach for the first time and loved it too. “There was too much ‘shouting of lines’ for me.” I told her after. "I love a quiet intense King Lear." For me Shakespeare is all language and intensity. Volume kills it for me. Rushed delivery irritates me. There was some of that. I didn’t even hear a couple of my all time favourite lines. The play is the essence of philosophy and theology. It’s all about our relationships as parents and children, as leaders and servants, civil and filial duty, about determinism and free will, about gratitude and loyalty, about the inner and outer world. I am forever mesmerized when Lear says to Cordelia, “Lets away to prison….an talk of courtly things, whose in, whose out.” I imagine that line written about the abysmal CBC news or CNN. I love best Lear’s line “I”m more sinned against than sinning” and all the references to Job and consideration of Machiavelli. Divine right and just a man and Marx turning Hegel on his head and today’s euthanasia for our parents all makes Shakespeare a whole lot more relevant than the UN.
So I loved last night’s show, despite the time constraints and the slapstick loudness of the mad scenes. As a psychiatrist I’m today more aware of the mad and know that drunkeness is loud but madness is best delivered quietly. Again the language and the meaning are what count. Yet, that’s the joy of Shakespeare. I loved this performance because it was a really good romp. I think truly, the fight scenes are the best I ‘ve scene. I loved the choreography. I actually came away appreciating the actual plot, that weird soap opera history of Shakespeare as those times appear to us despite our own Bill Clinton, Kardasian, reality tv and pot smoking Justin. The performance really did make clear the history and the relationships of daughters and sons to fathers. Ironically there are no mothers in the play and the challenge of Shakespeare is that the men must deliver the maternal in the end.
The acting of Benedict Campbell was a tour de force. Some parts of Lear came alive for me with his insightful interpretation. All together it was an amazing performance. My criticism does not detract from the overall brilliance of a grand performance. The daughters Goneril and Regan played by Colleen Wheeler and Jennifer Lines were the very best of shrew, haughty looks and leachers wretch. Cordelia played by Andrea Rankin was as pretty as a penny and sweet but not so womanly as to deliver well enough for me some of the greatest lines in English history. Decian O’Reilley played Duke of Albany with immense skill showing the amazing transformation of character that makes the play so dynamic. Duke of Cornwall, by Robert Klein, was simple perfection, as if born for this role. I loved Earl of Clouchester played by David Marr because he really got the complexity of this character. John Murphy’s Earl of Kent was my favourite Kent of all time. What a great actor. The fool played by Scott Bellis was hit or miss for me though I can’t say why. Goneril’s Oswald, played by Ian Butcher was quite simply excellent. Edgar, played by Nathan Schmidt almost made it because the play demands he move from party boy, to fool to king to be and I couldn’t help feeling he was one step short in the finale, though really all together he was amazing. Edgar, played by Nathan Schmidt was truly villainously perfect, his arrogance oozing and his reversal subtly handled.
So despite my own demands for perfection I loved this play and would recommend it to anyone. I do think Shakespeare is best met first in a comedy especially in a Bard on the Beach like setting but King Lear is akin to Hamlet and MacBeth, though better, so if one wishes to see what may well be Shakespeares’ greatest, then this is the time and place. I think Dennis Garnhum, the director has made King Lear more accessible than it might otherwise be. Focussing on the action and the plot he’s made a play that really comes alive. I have come home to read King Lear again, the play made me want to to do that, and thanks to the Dennis Garnhum’s play I read again the immortal words with even greater joy for seeing the play live at Bard on the Beach. So thank you. It was a great romp, a great performance and a lovely night out in Vancouver at one of the most beautiful locations for a theatre ever known to man. Bard on the Beach Rocks!!!
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