Rain, rain, rain . . . .

"It never rains but it pours" is a suitable motto for my present situation: not only is it almost perpetually raining, but I seem to go from one review to the next these days. At least, we are attending plays every few days it seems, and of course, I am reviewing them. As I write this, I am just finishing my review of Vagabond Theatre's production of David Belke's comedy That darn plot, which, except for some directorial choices and technical issues, I liked. Within the past couple of weeks, I posted reviews on GCTC's The Oxford Roofclimber's Rebellion by Stephen Massicotte (two days ago), and NAC's The Dream Machine by Blake Brooker. In just two more weeks, I shall be up to NAC for another play.

Our Barbershop Chorus' show, Daddy Sang Bass, in which I sing baritone (not being Daddy, I guess) hits the boards at Aultsville Theatre on November 18 at 8 pm. We are working for a sellout.

The deadline for my poetry entry in the CBC Literary Awards is fast approaching (November 1). I am still revising it. Fortunately, I can submit it by email, so a last minute submission is okay. The word length is 1000 - 2000 words, and I am coming in at 1546 at present. This is the kind of poem I like best: long. I cannot write more about it here until the judging is over, as the entries have to be submitted anonymously.

I have a conference by phone later today with my dramaturg for a murder script I am writing, and a script phone conference Tuesday with the MCs for the Barbershop show, for which I am also doing layout for the printed program.

It just keeps on raining showbiz.

Is Vagabond Theatre dying?

I was just speaking to my buddy, Bill Roddy, who is an accomplished actor, heavily involved in all aspects of theatre. Bill is currently a member of the cast of Vagabond Theatre's production of That Darned Plot by David Belke. He tells me that they have been playing to a handful of patrons each night.

In some ways this is a puzzling development; in other ways not. It is puzzling in that Vagabond Theatre has developed a loyal following over more than two decades. In a small city like Cornwall, that should count for something. It is not puzzling in that the venue for the play is much too large; any audience that does show up always comes away with a sense that the community is not really into this venture. Of course, there are two aspects to theatre production that affect theatre attendance, and they are almost totally unrelated: production quality and good old selling hustle. You can have all the quality in the world, but if you do not have the hustle, nobody will know you exist. I think that as far as Vagabond Theatre is concerned, they have not hustled. The same is true of many community ventures: you can't resent your audience for not showing up; you have to rethink the selling side of the venture and get some real hustlers out there pushing it.

It would be a shame to lose Vagabond Theatre, but, then, very few community theatre groups survive very long. We'll be there Saturday. I hope a lot of other people will, too.

Canadian War Museum in Ottawa

First, since this is a blog about wordcurrents, I will mention my Sapphic stanzas poem, "Remembrance at the War Museum", in which I speak of the emotionally charged tour Flora and I took through there with good friends Jane and John Cornwall, who were visiting from Mississauga, and who had visited us with the idea of visiting the museum, along with the Petra exhibit at the Museum of Civilization, across the river in Gatineau (Hull) Quebec. Both museums are within a few blocks of each other, have indoor parking, and are administratively connected so that you can purchase combined tickets to exhibits at both, as the "Civilization" link above indicates.

We visited on a Monday, and there were hardly any people in the vast place. I would recommend Monday as a pretty good time to visit. Parking was not expensive, nor did we have very far to walk to the stairs/elevator. By the way, the web site lists dates and times and conditions in which admission is free, although I imagine the parking fee is still charged.

So much for admin details.

I learned quite a bit from the first exhibit we saw: Clash of Empires: The War That Made Canada 1754-1763 — I had no idea that war started in Pittsburgh, nor that Winston Churchill had called the Seven Years War "The first world war." There were many interesting touches, video and artifacts, displays and documents, that were very interesting, showing such details as Washington's early campaigns while he was still fighting for England. There were knowledgeable volunteer guides there and really in aboth museums, who were really helpful. This is not a permanent exhibit, so if you are interested, I suggest you get in there this fall.

I really will let "Remembrance at the War Museum" do most of my speaking for me, although I will say this: some striking aspects of the exhibit are Hitler's actual open-topped black Mercedes-Benz with bullet-spattered windshields and photos of him in it, a realistic view of Normandy beach from inside a landing craft, the stories of several wartime internees from that insanely black part of our history, and much more, including a wonderful encounter with two vet volunteers.

The Virtual museum site is also a rich source of material. Either way, especially at this time of year, these things are worth thinking about.

Blue

This trip inspired "Blue"; as you can see, there is a lot of blue in the photo.



This is a view downstream (towards the north-east) at the head of Lake St. Francis in the St.Lawrence Seaway. To starboard is one of the green winter stick-buoys marking the south (Quebec) side of the channel. What a beautiful day this was. All of the land masses visible in this shot are islands. Below is an enlargement of the horizon, showing the little floating islands that really seem to inhabit a never-land between earth and sky.

Wet snow

Here is the photo of one of the scenes that inspired "Wet snow", the little poem that I just published in wordcurrents. We were driving home from an afternoon with friends, playing bridge, when the rain turned to snow. Back home, I took this photo with flash off the deck in our back yard. You can see the snow on the horizontal leaves. There is a fragility to this delicate scene; you can see why trees with leaves have to be deciduous in our climate.

About "Four percent"

"Four percent" is a screed and a sort of a poem that I published yesterday in wordcurrents. As I was writing it, I was thinking of the Star Trek the Next Generation episode in which the Enterprise crew captures a warrior who has been genetically modified into the perfect fighting machine; and after he and his brethern have won the war for his civilization, they are exiled to a moon. They are only dangerous when threatened. Like so many SNG plots, this one is related to actual human archtypes, in this case, the psychopath, whom research has shown was necessary for human survival in more primitive times (and, I would argue, today and tomorrow), but is unacceptable in present "civilized" society. I suppose John Rambo is another example, or just about any lost veteran who can't fit in after the fighting is over.

I see "Four percent" as a template for some future poems that are more like poetry, because I think there is a lot of pathos and therefore poetic subject matter in such a subject. The psychopath has several characteristics of the tragic figure: alienation, isolation, a tragic flaw — all built in.

Another current literary example of the interesting psychopath is the main character in HBO's new series on the Movie Network: Dexter. This is CSI is Jack the Ripper is Sherlock Holmes *shudder*. Here is a serial killer who works to solve crimes by day and secretly hunts down and kills serial killers by night. The interesting twist on this is that Dexter himself is being stalked. It would be even more interesting if the stalker were his sister, an apparently not-so-smart police woman he helps progress through the ranks by giving her clues that make her appear smarter than she is.

CBC Literary Awards

I was just reading Alison Pick's winning entry for the most recent awards. If you click on the title above, or this link — CBC Literary Awards 2006 — you will open a window on the links to all the winners from last year. Pick's entry is pretty impressive.

When one enters one of these contests, it is useful to be able to read previous winners, just so you can allow yourself to fall into the morass of despond and not expect too much. * signs and pounds forehead *

The winners are published in Air Canada's En Route Magazine, which appends the following disclaimer:

"The views expressed by the writers do not represent the views of enRoute, Spafax or Air Canada. Certain readers may be offended by the contents."

Don't you love it? More of Big Brother looking out for those of us who may be offended. I think there are a lot of people in this world who should be offended more often. Just in our own country they should be offended by child poverty, homelessness, the hoarding of wealth — and the list goes on; don't get me started.

On that subject, I am offended by the huge number of times TV programs warn us after each commercial break that "the following program may contain scenes of nudity, violence and coarse language. Viewer descretion is advised" — and then after they've gotten my hopes up, the closest thing to nudity is an occasional unclad family pet, the closest thing to coarse language wouldn't be bleeped on The Actors Studio and the violence is all about the same as you see on the street at noon. I recall sending a letter home to parents in the seventies, when we decided to show Roman Polanski's MacBeth* to students in the school auditorium. I told them that the film was reputed to have a nude scene and considerable violence. The only reaction I got back from the parents was that they applauded our decision to show the kids saw something with some issues in it, keep up the good work. The film really impressed the kids, and the followup classroom discussions were very productive. About ten years later, I showed the same film, and found the kids giggling at the gory death scenes, then realized, during the followup discussions that they were seeing the gore through the filter of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which I think may have used the same costumes. How times change.


* Produced, dear readers, by Playboy Magazine

Swamped

The CBC Literary Awards deadline is November 1. I have just realized, upon reading the rules, that I cannot submit any of the 260+ poems I have published so far this year in wordcurrrents, nor any of the other poems I have published in the three poetry forums I post in.

Interesting limitation; interesting complication. Fortunately, I still have time to work on my entry of 1,000 - 2,000 words of verse. But, in the meantime, I am trying to learn the music for our concert November 18, and work on the playscript. If I still had a job, I would probably have time to do this; but since I am retired, it is quite hopeless. Now we know what a job is for: to protect one from the demands on free time.

I had better get going on writing todays' poem for wordcurrents; I haven't even decided yet what it will be. I drove the boat down river to the marina for winter storage today. Beautiful bright calm day for a ten kilometre trek by boat. Maybe I'll write about that.

Do I want members?

I just discovered the other day that I can set up registration in wordcurrents so that readers can subscribe to the blog and receive emails when I post something. The email list is set up by category, so that readers only receive posts related to categories they pick.

In my case, if they choose "theatre reviews" they will receive about two or three emails per month; but if they select "poetry", they will be bombarded every day at least once. I suppose that if I post, then edit the same posting two or three times, as I sometimes do, they will receive an email every time. Yikes!

I'm wondering what my friends will think if they visit the site and don't join? Will they be pissed off? Will I?

The advantage is that I can send a massive email to all my registered subscribers if I have something momentous to say.

I have been amazed at the geographical spread of readership: China, Australia, Morrocco, India, USA, Canada, Argentina, UK, Austria, UAE . . . the list goes on. Some readers stay a while, too. I have also been amazed by the erudition of the readers.

I think a reason I am glad to give readers the ability to register is that it gives me more of a sense of dialogue. Most readers seem very reluctant to comment. This may be a way of making them feel more like saying something. I sure hope so.

About riverwriter and wordcurrents

Since this is about wordcurrents, you have to be able to find it: wordcurrents

wordcurrents is an outlet for my poetry and theatre reviews.

As of today, October 15, I have posted 264 of my own new poems there, since February 14, 2006, more than one per day. I have taken part in three poetry forums as riverwriter, using the avatar below to the right, which I think is a pretty good likeness:

If you want to see more about me, you can visit my Zoints profile, which has a photo taken last year, which is nothing like my avatar, although some people think it actually has some resemblance to me; I can't see it, but that may be vanity.

If you don't want to visit Zoints, just know that I am a Canadian writer living in Ontario pretty close to the easternmost point at which the St. Lawrence River is the northern border of New york State, Whenre New york, Ontario, Quebec and Akwesasne meet. Akwesasne is the Rez where my summer cottage is, but more about that in future.

One of the things I'll be discussing here is gathering my poetry together into coherent collections. When you publish a new poem every day, obviously some of it is not worth collecting; but some of it is, and finding it in a blog of this size is not simple, hence the collections.

riverwriter