This week in friendlies: phone edition

I was supposed to go out with a friend tomorrow, but we had to change our plans. We ended up talking on the phone, though. We shall call her rrraquel.

And earlier today (as I made my breakfast... at 3 PM) my friend Gilby called. We haven't spoken since Christmas, so it was nice to catch up. 

I met both friends at my old job--we were all part of the new staff hired on to open up the store when it was new. It was a big format store, and so many great people were hired, we all walked around a little suspicious in the beginning. 

- [whisper] Do you find you like a really high % of people here?

- [whisper] Ya, it's really weird.

I had certain groups of friends with whom I'd go out to lunch, and certain groups I'd sit in the back doorway with while they had their smokes, and other groups with whom I'd go drinking next door after work (I drank ginger ale), and other groups with whom I went to Chenoy's and debated Life with 'til 3 AM, and other friends with whom I went to Chenoy's and talked about our own lives with 'til 3 AM.

That never really changed. The average age of people hired decreased, but in all the years I worked there, I not only made a ton of friends myself, but I saw generation after generation make their own gang of friends-for-life. I guess book stores attract interesting, quirky, intelligent, fun people. I'd recommend working at one, except it's a March of the Dinosaurs.

My friends rrraquel and Gilby were practically opposites, but sometimes the three of us would go to the dessert place next door (gone now) and loved being served by Raoul, who gave everyone a Spanish name, forgot our orders, and was very charming. He died a few years ago of throat cancer.  :-(  

Anyway, two important outcomes of these phone calls. Important to The Arts.

1. Gilby needs us to go ahead with Gilmabelfest 2011 even if he needs to shoulder more of the cost this year. I suggested he come to my city, stay with his folks, we see one show. He expressed disapproval of this plan in his Usual Gilby Fashion that I won't repeat. So I guess I'll be off to see him again in the fall, and to see some great shows. Time to start planning! Gilmabelfest 2011!

2. rrraquel told me Videotron picked up Turner Movie Classics channel at the beginning of April!!! I didn't know!!! There's always been a classics channel but it was poopy. Not the real one! TURNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  She said it's to compete with Netflicks, which must explain the other great no-commercial movie channels I now have.

TURNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend is Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, which me loves. And it's playing in French this weekend on Cinépop, which I was going to tape as well.

And on PBS this weekend starts the new Upstairs, Downstairs. It's a sequel, but I've never seen the original so I hope I understand.

Farewell to Gilmabelfest!

And a lovely time was had by all. Tomorrow I'm off to wrestle with the flights again. They look even worse than Friday's, so I've decided to try going through Ottawa. At least I don't have a deadline, but wish me luck that I don't get stuck in the nation's capitol overnight!

Gilmabelfest Day 3 - I am always having heavy-deep thoughts, except of course when I am not having heavy-deep thoughts.

I may have mentioned before that I've historically tended to use my summer trip out west as a time to assess my life, look at where I'm going, where I want to go, etc.

It's only just started, so I've come to no conclusions yet, I can only look at the couple things that have struck me...

Oscar Wilde's style of writing in epigrams is easy to make fun of like in this Monty Python skit. "There is only one thing worse than doing X, and that is not doing X."

I can resist everything except temptation.
I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

And so on. But there's a lot of truth in many of his lines. Like the famous one about "not being talked about." And I liked this one in the play last night: "in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician." The context in the play is that the protagonist can't come out and admit to something dishonest he did in his youth, because it would end his political career. And politicians have to act like their perfectly moral, for an audience full of immoral people. It's crazy.

And this line by Lord Goring struck me for the first time:

"Never mind what I say, Robert!  I am always saying what I shouldn’t say.  In fact, I usually say what I really think.  A great mistake nowadays.  It makes one so liable to be misunderstood."

No wonder Goring is my favourite character--that's the story of my life. Not that I believe in just spouting out everything that comes into my mind, and I don't. But there's something true in there, that the more real you are, the more likely you are to be misunderstood. I guess because you're not cleaning up and organizing the phrase for mass consumption first.

And I've always loved "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it." I take life very seriously, but that's not how I deal or interact with it. And the more serious I'm expected to be, the less I feel like myself.

Anyway, I'm just blathering. I'm not sure what I took away from An Ideal Husband, except that I know I took away something. At the very least it reinforced my love of all things Oscar.

What I got from [title of show] was a little simpler. It touches on all the usual themes in art, about being yourself, creating what you love, having confidence in your own vision, not editing yourself for mass consumption. One of the songs on that theme is Die, Vampire Die! And the other is Nine People's Favourite Thing: "I'd rather be nine people's favourite thing than a hundred peoples' ninth favourite thing." Nothing new or heavy deep, but I'm glad they included it in the show, because these things are definitely part of the creative process.

Anyway, that's it.

Gilmabelfest Day 3 - [title of show]

Heading out to [title of show].

We drove a good ways down the length of Yonge Street, so I was checking out the sights. Like the revelation that MTV is run by the Masons.

This store put spikes all over their letters, presumably to prevent pigeons from nesting. But the pigeons still found a spot!

Our play today was a small production of a not well known show called [title of show]. It's autobiographical, about two guys trying to write a musical about writing a musical, starring themselves and two friends. In real life (as in the play) they did this for a festival, and then got picked up off-Broadway, and in 2008 made it to Broadway.


I believe these are the two original guys:



It was really clever and funny, and the production we saw was so well done. So much so that I have trouble watching the original guys, because I feel like my actors were The Guys. If you have a chance to see it, I'd recommend it (though I can't vouch for the quality of other productions.) I see (on their list) one Canadian showing, in Montreal.

Oscar-D and Porthos-S pose before the theatah.

Return to Maison CG.

Pretty street whereupon is situated Maison CG.

And so Gilmabelfest nears its end. In an hour we're heading out for suppa with Midnightstreet & Vidal, and tomorrow morning I fly out. We've agreed this year was an even bigger success than last year--all three productions were top notch. Yays!

Gilmabelfest Day 2 - part 2 Oscar's Moment

Today I went for sushi with Gilby and his girlfriend; then G and I headed out on the road with Oscar Doll and Porthos, to see Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake.




Here we are stuck in traffic, which has been the theme of this visit. We even had traffic at 11:30 PM coming back into town last night. (Gives time to photograph the sights.)


Gilby was feeling sleepy on the road, so we pulled off the highway to look for a Provider of Coffee.

Mabel: Maybe the Petro-Canada there.
Gilby: There's a MacDonald's.
[heading towards McD.]
Mabel: What kind of Canada is this if there's no Tim Horton's when you need one?!!
Gilby: [points to the mall by McD.] There's one there.

Wow. Tim Horton's really is the spirit of Canada. We were like something straight out of one of their ads.


I wonder if the Shaw Festival has a more secure financial future than the Stratford, just because there's so much more to offer tourists in this area. Stratford is kinda cute in the center of town, but otherwise not all that eye-rocking; whereas NOTL is gorgeous, it's wine country, and near the Falls.


The city must have money because they've planted copious amounts of flowers all up and down the main road, and all the buildings are well kept. There's lots of gatronomie type restaurants, mostly attached the many vineyards. We passed plenty of mansions as well.

The city center is *precious.* Like a Hummel figurine.

We ran into some horsies. Horsies-girl showed Gilby how to introduce himself safely to Ebony, and then showed us how much he loves a good belly scratch. Precious.

We weren't sure what this building was, cause there was no store sign; and then saw two maids stop and offer house keeping. So it's part of a nearby hotel! Precious, I tell you.

Now, last year at Stratford we got laughed out of town when we stopped at our hotel's restaurant and asked for a table, because it was a good restaurant and people reserve even months in advance. So I'd learned my lesson, and called ahead to a couple restaurants. The one considered best in town didn't have room at 6 PM (half the people in town are there for the 8 PM play), but my second choice did--here's the Angel Inn, rebuilt in 1812.

(Tried to make the pic bigger so you can see the boys.) (And my souvenir bag.)

Here Oscar Doll waits with baited breath to witness his own genius.

As last year with Earnest, we loved the play. I enjoyed the interpretations of Miss Chevely and Lord Goring as much here as in the movie version. Rupert Everett plays Goring languidly, which I lurv, but I enjoyed this more energetic performance too. I liked Miss Mabel, but I may have to conclude that Minnie Drive is the definitive Miss Mabel--I don't think I would have fallen in the love with the character just based on this performance, as I did after seeing the movie.

I also didn't care for a couple of the costume choices and set pieces--they distracted me. (Have you ever seen a waistcoat that the front goes all the way to the knees? Very odd.) But I loved the music, and overall it was funny and dramatic and grreat!

Our drive home, traffic-jam-free. Look how the CN tower is lit up like a disco ball at night.

Gilmabelfest Day 2 - part 1 More of Maison CG

While Porthos and Oscar read their kobo in the breakfast nook, I'll show you a little of Maison Chez Gilbs...
Maison CG was purchased by him and his (now ex)wife. It feels like living in a Regency London home, because the houses here are very skinny but taaaall row houses, with little London-type back yards. You better understand the sense of "he led her up to the drawing room." You enter on the main, you go up to the kitchen-dining room-living room, then up to the office and guest bedroom, and then up to the master suite.

The house was also decorated by the previous owner, A Personage of Exceedingly Flamboyant Taste (which is why Gilby and Laurel's housewarming theme was "70s porno.") You can't throw a stick in this house without hitting (a) a mirror, or (b) a cheesy light fixture.

Here's the dining room. It has mirrors on two sides, and even a light sticking out from one of the mirrors.

Do inspect the close-up. Note the faux-melted wax.

Here is the guest bathroom, which again contains both key decorating elements, plus a wealth of marble (or fake marble, I wouldn't know.)

It's truly awesome. If I bought a house like this, I can't imagine redecorating, but rather running out to Village des Valeurs to find appropriate furnishings.

Gilmabelfest Day 1 - Part 3 Chez Maison Gilby (the only non-gay in the vill-age) (if you don't watch Little Britain, never mind)

Oscar looks worn out from all the running around.

I picked up William tonight at intermission... thought I should add him to my menagerie of traveling companions. But he looks unhappy to have to be sharing a bed. (We're right in the gay nabe, so maybe he's as at home as Oscar.) (He looks more like a musketeer than William Shakespeare, doesn't he. Maybe I'll rename his Porthos.)

Gilmabelfest Day 1 - Part 2 The Performance

So we came in at this song, were Evita's arrived in Buenos Aires. I love the song, so that was disappointing, but I expected to miss it.

At least we didn't miss "Goodnight and thank-you." And "Peron's Latest Flame" was perfect. (That song always makes me think of my friend Banana, because we saw the movie together and she died laughing at the scene of showering men singing.)

We had a great view from the back, but without my glasses I couldn't see facial expressions. So it was still nice after intermission to go down to row K. We were right in the middle, so my view of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" was exactly like this:

When Evita came out on the stage in her glowing white dress, it was one of those Great Moments in Theater, when you experience that whole "oooh zee magique of theatah!" And Chilina Kennedy blew me away throughout. I only know the Madonna version, which is very good, but the director of that film brought out a more tender, vulnerable side of Evita.

In this version, she's one tough broad. Still vulnerable, but really hiding it. The force of her personality sort of pinned you to the back of your seat. The other actors were great, but on par with the film version. Kennedy, on the other hand, was just a totally different version than the Madonna/Alan Parker version. Really electric.

Here's her "Don't Cry for Me". Her acting in this scene was riveting.


And here's Madonna in the Alan Parker film--the end of this scene is played as really heartbreaking; whereas in the Stratford version, Evita is singing faster and almost yelling at God. Two really great ways to do it, and shows how much a director's vision brings you something new. In a good production, anyway. Well worth The Race to Stratford.


Sitting next to us was a nice couple from Michigan who've been going to Strat for 40 years. Unfortunately they told us that the first 20 minutes we missed was really powerful.

So then, I hated them.

Gilmabelfest Day 1 - Part 1 Trying to get to Stratford

Well, I haven't had a standby suspense day like that in years! For years now when I've flown standby I would check in advance to see free seats vs. people registered as standby, and if there's more of the former than the latter, no problem getting on.

But I think I usually avoided traveling on a Friday! There seemed to be a lot of employees who kept showing up (every time I saw a set of brass wings I cursed!) and my dad said a lot of business travelers will show up, hoping to fly standby back home for the weekend.

Normally I really wouldn't mind--provided there's still a lot of possible flights to get on, it means a lot of sitting around in the airport, but eventually you get on and I get to my destination. My destination was usually My Mom's House, so no deadline. When I came out to Gilmabelfest last year I think I bought a ticket, though, and when I went to London of course.

But this year I thought, nah, I'll save the money and just go early enough to get through several flights. Meeps! I missed two before making it on the third. And they were at opposite ends of the concourse, which made it funnier. The first flight was at gate 1. Then gate 51. Then gate 5. And there's no moving ramp in the Montreal airport.

When I finally got my ticket, the nice employee at the gate said: Sorry we only have middle seats.

!!

(It's a one hour flight, not to mention this is a great privilege to travel for only the cost of the taxes. I don't take that for granted.)

I said: I'm just glad to get on, I'm going to a show!!

But then we left 15 minutes late because there was some connecting passenger who they weren't sure made the flight, and weren't sure if his baggage did. Damn you Passenger Jones!!!

On the plus side, they must have sent our luggage on the previous flight (though they're not supposed to for security reasons) because mine was just sitting there waiting for me on the ground by the wheel. Yay!

But Gilby hadn't put together the fact that if he'd left his nearby work early enough to be waiting for my flight, we could have left right away. (He's in charge of a huuuuge job right now, so all his brain cellulage is taken up by that. Plus I'm the planner. His enjoyment of Gilmabelfest is that he does 0 planning.)

There was traffic like a mozefoze, so he got to me by 6:35, and traffic like a mozefoze getting out of town. But we made it to the theater by 8:20, which is better than we initially hoped for. (His onstar navigation actually gave us an updated ETA as we drove, which was fun.)

It was in the smaller theater, which turned out well, because what they do is seat you secretly in the back, and you can go to your seat at intermission. Well the theater is so small they were great seats anyway! (It's where we saw Earnest last year, next to our old hotel.)

So all's well that ends well.

I'm gonna get out a heeeaah!

All the plans are finalized, I can now book myself standby on some flights. My daddyio is a retired airline pilot, so I usually go standby except when I can't afford to miss a flight, like when I went to London.

But most times I just plan for one flight, but with a couple more possibilities in case I miss it. And if I get to the airport early, then I can try to move to an earlier flight.

The only key flight will be my first, because Gilby is picking me up at the airport and then we're off to Stratford for an 8 PM musical. But he works close to the airport, so I can call him when I arrive; and there's a flight every hour, so I've got a couple tries to get it right.

As Scottie would say: It's excitin'! Three more days of work, and then Packing Day, and then I'm off. Loo loo loooooo!

if you had wings had wings had wings

The details of Gilmabelfest are coming together. Here's the current plan:

FRIDAY
Montreal -> Toronto : Friday midday
Gilby picks up Mabel after work
Drive to Stratford to see Evita at 8.
Drive back to Toronto.

SATURDAY
Drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see Ideal Husband at 8.
Drive back to Toronto.

SUNDAY
2 PM play.
Hang out with Vidal and Midnightstreet when he's done work.

MONDAY
Flee the scene with Gilby when he leaves for work.
Toronto -> Nanaimo
Nap.
Hang out with folkses.

TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY - FRIDAY
* Hang out with Father and Step-muthah.

SATURDAY
Take ferry to Vancouver; or take a day trip to Victoria and then the ferry to Vancouver.
Hang out with mommy & brother, and hang in my coolio hotel room.

SUNDAY - MONDAY - TUESDAY
Live it up at my supa posh hotel.

TUESDAY
Come home. Have some time off before heading back to work.

6 days to Gilmabelfest!

Today Fernando was wearing the t-shirt I bought him at Stratford last year. It's a yellow shirt with a bear running across that reads: "Exit, pursued by bear." Famous for being one of Shakespeare's silliest scene directions.

Seeing him in the shirt got me all het up about going to see plaaaays! I've decided I have to buy Fernando a souvenir each year. Maybe a t-shirt each year. Or a tote bag? A mug? Oooooh it's all so veddy veddy exciting.

Just four more days of work. Packing on Thursday.

Gonna go look at flights now.

more random info about my trip

Here's my upcoming trip!

From Montreal to Toronto...

...to Stratford, to Toronto, to Niagara-on-the-Lake, to Toronto...

...to Victoria (my dad suggested I fly in there if I want a Victoria trip, and he'll fetch me there)...

...from Victoria to Nanaimo, to Richmond!

Ending up at my leetle hotel on the park.

Where there's an Irish pub across the street. (Not that I drink, but fries are good at pubs!)

And zipping over to my mother's. That's my brother in the Google Street View outside my mum's house. He saw the truck coming, grabbed Sassy the dog, and headed back out to pose!

In other news... I found two other stores that sell fancier bentos.


Murata (15 E. Broadway)


Utsuwa-No-Yakata (Aberdeen mall, same as Daiso)

My fave Evita songs

"Ohhhh but it's sad when a love affair dies!"

Let the festivities commence!

All is decided. Three plays in three days! It's a nice mix. We have one 70s musical, one 1890s play, and one contemporary new musical. Now I'm running around the house singing "Don't cry for me Smarmytiiiiinaaaaa!"

Friday 8 PM

As ambitious as she is charismatic, Eva Duarte rises from poverty in rural Argentina to become first the mistress and then the wildly popular wife of President Juan Perón. Blending the personal with the political, this landmark of the modern musical theatre paints a dazzling portrait of a woman who helped shape history.

"Make no mistake, this Evita is a bold and brilliant production, one you must see." - Toronto Star

"Musical director Rick Fox takes an aggressive approach to the score, creating an exciting, edgy sound." - Globe and Mail

________________________________

Saturday 8 PM

In An Ideal Husband, by Oscar Wilde, fate catches up to Government Minister Sir Robert Chiltern when a mysterious woman produces a letter which reveals a past misdeed and a choice must be made between public scandal and the private shame of his wife. This Oscar Wilde work is a perfect mix of Wilde wit and intrigue.

"a superbly accomplished, highly entertaining and intellectually rewarding evening at the theatre." Toronto Star

"In a certain sense Mr. Wilde is to me our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre." - from George Bernard Shaw's review of the play

_________________________________

Sunday 2 PM

2009 Tony Award® nomination for
Best Book of a Musical

A hilarious new musical comedy that follows two musical theatre writers on a quest to write a musical for the New York Musical Theatre Festival in just 3 weeks. With nothing to lose, Jeff and Hunter decide to try to create something new with the help of their friends Susan, Heidi and Larry on the eighty-eights. With the cast in place, Jeff and Hunter begin a conversation about what to write about. Eventually, Jeff suggests they write a show about writing a show. They make a pact to write up until the festival’s deadline and dream about the show changing their lives.

“Delectable entertainment!” –The New York Times

"Besides giving the audience a hysterical behind-the-curtain view of the creative (or at times, not so creative) process, [title of show] is a prefect musical for aficionados of musical theater and lovers of big old-school Broadway plays." - Planeteye Traveler