RE: Years gone by - with many a smile

From: "COLLEEN MACKENZIE"
To: "David Christopher"

Young David:
I have read some of your blogs. You are very talented and your joy in writing shows. I am so happy that you have found what brings you that joy, telling the stories of those that you love and the ones that love you.
I am working on a scrapbook of memories and photos with our Blair, stories I hope his nephews will come to love. It is not easy. I hope it will show his love for life and those who were a big part of it. He lived just a year longer in Canada and in two years time his memory and love will have lived longer in us, than he walked this earth. The pain of loss changes but never lessens.
I have some great photos of the haunted house back in the eighties along with the days building our cottage on Taylor Lake. The BMX bike jumping over stacked bodies (I smile to think of those times). Thank you for being the encourager and friend to our Blair. I watched the two of you searching and developing those creative abilities.
Reading your 'Canadian Adventures' blog answers a lot of my ?. Unfortunately, my reading on-line is limited with the progression of the Parkinson's.
I love the name Lilian. I know she will be a treasured challenge.
I would love a signed copy of your book when published.

Love and Prayers Always,
Colleen.


From: "David Christopher"
To: "COLLEEN MACKENZIE"

Dear Colleen:
I did not know that you were suffering from Parkinson's and I am terribly saddened to learn it. I am glad that you have read some of my blog and want to express to you that you always have been, and always will be one of the most important people that have been in my life. I know that I have been distant for many years but want you to know that in so many ways I am not the little brat that you once knew, and in so many ways I still am. I miss Blair as much today as I did when we first lost him, and no matter how much time passes, his time with me will always be longer in my heart than the time he has been gone. I never had any faith, and I still don't, but if ever I believed in anything, I believe that he watches over me every day. And I'm sure he laughs at me for being exactly what he always knew I would be. Blair Mackenzie lives on in my son in so much more than just his name, and I truly feel he is in Blair Christopher as much as I am. I wish I could be closer so that you could know him better. I love you dearly and hope to be home to see you some time. Remember for as long as you can, and after that, I will do my best to remember for you.

727 Singalong

An e-mail I sent to Marianne on my second day in Mexico on my fifth trip to that country:

"The Mexican people efface their own cliche with a bold buoyancy from which the rest of the world could learn a much needed lesson. Notwithstanding, their risibility is still well earned as their social rituals are sometimes naively proud, and comically loud.
While boarding my evening flight from Monterrey to Mexico, it came to my attention that the population of this flight exemplified the cliche a little more than usual. The passengers were visibly stereotypical, complete with a sombrero here, a pancho there, a mustachio in the back, and I think I saw a goat running across the aisle. I chuckled and took my seat when the pilot promptly announced over the intercom that "air traffic at our destination in Mexico City was quite heavy so we will delay our departure by twenty minutes to allow the congestion to subside." Pretty good English, I thought to myself as I reclined back into my seat and let my heavy eyelids ease shut.
My condescending appreciation was abruptly interrupted. Seated somewhere behind me, a typically gregarious young fellow pulled out a guitar-like instrument that I'm guessing was a mariachi. He began playing and singing a bouncy little Mexican ditty so that all could hear. Within a few seconds, not finding it the least bit disruptive, some of, and then most of the other passengers quite willingly began singing along with him until I was regaled with a full chorus Mexican serenade, of which all members were otherwise utter strangers singing along to this obviously well known song. It was a little gauche and a lot humourous, and it made me stop and think how unlikely it would be to have any such sociable liberty occur on a flight originating from Canada. By the time they started into the encore-hailed second song, the plane began to move and the singalong slowly faded to quiet. I thought that I had been blessed with yet another singular anecdotal blog entry but I had 'spoken' too soon, for the flight was not yet over.
Some twenty minutes later, I had had my nose buried in an History of Opera book and was distracted from the moment. The flight attendant approached me, what felt like 'out of the blue', and said, "Would ju like-a some penis?"
"Uh. Excuse me?"
"Some penis. Some penis. Ju are want some penis? For put in jour mouth. Penis for jour mouth."
I was dumbfounded and it caused her some impatient frustration. She pulled a small package from the cart and dangled it in my face. "Oooooooh! Some PEANUTS. Right, right. No, thank you." Even if I had wanted them, I doubt they would have settled properly after that little interaction. The plane landed uneventfully in a rain-soaked Mexico city and I alighted with laughter."

See you in hell,
Shakes.

I'M ALREADY!

Marianne has an interesting way of yelling using e-text. Her usual angry screech is cacophonic enough but it's quite amazing how you can almost actually hear her when you read the text message. It's quite simple really. She merely chooses the phrase that is intended to be yelled and writes it all in capital letters followed by an exclamation mark. In contrast to the rest of her text, or other text messages in general, it has the interesting effect of making the reader feel quite yelled at. SEE WHAT I MEAN! Cool, huh? Moreover, she often uses repeated phrases that she angrily yells while actually in her presence so there tends to be another semi-conscious mental association mechanism that recalls the yelling and adds to the effect. She must have a mental database of angry mother/wife phrases from which she selects for the appropriate verbal assault of the moment. But they're not ALL bad. Early in our relationship, Marianne was fickle with her affections: very romantic and passionate, but on-again-off-again for the first little while. I was amused and delighted by her, but a bit confused as to her vascillating prerogatives. At the very least, she definitely had my attention, sly devil that she is, and the explanation for her behaviour came in the form of an admission of insecurity, fear of being hurt, and strong feelings towards me. Hilariously, this revelation was afforded me after a few drinks, at a night-club, on the stage, during an unexpected lull in the music, at the top of her lungs. After confusedly blathering on about relationships, and what real love means, and awful, awful men, and that I just didn't 'get it' because I am a man, I defended myself and said, "Yeah. I get it," to which she responded, "No you don't. (lull in music) I'M ALREADY IN LOVE WITH YOU!" It was priceless and I laughed my ass off, . . . after a display of the requisite chivalry to show her that I was beginning to feel the same way. Some months later the idea of marriage and possibly a baby together came up in conversation. And then it came up again. And then it came up again. The pipe dream was beautiful but we agreed that the idea of a seven kid household was insane and that we could wait until some had moved on or just not have one. Either way, neither of us was in any rush. Later that week, while I was at work (coincidentally, at a night-club just downstairs from the one mentioned above) I recieved a text message that read, "OMG! I'M ALREADY PREGNANT!" And even over the ear-shattering decibal level of the music, I swear I could hear her yelling. I'm not sure however, if it was with glee, terror, or anger. I suspect all three.

See you in hell,
Shakes.

Waiting for Lilian

I watched a strange video about childbirth and raising girls, then promptly received an eerie phone call by which an ominous voice whispered, . . . "seven days!"

One of the great joys for parents during pregnancy is choosing names. Of course, this can also be a source of great conflict, but it is one of the (very few) things about which Marianne and I did not conflict. We knew the baby's gender early in the pregnancy so boy name ideas including Julius, William, David Jr., Octavian, and others were discarded. We needed a girl's name - something that was pretty and unique without being pretentious. (I still laugh at all the idiotic parents in the nineties and early millennium who thought they were giving their children unique and avante-garde names that just ended up proving to be uncreative, common, and trendy. North Americans between the ages of 5 and fifteen certainly don't need anymore Cody's, Dayton's, Dakota's, Hanna's, Britney's, or Brianna's. Forthcoming is an apology to my beloved sister.) I had been infatuated with the name 'Starla' for an interlude during the pregnancy, but Marianne never quite warmed up to it and it lost its cache quickly. I suggested 'Cleopatra', a name I have always liked but that gets overlooked because of the strong historical connotations attached to it. Marianne summarily rejected it. She suggested 'Yvonne', her mother's name. Rejected. I offered 'Cassandra'. Rejected. Jokingly, she put forth 'Jennifer'. "Ha-ha. No!" But I did suggest that I liked its progenitor, 'Guinevere'. Nope. Marianne suggested something else that was awful. Denied. "How about Barb?" Rejected. Clearly we both needed to take pause and rejuvenate the mental lists we had each carried for years to include newer options about which we might both agree. Something to emulate mommy. "How about Marianne Jr.", I suggested. Obviously that was rejected. Marianne became reflective, hesitant, submissive as though she was wary of offering an emotionally precious gem that had been long kept close to her heart for fear of its rejection. She meekly chirped, "I've always liked the name Lily."
"Well then how about Lilianne? We can spell it as one word with an 'i' like you spell your name." Ever so slowly, a smile gently widened across her face into that all-telling grin she has. I smiled knowingly back. We agreed.

A few days later, however, I discovered that to Marianne the decision had not been quite so final as I had thought. I was relieved because as the few days had past I began to have second thoughts. I liked the name, and its association with Marianne's name, but there was something too . . . cumbersome about it. I then set about the task of maintaining the original beauty and maternal associations of the name while modifying it to something less cumbersome, more tripping and lively, and that Marianne would accept. Then it dawned on me - so simple, so obvious. "How about Lilian instead of Lilianne?" Marianne's eyes lit up and she smiled even bigger than the first time as she confirmed, "YES! That's it!"

It was perfect: simple, pretty, relatively rare nowadays (I think), unpretentious and with real meaning. Marianne likes it because her paternal grandmother's sister (ie. her great aunt) was named Lilian. I like it for its historical gothic associations. The earliest extant literary mention of the name is in The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia. "The figure of Lilith first appeared in a class of wind and storm demons or spirits as Lilitu, in Sumer, circa 4000 BC. Many scholars place the origin of the phonetic name "Lilith" at somewhere around 700 BC despite post-dating even to the time of Moses. Lilith appears as a night demon in Jewish lore", but they would modify the phonetics of 'Lilith' to 'Lilin', which would later evolve into 'Lilian' as an accepted derivative. As such, the name has a beautiful sublime gothic association to night and wind. Subsequent myths demonize the character even further. She became the Queen of the Damned, and for all intents and purposes, Satan's wife. That is why she appears as a female serpent coiled around a tree in Michelangelo's "The Temptation of Adam and Eve" on the cieling of the Sistine Chapel. "In the folk tradition that arose in the early Middle Ages, Lilith, a dominant female demon, became identified with Asmodeus, King of Demons, as his queen." Perhaps using the Queen of Demons as a namesake for the offspring of Marianne Johnston and myself is a fitting moniker.

I like the name Lilian. It has a Ring to it - (lol). Lilian Yvonne (Marianne's mother) Katherine (my passed sister and variant spelling of the name of my birth mother) Christopher. She'll be here in seven days. Marianne is vehement that she'll be here in seven days, or less! The pregnancy has not been easy for her. Her all-day 'morning' sickness lasted for months and she was an angry, emotional basket case. In her vast generosity, she did everything in her power to share that suffering with the rest of the family. But she's gotten past most of that now. Nevertheless, nine months is a long time to carry an ever-increasing weight, and for the fourth time. She jokingly told me the other day that the first thing she was going to do after the baby was born is put it down. We anticipate the birth excitedly, . . . and nervously. Seven kids is a lot for one household and I am wary. I have been having a lot of difficulty getting my mind around the word 'daughter'. I've raised boys. I understand boys. I've been a boy and know the rules. The whole male heir, father ego, Freudian thing was well taken care of for me three times over, and I was familiar and comfortable with it. This whole vagina-estrogen thing comes with a plethora of concerns and future scenarios about which I am either naive or completely unaware and for which I am wholly unprepared. Marianne was hoping for a girl and made no secret of it. I told her that I wanted a boy and played up the whole male-ego-gender-heir idea just to be the devil's advocate, but I really hadn't thought about gender. The shock of 'pregnant' was enough and I was still working on that. That's why I was so surprised that I was so surprised when the technician doing the ultrasound said "It's a girl." I must have looked like I was in some kind of shock in the van on the way home because Marianne repeatedly asked me if I was okay, if I was mad, if I was unhappy that it was a girl. Of course, she made all of these inquiries through a telling grin that clearly indicated that she was just happy she had 'won'. The truth is I am happy for a girl. I had always wanted a daughter and, with three sons in tow already, thought I never would. But here I am, seven days away from being a father again, and the father of a daughter. I am scared. Okay, I am VERY scared. But I am excited too, and happy. For a guy who expected to be six feet under by now, of late I am finding many things in my life anew. And I am about to start over again. In seven days. Or less.

See you in hell,
Shakes.

Act Read

Response to Cole

I have long believed that the power of reading is fundamental to many skills that seem otherwise unrelated. There is substantial research supporting the idea that increased reading results in the improvement of many skills, and Cole adds acting to the list with a very plausible and lucid argument. In fact, his argument goes well beyond the relationship between reading and acting and actually makes them synonymous, concluding with an argument that acting reinstates the “”lost” physicality of reading that the physicality of acting proposes itself” (Cole 30).
In the first chapter, Cole outlines the inherent aspect of reading that is prevalent in the works of many of the theorists examined in the course thus far. “Brecht, for example, views reading as a means of preserving rather than abolishing emotional distance between two actors” (8). “For Stanislavski it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that acting begins and ends in reading” (8). “[E]ven in approaches to acting which openly denigrate reading, reading may find a place” (9). “Grotowski defines his theatrical enterprise as “confrontation with myth””. “Our myths are texts” (9). “The Artaudian production of a classic play, “stripped of [its] text,” “without regard for text,” not only presupposes a reading of that play, it is a reading of that play” (9).
This Artaudian description is perhaps the most poignant in exemplifying how Cole extends his definition of reading far beyond mere engagement with orthography. He outlines a series of metaphors in which society has universally agreed that the definition of ‘reading’ fits a “bewildering variety of situations” (2). But he points out a shortcoming in his discussion of reading as acting. “Reading, in short, is every bit as great a puzzle as acting is. What can one possibly hope to gain by offering an explanation of the actor’s work in terms of another process at least as mysterious as acting itself?” (2). Herein, however, lies the very heart of acting as a paradoxical, artistic skill. And contrary to his claim, he reconciles the paradox. “[C]haracterization – consists largely in an attempt to endow one’s character with the inner life the general reader has had to leave off being in order to play him” (15). In this statement, Cole finally empowers the actor and character to co-exist simultaneously in one body without requiring one to occur at the expense of the other. It is almost self-evident and entirely lucid.
Coles’ ability to reconcile is brilliant. He explains the inherent similarity in such disparate elements as the ‘action’ of actors and the ‘passivity’ of readers. Most importantly, however, Cole describes perhaps the single most valuable lesson that any actor can follow in trying to develop some applicable system from the plethora of paradoxical theories that exist. “Forget about the public: Think about yourself . . . If you are interested, the public will follow you” (11).
The list of fascinating revelations provided by Cole with which I agree is exhaustive and it took me some effort to find anything about which to respond other than with a simple, “I agree.” However, on one point he makes about acting, I do take issue. He states “the semiotic description of performance as a reading by the audience of the stage action” is “misleading” and defends the idea by saying that “if the actor performs his reading, then audiences are having reading performed for them by actors” (18). Although the idea supports his fundamental claim that acting and reading is the same thing, he overlooks a crucial point in the art of acting. It is true the actor is trying to present their reading of a text, but the presentation they offer may vary greatly from , and indeed be quite weak when compared against the reading they envision in their minds for a certain character or situation. The skill of an actor, therefore, lies not in their ability to read or interpret a text or character, although that skill is admittedly a fundamental prerequisite, but rather in the transfer from their imagination to their presentation. That is to say that their reading may be very poorly presented, and it is this very acted presentation in which the audience reads the text as presented, not read, by the actor.

Act Play Read

Response to Lepage

The kind of theatre, or theatricality, that Lepage discusses in his work is not particularly of my personal taste. “Words were so coloured with politics, at least in the seventies, that people turned to non-verbal theatre to try and get their message across”. Nevertheless, he manages to present some fascinating perspectives on the misused value of film, methods of integrative learning, and the true nature of the thrill and beauty of playing. I found his perspective on theatre to be entirely refreshing.
The interviewer, Richard Eyre, begins by introducing Lepage as someone who represents the characteristics of theatre that are unique. He states “the more I treasure and admire characteristics about the theatre that can’t be translated into any other medium”. To be more specific, he contrasts theatre against other media of acting performance. “I don’t like theatre when it’s a surrogate for TV or for debate or anything else. I like it when it’s the thing itself”. Lepage echoes this notion when he disparages what film has brought to theatre. “[T]heatre for a long time, at least in North America, has been dispossessed from its theatricality. It started to imitate film more and more and got stuck with cinematic realism.” However, Lepage manages to see a redeeming value in the genre of film in what theatre might learn from it. “I think that it’s more interesting to work in theatre and to borrow from film artistic ways of showing things or telling stories. For a long time theatre had been only using the naturalism from film”.
The realism and naturalism that Lepage ascribes to film, is highly reminiscent of the methods of acting put forth by Stanislavski. His pedantic loyalty to realism in acting may have revealed some usable techniques but was, for the most part, genre specific to only realism on stage. Ultimately, speaking on Stanislavski’s behalf, others developed a ‘system’ of acting whereby anyone could ‘learn’ to act, theoretically. As long as you were involved in the genre of realism, the ‘system’ may well have worked, but Lepage explores a much broader scope for theatre. He describes a system of learning in which his mentor “had a way of approaching theatre in a very creative way. He never distinguished what a director and an actor do. He worked mainly on improvisations”. I reiterate that I am not a huge fan of improvisation as a form of entertainment or theatre, but as a form of training actors and directors alike, I think Lepage describes perhaps the only viable ‘system’ to which I might subscribe.
The lost art of collaboration, he suggests has been marred by cultures that have taken theatre to its severe political extremes. Lepage points out that “if you think the British theatre is hierarchical, the German one is virtually feudal. The autocracy of the director is extreme”. From the lofty heights of Stanilavski’s ivory tower, or the blue-collar trenches of Brecht’s socioeconomic severity, it is a lost hindsight to remember theatre as ‘playing’. The pedantic nature of theoretical explorations have all but removed the joy from discovery, creation and play, leaving behind a legacy of actors who take their “profession” all too seriously. Perhaps the most important point in the entire course, outside of Cole’s highly practical applications for actors, is Lepage’s musing on this lost art. “I think there’s an important word that has lost its sense in theatre, and that’s the word ‘playing’. It’s become a profession, a very serious word, but the concept of playing has disappeared from the staging of shows”. Lepage is not suggesting that there is nothing to be taken seriously about theatre, but that the art of playing must be reintroduced as well. Lepage even manages to incorporate his perspective into a refreshing look at some of the most brilliant works in the canon. “Dealing with Shakespeare we’re dealing with an avalanche of resources, a box of toys to be taken out”. As David Cole might suggest, read. Read, read, read, but read the plays, not the theory. Leave all that nonsense to the academic professionals and get on with the art of playing.

First Entry

It's a whole new world. With the history of my life largely recorded in C.A.I.T.U.U.W., I find that I am beginning anew, reborn, refreshed, recharged and with a new lease on life. Welcome to the future. Let's see where this goes . . .

See you in hell,
Shakes.