Chanson d'Automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure;

Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deça, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte

Poèmes saturniens - Paul Verlaine


Verlaine writes about melancholy like no one else can. On this gloomy fall day, rain relentlessly pouring, a day after a heart-warming reunion with long-lost Ryerson Fashion classmates for our 25th graduation anniversary, Verlaine keeps creeping in my mind. It's hard to translate in English the feelings in his poem but here is my version:

In autumn
Plaintive strings
Of violins
Tear my heart
With their dull
Sad langour.

I'm choking
Skin paling;
When time tolls,
I recall
The old days
And I cry.

As I leave,
A mean wind
Tosses me
Here and there,
Desolate,
Like shed leaves.

A bicyclette avec Harmonium

Il est entré
Sans rien me dire
L'encre s'est mise à couler
Dans ma tête et sur un vieux papier
Il m'a dit de vous dire
Qu'il n'y a plus rien à dire
Il m'a dit de vous dire
D'écouter.

D'écouter le silence
Qui voudrait bien reprendre
Sa place dans la balance
...

Harmonium - Paroles et musique: S. Fiori - M. Normandeau - 1974

He came in
Without saying a word
The ink started to flow
In my head, on an old paper
He told me to tell you
There is nothing more to say
He told me to tell you
To listen.

To listen to the silence
That wants its rightful place
For our balance
...


I've been listening to Harmonium since Saturday morning when Judy and I rode our bikes to our dance class. She was singing Pour un instant. There we were, cutting through the chilly fall air, the breeze brushing against our skin, muscles freshly charged, and this song. It went right to my soul. My dear friend Judy has the ability to release the bohemian in me. I suddenly forgot I had a family and mundane chores to attend to. I wanted to keep riding, riding and singing all the way to Montreal.

Pour un instant, j'ai oublié mon nom
Ça m'a permis enfin d'écrire cette chanson

Pour un instant, j'ai retourné mon miroir
Ça m'a permis enfin de mieux me voir

Sans m'arrêter, j'ai foncé dans le noir
Pris comme un loup qui n'a plus d'espoir

J'ai perdu mon temps à gagner du temps
J'ai besoin de me trouver une histoire à me conter.
...

Harmonium - Musique: S. Fiori & M. Normandeau - Paroles: M. Normandeau - 1974

For a moment I forgot my name
It allowed me to write this song

For a moment I turned my mirror
It allowed me to see myself better

Without stopping, I plunged in the dark
Lost like a wolf with no hope

I wasted my time looking for time
I need to find a story to tell myself.

...

The Last Cowboy

Finished reading The Last Cowboy by Lee Gowan.

He's currently the director of University of Toronto Continuing Education Creative Writing Department. He also teaches there. I took one of his courses and found him very thorough, knowledgeable, and to the point. He is also a very kind and supportive teacher who often goes beyond his duties in his effort to help students.

It's interesting reading the novel of someone you know. It sort of gives a new dimension to the book. I've read his previous novel, Make Believe Love and found it very engaging. But this one is a much stronger novel. It transports you immediately into the mind of Sam, a ranting old man but a colourful character. He reminds me a bit of King Lear in his tragic fate, especially when he gets lost in the snow and seems to lose his mind.

Lee interweaves a few stories which seem at first diconnected but eventually find their place in this tale set in the prairies. He covers the plight of farmers, the unfair treatment of natives, the dilemma of the modern prairie man with such powerfully descriptive flair that it's easy to imagine these people as very real. Saskatchewan is a picturesque background to this story and becomes a tangible place in our Canadian consciousness. It makes me want to go there.

Playwright Morwyn Brebner

Just read an interview with playwright Morwyn Brebner in Toronto Life's October issue. I now want to see her play The Optimists at the Tarragon theatre.

It's not the fact that she's a winner of seven Dora Awards that hooked me. It's her wit. The first play she wrote was a monologue. Quote: I played both Mae West and an earwig. They were talking to each other and I rolled onstage singing "like a virgin."

About whether she wants to be produced in the States, whether she's envious of the theatre scene in New York: "Not really. The work there is no better than the work here - it's just in New York. And there's more of it. But there's more of everything in America. The people are fatter and there's more theatre."

With this kind of attitude, we'd keep more of our talented people here in Canada, and Toronto's already growing art culture could become even more exciting and viable on a larger scale, what with Americans flocking to enjoy our non-agressive or rather passive-aggressive culture and mordant wit. Who'll need to go to New York anymore?

Honestly, sarcasm aside, I do love Toronto even though I realize it will take time before it has the ingredients to attract people to the extent New York does. I wish there were more artists like Morwyn Brebner, who are not lured by the glitz and the $$$ in U.S., and who believe they can make a difference in Canada.

Blogs

BLog's Age by Robert Fulford in this October's issue of Toronto Life, is a thorough article about the cultural phenomenon of blogs.

He starts with the weaknesses of blogs, having to sift "through virtual reams of moronic musings" to get to interesting blogs. He also writes at length about Andrew Coyne's decision to stop running postings from the public on his blog because they "were both embarrassing and bothersome ... disgusting letters ..."

He then discusses with great insight the impact of blogs: "A.J. Liebling, the great press critic, once said that freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. Blogging has changed that. Freedom of the blogosphere is available to everyone who has something to say. If the knowledge society is indeed our future, blogging is surely a clear sign of it, a case of talent replacing capital as the crucial element in an information system."

He goes on about the speed of blogs, how they "collapse time. You can react in public to a big event within an hour or two, and you can put a thought in cyberspace as soon as you have one."

He reports that even professional writers like it because "you can say what you think without interference from editors." He quotes Teachout, a drama reviewer for The Wall Street Journal as saying blogs provide "immediacy, informality and independence that you can't find in the print media."

Very interesting article.

The Constant Gardener

I'm scrambling to finish reading The Constant Gardener by John Le Carré. R told me I absolutely had to read it before we see the movie.

It's a fascinating book about a pharmaceutical company and its abuse of power: using Africa as its dumping ground, corrupting everyone in site from doctors to politicians, and eliminating anyone who tries to challenge its ethics.

Read in the Globe, September 3rd, page R4 that the story was probably inspired by a Canadian professor of pediatrics and medicine, Dr. Nancy Olivieri whose research led her to believe a new drug treatment posed dangers to patients.

Le Carré has a clear message in this book: to expose how pharmaceutical companies are purely profit based, to show how their financial power controls our lives, and to awaken our social conscience about unethical practices. It'll be interesting to see whether the movie hits the public with enough impact to demand changes in the way that industry operates.