MUSINGS version 5.0

Death is the new 40

-me

In January of 2008, I went to see a friend’s choir concert in Montreal. The stage manager was a former student of mine, who had been a delightful teenager, and had turned into a delightful adult. It was her birthday (23 or 24) and I joined in the festivities. (I guarantee you that when she woke up that morning that she never thought she’d be spending her b-day getting sloshed with her high school choir teacher!). I ended up talking to this guy who was in the show. He was funny, polite, charming very cute and very well spoken. I assumed (and never assume, cause it makes an …) he was in his mid 20’s, which though a little young, is totally within my dating range.. Well, we ended up talking about Facebook (doesn’t everybody?). I mentioned that since my 20^th high school reunion was coming up, it was great to get back in touch with some old friends. He looked quizzically at me and asked me what year I graduated. I said 1988. He paused meaningfully, and replied with a guilty smirk “I was born in 1988”.  Daddy felt a little old that night. Apparently, 37 is the new 50.

Am I old? Despite the popularity of such adages as “You’re only as old as you feel” and “He’s young at heart”, they’re all fallacies. People can be surprised by your age – without false modesty, people often guess my age as 6 – 10 years younger – but when all is said and done, 39 is still 39 and always will be. Well at least until next March, when it’s 40.  (I’m obviously totally obsessed with looking younger, mostly because when I date [which is remarkably infrequently], I’ve tended to date younger guys. Not THAT much younger, but still…)

I bring this up because I realized recently that most of my friends on board are on average at least 10 years younger than me. True, there are exceptions, but most of my current posse wasn’t born yet when “Synchronicity” was released. It’s never bothered any of the involved parties, so why ruminate on the subject?

A lot of crew on ship tend to be young. Kids out of college, young turks on a summer job, getting paid to travel and see the wonders of the world (from the Dardanelles to the mountains of Peru). Life is a big fun party. Beer and hooch in the crew bar is cheap and plentiful, everyone is a little looser, you meet people from all over the world – it’s really a great job. But those of us in our 30’s or so usually come on ships because we need to find ourselves. I’ve met divorcés and divorcées, a psychologist, a couple of lawyers, at least 3 ex-ministers and most recently, a clown (no joke). It might seem like an odd place for introspection, but in some ways it’s perfect. When I started on ships 4 years ago, no one knew who I was. I was a clean slate. I could have been anyone. More importantly, I could have chosen to be anyone. I choose to be myself. A 37 year old overweight divorcé with 3 dogs. People liked me. (Well, most did. I was branded as ‘difficult to work with’ by a couple of people in my former company who shall remain nameless and hopefully, away from me.) I would venture a guess that about 1/3 of my 845 Facebook friends are ship folk. And I look and feel better than I ever have. I quit smoking, I’ve been taking care of my skin, I eat well and I feel really good. Best of all. I fit in - in some ways for the first time in my life. I fit in with these whippersnappers who don’t remember the Reagan years  or “Manimal” or “Kid Creole and the Coconuts” or Rubik Cubes or leg warmers. And I’m having a blast.

I do my best to keep up with the Joneses. I go out a bit more than I would. Drink more than I should. I act a little crazier, I’m a little more spontaneous. And at this point in my 39 years, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is good. No, life is great. 

MUSINGS version 4.0

Fame is the thirst of youth

- Lord Byron

I am not famous. 

Truer words have perhaps never been penned.

There was a time in my life when I would have liked a modicum of fame. Not Bennifer fame. Not Brangelina fame. Not Jon and Kate fame (Jate? Kon?). But enough fame that people, though they might not know my name or my face, once it was explained who I was, would exclaim: “Wow! He's famous!”. I didn’t practice my autograph as an adolescent, as Cher did (yes I did), but I have delivered many an Oscar™or Tony™ speech into a hairbrush-microphone in front of a bathroom mirror. I am still really really good at feigning surprise.  (Omigod! I so don’t deserve this! To my fellow nominees, you’re ALL stars! Especially you, Keanu!) At this point in my life, I am remarkably comfortable in my current anonymity. 

On ships, however, I have a fairly high profile position.  Passengers see me night after night; either in the main show lounge or playing with a combo in a nightclub.  It is impossible to have lunch in the Lido without someone coming up to me and say “Aren’t you the Music Director? You’re really great! I don’t want to interrupt your meal…” and then proceed to spend the next 25 minutes telling you about how they used to play clarinet in high school, or how their granddaughter is taking cello lessons, or how their gout is acting up because of the rich food on the ship and they really didn’t want to come to Alaska but their wife had her heart sent on it and they have a better time on Carnival and they remember how it used to be on this line before they started cutting all the benefits to return passengers and they intend to make a complaint to the CEO. I politely nod, and try to eat with my mouth open and slurp my soup loudly. Sometimes, I'll meet a middle-aged cougar insisting that that their husband will be in the casino until 3 am, and he doesn’t really satisfy her needs anyway (wrong tree…). I often try to avoid these public situations, mostly because they tend to feed my latent misanthropy. Passengers will occasionally buy me drinks, or write me a thank you note. I actually met a really great group of people last cruise, including a Quebecoise living in New Zealand, and a tall, handsome and young Kiwi skier who will be moving to Montreal to study at Concordia.  They had a table full of champagne, and no one to help them drink. I was only to glad to oblige.

This summer, to escape the slavery of cruise ship life that HAL had become, I sublet a tiny little wee apartment in what can only be described as crackhouse/student housing in Montréal, mostly to get a taste again for the pleasures land life could offer. Though I am a admitted TV junkie, I decided not to get cable because the installation fees were too high. So, I was destined to watch one of 3 local English channels. And frankly, I'll watch anything. Even TMZ. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the newsertainment show, count yourselves lucky. Basically, the show is a room full of ‘reporters’ who sit around a newsroom and, with what must pass as witty repartee to the hoi polloi, discuss the video their camerapeople have shot of the famous and the wannabes. One show this summer featured an exposé of Marlon Wayans (whom they followed around for several hours while he was shopping at an outdoor market) and Courtney Love, who spent 45 minutes emptying her bottomless pit of a purse, showing its contents for the television public (Look! Lipstick. Look! A tampon. Look! A syringe [no joke. She had a syringe. It was for her “allergies”. Allegra, Sudafed, heroin, it’s all the same.]).  They ambushed Blythe Danner at an airport and asked her if Apple and Moses (Gwyneth Paltorw's kids) were family names. Who. The. Fuck. Cares? Well, apparently I do, because I would watch every night at midnight, flipping back and forth between Canada Council funded documentaries on CBC.  Why would anyone want to be famous in this day and age of ubiquitous and instantaneous media? You risk being followed around by obnoxious leeches, attempting to get a scoop. And not just if you’re a famous train wreck like Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Lohan. I mean, Marlon Wayans? Is he still alive?

A LITTLE MODERATION

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia
- E.L. Doctorow.

I have decided after much soul searching that I am not going to fret about not posting a new blog every day.  It's not so much that it's a daunting task (which it is) but it's more that I don't want to be scraping the bottom of the topic barrel when November rolls around. I was looking at my Powerpoint list of posts and thought there's no bloody way I could possibly maintain anyone's interest (least of all mine) until next March. If I were merely ruminating on daily events, then the task would perhaps be a bit easier, in that things would be fresh in my mind. But (and I'm pretty sure one isn't suppose to start a sentence with the word 'but', but it's not like I'm following any other rules on writing) there has been a lot more introspection involved in this project than I had originally thought (my entries on Ties, Sock and Giraffes notwithstanding), and I find that the more I write, the more that I remember.  I've recalled situations and events and people I had long forgotten. It's like my brain was a damaged hard drive that was brought to a tech geek to recover lost information.  This has been a wonderfully eye-opening project, even though I've only been posting for the past month and a half (and in fact, I recommend it to everyone). However, being a perfectionist (a trait that has long been a thorn in my side), I'm afraid to post anything until it's absolutely perfect, which of course, it never will be.  I have at least 20 entries in the works, most of which I've rewritten several times. I have many wonderful anecdotes and memories to share, both poignant and side-splittingly funny (like the time I passed out in a park with a friend and woke up at 9 in the morning with a dog sniffing my face. I didn't drink for a few months after that).  I just decided to aim for quality, not quantity.

MY TIES (not MAI TAIS)

A well tied tie is the first serious step in life.

-Oscar Wilde

I have always loved ties. I realize that many men consider them powerful forces of societal oppression, but to me, they are one of the only ways that I can express myself within a fairly conservative environment (musicians always have to wear black. Bo-o-o-o-ring!).  It’s also the quickest way to determine someone’s personality in a sea of suits.

-Drab diagonal stripes: conservative and cautious.

-Bold solid colour: Type A, aggressive and pompous.

-Novelty tie (with cartoon characters and the like): Peter Pan. Someone who thinks they’re cleverer than they are. Not husband material

-Unusual pattern or colour combination: Adventurous, non-conformist.

-Floral: Gay.

I have always collected ties, and would comb thrift shops for the gaudiest, loudest and ugliest ties. I had one with a silhouette of a naked lady outlined in small LED lights, which I wore to my college graduation in 1990. The nun (a woman who we used to call Attila the Nun) who gave me my diploma simply rolled her eyes. At one point, my collection numbered around 50. Several years ago, there was a flood in the basement, and most of them were ruined. Meh. Life goes on.

Since I have started travelling, I have tried to by ties in every country I have been to. However, most of my ties came from this one shop in Istanbul, a tiny store in the middle of the sprawling outdoor market. I had never seen such bold patterns and colours (most North America ties tend to look like they belong on private school students), and they were cheap cheap cheap! I probably have at least 30 now, and I wear them whenever I can. Here are a few pics of my favourites.

GUILTY PLEASURES: MOVIES

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica
-Roger Ebert


When one is on a ship for long periods of time, especially on a boring contract like the Caribbean (because really, once you've gone to the Wal-Mart on St. Thomas, what else is there to do?), one tends to watch a lot of movies. There is a phenomenon, however, that anyone who has worked on ships will attest to: You can turn on the TV 5 times during the day, and the movie will always be at the same point as the the last time you turned it on. It's freaky. I have seen so so so so so so many flicks in the past 4 years that I would have never bothered to ever see. Most bite. Some are good. But there are a few that I liked in spite of myself.  So here is a list of movies I shouldn't have enjoyed, but did. I may add to this list at a later date.

Miss Congeniality
Saw it again today on the crew channel. I love Sandra Bullock.

Showgirls 

No matter what people may say, this is most assuredly NOT a misunderstood masterpiece. It's a piece of campy crap. And I love it.


The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 
Who doesn't love America Ferrara?

2012
Starring my doppelgänger, John Cusack. And a wonderfully nutty Woody Harrelson.


Ace Ventura: Pet Detective 
Perhaps the most egregious film on this list.

Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo
Nope. This one is more egregious.

Eurotrip

OK, this is the most egregious.

G.I. Jane
Demi Moore looks like a hot guy after she shaves her head

Waterworld 
I didn't see this on the ship, but I really liked it when it came out. I haven't seen it in 20 (?) years though, so perhaps my perceptions will have changed by now.

Loverboy 
This is the cinematic oeuvre where a teenaged Patrick Dempsey (McDreamy) plays a pizza-delivery boy-cum-gigolo.  I have no logical justification for this, but I love Kate Jackson, and I always had a crush on Mr. Dempsey.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

No really. It's not that bad. Jason Lee is kinda hot. The Squeak-el (sic) sucks though. Except when the Chipettes do "Single Ladies".

INSOMNIA

What hath night to do with sleep?
-John Milton from Comus


I have not been able to sleep through the night for what seems like ten years, but in particular for the past 3 weeks. I have been weary to try prescription medication, and have found that Melatonin works for me sometimes. However, no one should do what I did last night: 10 mg of Melatonin, 2 sea sickness pills and 2 Robaxical. It certainly did knock me out, but I slept for about 12 hours, and I woke up at noon unable to think coherently. It's 3:30 p.m. now, and my brain is still foggy. I think I would have preferred not sleeping.

I have always been a night person anyway, so I think part of my insomnia stems from my desire to stay up late. I love the night. I love the dark, the solitude, the quiet. I come alive at night, and am always most productive. I have written most of these blog entries past the hour of 1 a.m. (this one being the exception).  But for much of my adult life, I have had jobs requiring me to be not only awake, but fully functional at 9 in the morning, which I realize to most is not an early hour. The year I taught Elementary school, I had to leave the house at 6 am to get the work by 7:45! I was 12 years younger, so I dealt better with the exhaustion than I do now. (generally, I can get by with 6 hours a night of sleep for about 2 weeks before I crash spectacularly!) To me, 9 a.m. is screamingly early! Crew drills at that hour are inhumane! But if I finish rocking out at midnight, I can't get right to bed. Even if I don't go to the crew bar (which is rare), I'll sit awake in my room until about 4, usually playing Sudoku or Sims3, or maybe, if the stars are properly aligned, writing this blog. Nevertheless, I need to be able to get to sleep before 6 in the morning.

So what will I do tonight? I think I will forgo the over-the-counter drug cocktail of doom I tried last night, and go for a cup of chamomile tea in conjunction with the Melatonin. We'll see. I wanted to get up early tomorrow. Early meaning 10 a.m. It's all relative.

GREECE

Constantinope has Turkish baths, and Athens that lovely debris

-Stephen Sondheim,  Follies

Ever since I can remember, I have been a hellenophile. (And Spell-check has just informed me that ‘hellenophile is not a word. Who cares.)  I knew every Greek god and goddess and their super powers (this is not only because of comic books, but also the “Deities and Demigods” handbook from Dungeons and Dragons. If you ever want to know how many hit points Zeus has, I’m your guy!) In grade 7 geography with Mr. Cottam, I remember putting together this elaborate 2 poster-board project on Greece. I consulted numerous encyclopaedias, and coffee table and travel books. I went to travel agencies and got brochures with colour pictures of beautiful beaches and sprawling hillside villages of white square houses. Don’t forget, this was waaaaaaay before the Internet. (You kids today have it easy!) I remember this project hanging at the back of the classroom for several months, and after class, I would go up to look at those pictures of Santorini, Crete, Mykonos, Athens, Olympia and Lesbos. (Ah, Lesbos. The word always made me titter. The word titter makes me titter. Especially in combination with the word Lesbos). Some day, I said. Some day. Fade to black.

Fast-forward 25 years, and the now-adult James Higgins is working as a music director on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean for seven months! We didn’t get to Athens until about a month into my contract, so I had to be patient. I had already had remarkable experiences visiting Italy, the Motherland, and expected my pilgrimage to the cradle of modern civilization to be just as amazing, if not more so.  The day finally arrived, and I decided just to walk around and get the lay of the land.  So from the port of Piraeus, this lone traveller walked 30 minutes to the train station, paid his 80 cents, boarded Athens’ very modern and quiet subway, and headed forth to his date with destiny!

I liked Athens.  I had a very nice time walking around the Plaka, with its narrow winding streets and charming little stores and cafes.  I saw Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, which was quite remarkable. I walked through this big park and saw a really odd zoo with stray cats and turtles.  I had an incredible souvlaki with the best tzaziki I’d ever had (they put French fries in the souvlaki there. I found it weird but delicious). I didn’t get to the Acropolis, but I knew that I’d be back. In short, I had a really lovely day.

But…

I kinda wanted some sort of mystical experience, an epiphany if you will. But I didn't have one. Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe my hopes were too high. I felt a little defeated and deflated. I was very melancholy for a while.



A few days later, we sailed into the breathtaking caldera of Santorini. As the ship dropped anchor, the sight of the iconic white square houses clutching to the side of the cliffs took my breath away. I rode a donkey up these ancient winding stairs leading up hundreds of feet as countless people had done for thousands of years before me, and I was captivated by the picture postcard Greece I had dreamt of since I was a little boy.  The boys for the band rented 4X4s and drove to the beach, but I spent the day alone, walking as far as I could in any and every direction. The air was hot and fresh. The sky was a giant expanse of the bluest blue I had ever seen. The reflected sunlight rippled in the calm ocean.  And it happened. I fell in love with Greece, unequivocally and unapologetically. Over the course of the summer, we visited Mykonos, Navplion, Olympia, and Athens again (where I finally got to visit the Acropolis and commune with the Ancients), each place with its own charm and mystique. Sometimes, when you imagine great things before seeing them in person, your expectations of the future can undermine your experience of the present. That's what happened to me.  Silly James. 

PS If anyone can help me with formatting tips, I would really appreciate it. This drag-and-drop thing is convenient, but produces some pretty ugly results, as this entry shows.

PLAYING PIANO: JAZZ

When I was 7 or 8, my father took me to Place-Des-Arts (during what I can only assume was the Jazz Festival) to see an amazing triple-bill of Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass and Oscar Peterson. I wish I had been aware enough to understand how amazing this was. I actually fell asleep during Joe Pass, the subtle soft guitar riffs probably too boring for my hyper-active mind. But Oscar Peterson was thrilling! I remember thinking I wanted to do what he did. And I do, sort of. I play the piano for a living - I would even say I kinda-sorta-almost play jazz piano for a living (Believe it or not!).  But man, it was a long road.

The first Christmas after I started piano lessons, my parents bought me 2 records (I'm tired of the jokes us old guys make about remembering vinyl, so I'll skip them...): Glenn Gould playing Bach Partitas, and Oscar Peterson and Count Basie's album Satch and Josh.  I fell in love with both, and played them until I wore them out. I loved Bach and jazz for the same reasons: the elaborate counterpoint, the rich harmony, the dextrous fingerwork. Perhaps coincidentally, I am terrified of both Bach and jazz, for many of the same reasons.  I was, however, lucky enough to have had 3 piano teachers who insisted that one could play Bach just as well with the score as without, so at least I didn't have to memorize the stuff.  But then and now, I'm terrified of the intricacies, both dextral and contrapuntal. I understand them perfectly, and indeed got an A in my Tonal Counterpoint class at McGill, where my prof said my 5 voice fugue was one of the best he'd ever seen (nudge, nudge...). But however tenable my intellectual grasp is, I can't translate it to an actual performance situation. When I was 12, I was playing the C minor 2-Part Invention in recital- not a tremendously tricky work, but one of the most beautiful melancholic works I've ever studied - a perfect canon most of the way through, using only 2 voices. About 30 seconds into the performance (which had to be memorized - yuck!), I somehow managed to switch my left and right hands - that is my right hand began playing what my left was supposed to (an octave higher) and vice versa (an octave lower).  I managed somehow to fudge by way through for another 30 seconds (much to the amazement of my piano teacher and the director of the Conservatory), making sound, if not beautiful, at least credible.  Finally, I crapped out. I turned to the audience and said "Let's start this again, shall we?". People laughed, I diffused the tension, and proceeded to play it perfectly. That was the last time I ever attempted Bach in public, aside from a couple of "Bist Du Bei Mir"s at funerals.

But jazz has an added bonus: the fear of the unknown.  As a young musician, I was already a proficient reader, and in fact loved to sight read more than I liked to practice. My instinctive grasp of harmony made it easy for me to see patterns on the page, and transmit them to my fingers.  By university, I could even read thorny 20th century music (I had to sight read Messaien's Poeme pour Mi for a singer who's accompanist hadn't shown up for her audition. It wasn't perfect by any means, but the auditioner was amazed. So was I. Have you seen that score?). I was/am so bound to the paper in front of my eyes, that the prospect of not knowing in advance what you're going to play is terrifying. Yes, I can "improvise" accompaniments and read chord charts (my first piano teacher, in an act of prescience, seeing that I had an instinctual grasp of harmony taught me to read from fake books), but it's not jazz.

5 years ago, when I started on cruise ships, I was under the impression that I'd be playing for shows and that there would be very few, if any, sets to do. No. We had mostly sets: by the pool, in the Crow's Nest, in the Ocean Bar. You name it, we played there. The music director was a guitarist who was nice enough to play the smaller combo sets with me most of time after the drummer and the bass player started yelling at me during one of my first sets. And why not? I didn't know what the fuck I was doing! I was scared shitless! Luckily, the other keyboard player was a great jazz pianist (but a not-so-great reader) who ended up with most of the trio stuff.

My next contract (first as music director) was slightly more successful, only because we played for the production shows and had a lot of guest entertainer shows to back. If we had sets to do on rare occasions, I could schedule the other pianist. However, once a cruise, I had to play the Captain's Cocktail with the drummer and the bass player. The Captain insisted that the music director play it. It was 30 minutes of standards and dance music before the Captain's talk, and 15 minutes after he talked. I lived in fear of the Captain's Cocktail. I would wake up the morning of with a pit already in the bottom of my stomach.  I begged, I pleaded - Don't make me do this! But a funny thing happened: it eventually got easier. I practiced chords and voicings and scales and patterns, and things got easier. I listened to more jazz pianists and things got easier. I can't say that I ever looked forward to the Captain's Cocktail, but my the end of the contract, I no longer had night sweats.

I'm working on it. It's coming slower than anything in music ever has for me, but it's coming. I listen more, I have a series of Jazz primers I work with (most "Play Jazz Piano" books start off with "This is middle C" which is generally absolutely useless), I practice, and I perform. I jumped in the deep end of the pool. Let's carry the metaphor further to say that I'm as good a jazz pianist as I am a swimmer, in that I can do the basic strokes and I wouldn't drown, but I'm no Ian Thorpe. I still have a long way to go - I don't know enough riffs, my fingers sill can't quite get around the notes, and I'm not that good at comping during bass solos, but I actually enjoy it now, and some nights, when the ghosts of Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Michel Petrucciani are smiling down on me, I can toss off a pretty impressive solo.

I'M BACK!

I have not been purposefully remiss in my bloggal duties. I haven't had internet access on the ship for a week. You see, the crew have to purchase $20 pre-paid internet cards, and when there ain't none left, there ain't no internet. It's been a long frustrating journey, and my resolve has been tested. I can't imagine what I did before Internet, because it's clear that I cannot live without it.

It's been a tremendously busy few days aboard the ms PS (let's call it that from now on, simply so the company doesn't sue me).  I organized a crew show, which basically means I had to sit through 3 hours of pointless rehearsals for mediocre acts (I don't think it's racist to say that the Filipinos have an unhealthy addiction to karaoke), transcribe 2 pop songs for the band, order the beer and pop for the performers backstage, set the running order, call all the departmental supervisors to make sure the performers can get off work at the appointed time, play the show, and get smashed in the crew bar afterwards.  It all went off without a hitch, but I was profoundly knackered by the end of the night.  There's been the usual running- around-like-a-chicken-with-my-head-cut-off sort of thing too. I've also arranged a 40 minutes show with 10 songs in 3 days.  So what I'm saying is; It's a good thing I haven't had internet for the past little while, because I probably wouldn't have posted much anyway.

However, our ship is going into wet dock to repair the engines, and I'll be off for 10 days in Auckland. So I'm sure to get back on the horse.

Thanks for your understanding.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

Last night on the ship's music channel, I happened upon a Dusty Springfield concert, taped at Royal Albert Hall in 1979 before a live audience (and Princess Margaret, who looked as if she'd rather be spending the night with a jar of peanut butter and the Queen's Corgis). I had forgotten how much I love this woman (Dusty, not Margaret). She always came across as unpretentious and normal, and on stage, she almost had an awkward quality that was tremendously endearing.  The concert, actually, wasn't all that. Her backup singers were very obviously sight reading, and her trumpet player sounded as if he'd had the 3 Bean Casserole for dinner every night for a week.  But Dusty was glorious,  basking in her fans' adulation, resplendent in an almost-unfortunate white jumpsuit (hey, it was 1979!) and sounding, if not quite as wonderful as she did on record, pretty damn good. I was slightly disappointed she did a truncated version of "I Only Want To Be With You" (and it was in a medley, and I HATE medleys!), but her "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" was even better than the original. My favorite moment came at the end as an encore, after Dusty had changed into a purple sparkly morning coat. A melancholic version of a not-so-great song by Peter Allen called "Quiet Please" (supposedly written for Judy Garland), steeped in life and love and happiness and regret. Enjoy.

COFFEE CRISP

"Face it Vera, you're no Jane Rivers."
-Coffee Crisp ad from the 1990's

My job requires me to be away from Canada for long stretches at a time. In fact, I haven’t lived in Canada since 2002 (and to be accurate, I haven’t lived anywhere since 2006. Unless you count Deck 3). The very first thing I do when my plane lands in Montreal (after customs and filing a lost luggage claim) is go to a dépanneur and get a Coffee Crisp. (For those unfamiliar with what a dépanneur is, it’s a corner store with a Québecois flair. I’ll discuss them in a future entry). Coffee Crisp is a chocolate bar, made of alternating thin crispy vanilla wafers and coffee-flavoured cream, all wrapped in a thin layer of milk chocolate. Yummy. Oddly enough, I'm not a big chocolate addict, like a lot of people are. I can take it or leave it. But there's just something so... Canadian about Coffee Crisp. They're made by Cadbury's (which is a British company)but I have not, In fact, seen them anywhere else but in Canada. Pity.

MUSINGS version 3.0

I was in the crew bar last night, and what should pop up on the TV screen but the video for Total Eclipse of the Heart (the original, not the absolutely Hy-sterical literal video version!!). I mused out loud, but to no one in particular, that I remembered when that video came out.  A normally delightful 23-year old woman said to me: "What are you? 40? You're not that old!" And I said: "39, actually. And yes I am that old". To which she replied: "You are old."  In her defense, she was drunk.   But I would have never presumed to talk to an elder like that when I was her age. What is up with with you kids these days?

MADAME ALIAS PART DEUX

My mom facebooked me today with this little tidbit:


I thought you might like a little (and that's the rest of the story) more about Mme. Alias (I still think of her like that). We taught together during my last year teaching at Maisonneuve. After you were born I brought you to the school and when she saw you she put her arms out and you (at 6 or 7 months old) reached out for her and gurgled happily in her arms. When she told me you were good in music (at the age of 7-ish), I thought it was because she liked me and wanted me to feel good about you being in that school. It was when she threatened to get you a music teacher herself and send me the bills that we realized she was serious (and I was a little intimidated by her), so we found Chris. I'm really glad we did.


So am I. And now you see from whence I get my love of parenthetical asides (like this one...)

RANDOM THINGS

I was in Auckland today, and I went walking up Queen street, which is the equivalent to Ste. Catherine's in Montreal, or indeed, Queen or Yonge in Toronto.  As I got to a busy intersection, I noticed about 30 people scattered about on the four corners. They were all carrying pillows. When the light turned green, a whistle blew, they all ran out into the middle of the intersection and proceeded to have a giant pillow fight. Not with passers-by (unless they wanted to join in) but just with themselves. When the light was about to turn red, another long whistle blew, and they went back to their respective corners. I stayed and watched this for about 15 minutes. I've been smiling all day.

MADAME ALIAS

What the teacher is, is more important than what (s)he teaches

-Karl Mennenge (with a slight alteration)

One of the most influential people in my life was my elementary school music teacher, Mme. Elvire Alias.  I had obliquely shown musical ability early in my life (I made up a song about rigatoni when I was 2 or 3 that my grandmother probably still has on tape somewhere.  It wouldn’t be the only time I wrote a song about pasta), but she was the first person who truly recognized it.  I think it’s safe to say that without her, I may not be a musician today.

A striking bespectacled lady from France who favoured gypsy skirts (though I believe she was of Basque heritage, like Ravel), she loved music and teaching probably more than anyone I’ve ever met. I would watch her fingers move as she would play the piano, and marvel at how someone’s hands could make such beautiful sounds. She taught us a quirky adaptation of the Orff method, a system involving hand gestures for each note (which we never learned) and mini-xylophone and percussion orchestras, which was developed by Carl Orff (whose Carmina Burana I may or may not discuss at a later date. I have yet to decide whether it’s a masterpiece or just a tawdry, crowd-pleasing collection of repetitive ditties). She would arrange folk and popular songs for her classes to play at the twice-yearly concerts, but our class was so good that she chose Für Elise as our spring showpiece. I remember one afternoon early in the semester. We were practising in the music room of the stately and over-crowded Victoria School. It was early February, and the sun was streaming through the tiny window in the dusky attic loft.  I was sitting on the floor in the front row, playing melody with about nine other 8-year olds. (Truth be told, I always wanted to play the bass xylophones, because the sound was cool, and we could play them sitting on our knees. Even then, I got pins and needles when sitting cross-legged, or Indian-style, as we called it back in the day). We were practising the first half of the piece, but we hadn’t yet learned the second half. I looked up at the giant score pasted onto poster board that hung in front of us, and a light bulb went off.  It all made sense: All the notes and notations and dynamics and rhythm and harmony, it all came together in that one amazing moment. When she gestured for us all to stop, I decided to sight-read the rest of piece as the rest of class looked on in annoyance. When I was done, Mme. Alias looked at me with tears in her eyes and proceeded to rattle on for 5 minutes in French, a language of which my grasp was still quite tentative, so I didn’t understand much of what she said. I realize now, of course, that I was showboating a bit (I probably realized it then as well…), but it was the first time that the mystery of music had opened my eyes. I didn’t want it to stop.

It was probably soon after that that Mme. Alias urged my parents to start me in piano lessons. Urge, perhaps, is not the word; she forced, nay, threatened my parents to take me to a piano teacher, and quickly! They apparently ignored her pleas for a little while, what with the daunting prospect of the added expense of lessons and purchasing a piano. That summer (between grades 2 and 3) when I was at my grandparents’ church in Toronto with my dad and grandfather. I was banging away at the piano and realized for the first time that it was exactly like a xylophone; all the notes were in the same place.  So I started to plunk out Für Elise, left hand and all. That was probably the wake-up call for the ‘rents, and so that September, I started lessons with a young university student from North Carolina named Chris who lived 3 doors down. I progressed quickly, and within 3 months, I was learning Für Elise.  It was to Mme. Alias that I proudly showed my first attempt at composition - a 16-bar phrase in G major that I had painstakingly written out in my 8-year old’s scrawl. I can still vaguely remember the piece (and yet, I can’t for the life of me remember a note I wrote while studying composition in University. I did write a piece for viola and 10 blenders though. That’s what it was called too – Piece for Viola and Ten Blenders. I was always one for didactic titles. Never heard that masterpiece performed…). She never stopped encouraging me, and I started playing piano for her grade school choirs by the time I was in high school. When I graduated, she said that the pupil had surpassed the master. I still have trouble believing that. I continued to play for her concerts until she retired about five years later.  And though I would have gladly done it for free just for the joy of being in her presence and working with her again, she insisted on arranging for a small honorarium. Not only was she a wonderful musician, she instilled in me a love and passion for music, which to this day, remains lit and burning. Her most remarkable achievement, though, is that she instilled that same love and passion in countless other children, many of whom are musicians because of her, all of whom surely must remember her with the same gratefulness and love as I do.