Perfectly Imperfect

 

Last week I learned that “baroque” stems from the Portugese word meaning “imperfect pearl”. In the show I was watching, the pristine sphere of a cultivated pearl was displayed alongside a spludge of matching iridescence but woefully irregular shape.

If you think about it, life is very much like a baroque pearl. We’re oysters struggling to produce a flawless result. We strive for perfection in everything, yet achieve it in almost nothing.

Does that negate the struggle? Is an imperfect pearl less valuable than a perfect one? And, should it be? The oyster who produces an imperfect specimen is just as stressed as the oyster next door, who may actually be more stressed by the pressure to get it right the first time. Besides, as much beauty exists in imperfection as in the opposite—and sometimes you needn’t look that hard to find it.

Perfect pearls exist under false pretences, by the way. They’re like F***book lives, cleverly manipulated to look like naturally occurring phenomena.

The only perfect thing in this universe is, well, the Universe. Of course, there are moments of perfection in life, but they are moments. Transient, impermanent. Which is, I believe, what makes them perfect. Life itself is meant to be imperfect. It’s the only way we can learn anything! It’s also the reason why we’re here. There are two potential outcomes to anything we try: success or a lesson to be learned. No failures. Just learning.

I don’t know where we got the idea that everything we do, say, display, create or achieve must be perfect. Maybe it’s a holdover from where our spirits originate. We remember what it is to know perfection, ergo we knock ourselves out trying to recreate it in this dimension. A noble notion, yet the cause of so much misery at the same time. After all, who among us is perfect?

In truth, we’re all baroque.

With love,

If It Ain’t Baroque ...

Whenever I see the title of JS Bach’s “Air on the G String”, all I can think is how chilly it must feel.

If the radio is set to a baroque station, I know that Ter has been ironing. This cracks me up because ... actually, I’m not sure why it’s so funny, but her choice of laundry music does make me smile.

This is how seriously I perceive the music of my favourite century. Despite my fondness for the 1600s, it seems I don’t much care for the tuneage of the time. I don’t mind it, of course, but I won’t play it myself unless I’m writing a piece relevant to the period. Strangely enough, the soundtrack for “Versailles” isn’t reflective of the century, either. It smacks more of present day Ibiza than baroque Europe (though I’d probably get the CD anyway, even if it was crammed with Bach, Handel and a Hallelujah Host of Others).

Baroque music makes for good ambient noise, however. One of my cultured co-workers (she plays both classical guitar and Celtic harp—the talent pool at work is proof that there’s no money to be made in the arts) has a radio in her cubicle. Wedged between offices as she is, and placed on a high traffic corner, she finds it easier to concentrate on her job if Seattle’s National Public Radio is playing in the background. On a crazy day in any workweek, I’ll speed from my office, where the playlist ranges from classic Motown to cool jazz to 70s rock, and be rushing to the copy room when the lilting strains of a baroque violin will stop me in my tracks. Sometimes, I’ll even drop into my co-worker’s guest chair. When she looks inquiringly at me, I’ll say, “Just taking a civility break.”

Such music may be that which was claimed to soothe the savage breast. It certainly calms me in the midst of a hectic workday. It inspires images of perfectly aligned gardens, fashionable ladies and stylish gentlemen, all well-mannered and treating each other so cordially that it’s almost offensive. Better times and better men, yes?

Heck, no. The French Revolution might not have happened had the aristocracy been as elegant and ordered as the music of the day. Perhaps it’s merely an example of paradox sprung from a composer’s will to hide the truth of society at the time. Art these days is a more accurate reflection of where we’re at—a film parade of serial killers, political extremists, spies, renegades in fast cars, and superheroes sworn to save us from annihilating ourselves; music from angry children grown into angry adults, and underage girls shaking their collective booty as if a show of skin is empowering. Culture these days isn’t terribly cultured at all. Between the honesty in present day art and the hypocrisy in baroque composition, that civility break looks pretty darned good.

Nice Going, Einstein

How disappointing—and yet I don’t know if my disappointment is with the show or with myself, for not knowing better.

No, I knew better. Give a guy like David Lynch eighteen hours of airtime on premium cable and you’re a fool not to expect lengthy bouts of directorial self-indulgence ... but episode seven of the current Twin Peaks amounted to a solid hour of my life that I will never get back. Disturbing, art house imagery, discordant audio and no visible connection to the greater plot (which is pushing for coherence as it is) had Ter and me agreeing—reluctantly, on my part—to quit before we waste any more of our time. We are huge fans of the original series and anticipated the next one like a pair of little kids anticipating Christmas. I was prepared to allow for some alternate reality nonsense given the source, but last week’s offering was just-plain-stupid.

Truly disappointing.

On the other hand, the National Geographic channel’s showing of Genius—based on a book about the life of Albert Einstein—was, well, genius. I hoped it might be, as it starred Oscar winners and was produced by Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard and Brian Grazer); a combo that rarely misses the mark. No disappointment here! Ten episodes of brilliantly written, expertly acted and perfectly produced television, most of which I could follow despite the science not being dumbed down for the casual observer. Geoffrey Rush was splendid as Einstein in his later years, as was Johnny Flynn as the physicist in his youth, but the character I felt most for was his first wife, Mileva, a scientist in her own right who was sacrificed by the time in which she lived. Bravely played by Samantha Colley, she was absolutely wrenching to watch.

The story alone is interesting enough, but could have been ruined in the wrong hands. The complexity of Einstein’s mind, his obsession with science and his inability to relate with his family, set against the rise of Nazi Germany and the US investigation into un-American activity, was laid out in gorgeous detail, right down to the spacey special effects used to aid us in seeing what he saw during his theoretical “a-ha” moments. The dialogue was intense (the physics jokes were actually funny) and the politics of war made a full colour backdrop for the drama of real life relationships. The science was integral, but not the star. Gads, the series surpassed my expectations by as much or more than Twin Peaks fell short.

Genius is in the eye of the beholder.

Colour Me Gone

You might think that the term “adult colouring book” means extensive use of a flesh-coloured Crayola, but you’d be wrong.

What I think is a recent craze has actually been around for a while. My wee sister tells me that she had a grown-up colouring book when her kids were small. She still has it—unfinished, because the kids (now grown) made off with her coloured pencils.

Guess what I gave her for her birthday.

Colouring therapy goes even deeper into my history when I think about it. A Doodle Art poster of butterflies hung in the kitchen when I was a pre-teen; I would occasionally pause to fill in a wing or a flower, as would my sisters and maybe my younger older brother, though I never saw him doing it.

I’ve heard that colouring induces a mindset as close to meditating as one can get without actually meditating—good news for someone like me, who falls asleep when confronted by a lighted candle.

Truth is, I love to colour. It’s easier than writing. Way easier, in fact., though it can facilitate the process by giving me something to do while I mull over plot portents. I get completely lost in my Christmas cards each year. The hard part is the poetry; once the words are formed, the struggle ends and the joy begins—with colour.

It’s the perfect meditation. There are no rules, no time limits, no restrictions. You can even colour outside the lines if you want. How cool is that?

Ter gave me a book for my birthday. I love it, but like dessert, I have to eat my veggies before I can indulge, so I don’t spend as much time at it as I’d like. When I can no longer bear the wait, however, you’ll find me in the zone.

“The Green Fairy Speaks”

Already the light is changing. It seems darker when I wake and begins to fade before I want to sleep. François is now perennially haloed, though it may only be his hair. He is the picture of tow-headed, my boy who is more a man than any of the men I have known, Georges and Henri and that ridiculous Jean-Claude. They are the boys, more passionate in their notion of fame than their pursuit of it. They spoke of art, of holding a salon to rival the Impressionists, yet produced not a single work between them.

I see that now. I see so much in the changing light, sitting at the window with a café au lait to warm my hands.

Mme. Bernier scolds that I should not take coffee when I cannot take her soup. François says that no one can take the old dear’s soup, and continues to bring me his magical potion despite her protestations.

She teaches me to knit while François is at work. I am making him a scarf in secret, of red wool to brighten his winter coat. He quit waiting tables to take an apprenticeship at the boulangerie when I fell ill. The baker’s daughter is in love with him, but he does not see it. She begged her father to procure the steamer François uses to make my coffee. I do not believe that she begrudges me.

She can afford to wait.

From my window, I can hear the music of the Moulin. François took me there one Sunday afternoon and taught me the steps to the waltz. He was amazed that, after a year in Paris, I did not know them. I knew how to kick and cavort and flip my skirts above my knees, but not how to waltz.

I learned quickly, I loved it so, and he is a patient teacher. Something happens to him when he takes me in his arms. He becomes more than my boy, more than my angel.

He becomes my lover.

The other day he arrived home with a priest and a pawnshop wedding ring. I tried to dissuade him, but he insisted and now I am his wife. It feels no different than it did.

Perhaps it is un peu plus triste.

He loves me, I know, though I don’t know why. He has promised to take me home. After we said our marriage vows, I suggested that my father cannot refuse me now. François said quietly that he will not dare, not when I am returned to him honourably wed with a grieving husband.

The light keeps changing, dimming sooner and sluggish to ignite, but it burns brighter than the dawn around my François.

I will dance with him one last time, here in his tiny apartment while the music drifts toward us on the breeze. I will take his hand and he will put his arm about my waist, and we will spin and whirl in a blur across the floor. When I stumble, he will catch me. He will sweep me up into his arms and continue the dance, waltzing me closer and closer to the ever changing light.

It is not so dark now.

“The Green Fairy Speaks” (Preface)

A few years ago, I heard a song called “Dark Waltz” sung by Jackie Evancho on PBS. It was eerie as heck, hearing this very grown up lament sung by an eleven-year-old girl who sounded like a thirty-year-old woman. I tried to find her version of it on Youtube, but found this one instead. The video is glorious, the song perfect, and while not sung in the same mezzo soprano as the kid’s, Viktoria Tocca’s rendition does justice enough to the sentiment.

Who knows why something doesn’t ignite right away? I loved the song on first hearing, but wasn’t inspired to write from it until a few weeks ago. While one might automatically think “vampire”, the lyrics actually struck me as something that might be applied to someone on the precipice between this life and the next. It’s sad, it’s haunting, it’s romantic… as my Nicole would say, le sigh.

Imagine my surprise when a character I hardly know stepped up to finish a story begun more than a year ago, where a Parisian waiter named François rescued a girl named Odette from the clutches of her artist admirers. I wrote a fairly lengthy sequel to the original piece, but less has turned out to be more. It goes up tomorrow.

And so their story ends.

Enjoy.

Painting and Revolution

Ter and I recently watched a 4-part documentary about the Impressionist movement of the late 19^th century. The presenter—a quirky character with a droll sense of humour—did more than discourse about the painters themselves. He expanded the subject to include the changing times that inspired their work. It was awesome!

I love Paris and I love Impressionist art—the light and colour and motion are dazzling and, as is the case with most artistic endeavours, they reflect the world in which the artists lived. Sometimes the painter’s inner world is revealed—Goya, Van Gogh and early Degas come to mind—but it’s the external world that lends life and colour to our history. Without the painters, poets and playwrights, we’d only have the media spin on what went before. In the days of kings and cardinals, artists were funded by the powers that be, hence the abundant regal and religious works … and you can’t tell me that Holbein and Van Dyck weren’t the masters of Photoshop in their time. When royalty is your bread and butter, you’d better make those recessive traits look good.

Patronage aside, art is critical in capturing the essence of a time and place. Artists are both historians and scientists, experimenting with light and colour in ways that “real” science might ignore. Even now, in the 21^st century, our society is revealed through its art , and not to its best advantage when one considers that terrorists and serial killers are the heroes on TV and the world can only be saved in the movies by people with superpowers.

Isn’t that why arts programs are the first to suffer funding cuts in times of fiscal restraint? Creativity is considered a luxury by those who fear it. To everyone else, it’s a link to something greater than ourselves, and a perspective on life that reveals too much for intellectual comfort.

I digress.

Like the Dutch masters before them, the Impressionists were free to paint what they saw: ordinary people living everyday life. Better yet, they spawned a revolution in tools as well as technique. The invention of tubed pigments and portable easels made painting outdoors as convenient as working in one’s studio. And, man, did they have a myriad of subjects from which to choose. I have yet to see myself in any of the café tableaux, but I’m sure I was there in a past life; I’m too in love with music and the lifestyle, naughty girl that I must have been.

The documentary also prompted me to revisit the story of François and Odette, not to amend it in any way, but to look at them a few months after he rescued her from the life of a disenchanted muse. As with any revolution, some will benefit, some will suffer, and the artist will record it for posterity.

Mature Content

Google has made available a “mature content” setting for bloggers who post on their server. I noticed the prompt on my dashboard one day, with further information indicating that, if Google gets any complaints about graphic content, the company will automatically flip the switch on the site. If enough complaints are received, Google may then shut down the site. It seems a step in the right direction, of the big cahunas on the internet attempting to regulate themselves before the government intervenes, and I’m fine with that. I just wonder how they define “graphic content”.

I’m all for censoring myself—I do that before I hit the “publish” button on a post. Then I promptly contradict myself by stating a firm belief in the artist’s right to express him/herself in whatever form he/she chooses. But then the question arises: What is art? And I admit, I’m a little confused about my own work.

I don’t write porn … I don’t think. I dunno; maybe some folks would say that I do. It depends on the setting, the situation, the characters and the relationship. I try to be tasteful about any physical intimacy—even the rough stuff—and if you write about vampires and warriors, at some point you’ll be writing scenes of blood and violence. The skill involved in writing fiction through a filter is no small thing. I do my best, with some success, might I add, but in the end, it’s a little scary to know that my opinion of my work may matter less than that of a reader who has issues.

I considered whether or not to flip the switch and have the site automatically warn visitors that mature content awaits. At this point, I’ve decided against censoring myself that severely. My intention is always good, to send out a positive vibe, tell a compelling story, share a laugh or rant about my hockey team, but as for graphic content residing on this blog, I really must protest.

Retreat Into Art

Poetry. Cake decorating. Architecture. Painting. Metalwork. Jewelry. Quilting. Photography. Everyone can do something artistic. People say to me, “I could never write a book.” To which I say, “You can do something else.” (And I guarantee it’ll be something that I can’t.)

At coffee with my wee sister one day, I told her about the card I was making for our younger older brother’s birthday. At that stage, I’d not yet decided on a drawing, so I said to her, “If you get an idea, let me know.”

She kinda smirked and replied, “I’m not that creative.”

Wrong-o, kid. I reminded her of her flair for interior design (she has a great eye for colour) and the garden she used to keep in bloom throughout the seasons. She thought for a second, then said, “I liked to plant things to see what they’d look like, or if I could keep them alive.” Which she usually could. She likes to paint walls, too, if she could do so uninterrupted. She has kids and critters and a job, so her creativity goes unrecognized, but it’s there. Every one of my siblings has some creative ability whether or not they realize it, and we all share warmth, wit and wonderful parents. Dad is an artist/writer/dreamer; Mum is a gift unto herself, but was always baking, knitting, or sewing, and loved to play her piano while she raised her kids.

Making time for creativity is the trick. In an über-busy world, too few of us earn a living from our passion. Creativity is notorious for producing poor to no income, but that’s what hobbies are for. The lucky ones make it their reality. The rest of us make it our escape from reality. Either way, how dare anyone claim that art is expendable! Without art, there is no life, no will, no courage, no joy … no point.

Just sayin’.

Sketches of Pain

The Brits recently made a wonderful docudrama about Vincent Van Gogh, creating a script from the letters he exchanged with his brother, Theo, and casting Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. Ter and I watched it on PBS a fortnight ago, and were mesmerized, it was so well done. Well written, expertly played. Brilliant.

Despite each having a favourite of his works, neither of us is a great Van Gogh fan. Of course we know who he was, but this little film expressed who he was, and again, I wonder at the misfortune of people born ahead of their time. Unique and misunderstood, he suffered mightily for it, yet he created some of the most vibrant, aggressive, almost brutally colourful art of the age. None of this shimmering, iridescent romanticism of the Impressionists for him; once he “discovered” it, Van Gogh used colour like a weapon.

And a tortured soul? Gah. What might he have done (or not done) without his internal angst? He demonstrated great compassion and sympathy for the plight of the working class, as many of his early drawings showed. The son of a Lutheran minister, he tool a stab at preaching and only lasted six months; he experienced such volatile mood swings that he had trouble keeping any sort of “real” job and so ended up painting the French countryside, starry nights, and sidewalk cafés.

He was not famous in his lifetime. He made no money from his art. He painted to keep his soul alive. Like any true creative spirit, he practiced his art to improve upon it, seeking inspiration in nature, digging deep to source emotion, alternately accepting his genius, then questioning his ability. Highs and lows. Ups and downs. Beauty and pain.

Contrast.

Is a madman who knows he is mad truly mad? Of course Van Gogh was not born ahead of his time. Nobody is. We each come when we are meant to, armed with certain gifts, a rough idea of what to do with them, and a greater role than we imagine we’re to play in the lives of others. We come to sing songs in the darkness, to experience the pull of gravity and learn to rise above it. We are here to touch and be touched by a plethora of emotions linked by contrast: love and sorrow, pleasure and pain, loss and discovery. Anyone who writes or designs or builds or gardens or cooks or sings or plays will understand why Vincent Van Gogh was driven to paint.

Whatever else he may have suffered in life, when he painted, he knew pure, primary-coloured joy.

A Turning Season

Fall arrived at 7:29 last night. I went downstairs at 7:15 and spent a few minutes in the garden, inhaling the last breath of summer. The air was muggy yet smelled of wood smoke, the quintessential autumn scent. The big mystery tree out back has been dropping leaves for weeks now, crispy brown things that crunch like potato chips beneath my feet, but the flowers persist in colourful defiance.

I still see roses in bloom. Not many, but most definitely roses. We have a painting by Trisha Romance called “September Rose”; I think of it every time I walk past a garden that smells of Turkish delight..

My whites have been retired, but the pastel tees are still in play. Normally, at this time of year, I’m either underdressed for the morning or overdressed for the afternoon and a jacket is worn on the way to work but draped over my arm on the way home. This month has been unseasonably warm for Victoria—which was good for my niece’s bridal shower last weekend. You need good weather for a garden party and, miraculously, the weather obliged in spades.

Can’t say the same for Calgary—they had 30 cms of snow the week after Labour Day. The grounds crew at Spruce Meadows barely managed to clear the ring in time for the annual Masters tournament; if Ter and I had considered driving out to see the horses this year, we’d have stroked out over the weather beforehand.

The forecast this week is unsettled. Fall is definitely elbowing summer aside, but summer is fighting it. I don’t know why. It’ll be back next year.

Won’t it?

Suffering for Art

Unless you count emails at work, my plan to write daily isn’t going very well. You might count the goings on in my imagination, I suppose, as there’s always something brewing in there. I am more productive if I get the scene/story ordered in my head before I tackle the computer. Going in cold rarely achieves ignition.

I wonder why I do it at all.

At the beginning of January, Erin Morgenstern posted a piece on her blog that struck a chord. She intends to write her follow up to The Night Circus in 2014, but expressed some doubt about how to accomplish it. She’s much happier with life now than she was then, so liking the world outside her head is interfering with the world inside her head. She finally confessed that she started writing to escape a sadness that no longer exists. At the beginning, she wrote to escape.

So did I.

My arthritis was diagnosed shortly after I discovered the joy of creating my own stories. I loved to read, as did (does) my whole family, but for me, writing took that pleasure to another, all-consuming level. After delivering the good news to my mother and me, the doctor added the bonus info that I’d have to cut back on the writing, as the physics of it were likely to cause more problems than the disease alone.

That very night, I started writing a new story. I recall nothing of it except that it was as much an act of defiance as of creativity. I had dabbled with words since age ten. At thirteen, I flung my arms around the practice and held on for dear life. From then on, writing was my escape, my sanctuary from a world where the struggle against pain reigned supreme. For years, arthritis was my real life and writing was how I coped with it. I actually did let up in my twenties, when the worst seemed over and my life got happier. I still use it as a coping mechanism, but overall, my inner world is darker and scarier than my outer one.

I understand what EM is saying. Great art, be it literature, music or painting, is often born of the artist’s suffering and subsequent urge to escape some form of pain—a broken heart, a broken child, a broken faith. Time and again, I’ve heard poets and musicians say their best work was done in their darkest moments. Happily, it’s not set in stone that beauty must come from pain. After all these years, writing is my habit as much as my escape. At times, I don’t even think about it; I just do it. Whether it began as a hidden part of me or it arrived later to save me from my angst, it’s very much a part of me now. If I had to stop, I’d as soon stop breathing.

EM says she must learn to write while she’s happy. She’s so gifted that I’m sure she’ll succeed. As for me … I’ll leave the suffering to my characters. I’m fine without it.

Creativity Rules

Ter is an artist. I am a writer. In the days before we joined the ranks of the pension prisoner, we lived and breathed creativity. It happened spontaneously, with little warning. Inspiration was everywhere, in music, in books, in movies. She painted portraits of rock stars and I wrote about vampires who looked like rock stars. Her portfolio challenged my manuscripts for storage space in our basement apartment but still, we created. I learned to write by reading my favourite authors. Ter collected art magazines featuring articles by and about her favourite artists, and once in a while—more frequently then than now—we went to museum exhibits and local art shows. A portrait exhibit in Vancouver was particularly enjoyable; I got a bigger kick from watching her inspect the brush strokes in a Sophie Pemberton work than I did from seeing a Van Dyck of Charles I in the flesh.

My practice at an art show is to wander with an idle eye and wait for something to leap out at me. There are always things I like or will agree that’s nice, but a real sock in the belly is what determines whether or not I will part with cash. I am usually looking for something that impresses me as much or more than anything Ter has produced, and it’s rare that such a piece presents itself. Portraits of any ilk are few and far between. Portraits of her caliber are fewer still.

For that reason, I will always remember Sandra Jean. She hung amid florals and still lifes and seascapes and landscapes at a community art show in Sidney. I’d been strolling through the exhibit, scouting for anything that wasn’t a floral or a still life or a seascape or a landscape, and suddenly there she was: a woman with long dark hair and haunted green eyes gazing out of the frame and right through my heart. I stopped dead in front of her and forgot to breathe. I just stood and stared, transfixed. I would have her in my house today except that she was not for sale. The card named the painting and the artist, and there was the cursed red dot that meant I could only take the memory of her with me, because cameras were not allowed and I didn’t have mine with me anyway.

I showed her to Ter. Whether or not she shared my passion for the painting, she understood the nature of it. True art should incite an emotional response in the viewer, right?

So you’d think.

Ter was working at an art gallery/framing shop at the time. The girl she worked with was studying for her art degree and, as it happened, had framed Sandra Jean. The artist was the subject’s mother, and it turned out that she had captured a recent loss in her daughter’s life—I think a divorce but can’t recall for sure. As far as I was concerned, the artist nailed it to the wall, but all the framer had to say was how this was wrong and that should have been different and on the whole, the painting wasn’t that great.

If it wasn’t that great, why do I still remember it? Why did I want to buy it at the time? Why was I so dumbstruck by her beauty that I didn’t notice all the little things that were wrong? I guess if I’d brought my carpenter’s level and a plumb line, I might have seen that her neck was disproportionately long or whatever else the educated eye had plucked out, but all I cared for was how I felt when I met her sad, sad eyes.

The first rule of creativity is that creativity has no rules. Sandra Jean was proof. Follow the rules and you’ll end up with something that may impress the rule makers, but won’t likely impress me.

Blog Art

part of my kit currently getting the most work

Tomorrow’s post is about honeybees—and I only offer that tidbit because it inspired today’s post.

Many of the photos put up here at CR I have taken myself, especially since the arrival of my beloved Canon. Others obviously originated elsewhere, and I’ll happily give credit where it’s due if I am ever caught. I’d give it up front except that I rarely know who took/drew/assembled whichever photo I choose to complement my musings du jour.

But back to the honeybees. A post about honeybees is well-served by a picture of a honeybee. Problem there is that, no matter how harmless to humans or vital to the ecosystem they are, honeybees are still insects, and insects of any ilk make my toes curl. I actually found a pic that would have suited, except that it’s a picture of a bug and after some (okay, not that much) thought, I decided to go with the cutesy option and find a cartoon.

Photos are easier to use than cartoons, mostly because many ’toons are visibly copyrighted and a watermark wrecks the effect, i.e., the best drawings that Google found were armed against unauthorized use. So I puzzled for a bit, then, just as frustration began to bubble, a little voice suggested that I draw my own picture.

Well, why the heck not? I can draw. I must be able to, else why would I have an arsenal of artistic weaponry in my writing room? Drafting pencils, coloured pencils, pens, felt-tipped markers, art erasers (I go through a lot of those), paintbrushes – if it can be found in a grade school student’s desk, I have the grown-up version in mine. A sampling is pictured above (photo copyright by Ru, 2014)

So I did it. I drew my own honeybee. Tune in tomorrow for the great unveiling. Though, truly, I’m sticking with the writing gig.

Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?

More care to stay than will to go ...

Romeo and Juliet are like vampires: a permanent fixture in popular consciousness who lie dormant for a while then, when the cycle comes full circle, are revived once more. The latest version of Shakespeare’s homage to star-crossed love is adapted by Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes and produced in part by Swarovski Entertainment—the crystal people. Ter and I saw it on the weekend and yep, it’s a gem.

I’m a big Shakespeare fan, but not such a snob that I have issues with a writer tweaking the lingo. “Adaptation” suggests that a script will differ somewhat from the original, and what tinkering Fellowes did with the dialogue worked fine for me. The scenery was stunning, the plot true to form, and the lovers were indeed young enough if not to be actual teens then to be taken for them.

My benchmark production is Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey—that film boiled over with the tangled emotions of new love blooming amid ancestral hate. This one fell a little sort in that regard despite some serious smouldering by the fabulously hot-tempered Tybalt and the poetic portrayal of Romeo himself. The kid who played him made this movie more than a pretty bauble. He was Romeo: the sweet, ardent, honorable fool of Fortune. The guy who played Friar Laurence was equally good.

No complaint about anyone else, either. They all wielded Will’s words with relative ease. No society ever spoke in iambic pentameter, so it was refreshing to hear the iconic lines delivered with an everyday rhythm that made them sound natural. The one thing I would change—and Ter didn’t notice it, so I may be picking nits—was an overused soundtrack. There were scenes where the music was unnecessary and even, so I thought, intrusive. That said, this is easily the most beautiful version of the story I’ve ever seen, and I’m watching for more of Douglas Booth (Romeo) in future.

Zeffirelli’s masterpiece still trumps them all, and Baz Luhrmann’s modern-day version with Leonardo diCaprio and Clare Danes sits firmly in second place, but for sheer gorgeousness as well as a decent effort, this one is a hair more than too flattering sweet to be substantial.

"Cafe apres le Nuit"

The Green Fairy turned, inevitably, with the coming of winter.

She went early to the café, her head bowed and hooded, her boots crunching in new-fallen snow. The proprietor let her in and she sat by the window, close enough to feel the chill off the pane. She ordered claret. She was given coffee: dark, strong, deliciously bitter. Like her men, she thought, wearily.

Like me.

She was tired of being their muse. Tired of being handed from one to the other, of being admired and abused, of the continual play between drunk and hungover. She was nineteen and felt ancient. Ragged, wrung out, on the brink of being tossed aside for the next shiny new trinket. She had not bothered with a mirror this morning. Her hair was uncombed and her dress lacked the odd button, and for once, she did not care. Pierre had let her in, expecting a favour in return. Tonight? She wondered, eying him behind the bar. She decided not. He was too cautiously avoiding her gaze. Wisely, she realized. Tonight was Henri’s turn, and Henri disliked sharing her with his companions. He would not willingly forfeit her to the café owner.

He would not fight for her, either.

She sipped scalding coffee as the café stirred around her. China clinked and steam hissed from the counter where the exotic grounds were brewed to magical elixir. The back door slammed and murmured voices drifted her way, heralding waiters arriving for the midday shift. Snow fell indifferently outside, frosting the street in pristine white. Fresh. Unspoiled. As she had been, when she first came.

“Why did you come?”

She looked up, sharply. The boy François stood by her chair with a cup of heaven in his hands. “Is that for me?” she asked, hopefully.

He set the cup before her. She almost wept at the sweet creamy scent wafting upward in the steam. Her favourite, as only the boy could make it, her sublime café au lait.

Pierre appeared behind him. “Drink up and be gone,” he advised, gruffly. “We open soon.”

She understood. She could not be seen by respectable customers. Only after hours, when the artists and writers arrived to quaff forbidden absinthe and smoke opium cigarettes, when the music was racy and the laughter raucous, was her presence truly welcome, at least for as long as she continued to beguile.

She had not expected the attraction to fail her first.

“Go back to Georges,” the boy whispered.

“Georges is a snoring pig.”

“Go to Paul, then. Or Henri. It’s his night, is it not?”

She glanced up in surprise. “How do you know that?”

François flushed like a shy girl, but he was in it now and could only go forward. “I know,” he said, simply.

She looked hard at him, seeing him clearly for the first time. A genuine boy, straight and slender with ingenuous eyes and a pale wisp of mustache adorning his upper lip. “What business is it of yours?”

“None, I admit. How can I not know when I am here every night that you are?”

“Go away,” she said, dismissing him as irrelevant.

He made to obey, then hesitated. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then come with me.”

Again, she looked up, this time astonished. “What?”

“Come with me.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” He stood a little taller as he said it, as if being eighteen made him a man of the world.

She smiled. “You can’t even grow a proper mustache.”

“Does that make me less a man than the apes who paw at you every night?”

Her smile vanished. “Don’t speak to me that way!”

François stepped back, turning from her as if she had cut him when he had been the first to draw blood. She put out a hand to stay him.

“The truth, it hurts when spoken harshly by one so tender.” She rose from her chair. “I must go. Thank you for the café au lait. No one makes it better than you do.”

“Don’t go,” he blurted. He shook his head briefly, impatient with inexperience. “I mean, wait. I’ll fetch my coat. You can’t go back to Georges.”

She could, but she would pay. Georges habitually passed out on her breast and woke in the morning eager to finish what he had begun, only to spend himself in a brutish rage when she was not roused quickly enough. He would forgive her for slipping out while he slept if she did not return too soon. Returning now, though, would subject her to attentions more urgent—and even less effective—than usual. She could try Henri, she supposed, but she was not up to appeasing his manhood with the required blend of praise and ardent moaning. Jean-Claude performed like the virile hero in a play, sometimes dressed for the part and spouting his own poetry as he thrust. And Paul, Paul was likely the safest of the four because he liked to look and feared to touch, being attracted to boys yet willfully unaware of it.

“Why do you bother with them?” François asked, walking her through the snowy streets.

She sighed. “Because they bother with me. They buy my clothes and my meals and all I need do is be their inspiration.”

François was silent. She fell silent with him, knowing as well as he did that the life of a muse was vastly different from the life she was living. She may have started on the right course, but somewhere along the way, she had lost sight of herself.

“Why did you come to Paris?” he asked at last.

“I followed my heart. Regrettably, when I knocked and his wife answered the door, my plans changed.”

“You couldn’t go home?”

“I thought perhaps I could make something of myself. This is Paris, after all. A world of opportunity, full of potential for a pretty young thing. I didn’t know how cold it would be, or how cruel.” She shook her head clear of broken dreams. “Why did you come?”

“I was born here,” the boy said.

Startled, she glanced up at him. He walked with his head up and his eyes forward, his profile as clean and pure as the snow clinging to his lashes. A waiter in a café, his coat was wool but well-worn, his boots scuffed and sporting new laces. He wore no hat, baring his fair hair to the elements in a most un-Parisian fashion. “I thought you were from the country,” she said.

“Like you?” He smiled when she balked. “The absinthe recalls your accent.”

“When did you learn to speak?” she inquired, tartly.

He laughed. “I learned not to. Here we are.”

She stopped with him. “This is a boulangerie.”

François grinned, digging in his coat pocket. “Upstairs,” he said, nodding to an alcove by the display window. Artfully arranged loaves of bread and trays of pastries so dazzled the eye that no one who was asked could say a door, let alone an alcove, existed beyond the entrance to the shop. François slid a key into the lock and motioned her ahead of him. She went carefully up the stairs, feeling her way after the bright snow light.

“In the morning,” he said, unlocking one of two doors when they reached the second floor, “the smell of baking bread fills the apartment and lingers all day long. It’s the most comforting smell in the world.”

It was making her hungry. François ushered her over the threshold, leaving the door open as he showed her about his home. Small, neat, smelling of bread and sweet pastry, its simplicity made her want to smile and weep at once. The lavatory was shared with the other tenant, a little old woman who brought leftovers from next door almost every day. “She fears I don’t eat well,” the boy confided, chatty with nerves but utterly charming for it. “I ask you, how does one live above a boulangerie and not eat well?”

“I’m not good at riddles,” she replied, unable to disregard the single bed in the corner. She confronted him. “François, have you ever been with a woman?”

He blushed so fast and so violently that she had her answer before he could lie. She thought he might stammer a bit or stay quiet, but he did neither. “I didn’t bring you here for that.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have come otherwise. I can’t repay you for your kindness.”

“Accepting it is payment enough. I want you to be safe and—and—” He cut himself short, clearing his throat and half-turning to the door. “I must get back before Pierre dismisses me. My home is yours, mademoiselle. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

“Should I be here when you return?”

He turned back, suddenly unable to make his eyes meet hers. “I hope you will, but that is up to you. There is no obligation, mademoiselle. I have only wanted to do something kind for you.”

“You do that every night, François. You make the best café au lait in France, let alone in Paris. I’m sure that no one else savours it as dearly as I do.”

“I don’t make it for anyone else,” he said, softly. His eyes came up at last, sky blue and shining. “I make it only for you.”

She smiled. “Je sais. Merci.”

He nodded, suddenly awkward, and turned to go.

“François—”

He faced her again, his blond brows raised above those sweet eloquent eyes.

“You said you want me to be safe and—something. You didn’t finish.”

“I don’t know your name,” he said.

“They call me Anise.”

“I know what they call you. That is not your name.”

“No,” she allowed, suddenly fearful of this intimacy. She had come to Paris on the heels of romance and been dismayed. Disappointed. Disillusioned. Romance, pah. There was nothing but lust and power and misdirected dreaming. How often had she glanced past this boy and laughed at the soul in his eyes? How often had she bared her flesh and taunted him with the others who begged for it? How often had she hurt him with her carelessness, her bawdy drunken behaviour and derisive jeering, yet through it all, every night without exception, at closing time, there was the café au lait, made just for her, delivered in silence and tasting of love.

“My name is Odette,” she said.

“I want you to be safe and loved, Odette.”

“By you, François?”

“By whomever you choose,” he replied. He paused, but when she said nothing, he inclined his head and pulled up the collar of his coat. He left his key on the table by the door. She watched through the window, waiting until he appeared from the alcove and retraced their steps to the café, nodding politely to passersby and deftly sidestepping the horses in the street. He looked neither up nor back, and when he returned hours later after closing the café, the snow had stopped and she was still there.

copyright 2013 Ruth R. Greig

Preamble

It’s nice to finish something. When you write novels and your short stories run about 40 pages apiece, it’s hard to feel like you’ve accomplished anything after a writing weekend, whether you write during every day of it or not. I love my novel and I’m learning to shorten up the stories, though not enough to make a single post of anything. The blog is helping a bit; while I never considered myself a writer of personal non-fiction, trying to keep my posts of readable length has kind of forced me into the genre.

But my forte is still fiction (I think). My preference is certainly fiction. I love to write about other people, yet, as I say, it can be darned demoralizing when it takes for-frikking-ever to get anything finished. It gets even worse when a new voice pops into mind and starts making demands. I begin to think Iʼll never get anything done so why bother starting?

Then there are days when that new voice gets so insistent that I start seeing pictures and overhearing conversations from a story I havenʼt conceived of yet. I can feel my right brain swelling with content. It isnʼt painful in the conventional sense, but it is definitely distracting. I literally have to set everything else aside just to get it out of my head.

A couple of months back, I put up a blurb called Café Nuit that was inspired by Adam Hurstʼs cello piece The Midnight Waltz. It was short, fairly sweet, and got pretty good reviews from the faithful. I guess the heroine of the piece was gratified because she came back to me this weekend and bugged me into writing an extension of her story. Granted, it took me a few hours to get it out in first draft. Iʼd hoped to do it in half the time, but it didnʼt need much tweaking so Iʼll take it.

Best of all, it isnʼt that long, so I can put it into a single post! Watch this space – it goes up tomorrow.

Enjoy.