Santiago

... Santiago ...

We have arrived in Santiago.

Greg just got up from a cat nap. We are going to walk around tonight. Our apartment is $317 for 6 nights. Cheapest hotels in Santiago --especially over London. Three flights, Edmonton, Toronto then Santiago. We are old so we paid for a seat on the last two flights, aisle seats.

Took a cab from the airport. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will go on the Hop-On Hop-Off because traffic is less on Sundays so we can take the ride more often. About 30 degrees outside, no air conditioning in apartment but not too hot.

Love,

Wyona

PS We are suppose to be enjoying our Texas grandchildren while Trent and Jamie are off holidaying. However, they did not go so we took the holiday.

Holding the Entertaining Bar High

The old people in our ward are incredibly social. Someone will advertise in the ward bulletin that there will be a party, bring a salad or dessert and bring your friends. Saturday’s party was still on my mind Sunday afternoon when I received a call from the hostess, saying that she had found the purse I left behind.

When I went to pick it up I thanked her again for the fun, saying that I was going to blog the evening and wished I had taken a few pictures. She giggled and said, well, ok, but don’t use my name.

I will honour her request. She has a lovely home, and had tables set up for about forty people. But as the doorbell kept ringing and people continued to drive up, Bill called for help from some of his friends. “Go to my garage and bring in a couple of tables from there. And get the round table from downstairs. We will just squeeze everyone over a bit. There is room for all.” In his inimitable way, after the blessing was said he warned people, “There are too many of you. Those at the end of the line are not going to get any food. There is nothing I can do about it.”

Mrs. She-Who-Does-Not-Want-To-Be-Named had cooked an eighteen pound roast, and a huge pork loin, done a roaster full of baby potatoes and made three appetizers: stuffed mushrooms, baby quiches and a new zucchini appetizer that she found in the Jean Pare Appetizer Cookbook. She could have single-handedly fed everyone with no other help.

As the guests arrived, everyone had food in hand. I sat at a table with people I didn’t know. “Is this your first time at Mrs. She-Who-Does-Not-Want-To-Be-Named’s house,” I asked. Some nodded. “Well, I can tell you from forty years of experience, if you are invited to a party here, make sure you don’t miss it. The hosts are generous. They will let you stay all night. Their guest list always includes people you will have wanted to have spent an evening with – maybe her opera friends, or his extended family, or church friends you haven’t seen for years. Always some mix of her children and grandchildren will be seated somewhere.”

Later in the evening I sat to talk with Peggy Estabrooks, Jackie Richards and Erva Sherwood. Someone came by and I stood up to say a few words to them before they left. When I sat down, I do not know what had happened at that table of women, but they were laughing so hard that Erva had a handkerchief and was wiping the tears from her cheeks. I know that moment like that can’t be recreated, but I did want to know who had masterminded the joke that had the women unable to stop laughing. The others pointed to Peggy who denied that truth by shaking her head, but the twinkle in her eye gave her away.

The next day I tried to think how many people had been there. I told Bill that I thought as many as 60 people might have been there. Dead on, he said. Sixty-one.

What is there to say about a couple who are both in the eighties and can host that kind of party.

Arta

The Western

I signed up for two film courses this semester: The Western and Canadian Film and T.V.

I am a ten minute walk from the university. I go Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning and then all day Thursday, where I get a mixture of film, lectures and student presentations.

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 I grew up at the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Plaza where I saw a B-Western every Saturday. I can still remember the thrill of the lights going down, and the cheers from the audience as the pre-movie serial began to roll. Now I get to sit in lectures and hear about the life of the Western, one of the few genres that is truly American.

 Last week the whole lecture was on genre-mix: the Western cross over into Science-Fiction.

Based on a true story,
this is the tale of Josephine Monaghan

Today the topic was Gender in the Western. I was taking notes as though I were going to prepare for an essay or write an exam.

The professor talked about the stock plot, the exaggerated homo-social world, the bad girl, the Hawksian woman (women who appear in movies directed by Howard Hawks), the captivity narratives, the revisionist westerns. The professor pauses sometimes to ask if there are questions, but there are none.

 Most of the students in the class were born long after the Western Genre began its decline and this is the first time they have looked in depth at the Western.

The story is about a man returning
to his abandoned wife after seven years 
of drifting from job to job throughout the southwest. 
The embittered woman will only let him stay 
if he agrees to move in as a hired hand.

We watch a problematic clip of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. I want to know what to make of the voyeur who observes violence but does nothing.

The professor launches into a mini-lecture on the worshipful male, whose job it is to return masculinity to the hero. 

No one is sadder than I am when the class ends. I come home and study my notes while I eat my supper. I wonder why I am doing this, but I can’t stop myself. Beside my dessert is my text book and begin to read a few of the unassigned essays from it. I

f I could change my life in any way, it would be to have time to do more film.

Arta

The Back Pack

From Hebe:

Here is what I bought with half of my birthday money.

I wanted a regular knapsack for school instead of the one on wheels that my mom bought me in kindergarten.

This one has a detachable lunch box.

I'm so excited.

Hebe

The Merry Widow

Renée Fleming as Hanna Glawari in Lehár's The Merry Widow Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera

I made it to the encore of The Merry Widow today. The Chinook Cineplex was packed. What is it? The big mall? The big screen? The people on that side of town have more time for culture? When the ticket seller showed me the screen from which I was to choose my seat, only the front 3 rows were empty. A packed house.

To see the show is to know why -- an amazing operetta.  Lighter than full opera, lots of dialogue, in English, the musicians a mix of broadway and opera -- now that is a charm in itself.

On the way out I heard the man behind me tell his wife, we don't have to hurry.  I looked around and could see why.  In many cases one of the couples was helping pull the other of that couple up, helping them to get out of the seat.  Many needed to hang onto a bannister or onto the person next to them. If someone had yelled fire, the exit would still have been orderly, because the speed we were going at, while walking, is still our top speed.

The third act at Maxims was so much fun that I felt I could sing and dance when I left the theaytr.  I had to remind myself, not I can just watch people sing and dance.  From now on, my only participating will be the tapping of my toe, which was still a lot of fun.

Arta

There is an "offish" review in the Telegraph
Despite what they say, it was still worth every penny.

Man Equals Man by Bertolt Brecht

The transformation of the porter Galy Gay
in the military cantonment of Kilkoa

I couldn't have spent a more interesting evening.  Pouria invited me to join a group of students going to see Bertolt Brecht's Man Equals Man, presented by The School of Creative and Performing Arts.

While we were standing in the kitchen, he and I did some internet research, trying to find some snippets that would aid our viewing.

I am familiar with the phrase when someone identifies something "as Brechtian".

Knowing that the phrase is important, doesn't mean I know what the phrase means so we read a bit and talked a bit and went to see the play.

The programme notes were good but not enough:

Man Equals Man is about the transformation of a human being. Indeed, it is a play about how we as human animals are constantly disassembling and reassembling ourselves in order to suit a particular agenda: our own, or someone elses ....

... the year is 1925 ...

Whom I want to be is the student I over heard in the washroom speaking to her friend.  "This is the third time I have seen the play.  The essay I write is going to be so awesome." Now there is a woman who knows how to get the maximum value from her viewing and put it to good use.

As for me, I have to do some primary research to understand what I saw tonight.  Wondering why I have never seen Brecht before I went out to skim a list of his works.  I couldn't have been happier:  The Duchess of Malfi, The Three Penny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children. I have seen at least those three -- and the latter, in Salmon Arm a few years ago, so it is not that the plays are inaccessible.

I seem to be better at remembering the names of plays, than remember the names of playrite.  Or at least being able to link him up with works I have seen.

The final performance is tomorrow night at 7:30 pm.

Arta

More tales of Japan

From Moiya:

Tomorrow is my day to shop and the first thing on my agenda is to go to the 100 yen store. That is like our dollar store but everything, almost, is 1 dollar.

sushi conveyor belt

They have Japan Rail replicas, and some tracks for them. I think I will go and get several of them and then buy a bunch of track and accessories as well. It is batter operated and the kids love them.

I will get lots of gems at the dollar store.

I am also going shopping at the mall.

Haven’t had any time to do that yet.

We went to the Sushi-Go Round tonight. Ashley and Adam, the Vaughn’s friends took care of the kids. It was awesome! We ate so many different kinds of sushi and just kept ordering and also taking random things that would come by on the special belt that ran right by our table.

I am ready to give sushi a try when I get home.

So much fun! …….to eat it anyway. The desserts were very good too!  I think we paid $60 in total for the four of us.

We also went to the BEST Science Center today and then over to (The Log Cabin).The children run around upstairs and downstairs and play games, going on slides and up and down ropes. There is also  a room for the babies with all kinds of toys. It was free.

Shinshu KitKat

Now I need to get shopping and spend all the rest of our yen that we have left.

Oh, by the way, this is the place where they have KitKat galore: Strawberry, Citrus Golden Blend, Pear, Shinshu Apple,Edamame Soybean, Purple Sweet Potato, Hot Japanese chill, Cinnamon Cookie, Strawberry Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, Matcha-Green Tea, Hojicha Roasted Tea, Brown Sugar Syrup, Red Bean Sandwich,  andWasabi.

I have tasted the Strawberry only.

Moiya