My Take on Akhnaten

Bridges, left, as Nefertiti and
Costanzo as Akhnaten
wore long red robes that trailed behind them like Christo banners.
(Karen Almond/Met Opera)

Rebecca arranged her flight to Australia somewhat around the Met-Live broadcast of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. 

We had seen the preview in previous opera’s – jugglers and singers together in pre-performance practice.

As usual, opera does not disappoint.

There are live interviews with performers who have just finished Act I, for example.

Or a pre-programmed interview with the conductor, this time Karen Kamenesk, who may be the foremost conductor on presenting Philip Glass’s music. I don’t follow him as many do. But I do go out to the internet and do my homework about the music. I may purse this out of a sense of shame that I don’t know more about opera off the top of my head. I do go to performances, but I can’t say I have read a book about famous 20th Century operas for example. I go merely out of a pursuit of pleasure. I don’t think I have ever been disappointed – not in the performances, nor in the encores.

In the live transmission, the satellites failed us during the climax of the first act and we missed seeing Akhnaten climbing the stairs to the sun, nor hearing the music around that ascent. But there is even something to be said in that moment as a space that reminds me of the exquisite pleasure of even seeing any of this performance live. There is a rocking repetition to Glass’s music in this opera – rocking in the sense of a rhythm going on and on. And a sublime sense of quiet when the opera is over – though I also felt a sense of loss in that quiet.

Mary and Leo took their kids to see the opera -- those lucky kids!

For a review from the Washington Post, click here.

Arta

Every meeting a party; every party a meeting

 Dec 8, 2019

 Moiya, Wyona and I had occasion to go downtown together – not something that happens often.

In this case, we weren’t shopping.

We were seeing our lawyers, also a once in a lifetime experience, we hope.

At any rate, while we were there we were like girls from the country, all agog at the wonderful decorations.

A building with lights cascading down tall lengths of windows and a two story tree all lit up with snowflakes.

... 3 of us, still smiling ...

Just beautiful.

Moiya brought snacks – home made hummus and pita bread and the lawyer offered us unlimited drinks.

And we marked the occasion with a sisters’ photo.

Two of them in fact.

Now what fun is that!

Arta

Ice Skates in the 1940's

... at Dapp, as a young child ...

I asked Santa Claus for ice skates when I was little. He brought me bob skates.

My dad put them on me later Christmas day and I raced around the Hounsfield Heights Community rink, one foot over the other.

Then I asked my dad when I would get getting real skates – not the ones for babies.

I got real skates in January – beautiful white figure skates with new laces through the eyelets and hooks up the calf of my leg.  I couldn’t race around the rink as I could with the bob skates but I practiced faithfully and asked if I could take figuring skating lessons. The lessons were held once a week down at the Hillhurst Community Centre. I would walk over the 14th Street and then down the hill to 5th Avenue where a teacher would give progressively harder lessons -- how to use the inside curve of my skate blade and then the outside curve. I learned how to skate backwards, how to do figure 3’s and figure 8’s. Doing the swan was hard for me since it had to be done on one leg, using both the inside curve on one try and the outside on another. I would practice doing the spin and was so thrilled when the teacher explained the science of drawing my arms in from outstretched to closer to my body, making my spin go faster.

I can remember sitting by the potbelly stove in the shack, warming up my cold toes and fingers before I would go outside onto the rink to practice my figures again. I walked down to the rink every evening to practice. During free skating time music would play over the loudspeaker at the ring: “Oh how we danced on the night we were wed,” and the music from The Blue Danube or the Tennessee Waltz. I can still do the lyrics: I was dancing / with my darling / to the Tennessee waltz / when an old friend I happened to see / .....

Flood lights were positioned at all four corners of the rink. When darkness came – which is pretty early in December and January, we would skate around the edges of the rink while couples who were skating together would glide along the ice, holding each other’s hands, arms crossed. And some of them would waltz together in perfect dance position, one going forward, the other going backwards, their legs in perfect unison. I think I can still hear the crackle as their skate blades cut the ice.

We could skate at the Hounsfield Heights Community which was closer to our house – about 2 blocks away. There was a place we called “the shack”. A small hut with a pot-bellied stove where we could make a fire to warm up. I don’t know who brought wood, paid for electricity, or cleaned the ice off, though it must have been the whole Hounsfield Heights Community Association who took care of that. All I knew was to use it every night.

I can remember lots of this part of my life: lacing up the skates, too tight across the instep, extra socks to keep warm and the yearly ice review – costumes, fluted skirt that would really twirl in the circles.

I loved my skates.

I still had them when I got married.

Arta

Pete’s Dragon and Exploding Kittens

bottom to top: Betty, Alice and Michael

Miranda and Richard left the kids with me Saturday evening while they went to an event out with his old high school friends.

The children and I sat our chairs in front of the TV and watched Pete’s Dragon, a Disney musical that I had never seen before.

There was a mix of wonder and terror, excitement and calm – part of the time Betty yelling out to the TV giving the dragon directions that might get him out of trouble.

I love that part of watching children’s childhoods. Michael’s excitement was demonstrated in fast, repetitive jumps, up and down, up and down in one place, or gradually creeping his chair nearer and nearer to the TV.

Alice hasn’t been feeling that well. Half way through the movie Michael and Betty announced that Alice had barfed just at the doorway to the living room. I didn’t think there was really a choice as to whether to clean it up or not (though when Richard got home he was horrified that I had cleaned it up), so I got busy making the room smell better.

I had hardly finished when Michael showed me that she had also heaved in the hall by the bathroom, so that kept me busy for a while as well. I haven’t done that for a long time. Poor little thing, her. I tried to get her to rinse out her mouth but she had taken care of the problem with some sips of ginger ale that was in the fridge. Though it was meant for Alice, I let all of the kids have some in a cup. After all, I have learned now that I am older, that if I somehow break the rules of the parents about who should be drinking what, it really doesn’t matter. The parents are equally interested in keeping me alive, so I am always in the right as far as they let me know.

When the movie was over we played 2 games. I tried to play 2 games together – keeping Betty busy with one game to my left, and the two others busy with another game, Exploding Kittens, to my right. Betty is easy to play games with. We just roll dice and move game pieces all over the board, not in any pattern that conforms to rules really. She just is thrilled to have so many rolls and yells out the numbers or letters on the die with glee, though she did close the game down early. When I asked her why she was packing it up she said because it isn’t any fun to play alone. I must have been paying too much attention to the other kids and not enough to her.

2 minutes to learn, 15 minutes to play

... my kind of game....

The game, Exploding Kitten, is new to me. The fairies brought it to them last night, and their mom taught them how to play it today. I make jokes to the children that if their own cat, Dash, watches too long, she too will explode. This isn’t the kind of humour they like. But they do like to deal the cards and have the fun of seeing who it is who eventually gets the card that puts them out of the game: making them an exploding kitten. Usually this would make someone this age cry, but Alice was a good sport, and just took over playing my hand when her kitten was demised. This lack of sorrow over being put out of the game might have been partially a function of not getting able to keep down solid food for a few days. She has been sick. I let her sip her ginger ale beside me and I slipped her a few small squares of Swiss chocolate. After all, I hardly count that as solid food.

Arta

On Last Trip to Total Cardiology

... LRT tracks in the snow at Erlton Station ...

The Repsol Centre houses the Total Cardiology Unit, a place where people with heart events to go get some cardiac training.

I did my last recall now.

The physio therapist said I was a star.

Nine minutes on the tread mill, my heart beat up to 188, able to speak in smooth phrases, even at the peak of my walk on the treadmill.

I was happy. The cardiologist said he had no more advice for me as did the physio therapist. “Keep doing what you are doing.” Even with that advice, I came home and read Chapter VI on Exercise in the book I got from there. I read a few tips I had forgotten.

My favourite part of the test was at the end when one of them asked where I was parked in the parking lot. I said, “Oh, I didn’t drive. I just hopped on the LRT.”

The physiotherapist laughed the hardest.

He lives in Parkdale.

... mural on the wall at the LRT Stampede Station ...

He knows how far it is to the LRT which I consider just a short jaunt – 12 minutes to walk there and then I pace the platform while I wait for the train.

No use missing any chances to put steps onto the Fitbit. And no use missing any chances to walk the short distance from Erlton Station to the exercise centre.

 If I take the right route home I can even cross the Elbow River and lean over the side of the bridge to see that water swirling along, ice on each side and rabbit tracks in the snow.

Acrylic Deer

I have some acrylic deer.

... 12" high acrylic deer in different poses ...

Their horns are attached to their heads with magnets, which make the deer easy to store, since the deer stand over 12 “ tall with the horns but are smaller without them.

I had Betty and Alice hold the boxes that the deer are in.

I pulled the packing styrofoam out of the box while they were holding onto it.  Then I opened the styrofoam packing and  told them to attach the horns.

I kept pulling other decorations out or other boxes.

I noticed that they were playing with the deer, taking the horns on and off.

 I heard Alice say, “We will take off the horns.  Now we can’t tell if the deer are male or female. Now we will put the horns back on and make this one male, and we will leave some without horns off so that we know they are female.”

I couldn’t have made that conversation up on my own.

Arta

Christmas Decorations

 ... decoratons are stored in old boxes ...

 I decided to bring all of my Christmas decorations into my house.

Absolutely all of them.

Who is ever going to enjoy them more than the three little children next door.

I don’t expect that my home will look as though a decorator has been here.
More like a rummage sale is going on.

Still, better to get those decorations out, seen and touched by the ones for whom I really want to celebrate Christmas.

... no room to sit or stand in my house ...

I bought a small acrylic train.  It doesn't do anything but have lights run about it and play Christmas carols.

Play them terribly out of tune.

Sometimes Michael asks me what that song is.

For example, it was playing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  I didn't listen until the middle of the song, so I had to put some words to it in my head to figure out which carol it was.  By the end, I knew it was "Hark the Herald Angels" sing.  I told him the name of the song.  He just nodded his head.

Yes.

A carol he doesn't know.

Yet.