This Much is True

I’m looking around my house for things I can sell to make money. Not because things are that bad here but because I want to buy something. I want to buy something really, really bad. And I don’t even know exactly what it is. Apple will announce what “it” is tomorrow. But everyone says it’s going to be an Apple tablet with touch interface and its name is the iSlate or the iPad or the iDontReallyKnow. Apple has called it, in their invitation to tomorrow’s announcement, their “latest creation”. Now, if you’re a geek, you know this already. The Apple Tablet is to geekdom what the Sex and the City movie was to women in their forties, and then some. There is so much speculation around this thing, it’s actually getting a bit boring. Yawn, bring the damn thing on, for God’s sake. But, if you want to know all the speculations and rumours, Gizmodo has their “Exhaustive Guide to Apple Tablet Rumors” and  their Jesus Diaz has done a great job speculating about the interface. I can synopsize much of the speculation for you though and tell you that most of the rumours are about telephone companies, magazines, newspapers, and booksellers who may be teaming up with Apple and  their “latest creation” and that the Apple Tablet will be bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a laptop. It  also looks like it will have the following cool features:

• able to run iPod/Iphone apps
• WiFi and 3G capabilities
• a 10-inch color display (which has newspapers, magazines and book publishers all in this deal because that’s the perfect size for their digital versions)

I’ll be checking out all the details tomorrow for sure but since I already love my iPod Touch more than any other device I have ever had and have basically forgone my laptop for it, and since Apple’s new tablet is bound to be like a grown up version of the Ipod Touch/iPhone, I know I want it. And I know it will be expensive. The big question mark for me is going to be battery life. My iPod Touch depletes the battery way too fast for my liking and my laptop is worse. So, what’s Apple going to do about that? A pretty, portable thing like an Apple Tablet plugged into the wall? That’s just not right.

I gotta go now and hunt around and find some stuff to sell. Let’s see. The laptop looks like a likely place to start. Oh, but I have time. I’m not an early adopter. I let other people deal with the bugs in the system and then when they’re straightened out, I’ll try to find some money to hop on the bandwagon. But I’ll be watching and wanting. Really, really, really wanting.

So, this past Friday evening, we’re sitting down for supper when a knock comes to the door. Vince answers it and our next-door neighbour, Jason thrusts a paper in my husband’s hand and says “here it is and here’s a laminated copy”. Vince must have had a blank look on his face so Jason said, “she doesn’t know about this yet?” and Vince said, “no.” And then “all right, see ya” and Jason was gone. I leafed through the paper as Vince opened the rolled up laminated page and we both saw the list of Current’s Six-pack of the best books of 2009. And A Few Kinds of Wrong was there. And this pleased me very much. Thank you Gina Gill and Current.

Paul Quarrington died yesterday. He was a writer, of novels, movies, and non-fiction and a musician with the Porkbelly Futures. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. I was shocked by his diagnosis, moved by the way he spoke (here in part 1, part 2, and part 3) and wrote about his illness (here in part 1 and part 2), and saddened by his death. I didn’t know him but, as with many Can Lit figures, I have watched him interviewed on various shows and videos, back when I obsessively hung on the word of any writer on writing because I didn’t know any in real life, but wrote all the time, back when listening to people like him made me feel like I belonged. So I feel like I knew him and I thought he was a pretty cool guy and a great writer.

When he was diagnosed, he talked about projects he had in progress and how he hoped he could get them finished. That hit me hard. Leaving projects unfinished is something I hate to think about. I know it happens, know it has to happen. If it doesn’t, then you leave your life having finished all your projects and I wouldn’t want that to happen. Another writer, Robert B Parker of the Spenser series, passed away this week at his desk, leaving behind an unfinished project. If you’re a writer, or an artist, or anyone who does anything as a passion rather than a pastime, you will leave things unfinished. I work on numerous things at once, and leave things and come back to them. So I will leave things in progress. I don’t see the day coming when I will put down my pen and say “well, I’m done. I’ve written everything I had to say.” But still the idea bothers me. Not as much as the idea of  leaving the earth before the boys are grown and living independent lives, but it does bother me.

He did continue to work on his projects, right up to the end, practically. The Globe and Mail says that he finished final revisions on his memoir, Cigar Box Banjo, this past weekend. Cigar Box Banjo is set to be released by Greystone Books in May.

Paul Quarrington talked in his part 3 interview above, about squeezing all the juice out of things before you go. I think he squeezed a lot out of life. He’s left me with some lessons about not taking things for granted, for working on what you love and getting things done and, basically not wasting time. But I will waste time, I know. That’s part of life too. I love Snood too much and am too nosy about what’s going on in facebook. Right now, though, there’s an old manuscript on my desk, waiting to be revised and a 22-month-old in the corner stacking blocks so I’m going to go now and squeeze some juice out of this. You can see Paul Quarrington, doing  the same, doing some of what he loved, in the video below. RIP

Congratulations to John Gushue, winner of the NL Bloggers Choice award. He has a fantastic blog and it’s one of my daily reads. He also keeps me up to date on lots of stuff on twitter and facebook so I appreciate John in so many ways.

This blog was in the running for the award but I didn’t promote it or say anything about it here. Campaigning is not my thing and the truth is I don’t think I post consistently enough to warrant such a distinction for this blog. I hope the NL Bloggers Choice Award got more people checking out all of the great blogs from Newfoundland and Labrador, those that were up for the award and the many others that are on the NL blogroll.

I really want to thank Stephen Eli Harris for keeping the blogroll and for all the work he did on the contest, including picking the blogs of the week throughout the year. Stephen deserves his own award for all he does to promote NL blogs and while I can’t provide such an award, my gratitude and a link to Stephen’s personal blog (well, that’s actually two links to it now) will have to do. Thank you, Stephen, and keep up the great work.

The Golden Globes should usually get an award for best awards show. Attendees, nominees and winners, sit around tables, schmooze, and drink so there’s a relaxed atmosphere. People go to the bathroom as well and admit it. Perhaps that’s because of the drinking. A famous example was when Christine Lahti won a Golden Globe for her brilliant performance on Chicago Hope but was in the bathroom so Robin Williams entertained and stalled until she could get back out and up to the stage. And there was a bathroom mention last night and some stars who seemed to have had a couple before they accepted their awards or presented so I should have enjoyed it. But I have to say I didn’t. I was a bit bored.

I was a bit distracted too, I’ll admit as I had a phone-in radio interview first thing this morning. My first live interview, so I was nervous and I kept thinking about that. Plus I was watching twitter and posting a bit on twitter and facebook while I watched so that was distracting too. Maybe those were the reasons. Others have blamed the meandering of the winners as they tried to navigate to the stage but that happens every year and every year it bugs me. So, onto some general highlights and lowlights, as I saw them, at the Golden Globes 2010.

Highlight
Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech. Who knew that one day Mo’Nique would win a Golden Globe? For acting. In a movie. Not me, at least not until Precious came out. Her touching acceptance speech was fabulous.

Lowlight
The ridiculous pre-show on NBC. It was pouring rain on the red carpet and none of the people out there interviewing seemed to know what they were doing. And Billy Bush seemed downright angry. The umbrellas were the main fashion accessory and they came up way too much in the pre-show interviews. Stuff like Bush saying “Look at you, Bradley Cooper, covered with an umbrella!”. Also Bush would keep asking people if they knew it was raining. Worst pre-show ever. Even Joan and Melissa Rivers could have done a better job than that.

Highlight
Both John Lithgow and Michael C Hall winning for their brilliant portrayals of serial killers in the series Dexter.

Lowlight
Seeing Michael C Hall looking sicker than I had anticipated. The actor is battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma and is in remission so I was surprised to see him looking so pale and sporting a black toque along with his handsome tux. Also, on a Michael C Hall related note, I know Jennifer Carpenter just plays his sister on Dexter and that they married last year in real life but since I only see them as brother and sister, there’s always an ewww factor for me when I see them that way, especially when they kiss. On the lips!

Highlight
Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech. She is so funny and she brought attention to both her mom and Haiti in great ways.

Lowlight
Facial hair. What is up? Is there a big Grizzly Adams or Unabomber movie coming out and everyone wants to try out for it? There were some ugly, ugly beards there last night, beards that looked uncared for and like small creatures could pop out of one at any minute. Worst of all was William Hurt, but John Hamm, George Clooney, and Jeff Bridges didn’t do much for forwarding beard love.

Highlight
When Julianna Margulies stopped to give George Clooney a little kiss (yes, even with that beard) after she won. Awwwm, it was Doug Ross and Carol Hathaway again.

Lowlight
Harrison Ford’s presenting an award. I don’t know what is up with Harrison Ford. He was slurring his words and one side of his face seemed droopy. I was afraid he was having a stroke right there on stage. Or maybe he’s had one. I don’t know but I hope he gets better from whatever caused that.

Highlight
Colin Farrell. That’s all. He was there and he was on stage presenting or something. I don’t know. I was distracted because Colin Farrell was on stage.

Lowlight
The faces of the Golden Globes. It was like looking over a sea of scary, rather unlife-like dolls. Plastic surgery, botox, collagen, or maybe people just made a face and then had some kind of plastic coating sprayed on them to keep that look intact. Going to get harder and harder to win awards when creating expressions with your face is no longer possible.

Highlight
Robert Downey Jr’s acceptance speech. Downey chose to not thank everyone and gave what I thought was the best speech of the night.

Lowlight
James Cameron’s hair and James Cameron telling us that he had to pee. I don’t need to know that James, thanks all the same.

Highlight
Ricky Gervais as host. I heart Ricky Gervais and I wish he’d been on there more. But I guess he was a bit out of control and made jabs at people so they didn’t like it. Some of those jabs made me cringe, but they hit the mark too. Ricky said it best when he joked, after implying that perhaps a Golden Globe could be bought, “I’m not going to do this again anyway”. If you missed it, here’s a video of Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes.

A while ago, I mentioned about the growth of book clubs in Newfoundland and Labrador. Well, such book clubs now have the chance to get free books and totes in The Rock Reads contest from CBC Radio’s Weekend Arts Magazine (WAM). The Rock Reads is searching for the best book clubs in Newfoundland and Labrador to host meetings celebrating this year’s Canada Reads selections. If your book club is chosen, you’ll ge given a random book of Canada Reads to create a book club meeting around, including the cuisine, costumes and culture from the book. Your meeting will be recorded by CBC Radio and each of the five book clubs picked will receive a full set of the Canada Reads books and tote bags. One group will win, based on votes from WAM listeners and they will receive a a $100 gift certificate from The Bookery on Signal Hill. Email wam@cbc.ca and tell host Angela Antle why your book club is the best.

Need a calendar for the new year, say one you could download and print as you wish? Want some gorgeous pictures on that calendar? And you want it free? Well, you’re in luck because CBC Newfoundland and Labrador has such a calendar. Even if you don’t print it, download it and have a look at some extraordinary pictures from the beautiful province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I think Lorie Penton’s Tilting is a ready-made postcard. Just go to CBC’s Calendar page, Right-click the Download Calendar link and save it as a file.

With all this talk around here about Republic of Doyle, I forgot to mention a couple of things about a real Doyle, one by the name of Alan of Great Big Sea. First, and yes this is related to Republic of Doyle, Great Big Sea’s “Oh Yeah” is the theme song (opening song??) for Republic and I love it. I had somehow missed this song but now it’s being played a lot on the old iPod Touch. You can download it yourself  on iTunes.

The other thing is that I was watching the People’s Choice Awards for a few minutes the other night (which is really all I can stomach of that particular awards show, even though I’m an awards show junkie) and they showed a preview for the upcoming Robin Hood movie. Alan Doyle is in the movie, playing one of Robin’s merry men, Allan A’Dayle. Not sure how merry the men will be as it looks pretty dark but it also looks really good. I like Russell Crowe’s acting and recently really enjoyed him in the movie, State of Play (which started with a scene of Russell Crowe driving and singing along to Great Big Sea’s “The Night Pat Murphy Died“). And Cate Blanchett will no doubt make a fabulous Maid Marian. Alan as Allan will play the lute in the movie (and sing, maybe??)  as he’s the troubadour of the merry men. Watch for this one when it comes out this summer.

I’ve written and rewritten parts of this post a number of times now. I wrote about Republic of Doyle the other day and feel the need to follow it up with a review but I was having trouble figuring out what to say. I wanted to be kind and say I love it and that it was a great show, because there are so many people getting work from this production and it’s so cool to see people eating Ziggy Peelgood’s on TV. What I’m going to say is that I like it and I think it has great potential and a lot of positive things going for it. It’s the pilot episode and as I’ve said before about pilot episodes, they don’t really let you know what a show will be like. They introduce you to everyone and give us a bit of background. And the pilot for this one was good and it made me want to come back and see it next week.

But, yup, there’s the but, I wanted to admit that, to me, it lacked spark. It had all the ingredients to provide spark but whether it was between Jake Doyle and the constable who maybe will be a love interest or even between Jake and his dad, there wasn’t a lot of spark. These were my initial thoughts, along with my gratitude that Hawco and his fellow writers have decided to not make the characters stereotypical, over-the-top “Lard Jesus, b’y, what’s we gonna do, me son” people. But then I thought maybe that’s what I perceive as lack of spark. It’s not the show or the writing, it’s the fact that I’ve been programmed to expect this over-the-top stuff from television representations of us. These are regular people doing regular things in this extraordinary place. There’s no quirky missus with a hair net over her rollers, smoking a cigarette in her housecoat out on the steps, there’s no beer-guzzling drunk being loud and stupid. Not that all shows and all characters from here have been like that but I find it hard to remember a show coming out of here that didn’t have some of that, that didn’t play into the stereotype at least a bit. Republic of Doyle is about people who work, and act (fairly) respectably, and don’t swear all the time, and don’t even smoke. They figure things out, and protect their friends, and are from other cultures, and go to see lawyers in office buildings, and drive cool cars, and live in nice houses, and own their own businesses. They’re like most of the people I know. They are characters and not caricatures. And I really like that.

I also like the look of the place. I don’t know what kind of filters can make the city look quite so beautiful, bright, rich, and vibrant but I would like one on me at all times, thank you. I want everyone to have to see me through that same filter. I think the characters are pretty good and none of the accents really struck me as too fake (although I could hear Sean McGinley’s Irish accent come through a few times, most people outside Newfoundland probably wouldn’t notice the difference). My favourite character is actually not played by a Newfoundland actress. She’s Lynda Boyd as Rose and I liked almost everything about her (her accent wasn’t the best but it’s such a hard one to do). One more thing I have to say, and it’s really not fair since he can’t help it, but Allan Hawco is so damn good-looking that I found it distracting. Something about his eyes pulls me away from everything else happening in a scene. I’m sure if he tried to scruff himself up, it wouldn’t help a bit and would only make it worse, making him even more gorgeous.

I hope Republic of Doyle continues the things it’s doing well and even gets better as it gets its footing. I want to see more.

I’ll admit it. One of my favourite shows is one from CBC. Oh, I don’t mean one of the news type comedy shows that CBC has been doing great for years and it’s true that the Dragon’s Den is a no-miss show for me, but I mean a dramatic show from CBC. One with a plot. I say that because for a long time, I didn’t like many, or probably any, of the plotted shows CBC would offer us. They were, well.. boring. Not all, of course, I can’t say every single thing was boring but except for the occasional over-the-top comedic offering, there wasn’t much to keep your interest. But in the past couple of years CBC has gotten much better at providing us with shows we care about and want to follow. Little Mosque on the Prarie, for instance, is an international success and Being Erica is one of my favourite shows. I remember seeing the previews for Being Erica and thinking that it would be a cliche-driven, predictable show. But it’s not. It’s vivid and thoughtful and touching and funny and suspenseful and what more could you want in a show? So, I have great hope for Republic of Doyle, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

I think part of the reason for these new and interesting shows is that new people–actors, directors, writers, and producers–are joining the process. For the longest time, I could look at any show on any network or any movie anywhere and know right away whether or not it was filmed in Canada, because the same half dozen or so actors and actresses were on it and it was like a big, blaring flag that it was a Canadian product. It’s a natural thing when there’s a small pool of people who excel at their field (or seem to, according to the right people) as is the case in Canada. But more and more there are excellent shows and movies coming from Canada, with Canadians at the helm and in the starring roles, who are not from that small pool. And a new generation of creative forces are coming into play. Then comes along Allan Hawco who pitches the idea of Republic of Doyle to CBC then creates, writes (along with co-creator and co-writer Perry Chafe), and stars in the show about a private detective in St. John’s. Newfoundland. The trailers make this show look great so I have high hopes for the show, as do so many people around here who are getting work on the set. It looks like St. John’s is a big part of the show in that the beauty and unique characteristics of the place can’t help but catch your eye, rather than that Hawco spends his time jumping around saying “look, b’y, I’se a Newfoundlander here on da rock”. The show starts tomorrow night on CBC and you should check it out. It could very well become one of your new favourite shows. And if you miss it, CBC will no doubt have it on their website.