the Up films

"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." —Jesuit maxim

In 1964, Granada Television made a short feature that was to be the beginning of a most extraordinary documentary series. Fourteen seven-year-old children from diverse backgrounds in England were interviewed to explore the idea that personality and future outcome could be, as suggested by the maxim, determined by age seven. Although this was originally envisioned as a one-time venture, director Michael Apted went back every seven years to re-interview the same subjects. The result, a collection of seven films so far (Seven Up, 7 Plus Seven, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up and 49 Up) is, in my opinion, one of the finest examples of the power of documentary filmmaking ever. Each of these seven films has profoundly moved me, and each one has made me exclaim, "This is why I love documentaries." Do yourself a favour and watch them if you can. You won't be disappointed.

My only complaint? Having to wait until 2013 for the next instalment!

for Krissa

"Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little dearth."

—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (German Philosopher, 1788-1860)

Happiest of Birthdays, my sweet friend! *

(* A friend is one before whom I may think aloud. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON)

p.s. hope you don't mind my blabbing! :)

still hanging on!

Photo was taken two days ago, so it's already grown again. :)

my funny new bike

Well, actually, it's an old bike—a '73 Raleigh 3 speed. I just inherited it (and its sibling) from my mom and stepfather as they decided that given their health problems, it might be wise to stop riding them. Apparently their ages (eighty and ninety respectively) had nothing to do with it. Snort. I'd like to see me still riding a bike at 80!

Anyway, I took it out for a thorough test drive today, and decided that it passed. It's quite a bit heavier than my mountain bike, but I like that. The winds were gusting today at nearly blow-me-over speeds, so I felt safer on a sturdier bike. The handlebars are also higher than I'm used to, but I end up driving with a straighter back, which is probably better anyway. And see the neat side bags? Tested them out when going to the grocery store and it was nice not to have to carry items on my back in my knapsack. My parents had them brought over from that bike-loving country known as Holland, and no wonder! They work great.

Yes, I think this bike will be a keeper. Other than the hideously putrid olive colour—I don't even like green, which may come as a surprise given the colour of this template—I like it just fine. The chain guard and the big front light amuse me, and the fenders will work dandy. And hey, I'll probably even look more Dutch on this baby! ;)

p.s. just realized that the colour of the bike (chain guard is in a different hue) pretty much matches the colour on the right-hand side of the page, LOL!

earth day

How big is your ecological footprint?

Mine's a medium according to this quiz, which isn't too bad, but it could still be better. I also watched An Inconvenient Truth earlier this week, and highly recommend it for those who haven't seen it yet.

Okay, I'm going back out to enjoy the beautiful day! :)

it wasn't my imagination!

According to an article in today's local paper, Southern Ontario usually gets about 132 hours of sun in the first 18 days of April. This year we got a whole 32. Yep, we were robbed of 100 hours of sun! It was also cold, dark and wet. No wonder I felt sun-deprived. Or that my lone tulip didn't grow as fast as last year. So in hopes that it won't meet the same fate and be cruelly decapitated once again, I took a shot of the bulb while it's still nestled safely within.

And see the daffodil? I have no idea where this orphan came from either, but maybe it wanted to keep the tulip company even though it's on the other side of the garden. Hmmm, will anything new show up next year?

Well folks, it's gonna be a beautiful sunny weekend here, and I'm going to enjoy every second of it!

the sun's back!

And in honour of her long-awaited and highly anticipated arrival, here's a poem from the incomparable Mary Oliver:

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats towards the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

know what day it is?

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." —T.S. ELIOT

Besides quote T.S. Eliot day? :)

If you guessed that it's my one-year blogging anniversary, then you're right! Who knew the time would pass by so quickly? And it's been a lot of fun. In addition to being able to express myself, it's also been a way to have on record a few of the things that have caught my attention. I stated at the beginning of 2007 that this was going to be a year of change, so I imagine that some of my future entries may have me explore certain issues, but I'm sure that the hodgepodge nature of my mind will continue to be reflected in these posts. Thank you faithful readers (well, four of you that I know of for sure, snort) for keeping me company.

Where to go from here? Well, last year on this day I started from the beginning, so in keeping with the above quote, I'll start this year from the end! ;)

yes, the pic IS of me this time ;)

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive from where we started
And know the place for the first time."

—T.S. ELIOT

six feet under

Okay, I admit I cried my eyes out during the last sequence of the final episode of this amazing series set in a family-run funeral home. And it's also the main reason I didn't reply to emails as promptly as I would have liked last week given that there were nearly twenty hours of the 5-disc DVD to watch. I sometimes find it hard to fit in a single DVD during the same time period (yes, even though I don't work full-time, snort), so this mega-viewing marathon was a bit of a reach, but so worth it!

The writing and acting in this show were both excellent, and the subject matter—I was going to say 'refreshing' although that's probably not the best way to describe the topic of death—not addressed before. At least, not in any real depth, and not on TV. And that's what I appreciated the most; it's frank and real handling of an issue that affects each of us. I don't remember the movie Terms of Endearment that well, but I do recall being annoyed by the fact that they never seemed to use the words 'death' or 'dying', as if by using silly euphemisms they could skirt around the unpleasantness of it all. So my hat goes off to this show for allowing viewers to have the chance to think about death in a meaningful way. And to be entertained at the same time. I know it sounds kind of strange as death isn't inherently funny, but I liked the show's dark, even macabre, sense of humour, and I have to admit I looked forward to seeing how they would kill off each week's doomed character. ;)

If I have any quibble with the show at all it would be their depiction of drug use as it began to feel as if everyone and their uncle dabbled with various drugs at some point or another. Now maybe I just live a very sheltered life, but that didn't seem realistic to me and it started to get on my nerves a bit. Still, a minor point most viewers might not even agree with.

Like I said earlier, the final sequence had me in tears. In it, the youngest main character of the family, Claire, drove from Los Angeles to New York to meet her future, while flash-forwards showed when and how each of the key characters would die, including Claire in 2085. It was moving and poignant, and seemed so fitting given the central theme of the show. I even felt a bit bereft afterwards, not wanting it to end, and that too seemed appropriate. I was glad therefore that the DVD included special features discussing the impact of the show, the cast, characters, writing, favourite moments, the look of the show, how it began, and how it ended. It gave me a much-needed feeling of closure.

I think it takes a brave series to kill off its central character when there are three more episodes left, and I applaud Six Feet Under for doing that. And the actor playing that character said something in one of the special feature segments that I really liked, "And if there's one thing about death I can tell you, death will shut you up right quick, so if you have something to say in this lifetime, say it." How true.

Everything changes. And everything ends. Goodbye Six Feet Under. Well done.

what do you see? ;)

Make sure to follow the instructions in the last picture!

in her own words

Doesn't everyone take a photo of sausage* in the supermarket with their phone so they can send it to their Dutch-Canadian friend who lives 15,000 km away??? I mean, really!

Snort. Um, I don't think so, but thank you Susan! Especially for any looks you may have incurred. ;)

* one of the ingredients in Dutch pea soup

Zen saying

"Everything the same, everything distinct."

if you want to write

And who doesn't? But I'm biased, as I can't imagine anything more wonderful than the written word. Okay, cats come awfully close. ;)

Three of the most delightful books on writing that I've come across over the years are Anne Lamott's insightful and rib-splittingly-funny Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (which I'd recommend to anyone even if you DON'T want to write), Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer, and Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. The last two books were both written in the 1930's ('34 and '38 respectively), but are just as fresh and relevant today.

Brenda Ueland begins her short but effective closing chapter in If You Want To Write by asking the question, "Why urge everybody to write when the world is so full of writers, and there are oceans of printed matter?" (And just imagine how much fuller those oceans are nearly seventy years later!) "Why should we all use our creative power and write or paint or play music, or whatever it tells us to do?" she continues.
She answers by saying,

Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money. Because the best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try and express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, i.e., share it with others?

Indeed. And well put. Um, excuse me; I have a few books to reread....

(quotes taken from Chapter XV111 pp. 176-9.)

happy (white!) Easter everyone!

"If we have listening ears, God speaks to us in our own language, whatever that language be." —MAHATMA GANDHI

'twas the day before Easter

now who's the black sheep of the family? ;)

speaking of turning grey

A friend sent me one of those forwarded emails the other day containing some funny observations about the things kids say. This was one of them:

One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out on her brunette head.

She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?"

Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."

The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, "Momma, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?"

Snort.

look!

Can you believe it? Snow in April! And yours truly went out in her bathrobe this morning (brrrr, it was cold) to capture definitive proof of Mother Nature's decidedly warped sense of humour. I feel sorry for the flowers that were starting to come out though. Hope they'll be okay.

ever seen anything like this?

It's a circumhorizontal arc, also known as a fire rainbow. This photograph was taken (no, not by me!) in northern Idaho (near the Washington border) on June 3, 2006. In general, this type of arc appears only when the sun is higher than 58 degrees above the horizon, and its light passes through high-altitude cirrus clouds made up of hexagonal plate crystals. Okay, I don't really know what that all means either (although I AM quite sure that I'm smarter than a fifth-grader, though I WON'T watch the show in case I find out I'm not, LOL), but it sure looks pretty!

And of course, after doing a bit of research to type up the above description, I come across a better explanation after finding out that this photo was originally posted at nationalgeographic.com! Ah, you must always be wary of what lands in your inbox!

The better explanation:

June 19, 2006—It looks like a rainbow that's been set on fire, but this phenomenon is as cold as ice.

Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border (map of Idaho).

The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense—it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.

This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour, according to the London Daily Mail.

—Victoria Gilman

not going grey FAST enough

There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine. —P.G. WODEHOUSE

Snort. Obviously PG and I share a somewhat different opinion when it comes to the greying of locks, and I'd be travelling to the guillotine in no time if he had his way, but I can't wait for my hair to stop producing its pigment. My mom was gracious enough to pass along to me her blue eyes, fair skin with a definite blue undertone, and genes for silver-white hair. My four older siblings were also the lucky recipients of the hair genes, but ended up with brown eyes and not as fair skin. My mom's gorgeous silver hair made its debut while she was still in her thirties, and all of us followed suit. In fact, if you were to line us up, you could tell precisely what order we are age-wise by simply looking at the distribution of salt and pepper. My eldest sibling in his early fifties has less than a fifth of pepper left (I'm so jealous!), I as the youngest am saddled with about 3/5 pepper, and the other three siblings all fall in between. I sprouted my silver wings, as I like to call them, around ten years ago at age 35, so I figure that in about another ten years I'll finally be able to sport a super short and almost completely white (aren't YOU jealous?) lovely do. In the meantime I have to be satisfied with my wings, a lock of silver in front and a V-shaped streak in the back. Oh, and my eyebrows are starting to sport a few white hairs, which I admit does look a little odd. I guess I have to be a bit more patient though, but lately I keep hearing myself singing that old line, "I wanna wash that brown right out of my hair!" At least, I think that's how it used to go. ;)

maxine on getting older