Jukebox Saturday Night

And the summer became the fall,
I was not ready for the winter.
It makes no difference at all,
'Cause I wear boots all summer long.

Eye make up dark and it's careless
Same circles around my eyes
Sometimes the real colour of my skin
My eyes without any shadow.

- Nightbird, Stevie Nicks

I think I have been engaged in more social activity in the past three days than I have in the past two years. Saturday morning, rather tired, I did what any red blooded female would do: slept in, had breakfast, then listened to Stevie Nicks.

Saturday presented me with a freelance assignment (find opera quotes, rather fun actually), The World According to (John) Irving at the IFOA, and a show at Lee's Palace featuring Ragdoll's RRBF on tour with his band.

Whew!

I haven't read any John Irving books, but I do understand why he's iconic. His work (which I've only experienced via the movies. I shall be quick to remedy this) deals in the catastrophic ruptures of everyday lives, the toll they take and the comedy they create. During his interview, Irving himself said that he found the nature of life to be essentially gothic. I have to agree. He also taked about how as an author you create a landscape through details. Ragdoll articulated this so well that I won't repeat it here. It's so true. I think it goes one step further. My mother has always maintained that in many cases, it's never the big decisions in life that can throw you off. Most people do a pretty good job on these. It's the little things that will change your destiny. The job you end up getting instead, turning left instead of right, the letter that never gets there, or it does, too early or too late.

Irving also discussed his own sexual abuse as a child, and to me, uttered a brilliant observation of this subject. He said that when something like sexual abuse happens to you, you feel like other people can see it on you. It has to be one of the best articulations of how shame feels that I have ever heard.

Last night's reading was a real treat. Irving shared with us a rough first chapter of his new novel, originally inspired by a Bob Dylan song he heard while on his way to an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon in early 2005. I always love hearing about how other artists get their ideas. It's usually the most simple things: a line in a song, a piece of art, a phrase heard on the radio that will inspire a masterpiece.

Irving's new work starts in 1954 in the logging town of Twisted River and is the story of a cook who serves meals to the loggers. At the same time, he's raising his son, who is 12 years old when the book starts. The book opens with the death of a French - Canadian logger. Death usually gets a book off to a good start I find.

After the reading, there was a draw for prizes. Ragdoll will tell you I was certain of victory as my horoscope had proclaimed that October 22nd would be a good night for material gain through luck. Needless to say, not a sausage AND I forgot to enter Lotto 649. Damn it all.

Then followed an interview of the most excrutiating kind. Ragdoll did not want to trash it in her blog. I on the other hand, have no such scruples.

I characterize this interview as excrutiating because I feel that for an event such as this, and a writer of Irving's stature, he really needed to be interviewed by another author of novels who understood his process and writing fiction as a craft. Instead, we got a gushing, cutesy pie interview by a broadcaster from the CBC. She kept interjecting Irving's responses with her own remarks. Note to interviewers everywhere: I want to hear what the interviewee thinks, not your moments of philosophical profundity..

She also kept restating her questions or dwelling on the same point far too long. She also politicized the event making passing remarks about the Iraq war and detainees in Syria. To me it doesn't matter if Irving is sympathetic to these views. It's his interview. He's there to talk about his book. If there are political issues to get discussed, it's his call to raise them.

When asked (and to his credit), Irving had the guts to say exactly what he thought and did so in a way that didn't have that patronizing, holier than thou tone so many liberals have when voicing their opinions.

I haven't heard the interviewer's show. If she's on the CBC, I'm sure she's very good, but as a current affairs journalist, she was decidely the wrong interviewer for this event. Everyone was remarking on how awful it was as we left the theatre.

Perhaps I am uncharitable because other than the twin lights of hearing John Irving and a night out with Ragdoll, it was a slings and arrows kind of evening. When I picked Ragdoll up, we were both starving, so we hit the McDonald's drive through on the way there. Wolfing our meal down in the car, the french fries steamed the windows up so badly I couldn't shoulder check. Then the parking lot was full and we had to go to the one across the street, which meant that we were walking to the Premier Dance Theatre in lashing, horizontal rain. We then got seated upstairs and had to contend with flickering lights, dodgy microphones and what seemed to be a wailing child out in the lobby. Not to mention the fact that the Premier Dance Theatre's seats have to be the most uncomfortable ones ever constructed. We also left the waters we got at McDonald's in the car so needless to say, all that fast food salty goodness kicked in and we had no respite from our thirst for the entirety of Irving's reading and interview as we covetously gazed upon the glasses of water that were on stage.

After Irving, it took us about ten minutes to get out of the parking lot. We got uptown only to discover Bathhurst north was closed for transit work. We got parked, well after nine and still had to pay (thanks Ragdoll!).

The show was really good and made up for everything. Our timing was impeccable and we only had to wait a few minutes before the band came on. It's been a long time since I've felt that bass guitar thump in my chest that you only get in a small club. It's funny. I haven't seen the Fembots too often, but I'm always amazed when I go to these clubs. The crowd is always different, yet never changes. You always have the same prototypes: lanky and manicured hippies on the make, the great jean ridden masses out to bob their heads for a few hours and knock back some beers, the weirdo dude that always has to go right to the front and stare up at the band from various points of view.

After the set, I was ready to keel over and to go home. I went to the parking lot and nearly had a heart attack. The back left brake light was all mashed in. I started looking around for the bastard that hit my car, you know, like they'd actually have stayed there or something. Then I thankfully realized it wasn't my car.

Finding my vehicle at last, I drove out of the parking lot and went the opposite direction, forgetting that the reason everyone was going the other way was because Bathhurst north was closed and the one way streets had conspired to log jam everyone.

It was at this time that my fury and outrage knew no bounds and I decided I had had enough. In defiance of the other autos and the misguided street closures ordained by the TTC, I drove with abandon the wrong way down a one way street. It was late and I figured I could get away with it. And you know what? I did. Twice! I then proceeded west on Harbord and on home, flush with victory.

Irving's right. Life is gothic.