The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained

This weekend I venture to Stratford Ontario to see The Merchant of Venice, To Kill A Mockingbird and Not I. With a weekend this theatrey life is good. Another thing that makes life good: being able to put videos on blogger with relative ease! I shall have to make some sort of film celebrating this on the weekend.

In the meantime:

Man and dog

"Hamilton to Sudbury One Final Time" A 3 Disc set

On my roadtrip to Sudbury I am taking with me (in a sort of particular order):

Elvis Presley
Phish
The Doors
The Who
CCR
The Beatles
The Clash
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Joni Mitchell
Simon and Garfunkl
Don Maclean
Jefferson Airplane
The Velvet Underground
Nick Drake
The Ramones
Neil Young
Bob Dylan
Coldplay
The Eels
The Shins
The Flaming Lips
Greenday
Stars
Fiona Apple
Iron and Wine
The Dresden Dolls
Feist
Tegan and Sara
Metric
The Arcade Fire
Johnny Cash
June Carter
Wolf Parade
Dave Matthews
Tim Reynolds
The Dears
You Say Party We Say Die
The Dixie Chicks
the rest of The Dave Matthews Band
Ani DiFranco
The Decemberists
The White Stripes
Gnarls Barkley
Cat Power
Joanna Newsom
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Modest Mouse
They Might Be Giants

Mmmmmmm mix CDs.

See you on a Sudbury Saturday night!

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Ah the Festival of Friends; Hamilton's annual time travel to the 1960s/70s. This year my family made our annual trip, this time to see one concert in particular:



The small figure in the dark that you can't make out is Don Maclean. He's one of, what I call, the "Trip to Virginia Artists". Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Don Maclean make up an elite lot whose music I memorized on long car trips with my family. He played all of the songs I'm most fond of ("Castles Made of Sand", "Vincent" and his cover of Roy Orbison's "Crying") and some other big long song that I guess is sort of famous :P

I tried to add a sound clip, but as my luck would have it, it's not working. Blah. I will share it when I figure out how.

This one time at camp...

Famous Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Tim Horton once said "They pay me to practice. I play for free". I adapted this saying during my days at Lakewood to "They pay me for pre-camp. I'm a counselor for free". Well I finally followed through and volunteered at Woodeden Easter Seal Camp for the Teen Session. I can't think of a better way to have spent the past 12 days.

Camp regulations prevent me from posting a number of photographs, but since Elliot's no longer a camper...



I used to have to be the one that bent down to hug in our picutres! The fairy wings are a gift from him for my role as "Hang time floater fairy".

Best moments of the camp:

1) Camper Codey telling me in broken-up speech that he won't come back next summer if I don't.
2) Camper Harry and I protesting Verbal Communication with a silent sit-in. It might have been my idea, but I think Harry was all for it.
3) This one is for Mike and Elliot: "You may have won this round Cerebral Palsy, but next time you won't be so lucky, mwa ha ha ha!". Mike in the midst of a spasm cried out "Damn you CP" I consequently turned this into a daily ritual of trying to smite CP with various schemes but being thwarted time and time again with cries of "Damn you Cerebral Palsy!"
4) Having the campers in Cabin Orange set up a "Liz duty" to guard me from stealing the tidy cabin flag.
5) Being trapped half-way across the zip line on the ropes course (suspended 50ish feet in the air) with my campers laughing hysterically at me.

More stories to follow (brace yourselves).
Hope everyone had a good week and a bit. It feels like it's been longer. That's camp for you! "The bubble convinces us that there was nothing before and nothing after."



*****************

OK, so uncamp-related. I had to add this. It's from a Facebook group called "The Mrs Weasley Appreciation Group". DO NOT join this group if you haven't finished reading book 7. It will spoil a big part of it for you. Just enjoy this picture, which can be appreciated by all:

Simspon's Trivia (Summer Blockbuster Special Edition)

Apparently the first version of this was too hard. Frankly I think that this version is plainly obvious to any football fan:
Two teams played for the Super Bowl in January 1992. If ______________ had won, Lisa would no longer have loved Homer.

BONUS: In the episode "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", what does Homer consider to be "The 3 Rs"?

Post #300

Ladies and gentlemen: I have a plan.

I have just been informed THIS moment that I have been accepted into Humber College's Post Graduate certification program in Teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language. It is a one year program that involves a full-time course schedule and a placement. At the end of it I will be certified to teach English abroad and in EAP/ESL classrooms in Canada. This will go a long way to helping me achieve my long term plans (traveling and working in Theatre and with people doing Drama). One of our early placements is leading a workshop style course in Humber's EAP program doing an activity (such as Drama) to encourage conversational English use. I am very excited to have this opportunity, Humber's program appears to be an excellent one.
Also, being in Toronto will allow me to keep a foot or two in the Theatre world. I am hoping to take courses with Second City while there and stay involved with amateur Theatre in the city. Then in a year I will either be very well prepared to do some traveling as an English teacher and get some money together to take a studio acting program (Atlantic Theatre Co./CSSD in London) or to work as an ESL/EAP teacher on contract as a part time job while acting. Beats the hell out of retail.

That's all for now, I will keep everyone up to date though!

The Books of Liz

This has turned into a long unfocussed rant. Enjoy :)



I missed leisure reading in University. It is nice to have it back in my life. I think it might be making me sane again.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.

Last summer I read Catch 22 for the first time, though it had been sitting on my "to read" list for some time. Within a chapter I was wondering where it had been all my life. Questions of war, death and human sanity vs insanity treated with dark humour and irreverrance (without the preachy morality of M*A*S*H*... book, movie or TV show included), it's about the only way I can deal with those issues. Sometimes I think that's why the Daily Show is so popular. Sometimes all you can do with something that horrific is laugh at it.

Have you ever wondered how you would go about teaching an elephant yoga?

Last December I read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, by Christopher Moore. Of all the books I've read concerning religion and spirituality, curiously this strange fictional tale of a crude ultra-modern best friend to "Joshua" throughout his life's journey as the Messiah is the first one to make me actually want to be Christian. Not because I suddenly believe that there was a real "Biff" or that Jesus Christ learned Judo (seriously read the book), but because it's the essence of a story that penetrates the human consciousness, not its literal interpretation of what went on. Maybe Jesus wasn't a fun guy who got drunk off of the water he turned into wine and then declared that he loved bunnies (seriously read the book), but the idea of his kind heart and wisdom is what draws us to this story. His character is a hero, one who it doesn't do us any hurt to try to be like. I kind of wish we could just simply regard him as that, rather than fighting each other over whether believing every word he and the bible said is the only way to get into heaven.

There shall not be among you a witch

Which brings me very nicely to my most recent, ahem, literary endevour. Five years ago I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for one reason, and one reason alone: To piss of the neo-conservative Christians in my school. I worked with one who told me I was right on my way to hell for reading about evil Pagan witchcraft. I told him that if it weren't for the medieval Pagans we wouldn't have many of the celebrations and feasts in our Christian tradition, including Christmas. This did not go over well.
Harry Potter and Christ. Well that's an essay in and of itself isn't it ;)

As we approach, what will be for myself and many other geeks, a sleepless Saturday morning reading I will talk briefly about my newest venture in nerdom.
Harry Potter joins Star Wars and Final Fantasy VI in my long list of REALLY uncool things I have tendency to obsess over on and off. I've recently decided that this is healthy for me, as I quite need a strong fantasy world apart from reality to keep me sane. And who doesn't love a battle of good vs evil? What I love about my particular choices is that all three series have an important message about good and evil. We all have both parts in us. We all have the potential to be good and evil, and it is our choices that define us.
I feel like we live in a culture that is increasingly inclined to either strict Locke or Hobbes philosophy, with little thought given to personal choice and responsibility. John Locke says that we are born carte blanche, and that it is society that corrupts man and turns him evil. Hobbes on the other hand believes that man is born evil and society is necissary to keep man from devolving into "continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".

I believe that we are born with both parts in us, and that our personal choices and actions reflect the good or evil in our person. People are not altogether good or bad they're just people.
For too long I played the optimist believing that if people were just educated enough or saw the world through other's eyes or opened their hearts they would ultimately do the right thing. It was quite damaging in the wake of 9/11 to keep trying to convince myself of this spiritually or morally. I simply saw too much evidence to contradict it.
I have spent the last few years wallowing in "I hate humanity" land. It's an easy place to be. If you think people suck, they don't usually disappoint you. It's easier to be angry at someone for being a jerk and just write them off as idiotic, than to try to see the good inside of them. It's a lot easier to find the bad than it is the good.
Finally, though, I think that I am coming to understand that people have the capacity for both and that this is a good thing.

"It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so"

If there's one thing that I have never 'bought into' in Shakespeare's plays it's "Fate", the idea that some greater destiny is controlling the play and that people are absolved of their wrong doings because they were simply succumbing to their destinies (and all that we are evil in by a devine thrusting on :p).
The beautiful parallels that Rowling draws between Harry and Voldimorte to MacBeth are probably the strongest part of her writing (as far as an adult audience is concerned). If Voldimorte had not tried to kill Harry would the prophecy still have come true? Could MacBeth just have gone on home and ignored the witches and told his wife to take it easy? And when those events take place can the characters be held accountable for their actions, since it was indeed destiny? Well you know what I think by now :)


So do I think Harry willl die? Will he have to sacrifice himself to save the world from evil, as is told by the prophets... cies... ahem. Or does his Mother's death sheild him from harm as though he were not from woman born... cough ahem... don't mind that. Though I must ask... should we start calling Macbeth "He who shall not be named" in the theatre. :p

I'm done I promise.

I don't think he's a Horocrux, though I'm not quite sure about that scar itself.
If I'm worried about any characters dying it's Order of the Pheonix members (Lupin, Hagrid and the Weasleys especially). I see one of the Weasleys going, and Percy realizing that he's acting like a jerk, but being too late. If it's any of the kids, I worry about Luna, I quite like her, but I think it makes a lot of sense with her role in the series.
I feel that forgiveness will play a big role in the final battles. Both Snape, and even Voldimorte. Harry will have to play to his strengths, and Avada Kedaver isn't one of them.

So that said, I will not write about Deathly Hallows when I am done the book. Mostly because a number of you won't have even woken up to go down to the store and buy it by then. I promise I'll wait.

SO...

If anyone endured reading that, you probably know a little bit more about me than you may have, and hopefully appreciate that some of my geekdom is not simply for geekiness sake.

I leave you with a final thought that loosely ties it all together.

"Joe Bowers: There was a time when reading wasn't just for 'fags'. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies. Movies with stories, that made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting. And I believe that time can come again!" -Idiocracy

Brain Spotting

(Also known as "Brain Zaps" or my favourite: "Electric Brain Sensation", which let's face it would be an EXCELLENT band name.)


Lyrics from Legal Pharmaceutical Withdrawal land:

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
On a sailor's suit and cap

Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils of this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess that I just don't know

I've tried to type a story to this like 8 times, but each one comes out sounding self pitying and/or needlessly angsty and bitter. Let me just explain that: No I am not recovering from a heroine addiction, but I think I might have some fraction of an idea what that's like at the present, as my brain seems to have formed a rather unhealthy chemical dependency on a particular drug that I no longer wish to take.

Yes, let's leave it at that until my head clears.





********************

Seriously, that was the least geeky looking picture I could find to do a rip-off. Ewan must think I'm so uncool.

"Oh, dear God. Can't this town go one day without a riot?"

I wish I could isolate the video for my blog... and edit the rest out. This is a link to the Spingfield USA challenge to be the "home" of the Simpson's movie premiere. Vermont won (all of the videos were pretty uninspired), but I am really sending you to view the video for Springfield, Massachusettets . It might seen pretty corny and odd at the beginning, but please hang on until near the end. It will be worth it. Trust me.

I feel that I have accomplished something here today.

For those who read my previous post, Ticketmaster has changed the picture. It is now in fact of Matt Good (they had a picture up of The Dave Matthews Band with a caption "Order Matthew Good tickets" and the picture linked to the Matt Good tour schedule). I can only conclude that Ticketmaster saw my post and realized their mistake was only making my thousands of readers (who are also fans of both bands and appreciate the irony, having read "At Last There is Nothing Left to Say") laugh at them. Mission Accomplished.

Cute as a bug's ear

There's a very funny new game at the Simpson's Movie site. You can create your own Simpson's "avatar" (just wanted to make it clear, their word not mine). I went right ahead and created a whole darn army!



Hope no one's offended, but they don't give you a lot of flexibility to create realistic portraits... did my best anyways.

40 Flicks

I'm actually kind of proud of that pun.

I have rearranged this SEVERAL times. In fact it will probably be rearranged again by the time I finish writing this.

Liz's Top 40 Movies of All Time

And what does my taste in movies say about me?

I'm not sure that I would take this as "Liz would rather watch Casablanca than Office Space" or "Liz thinks that the South Park movie was more artistically brilliant than Citizen Kane".... the thing is.... it's a balance. I went through my favourite movies and thought about which movies, for me, were the most enjoyable and at the same time had a quality that I feel has given them a special place in the film world. For instance I do not think that Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail is the all time greatest movie. I would probably have to go Casablance there :P But I like it the most. Big Fish is one that I put high on my list. Probably not history's GREATEST piece of film-making, but I think that there are 45 minutes in there that are pretty darn fantastic. And yes. Ewan is hot.

I'm posting this, and while I expect a tidal wave of "Are you serious?" I guess I'm over it, and it's time to stop justifying my picks. I'm no film buff, I just enjoy a well made, entertaining film. There are lots I wish I could stick on there that I couldn't, but I am proud that I managed to avoid doing something like sticking "A Clockwork Orange" or "Resevoire Dogs" on there "just because". I have always felt that it was important to maintain a level of snobbishness about movies. While I think it is important to stay open-minded enough about films to at least give them a try, I will never pretend to like something I can't stand. That, to me, is more pretentious than refusing to watch any more Michael Bay movies on moral grounds.

Scott Buchanan: Bachelor of Arts and Irish Tourist. Damn him!

The University of Windsor is located underneath of a bridge:



The most recent article to be published by internationally recognized faculty: "The Property of Billy Goats and How to Catch Them"

My brother, as always, is too cool for the family:



Fortunately we managed to loser it up, by throwing him a tiny fan in line and by Mom having a few too many celebratory drinks (seriously Mom, stick with that story)


After the long... long ceremony:






And finally, for those of you who are unaware of a serious epidemic involving hand-held communication devices, here is "Scott's Graduation Crackberry Edition":

Stolen from the Book of Face

Instructions:
"FACEBOOK (ahem Blogger) SCATTERGORIES.. it's harder than it looks!
Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question."


Your Name: Liz

Famous Artist/Band/Musician: Leonardo DaVinci/Led Zeppelin/Lou Reed

4 letter word: Luck

Vehicle: Lexus

TV Show: Little House on the Prairie

City: Luxemburg

Boy Name: Liam

Girl Name: Leah

Alcoholic drink: Liquor

Occupation: Lawyer

Flower: Lupin

Something you wear: Lace

Something you do: Love

Something that you dislike: Lying

Celeb: Luke Wilson

Food: Lemon

Something found in a kitchen: Ladel

Reason for Being Late: Lost track of time

Cartoon Character: Lisa Simpson

Something you yell: Leave me alone!


**************************

Also I think that this would have made a nice addition to my last post... but here it is now anyway:

"A view from the desk of Dilbert creator Scott Adams"

Scott Adams is spying on me at work

Gee Ma I wanna go to Southern Ontario!

I am heading home tomorrow evening for a few days in the thriving metropolis of York Ontario (not to be confused with the region of York in Toronto which actually is a thriving metroplois). I will be visiting with family and friends and with ANY luck I will be attending my brother's graduation in Windsor. Also, I am auditioning for the Acting for Film and Television program at Humber. The very cool thing about this program: not only is it taught by some very sweet Second City and Toronto School of Film alumni and former staff, but it also gets me a credit towards ACTRA and gets my feet wet in Toronto in a slightly less frightening way than showing up in the city with no job and no money.

Which is of course plan C :)

On another, and equally important, note: Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End is, thus far, in the lead (as far as I'm concerned) for summer movies. I think that it may be time to put my I heart Captain Jack Sparrow button back on my purse.

Liz the Conservative

This is what makes me a lousy politician. I don't know whether I even agree with his politics, but I would vote for Bill Casey. He is in fact dissenting from the Conservatives for not being Conservative enough (as I gather).
On the surface, as a liberal, I probably ought to agree that Nova Scotia should share its wealth with the other Atlantic provinces in this instance- I guess- truthfully I don't understand the situation nearly enough to expand.

What I do understand is integrity: a rarity in politics, but a quality that I hold higher possibly even than the politician's beliefs themselves.
I feel that by defying his party and standing up for his province, whether right or wrong, Bill Casey showed integrity. And we all know what happens to those with integrity in Ottawa...

Conservative MP Bill Casey was booted out of the Tory caucus hours after he broke ranks with his party on Tuesday night and voted against a bill to implement the federal budget.

The Nova Scotia MP said he couldn't support the budget because it doesn't allow his province to fully benefit from offshore oil and gas revenues without losing equalization payments from the federal government.

When Casey rose to his feet to cast his "Nay" vote, cheers and shouts erupted in the House of Commons.

The budget implementation bill, which sets the Conservative's March 19 budget into action, still passed by a margin of 158-108. It was a preliminary vote, with a third and final reading of the bill expected later this week.

Bloc Québécois MPs and all Conservatives except Casey banded together to ensure the bill passed on Tuesday. The Liberals and the NDP voted against it.

Casey, a veteran backbencher, said the government had promised Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador that it wouldn't include offshore oil and gas revenues in its equalization formula.

"I believe that the government of Canada signed a contract with my province of Nova Scotia and it's not being honoured," Casey told CBC News earlier Tuesday in Ottawa.

"Whether it's by accident or not, the budget was amended, and that amendment was not agreed to by the provinces, who also signed it. So only one side of this agreement changed it and approved this amendment.

"I don't think that's right."

Casey wanted Flaherty to make changes to the budget before the third reading, but Flaherty rejected calls Tuesday in the House of Commons to do so.

The current budget offers the two provinces a choice between two options:

- A new, enriched equalization formula that includes a cap on the amount of offshore oil and gas revenues the provinces can keep.

- The old equalization formula, with the benefits from the Atlantic Accord on offshore oil and gas revenues that was negotiated by the former Liberal government in 2004.

Casey, who was first elected to Parliament as a Progressive Conservative, said the new budget could cost Nova Scotia up to $1 billion.

With files from the Canadian Press

Notes on failure

Some time ago I made a wonderful discovery. I auditioned for that show I was in last summer, A Comedy of Errors, and at first I thought that I hadn't been cast. When I first began to absorb the defeat I realized something. I was pretty OK with it. More so than I had been with any other show. Mostly because when I thought back to my previous failing (see all 800 posts about how I wanted to be Ophelia in Hamlet sept-nov 2005) and thought, well hey this isn't nearly as bad as that was. Probably no role will ever crush me like that. Not just because it was Ophelia, but a chance to play it in my final year of university in a show with my close friends. It sucked a lot. I worked very hard and I didn't get it. But I made the most of it and moved on with life. Most importantly I know now that I can audition for anything and nothing will ever hurt like that again, so I will always be able to take the high road and move on.

So that is how I shall regard my latest sour news. I did not get in to York Univeristy's MFA program. This was also largely based on an audition as well as several letters of intent and recommendation, a CV, transcripts and a whole lot of work that is feeling slightly in vain now. I spent a lot of time and money and energy on that school and I have to admit, despite my best attempts to remain level headed, I really wanted to get in. It has been a tough pill to swallow, but it was the school that I wanted the absolute most. There are going to be a lot of no's in the world of acting for me, so it is good to have hit a big ass one right now. The program may have been very cool but there is nothing stopping me from reading plays and learning more about acting on my own.
The important thing now is to move on, so that the next time I am applying to school or for an actor training program I will have this experience to teach me that I am capable of carrying on.

Theatre and acting have probably had the ability, even more than love, to make me my happiest and most destroyed. My happiest moment in all of high school was having the play that my friends and I wrote win at the Sears Drama Festival while we all won awards for acting and writing. Being a theatre student at Laurentian was probably the greatest time in my life so far. I will never forget the first time I really felt "it" on stage, or rehearsing Taming of the Shrew with Josh, or watching Brie's face as she walked off stage after her monologue for the Vagina Monologues, the standing ovation we got at the end of Isobel, or the overwhelming response Andrew's performance earned in Hamlet, or doing my scene with Frank in Aminta . These are some of the greatest memories I have and it is in these moments that I know I'm alive and none of the other crap in all the world really matters. I'm there on stage or back stage or just in that damn theatre with all my energy and heart poured into every minute and something wonderful happens.

I guess I can't really describe it.

"I found a whole bunch of friends with the same dream, and that makes us kind of like a family..."


So that's where it's at. Life feels pretty miserable right now, but that's only because I love theatre so much and it has made me feel so wonderful. It might not always make me happy, and I don't know if it's the ONLY thing I can ever do. But people who say "the only way you'll ever be an actor is if it's the only thing you can ever see yourself doing" are idiots. If you can't see yourself being anything other than an actor how the hell are you supposed to be a fire fighter or a CEO or a teacher or any of the other thousands of roles you will have to be in a play. If I'm going to get good at this art what I have to do is keeping on living like an artist.
Even if it hurts.

Well I'll let Butters tell you the rest:




GOTH KID: Well I guess you can join up with us-
GOTH KID #2: Yeah, we're gonna go to the grave yard and write poems about how pointless life is.
BUTTERS: Uh, no thanks, I love life.
STAN: Huh? But you just got dumped!
BUTTERS: Well yeah and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I'm feeling is a beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid.
GOTH KID #2: Yeah.
STAN: No Butters, that doesn't sound stupid at all.
BUTTERS: But thanks for offering to let me be in your clique. But to be honest, I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a $#%&$@ goth kid.

What would the movie of your life be called?

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Working title: Lord of the Bongs- The Fellow-ness of the Liz