CURTAIN.

The man synonymous with the word "mime" died in Paris on Saturday September 22. The incomparable MARCEL MARCEAU was buried today in the equally incomparable Pere Lachaise cemetery. Every non-clever epigram about "silence" has been written and uttered a thousand-fold, and if there's a clever one out there, I haven't heard it. This genius of gesture will be mourned by everyone who loved and appreciated his art-- and faux-mourned by a whole ton of people who have for years been exchanging groaning mockeries about mime over their coffees and cocktails.

At some point, perhaps in the 80's, it became fashionable to pronounce mimes of all sorts ridiculous and annoying. I suppose there were members of the profession who brought this on themselves: TV variety mimes Shields and Yarnell made it a coy and sentimental mass-marketed art, and it seemed for a time that big-city squares were teeming with street buskers who thought there was nothing more to the art than painting on a clown face and moon-walking inside an imaginary box. And then asking for money.

This in turn gave a lot of cool sophisticates and stand-up comics license to put mimes on their list of people to be anathematized without fear of argument. Some of us, however, stayed quietly loyal to the great art, and kept an eye out for people who were actually good at it, or drew on it in a newer context. Johnny Depp comes to mind, in Benny and Joon.

But the Undisputed Master of the art remained this man I'd had the privilege to see in live performance a couple of times when I was in high school. (I think I have an autographed programme somewhere.) I never saw him again after that, but paid him the best tribute I could by taking two semesters of mime from another, albeit unsung, master, Kaz Piesowocki at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.


Mime was part of the Acting program. I took the one compulsory Acting course without intending to ever put it to use in performance. But the mime component I returned to for a second round. I was just interested in finding out how it works-- gaining an appreciation for the way that acting starts with a physical "impulse" from the heart, and seeing how stripped-down essentials can communicate as much or more than busy details.

I wanted to know how you walk against the wind, and how you reach out to pluck the leaf with the smoothness of mercury. Kaz knew how to teach that, and I wasn't half bad at it. He was a pleasure to watch in action, either at mime, ballet, or as a director of full-length stories in mime, like the (oh-so-badly-lit!!!) story of Joan of Arc. (How we all laughed about the notorious Joan in the Dark.)

Kaz retired in 1998, the same year Marcel Marceau came to the U-Vic Phoenix Theatre and spoke to the students. Wish I had been there for both events.

I knew of Marcel Marceau as a clown and a tragedian under the Klieglights, but never knew until the obits [and here] came out this week about his role in the great tragedy of our time: being a Jew in France during the Nazi occupation, working for the Resistance to help others escape, losing his father to the ovens at Auschwitz. One is left wondering how, after all this, the optimistic spirit of his "Bip" could ever be born. Yet he was, and lived to be 84, and left this world unrivalled. I'm not sure he would have been so happy about that: a rival would have also insured a successor, which he plainly desired. Let's hope for that.


Adieu, Bip.







Au revoir.








CANADIAN JOURNALISM HITS ANOTHER HIGH-WATER MARK

MACLEAN'S Magazine fancies itself the Time or Newsweek of Canada, and in the worst sense it may well have achieved that status. Continuing its sterling tradition of intelligent commentary on world events, as displayed in these cover stories of the past few years.....

... like their 2004 American election special....






Or this gem from 2006 (the answer to their question being, of course, "NO, that would be Jimmy Carter, by the landslide the voters didn't give him in '76.


Now the editors have gifted us with this:



Now that's HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM, EH? We're so proud, up here in the Great White North.

And how do we know this cover is a lie? HOW DO WE KNOW THAT BUSH IS NOT SADDAM, and that any suggestion of a resemblance between the two is so unspeakably, ungratefully STOOPID that is just defies human understanding????????

Because there's not a cloud of toxic gas now floating north of the 49th parallel in the vicinity of the Maclean's head office (that's One Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto...). Because Maclean's Editor Kenneth Whyte has not, to my knowledge, been hung on a meat-hook and beaten to death. Because, ... because, ... well, as Kathy Shaidle [new blog alert!] might put it, "If Bush is a Nazi why aren't you a lampshade?"


Ahem.


Speaking of Nazis-----


FLASH!!! -- SEEN IN AND AROUND THE BIG APPLE HOT-SPOTS:


Whadd-I-say??? Huh? Hey, don't taze me, bro!

New York City opens its doors (well, a few of them) to our buddy, Madmood Ahmadinnerjacket, so he can lay down some peace, love, and sure-I'm-a-feminist vibes for his adoring left-wing public. There were lots of places he wanted to go, but couldn't manage to get them all onto his already crowded itinerary [smiles and a hat-tip -- Hart Seely at Slate.com].


MINOR FOOTNOTE FROM THE RECENT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM-FESTIVAL:

SEPARATED AT BIRTH












Film "auteur" and perennial ghoul David Cronenberg unveiled (as 'twere) his latest work and won the big prize at the TIFF. It's called Eastern Promises, and is the latest venture in a time-tested cinematic genre that has become Cronenberg's new signature style: Naked Tattooed Viggo-Vision. Our spies are certain they overheard the feted (fetid?) director muttering: "Well, if I can't have him, at least I can watch."

This review brought to you by someone who hasn't seen the movie. Too busy watching 3:10 to Yuma.

OH YEAH!

AND NOW BACK TO WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT....

TONIGHT:

PRISON BREAK RETURNS!

While "24" has been re-running itself into a tizz, P-Break has been in quiet retirement, and we can only imagine the outrages visited upon the persons of heroes and villains alike in the legendary third-world Panama prison.

Welcome back, rewind the tape, and LET'S ALL BREAK OUT OF PRISON AGAIN!

ALSO ON THE TUBE, STARTING SEPTEMBER 23:

Ken Burns' new documentary series,
THE WAR

...to be seen on PBS in seven instalments (4 during week one, 3 the following week). The series covers the World War II experiences of real soldiers from four ordinary American towns. It's all documentary -- no armchair commentators allowed-- if you weren't there, you don't get to talk. (There is voice-over by actors, but it uses only the words of veterans no longer here to speak for themselves.) I'm especially anxious to see whose stories get told from Waterbury, Connecticut, home of one branch of my forebears, some of whom I know were veterans.

Burns considers this his best work ever, and though he may have seen this work within a personal context of opposition to the war in Iraq, it is hard to imagine that it will be anything other than a work of authenticity and integrity. I intend to give it a go.

Hope it is not in any way impeded by the fact that, over 14 broadcast hours, it apparently includes four instances of three of George Carlin's "words you can't say on television," which the broadcast standards folks are feeling uncomfortable with. Can you believe it? While skanky women are having "Sex in the City" in every location and position imaginable, and unsupervised children are watching music videos about pimps and ho's, somebody's worried about the men who saved the world saying two F's, one S, and an ***hole. PU-H-H-L-L-E-E-EZE!!!!!

All I can say, is F*** that, you dumbs*** broadcasting ***holes.

There-- now let's move on.

LAST "AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" COMIC STANDING

Wednesday Night Slaughter – GERRY DEE goes down on Last comic Standing.

Unbelievable.

Top Ten Comedic Themes of Stand-Up Artist
Lavell Crawford:

#10 – I’m fat.

#9 – I’m black.

#8 – I’m fat

#7 – I’m black.

#6 – I’m fat, black, and horny.

#5 –TBA

#4 – TBA

#3 – TBA

#2 – TBA

#1 – I’m stumped-- I think I’ll use the last joke I heard and do a lame spin-off of it.

By far the most original and funniest man in the competition, Gerry Dee was up against the unoriginal but moderately funny John Reep and the totally unfunny, often incomprehensible, blue-mouthed and boring Lavell Crawford, whose survival even into the Last Five category was inexplicable.

Inexplicably, Gerry Dee went down to shocking defeat.

I have watched maybe three or four episodes of Last Comic Standing, and it is the only “reality show” I have ever watched. (No, wait, I did watch the final episode of the first season of Survivor just to see what everyone was talking about. Yawn.)

I soon concluded that the results were probably fixed, because that was the only explanation for the continued success of Crawford, whose material was dumb, and increasingly badly delivered. He had to be the Affirmative Action Retention, but the talented guy (that's Gerry) was sure to win because he was the only person worth investing the $250K and the performance deal in. Would a network really throw their money away on a bomb act like Crawford, even if he got the popular vote?

Apparently the answer is “yes”—and now the only explanation for the success of Crawford is that the show ISN’T fixed—the producers are enslaved to the stupidity and gutter tastes of hoi polloi.

This is sad. However, surely the exposure brought by the LCS competition will translate into some big gigs and forward career motion for Gerry. So all is not for nought.

What's really sad is that Crawford represents the kind of Shuck'n'Jive, Steppin' Fetchit, watermelon-coon-shuffle black clown that most decent African-Americans hoped had been banished forever decades ago. That this low-rent stereotype still appeals to anybody, worse yet that it appeals to the audience for BET, is truly depressing.

Wait for it: the O.J. jury weighs in -- next week Lavell beats Reep.

IN THE HOMELAND:




SIX YEARS
"CANCER FREE"

REMEMBER TODAY JACK CHARLES ARON and the 2996.

REMEMBER TODAY PRIVATE KRISTIAN MENCHACA AND PRIVATE THOMAS TUCKER AND THE 3,742.

REMEMBER THE 70,000 (numbers elastic)



AND REMEMBER THAT THE CANCER
HAS METASTASIZED ELSEWHERE:

MADRID


LONDON

BALI


and every single day in
THAILAND

[Link takes you to Little Green Footballs site-- link from there to Zombietime page, to EXTREMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS -- RATED "R" FOR REVOLTING, RAGE-INDUCING, AND REAL]


AND REMEMBER THAT THE DEFINITION OF THE ENEMY HAS METASTASIZED TOO:

FIRST COUSIN...... ONCE REMOVED
Michael Brown

Apparently meteorites do fall out of the blue and hit the same place twice.

Mike

Just turned 30 on the weekend. Died in his sleep sometime Wednesday,
September 5.

Requiescat in Pace.


Heaven just got a good deal hipper, and gained one more heart of gold.


Cue the angel Corus.

WHAT TO WATCH, OH WHAT TO WATCH?

It'll be a tough choice -- there's the Republican Presidential Debate in Durham, New Hampshire, where even now the empty chairs


await the (5? 7? 4? 12?) candidates for the Republican nomination, who will be taking questions Wednesday night from FOXSnooze's Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, and Wendel Goler -- who are, as far as I can tell, just about the only tv journo's in the biz who are fit to do a respectable job of this.

Damned exciting stuff! Nevertheless, I expect I'll be watching......

LAST COMIC STANDING!


That's because we're down to the last four, one of whom is Gerry Dee, local (Toronto) boy who's made good, doing good clean hilarious story-telling, mostly about the old days when he was a teacher at a school which shall remain nameless, but was attended by



all of whom were, at one time or another, taught by the said Gerry Dee. [As, I think, was Ian Van Toch of happy memory (scroll down), who enjoyed a good joke better than just about anybody.]

So which will it be? Comedy? or Gerry Dee? (ha ha)

Watch the comedy "debate", or whatever you want-- but come 10:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 5:

Click here, VOTE EARLY, AND VOTE OFTEN (you can, you know)
for GERRY DEE to win the BIG PRIZE!

"Hey!"

Requiescat in Pace

Ian Lawson Van Toch

September 16 1984- August 24, 2007

--joined at the hip to my youngest son for grades 7 through 13, and at intervals between then and now

Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne
will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 7: 15-17

YOO-HOO!!!

ANYBODY STILL AWAKE OUT THERE?

Rumours of Winefred's death have been greatly exaggerated -- it's a matter of being alternately asleep at the wheel, travelling hither and yon ocean to ocean, or trying to put life back in order in the home we haven't been in much this summer.

One day we were in Newfoundland for dinner, and the next day in San Diego for breakfast. A study in contrasts. San Diego is a landscape of burnt toast interrupted by lush greenery, courtesy of mass irrigation borrowed from nearby states. Hangin' out at the beach can look like this:

or this:

[Not bad, really.]

Newfoundland, on t'other hand, is lumpy, rugged, and [seasonally] green all over. Checkin' out the other ocean can look like this:

Newfoundland also has a moose population of over 150,000 on a land mass less than half the size of Norway.

That's Norway-- which boasts only 120,000 moose, but is apparently in a panic about their greenhouse gas emissions (that's eco-talk for moose-farts). So says Germany's Der Speigel, so it must be true. If Newfoundland is similarly doomed, no one seems to have noticed, b'y. Folks there have other things to worry about.

["Crazy Moose" -- hat-tip to the Computer Science Dept. at Memorial University of Newf'n'land]



Meanwhile, back in civilization:

BRAVELY VENTURING INTO THE "DMZ"

That's the "Dennis Miller Zone" for you civilians out there, the talk radio guy with the most laid-back temperament and absolutely THE best guest-list.

In his copious free time, the aforementioned Mr. Miller appears on one or two FOXNews shows. It seems that during a recent Half-Hour [Alleged] Comedy Hour (sorry-- I only watched the first one and it reeked), Miller did a riff on Defeatist-in-Chief Senate Majority Loser Harry Reid, which immediately went viral on the internet. No comedy here, folks, just a flat-out statement o' fact and a challenge for Reid to do the honourable thing and, if not fall on his letter-opener, at least shut his Mojave-dry pie-hole. Watch and snort:

Miller is also to be congratulated for proposing to the squealing infants of both Houses of Congress that they pass urgent legislation at the earliest opportunity, called the "LET'S SHUT UP UNTIL PETRAEUS GETS BACK" ADULT ACT -- and that we all pledge to adopt the mantra that until the General returns and makes his report, WE DON'T SAY NUTTIN' ABOUT NUTTIN' !!!

Hear, hear.

Got it, Senator Reid? And Mr. Dodd-Murtha-Kennedy-Obama-Rodham/Clinton? And on the distaff side, Ms. Pelosi-Boxer-E.Edwards-J.Edwards/Breck? And from the booth/keyboard: Mr. Blitzer-Moyers-Olberman-Matthews-Schneider/ Sullivan-Fisk-Herbert/ Cronkite-Gregory-blah-blah-blah-BLECH?????............

In the absence of up-to-date info from The Source on the Field, wouldja just, as the kids text it, STFU -- 'K?



U.S. NAVY TRAGEDY -- NEWFOUNDLAND HEROISM -- 1942 -- LEST WE FORGET

Early August: visited the site of the horrific wreck [February 18, 1942] of the U.S.S. Truxtun near St. Lawrence, Newfoundland.

In the pitch-dark pre-dawn, during a sleet-chucking gale, three American Navy vessels ran aground on massive rocks at the base of 200-foot cliffs that form the southern tip of the Burin Peninsula, between the fishing/mining town of St. Lawrence and the fishing village of Lawn.

The flagship Wilkes eventually floated loose and was saved, but the Truxtun broke up and lost 110 of 156 on board. Those who survived did so because the local inhabitants braved the ice and snow to haul the near-frozen, oil-encrusted bodies of the sailors up the cliffs, all day and into the next evening, and delivered them into the tender care of local women who scrubbed and warmed them back to life. Every available scrap of extra clothing and foodstocks in the St. Lawrence area went to the shipwrecked men.

Below: the cliffs at Chambers Cove where the Truxtun was impaled between the two projecting offshore rocks:

Pink cliffs at the right are still stained with the black oil which was hurled at them from the shipwreck by 40-foot swells.

To the west of Chambers Cove, at Lawn Head, the Pollux heeled over but remained partially intact. The crew and officers eventually executed the textbook maneuver, attaching a lifeline to the shore and getting as many across as possible. As it turned out, they might have done better to have stayed on board the remnants of their ship. Those who weren't drowned in oil or dashed against the sharp slate cliffs [one sailor was seen decapitated in an instant] were stranded on a frozen ledge. But 140 out of 233 survived, thanks again to the local men who raised them one by one up the cliffs and got them to safety.


A rusted cross, raised by the Catholic parish of St. Thomas Aquinas, pays tribute to the dead of the Truxtun.

In 1954 the American government built the U.S. Memorial hospital to serve the inhabitants of St. Lawrence and Lawn, in gratitude for their sacrifice. (It has since been demolished, and services are provided by a small modern hospital in Burin.)

In 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the disaster, a memorial called "Echoes of Valour" was unveiled in St. Lawrence, honouring the perseverance and and sacrifice of the sailors and their rescuers.

Read Cassie Brown's Standing Into Danger, a gripping hour-by-hour account of the sea disaster and the flawed investigation that followed it.

Survivor tales are equally fascinating, such as that of Lanier Phillips, a black cook's-assistant from Georgia, whose life was saved, and changed forever, in 1942 by the first white people to ever show him kindness. Meet him here [CBC video] on the occasion of the christening of the sixth U.S.Navy ship to be the Truxtun, which took place in June of this year.

This inspiring story and its majestic setting seldom peep on the radar screen of American tourists and admirers of military heroism. Attention should be paid.

And no (in case any of you are wondering), there ain't too many of us who are made of this kind of stuff anymore.

Thank God there are some-- maybe just enough.


HANGIN' OUT -- NEWFOUNDLAND STYLE -- IN ST. JOHN'S