life is a banquet – and most poor suckers are starving to death…

Not my line.  You can thank Patrick Dennis.  According to Wikipedia, he had a life almost as interesting as Mame’s.  If you haven’t already discovered Mame, I highly recommend you do so.  Apparently she was the Fifty Shades of Grey of the 1950s.  Mame is way cooler from what I can gather, since I refuse to actually read Fifty Shades… but, like the Kardashians, you can’t escape it even when you’re trying to…

Anyway, let’s talk about Mame!  And the brilliant Patrick Dennis.  I first stumbled across Auntie Mame in my early teens.  Especially interesting because it was supposedly out of print then.  But I read it – and the sequel – with great delight.  My recollection is that it is well written.  And Mame is a character who should be as famous as Scarlet O’Hara.

When I read the original novel, I related to the nephew.  To have a worldly aunt who would show me the world and shake up my boring “Little House on the Prairie” everyday life seemed a dream too big to actually dream.

But that is the wonderful thing about reading.  You can transport yourself into all sorts of worlds for which you have in reality neither the means nor the social skills to actually enter.  You can pretend to be all sorts of different people and lead all kinds of interesting lives.

If you aren’t a reader, Mame also made it onto Broadway and apparently there are two different film versions.  But the one to see is the 1958 Warner Brothers version with Rosalind Russell.  I was looking for something to entertain me in the background on Christmas Eve and that is how I saw it for the second time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051383/

Not everything is better the second time.  But it is one of my favourite films.  It’s fantastic – and not terribly realistic.  But highly entertaining.  And with a social message that still resonates today – and would have been shocking in the 1950s of the buttoned-up USA.

As a child, Mame was inspiring.  But now I see that I have partly turned into Mame.  And it’s not a bad thing.  She is resilient, resourceful, independent, entertaining and unconventional.  As the quote suggests, Mame really knows how to live.

Apparently the book has been a spectacular hit as a reissue in the 21^st century.

Check it out.  Or rent the film.  Mame was ahead of her time so her message fits perfectly into the new century.

Live your life to the fullest.  Take some risks.  Do some interesting things.  Make sure you have at least a couple of stories that will get you attention in the nursing home.

Enjoy the banquet!  Apparently the world did NOT end after all… so it’s time to embrace 2013!

Happy New Year!

how to wake the dead ;)

Don’t be scared 😉  No zombies.  Not even a Ouija board.  I do remember playing with something that was supposed to be a Ouija board in my youth.  But being one of those dull, uber-analytical sorts… well…  someone else will find ghosts for you…

I just like the concept of invoking the dead… not necessarily into my living room 😉 I just think it’s great to keep dead people alive by remembering them – and talking about them – in voice and in print…

And this is my dad’s season.  It’s not quite the same these days but I grew up with some insane concept of Christmas that was informed by silly family rituals and too many Christmas specials.  Some of the rituals were normal.  Some I invented because I was obsessed with the concept and wanted Christmas to last as long as possible…

The strangest, but most enduring one, was when I discovered that there was a sense of letdown when all the presents had been opened… so first I held back one gift for each person and gave it to them later in the day… of course, that then became an expectation… so it became more complicated… to a point of some absurdity… it probably means the Jews have it right with Hanukkah 🙂

But the spirit of Christmas for me is less about presents than it is about carols.  When my dad died choosing the music for his funeral was very complicated – because the only music he really seemed to connect with was Christmas carols.

I still have a great love of ritual, especially around December.  And I think I owe a lot of it to him.  It was always a month unlike any other.  All the rules loosened.  Time seemed to stretch.  There was festivity in everyday activities.

These days in the developed world there is so much emphasis on goods and dollar signs.  But none of my great childhood memories involved much of a cash outlay.

Today I was listening to Bing Crosby sing Christmas songs, including obscure hits like Silver Bells and Christmas in Killarney.  This was the one Christmas album my family owned when I was a child and it was played so often that I know the words to every song and can identify any of them in the first couple of bars.  Because my dad decreed that we start playing Christmas carols every December over and over again.  He felt they should play Christmas carols all year round, not just at Christmas.

He also thought we should eat candy.  Sadly I shared his weakness so we had to fight over the toffee!  But we got to eat as much candy as we wanted for the entire month.  There was something wonderful and dramatic about having an entire month to indulge.  It made every year of my childhood feel special and exciting.  A month of unlimited candy is all it takes for a child to feel s/he has won the lottery.

I know my dad shared my love of Christmas.  And I won the lottery having him give me so much wonderful advice to guide me through the labyrinth of life.

But, on Christmas Eve, to evoke him, I play Bing and eat some toffee.  And he’s here… and we’re both listening… and not singing along – cause neither of us can sing 😉

beware of Japanese girls armed with credit cards!

I am still alive!  And hoping to add some new thoughts over the next week and in the year ahead.  I thought 2012 might be a little easier… but apparently not 🙂  And November through February always the scary part of my work year where extracurricular fun like writing gets punted in favour of client needs.

But it’s Christmas Eve so I get a couple of days off.  First, we will journey back to Paris as the tale was never completed.  The great thing with Paris is that everything is a bit larger than life so the memories stay in one’s imagination.

Where Paris really excels is in all matters related to art – that word applied in a very broad way.  And, in Paris, food is art.  I caught the end of some BBC or CNN program while I was in Germany and learned that apparently cheesecake is all the rage in Paris.  Unfortunately details were sketchy because the program was essentially over – but I was intrigued by the shop in the television images…

So did quite a bit of googling to see if I could figure out where I was supposed to go once I got to Paris… I wasn’t sure if I had it right but once I arrived I knew I had hit pay dirt.  And it was well worth the effort.  The bakery is called She’s Cake and is run by a charming woman named Sephora.  I had the fleur d’oranger – amande.  It was delicious and it felt like you had stumbled upon a special neighbourhood secret.

http://www.shescake.fr/

I also discovered I had come during the annual Paris Photo exhibition (mid November).  It required some waiting in line in the cold – but was worth the wait.  It is a show for galleries and collectors that is also open to the public so it is a little overwhelming but a great way to get an overview of world photography in a couple of hours and discover some new talent and be inspired.

Next door there was a fascinating exhibit called Bohemes at the Grand Palais.  The concept of Bohemia, gypsies and their role in art and European history.  Romantic, tragic, dramatic…

Normally the airport is not part of the story.  But the French have a flair for the dramatic… and a crazy love for bureaucracy.  And my Scottish genes make me cheap…

There is a wonderful VAT (value added tax) recovery scheme all over Europe called “tax-free”.  It’s not really true but you do get a decent amount of tax back so it’s hard to pass up.  When I got to Charles de Gaulle, I thought I was really clever popping into the first VAT-recovery station I found with my stack of forms, all completed and signed, my passport ready for a quick stamping procedure and on to my gate.

But NO…  every gate has its own VAT-recovery station apparently.  Seriously, France, do you think this might be why your economy is in the toilet?

At that moment I didn’t realize I had been condemned to hell by some random French customs officials.  I found the station that matched to my gate… but I also found a gigantic snaking line of beautiful young Asian girls clutching tax-free forms and giggling.  There was no choice but to succumb.

I was in line for a long time so was determined to figure out what the hell was going down.  I have never been in such a ridiculous line so my curiosity was peaked.  With enough time and careful peeking at passports, I discovered they were Japanese.  Apparently the Japanese still travel in packs.  I don’t know the connection between all the girls – other than a devotion to expensive shopping 🙂 – but they obviously had a handler and were all going through customs as the equivalent of a gigantic tax-free-form-stamping boa constrictor… better to stay on the sidelines than get eaten by it 🙂

And there was a small reward… when I finally got to the end of the line the customs officials were very happy to see me – mostly because I represented the end of the line – so they just grinned and stamped all my forms as quickly as they could 🙂

Travel is always full of new experiences and adventures.  An open mind, a sense of curiosity – and lots of patience – will make any travel experience an entertaining memory 🙂