“Tall Expert” Arianne Cohen – Maclean’s Interview

Maclean’s interview with “Tall Expert” Arianne Cohen on why tall people are smarter, healthier, richer, and more attractive. Being 6′7″ myself, here is finally something to off set the pain of car seats, door frames, and low-hanging chandeliers.

Patrick O’Brian: HMS Surprise (1973)

H.M.S. Surprise is the third book in the Aubrey-Maturin series.

Stephen reflects on his introverted nature, his inclination toward not truly knowing those around him:

How remote it seemed, that quarterdeck, crowded with blue coats, red coats and half a dozen black, with the busy check-shirted seamen moving among them: no great distance vertically – fifty feet or so – but still now remote. He knew all the men there, liked several o them, loved young Babbington and Pullings; and yet he had the impression of living in a vacuum. It came to him strongly now, though some of the upturned faces were winking and nodding at him… ‘So full a ship, close close-packed a world, moving urgently along, surrounded by its own vacuum; each man bombinating in his own, no doubt. My journal, re-read but yesterday, gives me this same impression: an egocentric man living amidst pale shades. It reflects none of the complex, vivid life of the crowded vessel. In its pages, my host (whom I esteem) and his people hardly exist, nor yet the gun-room,’ he reflected during intervals of conversation as he sat at the envoy’s left…”
(p. 172-173, HarperCollins Paperback)

Jack shows Stephen the initials he carved into the Suprise years earlier when he was only a midshipman:

‘You will have to stand up. Steady, now – clap onto the cheek-bolt. There!’ He pointed to the cap, a dark, worn, rope-scored, massive block that embraced the two masts. ‘We cut it out of greenheart in a creek on the Spanish main; it is good for another twenty years. And here, do you see, is my relic.’ On the broad rim of the square hole that sat on the topmast head there were the initials JA cut deep and clear…
‘Does that not raise your heart?’ he asked.
‘Why,’ said Stephen, ‘I am obliged to you for the sight of it, sure.’
‘But it does raise your heart, you know, whatever you say,’ said Jack. ‘It raises it a hundred feet above the deck. Ha, ha – I can get out a good thing now and then, given time – oh, ha, ha! You never smoked it – you was not aware of my motions.’
(p.239, HarperCollins Paperback)

Agnus Dei by Francisco De Zurbaran (c. 1635-1640)

Feeding the Lake – Madeleine L’Engle

If the work comes to the artist and says, “Here I am, serve me,” then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist’s talent is not what it is about. Jean Rhys said to an interviewer in the Paris Review, “Listen to me. All of writing is huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jen Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.”

To feed the lake is to serve, to be a servant. Servant is another unpopular word, a word we have derided by denigrating servants and service. To serve should be a privilege, and it is to our shame that we tend to think of it as a burden, something to do if you’re not fit for anything better or higher.

I have never served a work as it ought to be served; my trickle adds hardly a drop of water to the lake, and yet it doesn’t matter; there is no trickle too small. Over the years I have come to recognize that the work often knows more than I do. And with each book I start, I have hopes that I may be helped to serve it a little more fully. The great artists, the rivers and tributaries, collaborate with the work, but for most of us, it is our greatest privilege to be its servant.

~Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle

Patrick O’Brian: Post Captain (1972)

The second book in the Aubrey-Maturin series.

A quote demonstrating their differences in standards of cleanliness:

At present they were lodging in an idyllic cottage near the Heath with green shutters and honeysuckle over the door – idyllic in summer, that is to say. They were looking after themselves, living with rigid economy; and there was no greater proof of their friendship than the way their harmony withstood their grave differences in domestic behaviour. In Jack’s opinion Stephen was little better than a slut: his papers, odd bits of dry, garlic’d bread, his razors miserable squalor; and from the appearance of the grizzled wig that was now acting as a tea-cosy for his milk-saucepan, it was clear that he had breakfasted on marmalade.
Jack took off his coat, covered his waistcoat and breeches with an apron, and carried the dishes into the scullery. ‘My plate and saucer will serve again,’ said Stephen. ‘I have blown upon them. I do wish, Jack,’ he cried,’that you would leave that milk-saucepan alone. It is perfectly clean. What more sanitary, what more wholesome, than scalded milk? Will I dry up?’ he called through the open door.
‘No, no,’ cried Jack, who had seen him do so. ‘There is no room – it is nearly done. Just attend to the fire, will you?’
‘We might have some music,’ said Stepehn. ‘Your friend’s piano is in tolerable tune, and I have found German flute. What are you doing now?’
‘Swabbing out the galley. Give me five minutes, and I am your man.’
‘It sounds more like Noah’s flood. This peevish attention to cleanliness, Jack, this busy preoccupation with dirt,’ said Stephen, shaking his head at the fire, ‘has something of the Brahminical supersitition about it. It is not very far removed from nastiness, Jack – from cacoththymia.’
‘I am concerned to hear it,’ said Jack. ‘Pray, is it catching?’ he added, with a private but sweet-natured leer.
(p. 156, William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd)

On Jack preaching to the ship:

‘Yes, I may preach a sermon to the ship’s company next Sunday.’
‘You? Preach a sermon?’
‘Certainly. Captains often do, when no chaplain is carried. I always made do with the Articles of War in the Sophie, but now I think I shall give them a clear, well-reasoned – come, what’s the matter? What is so very entertaining about my preaching a sermon? Damn your eyes, Stephen.’ Stephen was doubled over in his chair, rocking to and for, uttering harsh spasmodic squeaks: tears ran down his face. ‘What a spectacle you are, to be sure. Now I come to think of it, I do not believe I have ever heard you laugh before. It is a damned illiberal row, I can tell you – it don’t suit you at all. Squeak squeak. Very well: you shall laugh your bellyful.’ He turned away with something about ‘pragmatical apes – snipering; tittering’ and affected to look into the Bible without the least concern; but there are not many who can find themselves the object of open, whole-hearted, sincere, prostrating laughter without being put out of countenance, and Jack was not one of these few. However, Stephen’s mirth died away in time – a few last crowing whoops and it as over. He got to his feet, and dabbing his face with a handkerchief he took Jack by the hand. ‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon. I would not have vexed you for the world. But there is something so essentially ludicrous, so fundamentally comic… that is to say, I had so droll an association of ideas – pray do not take it personally at all. Of course you shall preach to the men; I am persuaded it will have a most striking effect.’
(p. 249, HarperCollins Paperback)

Fly Away Home – by Kurt Armstrong

Here’s a lovely CBC Outfront podcast by writer Kurt Armstrong. (I’m a big fan of his.)

Synopsis:

Kurt Armstrong does not know how to fly. But his dad is passionate about flying. He even pilots his own small plane. So what’s their common ground? Kurt figures it out when he returns to the family farm for his father’s annual fly-in breakfast.

G.K. Chesterton on Priests & Poets

“I don’t deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.”

~In G.K. Chesterton’s Manalive

Soundtrack of my Life #7: American Pie (Don Maclean)

As I teenager I would spend 10 days each summer on The Robbertson II. “The Robbie” was a sail training ship run by S.A.L.T.S: the Sail and Life Training Society. It was my favourite time of the year. Our crew of 30 “trainees” would be lead by 8 or so crew as we sailed up and down the beautiful B.C. coast.

The son of a mariner, I was a keener and advanced quickly through my sail training. So much so, that I became crew at age fifteen. This turned out to be way too young and my crew trip at fifteen was, unfortunately, my last.

I wasn’t nearly old enough to hold those responsibilities as the teenaged “trainees” (who were mostly older than me) played and had fun. The experience was so bad that I never went back. I felt such shame at doing so poorly at my job of Bosun’s Mate. (Let’s not talk about the time that I sent my captain diving for cover when I left the lever attached to the generator as it spun out of control – no one ending up getting hurt, thank God).

Looking back it really was a shame that I never went back as I was a good sailor and enjoyed it immensely. And S.A.L.T.S. is a wonderful institution. It’s one of those rare places that doesn’t pander to teenagers – and the kids love it for it. You work hard and you play hard. One makes the other so much more meaningful. You sing and laugh and learn what people are really like in such close quarters.

Music in the evening was such an important aspect the experience. I sang lots of songs and danced even more (perhaps the only place that this has taken place). And it was here that I was introduced to the nostalgically poetic American Pie by Don McLean. One of the crew knew the entire song and sang it to us one night. Once we learned the chorus, we joined in (there’s lots of time to join in during an 8 minute song). I never forgot that song and it reminds me of S.A.L.T.S every time I hear it.

I went back as volunteer crew with Christie about five years ago. We had a lovely time. But it was interesting going back as an adult. Like most non-profits, the people are over-worked and under-paid and barely keeping it together. We only had to be there for 10 days, but most crew are there 8 months of the year.  We realized early that the best way to contribute was to serve the over-stretched crew more than the kids.

Our particular crew position involved sleeping in the same quarters as the kids, me in the boys’ hold and Christie with the girls. The crew were impressed with us early into the trip as we always got the kids to go to sleep right away rather than having them horse around for hours. What was the secret? I read to them.

Each night, we’d turn the lights completely out and I would stand below the main hatch and read by moonlight a portion of The Lion, The Witch and the Warddrobe, as the waves rhythmically lapped against the hull.

And what about those tough 16 and 17-year old boys who spent most of the day trying to impress the girls? They couldn’t wait to hear me read them to sleep each night. Go figure. I think we all like being read to at night.

Another highlight for me was contributing my own work to the song tradition on the boat, changing the lyrics of Down on the Corner to describe the experience of living on board. It was a blast leading the entire boat in singing it (and I know that only former “Salties” will know what I’m talking about):

Out on the Ocean (to the tune of Down on the Corner)

Three bags and a suitcase, I was loaded down
Took the bus to Hardy, I love that ol’ Greyhound
Got stuck with the lower bunk, a guy snores right above
Glad I brought those earplugs, and I ain’t afraid to shove

Chorus
Out on the Ocean, sailing on the sea
Leaning that sleep just don’t come easy, and
Never use the hold Head in bare feet

Early in the morning, I woke for anchor watch
That jerk grabbed my nose and mouth, and I let out a cough
Though I was still sleepy, I don’t like to brag
But I saved each soul on board, when I heart the anchor drag

Chorus

When you are the wheel, motoring through the night
“Starboard five” and then “Port ten”, what happened to left and right?
Told to steer “one-eight-three,” I don’t know what she meant
All these terms confuse me, I thought “muster” was a condiment

Chorus

Now that I have come back home, I appreciate simple things
My bed, showers, and dry T.P., and all the joy that they bring
But I still miss the boat, here on steady ground
I keep using sea charts, to find my way in town.

Chorus

Top 130 Movie List: #48 All the President’s Men (1976, Dir: Alan Pakula, Scr: William Goldman)

When I read Carl Bertstein and Bob Woodward’s account of their investigate reporting around the Watergate scandal, I was not only riveted by the story, but was also amazed at the quality and depth of their journalism.

The film adaptation of their story is an example of talented storytellers working at the top of their game. Hoffman and Redford are perfectly cast and Pakula’s direction is one of the best I’ve ever seen: simple, confident, efficient. They all seem to know that they have a great adapted screenplay by Goldman and trust the material – an essential step in great filmmaking.

One of the many reasons I love the film is that it connects with me thematically. It’s about a couple of young, hungry journalists trying to uncover something that is hidden. And, ironically, the people they encounter all wish they could also bring the truth out into the light, but all fear it for various reasons. Thus, many scenes involve a dance of intimacy between Woodward and Bernstein and their interviewees, as they try and navigate their way to the truth.

This scene is an example of Pakula’s directorial confidence: after the first minute the scene becomes a oner (their are no cuts) that only involves a slow zoom in on Woodward as he tracks down another piece of the Watergate puzzle.

Top 130 Movie List: #65 The Passion of the Christ (2004, Dir: Mel Gibson, Scr: Mel Gibson, Benedict Fitzgerald)

Whatever you think of Gibson, this film, or even Jesus, you can’t deny how visually stunning this movie is.

Here’s my favourite moment from the film. The character featured is Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she encounters Jesus on the way to his death.

JESUS: “See, Mother, I make all things new.”