Valentine’s Day was the pits.  Just another over-commercialized holiday that trashes the memories of three (!) martyrs and ends up with squillions of tons of tacky, red-and-white lacy junk in the landfills.  You can’t leave the apartment without seeing Valentine’s sales everywhere, and not just the logical places either.  “Buy your sweetheart a riding mower!”  “Why not a canopener for your Valentine?”  The worst is on-line, where top-ten lists abound.  Ways to improve your love life, how to communicate with your partner, blah blah blah.

I took offense to one top-ten list this year in particular – top ten Hollywood kisses, I believe.  The beach one in ‘From Here to Eternity’ belongs.  The street one from ‘Lost in Translation’ doesn’t.  As charming as that movie is, and as well as it represents the pleasant weirdness of gawky gaijins in Eastern culture, the ending was obviously a cop-out and meant to satisfy oozing female viewers.  Because you’re not really ever supposed to kiss your friends, you know?  It’s a policy that’s served me quite well in life.

Thoughts?

“Thank you for entering the Studio Sparks Winter Olympics Opera Plot
contest.  If we read your entry (WHICH WE DID TODAY, IT WAS GREAT!)  on
the air we will enter it in the draw for prizes, which takes place on
Feb. 28.  Good Luck!”

Oh my God, it’s another post. I don’t know why I can’t shut up recently. Actually, I do know. But never mind.

I love the Olympics – though I’m not like my mother, who tapes all the coverage and knows the Swedish luge champion’s brother’s dog’s favourite treat, and who calls all the events to within a tenth of a point of the judges and who can tell exactly how many milliseconds have been lost if a snowboarder competes on a day when the atmospheric pressure has dropped by half a kilopascal. She’s a marvel, really.

Anyway, I also love the CBC, and they’re running a fun, low-stakes contest to write an Olympics-themed opera plot in under 150 words, which took me about six minutes although the contest runs till February 27th. You get entered to win prizes if they read your plot on-air during Studio Sparks. Here’s mine:

THE CRIMSON CHALICE

A (rare, Jewish) Olympic athlete, Slalom Fastski, pines for the coldly beautiful Nordica, a star skiier who scorns any man who cannot beat her best time. (Following overture, Slalom laments to his loyal coach Rocco in ‘If Only I Could Ski As Fast As Cupid’s Arrows.’) Rocco schemes to dope Nordica such that Slalom can beat her in an upcoming publicity race. However, Nordica’s coach Bella learns of the plot from a looselipped assistant. She deftly switches the drugged Gatorade, but a passerby helpfully corrects this (those Italians!). Race-time approaches; Bella notices that Nordica seems sluggish. (‘Ski As Your Fathers Skiied Before You’ – comic/heroic duet.) Bella then accuses Rocco, and the two duke it out. Rushing to Bella’s aid, Nordica skis right off the course and is disqualified; the truth is revealed, Rocco and Bella reconcile, and Slalom – still disdained by Nordica – is philosophical (‘Four More Years’).

Enter here!  :-)

Yeah, I don’t know.  Back in the day, I was accused of being a ‘gifted child’ about once a day, when of course my only qualification was that I could read and write while my contemporaries were figuring out which orifices they could safely pick in class.  Of course, after a while, everyone could read and write, so I wasn’t gifted any more.  There’s more evidence, too:

2004:
Tuesday night:  David Bowie concert, floor seats.
Wednesday afternoon: Totally deaf.  Big wildlife ID exam, including misidentifying birds by their calls, with John Acorn the Nature Nut soundlessly complimenting my Bowie t-shirt.  Suboptimal experience.

2005:
Friday night: Night Out At the Drag, two feet from speakers.
Saturday night: Totally deaf.  Attended performance of Bach’s Brandenburg’s at the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon.  Suboptimal experience.

2006:
This Friday coming: Mark EG at the Warehouse.  Expected sound levels slightly louder than 747 taking off on forehead.
This Saturday coming:  Classics for Lovers at Epcor.  Presumably totally deaf.

Sigh.

But instead of mocking me for continuing to do the same stoopit thing to myself, why don’t we just wish Kelly a speedy recovery!  :-)