Moonlight and Vodka
Two weeks ago I walked to the WDM, a 45 minute walk from my apartment. The day was brisk, Fall-like; I stayed out all morning. A quick walk there and a leisurely hour-long stroll back home.
It was a perfect day.
Now, all this last week and half-way into next week, it is and will be so damn cold.
As Chris De Burgh sings:
Tonight there’s a band, it ain’t such a bad one,
Play me a song, don’t make it a sad one,
I can’t even talk to these Russian girls,
The beer is lousy and the food is worse,
And it’s so damn cold, yes it’s so damn cold,
I know it’s hard to believe,
But I haven’t been warm for a week;
Yes, I haven’t been warm for a week. I walk everywhere so outside is cold; my apartment has base heaters that go up to 5 (no idea what my indoor temperature is but I have two outside walls and my couch sits alongside one of them) and work has not gone over 66 F all week – we’re a non-profit and currently need a new furnace.
This weekend, I made homemade chicken soup (yum) and now I have a small layer of ice inside on my windows.
The worst parts of Canadian Winters are the cold snaps. It feels like everything is frozen enough to break in half; me included. 
Outside is dark and dreary!
Okay, I lie. The sun did shine yesterday and today for a few hours. From Noon until three if I remember correctly. And, I was lucky – I didn’t have to leave the apartment all weekend so I stayed safe from the vicious wind chill created by Old Man Winter and Jack Frost. At least the fishes are inside, away from icy habitats, and staying warm. 
There were some lovely Holiday trees at the WDM when I was there as they were hosting the 2009 Festival of Trees.
Below are my two favourites:
Diggin’ in for Christmas was designed by Zenia Dziadyk, Stephanie Baliski and Brenda Ackerman. I love that they used the Danger and Caution tape to make bows. It would be a perfect tree for a little one enthralled with construction, and what under eight year old is not!
A Contractor’s Christmas was designed by Gail Allan, Sherry Klein and Brenda Hesje. Look at the tiny construction hats and Santa’s blue hammer. I love this. A great tree for your favourite do it yourselfer; Mike Holmes perhaps.
I leave you with Christmas oranges, a good stiff drink (vodka is my 1st choice) to warm you up and moonlight. The moon is bright tonight and when it is this cold the stars appear crisp and sparkly. Sometimes, Winter is not so horrid after all (now if only I didn’t have to go to work next week).
Stargirl
It starts, oddly enough, with a porcupine necktie and an anonymous act of random kindness. Have you ever noticed that such an act makes people uneasy? They’re not sure why but they don’t like anonymous acts … one assumes either that people want credit or that they have some sinister reason for wanting to stay anonymous.
Stargirl appears at Mica High School at the beginning of Leo’s grade 11-year. Stargirl is in grade 10 and up until now has been home-schooled. In the beginning, the school’s halls echo with “Stargirl”, “Stargirl” as the other students dissect her. Who is she? Where does she come from? Why is everyone enchanted by and curious about her?
Stargirl is an eccentric. She signs her name like this.
She comes to school wearing 1920’s flapper dresses, kimonos and no make-up. She plays the Ukulele and serenades the students, at lunch, with renditions of Happy Birthday. How does she know whose birthday it is? She has a pet rat named Cinnamon. She has a history of changing her name. Stargirl is weird, strange, goofy, unusual.
Leo tells us Stargirl’s story. He is a normal, average student at Mica High. Leo is enchanted by Stargirl and, like the rest of the student body, falls in love with her. Leo sees Stargirl as this “ray of light” involved in everyone else’s business. Stargirl gives secret anonymous gifts. She goes to the funerals of people she does not know. She pays attention to life! She has no ego and doesn’t care what other people think of her, or so Leo tells us.
Before Stargirl came to Mica High the school revolved around Hillari Kimble, cheerleader and most popular girl and Wayne Parr who is admired only because he is gorgeous – his aspiration is to be on the cover of GQ.
Stargirl energizes the school and the community. She gets people out to the football games, she becomes a cheerleader, and she roots for everyone … no matter the importance of their accomplishment. Herein lies her downfall … she roots for everyone, including the opposing team. The energy and originality that first made Stargirl seem enchanting and special in the eyes of her classmates ends up getting her shunned.
All this shunning upsets Leo more than it does Stargirl. Because he loves her he also bears the brunt of the school’s gossip and teasing. Taunts of Starboy echo behind him in the hallway and the things that made him love Stargirl now makes him want to change her. He tells her “we live in a world of them” implying that what matters most is how others perceive us.
To please Leo, Stargirl goes back to the name her parents originally gave her … she becomes plain, ordinary, everyday Susan. She looks like everyone else. She tries to act like everyone else. Her most important task becomes winning the speech contest. This will make her popular. She has to win, she must win, she does win. Nothing changes. Winning does not make her popular. Trying to be someone else does not make her happy. Susan returns to being Stargirl and Leo removes himself from her orbit.
However, Leo still loves Stargirl. He may no longer physically orbit around her but he is aware of what she is doing. Stargirl’s final showdown occurs at the Ocotillo Ball. She goes alone and in triumph ends up a legend, the belle of the ball. And then she leaves. Stargirl leaves school and her parents leave town. Still, in the end, Stargirl is forever embedded in the mythology of Mica High School and in Leo’s heart.
The voice of reason throughout this story is A. H. Brubaker, retired professor of paleontology. Archie the Bone Man, as the local teenagers who congregate at his house, call him.
It is in Archie’s shed that Stargirl keeps her office. Here are her files on people. Her “lovely treasure” as Archie calls it. Archie, like Leo, sees the enchantment behind Stargirl but also understands why others fear her. He tells Leo “You’ll know her more by her questions than by her answers.” Do we fear Stargirl because she has no ego and cares not how others perceive her? Do we wonder if we could be as happy as she is if only we didn’t care about how others saw us? How much of ourselves do we lose because we care so much about how we are perceived?
Because Leo cared how others saw him he lost Stargirl. Because the others cared they lost her as well. Leo, and perhaps everyone else, ends up seeking forever what they have lost.
Stargirl
by Jerry Spinelli
New York: Knopf, 2004
P. S. This is an old review and in searching for images I find that there are two sequels. (Or are there?) Yeah, more for me to read
This is My City
This is my city. A city of bridges in the midst of a lonely province centered within a vast prairie.
Joni Mitchell grew up here. This is the river she use to skate away on. The river doesn’t freeze hard enough anymore to skate on. Why? I suspect it is because the river now has a dam upon it. I hear that this keeps the river just above the freezing point no matter how cold winter gets. And, damn, it gets cold up here.
Here is Joni playing just down from the University Bridge. The art is by SCYAP , they have painted various traffic control boxes all around downtown. Another view of the same traffic control box is below.
I’ve lived in this city on and off since the 1980’s. I leave. I come back. It is my favourite Saskatchewan city. And yes, I have lived in other Saskatchewan cities. In this city, I’ve lived on the west side, the east side and downtown.
Each neighbourhood has a different flavour. Each decade has been different. I’ve watched the city ebb and flow. I watched it grow to engulf and swallow up the nearby prairie. I like it small. I’ve lived in bigger cities. I lived in warmer cities.
This is my city (for now). 
I will leave you with several views of my favourite traffic control box. The pictures are in the order I think is most logical!
It is drawn in the tradition of pop art romance comics.
There is a lovely young ingenue and a villainous hero.
Will True Love prevail?
When an outsider comes to a new place, he sees the picturesque and the freakish, whereas the local sees through layers of emotion and memory (Walter Benjamin).
This is my city.
I am a Pedestrian
I am a Pedestrian.
I prefer the sidewalk under my feet, the wind in my face, the exquisite scents in the air, the sounds rushing past my ears, and the completeness of walking.
I walk everyone. I walk back and forth to work five days a week. This is a thirty minute walk when it’s cold and forty when it’s warmer. I walk the Meewasin Trail for fun. The river is intoxicating every day of the year. I walk to the Farmer’s Market, to nearby shops, to Eighth Street for groceries. Occasionally, I walk far. It is approximately an hour’s walk from my apartment to the big, Canadian bookstore that I frequent. I’ve walked there about three times in the last three years. It is somewhere I usually take the bus to.
This time of the year I start to dread walking. It is getting colder. There are days below minus degrees and talk of wind chill. There will be ice and cars will pay even less attention to little, old me as they rush to and fro.
Vehicles don’t pay enough attention to pedestrians now. In the last month, I’ve almost gotten hit twice. The last time I could smell burning rubber after he applied the brakes.
Almost getting run over is a GREAT way to end the day!
The other time the person turning left was not paying attention; good thing I was. I will admit, I don’t always pay attention.
I will admit that I forget the rules sometimes. My generation, a mostly car-less one was “taught to walk on the left, facing traffic, so that we could see cars coming and move onto the shoulder.” (p. 38) There were also less sidewalks then. However, cars went slower, injuries were less serious, and drivers took responsibility for everyone’s enjoyment of the road. Now, there are times when it feels like I’m the only one noticing pedestrians.
I will take responsibility for my own safety but I want the vehicles out there to be aware that they are not the only ones using and enjoying the roadways.
I enjoy relying on my body for my own locomotion. I enjoy walking. There are many benefits to my walking.
“…went out for a walk the following afternoon. I was out for an hour. I walked two hours the next day, an hour the day after that, then three hours a day later. Somewhere in the course of those first several days, I stopped being depressed.” (p. 16)
Since I was a child, I’ve enjoyed walking in the rain. Though, here in the Prairies, that usually means that I am walking in the rain and the wind.
This is not a gentle tropical breeze that I am talking about.
This is updrafts and messy hair and wind tunnels.
How many umbrellas do I go through in a year?
1? 2? 3? Just one umbrella died this summer, at least. It’s a good thing my mom sells Avon. She always has inexpensive umbrellas hanging around for me to commandere.
I suppose, one day, I should buy a high end model. I worry though that our winds would treat such an umbrella the same as the others. Maybe, I should just go for cute. Oh look, they even have a warranty. Though, I have a feeling that Mary Poppins had a Burberry.
I know some of you may be wondering why not bike to work? For me, it’s a matter of paying attention. My mind tends to wander here, there, and everywhere. I feel it is safer for everyone if I keep my time behind the wheel to a minimum.
I am a pedestrian.
“I think I can recall a desire to gain knowledge of the city I lived in …. by walking its streets.” (p. 32)
You can live in a city for centuries and never really know it until you walk its streets.
On a recent Sunday morning, I went meandering. I walked back from the university along Temperance, turned a corner, and suddenly had no idea where I was. It took about ten blocks before I could suddenly go, “ah ha, I am here and I know where I must go to get back on track.”
I love that. I love getting lost walking in a city that I supposedly know.
I am a pedestrian.
All quotes are from:
Step By Step: A Pedestrian Memoir
by Lawrence Block
New York: William Morrow, 2009
Lottery Update
I almost bought a lotto ticket on Friday. I almost bought one because I am feeling very poor. I’m cutting my budget too close; almost a third of my take home pay is going into Savings. And, as of last week, my grocery money is all spent for the month. My savings, however, is growing in leaps and bounds. And now I have to ask what is more important, the day to day expansion or the safety net and next year’s trip?
What stopped me from buying that lotto ticket is that the game that replaced my regular ticket is double the price; six dollars instead of three for a lotto with worse odds (I ran this by my math genius friend).
I don’t like feeling poor. If I never had to think about money again I would be ecstatic.
White Poppies
I wish there was somewhere in Saskatoon where I could buy a white poppy for Remembrance Day. The only poppy available here is, of course, the Red Poppy. For those of you not in the know, the white poppy symbolizes peace. The Red Poppy is for remembrance of the war dead. The White Poppy movement started in the United Kingdom, in 1926, as the No More War Movement. I have no problem supporting the troops and remembering those lives, both military and civilian, lost to war. I’m just not comfortable supporting war as a way to deal with conflict. There HAS to be a better way!
Let me start with a little background, for those of you who don’t know me. My dad joined the air force, I assume, just after he finished school. I do know that by the time he was twenty-five, he had a wife and four kids. I was the third daughter and was born when he was stationed on an army base in Germany. My older sisters were born on bases in Canada. My mom was an unhappy army wife, alone and ignored in a foreign country. Not soon after I was born my Dad was out of the service… I’ve heard rumours of a dishonourable discharge. Nobody’s ever discussed it with me. He left us soon after to start over with a new family. Alcoholism ran rampant in his life.
My mother’s father grew up somewhere in Poland, he told me tales of being conscripted into the Russian Army (WWI I do believe), of riding horses during this war, and of starving in Russia & eating tomatoes for the first time. He ate his tomatoes with sugar, which was the way he ate them to the day he died. He hadn’t eaten tomatoes before as he had been told they were poisonous. He didn’t make war sound adventurous or fun or noble.
Most of my siblings, at some point in their life joined the Cadets. The eldest and youngest were active for years. The youngest got her pilot’s license because of the Cadets. My stepmother has been, and still is, very active in this organization. I lasted a week. Didn’t like the marching, the guns, being told what to do and when to do it. It was never an organization where I felt validated or safe.
I can understand the lure of joining the military. It provides you with structure, shelter, and food. It can give you a community to belong to and believe in. A younger brother and niece both joined out of family obligation. Neither lasted. My brother did basic training and was back home shortly after; why it didn’t work out I was never told. My niece went overseas with the Cadets and was sent home early, again I don’t know why. Maybe this is why I have a problem with the military, it seems overridden with secrets.
I am also concerned about who makes up the majority of most armies. By that I mean who is on the frontlines shooting and getting shot at. “We are the dead” as it says in the poem; In Flanders Field. It is the poor and disenfranchised who make up the majority of the dying in both the military and civilian ranks.
This military culture, we (society) glorify scares me. I know this culture. It is a culture that results in a reckless lifestyle that leads to too much drinking and abuse. The ads should say see the world, kill those more disenfranchised than you and escape from your life and responsibilities. Can’t we hope to achieve peace without waging war?
I want a chance to show that I’m tired of this mindset. I want to stand for peace. I want a white poppy to wear.
Weird and Wonderful
Yesterday was Halloween (Samhain) and today and tomorrow I will be in the midst of El Día de los Muertos. This time of year I reflect and honour the goth within. You may have noticed this from last week’s post. I’m continuing the theme this week as I participate in two different memes today and answer them both in a roundabout way!
The memes are from Art on the Darkside and Weekly Geeks.
First off, w
e have a fall, harvest, halloweeny picture for you. He looks a bit bored, don’t you think. I don’t know how many Trick or Treaters he saw but I had none. This is one of the perils of living in a downtown apartment. Most people with children are in the suburbs! I didn’t put him up. I just took his picture and cropped it for my own pleasure.
It seems strange to have Halloween on a Saturday. I don’t remember weekend Halloweens as a child. I don’t even remember Trick or Treating in the light. In my memories Halloween is always dark. I remember rushing home from school, grabbing a pillowcase (that was our treat bag – it was a small town and we planned on hitting every house) and going out with my friends and my younger brother and his friends. The next day was spent in a sugar hangover from all the treats we didn’t normally have.
I have a bit of a sugar hangover today. I saw coloured popcorn at the Farmer’s Market yesterday and just had to have some. 
Grandma Katie (she wasn’t related to us, she lived next door until we moved when I was thirteen) always made coloured popcorn for special occasions. It’s what she gave out for Halloween. Her house was always our first stop. Every child in town got a small lunch bag full of popcorn; the bags were probably six inches tall. She must have made popcorn all October so that she would have enough. It’s a shame that Treats are no longer homemade! So, the popcorn I bought yesterday was way too sweet – Grandma Katie’s popcorn wasn’t sugar flavoured, just coloured.
El Día de los Muertos is a new tradition. I discovered it when I was in Montreal. I’ve always been a bit on the goth side. My best friend and I use to hang out in Graveyards and I still love a quiet afternoon in an old graveyard. I think it’s important that we remember who came before us and that some day we will be gone. Then all that our loved ones will have will be memories or stories or the odd picture (I hate having my picture taken – always have).
I love the fact that you can buy skeleton paraphernalia that depict your dead friends and relatives. I want to make a skeleton reading a book, hiding in the corner, surrounded by her cat and dog. This would be me; this is how I would want to be remembered even though the image is old. That was me over forty years ago though, on second thought, it’s me now too minus the cat and dog. Though I wish I could have a cat here in my apartment. Oh, how I ramble on!
So, Weekly Geeks asks are things getting a little more weird and creepy than usual. My answer would be no. My life has always been weird and creepy. I was a child in the sixties when trolls were a popular childhood toy, a teen in the seventies when Stephen King started writing horror but then again I’ve always been drawn to the Gothic. Never had the money for the wardrobe but horror is something I read widely in. And I covet the clothes.
Right now, I’m listening to Wicked and I must say my sympathies lie with Elphaba.
This weekend remember all of us are only here for a moment and can only hope that someone will remember us as we really were. Me, I’m weird and goth and like to hang out in graveyards.
Dead People’s Stuff
I am surrounded by dead people’s stuff. Sometimes I feel like I live in a graveyard. Sometimes I want to live in a graveyard; especially in the fall, when the cemetery grounds are calm and gray and dreary. I would so fit in with the Addams family. I covet their house.
Next week it is Halloween (Samhain) and El Día de los Muertos. This is the time of year to reflect and honour our ancestors. I don’t have to go far to do this as half of my apartment is furnished with dead people’s stuff.
I’ve been collecting furniture from dead people all my life. (The image that comes to my mind is of me knocking on doors of old houses, Victorian mansions, Gingerbread cottages, etc, and the doors being answered by a variety of ghosts, young, old, ancient, etc. Oh, if only I could draw!)
What I mean is that I prefer to buy second-hand rather than new. I like my possessions to come with stories; even if they are only stories I make up myself.
So, though I can say most of my stuff is second-hand, only about half of it was actually acquired from dead people.
In the living room, there is Ruby’s couch. Ruby was a friend of my moms. She died just after I moved to the city. I bought the couch because it folds out into a bed. It makes my mom think of Ruby but I only see the practicability of having an extra bed.
Also, in the living room is my grandmother’s (my mother’s mother) television. My mom and sister bought it for her when she moved into the home so that she could watch her soaps in the privacy of her own room. Like me, my mother’s mother was a quiet woman. She preferred her privacy.
Yes, the television is too small for the space it is in. I like it that way!
Just down from the television is a table my grandfather (my mother’s father) made. It use to have a linoleum top. About five years ago, I borrowed my sister’s garage one summer and redid the top of the table. It involved a lot of sanding and painting and varnishing. It is not finished on purpose. The incompleteness reminds me that my grandfather chose not to teach me those types of skills because I am a woman. The incompleteness also reminds me that nothing is permanent. Life is mutable, ever-changing and even though, for me, change is not always good, I try to remember that change is necessary.
Under the table is a foot stool that I bought when my small home town’s undertaker died. He lived just down the street from us and I wanted something to remember him by. His only daughter had died young and he always made a habit to say hi and ask after us when we were gone. He was one of the good ones.
In the kitchen is Aunt Jenny’s kitchen table and chairs. I also have some of her cooking pots. She was not my Aunt Jenny. She was my pseudo step-dad’s aunt. I never met her. I heard much about her. She lived alone, but for hired help, in her own house until she died. This is how I wish to die – in my own home.
In the bedroom is Ruby’s dresser. Notice how none of my stuff matches. I am not a matchy type of soul. I like the mish mash of this and that. I like the opportunity of making what was someone else’s mine. I replaced two of the drawer pulls, on this dresser, with dragonflies. They fit well, don’t you think?
Also, in the bedroom is the last comforter my grandmother ever slept under. It is part of my winter bedding because it is down filled and warm, even though it is over fifteen years old.
That is about half of what I own.
There is also:
- a green rocking chair that I bought at a garage sale,
- the kitchen table that was my mom’s old table that I use to add more cupboard space to my kitchen,
- my bed, which was a wedding gift – go here to see my summer bedding,
- the bookcases I bought second-hand (an amazing bargain),
- the hope chest my dad gave me for my 16th birthday,
- a small bedroom cabinet that I bought new (horrors),
- And two of my mom’s old kitchen chairs.
Oh, and my roll-top desk. I’ve wanted one since forever and finally was able to find one, for an obscene price, at a church sale just after I moved back to the city. I like to think some old lady use to sit here and write long rambling letters to her loved ones.
I like being surrounded by dead people’s stuff; continuing on their stories. I hope that when I am gone someone else will use and love my stuff with the same respect.
Sick Alone
I was home sick last week. Alone. I spent twenty hours in bed on Wednesday just sleeping and over two days had no more than a cup of oatmeal to eat. I left the house once. To go across the street to buy necessities: tissues, toilet paper, white bread, ginger ale.
Not sure what I had. The symptoms were all over the place: runny nose, fever, aches & pains. Mostly, I was tired and didn’t want anything to eat or drink.
And this concerned me; that I wasn’t eating or drinking much. I worried about getting dehydrated and confused. I know how quickly one can die. I remember Jim Henson – one day kind of sick, the next day too late to go to the hospital.
My Eldest Sister is a nurse. She’s been attending a lot of the pandemic preparation seminars. She has me worried. I’m not over concerned about the H1N1 flu, and I will be getting the vaccination once it is available, but I do worry about being sick and alone.
I was worried about getting confused and making bad judgments because I’m sick, tired, and feverish. There were times this last week when I wasn’t sure when the last time was that I took medications.
I usually can easily live alone. I can entertain myself for decades, even without television or the internet. Right now, I have a year’s worth of books stashed in my apartment – about two hundred or so. I have a high tolerance for combating boredom. I can, and do, entertain myself. I read, I write, I make up stories in my head; I watch television, own my favorites on DVD and have toys to play with (shh).
Loneliness is not usually the problem. Though, truth be told I never felt this alone in Montreal. Where I had no family and only a few friends, but we all were alone and that meant we felt obligated to check up on each other regularly.
What really concerned me this week was basic survival. How could I get food, water, money, when I couldn’t leave the house and I know no one in the city that I would feel comfortable asking to run these errands for me? If I were back home in the small town I grew up in, the grocery stores would deliver and let me buy what I needed on credit. I wouldn’t need to worry about having less than ten dollars in my apartment.
I’m starting to seriously consider having an emergency kit. I have a case of water now left over from the last time the city turned off the water without letting us know. I have the necessary medical supplies, thanks to my sister’s worries. I have a freezer full of meat and enough food for about two weeks but it all needs preparation and what if I can’t cook, for both medical or practical reasons.
What would I do then?
Honestly, I don’t know.
When I was a young woman, new to the city, I lived downtown in an apartment on the third floor. Every once in a while, an elderly neighbour (probably in her 70s or older) would show up needing help opening a tin can. I always helped. (I hope this helps my karma in the future). I learnt, over the course of my two years there, that she lived alone on the first floor. The lone elderly woman in a building usually filled up with university students or young workers new to the work force and city. My apartment building, where I live now, is also mostly university students and lone middle-aged workers too poor to afford a house. I know maybe six of my neighbours by sight, two by name. I don’t have the sort of courage that it takes to go door to door asking for help until someone smiles and helps.
That old woman died alone in that apartment building just before I moved out to Montreal. I think about her. Who was she? Why did she have no one? She died alone. They cleaned out her apartment and threw most every thing she owned into the dumpster behind the building. This is how Garbo entered my life. She belonged to that old woman and I felt something of hers should be rescued and passed on to someone who would try to remember an old woman she never really knew!
This is Garbo – she is named after Greta Garbo (because all of us prefer to live alone!).
This is why I think it’s time I had a preparedness plan and kit. I’ve looked over the list and it’s nice to know that I have at least half of it already. I also know that I need to keep what few social connections I already have, nurtured. I need to keep in contact with my family and learn how to make new friends. Alone is fine, but the older I get, the more I realize that I also need a community to help me nurture myself.
Yes, I am a healthy, independent woman. I can live in harmony with myself. The trick is learning to feel a little bit less solitary in the wide open spaces alone and to learn how to be a contributing community member and still be comfortably solitaire.
Polytechnique (the movie)
December 6, 2009 at 10:35 am (Movie Commentary) (l'École Polytechnique, violence, women)
Last year’s post, Remembering, gave you my personal point of view about this day: Dec 6th, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
This year, I wonder is twenty years long enough to mark history? To go from emotion to analysis. Where is the dividing line between present/past/history? How many years/generations does it take?
In 1989 14 women students were murdered by a male at the Montreal University École Polytechnique just because they were women studying in unconventional fields; they were studying to be engineers.
Director Denis Villeneuve tells this story in a minimalist manner in his movie Polytechnique.
I avoided this movie. I wasn’t sure if this was how I wanted to spend a few hours of my life; remembering horror. It’s only been twenty years; it’s too recent. It’s not history yet.
I was worried that the movie would be either exploitative or inept, or one of those movies that tries to explain the “psychology” behind insane rampages, that aims for sympathy for the assassin. And assassin he was.
In fact, Polytechnique is a sparse work.
The film is in black and white, making things more depressing, interspersed along with shots of snow. This is winter in Canada. There is a cabin fever vibe.
The brutal & raw movie parallels what to me is the worst of winter; the aloneness, the cold, the snow.
The movie starts off showing the truth of student life; you line up for the photocopier and the laundry, search for cards and quarters. You have intense discussion about ideas, both academic and real, as you struggle to educate yourself into a new life that seems full of possibilities.
The movie has no gratuitous violence, no gratuitous emotion, no excesses of any kind. Unsentimental, and completely moving. It stops your breath. The tears are constantly at the back of your eyes as you struggle not to cry, not to obscure your vision. You want to see and at the same time want to look away.
This isn’t some sensationalist gory ode to a mass murderer, but rather a memorial to the victims of that day, both the dead and the survivors.
The filmmakers have not exploited the tragedy, but showed it respectfully, and dedicated it to those who lost their lives that day.
As if I could ever forget. This is my 9/11. My OMG what the hell was that moment. Did the radio really just say 14 women dead? Why? WHY!
Polytechnique was released on February 6, 2009 in Quebec and on March 20, 2009 in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. I’m glad it was released well before today, the 20th year since it happened. (I can’t write anniversary. anniversaries are happy events).
Here are some additional facts about the movie and my comments on such (in brackets)!
This McGill University paper article tells us not only names of the deceased but makes these names real to me with facts about their lives and dreams. Facts that before now never registered within me. Are these women more real to me now because I have a visual to sit alongside my emotional reaction to that day?
If you want to explore the movie further go to IMDB or the Official site which is also sparse.
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