People, Places and Things

Did you miss the boat, too?

I missed the boat. Yep, that ship has sailed, rather, the deadline has passed.

In clearing out my email in-box, I opened one with the subject line Canada's Model Search is here! How exciting!! Was I really being targetted for a spot spot in a modelling competition, or was this one of those phishing expeditions, or worse, a hyperlink to a virus?

Oh, what's that? It's Canada's Plus Size Model Search.

Inside, the email message asked me: Do you have what it takes?

Apparently, after this past week of non-stop nibbling/bingeing on cookies, chocolates, and mixed nuts, and overindulging in red wine, I do.

Let us eat cake!

Oh, my. I spent my Saturday evening watching a marathon run of Ace of Cakes, which is a Food Network program about the work of the talented folks of Charm City Cakes of Baltimore, Maryland.

I've never really been into reality-style television. I like a little more glamour in my tv shows and too many of these types of shows have people in them that look and/or act just like the other minions like me around the office. But I also avoid these shows because I fully understand how they are produced; I've seen the man behind the curtain firsthand.

Many of the shows may not be scripted (as I once argued when my friend Sandy, who was at the time also a coworker, during the first season of Survivor. She insisted the show was "real" as strongly as I insisted it was not. We disagreed until our cubicle mates became bothered by our raised voices), but they certainly are cut to fit a vision and that's what I was trying to convey to Sandy. What I meant to explain was that episodes were edited to suit a storyline - a narrative based on the producer's vision, which resulted from manipulation of the actors involved. And who's better at manipulation than reality-style television producers?

In any event, the appeal of me of Ace of Cakes is not as much about the episode's narrative as it is about the beautiful artistry of Charm City Cakes staff, about the creation of pieces of art that happen to be edible. This is art in cake form.

The show reminded me of a cake I planned to make to celebrate my son's third birthday.

Days before the Kid turned three, I called a local bakery (they did an awesome job on our wedding cake), to see if the baker could make a cake in the shape of the Stanley Cup. The baker got on the phone with me, mightily disturbed because I'd taken him away from his work and chortled at my request. A replica cake of the Cup would take him several days just to make the cake. In my best I'm-not-a freakin-crazy-hockey-mom voice that made it seem as that was precisely who I was. I'm not looking a life-sized version, I screeched, "The kid is turning THREE!!'

As you might expect, our conversation ended hastily.

With only days to go, I had to improvise. I trimmed and stacked three angel food cakes, covered them with Dream Whip and dragees, then added store-bought decorations and plopped the Kid's Stanley Cup toy on top. He loved it!

A few years later, the bakery had a fire and as I drove by the burned-out storefront one morning on my way to work, I wondered if the baker had pissed off a potential client with the same sneering attitude he'd given me. Within a year or so, it was back up and running, but I haven't dropped by.

Although the Kid's birthday is six months away, he's already looking forward to a cake as wild and original and amazing as those featured on the Food Network. (Preferably with the Leafs name engraved on a Stanley Cup replica. And he'd like me to make it!)

I think I have that bakery's phone number somewhere.

P.S. Check this out. Compare the store-bought cake we also had that year with CCC's Trogdor.

What's on for February?

If February is anything like January, things are going to be fairly quiet around here, so if you're looking to kill some time, you can check out my re-designed  website at www.valeriebeanonline.com.

In Conversation with Screenwriter Glenn W. Benest

I was introdcued to Facebooks' Secrets of Screenwriting Group by my actor/writer/producer friend Carlo Essagian. The success of the group in terms of number of members and sustained postings got me wondering about its organizer, Glenn W. Benest. We sat down at our computers this weekend to have a brief conversation about the group and its success.

 

Glenn, how did you come to the decision to start a group on Facebook? This forum really lends itself to online learning. Are these lessons an extension of classes you teach?

I started this blog/newsletter because I teach professional level screenwriting workshops on the eastside of L.A. and in West L.A.  For more information about my workshops, please go to: www.glennbenest.com.

I get a lot of ideas every night when I teaching and screenwriting and felt it would be great to share these ideas to a larger community than just my students. I’d heard about Facebook and it seemed like the perfect forum to give these short mini-lectures about what makes a great screenplay, tips, and insights from a professional screenwriter and other views about films coming out—why they work and why they don't.

As a professional writer myself, I'm very hands-on with my students—I'm not so much interested in theoretical approaches, but in the down and dirty about what really makes a screenplay great and in teaching solid ideas that writers can use to make their writing better.

I've taught for many years—first at UCLA Extension and then at the American Film Institute, but I never had enough time with any one writer because of the class size. So that's why I started teaching privately, giving each writer lots of time to share their work and get in depth analysis.

Who were the first members on board, Facebook friends, or real-life friends? And how long do you plan to continue?

My first members of the Facebook group were my private screenwriting students. Then word of mouth got around and it started to grow exponentially. I've now given 48 talks. I never planned to give a certain number, I'll keep giving them until I simply run out of ideas. But there's lots of material to cover and so far it hasn't been hard to find new topics.

Are there any plans to turn these lessons into a book?

I don't plan for now to offer this material as a book, that's the beauty of it I think, that you can only get this information here. I'm not crazy about screenwriting books and have only few one or two that I really think are that helpful. They're usually written by people who don't actually write themselves—they're self professed experts. I write everyday and have been in the trenches all my life—I've had seven films produced and have had five films launched from my screenwriting groups. You can't really get this stuff anyplace else and I'd like to keep it that way.

There's a discussion area, too, isn't there? What conversation topics are most often addressed in that forum?

My one disappointment has been that I don't get a lot of feedback from members in the group. I'd have thought they'd have lots of questions and give lots of feedback. There is a DISCUSSION BOARD but it's rarely used. I really don't know why. I keep encouraging people out there to use it but so far it hasn't been utilized.

 

I also post job and screenwriting contest opportunities on the DISCUSSION BOARD and I hope people will go there to check it out. I really don't know if they do or not.

 

...to be continued

Honouring Personal Heroes? Paying It Forward? The Spirit of Christmas?

The spirit of Christmas, honouring personal heroes, paying if forward, who cares what you call it. The fact is, Granny's 500 gave me the gift of a lifetime.

 

Each year, I feel a little guilty and ever more lame for writing cheques to my favourite charities because they are not what I'd call ignificant amounts. For years, I've wanted to cotnribute in a way that might make a real difference in someone's life, but as I learned this holiday season, the spirit of giving has far more meaning when you give with intention, rather than simply cutting a cheque.

 

If it is chosen by the editorial board, you can read about my experience in a forthcoming issue of Bread 'n Molasses online.

 

Related stories:

Art Buchwald & Grandma

July 27, 2008 [plus Charity is Timeless]

Download Have Your Say_20002001

This Wednesday with Andrea McCall happens on a Thursday

This week, guest blogger Andrea McCall discuss holiday tradition.

Why is it that we try so desperately to stick with a tradition, even though it causes stress and conflict in our life?
 
Ever since my husband and I got married, we had always gotten a real tree for the Christmas holidays.  Originally we lived in the country, so we went out on the property and cut one down, always, inevitably, a "Charlie Brown Christmas tree."  When we moved back into the city, we would trek out to a local nursery and pick the bushiest tree possible (which I am sure was to make up for all the Charlie Brown ones). 
 
I always complained about the bald spots, making sure the tree was watered, the needles that feel and the water that was spilled on the rug or floor. I tried to talk my husband into purchasing a fake tree, but he wouldn't have any part of it.
 
After he passed away, I felt that it was important to keep this tradition alive and we would go get a real tree. The whole exercise became even more stressful that it initially had been with him around.  Now I had to worry about strapping the tree to the roof of our SUV, getting the trunk cut the proper way, and attempting to get the silly thing to stand up straight, and stay up, in the water filled stand. 
 
Last year was the worst, with me having a complete and total melt down. We went later to get a tree, so some places were sold out. The, once we got it home, it kept falling over. I threatened to throw the tree out the front door and cancel Christmas.  My wonderful father-in-law came over the next day, when we weren't home, and fixed the tree so that Christmas would go on in the McCall household.
 
As this Christmas is approaching, I realized we still had to get a tree but between hockey practices and social events, I felt like I was running out of time and the stress level began to rise. I decided to go this past Sunday, but my boys had set up a time to go shopping with my brother for me, so I didn't want to interrupt that important activity. I really started to stress about the time limitations and that was when I made the decision - I was buying a fake tree. I remembered that my husband's biggest complaint was that fake trees looked fake. I talked to some friends who have fake trees and one gave me the advice to look into the number of needles per square inch, the number of points on the tree, and the number of lights. The more, the better. 
 
So Monday night, my youngest son and I travelled to our local nursery, which also sells quality fake trees.  We went to their "gallery" to check out what our options were. We looked at the stats, checking out the number of points, the number of lights, the height, etc. It was so bright in there that we had to look away every minute or so, just to get out sight back. We were giggling over this. We made our choice (2700 points, 850 coloured lights, seven and a half feet tall), paid for our purchase and had one of the employees place it nicely in the back of our vehicle. 
 
Then we went to my oldest son's hockey game, went home and started to assemble the tree. My oldest loves putting things together, so he is usually the leader and we are his helpers.We got the three parts together, fluffed the 2700 points (it is a lot of points) and plugged in all the lights. It was a wonderful time together. We worked together as a team, we made jokes about who was the best fluffer, and laughed together. When the tree was completed, we all stepped back and were in awe of the gorgeous tree we had created. It was one even my husband would have been impressed with.
 
I was still feeling a little guilty for not following a "tradition" including my husband, but I realized that we hadn't broken a tradition, we had altered it and maybe created a new one for the three of us. The anger and tears were replaced with cooperation and laughter. 
 
We tend to get caught up in what we think is expected of us during the holidays, much of it causing so much unneeded stress in our lives. If this is how you are feeling, I suggest you stop for a minute and decide how important some of it is in the big picture of life. 

If you love to do it, great!  If you don't, it is time for some new traditions to emerge.

Somewhere in the middle of Christmas

As my (almost-teen) kid drags himself out of bed mumbling about the boring Christmas concert, I'm reminded of the time I participated in a Christmas concert circa 1974/5.

I was in grade 4 or 5 (Mrs. Bradley's class. Mrs. Bradley was the best teacher, ever.) and I was lucky and excited to have been selected (maybe I volunteered) to be one of the letters in Merry Christmas. We walked across the stage, 14 of us with our cardboard letters and one by one we held them up: "M" is for . . . "e" is for . . . "r" is for . . . .

I don't recall which letter I was, I was down the line, somewhere in the middle of "Christmas," but I know for certain that I wasn't an "r." In those days, I had what some of might call a speech impediment, but the only one who ever said anything was my best-friend Lisa who once held up her hand in grade two and said, "Val can't say her r's." The teacher had me recite a few words in front of the class, then dropped the matter.

We'd just moved to town that summer, so I was new to the school. Lisa and I had yet to become close friends.

Years later when I told my mother this story she said she hadn't taken issue with the way I said "run," or "red," or "ridiculous" because to her ear, it sounded more like a British "ah" (that she might have heard in her childhood home) than the Canadian "are."

It was later that school year that Lisa pointed out my speech flaw that I raced home from the school bus drop-off point to tell my mom about the new reading group I'd been placed in.

I belonged to a group called the "winos." It just took a moment or two, in which time my mother wondered about the decision to move from Toronto to a smaller Northwestern Ontario town (and of the rural teacher's curriculum), but she soon realized that I was in a group named after a popular zoo animal. It was the first time that she heard what Lisa'd heard.

While a "whino" got mom's attention (we spent a short time practising the pronunciation of a few words, as I recall), to a nine-year-old kid, the word RHINOCEROS is a mouthful.

While it's not the most original shot of a puppy on a chair, this is our Tucker.

   

Books

I am a huge fan of receiving bookstore gift certificates for Christmas.

In fact, if you're looking for something for me and haven't found anything yet, just mail me a Pages or Type Books gift certificate. I prefer a book over a piece of jewellery, perfume, or household appliance for any occasion (and if you were even thinking about household appliances you are definitely double-scratched from my list. In fact, from all my gift-giving and card-sending lists).

The trouble is, and you'll know this if you've seen my Facebook page, is that I can't keep up with the book's I've already bought. And yet, I keep buying more. What sort of compulsion is this?

Yesterday as I placed another book in the bag in my closet where I store all the Christmas stocking stuffers, I counted seven unread novels beside my bed. But this doesn't mean I am not reading an more. It's just that I don't have the glorious GO commute, which is where I used to do most of my novel reading. Now, I've got these books: 

• A Long Way Goneby Ishmael Beah
• Possessionby A.S. Byatt
• Summer Goneby David MacFarlane
• Love in the Time of Choleraby Gabriel Garcia Marouez
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Me Sexy compiled and edited by Drew Hayden Taylor

A few have been hanging around for more than a couple of years. (You might think that Middlemarch has been hanging around for a while, but it's a fairly recent purchase. I wanted to read something by George Eliot who has long-rumoured to be a relative on my mother's maternal side. Although there seems to be a connection, and the intrigue of stolen family heirlooms, there's no blood-relative proof).

So, I'm making a New Year's resolution early. In 2009, I resolve to a) stop buying books I won't read and b) start reading the books I already own.

These are good books, they don't deserve to be ignored.

Folks like Erica Dreifus aren't making it any easier for me, either. Erica included a list of book recommendations in her latest enewsletter The Practicing Writer Vol 5, No. 11: December 2008.

Here's a sample:

"Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the End of the World*, by Yang Erche Namu, Christine Mathieu. This is a memoir of growing up in a small Tibetan village near China's border, in Moso country, called "the Country of the Daughters." Here a sort of matriarchy reigns - still, today - called walking marriage. The women take as many lovers as they want and the men continue to reside in their mothers' homes. Yang writes of her girlhood there in the late-1960s, early-'70s where she was known as "the girl who was given back three times." The story is magnificent - you'll wish for more of it."
--Camille Cusumano
http://www.camillecusumano.com

Oh, and HarperCollin's just sent me an email about Louise Erdich's books, whose work I love.

Latitude 44 Gallery presents

  paintings by Micheline Montgomery and poetry by Hedi Bouraoui.

December 16, 2008 to January 17, 2009