For those of you about to Rock! Bringing in the New Year in Vancouver

The Marine Club at Midnight - you and two hundred other people party 'til 3AM

I Finally Watched The DaVinci Code

And Syriana and V is for Vendetta and The Merchant of Venice and Walk the Line - ahh the joys of being crippled by exhaustion

A few years ago Dan Brown published a book called The DaVinci Code and it swept through the beach-reading crowd like a fire (or the plague, if you're one of the Vatican types). I never read the book itself but I had read the work from which Brown cribbed his ideas, Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, itself a page turner (by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln).

I have a tendency to reading religious works including several others by Baigent, Franklin, and Leigh (The Holy Place and The Dead Sea Scroll Deception to name two). It's not a fault or serious character flaw, I swear. I never go off on long-winded conversational tangents of a religious nature. But with a subject matter like this, who could blame me if I did? But I don't.

If you haven't read Holy Blood and the Holy Grail or read or seen The DaVinci Code I may accidentally divulge too much information and ruin the suspense for you or the ending (Jesus didn't die on the cross and Opus Dei is hunting down his descendants and killing them, for instance). So, here's a SPOILER ALERT.

Yes, yes. I'm an ass. Perhaps even a friend of Satan, hmmm?

I also have a soft spot for religious films. The Last Temptation of Christ (barely watchable), Pasolini's The Gospel of Saint Matthew (very nice, if a little quiet), the bombastic and highly entertaining Ben Hur, the equally entertaining Moses (although I've conflated the Heston from Moses with the Heston from Bowling for Columbine for a thunderous, "When you pull these 10 commandments from my cold dead fingers"). I recall John Huston's Genesis and story of the Ark (the film is apparently called The Bible but Huston only completed one of the books of the bible - it was the 60s and he should have done a least one more with a psychedlic version of The Book of Ezekiel).

And let's not forget, Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary.

So, I come to The DaVinci Code experienced in the story of the Catholic Church, the history of Christianity, the theories of Baigent et al, and a love of mysteries and whodunits. I think DaVinci's is an excellent film as entertainment. It's well written, very well directed by Ron Howard, excellently well acted, beautifully shot. It's a great film.

However, it's terrible theology and silly history but so was Ben Hur, Moses and Jesus Christ Superstar ("What's the buzz, tell me whatsa happening").

The film's main plot is a scholar from Havard gets embroiled in a murder mystery and tries to stay one step ahead of Opus Dei in the search for The Holy Grail (AKA the tomb of Mary Magdelan). Opus Dei are not above executing those who stand in the way of their search for the Grail. But why do they want to seize it? In order to destroy it, of course. For the Grail holds the DNA of Mary. The DNA could prove that Jesus didn't die on the cross as we long suspected but lived 'til old age and sired children who became the rulers over Europe and thus the whole foundation and premise of the Catholic Church crumbles.

Except it wouldn't because Christianity is more than a literal story. It's a complex history, a mysterious revelation of the spiritual force in all life; it's a way home for millions; an enigmatic portal into eternity. Remove the film's premise and it makes its urgency a little less worth risking one's life for or wasting all that gasoline driving around Europe. Also, if Catholics (and others) can believe in 6000 year old dinosaurs can you really expect them to quake at a few coincidences in DNA patterns. Hmm, no.

Ron Howard's choice of shots in The DaVinci adds considerable depth to the film, allowing several readings of the thoughts and emotions of the film's characters. When they are overwhelmed with the magnitude of their situation they don't have to emote³, gnash teeth, tear their garments, or rub themselves down with ashes; the director helps them. The scriptwriter, Akiva Goldsman, did an excellent job moving the story forward unexpectedly with misdirects and clever dialogue. Although I was annoyed by the film's seeming misunderstanding of the true message of hope, forgiveness and spiritual understanding offered through Christianity the primary emphasize was on the action of running here and there trying to get to the next clue before the blood crazed monk did (or the French police, or the various other players).

I would have to give the film an overall two fluish thumbs up for entertainment but a 'cor blimey - go fack y'selves' for religious relevance (while my neighbour, The Mighty Quinn, is convinced it's all true).

xoxo

M

PS: Merry Christmas! Lotsa love for you and yours!

Who says you can't put new wine in old wineskins?! I want names!

The Cassette, the Vinyl 33rpm & 78rpm Records are (sort of) new again

I'm a terrible person when it comes to money. I make it; I spend it. And I spend it on books, the arts, and music. Sometimes I spend it on technologies that just aren't current. I have a turntable that I play my 78rpm records on (mostly spoken word stuff - like a 1939 version of the Christmas Carol); and some technologies degrade very quickly. The cassette deck, that fabulous thing current in the late seventies and throughout the eighties, is a piece of shit, with its noisy spinning spools and its stretching magnetic tape.

But fervent prayers, a watchful eye, and a valid credit card led me, by chance, to find a little device that will attach to my computer via its USB ports and connect any number of devices with RCA output pins. Why? So that I can input the sound waves, convert them into a MP3 file, mess around with cleaning up the sound quality (do you hear that you cassette bastards?!) and then burn them onto CDs or import them into my iPod.

Some candidates for an MP3 makeover:

In the late eighties Slash Records put out a cassette of Christmas songs featuring the likes of Louis Armstrong (Zat, You Santa Clause and a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas) and John Lee Hooker (Merry Christmas Baby) and many other jazz and blues greats. I also have a collection of late 60s punk, a long out of print recording of the NBC orchestra, conducted by Toscanini, performing Beethoven's Symphonies, and Eugene Ormandy conducting Beethoven's Ninth with the Philidelphia Orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (best make-out music ever!).

Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame) collaborated with Robert Fripp (of King Crimson fame) on an album that was part of Fripp's master vision for a sonic triptych. However, Hall's record company decided that the LP Sacred Songs should sit in the vault for a few years until the clamouring arty-farty crowd begin demanding it. Fripp envisioned his LP Exposure, Peter Gabriel's first solo LP, and Sacred Songs be released together and listened to as a unit.

The same will be done for a couple of funky, brilliant born-again Christian records by Larry Norman. In fact there is only one place in the city of Vancouver where I've ever found anyone who knows Norman's work. He's another candidate for conversion beyond his own spiritual rebirth.

Amid my hundreds of cassettes and hundreds of records, I'll be able to put my favourites on a hard drive and enjoy them once again.

No, no. Don't be jealous. I'll have you over for some bruschetta and wine and we'll listen to the Motor City 5 and their late 60s screams against the establishment. "Up Against the Wall, Motherfuckers!" indeed.

xoxo

M

Note to Tyrants - Never Invite Banquo's Ghost to Your Dinner Party

Cauldrons boil and cauldrons bubble - Vancouver Opera's performance of Macbeth

I saw Verdi's Macbeth at the QE Saturday night. I've seen Shakespeare's Macbeth performed a little less than a dozen times, mostly horribly.

The tale of Macbeth follows him on his ambitions to become King of Scotland, prodded along by his equally ambitious wife and the misunderstood prophecies of the Weird Sisters. Sure, to become Scotland's ruler he needs to kill the current king, Duncan, ambush and slaughter his best friend, Banquo, and let loose bloodshed across the lands for seventeen long years to quell criticism of his brutal rule or to compell compliance with it. And there is the niggling detail of his scruples eating away at his certainty and integrity until he goes mad, violently asserting the rightness of his actions and obsessed of his own invincibility.

And of course, he's not invincible and by tale's end Macduff has severed the tyrant's head and thrown it to the floor.

I struggle with Verdi’s version of Macbeth. At the beginning of Shakespeare’s version Macbeth has just come from the battlefield where with vigor and integrity he has slashed, hacked and gutted the enemies of his king, Duncan. Macbeth and Banquo, shoulder to shoulder, executed a traitor who had crossed sides and betrayed Duncan and his allies. Macbeth’s character is ambitious, decisive, and determined with a highly developed sense of loyalty. This isn’t a character who can’t quite decide or act; he doesn’t need his wife to drive and compel him to success.

Macbeth’s slow descent into madness comes, in my reading of his character, from violating his soldier’s honor and loyalty to Duncan; he becomes Thane of Cawdor by executing the traitor who held that title and defended Duncan and it was Duncan who honored him.

His hesitation had more to do with his scruples; the further he slid away from his honorable profession the worse his madness became, the more violent his rule, until he is completely unable to reason except by the sword. By the story’s end he his unable to do any sort of statesmanship or politicking.

Lady Macbeth is quick to urge her husband in pursuit of his ambitions but misreads her husband’s identification as an honorable soldier and so misleads him.

Lady Macbeth (who truly deserves a name of her own in both the play and the opera - I suggest Macbetty - as in The Tragedy of Macbeth and Macbetty) is far from being free of scruples, or free of humanity or driven to bloodshed through a relentless persistent ambition; she is torn over the blood 'on her hands' and finally kills herself in despair over her misdeeds.

Vancouver Opera's presentation was uneven, as is the libretto itself. The music was well presented, as usual. But I didn't like some of the lighting effects, the colour scheme, nor the colours of the costumes. The effect was not fitting for this dark tale. Other aspects - the lighting effects when the trees of Birnam Woods crowd Macbeth for example and the chorus' costumes for the slaughter of innocents - were very well done.

I sat in the best seats in the house: Row 20 - seat 144 (dress circle).

And you? What did you do this weekend?

xoxo

M