On The Bill - Part I

As the tedious process on unpacking, sorting, jettisoning and placing "stuff" continues there are a few constants that have been in many of the places I've called home in the past 60 odd years.  Amongst them a small crystal penguin given me by my colleague Norma Jean when I left Toronto, that infamous bell of my mother's, a Rosenthal bowl Laurent gave me our first Christmas, the Hirschfeld Josephine Baker and four old playbills that I brought back from my first trip to London in 1969. I had them framed the next year and they have always had a place in our various homes in Toronto, Ottawa, Warsaw, Aylmer, Rome and once again now in Ottawa.

As we arrange them the other day I decided to do a bit of research into the names and places mentioned on these sightly tattered and fragile old handbills that would be distributed in the streets, taverns and shops to highlight the theatrical delights that awaited audience in Liverpool, London and Toronto. Toronto?

Yes Toronto.  The most recent of them is a playbill from the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Toronto dated  June 6th 1854.  The Royal Lyceum was the first purpose built theatre in the city.  Opened in December of 1848, according to reports it was a noble edifice in the style of the times (I've been unable to find a photo or drawing).  Built by wealthy landowner John Ritchey it seated 750 people and was complete with orchestra pit, balcony, dressing rooms and gaslight.   For the next 26 years it as to be the temporary theatrical home of all the great performers as they passed through Toronto on their North American tours:  Sir Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Lily Langtry and the divine Sarah Bernhardt were amongst the famous names that delight Toronto audience at the Royal Lyceum. And on July 8th, 1853 Luigi Arditi's opera company presented the first full length opera to be seen in the city:  Bellini's Norma with the Dutch soprano Rosa Devries singing the title role.  The playbill assures the spectator that it will be performed "With appropriate scenery, Dresses, Full Choruses Male and Female and a Magnificent Orchestra".

This photograph from the University of Illinois Theatrical Print Collection shows John Nickinson in his most famous role: Havresac in Napoleon's Old Guard.  At his side - as she often was on stage - Charlotte, his daughter and successor as manager at the Royal Lyceum in Toronto.

From 1851 until it was destroyed by fire in 1874 the Royal Lyceum was leased by the Nickinson Theatre Company - led first by John Nickinson then his daughter Charlotte (Nickinson) Morrison.  Until 1858 when she retired from the stage to marry the Toronto newspaper editor and critic Daniel Morrison, Charlotte was the leading lady of her father's company. After her husband's death in 1871 she took over the Royal Lyceum and went on to manage the Grand Opera House during its first seasons.  Other members of Nickinson's company included his daughters Virginia and Eliza and his second wife Elizabeth .J. Phillips, who he met while lessee of the Metropolitan Theatre in Hamilton.  After John Nickinson's death in 1864 Miss Phillips continue her appearances on stage in a 45 year career first as an ingenue and then as a leading character actress. The Nickinson Company toured throughout the continent but used Toronto and the Royal Lyceum as their home base, often being joined by a "guest star" to give a bit of added lustre to the season.

As I mentioned the playbill I found in a shop in London, of all places, is for a performance by the Nickinson Company on June 6th, 1854. For that week the British-born American actor C. W. Couldock was appearing with the Company as the title character in Richelieu, a historical drama of the type so dear to theatre goers of the time. At the start of his career Couldock was known for his Shakespearean roles and became one of the most beloved character actors of his time. His last appearance was on November 21, 1896 in Kansas City; for 59 of his 82 years he had been on stage, first in England and then America.  He died two years later at his home in New York City still much loved and respected amongst the members of his profession and theatre goers.
 

In this portrait from the New York City Library Theatre collection,
drawn in 1897, artist C. A. Muller shows Couldock  in the popular play Won At Last.

He was particularly famous for his portrayal of Iago in Othello and that play marked his first professional appearance on stage but in the title role. In the New York Times Obituary a full, and I think very funny, discription of that debut appears in Couldock's own words.

In 1837, a year after my grandmother's death, I got a letter from the late William Oxberry, the comedian, to an actor named Burton, who played second old man at Sadler's Wells Theatre, who was about to have what was called a 'ticket night' – that is he was to receive half the proceeds of the tickets he sold. I had studied the Shakespearean drama pretty thoroughly and I wanted to play Othello. This I told Burton and I offered to take £10 worth of tickets if he would allow me to make my début at his benefit. He heard me recite the part, and obtained permission from his manager, Nelson Lee, to give me the opportunity to act it. I distributed my tickets among my friends, mostly clerks in wholesale houses and I was thus assured of the presense of a large favourable element in the audience.
Well, the night came, and I played the part. I had a very good actor to assist me as Iago in the person of M. T. Hicks, then quite prominent on the London stage. My friends encouraged me by lavish applause, and the audience as a whole, was disposed to be friendly. ..... I got through the performance quite well up to the last act, when, as I was about to stab Desdemona I found I had no dagger. I was embarrassed, of course, but an amateur will often get out of a difficulty better than an old stager, and so I imagined the blade and struck her with my fist.
The next day my friends, the clerks, subscribe £50 to aid me in continuing on the stage, and thus encouraged I resigned my situation and got an engagement playing 'utility' with a small travelling company......

New York Times - November 29, 1898.

Again from the NYC Library Theatre collection this print by Frederick Chapman
shows Couldock in one of his later Shakespearean roles: Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII.

Richelieu or the Conspiracy was a very popular piece amongst the leading actors of the day: William Charles Macready commissioned it and Sir Henry Irving revived it four times.  It was filmed in 1935 starring the wonderful - but largely now forgotten - George Arliss with a young Maureen O'Sullivan as his co-star. Little known today its one claim to fame is that author Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined a well known phrase in a passage spoken by his leading character:

True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!

Bulwer-Lytton is also know for penning that immortal phrase: It was a dark and stormy night; ..... as the opening of his novel Paul Clifford.

The after-piece was also a popular farce of the time. Boots at the Swan was written in 1837 by Charles Selby, one of the prolific playwright-actors of the time. The part of Jacob was the calling card of Charles Peters, who became Eliza's husband the year he played the title character at the Royal Lyceum along with other members of the Nickinson clan. I notice that Charlotte and John are the only members of the family who did not seem to "do" farce.

One of the things that caught my eye on the poster was the bilingual tag at the bottom - well over a hundred years before official bilingualism in Canada.   Laurent suggests that it may have been there because at the time France was a close ally of England in the conflict in the Crimea.  Rather amusing in their eagerness to honour Napoleon III they manage to change his gender.  Perhaps even then there was a Commissioner of Official Language as it was corrected on future playbills.

7 settembre/September - Santa Regina

Lost ... and Found - #1

The never ending, it would seem, story of the unpacking continues and though there may be some light at the end of the tunnel there isn't much in the spare room which still contains 52 boxes of CDs, books and sundries.  I am assuming that things such as the cable for the printer is in one of them but until I can get the bookcases in place I can't even start to take exactoknife to tape.

Happily so far there has been very little damage in the shipment from Italy - only two broken bowls in an old dinner set - and the wine arrived intact!  Would that the same could be said for things that were in long term storage - there is rather large dent in the upholstery of an armchair and the satin-finished Watered Maple dining table top has a few more abrasions, scratches and nicks than when it left the house in Aylmer.  But one of the fears of any unpacking job - no matter the provenience of the packing - is that you may inadvertently leave something in the reams of packing paper and have it whisked off to the mangler at the warehouse.  I was sure just such a fate had befallen two of my favourite little creatures.

Two hummingbirds - carved in BC cedar by Haida artist Dorothy August - said to bring joy and healing.

 Back in 2002-3 I was working in Vancouver and that allowed me to spend some time with my friends Dan and Cameron.  In those days they were renovating a house in town but have since moved to a wonderful waterfront home on Galiano Island in the Gulf - some people have all the luck.  One rainy Saturday (hey its Vancouver okay???) we headed up to Horseshoe Bay and after a healthy vegetarian, organic lunch (hey its Vancouver okay????) we wandered into The Spirit Gallery to look at the Haida art and crafts.  I fell in love with two tiny hummingbirds (7cm x 10cm - 3" x 4") carved in BC cedar by Dorothy August.  Said to bring joy and healing to a home, they have always found a place on a wall in ours since then. 

In Rome they graced the wall of the hallway leading down to the bedrooms.  I had opened a box and everything from that hallway was there - two small drawings from San Miguel de Allende,  a decorative hanging from Sappa,  a searing political cartoon from Poland and an 18th century hand coloured print of Warsaw.  And only after the box had been collapsed and paper disposed off did I realize that of hummingbirds had I none. 

I looked through the discarded paper in nearby boxes  - in effect unwrapping everything again - but no luck!  There were 12 other boxes filled with wrapping paper but I just didn't have the time or strength to go through them all.   Several people - Cathy, Mark and Laurent - assured me that I would find them, that they had just been put in another box.  That the packers had perhaps overlooked them and then at the last minute put them where space allowed.  I wasn't buying that story - everything else from the hallway was in the one box so they must have been.  They were small and very light weight so I had missed them in the unpacking.  I reconciled myself to the fact that my two little hummingbirds had been lost.

Well I guess you should always listen to your friends.   A few days later as I was unpacking a box from the dining room (?) there they were.  Not to be too poetic or sentimental - my two tiny birds hadn't flown away at all - they were just waiting to be found, unwrapped and to be given a place in our new home.

I'm not sure when Haida artist Dorothy August carved these two - 12/8 is written on the back in pencil which could be December 8 or August 12 but no year is indicated.  She's originally from Port Alberni on Vancouver Island and her Haida heritage is Nuu-chah-nulth from the Ahusaht First Nation.  According to the brief biographical note I received from The Spirit Gallery as well as cedar carvings she is know for her intricate bead-work and the Cowichan sweaters she knits. 

The hummingbird has no prominence in the older iconography or legends of the Haida but has made more of an appearance in recent years.  Within the constantly evolving mythology of the West Coast its character has developed into a speedy messenger of joy, love and healing.  If it appears at a time of great sorrow, wings beating rapidly as it hovers in mid-air, spiritual healing is said to quickly follow.

I know their appearance amongst all that bloody wrapping paper gave me a sense of joy - and relief.  They are now hovering on the hallway wall in our - and their - new home.


17 agosto/august - Sant' Elia di Enna

Books, Books and More Books

When you have to pack up house and move once every three or four years it becomes more and more of a chore. As the years pass you accumulate what George Carlin use to call in his monologue "Stuff". And if you're like I am that stuff runs the gamete from Art to Ziplock bags with miscellaneous nuts and bolts in them. (I thought I was pushing it with that last one so I could do the A to Z thing until I found said ziplock bags in our tool box earlier today!) And before every pack up comes the big "if you haven't used it in the past two years get rid of it" movement.  And it started here yesterday.

Clothing of course make up a good part of the inventory but fortunately my weight loss has made it easier to pick out what will come to Canada with me and what will be left behind.  If it looks like I stole if from my big brother's closet then off to the parish box it goes.  And kitchen and dining "stuff" is not far behind.  Do we really need 5 complete sets of diner service? And if not which ones do we get rid of and how? Do the parish poor really need porcelain finger bowels?  Did we really need porcelain finger bowls????

A work in progress - one of the bookcases has had the first go through - a second more ruthless culling is to come.  The CD collection at the right will be next!

But those choices are as nothing compared to sorting through the CDs and books. Though  CDs do make it easier than it was with vinyl - oh my god what a task that use to be - and with downloads it seems to be becoming even easier.  But the books - there is always the books.  Though I have yet to try it I can see something like Kindle being great for novels but hardly the thing for perusing Allessandro Sanquirico - Designs for Opera in 18th century Italy.  And besides there is something about holding a book in your hands - the feel and smell of the paper - that can't be replaced by plastic.  But books do take up space - lots and lots of space.  So today was "go through and weed out the books" day #1.

In some cases it was easy - that 12 year old guide to Warsaw was now, like many of the attractions it listed, just a curiosity; will I ever reread Harry Potter - I don't think so; the biography of Vincent Massey, of our first Canadian born Governor General - interesting the first time but...   Others were more of a struggle - do I really want to keep all of Donna Leon's murder mysteries - yes! Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Lady Detective series - no!  And so it goes - separating literary wheat from chaff, knowing full well that my chaff may be someone else's bread and butter.  Hmm bit of a mixed metaphor but I'm sure you get my meaning.  Fortunately there is an English library at Santa Susana where all books are welcome. And at least one friend wants to see what we have before we give them away.

The book I have had the longest - Milton Cross's Complete Stories of the Great Operas. A Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law in 1956.  Worn, torn, well-thumbed and used as recently as two months ago as research for a review.

And of course there are some books that I'll never give away - the complete Lucia novels by E.F. Benson which I reread with great delight every two or three years; anything by Jan Morris (thank you David!); and the book that has been in my library the longest:  The New Milton Cross Complete Stories of the Great Operas.  I found it under the tree Christmas morning 1956 - a gift from my brother Albert and my sister-in-law Gloria.  I would think I owe it mostly to Gloria who obviously caught on real early that her 10 year old brother-in-law was an budding opera queen obsessed with opera.  The spine is ripped, its a bit tattered, stained by a hot coffee cup, marred by attempts to copy Maria Callas's eyes using Teresa next door's eyebrow pencil and the pages are that gray-yellow that bespeak its 55 years of being carted around the world.  Anyone who listened to the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts knew Milton Cross - he was the voice of opera in America from 1931 until his death in 1975.  Every Saturday afternoon during the season he welcomed us into box 44 at the old house until 1966 and then the broadcast booth at Lincoln Centre; described the action, the sets and during the curtain calls the costumes - Mme Milanov in a flame red dress with gold accents .... I'm not sure Mme Milanov ever wore anything but flame red?

At the time I received it I believed that Mr Cross had written all 76 stories by himself - after all he was Mr Opera!  Of course he was merely the editor but whoever did write it - probably a committee effort - did so with a good grasp of the music,  a great sense of the dramatic, attention to detail and never talked down to the reader - unlike not a few books of the genre.  And though I may know some of the stories by heart it still serves as a great reference and a good read.  It won't be going to any ex-pat library anytime soon.

In the meantime 35 of the "chafe" have found a new home when our friend Cindi came over this afternoon to "just take a look".   Next - the CDS!

03 aprile - San Riccardo di Chichester

One Year On - I

What is left of my addled brain boggles when I think that we arrived in Rome a year ago. An entire year since we hit the chaos that is Fumincino and confronted what we have come to know as the “Roman” attitude.

We arrived with two laptops, 7 bags – Laurent was en route from Beijing and we had to bring enough clothes to last until our personal effects arrived in late September – and a dog kennel with one pissed off puppy inside. After being deserted at Dorval Airport, subjected to the cargo hold of an airplane for 8 hours, the p/o’d puppy had been left at the locked door of the baggage room just after the flight arrived and stayed there until an hour later when a porter let us in on the secret of his whereabouts.

Prior to that the wait for our luggage was only 45 minutes (fast for Rome) but our attempts to get baggage carts had been complicated. The automatic cart dispenser would only accept E1.00 coins and all we had were bills; all the change machines, conveniently located right next to the baggage carts, where out of order; and the Exchange counter didn’t make change only exchange as the young lady laconically advised us when she could tear herself away from her conversation. So we accepted the services of that porter, who up until then had been eying us in an amused fashion – is it too cynical to think he may have sabotaged the change machines?

We had spent the previous days in Montreal completing the last of the required paperwork for importing a dog into the EU including a document signed and dated by a Vet the day before departure!!!!! With a file as thick as Gibbons’ Decline and Fall we marched up to three Customs Officers busily reliving the wrong plays in Sunday's football match. Reese, us and our reading material where of no concern, Roma had lost and it had to be explained. We were impatiently waved along as the inconvient nuisances we would become if they were forced to complete those silly formalities imposed on the Italian worker by the arrogant EU. Despite what Mr Gibbons says it wasn’t debauchery that destroyed the Roman Empire it was total disinterest.

Then for the next two hours we sat in a typical Monday morning Roman traffic jam.

I suppose at that point a sane person would have turned around and boarded the next plane for home but sanity has never been one of my strong points. So I stayed – at times questioning why, but stay I did.

05 agosto - Dedicazione di Santa Maria Maggiore

A Moving Experience

It looks like we will be moving to a larger apartment closer to Centro come the end of July. We very much like the area we're in now - we've become regulars at a few local bars (no not that sort of bar this sort!)and restaurants; we have our favorite market stalls where they know us and no longer put their finger on the scale when weighing fruit and vegetables;even the cashiers at the local supermarket know us now.

So why move? Well its a long story involving what we were promised before and what we were given when we arrived. The new location is that much closer to town, major transportation routes and Laurent's work and we will have a den for the TV, computers etc and a small breakfast room. Hey there comes a time in the foreign service when you takes all the perks they gives you!

One of the biggest drawbacks is the packing and unpacking. Granted someone else is doing it but experience has taught that more gets damaged in short-haul moves than the trans-Atlantic ones. And its means things will be at sixes and sevens for a few weeks. And the other problem is this:
Yep, that's the elevator in our building! A close fit for three people - too close according to our Fascist Grouch neighbour who refuses to ride in it with us. So how the hell do you get boxes, furniture et al up and down from the 4th floor?

This ingenious device does all the work:


Load it up - send it down. Of course in true Italian fashion there are no safety sides - bah only straneri would use safety sides - so you hold your breath until your crystal makes it safely down. Or better yet just leave everything to fate and go get a caffe at the local bar for one last time.

02 maggio - San Atanasio

Spring Has Sprung - VI

I realize I have become a trifle obsessive about the garden - perhaps it's because I know at the end of July I will turn it over to other people to care for.

A colleague asked me why, if the house was sold, would I waste my time working in the garden?

Good question. Possible answers:

• Pride - damned if I'll turn over the garden in a sorry state to its new owners.
• I enjoy it.
• Plants are living things that, like all living things, need care and nurturing.
• It keeps me off the wild streets of Aylmer!
  

Lynette (Big Ass Belle) was asking what the pretty variegated ground cover was on a previous post. I knew it as Bishop's Scourge but it is commonly known as Bishop's Wort or Gout wort. Lovely but invasive - I've needed a machete to cut it back the odd time. But it is still a spectacular ground cover for the ferns, hostas and day lilies.

There are several types of Bleeding Hearts - I believe the low, spreading one is a Japanese variety. The two by the shed have become a good size in the past four years.

When the house was built back in 1885 the kitchen garden was where part of the family room and deck are now. Most of the back was vegetable and fruit gardens (there's an aerial photo from the '40s in the City Archives showing the garden and fields down to the river bank.) Every year the remnants of the strawberry and raspberry patches spring up. I just leave them - they bring extra colour and life to the garden.

Stuff - III - The Kitchen

I've gone through the kitchen and realized that between the house and Laurent's apartment in Beijing we have enough kitchen "stuff" to open an intimate bistro. Do we really need all those pots, pans, casseroles, the two woks, the bamboo steamer? I certainly haven't used them much in the past three years - but then I haven't been entertaining all that often. And when was the last time I used that ginormous wire whisk? As a kitchen utensil? ..... Never mind!

And the dishes!!!! We have Tante Fernande's china (York Rose - a rather lovely set that she collected in DUZ detergent during the 40s and 50s, a cup, a plate etc per box), my Crown Staffordshire (Hunting Scene, "a favorite of horse lovers....") that cannot go in the dishwasher, the old Robertson Stoneworks every day set, the Chinese blue and white set, the.... well you get the picture. And Laurent just bought another set in Beijing to go with those celadon rice bowls we just had to buy in Hong Kong at Christmas.

The one item I am loathed to chuck out is my Cuisinart Food Processor. I bought it when I first moved to Ottawa over 31 years ago - it came with a James Beard Food Processor cook book that included a recipe for Gazpacho. Gazpacho? Thirty years ago nobody in Ottawa served gazpacho - except at 210-1833 Riverside Drive where it became a find-a-boyfriend-for-the-winter-dinner-menu staple. I even got all the attachment - and of course ended up using only the chopping blade. The motor still runs fine, the blade is still as sharp as a newly-stropped razor but the plastic bowl is cracking and finding a replacement is next to impossible. Question is: do I want to cart it all the way to Italy? Something to think about.

As a sidebar: In this week's NYTimes Style section the Minimalist maintain that a good no-frills kitchen can be equipped for $300.00 USD. And he's right - so maybe I'll just throw everything out and start all over again!

This Side Tiber - I :Words of Advise

Well we've started working on the move - so many things to do in the next few months: medicals, inventory, rewriting my CV for the international market, getting the house ready for sale, getting Reesie microchiped and the list goes on. August seems so far away but we really only have four months to get everything done. I will not panic! I will not panic! I will..........PANIC!!!!!

Of course once all the confusion of moving is over we will have the culture shock of adapting to a new way of living. And Laurent and I have to get use to living together again - its been three years except for the odd few weeks once every six months.

Our friends Betty Jean and Stephen will be leaving Rome just as we arrive - cowards, running off to Damascus just to get away from us. But Stephen sent on this little piece of advise:
There are a couple of things that you should be aware of - first, living in Rome is not at all like visiting Rome. It is a Mediterranean country - not at all European. If you put it on a par with Beirut, Damascus or Cairo, you will be OK. Simple things like an ADSL connection - think weeks, months, not days. And the daily shopping is a pain. The Italians put it this way - "the complete confusion is something not to be understood, merely appreciated."


PANIC!!!!!!

Stuff 2 - Recently Acquired - Though Not Really Needed

Last week I said that I had posted the George Carlin "Stuff" routine for a reason that would become clear “tomorrow.” Despite what that horrid little Annie and those kids at the Orphanage keep singing, sometimes Tomorrow is more than a day away!

Thing is I’m becoming obsessed with “stuff.” Mostly because I realized I have so damn much of it and I have to start going through it the next few weeks. Inventory - what goes with us, what goes into storage, what do we try and sell, what do we flog at the Great Glebe Garage Sale? There’s nothing like a move to move you to divest yourself of your worldly goods.

Knowing that a move was in the air months ago has not stopped me from buying more stuff. On our trip to Vietnam there were a few things I just had to have as souvenirs. Particularly as we hiked through the minority villages around Sapa (which reminds me I don’t think I ever shared the photos of Sapa – so by clicking here you can see a few - well actually 104 - of them.) The Red and Black Zho women were forever stopping us to offer embroidery, indigo-dyed shirts and colorful blankets and material. It was a game – a rather gentle amusing one – but they were persistent. I finally caved in and bought a wall hanging (?) a festive dress adornment for around a lady's neck? - not really sure. But the colors are vibrant and the design attractive. Of course where to hanging it becomes the issue – not much room what with the Venetian masks, the African masks, the Mexican masks, the Polish carvings, the Roberts prints of Egypt – anyone for a jumble sale?

Then, of course, our guide Tung just happened to take us to his Aunt’s shop – a wooden lean-to on one of the paths. It may surprise you to know that the lovely box to the right is carved from marble. I know very touristy and probably machine made but I really liked it so …. now where to put it and what to put in it?

The final Chaska is my favorite: I found this benign little Buddha at a stall in the market in Hoi An. Our guide offered only one piece of advice when I mentioned I wanted to buy a Buddha from Vietnam: Always look at the Buddha’s face – the face will tell you if this is the Buddha you should have. It will tell you if it wants you to have it. This peaceful little figure just cried out to be taken off the shelf. He will not be going to the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

Stuff I - The Original George Carlin

There is a reason for posting this video - other than the fact that it is still very funny. More tomorrow.