The Fountain

Did you know that The Fountain is one of my favourite movies? Absolutely no one I have shared it with has liked it. It is completely beyond me why. I love it.

I love how it opens. Hugh Jackman is praying. He’s thinking of a woman. He’s looking at a ring. He crosses himself and prepares himself for battle. He’s at a Mayan temple. There’re skulls on pikes and the men with him are screaming with fear. He declares how he won’t die and races into the fray. The Mayans kill the men with him, but throw him on their shoulders and take him to the temple. There he climbs all those ungodly stairs (sorry – joke from Howl’s Moving Castle) in his dark brown leather pants (hehehehe). At the top he meets a priest who is wearing a headdress that is made up of at least five human spines. They fight, but the priest gets the advantage and Hugh’s got a knife in his chest. He pulls it out and it breaks on the floor.

And my senses come alive.

It’s a story about a man whose wife is dying. It has three specific settings. One is the content of a book that is written by his wife. The second is a story written in the future by the husband (the back of the movie lies and tells you that it is the future, but I never mind spoiling things – I think that’s the moment when real interest is peaked). The last is the reality of right now.

The sound track is to die for and the cinematography chilling. They take such careful care as to what colours are shown. They range from white to gold to red to brown to black. Blue and purple are forbidden. They are so careful as to when they show the sky. Mostly it’s night and the way they show the stars makes me feel like I can finally see them.

I never shy away from writing violent scenes when the moment comes. I think the violence in my work and in this picture is symbolic of determination. I love determination.

And of course, a two hour movie hardly has the capacity to move me anymore. I mean, no matter how heart rending they can try to make a movie, unless it touches something that I am particularly sensitive to – I won’t cry. To me, love has eternal dimensions. It’s holy. I don’t think I get out of this film what the writer intends me to. I don’t care what he wants me to see. I see what I want. And there is nothing more gratifying than seeing exactly what you want. I see sacrifice for love. Imagine being willing to die for the one you love? Forget pain. Think of entering by the way of that forbidden curtain of night to see what lies beyond. Thrilling.

So, You Wanna be a Vampire?

Hollywood and Gothic novelists have brainwashed you into believing that there’s some magical process in becoming a vampire. I’m here to unravel their lies and tell you the no-nonsense truth about becoming a vampire. Anyone can do it. Anywhere. Anytime. Here’s what those movie-making, novel-writing bloodsuckers don’t want you to know.

Vampire myths have a couple different origins. One of them is them is actual cannibalism and subsequently using human body parts in the same way we would use animal body parts. “Whale bone to make your corset, Milady?” The countess replies, “Why bother? There’s a milkmaid downstairs who’s skinnier than me. We’ll just use her ribcage – that ought to slim me down.” The second one was sufferers of tuberculosis in the darker parts of Eastern Europe. They felt a weight on their chest that felt like someone was lying on top of them – sucking out their breath – when they had a disease of the lungs.

Anyhoo – neither of these things have anything to do with vampirism as it exists today. Truly, you only need to have two qualities in order to make your darkest fantasies a reality. One of them is to believe that there is no possibility that other people are equal to you. This means disregarding the fact that you have exactly the same physical characteristics inside and outside your body as other humans; therefore, putting yourself on a pedestal over them. The rules that normally govern conduct do not apply to you. Thus, you are free to use other people to feed your lusts. Let me suggest a few desires to get the ball rolling. You can feed your desire for political power, corporate greed, or sexual sin. On a smaller scale you can also stomp on people for the fun of it, talk down to people to make sure they know they’re stupider than you, act helpless in order to make other people do what you don’t feel like doing, freeload, and act like an ass since there’s no one to stop you.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s how tons of people behave in the normal world and they aren’t vampires. That’s right. There’s one other important component that I still haven’t mentioned – damnation. Basically, it means that as you’re doing all these things intended to degrade and suck the life out of your victims, you also have to be actively pursuing new ways to drink that figurative blood. You get addicted so the rush, so lying and cheating get less and less fun, so you’ve got to start stealing to top yourself off. It also means that you don’t want to make things better. You want to screw everyone over and drag everyone down to Hell with you.

And since vampirism has been enjoying such a sparkly reputation lately, you can even tell the person you’re draining that you’re a vampire and he or she will probably get off on it. See? Win/win!

Canada at its Most Beautiful

Did you know that Canada is the most beautiful country in the world? It really is. When I was a teenager, my dad used to watch X-Files and I used to turn up my nose haughtily – he always spoiled the ending. It was filmed in B.C. If you don’t believe me that Canada is the most beautiful country – watch X-Files. It’ll turn you into a believer. They film the Pacific Ocean through the eyes of the Beautiful British Columbian coast. Then there’s the Rocky Mountains, the Foot hills, Vancouver’s China Town, the forests – everything. Except that it isn’t just X-Files. Half the movies I watch have a big thank-you to the government of whatever Canadian province for their cooperation. Do they even make movies in the States anymore?

The thing is - Canada is cold. From November to April Canada is pretty much uninhabitable. American relatives come up here and they freeze their little bums because frankly – you’ve never felt anything like this before. Unless you are from Alaska and even then – the prairies are a different matter than the coast. The wind swoops down off the mountains. It could take the skin off your bones. Personally, I’ve lived here all my life and there is no sensation I can recall with more vividness then when that biting west wind scrapes and blows snowflakes across my cheeks in the darkness – I open my eyes and everything looks like snowflake obsidian – I feel completely alive. That first breath in is like love – like death – like that indescribable moment when you first meet yourself.

Somehow, when the temperature drops, things become clearer. You’re driving down a narrow highway leading to nowhere and the last sign you saw said, “Wilderness crossing next 97 kilometers’. But the sky is lit up like Iris’ cloak because the northern lights are so bright. The Milky Way looks eternal and the ice floating in the North Saskatchewan River looks like enormous moonstones floating downstream.

However, I can understand those American kids in my own backwards way. I go down to visit the mid-western States in summer and I feel like I’m going to lose my frickin’ mind it’s so hot. I’m standing there and I notice I’m sweating. I never sweat. It gets hot here in summer, but I don’t have A/C in my house (nor do I need it). I even remember the first time I had sweat on my back. It was 18 and I was carrying a backpack. I was so repulsed; I had to go take a shower.

I feel this way because I'm accustomed to cold weather. Winter is coming here and the snow is already on the ground. I should feel saddened that summer is over and dark days are ahead. Instead, I feel a part of myself come alive again. Like I said – it’s like love. It’s Canada.

Pink as Pinkie Pie Pony

It doesn’t matter what I watch – I always try to take a second to see what I think of the plot structure, the characters and the general premise of a story. I’m also not proud. I’ll give the same consideration to a kids’ cartoons as a Korean drama as classical literature. I would like to take this opportunity to say that the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is extremely entertaining.

One of the other things I like to do when I watch something with equal plot sharing among characters is a habit left over from my childhood. I like to try to figure out which of the characters I am most like. It comes from years of playing pretend with the other little girls who lived on my block. For your information I’m Sailor Mars and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast), but that was before my personality came into play. I couldn’t rest until I figured out which house I belonged to in Harry Potter. I’m a Slytherin. So, for entertainment, and because I was strapped to the couch by a sad toddler, I figured out which pony I would be. Here are my choices:

Twilight Sparkle - is a total Ravenclaw. I don’t know how else to describe her since she’s a scholar who is studying magic.

Rarity – is a fashion designer who loves jewels and has pretty hair. Now, those of you who know me know that I have a serious gem fetish. So, this was a close one. She’s probably a Slytherin, too.

Fluttershy – is a Hufflepuff. Actually, she’s a winged pony who’s afraid to fly. She likes to take care of animals.

Rainbow Dash – she’s a Gryffindor. She’s one those athletic types. I’ve seen those before. I am even friends with a few of them. They like to comment on my Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and have a good giggle. I can scarcely deny them. Typing doesn’t gain anyone muscle mass.

Apple Jack – she’s a Hufflepuff … probably. Might be a close call with Gryffindor (BTW Word has an autocorrect to make sure you spell Gryffindor correctly … teehee). Anyhoo – she’s an apple farmer with a Texan accent. She’s too cute.

Pinkie Pie – she’s got ADD. I’m not saying I have ADD, but I am saying that after a good long think – I decided she was my gal. She was raised on a rock farm – where they harvested rocks. If you went to my home town – you’d understand the similarity. Pinkie’s purpose in life is to try to make other people feel happy by inviting them to parties and trying to make them laugh in an effort to contrast her dull beginnings. She’s also crazy. It’s so adorable.

**And as a side note if I’m not mistaken – there’s an episode where they show her throwing up into a bucket. I love that show.

One Apple Tree Isn't an Orchard

I have a thirty seven year-old apple tree on my property. When I was viewing the house, I looked into the backyard and beheld this beautiful tree with pretty little green apples sticking out like gooseberries and I thought, ‘Doesn’t that look like one of the trees in the garden of Eden?’ Little did I realize that it was the tree that made everybody die.

The previous owners let the apples fall on the ground, so they got wormy. That Fall I had to pick up thousands of these little, tiny, miniscule, puny, midget apples off the ground and I couldn’t even use them for anything! Then, even though I had originally fallen in love with the shape of this tree, I got out the pruning hooks and hacked this tree to, what I felt was, bits. I had never pruned a tree before, but I took off every branch I thought it could spare.

I felt cruel. It wasn’t the tree’s fault it was wormy … really wormy.

This spring, I was doing dishes and looked out my kitchen window to see my apple tree as white a tree from heaven. The panic rose up in my throat. No. NO! NONONONONONONONONO! I ran outside in a feverish haze. NOOOO! I had other plans that day, but I had put everything on hold to hack those evil branches off before they became fruit that was rotten before it hit the ground. I must have looked like a monster. Pretty white apple blossoms and I was chopping them off by the sleeve.

It’s really disheartening to have to cut almost all the branches off a tree only to know that you’ll have to do it year in and year out for the rest of its life. My neighbor keeps offering me his chain saw to take the whole thing down in one blow. Can you see me with a chain saw? Although everyone knows how much I like power drills. Come on – honk if you liked the power drills in my book Rose Red.

Anyway, in the end, even though I covered my grass with decapitated tree limbs – I came out the victor. Total victory. Seriously, because I was ruthless with the pruning shears, the tree had fewer apples on it. This meant that the apples were bigger. Good. And then, when I noticed I had a little friend who liked to eat them off the ground, I resolved to pick all of them and toss them in the trash. With a ladder, I got the whole thing done in one hour. Very good.