My friend Ross and I were having a drink the other night, sort of wishing we were Canadian. He’s back from doing a big-ass play in Toronto; we had both just seen “The Drowsy Chaperone,” and my favorite show in the world is “Slings and Arrows.” Having done a play in Toronto, Ross is four degrees of separation (the exchange rate, you know) from every other actor in or from Canada. They give grants to the arts; they make a lot of movies for not much money and let’s not talk about the health care. But we’re here. Cheers.

Then last night I went to a screening of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” in which the role of my home state of Missouri was played by Canada. Alberta, to be precise. I was okay with it until one scene where Brad Pitt and Sam Rockwell walk onto a frozen lake surrounded by the regal jagged-peaked, snow-covered Canadian Rockies. (No such heights exist in Missouri – this parenthetical aside was brought to you by my geologist brother.) The filmmaker did this, it seemed to me, just to show off the landscape. The scene could have just as well been played in the kitchen; in fact, it might have been more dramatic. Not even Jesse James can menace very well with such a backdrop.

So it’s a western and not in an accurate landscape and John Ford (ha! Any relation to Robert?) started this tradition. And it’s a shame that they couldn’t have shot it in Missouri which, while no Alberta, has a lush, bruised, spooky beauty all its own. And it would have been one thing if they’d just mumbled (and there’s plenty of mumbling), “Oh yeah, we’re in Missouri,” and never mentioned it again, but no, but they keep bringing it up. Kansas City. Independence. At one point the Coward Robert Ford mentions that his father was a preacher in Excelsior Springs. An ancestor of mine ran a newspaper in Excelsior Springs. I have been there and for you, Alberta, to play Excelsior Springs is the kind of reprehensible slumming you find in trust fund babies cadging cigarettes at dive bars.

Labels: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", being Canadian, Canada, Excelsior Springs, filming in Canada, Missouri

posted by Elizabeth at 9:42 PM   0 Comments Links to this post

My sister sent me the following quote.

From The Cottagers by Marshall Klimasewiski

Laurel said, "It's just that I'm nice. I've always been nice. I hate the words, though, and I've always loved the word 'frank.' " She picked a pretty pink stone from the sand while speaking and showed it to Samina. "MY favorite characters in novels have always been the frank characters who go around setting others straight. But the thing is, now that I've started, I can't stop. Nor just with Greg, I've suddenly found myself being awfully frank with all sorts of poor, unsuspecting people, like our neighbors and the mailman, my mother. You'll be surprised to hear that not everyone takes it well."

I hear that, sister.

Labels: frankness, quotes

posted by Elizabeth at 8:41 PM   0 Comments Links to this post

Ah, a web presence. I feel different already. More invigorated, somehow, more adventurous and yet more mainstream and wholesome. Like I've been hiking through the Canadian Rockies.

So this is where to come if you want to see what's going on with my work -- the raindrops of victory, the tsunami of defeat. (Yeah, I checked. The plural form is tsunami.)

My patient and delightful webmaster is still working with me to work out the kinks, so by the time you see this, there will be more to see. But even the tsunami masters find my own original writing a tad more engaging than the words "test test test."

Be seeing you.

Labels: the introduction, the launch, the obscure reference to Queen Elizabeth

posted by Elizabeth at 7:35 PM   0 Comments Links to this post