Anniversary of 7/7

Last week saw the 18th (!!!) anniversary of the London bombings. I remember that day well – I was about to leave for Israel for ten days and wondered if my trip would be affected (it wasn’t). I also remember having a long discussion with my oldest brother about Ken Livingstone’s speech that day. On the surface, it sounded appropriate, but there was one paragraph that we both found revealing:

I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. 

Given Livingstone’s ideology, one couldn’t help but feel that had the attack indeed been aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers, at the rich and the powerful, he would not have minded as much. (There were reports that his staff celebrated 9/11.) It reminded me a bit of what I wrote here, about the envy that seems to consume so many of us, making us forget empathy and take delight in certain people’s suffering.

Alan Arkin and Other Stuff

I’ll get the other stuff out of the way – I have a new post at Substack. And now, about Alan Arkin. He passed last week – oh, what a wonderful actor and oh, so funny. He starred in two of my favourite films, both among the funniest produced: The In-Laws and The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming. Enjoy this, the best scene – and there are many from which to choose – from the latter. Significant Other and I launch into it on a regular basis.

I Was a Teenaged Mark Russell Fan

As a nerdy teen, I used to love PBS. Well, I still do, but there are more options now, aren’t there? I enjoyed Brideshead Revisited and I, Claudius and many nature specials, and as a geek with a burgeoning interest in politics – and American politics being of far more interest than Canadian politics to most Canadians (not to mention the world) – I used to enjoy the Mark Russell political comedy/musical shows. If you don’t know who Russell was, he was a satirist who used musical parodies and a piano to mock politicians and headlines. He was very talented and astute and a fun performer, but if you watch this (or look up some other of his clips online) you will really get a sense of how genteel he was and how innocent his commentary could be. I do not mean that as a bad thing – I wish we could dial so much of our nastiness and bite back, and return to this kind of discourse. It’s easy to mock, and many have mocked him (I seem to recall SNL took a rather funny shot at him some years back) and that is fair enough. Still, when I read that he had passed, I felt rather nostalgic for this relative naivete and kindness. (Canuck readers: do we/did we have a Canadian equivalent to this gentleman? I think not.)

By the way, I was such a diehard PBS-watcher as a kid and teen that one night, during one of the public broadcaster’s pleading, desperate fundraising drives, I felt compelled to help. I was watching with my brother, who felt equally moved by their plight. Together, we took my dad’s credit card (he was likely sleeping/passed out) and phoned in quite a pledge. Yes, there was hell to pay, but we did get a tote bag.

We Had Something Right During the Pandemic…

…and that is, never leave your home. When I read stories like this, that is all I can think. Never leave your home. Have as little to do with other humans as you possibly can, as interacting with others seems to almost always be a problem these days (and seems to always be filmed). The woman at the centre of this madness has been proven to have been justified in what she was trying to do and to have been innocent of the accusations against her, and while I am not a fan of lawsuits, I hope she sues her cowardly employer and wins bigly. Good piece on this phenomenon in general and the deep bigotry and misogyny behind it.

Awash in Deaths

Quite a few losses for the world of late, and two, in particular, for Canada: Tarek Fatah and Gordon Lightfoot. The interesting thing about Lightfoot, given how celebrated he is by the left in this country, is that if you read the lyrics to Canadian Railroad Trilogy, you can see it is a song celebrating pioneers, celebrating the building up of the country by European immigration. Quite interesting – people don’t pay attention, otherwise he’d be getting posthumous cancellation. Glad he isn’t. Also gone, Harry Belafonte and Dame Edna/Barry Humphries, both exceptional talents. I went through a real Dame Edna phase when I was living in Japan, for some reason. Not sure of the correlation, or if there ever was one. For what it’s worth, my fave Lightfoot song is not among the well-known. Enjoy.