say that we are sad. We must come to terms with this hurt. Much time is spent acknowledging the pain of those who must endure the sudden inexplicable death of a loved one. But what we are experiencing now — for most of us — is not that. Perhaps it can be best described as a giant’s foot coming down from a cloud and stamping on our lives? Calling it a sacrifice is hardly enough. I know that I can never match the suffocating sea of altruism that gushes from the open hearts and glad hands of the preternaturally generous masters and mistresses (and master-mistresses) of social media; of this I am and will be, eternally guilty. I feel that the kindest thing I can do for anyone now is not just ‘to stay at home’ (well, there is no choice really, is there?). But instead I must revel, for a moment, in how sad all this is. I suggest the 'Giuletta' act of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman as accompaniment to this blog. You will hear the famous barcarolle (you’ve heard it many times; it is as ubiquitous as melancholy). My melancholy feelings all concern connecting — or not connecting— with other people; that is with not having fun, parties, celebrations, the much missed bacchanales, but mainly just not acting silly in the presence others. I love entertaining other people — or thinking I do. I love being entertained — being truly surprised by someone's wit or turn of phrase. I love it that I have forgotten, the next day, exactly what was said, who cares that it disappears — in that way it is theatre — but also like theatre -- it's brief appearance does not mean it will have no effect. I associate my apprenticeship at The Shaw Festival with melancholy. I don’t know why. Oh yes I do. Christopher Newton grabbed me out of the Toronto avant-garde theatre scene. But it’s not only him, it’s the time there, and for that I must think about the evenings, it’s always evenings (thinking of Reynaldo Hahn right now, he has a gorgeous song with a gorgeous title L’Heure Exquise’ — it’s all about dusk). And now I’m getting very sad, in a very gay way. But it was those evenings on that porch of some old mansion in Niagara-on-the-Lake; because dusk always carries with it expectation. There is the decline of one day — which will lead to night — but in no time at all we will be asleep and there will be another. And then another. And on that porch in Niagara-on-the-Lake various actors were gathered and —well! I must tell you about actors. Very few of them are my friends — but they are the most amazing people to be around, briefly, as one can get very intimate with them, very quickly. They are emotionally promiscuous, and perhaps because my social experience with actors resembles my sexual experience with men, I cherish the fleeting, intimate moments I have with them. Really some actors are beyond charming -- and most of them are also beyond insecure -- they are not relaxed unless they are entertaining you (I am somewhat like that). But most of all, every moment is delicious. They are paid for that, after all. And in this way they are aesthetic whores, not that whores are not aesthetic (someday I will tell you about one night at Flash Bar on Church Street). But being with those charming beautiful actors — for they are almost all beautiful — in the gathering dusk and talking about nothing really, except our dreams which were nothing, or amount to nothing, but seemed so big at the time. Oh yes. There was another night like that, much earlier, at the end of high school, because — did I tell you about my friendship with Dan Hill? It’s a sweet remembrance of things past. Yes, the famous Dan Hill or he was once famous for Sometimes When We Touch the barefoot pop singer who had such a brief birth and then demise (he’s still alive) as the most popular songwriter that ever lived. (I know he wouldn’t like me talking about him like this but what can I do? He was, in a way, a part of my romantic life, but he’s not gay at all, and we never did anything like that.) Anyway, there was a dusk then: I think I must have just heard that I was accepted into the acting program at York University, anyway I was 19, ecstatic, and sitting on a hill at the end of summer with Dan Hill and a woman (she's a blur—well there you go — she was probably the reason Dan was there!). And Dan had starred in the play I wrote for my high school that went to the Sears Drama Festival. (He wrote the title song for the play.) And the three of us were just talking about all the things that would happen to us; like young people do. It's one of those moments that are the centre of my life; and those moments have now been banned — they keep saying not forever but — it's so hard to believe. I think it’s very important that we come to terms with this - or is that asking too much? Maybe just that we at least acknowledge what we have a great loss here. What has been stamped out willfully (or rather willy-nilly) is the very essence of everything, basically what makes life worth living. The fact that it can be taken away, not by a hurricane, or death, but by a government that just says: it’s over -- is something to at least acknowledge, isn't it? I am back again to Offenbach’s opera. Hoffman has fallen madly in love with Giuletta, who has stolen his reflection in the mirror (mischievous woman!) but he loves her still. And since they are in Venice he catches sight of her floating by in a gondola, and of course she is with that detestable dwarf Pitinchinaccio (yes he’s a detestable dwarf with an irritating laugh, it’s not my fault -- I didn’t create him -- I wish he was nice dwarf but that’s the way it goes!) and Hoffman speaks this line over the unspeakable barcarolle: “I feel like I’m sliding a slippery slope, in spite of myself, and cannot stop. Who’s coming? Niklausse? No. I am afraid…”
I quite understand.
