Hollywood North goes Bucolic, Part Two

Last summer I wrote a post about a television show being filmed in our little town, which, through the vision of set designers and the skill of carpenters has been transformed into Wayward Pines, Idaho. I wrote about attending the casting call with my youngest daughter and about hoping she would get a call-back. She did not, but judging by the experience my friend Sue had of standing in the pouring rain in the middle of the night for four hours after spending five hours waiting in the high school gymnasium and earning minimum wage for her troubles, my daughter decided that being an extra might be better left to more hearty types on this occasion at least.

The cast and crew of the appropriately named Fox TV show Wayward Pines directed by M.Night Shyamalan have returned once per month since September to film the local outdoor scenes for each episode, and each time they come it seems the weather is either incredibly rainy or punishingly cold. The crew, dressed in multiple layers of black clothing scurry or stand around, depending on their position, drink plenty of coffee and maintain a general demeanor of helpful politeness to our town's citizens.

During actual filming, while the crew handles the flow of traffic around the site and answers questions, I have seen Matt Dillon posing for photos with local groupies between takes and M. Night talking with curious children. Overall, I think our town has embraced the project. The local businesses are benefitting financially from providing services to the crew and from the inconvenience of being part of the set. Our downtown has improved in appearance - so much so, that an artist friend returning briefly at Christmas from his studies in Ontario, and having no idea of the filming taking place, asked me what was 'with' the main street, and was it some kind of downtown revitalization project. The fact is, the additions to our downtown community have improved it and most of us will truly miss the extra pretty buildings, the whimsical signage, and general aura of 'lights, camera, action' which have made our quiet town, temporarily at least, a more vibrant place.

All the initial press about the show indicated that filming would wrap up this February. If the show is renewed for another season I suppose we will get to keep our pretend shops for a while longer, or they will, at least, be returned to us later in the year - I am not sure because I am quite shy about asking the crew a lot of questions. The one crew member I have managed to have any kind of real chat with was telling me about an area of Vancouver where a western-themed TV show is filmed. The set has been up for ten years now and has become a fixture in that community. This morning, not knowing the fate of our own particular set, I took my camera out in the frigid January sunshine to photograph it for what might just be the last time.

On the days leading up to filming, the crew adds the signs and other details to existing buildings:

The Newspaper office becomes a cafe

We suddenly have a theatre in town

This 'stone' bank is a wood and styrofoam facade...

 

 It covers an auto parts store

A welcome addition to our town if it were real

My friend Joanne's print shop becomes the Wayward Pines Chamber of Commerce

The facades that line the North side of the street fool visitors when their storefront windows are decorated and the signage put up: 

And this little sign in a shop window gives an indication of how things really are in the mysterious fictional town of Wayward Pines: 

This evening, the crew are going to 'blow up' a vehicle during filming. I might walk down with my younger daughter and check it out. If it's not too cold.

Click on the photos for an elarged-version slide show. And have a great weekend!

Chasing the Light along the Mighty Fraser

When the sun is shining, January can be a beautiful month around here. The skeletal trees open up the landscape instead of filling it in as they do so lushly in the warmer months. This past Saturday, my daughters and I went to do some shopping in the mid-sized city which is about a twenty minute drive from our town if you go via the freeway, about twenty-five minutes if you go by the pretty old country road. My older daughter is learning to drive, so we went by the old country road, had a successful day in the city and then came home the same way. We were crossing the railroad tracks just before the roundabout which takes us over the bridge to our little town, when I made a mental note to come back sometime soon and take some photos in the area. The very next afternoon, my younger daughter and I took our cameras - she got a shiny new red one for Christmas - and set off to catch the light in the later part of the day. We drove back over the bridge, through the roundabout, across the tracks and then found a place to park. Then, walking back up the road to the train tracks we started our little adventure. We had to wait for a train to pass. Several of the cars were skillfully decorated with grafitti art:

Once the train had passed we ventured down the track a little, but not too far because the sides were dense with brambles. If another train came we would have to jump into them. No, thank-you.

A beautiful, unobstructed-by-wires view of Mt. Cheam across someone's backyard was one of my objectives for going down the tracks. It's a wonderful feeling knowing we were way up on the top of that mountain just this past summer.

I was sidetracked by this scene and the collection of old tin washtubs hanging on a shed in the backyard. I began to take a photo of it when a friendly man and his dog called out to me, hoping I was not an employee from the city finding fault with his property or something like that. I assured him I was just admiring his washtubs and I hoped he did not mind. His wife and baby came across the property to greet us as well. We introduced ourselves and had a great little chat, but we had to cut it short if we were going to keep on chasing the last light of the day. 

We left the tracks just before we saw another train coming along in the distance. We walked back to the car and noticed this modern house behind some hedges near where we had parked. The house was quite a contrast to the century old one with the washtubs. My daughter liked the green door. I wished I could tresspass and see the house from the front, but no. Walking down the railroad tracks was enough law-breaking for one afternoon, for the pair of us anyway.

We got back in the car and drove down a side road towards the river. We found these mirrored views along the way.

We parked again down by the Fraser River and walked across the hard-packed silt to the water, the sun laying streaks across the ground and gilding the bridge in the distance.

This bridge across the Fraser was built in the late 1950's. Before that, people were transported across by a ferry on cables which stretched from shore to shore. Earlier in the century, travellers could take a trip down the river to New Westminster on a paddlewheeled ship, making stops in other riverside communities along the way.

Back toward the West, the sun was hanging lower and lower in the sky.

And in the meantime, my daughter was finding a subject to capture with her camera. I captured her.

Then, I turned my attention to her subject, a bald eagle far up in a tree.

It was time to go home, but we had a delivery to make first. After we made it, I took some photos in a hazelnut plantation, while my daughter video'd a squirrel jumping around looking for last year's nuts. The light was falling fast and the effect was gloomy in the grove of trees.

We got back in the car for the short drive home. "We sure live in a beautiful place," remarked my daughter. I agreed. All of the scenery we had enjoyed on our little light-chasing adventure was within just eight kilometers of our house.

In our twenty years as a family, we have lived in five places. In each of them we have found 'our' spots, the places we felt at home. In all of them we found mountains and water. In all of them we found light, even if we had to chase it sometimes.

"There's no place like home," said the girl in the new red shoes.

Please click on the photos if you would like to seem them enlarged. Wishing you a good, light-filled week!

Handsome is as Handsome Does

Occasionally, as I was growing up, I heard my mother describe a young man of our acquaintance as a ‘wolf’.  A ‘wolf’, my mother explained, was someone with a predatory nature, particularly toward young, innocent girls (Little Red Riding Hood anyone?), and once identified, a ‘wolf’ was to be avoided at all costs by my three sisters and me.  Wolves came in many different styles of sheep’s clothing, but the costume of which I believe my mother was most wary was of the smooth-talking, preppy frat boy type.  Interestingly enough, she distrusted a guy with a squeaky clean appearance, and often for good reason; after all, she was a teenager in the 50’s and knew this type very well.  She knew these boys could be very crafty wolves - the type to flatter a girl’s parents and then take her out, get her drunk and take advantage.  But, as everyone knows, teenagers often rebel against their parents’ ways and wishes, if only to assert a certain amount of independence, and I was no different.  In high school I developed a crush on a boy of the preppy frat boy type which seemed to resurface in the 80’s.  He was the kind of boy featured in teen magazines, the type to make young, otherwise intelligent girls act silly.  He wore name brand polo shirts with the collar turned up in various shades of pastel, leather loafers, and sported spiky, gelled hair. To my mind he had the face of an angel, and I pointed him out to my mom one day.

“He’s very ‘pretty’, isn’t he,” she said with a curl of her lip.
“He’s not pretty, Mom, he’s handsome,” I protested.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” was her short but pointed reply.

A Very Handsome James Spader as the preppy jerk in Pretty in Pink
-definitely a wolf

To my utter bewilderment at the time, the boys my mom generally favoured were the long-haired rocker types, especially if they played an instrument.  I’m not sure why - perhaps she felt they held an honest disregard for convention.  I had five older siblings with many types of friends, maybe all the rocker kids she knew were just really nice people.  At my high school these kinds of boys were called ‘head bangers’. They usually went around with girls who sported similar rocker hairstyles ornamented with feathered roach clips and head bands.  They tended to answer teachers’ questions in monosyllables and didn’t usually top the academic charts.  Some were even classified as ‘stoners’, an even less desirable label in the upper echelon of my school.  Though friendly with some of the head bangers, I was certainly not their type and, admittedly, they were not mine.  I continued to develop crushes on the ‘wrong’ sorts of boys, often preppy jocks who usually weren’t interested in me beyond a nod in the hallway or as someone’s little sister. My preference for that certain type of boy continued until, as often happens when we begin to grow up, something came along to widen my view of the world.

I took piano lessons until I was fifteen, and in my last year I once again participated in the local music festival. My piece was very difficult and I could not get it right, no matter how hard I practiced.  On the day of the festival, thirteen young pianists assembled on the front pew of the Nelson United Church.  The lights were dim, except for on the stage, and at the desk of the adjudicators, making them look like pale distant ghosts owning only heads and pen-holding hands.  I was extremely nervous but glad to be in the middle of the pack, not at the front.  Sitting next to me was a boy I had never seen before.  He had long, blonde hair, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and jeans on – mom’s type.   “This should be interesting,” I remember thinking to myself as he approached the bench when they called his name.  I fully expected to hear a less than stellar performance, maybe a laboured rendition of that Leila Fletcher classic ‘My Little Birch Canoe’, or at best, a choppy interpretation of Beethoven's 'Fur Elise'.  I do not remember what he played, maybe Chopin, maybe Rachmaninoff, but it was a shock to see and hear this long-haired dude blast his way through his challenging piece with such skill and confidence. I was dumbfounded, and after the thunderous applause died down, I was *gasp!* next. As I rose to go up to the stage I could hear people whispering about the long haired pianist:  “Who is he?”  “Where is he from?” Then I heard someone say, “He’s ___ ___ from The Valley.  His family is so talented”.   I was really nervous now – rattled, actually.  My pre-conceived notions had just been turned upside down.  How could I possibly follow Rocker Valley Boy's performance!  I sat down on the bench.  I started to play.  I stopped after a few bars and started again. I stopped again, and started again.  I screwed up so badly the adjudicators took pity on me and allowed me to get my music, even though we were supposed to have memorized our pieces.  I got through my nasty piece somehow and with a limping heart and downcast eyes I returned to my seat.  Mortified, and afraid to look at my mom and sister in the audience, let alone at the blonde piano star beside me, I kept my gaze downward.

Quietly, from beside me Rocker Valley Boy spoke.  “Hey, that was pretty good,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t, and you know it,” I managed to whisper.
He turned to look at me.  I finally looked up at him, barely meeting his eyes. “Yeah, it was,” he said, smiling encouragingly.  “Don’t worry about it.”
I was immediately cheered by his friendly and generous words. I could breathe again.  He wasn’t lying either, so I couldn’t accuse him of mere flattery: later, the adjudicator even praised the bits between the screw ups.

I developed a sort of admiration for Rocker Valley Boy out of appreciation for what he did for me that festival day.  On rare occasions I would see him in town and feel a little flutter of the heart.  There is no telling when the words of our mothers will come true.

What's in a Signature?

A few years ago I was with my kids in a music store which sold new and used equipment and sheet music, and smelled of musty basements, when I came across a paper-bound 1950 copy of The Trapp Family Book of Christmas Songs. I looked through it, noticing a signature on the inside front cover.

I asked the price of the book and the proprietor said I could have it for free. Surprised, I gladly took the book with me when we left the store. I was not convinced the signature was Maria von Trapp's but I rarely turn down a free book, especially one with beautiful arrangements of old European Christmas carols. Some years, I rarely sit down at the piano except at Christmas time when I pull out all the books of carols I have been collecting for the past twenty years.

A few months after I found the book, my mom, a historian and archivist, came down for a visit. She found it by the piano and began looking through it. She thought the signature might be geniune, but I still did not have a way of finding out - the internet had turned up nothing - short of researching and contacting hard-to-find experts. As far as I knew, the Antiques Road Show was not going to be visiting my area any time soon. As is common with me, after a short time I completely forgot about the whole thing until I was reminded of it this week. My fellow blogger Lucille posted about finding the English comedic novelist Barbara Pym's signature in a cook book she had acquired, and I thought perhaps I should try looking up the official signature of Maria von Trapp. Obviously, this time I had more luck. The signature was identical to the one in my copy of the book.

I then went on to see how much a signed paperback copy might be worth. I found one example selling for eighty-three dollars. Not bad, especially considering my initial investment of zero dollars.

The monetary value of the book is one thing, but the tangible fact of the flowing signature in plain blue ink of such a personality as Maria von Trapp of The Sound of Music fame is quite another. When I was a young girl my mom read me Maria von Trapp's autobiographies while I brushed her hair. When The Sound of Music was re-shown on the big screen in our town, she took my brother and me to see it. Every year between Christmas and New Year's when the film came on TV, my group of teenage friends and I would gather at one of our homes and have our own 'sing-along Sound of Music'. The character of Maria von Trapp has been part of my stock pile of childhood heroes for almost as long as I can remember. When examining the signature once again, I thought of the hand and the spirit that pressed pen to the paper in my posession. I read The Trapp Family Singers again, recently, and watched a biography of her on television. As an adult able to read between the lines, I realized that Maria von Trapp was not an easy person to live with. She drove her children very hard and had outrageous flares of temper - unlike the film, the captain von Trapp seems to have been the mild one who kept the family at peace. The von Trapps were immigrants to America after escaping the Nazi plans for the good captain to fight for their side - that part of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and film is true. Like many immigrants, they were determined to succeed and make a life in their new country - and Maria was their driving force. I cannot say I blame her. Immigrants must have felt a great deal of pressure in those days, and they must have also felt a good deal of fear at being aliens in a new country. One of her more sensitive children did run away and ended up having shock therapy - a favourite treatment in the 1950's and 60's to treat mental breakdown. The family made a living as a successful touring choir. The book I have would probably have been sold at one of their concerts. They also had a cottage industry in their home and everyone in the family used their considerable artistic talents to make objects for sale when they were not touring. The family carries on with their cottage industry today at their Vermont mountain resort Trapp Family Lodge.

My son Galen, a collector who frequents garage sales in summer came home with a DVD special edition of The Sound of Music and gave it to me last year to replace our old VHS cassette copy. Last summer, my youngest daughter wanted to watch it, so I watched part of it with her. Afterwards, she watched the special interview with all the grown up actors who played the von Trapp children, but when I said I was going to watch the biography of Maria von Trapp, my daughter asked me to please wait until she was either not at home or in bed. She said she was not ready to know the truth about the story and about the Maria von Trapp beyond Julie Andrews just yet. Perhaps she knew instinctively what is said about meeting your heroes -that you shouldn't, at least until you know more about the world and human nature, can look past your hero's faults and celebrate their successes and their contributions to human history.

A Christmas Greeting

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidiings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a  multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill towards men."

'And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.'

Wishing all my friends in the Blogosphere a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2014!

Rebecca

A Christmas Carol Day

I did not want to go with the school choir on their day tour of senior's care homes. I did not. I was tired and had a list of chores and errands to do before hosting Saturday evening's dinner party. The acappella group I sing with had worked hard for weeks to prepare for our own performance at the previous evening's choral festival. Our performance had gone well, but all during the night, my mind had sung our carol over and over without my permission:

Gaudete! Gaudete Christus est natus
Ex Maria, virgine. Gaudete!

That is always the way after a performance. Nevertheless, I had woken up feeling like something the cat dragged in. Ugh.

I had told my daughter's music teacher that I would come along on the tour only if not enough parents stepped forward, that I was really busy. She phoned me the day before the tour and asked me to come. I couldn't say no. The next day, Katie and I got up a bit earlier than usual, made our lunches for the day, and packed our bags with some activities to do on the bus between care homes. When we arrived at the school's music room we learned there had been a mix-up with the buses so we would have to walk to our first care home. It was a sunny, windless, brilliant day with frost on the rooftops and lawns, so I welcomed the walk of several blocks, and I think it was a good way to start the day for all the children, too.  With one of the parents carrying the keyboard, we paraded down the street in a long, jolly line. The first care home was brand new and quite elegant with chandeliers and Victorian furniture, high ceilings, sweeping staircases and lush carpeting. The choir performed a half hour set for a large group of residents in varying states of awareness and several cheerful and attentive staff members, and then it was time to leave for the next town. A bus had appeared out of thin air, it seemed, and we were off.

We visited three more care homes that day, none as fancy as the first. The children had been informed of the kind of audience they could expect, and were asked, instead of shaking hands with the seniors who were vulnerable to the kind of germs children are bound to carry, to go around and wish them a good day and a Merry Christmas after the set of carols. The choir did their best, but by the third care home the kids were visibly drooping. The rooms were overly warm, the air stuffy and they had sung the same set of songs all morning. The other parents and I made hand signals from the back of the room in an effort to encourage the kids to sing out, and at least cover their mouths when they yawned. Fortunately, the next item on the iternarary was lunch and a runaround in a nearby playground, which was most welcome for all of us.

I was moved several times that day by the reaction of many of the elderly audience members. While most of them merely listened or slept through the performance, there would always be a few singing along, usually quietly, but with sweet enjoyment. Most of the songs the choir sang were fairly typical choral arrangements of songs written for school choirs and not immediately recognizable to most people, but there were a few familiar verses like The First Noel, which the director would invite the seniors to sing. On the bus between care homes, the kids would belt out Santa Clause is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and all those old favourites, but by the third care home their enthusiasm was waning for their prescribed set list. Another mom suggested to me that maybe the choir should mix in some fun carols with their set list. She must have said something to the choir director, too, because that is exactly what they did. The kids were delighted to mix up their last set with some new/old songs, and the seniors loved it, too. I particularly recall two elderly residents, who sang at the top of their voices whenever something familiar was sung by the choir. One was a lady who would sing loudly in between efforts to attract the attention of a rather severe looking care aide who would instruct her to 'sit down!', and the other was a tall gentleman in a reclining wheel chair. With his head dropped down on his chest and his eyes closed, he sang with the voice of someone much younger. Even during the unfamiliar songs he would find a single, repeated word and sing that word out whenever it came up. It was hard not to develop a few tears at such an endearing sight, and I found I was glad I had put aside my relentless to-do list and come.

There was something Dickensian about touring those care homes and singing Christmas carols (the parents sang too) for the elderly and infirm. I sensed a warning to look after myself and my family well, to never forget that I, and my husband too, would eventually grow old and dependant upon others. I thought how important it was to treat others as I wished to be treated, and to always remind my children to be kind, caring, generous, tolerant and considerate of others. I am hardly an Ebenezer Scrooge, but I can learn, as he did, and pledge to "honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."

"God Bless Us, Every One!"

The above photo was found at Victorian-Era.org. The above is a re-post of one I wrote last year. I wanted to share it again, because its message still rings true for me this year. Merry Christmas to all. 

A Country Mouse in Metrotown

Yesterday, my husband and I took our two daughters for our annual Skip-school-and-go-Christmas- shopping expedition. We made stops a some of our favourite places and ended our day by venturing into the final frontier of mass consumerism - the largest mall in the Lower Mainland. With three floors of over 400 shops, Metropolis at Metrotown is normally the kind of place I would avoid, but I have to admit, for the purposes of Christmas shopping, it works. For one thing, it has an actual store devoted to the sale of recorded music and movies. Our local CD Plus store closed down a couple of years ago and since then, it has been very hard to avoid ordering the more alternative types of music from Amazon. Most of us in our family have Ipods, but prefer the tangible quality of a CD when it comes down to it. Two of us even prefer vinyl records, and no, those two are not my husband and I.

When we arrived at Metrotown, we chose a spot a which to meet back, armed ourselves with the maps provided by the mall, syncronized our watches - well, not really, but it sounds cool - and separated. Our eldest daughter recently got herself a smart phone, so we decided to call each other if one of us needed more time. Our daughters went off together, and my husband and I began our search for a specialty item for one of our sons. We optomistically thought, in a mall of 400 stores we would find that special item our son desires at a price we could possibly afford, but after our search through at least ten shops we had to give up. We decided to move down our list and had much more success shopping for one of my sisters and her family. Every year my parents act as Kris Kringle Central and my siblings and I are each given the name of another sibling for whom we put a festive parcel together. We like to fill the parcel with locally made items, but there were a couple of things we wanted to give them that we could not make or find locally. While we searched for these things, we had our antennae up for inspired, affordable gift ideas for other people on our list, including our two daughters.

By four o'clock I was bleary-eyed and suffering from low blood-sugar. We met up with our daughters who led us, me practically by the hand, to one of the mall's two Tim Hortons for some sustenance. After a gingerbread muffin and an apple juice I felt somewhat revived. Our eldest daughter, Emma then went off by herself and our youngest, also somewhat revived by a 7UP and a doughnut, came with my husband I to find something for her brother.

Metrotown has a Chapters book store, which is fun to browse and has a fabulous selection in categories ranging from Literary Criticism to Manga. I had an idea of a book in mind, but not a specific title. I found the section I needed and began reading through a number of similar books. After about forty-five minutes I had my selection narrowed down to two choices. Emma came in to meet us, glowing with the success at finding some much needed shoes for herself marked down seventy-five percent as well as several other gifts for friends and family members. I appealed to her for help in making my final choice. She looked quickly through both books, weighed the pros and cons of both and chose the less expensive one. I, led by her confidence and youthful energy, took her advice and bought the one she liked. I had another book in mind and went off in search of it. By then, I was beginning to fall apart. My husband, ever sensitive to my moods - one of the many reasons we are still married - put his arm around me, saying, "It's going to be okay." I explained how I hated shopping when I felt pressured to find the perfect gift. On our budget, we have to make every purchase count and I wanted our gifts to be personal and meaningful. In that overwhelming environment full of masses of manufactured stuff, glittering and vying for the attention of masses of shoppers - and it was only Monday - I was finding it hard to see the value in anything. The fact was I wanted to go home, have a cup of tea and slip into a nice hot bath. Instead, I pulled myself together and found the second book. Our youngest had seen an obscure item we had wanted to find and we went off to get it, applauding her keen eye.

On the way home I sunk into my seat, grateful for the roads which cleared by the time we got over the Port Mann Bridge. For a lightly snowy Monday, the traffic was busy. By Langley we could breathe a bit easier as the traffic spread out a bit. We put on Emma's new Arcade Fire album and my husband turned it up. Just after Chilliwack the snow had started again and little darts of white came at us in the headlights. We made it home in good time and I put the kettle on. Emma had a shower, our youngest had a quick bath, and then I had my bath scented with lavender. My husband caught up with the hockey game on TV.  I climbed into bed and was asleep by 9:30.

Today I have a Metrotown hangover, but the layer of snow is brightening the world outside my window and it's almost warm enough to wear only one pair of pants today. Despite my sense of renewal after a good night's sleep, when I think about yesterday, This is starting to look a little more appealing.