Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/25/21

My 2006 on-set interview with SAW III director Darren Lynn Bousman—the cover story of Fangoria #258. What I most remember about that assignment, besides how much I liked Bousman, was that it was around this time that I started to realize that the directors I was now interviewing were, as likely as not, younger than I was. After 17-odd years of interviews with the likes of John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, George A. Romero, Craig R. Baxley, 𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙, it was an odd feeling. I can't say I was fond of it. 

Rewatching The Devil's Advocate

 

I alway forget what a masterpiece of social commentary is Taylor Hackford's The Devil's Advocate (1997) on top of everything else that makes it a first-tier Satanic thriller that deftly skewers the "me-first" greed and conspicuous consumption that defined the 1980s, and the fetishization of lawyers, in the same way that Wall Street levelled the cult of insider trading. There are some tour-de-force performances, most notably by Judith Ivey as Keanu Reeves' fundamentalist Christian mother (the only person who seems to understand what's going on) and a heartbreaking one by Charlize Theron as his unsuspecting wife, slowly being driven insane by the supernatural happenings targeting her. There is a chillingly prescient turn by Craig T. Nelson as a Donald Trump figure accused of murder (ever the egotist, Trump allowed the production to film inside his Trump Tower penthouse.) I am not universally a fan of Al Pacino, who's occasionally struck me as a bit of a scenery chewer, but aside from Robert De Niro in Angel Heart, it was difficult for me to imagine any other actor as Satan after The Devil's Advocate. The film is also judiciously—and elegantly—sprinkled with Biblical imagery ("Walk with me," Pacino's Milton invites Reeves' rawboned Florida lawyer, just before offering him Manhattan, literally laid out at his feet) but never in any proselytizing way. It never, ever forgets that it's a blue-chip horror film. In my mind, it's the natural successor to Rosemary's Baby as the perfect New York demonicum.

My father would have been ninety today

 “At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.”

― Salman Rushdie, East, West

Today would have been my father's 90th birthday. It's not a day for sympathy, or "thoughts and prayers," or "birthday in heaven" platitudes. As memories mellow and deepen, and as they run to amber, it becomes easier and easier to see the totality of the people we've loved lost and to measure their triumphs and failures as human beings, knowing that we are also human beings with our own flaws, and to leaven those memories with that very love. He's everywhere. His portrait by the Cornish artist John Cabell hangs in the dining room. I have his Italian burled walnut valet stand in my bedroom. I wear his old Omega watch with the faded burgundy and navy grosgrain band, and it's warm on my wrist. As both a veteran journalist and a veteran diplomat, my father was well-versed in the vagaries of human nature. While there were several exceptionally cruel moments in the last fifteen months—moments when every fibre of my being ached for his wise counsel, and comfort—I already knew what he'd say about strength, integrity, decency, being true to yourself, and doing the right thing, even when that's the most uncomfortable, even painful, option. There was, and is, comfort in that. The best of him is with me always, and the rest fades away. Like Rushdie wrote, I hear his whisper in my blood.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/18/21

I flew to L.A. in 2001, a few weeks after 9/11, to meet Clive Barker and talk to him about his then-forthcoming sexy, creepy haunted Hollywood novel, Coldheart Canyon, for The Advocate. The airports in Toronto and L.A. were like ghost towns, with everyone vigilant and on their best behaviour. I read the galleys on the plane. The next day was warm and soft, a Southern California fall day like something out of a movie about Southern California in the fall. I met Barker at his house that afternoon, and we spoke for two and a half hours, about books, films, life, and Coldheart Canyon. Throughout, he couldn't have been more generous and forthcoming—a true gentleman, on and off tape, then and now.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/11/21

 

My 1985 interview with Michael Damian, the Y&R star who had just then released his first album, in Close-Up magazine. This may have been my third, or fourth professional interview ever. Editors Angie Colgoni and Libby Starke of Close-Up did more to kick start my magazine writing career in those days than anyone else, and I'm grateful to this day for the kindness and patience they showed a 23-year old keener with more ambition than restraint.

As for Mr. Damian himself—he was fun and unpretentious, and had the best 1985 hair of anyone I'd ever met.

Goodbye, HuffPo Canada

On Sunday October 11th, 2015, my essay "Giving Thanks For New-Stock Canadians"—a reply to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dogwhistle appeal for unity and primacy among "old-stock" Canadians (read: white; Protestant/Catholic; English/Scottish/Irish), in an attempt to pit them against immigrants, at the ballot box—made the front page of Huffington Post Canada.

It ran on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and was an exceptionally proud moment for me as a culture critc. 

Plus, we got Justin Trudeau, who ran on a pro-diversity platform, on top of everything, else as Prime Minister that year, so the whole thing was a win-win.

I was saddened today, though not remotely surprised, to hear that the site was ceasing publication. 

As one of the early writers for the original American Huffington Post, it's been a bit painful to remember those glory days (the one and only time I was ever invited to appear on CNN was because of something I wrote for them) while simultaneously observing how the current climate of online "news" and "culture" has devolved.

We had some good times, HuffPo Canada.  Thanks for the memories.

Safari chairs

"Both boys have safari chairs, presents from Aunt Nuzah and Uncle Fouad Hamzeh. Mike can use his easily, but we still have to help E. get out of his. He climbs up just fine, but goes head-first when climbing down." 

—Mum writing to Great-Aunt Treva Quinn, Beirut, October, 1964