“A Golden Age” is golden indeed

It’s hard to imagine a war of independence, complete with genocide, as “a golden age,” but first-novelist Tahmima Anam chose the title of her book, set in such a war, with no irony at all. When you’re in the process of creating your very own independent country, as Bangladesh was in the early seventies, that is the moment in history when you can dream that anything at all is possible. The future can be as “golden” as you envisage it.

Last night was HarperCollins’s official launch of Anam’s novel, “A Golden Age,” at one of the “This is Not a Reading Series” events put on by Pages Books at the Gladstone Hotel ballroom. And “event,” once again, is the best word to describe it. As CBC reporter Aparita Bhandari remarked, when she and Anam settled into the wooden “thrones” on the stage, with elaborately draped silks serving as a backdrop, and floating candles set in several jewel-coloured vases around them, the setting felt more like they were about to experience a Bangladeshi wedding, rather than an interview about a book.

The luxurious stage, designed by Dream Party Décor, wasn’t the only mood-setter for the interview: dhol drummer and electro tabla artist ConTEJus played a set to begin the evening, creating melodic hints of a Bangladeshi atmosphere that resonated through the two women’s discussion.

Tahmima Anam is bright, intelligent, well-educated – and very funny. When an audience member asked how she grappled with her class privilege, she acknowledged that as one of the few educated people from a very poor country, she has great responsibility, “as Spider Man said.” Although she has a PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard, she quipped that “grad school is a way to pretend you’re doing something while you figure out what you really want to do.” 

In her case, of course, graduate school really did work out that way, although that wasn’t her original plan. She had grown up in a very cosmopolitan family, her father being a diplomat with the United Nations, stationed over the years in many different places around the world. Discussions at meal time revolved around articles each family member had found in the papers that day, which they brought to dinner to share with the others. So these discussions, including stories about the war which had created her country, gave Anam a very adult outlook on the world, at a very young age.

But it was while she was doing an oral history project for her PhD, and went to Bangladesh for the field work, that she talked to many people who had participated in and survived the war of independence. She began to think, “What a shame for me to write an academic book that maybe five people would read.” And so her novel was born, as she attempted to bring the war experience to life by digging into her own family history for stories. She reasoned that fiction can transport readers to other times and places in ways that academic writing does not.

When asked why she didn’t become a journalist instead, and follow in the footsteps of her father when he left the U.N. and founded a newspaper in Bangladesh, Anam joked that journalists “have deadlines, have to verify sources, and tell some semblance of the truth.” Yet she is politically active, and does in fact do journalistic work as well. For example, since she now lives in the U.K., she is occasionally asked to write about Bangladesh for the British press, “whenever something terrible happens.” As part of the responsibility she carries as an educated Bangladeshi, she believes she must act as a spokesperson for her country to the rest of the world, extolling its accomplishments and virtues, in balance with the frequently negative facts that are usually emphasized.

But for the moment, her main way of doing that will be via her novels, of which “A Golden Age” is only the first of three. Anam believes that the job of a novelist is to humanize problems, so they become more real through their characters’ experience, and less factually dry. She cited global climate change as one example that pertained especially to Bangladesh. Hearing about climate change through the experience of characters in a novel might have more impact on readers than if facts were presented in a more academic way.

After attending last night’s event, do I want to read Tamima Anam’s book? I am not always comfortable about novels set in times of war, but Anam is so articulate, so knowledgeable and empathetic, and above all, so enthusiastic about this story and the potential hope it offers, that I think I really would like to read her book.

Steven and Chris: More than just two

“Honey, if you want to get the full picture when it comes to CBC TV’s new talk show, ‘Steven and Chris,’ you have got to attend a taping. Trust me!”

 I confess to imagining that sentence spoken in Chris Hyndman’s voice. Because I went to a taping on Wednesday, and it was such fun that the impressions are still with me.  What’s fascinating about a live taping is the insight into how much bigger the show is than what you see on TV. Chris Hyndman and Steven Sabados, veterans of three previous design series, are obviously the centre of this new production. But the mechanics of the show are bigger even than the two stars.
 
 For the audience, it starts with makeup. Being a newbie, I didn’t realize even we would get powdered and glossed for the show. It stands to reason: if the camera pans across the crowd, you don’t want light flashing from shiny cheeks or noses. And you’d like people to look bright and engaged.
 
 So as we waited to get touched up, we sat near a partly open door looking into the set of “The Hour,” CBC’s interview program with George Stroumboulopoulos. That was when the realization truly dawned for me: this is a taping of a TV show and I’m the “live studio audience!” There’s that newbie again.
 
 After leading us into a bright, modern, very comfortable set, our guide situated us in the rows of seating. And again, a revelation: audience members are arranged very carefully. In fact, people are not only seated with care beforehand, but are sometimes moved between show segments as well. During our taping, an audience member with a design question was moved to the front, just before the question segment. It would have been harder to get a clear shot while she asked her question, if she’d remained in the back row.
 
 Once seated, we were given instructions, about where to look if the cameras panned across, and when to clap. And of course we needed to turn off our cell phones. But I was impressed that our first instructions were about fire escapes. Although other elements of the show might be more crucial, we were well taken care of, from the moment we signed in downstairs, till our return to reception a couple of hours later.
 
 But what about the actual show? you’re asking by now. It was grand. When Steven and Chris made their entrance, we didn’t really need to be cued to applaud. We were all happy to see the guys, and discover what goodies they had in store for us.
 
 Their segments were both more and less personal than you’d notice on TV. After all, we were right there, and they frequently included us in their comments. But usually they talked either to the guests or directly into one of the three huge floor cameras that slid silently around the front of the set. Even with us there, the primary audience remained the television viewers. So if the big cameras had to block our view sometimes, to get the perfect shot, that was the priority.
 
 And you know that smooth movement from one topic to another as Chris and Steven talk to a guest? A floor manager stands by the cameras, cueing them when it’s time to move to the next point, letting them know how close they are to the end of the segment, and keeping things on time. Other people move back and forth, seeing to other parts of the show.
 
 You don’t think of these things, when you watch the program on TV. But how else would it look so polished, and work that smoothly? The fact that it’s so obvious, once you’ve seen it done, shows how well they do it.
 
 Steven and Chris are clearly experienced professionals. They are as energized in person as we’ve seen on past series, yet they channel their energy so they don’t peak too soon or drag things too long. Between segments, they are all business as they consult with the producers, already plotting their tone for the next segment. Then comes the countdown (”And five, four, three…”) followed by the lead-in music and the audience cue to clap, and the show continues.
 
 This was a learning experience as well as simply a fun time. One thing you realize quickly is that the people engineering the show are as professional as the two hosts. And we didn’t even see the deeper layer: the people who book guests, arrange audience gifts, create the teleprompter script, and so on. Steven and Chris may be the faces the viewers know best, and undoubtedly participate in the planning, but with all their skill and diligence, this show would go nowhere without the host of equally skilful people surrounding them. 

Celine as culture - who knew?

When they call it “This is Not a Reading Series” – they really mean it. Wednesday evening’s gathering inspired by Carl Wilson’s book, Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, was not a reading at all. It was an Event, complete with author, philosopher, and four musical acts.

 

The setting was perfect for featuring a new book by a well-known music critic. As we waited in the Gladstone Hotel ballroom for the evening to begin, loud electronic music thumped over and around and into us, hot and heavy. The crowd filled the room to capacity, spilling into the bar behind, and even into the hallway outside.

 

All to honour a book featuring Celine Dion’s music. Who knew?

 

Each of the four acts – Laura Landauer, Laura Barrett, The Blankett, and Final Fantasy – would be covering one of Celine’s songs and doing another that was a response to her. This would not be your typical setup for a book reading, by any stretch!

 

In fact I was surprised, after the four acts had done their thing to wild acclaim, that half the audience didn’t leave, having seen the entertainment they’d really come for. This crowd was seriously into music – not just the performance, but the theory and cultural implications too.

 

Carl Wilson, an editor and critic for The Globe and Mail, and a freelance writer for art magazines and newspapers all over North America, began researching his book with certain expectations. Primarily, he expected confirmation of the most obvious meaning of his title: that the idea of “Celine Dion” is at the far end of the spectrum of taste, as distant as possible from “tasteful” cultural phenomena like opera or jazz.

 

But Wilson’s explorations quickly encompassed two other projects: questioning whether “the end of taste” means we should abolish the idea altogether; and getting to the bottom of his own personal taste.

 

Rather than just reading from the book (this is Not a Reading Series, after all), Wilson was interviewed by Mark Kingwell, philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. This wasn’t such an odd a choice; Kingwell takes a quirky approach to culture, having published books like Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life. (I myself enjoyed his regular appearances on CBC radio late in 1999, talking about cultural manifestations of Y2K mania.)

 

Kingwell remarked that the mere fact of mentioning Kant, Hume, and Celine Dion in the same chapter made Wilson’s book an experience never likely to be repeated. Why Kant and Hume in particular? Wilson discussed them because of their ideas that there’s a “cultivated taste” that people develop, while everyone else remains some kind of peasant. Yet parts of the “continent of taste,” some universal thing that moves in all people, remain unexplored. Most critics deliberately ignore the huge segment of society that finds Celine’s music moving and meaningful, willingly blinding themselves to an understanding of the wider culture because of their assumptions about “taste.”

 

Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy, no mainstream, traditional artist himself, confessed during the evening that he rather admires Celine Dion. His song was in fact a slow, powerful tribute to her “The Power of Love.” This alone may be a sign that some rethinking is necessary.

 

Wilson admitted that the way we look at taste is changing. Twenty years ago, “taste” meant something narrow and elite, like being nothing but an opera fan (maybe I should say aficionado?). Today, you have “taste” if you enjoy a wider variety – opera one night, jazz the next, world music the day after, and so on. But then the question resurfaces about whether “taste” means anything at all, if there are no real distinctions and it encompasses everything.

 

 Wilson recognized that making artificial distinctions can create horrible divisions in society, yet distinctions also make the world go round. You really can’t get away from making at least a few. “I just couldn’t find a way not to say Ray Charles is better than Celine Dion,” he confessed. But as he attended one of Celine’s Vegas concerts, with the woman in the seat next to him wiping her eyes during an emotional song, he understood and empathized with Celine’s impact on a large segment of the culture. He, at least, is one critic who is no longer ignoring this.

 

After this hectic, jam-packed evening of music, analysis, and talk, do I want to read Wilson’s book? Yes, a thousand times yes. 

 

(Update: and here is Carl Wilson himself, posting a YouTube video of Owen Pallett’s performance of his chosen Celine song, and also linking back to this blog. Note his correction to what I said above, where he actually referred to Louis Armstrong and not Ray Charles.)