While this sordid subject is the main plotline, I do not think McKay meant to shock the reader; there is no gratuitous sex or violence.  The writing flows smoothly and is interspersed by the author’s witty and informative “side-notes” and newspaper reports.  I believe the true strength of this novel lies in the vivid descriptions of life for the poor in the Big Apple, as well as the whimsical drawings and notations. 

The reader can’t help but root for this plucky heroine!

This historical nonfiction book aptly subtitled: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, is the story of William E. Dodd, America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in 1933.  Dodd was not a career diplomat but a mild mannered professor from Chicago who was chosen as ambassador by default (no one else wanted the job). Dodd goes to Berlin with his wife and two adult children Bill Jr. who studies German and is not a major player in the story, and daughter Martha who is. Martha an attractive, intelligent and “high spirited” young woman is fascinated by the New Germany and wastes no time in socializing with American journalists, Soviet spies, and high ranking Nazis. At first sympathetic to the Nazis we slowly see her face the truth about them as disillusionment and then horror set in.

Her father on the other hand, is from the beginning unsympathetic and critical and as the evidence about the Nazis abuses of power and persecution of Jews mount,  Dodd communicates this to his overseers in the State Department. The U.S. Government seems to be more concerned about the repayment of the war debt then in taking Hitler to task, or using any diplomatic sanctions. This appeasement is in stark contrast to the brutal attacks on US citizens who refuse to give the Nazi salute.

The title of this book has a dual meaning. The “Teirgarten” was a beautiful park in central Berlin. The name in literal translation means “animal garden” or “garden of  beasts’ since they park had at one time been hunting grounds that were filled with animals. The Dodds took residence in a rented house on “Tiergartenstrasse”. The parallel of course being  between the actual “Beast Garden” and the Nazi equivalent.

From the heights of glittering romantic parties to the chilling depths of Nazi violence and murder, the Dodd’s experience is nothing they could have anticipated or prepared themselves for. Erik Larsen bases the narrative on historical documentation and eye witness testimony creating a fascinating and readable piece of history.

“I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.”

It is hard to go anywhere today without crossing paths with the Undead. They are everywhere. On billboards, the big screen, the bestseller’s lists, teenage bookshelves, prime time television, clothing, jewelry, and even cereal boxes. There is no hiding the fact that for the past few years Vampires have been hogging the pop culture spotlight. There is little wonder as to why. The name that is associated with Those That Sparkle Like Disco Balls will not be mentioned here but it would most likely be the first image to pop up when the word “Vampire” is mentioned. That or the velvet and lace clad alabaster figures that brood in the Gothic recesses of Anne Rice’s New Orleans French Quarter. The latter holds more traditional weight than the former, but not by much. At least those vampires know what a pair of fangs are for.

I digress.

The bloodsucking craze has always been a steady ongoing undertone in modern fiction and fantasy. Tim Burton’s newest  film Dark Shadows, starring none other than Johnny Depp (again), is a macabre tale of daytime Gothic drama brought to the big screen. The Modern Vampire is suave, sexy, mysterious, with a range of emotions and instinctual attributes that make it appealing to an audience that is used to the Groomed and Collard crowed. Today’s vampires are not the gruesome dark monsters that exist in darkness lying in wait until the last rays of the sun have vanished from the horizon in order to emerge during the night to prey upon the unsuspecting public. Those ghoulish creatures have been replaced with the romanticized savants that move about unnoticed, enjoying the anonanimity while drinking prepared vintages out of crystal wine glasses in the luxurious safety of a covert nightclub in some bustling metropolis. Posh, polished, and poised the Modern Vampire is the perfect present day monster.

So, why the change? What caused the vampire to evolve from primitive parasite to princely predator?

To find that answer you must go back to 1897, when an Irish author had a big idea that would drag blood drinkers out of the shadows and into the limelight. It’s high time you came face to face with….

COUNT DRACULA

Dracula by Bram Stoker is the hallmark story that helped to move things around for the Undead. You know the name, you’ve read or seen the story is some format or another. Moonless nights in the Carpathian mountains, wolves howling in the Black Forests, misty figures slipping into the bedrooms of sleeping maidens, wayward English heroes bumbling about Europe led by medical  professional Abraham van Helsing, a fanatic whose brand of vigilante justice comes in the form of a crucifix  in one hand a wooden stake in the other. The historical figure of Vlad III (Vlad the Impaler) is re-made into a Victorian Gothic garbed cordial Count who has a taste for beautiful women and does not easily forgive those that decapitate his self-professed love interests. After 581 years of eternal damnation who could blame him?

 Dracula The Undead by Dacre Stoker is the official sequel to the novel that took Vlad Tepes and gave him a Gothic make-over. An entertaining read the book picks up years after the helter skelter race against the setting sun through the Carpathian mountains. Quincey has been stone cold for a long time, Dr. Morris has gone off his rocker which is a mite ironic, Jonathan Harker is a changed man (and not for the better), Mina Harker is working the mother angle trying to protect her son from things that go bump in the night, and there is a new Big Bad Bat on the scene that would give old Drac a run for his money…if he were still around.

  The 1932 Universal cult classic Dracula was the film that kicked off the trend of talking movie monsters. This was the film that gave the world the aristocratic Count, the black silk cape clad debonair figure that looks as if he was going to spend his evening at the opera, enjoying the finest that London had to offer. The piercing eyes and dramatic posturing is something that Bela Lugosi became famous for. So famous in fact that the role of the Count would never leave him but follow him like a black dog for the rest of his days. Lugosi’s portrayal of the nefarious Count is the trademark of the vampire industry. He was the man that all other vampires wanted to be or had to beat in order to make their own bite-mark in the realm of the Night crawlers.

  Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a modern revival of the old classic. If the theatrical pace of the original black and white film isn’t something you care for than this one will surely be worth the watch. Francis Ford Coppola carved a niche in the vampiric bell-tower with his Gothic horror romance film that has become a must own for monster fans everywhere as well as a Halloween tradition. Gary Oldman dons the cape and fangs of the Count and does what Lugosi was not permitted to do. Oldman enthralls the audience with unbridled vampire sensuality into loving him, flaming crosses, bat-wings and all. Seriously.

The bats have left the bell tower ….the victims have been bled….Bela Lugosi’s dead

I recently came across a quart size Farmers Dairy milk bottle. Intrigued as to whether this bottle had really been used or if was just a vintage-styled decorative piece, I began to dig for information.

Using the Vaughan Public Libraries’ database, Pages of the Past, which contains scanned Toronto Star newspapers from 1894 to 2009, I was able to find an advertisement for Farmers Dairy on page nine of the news section from Monday, January 19, 1920.

Knowing that Farmers Dairy had been a real dairy, based locally enough to advertise in a Toronto newspaper spurred me on. I then did an internet search and found a scanned version of an aptly named book from McGill University’s collection. According to the Eastern Dairies Limited annual report for the year ended March 31, 1929, Farmers Dairy was in the process of amalgamation with Acme Dairy Limited at this time. I followed-up through Pages of the Past where, on February 11, 1930, I found an ad for the company after the merger now renamed Acme Farmers Dairy. Thus, I needed to find more on pre-1929 Farmers Dairy bottles.

Following this lead, I found a write-up on a Farmers Dairy milk bottle on Artefacts Canada, a publicly accessible database which contains close to 4 million object records and approximately 800 000 images from Canadian museums. In the description of the bottle on Artefacts, it indicates that it has a maker’s mark from the Dominion Glass Company. However, the bottle I am researching does not have this mark and may be a replica.

If your interest in bottle collecting has been piqued, you may also be interested in Unitt’s Bottles & values & more by Peter Unitt and Anne Worrall.

This year, we’ll be featuring performances and demonstrations by three local groups.  There will be a martial arts demonstration by Balance of Life Martial Arts, a Bollywood dance performance by Neeti Dream n Dance, and a Tai Chi demonstation by the First Chinese Seniors Association of Vaughan.   On top of this, you can enjoy some of our activities that will be running all afternoon.  You can try to fold an origami shape or two, have a henna design applied to your skin, and play some traditional toys from Japan.  All are welcome, and we hope that you are able to join us.  We have been hosting similar festivals for a couple years now, and we learn something new, and experience new cultural wonders, each year. 

 I had never read Treasure Island before but had high hopes after reading the opening address to the potential reader at the start of the book:  

To The Hesitating Purchaser

If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,
And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:

– So be it and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie

Although it’s debatable whether or not I’ve ever fit into the “wiser youngster” category, I found the story to be everything I hoped it would be, drawing me in as strongly as it did readers 125 years ago when it first came out as a serial in 1881-1882. 

The adventure tale includes so much, not the least of which is some grade A pirate talk and plenty of rum consumption for what is often considered a children’s book…the two dovetail nicely in this toast delivered by peg legged Long John Silver himself : “Here’s to ourselves, and hold your luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.”  Also part of the story is of course, buried treasure, as well as talking parrots, secret maps, mutiny, marooning, the now infamous Black Spot (which has its own Wikipedia entry) and one of the world’s most famous pirates, the aforementioned Long John Silver.  Depending on which copy you read, you may also get the fantastic illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, often reproduced from the 1911 edition. 

After finishing the book, I was inspired to re-watch Disney’s old film adaptation from 1950.  I remember seeing this movie a couple of times as a child but not since (happily, I did not find the pirate Blind Old Pew as scary as I did when I was 7) and I think it’s safe to say that Robert Newton’s portrayal of Long John Silver became the template for pretty much every cinematic pirate that followed. (Here’s a not very fun fact: As I often do when watching older movies, I check out the directors, actors etc on the internet – so naturally I looked up Disney child actor Bobby Driscoll who plays Jim Hawkins. Sadly, I learned that Driscoll had a very difficult life after he grew up – becoming a heroin addict, going to jail, hanging out at Andy Warhol’s Factory before  being found dead in an abandoned New York tenement in 1968.  His body remained unidentified for over a year afterwards and was buried in an unmarked grave.  Knowing all of this beforehand, it was hard to then watch Treasure Island without thinking about how tragic the young actor’s life turned out to be) 

Reading Treasure Island got me interested in other classic adventure tales, fantastic stories and speculative fiction from days of yore.  Some of these titles I’ve already read, but the rest of them were moved up a few rankings in my To Read List                                         

H.G. Wells – The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The Island of Dr. Moreau etc 

Herge – Tin Tin  Series    

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost World   

Jules Verne –Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey To the Centre of the ,   The Mysterious Island

James Hilton – Lost Horizon

H. Rider Haggard – King Solomon’s Mines, She: A History of Adventure

Robert Louis Stevenson – Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 

Arthur Ransome – Swallows and Amazons  

Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan series, A Princess From Mars          

In an age where nary a cell phone or gps existed, characters couldn’t always tell what was around the corner, over the mountain, across the desert, through the jungle,  beneath the sea or…well..you get the idea.  This is partly why I like these sorts of stories: the mystery of the unknown, the exoticism of the locales, the lure of lost treasure and hidden lands mixed with all the pitfalls, wrong turns, long journeys and ultimately successful resolutions that we come to expect from good yarn.

I’ve listed more titles than you can shake a cutlass at and as  Robert Louis Stevenson would say, if adventure is your thing, “So Be It and Fall On”

It’s 1925 

Black and white images flicker across the big screen

The words “Phantom of the Opera” appear in large white bold letters

An unseen orchestra strikes up a rousing operatic tune led by the waving arms of a microscopic conductor standing at the very bottom of the theatre screen

The story begins in the grandiose setting of the Paris Opera House…

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to go back. Back to the dawning of the motion pictures. Back to when “talkies” were not even a concieved notion. Back to when actors plied their trade not through their voices but through their talented abilities of physical acting. Back to when audiences were riveted in their seats as the orchestra or organist blared out that climactic crescendo. Back to when Hollywood as a blip on the radar and “stardom” was starting to enter the pictures. And in this specific case, far back before Andrew Lloyd Webber was ever born and the Phantom ever learned how to sing about the music of the night.

Back to Hollywood’s first The Phantom of the Opera.

Gaston Leroux’s bestselling novel “Phantom of the Opera“ is a story that has continued to gain followers from every generation over the past century. Published in 1911, the timeless tale of the masked Angel of Music and his eternally beloved Christine Daae has never ceased to captivate and amaze all those that read it, watch the numerous renditions of the story, or listen to the award-winning musical score made famous in the mid-80′s.

Lon Chaney takes on the role of Erik, the Opera Phantom, who is utterly enamoured with a young up-and-coming singer. His Phantom is nothing like the ones seen today. There is nothing “romantically morbid” about him. Chaney, fondly known as the Man of a Thousand Faces, managed to bring out the deformity of the character. Not just in his physical form but in the character’s personal and emotional core as well. He is grotesque, frightening, and in the ’20′s utterly terrifying. And yet there is something endearing about his role. More than just the pity factor, Chaney had managed to make the inhuman figure realistically human. Flawed, tormented, and yet still retained the capability to love. He did not achieve it through song or lavished costumes. He did it by becoming his character. Not a word was spoken but his sheer presence spoke volumes. The depth of the Phantom’s longing for what he desperately wants and the gutteral anguish at the betrayal of the one he loves, it is all there in black and white. Literally. 

For those of you who still love the classical tale of the “perfect opera” might I be so bold as to recommend a much-needed listening of what can be consider the best cast recording of Webber’s musical masterpiece. Highlights from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is the original Canadian cast recording done in 1990 that features the majestic vocality of Colm Wilkinson, Toronto’s longest running Phantom performer. His voice effortlessly transports the listener to a distant time and place within the realm of imagination.  It is nearly impossible to listen to his rendition of “Phantom of the Opera” and “Music of the Night” without shedding a few tears. Timeless sensuality, thy name is Wilkinson.

The Phantom of the Opera in all of its incarnations is something that must be experienced once or many times over. It is a story that will never grow old. The characters, the undertones, the setting, the ending that will never change no matter how hard one wishes for a somewhat happy ending, all of it is loved and has been loved and cherished by millions. The Phantom will always live on in song, story, and the stage.

 ”Behold! She is singing to bring down the chandelier!”

Got that right.

(Side Note: This is a true story that just goes to show how much influence the “Phantom” character has in popular culture.  A few years back I was fortunate enough to attend a concert that Colm  Wilkinson had put on in the heart of Toronto’s downtown district. Halfway through the performance I must admit I broke down into a heaving sobbing mess when he belted out the chorus of “Music of the Night”. So much so the sound of my not-so-quiet “moment” caught his attention while on stage. I was invited backstage after the show to meet him. It is not that far of a stretch of the imagination to figure out what happened next. He was gracious enough to allow me the use of his shoulder to cry on for a whole two minutes. After numerous hiccuped apologies and embarrassed sniffling he let me in on a small secret passed down from one Phantom preformer to the next. They know that they’ve successfully pulled off a perfect performance when they end up being cried on. Usually it is older women who “shower them” with praise but no one will ever say no to the younger fans.) 

The novel follows the story of Tess Collins, a determined young seamstress, as she escapes from a life of servitude and attempts to carve out a new life for herself.  As luck would have it, she obtains a job for famous clothing designer, Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, who survives the sinking in a lifeboat built to hold forty people, but was lowered with only 12 people.  Enter an intrepid reporter who astutely realizes there is more to this story than meets the eye, and the Duff Gordons are embroiled in scandal.  As the story unfolds, Tess comes to terms with what really happened with the Duff Gordons in the lifeboat on that fateful day.   

The trial dealing with those accountable for the disaster is covered in extensive detail in this novel which makes for some interesting courtroom scenes.  There is also a smidgen of romance.  I enjoyed the historical aspect of this novel, even though I felt some of the characters felt a bit flat.  Ultimately, this book raises questions about every person’s actions in a serious state of emergency; something I hope most of us never have to face.

The fact that global obesity is becoming a widespread epidemic is no secret. For the first time in thousasnds of years, millions of people around the world are suffering from an OVERABUNDANCE of food. Getting your daily meal is as easy as pulling up your car to a drive thru window. In the past, humans exerted many calories hunting animals. finding shelter, farming and preparing their own meals. But in a modern world oversaturated with tasty, convenient, high salt, high fat, OVER PROCESSED meals, we have to work harder than ever to maintain a healthy weight.

Meet Joe Cross. Just your average Aussie, with 100 extra pounds to spare and a rare autoimmune disease. When Joe gets fed up with taking pharmaceutical drugs and using band aid fixes to try and cure his ailment, he decides to make a drastic change in his life. Joe trades in junk food for a juicer and embarks on a cleansing 60 day fast of only fresh fruits and vegetables. During his journey, he touches the lives of those he speaks to, sharing the amazing health benefits of his new lifestyle change. Soon he gets off the pills and begins the road to recovery.

While talking to more than 500 Americans about trading in bad habits for a healthy lifestyle, Joe meets Phil, a truck driver who suffers from the same rare disease. At a staggering 429 lbs, Phil decides it is time to regain control of his life. Following in Joe’s footsteps, Phil quits his job and begins on his own epic journey.

The results of Joe and Phil’s efforts are inspiring and astounding. Joe and Phil create a ripple effect that inspires the people around them. This is an uplifting film that entertains as it educates.

Borrow Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead from your local Vaughan library today!