Posts with the featured tag

Barris Beat

A Maud Maud world

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
New garden at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale, Ont., on Saturday, June 20, 2015.
New garden at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale, Ont., on Saturday, June 20, 2015.

It was getting late on Saturday afternoon. The chief dignitary at our event, the lieutenant governor of Ontario, had moved on to her next appointment. Most of the remaining dignitaries had left too. Only the volunteers were left cleaning up and chatting with us hangers-on. Suddenly a car pulled up and a couple emerged.

“Has the event already happened?” the woman asked. “Have they unveiled the sculpture?”

“The sculpture of Maud?” I repeated. “Yes, they have.”

“We’ve come a long way,” she said.

“Don’t worry. Just about everybody’s gone,” I said. “But the sculpture’s not going anywhere. She’s just waiting for you.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Mother Corp on my mind

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
The old CBC Radio building on Jarvis Street in Toronto was home to a different generation of broadcasters.
The old CBC Radio building on Jarvis Street in Toronto was home to broadcasters with a different set of priorities and ethical standards.

I’ve been asked the question a lot over the years. It’s an issue some of friends feel compelled to put to me whenever it comes up. And I feel compelled to respond. But friends and peers have asked it of me repeatedly these past months, in particular, this past week.

“What’s with all this rottenness at the CBC?” people ask. (more…)

Barris Beat

A meeting here tonight

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Panel discussion regarding the Stratford school board decision not to allow the son of Art Boon (foreground) join him in Holland.
Panel discussion regarding the Stratford school board decision not to allow the son of Art Boon (foreground) join him in Holland.

Up until last April, the council chamber in one Quebec community would generally fill with reporters and interested members of the public. When it was time to commence the town of Saguenay’s business, in would flow the members of council to take their spots. Then, before a single piece of business was addressed that day, someone would recite these words:

“O God, eternal and almighty, from Whom all power and wisdom flow, we are assembled here in Your presence to ensure the good of our city and its prosperity…” (more…)

Barris Beat

A writer life

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Kayla Czaga at a poetry reading.
Kayla Czaga at a poetry reading.

Her name is Kayla Czaga. She’s a young Canadian poet. And last Saturday night during a gala, I attended in Winnipeg, her peers announced she’d won the annual Gerald Lampert Award… Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of her or the prize. It was awarded by the League of Canadian Poets at the first ever joint conference of the LCP and its new sister association, The Writers’ Union of Canada, of which I’m a member. In fact, she commented on the new relationship between the LCP and TWUC.

“I want to thank this big, new, strange family,” she said. And the 200 or so writers present – poets, novelists, short story writers and non-fiction writers – all laughed and applauded in appreciation. (more…)

Barris Beat

All the world is his stage

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

OLIVER_TWIST_POSTEROur two families met during an elementary school production of “Oliver!” back about 1990. In the musical, our daughter Whitney performed the role of the old thief Fagin and Lisa and Conrad Boyce’s daughter Alida played Mrs. Bumble, the wife of the workhouse caretaker. Of course, the girls were great. I didn’t realize it right away, but Alida probably had an edge. She was coached by a man steeped in theatrical experience as an actor, director, producer and critic. In a note to me this week, Conrad described his own stage debut.

“I played my first role in Grade 1,” he wrote, “a Canadian history pageant (in which I was) Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Going deeper

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Birchcliff Theatre in Toronto c.1949.
Birchcliff Theatre in Toronto c.1949.

I think it was my first time at the movies. It was the Birchcliff Theatre on Kingston Road in Toronto. My mom took me. We got popcorn and a soft drink. And the excitement mounted as the movie house lights dimmed, the curtains parted (that’s right, they actually had curtains drawn in front of the screen then) and up came the opening titles as the announcer boomed:

“Walt Disney presents…” and he paused before finishing the sentence, “Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Citizen duty

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

MEIN_KAMPF_EHe felt compelled to act. He could not hold his tongue. He sensed that if he didn’t step in and say something, all the evils of the past might be repeated. That’s why during a neo-Nazi meeting in the Netherlands about 1960, Heiman de Leeuw demanded entry to the meeting as well as a voice to express his concern.

“You don’t deserve to be living in this country,” he told the supporters of fascism assembled in the hall. “I refuse to keep silent.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Acts of liberation

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments
Veteran glider pilot Martin Maxwell and dispatch rider Harry Watts pause at the British Airborne Museum at Oosterbeek, Holland (2015).
Veteran glider pilot Martin Maxwell and dispatch rider Harry Watts pause at the British Airborne Museum at Oosterbeek, Holland (2015).

Early in May, 70 years ago, a Second World War glider pilot named Martin Maxwell tasted freedom for the first time in nearly eight months. On Sept. 17, 1944, during his second airborne operation, he had delivered British soldiers and equipment in a controlled crash landing near Arnhem, Holland, during the Operation Market Garden, only to be wounded and captured days later. But on May 1, 1945, with the Germans surrendering all over Europe, Maxwell regained his freedom.

“A British tank came into our POW camp,” he said, “and we were liberated.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Twits and the Twitter-verse

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Rachmoninoff genius with her hands on the piano... Valentina Lisitsa on her smart phone, not so much.
Valentina Lisitsa with her hands on a piano, a Rachmaninoff genius … with those hands on her smart phone, not so much.

Under different circumstances, classical piano fans in the Greater Toronto Area by now might be raving about a unique performance they’d seen and heard of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2. They might have joined the thousands of concert-goers who’ve witnessed her brilliance on the piano keys at such venues as Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall. They might have been able to say they saw the once child prodigy now internationally celebrated concert pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Instead, she took advantage of her celebrity to offer her pro-Russian view of Ukrainian politics.

“The new school year begins in Odessa with teachers forced to wear tribal dress, a truly European custom,” she tweeted (in 2014) in an apparent slam at the cultural dress of her native Ukraine. (more…)

Barris Beat

When high tech becomes low junk

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

E_WASTEA couple of Saturdays ago, the district Scouts assembled in a local box store parking lot. They had a large dumpster – open at one end – into which they were piling used electronic equipment that folks around town wanted to discard. By the time a photographer friend and I arrived there about midday for a peek at what was going on, the dumpster was nearly full. He and I began nosing through the discarded electronics to see what the Scouts had collected.

“Old, well-used, communications artefacts,” I said and then asked my buddy, “I wonder whether you and I qualify?” (more…)