Kate of Late

What a ho-ho-horror show

I assume you agree that summer is a terrible bore.

The hot weather. The barbecues. The boat trips. The jumps off sun-warmed canyon cliffs into icy waters. The fruity drinks on balmy decks. The velvety boom of fireworks over gently lapping waves.

Does all this indolence and relaxation make you yawn?

Why, just the other day I heard about a tedious afternoon my hairdresser spent, when she and her gal-pals headed out to a local lake equipped with music and a cooler full of cold drinks and snacks. Instead of squeezing themselves onto the sand along with hundreds of other well-oiled sun-worshippers, the women loaded their tunes and tipples into an inflatable boat, threw themselves onto their air mattresses, and spent hours floating in the water together, far from the madding crowd.

When you're reminded of summer activities like these, there’s probably one question you feel you must ask. And according to American retailers, it’s not “Can I borrow your inflatable boat and your bottle opener” but rather, “Where was Santa?”

For some of them seem to think we North Americans can’t imagine anything more thrilling than Christmas. That’s certainly what Sears and Kmart were banking on as, shortly after Independence Day, they launched their own version of Christmas in July. Through July 25^th, we could “Shop Christmas Lane” on the stores’ websites. We could browse for decorations, stocking stuffers and “Winter Readiness” items at snow-covered online shops that looked nothing like Sears or Kmart, all to the tune of xylophone music resembling the happy hammering of Santa’s elves. If there were a way to send cinnamon-y gusts of mulled wine scent out through the computer screen, Sears and Kmart would have done it.

The trappings appeared not only on the web, but in 372 of the company’s stores, price-tags firmly attached. I’d have rushed right down to the closest participating Sears or Kmart to paw red felt stockings and animatronic reindeer, but I was waiting for my elf suit to return from the drycleaners.

The Chicago Tribune noted that Sears usually waits until Nov. 1 to move into full holiday mode. “But with the recession putting a crimp in spending,” it reported, “the retailer is hoping to attract holiday shoppers early.” Time magazine headlined its story on the subject “Kmart’s Christmas in July: Inspiration or desperation?” but reached no firm conclusion. A Sears spokesperson justified the idea to Time by saying that among other things, the company wanted to make sure people knew about its wonderful Christmas shopping layaway plan.

While some commentators said the move smacked of retailer neediness, others suggested Sears and Kmart were merely leading the way in a sluggish economy. Apparently we should expect Christmas marketing in general to start this year around Columbus Day -- October 12th.

The Christmas in July concept is hardly new -- it’s just that here in North America, it has never seemed to be marketed so literally. Down under, I hear, people like to have a festive occasion in July, when the ski resorts are at their snowiest and the weather elsewhere in the country is at its dreariest. In North America in the summertime, we have no such excuse. Our spirits hardly need to be raised through commerce.

According to Wikipedia, the concept of an actual celebration of Christmas in July dates back to 1933, at a summer camp in North Carolina called Camp Keystone. Gifts were exchanged and Santa paid a visit. I remember celebrating Christmas in July at my camp in the 1960s, as well. I guess it was an excuse to sing cheerful songs everybody already knew, eat a meal everybody liked, and give away some of our goofy handmade crafts.

An aunt of mine recently told me that somebody she knows celebrates Christmas in July by getting the family together for a meal at the cottage, with Santa canoeing in across the lake. She loved the concept and proposed that our extended family follow suit.

I thought it was the perfect way to ruin a get-together, because if there’s one thing I love about summer, it’s that it isn’t Christmas. For me, the very idea of strolling into a store in hopes of discount beach towels and being confronted instead by the repulsive winking of a disco-dancing Santa is anathema.

Retailers, however, evidently hope that when the going gets tough, the tough will once again go shopping. They’re eager to lure serial spenders in ASAP, before their cars are repossessed and they have no way of getting to the mall.

My guess, therefore, is that Sears’ Christmas Lane probably won’t be offering as gifts two books, jointly discussed by Carol Midgley in the newspaper Times Online, on the topic of “turbo-consumerism” -- shopping for shopping’s sake. Geoffrey Miller, in a book he called Spent, says out-of-control shopping leaves in its wake only “narcissism, exhaustion and alienation.”

In his book, All Consuming, Neal Lawson calls compulsive shopping “the heroin of human happiness,” because our addiction relies on our inability to be satisfied. “The brief high we feel is compensation for not having a richer, fuller life,” says the Times’ review.

Lawson decries turbo-consumerism, and touts an “alternative hedonism” that shifts from a pursuit of the new to making the most of what we already have. That includes eating our meals slowly to better enjoy them, cycling rather than driving -- things we can easily do in Canada in the summertime. “We are losing the pleasures of time and taste. We feel less alive and more like plodding robots,” he writes.

You know when I feel most like a plodding robot? When I’m compelled to be in a shopping mall, something that happens most in the lead-up to Christmas.

So down with Christmas in July. Instead, why not July in December? Replace a month’s worth of self-inflicted anxiety and reckless spending with a week or two of intentional loafing around, having friends over for impromptu parties, and chattering for hours over a meal that would ordinarily be dispatched in 30 minutes.

More summer, less winter. I’m telling you, this concept could catch on.

What to do when words are all you have

YOU wouldn’t think writing a eulogy would be such a tough gig.

Delivering a eulogy -- now, that’s another matter. I couldn’t possibly do that. I verged on sobs over the silly love story in the raunchy new comedy Bruno, which culminates in two badly dressed men kissing in a wrestling ring. Public speaking is for brave, steady souls, not the sort of person who starts blubbering during a movie trailer because it’s obvious that in Marley & Me, the dog will eventually bite the dust.

That’s why Stanley will deliver the eulogy I have composed, which, as I write this, is a work in progress.

It’s for my mother. I was extremely close to her, and I thought I had written something that captured her impish wit and devilish attitude to life. So I sent off the first draft to a few different family members for their opinions. Stanley was positive. My sister felt it was too long, and she wasn’t thrilled by one anecdote that had my parents gently poking fun at their own mothers and their Pinter-esque conversations. She feared it might offend other relatives. My documentarian brother-in-law felt the eulogy should focus on intimate memories and frank emotions rather than the pranks Mum played. He thought some of those might raise an eyebrow or two.

I considered this viewpoint, but then I couldn’t imagine writing a eulogy that would focus on my deepest feelings.

But was I misguided? Would I be letting Mum down, and boring those assembled, with the eulogy I had written? I decided to consult the Internet to see how long a eulogy should be, and what its focus.

The best example of a memorable eulogy one site came up with was the tribute to Princess Diana, delivered by her brother. You probably remember it -- he described her as “the most hunted person of the modern age.” He also threw in a hint that the Royal Family had let her down. Earl Charles Spencer officially made Diana a victim, which may or may not have been a true interpretation but was one he seemed to sincerely believe at the time.

Thankfully, my eulogy does not need to find blame or bemoan tragedy. Although it’s extremely sad to lose one’s parent in her late 70s, it is in the natural order of things. So, with nobody to accuse of wrongdoing, what purpose should the eulogy serve?

A eulogy is defined online as a “formal expression of praise for someone who has died recently.” One online expert in the genre explains further that it should not be like a curriculum vitae, listing in detail the person’s history and achievements. This is good news because apparently eulogies are supposed to be fairly brief. Imagine trying to map out and assess another person’s life -- especially the life of somebody so fundamental to your own -- in three to five minutes.

But no, that’s not the idea. A eulogy is supposed to be a personal tribute about what the dearly departed has meant to the speaker/writer. I wonder at this interpretation, too, however. When a deceased parent had three children, what gives one of them (me, in this case) the right to get up and talk about what that parent meant to her alone? On the other hand, are three entire eulogies necessary, or five, or nine, depending on the number of progeny?

My concept was to try to paint a picture of this person, my mother, and her dearest qualities, which to me were her humour, her intelligence, her kindness and her generosity. Through anecdotes, I tried to show the kind of person she was, and what I most admired about her.

I remember one funeral where I was impressed by the eulogy. It was made by my husband’s uncle, who spoke beautifully about his mother. One of the best things he did was acknowledge that she was often quite a difficult person. I think hinting that the deceased had the odd peccadillo is a good thing -- it’s not like death erases all memory of human foibles. It’s not just our strengths but our weaknesses that distinguish us.

I also recall several funerals where the people who spoke about the departed were clergymen who clearly had had no relationship with the women who had died. It was painful to hear them use (and mispronounce) names for the loved ones that nobody had ever employed, or suggest they were passionately religious, when I knew they were not.

I don’t think clergymen should guess at the character of the person in the casket. If they don’t know anything about her, they should simply touch on a few inarguable details of her life, provided by her family, and then talk to the mourners in general terms about grieving and how to get through it. A disingenuous eulogy is worse than no eulogy at all.

On the other hand, a great speech at a funeral, whether it’s the eulogy or not, can have boundless value. I heard about one funeral for a teenager who had killed himself, where the minister was speaking to a crowd largely made up of shocked and horrified young adults. He focused on the fact that suicide is never the answer and that people in crisis must never give up hope. Just being told about that message, delivered to the people who most needed to hear it, touched me to the core.

There will be several people speaking at my mum’s memorial. My aunts are going to say something. My sister plans to recite some funny poems Mum wrote for her when she was young. My brother will discuss how she welcomed her children’s friends. My brother-in-law will talk about her as a bridge between two families.

And I, the eldest kid, what will I do? What can I write about somebody so close to me that she might just as well be myself? I can only tell the stories she liked to tell, in as close a way as possible to the way she told them, and hope my spokesman, Stanley, gets the inflections right.

I guess I just don’t want to sum up my mother as if she is some fait accompli. I want to feel like she is still there -- the beloved guest of honour at the saddest kind of party.

He’ll take the high road if they’ll take the low road

NEWS ITEM: According to the Guardian News Service, Charles, Prince of Wales, is tightening his belt. The Royal once reputed to have his valet squirt his toothpaste onto his toothbrush for him has even stooped to wearing the same outfits several times. Charles has also cut down on his use of electricity and is apparently doing his part for his country by vacationing at his estate in Scotland rather than in more exotic locales.

SCENE: A dark, damp groundskeeper’s cottage in the Scottish highlands, fuelled by a peat fire and lit by kerosene lamps. Several freshly killed rabbits dangle from hooks on the wall over an old table, on which are splayed an assortment of grimy just-plucked vegetables -- several leeks and three potatoes. A tall 60-year-old man, Charles, dressed in a dusty top hat and rather snug tails, sits on a wooden chair, awkwardly attempting to pare a fourth potato with an old knife. A second Man stands across from him, hands twitching, trying to contain his criticisms of Charles’s technique.

 

MAN: Your Highness, if I may…

CHARLES: (Fumbling absently with the paring knife) In these less flamboyant times, Jeeves, you may simply call me “Highness.” Or “Duke of Rothesay.” Or “Duke of Cornwall.”

MAN: Yes, er, Highness.

CHARLES: And may I continue to call you Jeeves?

MAN: Certainly, Highness, although in truth, my name is Anthony.

CHARLES: (Greatly surprised) Is it? But haven’t I always called you ‘Jeeves’?

ANTHONY: Yes, Highness, you call all your manservants ‘Jeeves.’ Perhaps you find it simpler to refer to every one of us by the same name.

CHARLES: Not at all, Anthony! I thought it was an amazing coincidence that wherever I went, all of you were named Jeeves! Well, the things one discovers when one gets off one’s polo horse and mucks about, eh?

ANTHONY: Indeed, Highness.

CHARLES: (Indicating the potato) I say, Anthony, how do you get the, er, hair and whatnot off this monstrous carbuncle?

ANTHONY: (Eagerly) Shall I give you a hand, Highness?

CHARLES: Yes -- but don’t do it for me, old man. Just show me how. Soon Camilla and I may be forced to, as it were, ‘fend for ourselves’! ‘Live as the common folk do’! ‘Break daily bread,’ and, er, you know …

ANTHONY: (While deftly paring the potato) Cook, Highness?

CHARLES: Yes, that’s it. Like cavemen and other primitives have for, well, ages, I suppose. I did rather think Camilla might already know how, but she claims she can’t even harden up one of those elliptical things, you know, those damnably brittle white ones --

ANTHONY: An egg, Highness? She can’t boil an egg?

CHARLES: Yes! Shocking, isn’t it? She can wrench a burr from the haunch of a bucking horse with her teeth, but when it comes to, er, whatzit…

ANTHONY: Cook-ing, Highness?
CHARLES: (Brushing dirt ineffectively off a leek and growing irritated) Oh, do stop calling me ‘Highness’! ‘Sir’ is fine.

ANTHONY: Certainly, sir.

CHARLES: At any rate, Anthony, the Duchess of Rothesay and I are, er, ‘downsizing.’ We’re seriously thinking of moving permanently into simpler digs. Like this -- this cottage would work, wouldn’t it?

ANTHONY: Well, sir, yes, of course. Only --

CHARLES: (Curtly) Out with it, Jeeves -- I mean, Anthony!

ANTHONY: Er, only somebody already lives here.

CHARLES: Ah! Really? Who?

ANTHONY: The groundskeeper, sir.

CHARLES: Anthony, this is why I’m the Prince of Wales and you’re a serf, or whatever we call you now. You see, if we downsize, and sell off our mansionhouse here at Birkhall Estate, we’ll have no need for the groundskeeper.

ANTHONY: I suppose not, sir. But what shall Brownleigh do for a living then, sir? His family has served yours for hundreds of years.

CHARLES: You mean his name isn’t Jeeves either? Zounds! Oh, honestly, Anthony, I can’t be thinking about such drivel as Brownleigh’s daily comings and goings. I have my landscape painting to preoccupy me -- should I fill the sky with seven clouds, or just use one? -- that sort of thing. And there’s my abiding interest in illusionism -- I’m a member of the Magic Circle, you know. That requires constant practice, Jeeves.

ANTHONY: Will you be getting rid of all your staff here in Scotland, sir?

CHARLES: Well, we might keep a gardener. I must maintain the organic vegetable garden and that Jeeves is awfully good.

ANTHONY: You mean McAdams, sir. And what will you do for security?

CHARLES: I’m not certain we’ll need any. If we aren’t unspeakably rich any more, terrorists and hooligans and Irishmen and the like will lose interest, won’t they?
ANTHONY: I doubt it, sir. I think you’ll still be seen as an important if powerless figurehead.

CHARLES: (Offended) Powerless figurehead? I hardly think --

(A crash is heard outside the window. Charles freezes in fear. Anthony rushes over to the window and looks out.)

CHARLES: What ho, Jeeves!

ANTHONY: I’m afraid I can’t see anything, sir, what with the smoke from the peat.

CHARLES: (Hopefully) Could it be a herd of marauding rabbits?
ANTHONY: Sounded rather larger, sir.

CHARLES: Well, I say, I don’t like that. D’you think terrorists know about this place?
ANTHONY: Most likely, sir. They probably have Google Maps.

CHARLES: (Petulantly) I did ask Mummy to make sure we weren’t on it.

ANTHONY: She may not have had any say in the matter, sir.

CHARLES: Now, see here, Jeeves, Mummy --

(Another crash comes from outside the other window.)

CHARLES: (Frightened) Heavens! What shall we do?

ANTHONY: I’ll call security, sir.

CHARLES: I’m afraid you can’t. I gave them the week off -- without pay, of course. I thought we’d experiment with, you know, ‘roughing it.’ As you can see, I’m wearing an ensemble from 2007! You haven’t heard a whisper of complaint about it from me, either. Please leak that to the press.

ANTHONY: Sir, I think we’ve had a security breach. I’m not sure how to protect you. And, I must say, since I’m in imminent danger of losing my job after a lifetime of faithful service, I’m not inclined to defend you to the death with that paring knife. Did you dismiss the hounds, as well?

CHARLES: (Elated) Jeeves, thank-you for reminding me! I actually do have an attack beast. It’s dozing in the back room, and due to my heroic efforts to cut back, it hasn’t had a gin and tonic in a fortnight.

ANTHONY: (Alarmed) Sir?

CHARLES: (Confidently) Yes, Jeeves -- release Camilla!

Enough, already, with the weeping and wailing

PLEASE, make it stop.

The amount of attention being paid to Michael Jackson’s demise is grotesque. First we had the endless reports and analyses of the cause of death and attempts to make the singer’s passing more scandalous than it likely was. Then came the tearful tributes from people clamouring to be associated with Jackson’s fame. And shortly after that came the media (CBC radio’s Q host Jian Ghomeshi and drive-home host Stephen Quinn, for two) discussing our collective “grief” and what it means.

Give me a frickin’ break. Yes, Michael Jackson was a talented performer. Yes, he had a major effect on the integration of black and white popular music. Yes, his tunes had mass appeal. And yes, his dancing was often electrifying. But “grief”? All these people who never actually knew this allegedly lonely and obviously loopy individual feel “grief”? Come off it.

What do we really feel? Shock, perhaps -- nobody should die at 50, whether they’re famous or obscure. Sadness, over the fact that Jackson’s kids will grow up without their father. Sympathy, because his parents and siblings show such evidence of dysfunction. Guilt, maybe, for not having bought any of his albums for eons, or for having believed the child molestation charges, of which -- after agreeing to pay his accuser $22 million -- he was found innocent.

But grief?

I’ve been writing a eulogy for my mother, who died after a long illness, and a year of missing her husband. If you don’t know what genuine grief is -- which I suspect is the case for many of those admirers sobbing over Jackson’s death -- you’re lucky. Try losing someone you actually know, and love deeply, over many dark months. That’s grief. Grief is not a tap you turn on as soon as TV’s Nancy Grace takes an interest. And incidentally, the size of the teddy bear you leave on the public pile is not a true reflection of the depth of your feelings.

Elizabeth Taylor went up a few thousand points in my estimation when she decided at the last minute that she didn’t want to give the eulogy for her friend at the tribute to Jackson on Tuesday. “I cannot be part of the public hoopla,” she wrote on Twitter, admitting that she wasn’t sure she was capable of being coherent, either -- always a concern when your emotions are genuine. “I just don’t believe that Michael would want me to share my grief with millions of others. How I feel is between us. Not a public event.”

What a concept -- sincerity and privacy, linked to mourning.

Taylor, of all people, knows that there’s another word for “fans” -- “strangers.” Devotees may believe they know their idols, but they understand the star only in terms of the image he projects into the world.

The iconic actress, who knew the singer for several decades, serves as a contrast to Jackson’s admirers, especially those quoted by the Globe and Mail this past week. In one pre-tribute story, an LAX cleaner talked about how she felt after winning two passes to attend. “I started crying and thanking God when I heard I’d won,” she said.

Meanwhile, another fan claimed to have “grabbed a bottle of Moscato wine, a glass, a candle and Thriller” when she heard about Jackson’s death. She seems to have stopped short of setting her own hair on fire, but she did say, “He’s bigger than Elvis, bigger than anybody. To me, these tickets are the greatest gift I could give to my kids. To me, this is going to be bigger than 9/11.”

Yeah, I remember when 9/11 went 26-times platinum, too.

I have no doubt that Michael Jackson’s children are truly heartbroken, as well as his mother and a handful of friends. The rest of the Jackson family has always seemed both bizarre and tasteless. Brother Jermaine, for instance, named one of his eight children from numerous marriages “Jermajesty.” Sister La Toya came out publicly in 1993 saying she believed Michael was guilty of molesting children and offered “proof” for a fee of $500,000. (She later rescinded, claiming her abusive husband had forced her to make the accusation.) So it’s hard to know what this group really feels about the loss of the son and brother who brought them all such fame but also such infamy.

For a guy who seemed to have few intimates when he faced criminal charges, and felt so rejected he wound up in Dubai, Jackson sure is popular now.

Of course, I loved him when he was a sweet, gifted little dynamo. Years later, I was among the millions who were astonished by his famous moonwalk. Like everybody in the universe, I owned the album Thriller. And, like most people in the universe, my interest in him waned as he became more and more a caricature of a pop star, and even of a person.

You have to admit that you were put off, too. Before he died last week, how recently had you put on a Michael Jackson album in expectation of enlightenment, or even a catchy tune? I’ll bet it was at least 10 years ago.

Nevertheless, Berry Gordy got up at the tribute this past week and declared that Michael Jackson was not just the King of Pop (a stupidly grandiose boast in the first place) but “the greatest entertainer who ever lived.” Take that, Shakespeare, Mozart, Chaplin, Sinatra, Dylan, and Elvis! Why do people (particularly American people) feel the need to describe artists in such ludicrously hyperbolic terms? Art is not an event at the Olympic Games, where performance is timed and quantifiable. You’d think the founder of Motown Records would be aware of that.

The fact is that it’s summer, and there just isn’t much sizzle on the North American “news” front. It’s prime time for loafing. So we passively watched basketball legend Magic Johnson claim that seeing Jackson eat KFC was “the greatest moment of my life.” We observed CNN’s Anderson Cooper treating Jackson’s showbiz memorial with the same intensity he awarded a devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And we saw the increasingly toad-like Larry King sentimentally don one of Jackson’s old fedoras at the request of Miko Brando, another scion of a disturbed celebrity family.

“I was the clown,” Jackson once wrote in his song, Circus Girl. Ultimately, despite his huge talent, in death he’s become just that -- a compelling curiosity.