Alison Jutzi Talks Amongst Herself

Kristy's Great Idea by Ann M. Martin This is the first (of 132, as of this month) in the Babysitter's Club series, which I started reading when I was 11 years old. I don't recognize any titles after the 50-book mark, so I guess I was too busy being an awkward high school student to follow the trials of Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey and the others past 1992. I ate this book up, much the same way I devoured four seasons of Sex and the City on DVD when I was bored for those two months in the winter of 2004. They are both giant chocolate-bars-with-caramel-inside for the brain. The plot: Kristy gathers her three friends who all have different but complementary personalities and, more importantly, varied hair colours and styles, to form a club of babysitters (a "babysitter's club", if you will) which gathers weekly to schedule babysitting appointments for their neighbours, all of whom somehow remember to call during their club meeting hours. The main charac...

I was introduced to David Hein just over a year ago at a singer/songwriter night hosted by my friend Grant Tilly . One of David's most memorable songs in his funny and entertaining set was My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding which is BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. Amazing. Last summer I saw that he had turned the song into a show for Fringe Festival, and low and behold Mirvish picked it up this fall. Don't you love a happy ending? I saw it last Thursday and was fully charmed. David himself narrates the play, which is essentially the ol' girl gets divorced - moves to Toronto - becomes a lesbian - rediscovers Judaism - marries a witch story. The usual. It was light and funny and charming and smart, and also had several lovely sentimental moments that made me tear up a bit. Shut up. Go see this musical. It will make you smile.

Since reading The Secret I've had a hard time getting my engine running in the book department. It's like it frightened me away from the written word. I'm not trying to be dramatic here; it really was that bad. Happily, I have rediscovered my love of reading. The Believers , written by Zoe Heller , takes place shortly after 9/11 and centres around the family of Joel and Audrey Litvinoff (he, a celebrated lawyer - a fighter for the underdog, who cares deeply for each of his clients, and she, his acerbic and passionately socialist wife). Very early in the book Joel collapses in court, where he is meant to defend a terrorist suspect, and falls into a coma. What follows is...not what I expected. Because of the setting of the book (New York, post 9/11) and its title, I thought the story would have the characters struggling harder with their political and religious beliefs. We do meet Rosa, the youngest of Joel and Audrey's children, who after 30 years of believing in an ev...

Have you read "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne? It is a spiritual guidebook that can lead you to happiness and fulfillment, or at least cars and money.  I just finished it today, and thought I'd share some pearls of wisdom for those who haven't discovered... the secret  (imagine that I just whispered that with quiet intensity). Okay, so just to totally ruin the surprise, the "secret" that "The Secret" refers to is the law of attraction. It was, coincidentally, a secret to me that the law of attraction was, indeed, a secret. So that is the first thing I learned from this book.  "The Secret" claims that everything in your life has been attracted by you, and that if you're focusing on what you don't want, you will attract more of it because the Universe, apparently, can't tell whether you really want something or really don't want it. The idea is that instead of saying, "Wow, this DEBT tooootally sucks, I wish this DEBT woul...

I don't remember the last time I laughed as much as I did last night. I went to a reading series called "Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids". They were holding their 6th installment at the Tranzac, conveniently located 2 minutes from my apartment. Not that it wouldn't have been worth it to trudge across the city, even in the bitter cold.  Dan Misener, the creator of GRTTWAK, has three criteria for the readings in this open-mic environment.  1) You must be the person who wrote it as a child. 2) You must be the person who reads it as an adult. 3) It must be short (less than 5 minutes). Last night I heard various diary entries, short stories, letters, birthday cards, and excerpts from a newspaper publication for cats and dogs that one man had written at age 7. These things are inherently funny and charming, just by the very fact that they were written by children. Dan makes podcasts at each of the GRTTWAK performances. Here's one I found on his website. I was l...

Last night I attende d the official opening of The Sound of Music and it was a fabulous show. Elicia sounded fantastic, and was a loveable and charming Maria. A couple reviewers have noted that this is the perfect show to see right now, when we're all so worried about the political and economic situation in our country. Somehow this musical set during the Anschluss provides some escapism. Of course, it's not the underlying WWII story that gets us; it's the music. And it's the fact that most of us grew up watching the movie every Christmas. Jian Ghomeshi likened it to, "hot chocolate in your favourite mug". Oh, and the set piece that represents the "hills" that are "alive" is this huge, disc-shaped thing that floats around and tooootally looks like a spaceship. Awesome.

Wheee! Nancy just called to say I booked a Leon's commercial. Let me tell you why commercials rock: 1) They give your parents visual proof that you are working. 2) You get to spend the day honing your craft . 3) You have your hair styled and makeup applied by a professional. 4) You get paid to make funny reactions to stuff. Again, wheee!

Wow, I'm so glad I saw Avenue Q last night. If you haven't gone yet, get tickets now! It's playing at the Elgin until August 31st. Julian and I ran into friends of his who were able to get rush seats, so you could try doing it that way. It's just great. It's so funny and so dirty and plays brilliantly to that Sesame Street-watching child we all once were. I feel moved to take a course in puppeteering. The way those actors made the puppets an extension of themselves was brilliant. We were sitting in the nosebleeds, yet every subtle moment was totally clear. Just wow.