RED LIST 2012

It is the day of reckoning. 
Was it a good year? Did we learn anything? 
After the December blitz, we at Wit's End are not quite snowed in but almost.
I am set for my New Years Eve tradition of making sour cherry strudel with possible help from other family baking enthusiasts.
Champagne is on ice. The other half is cooking up a storm of sauce and garlic and the scent is sure to wake up the teen sleep monsters.
No one has made coffee but I will forge ahead with my Red List anyway. Caffeine is overrated. Scratch that. It is everything.

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Holiday Countdown # 4: The cult of Santa

Kids are smarter than we think. They know Santa isn't real.
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Holiday Countdown #3:Fa la la la la

 Christmas would be a health hazard without music.

There is no way around it. This is a holiday with a heap of stress.
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I need brave thoughts.

I called my children's school on Friday afternoon to speak to the security guys working the front desk. I didn't think much about doing it before I acted. It was purely an emotional response to the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that morning.

"I want..to thank you guys..for all that you do, I mean..to keep our kids safe." I sputtered.

They thanked me and told me they would"take anyone down" if they tried to enter the place.

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Holiday Countdown #2: Get real. Cut a tree down.

Last week, I told you to get busy and send out a real card.
This week, in Holiday Countdown #2, you now need a real tree.

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Zeitgeist 2012

Bacon. Poutine. Maple Syrup.Yorkshire Pudding. Bannock.
In that order.
Those were the top five Canadian foods searched for by Canadians surfing the net in 2012.
Google released its Zeitgeist 2012 results this week and Canadian queries were revealed in a series of top search results.
( For the full list of top search items, check here.)

If you believe that Google is indeed making us stupid, then these results won't make you sleep better at night.


As for the rest of the world, here is what we went looking for in 2012 :

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The most heroic thing you can do is tell someone you love them.

Love is messy and often, more than a little painful, maybe even a punch in the face. At least that's the idea behind the title of Rust and Bone, winner of the London Film Festival, darling of TIFF and the Cannes Film Festival, now opening this Friday in Toronto.
Raw and brutal yet poetic-critics around the world have raved about the steamy film.
 I saw a great many films at TIFF earlier this year. Rust and Bone has not been easy to shake off. There is a touching complexity to this bruised romance between a orca trainer, who loses her legs in an accident at a marine park, and a nightclub bouncer. 
The film stars Oscar-winning French star Marion Cotillard and Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts. 

Courtesy:Rex Features

They are both beautiful to look at-at TIFF, both drew crowds and whistles. But in this film, they are stripped down ( literally, in some very intimate scenes) with a sullen looking Cotillard trying to adjust to stumps rather than legs and Schoenaerts with a paunch ready to brawl for the next buck. The actor relied on junk food to gain a belly but trained for months to be convincing on screen as a fighter.
 I will never again think of a frozen lake without recalling a horrific scene, just one element in the often shocking collection of images. This is not a film for timid moviegoers. There are scenes of brutal violence and steamy sex but don't mistake the unflinching view: the film is as ambiguous as it is profound. 

 Expect big things at the Academy awards on Feb. 24th for Rust and Bone. Cotillard just picked up a Screen Actor's Guild nomination today for best actress. The SAG nominations kick off awards season with the follow up act tomorrow morning when the Golden Globe nominations are announced.
( See who was snubbed here in complete list of SAG nominees)

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A warning to a certain Kate: You're in for a bumpy ride.

There is only one Kate in my life and she arrived in 1995 with fanfare from my circles alone. 

My Kate. Royal in our minds.

That other one gets a little more ink.
That other one will soon discover what she is in for as a pregnant royal.
That little topless sunbathing episode was just a teaser. Being a parent today has its own queasy pressures.
I admire much about British culture but the tabloid wolves are not on my list.
That other Kate may be due in 7 months or so with a future royal but she is also due for a wallop of invasive press that could drown even the most stalwart.
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Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad is 81 today. We will gather tonight to blow out candles, not 81 but enough, and celebrate as we like to do.

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Feast your eyes on this beautiful man!

The lists are endless, deadlines loom, and I am getting two hours less of sleep daily thanks to my youngest's new early morning rowing team regimen. (If you see a hooded, uncombed creature squinting at you on the road, it's me, the 5am chauffeur and yes, I am contemplating Red Bull.)
Collapse is not possible. But a good prescription for escape is an outing to the ballet. A quick check on casting for the National Ballet's Giselle, on this week through Sunday in Toronto, and it was  done. Two of Canada's finest artists, Guillaume Côté and Greta Hodgkinson, were starring opening night and Christmas lists can wait another day.
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Two old pals sharing a coffee

Michael Richards is getting another chance.

The actor, best known as Kramer on the hit TV series Seinfeld, will return to his first TV series in a decade in a new comedy starring Kristie Ally and Rhea Perlman called Giant Baby.

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Holiday Countdown: Send me a card, will ya?

Are you sending me a Christmas card this year? Pretty please, make it a real one.

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