The movers and shakers in the Finance world prescribe techniques to make money with spiritual perfection. No work of art or entertainment or its producer is allowed to showcase them without a dispiriting spectacle or devised campaign of hype. If you aren’t rich or famous, hang your head low. You ain’t worth nothin’ and if you’re a thinking, feeling human being, how are you going to deal?

I advise you to read Dawn Powell. No other writer living or dead speaks more directly to the cheesy world we live in. Her signature novels were dizzying comedies of New Yorkers on the make. Witnessing the social, sexual and career shenanigans that can be found in any urban setting, Powell thought funny, while Arthur Miller found them tragic.

Her novels and cast of characters are urbanites–writers on the rise or skids, publishers and gallery owners who feed off their talent, sexual opportunists and mistress juggling entrepreneurs.

The randy executives in “Angels On Toast” expend more time and energy carousing with their mistresses and calming down their long-suffering wives than on business affairs.

It’s a priviledge to read Dawn Powell–if you do it gives hope for the future. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately if just to take myself out of the chaos of every day living.

I was pleasantly surprised that I loved reuniting with people past and just last week, a crazy thing happened that I would like to share with you.

In the 80’s, when I was a VJ at MuchMusic, I met a jockey named Ron Taylor. He was also a psychic and we had some photos taken together. And here we are many years later and Ron sends the self same photos and I can assure you that they were laugh out loud funny. The hair! The clothes I sported! But he also sent me a photo of a horse who went by the name of Stardust Ziggy with a message that my namesake was running in the 7th race at Woodbine on Sunday.

Now I don’t hang at the track and I’m a bit afraid of horses having been bit by a mare when I was a little girl. (Not to the mention the countless nasty geese that pursued me at my friend’s farm out in Orangeville). And if you’re wondering, I did get out to the track and I did place a bet.

Stardust Ziggy the horse, was an odd looking thing—small, with a tail that had been dipped in L’Oreal Ice Blonde hair dye. She/He was also a long shot. Stardust Ziggy was running dead last while I sighed and starting drawing doodles on my racing form. When I looked back to the track I noticed that Ziggy had turned the corner, seeming to wink at everybody and then passed all the horses by. She ran to the finish line a winner!

Can I tell you how thrilling this was? How I wanted to race over to the Winners Circle with my pockets stuffed with money? Not only this but I am here to tell you that it is very, very possible to FALL IN LOVE WITH A HORSE.

I am falling in love again with the poet John Keats. As a young man living in Hampstead Heath, he fell in love with the seventeen year old Fanny Brawne who became his muse.

Alas and alack, Keats was consumptive and as he became sicker he fell more deeply in love with Fanny who was trying to nurse him back to health. Moving to Rome, Italy to a climate that was conducive to tubercular patients, Keats died on the 23 of February 1821. Fanny never got over it. She wore mourning dress for years and walked the heath quoting the poems Keats wrote for her. Here is one of them:

Bright Star

By John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

I was especially impressed with the hybrid of styles on the album. Dawn can sing country in it’s classic form, rock, (in fact the record was produced by George Massenburg who has worked with Linda Ronstadt), so that the music has a 70’s retro feel.

Dawn herself is a soulful performer. Her voice can be earthy and her lyrics are rich with meaning. She has some co-writers that match her in talent: Ron Sexsmith, Amanda Stott, Christopher Ward, David Martin and more.

As Dawn was about to start singing live with her song, “Mother’s Child” I mentioned a story I had heard about her when she was little. Dawn would stand in the wings when her mother was performing—as close to the stage as possible—was it to protect her or to join her I asked? Dawn said there were many reasons, but after the interview I realized that I didn’t mention who the mystery mother was. Maybe this was a good thing—children of performers often live in the shadows and have a hard time being accepted for their own talents. In the case of Dawn Langstroth the mother in question is the incomparable Anne Murray. It goes without saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. There are certainly lessons that Dawn learned in those sidelines. On meeting her and getting to know her I discovered that this is a young woman with no malice, and who was never spoiled. No entourage, no glitz, just the talent right there. Simple and gorgeous and true.

For those of you interested in attending some performances, here is the schedule.

Friday October 2—Georgetown, On.—John Elliot Theatre

Saturday October 3—Port Hope—The Capitol Theatre

Friday November 20 and Saturday November 21—North Bay—North Bay Capitol Theatre

December 5—Eilliot Lake—Lester B. Pearson Civic Centre

*Note: Dawn Langstroth is also a painter. To check out her art, go to:

www.dawnlangstroth.com

All the best Dawn!

Later, when I was pure again, had purged myself of evil, had stopped drinking too much, lying and cheating. Then I could leave the men—could refuse to let anyone suck the hard-won goodness from me. But this was much, much later, after years of work and finally seeing a shrink, after twenty years I was good again. I think I will remain that way. I don’t think anything could pull me down again into that mire of pain.

You’ll be alone, people warned me. Won’t you be lonely?

I’ve never been lonely in my life, I answered. But I’ve been afraid.

What is the thing that passes between two lovers that is not words, that carves below the words and ignites them. FIRE. I pity lovers, caught in that consumption. From the word “consume”. When nature takes us back, which we call love. At fifty years of age I will not be consumed in any unholy fire.

Often, it was when I was at my saddest and thinking it would never come. Other times, I had my ducks in a row and was finally grasping that I would be alone with my nine cats for the rest of my life.

In this song by Jill Barber, the amazement of finding love is apparent. It is my new favorite. I happened to be in my kitchen on one of my cooking marathons but had kept the TV on. As I stirred my pots and concoctions, I heard a woman who harked back to the singers of the 1950’s. I didn’t know who she was but because the refrain of the song kept repeating I raced over to my computer and Googled away burning my Broccoli Casserole in the process. Well, it was so worth it because I’ve fallen in love with Jill Barber and in particular, with this song.

I wonder if that’s true?