Well, this is embarrassing.

My latest medicine. Women need one pill. I need 14.

Can you read the small print? Click to enlarge.

With my voice gone again and the cause assumed to be my asthma medication, I am on stronger medications to kill the fungus on my vocal cords.

Emotional High

The video above is Pharrell Williams' Academy Award performance. 

The official video is here.

Okay, I love Pharrell Williams. I am late to the party. I have heard about him and seen him and have even bought a song by him, but I had no connection until I saw this video of him being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. The interview, and seeing his response to the world's embrace of his song "Happy," made me watch the official video. Talk about an uplifting bundle of joy! And does the guy wear clothes well or what! Like I said, I love Pharrell Williams.

Catching Up Again

The recent gap in communication is due, largely, to the end of the hibernation season. The warm sunshine pulls me like a magnet to the outdoors and I sometimes feel that I am at my happiest walking alone in sunshine. I say alone because I take in so much from my surroundings: I love the birdsong, in particular, the changes I see in buildings and gardens and the flowers. And I like watching (some) people. I also like walking with a friend, but when I do I take in little of my surroundings so it is quite different.

Yesterday was only .3° short of setting a record for warmth on April 14th.

In the past while I have walked the seawall a couple of times, from the sea bus terminal in North Vancouver to the West Vancouver library, from home to Aberdeen Mall in Richmond and from the Lynn Valley Mall to home via the sea bus. For the first time ever, I walked the pedestrian walkway underneath/beside the Canada Line bridge over the Fraser which is much, much nicer than walking over the Oak Street bridge.

Liberace, my lovely marine friend, died yesterday but there are about a dozen new fish in my tank. Someone had babies and so many of my Rams are gone now, that the babies survived. Costin (or Fish Boy, as I like to call him, or "staff") is going to have to figure out how to re-establish a birth controlling balance in my tank. The plants in my tank remain glorious. I really love my aquarium and still spend a lot of time just watching my little aquatic world.

I got stood-up by the artistic director at Presentation House who wrote to apologize. I said I was keen to meet again and await further word. The moment may have passed.

Zodiac Evolution

Zodiac Evolution created by Murat Sayginer!

Yellow Sticky Notes

Yellow Sticky Notes | Canadian Anijam is an animated short film directed, edited, and produced by Jeff Chiba Stearns featuring a series of drawings on 4 x 6 yellow sticky notes from a group of 15 Canadian animators.

I want his mind; I want his talent!

A Girl Named Elastica by Montreal filmmaker Guillaume Blanchet. It is made with office supplies—mostly tacks and elastics—and fabulous stop animation.

What's New Chris?

1. My voice is back, although I am still gargling four times a day with anti-fungal medication. My breathing sucks, of course, without the inhalers. And it's Springtime! I am storytelling at The Flame tomorrow night. It is my fifth time, which makes me feel like a true member of the company and I love that. I am truly proud of my appearances and history with them and I am very grateful for the opportunities Deborah and Joel have given me.
2. I built Presentation House Theatre in the early 1970s. It was the greatest professional experience of my life, I think. The current artistic director there is Kim Selody and at a party this past Sunday, he invited me to a chat to talk about doing my show there sometime down the road.
3. I am a gay, philanthropic, AIDS fighting person named Chris Tyrell and there is another one in Toronto. A black one. He is in the photo above with his partner, Jim Searle. There was an article about him in The Globe and Mail this weekend, so today I wrote to him….. just for fun.
4. My aquatic beauty, Liberace, is in dire straights. I am so sad about it and I never thought for a moment when I got the fish and tank that I would become attached to them, but I have. Liberace go his name because he is a Betta. He has incredibly beautiful fins. He is magnificent. In fact, so magnificent, it tuckers him out to swim so he lies around all the time. I have to feed him specially so that he can reach the food. Poor guy. But he has a good appetite and that is good.  I just love him because he is brave, curious and beautiful.
5. I went to see Le Weekend, written by Hanif Keureishi (whom I met once and who is the author of the film My Beautiful Launderette) and with the incomparable Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan—two seriously talented and wonderful actors. I had a fabulous time and still miss these two wonderful characters they play.