An evening with Stuart McLean

A Master Story-teller

Last evening's concert ranks as one of my favourites.  Denise and I saw Stuart McLean and his accompanying musicians at the Tidemark in Campbell River.  Because I have wanted to see him in person for so long, I made sure to get to the ticket counter when it opened, many months ago: Denise and I sat front row centre.

Stuart was taping a show to be aired on CBC's The Vinyl Cafe on the last Sunday in November.  Behind the stage was an enormous map of Canada, and on it were push-pins and names of the places he had been on this tour.  He seems to have started on the eastern sea-board, and has made his way across Canada, visiting little towns like 'Iqaliut' in the North-west territories, 'Drumheller' in Alberta, and 'Smithers' in BC. 

Stuart McLean, if you do not know of him, is a master story-teller.  We were lucky to hear two new stories last evening, stories that involve, as all his stories do, a fictional family living in southern Ontario.  Stuart weaves into his stories a combination of humour and humanity. His characters are flawed, sometimes impossibly funny, and often very, very sweet. I listen to Stuart on those wonderful Sunday's when I have found time to mow the lawn, weed the garden, work in my shop, and focus as Stuart takes me by the hand to another place.  Sometimes I have to sit down and simply give myself over to a fit of laughing, trying to catch my breath, as Stuart tickles me relentlessly. Other times, I need to brush away a tear before anyone around me notices.  Stuart can do that to me inside of a few minutes: I'll be laughing uproariously, and then find that I need to focus intently on something on my work bench.  I think the power of his stories lies in this particular recipe.

I think that we are set up as a species to enjoy hearing someone tell us stories.  When my children were little, we seemed to spend hours everyday reading stories.  In fact, they would prefer having a story read to them over just about anything else.  They wanted to cuddle up, one under each arm, listen to my voice, and look at the pictures as we all embarked on an adventure.  For some reason, they seemed to prefer books that we had read over new books.  Sometimes Kira would comb the hair of a doll as she listened, grooming her baby, seemingly unaware of the generational link between father, daughter, and dolly. 

In some way, and although difficult to prove, we might be genetically hard-wired to listen to stories as a way of learning our primary languages.  Our babies want to listen to stories perhaps as a way to continue the seemingly impossible task of learning a language from scratch within a couple of years. However, the joy of listening to stories stays with us beyond childhood.  We spent a couple of million years as food foragers sitting around camp-fires at night, presumably listening to people tell stories.  Socially, such events may have been a 'social glue', bonding together ever more strongly the group.  It could be that those individuals who did not care for taking part in such social exercises, and tended rather to go off on their own, fell out of the gene pool from which we are all descended.  Also, such stories helped to explain mysteries, such as why things were the way the were, where things came from, what it is all about. And so, story-telling may have allowed us to learn language, bring our group of people closer together and therefore give it more survival power, and explain those things otherwise unexplainable.  In short, it might not be too far a stretch to say that we are human because we like to hear stories.   

Stuart McLean is light-hearted, funny, and he seems to have a knack for discovering the quirkiness and generosity of the human spirit. In a way he steps out of time.  He might indulge in a modern colloquialism, but when he does, it is to make some sort of point.  He appealed to the 89 year old in our audience, as well as to the youngest, a five year old girl named Ella, and everyone in between.  His skill in developing pace, tension and a really good joke builds a trust between him and his audience that his plot lines will resolve, that irrelevancies will be minimized, and that there is an overarching theme to his stories.  He allows the people in his audience to simply sit back, relax, and let the master weave his wonderful story.  Although telling his stories in 2010, one can imagine him telling similar stories to a group of kinsmen sitting around the fire in 2,000,000 BC.

A Pro Forma World

Stuart McLean

I have been noticing lately that our society is increasingly treating certain things as mere formality.  The obvious example of this is tipping a waiter at a restaurant.  It seems that we are expected to tip at least 15%, regardless of the service.  A friend of mine who happens to be a waiter has told me that getting 'stiffed' by a customer (not getting tipped), is a huge financial blow.  Not only are the base per hourly wages very low, but the person who has not tipped has taken the time away from a customer who would have tipped.  This means that in order to show that we are very pleased with the service, we need to tip in excess of 15%.  In real terms, what it means for me is that when paying the bill, I simply hit the '15%' button for the tip, the calculator works it out, and I sign on the dotted line.  Gone, it seems, is the reward system for exceptionally good service.  It has all become institutionalized. 

Last evening, Denise and I went to see Stuart McLean (more on him in the next post) in concert at the Tidemark theatre in Campbell River.  Stuart (I call him by his first name, because he feels like a family member) has an easy way about him, and entertained us with various stories, and his accompanying musicians played wonderful blues music throughout the evening.  Granted, his performance was different than other performances in that it was a CBC radio broadcast to be aired on the last Sunday of November, but nevertheless, Stuart did something that I have not seen in a very long time: he did not do an encore.  Instead, he thanked the audience for our support, he had his supporting musicians take a bow, and thanked all of the people working behind the scenes to make it work.  Then, after Stuart had the musicians and the audience sing a few choruses of 'You are my sunshine', he gracefully left the stage, the house lights came on, and we all left.

Many in the audience, it seemed, wanted, or at least expected more, and they stood and clapped, even though the house lights were on and people were moving out of the exits.  One could almost hear them saying: "Really, Stuart, this is not how it is done.  You leave, we stand and clap, you come out for some more, then leave, we stand and clap, you come out for one last kick at the can, then leave again, and then we clap... at that point and not one second sooner, the house lights come on." 

However, Stuart is unwilling to go through the pro forma, perfunctory and silly formalities that have accreted to the edges of modern entertainment.  The last thing he said to us before he left the stage was: 'Go home to your families.'  Good for you, Stuart.