Comical Hell Sin

2010-04-08T23:19:00.006-02:30

So, the first season of The Republic of Doyle is done and dusted. The vacuum-tubes that comprise the CBC over-mind have deigned to renew it for a second season, but they haven't even begun to shoot that. It'll be Winter 2011 before we'll see anything new from the Republic. That's a lot of mullin' time. Until then, you can watch all twelve of the already-aireds via the link above.

So I s'pose it's time to get me review on b'ys.

Maybe I should start by explaining why I think Republic of Doyle is important. See, it's a comedy/drama detective show (let me get one statutory obligation out of the way: "like the Rockford Files!"), except it's set in North America's easternmost/oldest/charmingest town, Olde St. John's (Sin Jawns). Other than looking bloody flipping gawgeous (the camera crew deserves a medal), a show like this, with a Newfoundland setting, peopled with Newfoundland characters, is doing something really important.

What's that? Well: it's a Newfoundland show that is unmistakably a Newfoundland show, but the point of the show isn't that it's a Newfoundland show. Um. Did I say that in a way that's at all clear? No? Maybe if I say the words 'show' and 'Newfoundland' a few more times in close proximity.

In the past, there's been tv shows set / filmed here. Usually the NFLD card is played so hard all the other cards get lost in the shuffle or go flying off the table (and I'll be abandoning the 'deck of cards' metaphor about now, thanking it for its loyal service).

A lot of people have become annoyed by this. Particularly galling is how the cultural differences between NFLD and the Rest Of Canada were too often the punchline or the point. Imagine if the only representation of Welsh people in UK media was the fortnightly "Laughing At Welsh People (They Talk So Funny And Are So Thick) Variety Hour." It'd be a problem!

Shows like Codco and 22 Minutes did great service as political and cultural satire, and they often used Newfoundland's unique culture to do it. But it was many years before I realized that my laugh, a laugh of recognition and identification, was very different from the mainland laugh, which was often a laughing at.

This is one reason I am so glad that Doyle strikes the difficult but desperately needed balance, in terms of its cultural representation. The show is not shy about its Newfoundlandishness, but it's rarely unrealistically played up. I'd say the show is mature about its cultural depiction. It's not cringing and it's not blaring. It just feels naturally Newfoundland, even when it's being silly about it. It's a show that uses its setting, that would be fundamentally different if it was set somewhere else, but it's not a show about the place where it's set. I'm marooned in Toronto and I'm just as happy to see that as I am to see the colourful streetscapes and bleak hills of home.

Pardon me, got a bit sentimental there.

Anyway, I'll shove that all aside for the vitalest of vitals: is the show any bloody good?

Yes? I suppose? Thinking of the 12 episodes as a whole, I feel kindly disposed toward the series. It had a shaky start (the pilot was . . . mixed) and some less impressive episodes along the way. But it also had some really wonderful episodes too, and as a whole, from start to finish, it has a direction, it follows a line of development.

My personal choices for besties, as far as episodes go? In the order they aired: 4 (wrongful conviction, the brothers from Shea Heights with the senile mother) for the acting and the story; 9 (stolen Ziggy's chip truck and 709 Click) for the comedy and the development of Des's character; 12 (the finale) because Republic of Doyle put a lot on the table in just 11 episodes and managed to make it all come together in a way that was meaningful and affecting. It's a big cast, and, in that final episode, none of them felt superfluous; all of them seemed changed by the events preceding.

Maybe the accomplishment the Doyle crew can feel proudest of, though, is the show's ability to shift between comedy, drama, and suspense faster than a chameleon on amphetamines (if . . . those things . . . were colours?).

Early in the run, a lot of people (oh fuck it, mea culpa, it was me and my friends) made jokes about the ubiquitous "OH YEAH!" With every cut to commercial, this snippit of the themesong would play: a very Kool-Aid Man voice exclaims "Oh Yeah!" over a jaunty guitar cadence. Oh yeah!

Jake awkwardly witnesses a scene of elder abuse. OH YEAH!

They found a dead girl's body in the trunk of a car. OH YEAH!!

But this actually became forgivable as this strength within the show emerged: the light-hearted and the serious co-mingle in a way you rarely, rarely see, and the jarring "Oh Yeahs!" just might start to make sense. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer, at times melodramatic and at times supremely silly, was more finnicky about keeping the show's two dominant moods distinct from each other. Not so Doyle.

By the time the finale came around, Republic of Doyle was flipping between an impressive pool of blood, an anxious hospital bedside, and the antics of Desmond Courtney PI and his charming assistant Tinny (Des, something like the show's mascot, can best be described as the charmingest idiot savant you've ever seen. Mark O'Brien plays him, and damn if I couldn't set my watch by his comedic timing).

So what else did I like? Toot toot, here comes the praise train.

Constable (later Sergeant) Leslie Bennet grew tremendously. I remember, after watching the first episode, thinking that Krystin Pellerin's inspiration for the character might have been a mannequin. A mannequin made out of wood. An annoying wooden mannequin. Yes, that seemed about right.

I trolled online and found someone arguing, in response to similar sentiments, that Pellerin was actually quite a talented actress. Anonymous Internet Person speculated that the wooden performance in the pilot might have been prompted by strange directorial choices. It must've been, because, as the series went on, Leslie Bennet became more charismatic and likeable, even as she showed herself to be tough, principled, and observant. All dues to Pellerin. Her performance stood out in a final episode that was full of highlights. Plus, she's some hand to sing.

And how about Rose? What a gift of a character we have in Rose. Lynda Boyd took what could have been a stock "MILF with plot-convenient tech skills" secondary character and injected edge and verve into almost every scene she appeared in. Turning from warm and maternal to deadly and menacing on a dime, Rose is intriguing, complex, unpredictable. Boyd made me care about this woman, and that's why I was so creeped out when a certain bad business from Rose's past burbled up to haunt her mid-season; that's why I felt a catch in my throat at several points during the finale.

Finally, once again: the camera people should be getting a stipend from the Department of Tourism. They take what is a pretty town surrounded by a dramatic landscape and turn it into something gorgeous. Establishing shots never failed to impress, and the colour saturation made the downtown look luscious. A+, A+, A+, consistently wonderful, you have thousands of homesick hearts aching on a weekly basis.

As for season two? A stronger focus on the writing would be nice. When the show let me down (I watched it in some very critical company), it was the writing that betrayed. The dialogue is fine -- more than fine -- it's the plots that're the problem. Sometimes they're obvious (I am not at all a clever person, so if I can spot whodunnit 15 minutes into the show then there's a problem). Sometimes they're just . . . confusing, in a low-level way. Like the episode with the stolen racehorse and the groom whose finger gets chopped off ("lost your ring finger to pay for your wedding, total Gift of the Magi" - Des, you're a shining light). I'm still not sure I understood what the point of that entire hour of television was, but it wasn't that there was too much to grasp -- it was that there wasn't enough.

A final, selfish criticism: I'd like to see a few trips outside of the proverbial overpass. The brief jaunt to St. Pierre et Miquelon in Episode 5 (feat. Gordon Pinsent, national treasure and voice of Babar), was nice, but . . . eeeeeeuh. I thought they could have made more of it. Other than plot convenience (this is how the rum smuggler has stayed out of RCMP hands for decades), it felt like St. Pierre didn't even need to be in the episode at all.

When I was in Grade 11, I was left out of the annual school trip to St. Pierre, despite my mastery of the passé composé. They had limited funds and could only take, say, 3/4 of the class. They chose names from a hat with no regard to merit or worthiness, outraging all sense of fairness when "Miss, what does je mean" got a magical long weekend on the French Isles while I sat bereft with my futur proche.

I hoped Doyle & Doyle's visit to St. Pierre would be a bit of a surrogate experience, a soothing balm for this old wound, but alas! All we got was a couple of brief exterior shots and M. Pinsent gnawing the scenery into a delightful textured foam.

Anyway, my point is: the show's been awful St John's-centric. Charming town, miss it to bits (check the new blog banner), but maybe you could go down to Ferryland or over to Placentia or something in Season 2, b'ys. That'd be nice.

I'll see ye in Winter 2011.

cough

2010-04-08T22:42:00.004-02:30

So I figured I should reboot this thing and actually, you know, use it.

I've just looked at the blog itself for the first time in almost nine months. 26 bloody comments on the last entry?!

About two dozen are from spam robots (one devised the clever soubriquet 'James F Collins.' I didn't know I had fake relatives in the online poker racket). I should really delete the spam comments (spamments?). But I find them weirdly charming. I like the best the ones that read like dada-esque poetry. Each impressed album, ship and flash change as popularity searching for take characteristics. Yes, definitely.

Potential Excerpt

2009-07-27T01:23:00.002-02:30

"Ten Newfoundland Towns," as it exists now, is a very fragmentary text. There are branches which may be pruned before it takes on its final form. Here is one such branch:

"There's so much clutter in this house," my cousin says. "It's turning into vernacular architecture." We are in the kitchen.

My Aunt, whose clutter it is, is a folklorist who has published on the subject. "You are what you write," I say, pouring a glass of water.

"Or you write what you are." She flips the statement. It's simple logic. If a equals b, b equals a.

"Write what you know?" I offer, lamely. Not quite the same thing. "I suppose you can't go wrong." My tongue is on autopilot now. Write what you know. Not an instruction, but a statement of fact. Writers are great fakers but deep down they have to know what they're faking. You are incapable of writing what you don't know. At least that's how I think of it.

I think about what I've written. It gives me pause. It seems to me I know absolutely nothing, or, potentially, I have moments where I know everything, but then I forget almost all of it.

The truth is probably between these two things and much less grandiose than either. We are all muddlers under the sun. That is something I often tell myself, more for comfort than anything else.

So what do I know? If you read what I've written, what do I know?

I know the world is strange and subtle. I know the limit to connections is not their number, but one's ability to perceive them. I know each human heart has a contradiction or two (or more, usually more) at its core. I know family is perverse and inescapable. I know personality is performance. I know that all things that can happen probably do happen. I know identity is largely contextual.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to add to the list, but my certainty has run out. We are all muddlers under the sun.

Ten Newfoundland Towns Excerpt: Fogo

2009-07-23T14:49:00.004-02:30

From Ten Newfoundland Towns (draft), "Fogo":

It is so cold today. I leave the bed and breakfast and make my way through a wind-blasted morning, cold wind that takes the blood from my fingers, rips tears from my eyes. I make my way up the deserted street. Tourist season isn't over, but it's winding down. I make my way around the harbour, going toward Bleak House. A black shape in the distance becomes a dog as I approach. I'm nervous of loose dogs, but this fellow, the first pedestrian I've met, is like the street dogs I knew in Ireland. He's used to his freedom, he's calm in it, sees no need to rush around frantic, knows I'm not a friend but not a threat. We are fellow creatures on a street.

We meet on the bridge, where tides swap twice a day, ocean to harbour, harbour to ocean. He regards me as we walk past each other, like an old skipper doing the signature skyward chin jerk, a move I've never mastered. People used to real freedom need not glory in it, need not exercise it to its maximum at all moments. They just exist in it, as fish exist in water. This dog is like that. I am like that.

We live in luxury, he and I.

From "Twillingate"

2009-07-22T18:40:00.004-02:30

Excerpt from Ten Newfoundland Towns (working title), "Twillingate":

It is possible for a mystic to go through life unacknowledged as such, not seeking attention, having no missionary zeal, quietly feeling revelations and forging new paths of thought as he or she walks alongside the road, a decent smallish lunch quietly digesting, an unremarkable sun over head, good air in good lungs.

Ten Newfoundland Towns

2009-07-22T18:34:00.004-02:30

So, the award-winning-but-not-even-completed "Ten Towns" project (yes such a thing is possible) is drawing to a close. At least, the first draft is. After that's done, who knows what?

It seems likely that I'd send excerpts to the places such as the Newfoundland Quarterly, but of course they may not wish to publish them. It seems sensible that I should ask companies such as Creative if they'd like a peek at the manuscript. It is necessary that I tell the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council that I've finally finished and explain to them how I spent their money.

I know one thing for sure. In the weeks to come, I will be posting excerpts from the first draft here on this blog.

Ferryland, Brigus, Trinity, Bonavista, Harbour Grace, Carbonear, Placentia, Grand Bank, Twillingate, and Fogo will all be represented. Look out for them.

2009-06-14T20:50:00.004-02:30

Gee, what kind of a fool kept this blog?

I don't know, I feel like I should resume posting, but perhaps in a more focused manner.

People have asked me to start a book blog. I'm beginning a PhD at University of Toronto in the fall, and a book blog might help me to organize my thoughts on what I'm reading.

I've often wanted to start a "pithy review of a single song" daily music blog. Maybe Comical Hell Sin can become that and the book blog can be a new entity.

But then, "Comical Hell Sin" is/was partially a blog for my nascent writing career. I am puzzled. In the last six months, I pretty much ceased posting about that. In that same time, I actually started to succeed as a writer. I have a steady reviewing gig now, a short story pending publication, an actual award under my belt, a major project nearing completion, etc. I didn't post about any of that. I haven't even put links up to my articles, when they appear online.

It's like, when I stopped blogging, I started succeeding. Is there a lesson here? Maybe I can paraphrase Yoda: "do or do not, there is no blog."

Let's ditch the 49th

2009-01-20T09:36:00.008-03:30

I sometimes get a little miffed at the casual use of "the 49th parallel" to denote the Canada/US border.

It's a handy reference because you have that unbroken line from Lake of the Woods west to BC staring you in the face whenever you look at a map, but the 49th is an essentially meaningless line east of there. I'll demonstrate.

All of the Great Lakes, the entire Windsor-Quebec corridor, all of New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia, and a majority of the island of Newfoundland are actually south of the 49th. Even a lot of logging and mining towns in 'north' Ontario and Quebec come in south of the line. By my rough calculations, it adds up to almost 20 million people, which means almost 2/3 of Canadians live below the magic line that supposedly delinates us from the dread them.

As far as I can figure it, the most substantial settlements north of 49 in Eastern Canada are Sept-Iles and baie-Comeau, which, at about 25,000 each, are hardly comparable to a Winnipeg or an Edmonton. Saguenay, Timmins, Corner Brook, and others come close, but they all end up at 48.whatever north.

I know this is ignoring how Canadian identity is so often tied up with the frozen north and such (even though most of us live as far south as our part of the country will permit us to), but it's still a point I wanted to make. I want to make it bad enough that I spent 20 minutes in Google Earth and 5 minutes in MS Paint! That is a large investment of time, these days.

Christmas in the Harbour (not literally)

2008-12-25T21:54:00.001-03:30

If Christmas Eve actually did come into contact with St. John's harbour, some terrible mutant supervillain holiday would result. No one wants that, especially with Easter running amock ever since it got exposed to that gamma radiation.

Anyhoo. I drove to work even though it is 905 feet from my house to the hotel (thank you, Google Earth). I had put off leaving until it was too late to walk and be on time, and the sidewalks were that special kind of ice with cold water on top of it, so when you fall and fracture a bone you also get hypothermia to help take your mind off the pain. How considerate. Also I wish to deplete our fossil fuel reserves as quickly as possible. It's like pulling off a bandaid guys. Do your part.

The Crazy Horse, St. John's finest strip club in the category of "Back Entrance With 'No Trespassing' Sign With Angry Barking Dog Silhouette On It," was open. A dude stood on the step smoking on a cigarette. The neon 'OPEN' sign was doing that thing it does, where it goes "OPEN" and then spells "O-P-E-N" for people who need to slowly sound words out when they read.

One assumes there were ladies doing exotic dances inside and dudes there to watch them. It was 28 minutes until Christmas Day. The birth of our Lard was nigh; I imagine Mary was probably breathin' pretty heavy by this point, at least (really, the manger fable is so sanitized and clean even though the filthiness and lowness of the goings on is supposedly part of the whole mythos. Who here has actually wondered about the labour? A bloody placenta on a dungy floor? Maybe there is a short story waiting there. Or maybe someone has already written it. Our Post-Modern Age.)

I went to a United Church x-mas eve service with my Aunt and Uncle. I am complacent when it comes to soft liberal protestantism; it was interesting. Lots of singing, which I like, but many of the songs were in a difficult key so I kept dropping an octave or jumping an octave. I kept waiting for majesty and grandeur and crushing guilt, like a good Catholic, but mostly it was quite chill and low-key. I can see how this sort of thing is the spiritual bread and butter of the comfortable middle-upper class.

The congregation's children had made the story of Jesus's birth "Canadian" by having their pagent re-enact not Bethlehem, but the Huron Carol ("twas in the moon of winter-time when all the birds had fled") etc. I get nervous whenever earnest white Canadians casually appropriate indigenous culture as a placeholder for their own identity (augh! you aren't native! augh! stop putting inukshuks outside the airport!). The narrator referred to "Indians" and the costumes were more Great Plains and "there was no room in the teepee" (guys I think the Hurons had longhouses) and the language was simplified to an insulting level.

It was all surreally offensive. Surreal because their intentions were clearly so earnest and pure, like no one had taken them aside to suggest how ludicrously racist the proceedings were. Like even if someone had, the organizers would be hurt and upset and not understand what the issue was. So I couldn't build up a head of outraged steam and didn't try. It was a strange thing to witness all the same.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a nativity pagent in blackface. The Three Wise Pimps. It could work.

I hope you have had a magical Christmas. Mine has had a kind of magic so far but not the kind you see in holiday specials or hall-mark cards. It's OK, though. I've always taken what magic the world sees fit to provide me with.

2008-11-03T13:17:00.005-03:30

I have to stop reading the comment section on CBC.ca news stories.

In general, there's five parts ignorance and poor rhetoric for every one part insightful and informed comment. Maybe me thinking the CBC attracted a higher-brow sort was just a comforting illusion held by the intellectual bourgeoisie. That's OK. I can let that go. Lord knows other misconceptions of its species have slipped away over the years.

But it's the news stories pertaining to Newfoundland and Labrador --- and particularly the reader comments that follow --- that really have me ready to throw in the proverbial towel.

There are altogether too many comments that out-and-out REVEL in any hint of misfortune befalling the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. These folk want us to fail. Not only that, they want us to suffer. Even when they call us a crowd of welfare bums and equalization leeches, they want us kept poor and miserable (cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to trouble this sort of person).

It's shocking how common it is on there. I'm talking multiple instances for every news article.

Some of the commentators take a distinct anti-Danny Williams tone, as if the sins of one must be paid for by the 508,000-odd souls he governs --- or maybe we're being punished for having the audacity to approve of him. In either case, this schadenfreude is disturbing. I hated Mike Harris and Ralph Klein, but I never wished ill on the people of Ontario or Alberta.

EDIT: Based on a comment, I want to make sure the preceding paragraph isn't misread. Danny Williams is not exempt from criticism, clearly. I don't want to conflate the man with the province he was elected to lead. My point was, certain CBC commentators have done just that. They seem to justify their glee at the prospect of economic hardship for the province with their antipathy for the Premier. I find that kind of schadenfreude disturbing. END EDIT

Other commentators go for the tried and true ethnic stereotype route. Substitute "Polacks" for "Newfs" or "Newfies" and you've got 1950's America. Try "Mexicans" and it updates the look. I'm sure most of these people consider themselves multicultural, open-minded, tolerant sorts. Do they, then, lack all self-awareness when they call "Newfs" stupid, lazy, and worthless?

This "AUGH! NO MORE!" blog entry was sparked by a story and comments I read today. It isn't the most virulent example, but it is the handiest to link.

NFLD's economy might shrink up to 3% next year. Comments include:

Good ol Danny boy will lay blame on the Federal Conservatives to get a handout . All the Newfs will come to Ontario, work their 900 hours, then go home and collect EI the rest of the year Problem solved!
To all the newfies who are trumpeting how good their economy is, are you ready to give up your welfare/equalization cheques? Seems odd that Ontario should have to keep funding your welfare cheques.

And then they'll take offense when a Newfoundlander expresses any form of nationalist sentiment . . . I'd put money on it.

Listen, guys, it's really hard to feel a part of a country that shows such open hatred and disdain for you.

I realize these are a noisy minority, but still. I almost wrote a small noisy minority, but my experiences in the rest of Canada makes me fear a milder, more passive form of disdain is common. Not held by a majority (I'd say most are apathetic and ignorant when it comes to NFLD, which is better than active dislike), but still common.

It leaves a sour taste in one's mouth and a sick flutter of anxiety in one's chest.

2008-10-30T15:51:00.006-02:30

Think of the Canadian Confederation as a big family. It's a pretty common metaphorical recourse.

You've got Papa Ontario and Mama Quebec and I suppose the other provinces are their siblings or adult children.

But then you've got Newfoundland, who, for years and years, was the old man bachelor boarder in the basement apartment. Sometimes he'd bang on his ceiling (your floor) and yell "come near at your peril, Canadian wolf!" and children were often frightened by his eccentric and solitary ways.

But in 1949, he moved up into the family home, started taking his meals at the family table, began depositing and withdrawing from the Canada family's bank account (and, despite tut-tuts from Papa Ontario and Brother Alberta, the old man contributes quite a bit).

He's got different blood and different ways and different pasts, but over the years he's become accepted into the family. Still, you don't know much about him. Maybe Aunt Nova Scotia was an acquaintance of his back before the house was built? Anyway, most of the family have even learned how to say his name correctly (neurotic outbursts of "LAND! LAND! newf'nLAND!" are rarer and rarer).

But if you're Canadian and you've ever wondered about the old codger, what his life was like before he was adopted into your family, where he came from, why he is the way he is and why that way is not like your way, and how did he come to live with you all the same anyway . . . there are a couple of books you must read.

1.) The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston.

2.) Random Passage by Bernice Morgan.

Go! Read them now, Canada! You will learn something about Old Man Newfoundland, and you'll enjoy it while you're at it, because the fella has been around the block a few times and he surely know how to spin a good yarn.

Fan letter to Lisa Moore

2008-10-12T16:57:00.007-02:30

I've just finished reading Alligator for the second time. I liked it the first go around, in June 2007, but this second reading has deeply affected me. So it's jumped up a tier, into the ranks of my all-time favourites. But why? Why did it take more than a year of incubation and then a second innoculation before that happened?

I hate to frame it this way, because I don't like snobbery and it's unfashionable to make these kinds of divisions, but it's the only frame I have. Alligator is a book for lovers of literature.

It doesn't just reward close, careful, conscious reading, it often demands it. It's a day-long Alpine hike and if a flight of stairs winds you you'll probably not enjoy yourself.

But for those with the lung capacity . . . what a sublime experience this book is. It's immersive, full of easy metaphor and long sentences with plenty of ands and buts. It's fluid and chaotic and graceful and energetic like water coming down a cliff face. Its sensual aspect (and it is so sensual, in all deno-and-conno-tations) might be all about it that's in step with current best-seller fashions, but I don't think that's enough to recommend it to people who might subsist primarily or exclusively on Dan Brown or Stephanie Meyer or Dean Koontz.

It requires limber thinkers.

But with all this said, it's more emotional than intellectual. It does this lovely thing that all my favourite books do. It makes me have this jangly feeling in the middle of my chest, something like anxiety but more pleasant. Like a rearranging of the parts of yourself that you're normally only half-aware you possess. Like Emily Bronte's thoughts that alter you as you think them, change the colour of your mind, like wine moving through water. Except these are feelings that alter the colour of your heart as you feel them.

Most of the characters are not especially likable (relatable, yes, but not necessarily likable). The emotional response isn't pathos or sympathy for their plight, it's pure surging sorrow and terror and joy. It's the overwhelming fact of our living and our dying, what George Eliot was talking about when she said:

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

Alligator strips away some of that stupidity for a time, lets the raw nerves breathe; it leaves a person unable to speak but compelled to express something. It makes everything wonderful and terrible.

Thank you for this book, Lisa Moore. I can't wait to see what you write next.

Murka, you so crazy

2008-10-08T19:44:00.002-02:30

I have two links to share with you folks. They both deal with American politics, but please don't head running for the metaphorical door. The first one is extremely inspirational, and the second extremely offensive. We liked to be inspired and offended, don't we?

Anyhoo.

#1 is in the "they clearly caught a special moment on tape" column. I'm not American and I only have an observer's experience with the black/white racial divide that haunts the American psyche. But that's more than enough for Donna Brazile's words to move me, and I'm sure they'll move you too.

She is not going to the back of the bus.

#2 is from Camille Paglia, who I sometimes loathe and sometimes love. She's answering reader mail here. In her responses, she confuses Sarah Palin's combination of obvious sexual fitness/fertility and assertiveness with actual worth and value. Or else Paglia's deliberately trying to be provocative and outlandish, as is her wont. And maybe by being provoked, I have aided in her satisfaction? Ack.

Anyway, she compares Palin to no less than Shakespeare. Shakespeare. (Because Palin's broken syntax is poetic and contains fragments of higher truths. No, really).

That's a difference of opinion which makes me wonder about her reasoning process and observation skills, but it isn't offensive. But then, on page two, she comes out with this gem:

I admire [Palin's] competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry -- including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.

My jaw dropped when I first read it. It's 'positive' racism, but it's racism none the less, along the lines of 'black people have rhythm' or 'Asians are good at math'. The noble and magical Native Americans have hyper-alertness and supernormal vitality! Talk about exoticism of the Other.

If a clip surfaced of Palin dancing, and she was really rockin' out, would it be at all acceptable to say "I notice her excellent sense of timing and her olive skin base. Is it possible she has an African ancestor somewhere along the line?"

TIME

2008-09-17T12:36:00.004-02:30

It does seem to me that time is passing more swiftly as I age.

I suppose it's because of proportion? When I was 10, a year represented 10% of my experience, so a year was a big conceptual unit of time and likely passed just as slowly. As my memory accumulates more years' worth of data, a year diminishes as a unit. Ditto for a month, a week, a day.

I mean, I moved home from London, ON, a little more than a year ago, and it seems like no time at all. I look at things I wrote on August 9 and I am shocked to realize that they are more than a month old.

If this continues, I have much anxiety about how time will pass when I am 40, or 60. (Assuming I make it to those ages, which is a dangerous assumption. Gimme some wood so I can knock on it). Or maybe it's intellectually lazy of me to assume the trend will continue. The flickering by of a hundred days like animation stills could be a symptom of the general ennui I've felt for much of the past year. Maybe when I get myself in a productive and plugged-in place, I'll perceive the passage of time as more stately and gradual once more.

"Time / you are light / I guess you are afraid of what everyone is made of" (St. Vincent - Apocalypse Song)

2008-09-12T23:40:00.005-02:30

Well, it's been a while. I've been all over Newfoundland on my literary non-fiction geographical philosophy cultural self-examination writing project (made possible by a kind grant from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council hooray! I hope I will not disappoint you NLAC).

I feel kind of like a kite. But it'd be a kite where the person flying me has let go and a huge gale has just pushed me up and away to a place near the horizon. It's kind of distant point where I diminish, but from where I can see so much. Internal and external landscapes are blurring to some extent. I stood on Brimstone Head two days ago and let the wind hold up my entire 185 lbs (it was strong, it could), and looking out at the agitated sea was sometimes so overwhelming that I had to turn my back and close my eyes.

Anyway. That sounds like a "please notice how sensitive and poetic I am" advertisement, so I'll stop.

How am I lately? I'm tired most days. Blame sleep apnea or high fructose corn syrup or PhD application anxiety or planetary alignments or general terror at the direction the world is taking. Don't you think Sarah Palin would be hilarious if she was less terrifying? But then, laughter is a form of screaming, is it not?

In other news, Facebook shit has a terrible re-design, and listening to the new CBC Radio 2 is like enduring your dad trying to be cool in front of your friends. Slow clap (irony clap!) for New Facebook and CBC Radio 2. Lizard brain says: Change bad! Unnecessary change badder!

Outrage on these points may seem disproportionate, but it is easy and good to get angry over stupid little things. Well, perhaps not good (perhaps even un-good), but understandable. My real rage is at things that seem beyond my control, so it's frustrated and needs a vent somewhere.

Take it away, LOL Kate Bush.

2008-08-21T19:29:00.003-02:30

I'm not eating my words. I refuse. Portishead's Third is over-hyped and over-praised; it takes itself too seriously without enough substance or worthwhile musical progression to warrant such a stance.

YET.

I find myself listening to Hunter, The Rip, Plastic, We Carry On, Small, and Threads with appreciative ears.

Magic Doors is still stupid. Especially when some kind of 'experimental' quasi-Middle Eastern horn instrument has a petit mal seizure and they recorded it and called it a bridge. Machine Gun still sounds like a fridge falling over a dozen flights of stairs while a sad woman stands at the top half-heartedly singing whatever comes to mind to a melody she's making up as she goes.

But you know, there's a wonderful EP buried in this album. I can say this now.

The Rip.

Avalon

2008-08-17T19:01:00.003-02:30

StatCan's Census Division 1 is, very handily, the Avalon peninsula.

All it took was a bit of math and the handy map breakdown of census subdivisions and municipalities to produce this:

St. John's Census Metropolitan Area: 181,113 (this includes Mount Pearl, CBS, Paradise, etc)
Northern Avalon (excluding the above): 56,440
Southern Avalon: 10,865

The St. John's CMA contains 72.9% of the Avalon's entire population, the rest of the northern Avalon is 22.7%, and the southern Avalon is 4.3%.

It is also notable that Bay Roberts is a Census Agglomeration; that is to say, more than 10,000 people live around its urban core. It achieved this for the first time in the 2006 census. There are only 4 such in the entire province (the others are Corner Brook, Grand-Falls-Windsor, and St. John's itself).

The largest settlements in the southern Avalon are Placentia (3,898), Trepassey (763), Cape Broyle (545), Ferryland (529)

Recommended Daily Allowance

2008-08-16T01:53:00.001-02:30

Perhaps you need some Battles today. Or some B12. Or both.

Tilting at Windmills

2008-08-09T19:21:00.002-02:30

My final Community Editorial for The Telegram, reprinted below (it appeared on, um . . . I believe Wednesday? Possibly Thursday?)

This is from my files, so little tweaks and spitshines the Telegram editorial team have performed are not represented below.

Tilting at Windmills

"So it’s your last editorial, isn't it?," my father asks.

"Yes. I don't know what to write."

"You should tell how Placentia is an ideal retirement community," he suggests. "Beautiful, historic, plenty of community events. Mild climate. If you're mobile, there's no end of outdoor activities. If mobility's an issue, the town itself is flat." I paraphrase, of course.

"Yes, that's all so, but I was listening to The World At 6 yesterday. They said the US housing crisis ‘will be felt from Vancouver to Halifax.' I almost put the car off the road, which would have been too bad, because Rogers doesn't serve anywhere in Newfoundland except around St. John’s. I might write on that.”

"Ah, still tilting after windmills, then."

I had to concede the point. I suppose we are a pack of Quixotes, no? I feel that way nearly constantly. Modest suggestions, like having a Southern Shore lilt in the public announcements at St. John's Airport, pass without notice. Ranting about a Big Issue may make one seem a kook with a kooky axe to grind. To what end is any of it, once the murmurs of agreement and clucks of outrage die away?

Perhaps I seem cynical. Pundits and policy-makers do often muse about the apathy of the under-30 set, disaffected non-voters and such. I think they’ve misunderstood us (mind, I actually vote, but goodness do I feel disaffected sometimes). Most people I know have definite political opinions, many of them fervent. It’s not apathy we suffer from, it’s a sense of powerlessness.

Take, for example, the likes of Rogers Communications and Vancouver-Halifax syndrome. There's only so often you can send ticked-off letters to national media when they 1.) misuse 'Maritimes,' 2.) mispronounce 'Newfoundland' or 3.) lop 1,000 km off the country by saying it ends in Halifax. But Rogers' own manifestation of Vancounver-Halifax syndrome has left me too aware of my own impotence.

While attending graduate school in Ontario, I purchased a Rogers cellphone. It had a 3 year contract with dire consequences for poor serfs who dare violate it. On my return, I learned Rogers is not actually a national telecommunication company. Standing on the highest hill in Corner Brook, I couldn't get a ghost of a single. Not a single jit. Home in Placentia, it was the same.

"Oh hello," I'd say, "it seems I now live outside your service area. Could you please freeze my contract or suspend my service until I move or until your coverage extends beyond the northeast Avalon?"

I hardly need tell you the outcome. Rogers did not care that I was paying $45 a month for a plastic paperweight. Complaint, tried each month, was only ever futile.

I read an interesting hypothesis regarding broader generational disenchantment. Recall how anti-war protests in 2002/03 mobilized huge masses of youth; no apathy then. But the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan continued apace.

The lesson to us was clear: if those in power want something, they will have it, regardless of how loud or vehement the outcry. The abominable supermarket on the site of Memorial Stadium is our own local monument to these alienating and infuriating forces.

A few months back, an interviewer told Dick Cheney that more than 2/3 of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. His almost reflexive "so?," coupled with trademark smirk, should have galled more than it did. I was more wearied than outraged, because I’ve accepted this as the zeitgeist, here as well as abroad.

Mind, when Danny and his b'ys mount up on their high horses, they've got the poll numbers to back them up. This makes arrogance more justified, but also more dangerous, especially in a world where leaders with 34% approval ratings already strut like autocrats.

The Education Minister's recent interference in Memorial University's search for a new president is one such danger. While not itself a propos, the real damage comes from Minister Burke's subsequent handling of the issue.

Reputation is powerful currency in the academic world, and it is a fragile, complex thing. MUN's slow, steady climb in national and international recognition will likely stall without quick and sensitive damage control.

Minister Burke's response, though, has been like Roger’s, Wells’, Harper’s, Cheney's, Bush's, --- stubborn defiance, a blustery damn-the-critics-we-do-things-our-way antagonism, an attitude that shuts down the opposition, an attitude that, ultimately, makes people feel impotent, unimportant, and small.

So, yes, if I will tilt at windmills one last time, let my lance lie here. In the public and political sphere, let's move toward openness, conciliatory attitudes, compassionate cooperation. No more childish shouting in the House of Commons, no more derision and mocking of opponents, no more disregard and scorn for public discourse.

Polarization has been a powerful force in this decade, and it has been a poisonous one too. Let’s try to move past it.

(And do consider Placentia in your retirement plans.)

Bronte Sibling Rivalry . . . ENGAGE!!

2008-08-07T19:40:00.002-02:30

The seven novels by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, arranged by average reader score from GoodReads.com.

1. Jane Eyre: 4.10/5
2. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: 3.92/5
3. Villette: 3.77/5
4. Wuthering Heights: 3.69/5
5. Shirley: 3.52/5
6. Agnes Grey: 3.51/5
7. The Professor: 3.31/5

The amazing thing is Wuthering Heights, often touted as the best of the lot, comes in at 4th, under both The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Villette (both of them, mind, very under-rated and under-appreciated masterpieces). I suppose it is a testament to Wuthering Height's ability to polarize --- it is an often lauded and loved book, but it is also despised.

Many who bear such animosity to Emily's sole novel may have been forced to read it in school at some point, whereas most who search out Villette or Wildfell Hall do so out of their own curiosity, and are likely 1.) readers and 2.) already interested in 19th century literature.

As a devoted champion of Anne, it did my heart good to see The Tenant of Wildfell Hall finish in a strong second place. I think the book has great power, and is perhaps the most resonant and pertinent today.

This is unbelievable

2008-08-06T16:39:00.002-02:30

I'm sure you're aware of the gruesome and random murder/beheading that happened last week on a bus in Manitoba.

Well, it turns out the Westboro Baptist church (the 'God Hates Fags' folks) will be picketing the victim's funeral.

Here is their announcement.

They've done this kind of thing many times before. I almost tried to explain their warped logic, but do you know what? It can't be explained. These people are hateful lunatics. This should come as no surprise to anyone who's aware of them, but this particular instance really struck me and sickened me.

Good people of Winnipeg, go slash their tires. No, nothing so adolescent. Form a human wall between them and the funeral so they can't be seen. If they raise their voices, sing songs to drown them out. Free speech and the right to protest are important, but this goes beyond that and into the realm of cruel and bizarre harrassment aimed toward people who have just suffered a terrible and senseless loss.

My least favourite kind of eating

2008-07-29T12:22:00.002-02:30

Eating something only because it has been in the fridge for a little too long and will have to be thrown out tomorrow if someone doesn't eat it now.

That is my least favourite kind of eating.

Speak of the devil and he appears

2008-06-25T13:24:00.003-02:30

I just realized, thanks to Google Alerts, that mentioning someone's name online can act as a kind of demonic summoning. That is unless, like myself, they have an already over-burdened name (a famous Irish revolutionary, an Apollo astronaut, a Booker-nominated novelist, and, uh, me).

They may give no sign of their presence, or if they are quite famous they likely visit by proxy (publicist or agent or fan-club president), but the fact remains!

I have a google alert on for Anne Bronte. I may be the only one.

Music is a cultural indicator

2008-06-23T01:26:00.005-02:30

Only last week did I realize that Soundscan statistics for specific cities in Canada are freely available on the internet.

Top albums for the past week in St. John's.

Albums Which Are Significantly More Popular Here

Hey Rosetta: Into Your Lungs
St John's: #1 (last week #1)
Canada: #156
Likely Reason For Discrepancy: Hey Rosetta! are local and beloved by locals who also probably enjoy such as The Arcade Fire.

Neil Diamond: Home Before Dark
St. John's: #5
Canada: #22
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: There is a disproportionate population of people with terrible taste in Newfoundland. Please note, 'Home Before Dark' may mark a stunning artistic zenith for Neil Diamond; I am judging him solely on his better-known Velveeta classics.

Hannah Montanna / Myley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert
St. John's: #6
Canada: #40
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Your guess is as good as mine, internet. I don't notice a disproportionate number of preteen girls running around here.

Barenaked Ladies: Snacktime
St. John's : #7 (last week #5)
Canada: #23
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Again, I am at a loss to theorize this.

Celtic Thunder: Celtic Thunder Show
St. John's: #8
Canada: #135
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Newfoundland is "the most Irish place in the world outside of Ireland;" file this with the Dictionary of Newfoundland English as proof.

Various Artists: Just the Hits 2008
St. John's: #9
Canada: #30
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Commercial radio in this city is excessive in its dedication to only play the most wretched of musical abortions, so compilations of the same are naturally very popular.

Kevin Collins: Just Call My Name
St. John's: #14 (last week #8)
Canada:: (did not chart)
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Another admired local, although a Venn diagram of Kevin Collins and Hey Rosetta! fans would likely have two one-foot diameter circles at opposite ends of a football field.
Bonus Trivia: The website incorrectly names the album "Just Call My Mane." I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Hannah Montanna 2: Meet Miley: CSoundtrack
St. John's: #19
Canada: #43
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Again? There is no excuse for this, St. John's.

Albums Which are Significantly Less Popular Here

The Lost Fingers: Lost in the 80's
St. John's: (did not make Top 20)
Canada: #6
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Huh? The Lost Fingers? Who?

Martin Renee: Heritage L
St. John's: (did not make Top 20)
Canada: #8
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Churchill Falls.

Duffy: Rockferry
St. John's (did not make Top 20)
Canada: #9
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: I can't say for sure, but I think it's a positive thing.

Weezer: The Red Album
St. John's: #11 (last week #2)
Canada: #4
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Newfoundland's Weezer fanbase is apparently much more polarized, or they didn't like the new album much. We've got a lower tolerance for 'ironic' self-aggrandizing, perhaps. A Newfoundlander will take you down a peg.

Madonna: Hard Candy
St. John's: #17
Canada: #7
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Local gay population more canny and discerning, as a whole.

Usher: Here I Stand
St. John's: #18
Canada: #5
Likely Reason for Discrepancy: Solid musical education programs in Newfoundland schools.

Launching a new blog project

2008-06-06T14:56:00.002-02:30

Comical Hell Sin ain't goin' nowhere (in all senses, in that it will continue to exist but lately I don't seem motivated to post very often), but I've a new blog project to unveil. Hopefully, I will update it at least a couple of times a week. My source material is very rich.

I Hate Your Shirt, a blog dedicated to mocking the idiotic and useless dregs of pop-fashion sub-journalism.

The 1st post is up.

Feel free to suggest material for future posts, or to suggest other amusing blogs or blog-like websites for the links section, which is currently somewhat paltry.

The sea of words in tempest

2008-05-25T18:16:00.005-02:30

Maybe I'll win a contest for most pretentious blog entry title.

May 15 was a day I had privately marked out. It was the day to end the vague uncertainty that had overwhelmed me of late, the lack of direction engendering a lack of movement, being pulled in too many directions, no one pull predominating. Get the picture? A stupid way to waste a month, but it happened, and it had to end. May 15.

Why then? It was the day projects funded by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council were to begin. If I received a phone call that day, I reasoned, then my 'Ten Towns' project was a go and my summer would consist primarily of that.

If it did not receive funding, then I would blanket the city of St. John's with resumes and focus on preparing for the fall. (Ordinarily I'd attempt an artistic project regardless of funding, but this project required money for gas and lodging).

May 15 came and I heard nothing. The next morning I printed resumes and spent most of the day with my friend Emily, traipsing around downtown, making circuits in the Avalon Mall. I usually have little patience for religious pamphleteers but now a small part of me knows their sorrow.

May 21. My father called. "There's a letter here from the Arts Council," he said. "Do you want me to open it?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, anticipating a polite rejection notice.

"OK. 'Dear Mr. Collins: We are pleased to inform you . . .'"

Well then. Summer plans radically alter in the time it takes an educated man to read a letter over the phone in a pleasantly lilt-y Sudderin' Avalon accent.

My reaction? Excitement at the opportunity, flattery at the honour, dread at the spectre of failure. Laughter fountaining out of my mouth unbidden even as my stomach squirms like a child in a doctor's waiting room.

My novel stands at 47,000 words. The remainder is plotted out, fairly detailed. Once I start this funded project, it will have to be put aside for some time (not shut away in a cupboard, but it cannot be the focus of my time or my creative energy).

So here is what I have done. I have retreated to Placentia. I have given myself 3 days. I have a living room that is beyond the reach of our wireless internet signal. I have a coffee machine. I have an old phonograph and a series of two dozen vinyl records, each dedicated to a classical composer. (My parents purchased these from Sobey's when I was a precocious pre-literate tyke, in the hopes they would encourage me. I have the same hope now).

I will sit in the living room and spew out as much of my novel as I can over the next 72 hours. It will obviously be a messy birth, requiring a lot of cleanup. But I owe it to the work. I want to do it. The way is set.

After that, I hit the road, spend the Arts Council's money, and hopefully give them a good return on their investment.

Onward!

Portishead's Third

2008-05-10T11:50:00.005-02:30

Critics are like bloodhounds. They follow a scent, and they run in packs. Just peruse the compiled reviews of Portishead's third album, imaginatively titled 'Third', on metacritic.

I'm not saying Third is a bad album, per se, but it has its flaws and it is nowhere near the work of unparalleled genius the Pitchfork et al hivemind spills reams of pretentious prose over.

The problem is, there are more songs on the album than there are good ideas. This might be excused on a 23 track Tori Amos monstrosity, but it is a serious problem when there are only 11 songs on the album.

What good moments there are often are milked excessively, until they've become dry and unappealing. A nifty spaghetti western / spy film guitar riff will surface, or an 8 bar pattern of true acid rock, and then it will repeat 15 times or so before the song moves on to something else. I've always had a quiet appreciation for the classical rule of 3 Repetitions Then GTFO. 4 is more common in popular music and that's OK too. In other songs, things repeat way more often than that, but every 3 or 4 times around some new element will be introduced, or removed, so that the texture is always evolving and the ear is never bored.

Not so Portishead's Third. The jackhammer machine-gun drum in, well, Machine Gun is a thrill the first time, but a headache the 3478238327th time, when finally it starts stretching and morphing (in lieu of an actual musical idea, I suspect) before a little keyboard part chimes in. That keyboard part is so fantastic, but I wonder if I like it just because it's the first new musical idea to enter the song since it started, and it gives my ear something to focus on other than the dump-chick-DUDUDUDUDU, dump-chick-DUDUDUDUDU, like an idiot who keeps pushing refrigerators over a staircase when you're trying to sleep.

I know pot makes you lazy and easily amused, but previous Portishead releases didn't require chemical alteration of neural pathways in order for them to be enjoyed. And yeah, they always played with loops. But what entered their heads this time to create such mindlessly repetitive ones, and then rely on them so heavily?

"Machine Gun" isn't the only instance. Once the dude mumbling in Portuguese has the mic taken from him and the lead track, "Silence," gets started, it is very exhilarating. The drums have more get-up-and-go than the entirety of Dummy, there's bite and kick. But . . . . at the (abrupt) end of the song, what else occurred? On first listen "Silence" bodes so well, but on second and third and forth . . . the novelty of uptempo Portishead has worn thin and the absolute paucity of actual musical ideas becomes apparent.

Not surprisingly, the best songs on Third are the ones that escape this laziness, or this love of 'if it's good once it's good 20 times,' or whatever it is.

"Hunter" is sublime and harkens back to the cold jazz of their self-titled, but with the unexpected bite of raw electric guitars, like fighter jets buzzing a cowboy as he rides his horse across an empty desert on a moonlit night. Definitely recommended.

Similarly, "The Rip" has a lovely momentum, a great flowing energy, and a purely delightful retro-electro bassline that kicks in halfway through the song. It's a definite stand-out.

There are some others, and many other songs contain good parts --- but, over all, I have to say this is Portishead's least cohesive and least impressive album. I don't want a return to wicky-wicky late 90's trip-hop; that's not my problem. On paper, I like the direction they have charted, very much. I just want, well, more out of a top caliber band, when it comes to composition and execution.

I give it a 6.9 /10.

Auto-copulate, Rogers!

2008-05-07T09:48:00.007-02:30

Isn't this the most aggravating piece of candy-coated codswallop you've read for the last little while?

Basically, because we're all Skype-chattin' MMORPG playin' Bittorrentin' Youtube junkies, Rogers and Bell are now going to charge people extra for going over a monthly allowance bandwidth limit.

"I use the service to connect to my office network, and as a professional photographer, my wife is always sending high-quality photo proofs to her clients." Greg continued. "Then, there's my son who's always online with his friends using his webcam, playing online games and maintaining his Facebook profile for all the girls at school."

1.) Who talks like that? 'Greg' does, apparently.

2.) I didn't know Rogers provided internet service to the 1950's. It's all so heteronormative, I think I need a glass of water and a moment to recover.

Anyway. IHU Rogers. Not so much for these changes to their service (I understand, even if I don't like it), but the tone. So stilted. So condescending ("it's 90 percent. Actually no it's 94%, but we know you have trouble counting that high, so we'll say 90").

Also, I find it somewhat disingenuous. "Since you might not know what a GiggleBite is, it's basically (up to) 1000 photos! 240 hours of playing online games is just one 'GB'!"

Yes, and one single photo can also be a gigabyte. Online games? Do they mean Addictinggames.com or World of Warcraft?

Bah.

PS: Also, if you live in Newfoundland, give their cellular service a definite miss. Don't believe their smarmy commercials. I'm locked into a contract with them from back when I lived in Ontario, but I started to have my doubts 5 hours after setting foot back on my native soil. I stood on the highest hill in Corner Brook, that first day home, my cellphone held aloft. A signal could not be found.

This would prove to be a trend.

Basically I had a paperweight with a monthly bill when living in Placentia; they wouldn't freeze my contract until I moved back into a service area, or reduce my payments, or anything. They service St. John's and, as far as I can tell, that's it.

I was in Conception Bay South and a friend called me as we traveled down the road. The signal was poor, and then it dropped and the call was lost.

I was in Kelligrews.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go update my Facebook profile for all the girls at school.

Laws of the Internet, second installment

2008-05-05T16:25:00.009-02:30

You will recall the First Law of the Internet, "The Recursion of Grammatical Criticism," as described by myself a little while back.

The Second Law of the Internet is "Imperfect Inversion of Outrage and Cause."

I will explain.

On the internet, the degree of outrage and what it's directed at is quite different from what you'd encounter in real life.

This idea first came into my head from an imperfect instance: when those US Marines, in search of LULZ, threw a puppy off a cliff in Iraq, and the video surfaced online.

On fora I frequent, the reaction was outrage. This is to be expected. Such wanton cruelty and prideful sadism against a helpless victim is indeed disgusting.

But a contrary voice emerged in this debate: "you know, the US occupation has done a lot worse than this, to actual human beings." And indeed they have. But the strongest outrage came from a relatively minor instance of outrageous behavior: puppy tossing, not torture and/or murder of 80,000 civilians.

Like I said, it's an imperfect instance. Tossing a puppy off a mountain is outrageous any way you play it. The natural human impulse to sanctify little furry things with huge eyes is at work here too (as it is in the seal hunt, which garners much more attention than the continual rape of fish stocks and the desertification of the world's oceans, but that's a whole 'nother entry). Also, you could read it as the proverbial straw snapping the put-upon ungulate's back. Rosa Parks giving up her seat was not, in isolation, absolute heinous, but people seized on it as a representation of a systemic problem.

Yeah, yeah. I grant you all that. Take it. Put it in the Bank of Valid Counterarguments. It'll accrue some decent interest.

But it put the idea in my head. People get upset, offended, or infuriated online for little things, and often it seems the smaller the cause the greater the fury.

Better and purer examples than Cliffpuppy in Iraq abound online. Someone who flips his lid because someone else posted the wrong lyrics to a song, for example.

As I understand it, in the "Classical Universe" generally there's an easily understood relationship between outrage and that which causes it. The more outrageous something is, the angrier people who encounter it will be. Easy. A minor inconvenience will cause a small amount of bluster, or perhaps a burst of vitriol as brief as it is intense. A great injustice will, one hopes, provoke a great outcry of profound anger.

On the internet, this is imperfectly inverted. While some kind of concurrently upward relationship between anger and that which provokes it does attempt to reassert itself, for the most part they're totally flipped.

That which is inconvenient is met with harsh condemnation. That which is not even inconvenient, but merely trivial and irksome, is met with the most venom.

As proof, I suggest one spend an hour perusing the comment sections of youtube videos, or reading a variety of internet fora. Anyone who operates a popular internet site need only glance through their hate-mail. Often, what the hate-mail writers find objectionable is so exceedingly minor as to seem ludicrous (hence the common "hate mail" section maintained by many sites).

Sometimes, it is not even clear what the hatemail writer hates, exactly --- the ultimate paradoxical relationship has been achieved, and maximum outrage has been expressed for minimal cause.

Is there an 'ultimate zero' where liver-searing gall is spewed for absolutely no reason? Scientists are still searching.

In any case, this seems to be a powerful internet imperative. Even those who'd describe themselves as level-headed and sensible sometimes find themselves subject to it, when online.

We all have our shameful instances, the emails or comments or messageboard posts we'd like to take back -- the ones which cause such embarrassment and regret when we view them later, through the eyes of properly socialized non-psychopathic individuals.

But such is the internet.

Reams of previous tedium be damned

2008-04-28T23:58:00.009-02:30

1.) I just noticed, in a post nigh on two months old, that I'd written "hear" where I clearly meant 'hair."

Yeah.

I've made an appointment with a doctor to see if my gigantic mortification can be surgically removed. Really, Michael.

2.) I mentioned Portishead's new album the day that it leaked, and my traffic went through the roof (it is officially released tomorrow!). Colby Cosh linked my entry about his surprisingly non-volatile article "Canada's Worst Mistake: Newfoundland" and traffic was further buoyed.

Sometimes I begin to think of what I can do to further extend my brief period of modest popularity, except that is a thought avenue I don't wish to travel down. It leads to Pandersville!

That said, my latest entries have been some deadly dull, b'ys.

3.) OK so. I have had a bit about my "NOBBLE" in the sidebar ever since last December, when I clicked the 'create blog' button and electricity flowed into circuitry in some secret giant Google compound, all Mary Shelley in miniature style.

Well yes, the side-bar is not a lie. I am writing a long prose piece, something that might be described with the dread n-word (yanno, rhymes with hovel). I hesitate to use it 'cause doin' so seems like a woman in her first trimester bein' all cavalier and chatty about her pregnancy.

But there comes a time when an emerging piece needs an anchor in the actual world; it needs to be talked about as if it exists, to help it attain existence. So would you like to hear about it? OF COURSE YOU WOULD.

I have 40,000 words, but, from the map of the remainder I've created, I estimate I will need at least 30,000 more, and more likely 40-50,000.

It is segmental. There is a narrative within a modern post-industrial post-military Newfoundland town (not an outport!), and then a historical magical realist narrative, based heavily on folklore, fairy stories, ghost stories, etc. The former is on a collision trajectory with the latter. They call and respond. They converge. I hope when they meet it is fantastic and powerful, not cheesy and contrived.

I am not proscriptive with regard to what my novel is trying to 'say.' Perhaps dangerously, that is something I can only ever sense, when I write fiction. I can sense it very strongly, but I cannot say it. Writing, for me, is much like making music without words --- except it is at the same time made of words, which causes a curious recursion.

I think it's there that the hidden connections between things can be felt. I believe it is a writer's duty to perceive these connections and suggest them in writing --- only suggest, because they cannot be told, only shown. That's kind of the point.

Thus far, I've had an instinctive understanding of it, sometimes stumbly and shaky, sometimes absent, but sometimes clean and clear. I'm not keen to mess with my reception by qualifying things and dissecting my antennae.

I can say this about my piece: it is a novel about departure, loss, place, identity. But aren't most novels about those things? Maybe not departure. That's my claim to originality, I suppose. That and my grip on dialect, which is apparently good without being Joseph-from-Wuthering-Heights-esque

Anyway. I do indeed have a map, I should be breezing through the labour of bringing those words into being. Hey, it's not like I have writer's block. The ideas are hot and heavy and sometimes I lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the characters and their situations and the themes and the symbols and everything. It is intoxicating, even!

When I say "I kind of think it'll be really fantastic," I hope you will recognize it for the rare departure of tone that it is. Yes yes, much self-deprecation is actually compliment-solicitation or an attempt to ingratiate by demonstrably assuming a passive conversational position, but actually I am often genuine in my self-depreciation! Thus I am also genuine when I say "fuck dudes this novel is going to be so good, I am so excited."

So answer me this: why the Dickens haven't I been writing like, well, the Dickens? (Charles was famously productive; a "compulsive writer," a professor of mine once called him).

Really, all I need is 3 weeks and nothing much to do in those 3 weeks. I have no job and no immediate financial or social obligations. Yet . . . yet . . . yet . . . the project languishes, most days untouched.

Gah! Hence this giant entry, largely devoid of interest to anyone except myself. If I externalize the problem I may overcome it.

(The pictures are from Cat and Girl. If you don't know Cat and Girl, do yourself a favour and go become familiar.)

oh yes are you feeling me people

2008-04-28T21:49:00.008-02:30

I am feeling hell of bad existentialism lately. Please stop me before I start writing a Nine Inch Nails type song about every day being exactly the same (oh wait that already exists. Point proven!)

I have taken a picture that is entirely unrelated to the above paragraph. It is displayed below. You may view it at your leisure.

I don't know if the rock formation is man-made or naturally arranged like that. Probably it is man-made, but it is fun to not know for certain. I like to envision ancient stonework and cities in places where they most likely were not.

Speculative pre-history. Cocaine, naturally occurring only in the Americas, found in Egyptian mummy wrappings! and such. Yeah maybe the archaeologist decided it'd be fun to do a line of blow off a sarcophagus and when traces of cocaine were found he wouldn't fess up because it'd ruin the university's relationship with the Egyptian government.

But I prefer secret and implausible ancient global trade routes, OK?

I often do this kind of wild thinking at Cape St. Mary's, where I privately entertain the entirely absurd idea of a bronze-age city in ruin.

I was once to the Giant's Causeway in Co. Antrim, and yes, that had those same centres of my brain ablaze with whatever chemicals are associated with whimsical fancy.

Anyway.

As it appeared in Thursday's Telegram

2008-04-20T22:14:00.001-02:30

Oh goodness has it really been 3 days since my last Community Editorial piece?

It would appear so.

Anyway, here it is. My version, not the edited version (I usually don't notice edits but this time around some substantial stylistic changes were made, mostly concerning proper company names and spelling out acronyms, which is understandable).

The Far Greater Bay in Peril

"There's as many islands in Placentia Bay as there are bones in a herring." Anyone familiar with the bay will know the saying, or its non-piscine variant, "days in a year."

As difficult to enumerate as those islands may be, one thing outnumbers them, and will continue to do so by an increasingly drastic quantity. I speak of marine traffic --- ferries, container vessels, cargo ships, but, most worryingly numerous, super tankers bearing oil. How many make their way through this extremely productive ecosystem, gingerly (one hopes) passing hazards a-plenty as they go?

Fisheries and Oceans gives an average of 477 tankers a year between 2002 and 2006. This is set to increase by about 400 for each oil and gas-related project in the bay. The Sierra Club estimates 1500-1600 tankers annually, once all projects are online. That isn't counting container vessels, traffic related to INCO's activities, or ferries (Marine Atlantic's share of the bay's traffic is shamefully minuscule).

That Far Greater Bay, as Mr. Ray Guy has popularized it, is more than an impressive collection of rocks and salt water. It is a hugely productive ecosystem which is not yet fully understood. Recent topography of the bay reveals its seabed is one of amazing complexity and diversity, echoed by the variety of natural life that calls Placentia Bay home. Not only is it still one of the province's richest fishing grounds, it also has an impressive population of bald eagles, featured in National Geographic a few years ago. Also, the bird colony at Cape St. Mary's is nothing short of a natural wonder of the world: an avian metropolis just 30 feet from dramatic sea cliffs.

Such treasures should be guarded. If you had priceless and irreplaceable papers, would you build a match factory next door, then place the fire station 3 hours away?

This is essentially the state of Placentia Bay at the moment. If some mishap puts it in peril, emergency response will originate from St. John's.

If an oil tanker spewing crude is courteous, it will come to distress around Argentia, "merely" 90 minutes away. But Placentia Bay is large. Even in optimal conditions, there are parts of the Bay where it'd take help 4 hours or more to arrive.

I do not object to emergency response teams and equipment in St. John's. That is a busy port itself, one that deals in hazardous material, too. However, I do object to the lack of similar equipment in Placentia Bay.

"Emergency response is in St. John's for a reason," Ray Browne, the Coast Guard's regional director of Maritime Services, said in a recent edition of our local paper, The Charter. Whatever those reasons are remain a mystery. Perhaps he went on to explain, but this was not in the article. Surely, in the critical period directly following a disaster, it'd be better to respond from the bottom, midpoint, or head of the bay --- so it makes sense to have stations at St. Bride's, Argentia, and Arnold's Cove.

But I'm not a marine scientist. Perhaps catastrophe in one of North America's busiest and most vulnerable waterways is better dealt with from 200 kilometres away.

Most alarming, though, was Mr. Browne's argument, as reported by The Charter, that we should trust industrial operators to self-regulate because "they don't want a spill."

That leaves me quite agog. Accidents are never desired. That's why they're accidents. I'm sure Exxon didn't want to lose so much precious oil and damage Alaska's coastline, yet the Valdez still wrecked. To say industry in Placentia Bay will self-regulate because oilspills are costly and bad PR is laissez-faire capitalism at its most disturbing.

Industrial development of Placentia Bay is good, if done right. The bay is home to a rich culture. Most communities, with populations shrinking and aging, are mired in hard times still. Economic development is needed to ensure the culture remains robust. Industry is not the enemy, but it must be tended properly, with the proper tools.

INCO is delayed yet again (11 years, 4 months and counting) because they failed to satisfy the government on the environmental front --- yet The Powers That Be refuse to give the bay the means to protect itself in case of environmental calamity. Surely this incongruity is the worst of both worlds, and it must be remedied.

I am most remorseful about the amaryllis

2008-04-20T15:40:00.001-02:30

So today I have:

1.) Estimated $230 a month to be "about $1300 a year" in a discussion with my father, and did not realize my mistake until he spent a significant amount of time just looking at me funny.

2.) Dropped a bowl of spinach as I took it out of the fridge

3.) Spilled coffee all over the carpet

4.) Murdered my mother's amaryllis plant with the rocking chair. I was rocking in a wanton fashion I guess.

I am going to sit perfectly still in a chair (non-rocking) for a while. Obviously I am not meant to do anything but make a fool of myself today.

Ben Stein hates science and Paul Watson puts the Mental in Environmentalist

2008-04-14T10:52:00.007-02:30

Because Ben Stein is just as qualified to make software as he is to talk about evolutionary biology.

This man is so correct.

Also: The Sea Shepherd Society's vessel 'Farley Mowat' was seized by the RCMP. This is a good thing. I can explain why if you need me to. The following comment from the National Post's website (two NP links in two entries? Hark at me, Armageddon is imminent!!) sums it up quite well, actually:

The harp seal hunt perfectly demonstrates a serious contradiction in animal rights philosophy:

Paul Watson and his ilk call for a smaller human population, while contesting sustainable, managed hunting of a small number of abundant seals (roughly 6 million, 12 seals for every 1 Newfoundlander -M) by local people who live off the land. Perhaps he and other animal rights extremists should be holding out-port Newfoundland and Inuit communities up as an example of sustainable use and of communities living in balance with nature. Local hunters, trappers, fishers, and sealers are the closest thing we have to practicing environmentalists.

Yes, but they don't sneer about it and compare their poor persecuted radical selves to Jews under Hitler's regime (as Paul Watson recently did), you see. What good is being an environmentalist if you don't get to be up on a cross? How else can people know how morally superior you are?

Speaking of self-martyrising, the Sea Shepherd crew who aren't criminally charged have gone on hunger strike. I find that half hilarious, half disrespectful to legitimate uses of hunger strike, and zero percent effective in winning any sympathy for their cause from me.

2008-04-11T13:23:00.005-02:30

A column in the National Post entitled "Canada's Biggest Mistake: Newfoundland" --- surely that'll provoke a Wentean epidemic of terminal apoplexy from our fair isle (not sure what the reaction from the colony's colony, Labrador, would be . . . .)? You can almost hear the Newfoundland Rage Machine priming its pumps and revving its engines.

And here it is, this most dangerous of articles, for you to peruse and ponder. I was almost fearful of clicking the link, lest the delicate balance of my four humours be overwhelmed by a sudden gushing forth of black bile.

But click it I did, and upon reading it I've an astonishing conclusion, d'ya know?

I agree with him. Well, in general, I do (we probably aren't on the same page when it comes to economic policy, but that is only one aspect of his argument).

I think his article is well-presented, informed, and actually largely unbiased. As someone who has very complex and sometimes contradictory feelings about Canada and Newfoundland, I think he captures aspects of the duality that ring true to me.

Read it for yourselves, and let me know. Both Newfoundland-Canadians and Canadians in general.

I think it's refreshing for someone to take on this issue without resorting to ardent if unexamined nationalism, be it Canadian nationalism (stupid welfare bums looking for handouts!) or Newfoundland nationalism (long-suffering noble-hearted victims!).

Balanced. The National Post. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll spend the remainder of the weekend in the bomb shelter. Surely the end must be nigh.

Everyone could use some more Nina Simone in their lives

2008-04-11T13:16:00.001-02:30

Awesome live performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1960.

I love how her piano playing is this great blend of jazz and baroque.

Hoo-Ray!

2008-04-10T12:11:00.004-02:30

If you live in Newfoundland, seek ye out the new issue of The Newfoundland Quarterly. I've a 3 page 'personal essay' in it.

If you don't live in Newfoundland, The Newfoundland Quarterly is a high-quality magazine that concerns itself with Newfoundland history and culture. I believe it is the second-oldest periodical in Canada, turning 107 years old this year.

So I'm just brimming with joy to find myself, in this issue, sharing print real estate with Ray Guy, Berni Stapleton, Anne Budgell, et al. It's extremely flattering.

I tweaked and polished the piece a bit more in the months after its acceptance but before its appearance. This means the version in the NQ has a few little awkward turns of phrase that I've since smoothed. But if you didn't know that you might not see it, kind of like a tiny spot of discoloration on a shirt, so . . . . pretend I said nothing.

(I know, I know, knowledge can't simply be erased . . . . or can it?! Oh wait, no, I was right the first time, it can't).

Select Words and Phrases from Newfoundland English

2008-04-04T00:01:00.013-02:30

Prompted by a livejournal friend, who recently published a similar list of Brooklyn words and phrases. He only makes friends-locked posts, hence no link.

Sometimes I get help with examples from The Dictionary of Newfoundland English which has a lovely searchable online presence. Others are just my explanation!

I only chose words which I would naturally use myself.

NFLD Words & Phrases

landwash: Generally, the shoreline, but more specifically, the area between the high tide and low tide lines. You can see the whole landwash at low tide. I think this is both poetic and accurate! It's my favourite NFLD word (I only realized it was a NFLD word a few years ago).

merry-begot: Another favourite. A merry-begot is, simply put, a bastard. As in, a baby born outside of wedlock. I think it is one of our language's most colourful and poetic words. "Born from fun," is what it says to me. Merry-begot.

sleveen: a sly, untrustworthy fellow. I believe it is from the Irish. "Don't turn your back on him, he's a pure sleveen." Not always that sinister; sometimes it just means a trickster.

streel: an untidy and disorganized person, usually a woman. It applies to both grooming/dress and house-cleaning. The dictionary doesn't reflect this but I've always felt there was a bit of a sexual undertone to this word. "She's an awful streel around the house." A person can also be streelish. I believe these are Irish derivations.

birch broom in the fits: Untidy or unruly hair. A streel's hair may be described as such. "I'm in some state! Me hair is like the birch broom in the fits!"

angishore or hangashore: A lazy good-for-nothing who refuses to work; a weak, sickly person; or an unlucky person deserving pity. Usually male. Angishore is also derived from Irish. It has become hangashore in a lot of regions, leading to the false etymology "someone who hangs back on the shore" — as, in old NFLD, most of a man's work is done out on the water.

rogue: A thief or outlaw, as it is in general English, but also used as a verb for 'to steal.' "I'm gonna rogue this chocolate bar!" "How could he afford that? I s'pose he rogued it." This may not be special to NFLD—anyone want to correct me?

hand: Someone who does an action, originally from hands on a ship (all hands on deck!). This is difficult to explain without examples. "You're some hand to sing" means you are a good singer. "He's a grand hand to dance" means he is a good dancer. Come to think of it, I generally only know it as a positive expression. "I'm a [positive adjective] hand [infintive verb]." "My, he's a wonderful hand to write!"

whore's eggs: "You may know them as sea urchins, ma'am" (a true definition and also the title of a book by Newfoundland's master satirist, Ray Guy). In all honesty, this phrase does not come up very often — but how could I leave it out?

mauzy: Weather that is warm, humid, foggy, with little or no wind. "It's a mauzy day."

dout: "To extinguish a fire; turn off an electric light." Dout the lights when you leave the room.

firk: I only recently learned this was a NFLD word. It basically means to poke or scratch at something. Chickens firk the ground. There is an undertone of searching in it, too. You can firk through your laundry to find your favourite shirt.

pishogue, also pisherogue: Superstitions, folk tales and ghost stories ("old foolishness").

bridge: A verandah, step, or deck, attached to a house. "It was such a nice day, I sat out on the bridge with my book."

Mother-in-Law door: [see picture] Front doors are almost never used in Newfoundland, so when housing plans from the mainland started coming here, many people just never bothered to put steps up to the raised front doors.

poisoned: frustrated with something. "To cause to be annoyed, irritated, disappointed or completely disgusted." I quite like this example, from the dictionary: "There's crowds of people goes to work every day and poisons theirselves so they can live a half-decent life and get something for their families"

crooked: does not mean dishonest, but rather cantankerous or cranky. Crookedness may either a temporary affliction (I'm crooked 'cause I didn't get to go to Town) or a permanent state (Aunt Mary's the crookedest of all the family). "You're some crooked arse" is not a comment about your anatomy; it means you are being difficult and unpleasant.

Town: Since I used it above, I may as well gloss it. When a Newfoundlander says 'town,' there is no question that they mean "St. John's." "She's from Town" is not an ambiguous statement, here. People from Town are called Townies, and they are purported to be right stuck up by Baymen (anyone not from Town).

blasty: A "blasty bough" is a branch of an evergreen that has died; the needles turn red but they stay attached. So if a tree has "gone blasty" it's basically a red evergreen (you see these sometimes). Blasty boughs are extremely flammable and are great for starting a fire, versus green boughs which are reluctant to burn and produce great quantities of choking smoke when they do.

black: A protestant. "Saucy as a black!" is not racial prejudice; it's religious! from the Dictionary: "We [Roman Catholics] might have changed and got broadminded, but they're still as bad as ever they were, the black bastards!"

badness: mischevious intent. "I hid before he came in the room, just for badness!"

ampery: Visibly infected, red and swollen. "The cut was all red and ampery." I grew up saying "amp'ry."

glutch: to swallow quickly and forcefully. From the Dictionary: "If a person has hiccups and wants to get rid of them, he can do so by taking nine glutches of water"

awful: remarkable or exceptional. I almost didn't include it, as the word does have some of this function in general English ("that's awful nice!") but the example in the Dictionary was too good to pass up: She said, 'He sent me an awful present.' I thought 'that's really looking a gift horse in the face' until she said, 'He sent me six hens, and they was three dollars each. My, 'twas some good of him, wasn't it?'

rampse: to wrestle or play-fight. My grandmother would constantly tell me and my brother to stop rampsin', because it made her nervous.

rory-eyed: Furious, in a fit of anger. If we continued to rampse after Nan said to stop, Dad would get rory-eyed.

slob ice: When a body of water is not quite frozen, but there is a layer of slushy half-formed ice on top of it. that slushy half-formed ice is "slob ice."

sin: Anything even mildly unfortunate, unpleasant, or unfair. "You never got to see him when he was visitin'? That's a sin!" Also, "that's a sin for you!" is a common mild admonishment. It is not meant overly literally.

maid: Any woman. My Aunts often call my mother "Betty maid." Another example: "Did many people show up?" "Yes, maid, we had three dozen or more!"

b'y: Contraction of "boy," said like "bye." Used to refer to any man, but is starting to become ungendered now. Import from SE Ireland, I think, because people in Waterford said it in the same way. Almost so ubiquotus (I'se da B'y) that I never included it. It also almost works like the Ontarian "eh?" "Yes b'y!" "Go on, b'y!" "What do you say to that now, b'y?"

Jackatar: A Newfoundlander of mixed French and Mi'kmaq (Micmac) descent. Not always used in a nice way. "There do be plenty of Jackatars out Stephenville way."

Shiela's Brush: Snow storm on or around March 18, the day after St. Patrick's Day. Sheila is purported to be Patrick's wife, sister, or housekeeper.

gommel: A stupid fellow. "You foolish gommel!"

Silver Thaw or Glitter: I'm gonna leave off with another poetic one. A silver thaw is basically after an ice storm, when exposed objects are covered with a coat of ice, or glitter. The dictionary entry for "glitter" also has "glitter storm," which I've never heard before but which I'm now in love with.

Song of the Wind (Lost Ave)

2008-04-01T01:04:00.002-02:30

My friend Lindsay does much of the vocals! I did the rest.

Unfortunately, youtube videos are in mono, not stereo. The stereo effects are pretty neat.

For serious, I am still quite proud of this. It is a good sign of things to come, as I record more songs in the next few weeks.

Also, it is Lindsay's first time ever singing for a recording! She does fantastic! Encourage her!

Use Your Evil

2008-03-30T14:13:00.004-02:30

If you like good music, you should listen to the new Ladytron song, "Black Cat," from their upcoming album Velocifero. You can legally download it for free at Pitchfork.

The synthesizer notes are so good.

I know I have been incommunicado (nb: one of my 50 favourite words) for nigh on 10 days. I was reading poetry at Whiteway! Yes, for the whole time!

Actually, it was just yesterday. But it was a really nice day, both traveling out, reading and listening to others read, and then hanging out with good people late into the night.

I have devised a second Rule of the Internet but haven't even had a chance to sit down and write it.

Newfie VS Newfoundlander VS Newf

2008-03-20T11:11:00.010-02:30

Google Results For 'Newfie': 525,000
Google Results For 'Newfoundlander': 159,000
Google Results For 'Newf': 329,000

Image Results For 'Newfie': 13 Dogs, 6 Newfies Are Stupid and/or Backward, 1 'Other'
Image Results for 'Newfoundlander': 11 Dogs, 9 'Other', 0 Newfies Are Stupid and/or Backward
Image Results for 'Newf': 20 Dogs.

NB: By 'other' I mean an image linked to Newfoundland but not to the qualities of stupidity or backwardness. These may include pictures of the Newfoundland Regiment, Danny Williams, rugged coastal scenery, etc.

Conclusions Based on Image and Web Results: Newfies are both stupid and backward. They wear rubber boots instead of condoms and anything they manufacture will not function properly because of obvious and basic design flaws.

Newfoundlanders are more difficult to sum up, but seem notable for dignity and pride of both place and heritage.

Newfs are dogs.

Since 'Newfie' is so much more prevalent than 'Newfoundlander'—by more than 3 to 1—we must assume the view of us as backwards and intellectually deficient still has a greater cultural currency than the view of us as a culturally distinct people worthy of basic respect.

To quote a man from New Brunswick on a historic tour of London ON, "Newfies are all right as long as they stay in their place." ("I'm from Newfoundland," was all I said. He didn't respond, but later on the tour he suggested I'd never seen a flush toilet before in my life).

Sheesh

2008-03-17T23:58:00.007-02:30

Re-reading my post earlier today, I realized I need to not write blogs in the heat of the moment. The internet is dangerous for people such as myself, who are on the whole extremely pleasant and polite, but who are also given to fits of pique and flashes of intense irritation.

In actual realtime social interaction, I'd just grind my teeth and in 15 minutes I'd be back to my normal "BEING ALIVE IS SO FANTASTIC!" default setting.

Instead, in the same 15 minutes, I can turn to the internet and spew 1000 acid words of rage-filled prose, strewn liberally with curses such as I would not wish my mother or my esteemed betters in the arts and academia to read.

I'm really not a horrible person except when I'm online.

So, I am sorry I cursed at you, CBC. That was uncalled for. I apologize. If it helps, I half blame it on having my anger-pumps primed, today.

And primed they were! Today is a Day of Protest against the CBC's decision to drastically reduce the amount of "classical" music they play on CBC Radio 2 (replacing it instead with such as Diana Krall and Joni Mitchell or, when it is classical, "accessible favourites," as they themselves put it --- Stravinsky knows what that could mean. MOAR MOONLIGHT SONATA, I guess).

So, if you are against such a move, you can register your complaints here (or you know, feel free to complain about anything at all. Well, anything CBC related. I don't think they care to hear about how your cat won't shut up or how you're sick and tired of shoveling snow).

You might want to read up on the issue first. The Inside the CBC blog may be a good spot to start educating yourself.

Back on track: I still firmly dislike the production and presentation style of Radio 3's Top 30, but I've edited the previous post to take a more critical and less vitriolic tone. I'm emotionally attached to CBC, what can I say? We hurt the ones we love. This is what it sounds like when doves cry, and such.

And hey! If you listen to the show again and make it up to #10, my former room-mate's band The Tom Fun Orchestra is featured with a twin spin! It's worth catching. They're like if Tom Waits' rambunctious younger brother joined a roving band of gypsy musicians who decided to do some folk-ska fusion. If your mental image of that is bad, well, try to make it so the combination of disparate influences works quite well in a high energy hopping-around-the-kitchen kind of way.

And if you like what you hear, consider clicking 'contact us' at the bottom of that page and requesting more Tom Fun. My personal hope is they will have a meteroic rise in the charts as a result (the chart being, I believed, largely determined in house and independent of such as sales, which as signifiers of success go, is pretty re a bourgeoisie in any case. Although necessary!)

I have found a new object of ire at CBC

2008-03-17T16:44:00.008-02:30

Oh, CBC. What have you done? What are you doing?I am listening to Radio 3's Top 30 show. It is like CBC's attempt to do an American Top 40. It's CBC's attempt to do Ryan Seacrest. Listen to the show yourself. You tell me. Yes yes, I know, it's almost certainly meant to be ironic. But the vein they are mining is exhausted! Collapse is imminent and still they go on with the kitsch!

It plays all indie music, so that is quite good. I should love this show. But I do not!

Why? Well: the attempts to be funny only irritate me. The host and his producer are smarmy, maybe intentionally so, maybe not. The music that plays when the host is introducing a song is borrowed from Generic Small City's #1 Pop-Rock Bullshit FM.

I have a message to radio DJ's of the world: Stop. Talking. Over. Music. I shouldn't feel like an octogenarian curmudgeon when I say this. I either want to hear your words or the music. Playing two at once means I enjoy neither.

I can only hope they are trying to be ironic. I'm almost sure of it (considering the gutting CBC Radio 2 is getting, the Giant Brains in Jars at CBC Headquarters might actually intend these things to be genuine, rather than parody).

It's sometimes hopefully bizarre (dreamy studio choir: "does this look infected?"), almost getting to the critical mass where I'd say "ahaha! brilliant!", but most of it is no more strange or edgy than Dumb FM, The Tri-City's Hottest Hits! or such.

Come on, guys. That kind of ironic appropriation of Gee Whiz 50's Americana is played out, as of like 10 years ago. Maybe even further back, when Offspring (hardly mavens of cool) had an album interlude consisting of it. It just makes me cringe to hear it being attempted by what should be a bastion of excellent 20-something trendiness.

Oh, fuck. Gross. I should love this. And I do, in a sense. It fills an important role, and most of the music is great. What other national venue is there for this kind of stuff? I'd hate it any kind of criticsm got them the axe. We need such shows, and we need more like them.

But the hosts and the production make my blood pressure spike. I'm actually legitimately kind of angry about this, probably because it could so easily be excellent but it isn't.

Argh argh argh.

I Have No Superfluous Leisure

2008-03-15T14:32:00.005-02:30

Graph of Monthly Mean Temperature in 6 towns in Newfoundland for the year 2006, with Toronto included as a baseline comparison.

Conclusions:

1.) It is significantly warmer in Toronto during March-August, but Toronto-Newfoundland temperatures are comparable during September-February, with both St. John's and Argentia slightly warmer than Toronto in December-January.

2.) There is significantly more regional variation on the island in winter than in summer. July and August temperatures are nearly identical across the island, yet December-February are extremely disparate, with the Southern Avalon's (Argentia's) mean dipping just barely below freezing only one month of the year (February).

3.) In 2006 at least, January was slightly warmer than December.

4.) February and March are the coldest months in Newfoundland in every region.

Winner, Mildest Winter: Argentia, mean above freezing 11 months of the year.
Winner, Best Spring: Gander
Winner, Hottest Summer: TIE, Gander for early summer, St. John's for late summer
Winner, Indian Summer: TIE, Argentia for warmest October, St. John's for warmest November
Winner, Coldest Winer: St. Anthony
Winner, Most Variable Town: Deer Lake, with 2nd coldest winters yet 2nd hottest May-July (actually, hottest July by a fraction).

I used the following towns: St. John's, Argentia (Placentia), Gander, Deer Lake, Port aux Basque, and St. Anthony. I wanted to use Grand Bank and Bonavista, but Grand Bank is under Argentia's aegis (!!) and Bonavista had incomplete data. Similarly, Deer Lake was meant to be Corner Brook but the weather data for Corner Brook comes from Deer Lake.

Dispatch: Invective

2008-03-13T22:05:00.009-02:30

My mind is unquiet. You know what that means. Lots of messy verbal diarrhea all over my blog. Figurative bleach and mop are in the metaphorical hall closet.

Were this another era I'd unbosom in long letters written by candlelight, but you know what, it's not another era and my hand cramps when I compose manually for an extended period (sounds dirty). A sad comment, I'm sure.

Nothing precise is bothering me per se. I think maybe I've just got media poisoning. Not just an overdose, although I do mean it in that sense. There's another layer of meaning to the word, though. Cue the opening sequence, Fred!

Kultural Enrichment Korner for non-Newfoundlanders!

In Newfoundland English, to be 'poisoned' is to be fed up, except there's more of a sense of 'I cannot tolerate [subject] at all'. It's vehement, a "I could spit acid while tearing my hair" kind of thing. Here is how the Dictionary of Newfoundland English defines it: 'peevish, passionate, spiteful.' To cause to be annoyed, irritated, disappointed or completely disgusted.

"Use it in a sentence, please." OK. That Stephen Harper would poison ya'. Bonus vocab: he's got me rotted (angry+disgusted). Wonderfully poetic turns of phrase, no?

We now return to our regular programming.

I dunno. I came home from work and turned on the TV. Much Music has a Spring Break thing on. This is one of my random and totally irrational piques, but I hate Spring Break. Like football, we don't have it in Newfoundland (literally, MUN has a long weekend but no week-long break. And we don't play football at all). Even if we did have it, though, only the rich minority would be able to make a yearly vacation of it. Maybe, then, I resent the seeming wastefulness of it all.

You're not having the proper student experience if you can go to Florida on a yearly basis and drink your face off. If you can do that, you don't have a right to complain about your student loans, OK? Such levels of entitlement are beyond tolerable boundaries. Drink your face off at home or teetotal and go to Florida. Not both. I'm drawing the arbitrary line in the sand.

I'm uncomfortable with the above paragraph. Usually, I don't buy into the whole "filthy lucre!" value structure. There is no inherent virtue in poverty, and I usually have a little giggle at self-professed leftists who have never experienced poverty but who take this position. Really, isn't it quite patronizing and, at its core, rather like racist concepts of the noble savage and all that?

I'm a hypocrite because I also hate signs of conspicuous wealth, such as barn-sized houses in sprawling exurbs (WHY WHY WHY WHY does your family of 3 need 5,000 square feet?!).

Anyway, I hate Spring Break and I hate television shows about it. You train those pre-University teens who make up your core audience, Much Music, you train 'em good.

Those undergrads in various states of intoxication and undress, playing out their sexual peak for MTV's cameras --- there's something off about them, something that keeps my libido well in check (obviously I'm a special case, I guess). I don't think they'd pass a Voigt-Kampff, and it isn't because of their sexual abandon and Hollywood-ready bodies. There's something off-putting about them. Almost unheimlich. I don't know what it is, though. Perhaps the vehement and mandated affirmations of heterosexuality bother me. They always do. I'm including the ubiquitous girls-making-out-with-girls in that, because they're doing it to turn on the guys. It's more of a comment on the total imbalance of sexual power structures than it is a sign of dissolving heterosexual hegemony.

Also: I've never been comfortable with untempered hedonism as a value system, so maybe, for me, looking into their glassy eyes is like looking into the abyss itself. Heed Nietzsche, self, and take care the Spring Breakers don't look back. Existential panic attacks will follow. They're no fun.

Anyway, my breaking point was unexpected. Without warning, Much Music appropriated the Accadian expulsion and re-told it as the Origin of Spring Break. I tell thee true, this is what they did.

I changed the channel, muttering a prayer to some mischievous and amoral deity or other. "Please," I said, "please burn Much Music to the ground, literally and figuratively, for yea, long has it made me spiteful and ashamed."

Channel changer, do your stuff!

Observations Made Whilst Flicking:

Who the fuck watches 'Two and a half Men'? No, seriously, who? If the answer is anything other than "people who have settled on watching it because nothing else even remotely passable is on the 374835 channels they get," then you'd best stop the world, because I'd like to get off.

The 'decorum' in the Canadian House of Commons causes bile to rise to the back of my throat. Seriously. Have you heard how they get on? It's like an incompetently-managed preschool run amuck. These are our representatives. Literally. What sane adult would want to be part of a country that is represented by loud-mouthed schoolboy bullies? The current state of Parliament is the best argument for separation I know.

When will Glenn Beck choke on his own smug self-satisfaction? The man mistakes faux-dramatic ad hominem as actual rhetoric and wisdom. I can say no more than that. If I ever meet anyone who claims to enjoy him, I have promised myself to automatically lose all respect I had previously held for that person.

Unintentional Comedy on Reality Television can only be consumed in moderate doses. You can only watch these dramatically edited and scored spectacles of the absurd so often. Two dozen hyper-obese Americans on gigantic see-saws (The Biggest Loser) teetering to suspenseful strings and echoy-y drums starts off hilarious, but the funny eventually melts into an icky mush of general malaise and depression. Also, there are unpredictable sparks of rage at High Fructose Corn Syrup and the like.

When you import UK shows don't ruin them, Powers That Be. Currently, one of my late-night pleasures is How Clean is Your House, hosted by Kim and Aggie, two English matrons who posses unforced charm in spades. Not only is the show genuinely useful with its cleaning tips, not only is it good for one's self-esteem ("FWOAR, I'm untidy but I'm not as bad as THAT missus!"), but the hosts are pure High Camp, too. I bet the show will be a victim of its own success, though, and will shortly be ruined by a tampered-with North American version. Cue Network Executive Robot from Futurama. "IT'S FUN-NY BUT WILL IT GET THEM OFF THEIR TRAC-TORS?"

Didn't they used to also do men on What Not to Wear? I am sure they did. I liked those times, as I am a man and have a limited use for women's clothes-tips. I used to love this show. And bucking the trend mentioned above, it is one of the few Americanized UK shows where our version is better than the Brit one. Seriously. I saw my share of UK What Not to Wear when living in Ireland, and it is Mean and Not Fun. But they don't catch my interest anymore. Episodes have become too same-y.

If I see one more show with the premise 'Gay Guys Have A Style Gene, You Big Silly' I will rupture my rage glands. I don't necessarily mean style shows with an effete host --- I mean Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and its off-spring (yes, it spawned). I am addressing you shows directly when I say this: you are responsible for the concept of the "fag bangle" (if you don't know the phrase just ask, I'll gloss it). You are to gay people what minstrel shows are to black people. I am not exaggerating my point. I am dead serious. Stop. It. Now.

So, this pass-through done, cue 45 minutes of flicking the channels this way and that. Nothing to hold my interest. Seriously. I am not difficult to please, despite how this blog entry might suggest the contrary.

I think it's happened. It's finally happened. I feel totally unrepresented in the current popular media landscape. Where am I in this putrid sea? Island havens like PBS and CBC offer refuge no longer. I am adrift, alone! No wonder TV makes me feel depressed, lately!

Example: The Week the Women Went. Really. Really. Don't tell a bachelor of 7 years that a man needs a woman to do his laundry and make him a sandwich and deal with the kids. My mother, who was a full-time home-maker for goodness sake, was often gone for more than a week at a time (family reasons), and Dad, a full-time pharmacist, did quite well in her absence. Take your exercise in gender-role strengthen and shove it, CBC.

Now now. It's not all that bad. Didn't you recently discover that This Hour Has 22 Minutes has had an unexpected but extremely welcome renaissance? Why, yes, and you can stop referring to yourself in the second person now. This Hour is actually really awesome, and I had no idea it'd pulled out of the gradual decline of 4-5 years ago. The things you miss when you live in Ireland and then eschew a television during grad school. Indeed.

Also Corner Gas is actually a really fantastic show and I'm glad it's doing OK. It's one of the few shows I feel the urge to quote. "Your sentences are like quilts." Haha! Yes, they are.

What else is in production now that I actively enjoy or that, better yet, engage me?

Hmm.

Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmm.

OK, fuck it. After that survey of the vast wasteland, is it any wonder television is losing people to The Internet? It's just like the music industry. Major Labels serve up platter after platter of stale flavourless shit, and then blame the internet when profits nosedive.

No. The race to the bottom has finally hit a snag. Depending on how you view the Internet, you could say the bottom has been reached ahead-of-schedule ('the bottom' being pure unfiltered human condition, which the internet largely is: read most Youtube comments).

Conversely, you could say those who'd rather a bit of refinement can easily find it online. Before I wrote this, I spent an hour browsing The New Yorker's online archive; The History Channel wouldn't even throw a dog a reductive & simplistic bone such as "Viking Voyages!" or "Mayans Uncovered!" or something.

See, television, do you get it now? To misquote Paula Abdul, "what have you done for me lately?"

Sarah Slean's new Album

2008-03-11T19:50:00.005-02:30

So, Sarah Slean's new album, The Baroness, is available.

It feels like Night Bugs and Day One never happened. I expected her to build on those, further explore her fiercely idiosyncratic style.

Instead, this feels like the follow-up to Blue Parade, an album which I appreciate but cannot say I love. I thought she'd found her voice with her last two proper albums. I thought she'd broken free of the mold.

From the unreleased songs I heard live during the Day One tour, from the dark artwork and grandiose title, I expected something less . . . dull and conventional. I never expected something so disappointingly Sarah McLaughlin-y.

Don't misunderstand me. There are some quality tunes on this release. But for the most part, there's a paucity of verve, a quality I think Sarah usually displays in spades. Most of this album is safe and unremarkable.

Where's the drama? Where's the bravado? Where are the anthems, the calls to arm? Rage, my darlings, rage . . . . right, Sarah, you sang it with all your heart and I believed it, but where's the raging here?

For some reason I'm inclined to blame the producer. This album is terribly, blandly, safely produced.

Sarah honey, please run back to Hawksley Workman if that's the case. Make some wonderful songs together.

Or strike out totally on your own and bring back the cabaret, bring back the whimsy. Be quirky and brave and dramatic again. We need more people like that, and fewer safe little girls singing safe little songs.

Portishead: Third: Leaked

2008-03-08T17:19:00.002-03:30

So the news of the day is, the new Portishead album leaked, I think 50 days before its official release.

This is as good a review as can be expected at such an early stage. I think I like everything she says except her tacit assumption that Dummy >>> Self-titled. I think Dummy shows its age sometimes, whereas Portishead is a lot more timeless: it's subtle, chillier, and darker, which are obviously the qualities you're looking for when you pop on a Portishead album.

Anyway, I heard a 5 minute compilation clip on youtube and it sounds massive. I'm not going to listen to any more before the release date, I don't think. I sort of want to make a production out of this album. Discovering Portishead way back in 1997 marked the start of so many things in musical life and also my personal life. I feel I kind of have to treat this as more than just any old record release.

Geography again

2008-03-06T20:57:00.010-03:30

Just some musing.

It always bothers me a bit to see maps of Canada, because Newfoundland is skewed to the north as if it were a sub-arctic island. In actual fact, the 49th parallel passes north of Gander, and St. John's is significantly further south than such places as Vancouver and Victoria.

This is because there is such a great east-west distance that needs to be squeezed onto a TV screen or a printed page. Sitting in St. John's, I'm slightly closer to Rome than I am to Victoria BC. Winnipeg and Dublin are equally remote.

Plus, it's easy to minimize the opposite end of a country this large (or both ends, if you're in the middle). Yi-fu Tuan talked about this; people tend to over-size their home regions and shrink the more remote ones.

Let me illustrate. I have friends from Central and Western Canada who say "Oh, I'm going to be in Halifax for a few days, come visit me!," thinking East Coast = small, no problem. They seem unaware that, as the crow flies, Halifax is 900 km away from St. John's. Driving, it's at least 1,000 km, but during most of the year it can only be a 1,500+ km journey, no less. Many of those kilometres are ocean too, which require expensive plane tickets or expensive boat rides.

We in the East and Central Canada talk about "the west" in the same kind of way, too.

Tangent: Did you know the Avalon Peninsula (that H-shaped part on the east of the island), with its 248,418 people, is roughly the size of Cape Breton but has a population density of 26.9 people per square kilometre, which is higher than Cape Breton (14.3), Vancouver Island (22.9), and Prince Edward Island (23.9), Canada's most densely-populated province? See for yourself.

Fight cultural-geographical preconceptions!

Thanks, Pete!

2008-03-06T12:11:00.003-03:30

The Top 10 Out-of-Place Artifacts.

I love stuff like this. I don't like how it is sometimes bent to serve political purposes like creationism. I just think it's nifty to realize there are some things we don't know about our own past. Really, it's only the last 300-odd years we can be sure of in the Western world. The number obviously varies depending on where you go, the state of record keeping, science, and technology changing as it does in different places.

I do think the list seems sort of inverted, though. #1 and #2 were kind of weak (well I mean the Baghdad battery is not weak in concept but I believe it has been largely discounted since . . .?), but some of the others higher up in the list got my think-glands pumping intrigue juice into my serry-bellum.

Oh also

2008-02-28T17:23:00.001-03:30

There is a forum for Canada Reads on CBC's website. I posted a few times, hooray!

Heck. Canada Reads update, why not.

2008-02-28T14:24:00.007-03:30

Mavis Gallant's From the Fifteenth District was the very first book eliminated from Canada Reads by the panel of judges. Brown Girl in the Ring is also gone. I loved how one guy --- their voices sound so alike, can't figure out who! --- said "but someone in Medicine Hat won't relate to [Brown Girl]!" and Jian Ghomeshi was quick to interject "but someone from St. John's did!"

Damn right, we need to get over the idea that everything outside of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver is some sad rural expanse peopled by simple white folks easily threatened by cultural expressions that differ from their own experiences. It's a lieeeee.

King Leary should have been gone ages ago. How friggin' typical it'll be if a hockey book wins Canada Reads. Boo to that. Hearty boo!

Zaib Shaikh, the guy championing Not Wanted on the Voyage, said he was offended by "The Moslem Wife" (a story in From the Fifteenth District) because he is a Muslim and it was called The Muslem Wife. I guess only Muslims can use the word Muslim. I don't get it. That sounds silly.

Anyway, he cast the deciding vote to give Mavis the boot so I am cross with him. Maybe I am being too unfair because of that.

Lisa Moore did an excellent job defending Mavis while she could. I like to flatter myself and think some of the words and phrases I used on regional radio Friday of last week were echoed in the ones she used on national radio Monday of this week. But it could just be that we agree about the book (and I think we do). I'm sure my piddling little thoughts were far from revelatory.

Anyway, even though I am currently displeased by its champion, my definite favourite to win is now Findley without question. Not Wanted is Canada's Paradise Lost. It's worthy of Rushdie! I am not overselling it. From the Fifteenth District is the best-written book on the list, but Not Wanted on the Voyage is probably the most ambitious and most important. Reeead iiiiit.

In The Night - Basia Bulat

2008-02-25T23:39:00.003-03:30

It is so difficult not to crow over the fact that I am friends with a burgeoning indie star, especially when she deserves to be burgeoning. But you know, even if I couldn't pick Basia Bulat out of a lineup, I'd still think this song was WAY FUN. It puts a smile on your face and creeps back into your brain at the most unexpected of times (eg: while throwing curling rocks this past Sunday, I was singing "Oh, in the night! Oh, in the night! Oh, in the night, I will hide away my fortunate son!")

It's catchy! Unfortunately, it is not on the Canadian version of the album. But there are plenty of other good songs that are. So, you know. Go buy it.

Fiddling While Placentia Burns

2008-02-25T23:05:00.004-03:30

What follows is the Community Editorial I wrote for the Telegram last week. My local newspaper, The Charter, picked it up today. A lot of local people have stopped me to say I did a good job with it. I just think it's something that needs to be said. INCO will be nice when it comes, and it'll help some, but we need to start looking elsewhere.

Fiddling While Placentia Burns

It’s 1991. No one’s heard of Voisey’s Bay and Placentia is the largest town on the Avalon outside the St. John’s CMA. With 5,515 people, it outranks Bay Roberts and Carbonear (also Clarenville). It has several department stores, numerous small businesses, two super-markets, and 6 schools.

16 years later and 1,617 people fewer, there is nowhere to buy a pair of socks. In the ’96 census, Placentia was the second-fastest shrinking town in all of Canada (it’s too small to qualify, since).

Have Stavanger and Kelsey acted as gigantic vacuum cleaners, sucking commerce and citizens away from satellite towns? Carbonear, roughly equidistant to St. John's, has declined only slightly, and Bay Roberts, closer than Placentia, has prospered. They, Placentia’s former peers, have no mega-project to sustain them.

How and why is it, then, that the 3,898 souls who still call ancient and upstanding Placentia home need drive to St. John's or CBN to satisfy most needs? Teens (accompanied by a licensed driver, of course) must now spend 180 minutes in transit to take their driving tests in Carbonear, for instance.

Even Marine Atlantic doesn’t make much difference, with their few Argentia runs in the summer (despite our being ice-free year-round and within 90 minutes of half the province’s population). Port-aux-Basque’s Tim Horton’s is a madhouse after a ferry unloads. Placentia’s is not, because it does not exist. Passengers disembarking here must drive at least 90 km north for their fix.

The bottom fell out of Placentia in the early 90’s. In addition to the moratorium, the Americans pulled out of Argentia and ERCO left Long Harbour. Considering this triple whammy, Placentia has done well. But we’ve been chasing a carrot on a stick since then, and it’s not good for our health.

I sing of the storied smelter, of course. I was in Grade 7 when it was joyously announced. I was 25 last week, and the first sod is unturned. I’ll be 28 when it starts production, barring any further delays. But of course, it won’t be in Placentia, anymore.

It will be in Long Harbour. The media and politicians are still doggedly galloping after that same dangling carrot, though. Surely, once caught, it will restore Placentia to health and glory!

I fear such assumptions and the confidence that results. Observe: Two weeks ago, INCO closed the only large employer left in Placentia, taking 130 jobs the incredible shrinking community can ill-afford to lose. Andy Wells was nudged from the trough on the same day. The latter is top story for the province.

The 130 will be back, you say? Well, no. It’s dangerous to assume workers and satellite businesses will locate in Placentia when the grand day comes. Such was the case with ERCO, yes. However, that was 20-30 years ago, and Placentia was then a very different town.

Whitbourne and Blaketown are as close to Long Harbour, and from there the journeys to buy a t-shirt or renew a driver’s license are much less arduous. Why should smelter workers and businesses come to the Placentia of 2012, instead?

Don’t worry, you say. Reports of industrial traffic in Placentia Bay abound. But activity is largely based on the Isthmus. Come By Chance is 88 kilometres from Placentia, and Clarenville feels the benefit, not the town that gives the bay its name.

The window of opportunity to save what was one of Newfoundland’s strongest and most active mid-sized towns is rapidly closing. We need reinvestment from the government (see: trips to Carbonear for a license). We need diverse new businesses and industries in Argentia plus a new anchor tenant. Why not chase the plant that burned in Holyrood, which must now relocate?

Argentia is the best harbour on the Avalon and there’s plenty of waiting infrastructure. There’s no reason it should languish.

If we think a smelter in Long Harbour by 2011 will stop our descent, let alone raise us to former heights, we are fiddling while Placentia burns.

Nerves Killed the Radio Star

2008-02-22T14:47:00.006-03:30

I was just on Radio Noon!

Except I was way too nervous. I sort of cut off Lisa Moore (I did not intend to be rude, I bit my tongue as penance) and I left a lot of things I wanted to say unsaid. I need to learn deep breathing techniques or similar.

Also, Ramona called me "a writer" which made me blush and stammer, what with Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey and such in earshot. But then, "aspiring writer" sounds like someone who is just playing at it, right? And I am trying my very darndest to do more than play at it.

Mom says I did a very nice job, but Moms will say that sort of thing.

I don't think I even said which book I ultimately would have voted for. I really actually don't think they can be compared in that way. The purpose of Canada Reads is to pick a book the whole country should read. Mavis Gallant is probably too subtle for some people, and Timothy Findley is probably too strident for others.

Personally, I would have to stay loyal to "Not Wanted on the Voyage," because it plays such a pivotal and vital role in my own history as a reader. From a more objective point of view, I might give it to "From the Fifteenth District" by a hair, because it is more open, more universal, and better written (not saying Findley's is poorly written, but Gallant is comparable to, oh I don't know, Alice Munro maybe. That is to say, very few people in the world could write better).

I wish I had mentioned Lucy. She/He is the best part of "Not Wanted . . ." for me, and she/he didn't come up even once. Ah well!

A piece in the Telegram

2008-02-21T10:58:00.004-03:30

So I've an editorial piece in The Telegram today (it's not available online, I'll post it tomorrow). It's basically bemoaning Placentia's lot and saying that the monomaniacal focus on Inco has been unhealthy for the town (I think census figures and the decline in local businesses bears this out).

It figures --- it just figures --- that the day after I submitted my piece but the day before it appeared, the Federal Government would announce a shiny new Arts Centre to be built smack dab in the centre of town.

The main points of my editorial are still valid, I think, but there's something on my face and I think it might be a bit of egg. Whoops.

This Arts Centre is excellent, excellent news. Local artists deserve it, and maybe it'll help rebuild our tourism profile (although the marketer in me still finds it intriguing how Placentia is trying to brand itself as both a scenic cultural mecca and an industrial powerhouse, with basically a hill separating the two. It might work, it'll be great if it does, but it's surely a challenge).

Remember how I recently said "God is powered by irony"? Yeah, well, this isn't quite ironic, but I'm of the same opinion still.

I have no superfluous leisure

2008-02-20T15:52:00.008-03:30

So my sorta unscientific methods (hey, I'm a bored word nerd playing with a science nerd's toys) show that the centre of Canada, as determined by its population, is roughly on the eastern outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie.

Yes, Sault Ste. Marie!

My method:

1.) I took Toronto, as the largest metropolitan area by a significant margin (about 40% larger than Montreal), as my starting point.

2.) I calculated the sum population of all Canadian metropolitan areas with populations over 100,000 (there were 35 of these in the 2006 census). 20,688,147 people (roughly 68% of the country) live in these 35 largest metro areas.

3.) I calculated the percentage each metro area comprised of the whole. Don't worry, I used an Excel spreadsheet (I'm nuts but I'm not THAT nuts).

4.) I measured the distance from the centre (city#1) to city #2 (Montreal) and multiplied that by city #2's percentage of the whole (see step #3). Then I moved the centre toward city #2 by that resulting distance.

5.) From this new centre, I repeated step #4, and so on, moving the centre each time. This way, the amount of 'pull' a city exerted depended on both its size and how peripheral it was. So, Victoria BC (#15) and St. John's NL (#20) moved the centre toward them by about 47 km and 21 km, respectively, while London (#10) and Kitchener (#11) both only moved it about 10 km, since they were already relatively close by.

You can see, by the end, that there wasn't much making a difference --- although peripheral cities can still exert a pull. #35, the final and smallest metro area I counted, was the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, and its 105,928 people pulled the centre 9.5 km in their direction.

This was my afternoon, people.

Wind gusting to 100 km/h

2008-02-19T11:45:00.008-03:30

(Point Verde Beach, January 2008)

The wind was so loud last night, it kept me awake. At 6:30 am I sought refuge in my brother's room, on the sheltered side of the house. There, I was finally able to drift off to sleep. 2.5 hours later I had to wake up to go to work.

Now, here at work, I honestly am a little afraid the roof is going to come off the building. Things rattle when the wind blasts.

We've had stronger wind before, even as recently as last week, when gusts were 110 km/h. And wind is something I should be used to dealing with. Environment Canada says:

Newfoundland as a whole has the strongest winds of any province, with most stations recording average annual wind speeds greater than 20 km/h [. . . .] Newfoundland has a deserved reputation as one of the stormiest parts of the continent. It also has some of the most variable weather anywhere. At all times of the year Newfoundland is near one of the principal storm tracks

But I am a little spooked right now, and usually I love wind (it's invigorating!)

Laws of the Internet

2008-02-15T10:14:00.004-03:30

I don't mean legal laws which can be disobeyed. I mean natural laws, like gravity or inertia or whatever those wacky physicists believe in now-a-days.

These Laws of the Internet are based on my observations!

This will probably be a series which I'll revisit and add to as new Laws occur to me.

Recursion of Grammatical Criticism: Any criticism of grammar posted on the internet will itself contain grammatical errors, whether by ignorance, carelessness, or typographical misfortune.

Possible addendum: If no recursive error is readily apparent, the Internet may manifest an 'Ubergrammarian.' The Ubergrammarian will invoke an obscure grammatical rule or, in a pinch, refer to one of the many grey areas of language where no mere mortal can be fully sure of what is truly right and what merely sounds right. After doing so, the Ubergramamrian will disappear. Science has yet to determine whether he or she dissolves into constituent molecules or returns to a secret Ubergrammarian habitat / breeding grounds.

Telegram from a post-industrial town

2008-02-13T15:40:00.009-03:30

INCO is pulling out of Placentia (Argentia) in June.

This comes as no surprise, but it's really got me down in the dumps. That's 130 jobs gone from a town that cannot even begin to afford such a loss of employment. Heck, we were hemorrhaging people and businesses even with those jobs here --- without them, god knows what the next few years might hold.

In 1991, Placentia was the largest town on the Avalon outside of the capital region --- bigger than Bay Roberts, Carbonear, or, if you want to count it, Clarenville.

By 2006 it had shrunk by 30%. The 2006 census figure for Placentia: 3,898. A pretty ugly number to people who remember the 70's and 80's, when there were perhaps twice as many people here. When I was a child, even as the decline was underway, there were 3 department stores. Today, there are 0. The number of small specialty shops is also greatly diminished. Even when there is a perfectly good local business people should support, it seems most residents are more willing to spend $40 in gas to go to St. John's or Carbonear/Bay Roberts to shop.

Salvation was always dangled before us in the shape of a substantial INCO nickel smelter, first promised the town 11 years ago. Now, it's supposed to go to nearby Long Harbour (41 km from Placentia's town square), except the first sod hasn't even been turned on the site. By the time production begins in 2011 (barring any more delays) it will have been 15 years living on a promise.

And since promises are very meagre food, is it any wonder Placentia has wasted away to nothing?

Of course, since now there's no store here where you can buy so simple an item as a pair of socks, why should anyone working in Long Harbour after 2011 choose to locate in Placentia (this is assuming the town does not decline even further during the upcoming lean years)? It's the same distance from New Harbour (44 km). Whitbourne (34 km) and Blaketown (33 km) are closer. Many young professionals (pharmacists, teachers, etc) who work in Placentia already live in these areas and commute here each day. Why will smelter workers be different?

The only chance to stop the bleeding, let alone turn the situation around (that almost seems too much to be hoped), is for several new industries and businesses to be attracted to the area. Argentia is the best harbour on the Avalon: large, naturally deep water, and ice-free year round to boot. It is within 90 minutes of 50% of the population of the province. It has substantial infrastructure from previous tenants (US military, most notably) waiting to be exploited. It shouldn't be hard to do.

The whole situation is very, very bleak. But apparently the big news of the day is St. john's mayor Andy Wells being shoved aside from the trough. Right as the action is, I find it hard to see how it's worse than yet another blow to what used to be one of the province's main towns.

I am feeling very morose about the whole thing.

Do you enjoy literature?

2008-02-09T20:47:00.000-03:30

I'm pleased to announce that The Painters of Modern Life, a collaborative project between myself and my friends Natalie and Dave, has officially launched. Basically, in a nutshell, it's about 19th century literature.

The first entry is me rambling about HG Wells and The Time Machine. But on top of that is Natalie's introductory post (actually the 2nd post, a little quirk that delights me), which explains our aims and our premise quite well.

Go! Read!

God is powered by irony

2008-02-08T20:14:00.001-03:30

James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA: “[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospects for Africa . . . all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.”

James Watson's DNA: "I'm 16% African!"

According to the article, most Europeans, by comparison, trace about 1% of their descent (one assumes recent descent) from Africa.

If there is a God, surely he/she/it is powered not by worship, but by irony.

Test your Newfoundland English

2008-02-07T09:59:00.001-03:30

What the title says. <--- That's a link to a short quiz of 10 Newfoundland English words and expressions, most of them used in context, with multiple choice responses as to what they mean. I got 9/10. I'm glad the quiz lets people know 'hangashore' is a variant of 'angishore,' which comes from the Irish. So 'hangashore' does NOT mean 'someone who hangs back on the shore' --- false etymology! Although you'll find many an angishore will indeed stay back on the shore. ;) It's a bit problematic though, 'cause there's no single pan-Newfoundland English spoken from Port-aux-Basque to St. Anthony to St. John's (I didn't include Labrador because Labradorians and Newfoundlanders have different-though-related cultures and I actually don't know what form of English born-and-raised Labradorians speak. Something for me to find out). Like, I grew up thinking 'firk' was a perfectly acceptable if obscure word, meaning to dig or scratch at something, sometimes searching (i.e. a hen firks at the ground, give the fire a firk, I'm firking through my laundry). I only learned it was a Newfoundland word when my spell-checker put a little disapproving red line underneath it some months ago. But it's not just a Newfoundland word. Turns out I get 'firk' from my Bonavista Bay mother; no one originally from the Avalon seems to know it. Similarly, I use words that people from Central don't seem to know.

This regional variation makes Newfoundland English very vibrant and diverse, but also makes it much harder to preserve. Say we wanted to teach NFLD English in school. Should it be NFLD English as spoken in Bonavista? Burin? Carbonear? Codroy? Twillingate? Trepassey? Rodickton? Ramea?

Everything all smushed together all at once might be a bit daunting. "Open up your Dictionary of Newfoundland English to a random page, children, and memorize those words." Well, it might work.

Topophilia

2008-02-06T18:44:00.000-03:30

Actually no this is not topophilia as Yi-fu Tuan explains it (and I agree with much of what he says). I guess it's just random quirks of intrigue. Topovoyeurism?

Anyway, today I got all fascinated with the Faroe Islands. Blame Google Earth if you must. I usually am attracted to the more obscure corners of the world (especially, it seems, colder oceanic corners . . . Ecuador < Ulan Baator < Falklands, for example). It doesn't matter that I've never been to these places. Actually, scratch that, it might matter, in that if I ever did go to the Falklands I might spend two days going 'AWESOME! FALKLANDS!,' clambering over rocks and standing on windswept headlands, and then promptly lose my sense of fascination with the place.

It's funny because I'm such a city dweller at heart. Actually no, wrong again. I am a nature lover at heart, but my brain is fiercely urban (reason #2873 why I love E M Forster, he seems to be pulled in both directions too). I love my rural Newfoundland home, but I am coming to realize that the only kind of small town I could ever permanently settle in would be a University town. Universities have certain similarities no matter where you go in the world. I have seen people turn up their noses at applying to the University of Alberta because they think Alberta is red-neck country, but a University is a world apart and there will be liberal intellectuals predominating in every single Arts faculty. I promise. That much of the Ivory Tower theory is true, and it's a comforting thing for hot house plants like myself, who prefer that kind of atmosphere. We have just as much right to comfort and a sense of belonging as anyone else.

Anyway, I sort of got off track. I like remote islands, especially if they're mountainous and none-too-warm. How often do you think about the Faroe Islands? Go ahead and think about them for a bit. Do you know what Faroese sounds like? I don't. They're right smack at the centre of Scotland, Norway, and Iceland. And they are GORGEOUS.

Almost 50,000 people live there. The capital city has a population of 18,000. I wonder if they have a Starbucks? I can't decide if I want them to or not. In either case, I want to visit, even if by going there the fascination is destroyed. Like by enjoying (eating) cake, you also destroy it. It's a strange thing.

Sealing

2008-02-05T17:43:00.001-03:30

The EU is considering banning Canadian seal products. Before they make a decision they are asking for people to voice their opinions and concerns.

This is the survey they have posted.

Please keep the following facts in mind:

- There are approximately 6 million seals off the waters of Newfoundland. That is approximately 12 seals for every 1 human being. They are in no way endangered (unlike many near-exhausted fish species which we SHOULD be up in arms to protect . . . too bad fish aren't cute). In fact, there has been a 3-fold increase in population since the 1970's.

- It has been illegal to kill baby whitecoats since the 1980's. The use of whitecoats in anti-sealing advertisements is disingenuous.

- Time and again, independent observers have maintained that the overwhelming majority of sealing activity is as humane as possible, with unfortunate abuses and cruelty being isolated incidents. What happens on the ice is no more inhumane than what happens in an abattoir.

- Seals are not just killed for their fur. People eat seal meat. Which is free-range and completely organic, of course.

- Sealing is an important aspect of native culture, as well as of Newfoundland culture.

- Sealing occurs in some of the poorest districts in Canada, where rates of unemployment are usually in excess of 20%. Sealing provides as much as 1/3 of some families' annual income, which is very significant when that income is already well below the Canadian average.

- Sealing is dangerous. People don't do it because it's fun.

I hate how this issue is such a cash cow for dubious groups like PETA and Sea Shepherd, and how people are so easily manipulated by emotive reasoning. It is not an environmental issue, and as an animal rights issue it falls way down the list in terms of urgency or severity. Australians kill many kangaroos. Belgians (who have already banned seal products) kill millions of marmots Seals keep people warm (are petroleum-derived synthetics really BETTER for the environment?), fed, and above the poverty line.

Also

2008-02-03T23:11:00.001-03:30

I should mention updates to my links sections on the right-hand column when I make them. That seems like best practice, no? I added a whack a week or two ago without saying boo about it. I feel sort of bad about that.

- The Prelinger Phile. If social engineering media from the mid-20th century interests you, well hey. That's what it's all about. Heavy petting spreads germs and communism.

The world at night; also, I am undisciplined

2008-02-03T22:55:00.000-03:30

The World At Night

I love maps. I love maps of the world. But the world at night has always held a special fascination for me, ever since one night when I was very young. I woke, and something got me out of my bed and looking out my window. I saw the horizon glowing, and I was afraid. I went to my parents and they explained it was just light from the nearby town.

On reflection that might not have anything to do with anything. But I know I love a window seat on a plane, I love it more on a clear day when I can see the world below, and I love it best on a clear night, especially flying home. I can see the lights of all the outports and fishing villages, the moon and the lights of the plane reflected in the water . . . .

I love how Russia looks like it's crisscrossed by veins of light. I love how The Nile is a pure white squiggle. I love how parts of the United States almost look like a perfect grid of white dots. I love looking at Ireland and England and remembering the many nights I spent there, in Waterford or Dublin or London or Leeds. I especially remember long bus rides or train rides, crossing the Lake District or meandering my way through Munster. Everything was full of interest; even sitting in my seat and staring out the window, I felt absolutely full of life.

Also, looking at Atlantic Canada, and especially at Newfoundland, you can really clearly see what a coastal society it is.

In entirely unrelated news, I have done almost no work this week. I'm collaborating on a new book-blog with some friends; I said I'd write the first entry on Friday and here it is Sunday and I've got nuthin'. Not for want of time or want of ideas. Just want of discipline. I give myself a D-. MUST DO BETTER, SELF.

Marginalia

2008-01-30T18:35:00.000-03:30

It was 11 degrees Celsius in the shade on the north side of my house at 1 pm today. Just two or three days ago, it was -13. These are the warmest and coldest winter days I've ever felt in Newfoundland.

I was on the radio today! It was a surprise. It also happened at 1 pm or thereabouts. I am getting a book from CBC's Radio Noon, as part of Canada Reads! I am already pulling for Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage to win, but I've read none of the others, so I requested a copy of Thomas Wharton's Icefields, mostly because it is described as historical fiction.

I'm not sure if I get to go into the studio to talk about it, as I did with Bernice Morgan's elegiac masterpiece Cloud of Bone, or if I can just call in. I didn't hear that part. Mostly because my family and I were too busy talking about how surprising it was to hear my own voice on the radio.

Incidentally, I know everyone's voice sounds pinched and nasal when they hear it played back to them, but boy did that strike me today.

If you have a livejournal account and would like to read the first 30k of the first draft of my long prose-ish piece (my "nobble" as I call it), check out the current entry on my liv ejournal for instructions. I think I need some feedback. I am hitting a barrier. I feel like I've done the emotional and philosophical equivalent of jumping into a raging river and trying to swim to the far side while memorizing the rocks and fishes I see for later report.

I am having so much trouble getting anything done these last few weeks. My get up and go got up and went. AHAHAHAHA. No one has made that joke before.

OK!

Troll Collins - Stay Calm

2008-01-26T17:57:00.001-03:30

It's a computer-made demo snippit. The real thing will be the lead track from the collection of songs I am hoping to do in the month of February.

With real (or very good fake) piano. Don't let the clip fool you. That's just the only sample my computer has. Consider it an ironic use.

2008-01-26T02:03:00.000-03:30

Even if you are not a big Dr. Who fan, The Life and Times of a Dalek Slave may well amuse you. I mean you do have to know what Daleks are and a few basic facts about them. But if you don't have that, you must live in a very different cultural/media environment than me.

Meanwhile, over at The Onion's AV Club, idiotic gender type construction/strengthening gets torn into raw bloody strips of satire in Men are from Mars, Women are from Ladytown.

Specifically, it's a response to Esquire's monthly "10 Things You Don't Know About Women" list. It's designed to enlighten the men of America, and it features such gems as:

"You wait for the weekend so you can watch the game. We wait for the weekend so we can window-shop."

Hilarious! Men love the 'safe' homosocial bonding of sports, while women make many frivilous purchases! How true, how true! I'm sure those pesky suffragettes would have let that whole voting thing go if someone had just taken them shopping for fanciful hats.

Mind, each month a different celebrity with XX chromosomes does the honours, and I haven't read every list. Maybe some of them are sensible and wise. The balance do not seem so, as is expected of any sort of "3.4 billion people are exactly alike!" statement.

Anyway, apparently this month it's over to the Women of America to provide some more Things Men Don't Know About Women. This article is The Onion's contribution to that list. I think my favourite entry is this:

5. Every woman has a magical, bottomless handbag under her bed that holds all of her hopes and dreams. If you can find her bag, and drive a wooden stake through it, she will be yours forever (because all of her dreams will be dead).

Timothy Findley, Canada Reads, and Danny Williams

2008-01-24T16:26:00.000-03:30

Canada Reads seems like the sort of thing that's almost custom-designed to engage me. Hey, I like to read. I like a lot of books written by people whose passports say 'Canada' (I do not believe 'Canadian Literature' as such exists, but that is a whole 'nother blog entry). But for reasons I've never been able to put my finger on, I've never been able to get into it.

This year might be different.

Not Wanted on the Voyage, Timothy Findley's post-modern anti-authoritarian anti-patriarchal re-vision of the Noah's Ark story, is one of the 5 books that'll be entering the fray.

If you know me well, you may have sat in a pub with me, an alcoholic bevvie of some sort in hand, and played the 'Personal 5 Most Favourite Books' game (before devolving into a 'if you haven't read it take a drink' shaming exercise / liver assault. Graduate students in English Literature need to get their thrills somehow, OK?).

Not Wanted on the Voyage has had a spot in my Top 5 ever since I read it in my first week living in Ireland. I was alone and friendless and too shy to remedy the situation. I cracked the spine right after supper; 3:30 am found me sat up in bed, my heart and mind both in an absolute tumult as I read the final page.

Suffice to say, I fucking love this book, and I am not using a curseword gratuitously or lightly. Everyone should read it. I won't say that about my other Top 5. Middlemarch takes a lot of patience and dedication. Wuthering Heights appeals only to certain sorts of people. Not Wanted on the Voyage is not like that. Its prose is easy and enjoyable; the ideas that prose contains are challenging and ever-so-important.

I'm at work and can't listen to anything. I see Jane Urquhart has a clip on the CBC site, talking about her relationship with Not Wanted on the Voyage. Urquhart is one of my most favourite authors; I can't wait to get home and listen to what she has to say about one of my most favourite books.

In other news, the most-viewed news story on CBC.ca today is Danny Williams driving while talking on a cell-phone.

While the premier's actions were wrong and while the RNC's unwillingness to enforce the province's laws is a little troubling, this is tempest that has slopped over the sides of its teacup. My friend Bronwyn pointed out that, if things get hot and heavy with the feds again, this could come back as a bit of ad hominem against the premier (and thus the province).

That had never occurred to me. Maybe it's because I'm somewhat disconnected (news, even printed, provokes a combination of futile anger and stomach-churning anxiety, which is why I can't turn this blog into a current affairs politico-soapbox even when I try). In any case, one has to wonder what all this attention paid to so minor a thing says. Surely, even in so small and peaceful a place as Newfoundland, we have better things to talk about?

I can't perform an exegesis of the event and its OMG-level aftermath. Driving while on a cell-phone is against the law and is also dangerous, but I'd wager a large majority of Newfoundlanders do it anyway. Glass houses and all that lark. Anyone care to try explaining how this is the most viewed story of the day?

THE GOD OF INTERNET

2008-01-23T00:27:00.001-03:30

I've mentioned my love for Over com-
pensating before, but today's strip brought much joy to the shriveled char-black organ I call my heart. Jefrey Rowland has had a lot of brain waves, but depicting The God of Internet as a multi-limbed star-trek furry (if you don't know don't ask) must be one of the best.

I fondly recall when she/he/it appeared in a dream to explain that The Internet is an uncensored representation of the true human condition. That's why, on the internet, you can do lots of nice things and lots of dumb things and lots of frivolous things. It's also why you can watch videos of people chopping off their own fingers or see drawings of anthropomorphic animals with genitals the size of school buses or learn what Morgellons is (answer: a mysterious, disfiguring, and debilitating condition that has surfaced in recent years where people grow red and blue fibres from their skin for no apparent reason. Clicking leads to a google image search. Don't say I didn't warn you).

Now, today, The God of Internet appeared again, Fatima-like, bearing news of what 'irony' and 'brilliance' now mean on a planet that's 1.) saturated by information even as it is 2.) populated by mostly dumb apes.

The Word of the Internet; thanks be to Internet.

I have devised a new diversion

2008-01-22T12:19:00.000-03:30

I have devised a new diversion. It's modestly enjoyable and is sure to wile away a certain quantity of your finite time on this planet (the sum amount of which is a mystery until the moment of your demise!).

It is surely delightful!

In case y'all was unawares, Panoramio is the website where Google Earth gets its on-the-ground photos. You know, if you have the geographic web layer turned on, and you zoom in on a place, and there are blue dots, and when you click them a picture appears? That is what I am talking of.

If you zoom in on Placentia NL and environs (Point Lance through to Ship Harbour) I have a goodly number of photos you can see (plus more scattered in other locales). You must zoom in to about 35,000 feet for all to appear.

I have been diverted from explaining my diversion!

Panoramio does not have a 'view random photo' function, but you can make one, easy!

1.) Photos are stored numerically in such a format: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/0000000 (that's seven zeros).
Copy and paste this into your address bar.

2.) Replace the zeros with any numbers of your fancy and hit enter. Repeat! Who knows where you will be taken and what sights you will see? 2272127 took me to a cathedral in Spain!

It's a bit like Quantum Leap, really.

I shall call it . . . . um . . . . neologism plz. Geographic Leap?

hedgehog in the fog

2008-01-19T23:54:00.001-03:30

Well, now I see where Bjork's video for "Human Behaviour" comes from.

What will I do with my life? VOTE VOTE VOTE!

2008-01-19T11:22:00.001-03:30

Well I am not giving you folks any binding power over my life (I am not a democracy! I am an individual!) but I would not mind some friendly feedback.

I need to decide what I am going to do for the next while. I finish my library job in Placentia on March 10 (oh did you not know? I got extended because I am extremely awesome at my job). Then I was going to go to Town for a few months (like maybe until June or July or August) and become a Downtown Arts Poseur par excellence. I have an awesome idea for a creative non-fiction book which I would like to write this summer. It will require me to travel around the eastern half of Newfoundland a bit. Maybe the Arts Council can defray that.

But what then? WHAT THEN, INDEED???? I have decided to start a PhD in fall 2009, but there's a large chunk of space that needs fillin'. Here are a bunch of ideas I am juddering around in my head.

Stay there
That's right. St. John's has lots of employment opportunities. I could teach as a sessional at MUN and also serve coffee and also write and go to auditions for plays. I could be involved with committees and everything.

Go to London ON
You know, to work and live. A lot of my friends still live there and honest to goodness I actually miss the city too. Essentially the rest of this option is like the one above it, except in a different city.

Go elsewhere in Canada
Scary because most other places I have few if no friends and, believe it or not, I find it hard to make friends unless I'm in a structured environment. On the plus side, there must be a University somewhere in Canada that'll let me teach a measly first year English course. I love to teach. I am good at it. Please let me show you that these things are true!

Go to the UK
As members of the Commonwealth, Canadians are allowed to take 'working holidays' in the UK. As I understand the regulations, that means we can work in the UK for up to 6 months, provided we also spend an equal amount of time there not working (how strictly is this enforced? Can I be a Costa Coffee drone for 6 months, bum around for 6 weeks, and then claim 'family emergency!' and move back home in time for x-mas? Hate the game don't hate the playa', a'ight?)

Go to Ireland
I never finished my Creative Writing MA from Waterford. I would like to do that. Funds would be difficult, though. I should investigate immigration laws and see if a student visa would also allow me to do menial labour for minimum wage.

Go teach English somewhere exotic
It would be so exciting! Because I am extremely eurocentric, my mind goes 'Czech Republic!' and 'Norway!' before it goes 'Korea!' or 'Taiwan!' I have an MA. I guess I could teach University-level English anywhere in the world. Theoretically. Buenos Aires, here I come!

OK, so vote. VOTE VOTE VOTE!

This blog entry is at least 60% me thinking out loud, PS.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
*NB: the image comes from Cat and Girl, a webcomic that graduate students of the arts and humanities are sure to enjoy!

Wheee

2008-01-15T16:17:00.000-03:30

I love Over-Compensating so much, not only because it's funny, not only because its general post-millennial anxiety resonates with me, but also because Jeffrey Rowland publishes interesting links under each comic.

Like this one! If you woke up this morning and said "I'd like to lose my last flickering ember of hope for the human race today", I've got your fix right here. It's the Top 100 Quotes taken from Radical Christian Messageboards.

Laugh? Weep? Simultaneously do both?

In case you're wondering, I'm actually not an atheist. I'm agnostic basically because I think organized religion and theological literalists are ridiculous, plus more general cosmological questions are beyond logic and can't yet be subject to the empirical method.

Yes, I'm not an atheist, but nor am I insane.

Here's a handful of highlights:

- No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims.

- If we did evolve from monkeys then how come babies arent born monkeys (finally, someone with less common sense than Lamarck, sez I)

- Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. (Arbeit macht frei, Huckabee!)

It is an extremely interesting world we live in, no?

2008-01-12T18:50:00.001-03:30

The Onion's "Strong Women in TV" awards

When The Onion's satire is on, it's really on.

To be read on a sunday afternoon with freezing rain

2008-01-12T15:22:00.000-03:30

Bodies
A nocturnal scribble by Michael Collins (fiction)

"I remember how it started. I got to thinking 'they're both porcelain basins, they both drain, why not?' It's not like I'm a nervous dog at all or anything. I'm not saving it in jars like Howard Hughes. I just go in the sink sometimes. I don't know why. There's no good reason for it really. It just happens day after day. I guess it's better than taking a razor to my wrists or having anonymous sexual encounters, right?

"I once knew a girl who if something happened to one side of her body it had to happen to the other. I'm sure you can imagine. If your left hand gets wet doesn't your right feel funny until you get it wet too? But she took it to another level. One day at work she burned herself (she worked around ovens), right on her forearm. And do you know what? She couldn't stop herself. The other forearm got branded too, on purpose, for the sake of symmetry. The things people do to keep in balance, you know? The body is a funny thing. Some people think air makes cancer grow.

"Oh yes another person I knew once coughed up something, a clear material, not like gristle, rounded and smooth like glass that has been polished in the sea. It was in the middle of conversation. Just a cough, a clearing of the throat, and out it came. We touched it in wonder. It never happened again. It was thrown away."

(from wikipedia) Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish color, variegated like marble. It possesses a peculiar sweet, earthy odor similar to isopropyl alcohol. Although it is now largely replaced by synthetics, it is still used as a fixative in perfumery. [improve this entry?]

"Ambergris is how sperm whales digest giant squid beaks, so sharp and solid and big. At least that is the theory. No scientist has ever seen a live giant squid. It is a substance the whale's body makes to accommodate an irritant.

"There was a show on television I saw. It was about a profoundly deaf percussionist. She feels the sound in her body, not in her ears. Bodies resonate with sound waves. Her skeleton is made of tuning forks. Don't bones have musical names? Clavicle. Fibula. Tibia. Fermata. Allegro. Poco a poco.

That bone over there is over 1000 years old. It is made from the milk a Viking drank and the fish and cheese and green vegetables he ate. Also the sunlight his skin absorbed. His body pieced it together bit by bit. When it broke, it knit. And when he died all his other bits got recycled except for this. He got recycled into the food chain. You probably have some of his atoms inside you this very moment. It's OK. He doesn't want them now, you're free to use them a while longer.

Anyway fresh urine is almost totally sterile."

Gasp!

2008-01-09T00:05:00.001-03:30

The fine City of Mount Pearl has deposited gigantic wedding cakes on the front lawn of every domicile under their jurisdiction!

Oh, wait, that's snow. And that's me. 6' me.

It's gonna be a long winter.

The glory of defeat

2008-01-08T01:03:00.001-03:30

Yeah, so, not so much writing done this evening, but I have spent my time valuably!

That is, I've used Google Fight to determine who Canada's Most Famous Authors are, according to The Internet (the ultimate non-authority). The list is limited by my imagination. It's also flawed by the fact that results may not specifically refer to the author (which hinders, say, Ondaatje, but helps, say, Laurence).

For this reason I have disqualified Michael Winter. Fine author though he is, I somehow doubt he is 9 times more famous than Margaret Atwood, as his score would suggest. Let that information guide you when choosing just how big that grain of salt ought to be.

1. Margaret Atwood (1,320,000)
2. Bernice Morgan (1,070,000)
3. Yann Martel (730,000)
4. Douglas Coupland (537,000)
5. Lisa Moore (383,000)
6. Robertson Davies (365,000)
7. Michael Ondaatje (361,000)
8. Carol Shields (337,000)
9. Alice Munro (318,000)
10. Lucy Maude Montgomery (288,000)
11. Margaret Laurence (286,000)
12. Wayne Johnston (240,000)
13. W.O. Mitchell (202,000)
14. Stephen Leacock (177,000)
15. Mordecai Richler (120,000)
16. Timothy Findley (93,500)
17. Jane Urquhart (72,600)
18. Alistair MacLeod (59,400)
19. Rudy Wiebe (28,900)
20. Michael Crummey (19,900) ('Michael Crummy' gives 285,000)

2008-01-07T21:29:00.000-03:30

The problem with setting yourself up as an aspiring writer is that you've got to write. The universe being what it is and all (God is powered by irony), I should have foreseen this. I've always had thousands of words at the ready whenever I should sit down to write them. Now that I've decided writing will be my focus for a year or two? It's abandoned me! (cue angry fist-shaking at the sky)

The last poem I wrote came to me in October. It's one of my better ones, but I think I made the mistake of writing myself (or my muse, who is in all likelihood an aspect of myself anyway) into a corner. The poem works itself up into a quotidian transcendence via a moment of universal awareness and linguistic failure. You know, sort of an "oh gee this fall day is so nice oh whoops I have lost my sense of self and words are flawed and useless tools oh dear I'll stop now" kind of thing.

And, well, I wonder if that got to me? Did I spook myself, a devout altar boy in the church of the English language, by flirting with linguistic atheism? Am I burdened by the resulting existential guilt? Since then, I've worked on some projects that were already underway, but not much new has emerged from my metaphorical pen. The ink's gone all pasty and spotty.

So I'm going to sit and try to midwife a new story and a new poem into existence. This very night, I will do this! I'm taking the laptop into the corner of the house that doesn't get wifi and I'm making a big pot of coffee. I'll let you know how it goes on the other side.

Albums of the Year - A Final List

2008-01-02T21:20:00.000-03:30

Each link is to a youtube video featuring a song from the named album. I suggest clicking them!

1. Mirrored - Battles
2. White Chalk - PJ Harvey
3. In Rainbows - Radiohead
4. American Doll Posse - Tori Amos
5. Myths of the Near Future - Klaxons
6. Is Is - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. Oh My Darling - Basia Bulat
8. O Perilous World - Rasputina
9. Songs from Sideways - Peter Gresser
10. Bjork - Volta

I complain about Volta sometimes, but the 5 best songs on it are amazing. The Rasputina album is a little disappointing in the context of previous efforts but it is still quite interesting and worthwhile. Klaxons, Tori Amos, Radiohead, PJ, and Battles really blew me away this year. American Doll Posse is too long and bloated, but honestly I'd only cut three tracks; the rest are really ace, and 20 great tracks is god-damned amazing. I love its stylistic eclecticism. PJ's record sounds like a Victorian ghost story and Klaxons sounds like a series of dance parties riots and chill outs, and you know I love all of those things.

There are some releases from this year that I haven't heard yet that I will probably love. I'm always late to the party. I discovered The Knife, Sufjan, Patrick Wolf, etc. all a year after their respective breakthroughs. I almost put Patrick's new one on this list but I haven't connected with it yet (I may in future).

I am exceedingly pleased to give Battles my #1 spot. Cyborgian mathrock that's weird and wonderful and wild --- of course I love it!

2007 Book Reviews

2008-01-02T12:30:00.000-03:30

That is, reviews of books I read in 2007. Not 2,007 reviews of books. That could get a mite tedious.

In the order I read them, bold for fiction italic for non, asterisks if they were read for school.

A Severed Head - Iris Murdoch - 8.8 Very enjoyable, clever, and funny. This is the second Murdoch I have ever read and it is becoming clear to me that she has a keen understanding of the neurotic male psyche.

*The Lantern-Bearers - Rosemary Sutcliff - 8.2 Young adult historical fiction read for the Children's Lit course I was TA'ing. Points for believability and rich symbolic tapestry that does not patronize the young reader.

*Hamlet - Shakespeare - 8.3 I appreciate it intellectually and artistically but I just didn't enjoy it as much as Lear or Macbeth.

*Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes - 7.2 Interesting but not particularly enjoyable.

*De Rerum Natura - Lucretius - 8.6 Interesting and enjoyable! Bonus, some of Hobbes's ideas about the mechanistic universe are clearly sourced here, so if you're only going to read one . . .

*The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin - 8.0 I have a high tolerance for Victorian verbosity but at times this was a little much. But the argument is elegant and of course culturally significant. Everyone should read this at some point.

*Troilus and Cressida - Shakespeare - 7.8 Neither comedy nor tragedy! Most interesting for Cressida, who is an intriguing and complex character.

*The Princess and the Goblin - George MacDonald - 6.8 Heavy-handed yet problematic Victorian Christian allegory for children. It has its moments of charm but in general it did not jive with me, maaaaan.

*Twelfth Night -Shakespeare - 9.0 I love 12th Night. It's gender-bendingly delicious and just ripe for current analysis.

*Middlemarch - George Eliot - 10.0! 10.0! 10.0! This rocketed straight into my top 5. I am in awe of Marianne Evans. What a mind she must have had. This is a gloriously complex novel, yet it feels perfectly in control. Insightful, intelligent, compassionate.

*The Giver - Lowis Lowry - 9.5 One of the best young adult novels I've ever read. 1984 for 12 year olds. Enjoyable, rich, and thought-provoking for all ages.

*Dora: A Case Study - Sigmund Freud - 8.2 Although I have quibbles and beefs with Freud, this is enjoyable and interesting to read.

*Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery - 8.9 As I read I thought "bah! maudlin late-Victorian melodrama! Bah!" yet at the end I actually cried a bit (you'll know why if you've read it). It is worthy of its status as a Canadiana classic.

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson - 9.2 As someone who finds science fascinating but who has no post-secondary science training, this book is perfect for me. It has taught me so much about the world and the universe, and it is immensely readable, gentle and humorous. It is great to pick up and leaf through at any time.

*The Treasure-Seekers - E. Nesbitt - 8.1 - Anticipates post-modern techniques with its fragmentary narrative voice. Which is weird in an Edwardian children's novel.

*Darwin's Plots - Gillian Beer - 9.4 This really helped me to fully understand a historicist approach to literary analysis. It also helped me realize how important art is in disseminating new scientific ideas and helping the public understand them by helping it to imagine them.

*Measure for Measure - Shakespeare - 9.5 Not my first time reading it. It's one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. It's so problematic and so interesting --- and still pertinent today. Who is Senator Larry Craig if not a modern Angelo?

*Bridge to Terebithia - Katherine Parson - 9.2 Extremely good treatment of death and grieving. Also, excellent for having unusual and gender atypical main characters (tomboy girl, artsy boy). I loved this as a child and I loved it as I reread it before teaching it to my class.

*Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens - 9.6 A mess, but what a huge, enjoyable, interesting mess. Jenny Wren is one of the best characters ever.

*Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy - Gary D. Schmidt - 9.2 Makes race relations in the early 20th century interesting and relatable to a young adult audience. Highly recommended.

*Charlotte's Web - E. B. White - 8.5 Not as pro-vegetarian as I had assumed (see: Charlotte explaining why she murders and consumes flies).

*All's Well That Ends Well - Shakespeare - 7.8 Really weird and uncomfortable comedy. Not without merits.

*The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - 8.8 Biased. I loved TWitW as a child. I love its Edwardian charm. Rat pleases me most.

Alligator - Lisa Moore - 8.7 During the first half I thought it was amazing, but something about the denouement let me down a bit. Still, it captures the vim, colour, and bustle of modern St. John's through a cast of diverse characters.

*A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart - 8.6 Reread. Very emotionally affecting, obsessed with a lot of the same things I am (death, dissolution, loss). Less accomplished than her previous three, though.

*Away - Jane Urquhart - 9.5 Reread. See above, except, instead of 'less accomplished,' say 'extremely accomplished.' This book leaves me in a whirlwind every time I read it. Seriously, AMoG revisits a lot of the same territory as Away, but Away does a better job.

The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood - 9.3 I've enjoyed every Margaret Atwood book I've read, but this is my favourite. The characters are extremely rich.

Postmodern Fables - Lyotard - 8.7 Not quite essays, not quite short stories. Fatiguing at times, exhilarating at others. "You're not done living just because you chalk it up to artifice."

A Passage to India - E M Forster - 9.0 I just really, really like the way Forster wrote. It's the perfect blend of modern and Victorian styles. I also enjoy his philosophical insights, no matter how out of fashion they might become.

*Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values - Yi-fu Tuan - 8.5 I enjoy using a geographical approach to literary studies, and this book was fundamental in bringing me to that.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova - 8.6 Absorbing and entertaining re-invention of the Dracula story. At times veering a little toward pulp, but with some academic nuggets too.

100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 9.9 An all-time favourite; this as a re-read. If I get sucked into it I have to stick it through to the end. The end always leaves me short of breath.

*The Underpainter - Jane Urquhart - 9.8 Urquhart's most accomplished, most engaging, most absorbing, and most interesting work to date.

*The Whirlpool - Jane Urquhart - 8.8 Urquhart's first, less engaging and a bit more brainy or self-consciously po-mo. Still quite good.

A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews - 9.0 Catcher in the Rye except Mennonite and female and more sardonically humorous and less whiny.

The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro - 9.5 If I could write like Alice Munro I would be so happy. She captures what it is like to be a normal person who is alive in the world.

The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood - 7.8 Atwood's first, weird to read today. Dated.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J K Rowling - 8.2 I am a HP defender. It isn't Salman Rushdie but it's enjoyable and has done a lot of good for real literacy. Points for accurately capturing insufferable teen angst. Minus points for not successfully mitigating the "insufferable" aspect.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J K Rowling - 8.4 The HP books form a neat continuum from fun and light-hearted to dark, serious, and grim. My favourites of the series come in the middle, where a nice balance is struck (the 3rd and 4th books). This is an improvement over the previous book, as it has less Linkin Park no one understands my pain! from Harry.

The Navigator of New York - Wayne Johnston - 8.6 It lost some steam near the end.

The Time Machine - H G Wells - 9.0 Longtime favourite, a simple and short fable that never ceases to engage the imagination. I wish news reporters wouldn't mess up the Morlock and Eloi when alluding to it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J K Rowling - 8.3 Eh. The end of an era. Dark, serious.

England, England - Julian Barnes - 9.1 Maybe too clever for its own good? Lots of interesting philosophical applications about artifice and how the simulacrum is more real than the real and such. But then the epilogue undoes it all? I think? Lots of nice humorous passages, too.

Cloud of Bone - Bernice Morgan - 9.5 Extremely complex. Weaves 1940's Newfoundland, the last years of the Beothuck people, and Rwanda in the 1990's together. On paper in sounds awkward but it works elegantly and naturally. Extremely important for Newfoundlanders to read this.

Points of View - Rex Murphy - 9.0 Even when I disagree with Rex, he is a joy to read. Erudite and witty, even the dated essays/articles referencing events and people who have been out of the spotlight for years are great.

Lost Country: Newfoundland 1844-1934 - Patrick O'Flaherty - 8.2 Maybe my stamina failed me, but I started this book finding it fascinating but had to trudge by the 2/3 mark. Maybe it's like the Titanic --- you know how it's gonna end and you don't wanna see the ship go down.

Complaints is Many and Various but the Odd Divil Likes it - RB Moyles - 8.0 All about life in Newfoundland in the 19th century. Maybe pure history books aren't for me. I find the information interesting but sometimes the prose is just so tiring.

The Silent Time - Paul Rowe - 8.5 Interesting and well-spun tale mining a cultural vein that is under-represented in current media (deaf girl on the Cape Shore in the 20's and 30's). The end came together a bit too quickly and too neatly, but hey, it's an impressive debut.

Wonderful Strange - Dale Jarvis - 9.4 I love folklore, ghosts stories, fairy stories, and so forth. Jarvis doesn't clutter them up with unnecessary verbosity, but lets the eerie oddities of the stories speak for themselves. Fuel for weird dreams.

In the Hands of the Living God - Lillian Bouzane - 9.4 Epistolary novel, very elegantly done and easy to get into. Historical novel telling about John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) and, more importantly, his wife Mathye. Mathye is a compelling character. My heart broke at the end.

No, I am not Prince Hamlet!

2007-12-28T16:14:00.000-03:30

I'm really not.

I know the line is commonly taken to mean "I am a bit player of no importance," and that suits, but today I actually had more of an "I am not an incessant monomaniacal negative nancy!" meaning in mind.

Because I mean, come on, Hamlet is so emo. Right?

Anyway, I've been using this blog as a repository for vitriol and bile over the last few weeks, and that wasn't my intention when I set it up. Sure, the odd rant is healthy, but I'm not constantly angry with rage. I'm actually a very positive, bubbly person. Seriously. I am happy and non-judgemental 95% of the time --- it's just the 5% bitterness and venom that has been showcased here.

Anyway, in an attempt to introduce levity and to stop from becoming a one note complainer, here are some fun pics my brother and I shot today, littered throughout this post. Click on them to view larger versions.

We went out into the shed and got out our childhood cross-country skis. They are so ridiculously small, our boots cannot even fit into the harnesses. That didn't stop us.

My arse is sore from falling and wet from my inadequate splash pants (proper snow pants were so important as a child --- how come I don't have a pair now?) Winter is a pretty magical and special time. It's so easy to forget that when your age gets into double digits.

2007-12-28T02:58:00.000-03:30

Bile time!

Why in the name of all that is sensible is History Television showing a STEVEN SEAGAL FILM at the moment?

When doing my MA, I'm afraid I was one of those "I don't own a TV " arty sorts (I tried not to be insufferable or smug about it, truly). Now that I'm back in the habit of watching television, I want to know what the hell has happened to History. It used to be a reliable fall-back. Now?

Now, it shows CSI. CSI isn't even a historical drama. There's too many venues for CSI as it is. If I wanted CSI I would have watched it on any of the 3894737892 other channels it comes on.

And now, shitty quasi-military action films? WHAT THE HELL.

History Television, do you know who your core audience is? It isn't people who relish EVEN MOAR CSI and Steven Seagal films. It's people like me, people who like to think they're sorta smart and who want to learn interesting facts about the Tudors or the Roman Invasion of England or the Russian Revolution or such. Show me archaeology on Crete. Don't show me Steven god-damn Seagal films.

There's that off my chest.

2007-12-25T17:20:00.000-03:30

Like a terrible terrible man, I have only now got PJ Harvey's "White Chalk" album (thanks, mom and dad and santa!).

Has this occurred to anyone else before? "White Chalk" basically sounds the way an album written and recorded by Emily Bronte would sound. I think it's a-purpose.

White Christmas. Green Christmas. Blue Christmas.

2007-12-23T11:01:00.000-03:30

What about the other colours?

Red Christmas: When everyone is just furious with each other. This does not take much imagination.

Yellow Christmas: A Christmas spent beating a hasty retreat --- from 6 weeks of carol saturation, from less favoured relatives, from calorie-rich treats, from the preview of the 4th circle of hell that is any Wal-Mart on the afternoon of December 23rd, etc.

Black Christmas: Christmas spent in polar regions. Not advisble for those susceptible to SAD.

After that my imagination gives out.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm testing to see if a wash of sensory inputs with well-defined mental associations can alter how I'm feeling. Specifically, I'm huffing the scent of fresh turpentine (from the tree, b'y) and eating lots of chocolate and gingerbread, all in the hopes that some 'magic of christmas' might spark in my brain. So far I'm just light-headed and already a few pounds heavier.

Maybe I need to get a bonfire going, they always do the trick.

I'm not one of those people who hates the holiday season. It's always been a happy time in my life, a time of golden light and warmth. It still is, and I suppose one can't expect the "almost ready to pee yourself with excitement" Christmas feeling to outlast childhood. Still, I'd like the ghosts of it to haunt me a bit, please. Just a slight quickening of the pulse?

Even when a teenager, Christmas had me brimming with vim (here making a rare appearance without its life-partner vigour). Until I'm able to burn a collection of sundry items merely to improve my emotional state (see above), though, I'm afraid Christmas is not like it was.

(thump thump thump! "ANY MUMMERS 'LOWED IN?!")

Please don't mistake me as one of those pro-Christmas vigilantes who bother the editorial pages and 24-7 edunewstainment channels around this time of year. You know, the "WAR ON CHRISTMAS" folks. Oh, the misery of such persecution!

Something Awful, bastion of base irony and poor taste, summarized this in a recent article entitled The 8 Most Awful Minorities (I promise it is not as terribly offensive as it sounds, although 'inoffensive' would be a lie on my part).

"Happy Holidays!" (AKA The War on Christmas) - Every December news stories and editorials are puked out by white American Christian males claiming that Christmas is under attack by atheists, Jews, and anyone else that dares to tread upon their yule tidings. Among the biggest offenders are dastardly bag boys at Macy's saying "Happy Holidays!" instead of acknowledging the dominance of the One True Religion and Hanukkah displays being allowed within a hundred yards of their precious municipal mangers.

A recent letter in our own dear Telegram was in this vein. What terrible trials the poor flock must go through, moving through a world where they know not everyone is buying into the whole manger cold and bare bit.

The letter mentioned the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who persecuted and executed Christians. I can sincerely say, my pinna reflexively curl into a protective shield over my ear canal, blocking all sound, when some terrible trials from the 3rd century are trotted forward as a reason for cultural dominance to remain unchallenged in the 21st. It's an interesting and useful evolutionary adaptation, that.

That Rome-Persecuted-the-Christians stuff is older than the Gaul's sack of Rome, and you don't see modern Italians cherishing their moment of severest persecution so they may call on it as a rhetorical device during debates on public policy. At least, I don't see modern Italians doing that. If they do, well, pour me another nog (or mulled wine if you have it) and don't be skimpy, 'cause I'd like to destroy the braincells that currently house that knowledge.

I realize, in other cultures and other parts of the globe, Christians are still persecuted. I do not mean to belittle that. Nor do I suggest those who celebrate Christmas as a religious festival should not be respected (note here that 'respect' and 'constant acknowledgment of obvious dominance' are different things). But, in western culture, the last millennium has been pretty sweet to Christianity. You'd think they'd be able to relax and take it easy on the Christmas portfolio.

Right. So, do you think maybe it's my cynicism that's chased away my holiday enthusiasm?

Dear Santa, please leave under the tree for me the ability to turn any jaded cynicism I harbour on and off, as it is required. Thank you, love, Michael.

!!!!!!!!!

I KNEW YOU'D COME THROUGH FOR ME SANTA!!!

NFLD's Population Increases!

2007-12-20T10:40:00.001-03:30

NFLD & Lab's population has gone up this quarter, and this CBC news story credits Albertans moving to the province as the primary cause.

I wonder how many of those 'Albertans' are actually Newfoundlanders or Labradorians who are ending their exile in Alberta and coming home?

It'd be helpful if there was some way to know. We know people are moving from Alberta to Newfoundland, but that doesn't mean they're Albertans (as I'm sure countless Newfoundlanders living in other provinces will attest). This is a very simple fact, but I've yet to encounter any news media who make mention of it. Newfoundlanders moving home is a good thing, but if non-Newfoundlanders were moving here in statistically significant numbers, it's even better, as they'd have no specific reason to come here other than a good economy and a rosy forecast for the future.

In any case, it's nice to see. This is only the second quarterly period in 15 years where our population hasn't shrunk, and it's larger than the previous increase, in 2003. We're still 60,000-odd below our peak, though.

Considering our relative paucity of agricultural land (although in my opinion this is sometimes overstated, so the arable land that does exist is not always put to good use)*, I think the natural carrying capacity of this province is not much more than half a million, and the number of people living in Labrador is very much influenced by what resource extraction is currently happening there.

*I know global shipping can bring food to support millions, but, until alternate means of transporting goods are developed, there's far too much global shipping going on as it is.

FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, BRATZ DOLLS

2007-12-18T14:42:00.000-03:30

This sums up my loathing of Bratz dolls more succinctly than I ever thought possible.

I hear Mary Wollstonecraft spun in her grave so hard that she broke out of her coffin and her corpse actually drilled through the earth's crust. Her incensed gyrations are of such ferocity that she's got the mantle churning. Expect increased tectonic and volcanic activity which will usher in an apocalyptic volcanic winter.

All because of fucking Bratz dolls.

Gendering of Food in Advertising

2007-12-15T22:56:00.000-03:30

This is way too huge of a topic to delve into deeply. You could write a book. Actually, several people have.

But you know, it ticks me off. It ticks me off so bad, the way commercials code different foods for different genders. You know, salad = feminine, greasy meat = masculine. Beer = masculine, chocolate = feminine.

It's sort of utterly stupid.

First of all, as this astute essay points out, if there is demographic information that supports these trends, why would you advertise only to your established customer base? As the linked essay puts it:

It would seem logical if women have a tendency to buy more chocolate than men, why not target a male audience when advertising a candy bar?

Right. Similarly, if Wendy's is going to show a sea of people absolutely flipping out for a new bacon sandwich, why are they aiming the ad exclusively at the demographic that's already on board for purchasing? It's all men in that ad. Not a single female face in sight. Why not make a commercial that says "ladies! don't starve yourselves --- you deserve some bacon!"

Similarly, what the hell is so feminine about salads? Most people I know, of both genders, eat salads. Salads are tasty and are extremely good for you. Yet every fast-food "new healthy menu options!" ad I can recall is shilling those salads to people with two X chromosomes only. Why?

I think it might be a backlash against the continued erosion of traditional boundaries between gender. You know, the whole "uppity women destroying masculinity oh noes!" 'problem' (quotation marks acting as irony flags, here). Oh, cultural anxiety, you strike again. This almost panicked stressing of stupid, seemingly arbitrary ways men and women are supposed to be inherently different (don't even get me started on the 'Mars / Venus' idiocy). Tonight, I saw an ad on TV which claimed "these are man foods! if you don't like these foods, you're not a man!" Um, I thought being a man had something to do with Y chromosomes and testosterone levels. I obviously missed the memo, if it's about cholesterol instead.

It seems this traces back to the whole idea that being concerned with one's appearance and health is somehow a feminine trait. The whole "metrosexual" phenomenon showcases this (i.e., men who care for their appearance are like homosexuals who are like women, an a=b=c equation that is insulting to all three parties involved). Backlash against trim fit salad-eating metro-men? Probably. Bleah.

So, the lesson. Real guys eat horrible foods and are essentially big disgusting greaseballs who only care about instant pleasure. Women, on the other hand, care about how they look primarily (and perhaps also the future health of their bodies).

You can see it at work in a stereotypical shit sitcom --- how about Ignorant Fat Man And Thin Shrewish Wife (I'm sure you've seen it --- it's set in the suburbs!) I bet, when they go out to eat, Ignorant Fat Man's clogged arteries spasm in glee over his bacon whilst Thin Shrewish Wife picks at her salad demurely and burns calories by fretting over imagined cellulite.

Thanks, society!

Ear Food: "Battles"

2007-12-15T22:14:00.000-03:30

So my tentative "best songs of 2007 list" has seen some revisions and additions. Mostly through remembering things (like "OMG, Bat for Lashes is 2007 isn't it? IT IS!") but also through music savvy friends posting similar lists.

Atforumz.com is a series of forums and is pretty much my home base online. I get a lot of music ideas from OMA, the general music discussion forum there. It's all the good taste of a Pitchfork or similar, but with little of the closeminded pretense!

Anyway! Lots of people were putting the band 'Battles' on their year-end lists. "This is math-rock for danceclubs," Pete claimed. "My favorite cyborg band!"

I thought of Donna Harraway and The Knife. "I like cyborgs! Will I like Battles?" I was told it was impossible to dislike Battles.

Blessings be upon Youtube. It's a great jukebox/radio service. I watched/listened to Battles' video Atlas.

It was baffling! Behold my initial response:

"I listened to Atlas on my lunch break! I don't know what to think of it. It bewildered me a bit. That might be a good thing. My legs wouldn't stop jumping in time so at least the lower half of my body understands it. I think it sounds a bit like if The Knife had a baby with a robot and it was raised by street punks until one day it was adopted by a kind plutocrat and sent to prep school.

I will investigate further."

If music bewilders you, kids, it's probably a good idea to listen to it some more! Your unconscious mind is probably trying to figure it out. Being challenged is good. There is a place for completely challenge-free music in this world, and it is on the record store shelves back at the mall.

Anyway, 4 or 5 listens later, I was in love. It's precise and insane, whimsical and intense. The heavily processed voices send spontaneous squirts of joy chemicals into my bloodstream.

So that's why the final list is going to have Atlas by Battles in the Top 5.

Oh, fish!

2007-12-14T12:06:00.000-03:30

I actually worry about fish. Every time I see some stop-the-seal-hunt crusader, I want to ask them why they aren't more concerned about the scary state of fish populations. I guess it's too bad fish are in no way cuddly. I seriously had to avoid a Greenpeace person on the street for that reason.

Anyway! There is news. It seems salmon farming drives wild stocks to extinction! So, should we eat only wild fish, not farmed?

No, because over-fishing is already a global ecological disaster and the last thing we need is more of it.

Is the answer to stop eating fish? No, as anyone of good sense and good taste can tell you, fish is both healthy and delicious.

So . . . the answer is . . . eat Tilapia? As far as I can tell it's easy and trouble-free to raise. Plus it's a good sensible whitefish. Sort of like a denser version of cod. My Mississauga Aunt, part of the 70's Newfoundland diaspora wave directed at Ontario, turned me on to it when I was up there doing my MA. I found cod in Ontario was pretty much the pits, and she said "O HAI SUBSTITUTE TILAPIA!"

I never looked back! So, yes. That is my suggestion. Tilapia farms for all!

Plus seal oil regularly for your Omega fatty acids. Take that, Greenpeace! (he said with a devilish laugh whilst twirling his vaudevillian moustache)

2007-12-12T09:50:00.001-03:30

NEW PORTISHEAD (song 1)

NEW PORTISHEAD (song 2)

There's a new album coming in April 2008! It's not a rumour! It's not a fake Russian bootleg! Pitchfork wouldn't lie to you like the Russian bootleggers did.

If you don't know Portishead, I have to question what you were doing in the 1990's (you get a by if you were a child or an adult who had lost interest in following the zeigeist). Circa 1995, they epitomized chic.

Anyway, being a fan of Portishead is sort of like being a Christian (which I am not, so my blasphemous analogy is a go). By that I mean, they went away and said they'd be back but we were all starting to think it'd never happen. Who goes on an unexplained 10 year hiatus after only releasing 2 albums? Even Kate Bush put out 7 before she disappeared for a similar span, and Kate Bush is a super-powered fairy-witch from outer space.

But Portishead have returned! Praise be! Is this sort of like the trip-hop rapture, I guess?

(watch now, the new album will be utter shit)

2007-12-11T17:38:00.000-03:30

"Newfoundlanders are big meanies to oil companies!" - or so says a report by The Telegram, which claims:

oil and gas investments in the province carry the same risks as investing in Iran, Pakistan and Russia.

It's amusing to picture Danny Williams keeping company with Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Musharraf, mostly because it plays out in the theatre of the mind (well, my mind at least) as a 'one of these things is not like the others' exercise a la Seasame Street.

Alarmists and those fond of hyperbole might disagree, pointing to the dominance of the polls and the hold over the public imagination his Magnetic Eminence exercises, but until he suspends the constitution and poses outside the Confederation Building with a submachine gun I think we're OK.

Anyway! There are several points that make this study pretty much worthy of derision (or maybe garden-variety disregard, if you're a kindly soul).

1.) It's carried out by The Fraser Institute, a neo-conservative libertarian think-tank. We were in a bitter war of words with the smirking helmet-haired neo-con golden boy himself, until this recent reluctant detente. Bias? Um, just maybe.

2.) But numbers is numbers, you might say! Questions can only be loaded so heavy! Questions can only be slanted so far! etc. Well, read the article and see for yourself how this was carried out. Surveys were mailed out, to be voluntarily filled in and returned. Only about 3% even bothered to respond. It's pretty obvious to any thinking individual that this 3% would be self-selecting --- that is to say, those with an axe to grind or a beef to air would furiously fill it out, little pens flying like mad, eager to register their displeasure and disapproval. It puts me in mind of a Mary Brown's patron who gets served some bum chicken --- of course they're gonna fill out the little restaurant survey card. Maybe they'll even stuff it in the feedback box with a little "so there!"

3.) The survey was carried out in the spring, when Danny Williams was supposedly poisoning the province's business climate and scaring away investment with his terribly unreasonable demands, how dare he rise above his station so, etc. Now that Husky has seen how easy it is to throw a dog a bone (ahahaha) and make pals, I'm sure others will follow. All of the pie is better than most of the pie, but most of the pie is better than no pie at all, as it were. I don't even see how this survey is at all pertinent.

OK! Hooray! Onwards with life.

#4 on the 'phrases that make you sound like a pompous ass' countdown

2007-12-10T23:53:00.000-03:30

Rising a spot from last week, it's "I'm working on a novel right now."

Yes, any phrase that approximates the above makes anyone sound like such a self-important jerk. Unless, of course, you have a special permit, which can be obtained by proving to the government that a.) you are already a novelist or b.) you are an experienced and successful writer in other genres (i.e. a published poet, short story writer, journalist, essayist, etc).

So, knowing this full well . . . .

. . . I'm working on a novel right now!

Haha, what larks. I mean, it's all true. But we're all self-important sometimes, so I'm gonna allow my pomposity to take the form of a large, complicated prose exercise. I've got 25,000 words. I'm trying to keep it in the 60,000 - 70,000 range, and so far it's looking good. I want to have the manuscript done for early 08, so I can send it in to a few "first novel" contests, for the adjudications if nothing else.

It's a post-modern mash-up, like those bad song-combo vids you can see on youtube if you're so inclined. Part disaffected youth coming of age (with plenty of cusses!) in modern rural Newfoundland, part semi-magic realist 'follow the family!' historical novel, all fun! If your idea of 'fun' is a literary representation of anxiety regarding dissolution and time, I mean.

I wonder if my odd piece in The Telegram, my spot on the Writers' Alliance newsletter team, and my one acceptance to The Newfoundland Quarterly qualify me for one of those "I have a legitimate reason to write a novel" permits I was talking about. Probably not. Ah well. I can live with myself.

Best Songs of 2007: My Working List

2007-12-07T23:53:00.000-03:30

The Best Songs of 2007
An entirely subjective list-in-progress

If there's a song that should be on here but isn't, let me know. That's 47.65% of the reason why I'm posting this in the first place. We may disagree, in which case I will cry "Fie! Arcade Fire belongeth not upon mine list! Take yon tale of carbon monoxide asphyxiation* elsewhere!" But, maybe we agree and I love the missing song too, but I'm just being an addled idiot with memory issues tonight.

*(Keep the car running reference, if you're feeling a bit off your game and in need of some help)

In no particular order . . .

Down Boy - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. My dear shriek-punk mavens get goth-glam. Is that a synth in the verses? I dare you not to stomp around the room and/or sing along during the chorus.
Atlantis to Interzone - Klaxons. OH GOD YES. Apparently, this year, nu-rave came and went quicker than you can say "electroclash!" A good thing Klaxons have much more going for them than frantic drums, retro synth bloops, and a hilarious Casio Keyboard "DJ!" It makes me want to take a baseball bat to car windows. In a good way, I mean.
Gimme Moar - Britney Spears. Forever to be 'moar' as a minor macro-homage to the insane media-being Britney has become. If you don't understand why a well-executed, catchy, fun pop song is on a best-of list, you probably take yourself too seriously. Also, your ears don't care who wrote it, who plays on it, and how many computers it took to make her voice sound half-decent.
Lyra - Kate Bush. BLATANT FAVOURITISM. I am a Kate Bush fanatic. That is pretty much the only reason I'm including a simple (dare I say underwhelming?) choral piece she wrote for the recent young adult movie The Golden Compass. After waiting 12 years for 2005's Aerial, every new second of Kate Bush music is precious.
The Watchmaker - The Tom Fun Family Orchestra. "Who?" you may say, unless you are from Cape Breton or are extremely hip and plugged into Canada's indie scene. This is like if Tom Waits fronted a fun ska-folk fusion band. Their album comes out in early 08. Their iTunes EP is available now. Check it out. You won't regret it.
I Was a Daughter - Basia Bulat. I've described this song as "if Sinnerman was written and performed by Leslie Feist." Basia makes woodland nymph indie-fem-pop, except it's probably a lot better than what you're envisioning, as her songs have a lot of vitality and oomph. Her music is like hot chocolate with a friend during the first snow of the year.
Earth Intruders - Bjork. Volta was a big disappointment to me. A lot of it was mushy and plinkplonky and lacked anything that science could identify as a melody. But the parts of it that are good are very good indeed. This is one of the most genius singles of Bjork's career. It's madcap. It's a whirlwind of righteous anger, buzzy synths, world music, and, as The Woman Herself terms it, "necessary voodoo."
Bouncing Off Clouds - Tori Amos. So what if her indie cred ran dry circa 2001? I care not for such things. This is the best pop song the woman has done in a decade, a standout on an album (American Doll Posse) that is literally busting its seems with good pop songs. Catchy as hell with a driving beat, it also has decent emotional complexity and melodic layering. A winner! A breath of post-modern fresh air after recent over-earnest Sarah McLachlan style radio tinklings.
When Under Ether - PJ Harvey. I gotta complete the Tori-Bjork-PJ trifecta, don't I? This sounds like what I imagine people in 1997 thought Tori Amos sounded like. The piano is haunting but almost brutalist in its incessant simplicity. The vocal is a strained, ghostly soprano. The lyrics are plenty opaque but I think they're about a woman having an abortion. Victorian ghosts aplenty.
History Song - The Good The Bad and The Queen. Do you know, for a band with such a pedigree (Damon Albarn! That guy from The Clash whose name I shamefully cannot recall at the moment!), their album is a bit of a disappointment. But not this song, man. This song is great. It's got that melodic, impossible-to-ignore bass, that ramblin' river acoustic guitar, and Damon's uncanny gift for crafting only the most barbed of melodic hooks.
Tremor and Slip - Kaya Fraser. I'm glad Kaya got her EP out in 2007 so I could include the title track. From the first time I heard her perform it in a London Ontario coffeehouse, I knew it was a winner, a triumph of clever and catchy folk-rock.
1816, The Year Without a Summer - Rasputina. It is clearly a shame that Rasputina are considered part of the goth niche, the musical equivalent of being stuck in quicksand. This is a song about a real historical event! It features fretful cellos and a simmering dulcimer! It is an example of the best lyricist you haven't heard doing her thing!
My Moon My Man - Feist. You know you've hit the cultural saturation point when the Grammies nominate you for Best New Artist (several years after you were actually new). But do you know? 1-2-3-4 is overplayed and played out. I might punch something if I hear it again, which is a shame because it is a lovely tune. 'My Moon My Man,' with its driving ostinato piano bassline, lopes incessantly forward at a medium pace even as Feist's trademark pitch-perfect vocal wisps beg us to take it slow and easy! Also some sort of flute instrument makes some flourishing noises at some point.
Stronger - Kanye West. Did I like it better when it was Daft Punk? Weirdly, no, I did not. That song always seemed to have all the elements required for me to love it, but I never did. Suddenly, it seems to make sense. And I don't just mean Kanye rapping over it. Did he add an extra drum beat? Beef up the production somehow? I need to do a side-by-side listen to find out.

Predictable as the tides

2007-12-06T00:16:00.000-03:30

And, once again, I'm back into the "maybe I should do a PhD!" headspace.

To say I oscillate like a top would be to cast aspersions on the noble top's relatively stable attitudinal plane.

I'll sum it up like this: sometimes I think about the absolute shit treatment fresh-minted PhDs get when they are thrown tumultuously out of over-large doctorate programs into the nothing-is-certain world of contractual professorship. It's a world flooded with people just like them.

It's not just the utter uncertainty concerning your future, though. Do you know what contractual English professors get paid per course at Memorial University of Newfoundland, my dear alma mater (<-- unironic and unsarcastic)? $3000. 3 courses in the fall, 3 in the winter, 1 in the summer = $21,000 a year. You'd make more busing at a restaurant where tips are decent.

And let's not forget the seeming mountain of research you have to continually publish just to get a look in at a potentially-permanent position that pays anything near to what a person who has 3 degrees on their wall and who has a right to be called 'doctor' is actually worth.

But then, I switch again. I hear from an old mentor and advisor that this is a time of opportunity and a lot of positions are set to open up in the next 5 years. I think of all my friends who are still rabbiting away in the Ivory Tower, living a hectic but fulfilling existence, an existence I miss.

I contemplate serving coffee or bagging groceries just to get enough money to keep myself in nourishment, caffeine, and alcohol, so I can live an artistically pure life of writerly poverty. And actually have the time to write too, I mean. Surely genius will out, right? (Answer: no).

Or, I could put my training to good use and get a stressful 'important' (I am not producing food or health, I fail to see how it can be important) job in an office. I'd have money for the nice things that I like, but I'd likely become intellectually and emotionally dead from abandoning all of my passions to worry away at the rat race, when I know deep down that the rat race is a futile social construct.

Or, I could slave away at something I love and earn enough to sustain a lifestyle I've grown to enjoy. If only teaching positions didn't hinge on research (I just cannot make myself a hot air machine, regardless of what this entry may suggest to you).

At this point, I really don't know which fate looks best.

And yes, I'm going to use a cat macro to close things off. You're dead inside or a knee-jerk snob if you don't like it. COLD HARD SCIENCE-BACKED FACT, YO.

Who does this man remind you of?

2007-12-05T09:16:00.000-03:30

An awful strange first post for my blog, but I was listening to CBC this morning and this was too perfect not to share.

Who does Karlheinz Schreiber sound like?

IT'S UNCANNY. IT'S BLOODY UNCANNY.

Post-script: This is an original idea. I just feel like I should say that, in case Schreiber=Strangelove sweeps the national zeitgeist or something. It either originated here or was conceived of independently! I like the first option better than the first, but the latter is probably more likely.

Anyway, I'm taking the trouble to say the above because I'm still almost positive that I'm the global originator of Beepocalypse. I mean, it's not so stunningly clever that many others couldn't independently come up with it --- but flatter my delusions of cultural relevance this once, OK? When I had all sorts of Beepocalyptic facebook statuses and was making posts in a dozen different places about the impending Beepocalypse, maybe I started a chain reaction. A little cultural germ. A meme. I feel this is hardly a tinfoil helmet concept for me to have.