Gunner's Miscellany

Before and Midway - 13 Months and Counting

2012-01-03T11:27:00.000-05:00

In December of 2010, I started on a series of lifestyle changes, attempting to make good on my previous failed efforts. This time, for whatever reason, it finally stuck for more than a month or two.

I began exercising more (and more regularly) and, by spring, I finally started to whip my diet into shape. I began counting calories on myfitnesspal.com (a really great site). Then I started cycle commuting. Since I bought my bike in April, I've put roughly 1400 miles on it. In addition to this, I even started running. Well, lumbering quickly, at least. After years of joking about the people in my neighbourhood running for no good reason (no one was even chasing them), I kind of joined them. It took a while to make the change but I started walking less and running more. Now, I can go out and run for 3 1/2 miles without slowing. In October, I did the CN Tower climb in a respectable 23:57. That's 1776 steps. Last year, I would have been gasping for breath after a few flights.

There is no great secret to what I did. It all boils down to four words - eat less, move more.

The November before I started, I went to Vegas. Though I didn't quite realize it then, I came back with a number of not terribly flattering 'before' pics.

For instance, in November of 2010, I looked like this:

Yup. Even trying for a more flattering angle just couldn't hide the fact that I was, uh, big.

Last Saturday, I looked like this:

That's me getting ready for my first 5k run. I'm already signed up for my next one (St. Patrick's Day) and am eyeing up a 10k run for the summer. I think I like it better this way. It's sweatier but more fun.

The Only Benefit of Biking to Work at 5am on a Sunday...

2011-10-02T12:34:00.001-04:00

...is that no one is around to see you rocking the very retro, yet questionable, combo of long underwear and shorts. Time to find something warmer for my legs on these chilly mornings.

Other than that, the ride was fine. I've learned that once you resign yourself to the fact that you'll be riding in crappy weather, the ride itself isn't that bad.

Test

2011-09-25T12:40:00.001-04:00

Okay. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Couldn't find a way to get my blogger phone app to accept my non-gmail account so I gave up. Thankfully, switching the blog wasn't too hard. Next up, my google+ one. I just wasn't made for this modern world.

How I Roll

2011-09-08T06:22:00.000-04:00

This summer, I started bicycling again. I finally ran out of reasons not to bike when I saw that other people in my apartment building had no problem keeping a bike in their apartment. Besides, I took an 8 mile walk out Leslie Spit and back this spring and realized that all those cyclists passing me seemed to be having even more fun than I was having. So it was a no brainer. Sure, the bike takes up space but benefits have far outweighed this one minor inconvenience.

I live about a 5 minute walk from a Trek store so I went down and picked up this beauty:

That's my bike at Bike to Work day back in May. Oddly enough, I didn't start actually biking to work until the weekend after. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to take part in a mass ride down Yonge St. (with police bike escort, no less).

Out for a ride. My sisters will tell you I've worn sillier looking hats.

Since I bought the bike, I've pretty much stopped taking the TTC. As much as I love transit, I have much more fun on my bike. Even better, it usually doesn't take me much longer to go by bike than it used to by transit. Grocery runs, evenings out, I take my bike everywhere. It's amazing how many groceries you can fit into a pannier.

I intended to start slowly, only biking to work on weekends, when the traffic was quieter. It's just under 5 miles from my place to work by the most direct route (the always interesting Yonge St.). The thing is, I started doing it one weekend and just kept doing it. I never really looked at commuting as fun until I started whipping down Yonge St. on my bike. Since June, I've taken transit to work maybe twice. Now, I'm seriously wondering how much winter I'm willing to brave on my bike. The fall is a given. The winter? If the roads are bare, I see no reason why I can't do it. That's quite a change in just a few months.

Biking really is the best way to get around the city. You go fast enough to get from place to place in good time yet you go slow enough that you can enjoy the sights and sounds. You just don't get that stuck in a tunnel or in a car.

So, yeah, sometimes when I'm out there, I kind of feel like this guy:

Some pics that don't really explain my absence. . .

2011-08-14T16:06:00.005-04:00

Nothing beats the zoo and a long lens.

I waited about 20 minutes for the elephant to turn around.

From Nuit Blanche last year.

My uncle on his beloved tractor.

My sister at her wedding. Word of advice to anyone with an slr camera - when that relative comes up to you and asks you to shoot their wedding, offer them a toaster instead. The wedding turned out well but was way too stressful for a hobbyist like me.

Canuck Book 13 - Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall

2010-06-21T11:01:00.003-04:00

I finished my troika of Toronto novels with this Zoe Whittall book. Whittall is a writer I've known of for a while. I almost bought her first novel (Bottle Rocket Hearts) on a number of occasions but never quite got around to it. After reading Holding Still, I realize I will have to pick up her first book soon.

The story revolves around a group of friends and lovers who live around Parkdale, the slowly gentrifying neighbourhood near the west end of Queen Street. Billy - a one-time teen pop starlet - has split with her longtime girlfriend Maria. She is trying to go to school but suffers from severe panic attacks. Josh is a transgendered paramedic who is starting to grow apart from his girlfriend Amy (who is a filmmaker). There are a few other friends that come and go but these are the main three.

I'll be honest. The book took a while to grow on me. Each section starts with interludes describing an emergency that paramedics are attending to. There's a very detached feeling to these that had me guessing, trying to figure out why they were there. There was no need to question anything, though. Whittall knows what she's doing. The more I read, the more I realized how well she put this story together.

Stringing the last three books in the Canada Reads challenge together like I did was an interesting experience. I witnessed three different takes on Toronto (four if you count Consolation's split narrative) that had surprisingly little overlap. I wonder how many other Canadian cities this can can be said of? Montreal, for sure. Vancouver? Probably. Any others?

Canuck Book 12 - Consolation by Michael Redhill

2010-06-21T10:30:00.004-04:00

After reading Girl Crazy, I thought I'd stick with the Toronto novel theme. I'd been meaning to read Consolation for a long time. I was a big fan of his earlier novel, Martin Sloane, so I knew I would likely love this book. Of course, other books kept popping up so Consolation just never reached the top of the pile by my bed.

I'm glad I finally got around to it. Consolation tells two stories. The first involves a family coming to terms with the patriarch's death in late-90s Toronto. The father was a "forensic geologist" who spent his career sifting through the layers of garbage and debris on which the city stands, looking for clues to the past. Stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, he left behind clues for a potentially crucial find on the site where the city is building it's new hockey arena.

The other story follows the life of a young chemist who moved to Toronto from England in the 1850's to run a store he bought sight unseen. As his main business fails, he gradually moves into the new field of photography.

The strange thing about this book is that, as much as I loved it - and I did love it - I couldn't help wishing the author would have focussed on one of the stories instead of splitting the book between the two narratives. Of course, as the book progresses, you do see why the author has set the book up this way. Quite frankly, this is one of the best Toronto novels I've read in a long time. It's a book that sticks with you and makes you look at the city and its myriad construction sites in a very different light.

Canuck Book 11 - Girl Crazy by Russell Smith

2010-06-21T10:30:00.001-04:00

I have a weakness for Russell Smith novels. It's funny because, in a lot of ways, Mr. Smith writes books I feel I shouldn't like. They are always full of characters who are big on flaws but short on redeeming qualities. Add to this the fact that Smith sometime writes like a caricature of the knowing hipster - the one who knows all the right bars and all the right people and all the reasons why most people don't measure up to some invisible yardstick of the trendy - and you have a writer who should be avoided.

Only it doesn't work out that way. I buy his books as soon as they come out and tear through them. While I rarely wind up liking the characters, the stories pull me in and the details, those precious details, begin to ring true. What I like most about his work is that he is a Toronto writer through and through. It's hard to imagine his stories and characters without Toronto looming in the background. Each book offers me a chance to look at the city in a way that is both completely valid and yet totally different from what I normally see.

That's why I picked up Girl Crazy as soon as I saw it in a bookstore.

Basically, the story goes like this - Guy falls for girl. Girl comes from wrong side of tracks (if that's possible anymore). Guy becomes obsessed. Sex. Drugs. Some danger. Some confusion. Some bad decisions. That's about it.

Oh yeah. The guy isn't just obsessed with the girl. He seems to be obsessed with women in general, hence the book title. Don't worry. It's not as creepy as it sounds.

Of course, it's the details that make the story and Smith scores big. I really don't want to give you more information than that loose outline because I wouldn't want to ruin any part of what is a very good book. There were times when I thought he might have gone too far with things, might have slipped from character to caricature, but he manages to walk the tightrope yet again.

The 100K Club

2010-04-01T12:35:00.002-04:00

For those of you who do not live in Ontario, the province of Ontario is required by law to post the names and salaries of any provincial employee who earns more then $100 000 a year. Every April, the list is released and the Toronto Sun gets all hot and bothered with righteous indignation because. . . well because that's what the Sun always does. It's just another part of Mike Harris' dubious legacy that Ontarians have to live with, like the 407 and megacities.

The actual premise of the 100k club isn't that bad. It's nice to get an idea of where the money goes. Ostensibly, it should help to keep people accountable for their use of public money. That's all well and good. Unfortunately, the list is seriously flawed for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that the threshold is too low nowadays, making the list too large. I know that 100k is a lot of money but it's not as large a sum as it was in 1996 when the list was created. Where the list was once the domain of managers and bosses, you now have large numbers of the workers winding up on the list because of overtime payments. If the threshold was adjusted each year for inflation, you would have a much smaller list.

A smaller list would be more useful. Right now, the list has grown large enough that it gets tuned out. Sure, the comments section of the newspapers will be overflowing for a few days with people venting about the waste. Soon enough, though, it will all die down for another year. A smaller list would serve to highlight the worst offenders, making it harder for them to hide amongst the masses.

The other reason why the list is ineffective is that there is no context. You have the name, the organization, the position and the salary. That's it. No explanation of why the person earns what they do or what they do to earn it. No differentiation between those who crack 100k by working lots of overtime and those whose base salary is already above 100k.

It's easy to gasp about the nurse or the TTC ticket collector who makes 125k a year when all you have is a number. If we were told how many hours that person worked in a year to earn that sort of money, I'm sure it would seem a little less excessive. We would then have to look at the institution and not the individual to find out why there was that much overtime available in the first place. More than likely, we would find out one of two things. First, that it's cheaper to pay the overtime than it is to hire another person. Second, that some positions are short-staffed because of shortages of skilled employees. This means that the ones with the skills and the willingness to work long hours can earn big money.

In the case of people whose salaries are already above $100 000, I'm sure that most of the people are earning a fair salary for their skills and expertise. With the way the list is set up, however, we have no way of understanding that. There's just page after page of people earning lots of money with no explanation of why they earn that much. It's hard to get a balanced understanding of the issue when we are offered the bare minimum of information.

I'm not opposed to the list. Someday I'd like to be on it. I just think that it needs a revamp if it is to be of use to anyone other than newspaper headline writers.

If you want to check the list out for yourself, go here : http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2010/

Canuck Book 10 - The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

2010-03-31T11:42:00.003-04:00

I'm going to keep this one simple - If Margaret Laurence must be taught in high schools, then this is the book to teach, not The Stone Angel. Don't get me wrong. The Stone Angel is a very good book. The problem is I couldn't accept that fact until I was in my mid-20's. In high school, I hated the book because it just didn't seem all that relevant or interesting.

Now, I'm not sure that The Diviners would be a great fit for high schools, but it would be better than The Stone Angel. I wish I would have read it in high school but I've always been a little bit different that way.

The Diviners is one of my all-time favourite books. It's one of the few books I do go back and reread every now and again because it has never stopped amazing me.

This time was no exception.

Canuck Book 9 - Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

2010-03-31T11:33:00.000-04:00

The great thing about spending much of this challenge re-reading books is that I feel I've had a chance to become reacquainted with some old friends. It's interesting to see how they've changed for me over the years. Sometimes I've forgotten things, sometimes I've remembered things differently. The past is such a fluid thing, even for books.

This is especially true with the fictional memoirs of Barney Panofsky. Barney is writing his memoirs to refute the soon to be published memoirs of his one-time friend turned enemy Terry McIvor. Divided into sections named after his three wives, the novel jumps back and forth between the past and the present while Barney gives his version of his life, including the disappearance of his best friend Boogie (for which Barney was tried and acquitted of murder). It's a shambling mess of a tale with myriad digressions and asides.

But that's the thing. Rereading this book, I see how well Richler put the tale together. The second time around, it's easier to see how much thought was put into each digression, each outburst. Richler takes the reader for one hell of a ride with just the right number of drops and twists to keep the reader going until they come up against an ending that killed me even the second time around.

Barney's Version is an incredible book and one that leaves me seriously divided. On the one hand, you read this book and wish that Richler had finished one more book. On the other hand, it's great to see that he went out in fine form, shouting and punching and landing more than a few good ones.

Interesting

2010-03-05T11:23:00.003-05:00

I have to admit my initial reaction wasn't much different from the last guy on the video. This got me to thinking about how strange our perceptions and prejudices can be. I've had no problem over the years eating this product knowing it comes from a female cow. When it comes from a female human, however, I'm a lot less enthusiastic. Weird. Even now, the best I could say is I might try it, but not without a little squeamishness.

Of course, this could lead to a digression about how strange the whole dairy industry is - the fact that we are constantly being bombarded with ads telling us how essential milk is to our lives when it is really only essential if you happen to be a baby cow - but I won't go there.

In other news, it's looking like we are going to have a beautiful weekend here in the city. Time to get truly acquainted with my new camera.

Reasons Number 1 - 10 Why I'm Glad The Olympics Are Over

2010-02-28T21:17:00.003-05:00

1. No longer having to hear I Believe 50 times a day.

2-10. See above.

It wasn't a very good song to begin with. Having it on a constant loop for two weeks was torture.

Canada is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to music. Surely, we could have done better.

Yup. I'm a Geek

2010-02-22T20:00:00.001-05:00

But I love this:

Good and Bad

2010-02-16T09:02:00.003-05:00

The good thing about CTV's Olympic coverage is that it's everywhere. CTV, TSN, Sportsnet, OLN - I can switch from sport to sport to sport whenever I feel like it. I switch a lot because, while I will definitely get caught up in the marquee events like hockey and downhill skiing, I also love getting caught up in events that don't often make it to tv like biathlon and ski jumping.

The bad has to be the announcers. From the MTV Canada idiots who are more interested in athletes' sex lives then their sports lives to the commentators of the snowboard races who spent lots of time talking about the track but no time talking about the racers who were going down the track at the time, it's been a bit of shock for someone who grew up on CBC broadcasts.

And then there was the early morning discussion of Lindsey Vonn. Rather than talking about how one of the fastest woman skiers in the world is going to deal with a deep bruise on her shin - you know, relevant Olympic dialogue - the announcers decided to bring up her Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot for the millionth time.

Now I'm not the world's most enlightened individual. I won't lie. I have no problem with photos of a beautiful woman in a bikini. I just think that, at the world's biggest sporting event, there are probably more important things to talk about. This is a woman who has made a career out of racing down the side of mountains at speeds I only reach in a car on the 401. Talk about that.

Friday Random 10 - A Day Late

2010-02-13T11:15:00.004-05:00

Barb, mastermind behind the blog Bad Tempered Zombie posted something yesterday that I couldn't resist trying. The set-up is this - you take your music player of choice, set it to play all songs randomly and the first 10 become your ~~Friday~~ Saturday Random 10.

Without further ado, I offer up my 10:

1. Wolfgang - Elliott Brood
2. The Happiest Song (Dum-Dum) - Otis Redding
3. Lord Send Me An Angel - Blind Willie McTell
4. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and John
5. Mozart Piano Concerto 11 - 1. Allegro - Vladimir Ashkenazy
6. I Can’t Turn You Loose - Otis Redding
7. Winter in July - The 6ths
8. Paper Lanterns - Green Day
9. The Man I Love - Billie Holiday
10. Sunshine of Your Love - Jimi Hendrix

I could parse this to death but that seems to defeat the point.

Instead, I took the number one song on my list and made a Itunes Genius Playlist based on that song, curious to see what comes out.

Here is the Genius list based on Wolfgang by Elliott Brood:

1. Wolfgang by Elliott Brood
2. Holy Shit (What A Relief) by Hey Rosetta!
3. Wait, Wait, Wait by Joel Plaskett
4. Sisters of Mercy by Serena Ryder
5. Home For A Rest by Spirit of the West
6. Dance Dance Dance by Neil Young
7. My Father's Home by Bruce Springsteen
8. Second Chance by Liam Finn
9. Chest Fever by The Band
10. Beginning to See the Light by The Velvet Underground

Now it's off to the gym where my playlist will be a little bit faster, a little bit louder.

Canuck Book 8 - February by Lisa Moore

2010-02-03T09:00:00.003-05:00

There's a woman I work with who thinks all the books I read are depressing. I argued for a bit but there was really no point. Our opinions diverge and that is all.

If pressed to explain, I would have said that I actually have a tendency to avoid the overtly depressing books on my shelf. I know I should read them because they are supposedly good but I have a hard time forcing myself to open the covers. A lot of what I read isn't depressing at all, at least to me. It's honest.

The funny thing is that, once I read the darker books, I usually wonder why I stayed away from them for so long. Maggie Helwig's Girls Fall Down comes to mind as an example of this. A story about a photographer losing his eyesight to diabetes while a strange affliction takes hold of the city didn't portend to be the sunniest of reading choices. Once I opened the cover, though, I was hooked, drawn in by a story that, while dark, was not without hope.

The same thing happened with February, Lisa Moore's novel about a woman and her family after the husband dies on the Ocean Ranger. It kept getting bumped by other books on my TBR pile. Finally, I couldn't postpone it any longer and I dug in.

Frankly, it's an incredible book. Dancing back and forth between the present and the past, the book is an honest imagining of what happens when the world changes suddenly.

The book shifts between Helen, the wife, and John, her son. Helen is in her mid-fifties and still coming to terms with the loss. She has moved on in a number ways but her thoughts and emotions are still tied to that event. John is in his thirties and is dealing with the unexpected news that he is going to be a father.

I strongly recommend this book. Sure, it's not the happiest book out there but it is honest. For me, it's this honesty that makes makes it worthwhile. When there are moments of happiness (and there is happiness), they feel well earned and somehow more rewarding than a book those found in a book that takes the easy way.

Checking In

2010-02-03T00:17:00.002-05:00

I've been a bad bad blogger. I admit it. I've been neglecting this blog for too long. Don't worry. It's not you. It's me.

Basically, my already dwindling output has kind of dried up in the past month because I've been spending more time away from the computer than I once did. I joined a gym and I've been learning a few things:

First - biceps and triceps are not just abstract concepts. I have them. They hurt. So do a number of other muscles.

Second - even a big guy like me can spend time in a gym without feeling too out of place. I'm still not totally comfortable but at least I can walk into the gym knowing what I'm doing and how to do it at least fairly well, a vast improvement in just a few weeks.

Third - weightlifting sucks. See the part about biceps and triceps and pain. Fortunately, I'm stubborn and that's what keeps me going back to the torture machines.

Fourth - personal trainers are expensive. The upside is that now that I've committed the money, I'm much more likely to show up and work out.

Fifth - The Dead Kennedys didn't really work for me on the cardio machines, which kind of surprised me. The Dropkick Murphys were better. A nice big playlist of songs ranging from rock to pop to country works best. The downside is I'm pretty sure I'm going to belt out a rousing off-key rendition of Dan Mangan's Robots at some point while sweating away on the elliptical machine. This likely won't endear me to my fellow gym-goers.

Traces of a Empire

2010-01-08T22:46:00.005-05:00

I've really become a fan of podcasts. I keep my ipod stocked with a number of musical and literary ones at all times. They make the boring days at work much more palatable. At home, they make doing dishes almost bearable.

My current favourite is the World Book Club from the BBC World Service. Try it out. An author reads from his or her work and then answers questions. Simple enough. What I love about this podcast is that the questions come from the studio audience and also from listeners around the world. There is just something so cool about hearing people from five or six continents talking books with an author. It makes reading almost seem like a communal exercise.

I also like this podcast because it is a reminder of just how much our world was and continues to be influenced by the British Empire. While there are readers calling in from other countries, most of them come from Great Britain and its former colonies. It's been close to sixty years since the empire finally disintegrated and yet a common language and, in some ways, a common world view remains. It almost feels like the dress down day at a school with uniforms - all those kids anxious to show their individuality but, when the day comes, they all show up wearing the same pair of jeans.

Canuck Book 7 - All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman

2010-01-04T12:06:00.002-05:00

Forget reading this post. If you haven't already read this book then you must go out and get a copy. If you can't find it in your local bookstore, get it from here (http://www.chbooks.com/). While you are there, pick up Bok's Eunoia and Helwig's Girls Fall Down if you can but mostly just buy this book. It's a treat.

I tend to look at most books as meals. Really good meals, the kind you want to linger over. I read slowly and immerse myself fully in the experience. This book, however, is a really decadent dessert. It is short and moves fast. It's also a book that I have read a few times, partly because it's quick and mostly because it is a really smart story.

Basically the title says it all. All of Tom's friends are superheroes. Tom is not. From the Couch Surfer to the Sloth, they all have their special abilities. I won't ruin it for you by discussing their particular abilities as that is part of the fun of this book.

On the night Tom marries the Perfectionist, Hypno (the Perfectionist's ex) hypnotizes the Perfectionist so that Tom becomes invisible to her. The story takes place six months later when the Perfectionist has given up on trying to find Tom and flies to Vancouver to start over. Tom has the length of the flight from Toronto to Vancouver to convince her that he has not disappeared or he will lose her forever.

What follows is a book that is cute, funny and smart. The superhero conceit works amazingly well. Read it.

Canuck Book 6 - This All Happened by Michael Winter

2009-12-30T09:36:00.003-05:00

Another of my faves, This All Happened is a novel as journal chronicling 365 days in the life of Gabriel English, Michael Winter's fictional alter-ego. I must admit I have a thing for novels that tell their stories differently - from the epistolery novel (like Richard Wright's Clara Callan) to stranger works (like Leanne Shapton's Important Artifacts. . . ). As such, it should come as no surprise that I love this strange book.

The novel is exactly what I said - 365 journal entries following the life of Gabriel Winter. While the book does follow the disintegration of English's relationship with his girlfriend Lydia, it can't be said to have a plot as such. Things happen. Things don't happen. Friends get together. Friends break up. Some of the best passages of the book involve nothing more than English observing the world around him. I've read this book three times and I'm still finding things to love.

Because buskers are one of the joys of city living

2009-12-19T04:54:00.004-05:00

I've been a very bad blogger of late. I'm not going to get much better right now as work and life are both a little hectic but at least I'll offer up this post.

Check out the link for a profile of one of my favourite buskers. I've talked to her a few times always enjoy listening to her in the Union subway station:

http://www.blogto.com/music/2009/12/ttc_busker_profile_maria_kasstan/

Bob Snider is a classic. I love to watch him when he takes to the sidewalks of Kensington Market:

Now it's time to head to bed. Good night all.

All Around These Northern Towns

2009-12-07T09:27:00.006-05:00

It's easy to forget Toronto is a northern town. We do all we can to ignore the changing seasons. We shuffle across slippery sidewalks on sneakers and hang out on patios almost until the snow flies. When bad weather does hit we have to admit that it's nothing like they get up north or out west or face the ridicule of all those people who live in the 'real' north.

But the fact remains that Toronto is a northern town. I was reminded of this yesterday when I took the following pictures:

Not bad for 4:30 in the afternoon.

Canuck Book 5 - When I Was Young and In My Prime by Alayna Munce

2009-12-06T00:03:00.005-05:00

Well, it's been a bit longer than I'd hoped since my last post. Between long stretches of work and technical difficulties (I wouldn't mind meeting the writers of a certain virus in a back alley, if you know what I mean), I'm just now getting back to the blog.

Well, there's also the fact that I spent a lot of my spare time plowing through Stephen King's latest, the amazingly good Under the Dome. It's not often one can say that a 1000+ page book moves quickly but this one does.

When I first thought of spending this Canuck book challenge revisiting old favourites, one of the books I was most looking forward to rereading was Alayna Munce's When I Was Young and In My Prime. I picked it up originally on a whim and was surprised by the beauty and truth it held.

This is a poet's novel. Or a novel poem. In a lot of ways, it seems more like a fictional journal than anything else. It's a book that tells its story through thoughts and feelings rather than action. I guess the best way to describe it is that it is a story that is told through the spaces between actions rather than through the actions themselves, if that makes any sense at all. It does to me, but that could just be because I've read this novel twice and been captivated by it both times.

The story weaves the tale of young married woman living in Parkdale with that of her grandparents, one-time farmers who moved into town. Perspectives shift. Narratives entwine as the story is told (and sometimes retold) by the protagonist and her grandparents.

This is a novel to sink into. It's not just the story it tells; it's the way Munce tells it. Beautiful sentences and images abound. I strongly recommend it.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to read next for the challenge until I started looking at this book more as a journal as novel. That sent me diving through the stacks of books to pull out Michael Winter's This All Happened, a most definite journal as novel following 365 days in the life of Winter alter-ego Gabriel English. At the same time, I found a nice hardcover copy of Morley Callaghan's That Summer In Paris at Ten Editions Books this afternoon so I think I'll give that a go, as well.

Seeing as I'm on the topic of re-reading Canuck books, I might as well put it to you, the readers: What one Canuck book do you most want to read? Why?

If you're interested, the National Post's book blog, The Afterword, is looking for suggestions for an alternative to this year's old and kind of dull Canada Reads selections. It's an interesting idea. The books need to be less than two years old, which sadly rules out the Munce book or Andrew Kaufman's All My Friends are Superheros. Intead, I suggested Maggie Helwig's Girls Fall Down.

Canuck Book 4 - Generation A by Douglas Coupland

2009-11-20T12:57:00.002-05:00

I liked this book. I like pretty much anything by Coupland. I did not love this book. The ending was a cop-out or a strange digression or something else so I got to the end of the book and wound up with a certain Strokes song running through my head (Is this it?). The future is in much better hands when it is handled by Atwood.

For all its talk of being about Generation A, this is most definitely a Generation X book. People talking and telling stories and talking some more. You go along with it because that is what Coupland does so well. Only this time I think he just sort of ran out of steam. Maybe next time.

Because I spend so little time messing around on the internet. . .

2009-11-15T11:30:00.002-05:00

Rather than doing something productive with my day, I am currently listening to Vinyl Cafe and looking up famous birthdays. Don't even ask me how I wound up doing this but I did find out that I was born on the same day (Sept. 23) as Mickey Rooney, John Coltrane, Bruce Springsteen and Ray Charles. Kind of cool. Not so cool is the fact that I was also born on the same day as Julio Iglesias, Matt Hardy and George from Seinfeld. Win some, lose some.

I will now push away from the computer desk and at least run a couple errands.

Hope your day is more interesting than mine.

I can't believe I just spent 33 bucks. . .

2009-11-12T11:26:00.000-05:00

. . . To go see Stephen King in an interview. . .

. . . with David Cronenberg and hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos next Thursday at the ~~Pantages~~ Canon Theatre.

If I hadn't already seen him a couple summers ago, I wouldn't have bothered. Having seen him give an interview I knew this was an event I couldn't pass up. He is funny and strange and a wonderful talker. Adding Cronenberg and Stroumboulopoulos to the mix is just icing on the cake.

Woody Revisited

2009-11-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

I love old folk stuff. Guitar and voice. Maybe a harmonica. Simple stuff. Nothing to get in the way of the words. Which always worked well for Woody Guthrie.

I left work last night and walked up to Little Italy to visit Soundscapes records. A week or so ago, I saw they finally had a copy of the new Guthrie boxset, My Dusty Road. Payday came and the set was mine. I guess the market for old folksingers isn't quite as robust as it once was.

The set is taken from a treasure trove of metal masters that Guthrie (sometimes with Sonny Terry and Cisco Houston) recorded for the Stinson label. They were given up for lost until recently when they were found in a storage bin in the basement of an apartment building in Brooklyn.

Rounder Records did a wonderful job with the set. The box is made up like an old time cardboard suitcase complete with metal hardware. Inside are such superfluous but welcome touches as a copy of a booking card, a postcard from Woody to his wife and a business card.

Of course, packaging doesn't mean much if the music isn't up to par. Thankfully, the music is spectacular. Sure, it's mostly songs you've heard before (if you're a folk music fan) but the sound quality is wonderful. Revelatory. Clear, full, with none of the hissing and popping you hear on most Guthrie discs.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the old recordings. The 4 disc Asch recordings set has a lot of great songs on it. The problem is it always sounded more like a historical artifact than a musical recording. You play the Asch stuff and it feels like you are listening to a bunch of well used 78s.

With the new stuff, it sounds more like what the musicians would have wanted you to hear. Rather than listening to history, the Dusty Road stuff is about listening to the musicians themselves.

For those of you who only know Woody through "This Land is Your Land", this set gives you a great version of the song with the verse that often gets forgotten, ignored or stifled:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said 'private property'
But on the back side it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me

A Weekend of Long Walks

2009-11-08T10:39:00.006-05:00

I am fast approaching the end of a five day weekend. At one point, I had thought of going on a weekend getaway to Sarnia or perhaps down to the States to see a college football game. I do want to go to a US college football game at some point. It's not that I'm a huge football fan. I just want to see the spectacle of it all, where 80 or 90 or 100 thousand people show up to watch a game. Alas, reason overtook impulse and I stayed put. My wallet breathed a sigh of relief.

Instead, I stayed in the city and enjoyed some truly incredible weather. I took my cameras and went on some long walks down the belt line and downtown. Yesterday was far too nice a day for subways so I walked downtown, with a detour through Rosedale, and then back home. All told, it was a 9 mile day. If only we could keep this fall weather right through until May. . .

So today is another gem. While there are a number of things I want to do that would require staying indoors - reading Generation A, writing a story that's been brewing for far too long, waging war against the increasingly militant dust bunnies - I think I will sneak out for one more trek over to the belt line and down to Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Yesterday, I read on the sign outside his old apartment building that Glenn Gould is buried at Mount Pleasant so I think I shall try to find the grave.

Here are a few pics from the past few days:

ps - I've been listening to Gould's Goldberg Variations while I write this. It always amazes me how much music can come out of just two hands.

Canuck Book 3 - The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood

2009-11-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry.

I know I said that I was going to spend this challenge rereading my favourite Canuck books but I can't resist. With new books by Atwood, Munro and Coupland not to mention the new Zoe Whittall book I want to read, I just can't keep that promise. I will get back to the rereading thing soon but for now you are going to have to put up with some new books.

And now onto the Atwood. . .

Um. . .

What can I say without gushing?

I remember first reading Atwood in university and how daunting a task that was. Here was this ultra-serious (by the look of her photos) woman with this almost ridiculously lofty reputation and I was faced with poems like "This is a Photograph of Me" and novels like The Edible Woman. Sure, I'd probably read The Handmaid's Tale at that point but that just kind of made things worse. I mean, did everything have to be so serious?

Late one night about that time, I remember watching the movie version of Surfacing on CBC. If you would have told me then that it was based on an Atwood book, I would have thought you were nuts. I mean, she is serious capital L literature. Not that the movie was a laugh riot or anything but it was just so strange, so absurd, that I wouldn't have been able to reconcile it with my vision of the great Atwood.

Turns out, she never really was that serious. Or she was but she also wasn't above seeing the humour in things. It's taken me a long time to get over that first faulty impression but I'm glad I have.

As for The Year of the Flood, I loved it. It is a companion piece to her last sci-fi novel (Oryx and Crake) and I found it worked really well. Whether she'll cop to it or not, Atwood does great sci-fi. Anyways, the esteemed Shelf Monkey does a far better job then I could of dispelling the myth that Atwood doesn't write sci-fi so I will leave it to him (http://shelf-monkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/monkey-droppings-year-of-flood-by.html).

I was initially nervous about her inclusion of God's Gardeners Hymns and the sermons by Adam One. They definitely tiptoe the line between interesting device and overly cute distraction. As the novel progressed, though, I began to see it as a third narrative and, in that light, it worked well.

There's not much else I can say about it. If you have even a passing interest in sci-fi, you will probably love this book.

I initially planned to reread The Edible Woman for this challenge. Now, I'm going to reread Oryx and Crake instead.

Canuck Book 2 - The Watch That Ends The Night by Hugh MacLennan

2009-11-06T12:34:00.001-05:00

I first read MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night in a first year Canuck Lit course back in university. It was a surprise, a Canadian response to that time (the thirties) that was covered by such heavyweights (and personal favourites) as Hemingway, Steinbeck and Orwell. No, it wasn't the greatest book I read that course - that honour would go to Laurence's The Diviners - but it was one that stuck with me over time.

Rereading this book, I went back and forth over how much I liked it. While it was a good read, there were only certain times when I felt the same magic that thrilled me the first time through. Perhaps, it's just that my tastes have changed. I don't know.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a book worth reading. I think I went back to it expecting it to be more about the times and the Spanish Civil War. What I found instead was a work that spent just as much time meditating of love and aging.

The story is written in flashbacks from the fifties. It revolves around George Stewart and his relationships with Catherine Carey, the girl and woman he grew up with and eventually married, and Jerome Martell, the doctor who married Catherine first and then followed his conscience to war in Spain. This triangle is complicated by the fact that Catherine has a rheumatic heart, a disability that both hinders and propels Catherine through life.

Over a decade after he has been reported dead in Nazi Germany, Jerome returns to Montreal. That's how the story starts. There is more - lots more - but that is for you to find out.

One thing I liked about this book the first time through and that I like even more now is that this is a book not of the ones who went to war, but of the ones who stayed home. The ones who could not or would not make the leap from rhetoric to action. We get so used to war novels being about great daring men and their battles that it's nice to see one that deals with the people who did not go.

But, as I said earlier, this is a book about love and loss more than one of war. It is also a very Canadian novel, painting a portrait of life in Montreal that is all but lost now.

I was reading an interesting interview with Barry Callaghan the other day and he said that MacLennan basically disappeared when he died. Sadly, he may be right. I mean, how many people really know about MacLennan aside from seeing his name in the title of a Tragically Hip song?

I hope not. He is far too good a writer to be forgotten so quickly.

Lou Dobbs is an Ass - Example #324

2009-10-23T15:14:00.002-04:00

Or why I should really get rid of cable:

Follow the bouncing ball of illogic - Parents are fine with it. Kids are fine with it. The meat industry is not fine with it. Apparently, this spells controversy. Offer something one day a week that is both cheaper and healthier and all of a sudden Dobbs smells controversy. Argh.

Of course, the meat industry is just looking out for the kids that don't get enough protein. I guess they never heard of beans and the protein they pack. I don't know how the world ever survived without industry lobby groups to look out for our health.

What I Did On My Fall Vacation

2009-10-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

I woke up.

Then I went downtown. To look for a job.

Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

I guess that will only make sense if you, like me, were exposed to Cheech and Chong records at an early age. For those who grew up with less eclectic listening material just skip to the next sentence.

After spending the first couple days of vacation trying to shake a nasty cold (that is still not entirely shook), I flew off to Winnipeg for three days of wandering in the cold (snow in early autumn sucks) with my friend Sean. We did everything from seeing an AHL game (the Moose won) to wandering around the legislature (I love old buildings).

We even got a chance to pop into the railway museum in Winnipeg's Union Station. I recommend it to everyone. They have a large selection of railway equipment and related paraphernalia that you can wander around and often climb up onto. I think the main reason I go there, though, is that the staff of retired railroaders just seems so pleased to have people come up, look around and ask questions.

The highlight of the trip was probably the Assiniboine Park Zoo. It was a lot of fun to wander around and remarkably quiet for a holiday Monday. I was surprised by how large and varied an assortment of animals they have. Even better, we were there while one of the staff was feeding the tortoises. Ever since I read Jessica Grant's great novel Come, Thou Tortoise, I've had a soft spot for the creatures. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo while Lucy was out and wandering amongst our feet (apparently she has a sneaker fetish).

Wednesday night I went to see Wilco at Massey Hall. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing but well worth it. What a great live band.

Last night, I went a photography workshop run by Tanja-Tiziana (www.doublecrossed.ca). It was great to spend time talking photography with one of my favourite photographers. It didn't hurt that I learned a bit more about what to do with all the manual settings on my camera.

Today is kind of a blank slate. I think I'm going to gather up a couple of my cameras and go play for a bit. Later it will be laundry and other acts of domestic drudgery. Some things just can't be postponed even though you're on vacation.

Tomorrow, it's Stratford for the second time this year. This time, I'll be going with a couple of my sisters and a future brother in law to see West Side Story.

Putting it like that makes me sound a whole lot busier than I've really been. Before you get the idea that I've been spending all my time rushing about, realize that it is just about 1 pm and I'm just starting to get ready to go out and take on the world. I could really get used to this whole vacation thing.

Sometimes the better way. . .

2009-10-09T19:06:00.003-04:00

. . . Still Leaves Something to be Desired

Transit Toronto (http://transit.toronto.on.ca/), one of the best resources for GTA based transit info. has a great write up on the shortcomings of the TTC's Nuit Blanche service (http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2009/10/05-blanche-in.shtml). While it was great to be able to take a subway to work at 5 in the morning on Sunday, I was disappointed to see just how bad a job the TTC did of letting people know about the increased service. If you were going to Nuit Blanche, then you knew. If you were a regular Blue Night user heading to work or to home, chances are you had no idea that you could take the subway instead of the bus. I know at Yonge and Eglinton there were no signs letting people know the subway was running. Either you knew or you didn't.

While Nuit Blanche is a once in a year thing and hiccups will occur, I was surprised and disturbed to hear about the turmoil on the 192 Airport Express (http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2009/10/08-192_airpor.shtml). What's the point of running an express service if you are not going to use the highway? It's ridiculous. If you live on the Bloor Danforth Line, especially in the west end, this was one of the best ways to get to the airport. Now, it's no better than the Lawrence or Eglinton buses that go to the airport - slow, winding trips that are only used by transit die-hards and those who can't afford to pay for a faster mode of transportation.

For those transit geeks that want more than just news, the Transit Toronto site also has lots of info and pics of old buses, streetcars and subways. Check it out. I know you want to.

Turns out the depression didn't just happen in B&W. . .

2009-10-06T09:30:00.002-04:00

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2009/fsa_color_multimedia/

In some ways, I had a hard time believing these were depression era photos. We've become so conditioned to seeing the depression through black and white photos.

In other news, I am one 10 hour shift away from vacation. In the next 13 days, I will:

- go see The Sound of Music with my foster sister Jeanne. She may be blind but that has not stopped us from taking her to ball games and all sorts of things. A musical should be right up her alley.

- fly out to Winnipeg to spend the Thanksgiving weekend visiting my friend Sean. Winnipeg is one of my favourite cities.

- take a photography seminar run by Tanja-Tiziana, a great local photographer.

- go to Stratford with 2 sisters, 1 brother in law and 1 future brother in law to see West Side Story. I haven't been to a musical in years, not since I saw Mickey Rooney ham it up in Crazy For You. Now I'm going to two in a week and a half. Strange. Even stranger, I just found out Rooney has the same birthday as me. So does Bruce Springsteen, for that matter.

-spend at least a bit of time up at the parents' homestead. From what I hear, there garage is almost done and they still have lots of deer wandering around.

Right now, though, I'm going to take a nap. I've had a cold all weekend and I'm hoping to get rid of it soon.

Where are the leaders?

2009-10-01T09:38:00.002-04:00

I'm watching Newsworld. Iggy is talking his non-confidence vote and I am thinking the Libs have finally found a leader who is almost as inexpressive as Harper. He did the whole press conference without really opening his mouth. More often then not, he almost seems to be smirking.

The scorecard now reads as this:

The cons have the sneer.

The libs have the smirk.

The ndp still has the used car salesman.

Makes me almost pine for the, uh, glory days of the 90s with Manning and Chretien and Bouchard. Not the best and brightest by any stretch but at least these men were willing to show a little passion.

What troubles me most is how weak everyone is. You have a conservative party that (thankfully) can't complete the job and get Harper his majority. That's fine. Except for the fact that you have a Liberal party that is doing two things at once - shifting to the right and not really moving at all. How's that for a conundrum. As for the NDP, even the Globe is admitting in editorials that Layton is actually right more often than not. Sadly, the conservative controlled media has done an effective job of marginalizing the left. Even worse, I'm not sure Layton is capable of doing anything to change that.

The way things are right now, I'm going to have to start investigating the fringe parties to find someone worthy of my vote the next time around.

Ouch. . .

2009-09-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

I'm just getting over the pain of a pulled wisdom tooth. It really wasn't as bad as I thought but still not something I would ever want to repeat. My dentist is pretty good but there is no way to hide the fact that tooth removal is more about brute force than anything else. I don't think I was able to hide the fact that I kind of get nervous when people want to exercise brute force anywhere near my mouth.

At least I had the Bidiniband's disc to listen to while I convalesced. Very good. Makes me kind of wistful for the Rheos but that's a good thing.

Anyways, my father came down last weekend bearing birthday gifts and cake. We went out to the islands on Saturday and spent three hours biking around in the glorious sunshine. I'm going to have to get out there again before the weather turns too cool.

As for the birthday day itself, I worked 15 hours. Even worse, I had to be back in to work again for 4 the next morning so there were no festivities to be had. Which is fine actually. I'm saving up for next year when my friend Ezio and I plan to take Manhatten again for the first time in a decade. Should be a nice way to mark my 35'th trip around the sun.

If anybody is looking for something good to read, check out Richard Russo's latest, That Old Cape Magic. A very good novel indeed.

Well, I think it I'm feeling well enough to start doing some cleaning. I'll leave you with some pics from last weekend:

Even the swans hang out at the Islands on a sunny day.

It's a dedicated grandfather that will sit down opposite a turtle statue to get a picture for his granddaughter.

Well into his sixth decade, my father still looks at all rope ladders and jungle gyms as challenges.

Wandering the Islands

2009-09-16T09:30:00.005-04:00

My sisters Charity and Nikki came down to the city for the night last week. It was a great time. They used hotwire and got a great rate on a really nice hotel that just happened to be next to the ferry docks. On Friday, we took the ferry across to the islands, rented some bikes and explored. It was their first time over there. Truly one of the Toronto's (not so) hidden gems.

(My sisters have final approval on all shots I took of them so no pics of them until (and if) they approve)

It sure is a lot quieter in the first week after Labour Day. I kind of like it that way.

My trusty rented steed. It's been so long since I had a bike with coaster brakes. Has me seriously thinking of getting a new bike by spring.

My sister Charity took this one. You do get a great view of the city from the islands.

No idea who these people are but it made for a nice shot.

The view from my sisters' hotel room. If they faced the other way, it would be endless condos for as far as the eye can see. Well, maybe not that far but you get the picture.

If they cut out Potter, Twilight, BrAngelina, Dan Brown and American Idol. . .

2009-09-16T09:21:00.003-04:00

. . . it would be so much shorter:

http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/news/if-you-printed-the-internet/

In other news, for those of you looking for a good thriller to read on your commute, don't buy the latest Dan Brown tome. Pick up Andrew Pyper's The Killing Circle instead. You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that a thrilling page turner can actually be well written. It's also unabashedly Canadian, which is a very good thing.

So it wasn't a perfect book season, after all. . .

2009-09-16T00:19:00.003-04:00

With all the great books coming out this fall - Russo, Munro, Atwood, Irving, etc. etc. etc. - it really sucks to see Indigo employees out in Union Station selling the latest Dan Brown book. I mean, isn't he going to sell enough books as it is?

I do like the idea of booksellers in the concourse. It's a neat idea. Get to the commuters before they head for the train. I just wish they'd pick a better book the sell.

Argh. . .

5 Bucks

2009-09-03T08:56:00.007-04:00

I went to the CNE on Tuesday night. After 5 in the evening it is only 5 bucks to get in. Which worked perfectly for me because I really just wanted to photograph the midway in the evening.

I wasn't the only one with that idea. There was a photography club out with a bunch of really big expensive cameras and tripods. It was kind of interesting watching them set up for their perfect shots. Me, I just wandered and shot. No tripod (though I may bring one next year) but I was able to find enough fences and garbage cans to provide stability when I needed it.

Nothing says summer is ending like a midway on a clear evening:

The Basterd Does It Again

2009-08-29T09:45:00.000-04:00

I went and saw Inglourious Basterds Thursday night and loved it. Funny, strange, dark, twisted - in other words it was standard Tarantino fare.

Tarantino seems to be making a career out of creating all the films he wanted to see as a 15 year old. This time around, it is the pulpy WWII flick. Like an idiot savant, he focuses his skills and abilities on products of sometimes dubious merit but he does it with such verve and originality that it leaves you wanting more.

The more I watch his flicks, though, the more I realize Tarantino's limits. I don't think we will ever see a mature, adult movie from him. While I can accept that - his work is so much fun that I will always make a point of watching it - I do wonder what would happen if he tackled a more adult storyline with actual characters instead of comic book archetypes. If only he used his talents for the forces of good and all that. . .

Of course, watching this movie reinforces all that is wrong with movie age rating systems. This movie is rated 14A, meaning anyone can go to it as long as they are accompanied by a guardian. This is a movie where people are scalped and swastikas are carved into people's foreheads (actually creepily funny in the context of the film). While there wasn't an overabundance of violence, what violence there was was graphic and nasty. Still, you can take your 6 year old to the film if you are so inclined.

Imagine if Tarantino focused on naked bodies rather than naked aggression. They'd immediately slap an 18A on his flick to keep impressionable minds from being corrupted by the naked body. Bizarre and hypocritical just don't go far enough to describe the current situation. We've created a system that rewards selling violence to children.

I'm not getting all prudish. I'm not saying Basterds should be kept from teenage eyes or anything. Far from it. Basterds is exactly the sort of movie I would have searched out as a teenager so how can I argue against teenagers today watching it? I'm just saying that something is seriously out of whack when this movie passes the censors without issue while other less violent fare has to jump through hoops only to get slapped with an 18A (even worse if you were in the States, the dreaded NC17).

I'm thinking there should really be two ratings - 14A and G. The 14A would be restricted to people 14 and above. The G would be open to everyone. Simple as that (well, I guess you can keep another rating around, like X, for the outright pornographic stuff). Not only would it be more honest - teens are going to find this stuff anyways - it would be easier to regulate. I don't see what we gain by creating these arbitrary layers for teenagers (14A, 18A, R). All it really does is make stuff seem more exotic (and attractive) than it really needs to be. Have some faith in these kids to make decisions. They might not always make good ones but with practise they will make better ones. Right now, we don't allow them the chance to make decisions. We keep everything away from them and then, at some arbitrary point (like an 18'th birthday) we tell them to go nuts. It's a wonder they don't turn out worse.

A new Elliott Smith tune!!!

2009-08-28T12:43:00.002-04:00

http://pitchfork.com/news/36352-listen-to-an-unearthed-elliott-smith-song/

I've been on a bit of an Elliott Smith kick lately so I was glad to check this out. It's pretty good.

Reason #153 why Toronto is a cool place to live. . .

2009-08-27T19:03:00.007-04:00

The carillon at Metropolitan United Church:

If the church is open and you hear the bells, go up and see the carilloneur. He'll talk to you about the instrument, let you ring a few bells and then take you up to see the actual bells. It's amazing and well worth the long climb up a very narrow spiral staircase.

Photography / No More Boring Rocks

2009-08-24T04:00:00.000-04:00

I like to play around with cameras. Yet another surprising revelation, I know. Would you also believe that I kind of like books?

I never really did much with cameras until I was in my early twenties. I don't really know why. It just wasn't my thing. Then, sometime around 1998, I picked up a nice Olympus point and shoot to take with me on my first big trip outside of Canada and the United States. I loaded up on lots of film, poured over my Lonely Planet guidebook and headed off for 9 days in Mexico City and Oaxaca.

The trip was amazing. It was the gateway drug that has kept me wandering around and around. The pictures? Uh. Um.

Let's see, it went kind of like this. I took 9 rolls of film down there and pretty much filled them. I got them developed as soon as I got back and started showing them to my parents and sisters. First up was a boring picture of old rocks. Next up was another boring picture of old rocks. With the pattern set, I continued through 9 rolls of really boring pictures. Kudos to my parents for not falling asleep halfway through.

What did I do wrong? No people. No action. No thought given to composition. No thought given to much other than a lot of thoughtless snapping. I guess I figured having a nice camera would automatically equal nice shots.

It doesn't.

So, I worked at it a bit. My next big trip was to India and Nepal and I made a point of trying to do a better job. I tried to overcome my fear of shooting people (something I still haven't cured myself of, but more on that later) and I came back with some nice shots. Sure, there were still issues but this time I took some shots I actually liked. Actually, I just found the box where I stuffed all those pics and now I'm dying to get a good scanner to digitize them.

After that, I made the move to an slr camera and took an introductory photography course. That's when I realized there was a whole lot more to this photography thing than seeing something nice and pressing a button. I'm not saying I use the rules of composition all the time, but at least I have an idea of what should be done.

As I said, I still have a bit of a problem with taking shots of people or, more specifically, taking shots of people I don't know. I was thinking about this the other day when I chanced upon WNYC radio's street photography contest (http://www.wnyc.org/streetshots/). Going through all the entries made me wish I was more comfortable taking shots of people. I love the spontaneous nature of a lot of this work. There's a vibrancy there I'd love to capture. Check out the site. All the videos are short and I think there's a lot to learn. If you only watch one, watch the winner, Joe Wigfall. His thoughts on art are pretty inspiring. If you watch a second, watch Bruce Gilden's and tell me what you think. I'm caught between being creeped out (popping a flash in people's faces just seems wrong) and a strange sense of appreciation (he is chasing his vision and doesn't seem to get beat up for it).

Anyways, watching these videos makes me want to try some candid street shots. Actually, this takes me back to the photography course I took. One of the assignments we had was to wander around downtown Toronto in the evening and take pictures of various street scenes we chanced upon. No one passed the assignment. We were all too timid and wound up doing everything possible to avoid taking pics of people, missing the whole point of the assignment. I'm thinking a do-over may be in the works.

In other camera news, I've begun to covet old soviet rangefinder cameras. I started looking at them on the lomo website (http://www.lomography.com/) and I'm intrigued. Almost enough to make me consider playing with film again. Almost.

(While we're talking about photography, check out http://www.doublecrossed.ca/ to see how good photography is done. I bought a couple of prints from her at last year's Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibtion.)

One thing that puzzles me. . .

2009-08-19T01:47:00.002-04:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pmo-typo-draws-chuckles-cringes/article1255998/

It is kind of funny. The thing that amazes me, though, is that the Inuit have a word for people with unwiped bums. That kind of implies that this unwiped bum thing happens quite often. I guess in a land with no trees, it's hard to find some good two-ply.

My Weekend in Sarnia - music, friends and chess

2009-08-18T11:37:00.010-04:00

I spent a great but far too short weekend in Sarnia. Lots of visiting, some chess and some great music. Next time, I need to stay longer.

Ezio, one of my oldest friends and one of the most talented musicians / painters / artists I know.

My friend Adam got some local students to paint the wall out back of his music studio.

Ezio's cat will only drink out of a mug.

Did I mention that I love my new camera?

Canuck Book Revisitation 1 - Generation X by Douglas Coupland

2009-08-18T10:53:00.003-04:00

You know what? I don't remember actually loving this book when I first read it. I liked it a lot and tore through it quickly but I didn't love it. I think it was just too dry, too mannered. I mean, all it is is a few people hanging out telling stories to each other.

What struck me most this time around, with a decade and a half of separation is how much this book is a product of its time. This book is the literary equivalent of all those jaded, talky GenX movies I once loved - Slacker, Before Sunrise, Clerks. Young people talking. And talking. And talking. Some coupling, but that just fuels more talking.

The second time around? I think I like it even more. It's a strange book - one that is almost too cute with it's constant slogans and definitions in the margins - but it works. Maybe it's just me. As I mentioned, I do have a weakness for all things talky and nineties.

Of course, there is an irony here because, while Coupland got so much right in his book, the reality of the X generation didn't play out the way he envisioned. Instead of backing away from consumer society, the X generation wound up embracing it with gusto. They may have tried to dress up their consumerism in layers of irony and detachment but it didn't keep them out of the malls. Sigh. . .

A plan is hatched. . .

2009-08-12T03:50:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about how to approach the 3'rd Edition of Mr. Mutford's wonderful Canuck book challenge. As before, it is 13 Canuck books in a year.

Usually, I take the piecemeal approach, going from book to book on whims and flights of fancy with no though really given to common themes or ideas. Canadian literature is such a varied beast that I could take this approach again without fear of overlap or repetition.

This time, though, I want to take at least a little bit more disciplined approach. Nothing too rigid - I'm still not up to doing one from each province and territory as a number of people have done - but I do want to give my attempt at the challenge a little more shape and substance.

I'd originally thought of doing a short story collection theme. I love short stories. Canadians tend to write great short stories. It almost seemed like a perfect plan until I remembered one small detail - I have a hard time reading a story collection cover to cover. I find it easier to do than reading a poetry collection but it's still not something I look forward to. Sure, sometimes a collection will strike me the right way and I will tear through it (Alissa York's Any Given Power and David Bezmosgis' Natasha and Other Stories are two books that I raced through) but they are the rare exceptions. Right now, for instance, I've been rotating through short story collections by Alice Munro, Annie Proulx and Flannery O'Connor.

Instead, I've come up with a better plan, one that expands my horizons in an entirely different way. I'm going reread 13 of my favourite Canuck books.

I know what you're thinking - how does rereading books expand my horizons? Isn't that kind of a cop out? Well, no. You see, I almost never reread books. I have this compulsion that I must always search out something new. I just don't have time to go back over books I've already read. So I fill my shelves with new conquests while my old favourites sit around neglected.

Going back to 13 of my favourites should be eye opening. Will I like The Watch That Ends the Night as much as I did in university? Do Russell Smith's novels hold up over time? Will I fall in love again with Alayna Munce's When I Was Young and In My Prime?

I'm actually quite excited about this. I keep thinking of books I need to add to the list. So many possible books are out there - Clara Callan, A Fine Balance, The Edible Woman, Turvey. I could go on and on if it weren't so late and I weren't so tired.

First up is Douglas Coupland's Generation X. Oddly enough, this isn't a book I remember falling in love with. I liked it, sure, but it certainly didn't knock my socks off. That said, it is a book that intrigues me greatly. I'm curious to see how it holds up nearly two decades later.

(I came close enough to doing the short story thing, that I even started making a stack of books for the challenge.)

A real smrt teechur

2009-08-11T10:04:00.002-04:00

Ok, one last kick at the cat. I couldn't pass up watching Arlen Specter's town hall meeting (if you don't know or don't care why this is interesting, I envy you. Sadly, my OCD works against me). My favourite moment was when a teacher got up and demanded that Specter move to have all bills and laws written in a language that is at a junior high school level. As if multi-billion dollar laws concerning the lives of over 300 million people can all be written with the simplicity of a Dick and Jane book.

. . .

Actually, I was going to spew and sputter but I just don't have the heart. When the teachers start asking for us to dumb things down, I give up.

NEWS! - Americans Already Have Socialized Medical Care!

2009-08-11T08:58:00.003-04:00

(Take that Sarah Palin and your insidious wink!)

So I'm watching CNN (a really bad morning habit) waiting for my blood pressure to reach a suitable boil. I used to think CNN was a great network. To put things in perspective, I also used to think Kiss was one of the greatest bands going. Oh, my prepubescent self, where have you gone?

So, I'm watching CNN and trying to keep from screaming while the American people fritter away any chance of having a more fair health care system because they would prefer to repeat slogans and talking points than doing anything so old fashioned as actually thinking.

Anyways, I'm watching CNN and watching people stifle debate in the name of freedom. Wrap your mind around that, why don't you. Nothing has changed. Much like the McCarthy infected 50's we are quickly learning that, while America talks about all sorts of freedoms, they still aren't ready for free thought.

As I said, I'm watching CNN and it hits me! Right in the middle of a segment about how expensive a hospital visit can be, I'm confronted with the reality that Americans already have a socialized medical system.

What? How can this be?

Well, the head of the hospital was quite up front in saying that those $200 000 medical bills you hear about contain a number of hidden costs that go into running a hospital. One of the biggest costs? Covering the costs of the uninsured and the underinsured. That's right, the ones with health care are being forced to pay for the care of those without health care. Almost sounds like socialism. The only difference is that it is the hospital deciding how much to charge and not the government.

Of course, the head of the hospital was much less up front about what part of the bill was profit. I guess those sorts of details don't show up well on the tv screen.

ps - Anyone else mystified by the Americans that are protesting against government run health care while taking advantage of a government run health care program, like those for seniors or veterans? The head spins.

It worked!

2009-08-06T09:50:00.000-04:00

Finally got blogger to cooperate.

These ladies were feeding the pigeons. I've had a hard time disliking pigeons ever since I read Superdove.

This is all that's left of Sam's. Sigh.

Such a great venue.

No Pics for You

2009-08-06T09:18:00.002-04:00

I was going to offer up some pics I took yesterday with my new ~~toy~~ camera but blogger seems to be acting up. I really love this camera. I went for a wander downtown and took a bunch of photos using its manual settings. Very fun.

In lieu of pics, I will offer up this link:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20295839,00.html

For some reason, the Canuck brain tumour lady didn't mention this benefit of American health care. Go figure.

Perplexing News Tidbits

2009-08-05T13:21:00.004-04:00

According to a news headline, the North Korean captives were fed bad food. First, you are a captive. Second, you are in a country that exists in a state of perpetual famine. For some reason, I don't think foie gras was in the cards.

As for the tragedy in Pennsylvania, the winner for most ridiculously obvious interview quote goes to Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt, who said "I think he went in with the idea of doing what he did." Maybe I'm a naive Canuck, but I kind of figure if a guy goes into a gym with a bag full of guns, it's not likely he's there just for the pilates.

I think the 24 hour tv news cycle, with it's need for constant drama and headlines, is actually making us dumber.

Dance of the Happy Shades

2009-08-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

Is there anything better than waking up late, stretching and then lying in bed reading for a while? I don't think so. Especially today while I unwind from last night's shift. While nothing catastrophic happened, the shift was one of the busiest weekend shifts I've ever worked. Huge crowds all day (and evening) from Caribana combined with construction related delays made for a draining stretch of continual motion and scrambling. The only benefit was that time really flew. I just had no time to watch the clock.

Anyways, back to the reading. It's probably no surprise I have a teetering pile of books on top of my bedside ~~table~~ bookshelf. Today I pulled out a nice old edition of Alice Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades and read the stories "The Office" and "An Ounce of Cure".

The stress seeped out and was replaced by awe. I know. I know. It's almost a cliche to marvel at Munro's stories. Her work has been canonized and so lauded that to say anything other than "Alice Munro is a great story writer" would seem almost sacriligous. Inevitably, one has to wonder if she is really that good? Or is she getting a free pass because of her reputation?

We have this tendancy to elevate certain books and writers to positions that become almost untouchable. Often, this is earned - there are writers who deserve to be looked upon as masters in the same light that we look upon masters of music or the visual arts. The problem is that when this happens, many readers start to turn away. You hear so much about how great these books are that they become a chore more than a pleasure. How often does one really pick up Ulysses for fun?

Some of it goes back to school and the books we were taught. Often books seem to be taught because they are ostensibly "great" with little thought given to whether they would interest the young reader. Do that enough times to young readers and they soon develop a conditioned reluctance to reading the greats.

I'm not suggesting dumbing down the reading list. To the contrary, I think people should be taught good books as soon as possible so that they start to expect and even search out good books. It's just that more attention should be paid to which books are selected. My favourite example is Laurence's The Stone Angel. I'm still trying to understand the logic behind putting that book on the curriculum. I mean, I guess it counts as CanCon and maybe the school boards get a good discount from McStew but come on! How many teenagers are really that concerned with the recollections and ruminations of an old woman? Teach the Diviners if you want to teach Laurence. Teach Richler, Atwood, Cohen, Birney, Callaghan, MacLennan. Teach younger Canadian writers like Lynn Coady or Michael Redhill or Lisa Moore or Douglas Coupland. Teach books that will inspire and excite. Teach books with bad words and grand ideas. Teach books that were banned for bad reasons. Teach books that will captivate - offer up the gateway drug to a lifetime of reading. Teach anything but The Stone Angel.

. . .

Um. . .

I think I might have slipped off topic. I rant therefore I am.

Reading Munro this morning was a great way to start the day. Each story is a gem but to describe them would require delving into all the cliches about her work that we all know by now. She is truly a master. Just don't tell anyone, lest it scare them away.

(For any fans of The Stone Angel out there, don't take offense. I think it is a very good book. It's just not a book that should be taught in high school.)

A quick test of a new toy

2009-08-01T12:26:00.002-04:00

I bought a new point and shoot camera yesterday. I wanted something more advanced then the 5mp Nikon I've had for a long time. I looked at a few options but settled on the Panasonic DMC-LX3, a p&s that has a wide range of manual functions and a really nice wide angle lens.

I snuck out of work for a short walk around downtown last night and took a few pics to get a feel for it. I don't think they turned out too bad.

Trails and Castles and Locks and Willie - some notes from a road trip

2009-07-24T01:08:00.005-04:00

At 76, Willie Nelson is still an amazing performer. Less talk this time but much more guitar work.

It is a long way down stairs and trails from the road to the shores of the Niagara River just below the whirlpool. It feels a whole lot longer on the way back up.

Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls is ridiculous and tacky and strange and an assault on the senses. Never had any interest in doing any of the tourist attractions, but I love to take a walk through the area.

Motel 6 has some weird shaped bath tubs. Sometimes, with space at a premium, you should just do a shower stall.

Bob Dylan's band looks like it lives in fear of missing a change from the master. Seriously. Bordering on terror. Strangest band dynamic ever.

Side roads and regional highways are best. From pick your own cherry fields to locks on the Erie Canal, there is just so much more to do and see than on the poorly named freeways.

John Mellencamp did pretty much the show you would expect of him. I think I had most of the playlist memorized before I went to high school. That turned out to be a good thing.

If you chance upon a castle in the 1000 Islands region, visit it. My father and I chanced upon the Boldt Castle by taking the last exit before the Canadian border. It was amazing. Not just the castle, the grounds and the boat house, but the area itself.

The Radisson sleep number thing is overrated. Just give me a nice big pillowtop mattress and I'd be happy. As it was, the bed had a hard time keeping the settings. Still a good night's sleep, just not worth the fuss.

Cracker Barrel's pancakes are surprisingly good. I've kind of gotten used to being disappointed by bland American restaurant food (where quantity over quality seems to be the rule) so this was a surprise. Didn't come close to good homemade ones, but they were still pretty good.

Al Purdy's house is not as easy to find as one might think. I mean, Ameliasburg is not even big enough to have a population number attached. Stopped and asked an older lady and her response was "you mean the guy that died" (he died in 2000). Still didn't help. It was a nice drive, though, and not far from the Loyalist Parkway (one of Ontario's nicest drives).

The ipod was made for road trips. It's all about the variety.

If I had a rocket launcher. . .

2009-07-17T09:28:00.002-04:00

I think I've already mentioned I watch way too much CNN than is good for any one person. It's kind of like junk food for the inquisitive mind and just as bad for you in the long run.

The worst thing about CNN is the commercials. Especially right now when the U.S. is making baby steps towards something most other nations started a half-century ago - public health care. All those ads warning people not to let the government get between you and your doctor - I guess there's only room for the insurance companies in that space not that they are quick to admit that. The only people that have direct access to their doctors right now are those that a rich enough to buy the services directly. Sadly, the vast majority of Americans are not that lucky.

Think about that. The biggest argument against a public plan is that it removes choice and yet the only people who have a choice are those rich enough to buy health care no matter where they live. I don't even need to dig out my Orwell to tell you that that is creepy and scary and wrong.

Even worse are the commercials talking about how horrible the Canuck system is. Like the lady who says she would have died of brain cancer if she didn't go to the states for treatment. Did anyone ask how she paid for her American health care? I fully admit that the American system is the best in the world - if you have the money to pay for it. If you're rich, they'll treat you for illnesses that haven't even been invented yet.

I am not rich. I am not poor either. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle (though that middle keeps sliding closer to the bottom it seems - but that's another rant). As such, I'll stick with the Canuck system. Why? Five years ago I was diagnosed with a giant aneurysm up near the back of my brain. It was treated. I went back to work. Last spring, I changed jobs. Not too long afterwards, I wound up back in the hospital after suffering a pretty massive series of seizures. I recovered, went on dilantin and went back to work. At no time did I have to worry about losing coverage. At no time did I have to worry about not getting the treatments needed because an insurance company cited 'pre-existing conditions' or used other lawyer speak to keep them from spending money on my health. At no time did I have to worry about anything other than getting better. For some reason, I doubt my story would make it into the commercials.

And now I'm sitting through commercials warning people that Congress is trying to create a tax on "simple pleasures we enjoy like juice drinks and soda". Why shouldn't they tax something that is turning out to be almost as dangerous in the long term as tobacco or alcohol? Take a tour around the American Beverage Association website and tell me that these people are not just as scary as the tobacco companies.

So, if I had a rocket launcher, I'd probably aim it at my tv.

What I've been up to. . .

2009-07-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

I went to Massey Hall Saturday night to see Steve Earle. It was great. Jason Collett opened and played a solid set alone with an acoustic guitar. It is kind of odd seeing a lone performer on a stage as large as Massey Hall's but it worked out nicely.

It was also indicative of things to come. It soon became clear that not much setup was required between acts as Steve Earle also came out alone with a guitar. With only the guitar, some harmonicas and a short stretch with a mandolin, Earle showed you don't need a band to rock the house.

He played old stuff. He played new stuff. He talked about Townes (his latest album is a tribute to his musical mentor, the late Townes Van Zandt). He talked about living on the street where The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover was photographed (and helping to make sure the Japanese tourists are facing the right way for their photos). All in all, it was a great night and worth the lack of sleep (I had to work at 5:45 the next morning).

Other than that, I've been working. Thankfully, my last shift is this afternoon. Then I'm on vacation for 13 days. This weekend, my father and I will embark on a road trip around Lake Ontario with a stop in Syracuse to see Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

I'm a little bit excited.

Must be off. Hope all is well with you all.

Trains, plays, child labour and Alice Munro

2009-07-08T01:04:00.002-04:00

I was actually going to title this post "Holy Crap! I met Alice Munro in Stratford!!!" but I thought that might be a tad undignified.

Now that the title is done with, though, I have no such reservations:

Holy Crap! I met Alice Munro in Stratford!!!

First off, taking the train is the best way to get to Stratford. Two hours of reading, relaxing and scenery was a great way to start the day. When you do get to Stratford, I recommend forgoing the cab. Two other playgoers offered to split a cab with me but I declined because a) I knew the theatres were at most 15 minutes walk from the train station and b) Stratford is a really beautiful city and a joy to walk around.

Second, Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson is a riot. Fun and bawdy, it was definitely worth the trip. Oddly enough, this is the first time this play has been performed in North America. It deserves to be done much more often.

Third, my chance meeting with the master herself. Waiting to be let into the theatre, I called my sister and said I thought I saw Alice Munro also waiting to be let in. I wasn't 100 per cent sure but I was pretty close. I didn't see her during the intermission but after the play I couldn't resist. Well, I tried to resist. I kept chickening out. I think I've mentioned before that I don't do well meeting writers I idolize. I tend to get shy and nervous. It's pretty ridiculous.

But I keep trying. So I went up to her and asked if she was Alice Munro and she was. We had a short conversation that wasn't too embarrassing. She laughed when I admitted to being starstruck. I let her know I was looking forward to her new book which is coming out this fall.

Next time, I will actually take out my camera. Baby steps.

Later, after walking up and down both sides of the river, I had a nice dinner and then wandered around downtown Stratford. You have to love a town that has three independant bookstores in it's downtown core. I stopped in front of the Avon theatre to watch a 9 year old busker playing the fiddle. He was pretty good. It did leave me wondering if the toonie I tossed his way means I support child labour?

My sisters and I are planning to go to Stratford in September to see West Side Story, a production that has been getting great reviews. This Stratford thing could become a habit.

A long awaited day trip

2009-07-07T01:41:00.000-04:00

I'm off to Stratford in the morning. Ever since I read about it in Clara Callan, I've wanted to do a day trip to Stratford by train to see a play. It just sounded kind of cool.

Of course, I read the book years ago and I'm only getting around to it now. Every summer, I'd think I should go see a play. Then things would come up and soon enough I was making plans for the next year. It was kind of a ritual.

This year things have finally changed. Last week, I looked at the fact that I would have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off this week and I quickly made plans before something else could come up.

So it's off to Stratford on the 1105 train to catch a matinee showing of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. Then it's an evening in Stratford and a train ride that will get me back to Union Station by 1130 at night.

So, am I the only one who has made travel plans inspired by a good book?

A great line. . .

2009-07-06T10:42:00.003-04:00

I was looking for my first book for the Shelf Monkey's Critical Monkey challenge. I was toying with the idea of searching the dollar bins for a copy of Jonathon Livingston Seagull. If I'm going for cheese, I might as well go for some old school 70's style cheese. There are a lot of people out there claiming this book is a masterpiece and that it changed their lives. As Corey would probably point out, there are people saying the same thing about Twilight and they are wrong.

Anyways, I looked up the book and decide to read some of the reader reviews. It wasn't long before I found this gem:

"Anyway, some people call this book "inspirational", or "motivating." I'm guessing that these are the same people who consider accidentally getting two extra cheesesticks for free in their Papa John's order "a miraculous affirmation of a higher power.'"

Jonathan, semi-anonymous book reviewer out there somewhere in the interweb, I salute you.

Now it's off to the dollar bins.

Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T08:36:00.002-04:00

It's funny on facebook how everyone is so divided on this. You have half the people saluting the one time king of pop while the other half is saying good riddance to a presumed pedophile and creepy fellow.

As for me, I was kind of stunned, more than I'd care to admit. It just seems so strange. I don't think I really cared about anything Jackson did artistically since the mid-80's but for some irrational reason I still thought a comeback might be possible. At the very least, it might have shown that the past two decades of weirdness was somehow worth it. Of course, this stopped being a hollywood type story years ago so I guess there was never any chance of a hollywood ending.

In a lot of ways I am more forgiving than some of the people on facebook. At the very least, I can find some way to divide the art from the artist. I still love On the Road while accepting that Kerouac had a homophobic streak a mile wide. I can still get a thrill out of Jerry Lee Lewis doing Crazy Arms while accepting that the killer was a creep. Bobby Fischer, Hemingway, Ezra Pound - all creators of great art while being less than stellar human beings (Fischer's chess in it's prime was a work of art). You know it's a bad crowd when Hem starts looking like the well adjusted one.

Thriller was one of the first albums I ever owned. I was ten at the time. Over twenty years later, I still probably know most of the songs by heart, not that I've ever been quick to admit it. For all the madness - the rumours, the innuendo and whatever the reality may be - you have to give him that. In his prime, he created great music.

New Music Day!

2009-06-24T09:57:00.005-04:00

Once every four weeks, I work a shift on a Tuesday that finishes at seven in the evening. It's become something of a ritual that I leave work and head up to Little Italy to visit Soundscapes Records. As I've mentioned before, Soundscapes is one of the best shops in the city. It's just a small store but it has pretty much everything you could want, from the newest indie stuff to jazz to classical and all the stops in between.

Today, I picked up three brand new discs:

Regina Spektor's far - back in university, I listened to way too much Tori Amos. Regina Spektor is kind of like Tori Amos with a sense of humour. She writes weird and funny songs from strange perspectives that kill me. I have pretty high hopes for this disc.

God Help The Girl - Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch as pop svengali - writing and producing a story set to music. Murdoch is one of those musicians that can seemingly do no wrong so I had to pick this one up.

Larry Jon Wilson - this is the disc I've been listening to since I got home last night. A fairly obscure singer songwriter who rose and faded back in the 70s, Wilson has put together a disc of stripped down voice and guitar songs that echo the greats - Kristofferson, Van Zandt, Cash's American recordings - but doesn't feel out of place on Drag City, the label that is home to Bill Callahan and Will Oldham. I love it.

In other news, I went fishing last weekend for the first time in years. My father and I went out for a bit, just rowing down the lake a ways. I really need to get out more often (fishing, that is). Is there anything more relaxing than a well placed cast on a sunny day? Next time, though, I will remember to put suntan lotion on my legs. I knew there was a reason I always wear pants.

There's fish in there somewhere. . . Even if we didn't find any on Sunday.

Beck covering the Velvet Underground!!!!

2009-06-19T00:48:00.002-04:00

I'm heading up north tomorrow for fishing and hanging out and father's day and stuff. I'll try to blog while I'm up there. Until that time, though, go to www.beck.com and watch the man cover a velvet underground gem. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread (until the next thing comes along).

Canuck Book Extra Credit 2 - Spent by Joe Matt

2009-06-17T14:55:00.002-04:00

One more Matt book though I guess some of this was done after Matt returned to the States (he lives in LA now) so it may not be as Canuck as some of the other books I've read. It is, however, set in Toronto and published by a great Canuck press (Drawn and Quarterly) so I'd say that counts.

Basically, this book is great if you love Joe Matt's work, so-so if you don't. It has all the usual trappings of Matt's work - misanthropy, ridiculous degrees of thrift, stunted emotional life, porn, more porn - and it moves fairly well. It doesn't break any new ground and by the time it winds down - with Matt complaining about how he has wasted his life with no great revelations to satisfy the readers - I think even the most die hard fan is glad to see it end - not with a whimper, but a whine.

Canuck Book Extra Credit 1 - Heaven is Small by Emily Schultz

2009-06-16T13:59:00.004-04:00

What Mr. Mutford wants, he gets. Just 47 books shy of 1000 books for the year, John asked us to read more Canadian this month. So I did. Here goes:

Man dies but doesn't realize it.

Man takes subway and bus to the far reaches of suburbia for a job interview.

Man gets job as proofreader at Heaven, a huge corporation that publishes romance novels.

Man starts to suspect something.

I've been reading Emily Schultz for years. She spent time editing Broken Pencil magazine, put out a series of micro chapbooks by anonymous authors (the pocket canon series) and published a good collection of stories, Black Coffee Nights. Her first novel (Joyland) wasn't as good as I'd hoped but it kept me interested. Which was a good thing because Heaven is Small is a really good novel. Not perfect, but a very enjoyable read.

I don't really want to say more about the story than I already have because a good part of the fun of this book is the little surprises, the revelations when you start to understand how things work in the world of heaven. Needless to say, it's well thought out with large doses of humour mixed with darker details. I thought the ending was a little rushed. As I noticed myself getting closer to the back cover, I started to worry that there wouldn't be enough time to finish thing. After finishing, I still think the book could have gone a little longer.

But that's a minor quibble. The book is fun and well constructed. A while ago, Schultz was showing up on lists of young Canuck writers to watch. This book proves the lists were right.

ps - My other minor quibble is the dust jacket. Not exactly the best cover design if you want to get men to read the book (and they should).

A Scary Thought

2009-06-10T10:45:00.000-04:00

Toronto is mulling over the idea of offering only diet (meaning aspartame laced) drinks in high school vending machines. There are good intentions here - the school board wants to limit students' exposure to high caloried glorified corn syrup (otherwise known as pop). Of course, once those good intentions come up against corporate sponsors (Coke and Pepsi), all bets are off and stupid self-serving ideas seep in.

Aspartame is not the answer. Not only are there lingering health questions tied to the products, there is also the simple fact that a substance 150 times sweeter than sugar actually makes a person crave more sweets (and my nutritionist thinks I don't listen to her). When you think about it, it's not that surprising - how many people do you know that really lose weight drinking 'diet' pop?

As for the health issues, here is a list of illnesses that have been associated with aspartame: brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes. While I already knew about a few of them before today (apparently the rate of MS among female office workers is off the charts), there were some surprises. And yet this stuff is considered safe for human consumption.

So what is the solution? Fruit juice? Not really. Contrary to what they tell you in the commercials, drinking a bottle of fruit juice is not the equivalent of eating so much fruit. What you really get is all the sugar, some of the nutrients and almost none of the fibre you get from eating fruit. Furthermore, because of its concentrated nature, you are consuming far more of those sugars in one sitting than you really should. Before fruit juices are considered, they really must also look at portion control and reducing the size of the packaging. A half litre of orange juice in a sitting just isn't that good for you.

Water? Yup, but not in those nasty plastic bottles. If the school board was truly interested in their students' health, they should probably offer free stainless steel water bottles and put a tap beside every water fountain so the students can fill them when they want. Tap water is no worse than what you find in the plastic bottles. In fact, in the case of Aquafina (Pepsi's water) and Dasani (Coke's water), that's all you're getting (read the label if you think I'm wrong and realize that those 'municipal sources' are the same sources you tap when you get a glass of water in the kitchen, only wrapped in plastic).

I don't know what the solution is. Personally, I figure if they keep the vending machine, they should keep all the options available, even normal pop. What I would like to see most is a huge reduction in portion sizes. Do you realize that the child size pop served in most fast food joints is bigger than size of pop they served to adults in restaurants in the 50's? Remember how much smaller cans were in the 80's? I say offer the drinks but drop the sizes to something a little more manageable.

While we're on the topic of drinks, I would like to burst one bubble (it's a pet peeve). So-called "flavoured water". I know, you feel real good because look at all the water you're drinking. Isn't that great? No. You're just drinking watered down juice or uncarbonated pop. Would you let your kids go around drinking kool-aid all the time? I didn't think so. So why is it okay for adults to break out the drink crystals every time they want a drink of water?

It's not really the product I am opposed to. I spent a large part of my adult life drinking sugared pops so I'm not in a great position to criticize what people want to drink. Besides, if an adult wants to drink juice drinks all day, he or she should be able to. It's the marketing that offends me. I hate the fact that these concoctions are marketed as being the same as having a glass of water, which they aren't. By the logic these companies use, we're all just water drinkers. I mean, what is coffee if not just flavoured water? Beer? Tea? Argh!

I'm so old school. . .

2009-06-10T08:44:00.002-04:00

I just made a reference to Skinner boxes on facebook. Not that I expect all that many people to even know what the heck Skinner boxes are. Sometimes I think my sisters are right - maybe I did cause my aneurysm by filling my brain with too much useless info.

Anyways, here's an interesting article that refutes one of the great myths about B.F. Skinner and his childrearing practises:

http://www.snopes.com/science/skinner.asp

Argh, My Roots are Showing!

2009-06-09T16:02:00.002-04:00

8 days before I see Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson (and John Mellencamp) with my father in Syracuse, I will be going to see Steve Earle at Massey Hall!

What a year:

A new Dylan album and a great disc of Townes Van Zandt covers by Steve Earle are already out. This month, there will be a new disc by Regina Spektor. This fall, there will be a new disc by Tom Russell.

Even better, I just read that John Irving has a new novel coming out this year. As does Richard Russo.

2010 is going to be so dull.

I Wonder. . .

2009-06-09T13:45:00.000-04:00

How much credit banks would give me before they started to think better of it? Even in this time of supposedly tightening lending practises I still get all kinds of stuff in the mail telling me how much money banks are willing to give me. There's a part of me that would like to take out all the loans possible just to see how long it would take for the supposedly smart people at the banks to turn off the tap.

For instance, today I was doing some banking online (how did we ever survive before? Banking in anything other than pyjamas just seems wrong) and I noticed that the limit on my credit line was $6000 more than I thought it was. Basically, I keep a credit line around because it's cheaper than paying credit card interest. If I want to purchase something big - like a trip to Iceland - I'd much rather pay the credit card with the credit line and enjoy an interest rate that isn't highway robbery (does anyone really get robbed on the highway anymore?). I don't want a high credit limit because I don't believe in having that much available credit outstanding. If a time comes when I need more money, I'd just go talk to the bank. Until that time, I like to keep things in control.

So I wound up making a call to the bank. They warned me that - gasp - if I ever wanted to raise my limit, I would have to talk to them about reapplying for more credit. Which was kind of what I wanted in the first place.

This isn't the first time I've had to do something like this. For a while there, I was making almost yearly calls to Amex and Visa getting them to drop the limit back to what I want it to be. They have finally given up on the automatic increases, but they still send me mail about even shinier, prettier cards I can have.

I did the bank ask why it is that I can apply for credit quite simply through online banking but that there is no way for me to reduce my credit limits online. (Not that I actually expected a good answer.) Apparently, it has something to do with them having to manually drop credit limits. But they can raise them automatically with no problem. With people like that taking care of my money, I am not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy feelings right now. Alas, my mattress is far too new for me to start stashing money in it.

Travel essentials. . .

2009-06-05T10:30:00.000-04:00

I don't really consider myself to be that adventurous. Compared to some of the people I've met on the road - round the worlders shoestringing it (you know you're hardcore if 3 or 4 bucks a night for a room in India is too much and you sleep in a dorm for a buck) or the woman I met in Iceland who went on a road trip with friends in a small car from London to Mongolia - my exploits feel pretty tame. Those people are adventurous. Me? I just wander about sometimes.

I have, however, wandered about a fair bit, both in and out of Canada. In that time, I've developed an unwritten list of tools and tips that make the trip easier, things I make sure to take along. It wasn't until I started thinking about it that I realized how long a list it actually is.

1. The luggage - While my backpack collects more and more dust in my closet, I have not switched to suitcases. Instead, I usually pack a black duffel bag from Mountain Equipment Co-op. I have two sizes - one for weekend trips and one for anything longer. A lot of times I will take the larger one with me on short trips because it gives me enough room so I can pack my camera bag in it. I like duffel bags. I can sling them over my shoulder and carry them for fairly long distances without too much strain. Unlike backpacks, I can pack things a little better so I'm not always walking around with wrinkled clothes. Unlike suitcases, they can take lots of abuse. You can toss them under buses, drag them for short distances and generally give them a beating without worry. If your stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for a ride, I'd much rather sit on or lean back against a duffel than a suitcase.

As for suitcases with wheels? I think they are great for the elderly or the infirm. Other than that, if you feel the need for wheels, you're likely carrying too much stuff. Don't worry, I know I'm out in the lunatic fringe on this one. Any trip to an airport or train station tells me it's a lost cause. In spite of this, I can't bring myself to buy a bag that rolls.

2. Camera strap - Want to know a secret tip about taking good travel photos? It's quite easy, though not without some sacrifice. First, take your camera out of your backpack or suitcase. Second, hang the camera around your neck. You'll start taking better photos almost instantly. Why? Simple. You no longer have an excuse to pass on this shot or that shot because you couldn't be bothered digging out your camera. The more shots you take, the better you get at composing them, finding the image that resonates rather than the image that was easy.

The sacrifice? You look like a tourist. The secret? You probably look like a tourist anyways, so you're not giving up much.

3. Memory, lots of it - It's the digital age. For the cost of a couple of plastic squares, you can take far more pictures than you would have with film. Even better, you don't have to change the cards that often. I was thinking of this on a cold, wet day on a crowded amphibious boat/bus thingee in Iceland. If I'd been shooting 35mm, I would've missed most of the good shots.

Just make sure to edit for content later. Just because you can take 53 shots of the same iceberg, it doesn't mean your friends or family want to see all 53 shots.

4. Travel alarm clock - Yes, there are places out there that don't do wake up calls or room service. A small alarm clock solves one of those problems.

5. A stuff sack - The same type that backpackers and outdoorsy folks use for their long treks in the wilderness. I take an empty one along for dirty laundry, mostly socks and underwear. While I will reuse shirts and pants with reckless abandon, I don't often do the same with the aforementioned socks and underwear. A stuff sack is a great place to put them.

6. Ipod, folding headphones and travel speaker - Not only will having your own pair of comfortable folding headphones (my ears were not made for earbuds) save you a few bucks on the plane when you want to watch a movie, travel speakers and an ipod make hotel rooms much more enjoyable. There's only so much french or spanish or icelandic tv I can watch before it all starts sounding greek to me.

7. Pocketknife - A million uses, most related to impromptu picnics (ones with corkscrew and/or bottle opener are best).

8. The US dollar - It really is the universal language. Take a small stash with you and keep it for emergencies. I remember getting to the Nepali border at night and all the Brits scrambling because the border officials only wanted greenbacks, not British Pounds.

9. Converters and adapters for electrical devices - It pays to do your research. Ipods and most laptops will work on 120v or 240v, so all you need is the proper plug adapter. Other items (Nintendo DS, for example) only operate on 120v, so you need a plug adapter and a power converter. Personally, I'm fine with carrying a plug adapter but not much more. Anything requiring a converter gets left behind.

10. A yahoo/hotmail/whatever web based email account - You can find internet almost anywhere. On my trip to India and Nepal that was the main way I communicated with friends and family. Same with Iceland. Set up an account before you leave. Perhaps make it a different one from your everyday account in case anything happens to it (I've never had any issues, but it's worth it to be safe).

11. Guidebooks - I generally use Rough Guide or Lonely Planet. Buy the book well before you leave and browse through it. Find the things you would like to see. Get a basic understanding of the cultural differences. It can be mildly disconcerting having an Indian tell you yes while shaking his head no (in India, the head shake - sort of reminds me of a figure 8 - is a sign of agreement). Take the book with you and use it but don't be afraid to try something that isn't in the book - guidebook writers can't get everywhere and, besides, things change. The books are worth it for the maps alone.

12. A money belt - Nothing beats simple awareness and common sense for keeping thieves at bay, but a moneybelt does help. After a while you get used to wearing it.

13. A decent toiletries kit / a first aid kit (for more adventurous destinations) - Be strict but don't skimp too much. Buy a pack of plastic containers from a drug store and use them for soaps and shampoos. Pack some tylenol and immodium (Moctezuma's revenge can strike you anywhere, not just Mexico and it can make travelling suck). Make sure you have enough of what ever medications you take so you can handle being delayed for a couple of days. If you are taking prescription meds, take a list of them along and keep a copy in your daypack and in your toiletries kit in case something happens.

14. Travel insurance - Buy it for any trip outside of Canada, even / especially to the States. It's fairly cheap, but gives you that peace of mind you need. Leave a copy of the info. with someone at home and take copies with you (perhaps on the same sheet you use for listing meds).

15. A good book - You knew this one was coming. Leave the portable dvd players and ds's at home. Take a book and enjoy it. You're on vacation.

A little more Iceland

2009-06-01T00:31:00.003-04:00

Just got back from a trip up north. Tomorrow, I'll probably post something more substantial but, for now, more Iceland pics:

Anybody got some good whiskey to go with that ice?

Kind of a self portrait of sorts.

Taken from the parking lot of a gas station.

I think I'll stick to the harmonica.

One more post before bed

2009-05-29T02:32:00.004-04:00

You start off on land and then splash into the glacial lagoon for a tour.

Iceberg with the Jokulsarlon glacier in the background.

Iceberg.

This seal paced me as I walked along the shore.

The Blue Lagoon. Geothermally heated. Wonderfully relaxing.

Pics! From Iceland! With eclamation points!

2009-05-29T02:20:00.003-04:00

Gulfoss Waterfall.

Pingvellir - where Europe and North America meet. Traditional meeting place for all the Icelanders.

Skogarfoss waterfall.

Iceland has it's own breed of horses.

Geyser fun.

The Tip of the Iceberg (as it were)

2009-05-28T20:42:00.004-04:00

Needed a break from organizing my photos. Here are a few from my first day in Reykjavik:

Back with a blast!

2009-05-28T09:04:00.003-04:00

This is why I keep a cheap point and shoot Nikon in my camera bag - for shaky videos of cool things I see.

Holy Crap, I'm Going to Iceland Today!!!!!!

2009-05-20T10:41:00.003-04:00

And it looks like my sister and father solved the plush toy dilemma for me. I'll be taking along a plus loon with the intention of making another book for my niece. Now I just need to narrow down the list of books I plan to lug along.

I finally figured out why some artists weren't showing up as artists on my ipod. It was really starting to annoy me. For some reason, if an album is checked off as a compilation, the individual artists don't show on the artist list. Now I can find Luther Wright and the Wrongs' Rebuild the Wall with minimal effort. If you haven't listened to that album, you must. It's a bluegrass version of Pink Floyd's The Wall done by a bunch of Canucks and it is even cooler and stranger than it sounds.

Well, there is still much prep and packing to do, so I shall leave it at that for now.

Canuck Book 13 - The Poor Bastard by Joe Matt

2009-05-19T11:51:00.002-04:00

I finished last year's challenge with a graphic novel and I'm doing the same this year.

Joe Matt's The Poor Bastard is a compilation of the earliest of his Peepshow comic books. The story follows Matt while he hangs out with friends, falls in and out of lust with a number of women, collects old viewfinder reels and spends an inordinate amount of time. . . uh. . . enjoying his own company, shall we say. Yup he's poor ( or maybe just really cheap) and yup he's a bit of a bastard. He's also quite funny.

The story starts with him finally deep-sixing his relationship with his girlfriend. Of course, the grass isn't always greener on the other side as Matt has a hard time finding another woman that meets his exacting standards. From freckles to thick calves, Matt finds a way to be turned off by any number of women. The fact that a balding, cheap, comic loving misanthrope might not be most women's concept of a catch doesn't register at all.

Overall, the book is a lot of fun. While Matt is definitely not a loveable character, he is fun and interesting in a watching a train wreck sort of way.

Canuck Book 12 - Overqualified by Joey Comeau

2009-05-18T21:52:00.002-04:00

This is the second truly nontraditional novel I've read for the challenge. Where Important Artifacts. . . by Leanne Shapton was a novel in the form of an auction catalogue, Overqualifed is an epistolary novel with a twist - all the letters are cover letters where the narrator (named, oddly enough, Joey Comeau) seeks employment for a variety of jobs.

This book was a little slow to grow on me. At first, it seemed like little more than a clever stunt - preposterous cover letters written by someone who seems more interested in unloading than impressing. I didn't really see where it was going. Slowly, though, the narrative slipped through and I really started to like it.

The story is actually a lot darker than one would expect - there is far more loss and longing than there are laughs (though there are laughs, as well). And unlike the Shapton book, this is a book I would have liked to see go a little longer.

The bees disease

2009-05-18T08:27:00.002-04:00

More fun news on how big business agriculture is killing bees.

http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/05/18/bees_pesticides/

If you haven't already, you really should go out and read Rowan Jacobson's Fruitless Fall. Not only will you learn a lot about these incredible creatures, you will also begin to realize why the disappearance of bees is a very bad thing for anyone who enjoys food. It had me wishing I could keep some bees of my own. Alas, the owners of my apartment building were not so enthusiastic. . .

In other news, I'm 2 days from Iceland. I'd do backflips but I've never really been good at doing anything more than 1/2 backflips (which, much like doing 1/2 eskimo rolls in kayaks, are just not that much fun).

3 Things I've Been Mulling Over Lately. . .

2009-05-17T21:22:00.003-04:00

I must swear off American news on both the tv and the net. I really must.

1. Gay marriage - with all the horrible things happening in the world, it amazes me how much energy people are willing to waste on keeping one group of consenting adults from doing the same thing that other consenting adults are allowed to do.

2. Banning gay soldiers or preventing female soldiers from engaging in combat roles - or all animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others. The Canadian army has allowed both to serve in all functions of the military for years and the world hasn't stopped turning nor has the sky fallen.

3. The ads on American television trying to scare Americans away from universal health care by telling them how 'broken' our system is - I had illnesses growing up - appendectomy, tonsilectomy, some broken bones, etc. For the most part, though, I made it into my late 20's in fairly good health.

Then I had a minor stroke which was caused by a large aneurysm. I had a number of MRIs and other scans. I had brain surgery. Then I returned to work and normal life.

Last spring, I changed companies. For 90 days, I was without benefits. Halfway into the 90 days, I had a series of major seizures. More hospital time, more tests, more doctors and even a couple of unwelcome diagnoses. At the end of it, I left the hospital and returned to work.

Being without benefits hurt. I spent three weeks without an income and no drug plan to pay for the pills I'd been prescribed. That's as close as I've ever come to what life must be like for those south of the border who have no coverage and it was pretty bad. I couldn't imagine what I would have done if I had come out with a hospital bill as well.

The Canadian system is not perfect. I'm sure pretty much every Canadian would agree with me on that. I'm also sure the majority of them would agree that it's still better than the for profit system they have south of the border. The last thing a person should have to worry about when they fall ill is how can they afford to get better. This is the 21'st century, after all. I'd like to think we've made progress for all, not just for the rich.

Canuck Book 11 - Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig

2009-05-17T19:33:00.002-04:00

Well, this was an odd one. I bounced back and forth between liking the story and thinking it might be a little too contrived, too writerly. In the end, the story won out. It's a strange dark tale with a narrative that can be disorienting at times but I wound up liking it a lot.

A photographer who is going blind. An old flame with a very sick brother. A city succumbing to fear and panic. This is not exactly an uplifting tale.

It is, however, an interesting portrait of a Toronto both familiar and alien. A city of sad souls and faded dreams, fractured surfaces and subterranean realities. Definitely a worthwhile read.

Canuck Book 10 - Not Yet by Wayson Choy

2009-05-12T11:03:00.002-04:00

Hello out there. Remember me? I haven't slipped off the edge of the world just yet. I've just been busy with one thing or another.

Anyways, I've finished my 10'th Canuck book. Wayson Choy is a writer I've been meaning to read for a long time. The Jade Peony still collects dust on my bookshelves. For one reason or another I haven't gotten around to it. While that book is not yet in the on deck circle, I will be reading it soon.

I first read an extract from Not Yet a little while ago. While the material - Choy's two brushes with death in less than 5 years and his thoughts on family and mortality - is not exactly cheerful, I was struck by both his candour and grace. I knew I had to go out and get the book.

My first impressions were not wrong. This book quickly became THE book I was reading, bumping aside a couple of others I'd been working my way through. On subways and buses, in restaurants and in bed, this book captured me. This book is a memoir done right by a natural storyteller. Even in the darkest moments, Choy does not wallow or indulge in self-pity and that makes a big difference. It's a book I was sad to finish.

Road Trip / New Dylan

2009-04-28T10:32:00.002-04:00

So I'm checking out the Dylan webpage. His new album comes out today so I'll be making the postwork trek to Soundscapes. Or perhaps Sonic Boom, which is usually less punishing to my wallet.

Anyways, Bob is touring this summer with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. Now I'm not the biggest Mellencamp fan, but I am a big fan of both Dylan and Willie. It looks like this is going to be another summer of smaller cities and ball parks and sadly no Canadian dates.

The last time I saw Bob and Willie play was the summer of my aneurysm. My father and I drove down to Cooperstown to see them play at Doubleday Field. We also spent a night in Syracuse, saw the Skychiefs play (Toronto's AAA affiliate) and had a great time traipsing through upstate New York. What a beautiful area. It was a great trip.

Since then, we've kept talking about making another trip to the area. Not necessarily to Cooperstown - the baseball hall of fame is actually kind of dull what with its wall after wall of baseballs that all kind of look alike - but to upstate New York. Of course, it doesn't hurt that we're both big fans of Richard Russo's novels. So many of them are set in the area.

For one reason or another (mostly work), it just hasn't panned out. This summer, though, I'm thinking it might. There's a concert in Syracuse on the first Friday of my vacation in July. My father is recently retired so work shouldn't be an issue for him. If we can find a ball game in the area, all the better.

Canuck Book 9 - Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

2009-04-27T09:38:00.002-04:00

The short review goes like this - go out and read this book. You will not be disappointed.

The longer review would deal with the fact that this is a book about a woman who didn't score so well on an IQ test who returns home to Newfoundland to be with her sick father and then has to unravel the mystery of who her family is. There's also a rock climber, a man with one arm longer than the other, a Christmas light maker and a really smart tortoise. What more could one want?

Playing Around At The Homestead

2009-04-24T17:14:00.003-04:00

I knew if I took a walk up the stream by my parents' place in the spring, I'd get some decent shots:

Another month or two and it will be mostly gone for another year.

Michael Pollan

2009-04-22T13:53:00.001-04:00

I mentioned in my last post about reading Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you want to get an idea of what his ideas about food, check this out:

http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87

Something Interesting And Far Too True

2009-04-22T11:10:00.004-04:00

I've been spending some time lately reading and thinking about food. I'm working through both Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Mark Bittman's Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. After that I plan on reading Pollan's In Defense of Food. It's some sobering reading. I don't even like corn on the cob but it looks as though a huge percentage of my diet is, in fact, corn.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out why, after all this time, I'm still far too quick to opt for the unhealthy foods. Sure, I've made great strides when it comes to sweets. That's a good thing. What I haven't done is made any sort of meaningful strides when it comes to processed meats, white flour and sodium, three areas in which most of us could do with a habit change.

So, I'm picking up the books I once kind of avoided. Avoided? Yup. Basically I didn't want to hear what these writers were saying. Out of sight, out of mind, as it were. Which is a shame because I do like these books. Both of them are well written and contain a lot of those a-ha moments where you read something and then wonder why you never realized this or thought about that. I'm also left a little nervous (how are we going to get out of this mess?) and a whole lot pissed off (how can an elected government opt for the oil and industrial food business at the expense of the health of their citizens?).

I'm not predicting any earth shattering changes for myself, though I'm going to try. I kind of like the simplicity of the mantra on the cover of Pollan's In Defense of Food - Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

The catch is that most of the stuff you find in the grocery store is not food. Pollan refers to all the processed stuff as food like substances. Sounds extreme, but it really isn't. It's surprisingly and scarily prevalent. Just look at Wonder Bread and its "enriched white loaf". Think about what they have done. They have taken good healthy grain and sapped it of all nutritional value. After doing that, the inject the product with nutrients to replace the ones lost when they sapped it of all nutritional value. And then they market this atrocity as a smart choice for kids. Nice.

As always, once you start thinking about something, it's amazing how much info. starts to pop up that you missed before. For instance, I was doing my morning scan of the Huffington Post and found this article:

How Unhealthy Foods Hijack Our Brains

So that's what's on my mind today.

ps - On Newsworld, it looks as though poor little Dow Chemical is going to fight the Ontario pesticide ban because they are being treated unfairly. I'm shedding real tears here. It's just not fair that we want to keep them from unnaturally warping the environment with chemicals. I feel for them.

Perez Hilton versus the Beauty Queen

2009-04-22T03:17:00.003-04:00

I'm sure you've likely heard of this one by now. Slimeball Perez Hilton asks aspiring Miss USA about gay marriage. She answers in the negative. Hilton feels that's what cost her the crown. Yada. Yada. Yada.

I don't know who annoys me the most from this exchange:

On the one hand, you have the beauty queen who says that the great thing about America is that you can have it both ways, same sex and opposite sex marriage. She follows this up by contradicting herself, saying that, in her America (Amoronica?), only opposite sex marriages should be allowed. And goldarnit, that's just the way she was raised. So, apparently, the great thing about the States is you are free to believe exactly what she believes. Cue brave I stayed true to myself smile.

Um, yeah. . .

Before you think this is a clear cut case, though, I think you should ask yourself what Hilton was doing asking this question anyways? At it's best, it's a cheap shot. He asked her a loaded question about a divisive topic hoping for her to stumble. When she did, he gloated in front of any camera that would point his way. Maybe I'm wrong but I just don't see what the question has to do with winning a beauty pageant. As sad as it is to admit it, she would have likely annoyed just as many people if she had voiced support for gay marriage. Not a pleasant thought but it's probably true.

I'm not saying it should be a divisive topic. It seems ridiculous to me that, in this day and age, people still get so hung up about such a non-issue. But they do. I guess the conservatives find it easier to fight the imaginary evil of homosexuality rather than face the very real evil of, say, global warming.

I think I have to stop watching american news. It's too depressing. With all the revelations this past week about the use of torture, it's kind of sickening that people are spending so much time worrying about a spat between a pagent contestant and an attention whore.

Other than that, it's been a good day.

Update from the next day: Yup, I do appreciate the irony of this post in light of that paragraph about american news. What can I say? It was far too late at night / early in the morning when the post was written.

Sun didn't come up but it's Tuesday morning nonetheless

2009-04-21T10:03:00.003-04:00

On Record Store day, I made a postwork trip to Soundscapes and picked up Joel Plaskett's latest, Three. I highly recommend it to one and all. It's just freaking good.

I was also looking for something to add to my soul section, so I picked up The Best of Jimmy Hughes. Hughes, apparently, was a preacher turned soul singer who recorded at Muscle Shoals in the early to mid 60's. I'd never heard of him before. The disc is fantastic - a great mix of ballads and uptempo soul that just rocks. If your foot doesn't start tapping while listening to this, you'd better go to a doctor.

One more week until the new Dylan album comes out. I've been listening to a fair bit of Dylan lately, everything from his early Woody Guthrie acolyte stuff to his more recent road warrior blues'n'roots'n'rock and roll stuff. I keep meaning to post a list of my favourite Dylan tunes but I don't really have enough time to list them all.

Today, it's the new Bill Callahan (used to go by Smog). Strange stuff - some of it reminds me of Lou Reed at his druggy best but slowed down. It kind of matches the grey day outside.

Oh yeah. . . 29 days until I fly off for my island vacation.

A pet peeve / Robert Downey Jr. is a Genius

2009-04-15T13:13:00.002-04:00

First off - why do online retailers insist on using courier services like fedex or ups? Fedex and ups work great for businesses because businesses keep business hours and are always around from 9am to 5pm to sign off on the package.

The average working stiff? Probably not available weekdays from 9 to 5 because they are working. Heaven forbid you should miss a delivery, though. Then you're stuck going to some warehouse on the edge of the city which may or may not be accessible by transit just to lug the thing home.

There should be an option where one can choose to have the package delivered by mail. It's likely cheaper and the great thing is, if you miss the delivery, you don't have to go halfway to Siberia just to pick it up.

Second, I watched Tropic Thunder last night and it is, hands down, the smartest dumb movie I've seen in a long time. Can Robert Downey Jr. do anything wrong? Tom Cruise proves once again that he is at his best when playing an over the top asshole (remember Magnolia?). For some reason, it just comes naturally for him. The sad thing is that it is still Tom Cruise and you are left wondering if he is really in on the joke or is this just another calculated manoeuvre? For all the power and authority he is supposed to wield because of his Scientology ties, one can't help thinking he has more in common with the little old guy behind the curtain in Wizard of Oz.

Anyways, I'm still sick and that sucks. I am, however, doing a good job of getting my cd collection ripped into itunes. 120 gigs is a whole lot of space.

It's Done!

2009-04-15T04:57:00.003-04:00

I've now bought my ticket and made my hotel reservation. 6 nights and 7 days in one of the only countries with a capitol north of Ottawa. Even better, I went digging for this black nylon pouch I always use to hold my travel documents and found the plug adapter I used when I went to Paris. The guy at the apple store confirmed that ipods can work off of 120v or 220v so I shall have tunes for the hotel room.

I'm also booked for two tours: The first is an afternoon of whale watching. Apparently, the boats also go close to a couple of islands where puffins nest which should be cool. I'm hoping it's better than the last time I went whale watching. That time was up by Tofino on Vancouver Island and all we wound up seeing was one glimpse of a bit of the back of a whale. At least we were in a zodiac so it was a fun ride. The second is a tour to see a huge waterfall, some geysers and other natural wonders.

Now if only I could shake this cold, everything would be perfect.

Ahhhhh. . .

2009-04-13T11:34:00.002-04:00

The weekend is such a great thing. Even if mine starts on a Monday this week.

Today, I'm doing lunch with family which will be fun. They've actually managed to pry my mother away from the homestead for a day so I'm looking forward to it (my mother is not a city person).

After that, it's down to Open Air Books (Toronto's only travel bookshop) to look for the Rough Guide to Iceland. I'm a big fan of travel books. I find the more you read about a place beforehand, the better the trip becomes. You have a pretty good idea in advance of what you want to see and do.

Sure, things pop up. I expect them to and, when they do, I run with it. I will never let plans get in the way of whimsy. I still like to be prepared.

Other than that, I'm pretty well stocked. I can go bag or backpack. I've got 5 gigs worth of memory cards for my camera (which is massive overkill, I know, but I got a good deal). I think I may even take my sound recorder with me as well. Who knows what I'll find.

Well, the visitors are on the doorstep so that's enough for now.

Strange travel suggestions. . .

2009-04-12T13:50:00.000-04:00

. . . are dancing lessons with God. Apparently, Kurt Vonnegut said that once. It's a nice thought.

For the first time since February of 2008, I have some vacation time coming up. Initially, I was going to keep it low key - stick around the city, go up to the cottage, head down to Sarnia - but curiosity and the travel bug got the better of me.

How did we ever travel before the internet?

So I started looking at places to travel. New York has some great new hotels with cheap prices (the trade-off being that the rooms are tiny - single and bunk beds) and getting there is cheaper than it's been in a long time but this time I want something new.

Resorts don't really interest me. I did one in Cuba once and I liked it. Just not enough to repeat it. I like doing things my way even if my way is foolish, quixotic and much more complicated. I understand why people like resorts and I think that's great. I'm not all snobbish about it or anything. It's just not my thing.

Asia is a little too involved. I tell people that the month I spent in India and Nepal was not enough time and I mean it. By the time I fly halfway around the world and then acclimate myself, it will be time to come home. Besides, I've done India in May once and I'm not likely to repeat it. Too hot and too dusty (fall is the time to go).

That leaves me with Europe, I guess. Well, South and Central America too, but, again, I'd want more time if I finally got down to, say, Ecuador so I could wander around and also get to the Galapagos Islands.

So, the places I've checked out so far: Paris, Berlin, Glasgow, Barcelona, Prague, Croatia and Greece (not sure where in Greece). As far as continental Europe goes, I'm leaning towards Berlin. Not sure why really. It just seems cool.

Oh yeah, I also checked out Iceland. The subway these days is plastered with Icelandair ads. Furthermore, I came away with more of an interest in Iceland after watching White Night Wedding at last year's film fest. So I poked around on the web and found some decent deals. Glaciers, hot springs, history.

I think I'm going with Iceland. It just sounds cool, doesn't it?

Speaking of White Night Wedding, I've found a trailer (http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/white-night-wedding/trailer). It's interesting how they edit these things as the movie was a lot darker than the trailer portrays. I mean, it was funny but at heart it was a lot more serious than most comedies (in a really good way, though).

Here's some pics of the last time I went overseas:

The only time I've ever been freaked out by an elevator was at the Eiffel Tower. Way too much jerking and shaking.

Aside from the first day, it was cold and wet the whole time. It was fun though. My sister Nikki accompanied me on this trip.
The obligatory Eiffel Tower sticking out of my head shot. This is on the roof of La Samaritaine department store.

WTF!!!!!!

2009-04-09T15:56:00.003-04:00

And to think I usually hate internet acronyms and excessive punctuation. However, I just watched Billy Bob Thornton's interview with Jian Gomeshi and I think the blog title says it all.

How does one get so angry at Jian Gomeshi? Come on! The whole point of Jian Gomeshi has always kind of been that he is likable. I like him. You like him. Your grandmother probably likes him. Not to take away from what he does or his considerable knowledge, it's just that he is what he is - a nice interviewer who chats with musicians and artists. He does it well. Even dealing with an ass like Billy Bob, he held it together far past the point where most of us would have given up (or thrown a punch [not that I advocate violence, mind you, but it would have been nice]).

The point I'm trying to make is that if Billy Bob can't handle being interviewed by Jian Gomeshi, he has no business being in the entertainment industry. Grow up, get over yourself and maybe trim that ego a little until you have proven yourself as a musician. You can talk about going on tour with Willie Nelson but lets not forget that Willie has played with his share of shitty musicians in his day. Or had plenty of shitty musicians open for him. Just being on the same bill as a great doesn't make you a great.

On the other hand, deliberately sabotaging an interview because your hurt ego is more important than good press for your band is just childish. Let's be real. Nobody is going to remember Billy Bob as a singing drummer. That's okay. I mean, I truly doubt anyone is going to remember Phil Collins (a singing drummer) for his role in Buster, either. That's life.

Truth be told, how many people are even going to remember Billy Bob for anything other than going "mmm-hmm" and exacting vengeance on Dwight Yoakam in Sling Blade, anyways?

(All that and I didn't even have to get into the stupidity of comparing his vanity project to the work of Tom Petty.)

As for Jian Gomeshi, I still wish he would bring back the national playlist. But I guess that's another story. . .

How to tell a good book. . .

2009-04-05T11:10:00.002-04:00

My TBR keeps getting higher but every once in a while I get waylaid by a new addition to the pile. In this case, it's Jessica Grant's Come, Thou Tortoise. I stayed up most of last night finishing Richard Price's Lush Life (an excellent book in its own right) just so I could start into this book.

Anyway, I've just barely started Come, Thou Tortoise and already I think I'm in for a treat. Why? Well, on page 23, there is the following observation about flying - When you're flying, the newscast is always cheery. Notice that. There are no plane crashes. If you could just keep flying forever, there'd be no plane crashes.

Understand that this passage occurs after the protagonist, Audrey Flowers, has disarmed an air marshall because guns are on the top of the list of things you can't take on a plane so, therefore, the person must be a terrorist.

Oh yeah, there's a thinking tortoise in there somewhere, as well.

And it's by a Newfoundlander, so it'll bring me one step closer to completing the Canuck Book Challenge.

In other news, I wound up going for an impromptu long walk yesterday through the Don Valley and up through Riverdale Farm into Cabbagetown which was incredible. To think, I've always passed this by and walked the Bloor Viaduct. The bridge is nice but the valley and farm were more interesting. And the uphill walk out of the valley didn't kill me either.

Today, I'm going for a planned long walk. This will be better as I will actually be wearing comfortable walking shoes. I was halfway into yesterday's ramble before I realized that error. Thankfully, no blisters.

I'm thinking my goal for this summer is to walk all 11 of Toronto's Discovery Walks. They're a network of walks through the city and parks highlighting various features of the city, from natural history to historical buildings and neighbourhoods. I've walked parts of a lot of them and stopped to read many of the signs found on these routes (if you're ever wondering who actually reads all those historical plaques and signs, that would be me). I figure walking all of them would be a fun and healthy goal for my spring and summer walking.

Tomorrow, I'll be popping by City Hall to get a copy of the Toronto Walking Map. It has all the parks, streets and subways on it. I'm kind of wondering why I've never picked it up before.

5 Admissions

2009-04-03T11:15:00.002-04:00

I will be back later with a more substantial post. Until then, I offer up 5 not so stunning admissions about my life:

1. I read Get Fuzzy (found at www.comics.com) compulsively. Have for years. (I also read For Better or For Worse until that ended)

2. My music collection includes Guns n Roses, Neil Diamond and Jimmy Buffett. And not just for irony's sake, either.

3. When vegging in front of the flickerbox, I have a hard time flipping past Til Debt Do Us Part.

4. My urge to always see what the fuss is about has lead me to read all the Harry Potters and also Bridget Jones's Diary. I have yet to read a Harlequin Romance, though, in spite of the fact that one of my favourite profs back in university recommended doing that just to see how a formula novel is put together.

5. While I don't play near as many video games as I once did, I still check out the reviews regularly on ign.com (for games I'll likely never play, no less).

My Weekend Up North

2009-03-30T12:43:00.005-04:00

Spent part of Saturday afternoon gathering sap:

You'd be amazed at how quickly those buckets filled.

We filled that tank a couple of times that afternoon.

Because I like to play with black and white.

That's my father on the other side. The sugar shack was once owned by my grandfather.

Earlier in the day, we drove past a flock of wild turkeys. They're pretty brave now that Christmas is done with.

Canuck Book 8 - Important Artifacts. . . by Leanne Shapton

2009-03-30T12:17:00.002-04:00

The full title of this book:

Important Artifacts and Personal Property From The Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewellery

This book is more experiment than novel. Taking the form of an auction calendar, it details the relationship of Doolan and Morris from beginning to end. Trinkets, mixed cds, snapshots, notes stuffed in old books - everything is presented as just more items in the catalogue.

The surprising thing is that there is a narrative and it can be followed. But that's really about it. The story is pretty simple and there is nothing that really surprises.

Of course, that's kind of besides the point as this book is more about the idea of a novel and what you can get away with. It's a stunt. Thankfully, it's a successful one. The book appeals to our voyeuristic side and it delivers in spades. While I'm not likely to give up my more conventional novels, it was nice to see someone take an original approach to a fairly conventional form.