Exactly one year ago today, I went out with a friend from Guelph, in celebration of Dominion Day, popularly known as Canada Day in nine out of ten provinces. Quebec, since they have no respect, use the first of July as their moving day. What schmucks. Anyway, we were treated to a free show by the Constantines down at the Harbourfront Centre, and some piddly little fireworks because the folks who make the fireworks go were on strike in Toronto. What schmucks. But it was a lovely night, full of close-proximity standing and the gentle lapping of waves against a wooden dock. The Harbourfront Center is a pretty nice place to be in general, with it undulating playzone and free art exhibitions.
This summer, like a schmuck, I've exiled myself in my hometown of Stratford. In case you can't tell, I miss my adopted hometown of Toronto (hello, Annex, hello Leslieville, hello High Park - I miss you!), mostly because the programming available there far outstrips that in Stratford. Granted, Toronto also offers the chance to make out in front of riot cops, a proposition that, while titillating, excites me less re: G20 summits, largest mass arrest in Canadian history, and horrifying accounts of detention/poop-flinging/mall rage. Aside from the panic that infected the city this past this weekend - and make no mistake, the vibe was very weird in Hogtown - I like living in Toronto. Last summer, it was the garbage strike; this summer brought us G20 craziness. I can only assume that 2011 will be some sort of zombie outbreak and 2012 will, of course, have the entire planet flinging our miserable selves into the sun.
But outbreaks of G20 hullabaloo aside (and for my friends and neighbours who were arrested, raided, detained and who otherwise had their buttons pushed by police officers, some of whom, in all honesty, were probably just as freaked out as you [NSFW, due to not-at-all-sexy visible penis, and do yourself a hard favour and watch that whole movie at some point], I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm embarrassed our city and country has been painted with the unconstitutional brush), I generally like Toronto. And, by extension, Canada.
I feel lucky to live in a country where accessible socialized health care is a given, not to be debated. I feel lucky to live in a multicultural urban center. I have access to clean water and good music. I can buy President's Choice edamame spread in my decidedly small city, which is delicious. Canada isn't perfect: our trains are expensive, our government relies on an emissary of the Queen to run itself, and our pop music is frequently just awful. We've done some despicable things to First Nations people and, once upon a time, we very nearly lost Quebec and its population of schmucks.
But am I thankful that I live here? Absolutely. Canada is goddamn beautiful to look at. And I feel a deep kinship with this place. I remember when I was younger, I used to wish I was American, I think mostly because I thought the whole country was like Disneyworld, which I loved passionately. Having since traveled through the outskirts of Detroit, I can safely say that I was misled as a child, and have no burning desire to move south of the border. Sure, I like the US - no one can argue with New York/San Fransisco/Chicago/Boston/and so on for being banging cities. But do I want to live there, with Kaiser Permanente, child-hating public educators, the three-strikes rule and all the methamphetamines I can smoke? No. I do not.
I love my laid-back country. Our homos can get married, and they throw themselves a tits-out party every year. Douglas Coupland designed a park, visible from the much-derided Gardiner Expressway, that confuses my father every time he sees it. We're home to some of my favourite musicians (and, sigh, Justin Beiber). We spell things weird. We suffer through the cold together, wearing snow-mashing boots and plaid. We're slowly but surely developing our own aesthetic, one that references our abundant natural resources and our ugly-sexy historical ethos. We make supermodels. We make robot space arms. We recycle the hell out of our stuff. We invented basketball, the Bloody Ceasar, and Trivial Pursuit. We have Heritage Moments ("Doctor! I smell burnt toast!"). We co-operate.
While disasters like the G20 cool my passions somewhat, I generally want to plant a big sloppy kiss on this fine country. Happy Canada Day. And for the schmucks over in la belle province, Happy Canada Day to you too, je t'aime, and I'm glad you're still here. Big hugs, all around. Bear hugs, since we're Canadian.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Live And Direct
Back when I was totally bazooka'ed by the abrupt and hideously painful end of my First Real Relationship, I went on this misguided but fun mental mission based on the concept of "I'll win him back by going to awesome concerts!" which, in retrospect, is hilarious. My First Real Relationship was with a boy who considered himself a music type: he played guitar and was, like, into bands and stuff. I have a confused and possibly made-up memory of him telling me that he once slept in his car in order to see Alanis Morissette play a show. Yikes. If that's true, I'm embarrassed to admit that his dumping me shattered me; I really should have known it would end badly.
Unfortunately, when we were together, we were broke-ass kids and could barely afford to feed and house ourselves, let alone buy frivolities like concert tickets and CDs. I think we went to one show together in the entire duration of our relationship - Kaki King, who he was madly in love with and I was like, "Meh, this chick is sort of like a homely Sarah Silverman." The show was in late summer, and because we were awesomely, ultimately, super-duper in love, we cuddled and held hands and were generally glued together at the hip, even though the heat made it feel like suffocation and burning.
He was always wistfully sighing about how he never had enough cash to go to all the concerts he wanted (even though he smoked like a chimney in Industrial Revolution-era London and we drank in bars half the week), but rarely did we scrape together enough cash to finance a trip to a concert venue. I think he held this against me, like I was somehow holding his musical fun hostage.
I have friends who go to, like, five concerts in a month, but that wasn't me. But after this particular breakup, I felt like I needed to get back to who I was - because I was a person who likes live music. My ex had claimed The Music Person role in our relationship, but I've always been a musically-inclined girl. I like new music. I like seeing shows. I like mixed tapes. After we parted ways, I went to a bunch of shows. But I'll admit it: they were vindictive shows, I-don't-need-you concerts, a local tour of learning to stand alone again and half-hoping I'd see him there, just so I could prove that I was awesome: look at me, I like going to concerts!
I have never run into my ex at a concert. I doubt it'll ever happen. And slowly, that quit being the reason I was going to the concerts.
Some of them were about healing, in a different way: my entire family (sans underage brother, sadly) went to see Basia Bulat play a set at Lee's after a horrendously difficult winter re: my sister's health. It was a celebration, an uplift, a family reunion and a fuck-you to cancer. Similarly, my sis and I flew to New York to see Jenny Lewis play a show at the Apollo, the venue where my grandfather saw Ella Fitzgerald perform. I have a bartender acquaintance who moonlights as an insanely talented guitarist, whose shows are feasts of music videos and who band has about ninety-five members. Her shows make me happy, filling me with the kind of emotion that comes from watching someone talented make something good.
I got to see Ted Leo this weekend - and I have the biggest crush on him, because I'm a loser and love graying 40-ish punks who give their audiences tight shows - and it reminded me of all the reasons going to concerts is a blast. I was dancing, singing along, laughing when Leo told a heckler off. I went with a friend who goes to shows all the time; he laughed at my exuberance, but I make no apologies. When the band encored with "Timorous Me," one of my favourite tunes of the past five years, I nearly cried. I love that feeling.
Ticket stubs serve as a little trail of breadcrumbs leading back to some of my fondest memories: the beginnings of relationships, celebrations of success, travel, adventures. I live (mostly) in a city that affords me with the opportunity to see bands that would otherwise exist solely in my headphones, and I would be a fool not to celebrate the fact that, in my own way, I too am A Music Person.
Unfortunately, when we were together, we were broke-ass kids and could barely afford to feed and house ourselves, let alone buy frivolities like concert tickets and CDs. I think we went to one show together in the entire duration of our relationship - Kaki King, who he was madly in love with and I was like, "Meh, this chick is sort of like a homely Sarah Silverman." The show was in late summer, and because we were awesomely, ultimately, super-duper in love, we cuddled and held hands and were generally glued together at the hip, even though the heat made it feel like suffocation and burning.
He was always wistfully sighing about how he never had enough cash to go to all the concerts he wanted (even though he smoked like a chimney in Industrial Revolution-era London and we drank in bars half the week), but rarely did we scrape together enough cash to finance a trip to a concert venue. I think he held this against me, like I was somehow holding his musical fun hostage.
I have friends who go to, like, five concerts in a month, but that wasn't me. But after this particular breakup, I felt like I needed to get back to who I was - because I was a person who likes live music. My ex had claimed The Music Person role in our relationship, but I've always been a musically-inclined girl. I like new music. I like seeing shows. I like mixed tapes. After we parted ways, I went to a bunch of shows. But I'll admit it: they were vindictive shows, I-don't-need-you concerts, a local tour of learning to stand alone again and half-hoping I'd see him there, just so I could prove that I was awesome: look at me, I like going to concerts!
I have never run into my ex at a concert. I doubt it'll ever happen. And slowly, that quit being the reason I was going to the concerts.
Some of them were about healing, in a different way: my entire family (sans underage brother, sadly) went to see Basia Bulat play a set at Lee's after a horrendously difficult winter re: my sister's health. It was a celebration, an uplift, a family reunion and a fuck-you to cancer. Similarly, my sis and I flew to New York to see Jenny Lewis play a show at the Apollo, the venue where my grandfather saw Ella Fitzgerald perform. I have a bartender acquaintance who moonlights as an insanely talented guitarist, whose shows are feasts of music videos and who band has about ninety-five members. Her shows make me happy, filling me with the kind of emotion that comes from watching someone talented make something good.
I got to see Ted Leo this weekend - and I have the biggest crush on him, because I'm a loser and love graying 40-ish punks who give their audiences tight shows - and it reminded me of all the reasons going to concerts is a blast. I was dancing, singing along, laughing when Leo told a heckler off. I went with a friend who goes to shows all the time; he laughed at my exuberance, but I make no apologies. When the band encored with "Timorous Me," one of my favourite tunes of the past five years, I nearly cried. I love that feeling.
Ticket stubs serve as a little trail of breadcrumbs leading back to some of my fondest memories: the beginnings of relationships, celebrations of success, travel, adventures. I live (mostly) in a city that affords me with the opportunity to see bands that would otherwise exist solely in my headphones, and I would be a fool not to celebrate the fact that, in my own way, I too am A Music Person.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Pro-Anticipation
While I am totally a fan of the instant-gratification model of doing things, because every human being is, at our horrible little infant cores, I can be convinced to wait for something every once in a while. This waiting model, prided by abstinence-model sex-educators all over this continental landmass, can lead to some insane Christmas-morning countdown type behaviours. And sexual behaviour, come to think of it, but, in the great tradition of abstinence-model sex-educators all over this continental landmass, let's just gloss over that part and move on, okay?
I'm thinking specifically of pop-culture events, like movies or music or books, because waiting for those in this day and age seems almost...old school. I remember back in 2004, when the Beastie Boys were releasing To The Five Boroughs, seeing the CDs stacked up behind the register at my local record shop and just being absolutely mental with anticipation. I begged the startled teenage clerk to sell it to be a day early. After Hello Nasty, which I was 100% obsessed with for, like, three years, TT5B was six years in the making. I read about it in magazines and online, little snippets telling listeners that the Boys were in the studio, that there had been delays, that they were working with an old-school sound and OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN SIX YEARS ALREADY GIVE ME THE MUSIC.
When you're anticipating something so hard, it begins to take on mythical proportions. This Christmas is going to be the best Christmas ever, this birthday is going to be the wildest birthday ever, the Ramadan is going to the hungriest Ramadan ever. Little kids are especially prone to this kind of OTT excitement. Not surprisingly, since little kids are also the demographic with the most excitement-building accessories: from advent calendars to visits with the mall Santa, from hand-written birthday party invitations to putting the tooth under the pillow the night before. Children are trained in the art of fully losing their minds about an upcoming event; by the time they reach adolescence, they're more than happy to wait in line at midnight on a Monday night in three-degree weather for a video game or concert tickets.
Clever marketing schemes abound for building intense levels of interest and anticipation. Currently, even though it stars Michael Cera and he's a totally miscast noodle, I'm stoked for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, the new flick from Edgar "Shaun of the Dead" Wright. It's based on a Canadian comic that's set in Toronto - not some anonymous large hipster-infested city, but Toronto, my chosen city - and populated with various hipsters and nerds and music goofballs and psychotic teenage girls. And it promises to be funny. And I'll probably start dressing like some of the female characters, because I'm easily influenced. Scott Pilgrim's website currently offers a chance for potential audiences to remake themselves in the image of a Brian Lee O'Malley character, complete with stubby legs and outlandishly coloured hairdos. I'm obsessed.
The last thing I looked forward to with this kind of intensity was also a comic book: Brian K. Vaughn's impeccable Y:The Last Man. Starring Yorick Brown as the titular Y, Vaughn's comics chronicle the "gendercide;" while women are fine, Earth's males have all suddenly and simultaneously expired. It's a ten-volume series comprised of 60 issues. I started reading them right after the ninth volume had been published, and, new to the comic-book world, assumed that the final volume was somewhere on the horizon.
More than a year later, delirious with need for resolution, after re-reading my nine volumes with a Talmudic intensity, the final chapter was published and purchased. And read. And re-read. And scrutinized, and discussed with fellow nerds and nerdettes. Finally, with the satisfaction that can only come from waiting for an experience to be complete, I slid the book onto the shelf with all its comic-book brothers and surveyed the scene.
Be it a book - I was highly invested in the wait for Jonathan Safran Foer's sophomore novel Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which was lovely but not the masterpiece I'd been hoping for - a video game, a movie, a clothing line, a vacation, a concert, a wedding day, a new car, a trip to the amusement park, or even just an icy can of Coke Zero, waiting for something can be so deliciously fraught with it's-going-to-be-good tension that it almost overshadows the actual event. In the best of all possible worlds, the built up excitement is met head-on by the awesomeness of the experience: the waiting buck buys the best possible bang. And for all those schmucks who were conned by their abstinence-model sex-educators all over this continental landmass, that bang might be more literal. For the rest of us, well: "We're going to Disneyworld!"
I'm thinking specifically of pop-culture events, like movies or music or books, because waiting for those in this day and age seems almost...old school. I remember back in 2004, when the Beastie Boys were releasing To The Five Boroughs, seeing the CDs stacked up behind the register at my local record shop and just being absolutely mental with anticipation. I begged the startled teenage clerk to sell it to be a day early. After Hello Nasty, which I was 100% obsessed with for, like, three years, TT5B was six years in the making. I read about it in magazines and online, little snippets telling listeners that the Boys were in the studio, that there had been delays, that they were working with an old-school sound and OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN SIX YEARS ALREADY GIVE ME THE MUSIC.
When you're anticipating something so hard, it begins to take on mythical proportions. This Christmas is going to be the best Christmas ever, this birthday is going to be the wildest birthday ever, the Ramadan is going to the hungriest Ramadan ever. Little kids are especially prone to this kind of OTT excitement. Not surprisingly, since little kids are also the demographic with the most excitement-building accessories: from advent calendars to visits with the mall Santa, from hand-written birthday party invitations to putting the tooth under the pillow the night before. Children are trained in the art of fully losing their minds about an upcoming event; by the time they reach adolescence, they're more than happy to wait in line at midnight on a Monday night in three-degree weather for a video game or concert tickets.
Clever marketing schemes abound for building intense levels of interest and anticipation. Currently, even though it stars Michael Cera and he's a totally miscast noodle, I'm stoked for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, the new flick from Edgar "Shaun of the Dead" Wright. It's based on a Canadian comic that's set in Toronto - not some anonymous large hipster-infested city, but Toronto, my chosen city - and populated with various hipsters and nerds and music goofballs and psychotic teenage girls. And it promises to be funny. And I'll probably start dressing like some of the female characters, because I'm easily influenced. Scott Pilgrim's website currently offers a chance for potential audiences to remake themselves in the image of a Brian Lee O'Malley character, complete with stubby legs and outlandishly coloured hairdos. I'm obsessed.
The last thing I looked forward to with this kind of intensity was also a comic book: Brian K. Vaughn's impeccable Y:The Last Man. Starring Yorick Brown as the titular Y, Vaughn's comics chronicle the "gendercide;" while women are fine, Earth's males have all suddenly and simultaneously expired. It's a ten-volume series comprised of 60 issues. I started reading them right after the ninth volume had been published, and, new to the comic-book world, assumed that the final volume was somewhere on the horizon.
More than a year later, delirious with need for resolution, after re-reading my nine volumes with a Talmudic intensity, the final chapter was published and purchased. And read. And re-read. And scrutinized, and discussed with fellow nerds and nerdettes. Finally, with the satisfaction that can only come from waiting for an experience to be complete, I slid the book onto the shelf with all its comic-book brothers and surveyed the scene.
Be it a book - I was highly invested in the wait for Jonathan Safran Foer's sophomore novel Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which was lovely but not the masterpiece I'd been hoping for - a video game, a movie, a clothing line, a vacation, a concert, a wedding day, a new car, a trip to the amusement park, or even just an icy can of Coke Zero, waiting for something can be so deliciously fraught with it's-going-to-be-good tension that it almost overshadows the actual event. In the best of all possible worlds, the built up excitement is met head-on by the awesomeness of the experience: the waiting buck buys the best possible bang. And for all those schmucks who were conned by their abstinence-model sex-educators all over this continental landmass, that bang might be more literal. For the rest of us, well: "We're going to Disneyworld!"
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Intimacy Issues
One of my pals, who writes a very good blog, is having an issue. It seems like the potent combination of public posting + intimate subject matter + small-town-ish neighbourhood has equaled some folks coming up to her on the street and cackling, "I know who you're writing about!"
Ugh. This makes me crazy. I'm not a fancy writer by any stretch of the imagination: I don't cite my sources or quote verbatim, lending this here webpage all the credibility of a Hollywood starlet denying her booze consumption. I sometimes - often, all the time - engage in flights of the imagination, making up slightly wild stories and embroidering ones that might be considered true. This has a lot to do with style (what? I have style) and less to do with ensuring the utmost in journalistic integrity.
I don't post recipes, I don't talk about politics, I don't write fiction. I feel no need to post a disclaimer on my blog that warns readers that the contents are untested opinions that have been dilligently researched by way of me having a thought and then writing it down. Most non-professional blogger fall into the same category: have a thought, write it down. So it goes.
It frustrates me that my blogging pal is getting all this flak from her geographically intimate readers. Any storyteller has the right to change, to shape, to modify the contents of his or her own tale, and we do it all the time in real life. When asked, "How was your day?" most of us leave out the details of brushing our teeth, pooping and thinking about what it would be like, really, to kill a zombie. We say we're fine, and that we went to work and watched some television, and keep our mouths shut about our internal breakthrough regarding zombie-killing weaponry (which, I'm going to posit right now, should include an aluminum baseball bat, a shotgun and a machete. At least).
When I blog, I don't always keep it 100% real. Not that I'm a liar, but I change names and locales, I exaggerate events, I leave out identifying moles and tattoos. Like me, my pal writes a blog that is based on her life: her experiences and her thoughts on those experiences. And, like me, she disguises or leaves out some details to protect the innocent and annoy the guilty. I like it when friends can say, "I was there with you!" and I afford them that opportunity as often as I can. And when the stakes are low - we went to get ice cream and here are my thoughts on Hagen-Daas - it's nice to wave at my friends and say, "Hello!"
But when the topics get sensitive - sex, drugs, friendships, relationships - she and I are both more likely to generalize. Say I launch into a post about how I was friends with a girl since high school and we were really tight, but ever since she moved in with her boyfriend, it's been weird between us. Does it make me feel better to say this girl's name is Laura and she lives in a condo on the waterfront? That her fella works for Rogers? That we once made out, years ago, under the influence of a New Year's Eve party's keg? Nope. So I don't: those details are fake. But the underlying topic - losing a friend to a new partner - is real, has happened, and is one that I might write about, because the experience is more universal than just me, sad and alone, listening to Morrissey and feeling rejected.
Intimacy isn't something I'm likely to exploit just for the sake of a blog post, and neither is my friend. Even though we're writing about personal stuff, we protect our friends and lovers by not telling strangers in Helsinki all about it. For people to assume that we're moronic writers who have no idea of the consequences of the written, published, online word? That's insulting. That's stupid. It sounds harsh, but reading someone's blog doesn't make you friends. I love knowing that there are people out there whom I never met, and will never meet, who give some form of a damn about what I have to say. And I love knowing that there are people out there who read this who know and like me, in person.
It annoys the living hell out of me that someone who falls somewhere in the middle, an acquaintance, would read my friend's website and decide that, because she has access to something my friend has given the whole world access to - her thoughts and feelings on a particular subject - that she can run up to my friend on the street and bray, "I know!" Because she doesn't. And she won't. And if she keeps reading, maybe she'll come to understand that.
Ugh. This makes me crazy. I'm not a fancy writer by any stretch of the imagination: I don't cite my sources or quote verbatim, lending this here webpage all the credibility of a Hollywood starlet denying her booze consumption. I sometimes - often, all the time - engage in flights of the imagination, making up slightly wild stories and embroidering ones that might be considered true. This has a lot to do with style (what? I have style) and less to do with ensuring the utmost in journalistic integrity.
I don't post recipes, I don't talk about politics, I don't write fiction. I feel no need to post a disclaimer on my blog that warns readers that the contents are untested opinions that have been dilligently researched by way of me having a thought and then writing it down. Most non-professional blogger fall into the same category: have a thought, write it down. So it goes.
It frustrates me that my blogging pal is getting all this flak from her geographically intimate readers. Any storyteller has the right to change, to shape, to modify the contents of his or her own tale, and we do it all the time in real life. When asked, "How was your day?" most of us leave out the details of brushing our teeth, pooping and thinking about what it would be like, really, to kill a zombie. We say we're fine, and that we went to work and watched some television, and keep our mouths shut about our internal breakthrough regarding zombie-killing weaponry (which, I'm going to posit right now, should include an aluminum baseball bat, a shotgun and a machete. At least).
When I blog, I don't always keep it 100% real. Not that I'm a liar, but I change names and locales, I exaggerate events, I leave out identifying moles and tattoos. Like me, my pal writes a blog that is based on her life: her experiences and her thoughts on those experiences. And, like me, she disguises or leaves out some details to protect the innocent and annoy the guilty. I like it when friends can say, "I was there with you!" and I afford them that opportunity as often as I can. And when the stakes are low - we went to get ice cream and here are my thoughts on Hagen-Daas - it's nice to wave at my friends and say, "Hello!"
But when the topics get sensitive - sex, drugs, friendships, relationships - she and I are both more likely to generalize. Say I launch into a post about how I was friends with a girl since high school and we were really tight, but ever since she moved in with her boyfriend, it's been weird between us. Does it make me feel better to say this girl's name is Laura and she lives in a condo on the waterfront? That her fella works for Rogers? That we once made out, years ago, under the influence of a New Year's Eve party's keg? Nope. So I don't: those details are fake. But the underlying topic - losing a friend to a new partner - is real, has happened, and is one that I might write about, because the experience is more universal than just me, sad and alone, listening to Morrissey and feeling rejected.
Intimacy isn't something I'm likely to exploit just for the sake of a blog post, and neither is my friend. Even though we're writing about personal stuff, we protect our friends and lovers by not telling strangers in Helsinki all about it. For people to assume that we're moronic writers who have no idea of the consequences of the written, published, online word? That's insulting. That's stupid. It sounds harsh, but reading someone's blog doesn't make you friends. I love knowing that there are people out there whom I never met, and will never meet, who give some form of a damn about what I have to say. And I love knowing that there are people out there who read this who know and like me, in person.
It annoys the living hell out of me that someone who falls somewhere in the middle, an acquaintance, would read my friend's website and decide that, because she has access to something my friend has given the whole world access to - her thoughts and feelings on a particular subject - that she can run up to my friend on the street and bray, "I know!" Because she doesn't. And she won't. And if she keeps reading, maybe she'll come to understand that.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Wired For Fun
I feel like I've read every damned magazine on the stands. When I was in high school, it was Rolling Stone and Jane - which I miss terribly, because there's no magazine that brings the sass quite like Jane did - and Nylon, which I loved desperately. Nylon was super lush and glam, and has since morphed into something dead-eyed and soulless. No matter. I've read my mom's issues of Canadian House and Home. I used to sneak my dad's subscription of National Geographic, back when it was shipped in brown paper semi-envelope: I would ease it out of its weird little tube, gingerly leaf through it, and then slip it back, all before he got home from work. I have no idea why this was a clandestine operation; I guess I didn't want to spoil the thrill of A New Thing for him, and I could have just waited the four hours it would take for him to read it and leave it in the dining room.
I recently picked up a few issues of Wired from my local bibliotemple, and I'm kind of smitten. I've always dismissed Wired as dull, since it concerns itself with technology and the internet and that kind of boy-related stuff. Men's magazines at least run photos of breasts; Wired seemed to be more concerned with the pixel count on a new SLR than it was with anything, you know, fun.
I stand corrected. Wired is a total hoot. It's shiny, and extremely well-designed. While it does fawn over a lot of similar-looking gadgetry, it has some whiz-bang neat-o tricks up its glossy sleeve. For example, articles like the one about the "link" between autism and vaccines are only peripherally interested in the mechanics of vaccination, and instead focuses its energies on the human side of the debate. As in, it dispels the myth of Jenny McCarthy as a person with medical knowledge. Thanks for that, Wired.
It has an advice column, which handily dispatches queries for the modern world. My favourite question so far has been the man who wrote in to ask if and how he should advise his brother, the father of a blind son: should he encourage the reluctant father to teach his son Braille? The answer, which addressed the prevalence of techno solutions like text readers, also considered the old-school Braille to be a viable and noble pursuit. After all, Braille is useful for travelers, note-taking, and cognitive calisthenics. I adore that answer. Its elegance lies in the fact that technology is accepted as a given, but not as the only, or even best, option.
There are some supremely nerdy pages in Wired; a lot of copy is devoted to things like robot dinosaurs and the Kindle. But even when the subject matter is a little dorky, the writers keep it engaging. It's fun writing: smart, often witty, infused with wide-eyed wonder: Can you believe we actually get to write about robot dinosaurs? It's clear that, unlike, say, InStyle, the staff at Wired recognize the frivolity of Bugatti kettles. They take a winking approach that doesn't undermine the genuine interest they have in what they're writing about.
I like that. Tech magazines and fashion rags have a lot in common: they both deal with the next, the shiniest, the newest, the priciest. But Wired's tone diverges from the high-falutin' snobbery of most fashion magazines, and instead aims for a chuckle. Not that their information isn't useful and well-presented, and that the tone doesn't furrow an eyebrow when it has to (like the autism article), but Wired doesn't take itself ultra-seriously. It's good writing, great style, fun toys and interesting subject matter. If the geeks are going to inherit the earth, at least the reading material is going to be primo.
I recently picked up a few issues of Wired from my local bibliotemple, and I'm kind of smitten. I've always dismissed Wired as dull, since it concerns itself with technology and the internet and that kind of boy-related stuff. Men's magazines at least run photos of breasts; Wired seemed to be more concerned with the pixel count on a new SLR than it was with anything, you know, fun.
I stand corrected. Wired is a total hoot. It's shiny, and extremely well-designed. While it does fawn over a lot of similar-looking gadgetry, it has some whiz-bang neat-o tricks up its glossy sleeve. For example, articles like the one about the "link" between autism and vaccines are only peripherally interested in the mechanics of vaccination, and instead focuses its energies on the human side of the debate. As in, it dispels the myth of Jenny McCarthy as a person with medical knowledge. Thanks for that, Wired.
It has an advice column, which handily dispatches queries for the modern world. My favourite question so far has been the man who wrote in to ask if and how he should advise his brother, the father of a blind son: should he encourage the reluctant father to teach his son Braille? The answer, which addressed the prevalence of techno solutions like text readers, also considered the old-school Braille to be a viable and noble pursuit. After all, Braille is useful for travelers, note-taking, and cognitive calisthenics. I adore that answer. Its elegance lies in the fact that technology is accepted as a given, but not as the only, or even best, option.
There are some supremely nerdy pages in Wired; a lot of copy is devoted to things like robot dinosaurs and the Kindle. But even when the subject matter is a little dorky, the writers keep it engaging. It's fun writing: smart, often witty, infused with wide-eyed wonder: Can you believe we actually get to write about robot dinosaurs? It's clear that, unlike, say, InStyle, the staff at Wired recognize the frivolity of Bugatti kettles. They take a winking approach that doesn't undermine the genuine interest they have in what they're writing about.
I like that. Tech magazines and fashion rags have a lot in common: they both deal with the next, the shiniest, the newest, the priciest. But Wired's tone diverges from the high-falutin' snobbery of most fashion magazines, and instead aims for a chuckle. Not that their information isn't useful and well-presented, and that the tone doesn't furrow an eyebrow when it has to (like the autism article), but Wired doesn't take itself ultra-seriously. It's good writing, great style, fun toys and interesting subject matter. If the geeks are going to inherit the earth, at least the reading material is going to be primo.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Eggers On His Face
Is it possible to both admire and be totally exasperated by someone at the same time? Usually, I hold those feelings at alternating times, about different people. For example, I admire Calamity Jane, and am exasperated by Anna Wintour. See? Different. Not the same. The closest I've come in recent thought is admiring early 1990s crazy-SEX Madonna, and being exasperated by faux-English scary-arm-muscles Madonna.
But Dave Eggers sort of ruins everything, because I simultaneously really like him and also want to give him a swirlie. I first encountered Eggers in 2001, when he published A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or, as I refer to it in my head, What The Hell Happened To The Last Third Of This Book?, because never have I encountered a piece of writing that falls so spectacularly apart as this one. I was charmed when I first picked it up - it's funny! It's also long, and goes off the rails in that last third. Like, off the rails, into a ravine, into a church full of orphans at the bottom of that ravine. And the orphans are singing The Lion King soundtrack. And they're blind! And then they get smushed by this trainwreck of a book, barreling down on them. And it's Christmas Eve.
Okay, the moral of that paragraph is that this book, his first, published when he was 30 years old to wide critical acclaim, sort of encapsulates the whole Dave Eggers experience for me. I am so delighted by him...in parts. And other parts make me crazy-eyed with rage.
Because there are parts of Dave Eggers that I really, honestly like. His work with 826 Valencia is so interesting and cool: he started a non-profit center in San Fransisco to tutor kids how to write. That's the kind of thing that makes me want to weep with the self-effacing humble-pie awesomeness of it all. It's cool. It inspired elaborate fantasies of moving to the Bay Area to work with the 826 Valencia kids, hanging out with Anne Lamott on the weekends, going to picnics in Marin County, being really at peace with myself, and having perfect, non-disgusting dreadlocks. Because that's what goes on in my brain when I find out about a sweet project.
Eggers married the 826 Valencia project with his editing role at the helm of the Best American Non-Required Reading, giving those kids a voice and a sense of agency in the often-incomprehensible worlds of professional editing and publishing. This awes me. I love that. I love those books anyway, because they're sources of the weird and the wonderful, but Eggers and his band of merry child prodigies made them 3D interesting; the story of those stories is as interesting as the stories themselves.
And then Eggers has to go and ruin it by actually writing stuff down and publishing it. There are some writers who I would always read. David Foster Wallace is an obvious choice, but Barbara Ehrenreich and Jonathan Lethem also get votes. They bring a clarity to their writing, even at their most convoluted and insane (David): it feels like, once you're at the end of the sentence, or chapter, or book, that you're better. Your soul feels healthier. Good writing is a gift - sure, for the author, in the gifted-and-talented mold, if you're so inclined - but it's also a gift to the reader. A little present.
Let's just say that Dave Eggers does not present his readers with thoughtful gifts. If his writing was a Father's Day present, it would be a tie. It's obvious. I loathe his writing because it makes me want to throw the book down the stairs and dementedly scream, "I could write this!" Because, and I am not being proud or boastful or any of those other emotions that Mennonites are so afraid of, here: I could write that.
Let me give you a for instance. Eggers wrote the screenplay for Away We Go, which stars John Kransinski and Maya Rudolph's fictional tilted uterus. It's a movie about finding your home. It features the characters literally visiting different cities, seeing which one might be the best for raising their unborn child. At one point, the father-to-be promises to love his partner even if she gets so fat that he can't find her vagina. I think it's meant to be endearing - they say vagina! they're comfortable with different sizes! their love transcends stereotypical white-bread bullshit! I don't know. I can't be the only one that thinks that's kind of gross and weird.
But proclamations about vaginae aside, Eggers strikes me as a remarkably earnest writer. In his films, the characters are searching for comfort and love - the needs of children. I'm not shitting on comfort or love. I'm a huge fan of both. But stories about needing to find comfort and/or love tend to be about children, or intensely damaged adults. Combined with a somewhat stolid prose style, Eggers' stories are needy. They want to be loved, desperately. They strive. I'm not into striving. Striving, especially in writing, does a disservice to the reader (who feels cajoled into liking something) and the story (which should be told, not shaped and massaged into something easy to digest).
So Dave Eggers leaves me in an interesting place. I want to support him, because he does interesting work almost everywhere except his chosen profession. I've read his books, and I want to dunk them in pitchers of iced tea and leave them for ants to eat. But his side projects are so cool. But: bad writing. But: awesome non-profit. But: blergh. I'll leave it at that. Dave Eggers, you make me feel blergh. You've reduced me to nonsense babbling. I hope you're happy.
But Dave Eggers sort of ruins everything, because I simultaneously really like him and also want to give him a swirlie. I first encountered Eggers in 2001, when he published A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or, as I refer to it in my head, What The Hell Happened To The Last Third Of This Book?, because never have I encountered a piece of writing that falls so spectacularly apart as this one. I was charmed when I first picked it up - it's funny! It's also long, and goes off the rails in that last third. Like, off the rails, into a ravine, into a church full of orphans at the bottom of that ravine. And the orphans are singing The Lion King soundtrack. And they're blind! And then they get smushed by this trainwreck of a book, barreling down on them. And it's Christmas Eve.
Okay, the moral of that paragraph is that this book, his first, published when he was 30 years old to wide critical acclaim, sort of encapsulates the whole Dave Eggers experience for me. I am so delighted by him...in parts. And other parts make me crazy-eyed with rage.
Because there are parts of Dave Eggers that I really, honestly like. His work with 826 Valencia is so interesting and cool: he started a non-profit center in San Fransisco to tutor kids how to write. That's the kind of thing that makes me want to weep with the self-effacing humble-pie awesomeness of it all. It's cool. It inspired elaborate fantasies of moving to the Bay Area to work with the 826 Valencia kids, hanging out with Anne Lamott on the weekends, going to picnics in Marin County, being really at peace with myself, and having perfect, non-disgusting dreadlocks. Because that's what goes on in my brain when I find out about a sweet project.
Eggers married the 826 Valencia project with his editing role at the helm of the Best American Non-Required Reading, giving those kids a voice and a sense of agency in the often-incomprehensible worlds of professional editing and publishing. This awes me. I love that. I love those books anyway, because they're sources of the weird and the wonderful, but Eggers and his band of merry child prodigies made them 3D interesting; the story of those stories is as interesting as the stories themselves.
And then Eggers has to go and ruin it by actually writing stuff down and publishing it. There are some writers who I would always read. David Foster Wallace is an obvious choice, but Barbara Ehrenreich and Jonathan Lethem also get votes. They bring a clarity to their writing, even at their most convoluted and insane (David): it feels like, once you're at the end of the sentence, or chapter, or book, that you're better. Your soul feels healthier. Good writing is a gift - sure, for the author, in the gifted-and-talented mold, if you're so inclined - but it's also a gift to the reader. A little present.
Let's just say that Dave Eggers does not present his readers with thoughtful gifts. If his writing was a Father's Day present, it would be a tie. It's obvious. I loathe his writing because it makes me want to throw the book down the stairs and dementedly scream, "I could write this!" Because, and I am not being proud or boastful or any of those other emotions that Mennonites are so afraid of, here: I could write that.
Let me give you a for instance. Eggers wrote the screenplay for Away We Go, which stars John Kransinski and Maya Rudolph's fictional tilted uterus. It's a movie about finding your home. It features the characters literally visiting different cities, seeing which one might be the best for raising their unborn child. At one point, the father-to-be promises to love his partner even if she gets so fat that he can't find her vagina. I think it's meant to be endearing - they say vagina! they're comfortable with different sizes! their love transcends stereotypical white-bread bullshit! I don't know. I can't be the only one that thinks that's kind of gross and weird.
But proclamations about vaginae aside, Eggers strikes me as a remarkably earnest writer. In his films, the characters are searching for comfort and love - the needs of children. I'm not shitting on comfort or love. I'm a huge fan of both. But stories about needing to find comfort and/or love tend to be about children, or intensely damaged adults. Combined with a somewhat stolid prose style, Eggers' stories are needy. They want to be loved, desperately. They strive. I'm not into striving. Striving, especially in writing, does a disservice to the reader (who feels cajoled into liking something) and the story (which should be told, not shaped and massaged into something easy to digest).
So Dave Eggers leaves me in an interesting place. I want to support him, because he does interesting work almost everywhere except his chosen profession. I've read his books, and I want to dunk them in pitchers of iced tea and leave them for ants to eat. But his side projects are so cool. But: bad writing. But: awesome non-profit. But: blergh. I'll leave it at that. Dave Eggers, you make me feel blergh. You've reduced me to nonsense babbling. I hope you're happy.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Let Them Watch Cake
Remember a few years ago, when everyone was all OMG, it's Sophia Coppola? She was married to Spike Jonze (aiee!), the face of Marc Jacobs, friends with the Chemical Brothers, director of nouveau classics like Lost in Translation? She was the large-nosed hipster girl, the jolie laide alternative to the bleached and the primped, the creator of a whole alt-girl scene that utilized Kirsten Dunst as its erstwhile muse and the unlikely duo of Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray as its sigh-eliciting leading men. She was raucous, getting all fancy with the Academy and adapting much-loved indie bookstore favourites into critically lauded films.
Except, and no one seemed to notice this, but her movies were a total snore. The Virgin Suicides, upon re-watching, is draggy and vacuous. The book that inspired it was not especially thrilling. I mean that in that way that Jerry Bruckheimer movies are thrilling, not that TVS was a lousy read; there are some exceptionally sexy moments in the front seat of a car in that book, moments that might have totally subbed in for more explicit erotica in a desperate summer a few years back. But in the movie, it's just Dunst and Josh Hartnett writhing around in the dark. This pair does not inspire any erotic feelings. They're sort of like an erotic antidote, one that you might apply to romance that's gotten out of hand and is threatening your smaller and more vulnerable houseplants.
I've been in a bad mood for a couple days now, and while there are many contributing factors (including and not limited to: the cats shedding all over my clothes; a fight with my sister; an endless trip to the craft store to pick out picture matting and which required much debate over colour; and the growing suspicion that I should have just stayed in Toronto for the summer), the starting point for this black-soul mood can be traced back to Coppola, Dunst and 18th century France.
Marie Antoinette. Feh. In its meager defense, I can honestly say the movie is gorgeous. Versailles, while not my cup of decorative tea, is beautiful in a way that simply isn't seen any more. The fashion isn't to produce these insane interiours and ornate gardens. Our world has been radically streamlined since then, and in some ways, it's sad that Versailles is a unique place.
On the other hand, any movie needs to be more than its set decorator, and Marie Antoinette totally wets the bed. The dialogue is ridiculous - Marie and Louis say "yeah," for Christ's sake - there's zero humour, and a full third of the movie is obsessed with the failure of the young lovers to actually have any sex. I was irrationally bothered by the sound mixing (and I rarely notice those kinds of things, so it must have been wretched), and the soundtrack, which included Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy," was implausible.
I'm not hating on the mix of old and new. I was thirteen when Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet was in theatres, and to this day, I fully love it. I was fascinated by that movie. It's sexy! It's funny! It's violent! It's way, way overproduced, with crash zooms and M. Emmett Walsh and helicopter chases. It's fun to watch. I still throw it on every now and then, half a lifetime later, because it's still a good movie. The Shakespearean dialogue and the rock 'em-sock 'em visuals actually worked, because at its heart, Shakespeare is all bombastic and crazy and over the top.
But with Marie Antoinette, the subject matter isn't that interesting. Or maybe it is - Coppola's movie features extramarital affairs, civil war, gambling, midnight parties, shopping sprees and child brides - but the way it's presented to the audience is detached. Austere. Coppola's style is often subdued to the point of catatonia, and generally needs a little shot in the arm to keep it from going to sleep. In Lost In Translation, she takes the pachinko machines of future-modern Tokyo, plus a fast-and-loose Bill Murray, and applies her signature still-waters-run-deep aesthetic. It works because the movie's quiet moments actually feel like respite from the frenetic background.
Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, moves at a much statelier pace. Compounded with the foreign subject matter and the lavish production values, it feels like Coppola is invites us to a meal, but never really passes us anything substantial to eat. It's hard to care about Marie Antoinette, because she doesn't really care about anything except herself. This movie would be vastly improved with a little humour, a little self-deprecation, a knowing wink to the absurdity of the glamour. But, unfortunately, the vulnerability that humour might bring is intead showcased in Dunst's physical fragility. I never feel for Marie, or Dunst's portrayal of her, because she never shows the audience anything really remarkable. She is ultimately forgettable, like this movie, because I - and I know I'm not alone in this - am disinterested in folks whose greatest tragedies are the fact that they never learn to care about other people.
Except, and no one seemed to notice this, but her movies were a total snore. The Virgin Suicides, upon re-watching, is draggy and vacuous. The book that inspired it was not especially thrilling. I mean that in that way that Jerry Bruckheimer movies are thrilling, not that TVS was a lousy read; there are some exceptionally sexy moments in the front seat of a car in that book, moments that might have totally subbed in for more explicit erotica in a desperate summer a few years back. But in the movie, it's just Dunst and Josh Hartnett writhing around in the dark. This pair does not inspire any erotic feelings. They're sort of like an erotic antidote, one that you might apply to romance that's gotten out of hand and is threatening your smaller and more vulnerable houseplants.
I've been in a bad mood for a couple days now, and while there are many contributing factors (including and not limited to: the cats shedding all over my clothes; a fight with my sister; an endless trip to the craft store to pick out picture matting and which required much debate over colour; and the growing suspicion that I should have just stayed in Toronto for the summer), the starting point for this black-soul mood can be traced back to Coppola, Dunst and 18th century France.
Marie Antoinette. Feh. In its meager defense, I can honestly say the movie is gorgeous. Versailles, while not my cup of decorative tea, is beautiful in a way that simply isn't seen any more. The fashion isn't to produce these insane interiours and ornate gardens. Our world has been radically streamlined since then, and in some ways, it's sad that Versailles is a unique place.
On the other hand, any movie needs to be more than its set decorator, and Marie Antoinette totally wets the bed. The dialogue is ridiculous - Marie and Louis say "yeah," for Christ's sake - there's zero humour, and a full third of the movie is obsessed with the failure of the young lovers to actually have any sex. I was irrationally bothered by the sound mixing (and I rarely notice those kinds of things, so it must have been wretched), and the soundtrack, which included Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy," was implausible.
I'm not hating on the mix of old and new. I was thirteen when Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet was in theatres, and to this day, I fully love it. I was fascinated by that movie. It's sexy! It's funny! It's violent! It's way, way overproduced, with crash zooms and M. Emmett Walsh and helicopter chases. It's fun to watch. I still throw it on every now and then, half a lifetime later, because it's still a good movie. The Shakespearean dialogue and the rock 'em-sock 'em visuals actually worked, because at its heart, Shakespeare is all bombastic and crazy and over the top.
But with Marie Antoinette, the subject matter isn't that interesting. Or maybe it is - Coppola's movie features extramarital affairs, civil war, gambling, midnight parties, shopping sprees and child brides - but the way it's presented to the audience is detached. Austere. Coppola's style is often subdued to the point of catatonia, and generally needs a little shot in the arm to keep it from going to sleep. In Lost In Translation, she takes the pachinko machines of future-modern Tokyo, plus a fast-and-loose Bill Murray, and applies her signature still-waters-run-deep aesthetic. It works because the movie's quiet moments actually feel like respite from the frenetic background.
Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, moves at a much statelier pace. Compounded with the foreign subject matter and the lavish production values, it feels like Coppola is invites us to a meal, but never really passes us anything substantial to eat. It's hard to care about Marie Antoinette, because she doesn't really care about anything except herself. This movie would be vastly improved with a little humour, a little self-deprecation, a knowing wink to the absurdity of the glamour. But, unfortunately, the vulnerability that humour might bring is intead showcased in Dunst's physical fragility. I never feel for Marie, or Dunst's portrayal of her, because she never shows the audience anything really remarkable. She is ultimately forgettable, like this movie, because I - and I know I'm not alone in this - am disinterested in folks whose greatest tragedies are the fact that they never learn to care about other people.
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