| thoughts from a cunning linguist | |
Last night, I went to NYC to see Patty Griffin, a fabulous contemporary folk diva at the Town Hall. She did not disappoint and I came away with a shiny new CD. I found out she was coming to NYC because a friend of mine from Halifax, the MADwoman, was coming to town with her girlfriend to see Patty Griffin play. So I rustled up a couple of my friends from here and we headed into the show last night. While I was there, trying to hunt down the MADwoman and her girlfriend, I ran into another friend of mine who started in the graduate program here with me. Now, technically, this last person I ran into at the concert is my "oldest" friend of the lot. I met her in 1997. I also met the two friends who came to the concert with me for the first time in 1997. But somehow, I think of MADwoman as being an older friend, even though I have known her for only about two years. And, I think of the friends who came to the concert with me as "new" friends. They are the same people I went with to the March on Washington a few weeks ago. Maybe it's that people seem to be old friends when they've known you not for long periods of time, but when they come to know you more intimately.
I have spent the last 24 hours grading essays. But now they're all done. That meant I could watch hockey tonight. The Stanley Cup playoffs are on. Unfortunately, my team, The Montreal Canadiens, got put out. They got put out in the most shameful of fashions. They got swept. They lost a 4 out of 7 series in only 4 games. This is not supposed to happen to the Montreal Canadiens. Someone should have told these new players that losing in this way is simply not allowed. And as of tonight, there is only one Canadian team left: The Calgary Flames, since the Toronto Maple Leafs got eliminated tonight.
Hockey is rapidly moving south. There are more and more professional hockey clubs in the southern United States, often in place where there may never ever have been any ice! ESPN is trying to keep up, but like the teams themselves, they often have to import Canadians to run the show. (You can tell by the way the announcers say "about"--"abooot"--dead giveaway.)
Still, nothing beats the CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. I know, I know: I'm not supposed to like the impolitic Don Cherry who does Coach's Corner (thought not for long, if the rumours of his being tossed by the CBC are to be believed). But I can't help it: I like the guy. He actually has the guts to say things that lots of people are thinking, even if a fraction of the time, he goes overboard. I'd rather have that that some pasty-faced, clean-cut, nice carboard cutout of a Canadian doling out platitudes. All in all, I guess it just isn't quite the same to be watching hockey in the USA. But, even without Don Cherry, it's nice to settle in for an evening of puck watching. And it's even nicer not to have to grade any more essays for a while.
On Saturday night, when I was supposed to be falling asleep early in order to get up at 4:00 a.m. to go to Washington, I kept thinking about Steph's "Things to Do Before I Die" post. I kept imagining my own list of things. Here's what I came up with:
1. ride the streetcar named Desire in New Orleans
2. live in Manhattan with enough money to do culture
3. travel to Australia
4. become fluent in another language
5. write something very important in my field
6. have a threesome
7. learn to be a mechanic
8. hike in the Alps
9. own a baby grand piano
10. live near the ocean again
11. see the 7 wonders of the world
12. learn more about the history of art
13. see an opera in Prague
14. cruise the canals in Venice
15. ride in a helicopter
16. dive around the coral reef
17. own a fabulous suit
18. drive on the the autobahn
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I went under the knife. It was nothing serious, really. I had to get a cyst removed from my scalp and it all happened in a family doctor's office. I've had several of these things (all benign) on my head for a while, but in the last few years, they've been growing bigger. Two years ago, in fact, one got really big and infected. I assumed that it would just settle down, but it didn't. One morning, I woke up and looking in the mirror and saw the face of a Kilngon looking back at me. All the pressure around the cyst had forced swelling down into my forehead and around my eyes. My glasses were no longer sitting on my nose, but sitting on the swelling. I knew then it was time to go to the doctor. So when I noticed that I had a few more of these suckers growing, I figured it was time to avoid the return the of the Klingon. I went to the doctor here last week and yesterday went in to have the first and biggest of the offending growths removed. It's the first time I have ever had stitches. (When I looked like a Klingon, after they removed the cyst, they didn't stitch it because of the infection.) Needless to say, I was not very much looking foreward to the whole affair yesterday morning. But it didn't take long and I comforted myself by insisting that the doctors explain to me what was happening at every step of the way. So they did. The medical practice I go to is a teaching practice, so it was a resident who performed the actual surgery, with his attending physician supervising. The doctor had just removed the monstrous beast and was stitching my up. His supervisor exclaimed: "Isn't that beautiful?" I guess she was referring to the stiches. But I have to say, doctors have a strange sense of aesthetics.
Well my birthday in Beantown was a bit of a bust (thought it clearly makes for good alliteration). When I arrived, my sister was down with the stomach flu, a flu that then proceeded to make its way around the house, so I spent most of the weekend helping to take care of the kids. The bug ultimately travelled with me back to New Jersey, where it felled me for two days.
Not to be totally outdone by the flu, though, I had a bit of a birthday shopping spree--well a mini one. There was a fabulous sale (my sister, I think I've mentioned before, is the queen of sales) on sneakers and athletic wear. I needed new sneakers and new hiking boots. So I got both for $99. A steal, huh?
Today, I finally felt well enough, post-flu to get back to my dissertation writing and back to the gym to try out my new sneaks. Much to my chagrin, my sneakers seem to be too big! Now I can't tell if the problem is that my old ones (a pair of old aerobics sneakers, if you can imagine this, left behind by a long-gone ex) were just too small or if these ones are actually too big. I can't help but think metaphorically, though, and wonder if my dissertation, like my shoes, might be too big for me to grow into! A topic for another day, no doubt.
Traveling from New York to Boston costs only $10 each way on the Fung-Wah bus that goes from Chinatown in NYC to Chinatown in Boston. Good deal, huh? And so I am taking myself off to Boston on Friday to visit my sister and her kids and to celebrate my birthday there. 31 years old, I'll be, on Feb.27. Kinda hard to believe...
Well no excuse can really cover my absence from the blog. I could say that I went into hibernation--my disappearance does roughly coincide with the onset of winter. I wish I had a more exotic narrative (though in a way, I do: I could say I got kidnapped by a cougar and forced to be a love slave and house muffin. But if I said that, the cougar might not like it...) Or I could say I just was busy, which no one ever really believes anyway--or not enough to be a justifiable excuse. Hell, I wouldn't believe me if I said that either.
The only thing I can say (beyond, "Hi, I'm back! Remember me?") is that I had a bout of amnesia. Up until last fall, my computer was remembering my login name and password to Movable Type. Then, I got a virus on my computer, deleted all my cookies in an effort to get rid of it, and presto: no more login info for Movable Type. In my defense, I must say that I did _try_ to blog. Alas, I think I could have tried harder. I should definitely have called Maurice sooner.
Movable Type problems or not, that is surely the case anyway. But instead of promising never to disappear again (since I've surely lost all credibility on that front anyway!), I'll promise to be better. That means if I do get kidnapped by a cougar and am forced to be a love slave and a house muffin, at least I'll have the good grace to tell you about it.
I have to admit it: I've always been one of those Atlantic Canadians who hates Toronto. Maybe I'd heard too many jokes about the "Newfoundlander who went to Toronto and..." Or maybe it had something to do with being born in a Montreal Canadians family and knowing that the last time Toronto won the Cup, there was only black and white television. A lot of it was the Toronto-centrism of Canada (events in Toronto make the front page of national newspapers while Atlantic Canadian news only squeaks in on page 8 or something). And as usually happens when one approaches a situation knowing already what one is going to think about it, during my few visits to the city, all my dislikes were confirmed. I found that it was all concrete and steel, with not much character and rude people.
But bushwhacking changes everything. I'm back now from my most recent trip to Toronto where I had quite an amazing time with Dr. Fem, celebrating her birthday. We shopped a bit, had tea in a cozy Vietnamese tea shops, ate great Chinese food, went to a really bad queer play (the Queen of Sheba and the Grand Poobah would be proud: we walked out), and hung out with Dr. Fem's very cool dyke friends.
Now I have to wait another six weeks to see her again and it's back to counting weeks and sleeps. This time, my excursion north will take me to Sudbury. Double the bushwhacking pleasure.
Well today's the day that I pack up most of the final things--dishes, tchotchkes, more books. After today, I will be in internet withdrawal, probably until the middle of next week. The Disco Lassie (a.k.a. the Queen of Post-It Notes) is coming by this morning to assist me in the packing extravaganza. This evening the E-Bay Queen will put in an appearance. And this afternoon, the Divine Miss M will swing by to visit and lend a hand (she moved two cord of wood all by herself yesterday).
Yesterday my big packing trick was juggling a microwave (or not), thereby almost dislocating my shoulder. I wonder what tricks will be in store today...
This afternoon I went hiking with the Psycholesbian from Cow Bay to Lawrencetown Beach. At the beginning of the hike, on a loop called "Rosemary's Way," the Psycholesbian spotted a seagull, whom she promptly named Rosemary, of course. Thereafter, Rosemary appeared to follow us throughout our hike. And, after we had hiked the trail, thrown ourselves (twice) into the icy waters at Lawrencetown (note: this was not swimming!), and eaten scones at the Heron Tea Room, Rosemary reappeared to accompany us. We were sitting on a hill taking in the spectacular view of ocean, cliffs, and beach spread out before us. And who do you think comes walking up to us, to within about a foot of us, maybe a dozen times? Rosemary, of course.
What a splendid day it was.
Tomorrow afternoon, I'm off to Fredericton with the Queen of Sheba and the PsychoLesbian. There I get to visit the E-Bay Queen and the Renaissance Eeyore in what may be the last time I get to see them all before I head back to New Jersey in the fall. Both have bought new houses in the last little while, so I have go check out the new (or soon to be new) digs.
But aside from the pleasures of the destination itself, there is the road trip itself, replete with good music, clear highways, and Irving Big Stops. Since there will be three of us, it will be hard to divvy up the roles Thelma-and-Louise-style. Nonetheless, I suspect given the personalities, someone will be calling on us to buy the movie rights.
The big question is: what will the theme song be? Any nominations for a song befitting a Bush Whacker, the Queen of Sheba, and the PsychoLesbian?
I have lived now with 5 male rooommates. And I have a question, perhaps the inverse of the "why do women use so much toilet tissue?" question. Here it is: why is that most men (a) not clean the bathroom on a regular basis and (b) when they do, do a half-assed job? My current roommate is the worst: I have had to issue him an "invitation" to clean the bathroom every time he has cleaned it since he moved in. So some weeks ago now, I decided: let's see how long it will take him to realize it's his turn. I have now cleaned the bathroom four times in a row--including the morning after one of his friends showed up here drunk after the bar and vomited all over the bathroom. The roommate showed up here shortly after and gave the bathroom what I call "a lick and a promise," but I still had to clean the thing before I could use it the next morning. Before he moved in, I said to him: "I'm not a neat freak, but I do want the bathroom to be cleaned every week." Not only has ne not done this, but he has no idea what it means to clean the bathroom. He uses paper towel, never washes the floor and usually leaves dirt behind him. My theory is that his mother has cleaned up after him all his life. But still, he's an adult. A wash cloth, a bucket of water, and a mop should not be foreign objects to him.
I left him a very frustrated note last night after I noticed yet another half-assed bathroom job and some paper towel in the waste basket. I feel like a real bitch pointing out how that the bathroom is not clean and listing all the things that have to be cleaned in a bathroom, but I'm not sure what else I could have done. (Then, just cuz I used to be Catholic, I felt guilty about it all not and didn't sleep very well!)
Even though this roommate has been the worst, all my other male roommates, as well as my brothers, have had versions of the same disease. Given that men seem to make bigger messes of toilets than women, why is it that they can go on without noticing the level of dirt? Or, if they notice it, why not do something about it!?
I'm happy to report that I can now lay my American Idleness to rest. Ruben Studdard has rightfully been crowned the winner. And Kimberley Locke, appearing in the finale, is still hot. All is right with the world. (As if.)
And, to boot, in a separate competition, the Ottawa Senators (the only Canadian team left in the Stanley Cup playoffs) staved off elimination. They were down 3 games to 1 (in a best of 7 series). Then they won the last game on home ice, only to find themselves still down 3-2 and playing against the New Jersey Devils in the Devils' home arena. So tonight, they evened the series and did so in overtime without home ice advantage. They get to play in Ottawa now for a chance to play in the Stanley Cup final. Woo hoo.
For the last four hours, the power has been out in my neighbourhood. It's amazing how much buzzing we become accustomed to as part of our idea of "silence." With no power, there was also no computer humming, no refrigerator buzzing, no fountain dribbling (yes, you'll be surprised to know, as I was myself, that I have a fountain in my house, a birthday present from an old and dear friend who made it from her own bare hands.) The sound of all those things not running was quite eerie. Further, there was no opportunity to listen to music or the radio, no way to cook food or get a shower. So I got to read the paper and read a little more a book I have to review for a journal. But reading the paper just wasn't the same. Usually my Saturday savouring of the Globe and Mail is a guilty pleasure, something I take time that I shouldn't be taking to do. Today, it was there to do because of all the other things I couldn't do. Very strange.
And oddly, I've felt like a prisoner in my own apartment, even though I live downtown in a city that's pretty bustling on a Saturday. I did get up and go the the market (Halifax has a wonderful Saturday morning Farmer's Market), but that's something you can do beforeyou shower and get ready for the day. I've been waiting, not so patiently, for the electricty to come back on so I can shower, eat something good, and get on with the day.
And what a day it is! Finally, we are getting spring and warm temperatures. I think it's time to leave the house to enjoy the sunny day and all its other sounds.
But what a very weird day so far.
Today marks the fifth day in a row that I've been to the gym. To back up, it's not like this is a new thing just this week. After a significant hiatus (about a year and a half), I returned to the gymafter having been summoned by the She-Woman on the morning of my 30th birthday. So it's not like I stopped going or anything since that time. But five days in a row is a personal best. Usually I go three in a row, or occasionally four, but never five until today. (How did I celebrate? I bought a new pair of gym shorts, since some of my old ones have holes and I am a lousy seamstress.)
I've come to think of going to the gym more as psychological than physical training and on two different levels: one, it's training the mind to keep going to the gym, training it to get into the habit; and two, it's training the mind to keep pushing even when specific gym activities are hard. I guess this second one is like training the mind to be "the little engine that could ." I suppose overall it's about connecting the physical work of activity to the psychological work of pushing what appear to be physical limitations. (That damn mind body split--gotta heal the rift. In my case, there's been a gaping abyss.) The training seems to be working, at least this week!
Now if only I could bottle that and sell it to the part of my brain that is responsible for my dissertation.
Well all those Canadians who want us to be more American now have their very own bigot/mascot. Elsie Wayne, Deputy Leader of our "Progressive" Conservatives covered herself in glory today by slamming gays and lesbians. The following is an excerpt from a CBC news story (available at www.cbc.ca)
"Wayne told CBC Newsworld on Friday that she has gay friends, and respects them. 'They don't come out and they don't ask us to redefine the definition of marriage,' Wayne said. 'They don't even talk about that.'
The veteran Tory member of Parliament was under fire for comments she made about gay marriage during debate on Thursday in the House of Commons.
'Why do they have to be out here in the public, always debating that they want to call it marriage? Why are they in parades? Why are men dressed up as women on floats?' she said.
"If they are going to live together, go live together and shut up about it.'"
Let it be known that I am no fan of gay marriage or any kind of marriage for that matter. So I don't care if Wayne wants to slam debates about marriage. Let it also be known that I am no fan of Elsie Wayne. But I do have to thank her for something, the same thing that I'd thank Rick Santorum for: for acknowledging that bigotry is not just a characteristic of the far-right in North America; it reaches into the leadership of right-wing parties.
I am a big fan of plain language. And for once, whatever we might say about Santorum and Wayne, finally there are people who have the guts to confirm what right wing thinkers either espouse or absorb as part of being conservative. They either hate gays and lesbians or must make peace with those who do. Finally the right owns up to its prejudice.
Wayne's comments have struck a cord here also because Canada suffers from its defining mythology of niceness. What Wayne says offends our sense of propriety more than our sense of morality. Niceness and politness are so insidious that they prevents us from naming prejudice as such. In that sense, in proclaiming their prejudices, both Santorum and Wayne finally call themselves the spades they are.
All I have to say is this: Kimberley Locke is way hot. It's down to three and I'm still an addict. What can I say? And what the hell will I do on Tuesday nights when American Idol is over?!
One of the things that struck me throughout my weekend in Stellarton was the frankness with which people would discuss smoking. The conference facilitators would casually tell people that if they wanted to take a break to use the washroom or have a smoke, that this was the time to do it. The phrase "have a smoke" was used quite freely. It jumped out at me because I can't rememeber the last time I noticed anyone who was officially in charge of anything being so casual about mentioning smoking. It's become taboo to do so.
It's impossible not to know these days that "smoking is bad for you." The propaganda is everywhere and is supported increasingly by legislation. We're told it's also supported by research. I don't disbelieve the research. I have a long-time smoking mother who bears out the ill effects of long-term smoking. Her chronic cough is one the reasons I have chosen not to smoke myself.
But the way smoking is becoming both stigmatized and policed is quite frightening. There was a time when smoking was a sign of luxury and a mark of sophisitication. This is no more. Instead, smokers often get depicted as villains in films and generally have the reputation of being subtle murderers (poisoning the entire world with second-hand smoke). This is crazy. Smoking is not just portrayed as a health rish; it is heralded as a moral issue. For no other issue do we blame people for making themselves sick. Even a drunk driver who arrives in an Emergency Room after causing an accident gets less judgmental treatment than a smoker who arrives at a doctor's with lung cancer.
And smoking is a very peculiar workplace issue. It affects many working class people in particular ways.
Now, for instance, as I learned in Stellarton, employers can lurk around bathroom stalls and spy on employees to ensure that they do not smoke in bathrooms. Some employers can also insist (a) that no employee leave the premises of a workplace for the duration of a shift (usually 8 hours) and (b) that no smoking can occur on those premises.
Smoking is an addiction. Is it not a form of torture to confine an employee in a "cold turkey" withdrawal fashion? It's not as if a person chooses to smoke for the first time. all over again, each time she has a cigaratte.
The thing about this group of employees at the conference is that most are working class people. They work blue-collar jobs (in fish plants, factories, dockyards, airport runways and garages). A large percentage of them are smokers. It's not that they don't know any better. They get the same cigarette packages and see the same television ads as everyone else.
I find it very curious, though, that the discourse circulating among blue-collar workers readily acknowledges the fact that people smoke. They don't pussy-foot around it. But they also don't celebrate it. They point out that some employers put incentives in place to help them quit. They talk freely about how often they've tried to quit themselves. But what they neve do is assume that a smoker is a "bad person." Now isn't that remarkably humane? Imagine treating a health risk as a health risk and not a moral disorder.
Well, my hair has weathered being slept on (quite nicely, in fact) and now my attention turns to packing for a weekend away from home and away from my computer. (I think I'm an addict. Three days seems like a long time not to be online!)
This weekend I head to (drum roll, please) the thriving metropolis of Stellarton, Nova Scotia and the Heather "Motor Hotel"--that one had me laughing for a while. Did we not invent the term "motel" to avoid just such monstrosities of signage? (Anyway, check it out at www.heatherhotel.ca.)
Now the Heather has a secret, I'm told. No, it's not that the hotel has a lovely view of the TransCanada highway, though this is true. Hence the "motor" part, I suppose. (I can hear it now: the "Traffic Lullabye.") No, the Heather--smack-down on the Highway in Eastern Nova Scotia in the heart of Sobey-land ("Sobey's is a grocery conglomerate whose first family hails from Stellarton) and the "rural Nova Scotia" alleged to have elected our premier, John Hamm and his Conservative goverment--this Heather is suppsed to be a pretty progressive place. Unions hold their conventions and meetings there regularly. AND, it seems that Pictou County, in which Stellarton is found, has a pretty thriving queer scene: lots of gays and lesbians. Women's dances are even held at the Heather! (Could I be so lucky?)
Indeed, my trip this weekend combines the best of all those worlds (at least theoretically): I'm going for the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour's Women's Conference.
Will it be a bush-whacking weekend? Ah, probably not. But stay tuned... I get back on Sunday with an exclusive expose of the "Motor Hotel."
Well, move over Cher: the Bush Whacker has had her hair ironed! What fun! I went to have the lawn mower thrown at my mop this afternoon. I was starting to look like Cousin It, there, folks--my stylist almost didn't recognize me. I wasn't the whacker of bushes: I was the walking bush. (Not a word!)
Now the dilemma: do I invest in one of those irons for my house? My hair is pretty cool, I must admit--for today. It's called the hair dresser's magic touch. I've just never been femme enough to have that touch or inclined enough to spend hours on my hair, even if I did. The question is: if I did purchase just a contraption, would I be able to use it? And, if I had the capability, would I actually then spend the time to use it? Decisions, decisions. Would this mean I have an inner femme, dying to break free? (For the record, no, my hair is hardly femme-y: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, my dears.) But is the act of spending long periods of time on one's hair--and by long, I mean more than 7 minutes--a "femme" thing?
This is the exisential dilemma that emerges from ironing one's hair. Beware the hair iron, my friends.
Taxes. Are. Done. Now I just have to finish the marking. One day left!
Coming attractions: I'll be writing a conference paper on "blogging, the war, and gender politics." I've been collecting info and interesting sites for some months now. But if anyone has any juicy suggestions, I'm all ears. (Or should that be, "I'm all eyes"?) At the conference, I'll be all lips. Woo hoo.
And that is: you can't find stuff that you thought had put in an unforgettable place--you know, for "safe keeping." Like tax documents. If you don't fill out those tax forms, the minute the T4s arrive in January, those T4s and receipts go off to the land of missing documents (right next door to the colony of odd socks and the island of misfit toys). Then you have to scramble because, remember, you've already procrastinated, so you're looking down the barrel of an April 30 filing deadline. And, you end up having to request that a particular payroll department provide you with another T4 (at the last minute). Thank god that some administrators are more organized than I am. I'll be gettin' me a T4 after lunch!
WillI manage to file on time? (Hide 'n' watch!)
Ahhhh. I've never been so happy to be doing nothing. I've done that this evening: nothing. For the last week, my brother and his girlfriend have been visiting. And all the while, I marked and entertained and cooked meals and marked some more until the wee hours of the morning. I was marking time in terms of essays, quizzes, and exams. I averaged about 5-6 hours of sleep per night. I still have more marking to do, but I have three more days in which to get it done. And I have only exams left. Exams never take as long to mark as essays because they are not returned to the students. They don't need to have as many comments on them. But the guests are gone and two-thirds of my marking is done. I can afford to take a nothing night.
I guess I've always been a bit of a procrastinator (so my mother tells me, anyway). So I suppose I was the one who put myself in the position I was in last week--with marking piled higher and deeper (that's what a PhD really means) and guests to entertain all at once. It's also why I'll probably end up leaving those exams I have to mark until the last possible minute I can (and still get them done on time).
Why is it that people procrastinate, anyway? I know I always feel better when things are done ahead of time. Yet, there is something that makes me put it off.
I could wonder further about what that is, but tonight I really do feel like doing nothing.
The big news this week in Canada is that the World Health Organization has put Toronto on its travel advisory list. And there is outrage. Yes, SARS has hit Toronto hard. But Torontonians, politicians, and pundits everywhere are crying foul. Admittedly, the measure may be extreme and alarmist.
What's curious, though, is the kind of alarm: it's the economic alarum that's sounding. People are upset because Toronto's tourism industry is going to suffer. They are worried more about the economy, it seems to me, than about health. (Hardly the best way to convince the WHO that TO should be removed from the travel list: "Hello? Dr. WHO? We think you should remove the travel advisory because our economy in Toronto will suffer") Convince people that this is an error, not by causing economic panic, but by explaining carefully that there is no need for a health panic. There's a difference between the cause of concern and the effects of the concern.
I agree that the biggest effect likely will be economic (I guess it already is). Or at least this will be the biggest effect on the largest number of people. Now, first let me say that I'm hardly jumping for joy at this fact. But I do see this as an opportunity of sorts, a lesson in economics, if you will, that Toronto might well learn and apply to its own ideas about economics in Canada.
Toronto is now learning what many other parts of Canada, especially Eastern Canada, have known for a long time: economics is about luck and politics as much as anything else. Places and regions don't choose to have poor economies. Newfoundland, for instance, did not choose to have its cod fishery go belly up. But people in Toronto would be the first to say, well you just have to deal with it. It's been said to many a Newfoundlander that in choosing to stay in Newfoundland instead of moving to Alberta or Toronto to find work, that person is "choosing" underemployment or a life of chronic unemployment.
The fact is in both cases, factors beyond people's control create both bouyant and trying economic conditions. Toronto has never felt itself out of economic control. It's always been able to point the finger from a position of relative economic superiority: Toronto is, by luck, conveniently central in a decentralized country, conveniently close also, to American industry, and conveniently located in the Canadian province that is also home to national capital. As a city it has benefitted and grown as much because of luck as because of planning.
I'm very sorry that Toronto or any city has to be worried about something like SARS (no matter how panicked that worry might be). I'm not one bit sorry, though, that Toronto is getting to learn an economic lesson: decisions made elsewhere, by powers greater than you--and decisions often made unfairly--nonetheless determine economic conditions.
Maurice, Poupoune, and I all "paques-ed" ourselves into Van Dyke today--in celebration not of Easter but of the fact that Poupoune finally got her bush to Halifax (after many months of promising). ("Paques" means Easter in French.)
We went on what Maurice and Poupoune call a "nowhere": a trip that can be anything from a "now, here" to a "no, where?" With Maurice as chauffeur, we sped down the South Shore of Nova Scotia, taking the scenic route as far as Lunenburg. Maurice was armed with his digital camera, so there are pics on the aMMusing site. Experience Queensland Beach, Lunenburg, and Blue Rocks with us! (Stephanie, if you're reading this, you'll be pleased to know that I wondered along the way which camera you would use to capture the day).
Poupoune says she's coming back to visit us again soon. You'll have to stay tuned to see if she really will (we're skeptical).
Ok, I admit it: I think I'm addicted to watching American Idol. Yes, me, the person who for many years didn't even watch television at all. I still don't have cable--I just have a pair of rabbit ears. But I don't know what's happened to me in the last six months--I even watch certain shows on a regular basis: CSI, Law and Order. I'm not a television junkie, but I sure am tuned in as I haven't been for a long time.
I think I first watched American Idol by accident, really. I wasn't doing anything and thought, gee, I'll flick on the tube, just for the hell of it. I became interested in the criteria by which people were chosen for the competition and interested in particular in the (now-former) contestent, Frankie. Her fate intrigued me because her voice was (is) so powerful, but she was a full-figured woman--very attractive, but not conventionally so. I wanted to see what would happen to her: how the judges would assess her, how this empty mass called "the American public" would respond to her. I followed her participation in the show long enough to get hooked, long enough that when she was booted off the show for failing to disclose that she had posed for an "adult" website, even my outrage did not keep me from continuing to follow the progress of things.
I don't really have any other good explanation for why I keep tuning in (besides just being "hooked"), except the fact that I don't have a good explanation probably insires me to keep looking for such an explanation. I think I keep hoping I'll be somehow surprised by the turnout, though that hasn't happened yet as week after week people get voted off the show.
One of the things that I do continue to be surprised by is the extent to which this voting American public has its opinions shaped by the crabby Simon Cowell, the judge with the most acerbic comments to make about all the contestants. He's a Brit, so I wonder if there some kind of colonial hangover working here. But he's anything but "nice." He's hardest to please because his standards are so high (or so he suggests), at least until his judgment is clouded by a pretty girl with not much talent like Ms. Carmen Rasmussen.
The other thing that fascinates me is a question about mass culture more generally: how does it renew itself? How does it create new famous people? Where do they come from and what compromises must they make to become and stay mass produced? American Idol is nothing if not a lesson in how to find star. It begs the question: what kind of "liveness " is possible in mass media? And is whatever liveness we might observe, really in the end just an illusion of whatever liveness fits the mythology we want.
I suppose the show doesn't really ask any new questions or present any new answers to old questions. And given my propensity to "intellectualize" life (as so many people point out to me), perhaps in the end it's just brain candy, not worh the paragraphs I've just typed.
Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe.
The makers of Palmolive dish soap have outdone themselves. Yesterday, I went to wash dishes and forgot that the day before, I had used the last of the dish washing liquid. So I bundled myself up and went around the corner to the Shopper's Drug Mart to replenish the soap and pick up a birthday card for a friend while I was at it. I didn't know what kinds of choices I would have at my disposal. There is now everything from Ocean Breeze to Aloe Vera to Spring-like flowery fragrances. But what took the cake was the aromatherapy dish soap--infused with lavender and ylang ylang essences. And it was the same price as all the other "flavours." I have to admit, the fact that the bottle also claimed this soap to be "Anti-Stress" sold me.
After all, who doesn't need their stress to be reduced when they wash dishes?
But really.
I've been spending the last few days compiling and writing a newsletter for part-time faculty union in Halifax. Overall, we have about 1400 members. The secretary and I have been brainstorming all day about how a newsletter might take electronic form. But no electronic template I've seen (for a newspaper or otherwise) seems to capable of delivering such a service. Ideally, getting the newsletter into a newsletter format that could be distributed by e-mail would be the thing. Currently what happens with our newsletter is that Maurice posts all the newsitems individually on our website. But this doesn't really enable us to distribute the newsletter--we can only send people to the link. And let's face it, the newsletter as a list of news stories is not quite as aesthetically appealing as it is in "newsletter format." I wonder if there's any kind of template or softward out there that can do the job....
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I lived with (though sometimes it felt like I was dying from)"the elephants"--the ones doing the dance of joy on my uterus in high heels. So I just call my monthly affliction "having the elephants." My youngest brother has never forgiven me for introducing him to the phrase.
Normally, I have elephant-sized pills to subdue the dancing beasts, but alas, my prescription had run out. It was just me, the heating pad, and as many Advil as my stomach could handle.
Gee, as I write that , I imagine a potentially sqeamish reader like my brother, someone who landed on this website and didn't know what would greet him or her today. It's funny (funny "peculiar," not "ha ha) how out of place the discourse of bodily functions seems in public or even semi-public places. Even in ads for "feminine hygiene products," the fluids are always blue, as to protect the public from the spectacle of fake blood. But sqeamishness notwithstanding, our assumptions about bodies signifies persist in spite of our deconstructions of gender roles, underlying stereotypes that pop up in the weirdest of places.
I can still remember when I first heard the absurd logic (it now seems only urban myth: no one could really have said this, could they?) about why a woman could not be President of the United States): she could be PMSing and get too emotional or hit the wrong button, thereby blowing up the world. (I guess they'd have to call it the Ovarian Office, if that happened.)
Which begs the question: is George Bush a bush of another kind who's been PMSing for the last year or so? If so, I can only hope his elephants are as distressing as mine.
It's St. Patrick's Day and I'm a Newfoundlander and I'm not drunk tonight. What's wrong with this picture? God knows a little numbness might be a relief after all this talk of peace. Isn't our cowboy just an Orwell for our times.
When you eliminate the doublespeak, though, what this Bush heard the other Bush say tonight was "God Save the Oilwells." Mmmmm....Texas tea.
Seems like a load of
Blarney to me.
I just spoke to my downstairs roommate, a nurse who has lived in my building for eight years now. She' been the one to take the garbage out when the lanlord's been too lazy. Likewise, she's been the one to clean and vaccuum the hallways and replace lightbulbs as needed. She is moving home to PEI because her parents are aging and unwell and her sister died rather tragically last year, leaving a young family. She's going home to help out.
But she's going home really pissed off, too. Joel, the landlord, is jerking her around and taking her to tenants' court. After all she has done to maintain the place when he refused (and note, her apartment has not been painted once in those 8 years!), he is taking her to court to get his money from her and humiliating her in front of potential tenants (yes, he's actually trying to rent the place, too, but refusing to let that count for the rent she owes him!). He brings people in and then tells them that "she's only bounced 3 cheques in eight years," thing like that.
We've all known that the guy's an asshole. But the building we live in (an old Victorian home with beautiful found windows in a turret up the side, that is basically my living room) is really well located and architecturally interesting. Joel has told me many times that he could rent my place in a heartbeat. Mine is a two-bedroom (that I've shared with many a roommate over the five years I've been here: the girlfriend I moved in with, two different law students, one lawyer --whom the girlfriend above (once she became the ex) actually slept with as a housewarming present--and now one manager of a Club Monaco store). Eleanor, my neighbour, lives just under me in a one-bedroom with a similar layout to my place. He could easily rent her place in a heartbeat, too. He's just choosing not to allow her to benefit from that arrangment because being an asshole comes too easily to him.
It doesn't occur to him to do maintenance on the place or to give her a break for all the years that she picked up his slack and because her sister just died or because it might be the decent human thing to do for all the reasons above. Nope, a contract is a contract, says he.
Oh, and by the way, he also has an MBA, teaches Business/Commerce at many universities in town where he uses his tenants as case studies. I'm sure Eleanor's situation warms the cockles of his capitalist heart. AFter all, he can get rent paid to him twice.
I am beginning to think that every job needs to come with a couple of "get out of jail free cards." It is still cold. There is too much work to do. There is not enough time. There is not enough sleep. I am in the doghouse, not having seen the bush in well over a week. And I think I'm getting sick. The question is, do I take a day off (cancel two classes) to prevent the onslaught of full-blown sickness or do I plod on?
It's awful being a Recovering Catholic. Is there anyone interested in buying a lifetime supply of guilt?
Here I am. The bush still burns, though it has no time for bushwhacking. You know you've been busy when.....
Sigh.
In the last few days, I've been gradually smothered by work, inspired by ideas, and stimulated to argument. It is all about teaching, really--and culture itself as pedagogy.
(For more on the business of popular and mass culture as pedagocial implements, read below.)
So now, having devoted my week to union meetings and academic talks and dinners, I have a stack of marking to do that horse couldn't jump over. And what am I about to do today? I'm going to the gym with the She-Woman to see what fresh tortures I can gleefully engage in. And then I'm going to watch curling. The Nokia Brier (which decides the men's national champion in Canada) is being played in Halifax this year and tonight is the championship game.
Hee hee! (Am I the only person you know who gets excited about curling?)
Thursday and Friday, I spent much time in the presence of a very humble, but interesting mind--a visiting scholar to one of the universities at which I teach.
The topic was the discipline of Cultural Studies and how one establishes a program in this field in a university. The speaker suggested that mainstream culture (he uses the term "popular culture"; I prefer the term "mass culture") acts as a pedagogical tool--that it, in fact, "schools" its audiences. According to his argument, Cultural Studies should therefore focus on this engagement (between mainstream culture and its audiences) as an object of study--not of popular culture itself as an object of analysis, but of the relationship of mainstream culture to people as the object of argument.
But many questions persist:
(a) Whose version of pedagogy are we dealing with here? What kind of teaching relationship exists between culture and its audience?
(b) What kinds of cultural relationships exist between audiences and aspects of culture they _don't_ engage in for pleasure, in their leisure time?
(c) How does pedagogy in a classroom work if you're assuming culture is already part of the experience of culture--does that make teaching a kind of counter or competing pedagogy?
Interesting, curious, and maddening questions.....
The first thing a bush whacker does in the process of turning 30 is freak out for a week before the fact about not being able to type 47 wpm. When the day arrives, however, the Bush Whacker celebrates in the following ways, some of which extend beyond the designated 24-hour period of "the day" itself):
1. By reminiscing about all the bushes she's whacked (othewise known as the "To all the Girls I've loved Before" moment").
2. By allowing She-Woman to take her to the gym and her have her way with her (three days running; three days stiffening).
3. By being geek enough to attend an academic talk that has nothing to do with either bush-whacking or turning 30.
4. By being geek enough to rearrange a date with the bush she's whacking, so she can go to said academic talk.
5. By having lunch in the European style (soup is not appetizer, but one of four courses--at lunch, remember. The Bush Whacker is amused, recalling that the only four-course lunches she has enjoyed in the past have included the lunch companion as one of the courses.)
6. By seeing The Quiet American with her aMMusing friend, the Queen of Sheba, and the Grand Poobah of Culinary Delights.
7. By slurping down oysters, an event she enoyed for the very first time (though the texture sure was familiar).
8. By talking excessively in the third person.
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD??
George Bush's Answer:We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.
Al Gore's Answer:
I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.
Bill Gates' Answer:
I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook - and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.
Martha Stewart's Answer:
No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
Dr. Seuss' Answer:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed, I've not been told!
Ernest Hemingway's Answer:
To die. In the rain. Alone.
Click below for a few more reasons. There are some doozies.
Martin Luther King Jr's Answer:
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
Grandpa's Answer:
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.
Barbara Walters' Answer:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.
Ralph Nader's Answer:
The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by checked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.
Jerry Seinfield's Answer:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"
Pat Buchanan's Answer:
To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.
Rush Limbaugh's Answer:
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.
Jerry Falwell's Answer:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what they call it--the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side."
John Lennon's Answer:
Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.
Aristotle's Answer:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
Karl Marx's Answer:
It was a historical inevitability.
Saddam Hussein's Answer:
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
Voltaire's Answer:
I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.
Captain Kirk's Answer:
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
Fox Mulder's Answer:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?
Scully's Answer:
It was a simple bio-mechanical reflex that is commonly found in chickens.
Bill Clinton's Answer:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?
The Bible's Answer:
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
Albert Einstein's Answer:
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?
Sigmund Freud's Answer:
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
L.A.P.D.'s Answer:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.
Richard Nixon's Answer:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.
Buddha's Answer:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.
Joseph Stalin's Answer:
I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelette.
Carl Jung's Answer:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and, therefore, synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.
Louis Farrakhan's Answer:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.
John Locke's Answer:
Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.
Albert Camus' Answer:
It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.
Oliver Stone's Answer:
The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?" but is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"
The Pope's Answer:
That is only for God to know.
Immanuel Kant's Answer:
The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.
MC. Escher's Answer:
That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.
George Orwell's Answer:
Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.
Plato's Answer:
For the greater good.
Nietzsche's Answer:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.
B.F. Skinner's Answer:
Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.
Jean-Paul Sartre's Answer:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary
to cross the road.
Emily Dickenson's Answer:
Because it could not stop for death.
O.J. Simpson's Answer:
It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time.
Ken Starr's Answer:
I intend to prove that the chicken crossed the road at the behest of the president of the United States of America, in an effort to distract law enforcement officials and the American public from the criminal wrongdoing our highest elected official has been trying to cover up. As a result, the chicken is just another pawn in the president's ongoing and elaborate scheme to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law. For that reason, my staff intends to offer the chicken unconditional immunity provided he cooperates fully with our investigation. Furthermore, the chicken will not be permitted to reach the other side of the road, until our investigation and any Congressional follow-up investigations, have been completed. (We also are investigating whether Sid Blumenthal has leaked information to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, alleging the chicken to be homosexual in an effort to discredit any useful testimony the bird may have to offer, or at least to ruffle his feathers.)
Colonel Sanders' Answer:
I missed one?
I have never yet known a queer not to have a crisis about turning 40. And who can blame them? What are the models for continuity? How do queer lives pass from one generation to the next? Is there an old dykes home in your community?
I've always been precocious--my dear old valley girl and partner in drag, the e-bay Queen, says we have "old souls." So my birthday freak-out comes at turning 30.
My freak-out, though, is not about being in mid-life. It's about prolonging the early life. I won't go into all the reasons, but I'll give you a taste below:
I had always wanted to finish that damn dissertation before I hit 30. If I have two days, I wonder how many words per minute I'd have to type to finish by Thursday? Hmmm.
60 minutes per hour x 18 hours=1080 minutes (until the 27th)
Dissertation =about 200-pages
250 words per page x 200 pages= 50,000 words.
so 50,000 words/1080 minutes =~47 words per minute.
What do you think, folks?
I think it's time to start counting backwards--even if the therapy industry were to disintegrate in the process.