"Excuse me," said the stranger, to the shapely young woman walking through the park, "But how big are your tits? Like 34C?"
"Actually, they’re 36D," said the young woman.
"Wow. 36D. That’s amazing. Are you a stripper? Or a porn star?"
"No," she replied with a weary smile. "Actually, I’m a graphic designer."
"Cool. That’s cool," said the stranger. Suddenly there seemed to be no more conversational electricity. The question was answered, and in its wake, awkward silence. "Well, bye."
"Yeah, bye," said the woman, who continued walking through the park.
By now I’m sure most of you think I’ve lost my mind. But wait, please, the denouement is arriving in the next sentence. Rewrite the above conversation by replacing the inquiry about tits with a question about height.
"How tall are you?"
"I’m 6 foot 5."
"Wow. Six-foot-Five. That’s amazing. Are you a basketball player?"
Obviously asking about height and asking about the size of someone’s tits is viewed differently in our society, but as someone who is tall, after awhile the question is equally annoying. Last week, two different people asked me how tall I was. I ignored both of them. The first time, I overheard a teenage girl whisper to her friend "Ask him how tall he is" as I was walking through a local park. Because of this advance warning, I ignored the girl when she said, "Excuse me." I kept right on walking, after repeated attempts of "Excuse me." Steps before I was out of earshot, in desperation, the girl yelled, "How tall are you?"
The second time was a day later, when some guy on the sidewalk asked me how tall I was. I continued walking as well. To his credit, he did not persist.
You see, I’m over 30, which means I have gone through this song and dance about my height for at least 10 years, which is roughly when I stopped growing. Unless you are a cute little old lady, or a kindly old man, I will not humour your requests for information about my height. The seniors I treat like gold, let me assure you.
(I think, back in May, I promised more love, less bitterness and I’m doing my best to deliver. Just don’t ask me how tall I am, if that’s OK…)
Some quick hits:
* A novel in 88 blog postings: www.roommatefromhell.com
* My suburbia article is finally on newsstands. (And, er, online.) Descant, the literary journal in which the article appears, had a launch on Wednesday at the Victory Café in Toronto. The turn-out was pretty decent, and, even better, as a reader, I received a cellophane-wrapped goody bag of organic vegetables. Drink tickets are more traditional, I suppose, but not very memorable. I will never forget receiving two ears of corn, a pair of apricots, a bunch of cherries, and one tomato for doing a reading.
* At a party on Thursday I was delighted to learn that the cab drivers waiting outside the Via Rail station are always stupid jerks. I thought it was only me – upon returning from an ultra-pleasant month in Montreal, I was jolted back to the arrhythmic rudeness (as opposed to the elegant rudeness of New York, for example) of Toronto within five minutes of stepping off the train platform. The details are dull, but the end result was my valve became immediately and severely irritated. Turns out the same thing happened to my friend Dave recently. I write this bile despite it being taxi appreciation week or day or hour or something today or yesterday or something. (On a related note, it’s clearly tourist season here in the center of the universe. I find it strange that people visit here of their own volition, yet I don’t wish to discourage anyone from innervating our economy. Although, when I recently overheard an American whigger on a cellphone telling a friend that "There was no ghetto downtown. Anywhere" I had to give pause.)
* Recent Onion A/V Club interview with Triumph, discussing how to beg before J.Lo: "I tried to play up how pathetic I was, which is not too hard if you're a 42-year-old guy crouched on your knees in the aisle of an awards show with a puppet on your hand. You do evoke sympathy."
* Smart article by Gord McLaughlin in this week’s eye about the dangers of being critical about the business of the dramatic arts in Canada. The shock ending is memorable and well executed.
Monday, August 16, 2004
Saturday, August 07, 2004
All Things Considered, I Probably Deserve That…
Last Saturday (July 31) I wrote about blogs for the Globe and Mail. I had originally pitched the Globe about attending a Toronto conference entitled Exploring the Fusion Power of Public and Participatory Journalism that was going to be held on Tuesday, August 3 and writing about the results. The Globe decided that a preview of the conference would be a much better idea. I mention this because doing a preview meant I had a little over a day to turn in 1,300 words. As a magazine writer, I’m used to a much slower pace.
If that sounds like the gentle eddies of an excuse forming, you’re sorta right, but a mistake is a mistake, regardless of the looming deadline. And so, I apologize for writing Matt Welsh, instead of Welch in my blog article. I have corrected the error in the version of the article that appears on my website. (See link in first sentence.)
Of course, the only thing worse than making an error is getting caught making an error. And inside today’s National Post (August 7, 2004), in a commentary column about covering the recent DNC, Matt Welch writes:
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s always fun to have your work read, and any press is good press, as long as they spell your name right. (Psst! Globe and Mail guys! It’s W-e-l-c-h!)
Touché Welch. I mean, the guy has a website with the URL www.mattwelch.com. How could I mungle that one? (FYI: Mungle being a mixture of mangle and bungle, as opposed to a typo, which would be an even richer irony, given the whole mess.)
It is always a little scary hitting the send button for any newspaper article I file, because contrary to popular belief, there is nothing akin to fact-checking performed at any of the newspapers I write for. And since I know this, I tend to be as careful as I can. Still, as Jeff Jarvis (by way of Ken Layne) noted at the Fusion Power conference, "We [bloggers] fact-check your [Big Media’s] ass." And ultimately, that is a good thing. Except, of course, when the blogger pinches the ass of Bigge Media. I promise to be even more diligent from herein.
And I take some solace in the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, there are no errors in my article about the swing in the alley that appears in today’s Toronto section of the Post.
By the way, I feel it worthwhile to note that I received the swing article assignment on Tuesday, July 27. I mention this because a few days later, the Saturday Globe (bastards!) wrote about the swing. I do not wish people to think I get my National Post Toronto section ideas by reading the Toronto section of the Globe and Mail.
Rather than end this post with a mote of grace, I will instead conclude by mentioning Robert Fulford’s takedown of Edward Greenspon’s Saturday ramblings. As Fulford wrote today:
Greenspon’s "Letter from the Editor," which appears in a prominent position on Page Two, may be the most spectacular example in current Canadian journalism of a bad idea badly executed.
[…]
Editorial problems may excite him … but they’re no fun to read about. They’re dreary, even for people in the business.
In fact, Greenspon makes editing sound so deadly that it’s as if he were trying to discourage the young from entering journalism.
Or at the very least, encourage them start a blog instead.
If that sounds like the gentle eddies of an excuse forming, you’re sorta right, but a mistake is a mistake, regardless of the looming deadline. And so, I apologize for writing Matt Welsh, instead of Welch in my blog article. I have corrected the error in the version of the article that appears on my website. (See link in first sentence.)
Of course, the only thing worse than making an error is getting caught making an error. And inside today’s National Post (August 7, 2004), in a commentary column about covering the recent DNC, Matt Welch writes:
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s always fun to have your work read, and any press is good press, as long as they spell your name right. (Psst! Globe and Mail guys! It’s W-e-l-c-h!)
Touché Welch. I mean, the guy has a website with the URL www.mattwelch.com. How could I mungle that one? (FYI: Mungle being a mixture of mangle and bungle, as opposed to a typo, which would be an even richer irony, given the whole mess.)
It is always a little scary hitting the send button for any newspaper article I file, because contrary to popular belief, there is nothing akin to fact-checking performed at any of the newspapers I write for. And since I know this, I tend to be as careful as I can. Still, as Jeff Jarvis (by way of Ken Layne) noted at the Fusion Power conference, "We [bloggers] fact-check your [Big Media’s] ass." And ultimately, that is a good thing. Except, of course, when the blogger pinches the ass of Bigge Media. I promise to be even more diligent from herein.
And I take some solace in the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, there are no errors in my article about the swing in the alley that appears in today’s Toronto section of the Post.
By the way, I feel it worthwhile to note that I received the swing article assignment on Tuesday, July 27. I mention this because a few days later, the Saturday Globe (bastards!) wrote about the swing. I do not wish people to think I get my National Post Toronto section ideas by reading the Toronto section of the Globe and Mail.
Rather than end this post with a mote of grace, I will instead conclude by mentioning Robert Fulford’s takedown of Edward Greenspon’s Saturday ramblings. As Fulford wrote today:
Greenspon’s "Letter from the Editor," which appears in a prominent position on Page Two, may be the most spectacular example in current Canadian journalism of a bad idea badly executed.
[…]
Editorial problems may excite him … but they’re no fun to read about. They’re dreary, even for people in the business.
In fact, Greenspon makes editing sound so deadly that it’s as if he were trying to discourage the young from entering journalism.
Or at the very least, encourage them start a blog instead.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Manchurian Classic?
I keep reading about the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, and most articles refer to the 1962 film as a classic. As Louis Menand noted last year (September 15, 2003) in the New Yorker:
Most people probably think of the movie as a classic of Cold War culture, like "On the Beach" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" – a popular work articulating the anxieties of the era. In fact, "The Manchurian Candidate" was a flop. It was released in the fall of 1962, failed to recover its costs, and was pulled from distribution two years later, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It turned up a few times on television, but it was not shown in a movie theatre again until 1987, which – nearly the end of the Cold War – is the year its popularity dates from. The true artifact of Cold War culture is the novel, by Richard Condon, that the movie was based on.
Most people probably think of the movie as a classic of Cold War culture, like "On the Beach" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" – a popular work articulating the anxieties of the era. In fact, "The Manchurian Candidate" was a flop. It was released in the fall of 1962, failed to recover its costs, and was pulled from distribution two years later, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It turned up a few times on television, but it was not shown in a movie theatre again until 1987, which – nearly the end of the Cold War – is the year its popularity dates from. The true artifact of Cold War culture is the novel, by Richard Condon, that the movie was based on.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Dear Noah Richler,
I am honoured that you consider me worthy of critique. A month or two ago, in the Toronto Star, you spent a substantial portion of your review of A Complicated Kindness talking about a literary essay I wrote for the Spring books section of the National Post
Toews' new novel, Bigge goes on, "serves to illustrate the conundrum many younger Canadian authors face — how to mash up our literary tradition of rural geography with the urban nation we have become."
This, frankly, is the sort of self-regarding metropolitan article that gives Toronto a bad name — with none of the "edge" Bigge thinks is missing in CanLit. (Bigge did not mention Colin MacAdam's novel of Ottawa bureaucrats and developers, Some Great Thing, certainly one of the best reads of the year so far — "urban" and full of vigour — but no reviewer can be abreast of everything).
I’m flattered, of course. But perhaps you should focus your energy on acquainting yourself with a crazy new medium called the Internet. Colin McAdam is the author of Some Great Thing. Also, in your article, you state that James Wood is the literary editor of The New Republic. Actually, it’s Leon Wieseltier, and it took me five seconds with Google to discover this. What happened? Did you write your review on an airplane? In longhand? On the back of an airsickness bag?
Oh well. You’ve never been a details man, Noah. You’re good at dropping names, but less proficient at spelling them correctly. I recommend you petition McClelland & Stewart to hire an extra fact-checker for your upcoming book A Literary Atlas Of Canada. Lest you think me nasty, consider this: if I was incubating any malice toward you, I wouldn’t make such a helpful suggestion. Indeed, I take your attempt to besmirch my good name with a milligram of sodium. This kind of literary catfight, is, after all, a sign of progress in the hermetic world of Canadian letters. Indeed, if I continue to work hard and write provocative essays, perhaps I can look forward to a Trudeau denigrating me someday. Then I’d know I’ve really made it.
But enough bickering. As you called me a "bright fella" in your article, it behooves me to reply in kind. Mistakes aside, I was impressed with your column – it was very focused, unlike the overlong, meandering, and often confusing lumps of prose you microwaved each week when you were books columnist at the National Post. I guess losing your Post column must have served as something of a wake-up call, as it appears you have discovered a little writing secret we pros like to call a second draft.
Still, I’m confused about something in your Toews review. You wrote:
Really, the urban landscape is just like any of the "rural" others Bigge implies are boring subjects for young authors. Deciding that we are an "urban nation" or that Prairie subjects are by definition stultifying is actually parochial.
That wasn’t the point I was trying to make in my essay, but that’s OK. I quote the above passage because in it, you suggest that setting is irrelevant. Which makes sense. A good book is a good book, regardless of setting. And yet, a few paragraphs later, you write that:
I am one of Smith's readers who would be relieved if some of that seriousness was finding its way into fiction about more than nightclubs.
Now I’m confused. A minute ago you said setting doesn’t matter. But now you’re dismissing fiction set in a nightclub (unless, I assume, said nightclub is filled with Mennonites). Please, I beg you, make up your mind.
In the meantime, it seems only fair to leave the last word with Russell Smith, who called you a "ninny" in his column back in early May. I realize I have failed to mentioned this often enough, so I’ll say it now: Russell Smith is a fantastic fiction writer. I have re-read Noise and How Insensitive because they are so damn good. The dialogue is pitch-perfect, his satire has teeth and there is nary a wheat field in sight. (Yes, his fairy tale book was stinky but these things happen.) Anyway, here is Russell Smith, from The Notebooks (Random House, 2002):
The most passionate stories can happen in suburbs and minivans. You don’t need to be in the Holocaust and it doesn’t have to be foreign or depressed. It doesn’t have to be a family saga, a history that goes back generations to a disaster in the nineteenth century, or whatever. I think that there’s a gothic tendency in Canadian fiction of the nationalist era. I think that that’s what this group you’ve assembled represents: it’s a leaving behind of cultural nationalism. That fiction no longer has to be about the land. The land actually influences us very little here, you know. We live in cities like everyone else in the world.
Yours,
Ryan Bigge
P.S. I think you’re a ninny too.
Toews' new novel, Bigge goes on, "serves to illustrate the conundrum many younger Canadian authors face — how to mash up our literary tradition of rural geography with the urban nation we have become."
This, frankly, is the sort of self-regarding metropolitan article that gives Toronto a bad name — with none of the "edge" Bigge thinks is missing in CanLit. (Bigge did not mention Colin MacAdam's novel of Ottawa bureaucrats and developers, Some Great Thing, certainly one of the best reads of the year so far — "urban" and full of vigour — but no reviewer can be abreast of everything).
I’m flattered, of course. But perhaps you should focus your energy on acquainting yourself with a crazy new medium called the Internet. Colin McAdam is the author of Some Great Thing. Also, in your article, you state that James Wood is the literary editor of The New Republic. Actually, it’s Leon Wieseltier, and it took me five seconds with Google to discover this. What happened? Did you write your review on an airplane? In longhand? On the back of an airsickness bag?
Oh well. You’ve never been a details man, Noah. You’re good at dropping names, but less proficient at spelling them correctly. I recommend you petition McClelland & Stewart to hire an extra fact-checker for your upcoming book A Literary Atlas Of Canada. Lest you think me nasty, consider this: if I was incubating any malice toward you, I wouldn’t make such a helpful suggestion. Indeed, I take your attempt to besmirch my good name with a milligram of sodium. This kind of literary catfight, is, after all, a sign of progress in the hermetic world of Canadian letters. Indeed, if I continue to work hard and write provocative essays, perhaps I can look forward to a Trudeau denigrating me someday. Then I’d know I’ve really made it.
But enough bickering. As you called me a "bright fella" in your article, it behooves me to reply in kind. Mistakes aside, I was impressed with your column – it was very focused, unlike the overlong, meandering, and often confusing lumps of prose you microwaved each week when you were books columnist at the National Post. I guess losing your Post column must have served as something of a wake-up call, as it appears you have discovered a little writing secret we pros like to call a second draft.
Still, I’m confused about something in your Toews review. You wrote:
Really, the urban landscape is just like any of the "rural" others Bigge implies are boring subjects for young authors. Deciding that we are an "urban nation" or that Prairie subjects are by definition stultifying is actually parochial.
That wasn’t the point I was trying to make in my essay, but that’s OK. I quote the above passage because in it, you suggest that setting is irrelevant. Which makes sense. A good book is a good book, regardless of setting. And yet, a few paragraphs later, you write that:
I am one of Smith's readers who would be relieved if some of that seriousness was finding its way into fiction about more than nightclubs.
Now I’m confused. A minute ago you said setting doesn’t matter. But now you’re dismissing fiction set in a nightclub (unless, I assume, said nightclub is filled with Mennonites). Please, I beg you, make up your mind.
In the meantime, it seems only fair to leave the last word with Russell Smith, who called you a "ninny" in his column back in early May. I realize I have failed to mentioned this often enough, so I’ll say it now: Russell Smith is a fantastic fiction writer. I have re-read Noise and How Insensitive because they are so damn good. The dialogue is pitch-perfect, his satire has teeth and there is nary a wheat field in sight. (Yes, his fairy tale book was stinky but these things happen.) Anyway, here is Russell Smith, from The Notebooks (Random House, 2002):
The most passionate stories can happen in suburbs and minivans. You don’t need to be in the Holocaust and it doesn’t have to be foreign or depressed. It doesn’t have to be a family saga, a history that goes back generations to a disaster in the nineteenth century, or whatever. I think that there’s a gothic tendency in Canadian fiction of the nationalist era. I think that that’s what this group you’ve assembled represents: it’s a leaving behind of cultural nationalism. That fiction no longer has to be about the land. The land actually influences us very little here, you know. We live in cities like everyone else in the world.
Yours,
Ryan Bigge
P.S. I think you’re a ninny too.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Dead Walrus Bounce (With Hickeys)
I'm back from Montreal. I still haven't completed my Montreal blog, which is makes me feel lame beyond belief. Soon. As well, I think I'm going to cut back on blog postings here -- perhaps once a week or so during the summer, and wind the whole blog down in early September and try something different. Today, I offer some excerpts from items you might have missed...
Josey Vogels, writing in her My Messy Bedroom column (Hour, April 29th, 2004), quoted from an article I wrote for The Peak, the SFU student newspaper, many years ago. This, from the Vogels article:
While tons has been written on the history of kissing - one theory goes that kissing started among cave people who licked each other's faces for the salt - very little has been recorded on the history of hickeys.
I did find one article that quotes Oliver Kralhein, a guy from somewhere in New York who has been studying hickeys since 1965 and published a zine on the topic for over two decades.
In the article by Canadian journalist Ryan Bigge, Kralhein says his research suggests that hickeys have been around since the dawn of time.
[…]
According to Bigge's article, even Robert De Niro, John Tesh and Cher have permanently marked themselves with decorative hickeys. And back in the mid-90s, the rap group Funky See, Funky Do released a song with the following lyrics:
"A kiss is fine but it don't always last/That's why I got a hickey of your name on my ass/That may seem strange and a little bit fruity/But every time I say your name I think of booty."
For those wondering about the veracity of my hickey article, well, read the whole thing here and decide for yourself.
Moving right along. From the July 2004 Toronto Life, Robert Fulford writing about The Walrus in an article entitled Tusk Force:
Having started out with the promise of long-term security, the magazine instead proved astonishingly unstable. Moreover, the articles in the first five issues, whatever their other qualities, contain little that’s original or challenging; they suggest, on the contrary, that among Canadian writers new ideas are thin on the ground.
[…]
This is a magazine that performs better around the edges than at the core. Put another way, it succeeds most when it appears to try least. With some exceptions, the longish articles, the pieces that take up six or eight pages, have been badly managed lumps of prose, compilations of unremarkable facts and obvious ideas, put together without skill or wit.
And this, while very old news, is still worth checking out -- excerpts from an article on Frank magazine by Jowita Bydlowska in the Ryerson Review of Journalism:
"Dead cat bounce" is a term used in stock markets to describe the final, futile upsurge of a declining stock. In Frank's case it was the freakish spike in sales after Taylor published his first issue, number 414, in October 2003. Since that one brief, floating moment, the gossipy cat has been in free fall.
[…]
The dreary newsstand sales confirmed a lack of interest in Frank when Taylor developed his dead-cat chart in December.
[…]
Five issues into the new Frank, Taylor was obsessing over his "Trends in Circulation" chart where the long painful descent of the dead cat was marked.
[…]
The cat began falling around 1996 when Frank was successfully sued for $75,000 by a Quebec judge for suggesting he slept with a key witness at a trial over which he presided.
[…]
It was difficult not to quietly root for him. Besides, dead cats can bounce at least twice, and cats have nine lives.
Josey Vogels, writing in her My Messy Bedroom column (Hour, April 29th, 2004), quoted from an article I wrote for The Peak, the SFU student newspaper, many years ago. This, from the Vogels article:
While tons has been written on the history of kissing - one theory goes that kissing started among cave people who licked each other's faces for the salt - very little has been recorded on the history of hickeys.
I did find one article that quotes Oliver Kralhein, a guy from somewhere in New York who has been studying hickeys since 1965 and published a zine on the topic for over two decades.
In the article by Canadian journalist Ryan Bigge, Kralhein says his research suggests that hickeys have been around since the dawn of time.
[…]
According to Bigge's article, even Robert De Niro, John Tesh and Cher have permanently marked themselves with decorative hickeys. And back in the mid-90s, the rap group Funky See, Funky Do released a song with the following lyrics:
"A kiss is fine but it don't always last/That's why I got a hickey of your name on my ass/That may seem strange and a little bit fruity/But every time I say your name I think of booty."
For those wondering about the veracity of my hickey article, well, read the whole thing here and decide for yourself.
Moving right along. From the July 2004 Toronto Life, Robert Fulford writing about The Walrus in an article entitled Tusk Force:
Having started out with the promise of long-term security, the magazine instead proved astonishingly unstable. Moreover, the articles in the first five issues, whatever their other qualities, contain little that’s original or challenging; they suggest, on the contrary, that among Canadian writers new ideas are thin on the ground.
[…]
This is a magazine that performs better around the edges than at the core. Put another way, it succeeds most when it appears to try least. With some exceptions, the longish articles, the pieces that take up six or eight pages, have been badly managed lumps of prose, compilations of unremarkable facts and obvious ideas, put together without skill or wit.
And this, while very old news, is still worth checking out -- excerpts from an article on Frank magazine by Jowita Bydlowska in the Ryerson Review of Journalism:
"Dead cat bounce" is a term used in stock markets to describe the final, futile upsurge of a declining stock. In Frank's case it was the freakish spike in sales after Taylor published his first issue, number 414, in October 2003. Since that one brief, floating moment, the gossipy cat has been in free fall.
[…]
The dreary newsstand sales confirmed a lack of interest in Frank when Taylor developed his dead-cat chart in December.
[…]
Five issues into the new Frank, Taylor was obsessing over his "Trends in Circulation" chart where the long painful descent of the dead cat was marked.
[…]
The cat began falling around 1996 when Frank was successfully sued for $75,000 by a Quebec judge for suggesting he slept with a key witness at a trial over which he presided.
[…]
It was difficult not to quietly root for him. Besides, dead cats can bounce at least twice, and cats have nine lives.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Le Media est Mal a la Tete
Boujour. Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Hopefully the redesign will distract readers from the lack of new content.
I'm in Montreal, and happily spending most of my time out and about, enjoying a city that doesn't suck (are you listening Toronto?) Which is why there hasn't been much Glub-Glub-Mo-Blon!
Worse (at least, some will interpret it that way) there will be no new postings on the Bigge Idea until the end of June or early July. I can, however, offer you a link to a new (temporary) blog about Montreal. For those looking for their fix of media critiques, I must regretfully inform you that the Montreal blog will have a strong aftertaste of fiction.
So, to tide everyone over for the next few weeks, I offer the following:
The June 8 issue of Frank (the last one, not the newest one) gives Jeff Stober of Drake Hotel fame a full page parody. It's a day-in-the-life diary entry, purportedly written by Stober. I'm going to quote the only passage that the real Stober might find funny:
Down in the basement, there's a fashion/modern dance/ambient music/performance art/glassblowing show. They're created a signature martini for the event.
Not to give a course on comedy writing, but that glassblowing quip is the clincher. And not that the Drake needs my help, but I would suggest they post the Frank parody in the lobby of the hotel. Lest you think this idea insane, I would point out that when RM Vaughan devastated Shanghai Cowgirl in grand style, they posted the review in the window and declared Mr. Vaughan employee of the month. Shanghai continues to be very popular, given its primo location and its late night weekend hours (Toronto is miserable with the late-night scene compared to Montreal). Point being that acknowledging your enemies can sometimes defang them.
The only other thing worth commenting on is the recent issue of Saturday Night (June 2004). There's a story about the Gross Domestic Product and how terrible it is at measuring societal well-being. (For example, oil spills, cancer treatments and car crashes all contribute to the GDP). Great topic to discuss. First major problem -- the topic was discussed way back in November of 1999 in the book Culture Jam, by Kalle Lasn (and well before that, in Adbusters). Second major problem -- the article does a terrible job offering any news peg or current angle to the problems with the GDP, beyond noting that the Genuine Progress Index is making some political headway. In other words, this article could have ran four years ago in Saturday Night. And so, the obvious question to be asked is: Why didn't it?
Enough.
When the Bigge Idea returns in July, I will try and shift my focus away from stupid things that annoy me about the Canadian media (since I could conceivably spent a few hours a day doing so, to little or satisfaction) and instead start to offer meaningful alternatives. Bile is never-ending; solutions are always in short-supply.
God, I hope that doesn't sound like something an NDP candidate might say. Don't worry, I'll still unsheath the shiv when necessary, but only as a last resort.
I'm in Montreal, and happily spending most of my time out and about, enjoying a city that doesn't suck (are you listening Toronto?) Which is why there hasn't been much Glub-Glub-Mo-Blon!
Worse (at least, some will interpret it that way) there will be no new postings on the Bigge Idea until the end of June or early July. I can, however, offer you a link to a new (temporary) blog about Montreal. For those looking for their fix of media critiques, I must regretfully inform you that the Montreal blog will have a strong aftertaste of fiction.
So, to tide everyone over for the next few weeks, I offer the following:
The June 8 issue of Frank (the last one, not the newest one) gives Jeff Stober of Drake Hotel fame a full page parody. It's a day-in-the-life diary entry, purportedly written by Stober. I'm going to quote the only passage that the real Stober might find funny:
Down in the basement, there's a fashion/modern dance/ambient music/performance art/glassblowing show. They're created a signature martini for the event.
Not to give a course on comedy writing, but that glassblowing quip is the clincher. And not that the Drake needs my help, but I would suggest they post the Frank parody in the lobby of the hotel. Lest you think this idea insane, I would point out that when RM Vaughan devastated Shanghai Cowgirl in grand style, they posted the review in the window and declared Mr. Vaughan employee of the month. Shanghai continues to be very popular, given its primo location and its late night weekend hours (Toronto is miserable with the late-night scene compared to Montreal). Point being that acknowledging your enemies can sometimes defang them.
The only other thing worth commenting on is the recent issue of Saturday Night (June 2004). There's a story about the Gross Domestic Product and how terrible it is at measuring societal well-being. (For example, oil spills, cancer treatments and car crashes all contribute to the GDP). Great topic to discuss. First major problem -- the topic was discussed way back in November of 1999 in the book Culture Jam, by Kalle Lasn (and well before that, in Adbusters). Second major problem -- the article does a terrible job offering any news peg or current angle to the problems with the GDP, beyond noting that the Genuine Progress Index is making some political headway. In other words, this article could have ran four years ago in Saturday Night. And so, the obvious question to be asked is: Why didn't it?
Enough.
When the Bigge Idea returns in July, I will try and shift my focus away from stupid things that annoy me about the Canadian media (since I could conceivably spent a few hours a day doing so, to little or satisfaction) and instead start to offer meaningful alternatives. Bile is never-ending; solutions are always in short-supply.
God, I hope that doesn't sound like something an NDP candidate might say. Don't worry, I'll still unsheath the shiv when necessary, but only as a last resort.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Stuff You Might Want to Know
It’s time for me to try and tidy the bulging blog folder. Enjoy the thoughts and ideas of writers who are not me. I begin with a Q&A with Nick Denton (Gawker, Wonkette) in prweek.com (May 20 2004):
Q. Why do so many people feel they need to have a blog? - PRWeek.com
A. I don't think everyone needs to become a writer. We're going from a world where there were one million writers and nine million wannabe or frustrated writers - people who occasionally wrote "letters to the editor" or complaints to customer service departments. Now those nine million writers are publishing online. Most of the sites that they create are only going to be interesting to their friends and themselves. But new talent wins out, and talented writers are not going to have to go through the media organization mill to [get a chance to] express themselves after 20 years as a reporter when they finally get a picture and bylined column. It's almost impossible in print media for anyone who is young and feisty to express himself or herself. The only time, in traditional media, when you get to express yourself is when you're 60 and no longer have any opinions that speak to the person you once were. Blogs allow those types of writers to circumvent the usual journalistic training program. It allows them to have the voice they have when they're young, without having it knocked out of them.
From the June 2004 issue of Business 2.0, Greg Lindsay on Denton:
Denton learned from that debacle and embraced weblogs, which are the LEDs of the media firmament: They require almost no resources to run. His mini media empire, Gawker Media, has no offices, no proprietary technology, and no full-time employees, yet it can attract audiences big enough to generate ad revenue. Better still, the "content" is virtually free, since it consists of little more than snarky comments pointing to other sites (mostly newspapers and magazines) that do spend money or time creating content. It's so dumb, it works: Denton's blog model is leaner than a George Foreman turkey burger. And it's apparently already returning a modest profit -- with the potential to deliver substantially more within a few years.
From the Onion: Catholic Church Condemns Metrosexuality
In the seemingly endless Howell Raines article in the May 2004 issue of the Atlantic, there are a few paragraphs about Turner Catledge, who was appointed executive managing editor of the New York Times in 1951. This was my favourite:
In the face of staff opposition, Catledge insisted that a modern newspaper must have "a dual appeal," telling readers both what they need to know and what they would enjoy knowing. "First, it should be necessary to people who wanted to be well informed," he wrote. "It already was that. Second, it should be a paper people wanted to read, for pleasure as well as out of necessity." Too often, Catledge added, Times readers were forced to pick up the paper and say, "I'm going to read you, you son of a bitch, if it kills me!"
From a Guy Maddin interview in the Onion’s A/V Club (May 19, 2004):
I've been so lazy all my life. I used to literally lie on the couch, up until the age of 35, fearing that my bones were dissolving like sugar cubes, from disuse. So it feels good to finally stand on top of vanquished sloth, and actually impress some people as a hard worker.
Clive Thompson has written the first truly great article to appear in the Walrus about the economy of online games like EverQuest. Here is one of many great moments in the article:
Within months of Ultima Online's launch, in 1997, the game spiralled into a currency crisis. The developers woke up one morning to discover that the value of their gold currency was plummeting. Why? A handful of sneaky players had discovered a bug in the code that allowed them to artificially duplicate gold pieces (called "duping"). The economy had been hit by a counterfeiting ring. Inflation soared, and for weeks, players would log in each day to find their assets worth less and less.
Ultima programmers soon fixed the bug. But then they had a new problem: How do you drain all the excess gold out of the economy and bring prices back to normal? They hit upon the idea of creating a rare type of red hair dye and offering it for sale in small quantities. It had no real use, but, because it was rare, it became instantly popular and commanded an enormous price — which leached so much gold out of the system that inflation subsided. But the programmers had to meditate for hours on what possible side effects their "fix" might have.
And, finally, George Packer in the May/June 2004 issue of Mother Jones, writing to let us know that blogs aren’t perfect tools of the politically minded:
The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive — that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. To change metaphors for a moment (and to deepen the shame), I gorge myself on these hundreds of pieces of commentary like so much candy into a bloated — yet nervous, sugar-jangled — stupor. Those hours of out-of-body drift leave me with few, if any, tangible thoughts. Blog prose is written in headline form to imitate informal speech, with short emphatic sentences and frequent use of boldface and italics. The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere — every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) — is a knockout punch. A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary
Q. Why do so many people feel they need to have a blog? - PRWeek.com
A. I don't think everyone needs to become a writer. We're going from a world where there were one million writers and nine million wannabe or frustrated writers - people who occasionally wrote "letters to the editor" or complaints to customer service departments. Now those nine million writers are publishing online. Most of the sites that they create are only going to be interesting to their friends and themselves. But new talent wins out, and talented writers are not going to have to go through the media organization mill to [get a chance to] express themselves after 20 years as a reporter when they finally get a picture and bylined column. It's almost impossible in print media for anyone who is young and feisty to express himself or herself. The only time, in traditional media, when you get to express yourself is when you're 60 and no longer have any opinions that speak to the person you once were. Blogs allow those types of writers to circumvent the usual journalistic training program. It allows them to have the voice they have when they're young, without having it knocked out of them.
From the June 2004 issue of Business 2.0, Greg Lindsay on Denton:
Denton learned from that debacle and embraced weblogs, which are the LEDs of the media firmament: They require almost no resources to run. His mini media empire, Gawker Media, has no offices, no proprietary technology, and no full-time employees, yet it can attract audiences big enough to generate ad revenue. Better still, the "content" is virtually free, since it consists of little more than snarky comments pointing to other sites (mostly newspapers and magazines) that do spend money or time creating content. It's so dumb, it works: Denton's blog model is leaner than a George Foreman turkey burger. And it's apparently already returning a modest profit -- with the potential to deliver substantially more within a few years.
From the Onion: Catholic Church Condemns Metrosexuality
In the seemingly endless Howell Raines article in the May 2004 issue of the Atlantic, there are a few paragraphs about Turner Catledge, who was appointed executive managing editor of the New York Times in 1951. This was my favourite:
In the face of staff opposition, Catledge insisted that a modern newspaper must have "a dual appeal," telling readers both what they need to know and what they would enjoy knowing. "First, it should be necessary to people who wanted to be well informed," he wrote. "It already was that. Second, it should be a paper people wanted to read, for pleasure as well as out of necessity." Too often, Catledge added, Times readers were forced to pick up the paper and say, "I'm going to read you, you son of a bitch, if it kills me!"
From a Guy Maddin interview in the Onion’s A/V Club (May 19, 2004):
I've been so lazy all my life. I used to literally lie on the couch, up until the age of 35, fearing that my bones were dissolving like sugar cubes, from disuse. So it feels good to finally stand on top of vanquished sloth, and actually impress some people as a hard worker.
Clive Thompson has written the first truly great article to appear in the Walrus about the economy of online games like EverQuest. Here is one of many great moments in the article:
Within months of Ultima Online's launch, in 1997, the game spiralled into a currency crisis. The developers woke up one morning to discover that the value of their gold currency was plummeting. Why? A handful of sneaky players had discovered a bug in the code that allowed them to artificially duplicate gold pieces (called "duping"). The economy had been hit by a counterfeiting ring. Inflation soared, and for weeks, players would log in each day to find their assets worth less and less.
Ultima programmers soon fixed the bug. But then they had a new problem: How do you drain all the excess gold out of the economy and bring prices back to normal? They hit upon the idea of creating a rare type of red hair dye and offering it for sale in small quantities. It had no real use, but, because it was rare, it became instantly popular and commanded an enormous price — which leached so much gold out of the system that inflation subsided. But the programmers had to meditate for hours on what possible side effects their "fix" might have.
And, finally, George Packer in the May/June 2004 issue of Mother Jones, writing to let us know that blogs aren’t perfect tools of the politically minded:
The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive — that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. To change metaphors for a moment (and to deepen the shame), I gorge myself on these hundreds of pieces of commentary like so much candy into a bloated — yet nervous, sugar-jangled — stupor. Those hours of out-of-body drift leave me with few, if any, tangible thoughts. Blog prose is written in headline form to imitate informal speech, with short emphatic sentences and frequent use of boldface and italics. The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere — every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) — is a knockout punch. A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary
Saturday, May 15, 2004
I Wanna Live Like Patio People / I Want To Do Whatever Patio People Do
Nothing encapsulates the Toronto patio obsession better than the following squib by Chris Nuttall-Smith, from today’s Globe and Mail:
BRIBE CITY
What does $150 get you in Toronto? Dinner and drinks at Susur if you leave without tipping, or 50 Polish sausage dogs (condiments and heartburn are free). It'll also, apparently, get you a sun-drenched patio table at the Black Bull on Queen West on the first decent day of the year.
It was a gorgeous afternoon on the kind of spring day when you overhear office-dwellers vow, "I hope I get a sunburn." Ahead of me, a sextet of starched-and-polished (and pallid) types were pining for a place in the sun.
They could have waited 40 more minutes, as I did. Instead, they pooled a stack of tens and twenties and marched it to their chosen table. The rest of the line watched, amazed. The table accepted.
One of the guys in the group, flush from the conquest, offered to let "the pretty one" stay. "We'll give another $50!" (She did not stay.) One hundred and fifty dollars will get you the table, but this particular table came with just five chairs.
So a guy from the group tried taking an empty seat from nearby. "No way, man," somebody said. "That'll cost you $50."
BRIBE CITY
What does $150 get you in Toronto? Dinner and drinks at Susur if you leave without tipping, or 50 Polish sausage dogs (condiments and heartburn are free). It'll also, apparently, get you a sun-drenched patio table at the Black Bull on Queen West on the first decent day of the year.
It was a gorgeous afternoon on the kind of spring day when you overhear office-dwellers vow, "I hope I get a sunburn." Ahead of me, a sextet of starched-and-polished (and pallid) types were pining for a place in the sun.
They could have waited 40 more minutes, as I did. Instead, they pooled a stack of tens and twenties and marched it to their chosen table. The rest of the line watched, amazed. The table accepted.
One of the guys in the group, flush from the conquest, offered to let "the pretty one" stay. "We'll give another $50!" (She did not stay.) One hundred and fifty dollars will get you the table, but this particular table came with just five chairs.
So a guy from the group tried taking an empty seat from nearby. "No way, man," somebody said. "That'll cost you $50."
Friday, May 14, 2004
Oh No
I have written for Toronto Life for many years, so I speak from first-hand experience when I say that their commitment to editorial quality is second-to-none. As John MacFarlane noted in his May 2004 editor’s note, they take their fact checking very seriously – to the tune of $100,000 last year. They treat writers well, and there’s a good reason they get buckets of nominations each year at the NMAF.
And so, as someone who not only writes for magazines, but occasionally edits them, my stomach actually lurched when I saw that something had gone horribly wrong in the current (June 2004) issue of Toronto Life. On page 72, it appears as though the wrong quark page has been printed. How do I know? First of all, it says June 2000 at the bottom. But more noticeably, a series of words and phrases are underlined, one word is bolded for no reason, and, worst of all, this:
Tanenbaum’s swerve [word choice?] proved less impressive set against Ken Thompson’s $250-million.
Since I’m a subscriber, I can only hope that the error was caught before the magazine reached the newsstands. (I think there’s a lag time between subscriber copies being mailed out and the mag hitting the stores, but I could be totally wrong.) My guess is the error was made by the printer, because the final proofing at Toronto Life is pretty airtight.
I offer my sincere condolences and I hope this bizarre mistake causes them minimal embarrassment.
Now, onto maximum embarrassment. It’s still early in the year, but I would like to cast my vote for the Worst Column of 2004. It’s in today’s Globe and Mail, in the real-estate section. Ladies and gentleman, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to introduce Michelle Osborne, and her column The First Timer. Take it away Ms. Osborne:
Life without luxury lettuce
There is no Boston lettuce at the grocery store.
It was my first dose of reality, a confirmation that we had actually moved to a different place, one that was devoid of my beloved leafy green vegetable. A perfectly innocent trip to the grocery store for salad ingredients had left me wondering if we had made the right choice by leaving our downtown lifestyle for the residential Danforth and Woodbine area.
After all, we were used to our usual Saturday routine -- finishing our lattes before heading to St. Lawrence Market to get the basic fresh ingredients, and a few specialty items we needed for a dinner party or particularly challenging culinary experiment. At the market we were surrounded by people like us. It was like church for yuppies.
Near our new two-storey, brick and frame home, there is no market, but we are very close to a grocery store and a butcher. Which is lucky, unless you are used to having one of the city's best markets within walking distance.
I tried to remain undaunted. I knew deep down that we would be making certain sacrifices for the luxury of having a detached home away from the downtown bustle, and I was willing to compromise. After settling for mesclun mix, we loaded up our groceries into our cart and continued our errands in our new neighbourhood.
We have the basics, including several banks, a couple of pubs, coffee chains and dollar stores. Street kids and hotdog carts have been replaced by strollers and dogs on leashes. Exactly what you want in what our real estate agent calls a "developing" neighbourhood.
By now, my caffeine addiction was nagging me enough to settle for the budget coffee at one of the local chains. I tentatively entered, expecting the seedy, downtown shop I usually avoided. Instead, I found a smattering of normal-looking people and a bright, clean counter. I walked up to the server, expecting a tired grunt as a form of acknowledgment.
"Hi there," the pleasant server said with a smile. "What can I get for you?"
Shocked, I almost forgot to order. The service almost made up for the less-than-spectacular coffee. Almost.
The butcher was next on our hit list. We had found a small, inconspicuous shop driving by a few weeks earlier. Our hope was that it would measure up to the market, or just maybe, the butcher who specialized in meat from naturally fed and raised animals and from whom we got steaks for special occasions.
It was a glorious sight. Friendly patrons were chatting with the owners, and marvelling at the cannolis sitting on the cooler, which contained numerous deli meats. We looked around to see tasty cuts of lamb, chicken and beef, along with various European-style cheeses. I knew we had found a gem with this shop when I spotted the imported balsamic vinegar and Italian espresso.
The lust died, however, once we got to the cash register. The bill for two steaks and two chicken breasts was the same as what we paid at the specialty butcher downtown, but they didn't come from naturally fed or raised animals.
Feeling a little defeated, Tim suggested we grab a bottle of wine before heading home. On foot, we were out of luck. Either we'd have to drive to the nearest LCBO, or settle for beer with our sirloins.
We opted for the latter and drove just a few blocks away -- too far to walk but a little too close to drive, it seemed -- and picked up a cabernet sauvignon for our dinner that evening.
There are some things I just can't sacrifice.
I imagine her neighbours reading this column, grabbing the Frankenstein pitchforks and torches and chasing her snotty St. Lawrence ass right back from whence it came. I humbly request the Danforth residents association to give ‘er a good solid jab on my behalf.
And on a more serious note, I have been noticing this kind of nauseating expression of classist claptrap and entitlement more and more often in Toronto. Maybe it was always there and I found a way to ignore it, but lately, it’s becoming more and more in my face. For awhile now, I’ve been wanting to mention this article by Graeme Zielinksi that ran in the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (February 28, 2004):
National media: Meet the Heartland
About five years ago, during my first weeks working at The Washington Post, the paper ran a front-page story in which, in the first paragraph, they misspelled Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous.
I asked an old friend who worked at the paper how this could have happened, since the story had, conservatively, been vetted by no fewer than eight sets of eyes.
His one-word response, "Ivy," as in the Ivy League schools from which many of the staff matriculated and where, presumably, Schlitz was not as in high demand as it had been at, say, a Machinists Hall in Cudahy.
[…]
I've whined about this before and been promptly slapped down by my betters in places like the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. The "working-class hero" stuff goes only so far in some quarters, since it oftentimes is personal and oftentimes is inconvenient. But I'm fed up since, as I saw recently covering the primary, the problem is getting worse and the stakes are getting higher.
Questions are not being asked. Meanings are not being interpreted. Certain neighborhoods are not being visited. Certain lives are not being explored in a meaningful way. And, through the prosecution of basic journalism, agendas are being set that do not reflect the way the other half, without the bulging 401ks, lives.
For instance, how many people on air or in print came from families that had walked a picket line? How many know how to bait a hook or gut a deer? (I'm bad at both.) How many have felt the economic insecurity that stalks the working poor? (And I'm not talking about the few weeks at college on the Ramen noodles diet.)
How many have had real experience with the criminal justice system, who have had home visits from social workers, who have scrambled to call the probation office, who know the awful taste of government cheese?
The second article ran on December 8 of 2002 in the LA Times, and was written by David Shaw:
Journalists losing touch with the man on the street
In an era when network anchors in tailor-made suits sign multimillion-dollar contracts, and some of their talking-head, syndicated columnist colleagues earn more from one speech than the average American earns in an entire year, it may be difficult to imagine, but journalism in this country was, until relatively recently, a largely blue-collar craft.
As recently as 1971, only 58% of newspaper journalists had college degrees; now 89% have degrees, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. But only 15.5% of the total population age 25 and older have finished college.
The median annual salary for "experienced reporters" working at newspapers with more than 250,000 daily circulation -- the 40 largest papers in the country -- was about $56,000 last year, according to a newspaper industry study. Pay for "senior reporters" -- and for top reporters and editors at the largest of these papers -- is substantially more. But median income for all U.S. workers over 15 is about $31,500.
In other words, many big-city journalists -- especially those who set the agenda for what gets covered in the rest of the media -- have moved away from much of the largely middle- and working-class audience they purport to serve. At best, they're out of touch. At worst, they've become elitists.
I have written for Toronto Life for many years, so I speak from first-hand experience when I say that their commitment to editorial quality is second-to-none. As John MacFarlane noted in his May 2004 editor’s note, they take their fact checking very seriously – to the tune of $100,000 last year. They treat writers well, and there’s a good reason they get buckets of nominations each year at the NMAF.
And so, as someone who not only writes for magazines, but occasionally edits them, my stomach actually lurched when I saw that something had gone horribly wrong in the current (June 2004) issue of Toronto Life. On page 72, it appears as though the wrong quark page has been printed. How do I know? First of all, it says June 2000 at the bottom. But more noticeably, a series of words and phrases are underlined, one word is bolded for no reason, and, worst of all, this:
Tanenbaum’s swerve [word choice?] proved less impressive set against Ken Thompson’s $250-million.
Since I’m a subscriber, I can only hope that the error was caught before the magazine reached the newsstands. (I think there’s a lag time between subscriber copies being mailed out and the mag hitting the stores, but I could be totally wrong.) My guess is the error was made by the printer, because the final proofing at Toronto Life is pretty airtight.
I offer my sincere condolences and I hope this bizarre mistake causes them minimal embarrassment.
* * *
Now, onto maximum embarrassment. It’s still early in the year, but I would like to cast my vote for the Worst Column of 2004. It’s in today’s Globe and Mail, in the real-estate section. Ladies and gentleman, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to introduce Michelle Osborne, and her column The First Timer. Take it away Ms. Osborne:
Life without luxury lettuce
There is no Boston lettuce at the grocery store.
It was my first dose of reality, a confirmation that we had actually moved to a different place, one that was devoid of my beloved leafy green vegetable. A perfectly innocent trip to the grocery store for salad ingredients had left me wondering if we had made the right choice by leaving our downtown lifestyle for the residential Danforth and Woodbine area.
After all, we were used to our usual Saturday routine -- finishing our lattes before heading to St. Lawrence Market to get the basic fresh ingredients, and a few specialty items we needed for a dinner party or particularly challenging culinary experiment. At the market we were surrounded by people like us. It was like church for yuppies.
Near our new two-storey, brick and frame home, there is no market, but we are very close to a grocery store and a butcher. Which is lucky, unless you are used to having one of the city's best markets within walking distance.
I tried to remain undaunted. I knew deep down that we would be making certain sacrifices for the luxury of having a detached home away from the downtown bustle, and I was willing to compromise. After settling for mesclun mix, we loaded up our groceries into our cart and continued our errands in our new neighbourhood.
We have the basics, including several banks, a couple of pubs, coffee chains and dollar stores. Street kids and hotdog carts have been replaced by strollers and dogs on leashes. Exactly what you want in what our real estate agent calls a "developing" neighbourhood.
By now, my caffeine addiction was nagging me enough to settle for the budget coffee at one of the local chains. I tentatively entered, expecting the seedy, downtown shop I usually avoided. Instead, I found a smattering of normal-looking people and a bright, clean counter. I walked up to the server, expecting a tired grunt as a form of acknowledgment.
"Hi there," the pleasant server said with a smile. "What can I get for you?"
Shocked, I almost forgot to order. The service almost made up for the less-than-spectacular coffee. Almost.
The butcher was next on our hit list. We had found a small, inconspicuous shop driving by a few weeks earlier. Our hope was that it would measure up to the market, or just maybe, the butcher who specialized in meat from naturally fed and raised animals and from whom we got steaks for special occasions.
It was a glorious sight. Friendly patrons were chatting with the owners, and marvelling at the cannolis sitting on the cooler, which contained numerous deli meats. We looked around to see tasty cuts of lamb, chicken and beef, along with various European-style cheeses. I knew we had found a gem with this shop when I spotted the imported balsamic vinegar and Italian espresso.
The lust died, however, once we got to the cash register. The bill for two steaks and two chicken breasts was the same as what we paid at the specialty butcher downtown, but they didn't come from naturally fed or raised animals.
Feeling a little defeated, Tim suggested we grab a bottle of wine before heading home. On foot, we were out of luck. Either we'd have to drive to the nearest LCBO, or settle for beer with our sirloins.
We opted for the latter and drove just a few blocks away -- too far to walk but a little too close to drive, it seemed -- and picked up a cabernet sauvignon for our dinner that evening.
There are some things I just can't sacrifice.
I imagine her neighbours reading this column, grabbing the Frankenstein pitchforks and torches and chasing her snotty St. Lawrence ass right back from whence it came. I humbly request the Danforth residents association to give ‘er a good solid jab on my behalf.
And on a more serious note, I have been noticing this kind of nauseating expression of classist claptrap and entitlement more and more often in Toronto. Maybe it was always there and I found a way to ignore it, but lately, it’s becoming more and more in my face. For awhile now, I’ve been wanting to mention this article by Graeme Zielinksi that ran in the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (February 28, 2004):
National media: Meet the Heartland
About five years ago, during my first weeks working at The Washington Post, the paper ran a front-page story in which, in the first paragraph, they misspelled Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous.
I asked an old friend who worked at the paper how this could have happened, since the story had, conservatively, been vetted by no fewer than eight sets of eyes.
His one-word response, "Ivy," as in the Ivy League schools from which many of the staff matriculated and where, presumably, Schlitz was not as in high demand as it had been at, say, a Machinists Hall in Cudahy.
[…]
I've whined about this before and been promptly slapped down by my betters in places like the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. The "working-class hero" stuff goes only so far in some quarters, since it oftentimes is personal and oftentimes is inconvenient. But I'm fed up since, as I saw recently covering the primary, the problem is getting worse and the stakes are getting higher.
Questions are not being asked. Meanings are not being interpreted. Certain neighborhoods are not being visited. Certain lives are not being explored in a meaningful way. And, through the prosecution of basic journalism, agendas are being set that do not reflect the way the other half, without the bulging 401ks, lives.
For instance, how many people on air or in print came from families that had walked a picket line? How many know how to bait a hook or gut a deer? (I'm bad at both.) How many have felt the economic insecurity that stalks the working poor? (And I'm not talking about the few weeks at college on the Ramen noodles diet.)
How many have had real experience with the criminal justice system, who have had home visits from social workers, who have scrambled to call the probation office, who know the awful taste of government cheese?
The second article ran on December 8 of 2002 in the LA Times, and was written by David Shaw:
Journalists losing touch with the man on the street
In an era when network anchors in tailor-made suits sign multimillion-dollar contracts, and some of their talking-head, syndicated columnist colleagues earn more from one speech than the average American earns in an entire year, it may be difficult to imagine, but journalism in this country was, until relatively recently, a largely blue-collar craft.
As recently as 1971, only 58% of newspaper journalists had college degrees; now 89% have degrees, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. But only 15.5% of the total population age 25 and older have finished college.
The median annual salary for "experienced reporters" working at newspapers with more than 250,000 daily circulation -- the 40 largest papers in the country -- was about $56,000 last year, according to a newspaper industry study. Pay for "senior reporters" -- and for top reporters and editors at the largest of these papers -- is substantially more. But median income for all U.S. workers over 15 is about $31,500.
In other words, many big-city journalists -- especially those who set the agenda for what gets covered in the rest of the media -- have moved away from much of the largely middle- and working-class audience they purport to serve. At best, they're out of touch. At worst, they've become elitists.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Misplaced (Canada) Trust
I always read about this sort of stupidity happening to other people, which is sort of how I like it. But today, Canada Trust, my bank of choice since I was in short pants, sent me my monthly line of credit statement. Turns out I owe $.01, or one single penny. I’m going to guess that the envelope + one page printout + postage = a total cost of far more than one cent. What are you thinking, Canada Trust? Is this why service fees are so high? Huh?
Even Revenue Canada won’t dispatch the goon squad for $2 or less, and I think MasterCard has a somewhat similar policy.
Since I'm a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules, I’m going to risk my credit rating and not pay the monies owing. I might even fold up the invoice, tuck it in my wallet, and show it to a teller the next time I find myself forced to deal with an actual human being at my bank branch, something that happens less and less often as the years go by.
And that’s, my, er, one cent’s worth. I promise to finally discuss my good close personal friend Noah Richler by week’s end.
I always read about this sort of stupidity happening to other people, which is sort of how I like it. But today, Canada Trust, my bank of choice since I was in short pants, sent me my monthly line of credit statement. Turns out I owe $.01, or one single penny. I’m going to guess that the envelope + one page printout + postage = a total cost of far more than one cent. What are you thinking, Canada Trust? Is this why service fees are so high? Huh?
Even Revenue Canada won’t dispatch the goon squad for $2 or less, and I think MasterCard has a somewhat similar policy.
Since I'm a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules, I’m going to risk my credit rating and not pay the monies owing. I might even fold up the invoice, tuck it in my wallet, and show it to a teller the next time I find myself forced to deal with an actual human being at my bank branch, something that happens less and less often as the years go by.
And that’s, my, er, one cent’s worth. I promise to finally discuss my good close personal friend Noah Richler by week’s end.
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