If you haven't already heard about the dark cloud over Kingston this week, you can catch up here and here. That second link is particularly good. If you're too lazy to click, let me give you the capsule version: our country is being run by a complete nincompoop, and this week said nincompoop's truly reprehensible and totally out of touch government's plan to close the last of the prison farms came to a horrifying close when the last of the cattle at the Frontenac Institution were carted off.
I try not to use this blog as a forum for grandstanding about anything more serious than my undying and somewhat creepy love for Zac Efron, but this is an issue with which many of my friends in town have been involved, and it's one that hurts my heart. I'm not really one for strong arguments or lists of talking points, so I'll keep it brief, and say this: local sustainable agriculture is a project with which I thought it would be really hard for most people to have a problem. What's not to love about milk, vegetables, and meat grown in your own backyard? And what's not to respect about giving incarcerated individuals the opportunity to participate in something that helps the community, that gives them skills they can use on release, that encourages compassion and holistic thinking?
Don't even try to answer those questions, because I guarantee you, you can't.
And with that, here's an amazing recipe I made up this week using the dregs of my CSA share, because, as I said, local agriculture is killer.
Mother Of Invention antipasto-esque salad (serves 1)
2 beets
3 teeny tiny gorgeous eggplants
1 kohlrabi
1 white onion
3 or 4 pepperoncini peppers (aka the best hot peppers in the universe, found in the never-ending salad at East Side Marios! You know what I'm talkin' 'bout!)
a whole ton of fresh basil
2 tbsp or more of pesto
Chop the veggies the way you usually chop veggies for roasting. Coat in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast till soft and golden, usually 20 minutes on 375 or so. Let cool slightly. Meanwhile, chop up basil and hot peppers. Throw it all in a bowl, and toss with pesto. Eat while reading this letter from one of the prison farm protest arrestees, and think about how horrible this government is. Resolve to vote for anyone but the Conservatives next time.
...hey, remember when Flavor Flav had a political agenda, and not just a whole host of STDs?
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A few reasons I might be an eighty year old lady.
1. I bought a muumuu a couple of weeks ago at Sears. Sears pajamas are an excellent and fashionable bargain.
1a. When the ladies around the library mention a sale at Sears, I listen with interest.
2. An elderly lady signing out books about the history of the Acadians in Canada complimented my (super comfortable and stylish) sandals, claiming they looked very "sensible." I was so flattered.
3. I am reading a LOT of Joanna Trollope, and would love to just stroll right into one of her domestic melodramas. There really is nothing like a British woman novelist, I tell you (see also: Fay Weldon, Barbara Pym, et al).
3a. After googling Barbara Pym, I am both stoked that she also went to St. Hilda's College (okay okay, it was the one at Oxford, whatever. Close enough, says I) and disappointed that the Barbara Pym Society has a Facebook page. I would rather believe that they communicate via tart, typewritten telegrams.
3ai. Nevertheless, I am now thinking of joining the Barbara Pym Society.
4. I find myself feeling a kinship with the people who take the time to write letters to the editors at People Magazine. Example:
Thank you for the interview with Rebecca Budig. I have admired her since her debut as Greenlee Smythe on All My Children in 1999. I met Ms. Budig recently at the Beverly Center shopping complex in Los Angeles, and she chatted and joked with me as if we had been friends for years. I wish this special lady much happiness!
from Magnolia Boddy, Los Angeles, Calif.
Indeed, Magnolia. Don't we ALL wish this special lady much happiness.
4a. If we're truth-telling here, I should probably admit that in 1994 I went to see Heather Tom, aka the original Victoria on the Young and the Restless, at the Eaton Centre in Hamilton. She entered the room via descending glass elevator, and it was awesome.
5. I am seriously offended by reinterpretations of classics from my childhood. Example: Ramona and Beezus on the silver screen. I don't care if it's great and critically acclaimed (which I bet it isn't. I'm not even checking, that's how mad I am)--it will be a cold day in hell before I will accept Ginnifer Goodwin as Aunt Bea.
5a. I think Beverly Cleary would be okay with this anger--she strikes me as a pretty scrappy old lady. JUST LIKE ME.
If you need me, I'll be planning my trip to the UK to go on the Barbara Pym Walking Tour.
1a. When the ladies around the library mention a sale at Sears, I listen with interest.
2. An elderly lady signing out books about the history of the Acadians in Canada complimented my (super comfortable and stylish) sandals, claiming they looked very "sensible." I was so flattered.
3. I am reading a LOT of Joanna Trollope, and would love to just stroll right into one of her domestic melodramas. There really is nothing like a British woman novelist, I tell you (see also: Fay Weldon, Barbara Pym, et al).
3a. After googling Barbara Pym, I am both stoked that she also went to St. Hilda's College (okay okay, it was the one at Oxford, whatever. Close enough, says I) and disappointed that the Barbara Pym Society has a Facebook page. I would rather believe that they communicate via tart, typewritten telegrams.
3ai. Nevertheless, I am now thinking of joining the Barbara Pym Society.
4. I find myself feeling a kinship with the people who take the time to write letters to the editors at People Magazine. Example:
Thank you for the interview with Rebecca Budig. I have admired her since her debut as Greenlee Smythe on All My Children in 1999. I met Ms. Budig recently at the Beverly Center shopping complex in Los Angeles, and she chatted and joked with me as if we had been friends for years. I wish this special lady much happiness!
from Magnolia Boddy, Los Angeles, Calif.
Indeed, Magnolia. Don't we ALL wish this special lady much happiness.
4a. If we're truth-telling here, I should probably admit that in 1994 I went to see Heather Tom, aka the original Victoria on the Young and the Restless, at the Eaton Centre in Hamilton. She entered the room via descending glass elevator, and it was awesome.
5. I am seriously offended by reinterpretations of classics from my childhood. Example: Ramona and Beezus on the silver screen. I don't care if it's great and critically acclaimed (which I bet it isn't. I'm not even checking, that's how mad I am)--it will be a cold day in hell before I will accept Ginnifer Goodwin as Aunt Bea.
5a. I think Beverly Cleary would be okay with this anger--she strikes me as a pretty scrappy old lady. JUST LIKE ME.
If you need me, I'll be planning my trip to the UK to go on the Barbara Pym Walking Tour.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
bad advice for good people.
Here's what I love about Daniel Handler: He sneaks up on you.
I've been reading You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You: The Believer Book of Advice. This is an excellent book for summer days when you are too hung over or otherwise affected to muddle through a novel, when all you really want is something hilarious to read out loud to your companion as you loll around on a beach towel and pour yourself in and out of the water. All your favourite funny folks are here: Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Rainn Wilson, Samantha Bee, Janeane Fucking Garofalo, AND MORE. And they each have a whole lot of awful advice to dole out to their unwitting audience. It's like reading Dear Abby if Abby had been drunk and cranky, which is pretty much my idea of journalistic heaven.
Anyway, Daniel Handler's section starts out sort of disappointingly. He spends most of the chapter giving snappy answers to stupid questions. Example:
Dear Daniel,
Now that we have a black president, is it okay to be racist again?
Terry R. Eureka, CA
Dear Terry,
No.
Love,
Daniel Handler
It goes on like this for several pages. And yes, it's funny, but it's one trick pony-ish. And then. Just when you're starting to get a little annoyed, he just whips it out.
Dear Daniel,
How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"?
Lily
Charlotte, NC
Dear Lily,
The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this.
And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now.
...Handler goes on for another page or so, and it's all so heartbreaking and evocative that you just want to crawl inside it and die a little. It's especially poignant because is it ever NOT what you expected in a book this funny and pointless. You'll be so overcome you might tumble right into the campfire, I'm warning you. A Betty Draper-esque fainting couch may be in order. I'm not sure if they make an outdoor fainting couch, but they ought to.
I've been reading You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You: The Believer Book of Advice. This is an excellent book for summer days when you are too hung over or otherwise affected to muddle through a novel, when all you really want is something hilarious to read out loud to your companion as you loll around on a beach towel and pour yourself in and out of the water. All your favourite funny folks are here: Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Rainn Wilson, Samantha Bee, Janeane Fucking Garofalo, AND MORE. And they each have a whole lot of awful advice to dole out to their unwitting audience. It's like reading Dear Abby if Abby had been drunk and cranky, which is pretty much my idea of journalistic heaven.
Anyway, Daniel Handler's section starts out sort of disappointingly. He spends most of the chapter giving snappy answers to stupid questions. Example:
Dear Daniel,
Now that we have a black president, is it okay to be racist again?
Terry R. Eureka, CA
Dear Terry,
No.
Love,
Daniel Handler
It goes on like this for several pages. And yes, it's funny, but it's one trick pony-ish. And then. Just when you're starting to get a little annoyed, he just whips it out.
Dear Daniel,
How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"?
Lily
Charlotte, NC
Dear Lily,
The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this.
And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now.
...Handler goes on for another page or so, and it's all so heartbreaking and evocative that you just want to crawl inside it and die a little. It's especially poignant because is it ever NOT what you expected in a book this funny and pointless. You'll be so overcome you might tumble right into the campfire, I'm warning you. A Betty Draper-esque fainting couch may be in order. I'm not sure if they make an outdoor fainting couch, but they ought to.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Summer dreams, ripped at the seams.
Fun games to play while watching reruns of Being Erica:
1. Documenting pop-historical inaccuracies. Examples: use of a Sam Roberts song that wasn't really popular yet in an episode about the Great Blackout of Aught-Three; putting Ethan, the whitest, milquetoastiest place-holder/unrequited boyfriend in all fiction, in a fucking Public Enemy t-shirt during his second year of university.
2. Spot The Former Or Current Degrassi: TNG Star: Jimmy (you will never be Drake to me, sorry dude), Paige's gay hockey-playing brother, the late-addition goth girl who dated Spinner for a bit, Crazy Craig (still number one on my TNG secret husband list)*: They're all here, folks!
*(NOTE: If I had to pick an all-time Degrassi secret husband I don't think any of the new cast would make the list. I'd definitely go with Patrick, the sensitive Irish exchange student who helped Liz get over her childhood trauma. Second only, perhaps, to Snake, before be got boring and old. The shine wore off that apple when I saw him picking up his dry-cleaning one time on Queen West.)
3. Blackberry Commercial Emotional Bingo: When you don't have cable and only watch TV online, you forget how hypnotic and consuming and upsettingly fun to watch commercials can be. It's the media equivalent of going through the haunted house at the fair, with even more jarring results.
4. Think about what a good thing it is that you are leaving town this weekend, because this is getting pretty ridiculous.
Happy Civic Holiday, y'all. Here's the official anthem of a four-day weekend.
1. Documenting pop-historical inaccuracies. Examples: use of a Sam Roberts song that wasn't really popular yet in an episode about the Great Blackout of Aught-Three; putting Ethan, the whitest, milquetoastiest place-holder/unrequited boyfriend in all fiction, in a fucking Public Enemy t-shirt during his second year of university.
2. Spot The Former Or Current Degrassi: TNG Star: Jimmy (you will never be Drake to me, sorry dude), Paige's gay hockey-playing brother, the late-addition goth girl who dated Spinner for a bit, Crazy Craig (still number one on my TNG secret husband list)*: They're all here, folks!
*(NOTE: If I had to pick an all-time Degrassi secret husband I don't think any of the new cast would make the list. I'd definitely go with Patrick, the sensitive Irish exchange student who helped Liz get over her childhood trauma. Second only, perhaps, to Snake, before be got boring and old. The shine wore off that apple when I saw him picking up his dry-cleaning one time on Queen West.)
3. Blackberry Commercial Emotional Bingo: When you don't have cable and only watch TV online, you forget how hypnotic and consuming and upsettingly fun to watch commercials can be. It's the media equivalent of going through the haunted house at the fair, with even more jarring results.
4. Think about what a good thing it is that you are leaving town this weekend, because this is getting pretty ridiculous.
Happy Civic Holiday, y'all. Here's the official anthem of a four-day weekend.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
from the disappointment files.
I'm rarely super disappointed by a book. I usually find something to like about everything I read, or else I put the damned thing down. This weekend, all that changed. I read Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz and I would have thrown it across the room several times if it hadn't been a library book. It was a perfect storm of disappointment, and like the perfect storm, I found myself trapped and unable to escape.
I've loved the Peanuts comics since I bought a stack of old paperback collections from my next door neighbour's garage sale a million years ago. I love their melancholy, adultless universe, the philosophical and spiritual truths coming out of the mouths of babes, the bittersweet unfairness of childhood. I've read a handful of biographies of Charles Schulz already, as well as the thoughtful introductions of each volume of Fantagraphics' exhaustive Complete Peanuts. My intense love of the comic strip as well as my existing knowledge base is probably to blame for my hatred of this book. I knew too much going in, so I could poke holes in author Beverly Gherman's superficial research.
I also blame the critics for my hatred of this book. I'd read several really positive reviews that praised everything from its use of Peanuts strips to illustrate periods of Charles Schulz's life to the very construction of the book, which is more like an art book than a traditional biography--glossy pages, large fonts, collages of old sketches and photos. Okay, okay, it was neat to see some of Schulz's early work, and I enjoyed reading a few strips I'd never seen before, but there was no analysis or depth. I wanted more than Gherman's storybooky narration could give me. And her insistence on referring to Schulz as Sparky throughout got so annoying. It was his nickname! We get it! Cease and desist!
So I'm a fangirl. Sue me. Give me what I want.
If you're at all interested in Charles Schulz's life (which is fascinating, by the way), read Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. This book is sensitive and well-researched, and draws on Schulz's comic strips in an expansive, analytical way. Instead of making Schulz into a sort of bumbling folk hero, as Gherman tries to do, Michaelis' biography exposes Schulz's depression, his anxiety, and his fear. As someone who's always appreciated the back-handed sadness of the Peanuts, I found this book so illuminating.
And if you're as obsessed as I am with the Charlie Brown Christmas special, read A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition. It looks like a coffee table book, but it's so much more than that. It's full of the rich history of the first Peanuts TV special, interviews with the kids who voiced the characters, and a full script of the program, as well as stills and flip-book-style images.
In hindsight, maybe it's appropriate to be disappointed by a book about a comic strip that chronicles the inherent unfairness of life, the early realization that the odds of life going your way are pretty slim. Ah, synchronicity.
I've loved the Peanuts comics since I bought a stack of old paperback collections from my next door neighbour's garage sale a million years ago. I love their melancholy, adultless universe, the philosophical and spiritual truths coming out of the mouths of babes, the bittersweet unfairness of childhood. I've read a handful of biographies of Charles Schulz already, as well as the thoughtful introductions of each volume of Fantagraphics' exhaustive Complete Peanuts. My intense love of the comic strip as well as my existing knowledge base is probably to blame for my hatred of this book. I knew too much going in, so I could poke holes in author Beverly Gherman's superficial research.
I also blame the critics for my hatred of this book. I'd read several really positive reviews that praised everything from its use of Peanuts strips to illustrate periods of Charles Schulz's life to the very construction of the book, which is more like an art book than a traditional biography--glossy pages, large fonts, collages of old sketches and photos. Okay, okay, it was neat to see some of Schulz's early work, and I enjoyed reading a few strips I'd never seen before, but there was no analysis or depth. I wanted more than Gherman's storybooky narration could give me. And her insistence on referring to Schulz as Sparky throughout got so annoying. It was his nickname! We get it! Cease and desist!
So I'm a fangirl. Sue me. Give me what I want.
If you're at all interested in Charles Schulz's life (which is fascinating, by the way), read Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. This book is sensitive and well-researched, and draws on Schulz's comic strips in an expansive, analytical way. Instead of making Schulz into a sort of bumbling folk hero, as Gherman tries to do, Michaelis' biography exposes Schulz's depression, his anxiety, and his fear. As someone who's always appreciated the back-handed sadness of the Peanuts, I found this book so illuminating.
And if you're as obsessed as I am with the Charlie Brown Christmas special, read A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition. It looks like a coffee table book, but it's so much more than that. It's full of the rich history of the first Peanuts TV special, interviews with the kids who voiced the characters, and a full script of the program, as well as stills and flip-book-style images.
In hindsight, maybe it's appropriate to be disappointed by a book about a comic strip that chronicles the inherent unfairness of life, the early realization that the odds of life going your way are pretty slim. Ah, synchronicity.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Summer reading club.
I mentioned earlier that most of my reading of late has been magazine-based. Working for the library has turned me into a compulsive magazine reader and I am very much okay with this. I love the brevity of a good article (or the satisfying length of a piece if we're talking New Yorker or Vanity Fair; with those publications you can trick yourself into believing you've read ten books over 200 pages) and the possibility of learning a little something, or at least adding to an arsenal of party trivia. I also love pretty pictures of pretty people, and I bet you do too. Here are the best ones I've read lately.
1. Psychology Today, August 2010 issue. This contained a really fascinating article about sibling relationships which confirmed a lot of the things I already suspected about myself and my family. Which is exactly what every pop-psychology article is designed to do, I guess.
2. Vanity Fair, August 2010 issue. Angelina Jolie is a complete nutjob with the most amazing delusions of grandeur. So many of the things that come out of her crazy mouth make no sense at all! If you read some of her quotes out of context you could confuse her with the weirdos who come to the reference desk asking for books on auras; I am not even exaggerating. This issue also contained a really crazy article about an eccentric, high-society French family who got taken in by a scheister who convinced them they were being targeted by a freemason-oriented conspiracy; I love that kind of thing.
3. People magazine, June 28 2010 issue. Jennifer Love Hewitt has some serious body image issues, and spends most of her interview justifying her decision to stay on a restrictive diet just so she can look good in a bikini. Pretty disappointing given that a few years ago she defended her healthy, non-emaciated body. Reading all about it made me hungry. More importantly, Zac Efron is on the cover, and in spite of my better judgment, I just don't know how to quit him.
4. Explore, August 2010 issue. Because sometimes you just want to read ridiculous articles about climbing Everest and pretend you will someday go heli-paragliding.
The Beach Boys make a really excellent magazine reading soundtrack.
1. Psychology Today, August 2010 issue. This contained a really fascinating article about sibling relationships which confirmed a lot of the things I already suspected about myself and my family. Which is exactly what every pop-psychology article is designed to do, I guess.
2. Vanity Fair, August 2010 issue. Angelina Jolie is a complete nutjob with the most amazing delusions of grandeur. So many of the things that come out of her crazy mouth make no sense at all! If you read some of her quotes out of context you could confuse her with the weirdos who come to the reference desk asking for books on auras; I am not even exaggerating. This issue also contained a really crazy article about an eccentric, high-society French family who got taken in by a scheister who convinced them they were being targeted by a freemason-oriented conspiracy; I love that kind of thing.
3. People magazine, June 28 2010 issue. Jennifer Love Hewitt has some serious body image issues, and spends most of her interview justifying her decision to stay on a restrictive diet just so she can look good in a bikini. Pretty disappointing given that a few years ago she defended her healthy, non-emaciated body. Reading all about it made me hungry. More importantly, Zac Efron is on the cover, and in spite of my better judgment, I just don't know how to quit him.
4. Explore, August 2010 issue. Because sometimes you just want to read ridiculous articles about climbing Everest and pretend you will someday go heli-paragliding.
The Beach Boys make a really excellent magazine reading soundtrack.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Thoughts on Mad Men.
1. Oh myyyy, this show is so goooood. I do not agree that it's the new Sex and the City; however this is worth a read.
2. I'd love to have an ex-relationship like Joan Holloway and Roger Sterling's--the occasional breezy but meaningful phone conversation, the knowledge that you will always be able to be done a kind favour by someone who thinks fondly of you, the banter. Oh, the banter.
3. Speaking of Sex and the City, I still see the actor who plays Roger Sterling as the congressional candidate who wanted to pee on Carrie Bradshaw.
4. It took me nearly three seasons, but I have a slow-burning crush on Pete Campbell. He is such a dick, but SO NAIVELY MORAL. I'm a sucker for that.
5. I'd like to be Don Draper's first wife, teaching piano lessons near the sea in California. She may be the luckiest supporting character in all of fiction.
6. Did YOU know the only other president buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where John F. Kennedy is buried, was and still is William Taft? I sure didn't! Thanks, Mad Men!
7. You know what's a good television narrative tactic? Closing an episode with a pop song that somehow underscores the plot. Weeds is also really good at this. The end of the JFK episode of Mad Men reminded me how frigging creepily evocative this song is.
...Is it me, or is this an off-putting video?
8. Does anyone in Kingston have cable and want to have me over for dinner the night of every new episode? I'll bring you nachos.
2. I'd love to have an ex-relationship like Joan Holloway and Roger Sterling's--the occasional breezy but meaningful phone conversation, the knowledge that you will always be able to be done a kind favour by someone who thinks fondly of you, the banter. Oh, the banter.
3. Speaking of Sex and the City, I still see the actor who plays Roger Sterling as the congressional candidate who wanted to pee on Carrie Bradshaw.
4. It took me nearly three seasons, but I have a slow-burning crush on Pete Campbell. He is such a dick, but SO NAIVELY MORAL. I'm a sucker for that.
5. I'd like to be Don Draper's first wife, teaching piano lessons near the sea in California. She may be the luckiest supporting character in all of fiction.
6. Did YOU know the only other president buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where John F. Kennedy is buried, was and still is William Taft? I sure didn't! Thanks, Mad Men!
7. You know what's a good television narrative tactic? Closing an episode with a pop song that somehow underscores the plot. Weeds is also really good at this. The end of the JFK episode of Mad Men reminded me how frigging creepily evocative this song is.
...Is it me, or is this an off-putting video?
8. Does anyone in Kingston have cable and want to have me over for dinner the night of every new episode? I'll bring you nachos.
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