20 year anniversary of "Chucks"

I bought a pair of black low top All Stars yesterday. I paid way too much for them and I felt an acid build up in my stomach supporting Converse (which is of course, NIKE), but I closed my eyes and bought them anyway. I need sneakers. Everyday weekend running around shoes that weren't my actually running shoes and that I could slip on and off at the back door. When I saw them I had a pang of worry that I couldn't carry them off anymore. This was quickly replaced by a "Fuck that!" and so I sat through the humiliation of having some barely conscious baggy-panted dude in a striped referee's shirt ask me what size I needed. "Dude" brought me the shoes and then instantly ninja'd away to text his girlfriend and I tried on my Chucks.
I got my first Chucks in Grade 12 in 1988. They were red high tops and my boyfriend at the time gave them to me because they didn't fit him. He also gave me a pair of green low tops which didn't fit well but I bore the pain anyway. I went on to get all-black high tops in New York that I wore all the way through the early nineties. I saw Seaweed and SNFU with those shoes. I saw The Jesus Lizard and left before this unheard of band, Nirvana, played. I threw up on those shoes, spilt fish and chip batter on them and sloshed beer on the toes. I was wearing those Chucks when Bill Stevenson from ALL said he wanted to sleep with me.

And so with "Dude" no where in sight, and my nine year old daughter offering encouragement, I walked up to the counter and bought the overpriced and exploiting fuckers. Fuck they feel good. And you bet your ass I can pull it off. I just wish I didn't feel so dirty.

Infinitely worth it

A friend on mine called me a liar on facebook today. I have Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace listed as one of my favorite books. His note:

You're a liar. No one has read Infinite Jest.

Which is hilarious because it is probably mostly true. Infinite Jest is huge.
HUGE. It is like 2000 pages of small 10pt arial font densely compacted. It is an epic travel over four or five years of a young brilliant, drug experimenting Tennis hopeful, Hal Incandenza, in the "near but distant future". Oh, and it is about his family,friends and intertwining plot webs that connect randomly or nonrandomly over the course of these few years. Once you pick up the book and weigh its tomeishness in your hands and flip open the pages to the see the tiny tiny font, you also realize that the main chapters are really only a thousand pages. The second thousand pages are FOOTNOTES. Yes, footnotes. However, unlike most footnotes(which don't usually appear in long fiction anyway), these tell more detail of the plot in focus and begin to weave other plot angles all on their own.

The characters are brilliantly funny and tragic, the drug excursions are hilarious, and Wallace's "near but distant future" is so creative and satirical that it is both ridiculous and totally believable. To get you started, Hal starts out the story in The Year of Glad. Yes, the US (who has cluelessly convinced Mexico and Canada to form the "Organization of North American Nations" or ONAN) has finally sold the Year Calendar to corporate sponsors to make money. Just wait for The Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad.

Infinite Jest is old. It came out in 1996 and I probably read it the first
time in 1997. Yes, the FIRST time. I have read it three times. One, because I have a shitty memory and the thing is huge and two, because it is that fucking GOOD. It is my deserted island choice.

So, Buy it and read it. I dare you. And then let me know, because I have actually never met someone who has read it- and I LOVE talking about it.

Don't it take your breath away?

I learned a startling fact today. Next year more Alberta women will die of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) than of breast cancer. COPD is a potentially devastating breathing disease that causes lung damage and obstructs, or 'blocks' the airways. COPD is sometimes called emphysema or chronic bronchitis.The main symptoms experienced by patients with COPD are shortness of breath and limitation of activity .

The Lung Association of Alberta and NWT posted a Lung Association Report with the following:

The statistics on women and COPD paint a disturbing picture:

• In 2005, 425,300 Canadian women 35 years of age or over self reported a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (1)
• In 2003, 4,383 women died from COPD in Canada (2). As a comparison, in 2003, 5,060 women died of breast cancer (3)
• COPD affects 4.8 per cent of women, 3.9 per cent of men (4)

-Lung Association Report 2006

November 20, 2007
New Lung Association research: Millions more may have COPD than previously estimated
Findings show deadly breathing disease remains seriously under-diagnosed

Ottawa, ON, November 20, 2007 – Startling research findings released today by The Lung Association demonstrate that as many as three million Canadians may have COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), Canada's fourth leading cause of death. This is nearly double previous estimates and includes over one and a half million (1.6 million) undiagnosed Canadians (1) and one and a half million (1.5 million) who say they currently suffer from this chronic lung disease.

The research also shows that the disease is highly prevalent among younger Canadian baby boomers - one in seven Canadians aged 45 to 49 (375,000) may have COPD.

This research confirms recent global prevalence data published in The Lancet which states "…evidence suggests that rates of disease (COPD) are generally underestimated."

Introducing...The Meatkini!

Seriously now, what the hell were they thinking? The latest episode of America's Top Model apparently consists of a photo challenge of shooting a meat themed series in a meat packing plant. Yes, that is a meatkini she is wearing as well as a meat bandanna. First of all, while I can attempt a nod at the artistic brilliance of the look and the creativity of tailoring, this just grosses me out: Me, who loves steak, loves a good meat plate, who friends have affectionately dubbed "Meat Whore". I would never wear a meatkini. The whole thing is disgusting. This is waste, consumption and materialism at its very strongest and you can't tell me that that was the artistic point. There was no satire or social commentary meant-this is just producers trying to make money and get youtube hits.
Sigh. and here I am giving it all attention. I need a shower.

Feist: finally gets what she deserves

There was a time, back in the dark, dank Repulik nightclub in downtown Calgary, that I wished Leslie Feist would stop screeching and sing some words. More accurately, I wished she would take her hot little punk rock self and go attract punk rock boys somewhere else...like Vancouver, or Greenland. I admit it, I was jealous. Now, however, I count her as my number one favorite Canadian artist, male or female. She is a talented musician, she has a voice that inspires thought, brevity and motion, and she has brought back into fashion the texture and fabric of old sound and voice. She integrates the best of old recording sound and song with new techno and creates something palpably raw and smooth. So, good for her for winning Junos. It is too bad the Americans couldn't see fit to recognize her for what she is.


Read more

How to get your students to tell you to "F off"

NAIT's ANTI "Potty Mouth" Campaign:
As if we need more to shake our head in wonder at, NAIT has just launched the first wave in their new "professionalism" campaign geared towards teaching students the proper way to behave in school. The first in the series focuses on profanity or "potty mouth" as one poster cutely puts it. "dress", "behaviour" and "cleanliness in the cafeteria", are apparently themes to come in the future.

I am not even sure where to start with this: the bad clip art and terrible messaging used for public distribution in an institution with over 70, 000 students; the concept that somehow a lame, insulting and condescending poster campaign is going to seriously cause anything other than an outrage; or that the communications director thinks that this is a really exciting series. Really?


I really hope there are some loud reactions to this. I will keep you posted.

More about Jane Kenyon

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. in 1970 and her M.A. in 1972. The same year she married a teacher at the university, the poet Donald Hall. After their marriage they moved to Eagle Pond Road in Wilmont, New Hampshire, which had been the home of Hall's family for several generations.

Although Kenyon was to write joyously about her life in rural New Hampshire, she suffered from severe depression throughout her marriage, and her final poems document her struggle against leukemia. Her first book, Let Evening Come, was published in 1990. She described the quiet life she led with her husband in many poems, but she and Hall were also well known through his books about life on their farm. Shortly before her death they were the subject of a television documentary that depicted their shared life of poetry and the changing seasons of their rural countryside.

Kenyon's poetry is delicate and subtle, a poetry of shadings and quiet musings. The poet Carol Muske wrote of her, "These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant."

-Taken from Bedford/St. Martin's Poetry site

Happiness

A friend sent me a poem by Jane Kenyon yesterday. I thought it was striking and poignent and it made me go read more of her work. I had started reading her a year ago, when this friend had first sent me one of her poems, but I had forgotten. A woman who struggled with depression, who worshipped nature and the simple beauty, and who died of a blood cancer-there is a lot that resonates with me.

There's just no accounting for happiness
or the way it turns up like a prodigal ...
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who files a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town,and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
-Jane Kenyon

A.W.O.L

Why aren't there any new posts? Where have I been? I am lost in the World of Warcraft, and I am not planning to come out any time soon. I am hooked.

Check it out-VICE Magazine

I love Vice Magazine. My cousin Pete gave me the Vice Do's and Dont's book for Christmas this year. It is basically a book full of photos of people that the authors rag on, make fun of, oogle or cut into tiny little pieces. Sometimes they were so funny I pee'd a little. Sometimes they were just so disturbing that I felt my skin shrivel.

Here is a little sample "Don't".

Caption: Dressing alike is for tween twins, Norwegian new parents, and roommates that are scared of the world.

Go to www.viceland.com and read for yourself.

Snow

It has been prohibitively cold for the last week. So cold, that it has distracted me from the significant and wondrous amount of snow covering my world. I hate to be cold, but I love snow.
I love the quiet clean of a snow-laden street at night. I love the black and white of trees and snow in shadow. I love the smell and the sparkle.

To me, snow is the physical manifestation of the sense of rest and renewal I feel in the winter months.

Thursday 7:48 pm
I am also reading a book entitled Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. Orhan, born in Istanbul in 1959, has been under Turkish and Islamic criticism for his writing, although he claims to not really be interested in Politics. Snow, published in 2002, is set in the small city of Kars in northeastern Turkey and tells the story of violence and tension between political Islamists, soldiers, secularists, and Kurdish and Turkish nationalists.
For me, Snow is more about religion and spiritualism then about politics. It seems to be about the human search for identity and meaning. In the book, the main character, an atheist poet name Ka, is struggling with his own views of religion and his place in the universe. It is the snow that continues to fall and cover his home town that continues to stimulate in him some concept of god or spirit. When I see snow, I think of God, he responds throughout the book to various individuals who question him of his faith. It is the only response he uses, as though he does not know what he believes but he cannot deny the absolute perfection and divinity in snow.

As an agnostic struggling with my own spirituality, or at least in defining it, I am drawn to his words. And I am drawn to snow.

Elle and feminism- do they go together?

I read Elle magazine for the articles. Seriously. Not Elle Canada, because it is simply a vapid cataglogue of fashion images, unfortunately. But, for some reason, Elle international has had some kick-ass articles over the last 8 months that I have been reading it. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access or find any archives of past articles. I would love to put up links to the ones that have interested me so far, but the Elle.com site doesn't seem to have any of the actual articles from the magazine.

Now, I do read Elle for the fashion, as well. There is something that I love about sitting on a plane or in the tub and flipping through beautiful images and trends. I have been labeled "fashionista" at work, but I think that I approach fashion as art. It inspires me. Color, texture, form, attitude; they are important to me.

I am also, of course, extremely aware of the conflict between fashion magazines and the integrity of women. Our identity as women is intricately and complexly entwined in the images that we are presented with and we need to start "pushing" images of true women and fashion back to the magazine industry.

In the September 3 2006 Botson Globe, the Ideas section had an interview with Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, founders of Bitch magazine.

I found this segment particularly interesting:

IDEAS: Are there mainstream outlets you think are doing a good job of addressing feminist issues?

ZEISLER: Elle Magazine actually grapples with a lot of the same issues that feminists are grappling with. But in the context of a fashion magazine it's often not really seen as feminism.

IDEAS: How come?
Isn't it just the thinking that counts?

JERVIS: When feminist content is stuck between the pages of how to put on eye shadow and what skirt you need to buy for next season, it can feel really schizophrenic. Feminist values, in my opinion, are in opposition to that kind of consumer-driven ethos.

ZEISLER:
The mainstream media feels the need to define stuff against the word feminism: Is it feminist, is it not feminist, is it antifeminist? A lot of people are still scared of the word. But if we can convey that calling yourself a feminist doesn't mean that you have to stop wearing lipstick or shopping or whatever, that's good. I would rather have fashion magazines acknowledge that there is no perfect idealism and there's always going to be a compromise, but you should still go out and call yourself a feminist anyhow.

Anyway, back to Elle. In every issue I have read, there has been a hard
hitting, well-written, and surprisingly objective journalist article. In the
past two months, they have had a discussion of "feminism" and actually asked the question "are you a feminist" to some prominent young women. I can't find this article online so I will scan it when I get time.

The October issue also has a review of self proclaimed anti-feminist Caitlin
Flanagan, entitled "Who's the fairest wife of all?". This is a well written and critical piece by columnist Laurie Abraham.

I am a feminist and I read Elle.

Check her out-Melissa McClelland

I bought Melissa McClelland's new album, Thumbelina's One Night Stand, in the Second Cup in the Montreal Airport.

These are the songs she played at the Calgary Folk Fest and they are incredible. I caught wind of Melissa as the background voice on Luke Doucet's songs. She and Luke were married this summer and he has produced both her albums and plays and sings on this album, along with Sarah McLachlan and Blue Rodeo's, Greg Keelor. I think she has really hit on a fantastic sound with this album- an melodic and eerie mix of country, folk and vintage music, and a mix of canadiana and americana. She is a fantastic songwriter and her voice lulls you into a sense of serenity-until you start listening to the lyrics.

Oh, and she's hot.

JARHEAD

I went through all of my reading material the first few days in Africa. I found a worn paperback copy of Jarhead in my room and I haven't been able to put it down since. I am not really a big war book fan, but I have read a few spy books and being in a compound surrounded by burly Texans and Scots felt a lot like a few episodes of M*A*S*H, so it felt appropriate. I really had no idea what I was picking up. I seem to recall some sort of furor about it a few years ago, and from the paperback cover I can see that they made a movie about it (I know, I suck. Apparently I was living in a cave at the time) but that is pretty much all the background I had before starting the first page. By the end of the first chapter it was clear that Anthony Swofford is a shit-hot writer and that I was going to get a glimpse into the raw, fragile psyche of a young man who has not only seen and done some serious shit, but who has also done some serious analysis of himself and of the USMC.

The following paragraph from the first chapter has stuck with me for days. Swofford is talking about how, after getting their orders, his unit goes out and gets every war movie they can find and then they sit and watch and drink and get themselves ready for combat. Swofford talks about the ironic fact that our most famous anti war movies, movies that the general population would list as being commentaries on the cruelty and uselessess of war, are actually fuel that fires the murderous agression in these young military minded men.

Filmic images of carnage and death are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his First Fuck. It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar--the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.

I wonder how Coppola feels about this.

Check him out-Kris Demeanor

I have been following Kris Demeanor for some time now. He probably thinks I am stalking him. Maybe I am, Maybe I am not. I definitely make sure that I see him whenever I can. I planned my Calgary Folk Fest activities around his sessions. I first saw him at Wayne Fest 3, where he wowed my three daughters and their friends with rendition of "Airport Master", which was really Airborne Bastard done with his young neice. I think they were most impressed, as we all were, that his neice knew every single word to an extensive rap commentary, but they did end up learning all the words (including the bad ones). My ex actually went out and bought the CD and we let our oldest listen to it until we heard the lyrics to the next few songs. Ah well, we're liberal parents. I think Kris might just rival my potty mouth.

Anyway, Kris is the ultimate entertainer. He is a musician with soul, he is a brillian lyricist and social commentator, he has the impeccable timing of a stand-up comedian, and he has that special presence about him that makes you just want to watch...and listen.

So, check him out. Buy his stuff. Make him rich.

I am going to see him tonight at the Blue Chair Cafe.

Delicioso

I created my (the) perfect menu item last night at the Sidetrack.
I had a hankerin' for some heuvos rancheros and carne asada (steak) and with the compliance of some bored cooks, I combined their Eggs Jose and steak sandwich (sorry, m.... sammich) to create the glorious...


El Margorita

Check them out-The Dudes

I love The Dudes. Always have, probably always will. And I get to boast that I know them and that my brother in law used to play with them. Pat played music onstage at my wedding. I am not sure anyone remembers. But he did. So there.

The Dudes are pop/rock/punk/satirical genius and hail from Calgary, Alberta. The new album Brain Heart Guitar boasts some remixes of old songs and some pretty freakin' great new ones, including the best pop love song I have heard for years. Check out Do the Right Thing and tell me if it doesn't make you just want to go out and buy a ring, boys.

Other favorites of mine are Mendoza Line and Dropkick Queen of the Weekend, which you can now apparently download as a ring tone. Rumor has it that there are several "friends" of the Dudes who think they are the subject of Dropkick. We all have our suspicions.


Mendoza Line has one of the all-time classiest love lines in rock history.

Back when the rock was sweet and magical
I gave my guitar your name
But now you're in someone else's touring van
And the songs I sing are shame

Beautiful man. Beautiful.

Go out and buy their album right now.

A Meat Whore's Dream...

Two hours from Seattle, over the Snoqualmie pass, lies Ellensburg, WA, and a restaurant so ecclectic and fabulous that it should be on the Food Channel.
Nicholas Cafe is a small, paint-faded side-of-the-road eatery that will blow your socks off. They boast a Muffaletta that people travel from New Orleans to sample and the best cajun food in West Washington. My mom and I shared "The Slammer"; a hamburger patty, a ham steak, a fried egg, bacon, lettuce and tomato on a bun and we substituted the fries for Jalepeno Hushpuppies to die for. My daughter had the best chocolate peanut butter milkshake I have ever tried and my mom and I washed it all down with Ellensburg microbrew.
Yay.
Double Yay.

Washoe

This weekend, I had the special gift of crossing off an item on my "things to do before I die" list.
2 hours from Seattle, Washington, nestled in the desert University town of Ellensburg lives Washoe. Washoe is a 41-year-old Chimpanzee and the first Chimp to be taught ASL back in the 70's. Orginially selected for the space program, Washoe was then selected and raised by Beatrice and Allen Gardener as a deaf child in a pyschology project on communication and culture. The Ape language studies were plagued with controversy and disagreement and Washoe was caught in the middle. She came under the care of Dr. Roger Fouts who continued communication research. Washoe however, is an Ape who does not think she is an Ape.

In graduate school in Primatology I was fascinated by the Ape language studies and by Washoe. She now lives in a Sanctuary with three other Chimps who learned signed language with Roger Fouts. They are in a unique facility where "The Chimps come first" and which is supported by the University of Central Washington and by The Friends of Washoe.

I only had ten minutes to see Washoe and there was no melding of our minds. She did not look across the enclosure and see me and come lumbering over, signing secret messages. She had no idea of the connection that I feel to her. It was hard to just sit there, listen to the pained presentation of undergraduate docents and just be happy with seeing her. But I saw her, and she signed "shoes" (she apparently has a shoe fetish) and I held up my shoe for her to see. It was one of my Chinese flp flop slippers from New York. I am sure she appreciated it.



Note: Washoe died Tuesday, October 30, 2007. She was 42 years old. RIP my little friend.

Check her out-Rachelle van Zanten

Rachelle van Zanten may not even be on your radar, but she should be. I first saw her play in Painting Daisies, and she has since gone solo. She is the hard rockin' shit-kickin' farm girl you always wanted to be friends with.

I got to see her both at the Calgary Folk Festival and the Edmonton Folk Festival and she was consistently brilliant.

Oh, and here is my favorite moment from the Calgary Folk Fest. Feist, Mellissa McClelland, Chantal Vitalis, and Rachelle van Zanten all on the same stage.