Man in Demand

the 50 longest books

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:31:00 +0000

It's July 1, Canada, and we are halfway through Globe & Mail's 2008-long revelation of their 50 Greatest Books list, one title per week appearing in the Saturday books section. The latest, and possibly most questionable, choice yet, #25, is Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, which comes recommended as deathbed reading for television's most pompous fictional character. At 802 pages in the Penguin edition, it is not a quick read.

In fact, it was obvious almost from the start (book #2: the 3000+ page In Search of Lost Time) that keeping up on a weekly basis was not going to be a possibility. Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I had to quantify the problem. Using standard unabridged English editions of the books, and—not counting notes and other editorial additions to the texts—the first 25 of the Globe and Mail's 50 Greatest Books are each, on average, 702 pages.

In other words, to read through the Globe & Mail's canon at the pace at which the list is being published, you would have to read 100 pages a day, without fail.

I am truly curious to know whether there is anyone at the Globe & Mail that has actually read all 50 on the list.

The 25 selected so far break down this way for me: 15 that I've never read, 3 that I've read for the first time this year (The Iliad & The Odyssey, On the Origin of Species, and Ulysses), 4 that I've read previously in my adult years (Augustine's Confessions, The Great Gatsby, King Lear, and The Qur'an), and 3 that I read as a child and haven't read since (Huckleberry Finn, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels).

Of the unread 15, for at least 10 or 11 I would frankly confess to guilt at never having cracked their venerated spines.

I'd like to mock the sheer impracticality of the list, but for whatever reason, I've bought in.

But at the rate that I'm reading, my present extrapolation/calculation is that it will take me almost exactly 6 years to make my way through.

summer in the Sham

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:06:00 +0000

I grabbed a microbus (minivan kitted out for packing in a max number of passengers) to a town called ad-Dumeir this morning. There's a Roman temple (or something) from the third century CE (probably) that's been substantially excavated and restored.

Finding it was a minor adventure. Yesterday's trip to Maalula was easier at the start because the Maalula minibuses (not to be confused with the microbuses) have their own "garage" (a bus "garage" in Damascus is basically a big confusing parking lot full of buses). This morning at the much, much larger Abbasseen garage I had the challenge of trying to find the proverbial needle. At one point I made the mistake of asking a soldier. They asked to see my passport. I found this level of hassle for a 35-cent bus ride annoying.

Eventually, I found a bus bound for ad-Dumeir and we got rolling. Just to be on the safe side I showed the friendly-but-quiet young man next to me the Arabic text for "ad-Dumeir" in my Lonely Planet; he nodded that this, indeed, was where we were going.

So far so good. But the Lonely Planet steered me wrong, slightly; it refers to the "microbus stop." The young man, whose English was very scant and who seemed too shy to try out Arabic on me, alerted me that we were, indeed, in ad-Dumeir; I couldn't communicate successfully about a "regular stop" or "normal stop". I quickly broke out my Ross Burns guide (glad that I thought to bring it) and realized from its more specific directions that I would need to double back. I got the attention of the driver and hopped off.

Well, what do you expect for 35 cents.

So I had about a 15-minute hike back down the main road, in the sun. Good thing I brought my dorky sunhat.

I found the temple, but there was nobody around to ask about the key to the site. I tried an older man reclining at the back of a produce shop; he was pretty grumpy about being disturbed, and not terribly helpful. It took a little kid to point out to me that the Arabic numerals posted up next to the locked entrance gate were, in fact, a phone number.

"Teeliphoon!"

Duh!

(Quick mention here: you likely realize this already, but the numerals we in the West use and refer to as "Arabic" are not, in fact, the numerals that are used in Arabic. Well, "1" and "9" are pretty similar.)

I had a brief moment of confusion about whether the number would work from my cell-phone-only area code before I realize that the sign's writer had helpfully included the leading zero and area code as well. Good. Now to test my memory of the Arabic numerals.

Got it right on the first guess. With a mix of English and Arabic I managed to indicate that I was at the "temple" and needed the mifteh ("key") for entry; the voice on the other end told me he could come in "five" (khamsa? yes, five) and sure enough, not too many minutes later a motorcycle pulled up and there were a couple more local youths who kept an eye on me while I made my way around the temple remains and shot a bunch of photos.

Regarding the temple itself: the exact origin and original purpose of the building are a bit in doubt. But at one end a Roman arch has been filled up with huge bricks; clearly a later Arab fortification of what was once probably a religious-functional building.

So after a few minutes of poking, prodding, and photographing I walked back to the main road. I tried flagging down a microbus even though it was empty. The driver offered me a direct ride back to town for 300SYP (roughly $6.75 Can); it seemed a bit ridiculous when I could ride the regular run for 15SYP, but the driver was persuasive and I liked the thought of stretching out in the front seat and heading straight back to the city with no stops, so I took him up on it. We were both satisfied with the deal and parted with a warm handshake.

Back here in the city it has cooled off today; down from high to low 30s. That is good because the heat yesterday was making people crazy. Some cases in point:

When I walked into Bab Touma yesterday, the first thing I saw was a fistfight spilling out into the street, at least 4 men trading blows as a bunch of others tried to restrain them. It was rather awkward. Nobody seemed to be able to land a good punch. So this is the Christian quarter. It made me nostalgic for Spryfield.
Heading back through the souq, I chose to ignore one of the merchants trying to get my attention, and he ramped up his attempts to get my attention in English the more that I ignored him and concentrated on my pistachio ice cream cone from Bekdach. "Hello... Excuse me!... EXCUSE ME!... IS THAT A NICE ICE CREAM?... IT HAS MOSQUITOES IN IT!"
Another souq merchant tried to jerk my chain by pretending not to know where Bekdach is (it's on the main strip; at any given time hundreds of people are walking through the souq licking cones from there) and asking me for directions. One of his colleagues came to my rescue and I said "I know, I know he's fooling; it's hot, people get bored." He asked me where I was from, what city, and almost as a gesture of courtesy didn't try to drag me back to his shop. I guess he figured I'd been hassled enough.

People get crazy in traffic, too; I've been asked what that's like here. Basically, there are two rules of traffic here:

You watch where the f*!# you are going.
There are no other f*!#ing rules.

To put that in a slightly more refined way: any space that you can successfully move into, whether as a pedestrian or as a driver, is yours. Unless you've misjudged the inertia of any other object attempting to claim that space.

I've quickly become accustomed to walking through multiple lanes of moving traffic in order to cross streets. There are some traffic lights here, but there are instances where you have to travel some blocks to find them. So you don't. You cross. And you remember the rules.

The most amusing workaround that I've seen here for traffic jams is the one that the motorcycles use. They use the sidewalks. I'm not even kidding. This gets complicated when one motorcycle wants to pass another one.

Beep! Beep!

Hey buddy! Watch which part of the sidewalk you're driving that thing on!!

That's a rough translation from Arabic, but I think an accurate one.

"...as if Latin were still spoken in villages near Rome."

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:38:00 +0000

I remember reading in some newspaper or other, sometime before Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ was released, about a little village in the hills outside Damascus where they still spoke Aramaic—the language that Jesus spoke.

It was said that Mel spent some time in this village to get the hang of Aramaic pronunciation for his movie.

Today I paid a 35-cent bus fare, and went and visited that village.

I didn't actually track down any Aramaic speakers. I'm not sure that it would have done me that much good if I'd tried. When I get to the point where I have a useful basic vocabulary in Arabic maybe I'll try on a second ancient Middle Eastern language.

I did meet some friendly Orthodox nuns at the convent, one of whom told me the story of St. Thecla, legendary student of St. Paul, for whom God miraculously split the mountain so she could escape... um, snakes? lions? her father? I forget what was besetting her at that precise moment, but following the picturesque little stream through the narrow rift in the mountain is pretty cool—kind of like a mini-Petra. Not for claustrophobes I should mention.

There is a real downturn in tourism in Syria in the past few years. Perhaps the most striking remains on the top of the cliffs over Maalula is the hotel, which I'm sure had a fresh gleam on it just a few years ago. It's strange to see a large, thoroughly modern hotel, in the midst of tourism season, with a grand total of two cars parked in front. It's too bad they had to ruin the view from the cliff with a hotel that was rendered spurious just a few years after it was built.

But perhaps the tourists will come back. Mel or no Mel.

Yesterday I walked the street where Christianity started.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 22 May 2007 11:28:00 +0000

It's not every day you get to say that, is it?

OK, we could quibble about exactly what the starting point of the faith was, but Paul's conversion sure is a handy one. Especially if you believe that famous story in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul, on the road to Damascus, is emphatically interpellated by Jesus, struck blind, and goes to the house of Ananias on Straight Street (now Sharia Medhat Pasha/Sharia Bab Sharqi) where he recovers his sight and joins the community that he will come to theologically define.

"Epiphany" thus becomes the essence of the Damascene brand (unless we're talking about swords or fabric).

For the record, I don't take the story literally at all; there's no corroboration for it. Except that Paul tells us firsthand in his own letter to the early Christians at Corinth that he saw Jesus. Feel free to fill in the details, he seems to imply. Decades later, somebody did. Et voila Acts.

But that's what history's like, right? So many layers and digging through them all won't definitely establish every link in the web of events. No one's ever done a sizable dig here, in the Old City. It's too busy to stop, too packed with life-happening for anyone to dream of putting it all on hold. What we know about the history of Dimashqi is a matter of textual record and the occasional accidental find. In the meantime, there's a Chapel of Ananias, and Chapel of St. Paul, because the intangible, at some point, wanted some tangibility.

Walking down Straight Street I'm not thinking about Paul's epiphany, mostly; I'm thinking about Kathmandu, the only reference point from my own experience for the dozens and hundreds of little stalls with their wares; handcrafts, fabrics, spices, fruits. The first time through, you have to just stroll through and take in the geist of it. More detailed exploration will come later. But, oh, the smells! It's a fricking smell-u-copia.

Yesterday was also the first official day of a new life chapter: "Divorced." Does that count as an epiphany? Northrop Frye said that the essence of the Gospel is that "you don't have to be what you were before." And if I did nothing else to mark the day, I guess a walk on Straight Street will have to do. I didn't buy any blades or cloth, but in this small way, Damascus is, for me, two thousand years laters, still delivering on its brand promise.

from the 902 to the 963.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:41:00 +0000

DAM! I'm in Syria. Here in ash-Sham I'm having little adventures in Arabic several times a day. My total lack of a decent vocabulary continually trips me up, but that also means that every time I get something right it's like a little moral victory. This morning I rehearsed how to say "The Canadian Embassy" in decently colloquial fashion: es-safaara al-kanadiyye. My perfect pronunciation was something of a Pyrrhic victory: the cab driver was so convinced that he instantly unleashed a stream of Arabic none of which I understood. It eventually emerged that he didn't know where the embassy was, and took me on a drive to one of the embassy districts where he asked a Syrian officer for directions. After this side-excursion and eventual arrival which involved a spurious turn around the block, he had the nerve to ask for a tip and the further nerve not to make change; I ended up paying double fare as I wasn't in the mood to argue (in a cash-based culture, which entails a constant quest for small change, I experience a recurring minor guilt when I can't make exact payment). But being jacked for the equivalent of a dollar was nothing compared to being jacked for the equivalent of $50 by my own government for them to generate a letter authorizing me to study at Damascus University. But hey, I'm coming from a school that already acclimated me to paying pointless fees for purely bureaucratic reasons (oh snap!).

Just a brief bit about my visit yesterday to the National Museum; the most sublime object in their collection is a little 3" x 1" clay tablet that bears the Ugaritic alphabet, written left to right. It was for teaching aspiring scribes their letters, in scribe school 3400 years ago. That's right, I'm in the country where they invented the f**king alphabet. I got no comeback for that. In Canada we invented hockey and poutine.

I can't imagine any other place but Syria where I could feel so close to the ancient world. They've had time to figure out a thing or two around here. Except for solid net access.

the whole Megillah

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 16:55:00 +0000

Seems like every year Purim gives me blog material. Last evening I attended my first-ever synagogue service—kind of an odd choice, making my first visit on the rowdiest occasion of the Jewish liturgical calendar, but, hey, I like to rock. I was treated to a full read-through of the Megillah of Esther, which took me back to my Sunday School days—I always found the only book in the Bible to not mention God by name to be one of its most gripping stories. (As I read along, I noted that the explanatory glosses in my copy, like the Baptist interpretation of my youth, stress that the absence of God's name in the text only proves that God is in control even when we're not aware.)

Not only did the rattles throughout the congregation thunder away at every reading of the name of Haman, the story's villain, there was a Haman effigy at the front of the sanctuary on a mock gallows, and every so often one of the children of the congregation would enthusiastic string up the hapless doll. Those bits I don't remember from Sunday School.

I was pleased to discover, as I followed along with the Hebrew and English texts on facing pages, that I can still recall enough biblical Hebrew from my half-assed study of the language ten years ago to make out the names of all the people in the Hebrew text. And you know, I have been told that, if I can learn Arabic, Hebrew will be easy by comparison...

the road to Damascus

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:16:00 +0000

"A sudden conversion of thought or a change of heart or mind even in matters outside of a Christian context."

The old plan is once again the new plan. On May 19, I will arrive in Syria, and will have one week to get myself registered and prepared for an intensive 4-week Arabic course at Damascus University.

I plan to stay there until June 29, giving myself an extra week after the course concludes on the 21st to be a tourist.

Today I've bought my ticket to London. The wheels are in motion, though I'm not sure that wheels are the metaphorically appropriate mode of transport for this particular road.

eulogy: Helen Hill 1970-2007

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Given at the Helen Hill Memorial Gathering, at the North End Church, January 13, 2007.

I went over to Lisa and Dan's place on Monday evening. The three of us watched a VHS tape that Helen had given to Lisa. When we watched her film "Mouseholes," the funeral scene moved me as it never had. Especially when the minister read from the New Testament, a verse that clearly meant something to Helen:

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

I looked it up—in his letter to the early Christians in Corinth, Saint Paul is quoting the Hebrew prophet Isaiah there. I was reminded of that passage—and about things we're not ready for—when I met my friend Jane for lunch the next day. Jane has a fixation, shall we say, on the Hebrew scriptures. She also had an interesting thing to say about Helen.

People are saying that Helen was an angel, in a way, and that's so true. But Jane wanted to use a different word to describe Helen's spiritual presence. And that word is "prophet."

Not a prophet in the sense of prognosticating future events. Not either in the sense of wagging the finger of judgment at the people who just don't "get it." Real prophets, I agree with Jane, have something important to tell us about the way that things could be. They tell us about a world that we can't see yet. Maybe we can't see it yet because we're too satisfied or complacent about the way things are now. Or maybe we can't see it yet simply because it hasn't arrived. It's just around the corner. If only we knew. If only we were listening.

Some of those Hebrew prophets made their point not with great oratorical skills, perhaps, but by living differently. The way they lived was their critique of the social order of their day. They would make choices—openly and demonstratively—that other people wouldn't. Some of them would do some pretty loopy things to make their point—like Ezekiel, who publicly cooked a meal over a fire built on human dung.

I think veganism probably seems equally weird to a lot of people. And keeping a pot-bellied pig as a pet definitely strikes some people as strange. On that videotape we watched on Monday night were a couple of TV news reports about Helen and Paul and their pet. That news reporter was really amazed to see Helen walking a pig down Gottingen Street.

Lives like Helen's quietly demand our attention. They question the regular order of things. What if meals could always be free to everyone who needs them? How would things be different if we thought of animals not as raw material but as companions? How would the world change if pasttimes reserved for the elite—like, say, making films—were something that anyone could do?

Helen has been taken from us, that's true. And the way it happened was untimely, unfair, and inhuman. But what she gave to us was something that will always be with us—her life, a prophecy lived.

today words cannot express

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:54:00 +0000

Grey Cup weekend day 3: game day a.k.a. the inevitable anticlimax

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:58:00 +0000

I had a fun time at the 94th Grey Cup. Not sure if it was $279.35 worth of fun, but it was definitely fun, and no, my ass didn't freeze. Temperature was not bad—for Winnipeg—and it was my first non-exhibition pro football live experience, so that was thrilling in and of itself.

"The party was welcoming, raucous and fun. The game was utterly pedestrian." Yes, once again the Toronto Star's columnist Damien Cox (whom I spotted on our flight back to Toronto) has it nailed.

The whole day seemed a bit wrong-footed, starting with getting swindled by the Trailer Park Boys. We thought the "Trailer Park Breakfast" at the convention centre would be a fun little way to kick off Grey Cup Sunday... but our $20 admission ticket had a $5 Ticketmaster surcharge tacked on, and got us a (cold!) breakfast sandwich and some hash browns. Nothing else. They were charging extra for coffee and orange juice from pitchers! Oh, we also got 10 or 15 minutes of patter from "Mr. Lahey" and "Randy", followed by some really bad band from Winnipeg. I said to Dan, "let's consider ourselves ripped off and get out of here," and we did. Trailer Park Boys, you get the gasface! (Why does this seem like exactly the sort of situation that would make any of the characters on the show go ballistic?)

Later, "Bubbles" was sitting in our section in the stadium, but I couldn't be bothered to throw anything at him...

So, yeah, my Alouettes lost the Grey Cup, in mostly-uneventful fashion... although general manager-turned-coach Jim Popp seems to be getting a free pass in the English press for what seems like a rookie move—not challenging that supposed Robert Edwards fumble on the one-yard line. (What's the French-language press saying?)

But, as for my Grey Cup experience—no regrets!

Grey Cup weekend day 2, chapter the second: in which we touch the Cup. and some cheerleaders.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 20:09:00 +0000

Saturday night we decided to head on down to the Pyramid Cabaret to check out the Montreal Alouettes cheerleader extravaganza. We had no idea that the Grey Cup would be in the hizzouse, but there it was! A mob scene ensued, which you can't really tell from the isolated snap, above, but I feel this photo has the sort of dignified serenity befitting a nearly-century-old tradition. Or something.

You know, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats cheerleaders have, hands down, the hottest moves. One might legitimately wonder if anyone has thought to tell them that football is, you know, "family" entertainment. I think that particular finer point is lost on Dan, though.

Having charmed the Ti-Cat ladies, our own Haligonian Casanova moved on to the Alouettes, buying a copy of their pin-up calendar and proceeding to secure the autographs for several months, including, crucially, Miss November, who wished Dan a happy birthday and signed with an "XXX". It was right about then that I knew I was the evening's designated driver.

Grey Cup weekend day 2, chapter the first: in which we tour Winnipeg, and find it to be bisonesque, with undertones of A Space Odyssey.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 15:55:00 +0000

Our whistlestop tour began with St. Boniface Cathedral, which includes the remains of a previous incarnation that burned in 1968. The Mint wasn't open, but we went to see the Manitoba provincial legislature, which was startlingly grand, and eerily empty.

Then we went and got some lunch on at The Forks before heading out to Fort Whyte to check out the bison.

"They're bison, all right."

We had a good hike around one of the trails, checked out a fearless deer and fawn at the bison viewing mound, and then my chimp friend discovered that "bison bone make good tool."

Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Later that night we hit the revolving lounge atop Fort Garry Place and my cellphone captured this slightly impressionistic version of the Winnipeg skyline. We traced 360 degrees and consumed mediocre nachos. Magnetic-sole boots not required.

Grey Cup weekend day 1: Tom Wright, Brent Bambury, and more

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 15:45:00 +0000

Dan and I arrived in Winnipeg around 2pm on Friday... it turned out we were on the same flight with the Rev. Gary Thorne (best known in Halifax for his tenure at St. George's Round Church through the June 1994 fire and rebuilding). Couldn't help sneaking a peek—what does Gary Thorne read on the plane on his way to a meeting of the Primate’s Theological Commission (of the Anglican Church of Canada on the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions)? Not so shocking really — Richard Hooker.

I had tried and failed to get tickets to the Winnipeg taping of Brent Bambury's Go, but Dan and I random happened across the taping site while wandering around the Forks... so we craned our necks around a corner and caught him in front of the live audience interviewing Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

But the highlight of the night was the Atlantic Schooners "kitchen party" at York the Hotel, featuring the Saskatchewan Roughriders Pep Band (loud! fun!), last year's "Touchdown Atlantic" exhibition game (yes, Dan and I were there too) on the video projection screen, and a chance to drink Keith's with none other than Tom Wright, outgoing commish of the CFL. He told me, as I'm sure he's told many people, that if the 2014 Commonweath Games come to Halifax with the requisite stadium building, so will a new CFL franchise.

Sign on the wall at the party: "Thank you Tom Wright. We appreciate your efforts on East Coast Expanision" (sic).

blue movie

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:18:00 +0000

It was back in 1970 that Terry Southern, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of "Easy Rider" and "Dr. Strangelove," wrote a satirical novel about this very concept: "Blue Movie," in which a Stanley Kubrick-type directs a major actress having actual intercourse in a mainstream film. While that isn't happening just yet — most of the actors in these movies are unknowns who help craft the dialogue through improv — we're getting closer.

"Now more than ever, the time is right for this kind of film. It does have a chance at the box office, to put it crudely," said Southern's son, Nile, an author himself and co-trustee of the Terry Southern Literary Trust.

"Why that is, I think, is a cultural phenomenon, an era similar to the Age of Aquarius in the `60s and films of the `70s like 'Carnal Knowledge,' a similar wanting to connect to the roots of what life is all about and make a statement, as well."

[ Porn, art or a bit of both? ]

The film that Southern refers to is, of course, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, which, I'm pretty sure, contains more on-screen penis time than all movies I've previously seen, put together.

I may not watch much porn, but I'm relatively certain it's not much like this, a film that simultaneously deconstructs and reaffirms the mystery of sex, de-eroticizing the act while re-romanticizing the quest. Its embrace of the carnivalesque owes a debt to John Waters but in its moments of emotional darkness it has something more like gravitas. And, jeepers, Sook-Yin Lee is so very very good as the sex therapist who can't have orgasms.

"Mr. Mitchell isn’t the first nonpornographic filmmaker to incorporate sexually explicit material into his work, but he may be the most optimistic and good-natured," says Manohla Dargis, and I'm with her in wanting to buy into Mitchell's optimism, even if it does seem, at this point in history, a bit naïve. I want to believe!

riding the blueberry express

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 21:54:00 +0000

I've been doing a lot of trail riding on my mountain bike the past two years, but every new (to me) trail is still a thrill. Today Doug and I rode the full 14.5 km length of the Musquodoboit Rail Trail, and the views were stunning. It might be my favourite ride yet.

The Rail Trail began life as a CNR branch line in 1916. The tracks were scrapped in the 1980s.

Bayer Lake

The Musquodoboit Trailways Association website says "According to local stories, the line was affectionately named the 'Blueberry Express' by passengers, because the train was so slow that travelers aboard could get out, pick blueberries along the way, and hop back on!"

Kelly's Meadow

Kelly's Meadow Bridge

There are a few picnic tables along the trail... This one was the site for our lunch break.

It featured a park bench...

with a lovely view of the Musquodoboit River.

Then it was back to the trail...

with its helpful signage.

I get excited when I read about the panoramic views afforded by the various hiking trails that connect to the rail trail. Check out the location of that look-off! I am definitely going back. Anyone up for a steep 4-hour hike?

summer, oh summer, where did you go?

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 09:29:00 +0000

you're living all over me, again.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 18:47:00 +0000

Dinosaur Jr. delivered the frickin' goods at the Marquee Club last night. Although I didn't get to hear my personal fave "The Post," they played what was otherwise as comprehensive a back-catalog ('83-'89) set list as I could have hoped for. I would blather on at length about J Mascis' guitar godhood but haven't you heard it all before? The fact is, though, that it's true.

This little original lineup tour has got to be the best indie-rock reunion in a long time. At least, until next weekend. Chicago, here I come!

I killed the planet.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:32:00 +0000

So, it's Labour Day, and I have a car rented for the weekend, but after two straight days of road trippin' the south shore of Nova Scotia I decided to keep it on the couch for a day. I got halfway through Muslim Societies in African History and somehow segued into watching the football game when it occurred to me that a good use of the rental would be to go fetch myself a burger and poutine from Harvey's. Yeah, seems like a good return on my fifty-dollar investment.

(I sincerely miss Harvey's burgers, I must confess. I still resent the way that McDonald's muscled a veritable Canadian institution off Spring Garden Road, and since I don't own a car, there's really no location anymore that I find convenient. So it's been months since the last time I got my flame-broiled burger on.)

Ten minutes and $8.64 later, the girl was handing me my bag-o-food through the drivethrough window and I thought to myself, "That feels pretty heavy for just a burger and poutine." I continued to wonder about the extra weight as I sat at a traffic light behind a car bumper-stickered "Real Men Love Jesus."

I came home, poured myself a can of Sapporo (what is football, a burger, and poutine without beer?) and opened the magical brown paper bag, instantly solving the mystery. Here is what I found in addition to my burger, poutine, and plastic fork:

3 packets of vinegar
10 (!) packets of ketchup
6 packets of salt
6 packets of pepper

and last, but not least

21 napkins.

That's twenty-one napkins, folks.

Now that we've observed that brief moment of silence for the two trees that went into my meal packaging, I just want to ask... who adds ketchup to their poutine? That's just gross. But really, suppose some of you like a little ketchup with your poutine... who adds ten packages of ketchup to anything?

I have enough condiments now to get me through the next week.

raw fish.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 00:53:00 +0000

Today, ladies and gentlemen, at the age of 36, for the first time in my life, I swam. After working on breathing, kicking with the board, side kicks, treading, all of that stuff, for eight lessons with my instructor, it was time to shed the flutterboard and flotation belt. And so I did, and swam a length unassisted!

What else could I do but head out to Dharma Sushi for a solo celebration dinner that included some top-notch sashimi? Raw fish, c'est moi!

sofa so good

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:51:00 +0000

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a sofa.

Yes, I have finally reached that age where one thinks, "I am a paid professional adult, g.d. it, why am I still living like a student?"

On Friday, my first ever sofa purchase was delivered to my apartment. And the winner is (the very model selected by advisors Rebs and Alison) -- the Grace, by G. Romano, of Montreal.

Props to the inestimable library girl for helping me select the fabric and colour ("claret" red, with black legs).

World Cup Fevah (Toronto day 3&4)

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:11:00 +0000

I'll say this for Toronto—it has to be the best place in the world to be watching the World Cup. (OK, maybe Germany would be cooler. Hi Geoff and Jenny!) If you could be here right now, and see the flags on cars and houses everywhere... it's a festival of nations.

Accordingly, I decided to go on a two-day World Cup crawl, and cheer on some of my favourite teams in the quarter-finals with their own fans.

Friday morning: Germany 1 Argentina 1 (Germany advances on penalty kicks). Franciska and I went down to the film screening room of the Goethe Institute to watch in an alcohol-free setting; the Institute seemed like a civilized way to start the morning. (With the Netherlands' early exit from the tournament, Ciska had switched her allegiance from the mother country to the next best candidate.) Every seat was taken; the available floor space was pretty jammed as well. The German fans were vociferous at times, one of them, seated behind me, providing me with exactly the German-swearword soundtrack that I'd been hoping for, and Germany's comeback goal and dramatic shootout victory provided tense drama with a cathartic conclusion.

Friday afternoon: Italy 3 Ukraine 0. Due to the aforementioned overtime and penalty kicks, we arrived in Little Italy too late to secure seats at Café Diplomatico or Il Gatto Nero, but we instead scored patio seats at the Bella Vista, with a view through the open front portal to the widescreen TV inside. This game was much less dramatic, but with our outdoor seats we could see up, down, and across College Street to the clusters of chanting and singing fans and Italian flags. After the game we walked back up College to the Diplomatico where the celebration (pictured above) was in fullest swing.

Saturday morning: England 0 Portugal 0 (Portugal advances on penalty kicks). I failed to get down to the Duke of Gloucester on Yonge Street in time to get in, but it's just as well that I did; it would have been a harsh experience being with the English fans for such a heartbreaking loss. I continued down Yonge and happened across the Brownstone Cafe, where I sat at the bar, ate brunch, watched the game, and chatted with the waitresses. For the second half, the cafe's English cook (from Liverpool!) got off his morning shift and joined me along with a Portuguese Canadian customer. Their back-and-forth carping was itself worth the price of my meal. The shootout was hard to watch though.

Saturday afternoon: France 1 Brazil 0. Despite my own allegiance to Forza Azzurri I have to confess that this was the most fun yet. The crowd at Zazou was unbelievably raucous, and the chants of "Allez les Bleus!" and "Vive la France!" and "Zizou!" (yes, cheering on Zizou at Zazou) started before the match and continued all game. I found a good conversational partner in a friendly young French man currently working in Toronto. It was really hard to get a clear sightline to the big screen, with people jostling for space by the bar, finding chairs to stand on, and getting shooed off the bar when they tried to hop up on it, but I did, somehow, get a fairly good look at Thierry Henry's spectacular goal. The half hour after the goal seemed to drag on forever (my new friend keeping the time verbally: "quinze minutes! quatorze minutes!"), as everyone hoped and prayed that Les Bleus could somehow hang on. But the French side continued to carry the play, and it was only in the last two minutes that Brazil really threatened—too little too late, and so I found myself in the middle of a huge party that was pouring out into the street. Allez les Bleus!

Buck 65, live at the Opera House (Toronto day 3)

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 12:45:00 +0000

I love how my cell phone turns low-light photos into impressionist art.

Two weeks ago in Halifax I lucked out and got into the "secret" sold-out warm-up show for the current Buck 65 tour; Friday night in T.O. afforded me the opportunity of a second helping. Rich's new backing band "The Beef Medallions" consists of Laura Peek on keyboards and backing vocals (and flute and xylophone), Michael Catano on guitar and drums (simultaneously, on one song), and, on a couple of songs, his partner Claire Berest.

Random notes:

Opening act Kinnie Starr pretty much killed any interest that I would have been able to take in her music by using WAY too much reverb.
A young woman spotted my T-shirt and asked me to explain who Julie Doiron is. Namedropping Eric's Trip and the Wooden Stars didn't seem to help.
Having now heard "Drawing Curtains" twice, once with Laura doing the female vocals part, and once with Claire, I have to be a little objective and state that I much prefer Laura's version.
On this tour Buck has been showing off a song for which he spits at high speed over a piece by Górecki — it blew my mind at the Halifax show and I loved it again in Toronto. The simple fact that he is forced to raise and lower his volume level to accomodate the instrumental track adds a dimension of nuance that one rarely hears in hiphop — dynamics.
Just when you think he can't rap any faster, along comes an encore treat — "Wicked and Weird" at warp speed over a Neu! song.
There's at least a couple of songs where the live instrumentation sounds unmistakably like Yo La Tengo (deliberately so, I've been told); I was time-warping back to my only previous Opera House visit which, oddly enough, was a Yo La Tengo gig, in May 1997. 9 years ago! Gah!

all hail. (Toronto day 2)

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:44:00 +0000

The view out the front door of Balfour Books on College Street. Hailstorm in progress.

This was originally going to be a post about how much I enjoyed just strolling around Toronto today, checking out the Apple Store, Rotate This, Pages, Balfour Books, Moog Music, the Cloak and Dagger pub... all my faves, basically.

Instead, I really just have one thing to say. Those were the biggest motherfreaking hailstones I have ever seen in my motherfreaking life. June 29th. JUNE. Toronto, you are weird.

John Zorn, Acoustic Masada live (Toronto day 1)

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:58:00 +0000

I timed my arrival in Toronto so that I could check out crazed saxophonist John Zorn's Acoustic Masada at the Downtown Jazz Festival, and last night I was repeatedly thanking myself.

(Toronto Life has a good brief explanation of what the project, and this most recent appearance, is about.)

Franciska and I both agreed—listening to John Zorn records would probably drive both of us crazy, but watching him live is better than watching just about any rock band that we can think of. It's all about surprising musicality, wit, and intensity. It's enough to make me wish I lived in New York so I could take in this sort of gig on a regular basis.

From where we were sitting ("orchestra left") we had a better view of trumpeter Dave Douglas than we did of Zorn, but that was just fine... he was amazing, as were Greg Cohen and Joey Baron on stand-up bass and drums.

Zorn!

the most exciting minute of my week.

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:50:00 +0000