Author: Dan Dickinson

"I don't dance with naked soldiers."

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Though Thursday and Friday were supposed to be a short vacation, we actually used them as get-shit-done days. Here’s what we’ve managed so far, the major points anyway:

  • Got my driver’s license and health card renewed in what must surely be the most efficient government-related service experience ever. Ten minutes after entering the Service Ontario office at Bay & College I’d completed both renewals and was on my way home. I was actually a little shocked, and left wondering if I’d done something wrong.
  • Watched all four Wimbledon semi-final matches, or at least parts of them.
  • Went to the distillery district with Nellie (who left work at noon) in search of a hopside down glass (since I broke one) but to no avail. We had a bite to eat and a couple of cold ones at the Mill Street brew pub, and managed to get home without being rained on.
  • Went for a run. Good one too.
  • Watched Passchendaele (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I had really hoped would be good, but it wasn’t. At all. It could have been, but when a movie called Passchendaele spends the majority of its time in Calgary it wastes whatever potential it has.
  • Walked along the waterfront, checked out the new wave deck at the foot of Simcoe, despaired at the putrid wasteland that Queens Quay becomes east of Yonge.
  • Visited the LCBO to pick up some wine for tonight (simple, tasty Cab Sauv from J. Lohr) and a few bottles of the Innis & Gunn Canadian Cask, as recommended on the always-helpful Great Canadian Pubs & Beer blog.
  • Bought a new camera bag for the SX10 at Henry’s.
  • Finished off (more or less) some rearranging we started last weekend. Lots more room now, junk recycled, shelves put up. Time to finally hang that diploma I got last fall.
  • Picked up the new bench for our balcony at Andrew Richard Designs.

Now we’re getting ready to grill some Rowe Farms steaks, maybe watch a movie. It actually feels more like Sunday than Friday…I have to keep reminding myself that we have two more days off!

"Wish safe quick soon mission into next eternity."

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I’ve finished one book and moved on to the next, and in doing so may have wrecked my brain’s transmission.

It was a pretty dramatic shift to finish The Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela (amazon) and start reading Chuck Palahniuk‘s Pygmy (amazon), not only because of the drastically different subject matter, but also because I’ve left the articulate and erudite memoirs of a lawyer and freedom fighter and found myself waist-deep in the bizarre pidgin of Pygmy’s protagonist. Here’s an example from page 2:

“Only one step with foot, operative me to defile security of degenerate American snake next. Den of evil. Hive of corruption. Host family of operative me waiting, host arms elbow bent to flutter fingers in attention of this agent. Host family shouting, arms above with wiggling finger.”

The entire book is like this, every single page…or so I assume. So even though Pygmy’s a fraction of the size of Long Walk, it’ll probably take me just as long to read.

Happy birthday, country

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Twenty-four hours into my mini-vacation and it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet that I’m off work. I think it’ll occur to me tomorrow morning when I don’t have to get up and stumble in to the office.

So yes, I decided to take a five-day weekend. No big plans (as we’ll be taking off to Nova Scotia soon enough), just down-home relaxation. It kicked off last night with a nice little dinner on the patio at Mercatto. Today, to celebrate Canada Day we took in a Jays game (they beat Tampa Bay handily, 5-0, and we finally got to see some home runs) in the beautiful sunshine with the dome open…no rain in sight, despite the forecast.

We kept the sunshine-loving going by camping out on the Bier Markt patio after the game. Neither of us had been there in nine (!) years, even though we live just minutes away. Either the beer selection has improved over the years, or my tastes have developed to the point where I appreciate having half a dozen frosty cold weissbiers from which to choose on a warm summer day. I went Erdinger-Denison’s (in a fit of patriotism)-Weihenstephan. Nellie started with a KLB Raspberry Wheat and then got into the Koningshoeven Tripel. Did I mention it was frosty cold? It was.

Right now I’m listening to A.C. Newman and Elliot Brood and watching Canada Day fireworks bubble and scrape across the city skyline, thanking fate and random circumstance for plopping me down in the greatest country on earth.

Glorious? Check.

Free? Check.

Happy birthday, Canada.

My favourite songs of the year so far (II)

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Back in April I listed my six favourite songs of the year so far:

  • neko case . “middle cyclone”
  • the von bondies . “chancer”
  • dan auerbach . “heartbroken, in disrepair”
  • john frusciante . “unreachable”
  • the heartless bastards . “be so happy”
  • …and you will know us by the trail of dead . “ascending”

Now, a couple of months later, I have a few more for you. If you haven’t heard these, copy and paste them into your favourite music retrieval implement.

  • ume . “the conductor”
  • the thermals . “when i died”
  • william elliott whitmore . “old devils”
  • the yeah yeah yeahs . “heads will roll”
  • …and you will know us by the trail of dead . “fields of coal”
  • japandroids . “heart sweats”

The only unknown right now is whether Grizzly Bear is going to add to this list. Did I miss anything else?

I wonder how many hits I'd get with Naked Lunch, Ethan Frome and Everybody Poops?

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From the Quill & Quire’s blog: bookseller Borders UK is getting into the matchmaking business.

Borders U.K. is hoping that lovelorn literary singles will gravitate to its site to connect with other like-minded readers for some off-the-page encounters. The Bookseller is reporting that Borders’ new online dating service, optimistically dubbed “Happily Ever After,” will successfully match “people who share similar interests and hobbies.”

I think it’s not a bad idea. Things like books and movies and music are nice things to have in common with a romantic partner, and might even be knockout criteria for some. Why not just start from there?

How long before Amazon gets into this? “Hello Dan. We have new recommendations for you. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk, Post-Nothing by The Japandroids and Kate, a brunette from Ottawa who likes Michael Mann films and Wii Sports. Not Dan? Click here.”

The money pit

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The Economist‘s most recent daily chart surprised me. From the blurb accompanying the chart: “Comparisons with other rich countries and within the United States show that its [health-care] system is not only growing at an unsustainable pace, but also provides questionable value for money and dubious medical care.”

This runs counter to what I’d always assumed: that the US federal government spent very little on health care, and that the private consumer spent a great deal. Certainly American citizens pay an enormous amount per person, but their federal funds spent per capita is still the highest in the world, odd considering America is notorious for not having socialized medicine. Why is this?

I don’t know the answer, obviously, but I suspect that treating a necessity of life — medical care — as a for-profit enterprise has led to exorbitant prices. Then, if the government increases federal spending to support the poor, injured veterans and so on, they’re throwing good money after bad.

Does a socialized system help prevent that? Maybe. It’s harder to profit from health-care in, say, Canada or the UK than in the US. But I can see why some Americans are so opposed to more federal dollars going into health-care. If it really is good money after bad, then they have reason to oppose spending more tax dollars on it. But the graph above just shows me even proponents of American health-care reform should be opposed to putting more money into the current system.

The reform being discussed isn’t enough. As long as saving lives is a for-profit concern, Americans won’t get their money’s worth.

You knew it was him

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Maclean’s (who I’ve been going to a lot lately) reviews the new book about John Cazale, and makes it sound very interesting. I might pick it…

Wait, who?

This guy. The guy who only acted in five films, all five of which are considered to be among the best American cinema ever made: The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter.

More than three decades after his death, this unsung talent is now being hailed as one of the most brilliant and influential actors of his generation. Those doing the hailing include Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep, who all worked with Cazale. Their opinion is seconded by younger actors who never knew him but cite him as a crucial influence, notably Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell. These testimonials are part of a remarkable new HBO documentary titled I Knew It Was You, which is showing this week as part of the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.

I noticed his impressive credentials a couple of years ago, but I didn’t grasp the level of respect Cazale still commands among the top actors of his generation.

I feel ashamed that I haven’t seen The Conversation, even though it’s by far the least well known of the five on that list. If you haven’t seen one of the other four, you should hang your head.

"I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack."

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Couple of movies I forget to tell you about:

The Hangover (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was funny. Not smart funny…altogether dumb funny, really. Occasionally over-the-top funny and awkward funny too. But funny nonetheless, and an enjoyable two hours. I’m glad to see Ed Helms get a chance to do something other than Andy Bernard, but I’m worried that Zach Galifianakis is the second (bearded) coming of Chris Farley. I could do without that.

At the other end of the funny scale was Gran Torino (imdb | rotten tomatoes), in which Clint Eastwood rattles off every racist slur and every angry-old-vet cliche possible. All in all I thought the movie was okay, but I’m torn on the decision to use non-actors for the secondary characters. It gave an air of legitimacy to use real kids we’ve never seen before, rather than actors, but it also meant that they were utterly incapable of acting. Better than I could do, sure, but still bad enough to be distracting and pull my brain out of the scenes. Still, worth watching.

Millennials = goddamn phonies

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Spotted at Maclean’s: a NY Times article about today’s teens’ reaction to Catcher In The Rye.

“The Catcher in the Rye,” published in 1951, is still a staple of the high school curriculum, beloved by many teachers who read and reread it in their own youth. The trouble is today’s teenagers. Teachers say young readers just don’t like Holden as much as they used to. What once seemed like courageous truth-telling now strikes many of them as “weird,” “whiny” and “immature.”

…

Julie Johnson, who taught Mr. Salinger’s novel over three decades at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., cited similar reactions. “Holden’s passivity is especially galling and perplexing to many present-day students,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “In general, they do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes; they are more focused on distinguishing themselves in society as it is presently constituted than in trying to change it.”

Amen, today’s teenagers. I didn’t identify with Caufield when I read the book, even though I felt desperately as if I was supposed to. I just wanted to punch him.

Ohmigod, no!! Not the Pusateri's account! For the love of all that's holy! NOT THE PUSATERI'S ACCOUNT!!!!1!

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Two and a half years ago I saw a documentary called Jesus Camp about kids raised by evangelicals and attending religious summer camps where they spoke in tongues and so on. I was impressed by how impartial the filmmakers remained throughout, always leaving the viewer free to interpret what they saw. The result was a film that I, and the entirety of the Toronto-based documentary-going crowd, found both hilarious and horrifying. Audiences in evangelical territories, like the American Midwest, didn’t have an adverse reaction to it…in fact, the filmmakers explained, audiences there loved it. It takes skill for an artist to tell the truth plainly enough that the subjects don’t realize the rest of the world will be aghast when it sees the light of day.

It was this same impressive brand of fine line-walking that graced the cover story of this month’s Toronto Life magazine, written by Sonia Verma. The abstract:

“The money’s running out and they must choose: pull the kids out of private school or fire the gardener; pawn the silver or close the Pusateri’s account; cancel the club memberships or default on the cottage. An inside report on the sacrifices of the nouveau poor”

I’m angry at myself for throwing out my paper copy since TL won’t post most of their magazine content online (Dear editors: the 21st century. Please hear of it.) and I can’t remember the very best quotes, but suffice it to say I was barking with laughter after the Rosedale matron whined about the hardship of having to hide her full Holt Renfrew shopping bags for fear of showing up her friends and neighbours. Not to mention the lady who fretted about irritating her personal shopper when she asked for a discount on a dress that cost thousands of dollars.

The beauty is that this little circle of wealthy, oblivious nimrods actually seem to expect sympathy — or at least empathy — and probably have no idea that 99% of those who read the magazine laughed themselves silly, giving thanks for once that they themselves aren’t rich enough to become this disconnected from reality.