Author: Dan Dickinson

Jack LeStat

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Link dump:

.:.

24 started last night, as everyone now knows. Already it’s totally predictable, and yet I’ll watch the whole season. It’s like watching sports: you watch 60 minutes for the few brief flashes of interesting, compelling action scattered throughout. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

[tags]gdp density, france, smoking ban, the onion, 24[/tags]

The Guns Of August

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I’m currently reading The Guns Of August by Barbara Tuchman, about the run-up to WWI. It’s fascinating reading — more compelling, as a back-cover blurb says, than fiction — and brilliantly written. To understand just how much of war, and so much of subsequent twentieth-century history, rests on nuances of a general’s personality or on pettiness of politicians…it’s frightening and humanizing at once.

After this I think I’ll re-read A Short History Of WWI by Jim Stokesbury (to cover the bulk of the war itself) and then Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan. Then I have to find a WWII equivalent of The Guns Of August; I find the buildup to war the most interesting facet.

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The afore-mentioned Jim Stokesbury was my uncle; a writer and professor of history at Acadia University, husband to my father’s sister, he died over a decade ago following an car accident. I was in university at the time, barely 20 years old. As time goes by I miss him more and more.

I’d only see him once a year, usually; on Boxing Day my father’s side of the family has a reunion, at which the routine is always the same: arrive, catch up with relatives, eat a great deal, and finally play Trivial Pursuit. Jim, being a history professor and a smart man in general, was fearsome at the game; being a sharp wit, he was equally fearsome if he set his mind to teasing you. I never thought of any of my aunts or uncles as being my “favourites”, but I suppose had I he would have been one. He made several model airplanes (building them was his hobby) for me when I was younger, his beautiful house overlooking the Annapolis Valley was always fun to visit, and he was always quick with a dry quip. Even as a kid I admired his mind; most of my childhood was spent trying to be as smart as my brothers and my parents, but for one day a year I’d want desperately to be as smart as my uncle Jim.

Now, as I read The Guns Of August, written in a readable style which surely informed my uncle’s, I find myself missing him more than ever. I want to email him and trade snarky comments about Joffre, or ask him whether the hunt for the Goeben really shaped Middle Eastern events for the next 90 years. I want to see my dad open his latest book on Christmas morning. I want to beat him at Trivial Pursuit.

Now, nearly twelve years after his death, I’d settle for a dry quip.

[tags]the guns of august, paris 1919, james stokesbury[/tags]

"My mother told me to be wary of Fauns."

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Just got home from seeing Pan’s Labyrinth (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a film I’ve wanted to see ever since it got huge buzz at the Toronto film festival. It was, as advertised, Alice In Wonderland for adults: a child’s bizarre, sometimes grotesque visions as she copes with the horror of Spanish civil war. It was a disturbing, fantastic fairy tale; I wish I’d seen it at TIFF when I knew nothing about it.

.:.

Speaking of disturbing, we watched The Downfall (imdb | rotten tomatoes) yesterday, the story of Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker and of those around him, mainly from the perspective of his secretary Traudl Junge. It focused on how wildly erratic Hitler’s grasp of reality (and his tactical sense) was in those final days, as well as how his senior military members acted. Also interesting was how Eva Braun was portrayed; she was quite sympathetic, not the demoness the name tends to conjure. Anyway, we know how it all turned out — lots of cyanide pills and gunshot wounds — but it was a very interesting look at the final days of people at the whim of a madman, the only one among them not aware that the hounds are at the door.

As a side note: I wonder how tough it must be for German actors to put on as SS uniform, do a Nazi saulte and say, “Heil Hitler”. I guess they’re actors, and it’s what they’re paid to do, but man…I don’t know if I could dress up like Hermann Goering and recite lines about the superiority of the master race.

.:.

Other things we did today: got a much-needed haircut, got Nellie a 30GB Zen Vision M (pink, naturally), picked up a couple of DVDs (Brokeback Mountain & Good Night And Good Luck), tried to buy a TV (but were unsuccessful), watched the Senators demolish the Canadiens, finished updating my Shelfari collection, watched a bunch of shows on the PVR…and that’s pretty much it.

[tags]pan’s labyrinth, the downfall, hitler, traudl junge, zen vision m, shelfari[/tags]

Jesus Camp

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Two nights ago we saw Jesus Camp (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the Bloor cinema, part of Doc Soup. Though it’s been out in the US for a while, these were (I believe) the first screenings in Canada. It was a look at how a few factions of the evangelical movement in America are indoctrinating (I honestly can’t think of a more accurate — or less loaded — word there) their children. The sight of kids & their parents speaking in tongues, convulsing with the holy spirit and praising president Bush had predictable results, given the crowd & locale, but the filmmakers did a remarkable job of staying balanced. Personally, I swung from mild amusement (natural, any time you point a camera at someone, especially kids) to laughing incredulously, to completely disgusted. The scene where the minister condemns Harry Potter, saying that warlocks would have been executed in the old testament, was absurd. The scene where the home-schooled kids (75% of home-schooled kids are evangelicals) are taught that God is the only answer that makes sense was mind-boggling. The scene where the children are given a tiny fetus figuring and made to chant, “Righteous judges! Righteous judges!” was disturbing. The scene where Ted Haggard calls a little boy “cute” was just creepy.

However, as one of the filmmakers pointed out afterward, these people have the right to teach their children whatever they like. There are reportedly tens of million evangelicals in the US, so this is hardly a fringe movement, as bizarre as it seems. The kids are doing what they feel is righteous, and the minister featured in the film is doing what she feels will help the children she works with. However far away their views may be from my own, I can’t begrudge them following a cause they believe in. What did bother me was the feeling I couldn’t shake that these kids were being a) exploited and b) deceived. The minister herself admitted that she went after the kids precisely because they’re so impressionable and easily led. And while, as I said before, parents have the legal right to deceive their children, I think it’s their moral responsibility to ensure they’re not doing so. By letting their kids be co-opted for a political cause (regardless of whether you consider evangelicals aligned with the Republican party) I felt they’d betrayed their kids.

My mother is a dedicated member of her church, even acting as a member of the presbytery in her province. She’s as committed to doing good through the church as anyone I’ve met (who isn’t ordained). And yet, I truly believe that if my mother were to watch this film she would weep.

[tags]jesus camp[/tags]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww [cough, cough] wwwwwwwwwwwww…

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These pictures actually blew the fuse in my brain marked “cute”.

[via chromewaves]

.:.

BlogTO found themselves a hand dryer to end all arguments (about, um, hand dryers). I know of only one other place with hand dryers that actually ripple your skin: Champlain Place. My dad and I almost had our arms ripped out of our sockets while doing some xmas shopping.

[tags]cute animals, severe hand dryers[/tags]

That copy of The Da Vinci Code? Not mine.

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My latest obsession: Shelfari. I’m slowly inputting my collection. The best part is how it shows you how many other people have the same books as you, and lets you browse their collections (or even chat with them) for recommendations. I told my brother about it too, and he’s got a shelf or two of his own.

Hat tip: Duarte.

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I’ve finally finished watching loudQUIETloud (imdb | rotten tomatoes) after squeezing bits of it into many lunch hours. It was great to see that even bands who have as massive an impact on music as The Pixies did are made up of screwy individuals. David Lovering and his metal detector? Frank Black and his self-help tapes? Joey Santiago not recognizing his own baby? Kim Deal…full stop? Awesome, all of it; it reminded me that dorky people can be influential too.

By the way, I swear I have a different favourite Pixies song every day, depending on which one I heard last. Today it’s “Caribou”.

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Google Reader has added user stats, which is piles o’ fun for a geek like me. Apparently in the last 30 days I’ve read 11,672 news items, or 389 a day. That’s probably a bit less than I’d usually do as there were a few days over the holidays when I didn’t read any, and just had to blow the items away. 400 a day sounds about right. I don’t read all of those, obviously; I skim the headlines and mark the ones I want to read.

[EDIT] That 400 doesn’t include the 300 or so I read for work each day.
[tags]shelfari, loudquietloud, pixies, google reader[/tags]

Extrapolation

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I’ve listened to “Intervention” by the Arcade Fire a dozen times in the past few weeks. I could listen a dozen more. Can the rest of Neon Bible be that good?

God help us if it is.

[UPDATE] “Black Mirror”, another song from Neon Bible, is damn good; while not quite as good as “Intervention”, it makes the score 2 for 2. Hear it for yourself.
[tags]arcade fire, neon bible[/tags]

Winter my licious

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I’ve noticed a spike in the amount of junk mail arriving in my (paper) mail box over the past week or so. It seems to be mainly flyers for two things: gyms and junk food.

The eternal struggle continues.

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We made our winterlicious picks today: 1055, Canoe and Savoy with T-Bone, and Jump with another friend. We start the night I get back from my stats course and end shortly before Nellie’s birthday dinner. It’ll be a fortnight of decadence, without a doubt.

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This movie looks horribly inappropriate. I can’t wait to see it. Super bonus points for using a Black Keys song.

Any bets on the Oscar for best song going to “It’s Hard Out Here For A Nympho”?

[tags]junk mail, gyms, junk food, winterlicious, black snake moan[/tags]