Neil Patrick Harris to “Glee”? With Joss Whedon?
If CBS approves, the “How I Met Your Mother” star would reunite with Whedon in a Joss-directed episode of “Glee” that will air during May sweeps. Harris would take part in a song-and-dance number that was written especially for him.
January 22, 2010
January 19, 2010
I’m late to this topic, but I did want to say that I am surprised, and pleased, that Canadians defied the experts and actually noticed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament, even though he did this during the Christmas holidays. And having noticed, that they didn’t like it. His poll numbers have fallen. Anti-prorogation Facebook groups continue to grow. Protests are planned for next weekend.
I also appreciate the journalists who pointed out that apart from the much-publicized goal of evading questions on Afghanistan, and adding Conservatives to the Senate, they are also delaying no less than three commissions probing areas that could prove embarrassing to them, such as campaign spending. It also killed all the bills in currently in progress. While I don’t much care whether that they killed their own fairly dubious crime bills, I do feel kind of bad for those diligent MPs whose private member bills also go back to square one now.
I say this even though I’m aware that it may not make that much difference in the long run. Canadians aren’t warming that much to Ignatieff either, so the next election is still the Conservatives to lose. Heck, they could even get a majority—who knows. Our democratic system has a lot of flaws. But it’s nice that not everyone has completely given up on it, regardless. I think Rick Salutin said it best:
Lorne Gunter says in the National Post that most Canadians today couldn’t tell you if Parliament is in session, and he’s probably right. But most Canadians don’t watch the CBC, either, yet they often want it there, just to prove the country and its culture exist. The same for Parliament: It proves democracy exists. I think most people sense it’s a pile of political pretense that is only minimally democratic, and that elections are what they give us instead of a real democracy in which we’d have a genuine say.
But why shut it down? At least it’s a token acknowledgment of what we deserve. And even as a pile, it is the achievement of centuries of popular political contestation, from the Magna Carta through the Chartists, the Canadian rebellions of 1837-38, the women’s suffrage movement etc. These are historic, if half-assed, victories that ought to be built on, not trampled on.
Canada went to war twice for “democracy.” Today, Canadians come back from Afghanistan dead to protect our democratic values and way of life. Do the Harperites think nobody gives a damn when you defecate all over those values, even if it’s a symbolic defecation over symbolic values and a largely symbolic way of life? Democracy isn’t just practical, it’s aspirational. It’s about trying to exert some control over your life, individually and collectively. Otherwise, what’s the point of a life? People draw a line, maybe more so when it’s about symbols, because once those are gone, there’s nothing left to take pride in and hold out hope for. So don’t treat our Parliament as a piece in your private chess game of power, eh? Show respect.
January 14, 2010
For someone who doesn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, I seem to have a lot of self-improvement efforts going on.
I actually did make a New Year’s resolution once, which I did keep that entire year and beyond: To practice the piano at least once a week. The “piano” in question at that time was my Yamaha digital keyboard, a lovely Christmas present, and a very nice-sounding instrument. But as I practiced, and improved (though never to anything terribly impressive), its limitations became clearer: Not being a full keyboard, meaning I couldn’t play all the notes of certain songs. Not having touch sensitivity, meaning that every note of the entire song had to be at the same volume (unless I borrowed one hand to actually turn down the volume button). Not having a sustain pedal, meaning that I could either set to have every note to sustain in equal amounts, or none of them to.
Well, now all of that is solved with my beautiful new Roland digital grand piano.
But with the cost of that thing (though we did get a nice discount on it), I’d better darn well get back to that weekly (minimum) piano playing.
But, I’m going to have to fit that in with my current efforts to try to get my house in better order. What suddenly motivated me to start sorting through the piles of paper, magazines, newspapers, catalogs, etc. in various parts of my house I have no idea, but there it is. Not that you’d notice anything dramatic yet. But the pile of reading material beside my bed looks semi-reasonable now, and you can actually see much of the top of the coffee table downstairs. And I seem to feel compelled to keep making the piles smaller, or at least more organized.
That somehow recently extended to the DVDs and CDs scattered across the TV cabinet and computer, now all put away—somewhere. Admittedly some are just in Lee Valley Tool boxes on the floor, but that still looks a little tidier. And it led to a discussion of how I really need more open cabinets, because I need to see my CDs and DVDs. Which gradually extended to a discussion redoing the entire downstairs, with me actually participating meaningfully in the discussion. This is unusual for me. I’m not a normal girl, and I don’t generally like thinking about renovating and recorating. But now, in the interest of eventually having more cabinets, plus a more integrated fitness room, plus a big-ass TV, I’m invested. At least theoretically. We now have a plan for designing the downstairs.
OK, so I’m practicing the piano, cleaning up my piles of paper, and planning renovations.
But that all has to fit in with my new fitness plan. Mind you, I was working out before, but what’s new now is exercising with the hubby. About a month ago I became convinced that hubby really needed to exercise more frequently. But after attempts to convince him of this with nothing but intense looks and thoughts proved completely ineffective, I tried a radical approach. I used my words.
To my surprise, he actually agreed. Of course, there were some conditions. No girly activities like yoga, pilates, and dance aerobics. Only manly things like weightlifting, boxing, walking, canoeing, and ballroom dancing. (No sneering. Ballroom dancing is very macho. The man always leads the lady. And she has to wear high heels.)
I was expecting this to be a case of me dragging along reluctant hubby, but he’s turned out to be quite the slave driver himself. Let’s walk longer! No, I don’t need a day off! Heavier weights! Jeez.
Plus, the ballroom dance lessons themselves are somewhat self-improvement-y in another way, in relearning all those dance steps we’ve forgotten. (At least, I sure hope we’ll relearn them.)
OK, so piano practice, dance practice, daily fitness, cleaning up, planning renovations… Might as well eat better too, right? How else will I keep up with all this? So currently, our fruit basket runneth over. Literally.
The most annoying thing is all this happening in January, which culture tells us is supposed to be the month for self-improvement. Which I just hate buying into, because that would make me just like everybody else.
So, these aren’t new year’s resolutions. They are just a bunch of projects and activities that happened to all start around January. I’m in no way trying to become a better, healthier person or anything. Really.
January 9, 2010
Spent some time today reading this thread in Salon -
Inspired by The Onion’s Random Rules feature. Select “Shuffle Songs” from your iPod’s main menu and tell us the first five songs that it plays. No cheating, no skipping embarrassing songs you’d rather not tell us you have on your iPod, and feel free to give some commentary on the songs themselves or how you feel the five songs do or do not work in conjunction with one another.
Considering it was mostly just a very random list of songs, it was fairly interesting. I wasn’t too surprised at the number of people with songs I’d never heard by cool new bands I’d never heard of, because the list of cool new bands I’ve never heard of is just so very long. But I was surprised at the number of people with only classical musical on their iPod. At least, there were only classical pieces amongst their five songs.
Anyway, of course I had to try this. Not that I hadn’t shuffled all songs many times before, but this was the first time for this purpose. Here is what I got:
1. The Kinks – Property
OK, so one of my favorite Kinks songs ever. That’s a good start.
2. I’m a Believer – Smashmouth (from Shrek)
I don’t even know where I got this song from. I like it, though. Not too different from the Monkees’ original.
3. Layla – Eric Clapton (from Live Aid)
I extracted this from the DVD. It’s a lively version.
4. It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night (Live) – Prince
Ooh, iPod bringing in the funk!
5. Flash! U96 (from Queen Dance Traxx)
Oh, I love Queen Dance Traxx! Though I bet the vast majority of Queen fans find it completely appalling. But I love dance versions of Queen songs. This one is basically a dance remix of Flash!, with Freddie and band’s original vocals retained.
(I stopped the pod then, but it was heading into the Classical, with some Schubert.)
Nothing too embarrassing, though if I’m not embarrassed by Queen Dance Traxx, perhaps I’m not embarrassed by much…
January 3, 2010
Since we were once again at Verses on New Year’s Eve, this year’s gourmet dinner we cook ourselves occurred on January 2. (January 1, believe it or not, Jean went canoeing.)
Appetizers
We began with a glass of Ice Cuvée from Peller Estates. This is a Champagne-style sparkling wine (mix of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) that is accented with a bit of Vidal ice wine. The Champagne taste definitely predominates; this is not a sweet drink. But the ice wine does add a nice sweet edge to it. It’s a good starter.
Our first course highlighted wild mushroms. First up was buffalo mozarella with bruschetta of wild mushrooms. This was a recipe by Lucy Waverman, based on an item from Vancouver’s Cibo Trattoria. The bread used was sourdough, a fair amount of fresh garlic was involved, olive oil and balsamic vinegar participated, and the whole thing was topped with pecorino cheese. The result was a lot of flavor, but it all seemed to play nicely together. Though if we tried it again, we might try grating rather than shaving the pecorino.
The wine was going to be a Rodney Strong Pinot Noir, but at the last minute I substituted this John Tyler Pinot Noir that we’d also purchased in California. This is a very small winery, so their wines are unlikely to ever show up in the LCBO. It’s a really nice Pinot. Not quite the wow factors of the Rodney Strong Estate Pinot, but still very smooth, and very good with food.
We also had—unpictured because soup just looks like soup—a wild rice and mushroom soup, recipe courtesy of Alive magazine. This was mostly wild mushrooms with a bit of carrot, onion, celery (I used celery root), with wild rice, cooked in vegetable broth with a bit of red wine. It turned out very nice as well, once seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper.
And both recipes were actually pretty quick and easy to make. Because of the wild rice, though, the soup requires an hour’s cooking time.
Mains
Next up was Pan-Seared Arctic Char with Olives and Potatoes, courtesy of Fine Cooking magazine. Only we couldn’t find arctic char, so we substituted a nice-looking rainbow trout from TJ’s Seafood. This was really a plain simple recipe, where the fish is just salted and peppered and fried in a bit of olive oil, while the potatoes and sliced and boiled for a short time, then also fried, along with Kalamata olives and fresh rosemary. Then it’s all seasoned with balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Proves you don’t need complicated techniques to make great food, because it was delicious.
With this, we served a white Chateauneuf-du-pape that we had brought back from Provence. While I don’t remember being that blown away by this type of wine on that trip, did it ever taste wonderful last night. Very complex, very delicious. Possibly the best of the night.
The one item I’d decided in advance I wanted to attempt this year was duck ravioli. I found the recipe we used just via Google; it was called Duck confit and mashed potato ravioli with white truffle sauce. It wasn’t particularly difficult, but it was time-consuming. You had to make the mashed potatoes, skin the duck confit and chop up the duck meat, crisp up the skin, then warm up the meat and combine it with the potatoes, and stuff everything into won ton wrappers. (And I’m not sure what this was about, but we have a ton of stuffing left!)
The way we manage this meal overall, by the way, is to do as much in advance as possible in the afternoon, then just do the final cooking of each course as we go through the evening. The final touches for duck ravioli are just to boil the raviolis, and make the truffle sauce. Which is just unsalted butter browned and then combined with truffle oil and truffle paste. And you top the raviolis with the previously crisped skin.
As a side dish (we need our veg), we made Jamie Oliver’s sweet and sour squash recipe. This would be from his Cook with Jamie cookbook. It involves chopping the squash into “finger”-sized pieces (not sure food should be compared to body parts), and basically steaming, then frying it with red onion, garlic, thyme, raisins, pine nuts (we had to use almonds), and lots of parsley. The sweet and sour is created with balsamic and white wine vinegar, and sugar.
That was a slightly weird food combo, so we settled on a blended red wine: the 2005 Stratus Red. It’s a pleasant yet complex wine, and probably suited the food as well as anything could.
Dessert
We were pretty proud of ourselves for managing our portions throughout such that there was still room for a modest serving of dessert. (Also, we now have a lot of leftovers—today will be the best leftover day ever!) For this we made Almond-scented chocolate cannoli, using an old recipe from Shape magazine. So it’s a light-ish dessert, with light ricotta and light Cool Whip combined with a bit of almond extract and a few mini chocolates chips and stuffed into a cannoli shell (that we bought; didn’t make).
And on the side, we made Chili Chocolate Truffles, using a recipe from LCBO magazine (Winter 2006). So it’s whipped cream, butter, and bittersweet chocolate flavored with ancho chili power and honey, chilled and rolled in either grated white chocolate or cocoa powder.
These were served with a 2000 Vintage port from Quinta de la Rosa, a lovely smooth drink. The cannolis had a nice cheesy, chocolate, almond taste (as one might expect, I suppose) and the chili in the truffles was very subtle, just giving a slight bite to the sweetness.
December 30, 2009
… And that’s pretty good for me. The key, I’ve found, is trains. And given what’s currently happening at airports, more of us may be taking trains. At least take comfort in knowing it’s good for literacy.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
… even though, I have to confess, two of the three books were consumed in Audible form, on my iPod. That way you can also watch the scenery. And the snow-covered trees were really pretty.
OK, the most important thing about finishing Oryx and Crake is that I’m no longer in the embarassing position of never having read a Margaret Atwood novel. Yes, I know. You’d be amazed at the great authors I’ve yet to read. Though, to be fair, I have tried reading Margaret Atwood before. I just had to give up about a third in, due to incredible lack of enjoyment. (Not even sure what book that was, anymore.)
But Oryx and Crake, I found really interesting. It’s an Apocalyptic future kind of tale, taking place in a globally warmed future where a single remaining homo sapien coexists with “Crakians”, genetically engineered humans who lack humans more destructive impulses. A lot of the realities of the book—the bizarely genetically engineered animal hybrids, the smart technologists locked away in compounds away from the “plebe-lands”, the reliance on medicine to treat everything—seemed somewhat plausible, only a little beyond what is actually going on.
So it was an unpleasant yet somewhat familiar world, and it was fairly engrossing uncovering the mystery of what led to this point.
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell
I had seen and enjoyed the movie, so I got curious about the book, which I did actually read, and without the benefit of train motion. Julie Powell had a blog that covered her efforts to make all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. Though a personal strain (these are not easy recipes), the blog became very popular—ultimately becoming a book, then a movie (obviously).
Watching the movie, I somewhat related to Julie. She and I both like to write about food, for example. She and and I both cook from written recipes (as opposed to just whipping up your own thing, which is a whole other talent). She and I are both in a long-term, childfree marriages to really sweet guys.
And reading the book, I found even more similarities. Like—I kid you not—her total obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the most dire crises of the book is when CBS wants to interview her on the night of the very last Buffy ever!
So part of my brain thinks, geez, why didn’t I think of blogging about making all of Julia Child’s recipes in a year so that I could get a book deal, and a movie deal, and get to write another book?
But then I’m reminded that there are some key differences between Julie and me.
She’s much more open than I about writing about personal, embarrassing stuff, for example. And that is a big part of the charm and appeal of the endeavour, which made it a success.
There’s also the fact that she was really disastified with her secretarial job, and her difficulties in getting pregnant, both necessary fuel for taking on and maintain this crazy project of hers. (Along with occasionally copious amounts of alcohol, cigarettes, and expletives.) Me, I don’t have quite enough angst to take on making boeuf bourgignon until 2:00 in the morning, sustained only by nicotine and rum.
And most particularly… Frankly, I would never do classic French cooking. Reading the book, even more than seeing the movie, made me realize I have no interest in this type of arduous cooking: Digging out bone marrow, making gelatin from a calve’s hoof (seriously! apparently smells like a tannery), chopping up a live lobster (all the parts squirm, it appears), boning an entire duck.
It was fun to read about, though.
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
This was the return trip audiobook. I had downloaded Fahrenheit 451 as well, but that was starting to seem a little too much apocalypse for one trip, so I dug around and stumbled upon this one, the first Sookie Stackhouse mystery. OK, vampire mystery. But the vampires are still incidental, even though I realize this is the second time they’ve been mentioned in this post.
And also, that all three books are from a single individual’s point of view.
Anyway. In this case, the point of view is Sookie Stackhouse’s, a telepathic bar waitress in a world where vampires exist and have just attained legal status. Sookie meets Bill, a vampire who sets her small Southern town a-twitter by deigning to live in it. She’s intrigued because she cannot read his mind; this comes as a major relief. But their path to true romance hits stumbling blocks in the form of the murder of women who have a sweet spot for vampires.
Jean declared this too much of a chick book for him, though not too much for him to listen from start to finish.
I found it diverting enough, but I’m not sure I’m compelled to read any more of these. Sounds a bit weird to say given that the main characters are a vampire and mind reader, but there were more supernatural elements introduced later in the novel than I wanted. Made it a bit harder to believe in the world. Sookie was a fun character, it had some nice sexy bits, and I was curious about the murderer’s identify. But it’s not something I’d say you’d have to go out of your way to read.
(In case anyone was wondering, I haven’t yet seen True Blood, which is apparently based on, but very different from, these novels.)
December 20, 2009
Remember pen pals? I used to have a bunch of them. Back in the days before email, discussion forums, facebook… It was one of the only ways to connect with strangers who lived far away.
And of course, mostly, I didn’t keep in touch with most of them. Some endured for only a couple letter exchanges; others lasted for years. But only a couple have lasted til now (even if more in email form these days): a grade-school friend from Timmins who is now in Edmonton, and Beth.
Beth is from Indiana. We were first matched via Teen Magazine when we were 13. (I just looked that up. Yep, still have all the old letters filed away…) Though contact has been far more sporadic in recent years than in our turbulent teens—despite the ease of email, et al—we have kept in touch all this time. Last weekend, we met for the first time. Because Beth was getting married. (Also for the first time. People keep asking that.)
Getting there
It proved fairly impossible to get there by train, and although plane wasn’t that expensive when leaving from Buffalo, in the end, we decided to drive.
We’d hoped to get away around noon on the Friday, but Jean’s work made that impossible, so it was more around 1:15 when we left. It was also pretty snowy and blowy. Fortunately, we left that type of weather behind us fairly quickly. We crossed the border at Sarnia, and that went well. We were a little ahead of rush hour going through Detroit. And then it just seemed like a lot of Ohio. Not the world’s most interesting state to drive through.
We were trying to arrive in time for a dinner for the out-of-town guests, to have a chance to meet a little bit before the crazyness of the wedding itself. Of course, with the late departure, we weren’t exactly early for dinner. (The predicted driving time of 7 hours proved to be about accurate.) But we did make it while people were still there.
Mind you, Beth wasn’t actually there at that point. That, combined with the name on the door—neither Beth’s nor her fiancé’s—threw us off a little. But then Beth’s Mom Judy recognized me. “You must be Cathy! I’ve been reading your letters for years!”
Thus welcomed, I also met Rick, the fiancé, who seemed like a really great, friendly guy. And not long after, Beth herself. Who was just how I expected her to be, really. And that’s a good thing.
But as noted, late arrival, so the gathering did break up not too much later. We went to check into the same Holiday Inn where most guests were staying, and were quite pleased with the large and bright room. But we were also still hungry, so we went to the Red Lobster across the road. Very friendly waitress, and the food would have been decent, had it not been doused in what seemed like an ocean’s worth of salt. Oh well.
Visiting Richmond
We had most of the day to ourselves before the wedding, so we went to the mall! And did get a few Christmas gifts there. But Jean was soon restless, so we headed into the “historic downtown” to see if that was more interesting. We did stumble upon a really great toy store there and acquired a few more gifts for the nieces, nephews, and friend’s kids. (We were puzzling over our duty-free spending limit, which we later looked up. It’s $400 for being away 48 hours. So no problem.)
Then lunch, for which we’d targeted an Italian restaurant listed under the “fine dining” section for Richmond. It was actually quite good and a really nice space.
Then we went to check out the local museum, which had some interesting items, like a mummy. Jean was particularly taken with the collection of classic cars. (I had no idea electric cars dated so far back. And rotary-dial car phones!)
Then back to the hotel for a bit of time in the hot tub (why is it always so hard to find the dial that controls the agitator for hotel hot tubs? We had to give up for this one) before getting ready for the big event.
The wedding
Wedding ceremony, dinner, and dancing were all co-located at the Country Club, another rather attractive space. Everyone in the wedding party looked lovely. The ceremony was very nice, with a personable minister presiding. My favorite was the quirky touch of having a “best dog” as part of the wedding party. (This is a dog Beth has been sitting for for years.)
There was no arranged seating for dinner, so we took the approach of seeking out a table of others who didn’t seem to know too many people, and asking about sitting with them. That worked out well. We first joined a colleague of Beth’s (from the college) and his wife, who were quite pleasant. Then we were joined by high school friend of Beth’s and her husband: Elaine and Scott. I was more on their side of the table, so ended up talking more with them. She’d managed to keep in touch with Beth since leaving Indiana after high school, but not too much with other high school friends, whom she was hoping to spot. (“I wish they were wearing name tags.”) Husband Scott was a school counselor for grade 3 children. He and Elaine have five children themselves.
Oh, and Scott kind of looked like Johnny Depp, which was interesting. Elaine was quite attractive also. The children must be beautiful.
Anyway, the fine buffet dinner was followed by some of the briefest wedding toasts I’ve ever heard in my life, then the first dance (which Elaine said Beth was really nervous about, but she did fine), then general dancing. D-J was good, playing a variety of music, and Jean and I got to practice the few jive moves we still remember. (We’ve actually signed up for dance classes in the new year, to get some of that refreshed.)
A few more quirky touches I enjoyed: Having jars of various types of candy (tootsie rolls, M&Ms, rock candy, that sort of thing) available for “the kids” to bag—then watching the many “big kids” also indulge once the smaller ones were done. And getting a demonstration of hula-hoop technique from one of Beth’s friends. Quite impressive, actually—though we didn’t quite catch on video.
Eventually I did get to talk to Beth, and her Mom, a bit more, which was good. And I got photographic proof of the meeting:
Heading back
We had taken the Monday off, giving us two days to head back, which was nice. So we had a leisurely departure after breakfast, where we saw Rick and Beth one more time. We’d considered various routes, but finally settled on going back up the same way, through Ohio, but heading in through Windsor this time, in order to visit the Pelee Island region a bit (without actually going on that island).
The drive went fine. No weather issues, and the only somewhat hairy part was finding the border crossing in Detroit. That was complicated a bit by construction, so the GPS instructions couldn’t be followed exactly. Once we’d found ourselves, we were amused by all the signs saying “Following the detour signs; not your GPS instructions.”
We used Billy’s Best Bottles from last year as a guide, and stopped in Amherstburg first. We stayed in a little motel, which was older but fine, and had a really good dinner at a place called Caldwell’s Grant, that specializes in local cuisine. While there we had a moment of concern when Jean’s sister called him on his cell phone, as that was an unusual thing to do. Eventually it turned out that while Jean’s Mom was in hospital, it wasn’t a heart attack as they had feared earlier, but something much less serious. So they wanted to get in touch to basically tell him not to worry. (He also spoke to his Mom.)
(When we did get home, we had 10 messages from various siblings, all fairly vague on the reasons why they were calling…)
The next day we visited some wineries. The first we stopped at was D’Angelo. Though their website said they opened at 10:00, they weren’t open when we got there around 10:45. We later found out we can’t taste wine before 11:00 anyway, though. So no iced Foch for us.
Next, after almost despairing of locating it, we did get to Sanson, which was open. We tried a few wines here, then bought two bottles each of our favorites, which were the Sauvignon Blanc and the Baco Noir. They also had some organic meats on offer, and we bought some of those.
She recommended Viewpointe winery to us, so we went there next. That’s a beautiful site which must be a great place to picnic at in the summer. This time of year, we were the only ones there. We came out of here with four bottles as well: two of the Auxerrois, a white usually used in blends, that has an interesting floral flavor, and the Cabernet Merlot.
Finally, we visited Mastronardi, whose wines we’d enjoyed at Caldwell’s Grant the night before. And here we left with seven bottles: two Gewurtz (in a more off-dry style), two Cabernet Franc, one Merlot, one Syrah (more of a French style), and a very nice sparkling wine.
But that was enough! Next business was lunch, but that proved a bit tricky, as many restaurants are closed on Monday. We finally ended up at a “family” restaurant in Leamington. Though that term tends to make me leery, they actually did a find job of the sandwiches we had. The drive home was a bit dreery with fog, but went fine. We got in around 5:00.
So it was a nice getaway, and although not an intense first meeting, it was good to finally have one after 30 years! Maybe we won’t wait quite so long for the next. (And maybe, just maybe, I’ll even get on Facebook so we can keep in a bit more regular touch that way.)
December 11, 2009
Things I might blog about if I had more time
Posted by cultureguru under Environment, Music, Personal, TravelLeave a Comment
- The perilous nature of cover versions of songs. (That topic’s been simmering for some time.)
- Going to Indiana for the wedding of someone I’ve known for decades, but haven’t actually met in person before.
- The peculiar “war of articles” about global warming going on at the “Green Team” posting board at work.
- One year of Who DVDs.
Maybe next week? Tonight I have a wedding present to wrap!
December 4, 2009
That’s the provocative title on the latest issue of This Magazine.
Of course, they don’t mean everything, everything. There’s no passionate defense of rape and grand theft auto, for example. But it was a good, thought-provoking set of articles.
The most in-depth article was Legalize Hard Drugs. And they do mean hard drugs, not just pot; and they do mean legalize, not just de-criminalize; and they do mean in the sense of being able to go into some LCBO-like entity to pick up your heroin, not having to get a prescription from your doctor. So rather farther than most Canadians would agree to go.
Still, it’s a surprisingly compelling argument. Prohibition hasn’t worked all that well so far. All it’s done is fund the gangs and dealers who make the world more dangerous for everyone. Ounce per ounce, marijuana is more valuable than gold, the article points out—even though it’s a weed. And the only reason it’s that expensive is that it’s illegal.
Money current spent prosecuting and jailing the never-diminishing number of dealers willing to take the risks for profit margins like that could be spend on product quality control, reducing the dangers of the drugs, and addiction treatment and prevention. It’s certainly a queasy-making idea to think of government supplying cocaine, which can bring on an instant heart attack, but they do sell cigarettes, which kill when used as intended. And alcohol, which has damaged many lives. And gambling, which is a terrible addiction problem for many. The line between legal and illegal substances is arbitrary.
But my favorite article was Legalize Music Piracy, because it laid out a plan that apparently has been tossed around for some time, but I hadn’t heard of it before:
- All broadband Internet users who want to share music files would pay an extra monthly fee (estimated at about $3).
- Those users could then download as much music as they wanted, keep it as long as they wanted, and share it with others.
- Fees would be pooled to pay the artists.
- Download stats would be maintained so that the more popular an artist, the greater their share of the fee pool.
Doesn’t that sound perfectly reasonable? Musicians like it. Music fans like it. ISPs are OK with it. The only ones truly and deeply opposed are record companies. And they just haven’t done much to endear themselves to most of us.
November 23, 2009
I have friends who refuse to on some sort of principle to see (or read) some popular culture phenomenon. Harry Potter books and movies. Lord of the Rings books and movies. Titanic. Star Wars. (Although how that particular person managed to have a 70s childhood and 80s teenagehood and still never see Star Wars amazes me to this day.)
Key is that you have never tried to watch or read the thing yourself, and then determined you didn’t like it. No, you just decided, based on what you heard about it, that it wasn’t for you. Then you go to whatever extremes to never see it, no matter how popular.
For me, it’s Twilight. Even its fans admit that the books are, frankly, badly written. Bitch Magazine wrote a scathing overview of it as “abstinence porn”. No movie reviews ever seem to be particular positive. Overall, nothing I want to spend time or money on.
The problem is, though, that because I was a big Buffy fan, a lot of people somehow think that Twilight would be just my cup of tea. I’ve come within a hair’s breadth of getting the DVD as a gift. I keep being asked my opinion of it. It keeps being recommended to me.
Yes, Buffy had vampires, but that hardly means I therefore enjoy everything with vampires in it. I’ve read no Anne Rice, do not watch Vampire Diaries, and have yet to try anything Sookie Stackhouse (though I know it’s supposed to be good, and I may try it at some point). Vampires were frankly, fairly incidental to my enjoyment of Buffy, because Buffy also happened to have great writing, compelling characters, heavy philosophical undertones, and plenty of humour. None of which, from what I can tell, Twilight shares.
So I was particular delighted to come across this YouTube video, wherein Buffy reacts to the stalkerish Edward in the way he deserves:
