At My Soiree

Veuve Clicquot and Terroir in Blueberries

2012-01-30T11:41:00.000-08:00

If terroir is expressed in wine, coffee, and tea, why not in blueberries - and potatoes and kumquats for that matter.

Argentinian blueberries have, I am certain, a distinctive and charming terroir - an ever-so- slight lavender flavour. I hesitate to admit to buying Argentinian blueberries in winter in northern Canada, what with the energy involved to get them here, but I succumbed and discovered something wonderful.

Wanting to repeat the experience, I purchased more without looking at the label and found myself with Chilean blueberries instead. I'm sure they were the same variety, but the flavour was disappointingly different. I froze them for baking.

The Veuve Clicquot was the half bottle we purchased for New Year's Eve and didn't quite get to - we barely managed to see in the New Year, but Champagne was not in the cards.

The result of our New Year's "libation fail" was lemon blueberry cake accompanied by the Champagne. Sometimes such unplanned pairings become an event in themselves, so much so that all the Champagne and a goodly portion of the cake are gone. And a very pleasant past Saturday evening it was, too.

While I am convinced there is a discernible terroir in blueberries, I am also certain that it does not survive being baked in a cake.

So for my next pairing of Veuve Clicquot and blueberries, I would like to have Argentinian blueberries au natural with the Champagne and, as good as it was, forget the cake. Perhaps a trip to Argentina is in order!

Artists, Motives, and Morality

2012-01-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

After reading an excellent post, at ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly, about Oscar Wilde's involvement in France's notorious Dreyfus Affair, I decided to re-post this entry from August 2009. I have long been intrigued by our relationship with artists and by our expectations about them as moral (or otherwise) people.

In 1991, when Woody Allen began a relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow (his long-time romantic partner), the media erupted with commentary for and against his morality. Some said that they would never again patronize any of his films; others made a special case for him because "artists are different," and we overlook transgressions because of what their art gives to us.

An even more heated debate about artists, their morality, and their contributions to the world, arose when Roman Polanski was arrested in 2009, decades after fleeing to avoid sentencing in a case of having forced sex with a minor - to which he had pled guilty. The same arguments circulated.

Hels' post about Oscar Wilde discusses two books about Wilde's involvement in the Dreyfus Affair, particularly about his motives, and it reminded me of this question about artists that surfaces again and again.

Here is the original post:

In October 1984, I saw an exhibit of Hitler's watercolours at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

I then knew nothing about Hitler as an artist and was shocked by the fact that he painted anything at all. The paintings were decent, some better than decent, and some were quite pretty, especially those of great architecture in landscape settings.

I would forget for a time that the paintings were done by Hitler and simply appreciate them; then with a mental start, I would remember whose work it was and feel guilty for enjoying it. At times, I was dual-minded, a critic watching myself enjoying the art of an evil madman.

It was one of those odd moments that stay with a person always.

Spiegel Online International has Ulrike Knofel's interview with German art historian Birgit Schwarz: "The Fuhrer's Obsession with Art."

Schwarz is an expert on Hitler's relationship with art and sees Hitler's obsession with art as part of his view of himself as a genius, and vice versa. She further connects his political and racial evils with his belief in himself as a genius - an idea of genius from the 19th century:

We define a genius on the basis of his talent. At the time, talent was not the main focus. A genius had to have a strong personality. He was a larger-than-life talent who was permitted to do anything, including evil things. The genius has outstanding ideas, and they must be implemented, even if they are completely amoral. Hitler admired the work of dour philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Unlike many other historians and biographers who see the artist almost as footnote to the monster, Schwarz sees Hitler's ideas about himself as an artist as fundamental to his persona and actions as Der Fuhrer.

Schwarz has written "Geniewahn: Hitler und die Kunst" (Delusions of Genius: Hitler and Art) about these connections.

___________________________________________________

The connections between artists and morality, between what society expects of us mere mortals as differentiated from what it expects, at times, from artists is a complex and fascinating question. Hels' post has added another dimension and another artist to my "collection."

A Real Northerner

2012-01-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

Over the last twenty years, I have become a real northerner.

When I first moved north from Vancouver, I watched the weather channel every day with growing trepidation as October morning temperatures slid into the minus range. When it hit minus 4, I really bundled up for the eight-minute walk to work - leggings under jeans, down-filled jacket, scarf, and mittens. I sprinted to work so as not to freeze to death on the way (that's how it felt).

My colleagues were practically rolling on the floor laughing at me and wondered just what I would do when it was minus 40. Truth be told, I almost couldn't comprehend weather that cold. What would I do?

I took a lot of taxis during my first winter in the north and invested in an extra long, extra downy coat, heavier mittens, woollen scarves, and, something I hadn't worn in winter since childhood - a hat. On the day after Boxing Day, it was minus 44 without windchill! Spring seemed so very far away.

A few days ago, the temperature was minus 33 in the morning (and probably rose to a "balmy" minus 29 later in the day). I still have not completely gotten over the bit of fear that accompanies such low temperatures - what if I become stranded and freeze?

But, it's workable, with cars plugged in overnight and warm clothes. Sometimes, it's this cold, and colder, periodically from November through March. We carry on.

I knew that my transformation to true northerner was complete when the early morning temperature on Thursday was ONLY minus 23. I felt real relief and happiness that it had warmed up!

Today it was minus 7 (with the heavy snow that always accompanies the rising temperature) - no leggings, no heavy coat, no scarf, and no hat. Just relief that it was warm.

How things have changed.

top photo credit - http://www.insidestl.com/Portals/0/ladies/220_Bundled.jpg

Handy Hoarwall

2012-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, what begins as a joke ends up as a good workout in Photoshop and begets another image into the bargain.

So, without further ado:

I never did get the above image quite right; it's a work in progress, but I am pleased with the "test" image created in trying to work things out.

Peppers Al Fresco

And on we go.

3 Metaphors to Live By

2012-01-10T17:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most applicable to daily life. Three of the most useful to me come by way of my husband, the airline industry, and Buddhism. Each functions literally, and each one works metaphorically for many situations in this life.

The first is from my husband. Pick your speed and drive at that speed; if drivers are slower, pass them; if others are faster, they can pass.

We seem to get into odd competitions over many things and often with little logic. Some have to do with speed - how fast one can complete a task like lawn mowing, ironing, writing a report. Others, like how many hours to sleep, or what financial priorities should be, or what party to vote for can be the subject of dispute, not to mention the target of advertising.

It's not that we cannot be swayed by new and better information regarding our "speed" in life, or that we should choose anything which would endanger others or be illegal; rather it's that the competitions and discussions arising from personal differences often take on epic proportions and have little to do with facts. Simply "driving at one's own speed" without argument, judgement, or discussion works awfully well.

The second idea to live by comes from the airline industry. If the need arises, put on your own oxygen mask first, then assist others with theirs.

We tend to feel selfish if we help ourselves first; how could a parent take care of his or her own breathing, leaving a child possibly to suffer, or worse. We are told this on airplanes because children and others less able need us to be okay, so we can help them.

People pleasers and those who take on too much for others would do well to follow this advice. If they make themselves sick from overwork, they won't be of any help to anyone and most likely will make things worse. We have to be able to breathe in order to be able to make sure others can.

The third idea is the teaching tale called the empty boat, from Buddhist tradition. In this story, a man is in a boat on a river, and another boat begins to careen wildly toward him. As the boat increases speed and zeroes in on the man, he waves his arms, swears, yells, and becomes very angry with the driver of the other boat. He wonders who would want to kill him and how anyone could behave like that; he gets himself very worked up. As the boat narrowly misses him, he sees that it is a driver-less boat. His upset with the other driver was moot. Buddhist tradition does not mention anything about blood pressure!

There is a stretch of road near my home that changes from two lanes to one after an intersection. For blocks before that intersection, drivers jockey for position, wanting to be first in the single lane. I used to get caught up in this sometimes, until I began to notice how often the other driver turned off and wasn't aiming to beat me to the intersection at all. "Empty boat," I would say to myself. One has to be so foolish only a few times before the "empty boat" comes to the rescue.

The book All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum preceded me by a couple of decades with the idea that some of the best advice for living comes from very basic situations. These three work for me.

Anchors Aweigh

2012-01-03T14:55:00.001-08:00

January 1, 2012 was my first day of retirement. Even though it was a right and well-timed decision, I had wondered just exactly what I would feel on that first morning, the point from which everything could or would change.

I am happy to say that I had no panic, no ringing reverberations that I had made the wrong decision. As I awoke, the first thing that popped into my mind was that I was unmoored.

I was intrigued about the reason for that particular word. Why "unmoored"? Why not "untethered," or "afloat," or "adrift"? They all denote similar conditions.

Metaphor is at work here, as is connotation.

Work had made me feel tethered for a good while - an animal tied and restricted to a limited radius. But a sense of the rope and the fixed point around which it circles remains in the word "untethered."
Whoever owns the animal controls both tethering and untethering. So, while I was tethered then, now I am simply free.

Being tied to work limits the radius of pretty much all of one's activities: when and where to travel, when to do the laundry, when to get up, when to go to sleep, when to eat and drink, when to shop. And though I am unlikely to take up street hockey on Wednesdays or start doing laundry at 3:00 A.M., every routine, every activity is free from the considerations of how it will fit with the demands of work.

If I do not feel untethered, neither do I feel adrift. To me, the word "adrift" has a slightly negative connotation. A ship adrift on the ocean implies that there is no choice - there is no option of simply raising a sail or starting an engine. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner was adrift. Retirement definitely does not feel like an albatross of no choices.

The word "afloat" feels as ever so slightly positive as "adrift" feels negative. It carries with it the definitions of being "in full swing" and "out of debt." Sounds good to me. But still there is a sense of drifting, rudderless and powerless.

"Unmoored" is exactly right. The word has two nautical meanings, both of which apply. Simply being set free of moorings is one meaning. Reducing mooring to only one anchor is the other. So here I am - free of the moorings of work, yet still anchored in life. Whenever I choose to raise that one anchor (or let it down again), I can choose direction and speed, or to just float for a bit.

Anchors aweigh!

(photo credit - http://mysailingadventures.blogspot.com/2009/11/big-fright.html)

Merry Christmas

2011-12-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's difficult to choose a favourite version, but this one is gorgeous.

I'm hoping to be back with many new posts in the New Year.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Ice Photos and Other Productions

2011-10-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

In our busy lives, it is too easy to forget to include time for creative play. Fortunately, the opportunities sometimes find us, and the results surprise and rejuvenate.

I had the pleasure of participating in a photography workshop put on by photographer Matthew Wheeler in September, titled Breaking the Rules - Letting Chance Happen.

Wheeler's gallery show The Glacial Lens is the result of years of photography using ice as a filter, one that allows the photographer to follow the ever-changing image as the ice melts. Every image is different and unexpected, as each piece of ice melts in its own idiosyncratic way. Wheeler's results are quite wonderful.

For the workshop, Wheeler set up an array of items for us to experiment with - ice, of course, mirrors, kaleidoscopes, coloured see-through paper (which I'm sure has its own correct term!), cd's as frame, mirrored balls and disks, and all manner of things to fold, scrunch, and twirl.

We were let loose to wander, invent, and experiment for close to three hours and then present our show for the other participants to see. The results were astonishing and dramatic..

Since switching fully to digital, I have become used to playing around with Photoshop, having fun with post-production. The workshop was all pre-production, and reminded me very much of what I liked about film photography.

Here are some of my favourite images from the over 100 I made:

coloured plastic disks under ice

ceiling/skylight reflection in red see-through paper

ice chunk on gold foil paper

"found" image on concrete post outside - no filters

At the end of the session, I walked outside into the bright sunlight and had quite an intense feeling that I was re-surfacing, re-entering the ordinary world from someplace else where I had been totally and creatively engaged. Note to self : Do this more often!

HELLO EVERYONE

2011-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

I have been absent since July, but haven't given up on At My Soiree. Many things contributed to my temporary hiatus. I have returned to the classroom after a long absence - sabbatical and two sick leaves for hip replacement and am finding it a struggle. My husband and I have both announced our retirement for the end of December (I'm trying not to count down, but am doing so anyway!). Am also nursing a sick cat through what is likely her last weeks, so feel kind of blue.

I just haven't had anything to say; it's too true that writing generates ideas. Mostly, I haven't been keeping up with your blogs either.

Earlier, I was planning a more substantial post to say hello, but we have spent the day without water as we were having a plumbing problem fixed. C'est la vie.

I will be back, I hope before the New Year. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around.

Let Them Eat Lobster!

2011-07-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

I am "lobstered out" for the time being at least, having been in New Brunswick on vacation and (over)indulging - lobster rolls, salad, cracked right out of the shell - in one of the Maritimes' most delicious staples. Not the cheapest dining alternative, but entirely worth it.

It wasn't always so.

Older Maritimers who have lived there for decades remember a time when lobster was significantly cheaper than bologna. The crustacean was so plentiful, the story goes, that one could snag one with a handheld hook right out of the city harbour. Bologna, on the other hand, was processed and unavailable directly from the environment, hence costing more. Trendier as well, I'd guess.

Kids felt ostracized, bored, and sated because their brown-bag lunches consisted of lobster sandwiches for days on end - "Not lobster again!" Many families were just too poor to afford anything other than what nature abundantly offered.

How times have changed!

Lobster no longer clogs the harbour. Bologna has lost its cachet as a choice of the more financially flush, in addition to being processed with heaven only knows what, together with lots of salt. We now generally think more highly of foodstuffs coming directly from nature than we do of manufactured ones. Processed food is now cheaper.

And perhaps our tastes have matured. Or perhaps they haven't entirely. After so much lobster, I could really go for a childhood favourite - bologna on white bread with corn relish!

European Horrors

2011-06-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

It must be exceedingly difficult to write a book on the genocides perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin, genocides in which the Holocaust has a part, but genocides which are different and independent from it. The historian- writer must honour the Holocaust, but must include or exclude its importance as the material demands. A tough job for even the best.

James Kirchuk has reviewed a book that he believes has done this successfully. In "The Butchery of Hitler and Stalin," Kirchuk reviews Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder.

Snyder’s aim is to place the Holocaust within the context of this era of mass killing. He does so by focusing on the region he terms the “bloodlands,” the territories that fell under both German and Soviet occupation between 1933 and 1945 and were the main theaters of those regimes’ policies of non-combat-related mass murder. The era of the bloodlands commences with the Ukrainian famine, is followed by Stalin’s Great Terror of 1937–1938, continues with the combined German and Soviet mass murder of Poles during the short-lived period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the German starvation of Soviet citizens across present-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and ends with the German “reprisal” killings of Belarusians and Poles. All told, some fourteen million people are estimated to have died as a result of these atrocities...

This map is earlier than the time in question, but shows clearly the "bloodlands" encompassing Poland and the Ukraine.

According to Kirchuk, Snyder avoids rhetorical moves that writers, politicians, revisionists, and Holocaust "diminishers" have and do employ.

First, is the argument people use when they want to diminish the severity, occurrence, and seriousness of a problem. It goes something like this: Women should not campaign for an end to domestic abuse, because some husbands are abused as well; Canadian-Japanese should forget about apology and reparation because homeless men in Saskatchewan were conscripted and sent overseas during WWII and no one is asking for the same for them (this is almost verbatim as I heard it). With the Holocaust, the argument is often similar: other peoples were massacred in huge numbers, so the Holocaust doesn't deserve so much discussion. But severe social problems and atrocities don't cancel each other out; they are all deserving of humanity's attention.

The other rhetorical move is much more widespread and subtle (and much harder to argue against!).
Kirchick quotes Snyder:

Without diminishing the enormity of the Holocaust, Snyder dissents from those writers who argue that it is its very enormity that renders it inexplicable. “To dismiss the Nazis or the Soviets as beyond human concern or historical understanding is to fall into their moral trap,” he writes.

As I read this, I am reminded of other tragic, albeit far less enormous, events that humanity has dealt with and processed. The Montreal Massacre in1989; the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, and the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, - in addition to all the serial killings, child kidnappings, and anything else that seems beyond what we can endure.

At the time of the Montreal Massacre, there was much debate about the nature of such killers and woman-haters as Marc Lepine. Some saw him as a monster and mutant, a crazy person who had no relation to other normal human beings. Some saw him as extreme, but still on the continuum of human behaviour, a product of misogynistic attitudes in the general population.

As much as we may not like it, to see these people as monsters beyond humanity is to push away scrutiny of deep social problems and hatred of the other. I believe that when we put the perpetrators of such enormous and awful deeds "beyond human concern or historical understanding," we extinguish any hope for an explanation that will help us to understand and possibly avoid such events in the future.

Of course, it's true that most of us would not do such things, and we rightly wonder how anyone could. Our investigations and questions would be well placed if we asked what there is in our human nature and our human societies that creates such extreme, but human, actions.

I don't know whether I will read Snyder's book or not: Kirchuk says that he had to shut the book at times to avoid the overload of so much human misery. I am glad that he read it though, and that he wrote such a detailed and good review.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

Of the many lasting gifts my parents have given to me, my love of reading and literature is the most satisfying, intellectually stimulating, and even lucrative, as it led to my profession. My parents raised a reader long before it was a popular campaign with big name advocates.

My Dad was the major reader when I was very young, but both my parents shared the effort - and I'm sure the sessions of Doctor Dan or "The White Bed That Ran Away" became somewhat of an effort after the first six hundred or so repetitions!

So Happy Father's Day to my Dad. And thanks to both my parents for raising a reader.

Hockey Fever, Hatred, and Violence

2011-06-14T11:18:00.001-07:00

Perhaps because my favourite hockey team has not been in the NHL Stanley Cup final since 1994, I was not paying attention to the level of illogical hatred that passes for sports rivalry, especially at this the very top level.

I have been surprised and chagrined by the vitriol in the press from sports writers, commenters, and even the NHL players themselves. One of my family members, opinionated but usually not so extreme, has fallen into a kind of bitter hatred for the Vancouver Canucks that doesn't make any sense.

There have been violent incidents; the Boston Swat team was out for last night's game; some Boston restaurants wouldn't serve the Canucks. Fans, generally, of professional sports have been beaten and "befouled," and worse by other teams' fans over many years. The list in Wikipedia of incidents shows an enormous increase in violent events in the last ten years (although this could be a matter of reporting, definition, or both and not an actual increase).

The crazier arguments I have heard are that 1) British Columbia isn't really part of Canada - this generally from writers and commenters east of Winnipeg. I was truly surprised to hear this, as my passport clearly is a Canadian one, issued by the Canadian government. Maybe British Columbians don't "do" Canadian in a way acceptable to eastern sports writers and their fans, but that hardly makes the argument true. I suspect this comes largely from long held disappointment about the dismal record of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

2) The "not Canadian" argument often is accompanied by the claim that the Boston Bruins are more Canadian than the Canucks because of the high percentage of Canadians on the team. Without knowing the facts, I suspect this is true for many NHL teams. The Vancouver Canucks are, of course, a Canadian franchise based in Canada. The Boston Bruins are an American franchise based in the United States - that this needs stating defies logic!

NHL players are professional; they play for the glory of the team they work for, not for the glory of the country of their citizenship. People who find this disturbing should confine themselves to watching Olympic hockey, where players play only for their own nation.

3) Another argument I have heard is about the terrible violence perpetrated by the Canuck players. There are incidents in any professional hockey game of what can be called "violence." Canucks included. But isolated incidents do not a history make. The Canucks have one of the cleanest records in the league, preferring to score goals against the other team after the opponent's goons make a questionable hit, rather than retaliate in kind.

4) Some claim that the Canucks are simply not such a good team, yet they won the 2011 President's Cup!

I have not really paid much attention to the physical or verbal violence in sports surrounding the various finals and series for title of the best in the game. Now that it is close to home, I am appalled by the hatred and the kinds of comments that people are actually willing to make in public.

I'll be glad when the Stanley Cup final is over, regardless who wins it. Boston is a good team. I just happen to be a Canucks' fan.

Go Canucks!

Backlit Glory

2011-06-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

One of the few literary arguments my husband and I have is about the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I love Hopkins' "sprung rhythm" and the powerful language that recalls Anglo-Saxon poetry. My husband jokes that teaching Hopkins (which I do often) should be grounds for dismissal, such is his dislike.

As I drove in the driveway this morning, some tulips in my garden were wonderfully backlit. I just had to take these photos. When I put them up on the computer, lines from Hopkins came to me unbidden from his poem "God's Grandeur":

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like the shining from shook foil...

For me, any poet's words that come to mind in the face of such natural spectacle must not be so bad.

Spitting Mad

2011-05-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Joint replacement patients, even those under 65, have surgery because they cannot sit, stand, lie down, walk, bend, sleep, work, and do everyday activities without extreme, sharp, often grinding, usually unrelenting pain.

As the disease worsens, pain killers work only in the amount suitable for a large horse and often at the expense of consciousness.

I have just read an Associated Press article that characterizes joint replacement patients as whining boomers who demand surgery only to be able to exercise as if they were still forty and to deny aging. The article suggests that they should all accept their pain and limited mobility as a normal part of aging, shut up and use canes, and suck it up as many in previous generations have done when faced with the same limitations.

The article is wrong on so many counts, at best misleading, at worst unethical. First, I fully acknowledge that some do and are exactly as the article claims. The author found them, quoted them, wrote what doctors and others actually think about them. Beyond that...

The article leaves the distinct impression that this is the true and only "face" of joint replacement. Once the ugly truth of these unrealistic boomers is revealed, the next step is easy. Why feel sympathy for their suffering? They are vain and out of touch, after all, self-absorbed and putting too much stress on already limited resources. (There's a familiar theme here.)

The article attributes the need for joint replacement only to obesity, the desire for youth, or the refusal to endure minor discomfort. Obesity rates do not account for all the surgeries, so "fix-me-itis"(as one surgeon calls it) must account for the balance.

Nowhere does the article discuss osteoarthritis as a degenerative disease with many possible causes, many not at all in the sufferer's control. Age alone is not one of the major causes; many seniors well into their eighties and nineties do not have the condition.

The argument to simply endure as previous generations did is ludicrous. Most previous generations didn't have the option of joint replacement.The first ones were done in the late forties. At best, boomers' parents and some of their grandparents could have had the surgery - many have. Our ancestors endured the severe pain and limitation because they had no other choice.

We have choices, but we need more research. As the article points out, we just don't know how more active recipients of joint replacement will fare over the years.

The best way to ensure the reduction of this version human suffering is to treat it with a procedure that we know works. Another false picture of selfish, entitled boomers whose suffering we either discredit or deny doesn't help anyone.

And, as the article points out, for whatever reason, candidates for joint replacement are getting younger every year, so eventually we will need some other rationale than that of fitness-driven boomers.

Persephone in the Yard

2011-04-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

Every spring, the branches of certain shrubs and bushes turn a vibrant purple during the time just before new shoots appear. Sometimes whole hillsides of trees present a blanket of deep, vegetative purple.

That display is Persephone returning from Hades, the Lord (and place) of the Underworld, to be reunited with her mother Demeter. It is the return of spring, leading to new growth and eventually harvest, at which time Persephone must return to Hades. It is one myth of the origin of the seasons.

This is only one of the Greek myths involving Persephone/Kore/Proserpine. Like most myths, even from one geographical area, there are differences, adaptations, and blendings of traditions, as one age or religion gives way to another. The artistic license of many singers/poets creates another layer of details.

Add to that all the people, places, cultures, religions, and storytelling traditions from "everywhen" and everywhere, and a simple desire to know which was first and original quickly becomes insurmountable. As I learned more, it all happily became richer, deeper, more complex, and entirely more interesting.

Still, I have my personal favourites, and every spring when that wonderful purple signals Persephone's yearly return from the underworld, I know this is mine for the origin of seasons.

Art is the Thing

2011-03-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

Our scientific understanding of sound frequencies, musical instruments, and analog and digital technologies for conveying sound waves does not ever fully explain a Mozart piano concerto, nor does our understanding of music theory.

Neuroscience does not explain the piano concerto, and it does not ever fully explain the writings of Shakespeare. But because neuroscience is the newest kid on the block and has a trendy cachet, some believe it can explain Hamlet and all other art in ways that will fundamentally alter our understanding.

But I don't believe it.

Morgan Meis's article "This Is Your Brain on Art," in The Smart Set (March 17/11) discusses these issues in his review of V.S. Ramachandran's book The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for what Makes Us Human. The article is well written and a balanced discussion, although Meis at least somewhat believes that the findings of neuroscience will deeply shift our relationship with art.

In his review, Meis points out that Ramachandran does not claim to explain the ultimate meaning of art, just that "making art and appreciating art seems [sic] to be universal in the human species" :

Neuroscience is not meant to replace other standpoints from which we appreciate and analyze art. Ramachandran thinks, in general, that neuroscience can make significant contributions to aesthetics without otherwise encroaching on the humanities. Our love of Shakespeare, he argues, is not diminished by our understanding of universal grammar.

Ramachandran gets it because he understands the science and understands its limits, but so many non-scientists want to base every field of study and area of human endeavour on neuroscience. So we have brain-based Shakespeare, brain-based leadership, brain-based art history, brain-based relationships, etc., etc., etc....

Individually, it is a personal choice to base one's life on misunderstood science written about in popular culture, but we shouldn't rush to re-write social policy and whole academic disciplines based on it. (I've written about this in literary studies; there is a trend towards neuroscience as full explanation of literature.)

I believe that our relationship with art is not most importantly about hard-wiring and synapses, that is about the material. The importance of our relationship with art is existential and beyond science.

Some of Ramachandran's research (which I discussed in Mirror, Mirror) is about phantom limb pain and how the brain responds to a mirror image in place of a missing leg. Shakespeare, in Hamlet, presents the play within his play to hold up a kind of mirror image to Claudius, an image that contains Claudius's missing guilt.

The more things change, the more they stay the same! The mechanism in both images - the Renaissance understanding of the psyche and twenty-first century understanding of the brain - is that the viewer will respond as if the missing element is indeed present and act accordingly.

Ramachandran's mirror image and neuroscience, generally, contribute to our understanding of humanity and art. But, like Shakespeare's play within the play, it is only part of a much larger, complex, and maybe inexplicable whole.

Meis writes: "We are going to go forward into the unknown in the quest to make art fully knowable and we'll deal with the consequences when we've arrived, joyful in our accomplishments and sad, too, at the inevitable loss of all that has been left behind."

Loss? I don't believe it.

Gendered Calories

2011-02-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

Researchers at American University, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago recently conducted a study in which childhood obesity is linked to working mothers.

According to the study, a child's weight increases by about one pound for each 5.3 months the mother works. Researchers aren't sure why. According to canada.com on Feb.7, 2011:

The researchers were unable to clearly explain the findings but theorized that because working mothers have little time to shop for healthy food and prepare meals, they and their children eat more fast- and packaged foods, which tend to be high in fat and calories.

Perhaps one reason why the researchers cannot clearly explain the findings is that they have incorporated a huge bias into the very foundation of their study - gender. They looked for a correlation between absent mothers and fat children and found it, thereby focussing the problem on women exclusively.

(A disclaimer here - I can find only the media reports of the study, which are often skewed. Also, I would really like to know who funded this study.)

Reuters (June 2010) reported on an earlier study done in the UK and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in which researchers looked at working mothers as one contributing factor amongst several which affect childhood obesity:

So the trend in mothers' employment over the past few decades may be one of the variables contributing to a general erosion in children's diets; the explosion in sugary junk foods on the market, food advertising aimed at kids, and the increasing availability of high- fat, high-sugar fare in schools are among the other factors that have been blamed.

The researchers also considered socioeconomic factors.

I am not disputing the accuracy of the American study, nor am I making a comment on the possible advantages or disadvantages of working mothers.

The point is that a child's weight is influenced by several things, and the composition, quantity, and quality of a child's food, together with level of exercise, is not gendered.

Put another way - it's not the absence of the mother that makes a child fat; it's the absence of proper diet and exercise that makes a child fat. And while mothers traditionally provide those things, it is not only mothers who can do so.

North American kids have a weight problem. And there are many aspects to the problem: availability of junk food, advertising of junk food, lack of education about nutrition, absent parents, irresponsible parents, obese parents, tax subsidies to certain food producers, coercive advertising, not enough exercise...

Sure, working mothers have an effect, but how much easier it is to blame them than to fix the problem and possibly cut into somebody's profit margin, or spend the money really trying to educate people, or putting pressure on governments and companies to ensure the availability of good food, or trying to eradicate poverty.

The Matter of My Blog

2011-02-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Millions of blogs exist that add nothing to the greater human conversation - no knowledge, nothing interesting, nothing helpful. Most often, one does not have to read very much of a post in order to know that the blogger is completely self-involved and self- indulgent - a "me" blogger.

Lately, I have been uninterested in blogging, yet getting to that bored stage of recovery - well enough to feel like doing things, but not quite well enough to do much about it. Blogging should be perfect for this stage; it keeps the mind busy but doesn't overtax the body.

The problem is self-involvement. At four weeks post-op, I am still quite self-involved - did I take the blood thinner? do I need ibuprofen? a nap? more fibre? more/less walking? Not what blog readers, no matter how loyal, want to hear much, if anything, about - and not what I want to record here.

Montaigne, however, could do it. He was a genius who wrote essays that were about himself, yet have attracted and delighted readers for more than 400 years.

Montaigne's essays discuss much about his life, told often as highly personal anecdotes - revealing and quite intimate. How does he manage to write about himself and his feelings, yet remain interesting and pertinent?

So many bloggers fail to take the step that Montaigne always takes. They fail to relate what they reveal about themselves to something meaningful to everyone else.

Montaigne's topics, no matter that he presented them from a highly personal perspective, deal with intellectual and philosophical issues that matter deeply to humanity. He did say, "I am myself the matter of my book," but that self is always a human being amongst and representative of all human beings.

Humanity is the matter of Montaigne's book. Too bad that can't be said for the millions of bloggers who use their blog as a mirror they can, like Narcissus, gaze at, endlessly longing for even more of themselves.

No Place Like Home

2011-01-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

Home never looks so good as it does when we've been away for awhile. Add surgery into the mix, and that's true after only three days.

I am happy to report that I came home last Thursday after hip replacement surgery on Monday morning - no moss growing on me; hospitals won't allow that, for sure.

The surgery was successful and recovery is nicely underway. I am remembering how to use all of the equipment required to prevent dangerous movements for the next three months:

The walker -

Less stressful than crutches and easier on the arms. Crutches work well for going out.

We'll see this time; last year, I developed quite a callous on the hand opposite to the operated side which took several weeks to go away.

The reacher - a truly versatile tool. I can take get a jar from the top shelf of the cupboard and pick up a dime from the floor; put on pants, get things too far away horizontally.

I have the same kind as Bill on The Little Couple!

The sock puller - kind of self-explanatory.

The hospital food was worse than I remembered it - and damned if we didn't have toast and cream of wheat the first morning for breakfast! I would have appreciated Judie sneaking in treats. One of my friends did offer to make some meals for me, but my appetite wasn't much to speak of. Now I have lots of fruit, chocolate, and my husband's great cooking.

Thanks to everyone who sent best wishes and prayers - they worked!

Hip, Hip, Hooray - The Second Time Around

2011-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

Nearly one year ago - eleven months and seven days, to be exact - I had total hip replacement surgery. On Monday, I am having the other hip replaced.

What I wrote then is still true. I am elated to start the process that will allow me to move more freely; aprehensive about any procedure involving needles, saws, hammers, and scalpels; resolute about the rehabilitation which is very precise, involved, and fairly lengthy.

A repeat surgery is an odd thing. I know what to expect, so have less anxiety about just what will occur.
But, I know what to expect, so have more anxiety about just what will occur.

And I'm sure the food in the hospital is no better than it was last year. It was interesting to see how bad even simple things could be - I will avoid the toast and the cream of wheat. Still, far better to have the food be not so good and the quality of care excellent, which it was.

So, here I go again. I'll be dancing soon!

Taking a Break

2010-12-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

I will be taking a break from posting for awhile - at best there may be a sporadic post or two. My work committments have changed, and I am much busier; I have just lost a good friend after a brief but intense illness; Christmas is upon us; and I am scheduled for a second hip replacement surgery (other hip) in mid January.

I so very much appreciate all the visitors to the blog and the many interesting comments over the last year. I hope to continue reading your blogs and commenting as time allows.

For now, it's so long, but not goodbye. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

McFiction

2010-11-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when McDonald's was still a recent addition to the world of dining out, the Golden Arches signs always include the tally of how many burgers the company had sold - "over three billion sold," or five billion, six, or seven. I don't remember at what point they stopped counting.

And for all the dollars those billions of burgers sold generated for the chain, never once did I hear of McDonald's complaining that serious restaurant reviewers and critics ignored its offerings in favour of the food at other smaller restaurants - restaurants where the chefs vied for a review in the New York Times by creating complex, layered, and unique food.

But in response to the critical acclaim and coverage Jonathan Franzen's recent book Freedom received, commercial writers Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult did indeed complain that Franzen's work received more and better attention than did any work of theirs, and that the work of white males, generally, received more attention than did theirs as well.

Jason Pinter, in The Huffington Post (Aug 10/10) interviewed the two authors about the "feud" they have with Franzen, his critics, newspaper reveiwers, and the entire literary world.

Between them, Weiner and Picoult have been on the New York Times bestseller list for months at a time. Between them, they have written over two dozen novels, have generated millions of dollars, and have millions of books in print in several countries.

So why does the literary establishment ignore them? Picoult believes that her work is like that of Jane Austen or Shakespeare because it was popular, not literary, when written.

Because historically the books that have persevered in our culture and in our memories and our hearts were not the literary fiction of the day, but the popular fiction of the day. Think about Jane Austen. Think about Charles Dickens. Think about Shakespeare. They were popular authors. They were writing for the masses. (Huff Post)

Indeed, these authors were and are popular, but the comparison only goes so far. The quickly growing capitalist, middle class bought the fiction of Austen and Dickens, fiction that was starkly apart from the literary efforts of the aristocracy that had dominated for centuries. (Shakespeare, who wrote plays, not fiction is a different case.)

Gender lines were also quite different then; Jane Austen was told, as were other serious women writers, that no literary work by women would be published because it would never measure up. This is no longer true. Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 comes to mind - one of many examples of women writers well-regarded by the literary establishment.

Millions of readers love and buy Weiner's and Picoult's books, but from what I have read, the work of neither writer has the depth and complexity that the work of Doris Lessing has, or Austen, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, or countless others. To me, their fiction is cliched and formulaic; they work in a genre that was both expanded and refined by someone like Austen. The commercial fiction Weiner and Picoult write does neither; it takes what was done by others and repeats it endlessly with no innovation.

McDonald's doesn't complain that restaurant and food critics are not banging down the door to include it. McDonald's rakes in millions, offering its formulaic product to the millions who love it - smiling all the way to the bank. Commercial writers like Weiner and Picoult should do the same. They offer a standardized product to millions who love it and make lots of money doing so. If they want critical acclaim, they should offer the kind of fiction that commands it.

They do, though, deserve an award for generating publicity!

A Manic Friday

2010-11-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

It wasn't a Monday, It was my husband's fault. It was a chain of events. No time to eat. It was a manic Friday.

I should know the signs by now. It starts with a simple, inocuous task, It mushrooms; the day is chaotic.

Last week, my husband went on a short business trip for a meeting - held in a casino hotel. That was the start of it all. He won $2000 while waiting to go to the airport to come home.

Sometimes the distinction between need and want generates a frenzy. We needed a new stove because the coils on the old one would not sit level, no matter what we did. And when any burner was on high, the whole top of the stove became so hot that getting burned was a real possibility.

On the other hand, the fridge works just fine, no matter that the plastic in one place on the outside is cracked (and the damn thing was expensive to boot) and that we could use more space. But it keeps the food at exactly the right temperature, and really everything fits if we organize it. A new fridge is a want, not a need.

That distinction led to some new handbags, a scarf, and some awesome dress pants, a cleaning, sorting, re-arranging frenzy, and a cull of all the receipts and instruction manuals for everything purchased since about 1995. Oh, and some work on the arrangement of pots and pans and a couple of drawers of seldom-used cooking utensils. As I said, a manic Friday.

I'm not sure if it's my nature to start a task in the spare room and end up several hours later re-decorating the family room and re-stacking the firewood, or if all events in a house are only small threads that we pull, engendering the entire alteration of all storage and living arrangements in said house. It's not procrastination either; no starting something to avoid another something. No, it means finishing it all, often in one day.

So how did I get from saying yes to a stove, no to a fridge, yes to some new apparel and accessories and several hours of work?

The stove was almost a given; win $2000, buy that stove - delivery on Friday; be sorely tempted in appliance store to add a new fridge to the order; talk self out of new fridge.

Feel deprived; shop next day for a new scarf; buy three handbags, a scarf, and some trousers; feel elated. Go home to find that three new handbags will not fit into current space for handbags.

There's the thread. In order to make space for new handbags, I began to sort through a chest of drawers and a closet, which of course grew immediately to a huge undertaking.

Unfortunately, this was on the same day as the delivery of the new stove, which involved some re-arranging in the kitchen, culling some pots that would not work with the ceramic top of the stove, which led to more re-arranging in the kitchen - the 25-year-old espresso maker lived in the pot cupboard and simply had to be removed, which led to a hunt for all the accessories to go with it, which led to cleaning out a drawer with all the old and seldom-used utensils. Cleaning the floor under the old stove led to some work on the cleaning supplies under the sink and sorting through cleaning rags, of which there were altogether too many.

The bedroom closet/drawer efforts were on hold.

I simply should not have put away the receipt for the new stove in the drawer where I keep all the receipts. I always open that drawer and throw in a new receipt and close the drawer. But not today. Today was the day when one more receipt broke the camel's back, and I spent 30 minutes going through them all, throwing out the 95% which had warranties expired, plus all the instruction manuals for stuff we no longer own!

Somewhere along the way, I managed to shop for a few groceries, go to the bank, try a cooking experiment, cook dinner, and spend 40 minutes on the treadmill. Oh, and pick up and deliver my husband to the car dealership to have his snow tires put on.

The handbags got put on hold, and I am pooped. I don't usually have these manic kinds of days - probably, I'm more often procrastinating, which leads to chaos when one card gets pulled from the house of cards that is life in most households.

Tomorrow, I am going to sleep in. I will probably ignore the handbags, or risk starting the whole organizing frenzy again. Phew!!!

Autumn in Taupe-Land

2010-11-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Clear-cut housing and one spot of colour: It is better philosophically and visually as an abstract.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow! I Love Ya Tomorrow!

2010-11-06T01:35:00.000-07:00

Procrastination wastes time, costs money, produces guilt, and delays or negates benefits. So why do we do it?

It turns out that there is no definitive answer. James Surowiecki writes about procrastination in his article "Later" in The New Yorker (Nov 5/10) and includes some interesting theories from economists, psychologists, and philosophers.

There are different kinds of procrastination; perhaps that is why theories and explanations abound. We put off doing things we don't like to do - understandable enough. We also put off doing things we like and things that are good for us - not so understandable. Who hasn't avoided ironing, weeding, cleaning out the garage? But exercising (a biggie for me), contributing to retirement savings, calling friends to get together are either pleasurable or good for us in the long or short term, yet we avoid them too. What's the deal?

One theory is that we are not one self, but several selves with competing ideas, drives, and desires- the one who wants to do the dishes now and the one who wants to watch tv; the one who wants to exercise, and the one who wants to sit down and eat a whole cake. The different selves represent either short term or long term benefits. It sounds good, but as Surowiecki points out, the short term self would pretty much always win, and nothing would ever get done.

One approach to overcoming procrastination has long been to impose outside pressure on ourselves or ask others to do so. So when we make a bet for a significant sum about losing weight or quitting smoking by a certain date, we are using external factors to help us get something done. A practical solution, but one that has to be re-negotiated for everything!

I especially like Surowiecki's example of the writer Victor Hugo, who wrote naked and asked his valet to hide his clothes until he had written a certain amount each day. (I tried for an image of Victor Hugo naked, but we'll have to settle for this one of him clothed, although after the images of "sexy" old men, it's for the best, I'm sure!)

Some philosophers think that procrastination is an existential problem. Maybe some of those things on the to-do list don't really have a point, in which case, some procrastination is a good thing. We clearly have to make the distinction, though, between meaningless cleaning of knicknacks and sending out the invitations for a child's wedding.

The one idea about procrastination that makes the most sense to me is one that isn't discussed in Surowiecki's article. Procrastination is a form of perfectionism - if you don't try, you can't fail or be less than perfect. I remember when I first heard that many years ago; it was a real eye-opener and actually helped me to procrastinate less.

Whatever the cause, whatever the activity, procrastination is one thing we can share. I don't know anyone - anyone who is not completely neurotic - who does not procrastinate at least a little. On second thought, those who seem never to procrastinate are procrastinating about getting help - after all, being perfect isn't normal.

Sexy Old Men?

2010-11-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

My blogging friend Cher states a commonplace in response to my post about aging idols - all men become sexier as they age, she claims, including and especially Leonard Cohen. And while I might quibble about Cohen, - I have been an avid fan for 40 years, but think he seems a bit more old than sexy in recent photos- I'll grant her that one.

Men's sex appeal is not based as much on youtful attributes as is women's - childbearing, fertility, and culture being what they are. So men can stay on longer as sex idols, especially if they have been celebrated for their sex appeal in their youth. Leonard Cohen indeed was.

So Cher, I beg to differ on this one.

I rest my case.

Lennon, Kerouac, and Dad

2010-11-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

John Lennon would have been 70 years old on Oct 9, 2010. Many expressed their surprise at this fact; they knew the date of his birth, but somehow couldn't readily accept that he would now be a senior.

I was surprised by people's surprise. For those of us who watched the Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan, or felt smug when parents disapproved of the too long hair, or spent the entire sum of their birthday money on some of the Fab Four's records - we have only to look in the mirror to get an idea, within a decade or so, anyway, of John's advancing age.

Then there are Paul and Ringo. It's not so much of a stretch to look at Paul and Ringo and imagine how John would look. George would have been 67 on his last birthday. No, I wasn't surprised at all, perhaps amazed that so much time had gone by in a flash, but not surprised by the age.

But Jack Kerouac is a different story. Kerouac died in 1969, at the age of 47. Bad boy and literary icon, he was frozen in time for me - Beatnik idol to future hippies, forever on the road, drinking and carousing, writing and experiencing.

Because he died just after I became a fan, he was more symbol than idol. Kerouac and his escapades, his road, were not part of my lived experience in the way the Beatles were.

Part of that difference was surely that between music and literature; never did anyone read Kerouac's work daily to millions in the way that disc jockeys played Beatles' music. And Kerouac's road was not the hippie road. Kerouac's road still had hobos and more than a touch of the depression era about it.

For the longest time, I admired Jack Kerouac's writing, the Beats' take on the world, never really thinking about context.

Then when my father turned 88 this summer, the math clicked into place. Jack Kerouac and my father were born in the same year; in fact, Kerouac would be older than my dad by a few months. As much as my father is my hero, he is not my idol for rebellion and bad behaviour, for being a proto-hippie, Beat poet/novelist, benzedrine-taking experimenter with prose.

When Kerouac was listening to Ginsberg reading at the famous Six Gallery, I was listening to my dad read to me. My early listening probably led to my love of Kerouac and all things literary.

So, when someone my age expresses surprise at how old John Lennon would be, I would like to suggest looking in the mirror. When anything makes me realize that Jack Kerouac would be older than my dad, though, I am and will stay, in shock.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Bath with a View, Fireplace, and Room for a Pony

2010-10-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

At times, I wonder just how different I am from other people in North America! According to the real estate shows, everyone wants a huge bathroom, and couples want to be able to use the bathroom together. These seeming facts reflect neither my desire nor my experience.

My first question for those wanting (and spending enormous sums to achieve) a large bathroom is just what they want to be doing in there. There is the list of usual bathroom activities that everyone knows, and, as far as I can see, none of them requires much space. We sit on, stand or lie in the three or four major and necessary fixtures with not much need (or ability in most cases) to move very far. And who would want to try?

Maybe dancing in the shower would be fun, but ballroom style isn't necessary.
Drying off doesn't take much room, nor does dressing. Parents bathing kids need space to move around, especially for the multi-child bath, but even then the same limitations on activity and needs apply.

Other activities that designer bathrooms accommodate are not ones that I want to indulge in - at least not in the bathroom! Lounging in front of the fire is nice, but not in the same room with the toilet - no matter how large and well-designed the space is. Reading has its traditional use in this room, but why on a separate chaise for that purpose? - fireplace or no, it's the same issue.

The other problem for me is the desire for togetherness in the bathroom! I don't want my husband in the bathroom with me for any activity whatsoever. Nothing, nada - privacy, please. On one show, both husband and wife felt unpleasantly like "just roommates" because they had to get ready for work each morning in separate bathrooms. And I thought that not having to share a bathroom was a bonus for people. Even if we had only one bath for us both, I wouldn't want company. What's wrong with taking turns?

Don't get me wrong: Luxury in the bathroom is nice - nice finishes, music and custom jets in the shower, a deep spa tub, a heated floor and towel racks. If one can afford these things, they make some sense. But I so completely do not understand having the space for non-traditional activities, for lounging, and sharing.

Maybe it's just sour grapes. We have enough bathrooms, but they are small - no room for lounging, twirling, dancing. But I do know for sure that if I had pots of money to add to my home or to buy a splishy new one, a bathroom big enough to share and spend more than the necessary time in would not be on my list of "must-haves."

I can't help it. When people on a reality show claim that the master bath is so nice that they would spend hours, even days in there, I seriously wonder about them! Really, no matter how we dress it up, the bathroom is for elimination and ablutions, and it's beyond me why anyone would want to spend more of their life there!

Sheared Peony

2010-10-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

Actually sheared, cropped, lassoed, unsharpened, and a few other things!

A Bright Idea

2010-10-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Wearing Purple on Spirit Day

2010-10-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Today is Sprirt Day, a day when many are wearing purple in solidarity with the LGBT community, to remember the recent suicides of several young people, to stand against bullying, to lobby for peace among people, generally.

Although they are not the first, and unfortunately will probably not be the last, the tragic suicides/deaths of several young people in the last weeks have focused attention on the large and growing problem of bullying and homophobia.

I began to search for the names and ages of these most recent cases - the list is longer than the names in the news now. Scratch the surface and the facts stun, not only because of the hatred and all the sadness, but because of the sheer number, as well.

Names and ages of those in the news now:

Tyler Clementi - 18
Asher Brown - 13
Seth Walsh - 13
Justin Aaberg - 15
Raymond Chase - 19
Zach Harrington - 19
Billy Lucas - 15
Cody Barker - 17
Chantal Dube - 17
Jeanine Blanchette - 21

That is 10 - TEN - young people in such pain that they chose to end their lives. Ten young people who will not be here to share their talents with the world. Ten families who are forever altered by grief and doubt.

TEN is not all. TEN is the number in the news recently.TEN has impact. TEN focuses our attention. But even one is one too many, and we have already heard the story of ONE several times over the years.

The other, happier large number I found while doing research is of the projects, places, agencies, blogs, and organizations (in government and otherwise) trying to understand this terrible problem of bullying, generally, and homophobic bullying, specifically and to help in any number of ways. Cher, at Askcherlock, investigates the reasons for and some possible solutions to the problem.

One project that reaches out by example and with encouragement from many, many people is the It Gets Better Project, started by Dan Savage.

Ellen Degeneres, one among many, many voices, comments on the tragedy of youth and gay suicide:

So today is a good day to wear purple, to mark the passing of young lives, and to reflect and act on this awful and growing problem.

Who's That Lady? Three Images

2010-10-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Over a year ago, on Canada Day, I took a photo of a colourful mannequin on display at the park:

Lovely as she was, she has been altered in the service of learning. I'm not sure which alteration I like best:

This one:

or this one:

What does everyone else like?

Type Mask for a Gnome

2010-10-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

My Photoshop projects are quite random - months of diligently working through the book from start to finish wasn't very productive; I was bored and kept seeing things ahead that looked like more fun than what was in the current chapter.

So, when a fellow blogger offhandedly said to make something for her, I had today's project. (Check out her blog.)

The original image:

The finished project (masking with type and applying layer styles) -

Blend Modes and Opacity

2010-10-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, these functions in the Layers Palette were somewhat of a mystery, so I tried them out. (This after only just being able to put some layers together that stay together!)

The background "before shot" is a crop of a picture of flowers I took earlier in the summer:

The before of the next layer is of frost on the glass walls of the deck this morning (alas!):

The following results are 1) Color Burn 68% opacity; 2) Color Dodge 48% opacity; 3) Hue 52% opacity. I chose them simply because I liked them.

So, six new things learned yesterday and today - only 887,346, or so, to go!

The "Before" Shot for A Steep Learning Curve

2010-10-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

I didn't make huge changes to the photo: I used the impressionist brush with a long curl/ light colour to lighten areas of the sky; the wire has a sort of corona from a brush from special effects - scattered crystals (I think); some of the foliage is greener than in the original - another pass with the impressionist brush.

This is the original - no alterations yet.

A Steep Learning Curve

2010-10-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have been concentrating on working with Photoshop and have decided to do something new each day, when possible. For too long, I have been poking around here and there in the program, but at that rate it would take several lifetimes to learn much of anything. With each new command or pull-down menu, I am totally amazed by what is possible!

The photo is an experiment with brushes, mostly (and some frustrating attempts at fixing a boo-boo!). The image was taken on the road from Kamloops to Sun Peaks BC.

Fun with Fall Photos

2010-10-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Trees across the river.

Red hedge

Something to crow about

Autumn at North 54

2010-10-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Mellow days for contemplation.

Vibrant light and colour.

Autumn and beauty are complementary.

When Honesty Isn't Honest

2010-10-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Jack Kerouac, in On the Road, has characters Dean Moriarty and Carlo Marx do an experiment in which they try to tell each other their full and complete thoughts: "We're trying to communicate with absolute honesty and absolute completeness everything on our minds."

The experiment does not work:

They began with an abstract thought, discussed it; reminded each other of another abstract point forgotten in the rush of events..."it started a train of my own, something real wild that I had to tell you, I'd forgotten it, now you've just reminded me of it..." and two new points were born.

Thoughts "going viral," that's how thinking works. One point leads to five or two, filed for later in the conversation, but it just gets worse as we progress. The brain works faster that the mouth!

All of this proves the point that some people are being something other than honest when they insist that they must "honestly" tell others everything in their hearts and minds - even, and especially it seems, if what they say is cruel and hurtful. (These folks are closely related to those who say terrible sexist, racist, mysoginist, homophobic things in the guise of a joke - "What, can't you take a joke?")

As Carlo and Dean readily demonstrate, we simply cannot say everything that passes through the mind; it's not humanly possible. That means that we are being selective in what we choose to say to others; we have no choice but to be selective.

In short, what comes out of the mouth is chosen by the speaker from among all those thoughts and ghosts of thoughts, sensations, memories. Cruel and hurtful speech is not necessary for the full expression of all we think, which we can't do anyway. It is a purposeful way to be cruel and hurtful.

We should call people on this, just as we should call people on those jokes that are not only not funny, but are also usually bigoted. We should call out people for hiding behind humour and honesty, for they are being neither funny nor honest; in fact quite the opposite.

So the next time someone pulls this on me, I will say that those more literate would know from reading On the Road, that it's just not possible, and that those more intelligent see the cruel bigot in them - and as I want also to express the fullness of my mind, I just had to say so. And that's no joke.

We Thought She Was a Goner

2010-09-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

The cat came back from death's door, and it took longer than the very next day. Our cat Boots is only just now starting to seem like her old self after nearly dying from acute renal failure. The vet does not know how or why she got sick (that would take even more money to find out!). Perhaps she got into some antifreeze (not everyone is careful); perhaps poison (yes, some people do that); perhaps she had a kidney infection.

Renal failure (the link is to a site devoted to extensive information about feline chronic renal failure, but briefly discusses the acute type, as well) is quite common in cats.

Boots is thirteen, a bitty little thing - under nine pounds soaking wet - and is not a big eater. She heads out in the morning and deigns to come in around dusk (mostly). When she stayed in her bed two mornings in a row and didn't even ask to go out, I realized that something was up. For two days, she did not eat or drink, was very lethargic and seeming to go down hill quickly.

Off to the vet where she was diagnosed with renal failure - the numbers from her blood work were extremely worrying. They kept her for IV hydration, but her prognosis was not good.

Smart vet we have! He started her on antibiotics in addition to the IV fluids, and she responded well enough to come home. But for four days, she hardly ate anything. She would eat three or four nuggets of food from my hand a few times a day. I give her the liquid form of the antibiotic twice a day - neither of us likes it very much.

It's been an emotional roller-coaster: she's eating; she's not eating; she seems better, then worse.

Fortunately, she has been drinking on her own and, finally, has started to eat her regular amount by herself. She loudly demands to go out several times a day and has started hanging out with the other two cats again.

It is impossible to know how long she will be with us; there is kidney damage, and she's no spring chicken. Still, we have her for now, and that's really all anyone can say about any life. These times remind us to appreciate and love what we have.

The Whoopie Pie Caper

2010-09-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Try as one might, it's not possible to make a whoopie pie fancy. Present them, if you must, on tiered plates; photograph them at centre stage; enhance the elegant black-white contrast. But a whoopie pie is still a whoopie pie and cannot be eaten daintily placed between thumb and forefinger

Whoopie pies have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Everyone loves my mom's recipe, and, by now, three generations have loved them, too. There were (and are) always some tucked away in the freezer.

I had no idea how much variation exists in recipes for these treats. Cooks.com offers 234 different versions - pumpkin, peanut butter, buttercream, flavoured fillings galore - and for amounts ranging from eight little pies to five dozen of them.

Mom's recipe makes two dozen. Far too many to eat at one sitting, and yet...

photo credit

When I was about eleven, my friend Judy and I decided to bake whoopie pies one afternoon when mom was at work. (Who says that kids don't have enough to keep them busy!?) We had all the ingredients and set to work sifting and creaming. At some point in the process, we wondered what would happen if we baked REALLY BIG whoopie pies - say, four only from the entire recipe.

An idea like that cannot remain untested when one is eleven; just thinking such a thing means trying it. And that is exactly what we did. For those wanting to test this for themselves, I can tell you that it's entirely possible - the whoopie pies hold together and are very impressive.

All successful experiments must be rewarded, and ours was no exception. The only, and obvious, reward was to eat those whoopie pies - two each, with milk. Not only could we not eat them daintily, held between thumb and forefinger, we also could not eat them with one hand alone.

Although the reward was tasty, the effects were not so great. We were both a little sick. We felt even less well when my mother came home! Whether these events have any bearing on the matter or not, I don't know, but I really never liked to bake after that.

But fortunately, our whoopie pie caper did not diminish my love of eating them. They are still one of my favourite cookies. I am just a bit more temperate when I indulge.

My Foiled Career as a Thief

2010-09-20T02:39:00.000-07:00

I've never been comfortable with even the smallest of thefts, the kind that others assure me is meaningless because "everyone does it." When one of our party would steal an ashtray from a restaurant, I would feel bad because it was wrong and fearful because it would be embarassing, and possibly worse, to be caught. (Ashtrays were especially popular - I wonder what has replaced the ashtray now that smoking is banned in most places.)

My foray into thievery was fairly accidental - I know, I know, that's what they all say!

I was a grad student, doing research in the university library. There was no one around the stacks where I was browsing, but there was a new, shiny, sharpened, long yellow pencil - my favourite.

That pencil called to me, and, after all, it was only a pencil - much smaller than an ashtray and one of those things that is commonly lost, dropped, abandoned around campuses everywhere. I avoided it for the longest time, moving around the shelves, ignoring it sitting there in its perfect yellowness.

To this day, I'm sure that my search took me to every stack in that area of the library, and there simply was no one else nearby. The pencil was clearly abandoned (and still calling to me!).

Finished, I had to walk by that pencil, sitting there, sad, waiting for someone to pick it up. So I succumbed; I mean, everyone does it; it's only a pencil; it's abandoned; someone else will take it anyway.

As I walked away, a voice from where I know not said, "That's my pencil."

I put the pencil back down on the shelf and slunk away. I felt like the biggest thief ever - caught, guilty, wrong, embarassed. I'm still not sure that I wasn't the "victim" of a psych or philosophy experiment or of a joke.

But I knew in that moment why I was never, and never would be, comfortable with people stealing things - small, big, meaningless, or anything else . My very short career as a thief was over before it really got started.

Play It Again, Sam

2010-09-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, playing the piano is not like riding a bicycle. We do, indeed, forget. The fruits of all those years of practice, music festivals, and Royal Conservatory exams have not stuck with me.

Memories of going blank in the finals of a festival have stuck with me, and I still get a flutter in my stomach when I pass by the signs around the college for the Royal Conservatory exams. But, I now have an only slightly better than vague familiarity with key and time signatures, music theory, and the names of the notes farthest afield from middle C. Also,the hands aren't as nimble as they used to be.

A few years ago, I got a very nice keyboard, and thought that I would sit and play for the sheer enjoyment of it as I used to - perhaps I would have to back up a grade or two, maybe start with seven or eight, but as I backed up farther and farther through my old music books, I realized just how rusty I was. I couldn't believe how much I had forgotten, how much work it would be to bring back the skills and knowledge. Serious practice.

I have decided to play it again and have ordered some books, dug out some sheet music and practice books and am going to sit down to play scales and chords and figure out those keys again - how many flats in that piece?!?!

Tasty Soil Granules, Acrylic, and Glue

2010-09-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

We intuitively know the power of images- one picture is worth a thousand words. Poets know the power of images - they create visual impressions with language. Advertisers know the power of images - they invoke desire for products through pictures.

Food images can actually make us salivate. Interesting, then, that what we salivate over and crave is often not real food, but effective stand-ins that look better on camera than the real thing and stand up to the hot lights.

Images can make us desire food, and it's humbling to know that what creates that desire is not only often unpalatable, but also often dangerously inedible.

How cooling does that image of a glass of iced tea look on a hot summer's day or that icy, slushy margarita? Mmmm. How about a glass sprayed with dulling spray, some tasty acrylic ice cubes, and corn syrup droplets on the outside? The iced tea is probably not really iced tea because brewed coffee diluted with water photographs better. That beautiful, green slushy margarita may well be an inviting glass of Soil Granules and colouring.

Ice cream is difficult for photographers to work with - hot lights don't mix well with anything that melts. No problem. A nice mixture based on instant mashed potatoes or shortening with food colouring works well. Maybe some purchased icing with lots of confectioner's sugar added. Well, that doesn't sound so bad, but then they go and spoil it with Elmer's Glue-All to simulate those nice melty drops!

Dying for a piece of that mile-high cake with fluffy, thick icing? The icing may be icing, but the cake may be mile-high Styrofoam. Maybe the cake is actually cake, but watch out for the cardboard separating the layers; it's not so tasty.

Not all food in photographs is fake; in fact, in advertising, the actual product must be shown. The fake food is food in a supporting role in the ad or in editorials and other food shots.

So the ice cream featured for sale is ice cream, but the ice cream underneath the topping (the actual item for sale) is most likely fake. The fast food hamburger is really the item, although it may well be browner from a combination of hoisin sauce and Angostura Bitters.

Spritzed with oil, dribbled with glue, food in photographs looks yummy, refreshing, satisfying, tasty. But it's no wonder that the real fast food burger never looks as good as the one in the ad. The ad is all about the image, and that poor old burger is just a burger.

My source is a book by Linda Bellingham - Food Styling for Photographers

Food photos are for interest and not to demonstrate fake food.
(iced tea photo - Arbor Teas)
(cake photo - Epicurious)

Footloose and Fancy Dancing

2010-09-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

Penguins and rap stars, nuns and Greek housewives dance - in the rain, on the street, on stage, and in fitness classes. Dancing is older than Homer and as current as Dancing with the Stars.

Whether it's ballet or breakdancing, we humans love to soar, jump, tap, and move to the beat. And we dance solo, in pairs and groups, in front of an audience or alone in front of the mirror. Dance, dance, dance.

High art and pop culture reflect our love of dancing. Dozens of movies, even from the days of pre-cinema and silent film, are either about dancing or feature dance routines; Broadway musicals celebrate dance; ballet is dance, visual artists paint and draw dancers. Countless street festivals, clubs, pubs, and bars are dance havens.

Our love of dancing is captured in a great video, put together with clips from nearly 40 movies, all to the song "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins. This is one of those videos that I have to admit to playing over and over - it's so upbeat and fun to watch. Also amazing is how well all the dancing fits with the music - very smart editing. Enjoy!

University is Good

2010-08-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

I get tired, angry, disappointed, and frustrated whenever I hear the tired old saw that a university education is a waste.

It goes like this: Forget science and the liberal arts (especially the liberal arts/humanities). Focus on practical, rather than intellectual, skills, forget knowledge, and train everyone to make and fix things. Take up a trade or become a health-care worker.

This mantra has been around for decades, is nonsense at best, and damaging/untrue at worst. The most recent article"Revalorizing the Trades" is by Camille Paglia in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A disclaimer is in order here.

I am not disparaging the trades/health fields or those who train and work in them. Trades and health workers are absolutely necessary. In many places, they are or will be in short supply. It's honest, interesting work, exactly what many people want, and the pay is good. But these vocations aren't for everyone, couldn't employ everybody, and would leave gaping holes in many other areas where we need people with a university education.

The argument for trades, especially, is so often based on incorrect assumptions. Paglia's article is no exception; she argues that "jobs, jobs, jobs" should be the primary concern for educators, but that there "is little flexibility in American higher education to allow for alternative career tracks" (alternative to the professions, in this case).

First, I would argue that a university education is training for a job, but not directly and narrowly as Paglia and others recommend. The proof is in the pudding; graduates get and keep a range of jobs for which they are uniquely suited. That proof puts the lie to the other assumption - that a liberal arts education (and university education across the board) doesn't lead to jobs, jobs, jobs.

A university education equals jobs. It leads to good jobs, portable jobs, interesting jobs, well-paying jobs, prestigious jobs, flexible jobs, famous jobs, creative jobs, secure jobs, necessary jobs - just about any kind of job many people could want - a Google search proves the point. Rice University (among many others) has a document showing the myths and realities about jobs for liberal arts grads - it includes a list of fields in which grads find work (most are not in the professions).

So what exactly is the problem?

The economy is one reason. University is expensive. Job loss is a huge concern right now.

Also, nurses, electricians, carpenters who train specifically for their jobs and then find them are fairly easy to track. Politicians and administrators can point to their successes much more easily, and the concept is simpler to grasp: electrical training = electrical-field job. Easy.

People with university degrees are much harder to track in the job market, and their career paths don't translate easily to flip-chart simplicity. History major =President of the United States (Kennedy).

It's harder to track the psychology major who, ten years later, has become a tv hockey producer, or the religious studies major who is now the director of business and policy for a major tv network. The liberal arts major who works for the defence department, is CEO of a huge company, an astronaut, policy manual writer for the UN, international coordinator for a major annual charity event.

If every interesting, important, and lucrative job had a direct educational path and an accrediting body, life would be simpler. Train for job X; get job X. But it doesn't always work that way.

Plus, a university education is a value-added endeavour. Graduates are more than trained employees. Graduates form the educated citizenry that allows democracy to flourish, keeps zealots in check, and the arts, science, law, medicine flourishing. They are trained to analyze, criticize, theorize, and question.

University graduates are not only employable, they are necessary to the efficient and progressive functioning of society. The biggest expense would be not to have enough of them.

We Are the World, But Not the Norm

2010-08-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Turns out that you are weird; me too. As a society, we are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic - WEIRD.

This is important beyond being a simple descriptive acronym because the vast majority of psychology experiments - the ones aimed at finding the universal truth about human behaviour - are based on us. The trouble is that "96% of behavioural science experiment subjects are from Western industrialized countries, which account for just 12% of the world's population."

So why aren't we a good ruler with which to measure all of humanity?

Adam McDowell writes in the National Post about the findings of University of British Columbia researcher Joseph Henrich and his colleagues. Their research shows that we in the West are the odd ones.

Henrich and colleagues used an experiment called the Ultimatum Game, a test of altruism, and found that we Westerners do things differently than almost every other culture worldwide. Here's how the game is played:

The Ultimatum Game works like this: You are given $100 and asked to share it with someone else. You can offer that person any amount and if he accepts the offer, you each get to keep your share. If he rejects your offer, you both walk away empty-handed.

North Americans typically offer more than people from other cultures. We also reject higher offers more often as well. How we play the Ultimatum Game makes us the weird ones.

Henrich's work has far-reaching implications because so much behavioural research is based on us. And it goes far beyond the fact that all cultures are different. Most other cultures are the same in how they play the game, and we are different, which is not a problem unless one is trying to make universal claims about human behaviour based on us.

Understandably, there is some negative reaction to these findings: we don't like to be told that we are weird. Westerners have for centuries seen themselves as the "norm" against which all others are measured.

Our W.E.I.R.D. culture may well be superior in some ways. Our culture may well be inferior in others. The research is not a judgement about the West.

When it comes to any "norm," we are not the world. When it comes to joining with the rest of the world to help each other, we are all the world.

We are the world for Pakistan and Haiti.

Some Enchanted Production

2010-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

For those of us who are not night owls, the personal "off switch" means no intelligent activity beyond a certain time. For me, that time is around 10 P.M. A book, movie, or tv show has to be over-the-top compelling to keep me up much later than that.

The Lincoln Center Vivian Beaumont Theatre production of South Pacific is beyond compelling - what an awesome show!

I had fallen asleep watching Charlie Rose on Detroit PBS and awoke to singing. The singing turned out to be the Lincoln Center production on Live at Lincoln Center (Aug 18) and, always loving South Pacific, I just had to watch for a little while, which ended up being the whole show - final curtain at 1:30 A.M.(PDT).

The Rodgers and Hammerstein original Broadway production in 1949 won ten Tony Awards. Mary Martin and Enzo Pinza played the roles of Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque. The story is based on James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific.

Since then, there have been several famous productions around the world.

My introduction was to the 1958 movie, starring Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi as Nellie and Emile. Probably my favourite, because it was the first.

In 2001, a made-for-tv movie starred Glenn Close and Rade Serbedzija as Nellie and Emile. Reba McEntire, Alec Baldwin, and Brian Stokes Mitchell starred in a concert version at Lincoln Center in 2005.

There have been many other concerts/productions/ travelling shows worldwide. The famous score probably guarantees further productions, as does the subject.

It's hard for any book, movie, or stage production to "bump" a previous favourite, but this most recent Broadway revival at Lincoln Center (since 2008) has almost done it for me - at the very least, this production is tied for first place. Kelli O'Hara and Paulo Szot make a perfect Nellie and Emile.

Yesterday was the last performance of the Lincoln Center production, which has won seven Tonys. I am so glad to have seen this.

The video is a montage of the production.

(The above link to the Lincoln Center Vivian Beaumont Theatre has a link to re-broadcast schedules for PBS and to the schedule for the travelling version.)

Smoky Days and Smoky Nights

2010-08-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

red areas have had no appreciable precipitation

We are on fire here in central British Columbia, not figuratively, but literally - 80 active forest fires of 10 hectares (about 25 acres) or more, burning in the district where I live and the two that border it. There are evacuation alerts and orders in many communities, and the whole central interior is blanketed in heavy smoke.

Our precipitation this summer has been next to nothing which has contributed much to the situation; plus, summer is thunderstorm season, which means many lightening strikes.The weather forecast is for continued heat, no rain, and now gusting winds. The whole province, including the central interior, is on high alert.

The situation is serious and taken very seriously. The penalties for starting a forest fire are 3 years in prison and a one million dollar fine.

Not only trees are at stake here - lives, homes, whole communities, livelihoods are in danger. There are currently several evacuation alerts/orders in place.

The dramatic photo is of a 2003 fire in Kelowna BC that burned about 200 homes.

That city faced another bad, if not as bad, fire in 2009 which burned about 20 homes.

Forest fires seem worse in the last few years. The weather has been warmer at times and drier. We also have millions of acres of trees killed by the mountain pine beetle, which leaves the trees tinder dry and, at one stage, with a turpentine-like substance in them.

I have never, until now, been at all afraid of the annual forest fires. And I am not afraid, moment to moment, now. But with the smoke so heavy in the air as a constant reminder, and the situation as bad as it is across the province, I have, for the first time, an evacuation plan written down - in part this is because I'm sure I would immediately go blank if the situation arose. It's not fancy, just a bare bones list of what to take and in what order.

For now, it is extremely unpleasant outdoors. The Air Quality Health Index for today is 10 (highest and most dangerous); some communities are at 10+.

It's a good day to get to all those chores in the house that I have been avoiding. What a waste of a summer day, although I am thankful that we aren't facing evacuation or worse.

The Applesauce Days of August

2010-08-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

Processing our apples is a messy job, but necessary; otherwise the fruit from two trees would go into the composter. They aren't good eating apples; they go soft quickly, so they aren't good candidates for the food bank. Somebody has to process them all quickly, and that somebody is me.
Plus, they make awesome applesauce.

Trying to give apples away is not unlike trying to give away zucchini when there are dozens and dozens everywhere.

A friend's husband once joked, about the small farm town where they lived, that he always closed the truck windows when he parked in town, no matter how hot it was. If he didn't, someone would leave zucchini on the front seat.

We are blessed with two varieties of apples, although I don't usually feel it as blessing during the picking, prepping, cooking, and putting through the food mill.

Thank heaven for food mills. Without one, I would be peeling and coring all day; the mill allows me to cut, remove both ends and that's it - into the pot they go.

The results are worth the work, even more so because we use no herbicides or pesticides on the trees.

I never use a recipe, but the applesauce is always good - a little tart, only very lightly sweetened. This year's crop will make about 20 pints for the freezer.

In the dead of winter, this tastes awfully good

Perseid Meteorite Shower

2010-08-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Every year, from the middle of July until the last week in August, the skies of the northern hemishpere put on a show of shooting stars that, this year, peaks in intensity today and through this weekend.

The Perseid meteors, so called because they seem to radiate from the Perseus constellation, are debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet and have been seen and noted for 2000 years.

The constellation is named after Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, who killed the Gorgon Medusa. The constellation "looks" like Perseus with medusa's head in his hand.

The show of shooting stars will be quite spectacular this year, with nearly 90 per minute - way above the average of 60. Also, the moon will set fairly early which improves viewing. EarthSky website has information and tips for watching the show.

So, those lucky enough to have clear skies tonight can join those in observatories, on hill tops, and in backyards around the world to enjoy what is arguably THE "Starry Night" in the northern hemisphere.

A Hoarder of Interests

2010-08-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I watch the shows on television about people who hoard stuff. I don't have the problem and feel sorry for those who do. But I can relate.

For decades, I carted around stuff necessary for several hobbies. I could never quite let go of the stuff or the idea that I should like the hobby, despite the fact that I sucked at it and was not truly interested.

Knitting and sewing are in that category, taken up decades ago because so many of my friends and relatives enjoyed them. And I didn't spend ten years making an afghan with all those holes in it to not have some attachment to knitting! I still have some knitting needles tucked away somewhere - you never know when a guest will come for Christmas, and I will have to make an extra stocking for under the tree - but the wool and pattern books are long gone.

I still have the very expensive, if aging, sewing machine and actually use it for curtains or mending, every once in awhile. Fortunately, I have stopped buying fabric for the possible chic outfit I could possibly, one day, create. It mattered not that neither I nor anyone else would ever wear the "outfits" I did manage to make; I had boxes of patterns, buttons, interfacing, and fabric for years.

Now, I've become a hoarder of interests. It takes up no space at all. On forms asking for a person's interests, I have a hard time not putting all these "almost" hobbies - the knitting and sewing, ceramics, making christmas ornaments, embroidery, and rock collecting. Is collecting those little bits of sea glass a separate hobby? - maybe I could have sub-categories?

Okay, I'm lying - this is Gilles Marini, not our waiter, but you get the idea.

(Actually, perhaps I'm cheating a bit about embroidery. Years ago, a girlfriend and I took a class every Saturday morning, followed by lunch at a French bistro - there was a very sexy waiter there. We never missed a class!!!)

There is a pattern here. Mostly my hoarded interests involve crafts and probably a certain amount of residual guilt for not ever liking them. All the women I knew as a young woman, or so it seemed, were so exceptionally talented and genuinely liked these hobbies.

One friend could look at a designer sweater; then go home and make it. Another ended up taking tailoring courses and making suits and coats that sold. My mother's cross-stitch could just about be framed from either side, it is so perfect. Maybe these talented women were just too daunting for a not-very-interested dabbler.

So when those hoarders on tv have such a hard time giving up a set of knitting needles or dress pattern, I sort of know how they feel. They are probably driven by many of the same impulses that cause me to hoard interests, even if I no longer hoard the makings for them. A little to the left or the right, and maybe it could have been me.

(photo credit - sewing machine)
(photo credit - yarn)
(photo credit - Marini)

"Fierce Poetry and a Pint of Thick Beer"

2010-08-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

Artwork - R. Black

Sometimes, a search with totally random terms results in a surprising find. I combined the terms "Beowulf" and "banana," wondering what possible material for a post might emerge. What a treat to find a 2008 songplay Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage by a group called Banana Bag and Bodice. Shotgun Players put it on throughout NYC and beyond in 2008 and 2009 to rave reviews.

The thousand years of baggage, according to the play's creators, is all professors' (mea culpa) contributions to the critical study of the Old English original:

Monsters and professors collide in blood-soaked Scandinavia as this hefty poem is rescued from 1,000 years of analysis and transformed into a defiantly raucous dissertation on art and violence. With an 8-piece band including dueling trombones, bass clarinet, accordion and saw, Beowulf combines Weillian cabaret, 40's jazz harmony, indie rock, punk, electronica and Romantic lieder into a cacophonous swirl.

I love the Old English poem, have studied it, read and re-read it, translated it, and written about it. The video clips I've seen of the Banana Bag and Bodice production are exciting and shine a different and important light on the poem - let's face it; how much beer and debauchery can one get across in class?!

The play seems a much better take on the classic than the recent movie. The movie with Angelina Jolie may stand on its own merits as a movie, or not, but does a disservice to the great work of art that the poem Beowulf is. Banana Bag and Bodice adds something that needs adding.

The video clip is of King Hrothgar lamenting is fate, what with the decimation of his Danes for twelve winters by Grendel. (Some might find some of the language offensive.)

(The title of this post if from the Banana Bag and Bodice write-up of the play.)

Broccoli and Me

2010-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

A current ad on television for calcium supplements shows women trying to eat pounds of salmon and broccoli and whole big bowls full of almonds in an attempt to get enough calcium without taking a supplement. And, while the ad is truthful about the amount of these three foodstuffs required to meet daily requirements, it ignores the dozens of other foods that can contribute throughout the day to the total.

Truth is, it's not that difficult.

For the past five days, I have given up taking calcium supplements in response to a recent study which found that it increases the risk of heart attack by 25 - 30 percent.

I have managed to meet the daily requirement for calcium entirely through diet. It's been interesting, sometimes frustrating, and ultimately okay.

But it does require planning and some caution.

First, correct information is important and sometimes surprisingly hard to find. For instance, I have found values for broccoli ranging from 62 mg./cup, cooked to 180 mg./cup, cooked. That's a huge discrepancy. Too many of those discrepancies over the course of a day would be really significant. The USDA has a nutrient database which lists many individual nutrients. I've chosen it as my reliable resource.

Another obstacle to getting the correct information is typos and poor copy-editing. In one book, the value for 1/2 C of cooked spinach differs on the same page! Not helpful. And not unusual.

Second, the whole endeavour is time consuming, although it is already less so after only five days. Looking up everything is a pain, as is looking it all up again and again until it's firmly in the memory! Also, keeping track takes time. But practice makes perfect, and the time spent will diminish.

Third, the whole configuration of my diet has shifted. Initially, I was simply adding calcium-rich foods, and calories. Now, I'm figuring out how to incorporate what I need, rather than just tacking on.

Fourth, there's a cultural aspect to this experiment. It strikes me as odd that eating real food to get enough nutrients has become more unusual that taking a supplement. I think advertising has done a number on us. Lack of education about diet is a culprit, too, as are the fast food and processed food industries.

And sometimes we would rather believe the nutritional flapdoodle of a hack trying to make money, than take the time to learn enough to make sure that we and our children are properly nourished.

I'm sticking with this, with the proviso that I will take a supplement on the odd day when I just don't get enough calcium. The study doesn't really scare me, but did make me realize how my attitudes towards food and supplements has not so subtly shifted (and I'm not liking it so much).

Those who require supplements should take them (although I would check with the doc). Otherwise, with some education and some time invested, we could just eat, enjoy, and be nourished.

Pass the broccoli!

(The consensus among commenters on my post about this study was that these things change over time, or are poorly designed and wrong, etc. Here is the link to the actual study in the British Medical Journal. I've
waded through, and there are a couple of important facts that the media largely ignored. Perhaps most important, the study did not include any calcium supplements taken along with Vitamin D. Also, there were no tests of calcium supplements taken as part of a supplement complex.)

Banning the Beatles

2010-08-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Thirty-four years ago today began the ban of all Beatles music on U.S. radio stations. Just as the group was to begin its U.S. tour in August, radio station after radio station joined the growing ban on playing their music.

America was not alone; banning the Beatles was a very popular thing to do. At least one radio station in South Africa, Spain, Holland, and Israel, to name a few, joined in at different times and because of different songs. The BBC even got into the act, banning songs for supposedly promoting drug culture and including the name of a brand. Israel also banned the fab four from playing there until 2008 - the "unbanning" and apology coming a bit late in the day!

The ban in the U.S. resulted , mostly, from John Lennon's statement to the London Evening Standard, on Mar 4/66.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

John was largely misunderstood, and many reacted in knee-jerk fashion. John defends himself and explains:

The passage of time changes all things. The Beatles' popularity has faded from its days of glory. Is anyone that popular today?

Mainstream Steam

2010-08-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Those magnificent men in their flying machines (and their machines) have been the subject of songs, poetry, movies, and near worship. They still are for a some and engender great awe, fascination, role-playing, even obsession.

Steampunk is the name for this awe, and according to Gary Moskowitz ("What's with Steampunk?" in More Intelligent Life) it has gone mainstream. Some of Moskowitz's commenters believe it's become so mainstream that it isn't even worth an article about it!

Steampunk (for anyone else out there who, like me, is out of the loop!):

is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes fictional works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era Britain — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, often featuring futuristic technology as the people of this historical period would have envisioned it to look like, i.e. based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer, but occurring at an earlier date. (Wikipedia.)

I used to be quite fascinated with Jules Verne's stories when I was younger, but somehow managed to miss this, now almost passe, subculture, with its anthologies of fiction, magazines, comics, websites, workshops, and seminars!

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines isn't steampunk, but sort of heads there, and I love the song.

(photo credit - steampunk scooter control panel)

Calcium Supplement Busters

2010-07-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you're doing something good for your health, along comes a new study that demands some thought and some changes.

A recently published study in the British Medical Journal found that taking calcium supplements increases the risk of heart attack by about 30%. The researchers also found that the supplements weren't all that great at preventing bone loss either. (Articles about the study are at BBC, CTV, and ABC.)

I was floored by this study - I've been taking calcium supplements for several years, since I developed quite a sensitivity to dairy products and was diagnosed with osteopenia (a couple of years ago). Dammit, I need my calcium!

Turns out, though, that perhaps the study is more positive than I first thought. I'm fairly savvy, or like to think I am!, about nutrition; it's been an interest for years. But I fell into the trap of thinking that no dairy automatically means calcium supplements.

Wrong!!!!

I've been digging out the books on nutrition and looking up calcium retention and absorption and tables on how much calcium is present in various foods. With some adjustments, meeting my calcium requirements will be relatively easy. It will take more planning, though.

In retrospect, I wonder if I just didn't let register all the information I've read before. It really is much simpler to pop a pill two or three times a day than it is to plan for amounts and combinations of food necessary to achieve the optimum amount - true of all nutrition, really.

Most likely, getting enough calcium - and everything else - through the diet is the healthiest, if possible.

My immediately available resources are two good books: Becoming Vegetarian, by Melina, Davis, and Harrison (has a wealth of information about vitamins and minerals, and other dietary requirements; and Strong Women, Strong Bones (a veritable bible on bone health), by Miriam Nelson.

It will be an adjustment, no question, but well worth the trouble.

There Are Busy Bees in Them Thar Woods

2010-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, not all of them are what nature intended!

Sunshine, Artists, and Gardens

2010-07-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

Cloudless sky, sunshine, pleasant temperature (25 C; 77F) - the weather could not have been more perfect for our local art gallery's (Two Rivers Art Gallery) "Artists in the Garden" fundraiser.

the riverside

The weather, the gardens, the refreshments were perfect, each yard offering something quite different - an organic farm, a riverside lot cascading down the steep bank, a fairyland backyard retreat, a small city lot with wonderful perennial (the hostas were abundant and beautiful) and vegetable gardens, and a hilltop paradise several miles out of town with its own artisanal bakery.

the farm

Each host provided some light refreshments - lots of cool lemonade, lavender cookies, rosemary cookies, sandwiches with that artisanal bread. One of the venues had a harpist. There really is something otherworldly about the sound of the harp, and set outdoors in the cool of the trees, it is magical.

the city

the country paradise

Everyone was mellow and friendly. I hope the gallery made pots of money. I'm already looking forward to next year.

the fairyland

Temporarily Disabled - A Good Lesson

2010-07-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to fully understand the effect of physical obstacles on anyone with a disability. Unless we expereince the pain of a certain movement or the inability to access something necessary, we don't truly get it.

Physical obstacles are one thing, though; they have physical solutions. Social obstacles are quite another. Voiced social obstacles, yet another.

I never really understood (and probably still don't, entirely) what people with disabilities experience daily, until I had arthritis and hip replacement surgery. I walked with a cane for several months.

Like anyone else, I became frustrated when a seemingly abled person used the bathroom facilities for people with disabilities - that bar on the wall is there for a reason! The attached bar is the solution to the physical obstacle. Lack of understanding, or caring, is the social obstacle.

Many, many people would practically fall over themselves to help me, hold the door for me, stop and wait while I crossed the street. I felt grateful to them all and said so.

The very worst experiences, however, were when people felt that they just had to express their impatience and often downright hatred to me. Most of the time, it seemed that the dislike arose from the fact that I was in the way and for too long.

During the months of using a cane, I was sworn at, frowned at, told to just die and stop annoying the able-bodied. I was told to get out of the way, to hurry up, to stay home. I had doors let go in my face, and on one occasion ,I was almost knocked down by a car when the driver thought I was too slow crossing.

I have to say that the anger I aroused in some people completely floored me - maybe I shouldn't have been surprised but I was. I was also amazed at how easily people give themselves permission to say the most awful things to a complete stranger (well, to anyone really).

I think that I have been mostly helpful and supportive of people with disabilities over the years, but have had my eyes opened by the experience of having a disability.

I don't know what the answer is, but education in empathy and compassion has to be a big part, and we have to try to undo that terrible sense of entitlement that some people have that others, especially those with disabilities, should simply cease to exist rather than be an inconveninece.

Raise a Reader

2010-07-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

Tiddlywinks requires skill and teaches hand/eye coordination. Stamp collecting teaches history, geography, and classification skills, among other things. Both can be replaced by other hobbies with equal claims for offering the same knowledge and a similar skill set.

Reading is in its own category and can't so easily be replaced. Reading (writing, too) is intricately involved with critical thinking, communication, language skills, concentration, and knowledge acquisition. There isn't anything else that functions cognitively the same way that reading does.

Reading isn't replacable!

But reading - the long, slow, digesting, thinking, analyzing kind - is becoming increasingly unpopular, with more and more people admitting that a quick skim of almost anything printed is all they are able to manage.

Many of the books that adults do read are written at a grade level for younger teens. Many newspapers in recent years have lowered the level of difficulty of the writing to try and cater to readers' diminishing skills.

Patrick Kingsley, in his article "The Art of Slow Reading" in The Guardian (Jul 15/10), writes about the problem, citing many experts who argue that the internet is responsible (and some who argue otherwise).The problem with the internet:

because...we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual titbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other.

Mark Bauerlein in The Dumbest Generation makes much the same point. He argues that while students (especially) are intelligent and can multi-task, while they have the whole world of information at their fingertips, they don't have either the background knowledge or the cognitive skills to make the connections that lead to real knowledge and real ability to negotiate with the world in many ways. What's missing? Reading ability.

A student once complained to me that the literature we were studying was too difficult and that he didn't like it! While I won't tell you exactly what I thought at the time, I did wonder what purpose it would serve to have those as two criteria for a university literature course. Unfortunately, ease and fun are becoming two of the most important criteria. The result is exactly what Bauerlein predicts - the dumbest generation.

Bauerlein paraphrases Ronald Reagan - who said that freedom can be lost in a generation - saying that knowledge can be lost in a generation. Sometimes I wonder if it will take that long.

Tiddlywinks may be more fun and easier than reading, but what will kids do if they have to read the instructions?

Look for the Sweat Shop Label

2010-07-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

What do Mexico, Bangladesh, Honduras, Guatemala, China, Haiti, and Columbia have in common? They all have factories that produce our clothing - and the list of countries doesn't end with these.

Name a country where the labour and environmental laws are much more lax (or non-existant) than in North America ), and probably there are huge global interests, having garments produced for the North American and other markets

Why should we care?

Naomi Wolf, in her article "The High Price of Cheap Fashion," in Project Syndicate (Jun/10), discusses the conditions of the workers in garment factories around the world. (And, although they are mostly women, the abuse of men and children who work in the industry exists as well.)

We all know that cheap clothing is usually made in sweatshop conditions – and usually by women. And we know – or should know – that women in sweatshops around the world report being locked in and forbidden to use bathrooms for long periods, as well as sexual harassment, violent union-busting, and other forms of coercion.

Although Wolf's article is about cheap fashion, the problem is not limited to the inexpensive. Higher end clothing is sometimes made in terrible conditions too. It's actually unusual these days to find any clothing made in Europe or North America.

What can we do?

We first have to care more about other people's lives than we do about a cheap deal; then we can have an effect with how and where we spend our clothing dollars - "our money is the one tool powerful enough to force manufacturers to change their ways." And consumers have had an effect in recent years with college t-shirts, coffee, and produce, as Wolf points out.

To say something was a real steal is often true with clothing and in ways worth thinking about.

I "stole" the title of this post from the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union commercial from 1978 - "Look for the Union Label" - so will end with them and their spokesperson opening the ad with his prophetic remarks.

Do We Really Miss the Hungry Years?

2010-07-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

The ideas are good; the sentiments ring true. The fishermen lounging in the sun that I wrote about in the last post lives in the present and is content with what he has. The tourist who thinks the fisherman should fish constantly and amass a fortune is set up in the Heinrich Boll story to look a little foolish, wanting the fisherman to strive after what he already has.

For some reason, the story reminded me of the song "The Hungry Years," written by Neil Sedaka, about a couple who had everything they needed in their early, poor years and who lost their connection with each other as they became more successful.

My first thought was that I love this song, especially sung by Rita Coolidge. My second thought was that I really wouldn't want the hungry years back at all. Sure, there were positive things about those years, but there were negative things that caused stress and worry. Sometimes hungry isn't a metaphor, and sometimes in the (often) student years, only a few dollars separate one from social assistance. One small bump in the road can become a pretty big catastrophe.

Maybe we all want a peaceful idyll, a pastoral innocence, and certainly living in the present moment, content with what one has, is always the best prescription.

But consider: the fisherman cannot retire; when he's ninety-two, he will still have to fish for his daily needs. What if he gets sick? What if there are one or two really bad fishing seasons?

The tourist, following his model of working really hard and amassing a fortune, will be able to retire - and in comfort. He will be able to lounge in a boat in the sun, but will also be able to jet off to see an opera at La Scala if he chooses. He won't have to fish almost daily and will have some resources built up in case of a catastrophe.

Ultimately, there is a lifestyle clash between the tourist and the fisherman. Neither would like the other's life very much. Like anything else, both have advantages and disadvantages and could take something from each other. The fisherman likely has a tight-knit community around him which would support him in tough times. The tourist likely has more mobility, more choices in life.

Being in a situation more like the tourist's, I like the sound of the fisherman's life, but realize that it involves much more constant and necessary physical labour and more restrictions than I really want

"The Hungry Years" is a great song, sadly nostalgic for things lost, but conveniently forgetful of anything negative. I don't miss the hungry years, and I don't want them back.

(The whole double take on the Boll story reminds me of my own views on readers trying to fix THE theme of a work of literature. Themes there may be, but to light on any one as IT, is usually somewhat foolish.)

Life in the Present

2010-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Our short idyll last week at the lake reminded me of the short story "Der Hafen" (the translation is very bad, but just readable) by German writer Heinrich Boll:

A fisherman relaxes in the sun in his boat after catching enough fish to provide for two days and does not go out again that day, even though the fish are really abundant.

A tourist cannot believe that the fisherman would do this. The tourist tells the fisherman that with the fish so abundant, he could go out several times a day for several days. If things continued in that way, the fisherman could become a wealthy man with fishing fleets, and maybe a seafood restaurant in Paris.

When he was that wealthy, the tourist tells him, he could retire and lounge in his boat in the sun.

The fisherman reminds the tourist that he is doing exactly that right now. The tourist's vague pity for the poor fisherman turns to envy.

There are many nuances of meaning one could take from this little tale. For me, it's to live fully in the present and to recognize exactly what one has. Idyllic moments are good reminders.

(photo credit)

Women, Reproduction, and Climate Change

2010-07-10T00:34:00.000-07:00

UNFPA - World Population Day 2010

Gender equity, women's sexual health, and reproductive rights have a direct effect on rising population which significantly affects climate change.

Incredibly, these very issues were missing from the agenda of the conference on emissions reduction in Copenhagen in December (2009). They were missing from the UN summit on climate change held in NYC in September 2009.

In her article "Factoring People Into Climate Change" in The Nation, Barbara Crossette discusses the connection between reproductive/women's rights and the environment and the reasons for silence about them at summits and conferences.

NGO activists see the connection and

UN officials are largely on the same page. Helen Clark, the new administrator of the UN Development Program, said at the Berlin forum that "educating women and families in the developing world on the number of children they actually wish to have, improving the health of women and promoting gender equality, reducing poverty and hunger, and mitigating climate change" form a virtuous circle.

Governments, however, disagree and wish to leave population off the agenda, especially India, which sees any discussion of population control as the West attempting to block its growth. India's influence among other developing nations ensures the continued absence of population and related women's and reproductive issues from conference agendas.

The refusal to discuss women's sexual health, gender equity, and reproductive rights does not surprise me; both traditional societies and more advanced ones stumble when it comes to granting full agency, personhood, and autonomy to women. Maybe we will literally go up in flames rather than grant women full, functioning equality!

Barbara Crossette's article is very worth reading.

She is also the author of So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas (1995) and The Great Hill Stations of Asia (1998).

(This is a re-post for World Population Day, which is tomorrow, July11.)

Let's Sing!

2010-07-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

There are so many good old songs from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, and I'm sure my mother knew most of them. She would always sing as she did the housework. No surprise, then, that I know the lyrics for dozens of these songs - we are little sponges at two, three, and four.

The lyrics are very handy in the event of a sing-along breaking out around a campfire - the parents who sang or the kids who listened to the old songs providing loads of laughs for the younger ones. I can remember a friend's kids being in turn amazed and appalled at us singing " Mairzy Dotes (Mares Eat Oats)." The play of words intrigued them, but they were essentially too cool to admit liking the song.

For years in the seventies (maybe still?), Shakey's Pizza Parlor had a sing-along every Friday night. Our favourites were Lloyd and Tommy, with guitar and banjo, singing all the old favourites. If memory serves me well, we became excellent sing-along singers after a couple of beers!

Whether the pizza-parlor singing was practice for church choir, or vice versa is a moot point. Also in the seventies, I sang with a folk choir at church. It was at that time when hip pastors played guitars, and the women in the folk choir all had matching, if somewhat subdued, hippie outfits.

We sang many of the songs of the Medical Mission Sisters who were justly famous for their religious folk music and had quite a following, with five or six albums to their credit.

In the choir, at the pizza parlour, around the campfire or around the house, singing is a good; singing the good old songs, even better. I haven't encountered a good sing-along for many years; perhaps people no longer do this. Pity.

My thanks to Cher at AskCherlock, who mentioned fond memories of her parents singing and harmonizing together, which unleashed this trip down the memory lane of song.

A New Photo Project

2010-07-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm resurrecting an old blog as a place for a 365-day photo project. I've been thinking about it for awhile and have finally decided to jump in.

Have a look, if you wish:

Dixi - comments on pretty much anything

An Idyllic Summer Morning

2010-07-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

West Lake

I should have known when the blueberry muffins turned out so well that our trip to the lake would be perfect. I am no baker, usually forgetting an ingredient or trying to substitute something unworkable; so perfect baking is a good omen.

Every summer, we make a few trips to West Lake, a provincial park only 15 minutes from home. We brew coffee, usually buy muffins on the way (a surplus of blueberries and milk called for the home-baked kind), take our books and our portable lawn chairs, and off we go for a couple of hours of early morning quiet and soul-renewing scenery.

The beach is quiet, usually until around ten, when the mothers with kids start to arrive; by eleven on a warm summer day, it's really filling up.

This morning, we were not the first to arrive, as we often are. A lone canoeist, possibly in his late sixties, had already paddled the 3.5 miles to the end of the lake and back and was taking his canoe to his car. We chatted briefly with him and moved on to find a spot beside the lake, amongst the trees.

After settling down with book, coffee, and muffin, I looked up to see a loon directly in front of me, quite close as he dove for fish. I tracked his path across the water - he would dive and re-surface maybe fifty feet further on. He made no call, but his beauty more than made up for it.

The fish were jumping, and at the water's edge, we could see dozens of fish, from tiny minnows to larger fish, maybe 5 or 6 inches long.

That many fish means eagles hunting, and there are several nesting eagles at the lake. We have sat on occasion with one directly above us in the trees. They are so majestic, circling, looking for fish, then swooping down, pulling a fish from the water. We could see one later in the trees on the shore, eating his catch.

The other notables were big yellow butterflies and bright blue tiny dragonflies.

People sometimes ask whether I miss life in Vancouver, sitting on Robson at an outdoor cafe, relaxing after shopping, and watching the crowds walk by. And sometimes I do - urban life has much to offer.

But on days like today, I would rather be nowhere else than beside West Lake, drinking coffee, eating my perfect blueberry muffins, and watching the wildlife.

(The pictures of West Lake are mine from a couple of years ago; the picture of the loon is not.)

Versatile Blogger Award

2010-07-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

I have been given another award, this one by Christi at Journaling My Life Away. This is the second time that I have received two awards within roughly one week of each other - must be the alignment of the stars or something.

Always, I am very grateful that others appreciate my blog. Thanks Christi.

The conditions of this award are that

1. the recipient must thank the bestower of the award,
2. share seven things about self, and
3. bestow the award on 15 newly-discovered, or followed blogs.

So here goes:

1. I grew up in Atlantic Canada
2. I once ran out of gas in the fast lane of the Autobahn in Germany.
3. I hate sharing the kitchen.
4. I could visit Florence, Italy dozens of more times and never tire of it.
5. I love the poetry of Pablo Neruda.
6. I did my thesis on the poetry of John Keats.
7. As a kid, I always got a small bottle of olives in my Christmas stocking.

I have chosen to give the award, mostly, to blogs I have only just discovered. They are all worth visiting - and more than once. (I know there aren't 15 here, but that's it for now.)

Hannah Stoneham's Book Blog

Rogue Artists

Jewel's Arty Blog

AnfinsenArt

Diane's 365 photo project

The English Country Kitchen

The Sole Sisters Collective

Great Blog Award

2010-07-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

I want to thank Rich and Cher at Askcherlock for awarding At My Soiree the Great Blog Award. Askcherlock is full of wonderful stories, penetrating political and economic analysis, and wisdom for everyone. Rich and Cher work so well together to create the depth and variety of their blog.

Life intervenes sometimes, and I am a week late with my thanks, but it is no less sincere.

I am honoured and grateful.

Two Thrift Store Allegories

2010-07-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

It has become commonplace, the idea that only men were hunters and only women were gatherers millions of years ago. Most importantly, the "fact" of unambiguous gender roles for those millions of years explains, by way of evolutionary psychology, all gendered behaviour today. (I have written about this before, from a different perspective.)

And I say "Horsepuckie." I also say that I love a good metaphor; it can achieve greatness in explaining even seeming opposites, especially when it is developed to full allegorical glory.

So first, we have the allegory of the thrift store gatherer. She (she has to be female according to the evolutionary psychology people) is driven by evolutionary imperatives to shop, to browse and select the best goods for the best price. She wanders through the store, looking for the best deals, much as she has been window-shopping for the best shops. She gathers her soon-to-be purchases, just as a female in Paleolithic times gathered nuts and berries, with a discerning eye for value.

Doesn't that sound nice? The good female shopper gathering goods according to her gendered, evolutionary role.

So now let's try the allegory of the hunter in the thrift store. She (stepping outside her usual prescriptive role) is hunting for treasure, that genuine Prada bag for $5, the one hanging in the midst of the other less desirable bags. Before every sortie to the store, she plans her attack, her route, and her strategy. She knows that other hunters are looking for the same prey, so she uses special tactics to camouflage her approach. She cuts off access to several bags, including her intended prey, which gives her time to assess the situation. Assured that the prey is genuine, she isolates it from the rest and finalizes the purchase.

Sounds nice, as well. The hunter searching for prey, isolating it, and going in for the kill.

That's the trouble with so many of the assumptions of evolutionary psychology. We mostly don't really know the difference between an evolutionary imperative and a damn good story that simply illustrates the status quo, especially in matters of gender.

William James and The Ironing

2010-06-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't included The Ironing as a category of activity in my life for many, many years now. It's not that I never iron anything; if something needs to be ironed, I iron it. But I have no Ironing waiting to be done, no unironed pile, no task called "Ironing" that intrudes on my consciousness until I complete it. (My mother would tell you that, despite her best efforts, this has always been true!)

For some years, as a young adult, I felt that perhaps I should have The Ironing in my life - all my female role models did so. It must be a generational thing; not many of my peers think of The Ironing in the way our mothers and grandmothers did.

The Ironing has ceased to be for my generation (and probably subsequent ones) what William James would call a "living option."

I was reminded of this by an excellent article by Jonathan Ree, in The New Humanist (Jul/Aug 2010), which reflects what I felt about reading William James in university:

I love William James. He’s just about the only philosopher who didn’t end up as either a pettifogging nit-picker or an overbearing egomaniac with delusions of genius. He was generous too – witty, honest, modest and flexible – and more interested in promoting productive conversations than hogging the last word. He was also a brilliant writer.

The discussion of options, from his famous essay "The Will to Believe" (1896) is my favourite "takeaway" from reading James.

A genuine option must be three things; living, forced, and momentous.

A living option has to have inner, emotional appeal: either this or that, where both this and that are subjectively meaningful. A dead option does not compel. Either do The Ironing or be a bad housekeeper; the idea of being a bad housekeeper must be something to be avoided at all costs.

A forced option is a real either/or situation: no way out, no third choice. The Ironing is a forced option only if being a housekeeper is the only choice and only if being a housekeeper means doing The Ironing oneself.

A momentous option carries grave or serious consequences: for example not doing The Ironing will result in the total demise of western culture and society, financially and morally.

For some, for sure, doing or not doing The Ironing is still a genuine option. For many, it has ceased to be living, forced, or momentous. Being a housekeeper is no longer the only choice, or one of the few choices, for women. The idea of being a good, bad, or indifferent housekeeper is no longer so compelling.

And I have found that there are virtually no consequences at all for not doing The Ironing - except that my older female relatives sometimes roll their eyes at my rebelliousness.

The Answer in the Question

2010-06-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Elaine McArdle in her Boston Globe article ("The freedom to say 'no'") - May 2008 - writes about research in economics and the social sciences which shows that smart and highly educated (in math and science) women choose jobs other than those in IT, physics, and engineering. They self-select jobs in which they deal more with organic substances and language, and less with tools and inorganic substances.

These data apparently surprise researchers who sought the reasons for such choices in physiology, education, or at the door or glass ceiling of the workplace. But they found that it’s not about brains, aptitude, ability, or out-and-out barriers; it’s mostly about choice, they say. Women choose freely.

Yet, McArdle reports that researchers don’t know why women choose as they do. They don’t know how experience and socialization work in shaping women and their choices.

But doesn’t the answer about selecting jobs lie exactly there, in the answer to the question of how culture shapes women and their choices from infancy?

We have a willful and collective blindness, in certain quarters at least, about the role of ideology in shaping people’s choices, especially when it has to do with the role and place of women in our society.

We are not so blind when it comes to subcultures, though. It’s interesting that a couple of years ago in Texas, with the FLDS cult, we had no such trouble understanding how constant exposure to certain ideas from infancy shapes women’s beliefs and makes them accept behavior that is harmful to themselves and to their children.

I am frankly pessimistic that researchers will even look to see the results of exposure to beliefs about what it means to be a woman in a dominant culture. If they did, they might have to admit that women actually have less choice than they “find” in the research McArdle reports.

Researchers will continue to look everywhere but where the truth lies. The real answer to the Freudian question about what women want is that it’s only a rhetorical question.

Elaine McArdle is a writer in Cambridge, Mass. She has co-authored a book with Dr. Carolyn Bernstein called The Migraine Brain.

The Dusty Collection

2010-06-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have a small art collection, a collection of books that grows no matter how often I cull, a spice and herb collection that has many deceased specimens. I gave my record collection away about five minutes before I learned of the turntable that plugs into a USB port. None of these collections is unusual.

The woman's dusty collection is not so familiar, and I wonder how many of us have or have had such a cache.

I call it the dusty collection because it is made up of sports/game equipment entirely related to a woman's former boyfriends/spouses/partners. Most of it is never used more than once or twice. Bye-bye- boyfriend, bye-bye gear.

Over many, many years, I have had badminton and tennis raquets, balls and shuttlecocks, golf clubs, softball paraphenalia, a rifle, shotgun, and hunting knife, various helmets, and hiking boots. I have dragged some part of the dusty collection between apartments and across the country more than once.

All of that stuff cost a fair chunk of change - I don't even want to add it all up! That's part of hanging onto all of it for a long time. It also is a kind of archive and part of one's identity.

I gave up my dusty collection many years ago, ironically, when I bought a house and finally had enough space to store it all. Perhaps it was an age thing, or maybe having enough distance from all that money spent or a stronger sense of identity.

Now my collection has skates, a bike, swimming goggles (all loves from childhood), and golf clubs. I also kept the hiking boots, as one can never have too many shoes.

If anything in my collection gets dusty these days, it's due mostly to procrastination - both about working out and about dusting!

Bad Boys: What You Gonna Do?

2010-06-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Guy's Perspective has an interesting post about the curse of the bad boy which immediately reminded me of this commercial for Huggies (seems implausible, doesn't it?).

I'm not sure what it means for the fate and future of the bad boy.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could mean that the whole concept of the bad boy has had its day in the sun and has become the subject of jokes and not much else.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could also mean that the whole bad boy schtick is so ubiquitous that it has lost its oomph.

Being spoofed in a diaper commercial could mean that the whole bad boy thing is just a normal part of reality, and we are comfortable enough with it to joke about it.

Who knows?

And while I do have issues with advertising and have written about that not too long ago, this ad is very cute, funny, and analysis-worthy.

Plus, the little star has all the makings of a future successful bad boy, if nothing else. What a cutie pie!

Laughing All the Way

2010-06-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Throughout my childhood, my father could make me laugh with a subtle, or not so subtle, funny face, a look, a sound - frequently at the dinner table. I would laugh uncontrollably until my mother would send me away from the table, not as punishment, but to help me calm down and quite probably to prevent the sputtering of food around the room.

Any control I gained would be akin to trying not to laugh in church, an illusion, broken immediately as I would look at my father upon returning to the table - out of the room, again, I would go.

So, it's not a surprise that my father sent me a link to a Rowan Atkinson routine.

Rowan Atkinson, in his stand alone routines or as Mr. Bean or Black Adder, makes me laugh in much the same way my father did all those years ago - hysterically, uncontrollably, with tears. Often, he has to just appear and I start laughing.

People seem to fall into two camps regarding Atkinson's humour. Those who love him think that those who don't just don't get it and are too, too stuffy. Those who don't like him (often quite emphatically) think that those who do are infantile and weird. There is no in between.

Following is the Atkinson routine The Piano Player (compliments of my father).

Here are two more in the musical mode: Rowan Atkinson "conducting" Beethoven's 5th and Mr. Bean conducting the Salvation Army band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2tpBwVuSKc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzdUiwB-Fj0

Enjoy. But watch out if you have your mouth full!!!!

Goodbye to a Great Person and an Unforgettable Voice

2010-06-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester (1930 - 2010) died this past week at the age of seventy-nine.

Her voice was truly awesome:

I also loved her attitude.

In an excerpt from an older interview played on CBC radio this week, Forrester was asked about the many lucky breaks that had come her way. She replied that she had, indeed, had lucky breaks, but that she had trained for years and prepared herself to be ready for those breaks when they came along.

And, I believe, that's the secret to THE secret.

Goodbye to a Canadian who blessed the world with her amazing talent.

Pretty Face, Ugly Cost

2010-06-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

Pure, soft, natural, active, organic. Sounds good, doesn't it, for personal care and cosmetic products. Too bad those words are meaningless; too bad they so easily lull us into purchasing. The trouble is that many beauty products contain ingredients that are carcinogenic, allergenic, can cause developmental abnormalites in fetuses, and can wreak havoc with the reproductive system (male and female - the boys aren't exempt!).

Things like lead in lipstick and formaldehyde in baby shampoo and baby body washes. New technologies are an issue as well, with not enough testing to know whether they are safe or not - like nanotechnologies:

"Beware personal care products that tout the use of nanoparticles, nanomaterials or nanotechnology. This emerging technology is almost entirely untested for its health effects, and no requirements exist for either testing or labeling these products." (Safe Cosmetics)
This, for me, is a case of both wanting to know and not wanting to know at the same time. Products I've used and loved for years turn out to be quite highly toxic - I want to continue using them, but feel that it's not that wise. A chance pick at the library gave me all this new information to deal with - the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan.

Malkan lists several websites for more extensive information. One I find very helpful is The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics which works to document the dangerous products in personal care products and promote improvement. They have developed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics for companies to sign - the PDF of all companies that have signed is available.

The Canadian government has created an ingredients "hotlist," not only of chemicals, but of appropriate concentrations of them. The European Union has enacted laws governing what can go into personal care products. Although many U.S. companies have also cleaned up their act and re-formulated products, many have not, and the FDA has no clout : "The FDA does not review – nor does it have the authority to regulate – what goes into cosmetics before they are marketed to salons and consumers."

Another find through Malkan's book is the Environmental Working Group which has a cosmetics safety database that shows hazard levels. You can search by product, ingredient, and/or company to see just what's in your personal care products and what the risk of using them is.

I have dug out from the dusty back of my bookshelves a book by Virginia Castleton called The Handbook of Natural Beauty that I have had for decades and is still available. Castelton has many recipes for beauty products made from food and food-grade ingredients. I remember using corn meal for a face scrub and olive oil as moisturizer - trust me Cream of Wheat is not a substitute for the corn meal!!!

I will probably ditch some products, make some products, and keep some - the overall chemical load is important, too.

My question from now on, though, when I see the words "pure," "soft," and "natural" will be pure, soft and natural what? A little research may save a lot of grief..

Serious Darts

2010-06-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

The FIFA World Cup it definitely is not, but the game of darts has a huge following - 7000 in the audience at a recent televised tournament.

My experience with darts is almost entirely from playing in the odd pub many years ago. After a few rounds, someone would invariably decide to challenge everyone to a game, although no one ever seemed to know the rules. Triples are good; doubles too. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you.

There is a World Darts Federation, however, that has everything you always wanted to know about darts. The Federation is the world governing body for the game; there are 250,000 playing members from six continents. There are anti-doping regulations in the game. The very professionally done site has rules, regulations, archives, history, and lists of previous winners and pros.

Every two years, on odd numbered years, they hold the World Cup. Every two years, on even numbered years, are the Americas Cup, The Asia/Pacific Cup, and the Europe Cup (and more!).

A far cry from the pub experiences of my youth, the modern game of darts is professionally run and widely popular. To dart players, it probably is the real beautiful game. And no vuvuzelas!

Romancing the Diet

2010-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

Quitting smoking was not easy, but in retrospect, it was far easier than losing a measly 15 pounds and keeping it off. To stop smoking (seven years ago), I had to change my thinking and my desires.

It turns out, though, that I had help I wasn't aware of. And I now believe that made all the difference, a difference that doesn't exist for the process of weight loss.

From two different perspectives, the article "Beating Obesity" by Marc Ambinder in the May 2010 issue of The Atlantic, and the book Savor, by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lillian Leung discuss the issue. Both discuss the interconnectedness of everything. Because of this interconnectedness, we are fat. Only together with everything, can we become healthy and less fat.

First, the bad news - according to Ambinder, the forces of society, technology, industry, government policy, culture, genes, and demographics work in concert to make and keep us fat.

Technology changes work, changes behaviour, changes patterns and amount of movement; Industry constructs food - food molecules actually - that some suspect create virtual "neurochemical addiction...change our brain chemistry in ways that make us overeat;" non-food industries expose us to chemicals that correlate with obesity.

Society's demands create stress which leads to obesity; society's expectations affect sleep patterns which can help make us fat; society's planning and design of towns and cities affect our level of exercise; business production and distribution models make fast food not only the most calorically dense, but the cheapest and most widely available.

"Agricultural production and subsidies" - corn fed beef, high fructose corn syrup, for example - increase our waistlines. Advertising with its images of food and the normalization of food as entertainment and acceptance help make us fat. Cultural norms regarding portion sizes have increased dramatically.

It's a wonder that anyone can lose weight and keep it off with all of this, and more, ranged against the individual. According to Ambinder, "America has erected two lines of defense: name-calling, and hectoring about diet and exercise."

Both of these defenses put the entire responsibility for health and weight loss on the individual - rather silly when you think about it. Even with Olympic-class will power, the individual fights a losing battle.

This is the point at which the Thich Nhat Hanh/Leung book Savor enters the picture. Drawing on Buddhist practices of mindfulness and meditation, the authors stress how we are not alone, how weight loss, like anything else, is together with everything. We cannot lose weight in isolation; people have to work together to create an environment that is healthful for all. We have to be mindful of eating - and of living.

That unseen help I had to stop smoking came from society - policy, regulation, advertising, education, technology, culture - many of the things ranged against the individual when it comes to weight loss. Society is against cigarettes in ways that it is not against cheap food, fast food, hypertasty food, large portions of food, junk food, processed food.

Right now we expect each single, tiny will to stand up to the whole of society. Many will say that the game isn't rigged, that each person can make a rational decision about what's beneficial. It doesn't work.

Only collective will power can get this done. And it's so easy to discuss it over a nice bowl of something and a supersized drink!

Coffee and Bordeaux? Neaux, Neaux!

2010-06-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

According to a May 2010 article in the New York Times Style section by Eric Asimov, Bordeaux is no longer popular among younger wine drinkers, who perceive it as stodgy and fussy, a drink for rich older people, a wine with not much excitement to recommend it:

Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass...

''The perception of Bordeaux for my generation, it's very Rolex, very Rolls-Royce,'' said Cory Cartwright, 30, ... ''I don't know many people who like or drink Bordeaux.'' ...

To be fair, Asimov writes broadly of problems and perceptions of the Bordeaux brand. But according to the article: "For young Americans in particular, Bordeaux has become downright unfashionable."

Coffee is another product beginning to lose its lustre. An article in Mindfood (June 2010) - "Trendy Tea Consumers Revive Industry" by Miral Fahmy - suggests that tea is "attracting younger, more discerning fans."
Elsewhere on the web are instructions and suggestions for different kinds of tea parties (not the political kind!).

On a recent visit to the local mall, I was surprised to see a new tea store, selling prepared tea drinks and loose tea and bags to prepare at home. I was also surprised to pick up a package of Starbucks coffee and see the possible new branding Starbucks Coffee and Tea. Sounds like tea is a slam dunk already.

Trends are interesting things, based as they so often are on the tastes of one's peers and so often not on the actual objective attributes of any particular item, be it shoes, wine, or tea. We all succumb to it.

I have often wondered, though, with my own generation's trends and those of others, just what our preconceived notions keep us from experiencing. How much pleasure and knowledge do we let go by because it's not "in," because no self-respecting________(fill in your own blank here) would ever enjoy something so not in style, so old, so loud, so irresponsible? So passe.

Sometimes it is all about identity. I well remember a friend's then seventeen-year-old son having a near meltdown when his dad won the bet that the son's favourite band's so popular song was a cover of a song from a band of dad's era - twenty years before. It wasn't about the song, but about who was cool, who owned cool, who invented cool.

I'd like to have it all - the coffee and tea, the bordeaux and burgundy. Fashion also loses some of its lustre as I get older - but that's probably not so cool - and the word "cool" is probably s-o-o-o o old-fashioned!

Good, Bad, Ugly Television

2010-06-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

The good is shrinking or barely holding its own, the bad and the ugly proliferate with amazing speed. Television is a cesspool with a few non-polluted islands.

I am not one of those people who never watches television. (That's another post - all the people who swear they don't watch television. Some I believe; many I don't. But it's a trendy kind of thing to disclaim being a viewer.) And I am not a knowledgeable critic. I know what I like, what I don't like, and what offends my ethics and my sensibilities.

Television is good for coverage of breaking news. I know no one who is old enough and owns a TV set who did not watch coverage of 911. Images of birds in the Gulf of Mexico covered with oil, still trying to move have impact in a way that even the most amazing still shots don't - one blink that signals a still beating heart says it all.

Television is good for live coverage of sports events - the Olympics, Stanley Cup, World Cup, Superbowl. Watching the play unfold and not knowing who will win is exciting. Radio just isn't the same.

Beyond that, it gets dicier. Reality shows ARE television to many, and they attract millions of viewers. Mostly, I don't care for them. Many are some form of competition. Many show people at their worst. All are voyeurism in a way that is worse than that in movies and fictional programs. Not only is much of the content idiotic, watching all that greed, naked ambition, and nastiness isn't much fun.

I refuse to watch any reality show with children - they have no say, no informed consent. Who wants to have the potty training episode turn up at the wrong moment in the future? Much worse - the fact of being on the show must shape the very essence of the childhood experience and can't help but give a child a somewhat skewed idea of his or her relationship with others.

Sitcoms insult the intelligence, most of them anyway. Dramas can have good storylines, backstory, and characters, but overwhelm us with the very most degraded aspects of human life. I don't want to spend any of my precious time watching endless twists on rape, murder, torturers, and serial killers; it's enough to stay informed about all the madness in real life.

Many shows on politics and current events devolve into partisan shouting matches, while some bring in an endless stream of celebrities with no expertise on the subject. If all else fails, bring in the psychics and mediums, the life coaches and charlatan healers - who else could better advise us on wars, disasters, and complex diplomatic issues.

There are some shows that I genuinely like and watch, but even those have advertising that is manipulative and intrusive. Some of PBS appeals. Perhaps I am just in a downward cycle with television.

Selectivity is the key. And the mute button, don't forget the mute button.

Minding Manipulation

2010-06-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

It usually comes as a suprise to students to learn that in television, we, the viewers, are the product. That's right, us! Not the programs, not the products that are advertised, but the audience.

Television producers and executives make shows they hope will deliver enough product (audience) to make advertisers spend as much of their money as possible pitching their wares to us.

And selling our presence without being transparent and forthcoming about it isn't bad enough. We are subjected to manipulation, read that as marketing, through the creation of desires which, of course, product X will fulfill, and/or we are subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) shown how we just don't measure up to the make- believe world the advertisers create.

Magazines are the same.

It's everywhere - on television, radio, buses, blogs, websites, movies, taxis, billboards, magazines, and more. The basic methods may differ, but the goal is the same.

I am sick of advertising. No one ever asked me, or any of us, if all days, times, places could be filled up with advertising, if every time and space could be commercialized.

I've had enough. I am on a mission to endure as little advertising as possible.

It's not always possible - probably not best to close one's eyes while driving to avoid signage in various places!!! But there is a mute button on the remote or the option to not watch television at all (or to watch selectively), and there are computer programs that will block sidebar ads and pop-ups. I just won't buy some magazines, as I refuse to pay for all the ads.

I believe that many ads, images, and narratives affect us in negative ways; they certainly are manipulative, working around reason and critical thinking. One of my professors had research to show that we who think we are resisting ads are often the most susceptible.

Not all ads are bad. Some are funny, provocative, artistic, informative, enjoyable. I like those and will choose to watch.

But I am on a mission - I will no longer be a passive endurer of other people's manipulative attempts to sell me something.

To end on a lighter note, here is a Wendy's ad from the eighties, with Clara Peller - one of the famous "Where's the Beef?" ads. The slogan has become part of the culture.