08w38:1 Roundup Posted September 20th, 2008 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2008 week 38 number 1 (Roundup) I was complemented on Goodreads last night by a long-time reader who I haven’t seen socially in years; he mentioned that it’s been kind of slow, and I responded that I’ve been busy. Etc … I’ve gotten involved with the Department of Culture, which got a fair representation in the Oakville Beaver (although they spelt Jol Thomson’s name wrong) and earlier this week I got a message from Sheila Heti telling me there would be an hour of silence in Trinity Bellwoods Park on Friday (last night) to remember DFW – a writer who I never really got into, despite trying to read Consider the Lobster, after it got a glowing review on the CBC years ago (a review which stuck in my head to the point that I realized it was poison to be considered hip by the CBC). Of ‘Consider the Lobster’ – that essay didn’t give me anything to think about of which I did not think already (having grown up eating lobsters regularly, I now find them somewhat repellent). My appreciation for Mr Abbreviation & Footnote is reserved to an increased us of abbreviations in my own writing (that, and the experience of working for TD Bank last year, wherein I had to note accnts using abbreviations, as per policy). I didn’t post Ms. Heti’s notice since I didn’t really think GR readers were numerous enough, nor local enough, to care. I think she has a better network of potential interest on that front. Also, (personally) spending an hour in a cool park in silence to mourn a suicide who I didn’t mourn and whom I’d never met didn’t sound like a valid Friday night activity. Instead, I went to the Power Plant opening, and had the Weirdest Night in the World. Across town, New Kids on the Block were singing twenty-year old songs to now-30 something one-time teeny-bopers. I remember reading in one of my sister’s magazines during their hay-day, a girl’s letter stating she was certain that she was in love with Jordan Knight, had some understanding that it was irrational, and asking what to do. I’ve always kind of wondered what happened to her, how she must have eventually grown out of it, and perhaps these days is married with children. Which in it’s own way is Infinitely Sad | Troy Patterson http://www.slate.com/id/2200152/ What’s the Matter with Canada ? | Christopher Flavelle http://www.slate.com/id/2199929/ The growing ideological no man’s land | Michael Valpy http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/theglobeandmail/noideology/ “For more than half a century, Canadians have seen, or read about, a succession of left and right governments that have promised cure-alls for society’s ailments but failed to deliver. Ideological fatigue has set in: Canadians have become tired of the left-right arguments. They have become pragmatic, eclectic, interested only in what works. An increasing number of young Canadians have grown into adulthood not knowing about or having experienced the nanny state in its heyday.” // Comment: I liked this article but hated the run-down on the Baby Boomer electorate. Valpy states: “Mr. Graves attributes the electoral shift – incrementally to the right, hugely to the non-ideological no-man’s land – to three factors:..” He goes on to list the three factors: the baby boomers are getting old, they’ve had their parents die, and 9/11. In other words, the electorate doesn’t consist of anybody but Baby Boomers? The anger and frustration I feel in reading that rundown is not something I can express in simple sentences herein. I’m not old, my parents aren’t dead, and fuck 9/11 and all the scare-mongering it has wrought. The Baby Boomers lived through the Kennedy assassination, the oil-shock, the hijackings of the 1970s and 1980s, the Munich Olympics – why should 9/11 be a factor now? Nine-Eleven should be a greater concern to my generation to whom it was something new, coming out of the blue and borrowed from movies made by Baby Boomers for over twenty years. Valpy concludes, “Those circumstances combined have given them a gloomier and more fearful outlook on life, making them more likely to be plums for the picking by Conservative strategists.” If Boomers are gloomy, perhaps they have the right to be, considering all that they’ve lived through. But the neglect of youthful perspectives, of those of us for whom are lives are still largely ahead of us, and who have the right to dream of brighter tomorrows, is another part of their shameful legacy. The Boomers are not the entire electorate, nor I should add, are they a monolithic block of like minded selfish assholes. They are citizens of a country different than the one they were born into, and one that doesn’t have to be the narrow-minded and ignorant hell the Conservative party would be happy to govern. Protesters greet Harper at rally | Tina Depko http://www.oakvillebeaver.com/news/article/206011 “Although the Department of Culture is largely made up of members of Canada’s arts community, spokespeople say they aren’t just pushing for better funding. They also want a better Canada, according to Toronto artist Danielle Williams. ‘We’re really discontent with the way the current government is being run and we don’t want to see that again,’ said Williams. ‘Arts is an integrated aspect of being Canadian.'” The House: Saturday September 20 2008 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/thehouse_20080920_7679.mp3 “This week on The House: Guest host Alison Crawford talks political gaffs with Conservative MP Jason Kenney. She asks him how his party decides how to handle political mis-steps during a campaign. Reporter Louise Elliott tests Stephen Harper’s theory that Canadians are becoming more conservative. Alison speaks to two members of Toronto’s multicultural media about how parties are trying to woo the ethnic vote.” Culture in Danger http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhgv85m852Q (I had to click on the CC – lower right hand corner – to turn on the subtitles).
