I come from the land of the ice and snow

I feel bad about not writing more this semester, but things are quite busy. Not much to report in the way of updates as the things I'm busy with are pretty dull admin type things. I don't see that changing any time soon, so perhaps I'll have to try harder to see the amusing bits in the very, very mundane.

I have read some interesting novels in the past little while that I quite liked. The novels of Ron Hansen, who wrote The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, continue to impress me. I read Hitler's Niece over the holidays and am about half way through Margerite in Ecstacy.

She probably lives in Tahiti

Bad weather breeds camaraderie.

Steady rain and temperatures hovering around zero have made sidewalks of Winnipeg are a virtual skating rink today. Walking to work took an extra 20 minutes because I had to do the straight leg shuffle most of the way. As I passed the other people silly or desperate enough to brave these condition, our eyes would meet, we'd share a smile and, in a few instances, an inane verbal exchange.

"Pretty bad out here, eh?"
"Yeah, it's sure not fun."

I'm not someone who likes strangers talking to me on the street. Growing up in Toronto I learned pretty quickly that talking to people on the streets was something only the craziest of the crazy did. To say hello to a stranger was an invitation to abduction or assault. But for some reason I found these acknowledgements comforting. It's like we were saying, "I know what you're going through. I'm going through it too, and we're going to be alright."

Wassail, wassail all over the town

With the rush of Christmas now over and the rush of New Year's just beinging I thought I'd take a few minutes to give a quick update to whoever still reads this blog.

Christmas was quite low key, but also enjoyable, this year. My in-laws came in on the 23rd, but stayed with my brother-in-law and his wife. So, they'd come over here or we'd go over there. There wasn't too much planned, captial-e events. Pretty laidback all in all.

I must admit that I do miss family movies that has been a Christmas tradition until this past year. Whenever we'd go to Saskatoon or they'd stay with us ofr Christmas, we'd rent a pile of classic and not-so-classic films to watch. When people are sleeping at another house and have to drive across town, they aren't as keen on staying up and watching movies. We did go to a movie, but finding something in the theatres that everyone wants to see is hard. In fact, we split into two groups when we went. Rachel and her mom went to Doubt; everyone else went to Quantum of Solace. For some reason it's easier to agree on older movies.

Oliver proved that he can handle company quite well. While there are still bursts of puppy-excitment, he's become a mellow, easy-going dog. Christmas was our testing ground for seeing how he coped with having people over now that he's a little older, and he passed.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well, it looks like the deep freeze we've been experiencing here in Winnipeg will be with until Christmas. I must admit, the four half-hour-to-hour long walks a day have turned my feet into perpetually frozed blocks of ice. They only begin to thaw before it time to go out in the cold once more.

Instead of posting a brand new Christmas blog that in all likelihood wouldn't be that good, I thought, why not post a retro Christmas blog? Here's one from way back in 2006. It was a simpler time, a time of innocence and magic.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Hangin' my stockin' I can hear you knockin': Zat you, Santa Claus?

After doing this blog for four years, it's hard to remember what I have and haven't written about. I'm pretty sure that in Christmases past I've listed my favourite Christmas songs; last year, I detailed Christmas in the Netherlands with St. Nicholas and Black Peter...but I don' think I've ever listed some of my favourite holiday movies. So that's what I'm going to do this year. These are, in no particular order films I try to watch every holiday season. Some will be the classics that appear on everyone's list, some will be hidden treasure that you've never heard of before.

1) Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) I love Preston Sturges movies and The Lady Eve might just be the best comedy ever made. Miracle is a great holiday movie because it's so wonderfully, shockingly subversive! It's about a girl, Trudy Kockenlocker (how did that name get by the censors?), who goes to a GI dance with her friend, Norval Jones. Well, Trudy has such a good time that she winds up married and pregnant... but has no idea who the father might be. Norval steps up and tries to do the right thing. It all comes to a head at Christmas ... a fitting time for a young girl who's been unexpectedly knocked up to deliver her "miracle" child.

2) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) This classic film deserves every iota of praise. A truly inspired reinterpretation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol with George Bailey, a good and honest man who has placed the interests of others ahead of himself, believing that his life has been misspent. This film reveals the fragility of life - suggesting that one person could make the difference between a whole community's happiness/success and misery. This is my advisor's favourite movie of all time, and the fact that he lost a job at a prestigious American university because he unrelentingly defended this film when someone's wife dismissed it as sentimental nonsense makes me proud.

3) Scrooge (aka A Christmas Carol) (1951) Many versions of Dickens' ghost story of Yuletide redemption have been made over the years, but this is the definitive. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an absolute moron. I feel as deeply and passionately about this film as any other. I usually watch it three or four times a year and can recite most of the dialogue from memory. One of the great joys and proudest moments of my dissertation has been working this film into a highly praised chapter on Dickens adaptations.

4 & 5) About a Boy (2002) and Love Actually (2003) I can't imagine there are many other people with two Hugh Grant films on their must-see holiday lists, but both of these films are great Christmas movies. In About a Boy Grant's character is haunted by his father's very popular, but ultimately innocuous Christmas song, "Santa's Super Sleigh". All but rejecting the holiday, he holes himself up in his apartment watching Frankenstein until he learns that family can be about a community you choose. In Love Actually Grant is one of a dozen or so actors whose intertwined stories portray the highs and lows of the holiday season.

6) Santa Claus (1954) I'm pretty sure I could only ever sit through the "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" version of this piece of Mexican yule-poo (that's for you, Kyler). I recently inflicted this on some friends... and I'm not sure they'll ever forgive me. Basic premise: Santa and his multinational child labourers battle the devil, Pitch, who tries to convince children to steal, vandalize and be naughty. You read that right. Santa fights the devil. I'm sure it's going for "quaint," but it hits "creepy" nearly every single time. Particularly disturbing are the giant toy reindeer that pull Santa's sleigh, Pitch's Busby Berkleyesque dancing, and most of Santa's facial expressions.

When I sang a song about a honky-tonk... it was time to leave

The other morningI realized how much my life has changed: I reached into my jackey pocket for my house keys. I produced the said keys, an unused pooped bag and a handful of loose kibbel. As Dave has commented, I might as well change the focus of this blog to my dog.


On another, non-Oliver, note, I've just finished reading Ron Hansen's fantastic novel Exiles, which tells of English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins's attempt to honour the memories of five German nuns who died when The Deutschland sank off the coast of England in 1875. Hansen weaves the stories of the nuns, who were leaving Germany following the Falk laws and Bismarck's persecution of Catholics, and Hopkins, whose conversion to Catholicism and membership in the Society of Jesus isolated him from his Oxford tutors, his friends and his family and whose poetic experiments (Hopkins is called the most modern Victorian poet and the most Victorian modern poet) isolated him from the literary world.

And I replied, "Oh why ask me?!

A few posts back, I mentioned that a former student of mine, Brad Toews died and that I would write more at a later date. There have been no fewer than 15 attempts. Everytime I sit down to write something I find myself at a loss: Brad was popular, funny, the life of the party... and Brad took his own life. I will never be able to wrap my mind around that.

Brad started taking classes with me last September. It was a 3 hour evening class - Major English Authors - on Monday nights. On the afternoon of the final exam, he came up and told me how much he liked my class and how he'd decided to stick around for another semester and was interested in the other courses I was offering.

Brad took both my second semester courses, including 18th century literature where he was one of four students. I got to know him pretty well (or so I thought). He was thoughtful, he tried, he was funny, very funny. Humour carries a lot of weight with me.

In trying to come up with a good Brad story, my mind races: there was the ever-present Giants hat, T-shirt (even in the middle of winter), and his smile; there was his arrival for each of our 8:30 classes with a bowl of cereal, an apple and his books; there were his stories about picking up hitchhikers; there was the time he ran back to dorm at the beginning of class to wake up another student who’d been having alarm clock issues. But my favourite Brad story, and the one I’d like to share, might not seem like that big a deal to some of you, but means the world to me, particularly now.

As some of you know, Providence College is a Christian school and the faculty are encouraged to pray at the start of each class. And, I’ll be honest, I’m terrible at it. Not that I don’t like or value prayer; I’m just not comfortable with spontaneously praying out loud. I asked my class if we could share the responsibility. At the start of each class, I’d ask for a volunteer to pray. More often than not, if no one else offered, Brad would throw up his hand, remove his hat and offer a simple, heartfelt blessing on the class that usually began, "Hey God." I hardly ever had to pray! I knew that if no one else offered, I could count on Brad to let me off the hook.

On the Thursday before Brad’s funeral, I got a call from Gerald Dyck of the Westside Community Church: Brad’s family wanted me to pray for hope for the future at his interment. There’s no way they could have appreciated the extra layer of irony, but I know Brad would have appreciated it. And though preparing that one prayer was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, I was honoured to be on the hook.

Let it snow

We got some sad news this week: one of Rachel's uncles - Gerry Peters - died. I really like all Rachel's family, but Gerry has a special place in my heart. When Rachel and I first started dating, way back in the mid ninties, Gerry took on the role of protective father-figure as Rachel's dad was in Newfoundland. Gerry and his wife Sylvia were always very hospitable to me, and I'm very sorry he's gone.

Two of Gerry's daughter live in Winnipeg with their families and, as we couldn't make it back to K/W for the funeral, we offered to dog-sit for one of the daughters. So, for the past few days, Oliver has a playmate, Mortimer. They've been getting along famously. Here we are playing in our backyard.

Since I don't have you

So, I'm going through a little separation anxiety.

We took Oliver to the vet for his final booster shots. These will allow him to be able to take obediance training and go to dog parks. While there, the vet had a look at his one cracked tooth (a baby canine) and was worried that it could get infected and damage the adult canine. So, he stayed over night and is getting 1) a tooth removed, 2) neutered and 3) microchipped. We weren't expecting to leave him and the vet is the other end of the city, so we went to a nearby Pet store and bought him dinner and a thrift store for a bowl. When we told the clerk what we were doing, she gave us a huge bag of various treats for him. We took him to a park and walked, ate and brought him back to the vet's.

On our way home and over dinner, we frantically made a list of every minor house project we need to do and can finish before he comes back. I re-sealed the bathroom floor tiles last night and Rachel will be weatherstripping our sunroom this afternoon. We'll likely weatherstrip one of our doors too. But I suppose all these projects are to avoid missing Oliver. Last night I woke up three times to take him outside to pee.


Also, it turns out that Oliver (who is now 22 lbs!) is actually YOUNGER than we thought. We believed he was coming up on five months, but he hasn't lost his insiscors, which happens like clockwork at 4 months. SO, the adult weight of 25-30 lbs is out the window. We have no idea how big he'll get (though the vet doubted over 100 lbs).

Oliver! Oliver! Never before has a boy wanted more!

This is Oliver. He's come to live with us.

I know I haven't written in over a month, and so much has happened - some good, like Oliver; some... very, very bad, like the unexpected and terrible death of a former student. I'll need to write about Brad soon, but the grief is still too fresh. So I thought I'd return to the world of blog by introducing our new puppy to you.

Oliver's early story is, like his Dickensian namesake, one of hardship: he was found by a farmer near Crystal City. The farmer thought he was a gopher and was about to run him over with his truck when he realized it was a skin-and-bone 3 pound puppy. The farmer took him to a local vet, who looked after him for a little while before turning him over to our friend Erin, a pastor and animal lover who lives in Crystal City. Erin's known for rescuing things and, as she was also in the process of rescuing another dog, asked if we could take little Oliver.

The first thing people say when they meet Oliver is, "He's beautiful. What is he?" Well, we know he's beautiful, but we have no idea what he is. The vets (the one around Crystal City and our new local vet) both say Terrier cross. There maybe some lab in there and who knows what else. Maybe some bassett hound (his front legs bow a little).

Some people insist he's going to be huge, but the vets and pet store employees all figure 25-30 pounds. He's growing quickly and it's been really interesting watching him become accustomed to his new home. He does not, for example, like to walk. I have to carry him down the street and he'll walk home. I think it's fear that he's not coming back.

I'm sure it's even more amusing watching us become accustomed to him. We have his "diaper bag," poop bag dispensers, tags, toys. We take him with us most places, because he's crate trained (he LOVES his crate) and too young to leave for a long period of time without an accident.

School starts tomorrow.... la la la-la.

Left me standing all alone

Well, the Fringe is over. It was an excellent fringe this year. The quality of shows is quite high. The only show I didn't really like was still quite good - the humour was a little too frat-boy for my ultra-sophiscated tastes (that's sarcasm, by the way). Since I last posted I saw a few more excellent shows: "Singing At the Edge of the World", "Manners for Men" and Gemma Wilcox's amazing "Shadows in Bloom." I'd never seen Wilcox before but she was fantastic, slipping in and out of various characters. A number of performers enact several characters in their shows, but few have Wilcox's flexibity and attention to detail.

I had a few ideas for possible Fringe shows. A couple of people have suggested I consider writing/performing something one year... but we'll see. Ideas aren't the same as fully realized scripts.

With the end of the Fringe, it's time for the move. We take possession of the house on Thursday and start the annoying moving process whenever we get the keys. People (friends, Romans and countrymen) have offered to move the majority of our stuff (minus the furniture) on Saturday.

And the next Monday, before we've even had a chance to unpack, I teach an intensive all-day, five-day-a-week course.

Lunatic Fringe / I know you're out there

My favourite of the Winnipeg summer festivals (IOW the various events they put on to make up for the horrible winter) is the Fringe Festival. Some people prefer Folk Fest with its man-skirts, wannabe hippies, and mini-lawn chairs, but I'm a Fringe guy. I like theatre.

As most years, I've seen a pretty wide variety of shows, everything from serious "plays" to experimental spoken word. And, like most years, some things are good, some things... aren't. That's the beauty of the Fringe.

One play I saw yesterday - Kier Cutler's "Teaching the Fringe" - got me thinking about the Fringe in particular and theatre and society in general. Cutler is a regular Fringe performer, one of the handful of actors referred to by those annoying patrons who insist on wearing threadbare ghosts-of-Fringe-past t-shirts as a "Fringe god." Last year, when he was staging the last of his Teaching trilogy (Teaching Shakespeare, Detroit, and As You Like it), one Winnipeg audience member was so offended by what she (bizarrely!) interpreted as Cutler's attempt to 1) instruct would-be predators how to seduce young girls and 2) legitimize teacher-student relationship that she wrote a three page letter to the Fringe organizer and reported Cutler to Child-Find Manitoba. Cutler's response? Teaching the Fringe.

Cutler uses the letter as the anchor for his first autobiographical show, but more than just responding to the ludicirous charges, Cutler talks about audiences and audience behaviour. He recounts some of his more extreme N.A.M.E.s (negative audience memebr experiences), but there was the under-lying message audiences are largely unaware of their role in theatre. And it was this part of the show that resonated with me. As I thought more about it, I realized that audiences are getting worse and worse.

In the show right before Cutler's show, "Mr Fox," a cell phone went off four times. Same lady, same cell phone. Seriously. Once is irresponsible enough, but to leave it on and have it ring three more times is beyond stupid. If you're unable to master the subtle art of flicking the off button on your little Razor or Motorola, maybe you shouldn't have a cellphone. This woman eventually left, but like a typical Canadian apologised as she left. But she was just an extreme example of a larger problem of audience memebers. I have yet to see a Fringe show this year that wasn't interupted by a cellphone. The Fringe orgainzers play a recording of one the local CBC guys reminding people, "for respect to the artists," to turn off their cellphones and yet people must sit their and think, "That reminder must apply to everyone but me."

Maybe this the problem Cutler is talking about: an increasing believe in society that the rules apply to other people. I saw a woman get furious with Fringe volunteers because they wouldn't let her go into a show she was late for. The doors were closed, there are countless signs around stating, "No late comers," but apparently that didn't matter because she was "from out-of-town."

One, two, three, four

So, Feist is going to be on Sesame Street with a revamped version of her ridiculously catchy, "One, Two, Three, Four." Instead of being about annoying love, the new version is about counting to four. She counts monsters, penguins, all sorts of things. Here's the video evidence.



Sesame Street claims that Feist's appearance is the first step in an attempt to focus this season (the 39th, btw)on counting and spelling. And I ask, what else has Sesame Street being focusing on?

Feeling sensations that you thought was dead...

I haven't really had a lot of time to write anything in the last few weeks. My wife and I just bought a house and the possession date is ridiculously close, like the end of the month. So most of my "spare" time has been spent getting ready for the move: getting help, packing, figuring out the joys of home-ownership. We're having a yardsale this weekend to get rid of bunch of stuff too. There's nothing I like better than selling off stuff, particularly early on a Saturday morning!

It's a lovely little house and we're happy, or at least we will be once our heads stop spinning.

Anyway, that's the reason for the radio-silence.

As you were.

George Carlin, 1937-2008

I first discovered George Carlin in the mid 1980s when my friend Shawn and I started buying comedy cassettes and lps. I picked up his seminal Class Clown, which is famous for his routine "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television"; however that routine, for which Carlin was arrested and tried for obscentiy - overshadowed the astute political and cultural criticisms as well as the smaller, more personal observations like the musicalness of boxer Muhammed Ali's name. Profanity aside, in his early work Carlin came across as a laid back hippy, who is as amused with himself as the rest of the world.

As time went on, Carlin's onstage persona morphed to the angry old man, with no time for the but that sharp political criticism and deconstruction of society remained. He


Warning: Adult language and adult ideas...

I'll get over you, I know I will

I never feel as out of touch with popular culture as when I'm watching shows like "Entertainment Tonight" or "Access Hollywood." Those celebrity-focused magazine shows, with interviews with people I've never heard of, tell me loud and clear that I really don't have a clue what young people like, what they're watching or what they're listening to. In the fifteen minutes I was watching ET last night, I didn't know a single "celebrity." I forced myself to keep watching until someone I recognized was featured. Most of these people seemed to be brainless, buxom reality show contestants or American Idol losers, but occassionally there'd be an actor (usually having recently starred with someone else I'd never heard of in a movie I'd never knew was in production) or a singer: someone I should probably know. Or if I do know their names or seen them in something, I have no idea why they are or how they got to be famous (Shia LeBeouf, for example - where'd this guy come from?).

For me, the biggest celebrity mystery would have to be the train-wreck that is Amy Winehouse. Who is this person? I know she's supposedly a singer (and I've heard that stupid "Rehab" song once or twice), but is she popular? Where did she come from? Why should I care?

Put my clarinet beneath your bed til I get back in town

Just got back from a conference in Vancouver. I'd never been to the west coast, so I was looking forward to it. Sure the conference promised ot be interesting, but people told me about the beautiful beaches and the lovely weather. It was cold and rainy (almost) the whole time. The sun only really broke the afternoon I returned to Winnipeg. C'est la vie.

Here are some thoughts from my journal I thought I'd share:

People run in Vancouver. Because I was still on Winnipeg time (two hours later than BC time) I was up and wondering around quite early. I was amazed by the number of joggers I encountered. You'd think, given the amazing surroundings, people would be inclined to slow down and take it all in. But they put their earphones in, focus on the space directly in front of them and run.

Heard far too much about that special little section of UBC known as Wreck beach, Vancouver's clothing optional beach. Of course, the only people who mentioned it were creepy old men. It was always said with a "ha-ha-ha" tone and raised eyebrows. I imagine that most of the bathers at Wreck are creepy old men, hoping against hope for young frollicking coeds to show up.

Academics make up words, even words that don't need to be invented. I heard someone use the word "photographified."

"I'm sorry, what was that word again?"
"Photographified."
"What's that?"
"It denotes the obect you take a photograph of."
"You mean, photographed?"

I want to know, do I stay or do I go?

As part of my birthday celebrations, my wife took me to see the new Indiana Jones film on Thursday. Like most people my age, two trilogies made up my formative film-watching experience: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And while time and experience (and Lucas's revisions) have chipped away at my appreciation of the original Star Wars films, Raiders of the Lost Ark remians one of the greatest and most influential action/adventure films of all time. And I am still a huge Indy fan: I have a framed Temple of Doom poster in my office, own a replica hat, and even started studying archaelogy when I began University in 1994.

When they announced a new Jones film, however, I was a not over the moon with excitement. I thought Last Crusade was a satifactory ending to the trilogy and I was plagued with visions (or should I say nightmares)of Star Wars: Episode 1. When they announced the film's title, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, my fears were hardly put to rest. What the heck a kingdom of a crystal skull? What the heck is a crystal skull? Rumours started flying about aliens, illegimate children, Russians, and the whole thing sounded like it was going to be a huge debacle.

For all the doubts and misgivings, though, one thought remained in my head: But it's Indiana Jones!

While Kingdom isn't great, it's hardly bad. In fact, I think it's a better film than the previous low-point in the trilogy, Temple of Doom. With the exceptions of some curious (I'll say baffling mis-steps, like the gophers or the vine-swinging), it's a solid Indiana Jones film. It has wit, style and character, mostly because of star Harrison Ford, who seemed as worn and battered as Indy's famous hat.

No one ever said it would be this hard

I just finished up teaching a week-long intensive course. Figure I'll spend the majority of the weekend sleeping and recovering. Teaching for several hours a day for five days straight took an awful lot out of me. I borrowed the DVD of No Country for Old Men from my brother-in-law, so maybe I'll watch that too.

My wife and I have been getting up and ready at the same in the morning for the first time in a long time. She likes to watch CBC Newsworld while she eats her breakfast. Since watching with her, even for the few moments I'm eating my Miniwheats, I've decided that although I am grown up, I'm not part of CBC's key demographic: 90% of the commerials are for Viagara, "Grey Power" insurance, and those stand-up-so-you-don't-fall bathtubs.

In other news, my friend Leighton sent me the following youtube clips. In my new favourite example of inter-religion dialogue, Woody Allen interviews Rev Billy Graham.






Bizarre.