Flowers in February

A boy displaced by recent violence in Kenya smells a rose at a refugee camp in Nairobi's Mathare slum (from news.bbc.co.uk)

Around this time two years ago, I listened to David Suzuki speak about the state of our world. To make a point about the massive carbon footprint that humans make, he deconstructed the act of ordering pizza from room service in a North American hotel room: where the anchovies came from and how they got there; where the cheese and flour were made and how they were transported to the hotel; where the copper in the telephone wires used in placing the room service call was mined and how it was transported; where the electricity came from to power the elevator that the room service waiter used to deliver the pizza. He forced his listeners to think about the massive global impact of a simple action that we do without thinking about.

I often think about where food comes from and what its environmental impact has been. Last year I read The 100 Mile Diet, a book about a couple who ate food from within 100 miles of their home for a year. Reading that book caused me to stand in the grocery store one day, for a good 5 minutes looking quite lost, trying to decide between a pint of organic New Zealand blueberries and a pint of regular Nova Scotian blueberries. (I went with the maritime variety.)

I wonder where the wood from the Ikea bedframe I like comes from. I wonder where the materials in the new mattress I should buy soon come from. I wonder where my futon mattress will go when I finally retire it.

And on today, Valentine’s Day, I'll add another product for us to think about. Where did the flowers you bought for your valentine come from? How did they get to you? One-quarter of the flowers that Europe* imports come from Kenya, a country mired in violence ever since the disputed elections in December. This year, roadblocks and street barricades have made it much more difficult to transport flowers throughout the country. I wonder where that bloom got stopped, perhaps at gunpoint, on its way to someone’s paramour.

*Canada gets over half of its flower imports from Colombia, which is quite the carbon emissions when you consider the plane ride from Bogota to Toronto.

The Africentric School Debate

This past Tuesday, I tuned into the Toronto District School Board’s meeting where Trustees and the public debated four strategies that a TDSB committee had come up with to address to needs of black students, 40% of whom are dropping out of Toronto schools. Of the four strategies, the one that stirred up the most debate (and passed by a much smaller margin than the others) was the one recommending a Program Area Review Team be formed to propose the program and operational model for an Africentric Alternative school, slated to open in September 2009.

One argument against an Africentric school is that it harkens back to segregation: the separation of blacks and whites in American society between 1876 and 1965, after the abolition of slavery and introduction of Jim Crow laws. The argument is invalid in our current context since the separation of the races in antebellum Dixie was legally enforced, whereas an Africentric school in Toronto is non-mandatory and open to all.

The fundamental idea behind this school is diametrically opposed to black schools in the Southern States during the Jim Crow era: African-Americans were put in their own schools so whites wouldn’t have to interact with them. There was an overt value put on a person based on the colour of their skin: Rosa Parks had to sit at the back of the bus, moving further back if a white needed a seat. The Toronto Africentric school is focused on a disadvantaged group whom the TDSB is somehow failing and through curriculum, culture and African-Canadian role models, the school hopes to improve the success of this group.

In his article in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson questions how well Ontarians will receive a black-focused school when the Conservatives campaigned on their platform of funding for religious-based schools and fell flat on their faces:

Ontarians did not favour the Conservatives’ arguments because most voters instinctively or explicitly believed that in an increasingly multicultural and pluralistic society, schools should be one of those places for community, or what has become known as “inclusiveness.”

Yes, that is what schools should be, but not necessarily what they are. And while faith-based schools would focus on the teachings of a specific religion, there is no evidence to indicate that the educational needs of Jewish or Islamic or Buddhist students are not being met. We do, however, have a glaring statistic of 40% that points to a need in the black community, a need that members of that community have asked for.

But is it fair, you ask? I refer you to a quote from Richard Lavoie, a famous American Learning Disabilities expert: “Fair does not mean that everyone gets the same thing; it means that everyone gets what they need.” Is it fair that my brother gets to wear glasses and I don’t? Of course it is – he gets what he needs to be a productive member of society (who doesn’t bump into chairs and walk into walls).

It may sound radical, but why not give this demographic what they need in order to be successful at school, regardless of whether or not it is “fair” to other groups. Black students do not see themselves reflected in the curriculum or in the people that stand at the front of the classroom. The Toronto District School Board already has other Alternative Schools aimed at students who cannot function in the regular school system. There is also the First Nations School of Toronto, serving a perhaps the most disadvantaged group in Canada.

Trustee Sheila Ward got quite uppity at criticisms of the First Nations School, saying it was wonderful and they were making great gains, when in reality this is not quite the case. (I speak from experience, having shared a building with the school). The school has some dedicated people working really hard to make positive change for students, but it is also working against so many social and institutional factors that are constantly getting in the way.

And this is where we have to see an Africentric school as only part of the solution. Trustee Stephnie Payne made the salient point that schools are only part of a student’s life and that good parenting is what is really needed (she, incidentally, voted against the Africentric school). Jeffrey Simpson makes the same point in his piece:

The much more frequent explanations for poor student achievement, for blacks or any other group, have much less to do with curriculum than factors over which schools have little control: dysfunctional families, troubled neighbourhoods, few roles models (absent fathers), poverty, gangs or, in a few immigrant communities, attitudes toward education (especially for females) that are not easily reconciled with mainstream Canadian ones.

With only six hours in a schoolday to remedy social inequities, teach empathy and respect of others, fix general societal problems, tend to the pastoral care of our students, and - oh yeah - teach them stuff, schools can’t offer the only solution.

But we can offer part of the solution, so why not try it? The status quo is not working. Schools need to do whatever they can to foster the success of all students. Let’s see what happens with this Africentric school. Let’s hope it helps someone in that 40%.

Notions of the Nano

Much has been made recently over the Tata Nano: a car which is compact, cheap (costing only $2500), and available to citizens of the developing world. Although it’s size and horsepower must make it quite fuel efficient, the mere fact that cars are now available to vast swaths of the world’s non-vehicle owning population means a huge output in carbon emissions during a time in history when the need for reduction is so prevalent (perhaps only to the general population, though – the politicians don’t seem to be worried about signing on to any kind of agreement to reduce our carbon emissions as nations, shame on you Stephen Harper and George Bush).

We affluent North Americans and Europeans tsk at the car manufacturers for providing this option for the working poor of our world, discussing with our friends the environmental catastrophe this will herald from the comfort of our over-sized cars, idling outside Starbucks.

Why shouldn’t Indians be given a chance to drive to their outsourced jobs at call-centres, spending their American dollars on the mighty (yet mini) car?

This is an issue at which my social and environmental beliefs clash. We are so haughty in our dismissal of the underclasses of the world trying to reach our standard of living. It’s like the Americans freaking out over Pakistan and Iran manufacturing nuclear weapons, all the while cataloguing their own stash, cozy in their self-appointed position of global protector, independently making decisions on who gets invaded or ousted. But with all that we know about carbon emissions, are we not insane to put millions more cars on the roads? That huge spike at the end of Al Gore’s climate graph is about to be blown off his Powerpoint screen.

So what do you do? You live by the smallest carbon footprint as you can. You use reusable containers and recycle what you can (even the annoying things like batteries). You drive less, live and shop closer to work, use less electricity. You buy local produce when you can, and find products with little or no packaging.

And you can think about what it must be like for a family of four, living in a 2 room apartment on the east side of Delhi, to finally be able to own a thing that to us represents freedom, convenience and status.

Backpacking Blues

This past Friday morning, I loaded up my backpack with a few essentials in preparation for my trip to Montreal to visit a friend who has recently moved there. Putting the backpack on my back and fastening the waist and chest bands around my parka gave me an unexpected sense of exhilaration on the unusually bright January morning.

(It’s been a particularly hard slog this January, hasn’t it? I am reminded of a line in The Cowboy Junkies’ song Seven Years: “Haven’t see the sun for seven days, November’s got her nails dug in deep.” Well January has meat hooks and they have settled gangreneously into my flesh.)

Where had this emotional thrill come from? I theorize it was the rucksack on my back and the train ticket in my hand.

I spent a few years in my twenties overseas with a backpack as my only baggage and a train as my mode of transport. I deciphered the 24-hour clock (18:20 translates slowly when your train is leaving in mere minutes) and squinted at train destinations in foreign languages in a variety of European countries (I spent 3 days in Paris trying to figure out this place called Benelux). That beat-up red backpack and my Eurail pass represented a freedom of will and a richness of learning.

I knew the weight of a real Munich beer stein. I felt the heat of a Roman noon outside the Coliseum, with its bored Italian youths dressed up as Gladiators. I saw the light that Cezanne saw in the south of France, blanching the rock and Cyprus trees over the Mediterranean. I felt an incomparable peace while drifting through the glowworm caves in Te Anau, the dark space above me lit up with tiny specks of eerie light. I swam just above the proliferation of sea creatures on the Great Barrier Reef, avoiding the grey and deadened coral nearby, killed by an increase of a single degree in sea temperature. I hiked the foothills of the Himalayas, and spun prayer wheels of the Dalai Lama.

But I also lost my nerve at the sharp end of a knife, wielded by four boys in Cape Town who were insistent at taking my purse. It was there, after only four hours on South African soil, that I lost my nerve.

Perhaps symbolically, I bought one of those wheelie suitcases, stopped staying in youth hostels and rarely travelled longer than a few days by myself. My world adventures were confined to friends and relatives in the U.K. and, more recently, the North American-friendly Cayman Islands .

But the weight of my backpack that Friday morning brought back the thrill I get of going somewhere new. Of getting on a train at one end and getting off in a totally different life. So I started with Montreal – somewhere I have been before, albeit 17 years ago. Where next? Somewhere new, somewhere different. Somewhere that will give me that familiar sense of exhilaration on a bright January morning.

I hear Brazil calling my name…

Some Things

I have just finished reading Heather Mallick’s Pearls in Vinegar, written in the style of a Japanese Pillow Book, a form which appears to be a few paragraphs on a variety of sometimes-connected topics. Inspired by the short, non-committal bursts of writing commenting on everyday life, I thought I might take another stab at blogging. I was getting quite sick of seeing that tomato zombie guy every time I forlornly returned to my blog, only to remain witless and wordless.

On Reading

At school these days, we teach children when to abandon books (as part of a larger plan of teaching reading behaviours). While reviewing the reasons we might not finish a book (words are too hard, topic is not interesting, you don’t like the author’s style of writing), I realized that I rarely abandoned books. I would plough through novels, intent on finishing them, but missing large sections as I read the words on the page, but really didn’t take in what was going on.

And so I abandoned several books: Sister Crazy by Emma Richler, On Beauty by Zadie Smith (however I do plan to come back to this one), Snow Falling on Cedars by Joseph Guterson (okay, I abandoned this one awhile ago) and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (although this was a forced abandon, as it was due back at the library and unrenewable). I was beginning to worry that I had lost my taste for fiction (and that non-fiction was just a repetition of the same facts and ideas about teapots in space, extended to 400-odd pages) and that being drawn into a good book was out of reach.

Luckily good old Ian McEwan stepped up in the form of a phone call from the library saying that it was my turn to read On Chesil Beach, which I’d put a hold on back in July. Wanting to keep up a run of good books, I went out and bought Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, an author I can always rely on to bring a density of thoughts, images and meaning to a single sentence. The ending, which I read on a terrace in the Cayman Islands, had me gazing out to sea for a good ten minutes after I closed the book.

Cayman Americanization

I spent the week after Christmas in the Cayman Islands with my cousin and his girlfriend who now live out there. Having visited several Caribbean Islands in the past (and having not been out of the province for a year and a half), I was looking forward to a change of scenery, some fried plantains with rice and peas, and a whole lot of sun.

And while I got these wishes, I also got a lesson in Americanization. Though a British territory (and populated by many ex-pat Brits), the main port of George Town is set up for foreign workers as well as the daily onslaught of Cruise Shippers, who must line up like cattle to get on and off their ships. There are several Burger King and Wendy’s outlets as well as higher end restaurants (with higher end pricing) offering middle of the road Italian and seafood options. It took a trip into West Bay, where many locals live, to find a place that would actually serve me rice and peas.

And the bars along the main drag, though frequented by some Caymanians and some Jamaicans (who make up about 20% of the island’s population), were staffed and patronized by Australians, Kiwis, Canadians Americans and Brits, all playing the likes of Bon Jovi and Prince, with an NFL game on TV in the background. It felt like my undergrad years, with the heat turned up.

Getting asked out via email

I’m trying to figure out if this is a new low or high in my dating career. The uncle of a kid in my class asked me out via email. His sister-in-law (the kid's mom) suggested it, saying I was a lovely person (possible high); however, going on just this recommendation, I wonder about his standards (possible low). A fellow teacher did some detective work (by asking the sister of the kid in my class) and determined that the uncle is getting a bit chubby and lives in a messy house. I declined politely. He could have been that tomato zombie guy.

Guess the Sport

This young man is taking a break from what annual sport in Spain?

Water, Water Everywhere...

I’ve written before about being brought up in an environmental household where conservation of energy was a priority. As a family, we did (and still do) all of David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge suggestions before they were identified as “necessary”. I try to live my life as greenly as possible.

I cannot, however, ride my own locally sourced organic cotton coattails. There is always room for improvement in terms of lessening my environmental footprint. Moving schools so that I can now walk to work and imposing an air travel ban for the past year are two ways I have made change. My next step is something that is all over the media right now: bottled water.

Suzuki spoke out against bottled water earlier this year, some religious groups have labelled bottled water “immoral” and Justin Trudeau refused a proffered bottle after coughing during a speech at McGill with the words: “I try not to.”

There has also been much written on the topic of bottled water, its true benefits and environmental impact. The Trudeau anecdote was taken from Judith Timson’s column in today’s Globe and Mail. In it, Timson argues that the omnipresent water bottle is about hydration and oral fixation: it’s a socially acceptable thing to have in our hands (and mouths) at just about any event (Timson relates an anecdote of water bottle swilling at a funeral).

Certainly hydration, and all the beautiful benefits that come with it was the main impetus for the explosion of bottled water sales. Back in the early 90s, in the era of the Supermodel, gorgeous, fresh-faced girls with large bottles of Evian were the first to be seen with portable water. And just as that spring water you’re imbibing trickles down the mountain side, so did the trend trickle down into the hoi polloi. Having water available in bottles is now de rigueur in homes, offices and public places around the world.

But that’s another issue with this whole bottled water thing (and a point that Timson briefly makes in her piece) – in the Western world, we pay more per litre for water (a resource, I don’t need to point out, that is basically free in this country) than gas, yet there are more than a billion people around the world who do not have access to safe drinking water. And to really put this Western life in perspective, the previous link informs us that “[a] person living in Sub-Saharan Africa uses 10-20 litres a day; on average, a Canadian uses 326 litres a day.”

Water, which accounts for the make up of over two-thirds of our bodies and our earth, is an important environmental and world issue. So what to do?

I am giving up water in plastic bottles. I originally began buying spring water because I could easily stick it in the fridge. I grew accustomed to the taste as well as the ease with which you could take water with you. And even though I was reusing the same plastic water bottle for a week or so at a time (filling it up from another plastic bottle I kept in the fridge), I was still creating quite the mountain of recyclable waste, while ignoring the first (and most important) of the 3 Rs: reduce.

And so I have bought one of those aluminum water bottles (not the plastic kind, which have suffered the same criticism as regular water bottles: chemicals leaching into their contents), a trend that Timson doesn’t see as “catching on”. On this point, I whole-heartedly disagree. Many of my friends carry this type of water bottle (it was in discussion with two of them that I decided on this course of action) and I am seeing them more and more in the hands of the young and funky (and well-informed) around the city.

I even thought about buying my parents aluminum water bottles. But they're already ahead of me. They drink tap water out of a glass - something they've done even before David Suzuki suggested it.

We’re Goin’ Str--king!

Earlier this month, police in Britain sought an order prohibiting serial str--ker M--k Rob--ts from taking his clothes off during public events. Roberts, who has an impressive 380 str--ks under his unnecessary belt, has run naked across the playing fields at most major sporting events: the FA Cup final, Wimbledon, Royal Ascot and the Superbowl in 2004, which already had its share of exposed bodies (thank you, Janet & Justin). Funny that the nipple slip was much more scandalous than the starkers Brit taking to the field for the second half.

The judge in the case denied the order, saying "What Mr Roberts does may be annoying but, in my opinion, it does not amount to antisocial behaviour." Writing in the Guardian, Zoe Williams earlier this month asked whether or not the very definition of antisocial behaviour is being annoying. But is the brief diversion of a str--ker running across your view any more annoying than a rain delay at Wimbledon? And really, you’re there for a show – a str--ker is just an unbilled act.

Williams also wondered if str--king was an act of male aggression or “as taste-free but innocuous as a cucumber sandwich”?

Male nudity can harbour aggression when the nakedness is sexualized and imbued with power – I’ve been on the unintentional viewing end of several public masturbators (mostly in Italy, though some in France) and certainly felt quite uncomfortable and intimidated in those situations. But when it comes to running naked in front of thousands, pursued by beefy security guards, I’m not sure Roberts’s display was about male aggression. By being naked, he was stripped bare, defenseless. Many prisoners throughout the shady human rights parts of history were kept naked for this reason.

When you watch the reactions of the spectators during a str--k, they don’t seem to be offended or disgusted, a point that Williams indicates in her piece. Someone running naked before thousands is humourous, light-hearted. People (the American public, specifically) seemed to be more shocked at Janet Jackson’s nipple being exposed than Roberts’s half-time show. Is there a difference between male and female public nudity?

Er-ca R-e famously str--ked at Twickenham in 1982 during an England vs. Australia rugby match. She was only topless, but her spectacle made her £8000 in modeling and television appearances afterward. Was this because she was female and her sexuality was commodified, or was it because she was female and str--kers are generally male, making her an oddity?

I've never seen a real live str--ker, but I've watched with great captivation the people who rushed the field after Toronto FC's first win at BMO Field. It was at the end of the match and provided a tempered end to a tense and exciting game. I watched the rushers, probably about 8 in all, run onto the field and dodge the security guards who tackled them like linebackers, the crowd cheering the more agile of the runners. And I have to say, that brief and unexpected spectacle was better than any nipple-slip half time show the Superbowl could provide...

Reducing Plastics

On the inevitable back-to-school shop (it is NOT the most wonderful time of the year, Staples Business Depot), I found myself thinking very carefully about what products I would buy. I ignored plastic expandable file jackets in favour of paper ones – I figure those paper ones will biodegrade eventually, whereas the plastic ones have a long life ahead of them. I did, however, balk at the thin plastic the file folders were wrapped in.

The over-packaging of products has always been frowned upon by environmentalists and many people have avoided purchasing some over-packaged products in favour of more meagerly wrapped items. But with hygiene and what have you, product packaging is sometimes unavoidable, but still an area that needs to be addressed by companies.

The drug store was my next port of call; the purchase of a toothbrush, my objective. Which is when I thought of another way we could greatly reduce the amount of plastic we throw away every day. Why not have toothbrushes with reusable handles, but changeable heads? Instead of throwing out the entire shaft of the toothbrush along with the withered bristles, why not just pick up a new head? You could somehow attach it to the handle, just like you do with razors.

This could also work for dish brushes, toilet bowl brushes and any number of other household items.



I posted a picture of the garbage the sea was spitting back to Mumbai several weeks ago. I recently found the photo above of children wading through more marine refuse that washed ashore beneath their stilt houses in Papua New Guinea. Both photographs made me sad at the state of this world. People are starting to wake up to the idea of global warming and change their way of living to a greener way of life, but those of us in the Western world don't have the same immediate evidence of the toll we are taking on this earth. We have a long way to go.

Sunnybrook, August 10th

Lyla enters from the back, walking past nurses in scrubs and administrators in suits, their identification tags clipped to the bottom of their jackets. They sit on picnic tables scattered about the criss-cross of roadways used by off-duty ambulances and delivery trucks. There is the low buzz of a place that is always open, which quickly becomes background noise as Lyla enters the hospital.

She’s never liked hospitals, with their shiny floors and light-coloured walls. Sometimes you can be lulled into a sense of normalcy with doctors striding by, people in suits on official business; only to be pulled back by someone in a wheelchair, covered only by a gown, leaning against the armrest, with a dangling IV bag in tow.

Lyla finds the elevator and takes it to the sixth floor, just above the tree tops of the valley that surrounds the hospital. She walks quietly down the hallway, feeling somewhat like an intruder, ready to be stopped at any point and asked what her business here is. The most she gets is a raised head from the nurses’s station, eyes that don’t linger long enough to assess her motives.

Entering the room, Lyla smiles briefly at the couple at the first bed: the woman lies completely back, looking up toward the ceiling, unmoving. The man sits on a chair beside her, a magazine in his hands. The man smiles briefly back, but it is a smile full of warmth that spreads to his eyes and chin. Turning, she moves towards her grandmother’s bed, which is propped up, although her grandma’s eyes are closed.

Lyla stands for a moment, unsure of where to place herself, and her grandmother’s eyes open. They take a second to focus on Lyla, but when they do, a smile breaks across the old woman’s face.

“Hello, dear!” she says in her soft Dublin accent. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, Granny,” says Lyla, leaning in to kiss her grandmother on the cheek. “How are they treating you here?”

“Very well, very well,” says her grandmother, still beaming.

Lyla pulls up a chair next to the hospital bed and answers all the questions her grandmother can think of. As they talk, there are stirrings from across the room.

“Hello, Alice,” calls out Lyla’s grandmother from behind the half-drawn curtain that obscures her view of Alice.

“Hello, Eileen,” comes the response from the bed.

“My granddaughter’s come to visit me.” The man with the magazine is beaming at Lyla, perhaps providing the visual part to the conversation.

“Oh, lovely,” says Alice.

“This is Lyla,” says Lyla’s grandmother.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Gerald,” The man rises and comes quickly over, hand extended in greeting. “That’s my wife, Alice over there.” He turns and nods toward the bed, still grasping Lyla’s hand.

“Nice to meet you,” calls Alice, head still unmoving on the pillow.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” says Lyla, releasing Gerald’s hand and craning her neck slightly to see Alice.

Gerald stands for a moment, just smiling, his eyes flitting from Lyla to the curtain, then back to Lyla. He turns to look at his wife, who still lies still, eyes looking up to the ceiling.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your visit,” he says after a brief moment, “lovely to meet you.”

“And you,” smiles Lyla, watching him move back to his wife’s bed and sit back down in his chair. He picks up his magazine and begins to read it.

Lyla turns back to her grandmother who is reaching for a brush on her table tray.

“Lyla, would you be a love and just brush the back of my hair?” she asks.

“Sure!”

As Lyla brushes the thin grey hair, pressed against her head from hours against a pillow, she listens to the quiet murmurings from across the room.

“Do you want to hear an elephant joke?” asks Gerald, his voice slightly muted.

Lyla can barely hear Alice’s reply and can’t make out the components of the joke as her grandmother thanks her for the minor grooming. What she does make out is the eruption of laughter that comes from Alice when Gerald finishes: whole-hearted and from the belly. Lyla’s eyes dart across the room: she can see Alice’s body heaving, Gerald’s hand resting on her arm beneath the covers, his face lit up while watching hers.

Lyla and her grandmother lock eyes, their mouths breaking into smiles simultaneously.

On Woodbine Beach, Things Left Behind

(Or, another reason I should always bring my camera with me to say these thousand words that I can only put into a few.)



Two abandoned shoes: one sandal, one running shoe lodged in the green lakeweed that collects amid the stones and pebbles at the shoreline. Further down is a scuba mask, perhaps abandoned after a day of searching for curiosities that exist below the surface.

A waterbottle, condensation on the outside, water still cold on the inside, turned into the sand. Beside it, an overturned piece of note paper, held down with pebbles on either side, obscuring the words I'm sure are there. Uncharacteristically, I ignore this piece of mysterious communication because there is a couple moving toward the assemblage: it is their found item.

Three girls sitting on the edge of the large rocks by the edge of the lake, looking down into the water, the wind flapping their long hair at the sides of their faces. I wonder if they are talking, figuring out how to be women, just a little further back on the journey than I am.

Harry Potter and the Pre-order of the Deathly Hallows

Now that Harry Potter mania has died down (presumably because everyone has finished the last book and seen the latest movie), and I am on page 350 of the 600-odd pages of the penultimate book (I’m always behind in most areas of my life), perhaps now I can comment on the insanity.

Why is it that everyone goes so crazy over Harry Potter? Why are there midnight release times, pre-order options on a myriad of websites and newsworthy reports of security breaches of the manuscript?

J.K. Rowling, who conceived of Harry Potter on a train ride between Manchester and London, combines a set of factors that have worked together to make the series as popular as it is.

Escapism, Pure & Simple

The first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published in 1997, so I can’t link its creation to any post 9/11 desire for escapism. But there was certainly the interim after the first invasion of Iraq and some gruesome stuff going on in Kosovo. But regardless of world politics, the Harry Potter series provided a magical other-world full of spells, fantastical creatures and mysterious secrets. As any good book should take you into another reality, Harry Potter’s world of wizards and witches took readers into an entirely different realm of magic with its characters and curiosities. A realm that although it functioned differently from ours, still maintained…

Relatable Characters & Experiences

I’m seeing this more and more as the series progresses. Especially in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I’m reading now. Although Harry is imbued with exceptional powers (even when measured against those in the wizarding world), he still falls victim to such teenage afflictions as jealously, most notably when he catches Ginny Weasley kissing Dean in the corridor and we read Harry’s internal monologue, mulling over whether or not it is brotherly love, or something else, that makes him want to smash poor Dean in the face. The love played out as anger and bitterness between Hermione and Ron is another example of real-life situations that readers can relate to. And the character Luna is a wonderful sketch of those awkward, slightly-removed-from-reality-type kids we had in our classes growing up – and how lovely is Harry’s empathy and acceptance of her.

Wicked Wordsmithery

This is one of J.K. Rowling’s greatest talents: making up new words and interesting names: Dumbledore evokes quiet power and sagacity. Voldemort sounds like menacing thunder booming. Harry’s Herbology class is filled with such onomatopoeic plants as Snargaluff (requiring protective gloves to handle), Whomping Willows (requiring speed, agility and perhaps a helmut to avoid injury) and Bubotubers (decidedly less dangerous than the previous flora, but its pus can still cause painful boils, nonetheless). Some other fabulous locutional concoctions: Ambrosius Flume (a businessman), Budleigh Babberton (a charming village), Barnabas Cuffe (editor of The Daily Prophet), Mundungus Fletcher (a shady member of the Order of the Phoenix) and St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries (self-explanatory, no?).

Classic Narrative Devices

And of course, as many critics have pointed out, J.K. Rowling employs all those plots and characters we’ve seen before: good vs. evil and their inherent connection (hello Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader), orphans unraveling their pasts, the journey from boy to man, and political allegory. (I hear that there is more than a hint that the political climate in Deathly Hallows mirrors what was happening during World War II. And having just seen the most recent movie, the Ministry taking over Hogwarts and instituting curricular change and teacher evaluations rings true of educational reforms of the past.)

So there are several factors that contribute to the wild success of Rowling’s magical narratives. Put together, these provided a series of books that saw ridiculous security over the official release date of the latest publication (imagine suing people over the release of On Chesil Beach, an excerpt of which I’m sure I read prior to publication – isn’t it in keeping with protocol to release an excerpt?) and saw the book in people’s hands across this city and around the world during the last week of July. And all these factors will keep me going for the next 250 pages of The Half-Blood Prince. After that, I'll need a serious Potter break before attempting the final 700+ page installment that may toll the end of Potter Mania.

1989

1989, the number, another summer (get down)
Sound of a funky drummer…
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We gotta fight the powers that be.

- Public Enemy

I’ve been thinking a lot about 1989 recently. It is the picture of the lone protester in Tiananmen Square that started it, brought up in conversation with a friend of mine. The Unknown Rebel, unmoving in front of a column of angry tanks, sidestepping into their path each time they tried to go around him. A single man representative of a huge fight that was happening around the world at that time.



1989 was a year of struggle, as evidenced in the lyrics of Fight the Power by Public Enemy. While Public Enemy continued to document and sustain the struggle for black equality started in 1960s, a decade synonymous with mass social change, elsewhere around the world was seeing tremendous change in human rights and freedoms.

The 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, a revolution based on basic human freedoms - Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort! (Freedom, equality, brotherhood, or death!) - saw the fall of several repressive regimes in eastern Europe. Poland saw its first free parliamentary elections since the war; Ceausescu’s dictatorship was ended in Romania (he was later executed); the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia saw the overthrow of the Marxist/Leninist government; the Republic of Hungary was declared; and in August, 2 million people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands across 600 km to demand freedom and independence from the Soviet Union.

1989 was also the year that the Berlin Wall came down – physically and symbolically. I can remember watching the event on television – hundreds of people climbing over the wall, yelling and celebrating, and battering it down with decades’ worth of suppressed anger and frustration at their lack of freedom, fractured families and silenced voices.

The silenced voices of South Africa experienced an administrative shift in 1989 (and this is not to say that black South Africans allowed their voices to be silenced: many raged against apartheid since its inception after the National Party’s win in the 1948 elections). Newly elected president F.W. de Klerk scrapped the Separate Amenities Act (an act which segregated the races in all areas of life – from white beaches to black universities) and in early 1990, released Nelson Mandela from his 27 years in prison for his determined refusal to allow his voice to be silenced. I am still amazed to this day at the winds of change that persisted so, allowing a political prisoner to become South Africa’s first black president just 4 years later.

South America also experienced its share of newfound freedoms: Chile held its first free elections in 16 years, ultimately ousting Augusto Pinochet who was later tried for human rights abuses, from his protracted presidency. Brazil also saw its first free elections after 25 years of a ruling military regime.

1989 witnessed the end of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; the release of the Guilford Four (a group of people wrongfully convicted of blowing up an English pub during the Troubles – their case was one of police manipulation and disinformation – see the film In The Name Of The Father); the Exxon Valdez spill (perhaps a key event in the raising of our environmental awareness); and of course, the series of protests from April to June in Tiananmen Square.

There is no real answer as to what happened to the Unknown Rebel, the man that stood alone in front of the tanks bearing down on him and his country’s freedom. There are some claims he was executed – a brutal ending to such an inspirational action. I prefer to believe what Jan Wong writes in her book Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now: he is still alive and in hiding in China. And I have to believe that if I am to still hold onto the hope that the winds of change in 1989 have not died. We came a long way that year, but the fact that the man in front of the tanks has to be in hiding (or indeed, was executed) tells us that we have a long way to go still.

Epilogue

Perhaps at some point I will further explore the fact that Seinfeld and The Simpsons, two popular, long-running and highly-acclaimed comedy shows, made their debuts in 1989. Interesting that these two shows broke away from the happy family comedies of the 80s, so content with the status quo.

Homer, Boners and a Pagan Rain Dance

In Dorset, in the southwest of England, there lies the outline of a sexually aroused Celtic warrior, carved out in chalk. Known as the Cerne Abbas Giant, it is thought to be an ancient symbol of spirituality and fertility. And now the promoters of the new Simpsons film have gone and painted a similarly-sized impression of Homer Simpson, naked but for his Y-fronts, offering a doughnut to the club-bearing giant (no really - he's actually holding a club).

Members of The Pagan Federation were not impressed with the depiction of the much loved cartoon character, daubed on the hill with water-based biodegradable paint: "We'll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away," said Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation. And judging from the torrential downpour that swept across the UK yesterday, the Pagan Rain Dance worked...

Posh: Reality Living in America

Along with the rest of the closeted Spice Girls fans across the land, I watched Victoria Beckham: Coming to America last Monday. I will fully admit to an odd fascination with the lives of a few celebrities: I followed Kate Moss’s torrid love affair with Pete Doherty, I’m still intrigued by Suri Cruise (along with Katie Holmes’s outfits) and I love seeing pictures of Victoria Beckham in impossibly high heels and tiny get-ups, carting around her three boys – how does she do it?

The special, originally planned to be a series of six episodes, was shortened when producers were left with little material after Victoria flew back to the UK early to see her football start husband, David Beckham. Producers scrambled and made it into a one-hour special, attracting a mediocre 4 million viewers in the U.S. on Monday.

Like most reality TV shows centred around celebrities, the show was about publicity – and warming Americans up to Victoria, who consistently wears a scowl (and those sky-high heels) in paparazzi shots in papers and on the internet. The show is carefully crafted to show Victoria, though always gorgeous and flawlessly dressed, as a down-to-earth mum who misses her kids, incurs traffic violations, and sometimes drinks too much at afternoon socialite parties.

As with other shows that document the lives of celebrities like The Osbournes and Nick & Jessica: Newlyweds, the editing is deft, frequently poking fun at the show’s subjects. From Ozzy’s exasperated interjections during his children’s squabbles to prolonged shots of Jessica as she tries to figure out if chicken really do live in the sea, we are made to laugh at the follies of the rich and famous.

And this is why we like these shows: they bring celebrities down from their airbrushed spot on a Louis Vuitton pedestal and show us that yes, they are just like us: Ozzy and Sharon have to deal with clearing up dog poop in the house, Nick has to deal with the olfactory aftermath of Jessica’s visit to the bathroom. And while Victoria Beckham is never brought down to this basest of human functions, we are shocked to see her having to step out of her car in [gasp] flats!

Bringing celebrities down to the layperson’s level is a trend of the past decade or so. Remember back in the 80s when Robin Leach took us through the lavish and serviced homes and lives of celebrities in Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? That programme was deftly edited, too – but it was all the boring, diurnal bits that were left out. Now, we want to see those bits. Celebrity magazines - a niche once left to the National Enquirer and News of the World, but now expanding faster than Nicole Richie’s pregnant belly - frequently run stories about celebrity cellulite and other body flaws the magic of Hollywood manages to hide. (And I use the term "stories" loosely, since much of the story is told through glaring graphics and little text.)

While Victoria Beckham does remain quite flawless throughout the special, we do see that she is followed around by her own makeup artist and hairdresser, and refuses to consume a proffered cookie from the bitchy celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton. But we also see her sweet side: stumbling over what she wants to be a polite description of a chubby, plastic, dolphin-calling socialite and dressing up a sex doll to act as a decoy so she can buy her husband a watch.

And though I never did figure out how she manages three boys whilst wearing skinny jeans and Louboutin heels, perhaps we will discover more in the near future: David Beckham has just signed on to star in his own reality series. Now, if only someone would convince Kate Moss to open up her model lifestyle to the scrutiny of the layperson…

At Capacity

It would seem that the ocean has had its fill of our frivolous trash cast thoughtlessly into its seemingly inexhaustible repository. Last week, the currents in the sea around Mumbai, India changed and spat back over 300 tonnes of garbage per day.

In Praise of the Absurd

On my way to the gym the other day, I passed a flyer stapled to a telephone pole - one of those little posters with the tear-off phone number fringe on the bottom. Ever-curious, I stopped briefly to see if I should tear off a phone number and put it in my wallet alongside all the other tear-off numbers that if I would just call, would allow me to begin my Buddhist meditation practice, continue with my yoga postures and stop smoking through hypnosis (okay, not the last one).

This poster was offering classes in levitation. I looked again, sure I must have misread it. Nope, levitation. Call the number and you, too can be well on your way to floating serenely, cross-legged, just a few inches off the ground.

This levitation poster was the first in a string of stories I have noticed lately that are wonderfully absurd. Elizabeth Renzetti wrote in Saturday’s Globe and Mail last week about her new favourite headline, courtesy of The Scottish Daily Record that reported on civilians who tried to subdue the man who drove a burning car into Glasgow’s airport: Hero Cabbie: I Kicked Burning Terrorist So Hard In Balls That I Tore a Tendon.

Today’s Globe and Mail provided two offbeat stories. The first transcribing a 911 phonecall at 3am in Newmarket:

Caller: "Hi. Umm ... We've found an elephant walking down the street near the community centre, the Ray Twinney."

Operator: "Sorry?"

Caller: "We've found an elephant walking down the street. Like the ones from, like, the circus at the Ray Twinney centre. One of them got loose and it's walking down the street."

For the next few minutes, the caller explains that there are, in fact, at least two fully grown, trainer-less elephants milling about.

The second affirms what I’ve been saying for decades: the fashion of wearing underwear increases literacy rates.

The Author Stirs...

Apologies, Blogfans.

Apologies to all my faithful readers who, day after day, logged in over the past 6 weeks to the same picture filler, the calming green background devoid of inspirational and thought-provoking words. Sorry to all of you who came to this web address, and wondered what weighty topic would finally put my fingers back on my iBook and draw me out of my blogging slump.

Well, it's the Spice Girls, ladies and gentlemen... and they're reuniting!

Oh, glory be to this 1998 revival! Bring back girl power and sparkly micro-shorts and hit factory tunes that are played in between Madonna and Kylie at gay clubs across the land! (Okay, maybe just in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver!) Bring back Christmas singles and Spice Girls chocolate bars and drunken arguments over the feminist principles of the world's most successful girl band!

But most of all, bring back my blogging already!

Can You Hear Me Now?

"Hello? No, I'm on the boat. The boat. I'm crossing the river. The river. You're breaking up..."

A man chats on his cellphone while crossing the river in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (photo from bbc.co.uk)

Cuckoo Clocks, Neutrality and the World's Most Popular Font

Who knew there could be so much buzz about a typeface?



Helvetica, the typeface used in the corporate logos of Gap, Panasonic and Tupperware, turns 50 this year. Lars Mueller has managed to write an entire book about the Swiss font and a documentary devoted to the typeface was screened back in March at the SXSW Film Festival in Texas.

According to Neville Brody, a graphic designer and typographer interviewed for an article on the BBC website:

"Typefaces control the message. Choice of font dictates what you think about something before you even read the first word. Imagine Shakespeare in large capital drop shadow. Our response would be quite different towards the content."

Perhaps this is why teachers around the world use Comic Sans as the default worksheet font (my English cousin pointed this out, rolling her eyes): it says, “Hey kids! Do this worksheet that I’ve made to look super-fun, but is actually quite boring and serves only to allow me a few minutes of quiet time at my desk.”

There is actually a Ban Comic Sans website where you can buy merchandise, sign a petition and post photos.

So what is YOUR favourite font? Is it the Helvetica rip-off, Arial? Do you like the old school typewriter feel of Courier? Do you like the impact of, um, Impact? Or do you exist in the world of Zapf Dingbats?

Or do you have better things to do than care about types of typeface?