ASSORTED MISSIVES:

YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG EDITION

PART 1: INNOVATION

Former industrial giant turned least bankrupt North American automaker Ford stopped short of revealing a car that runs independent of fossil fuels today, to bring you news of their brand-new “self-parking technology.”  According to this article, this is to become something of a standard option for a majority of their cars in the latter half of 2009.  Yes, self-parking and all manner of self-parking related “computer error” accidents are coming to a mall near you.

While it’s likely they’ve taken to nurturing small victories in order to cope with their present situation, I wonder if this is not yet another symptom of the same disease.  Shit or get off the pot, kids.

PART 2: NATURE

Speaking of evolution, this curious little article about bees opens with the following:

An Australian scientist is doping up honey bees with cocaine to study how their brain reacts to the drug and possibly find a way to stop addition in humans.

And the reason we want to stop cocaine addiction in humans is so we can use it recreationally without recurrent consequence — for both mind and pocket?

It ends by stating that, “…the bees used in the experiment were not harmed” which is all well and good but I thought we were running out of bees?  Shouldn’t that bee be out working and saving the planet from certain starvation?  Remember what Einstein said about the bees?  If you absolutely must experiment on bees could you please stick to curing Colony Collapse Disorder?

I can’t tell if this is simply mad science or poor reporting — or some accidental conspiracy of both — but the article does feature the word “waggledanced” and I think there’s something uplifting about that, don’t you?

PART 3: CANADIAN POLITICS

While Canadian bloggers, political everypersons, and pundits are busy crafting and selling their finest year-in-review pieces, you need look no further than this single sentence offered by Lawrence Martin in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

The level of sophistication of our politicians was witnessed in the election campaign.

It sure was.  I always find Martin’s analysis particularly insightful but there’s something captivating about this “level of sophistication” phrase.

Canada deserves a higher caliber of clown. 

PART 4: TREES FALLING IN THE FOREST

Canadians are beginning to dust off emotions for their southern-most neighbour that they’ve shelved for the last eight years, but the suggestion from the CBC that as-yet President Barack Obama needs a Can-Con playlist is the full Ned Flanders.  In their own words:

Beginning Monday, January 5, CBC Radio 2 invites Canadians to help select the top “49 songs from north of the 49th parallel” that would best define our country to the incoming U.S. President Barack Obama.

His playlist could definitely benefit from some Canadian content, especially given the depth of our musical offerings — spanning a wide variety of genres and representing our culture from coast to coast.

I will not attempt a complete analysis because I foresee a post-mort missive from Russell Smith in the not-so-distant future.  Nevertheless, I think this is offensive beyond simple irrelevance.  For one thing, are we still that insecure about our own culture and the amount of international attention and/or “parental” approval it receives?  Really?  For another, this sort of “guide” makes dangerous presumptions about the man’s intelligence — I know it’s been an abusive relationship, but can’t we just celebrate the fact they’ve elected a man of intelligence without the ever-awkward grade-school crush?

PART 5: ICEBERG AHEAD

Speaking of the impending paradigm shift, there has been due speculation about what Obama’s predisposition toward engagement will mean for U.S. foreign policy in the coming years.  While there is little doubt Cuba will be among the first theatres for this, a recent piece from Time observes the historic context of a certain looming anniversary.

While it remains to be seen whether or not this will be a clear departure from “doing it wrong” in past, it’s clear there’s an iceberg of sorts ahead — if only in the form of rehashed post-Castro speculation.

PART 6: COMMERCE

The Consumerist posted a food expiration “cheat sheet” this morning, that, in my former expert retail opinion, is nothing short of exceptional.  Some argue that corporations stick to their own indecipherable codes in order to organize their products from production in factory to sale on shelf.  Of course, this is a foolish position to hold once you observe that some put the real date beside their codes while others do not.

Anyway, print this rosetta stone out and use it next time you’re wandering around a retail food outlet.  You’re eating expired food on a daily basis, I assure you.

PART 7: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG RIGHT

I missed it last week but someone over at Vanity Fair was wearing the clever pants when they put this together.  The mere suggestion that George spends some of his time writing West Wing fan fiction and therefore might possibly have said, “that Bartlett fella” at some point, ever, made my day.

PART 8: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG WEIRD

My favourite story from this year.  I defy you to find something better.  No further commentary necessary.

Since I don’t post frequently enough to have any readers, I may as well explain the reference.  Bill Maher has a segment on Real Time (well, at least he did during the writer’s strike) of the same title.  I thought it might be a good segue into observing the rather awkward fact that I’ve effectively become my own guest blogger.  Of course, it is also a run on a certain phrase, but that’s the whole point to wordplay, now isn’t it?

X-MASSED

Christmas is over.  Again.  In past, I’ve written long-winded diatribes on everything from the historical origins of the holiday to parodies of certain holiday literature (“The Night Before Christmas” was always an easy favourite) or some mix thereof and emailed them to friends.  I simply didn’t have it in me to put on the clever pants this year.  Let’s call it equal parts consumer fatigue and some sort of post-modern crescendo.

There might be something wrong with your celebration when it’s not worth prodding with a critical eye or lampooning anymore.  There’s something rather telling about that, I think.

One final missive.  Canadian Tire began its television advertising campaign this year before the end of the American Thanksgiving.  While they might think they’re getting the drop on their competition, that’s basically like telling me to consider you a corporate non-person for the whole year.  Follow the rules, kids.

OBSERVED

Something in the collective unconscious irked me into watching every Kevin Smith movie, including all three “evening” question and answer sessions that run slightly in excess of ten hours.  I’m not looking to join the adoring fan cult, but I have two observations.  First, Clerks has aged exceptionally well (I’m looking at you Wal-Mart).  Second, more filmmakers should do this sort of question and answer thing.  There are quite of few out there that have a great deal more to answer for.  Keep them coming, Kevin.

SHELVED

I just finished Joseph Boyden’s latest novel (and Giller 2008 winner), Through Black Spruce.  I have not had a chance to read any fiction since starting back in school in September — well, provided we discount all of that theory I was made to read this last term which surely occupies a tangent “fictive” reality.  I have not read any of the other nominees, but there is something about that book that lingers.  I’m trying to get my hands on a hardcover copy of Three Day Road which appears to have vanished upon the arrival of the post-Giller paperbacks, alas.

I’ve decided to keep a novel going throughout next term (despite the heinous amount of reading required of me).  I thought another recently gifted book, Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water — a novel I should have read during undergrad but somehow missed — would be an appropriate chaser.

ACCELERATING RETURNS

I’ve been using the same superb MacBook Pro since I defected to the Apple-verse two and a half years ago.  While it has surely been the gift that keeps on giving, I’ve decided to pick up another sooner than later.  I’m thinking I might go desktop this time since my laptop still has a year warranty and I wouldn’t mind having everything locked down in a single, secure place that does not require constant plugging and unplugging.  Macworld is only a handful of days away, so we’ll have to see what they come up with this year.  No significant rumours yet, but it is likely they’ll “chip” their existing line.

Plus, I can always pick up a new (and significantly lighter) laptop next year — if there’s a next year (I’m looking at you looming economic depression).

THIS WEEK

I am attempting to reset my internal clock after accidentally becoming nocturnal.  I decided to get marking done early at all cost.  While I succeeded, I just can’t sleep — well, when I’m “supposed” to anyway.  Apart from that, I have a book review to finish and some course readings to get out of the way before a rather large research paper.  So, basically, it’s back to work.  Perhaps I shall editorialize here later and dilute this rare personal aside.

I thought I’d frame my inaugural post with a little homage to Bill Lawrence’s superb sitcom Scrubs.  If you haven’t seen the show, for which your life is surely impoverished, the greater plot is focused through a reflective first-person narrative that has the title of almost every episode featuring some variation on the word “my” as prefix.

I think it lends rather nicely toward my purpose here, aside from being a curious pattern that may in fact contain much literary wisdom — but let’s leave all that at wordplay.

MY FASHIONABLE EXCUSES

I’ve had this site up, running, and maintained for well over a year now.  Evidently, living in our present digital paradigm was the correct one in which to assume corporeal form, because starting one’s own digital soapbox (something I’ve wished to do for a while) is impressively easy.  Kudos to Al Gore for inventing the Internet.

The short answer as to why I haven’t been filling this hole with content on a regular basis, or at all for that matter, is that I’ve recently finished a rather involved final year of undergraduate studies in two majors.  The long answer, of which an abbreviated version appears here, is that after finishing such an involved final year of said studies the last thing one finds one’s self either willing or able to do is write.

What one is able, or at least partially willing to do, is a little light reading otherwise part of a greater campaign of mental hibernation and extreme inactivity.  There’s a fun quote from Voltaire about keeping one’s self from writing in excess so as not to contribute to the sheer deluge of poor work out there.  While there is reason to suspect he may have exempt himself from this maxim, there is something to be said for a decent break or absence from any enterprise.

MY PLOTLESS FICTION

This is not a blog.  Okay, so it is a blog but it’s not part of the “sphere” — whatever that is.  To be precise, this is actually more of a soapbox.  What’s the difference?  Well, you tell me.  Just keep in mind the shy nuance between music and noise while you do.

A great first step toward inaction is to start with some sort of mission statement.  You know, something that attempts to quantify a set of values and project a certain ideology, either as a warning call to those who don’t happen to dig your flavour of Kool-Aid, or as a rallying point for those who do.  I’m sure you’ve seen them; they’re quite popular.

The catch, of course, is that in cementing your virtues you cast yourself as a paragon and have therefore already fulfilled your purpose.  CNN for example, presently boasts the “best political team on television” and yet, even the most cursory viewer could only conclude that CNN has a political team on television, nevermind the best.  Saying it makes it true, you see.

I don’t have a mission statement; but it’s not for lack of purpose.  No, I’m not too cool for the Kool-Aid, even if I do find water hard to improve on.  What I do have are mostly opportunistic observations, paired with brutally honest (if not sarcastic) comments and criticism.  I am also pleased to offer a wealth of contradictions, on a wide variety of subjects, with no specific audience in mind, in all due complexity. 

Oh and I do a little bit of writing, too.

MY BAD INFLUENCES

I should probably take a moment to mention some of the people whose work I take as indirect encouragement, or what I otherwise feel entitles me to carry on in this manner.  I do not know any of these people personally, but I have read or followed their work for some time and have no doubt suffered from a very direct, indelible exposure.

I seek neither tribute nor allegiance, even if I do have designs on casting myself in with a specific synapse of the collective unconscious.  And I have to say, I do quite revel in idea of inverting the cozy concept of “good” influences and the liberty from all implied responsibility that follows.

Every week I click my way over to the CBC’s website to read the latest article by the “semi-obscure” (that’s an inside joke, kids) columnist Heather Mallick.  While she takes an undue amount of criticism (if not abuse) for her views, I am unconvinced Canada is home to a finer nor more eloquent columnist — certainly not one from whom I keep learning, anyhow.

Just how Thomas Frank pulls of both journalism and scholarship I hope to absorb through osmosis.  You should read The Conquest of Cool if you’re to function at all in our evolving consumer culture, let alone get up in the morning and attempt to carry on with your life.  I suspect that I will remain, it not forever then surely for some while yet, merely an opinionated kid trying to start his own Baffler.

There is perhaps no one in the last few years that I have come to respect more than Matthew Good.  He is not only a fine humanist but one of the more remarkable musicians my generation has come to know and identify with.  If you have not yet listened to Hospital Music, do so now, lest our writer / reader relationship sour this early.  Getting to run with a WordPress template (co-)designed by and formerly employed on his own soapbox (one of the best out there) is as much fun as it is a complete honour.

Richard Russo has somehow perfected the art of reducing a character down to their faults without also stripping them of their humanity.  His fiction remains an enduring excuse to be sarcastic and mean it — by which I mean that he writes as though humour and complexity are indeed parallel structures, if not wholly intertwined.  I’m not certain I possess the willingness (now or ever) to accept a universe that operates to the contrary.

MY REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM

The beginning of a two-year degree is probably not the best time to embark on an ambitions writing project.  On the other hand, sometimes a good distraction can help one focus.  Besides, all the cool kids are doing it, right?

While day-to-day content is likely to be just that, this site will most likely feature randomly provoked content.  You know, when yelling at my television and or computer will not simply suffice and I require an audience.  I think I will stick to producing something in the way of an old fashioned formal Sunday Op-Ed each week — and hell, maybe not even on Sundays.

Additionally, I intend to explore a few feature series, such as “What You Should Have Said” when the political powers that be stray too far into the absurd, as they do.  All this and other essays, quite assured.

MY BRAVE NEW SWAG

Just before plugging this site in and turning it on, I briefly, and somewhat exhaustingly, examined every last WordPress template known to the Internet.  Yes; every last one.  The weird thing is that I didn’t really care for any of them.  Some of them were excellent, but selecting them would require rather involved modifications or enhancements.  Even after trying to suss out what was needed for a major overhaul, it still felt like settling for something incomplete.

The one design I had my eye on for both its unabashedly absent sidebar and overall simplicity was the one developed for and used by matthewgood.org.  I was pleasantly surprised when BraveNewCode released a variant for personal use; I have to say it’s not only the template that keeps on giving but it sure saved me a pile of work.  Plus, it looks way classier than many of the sites people clearly dropped a lot of cash on.

I also happened to be running their iPhone / iPod Touch plug-in, WPtouch.  So, if you’re visiting from either of those devices, do enjoy the digital sorcery, I had nothing to do with it!

Thanks for the swag gentlemen, it’s duly appreciated.

MY AWKWARD SEGUE

Now, to only keep filling the hole.