Rebel Without A Brain

High Fidelity and the City

Saturday evening was spent cross-pollinating a scene from "Sex and the City" with a sequel to "High Fidelity" (the movie). The evening started with three of my girlfriends and I getting together for dinner. And, yes, we talked about sex and relationships. This topic of conversation is actually a rare occurrence among us, so I feel compelled to remark upon it. Normally, we talk about whether we'd bike or carpool to the revolution, or which lock is better to use when you chain yourself to a bulldozer slated to demolish that darling industrial space in Griffintown.

After a couple of litres of cheap red wine, we headed down to an acquaintance's used record store. It was full of boys. And vinyl. Being in a closed second-hand music shop at 11:00 p.m. is like being in a friend's basement when her older brother is gone. You get to rifle through his music collection (and stash of porn badly hidden between his box spring and mattress). You are overwhelmed by the music selection, but manage to boogie to 10CC ("I don't like reggae! I love it!") and realize that most of Black Sabbath should be played at a much higher speed (only possible on a record player). It was almost primal to browse the selection of LPs, pull a selection gently from its sleeve and admire the (mostly) pristine grooves that magically contain the rattles and hums of the artists.

Girls. Vinyl. Boys. Hum.

One last thought...

...before I succumb to a "hot toddy" stupor.

I want to learn how to play guitar. Operators are standing by.

Three Great Things About Having a Wicked-Ass Cold

1. You sound downright sexy on the phone, with a twinge of pitiful. Sexy and pitiful = someone  offers to do something "nice" for you.
2. You can watch all three Terminator movies in the middle of the afternoon. It doesn't matter that you fall asleep during Sarah Connor's dream sequence; your's is worse (or better, depending on your apocalyptic perspective).
3. All that cheap booze in your cupboard can now be incorporated into hot toddies, which you drink throughout the day to (ahem) soothe your cough and help you get much-needed sleep.

So long, it's been good to know ya'

I used to know a lot of Woody Guthrie songs. Now, I'm lucky if I can hum any of his tunes.

I've gotten all nostalgic-like as I try to divine a way to explain the current divide in global economic thought. How do you make relevant the debate between old-school liberal democrats and neoconservatists (the moniker "neoliberalism" gives them too much credit, AFAIK).

The turning point in the debate between a fettered and unfettered economy was, of course, the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the Great Depressions wasn't solved with prescription drugs, one-on-one therapy, or easy credit, but with government intervention. If you were Canadian or American, the cure (apart from the war) was okay. If you were German-- especially if you were gay, militant, or Jewish--was beyond the exact opposite of okay. Well beyond. It was, un-fucking-not-"okay".

There are two books that have made me cry in my lifetime. The first was Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath", the great American novel of the Depression. In the final scene, Tom Joad's sister, who has just lost her baby, gives her mother's milk to a starving man. This is an unfathomable event, both in fiction and reality, which is why it resonates so strongly. "Of course," you say to yourself as you close the book. Of course, we'll do what we can to nourish our fellow (wo)man. The other book is an even vaguer memory of Ted Allen's closing chapter of his biography of Norman Bethune "The Scalpel and the Sword". As far as I remember , the last chapter recounted his final hours, and I wept like the 17 year-old that I was when I read the depiction of his death and the sorrow of those around him.

I can't explain why I value this kind of heroism, except that it is seemingly brave and selfless.  How do I convey this to an audience whose memory may not go beyond 1985 (if I'm lucky)? How do I instill the belief in "man's humanity to man"?

I. am. (again). fucked.

What does it mean...

...when one of your ex-significant others entitles one of his last art installations "The Lined Interior of Boredom"?

Just wondering...;) It's ostensibly about being in a bus shelter. I've never been described as a bus, nor much of a shelter...

Perhaps I'm...(yawn) boring....

Kidding!

I, Teacher

I've had a number of professional fantasies in my lifetime. By "professional fantasies", I don't mean what you're probably thinking. I mean images of me projected into the future where I'm doing something work-wise that suits me perfectly (and allows me to wear something that is fabulous, but also quietly and elegantly casual).

My first fantasy was that I would grow up to be a hairdresser. This desire revolved exclusively around the hair of a childhood friend, which was long and blonde. She let me brush it and style it for hours. Later, for no discernible reason other than I loved to write, I announced that I wished to become a journalist, although I was quickly dissuaded from pursuing this; the adults in my life deemed this pursuit too competitive.

I quietly drifted into academia with no goal whatsoever (unless "overwhelming" is a goal). It wasn't difficult, as I completed my Master's thesis, to imagine me in a private office in some institution of higher learning, (again) wearing something comfortable but flattering, quietly researching my next lecture or a key chapter of my next book. Students would flit in and out. They would all be brilliant, but would need a push every now and then to realize their full potential.

Fast forward into the present. Today, I'm sitting in my home office, wearing a pair of unflattering yoga pants and a stained t-shirt, correcting essays. My students are not brilliant, but some of them show promise, and, most importantly, some show genuine enthusiasm. My struggle, as I evaluate and grade their work, is to encourage all of them not to give up. I'm a natural critic; it's too easy for me to completely dismiss an effort that has missed its mark, and can do so with a blithe remark that may smart and sting long after it is communicated.

And so, I invoke my personal oath, borrowed from the medical profession (but not, as I learned from my research, from the Hippocratic oath): Do no harm.

Ten essays down. Twenty-five more to go. Nurse!

Spring Forward

All right, I admit it. Several snow storms in almost as many days has been wearing me down. That said, I sit here, after digging the car out of what is hopefully the last snowbank of the season and I'm...smiling. Smiling in a self-satisfied way; the kind that comes from deep inside me--perhaps even from the primordial me. Why? Because it's 5:30 p.m., and the sun is shining--still.

Thank you, inventor of daylight savings time. You made my day.

Join the Prozac Nation Group on Facebook

Having just completed writing a lecture about Facebook and how the platform usurps notions of community (unless you're talking about a community of people who will only talk about shopping), I came across this in today's New York Times:

As we consider the entry by Google and Microsoft into the medical records business, a vision of where this may all be going is presented by a San Francisco startup called Practice Fusion.

The company’s concept: Give doctors a free service that will automate their offices — both administrative functions, like appointments, and patient medical records. The catch: The software displays advertising aimed at the doctors and their staff.

Here is where it really gets dicey: The ads shown are related to the content of the medical records. So when the doctor reviews your cholesterol test results, he may see an ad for Lipitor.

Web 2.0 may well usurp your doctor's expertise.

Hello, Prozac Nation 2.0.