Hipsters, Craftsmanship & Lattes: the Sinister Spectre of Elitism

ITEM!: As an incumbent Tory who lost his rural Saskatchewan seat in the last federal election to elect a right wing majority government, John Gormley knows about "the relentless pursuit of mediocrity." After careers in politics and law stalled out, Gormley came to rest as the media mouthpiece for the Saskatchewan Party in 1998, one year after the right wing coalition party's formation.
Gormley has regularly used his Rawlco Radio bully pulpit (as well as a weekly column in the StarPhoenix) to bash gays, immigrants, women, unions and liberals. He supports the pro-business lobby and the social conservatives by creating an atmosphere of antagonism, a false binary of "Us and Them". In short, the dude is full bag, equal parts scum and douche.
In his new book, what looks like a paranoid screed against the provincial NDP, he unleashes a fresh assault that finely illustrates what how out of touch he really is. On page 17 of Left Out (is he sad because he feels unwelcome or is he using the term as an imperative?), he refers to liberals as "latte-sipping" and "Birkenstock-wearing". FOR REAL. Because only communists can drink fancy coffees. That's why Starbucks has become an international symbol of leftist thought and the people's victory over free market capitalism. Welcome to 1991, John, we have received your fax!

ITEM!: Gaspereau Press keeps its cool in the wake of Giller win. Several things are at play here: 1) Gaspereau, in refusing to adapt their process to meet the swelling demand for Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists, takes a stand for the value of books as objects and the power of those objects as containers of art. 2) The Sentimentalists is widely available as an e-book, and that, undeniably, is where publishing is headed. 3) Gaspereau says they'll fill orders for indie booksellers first, who supported the book before it was a winner. What it means: Creating a successful book (by any definition) in Canada is not dependent on the current bookselling infrastructure.

ITEM!: I think this dude is calling me a hipster. First of all, awesome. Hipsters are rad. I know a lot of people who seem to be stereotypical hipsters who are fantastic people engaged in creative work that serves their community. I think it's great that young people today feel free to wear stupid clothes and grow ugly mustaches. Takes a lot of pressure of me. Second of all, the comment poster seems to be equating hipsterism with a fetishization of the obscure, and vain elitism of exclusion. Frankly, I don't see that at all. I see an appreciation of the paradox that is Lou Reed, someone who has managed to turn his most subversively iconic song into an advertising jingle and yet remains an symbol of integrity in the music biz.

mp3: "Three's Company" by Arabesque featuring Maylee Todd
mp3: "Lifetime of Deception" by Masonic

Is Don Morgan the new Dorothy Parker?

In some ways, Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan's crusade to seize alleged profits from the sales of wife-murderer Colin Thatcher's new book Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame is cute, quaint even. That Morgan, daydream believer that he is, believes there are riches to be had in Canadian publishing, well, it makes me glad he's not Finance Minister.

That said, Morgan's Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act is toothless policy and smacks of nothing more than a hollow attempt a snagging some cheap public approval points without actually, y'know, doing anything. If Morgan and his Sask Party bossman Brad Wall were really interested in righting the wrongs done in the murder of JoAnn Wilson they could have enacted stronger domestic violence legislation, allocated more money to women's shelters, or done any number of things that would actually prevent future spousal-homicide. But instead, the Sask Party is using public funds to pay legal fees to seize money from Thatcher and ECW Press. Morgan says any seized money might go to Thatcher's children, who have remained close to Thatcher and would likely benefit from any profits Thatcher received anyway. So, besides a public contribution to the bank accounts of a handful of Sask Party-friendly lawyers, what's the point?

More troubling is that the Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act threatens to suppress many voices that have already been marginalized. According to 2005/2006 numbers, nearly 80% of Saskatchewan's prison population is Aboriginal (compared with 15% of the at-large Saskatchewan population. We may never get to hear their stories, stories that could very well be essential to creating a more equal and just Saskatchewan for all of its citizens. Without at least the potential for profits, what publisher would bother? The Act promises to muffle, if not silence, voices of dissent, voices of that don't come from a background of privilege.

The Act does not apply where a crime is recounted for law enforcement purposes, in support of crime prevention or in support of victims services programs.

"We realize some stories have a value to society, and may serve as a positive inspiration," Morgan said.

Authorial intention and artistic or social merit really aren't questions for government, are they? Certainly not this government.

Most troubling about the Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, though, is that it reveals a contempt for the intelligence of the people of Saskatchewan. The Sask Party, otherwise champions of the free market, seemingly don't trust the people of SK to recognize Thatcher's book as the manifestation of an egomaniacal persecution-complex seemingly too vain to hire a ghostwriter (only John Gormley and his staff seem to have found much merit in the book). For all their fifth-grade understanding of capitalism, maybe they don't have faith in the system of supply and demand after all.

mp3: "Mr. Fixit" by Al Tuck & No Action

mp3: "Train of Thought" by Al Tuck & No Action

Friday in Western Canada

If you're staying home tonight, and why wouldn't you, you might want to check out The Fifth Estate on CBC at 9 p.m., as they present "Staying Alive", their documentary on Vancouver's Supervised Injection Site. If you watch closely, you might see me in the background. But that's not why you should watch it, and don't let it distract from the most indepth look at the SIS in broadcast history.

The fine people at Flemish Eye have announced the May 19th release of the self-titled debut album from the Pale Air Singers (pictured above), a collab between two of my favourite Western Canadian groups, The Cape May and Run Chico Run. The track (below) they've released in preview showcases TCM singer Clinton St. John's wide prairie vocals and that's good enough for Gladys, as we used to say on the Bridge Building Crew.

mp3: "Convict Escapes" by Pale Air Singers

If you're in Regina on Saturday, check out Deep Dark Woods at the Exchange. Their new album, Winter Hours, is some kinda fine Saskatchewania.

mp3: "All the Money I Had is Gone" by Deep Dark Woods

Speaking of Regina, I can't get enough of Paul Dechene's municipal politics updates at the Prairie Dog's Dog Blog. Regina City Council meetings are a glorious, frustrating thing to behold, and I always appreciate that someone is there paying attention.

NAFTA Please: 2008 in Review

You know you're getting old when the coolest band in your hometown is led by your friend's kid. True, Marshall Burns of Rah Rah's dad Mike is, like, way older than me. And y'know what? I'm fine with being old, cuz I was young long enough.

I try to think of Regina with nothing but affection, but sometimes I can't shake the feeling that it really is the cultural wasteland it pretends to be sometimes. Putting aside the question of whether or not there was any real merit to spending $18-million so that a handful of privileged kids could vie for glory while a dozen or so blocks away hundreds of kids live in abominable squalor, the most annoying thing about the Big Dig was the unimaginative and tiresome name. Nobody asked, in commemoration of the Big Dig's fifth anniversary, here are five better names for the megaproject:

5. The Excavation Proclamation
4. Shakes on the Plain
3. The Behemoth Burrow
2. The Fiacco-Goodale Canal
1. The Tunnels of Moose Jaw

As easy as it is to laugh at Regina from afar, there's no denying the musical renaissance underway right now led by Rah Rah and the Polymaths and who knows who else?! Rah Rah released their debut long-player in 2008 called Going Steady. It's a heady mix of pop, politics and pah-rump-a-pah-pum-pum hapless romance and it's worth mentioning again.

mp3: "F--- NAFTA" by Rah Rah

For realz, ol' buddy, ol' Palliser?

The Leader-Post says the Conservative Party has the Regina riding of Palliser (where I grew up) all but locked. The poll results seem less of a feat for the Tories, with 43.3% of decided voters, when you look at a few things.

First of all, both the NDP and Liberals have very strong candidates running against the Tories' Ray Boughen. The NDP, with the support of 35.7% of decided voters are running Don Mitchell, who, like Boughen, is a former mayor of Moose Jaw. Mitchell's got a long history of political and social activism in the Em-Jay of Ess-Kay (he's also the brother of Ken Mitchell, who once wrote a rock opera with Humphrey and the Dumptrucks) going back to when political and social activism meant something. The Liberals, with the support of a disappointing 17.3%, have a star candidate in former Regina police chief Cal Johnston. I had hopes in the early days of this election of Johnston as Justice Minister, but it's sadly obvious that won't happening soon. Johnston surely has better ideas for improving the justice system than Harper's Fresh Meat approach.

At first it seems strange that a riding that includes my sentimental favourite part of Regina is being dominated by Moose Javians. But then, Regina has never really been much of a breeding ground for politicians who "matter". Provincially, most of our best pols have traditionally been either rural, or from Saskatoon. And federally, well, what can we say about Ralph Goodale anyway? Municipally, well, fuck, that's depressing.

What makes Boughen's not-quite-insurmountable lead--along with the likelihood of another near-sweep for the Tories in Saskatchewan--all the more depressing, though, is how shitty the Conservative Party presence has been in Saskatchewan lately. Mostly, the Saskatchewan Tory Candidates are doing their best to stay out of public view, as Murray Mandryk tells us. From Gerry Ritz to Tom Lukiwski to Michelle Hunter, Saskatchewan Conservative candidates have decided that their best strategy for election or re-election is to make themselves scarce.

Sadly, it seems like a winning strategy. It seems like only Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is the only person on the federal scene willing to call the Harper government on their broken deals with Saskatchewan.

Maybe the drubbing Potash Corp. has taken on the markets this week will give my dear Saskatchewan second thoughts about the blank cheque they're about to write Harper.

mp3: "Summertime" by Feuermusik

I can't shake this guy

I saw Lee Henderson again tonight.
I was on Carrall Street, taking the first part of the dinner break of my last nightshift. I missed most of the art, but there was still some lingering around, mixing in with the panhandlers, nightclubbers and other Gastown regulars. He was in a closed circle of conversation. I was eating streetza (which has mysteriously dropped back down to a dollar a slice, after rising to $1.25 last January and then peaking at $1.50 this summer). I thought about going over and introducing myself, but then I saw some coworkers and decided to make awkward smalltalk with them instead.
It's the second time Henderson crept into my life today. I woke up sometime before noon to Jian Ghomeshi promoting tomorrow's episode of Q, where Henderson will argue the relevancy of The Catcher In The Rye.
I first read Catcher in the ninth grade, during my one-year stint at Evan Hardy. Henderson was in Grade 12 that year, and was one of the editors of Crampl, the school's literary and art annual that published at least one of my poems and a pencil drawing of Sting(who I had seen in concert the summer before) I may have traced. Probably not though, as I was drawing a lot that year, mostly copying off Keith Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes art. I borrowed the book from the school library, which makes it entirely possible that Henderson and I both read The Catcher In The Rye for the first time from the same volume. Which is interesting and isn't. I dunno, it's interesting to me.
Henderson's got a new book out called The Man Game. It looks good. It looks real good. My current moratorium on new books is really hard to uphold. I reviewed his book of short stories, The Broken Record Technique, for the P-Dog way back when. And also interviewed him via email, which is more like exchanging emails and less like interviewing.
On Sunday, I saw him read at the Word on the Street fair downtown. I laughed a little at a part no one else laughed at, more an appreciative laugh at a fine turn of words than a laugh-at-a-joke laugh. I think he looked at me, but I was way in the back.
About a month ago, co-worker Ryan--the man I've spent nearly every single night with for the last year--told me that I look just like Neal Henderson, "you know, the writer?"
What did he write?
"The Man Game."
This was before the book had even been reviewed by the Globe & Mail.
Oh, you mean Lee Henderson.
"Yeah, whatever. You look just like him. We were riding the bus the other day, and this girl was had his book, and she was talking on her cell. She was saying that the book was kind of boring, but she had to read it for a class or something. And Neal I mean Lee was right there. I asked him how that made him feel, and he...."
And then Ryan shrugged his shoulders.
When I got back from my walkabout tonight, I looked in the mirror. I tried to see what Ryan was talking about. Sure, both Henderson and I wear glasses. And we are both wearing checked button-up shirts tonight, just as we both were on Sunday. That's when I noticed a small patch of stubble I missed when I shaved this afternoon. I looked at the shadows under my eyes, the result of two years of working nights. Two years of being underslept and malnourished and missing out on spending time with my wife (who's only been my wife for two months, but, y'know). That all comes to an end tonight. This is my last night shift. I should be commemorating it somehow, but instead I'm thinking about how close Lee Henderson's shave looked tonight. I'm thinking that he doesn't drowsily scrub his face with an electric razor once every couple of days like some character in a Rebus novel. I'm thinking that he takes the time, uses a hot towel and everything. Maybe even eucalyptus. I bet he uses a straightblade, an antique, with something ruggedly arcane on the celluloid handle. Something like a lighthouse with a sea serpent wrapped around it, or well, probably something that looks like an early Marcel Dzama drawing. (Dzama illustrated The Broken Record Technique, so, like, go figure.)

video: "Shiver" by Giant Sand

Well, that's one strategy against child poverty...

Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan, wants to see more 15-yr-olds in the workforce. When minimum wage employers are having a hard time finding people willing to work for wages that don't cover the cost of living, Wall sees an opportunity. Not to let the business community catch up with the supposed free market economy that Wall and his Sask Party buddies so proudly espouse, where labour is no longer a buyer's market and demands fair and dignified wages. No, Wall sees a chance not just to turn back the clock to a time when it wasn't uncommon for Saskatchewan teenagers to drop out before they finished high school, but also to put those supple and small young hands to work folding burger wrappers more nimbly than full-grown adult hands can.
In some jurisdictions, someone illegally employing nearly two dozen underage workers might be looking at criminal charges. But not in Brad Wall's Saskatchewan.

mp3: "Done Got Old" by the Heartless Bastards

I think the Invisible Hand that guides the Economy just touched me under my bathing suit...

But seriously, folks... I guess this the kind of intervention that results from economic policy that doesn't believe in government intervention. Strangely, Stephen Harper doesn't want to influence any elections, not the one down there, and especially not the one up here, by giving his opinion. Probably because in the past he's supported and promoted the same kind of laissez-faire approach to the economy that led what looks to be of the biggest corporate welfare grabs in history. As the NY Times puts it, "It is the financial equivalent of the Patriot Act."

The Rock & Roll equivalent of the Patriot Act, an album called Going Steady, meanwhile, was released in Regina over the weekend. The mighty Rah Rah, a conglomerate of kids born in an era when jowled titans like John Crosbie and Joe Clark roamed the earth. They write beautiful songs about the ugly things, and they live in Regina--where there's a lot of ugly things to write about. I'm still waiting for a song about the old Superstore building where Downtown meets North Central, where the city shrugs its shoulders and claims no responsibility. While I wait, though, here's a song that mentions good ol' Dave Batters, the beleagured outgoing Tory MP for Palliser. Immortalized in song! That oughtta raise his spirits.


mp3: "The Innocent One" by Rah Rah

Hmmm, doesn't quite carry the weight you'd think

From CBC, 4 former PMs join call for climate change action. Thing is, the former Prime Ministers are Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, John Turner and Paul Martin. Not exactly an all-star line-up. An only slightly more noteworthy bunch than the current cast of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Meanwhile, we do have some cool news from some actual heavyhitters. Regina's Sylvie have got artwork, tracklisting and a release date (Oct 21)--along with the all-important pre-ordering info--for their new album Trees and Shade Are Our Only Fences on their label's website. No actual tracks yet, but one or two teasers should be forthcoming. In the meantime, here's a number from their last alb, An Electric Trace. And what the hell, how about the video?

mp3: "Rise and Fall" by Sylvie

Careers in Engineering...

Seriously, dudes, the maximum sentence at the RPCC is two years less a day, was it worth it?

mp3: "Don't Kill the Clowns" by Soda Fountain Rag

Clement officially on the offensive re: supervised injections sites + Advertising on the Prairies

I'll give this to Health Minister Tony Clement, he doesn't seem to be interested in preaching to his choir. After telling the World Health Organization AIDS Conference that curbing the spread of diseases like HIV and Hep C through supervised injection sites are actually "harm addition" over a week ago, today he told the Canadian Medical Association that they're a bunch of unethical quacks.
"Is it ethical for health-care professionals to support the administration of drugs that are of unknown substance, or purity or potency, drugs that cannot otherwise be legally prescribed?" Clement asked out of one side of his mouth.
Out of the other side: "Already there are advocates saying that injection sites are not enough, that government should hand out heroin for free."
So, um, let's see... Clement recognizes the dangers of allowing people to use illegal street drugs of dubious origins, but then he scoffs at removing the criminal element from the addiction equation, the very element which seems to cause the greatest amount of harm not only to those addicted, but also to the communities they live in.
The Vancouver Sun had a very strongly-worded editorial last Tuesday on Clement's words to the WHO. And Barbara Yaffe commented the previous Saturday on how ridiculous the Tory war on drugs has become.

In more fun news, Wade at Signal Response has hooked us up with hours and hours of fun by linking to the Random Image Page of Persuasion: Print Advertising and Advocacy on the Prairies, a digital exhibit from the University of Saskatchewan.

In a similar vein, I don't know if I've linked to this before, but Todd Klein's blog is thirty kinds of fun. Klein was pretty much THE letterer for DC Comics during my heyday as DC nut. While Bob Lappan is my favourite letterer for the outstanding work he did on the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League series, Klein is pretty much the Bob Dylan of lettering. He still does some stuff, but most comics these days are lettered by computers and robots. He has a series on his blog where he talks about logos, many of which he created.


UPDATE (19/08/08): Dr. Gabor Mate lays it down solid on Clement's "repugnant" comments. (Via Globe & Mail)

mp3: "Oh, Sinnerman" by Black Diamond Heavies

Regina Landlord Has Novel Solution to Affordable Housing Crisis

Who would ever have thunk that Regina would find itself in the midst of an affordable housing crisis? Certainly not any of the members of Regina's city council--where you'll find no shortage of realtors and developers--who were pretty quick to pass the buck.
Luckily, Regina landlord Jason Hall isn't afraid to think outside the box. While the North Central Community Association went to City Council with hopes of making slum lords more accountable, Hall thinks that it's the tenants who need to be more accountable to the landlords. But y'know, when you've got people "putting the foot through the wall, the foot through the door, leaving trash in the yard, leaving contents behind and lighting houses on fire" at the Pink Lady, maybe it's time to use a little more discretion in choosing your tenants. Leaving contents behind? That's just tacky.

mp3: "Strike" by Polymaths
mp3: "The Walking Sponge" by Fight the Monster

A Bulldozer With a Buffalo Pound Attached...

When I walked off the airplane, right onto the tarmac just like a Beatle, the air was like warm honey. Thick and sweet, it took more effort to breathe than I was used to. The sun was setting behind me, where I'd just left, and by the time I made it through the terminal I was immersed in that special slow darkening of the Prairies in the summer. In late June, if you're out on the flatlands in the middle of the night, look north and you'll see just the faintest glow of the sun, barely dipped below the horizon and already coming back up.
This is who I am and how I came to be. This is Saskatchewan.
The first time I lived in BC, when I was up in Salmon Arm building bird houses in the afternoon and pushing gravel in a wheelbarrow at dawn, a guy told me that I "look like I'm from Saskatchewan." I do.
I caught my first fish in Pelican Narrows. I've canoed the Battle River. I had my first beer at Beaver Creek. My first job was laying carpet in the the RCMP Depot in Fort Qu'Appelle. And I was married at Buffalo Pound.

mp3: "Let It Ride" by Buffalo Killers

mp3: "Bison Eyes" by Quest For Fire

Everytime I think about back home, it's cool and breezy...

In about 13 hours, I'll be on a slow boat to Saskatchewan, with a three-hour portage through Edmonton. That will treble the cumulative amount of time I've spent in Alberta over the last decade.

Already, a week feels too short, but once I'm back on solid ground, on fertile soil, with no NYT Crossword, no jackhammers outside my window when I'm trying to sleep, I'll probably start pining for ye olde urban lights and blights of Vancouver.

Nicole left on Tuesday morning. She asked me to help her fill up her mp3 player for the trip. "But none of your jazz," she hissed. This from the lady whose first three picks for girls' names were Billie, Nina, and Simone. (Of course I know the difference between jazz-jazz and the free-type jazz I've been into lately.)

Nicole's musical tastes don't always run parallel to mine, which is fine. Over the years, I think I've become less and less discriminating when it comes to music. Having to go to multiple Tommy Hunter concerts will do that to a person. In a lot of ways, I think it's made me a happier person than the 20-year-old snob I was when I started writing about music. But Nicole's kept her edge. She will occasionally vehemently dislike something I think is excellent. So I knew I was on to something when I was going through various new songs I'd been sent and about 15 seconds into "N'Heat" she said, "Yes, put this on my player."

"N'Heat" is from Chicago's the Spectacles (not to be confused with the wedding bands of the same name from Conneticutt and Tennessee) and their new album, Home. They're from the same stable as other Chi-Town pop we've brought you like the Fake Fictions and the Prairie Spies. All three bands, and a few more, will be playing this Saturday, Aug. 2, at High Concept Laboraties in Chicago. Me, I'll be in Saskatchewan on Saturday, having just jumped the broom. But if I wasn't doing that, and if I was in Chicago, I'd totally go to that show.



mp3: "N'Heat" by the Spectacles
mp3: "Outdated Model" by the Spectacles

Pacific NorthWhat, now?

Geography has never been one of my strong points (nor the days of the week, see previous post), so I'm having a hard time figuring how Saskatchewan managed to score a seat at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region. Did someone confuse potash for salmon? Though I guess if Idaho and Montana are in, why not the Ess-Kay? Of course, our dear friends Alberta sponsored our admission (does this mean we can call them in the middle of the when we relapse and spend the night downing Great Western Light with Manitoba?), and that means they're gonna expect little something-something in return. But then, I don't know if we want to stand too close to Alberta today.

And while I'm repping for the L-P, this is a sorta disgusting post from their A Moment In Crime blog, which is kinda wanting for local content, but pretty okay in a weird crime kinda way.

It's funny that I'm using we to talk about Saskatchewan. It's been two years since I left, and I'll be there in about ten days, and I'm kinda looking forward to seeing it again. A lot's changed since I left, and I'm eager to check it out. Of course, I'll have a full plate once I touch down, and a good amount of the week I'll be there will be spent at the lake, reconnecting with silence. Outside of affordable housing, silence just might be the scarcest of resources in Vancouver

But silence isn't always the best. Sometimes catchy synth-pop from New Zealand is better. Little Pictures have a new album called Owl + Owl. They're touring NZ this summer. I'm going to Buffalo Pound. I win.

mp3: "I'm Not Scared" by Little Pictures
mp3: "I Am A Camera" by Little Pictures

End a Saskploitation Era...

I'm honestly torn between thinking that there's no way that longstanding sports journalist turned folksy columnist Bob Hughes wouldn't be up on longstanding sports journalist turned folksy columnist Roy MacGregor, and well, the exact opposite of that. Hughes resigned from his column in my alma mater, the Leader-Post, this week under a light dusting of disgrace. It seems that he cribbed a col from the Globe and Mail's Bizarro version of Hughes, MacGregor. (Interestingly, the offending column has been locked at the L-P's website.)
Hughes, via his general (self) interest column, is something of a Regina icon, if for no other reason than no one else in town ever made so many announcements that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of one of Saskatchewan's most prominent groups organized to fight racism. Indeed, Bob Hughes is often a reminder of a less enlightened era, not so far back in Saskatchewan's history. And yet, through his columns, we got a rare glimpse inside the mind of a man quite earnestly trying to come to terms of with a society that refused to conform to his worldview. Witness his columns following the disappearance of Tamra Keepness, through which Hughes shone a light on Regina's inner city, despairing that in a city of such wealth there were still people living in abject poverty (a more recent column revealed that Hughes's realtor wife either owned or represented a property that Hughes himself called a "crackhouse"). While the conclusions he drew and the statements he made about Regina's inner city were often baffling and occasionally insulting, there was something inherently noble about the way the tragedy clearly affected him.
Hughes's writing style, which even the self-appointed "Ned Flanders of the newsroom" Will Chabun takes issue with, is a thing unto itself. Hughes's columns read like turgid boys' adventure stories from the early 20th Century (not surprising for a former sportswriter), and bore no small resemblance to the earliest writings of Hunter S. Thompson, a former sportswriter himself. For all its flaws, though, it has that one thing that nearly all writers, and certainly all columnists, hope to achieve. It has an absolutely singular and identifiable voice. Except when it's cribbing from Roy MacGregor.

mp3: "Gone, It's Gone" by Peter Elkas
mp3: "Everybody Works" by Peter Elkas

Laundry Day Blues

Bulldozer Non-Required Reading List Spring OH-ATE:

Ron Petrie meditates on the "The Mystery of the Wayward Grocery Cart". It's probably my favourite thing that I've read in the Leader-Post in 7 years. It kinda makes me homesick. Anyway, I think it's just plain old brilliant.

Bryan Lee O'Malley speaks ! NPR's Fair Game talks to the creator of Scott Pilgrim. If you've yet to read Scott Pilgrim, check it out here for free.

Can anyone truly own Superman?
(Speaking of which, springtime is here, and that means my birthday is fast approaching. Need ideas for a gift?)

Just when you think the Sask Party couldn't smell worse (I'm thinking of the 40 or so Google-hits this blog has rec'd over the last six weeks for the search terms Ken Love Saskatchewan Party), Larry Spencer starts offering them advice. Ouch.

[music content deleted at artist's request]

Of course, it might be because of all the drunk drivers...

Bob Hughes tries to figure why Macleans is so afraid of Regina.

Other news:

-Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008 - Jesse hated 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I think that's just I made him watch it when he was 12.
-"Science is like an unfinished painting" - Which reminds me to link to an awesome, Canadian, online sci-mag called Seed that was first brought to my attention via SignalResponse.
-Andrew Matte has a worse time at an Avril Lavigne concert than I ever did, but still manages to get in a Tommy Hunter reference. Sometimes, I really miss the LP entertainment desk.
-High housing costs in BC unaffected by world markets "turmoil".

Does "jib" mean something different in Regina than it does in Vancouver?

If not, why on earth is SaskTel sponsoring a crystal meth party hosted by Andrew WK? Boy, that new Sask Party gov't is really shaking things up. Speaking of which, this might not be the kind of transparency of government voters were hoping for.

Get Local (BC only)

It's a new week, and it's already almost half gone. What the heck? Over at my house, we're making a renewed effort to eat better foods, after a December and January of eating delicious but awful stuff. One way to eat better is to eat local, but before you can eat local, you gotta Get Local. And really, living in a place like the lower mainland, with so much grown and raised nearby, you gotta feel shitty if you're not eating at least a little bit locally.

And you should listen locally, too. But also not-locally. Let's imagine, say, you don't live in Regina. So why should you listen to Regina's Goldenmile? Because they're awesome, and because Scott made sure I got a copy of their new album Stay Golden. Goldenmile may never tour. If they do tour, they might not play your town on a night when you don't have prior commitments. Should you punish yourself for that?

mp3: "Death Moves" by Goldenmile