October 21st, 2010
Julie Wilson on Richard Ford and Eleanor Wachtel
I’m having a “This file is corrupt *too*??” sort of day and no real time to spare, but no matter, because Julie Wilson can describe what I did last night quite beautifully–no need of additions from me.
So, anyway, back to the files.
September 24th, 2010
Reasons to live
I went to a pretty tolerant high school. No one was openly gay there, and I’m sure there was homophobia that was very hard on some kids, but it wasn’t rampant. In fact, there were a very few older kids who were not completely closeted. In fact, there were a few of the very coolest whose mystique was augmented by a little sexual ambiguity. For that time and place, that was progressive.
Apparently, there are places in North America where queer youth are treated so badly–“bullying” doesn’t seem like the right word; more like abuse and assault–that suicide is a clear and present danger for them. Sex columnist and occasional author Dan Savage has started a channel on YouTube to try to talk those kids into *staying alive*: the It gets better project is a series of videos about how rewarding and happy and full of love a gay life can be if you outlast the bullies and survive the abuse and don’t kill yourself in high school.
It’s a horrible place to be coming to in our culture, but Dan and Terry (his partner)’s video, which kicked the project off, is so joyful and sweet. It’s really worth watching even if you’re not gay or not youth or neither; who doesn’t like to be reminded that love and family and fun are excellent reasons to stay alive? I would also maybe suggest that sympathetically minded folks post the link to the project wherever they can. Even as sympathetic as we are, we might not know which of our students or cousins or younger acquaintances are struggling; I think one of the big hurdles with bullying is the shame and secrecy.
I wish no one needed these videos but, failing that, I hope so many people watch them, and that they help.
March 15th, 2010
It’s come to my attention…
That some young Canadian musicians took K’naan’s Waving Flag song, possibly the most perfect song to play on the radio in a good while, and made a slightly less good version to benefit victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I thought this idea was genius when I first heard about it, because it’s such a great song about personal empowerment and strength, but a little hazy on the details so it could conceivably work for lots of things (full disclosure: I don’t know what it was originally about). They added some specifics anyway (“out of the darkness / in came the carnage”–oh, dear) and a rap bridge (yikes) but it is kind of cool to hear all those voices rising together at the end. So I recommend you buy the less good version, because it’s a good cause and a song that you really can’t wreck. It’s sort of a superhero song, so maybe it can really do a lot of good for Haiti–look what it did for soccor.
That Rover Arts posted a nice review of the Journey Anthology 21.
That Bonjour Brioche in Leslieville is wonderful. Crowded on the weekends, but seriously, any carb in the place is probably gold. And waitress sometimes talk to each other in French.
RR
January 15th, 2010
Week-ender
Thanks so much to all who chimed in (or even thought chimeful thoughts) on my vocab-rant last post. I don’t think anything on Rose-coloured has ever garnered 11 comments. Thanks for letting me know/reminding me that word definitions are whatever most people understand it to be, my last subhead was defeated by its own cleverness, and the rules of grammar do not apply to David Mamet–I’m feeling considerably more chilled out about things now.
Except rhetoric–comments from smart people indicating that they don’t understand that word have undermined my own confidence that I understand it! So, coming soon: a post about rhetoric.
But today promises to be the busiest day ever, so not today. Today I’m just enjoying about simple things like: a) it’s sufficiently warm in my apartment (example of the simple joys in my life: I got out of the shower and didn’t want to die), b) my headache from yesterday went away, c) the video below, and c+) the fact that I may have learned to embed it correctly (we’ll see), d) that if I can just make it through the busiest day ever, I get to Skype with far-off friends, and tomorrow, someone is going to make me sweet-potato soup (Rose-coloured philosophy: hooray for sweet potatoes! I recognize as a philosophy that needs work).
I have noted that not everything in the world is good. Accidentally watching the news from Haiti last night on the gym left me near tears on the elliptical trainer, I am so sad about the loss of P.K. Page, and I think certain friends are having some tough times these days.
I’m not saying that this video ameliorates any of that, but I do think it’s very funny and it’s only 47 seconds long. 47 seconds of distraction is worthwhile, I think. (Thanks, Ben, for the link!)
RR
July 21st, 2009
Human beings: still quirky
So, yeah, Toronto’s having a municipal workers’ strike, the most visible manifestation of which is that garbage isn’t being collected (I feel bad calling it “the garbage strike” when hundreds of other city workers are on the picket lines, too). But really, the garbage thing can take over your mind when you stroll certain parts of the city these days.
The funniest thing is, if you look at the picture at the link above, you see that though we are deprived of workers to collect trash and take it to the dump, citizens are not willing to a) hang on to their own garbage and take it to the dump themselves nor b) fling things on the ground and admit to being litterbugs. No, we carefully carry our half-eaten sandwiches and empty coffee cups to a not-in-use-but-overflowing-anyway garbage bin, and lay the trash on the ground in front of it, as if it were a shrine.
I admit, this was something I was doing too in the early days of the strike–I actually attempted to shove a little ice-cream cup into a bin, picked it up when it fell down and tried again until I suceeded. Then, after a few days and some bold new odours, I realized: putting trash anywhere it’s not attended to, even it is someplace where it *used* to be attended to, is still littering. I would never just toss a pop bottle in the road–heaven forfend–but the pop bottle I leave sitting in front of one of those big silver bins is going to blow away and roll right into the road, or maybe someone’s flowerbed. Some private business have bins out front that they are attending to, and some mutant very posh neighbourhoods seem to have set up some sort of watch, but in general, you just can’t throw things away on the street right now.
It’s hard to reprogram (and even harder to carry a used Kleenex across town) but garbage bins aren’t garbage bins right now. It’s an ontological crisis, but the practical fallout is that I am going to take responsibility for myself and my ice-cream cups.
Sorry for the rant. I had a particularly Oreo-bag and pizza-box intensive walk this morning.
Tears the size of Texas / drying all around her neck
RR
June 4th, 2009
Be nice to cashiers!!
Well, it’s another happening night at the Rose-coloured ranch. I’ve been down on the floor sorting manuscript pages for the last while, and after getting dismayed by the slipshod sweeping job I do, I decided what I needed was write a blog post about the latest upsetting trend at the grocery store.
On Monday, a new Toronto law kicked in, requiring stores to charge 5 cents for each single-use bag they distribute. Not, perhaps, the most thrilling news ever to have hit the streets, but I assumed that if even I knew about it, everyone did (being as I spend my evenings on my living room floor, covered in paper and dust, not watching or reading the news).
But apparently, the people of Toronto don’t *all* know, and when the cashier at their local grocery/drug/clothing/porn shop informs them of the charge, some don’t take it too well. I have witnessed a couple meltdowns in the three short days the law has been in effect; apparently, the most logical interpretation in some people’s minds is that cashiers are lying about the nickel charge in order to…steal? Piss customers off? Make their own already hard jobs that much harder? I really don’t know what is going on in these furious consumers’ minds.
I haven’t worked in customer service for nearly two years, but I still remember viscerally the bottom-of-the-belly fear I felt when I realized that the person I was serving was angry with me. As far as I am concerned, unless your customer service personnel has been sexist/racist/homophobic, anger is never an acceptable emotion in that context. Frustration, irritation, desire to speak with a manager; fine. I did, at various points, suck at various jobs, and I can see why many many people were a little snarky with me. But anger is a somewhat crazy thing to bring to the checkout line, and to see people lashing out at squirming teenagers and exhausted ladies in smocks makes me so sad.
So…have you seen the 5-cent meltdown yet? What did you do? I can’t imagine it would help for me to raise my paw and say, “It is a real law, you know.” Or, like, “That woman make $10 an hour, flat, not commission off her bag sales, therefore she has no reason to lie to you.” Or…what? In my days in service, I was always comforted by raised eyebrows and smiles from other customers following a confrontation, so that’s all I’ve offered so far. But if this nickel thing is going to be a major tipping point in stores citywide, perhaps I should formulate a better response.
Thoughts…?
Do you know your enemy?
RR
January 20th, 2009
It’s Official: My Hopes are Up
Barack Obama will be President of the United States of America in 1.25 hours.
I am thrilled.
I would like, for a good long while, not to hear another cynical word about getting my hopes up too high, pinning too many hopes on just one guy, or anything along the lines of “bound to be disappointed.”
The people of America voted for a guy who believes in the ideal of change, the ideal of transparency and accountability, the ideal of partnership and bi-partisanship, negotiation and respect and diplomacy and discussion.
They voted for the ideals and for the person they thought embodied them, not for the promise of getting all those things by next weekend. Among other things, the American people voted for a President that respects that they make intelligent decisions, that the American people can be reasoned with and informed as adults, and they voted for a President who would present such a vision of America to the world.
Let’s do American voters the honour of respecting their informed election of their polical leader. I really don’t think anyone is expecting a miracle, but nor do I think those of us who *do* expect rational discourse and thoughtful reform are in any way misled. A little bit, over the long-term, I actually do hope for greatness.
Happy inauguration!
RR
January 9th, 2009
The YouTube Revolution…
is something that I’ve by and large missed. Mainly, I work on two computers: one on which I can’t stream video, and one on which I’ve gotten accidentally locked into a restrictive bandwidth contract (ah, me and the phone company: good times). So even if I actually remember to forward the cool link someone sent me to the computer that will allow me to watch it, I often forgo it if I’m close to my limit for the month and living in fear of incurring massive evil fines.
Such is my life.
*Anyway*, there a few things I do rely on YouTube for (isn’t it funny, by the way, that the name is based on the old picture tube, which is nearly archaic now in televisions, and certainly is in the computer-world). So I do know watching videos on the internet is great, although I only remember ever six months or so. It is great for the following things especially:
1) That thing everyone’s talking about! I can’t believe you missed it. No conversation will make any sense until you see this.
2) Overanalyzing music videos I saw incompletely at the gym and thought might have some hidden meaning. Also, occasionally, just videos I really like.
4) Happy Slip! A Filipino girl who lives in California who makes little mini-movies about her crazy family. She makes vids about other things too, soap opera parodies that I don’t get because I don’t watch soaps, and maybe other stuff too. I am content to watch the same three or four thingies over every six months, they’re that funny. I actually think she’s quite famous now, but I don’t know much about that because…I don’t really do YouTube. Really.
Take me with you / I start to miss you
RR
November 7th, 2008
In the papers
Well, many great things, obviously, mainly about the American election and how this is the beginning of good things. I feel like many people are experiencing envy of Americans right now, and that is not something we experience very often. There’s a great article in yesterday’s *Globe* by Karim Bardeesy, though, about how Canadian polictics might experience a similar surge of empowerment. Dare to hope!
Also, there’s a short article about me in the current issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. It’s a good piece, but it’s not online, so this information is really of use to you if you are a) in Ottawa, and b) know where to find that paper. But still, I’m pleased it’s out there for those who meet both criteria.
Ok, so the title/theme of this post is something of a reach–I just had two disparate things to say and they both happened to be published in newspapers. But it’s Friday and I am sooo tired. A few people have asked me today if I have plans for the evening and I do–curling up in the fetal position. Week of November 3, you have defeated me. But in a good way.
You’re hot then you’re cold
RR
January 28th, 2008
No particular war
So last night I saw Charlie Wilson’s War and liked it very much. This was not a surprise, as it was written by Aaron Sorkin the writer of my most-loved tv shows. And indeed, the film did contain Sorkin’s much-beloved banter, walk’n’talks, long-shots and high-flown political wonkery. And, as with much of Sorkin’s work, he faltered on the ladies, who were condescendingly drawn on occasion, and also saddled with awkward religious hypocrisy, as if that were just the lot of he fairer sex.
But Julia Roberts fares better than most of Sorkin’s recent lady-stars, in part because he downplays his personal issues to give her some of the best lines in the flick, and in part because she’s Julia Roberts and, dammit, she can make the best of anything, even having her gorgeous hair bleached and sprayed in a seemingly desperate attempt to make it look like a wig. And she’s opposite Tom Hanks, which is such a wonderful pairing of easy charm that I don’t know why no one thought of it before. And how great, too, that a movie that concerns events of the twenty years ago would star people so seminal at that time. Big came out in 1988, one of the first films I saw in theatres, and it filled me with joy to see that maturity and the ability to feed and clothe oneself didn’t matter one whit if you had honesty and enthusiasm. There was hope for me, apparently, to take on the world, as soon as I could get myself to Manhattan.
Julia’s big break, in Pretty Woman didn’t come until a few years later, which is just as well, since even my oblivious parents noticed taglines like, “Who knew it was so much fun to be a hooker?” I did eventually see it, and love it. Even then, I knew there was something wrong with the conceit that the way to a man’s heart was to sell him your body and hope he noticed your soul, and something wrong with a country where a girl could really find herself forced by financial circumstances to do so. Still, even now, if you were to somehow break into the feminist enclave that is my apartment, fix the DVD player and put on *Pretty Woman*, I’d sit down and watch, and swoon. I’d feel dirty about it at first, but then I’d block out the real circumstances presented and just enjoy the banter.
As I did in *Charlie Wilson’s War.* With the office hijinx and even fairly serious arguments, the movie could’ve been about almost anything, because the conversations focused on strategic alliances, media, and money–the necessities of war, of course, but also the necessities of anything. Perhaps because of Sorkin’s history on the small-screen, coupled director Mike Nichols’ reputation as a “poet of the living room (I read that somewhere, possibly The New Yorker), they seemed to want to prove something with the battle scenes. I think they could’ve done the whole thing with radar-screen blips and intense conversations, as Sorkin did on West Wing, as I’ve seen in several deeply unsettling low-budget *Hamlet*s, but they had to show the guns, and that was pretty wretched, half video game, half propaganda film.
It was one thing to show refugee camps, and mangled children’s bodies–eliciting pity, showing the evil that must be stopped (who were those child actors, I wonder). But it could’ve been almost any war, or an informercial with Sally Struthers: the only political message of those scenes was: children good, people who hurt children bad. Then there was a scene, and I still don’t know what I was meant to feel during it, that showed young Russian soldiers piloting planes and strafing villages, killing women and children while talking in Russian over their walkie-talkies about their girlfriends. This is late in the movie, when the Afghan villagers had finally been given shoulder-mounted missile launchers. They are able to destroy the planes before they can do as much damage as they meant to. We get to see the panic on the Russian soldiers’ faces before they are engulfed in flames.
Of course, the villagers had no choice, if in fact it happened that way. I wasn’t rooting for the kids on the ground to die, but I wasn’t particularly rooting for the kids in the air to die, either. Is that a happy moment? Nichols and Sorkin play it as wild celebration for all the good guys.
The only militaristic footage that looked real was actually real–taken from news reports of the time period. And here’s where we get the third star of the period, and the first one of my youth. Before Julia, before Tom, pretty much concurrent with The Muppets, I loved Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News. Every evening at 6:30, since long before I was born, my parents watched “Rather”, and then they had dinner and talked about what they had seen. When I was small, and eagerly awaiting my spaghetti, I watched too, or at least sat around and listened to words I didn’t understand. Years later than excusable, I actually thought Dan Rather was President of the United States, and that every evening they wheeled the cameras into the Oval Office so he could bring anyone who was interested up to date.
Dan’s is one of the first faces we see in this film, and it set me right at ease. I probably haven’t heard his voice since I moved out of my folks’ place, and it was tremendously soothing. I probably actually sat through some of the news reports from the film, though I remembered nothing. And the movie didn’t explain much–the news was for exposition, but precious little of it. I had to come home and google to find out what was going on with the Russians in Afghanistan. Sorkin wasn’t going to explain, make the war weird and particular and complicated, and not just a generic Good v. Evil, with all that stuff. Not that the Russians were so far off the mark of evil in that war, as far as I can tell, but they had some motives, they weren’t just psycotic baby-bombers. For the purposes of the picture though, they could’ve been just any bad dudes in history, or James Bond films.
And it’s funny, because for a movie that so ignores and generalizes the history here, at the end there is an alarming about-face, as the final scenes set the movie up as the history of our present tense, showing the Americans as over-confident in victory and setting in motion the terrible events that are even now occuring in Afghanistan. This takes place a while after the worst of the battle scenes, after a lot more joyful triumph and Roberts-Hanks banter and silly smooches. I was enjoying myself again, I’d been lulled by the semi-facts, that good things had happened in some war somewhere, and that everything was now fine. The end of the film was astounding in that it pointed out the lie of it’s own Hollywood-ishness, and yet I wasn’t sure as I left the theatre that I had really wanted that. I was sort of happy, for a while, to go back to the days when the News wasn’t news of any particular war, it was just the noise in the background before you sat down to supper with the people you loved best.
The body says no
RR
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