July 27th, 2009

Treats and Wonders

Via Scott: Of course I love this gallery of book sculpture because of coolness and ingenuity. Of course I hate it because no one is reading those books. It’s very confusing.

Canadian poet (and cool guy) Troy Jollimore had a lovely poem, “At Lake Scogog” in this week’s New Yorker.

Once, I told AMT a tale of woe about working very hard on a story for months, only to have the nth draft dissolve in my hands like grains of sand–it was an unworkable idea, but the only way to find that out was the months of work on an unpublishable story for which no one would congratulate me. And AMT, a linguist who regularly runs experiments that are sometimes brilliant and sometimes not, explained to me about a little publications called *The Journal of Null Results*. I said, “Please blog that so we can all feel a little better about things. And she did–I hope you do!

For the glue to dry on our new creation
RR

July 25th, 2009

Rose-coloured Reviews the summer dance hits

Once upon a time, I was sort of the the target demographic for the New Kids on the Block v. 1.0, when the first step was “have lots of fun” and no one cared that there weren’t really any other steps–because it was silly spun-sugar fun, that’s why. Those were decidedly *not* the days–I was peer-pressured into spending my limited funds on magazines that had centrefolds and almost no text (it was tween porn!)–but, well, c’mon, “Hangin’ Tough” may not have been a good song but it was a *fun* song, especially if you were 11.

And then the New Kids on the Block v 2.0 released the worst song ever written. Seriously, “Dirty Dancing”? That’s a movie–any chance of those words meaning anything else to the target demographic v 2.0 of young nostalgia-lovin’ females is limited at best. And the homage-lines in the song don’t really make the connection clear to me:

Ooo, it’s so crazy
She’s like, “Baby!”
I’m like Swayze.

Even if you were like Swayze, and I’m not entering that fray (I didn’t like that movie very much and only saw it once; go ahead and excommunicate me from the sisterhood of young nostalgia-lovin’ females), that’s a pretty weak allusion.

Ok, nevermind about the purity of Baby and the gang–this song still sucks. There’s barely any build to the purely electronic, extremely repetitious music (can you still it an ostinado if it’s an electronic loop?). You can totally see that this was designed for the late nights in the club; it basically sounds like a slow grind for closing time. And the lyrics really play to that “desperate drunk female” demographic, who could possibly construe

with her pretty lips
“and her big old hips
…
and her pretty eyes
and her big old thighs”

as romantic sweettalk. Damn straight, “forget about romancin’.”

Oh, and did I mention that this song about a guy getting with someone at a club while his

girl is at home
she’s been blowing me up on my phone
but I can shower when I get home
because tonight I’m dirty dancing.

I hate this song more with every rotation of the earth. And who in NKOTB has a Hispanic accent, anyway?

***
FloRiDa (and Kesha) have adapted Dead or Alive’s decidedly Eighties dance-club who’s-zoomin’-who love story, Right Round into a decidedly Aughts strip-club who’s-for-sale love storyby the same title. Yep, the narrative here is the tale of a young gentleman trying to seduce (I think) a pole-dancer by giving her lots of money (which isn’t exactly seduction, but…)

And yet…I sorta like this song. Ok, no *major* points for respecting women, but Kesha gets to sing the chorus too, which is, to me, a slightly witty update on the Dead or Live lyric, “You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby right.” I think DoL’s metaphor was pretty straightforward, and people (ok, people like me) are so familiar with those words that it takes a minute to get the wrinkle in FloRiDa’s update: “You spin my head right round (right round) when you go down (when you go down down).” You have to think about that one–not hard, I admit, but this a second when you don’t see it, and then you do and that’s good for a smile.

So, the fact that Kesha gets equal opportunities to sing the wink-nudge chorus is not really this the best argument for this song. But it is catchy (thank you yet again, 1980s), and the catchy semi-clever chorus is contrast with the fast, rat-a-tat rhymes (though said rhymes are not especially clever, they sound good when rapped fast:
She’s amazin’
her fire blazin’
hotter than Cajun
Girl, why don’t you move a lil closer?
It’s time to get paid
it’s maximum wage
that body belongs on a poster”

And it’s totally dancable, in an upbeat, only slightly sexy way…. I’ve come to the conclusion, writing this review, that it’s embarrassing that I like this song, but I do. I’ll probably have forgotten it by September, which is likely best for us all.

***
I Gotta Feeling by the Black-Eyed Peas suceeds on all the necessary fun-club-tune metrics: extremely simple concept, hummable chorus, solid thumping beat, sense of—if not humour—at least fun.

“I got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night” is the nicest thing in the world to hear when someone grabs your hand and pulls you out the door. And though I lost count of how many times that line is repeated in this song, it never (really) loses its charm. Maybe because it starts out being sung by just one guy, but eventually all the Peas (I have no idea how many there are) start singing in unision, with one or another occasionally breaking away, culminating in this charming call-and-response in the bridge:

Tonight’s the night (hey!)
Let’s live it up (let’s live it up!)
I got my money (paid!)
Let’s spend it up (let’s spend it up!)
Go out and smash it (smash it!)
Like oh my god (like oh my god!)
Jump off that sofa (c’mon!)
Let’s kick it
Off
Fill up my cup (drank!)
Mazel-tov (l’chaim!)
Look at her dancing (move it move it!)
Just take it off!
Let’s paint the town (paint the town!)
We’ll shut it down (shut it down!)
We’ll burn the roof (whooo!)
And then we’ll do it again…

Ok, it’s no Emily Dickinson, but I find it witty (ahaha, “l’chaim” for drank–at last!) and so friendly with all the voices weaving in and out. Ok, “take it off”–not totally PC, but considering how buried the line is, I’m willing to ignore it.

But really, that’s not how one should evaluate a dance hit! This song is fun because it’s *simple*–easy-cute devices like listing the days of the week with Saturday twice, suddenly accelerating the tempo, and making the whole thing seem like an invitation to the listener–“Let’s paint the town!” “I Gotta Feeling” is my favourite dance hit of the summer so far, and even the fact that Fergie goes to a club in a bikini in the video can’t make me feel back about this one.

Rose-coloured reviews will not be addressing the “shorty fire on the dancefloor,” and we are very disappointed in you, Sean Kingston.

And then we’ll do it again
RR

PS–I really like transcribing song-lyrics (I think it makes me more sensitive to vocal nuance, blah blah blah) and did all these myself instead of looking them up. Feel free to call me on it if I got anything wrong.

July 23rd, 2009

Peevish

When I graduated from highschool, we were supposed to write “obits”–little responses to abbreviated questions to squish beside our grad pictures in the yearbook and apparently sum up our personalities and lives in high school and after. The queries were PP: pet peeve, AM: ambition, PD: probable destination and K4: known for. Here’s mine (if I were braver I’d scan in the picture; I’m not):

AM: to have one, to be a licensed driver, to blowdry, to reincarnate my fetal pig, to name that smell, to get the fish joke
PD: the bus 4ever, sleeping thru the apocalypse, K.N.’s floor, crushing my rage into a tiny ball
K4: too much hair, “I don’t get it…oh, yeah, I do.”

Though I did get my license (I corrected the spelling error–“liscenced”!! jeez!!) that’s pretty much the same as I would write now, especially the last bit. But you’ll note–no PP! At the time, I thought there were no peeves I wished to be remembered by (if you think I’m obnoxiously rose-coloured now, you should’ve seen high school, especially at intramural badminton!)

So things have changed, as I do have a few peeves now. And as KateN’s dissection of a pet peeve has inspired me, here’s some headliners from recent peevishness:

–the tap of a fork-tine against tooth enamel
–the rainbow-coloured spinning wheel Macs replace the cursor with when something’s not responding
–when people say “How are you?” as an alternative to “hello,” without waiting for an answer.
–Cyclists on the sidewalk! oh, my most hated ever, cause it’s dangerous and not just annoying!! Like, I get that that many drivers in Toronto are horrible to cyclists, but taking a bike onto the sidewalk is like someone who is pushed around at work coming home and taking it out on their family–sidewalk abuse!! I got clipped by a bike-rearview mirror recently and was so very unimpressed.

Ahem. So, yeah, I get a little more tetchy as I age, I suppose. But I really would love it still if someone would explain the fish joke to me.

I was waitin’ for the hot flashes to come
RR

July 22nd, 2009

Excitement

I did complain about lack of mail in a previous post, but the fact is I get something interesting, if not something actually personal, almost every day. Of course, it helps that I have signed up for a lot of free-sample mailing lists (“oh, look, a package of egg-salad seasoning/skin cream/energy bars/tampons!”) and have a low threshhold for excitement.

At the higher end of the scale, we have yesterday’s arrival of the Fiddlehead’s Summer Fiction Issue, which contains my stories “Tech Support” and “ContEd” (click the link to see an excerpt, as well as lots of other exciting stuff by Andrew MacDonald, Shane Neilson, Katia Grubisic and many awesome others.

Oh, and while I’m on the topic of myself, and things I’m doing with awesome others, I should mention that on August 19, I’m participating in a Now Hear This! reading, as a part of the SWAT program (that I taught in last spring? remember last spring?) My fine fellow readers include Mariko Tamaki, Colin Frizzell and Andrew Daley. Note the the early start time–6pm! This event is *all ages* and friendly to the hungry, since you can order supper during the readings. Don’t get anything crunchy, though, ok?

Yes the heart will always go one step too far
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

July 20th, 2009

An honour and a privilege

I have ever maintained that the short story is thriving, as challenging, fantastic, funny, depressing, thrilling, shocking, entertaining and inspiring stories continue to be produced in this country at a fantastic rate. I read frequently and vigorously–journals and collections and online stuff–and still there’s a million things about this tricksy form that I’m trying to understand.

This spring and summer have afforded me some marvelous opportunities to try to learn this craft. The first was teaching grades 10 and 11 to write short stories. Anytime you want to call everything you think you know into question, just try telling it teenagers. Even before the kids started their questions, the act of putting together my thoughts and beliefs about how something ought to work in a story showed me a lot of my limitations, and opened up doors I never knew existed. Of course I want to think that my teaching served the cause of the short story by showing kids how fun it is to try to write them, and how much can be gained by reading them. In addition to that, though, I do think that my own contributions to the genre will be shaped by what I learned from teaching.

The other thing I’ve been up to lately is acting as a judge for the Journey Prize 21. Obviously, it was a huge honour to be asked to take on this role, but also a huge privilege to get to immerse myself in some of the best work done in the form this year in Canada, and to then to discuss that work deeply with my inspiring fellow judges, Lee Henderson and Camilla Gibb. This was, once again, an opportunity to interrogate what I think of as a “good short story,” why I think that, and how that might be limiting.

I plan to write more about this process around the book’s release (October 6; the winner will be announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards in November). This little post is just to say that I hope you are as excited about the upcoming anthology as I am–it’s full of wonderful, challenging, weird, etc. stories that inspired us, and might inspire you, too. And also to say that I think I’m a lot smarter than I was six months ago.

Our still lives posed / like a bowl of oranges
RR

July 17th, 2009

Rose-coloured Reviews The Sleepless Goat Cafe and Workers’ Collective

So I spent some time in Kingston, Ontario, last weekend, where there is beautiful water, friendly people, buskerfest, and a lot of waterfront pubs. Kingston also contains the Sleepless Goat Cafe and Workers’ Collective. For just a moment when you first see it, you think that an independent cafe right next to a Starbucks would have a hard road. And then you really look at the place, and think it probably has a fairly well differentiated demographic.

Inside is even more non-Starbucksy: pumpkin orange walls, mismatched chairs, a big bookshelf full of oddities, and laidback counterstaff with “equal say in the way the business is run and in the decisions affecting their everyday worklives.” (That’s a quotation from the SG website explaining the concept of a workers’ collective.) The sugar’s organic, most of the waste is recycled or composted, and the graffito in the ladies’ room (there was only one) says, “Support public libraries,” in black sharpie.

So, reading that description, the SG *could* sound a little too crunchy to tolerate, but it’s actually just right. On my two visits, the staff seemed genuinely happy to see everyone who came in, and everyone who came seemed happy to be there. And a lot of people came in, and even better, a wide variety. Unlike some allegedly chilled-out cafes, this one didn’t seem to admit only deeply attractive people between 19 and 24. There were people with babies, an editor marking up a manuscript, elderly couples in hiking boots, gaggles of twentysomethings playing boardgames, several people with walkers, and of course a few tourists (ie., yours truly). Everyone was polite in accommodating babies, walkers and whatever else, and many seemed to know the staff and each other. So civilized.

Another big difference between SG and Starbucks is that this is a real restaurant, not just a coffee shop that will sell you a stale sandwich for $6 if you really want one. The menu is extensive and would be intriguing looking even it weren’t above the counter in day-glo chalk–lots of roasted vegetables, curries and Mexican-inspired stuff. The food is almost entirely veggie, except for the option of bacon or sausage or tomato slices with the “traditional” breakfast. Which actually makes sense; ask anyone who went (semi)veggie for non-taste reasons what they might break down for, and I betcha they’ll say bacon.

I had the “non-traditional” breakfast, which is vegan even though I’m not–I just like beans and rice–and my dining companion had the breakfast burrito, so we can pronounce the Mexican-themed breakfasts very good, anyway (if this were a real review, I would have tried a wider variety at different times of day, I suppose). You don’t see beans & rice many places in Canada (I found out I like that in Costa Rica) so I really enjoyed my breakfast. Seemed a little over-carbed to serve it with home fries and toast, but whatever. The bread was the “famous” Dakota, which was just a little too full of seeds and grains for my liking, but pretty good none-the-less.

Since I only ate the one meal there (the other day we just had coffee–SG has excellent coffee) I don’t know if our long wait for hot food was typical. If one were in a major hurry, there were a bunch of appetizing pre-made salads and sandwiches and muffins in the display case. But it was a comfy place to wait (you order at the counter but the staff serves you at your table–you have to tell them where you plan on sitting!) Also, as a sign by the register indicates, The Goat has games!! So you can sign yourself out the Scrabble board (or something else, I don’t know what) and pass the time in that way. On a rainy morning, a Scrabble board is a great gift, even though there were two boards in the box and an usual number of Us, as well as some unidentified food particles. Also, the food is so good as to be worth waiting for.

In short, the Goat is good–go!

Try a little more try a little more
RR

Oh, look!

I don’t usually link to blogs that haven’t been going for a while, in case they don’t continue, but I’m too excited to wait to tell you that The New Quarterly has a blog now, The Literary Type. And really, I have no doubt that TLT will thrive with all the good energy and talent that lives at TNQ behind it, and with their wonderous managing editor Rosalynn Tyo at the helm.

Yay!

The flower said it wished it was a bee
RR

July 14th, 2009

Social Networking, So Much

Before the Rose-coloured blog, before the Facebook obsession and the fear of MySpace, before socializing went virtual, there was the Bureau of People We Know. Well, there was insofar as a thing that had no form or substance but simply got talked about a lot (mainly by me) can be said to have existed. In fact, even before that, there was the chorus of the children’s song The More We Get Together, which encouraged you to think of my friends as your friends.

That was really the basis of the BPWK, as I have always wanted to meet my friends’ friends, especially around the time I graduated undergrad, and my little circle exploded into different cities and careers and circles, doing all kinds of fascinating things far away where I couldn’t see them. So whatever city someone ended up in, I’d name them head of that city’s office of the BPWK, their only duty really being to hang out with me when I came to town, maybe introduce me to their other friends, and perhaps hang out with some other friends of mine if they found themselves in the same city.

This was not social networking in the Penelope Trunk sense, where you look for useful people, befriend them and then hope they’ll do things for you. My central goal was for no one to ever be bored or lonely in a strange city and to meet as many cool people as possible (and in those senses, I am personally living the dream, at least).

And for the same reason (well, more the meeting cool people part), I am very fond of blogs and Facebook. I often meet someone once at a party, have a charming conversation, and wonder how I’ll be able to have another charming conversation with that person without seeming a) like I’m hitting on him/her, b) a potential stalker, and c) socially lame. Facebook offered the answer, a way to get to know a *little* about people who seem cool, and to interact a *bit*, to the point where you might be able to “take it live” and have coffee in a real actual place.

And that makes me very happy. It also makes me happy that I can invite these new friends to parties and readings and be invited to theirs, that they can see my other friends and what we’re all up to, and maybe the Bureau of People We Know will enlarge even further.

Social networking websites are not a substitution for personal interaction; they are a method of interacting, albeit in a minor, low-committment way. Which can be a conduit to lots of other things, or just a long-term happy acquaintanceship. Both are good things.

So yay Facebook, yay blog! I never joined MySpace because I thought you needed to have a band, and I never joined Twitter because I thought you needed to have a cellphone… Obviously, I know they’ll let you *on* either platform without guitars or a flipphone, but I figured there’s be no point; I’m not who it’s for. Then a shadowy man told me I could synch my Facebook updates with Twitter, if only I were on Twitter. \

So now I’m on Twitter. Such is my love of FB that the hours in the day when, erm, technical difficulties make updating impossible are sad for me. So now, FB tweeting all the time.

And the bonus, of course, is that I’ll get to see who is on Twitter. Besides Wren and Fred and Mel, of course, who are my friends across all platforms, aside from being original members of the BPWK.

Not sick of me yet? Let’s be Twitter friends! Or you can just scroll way down on the right side of this blog and see my none-too-fascinating tweets.

Sweet Alexis / is eating fingernails for breakfast
RR

July 13th, 2009

Did I miss anything?

Kingston was lovely, filled with tiny dogs, bizarre bizarre buskers running in hamster wheels and jumping on pogo sticks, friendly American tourists, delicious pizza, and trees ideal for napping beneath. So what did you get up to this weekend?

My 12 or 20 questions (actually, 19!) with rob mclennan is now posted. If you’ve lost all interest in me, I’d still advise you to check out the series, as so many cool writers confess their thoughts on writing, writers, reading and fruit on it.

Oh, and upcoming, a review of Coming Attractions 08 from Andrew M., whose blog is pretty cool.

Ok, now back to real life, where no one ever juggles flaming clubs or makes my bed for me, and I have do things that don’t take palce in sunshine. Even still, I’m rather fond of real life.

If it’s all right with you / I’d like to come home with you tonight
RR