Love may be blind but lust has a pretty sharp eye

My very own aphorism!

What does a sexy linguist wear on vacation?
A diphthong.

What's invisible and plays hockey?
A ghoulie.

Why was the cannibal expelled from school?
He was buttering up his teacher.

My favourite recent headline: Lawyers challenge Harper's same-sex position —CBC online

Today's thought: Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words words words

From Jann Arden's "Good Mother"

I’ve got money in my pocket
I like the color of my hair
I’ve got a friend who loves me
Got a house, I’ve got a car
I’ve got a good mother
and her voice is what keeps me here

Feet on ground
Heart in hand
Facing forward
Be yourself
I’ve never wanted anything so bad...so bad

Cardboard masks of all the people
I’ve been
thrown out with all the rusted, tangled
dented god-damned miseries
You could say I’m hard to hold
But if you knew me you’d know
I’ve got a good father
And his strength is what makes me cry

Feet on ground
Heart in hand
Facing forward
Be yourself
I’ve never wanted anything so bad...

***

I hope you are well.

L

Her Honour The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta
The Honourable Dr. Lois E. Hole, CM, AOE

or Lois...

I just finished making the Thank-you ad for the family to be published in the Journal and the Calgary Herald. It started out with a long-ish list of people who donated their time or services and add a longer list of people who went above and beyond to make the last few months something to be remembered.

In the end though, the ad holds nothing but the thanks of the family. There truly were too many people to thank, too many people who didn't want thanks, too many people that we didn't even know needed thanks. There were too many people touched by this event and by Lois' legacy. I think teh simple thank-you suffices.

I still get shivers when I do something involving Lois, I still discover new dimensions to how she touched my life, I still regret being unable to express the inexpressable and I really wish I had of asked her over for tea like I planned when we first bought the house.

Because you see, we all learn from our experiences, often without realization that learning has taken place. I learned along time ago from Lois' daughter-in-law that wealth is relative and the 3 bucks in my pocket is way more precious to another that it ever should be to me. I learned when I spent my first week working out of Lois' office that wealth and power aren't really synonymous with ambition, jealousy and unending moral compromise. I learned from working at Hole's that strength & confidence is actually one of the keys to charity. In the past month I have learned so much about myself, about the perceptions of truth that we all hold as a society and about the importance of strenght and the insidious eroding power of fear.

I learned a lot.

Kate, Lois' granddaughter, wrote a poem for her memorial which clarified some of what was racing around my mind.



...
I am not afraid to cry.
I will be strong of character
Strong of conviction
Strong of ethics and morals and values
And I will be strong in my beliefs.
...

We need to be strong and to be true and from this great things can come. To live up to Lois' legacy, we need not do great things, we need only to think, to learn, to listen and to do...


"and I said to myself, what a wonderful world..."

So this dyslexic walks into a bra...

I haven't felt much like writing, or anything else, lately. As you've probably heard, Her Honour Lois Hole, Alberta's Lieutenant Governor, died last week, and her death has hit me hard. She was an extraordinary woman, and I will miss her.

So, completely inappropriately, here's a melange of other stuff to amuse you. Perhaps after the memorial service on January 18 I'll be able to prepare a more fitting response to Lois' passing. In the meantime, if you want to read a beautiful tribute, click here.

And now, without further ado, my Friday blog.


• What do you call a fish with no eye? A fsh.


25 Most-Played Songs on My iTunes as of today

Tiny Thing, Jenson Interceptor
Fire Lake, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
I Drove All Night, Cyndi Lauper
All Hell For A Basement, Big Sugar
This Little Girl, Gary US Bonds
Without Me, Eminem
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Gene Pitney
Crazy in Love (featuring Jay-Z), Beyoncé
I Did It for Love, Harlequin
Get Closer, Seals & Crofts
I'm Your Baby Tonight, Whitney Houston
Don't Stand So Close to Me, The Police
How Do I Make You, Linda Ronstadt
Pour Some Sugar on Me, Def Leppard
Wednesday, Tori Amos
Summer Breeze, Seals & Crofts
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon, Urge Overkill
Brand New Lover, Dead Or Alive
Summer Night City, ABBA
Welcome, Heather Nova
Billie Jean, Michael Jackson
Hush, Deep Purple
Steppin' Out, Joe Jackson
A Sorta Fairytale, Tori Amos
What You Waiting For?, Gwen Stefani

(please don't comment on my execrable taste: I already know!)


A new outlook for the new year, courtesy of Dear Abby

JUST FOR TODAY, I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all my problems at once. I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things I can correct and accept those I cannot.


• Doctor to patient: "I've determined the cause of your illness. You have Tom Jones disease." Patient: "That sounds bad. Is it rare?" Doctor: "It's not unusual..."


Steinbeck's hometown to shut down libraries

SALINAS, CALIF. - The cash-strapped hometown of author John Steinbeck will close down its library system, including a branch named after the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, starting in early 2005.

Cutbacks in state funding, rapid growth of the city and rising heath-care costs have forced the city council of Salinas, Calif., to slash $8 million from its budget over the past year. It faces a similar cut for the 2005-2006 fiscal year.

Earlier this month, council voted to shut down its three libraries by spring 2005, after residents rejected in November a number of tax increases aimed at funding city services.

"The reality is that we live in a blue-collar community where people are struggling, and they're afraid of new taxes," Salinas Mayor Anna Caballero told the Associated Press. "I don't think they realized the enormity of what we were facing."

Steinbeck once described the region, which is dominated by produce farms, as "pastures of heaven" and memorialized the area in many of his works, including the 1952 novel East of Eden. Located about 160 kilometres south of San Francisco, Salinas also goes by the nickname "The Salad Bowl of the Nation."

A large number of Salinas's 150,000 residents are poor farmworkers and immigrants who regularly visit the three branches – The John Steinbeck Library, The Cesar Chavez Library and The El Gabilan Library – for books as well as for other resources, including citizenship information, literacy courses, English-as-a-second language material, after-school programs and to access the internet.

Library officials estimate that almost 2,000 people make use of the library system on an average day. The closings could leave Salinas the most populous U.S. city without a public library. About three dozen people employed at the libraries will lose their jobs.


• "If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot." —John Bunyan


L

New Year Notes...

We had a limited budget Xmas this year and it actually was a bit funner ..."fun funner funnest" ...

Actually we blew a tone of moola on climbing stuff including a year's pass to Virg. Went climbing and took some pics. But hopefully the investment will be worth it. I actually seem to be feeling a bit better as I get more exercise... who'd a thunk eh?

Doug's in... mostly. So far he hasn't complained but we'll see.

Anyway... just a note to start 2005.

Merry Christmas!

Just woke up, it seems, and suddenly it's Christmas. We're off to my aunt's house in a few moments, but here are some winter thoughts to entertain you in the meanwhile. I promise to write next week, when I will have hours and hours of free time.

Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping Beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"'You must learn to stand up for yourself
'Cause I can't always be around"
He says, When you gonna make up your mind...

— from "Winter" by Tori Amos


December will be magic again
Don't miss the brightest star
Kiss under mistletoe
I want to hear you laugh
Don't let the mystery go now

— from "December will be magic again" by Kate Bush (who is promising a new album in 2005)

with stars in my eyes from watching the Christmas lights of Beverly,
Leslie

It's not OK to throw stones ... unless they're small ones

The CBC news reports: "Premier Ralph Klein says it should be OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians when it comes to marriage." A reporter quotes him saying, "I do feel that gays and lesbians ought not to be discriminated against in any other form other than marriage, because I think that marriage is a sacred thing that exists between a man and a woman."

Why why why why why why why why why do I live in this province?

(banging head repeatedly on desk)

L

C'est chouette!

Just a quick one today, because I must race off to a final exam and have piles and piles of marking still to get through. But there's always time to play!

1. One of my favourite words was recently the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day:

ludic \LOO-dik\ adjective: of, relating to, or characterized by play: playful

According to the lexicographer's notes, "Ludic is ultimately from the Latin noun ludus, which refers to a whole range of fun things — stage shows, games, sports, even jokes."

2. Looking for something to cheer you up? Check out this link. Reason number 431 to hire a professional professional designer. Sigh.

More as soon as sanity permits...

L

That terrible, terrible time of year

I know I owe many people letters, or at least notes, if not phone calls and visits. I'm sorry to be so pokey lately. I will try to write or call you soon! I promise!

In the meantime, here's something to provoke comments, perhaps, or at least amuse you. Have you been watching the storm between Naomi Klein and the US administration in the Guardian? Wowsers!


All those with agency are confronted by a choice. We can use that agency to secure for ourselves a safe and comfortable existence. We can use our life, that one unrepeatable product of four billion years of serendipity and evolution, to earn a little more, to save a little more, to win the approval of our bosses and the envy of our neighbours. We can place upon our walls those tombstones which the living erect to themselves: the framed certificates of their acceptance into what Erich Fromm has called the 'necrophiliac' world of wealth and power. We can, quite rationally, subordinate our desire for liberty to our desire for security.
Or we can use our agency to change the world, and, in changing it, to change ourselves. We will die and be forgotten with no less certainty than those who sought to fend off death by enhancing their material presence on the earth, but will live before we die through the extremes of feeling which comfort would deny us. — George Monbiot


Please forgive me my lapses! Surely you know by now they're always mindless and never mindful. Or something like that... Anyway ... Must go "attack a stack" now.

Flitting around the stars,
L

PS: And lest you think B is the only one to comment on climbing, I will chime in that 1) I was surprised we passed our lead checks, given that we both had to fall off the wall AGAIN and neither of us wanted to (somehow I doubt it was a good idea to re-read "Saturday Climbing" before taking my lead test); and 2) B placed third in the Novice category at the Rip and Grip on Friday, which was only his second time taking part in the event (I didn't actually place at all, but I was feeling wispy, etc.). So congratulate the man with the rippling shoulders and massive biceps when next you see him!

PPS: Oh ya — EARL! That's KATE BUSH, not PG, singing the "jeux sans frontiéres" BV on "Games Without Frontiers."

PPPS: Check out the iTunes store!!! Click here and then follow the "Download Here" link. I've already spent much more money than is seemly to disclose, almost all of it on eighties hits... Yes, there were hits in the eighties ... though you probably don't remember most of them ... How about "Geronimo's Cadillac" by Modern Talking? I bet I'm the only one among us who remembered that particular gem ... probably with good reason ... bear in mind my penchant for both sarcasm and cheez ...

PPPPS: Being unreasonably indulgent tonight ... Remind me to tell you my thoughts about pie.

And in the lead...
...it's Bouncing Bruce and Lead-foot Leslie, scrambling to the top!

Well we had our last climbing class and miracles of miracles we overcame age and adversity to actually get our Lead Checks. This means we are now qualified to dispense with rope dangling and just put our trust in the fact that enough knowledge got into our heads that we we won't die without a rope...

Our team:

Aspire

Well, there ya go... L and I officially graduated from VIRG last night. With our fancy new Aspire T's and official certificate we are good to go. Very very interesting experience and some great people. One of our instructors was Jake the owner and more awesome, high-energy entrepeneur you are never gonna meet. If you are interested go and climb...

We have our lead checks to to next week and then we are set for the indoor climbing world. I'd liketo try rock climbing but don't see it as a passion in the making...too much risk, too much effort. Then again maybe I need to challenge my fears a bit more... you never know.

Those of you who know Leslie should come climbing with us cause she will rock your world with her bodacious belaying, brazen bouldering, terrific top roping and liquid leading. Seriously, it is amazing how much we developed in such a short time. It is also intersting how much a sport based on fear and trust can affect your outlook. Time was dangling from a rope was a real nail-biter... now its dyno'n for the jug whilst upside down with no hope of making it... I still get nervous the first time I let go of the wall but it passes. Actually the fear of falling is much less that the fear of letting go. I will posta few pictures when I remember to bring the camera along...

Walls
On other fronts, I learn more and more what a curse it is to be famous (not me of course). Everyone is yur best friend and and the pressure of keeping the world at large in its place isolates you more and more-- building a wall just begets more and bigger walls until you find yourself alone surrounded by impermeable layers... It seems to be unavoidable no matter what your inclinations.

Sort of makes you scratch your head because generally people who become famous are the ones that like people, want an audience or succeed because the play well with others...
Gives you an appreciation for the Princess Di's of the cosmos. Personally I like the recluse idea; Rapunzel had it good until that dang prince came along.

In conclusion...
Well must trundle: remember to doubleback and do your checks...always!

Falling in love again...

with Chaucer! Do pay attention. From Troilus and Criseyde:

She was nat with the leste of hir stature,
But alle hir limes so wel answeringe
Weren to womanhode, that creature
Was neuer lasse mannish in seminge.
And eek the pure wyse of here meninge
Shewede wel, that men might in hir gesse
Honour, estat, and wommanly noblesse.

...

For ay the ner the fyr, the hotter is,
This, trowe I, knoweth al this companye.
But were he fer or neer, I dar seye this,
By night or day, for wisdom or folye,
His herte, which that is his brestes ye,
Was ay on hir, that fairer was to sene
Than ever were Eleyne or Polixene.

Eek of the day ther passed nought an houre
That to him-self a thousand tyme he seyde,
`Good goodly, to whom serve I and laboure,
As I best can, now wolde god, Criseyde,
Ye wolden on me rewe er that I deyde!
My dere herte, allas! myn hele and hewe
And lyf is lost, but ye wole on me rewe.'


...so there!

L

Bloggy Bits

Time for more merry-go-round the language tree, courtesy of the goldarnedest grammar teacher north of the Sturgeon River (at least at the time of writing).

Thought 1: Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. — Potter Stewart, former associate justice of the US Supreme Court

Thought 2: It is better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle it without debate. — Joseph Joubert

• According to This magazine, on each day that you live in Edmonton, you inhale the equivalent of 32 cigarettes, based on the mean NOx content of city air. That's slightly better than the air in Calgary or Vancouver (equivalent of 38 and 34 cigarettes a day, respectively), but much, much worse than Hamilton, with the equivalent of only 18 cigarettes a day.

• A CBC comedian gave me my favourite one-liner of the last twelve months: "You've heard of J.Lo? Well, my wife has a bottom like Jell-O." Hmm. And now, this just in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - J.Lo and Beyonce can take another bow. The booty-shaking stars have shaped the newest generation of mannequins, with hundreds of well-rounded plastic backsides appearing in shop windows across New York.

Bootylicious figures clad in tight low-rise jeans have spilled from the city's street fashion stores into more established labels.
"It's absolutely the trend," said Dwight Critchfield, creative director for mannequin firm Goldsmith. "These mannequins look great, and there is a real sex appeal about them." Am I reading this correctly? Does this man actually find mannequins sexually appealing?

The recent pop culture fixation on large bottoms has been around since at least 1992, when rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot scored a hit with "Baby Got Back." But some credit the recent booty shakin' efforts of shapely stars Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce for the fresh emphasis on bigger and rounder posteriors, coupled with the fashion explosion of the Brazilian-style low-rise jeans.

"J.Lo was the first to stress that women shouldn't be afraid to show their curves, and the popularity of rap made that shape more acceptable," said Critchfield. "And it is about these low-riding jeans looking good on a sexy, tight fit."

The company launched a "Sex" mannequin with "a larger booty and body" tailored for fashion label Express and for stores carrying lower-end trend clothing, said Critchfield.

On the juniors' floor of Macy's in Manhattan, Guess jeans and streetwear label EckoRed display jeans on a fuller rear-end bottom-half mannequin, known as a pants form, opposite a large poster of J.Lo and her clothing label, while a DJ mixes hip hop and reggae to teen and 20-something shoppers.
EckoRed launched the new mannequin — called the J.Lo butt form — at the store almost two years ago and sales have since tripled.

"It is a serious sociological trend that is positive for retailers and customers in that the tyranny of the undernourished perfect model is over," said Rich Rollison of Lifestyle Forms and Display, which designed the pants form mannequin. Other companies also are developing more realistic mannequins with larger posteriors in maternity and plus sizes. US label Lane Bryant, which caters to plus sizes 14 to 28, is launching a more voluptuous full-body mannequin across its 250 stores after a successful test run in New York.

"It originated from urban ethnic street wear, but it has transcended that," Rollison said. "Now you are going to see it projected in more urban markets and it will get bigger." Here's where pronouns can be fun: does Rollison's it here refer to the "serious sociological trend" identified several lines above, or to J.Lo's bottom? Or perhaps just her ego?

Too cool to wear jeans,
L

So much to read, so little time...

Another installment in my condensed news of the world... Did you know stories like this are called brite? Well, now you do.


NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York officials were red-faced on Friday after they discovered that clothing ads on city buses that appeared to promote reading suggested a love of books could be rewarded with oral sex.

The advertisements that ran on about 200 buses across the city in recent months carried posters displaying a suggestively posed woman in hot pants kneeling among a pile of books beside the snappy slogan "Read Books, Get Brain."

What unhip, unsuspecting local transportation officials did not know was that "get brain" is street slang for oral sex.

The ads -- from hip-hop clothing maker Akademiks, which intended the double-entendre -- was stripped off New York buses on Friday after transportation officials discovered the street slang meaning.

Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman Tom Kelly condemned the "vulgar street phrases" in the racy ads he said were "demeaning women."

"To me and I believe to everyone else, while it was done by a clothing line, it would give the impression that it was also promoting reading and literacy," Kelly told Reuters.

"It's easy enough to understand how that would get by based upon someone not knowing the expression."

A spokesman for the New York-based clothing maker noted the ad campaign had run since September and "we hadn't had any complaints at all."

New York officials may not be the only ones caught out.

Akademiks also placed the ads on buses and bus shelters in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia, the company spokesman said.

Kelly, who said he was his 60s, said that after he was tipped to the hidden meaning of the phrase on Thursday he ran a test among some young MTA workers.

"I went downstairs to the mailroom and showed some of the young guys a copy of the ad," he said. "I was watching their faces and they all start smirking.

"Apparently it's on all the music, in music that's how they refer to it," Kelly said. "I didn't know anything about it and I'm sure the people that approved the ad didn't."

Kelly said it was sad that "you can't take things at face value any longer," adding, "We'll have to learn from experience before we accept ads." — Larry Fine

ex tempore
the mechanism of power are such that the more the power
the less the power means

the curve is against you, faster, harder - more more more
the slower and slower and slower you gain

in pursuit and never catching
the goal
keeps moving
on...

I think I like this side of the fence (it's easier- isn't it?)

Just a note.
A ground fall isn't unheard of... Actually we've heard of it often, repeatedly and incessantly. It also has many synonyms. I think its because they don't want us to try it, but I'm beginning to think its because they think its inevitable... ouch.

Climbing is very interesting. We do so at Virg. Eventiually I will add pictures but instead look at our newfie ones...

ciao for now

bruce

Tuesday's Thought

Flying through the ether, landing softly by your side...


"By words the mind is winged." — Aristophanes


Incidentally, from the online Webster's, the following etymology:

ether
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin aether, from Greek aither, from aithein to ignite, blaze; akin to Old English Ad pyre (SEE edify ... Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French edifier, from Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin aedificare to instruct or improve spiritually, from Latin, to erect a house, from aedes temple, house; akin to Old English Ad funeral pyre, Latin aestas summer...)

Oh for a less hypertextual brain!

with all my hert / heorte / herza
L

What did you get for your money's worth?*

Things I learned in Newfoundland

(the truncated version ... since it's been two months since I first promised to get to this)

• That in Grand Banks your day always starts with waking up.

• That the song lyric isn't "I's the guy".

• That, despite claims to the contrary, the moose in Newfoundland are mythical.

• That lighthouse keepers, like hatters, were made mad by mercury.

• That you shouldn't park a rental car on things that burn.

a buzzing buzzing bee with no voice,
L

* Asked of me by the customs agent in Fortune, Newfoundland, upon our return from St-Pierre. My answer was "A corkscrew, a commemorative spoon, a T-shirt, and ... some groceries" (including chocolate-chip-cookie cereal). Not exactly a stellar moment for international trade.

For my grandfather

W.W. Lowrie, 1912–2004

Farewell to Nova Scotia

Good-bye to Vestochk-Shotlandii, to you have a swim along the coast permission seabound to your dark and dull mountains at the moment when I remotely far on the will it is into air by ocean brimy to which you not you podnimayete never sigh or desire for me?

The sun placed in the West of bird kishes on each shaft entire, is which nature it pokazalas' inclined but there not ostalo by any rest for me

I afflict so that it would begin from my native soil that I afflict so that would leave my comrades all and my parents, that, I was which it considered so that it would be gamine so to the road and my bonny, bonny which I so much fell in love with

The drums of pobili and by the wars of potrevozhili my zvonoki of captain, I must it obeyed thus good-bye, good-bye with
charm Of vestochk-Shotlandii for his place of takings earlier it tripled, I will be the remote, distant party

I imeyu of 3 brothers and they on the rest to their handles fold in their centers but the poor and usual right seaman in proportion to me necessarily it threw news in air in the dark and blue sea


** This is the text of a traditional song babelized by translating the English lyrics to French, representing my maternal grandmother; and then translating the text back to English, representing my mother (and mother tongue); then translating the resulting English text into Russian, representing my paternal heritage; and finally the Russian text has been translated back into English, representing me.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye.

Tonight I Have Officially Lost It

Good evening, and welcome to my mind. It's a weighty thing, my mind, on this cavernous October night, and so I'd like to share the burden with others. Read on if you dare.


A. My end-of-pennies campaign

How many times have you tossed a penny down the mall just to watch it skitter or thrown a penny out the window when you received it with your drive-through change? Many people perform these and other unusual behaviours to rid themselves of pennies, the laughably anachronistic coin. And when was the last time you stooped to pick up a penny? Perhaps, with the average hourly wage for a Canadian worker at $17.28 (Statistics Canada, April 2004), bending to retrieve a single cent simply isn't worth your time?

Pennies are silly in an age when the price is of the average Canadian home is $217,498 (2003, Canadian Real Estate Association, latest available figure). Minting pennies each year is a dreadful waste of money and resources, a harm to our environment, and a now-irrelevant support of the market apparatus. My campaign of four simply steps will do away with one of the biggest unnecessary costs in Canadian society.

1. Everyone turns in their pennies. Think about how many pennies you have stashed somewhere in your home: in your piggy bank, in your mad-money jar, in your wallets and purses, in your glove box, in the utility drawer, etc., etc., etc. OK? According to some informal estimates, the average Canadian has ready access to about $3.00 in pennies (obviously some of us have a few more than others). Imagine the economic benefits if all thirty-odd million of us suddenly donated all our pennies to the charities of our choice. This injection of some $100-million into the economy would have a substantial, and reverberating, effect.

2. The government rolls back the GST to five percent. Many people have campaigned to get rid of the GST entirely, but I don't believe that's on the government's agenda at this time, despite the fact that the GST is a regressive tax that unfairly burdens lower-income earners. A five-percent tax potentially eliminates the need for pennies, provided we gain the cooperation of one important party...

3. Retailers end the ridiculous practice of pricing by pennies. Can anyone explain the economic difference between $4.99 and $5.00? Right: there is no economic difference, just a certain psychological appeal. Well, the year-on-year savings to taxpayers offered by my end-of-pennies plan should more than pacify the right-wing capitalists among us who actually believe we're entitled to save a penny or two on the backs of third-world workers whenever we buy new shoes, shirts, sporting goods, incense holders, or superpacks of will-o-crisp at Wal-Mart. Pul-eeze!

4. The Canadian mint ceases to make new pennies. According to documents tabled in the House of Commons, since at least the mid 1990s (possibly earlier), a penny has cost more than its face value to mint, leading the Royal Canadian Mint to reduce the copper content of the Canadian penny and introduce other substances in its place. There are certainly enough pennies already in circulation to see us through the change to a decimal system. Within a year or two, pennies will disappear quietly from common coinage, like two-dollar bills and fifty-cent pieces: still acceptable as currency but rather unusual. Collectors can make their fortunes collecting pennies, and the rest of us will be relieved of the burden of this antiquated copper.

I know my campaign is hardly unique. Americans have been having this argument for years, and here's how one commentator summed up the situation in the US:

The Government's experience with the metric system and the Anthony dollar suggests that the public must be convinced that there is a pressing need to change anything which has become embroidered into the social and commercial fabric of society. Despite careful examination of the various arguments supporting the elimination of the penny, we cannot identify any benefits associated with price rounding and the cessation of penny production.

Aargh! It's time for Canada to be a leader and stop the insanity! Won't it be nice to know that those who buy and sell really are nickel-and-diming us? And can you tell that my heritage is only one-quarter Scottish?

The penny: its time has passed.


B. My end-of-daylight-saving-time campaign

Speaking of time: did you realize that most Canadians spend more months living on Daylight Saving Time than on so-called Standard Time? It's true: since 1986, North Americans (in those jurisdictions that follow Daylight Saving Time) set their clocks ahead one hour on the first Sunday in April and turn them back an hour on the last Sunday in October, giving us seven months on "daylight" time and only five on "standard" time.

The situation is even weirder in Europe. In the European Union, "Summer Time" begins on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October — creating a one-week lag between the two western continents. And Russian clocks are two hours ahead of Standard Time during the summer months, to take advantage of the early sunrise and lingering twilight. These discrepancies must pose some mathematical puzzles for international businesses!

Daylight Time has been with us consistently for almost a century, although the concept has its roots in the 1700s; it has been neither uniformly applied nor uniformly well received. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which is responsible for overseeing Daylight Time in the United States, promotes the adoption of Daylight Time for three reasons:

1. Daylight Saving Time saves energy.
2. Daylight Saving Time saves lives and prevents traffic injuries. (This point is contested by some agencies.)
3. Daylight Saving Time prevents crime.

These are all good reasons to adopt Daylight Time universally — that is, to get rid of the habit of swapping back to Standard Time for five months of the year. Since it would hardly affect the Majority World (areas of the globe between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which receive roughly the same number of daylight hours year-round), I propose an international movement to shift the clocks forward by one hour globally.

Opposition to extend Daylight Time rests with the farming lobby, which argues that farmers' needs, production, and local conditions vary too widely to accept uniform application, and some religious groups (also with a few people who have sleep disorders or trouble setting their VCRs). The compromise position, of permanently setting clocks ahead thirty minutes, has been ruled out because of astronomers' preference that noon reflect the highest point of the sun in a time zone (although, given the geographical span of time zones, this preference is fairly arbitrary).

Perhaps a change would be the way to celebrate the centennial of Daylight Time, in 2016. I'm up for a campaign; how about you?

(In case you're interested in even more details about Daylight Time, here and here are two informative, if fairly similar, sites.)


C. The loss of Jacques Derrida

The intellectual world is a darker, sadder place today.

As CBC.ca put it: "World-renowned thinker Jacques Derrida, who helped found the school of philosophy known as deconstructionism, has died, French officials said Saturday [October 9]. Derrida was 74."

OK, so some of you are mourning other news, such as the death of Christopher Reeve or the announcement that Melissa Etheridge has breast cancer, or a personal loss, such as strikes us all. And these are equally terrible events, in their way. But I believe our world, caught up in its techno-positivistic late-capitalism tensions of the demands for ever-increasing production exceeding the capacity of sustainable consumption, needs more thinkers, more philosophers, more critics, and Derrida was one of the greatest.

Sure, maybe you can't define deconstructionism and maybe you wouldn't recognize a postmodernist if she tweaked your nose, but the world you know today was shaped by Derrida and other intellectuals in the late 1960s. Our society doesn't value intellectual labour very highly, but if we did, Derrida would have been one of our most valuable citizens.

Shortly before his death Derrida said, "Learning to live should also mean learning to die, taking into account and accepting the absolute nature of mortality with neither resurrection nor redemption." A person should keep this advice in mind, especially around family holidays.

I, for one, will miss Derrida.


And this just in...

VANCOUVER - A giant squid surprised a fisherman in British Columbia, worrying scientists who say its appearance could be another sign of global climate change.

Last Saturday, Goody Gudmundseth hoped to net a couple of salmon off the coast of Vancouver Island in Port Renfrew. Instead, when he felt a tug on the line, Gudmundseth knew he'd hooked into something else.

"When the rod went, I thought we got a really big chunk of weed or something," recalled Gudmundseth. "It was acting really different than usual."

The squid weighs 20 kilograms and measures about 1.5 metres long.

Scientists call it the Humboldt or giant flying squid [Dosidicus giagas]. They said it prefers warm water, which means Gudmundseth's catch is likely a long way from its home in the Gulf of California. The find is fuelling speculation about climate change.

"It may have come up with a ton of warm water or it might be that they're making their way north comfortably now," said Kelly Sendall, senior collection manager at the Royal BC Museum.

Gudmundseth almost decided to keep the squid for bait or to eat it as calamari. The squid has now become a reference specimen for the species in BC, Sendall said.

Another Humboldt squid was captured last month off the coast of Alaska. Scientists don't know whether the creatures' appearance will be a short-term one, or what effect they may have on the ecosystem.

Courtesy of CBC News Online Staff


Well, that's it for me. Thank you, thank you very much!

L

Leslie's Language Round-Up

An irregular feature about language in our time


From the "There's no defence like a good defence" File...

Library mural littered with misspellings

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) - It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.

"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Florida to fix the errors.

Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday, Maria Alquilar said she is willing to fix the brightly coloured five-metre-wide circular work but offered no apologies for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names.

"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said.

"They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."

Alquilar said creating and installing the work took a lot of time and money and the mural sat at her Santa Cruz, Calif., studio for two years until the city cleared the way for its installation.

There were plenty of people around during the installation who could and should have seen the missing and misplaced letters, she said.

"Even though I was on my hands and knees laying the installation out, I didn't see it," she said.

The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.

"The people that are into humanities and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said.

"In their mind, the words register correctly."


Editorial Comment: The ability to form words is not writing
Too few people have the ability or time to work out exactly what they want to say and then say it. They fall back on boilerplate text, shop-worn clichés, or inarticulate paraphrases of their real meaning. That isn't a matter of correct grammar, good punctuation or impressive vocabulary, and curing it will need more than style guides or diatribes. — Michael Quinion


Entertainment: Pink Words
Excerpted from Pink's fabulous single "God Is a DJ"

(Verse 1)
I've been the girl with her skirt pulled high
Been the outcast never running with mascara eyes
Now I see the world as a candy store
With a cigarette smile, saying things you can't ignore
Like mommy I love you
Daddy I hate you
Brother I need you
Lover hey fuck you
I can see everything here with my third eye
Like the blue in the sky

(Verse 2)
I've been the girl, middle finger in the air
Unaffected by rumors, the truth: I don't care
So open your mouth and stick out your tongue
You might as well let go, you can't take back what you've done
So find a new lifestyle
A reason to smile
Look for Nirvana
Under the strobe lights
Sequins and sex dreams
You whisper to me
There's no reason to cry


Births and Deaths
Noted poet and fascist T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. In his 1935 essay "Religion and Literature" he reflects, "It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be" — demonstrating in this observation both chiasmus and paradox. How rhetorical!
(with information from chiasmus.com)


and finally...

Fashion News from the Personification Department
Excerpted from Sarah Slean's much-anticipated single "Lucky Me"

(Verse 1)
Science wears a new suit
To his coffee toast and eggs
But he has to skip the stairs now
Because of two broken legs
Whine whine I cannot climb
Everytime's the same
I'd be more inclined to help him
If he could remember my name

(Verse 2)
Faith can't fill the dance hall
'Cause her powers have declined
But at the beauty pageant
She will always take the prize
Light light Easter white
Roll her in the dirt
When it comes time for kneeling
She'll say "You go first"


Pictures at 11! : P

Thought for voracious readers

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.
— Gene Wolfe

More to follow ... Stay tuned!

Sometimes I enjoy technology

Sorry to be offline for such a long time. The beginning of the new term — for both me and Zak — has been amazingly animated. Lots to do, in other words. But here I am, happy like an iguana in the sun, because I have a new toy.

Today we got an iTrip, a wireless FM transmitter for the iPod. What this means is now I have personal radio in my car. Perfect for Morning (One Fine, Broken or otherwise), Afternoon Delight, Late in the Evening, After Midnight, on Rainy Days and Mondays; on Manic Monday, Ruby Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Afternoon, Funky Friday, Saturday in the Park and Saturday Night, and Gloomy Sunday; in the Early Morning Rain, after A Hard Day's Night, and on A Million Vacations!

It works in Alberta, America, Africa, Asia at Odd Hours, All Along the Watchtower, At the Hundredth Meridian. And Europa. And it's controlled from the Driver's Seat. Now I've got a Ticket to Ride! Who said I Don't Like Mondays? Now I'm in Love with My Car!

OK, ok. I'll stop. It's the medication, probably.

I know I've promised to publish notes from my voyage to Newfoundland (which rhymes with understand) but I haven't got around to it yet. Soon, soon. In the meantime, I think I have to go Drive My Car...

love
me

Thought for the day

"Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZAK!

Zachary is thirteen today. Have a fabulous birthday and a wonderful year to come.

love,
Mom and Dad

Back from The Rock

Had a great trip but am still living on Nfld time. Will post soon with details — and maybe pix.

love to all,
L

Raspberries help those who help themselves

Something to amuse you. Consider the sixties generation's preoccupation with figures of mythic violence. Are you a boxer, a sheriff, or an outlaw? For we all must be something.

The Boxer

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of a railway station, running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie-la-lie ...

Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie-la-lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
Going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Leading me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
'I am leaving, I am leaving'
But the fighter still remains

Lie-la-lie ...


The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

When Liberty Valance rode to town the womenfolk would hide, they'd hide
When Liberty Valance walked around the men would step aside
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

From out of the East a stranger came, a law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need to tame a troubled land
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

Many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

The love of a girl can make a man stay on when he should go, stay on
Just trying to build a peaceful life where love is free to grow
But the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When the final showdown came at last, a law book was no good

Alone and afraid she prayed that he'd return that fateful night, oh that night
When nothing she said could keep her man from going out to fight
From the moment a girl gets to be full grown the very first thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other, only one returns

Everyone heard two shots ring out
A shot made Liberty fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

I sawed two boards!

With a cut-off saw! And those of you who know my fear of blades will recognize this accomplishment for the true wonder that it is.

Sorry for not writing much lately. Depression is depressing. I expect to get back to my regularly scheduled weirdness soon.

In the meantime, here's a thought about the circulation of power (ironic, I suppose, in the context of my discovery of sawing), taken from a series of articles about reinventing politics.

State communism and the market fundamentalism of today's globalization era share a belief that a single system, universally applied, can deliver all that is required. Seen in this light, industrial monocropping, genetic engineering and contract farming seem to have much in common with the 20th-century socialist disasters of enforced collectivization. Both are top-down solutions that ignore diversity, on-the-ground needs, knowledge and reality, and a democratic requirement that those who are most affected should have a say in implementation. — Katharine Ainger

In other words, because today's political discourse is dominated by paternalistic government and vicious corporatism, we rarely recognize how powerful we as individuals and communities actually are.

So go out and make the world a better place today. Kiss someone you love and keep smiling!

love,
Leslie

"Autonomy is the right to invent one's own future." — Thomas Sankara

Stifle is an anagram of itself

The multiverse is quiet, so quiet. Rain is falling softly down. Do you know where the willows grow?

So, what's new? How about some one-liners?

• Goth's not dead — it just looks that way.
• Talk minus action equals zero.
• No matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers.

Moments to consider: As I was growing up, my father used to say there were only two things he couldn't fix: a broken heart and the crack of dawn.

This has been the century of mass storytelling. We live under a Niagara of stories: print, television, movies, audio, and the Internet deliver to us far more stories than our ancestors could have imagined, and the number of stories available to us seems to grow larger every year. This phenomenon, the rise of industrialized narrative — storytelling that's engineered for mass reproduction and distribution — has emerged as the most striking cultural fact of the twentieth century and the most far-reaching development in the history of narrative.
...
A broader question springs from the high density of storytelling in our daily lives. Mass culture and mass leisure have given all of us the opportunity to spend far more time absorbing stories than any of our ancestors could. Has this been to our benefit? Has it made us larger people than we might have been otherwise, or has it so filled us with aimless fantasies that we are emotionally and intellectually constrained? In this context, storytelling becomes an issue in the history of human development and democracy. Does our habit of seeing the world as stories make us understand ourselves better? Does it make us better citizens or worse? — Robert Fulford, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture

A lovely thing happened. While surfing the other day, I dropped by a student's live journal. Her current entry was the answers to one of those 100-question surveys that make their way around by e-mail from time to time. Anyway. Here are two of her answers:

27. FAVOURITE SCHOOL SUBJECT? Sadly, grammar. (Hush! I am going to be an editor!!!)
29. FAVOURITE TEACHER? L—— V——

Awwww!

Tired, tired. Almost finished with school. Looking forward to two months off. Well, not really off. I have plenty to do, after all.

Now reading: City of the Beasts, Isabel Allende. The Spooky Art, Norman Mailer. Words, words, words.

... but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it.
Leslie

Hippie chicks and the crisis of consciousness

This quotation may explain something about the contradictions of my character. Must meditate on this ...

"On the one hand you had the politics of revolution and equality and liberation and on the other hand you had silent women in long dresses, gathered in the kitchen, preparing great meals of meat, which were brought out and served to the men — who ate alone. The men and women didn't eat together. The men ate before a gig or after a gig. They'd come home and pound on the table like cavemen. And the women were very quiet. You weren't supposed to hear from them. Each one was supposed to service her man quietly." —Danny Fields in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Because I used to draw ghosts in my spare time

Howdy howdy,

It's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. Apologies to the Taureans whose birthdays I missed announcing this month — the time of year or the time of man? We'll just say that I don't know who I am and life is for learning.

Moved all my detritus from my parents' basement last week. One accumulates a great deal in 30-odd years (that works without the hyphen, too). Most of it I'm giving back for the purportedly giant garage sale. Perhaps there is something of value for someone else. If not, plan B is a big donation to a garbage fair. I don't know anything about it, but my brother does; he'll make sure my stuff finds a new home somewhere.

Did I mention that I'm teaching two spring courses? One of the startling discoveries of this reality is that I need the ritual of dinner. Grabbing a muffin and a carton of milk is just not satisfying (not to mention not nutritious). If I don't sit down to eat with others now and then, I get rather lonely and crazy. What else? The weather is still frightfully cold and the garden is shivering, stuttering. Zak tried to make an impression on Bellerose Drive earlier this afternoon. For his efforts he'll have a scar to match the one on the right side of his face, from when he tried to go head to head with a tree of indeterminate species. Guess who won?

Haven't gone climbing in weeks and weeks — didn't make it enough of a habit, I guess. Did I mention that we're going to Newfoundland this sumer? Daily more complex. Hmm. We're renovating the basement so Doug can move in. Next Sunday is the Super Cities Walk for MS — if you have a donation to send my way, please let me know soon! We fixed the washing machine! A tiny plastic spoon was making all that noise and finally jammed up the drain pump. But now the Bosch works perfectly again and restores my perfect place to meditate (in absence of the pergola). Did I mention that I got ill from having the furnace cleaned? Strange toxic chemicals, I think.

Sorry this is dull dull dull dull — rather like the dimes that I also found in the washing machine. My creativity reservoir is down a couple of litres. More later, I hope.

From a windy, craggy place,
Leslie

Grumpy grammar girl

Grammar is an x-ray and your head is made of lead!

Now reading: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss (incidentally, when I first heard the panda joke, it involved a prostitute, not a waiter), The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, and Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future by Jason Epstein

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

We hope you have a wonderful day and a happy, successful year ahead.

Love,
Leslie and Zak

Today's thought

(a quotation, of course, since I am so overwhelmed by marking that I can no longer form independent thought...)

"In our cynical world, where suspicion is a necessity, insisting that something is true is not nearly as powerful as suggesting that something might be true." —Thomas King in The Truth About Stories

Only 21 more piles to go...

Happy happy congratulations to us all!

The Alberta Book Awards were presented last night in Calgary, and two Edmonton-area publishing personalities were among the winners.

• Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year was awarded to Hole’s (Edmonton) for Lois Hole’s Favorite Bulbs: Better Choices, Better Gardens, edited by Jim Hole and Valerie Hole, and published by Bruce K——, publishing manager for Hole's.

• Trade Fiction Book of the Year was awarded to The University of Alberta Press (Edmonton) for An Ark of Koans by E.D. Blodgett and with illustrations by Jacques Brault. (Apparently the jury didn't read the text, because it's a volume of POETRY!). Leslie V——, former managing editor, had acquired the volume for the Press. In a move that shows a startling absence of creativity, An Ark of Koans also won awards for cover design and book design, despite that the designer has now used (and been awarded for using) both designs twice before.

Ah the ironies of the publishing life. In other news, Bruce and I passed our belay checks on Saturday. The walls of the world had better look out!

Must continue marking — I may hit 100 pieces of student work marked in a single day tonight. Sigh. Exam week has begun.

L

It's raining!

It's been a long stretch, but I can see light at last. (Bruce would probably disagree, as it's been a few weeks since he could see the floor of my office.) I have marked pages and pages and pages and pages of student work in the last week. (That's an example of polysyndeton.) I want combat pay! But just two more weeks of school and then final exams start. Then I have a week off and then ... spring session! Or two months off.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Or...

That that is, is; that that is not, is not; is that not it?

Went climbing on Saturday. Soon I will be qualified to belay climbers while using an ATC rather than a gri-gri, so we can climb many more interesting routes. And one day perhaps even challenge the wall at the Butterdome (!). Celebrated my parents' move to Skyview on Saturday night. Must go get my "stuff" from the old house one of these days. Walked through the yard on Sunday. So many plants are emerging already: crocuses and tulips, the arctic raspberry, the irises, the violas, the saskatoon. We have about a million new strawberry plants: yum. I planted some new lily of the valley, and the lettuce trough is already out. Soon, soon it will be summer.

Now reading: My Invented Country by Isabel Allende.

Also flipping through the many many free books that come to me in the mail (e.g., This is P.R.: The Realities of Public Relations — doesn't that sound fascinating?). The list of books I want to read is getting longer every day. I'm so grateful for the library! — if only I could get there. Have you noticed the preponderance of blogs by librarians? I think ref-grunt started the trend, but there are dozens of them, most very good. Urm, yeah. Whatever.

OK, that's my break. Back to marking very bad essays on editorial ethics — as if! : )

L

Because I'm too tired to think tonight

...and look, The West Wing just came on ...

The last, best colophon

This book is set in 12-point Monotone Bimbo,
with chapter headings in Basketball Overextended.
Both faces were designed by the great Adolf Pflupfl
and are characterized by noble, full-bodied proportions
with complex, slightly fruity serifs.
It was printed by upset lithophagy
on 70-lb. Tropicana Ivory mislaid Cowabunga Slipshod Overcoat.
The ink came out of a can.

This paper is 100% unrecycled.
Whole forests were leveled,
thousands of small furry animals left homeless,
and vast virgin landscapes devastated
to make this book.

—courtesy of an AAUP editor whose name is lost due to the forcible imposition by my employer-at-the-time of Outlook on my baby Mac

And from the Department of Redundant Academic Research Department ... "Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world's population." Pace, Dr Taylor.

To sleep: perchance to dream
Leslie

Things to do instead of working: A composition by Leslie
(with apologies to those of you who weren't there)

Living in the 80s

It all began when video killed the radio star. We were living on video in freeze frame — life was a thriller. We were kids in America; we were up where we belonged. We had the time of our lives. We told time by the clock of the heart and wondered how soon is now? Life was urgent — we were hungry like the wolf. Life in a northern town somewhere down the crazy river was the best of times. There was always a situation at our house and your daddy don’t know whatcha did to my body. It was an adult education. We were having sweet dreams and talking in our sleep. We were doing aerobics and eurythmics — but where was the air supply? We were running with the night, running with the shadows of the night. We were running up that hill with no problems; we ran faster than the speed of night. We had the look — it was the look of love — but we were too shy. Too bad. We looked pretty in pink and electric blue, and wore psychedelic furs with black velvet and blue jean. In the cruel summer we went on vacation to Xanadu, Valotte, Graceland, and Echo Beach, far away in time — we ate rock lobster. We sat in the purple rain watching St. Elmo’s fire during the total eclipse of the heart. It was a nice day for a white wedding, but she blinded us with science. Luckily, we had the eyes of a stranger. We wore our sunglasses at night: the future was so bright, we had to wear shades on our Bette Davis eyes. We were on the loose, and the kid was hot tonight. Our moonlight desires got physical — we got our emotions in motion and did the stroke — but we did it for love, in the name of love. We did it one more time: we had endless love. We wanted to know what love is. We learned that love is like oxygen, love is a stranger, love is a battlefield — that love bites. We made modern love in a bizarre love triangle; we were addicted to love. Then we made tainted love and needed sexual healing. We let it go to rise up, like a virgin, like a prayer. Magic power was in the air tonight. You might think we fell out of touch, but we were living in a box, livin’ on a prayer. We had faith on the edge of seventeen. We looked for fame in the big time — what a feeling! We found the perfect way. At first it was rapture, but when doves cried, we were in jeopardy. We got the beat and were victims of fashion, but it was a glamorous life. Don’t it make ya feel like dancing? We were shadow dancing, dancing in the dark, dancing on the ceiling, dancing with tears in our eyes, dancing barefoot. We did the safety dance at the love shack — we were footloose. We were walking on sunshine, walking like Egyptians; we did the walk of life and got our money for nothing. We gave it straight from the heart, but then we had a change of heart. We wanted to go to the edge of heaven. Heaven was a place on earth where we made circles in the sand — I get weak just thinking about it. We were stepping out on electric avenue in erotic city, where the streets have no name. We were left of centre; it was an obsession that cuts like a knife. We were hyperactive with Dolby. We would shout and rebel yell — but voices carry. We lost our self-control; we were going nowhere fast. We learned to spin right round, like a record, while looking for a brand-new lover. We learned that girls just want to have fun, but don’t go messing with a girl with guns — this much is true. There was always something there to remind us.

One thing leads to another. We discovered we had broken wings and our beds were burning. Prince Charming turned out to be a goody two-shoes; he wouldn’t strip for his centerfold. We had to beat it; we ran so far away. We learned to hold the line in Africa while living in the land down under. We learned to stand back, but don’t give up — everybody wants to rule the world. Then came the hazy shade of winter. All you zombies can relax — don’t do it. We saw eyes without a face and an eye in the sky — no wonder we always felt somebody’s watching me — and who can it be now? The missionary man. Sister Christian, a maniac in the driver’s seat of her little red Corvette, took us down the middle of road on the freeway of love. Say it isn’t so! Of course, I’m only foolin’ — or is it just a twist in my sobriety? Perhaps it’s just the reflex: I still don’t like Mondays.

The Nature and Nurture of Power
What Grows Here?... Evil grows in the dark.

To avoid slander charges the names have been changed. I'm not doing anything about protecting the innocent because.. well... ain't nobody really innocent!

S'we're doin' this book. Big Bart decides to sign a contract with Large Press. "No no!" I cry, "let[s go with Wide Captions! A much more reasonable choice." Alas and alack Large Press gets the go-ahead and we venture off to the dark side.

All in all things seem to go smoothly other than the deadline which looms and hastens us unbeknownced to our nervous breakdown. Then the communication (actually the lack thereof) begins. "Send them a proof" says Bart. "Why not" quips I. "Then we are agreed" responds Big Bart. "Aye aye," states I and off goes the proof for the edification of the Large Press conglomerate.

Suddenly... (crash of thunder)...

The proof... RETURNS!

The changes are marked, the proofing begun,
The Large Press conglomerate have suddenly begun,
to edit and write, to markup and slight.

Now now, pooh pooh,
we shall inform you what to do!
Don't worry your empty little heads!
Aww @*#% them.

And so it started. A series of non-communications with hangups and swearing and lots of sullen staring. I have never been so pissed in my life and it was nothing more than a battle of egos, a war of insecurities, a massive exercise in how stupid people can be if they really, really try. Sure the baby's gone, but I sure did get rid of that ol' bathwater!

Who's book is this... whose style will reign supreme...who cares if I added in a few inconsistencies...I sure fixed those other ones...score one for the Large Press...oops looks like Hole's got in a low blow...REF! REF! Did ya see that! It's mine, no it's mine. Ya but we're better! No we're better! Poop! Poop back!

Proof goes out, proof comes back.
Proof goes out, proof comes back.
Files go out, [intercepted!] proof comes back... but really, we are done now.
Files go out, [intercepted!] proof comes back.
Now, really... do ya think I'm stupid enough to send it out again?

Cover...what cover... ooh we can fix it, we can fix... no let me. Who the hell said it was broken? Screw this, let's just print it upside down, then no one will notice anything else...

But wait folks... it's not over. Sam Kibbles, the puppet master himself, rises from the depths of the sub stage to take his rightful place right behind his puppets. "Say this!" he now whispers, "say that" he rejoins. "Tell them they're wrong," he mumbles, "maybe they won't notice..."

sigh

Like I said, I'm learning...do you really think the files are going out again?

sigh

I'm tell' ya folks this is insufferable. I mean really insufferable. Suffering all around! It ain't gettin' done and we are back to pre-contract footings. All I want is for an honest effort to get to the end but it seems we are just gong to play pissing contests. "Ooh, look at me I can PISS!" Me too, me too!" SNARK SNARK SNARK! My son did that his first day on the planet... I hadn't realized he was so mature...maybe I can make some money offa all this piss. If we gotta play games, why not make it worthwhile, pistols at dawn, double or nothing, give'r till ya puke. We were more mature with a 26 of lemon gin in our gullets.

Anyway I'm finished whining although the end of the tale is not yet written. I seems likely that this will continue evermore because Karma can't be avoid, pride cometh before the fall and TANSTAAFL. But I sure would be willing to pay for it if I could just avoid the aggravation...

Power...worth every penny, worth every drop...
Gotta keep on fightin' till that last,
satisfying,
plop

Aw crap.

B

Just ask me

Want to know about waterborne pathogens? Or pain assessment for neonates? Or First Nations peoples in Alberta? Just ask me. I no longer have a human brain; I am a text-processing machine. My eyes are weird little squares disconnected from dreams. Aiiee!

Too much to do. Can't wait for the end of the week — or even Wednesday, my purported day of rest. Eh bien...

L

Today's language lessons

1. Dr Seuss does chiasmus

a.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

b.
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent.

c.
From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.


2. Recreational grief

"The British think tank Civitas published a report this week under the title Conspicuous Compassion. Its author, Patrick West, argues that public outpourings of grief, such as those after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and following a number of recent child murders, show that society hasn't become more caring or altruistic, but more selfish. He asserts that what seem to be public signs of caring — such as wearing coloured ribbons, signing Internet petitions, and carrying banners saying 'Not In My Name' — are part of a culture of ostentatious caring which is about feeling good, not doing good; of projecting one's ego and thereby showing others what a deeply caring individual you are, not actually doing anything that makes a difference."

Kinda makes you think, huh?


3. Lucid in the sky with diamonds

"The death was reported this week of the British-born, Canadian-based psychiatrist and researcher Humphry Osmond, who in the 1950s carried out many experiments in mood-altering substances such as LSD and mescaline to find therapies to aid schizophrenics (he helped Aldous Huxley to experience mescaline, whose effects the author described in The Doors of Perception in 1954). Osmond coined the word psychedelic for such substances in a letter to Huxley in 1956; he said it included 'the concepts of enriching the mind and enlarging the vision.' He coined it irregularly from psyche + Greek delos (clear, manifest)."

I believe my family had one of those weird degrees-of-separation relationships with Dr Osmond — but by that reasoning, we also have relationships to Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Atwood, and Kate Bush, so perhaps that's really apropos of nothing but coincidence. (But my mother likes the Marilyn thing...)


4. Oh those Martians!

"The Martian day is some 39 minutes longer than ours and has been officially named the sol (the Latin for sun, which is also the official astronomical name for our star). NASA workers on the various Mars spacecraft projects have coined "yestersol" for the sol before the current one."

Maybe I'll move to Mars ... after a few weeks I'd catch up with myself! Though I suppose Martians don't have weeks either, since a week is seven days. We need a word for seven sols!


5. Chiastic pedagogy

"Teachers operate at a higher level of effectiveness when they question answers than when they answer questions." —Dr. Mardy Grothe


Yours crossingly,
Leslie

Words words words

• A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. —Charles Peguy, poet and essayist (1873-1914)

• Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad. —Victor Hugo

• Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. —Michel de Montaigne

• When one is learning, one should not think of play; and when one is at play, one should not think of one's learning. — Lord Chesterfield

Watching raspberries march across the property line, into the back alley where the neighbours sample the fruits, enjoy the sweetness of the sun captured in the juice. Who could kill a raspberry cane? Let the mint free of its container, let it creep across the yard, let it overtake your senses with pungency, with bite. Take it upon your tongue like a word. Touch with your tongue, forbidden. To eat is not to consume. To consume is to have again. It is only farewell, not goodbye. —Leslie

Eating buttered muffins with relish

That ought to get your attention if you know anything about me. No, I wasn't eating buttered muffins, with relish or without; I just made some delicious bran muffins for dinner and the conversation took a funny turn...

I know entirely too much about enteric pathogens for my mental comfort!

I have crossed off ONE item on my to-do list for Reading Break, and tomorrow is Friday. Ick blick yick.

Bought tires for my Sunfire. Ugh ugh ugh: now the driver's side headlight has burned out! I had predicted my next car would be a Volvo, but perhaps we haven't become quite so middle class. If it wasn't so trendy, I'd get a Beetle. Maybe vintage...1958? Hmm.

Red light yellow light green light go ...

Today I like: Gwendolyn sweetpeas. Chai. Easter creme eggs. My scruffy blanket. Sweet words.

"pour some sugar on me"
Leslie

Windows
Virus
Adware

I just don't get it. I mean I understand viruses and malicious hacks and such but when my computer becomes a uselss piece of junk just by clicking on the wrong link? Sheeesh. I don't understand Microsoft for allowing it; I don't understand adware writers that are killing the mouths that feed them; I don't understand PC users that don't scream in frustration and go running to their Macs.

I just went through about 3 weeks of screwing around so I could finally just format my harddrive and start over. Kate (Bill' Hole's daughter) is just starting the same process. Go to web security sites and read about people screaming in frustration.... AAAaarrggghhh!

We bought a new eMac so I could use my XP box to share the printer, so L would have more space for MP3s and because I wanted Panther (OS 10.3). So now we have 4 functional computers and a semi-functional laptop... Last time I counted there were only three in the household... 4 if you count the cat... no opposable thumb there though...

Conspicuous consumerism or justifiable modernization? You decide!

Panther is cool though. I loaded it up with 60 meg of RAM and it purrs along. The fast user switching is mucho cool and I actually like the interface after a while.

Anyway gotta go pick a peck...

B

Oxymoronica

Soon-to-be-author Paris Hilton on being introduced to Jackie Collins: "If I could read a book, I'd definitely read one of yours."

Now reading: At Random by Bennet Cerf.

Now listening: iTunes: "99" by Toto

Now avoiding: marking

L

Some things to think about

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." —Peter Ustinov

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge." —Anatole France

"Years ago I recognized my kinship with living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." —Eugene Debs

Late-breaking news

New computer: eMac! Means I'm learning OSX. Slowly. Good news: now I have access to (listening to) the iTunes music store. And I can watch DVDs while I (don't) work. How ... productive! But I sure do like this new box.

And now, as a diversion, a quotation from one of my favourite movies ever, Say Anything.

"A career? I've thought about this quite a bit, sir, and I would have to say, considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed as a career. I don't want to do that."

OK, back to wrestling with the dock...

L

Dramatic irony

Says Colin MacLean, "the dean of Edmonton theatre reviewers":

So who was Shakespeare? Well, perhaps Christopher Marlow [sic]. Marlow [sic] was reasonably educated and a brilliant playwright. But he was also a wastrel, an egomaniac and a heavy drinker. He supposedly died in a tavern brawl in 1593 about the time Shakespeare began to gain attention as a playwright. Conspiracy theorists suggest Marlow [sic] was wanted for treason, faked his own death and used Shakespeare as a cover for his subsequent writings.

I think the Citadel theatre needs an editor for its playbill. Checking the masthead, I learned that The Citadel Playbill is a Suggitt publication — say no more!

oh the sound of the wind through my bones makes me laugh...
—Jann Arden

Happiness is a warm CD

You're my friend, you keep me going
You make me see where I went wrong
You make me laugh when things just don't seem funny
Things aren't funny anymore...

from "Tiny Thing," written by Charlotte Wiebe; recorded by Jenson Interceptor

• Thanks to those of you who send encouraging notes! I do enjoy writing. Now where did I put my hourglass?

love you,
Leslie

PS: Now reading: Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. This book is absurd and hilarious — it makes me cackle! Recently finished: Paul Quarrington, Whale Music. A lovely faux-biography. I miss the sixties...

The going water and the gone

It's February. Two weeks to Reading Break. Hanging on, hanging on. Have you heard about miasma theory? Or Cryptosporidium? Editors end up with brains full of intellectual litter. This morning I dreamed that I had to appear before a committee to defend the connection between my employment history and my proposed academic interests. It was going badly when I, gratefully, woke up.

• I remember the cake I ordered for my mother's fortieth birthday. It was vanilla with chocolate icing, decorated with pink and yellow roses and green writing that read "Happy Bar Mitzvah, Irving" (from a long-standing family joke about getting the wrong cake for various purposes). Mr Wright, who made it, was distinctly puzzled by my request but stepped up gamely. It was a delicious, hideous cake. As for most other things, we have no photographs of it.

• Long-time Edmontonians: Do you remember Shaky's Pizza in the Meadowlark area? I do. This would be circa 1975. A restaurant that made fabulous thin-crust pizza and had a viewing area for little ones. Long, long, long gone, of course.

• Highland dance: 1975. Interpretive dance: 1985. Dancing Queen: 1977. Flashdance: 1983. As Splashdown says, "Time was a line that the mind could bend."

• Have you seen that obnoxious McDonald's commercial involving stay-at-home moms and their baby ballerina daughters? Il me fait vomir! Especially the closing shots of the "mommies" getting squishy watching the male dancer in the next studio doing his warm-ups. (Wow! Look at all those participials!) Harrumph! Give me a goalie any day.

Sigh. Still waiting for my Jensen Interceptor CD. Maybe tomorrow. Still cold outside. Going to Stones in His Pockets this afternoon. Lots of movies I want to see — lately I have a bee in my bonnet about seeing movies. Even though the theatre experience for Return of the King was less than stellar. Eh bien. Sorry this doesn't make sense: it's kinda like someone poured a coke on the soundboard of my mind. But not exactly. Will try again soon.

L

Red boots for Leslie!

Shopping by telephone is much too easy. My boots are coming on Friday! Yipee!

Notes to self

1. Don't drink Vanilla Coke during Distilled Prose.
2. 21 hours in the classroom plus 7 office hours is very different from 15 hours in the classroom plus 5 office hours.
3. The Academic Integrity Assessment Committee could not possibly be as Orwellian as it sounds.

Now reading: Unless by Carol Shields and Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks. And an eternity of student writing.

Having been chided for not blogging...

So Happy 2004! I hope all is bright and beautiful for you. I am typing from my gorgeous new desktop, which is part of my big Xmas present from Bruce. I have lovely new office furniture — and have lost my excuse for piling messes of paper on the floor. However, my natural piling instinct asserted itself quickly and a perfectly good clutter is beginning to form. And I have plants in my office now! In charming pots! Life is pretty puddle-wonderful.

I also received many other wonderful presents, including clothing, books, sweets, and frilly knickers. Oh and for my birthday I received bath soap and perfume, hence the references to smell in the boys' earlier post.

We had my birthday dinner at The Unheardof, where I ate caribou! It was amazing. I have been a surprising carnivore lately: on New Year's Eve I ordered and ate a "baseball" sirloin, which is a very large piece of meat, roughly the size of a softball. And tuna steak for Christmas Eve dinner. And sushi anytime: if you want to be my friend, offer me raw fish and seaweed.

My teaching schedule this semester is kinda strange. I teach nine hours on Mondays, six hours on Fridays, three hours on Tuesdays and on Thursdays, and I have Wednesdays off. If you're counting, that makes seven courses, when the standard is five. Don't bother lecturing me; people have already told me volubly how bad and wrong the situation is. But watch this space for continuing news of my triumphs!

What else? We saw Return of the King last week and I was impressed. I got a Dead or Alive remix compilation and have been living all eighties all the time for the last few days. It's especially good in the car, driving to school. I read a stack of books over the break, including Bless the Beasts and Children, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Cold Mountain (but no, I haven't seen the movie and I can't think that I will, given my reading and the rating: I'm too queasy!). I dressed up like a pirate from Xmas dinner at my aunt's house and like a back-up singer for ABBA for Bruce's Xmas party. I found a store that I love love love: Bohemian fashion.

Passages of purple prose deleted. Past ten now, so must fly. I think I kept Kate out too late! Vanilla-bean hot chocolate is tasty but very very sweet. Good thing I skipped supper. Talk to you soon!

l

Happy Birthday Leslie!

And no...we don't think you smell.

As these waining moments of the palindromic age slowly pass by we wish you all the best in the new era of Leslie-dom. All our love, thoughts and hope are reserved just for you on this special day.

Love Bruce and Zak

You may already be a millionaire

In the midst of consumerism — amid the noise and haste, so to speak — remember to consider all you already possess: the love of your friends, the kisses of your beloved, the smiles you have given and received. How many times? Only you can know.

now leaving the vinyl age,
L

Today's thought

Don't take life so serious, son — it ain't no how permanent. —Walt Kelly

Snow Plough for Rent?

Ignored the blizzard warnings. Refused to buy a shovel or snowboots. Am currently snowed in. It may be a week before I can dig myself out. No worries, though — I am well provisioned with vitamins, tea, and chocolate. But if you want to send one of those doggies with a keg full of rum ...

Back to abnormal after final exams.

L
"to love another person is to see the face of God"

Visit homestarr runner for a laugh...

Leslie and Zak especially dissolve over Stong Bad's kid's book and the fangorious devouring...

Some people...sheesh

Work is work... Spring Gardening is almost gone. Some $^%#-wad decided to switch my poinsettia so I'm sulking-- stupid *&^*'s!

Anyway sigh

Last day of November ... aiiiiieeee!

My best trick today: Running the end of my cart into a cosmetics display at the Save-on Foods. Urg. Shrieking "Eeeks!" at the appropriate moment. The woman passing in the other direction giggling appreciatively. After quickly picking up and rolling away, vowing never to shop at Save-On on a Sunday again.

Big sigh of relief: Active Voice/La voix active is DONE! Thank you Bruce for persevering in the face of obstacles and amateurs.

Now reading: Island, a collection of short stories by Alistair MacLeod. Very good. Sister Crazy by Emma Richler. Feels uncomfortably, intentionally constructed to be read as biography-based fiction. Conflict, Action and Suspense by William Noble, in preparation for next semester's Distilled Prose class.

Today I like: Tea! Apple crisp (I made a delicious dish for supper). Stevie Nicks' wardrobe. Cotton tights. The glittery night that leaves me ageless, timeless.

Today I dislike: The speed of light. Being late. Running out of time. Beholdenness. Laundry pile replenishing every week! Bad reviews of records I'm looking forward to hearing.

The I-Tunes says... And you dream you're free but you'll awake / too much too late, too much too late — Berlin, "Like Flames" ... Long ago it must be, I have a photograph / Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you — Simon and Garfunkel, "Bookends"

And then from the sublime to the ridiculous: "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" — Elton John with Kiki Dee ... Heavy — ain't it heavy?

Leslie

Fondly remembering Thumper's mother's advice...

Take a tortuous journey through the fecund valleys of the heart. Green in the silky honey light. Brass at noon. Creeping pink at dawn. Low-slung and humble in the early evening, running up to the solstice. Red and full in mid afternoon, pulling hard around the trees; deep in dense shade warmed by fingers of light. Find that image.

Life is bigger than you, and you are not me ... I thought that I heard you laughing / I thought that I heard you sing / I think I thought I saw you try ... But that was just a dream ...

blah.
L

Paintin' the bathroom red

Ah, adventures in home contracting. We're painting the main-floor powder room a lovely shade of cranberry. In such a small room, everything now seems faintly pink, so we no longer have concerns about the trim, or the linoleum, or the hand towels, or even the door, matching. There's just a vaguely ominous red glow radiating from the hallway...

Things the retail industry doesn't tell you about do-it-yourself renovations (and that I, as the daughter of a handyman, should have known):

• That painting even the smallest room in the house will require sixty dollars' worth of paint.
• That no matter what projects you have completed in the past, you do not have the correct tools to complete this job without at least two trips to the hardware store.
• That dark colours are strangely incoherent when concentrated and in no way resemble the two-by-three-inch chip you fell in love with at the paint counter.
• That eggshell is not flat.
• That the phrase "it dries darker" is the industry's code phrase for "you've been had".

Good thing we like electric-neon-raspberry. Maybe we should try a coat of black on the red before we apply the next gallon?

Next project: walls in the basement. Perhaps we'll wait for the winter holidays before buying the drywall... What's that about hiring people to do this stuff?

PS: If we can, we'll post a picture of the finished project ... if it is ever finished.

Thoughts for today

Don't believe in excess
Success is to give
Don't believe in riches
But you should see where I live
I...I believe in love

merci a U2!

Today...

sigh!

Man is a political creature and all politics are created by man (that's the generic, non-gender specific man...). Gosh, if people would quit feeling threatened by everything and just focus on getting the job done, then more things would get done...less people would worry about it and life would be a box of chocolate-covered cherries...no surprise at all!

Have I had a stressful day? Yes-in-dee-dee. It never fails to amaze me that some people can go through life with no inkling of the political reality of going through life...I sure can't. Just when I think I figured out the players, someone rewrites the script and I get caught up in the dramatic action. Don't they realize that I work backstage? Acting is for actors... I just wanna build things.

Go see Amadeus at the Citadel. Peter Shaffer is brilliant, the actors are brillianter and the gestalt is brilliantest. Theatre the way its supposed to be.

Sigh... B

P.S. Go Here for a flash political commentary to make you giggle.

Is this lame or what? My mind is in desperate need of freeing, so while I'm out finding a mental purgative, please read my recent review of an important editorial tool, the Chicago Manual of Style. I wrote this review for Active Voice, the newsletter of the Editors' Association of Canada. I will update with a more personal entry soon, I promise! — L


The fifteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style has finally arrived. It’s been only a decade since the publication of Chicago 14, but editorial processes have changed so dramatically in the interval that the need for a new edition has been keenly felt. With roughly fifty more pages than its predecessor, Chicago 15 answers many editors’ hopes and pleas.

Updates to accommodate electronic publishing and desktop technology were widely expected, and the editors delivered. Chicago 15 provides extensive detail on how to cite electronic materials and includes a succinct overview of considerations for citation, a list that should prove valuable to editors and authors alike. It also acknowledges emerging technologies such as digital bluelines and electronic books, and discusses their specific handling. Another major addition is extensive coverage of journal preparation. Rather than being slushed into book production, journals are treated as a distinct form with particular needs and timelines.

The other big feature of Chicago 15 is the chapter on grammar and usage, and several early reviews have focussed on it. I must confess that I, as a grammar instructor, was drawn immediately to these pages to see how didactic Chicago might have become.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a thorough yet accessible and largely descriptive discussion of American grammar. No Miss Thistlebottom here: the chapter is solid but thoughtful. Take for example its ruling on the split infinitive: "it is now widely acknowledged that adverbs sometimes justifiably separate the to from the principal verb"—a clear statement that is neither permissive nor absolute.

The usage section is similarly thoughtful. Its "glossary of troublesome expressions" breaks out commonly confused words and phrases, such as adverse and averse, convince and persuade, but also extends to some subtler distinctions, such as obtuse versus abstruse or mistreatment versus maltreatment. It also gestures briefly to considerations of bias-free language and includes a helpful list of prepositional idioms.

One change that does not entirely satisfy me is the relegation of production matters to an appendix (albeit a lengthy one). Here too is the new home of the former glossary of technical terms, now reduced to a list of key production terms. Certainly the continuing advance of technology makes the detailed discussion of prepress issues difficult, and in this age of specialization, production editors without design training are increasingly rare. But surely editors—especially new editors—need more than a superficial understanding of the processes that turn an edited manuscript into a bound publication. Perhaps by the time the next edition of Chicago is published, technology will have stabilized sufficiently to permit more leisurely consideration of production and printing issues.

Numerous strengths compensate for any perceived weaknesses, however. The table of contents has been expanded for clarity, and the bibliography has been reorganized and updated. All numbered paragraphs have descriptive headings to allow editors to evaluate content quickly. And the style section—the core of Chicago—remains largely unchanged, though expanded. Margaret D.F. Mahan notes in her preface, "As for the rules that many of us either know or know how to look up, we have changed only a few, and mainly those that have never caught on." This is probably one of the greatest achievements of Chicago 15: that it has provided guidelines for tackling the new and unfamiliar without removing what is familiar and valuable.

One other subtle, yet entirely effective, change deserves mention. The moderate use of a second colour throughout gives the book a softer, more accessible feel, rendering it authoritative, not authoritarian. In short, Chicago Manual of Style remains the essential guide to editing and publishing. Plan to add the new edition to your editorial bookshelf soon.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep...

Well, at least it's better than the other message: "The number you have dialled is not in service..."

Did you have a happy Hallowe'en? I did, but I ate too many mini chocolate bars. My parents are back from the West Coast now, I think. I am almost caught up on my marking. Thankfully November is much less demanding for marking than October was. Other than the grammar exam next Friday. Oh and the grammar exam on Monday. And the critical research projects. And the second set of essays for advanced grammar. And ... Sagittarius is ruled by the planet Jupiter, which has many many moons. Maybe that explains something.

Started watching Little Big Man last night because I have never seen it before (although it's one of B's favourites). We had to stop partway through because I couldn't see the television any longer. The film made me ashamed to have been born. How can anyone ever hope to escape our collective guilt for the genocide that has been perpetrated in the name of the future? Anyway, I will hope to watch the rest tonight. An amazing film thus far.

Must run now. Is that Citizens for the Preservation of Paper I hear calling?

love,
Leslie