Rapid-fire Q&A

Howdy! In a magazine I encountered a rapid-fire interview format that I really liked. It could work as an icebreaker in adult education settings — if the participants are all women! Here are the questions, with my answers (in case they're not self-evident).

1. Walking or yoga? walking

2. Cats or dogs? cats, obvs

3. Coffee or cocktails? cocktails

4. Lipstick or smoky eye? smoky eye (but why not both?)

5. Jeans or dresses? dresses

These are a little too casual for a job interview, but could be pulled out in a crunch if you find yourself alone at a social event and dread making small talk. I'll have to try to remember this tactic myself!

What do you think? What questions would you replace, and with what alternatives?

Hosanna Superstar

Greetings from Vancouver, where I am attending the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. My association's conference is over now, but I'm not leaving campus until tomorrow. That means I'll likely spend a good chunk of today at the book fair — and then tonight ... the Best Birthday Present!

But in the meantime, here's a picture from the play I attended the other night: Hosanna by Michel Tremblay. Although I've read several of Tremblay's other plays, I had not read this one. It's the story of Hosanna, aka Claude, who has been gravely socially embarrassed and who must confront the validity of his relationships and sense of self. The play is set in Montréal in the early 1970s and represents gay men's lives at the time.

This is a big script — although it's a two-hander, most of the work is done by Hosanna— and was well acted overall. I also liked the lighting and the spare set (which took advantage of the backstage and the audience space). Stephen Heatley, formerly of Edmonton, was the director: he has been the department head of Theatre and Film at UBC since 2015.

In brief, I'm happy I saw the play. And kudos to UBC and Congress for making admission free for Congress attendees.

As May Day approaches

My estranged grandmother attempted to re-enter my life when I was about sixteen. At that time I was also very politically active, as was she, so we collided somewhat awkwardly at the May Day rally in 1987.

Unfortunately, almost every photo my grandmother ever took of me was awful, as the one below is. But still, I think it's time to post this one, because the issue of abortion is becoming central once again and I have not changed my stance. If anything, I am more radical in my views around reproductive freedom than I was then.

And so, here is a picture of me at seventeen that you have never seen. Today I am older, perhaps wiser, but also much readier to fight for these beliefs.

(Does this have anything to do with the last week of campaigning before the provincial election? Entirely everything.)

I wish had talked with my grandmother about her life, her politics, her involvement in the Slavic community — but we never overcame our estrangement. I am the poorer for it.

Quarterly check-in

Howdy!

Well, the term is almost finished, and the election campaign is underway, and the world continues to turn. In just a few weeks we'll be sailing—definitely an incentive to keep trudging.

In the meantime, here are the stats you've been waiting for.

As of the end of March, I have listened to approximately 37 percent of the music I currently own: of roughly 16,650 songs, only 10,500 are unplayed. That's pretty considerable, actually, because I have been buying music again lately, especially Latin-flavoured music.

Reading is not faring quite as well. As of the end of March, I have read only 32 books. That puts me on a trajectory to read more this year than I did last year, but still nowhere near my goals.

Spring has arrived, however, and there's more light in the sky every day. So I remain optimistic.

Until the next time,
L

Culture of gender

Howdy! On Friday we went to MacEwan University's Triffo Theatre to watch Guys and Dolls. What a great performance it was! (Not that you can tell from this image of the closed curtains during intermission.)

Student theatre can be variable in its quality. This musical was notably good: well-rehearsed dancing, overall strong singing, only a couple of truly weak actors, and a couple of real stars. The set was eye-poppingly gorgeous, and the costumes were nicely executed. As a bonus, the actors were supported by live music — what a treat!

Looks like students and faculty are getting comfortable in their new home in Allard Hall. I'm looking forward to future shows!

It was the year that was: 2018

Oh hai! So we just lived through that. Wow. I don’t even want to speculate what 2019 is going to throw at us. Instead, let’s look back at music and books and stuff.

My Top 25 Plays on iTunes

• Haiku Hands, “Not About You
• N.E.R.D., “Hot-n-Fun”
• Leikeli47, “Wash & Set”
• Janelle Monáe, Dance Apocalyptic”
• Shakira, “Whenever, Wherever”
• The Pointer Sisters, “I’m So Excited”
• Sarah Slean, “Sarah”
• Florence + the Machine, “Sky Full of Song”
• Andy Gibb, “Everlasting Love”
• ABBA, “Take a Chance on Me”
• Kate Bush, “Burning Bridge”
• The Killers, “The Man”
• RuPaul, “Call Me Mother”
• Duran Duran, “Hungry Like the Wolf”
• Grimes (feat. Janelle Monáe), “Venus Fly”
• Queen, “Killer Queen”
• Dead or Alive, “Brand New Lover” [single mix]
• Queen, “You’re My Best Friend”
• Prince, “17 Days”
• The Doobie Brothers, “Long Train Runnin’”
• LP, “Someday”
• Rosanne Cash, “Seven Year Ache”
• Electric Light Orchestra (feat. Olivia Newton John), “Xanadu”
• Jenson Interceptor, “Tiny Thing”
• Klaatu, “The Love of a Woman”

Honourable (?) mentions

• Prince, “Extraloveable”
• One to One, “Love Child”
• Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, “Run to Me”
• Kim Carnes, “More Love”
• Joni Mitchell, “Talk to Me”

According to the iTunes count (which is a little suspect), I have approximately 16,400 tracks in my library today. At the end of yesterday, 13 percent of those tracks were unplayed (approximately 2,140). On the other hand, more than 20 percent of those tracks had been played at least five times.

Once again, I bought relatively little music in 2018, and very few current releases. One of my favourite purchases was MassEducation, St Vincent’s version of a remix album. It’s an acoustic reworking of 2017’s Masseduction. I also really enjoyed Florence + the Machine’s release High as Hope (and Florence’s cover of “Tiny Dancer” on the Revamp Elton John tribute was charming). I’m still getting to know Rosanne Cash’s She Remembers Everything, and Brandi Carlile’s By the Way, I Forgive You still hasn’t grabbed me. Most of my other purchases were old releases and singles.

As for my top 25: lots of churn in this year’s list. This list is the result of hours spent cycling in the summer and my use of playlists for bus commuting. Lots of the familiar, but also a few high-energy tracks.

Given the gong show that was 2018, it’s difficult to predict what I’ll be listening to this year, but I’ve started with Janelle Monáe’s Electric Lady, which is absolutely fine.

Books and Reading

Well, here’s what some people have been awaiting: the great reveal. The short answer is that 2018 was a TERRIBLE year for my reading, as I finished only 128 books.

Once again, I would point out that my reading is always in competition with my editing and writing, and there are a couple of books coming out in 2019 that I edited, along with (I hope) one that I wrote. But still. Ugh. Though it’s slightly better than 2017’s tally, I can only hope for better in the year ahead.

Of these books, 72 were by women, 50 were by men, and 6 were jointly written/edited. Once again, I read a respectable amount of poetry — but then in the late part of the year succumbed to the Amanda Lovelace titles (a mistake I won’t repeat). I continued to read some series, notably Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels and Martha Wells’s Murderbot novellas (which are getting longer and longer).

Here are my top five notable books last year:

• Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere 
• Christopher Paul Curtis, The Journey of Little Charlie (middle grade) 
• Thomas King, The Inconvenient Indian (illustrated edition)
• Gabrielle Zevin, Young Jane Young 
• Robin Stevenson, My Body My Choice (forthcoming January 2019)

I should also note my favourite picture books (which I DO NOT include in my book tally):

• Sara O’Leary and Jacob Grant (illus.), Owls Are Good at Keeping Secrets 
• Karlie George and Genevieve Godbout (illus.), Goodnight, Anne
• Linda Bailey and Julia Sarda (illus.), Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein 
• Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad (illus.), Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli

And that’s that! Here’s to more books and music in the months ahead. Happy new year, one and all!

Hallowe'en et al.

Hey,

Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I can't even.

But for the record, we had 171 trick-or-treaters at our door on Hallowe'en. Here's what it looked at (the door, I mean, not the number of visitors).

And now it's November. More in December, I suspect.

Not just because it's April Fool's Day

Here at the Department of Unnecessary Stats, we pride ourselves on bringing you the freshest unvital data. So it should be no surprise that today, marking the first day of the second quarter of the year, we have some new bits to add to the figure storm of that there interweb ...

Ahem.

Anyway. As of March 31, I have played through not quite half of my iTunes library. The library currently sits at 15,966 items; of these, 8,255 items were unplayed as of midnight last night, meaning that I have listened to roughly 48 percent of the tracks I currently own (making some allowance for the imperfections of the iTunes library, which has some ... let's say curious ... idiosyncrasies).

So that's a solid start to the year. And much more than I can say for my reading so far.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled browsing. And Happy Easter!

Mad Dada

Last night we were at Concordia University to see The Dada Play by Mieko Ouchi. I was so excited to see this play: a play! about my subject area! in a new theatre! near our hood!

(Actually, this wasn't at the half: it was at the conclusion. But not there's not that much difference.)

The Dada Play has a solid script and the actors gave it a good effort. There were some brilliant, brilliant moments (I'm still snickering about the Equity break called at the pinnacle of V.I. Lenin's speech to the workers), and the costuming was gorgeous. The lighting was a little uneven, though, and some of the speeches needed a little more projection and pacing. But still, an enjoyable, thought-provoking experience. We discussed the themes and their contemporary significance all the way home.

So yay to Concordia and yay to the playwright! Looking forward to more plays at this venue.

Vault of lost lyrics, chapter 79

A song for a mournful day. Thinking of you today and always.

**

“Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry”
as recorded by Luba

In my mind
I've got it all figured out
But the head does not always rule the heart
And I try to place him
Out of body and soul
Just when I thought I’d made it
His images start taking their toll on me
I feel his memory haunting me
Time and again
I feel weak because

Every time I see your picture I cry
And I learn to get over you
One more time because
Every time I see your picture I cry
Oh, I cry

There you rest
Inside the walls of a frame
Hurts so bad
I can almost feel your eyes calling out my name
Out of body and soul
You're everywhere I go
Illusion or reality, I don't know
I feel your memory haunting me
Time and again
I feel weak because

Every time I see your picture I cry
And I learn to get over you
One more time because
Every time I see your picture I cry
Oh, I cry...

The 411

Last night we went to the new Allard Hall to see Love and Information by playwright Caryl Churchill, billed as "22 actors, 100 roles, 57 plays." The play asks us to think about whether humans have free will, given that our DNA is really just chemical data. Each mini-play approaches this question from a different perspective, some of them startling, some disturbing. Here's an image from the pre-show.

This was quite a script, but the actors were top notch. A great evening's entertainment!

Even more unnecessary stats

By the end of Monday, January 15, I had played through 59 complete albums on iTunes — roughly 40 hours of music. But my overall listening for the first two weeks of January had reached 4 days and 12 hours. I listen to a lot of music on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on weekends! Now to attack my reading habits ...

Dept of Unnecessary Stats

Seven days into the new year, my play count on iTunes was 827 songs. At that rate, I could run through my iTunes library three times in a year — but that's unlikely to happen.

Here's to week two.

The Textual Year That Was 2017

Happy New Year! Look at that: we survived 2017! If anyone had told me in advance what a year it would be — and all the sheer ridiculousness we’d live through as a globe — I could never have believed it. I’m somewhat cheered by the perspective of several people on Twitter: 2016 was the set-up, 2017 is the dark second act, and 2018 will be the happy resolution.

In the meantime, let’s get to the reason you’re here.

My Top 25 Songs on iTunes

“Whenever, Wherever” — Shakira

“An Everlasting Love” — Andy Gibb

“Venus Fly” — Grimes featuring Janelle Monáe

“Call Me Mother” — RuPaul

“Sarah” — Sarah Slean

“Not About You” — Haiku Hands

“Lovergirl” — Teena Marie

“Brand New Lover” (single edit) — Dead or Alive

“Kisses of Fire” — ABBA

“Hush” — Billy Joe Royal

“Someday” — LP

“Hard” — Rihanna featuring Jeezy

“Long Train Runnin’” — The Doobie Brothers

“The Man” — The Killers

“Take a Chance on Me” - ABBA

“Burning Bridge” — Kate Bush

“Let Go the Line” — Max Webster

“Dreams” - Brandi Carlile

“Running Up That Hill” Kate Bush

“You’re My Best Friend” - Queen

“Peace Train” - Cat Stevens

“Summer Night City” - ABBA

“The Boxer” - Simon & Garfunkel

“Kiss You All Over” (album edit) - Exile

“Tiny Thing” - Jenson Interceptor

If there were ever a year for comfort listening, this was it. Strangely, though, that’s not what the larger analysis of my play counts reveals. This list contains several songs that I didn’t own in 2016, and just below the top 25 are several other tracks that were new to me in 2017. So I am still consuming some new music, but old favourites definitely dominate.

In 2017 I deliberately played more albums through iTunes, particularly on my mobile phone, which contains a healthy assortment of albums as playlists. They’re useful during my commute to/from work, which continues to be by bus. Album-oriented listening also raised my overall play counts. Sure, “singles” dominate my top 25 list, but below the top 25 are many albums with multiple complete plays, including Rosanne Cash’s The River and the Thread (which I love love love); Styx’s Paradise Theater; several Simon & Garfunkel records; Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark; Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love; Prince’s Dirty Mind; the Beatles’ Revolver and Rubber Soul; Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat; and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (as recorded by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Orchestra of St. Luke's). And some ABBA records, of course (blush).

My iTunes library contains approximately 15,825 songs, 3,480 of which were unplayed by year’s end (21.99%). Most of the unplayed tracks are Xmas music, classical music, and free downloads. Even when one makes an intentional effort to play “new” (unplayed) tracks, 15,000+ tracks is a big list — more than 43 full days’ worth of listening. And most days I average about four hours of listening. So that math doesn’t work — especially given that my mobile phone is almost full, so adding more albums will prove a challenge.

Notably, I bought very few new CDs in 2017. I really enjoyed Lorde’s Melodrama, which took some effort to find as a physical disc. I ended up buying St. Vincent’s MASSEDUCTION directly from the iTunes store because I couldn’t find it as a physical disc. I did buy the special edition of Prince’s Purple Rain and will be looking for more releases from his estate. Not listening to the radio is really playing havoc with my consumption of new music, and new CDs in particular.

But the decrease in my musical consumption is nothing compared to what happened with me and books, so let’s get on to that. (Meanwhile, I’m resetting my play counts on iTunes to zero: let the counting resume!)

Books read in 2017: 121

By a large margin, this is my worst showing in all the years I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read. And I can’t entirely explain why that is so.

I reviewed many books in 2017 — in fact, about a quarter of my reading total comes from books I was asked to review. I also edited a healthy number of books, several of which won’t be published until 2018, when they’ll appear in my “read” count. But still.

Since Earl enjoys these stats, I’ll give a little more detail:

• 76 books by women authors

• 41 books by men authors

• 4 books with mixed authorship or anthologies

• 48 books by Canadian authors

• 166 books added on LibraryThing (for a total of 4633 books catalogued there)

Something I did intentionally this year was to read series. So I read N.K. Jemisin’s novels The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate (as well as a novella I didn’t count) — but haven’t yet read The Stone Sky yet (soon, soon). I read Timothy Zahn’s Night Train to Rigel and its four sequels. I re-read Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park (which I absolutely did not remember) and then read Fangirl and its companion Carry On. I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, but didn’t get to the rest of the series yet (but I will). I tagged two more titles in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series, but also realized I’m done with that series and doubt I can even write about it academically — where I once saw freshness and liberalism, I now see repetition and conservatism. And I tagged two more titles in the Dear Canada series, but as far as I can tell, that series has ended. Too bad: it’s a great premise.

Something else I did intentionally was to broaden my knowledge of John Scalzi’s work. In addition to the OMW books, I read his collection Miniatures, his blog collections The Mallet of Loving Correction and Don’t Live for Your Obituary (both of which I devoured), his audio-to-print novella The Dispatcher, and his novel Lock In (as well as the documentary-style novella Unlocked, which I didn’t count — hmm, something illogical there). I really enjoy his writing and would strongly recommend Don’t Live for Your Obituary to anyone interested in understanding the practical realities of commercial writing and publishing. So I'll continue to read him (and follow him on Twitter) in 2018.

A further thing I did intentionally was to try to read some of the “it” books of 2017. I couldn’t bring myself to read most of them (yup, still a snob), but I did jump on Turtles All the Way Down (which I enjoyed), La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust) (which I loved), and The Hate U Give (which I found mediocre, but remember I read widely in this genre so didn’t find the book quite as groundbreaking as people who generally ignore YA did). I also read Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey and Lindy West’s Shrill, as well as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am (which I really admired but most people I know did not).

Here are a dozen books that impressed me this year:

• Art Lessons, Katherine Koller

• Coyote Blue, Christopher Moore (reminded me of early Tom Robbins, but I doubt it would be published today)

• The Goat, Anne Fleming (middle grade)

• Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood

• The Handover, Elaine Dewar (probably the most important nonfiction I read in 2017)

• Hit the Ground Running, Alison Hughes (YA)

• I Am for You, Mieko Ouchi (play)

• Kat and Meg Conquer the World, Anna Priemaza (YA — set in Edmonton!)

• Scripting the Environment, Geo Takach

• Those Who Run in the Sky, Aviaq Johnston (YA)

• Uprooted, Naomi Novik

• Y Is for Yesterday, Sue Grafton (so sad to read about her passing)

For reasons that are complicated and boring, I tried not to borrow books from the library and tried instead to hew down my To Be Read bookcases. That intention was limitedly successful, but I did tag a few older books that I’ve been meaning to get to. Still, the growth of my library outpaced my reading — but that’s the joy of books, I think.

One more thing I did intentionally this year: read poetry. I re-read Mina Loy’s The Lost Lunar Beadeker and Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, and read a respectable stack of other poets, including a delightful volume by Robert Kroetsch. I will definitely continue this direction in 2018.

I have a stack of books to get through before the end of this week in order to teach successfully this term, so I’ll stop this and get to that now. Here’s to good reading in the year ahead!

**

Oops! I neglected to mention my favourite kids' book this year (because it was not part of my count): I Yam a Donkey by Cece Bell. Just thinking about it now makes me giggle. It's great! If you like grammar or kids' books, it's a must.

This is a photograph of me ...

... in London. With other people. Attending a conference.

The speaker is Angus Phillips, giving the opening plenary address at the Books, Publishing, and Libraries conference in July 2017.

I was there. And now I have evidence. Academics are all about evidence. lol.

That is all. Happy Wednesday!

Reading weather

On Thursday night I attended a book launch at Blue Lamp Books, which is a mystery bookstore in Edmonton. What a sweet place! I will be back.

The event was the Edmonton launch of Garry Ryan's newest novel, Matanzas. Also appearing was Janice MacDonald, who read from her new memoir, Confederation Drive (she's also a mystery writer, responsible for the Randy Craig series).

It was a special night, and I had a chance to talk with many people. So glad I went!

Shakespeare, who was in love a month ago

Argh. One may have taken on too much when one's catch-up post is a month behind. Sigh.

Anyway.

Back on September 26, we went to see Shakespeare in Love at the Citadel. It was quite good —  similar to the film in some respects, but with appropriate adjustments for live theatre. I didn't care for the acting of the actor who played Viola, but the other actors were more nuanced and the ensemble worked well together. I recommended it to a few people and was pleased to see the play well reviewed in most media.

It's been a few years since we went to the Citadel, and we've trimmed our budget for live entertainment generally, but here's a photo from the half, just to uphold tradition.

Here's hoping the world is a little calmer in November.

Badges I'll earn soon

Such a long time. But you know I've been writing elsewhere, right?

And reading. And thanks to the Lumberjanes (learn more here), I have new goals for sailing: badges! Here are two of the badges Lumberjanes can earn:

• I Had the Maritime of My Life
• Seas the Day

That is all.

The windmills of my mind

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I started thinking about a book I read when I was young. Then it became a distorted thing, like this.

A Child’s Treasury of Versus

“Good vs. Evil”

“Left vs. Right”

“Evolution vs. Creationism”

“Man vs. Woman”

“Man vs. Mouse”

“Protagonist vs. Nature”

“Dogs vs. Cats”

“Godzilla vs. King Kong”

“Rocky vs. Apollo Creed” ...

Well. I’m sure you see the pattern. And so I went off to dreamland.

Wrongfully Convicted

Well, hey. “I know it's out of fashion / And a trifle uncool” to persist in my Sixties ideals, but I do. And so today’s so-called Outrage Culture is really getting me down.

More and more often I find myself shutting down because the texts around me are actually baited traps, about which there can be little reasonable discourse. Those who speak know they are unarguably right; there is no need to listen to another perspective. There is no contingency; there is no provisionalism. So many of us just want to be offended; and so many others just want to offend.

This line of thinking reminded me of a now-trite Sixties concept, epitomized (mockingly) in Hair. Perhaps you remember these lines from the introduction to “My Conviction”:

I wish every mother and father

Would make a speech to their teenagers

And say, “Kids, be free, no guilt.

Be whoever you are, do whatever you want to do,

Just as long as you don't hurt anybody, right? Right.”

Our understanding of “don’t hurt anybody” is considerably more nuanced than it was back in 1968. I think most of us recognize today that many of our freedoms depend on someone else’s lack of freedoms, and fifty years ago the main beneficiaries of this ideal were white middle-class men. But still. We have learned something since then. Or have we?

Without becoming an apologist for anyone but myself, I really wish we could roll our attitudes back to an easier time. Because I am exhausted by outrage, and my compassion is beyond fatigued.

So this. Do what you want, and don’t hurt anyone else intentionally. Own what’s yours to own, and apologize when you make a mistake. As Desiderata, another text popular in the 1960s and 1970s, reminds us: “Strive to be happy.” Yeah. Just that.