Rain in Low-Fidelity

Pondside Sunrise

2010-02-11T05:29:00.001-07:00

Pondside Sunrise, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

Toronto Sunrise

2010-02-07T20:18:00.001-07:00

Toronto Sunrise, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

The best part about my Toronto apartment is the sunrises. They're stunning.

Legislature Split-tone

2010-01-31T21:53:00.001-07:00

Legislature Split-tone, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

It was very foggy in Edmonton when I took this picture. A little split-tone processing resulted in something I really, really like.

A Fragment

2010-01-23T08:36:00.002-07:00

I just found this in a notebook. Judging by the tone of the piece, I'd probably been re-reading The Logogryph at roughly the same time as I wrote this. I think I was going to do something with it once, but I forget what. Until I remember, then, here seems to be as good a place for it as any:

He'd been stealing them for years now: phrases and words squirrelled away in the nooks and crannies of his downtown apartment. Although he'd at first been able to tuck them safely into his sock drawer, under his mattress, sometimes behind the china cabinet. Eventually, though, he had too many, and was forced to stack them precariously in the closet and pray that they wouldn't fall out over the floor when he reached in, cracking the door ever so slightly to grab a jacket.

Indeed, his kleptomania had gotten the better of him. When he'd started taking other peoples' words and phrases, he'd stuck to strange ones that he was certain no one would miss. Backpfeifengesicht was the first one--who could resist stealing such a perfect word, coveting it in the middle of the night, away from prying eyes. This didn't last long, though, before he grew bolder and started stealing more obvious words. No one commented when "that's neither here nor there" was spirited from the public lexicon, and that mad him grow bolder still. Eventually he found himself sitting attentively in his cubicle, hands anxiously grasping the arms of his office chair while he waited with bated breath for his coworkers to say something--anything--that caught his attention.

They had to catch him eventually. There was no way he could get away with it for long. People everywhere found themselves at a loss for words.

Not reading

2010-01-19T03:44:00.002-07:00

"I’ve become so accustomed to not reading that I don’t even read what appears before my eyes. It’s not easy: they teach us to read as children, and for the rest of our lives we remain the slaves of all the written stuff they fling in front of us. I may have had to make some effort myself, at first, to learn not to read, but now it comes quite naturally to me. The secret is not refusing to look at the written words. On the contrary, you must look at them, intensely, until they disappear."
--Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flatery.

2009-12-08T22:01:00.002-07:00

I've been playing around with using Adobe InDesign to compose my most recent essay, which has resulted in a rather beautiful document (so far as term papers go). I was particularly taken with the font I was using, but couldn't help but feel that I'd seen it somewhere before. "Adobe Caslon," I thought to myself "now where have I seen that used before?" Sure enough, right there in the colophon of The Logogryph comes my answer. Well, you know what they say about imitation....

Olive Oil Ice Cream

2009-12-05T13:18:00.002-07:00

Have you ever tried vanilla ice cream that's been drizzled with olive oil and topped with a pinch of sea salt? If not, go try it now. Done? Wasn't that worth it? So funny that most people's first reaction (I'm not omitting myself on this one) is one of disgust, because it might actually be one of my favourite desserts now that I've tried it.

This recipe also looks delicious, as it adds the fun twist of a balsamic/chocolate topping. I know what I'm eating for dessert this weekend.

Smudge

2009-09-13T19:23:00.001-06:00

Smudge, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

I think this has to be the best photo I've taken since the shot of the sunset at Wabamun. In other news, our bedroom wall makes for a fantastic backdrop, wouldn't you say?

Turning a new page

2009-09-09T06:36:00.002-06:00

You should all know that I've launched a new Print Culture blog at http://buchstauben.blogspot.com/. Given that the content will revolve around many of the same things I'm studying, I imagine that it'll be updated more frequently than this blog. Just so you know.

Toronto Sunrise

2009-09-02T11:31:00.001-06:00

Toronto Sunrise, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

Karma Chameleon?

2009-08-27T08:53:00.001-06:00

122, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

A Chameleon in Montreal's Biodome. Cute, no?

Sleeping Smudge

2009-08-26T23:15:00.001-06:00

Sleeping Smudge, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

Apparently my blog is all about the pictures lately. But look, can you blame me?

Rec Park by Night

2009-08-26T21:36:00.001-06:00

Rec Park by Night, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

Scarborough Bluffs

2009-08-26T07:27:00.001-06:00

Scarborough Bluffs 019, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

A photo from our trip to Scarborough Bluffs last Sunday.

Relocation

2009-08-10T21:21:00.002-06:00

So we're in Toronto now. So many things to say that I'm not sure where to start. Perhaps I'll start here: the milk comes in bags, and if you want to hang your clothes to dry, you have to do it many hours in advance.

Lightning over Downtown Edmonton

2009-07-26T06:09:00.001-06:00

Lightning Downtown Edmonton, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

Taking photos of lightning is like fishing: every once in a while you catch something, but mostly you just sit around for hours on end looking kind of silly.

oneway HDR

2009-07-22T18:29:00.001-06:00

oneway HDR, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

An experiment in HDR, taken in Red Deer, Alberta.

Sunset over Wabamun

2009-07-17T07:09:00.001-06:00

Sunset over Wabamun, originally uploaded by matt_schneider.

I took this picture a couple of weekends ago, and it makes me happy. Just wanted to share it with everyone.

Think pink

2009-07-17T07:07:00.002-06:00

Originally uploaded by Molly | Orangette

I absolutely love this picture. He looks so comfortable there in his suit in a big, fuzzy, pink chair.

Book Club

2009-07-12T21:53:00.002-06:00

So I came up with a wonderful idea for a book club today. You know how people have wine clubs where they all meet up and drink a wine with a complimentary entrée? Picture this: a book club where you pair an album with a particular book. Members listen to an album and read the book together, allowing the aesthetics to mingle and clash, then meet up afterwards to discuss their reception of the two works.

Anybody want in on this one? If so, I would like to nominate Fever Ray's self-titled release paired with Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars. C'mon, you know you want to.

Only Time

2009-06-23T21:12:00.003-06:00

This live performance of The Magnetic Fields' "It's Only Time" never fails to give me chills. Simply put, Stephin Merritt's talents know no bounds.

(Temporary?) Freedom

2009-06-23T20:45:00.003-06:00

Amanda Palmer wrote a fascinating e-mail that explains how she was able to earn $19 000 in one month using Twitter, while at the same time she has not earned a single cent by selling 30 000 CDs. I'm fascinated with the ingenious ways artists of all stripes are able to use the digital economy to their advantage, but at the same time, a part of me wonders when this party is going to be busted up by all the fun-hating corporations.

Arts and commerce have always had a tense relationship, as any intro-level art history class will teach you. The tension has only increased in the 20th and 21st centuries. This is not to say that art needs to be free of any trace of commerce--that would just be silly. Where the problem arises is when financial concerns trump artistic concerns.

Look at the contemporary music industry. Thousands of artists work their fingers to the bone to fund the "big" groups. Consequently, even an act like Amanda Palmer can sell 30 000 albums without reaping any benefit. Artists have gotten wise to this, and as such you'll notice that all of these modern business models focus on getting rid of unnecessary middle men such as the major record labels.

The problem is, the record labels weren't always the artists' enemies. Indeed, there was a time in which the labels facilitated the artists' work. If we look at the groups facilitating Amanda Palmer's latest venture--the telecoms, the ISPs, social networking applications--we see a group of business that could easily become the next middle men (Yes, technically they already are middle men, but you know what I mean).

So what happens when ISPs start charging a commission on all music downloads? Not going to happen? They already no longer offer unlimited downloads, which means that as e-commerce increases and consumers download more and more video and audio, consumers will have to pay for "premium" accounts, meaning that the ISPs' earnings will increase in response to digital sales. Will we reach a point where these behaviours are as detrimental to the arts as those of the current major labels? Here's hoping not.

Astronaut

2009-06-23T20:44:00.000-06:00

I just can't get this song out of my head. Seriously, it's been in there for weeks.

I miss Don Newman already.

2009-06-19T11:10:00.001-06:00

Happy retirement, Don! I don't know what we'll do without you.

Metadata

2009-06-14T08:29:00.002-06:00

Just a short thought, but have you noticed that people seem to be taking advantage of metadata more and more often as of late when it comes to storytelling? Webcomics everywhere (notably Dinosaur Comics) take advantage of the image tooltip description field to get another one-liner in. Twitter, too has led to an interesting usage of metadata: thanks to hash tags, Twitter users have started posting ironic tweets, using the hash tags as a big wink, one that lets the audience in on the joke.

I think I may just have found myself a print culture essay topic.

A roll of quarters

2009-06-12T14:22:00.001-06:00

"Why no officer, I don't normally carry $134 billion on me. It's just that it's laundry day, is all."

Uyghur

2009-06-12T11:02:00.002-06:00

With the recent trouble surrounding Uyghur inmates being release from Guantanamo, as well as attempts by the Chinese government to "preserve" the Uyghur city of Kashgar by destroying it, I've decided to look into the Uyghur people and culture. While I haven't looked into it enough to report anything other than the fact that it seems to be damn fascinating (and really, what culture isn't?), it's made me think about the weird blank space a lot of us have on our internal atlases, which, in my experience, tends to stretch from somewhere east of Prague to somewhere west of Beijing.

Now, this might not be true for any of you reading this, but in my experience there really is a surprising lack of knowledge concerning these areas. In some ways, this should be surprising, as even Eastern Europe seems exotic some days, but at the same time, it's really sad, as we're missing out on a lot of cool stuff. Many of these cultures and peoples were central to the silk trade, and as such there is a compelling mixture between what many people would call "Middle Eastern" and "Far Eastern" culture. I think my friend Karen gives the best example of the cultural possibilities of this region:

There’s a Uyghur restaurant around the corner from my mom’s apartment in Shanghai: I went there once, and was totally perplexed by a cute, vaguely-Asian-but-mostly-Russian-looking guy with blue eyes speaking perfect Mandarin who made me a lamb pie spiced with cumin. I was like, “Well, this mash-up of cultures and ethnicities is delightfully unfamiliar to me.”

Moments like this make me realise that no matter how small we may feel the world is, there's way more out there than we'll ever encounter in a lifetime. That and I now totally have a craving for lamb pie.

Distort

2009-06-08T07:39:00.002-06:00

I absolutely love this cover of The Magnetic Fields' "All My Little Words." I find the growing trend of lo-fi, video game-style art fascinating. It seems that we've finally reached enough distance from the good ol' days of video games to look at them for their inherent artistic potential. Had this song come out a couple of decades ago, I'm sure that people would have largely ignored it as juvenile; now, however, those 8-bit noises sound absolutely poignent.

Education

2009-05-28T06:55:00.002-06:00

Forces in Afghanistan are fighting to keep girls in school, while in Alberta the government is trying its hardest to keep kids out.

Don't censor information; help your kids evaluate it within the context of your moral and religious beliefs. It's called learning. It's what kids are supposed to be doing.

Grad School Funnies

2009-05-27T15:02:00.002-06:00

A grad student walks into the faculty lounge to see one of his fellow PhD students sitting on the couch, looking kind of perplexed.

"What's wrong?" he asks her.

"The strangest thing just happened," she replies. "The lady behind the counter didn't make me sign any forms when I handed in my thesis on Kafka."

Zenith

2009-05-25T11:24:00.002-06:00

And with the advent of the word "funniment," the English language reached its peak.

A Good Start

2009-05-24T08:15:00.004-06:00

Today I read the best thing I think I've ever read: a kid is keeping a lending library of books his school has banned in his locker. Just writing that sentence nearly brings tears to my eyes. It's amazing to see someone so young recognising the importance of access to and freedom of information. With luck she'll soon realise that excluding Twilight for being trash--don't get me wrong, that book is horrible on many, many levels--is in itself a censorious act and opt to include the book in his collection.

It's fascinating to see the titles the school has banned. Some books are obvious--The Catcher in the Rye will never not be banned by one school or another--while others are more subtle--either someone did a close reading or heard from a reliable source that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contains some subtle-yet-nasty attacks on religion. Amusingly, the aforementioned Twilight was banned, despite the fact that the author is a proper Mormon girl, and that as such the books contain nothing that ought to provoke the ire of religious leaders.

I find it fascinating that people are still trying to ban books. Restricting information has always been a difficult task, one that can backfire in an instant. Nothing makes a book desirable like knowing it's banned. I can remember working at Chapters and constantly having to tell young teenagers that they couldn't buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. It's not that the town I was working in was overrun with neo-Nazis--most of the kids couldn't even pronounce the title of the book, let alone be able to master the umlaut in the word Führer; the kids simply learned that the book is something that they're not supposed to have, and as such it became desirable.

The prolifiration of the Internet has made the task of banning books infinitely harder. Anything that's been banned is guaranteed to be floating around in the aether, available at a moment's notice. Simply type the words "twilight torrent" into Google and you come up with over two million results. Doesn't look like that book's going anywhere.

At the end of the day, I can't help but feel like the occasional book banning can be a good thing. Like a quick dip in freezing cold water, it can get the blood pumping, give you a lust for life. As our illicit librarian says, "I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it's the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on."

::EDIT::

As Steve pointed out, the search I conducted for "twilight torrent" most likely contained a great many torrents of the movie. That in mind, I ran the search "twilight book torrent." This search only resulted in 348 000 hits, which really isn't that bad, given that kids are far more likely to download a movie than a book.

Twitter

2009-05-17T21:24:00.001-06:00

Today I invented a hash tag that I'm quite proud of: #DIWhine. I recommend using it whenever you complain about a DIY project.

Losing Confidence - Interlude II

2009-05-12T18:47:00.002-06:00

I want to write up my next post in my Losing Confidence series--I really do--but I just don't have the time to until I'm done correcting my thesis. That said, politicians just won't stop doing relevant things, so I feel the need to post this. In her most recent book, Losing Confidence, Elizabeth May points to the increasing pettiness and nastiness of Canadian politics, and the negative effect it is having on both the quality of political discourse in Canada and participation in the electoral process. This is happening on all fronts, but May highlights the Conservative party, who seems to have acquired the habit of running attack ads outside of the election season.

Unfortunately, this habit seems to be sticking. Mere days after he was elected as the leader of the Liberal party, the Conservatives have produced a series of ads attacking Michael Ignatieff. If you watch the ad below, you'll immediately see how petty and mean-spirited these ads can be. The ad finds a minor point (the fact that Ignatieff lived out of country while working as a university professor) and blows it out of proportion. Ignatieff's residence in Canada has absolutely nothing to do with his abilities as a politician (indeed, he wrote more books about Canada while in the US than Harper has written period). Furthermore, the ad also responds to a series of ads that Ignatieff has been running against Harper, claiming that Ignatieff is running attack ads instead of offering suggestions on improving the economy. The hypocrisy of such a statement is so obvious that it makes the whole ad read like a skit from Air Farce.

Political games like this are enough to make me want to move to another country, one that has a government that at least pretends to respect its citizens' collective intelligence. Indeed, voters should be angry that their representatives think that they can be so easily manipulated. It's no wonder voter turnout is the lowest it's been in the history of our country.

Losing Confidence - Interlude

2009-05-11T07:54:00.002-06:00

I'll return to Elizabeth May's book shortly, but right now I'd like to take a brief, but related, interlude. Michale Ignatieff was recently elected as the leader of the Federal Liberal party, and has started to outline his vision for his time as leader. Recently, Ignatieff commented on the brief coalition, stating that "There was also a question concerning the legitimacy of the coalition that troubled me" and that he felt that the coalition would seem to be an attempt to steal power (via Maclean's).

This statement is as much a reason as any for us to lose some confidence in Ignatieff. While he may be speaking to a sentiment expressed by the public in the media, this is a sentiment wholly informed by Harper's attempt to frame the coalition as illegitimate, a coup. By allowing Harper to frame the discourse surrounding the coalition, Ignatieff has failed us all to some extent. Coalition governments are a privilege enjoyed by parliamentary governments, and one that could serve us well. It is Ignatieff's duty as an elected official in that same system to refute any attempts to label it as illegitimate.

Losing Confidence II

2009-04-30T16:44:00.005-06:00

In my next couple of posts on Elizabeth May's latest book, Losing Confidence: Power, Politics, and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy, I'm going to look at a few different points, all of which revolve more or less around the central theme of information.

It comes as no surprise that information and the reaction to information weaves itself into a number of May's arguments, as her book focuses on democracy in Canada. It is impossible to have a democratic society without well-informed citizens. How could we choose who best to represent us if we knew nothing about them? What I'd like to look at first is one of the sources of information in a democratic society: experts. An expert is, for the purposes of this post, someone who knows a great deal more about a specific area than the general population. These people are highly valuable in the operation of a good government, as they are in a role to make better-informed decisions than your average person. This is not to say that they are always right, just to say that their opinions should be considered (always keep in mind Bertrand Russel's essay "On the Value of Skepticism.").

Curiously enough, experts are not often given the deference they are due. We can see this both on the part of the population in general and on the part of the government. The recent H1N1 Flu panic is an example of the population not heeding the advice of experts: the World Health Organisation has published a good deal of helpful and insightful information, none of which includes the advice "panic and act irrationally." Even governments are susceptible to panic, as we can see in the case of Egypt, who is slaughtering all of its pigs, despite the fact that pigs are not the most likely cause of the disease in humans, and despite the fact that such slaughter will ruin thousands of lives and livelihoods. The example of the Egyptian government shows us the grave damage that can be caused by a government that willfully ignores the advice of experts.

We can see instances of damaging ignorance in our current government and the recent government of the US. Think of Bill C-61, the Conservatives' now-dead attempt to reform the Copyright Act, that completely ran against the advice of copyright experts like Michael Geist. Or look to the Bush government, who invited novelist Michael Crichton to serve as an expert witness on climate change. While I do not wish to undermine the great amount of effort that a novelist might put into his work, I doubt very much whether Crichton was the right choice for this particular job.

May reminds us that this willful ignorance does not have to be so. When talking about her term as senior policy advisor to federal minister of environment Tom McMillan (under Mulroney's Conservative government), May tells us that she "was frequently directed to keep the opposition critics up to speed on key files" (45). The constant collaboration of experts would benefit the country greatly. Indeed, if we return to the issue of H1N1, we can see a glimmer of promise with Canada's most recent minister of health, Leona Aglukkaq:

If there were fears she might be ill-prepared for such stuff, they’ve initially been calmed. If only, it seems, because she would seem for now to understand how poorly prepared to manage a worldwide health crisis she—or anyone—may be. In public, she has deferred to the experts around her. In private, she has gathered opposition MPs for consultation. In Question Period, she has provided straightforward answers. Asked after one session this week to clarify a previous statement, she stood, admitted her mistake and thanked the opposition critic for the opportunity to correct the record. (via Maclean's)

We can only hope that such behaviour will become the new baseline, rather than a noteworthy oddity.

Losing Confidence I

2009-04-29T20:32:00.003-06:00

I devoured Elizabeth May's latest book, Losing Confidence: Power, Politics, and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy, over the course of two days. However quickly I read it, I feel that I need a longer time to respond to it. There's a lot of information in there, and as such I'll be posting a few blog entries over the next little while, each of which takes up a different aspect of the book.

The first thing I want to look at is the mere fact that this book exists. I think it's very important to a democracy to have political figures publishing books in which they examine the ins and outs of the country. The party system leads to the creation of party platforms that are delivered soon before an election, and that tend to remain dormant in the interim. We sometimes get mail from our local MPs that outline what they or the party have been up to, but these pamphlets tend to be about the length of the "How I See It" quotes on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup.

Books, on the other hand, give us a unique chance to really get into the head of our politicians, to have an extended conversation with them. I feel that over the course of Losing Confidence's 241 pages, I've gotten to know Elizabeth May in a way that I never have before. Here I see the Elizabeth May that I only barely got a chance to glimpse in the leadership debates: smart, well-informed, articulate, quick thinking. Because of their length, books force authors to go into great detail on the topic at hand. This is a great boon in the TV dominated political culture of Canada, as politicians can no longer hide behind snappy sound bites: ill-thought out ideas tend to feel bloated and often unravel over the course of a book.

It is no surprise then, to see the numbers of books each party leader has to his or her name: Losing Confidence is Elizabeth May's seventh book; Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has published a small library; the NDP's Jack Layton has penned at least four volumes; and Stephen Harper, prime minister and leader of the Conservative party, appears to have written not one book. These books seem consistent with each respective party's image: Layton and May have published a number of books that urge community involvement and grass-roots activism; Ignatieff, a professor, has published countless books that explore the history and philosophical implications of a number of major world conflicts; and Harper's lack of books speaks to his iron grip on the flow of information. The only surprise amongst the party leaders is Gilles Duceppe, who has published only one book. I find this so surprising because francophone culture is the foundation of the Bloc Québécois, and as such it seems odd that that party's leader would have contributed so little to the discussion surrounding that culture.

Ultimately, Losing Confidence is a strong addition to the library of anyone interested in Canadian politics. May manages to write a book that deals with the failings of our modern political climate without resorting to partisan politics. At the same time, May's book elaborates on the Green party's platform and May's own politics, revealing a set of noble and nuanced goals, of which the preservation of the environment is but one. Canadians would all benefit if politicians were to follow May's example and write thoughtful analyses of the system with which they are so familiar.

Why I do this.

2009-04-29T19:09:00.003-06:00

I've always been excited by the teaching aspect of being a prof. Don't get me wrong, the research part excites me more than should be allowed in a sane human being, but I don't know that I could follow this career path if it weren't for the promise of being able to spend some of my time teaching students. Thus far, I've only had two chances to stand at the front of the classroom, however, so teaching, for the most part, remains an unrealised dream.

My one outlet has been working at the Centre for Writers. As trying as it can be some days (students coming to see you with essays they're supposed to be handing in half an hour from now tend to get to you), I've always found it rewarding, and would never have traded it for anything. That said, it's the summer now, and I've switched off of teaching mode and into summer researcher mode.

Today brought a nice surprise. The mail guy dropped off a few items, and, as usual, I paid no attention, as no one sends mail to the research assistants--why would they? Except for when someone does. There, amongst a pile of parcels, was a small envelope addressed to me. I looked at the name on the return address, failed to recognise it, and gently opened the envelope. Inside it was the kindest thank-you note from a student who had come to me with help for his/her (privacy, people) grad school application. The student informed me that he/she had been accepted to the programme, and would be starting in September.

As I read over the letter, I felt awash in a sense of pride and accomplishment. There's nothing like the feeling that you've helped someone move closer to their goals, given them the tools they'll need to succeed. The note reaffirmed to me why I'm doing this, let me know that I, too, am moving closer to my goals. Heck, it even let me know that I've already accomplished one of them.

Today was a good day.

Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)

2009-04-21T00:44:00.005-06:00

I'm in awe of this cover of Radiohead's song "Nude." I'd love to see more songs done in this style.

Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Still confident in Losing Confidence

2009-04-20T16:45:00.003-06:00

I picked up Elizabeth May's latest book, Losing Confidence today, and while I haven't read enough of it to comment on her arguments, something did catch my eye that I feel the need to mention. As is far too common these days (see my most recent post for another prime example), May's book bears a surprisingly broad copyright notice:

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher--or in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency--is an infringement of the copyright law.

There are two things I find particularly bothersome about this copyright notice. The first is that so sweeping a statement contradicts the rights all Canadians are given under the Fair Dealing exemptions in the copyright act. I shouldn't be surprised by this, as almost every book you purchase will likely have a similarly broad statement. That said, I still find it irritating, as these statements contribute to the growing confusion of what is and is not permitted by copyright law.

The second thing I find so frustrating is that this broad copyright claim actually runs against one of the points of May's book (as I've gleaned so far): the Canadian political crisis can only be solved through the active involvement of Canadians. How, then, are we supposed to actively involve ourselves when we're not even allowed to reproduce any part of May's book "in any form or by any means [...] without the prior written consent of the publisher [...] or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency"? It seems to me that we cannot participate without responding to the very texts that challenge us to do so; indeed, I suspect that May would be rather pleased to see people quoting from her work and taking it on, whether they agreed or disagreed with her. I also imagine that May herself would never intend for the copyright notice to deter anyone from engaging with her arguments

The big problem, as I see it, is that although we are likely expected to quote from the book, to respond to it, to build off it, the words on the page tell us otherwise. While these sweeping copyright notices are a common mistake, it's disappointing to see one in a book in which one of the main messages is to get involved. While I don't expect every author to use a Creative Commons licence, it would be nice to--at the very least--see a copyright notice that actually reflects the law. Indeed, perhaps the notice I'd like to see most reads simply "All rights reserved."

Um, no.

2009-03-27T15:07:00.002-06:00

My copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came in today. While I've only gotten a chance to scan the first few pages (which I adore), something rather odd caught my eye. Now, a realise that this oddity is merely boilerplate, and that I may be reading too much into it, but you really would think that, given the context of the book, someone would have thought better of it, but nevertheless, there, right on the copyright page, is the following sentence: "No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher."

No.

No. A million times no. This is not how copyright law works, and throwing these warnings around all willy-nilly is a real problem. Even if this book weren't 80% public domain, there are still a number of fully legal ways to reproduce portions of the book without any written permission from the publisher. Although I'm sure the RIAA and MPAA, among others, would like to see Fair Dealing struck down, it's still the law in Canada. And it seems particularly bad that a book that exists only due to the power of the public domain would carry so erroneous a warning. I applaud Seth Grahame-Smith and Quirk for all their hard work, but this is going to be a major sore spot for me, one that has somewhat soured the whole experience.

Shortcovers?

2009-02-27T07:26:00.002-07:00

Chapters/Indigo just launched Shortcovers.com, a new place to buy ebooks by the chapter. Now, I love books and technology (hell, it's the topic of my upcoming PhD thesis), but I'm not sure I understand this concept. As a Shortcovers user, you can buy a book a chapter at a time (except for a number of books that can only be purchased all at once). The individual chapters are priced at a dollar or so each, but quite often, this adds up to $20 or so per book. In all honesty, I just don't understand the point of paying $20 for an ebook, and I certainly don't understand why we'd want to do it one chapter at a time.

It seems to me that Shortcovers is an odd mix of a regular ebook retailer and iTunes. While that is an interesting notion, I don't know that the model applies well to books. Certain books, such as essay or short story collections, will transfer reasonably well to the buck-a-track model, but for anything else, buying a chapter at a time just doesn't make sense. Books are generally linear narratives, and don't like being chopped up like this. Yes, this is akin to serialisation, but in that case, the books are written with the intent of being serialised, and have a different rhythm, one that is adapted to serial publication.

That said, there seem to be some interesting features immanent to the Shortcovers system. Short stories can flourish on a site like this, and I hope to see a number of authors releasing works that would otherwise have to wait to be published as part of a collection. I also look forward to giving the authors a buck or two to read their works. Also interesting is the "remix" option that Shortcovers offers. Users can create their own "playlists" of chapters and works, and show them off to friends. I've often lamented the absence of the mixbook (the perfect compliment to the mixtape), and hope that this will result in some fantastic, reader-curated short story collections.

If nothing else, Heather Reisman was able to surprise me with Shortcovers.com. It's a crazy idea, but just might be so crazy that it works. If nothing else, we can at least say that it is a unique take on ebooks, one that plays to their electronic nature.

New Media

2009-02-01T23:26:00.004-07:00

If there's one thing I love about the internet (hint: there are many things I love about the internet), it's the way that it's opening up new forms and media for artists everywhere. For example, these two videos strike me as something particularly well adapted to the net. Sure, they look like something that could have been funded by the NFB (who, might I add, has started making their archives freely accessible on the internet), but they still feel so very internety. Enjoy!

Suddenly from Magnus Engsfors on Vimeo.

«Огоньки» Ляпис Трубецкой «Lights» Lyapis Trubetskoy from Alexey Terexov on Vimeo.

A story

2009-01-21T19:44:00.001-07:00

He held the infant awkwardly but lovingly--the way he would hold a butternut squash--and smiled.

Nomnomnom

2009-01-13T07:52:00.002-07:00

Because I promised you all more photos, I present to you last night's butternut squash ravioli. Yes, it was that delicious.

Also, I'd like to encourage you all to check out Molly Wizenberg's upcoming book, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipies from my Kitchen Table. I've been reading Molly's blog, Orangette for a while now, and I love her blend of recipes and anecdotes. Molly is as much a writer as she is a cook, and that's saying something. Pick it up; you won't regret it.

Coelacanths?

2009-01-08T09:18:00.002-07:00

I find it interesting that many television producers are fighting to keep their shows off YouTube and on television channels at the same time as kids are watching Christmas specials streamed off YouTube and set to fixed channels just for the nostalgia of it all. Coelacanths?

New Camera

2008-12-30T23:40:00.002-07:00

Having acquired a new camera over Christmas, I can assure you that, if nothing else, this blog will have more pictures than ever, many of them strange. Enjoy.

More Mozzarella

2008-12-21T06:58:00.003-07:00

Just wanted to add a few thoughts to follow on my original mozzarella post. I'm blown away by how easy and cheap it was to make the cheese. It took 45 minutes of my time, and less than three dollars of ingredients. By comparison, it takes about an hour and a half to go to the Italian Centre and back, and about $4.50 to buy the equivalent amount of mozzarella. Funny that making my own mozzarella would take less effort and be less expensive than just buying it.

I sometimes wonder what we've lost to our consumerist culture. Don't get me wrong, there are many things that I'd rather buy than manufacture myself (cars, apartments, computers, etc). But at the same time, I feel like we've been cheated out of parts of our past, simply because they've been taken over by businesses. When I decided to try making mozzarella cheese, I had no idea how hard it would be or how long it would take. I had absolutely no notion of what cheese-making entails. I imagine most people don't, either. Indeed, because it's become so uncommon, it took me several days to round up the rennet I needed. This wasn't due to some scarcity of the rennet itself ($4 will buy you enough for 500 litres of milk), but because no one could tell me where to find any. It's sad that this simple, inexpensive, yet rewarding activity has slipped beneath the cultural radar.

I truly don't plan on buying mozzarella from a store ever again. It's simply not worth the time, money, or effort. It would be like buying pre-toasted, microwavable toast. It makes me happy to know that, one day, if I have children, they'll grow up knowing how to make their own cheese, and will find it strange when they make their first friends, only to discover that not every family makes their own cheese. Once again, it's a good thing to have supermarkets in which we can buy all of those items that we couldn't prepare on our own, but let's not give up on the simple things, the things we can do for ourselves.

Bella Mozza

2008-12-20T18:06:00.002-07:00

I learned how to make mozzarella cheese. This is now the only skill I have that would be of any use in a post-apocalyptic world.

A talisman clutched to ward off the cobwebs

2008-11-09T12:14:00.001-07:00

Yes, I haven't updated my blog in over a month. But if I post a math/science joke will you forgive me?

A cop pulls a car over and asks to see a driver's license. He looks at it and asks "Dr. Heisenberg, do you know how fast you were going?" Dr. Heisenberg answers, "I have no idea. But I know precisely where I was."

Later the cop pulls a second car over, and after looking at the driver's license says "Dr. Schroedinger, I noticed you were driving erratically. Do you mind if I search your car?" Dr. Schroedinger gives him permission. After searching, he comes back to the driver's window. "Dr. Schroedinger, are you aware that there's a dead cat in your trunk?" Dr. Schroedinger says, "Well, there is now."

Finally, a peaceful dinner!

2008-09-30T11:07:00.006-06:00

The National Do Not Call list has officially opened. Although so many people have tried to register themselves that the website has up and died, I was able to get this fantastic image of the front page. Look at that family, enjoying their dinner, not being interrupted by any annoying phone calls. It's enough to make you wonder why this is an opt-in list, instead of an opt-out list. Further, it makes me wonder if there are maybe any other commercial we could opt out of that would increase our quality of life. Maybe we should think about opting out of other forms of advertising: advertising directed towards children, advertising for unnecessary medications, advertising for psychic hotlines, those terrible political attack ads, those advertising cars that do nothing but drive around the city with rotating billboards, those advertising projectors that display ads on the sides of buildings on Friday and Saturday nights, maybe even those terrible Tim Hortons commercials? At the end of the day, I feel like I'm so bombarded with advertising that I can't remember a single ad I've seen. I may be the exception, but it seems to me that advertisers, in their constant game of one-upmanship, have essentially created a sea of noise, where all of the ads are meaningless.

A while ago I was listening to a CBC programme on innovative new ways to advertise. A member of an advertising firm talked about the new techniques they're trying to use to create ads that would appeal to specific customers, rather than just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Maybe I could even settle for that? Sure, it invades my space, takes up valuable moments from my day, and ultimately tends not to accomplish too much, but at least it would be relevant?

::EDIT:: The above is mostly sarcasm. As noted in the comments, there are a million loopholes that will let companies call you, even if you are in the database. How bad are the flaws? Bad enough that this Michael Geist article from 2005 still manages to chronicle them all. Indeed, Michael Geist's most recent article on the subject states that "some estimates indicate that 85 percent of telemarketing calls will be exempt under the DNCL."

The Path

2008-09-19T08:05:00.003-06:00

I had a strange, fascinating dream last night. I found this book, written as a schematic. The sentences formed paths, met at logic gates, and, by following these logic gates, formed paragraphs, pages, chapters, eventually the whole book. The first half of a sentence would lead up to an OR gate, forcing you to choose how it would end, which would dictate the shape the story would take. Plots would intertwine at AND gates; possibilities would be shot down at XOR gates.

Academics such as Umberto Eco speak of books as a machine that creates meaning. Nowhere was this so explicit as the book of my dreams, where the narrative literally became a program, run by the reader, that generates meaning.

Why the internet exists

2008-09-15T17:50:00.001-06:00

Secretly I'm jealous of all of my more scientific friends. Science is way sexier than English.

Buchstauben

2008-09-10T11:05:00.002-06:00

I started a new blog today, entitled Buchstauben. The title is German for book dust, and more or less describes the purpose of the blog. Buchstauben will be my new writing blog, and will contain particles of fiction and commentary on the process of writing. I plan on updating it fairly frequently (at least once or so a week), both with new little bits of works in progress and with fragments I've drawn from my notebooks and earlier, abandoned projects. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Dali

2008-09-03T21:24:00.005-06:00

After watching this clip, I can't help but think that the quality of television gameshows has generally been in decline since Salvador Dali's death.

That said, I also cannot tell the difference between these following clips and an episode of Kids in the Hall.

Where can I get me some of this 'arts'?

2008-08-26T20:21:00.001-06:00

The small print

2008-07-20T15:05:00.003-06:00

While reading the small print on the last page of this month's issue of Fables, I saw the funniest thing:
"Subscriptions to this title are offered only to readers who attest they are 18 years of age or older, or with written parental approval to readers under 18 years of age."

This seems so strange to me. Does that meant that, along with the money, you actually have to write a note saying that you're 18? This seems like such a pathetic attempt to avoid potential problems ("You sent this comic to my son? But it sometimes has bad words in it!") as to be utterly ineffectual. What I also found strange about this, is that it seems to disagree somewhat with the front cover of the comic, which reads "suggested for mature readers." So it's okay to read it if you're under 18 (they just don't recommend it?), but don't you dare subscribe to it! Bizarre.

Small print never fails to amuse.

OED

2008-07-18T15:07:00.002-06:00

So what's the word for the feeling you get when you've returned from nearly three weeks in another country, a country in which you moved from city to city, staying in at least five different hotels, a country in which you spent most of the time speaking a language that you've only been learning for the past four years, only to discover that while you were gone someone went and changed all the wall panelling in your apartment building, installed new control panels in the elevators, and changed the numbers in front of your apartment door?

I'm sure that there's a word for that feeling.

Oh yes, it's unheimlich...

I'm terrible at this regular updates thing

2008-06-08T17:59:00.002-06:00

I've been hard at work on my thesis for the last little while, and at times it feels like all my life has boiled down to is my thesis, my apartment (and all those living in it), and my job. And somehow, this is kind of a good thing.

As part of my thesis work, I've spent a lot of time just sitting around and thinking of the books I've read. It's like flipping through a filing cabinet where all of the files have become jumbled, and half of them no longer have name tags. I'll remember reading something that I could have sworn was in that one book that then turns out to be in a totally different book. On a few occasions, I've realised that I've actually mixed up the plot of two different books in my mind to the point where they've merged into one giant work. And other times I'll remember a passage in great detail, but won't be able to figure out for the life of me where it came from.

Working on my thesis has become a sort of a biographical project, one in which I trace my reading history. It's fascinating to pick a book up and remember when I first read it, when I last read it, who gave it to me, who I loaned it to. So many books have woven their way into the thread of my life, loaning their colour and texture to the ever-lengthening tapestry. In the end, this whole project has become kind of selfish, an opportunity for self-exploration as much as it is a means by which to earn my degree.

I can't help but feel that I'm in the process of conning the University into giving me a degree for something I would've killed for the chance to do anyway.

Suckers!

Why?

2008-05-06T19:56:00.002-06:00

Why? – Rubber Traits

I've been listening to a lot of Why? lately and pondering this post over and over again in my head. I've really fallen in love with this band, and would like to say something about the way they use humour and humorous metaphors in their songs, but I don't know quite what to say. I guess what it really comes down to is this: people take their writing too seriously these days.

Why is it that we seem so afraid to use an awkward or funny metaphor (or any other device, really) in our writing? I recently was trying to describe a jellyfish from the perspective of a character in one of my stories, and the best way to do so, the way that is truest to my character's experience, is by describing the jellyfish as "like a plastic bag caught in a current but more beautiful." I can't think of another way to say this that would be true to the character, but at the same time, I found myself hesitant to do so. I kept on worrying about what people would think, if they'd laugh at what I'd written, rather than empathizing with the character. It took a lot to get over my worries, but I stuck with it in the end.

I'd like to say more, but I'm not sure where I'd take things at this point. I guess what I find the most interesting about this issue, and what I love about Why?'s lyrics, is the power that a well-placed humorous/funny/awkward line can have. Writers all too often try to be dead serious in situations that really aren't dead serious. I hope to overcome this in my writing, to use language to its best effect, and I have to thank Why? for showing me that it would work. I hope you all enjoy their music.

Why I will never be as good a writer as Neko Case

2008-04-30T21:26:00.005-06:00

"It looks a lot like engine oil
and tastes like being poor and small
and popsicles in summer"

--Neko Case, "Deep Red Bells"

One more reason why I need to learn French

2008-04-22T14:51:00.001-06:00

Matt: Action Hero

2008-04-15T15:45:00.000-06:00

Mere minutes ago, I literally leapt through the closing doors of the train before it pulled out of the station. Somehow, this makes every action movie I've ever seen seem as if it were building toward that very moment. Totally worth it.

Weather Report

2008-04-09T21:11:00.005-06:00

This forecast gives me the uneasy feeling that the Earth is spiralling into the Sun. Only in Alberta is an increase of 20 degrees in 4 days a 'normal' thing.

A sign!

2008-04-02T20:30:00.002-06:00

This afternoon I won $50 for having presented a creative work at the U of A. This evening I received a fortune cookie that reads "An unexpected payment is coming your way." Clearly fate is running behind schedule. (picture to follow when my camera battery charges)

I believe that found/won money, money that I haven't really earned in any way, is money that must be spent on frivolous things, money that shouldn't be spent on bare necessities. While I realise that I'm in a position of privilege to be able to do that, it's something that I generally stick by. Since this is the case, I've decided that I'm going to finish up a project I'm working on over the summer and print it off as a chapbook. It seems like a good way to spend the money.

Expect posts here as I work toward the finished product.

Organic food confuses me

2008-03-01T17:57:00.003-07:00

So I purchased some delightful looking cherry wood aged organic balsamic vinegar a few months back when the local organic food place was going out of business. I love balsamic vinegar, so this looked light a yummy treat at a great price. Looking at the back of the bottle, however, my mind changed so quickly that I think I got whiplash.

Organic or not, I generally avoid eating foods (or otherwise) that are known to contain lead. I know I'm a picky eater and all, but this is I line I've drawn in the sand.

Free Book!

2008-02-29T07:01:00.002-07:00

Neil Gaiman has made his novel American Gods available online for free. It's a great book, so I highly recommend reading it.

Icefields

2008-02-26T13:28:00.003-07:00

In honour of Canada Reads week, I'd like to link to this story about a stupid tourist who graffitied the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand. Thankfully, he got caught and was forced to clean up his mess. This, however, is my favourite part:

It took Scharbert [the vandal] 1½ days to clean up his handiwork, during which he was severely dressed down by passing glacier guides and tourists.

I'm glad that people acknowledge this as a terribly shameful act. I hope that they all carry that same attitude into their own dealings with the environment.

Quite the accomplishment, really...

2008-02-25T21:23:00.001-07:00

My wife left me alone for four days, and I only started the dishwasher on fire once. I feel good about the way things panned out.

20/20

2008-02-25T21:17:00.002-07:00

Sometimes reading the titles of old research papers just cracks me up: "Computer Literacy: Necessity or Buzzword."

Horrifyingly, this article was written in 2003. I think that typewriters are nifty things and all, but it's so very, very hard to use them to check your e-mail.

Rock Band

2008-02-15T10:28:00.002-07:00

My brother got the game Rock Band, so my wife and I have been playing it with him whenever we visit my parents' house. In the game, you play as all the members of a band: guitar, bass, drums, and singer. Now, I have a great love for the Beastie Boys, so seeing "Sabotage" on the playlist was too much temptation to resist. Interestingly, the game censors the one F-bomb they drop, allowing you to sing the song without having to sing an offensive word--in fact, you would lose points for accuracy if you actually sang the word as it appears in the uncensored song. I was musing out loud as to why you might not have to sing it, and my wife mentioned that it might offend people to have to sing the word.

This seemed like a reasonable response at the time, but as I think about it I can't help but wonder why most games assume that running through a crowd of German soldiers with a machine gun is okay, while it is unreasonable to expect someone to say our favourite four letter word out loud in order to win a game.I can't help but wonder where else lines have been drawn.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Homecoming

2008-02-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

I was reading this interview with German author Bernhard Schlink when I came across one of the most profound statements on fiction I've read in a while: "Fiction isn't there to solve problems but make us aware of intricacies."

Just wanted to share that.

Too personal

2008-01-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

I was just in a class today, working with a fellow student's writing in a workshop, and I encountered the strangest thing. I was reading Pierre Bourdieu a while back and I remember him making a comment about how we like certain art because we feel akin to the artist and feel that, in appreciating the art, we have in some way helped create the art. While I've always agreed with that in principle, today's incident made it somehow more real, as the work in question is still in progress.

The piece we were reading is an absolutely stunning beginning to a story, one that is built from the accumulation of a series of poetic snapshots, much like a Michael Ondaatje novel. I was moved by the seedling of this project and was eager to see the writer continue to work in this vein; many of my fellow classmates, however, were absolutely turned off by this work. What I found so strange is that the exact parts that made this story so poignant and so meaningful for me are the exact parts that these other students wanted removed from the text.

I found myself personally affronted and went so far as to quote from Jean Baudrillard's Fragments, which I happened to have one me. The passage, found here, really illustrated (for me, at least) the strength of this student's writing. I think, too, that my feelings of persecution stemmed from the fact that, as a fragmented narrative, I was so involved in putting the story together, that I took this criticism not only as an assault on the student's work, but from the meaning and emotion that I drew from the text. As Bourdieu said, I saw myself as a co-creator of the work. It would be as if someone were to tell me "No Matt, I don't think you really love your wife. There's just not something worth loving there." Not a good way to start a dialogue, eh?

::EDIT::

Note: this post isn't meant to insult or criticise those whose opinions differed from my own, just to point out how personal art can be. I just realised that it could be easy to read this as the former, rather than the latter.

My Humps

2008-01-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to use the Black Eyed Peas as a sort of Brechtian verfremdung device and still be witty, or at that point does it just become unusually cruel?

Colonial Ink

2008-01-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

I find it a little bit amusing that we've invented ways to get pens to write in almost every environment we've encountered. You can get freeze-proof ink, so that you have no fear of being unable to write in the case of a Canadian winter; you can get pens for writing in space, so that you can capture the brilliance of an Earthrise in poetry when the moment strikes; you can even get a pen that will write underwater, although it's utility in the Mariana Trench is unknown. We've managed to colonise every environment with the written word.

Textual Archaeology

2007-12-17T20:11:00.001-07:00

I've been working slowly on a project, chipping away at it bit by bit, as spare time allows. I feel a little impatient, like I should just dig into it all with a spade in hand, tearing rough clods of dirt away and throwing them over my shoulder in desperate--almost blind--pursuit of my goal. But I can't. Instead, I must use finer tools, working away at the edges of my ideas, slowly stripping away the layers of inert dross as I try to expose the skeleton, try to get a shape for it all. And even this is not enough, not right now. I find myself taking all of this superfluous material and shaking it gently through a framed sieve, ensuring that I miss nothing, no matter how small, for I cannot judge the significance of the smallest particles until I've thoroughly examined them.

Despite the slow pace, it's positively thrilling to see the individual bones start to tell the story of the skeleton, and in turn the once-living creature. This curve of the spine--right here--means that it suffered a blow early in development.; sure, it slowed the beast down, but it was totally survivable. And see those teeth? They, no doubt, sought the pulse of their prey, anticipating the taste of its blood, drawing strength from its body. Slowly the scope of it all takes shape.

On the Book Sounds front, I'd like to say that I'm planning on continuing the project, but it will have to be at the pace of an entry every two weeks to a month. I am loving the project and the learning opportunity that it affords, but I do not have the time I'd need to dedicate to it to bring my vision to fruition. That said, I'm getting a real kick out of the next instalment, so I hope that it'll somehow all seem worth it.

A peace offering

2007-12-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

I've been terribly busy these last couple of weeks, so I'm afraid that today will also be a cop-out of my (only recently established) Booksounds posts. Yes, I realise that this means that I've only posted 50% of the time, but I assure you I have a great post coming up next week, so hopefully you'll all be able to forgive me.

Anyways, I'd like to present you all with a fantastic book trailer I found for Neil Gaiman's Coraline. If this doesn't make it up to you, nothing will.

Book Sounds: Mute switch

2007-11-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

This week's effect is the mute switch.

Book Sounds: Synthesizers

2007-11-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

In this week's Book Sounds, I'd like to talk not about an effect, but about an instrument: the synthesizer. I'm fascinated by the though of 'simulating' words, and the possibilities that this holds. I see synthesising in writing as the process of using wordplay to replicate another sentence. So far as I can tell, there are two very simple ways to do this: using homophones and using synonyms.

To synthesise using homophones, a writer creates a sentence using words that, when read aloud, sound roughly the same as another, intended sentence. For example, one could use homophones to write the (admittedly feeble) sentence "She wept for the loss" as "Shoe heaped forth hell us." Although this may seem useless, a writer can actually use this technique to hide information from his readers while at the same time putting it in the wide open. Neil Gaiman uses this technique in his novel American God a few times to hide the names of gods from the reader and to represent the narrator's unfamiliarity with the deities. For example, the character Low-key, whom the narrator encounters in his time in prison, is later revealed (at the most climactic moment) to be Loki, the Norse god.

To synthesise using synonyms, a writer simply creates a sentence using words that carry a similar meaning to those in another sentence. For example, the sentence "We saw the sun set" can be synthesised as "We perceived the solar descent." A writer can use this technique in a few ways, such as saying the same thing several times in a work without sounding repetitive, or perhaps simply as an exercise to improve an otherwise simple sentence.

That's all I have for this week. See you all next week.

Book Sounds: Chorus

2007-11-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

And only a week later than I thought I would be, I present to you the first instalment in my series of "Book Sounds" posts.

The musical effect I would like to look at today is chorus, which takes a sound and applies some delay and detuning to it to make it appear as if the sound were actually being played by a number of instruments. The way I choose to interpret this effect in this post (and yes, I think I will eventually wind up writing several posts about different ways to interpret the same effect as this series progresses) is as creating a sense of plurality, a multiplication of speakers. The easiest way to go about this is by shifting the person from singular to plural in any given sentence.

While this may seem simple, I find that it can actually have a rather startling effect on some passages. For example, let us look at the infamous lines to "First they came"

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

As shocking as this work is, the lines take on an eerie sense of complicity (even more so than already implied) when the voice is changed from singular to plural:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
We remained silent;
We were not communists.

When they locked up the social democrats,
We remained silent;
We were not social democrats.

When they came for the trade unionists,
We did not speak out;
We were not trade unionists.

When they came for the Jews,
We remained silent;
We weren't Jews.

When they came for us,
there was no one left to speak out.

Here, the apathy of the individual become a cruel ostracisation by an entire community. Additionally, the end of the poem, where the narrator originally realises that he is now alone, comes to represent a community that has willingly subjugated itself to an unstoppable authority.

Shifting the voice from singular to plural has a strange effect. It both distances the reader from events and draws the reader in by creating a communal voice of which the reader is both a part and a component. I use these two words separately, as they have, to me, slightly different meanings. The word 'part' implies that something or someone belongs to a group, but says little about its/his/her agency, while the word 'component' brings that thing/person into an instrumental role--a component is needed for a machine to function, thus making the reader instrumental in the actions portrayed. Despite its seeming simplicity, chorus can radically shift the meaning of a text.

That's all I have this week. Feel free to leave comments, as I would appreciate any thoughts that the rest of you have on this (and I would especially appreciate if any of you were willing to make up your own examples of how you see chorus functioning in writing).

Book Sounds II

2007-11-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

I apologise for not following through with my update on Friday, but I've been hard at work both at essays and making sure that these posts fulfil the expectations I've set out for myself. To the latter point, I would like to elaborate on my notions of this project. I see myself as using the notion of musical techniques as a prompt for looking at compositional techniques in a new light. Both musicians and authors occupy their time with the task of composition, placing a variety of elements in context of one another in order to produce a work of art. I want to explore the techniques musicians have at their disposal and see if they can provide a new perspective on my own writing (and the writing of others).

I think that's one of the aspects of writing I find most interesting--seeing how the techniques of one creative endeavour can be adapted into or grafted onto those of another. There's something beautiful in the adaptability of creativity.

Book Sounds

2007-11-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

I wonder what music would sound like if it were try to recreate the experience of reading a book?

In other news, I'm going to try a new project to keep myself writing. I've decided to try something Oulipian: I'm going to take small passages of writing and apply different musical techniques to them. I will then make a post every Friday, stating what the technique I've used is, my reasoning behind the ways it manipulates the text, and, of course, the text both before and after manipulation.

I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think of the results as they appear.

The creaking gates

2007-10-26T21:24:00.000-06:00

I was looking at The Litlab today and I couldn't help but feel that I am neglecting my duties as a writer. A blog that compiles literary experiments, much like Oulipo, Litlab had me thinking about just how out of practice I am lately when it comes to writing. Even though I've been working on small assignments here and there for classes, I've done next to nothing fiction-wise in about a month. This isn't to say that I'm a highly motivated writer, but I do find the break to be troublesome.

The longer I wait between writing things, the harder it is to get going again. This blog is a fine example, as you'll no doubt notice that I'm either writing all the time (four updates in one day once!) or hardly at all. I really aim for the former, but it is just so easy to fall out of the habit and, once out of the habit, so hard to pick things up again. I think this is why I like the term "rusty" so much. Writing is a gate that you learn to control with practice, opening and closing it at will. But if you leave it closed for too long, the rust builds up and welds the whole thing shut; nothing short of a shoulder-check or a can of WD40 can get it open again.

YouTube at its best

2007-10-08T06:54:00.000-06:00

In Al Gore's latest book he spends a great deal of time talking about the evils of television. Claiming that it's one sided and reduces, rather than encourages, debate, Gore illustrates how it serves special interest groups rather than the public at large. With that in mind, one of my friends just sent me a link to this fantastic YouTube video.

A high-school science teacher has written a thought provoking video on global climate change. Best of all, he's also addressing criticisms in additional videos. Even if you don't like what he's saying, what is so striking about these videos is the way that he uses them to invite others into the discussion, rather than shutting them out. It's very refreshing to see a video that responds to criticism instead of pretending that those criticisms don't exist. I really do hope that this type of work spreads and that we eventually see sites like YouTube generating conversation rather than passive consumption. And at the very least it helped prove Al Gore's point a little bit.

Here's the first 4 videos:

I think we are.

2007-10-06T16:01:00.000-06:00

Are we becoming too anglo-centric these days? A preview of Neil Gaiman's Beowulf movie pondered whether the movie could "pay proper respects to one of the oldest known pieces of literature."

Perfection

2007-09-29T20:23:00.000-06:00

I was rather suddenly reaquanted with the song "Hana" by Asa-Chang and Junray today (which you can hear above). I remember the first time I heard this song: I was driving home from work when the song came on and it just brought me to the verge of tears. Something about the song is so complex, so intricate, that it just slipped by all my defences and worked its way into the depths of my soul. It was almost too much.

I read later on (and this article confirms my memory) that Hana was based on the Japanese concept of Kidoairaku--a word that embodies the entirety of human emotions. As soon as I read that I understood my reaction to the song and new that Asa-Chang had succeeded. I think that this is still something I look for in art--the universe in miniature.

A modest proposal

2007-09-29T18:35:00.000-06:00

I sometimes think that if the government were really serious about protecting the environment that the first thing they'd do is outlaw junk-mail.

A copyright syllogism.

2007-09-27T23:20:00.000-06:00

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US makes it illegal to circumvent copyright protection technologies. If a book were designed such that it could not be photocopied, you could use a pen to circumvent this copy-protection measure. Would this then make pens illegal?

A savanarolian eye

2007-09-25T22:49:00.000-06:00

While looking up that rather odd adjective in the title of this post, Rachael and I discovered one Girolamo Savonarola. We clicked on his Wikipedia bio to see where this word may have come from and, well, you should probably just read it yourself.

Read it? Good. So, how exactly then, does one come to identify himself as "Anti-Renaissance"? Do you just wake up one morning and say "Hey guys, guys. I've decided that I'm against the advancement of the human race. Anyways, Frosted Flakes, what's up with those?"

A thought

2007-09-10T23:13:00.000-06:00

When asked which medium is better to write in, pen and paper or computer, my prof replied "When you write on the computer, you're writing using nothing but pure light. What could be more creative than that?"

On second thought

2007-09-05T18:56:00.000-06:00

Actually, I think I'd much rather own a shirt that said "I'm legumes for peanuts."

A T-Shirt I'd love to own

2007-09-05T07:42:00.000-06:00

"I'm nuts for legumes!"

With a little drawing of a peanut smiling on it.

Invisible Cities I

2007-08-28T16:12:00.000-06:00

I was hoping to write a bit about the trip that Rachael and I took to Germany and Italy this summer but I'm pretty sure that it will have to be played out over the course of several posts, owing to the time-crunch that a new school year inevitably brings about.

The first thing I have to say is that Italo Calvino was dead right. The end of his novel Invisible Cities reveals that all of the previous cities are all impressions and aspects of Marco Polo's home city, Venice. Every city we visited seemed to wear a thousand masks and, depending on where in the city one was, seemed like a multiplicity of cities.

The difficulty in describing a city is trying to capture all of these disparate images in order to unite them into something approaching a whole. How can someone bring the half-buried runes of Ancient Rome into the same image as the thoroughly modern suburbs in which we saw low-rise apartments that seemed no different than those we've lived in as university students?

Over the next few posts I'll try and pull together some coherent images of Munich and Rome for you. I hope that they don't prove too disappointing.

Some things never change

2007-08-28T16:00:00.000-06:00

While looking through some forms form the 1880s I saw one that gave me reason to pause. Filled out by a 15-year old, the space on the application in which the applicant was to write his occupation read quite simply "living with my father."

I guess that what you can take from this is that when someone tells you how teenagers did or did not behave back in the day, you will now be able to tell them that nothing has changed whatsoever.

Pop culture at its finest

2007-07-28T16:33:00.000-06:00

"The parallel organization [of the Chums of Chance] at St. Petersburg, known as the Tovarishchi Slutchainyi, was notorious for promoting wherever in the world they chose a program of mischief, much of its motivation opaque to the boys, Padzhitnoff's own specialty being to arrange for bricks and masonry, always in the four-block fragments which had become his 'signature,' to fall on and damage targets designated by his superiors. This lethal debris was generally harvested from the load-bearing walls of previous targets of opportunity."

--Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

Like Napoleon and the Russian Winter

2007-07-26T20:18:00.000-06:00

One of my brothers, who will be entering university this September, was explaining to me his strategy for the upcoming school year. No, this had nothing to do with highlighters, post-it notes, study sessions or energy drinks. What, then, was he preparing for? My brother, you see, is a steadfast player of a certain online video game.

My brother realised that with his rapidly approaching academic duties he might not have the time to play the game often enough to keep up with his less scholarly friends. The group of friends plays the game every night to earn levels for their characters and, as such, if my brother were to fall behind in levels, he would be unable to play with this group of friends. His strategy: to play the game nigh non-stop in an attempt to earn enough levels that his friends will not be able to surpass his character's level while he's in school. "I only," he explained "have to earn enough levels to be able to keep them at bay for a few months at a time"

But, my dear brother, an undergrad degree is four years long.

"Well yeah, but what about summer and Christmas breaks?"

In retrospect it wasn't very polite to laugh.

Enchanted ink inkshed

2007-07-26T18:53:00.000-06:00

Just some notes I scrawled to myself this morning. I see these leading somewhere:

What do special inks lend to the product of which they are a component? Are they related to provenance and the biography of the text or are they more closely related to the paratext, adding something to the book available to those unaware of the nature of the ink itself? Is the ink used to bring the golem to life of any significance or could a workplace golem be brought to life with Bics and post-its?

Cool Memories

2007-07-14T06:33:00.000-06:00

"Fragmentary writing is, ultimately, democratic writing. Each fragment enjoys an equal distinction. The most banal one finds its exceptional reader. Each, in its turn, has its hour of glory.

"Of course, each fragment could become a book. But the point is that it will not do so, for the ellipse is superior to the straight line. It is also a matter of laziness: one has no right to waste time to no good end, any more than to exploit oneself to no good end. And a matter, too, of compassion for words, which have done so much work already."

--Jean Baudrillard from Fragments.

Wedding Bells

2007-06-30T08:44:00.000-06:00

Well, the big day is here. I wish I had the time to write something more substantial, but it's a pretty crazy day, especially since Rachael and I are moving in two days' time. So, I'll just leave you with the vows I've written for Rachael and wish you all a happy Canada Day weekend. Take care.

For as long as there have been poets, they've searched for the proper words to describe love. Poets have conjured up an endless number of metaphors andsimiles in an attempt to find just the right words: love is a rose, a summer's day, the stars in the sky, all of the oceans in the world.

And yet none of them have described love as perfectly as John Donne does in his poem "A Valediction Forbidding Morning." In this poem, he addresses his love just as he prepares to leave home on a journey, describing to her the strength of their love and assuring her that it will survive their temporary separation.

Donne compares their love to gold, which despite being so precious is able to be beaten to an aery thinness without breaking or tearing, instead spreading out as far as it must.

Donne then compares their love to the twin legs of a compass, the kind that a navigator might use while plotting a route on a map. No matter how far the one leg may have to go to reach its destination, the other leg remains firmly planted in place, guiding and steadying the other. And no matter how far from each other the legs may have to move, they always remain joined at the centre. This way, no matter which leg may have to move, the other always keeps the pair steady.

Donne brings together the exceptional and precious metal of gold with the reliable and steady compass, giving each equal weight in his description of love. I feel that our love is just as precious as the gold and, with work, just asmalleable , able to bend and shape itself to whatever situation we may find ourselves in without being damaged. And our love is much like the compass, grounding us as we work together to plot out our joint life, each of us balancing the other as the situation demands.